REPUBLICAN CARICATURES

This was the caption to a photo of Dick Cheney on the AFP site in a slideshow of pictures of Muslim protests about some cartoons I've never even seen:

US Vice President Dick Cheney, seen here in January 2006, said in a television interview that Muslim violence in response to newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed was not justified(AFP/File/Don Emmert)

You read that right. Dick fuckin' Cheney has the nerve to suggest that violence is not justified when "cartoons" or "caricatures" are printed in the newspaper. But I seem to remember him arguing for, and then engaging in violence when caricatures of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi WMD program were printed in American papers. Dick even came up with the caricatures himself. Here's a really memorable one:

“...we believe that he [Saddam Hussein] has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

This is the entire problem in a nutshell--the Muslim world feels it is under attack, and they jolly well should feel that way, because it is. Not necessarily for being Muslim--that's not the stated reason, anyway--but the people who are under attack do have that one thing in common.

But that's not what I was really trying to say--Cheney's comments about violence not being justified in this case illustrate very simply the rest of the world's problem with us, and that is, we require behavior from others that we do not adhere to ourselves. In other words, we fly into a (seemingly) unthinking rage after 9/11 and direct it mainly against a country that didn't even have anything to do with 9/11 yet argue every day that that was somehow justified but when they feel their religion is being shat upon by infidels and fly into a blind rage, Dick has the gall to say "your violence based on a caricature is not justified, but ours is."

And really this controversy sheds light on Republican/Rove/conservative methodology, which is to caricature everything. The caricature of John Kerry: French-looking flip-flopper. The caricature of tax cuts: "[B]y far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum."

On that note, the Wikipedia definition of "caricature" seems particularly apt:

A caricature is a humorous illustration that exaggerates or distorts the basic essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness.

Humorous distortions of the basic essence of something: sounds like everything today's Republicans stand for.

WHO'S SILLY NOW?

Just got back from a bread run to the grocery store...

Saw a bumper sticker I hadn't seen...tried to take a picture, but it didn't come out well in the dark.

But it was on the tailgate of one of those dually pickup trucks with a deep purple, tricked-out paint job. The back window had the slogan "Silly Boys Trucks Are For Girls" in silver lettering, it had the obligatory "Support The Troops" yellow ribbon magnets, and a Mississippi National Guard license plate.

The sticker said:

Silly Iraqis, Weapons of Mass Destruction Are For Americans"

Yes, those silly Iraqis and their silly IEDs and their silly insurgency. And the silly fact that they um, kinda sorta actually didn't at all have weapons of mass destruction. And all those silly dead and wounded Americans and Iraqis. It's just silly, is all it is...

Who is the silly one, I wonder? Them or us?

LET THEM EAT WAR!!!

This--Bush to seek $120 billion more for wars--is why this--the largest cut ever in the student loan program--is happening.

But don't worry if you can't afford to go/send your kid to college. There'll always be a cannon fodder slot open for them.

And how do Bush and the Grim Reapublicans plan to pay for these wars? Make the tax cuts permanent!!

It all makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Maybe to a psychopath...

A TALE OF TWO LETTERS...

So here's something funny...a letter to the editor in the Hattiesburg American that was published on their website this past Sunday was re-published today with a little tweaking...

And the interesting thing about it to me is that when it mentions me, it is referring to a letter about Bush's warrantless wiretaps that appeared only two days before...

My letter appeared Friday, Jan. 27, along with another from Dustin Keys, both about warrantless wiretapping. I had sent my letter in at least a week prior to its appearance in the newspaper, which is typical. Then a letter responding to my letter and the Keys letter appeared just two days later on Sunday, Jan. 29 and then was reprinted yet again with some editing today!!

WTF? As I said, I have to wait at least a week to see one of my letters in the paper, and this guy (who is actually the father of one of my friends from high school) gets a letter printed in two days and gets to have it reprinted a few days later with some edits?

Here are the two letters from Kenneth Hall, Sr.

From Sunday, Jan. 29:

Bush surveillance not against law


I just read the letters from Messrs. Keys and Kirby, both of which claim that President Bush has broken the law with his authorization of electronic surveillance of people with known and/or suspected terrorist connections. You'll be glad to know that I won't write about this again.

Let me say unequivocally that I am convinced that the president has not broken the law and I am glad that hearings will be conducted into the matter. I can only hope that Messrs. Keys and Kirby and others who feel that Bush broke the law will diligently keep up with those hearings. If they do, they'll find that the president is doing the right thing.

I'm personally grateful that Bush has authorized the NSA (National Security Agency) to conduct this surveillance. I have children and grandchildren who I hope will have a long life in the pursuit of happiness, not to be interrupted by terrorists who have committed their lives to killing us by the most violent means possible.

It is important to note that the very provision of the law that Mr. Keys cites is precisely what Attorney General Gonzales has done. It's also important to note that members of both U.S. House and Senate Intelligence Committees from both parties have said that they were briefed on the matter, that they did not object & that they in fact support the concept.

Kenneth Hall Sr.

Picayune



Originally published January 29, 2006

From Wed., Feb. 1:

Bush is doing the right thing


I read the letters from Dustin Keys and Clinton Kirby, both of which claim that President Bush has broken the law with his authorization of electronic surveillance of people with known and/or suspected terrorist connections. You'll be glad to know that I won't write about this again.

Let me say unequivocally that I am convinced that the president has not broken the law, and I am glad that hearings will be conducted into the matter. I can only hope that Mr. Keys and Mr. Kirby and others who feel that Bush broke the law will diligently keep up with those hearings. If they do, they'll find that the president is doing the right thing.

I'm personally grateful that Bush has authorized the National Security Agency to conduct this surveillance. I have children and grandchildren whom I hope will have long lives that will not to be interrupted by terrorists who have committed their lives to killing us by the most violent means possible.

It is important to note that the very provision of the law that Mr. Keys cites is precisely what U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has done. It's also important to note that members of both U.S. House and Senate Intelligence committees from both parties have said they were briefed on the matter, that they did not object and that they in fact support the concept.

Kenneth Hall Sr.,

Picayune



Originally published February 1, 2006

Really the only changes in the second version are that instead of referring to me and Keys as "Messrs. Keys and Kirby" we are now "Mr. Keys and Mr. Kirby" and that the word "convinced" is italicized.

But what is up with that?

CALLING BULLSHIT...SOTU EDITION

My thinking about the Cindy Sheehan incident throughout today, with my latest thoughts first....

Did Beverly Young really wear such a shirt to a formal event?

I have yet to see a picture of Beverly Young, the wife of Republican congressman Bill Young, in a T-shirt that said "Support The Troops." In contrast, photos of Cindy Sheehan's shirt have been widely posted, and there's even a picture of her wearing it in the Capitol building.

I'm still skeptical about this incident--do spouses of members of Congress typically wear T-shirts to formal government events? Wouldn't Young's husband have talked her out of wearing such a shirt, if only because of the formality of the event? If she was being hassled by Capitol Police, would/could she not have told them who she was and who to call to verify her identity? Could she not have just put on a jacket?



Bev Young A Plant (or would the R's even go to that much trouble)?

Just a thought...could it be that the REPUBLICAN congressman's wife wore her "Support The Troops" shirt precisely so she could be thrown out so that media stories would then mention two ejections from the SOTU, one on each side of the partisan divide. Was Cindy Sheehan thrown out before Beverly Young (the congressman's wife), did it happen simultaneously, or was Young thrown out before Sheehan.

The possibility that Beverly Young might be a plant would help explain why she wasn't hauled off to jail in handcuffs as Sheehan was. In fact, why wasn't Young "taken downtown?" Is it because she's the wife of a REPUBLICAN congressman? Or because she was merely a plant and her job was done?

Also, the story about Beverly Young being thrown out didn't seem to surface until today (unless I just missed it)...did Young actually get thrown out at all? Did the Young incident even happen? I mean, it probably did, but you never know...

Sheehan's Ejection > Young's "Ejection"

This MSNBC.com story attempts to show that SOTU ejection was "bipartisan." The lead sentence says:

"Cindy Sheehan, mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq, wasn’t the only one ejected from the House gallery during the State of the Union address for wearing a T-shirt with a war-related slogan that violated the rules. The wife of a powerful Republican congressman was also asked to leave."

They undoubtedly were both "ejected" from the gallery (a security guard says in this story that the congressman's wife left of her own accord), but with a crucial difference: Sheehan was led away in handcuffs, booked and jailed. The congressman's wife argued with police, according to both stories. There is no mention of whether or not she went to jail, so presumably she didn't.

MY LETTER TO TRENT AND THAD ABOUT A-LIE-TOE

Please do not vote to confirm Samuel Alito and please do not invoke the nuclear option over the coming filibuster. Alito is a radical conservative, unlike you. Also, President Bush has been disastrous for our country, his approval ratings of late have been the worst since Nixon, and he has recently admitted to one of the most audaciously illegal presidential power grabs in American history. He will more than likely face impeachment proceedings sometime in the coming months.

This is a frightening time to be an American. I fear the worst for our country if Alito is granted a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. I know that in general, you like to align yourself with President Bush because he is a Republican and claims to be conservative. But President Bush is radical and his presidency has been a miserable failure.

His ethical lapses have only recently been beginning to receive much scrutiny, such as signing statements appended to legislation, spying on Americans without warrants, no-bid contracts in Iraq and on the Gulf Coast, and so forth. And it has yet to be revealed exactly how close he was to Jack Abramoff.

President Bush is bad for America and really doesn't deserve to be given whatever he wants just because he's the president. He has failed the American people in the following ways:

-the worst terrorist attack in American history happened on his watch
-he has created (intentionally, I believe) a record deficit
-he misled us about WMD in Iraq
-he let Osama bin Laden go in Afghanistan
-he appointed an unqualified man to head FEMA which was of no help at all in the aftermath of Katrina
-he has personally authorized warrantless wiretapping of American citizens
-poverty has increased every year he has been in office
-by the end of his first term, he had lost more jobs than any president since Herbert Hoover

You get the picture. Any president with such a dismal, questionable record does not deserve to have his choice of a person to sit on the Supreme Court for a lifetime appointment. Of course any vacancies should be filled, but filled by someone who is more reasonable and less radical than Alito.

That is my sincere wish as your humble constituent. I doubt anything I have to say will change your mind, but if I don't have hope, I don't have anything.

MATTHEWS AND WHAT NOT...

So I emailed Hardball's advertisers as per the "Boycott Hardball" campaign. So far just got a generic customer service response back from Toyota. This site has an explanation of what the boycott is all about.

Political Bias Study

My dad emailed this story about how people make political decisions irrationally. I ain't buyin' it, because even the study in the story asserts bias on the part of the participants based on the fact that they are "ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted."

I can agree that most people make all decisions irrationally, political decisions included. But unlike my father, who has concluded that all political convictions are merely opinions, I contend that there are those who can see the merit or lack thereof of a policy or candidate's claim and then decide to support or reject it accordingly. That is how it should work.

But I realize that that is not in vogue these days--being a member of the reality-based community just ain't fly, yo. Dis here da shizzle peeps be bumpin':

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

That is of course from the famous Ron Suskind piece published in the New York Times Magazine on Oct. 17, 2004.

And that's what this story about political bias gets to. The story draws this conclusion from the study: "The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making."

It's the culmination of the decades-long war on facts, on journalism, the truth, etc. David Brock nailed it when he said in the Republican Noise Machine that one the biggest goals of the conservative movement has been to get the press and the public to treat facts as opinions and opinions as facts (I'm roughly paraphrasing without the book in front of me).

If this becomes the conventional wisdom (if it hasn't already), then there's no hope for our political discourse, as Bob Somerby has tirelessly and painstakingly pointed out. I mean, there's already so little hope that this study is little more than spitting on a rotten corpse, but still...

POLISHING A TURD...

So now the Bushistas' preferred term for "warrantless wiretapping" is "terrorist surveillance." I'm sure the lap dogs of the press will, well, lap it right up and when someone has the gall from here on out to refer to Bush's illegal program as "warrantless wiretapping" or "domestic spying," they'll be all-too-quickly reminded of what the Bushies call it. And then if that someone has the temerity to suggest that if something that walks, talks, sounds, and looks like a duck is a "duck," the audience will be assured by the butt-kissing host that such nomenclature is merely the biased opinion of one who is clearly not on the president's team (with the subtext being that if this person doesn't like "terrorist surveillance," how can you listen to anything else they have to say).

Karl Rove must have read "Manufacturing Consent" or "Necessary Illusions" a time or two--he's setting the "bounds of the expressible."

Is OBL dead? Does it matter?

I watched "Loose Change" on the recommendation of a friend (more than a recommendation, actually--he burned me a DVD of it) and I have to say that I found it very intriguing. I watched it just out of curiosity because I knew that the idea that 9/11 was an "inside job" was utter bullshit, primarily because bin Laden admitted to it.

But that is addressed in the movie. The "bin Laden confession tape" does have the aura of being a fake, since he and some of his people are wearing gold rings which is forbidden by Islam, and the left-handed Osama is seen writing on a pad with his right hand, and so forth.

Whether you believe he's alive or dead, you can't argue that his popping up from time to time helps the Bushies even though it theoretically shouldn't--because it means he's still at large, taunting Bush. But like "Loose Change" pointed out, anytime you hear a new statement that "probably" comes from bin Laden, remember that he's "probably" dead.

I mean, in his statement, "bin Laden" recommends the work of a relatively obscure leftist author and cites polls that show Americans' disapproval of the Iraq war. How the hell is he getting this information if he is alive and in the no man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan? How does he have time to read this leftist book and why would he read it to begin with? Why would he care what an infidel has to say?

Then all the rightwing blowhards go on their shows and say "hey, the Democrats sound just like Osama." I'm not saying Osama is alive or dead or was or wasn't involved in 9/11, but these kinds of statements being released seem to only give Republicans fodder to impugn Democrats. And unfortunately, the Democratic party is just the left wing of the War Party, as Justin Raimondo points out in his perceptive-as-usual takedown of Hillary Clinton's Iran saber-rattling.

RHETORIC CHECK

If there is an invasion of Iran, I just wanted to note that in this, the pre-war period, the rhetoric being bandied about by Bush and Rumsfailed and everyone else is not about bringing democracy to Iran. It's not about that even a little bit, it's about keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, period. So when we finally make the mistake of invading Iran or provoking them into lobbing a missile at us or whatever and then try to stay for decades and Bush says "that's because we started the war to bring democracy to Iran", let's remember what he and others are saying in the run-up to this next war.

Let's check some rhetoric:

Here's Bush from Jan. 13, 2006:

"Iran armed with a nuclear weapon poses a great threat to the security of the world," said Bush, adding: "Countries such as ours have a great obligation to step up, working together to send a message to the Iranians that their behavior, trying to clandestinely develop a nuclear weapon, or using the guise of a civilian nuclear program to attain a nuclear weapon, is unacceptable."

Bush said that "a world without Zionism" was the goal of the Iranian regime. "The current president of Iran has announced that the destruction of Israel is an important part of their agenda. That is unacceptable. The development of a nuclear weapon is a step closer to that agenda."

"It is the world's interest that Iran not have a nuclear weapon," said Bush, insisting that Iran must not "have capacity to blackmail free societies."

Also from that same meeting with new German chancellor Merkel, and reported on Newsmax with the headline "Bush: Iran Intends To Nuke Israel":

"I want to remind you that the current president of Iran has announced that the destruction of Israel is an important part of their agenda. And that's unacceptable. And the development of a nuclear weapon, it seems like to me, would make them a step closer to achieving that objective."

Here's a funny comment from Condoleezza Rice:

“We’ve got to finally demonstrate to Iran that it can’t with impunity just cast aside the just demands of the international community,” Rice said Sunday during a trip to Africa. ("Just because we do it, doesn't mean they can," she went to say--yeah, right.)


So I'll be checking the rhetoric from time to time, just so we know where we stand with the Commander-in-thief.

Val's Comment

And I thought commenter Val had a lot of good things to say over at the Huffington Post. I haven't verified every historical fact or claim therein, but the comment strikes me as a good summary of recent U.S.-Iran dealings and a good refutation of the rhetoric currently being leveled at Iran. I reproduce it without permission, but will remove it if asked:


Well…

From what I have been able to read so far, it looks like WWIII over oil is a certainty. But, I get ahead of myself, first, the background.

We know for a fact that Cheney was involved in secret meetings with ENRON and others concerning energy.

We know for a fact that ENRON went bankrupt trying to keep open an energy factory in India.

We know for a fact that Halliburton has been operating and conducting business with Iran for some years now.

We know for a fact that ENRON sold some of it’s overseas programs to GE, a company that has ex-operatives within the Bush administration.

We know for a fact now that the neo-con’s wanted a “Pearl Harbor-like” attack so they could push their agenda.

We know that nine months after Bush takes office that [Pearl Harbor-like] attack occurs on 9/11.

We know that Bush links Iraq, Iran and North Korea into the Axis of Evil.

We know that Bush sent Bolton to the UN.

We know that Bush invaded Afghanistan but was planning the war on Iraq from even before the Afghan invasion.

We know that Bush has all but forgotten about Afghanistan and Bin Laden, but is using Al-Qaeda as the reason to nation-build Iraq’s puppet government.

We know that WMD’s is used as the premise for the attack on Iraq by admission from Wolfowitz.

We know that WMD’s is being used at the premise for creating a nuclear crisis with Iran.

We know that Sharon [of Israel] was in a CHEMICALLY INDUCED COMA following his “stroke”.

So, what DON’T we know?

How about that Britian wants to move gas from area’s in Iran to areas in India. (ENRON had a factory in India, GE bought some ENRON foreign assets, Britain wants to have energy transfer to India, Halliburton has been working in Iran)

How about that the energy transfer would have to move through Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan? (Afghanistan – Taliban removed from power, Iraq – Saddam Hussein removed from power, Pakistan – Musharref friendly to America, at the moment, Iran – Next on the invasion list!)

How about that Iran is trying to sign a new energy transfer protocol THIS YEAR? (August 21, 2004, Iran takes on west's control of oil trading, Iran is to launch an oil trading market for Middle East and Opec producers that could threaten the supremacy of London's International Petroleum Exchange. A contract to design and establish a new platform for crude, natural gas and petrochemical trades is expected to be signed with an international consortium within days.)

How about one of Bolton’s FIRST acts at the UN was to start a case against Iran? (In Switzerland last year [2004], Bolton riled European allies when he voiced skepticism about European negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program.)

How about that America planes have repeatedly violated Iranian airspace which is an act of war? ("While the objective behind the fighters' violation of the Iranian air space is not known yet, some military specialists believe such moves are aimed at assessing the sensitivity of the Islamic Republic's anti-aircraft defense system," it added. It said [U.S.] military and air force officials had refrained from commenting on the incident when contacted.)

How about the U.S. charged that Iran was in violation of the NPT only to later concede that it did in fact have the right to peaceable nuclear energy, only to then later take the stance that even peaceable nuclear energy should be kept from Iran? (German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer here Monday reiterated Iran’s right to use peaceful nuclear energy amid continued U.S. efforts to politicize Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

How about that the U.S. had ADDITIONAL protocols ADDED just for Iran so that they couldn’t comply with the IAEA’s established protocols? (The extraordinary power of the US was again on full display on Sept 11 when France, Germany and Britain simultaneously agreed to a “November dead line for Iran to dispel concern that it has a covert atom bomb program, according to a draft resolution.” (Reuters) This means that Iran, who has already been cleared by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) for not having processed enriched uranium (even though that, in itself, is not forbidden under the NPT) must “prove a negative.” It must somehow prove it does not have something it does not have. Sound familiar? Of course, it is precisely the same trap that was set (successfully) for Saddam Hussein, who had no WMD and who eventually agreed to all of the terms of intrusive inspection regimen that were demanded of him. The UN did not call on Iran to cease all uranium enrichment activities, the IAEA did, and even they admit it was illegal for them to do so. Tests of soil samples have shown no signs of nuclear activities at a site in northern Iran, a diplomat in Vienna said Tuesday. The diplomat said the soil samples of the Lavizan military establishment showed "negative," meaning that the samples contained no traces of nuclear materials.)

How about Israel threatened to strike Iran if the U.S. or the UN wouldn’t? (A military strike is among Israel's options to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said on Wednesday in the latest threat by the Jewish state against its arch-foe.)

How about that with the NPT and “nuclear weapons” rationales failing, the U.S. is resorting to “terrorism” as justification to invade Iran? (There are indications that the US government is planning to use Hamas as a pretext for a potential attack against Iran.)

How about the fact that Sharon was about to attack Iran? (The Bush Administration urged the members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to approve an October 31 deadline on Iran for compliance or face sanctions at the UN Security Council. Bush lost that vote. Had the motion passed, that would have started the countdown to an Israel-Iran war just days before the November 2nd elections.)

How about the fact that Iran and China were working on a deal for oil exportation? (Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing has said in Tehran that Beijing opposes US efforts to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council over its nuclear program. China's oil giant Sinopec Group has signed a $70 billion oil and natural gas agreement with Iran, which is China's biggest energy deal with the No. 2 OPEC producer.)

How about AFTER all of this, Iran then reached a deal with the EU to halt uranium enrichment! (A senior Iranian official said on Thursday he was optimistic Iran would halt its uranium enrichment program as Europe demands, in a move aimed at easing fears that Iran is secretly developing atomic weapons.)

How about that certain friendly “organizations” told Bush that Iran, not Iraq, but that IRAN has a “secret nuclear plant”? (An Iranian opposition group has claimed evidence of a secret plant where Iran is producing enriched uranium. The New York Times [remember Judy Miller?] reported Wednesday the National Council for Resistance in Iran said the Islamic Republic was producing enriched uranium at the plant, which had not been disclosed to U.N. inspectors. The White House said Thursday that it could not verify an Iranian exile opposition group's [remember Chalabi?] charge that the Islamic republic was running a secret nuclear bomb facility near Tehran.)

How about AFTER ALL OF THIS, THE U.S. AND BUSH ARE STILL CLAIMING IRAN WILL MAKE NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND ARE WILLING TO START A WAR WITH IRAN! (As was the case with Iraq in the months immediately preceding Bush's invasion, the IAEA has found no evidence that NPT-proscribed materials have been stolen or diverted, nor that Iran is engaged in any NPT-prohibited activity. In particular, there is no evidence that Iran has been enriching uranium in the facilities it has constructed or is constructing. The Atlantic Monthly magazine reported in its latest issue that the Pentagon held simulations of a U.S. military strike on Iranian bases and nuclear facilities. The magazine said the recent war games also included a ground invasion of Iran. The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.)

How about that AFTER ALL OF THIS, THE U.S. AND BUSH GOT EVEN MORE PROTOCOL’S PUT ONTO IRAN THROUGH THE IAEA SO THEY CAN THEN GET THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL INVOLVED SO THEY CAN GET A UN MANDATE FOR INVASION! (In a defeat for the Bush administration, the 35 countries of the United Nations nuclear agency board adopted a mildly worded resolution Monday welcoming Iran's freeze of a sensitive part of its nuclear program. The US is preparing for the possibility that it will have to deal with Iran's nuclear program without the assistance of the UN Security Council. In the past weeks the administration has been working with European and Japanese allies on a "menu" of sanctions that could be imposed on Iran even if the issue is not referred to the UN Security Council. According to well-placed sources in Washington, the sanctions being discussed are focused on trade issues, since almost half of Iran's trade is with Europe and Japan.)

How about that GE [remember, they bought ENRON assets?] halts business orders in Iran? (General Electric Co., which has been accused of collecting "blood money" by doing business in Iran, will stop accepting any new orders for business in the country, company officials said Wednesday.)

How about a “blast” went off near an Iranian “factory” and an “airplane” was seen at the same time? (Initial reports said that the plane, which was not officially identified, had fired a missile. The possibility was later raised that it could have been an Iranian plane and that it had jettisoned a fuel tank that had happened to land in the area. The television report initially quoted witnesses as saying Wednesday's explosion was the result of a missile fired from a plane seen overhead. However, it later said the blast could have been a falling fuel tank from an Iranian aircraft.)

How about THAT AFTER ALL OF THIS, THE U.S. AND BUSH ARE PUSHING FOR WAR WITH IRAN, AND, COULD USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS! (Philip Giraldi, a former intelligence officer in the CIA (and DIA), claims that the United States is developing a plan for the bombing of supposed military targets in Iran, which would include the use of NUCLEAR WEAPONS. The US strike would take place after a 9/11-type terrorist attack on the US. However, the US attack would not depend on Iran actually being involved in the terrorism [Operation Northwoods style]. In short, the planned attack on Iran would be analogous to the unprovoked attack on Iraq. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing - that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack- but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.)

How about that not a month ago, the Iranian Guard Commander died in a “plane crash”? There were conflicting reports on what caused the crash. The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported the plane crashed because its landing gear jammed, preventing the wheels from being fully deployed. But the Revolutionary Guards' spokesman, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, blamed bad weather and engine failure.

ISN'T THIS "FUNNY"...

Don't push for impeachment, Cindy Sheehan. Let's all just laugh our way into the endless wars...

STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE...

Doesn't this all sound a little too familiar? We're told a Middle Eastern country run by a madman has the intention to acquire nuclear weapons, so we cooperate to get them hauled before the Security Council, where a resolution will be written in such a way that this madman's country will be in violation of it before the ink is dry on the paper.

And that all of this is happening prior to a midterm election. Does it sound remotely similar to anything you've heard before? That this madman's Middle Eastern country is harboring and sponsoring terrorists--al Qaeda and such? That this country is a grave threat to us?

And the media talks about this country's "threat" to our country as a foregone conclusion--i.e., this country is a threat because they talk about it as being, therefore it's a threat, no evidence necessary. But they'll try to manufacture some anyway, just to muddy the water. Just so they'll have something that we'll have to try to disprove, and something to create the official story.

I wrote this yesterday but was too lazy to post it until I read, on Americablog, this much more eloquent, complete, and seasonally coordinated piece from Atrios:

How It Goes


Winter/Spring - The clone army of foreign policy "experts" from conservative foreign policy outfits nobody ever heard of before suddenly appear on all the cable news programs all the time, frowning furiously and expressing concerns about the "grave threat" that Iran poses. Never before heard of Iranian exile group members start appearing regularly, talking about their role in the nuclear program and talking up Iran's human rights violations.

Spring/Summer - "Liberal hawks" point out that all serious people understand the serious threat posed by serious Iran, and while they acknowledge grudgingly that the Bush administration has fucked up everything it touches, they stress, and I mean stress, that we really must support the Bush administration's serious efforts to deal with the serious problem and that criticisms of such serious approaches to a serious problem are highly irresponsible and come only from irrational very unserious Bush haters who would rather live in Iran than the U.S.

Late Summer - Rumsfeld denies having an Iran war plan "on his desk." He refuses to answer if he has one "in his file cabinet." Andy Card explains that you don't roll out new product until after labor day.

Early Fall - Bush suddenly demands Congress give him the authority to attack Iran to ensure they "disarm." Some Democrats have the temerity to ask "with what army?" Marshall Wittman and Peter Beinart explain that courageous Democrats will have the courageous courage to be serious and to confront the "grave threat" with seriousness and vote to send other peoples' kids off to war, otherwise they'll be seen as highly unserious on national security. Neither enlists.

Late October - Despite the fact that all but 30 Democrats vote for the resolution, Republicans run a national ad campaign telling voters that Democrats are objectively pro-Ahmadinejad. Glenn Reynolds muses, sadly, that Democrats aren't just anti-war, but "on the other side." Nick Kristof writes that liberals must support the war due to Ahmadinejad's opposition to gay rights in Iran.

Election Day - Democrats lose 5 seats in the Senate, 30 in the House. Marshall Wittman blames it on the "pro-Iranian caucus."

The Day After Election Day - Miraculously we never hear another word about the grave Iranian threat. Peter Beinart writes a book about how serious Democrats must support the liberation of Venezuela and Bolivia.

David Kay and "State Of War"

Here's Andrea Mitchell on Hardball last (Thursday, Jan. 12) night pontificating about Iran's "secret nukes" and Chris Matthews treating Iran's "threat" to us as a foregone conclusion. I wasn't even aware that Iran was being accused of having "secret nukes"--I mean, I didn't realize that that was supposed to now be the official story. In "State Of War," James Risen points out that, as in Iraq before our invasion, we haven't had and currently don't have CIA/intelligence resources on the ground to even know these things, thanks to the cable that mistakenly identified our assets in Iran. And David Kay admits as much in this transcript.

And Risen points out that we, the U.S., gave Iran nuclear plans!

And if you haven't or don't have the time to read the book, here's a good synopsis at Alternet, complete with this great comment on the book's perspective (I tried to say something to this in effect in an earlier post, but this nails it):

The second, and more grave point is that James Risen is a complete sucker for Bush's tonic for the terrorist threat against America and the prevailing White House rationale for the invasion of Iraq: that we must spread the wings of democracy across the Middle East.

How a reporter can get so close to the White House Big Dogs and reveal such devastating evidence about their cynical geopolitical schemes while at the same time swallow the big narrative that underwrites them all is frankly quite stunning.

And of course, Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com turned in a good one on Iran yesterday.

DARKNESS FALLS ACROSS THE LAND...

...as Alito is sure to get confirmed. I emailed and called my senators, Lott and Cochran, but their vote was a foregone conclusion before Alito was even nominated.

And I posted a few days ago about my hope that Bush will discover who leaked "the Program" so we could all know who our newest national hero is. Turns out at least one of the leakers has now come forward voluntarily--that guy is a fuckin' badass. And his name is Russell Tice.

Now if only more people in the Bush administration would get some nuts like Tice, we could bring G.W. down.

I Ran So Far Away...

And then of course, everyone's scolding Iran again. Tsk, tsk, tsk! Not that nuclear proliferation is a good thing, but hypocrisy is worse. Let's remind ourselves once again that the U.S. is the only country in the history of the world to have used nuclear weapons against another country. And let's also remind ourselves that for every embassy hostage crisis, there's an installation of a monarch or an invitation into an evil triumvirate.

But no, our media will just blather on and on about how all these tinpot tyrants are such a serious threat to what they have to say is "the greatest country in the world," i.e., the U.S. For fuck's sake, we spend more money than any other country in the world on defense--in fact, soon we will be spening more than every country in the world combined, and we still feel that fucking Iran is a threat to us?

When will this madness end? The U.S. is the threat, for crying out loud. That's how the rest of the world sees it, anyway.

But really, we truly are living in a culture of fear, of give me convenience or give me death! If any country in the world has no reason to be afraid of or feel threatened by another country, it should be the U.S. Has all the money that has gone to "defense" over the years at the expense of social programs not been enough? Now they have to scare us into giving up our civil liberties, too?

Here's a sample of a letter from my hometown newspaper today:

I also support the Bush administration's decision to wiretap whatever/whenever,
foreign or domestic, any and all correspondence considered to be necessary for
national security.

Any abuse of this practice will be picked up immediately by the media and made public. So, Mr. Regl, this wire-tapping measure does not scare me in the slightest.

However, Islamic terrorists do.

What a good little culture warrior this guy is! He knows without a doubt that "it can't happen here!" We're too free--I mean, it's not as if American citizens can be held for three years without charge or anything! He has complete confidence in the media and their adversarial, brave reportage! And he completely trusts the public to be outraged if there are abuses! WHAT THE FUCK!


Why don't these people get it? Just like with the Soviet Union, the "threat" is mostly imagined (al Qaeda-real threat, Iraq-fake threat, Iran-fake threat)--we are fed fear every day so that the military-industrial complex can justify its existence--i.e., on defense contractor GE's MSNBC this evening, Chris Matthews was talking about the threat of Iran. If we're not afraid anymore, we might tell those guys to take a hike and give back some of that money.

In other, simpler, more famous words--"war is a racket." Here's one more quote from that book:

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

LETTER PRINTED, ETC.

My local paper finally printed my letter yesterday...then I got a call around 11:30 that morning from a gentleman who told me he appreciated the letter, thought it was well-written and so forth, but assured me he wasn't calling to "praise" me.

He said I should watch out for the editorial page editor because this gentleman said that some his letters to the editor have been changed and distorted by the editorial page editor...so far, all of mine have appeared exactly as I wrote them...

Comment

I received the following comment about my last post (I just want to address this because I don't get many comments that aren't from comment spammers)--in which I asked why we should care whether Iran has nuclear weapons or not because after all, the U.S. is the only country that has ever actually used them against an enemy:

the difference is that iran is headed by a nutcase who also wants to destroy israel, and denies the holocaust ever took place. with a guy like that holding a trigger to atommic weapons, no one can sleep easy. just because it isn't yr backyard doesn't mean it won't come bite you in the ass.

The thing is, what this commenter is saying works both ways. That's what I was trying to point out. You know that everywhere around the world people are saying "America is headed by a nutcase that wants to rule the world--he's invaded Iraq, propped up Israel and his country dropped two atomic bombs on Japan; with a guy like that holding a trigger to atomic weapons, no one can sleep easy."

What we must decide as American citizens is whether it is worth billions of dollars and thousands of lives (ours and theirs) to try to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of other countries because more than likely, they'll never be used except as a deterrent to us.

I mean, we invaded Iraq ostensibly to "disarm" Saddam, and by all Iraqi accounts, Iraq was still three years away from "the bomb" before the first Gulf war, and the U.S. took out Iraq's nuclear capabilities in that conflict--this according to James Risen's new book "State of War." In other words, Iraq not only didn't have nuclear weapons, they didn't even have the hope of getting them before the 2003 invasion. Contrary to Dick Cheney's fantasy, Iraq was nowhere near to "reconstituting" its nuclear program.

And frankly, Iran has every reason to be wary of and hostile toward the U.S. We installed the Shah, we sided with Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war, and Bush said that Iran was a member of the "axis of evil." We rattled our sabers in their general direction, and they're rattling right back.

All of this could be solved through diplomatic channels, regardless of whether the president of Iran hates Jews and denies the Holocaust or not. We don't have to like the policies of other countries and should condemn attitudes like those of Iran's president, but we also don't have to sacrifice our loved ones and billions of dollars just because one Iranian is anti-Semitic. If we invaded every country that had an anti-Semitic leader, we'd go broke quick fast in a hurry.

Car Fire

Here's a picture I took of a car on fire with my new Audiovox SMT 5600 phone. That thing rocks!!!

OH GREAT...

This story about Iran announcing its intention to restart its search for nuclear fuel was a headline on the MSN homepage this morning, where it said something like "Paper: Iran to Restart Nuclear Program" or some such.

Well, bully for Iran! Since the United States is the only country in the entire history of forever to have used nuclear weapons against another country (and are doing so at this very moment) we are really in the morally strong position to discourage Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Don't let them fool us again! For one thing, who cares if Iran has nuclear weapons? We have an enormous stockpile with which no other country on earth can even begin to compete. The Cold War generation lived through the supposed constant threat of Russian nukes going off any minute and yet we never invaded the Soviet Union.

We've already heard about how al Qaeda is hiding out in Iran, or at least that's what the headlines say even though the stories themselves are about complicated prisoner transfers. We've heard how the new president of Iran is a Holocaust denier and was supposedly one of the hostage-takers in 1979. And now this latest news completes the demonization.

Our only hope is that Bush will be hobbled by the NSA scandal, Jack Abramoff, and God knows what else is going to come to light in the next few months so we no spouses have to have a new sticker on their car in addition to the one they already have: "Half of my heart is in Iran."

STATE OF WAR

Got the Risen book last night and have been reading it in my spare time. It's very disturbing, as you might imagine. The book's subtitle, "The Secret History Of The CIA And The Bush Administration" gives a clue to what's so disturbing--all the secrecy.

Risen talks about secret courts, secret signings, secret prisons, secret briefings, etc. I hope Bush's investigation of the leaking of "the Program" does find out the name of the person or persons who leaked this stuff to Risen, because that person is a hero.

The revelations in the book are not exactly new to those who read the progressive blogs, or even those who can read between the lines of the mainstream media. But it's still sickening, stunning stuff and I'm only up to p. 57.

Unspoken

But what keeps striking me as I read this is, "Is all this really necessary?" All this spying and torture and indefinite imprisonment and intimidation of Congress, supposedly to keep another terror attack from happening?

I mean, I've got a good way to keep another terror attack from happening--stop provoking people around the world. Like in Iraq, for example. Let's leave them the hell alone--get out immediately and try as best we can to fix what we've fucked up.

But I guess you can't make billions of dollars in profits if you don't provoke a few oil-rich countries every now and then. And that's really the crux of the biscuit.

We can put Dick, Halliburton, Shell, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, etc. out of business very easily. Ask Willie Nelson.

And that's the unspoken part of all that Risen is describing--the assumption that America needs to keep on intimidating and provoking people around the world, and given that that is the case, there needs to be this elaborate, secret, civil-liberty-crushing operation that tries to minimize what everyone knows to be an inevitable result of meddling.

"Protecting The Country"

Let's face it, George Bush isn't "protecting" our country or ensuring our "national security." By which I mean, for example, that poverty has risen every year he's been in office after decreasing every year Clinton was in office. Or that the most devastating act of terrorism in the U.S. happened on Bush's watch. Or that American jobs are being outsourced. And then, after letting jobs leave the country, he made it harder to clear debts and get a fresh start. Oh, and then, after losing your job, maybe you also lost retirement and/or pension.

Bush protect this country? It's a fucking bad joke, man.

WELL-MEANIES LIKE TO SPY ON PEOPLE (and a story of an argument)

Cynthia Tucker has a great post at Working For Change about what it means to be a well-meanie...the subhead to her article: "Selfishness disguised as hard-headed compassion" is as good a definition of "well-meanie" as I've yet been able to manufacture. Here's a quote:

So the last thing we should do is establish a broad social safety net that provides generous health care and raises the minimum wage and ensures decent housing for all. Why, any one of those things could prove absolutely ruinous to the poor!

That political philosophy -- which claims to be a hard-headed compassion rather than the hard-hearted selfishness it really is -- has become the conventional wisdom. But it's an odd thing for a nation that claims to be overwhelmingly Christian. There is nothing in the New Testament that says that helping the poor merely makes them worse off.

And that reminds me of a discussion I had with a family member the day after Christmas. This family member (f.m. from here on out) used to be a liberal and has traveled the world, received two masters' degrees, a doctorate, and a master of divinity degree and is pretty smart.

F.M. and I have had many political discussions and it seems we are diametrically opposed even though I basically got my politics from f.m. Anyway, I was trying to drive home the point (as I have done before) that there exist objective truths/facts about the world that are neither liberal nor conservative and that there is in fact such a thing as an unpolitical truth (because f.m. had told me two months ago that f.m. couldn't read about politics because each side distorted the facts to fit its bias).

Anyhoo, f.m. basically said, no, everyone is biased--libs and cons. I asked for specificity about which issues f.m. sees this happening with. After f.m. hemmed and hawed, offered then rejected welfare as an example, I said--well, how about Social Security privatization?

F.M. immediately says, with no prompting from me--"well, that's not a good example of what I'm talking about because obviously if all your retirement is in the stock market and the stock market is down when you want to retire, you're screwed." Oh my!

F.M. kindly made my point for me! I said, "well but that is a perfect example of what I'm talking about--you just cited an obvious, objective fact that shows that privatizing Social Security ain't a great idea." Well, we never resolved anything, but I was astonished and pleased to see that even if f.m. won't acknowledge it, f.m. knows what I'm talking about.

My hopes for 2006

1. Republicans out of power in one or both houses

2. Rove indicted

3. MSM indicted

4. Abramoff brings down Republicans--and some bad Democrats

5. Iraq war ends

6. War on terror replaced by non-provocation policy

7. I get rich and famous (for doing something positive and productive)

SOME LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Forgot to post my letter to the editor that appeared in my local paper on December 19. I'll post that, followed by a reply that appeared today, followed by my response to the reply, followed by a point I wanted to make about the letters but that just doesn't work as a letter to the editor.

My First Letter

We were 'lied into' Iraq War

If you want to know the truth about any given situation, just listen to what President Bush has to say about it, because it will be the opposite of the truth.

The latest example came recently when Bush said: "It is true that much of the intelligence (regarding Iraq) turned out to be wrong." Actually, the intelligence he received before the war regarding WMD and ties to al Qaeda was exactly right.

During a visit to Egypt on Feb. 24, 2001, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction." And on CNN on July 29 of the same year, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that Saddam's "military forces have not been rebuilt." It is unreasonable to assume that Bush's loyal appointees Powell and Rice would have known these things without Bush himself knowing them.

The pre-war intelligence was right. Bush was wrong.

Not only that, but Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, who was the head of Iraq's WMD programs, stated unequivocally that all of Iraq's prohibited weapons were destroyed after the first Gulf War. This particular statement of Kamel's was not known to the general public until late February 2003, but Bush was clearly aware of Kamel's words and had in fact used him as a source in a speech on Oct. 7, 2002.

The pre-war intelligence was right. Bush was wrong.

According to a recent article in the National Journal, Bush was briefed by his intelligence officers on Sept. 21, 2001 (a year and a half before the Iraq invasion), that Iraq had no ties to al Qaeda. In fact, that same story says Saddam felt threatened by al Qaeda.

It's clear from this information that the pre-war intelligence was right and Bush was wrong. We were lied into this illegal, immoral war, and we need to end it now.

The Response That Appeared Today

Bush has plan to fight terrorists

In the Dec. 19 issue of the Hattiesburg American, Mr. Clinton Kirby wrote a letter titled "We were lied into Iraq War." In his letter, Mr. Kirby conveniently overlooks what he wishes to.

First, he overlooked the fact that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had established a training camp in Herat, Iraq, prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This terrorist Zarqawi fled to Iraq from Afghanistan in 2001 when it got too hot for him there. No one stayed in Iraq without Saddam's blessing - especially a foreigner. Still, Mr. Kirby sees no connection.

Mr. Kirby uses statements made by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, but only uses parts of statements he chooses and conveniently overlooks the fact that President Bush never said that Saddam's troops were a threat to the U.S. Bush said Saddam was a threat and, as he ordered the use of chemical warfare against his own countrymen, it is no wonder Bush considered him a mad man.

Then Mr. Kirby says that Colin Powell said Saddam had no nuclear arsenal and was no threat. Powell said there was no proof that Saddam had any nuclear weapons or a delivery system, but reiterated that there was evidence that he was trying to reconstitute his program.

This was verified after the invasion by Saddam's own scientist.

Why do Democrats hate Bush so? I tell you why. Because President Bush has a plan and they don't. Because President Bush has morals and they don't. Because President Bush has faced the fact that the War on Terror has to be fought - and President Clinton wouldn't fight it.

Democrats have no party, no plan and no hope. So Mr. Kirby and his Doom and Gloom Party keep peddling their lies in hopes that President Bush will fail. He has already failed. But if President Bush and our military fail, then I am afraid this whole country will fail to defeat terrorism.

Bill Perkins

My Response To The Response (not published yet)

Bill Perkins’ response (“Bush has plan to fight terrorists”) to my letter (“We were 'lied into' Iraq War”) contains some inaccuracies.

Perkins says Zarqawi had a training camp in “Herat, Iraq” before the war, apparently to prove that Iraq harbored al Qaeda terrorists. Aside from the fact that Herat is in Afghanistan, Zarqawi’s prewar presence in Iraq does not prove that Saddam harbored him any more than the presence of 9/11 hijackers like Mohammed Atta in the United States proves that Bush harbored them.

Perkins says I quoted Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice out of context (I didn’t--the quotes I cited were from before 9/11) but Perkins doesn’t even bother to use quotes at all, preferring instead to make his case with his own perplexing interpretation of what Bush and others said. For example, Perkins says Bush never said Saddam’s troops were a threat, only that Saddam himself was a threat. This is an absurd distinction–no leader is a threat without an army.

Perkins relies heavily on Powell’s presentation to the U.N. in February 2003 even though Powell himself recently told Barbara Walters that the presentation is a “blot”on his reputation.

Perkins asserts that “Democrats hate Bush." I cannot make such a sweeping generalization about a group made up of millions of people. But being against the war is not so much about hating Bush as it is about not hating the truth, even though the truth is that America has done something terribly wrong--invading a sovereign nation without provocation.

Perkins asserts that unlike Democrats, Bush “has a plan” and “has morals,” but I submit that merely sending Americans to kill Iraqis or to be killed by Iraqis for the foreseeable future does not qualify as a “plan” that is “moral.” Rather it is, as John Murtha of Pennsylvania (a Democrat who does have a plan–get out of Iraq) pointed out, “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.”

And Finally, A Point I Wanted To Make But Didn't Have The Space

Until there is definitive proof that we were not lied into the Iraq war, perhaps headlines for letters to the editor should not contain quotes around what the writer says. My December 19th letter carried the headline “We were ‘lied into’Iraq war”–my phrase “lied into” was put in quotes by the editorial page editor.

Contrast that with the headline given to Bill Perkins’ December 29th response to my letter: “Bush has plan to fight terrorists.” No quotes in Perkins’ headline, even though Perkins’ letter does not contain the phrase “to fight terrorists.” Perkins does use the phrase “Bush has a plan,” but he doesn’t say what that plan is–the editorial page editor snatched the phrase “to fight terrorists” out of thin air and added it to the headline of Perkins’ letter.

But the editor could have just as easily, and just as factually, made Perkins’ headline read thusly: “Bush has plan to create more terrorists.” Of course, Perkins’ letter did not contain the phrase “to create more terrorists,” but Bush’s “plan” of wasting hundreds of billions of dollars and sending our soldiers to kill Iraqis or be killed by them is arguably doing just that–creating more terrorists.

There is just as much proof that Bush lied us into war as there is proof that Bush’s plan is to fight terrorists. So the use of quotes around “lied into” in one headline suggests that the writer of that letter (i.e., me) is untrustworthy and making a doubtful statement and the absence of quotes and tacked-on phrase in the other headline suggests that the writer (i.e., Perkins) is trustworthy and making statements that are not in doubt. In other words, the antiwar position is subtly marginalized while the pro-Bush position is normalized.

I’m not necessarily saying that this was done deliberately, but I have a feeling that it was. The liberal media just ain’t what it used to be...

MERRY HOLIDAYS

So I've been downloading podcasts of the Majority Report, my favorite Air America show. I've been burning CDs of them and listen to it whenever I'm in the car, which is usually only for 10-15 minutes at a time. So it takes me several days to listen to a whole show, and I've got a backlog.

I just now listened to the show from November 17, and Sam interviewed Bernie Sanders. And a few of the statistics he brought up are so damning of the current "conservative Republican" mindset and the whole "free market" fiasco and the idea that tax cuts end up helping the less fortunate, and on and on.

To wit, and I'm paraphrasing--listen to the show for the exact quotes:

Astounding Income inequality
1. a 2003 IRS study determined that the income of 99% of the country did not keep up with inflation, while the top 1% did very well and the top 1/10 of that1% did extremely well.

Poverty--tax cuts not the answer
2. Since George Bush took office in 2001, 5 million more Americans have fallen into poverty than before Bush came in--that's a million people a year.

Middle class wages sunk by inflation
3. A two-income household today has less disposable income than a one-income family did in 1973--wages are not keeping up with inflation and people are working longer hours for less $$.

A REPUBLICAN VOTER AND HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED...

...while a Republican donor and your money are soon joined.

Hey, did you hear that great news about how everything's gonna cost a lot more this coming year? I guess that's because our magically swell free-market economy is taking perfect care of everyone and wealth and prosperity are just trickling down like sweet raindrops of bliss from the Lord Himself.

Here's a quote from the article:

Unprecedented damage from natural disasters is a new addition to the list of reasons why a lot of critical and recurrent costs in your life will be going up next year.

The hikes in many instances will be multiples higher than the annual inflation rate, which at last reading was 2.1 percent, excluding the volatile categories of food and energy, or 4.3 percent, including them.

It goes on to say that prices will rise in four areas: home insurance, home heating, health insurance, and college costs. To which I say "Yay!" Because you know what's not rising? My income! Yippee! You're doing a heck of a job, Bushie, a gosh-darn heck of a job!

And that last part about college reminds me again of Cheney's tie-breaking vote on the budget bill, which Alterman mentions in his column today. And I'm going to cut and paste the text he quotes because it's from the Wall Street Journal, which is subscription-only and I'm not sure that MSNBC archives Alterman's stuff even though there is a "permalink."

And also through Alterman quoting the Wall Street Journal, we find out that housing affordability is at its lowest ebb in 14 years. To which I emphatically say "Yay!" That's what a good Bush/Republican ream job does for you--it stagnates your wages and makes the price of everything skyrocket.

But we all know we love it, because darn it, Bush is just so charming and likable. He's so folksy and down-to-earth, with his millions of dollars, his private school education, his famous President father--that's just like all the former president's sons that live on my block.

Bush isn't at all like that ponderous Al Gore or that stuffy John Kerry. I mean, Bush--I'm actually tearing up as I type this--well, his favorite philosopher is our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Y'all if that don't make all this economic hardship we've faced and are about to face worth it, I don't know what does. I'd rather be homeless, penniless, and freedom-less, than let a damn godless, pro-choice, homo-loving Democrat be the president.

Thank God for George W. Bush is all I can say. He's protecting us and keeping us safe...from our freedoms.

Here's the cut and paste from Alterman/WSJ:

“Congress raised interest rates on the popular Stafford loans to a fixed 6.8%, even if commercial rates are lower, and cut subsidies to lenders.
Other affected programs include Medicaid and pension insurance.

Though it isn't the first time the federal government has made cuts in student-aid programs, it is the largest single cut in dollar terms, and it follows years of increased federal support for these programs....

The changes come at a time when families have been struggling with skyrocketing tuition bills. After adjusting for inflation, private-college tuition and fees have increased 37% over the past decade, while public tuition has risen 54%. Today, most college students borrow money to pay for college.

Two-thirds of undergraduates graduate with debt; among graduating seniors, the average debt load is $19,202, according to an analysis of data from the Department of Education's National Postsecondary Student Aid Study. That doesn't include any debt that their parents might incur.

Here is how the bill will affect two of the most popular student-loan
programs:

Stafford loans. These are the most ubiquitous type of student
loans, largely because students don't have to demonstrate need in order to
secure one. The interest rate on a Stafford loan is variable and reset annually,
depending on a formula that looks at prevailing market interest rates. Today,
that rate is as low as 4.7%, and students can lock it in thanks to the Federal
Consolidation Loan Program, which allows for a one-time opportunity to
refinance.
Under the new legislation, the interest rate changes to a fixed
rate of 6.8% starting July 1, 2006, on Stafford loans. While that is
significantly higher than what students are currently paying, it is only
slightly higher than what the average repayment rate has been since 1992-93,
when the current interest-rate calculus was instituted, and is still below the
current cap of 8.25%.

Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students. Under this
program, money is lent directly to parents rather than students. As with
Stafford loans, the variable rate is reset every year, though it is capped at
9%.


Housing Affordability
At the end of the first five years of the Bush administration, Housing affordability, one of the two key building blocks of the American Dream, has hit a 14-year low, according to the National Association of Realtors' Affordability Index, a widely followed measure of the average household's ability to buy a home at current interest rates. In some areas, including New York City, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Miami, housing affordability has dropped to levels not seen sincethe early to mid-1980s, according to mortgage giant Fannie Mae....

Housing affordability fell nearly 9% in the third-quarter from the same period a year earlier, according to an analysis prepared for The Wall Street Journal by Moody's Economy.com, a unit of Moody's Corp., which adjusted the NAR Affordability Index for seasonal variations. Affordability dropped by more than 20% in nearly two-dozen markets, including Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., Spokane, Wash., and Orlando and Lakeland, Fla., according to the study. "You have to go back 25 years to find a decline that is as significant on a percentage basis," says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com.

JUST SO YOU'LL KNOW...CLINTON IS NOT THE PRESIDENT ANYMORE...

When I read articles like this one in Slate titled "Clinton's Guantanamo: How the Democratic president set the stage for a land without law," it makes me want to tear my hair out.

This article, like the out-of-context Drudge post a few days ago, all basically try to use Clinton's behavior to justify Bush's actions. Or as a smug reminder that as bad as Bush and the Republicans are, Clinton and Democrats were/are no angels either.

But this kind of stuff is a classic red herring. Why? Because Clinton is no longer President. And how does the less-than-angelic status of the Democratic party figure into this equation? No one is suggesting that Democrats are morally superior to Republicans. How does what Clinton did have anything to do with what Bush is doing? Clinton is a private citizen now, and has no more power to authorize secret wiretaps or anything even remotely similar than the man in the friggin' moon.

Bush, on the other hand, is the most dangerous man in the world.

I will say that this Slate story is useful in one regard, though. It demonstrates how the actions of one president set precedents for ones that follow. If nothing else, that's why Bush needs to be impeached, removed and thrown in jail, so that future presidents get the message that these kinds of shenanigans ain't gonna fly.

Not only that, the Slate article is disingenuous. The link from the homepage and the title of the story itself lead one to believe that that ol' bastard Clinton had the bright idea to start a detention camp in Cuba. Then come to find out, the article points out that George H.W. Bush was actually the one that started the first Guantanamo detention camp!

See what I'm saying? See how even a left-leaning rag like Slate still plays the game in Bush's favor? If they were being even-handed, the homepage link and the headline might instead read "Like father, like son--BushI started the first detention camp at Guantanamo." Or, "Bush I and Clinton also maintained detention facilities at Guantanamo."

But no, the headline on the story says Clinton (and only Clinton, in the minds of those who might not take the time or trouble to read the actual story) "set the stage for a land without law." The hyperbole in that short phrase is quite unnecessary and inappropriate.

But whatever. Again, Clinton ain't the president no more, y'all. He's not the problem now, Bush is. So why keep going back to Clinton?

P.S. Besides Clinton not being president anymore, these rehashings of what Clinton did also make for faulty comparisons with Bush because Clinton did not invade and occupy countries that didn't attack us, he created a budget surplus rather than creating record deficits, and so on.

That is the context that Bush's actions need to be seen in--the context of all the other crap he's screwed up. Bush and Clinton are apples and oranges. I mean, are we going to be subjected to arguments implying that because Harry Truman, a Democrat, nuked another country that Bush
ought to do the same? That Truman "set the stage for nuking our enemies?" Because again, the circumstances are entirely different--such illogic isn't even really an argument. And publications with the reach of Slate don't need to be wasting space on such fallcious drivel.

P.P.S. I should also point out that the content of the article seems accurate, and it's interesting and nonsnarky. But the point I'm trying to make is that Slate is trying to sell the article as something it's not.

THIS IS GOOD

A post at World Net Daily (yeah, I know) entitled "The Anti-American President" is really good. I can't believe this is from a "conservative" writer on a "conservative" site. He really does an excellent job of explaining the "conservative" Cult of Bush, he doesn't mince words, and he's saying all this on one of their sites! Some quotes:

"Sept. 11 changed everything" has been the mantra of the strong government conservative, the pragmatic dialectoids who are flexible enough to justify any expansion of central government power in the name of the very conservatism that opposes it. Since "we are at war," Republican media whores have repeatedly claimed that because of an attack that killed the same number of people who die on American roads every 26 days, the following actions are therefore justified:



1. An undeclared war of indefinite end against an undefined enemy.

2. Invading two sovereign nations without a congressional declaration of war.

3. The anti-American Patriot Acts I and II.

4. The suspension of habeus corpus.

5. Torture.

Can't argue with a word of that.

Here's a little more along those same lines:

These acts have all been justified under the guise of imminent national peril, despite the fact that the peril is so non-perilous that it has not been deemed necessary to expel foreign nationals, let alone enforce the wide-open national borders or existing immigration laws. If federal agents were to begin shooting innocent and unarmed civilians on the street, would that too be justified?

And just one more--this article is really very good and quotable. Check it for yourself:

America was founded on the principle that it is right to sacrifice blood for liberty. It is telling that the Bush defenders make precisely the opposite argument, that it is right to sacrifice liberty in order to avoid the shedding of American blood. In this they are, like the Dear Leader, avowedly anti-American.

Damn, that's good!

Contributions to the Dictionary

Just for kicks...

Contributions to Dictionary of Republicanisms:

reform: v., to change a policy that assists the lower and middle classes into one that primarily benefits the upper class

regulation: n., an immoral, insulting suggestion that should be ignored by everyone but wimps and losers (i.e, liberals)

law: n., whatever George W. Bush thinks is legal.

LET'S GET ON WITH THE IMPEACHMENT ALREADY...

I mean, I know there's about to be holiday (fuck you O'-Lie-lly) break, but hot damn, we got us some impeachin' to do!

The cracks in the Republican party are getting deeper and longer. They can't even get their talking points straight anymore. Drudge was offering the false, out-of-context assertion that even Clinton and Carter had done what Bush has done. And around that same time, Bill Kristol was saying that he wished Clinton had done what Bush did, because it could have stopped 9/11.

If Drudge and Kristol can't get on the same page, shit is fucked up...so which is it guys, is Bush just following Clinton's lead or is Bush the first guy to violate the FISA law?

Well, you can't believe a word either of those guys say, but you can believe the guys over at the Center for American Progress, who handily debunked Drudge's context-less quote. If you haven't yet, sign up for their daily email. It'll be very useful at the dinner table over the holidays.

Whatever can we do to help the poor?

You hear this question woefully asked from time to time by well-meaning types. What can we do to help the poor, they ask, with the implication being that "the poor" won't help themselves and just refuse to pull themselves up by their bootstraps because they like that free milk from that government tit. And that's my money, these same well-meanies would say--they're taking my money to sit on their ass while I work. [well-meanie: n, one who disguises apathy or contempt in high-minded, sympathetic yet ultimately empty language or gestures]

So the well-meanie's conclusion is usually said with a downcast sigh--there's just not much we can do for them, alas...

But Dick Cheney knows what to do for them--make their health care cost more and put education even further out of their reach, among other things. And then Frist comes out and basically implies that fucking over the poor shows good fiscal discipline and more than makes up for all the lives and money and energy and goodwill wasted on the Iraq debacle...Geez Louise, these guys have no souls...

President Cheney

That's the only problem with impeaching Bush, you know. "President Cheney"--yikes! Because he'd assume dictatorial powers with no pretense the second the last words of the oath of office came out of his mouth (he's just that evil). And then we'd either have to have another impeachment immediately or a bloody revolution.

Can't we impeach the idiot and the vampire (I mean, Bush and Dick) simultaneously or something?

Oh yeah, and let's end this war, give Jose Padilla the courtesy of a trial, and have a Merry X-mas (eat me, John Gibson).

BILL KRISTOL IN WASHINGTON POST...

Doesn't that sick motherfucker have his own magazine in which to foist his propaganda on America? Why does he have to write to the Washington Post to get his sycophantic ideas out there? Oh right, because the Weekly Standard is a money-losing proposition with a low circulation even for a political opinion magazine...

And why would the Washington Post publish such claptrap? I mean, Kristol and his co-writer make assertions that they wish were true (for Bush and no other future president) such as:

It is not easy because the Founders intended the executive to have -- believed the executive needed to have -- some powers in the national security area that were extralegal but constitutional.

Say what? They just make this extraordinary statement as though it is common knowledge, as if it's an idea as unremarkable as the air we breathe. They don't quote any experts, and they don't cite any part of the Constitution that might shed some light on their point. They don't quote anything from any Founder's writings or statements.

And they don't do any of that because they can't. Because there is no part of the Constitution that comes anywhere near to saying that. In fact, it says the opposite, that power not expressly granted to the federal government should rest with the states or with the people (10th Amendment).

Then there's this gem:

Following that logic, the Supreme Court has never ruled that the president does not ultimately have the authority to collect foreign intelligence -- here and abroad -- as he sees fit. Even as federal courts have sought to balance Fourth Amendment rights with security imperatives, they have upheld a president's "inherent authority" under the Constitution to acquire necessary intelligence for national security purposes.

Again, not even a cursory citation of any of the Supreme Court or federal rulings to which they might be referring--again, probably because they don't exist or because they are gravely and intentionally misconstruing such rulings. If you can "follow" their faulty "logic" (already built on a house of cards in a windstorm from their previous assertion highlighted here), you could also easily assert that the Supreme Court has never ruled that the president DOES ultimately have the authority to collect foreign intelligence "as he sees fit" and blah, blah, blah...

In fact, we can easily assume such Supreme and federal court rulings don't exist because the FISA law is still intact, and it requires a warrant (either before or after surveillance is conducted). If the Supreme Court had ruled as Kristol means to suggest, FISA would have been struck down.

And then finally, an oppositism in closing:

This is not an argument for an unfettered executive prerogative. Under our system of separated powers, Congress has the right and the ability to judge whether President Bush has in fact used his executive discretion soundly, and to hold him responsible if he hasn't. But to engage in demagogic rhetoric about "imperial" presidents and "monarchic" pretensions, with no evidence that the president has abused his discretion, is foolish and irresponsible.

Since it's Bill Kristol, the Lord of the Neocons, saying that he's not arguing for "unfettered executive prerogative" that means that's exactly what he's arguing for--remember, most Republicans and all neocons are oppositists. And as for evidence that Bush abused his discretion--he's admitted multiple times on national television that he ordered multiple instances of warrantless wiretapping. That's evidence enough for me...

Oh and two more things: 1)If you read the Kristol piece, he of course brings up the "times of war" canard to justify everything he's saying, and 2) Marty Kaplan wrote a much more insightful and consequential piece about this at the Huffington Post.

"IN TIME OF WAR" BULLSHIT

Do not let Bush and his minions get away with using the argument that a president can do absolutely anything he wants “in time of war” even if he breaks laws and violates the Constitution. If that argument is true, then what incentive will there ever be for a president to lead us into a time of peace?

Think about it–a president might say to himself “Well, let’s see, during war I can impugn my critics, justify massive government contracts to my defense industry campaign donors, detain American citizens indefinitely without trial or even charge, run up huge deficits while cutting spending on social programs, and talk in overly idealistic and simplistic terms about ‘freedom,’ all while wearing military garb for the cameras” and then realize in peacetime that most, if not all of that behavior would not be tolerated and would be vigorously challenged.

Is that what we want? Is that the America that is described in the Constitution? Is that the America we want to bestow upon our children?

Of course it isn’t, but here’s the problem. Bush and his supporters would never describe his actions in the manner above, and that’s because he’s trying to put a positive spin on his negative policies. Bush might put it like this: “During war we should not heed critics of our foreign policy who would only give aid and comfort to the enemy through their talk of ‘cut and run.’ I cannot and will not put a price tag on this war on terror–this clash of civilizations which we must win at any cost. As part of my oath to protect America, it is my duty to see to it that terrorists and potential terrorists are captured and imprisoned, whether they are found on the streets of Baghdad or the streets of Boston. Our economy has turned a corner and I would remind those who have defeatist attitudes about our national debt that we are at war, bringing the joy of freedom to a region that has known only the sorrow of tyranny.”

And so forth. And yet, the conventional wisdom is that Americans are not impressed with flowery language and lofty ideals.

IMPEACHMENT TIME DRAWS NIGH...

Bush admitted his crime...now he needs to do some time...the penalty for breaking FISA (sponsored by Ted Kennedy in 78--gotta love that) is 5 years and he admitted, on national television, to 30 counts of it...150 years!!!

And hopefully no libs will counsel against impeachment because "a second impeachment would tear the country apart" or some such rubbish...the country's already torn apart and if we back down from this, it'll prove once and for all that we don't have the stomach to do what it takes to win...

Bush aspires to dictatorship--no, wait, that's defeatist talk. Bush has assumed dictatorial powers, and he and future presidents need to be taught a swift and terrible lesson. Please! Now!

BUH-BYE CIVIL LIBERTIES...

So now Bush is breaking not merely international law (i.e., pre-emptive, non-self-defense war in Iraq, secret prisons, torture, etc.) but now he's breaking our laws. And defiantly admitting to it today in his live Saturday radio address. And promises to keep doing it?

Holy shit, is our democracy ever going down the tubes...

I saw Feingold on CNN right after the speech and he was stellar, putting this latest crime into context with all of the other extralegal stuff Bush has done--again, pre-emptive war, torture at Abu Ghraib, secret prisons, holding people without charge or trial at Guantanamo, holding American citizens without charge or trial, ordering secret wiretaps on American citizens...

This guy Bush steals two elections and then suddenly he thinks he's a dictator...we gotta show him it ain't like that, right?

And then I switched over to MSNBC and saw Julian what's-his-name, a "Democratic strategist" falling all over himself to agree with Pat Buchanan about how we have to "go after terrorists" and that he's all for curtailing civil liberties because of terrorism...

And I'm like, what the fuck? Even the opposition guys are for curtailing civil liberties (Feingold excluded)? No wonder Bush can get away with this kind of crime! The Democrats are in cahoots with him!

Let me straighten this out for you--TERRORISM STOPS WHEN WE STOP ANTAGONIZING OTHER PEOPLE--END OF STORY. The civil liberties that we apparently used to have are the only thing that separates us from--Afghanistan, or North Korea. Other than the high infant mortality rate and the gap between rich and poor and that kind of thing.

Curbing our civil liberties does not end terrorism. Putting an end to our strong-arm tactics will end terrorism.

OPPOSITISM & THE "PATRIOT" ACT

Good. The Senate rejected the Patriot Act. Maybe because this all-but-unprecedented spying and prying on American citizens just now came to light? Hmmm...

Oppositism

Bill Frist, currently under investigation for insider trading, had this to say about the law:

"We have more to fear from terrorism than we do from this Patriot
Act," Frist warned.

Remember, the opposite of what almost every Republican says is true. In fact, this happens so often that there needs to be a shorthand term for it--I'll go with "oppositism." I also think it could be called "opposite honesty" since that term describes itself. I'll have to remember to start using those (oppositism could be said to be a conjoining of the terms "opposite" and "terrorism"--because the rightwing is terrorizing America by proclaiming that a given fact or circumstance is the exact opposite of what it actually is)

So Frist has confirmed for us that the Patriot Act is more harmful than terrorism. And he's right, because terrorism is very infrequent, whereas we'd have to live under the Patriot Act every single second of every single day of our less-free lives.

However, another Republican quoted Benjamin Franklin when he said

"Those that would give up essential liberties in pursuit in a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security," said Sen. John Sununu R-N.N.

That is not an oppositism, but only because it's a quote.