What a Bizarre Situation

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

Some Marines Doubt Haditha Atrocities

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

Damned if He Does, Damned if He Doesn’t

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

NYT Editorial Puzzled by US “Dread” of Illegals

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

Blair and Butt-head Hold a Press Conference

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

He Can’t Pronounce Nuclear, But…

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

OH NO! IT’S COME TO PASS!

Brian P. Tierney and the Toll Brothers own the Philadelphia newspapers. In one way, the fuckers deserve it! All that hideous pandering by the Inquirer to court Pulitzers. Although, it’s true, the Daily News really doesn’t deserve Tierney/Toll. The Daily News did not lift its skirts for the GOP the way the Inquirer did. But now, they’re all done for. Fuhgeddaoutdit! Watch for the Brian P. Tierney viewpoint to slither through the editorial offices that he’s sworn to leave be. Writers who favor the GOP view and the Pope will get preferential treatment. Wait for it! By the November elections, the Philadelphia Newspapers will be house organs for the Bush administration. Else…why would a Republican flack like Tierney and a big-business poster boy like Toll Brothers buy a fleet of newspapers in the first place?

Hillary Clinton

Fine by me if Hillary wants to throw her hat in the ring as a 2008 presidential contender. But I don’t think she can win against John McCain, so I don’t want her to be the Democrat candidate. The only thing that’s relevant in the 2008 election is electability. Can Hillary Clinton win? No. A woman cannot win in 2008. There’s too much testosterone in the air what with the military wanting to run the government, the neocons determined to start more wars and John McCain determined to keep us in Iraq for the next 30 years. Does Hillary have the stuff to make a good president? Yes. But that doesn’t matter. Hillary Clinton cannot win against the formidable gang warfare the GOP will mount to protect its kingdom. However, Russ Feingold is wonderfully electable. Russ Feingold is Jewish, his sister is a rabbi and he’s a twice-divorced single man. In the election of 2008, these qualifications are pure gold in addition to the fact that Feingold is a true-blue, intelligent, ethical, attractive Democrat. Along with the “Had enough?” slogan, a sub-text can be added: Had enough of the traditional married-with-children-Christian-horseshit? Indeed, where has the married-with-children-Christian-president ethos gotten us? Look at the mess we’re in by listening to strategists who have pandered to the 23% of voters who are Christian religious fanatic bigots and warmongers. Feingold has the ca-jones, wit and class to handle mean-spirited GOP detractors who sling mud, tell lies and run campaigns like gangsters in the ‘hood. Would Hillary consider being Feingold’s running mate? Now THAT’S a ticket!

Condi Suggests the Best Recourse for America

“Sometimes you have to get rid of really, really bad regimes,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday at a news conference. Rice was defending the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. She also defended her speaking engagement at Boston College’s commencement today. Rice has many critics at the Catholic/Jesuit school who objected to her presence at its commencement exercises. However, her remark is the best advice anyone in the Bush cabinet has ever given to voters in the United States. And Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’s remarks on the This Week program yesterday morning made it clear the Bush administration is a really REALLY bad regime. Gonzales said the government has the legal authority to prosecute journalists for publishing classified information. Which is not true. Whatever "legal authority" the Attorney General thinks he can use would be far-fetched and would violate the First Amendment in any case. However, Gonzales went on to say, "We have an obligation to enforce the law and to prosecute those who engage in criminal activity." And that is true. If Gonzales means what he says, the entire White House is in peril. As a really REALLY bad regime, they have all engaged in criminal activity, including the Attorney General. A bit of local news is standing Philadelphia on its ear. Knight Ridder sold the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News to the McClatchy Co., which immediately announced it was looking for a buyer. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning the frontrunner in the auction to buy the Philadelphia newspapers is a group of investors headed by Brian P. Tierney and the Toll Brothers. Yikes! Brian P. Tierney is a so-called marketing entrepreneur (Tierney Communications) in Philadelphia who loudly echoes the GOP party line every chance he gets. Plus he is a staunch defender of every bit of far-right nonsense the Roman Catholic Church and/or the Pope claims God has ordained. The Toll Brothers bills itself as “the nation's leading builder of new luxury homes, new home construction, golf communities, retirement communities, and resort homes”. Tierney says he will keep his GOP/RCC mitts off the newspapers should his group be successful in its bid. Boloney! Like the Bush administration, big business and the RCC have kept their paws off the MSM. It won’t happen. If the Tierney/Toll group buys the Philadelphia newspapers they will become little more than PR rags for the White House, huge corporations, the Vatican and Brian P. Tierney. Really REALLY bad regimes shouldn’t be allowed to get a toehold in the first place.

Illusionist/Comedian Penn Jillette Says:

“You can’t know anything about truth until you know all about deception.” Jillette is an interesting guy who says and does interesting things. And his comment about truth and deception is interesting. It would seem to follow that the Bush administration knows a lot about truth since it knows everything about deception. I don’t know why I even bother to philosophize about the Bush administration and its relationship with truth and deception. Except that it’s so easy to say that politicians don’t know what truth is. But politicians do know what truth is. And the ones who lie and deceive make a conscious choice to lie and deceive. Politicians who are troubled with their mendacity tell themselves they lie for the best possible reasons: To keep America safe; to protect the weak; to safeguard our secrets from spies. And all those rationales for lying are bullshit. Liars tell lies to make themselves look better than they are. Liars tell lies to get something they couldn’t get by telling the truth. Liars tell lies when the truth is unpleasant. And liars tell lies because it’s fun. Don’t get me wrong. I do not think the truth must be told all the time about everything. I don’t think it would benefit the world for the truth to be told about Moses, Muhammad, Jesus Christ, the Christian religion or the Roman Catholic Church. We need our religions. Religions are based on myth. Religion and total truth cannot co-exist. Most marriages could not survive the practice of telling the truth under all circumstances. And governments would collapse under the weight of the whole truth and nothing but the truth twenty-four-seven. But why has the Bush administration chosen to lie and deceive all the time about everything, when reasonable men and women and most governments and religions lie and deceive only part of the time? Penn Jillette may have answered that question in an interview he did a few years ago on AskMen.com. “Well of course, the fact is,” Jillette said, “if we (Penn and Teller) really did have magical powers, what we would do is get world peace and cure AIDS, we would not make birds appear out of our ass.” The Bush administration doesn’t believe it can do anything good and decent in the world and it has opted for illusions. But what real illusionists know is that people realize their act is fake. The White House has come to believe its illusions. And worst of all, it believes we believe its illusions.

GOP Strategy For Staying in Control

1. Lie 2. Ratchet up our fear of THEM Lying is so ingrained in the Bush administration that people in the White House always lie. It’s their nature. Even when there’s no reason to lie, they lie. But every day the White House adds to the list of people and countries that we are to despise and fear in order to call ourselves Americans. And why not? If it was good enough for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the old Communist witch-hunt days, it certainly should work for the present fascist White House. Following is a partial list of GOP Despise and Fear rules: Despise and fear anyone from the Middle East unless and until anyone from the Middle East puts money directly in your pocket. Despise and fear anyone from the Middle East unless and until the US invades that person’s country. At that point, love and pity persons from US-attacked Middle East countries, unless and until those persons do not literally and passionately kiss your ass, then return forthwith to despise and fear mode. Despise and fear all lesbian and gay persons unless and until a gay/lesbian person runs your election campaign, runs the national committee of your party, is a hooker who makes house calls, is part of your cabinet, is part of your immediate family, and/or is you. Despise and fear all immigrants because they want to take over the United States. If possible, enact laws that will make immigrants look stupid, greedy and craven. Make Americans despise and fear immigrants. Make immigrants believe they can become citizens ONLY IF they love and fear the GOP. Never allow guest-worker slaves to become citizens. If immigrants show signs of not loving and fearing the GOP, kill, jail and humiliate them. Despise and fear all non-Christians. Non-Christians want to take over the United States. If this policy was good enough for Hitler, it’s good enough for the GOP unless and until a non-Christian is your lawyer, doctor, dentist, psychiatrist, wife, husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, grandmother, grandfather, grandchild, or close-associate Episcopalian, then put up with that heathen until he/she can be converted. Despise and fear all women who believe their wombs and vaginas are not government property. These unholy, treasonous and foul women want to take over the world. Despise and fear all people who want the war in Iraq to end immediately. Despise and fear all people who want the government to stop its Despise and Fear campaign. Despise and fear all people who believe the government should not rule by secret fiat, illegal surveillance and martial law. Since people like those in the Despise and Fear coalition comprise only 25% of the citizens of the United States, despise and fear 75% of the people who live and vote in the United States.

Are We There Yet?

And when we get there, will we know we are there? “There” being the tipping point. It’s been six years since Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” was published in 2000. And now, each of us either hears or says “the tipping point” at least once every day. Gladwell’s book was about the concept that small changes do not affect any system until critical mass is reached. At the moment of critical mass—the boiling point--one small change tips the entire system and a big effect takes place. Already, there have been more than a half-dozen horrendous events during the Bush reign that have been called the tipping point: that moment when one more lie or distortion caused the president’s approval rating to plummet. Mission Accomplished Colin Powell/George W. Bush UN lies revealed Valerie Plame outed to avenge UN lies being revealed Schaivo disaster showing JebBush/GeorgeBush/BillFrist to be total idiots Social Security plan defeat Katrina debacle with Bush on vacation and Condi Rice buying shoes President defends illegal wiretapping Each one of these events caused an uproar and erosion of faith in the GOP. But what exactly will happen when all the small tipping points become part of a HUGE TIPPING POINT when critical mass is achieved and everyone in the United States and everyone in the world wants to be rid of the entire Bush administration without waiting for the democratic process to vote them out? That is the question that is scaring the pants off not only the GOP but the Dems as well. The dire prospect of rioting in the streets and anarchy is what makes our legislators defend the indefensible and prate about respecting the office of the president even if we don’t respect the president. Fear of the consequences of reaching the ultimate tipping point makes pundits and congressmen defend an unwinnable and unnecessary war. What is going to happen, they whisper in corridors, if the people rise up in protest? It certainly is a very good question. And the determination not to find out is what is driving every initiative being put forward by either party today. Governing and leadership is not happening in Washington and has not been happening since we were lied into the war in Iraq. Avoiding open rebellion is what is happening in Washington. But can the tipping point brought on by achieving critical mass be avoided? .

Tony Snow

Tony Snow’s first formal press briefing as White House press secretary on Tuesday brought to mind an Oscar Wilde quip. Snow misquoted poll results, misquoted President Bush, made conflicting statements about whether the NSA is invading the privacy of Americans or not and used a phrase that has been deemed politically incorrect for the last seven years. He said he didn’t want to “hug the tar baby” of the surveillance program. To top off his sloppy and ill-prepared first official day on the job, he had a tearful private moment with long seconds of dead air during which he struggled to get his emotions under control in order to speak of his colon cancer surgery. It was then that Oscar Wilde came to my mind: “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.” How long Tony Snow is going to blame his gaffes on the fact that he’s not yet up-to-speed on White House info is anyone’s guess. But a press secretary gets only one free pass to cry about his near-death cancer surgery. Tony Snow used that pass Tuesday. But Snow has managed to do one thing since his switch from the Fox News Follies to the White House Shuffle. He has made former press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan look terrific.

Border Guvs Ask: How Will it Work?

According to the New York Times this morning, the Governors of border states have some questions about how the Bush administration’s amnesty plan and deployment of troops to secure the border will actually play out. That is, the guvs of California, Arizona and New Mexico have questions. Governor Rick Perry of Texas thinks everything the prez said or didn’t say this past Monday regarding immigration was wonderful. But governors Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California would like to have a little basic information. They said the president made his announcement without consulting the governors from the Border States that will be most impacted by the plan or lack of a plan. The main concerns of the Border States guvs are: 1. The National Guard is already exhausted by deployments to Iraq. If 6,000 are sent to the border, who will deal with forest fires and other natural disasters? 2. What will be the duties of the National Guard? 3. How are the states going to pay for the billions of dollars needed to provide education, medical care and public services to the illegals already living in the US? Homeland Security head doofus Michael Chertoff and White House head crook-and-liar Karl Rove said the troops will come from the states around the country but didn’t give details. Governor Richardson asked, "What exactly are they going to do? What are their rules of engagement? Those questions have not been answered. My National Guard commander says we can probably spare 100 guardsmen without being threatened in our response to forest fires and other civil emergencies.” Governor Schwarzenegger wondered if 6,000 troops would be enough and if it isn’t, would the president do “whatever it takes”? “That’s what I want to hear,” Schwarzenegger said. "So what if they have 6,000 National Guards at the borders and we find out that the same amount of people are coming across? Does it mean he will increase it to 12,000, to 15,000, to 50,000? We don't know. I have no idea. And so we were not consulted on that, and we have not really been included in the decision making process, so I cannot tell you." Gov. Janet Napolitano says she’s been asking the White House and the Pentagon since December to pay for additional National Guard troops to secure the Arizona border. About half of the illegals enter the US at Arizona’s border. "They allowed this problem to festeer for far too long. This should have been dealt with years ago," she said. Never mind. The governor of Texas has complete faith in the president from Texas. "It’s good that the federal government is starting to respond to our needs,” Governor Perry said. Yes, Mr. Perry. And since the pile of horseshit at the White House has become so huge, a pony for the governor of Texas must be there someplace.

CNN Calls Prez Speech “Impassioned Appeal”

George W. Bush’s 17-minute speech last night about immigration might have been impassioned if it had been delivered by anyone other than George W. Bush who looked embalmed. The speech was a good piece of writing. This morning the LA Times said “Bush made a passionate plea”. But it was the speechwriter who made a passionate plea. The president made robotic movements with his hands while mechanically reading from the teleprompter. Isn’t anyone going to talk about the president’s mental and physical torpor? And what is it with a White House that wants to call out the troops to solve problems? And what troops, we might ask? If the Bush administration’s plan for border security is put into effect, the National Guard will have to send its newest enlistees to the border for a short time. When that deployment of green, minimally trained youngsters is rotated out, a new batch of rookies will be sent to the border. And they will be expected to do what? Chase down illegals? Shoot to kill? Build a wall? Check for green cards? What? The Bush administration had no clear plan for executing a war in Iraq or for ending the war in Iraq. And now it has no clear plan for using the National Guard to secure our borders. The Bush administration only has a plan to make it seem as though they have a plan. And that, the White House reasons, will score necessary votes from Hispanics and appease the Republican base, which is in revolt. However, one must give credit where credit is due. The president’s speechwriter has unerringly tapped into the Texas gestalt of the Bush administration. And that is: Forever enable a group of second-class citizens (guest workers) who will NEVER become American citizens so that they can be used as slaves; and keep a bunch of gun-toting vigilantes at hand to enforce order among the slaves. How this is going to appeal to Hispanics I have no idea. But I am sure it sounds reasonable and attractive to Republican neocons and far-right religious fanatics.

Dear David Brooks:

You are an idiot. Yesterday, on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday morning show, the topic came around to the NSA and its wiretapping. Specifically, the issue was that the NSA had gotten Verizon, AT&T and Bell South to compile and analyze the phone records of millions of Americans. The roundtable consisted of you who write op/eds for the New York Times, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and ABC’s George Will. It was predictable that you and George Will would see nothing wrong with the wiretaps. It was predictable that you and George Will would say no one had been harmed and no one had actually been eavesdropped on. It was predictable that you and George Will would say the NSA would use the information it received to make Americans more secure by only investigating people who were involved in wicked skullduggery. But you, because you are an idiot, said Americans could fundamentally trust the NSA. Why in the name of anything holy would Americans feel we could fundamentally trust the FBI, the CIA or the NSA? The FBI in the past has been used to get information on Americans that the White House wanted to discredit. Saddam Hussein and Panama’s drug lord Manuel Noriega both worked for the CIA. For me, that does not inspire trust. The NSA has been so clandestine, secret and covert that wags said NSA stood for No Such Agency. Why would we trust any of these people? I surely don’t trust them. These agencies are staffed by and run by people who will do anything they are told to do by anyone perceived to be a superior. A spy is not trustworthy. A spy is a fucking SPY. Spies spy. I have known two low-level people in the CIA. I wouldn’t have slept in the same room with either one…not without one eye open. I don’t trust that information gleaned about me would not be used at some time in the future to my detriment if it suited the aims of some president. The current president lies every time he opens his mouth. Why would I trust him when he says the NSA won’t use my info against me? I don’t trust the NSA and I don’t trust you, David Brooks.

Echelon Has Been in Existence Since 1948

Echelon is a global spying network. In 1999 the New York Times wrote, “A leading privacy advocacy group on Friday filed a lawsuit that seeks to force the National Security Agency to release its records on potential government surveillance of the Internet communications of American citizens. “The lawsuit, filed in federal district court here by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, seeks the public disclosure of internal NSA documents discussing the legality of the agency's intelligence activities. “The filing was prompted by various news reports in the past year that indicate the NSA is coordinating a global surveillance system known as Echelon.” Echelon eavesdrops on all phone calls and all e-mails all the time. It is, of course, electronic surveillance. A human being does not listen to most of the messages. But certain words or phrases trigger closer surveillance. EVERY phone call and e-mail of EVERY person in the United States is monitored by Echelon. In 1983 journalist James Bamford wrote about the surveillance system that came to be known as Echelon. In his book, “The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency”, Bamford said, “The ‘link-up’ that veteran British journalist Chapman Pincher referred to is quite likely the most secret agreement ever entered into by the English-speaking world. Signed in 1947 and known as the UKUSA Agreement, it brought together under a single umbrella the SIGINT organizations of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Under the pact, the five nations carved up the earth into spheres of cryptologic influence, each country assigned specific targets according to its potential for maximum intercept coverage. Britain, for example, was assigned various Chinese frequencies to cover from its Little Sai Wan station in Hong Kong, and the United States was responsible for other frequencies from its listening posts in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. “The UKUSA nations also agreed to standardize their terminology, code words, intercept-handling procedures, and indoctrination oaths, for efficiency as well as security. Vipar, Trine, and Umbra, therefore, would appear on the TOP (or MOST) SECRET documents and intercepts, regardless of which member originated them. The voluminous looseleaf binder that contains these rules and procedures is known as the IRSIG--for International Regulations on SIGINT.” It’s been no secret that the NSA uses Echelon’s technology and capabilities. So why is the Bush administration denying the fact that all Americans are under surveillance and have been since 1948? The Prez said, “We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.” Stupid lie. The NSA absolutely is mining and trolling through our personal lives and has been doing so since its inception in 1952. "Everything that N.S.A. does is lawful and very carefully done," General Hayden said, adding, “The NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law." It is certainly true that everything the NSA does is done carefully. But it’s another stupid lie that the NSA operates within the law. Secret surveillance of the phone calls of American citizens is not lawful and never has been. The ridiculous part of the Bush/NSA position is that they are denying something that has been publicly written about and has been known to be a fact for nearly 60 years. The NSA was sued in 1999 for doing exactly what it’s denying it is doing in 2006. It’s not about catching terrorists. It’s about the GOP wanting to control all aspects of all Americans' lives all the time. It’s about the White House being fascists. It’s about the Bush administration being a dictatorship. It’s about the military wanting to run our government. It’s about the neocons wanting to rule the world. And it’s about a bunch of silly little men playing cloak-and-dagger games and whispering secrets to each other that the whole world already knows. How idiotic is that!

The Real Reason Bush & Co. Picked Hayden

The White House got itself a hitman. The war in Iraq has been the biggest mistake the Bush administration has made in five-and-a-half years of making horrendous mistakes. The White House thinks only in terms of power and votes. The Iraq war was never about ridding the world of a dictator or bringing freedom to an oppressed country. The war was about gaining power. The White House knew it had made a mistake shortly after the war started. And the reason the WH knows the war in Iraq was a mistake is that it has not resulted in power or votes. The cost to the nation, the world and loss of lives have never been important issues to the GOP. Power and votes, that's it. About the same time the war turned into an albatross around the necks of the neocons, the GOP realized it had made a terrible mistake in making George W. Bush president. But this administration makes no mistakes. It had to continue the fiction that George Bush was president. The third major mistake Dick Cheney and his neocon cronies made was to let Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld run the war in Iraq. Not only has Rumsfeld been the worst war strategist since Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense during the war in Vietnam, but he has been increasing his power base in the Pentagon. He’s like a male cat marking out his territory. He’s pissing on everything while giving himself greater authority over more departments. The Bush administration can’t admit it’s been wrong about Rumsfeld but it can buy a guy who will neutralize him. That guy is General Michael V. Hayden. The White House has decided to castrate Rumsfeld and it has picked Michael V. Hayden to do the job, with the help of National Intelligence agency head John Negroponte. It’s not a bad plan, as Machiavellian plans go. It’s just that giving the CIA and the National Intelligence agency more power in order to rid the Pentagon of Rumsfeld and his fiefdom may be a cure that’s worse than the disease. And the Prez better check his own equipment if Hayden ever says, "You're doing a heckuva job, Georgie."

Top 10 Reasons Against Hayden for CIA Head

10. He’s a military man 9. Even if he resigns his commission, he’s a military man 8. He’s a Cheney crony 7. John McCain likes him 6. National Intelligence director Negroponte likes him 5. He is National Intelligence Negroponte’s chief deputy 4. He didn’t prevent 9/11 3. He misjudged Iraq’s WMD’s 2. As director of NSA he illegally wiretapped for Bush And the Number One reason General Michael V. Hayden is the worst choice for Head Spook: 1. The White House picked him.

Looking Back at John McCain

In 1999 in the run-up to George W. Bush being elected president by the Florida Supreme Court and by Florida voter-fraud, Bush lost the New Hampshire primary to Arizona Senator John McCain. However Bush got 9 of the 13 “Super Tuesday” states and wrapped up the nomination. Plus, his handlers saw to it that lies were circulated in the press about McCain. After the New Hampshire primary, the Bush strategists (that is, Karl Rove) realized their candidate just might lose in the general election. And the famous McCain Smear was put into action. Nothing was too fanciful. McCain was accused of fathering a black child, he was called “the fag candidate”, his wife was accused of being a druggie, and he was called a Vietnam War nutcase. Since he had been a “Hanoi Hilton” Prisoner of War for five-and-a-half years, the GOP labeled him “mentally unstable”. The truth was that McCain and his wife had adopted a baby in Bangladesh. He had met with a group of gay Republicans. And although his wife at one time was addicted to prescription drugs, she had outed herself publicly on that score. My problem with McCain is that I believe he wants to keep the United States in war mode. And in that obsession I do believe he is unstable. I believe the mild-mannered, quick to make a joke John McCain turns into a warmongering fanatic when the issue is war. He demurs when accused of being a hero. He says that he was “too incompetent” to keep from being shot down and being captured and he should not be called a war hero. And he probably doesn’t think of himself as a hero. But he was a casualty twice before being shot down in Vietnam and he kept going back into active duty. He reminds me of Audie Murphy in WWII. When the truth became known about Murphy’s war heroics, it was found that his exploits put his fellow soldiers at risk. John McCain wants us to stay in Iraq and finish the job. He believes that winning is worth however many American soldiers are killed. He has said, “There is no substitute for victory”. John McCain is in favor of General Michael Hayden being the next CIA Director. It was when Hayden was National Security Agency director in 2001 that George W. Bush authorized warrantless wiretaps. McCain has never come out and said warrantless wiretaps are illegal. He sits on the fence and says, “Let’s find out if they are illegal.” As a matter of fact, McCain straddles every issue except war. John McCain will be 72 in 2008 and there is nothing he would like better than to be a war president. Negroponte and Hayden will help McCain oust Rumsfeld (which surely can only be a plus), but that will leave the field wide open for John McCain, as president, to finally conduct as many wars as he likes. And he really really likes war. John McCain, like the present powers in the Republican Party, will say and do whatever he has to say and do to become president. And then he’ll show President Lyndon Johnson and all the incompetent generals and his capturers in Vietnam and the whole world just how war should be fought and WON!! From John McCain may the Good Lord deliver us.

Just Who Appointed Goss in the First Place?

The New York Times has adopted the Bush administration position that the Porter Goss/John Negroponte enmity is what did Goss in. And National Intelligence Director Negroponte has never made a secret of the fact that he didn’t like Goss’s appointment as CIA head. But has everyone forgotten who anointed Goss as a favorite son and made him head of the CIA? On the day he appointed Goss, President Bush said, “He knows the CIA inside and out…he is the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment in our nation’s history.” And VP Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert were so hot for Goss that when Goss planned to retire from his term as Florida’s Republican congressman in late 2004 they talked him into staying. Goss had been chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence since 1997. Cheney and Hastert thought he was so wonderful that they arranged for a change in House rules which limited committee service so that Goss could stay on the committee and chair it. Well, stuff happens and things change. And the stuff happening and things that are changing right now is that Goss’s replacement, General Michael Hayden, is no fan of Donald Rumsfeld’s. So, yeah…Negroponte gets to flex his kick-ass muscles and show that the National Intelligence agency trumps the CIA, but that’s hardly the whole story. Goss had brought into the CIA a bunch of cronies who have become pimp-meisters and kings of corruption, which is something of an embarrassment to the GOP. During Goss’ s 18 months as CIA head, a dozen CIA officials resigned, took early retirement or otherwise got the hell out. And even though the idea of a National Intelligence agency which would oversee 15 separate intelligence agencies, was a piss-poor idea from the get-go, still, it is a way to correct a few of the Bush/Cheney/Hastert mistakes. Speaking of which, the Goss flap has engendered a way to get rid of Rumsfeld. And you better believe the White House is going to take advantage of the opportunity forthwith and soonest. But one big question keeps buzzing around my head. If an Operation Clean House is being put in effect, who is behind it? It’s not George W. Bush. He thinks Foggo is one of his happy pills. It’s not Karl Rove because he’s on the Problem Neutralized list. It’s not Cheney, Hastert or Frist because they like a dirty White House. Apparently, the Republicans have decided John McCain will fill out the remainder of George Bush’s term and then become prez-for-real in 2008. Because McCain surely seems to be calling the shots right now.

What Hath Goss Wrought?!

It’s true that Porter J. Goss who became director of the CIA in September 2004 never got along with John Negroponte who was made Director of National Intelligence in February 2005. And when the MSM says Negroponte had become “disenchanted” with Goss, it’s the understatement of the year. But it’s ridiculous to suggest that Goss resigned solely because of hostility between him and Negroponte. More likely, Negroponte, along with the entire Bush cabinet and cadre of Bush advisors saw that Goss’s behavior and associations with people involved in huge scandals (like Randall “Duke” Cunningham and Brent Wilkes) was going to poison the well and Goss was told to resign or else. Already the Internet is rife with stories about Goss attending Wilkes’s poker-and-hooker parties and that those parties were under FBI surveillance. Not to mention Goss ‘s strange loyalty to Kyle “Dusty” Foggo. Goss made Foggo the third-ranking official of the CIA even though Foggo had no discernible credentials for the position. And now Foggo is being investigated for CIA contract irregularities. And we can’t forget Foggo’s little poker-and-hooker parties attended by Porter J. Goss. The movers and shakers in Washington DC are not going to get into tar-and-feather mode over a few parties with hookers. But the latest allegation is that Goss is up to his neck in the Gannon scandal that provided guys to the guys. And that kind of fucking around is a little too fancy even on Capitol Hill. Of course the resignation of Porter J. Goss was announced on Friday. The White House assumes the stories of their dishonor and humiliation won’t get maximum coverage if it’s divulged on a Friday. They’ve got to be kidding! The Sunday morning talking heads think they’ve died and gone to heaven with a story like Goss’s resignation. Who would have thought on that sad morning of November 3, 2004 when George W. Bush crowed about his re-election, that the White House would be in such chaos and dishonor a year-and-a-half later? Or, a better question is: Who would have thought that all the corruption and malfeasance that we knew was going on in the Bush administration would actually be made public?

Mexico’s Prez is Taking Lessons From Bush

President Vincente Fox is using the Bush administration tactic of saying one thing while his actions prove the opposite. Fox has decided not to sign a bill that would have effectively legalized drugs in Mexico. Now he says the law should be changed "to make it absolutely clear that in our country the possession of drugs and their consumption are and continue to be crimes." Not really. The current law has a provision that grants judges the power to allow people arrested for possession of drugs to argue they are addicts and that the drugs were for personal use. The new law would have amended the legal loophole for addicts to include all adults. It would have made it legal for any adult over 18 to possess and use a specified amount of opiates, marijuana, LSD, Ecstasy and the hallucinogenic cactus peyote. And yes, state officials could have made drug arrests, which now is only the province of the federales. But it’s hard to see how allowing drug addicts and anyone over 18 to possess drugs legally is taking a hard line on drugs. The Fox justification for the bill he nearly signed is that it would have closed the loophole judges were using that permitted traffickers in large amounts of drugs to get away with the crime. It will be interesting to see what “corrections” will be made in the bill that will make it look as though it’s tough on drug lords. Because it’s as imperative for Mexico to keep its drug traffic healthy as it is for Afghanistan to continue growing poppies. Any rhetoric to the contrary is nonsense.

They’re At It Again

The news is all bad for the Bush administration. So what are the White House plans for counteracting the fact that the Republicans have done nothing right in the last five years and are bringing the US to ruin? The White House is releasing another scare alert and hoping and praying that citizens will be so freaked we won’t notice no one is running the country. Today the White House is making public a 17-page draft summary of the government’s 228-page report of steps federal officials will take to combat a pandemic birdflu outbreak. But in a nutshell, the federal government says in the report not to count on the federal government for help. Second, the fed says we should look to state and local governments to handle a serious outbreak. But state and local governments say they have no money or resources to handle a pandemic outbreak. And the government says two million people could die in the US of birdflu. The bottom line is, we are told to stay home, wear surgical masks and lay low when the birdflu hits. If there are any National Guard units not in Iraq or US army units not in Iraq, they will attempt to keep order. But since mostly poultry workers will get the available vaccines, people may riot and storm hospitals and drug stores and the few military people may not be able to quell the unrest. The government has not said how many of the 2 mil dead people will die because they’ve been shot to death in riots over vaccines. So now that we’re scared shitless and we’ve forgotten about the war in Iraq, the upcoming nuclear war with Iran, the fact that the unnecessary war has bankrupted the US, the fact that many of our elected officials are going to jail, the fact that George W. Bush is in cahoots with the people who attacked the World Trade Center, and the fact that our so-called leaders are corrupt megalomaniacal fascists only interested in feathering their nests and the nests of their cronies, we are supposed to calmly think about the Doomsday options available to us when the birdflu hits. And I’m thinking Mexico has already found the answer. Mexican President Vicente Fox is going to sign a bill that will legalize the use of every drug and narcotic sold in Mexico. Good plan. Since our federal government is not going to help us in an epidemic, state and local governments can’t help us, two million people will probably die, gunhappy militias will try to keep order, all businesses will be disrupted and will likely fail and chaos will reign supreme, we may as well go out happy and flying high.

Compassion in the Roman Catholic Church

The Pope is looking into whether it might be acceptable for Catholics to use condoms in a specific and restricted situation: “to protect life inside a marriage when one partner is infected with H.I.V. or is sick with AIDS." Which idea, of course, is world shaking. At least it’s shaking up the little Roman Catholic world in the Vatican. The RCC teaching is that “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil.” Which means that when a woman’s doctor has told her that getting pregnant will kill her, her only recourse is abstinence. That’s the RCC’s teaching. Although if the woman goes to her priest for a consultation over the problem, most priests would say that the use of birth control or other methods of sexual gratification are “a lesser evil”, albeit still evil. Nevertheless, the RCC’s official position is that the woman must refrain from sexual relations or get pregnant and die. But now, the canon lawyers in the RCC are trying to find a way to opine that it’s okay to use a condom if one partner has HIV or AIDS. And if they do an end run around the birth control dogma where AIDS is concerned, the RCC will still maintain that the use of a condom in all other circumstances is evil. The people researching this issue are going so far as to say perhaps one partner could claim “self-defense”. And also at issue is whether the married couple could claim that they weren’t using the condom for contraception, but rather for medical intervention. This is important, you see. Because at the moment the condom is slipped on the member of the hubby, both partners have to mentally vow that they really do want to get pregnant, it’s just that this condom thingy is medically necessary. And even if the Pope decides that the use of a condom in this instance is okay, the change in teaching is only for married folks. People with HIV and AIDS who aren’t married and have sex are doomed to eternal damnation anyway unless they confess their sin every time they do it and promise not to do it anymore, which isn’t likely, so why consider them? The NYT reported this morning that a researcher on AIDS for Human Rights Watch, Rebecca Schleifer, said that if Pope Ratz makes this change, “It will have a huge influence”, but in a way the Vatican may not like. Schleifer said it might break down resistance to condom use in places like the Philippines or parts of Africa. And the use of condoms by unmarrieds is not what the Vatican has in mind. It will be difficult for the RCC to hand out condoms in Africa with the proviso that they be used only by married folks who promise to mentally vow to God every time they have sex that they actually want to get pregnant but the condom is just for self-defense and a medical intervention. But that’s okay. Pope Ratz doesn’t actually care about real compassion. And he doesn’t care if the RCC’s manmade rules are ungodly. It’s acting benevolent while watching his subjects break under the yoke of the Church that’s so much fun.

OK, I’ve Already Had My 5:00 PM Martini

And it’s only 4:00 pee-em. But tell me that God himself would not be amazed that his creation has come up with THE TOILET WAND as a promotion ad. Toilet Wand! Oh fuck me!

Well That Takes Balls!

But whoever said Colin Powell doesn’t have a set of brass ones? Secretary of State “No-Doubt-In-My-Mind-Saddam-has-WMD’s” Powell who knowingly lied at the UN in order to get support for the war in Iraq is now criticizing the Bush administration for not following his advice about the number of troops needed for the invasion. Powell said he advised Bush in March 2003 to send more troops to Iraq, but that his recommendation was not followed. In an interview on UK-ITV yesterday, Powell said, "The president's military advisers felt that the size of the force was adequate, they may still feel that years later. Some of us don't, I don't." I'm sure Powell’s successor Condoleezza Rice has never once told the truth during her long association with the Bush administration. However, I would love to think she broke her customary practice of lying when she said on CNN,”I don't remember specifically what Secretary Powell may be referring to.” I would love to think Powell never said anything about using more troops and that he is once again lying. That would give Powell's act a kind of symmetry. In any case, Colin Powell has no regrets whatsoever about lying to get us into the quagmire in Iraq and killing 2,400 US soldiers for no reason other than to fulfill the dreams of glory of a bunch of over-the-hill warmongers who wanted to play soldier. But he's mad as hell that after he lied for the Bush administration they didn’t follow his advice about sending more troops to get killed for no good reason. You would think Colin Powell would just slither off to corporate Republican land and become the CEO of an oil company, make lots (more) money and shut up about his disgusting and putrid involvement in the Iraq debacle. But no. He’s an ex-military man and he loves war. He’s no doubt angling for a position in John McCain’s cabinet as Secretary of Defense where he can micro-manage a nuclear war with Iran. Which, if it doesn’t happen on its own, he can tell the kind of lies that will get him into the action.