CBS: Bush Approval at a Pathetic 34%

You read that right, folks. Thirty-four lousy percent. This represents a new ratings low for the Boy King.

Why do two-thirds of all Americans hate America? Those who disapprove of Dear Leader must be siding with the terrorists. (Just trying to think like a Republican.)

DeLay, Abramoff, and Russian "Business Men"

This caught my attention immediately when I saw it. It details the ties between REPUBLICAN bagman Jack Abramoff and certain "energy" interests in Russia. Millions of dollars have been sent to REPUBLICAN connected individuals in Washington through phony front companies. Key section:

$3,617,238.

Marina Nevskaya and Alexander Koulakovsky, two executives of the Russian energy company Naftasib with close ties to the Russian government and security services, appear to have funneled at least that much money to three DC GOP lobbyists between 1997 and 2004.

Almost $3.4 million [in Russian money] went to Jack Abramoff and Ed Buckham of Alexander Strategy Group, arguably the two most powerful Republican lobbyists in town at the time, both with close ties to dethroned House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

Hmmm. Close ties to Russian government and security services. I wonder how many of those security services could simply be called "Russian Mafia"?

Keep on eye on this. I know I will.

Attention Everybody: The Republicans WILL Cave In and Give Bush His Way on the Dubai Ports Deal

What other explanation could there be for this little "face saving" manuever being cooked up by the Republican leadership? Trust me, an Arab state that was involved in 9/11 is soon going to be running parts of 21 (not just six) American ports.

Remember, the UAE--

• Is the home of several of the 9/11 hijackers.
• Funnelled money to the 9/11 terrorists.
• Resisted U.S. efforts to trace the money.
• Is part of the Hate Israel chorus in the Middle East.

The truth of the matter is, Bush and his family (and his business cronies) have long ties to the anti-American Arab world. When you boil it right down, money trumps country every time with these people. And the Republicans have managed to convince millions of people that the Republicans are the "patriotic" party. WAKE UP, AMERICA, AND LOOK AT THE DAMNED FACTS.

UPDATE: Check this out, too.

Fox News Strikes Again

The old Soviet Union had Pravda, the government run newspaper. Bush and the Republican Party have Fox News.

Neither one was or is worth a rat's ass.

The Bush Family's Ties to the United Arab Emirates

Lou Dobbs has the details here.

Check Out This New Ad From the ACLU

It's more than a little disquieting.

Is Iraq Heading for Civil War?

Here is some genuinely frightening news. Sunni retaliation for the bombing of a sacred Shia shrine in Iraq has begun. And there's more. The violence appears to be spreading rapidly.

From Juan Cole's blog:

The hardline Shiite Mahdi Army has come out of Sadr City and is all over Baghdad. They are clashing with Sunnis in Basra. Sunni leader Tariq al- Hashimi threatened reprisals for reprisal killings. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim blamed the US for holding back the Badr Corps. Grand Ayatollah Sistani called for nonviolent street protests that he must know won't be nonviolent. Iran is blaming Bush and the Israelis, which is ridiculous but already widely believed in Iraq and Iran. The threat of terrorism and attacks on Americans just went way up.

And we've got Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld managing things back here in the States.

We are so screwed.

Arianna Rips Hannity and Coulter New Ones

The hilarious details are here. Sean Hannity is a two-bit lying punk, a loud mouth weasel who doesn't deserve a job panhandling, much less helping to conduct our nation's political dialogue. He's due for a fall, and I'll do anything I can to help bring it about.

I've got another question as well: how in the hell did Rush Limbaugh (draft dodger, drug addict), Ann Coulter (alleged anorexic, alleged cocaine user, alleged prominent New York slutbag), Sean Hannity (no military service, no distinct public record of any kind), and Bill O'Reilly (loud mouthed show biz reporter and sexual harasser) come to be the ones who get to determine who is or is not a "real" American? I'm ashamed and embarrassed to acknowledge these idiots as my fellow countrymen. They give the proud title "American" a bad name. They think I'm a traitor for being a Democrat and a fierce critic of the Boy King, AKA the Worst President in American History? To hell with them. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I wear their condemnation like a badge of honor.

Bush Ignored a Major Warning Prior to 9/11

Eric Alterman has the story. Bush, Cheney, and the other incompetent idiots who run our country had serious warnings in early 2001 about the possibility of a terrorist strike and chose to do nothing. (This is in addition to Bush ignoring the August 2001 PDB entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike the United States"). The opening of Alterman's post is damning:

Shortly after he was inaugurated, back in early 2001, just after the USS Cole was attacked, the Bush administration received a blue-ribbon commission report warning of the dangers of a catastrophic terrorist attack. Headed by Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, the report detailed the urgent steps necessary to begin the process of protecting the United States against a terrorist attack. “States, terrorists and other disaffected groups will acquire weapons of mass destruction, and some will use them,” the report warned. “Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers.” Hart even presciently predicted that the country was vulnerable to “a weapon of mass destruction in a highrise building.” The authors called for the creation of a department of homeland security combining and superseding the functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Border Patrol, and the Customs Service, a recommendation converted into legislation by Senator Joseph Lieberman.

Bush's response? He ordered Cheney to do a "review" of our security preparations WHICH WAS NEVER DONE.

And you know the rest.

Damn it, how can people possibly trust these clowns to do what's truly necessary to secure our country?

The Happy Story of Ralph Reed

In a fun and easy format. Hee hee!

The Bush Administration Manipulated Pre-War Intelligence

So says respected former CIA analyst Paul Pillar in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs. Pillar's conclusions, based on his personal involvement and observations, are devastating. To me, these are the key passages:

The Bush administration's use of intelligence on Iraq did not just blur this distinction [between intelligence gathering and policymaking]; it turned the entire model upside down. The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made. It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq. (The military made extensive use of intelligence in its war planning, although much of it was of a more tactical nature.) Congress, not the administration, asked for the now-infamous October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, although few members of Congress actually read it. (According to several congressional aides responsible for safeguarding the classified material, no more than six senators and only a handful of House members got beyond the five-page executive summary.) As the national intelligence officer for the Middle East, I was in charge of coordinating all of the intelligence community's assessments regarding Iraq; the first request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war.

The Bush administration deviated from the professional standard not only in using policy to drive intelligence, but also in aggressively using intelligence to win public support for its decision to go to war. This meant selectively adducing data -- "cherry-picking" -- rather than using the intelligence community's own analytic judgments. In fact, key portions of the administration's case explicitly rejected those judgments. In an August 2002 speech, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney observed that "intelligence is an uncertain business" and noted how intelligence analysts had underestimated how close Iraq had been to developing a nuclear weapon before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. His conclusion -- at odds with that of the intelligence community -- was that "many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon."

People, the run-up to the war was marked by an astonishing series of lies and manipulations of the facts. This is nothing less than a national scandal, and the Pillar article deserves wide circulation. This is further proof that Bush and his people desired war with Iraq whatever the evidence showed. It is another piece in the picture of the most appalling, malicious, and incompetent administration in American history.

Countering the Heritage Foundation's Tax Arguments

The right-wing Heritage Foundation continues to be a major propaganda outlet for conservatives. A recent release by Heritage bemoans the fate of those in the highest tax brackets. I found this item to be interesting in particular:

The often repeated myth that lawmakers are dumping more of the tax burden on low-income families is simply false. From 1979 through 2003, the highest-earning 20 percent of Americans—who earn 52 percent of all income—saw their share of the federal tax burden rise from 56 percent to 66 percent of all taxes. By contrast, the lowest-earning quintile of Americans—who earn 4 percent of all income—saw their share of the federal tax burden drop from 2 percent to 1 percent. (See Chart 1 and Chart 2.) Clearly, the rich are shouldering an increasing share of the tax burden.

Hmmm. Interesting. So I went looking for some other data that might shed some light on this situation.

Percent of total net worth in the United States in 2001 by households:

Top 1%. 33.4%.

Top 5%. 59.2%.

Top 10%. 71.5%.

Top 20%. 84.4%.

Bottom 80%. 15.5%.

Bottom 40%. 0.3%.

(Link).

So I looked a little more and found these interesting tidbits:

"There were an estimated 7.7 million millionaires in the world at the end of 2003, half a million more than at the end of 2002, as stock markets and economic growth picked up and the rich took more risks with their cash.These wealthy individuals saw their riches increase by 7.7 percent to $28.8 trillion in 2003, recovering to levels seen before the global recession took hold in 2001, according to a survey on Tuesday from U.S. investment bank Merrill Lynch and technology consultancy Capgemini. And the rich are set to get richer, with their wealth forecast to grow by seven percent a year and to exceed $40.7 trillion by 2008, the survey predicted... The survey also highlighted a small, but fast-growing global group of 70,000 super rich individuals with more than $30 million in financial assets. It found that this group was growing at a faster pace than those in the $1 million-plus bracket." (World's richest worth $29 trillion in 2003; Survey: Wealthy now back at level before dot-com bust. MSNBC.com, June 15, 2004,)

Very Richest's Share of Income Grew Even Bigger, New York Times, June 26, 2003

In the late 1970s, the top one percent of the US population held 13 percent of the wealth; in 1995 it held 38 percent. (Levy, Frank. The New Dollars and Dreams ).

In 1998 the top 1 percent of the population owned 38 percent of the wealth, the top 5 percent owned over 60 percent (source: www.inequality.org/fatcsfr.html).

The top ten percent of the U.S. population owns 81.8 percent of the real estate, 81.2 percent of the stock, and 88 percent of the bonds. (Federal Reserve Bank data in Left Business Observer, No. 72, Apr. 3, 1996, p. 5).

One percent of the U.S. population owns sixty percent of the stock and forty percent of the total wealth. (Hawken, Paul, The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. New York: HarperBusiness, 1993).

The top one percent of U.S. households owned 42 percent of all stock in 1997... The top ten percent of households owned 82 percent of all stock-market wealth...Only 27 percent of households held more than $10,000 in stock in 1997...57 percent of Americans didn't own any stock at all...The top fifth of households saw their income rise 43 percent between 1977 and 1999, while the bottom fifth saw their income fall 9 percent....Since 1973, every group in society except the top 20 percent has seen its share of the national income decline, with the bottom 20 percent losing the most. They have just 3.6 percent of national income, down from 4.4 percent a quarter century ago. Indeed, the top fifth now makes more than the rest of the nation combined...Rebecca Blank, who recently left the President's Council of Economic Advisors, pointed out, ‘We've gone back to levels of income and wealth inequality that this country hasn't seen since the teens and 1920s.’" (Source: Merrill Goozner, Crash of '99?, Salon.com, Oct. 1, 1999).

The top one percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 40 percent. (Korten, David. When Corporations Rule the World, p. 108).

When he was worth $40 billion, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was worth more than the bottom 110 million Americans (the bottom 40 percent of the population). By 1998, Gates was worth $59 billion; a year later, he was worth $85 billion. Gates is twice as wealthy as the second richest American, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (worth $40 billion). (Source: open letter from Ralph Nader (December 1998), citing Edward Wolff of New York University, whose calculations included home equity, pensions and mutual funds, but excluded personal cars, based on Gates' then-current net worth of $40 billion).

Also interesting. So I looked a little further and found this interesting site. Among other things, it points out that when you add Social Security taxes into the federal tax picture, you find that those with incomes of $30,000 a year pay about 15% of their adjusted gross income in taxes while those in the $200,000 plus range pay about 28%.

In my view, when you consider the impact of sales taxes, property taxes, and state income taxes, the poorest Americans pay just about the same percentage of their income in taxes as the richest.

The issue is NOT simply federal income taxes. It is the total tax picture that matters. Even more importantly, it is about who controls this country. And brothers and sisters, it's the people in the top 10% of income. WEALTH IS POWER. Only the dishonest or naive think otherwise. And power in America resides in those for whose plight Heritage feels so deeply.

Bush Scraping Bottom in New Survey USA Poll

Hey everybody! Let's start the weekend off with the happy news that El Presidente, His Fraudulency I, is tanking in the new SUSA poll (which was taken before the Cheney hunting fiasco). He's down 40%-57% nationwide. In Illinois, I am proud to say, he's rejected 33%-64%. (Ha!) He has a negative rating in 40 out of 50 states; he's tied in one, and has a net positive approval in only 9. He's one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. And don't let anybody tell you differently.

The American People Do NOT Want War With Iran

Gallup (via My DD) has the details. Only nine per cent of the poll's respondents want military action against Iran now. The vast majortity want diplomatic and economic pressure brought to bear. If Bush tries a military attack on Iran, he will be doing so without the support of the people of this country.

Biologists Are Blasting Down the Walls of "Intelligent Design"

Intelligent Design theorists (creationists by any other name) have argued that certain structures are "irreducibly complex" and cannot be accounted for by natural selection. They claim that a prize example of this complexity is the flagellum at the end of a sperm cell. Now scientists are closing in on this mystery and are handing the ID proponents yet another defeat. The mechanisms behind the evolution of this structure are slowly but surely being elucidated. Soon another "irreducible complexity" will be reduced.

To me, the most illuminating passage in this article was the following, referring to biologist Michael Behe, who is an ID proponent who recently argued the ID side of the Dover, Delaware case:

Perhaps the strongest rebuke to ID in the Dover case concerned the claim by Behe and others that it would be impossible for evolution to produce the immune system. Miller testified that since Behe wrote his 1996 book, evolutionary biologists have built a rich account of the immune system--a point Judge Jones highlighted in his ruling."[Behe] was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system," Jones wrote, "however, he simply insisted ... that it was not `good enough.'" (Emphasis added.)

That's right. No matter what genuine science says, it will never be enough to dislodge the blindness of ideological fanaticism. The fight will not be to convince the Michael Behes of the world. It will be to convince our children and grandchildren.

The Republican Radicals Hate Reason, Hate Scientific Truth, Hate Any Dissent

Kevin Drum has been on fire lately on the issue of the Republican war on science. The Republicans are now led by fanatics determined to crush all scientific opinions that contradict the lunatic Right's fondest beliefs and mythology. Go check Drum's post out. (The links are great, too.)

Stalin tried to outlaw genetics. Hitler tried to outlaw the teaching of relativity. Fanatical religious fundamentalists are trying to kill evolution. It ain't gonna work. REALITY IS WHAT IT IS. I feel as if I've said this a million times in my life. OK, I'll make it a million and one: there is no such thing as "Marxist" science. There is no such thing as "National Socialist" science. There is no such thing as "creation" science. There is just science.

In the name of sanity, we MUST win this fight.

The Voice of the Insane: Creationist Ken Ham

You really need to see this article to believe the level of pure, unadulterated lunacy this guy has reached. He travels throughout America brainwashing innocent children with his fantastic lies and nonsense. To me, this represents the worst of them:

How did Noah fit dinosaurs on the ark? He took babies. Why didn't a tyrannosaur eat Eve? All creatures were vegetarians until Adam's sin brought death into the world. How can we have modern breeds of dog like the poodle if God finished his work 6,000 years ago? He created a dog "kind" — a master blueprint — and let evolution take over from there.

We have to fight this insanity with all our hearts and minds. Creationism is not only wrong, it's a perversion of knowledge itself. It's an insistence on seeing the world as we want it to be, not as it is. It's also a perversion of religion, out and out blasphemy in its worst form. I'm sick of these pinhead little creationists and their tiny little God wrapped up in His tiny little universe. They want a God they can understand, not the God of a universe billions of years old and billions of light years across. They take stories written in the Bible that were never meant to be taken as anything but allegories and demand that they supplant all that humans have learned about themselves and their world. Ken Ham is an evil, deluded man doing untold damage to our country's future. It's time to send him and all the other creationists a message: You're about to become the most defeated people in history.

Count on it.

It's Evolution Sunday!

So named because it's both the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the occasion of an important event: a declaration from hundreds of church pulpits that science and religion are compatible. Read the statement signed by more than 10,000 clergy across the United States (including my brother in-law Rick) I like this part in particular:

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children.

Yes! The Christian center and the Christian left pretty heavily outnumber the Christian right. The right just makes more noise. It's time that changed, and I think it will.

Bush: Screw the Veterans, Screw the Active Military

Among the many preposterous myths that the radical right has spread over the years is the one that claims Republicans are "pro-military". Ha! That's a laugh, albeit a bitter one. If the conservatives were so damned pro-military, you'd think they would have been more eager to be a part of it. (Check out this wonderful site that lists every prominent rightwing fraud, liar, hypocrite, and chickenhawk.) Now, thanks to georgia10 at DKos, we have further proof that Bush's pro-military rhetoric is yet another lie. Check out georgia's devastating story about the lousy pay hikes, faulty body armor, and reduction in veterans' health benefits being pushed by our "pro-military" Republicans in Washington. Key section:

The military's health care program, TRICARE, supports some 9.2 million beneficiaries. Veterans from wars too soon forgotten depend on the program. From military families who have buried their husbands or wives, to those who dread a call in the middle of the night about those who currently serve, the program is designed to take care of those families--our families. First, Bush's plan would eventually cause some 600,000 retirees to be dropped from the military's healthcare program. Bush's budget also makes across-the-board premium increases to TRICARE retirees under the age of 65. Veterans will see an increase of 41% for single or family coverage within two years; senior enlisted and officer retirees will see increases of up to 204%. By 2009, healthcare premiums for our veterans will TRIPLE. (See PDF of TRICARE fee increases here).

If this doesn't make your blood boil, I don't know what will.

VETERANS AND CURRENT MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES: Vote for the people who REALLY support you. Vote for the people who REALLY honor your service. Vote for the people who are REALLY pro-military. VOTE DEMOCRATIC!

Cheney: A Cancer on America

Andrew Sullivan carries a good set of links today on the person who may just be the most evil, morally bankrupt, corrupt human who has ever guided the affairs of our beloved country: Dick Cheney. When you think of it, there really is no form of criminality and mendacity in which Cheney has not engaged. While the CEO at Halliburton, Cheney actively sought trade with Iran and Libya. He also used complex manuevers to hide the fact that he was helping to prop up Saddam Hussein's government. Cheney has lied repeatedly about these matters. It is Cheney and Karl Rove, ironically, who are behind the campaign to label all critics of Bush as traitors. It is Cheney and Rove who have perfected the smear campaign, the kind that denigrates and ridicules the service of Vietnam vets (like McCain, Gore, Cleland, and Kerry) while declaring that draft dodgers (like Limbaugh, Bush, Cheney himself, and Rove) are the true patriots. It is Cheney who was the driving force behind the disastrous Iraq war. It is Cheney who has consistently campaigned on the corpses of the 9/11 victims. It is Cheney who said, notoriously, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." In other words, it is Cheney who truly controls the United States. It is Cheney who is driving our nation off the cliff. It is Cheney, above all, who is killing our country. The political destruction of Cheney must be one of our top objectives. It starts on Tuesday, 7 November 2006, with the election of a Democratic Congress.

But that will only be the beginning.

The Fighting Democrats

Introduced by none other than the Original Fighting Democrat himself,Max Cleland.

Now this is what I like to see!

Angry Thoughts on a Tuesday Night

• The pathetic rightwing clowns who are bitching and moaning about Rev. Joseph Lowery and former President Jimmy Carter "politicizing" Coretta Scott King's funeral can go blow it out their asses, especially waste of human skin Sean Hannity, aka The Punk. The conservative bastards who are saying these things fought against everything Mrs. King stood for. They were her enemies in life; they have no right to say ANYTHING about how her funeral was conducted. Lowery and Carter said what needed to be said. They spoke the truth. If their criticism offended the Boy King who was there ONLY for a photo op, that's too damned bad.
• No Muslim radicals anywhere are ever going to tell me what I can say, what I can write, what I can look at, or who I can make fun of. If I want to criticize Muhammad, or even make a Muhammad look-alike sock puppet I can play with, I'll damn well do it. If they don't like it, they can kiss my ass. Those who are rioting, burning, and killing over a few freaking cartoons are proving to the world the point the cartoonists were making. The West can NEVER back down in the face of murderous psychotics like these.
• When will the Democrats stop cringing in fear before the Republicans? When will Barbara Boxer be selected as leader of the Senate Democrats? When will the Democrats get behind John Murtha and let him nationalize the 2006 elections? When will the Democrats get serious about challenging Republican election fraud? How many stinking elections have to get stolen from them before the Democrats fight back?

Rev. Joseph Lowery's Beautiful Tribute to Coretta Scott King

You owe it to yourself to see this. Rev. Lowery honors Mrs. King and speaks truth to power. Awe-inspiring.

Science is Under Constant Siege in the Bush Administration

Now the issue is the reality of the Big Bang. NASA scientists are under pressure by Bush political appointees to refer to the Big Bang as just a "theory" (meaning in this sense a hypothesis) in order to placate fundamentalist religious sensibilities. The story of this latest round of Bush-driven lunacy is here.

This is one of the most frightening and disturbing aspects of Bush's reign. The assault on evolution, the attempt to stifle evidence related to global warming, the booklets at national parks that tout creationist explanations for the age of the earth, are nothing less than an attempt to subordinate reason to religious dogma. The denial of reality when that reality contradicts cherished beliefs is the fundamental basis of insanity. Josh Marshall is right. It's as if empiricism itself is under assault by these people. No wonder 48 Nobel laureates endorsed Kerry in 2004. No wonder that such popular magazines as Scientific American have severely criticized Bush on these issues. No wonder the scientific community is appalled by Bush and his ignorant, scientifically illiterate thugs.

Bush and the Religious Right are the enemies of science. They are determined to destroy astronomy, cosmology, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and all the related subfields of those areas. Why? Because the findings of these fields are not in line with the radical right's preposterous mythology. This fight for science, therefore, is nothing less than a struggle to maintain the integrity of rational inquiry itself. Upon the outcome of this struggle rests the future of our civilization.

Paula Zahn: Right Wing Clown

Mother Jones has the story. Zahn is a big fan of Ratbastard Limbaugh and a relentless cheerleader for Bush. It's time for her--and the rest of CNN--to get the message: We're calling on you on your crap. You've become FOX-lite, part of the Right Wing Noise Machine, and no rational person should listen to you.

Or buy anything from your sponsors.

Newsweek: Libby's Defense Full of Holes

Seems Valerie Plame was actually covert at the time certain members of the Bush Administration treasonably outed her. The details are here.

Bonddad Crushes Republican Fraud Luskin

It's right here, folks. Yes, the Republicans are still trying to argue that Clinton's Administration was an economic failure and Bush's is a rousing success, even though every single piece of evidence contradicts them. I think this is what pisses me off most about these people. They lie with impunity, they distort and twist facts to suit their purposes, and then they claim not only the mantle of honesty but assert that it is they who are the realists. Well, in economics folks, I got news for ya: actual reality has this nasty way of walking up and biting you on the ass, regardless of what lies and nonsense you're spouting.

Even if you're a Republican.

Gallup: Country Has Turned Even More Strongly Against Bush on Iraq

Read the interesting details here. Key section:

A new Gallup Poll, conducted in late January, reveals that just 39% of Americans approve of the way President Bush is handling Iraq, with 58% disapproving. Over half (53%) now say the administration "deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction," with 46% disagreeing. Gallup notes that this finding is "essentially reversed" from one year ago. (Emphasis added)

Yes, over HALF the people now think Bush lied to us about the reasons for a war that has consumed more than 30,000 lives. But since Bush didn't engage in illicit oral sex in the White House, he'll continue to get a free pass from most of the corporate media.

Check Out This Ad

It makes a comparison I think you'll find interesting.

Let's Help Dump Chris Matthews' Miserable Ass Off of TV

It's something that's long overdue, especially since Matthews recently speculated that a series of church bombings in Alabama may have been carried out by liberals or gays. This son of a bitch is, as I've recently noted, a disgusting, Republican-ass kissing clown. He's a perfect example of how cable news has descended to the level of sheer imbecility. Yes, he has a right to free speech, but that doesn't mean he automatically deserves a platform for it. Go to Open Letter to Chris Matthews (here) and find the addresses of Hardball's sponsors.

I smell boycott!

The Idiot Right Strikes Again

This time it's an assault against--demon opera! The pathetic details are here.

The parents involved in this protest are conservative idiots, and I feel sad for their children who will probably grow up to be the same way.

If This is True, It's Reason Enough to Force Bush from Office

The Guardian isn't my favorite British newspaper. It's too far left for my tastes. So I take its articles with a grain of salt. But if this one is true, it's shocking. It's nothing less than proof that Bush was determined to go to war no matter what the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq reported. Read it and see what you think.

Some 2,500 U.S. dead and 30,000 dead Iraqis later, we are reaping the fallout from Bush's determination.

The Current Republican Frontrunner

Lifted directly from Tapped online:

BUSH 2.0

Conservatives touting George Allen as the second coming of Dubbya have another piece of evidence to point to: Allen's continuing attempts to match, and raise, George W. Bush's studied ignorance of what's happening in his own government. Witness:

When asked for his opinion on Bernanke's nomination, all Sen. George Allen (R-VA) could muster was the response, "For what?"

"Told that Mr. Bernanke was up for the Fed chairman's job, Mr. Allen hedged a little, said he had not been focused on it, and wondered aloud when the hearings would be. Told that the Senate Banking Committee hearings had concluded in November, the senator responded: 'You mean I missed them all? I paid no attention to them."

I'm speechless. Even Ronald Reagan knew who the Fed Chief was. With this sort of blithe inattention to governance, Allen's a shoe-in for 2008. There's really no reason to fight it, so I, for one, welcome our new Virginian overlord. May he be merciful and kind.

The terrifying thing is that Allen is stupid enough and vicious enough to win both the Republican nomination and the presidency. It's not like it would be the first time, after all.

New House Republican Leader Just as Big of a Crook as DeLay

He's John Boehner, a product of the utterly corrupt Ohio Republican Party. He's been a notorious bagman for Republican-connected lobbyists for years. He's going to clean up the cesspool of Republican corruption in the House? That's a joke. The only way to clean up Republican corruption in the House is to VOTE THE RIGHTWING REPUBLICAN BASTARDS OUT OF IT.

HAW HAW HAW! Watch O'Reilly Getting Ripped a New One

Courtesy of Keith Olbermann. This is damned funny, so be patient as it loads. It's worth it.