Kid's gotta mouth like my boy!

By Mr. Fish

Anti-Bush Video Game Nixed

Sony poached most of the developers for this game--where the Chinese invaded the mainland US as a result of some bad Pretzel-dent'n on W's part. Maybe they'll all come back to this intriguing FPS after the "more important project." Because, you know, making bad Presidential decisions is so, like, yesterday.

Perhaps Sylvie Barak would like to tell us what the "more important" project was. And, honestly, for an article that breaks its back bending over backwards to piss on the anti-Bushness of a video game, it really misses a chance to hit those good ol' talking points about fighting them over there so we don't have to burn to death in Chinese gasoline over here.

in reference to:

"With a veritable wealth of video games in existence, one doesn’t often spare a thought to those that didn’t quite make it, but a recent interview with game developer David Jaffe provides some insight into what could have been a highly controversial first person shooter based on George W. Bush's polices abroad."
- Anti Bush video game nixed | TG Daily (view on Google Sidewiki)

George Bush blames Jimmy Cater for His Miserable Life

JAFR (just another fucking republican) alert! Here's Dumbya, as quoted by CBS news today, referring to Jimmy Carter calling his handling of the war a "flat out disaster."

"I have no desire to see myself on television. I don't want to be a panel of formers instructing the currents on what to do... I'm trying to regain a sense of anonymity. I didn't like it when a certain former president -- and it wasn't 41 or 42 -- made my life miserable."

Because, yeah, it's all Carter's fault that you're a miserable failure. And I love the way he reveals that he thinks of himself as a whole panel. Get all the classic Bush quotes here.

George Bush: the gift that keeps on giving...

New quote for the George Bush quotes page:

"This is going to come as quite a shock to people up here that I can write a book, much less read one."--Former President George W. Bush, 2-26-2010, addressing the Bush-Cheney reunion breakfast. Bush's "memoir" is due in November.

Eat Shit Cheney Lovers

Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.-- George Washington

Via Attackerman, on the stuff the right wing leaves out about General Washington.

For All You Bush Lovers, Here's a Handy Visual Aid

It must be hard to admit that the economic theories that you've had most of your life aren't just wrong, they're dangerously wrong. After all, if you've spent most of your adult life trying to tell people that cutting taxes leads to trickle down effects that include jobs, higher wages, and better benefits for those in the middle and the bottom, then any facts that are contrary to that handy fiction are best left unmentioned, or, better yet, attacked.

Well, get out your big guns, boys, because here's a fact that proves that the only thing that trickles down is the shit down your legs.

Racist Jesus

Sounds like the Lt. Governor of South Carolina.

http://supak.blogspot.com/2010/01/dont-let-them-eat-cake-or-theyll-breed.html

in reference to:

"15:22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. (15:22-26) "And cast it to the dogs" Jesus refuses to heal the Canaanite woman's possessed daughter, saying "it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to the dogs." 15:23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. 15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Should the gospel be preached to everyone? Canaanite Dogs 15:25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs."
- Matthew , Chapter 15 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Too Big to Fail

At least Bob got to see this Supreme Court ruling he most certainly would have loved.

in reference to:

"Appointed to head the Commerce Department, Mr. Mosbacher said he aimed to develop closer ties between government and industry, perhaps, he hoped, with the aid of relaxed antitrust laws, so that United States factories could better compete in high technology."
- Robert A. Mosbacher, Former Secretary of Commerce, Dies at 82 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Compare and Contrast: GWB v BHO

Everybody's talking about the enormous amount of time Obama spent communicating with people during his first year and the worst depression since the last one, as compared to the much lesser amount of time that, say, W spent on TV.

See, when you're in charge of a White House where Obama is the President, during a national disaster that was the rubble left after 8 years of W, the first thing you want to do is get him out there talking. If you're in charge of the George Dumbya Bush White House, not so much.

Then there is, of course, the matter of total debt added under your watch. Over 8 years for W, it's 5 trillion. Despite Karl Rove's complete and utter I-dare-you-to-look-it-up declaration that Obama has already added more to the debt in one year than Bush did in 8, the debt has gone up 1.693 trillion in Obama's first year. So, yeah, fuck you Karl, you lying scum.

To me the telling stat in Bush vs. Obama is the vacation time, which I cover in this Side-wiki post on Obama's first year numbers.

It's bad enough you gave us Bush...

Of course, when will you ever see anyone get in Karl Rove's face about this? Will some media person ask him this? Or will we all be disappointed when Jon Stewart is the only guy to ever say something, and then Karl weasels out of it, like John Yoo did?

It's great that Axelrod calls him out on it, but, honestly. The kind of people who vote for Bush, watch Fox, and believe in the book of Revelations literally are not going to believe any of the facts Axelrod hands them, no matter how true they are.

Fact is, if someone was stupid, greedy, ignorant, bigoted, or whatever enough to vote for Bush twice and has yet to apologize, then they're just going to make up whatever they want to make up, as long as it's convenient to their argument at that exact moment. They don't care if people can actually "look things up" or "check the facts." They just want Jesus to come burn all the heathens in a lake of fire, and the sooner the better.

in reference to:

"To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration's swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit."
- David Axelrod - What Karl Rove got wrong on the U.S. deficit - washingtonpost.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Lying Bigots Can't Even Get the Names Straight

It's bad enough these bigots think they have some sort of God-given right to make everyone else behave like them, but they can't even keep the names of important players straight within their own paragraphs.

So, in this fun little list of bigotry's biggest hits, they have listed me, although they were obviously talking about Rep. Bart Stupak, as being a US representative and anti-choice. Both of those propositions are laughably wrong, although I do represent a majority of Americans on these matters, just not officially.

Not only that, but I'm anti-religion, especially the hateful crap coming from Baptists. I grew up with Baptists, who bribed me with "God Bucks" to ride the bus to Grand Avenue Baptist in Hot Springs Arkansas. Once I got the bike from the God store, I stopped going.

Now is the time we dance.

in reference to:

"Supak says he and 10 or 11 other representatives could vote against a final bill that doesn’t meet his criteria concerning abortion."
- The Baptist Bulletin » World News: Jan. 13, 2010 (view on Google Sidewiki)

"...comfort to our enemies..."

While the most recent "terror attack" has succeeded, through failure, to cost us billions in additional security (an example of super-empowerment as John Robb of Global Guerrillas calls it), it has also, thanks to the likes of Liz and Dick Cheney, succeeded in spreading terror.

But is it treason? Well, as treason is, by constitutional definition, giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy, then the exaggerated news coverage and commentary is halfway there.

From the NY Times: “We give comfort to our enemies,” said Charles E. Allen, a 40-year C.I.A. veteran who served as the top intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security from 2007 to early last year. Exaggerated news coverage and commentary, he said, “creates an atmosphere of tension and fear, and to me that’s exactly the wrong way to go.”

So all you "conservatives" (too ashamed to call themselves Republicans anymore?) out there hyping up this threat should realize you're almost there on the treason scale. The real threat is fear itself, and you're trying to create more of it.

Guess that makes Dick and Liz (et al) terrorists, too.

And, in the case of the former Vice President, who played a large part in ignoring threats before 9-11, and in the strategy that let Bin Laden get away from Tora Bora, it certainly looks like he was aiding the terrorists.

So, there's your aid and comfort, Dick, you multi-tentacled, fear-mongering, terror loving traitor.

in reference to:

"“We give comfort to our enemies,” said Charles E. Allen, a 40-year C.I.A. veteran who served as the top intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security from 2007 to early last year. Exaggerated news coverage and commentary, he said, “creates an atmosphere of tension and fear, and to me that’s exactly the wrong way to go.”"
- News Analysis - Terrorist Plots in U.S. in 2009 Are Called Amateurish and Unconnected - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

What I Miss About Television

Anything we miss from the highly over-priced cable TV we're not getting anymore, we can make up for by having friends tape stuff, watching Daily KOS TV, or with Netflix. The following is a Rachel Maddow highlight. And I do mean highlight. Because this goes way beyond telling Dick Cheney to shove his bullshit up his own ass with a shotgun. This is about telling the truth, and how the Republican party just doesn't give a shit about The Truth. Or the country for that matter. They put their party Uber Alles, and Rachel intelligently and comprehensively puts them in their place. Watch the whole thing for a nice bonus dig on the idiots who call themselves the media who perpetuate the lies.

We Were Just Out of Schlitz

Maureen Dowd manages to get to the heart of the matter of Bush Treason in her column today, which draws on the Peter Bergen article in this month's New Republic. I haven't read the Bergen article, but if I feel like my blood pressure is dropping, maybe I will.

Dowd cuts to the chase via her conversation with Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, while flying over the mountains of Afghanistan where Bin Laden was cornered. She notes that right in the middle of the show down at Tora Bora, Donald Rumsfeld asks Gen. Tommy Franks to "freshen up" an Iraq invasion plan.

Odd, that? Or is it? Are we supposed to believe that these neo-con geniuses of the Bush administration had the world's number one terrorist--who they often blamed Clinton for not killing or capturing as a defense for their own lack of diligence before 9-11--cornered in some mountains and they bungled it?

Please.

They were busy getting ready for Iraq, and now Gates wants to buy the idea that that is why we couldn't send a few hundred Army Rangers into kill Bin Laden?

Gates tells Dowd: "“Afghanistan was a vastly underresourced operation because, as some of the generals say in the Pentagon, we were just out of Schlitz. We didn’t have any more troops to send.”

What a crock. This wasn't screwed up. This is the kind of thing that we are good at, as we proved later in Iraq when we caught Saddam, and when we killed his sons. Once all the intelligence and surveillance work has worked, we send in the crack squads, and we finish the job.

The Tora Bora episode failed to get Bin Laden because George W. Bush and his minions decided to let him go. It's the only explanation that makes sense. To suggest that the greatest military force in the world, led by the Army Rangers--perhaps the best fighting force in history--shouldn't be sent into some mountains to get the guy that just orchestrated the most devastating attack on America in our short history is just crap.

To suggest that we didn't have the resources in Afghanistan is crap. We had thousands of troops there, including the Rangers. We had bombed the caves Bin Laden was in with bunker busters for days. The cratered landscape was ripe for a crack force which was ready to go, and the President of the United States decided not to.

George W. Bush provided aid and comfort to Usama Bin Laden. He had him cornered and he decided--perhaps because it's always good to have a bogey man around--to let him go.

And that is the definition of treason.

in reference to:

"“Afghanistan was a vastly underresourced operation because, as some of the generals say in the Pentagon, we were just out of Schlitz,” Gates said. “We didn’t have any more troops to send.”"
- Op-Ed Columnist - Blunder on the Mountain - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Aid and Comfort to the Enemy

Via the New York Times, yet another report confirms the thesis of this blog: that the Bush Administration committed treason, the definition of which, is in Article Three of the US Constitution:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

From the above linked NYT story, a new Senate report adds more proof to the case against the Bush Administration, especially Donald Rumsfeld. They let Bin Laden go when they had him cornered in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December, 2001.

The report, based in part on a little-noticed 2007 history of the Tora Bora episode by the military’s Special Operations Command, asserts that the consequences of not sending American troops in 2001 to block Mr. bin Laden’s escape into Pakistan are still being felt.

The report blames the lapse for “laying the foundation for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan.”

George Bush stood on top of the rubble of the WTC and said we'd get those guys, but when it came time to actually get them, the order came down, from the Administration, to let our enemies get away. The Whitehouse ordered US troops not to finish the job.

I can think of many ways to aid our enemies. Short of actually plotting an attack with them, letting them get away with it, especially when you actually have them cornered and then let them go, is nothing short of treason. It would be hard to aid and comfort an enemy more than letting them walk away from justice.

In legal terms, this is known as accessory after the fact. Helping a mass murderer escape prosecution is, at the very least, a felony, and, without much effort at all, easy to define as treason.

Now that we know how the Bush administration worked, taking the politics of everything into account, is it such a leap to conclude that the Karl Rove mentality of making everything political, played a part in the decision to let our enemies walk away from Tora Bora? When people in top positions at the White House make decisions to let our enemies simply pack up and walk off through the mountains, doesn't that at least deserve investigation? Doesn't that at least deserve outrage from those who supposedly cherish our National Security above all else?

I can't wait to see the drivel from these Bush cheerleaders dismissing this story as politically motivated Bush bashing from the deranged left. It will be just another example of how these hacks put the well-being of the Republican party above the safety of US citizens, and above the ideal of justice for mass murderers.

Message to Republicans: Please Nominate Cheney!

The one thing I was worried about for 2012?

Dick Cheney for President.

Brought to you by people who should be shot in the face with bird shot.

On the Definition of Treason

I sometimes cross post what I write here at the Daily Kos, where I'm sure to get a few comments anytime I bring up the T word. I enjoy the smart comments there, as the dKos readers are some of the smartest on the net. It's why I'm a longtime member there.

Regarding my last post about why I call it Bush Treason, I got a response that laments the dilution of the term.

Because the Constitution, which I remember even if Dick Cheney tried to shred it, actually defines treason:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

That is a high standard to attain.

Did the Bush administration actually invade the United States? No. Did they actually help the terrorists in their plot? No.

No treason. There are a variety of reasons to consider the Bush administration the worst ever, but debasing the word treason does not help.

My response:

Did they actually help the terrorists with their plot? Well, could the plot have been carried out if they had done their job? Would the plot have been carried out if Bush had read the PDB and done something about it? Would the plot have been carried out if Ashcroft hadn't told people to stop telling him about terrorism?

...adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Is it that much of a stretch to say that we created Osama, and that the neo-cons (especially Cheney) funded him, supported him, and basically created him? Same with Saddam... These people were not exactly friendly to the US, but in the neo-con zeal to fight the USSR, Cheney et al certainly gave Aid and Comfort to future enemies.

But, say, OK, but they weren't our enemies at the time. Well, then when they got reports about imminent terror attacks and chose to ignore them, isn't that aid and comfort? When Ashcroft said he didn't want to hear anymore about terror, that's willful ignorance which led to our enemies operating without any kind of Justice Department effort to stop them.

But, again, I'll go with you and say, no, ignoring a threat is not the same as helping someone attack us. Even then, when you come out after the attack and lie about what you did to stop it... When you lie to make yourself look more heroic, when you cover up what went wrong, when you attack someone who had nothing to do with it thereby sucking resources away from the good fight, are you not helping the enemy get away with it? When you have the guy who did it cornered in Tora Bora and you let him get away, isn't that being an accessory after the fact?

I could go on and on. To me, I am not debasing the word treason because I don't limit it's definition. I'm trying to say that there's a whole series of actions by Dick Cheney et al which actually did give aid and comfort to our enemies. Just because Dick wasn't on a plane with a box cutter doesn't mean that he didn't do his damndest to make sure we got ourselves a Pearl Harbor Type Event. All he had to do was not do his job.

Further, I haven't even delved into a possible alternative explanation of the definition of enemies. Since the P and VP are sworn to protect and defend the constitution, and by extension US Law, then by torturing, wiretapping, and who knows what all, they actually became the enemy!

I do see your point, but I don't understand why sticking to such a narrow definition of treason is so important. By sending this country into an illegal war based on bullshit and lies, they essentially declared war on the US. They helped those who are truly our enemies with recruiting, with milking us dry economically (think the trillion dollars we will spend on Iraq is going to help us economically?), and by taking our focus away from the people who really attacked us. To me, that's treason.

Why Do I Call It Bush Treason?

Maybe the better question is why don't more people call it treason. George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and most of the administration ignored warnings about Al Qaeda, were incompetent (My Pet Goat is just the tip of the iceberg) in the response to defend the nation, and then lied about it.

The following is from Jacob Heilbrunn's book review in today's NYT of John Farmer's The Ground Truth:

Preoccupied with building a costly missile defense system to counter a spurious menace from Russia and with maintaining “full spectrum dominance” over the rest of the globe, most Bush administration officials blithely ignored the danger emanating from the caves of Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his acolytes plotted against America. Confronted by a small group of mostly Saudi nationals armed with box cutters, the central nervous system of the country’s defense agencies went into a state of cataleptic shock. The only decisive action taken on 9/11 came not from the military, but from the courageous passengers who stormed the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93, leading the hijackers to crash the plane over Pennsylvania farmland before it could reach its intended target in Washington.

That's bad enough, of course, but then, like dirty little boys lying to their mother that they hadn't been playing in the mud, they claimed everything was just fine. I'm sure someone idiot will claim this lie was heroic, for stopping the spread of panic over their own incompetence, but to me, it's further evidence of treason. They knew they had fucked up, and they'd never get re-elected if everyone knew it, so they lied about it. Heilbrunn:

[...] Farmer superbly renders the knuckle-biting tension and confusion engendered by the hijackings, and says the leadership of the F.A.A. and the Defense Department “would remain largely irrelevant to the critical decision making and unaware of the evolving situation ‘on the ground’ until the attacks were completed” — thereby making it close to impossible for the military to inter­cept any aircraft.

Yet both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney, Farmer says, provided palpably false versions that touted the military’s readiness to shoot down United 93 before it could hit Washington. Planes were never in place to intercept it. By the time the Northeast Air Defense Sector had been informed of the hijacking, United 93 had already crashed. Farmer scrutinizes F.A.A. and Norad rec­ords to provide irrefragable evidence that a day after a Sept. 17 White House briefing, both agencies suddenly altered their chronologies to produce a coherent timeline and story that “fit together nicely with the account provided publicly by Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney.”

Farmer further observes that the Bush administration wrongly asserted that the chain of command functioned on 9/11; that President Bush issued an authorization to shoot down hijacked commercial flights; and that top officials at F.A.A. headquarters coordinated their actions with the military. Farmer’s verdict: “History should record that whether through unprecedented administrative incompetence or orchestrated mendacity, the American people were misled about the nation’s response to the 9/11 attacks.”

Of course, misleading people after such a shocking event proved easy enough, so they just kept doing it. The lies just kept piling up. Pat Tillman comes to mind. So does Iraq (you know, the place Fox News doesn't seem to remember).

It's just too much. You don't have to be a genius to see why so many conspiracy theories have formed around the attacks. The picture that is becoming more and more clear is that the Bush Administration ignored repeated warnings and signs of attack, told officials to stop telling them about it (Ashcroft), spent all their time on other things (planning to invade Iraq, spend billions of missile defense boondoggles, and suck cash away from the poor with massive tax cuts to the rich while drowning non-rich-corporation-subsidization domestic programs in a bathtub), fucked up their response to the attack, and then lied about it to make themselves seem more heroic.

How can anyone possibly call that anything other than treason?

You Go, Girl!

From Wanda Sykes' new show:

I went to sleep, and when I woke up people were mad at Obama. And I thought, 'Did I miss something? Did Obama start an illegal war? Did he fly over a flood zone and just wave? Did he torture detainees in a secret prison? Did he start illegally tapping phones? Did he alienate the world and squander a surplus? Because if he did any of that, we need to impeach that jackass.'

Bush Administration Officials Cashing In On Iraq

I'm shocked. Shocked to hear that former Bush administration officials are profiteering in Iraq.

In 2008, Tim Shorrock reported for Salon that while “working inside America’s ’shadow’ spy industry, George Tenet, Richard Armitage, Cofer Black and others are cashing in big on Iraq and the war on terror.” Now, the Financial Times reports today that even more Bush administration officials are eyeing profits in Iraq:

[...]

Senior Bush administration figures including Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Baghdad, and Jay Garner, the retired general who led reconstruction efforts immediately after the war, are leading a new business push into Iraq.

Seth and Amy should have done this, instead of the Goldman Sachs thing. Because rich people getting better health care than the rest of us isn't really that much of a really, but starting a war to make your buddies rich, well, that only happens every now and then in America.