If Specter Is Behind It, It’s Pro-GOP

And if Bush agreed to it, it’s Pro-Bush administration, Pro-GOP, Pro-government snooping-on-Americans, Pro-secretive shenanigans and ANTI-AMERICAN PEOPLE. The NYT reports this morning that the White House has agreed to let a secret court decide whether the NSA wiretaps were legal or illegal. This secret court is the FISC--Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is part of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). FISA is a legal entity that was established for the purpose of deciding "foreign intelligence" surveillance matters. It is separate from ordinary law enforcement surveillance. But here’s the most interesting part. The FISC is a secret—ne plus ultra secret--court. It doesn’t have to publish its findings. It makes its decisions in secret and they stay secret. The FISC bases its findings on presentations from the Department of Justice. Yeah, that’s right, as in: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Department of Justice. Um…let me amend my former statement. Here’s the most interesting part: Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee) worked with President Bush and White House officials to agree on a plan to review the wiretapping program. Are we talking foxes in charge of the henhouse, or what? As the NYT says, “If approved by Congress, the deal would put the court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in the unusual position of deciding whether the wiretapping program is a legitimate use of the president’s power to fight terrorism. The aim of the plan, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told reporters, would be to ‘test the constitutionality’ of the program.’” Representative Jane Harman, (D-CA) the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the Specter-White House agreement “is an end run” around the FISA law requiring the approval of individual wiretapping warrants. “I have great respect for this guy,” Harmon said of Mr. Specter, “but he hasn’t been briefed on this program, and he’s giving away in this legislation a core Fourth Amendment protection by basically saying that the FISA court has permission to bless the entire program, which will abandon as best I can tell the requirement of individualized warrants.” With all due respect to Jane Harmon, I have no respect whatsoever-at-all-and-no-way for Arlen Specter. He’s a GOP tool, a weasel, a scum-sucking, forked tongued betrayer of the American people. BTW, he still strongly believes that a magic bullet killed President Kennedy. Arlen Specter will always support any plot, scheme or plan that consolidates and increases the secret powers of the GOP. And this plot/scheme/plan is a beaut. The FISC will go into secret session, decide that the NSA secret wiretapping was absolutely and incontrovertibly legal, but it will not publish its findings. The only way we will know is when AG Gonzales stands up in front of TV cameras does his Gonzales smirk and says, “I can’t give you any details because they are secret. But surveillance cameras in US malls have revealed an upsurge in the number of low-income senior citizens going into malls in hot weather and not buying anything. Therefore, in order to differentiate between low-income senior non-buyers and terrorists, the US government is requiring all low-income seniors to wear buttons in the shape of red/white targets on their lapels. This is necessary for national security and it was made a US Department of Justice law by an entity I cannot reveal, at a time I cannot reveal, by a court whose name I cannot reveal, in findings I cannot reveal by men whose name are secret.”

Robert Novak Claims He’s Pure as Driven Snow

Exactly one month ago, on June 12, 2006, Karl Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, read a short letter he had received from Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. The letter said that Fitzgerald “does not anticipate seeking charges” against Rove. To date, we have not heard directly from Patrick J. Fitzgerald. But those are very specific and carefully chosen words. Did Rove make a deal that Fitzgerald was giving notice that Rove had better honor or he would be charged? No matter how you disect the sentence, it does not say Karl Rove is innocent and will not be charged. However, every newspaper in the land pronounced that Rove would not be charged. In fact, in reporting about Robert Novak’s latest column which circulated on the Internet last night, the New York Times said this morning, “Last month, Mr. Fitzgerald informed Mr. Rove, who had testified before the grand jury five times, that he would not be charged.” It was three years ago, July 14, 2003, that Novak’s weasely column started the whole mess by leaking information that Joseph Wilson’s wife was a CIA undercover agent who used her maiden name, Valerie Plame. Joseph Wilson is the man who put the lie to the White House claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Africa. Novak’s latest column says, “I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury. Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue." Novak named Karl Rove, Bill Harlow of the CIA and a third source whose name he would not divulge because the official has not come forward publicly. The NYT reported “Mr. Novak said his decision to discuss his sources with Mr. Fitzgerald had been made reluctantly, after he realized that the prosecutor had learned independently of those sources and his lawyers had advised him that he faced a costly and probably unsuccessful legal fight if he refused to cooperate.” If Novak says he did not make any deals with Fitzgerald, then we know he made a deal. Just as we know Rove made a deal. But the real question is: In order to save their worthless asses, who did Novak and Rove rat out that would be more than worth a Novak and a Rove? Sounds like Cheney or Bush to me.

Mr. Ratfucker Is Surprised By Your Surprise

Mr. Ratfucker has been reading recent news reports, opinions and man-on-the-street interviews. He has found that the public is genuinely astonished that our soldiers are engaging in rape, murder and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. In an effort to explain why this turn of events has occurred, one news story reported that the military is having trouble getting decent recruits and has lowered its standards to the point of accepting skinheads, neo-Nazis and gang members into its ranks. Even if that were true, Mr. Ratfucker believes it is a factor not a reason for the cruel and subhuman behavior of our soldiers. The reason our troops are acting like unprincipled brutes is twofold: 1) All of mankind is capable of quickly sinking into inhuman behavior when threatened. 2) In all wars, American soldiers are trained to think of the enemy as nonhuman things. How cruel would an ordinary American be if his life were in peril? The answer is VERY. In 1961-1962 Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments on obedience to authority at Yale University. He found that 65% of his subjects (ordinary residents of New Haven) willingly gave apparently harmful electric shocks of up to 450 volts to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority ordered them to do it. And the subjects knew the victim did nothing to deserve to be punished. In reality, the experiment used an actor who did not actually receive shocks. But this fact was not revealed to the subjects until the end of the experiment. The most ordinary of us is capable of inflicting horrible pain on our fellowman if an authority figure either condones it or commands it. Mr. Ratfucker is well aware how comforting it is to think we are the person who would never deliver an electric jolt to another human being just because we were told to do it. And he is well aware how comforting it is to cluck our tongues over the rapes going on in Iraq, knowing in our hearts we are too well brought up, ethical and nice to do such atrocious things. However, the training our soldiers are receiving dehumanizes the enemy. And the Bush administration is the authority that condones these brutal attacks. It is the only way a government—any government—can ratchet up the kill response in an ordinary human being when the government decides to go to war. Mr. Ratfucker asks: Can you be so sure how you would act if you were scared shitless, filled with hatred, had a gun, felt threatened, and had been told your government condoned and blessed every brutal act you could inflict on the enemy?

PA’s Problem, But the Nation Should Worry

New York Times Headline this morning: Running Hard, Senate Power (Rick Santorum-R-PA) Seeks a New Image. The NYT said, “Polls show that Robert P. Casey Jr., the state treasurer, holds a comfortable lead over Mr. Santorum — in a Quinnipiac University poll, Mr. Casey is in the lead by 18 points.” However Rick Santorum is dancing as fast as he can to try to make Pennsylvanians forget who he is and what he believes in. Lest anyone forgets: Rick Santorum has voted with President Bush 98% of the time. He’s a religious fanatic conservative, he rubber-stamps every Republican initiative, and he has made some of the most outrageous statements ever to come out of the US Senate. Santorum’s voting record: Rated 25% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record. Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record Rated 25% by CURE, indicating anti-rehabilitation crime votes. Rated 27% by the NEA, indicating anti-public education votes. Rated 100% by CATO, indicating a pro-free trade voting record Rated 0% by APHA, indicating an anti-public health voting record. Rated 0% by SANE, indicating a pro-military voting record. Rated 0% by APHA, indicating an anti-public health voting record. Rated 0% by the AFL-CIO, indicating an anti-union voting record. Rated 10% by the ARA, indicating an anti-senior voting record. Santorum said, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." On May 18th, 2005 he expounded on the Senate filibuster fight and equated those who were against changing the way judges are confirmed with Hitler. He said. “It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942, 'I'm in Paris. How date you invade me. How dare you bomb my City? It's mine.'” On September 6, 2005, Santorum said regarding Hurricane Katrina: "I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving." He believes the world and everything in it was created 6,000 years ago and he admires the fanatic Opus Dei cult. In an April 7th, 2005 Associated Press interview Santorum said that “marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality...it's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.” He has publicly fought for capping pain and suffering lawsuits at $250,000. But his wife sued her chiropractor in a pain and suffering case for $500,000 and won $350,000. I said on April 23, 2006 “Santorum has six children. He enrolled his school-age children in a school that was open only to Pennsylvania residents, even though the Santorums live in Virginia. He only removed the kids from the Pennsylvania school when a school board member raised a stink about the illegal arrangement.” Now he’s involved in another controversy about his residency. The NYT reported this morning: “He (Rick Santorum) found himself mired in controversy over his residency in recent weeks, with his detractors highlighting the fact that while he maintains a modest residence in suburban Pittsburgh, his family lives in the Virginia suburbs when the Senate is in session, which is the majority of the year. Critics argued it was not unlike the living arrangements he denounced in his 1990 House race against Representative Doug Walgren, the Democrat he defeated.” On Thursday, June 22, 2006, Santorum said, "We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons.” So, once again, I must repeat the words of former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey who wondered whether Santorum is "Latin for asshole.”

What’s Behind GOP Plan to Muzzle Press?

It was one more preemptive strike when the Bush administration cried foul over stories running in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and LA Times about our government tracking banking transactions of potential terrorists since 2001. The White House used the publishing of the stories as an excuse. The information was anything but secret and had been known and written about during the last five years. And the White House had publicly acknowledged the fact that banking transactions were being surveilled. Ever since George W. Bush became president in 2000, the White House has tried to control the press. And it was fairly successful until the President’s approval ratings plummeted into the 30’s. At that point, the mainstream media finally discovered it still had vestigial ca-jones. Although I have no idea what nefarious plots and schemes the Bush administration wants to keep away from the public, you can take this to the bank: The White House has a desperate need to totally control the press RIGHT NOW. I am assuming it has to do with some nasty, smelly and potentially treasonous sweetheart deals the White House has made or wants to make with Russia, China and yes, North Korea. Hence the most recent preemptive strike against the mainstream media. If the White House can make the public’s right to know illegal, then it can proceed with its fascist plans. And if John McCain wins the next election, it will be so much easier for him to proceed with the Republican sale of the United States to foreign countries if he doesn’t have to worry about a meddling press. The list of countries that George W. Bush designated as the "axis of evil" (Iraq, Iran and North Korea) needs to be revised to include the US under Republican rule. And by the way, the New York Times had some interesting comments this morning on the “surprise windfall” the Repubs are boasting about re shrinking the deficit this year to $300 billion. “One reason the run-up in taxes looks good”, the NYT says, “is because the past five years looked so bad. Revenues are up, but they have lagged well behind economic growth.” The NYT went on to report, “’The fact is that revenues are way below what the administration said they would be a few years ago,’ said Thomas S. Kahn, staff director for Democrats on the House Budget Committee. ‘The long-term prognosis is still very, very bleak, and the administration doesn't have any kind of long-term plan.’” Two rules-of-thumb apply for deciphering White House statements: 1. When the Bush administration makes a statement, it is a lie and the exact opposite is true. 2. The Bush administration has allied itself with the most evil and corrupt men in the world.

Prez Hopes Lay’s Heart Was Right With God

That’s what George W. Bush said on Larry King last night. "You know,” our folksy born-again God-anointed President said, speaking about Enron Corp. founder and betrayer of the innocent Kenneth Lay, “my hope is that his heart was right with the Lord”. And as any God-fearing, self-righteous, Bible-thumper knows, being right with God means having confessed your sins to God and having asked Him for forgiveness. Oddly, though, what we have here are two people who see themselves as sinless: George W. Bush and Ken Lay. So neither one could confess his sins and ask for forgiveness because neither can see he’s done anything wrong. But one goes on national television and in order to appear just a tad more holy than God Himself, piously hopes that the one other sinless person in the world was right with God when he went to his reward. And, just in case God had gone out for a cup of coffee and neglected to pass judgment Himself, Little Jesus of the White House pronounced that Lay was “a good guy”. I can only assume the Almighty was laughing his ass off, or He would have knocked the pious putz off his chair with a camera boom and electrocuted him then and there.

Ken Lay Was a Son of a Bitch

Former speechwriter for Reagan and GHWBush, Peggy Noonan, said today in the Wall Street Journal, “isn't it obvious that Ken Lay died of a broken heart?” The New York Times said, “Mr. Lay was fairly convicted of his crimes, but he was also a father and grandfather, whose family mourns his passing. He was headed for the penitentiary, but that did not have to be the end for him. He would have had an opportunity to use his personal skills to help other prisoners.” The NYT also said Lay had risen up by his bootstraps and that he was a Horatio Alger kind of guy. When Ken Lay was charged with his horrible crimes at Enron, he got on television and prated about what a fine Christian man he was. What crap and balderdash! Ken Lay was a greedy, avaricious, selfish, uncaring bastard and now he’s dead. How does death turn him into a saint? How does death make it impolitic and a social gaffe to remember him as the ugly person he was? Why are we not to speak ill of the dead? Death does not wipe out the devastation one has caused. If Ken Lay died of a broken heart, which he didn’t, who in the sane world cares? What about the broken hearts of the people he consigned to a poverty-stricken old age because he willfully and deliberately squandered their savings? By the time Ken Lay died, he had no heart to be broken. Horatio Alger must be spinning in his grave at being remembered in the same sentence with Ken Lay. Lay would have rehabilitated himself in prison? Not a chance. If the NYT wants to indulge in a fantasy about what Ken Lay would have done had he lived, I’m game. Ken Lay would have never stopped working on the fiction that he was innocent. He would have become a jailhouse lawyer who tried to help all the other criminals in his cellblock slither out of their righteous convictions. And he might well have become ordained by a born-again correspondence-school seminary--the better to deceive and defraud his fellow prisoners. The NYT likes far-out and unprovable conjecture? Okay. How about this? Knowing that his assets would be inheritable if he died, the Lay family suggested to their financial genius paterfamilias that he take a pill that would mimic a massive heart attack. Kind of like Frankie Pentangeli in The Godfather Part II. At least that would have shown a generosity of spirit. But even that probably didn’t happen because Ken Lay had no generosity of spirit.

Explain This To Me Please:

"I'm going to make you this promise…I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done." I have no idea what that means. And I doubt President Bush knows what it means. He made the dramatic pronouncement to soldiers and their families in Fort Bragg, NC yesterday on the Fourth of July. The actual total of American soldiers who have already died in vain in Iraq is 2,538. And what does getting the job done entail? What does getting the job done mean? When will the job be done? NO ONE in the White House, the entire Bush administration or the GOP has ever spelled out what “victory” in Iraq is. Presumably victory and getting the job done is the same thing. But what has to happen to accomplish it? In September of 2001, the President said he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive”. This was a day after Vice President Dick Cheney said he would “willingly accept bin Laden’s head on a platter”. Six months later, in March 2002 Bush said, "I don't know where he (Osama bin Laden) is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him. I truly am not that concerned about him." Yesterday Bush told his captive audience, "They administered compassionate medical care to a man (Al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) who showed no compassion to his victims…and when this brutal terrorist took his final breath, one of the last things he saw was the face of an American soldier from Fort Bragg, N.C." It was not reported whether any of the soldiers puked in disgust at such maudlin manipulative nonsense. But why is the Prez even talking about Al-Qaeda’s ringleaders? A news report yesterday said that the unit hunting for Osama bin Laden had been closed down late last year because “Al-Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was.” Now that there is no Al-Qaeda to speak of, and Osama probably died of natural causes in his cave surrounded by a loving family and loyal followers a year ago, and civil war has already erupted in Iraq, and the people of Iraq are worse off than they were under Saddam, and the Iraqis want us and our murdering raping soldiers out of Iraq, tell me Mr. Jackass-in-Chief: Precisely what is “the job” in Iraq? And exactly what has to occur for it to be “done”?

More Bush Administration Doublethink

On February 9th, 2006, President Bush gave a speech to the National Guard in the National Guard Building in Washington, D.C. A white House press release billed it as "President Discusses Progress in War on Terror to National Guard". The Prez invoked the words “September the 11th” or “9/11” twelve times. And he said “Al-Qaeda” 19 times. Bush said, “The attacks in London and Madrid and other cities are grim reminders of how lethal Al-Qaeda remains.” At the time Bush gave his impassioned speech about the deadly Al-Qaeda, the CIA had already closed its unit for hunting Osama bin Laden late last year. The NYT reported this morning that intelligence officials say the Bin Laden unit (called “Alec Station”) was shut down because “Al-Qaeda is no longer as hierarchical as it once was.” Oh, and another reason it was shut down was because members of Alec Station “had acquired a reputation for crazed alarmism about the rising Al-Qaeda threat." Let’s see, what was it Bush said when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed on June 8th? “The death of the Jordanian-born Zarqawi is a severe blow to Al Qaeda," and “the killing of Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, offers a chance to ‘turn the tide’ in the war.” And how much cash money did MSNBC report the US government was offering for “information leading to al-Zarq1awi’s killing or capture”? Oh yeah, it was $25 million. What was that about crazed alarmism? So the White House isn’t hunting Osama anymore and Al-Qaeda has been downgraded to “no longer hierarchical”, and we didn’t attack Iraq because of WMD’s, and our spreading of Bush-style freedom has been as productive as spreading manure on a saltflat. So what are we doing in Iraq? Oh that’s right…we’re running Republican election campaigns for this coming November and for 2008.

Did the Pod People Get John McCain?

Watching John McCain (R-AZ) yesterday on George Steph’s “This Week” was like watching a Stepford Wife run her robotic conversation…the same bland silliness, the same zoned-out smile, the hollow laugh, the dead eyes. Oh dear…where has the GOP hidden the real John McCain? The worst-case answer is: This is the real John McCain. McCain wants to be president so bad that he’s finally showing us who he is. And he hopes kissing ass and saying yes to Republican crimes, greed and avarice will win the day. The NYT reported this morning that McCain had been giving President Bush words of support. McCain said he told Bush, “Look, hang on, things are bad, I'm proud of the job you are doing, and I wanted you to know that I will continue to do what I can to help.” McCain added, "I've tried, when his numbers went down, to be more supportive and outspoken, because I'd love to pick him up.” McCain says he’s confident Congress will overturn the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that Bush had overstepped his bounds re Gitmo prisoners. That is to say, whatever torture McCain went through during his five years as a POW, he thinks should be visited on US prisoners. And if the Supreme Court says otherwise, the Supreme Court should be overruled. Now, that’s something that is understandable. McCain wants revenge on his captors, and the one way he can get it is to torture our captives. I get that. But what about the other unconscionable Bush administration policies that McCain has rubber-stamped? What it means is, the GOP has decided to continue its fascist overthrow of the US government and it’s fine with John McCain. The GOP is sticking with whatever worked in 2000 and 2004 and John McCain has given notice he intends to sanction all of it, if the folks will PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ELECT ME. The NYT reprinted a pic this morning of McCain during Bush's last election campaign desperately hugging Bush like a lost boy who had just found his Scoutmaster. It says it all.

GOP Plan For Staying in Power: Talk Tough

House Republican leader John A. Boehner (R-OH) said that Al Qaeda was “surely pleased at the show of support from Capital Hill Democrats” last week when they applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Prez had overstepped his powers re detainees at Gitmo. As the LA Times said this morning, tough talk “helped the GOP to take control of the Senate in 2002 and Bush to win reelection in 2004” And apparently the Repubs are confident that tough sounding bullshit will also win the day in 2006 and 2008. The other part of the tough talk plan is to paint the Democrats as “wishy-washy” traitors who “embolden” terrorists. Recently, the Prez said, "What's going to matter [in the 2006 elections] is who has got the plan that will enable us to succeed in Iraq.” The flaw in that idiotic boast is that the Bush administration has no plan for success in Iraq. And that is because the Bush administration cannot succeed in Iraq. The White House has switched from swagger and brag about winning the war to swagger and brag about defeating terrorism. And yet, neither is possible. For a couple of days, the White House talked trash about how killing the Al Qaeda leader Zarqawi had the insurgents on the run. But facts soon showed the claim to be ridiculous. A suicide bomb in an open-air market in Baghdad on Saturday killed 77 people and wounded 96 in the deadliest single attack since the Iraqi government was formed six weeks ago. And everyday we hear one more grisly story about American soldiers killing and raping civilians in this out-of-control, unnecessary and unwinnable war. The GOP says Democrats are “defeatists” and that they have no plan for victory in Iraq. It’s true. It’s impossible for a sane person to be optimistic about the chances for success in Iraq since there is no chance for success in Iraq. It’s impossible to have a plan for victory when victory in Iraq is out of the question. When do we start to defeat terrorism in Iraq? What does success in Iraq look like? What does victory in Iraq look like? And what is the Bush administration’s step-by-step plan for winning in Iraq? We will never hear answers to those questions because the White House cannot have a cogent plan for a situation that cannot happen. We will only hear how tough talk will win elections in the US. But here is a really tough question: Does the Bush administration want to win in Iraq and therefore have an end to this war? Or is it better for big business, better for Republicans, better for the foreign powers that the GOP has already sold out to, to keep this war going?

The Problem With Having an Insane Leader

First, let’s me state the obvious: George W. Bush is insane. The problem with a nation having an insane leader (as in Germany’s Hitler, Uganda’s Idi Amin and Panama‘s Manuel Noriega) is that in the beginning, the leader’s insanity seems to work to the advantage of the people who let him rise to power. But having been granted immense and unprecedented power, an insane leader will always make rulings that not only are not helpful to his followers, but also run counter to the best interests of his nation. An insane leader simply wants unlimited power. And that is the state of the Republican Party today. The Supreme Court justices that the Repubs so masterfully elevated to the highest court in the land are now having to make rulings against the sociopath who put them in power in order to save the Republican Party. Loyal Repubs like Senator John Warner (R-VA) are having to step back and decide whether the Prez should be slapped down for overreaching. An insane leader will ALWAYS bite the hand that feeds him. And that means curtailing the power of those who anointed him. That’s the way it is. Interestingly, Idi Amin was abandoned by his father and grew up with his mother’s family. Manuel Noriega was given up for adoption at age 5 by his father and the maid his father knocked up. Hitler’s father was very strict and savagely beat his son. What about the boyhood of our insane leader? He’s a mama’s boy who had little contact with his father. Does this matter? It may explain a thing or two. But the important point is the United States has an insane leader who has decided he has the power to do anything he wants to do. And his henchmen are prepared to destroy anyone who opposes him. If the President’s henchmen wise up and realize that their insane leader will do ANYTHING--including destroying his henchmen--to increase his power, can they stop him? I have no idea. Do you?

How Wrong Can Repubs Be?

And let’s be crystal clear, the Supreme Court is as Republican as Fox News. If ever there was doubt that the United States Supreme Court will hand down pro-Republican decisions whenever possible, yesterday’s ruling that the major portion of Tom DeLay’s redistricting plan in Texas would not be challenged was proof positive. It was DeLay’s redistricting scheme that won the Republicans six more House seats in 2004. The Supremes also ruled that the Texas Legislature violated the Voting Rights Act in redrawing a certain district in southwestern Texas in 2003. However, by shooting down the Democrats’ gerrymandering claim, the highest court in the land has now said, in effect, it’s okay for all states to adopt the Texas model of redrawing districts when Republicans need more House seats. But an even worse sin than corrupting the Supreme Court is the Republican Party’s stance on global warming. The GOP has been wrong wrong wrong about global warming for decades and now we are reaping the damages of its willful blind stupidity fueled by greed. New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have been experiencing torrential rainfall and flooding for the past week. Ten people have died due to the floods. The Schuylkill River overflowed its banks yesterday. In Philadelphia, both Kelly Drive (on the east side of the river) and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive (on the west) were closed. The main road to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge also was flooded. One woman being interviewed on KYW Radio said she believed all this strange weather was due to global warming. Finally, thanks to Al Gore, the man-in-the-street is starting to realize global warming is a very real threat to our lives, our well-being and our economy. But what are the Republican Party’s most important issues in an election year? Flag-burning. Gay marriage. Denying women the right to an abortion. Giving illegal immigrants amnesty. Cutting back money for food stamps and student loans. Increasing funds to kill our soldiers in Iraq. Denying a raise in the minimum wage. Protecting the schemes of indicted criminal Tom DeLay. There is no end to how wrong the Republican Party was, is and continues to be.

Repubs Use Flag as Diversionary Ploy

And it almost worked. Yesterday the Senate rejected by one vote a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. A two-thirds majority (67 votes) is required to amend the constitution. The flag-burning ban got 66 votes in favor of the amendment. This kind of grand-standing to keep our attention off the real problems in the Bush administration will keep coming up the closer we get to elections: Gay marriage, flag burning, amnesty for illegal immigrants--anything to keep the news off the news. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was the main sponsor of the flag-burning amendment. He said the minority who opposed it would be held accountable in November. "I think this is getting to where they are not going to be able to escape the wrath of the voters," were his exact words. Voters are going to be WRATHFUL over flag-burning, an offense that seldom occurs? I doubt it. The wrath of voters is already focused on Republicans who have backed the Bush administration and its fascist aims. Republicans like Orrin Hatch whose term ends in 2007. Following is the Hatch record on a few political issues. Sudan: civil war not a US threat; terrorism is. McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform is unconstitutional. Soft money gets out the vote; against banning it. Voted NO on negotiating bulk purchases for Medicare prescription drug. Voted NO on allowing importation of prescription drugs from Canada. Voted NO on allowing patients to sue HMOs & collect punitive damages. Voted YES on funding GOP version of Medicare prescription drug benefit. Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. Voted YES on allowing more foreign workers into the US for farm work. Voted NO on investigating contract awards in Iraq & Afghanistan. Voted YES on authorizing use of military force against Iraq. Rated 0% by APHA, indicating an anti-public health voting record. Rated 0% by the ARA, indicating an anti-senior voting record. Rated 0% by SANE, indicating a pro-military voting record. Orrin Hatch, who is 72 years old, is like so many Republicans who love war and all things military. Hatch has never served in any war and has no military record whatsoever. But give Hatch a flag to wave and he’s out in front of any parade. How about enacting a law that all American flags, regardless of size, have to be manufactured in the United States? How about enacting a law that requires that all people who make American flags in the US have to be paid at least $10 an hour? The July 3 issue of The New Yorker has a great cover called “Dependence Day”. It’s a drawing of Asian workers toiling in a flag-making sweatshop.

Prez Says “Disgraceful”; Cheney Is “Offended”

Were they talking about the illegal and unnecessary war in Iraq that was engaged in without Congress declaring war? Were they talking about the illegal wiretapping of Americans? Were they talking about using the war in Iraq as a political issue to get votes for Republicans? Were they talking about killing 2524 American soldiers in Iraq for no reason other than to steal Iraq’s oil and to begin pre-emptive strikes on the entire Middle East? Were they talking about the GOP policy of enriching the rich while victimizing the poor and elderly? Were they talking about Cheney getting contracts for his Halliburton Company in Iraq and becoming a war profiteer? Were they talking about FEMA and the Red Cross’s fraud and waste in the Katrina debacle? Were they talking about corruption in the Republican Party? No. None of the above. President Bush said “It’s disgraceful” and Vice President Cheney said “I’m offended” because the New York Times and other newspapers had disclosed that the White House had been tracking Americans’ financial transaction since 9/11 as part of a secret program to find terrorists. And the White House had not sought legal authority to do so. The President, in his patented way of assuming that terrorists are as stupid as he is, opined that, "If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money…and that's exactly what we're doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror." So terrorists wouldn’t have figured out that spooks were following their money unless they read the New York Times? It’s the illegality of it that the Times (and other newspapers) questioned, you moronic numnut. The fact that it was going on was no surprise to terrorists. "Congress was briefed," Bush said, “And what we did was fully authorized under the law.” Not true. Most members of Congress were not briefed until the White House found out the program was going to be revealed to the public. And no, it was not fully authorized under law any more than the NSA wiretaps were fully authorized under law. They were only authorized in the dream world of the Bush administration, where all wildass fantasies of Republicans are deemed authorized the minute they are conjured up. Disgraceful? You bet. Every day since the GOP overthrew the US government and made George W. Bush dictator has brought new disgraceful acts to light. Offensive? How can one count the ways? Legal? Not a chance. Very little the White House has done, including the 2000 election, has been legal.

And After Everyone is in Jail, Then What?

The New York Times reports this morning that Congressman Peter T. King, (R-NY) is outraged that the NYT divulged US government surveillance of confidential banking records. King said on Fox News on Sunday "I'm calling on the attorney general to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of The New York Times, its reporters, the editors that worked on this and the publisher." King later explained in a telephone interview why he hadn’t mentioned the LA Times and The Wall Street Journal, which had also written about the surveillance of banking records. It was because “The Times is more of a recidivist”, King said. That is, the NYT had published an article last year about NSA wiretapping. Senator Arlen Specter says the White House and Congress are this-close to reaching a resolution and to submitting the NSA wiretap program to judicial review. Most people on the Democrat side of things want to see Karl Rove in jail immediately. Soon to be followed by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney being frog-marched to the nearest pokey. Libby, Abramoff, DeLay and assorted other politicians already are being fitted for orange jump-suits. The Republicans want to put those who disagree with the Bush administration in jail. The Democrats want to put those who disagree with the Bush administration in political office and the whole Bush administration in jail. Is jail a deterrent for anyone? No. Even career criminals believe they can beat the rap. And certainly, the criminals in our three branches of government believe they can beat any rap. The biggest problem we have right now is that the folks who vote would rather vote for criminals than for honest people. Sociologists could probably explain why…I certainly can’t. But we will have decent people in government and we will have decent government when the people of the United States decide to vote for the “reasonable man/woman” that the law is so fond of citing as being the arbiter of legal issues. As long as folks want unreasonable pious-sounding fanatics and assholes running the government, that is exactly what we will have. And that is exactly what we do have.

Yes Indeedy, Iraqis Must Be So Grateful to US

This morning, the LA Times reported some grim statistics coming out of Iraq. In addition to the fact that the US has NOT restored the most basic services like heat, water, lights, security, health care or oil production in Iraq, here is the real devastation the US has wreaked on Iraqis while feeding them bullshit about bringing freedom and democracy to their land. LA Times: “At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies — a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration. “Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths in the chaotic first year after the invasion, when there was no functioning Iraqi government, and continued spotty reporting nationwide since. “The toll, which is mostly of civilians but probably also includes some security forces and insurgents, is daunting.” The LA Times puts it in perspective, saying: “Proportionately, it is equivalent to 570,000 Americans being killed nationwide in the last three years. In the same period, at least 2,520 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.” And to top it off, now that the war has failed, the lies have failed, the bullshit has not been believed, the Iraqis hate us, the world thinks we are craven bastards and Americans are fed up and want the troops out of Iraq, the Republican Party has decided to get Republicans elected by using the fear of terrorism as a can’t-fail platform. There is a kind of Bush administration Rovian logic at work: Who better to trust where terrorism is concerned, than the people who caused the terrorism to break out in the first place? It’s kind of like a psychopath telling his relatives, “I killed my mom, dad, and sisters and brothers, so I’m the only psychopath in the family who can save you from me.” But you’d have to be crazier than George W. Bush to believe it.

That’s the Best the Spooks Could Dig Up?

Yesterday, while waiting for the Miami FBI press conference to reveal the details of the arrest of terrorists who planned to bomb Chicago’s Sears Tower, CNN’s so-called security analyst Clark Kent Ervin ramped up the boo-scare quotient with some statistics and his own gaudy rhetoric. Ervin: “The FBI, we're told, knows of about 1,000 al Qaeda sympathizers here in the country, and about 300 extremists are under surveillance. So it's a very big threat indeed. And of course this comes against the backdrop of what the London authorities thought was a homegrown terror plot a few weeks ago, turned out not to be the case, and there certainly was a homegrown terror plot in Canada a few weeks ago.” More Ervin: “The FBI apparently believes that this was a homegrown radical Islamic terrorist program intent upon attacking the homeland, a political target, the FBI building in Miami, and an economic symbol, the Sears Tower in Chicago.” Then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales got on-camera and said, “The convergence of globalization and technology has created a new brand of terrorism. Today, terrorist threats may come from smaller, more loosely defined cells who are not affiliated with al Qaeda, but who are inspired by a violent jihadist message.” Then Gonzales introduced FBI Deputy Director John Pistole who led the investigation and the eventual indictment of the seven young men. Then dweeby, ineffectual, nerd-of-the-year Pistole got on camera and said, “Today's indictment is an important step forward in the war on terrorism here in the United States…The investigation reveals outstanding work by the law enforcement community. It also reminds us that we have much more work to do.” And now today we’re told that the seven who were arrested and were highly touted as a homegrown terrorist cell were more “aspirational than organizational” and that the boys’ club never got farther with a terror plan than yakking about it. If there are a thousand sympathizers and 300 extremists being surveilled by our crack spooks and moles with their state-of-the art technology, how come a bunch of young men who wore homemade turbans were the only terrorists that could be found by a swat team that “swarmed” around their clubhouse and broke in with a blowtorch? It’s obvious that the White House demanded Attorney General Gonzales arrest some terrorists somewhere somehow because the Prez desperately needed a show of strength in his fight against terrorism. But since the Bush administration is so sure that Islamists and jihadists have the organizational capability to attack the US right here and right now, why were teenage wannabes with no weapons and no plan the best the FBI could come up with? The answer is either that the President needs terrorists to be in this country more than terrorists have a need to be here. Or, the Attorney General, Homeland Security and the FBI are useless impotent assholes who couldn’t find a terrorist if he had a glow-in-the-dark target on his back.

News From the Clowns in Charge

FBI agents “swarmed” outside a warehouse in Miami yesterday. They removed a door with a blowtorch and arrested seven American men in their teens and twenties with no ties to Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization. The FBI believes the group was “hatching a widespread plot” to attack the Sears tower in Chicago, an FBI office in Miami and other US buildings. The group which calls itself “The Seas of David", sometimes wears things on their heads that resemble turbans, occasionally cover their faces and have been seen exercising outside the warehouse at night. Residents who live near the warehouse say the young men seem to be brainwashed and talk about Allah. “More details will be released today,” the FBI says. More arrests may occur. At the same time yesterday, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Senator John Warner (R-VA) defended the Republican stand that there should be no pullback of troops in Iraq by saying, "Future generations of Americans will look back upon this very moment to determine how two branches of our government, the legislative and the executive, today stand side by side, honoring those who've given their lives." So there you have it. Republicans say Iraq is the center of the war on terrorism and we have to stay there because that’s where terrorists come from. The FBI has arrested seven American teenagers in Miami who wear turbans, exercise a lot, seem brainwashed, talk about Allah and want to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. John Warner says we have to honor the Americans already killed in Iraq by killing more Americans in Iraq. And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) says it would be shameless to bring out troops home. You tell me, who is crazier and more dangerous? The kids in that warehouse? Congress? The FBI?

Republicans At Work

The Republican-dominated Congress has voted down a rise in the Minimum Wage from $5.15 to $7.25. The Minimum Wage has not been increased since 1997. However, members of Congress have given themselves a $30,000 increase in salary. Yesterday, House Republicans canceled a vote to renew the Voting Rights Act that goes back to 1965 and protects minorities from discrimination at the polls. Chairman of the House Intelligence committee Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) and Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, the third most powerful Republican in the Senate, claim they have found WMD’s in Iraq. Intelligence officials say, No you haven’t. When Spc. Patrick R. McCaffrey Sr., and 1st Lt. Andre D. Tyson were killed in June 2004 the military told their families they had been killed by insurgents even though the officials knew at the time the soldiers had been killed by Iraqi civil defense officers recently trained by the US. White House flacks say it would be political suicide for Republicans to scale back the war in Iraq. Press Secretary Tony Snow says the deaths in Iraq are “just a number”. The number of American soldiers killed by George W. Bush and Company has now reached 2,511. Those wonderful folks who gave us a war in Iraq in order to gain control of oil-rich countries and to show the world who is boss failed in both aims. Now they have decided to use their failed war to get themselves re-elected. Can such insanity prevail? Did Hitler kill six million Jews?

GOP Says Cow Pies Are Chocolate Pudding

Yesterday, the top men in the oil biz said our gas prices are cheap. And besides, it’s not greedy oil companies who are to blame for oil prices being high, which they aren’t. It’s global competition for supplies that makes oil prices seem high. In fact, oil prices are quite low. The price for fuel only seems high when we buy gas. This is an illusion caused by having so much less money in our wallets when we leave a gas station. George W. Bush visited the totally safe Green Zone in Iraq last week. He stayed in the Green Zone because guerillas, insurgents and Al-Qaeda members that the US supposedly has vanquished will shoot anyone venturing out of the Green Zone. The Prez said the war is going really good and we will be victorious if we stay the course, and presumably, stay in the Green Zone. Karl Rove, who has avoided ever serving in the military in peacetime or wartime, called decorated Vietnam War vets John Murtha and John Kerry “cowards”. The GOP says its amnesty plan for illegal immigrants is not an amnesty plan. And the amazing part about all of this dissembling is that the Bush administration is convinced the public buys it. The reason the White House thinks its lies have been accepted is because Congress has demonstrated it believes everything the White House dishes out. Congress is in its own Green Zone. And the Prez has been kept in a Green Zone ever since his first term. They all talk only to each other. In the political Green Zone the only thing that is of the slightest importance is getting re-elected. And Karl Rove and big business have absolute faith that the public is so stupid we believe anything we’re told as long as we’re kept frightened and off-balance. The GOP’s plan for keeping everyone frightened is to threaten us with what “the others” will do to us. The others will force us to become gay, they will force us to burn our flags, and terrorists will take over our land and rape our women and kill our men. And if that weren’t bad enough, the others will take money from god-fearing honest citizens and give it to the elderly and the undeserving poor. Funny thing. With all this loud rhetoric about how tasty the GOP diet of mud, horseshit and garbage is, the people still are overwhelmingly against the war in Iraq. The people who live in the world and not in a Green Zone don’t much mind gay unions, cannot stand the sight of George W. Bush, believe that people who break the law to live in the US should be punished, and think the entire Congress has its head up its ass.

What’s Wrong With Blogs?

1 Most blogs are boring 2 Most daily posts are too long 3 Bloggers tend to be wretched writers 4 Bloggers identify themselves with adolescent and silly names 5 Bloggers tend to be prissy and self-righteous 6 The layout of most blogs is ugly 7 Blogs have too many typos 8 Most bloggers are ignorant about syntax and grammar 9 Bloggers don’t read their own copy or they would fall asleep reading it 10 Bloggers argue with the people who make comments on their blogs

That Was No Debate, That Was A Mockery

“Members, this is not the time to go wobbly,” Gil Gutknecht (R-MN) said yesterday during the Republican rally for the war in Iraq, which was being billed as a House and Senate debate. “Give victory a chance,” Gutknecht added. On March 31, 2003 Gutknecht said, “Periodically the tree of liberty needs to be nourished with the blood of patriots.” The man is 55 years old and he has never served in a war. "This sends a good message that the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly opposes a cut-and-run strategy in Iraq," Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said. Cornyn is 54 years old and has never served in a war. “It is a battle we must endure and one in which we can and will be victorious,” Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said. Hastert is 64 years old and has never served in a war. Musn’t go wobbly. We will be victorious. We oppose cut-and-run. What cynical hogwash. The GOP doesn’t give a damn about the war in Iraq. The GOP wants to win votes by using the war in Iraq as a ploy. This so-called debate in Congress is the most blatantly contemptuous tactic the Republicans have ever used, and they are masters at sly, sneaky, scornful methods. There is no way the US can score a victory in Iraq. And these men know it. And what do these guys call a victory, anyway? Would it be a victory if all insurgents, guerillas and members of the Al-Qaeda were killed? How is that going to be accomplished? Would it be a victory if three-quarters of the enemy were killed? How do we do that? How do we find them? What manner of death do we mete out? Should we kill all Iraqis just to make sure? Or maybe we should take all Iraqis prisoners? And just to ensure that no one is lying and aiding and abetting insurgents or members of Al-Qaeda, shall we torture them all? Would that bring us victory? What about Afghanistan? Is victory in Afghanistan part of the “we will be victorious” slogan? Come to that, when and how do we start having a victory in Afghanistan? Will we be victorious in Afghanistan when every poppy plant and every guerilla, insurgent and member of Al-Qaeda is dead? I want just one chickenhawk asshole dickwad to tell me in twenty-five words or less: What constitutes victory in Iraq and how do we accomplish it? A much easier plan to accomplish is to vote out all the chickenhawk asshole dickwads in Congress and to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. Two thousand five hundred American soldiers have been murdered by delusional men in the GOP trying to effect total and complete power over the lives of everyone in the world. And it hasn’t worked. It’s time to call a halt on this whole fascist operation.

Bush’s Born-again Speechwriter is Leaving

It’s a very big deal that George Bush's main speechwriter Michael Gerson has decided “to pursue new career options”. People come and go all the time in the Bush administration. Some can’t wait to get out. Some are pushed out. Nearly all are replaceable with identical clones. But two Bushmen are not replaceable: Karl Rove and Michael Gerson. Gerson is the man who has made our ignorant, insensitive, crass, psychotic and confused president sound like a thinking human being. Gerson is the man who turned our president’s grandiose delusions about God’s personal intervention in his life into thoughtful prose with poetic cadences. Michael Gerson is what has passed for George W. Bush’s soul. Gerson actually believes what he writes because he has put God in the center of his own life. What on earth Michael Gerson was doing in the Bush administration is a deep mystery. Although Gerson is only 42, he had a heart attack a couple of years ago. He says he has been thinking of making a career change for some time. The New York Times reported this morning that Gerson chose now to announce his departure because “the White House is having a run of good news and the time seemed right”. If what is going on now can be called a run of good news, it shows how demoralized the White House has become. Gerson must have been referring to Karl Rove narrowly escaping going to jail and the president having popped a happy pill to act upbeat about the lost cause in Iraq. There are no plans to replace Michael Gerson because he cannot be replaced. He is the best speechwriter the godless White House could have found. There is no other like him. He’s a true believer not a posturer. He has faith in a transforming God. He has heart, ethics and character. And he has faith in the Republican Party. The White House will make noises about its sadness at Gerson leaving. Then we will be let know that although Gerson will be missed, there are speechwriters galore who will step into Gerson’s post. Chief among them, of course, is Karl Rove. It will be clear only to outsiders how irreplaceable Michael Gerson is. The White House, particularly George Bush, will see no difference between the speeches written by Gerson and those written after Gerson steps down. Only Michael Gerson knows what working in the Bush administration has cost him. He obviously thought he could make a difference. And except for making the president sound moral, ethical and intelligent for the time it took to read a speech, Gerson has made no difference. Only Michael Gerson knows what it costs a man to work day after day with soulless men whose very lives mock those who are God-centered. I wish Michael Gerson well. He’s a good man. He deserves a good and rewarding life.

Bush Says Plame Investigation is Over

Wilson/Plame say: Not by a long shot. What we know for sure is that Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin is the one who made the announcement that Rove will not be indicted. We have not heard from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. We know that Luskin quoted from the letter he got from Fitzgerald and that Luskin said Fitzgerald said he “does not anticipate” charging Karl Rove. We know that, according to the NYT this morning, “a lawyer for the Wilsons, Christopher Wolf, indicated that the couple was considering taking civil action against Mr. Rove. ‘The day still may come when Mr. Rove and others are called to account in a court of law for their attacks on the Wilsons,’ Mr. Wolf said.” We know that TruthOut.com says it stands by its May report that Rove was under a secret indictment. We know that Rove’s spokesman Mark Corallo felt it was necessary to state this morning that, “Mr. Rove had made no deals to cooperate with the prosecution in any way, and that the decision was based purely on Mr. Fitzgerald's findings.” We know that Fitzgerald’s spokesman Randall Samborn had no comment And we know the Prez said, "It's a chapter that has ended. Fitzgerald is a very thorough person. I think he's conducted his investigation in a dignified way. And he's ended his investigation." Considering Bush’s other statements, like “Mission accomplished”, “We found the weapons of mass destruction”, and “Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job", the brouhaha over the Plame leak is a long way from being ended. And if Rove’s people say Rove made no deal, Rove made a deal. Fitzgerald has declined to comment on his letter to Luskin about Rove, or whether he will continue to pursue the investigation. However, there are loose ends. Who was Robert Novak’s snitch? And what was Dick Cheney’s role in the whole affair? Is it over? Has the fat lady sung? It may not be over but Diva Rove has no doubt sung very long and very loudly indeed.

Karl Rove Off the Hook (Most Likely, Probably)

What does it mean, in the words of The Washington Post, that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald “does not expect to seek charges against” Karl Rove? Or, alternatively, in the words of Rove’s lawyer Robert Luskin, that Fitzgerald “does not anticipate seeking charges” against Rove. Is that a door Fitzgerald left ajar? “Does not expect to” doesn’t sound like “absolutely will not” to me. And Fitzgerald isn’t talking. Nor is his spokesman, Randal Sanborn. Sanborn said he would not comment on Rove’s status. Interestingly, the New York Times said, “The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case on Monday advised Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, that he would not be charged with any wrongdoing, effectively ending the nearly three-year criminal investigation that had at times focused intensely on Mr. Rove.” Huh! Is that what Fitzgerald said? Didn’t sound like he said, “Rove would not be charged with any wrongdoing” to me. Sounded like he said, “does not expect to seek charges”. Am I making a distinction that makes no difference? Luskin said Rove “did everything he could to cooperate" with the investigation. Oh, I’ll just bet he did! Has Rove gotten a deal for ratting out his cronies? We can only wait and see. But odds are that Robert Novak soiled himself when he read the news this morning.

Americans Have a Romantic Idea of War

And true stories coming out of Iraq are trampling that romantic idea. The American idea is that soldiers are not only fierce, loyal and brave, but they have a code of honor that keeps them from engaging in ungentlemanly behavior such as shooting people in the back, raping and killing women, killing children and torturing the enemy. However, the men who train our soldiers have to teach them that in the heat of battle you do what you have to do. And doing what you have to do may involve shooting people in the back, killing women and children and torturing the enemy. The raping of women is left to the soldiers’ discretion. The top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., has been given the unenviable job of perpetuating the American romantic idea of war. Casey said on Fox News yesterday that the allegation that our soldiers had beaten Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was “boloney”. I have no idea if Zarqawi was beaten or not. But I do know for a fact that it is absolutely within the realm of possibility that Zarqawi was beaten. And I know that because the fascists in the White House started a war in Iraq, and our soldiers have been trained to fight this war in the way all wars are fought: DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO DO in order to win the battle. If there were the remote chance that Zarqawi was alive and that he had information that the Americans wanted, of course they would try to beat it out of him. And why not? That’s war. That’s what the insurgents and members of Al-Qaeda would do to Americans and that’s what Americans have been trained to do to insurgents, guerillas, Al-Qaeda and the enemy in general. It may be that General Casey is denying in good faith the fact that Zarqawi was beaten. But since the idiots in the White House have put the United States and our soldiers in the position of fighting an unnecessary war, at some point Americans are going to have to grow up and understand what fighting a war means. The lily-livered Bush administration wanted to play soldier. And the ones who wanted to play soldier the most were men who had avoided serving in any war. Let us never forget, the following list of men never served in any war: President George W. Bush Vice President Dick Cheney Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay House Majority Whip Roy Blunt Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist Majority Whip Mitch McConnell Rick Santorum, third ranking Republican in the Senate Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott Former Attorney General John Ashcroft Florida Governor Jeb Bush White House Senior Advisor Karl Rove We’ve been forced to fight a stupid war by men who never fought in a war. And our men are being trained to fight this war the way all wars are fought. It is ridiculous for military men to deny how wars are fought in order to pander to the romantic, unrealistic and childish ideas of Americans, most of whom have never known war. And by the way, all you people who want us to keep on fighting in Iraq and want more soldiers to go to Iraq, you do know what war does to men, right? Not only may they come back horribly wounded and broken physically, but also they will be forever damaged by what they’ve seen and what they’ve been required to do.

The Big Question

The New York Times has a long article this morning (“At Site of Attack on Zarqawi, All That's Left Are Questions”) about the airstrike on Zarqawi’s hideout. Much of it was based on a briefing for reporters with Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, a U.S. military spokesman. The article neglects to address the allegations that Zarqawi had the crap beaten out of him before he died, except to assert that a military official said “(Zarqawi) had suffered no gunshot wounds, trying to dispel suggestions that someone had delivered a coup de grâce at the scene.” However, the LATimes, also basing an article on the Caldwell briefing (“Questions Remain About Zarqawi's Final Minutes”) reported, ”An Iraqi police lieutenant who said he was among the first people at the scene told The Times on Saturday that after Iraqi police had carried Zarqawi to the ambulance on the stretcher, U.S. troops took him off the stretcher and placed him on the ground. One of the Americans tried to question Zarqawi and repeatedly stepped on his chest, causing blood to flow from his mouth and nose, said the lieutenant, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “A man identified only as Mohammed, who said he lived near the Zarqawi hide-out, told Associated Press Television News that he had witnessed Americans beating Zarqawi. "They stomped on his stomach and his chest until he died and blood came out of his nose," he said.” As to the observation that there have been several versions of the details of the bombing and its outcome, Maj. Caldwell said, "There is no intention on anybody's behalf to engage in deception, manipulation or evasion." If that’s true, it’s the first time the military, the White House and the Associated Press have not intended to deceive, manipulate and evade. Two 500-pound bombs turned the Zarqawi house into rubble last Thursday and left a 40-foot-wide deep hole. How then, is it possible that Zarqawi's head and upper body were intact enough to be shown on television around the world? By Saturday, the result of the airstrike on Thursday had been removed and the hole filled in. There will be an autopsy of this body that escaped the devastation of 1000 pounds of explosives soon, we are told. And at that time, it will be disclosed exactly where Zarqawi was when the bombs fell. To count on no deception, manipulation or evasion regarding this autopsy and any further disclosures would be naïve in the extreme. As those disgusting, manipulative, deceptive and evasive Army ads say, “This is the Army”. First, the military knew that if Zarqawi were in that house there would be nothing left of him after the airstrike. Therefore, it was imperative for him to be out of the house (and dead) because he had to be fingerprinted so that it could be claimed a positive identification had been made. So, if any sane fugitive is out of his hideout and hears planes roaring overhead, does he stay rooted where he is or run like hell? He runs like hell unless it’s the same idiot who was purported to be Zarqawi who didn’t know how to shoot the gun he was holding when the homemovie was made of him in the desert, which was probably a desert in the United States. For sure he runs like hell unless, could it be? he’s already dead. Or he starts to run, is apprehended and beaten to death and then the bombs fall. Choose your scenario: 1. Zarqawi is inside his hideaway. He’s eating a crunchy candy bar and doesn’t hear the planes overhead. The house gets bombed, everything, including women, a child and other occupants are blown to smithereens but Zarqawi’s body remains intact. However, he dies. He’s videotaped and fingerprinted and taken away for an autopsy. 2. Zarqawi is outside of his house, he stands like a statue while planes drop bombs, he’s badly injured but lives long enough to be placed on a stretcher. He tries to get off the stretcher, he says a few words and he dies. He’s fingerprinted and videotaped. 3. Zarqawi is outside of his house, he hears planes, he starts to run, military personnel who have been waiting, apprehend him, beat him to death and leave him far enough from the house so that he’s not pulverized when the bombs fall. He’s fingerprinted and videotaped. 4. A Zarqawi-type is beaten and taken to the house that Zarqawi’s spiritual adviser is known to inhabit. The look-alike is left outside the house and planes drop bombs. After the airstrike the patsy revives and tries to stand up. American soldiers beat him to death. Fingerprints and videos are taken because who the hell knows what Zarqawi’s fingerprints may look like. Whatever. But you can be assured that what really happened is not going to be in the final cut of the White House/Military version. If Zarqawi ever existed in the first place. If his fingerprints exist. If identifying scars and marks exist. If there is an autopsy. If the military and the White House ever tell the truth about anything.

Two Media Creations

1. Ann Coulter 2. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Ann Coulter and al-Zarqawi are no more real than a George Bush photo-op. It’s amazing to me that the people who foam at the mouth and rant about Coulter don’t realize that they have created her. Coulter fine-tunes her next appearance by measuring what enraged the public about her last appearance. Next time out, she takes the outrageous remarks and hatred a step farther. And she fine-tunes her physical appearance as well. Whatever pisses off the public most about the way she looks will be made more distinct next time. If you noticed on the Lou Dobbs segment last week, Coulter not only made no attempt to hide her prominent Adam’s apple, she flaunted it. Whatever ramps up the outrage gauge, Coulter will kick up to a higher level next time around. Even including the transgender question. As soon as it was made public that her voter registration had no Female/Male preference checked, that topic got a big play and we started seeing Ann Coulter putting her Adam’s apple on display. Coulter’s act has been carefully honed, measured, calibrated and rehearsed. She has given the public exactly what it wants. She has created herself according to the creature the public clamored for. Zarqawi is not all that different, except it is unclear whether he was a total construct or whether he was simply a boob whose picture was used to shore up a myth. What is clear about Zarqawi is that the Bush administration and the Associated Press are still in the process of creating his persona. The AP and the White House haven’t completely written Zarqawi’s death yet. First he was just killed. Then he lived after the airstrike. Then he said a few words while he was living after the airstrike. Then he tried to get away after he said a few words while he was living after the airstrike. I expect we shortly will get the translation of the few words he spoke while he was still living when he tried to get away before he died after the airstrike. But like Ann Coulter, Zarqawi’s personality evolved according to what the public wanted. The Bush administration divined that the public needed a bad guy to hate in Iraq, other than George Bush and the Americans. Bush had badly screwed up the presentation of Osama bin Laden dead or alive to the folks--so badly that the scenario had to be re-written. And the White House opted for Zarqawi. They assiduously researched the bad-guy attributes that the public wanted. And they produced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. What happens when the public gets bored or wised-up? Joe McCarthy literally shriveled and died. H. Ross Perot disappeared from public view. And then there was Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein who fooled around with nature. His creature provoked hatred and revenge and finally committed suicide. No doubt about it, those who are created by the public are destroyed by the public.

Seven Articles in New York Times Re Zarqawi

And that was only the count in the online NYT. God knows how many stories are in the print edition. But, as one article said, “It was the most purely good news out of Iraq in months”. The Prez’s top henchmen, Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett, Nicolle Wallace and Joel Kaplan, were all “smiling and jovial” as they postured for the big announcement. AOL’s Welcome Screen could hardly contain itself. “Is al-Zarqawi’s death a turning point in the war in Iraq?” it shouted. And 53% of responders said "Yes". However, terrorism expert Michael Clarke was quoted in the Washington Post saying, “If Zarqawi had been killed a year ago, I would be much more positive about the effects of his death than I really can be now." Regarding that “turning point” question: What on earth do those folks who said “Yes” expect will come from Zarqawi’s death? It won’t turn our president into an intelligent leader. It won’t make the insurgency any less intent on killing American soldiers. It won’t change Iraq into a self-sufficient and secure nation. Zarqawi’s death means only that Zarqawi is dead. But the civil war in Iraq and the killing of Americans will go on as intense as before. There is one thing that the death of Zarqawi will do. It will further convince the Bush administration that Osama bin Laden should never, no never, be caught and/or killed by the US. The much-anticipated demise of Osama, in reality, would be just another empty victory signifying nothing. Zarqawi was shown to be a warrior who couldn’t shoot straight and Osama is a sick and prematurely old man. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush all qualify for being latter-day examples of The Great Oz. They do not lead, they are symbols of leadership. And their realms are run by others.

Zarqawi Dead? And This Means What?

The Washington Post reported this morning that Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey announced at a mid-day (Iraq time) news conference that most-wanted terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed by a US air strike near the city of Baqubah along with seven of his aides. First, is it true? Second, what difference will it make? As to the first question, General Casey says we know it’s Zarqawi by fingerprints and facial and body scars. However, I personally, would not take General Casey’s word for anything. As to the second question, it won’t make any difference whatsoever. If in fact it turns out to be true that Zarqawi is dead the insurgency will proceed unabated. One small change is that after more than three years of fighting an unnecessary war and killing 2,484 American soldiers, the US can now say it accomplished one thing. A couple of interesting quotes: “This is a message to all those who use violence killing and devastation to disrupt life in Iraq to rethink within themselves before it is too late," PM Maliki said. “We killed him, and it's always great when you can remove someone that has caused this much harm," public affairs officer Maj. Frank Garcia said. The American military, Pentagon and White House should take Maliki’s message seriously. The US has continuously used violence, killing, devastation and the disruption of life in Iraq to affect its aim to own Iraq. And Maj. Garcia hit the nail on the head. Prez Bush and his army should be removed from Iraq. It's questionable whether George W. Bush or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has created more harm. It’s the US that should rethink its presence in Iraq. It’s the US that should get out before it’s too late for Iraqis to put to rights the damage the US has caused.

Marriage Protection Pledge

The conservative Family Research Council has a plan to ask lawmakers to take "a marriage protection pledge". It will then publish the names of the people who sign the pledge and those who don’t sign. According to Family Research, this public announcement will make it clear to voters who is supportive of the family and who isn’t. No one has sufficiently explained how banning same-sex marriage protects man-woman marriage. Nor has anyone explained how same-sex marriage threatens man-woman marriage. However, statistics tell us that the marriages of far-right Christians are in serious trouble. George Bama is a born-again Christian who heads up the Bama Research Group. Bama Research does surveys among faith groups. Bama has found that twenty-seven percent of born-again Christians have been divorced, as opposed to 24 percent of other Christians. Massachusetts allows gay marriage and its divorce rate is the lowest in the nation. The divorce rate in Massachusetts is about half the divorce rate of Texas. Other low-divorce rate states are New York, New Jersey, Maine and Vermont. The Bible belt has the highest rate of divorce. The percent of Northeasterners who have been divorced is 19% while the percent of Midwesterners and Southerners who have been divorced is 27%. So yes, it looks like the people who want to stamp out gays and gay marriage are definitely the group that should take a marriage protection pledge. Not to mention, they would benefit from marriage counseling and joining marriage support groups. They might even seek advice from gays about how to keep long-term commitments alive with grace and affection. And since the marriages of so many born-agains have either ended or are in jeopardy, maybe they should seek out same-sex partners. An alternative life-style might work better for them.

Oh Yes! We Do Know Who Knew What When

Three mainstream newspapers have unloaded the same pile of garbage about the Haditha scandal. Wapo: "The real issue is how far up the chain of command it goes," said one senior Marine familiar with the case. "Who knew it, and why didn't they do something about it?" NYT Editorial: “We still do not know how high up the Marine Corps chain of command the original cover-up went, nor do we know how the president, the defense secretary and other top officials responded when they first learned of the false reporting.” LA Times: “The investigation by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell is expected to cover whether any of the Marine higher-ups knew of the intelligence photos and, if so, what actions they took, including whether they shared them with officers at the battalion, regiment and company levels.” Hogwash! The White House knew, the Pentagon knew, Rumsfeld knew, the Generals knew and the way they responded was to order a cover-up. How do we know they knew? Because that’s how it‘s done. The White House, the Pentagon, Rumsfeld and the Generals know how soldiers are trained. They know how soldiers will react in extremis because that’s how they must react in extremis and that is fine because that’s how it’s got to be. The cover-up was in place before the Haditha scandal occurred because when soldiers do exactly what they’ve been trained to do and a scandal ensues, it’s covered up. That’s the way it’s done. That’s the way it’s always been done. And that’s how we know who knew what when. All the guys in positions of power knew everything about everything as soon as it happened. But the weasely part, the part that our soldiers and their parents are having a hard time understanding is that the men in charge won’t take responsibility for the scandals they have caused. When the shit hits the fan and a military scandal comes out into the open, the higher-ups who endorsed, promoted and okayed the actions taken are such cowardly, fainthearted, lily livered putzes that they cower and say the guys in the trenches devised the action all on their own. Our guys are told to do unspeakable things and they believe it’s okay because the wonderful he-men who’ve battled evil all over the world and who know where it’s at in the big-muscled he-man world say it’s the way things have to be done. And then these he-men who talk so tough and say such macho things, run and hide. That’s the weasely part and it stinks.

But What About That Story In THE GLOBE?

The White House has scheduled a media event this coming Monday with planned words from the Prez about the holiness of marriage between men and women and against gay marriage. The show of White House support for holy-hetero-wedlock is an effort by the GOP to stop the Senate debate next week on a proposed constitutional amendment regarding gay marriage. However, getting the necessary 60 votes to force an up-or-down vote is not likely. Now consider the coincidence that a front page exclusive appeared in the Globe tabloid on May 25th that George and Laura had broken up and that she had moved into temporary quarters at the Mayflower Hotel. The Globe story reported that Laura had given an ultimatum to George because of escalating fights over his drinking. One more fight/drink and she’d move out. She moved out. However that story may have gotten planted in the Globe, it was perfect timing for throwing mud on the first couple and their less-than-perfect marriage. But on June 1, the online Madsen Report turned up with a story saying that Laura Bush had moved into temporary quarters because of an on-going affair between George and Condi. I am laughing so hard I nearly fell off my chair. Let me compose myself. Okay...duly composed...almost. First, is it a coincidence that the Prez is getting revved up to fully support heterosexual marriage while a frenzy to discredit his own marriage is showing up all over the blogosphere and in the tabloids? Second, how come the second media blast about the Bush’s marriage going belly-up is in fact an expose about Bush and Condi having an affair? Oops...I’m falling off my chair again. Could it be that it is more important for the White House to plant a story that both George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice are heterosexual than to refute stories of the Bush’s break-up? Could it be that Laura moved out because she’d had it up to here with George being gay? Could it be that rumors about Condi and her preferences were getting impossible to squelch? Just asking. But really, folks...one can’t help doing little mental pictures in one’s head about rumored alliances. One can’t help picturing George Clooney with just about anyone and thinking, Oh my! How nice! How pretty! And one can’t help picturing Condi and George and thinking of the revelatory scene in “The Crying Game”. Because that’s the only way that liaison is going to work. George and Condi? Please! Sooner Ken Mehlman and Mary Cheney.

Afghanistan, Opium, and a Silly NYT Editorial

Yesterday a New York Times editorial told Washington how to solve the increasing problems in Afghanistan. The editorial reported that, “Unless Washington starts correcting its mistakes, parts of Afghanistan could start tumbling back toward the kind of anarchic chaos that once made such areas an attractive sanctuary for international terrorists like Osama bin Laden.” The NYT’s solution: “What Washington needs to do is fight a lot smarter. It should begin talks at once with Afghanistan's government to arrive at a mutually satisfactory agreement on basic ground rules governing American military personnel in their interactions with Afghan civilians. It should reinforce its anti-narcotics drive with development programs that allow farmers to find adequate replacement livelihoods in more constructive lines of work.” NEWSFLASH TO THE NEW YORK TIMES: Afghanistan has already rocketed back into anarchic chaos. Read the newspapers once in a while. Even the deaf and blind NYT editors conceded that, “Armed militia commanders still rule many areas. Some provincial cities and villages are back under the control of the same corrupt officials the Taliban won cheers for chasing out a decade ago. Farmers have fallen victim to a poppy eradication program unaccompanied by realistic plans for alternative economic development.” So how do you “begin talks” with the same corrupt Taliban officials that you supposedly kicked out ten years ago? And furthermore, the poppy eradication program has not worked. The opium industry in Afghanistan decreased in 2004 but soared again in 2005, even surpassing 2003 levels. Afghanistan’s production of opium declined only by 10% in 2005. It is still the world’s largest producer of opium. Eighty to ninety percent of Europe’s licit and illicit opium comes from Afghanistan There are not now, nor ever have been, realistic plans for economic development of replacement livelihoods. There are only plans to have plans. The UN reports, “The total committed funding for alternative livelihoods for 2005/06 has been estimated at US$ 490 million (which would roughly be US$ 100 million short of the target investment). For the next ten years, a total of US$ 1.2 billion has been allocated to date for alternative livelihoods activities.” But the alternative livelihood activities have only been studies about alternative livelihoods. Nothing has actually been done. There have even been studies about paving roads so that when the studies about alternative livelihoods come up with a plan for a plan, then the studies about paving roads can study whether the plan for a plan would need better roads. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime put out a brochure in 2005 called “Mapping Alternative Livelihood Projects in Afghanistan”. It’s full of pictures and pie charts and lists and statistics. But there are NO alternative livelihood projects in the works. The “mapping” simply details plans for plans, should projects ever be devised. Think about it. What “alternative livelihoods” could be developed for any of America’s large cities that would entice drug dealers to stop dealing drugs? It’s the same in Afghanistan. What crop or cottage industry would bring in the same earnings as poppy cultivation? NOTHING! NADA! ZIP! The US has always turned a blind eye to drug trafficking in dictatorships that have consented to aid and abet the overthrow of regimes the US didn’t like. But now that the US has put the Taliban back in power, the US is the regime in Afghanistan the US doesn’t like. Talks and studies for studies and charm school for the military aren’t likely to solve the problems in Afghanistan or Iraq or Iran. A regime change in the US would be helpful though.

What a Bizarre Situation

Treasury Secretary John Snow has wanted to be shut of the Bush cabinet almost as long as he’s been in it. He was appointed in February 2003 and we’ve been hearing he was unhappy since March of 2003. Departure rumors have been going the rounds since 2005. The Bush administration wanted to get rid of Snow the worst way…that is to say, they wanted to set his ass on fire and kick it to kingdom come. But they couldn’t boot him out until they had a replacement. And no one wanted the job. So Snow stayed and he stayed and he stayed. John J. Mack, the chief exec. at Morgan Stanley, was courted, as was Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons. The last bride to be wooed was Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch, Stanley O’Neal. They all said No before it was made public that they had been asked. So, Snow wanted to go, and the White House wanted him to go but he had to stay until some sucker said Yes. The White House kept coming back to Goldman Sachs CEO Henry M. Paulson, Jr., but Paulson was coy, he wouldn't say Yes and he wouldn't say No. God only knows what added inducements they kept laying at his feet. The dead give-away that the White House very soon would be able to open the door and shove John Snow out was when Bush answered a question about Snow at the Blair/Bush Follies and he said, “No, he has not talked to me about resignation. I think he's doing a fine job.” The White House Kiss of Death: You’re doing a fine job…kiss-kiss. (Sotto voce) You’re nothing to me now…you’re not a friend…I don't want to know you or what you do…I don't want to see you…I don't want you near my house…when you see people I know, I want to know a day in advance so I won't be there. You understand? (Aloud and with a smile) He’s doing a helluva job. The announcement finally came today. John Snow has resigned and Henry M. Paulson, Jr. has been nominated for the post of Secretary of the Treasury.

Some Marines Doubt Haditha Atrocities

A report in the NYT this morning says that many Marines trained at Camp Pendleton, California, including civilians who live in the town, either deny the accusations that American troops engaged in “unacceptable kills’ in Haditha, Iraq last November, or they feel it was justified. The consensus is that either the soldiers were following orders or it never happened. And there’s a problem with that. Of course our troops are being trained to do whatever they have to do when enemy guns are pointed at them. Of course our troops are being trained to inflict torture on the enemy. Of course, as the owner of a G.I. Joe’s store, Jerry Alexander, said, "If I saw my buddy laying there dead, there is no such thing as too much retaliation." Our troops were trained in the Second World War to demonize the Germans and Japanese. Our troops were trained to think of the North Vietnamese as less than human savages and to call them Gooks. There is no way a man or woman can be trained to kill and maim while at the same time stopping to think about ethical and philosophical niceties. And it is naïve to think that the military is training our fighting troops now in any way different from the way it has always trained troops for war. But here’s the problem. The war in Iraq is an unnecessary war that the Bush administration lied the United States into for reasons having nothing to do with an enemy at our door. That is why the massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam War and the atrocities being reported in Haditha Iraq are so horrifying. They didn’t have to happen because we have no business being there. We heard about terrible things our troops inflicted on the Japanese during WWII and Americans not only accepted it, many reveled in it. Served them right, they attacked us. But since Iraq was not a clear and present danger, Iraq did not pose an immediate threat and our government trumped up reasons for the attack, the stories of atrocities are horrifying because we have no business being in Iraq. Jerry Alexander said, "In the heat of combat, you cannot hesitate; he who hesitates is lost," he said. "I would not prosecute these young men because they were just doing their jobs." One cannot argue that. It was certainly true in WWI and WWII. But with every conflict since the end of WWII, the kill-or-be-killed rationale has become a harder sell. Because with every conflict we’ve engaged in since WWII, we have had less of a moral reason for getting involved. Our troops are in life-and-death situations in Iraq. And they have been trained to demonize an enemy that is only an enemy because the Bush administration coolly decided to make Iraq an enemy. Haditha is the best proof that we need to get out of Iraq now. This war is not worth fighting and never has been. This war is not worth putting our American troops into no-win situations like Haditha.

Damned if He Does, Damned if He Doesn’t

There’s a peculiar article, “Second-Guessing John Paul II” in the Los Angeles Times this morning. The article is by Jason Berry. Berry has cowritten a book with Gerald Renner titled, “Vows of Silence”. The book is an account of the history of Father Marcial Maciel Degollado. Maciel is the founder of an ultraconservative Roman Catholic order in Mexico called The Legion of Christ. Berry says, “Maciel launched the Legion in 1941…the order is small, about 600 priests, but has branched into the U.S. with two dozen prep schools and two seminaries for teenage boys, an achievement made possible by Maciel's huge fundraising efforts. The Legion is built on a cult of personality. Maciel's picture hangs in every school, where children are taught that he is a living saint.” Berry is now directing a documentary based on “Vows of Silence”. You could call “Vows of Silence” an account, a history, a saga. But juicy scandal is closer to the mark. However, it’s hard to know where Berry is coming from in the LATimes article. He begins by saying Pope Benedict disgraced Father Maciel recently when he told the 80-year-old pedophile priest to go into quiet retirement. Then Berry says Pope Benedict cast doubt on Pope John Paul’s judgment because Pope John Paul decided to ignore Maciel’s pedophilia and praised him instead. Berry points out that new popes must be very respectful of old popes because all popes come directly down the line from Jesus. It’s called Apostolic Succession. As in, first there was Jesus, then Saint Peter and right on down to Pope Benedict. It seems Berry is saying Benedict shouldn’t have ratted out Maciel, because John Paul didn’t, but Benedict had to even though it’s bad for the Church. But I’m not sure if that’s what he’s saying. In 1997 Berry and Renner wrote an investigation that was published in the Hartford Courant about Maciel and his pedophilia. They interviewed nine of his twenty accusers. Pope Benedict’s recent investigations asserted that there were "more than 20 and less than 100 victims”. But in 1997, lawyers for Maciel threatened a lawsuit over the Berry/Renner tell-all even though the Vatican never said Maciel was innocent Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) wanted to kick Maciel out in 2004. The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, persuaded him not to take action. Ratz knew Sodano would soon retire so he backed off. Berry ends his article by saying, “The Legion has 60,000 lay supporters in Regnum Christi. They are deeply orthodox. They study Maciel's letters in prayer groups…Pope Benedict has shattered the meaning of those vows. Now, the Vatican must install "visitators" — outside clerics to oversee, and change, the internal culture — in the order. If it does not, the Legion will continue to promote the myth of Maciel's innocence, undercutting Benedict's authority, even as it urges obedience to the pope.” So now I’m thoroughly confused. Benedict should have? He shouldn’t have? He had no alternative so he had to? But Pope John Paul didn’t, so Benedict makes John Paul look bad? One little tid-bit did make me wonder just how naïve and media-shy these Legionnaires for Christ are. Berry said, “Mel Gibson used several (Legion priests) as advisors in making ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ NBC News hired Father Thomas Williams, one of Maciel's foremost defenders, as an ‘ethics commentator’ and on-camera analyst on papal succession, never mentioning his order or association with Maciel.” Maybe Berry’s point is that the Pope, Vatican, cardinals, curia, priests, and all RCC orders are thoroughly confused. That sounds right to me.

NYT Editorial Puzzled by US “Dread” of Illegals

“It is hard to understand what — besides election-year pandering and xenophobic hostility — motivates their (the Sensenbrenner camp) unwillingness to bend toward the flexible, sensible policy that immigrants, their families and their advocates, many business organizations and labor unions, and a majority of the Senate are seeking”, the New York Times editor whines this morning. The uncomprehending, bewildered and perplexed writer went on to explain his befuddlement, saying, “(the Heritage Foundation) warned that the Senate bill would increase the United States population by 103 million in 20 years. But that is still a staggeringly ridiculous sum, considering that Mexico's entire work force is only 43 million.” What a staggeringly ignorant statement, considering that the estimate covers 20 years, considering that Mexico is only one of the countries that illegals come from, considering that the greed of businessmen to exploit cheap labor is the main culprit in the expanding numbers of illegals in the US which has caused the unease felt by Americans, and considering that the election-year pandering of Republicans for the Hispanic vote is what has prompted the current immigration flap. The lead-off sentence in the Editorial is: “Americans should be proud of what the United States Senate did this week.” I would be proud if it weren’t for that sense of dread I feel about millions of people being awarded citizenship and billions of dollars of social services for breaking the law. Ah, but when you look at the President, Vice President, Attorney General and their cronies and cohorts, it follows that the most egregious law-breakers in the land would see big advantages to rewarding other law-breakers. It also follows that the New York Times would be as out of touch with the American people as the Bush administration is.

Blair and Butt-head Hold a Press Conference

The Bush administration always breaks nasty news on Friday evening. And it was for good reason that Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush held their press conference last night at 7:30. It ran in Great Britain at Midnight-30. The Brit news mag The Economist put Bush and Blair on its cover under the headline "Axis of Feeble." Blair is a little less popular in Great Britain than Bush is in the US. Blair is at 26% in approval ratings. Given the Brit way of doing things, Blair absolutely will have to stand down and will be out of office by next June if not before. But we have another year and a half to put up with Butt-head. Bush and Blair should apologize for hundreds of their errors, including the fact that 2463 American soldiers have been killed in the Bush/Blair war in Iraq. But when asked last night what he most regretted, Bush remarked that he shouldn’t have said, “Bring it on” and “Wanted dead or alive”. Those remarks may have “sent the wrong signal”, the Prez said. However, he assured his viewers that, "I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner.” Given his “I’m the Decider” statement, Bush’s lessons in expressing himself have failed. Apparently the Prez was cued through his earpiece that regretting how he expressed himself was a little insensitive given the totality of his wrongdoing during the last six-and-a-half years. He immediately added that Abu Ghraib was also a big mistake. But he fell back into his usual arrogant posturing and said, “Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are doing the right thing.” And how did the shifty-eyed little Prime Minister acquit himself in this unfortunate press conference? Oh there was laughter and banter and Blair tried to turn on the Blair charm. But in the end Blair said the attack on Iraq was the right thing to do. And now that Great Britain and the US have brought blessed democracy to the Iraqis, we should stay in Iraq and support the people. And as an after thought, he said ditto Afghanistan. Both Bush and Blair skated around all of the important queries by journalists. The war in Iraq has now turned around and everything is going well they both said. And they are trying to come up with a way to deal with Iran and its nuclear plans. Which sounds odd, since Bush just botched a perfect diplomatic opportunity with Iran by refusing to respond to a letter from Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Bush and Blair are a matched set. Both have fouled their own nests so badly that they will go down in history as the worst leaders their respective countries have ever had. And neither one can tell the truth for ten minutes. The New York Times summed up the Blair-Bush act this way: “The overwhelming sense from the news conference was of two battered leaders who, once confident in their judgments on Iraq, now understood that misjudgments had not only affected their approval ratings, but perhaps their legacies.” And that’s being kind. Actually, the Bush and Blair news conference looked like two men holding hands while sinking into a marsh of quicksand.

He Can’t Pronounce Nuclear, But…

President Bush opined yesterday that the solution to “greenhouse gases” is more nuclear plants. George W. Bush, the great intellect who refuses to read newspapers, who refuses to talk to anyone who disagrees with him, and who has always categorically denied the fact of global warming, now says the biggest factor contributing to global warming, greenhouse gases, can be stopped if we build more nuclear plants. The president made a trip to Limerick, PA Wednesday to deliver a speech while standing in front of the town’s twin nuclear cooling towers to promote the energy bill he just signed into law. He said, “Let's quit the debate about whether greenhouse gases are caused by mankind or by natural causes; let's just focus on technologies that deal with the issue…nuclear power will help us deal with the issue of greenhouse gases." Happy idiot that he is, George W. Bush now believes he has solved the global warming problem while at the same time solving his plummeting approval rating problem. And he returned to Washington, DC to solve his other problems in the same way: The Iraq war problem is not a problem, but if it becomes a problem the president will sign a law saying it’s illegal to view it as a problem. There are no illegal immigrants in the US and if there were, which there are not, they are not a problem because the president will sign a law making it illegal to say illegal immigrants are illegal. Corruption in politics and big business is not a problem, but if it were, George W. Bush would pass a law that changes the definition of corruption from “dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain” to “God-ordained entitlement of political and business leaders”. And the illegal wiretapping problem has already been solved because the Prez says illegal wiretapping is legal wiretapping. But back to the now-solved global warming problem: Because the president is so incredibly stupid and will say anything his speechwriters tell him to say, he is ignoring major facts about nuclear power plants. The processes involved in uranium mining produce great quantities of greenhouse gases. And the building and decommissioning (that is, when the power plant owner decides to cease operations permanently) of power stations also produce significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to being very costly. The building of a nuclear power station takes at least five years. The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have given nuclear power a very bad rep in people’s minds. And getting rid of the nuclear waste produced by nuclear power plants has never been solved. Nuclear waste is dangerous for thousands of years. But the president’s top reason for building more nuclear power plants is a mind-bender. Bush said, “For the sake of economic security and national security, the United States of America must aggressively move forward with the construction of nuclear power plants." I certainly hope someone in the White House press corps asks President Mush-for-Brains to explain that one off-the-cuff. But I am betting if he’s asked how nuclear power plants will ensure national security, he will say he can’t get into that because it’s classified information having to do with national security.