Our Commander In Chief In Action

Got this from Sweet Liberty News.

"... fight for the freedom to be left alone by religious extremists and zealous police agencies alike."

Digby has a long post about the Democratic party. I liked this statement:

The libertarian strain that guys like Paul Hackett represents needs to be woven into our agenda for the long haul so that we can continue to fight for the freedom to be left alone by religious extremists and zealous police agencies alike.

Because Hackett said that, Forti said, "we decided to bury him."

Showing their true colors.

In a sign that the 2nd Congressional District race might be tight, the National Republican Congressional Committee has dumped more than $500,000 into a TV ad campaign attacking Democrat Paul Hackett.

But Republican committee spokesman Carl Forti insisted that the ad buy is no sign that the party is worried that the Republican candidate, former state Rep. Jean Schmidt, could lose Tuesday's special congressional election.

What prompted the committee's entry into the Schmidt-Hackett race was a comment made by Hackett in a USA Today article published Thursday. Hackett, talking about his service as a marine in Iraq, is quoted as saying, "I've said I don't like the son- of-a-b--- that lives in the White House. But I'd put my life on the line for him."

Because Hackett said that, Forti said, "we decided to bury him."

The evilmongers at work, again. How anyone can be "proud" to belong to "that" party, is beyond my comprehension.

But, you know that Forti is just spouting bullshit. The NRCC doesn't just "dump" half a million dollars into the coffers because someone said something that pissed them off. Hackett has them worried. He's closed the gap between himself and that awful Schmidt woman.

Here's hoping he prevails next Tuesday.

Boy, this shit smells

There is just not a whole lot I can add to this:

And now it just smells like Fresh Laundry in a Fresh Pine Forrest with a curdly (again, curdely?) chunk of Parmesan.

Ain't America Grand?

I see the White House is changing terms again. This time, they are moving from "The War On Terror" to "a global struggle against violent extremism."

In addition, the wheels have now been set in motion to go after Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the latest attempt to spin the Rovegate scandal. The plan appears to be two-fold. Through the use of the congressional hearings called for by Sen. Pat Roberts, the "leakers" would get immunity for their (cough, cough) "testimony" before congress. Try to remember Iran-Contra for a parallel universe example. The second part of the plan is to attack Fitzgerald and undermine his credibility with respect to the investigation into the Plame leak.

Then we have the passing of CAFTA, which had originally been defeated during the alloted voting session. But, thanks to the repukes that control things, they kept the voting open, and open, and open, until they could finally drag in enough of their cohorts to get the damn bill passed. Keep your eyes on the 15 democrats that voted yea. Especially keep watch over the dreaded nine that always vote with the enemy.

Speaking about the enemy, isn't it just grand to be in charge? Gotta love DeLay and his method of control over bills. Tacking on a $1.5 billion give away to his greedy oil buddies after closing discussion on the bill, thereby allowing no discussions on the provision. The other party hasn't really raised much of a stink about it, though. I am getting tired of asking where is the outrage. Every day, the corruption and pandering continues, and gets more blatant by the minute. I cannot understand how all of this has escaped, and seems to continue to escape, the American public.

And through it all, we have a president who gives the finger to reporters.



Ain't America Grand?

9 Democrats That Need To Look For A New Job

I am as outraged as David Sirota regarding the CAFTA vote tonight. Read his take, it's thorough.

More on this to follow.

Wal-Mart: Home of low, low prices and big, big babies.

And now, for something completely different from WalMart ... NOT! (Thanks to SpeakSpeak News for the post).

On the one hand, you almost have to admire Wal-Mart’s brazen disregard for its public image. I mean, the company regularly pouts very publicly, and it doesn’t seem to mind that it looks like a petulant three-year-old. If it weren’t so off-putting, it would be kind of cute. (In one notorious case, Wal-Mart employees voted to organize; a pouty corporate office closed their store in response. In another instance, a group of Wal-Mart butchers voted to form a union. Their store switched to pre-packaged meat and fired them.)

[...]

This time, they’ve banned the sale of the Pensacola News Journal. Why? Because the paper published an article about some of the negative effects Wal-Mart-ization has had on small communities.

Bob Hart, one of the upper managers for the Wal-Marts in the area, called me and said he didn’t like Mark’s column, didn’t like a lot of Mark’s columns.

[...]

Mr. Hart… said he and his stores couldn’t tolerate a newspaper that would print the opinions of someone who was as mean and negative as Mark O’Brien. But, you know, Mark’s not nearly as ornery as that left-wing rabble-rouser Molly Ivins, whose column the newspaper also publishes. At any rate, Mr. Hart said he wanted the newspaper to get its racks off his lots. But he also said that if I fired Mark, we could talk about continuing to sell the newspaper at his stores.

[...]

I might understand it if Wal-Mart said I ought to fire Mark because what he said wasn’t accurate. But that isn’t the case. Mark accurately reported that there are 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees in a health-care program that is costing Georgia taxpayers nearly $10 million a year.

[...]

That’s why Mark still has a job and you can’t buy a Pensacola News Journal at Wal-Mart anymore.

My views about Wal-Mart have already been expressed here and here, and there is a good post here by David Sirota.

Oil companies rake in record profits

In spite of falling production, The Wall Street Journal predicts tomorrow that oil companies will report record earnings for 2005. Lower production and costly drilling operations have been more than offset by an enormous rise in crude prices, leaving the industry's top 70 producers with a 26% net increase in earnings this year.

A 26% net increase. That's astonishing. How does that feel to those 33,500 individuals who are scheduled to lose their jobs? As the saying goes, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. I wonder how many of the 33,500 individuals voted for Bush and endorse by proxy his domestic agenda? I also wonder how many of the corporate heads of the oil companies that raked in the 26% net increase in earnings voted for Kerry?

It is happening again, right before our eyes.

Valerie Plame's career as a covert CIA operative was spent keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. Her career was destroyed by the White House because her husband, Joseph Wilson, had the gall to publicly contradict Bush and his people regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It was so important for the Bush administration to maintain the fiction that Iraq possessed these weapons that they were willing to torpedo a vital intelligence network set up to protect us all. That fiction was more important than the truth.

George W. Bush and his people spent months telling the American public that Iraq was a direct threat to our security. They invaded based upon false pretenses. They maintain the fiction that the war was necessary when it has become manifestly clear that it was not. They maintain the fiction that freedom has been brought to Iraq when it has become manifestly clear that it has not. Perhaps worst of all, they maintain the fiction that the United States and the world are safer because of the invasion. Recent events in London rip this fantasy to shreds, and never mind the reports from the French news media that the London explosives may have been made from materials stolen from the unsecured Al-Qaqaa facility in Iraq.

Willful blindness is an appropriate phrase. It captures not only the fact that we are manufacturing threats to our security every day we remain in Iraq, but the fact that virtually everything associated with Bush administration policy depends on self-delusion and the manipulation of data to fulfill political desires. Even the most fundamental underpinnings of conservative political philosophy have been ground up in the gears of this grand fantasy.

Truth no longer matters. Ethics no longer matter. Facts are there for the twisting. Decades-old conservative ideals regarding the budget and the size of the Federal government have been thrown under the bus because they are no longer convenient, and get in the way of the manufacture of reality. Soviet self-delusion led that nation into Afghanistan and disaster. The Bush administration’s self-delusion has led us into Iraq. Res ipsa loquitor.

The parallel between this Bush administration and the old, failed Soviet regime can be taken one step further. One of the main reasons the Soviet government was able to stagger on for years making up facts out of whole cloth was that the leaders of that regime were accountable to no one. The Politburo said it, and so it must be true, and if it wasn't true, there was no authority or check to their power that could blow a whistle, throw a flag or demand an investigation. The old Soviet government lived in a bubble, free from the fear that they might be called to the carpet for lying, getting a lot of people killed and putting the State in mortal danger.

Sound familiar? Bush and his people have managed to walk through the raindrops since 2001, managed to pull off more than a few impeachable crimes, for no other reason than that they are accountable to no one in government ... or, more properly, no one in government who has the power to call them to account has done so. Congress is run by Bush allies, the Justice Department is run by his longest-standing hatchet man, and all of them prefer to maintain the pleasant fictions over any attempt to fix what has gone so drastically and demonstrably wrong.

We have to keep digging. Rovegate is just the tip.

Courtesy of t r u t h o u t.

Mayberry Machiavellis

Pretty powerful statement from Digby:

So, Rove being exposed in a petty, unnecessary act of revenge and overreach, pathetically reaching for Clintonian legalisms and falling back on infantile excuses is a bit of a jolt. Whether by hubris or error, Rove's naked vulnerability is a very useful parable with which to explode the myth of Republican omniscience and explain something that is vastly complex and difficult for average people, much less the compromised kewl kidz, to get their arms around.

Bush's Brain is not omnipotent. The administration that sold itself on simple homespun values and manly virtues has been caught in an act of waspish backstabbing to cover its dishonesty. The war was based on lies and now we are losing it. How could this masterful white house screw this up so badly? These questions can now be asked outside the context of the simple narrative that's been constructed about Bush's honor and Rove's supernatural talents. The scandal opens it up. What has, up to now, been hailed by both sides and in the press as unassailable political mastery is exposed as gross arrogance combined with gross incompetence. That's the story: Mayberry Machiavellis.

You Can't Handle The Truth

In June, the government requested and received an extension from the judge stating that they needed time in order to redact the faces of the men, women and children believed to be shown in the photographs and videos. They were given until today to produce the images, but at the eleventh hour filed a motion to oppose the release of the photos and videos, based on an entirely new argument: they are now requesting a 7(F) exemption from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act to withhold law enforcement-related information in order to protect the physical safety of individuals. Today’s move is the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world.

Typical of the control freaks in the White House. Do not, under any circumstances, let the American public see what the fuck Americans do to their "prisoners."

I can only shake my head and wonder when the insanity will stop.

Are They Fucking Kidding Me?

Just when I post about the job loss announcements over the past four days, they go and do it again at ButtsForBush:

Economic Indicators Show Continued Growth
By Matt Margolis at 02:01 PM

Not that this will matter to Democrats...

An important gauge of future economic activity rose strongly in June and claims for jobless benefits dropped last week by the greatest amount in 2 1/2 years, suggesting that the U.S. economy is continuing to grow. … The June increase was the largest since a 0.9 percent rise in December 2003, the board said.

Democrats may have criticized Bush for cutting taxes during wartime.. but you know what? Cutting taxes worked!

He's just got to be kidding me, right? Are they really that dumb?

33,500 Jobs To Be Lost, Announced Over Last Four Days

I remember reading this over at ButtsForBush, and wasn't going to give it life by breathing on it. But, in just the span of four days, July 19 through July 22, four corporations announced they were cutting 33,500 jobs [Kimberly-Clark Corp., 6,000 jobs. (July 22); Kodak, 10,000 employees. (July 20); Hewlett Packard, 14,500 jobs. (July 19); PNC Financial Services Corp., 3,000 jobs. (July 21)]. And that's just in four days. I got dizzy counting all the announced cut backs in jobs over the last two months.

But, of couse, let's not forget the dilema of Exxon and its excess cash reserves of more than $25 billion

This administration and it's pathetic sycophants that support it always report the upside. Remember, folks, this is the only president to have a net loss of jobs every year he's been in office.

Families who fought for 9/11 commission declare it a failure

Stay Tuned.

On Friday, July 22, 2005, one year to the day after the release of the "9/11 Commission Report," Project Censored founder, Dr. Peter Phillips will lead a National Press Club briefing entitled "The Failure of the 9/11 Commission Report and the Mainstream Media's Disregard." The briefing will feature scores of detailed examples of the Commission's flawed findings, self-censorship, misrepresentations and conflicts of interest that call the accuracy and integrity of their entire investigation into doubt.

According to Convergence spokesperson Peter Phillips, "The events of September 11 not only took thousands of innocent American lives, they have been repeatedly used to justify previously unthinkable policies of domestic repression, preemptive attacks, torture, and endless war.

"We know most of these policies had been championed by powerful voices within this government long before 9/11, but without these outrageous 'surprise attacks' they could have never come to pass. If the 9/11 Report is dangerously inaccurate, as more and more evidence now indicates, the nation still needs an honest investigation of what really happened and why no one has ever been held accountable. In particular, we need to know whether the behavior of officials who seem to have profited most handsomely from 9/11 and its dark wake should be looked at once again.

"Since we are anxious to get this crucial challenge to the American public and world at large, we are extending a special invitation to the independent media community and foreign journalists, who have a far better track record of investigating governmental deceit and exposing official treachery than the US corporate media."

IRAN EXECUTES 2 GAY TEENAGERS

I'm posting the entire story below:

Two gay Iranian teenagers -- one 18, the other believed to be 16 or 17, were executed this week for the "crime" of homosexuality, the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) reported on July 19. (The ISNA report is in Farsi, and was translated into English by the British gay rights group OutRage!, which released its report today--ISNA also provided the terrifying photos of the teens' last moments you see on this page.) The two youths -- identified only by their initials as M.A. and A.M., were hanged in Edalat (Justice) Square in the city of Mashhad in north-eastern Iran, on the orders of Court No. 19. The hanging of the teens was also reported by the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Consensual gay sex in any form is punishable by death in the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to the website Age of Consent, which monitors such laws around the world, in Iran "Homosexuality is illegal, those charged with love-making are given a choice of four deathstyles: being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch. According to Article 152, if two men not related by blood are discovered naked under one cover without good reason, both will be punished at a judge's discretion. Gay teens (Article 144) are also punished at a judge's discretion. Rubbing one's penis between the thighs without penetration (tafheed) shall be punished by 100 lashes for each offender. This act, known to the English-speaking world as frottage,' is punishable by death if the 'offender' is a non-Muslim. If frottage is thrice repeated and penalty-lashes have failed to stop such repetitions, upon the fourth 'offense' both men will be put to death. According to Article 156, a person who repents and confesses his gay behavior prior to his identification by four witnesses, may be pardoned. Even kissing 'with lust' (Article 155) is forbidden. This bizarre law works to eliminate old Persian male-bonding customs, including common kissing and holding hands in public." And Outrage, in its release about the gay teens' execution, noted that, "according to Iranian human rights campaigners, over 4000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979. Last August, a 16-year-old girl was hanged for 'acts incompatible with chastity.'"

In the case of the two teens hanged in Mashhad, "They admitted having gay sex (probably under torture) but claimed in their defense that most young boys had sex with each other and tdhat they were not aware that homosexuality was punishable by death," according to the ISNA report as translated by Outrage. "Prior to their execution, the gay teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes. The length of their detention suggests that they committed the so-called offenses more than a year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16."

"Ruhollah Rezazadeh, the lawyer of the younger of the two boys, had appealed that he was too young to be executed and that the court should take into account his tender age (believed to be 16 or 17). But the Supreme Court in Tehran Ordered him to be hanged."

If you would like to protest the barbaric hanging of these two kids with same-sex hearts, while the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Iran, there is an Iranian embassy in Canada. You may write, telephone or fax the Iranian ambassador in Canada:

Ambassador SEYED MOUHAMMAD ALI MOOSAVI
Embassy of Iran
245 METCALFE ST.
OTTAWA ONTARIO
K2P 2K2 CANADA
COUNTRY AREA CODE :001 613TEL :2354726-2334726
CONSULAR TEL :2334726FAX :2335712

see genetically-engineered flying pigs (here)

This from SpeakSpeak News, about MORA (Media Ownership Reform Act of 2005), a bill that would reregulate radio and TV back to the days before the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

Seems like a good bill.

I expect to see genetically-engineered flying pigs before I see Congress reduce the ownership cap from 39% to 25% and force big media companies to sell assets.

However, I give these Congress members credit for trying.

I guess because he's a U.S. senator he can get away with anything

Republican Sen. Rick "man on dog" Santorum gets to continue to screw the Penn Hills school district. Although he, his wife, and all their little ones (there are six of them) live in Leesburg, Virginia, they have five of their children enrolled in a cyber home school program. This program is sponsored by and paid for by Penn Hills school district, which is located not in Virginia, but in Pennsylvania, where Santorum owns a home, but does not reside in (it's rented out).

Gotta love these quotes:

Yesterday, Santorum said he and his wife, Karen, were pleased the state dismissed "the baseless and politically motivated charges of the Penn Hills School District."

"Coincidentally, not until it was time for my re-election campaign did these questions about our children's education arise, and it was even less of a coincidence that these allegations originated from the Democratic chair of Penn Hills who is also a member of the Penn Hills school board," Santorum said at a news conference yesterday outside the State Office Building, Downtown.

Santorum did not respond to questions after his remarks. He and his wife have been home-schooling their children in Leesburg, Va. -- where he has said they spend "the vast majority" of their time -- since questions were raised about their residency last fall.

Santorum said last fall that he and his family typically return to Penn Hills during holidays and usually stay at the home of his wife's parents, who live next door to the house he and his wife own on Stephens Lane.

Erin Vecchio, the Democratic chairwoman and Penn Hills school board member who pressed the district to challenge Santorum's residency, said her criticisms were motivated not by politics but by comments such as those.

"It's 'When we come to town, a couple of kids go to my mother-in-law, a couple of kids go to my aunt's -- how is that residency?" Vecchio asked. "I guess because he's a U.S. senator he can get away with anything."

Picking Roberts Is A Sign Of Bush's Current Weakness

From WaPo:

"The Democrats' strategy of unified opposition and obstruction may finally have chastened the White House. Democrats have recently made life miserable for Bush. They have killed Social Security and ground the rest of Bush's domestic agenda to a halt. They have eaten up weeks of valuable time in the Senate with their opposition to lower court nominees. They killed John Bolton's nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations. Democrats have been warned by Republicans that their obstructionism will cost them at the polls, but it may have forced Bush into choosing a more conciliatory nominee. If O'Connor had resigned immediately after Bush's reelection one has to imagine that Bush would have picked a more mischievous jurist. So while conservatives are hailing the Roberts pick, it may actually be a sign of Bush's current weakness."

Just WHERE Am I?

As I waited for the elevator at the hospital the other day, I overheard two self-evidently gay men chatting away in the thickest of hick accents. I'm not quite sure what that proves— probably nothing—but I have no doubt that it's a social detail worth recording.

Blog trolling. How fun!

Beam Me Up, Scotty, Part Two

Buzz Aldrin saluting U.S. Flag.



Earthrise viewed from lunar orbit prior to landing

On July 20, 1969, the human race accomplished its single greatest technological achievement of all time when a human first set foot on another celestial body.

Six hours after landing at 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (with less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining), Neil A. Armstrong took the “Small Step” into our greater future when he stepped off the Lunar Module, named “Eagle,” onto the surface of the Moon, from which he could look up and see Earth in the heavens as no one had done before him.

As we say good-bye to Scotty, let's not forget "where no man has gone before."

Our Preschooler

What is he, 6?

Jesushchrist! What in the hell has happened to this country?

My bad! Digby was on it before me, and he clocked the president at age 6. I gave him credit for a few more years!

We're Making Progress, And War Is Hard Work

"What I'm telling you is that we're focused here," Bush said from the Port of Baltimore, where he got a waterside demonstration of cargo-screening techniques. "When you're at war, you can't lose sight of the fact that you're at war."

"You can look inside in the truck, and you don't even have to get in it," Bush said afterward to an audience of state and local officials and port employees. "That's called technology. And it's working. It makes a big difference."

This damn guy has all the finesse and conversational skills of a ten year old (and, hey, no disrespect for ten year olds!)

Beam Me Up, Scotty

James Doohan (Montgomery Scott)
March 3, 1920 -- July 20, 2005

Beam me up, Scotty, one more time.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words (Or A Get Out Of Jail For Free Card)

Do you think this picture's not going to come back and haunt either of you?

Head's up to Crooks and Liars.

Free At Last

Moazzam Begg, a British citizen, was held at various prisons, including Guantanamo Bay, for over three years before being released without charges. Now free, he shares the story of how he survived.

Short excerpt:

Representatives of the United States came to my house in Pakistan, where I was a resident at the time, held me at gunpoint in front of my family, and took me to their territory, and then say that I have no rights.

That is the most audacious thing they did to me, and they did it to 500 other people.

Read more here. Thanks to TalkLeft for the head's up on this.

Iraq's hospitals under strain

It is early afternoon in the emergency room of Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital.

Medics are on stand by for a big influx of casualties from a bomb south of Baghdad.

But right now they have a more pressing job.

Several doctors, blood spattered on their white coats, are calmly trying to save the life of a young man who has just been rushed in with a bullet-wound that has punctured his lung.

He appears to have been shot, by mistake, by US troops on the road to Baghdad airport.

Read more here.

The Truth of the Matter

Then-governor Bush of Texas was elevated to the Presidency after a 5-4 Supreme Court majority prevented the counting of all the votes in Florida. Between January and September of 2001, President Bush floundered without legitimacy and was unable to push a policy program. After the 9/11 attacks on the United States, President Bush used the upsurge of patriotism in America to bamboozle the American people first into an ill-advised war in Afghanistan and then into an imperialist adventure in Iraq. Keeping up the wartime patriotic drumbeat, President Bush used a GOP smear machine and the Patriot Act to prevent the political opposition from stopping his march of conquest and repression. In the 2004 election, the truth finally began to filter out but the weakness of the Democratic candidate prevented a full investigation of the stealing of the election via vote fraud in Ohio. Now we are confronted with the facts that Ambassador Wilson and the Downing Street Memos prove conclusively that President Bush diabolically misled the American people into war in Iraq and the GOP smear machine is in full throttle trying to destroy those who have brought the truth to the American people.

Hooray! ButtsForBushBlog finally gets it!

The left needs to be purged from our political system - it is, in the end, the only way we can save it. If we wish to remain free, the left has to go. The best means at hand is to expose the truth - the whole truth - about the left. There's no better place to start this than with the Rove/Plame affair - pulling this thread, we can unravel the whole garment of leftwing thinking. We just have to keep hammering home on the mendacity of the left - but not in isolation; each time a leftwinger says that Karl Rove exposed a covert agent, hit back with, "so, did we go into Iraq for oil?". All of their lies are inter-connected and if we make the connections between them in public, the American people will see the left for what it is and will severely punish any political Party identified with it...

Then again, they may NOT get it.

Then again, as this snowball rushes into hell, they're GONNA GET it (ha ha ha ha).

Jeff Wald Sues ... But Does He Really Have A Case?

OK, on a local note, this is funny.

Jeff Wald (ex husband and manager of "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" Helen Reddy), goes bonkers in recorded voicemail messages left.

Some choice passages from Wald's messages: "If I see one more word with your name attached to me on your website, you're (swear word here) dead. Do you understand that? You can tape-record that."

A day later, Wald obviously hadn't let off all his steam. He didn't like Ford's description of his potbelly and other physical unpleasantries. (Remember, this is Hollywood, where you are what you look like!)

"So, I'm fat with a potbelly?" he bellowed. "I can make you not (really bad word here) breathe. Everyone else would be polite and send you a letter. I'll stop you from breathing."

Those Were The Days

I used to hang out here as a kid, in the 60's. My sister and I, and the rest of the group, used to ride our bicycles to the Pike and ride the Cyclone Racer all afternoon. It was only 25 cents a ride. Most of the time, we'd bum quarters off the sailors!

Reminiscing, courtesy of DJ Rix's blog about the Jersey boardwalk at Asbury Park.

Alert: If You Die On Bush's Watch, You Will No Longer Work In His Administration!

Tomorrow Bush might even tell us that if someone on his staff dies, they will no longer work in his administration.

Ok, that one made me laugh, out loud too!

Another NutJob Take On Rove

Liberals are crying, "How come Rove isn't out there?", and the answer is that he was asked specifically by Fitzgerald not to talk, which is actually a good sign nothing is coming down on Rove.

WTF? It's a good thing these "leaps" are metaphorical in nature, because god only knows in reality they would miss the ledge and fall down into that deep cavernouse space of lies.

On The Ever Changing WH Position (bullshit)( cough)

"A few points that might do with clarifying. Under the president's new policy, is an indictment sufficient for dismissal, or conviction necessary? Assuming conviction is necessary, can staff continue to serve while the case is taken up on appeal?"

Hardy har har, courtesy of Talking Points Memo.

Bush Lied To Congress On Iraqi Elections

Bush Legacy = Rigged elections, here and abroad.

I'm glad the shit is finally starting to pour out of this administration's ass. (ewwwwww).

This is an interesting story:

As we know, Bush wanted to provide covert support to Iraqi candidates, undercutting that country's burgeoning democracy and endangering the long-term faith of the Iraqi people in their government. (Time magazine first reported on this in October of 2004.) Bush was stymied by Congress, which strongly objected.

But did Bush go ahead and do it anyway? The New Yorker has the expose.

A State Department official confirmed that there was an effort to give direct funding to certain candidates. “The goal was to level the playing field, and Allawi was not the sole playing field,” he said. Warrick was not operating on his own, the State Department official said. “This issue went to high levels, and was approved”—within the State Department and by others in the Bush Administration, in the late spring of 2004....

The Bush family just can't get enough of fixing elections, it seems. I can tell you where they can stick the purple finger.

Rove Update VII

The NutJobBlog almost gets it!

It was just back on the 13th of this month that I wrote my opinion on the subject of the Rove kerfuffle; that it was part and parcel with a paranoid conspiracy theory pushed by the far left and now rapidly infecting the MSM and the Democratic leadership. Conyers isn't just another Democratic Congressman - he's one of their top people; he's listened to with respect by his peers...and he's completely bought the idea that there was an evil conspiracy by President Bush, et al to dupe us into war and that Rove attempted to destroy the man who first exposed it all.


To our leftwing, the liberation of Iraq is an entirely separate war- it is an invention of the Bush Administration which took advantage of 9/11 if, indeed, they didn't engineer the whole thing in order to have a reason for invading Iraq to steal oil/serve Israel/provide contracts of Haliburton/insert favored conspiracy theory here. This is the stuff of aliens held at Area 51...and our Democrats are pushing it and the MSM is being their megaphone. Once upon a time we on the right joked about the
"tin-foil hat brigade" on the left - it was so absurd, their opinions on the war...but it turns out that the lunatics are in charge of the Democratic asylum.

I would delete the line about the aliens. Other than that, he's got everything just about right! (chuckle)

US Military Controls Little More Than The Ground On Which It Stands At Any One Moment

"As I have pointed out before, when you can have this kind of coordinated bomb attack in Baghdad, including attacks on US convoys and even a tank, we may conclude that the US military simply does not control the capital of the country it conquered two years ago. As far as I can see, the US military controls little more than the ground on which it stands at any one moment, which is the goal of the guerrilla movement."

Move along. Nothing to see here.

Friday Butterfly Blogging

Karma, it seems, is a bigger bitch than I am.

Once again, the FoodWhore doesn't disappoint.

My goal was to get in, get out, and get home as quickly as possible. My last trip there I ran into Jabby Janelle and wound up having to put my ice cream back because it started to melt before I could even check out of the store. And I was just in no mood for meat counter chats or baking aisle gossip. So I made my way to each item I needed but then my back started to itch. And it was that kind of itch in the very geographical middle of my back that I could not reach no matter what I did. And I tried. But I'm just not that advanced in my yoga skills yet and it was the kind of itch that needed straight on contact with something sharp.

Anyway.

So there was this hanging display thingy over by the olive oil. It was one of those things they attach to the regular display shelves and it had those nice plastic covered bar sticky-outy things. Perfect for getting that spot on my back.

I looked around to make sure no one was watching and I put my back on that thing like a bear on a tree. I thought just a quick rub would take care of that pesky itch and I could be on my way. Only, I pressed too hard and the shelf kind of came off it's clips and shifted enough to knock free all the packets of dry Italian dressing it contained, and then it knocked a bottle of olive oil to the floor.

And, yeah. It broke.

I am pretty sure this is the Universe's way of keeping my ego in check. For every bitchy thing I do I get my feet knocked out from under me.

Karma, it seems, is a bigger bitch than I am.

Toasting TFW! Pass the martini.

What's $100 Billion Among Friends

I keep hoping that Americans will wake up from their stupor, and get past the "he said, she said" mentality of our government and the M$M that propogates it. When I read obvious erroneous posts, ones that take real time data and spin it in that "he said, she said" wheel, I just go bonkers.

Take this, for instance.

There was a bump in the tax revenues collected in June that affected the projected deficits this country is carrying. These are budgetary deficits, and they are projections, which change with the varying economic and political climate.

For the right wing nutjobs, this was "vindication" that the Bush policies, i.e. tax cuts for the wealthy, are working.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states:

Strong tax collections through June have led the Congressional Budget Office to reduce its deficit estimate for 2005 to about $325 billion and the Office of Management and Budget to reduce its deficit estimate to $333 billion.


The trimming of the deficit is certainly a positive development. But this development does not lead to the conclusion that "the tax cuts are working," as some now are claiming. Furthermore, the reduction in this year’s deficit from a very large one to a large one has little bearing on the nation’s shaky long-term fiscal foundation.


A surge in economic growth is not behind the unexpected increase in 2005 revenues. Real economic growth in 2005 has not been unusually rapid, nor has it been stronger than was projected earlier this year by CBO or OMB. Thus, the unexpected gain in revenues does not reflect faster-than-anticipated economic growth. CBO has said that one possible reason that revenues are coming in faster than it forecast earlier this year is that increases in income may be more concentrated among high income taxpayers than it anticipated. High-income taxpayers pay taxes at higher rates, so an increasing concentration of income results in a higher level of revenue.


The recent revenue rebound has not made up for the large revenue shortfalls that have developed since 2000. The recent increase in revenues follows three consecutive years (2001-2003) in which revenues declined in nominal terms, an extremely rare occurrence, and a year (2004) in which revenues were lower as a share of the economy than in any year since 1959. Even with the recent increase, revenues in 2005 will remain well below the levels at which they were projected to be when the 2001 tax cut was enacted.


Many of the factors behind the increase in revenues in 2005 are temporary. The expiration of a business tax cut at the end of 2004 is leading to an increase in tax collections of about $50 billion this year, according to past estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation. In this case, the increase in revenue stems from the termination of a tax cut, not from a tax cut’s effect in spurring the economy. The recent revenue increase also apparently reflects a rise in the stock market in 2004 that resulted in increased capital gains tax payments when tax returns for 2004 were filed earlier this year. This increase in the market, however, has not continued in 2005. Additionally, the corporate tax legislation enacted last October contained a provision (relating to profits that U.S. companies have earned abroad and kept overseas) that was designed to produce a one-time gain in revenues this year. The one-time gain will be followed by revenue losses in subsequent years. Another contributing factor may be higher-than-expected inflation, which generates higher revenues. To the extent that 2005 revenues are higher because of higher inflation, this growth would be largely offset in later years by higher expenditures, most of which also respond to inflation.

There's more, here.

So, keep the above in mind when you hear the Bush Administration touting the tax cuts for the wealthy as "working to reduce the deficit."

It's just more bullshit from that man in the White House with the dirty mouth.

A Little Right Wing Spin

Here's how they tell it over at those ButtsForBush blog:

As we and other bloggers have extensively demonstrated, there is nothing to the story – Karl Rove didn't "out" a covert CIA agent, the CIA agent was not covert, no one's career was destroyed (indeed, Wilson made a tidy sum out of the affair...and, of course, no one exposed an Administration lie requiring Rovian retaliation because there was no lie to expose; in fact, the only lies told in the case were told by the man, Wilson, who is said to have exposed lies. Wilson lied about what he found vis a vis Saddam's attempt to obtain uranium in Africa; Wilson actually confirmed Administration assertions, reported as much to the CIA and then went out and lied all about it in the New York Times and in the Senate.

The rest of the post is really quite interesting, especially insofar as states what is the obvious (that Bush lied about reasons for going to Iraq), but asks the incredulous question, are you really going to believe this (that Bush lied)?

The left and their MSM echo-chamber are playing with fire here - and, into the bargain, also providing grist for the terrorist propaganda mill. A third rate conspiracy theory has taken on life; it has become real, at least in news reporting. This is the absolutely rock-bottom of where leftwing thinking takes a person - it gets you right down into the anti-Semitic gutter with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. We're actually discussing, when we discuss the Rove/Plame case, whether or not the President of the United States lied to get us into a war for Haliburton profits and Zionist imperialism. Keep that in mind when you read the stories about this - for Rove to have attempted to destroy Plame and/or Wilson, then the reason for the destruction has to be to protect the plan to have America's best and bravest die for oil profits and Likud electoral victories. If you really want to believe that an American President did this with the willing aid of hundreds of other Americans in the Administration and the military, then have at it - you'll be a pig-headed, anti-American idiot, but by all means believe what you wish to believe.

What makes it so funny is that the answer is obviously YES, with capital letters! The FACT that Bush lied is readily apparent to anyone that's not been dead the past two months.

Morons.

Stupid Santorum Jokes

These are pretty good!

Santorum got excited because he finished a jigsaw puzzle in 6 months and the box said 2 to 4 years.

Santorum was trapped on an escalator for hours when the power went out.

Santorum couldn't learn to water ski because he couldn't find a lake with a slope.

Santorum hates M&M's because they are so hard to peel.

MR. ROVE AND THE ACCESS OF EVIL

REMEMBER TO KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL.

... this was an official using his official info to commit a crime for the sole purpose of punishing a real whistleblower, Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, for questioning our President's mythological premise for war in Iraq.

Chief justice disqualifies entire Cuyahoga County court

This is just unbelievable:

All 34 judges on the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court have been disqualified by Ohio's chief justice from hearing a lawsuit alleging corruption by the Republican party, the information-restricted Cleveland Plain Dealer reports Wednesday, via AP.

This is how far the GOP will go to influence any decision made concerning the Ohio CoinGate matter. Disqualify all the Democratic judges.

Are you scared yet?

A bunch of sleazeballs you wouldn't even invite to a beer keg party.

The GOP talking points are pretty familiar by now to just about everyone -- when caught in a lie, denigrate the messenger.

In this instance, the GOP talking points say Joe Wilson is the bad guy in this mess, not Karl Rove!

You see, all Karl was trying to do was make sure that a "wrong" story was not put over on the Amerikan publik. And, oh, just because we can say it, Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson are liars. You get that? LIARS.

The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, and P. J. O'Rourke insist that Valerie was nothing, just a desk jockey. Yet, until Robert Novak betrayed her she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still a secret to the world. When Novak outed Valerie he also compromised her company and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company and with her.

The Republicans now want to hide behind the legalism that "no laws were broken". I don't know if a man made law was broken but an ethical and moral code was breached. For the first time a group of partisan political operatives publically identified a CIA NOC. They have set a precendent that the next group of political hacks may feel free to violate. They try to hide behind the specious claim that Joe Wilson "lied". Although Joe did not lie let's follow that reasoning to the logical conclusion. Let's use the same standard for the Bush Administration. Here are the facts. Bush's lies have resulted in the deaths of almost 1800 American soldiers and the mutilation of 12,000. Joe Wilson has not killed anyone. He tried to prevent the needless death of Americans and the loss of American prestige in the world.

But don't take my word for it, read the biased Senate intelligence committee report. Even though it was slanted to try to portray Joe in the worst possible light this fact emerges on page 52 of the report: According to the US Ambassador to Niger (who was commenting on Joe's visit in February 2002), "Ambassador Wilson reached the same conclusion that the Embassy has reached that it was highly unlikely that anything between Iraq and Niger was going on." Joe's findings were consistent with those of the Deputy Commander of the European Command, Major General Fulford.

The Republicans insist on the lie that Val got her husband the job. She did not. She was not a division director, instead she was the equivalent of an Army major. Yes it is true she recommended her husband to do the job that needed to be done but the decision to send Joe Wilson on this mission was made by her bosses.

At the end of the day, Joe Wilson was right. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It was the Bush Administration that pushed that lie and because of that lie Americans are dying. Shame on those who continue to slander Joe Wilson while giving Bush and his pack of liars a pass. That's the true outrage.

AT THE END OF THE DAY, JOE WILSON WAS RIGHT.

Let's not forget that. All of the TALKING POINTS are designed to make you not talk about Karl Rove and to talk, instead, about Valerie and Joe. Valerie and Joe did not do anything wrong. But, Karl Rove did. And no amount of trying to blame the husband and wife is going to make what Karl did any less of a crime.

And let's not forget that the reason Karl leaked the information, because he was PISSED that Joe Wilson had the gonads to print the truth at a time when no one in the media, or anywhere else, was telling the truth. This administration did things that would ruin your life, literally, if you crossed them. Joe crossed Karl Rove, and Karl Rove deliberately, and with malice and forethought, outed Joe Wilson's wife, in a "there, take that you bastard" gotcha-kind of way.

Pretty sleazy, but hey, that this President and his administration. A bunch of sleazeballs you wouldn't even invite to a beer keg party.

And We're Taking The Good Pot, Too

On a lighter note:

Subject: Dear Red States

We're ticked off at the way you've treated California, and we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.We get stem cell research and the best beaches.We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds ofthe tax revenue, you get to make the red states paytheir fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch ofhappy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be prochoice and antiwar and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water,more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too.

You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,
Author Unknown in New California

Karl Rove & The New Standard of Dishonesty

From David Sirota:

The revelation that Karl Rove helped compromise U.S. national security by potentially leaking the name of a CIA operative's identity raises a simple question: what, if anything, do you have to do to get fired by the Bush White House?

It seems there is no limit anymore to what abuses top government officials can engage in and still face no consequences. In fact, not only do they face no consequences, they get promoted. For instance, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice essentially perjured herself in front of the 9/11 Commission. Instead of being fired, she was promoted to Secretary of State. Similarly, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld lied to America by telling us "We know where [the WMDs] are - they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." He was rewarded by being re-appointed Secretary of Defense.

Now, after selling out America's national security, Karl Rove got himself appointed White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

The only people who get fired, it seems, are people who actually tell the truth. When White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey said the Iraq War might cost $200 billion he was fired. Likewise, when Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told the truth about the effects of the President's tax cuts, he also was fired.

Can you imagine it the other way around? Can you imagine how loud the demands for firing would have been had a Clinton cabinet secretary committed perjury on national security issues before Congress? Yes, you can - which shows the hypocrisy of the relative silence about this affair.

The Rove-Plame matter really highlights how the lasting legacy of this administration will be to create a new standard of government dishonesty where the public is trained to expect everything that comes from official government sources to be lies.

Think about it: A top White House aide still has access to classified information even while he is under investigation for using that access to get back at a political enemy and thus endanger U.S. national security. Meanwhile, the White House press machine has repeatedly lied about this aide's role, with impugnity.

In short, we have come to the bottom of a bottomless pit of deception, where there ceases to be any standard of truth, and where even the hardest of hard facts can be distorted. The lasting effect will be the true erosion of our government's credibility both with its own people, and the world.

Smack. Snap Out Of It.

Here they go again. Those dimwits.

Did Saddam support bin Laden and his al Qaeada? Absolutely. The evidence is abundantly clear on the matter.

The rest of the post is caca.

I truly wonder just what the other half of the American population will ultimately do when the shit is fully hitting the fan.

Smoking In The Boys Room

I smell blood. The HeadsInTheSand
DoNotConfuseMeWithTheFacts blog is getting nervous. First they were going to just sit back and watch the lefties foam at the mouth. Now they are called upon to do "spin."

Cliff May over at NRO's The Corner lays out the two Rovian possibilities in the Plame kerfuffle:

1) Rove knowingly exposed a covert CIA agent as a way to "punish" Joe Wilson.

2) Rove was asked why the Bush administration would send someone like Joe Wilson to Africa on a secret mission for the CIA. Rove answered: "We didn’t. His wife works at the CIA. She got him the assignment."

The lefties who have attempted to post here yesterday are all on fire about this - to hear them tell it, Rove is deserving of a firing squad or a hangman's noose...it is treason, as our lefties have it, that Rove deliberately leaked the name of Valerie Plame in order to destroy Wilson. One thing I would like clarified: supposing for a moment that Rove did leak a name, how would Plame being noted as an intelligence agent destroy Wilson?

Cliff May goes on to note that the MSM is likely to play up "1" because they smell blood in the water...I'll modify that and say that the MSM will play up "1" because they think they smell blood in the water; there isn't any, actually. No crime was committed - just as in the Downing Street Memos, our lefties are reading things in the Rove story which aren't actually there...there
was no leak of the name; heck, its not even clear whether Rove used a name when describing Wilson's wife. Our lefties and their MSM echo-chamber will run this into the ground for the next week or so, but in the end there's just nothing there. You can't prosecute someone for mentioning someone else's wife.

So this is the spin? You can't prosecute someone for mentioning someone else's wife? THAT'S ALL THEY GOT?
Nice try, but (cough cough) give me another martini. You are obviously just one of the employees. I'd post it on the site, but I've had one post conveniently kept off the board, and I've chosen not to try again.

Hot For Karl

(I'm just a gigolo, and everywhere I go, people know the part I'm playing.)

Great photo/op.

Where's My Flightsuit?

Bush lacks the capacity to admit a mistake. He lacks the capacity to see a mistake. Given these deficits, on what basis can we expect the man to correct a mistake? He's more likely to decorate than fire a man for screwing [up], as Tenet and Bremer show, and he applies that same lax judgment for his own mistakes. He proclaims his errors victories, no matter how catastrophic, and would probably like nothing better than to put the flightsuit back on and give himself a big medal, if only Karl would flash the okay.

Ouch!

Can I have another martini?

Benedict Rove

This is fabulous! Courtesy of AMERICAblog!

Big Business Prepares to Buy the Supreme Court

A very detailed and excellent read on the corporate buy out of the supreme court (right behind their take over of our congress) by David Sirota.

The media won't hold Bush here to any standard at all.

Atrios' take on David Corn's take on the Rove Scandal:

It's incredible that our media has allowed coverage to resolve entirely around technically parsing of the law. Now, that technical parsing of the law is in fact important, both in the court of law and in the court of public opinion, but there's a massive collusion here by the media to pretend that the legal issues are the only issues. The media won't hold Bush here to any standard at all. It's sickening.

What Crime? We Don't Have No Stinking Crime!

More from the HeadsInTheSand denial blog:

As for me, I figure I'll let our lefty bloggers get all worked up over the coming media frenzy - we've known all along that no crime was committed, so this has all been much ado about nothing from the start. Still, it is entertaining to watch the left get into a lather about it...they are just so desperate for an impeachment to pay us back for Clinton...its kinda cute; you know, like a small, yapping dog trying to be fierce.

If you read this crap long enough, you'll grow warts.

If you have people in your stratosphere spewing this type of garbage, you may have to move.

I have never regretted jettisoning my Republican best friend after this election. I probably would have beaten the crap out of him by now, if I hadn't.

Of Course Not

Does anybody read?

Yesterday, Senator Clinton attacked Bush while giving a speech, accusing him of damaging the economy "by overspending" and for giving tax cuts to "the rich."

The amazing thing about this is that this attack comes after we've seen 25 straight months of economic growth, and an unemployment rate now at 5%.

Still, the sad thing is Democrats get away with talking down our strong economy. I wrote a month ago about my concerns that Democrats bashing our economy seems to have been effective at convincing people our economy is in bad shape.

The truth of the matter is that facts don't know the difference between Democrats and Republicans. The facts are clear as crystal, and anyone that has been keeping an eye on the economy should know that George W. Bush took an economy that was in bad shape because of Clinton-era policies, and turned things around.

Oh, gag me with a spoon already!

EVERYONE fucking knows that there was a SURPLUS when greedy man was installed in office in 2000. It was greedy man's policies that took this nation from a surplus, to a deficit the likes of which are unparalleled in the history of the United States.

President Bush turned Clinton's budget surplus in to a deficit of over 480 billion Dollars as of the end of last year. According to the bipartisan congressional budget office two thirds of the deficits was due to the tax cuts for the rich Bush unnecessary introduced so his rich friends and contributors can benefit.(more)

The federal budget surplus when Bill Clinton left office was projected to grow to $5.6 trillion over the next decade. Instead, the deficit for last year alone is $445 billion. That’s an amazing turnaround. (more)

I could go on, and on, and on, but it would be lost on these morons. As long as der leader tells them that his administration has "turned things around," they will believe it. Actually, the funny thing is, BushCo. has "turned things around," just not for the better.

The silliness and stupidity on the part of these young republicans can be readily seen in this little video up at Crooks and Liars. Check it out. It is funny. When one of the participants was asked if he would go fight in Iraq, without any hesitation, he replied: "Of course not."

Of course not. That's the sad truth. No one wants to fight in this war started by Dumbya and his Dumbettes. But the gall of these people to call those that oppose the war traitors and unAmerican, etc., when nary a soul on their side would enlist, just gnaws at my gut. The loudest supporters of this war are generally the most lily livered cowards in real life. Ain't that the sad truth.

CNN video censored at Guantanamo prison

Typical speak with forked tongue administration:

Taking up U.S. President George Bush's challenge for reporters to visit the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, CNN did, but its video was censored.

WAKE UP AMERICA!
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH BUSH

Newspaper Withholding Two Articles After Jailing

Here we go, now. The first "fallout" from the Judith Miller/NYT goes to jail fiasco.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has chosen NOT to print two stories based on leaked documents, citing their belief that it "could lead to penalties against the paper and the jailing of reporters."

I really, really, really cannot believe this is the tone in the United States in the year 2005. It feels more like 1955, to me.

Some days it's really rewarding to be a smartass.

From the Food Whore:

I was called out to a customer's table last night.

"You raised the price of coffee."

"We sure did."

"Well don't you think $1.50 for a cup of coffee is pretty high?"

"By industry standards it's average to low, actually."

"Well I think it's terrible."

"I am sorry. But you know, everything has to go up - it's just how the economy works."

"Yes, but coffee should be a giveaway. It should be what entices people in here."

"Actually I am more concerned about having all the good food doing the enticing."

"Well I am going to really have to consider if I want coffee or not."

"Tell me, how many times has your waiter refilled your coffee?"

"What?"

"How many times have you had your cup of coffee refilled."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"How many?"

"4."

"And is that pretty standard for you? To have that many refills?"

"Yes but..."

"Well then in all reality, you're only paying $.38 cents a cup and I would say that's one helluva deal considering you don't have to make the coffee or wash the cup. You don't even have to clean your own table or wash your own dinner dishes."

His face got red with anger and his wife covered her mouth to hide a giggle. Just then the busboy walked by with a pot of coffee.

"If you get another refill it will knock the price down to $.30 cents... wanna give it a go?", I asked.

And then I patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

Some days it's really rewarding to be a smartass.

Bush's Lobotomy

A crime against a nation does not need to be legally identified when it is staring us in the face. All Bush had to do was root out the traitors to the nation on his staff and fire them. But if he fired Karl Rove, it would be like lobotomizing his own brain. So the individuals who sold out America in an effort to bully and intimidate truth tellers are still running the United States.

Courtesy of Buzz Flash.

Sending Our Best And Bravest To Fight In Iraq?

More from the Idiot Blog:

We are engaged in a war - and, dammit, it is downright unpatriotic to be undermining the war effort under the false-flag of political dissent. Political dissent involves dissenting from the President's health care proposals...but while our best and bravest are fighting the enemy abroad, dissent can never mean parroting enemy propaganda...and all too often that is just what our Democratic leaders are doing. (italics added)

Now they want to tell you just what political dissent is by narrowing the issues on which you can disagree, and then to throw in the line "best and bravest?"

I don't want to rag on the military, but we all know that the best and bravest are not serving in the military. I think we can say the soldiers are doing their best and being the bravest they can be in this situation. But we are nowhere near sending this country's "best and bravest" citizens to Iraq.

Can The Democratic Party Leaders Ever Grow A Set?

And while we are concurring, here's another strong opinion I agree with, by David Sirota:

Here's a dose of truth for the Republican Party in Washington, D.C.: your war-mongering policies and devotion to creating a constant state of panic/fear in this country has made America less safe, especially in light of your negligence on homeland security. Your heated rhetoric that indicts the strength and patriotism of progressives is a sad attempt to cover up your own pathetic failures.

Now, here's a dose of truth for the insulated Democratic establishment in Washington - an establishment that continues to lose elections, yet, incredibly, refuses to change: if you continue to pathetically cower in the face of all of this; if you continue to ignore the courageous lawmakers in your ranks who know the party needs to stand up; if you continue to defend the Iraq War in light of public opposition to it, in light of proof that the Bush administration lied about it and in light of proof it made America less safe; and if you continue to have positively no courage of any convictions and positively no ability to give voice to the concerns of the majority of Americans, then you will unfortunately continue losing elections far into the future.

Even a poodle receives a bone once in a while.

I concur with David Corn on this:

I almost--almost--felt sorry for Tony Blair, as I watched him on the telly this morning trying to sell the G8 agreement that was more disappointment than achievement. He did his best not to sugarcoat the agreement, but he still couldn't stop the spin (to mix a metaphor). He said that progress on global warming was made because he was able to coax George W. Bush into a "dialogue" on the matter and because Bush signed the communique which declared that global warming is a serious issue and that "we know enough to act now." Well, Bush may know enough to act, but he still has adamantly refused to take any significant action to address global warming--even though he promised to do so after rejecting the Kyoto accord in 2001. The Bush administration--perhaps reluctantly--has already acknowledged that global warming is real and requires action. True, once in a while an energy company lobbyist working within its ranks rewrites a report to say global warming ain't much to fret about, but officially the administration accepts the premise that it is a problem requiring a remedy. Yet Bush has done nothing to develop an effective remedy. Thus, Blair achieved nothing, vis a vis his pal from Washington, at this G8 on this critical issue, no matter how nicely Blair spins the agreement. Only goes to show: you can go to war for this fellow--even though your own foreign secretary says the primary case is "thin"--and you can assume enormous political risk in order to help him, and you will get nada in return. Even a poodle receives a bone once in a while.

Don't Take Away My Education

Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform, on how evolution should be taught in public schools: "The real problem here is that you shouldn't have government-run schools. ... Given that we have to spend all our time crushing the capital gains tax I don't have much time for this issue."

That's right. Let's go back to where education was only afforded the wealthy few, leaving the larger group of middle class to poor out in the cold. A free education to all is one of the greatest gifts this country offered its citizens. It's a shame people actually believe we, as citizens, would be better off without proper access to free education.

Typically Dumb CNN Exchange

It's moments like these that make me glad I do not watch television news, of any kind. Not local, national or international.

This exchange on CNN:

Miles O'Brien: Let's get started with Jeevan Deol who is a witness to the bombings yesterday and also a Muslim scholar in London and happened to be right near where the double decker bus blew up. I want to ask you about what you saw but first I am curious what the reaction within the Muslim community is this day after those attacks.

Jeevan Deol: Well, I'm afraid Miles I'm going to have to correct you I am not a Muslim so I think I'm going to have to pass on that question.

O'Brien: I'm sorry I thought it was said you're a Mus-you're not a Muslim scholar?

Deol: No I work on terrorism and security issues in the University of London.

Idiots.

IOC Drops Baseball, Softball From Games

Wow. I'm floored.

Baseball and softball were dropped Friday from the Olympic program for the 2012 Summer Games in London.

"I think they've made a big, big mistake," said Tommy Lasorda, the former Dodgers manager who managed the 2000 U.S. team to the gold medal in the 2000 Sydney Games. "Baseball is played by all countries now and softball, too. I think that's really going to hurt the Olympics. I don't want to knock the other sports, but I think this is a big mistake. I am very disappointed.

Well Wishes To My Friends Across The Pond

With so many blogs and other media outlets covering the bombing in London, I'll simply add my condolences to those and their families that were affected today.

Unfortunately, that is the price that has to be paid for the meritless invasion of another sovereign nation.

Caution

I am SOOOO trying to avoid the Bush Falls Off Bicycle meme, but you have to admit, THIS is funny:

Seventy-three percent said the United States should ''participate in the Kyoto agreement to reduce global warming."

''Curiously, 43 percent still assume, incorrectly, that President favors U.S. participation in the Kyoto treaty and another 14 percent are not sure. Only 43 percent are aware that he opposes U.S. participation,'' it added.

A vast majority of Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's stance on global warming, a new poll said Tuesday amid reports of a widening rift over climate change between the United States and its partners in the Group of Eight (G8) dominant countries.

Ummmm, like that's NEWS?

A VAST majority of Americans disagree with President George W. Bush on just about EVERYTHING he has done and/or proposes to do to/for/with America.

Of course, there is still no explanation for that dumb 43%.

Can It Be True?

The talk over at the left and right blogasphere is that Rove will be indicted, later this week or early next week.

Little turd, in big toilet:

The political left is in entire control of the Democratic Party - if Roe were to be overturned, these leftists would just start demanding that Democratic politicians adhere to a litmus test of support for a pro-abortion Constitutional amendment. Some might think I'm off my rocker for believing that - but I note that each and every Democratic leader who harbors any sort of Presidential ambitions is forced by the left to abandon anything remotely akin to a pro-life position. Believe it or not, even Ted Kennedy was once upon a time pro-life. The pro-abortion political left seems to have a stranglehold on the Democratic power structure - ending Roe would be an opportunity for the Democrats to shed a whole bunch of useless political baggage, but I don't think they've got the will to do it.