Want To Help Obama?

Tell everyone to read Frank Rich in the New York Times today. First, I will say, without fear of being wrong because I know it’s true: The Mainstream Media is interested only in selling its product. And as an editor of mine used to tell me 24 years ago, “You’ve got to add some conflict to your reports. Conflict sells.” And there you have it. I do not believe for a minute that McCain is neck and neck with Obama. And he certainly is not ahead of Obama. But the IDEA that the race may be close, the IDEA that McCain can win is being fueled by the Mainstream Media because otherwise this election season is BORING-BORING-BORING. That said, let me quote a few facts about McCain from the Rich article. This is by way of helping any of you who like to have FACTS to show to those who might benightedly consider voting for John McCain. As Rich says, the public does NOT know John McCain. Because the public is as forgetful as the Senator from Arizona himself is forgetful: Rich says, “What is widely known is the skin-deep, out-of-date McCain image. As this fairy tale has it, the hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton has stood up as rebelliously in Washington as he did to his Vietnamese captors. He strenuously opposed the execution of the Iraq war; he slammed the president’s response to Katrina; he fought the “agents of intolerance” of the religious right; he crusaded against the G.O.P. House leader Tom DeLay, the criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and their coterie of influence peddlers. With the exception of McCain’s imprisonment in Vietnam, every aspect of this profile in courage is inaccurate or defunct.” Rich goes on to say: “McCain never called for Donald Rumsfeld to be fired and didn’t start criticizing the war plan until late August 2003, nearly four months after “Mission Accomplished.” By then the growing insurgency was undeniable. On the day Hurricane Katrina hit, McCain laughed it up with the oblivious president at a birthday photo-op in Arizona. McCain didn’t get to New Orleans for another six months and didn’t sharply express public criticism of the Bush response to the calamity until this April, when he traveled to the Gulf Coast in desperate search of election-year pageantry surrounding him with black extras. McCain long ago embraced the right’s agents of intolerance, even spending months courting the Rev. John Hagee, whose fringe views about Roman Catholics and the Holocaust were known to anyone who can use the Internet. (Once the McCain campaign discovered YouTube, it ditched Hagee.) On Monday McCain is scheduled to appear at an Atlanta fund-raiser being promoted by Ralph Reed, who is not only the former aide de camp to one of the agents of intolerance McCain once vilified (Pat Robertson) but is also the former Abramoff acolyte showcased in McCain’s own Senate investigation of Indian casino lobbying.” Rich writes: “Though the McCain campaign announced a new no-lobbyists policy three months after The Washington Post’s February report that lobbyists were “essentially running” the whole operation, the fact remains that McCain’s top officials and fund-raisers have past financial ties to nearly every domestic and foreign flashpoint, from Fannie Mae to Blackwater to Ahmad Chalabi to the government of Georgia. No sooner does McCain flip-flop on oil drilling than a bevy of Hess Oil family members and executives, not to mention a lowly Hess office manager and his wife, each give a maximum $28,500 to the Republican Party.” Further on, Rich quotes Josh Marshall’s “Talking Points Memo”, saying: “Most Americans still don’t know, as Marshall writes, that on the campaign trail ‘McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries’ names wrong, forgets things he’s said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused.’ Most Americans still don’t know it is precisely for this reason that the McCain campaign has now shut down the press’s previously unfettered access to the candidate on the Straight Talk Express.” So, read Frank Rich today and arm yourself with facts about the very senior and very forgetful, lying, unprincipled, even corrupt loose cannon Senator John McCain, who will do anything and say anything and kiss the ass of any Republican to further his campaign for the presidency.

Well, Yes, It’s Been Awhile Since I’ve Posted..

BUT... this is too lovely to ignore. The New York Times just sent out an aviso that Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), “the longest serving US Republican senator ever” was indicted today on seven counts of making false statements after a year-long investigation. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Basically, I am soooooo sick of news reports about Obama and McCain that I can barely stand to read a newspaper or watch TV. But this little tidbit has me giddy with good humor. The NYT says Stevens’s troubles “stem from his ties to an oil executive whose company won millions of dollars in federal contracts with the help of Mr. Stevens, whose home in Alaska was almost doubled in size in the renovation project.” And the NYT goes on to say, “The indictment will surely reverberate through the November elections. Mr. Stevens, who has been in the Senate for 40 years, is up for re-election this year. Mark Begich, a popular Democratic mayor of Anchorage, hopes to supplant him.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! My feeling of bonhomie and goodwill to men will, I feel sure, extend even into the Yankees game tonight with Baltimore, no matter what.

Is There Any Doubt?

Number 1, that the war in Iraq was entered into and engaged in because the Bush administration and the Republican Party were interested in controlling Iraq (and eventually, the Middle East’s) oil. Number 2, that John McCain is a dupe and a puppet of the Bush administration. Re Number 1: I give you the New York Times article this morning: “Committee Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal”. The lede paragraph states: “Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.” The article goes on to say: “The company, Hunt Oil of Dallas, signed the deal with Kurdistan’s semiautonomous government last September. Its chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, a close political ally of President Bush, briefed an advisory board to Mr. Bush on his contacts with Kurdish officials before the deal was signed.” The investigation into the improprieties (a nice word where “Bush administration criminal activities” might better be used) of this oil deal is being handled by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose chairman is Representative Henry A. Waxman, D-CA. The NYT says: “A State Department official in Washington, briefed by a colleague about the impending deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, wrote: “Many thanks for the heads up; getting an American company to sign a deal with the K.R.G. will make big news back here. Please keep us posted.” According to the NYT, the State Department said Wednesday that it had discouraged the deal. Hunt officials declined to comment, and Kurdish government officials said there was no impropriety. However, a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from Mr. Waxman states that the documents his committee had collected “tell a different story about the role of administration officials.” The committee obtained letters in which Mr. Hunt informed the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, of which Hunt was a member, last July and August that he was pursuing serious business interests in Kurdistan. Until a law regarding Iraq oil is signed and sealed by all parties—Iraq, Kurdistan, the US—any deal between the parties re oil is totally illegal and unethical. But nevermind! The NYT wrote: “The encouragement by State Department officials did not end with the signing of the contract (with Kurdistan) on Sept. 8, the documents suggest. Five days later, a State Department official in the southern city of Basra wrote to Ms. Phillips (a senior vice president for corporate affairs and international relations at Hunt Oil), 'I read and heard about with interest your deal with the regional Kurdish government...I don’t know if you are aware of another opportunity,' the official wrote, mentioning an enormous port project and a natural gas project in the south. After a few more lines, the official concluded, 'This seems like it would be a good opportunity for Hunt'." Regarding Item No. 2 that John McCain is a dupe and puppet of the Bush administration, please note that McCain has once again shaken up his presidential campaign. This time he has elevated Steve Schmidt to be in charge of day-to-day campaign operations. This move downsizes the responsibilities of McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis. Please note that Steve Schmidt was a close associate of Karl Rove during Rove’s heyday in the Bush administration. Also please note that Nicolle Wallace, communications director for Mr. Bush in the 2004 campaign (and in his White House), has joined McCain’s campaign as a senior adviser, and will travel with Mr. McCain every other week. And another cohort of Rove’s operation and former Fox News producer and director of presidential advance in the Bush White House, Greg Jenkins, was hired by Steve Schmidt last week. No doubts whatsoever.

Now Here’s a GREAT Suggestion....

The tag line in Frank Rich’s New York Times OpEd column this morning is terrific. Rich chapter-and-verses how stupid Repub candidate John McCain’s stance on the war in Iraq is and has been. Rich doesn’t particularly support Obama’s position on the war either though, mainly because there can be no positive outcome in Iraq no matter what is put forth. But Rich has this proposal: “Not that the Obama policy is foolproof either. As everyone knows, there are no good options in Iraq. Our best hope for a bipartisan resolution of this disaster may be for a President Obama to appoint Mr. McCain as a special envoy to Baghdad, where he can stay for as long as he needs to administer our withdrawal or 100 years, whichever comes first.” McCain being sent to Iraq to serve America in his last years sounds like a splendid and marvelously fitting idea. What’s not to like?

“There Was Suspicion “...I Guess So!

The New York Times reports this morning, “Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.” The NYT went on to say: “Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.” As the NYT understatedly stated, “There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract.” Of course the following cockroach claim was made by the Bush administration: “the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.” The NYT reported that a spokesman for The Iraqi Oil Ministry said, “the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.” The NYT further explained: “The Iraqi Oil Ministry said “the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology.” So...how soon do you reckon the price for crude will go back down to $40 a barrel from the present $140 per barrel? Right! Or, as the NYT says, “The first oil contracts for the majors in Iraq are exceptional for the oil industry. They include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today’s prices: the ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash.” There is still the problem of the civil war and the insurgents caused by the Republican invasion of Iraq which was entered into in order to secure these exact contracts. But at current oil prices the oil companies are more than willing to deal with war, death and privation. Five years later and 4101 American soldier deaths and the Republicans got what they came for. Lovely!

I Know, I Know...

I haven’t posted in ages. I was in God’s Country aka Brooklyn for a week and some other stuff was going on. Howsomever....I just want to say that Frank Rich’s column in the New York Times today is brilliant!!!!!! That’s it. BRILLIANT!!!!!

McCain’s Big, Bigger, BIGGEST LIE

Yesterday, the McCain camp released 1,172 pages of McCain’s medical records. That is to say, as the New York Times put it, “a tightly controlled pool of about 20 reporters was shown into a conference room at the CopperWynd Resort near the Mayo Clinic. The reporters were permitted three hours to review and take notes on the 1,173 pages of Mr. McCain’s medical documents, spanning 2000 to 2008, but they were not permitted to remove the documents from the room or photocopy them.” And all the doctors dutifully reported that McCain is in great health, mentally and physically, that he may once have had malignant melanoma but he’s all better now; that, relatively speaking, he’s on few drugs (none for mental problems); that he would make an awesome and healthy prez at age 72. Joy Tomme would like to respond, “BULLSHIT!” to that bullshit. If the tag line to the NYT article is any indication of the truth of the medical report, then the medical report is a mendacious cover-up perpetrated by a bunch of cover-up liars. NYT tag line: "As a prisoner of war, Mr. McCain told doctors, he had tried to commit suicide twice. But by 1977, he said he had 'all but forgotten the traumas of captivity.'" My God! Who is he kidding? Ask guys who weren’t subjected to torture in POW camps, but simply fought the war in Viet Nam. Ask guys who didn’t try to commit suicide twice, but came home with war wounds. Have they, could they all but forget the traumas? And, if it’s remotely possible that McCain did forget, then that’s worse. Even in the medical reports that have now been kind–of-sort-of released, McCain’s mental state is glossed over. I would like to see psychiatric evaluations by psychiatrists who are not government/and or military flacks. I would like to know what meds he’s taking for mental health. Of course, we are no more likely to know those facts than we are going to know about McCain’s wife’s finances in exquisite detail. Let me quote a couple of paragraphs from the back page story (“Ferguson”) in tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine section. The article is by Michael Norman who teaches journalism at New York University. Norman tells about a Marine, Ferguson, who Norman knew for only one minute in Viet Nam before Ferguson fell on top of him dead. First paragraph: “A colleague dropped by on a recent day to tell me that it was the third anniversary of her son’s coming home from Iraq. That stopped me. It’s been 40 years since I stepped off the battlefield and I’m not home yet. I can still feel the muck of rice paddies pulling on my boots, still hear the jungle hiss and snap in the dark. Even after the night dreams and day drifts have stopped and the loud noises no longer startle, you still press your chin against your shoulder and look back.” Last paragraph: “So I took Ferguson home with me. Who else was going to remember him? Who else among us “knew” him and could carry his good name, his reputation, the memory of him as a marine? Remembering was part of the bargain we all made, the reason we were so willing to die for one another.” McCain’s big lie is that he doesn’t remember the horrors of Viet Nam, his bigger lie is that the torture and horrors of Viet Nam have not had a lasting and irreparable ill effect on him. And his biggest lie is that he is physically and mentally fit to be president of the United States. John McCain is not mentally or physically fit to be president, nor can he be expected to be. McCain should not have been allowed to run for president. But the worst of it is that these guys believe the citizens of the United States think it's commendable for a man to fight a war, be imprisoned by torturers and have no effects from it. (And they are willing to lie to push that agenda.) IT IS NOT COMMENDABLE. And it is not possible.

The Issue Is Color

The headline in the NYT today reads: “Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama” Two women having brunch in Boynton Beach were quoted in the article. Both are 83 years old. Ms Weitz said, “The people here, liberal people, will not vote for Obama because of his attitude towards Israel. “They’re going to vote for McCain,” she said. Ms Grossman didn’t disagree that Florida Jews would not vote for Obama. But her reasoning was different from Ms. Weitz. “They’ll pick on the minister thing, they’ll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color,” she said. Ms Grossman will probably vote for Obama she said. But she is keeping her mouth shut about that. I heard a woman here in Philadelphia say she couldn’t vote for a man whose name was so close to Osama. The color element in this election is sticky. We’ll never know how many people boasted they had no problem voting for a black man when they had no intention of voting for a black man. But it sounded good at the time. How many people will carry their racism to the extent that they will vote for McCain rather than vote black? Probably not a huge percentage. The NYT says Jews account for 5 percent of the vote in Florida. And, as Ms Weitz and Ms Grossman can attest, not all Florida Jews will vote for McCain. Besides, it is difficult to come up with plausible reasons to vote for McCain that would adequately cover up innate racism. Also, antipathy regarding color has more resonance with senior citizens than it does with young voters. But color is a factor in this election and it may represent an obstacle for Obama in the next four years. If Obama is the Democrat Party’s candidate and wins, how many in Congress will oppose his policies because he’s black? We don’t know. The interesting thing is that most white people do not know the extent of their racism. It can’t be reasoned away with logic, but it’s there, in the background, underneath, nearly forgotten and hidden. And like a successful nose job, you can forget what it looked like until a reminder rises up from the past. If ever there was a moment to GET OVER IT, it is now. In our world today, color is irrelevant.

John McCain is Certifiable

McCain has been told to distance himself from the Prez because Bush is the worst and most unpopular President ever to have been foisted on the American public. And also because Bush is insane. One way the insane McCain is distancing himself from the insane Prez is by setting a date when the US will be out of Iraq, which Crazy George would never do. Yesterday, Crazy John said that the war in Iraq will have been won (WON! As in VICTORY IS OURS!) by 2013. Not only that, in what has been called “a mystical speech” McCain said that by 2013 Osama bin Laden will be dead or captured, al-Qaeda will have been defeated, Iraq will be functioning on its own, Afghanistan will be shut of the Taliban, and Americans will have the choice of simply paying a flat tax or using form 1040. I have a few prophesies of my own. By 2013, John McCain will be 77 and will be incapacitated by his physical maladies or dead from cancer. In any case, he will have been committed to a loony bin for the hopelessly insane. Nothing will have changed in Iraq, and if our troops are still in Iraq they will still be being killed for no good reason, Afghanistan will still be in the drug trade from which the US will be profiting, as it is now and nothing will have changed. The IRS will be doing business about the same way it is doing business today. Bin Laden will be dead from his physical maladies and he never was captured. The US will be coming up on the second term of a Democratic president under a Democratic administration who will be doing its level best to undo the disasters and criminal acts the Republicans visited on the United States from 2000 through 2008. Oh. And George W. Bush will be drinking and using drugs openly and on a monumental scale. The Bush family and the Secret Service will try to keep him out of sight and will be mostly successful except when he occasionally escapes and causes a ruckus.

The Out-of-Touch News Industry

It used to be “If it Bleeds, It Leads”. The new formula is: If We Dread It, We Spread It. The Sean Bell verdict was all over the news last week when an NYC judge acquitted the cops who pumped 50 bullets into Bell who was black. The news guys predicted riots in the streets. But a report to me from Harlem Saturday night said all was serene. On the day George W. Bush announced he was going to invade Iraq, the news guys said there would be rioting at ground zero between protesters and war-mongers. I was at ground zero that day. There was nothing. But nothing. No protesters, no war-mongers. NOTHING! And no one in NYC was even talking about the war. The news guys have been hyping the candidacies for the election next November in the same way. Perhaps it’s actually wishful thinking. Perhaps the news guys wish to hell they had something juicy to write about. But what’s happening at the grassroots level of politics and our lives is definitely not juicy. And it’s not sexy. And no matter how much the media amps it up, it is not going to be juicy or sexy. Folks are going to go to the polls in November and they are going to vote. That’s it. And racism, feminism, black power, white power and born-again Jesus power aren't going to have very much to do with the outcome. Folks hate the George W. Bush administration. Folks hate the war in Iraq. Folks want relative peace and equality in their lives. Folks want ministers to bug out of politics. Folks want the US government to comport itself with intelligence and rationality. That’s it. And by August, at the latest, most folks will have ceased watching the pundits, analysts and news idiots on television, because whatever it is they are reporting, whatever it is they are yammering about, whatever it is they have decided is panic-worthy has very little to do with what is going on in people’s lives. And it has very little to do with how folks think and feel. I am somewhat ahead of that schedule. As of yesterday, I have sworn off the Sunday morning talk shows and anything on CNN except Michael Ware. May they all live and be well, but they will have to do it without me.

The Bush Stink is on the Candidates

There is little doubt that the last eight years of Bush, Cheney and Karl Rove will go down in history as one of the worst (if not the worst) presidential administration in the history of the United States. Bragging rights to successes for this executive branch are few and difficult to find. But now that its fowl are coming home to roost, and now that it’s floundering, and now that the men behind the Great George’s curtain are in full view and mostly naked, it’s beginning to be evident that fallout from the Bush administration’s modus operandi is leaking into everything. An article in this morning’s New York Times (“Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand”) about how the Pentagon co-opted its military analysts, quotes Fox analyst Robert S. Bevelacqua saying, “It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you’.” And it worked. the Pentagon and Karl Rove & Co. were able to stick their hands up news organizations backs, up TV studios, up Congressmen, up generals’ backs, up the Bush Cabinet, up the CIA, up the FBI, up the Justice Department and they spoke for everyone. The results were and are horrendous, and yet...getting those results is mighty tempting. And that is exactly what Hillary, Obama and McCain’s strategists are doing. All strategists for all the candidates are sticking their hands up the candidates’ backs and moving their mouths for them. And it has become a horror show. We no longer hear what the candidates think or want to say. We hear what their strategists and polls and focus groups think the candidates should think and want to say. If there is an honest, heartfelt thought arising in any candidates mind, it will not be heard. Some strategist will think a thought and that will be heard because the strategist is dead certain he/she knows what the nation needs to hear and what will get votes. Yes, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove & Co. can be blamed for the woeful state the United States is in. But one unintended result that is rippling through our lives is that good people are using Bush administration tactics because they were successful. And it’s heartbreaking to watch. It’s now way beyond candidates getting botoxed and having work done, being coifed and looking fit and smiling and laughing and joking and making one-liners and wearing attractive clothes and pretty ties. Now it's remembering talking points and most particularly, trying not to let the strategist's hand show.

The Pope’s Hubristic Twaddle

What balls! Before Joseph Cardinal Aloysius Ratzinger became Pope exactly three years ago, he was called Pope John Paul II’s “Enforcer”. And if he learned anything as one of Hitler’s Nazi Youths (oh yes, I know he says he was forced into it), he learned that freedom of choice is a bad thing and that people’s freedom must be curtailed or they will start thinking for themselves and making personal decisions. Which is why he was called John Paul’s Enforcer. As Ratzinger’s biographer, John L. Allen has said, “Ratzinger today believes that the best antidote to political totalitarianism is ecclesial totalitarianism. In other words, he believes the Catholic Church serves the cause of human freedom by restricting freedom in its internal life, thereby remaining clear about what it teaches and believes. “ As the keeper of the Roman Catholic Church’s arrogant, mythical and patently silly dogma and hype that it alone is the one true religion, Ratzinger was and is unbending, dictatorial and mean as a snake. But yesterday, this nasty piece of work pontificated before the General Assembly at the United Nations: “The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security,” Pope Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger Benedict XVI wouldn’t understand human rights if it bit him in the ass. Barack Obama and his preacher-friend Reverend Jeremiah Wright have gotten in so much hot water over Wright’s fiery prose from the pulpit. And yet, who is calling the lying, oppressive, bigoted, greedy, Prada-wearing sinners in the Vatican to account? NO ONE-NO ONE-NO ONE-NO ONE-NO ONE-NO ONE-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Catholic churches are being closed down all over the US. There aren’t enough priests. And the nuns have finally gotten wise that they were performing free cleaning, washing and ironing for these cigar-smoking, good wine and spirits drinking guys who were too holy to wash their own underwear, so nuns have called a halt on their menial services. The Catholic Church is falling apart from the inside. But the CEO’s and CPA’s and MDivs and Cardinals and THE POPE in the Vatican are still living high. And they would no more think of divesting themselves of one ounce of gold or one gem, or one piece of art, or one foot of real estate than they would think of scrubbing their own floors or servicing their own computers. There is no moral difference whatsoever between the Vatican and a company like Exxon. Both organizations lie and screw the little guy. I will say, the Pope’s hats are more fanciful than those worn by moguls in mega-corporations, but that’s the sole dissimilarity.

NYT’s Rich: Petraeus/Crocker Show is Dead

And the reason it’s dead is because Americans are so sick of the Repubs’ war in Iraq that they don’t even want to hear about it. Today, the New York Times Sunday Op/Ed Columnist Frank Rich said (“The Petraeus-Crocker Show Gets the Hook”) that even if John McCain becomes president, the US will have a new policy as soon as next January, including serious troop withdrawals in Iraq and serious talks with Iraq’s pals in Iran. The part about the possibility that McCain might become Prez is a horror I can’t even remotely entertain, but Rich is right about everything else. Iraq has come to mean guilt and shame to Americans. As a nation, we want out. In addition to wanting to have done with a war that most Americans feel should never have happened, the US can’t sustain the war and also have even a semblance of readiness to engage in other threats that may arise. As Rich says, “No war can be fought indefinitely if the public has irrevocably turned against it.” And this public has turned against it. The Senior US Commander in Iraq David Petraeus and American ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker looked ridiculous and sounded like robots repeating nonsense phrases and meaningless sophistry at the Congressional hearings last week. Rich said, “The best General Petraeus could muster was a bit of bloodless Beltway-speak — ‘national interests’ — followed by another halfhearted attempt to overstate Iraq’s centrality to the war on Al Qaeda and a future war on Iran. He couldn’t even argue that we’re on a humanitarian mission on behalf of the Iraqi people. That would require him to acknowledge that roughly five million of those people, 60 percent of them children, are now refugees receiving scant help from either our government or Nuri al-Maliki’s. That’s nearly a fifth of the Iraqi population — the equivalent of 60 million Americans — and another source of our shame. “The prevailing verdict on the Petraeus-Crocker show is that it accomplished little beyond certifying President Bush’s intention to kick the can to January 2009 so that the helicopters will vacate the Green Zone on the next president’s watch. That’s true, but by week’s end, I became more convinced than ever that in January we’ll have a new policy that includes serious withdrawals and serious conversations with Mr. Maliki’s pals in Iran, even if John McCain becomes president.” And both Colin Powell and the army’s vice chief of staff General Richard Cody said the current troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be continued. Even a Republican prez will find he can’t sustain vetoes, Rich said, “after the Democrats increase their majorities in Congress in November.” And that’s pretty much where it’s at. Or as Rich put it, “Unable to even look at the fiasco anymore, the nation is now just waiting for someone to administer the last rites.”

President Petraeus, Chairman of Lunacy Bush

Yesterday our Chief Lunatic said that Acting President of the United States and Senior US Commander in Iraq David Petraeus could “have all the time he needs” before reducing US troops in Iraq. The Lunatic spoke at the White House to a small group including VP Dick Cheney, the secretaries of State and Defense and representatives of veterans’ organizations. Bush defended the lives lost and the money spent on his unnecessary war in Iraq. He said that his “surge” last year had averted potential defeat and that withdrawing troops would be catastrophic to American interests. All of which, of course, only an insane man and his insane cohorts could claim. American forces have been defeated in Iraq. And the entire Iraq operation from beginning to now (there is no end in sight) has been catastrophic to all American interests except Vice President Dick Cheney’s companies that profit from war and the consequences of war. Bush said that Al Qaeda and Iran are the biggest threats facing the United States. He said, “If we fail there, Al Qaeda would claim a propaganda victory of colossal proportions, and they could gain safe havens in Iraq from which to attack the United States, our friends and our allies,” he said. “Iran would work to fill the vacuum in Iraq, and our failure would embolden its radical leaders and fuel their ambitions to dominate the region.” The US has already failed in wiping out Al Qaeda and will continue to fail. And wiping out Iran is the success Bush and Cheney envision, which, of course has failed and will fail. All of the failures feared by George W. Bush have already happened. The only way he can keep from acknowledging that his worst fears have come to pass is to keep stating that they will come to pass unless the war in Iraq goes on for the next 100 years. Six more months. And then voters have to decide whether they want John McCain to prolong this madness or if they want it to stop.

The Madness of John McCain (and Others)

The guy that President George W. Bush turned the Iraq war over to when he abdicated all responsibility for his unnecessary and illegal attack on Iraq, General David Petraeus, is in Washington, DC for two days of hearings before Congress. The hearings started yesterday. Petraeus acknowledged before the Senate, “We haven’t turned any corners. We haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel.” He said any new withdrawals of American troops should be delayed until the fall. As in, after the election. And yet, according to the New York Times this morning, Senator and candidate for president John McCain (R-AZ) said at that same hearing: “We’re no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success.” Presumably McCain was talking about the war in Iraq. Although he could have been talking about some war game he’s got going in his addled brain. Who knows? The Prez steered clear of the hearings, but will make a speech tomorrow regarding his Iraq policy for the coming months, However, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) said in frustration, “A year ago, the president argued that we wouldn’t begin to withdraw troops from Iraq, because there was too much violence...now the president argues we can’t begin to withdraw troops, because violence is down.” The April 14, 2008 issue of The New Yorker reported that when General Richard A. Cody appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, he said, in essence, Iraq and Afghanistan have so weakened our defenses that we’d be up the creek if we need our army to protect us. “Today’s army is out of balance,” he said. And he went on to say, “The current demand for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the sustainable supply, and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies.” We can’t defend ourselves, the nation is bankrupt, the President lives in an alternate reality of delusion, his clone and Republican candidate for president John McCain not only loves war, but he lives in permanent nostalgia for war mode and he is also seriously demented. Last Sunday, Frank Rich said in his New York Times Op/Ed column that the Dem candidates for president Senators Obama and Clinton are doing John McCain a disservice by constantly saying McCain “is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq.” Rich reported that McCain actually said in the New Hampshire town-hall meeting that he “could imagine a 100-year-long American role in Iraq like our long-terms presence in South Korea and Japan”. Fair enough. But when reviewing what people say and have said, it is also necessary to review the mind-set of that person. And John McCain’s unsettled mind is obsessed with war. The other day he said he hates war. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! John McCain would sink into a morass of elder depression without a war on which to feed his Vietnam POW neuroses. Today, General Petraeus and American ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker will take their Iraq war song-and-dance to the House of Representatives. I have two memories of these two men. Alas, they are my only memories of these two men. One is of Petraeus handing out bags of money from the backs of trucks to any and all comers in Iraq, friend and foe alike, as bribes. The other is of the pretentious little putz Crocker holding piss-elegant soirees in the safety of his mansion in the Green Zone in Baghdad as a way of coercing visiting Congresspersons into prolonging the Iraq war and ponying-up more money for the Republican’s ridiculous war. McCain, Petraeus and Crocker—what embarrassing specimens they are.

You’re Not Alone

Headline in the New York Times this morning: “81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on the Wrong Track” The NYT reported: “In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed ‘things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,’ up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002. “Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.” And a news aviso from the NYT at 8:50 this morning said: “U.S. Economy Shed 80,000 Jobs in March. U.S. employers cut payrolls for a third month in a row in the biggest monthly job decline in five years, government data showed.” So, who are in the 19% who think everything is just ducky? For certain, the folks in the White House who haven’t already jumped ship would be in that group. And the folks who are stumping for delusional loose-cannon John McCain to continue the Republican track record of the last 7 years would be in that elite number. And the born-again warmongers who think God has it in for everyone but born-again warmongers would be part of that crew. The NYT went on to say: “A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.” What’s it all mean? Well, our nation is in really bad shape. And the world knows we’re in bad shape, which makes us vulnerable to economic, and security disasters, of course. And the world and compilers of facts that become the tomes of history know that the whole nasty shebang is due to the Bush administration. But more than that, it means that everyone in Congress is going to have a very tough time getting re-elected and that is good. Throw the bastards out is a healthy national attitude. Of course, the real culprit in the downfall of the nation is the entire Republican Party. But the Democrats in Congress who let the Repubs get away with it for 7 years cannot be ignored. So what about the three who are now candidates for president? They were part of the out-of-control Congress that brought the US to grief. That’s true. But this democracy thing is a work-in-progress and very imperfect. However, it’s the system we’ve got. And the system we’ve got needs a lot of improvement.

This Is Okay With the AMA?

Veramyst (commonly misspelled Veramist) is a prescription nasal spray (fluticasone furoate) used to treat “seasonal and perennial allergies”. Veramyst is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. Veramyst is being hawked on television. The ad I’ve been seeing is on ABC (Channel 6 in Philadelphia.) A 30-day Free Trial is offered. On-line ads make it clear that it is “the first 30-day prescription” that is free. As an afterthought in the TV ad, it is suggested you tell your doctor you are using Veramyst. For God’s sake, Veramyst is a steroid. The possible side-effects mentioned in the TV ad are: nasal sores, nosebleeds, cataracts and glaucoma. Additional side-effects noted in the on-line blurbs are: slow growth in children, steroid toxicity, weakening of immune system. It’s not news that the medical profession is in bed with the pharmaceutical profession because of GREED. It’s no news that the pharmaceutical profession is at least as corrupt as the mobsters depicted in “The Sopranos”. (At least da mob on TV had a sense of humor.) But it is news and it’s also shocking that the medical profession condones free trial offers of dangerous drugs. How these free 30-day prescriptions are monitored, I have no idea. The fact that they are offered at all is scandalous. It’s one thing for your doctor to hand out samples of drugs in his office. It’s quite another for hucksters and snake-oil salesman to hawk free trials of drugs on TV. But the disturbing thing is that it’s okay with the AMA. At long last, sirs, have you no shame?

Five Years Later

On March 19, 2003 president George W. Bush announced that he and his imperialist cronies had decided to invade Iraq on March 20th. Yesterday, on the anniversary of that announcement, the Prez said: “Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it. The answers are clear to me. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision, and this is a fight that America can and must win.” Yesterday when Vice President Dick Cheney was told that two-thirds of Americans said the war was not worth fighting, he replied, “So?" When questioned further he said, "I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls." Yesterday, Barack Obama said: “Where are we for all of this sacrifice?...We are less safe and less able to shape events abroad. We are divided at home, and our alliances around the world have been strained.” Yesterday, Hillary Clinton said she would begin withdrawing troops within 60 days of her taking office. She added: “Every one of you who has served knows with drawing troops can be as dangerous as inserting them.” Yesterday, George Bush’s clone John McCain said he had visited Iraq this week and the US and its allies are “on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism.” Yesterday, the number of American soldiers killed in the Bush/McCain/imperialist Republicans' war had risen to 3992. Yesterday, the cost of the war in Iraq to US taxpayers was $600 billion and escalating. Today, Iraq is in a civil war with no end in sight, except in the addled minds of two mentally unstable men—George W. Bush and John McCain--and in the minds of men who look to make money on war, and/or can’t admit they were wrong. Today, the rest of the world says, ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

Maureen Dowd Nails It

This morning, Maureen Dowd talks about Barack Obama’s speech yesterday (New York Times Op/Ed column--"Black, White and Grey"). She says Obama has finally entered the realm where politicians actually live—the realm of ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity. Dowd says Obama’s speech on race was “momentous and edifying”. She also said “facing up to his dubious behavior toward his explosive friends, he had his first rude introduction in his political career to ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity.” That’s for sure. Obama has constantly slammed Hillary for her vote on the Iraq war. His refrain has been that from the beginning he was against the war. And yet, at the time the vote was taken he did not have to vote. He could not have voted. He didn’t have to confront the ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity that our Congresspersons were faced with at that time. But now, as Dowd says, “he was finally confronted by a problem that neither his charm nor his grandiosity would solve.” He has finally entered that grey area where politicians spend 95% of their time. Dowd signs off with this: “Leaders don’t need to be messiahs. Gray is a welcome relief from black and white.” I could not agree more.

Now We See What Became Prez in 2000

As Gail Collins said in her New York Times OpEd column yesterday, “The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance.” There are those who would counter that George W. Bush has changed while he’s been president; that the pressures of the presidency have derailed his mind; that in 2000 he wasn’t the lame and silly buffoon he showed himself to be as he danced a jig waiting for the appearance of John McCain the other day. Gail Collins says the man who joked and babbled at a meeting of New York’s financial mavens this past Friday has not changed one bit since his first term in office. Collins said, “The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (“the king, uh, the king of Saudi”) and made guy-fun of one of the questioners (“Who picked Gigot?”), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast...This is not the first time Bush’s attempts to calm our fears redoubled our nightmares.” There was his speech after 9/11, and of course, who can forget when no one could make him leave Crawford, TX after Katrina. Collins said the president’s performance at The Economic Club of New York on Friday made her recall “a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit”. And now Senator Hothead (an epithet given to John McCain by writer Harry Jaffe) wants to replace President Buffoon. A wonderful "Shouts & Murmurs" article in the March 17th issue of The New Yorker by Paul Slansky shows exactly how much of a hothead (not to say, also buffoon and liar) Senator John McCain really is. When Chelsea Clinton was eighteen, McCain told this joke: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.” What did McCain say to Edward Kennedy? (a) “Shut up.” (b) “Fucking jerk.” (c) “Fuck you.” (Shut up.) What did McCain say to John Cornyn? (a) “Shut up.” (b) “Fucking jerk.” (c) “Fuck you.” (Fuck you.) What did McCain say to Charles Grassley? (a) “Shut up.” (b) “Fucking jerk.” (c) “Fuck you.” (Fucking jerk.) Last year, McCain said, “When I voted to support this war, I knew it was probably going to be long and hard and tough, and those that voted for it and thought that somehow it was going to be some kind of an easy task, then I’m sorry they were mistaken.” What did McCain say before the war started? He told Larry King that “success will be fairly easy.” He told Wolf Blitzer, “I believe that we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time.” And he also said, “It’s a safe assumption that Iraqis will be grateful to whoever is responsible for securing their freedom.” The main point for Americans is not whether Hillary or Obama becomes the candidate in the general election next November. The main point is that John McCain must not become our next president. Yes, I would prefer Hillary. I don’t like Obama’s style. But should Barack Obama become the chosen candidate, I will have no problem whatsoever in voting for him in the general election. McCain is a liar, a nasty hothead and a buffoon. We’ve had eight years of that kind of president. Enough is enough.

Will Another Shoe Drop?

Spicy as New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s travails are, and lovely as it is to witness a pontificating, preachy reformer dangle from his own petard, still, one wonders, is this all there is? Will a second shoe drop with even more resounding echoes? Is this scandal, after all, about money laundering? The New York Times reported this morning (“Revelations Began in Routine Tax Inquiry”): “The criminal investigation that discovered the tryst began last year in a nondescript office building opposite a Dunkin’ Donuts on Long Island, according to law enforcement officials...there, in the Hauppauge offices of the Internal Revenue Service, investigators conducting a routine examination of suspicious financial transactions reported to them by banks found several unusual movements of cash involving the governor of New York, several officials said.” Yes, of course, I love it that affidavits reveal “Mr. Clean” Spitzer, the moral scourge of Wall Street, the crusader for all that’s good and decent and pure in this fine land, the Democrat’s holier-than-thou icon of moral rectitude was paying a hooker named Kristin four thousand bucks and change for unspecified delights. I think it’s wonderful bordering on delicious that he was called Client 9 by the tryst providers and the investigators. And yes, I’m delighted to find out that not only had the Gov paid for the services of hookers from the “Emperor’s Club VIP” previously, but those other hookers advised Madam Temeka Rachelle Lewis...er...Booking Agent Lewis that Client 9 asked them to do things that might not be considered “safe”. Oh yum!!!! And even though I suppose I have to feel sorry for Mrs. Spitzer, as I felt sorry for Governor James McGreevey’s clueless wife, yet, I do wonder, along with CNN’s Jack Cafferty: Just exactly how do these guys get their wives to stand up with them when they make their horrendous announcements? Cafferty said that he agreed with the guy who claimed, “My wife would be standing over my bleeding body with a shotgun saying, 'How do you reload this thing?'" My sentiments, exactly. What’s with these politician’s wives? Is it for the children, as Mrs. McGreevey said on Larry King last night? Please! Spitzer’s daughters are 17, 15, and 13. From what are they going to be protected if Mrs. Spitzer stands by her asshole husband? Is it for the good of The Party? Crap! Is it because these women love their philandering lying hypocrite husbands? Fah! Is it because a bunch of guys said they should? There you go. Anyway, all that titillating stuff aside, are Spitzer and the other nine guys who paid The Emperor’s Club for services (there were 10 in all) up to their necks in money laundering? And I don't mean penny-ante money laundering to hide fees to hookers, but money laundering on a huge scale. Eventually, will bigger fish get caught and will Dubai and the other Arab Emirates be involved? Will Saudi Arabia’s name come up? I cannot wait to find out.

Aha! That’s It!

I haven’t been able to put my finger on it. I don’t like Barack Obama. Up until now, I haven’t been able to pinpoint why. And then on March 3rd, Jon Stewart said the words on The Daily Show. Stewart said that Obama’s latest message to Hillary Clinton amounted to, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were still here." "Obama seems to be a bit of a dick," Stewart said. "He might be a good candidate, but seems like he’d be kind of a dicky boyfriend.” Yup. That’s it. Jon Stewart hit the nail on the head. Barack Obama is a bit of a dick. Which by me knocks him out of the good candidate box. I could never have voted for George W. Bush in any election. He’s a liar and a cheat, his eyes are too close together, and he’s a dick. I wouldn’t have trusted H. Ross Perot near the poor box in a church, his ears stuck out and he was a dick. John McCain is an old fool who loves war more than life itself, he needs heavy makeup to make him look reasonably normal and he’s a dick. Condoleezza Rice is a stiff overachiever who will step on anyone anywhere to sit at the top of any heap, no matter how stinky and corrupt, her death’s-head smile gives me anxiety willies and she’s a dick. And Barack Obama is a bit of dick. A bit is way more than too much.

Bloomberg Sounds Good, What’s He Mean?

I just read New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 700-word OpEd article (“I’m Not Running for President, but ...”) in this morning’s New York Times. And I don’t know what he’s talking about, other than he made it clear he’s not planning to run for Prez this time around. How would he implement his vaunted “independent approach” in governing the United States? “We need innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership,” Bloomberg said. That can’t be argued. He says he’s done it in New York City. “That’s not just empty rhetoric, and the idea that we have the ability to solve our toughest problems isn’t some pie-in-the-sky dream. In New York, working with leaders from both parties and mayors and governors from across the country, we’ve demonstrated that an independent approach really can produce progress on the most critical issues, including the economy, education, the environment, energy, infrastructure and crime.” If he says he’s done it in New York City, I won’t say he hasn’t. But how he thinks an independent president can solve the nation’s problems was certainly not outlined in his NYT piece. Nor did he say who that independent president might possibly be. And it surely did sound like "empty rhetoric” and “pie-in-the-sky”. “I am hopeful”, Bloomberg wrote, “that the current campaigns can rise to the challenge by offering truly independent leadership. The most productive role that I can serve is to push them forward, by using the means at my disposal to promote a real and honest debate.” Real and honest debate between whom? About what? He didn’t say. Bloomberg finished his article by saying, “In the weeks and months ahead, I will continue to work to steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance. And while I have always said I am not running for president, the race is too important to sit on the sidelines, and so I have changed my mind in one area. If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach — and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy — I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House.” Bloomberg does not say how he’ll help an independent, nonpartisan candidate win the White House. Money? Maybe. But first, Bloomberg has to find an independent, nonpartisan candidate in the company of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain. If independence and nonpartisanship is guiding the approach of any of these three, none has convinced me of it. And if a truly independent candidate wins the election (if there were a truly independent candidate running for election), how then would this independent president convince the lunkheads in Congress of the wisdom of his/her independent approach? And what would the independent approach of an independent president be? I believe there are many independent-thinking voters in the United States who would love to translate their independent thinking into independent nonpartisan action in Congress. But how could that be accomplished in 2008? It will take many years for our Senators and Representatives gradually to be switched from the hidebound Republican and Democratic pols we now have into a group of nonpartisan independent thinkers, if ever that can happen, which I doubt. What is more likely, at least in the person of Michael Bloomberg, is that he will decide that McCain, or Clinton or Obama is the independent candidate of his dreams, and then he will anoint his choice with words and a mantle of rhetoric that proclaims the person to be an independent with an independent approach, but it will just be old Hillary, or Barack or John dressed up in Bloomberg’s hopes. In fact, no independence or nonpartisan approach can change in even the tiniest way the manner in which politics is now practiced and will be practiced for the next four years. But New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will have joined the ranks of wishful thinkers who have more money and words than they know what to do with, who throw both to the winds and then claim they have changed the course of history.

Project Runway Way More Fun than Politics

The reality shows all have the same plotline and the same story arcs. The only thing we don’t know about Project Runway and the Fatties shows is who will be the final winner. And yet, we are glued to the TV set each week because the storyline is fascinating. And in the case of Project Runway, the talent is excellent and the creations each week are awesome. The Clinton and Obama strategists have decided that they too should keep the pot boiling day after day and week after week until the Democratic Convention. Apparently the politicos think that if it works for Project Runway and The Biggest Loser, it will work for the candidates. And not only that, after the Conventions we can count on the Repub and Dem strategists being determined to keep the suspense level high. There is only one problem with the politicians’ plan. The US election contestants are dreary and there is no inherent drama in anything they say or do. In addition, the voters have tuned out. God knows, the ABC show “LOST” is fascinating and I am hooked totally. However, that show has been immeasurably helped by the fact that the citizens of the world have found the US election candidates and particularly McCain, Clinton and Obama unutterably tedious, irritating and tiresome. And not only are the candidates deadly dull and snore-worthy, but the pundits and analysts who comment on the candidates are phoning it in because they said everything they were going to say three months ago. Will people stay home and not vote because the strategists’ strategies have been so childish and flawed? No. We’ll vote. Knee-jerk assholes in the Repub party will vote for McCain. And Dems will vote for Clinton or Obama and not give a damn which one it is. But between now and the election, the vast majority of people in the world will find something to watch other than the US candidates. Unless of course, they are looking to fall asleep. I certainly am done watching or listening to anything McCain, Clinton or Obama says from here on out. And I’m done watching or listening to what anyone else says about what McCain, Clinton or Obama says from here on out. It’s a little present I’m giving to me.

Funny Thing About Senator John McCain

McCain believes that if he says it, it makes it true. Sounds like the guy he wants to replace in the White House. An article in the New York Times this morning (“For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk”) chronicles a few of McCain’s more arrogant forays into ethically troubling and/or downright shady actions while he's been in political office. However, even in the face of proof to the contrary, McCain says, “I have never violated public trust or done favors for lobbyists”. Not true, Dishonest John...not true. The NYT reports that eight years ago McCain’s personal and political relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman was so worrying to his advisors they blocked her access to McCain and to his office. This was ten years after McCain had done a favor for a friend that involved McCain in the Charles Keating savings and loan scandal. In about a half hour, John McCain is going to hold a press conference in order to say he’s Mr. Integrity and that he’s never done a thing during his career as a public servant that has not been Simon Pure. And yet, we know he wrote letters to government regulators on behalf of Iseman’s clients who often had business before a Senate committee led by John McCain. And the NYT reports “Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest.” However, McCain often flew on corporate jets of business executives who sought his support. A small thing? Yes...but not in a man who claims he is the very model of the highest moral standards it is possible for a human being to hold. I particularly like this little rat-out from the NYT: “Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor.” John McCain is 73 years old and has come to believe his own press releases that equate him with a living saint. He likes that image and I don’t blame him. But he is not the man he wants to think he is. He has made mistakes, told lies, and committed improprieties. All of which is not a terrible legacy because it’s very typical and normal of men who have had a career in politics. But don’t tell me you’ve never violated public trust, John McCain. You have violated public trust. You violated public trust in Iraq with your shameful little charade when you denied that you had monumental protection from hundreds of US soldiers. And you’ve violated public trust by giving special access to lobbyists. As the NYT said, “When the Senate overhauled lobbying and ethics rules last year, Mr. McCain stayed in the background.” And don’t get in high dudgeon when people tell the truth about you and call it “a smear”--that's just childish and silly.

Doctors Wise Up... Duh!

Recent studies have cast doubts on medical assumptions that lowering cholesterol prevents heart disease and normalizing blood sugar protects diabetics. “Wow, we really don't know as much as we think we do,” professor of medicine at Yale University Harlan Krumholz said in a Washington Post article (“Medication Under a Microscope”) this morning. "We definitely need to pause and reassess our assumptions about what is best for patients...clearly we have more to learn." No kidding! Scott M. Grundy of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas said, "Drugs can be great, but they can have side effects...if you start piling on one drug after another, you can get into trouble." What a thought! And guess what? Now there is some doubt as to whether doctors should prescribe drugs for conditions that haven’t happened yet, as in, “pre-hypertension”, “pre-osteoporosis” and "pre-diabetic”. Although it is true, doctors haven’t gotten around to putting splints on legs before they get broken, plastic surgeons have been counseling for years that the time to get a facelift is before a facelift should be considered. In the medical community this is called preventative medicine—prescribing drugs that patients don’t need and ordering surgeries that are unnecessary. All of which might be forgiven if doctors were really looking out for the best interests of their patients. But these so-called best interests are incredibly lucrative for doctors, pharmaceutical firms and all hospital industries. "What's going on here is our research enterprise is almost completely controlled by the pharmaceutical industry," John Abramson said. He’s a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and author of the book "Overdosed America." Abramson went on to say, "It's their job to create a need for their products. Their job is not to maximize public health." "People are making a ton of money by selling the drugs and the monitoring equipment," Howard Brody, director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston said. "It distracts our patients from what really matters more, which may be getting more exercise or making lifestyle changes that ultimately may be more beneficial than obsessing about their blood sugar or playing with their little monitor device." The whole idea of preemptive strikes has worked so well in Republican circles in medical, pharmaceutical and war businesses, that if undertakers had a little more political clout we might see a trend toward pre-death burials to bolster the mortician industry.

The Big Question About Obama

And, of course, the big question about any candidate is: What will voters do in the voting booth? Because it is for certain, theoretical blocks of voters will not remain faithful in the secrecy of the voting booth. Ergo, the bigger question about Barack Obama is: Will black voters vote for Obama? For all the excited predictions that pundits and analysts are making concerning the mass defections of Republicans into the Dem camp, and Dems into the Indie camp, and born-agains into the Jezebel camp, and whites into the black camp, no one knows what blacks will do because there is no black camp, Oprah Winfrey and her posse notwithstanding. And by the way I looooove the comic who said, “Don’t you hate white people who try to sound black? Like Oprah.” But back to the question at hand: Will black people vote for Obama? WE DO NOT KNOW! I do know this: Among blacks of a certain age, there is a tendency when seeking a lawyer, a doctor, a therapist, or a financial advisor, to opt for white. My belief, although I do not KNOW this to be true, is that blacks will not vote black out-of-hand any more than whites will vote white out-of-hand. And I suspect it will be a real mistake for Obama to try to appeal to the black vote, whatever that would mean in his mind and his handlers’ minds. Oh, and one more thing I do know: Everyone is getting so sick of the trumped-up Clinton/Obama contest. There is no contest. It doesn’t matter a damn who gets the nomination. What matters is that the McCain/Huckabee/OldFart/Moron faction should not win the election. I am sure I am not the only one who breathed a sigh of relief yesterday while watching the “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” segment on Chris Matthews morning show. Someone (I think it was David Gregory) prophesied there will be NO last minute jockying for nomination status between Clinton and Obama because the two of them will reach a consensus and save us all from 11th hour ugliness. IT IS DEVOUTLY TO BE HOPED!!!!

We Now Know Bush’s Plan

According to this morning’s New York Times, “the White House seems eager to lock in as many of the president’s policies as possible before he leaves office in 11 months.” The Prez never sounds surer of himself than when the subject is Sept. 11, the NYT said, even though “he has squandered the country’s moral authority, violated American and international law, and led the United States into the foolhardy distraction of Iraq.” The NYT reported that in all cases —the military tribunals, the wiretapping legislation, the president’s war in Iraq—“the White House seems to have concluded that each is politically sustainable and even favorable for a Republican candidate and Mr. Bush’s own legacy.” Although Bush’s war in Iraq sent his popularity tumbling a year ago and Repubs as well as Dems were naming him the worst president in the entire history of the United States, George W. Bush now has justified keeping more than 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq and he’s saying it’s “part of a broader fight against terrorism”. Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates endorsed a ‘pause’ in further troop withdrawals once those troops sent in last year as part of a temporary buildup go home. So what’s going on? In the face of the worst presidency and the most unpopular president in the history of the United States, how come the Republicans want to elect another George W. Bush? The Republican Party has decided, against all analysis and against all assessment by reasonable men, that it ran the country so well under Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney, and neoconservative political strategist William Kristol and Kristol's ilk, that the Repubs are well advised to continue their policies not only for the next year, but also through the election and into the coronation of John McCain. The Republican Party is so sure that Americans love the war, love the lying Justice Department, love the lying Pentagon, love the killing of US soldiers for no good reason, love welfare for the rich, love being hated around the world, love being spied on, and most of all, love the last 7 years of White House fascism so much that we all will be pleased to have more of the same in the foreseeable future. And only the election of a Democrat President this coming November will make these madmen understand that they were wrong.

Romney Lies to the End

Mitt Romney bugged out of the Republican nomination race, because, as CNN’s Dana Bash so succinctly put it last night: “The numbers showed it would have been virtually impossible for him (Romney) to win the nomination now given how many delegates John McCain has versus how many he has.” However, Romney said he quit the race “because I love America, in this time of war I feel I have to now stand aside for our party and for our country...and frankly, I would be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win. Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrendering to terror.” TIP: Whenever a politician and/ or snake oil salesman says “frankly”, whatever follows is a lie. So now, the Republican Party has its nominee: Senator John McCain. But that leaves many Republican voters with no one to vote for because McCain is not conservative enough, not born-again enough, not hawkish enough, not young enough. What will they do? Some say that when the election rolls around next November, those with no one to love will write in a Republican candidate’s name. Some will no doubt rally behind a dark horse Independent. But of this you may be sure, A lot of Republican energy between now and the election will be spent on Swiftboating both Obama and Clinton, trying new versions of voter fraud, inventing terror plots where none exist and generally in making childish mischief. And how will that work for the Republicans? Not well. Dirty tricks, the empty rhetoric that the country needs four more years of Republican crimes and misdemeanors, and a tired old war vet trying to look appealing is not a winning combo.

Is There Still a War in Iraq? Apparently a war is still raging in Iraq, because American soldiers and Iraqi security forces and civilians are still dying. As of this morning, a total of 3,948 American soldiers have died in Iraq. Yet, also apparently, some unheralded law has passed in the United States that the war will not be spoken of so as to wipe it from our minds. In the first month of 2008, 40 American soldiers and 554 Iraqi civilians and security personnel were killed. And now already in February, 4 American soldiers and 144 Iraqi civilians and security personnel have been killed. But the word out of the Bush administration and the Pentagon is that the so-called surge has been successful and we are winning George Bush's Iraq war. In addition, the man who will likely be the Republican nominee for president, John McCain, said it would be “fine with me” if the US were in Iraq for 100 years. I submit that we have had ENOUGH of presidents on happy pills and adrenaline rushes. John McCain is an ailing old fool and God only knows what medications he is taking. But for anyone to say the US should stay in Iraq for 100 years is an insane statement. It implies the United States is committed to fighting Iraq’s civil war forever. Which, of course, the US cannot do, because The Commission of the National Guard and Reserves just issued a report saying the US is unprepared to handle its own emergencies at home, let alone foreign wars or attacks from foreign countries. But why has this war in Iraq that has bankrupted us and killed our young people been taken off the front pages? Is it now too boring to cover? That may well be the case. Americans may truly not want to hear about the war in Iraq. Fine. There is a solution. Let’s pull our troops out NOW!

What a Surprise!

The New York Times published an Associated Press news story today with this lede paragraph: “The United States military is not prepared for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces do not have the equipment or training they need for the job, according to a new report.” I am shocked...SHOCKED! The AP story when on to say, “The study of the military’s readiness to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear weapons attack found ‘an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk’.” The Commission of the National Guard and Reserves released the study yesterday. This commission is charged by Congress to recommend changes in law and policy concerning those forces. Because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the commission panel reported that “we don’t have the forces we need (meaning the US Military) nor do we have a reasonable alternative (meaning the National Guard) to relying heavily on our Reserves to supplement the active-duty forces, the report said. The study said the nation’s governors should be given the authority to direct active-duty troops responding to emergencies in their states. That recommendation, when it first came to light last year, was shot down by the military and immediately rejected by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. The Commission’s chairman, Retired Marine Corps general Arnold L. Punaro, said "I believe we’re going to wear him (Gates) down.” And while everyone is dicking around protecting their fiefdoms and power bases, what happens when another natural disaster happens? Or if God forbid the US is attacked (again) by President Bush’s buddies from Saudi Arabia? Not to worry. John McCain no doubt has a plan for keeping our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq while arming all 70-year-old vets with press releases about their past days of glory to hand out to disaster victims and/or potential enemies. And we can count on Homeland Security’s Michael Chertoff to have our back.

Okay, Dr. Jack...

I’ll go back to the Lost island with you. Forget about Kate...she obviously didn’t watch George W. Bushwah’s State of the Union Speech. Jesus! Is that applauding gang nuts or what? I see now that Ben wasn’t that bad. And Locke is on the right track. And we’ve got Hurley on our side. Besides, I’m in love with Sayid. So let’s go. See you on the next Oceanic flight.

Bush To Deliver SOTUS Tonight

It would save much time and free up prime time TV if the Prez looked into the cameras tonight and said, “The State of the Union is fucked and it’s my doing. Good night and good luck.” Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. Matt Spetalnick and Tabassum Zakaria of Reuters have given us a preview of what the Prez will say: 1) He will try to reassure nervous Americans about his economic rescue efforts. 2) He’ll try to sell Americans on his $150 billion stimulus package 3) He will be more intent on recycling old ideas than offering any bold new proposals. 4) The Prez is now trying to head off efforts by Senate Democrats to expand his stimulus plan beyond tax rebates and business investment incentives--which he calls “earmarks” 5) White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, "Tonight in his State of the Union address, the president will announce unprecedented steps he is taking to reduce and reform earmarks...The president will say that if these spending items are worthy, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote.” 6) Since the Prez has less than a year left in office, he won’t push any major new policies 7) And of course, Bush will underscore declining violence in Iraq, which he credits to a military buildup he ordered last January before his 2007 State of the Union speech. An op/ed contributor editorial in the New York Times this morning (“The Bush Who Got Away” by Jacob Weisberg) ends with this paragraph,“The Compassionate Conservative will surely pay us a final visit tonight. He remains an appealing character, but a largely fictional one. I wonder how the last seven years might have turned out if he had actually existed. In the final year of a failed presidency, I bet Mr. Bush does too.“ No, Mr. Weisberg, President Bush does not wonder how things might have been if he had been the man his speechwriters invented. The Prez can’t have those kinds of thoughts because he is a narcissistic, sociopathic con man. If George W. Bush reflects at all (which he doesn't), he reflects on how things might have been if the people he has had to deal with were not so flawed.

Bush Administration Tries New Old Ploy

And today, I don’t mind saying, I TOLD YOU SO! This morning, the New York Times reported: “With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials.” Not only is the Bush administration negotiating to lock-in a US presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future plus guaranteeing that the US will protect Iraq from outsider and insider attacks. In addition, the Bush administration is demanding that Blackwater, USA be exempt from any and all prosecutions regarding its unlawful and criminal behavior in Iraq. On September 18, 2007, the Ratbang headline was: “US Will Defend Blackwater, Count on it”. I said, “No one is overseeing the actions of the mercenaries in Iraq because the White House likes it that way. These thugs can operate in any way they see fit, and that is what they do. It’s difficult to find out exactly how many mercenaries are in Iraq. But the estimate has always been that there are as many civilian hired guns as there are US troops in Iraq, which is to say, there are 160,000 armed hooligans looting, killing and marauding in Iraq. This morning, the New York Times said, “About 126,000 people working for contractors serve alongside American troops, including about 30,000 security contractors.” “Close enough. “And all of these hoodlums are hired by the US State Department and have been granted immunity by the US State Department and Department of Defense. The US could not fight the Bush administration’s war in Iraq without the mercenaries because the US has no military to speak of. However, the Bush administration thought it could easily invade Iraq with a minimum of troops, take over Iraq’s oil and be greeted as liberators “The US Department of Defense and the Pentagon immediately realized what any fifth grader could have told them: Iraq didn’t want to be attacked, over-run, invaded and occupied and Iraq fought back with whatever means it had. “Ergo, the US State Department hired a bunch of thugs to pretend they were the US military which the US did not have. And Paul Bremer gave the thugs immunity. “Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker loves Blackwater. They protect his lily-livered ass while he gives elegant soirees for US Congressmen in his safe compound in Baghdad in order to bamboozle them into prolonging the war in Iraq until FOREVER. General Petraeus loves Blackwater mercenaries because they can perform all the nasty illegal attacks on insurgents/Iraqi citizens/whatever that “Petraeus would like for US troops to carry out, but can’t officially order the military to do. “The only way the US can stay in Iraq is if the mercenaries stay in Iraq. “The Bush administration will spend far more time and money defending Blackwater criminals than it has ever spent on proper gear and armaments for our troops.” And today I say, should this draft agreement on military-to military relations in Iraq be approved, the next president (whether he or she is a Democrat or a Republican) will be locked-in to keeping an American presence in Iraq to fight Iraq's Civil War FOREVER!.

Now Coffee Causes Miscarriages? PLEASE!!!!!

How about using some common sense on these “new” findings coming out of the hopelessly corrupt medical profession. Here’s the thing. When a miscarriage occurs, it’s because it should occur. When the baby being produced is not viable, a miscarriage occurs. Or, a miscarriage occurs because the womb a baby is being produced in has imperfections that will not occur in subsequent pregnancies (or perhaps they will) and the womb cannot carry a baby to term. In any case, if the caffeine in two cups of coffee a day rather than one cup of coffee a day seems to turn the tide on a pregnancy and causes a miscarriage, then that pregnancy is in jeopardy anyway. This morning the New York Times quoted Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and epidemiology, at Columbia University Medical Center. She has reservations about the new study being published today in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Westhoff said: “Just interviewing women, over half of whom had already had their miscarriage, does not strike me as the best way to get at the real scientific question here...but it is an excellent way to scare women.” She went on to say that smoking, chlamidial infections and increasing maternal age were stronger risk factors for miscarriage, and ones that women could do something about. “Moderation in all things is still an excellent rule,” Dr. Westhoff said. “I think we tend to go overboard on saying expose your body to zero anything when pregnant. The human race wouldn’t have succeeded if the early pregnancy was so vulnerable to a little bit of anything. We’re more robust than that.” Why does the medical profession want to frighten everyone? Why does the medical profession want to put the entire population on drug therapy? Why does the medical profession want to have everyone undergo wildly expensive tests for every medical problem that could occur in the human body when the symptom being complained about is easily diagnosable and easily treated? Those are rhetorical questions. You and I know the answers.

Frank Rich: GOP Field Also-rans For Bucket List

Heh! So true! Nice tag line. Heh-heh! In addition, Frank Rich’s New York Times Op/Ed article this morning (“Ronald Reagan Is Still Dead”) points out a few more GOP lies and distortions: 1) Mitt Romney actually has said he saw his father George Romney (former Massachusetts governor) march with Martin Luther King in the 1960’s. George Romney may have been on the side of civil rights in the ‘60’s, but he never marched with Martin Luther King. 2) And although Mitt Romney has belatedly climbed aboard the civil rights train, Rich notes that Romney has “never spoken out about his own church’s discrimination against blacks, which didn’t end until 1978.” 3) “Huckanomics is more snake oil,” Rich says. “All federal taxes would be replaced by a national sales tax that despite its Orwellian name (the Fair Tax) would shift more of the burden to middle- and low-income Americans.” 4) Last October, during a Republican debate, Fred Thompson saw "no reason" to think the US was heading for a recession and viewed the US economic future as "rosy". 4) Rich ends his article saying, “Imagine if Mr. McCain’s Straight Talk Express stopped taking detours around the one figure who unites 60-plus percent of the populace in ire. Imagine if he started talking straight about how he’d clean up the White House mess. That might at least break the ice with the vast majority of voters who look at the G.O.P. presidential field and don’t see Ronald Reagan so much as also-rans for ‘The Bucket List’.” There are three things the exit polls will not reflect during these early caucuses because people do not tell the truth regarding how they really feel about having a) a black president, b) a woman president, c) a sick old man president. We are just going to have to wait until November 4, 2008 to find out. But just think! On this day one year from now, no matter what! We will be shut of George Bush as president, the Bush administration and the Bush policies. No matter what, that era is DEAD-DEAD-DEAD!!!!!!!

Never Mind the Political Analysts

What does Romney’s win in the Michigan primary really mean? 1) Michigan voters prefer a lying opportunist to an aging, ailing Bush-clone, an ignorant born-again religious fanatic, a lying warmonger, and an aging, ailing actor. 2) No matter who becomes the candidate for President, Republicans will have to hold their noses to vote in the general election next November. That’s it. Last night, CNN’s Senior Political Correspondent Cindy Crowley said, “If Mike Huckabee should win, it will prove that he is not just a quirk out of Iowa.” Obviously, the jerk out of Arkansas is just that, a quirk out of Iowa. The evangelicals in Michigan voted for Romney rather than give Huckabee the nod. As much as the pundits and pollsters are badmouthing the word “change”, voters are looking for change. No matter who is inaugurated in 2009, Congress will have to clean up the messes the Bush administration created in the Middle East and in the US. What’s to be done about Blackwater? The Bush State Department has hogtied the Bush Justice Department so that investigating the criminal acts of guns-for-hire outfits like Blackwater is nearly impossible, let alone prosecuting the criminals. The New York Times reported this morning: “In a private briefing in mid-December, officials from the Justice and State Departments met with aides to the House Judiciary Committee and other Congressional staff members and warned them that there were major legal obstacles that might prevent any prosecution. Justice officials were careful not to say whether any decision had been made in the matter, according to two of the Congressional staff members who received the briefing... Since the September shooting, the State Department and the Pentagon have reached an agreement to put private contractors under greater military control.” But that is not enough and voters know it. Having had a taste of an out-of-control Executive Branch, voters want to rein in the Executive Branch. The Patriot Act has to be revisited and changed. Voters don’t like being spied on and surveilled. The mess in Iraq has to be cleaned up, and the US has to get out. Voters know this. Dare I say it doesn’t matter who the President is? Actually, it doesn’t matter. The President of the United States can do nothing by himself/herself. For a candidate to utter words like, “When I am President, I will...." or “Vote for me, I will....” is ridiculous. The President of the United States is powerless to do ANYTHING on his own. During the last seven years, Republicans have been as tricked and deceived by the entire Bush administration as Democrats. The Bush administration lied to all of us. Both sides of the aisle in Congress were lied to and deceived by the fascists in the White House. And now, all of us want change. The voters in the United States do not like being governed by a dictator. McCain and Giuliani want things to go on as they have gone on since 2000. Nevertheless, should either one win the Republican candidacy, and should either one become president, he would be forced to follow the lead of Congress in changing the direction the US is presently headed in. The tipping point has been reached. All the blather about Republican policies and Democrat policies and this candidate is different from that candidate is window-dressing. What has been cannot go on. And what has been will not go on no matter who becomes president.

Another Victory for Doctors and Drug Stores

The medical profession, in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry, just won another coup in its continuing effort to put everyone under a doctor’s care and on drugs. Recently, when I saw an ad on television for yet another drug we are supposed to tell our doctors we desperately need, my first thought was: My God! That woman is a self-absorbed whiny hypochondriac. The drug being hawked by a Central Casting type we all recognize as our complaining spinster aunt was Lyrica and the disease was something I had never heard of—fibromyalgia--which, we were told causes debilitating pain throughout the body. An article in the New York Times this morning (“Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?”) reports that the drug touted in the television commercial is manufactured by Pfizer, that it has been approved by the FDA, and Eli Lilly and Forest Labs have now asked for FDA approval for similar drugs to counteract “chronic, widespread pain of unknown origin”. Lyrica acts on the brain’s perception of pain. And although Lyrica does nothing to cure the pain, which may or may not be intolerable, may or may not have physical origins and may or may not be caused by a real disease, the side effects caused by Lyrica are very real and include severe weight gain, dizziness. sleepiness and edema. Funnily enough, even though the spinster aunt in the ad is skinny, most sufferers of chronic pain are obese. Furthermore, the article says many doctors not only dispute the need for the drug, they dispute the existence of the disease. Lyrica is used to treat diabetic nerve pain and seizures. But in June it received FDA approval for use in treating "fibromyalgia". Its sales reached $1.8 billion in 2007, up 50 percent from 2006. The NYT reports “Analysts predict sales will rise an additional 30 percent this year, helped by consumer advertising.” The NYT goes on to say, “Doctors who are skeptical of fibromyalgia say vague complaints of chronic pain do not add up to a disease. No biological tests exist to diagnose fibromyalgia, and the condition cannot be linked to any environmental or biological causes...The diagnosis of fibromyalgia itself worsens the condition by encouraging people to think of themselves as sick and catalog their pain, said Dr. Nortin Hadler, a rheumatologist and professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina who has written extensively about fibromyalgia.” Am I saying that the million people who report having chronic pain are imagining it? No. I am saying pain is not a disease. I’m saying pain is a symptom. I’m saying that drugs like Lyrica and drug companies and doctors who promote it are simply the 21st century’s version of snake oil salesmen. I’m saying chronic fatigue, chronic pain, chronic complaining, chronic visits to doctors because “they can’t find what’s wrong with me”, are not drug-treatable diseases. I'm saying that although the complainants may find temporary relief in using drugs, they do not have a specific disease. I’m saying that the medical profession turning the populace into drug-dependent addicts who need to visit their so-called health providers regularly in order to get a fix is scamming us and we have become a nation of foggy-brained, passive, low-energy, ego-centered, hypochondriacs because of it.

Crazy George’s Latest Statement

Last week, President George W. Bush went to the Middle East where he is reviled and hated more than he’s reviled and hated in the United State (if possible). His plans are to invoke peace between Israel and Palestine, both of which nations look with contempt and disdain on the little fascist putz more than they look with contempt and disdain on each other. Nevermind. George W. Bush not only is confident that before his term is ended he can be the cosmic force that unites Israel and Palestine. But also, when he was in Kuwait yesterday, this is what he told US troops about the war in Iraq: “There is no doubt in my mind that when history is written, the final page will say that victory was achieved by the United States of America for the good of the world.” And the horrible fact is that George W. Bush is no deluded and insane that he believes what he said is true even though there is no way on God’s green earth that victory of any sort can be achieved by the United States in Iraq in any time frame even by the day before last times. And another horrible fact is that apparently George W. Bush has forgotten that he started the war in Iraq for no good reason, but in order to gain control of Iraq’s oil, and certainly NOT for the good of the world. I am of the belief that the Prez doesn’t use speech writers these days. I am of the belief he is writing his own crazed rhetoric himself, and that he speaks off-the-cuff without monitoring or filters because the Bush administration and the Republican Party have decided George W. Bush is beyond reclaim and that the pathetic little madman can hang by his thumbs for all they care.

What’s New?

Well, certainly nothing new in the Bush administration. And nothing new in Iraq. As Lou Dobbs made clear on A Daily Show last night, there's nothing new in the political arena—the pollsters and pundits are already making unfounded and rash predictions about the outcomes of the next primary caucuses. Nothing new in Ron Paul’s campaign for president--he’s acting like the idiot he can't help being with regard to the racial bigotry in the Ron Paul Newsletter during the 80’s and 90’s--he says he didn’t write it and didn’t read it. Nothing new about William Kristol—he just turned 55 and is as smug, smirky and arrogant about being a vicious snide little autocrat as he was twenty years ago. So, since there is nothing new in the news, you might as well read the New York Times review by Michael Wilson of the new public toilet near 23rd and Madison in NYC (“Greetings, Earthlings, Your New Restroom Is Ready”)--the first of 20 planned new public toilets in NYC. It sounds like the perfect ruse to entice fools like Kristol and Ron Paul into permanent flushdom and off the earth. I envision Public Service Flushlets every five blocks in large cities. With all those colored buttons available in the new facility in Manhattan, surely they can be outfitted with asshole-to-mass-hole sensors. The only clue would be when someone asks: “Have you seen Newt Gingrich lately?” And the answer is: “No. The last time I saw him he was heading for a Public Service Flushlet.”

Blackwater Used CS Gas to Clear a Traffic Jam

The New York Times reported this morning that in 2005 a Blackwater helicopter dropped a tear gas substance on Iraqi civilians and US military personnel in Baghdad. “The American military in Iraq can use CS gas only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders,” the NYT said. “An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint...Both the helicopter and the vehicle involved in the incident at the Assassins’ Gate checkpoint were not from the United States military, but were part of a convoy operated by Blackwater Worldwide, the private security contractor that is under scrutiny for its role in a series of violent episodes in Iraq, including a September shooting in downtown Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead,” the NYT report said. “This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous,” Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene said online later that day. Uncool? I would say so. But the real kicker was the information that there was no violence at the checkpoint where the CS gas was dropped. The Blackwater convoy was stuck in traffic and used the tear gas to clear the traffic jam. Guess what Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Blackwater said about the incident? The CS gas was dropped by mistake. “Blackwater teams in the air and on the ground were preparing a secure route near a checkpoint to provide passage for a motorcade. It seems a CS gas canister was mistaken for a smoke canister and released near an intersection and checkpoint.” Blackwater says it is permitted carry CS gas under its contract at the time with the State Department. But a State Department official says the contract did not specifically authorize Blackwater personnel to carry or use CS gas, but it did not prohibit it. The NYT said, “The military tightly controls use of riot control agents in war zones. They are banned by an international convention on chemical weapons endorsed by the United States, although a 1975 presidential order allows their use by the United States military in war zones under limited defensive circumstances and only with the approval of the president or a senior officer designated by the president.” Michael Schmitt, professor of international law at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. said, “It is not allowed as a method or means of warfare...There are very, very strict restrictions on the use of CS gas in a war zone.” While standing at the checkpoint Captain Clark said he saw a Blackwater helicopter overhead. In a personal journal posted online the day of the incident, Captain Clark wrote: “We noticed that one of them was hovering right over the intersection in front of our checkpoint. There was a small amount of white smoke coming up from the intersection. I grabbed my radio and asked one of the guard towers what the smoke was. He answered that it looked like one of the helicopters dropped a smoke grenade on the cars in the intersection. I asked him why were they doing that, was there something going on in the intersection that would cause them to do this. He said, nope, couldn’t see anything. Then I said, well what kind of smoke is it? “Before he could say anything, I got my answer. My eyes started watering, my nose started burning and my face started to heat up. CS! I heard the lieutenant say, “Sir that’s not smoke, it’s CS gas.” Captain Clark’s wrote, “the gas caused a complete traffic jam in front of our checkpoint, armored cars in the convoy made a U-turn — and threw another CS grenade...it just seemed incredibly stupid...the only thing we could figure out was for some reason, one of them figured that CS would somehow clear traffic. Why someone would think a substance that makes your eyes water, nose burn and face hurt would make a driver do anything other than stop is beyond me. Army Staff Sgt. Kenny Mattingly said he was puzzled. “We saw the Little Bird (Blackwater helicopter) come and hover right in front of the gate, and I saw one of the guys dropping a canister...There was no reason for dropping the CS gas. We didn’t hear any gunfire or anything. There was no incident under way.” And Blackwater thugs are still making their incredibly stupid, arrogant mistakes in Iraq, and lying about it while the State Department covers up for them and claims an investigation is going on when no investigation is going on. The war in Iraq is not going well or even better, it is simply stagnating. As of January 9th 3921 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq for no reason other than to keep the Bush administration's ego war going on and on and on. But Blackwater, and all of Vice President Cheney’s companies (Halliburton and offshoots and branches of Halliburton) are making tons and tons and tons of money.

What Happened in New Hampshire?

While the pollsters and pundits who believed the pollsters scrambled around last night trying to justify and/or understand why they were so wrong, the fact remains that in the New Hampshire Democratic primary yesterday, people voted for the person they believed could win the election for president next November. Last night, everyone and his Aunt Maude floated reasons why the polls were wrong. The one I loved was that the polls were right, but voters can’t be trusted: i.e., voters changed their minds at the last minute and voted for Hillary Clinton because she had come close to tears the day before. Others said women voters made Clinton the victor. And still others said pro-union people decided the primary in Clinton’s favor. The most likely scenario is that the voters had been in Clinton’s camp from the gitgo, listened to what Obama had to say, but voted for Clinton. As ever, the trouble with polls is that the sampling is too small to give a real picture of the topic being polled. In New Hampshire, the polls relied on as few as 600 queries. As far as the Republican winner McCain is concerned, it was no contest. For the voters to know beyond a doubt way before the primaries were held, that Romney is an opportunist and liar, that Giuliani is a loose cannon neocon with ethics problems, that Huckabee is terminally ignorant and a religious fanatic and that Thompson is an aging actor with leukemia who was pushed into the fray by his trophy wife, left only one nominally viable candidate: John McCain. The campaign strategists want us to know today that Clinton and McCain came out ahead because the strategies were brilliant and the strategies influenced the voters at the last second to vote for Clinton and McCain. Wrong. Clinton won because the voters knew months ago she was the right choice. And McCain won because he may be an old fool but he’s not Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani or Thompson. What’s the mystery? What’s the wonderment? There is none. The outcome just figures.

What Can One Say?

Not much. The Repubs have managed to cause the economy to spiral downward. The Repub’s war in Iraq goes on and on and on. It cannot be won. Republican President Bush is an idiot, a dupe and is mentally unstable. Republican Vice President Cheney is malicious, spiteful, sick and insane. Do I care who comes out as the Democratic frontrunner? No. Any of the Dem candidates will be fine by me. Their differences are differences in style only. Clinton, Obama and Edwards will not hurt the world, or the US. Do I care who comes out as the Repub frontrunner? No. All of the Repub candidates are jokes. McCain is an old fool. Romney has no firm beliefs in anything and Huckabee is ignorant and silly. They all will do whatever the neocon corporate asslickers demand. Do the caucuses in Iowa and New Hampshire matter? Not really. The only thing that matters is the election next November. Will the US continue to be a fascist Republican-run nation, or will the voters decide they have had enough of Third-Reich politics? That matters. Does it matter whether Obama, Clinton, or Edwards runs against McCain, Romney or Huckabee? No.