Trouble in Dubya Land
This is an article I drafted on September 20th, but never posted. I guess I was looking for some more links, etc. But, then I got involved with some marathon work weeks, and what little time I had was spent playing with my relatively new camera and post processing the images.
However, even though this is "old" news, it's not old news. It's same shit, different day, but with older references. It's now October 1st, but I'm posting it anyway, and not updating it at all. I'll save my energy for more current stuff. I just hate the thought of just deleting it. I work too hard (maybe, I can't remember) on this stuff.
There is an article in the
NYTimes online today that caught my eye. In
For Governors in G.O.P. Slots, a Liberal Turn, the article describes how repugs are using ...... pandering to voters by adopting values that they have previously defined as tantamount to an obscene phone call. Yup, boys and girls, they are advocating "liberal" values, in order to distance themselves from their cockroach hero, the dubya king, because they know that to remain at his side is tantamount to political suicide.
Unlike other campaign seasons, when a popular president has been an asset to local politicians, many candidates this year are trying to distance themselves from President Bush, either by staking out ground in contrast to him or, as is the case with Mr. Schwarzenegger, treating the president like a communicable disease.
Democratic candidates across the country have responded by constantly reminding voters of their opponents’ conservative leanings, wherever they exist, and trying to tie them as much as possible to the White House.
But, you have to remember that even though these GOP lying bastards are doing this just to get elected, they will be, and often are if they're incumbant, the same dirtbags who will vote to exonerate the dubya king cockroach by passing that dubious piece of legislation that will make it legal to wiretap American citizens and excuse the neocon cockroaches who engaged in the practice when it was clearly deemed illegal by the US Supreme Court.
Remember, when you go to the polls, what these dirtbag repubs really stand for. Remember that they'll be falling all over themselves to criminalize abortions and stem cell research, reduce funding for veterans and homeless people, cut funding for education while granting tax relief to the richest US citizens. They'll uphold failed voodoo economics because it's really just a scam to transfer wealth upwards to their friends and contributors. Remember how they consistently vote to weaken environmental laws, favoring corporate profits over clean air and water. Remember these things. The GOP are just playing a dispiccable shell game to gain the votes that really represent the majority of American's values.
It's NEVER Too Late
Finally, some in the press are taking a real hard look at the lies, deceipt and truly treasonous offensed committed by dubya, his dick and the other neocon dirtbags. Yes, it's too late to stop the Iraq debaucle. Too late to save the lives of the American soldiers killed there. Too late to recover the priceless stolen artifacts from the Baghdad Museum. Too late to prevent the lost of limbs and eyesight of the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. But it's not too late to hold these treasonous bums accountable. In fact, doing so couldn't come soon enough.
Following is an exerpt from the transcript of Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on Bush, from
Crooks and Liars:
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President — and those around him — did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken… a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11, is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase, is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space… and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible — for anything — in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced — possibly financed by — the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death… after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections… how dare you or those around you… ever "spin" 9/11.
ELECT DEMOCRATS in November. Hold the cockroaches accountable.
Historic Seven Minutes
I watched the movie, "The Path to 9/11". It was awful. Aside from being factually misleading and a hype for the repugs, it was really boring. I played solitaire on my PDA while I watched the show. I read magazines. I ate Cheerios. But, I did at least turn my attention to the show from time to time over these past two evenings. Tonight, they interrupted the movie for a message from the dictator. I turned to the Learning Channel and watched
Miami Ink, instead.
But, the absolute biggest and most glaring omission was........
............. the historic seven minutes of
My Pet Goat.
.
The Tragedy of 9-11
There is a ton of press and editorializing about 9/11 today. It's September 11, 2006, the 5th anniversary of that tragic event. But, we're no safer today. On the contrary. We never caught the perpetrators of that horrific act of destruction. On the contrary. Instead, we're embroiled in a war that has nothing to do with 9/11, but was initiated using 9/11 as the excuse. Turns out it was a
BIG FAT LIE FROM DAY ONE. Of course, anyone who reads real news, is curious about world events, is NOT a jingoistic lunatic bent on revenge already knew it before the march to war. We all knew the Niger documents were forgeries. We all knew that there was
NO CONNECTION BETWEEN IRAQ AND 9/11 before this nation invaded Iraq. We knew. And, if we knew, sure as shit dubya and his dick and all the other fascist neocons knew.
The fascist neocons had effectively duped Congress (who clearly was asleep at the switch) and the entire nation, who was already tasting the blood of revenge for 9/11. That, in and of itself, has now become the larger tragedy, and I do not mean to dishonor those victims and their families who suffered and died from those terrorist actions of 9/11. But, the tragedy we have
now certainly overshadows that horrific act of terrorism. In fact, we've now taken good ol' American terrorism and sent it to Iraq, wherein almost as many American soldiers are now dead as those who died in the World Trade Center. And, tens of thousands of Iraqis have paid with their lives for an act that had nothing do to with them.
So, here we are today, with a falacy of a movie about 9/11 which aired last night, such fiction that even Disney agreed to air statements during the movie three times saying that it's not a documentary. But, the statements weren't really strong enough. And goddess can only ask who really read them? What they didn't say was that it's a biased pile of bull. The fact that it's being aired one month before the midterm elections, makes it a tragedy unto itself.
It's a tragedy because it serves nothing but to bias peoples' minds before the midterm elections, by making the Clinton administration, and by association the Democrats the number one target of blame for 9/11. Yet, the Bush administration callously allows Bin Laden to walk free today, and
Al-Qaida is as strong a threat as ever. Where's the freakin' justice? But, ever since dubya and his dick were elected to office that sad, sad day six years ago, they've done their damnedest to blame Clinton for every single debaucle that they themselves have embarked upon. This tragedy of a mini-series, of which part two airs tonight, is nothing but a huge political ad for the repukes. That's all it is. A big, republican, totally free, political advertisement, thanks to Disney.
One of my favorite bloggers is
Taylor Marsh. I am quoting her latest (as of this writing) blog entry, because she says, so succinctly, what is on lots of our minds.
People will say I'm being political, that I hate George W. Bush. What people think of me is immaterial. The truth of it is that today I am simply an American who doesn't understand why we let the man who perpetrated the American massacre on 9/11 get away. It infuriates me, sickens me. It's not that I think it would change the attacks in Iraq, or solve the Middle East challenges. It's because when someone commits mass murder on American soil he doesn't get to walk away free and negotiate safe havens with our "ally," while American soldiers continue to die for retribution that was way off target.
But the worst of it is that upon the dead of 9/11, George W. Bush has now placed the bodies of 2,668 American soldiers, including thousands of wounded and maimed, while perpetrating a fraud on the American people who trusted him to make the wrong right. It doesn't get any worse than what George W. Bush did after 9/11. He has dishonored the victims of 9/11, then added insult to murder by taking us into a war for vindication when the real enemy hid elsewhere. We now have the proof, which makes today all the more painful.
Today, I am marking the tragedy of 9/11 by remembering who is really to blame for the mess we're all in, as a nation, today. I remember those who died on 9/11, and I remember those who continue to die today because the events that happened on 9/11 enabled this dubya regime to engage in an oil venture that continues to cost tens of thousands of lives today. For that, I continue to be truly saddened. But, I will vote in November 2006, and I will vote in November 2008. I will hold these fascist neocons accountable.
A Row of Boats
click to enlarge
The News That Didn't Make The News
This entire heads-up article comes from a website called
Project Censored. Every year they post a listing of the top 25 news stories that did not make mainstream media news. However, most of us who follow the Blogosphere are already aware of most of these stories. The problem lies in the fact that most of America does not even know what the Blogosphere exists, its main purpose, and in my opinion, where the real and accurate news reporting takes place.
This article is a heads-up listing of this years "non" stories, that are really mind benders. And, those who complain that mainstream media is left wing biased certainly have their collective heads up thier asses. But, I digress..........
#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
Throughout 2005 and 2006, a large underground debate raged regarding the future of the Internet. More recently referred to as “network neutrality,” the issue has become a tug of war with cable companies on the one hand and consumers and Internet service providers on the other. Yet despite important legislative proposals and Supreme Court decisions throughout 2005, the issue was almost completely ignored in the headlines until 2006.1 And, except for occasional coverage on CNBC’s Kudlow & Kramer, mainstream television remains hands-off to this day (June 2006). 2 Most coverage of the issue framed it as an argument over regulation—but the term “regulation” in this case is somewhat misleading. Groups advocating for “net neutrality” are not promoting regulation of internet content. What they want is a legal mandate forcing cable companies to allow internet service providers (ISPs) free access to their cable lines (called a “common carriage” agreement). This was the model used for dial-up internet, and it is the way content providers want to keep it. They also want to make sure that cable companies cannot screen or interrupt internet content without a court order.
#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies.
#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
Oceanic problems once found on a local scale are now pandemic. Data from oceanography, marine biology, meteorology, fishery science, and glaciology reveal that the seas are changing in ominous ways. A vortex of cause and effect wrought by global environmental dilemmas is changing the ocean from a watery horizon with assorted regional troubles to a global system in alarming distress.
According to oceanographers the oceans are one, with currents linking the seas and regulating climate. Sea temperature and chemistry changes, along with contamination and reckless fishing practices, intertwine to imperil the world’s largest communal life source.
#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
The number of hungry and homeless people in U.S. cities continued to grow in 2005, despite claims of an improved economy. Increased demand for vital services rose as needs of the most destitute went unmet, according to the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors Report, which has documented increasing need since its 1982 inception.
.......... snip ..........
As urban hunger and homelessness increases in America, the Bush administration is planning to eliminate a U.S. survey widely used to improve federal and state programs for low-income and retired Americans, reports Abid Aslam.
President Bush’s proposed budget for fiscal 2007, which begins October 2006, includes a Commerce Department plan to eliminate the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The proposal marks at least the third White House attempt in as many years to do away with federal data collection on politically prickly economic issues.
#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo
The world’s most neglected emergency, according to the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, is the ongoing tragedy of the Congo, where six to seven million have died since 1996 as a consequence of invasions and wars sponsored by western powers trying to gain control of the region’s mineral wealth. At stake is control of natural resources that are sought by U.S. corporations—diamonds, tin, copper, gold, and more significantly, coltan and niobium, two minerals necessary for production of cell phones and other high-tech electronics; and cobalt, an element essential to nuclear, chemical, aerospace, and defense industries.
These abrieviated synopses are only the first 5 of 25 neglected stories that are listed on the
Project Censored website. I urge everyone to go there, read these stories,
make them election year issues, whenever possible. This is critically important. It's important because, as the lastest
controversy over the "Path To 9/11" movie has so clearly illustrated, the mainstream media is biased. They are bought and paid for by the right wing scheme machine. They control what they want us to believe and what they don't want us to know. Left wing bias, my ass.
A simple list of the rest, wherein you can go read the reports
here:
#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
#7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act
#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines
#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup
#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US
#15 Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner
#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court
#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda
#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story
#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever
#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem
#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers
#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed
#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe
#24 Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year
#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region
What I find particularly interesting about this list is not that the stories generally highlight misdeeds and wrongdoings by the dubya camp, but rather how these are stories that would highlight how the dubya cockroach camp and their associated mainstream media cronies are working in cahoots to prevent the world, and of course, Americans, from learning how intricately tied this administration is to corporate interests and thier profits. A great site to check out that is all about this very issue is
CorpsWatch. A friend of mine mentioned to me this past thursday that his brother, who is a die-hard republican, complained that "
we've got to get big oil out of Washington." And, this guy doesn't even know the half (quarter, eighth, zillionth) of it.
Photo of the Day
Click to enlarge
Full Disclosure May Come Post-Election
But, I would bet dollars to donuts that if the repugs retained control over the House and the Senate after November, then full disclosure will
never happen.
It may be a hard pill to swallow for some of you who don't trust democrats either. But, if ever there was a reason to elect Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections, WaPo has articulated it in their article,
Panel Set to Release Just Part of Report On Run-Up to War. It's really evident to me that the controlling repugnants are hoping that their good looks will carry them into victory in the elections. They sure as shit cannot count on integrity, honesty, or morality to carry them to victory. They've got none. NONE.
According to this article, they are releasing only two less controversial chapters.
A long-awaited Senate analysis comparing the Bush administration's public statements about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein with the evidence senior officials reviewed in private remains mired in partisan recrimination and will not be released before the November elections, key senators said yesterday.
Instead, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will vote today to declassify two less controversial chapters of the panel's report, on the use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, for release as early as Friday. One chapter has concluded that Iraqi exiles in the Iraqi National Congress, who were subsidized by the U.S. government, tried to influence the views of intelligence officers analyzing Hussein's efforts to create weapons of mass destruction.
At the very least, I hope these two chapters get lots and LOTS of press in the run-up to the November elections. No doubt, there will be lots of debate and controversy. And, I bet that the repugs will be doing lots and LOTS of back peddling in how they supported this insane administration's drum beating run-up to attack Iraq.
Yes, boys and girls, this administration is insane.
George W. Bush is insane. The same way that the fascists in Germany and Italy were insane in the early and mid-1900's. And, what's more insane is that the conservative ilk in the United States blindly and insanely followed their lunatic leaders, no questions asked. That's the most insane thing; the most troubling. We cannot allow these lunatics to win in November. That would be
THE MOST INSANE thing of all.
Tell ABC to Tell the Truth About 9/11
This is straight from the
Think Progress website:
On September 10 and 11, ABC Television is planning to run an inaccurate film depicting the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks. The film was written by an avowed conservative and it largely places the blame for failing to prevent the attacks on the Clinton administration while whitewashing the failures of the Bush administration.
Our review of the film shows it to be full of such inaccuracies. Its distorted version of history is inconsistent with the 9/11 Commission Report, upon which it claims to be based. The events leading up to September 11, 2001 are too important and too tragic to play politics with the facts.
I urge everyone to go to
Think Progress' website and use their form to send your message to ABC.
I find it so appauling that the repukes continue to resort to their tactic of exploiting the tragedy of 9/11 for their own self-serving political interests. The dubya cockroaches are really playing this up full tilt with dubya himself campaigning on the benefits of his terror war. And, if you haven't yet read it, you must go to
AMERICAblog and read their article about this slanderous piece of crap being foisted upon the American people:
ABC is trying to use of the airwaves -- airwaves owned by you and me, and loaned to broadcasters as a public trust -- to slander Democrats and sell a slanderous, irresponsible fraud to the American people, and they're shamefully doing it just weeks away from Election Day.
..... snip.....
The ABC television network -- a cog in the Walt Disney empire -- unleashed a promotional blitz in the last week for a new "docudrama" called "The Path to 9/11". ABC has thrown its corporate might behind the two-night production, and bills it as a public service: a TV event, to quote the ABC tagline, "based on the 9/11 Commission Report".
That's false. "The Path to 9/11" is actually a bald-faced attempt to slander Democrats and revise history right before Americans vote in a major election.
The miniseries, which was put together by right-wing conservative writers, relies on the old GOP playbook of using terrorism to scare Americans. "The Path to 9/11" mocks the truth and dishonors the memory of 9/11 victims to serve a cheap, callous political agenda. It irresponsibly misrepresents the facts and completely distorts the truth.
More
The war in Iraq isn't a war against terror. It's a shameful distraction, costing thousands upon thousands of American and Iraqi lives. In the latest
CNN poll, most people aren't even equating the war on terror with the war in Iraq anymore.
Asked whether the Iraq war is part of the U.S.-led war on terror, 53 percent said they believe it is a separate action, while 45 percent said they believe it is connected, as the Bush administration has repeatedly insisted.
Personally, I don't think I'll be able to watch this pile of crap. It's kind of like feeling like I
should watch dubya when he's making his various speeches, i.e. The State of the Disunion, but I just cannot stomach it. I just can't. I get too nauseous.
As the King plays.......................
.......... your rights erode. Are we gonna be able to survive till he's outta here? How much more damage can this dirtball do in the few months he's got left? What's the next misery making decision he's gonna make? Cancel the elections? I have no doubt that if he could go to that extreme, he most certainly would.
While the dubya regime was out and about trying to convince its subjects that all hell will break loose in Iraq and around the world if we don't win that eternal
whore on terrah, his loyal legal appointees have been very stealthily undermining whisleblower protections for federal employees. It's not like they haven't done it
before. This time, however, it's specifically targeted against employees who exposes federal wrongdoings specific to the Clean Water Act. Huh?? And, that serves whom? And, what? Oh, yeah. It only protects the dubya regime. Does nothing to protect whistleblowers who expose wrongdoing. Does nothing to protect American citizens at large. Period. End of discussion.
This, according to
PEER. Notice the reference to the unpublished legal opinion, and the date this release:
For Immediate Release: September 4, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
BUSH DECLARES ECO-WHISTLEBLOWER LAW VOID FOR EPA EMPLOYEES — Stealth Repeal of Clean Water Act Protections by Invoking “Sovereign Immunity”
Washington, DC — The Bush administration has declared itself immune from whistleblower protections for federal workers under the Clean Water Act, according to legal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result of an opinion issued by a unit within the Office of the Attorney General, federal workers will have little protection from official retaliation for reporting water pollution enforcement breakdowns, manipulations of science or cleanup failures.
Citing an “unpublished opinion of the [Attorney General’s] Office of Legal Counsel,” the Secretary of Labor’s Administrative Review Board has ruled federal employees may no longer pursue whistleblower claims under the Clean Water Act. The opinion invoked the ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity which is based on the old English legal maxim that “The King Can Do No Wrong.” It is an absolute defense to any legal action unless the “sovereign” consents to be sued.
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Will someone
please give him a blowjob so we can impeach the sunnovabitch already?
Please.........
King George image found at Spawn of Blogorrhea
The Bush Jeer - "What's That Smell?"
One of the Vietnam era bands that I really liked alot was
Country Joe and the Fish. They really put together some of the most fun, anti-war songs of the era. Of course, I'm not alone in remembering the Vietnam era, and the anti-war movement, and the the parallels to the Iraq era. Hmmmm.......... Iraq Era. Has a similarly nasty ring to it, don't it?
Anyway, as I was surfing around the blogosphere this morning, I came upon a new (to me) blog,
Political Cortex. Very fun read, for sure. One of the things that really caught my attention was this song they wrote, to the tune of "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" is "We're All Gonna Fry Rag". Brought out the hippie in me. Hehehehe, funny stuff. An excerpt:
We're All Gonna Fry Rag
Come on all you unemployable men...
Listen to my Republican spin.
This war on turruh's no desprit sham...
Down yonder in `Slamo-Fascistan.
Won't none of my crooks see the light of the sun...
A rhetorical war's never done!
And it's one, two, three,
What are we waitin' for ?
Don't ask me, I don't got a plan,
Just want to drop Tehran;
And it's five, six, seven,
Servin' up that squirrelly hate.
Well now there ain't no crime I wouldn't try,
Could be... I'm gonna lie.
Well, come on you libruls and show some class...
`Fore I `cuse you all of bein' pederast.
Better go out and raise my creds...
Before my old mommie and poppie's dead.
Ain't no caprice from number one son...
When he's flown around on Air Force One.
And it's one... big... spree,
What are we waitin' for ?
You ask me, we don't need a plan,
Just got to pop Iran;
And it's time... for... heaven,
Servin' up that squirrelly hate
Well now, I done decided they gotta die,
Whoopie!... They're gonna fry.
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Photo of the Day
Framed and signed, for your viewing pleasure
Click to enlarge
There is an article in the NYTimes online today that caught my eye. In For Governors in G.O.P. Slots, a Liberal Turn, the article describes how repugs are using ...... pandering to voters by adopting values that they have previously defined as tantamount to an obscene phone call. Yup, boys and girls, they are advocating "liberal" values, in order to distance themselves from their cockroach hero, the dubya king, because they know that to remain at his side is tantamount to political suicide. 
