We already brought you the Captain Hey, all you bloviating military industrial complex drones complaining about Obama mentioning a Captain in Afghanistan who says we don't have the supplies to fight there because everything's in Iraq! You really think Obama's lying about this?

This is from last May, assholes.

Labels: afghanistan, Iraq, US military, Vote Vets, Wes Clark

  ¶ 5:07 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Star Wars From Scout Finch at the Daily Kos:

The US Navy announced that due to bad weather, it will postpone the attempt to shoot down the impaired satellite until tomorrow at the earliest. Our zillion dollar "star wars" technology is clearly capable of stopping incoming missiles so long as: they come one at a time, are the size of a school bus, travel in orbits that have been calculated for months, don't deploy any decoys, and the weather is clear.

Labels: missile defense, Navy, star wars, wasteful spending

  ¶ 12:39 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Next Valentines Day...

Labels: Bush, McCain

  ¶ 4:55 PM 0 comments links to this post

  380,000 Words of Treason

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction."--Dick Cheney.

The Center for Public Integrity has launched a web site documenting the Bush administration's lies in the run up to the war in Iraq. The sustained, deliberate, orchestrated lying has led us into the largest rip-off of American taxpayers in the history of the country.

From the CPI's Iraq War Card:

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

And yet, we have had no investigations into the White House actions. They have refused to testify under oath. They have ignored congress (now that we have a congress that doesn't ignore them). They won't even appoint one of their friends to "investigate" them.

Odd that many conservatives, who are so ready to string up welfare "queens" (like the ones Reagan could never produce examples of) for ripping off the people who work to pay for it all, don't care that we will wind up spending more than a trillion (that's Trillion with a T) on this war and its aftermath. Says a lot for a block of voters who gladly voted for Bush again in 2004, a vote that says it's OK to kill innocent children (collateral damage), wreak havoc on an entire country that didn't attack us, cost the lives of thousands of soldiers (straining the army to the breaking point in the process), and create massive war profiteering by everyone from the bomb makers to the oil companies to the Saudis (who's non-democracy created 15 of the 19 9-11 hijackers and financed most of their operations). A vote for Bush in 2004 was, essentially, an American saying that was all OK, that lying to get us into it was OK, and that they'd do it again.

And this will make us safer how?

Labels: Bush, Bush Administration Treason, Bush treason, Iraq

  ¶ 10:23 AM 0 comments links to this post

  Stop HR 888 - Dominionist Lies about History Maybe because lying us into the modern Crusades, lying about global warming, lying about pollution, lying about our health and threats to it, and even lying about their own proselytizing under the guise of "faith-based initiatives" wasn't enough, now the American Dominionists (sounds so much better than fascist or Taliban, doesn't it?) are trying to pass House Resolution 888.

But, wait! The description of this resolution sounds all warm, fuzzy, and Godly. How could it be bad?

"Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as 'American Religious History Week' for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith."

If that's all it did, it would be just another harmless waste of congress's time, like supporting the makers of Peeps. HR 888 is actually a pack of lies put together by Christian Nationalists in an attempt to enter falsified American history into the congressional record.

I first heard about this over at the KOS. In today's diary on this subject, Troutfishing asks that smaller blogs pick this up, and I was surprised no one over here had anything to say about it (that I could find).

Christian Nationalists seek to make the US a "Christian Nation." Despite the obvious problems with introducing lies into the congressional record, we should look at the deeper motives of those who are attempting to place those lies there, and in as many other places as they can. It is a blatant attempt by these people to convince Americans, wrongly, that the founding fathers intended for the US to be a Christian Nation.

This is from George Grant, in Changing of the Guard:

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish."

If the name George Grant sounds familiar, that's because he co-wrote the book Kids Who Kill with Iowa Republican caucus winner Mike Huckabee. Odd that no MSM has asked Huckabee if he share's Grant's views.

Steve Hotze, who has raised funds for Huckabee, is another familiar name to these theocrats. Hotze actually signed a manifesto that included these little nuggets of Dominionist wisdom:

* A wife may work outside the home only with her husband's consent
* "Biblical spanking" that results in "temporary or superficial bruises or welts" should not be considered a crime
* No doctor shall provide medical service on the Sabbath
* Medical problems are frequently caused by personal sin
* Doctors have a priestly calling
* Physicians should preach to their patients because salvation is the key to their health.

The medical angle is particularly disturbing in light of this SP Diary by br t: Abusing Children in the Name of God.

Gaining dominion over this country (and its vast military might, as documented by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation) is no easy task, and could never be accomplished without a big dose of propaganda. Since most of their lies about American history have been so much preaching (and book selling) to their already duped followers, they need to catapult the propaganda. What better way to heave the exploding showers of stone behind the walls of secularism than to pass a resolution in the US House of Representatives?

For a line-item debunking of this garbage, see Chris Rodda's article from last week: Think the "Christmas Resolution" was Bad? Check Out H. Res. 888.

I hope that the kind, sane, loving people here will recognize this resolution for what it is: blatant lies about American history and the great men who wanted to create a country where no religion has dominion over man.

Cross-posted at Street Prophets.

Labels: American History, Christian Nationalism, Dominionists

  ¶ 3:30 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Straits of Wrath In the John Steinbeck novel (and great Henry Fonda movie) The Grapes of Wrath, the agribusiness thugs wanted to start a fight with the farm workers inside the federal camp during a dance, so the club-wielding cops could enter the camp, warrantless, under the auspices of quelling a riot.

In the Straits of Hormuz today, according to the Pentagon, Iran's Revolutionary Guard's "fast boats"¹ charged US Navy ships.

In the book, the camp residents see the plot unfold and concoct a group abduction of the agitators. In Iran, perhaps a few more people realized that the people running the Revolutionary Guards aren't exactly helping them. In America, perhaps a few more people realized something similar about the Bush administration.

In The Grapes of Wrath, the people of the camp execute their plan flawlessly. They overwhelm the thugs and remove them from view. The police are unable to come in and beat up the "red threat."

In Iran today, conservatives likely cheered the "maneuver," although the Government there, of course, denies the incident happened. The vast majority of the country probably didn't cheer, but wondered what on earth they can do? At the least, the US Administration's credibility has been questioned yet again in a region where they already have precious little.

The Pentagon's Tales of the Revolutionary Guard adds another sordid episode. It's like they're hedging their bets, in case they do "have to act" in "the interests of the US," they'll be able to say that they're only targeting the Guard. In the New York Times story of the incident, note the care taken by the Pentagon spokesperson to praise Iran's "regular" Navy.

“We have found in the past that the regular Iranian Navy was a courteous and professional organization, and our relations are as we would have with any other navy in the world,” said one Pentagon official who has studied the issue. “The I.R.G.C. Navy has a tendency to act in these unprofessional ways, and to be very provocative at times.”

How convenient. We don't have anything against you people, just the ones we don't like. The rest of you can move along...

Do our White House thugs want to keep this down to a small brawl and some kind of limited, warrantless quelling of dangerous unrest? Do they honestly believe that Iran's other military branches would understand the distinction if the next time this happens, the US sinks the charging fast boats²?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the infiltrators are trying to start yet another fight, and we the citizens of the camp have done nothing, other than count backwards, to stop them. We have no serious impeachment proceedings. The Mullahs are still calling the shots in Iran. The price of oil goes ever upward, often in very predetermined-looking ways.

Maybe Dick Cheney and his well-funded private war machine actually have people inside Iran who occasionally do something like this on the eve of a Presidential visit to the Middle East. Maybe some people in Iran understand that what's good for Dick is good for the rest of the oil oligarchy. Russian super-sonic cruise missiles and nuclear power plants aren't cheap, you know.

In a camp where the agitators are always picking fights so they can move in the troops, the people of the camp are no longer vigilant enough to see the agitators before the fights break out. Our complacent certitude that elections have consequences, instead of all actions while in office having consequences, is a gaping hole in the defense of this country, this camp, where the people decide.

Jefferson said, "The price of Democracy is eternal vigilance." Looks like a lot of people have been asleep at their post.



Cross-posted at the The Daily KOS.




¹ Apparently, "fast boats" are faster than "swift boats" but the distortion effect on the truth seems to be similar.

² Does this Republican hatred for small, quick water craft go back to Nixon's hatred of Kennedy's heroics on PT109?

  ¶ 4:54 PM 0 comments links to this post

  What would happen if you ignored the law? I've taken a lot of flak from right wing "law and order" types, who, especially when they talk about illegal immigration, always come back to "the law is the law and they broke it."

Well, last year, congress voted to cut off funding for a pilot program that allows Mexican trucks drive deep into the US, a provision of NAFTA. Bush signed the bill cutting off funding for the controversial program, making it the law of the land. The program, administered by the Bush administration's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transporation, has not been cut. In fact, the FMCSA

...quietly acknowledged last week that the program is still under way, adding that it has issued permits to 11 Mexican companies with a total of 56 trucks.

Senator Byron Dorgan (D, ND), in a letter to Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, called for an immediate end to the program. Well, that ought to stop it, eh? After all, when the branch of government that is supposed to enforce the laws is actually breaking the law, what's a lonely executive brancher to do? Go to court? The Teamsters union is suing. But, how much will the anti-union CEOs make in the mean time by using cheaper Mexican labor as truckers in this country?

What do you GOP voters think about an administration that just ignores laws it doesn't like. Bush signed this law. Why not just veto it? This pattern of ignoring the law looks like a full assault on the constitution, the opposite of what Bush and Cheney swore in their oaths of office.

This is, of course, another example of what David Addington, Cheney's Chief of Staff,
told us was going to happen.

"We're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop."

There is only one larger force that will stop these people. Impeachment.

Labels: impeachment, law, NAFTA, teamsters, trucking

  ¶ 1:49 PM 1 comments links to this post

  Satan Wrote the Bible Well, that would certainly explain how a man who says Jesus was his favorite philosopher could start a war, using lies, to create $100 a barrel oil, and claim God told him to do it.

Hell, it even explains how he could claim that God wanted him to be president.

Now, I know the idea of Satan writing the Bible is going to piss a lot of you off, even some of you on the left ideologically. Please, don't panic. This new blog is simply an open forum for Bible commentaries where the author, who chooses to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, explores the possibility that Satan wrote the Bible.

The Satan essay is based on what those who believe there is a Satan believe about him. It is a rational argument using empathy. Its purpose is to make people think, nothing more or less. I have no desire to make anyone angry or upset or to change anyone’s belief.

So, please, go check it out. It's a fun read.

Labels: George W Bush, religion, the Bible

  ¶ 1:22 PM 0 comments links to this post

  President Whose Dad was President Curtails Executive Power No, not him. The Bush Administration's contributions to history can be summed up nicely with the Dick Cheney quote to Senator Leahy on the floor of the US Senate:

“Go fuck yourself.”

I mean the other President who's Dad was President, John Quincy Adams. Movie fans will remember the role in the mostly historically accurate Spielberg movie Amistad, in which Anthony Hopkins again makes you forget that he's Anthony Hopkins. After his presidency, Adams served in the US House of Representatives and was known as a friend of the Abolitionists. In one of his greatest scenes, Hopkins captures the intensity and genius of former president Adams when he argued for the defendants in the case of United States, Appellants, vs. Cinque, and others, Africans, captured in the schooner Amistad.

In 1839, 53 captive blacks on board La Amistad were being illegally smuggled into the US to be sold into slavery. They killed the ship's captain and cook and took over the ship, but were intercepted by the US Navy off the coast of Long Island. The Africans were charged with murder. The survivors of the Amistad crew claimed ownership of the “property” as did the Spanish government. The case was closely watched because of the possible legal fallout on slavery. Abolitionists enlisted attorney Roger Sherman Baldwin and the former President John Q Adams in their cause to free the Africans. Many southerners argued that to find these blacks innocent would start a civil war (something about “give me my way or someone will die” sounds familiar).

The Africans were freed and allowed to return to Africa, courtesy of the US Navy.

Of particular interest for the modern historian, Adams proved to the US Supreme Court that the president, Martin Van Buren, had grossly interfered in the case. Van Buren, who was worried about his re-election prospects in the southern states, ordered a U.S. schooner to return the Africans to Cuba immediately after a favorable decision, before any appeals could be decided. He had also replaced the first trial judge, who he was afraid would rule for the Africans.

Adams (and Baldwin) argued all aspects of the case, covering the particularly distasteful ground of property law as it applied to human beings at that time. They argued that the treaties the government cited didn't apply. But of particular interest to anyone interested in checks and balances are the passages in which Adams points out the importance of checking the power of the executive branch.

And here arises a consideration, the most painful of all others; in considering the duty I have to discharge, in which, in supporting the action to dismiss the appeal, I shall be obliged not only to investigate and submit to the censure of this Court the form and manner of the proceedings of the Executive in this case, but the validity, and the motive of the reasons assigned for its interference in this unusual manner in a suit between parties for their individual rights.

Those were the days when at least some of our leaders did the right thing, stated their cases eloquently and forcefully, and fought for the rights and dignity of every human being. The efforts of this one man, a former president and son of a president, helped end slavery. In his argument to free people who had been captured and enslaved, Adams uttered words that every generation, every administration, every citizen should remember:

This review of all the proceedings of the Executive I have made with utmost pain, because it was necessary to bring it fully before your Honors, to show that the course of that department had been dictated, throughout, not by justice but by sympathy — and a sympathy the most partial and injust. And this sympathy prevailed to such a degree, among all the persons concerned in this business, as to have perverted their minds with regard to all the most sacred principles of law and right, on which the liberties of the United States are founded; and a course was pursued, from the beginning to the end, which was not only an outrage upon the persons whose lives and liberties were at stake, but hostile to the power and independence of the judiciary itself.

Here in the midst of the modern dark ages, where the leading candidates for a major party presidential nomination openly advocate such outrages upon both the judicial and legislative branches, Adams' words should haunt the consciences of anyone who might have the power to stop them.  ¶ 10:58 AM 1 comments links to this post

  Bush Commits Treason (and no one does anything, again) Scott McClellan wrote a book entitled What Happened. It'll be out in April. Remember, he told us that the President and the top staff had nothing to do with outing Valerie Plame. Well, he won't be getting any Christmas cards from the White House next month....

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."

This is so simple. These people outed a covert CIA agent who was working on keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. On April 26, 1999, George HW Bush said:

“I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”

And the people who cover up these traitors, who give them aid and comfort? Aren't they traitors too? And people who obstruct an investigation of these traitors? Aren't they insidious too?

This is treason. I can't think of a higher crime or misdemeanor...

Labels: Bush, Bush Administration Treason, Bush treason, CIA, Dick Cheney, Scott McClellan, Valerie Plame

  ¶ 10:47 AM 0 comments links to this post

  Waterboarding is Torture A group of former intelligence officials of the US has sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging that a hold be placed on Mukasey's nomination until he goes on record saying that waterboarding is torture. The letter, available at No Quarter, is reprinted here in its entirety, with permission:

MEMORANDUM FOR: Chairman and Ranking Member Senate Committee on the Judiciary

FROM: Former U.S. Intelligence Officers

SUBJECT: Nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General

Dear Senators Leahy and Specter,

Values that are extremely important to us as former intelligence officers are at stake in your committee’s confirmation deliberations on Judge Michael Mukasey. With hundreds of years of service in sensitive national security activities behind us, we are deeply concerned that your committee may move his nomination to the full Senate without insisting that Mukasey declare himself on whether he believes the practice of waterboarding is legal.

We feel this more acutely than most others, for in our careers we have frequently had to navigate the delicate balance between morality and expediency, all the while doing our best to abide by the values the vast majority of Americans hold in common. We therefore believe we have a particular moral obligation to speak out. We can say it no better than four retired judge advocates general (two admirals and two generals) who wrote you over the weekend, saying: “Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.”

Judge Mukasey’s refusal to comment on waterboarding, on grounds that it would be “irresponsible” to provide “an uninformed legal opinion based on hypothetical facts and circumstances,” raises serious questions. There is nothing hypothetical or secret about the fact that waterboarding was used by U.S. intelligence officers as an interrogation technique before the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004. But after Alberto Gonzales became attorney general in February 2005, Justice reportedly issued a secret memo authorizing harsh physical and psychological tactics, including waterboarding, which were approved for use in combination. A presidential executive order of July 20, 2007 authorized “enhanced interrogation techniques” that had been banned for use by the U.S. Army. Although the White House announced that the order provides “clear rules” to govern treatment of detainees, the rules are classified, so defense attorneys, judges, juries — and even nominee Mukasey — can be prevented from viewing them.

Those are some of the “facts and circumstances.” They are not hypothetical; and there are simple ways for Judge Mukasey to become informed, which we propose below.

Last Thursday, President George W. Bush told reporters it was unfair to ask Mukasey about interrogation techniques about which he had not been briefed.

“He doesn’t know whether we use that technique [waterboarding] or not,” the president said. Judge Mukasey wrote much the same in his October 30 letter, explaining that he was unable to give an opinion on the legality of waterboarding because he doesn't know whether it is being used: “I have not been made aware of the details of any interrogation program to the extent that any such program may be classified and thus do not know what techniques may be involved in any such program.” Whether or not the practice is currently in use by U.S. intelligence, it should in fact be easy for him to respond. All he need do is find out what waterboarding is and then decide whether he considers it legal.

The conundrum created to justify the nominee’s silence on this key issue is a synthetic one. It is within your power to resolve it readily. If Mukasey continues to drag his feet, you need only to facilitate a classified briefing for him on waterboarding and the C.I.A. interrogation program. He will then be able to render an informed legal opinion. We strongly suggest that you sit in on any such briefing and that you invite the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to take part as well. Receiving the same briefing at the same time (and, ideally, having it taped) should enhance the likelihood of candor and make it possible for all to be — and to stay — on the same page on this delicate issue.

If the White House refuses to allow such a briefing, your committee must, in our opinion, put a hold on Mukasey’s nomination. We are aware that the president warned last week that it will be either Mukasey as our attorney general or no one. So be it. It is time to stand up for what is right and require from the Executive the information necessary for the Senate to function responsibly and effectively. It would seem essential not to approve a nominee who has already made clear he is reluctant to ask questions of the White House. How can a person with that attitude even be proposed to be our chief law enforcement officer?

We strongly urge that you not send Mukasey’s nomination to the full Senate before he makes clear his view on waterboarding. Otherwise, there is considerable risk of continued use of the officially sanctioned torture techniques that have corrupted our intelligence services, knocked our military off the high moral ground, severely damaged our country’s standing in the world, and exposed U.S. military and intelligence people to similar treatment when captured or kidnapped. One would think that Judge Mukasey would want to be briefed on these secret interrogation techniques and to clarify where he stands.

The most likely explanation for Mukasey’s reticence is his concern that, should his conscience require him to condemn waterboarding, this could cause extreme embarrassment and even legal jeopardy for senior officials this time not just for the so-called “bad apples” at the bottom of the barrel. We believe it very important that the Senate not acquiesce in his silence—and certainly not if, as seems the case, he is more concerned about protecting senior officials than he is in enforcing the law and the Constitution.

It is important to get beyond shadowboxing on this key issue. In our view, condoning Mukasey’s evasiveness would mean ignoring fundamental American values and the Senate’s constitutional prerogative of advice and consent.

At stake in your committee and this nomination are questions of legality, morality, and our country’s values. And these are our primary concerns as well. As professional intelligence officers, however, we must point to a supreme irony—namely, that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation practices are ineffective tools for eliciting reliable information. Our own experience dovetails well with that of U.S. Army intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. John Kimmons, who told a Pentagon press conference on September 6, 2006: “No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells us that.”

Speaking out so precisely and unequivocally took uncommon courage, because Kimmons knew that just across the Potomac President Bush would be taking quite a different line at a press conference scheduled to begin as soon as Kimmons finished his. At the White House press conference focusing on interrogation techniques, the president touted the success that the C.I.A. was having in extracting information from detainees by using an “alternative set of procedures.” He said these procedures had to be “tough,” in order to deal with particularly recalcitrant detainees who “had received training on how to resist interrogation” and had “stopped talking.”

The Undersigned
(Official duties refer to former government work.)

Brent Cavan
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

Ray Close
Directorate of Operations, CIA for 26 years—22 of them overseas; former Chief of Station, Saudi Arabia

Ed Costello
Counter-espionage, FBI

Michael Dennehy
Supervisory Special Agent for 32 years, FBI; U.S. Marine Corps for three years

Rosemary Dew
Supervisory Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI

Philip Giraldi
Operations officer and counter-terrorist specialist, Directorate of Operations, CIA

Michael Grimaldi
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Federal law enforcement officer

Mel Goodman
Division Chief, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; Professor, National Defense University; Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy

Larry Johnson
Intelligence analysis and operations officer, CIA; Deputy Director, Office of Counter Terrorism, Department of State

Richard Kovar
Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director for Intelligence, CIA: Editor, Studies In Intelligence

Charlotte Lang
Supervisory Special Agent, FBI

W. Patrick Lang
U.S. Army Colonel, Special Forces, Vietnam; Professor, U.S. Military Academy, West Point; Defense Intelligence Officer for Middle East, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); founding director, Defense HUMINT Service

Lynne Larkin
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA; counterintelligence; coordination among intelligence and crime prevention agencies; CIA policy coordination staff ensuring adherence to law in operations

Steve Lee
Intelligence Analyst for terrorism, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

Jon S. Lipsky
Supervisory Special Agent, FBI

David MacMichael
Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA; History professor; Veteran, U.S. Marines (Korea)

Tom Maertens
Foreign Service Officer and Intelligence Analyst, Department of State; Deputy Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, Department of State; National Security Council (NSC) Director for Non-Proliferation

James Marcinkowski
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA by way of U.S. Navy

Mary McCarthy
National Intelligence Officer for Warning; Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, National Security Council

Ray McGovern
Intelligence Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA; morning briefer, The President’s Daily Brief; chair of National Intelligence Estimates; Co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Sam Provance
U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst, Germany and Iraq (Abu Ghraib); Whistleblower

Coleen Rowley
Special Agent and attorney, FBI; Whistleblower on the negligence that facilitated the attacks of 9/11.

Joseph Wilson
Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Ambassador and Director of Africa, National Security Council.

Valerie Plame Wilson
Operations Officer, Directorate of Operations

Labels: Bush Administration Treason, Bush treason, torture

  ¶ 10:28 AM 0 comments links to this post

  Economic Letter the the LA Times In today's Business section, the LA Times mirrored the right wing administration's talking points about the economy, disguised as the jobs report, in which unemployment remained "steady" at 4.7% in October while the economy "added" 166,000 jobs. A deeper look is warranted.

In a Bloomberg article, albeit buried deep below the fold, we find the tip of the truth-burg:

"In contrast to the payrolls figures, a separate household survey showed a loss of jobs. The unemployment rate held steady because about 200,000 people left the workforce."

A little more investigation would reveal that 344,000 people left the work force in September and 340,000 left in August.

Further study of the October numbers reveals that the propaganda catapulters claimed that the real estate sector added 2800 jobs, and commercial banking added 1500, despite a housing slump. How is this possible?

The administration uses the Birth/Death Model to estimate job growth and unemployment. This statistical model is designed to see jobs created from new businesses that the job survey doesn't see. The US Department of Labor assumes these jobs were "created" based on the employment situation a year ago. So, this model cranks out numbers that say new financial service companies created 25,000 jobs in October, despite a worldwide credit crunch and the housing bust.

And the LA Times, along with all the other main stream media, parrots these numbers as if they're fact. Meanwhile, middle class American families are falling further and further behind, even though inflation is "low."

Which brings us to the GDP "growth" of 3.6% that this administration is reporting for the third quarter. This magic number is reached by counting inflation at .8%, the lowest inflation number for GDP purposes since Eisenhower. Meanwhile, the latest edition of the Economist magazine is reporting that inflation of "all items" (you know, the things people actually pay for like fuel, food and rent) at 16.7%. If we use the Economist numbers, we get a GDP of -12% annualized.

No wonder a corporatist government and their media friends don't want you to see the truth. We're in a deep recession.

And lying to the American people is basically treason. Corruption is theft. The Iraq war is the largest theft

Labels: jobs, statistics, US Economy

  ¶ 3:11 PM 0 comments links to this post

  My Burned Out Neighbors Must Hate America Last night, we watched the flames of the fires engulf the hills of brush less than a mile from our house. Three houses less than a mile away burned to the ground overnight. So, I was a little surprised, after years of getting assaulted by the Bush voters who make up two-thirds of the electorate here, to find out from Glenn Beck, that these neighbors of mine hate America.

I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.

Wow. I knew my neighbors probably voted for Bush. I know they support killing Muslims because more than one of them told me we should just nuke the whole middle east. I know they want middle class children to die if their parents are too stupid or lazy to make the fortune health insurance costs. I know they've assaulted me physically because they don't like my bumper stickers. I know they support the second amendment and the rest can go fuck themselves.

But I didn't know they hated America.

Oh, and it's a brush fire, you moron.

Labels: Brush fires, Bush Voters, Glenn Beck, Media

  ¶ 3:08 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Bush Administration Commits Treason Again This is sickening. Just sickening. More treason from the Bush Administration.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

I'd like to quote Article III of the US Constitution (ain't it quaint):

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

I'm going to watch the History Channel.

Labels: Bush, Bush Administration Treason, Bush treason

  ¶ 6:06 PM 0 comments links to this post

  This is How Bush "Supports" the Troops

Thousands of U.S. soldiers in Iraq — as many as 10 a day — are being discharged by the military for mental health reasons. But the Pentagon isn't blaming the war. It says the soldiers had "pre-existing" conditions that disqualify them for treatment by the government.

We spend a lot of money making sure that people with "personality disorders" can't enlist. Then they go to war. Now I know you Chicken Hawk bastards who want to fight wars on the cheap won't understand this, but war fucks these guys up. They get brain injuries. They get PTSD. But now the Pentagon, which knows damn well they did not have any problems when they enlisted, is saying they did. The Pentagon (read White House) knows damn well how expensive care is for these kinds of injuries, wants to spend all that money paying Blackwater mercenaries and Halliburton latrine contracts instead of actually supporting the troops.

Why am I not surprised? I'd sure like to hear some of you Bush lovers explain this one, because I just love hearing bullshit from you sick fucks.

Labels: Bush, Iraq, Iraq veterans, US casualties, vets

  ¶ 2:45 PM 0 comments links to this post

  The Great Iraq Swindle Bush didn't invade Iraq to find weapons. Hell, he was told there were no weapons there, and didn't care. He didn't even do it for the oil. He did it because the neo-cons orchestrated the largest swindle of American taxpayers in the history of the country.

Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ­Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up.

And just maybe, reviewing this appalling history of invoicing orgies and million-dollar boondoggles, it's not so far-fetched to think that this is the way someone up there would like things run all over -- not just in Iraq but in Iowa, too, with the state police working for Corrections Corporation of America, and DHL with the contract to deliver every Christmas card. And why not? What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits are handed out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureauc­racy. This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profit­eering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure -- American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole.

Go read it. And then I dare one of you fucking Republican Bush lovers to come back here and tell me why this glorious clusterfuck is good for my children, who will be paying for it.

Labels: Bush, Bush treason, corruption, Iraq, military industrial complex, military privatization

  ¶ 12:43 PM 2 comments links to this post

  There's a Word for Lying to Continue a War (or to start one) Treason. When they lie to keep Americans in a hopeless situation, it's treason. Just like it was treason to get us there in the first place. So, any of you arguing that the surge is working, or that if we leave it will be genocide, or that a bunch of third world Muslims are going to follow us home and take over this country, forcing their religion down our throats, just remember who's feeding you that Bullshit.

Cheney.

Name one thing he's been right about, and then tell my why you want to keep listening to him.

One thing.

Fact is, the numbers they're spewing now are just more crap, and any of you who eat it up and vote Republican again are treasonous, shit-eating mother fuckers too. Go fuck yourselves. Your glorious Grand ol' Party of racism, hate, and kill-them-allness is spiraling down the drain to a very ugly place... Good riddance.

Labels: Bush treason, civilian deaths in Iraq, Dick Cheney, Iraq

  ¶ 3:51 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Over 80 US Dead in Iraq per Month for 5 Months Now Arianna's excellent dissection of Republican Petraeus Praising Points (typical Republican tactic to alter plotlines to fit their political ideology) set me off like Hunter Thompson on adrenal extract. In her story, she mentions a little tid-bit that has apparently been missed by the main stream and tributary media (my apologies to anyone who already diaried this).

For the first time since the war began, we've just had five straight months with 80 or more U.S. fatalities.

And it's getting worse. Nine more soldiers were killed yesterday and today, meaning

April has been the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers in Iraq this year. The latest deaths raise to nearly 100 the number of U.S. soldiers killed this month.

I get sick thinking about it. Nearly 100 US Troops dead in April. That's a VT almost every week. If Iraq got half that coverage every week, we'd be re-deployed by now.

Instead, we have more BS from the obfuscator in chief, who the Fox Playback Megaphone and other co-conspirators hoist up, praising the brave men and women who are Making the Surge Work. As if Bill Moyer's didn't exist.

We have a team of liars, who have been at this Military Industrial Game for a long time now. The Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal is very adept at convincing Rubes to spend billions on military boondogles. They've had lots of practice. In fact, their life-long goal of privatizing the military has been met with Blackwater and Halliburton (et al). Now they can retire and fight little private wars anywhere, without answering to anyone. Corporations are taking over, and soon we'll have Rollerball to keep our minds off the annoying little things like statistics of military dead in faraway places, and how much those adventures cost.

No substitutions, no penalties... and no time limit!

The financial black hole of Iraq has provided enough US Taxpayer dollars to fund black ops until the Rapture, or at least Armageddon. Team B has succeeded in milking America for exactly what they need to continue murdering whoever they want, and this time there won't be any Iran-Contra scandal or Pentagon Papers to screw things up.

In light of all these putrid facts, which no one outside the progressive net roots seems to give a flying fuck in a rolling unarmored humvee about, I'd like to think about 80 a month for 5 straight months.

What are they dying for? If, as I heard Mitch McConnell saying on NPR yesterday, we are fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, then why are they getting a pass in Pakistan? And if the answer is, well, we need to be smart about Pakistan, because we need Musharaff, then why isn't it the same answer for Iraq? Don't wee need to be smart about hunting Al Qaeda there too?

And didn't the Democrat's funding bill make an exception for going after Al Qaeda? I mean, hey, I just saw Flight 93 too. Made me cry. Made me want to kill the bad guys. Made me wish we had a smart government that would have gotten Bin Laden, no matter where he was.

But it didn't make me want to put American hands on the heads of two sides in a civil war and try to hold them apart like two well-armed 10 year olds. It didn't make me want to watch over 80 coffins per month come back wrapped in flags that will be carefully folded with military precision and handed to a mother or widow.

The McCain escalation in Baghdad has nothing to do with Al Qaeda. To go after those guys, we need special forces. We need allies. We need quick response teams. All the things the Democrat bill allows for.

So, we're not one signature from ending this war. We are one signature from putting the focus back where it needs to be: on the people who attacked us on 9-11. You know, like the one George Bush said this about:

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

I think I'm going to hide in the mountains too, so Republican meat grinder feeders can't find my 12 year old son 6 years from now. I hear Colorado is turning blue and getting warmer...

Labels: Bush, Dick Cheney, Iraq, military industrial complex, military privatization, Rumsfeld, US Troop Deaths in Iraq

  ¶ 4:13 PM 3 comments links to this post

  US Military Coup in Progress - takeover by Christion Zionist Theocratic Fascists This is a quote from Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, from a debate Wednesday night:

Now I know I'm at war, and my legions are at war. We are not at war with Christianity and we are not at war with evangelical Christianity. Ah, but we are at war with a subset of evangelical Christianity with a long technical name that I hope won't take the rest of my time. I'll say it just one time today: it's premillennial, dispensational, reconstructionist, dominionist, evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity. I know it's a long name. We'll just call them Bob. Dominionist Christianity - the leaders you know very well: Robertson, Dobson, used to be Haggard - he's had a career change - D. James Kennedy, John Hagee, alot of people that I won't be going out to dinner with, and for a long time.

As Troutfishing's diary at the Daily KOS points out, these freaks are taking over the US Military. I wonder how many people at the White House, with their finger on the button, believe in this Rapture shit too?

More Weinstein from the debate:

"What you do when you have a 3 star general that’s ordering his staff to put together a Powerpoint presentation showing the direct parallel between the Book Of Revelation and all of our movements in the AOR ? ( for you civilians - area of responsibility, Iraq and Afghanistan )

What do you do when have a four star general who favors the distribution of a pamphlet in his commander’s bulding, his palace, advertising in all faiths and why "Jesus vs. Mohammed, An Examination of The Life of Both Prophets and Why Jesus is Superior To All" ?

Why was the most popular joke here at the Air Force Academy in 2004 "Why do Jews make the best magicians ?" Anyone know ? Show of hands ? We make the best magicians, apparently because we have the magical ability to walk into a red brick building and come out the smokestacks in a puff of smoke."

These people put God and Family before their country, in direct opposition to their oaths. As one woman who was tormented by these fascist racists put it:

"Their participation and promotion of this group is in direct violation of their oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. One officer said that God, his family, and then the US were his priorities.

I ran into this "God First, orders second" attitude when I served in the USAF. There were people in charge of the communications facilities who felt that they should do what God and the Bible told them, not what their commanders said. And if God told them to do something to launch a nuclear holocaust, they would do it. Yes, they actually told me that.

Sleep well tonight: your military wants to bring about the Rapture". - Talk To Action contributor Lorrie Johnson

Labels: Christian Zionists, Evangelicals in the Military, Fascism, Religious Freedom, Revelations, The Rapture, Theocracy, US Air Force

  ¶ 12:04 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Kurt Vonnegut Died: So It Goes Vonnegut on GW Bush:

The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected.

George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.

In case you haven’t noticed, we are now almost as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis were.

Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.

Honestly, I wish Nixon were president. Bush is so ignorant.

By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas in December.

Vonnegut was a master of irony. He used it lethally, often imperceptibly to those not quite his equal, as this exchange from Vonnegut's Wikipedia Page illustrates:

In 2005 Vonnegut was interviewed by David Neson for The Australian.[18] During the course of the interview Vonnegut was asked his opinion of modern terrorists, to which he replied "I regard them as very brave people." When pressed further Vonnegut also said that "They [suicide bombers] are dying for their own self-respect. It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's [like] your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing ... It is sweet and noble - sweet and honourable I guess it is - to die for what you believe in." (This last statement is a reference to the line "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" ["it is sweet and appropriate to die for your country"] from Horace's Odes, or possibly from Wilfred Owen's ironic use of the line in his Dulce Et Decorum Est.) David Neson took offense to Vonnegut's comments and characterized him as an old man who "doesn't want to live any more ... and because he can't find anything worthwhile to keep him alive, he finds defending terrorists somehow amusing." Vonnegut's son, Dr. Mark Vonnegut responded to the article by writing an editorial to the Boston Globe in which he explained the reasons behind his father's "provocative posturing" and stated that "If these commentators can so badly misunderstand and underestimate an utterly unguarded English-speaking 83-year-old man with an extensive public record of exactly what he thinks, maybe we should worry about how well they understand an enemy they can't figure out what to call."

Vonnegut was scheduled to speak at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion's Speaker series in June. I hope they get his son instead.

Poo-tee-tweet...

Labels: Bush, Kurt Vonnegut

  ¶ 9:25 PM 0 comments links to this post