A point for Conscience

Scotty McClellan finds his soul... about 6 years too late.

MSNBC

EXCERPT
McClellan admits to letting himself be deceived about the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, which resulted in his relentless pounding by the White House press corps over the activities of Rove and of Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the matter.

"I could feel something fall out of me into the abyss as each reporter took a turn whacking me," he writes of the withering criticism he received as the story played out. "It was my reputation crumbling away, bit by bit."

The truth will reveal itself, more and more, as Bush's last days in office expire. These cunts can't lie for this dirty son of a bitch forever, and they WON'T.

It's a little fucking late, but better late than never for the millions of dumbass Americans who have been hanging on every one of Bush's lies.

They've been played for fools, and our country is suffering for it.

Damn every one of the stupid bastards who have supported this vile piece of shit for the past eight years.

Damn them all to hell.

Our Government is a bad sitcom

Come and listen to a story about a man named Dub

A poor oil man’s son, barely a silver spoon scrub,

Then one day he was shootin up some coke,

And up through his brain came a bubblin' hoax.

War that is,

black gold, all for me

Well the first thing you know

ol' dub's a dictator,

Neocons said all you lefties are just haters

Said Guantanamo is the place you ought to be

So they loaded up the truck and killed what was free.

our laws, that is.

signing statements, wiretaps.

The Corporate Pharisees!

Well now its time to say good-bye to Dub and his bloody crown.

And he would like to thank you folks fer kindly bowing down.

You’re all invited back again to this locality

To have a heapin helpin of his hospitality

War profiteering that is.

dying for your country’s rich.

Empty your pockets.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?

Framing The "Debate"

A friend called me early this morning. He's a default Texas John McCain supporter, which means : He won't vote for no split tail or no negro, by God.

A day before I had ripped McCain to this Truck Driver- and explained why he should be voting Democrat for the rest of his natural born life, apparently, 24 hours set in and he forgot the fifteen damn factors I had instilled in him via reason, logic, and historical example.

He called me from his cell as he was truckin along, and he asked me if I was still supporting Obama. Before I could answer, he followed up with : "Have you seen the news?" - Now, I am a news JUNKIE. I mainline C&L, I shoot MSNBC Straight, I chase it with NPR Radio , and while I'm at it, I have a slice of Yahoo and smoke a bowl of CNBC. And I wash it all down with a suicide of various blogs. So, sitting down at my desk that early morning, I hadn't even booted up my PC yet. All I had was my morning drive with NPR's tibetan updates.

I thought- 'Well, shit! what did I miss?'

"Obama got a terrorist working for him.Yep, it's all over the news!" He exclaimed.

Unawares of what the heck he was talking about, I kinda mumbled- "I didn't see that on the news" But nonplussed, I followed up with the standard West Texas talking point- "Well, hell, Rocky, I'll still vote for a terrorist over Hillary or McCain". That got a chuckle.

"Well, I just thought you should know that's what I heard. That your boy got terrorists working for him."

He couldn't cite a news agency or details, and he had to go abruptly. I quickly got online, thinking to myself- What-in-the-fck-now?

Unsurprisingly it dawned on me that there was no news concerning this soundbite. I had forgotten that the rest of the country isn't quite up to speed on current events. Maybe he had finally heard some shit about Madrassas. Maybe he had heard about Weather Underground. Maybe he heard some uppity black preacher was badmouthing the flag. But whatever bullshit he took in one ear, didn't quite make it out the other.

All that careful conversation I had with him the day before, meant nothing now. All he heard was that I was supporting a black man over the white one. And although he listened carefully and even told me what a sorrry ass Bush was, worst President ever- a day later all that registered was that crazy ass nigga's middle name was Hu-saaaaannnnne and he won't say the pledge of allegiance by damn!

...

He wants to vote Republican. Because he's been told to. But everything is shit and it has been for the past 8 years. Nothing has quite worked out like the Republican party told him it would. He just don't know. But ho-shit- It's not just a split-tail running for President, that's a god-damn Clinton! By Jesus, He'd take a bj in an outhouse with his wife holding a roll of toilet paper outside, but he cain't abide the Preznit getting his jollies in the oval office!

Not if he's damn democrat, at least! And then the other option is a half-breed! And half breeds ain't so bad, Hell this guy's grandson is a "half-breed". But this fucker is half (whisper- BLACK! whisper)

Sumbitch!

McCain is a white guy and hell he's even a War Hero. (If it all it takes to be a war hero is to be captured by a rice farmer in a paddy where you've been bombing civiilians)... So when he hears "Hussein" or "Farrakhan" or "black President" his mind is made up.

The wit and wisdom, the facts and the figures, the history and the truth isn't going to sway him.

UNLESS...

So, what I propose- is to fight like a dirty, piece of shit Republican. Do what they have done to Obama and to Hillary before him- Make up a bunch of bullshit and pass it down the line. Who knows? Knowing the Middle Amerkan dipshit like I know so well, they will PROBABLY improve on it as it goes in one ear and out their ass.

I'm sure you've heard some dirt on McCain. Well, do what THEY do, and just assume its true and pass it around. But frame it in the worst possible way to Right wingers and their ilk; Make a headline about McCain. Say that you heard it from a "reputable source" and let that fucker fly. We are dealing with idiots, slaves, and sycophants. For four years of blogging, I've laid out the truth in careful little lines only to be ignored by morons who want to know who's Britney's Sister's Baby's Daddy is.

FUCK THEM.

McCain wants to Double the Estate Tax! I read it in the Wall Street Journal!

McCain owns interest in a Chinese Nuclear Weapons facility! It was on FoxNews!

McCain called one of Mitt Romney's three wives' (the thirteen year old) a bitch! I heard it on Rush!

McCain beat his ex-wife as she lay in a cancer ward, then had sex with his mistress in the same room as she lay bleeding afterwards! it was on Drudge, I Swear!

McCain wants Cheney as his Vice President! (that might be true)

Rove threatens to blow the whistle on McCain's Bondage Affair with Condi Rice, her lesbian girlfriend and Jeff Gannon! I read it at Free Republic!

McCain secretly vows to George Bush in a satanic blood brother ritual that they will do a 9-11 in every major city until the Democrat party is no longer a majority in Congress! I saw it on Perez Hilton!

Because the horrible truth is- THESE Lies are more likely to get attention than Bush okaying Torture, Blackwater pulling guns on American soldiers with no consequences, Iraq going to hell in a handbasket, our President funneling millions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia and Israel, our government allowing crooked corporations to loot American stockholders, or our military being destroyed by the Incompetent Republican leadership.

So lie all you want. The truth is far worse.

American Roulette

Dr. Chris Martenson, at Financial Sense University -The Federal Reserve Plays A Dangerous Game

At this point, I’ll share a belief of mine with you: I believe the stock market is being propped up by the Fed and/or US government (PPT), who are desperately afraid of allowing the stock market to signal the true state of affairs. In some ways I can understand this; I think that the authorities who are stabilizing the markets right now are quite justifiably worried about what would happen if the stock market were “allowed” to send a correct signal to a wider audience. Because I believe that the stock market is being propped, I do not trust that it’s telegraphing useful or meaningful price signals and so I will take very different actions than someone who holds the opposite view. I might be wrong, or the person holding the opposite view might be wrong, but one of us is making a colossal mistake.

And here’s a second belief: The market is bigger than the authorities, and they will ultimately fail in their attempts to prop the stock market because they are merely masking symptoms, not treating causes. If it were possible for an elevated stock market alone to cure what ails our economy, I might think differently, but those efforts are surely misdirected.

In addition, this podcast is a must listen for those of you who want to know more about Greenspan's follies and the stupefying way our Government works concerning the market and the fed.

Financial Sense Newshour: Ask the Experts: William Fleckenstein

Today's Headline in the Wall Street Journal: His Legacy Tarnished

"The scrutiny of Mr. Greenspan's record has taken on urgency now that the Bush administration and congressional Democrats are skirmishing over how to overhaul U.S. financial regulation. If Mr. Greenspan's critics prevail, then financial companies will likely face tighter oversight and less freedom in the products they offer. If Mr. Greenspan's views carry the day, the trend toward self-policing will continue."

"Self-Policing" Yes, and let's have gangbangers design our new gun laws. How about policing some of this criminal mismanagement? How about Oversight, Accountability, Criminal penalties, and seizure of CEO and company funds when those entities have been discovered to have robbed their shareholders as a matter of policy?

"On at least one occasion, Mr. Greenspan did resist colleagues who urged further oversight. In 2000, then-Fed governor Edward Gramlich, who was in charge of the Fed's consumer affairs, proposed to Mr. Greenspan that the Fed's staff examiners look for abusive lending practices in banks' lightly regulated mortgage affiliates.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last June, three months before his death, Mr. Gramlich said that at the time, he generally considered subprime loans a good thing. He didn't then know the extent to which the loans would become a problem, but he wanted the "Fed to be a leader" in cracking down on predatory lending.
Mr. Greenspan recalls that he demurred, saying that the Fed shouldn't have oversight of these lenders."

We've got to let go of the Self-policing myth that the Republican party has sold America. The corrupt will NEVER police themselves. These men cannot continue to be given a get out of jail free card forever by a Republican party that is in the back pocket of corporate interests. The Super-rich get richer while the rest of America rots beneath.

Greenspan's 'Legacy', hell. Let's call it what it is : A Curse. And the curse continues, under the systematic incompetence of our current government.

Drunken Vid Bloggin: Loverboy

They never have EXACTLY what you are looking for... But. still, its amazin how much shit "they" have...



I guess she was married to him. But as of the filming of this video, it sure looks like she is ready to make it through the night without him...



I am now in love with Rita Coolidge. Or the memory of Rita, as it were...

Bonus afterthought #1 : Kris is giving off a pathetic horndog vibe in this vid.

You know, before I started drinking heavily, I never knew how bad-mfkn-ass these guys really were..



Start me like a motor, make me run... Can you believe I'm down to the fuckin rum? I bet you can..

No matter how FUCKED UP i might get, I take solace that I'm not THIS fucked up...


and, for the record, i wuz lookin for Take me to the top, with the line "Help me make it through the night" which explains the Kris Kristofferson vid above. Couldn't find that fucker on youtube, but I downloaded the whole "Loverboy Library" (self-inflicted) while I put together this blogpost. And, full disclosure: I'm out of fucking beer.

And lest I leave any douchebags out, This one's for Maverick-



Bonus Afterthought #2: Rita, Rita, Rita.



Bonus Update 3: My wife is really pissed that I woke her up with an emergency blog about Loverboy and Rita Coolidge.

Geez. I thought she loved me.

Bullets to the Face

Sacrificing your child to your Religion

Canadian Seal Hunters now required to kill baby seals before they start skinning them

Strip Club where 12 year old runaway danced nude cannot be shut down

Demonica Abron, 27, who worked as a stripper in the club, and David Bell, 22, have been charged with felony sexual performance of the child in connection with making the 12-year-old work at the club. Both are also accused of engaging in organized crime.

Bell is accused of two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and aggravated kidnapping.

He was being held at the Dallas County Jail on Thursday in lieu of a $450,000 bond. It was unclear if Bell had an attorney.

Abron also faces a prostitution charge.

FRIST!'s Republican Leadership survey!

Take Bill Frist's VOLPAC "Republican Leadership Survey"


Because this man cares deeply...

The questions of course, are weighted to the Bushbot eleetz. And of course, no discussion questions, you know how the Repubs don't want to hear anything but their carefully selected talking point answers.

Sample Questions and the fristian results thus far :

So, Bush blowing too much money, Mexicans!, government having to collect more money to pay for Iraq, the dangers of improving Healthcare, the threat of addressing social issues, or Judges that don't favor corporations- Whatever could be the biggest Fear of Fristians?

Survey sez: MEXICANS! Closely followed by the horrors of attempting to fix social issues at home!

And, what do you believe that other Americans feel is the most important issue?

Hmm.. Apparently the economy didn't make the grade. Neither did healthcare, the environment, inflation, war, torture, America's global loss of prominence, the damage done to the military, corruption, or corporate outsourcing of American jobs. It looks like its neverending war, spying on Americans, Mexicans!, and ... Iran? Seriously? Bush just sold millions of dollars worth of state of the art missles to Saudi Arabia, the country behind 9-11 , and Frist is worried about Iran building a nuke to protect itself from Israel? Oy.

Survey sez: MEXICANS! Twice in One Survey! Odelay!

And, I guess even only 5% of Fristians think that Iran's nuclear program is of note. Hopefully Frist (and other Rethugs) will take note. And only 11% of bushbots think that the Surge needs more time. That's heartening, if nothing else.

I encourage you all to join up and become an iFrist volunteer and help steer Volpac back towards some true conservatism and away from the neocon-war profiteering path they've been stuck on, which has really hurt the Republicans. Help let them know what the American people really want. The best way to do that is from inside Volpac itself. Go forth and multiply, friends.

A Tale of Two Headlines

Both under "Terrorism" on MSNBC this morning...

Judge: Detainee's abuse claim not believable

Bush vetoes bill banning Waterboarding

A judge ruled Friday that an Australian man's claim that he had been mistreated in custody in Pakistan before being sent to the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay could not be believed.

President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

Justice Peter McClellan of the New South Wales state Supreme Court ruled against Mamdouh Habib in the man's defamation suit against a Sydney newspaper, which Habib said had implied he lied about being tortured.

"The Bush administration continues to insist that CIA and other nonmilitary interrogators are not bound by the military rules and has reportedly given CIA interrogators the green light to use a range of so-called 'enhanced' interrogation techniques, including prolonged sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, and exposure to extreme cold," Daskal said. "Although waterboarding is not currently approved for use by the CIA, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has refused to take it off the table for the future."

"I am satisfied that Mr. Habib's claims that he was seriously mistreated in the place of detention in Islamabad cannot be accepted," McClellan said.

The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said.

He said Habib was "prone to exaggerate," "evasive" and had made claims about mistreatment in Pakistan and Egypt which could not be sustained.

Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said Bush "will go down in history as the torture president" for defying Congress and allowing the CIA to use interrogation techniques "that any reasonable observer would call torture."

Habib, an Egyptian-born immigrant, was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001. He says he was held there for 28 days and was interrogated by Americans before being transferred to Egypt, where he alleged he was beaten, shocked with electricity and nearly drowned while under interrogation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush often warns against ignoring the advice of U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq. Yet the president has rejected the Army Field Manual, which recognizes that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information, said Reid, D-Nev.

The intelligence bill would limit CIA interrogators to the 19 techniques allowed for use by military questioners. The Army field manual in 2006 banned using methods such as waterboarding or sensory deprivation on uncooperative prisoners.

The military specifically prohibited waterboarding in 2006. The CIA also prohibited the practice in 2006 ... But the administration has refused to rule definitively on whether it is torture. Bush has said many times that his administration does not torture.

After six months, he was sent to the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan and then Guantanamo Bay. He was returned to Australia in January 2005.

Australian judges continue to believe that George Bush's policies haven't been resulting in kidnapping and torturing their citizens. I guess Australia believes that if the U.S. eventually releases their citizens after torturing them it's okay. The U.S. government decided that Habib was innocent after all.

Fortunately for Canadian citizens, their judicial system isn't so trusting of countries who want to torture their people.

The acclaimed Army officer who literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency weighs in on 24, its impact on the U.S. military’s view of torture, and the implications for the fight against terrorism: Torture is NOT ACCEPTABLE (from Foreign Policy.com)

Why Torture doesn't work (also from Foreign Policy.com)

UPDATE: I noticed that Frederick has been on fire lately, check his blog out...

UPDATE 2: Funny shit of the day : Whiny Cops -More Proof that the Internet has EVERYTHING. This site is for cops to whine about other cops giving them tickets and not letting them slide "for the brotherhood". It's fucking hilarious to see our "Proud men in blue" nominating their fellow officers for Dick of the Month. The whole point of the website seems to be that cops think they should only treat citizens like shit, not each other. The indignant cop who put this site up might get a little more respect from me if it was just a site for anyone to bitch about the poor common sense of traffic officers. But the attitude that Cops should get favorable treatment when breaking the law is just bullshit.

The Weakness of Republicans

Haven't had a good rant in a bit... But leave it to clueless assholes knocking on Obama's wife for her honesty to piss me off...

They are referring to this New Yorker quote about Michelle Obama:

Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”

A sampling of the brainiac right wing commentary:

this emotionally childish woman wants to be The First Lady??

You mean the woman who claimed in her thesis four years of exposure to a predominately White, Ivy League University has instilled within her conservative values?

Not our America, Michelle. Our America doesn't live in 1.6 million $ homes, and go to cocktail parties in fancy Northside penthouses. Our America isn't mean, cynical, guided by fear, or slothful.

Our America doesn't believe that wearing a flag pin on our lapel is a cheap, maudlin trick.

My response:

You people are in far right field, pretending that there aren't some major problems in this country. Maybe like the family killed today in Tennesse, kids shot and murdered in their home, an honor student whose mom is serving in Iraq who got killed in a drive by shooting, the young woman who died because the insurance company kept denying her claim, only to FINALLY accept it, 12 hours before she died - after months of wrangling to prevent her transplant.

What's worse? For Warren Buffet and Michelle Obama to actually speak out about normal people like me who are barely getting by - or for them To IGNORE IT? You people are really full of it. She's rich. And you people are pissed off that she's NOT burying her head in the sand like the Bushes, the Romneys and the McCains.

Conservative values? You fuckwits wouldn't know a conservative value if it bit you in the ass. You are Rush Limbaugh dittoheads, with the inability to think past what you are told by these scumbags. And as for your stupid hypocritics wearing flag pins- George Bush will wear one AS he strips benefits from the troops and pays Blackwater millions. Mark Foley will wear one while he hits on underage boys. Larry Craig will wear one while he blows random men in bathrooms and Dick Cheney will wear one while he takes a shit on the constitution.

The Republican party is in tatters because of moronic people like you. Enjoy what you are sowing, cause I guarantee you, you won't enjoy what you reap.

Ridiculous.

I could take apart several more of this nuts' posts- the oppressed Israelis, forced to kill 112 people in Gaza, mainly unarmed, because they still haven't figured out that force won't solve anything. Or crying about Melanie Morgan losing her job because the entire nation is tired of the stupid whiny lies of bushbots while our troops die in Iraq. But frankly, I've had all I can handle of dumbfucks with their heads in the sand for one evening.

And speaking of Master Rants- By way of Alternate Brain , I ran into Physioprof knocking one out of the damn park.

He reminds us that RIGHT NOW is a really good time to start reminding Americans that almost every single ideal that makes America great were and are Liberal ideals.

What is A Liberal?

Liberal Values are American Values

Jesus is a Liberal

A liberal is conservative with a conscience. There is nothing conservative about George Bush ripping our constitution apart, spying on our every move, failing to stop 9-11, selling millions worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia AND Israel, financing a private army while cutting money to our troops, robbing the treasury blind while trying to give Iraq's oil to Exxon to sell back to the American people at robbery rates, ignoring the criminal actions of his cronies, and bringing the Spanish Inquisition into the 21st century!

We've gotta stop being so nice to these Republican fuckheads. They aren't Conservative to our Liberal. Not at all. They are merely piss-stained pupppets who do anything the long arm of their Fascist masters tell them to do. Reaching across the aisle is fine, but we WERE and ARE right, and those who have followed Bush have been wrong about everything. We can afford to chastise fools when their ignorance has been laid bare for all to see. And if they get up in your face, Fuck em. Kick a Fascist's ass for Jesus. Or whatever. They really are a big bunch of loudmouth pussies who will fold after one punch. Its time to STOP being their punching bag and lay them out once and for all.

More on Felons wearing Flag pins

Friends, Liberals, Countrymen

Followers of both sides of the the Democratic Civil War:

Whether you like Clinton or Obama- (or Kucinich, Edwards, Richardson, Gravel for that matter)

This is a public service reminder -

This IS our REAL (the really real) Enemy: REPUBLICANS

Try to keep this in mind, while you pimp (oops did I say pimp?) your favorite candidate

This is how Republican minds work:



This is their idea of a great leader:





They support these troops:



Not These troops...



They believe that Sept.11 is an accessory, not an atrocity



Their idea of "fair and balanced" is waaaayyyy off




Even their women don't want women to be able to vote



And here's the Republican platform. They support a whole lot of this:
Racism
Sexism
Hate
Torture
Republican fascism
Never Ending War
Xenophobia
Class War
Ancient Fundamentalist Dogma
Hypocritical Sex criminals
Ignorance

So whoever you vote for in 2008, just make sure it's not THIS Guy:


And things will be okay. Or at least you won't be entertaining hopes for the Rapture or fears of the Apocalypse on a daily basis...

Remember, back in 2000, some liberals were saying that Gore was as bad as Bush. I think, well I certainly HOPE, that we have learned our lesson. They may not be Progressive messiahs, but Obama or Clinton are light years ahead of the competition.

UPDATE: Dcup gave me some link love at American Street - Give the site a visit-
UPDATE2: Hi to all my friends visiting from C&L and Mike's Blog Round up!

Romney goes bye-bye

A loser speaks out: Watching Romney drop out of the race...

... says Porn and welfare is to blame for my single-fatherhood... ...Europe is facing destruction because of immorality and lack of religion... ...Says Chinks are outbreeding us, we will lose if we don't change gear and breed more... ...Say to get off the oil tit... (well one truth for every four bullshit statements)

oh here he goes - We are being held hostage by Ahmadinejad. Shit. Does this mean I have to raise my hand before I go get my welfare check so I can buy porn?

High taxes on private sector kills the country. Govt workers make more than Corporate officers... Huh??? What the fuck is he talking about? He must be including lobbyist kickbacks to Republican Congressmen.

Unions bad, corporations good

Islam believes in a government run by religion. (Talk about talking out of both sides of his mouth) They hate everything we believe. They hate our freedom. To fight them, we sent the bravest soldiers in the world. He takes a swipe at our military intelligence. We apparently didn't have enough money to stop 9-11.

And give the veterans the care they deserve.. Woo Hoo. Like this tickturd gives a good goddamn. He wants to spend more. I don't know where he plans on getting this money, except maybe by cutting education, healthcare, and wages to american employees.

"Just like Ronald Reagan did" "We are a nation at war" "they would retreat, declare defeat"
He's hitting all the same bullshit talking points. Oh, they are booing McCain now, hehe

"OSAMA BIN LADIN" OH MY GOD! "I cannot be a part of surrender, but I am giving up"

"in this time of war" about six times...

No wonder this vapid lying scumbag is getting the boot. Thank God this dick is gone.
"We cannot allow the leader of the United States to retreat in the face of extremism"

No shit. We need Obama, Hillary, or whoever becomes President to fully destroy what remains of the Republican party. People that can lie over and over to Americans like Romney just did ARE Extremists: religious extremists, economic extremists, and right wing radicals who have just screwed America over the past 7 years. It it far past time for these people to go.

I smile when I think of every Republican bushbot dollar that went to this idiot in vain. I am doubly happy when I think of every dollar that Romney has lost as a result of this failed bid.

It is not over yet. McCain/Huckabee is coming. One more conservative crony has fallen by the wayside, a victim of being just another clueless bush acolyte. We have more work to do.

UPDATE: POLISHIFTER: Fuck This Election
UPDATE 2: Empire Burlesque on Romney: American Psycho

Hill Knows Dick!

Hill Country Gal has a hilarious find- The Dikipedia!

Moby Dick Cheney

"Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it."

"It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment."

More Tales of Dick:
Dickspearean Theatre
Olbermann on Dick
Treasonous Dick
Dangerous Dick
Can't Shoot for Dick

Various Dikipedia entries that had me cracking up:

Tom Brady: "On February 3, 2008, Tom Brady brought his team, with their perfect 18-0 record, to the Super bowl where he promptly choked and was beaten by a banged-up team of young players led by a guy who is not even the best quarterback in his immediate family."

Sean Penn: "Often described as an acting “powerhouse,” Sean Penn is known for his intensity and humorlessness. He has been a druggie, a delinquent, mentally-unhinged, and a retard. He has also played those characters in films."

Ronald Reagan: "Despite being America’s most famous conservative, Reagan actually began life as a New Deal Democrat. He began to turn away from the Democrats, however, when they aligned themselves with the burgeoning civil rights movement. "I didn't leave the Democratic Party", Reagan later claimed, "The party left me.” (Probably at a Whites Only water fountain.)"

Lance Armstrong: "married Kristin Richard in 1998. After bearing him three children, caring for them while he spent up to half a year, every year, training in Spain, and then supporting him through major illness and recovery, Armstrong rewarded his wife by dumping her for singer-songwriter Cheryl Crow. He subsequently broke off his engagement to Ms. Crow after she was diagnosed with cancer. That, apparently, was too much of a downer for him.
.
In October 2007, he began dating Mary Kate Olsen. Or was it Ashley Olsen? No, it was Mary Kate. Whichever one it was, for a brief period, Armstrong was putting it to an anorexic ex-child star more than half his age. Not bad for a guy with one ball. "

Pat Robertson: "After failing to pass the bar exam in 1955, Robertson underwent his religious conversion, entering a field that has a much lower bar than the actual bar."

The Right Candidate for the Right Reasons

The Left will eat itself

Jim Booth considers why Edwards, who has stood far above and beyond Obama and Clinton, is out and they are still in. I have struggled to put these same feelings into words, but he nails exactly how I (and I suspect, many others) feel about this subject.

EXCERPT

What Edwards is really doing is paying the price for being a white guy at the time of historic (and mostly just) back lash against the “aristocracy of white guys” that has been the target of the concerted efforts of “liberals” who aren’t liberal at all. What these “liberals” (too often media pundits) are are ideologues who proclaim that someone would make a better (read “more media interest worthy”) Presidential candidate simply because that person is a) a woman or b) an African-American. Justice is one thing - ideology is another - this is ideology at its most reeking…. Yes, I hear your scornful retorts: “These are the times that try [white] men’s souls…” yadda, yadda….
.
I don’t say this to discredit Hillary or Obama, both of whom have real merit. I say this because the drive to push forward a woman or black candidate is (I fear) a media creation that allows the media then to control the narrative of the Democratic campaign - and the election. And the Democratic Party, which plays the sucker to every narrative the media creates for it, is playing the sucker again.
.
John Edwards has addressed overtly and directly real issues plaguing our country at this historical moment - the shift toward a class system that the “Repugnacans” have engineered - and their systematic removal of any realistic opportunity for those in the rapidly developing underclass to better themselves. Edwards, like me, Sam Smith, and many others across this country, has been able to work hard, gain success, and rise to a position of both (in a relative sense) wealth and power because of the past social and economic policies of the Democratic Party. I don’t begrudge him any of his success the way the entitled scions of the Right do - to do so would be to repudiate my own life. What I find most repellent in The Left’s rejection of JE is its own smug self-righteousness that it is doing so for the “correct” reasons.
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Not so. The Left is rejecting Edwards because he reminds too many of us in the Left® of what WE came from - how we scrambled and worked and took advantage of opportunities made available by FDR, HST, JFK, and LBJ. It’s easier to glom onto the myth of Hillary as a deserving member of her gender or Obama as a deserving member of his race (despicably patronizing behavior masquerading as visionary open-mindedness) than to stand up and say “offering opportunities for people to better themselves has been and should always be a basic tenet of the Democratic Party.” That would mean supporting Edwards - who espouses these positions - and rejecting the more fashionable idea of supporting Hillary or Obama because they represent a “historic opportunity.”

Another poster at Scholars and Rogues, Martin Bosworth, had this say of Edwards:

Yet, through all that, his message perservered.
But his campaign did not. I honestly think it was because he focused so much on the dark, broken side of American life that people were frightened away. As I said to a friend of mine yesterday, the difference between Edwards and Obama is that the former inspires you to fight, while the latter inspires you to hope. And people would much rather hope than fight.

I would rather have a fighter than a hoper. And I would rather have the right fighter, not Hillary Clinton. Can we get Edwards back? Before it's too late?

Nosedive, bitches!

Christ with a futures contract, it's ugly on Wall Street....

Bet on the bounce with a totally oversold, cheap-as-hell American market?

Not so fast, with markets tanking globally and panic setting in (apparently everywhere but on CNBC, where they are still debating whether or not this may or may not, could possibly be, might be considered a - Recession).

Client money is off the table now. Too damn volatile. Money to be made, but money to be fucking lost, too. Check out this guy ... deyaaammmnnnnn... that video makes my stomach churn.

Dow @ 11730, the Nasdaq's doing worse (as far as a charting basis goes)... Barring news that Bush strikes the world's largest oil reservoir while cutting brush in Crawford, I think it's safe to assume there will be no bounce today. War in Iran, anyone? Just you know, to take your mind off visions of jumping off skyscrapers.

Roll the dice if you got the stones. I'd be long QID (Inverse Nasdaq) or short the Q's myself if I had any money to invest. But I'm not touching the paltry amount in my retirement account for THIS shit market. No thank you, sir.

And as for more rate cuts? Please- stop the fucking madness! These rate cuts are only making it worse for the long term economy. Somebody slap the shit out of that idiot Cramer, tie his goofy ass up or something. What's good for assholes like him is BAD for the rest of America. Wall Street take your fucking medicine and quit whining about the Fed. You made your fucking bed with your "Market corrects itself" horseshit. Enjoy.

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UPDATE 1:"Bush guarantees Peace in the Middle East":

Palestinians blow up Egypt border in order to cross to Egypt to get food because of the Israeli blockade

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W- Still the Prez . Aren't you just fucking ecstatic?

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UPDATE 2: The Amazing Guys from Area 51 have an exercise in visual interpretation concernng what the coming Recession will feel like...

UPDATE 3: It's 2:45 (Texas time), and the bounce has begun... Hang on...

Vidal on Bush, empire, and fall.

There's so much perfection in this post that I don't really know where to start...

You can read it all here but here are the choicest bits...

"But the analogy becomes even more precise when it comes to the plague of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico that led to the Curse of Katrina upon a plainly incompetent president, as well as one who has been plainly jinxed by whatever faith he cringes before. Witness the ongoing screw-up of, say, prescription drugs, and the revival of an ancient race war in Louisiana. Who knows what further disasters are in store for us thanks to the curse Jonah is under? As the sailors fed the original Jonah to a whale, thus lifting the storm that was about to drown them, perhaps we the people can persuade President Jonah to retire to his other Eden in Crawford, Texas, taking his jinx with him. We deserve a rest. Plainly, so does he. Look at Nixon’s radiant features after his resignation! One can see former President Jonah in his sumptuous presidential library happily catering to faith-based fans with animated scriptures rooted in “The Pet Goat.”
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In fact, close observers of this odd presidency note that Bush, like his evangelical base, believes he is on a mission from God and that faith trumps empirical evidence. Berman quotes a senior White House adviser who disdains what he calls the “reality-based” community, to which Berman sensibly responds: “If a nation is unable to perceive reality correctly, and persists in operating on the basis of faith-based delusions, its ability to hold its own in the world is pretty much foreclosed.”
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Meanwhile, the indoctrination of the people merrily continues. “In a ’State of the First Amendment Survey‘ conducted by the University of Connecticut in 2003, 34 percent of Americans polled said the First Amendment ‘goes too far’; 46 percent said there was too much freedom of the press; 28 percent felt that newspapers should not be able to publish articles without prior approval of the government; 31 percent wanted public protest of a war to be outlawed during that war; and 50 percent thought the government should have the right to infringe on the religious freedom of ‘certain religious groups’ in the name of the war on terror.”
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It is usual in sad reports like Professor Berman’s to stop abruptly the litany of what has gone wrong and then declare, hand on heart, that once the people have been informed of what is happening, the truth will set them free and a quarter-billion candles will be lit and the darkness will flee in the presence of so much spontaneous light.
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Meanwhile, millions of adult Americans, presumably undrugged, have no idea who our enemies were in World War II.
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We are assured daily by advertisers and/or politicians that we are the richest, most envied people on Earth and, apparently, that is why so many awful, ill-groomed people want to blow us up. We live in an impermeable bubble without the sort of information that people living in real countries have access to when it comes to their own reality. But we are not actually people in the eyes of the national ownership: we are simply unreliable consumers comprising an overworked, underpaid labor force not in the best of health: The World Health Organization rates our healthcare system (sic—or sick?) as 37th-best in the world, far behind even Saudi Arabia, role model for the Texans.
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Meanwhile, China, our favorite big-time future enemy, is the number one for worldwide foreign investments, with France, the bete noire of our apish neocons, in second place.
Well, we still have Kraft cheese as of today and, of course, the death penalty.
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Berman makes the case that the Bretton-Woods agreement of 1944 institutionalized a system geared toward full employment and the maintenance of a social safety net for society’s less fortunate—the so-called welfare or interventionist state. It did this by establishing fixed but flexible exchange rates among world currencies, which were pegged to the U.S. dollar while the dollar, for its part, was pegged to gold. In a word, Bretton-Woods saved capitalism by making it more human. Nixon abandoned the agreement in 1971, which started, according to Berman, huge amounts of capital moving upward from the poor and the middle class to the rich and super-rich.
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I often think of that wise emperor when I hear Republican members of Congress extolling the wisdom of Bush. Now that he has been caught illegally wiretapping fellow citizens he has taken to snarling about his powers as “a wartime president,” and so, in his own mind, he is above each and every law of the land. Oddly, no one in Congress has pointed out that he may well be a lunatic dreaming that he is another Lincoln but whatever he is or is not he is no wartime president. There is no war with any other nation...yet. There is no state called terror, an abstract noun like liar.
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Although he has done a number of things that under the old republic might have got him impeached, our current system protects him: incumbency-for-life seats have made it possible for a Republican majority in the House not to do its duty and impeach him for his incompetence in handling, say, the natural disaster that befell Louisiana and then the U.S. military itself.
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Reason requires that we explain to the media and to this self-anointed “war-time president” whose “inherent” powers, to hear him babble, transcend the Constitution itself. But they can’t: First, we are not at war with another country; second, presidential powers are enumerated in the constitution, not inherent--despite the weird legal misreadings by ambulance-proud White House lawyers.
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This is what we call dictatorship. Dictatorship. Dictatorship. And it is time we objected before he shoves us into World War Three.

The Totalitarian Mindset

This article by J.R. Nyquist "Alien Minds" seems to both condemn and condone the totalitarian thought process.

My response:

Your article is an interesting one, and with a very sound premise. However, I have to rebuke you for considering "the West" as being an exception to the rule. This is laughable. There are many of us in the West who do indeed wish for a world that is not in a constant state of conflict. But that sentiment is not shared by our current leaders in the United States, who do indeed, live by the thought of future (and present) world war. On one hand, you dismiss and bemoan the thought processes of the Hitlers and Stalins, on the other, you prop up Tocqueville's words to the effect that the opposite of these minds is weakness and capitulation.

Totalitarianism does not except this nation as it expands it conquest- however failed the efforts of our current government.

"History teaches that totalitarian regimes cheat when it comes to arms control." And indeed, the United States and Russia have. Our regime will never give up its nuclear arms, only a fool would suggest this. More's the pity. Everything that you write about our enemies supposed goals from the holier-than-thou attitude of a Westerner can be also be said of the United States. And with the added evidence that we have the been the only aggressor nation in the past 10 years.

The tone of your article, and the emphasis on fear and aggression have indeed have an effect on the regimes of the past. You fail to recognize that in the face of the world's history - in contrast to the major powers of the world, that America has risen to the apex of its power by a history of appeasement, diplomacy, and controlled aggression. We did not rise to power by conquest or invasion or reckless aggression.

Congratulating Moscow on their so-called "stunning achievement" is ridiculous. Of course they would not dismantle their nuclear armaments, not as long as they have plenty of men like Mr. Nyquist, on their side, who are loudly crying that the United States is Russia's most dangerous enemy.

Russia and America own 95% of the world's nuclear weapons. Other countries will slowly gain these same weapons; not out of Nyquist's knee-jerk fear that "they" drool and chomp at the bit to use them against "us" in a suicidal attack- but as bargaining chips that bring them higher up the food chain militarily. We have all the steel - so those around us are only too happy to trade up from their bronze.

The same men who are "worried" that nuclear weapons “could” fall into dangerous hands are the Kissingers who make back room deals to give these weapons to other countries in trade for oil, trade agreements, and enriching themselves.

Mr. Nyquist makes a big point of : "As alien as this way of thinking is to normal people, it is second nature to a man like Vladimir Putin." The sad truth is that the Bush's, the Putin's, the Kissingers ALL own the totalitarian mindset. And Nyquist himself seems to own this mindset, as evidenced by the entire article and his belittling of the opposite - the mindset of the normal people with their "bourgeois morality".

“One death is a tragedy,” Stalin once said, “but one million deaths is a statistic.” Of course, you'd have to prove to me that these shallow power brokers believe that any death but their own is a tragedy.

Because too many lame ass tattoos just wasn't enough

Note to all you sleeve-tattoo wearing badasses:

You are a dumb shit. And your tattooed head-to-toe-peers are just getting to be more and more fucking retarded.

Being inked doesn't mean you are a rebel anymore. Covering yourself with tattoos doesnt set you apart anymore. Too many tattoos are like too many facial piercings: It just means you are a pathetic attention whore begging for someone to look twice at you.

I have a tattoo. I have friends who have tattoos. One of my best friends is a tattoo artist who is covered in ink. Some of his tats are cool. But when he's covered in them, you can't really pick out the good artwork amidst all the chaotic imagery.

Plus, as he ages and the ink bleeds out, the tats turn into shit. Of course by that time, maybe you are less concerned with decorating your body so you look bitchin' and more concerned with something besides your appearance. He's not. But he's kind of, well, a drug addict without much of a life beyond his collection of tattoos. And I suppose those tats serve a purpose- maybe they help him find others of like mind by waving his freak flag high.

But hey- instead of painting your body up like every other douchebag in the country right now, what say you forego the "I'm an individual" artwork and- I don't know- maybe develop a personality?

It may be too late to prevent marking yourself up with your biker revlon, but it's NEVER too late to STOP being a dumb shit.

Please.

Fed up with Right Wing Terrorist Supporters

"Do you want to win this war, or not" they ask, as if they have a fucking clue to what "winning" entails.

Those who think in broad slashes of black and white are missing the fucking point, as always.

Which war are you blithering morons speaking of?

The War in Iraq is over, at least the U.S.'s part in it. Bush's "surge" is a cruel joke foisted on the soldiers forced to play his pawns.

Or are you talking about The War on Terror? TO Protect the US we need to protect our borders and end the Root CAUSES of terror- not flail about at the end results. You kill it by removing its head, not slicing off toes.

You want to Win In Iraq? It cannot be done at this point. Not without realistic goals to be achieved. You have been HAD. Our current President and his non-military advisers have prevented any chance we had of winning PURPOSELY by raping the country and selling out our OWN TREASURY to their War Profiteer buddies. They wanted Iraq to be a miserable failure so they could get their grimy little hands on the oil.

Think, people THINK.

How could the most powerful country in the world fuck up in a little Podunk country like Iraq that NEVER EVER was a threat? It is because the Neocons NEVER wanted to give Iraq Democracy at all. The goal has been to simply destroy Iraq and steal the oil from day one. They weren't going to trade Saddam Hussein, who was actually IN Their pocket- for a DEMOCRACY.

What are you- fucking retarded? Saddam was taking too big a cut, making too much. So in a page out of the corporate playbook, they eliminated the middle man, much like Bush's pro-corporate stance kills small business in America.

And while they were doing it, they decided the best way to maintain control over the oil was by leveling the whole country while pretending to rebuild it. Then they insert a few puppets here and there to hold some semblance of order and begin looting. It's classic big business. And the cost to America for their Games?

- Thousands of American Servicemen and Women dead.
- Billions of U.S. funds funnelled into the Military Industrial Complex.
- Tens of thousands of our soldiers crippled and maimed and unable to serve any longer.
- Our Country's good name has been dragged in the mud with torture and murder and mayhem by these bloody entrepeneurs.
- Terrorist activity is UP 1000% percent globally.
- America Is NOW the most reviled country on the planet.
- The rich are getting richer and the American middle class is getting poorer.
- Healthcare costs are shooting through the roof and our nation is bankrupt.

And STILL you don't get it. Still you cheerlead ignorantly for these corporate shills and backroom dealing TRAITORS.

It's YOU who supports Terror. It's you who IS A TRAITOR To the American way. By bending over and smiling For Big Dick Cheney everytime he snaps his fingers. YOU and stupid ass Americans like YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for the deaths of our military men, the weakening of our country's security, the looting of our own country's treasury, and the dismantling of the constitutions' protections.

You and those like you MAKE ME SICK. How much more do we have to show you before you get it? You CAN'T be this stupid. Which means you are willingly aiding and abetting terrorism by supporting the liars in our government.

You belong in a cave alright, right next to Osama and the other clueless zealots who have hurt their own countries with their stupidity, arrogance and willingness to commit murder.

Real Americans will render your kind impotent though. Be aware of that. Your cheerleading days are over, you terrorist-supporters. You warhawks have done enough to hurt our country.

A thousand failures.

The news of American government is often bleak and full of incompetence. Failures abound all around us, even as our corporate sponsored media puts happy faces on corpses.

American Government in ... "action".

It's a story of U.S. government officials letting people die, and refusing to lift a finger as the situation spirals downward because they are too worried about their own asses. It's a familiar tale these days.

This story is yet another microcosm of how inept our government has become. Anyone who is in charge is frozen in fear for themselves. Time and time again, they fail to perform their duties which rolls downhill in a domino effect of disaster. Our entire country is wallowing in selfish, cover-your-own-ass thinking that destroys Everything that America is supposed to be based on.
Everywhere you look there is failure after failure in this government's policies. The men who SHOULD be most outspoken about these failures are the men who have failed. And when they fail to acknowledge their failures - they fail to acknowledge a need to correct the many mistakes they have made. Nothing can be learned in their constant mental state of denial.

Katrina. Iraq. Global Warming. Terrorism. The major mistakes that are common knowledge to Americans, but yet still those who NEED to be held accountable have not been. Still they pass the buck and blame everyone but themselves.

Then there are: Work related Hazards. Immigration/Border control issues. Crime. Healthcare, housing, and pyschological care for our veterans. Living wages and healthcare for our poverty stricken citizenry, whose numbers increase every day. These "small" issues that affect the very heart of our nation in thousands of ways.

It starts with every last one of us- We are the stewards of our own future. How our country's destiny may wax and wane is in our own hands. Are the people of America up to the task?

This is not just some politician's job. It's not "out of my hands". No- it definitely IS NOT! When you surrender your rights like that you not only surrender yourselves- but your weaken all of your countrymen and women.

Pull up your sleeves and work for the common good and the betterment of America. That is Exactly how we can save our country from threats both without and within.

Again, I ask - I beseech you all to dig deep and ask YOURSELF:
"Am I going to sit here and do nothing or am I going to make a difference?"

Our Future is a shared one. Do your part.

If not us, who. If not now, when

This is actually a reply to one of my longtime detractors, a fellow Texan, Caveman. It is response to his canned reply to yesterdays' post:

Caveman said:
"Fade do you belive everything the terrorist say?"

Fade said:
No, I hate everything the neocons stand for.

Seriously, How in the hell do you separate one of these terrorists from the other? How do you separate the men who sponsors kidnapping and torture on noncombatants, who has ordered clusterbombs dropped in civilian areas, (Rumsfeld,Bush) from the men who sends teens into civilian areas strapped with a suicide bomb (Hamas leaders)?

Both are evil men who use others to sow seeds of destruction. Both groups' acts do not Protect their peoples nor secure their holdings. The Iraq "War" is NOT a war. The Israel/Palestinian situation is NOT a war. A war is a battle between two organized sides for control. There are many on both sides of each of those situations that want only peace. But we are infiltrated by terrorists like YOU, Caveman, on every side; men like you who SPONSOR terror, murder, violence, mayhem and help fan the flames of hate towards their own people.

Do you want to know what a terrorist thinks, Caveman? Look in the mirror. Everytime you say that we need to kill them all, everytime you say it's okay to kill their children, everytime you turn a blind eye to yet another dead Palestinian family - You are condoning Terrorist activities. I don't cringe in fear of those who want to kill me. I don't want to kill their family members or their kids, or their entire nation in retribution for the hate of a few. I rise above the shit that you are wallowing in. I Hold out my hand in TRUE peace, in True Humanity to those who desire peace- and luckily for us all- there are more of US than there are of you bloodthirsty bastards.

I look at my kids, and I do have fears- Fears that my kids will live in a world of hate because people are too damn stubborn to give up their hates and find common ground in their humanity. Maybe one day, you can put your own humanity before your hate. I hope for ALL of our sakes, that everyone of you out there that believes that terror,murder,and torture is the answer can do so for the world's sake. It starts with each of us.

If not us, who? If not now, when?
Murdering each other endlessly is not an answer.