Turns Out, Those Geneva Conventions Ain't So "Quaint" After All, Are They, Alberto?

Insurgents Report The Remaining Two Captured GIs In Iraq Slain

(NBC, MSNBC and news services

Updated: 1 hour, 37 minutes ago)

CAIRO, Egypt - An al-Qaida umbrella group claimed in a new video Monday that its militants killed three U.S. soldiers after capturing them last month.

An Islamic militant Web site said earlier on Monday it would soon release video clips showing the capture of three American soldiers who disappeared following an ambush in Iraq in mid-May. The body of one soldier was later found, but the other two remain missing.

The video shows the kidnapping as well as footage from after the attack, according to the Washington-based SITE Institute, which said it had obtained the 10-minute, 41-second clip.

It is not too soon to consider life-time prison sentences for the scummy, sleazy, lying little shit-rag, Abu Gonzales, for his cavalier dismissal of the Geneva rules as "quaint & trivial."

Meanwhile, Agence France Presse (AFP) is reporting that the former commander of USer/Coalition forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Richard Sanchez, says the USer/Coalition can "forget about winning" in Iraq.

"I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will -- not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat," retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said in an interview.

Sanchez, in his first interview since he retired last year, is the highest-ranking former military leader yet to suggest the Bush administration has fallen short in Iraq.

"I am absolutely convinced that America has a crisis in leadership at this time," Sanchez told AFP after a recent speech in San Antonio, Texas.

"We've got to do whatever we can to help the next generation of leaders do better than we have done over the past five years, better than what this cohort of political and military leaders have done," adding that he was "referring to our national political leadership in its entirety" - not just President George W. Bush.

Sanchez called the situation in Iraq bleak, which he blamed on "the abysmal performance in the early stages and the transition of sovereignty."

He included himself among those who erred in Iraq's crucial first year after the toppling of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Sanchez took command in the summer of 2003 and oversaw the occupation force amid an insurgency that has sparked a low-grade civil war in Iraq.

He was in the middle of some of the most momentous events of the war, among them the dissolution of the Iraqi army and barring millions of Baath Party members from government jobs: two actions seen as triggering the rebellion among Sunni Muslims, who fell from power with Saddam.

Sanchez is also most closely identified with the Abu Ghraib scandal, which occurred on his watch.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

According to this author, "what we as American citizens believe is that we are potentially threatened with the end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, this makes us more willing to accept restrictions on our freedoms." Both Upton Sinclair and Huey P. Long, towards the middle of the last century, predicted that when fascism finally--inevitably???-- overtook US, it would come wrapped in the flag and singing praises to the Lord.

Chapter: The Next
(The Guardian, April 24, 2007)
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his Regime seem to be intent on taking them all...

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are (much) further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

There follows a litany of steps pretty much universally followed by Fascists since the Catholic Church invented the stuff, a couple of hundred years ago. The question is not WHETHER fascism will ensue, merely when. Click the link under the headline of this post and consider the path we're seemingly locked onto.

Almost Two Years On, Katrina Is STILL Killing People In N'Awlins

By MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writer (via Yahoo News; photo by (c) 2005 Ellis C. Baldwin, III)

NEW ORLEANS - The bodies are no longer being dragged from houses and buildings toppled by Hurricane Katrina, but nearly two years later many in the medical community think the storm is still killing.

Storm survivors are dying from the effects of both psychological and physical stress, from the dust and mold still in dwellings to financial problems to fear of crime, health experts and officials say.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Katrina is still killing our residents," Orleans Parish coroner Dr. Frank Minyard said this week.

"People with pre-existing conditions that are made worse by the stress of living here after the storm. Old people who are just giving up. People who are killing themselves because they feel they can't go on," Minyard said.

Some say an in-depth federal analysis is needed, despite a new state report that found no significant increase in deaths in the New Orleans area from January 2006 through June 2006. The state Department of Health and Hospitals is still compiling figures for the last six months of 2006.

Dr. Raoult Ratard, the state epidemiologist, said "the only slight increase" in deaths was in the first three months of 2006 in Orleans Parish.

But New Orleans medical officials say that jump, from 11.3 per 1,000 deaths to 14.3 per 1,000, — a leap of more than 25 percent — was anything but slight. Moreover, the report doesn't take into account evacuees who died while away from the city and were returned for burial.

"Our death rate was already high, that's huge," said Dr. Kevin Stephens Sr., director of the New Orleans Health Department.

Some New Orleans doctors questioned the accuracy of the population figures used to determine the death rate, saying they might have been too high. DHH secretary Dr. Fred Cerise said he was comfortable with the population data, which he said came from the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The city was abandoned after Katrina struck Aug. 29, 2005, and many people did not begin returning until mid-2006.

The official death tolls in New Orleans stands at about 1,100. State health officials said deaths have not been listed as Katrina-related since the end of 2005, except for bodies found under storm wreckage. But Minyard said he believes the hurricane is still behind many deaths.

(MORE)

Follow the link in the headline of this post to read the rest of the story. I know it is the duty of every bureaucrat not intimately involved at the local level to minimize the damages and harms suffered by victims of events the bureaucrat is charged with rectifying. So I'll just say this: that Ratard cat is aptly named.

Scooter Libby: A Dedicated, Selfless, TRAITOROUS, Scum-Sucking, Fascist MOTHERFUCKER

Christy, over at Firedoglake (linked above) is too kind to Scooter Libby for his 'service' to the Murkin people.

I am no fan of the CIA. It has been implicated in too many nefarious, murderous schemes for me to weep too many tears for the breech of security which Libby promulgated. They are now, and always have been way too willing to 'follow orders.' If they were gonna murder Allende, they should also have taken out Kissinger.

That said, Christy makes a really good point about Libby and the chorus of 'character witness' letters on his behalf: A 'patriot' and 'public servant' of the sort who garners all these tributes and pleas for mercy would NOT have been tried, and convicted, of bringing down the CIA networks which Libby's (and his boss, Darth Cheney's) loose lips sunk...

I think Libby should be sentenced as a traitor: life at hard labor at one of Murka's REALLLY 'bad' prisons.

Rove next, please.

A 40-Year-Old Question Returns To Haunt USer Soldiers In Iraq Today

After seeing his roommate fatally wounded in a roadside bombing, an Army private wonders why the lives of good men are being lost when the Iraqis pose no threat to us and don't want us there. But HoJo Liarman's getting a 'deal' on sunglasses. Prob'ly, he'll pick up a rug or two for Hadassah?

...His face had been badly burned. His leg was horribly wounded. We placed him on a spine board and did our best to attempt "Buddy Aid". We heard him trying to gasp for air. He had a pulse and was breathing, but was not responsive. He was placed into a truck and rushed to the "Green Zone", where he died within the hour. His name was Michael K. Frank. He was 36 years old. He was a great friend of mine and a mentor to most of us younger soldiers here.

Now I am still here in this country wondering why, and having to pick up the pieces of what is left of my friend in our room. I would just like to know what is the true reason we are here? This country poses no threat to our own. So why must we waste the lives of good men on a country that does not give a damn about itself? Most of my friends here share my views, but do not have the courage to say anything.

There are some folks of my generation who once asked, and are still asking, similar questions, though I'd take exception to the claim (pretty standard fare in both the relevant conflicts) that Iraq (or Vietnam, in its time) "does not give a damn about itself."

Indeed, quite the opposite obtains--which is why your buddy's dead...

Anti-Flag: Welcome to '1984'

A tribute/memorial to the anonymous man who stopped the tanks--at least temporarily--on their way to Tiannmen Square. The guy was, imho, the bravest man in the world. I heard he was later killed by the State.

You may find more, similarly in-spirited songs at Woody Guthrie's Guitar...

This Day in Peace: Congress Stops War Funding

May 31, 1955

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered (in a decision known as "Brown II") that school integration be done "with all deliberate speed," ordering the lower federal courts to require desegregation. Between 1955 and 1960, federal judges held more than 200 school desegregation hearings.


May 31, 1957

U.S. playwright Arthur Miller was convicted of contempt of Congress after refusing to reveal the names of alleged Communist writers.
May 31, 1966


May 31, 1966

Nguyen Thi Can, a 17-year-old Buddhist girl, committed suicide by setting herself afire (self-immolation) on a street in the city of Hue. She was protesting against the South Vietnamese regime; it was the fifth such death in three days.

May 31, 1973

A bipartisan majority (69-19) of the U.S. Senate voted to cut off funds for the bombing of Cambodia despite pleas from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Obama Premieres Universal Health Care Plan...For Insurance Companies

In essence, Obama's plan retains the private insurance system but injects additional money into the system to pay for the expanded coverage boost insurance company revenues.

Under Obama's proposal, every American would be required to carry health insurance, and the Illinois senator would create a National Health Insurance Exchange to monitor insurance companies in offering the coverage.

Those who can't afford coverage would get a subsidy on a sliding scale depending on their income, and virtually all businesses would have to share in the cost of coverage for their workers. The plan that would be offered would be similar to the one covering members of Congress (ed. note: That's the FEHBP. For an interesting by-play, read the "comments" here.)

The package proposed by Obama would "prohibit" insurance companies from refusing coverage because of pre-existing conditions (ed. note: how that would be accomplished is not specified). It promises to cover the 45 million (roughly one-sixth of the US population) currently without health insurance coverage.

In addition to broadening coverage, Obama called for a series of steps to overhaul the current health care system. He would spend more money boosting technology in the health industry such as electronic record-keeping (ed note: this will doubtless please--and further enrich--Ross Perot), put in place better management for chronic diseases (ed. note: via more Government surveillance?), and create a reinsurance pool for catastrophic illnesses to take the burden of their costs off of other premium payers.

His plan also envisions savings from ending the expensive care for the uninsured when they get sick. That care now is often provided at emergency rooms. The plan also would put a heavy focus on preventing disease through lifestyle changes (Ed. note: Via MORE surveillance?).

IMHO: Any plan that preserves the dominant role of private, for-profit insurance and hospital/clinic corporations must primarily serve the interests of the profiteers rather than those of the people relying on them for health service and care.

A Little Sumpin For Memorial Day From "Jesus' General"

Way to GOOOO, Amurka! You DON'T 'Support the Troops' By Getting 'Em Killed

In just about a year, since last Memorial Day, the passified, pre-occupied proles managed to stand quietly by while another just about ONE THOUSAND more of your kids, parents, and spouses GOT KILLED, and about another 10 THOUSAND more of 'em wounded--to say NOTHING AT ALL of the scores of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed and injured--in a worthless, illegal, immoral, vain-glorious, criminal imperial occupation of a sovereign nation which NEVER posed ANY threat to the peace and security of the USofA. (AP Photo, opposite: Charles Arbogast)

According to the AP:

By the end of Saturday at least 100 American troops had died in the first 26 days of May, an average of 3.85 deaths a day. At that pace, 119 troops will have died by the end of the month, the most since 137 soldiers were killed in November 2004, when U.S. troops were fighting insurgents in Fallujah.

As of Saturday, May 26, 2007, at least 3,451 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,817 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military.

Ah know Ah Fill Ver' Prahd!

USA! USA! USA! Number 1! Number 1! Number 1! Number 1!

PS: Can we PLEASE stop dignifying it by calling it a "war"? It is an illegal, immoral, imperial Invasion & Occupation. The casualties are not "our dead war heroes." They are victims of an immense criminal enterprise, just as are the innocent Iraqis they've helped to slaughter.

The USAF Anniversary: Honoring God...and oh, yeah, Country, In THAT Order

Matt Renner, of TruthOut.Org, reports: "A scheduled three-day celebration of the US Air Force's 60th anniversary, sponsored in part by evangelical Christian organizations, has prompted a military watchdog group to threaten legal action against the Department of Defense."

This church/state/wall-breaching extravaganza was/is scheduled for this weekend, Memorial Day, by USAF officials at Robins AFB in Georgia.

Renner: "The controversial event, sponsored by Task Force Patriot USA, an evangelical organization, and LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing house of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), was described by the official publication of the Robins Air Force Base as "an official US Air Force 60th Anniversary event." The paper stated that the religious groups and the United States Air Force "have joined together to create a three-day celebration ..." (Emphasis supplied)

Slated for the Memorial Day weekend, the "Salute To The Troops, Memorial Day Celebration" will take place at Stone Mountain, an Atlanta, Georgia theme park (Ed. Note: There you will find the effigies of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis inscribed in the granite wall which dominates the place. We ALL know what patriots those guys were. Stone Mountain was also the scene of the second founding of the KuKlux Klan in 1915.)

The event is supposed to feature hourly flyovers by Air Force planes and parachute jumps by the US Army's Silver Wings Parachute Jump Team. Scheduled speakers include former SBC President Bobby Welch and US Air Force Major Brian "Jethro" Neal, a B-2 pilot, who will speak during a worship service that was to feature a flyover by a stealth bomber. SBC officials stated that special Bibles for military personnel would be disseminated at the gathering. (Ed. Note: How nice; a little something for everyone.)

Plans for the event prompted a forceful response from watchdog groups. In a letter to Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne and Acting Secretary of the Army Peter Geren, the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), said, "There are legitimate ways to celebrate the Air Force's 60th anniversary and to pay tribute to military personnel who bravely serve the nation, but this three-day religious extravaganza is certainly not one of them." Lynn called the event "a stunning display of the federal government using vast resources to trumpet a religious celebration."

Lynn added, "Military personnel and veterans come from many religious traditions and no religion at all. So it is wholly disingenuous for the organizers of this evangelical Christian gathering to promote it as a salute to all our troops. It is anything but."

A-FUCKING-Men!

More Good Environmental News--If You're Related To Peabody Coal

Global carbon emissions in overdrive

From 2000 to 2004, emissions grew at a rate of 3 percent a year – more than the highest rates used in recent key UN reports.

By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Page 1 of 2

Global emissions of carbon dioxide are growing at a faster clip than the highest rates used in recent key UN reports.

CO2 emissions from cars, factories, and power plants grew at an annual rate of 1.1 percent during the 1990s, according to the Global Carbon Project, which is a data clearinghouse set up in 2001 as a cooperative effort among UN-related groups and other scientific organizations. But from 2000 to 2004, CO2 emissions rates almost tripled to 3 percent a year – higher than any rate used in emissions scenarios for the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

If the higher rate represents more than a blip, stabilizing emissions by 2100 will be more difficult than the latest UN reports indicate, some analysts say. And to avoid the most serious effects of global warming, significant cuts in CO2 emissions must begin sooner than the IPCC reports suggest. At the moment, no region of the world is "decarbonizing its energy supply," the analysis says...

"There is concern among many experts that factors such as China's continued, very rapid coal-based growth may not be a blip that would turn around," he says...So far, developing countries account for only about 23 percent of emissions accumulated since the start of the Industrial Revolution. But they also account for 73 percent of the global emissions growth in 2004. This has been largely driven by China's explosive growth.

Standing For Something: "If Wanting To See Vaginas Is A Crime, Then I, Your Honor, Am Guilty"

The "Money Quote":

...Have we as a society really come to the point where it is a crime for a man in a ski mask and black coveralls to place a simple ladder against the side of a building and climb his way to a vantage point from which the glorious beauty of the nude vagina can be gazed upon with the rapt wonderment it deserves? Where the mere act of placing hidden cameras in a dorm lavatory is to be looked down upon in hypocritical shame? Where even something so innocent as the posting of live streaming feeds on the Internet—so that all men, regardless of race, creed, or color, may share in the beauty of these vaginas—is somehow considered "wrong"?

The simplicity of the complaint is compelling: Free the Vagina Rangers!

The Memory Hole Gapes, The Yawning Maw of Forgetfulness Beckons, Lethe Looms!

Protect "Fair Use"!
You'd have thought something MORE could be done to keep these things viable. But there a are a lot of inconvenient truths which it would be convenient to have forgotten.

Divid Iglesias, to Abu Bin Gonzo: "Cowboy Up, You Lying Little Shitball!"

We should recall that Iglesias was originally chosen for HIS post PRIMARILY because of his party affiliations, party loyalty, and deep, personal relations with Sen. Pete Domenici, and the rest of the New Mexico GOP cabal. (I've always thought that Hispanics in the GOP had a lot in common with the bull in a corrida, but I'm a gabacho; que mi sabe ?)

By David Iglesias
WHAT HAPPENS in a presidential administration when loyalty, to borrow a phrase from "Star Trek," becomes the "prime directive"? What happens when its all-encompassing fog obscures all other values — such as fealty to the Constitution, the rule of law or simple humanity?

What happens is that terrible decisions are made, repeated and then justified by this shibboleth. That's just one of the lessons that has emerged from the U.S. attorney scandal.

This week, the Senate is threatening to vote on a resolution of no-confidence in U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales. Today, the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Monica Goodling, the attorney general's former aide, who will be asked why at least eight U.S. attorneys, including me, were put on a list to be forced from office.

What has become clear already is that the "loyalty uber alles" mentality has infected a wide swath of the Bush administration. Simple notions like right and wrong are, in their eyes, matters of allegiance, not conscience.

The chilling congressional testimony given by former Deputy Atty. Gen. James B. Comey last week provided a graphic example of loyalty run amok. Comey recounted how, in 2004, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and then-White House counsel Gonzales visited a hospitalized Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, who had undergone surgery for pancreatitis. Undoubtedly under the influence of powerful painkillers, Ashcroft had just enough presence of mind to refuse, as Comey already had, to approve the extension of the illegal warrantless wiretap program. Comey was right there in the darkened hospital room but was ignored by Card and Gonzales, even though both knew he was the acting attorney general while Ashcroft was critically ill. Where was the compassion, conservative or otherwise, in that dark, silent room? Where was the humanity? Subsumed by loyalty.

Loyalty is a virtue with limits. That was one of the many hard lessons from Watergate. In that scandal, some of President Nixon's staffers carried their loyalty to the president all the way to federal prison.

All federal prosecutors take a public oath when they assume office. I personally swore in about 30 new federal prosecutors during my tenure as U.S. attorney for New Mexico. The oath is to the U.S. Constitution, not to the president or his Cabinet.

Somehow Goodling did not understand this keystone concept. She appears to have placed her loyalty to the Bush administration and the Republican Party above any allegiance to the Constitution — which may have led her to believe that Bush acolytes would make the best federal prosecutors. Paradoxically, she knew enough of the Constitution to claim the protections afforded by the 5th Amendment—the right against self-incrimination.

I trust she now understands what is at stake in the U.S. attorney scandal: the rule of law, the independence of the prosecutor and the apolitical calculus of who should be prosecuted. Now, her immunity deal secured, she needs to seek redemption by clearly testifying about how my colleagues and I came to be placed on the to-fire list. It will demand moral courage, but she must name the political operatives regardless of where they sit in the West Wing of the White House. She needs, in the words of Isaiah the prophet, to "maintain justice and do what is right."

And what of the embattled attorney general? Will Gonzales stay on to be the only Cabinet officer to receive a no-confidence vote? I once said that I found Gonzales to be a personal inspiration. No one can deny him his life's story, which is the American dream writ large. It began in Humble, Texas, born of impoverished Mexican American parents. He, like me, is a veteran of the U.S. military. He went to some of the best schools in America, including Harvard Law. Yet, somewhere along the line, he drank the loyalty Kool-Aid. Watching him testify before the Senate and House was painful for me. He had been a trailblazer for the Latino community, and then, in the space of a few hours of tortured testimony, he became just another morally rudderless political operative.

Will he "cowboy up," as we say in New Mexico — that is, find the courage to do the right thing? Or will he make the Senate go right up to the precipice of a no-confidence vote?

To be sure, the Justice Department is "dysfunctional," in the words of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), but it is also in desperate need of leaders who place loyalty to the Constitution on a higher level than politics. We don't need latter-day Haldemans, Ehrlichmans or Colsons going to jail. The nation needs leaders who take ultimate responsibility for the wrongful actions of their subordinates; leaders who do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. Mr. Attorney General, it's time for you to cowboy up and do what's best for the American people you serve.

Uniter Guy, Decider Guy, Commander Guy. Now The Chimp's The "Ensurer Guy," Too

With a stroke of the pen, the gibbering, simpering, smirking, strutting Chimperor-in-Chief has arrogated unto HIMSELF the responsibility for ensuring civic/civil continuity in the event of a "catastrophic" emergency.

With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, Chimpy has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack.

Under that plan, the worst president in HISTORY--a man who fled catastrophe in 2001, and abandoned a whole city in 2005--entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch.

Are you feelin' better yet?

He laid this all out in a document entitled "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20." The White House released the plan on May 9.

It defines a "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function."

This could mean another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California, I imagine, since it says it would include "localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies."

The document emphasizes the need to ensure "the continued function of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government," it states.

But it says flat out: "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."

From The Progressive, via TruthOut.Org...

Hearts & Minds, Motherfuckers; Hearts & Fucking Minds. It Was Fucking BEATUFUL!!!

First-hand account of a former Marine corporal on the struggle for Fallujah, the human consequences for both sides.

Research Reveals Lies In Cheney's "Shot-His-Pal-In-The-Face" Story

The story, repeated endlessly but never actually investigated by local cops, was that Cheney shot his buddy, Harry, in the face from a range of 30 yards.

This appears to be yet another Bushevik 'whopper.' Harry's injuries, and the pattern of the shot in his body, suggests he was A LOT closer: more like inside 30 FEET.

"Sicko" Only Barely Begins To Describe Horrors That Are USer Health-Care "System"

Michael Moore's new film, which premiere'd to rave reviews and enormous publicity recently at Cannes, has raised barely a ripple of awareness in the CorpoRat-Owned SCUM (the So_Called_Unbiased_Media), even though there are loud and persistent rumors that the Bushevik regime, at the behest of their CorpoRat masters in the Big Sick/Big Pharma industries, will try to prevent it's release and distribution in the USofA.

The message they are so desperate to stifle is one Moore himself iterated after the Cannes screening, in the simplest possible terms: the private insurance companies "have to go."

Terms of that simplicity and transparence, one may recall, were sufficient--when spoken about media concentration and monopoly--to condemn Howard Dean to 'scream' in total obscurity after he uttered them on the heels of his Iowa victory in '04.

There's a link to a good Rose Ann Demoro piece on HuffPost Blog under the headline of this post.

Oh, but did I mention that Michael Moore is fat?

NAFTA & Some Under-Valued Factors Encouraging "Illegal" Immigration

At Firedoglake (where my posts apparently no longer need moderation), I posted:

...you prob’ly know about how more and more of mexico is being corpoRat farmed, and the subsistence farmers being driven from the land, where they grew corn and beans and the occasional cabrito…they can’t afford to BUY tortillas and beans they usta raise, and they cant raise any anmore, either…

con agra and dow chemical are colonizing the continent, displacing more and more people, many–at least a large number–of whom migrate to El Norte, where–deprived of their traditional diets, and swamped with fat and hfcs, they balloon, and their kids too…

the best (JSwiftian) hope is that climate change will exterminate enough people that the competition for the diminishing resources will subside a bit…

which elicited this reply--and which is the REAL reason for this post:

kirk murphy says:

there was a really good comment here about the disruption of traditional Mexican agrarian communities by Big Ag.

(hey, now it’s up nested in 224)

The subsistence farmers’ displacement was caused by NAFTA.

NAFTA forced open Mexican agricultural markets to megacorp commodity imports…

So US Big Ag sells subsidized low cost corn….

(at) below-costs of traditional production.

(edit)And now that indigenous/local corn production is disrupted…

and the global markets’ mercy leaves rural Mexicans to ourbid Mercedes owners for the corn they eat..

tortilla prices steadily rise out of reach.

Massive displacement of rural Mexican ag families.

Massive internal dislocation and emigration.

US tax dollars at work.

How - the exports forced upon Mexico by the NAFTA are made possible by - taxpayers!

Lucky us.

We finance the destruction of Mexica local subsistence ag and the massive human dilocation.

Such a deal.

Here’s where we ante up:

- US farm subsidies (to Big Ag)

- US Corps of Engineers subsidies (required to turn the Upper Mississippi into a barge pond)

- New Orleans (Corps of Engineers’ ship channels hastens wetland destruction)

- “export” of US topsoil (Big AG commodity farming is not sustainable; massive topsoil runoff is the price fo surplus grain)

- US Medicare/Health care (Big AG chemicals cause widespread increases in lymphoma and other malignancies as well as increased infertility and neurodevelopmental abnormaliites. Our tax dollars pay for these costs)

- US energy consumption / carbon production (Commodity AG is wholly dependent upon massive fossil fuel input [for fertilizers, herbicides, machinery, and transport].

- Global warming (see above).

But - on the bright side - think how well this all works for ConAgra and Cargill and Monsanto and friends…

Not so well for the global cradle of corn biodiversity. Monsanto’s GMO corn has contaminated the Mexican corn genome.

Food and health and hope?

Bon Appetit

Chicks With Big Tits

If I Weren't 'Banned" At Eschaton (I'm Beginning To Think It's Not A Glitch), I'da Posted This, Re: Wolfowitz

I bear not a chinchilla of sympathy for Wolfowitz, upon his firing by the World Bank.
His tenure at the Bank was bought by his credentials from the PNAC, of which he was a prominent Cabalista.
He will graduate from the World Bank to the boardrooms of numerous, neo-liberal/global corporations, notably those with important Israeli contacts.
He will no doubt be invited by Georgetown or GMU or one of the other 'beltway credential factories' to join the faculty, alongside the OTHER 'dumbest fucker on the planet,' douggie feith (another PNACabalista; foookin amazin' coincidence, n'est pas?), where he'll collect a fat salary for one or two courses a year...
He will undoubtedly hit the lecture circuit and, though he may not assemble the $16 MILLION Rudy Ghooliani has amassed from that source, he'll do just fine.
Shaha will be able to quit work, I'm sure.

In the longer view, nothing the Busheviks do is either incomprehensible or surprising when you have internalized one important fact: their one, and only, job since Jan 20, 2001, has been to attack and where at all possible to destroy the instruments and institutions of democratic republican self-governance in the USofA; to overturn the Constitution, and to undermine the faith and trust of the People in their own elected representatives.
Wolfie's career just another of their successes.
Mission Fucking Accomplished...

"If I Weren't 'Technically' Banned From Eschaton, {Part II}

It is well to remember that, beyond the accruing of obscene and extortionate profits, which frenzy reached it's current fever pitch under the Ray-gun Regime, the MAJOR reason for media concentration, was to ensure as far as humanly possible that no newspaper, no reporter, nobody EVER AGAIN was able to raise enough of a stink in the Press to force the resignation of a President, and the consequent shudders in the Status Quo (aka, "The Force'')...

If I weren't 'banned' by the webmaster at Eschaton,

due to a 'technicality,' I would have posted this:


After watching frontline last night, I am now even more certain than ever I was before that 'they' have ways to discover who says what to whom, any time they want to. And that they mean to fundamentally change the nature of the discourse on the internet...'They' mean to control it as a means of democratic communication....


By extension, of course, this means they are actively using every resource and every tool they have--which, you'll learn as you consider Frontline, are formidable, and are mainly the products of PRIVATE ENTERPRISE--to accrue more and more opportunity and power to impose the chill of self-censorship...

What happens to the country, to dissent, to liberty, when you can no longer shout "FUCK YOU" at the oligarchs and plutocrats??? We are about to find out, as long as dissatisfaction with and disaffection from the Regime grows.

The crime of 'lese majeste' is the only onforgiveable sin to the autocrats and demogogues...the web provided a way to do that in the most detrimental way: through mockery. The mob annot be allowed to be SOOOO democratic...

You need to watch that frontline show...pbs.org and follow the links.

And don't forget while you're watching it that you're watching the (necessarily) sanitized version of it...

There is a link between the civility fascists and the data miners...

TOP BILLING!!! WoooooHooooo!

check dis out! I'm the Secretary of Hate!!!

This Seemed An Apt Follow-up To Kondi's Dubious Ancestry

Gloves come off in George Bush buttplug rumpus
Litigation likely in anal copyright scrap
By Lester Haines

There's nothing our American cousins like more than a bit of light litigation, and it appears that two US websites are about to unleash the lawyers in an unholy scrap over copyright on a rubber George Bush figurine which disgruntled Democrats can stick where the sun don't shine.

Indeed, those among you who might think there's a limited market for US presidential buttplugs are directed to TerrorSuspect.com and Celebritybuttplugs, both offering synthetic Dubyas for the discerning Friend of Dorothy and both claiming to be the inventor of the Texan poo-packer.
Click here to find out more!

According to Celebritybuttplugs - manufacturer of the George W Tush - there's already "enough competition in the anal effigy market from Dubya himself", and the website has pledged to "kick the ass" of TerrorSuspect.com's rival Bushplug. The latter declares that there "may not be room in this world for The Bushplug and George W Tush!" and ominously notes: "I'm not real sure what to do about this. I need to talk with the lawyers."

We look forward with relish to the seemingly inevitable court case, in which highly-paid attorneys will make impassioned pleas for their clients' rights to punt the Bush buttplug while the judge looks to find precedent in the now legendary "Tricky Dicky" clitoral stimulator patent spat of 1972. ®

Addendum: I earlier neglected to acknowledge "holden" at eschaton for finding this delicious morsel; apologies tendered...

Klingon In The Woodpile?

Best Thing About Bush Is How He Illustrates White Supremacy's a Myth

President Bush on Sunday hailed the nation's humble beginnings as a reminder of the value of perseverance and the promise of democracy.

"From our own history, we know the path to democracy is long and it's hard," Bush said in a ceremony honoring the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, America's first permanent English colony.

"An' Ah was able to wreck it all in just a little over 6 years. (heh heheh heheheh) Who they callin' a failure? (heh heheh)..."

Ya Know, That Whole High-Stakes Testing Thingy I Working Out SOOOOO Well...?

Graduate rate is lowest in 10 years
High school exit exam at center of debate over failure of a third of state's seniors to earn diploma

(Jill Tucker and Nanette Asimov, SF Chronicle Staff Writers Saturday, May 12, 2007)

California's high school graduation rate dropped to a 10-year low last year as a third of the Class of 2006 left without a diploma, according to state Department of Education numbers posted Friday.
Statewide, the graduation rate was 67 percent of the 423,289 seniors in 2006. That is down from 71 percent in 2005.
That 4 percentage point decline works out to an additional 21,000 students who did not don a cap and gown.

It is no accident that high-stakes testing of students is proving to be hard on the students. Such testing operates to enforce social orthodoxy: conform or perish. A major purpose of such testing is to provide grounds for denying necessary credentials to a certain fraction of students: those who prove refractory, and refuse the indoctrination/assimilation strategies upon which much, if not most, of USer schooling relies to impose its 'discipline.'

Tests do not assess the general state of any students' knowledge. They only assess (at BEST) the state of a given student's ability to answer the questions on the given test on a given day. That is pretty barren ground upon which to stake the students' futures.

For most of the time that it has been a subject of interest, those kids who reject school have been called 'drop-outs'. But calling them 'push-outs' is far closer to the truth.

Capitalism doesn't work without a pool of unemployed/unemployable workers with which to threaten rebellious workers. The graduation tests have the effect of supplying that pool with ever-increasing numbers of 'failed' students whose options are thereby limited to 'the jobs most Americans wont do,' and--as the enlistment requirements decline in response to declining enlistments--a steady stream of cannon-ready fodder for continued imperialist, military adventurism overseas.

Anyone who believes USer schools are 'failing,' according to Jonathan Kozol, 40 years ago, doesn't understand what American Schooling is designed to do.

Mothers' Day For Peace

Probably you already know that Mothers' Day was not invented to make a profit for Penney's or Wal-Mart, but was actually founded out of respect for the mothers of the children slaughtered as soldiers in the Civil war. Julia Ward Howe wrote a poem about it. Robert Greenwald has made a short film. My mother is deceased, and her sons never felt the mortal pang of battle. But I still offer this in her honor...

Bring 'Em Home

John Bruhns, a former sergeant in the Army, stuck his neck out when he went to Iraq and now he's doing it again, by speaking out against the president.

He's the subject of a new TV ad made by Oliver Stone—the culmination of our VideoVets project.

Right now, the president is trying to bully Congress into submission over the Iraq Accountability Act by slamming them for "not supporting the troops." John's voice—and other Iraq veterans' voices—can counter that. They can tip the debate toward ending the war. Will you chip in $50 to help us get these vets on the air?

Click the headline

Courtesy of MoveOn.Org...you can contribute...

Social Justice Quiz

Just out of curiousity, which of the two New Orleans' families' homes, ruined by Katrina and the aftermath, do YOU think is now habitable?

Before and After

This is a photograph of Britain's monarch upon being told she'd be visiting Jamestown...


This is the same person, upon being told her escort woould be US Vice-President Darth Cheney.

Her majesty is NOT pleased.

You Just CANNOT Make This Shit Up:

In the Bushevik ShiteHouse, EVERYTHING is scripted. Why? Probably because the Chimp simply CANNOT be relied upon not to fuck-up the simplest task.

You Do NOT Want To Know Where He Left His Comb...

...Or shake that hand 'til you've SEEN him wash it.

Hatchlings From The Same Egg?

"Kiss Me, You Crazy Wal-Mart Man, You! You Love Me Long Time!"

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi speaks to the press in December 2006.

"Did You Ever Hear, Nicolai, The One About Prince Charles And The Teabag? Wait, Wait. Gimme A Minute. What Were We Talking About? And Who Are You?"

Quoted without comment:

The diaries of the late US president, to be published later this month, reveal a special animosity for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, a fondness for dancer Fred Astaire, and an embarrassing incident involving Prince Charles and a tea bag.(AFP/File)

Mission Accompliced: Semiotics + Busheviks = Idiotics?

"Four years ago, on May 1, 2003, the Bush production company devoured some of America's most powerful national and cultural signifiers, not just for crass political gain, but to inspire and enthrall the populi. It was a circus without the bread. Here are a few examples:

1). The aircraft carrier. This mighty vessel evokes the surrender of the Japanese on September 14, 1945 to General Douglas MacArthur. The USS Abraham Lincoln is named after the first GOP president, and Bush sought to capture some of the earthy glow of the Great Emancipator. (The USS John F. Kennedy need not apply.)...
2). The flight suit. Bush donned the one-piece jump suit instead of the business suit he normally wears to symbolize adventure, danger, Top Gun, masculinity, and virility. Benito Mussolini wore similar get ups for the same effect...
3). Bush as the flier. As the pilot (or co-pilot) Bush is part of the mission, risking his life for the cause. It's tricky business sitting in the cockpit while a jet aircraft lands on such a thin floating platform filled with explosive ordnance...
4). The jet aircraft. This technological marvel harkens back to the Wright Brothers, and fulfills the dream of flight humans had pondered for centuries. Our leader was soaring like a bird in the sky with the help of American technological know-how...
5). The adoring crowd. The smiling, waving, hugging, ethnically and racially diverse U.S. sailors aboard the aircraft carrier told America: "Our brave men and women protecting our nation obviously adore Bush, so should we!" Team Bush used these military personnel as cheesy, but effective, stage props. (Ed. Note: The first, but by no means the last, time.)...

And, thanks to the heroic efforts of the SCUM, it was a seamless Mission Accompliced:

Naturally, the corporate media swooned over their leader's performance. Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball held forth breathless fawning commentary of the event while the caption shot across the screen: "Why are the Democrats raining on Bush's parade?" Said Matthews: "We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as a president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical . . . Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president." Matthews' comments were consistent with other media commentators' enthusiasm across the board.

The list--which is more elaborated than I posted here--goes on to articulate 5 additional 'sememes' by which the Bushies commandeered the "Murkin" signifying vocabulary. I heartily commend the entire exercise to your attention: click on the headline of this post.

I Got Yer Civility Right HERE, Cully!

From the schedule of today's Congressional hearings and proceedings (via Atrios):

9 a.m. -- (POLITICS/CIVILITY/BOEHNER/LIEBERMAN) CONFERENCE -- The American Enterprise Institute, the University of Pennsylvania and the Brookings Institution sponsors a conference titled "Civility and American Politics," to discuss "how incivility affects our political system and our ability to tackle the problems of twenty-first-century life." Location: 902 Hart Senate Office Building.

The feature about the Intertubes that most feared among the oligarchs and (a serendipitous typo) 'polutocrats' is the ease with which it is possible for the rest of us to tell them to go fuck themselves.

"FUCK YOU,CULLY!" is the cry of a citizen who is not afraid, not intimidated, not silenced.

Such a citizenry is dangerous to oligarchs and polutocrats, because it proclaims with the invective that it is the equal of those who pretend to be it's betters.

Bloody fascinating how 'incivility' will happen to be identified as strident criticism of the policies advocated and promoted by Lieberputz and Boner. Indeed; stridency seems, short of fucking torches and pitchforks, the only thing that seems to distract your fucking self-absorbed self-satisfaction, you fucking pricks.

The nation has come to a pretty pass when regulating the capacity of the populace to register an emphatic "FUCK YOU" to the oligarchs and 'polutocrats' is a matter of Congressional concern. They might find the level of incivility reduced in direct proportion to the extent that these greedy, callous, sold-out, corrupt, ethically challenged cretinous shitwhistles stopped spending their time dissing their constituents and started to try to even partially ameliorate the horrendous, truly global crises their mendacity, corruption and venality has gotten us, the whole fucking planet, the whole fucking world, into.
Chuy!@

Ever hear of Bayji, or Haditha?

Did you ever wonder why the names of certain places in Iraq were so familiar? Haditha, for example. There was fierce fighting in Haditha in late 2005. There were reports of a massacre there: 24 Iraqi civilians were slaughtered for no reason or purpose. (By the way, the officer in charge of the Marines who committed the massacre was naominated for a medal on the basis of his behavior that day.)

Bayji? Ever hear of Bayji?
ell, there's a big, important foreward ops base, Camp Sumerall, right outside Bayji. There's been a fair amount of 'action' around Bayje, too.
There was a LOT of action around Haditha; there still is.

Know why?
The map above can provide a couple of clues. You will note that, for example, bot sit astride a vital pipeline intersection. Both are quite close to major refining facilities, too.
Are you still wondering why the fighting in thos places was so fierce, so desperate, so persistent?

Da finger

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(.(....(....(..../.)..)....(..(.\....)....)....).)
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You Don't Want To Miss: Moyers Journal Returns To Skewer Media War Pimps & Hustlers

Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell reminds us:

NEW YORK: The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called "Buying the War," which marks the return of "Bill Moyers Journal." E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.

While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility...

...The program closes on a sad note, with Moyers pointing out that "so many of the advocates and apologists for the war are still flourishing in the media." He then runs a pre-war clip of President Bush declaring, "We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." Then he explains: "The man who came up with it was Michael Gerson, President Bush's top speechwriter.

"He has left the White House and has been hired by the Washington Post as a columnist."

Why Bush? The Connecticut Wanker & St. Ronald's Court

At the Eschaton crack-den today, someone wondered, in the face of the disaster that is the Bushevik regime, how it came to pass that the Dim Son had been elevated to a job he at which was so manifestly ill-equipped to succeed.

One commenter explained it this way:
Bush was chosen because everybody kind of assumed going into 2000 that the Democrat would win, so they didn't want to run Jeb who was the one who was meant to be president. Instead, Dubya ran, and got the nomination, mostly becasue people confused Dubya and his father.

Then they put all the "wise old men" from his father's and Nixon's whitehouse around him to ameliorate the fact that Bush wasn't any more than an empty suit and a complete joke of a candidate.

And then, because of a confluence of prosperity, shitty press coverage, a vanity campaign gone wild, and the machinations of the USSC, the fucker ended up in office against all odds.
Bas-O-Matic | 04.24.07 - 5:47 pm


To which I replied:

i think you're wrong about dat.

i think the pukes knew that they'd poisoned the Dem Party (per se, not necessarily the voters; but when have they ever mattered to anybody) against Clinton which would impair Gore's candidacy, forcing him to run away from the Clenis legacy to appease the DLC and their bidness constituency.

The DLC also imposed the Connecticut Wanker, to further inoculate the ticket against Clenis sympathy (it will be recalled that NoMoJo was a fervent clenis critic).

this was a campaign the PNAC had been planning for a decade. through a wicked twist of fate, Jeb (a prominent signatory of numerous PNAC documents) wasn't available to top the puke ticket... but the chimp was, and was stupid and malleable and venal, and corrupt and drunk enough to go along and do as he was told.

the compliant press painted gore for the pukes enough to make it close enough to steal, which had been the plan all along: keep it close enough to steal, in court.

mission accomplished....
.
WG'sGuitar, tokin' librul | Homepage | 04.24.07 - 6:02 pm

as an addendum, i'd say that the Dim Son didn't choose Cheney as his VP. The PNAC selected Cheney as their avatar, to be the on-site puppeteer.

What It means To Be "FUCKED"--Domestic Edition

Joe Conason, on the HuffPost, concluding a discussion of the latest skirmishes in the Class War of the Elites versus every-fucking-body else:

Yes, the Ruling Class War is on, folks - replete with Democrats who look middle-class economic disaster in the eye and demand more tax cuts for billionaires, Republicans who give company owners the middle finger, and Beltway reporters who toast it all to flutes of champagne provided by runway models. While our country is driven into the ground, it's party time in Washington. And when the rest of us outside the Beltway look back, our kids will have just one question: What did we do to stop it?

It'll be hard to look 'em in the eye and tell 'em the best we could do was to get Sanjaya off American Idol

What It Means To Be "Fucked"--International Edition

Colloquy from the Eschaton crack-den on the subject: Iraq and the US Future There

Actually, the geostrategists have been saying, "reconcile the Iraqis or get out before it is too late" since the end of 2003. It is now too late, because indeed, if the US pulls out now it will be perceived as a victory for the "resistance", and that means Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, etc. with repercussions for the entire region.
Nur al-Cubicle

So what's the alternative?
Tena | Homepage | 04.22.07 - 12:53 pm

If the US stays, it must find a Shi'ite leader who can restrain the masses from cleansing Iraq once and for all of the Sunni Arabs. This will happen in the long run anyway. It cannot defend the Sunnis because 1) the Sunni elite have all left; they _are_ the insurgency and they are also _al Qaeda_. If the US leaves, then the Sunni and Shi'a will fight it out, with the balance tipped to the Iranian ally.
Nur al-Cubicle | Homepage | 04.22.07 - 1:01 pm

In other words - you are saying we must leave and this will happen.
Or - we can't leave because this will make it worse?
Which?
Tena | Homepage | 04.22.07 - 12:55 pm

I replied:
I think what he's sayin' is "both."

Which is ontologically impossible....

Which is a nice way of saying we are well and truly fucked.

Not partially fucked,
not semi-fucked;
not sorta-kinda fucked;
not temporarily fucked;
not repairably fucked;
not regrettably fucked...

Well, and truly and--for all practical purposes--eternally fucked.

The Bushevik ICORP* in Iraq is already the worst possible geopolitical mistake undertaken by a world-power since Hitler invaded Poland. In there with the Kaiser's invasion of Belgium? the Franco-Prussian War? Firing on Fort Sumpter? Xerxes' invasion of Greece?

It is world-shatteringly, planet-alteringly mistaken.

And it is more and more likely to have, eventually (and sooner more than later), very much the same consequences for this country, this Nation...and with even less tolerant, less liberal victors as our new overseers than we have been.

Harry Shearer: Media-Savvy Assassins

From the HuffPost Blog:

So Mr. Cho gets his fifteen minutes. The question bewildering journalism observers--why'd he send his goodie bag to NBC News?--has an easy answer: it was in gratitude for their firing of Imus.

Not so easy is the answer to the question: what is the possible journalistic explanation for splashing Cho's self-dramatizing poses and self-justifying bullshit over network and cable air? Did we learn anything useful during the spate of interviews of Charlie Manson years ago, except that he was one crazy motherfucker?

Cho's pathetic outpourings deserved to be put back where they came from--in a small room, with FBI guys sentenced to read/see and parse them. Instead, a hundred thousand self-pitying mentally ill young men (and women?) have just been shown the road to glory one more time. A society in which it's easier to become famous for killing people than for doing something useful or constructive is one remarkable place in which to live.

How D'Ya Like The US Supreme Court Under Pope Ratzi, the Nazi?

More And More Lost In The Abu Gonzales Kabuki...is the decision yesterday by the Opus Dei wing of the SCOTUS to restrict abortions, and drive the next nail into the right of a woman to choose whether she wants to be pregnant or not. (For an account of the consequences of this decision, follow the link to NPR's Nina Totenberg, and her absolutely chilling analysis.)

I do not know whence came the following text, but it deserves attention It was posted at the eschaton Crack Den this morning:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was among those who denounced yesterday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Act. Commenting on the decision, Reid said "A lot of us wish that Alito weren't there and O'Connor were there," indicating his desire that there has been a fifth vote to invalidate the statute, as Justice O'Connor had provided the fifth vote to invalidate Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban in Stenberg v. Carhart.

What is curious about Reid's statement, as NPR and some news outlets have noted, is not Reid's criticism of Alito -- Reid opposed Alito's confirmation -- but the fact that Reid supported, and voted for, the federal statute upheld in yesterday's decision. . . .

So, despite his repeated support of legislative restrictions on abortion, Reid's latest comment suggests that he believes the Supreme Court's decision was regrettable and wrongly decided, and that a law that he supported is unconstitutional. To me, the latter is of greater concern. Call me old fashioned, but I believe that if a member of the Senate believes a law is unconstitutional, he or she should vote against it.
wonderin' 04.19.07 - 11:20 am

Harry Reid and the other Dumbofux who voted FOR this piece of shit legislation, did so for the political cover. They were relying on the SCOTUS to rule it unconstitutional, as they had 7 years prior, when a virtually identical piece of shit bill , passed by the FUCKTARD legislature in Pennsylvania, made its way to the Court.

Then Sandra Day O'Connor--may she rot slowly and painfully, unable to move in her own filth, from some horrible condition, and may one of her grand-daughters get knocked up by a meth dealer to bear a genetically damaged child--decided to resign. The Senate confirmed Alito, a sworn opponent of Choice. Reid voted against Alito--but tacitly approved the gang of 14 arrangement that prevented Dems from filibustering the appointment of either Roberts as Chief or Scalito as Assoc., in return for the Pukes refraining from the Nukular Option.

So Antonin Kennedy officially joined the Opus Dei band--Roberts, Scalia, Alito & Thomas--to throw US jurisprudence into the laps of the Vatican Curia.

This proves once again, to me, the wisdom of the following dictum, articulated by JFK, to allay the fears of the voters that he might preside too much in the shadow of Rome:

Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

But if the time should ever come--and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible--when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

Antonin Kennedy, in writing his decision, clearly demonstrated he shares not a scintilla of the same conscience that animated that other, more honorable Kennedy.

Men Weep...Of Course They Do

At the Eschaton crack-den, in the wake of a difficult, emotional day, the question came up. This was my reply:

i'm a man, and i have wept...bitterly...

over lost love and disappointed
passion, mostly, i suppose--those most selfish tears;
at the death of parents and, lately,
all the more often, friends, of years...
at the health of my nephew;
at the recovery of my wife;
at the death of any number of good dogs...

...................................................i even fog
up at the climax and denoument
of well-made plays,
whether cinematic, dramatic, or operatic...

I am a man and I know how to weep.
But I 'husband' my tears,
lest they overwhelm me...

--wgg

The Good, the Bad, and The Imus

A trool on Eschaton, responding to a commenter's opinion of the trool's extreme disappointment at the firing of Don Imus, to wit that "TCB is just mad that the "Angry White Man" segment of the American public doesn't have a spokesman on the radio anymore," replied:
Imus was center-left, idiot.
Texaschilibean | 04.15.07 - 8:24 pm

The angry white-man segment , of which the mis-informed TCBeaner is clearly a specimen, is still amply represented by the usual suspects, whose names so depress me that I am loathe even to type them. But you know who I mean; Imus was never in the same class of prostrate propagandist for power that is the lot of O'Shrilly and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber...

No, as far as politics were concerned--as distinct from, say, crude cultural stereotyping--Imus probably was the most non-partisan, equal opportunity asshole in the bidness of being an asshole. To my mind, given the persona he created and inhabited, his tasteless crudeness in his 'roast' of the Clintons was almost balanced by his excoriation of Darth Cheney as a war criminal.

Imus was a uniter, not a divider, and he united along a particular axis: he had particular talent was to pick the low-hanging fruit along the cultural/class divide, and mash on it like a Gallagher fruit basket. And, not unlike like Gallagher as well, Imus did it mostly for the delectation of an audience composed of angry, middle class white males of varing ages but of similar complaints. These are the guys who now spit the term "PC" with the same scorn as they once wielded "NIGGER," "SPIC," "CHINK," and "GOOK." They feel their patrimony had been stolen from them, since they may no longer with impunity voice--and significantly, no longer benefit from--their crass and gross biases and prejudices against those whose social weakness had hitherto made them easy targets for derision, scorn, and contempt.

For the likes of the TCBeaner, of course, these middle-class heroes there is weaker prey close at hand: women. So they turn their repressed fury against women, because women are, obviously, easier targets. Patriarchy already has created all the negative stereotypes necessary for the transference of the aggression generated by middle class white males deprived of the occasion to act the 'superior' by the extension of verbal and behavioral immunities.

It is, in the vocabulary of the TCBeaner, et al, in fact much to be preferred that women become their surrogate enemies, because 1) women are a much weaker target, and one which can usually be counted upon merely to weep, not whip out a pair of brass knuckles and take out all your teeth.; and 2) because women have been getting uppity lately and if there's anything a threatened, angry middle class white male bigot doesn't need, it is some goddamn cunt telling him what to do.

Imus' slur against the Rutgers players was the worse because there probably was no personal malice in it at all. Imus noticed the Rutgers' girls tats...and that immediately marked them as his social inferiors, if the color of heir skins, and their natural endowment of hair had not already done so; it rendered them fair game.

So when he engaged his "nigger-joker", Mcguirk, in banter about the distance between the standards of pulchritude demonstrated by comparison of the Tennessee girls with the Rutgers girls, and the latter were found wanting, they immediately became--for Imus and his audience--skanks and hos, a topic much beloved by the WHITE audience for mysegynistic hip-hop...

Now Imus is toast*; I seriously doubt that any of explicitly political assholes--who not incidentally to their own schticks engage in similar racist/classist/sexist commentary will face similar fates...

*I predict Imus will be back on radio within one Friedman Unit.

If she weren't the former First Lady, would HRC even be in the race?

Based on her record, alone --that is, leaving aside her status as the (popular) former First Lady to a very popular president, and absent the novelty of her gender-- I seriously doubt Hilary Clinton would be even thought of as a viable candidate, let alone the front runner for the Democratic nomination for president.

You Don't Hafta Be Nerdy To Blog

From my friend, Echidne's wonderful blog:

Be A Pundit!!!
It is easy and fun and quite legal.
Freewayblogger tells us how you can participate in a pundit competition even if you don't have a blog to use as your pulpit.

Returning to the Scene of the Crime: War Crimes in Iraq

By Noam Chomsky (via TomGram)

Tomgram: Noam Chomsky on War Crimes in Iraq

In the Vietnam era, the subject of war crimes was the last to arrive and the first to depart. When, in 1971 in Detroit, Vietnam Veterans Against the War convened its Winter Soldier Investigation into U.S. war crimes in Southeast Asia, it was roundly ignored by the media. Over 100 veterans gave firsthand testimony to war crimes they either committed or witnessed. Beyond the unbearable nature of their testimony, the hearings were startling for the fact that here were men who yearned to take some responsibility for what they had done. But while it was, by then, possible for Americans to accept the GI as a victim in Vietnam, it proved impossible for most Americans to accept him as a human being taking responsibility for a crime against humanity. There was no place for this in the American imagination, it seemed, no less for the thought that the planning and prosecution of the war were potential crimes committed by our leaders. Evidently there still is none, which is why it's important to follow Noam Chomsky back into the Iraq of recent years to consider the American occupation of that country in the context of war crimes.

The piece that's linked here is an excerpt from Chomsky's new book, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. It is Chomsky at his best, a superb tour (de force) of a world in which the Bush administration has regularly asserted its right to launch "preventive" military interventions against "failed" and "rogue" states, while increasingly taking on the characteristics of those failed and rogue states itself. It will be an indispensable volume for any library. (You can check out a Chomsky discussion of it at Democracy Now!)

Big Media Calling In It's Markers From The Bushevik Regime & Congress

The CorpoRats--"ViaCom" ring any bells?--move in to ensure their grip on the vital, economic choke-points of the Information SuperHighway--via TruthOut.Org

Big Media Runs to the Nanny State
By Dean Baker
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Tuesday 03 April 2007

In today's hyper-competitive market economy, we all know what happens to businesses that can't compete: they run to the government for help. That is exactly what Viacom did last month as it became concerned about its future prospects in the Internet age.

Viacom is one of the world's biggest media companies. It owns MTV, Comedy Central, Showtime and Paramount Pictures in addition to many other cable networks. Its gross revenue was almost $10 billion last year and its profits were $1.26 billion. It also manages to write very healthy paychecks for its top executives. Three years ago, it split $160 million in compensation among its top three executives, enough to support almost 15,000 workers for a year at the minimum wage.

But all is not well at Viacom. Its stock price is down by close to 10 percent over the last year and a half, the period since it decoupled itself from CBS, reversing an earlier merger. Apparently the markets question Viacom's ability to prosper in a world in which web postings of video clips, produced spontaneously by millions of people around the world, take up an increasing portion of the time of its potential audience.

The point is fairly simple: if people are watching video clips that college students or frustrated office workers produce in their spare time, they will have less time to watch the latest Britney Spears MTV clip or the newest third-rate comedy flick from Paramount Pictures. To deal with this problem, Viacom wants the government to shut down the competition. It sued YouTube last month to require it to get advance approval for any copyright-protected material that gets posted on its site.

While the issues involved in this suit may seem very complicated, they are actually quite simple. In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which dealt with exactly the sort of problem that Viacom is raising. This law clearly sets outs out the legal responsibility of web site hosts such as YouTube. Under the DMCA, a copyright holder has the responsibility for notifying a host, such as YouTube, of any copyrighted material that it has posted. At that point, the host has the obligation to remove the copyrighted material or risk being sued for damages for copyright infringement.

The top officials at Viacom are very familiar with the DMCA; their lobbyists played a large role in writing it. However, having gotten their way with Congress less than a decade ago, they are now unhappy with their own bill. They want YouTube and other hosts to be responsible for prescreening posted material to determine that it does not infringe on copyrights. This sort of prescreening would impose an enormous burden on YouTube and other sites that host video (or audio) material produced by the general public. Clearly, the days when anyone could quickly and without cost post any zany video clip that they had produced would come to an end.

It is important to recognize that this lawsuit is not just a battle between two huge companies (YouTube is now owned by Google). The purpose of the DCMA was to bottle up the web, giving major media companies like Viacom a mechanism to enforce their copyrights in a new medium. Now they have decided that the DCMA didn't go far enough. They want the state to enforce their copyrights in a way that will strangle a distribution system that has already allowed hundreds of millions of people located all around the world to see tens of millions of video clips.

The public has a huge stake in ensuring that YouTube and similar sites don't have to spend themselves into bankruptcy to ensure that none of Viacom's copyrighted material ever appears without permission. Viacom has a simple remedy when their copyrighted material appears on a site: tell them about it. Viacom officials thought this was fine when they helped write the law back in 1998. If they don't think they can live with it today, maybe they should look for a new line of business. It would be much better than suffocating the web with Byzantine rules for copyright enforcement.

I thought an important point was raised on Eschaton the other night, in the aftermath of the flap over whether Michael Ware, a TV news guy in Bagdhad, had 'heckled' Sen. John McCain when the Senator had made a complete fool of himself by holding a ridiculous, impromptu TeeVee news conference in Bagdhad in which he claimed he felt perfectly safe strolling along Haifa Street. The poster (I regret that I did not not note or recall the author's nym) declared in utter--and unarguable--certainty that, had Ware indeed heckled McStain, there would have been video of it on YouTube within moments; and that there was none supporting the assertion detracted from the truth claims of those who were accusing Ware of lese majeste.

YouTube, and similar services, are exactly the kinds of safeguards that are needed to assure the survival of free political discourses. And it is obvious that the suppression or other interference with such safeguards is in the interlocked, oligarchic interests of the Media/Governmental propaganda enterprise. So Viacom's unsubtle attack should be seen and treated as what it is: an attack on principles of democratic communication.

A battle over "Habeas Corpus" between "the two finest legal minds in the Senate"

William Fisher, at TruthOut. Org, reports on what could turn out to be an epic battle brewing in the US Senate. But unlike most of this chamber's epic battles, this one pits Republican against Republican. The battle is over the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007. The proposed legislation would repeal provisions of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that stripped US civilian courts from jurisdiction to hear or consider applications for a writ of habeas corpus filed by aliens detained as enemy combatants (his seriousness is only somewhat vitiated by his claim that Specter and Graham are two of the most accomplished minds in the Senate).