The Roll of Honor: Those Who Tried to Stop the Iraq Disaster

As part of my penance for having been a pro-war Democrat, I offer this excellent article by Eric Alterman listing those who were most prominent in warning that disaster in Iraq would follow an invasion and occupation. I hated Saddam so much for being the merciless bastard that he was that I was blind to the dangers of our policy. These people weren't. Take a look.

Top Aide to Republican Crook Tom DeLay Pleads Guilty

Hi everybody! I'm back! Let's end my hiatus with this enlightening story about Tony Rudy, former top aide to Top REPUBLICAN House Criminal Tommy Boy DeLay, hypocrite bastard from Texas. Seems Rudy faces up to five years in prison for playing footsie with recently convicted REPUBLICAN criminal Jack Abramoff. Let's hope he helps tighten the case against his former boss, whom I think would look damn good in an orange jump suit, don't you?

On Hiatus Until 31 March

We're getting ready to put the house up for sale and it's truly hectic right now. I'll resume my attack on Bush and the rest of the right-wing evil empire at the end of the month.

The Republicans: Party of Religious Fanaticism

As part of the radical rightwing goal of destroying everything our country is founded on, Far-right Republican Mike Huckabee of Arkansas has sought the backing of a group claiming it wants to "Reclaim America for Christ". (Funny, since the majority of Americans are already Christians. What's to "reclaim"?) Georgia10 on DKos has the scoop:

This weekend, Huckabee spoke at a conference for the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. The Center's mission is to "To inform, equip, motivate, and support Christians; enabling them to defend and implement the Biblical principles on which our country was founded." The five goals Huckabee aligned himself with are described as the "five key fronts of the modern-day culture war: (1) Religious Liberties, (2) the Sanctity of Life, (3) the Homosexual Agenda, (4) Pornography, and (5) Promoting Creationism." Huckabee made it clear at the group's conference that he shares their goal of dismantling the constitutional wall between church and state.

Translation of the Center's five goals: 1. Ram fundamentalist Protestantism down everyone's throats. 2. Interfere with the reproductive rights of every woman in America. 3. Persecute the faggots. 4. Tell adults what they can and cannot look at. 5. Teach fairy tales and mythology in school instead of science.

Our country was founded on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Our public officials swear to uphold the Constitution--NOT THE BIBLE. The Republican goal is simple: destroy our republic and replace it with a theocracy. A kind of collective insanity is gripping the lunatic right--the lunatic right that controls the Republican Party from top to bottom. For the sake of our country's future, these people must be stopped. As for me, I will fight them to my dying day.

Because, you see, if they succeed in destroying America, it will not have been my fault.

The Incredible Shrinking "President"

Courtesy of Radical Russ, this map shows Bush's approval ratings on a national scale over time. Watch the map turn more and more blue as the months pass. It's entertaining.

Democrats, wrap the anvil of Bush's disapproval rating around the throats of every Republican running for office this year--and watch the rightwingers sink into the electoral ocean.

Democrats, He's DOWN. Go for the Throat!

Stop cowering to Bush (as Russ Feingold, my new hero, has accused his fellow Democrats of doing). Attack him HARD, hammer and tongs. He's lost the people, irretrievably so. The new Gallup numbers are a disaster for the miserable little punk who calls himself our "leader". Pour it on, and don't let up. Bush is down 36-60. Yes, SIXTY PER CENT DISAPPROVAL. The people are ready to stand with the Democrats. GIVE THEM A REASON TO!

Impending Disaster in Iraq

They tried to warn the Boy Emperor, the one who brooks no disagreement. One hundred forty thousand U.S. personnel, however superbly trained, would not be sufficient to maintain civil order in one of the world's most violent and religiously divided regions. Those who warned of this were dismissed, like General Shinseki, ignored, or called traitors by Bush, Cheney, and a howling corps of right wing thugs on cable television and hate radio. Now, the worst seems to be emerging in Iraq, a full scale civil war with execution style murders and all the rest. (Juan Cole has more grisly details if you're interested.)

Stupid bastards. They only listen to people who tell them what they want to hear. They ignore informed warnings, warnings based on deep knowledge and long experience. They plunge forward, blindly, ignorantly, recklessly, idiotically. Could they have a made a worse mess of things? No. Is this the last of the disasters Iraq will face? No. Is Iran next?

Watch this space.

Sam Brownback: The Most Dangerous Fanatic in the U.S. Senate

Senator Sam Brownback (Republican--what else?--from Kansas) envisions a United States governed by the most conservative, authoritarian version of Christianity possible, a nation governed by the "Bible" in much the way that Muslim lunatics demand their countries be governed by Sharia, or Koranic law. Brownback wants all abortion outlawed, of course, even if a woman was impregnated by a rapist who tortured her or by her own father. But also he wants to see to it that fundamentalist Christians (he is an ultraconservative Opus Dei Catholic) force their religion on everyone else, reserving for themselves rights no other faith would have. He thinks homosexuality should be a criminal offense, he wants the "secular" public school system abolished, he wants Social Security abolished, he wants all women to work only in the home and be subordinated to men, and in general he favors what I can only call a right wing religious dictatorship--a theocracy. Naturally, the lunatic Religious Right wants him to be president. You can read all about this horrifying fanatic here, courtesy of Rolling Stone.

Brownback and his followers MUST be stopped. If they attempt to seize power and impose their agenda on America, it will trigger a Second American Civil War.

Count on it. And guess which side I'll be on.

Conservatism Exposed As the Fraud It Is

Hunter on DKos delivers the definitive smackdown on the fairy tales, lies, mythology, and self-delusion that is conservatism. Among my favorite parts:

The liberal critics of the Iraq War? Right. The media figures who challenged conservative-spun "facts", and were roundly punished? Right. The deficit hawks? Right. And they were right from the start -- they didn't need years of resultant unending bungled mess to drill it into their skulls.

And so, the conservative walkback begins anew. Again. And we're seeing it take the usual forms. Denying the "conservative" label to all the conservative ideas that, once tried, failed, and attacking their critics as being the mean, cruel, partisan ones. Especially ironic, given the blistering attacks these jackasses have given any critic of administration policies, no matter how patently obvious the failures were. Criticism was treason, we were told. Absolute, America-hating, Constitution-punching treason. What unbelievable hacks. What sorry, simpering little fucks.

Being right was partisan griping -- but being universally, spectacularly and muleheadedly wrong, we're expected to believe, was the more noble and clever path? What utter pomposity. These blowhards should be tarred and feathered, not redeemed yet again for another science-bashing, expert-bashing, reality-bashing clusterfuck of so-called "conservative" strategery.

Damned right. No matter how many times they fail, conservatives will shout that they were right. Their whole philosophy is a fraud and a lie, built entirely on a false worldview and a complete misunderstanding of human nature. I think of all the things that horrify me about conservatism the attack on science has to be the most disturbing, for it is here that conservatism veers into outright insanity, the kind that can have catastrophic consequences.

Conservatism must be defeated. Among the tough but necessary steps:

• The Fox News Network needs to be totally discredited and ruined. Right now it is the chief propaganda outlet for the Radical Right. (The ideal solution would be for a liberal billionaire to buy out Rupert Murdoch, and then clean out the whole filthy rat's nest--O'Reilly, Hannity, John Gibson, Cavuto all of them.)
• The whole apparatus of right wing conspiracy--and yes, folks, that's what it is--has to be exposed, along with its supporters--the Coors Family, Sun Myung Moon, Richard Mellon Scaife, and all of the lunatic right organizations they support. The so-called Council for National Policy is perhaps the most dangerous. Do some digging here and you'll be horrified at what you find. (Please, please, PLEASE click this link and read all of it.)
• Christians on the political center and left need to wage war against the so-called "Christian" Right, and reclaim the faith for the true Christian majority.
• The Democrats need, obviously, to recapture both houses of Congress THIS year. It can be done, if we're willing to work for it.
• The Fairness Doctrine needs to be reinstated. Doing this will require a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President. The Right Wing Noise Machine of lunatic right hate radio started to be built up after the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in the 80s. Reinstating it would be the equivalent of taking a sledgehammer to right wing radio. It would force stations that use the public airwaves to provide equal time for all political views. It would be the radio equivalent of kicking Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, and all the other right wing scum on the aiwaves squarely in the crotch. (What an enjoyable image!)
• Democrats and progressives need to ramp up their confrontations with conservatives who are trying to take over school boards so as to institute the Radical Right agenda. This perhaps is job #1.

All in all, those who truly love America have to work to tear out the whole conservative philosophy by the roots. The conservative assertion that their philosophy is built on "personal freedom" is such utter bullshit that I'm amazed anyone buys into any more. Conservatism is built on the very worst features of the human mind--fear, prejudice, hatred, greed, and the desire to force one's way of life on everyone else. The battle may last for decades, but we must win it. The fate of our country--and the world--is riding on it.

Can You Give Me Hope?

I am emotionally exhausted right now. Despite the scientific community's mountain of evidence and irrefutable proof otherwise, the majority of Americans believe humans were created in their present form. A young Marine recruit tells me that the Marines are being told to gear up for an attack on IRAN. Women in South Dakota are being told, in essence, that they are second-class citizens. Conservatives see more humanity in a zygote than an uninsured, desperately ill actual child. Despite being massively unpopular, Bush continues to get just about everything he wants. Right wing thugs shout that people like me are traitors. The Democrats themselves show more ineptitude than courage. And as long as Republicans control the voting machines in most of the country, I am without hope of a Democratic comeback. In short, unless something changes, I must conclude that the United States of America has begun the process of dying and disintegrating. Unless the right wing fanatics are removed from power, they will create conditions that must inevitably lead to America's death. I look to the Democrats and I see, over and over, lack of preparation, lack of nerve, and lack of determination to win. Unless electoral reform is made the priority, the Republicans who count the votes will call the shots.

I'd like to think there's hope, but right now it looks grim.

Evolution Marches On

New evidence from the human genome confirms the fact that evolutionary changes are continuing, and that evolution has shaped many recent developments in our species. The key section of the article:

Providing the strongest evidence yet that humans are still evolving, researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years.

The genes that show this evolutionary change include some responsible for the senses of taste and smell, digestion, bone structure, skin color and brain function.

Many of these instances of selection may reflect the pressures that came to bear as people abandoned their hunting and gathering way of life for settlement and agriculture, a transition well under way in Europe and East Asia some 5,000 years ago.

Fascinating. The influence of evolution can be found all around us. That's why understanding it matters.

The Shocking Depths of Bush's Malice and Incompetence

Paul Krugman lays them out here. From Iraq to Katrina to Medicare, Bush has utterly dropped the ball. Moreover, if anyone in his administration tries to point this out to him, Bush immediately moves to attack that individual. For me, the most telling points in Krugman's analysis were these:

Knight Ridder's Washington bureau reports that from 2003 on, intelligence agencies "repeatedly warned the White House" that "the insurgency in Iraq had deep local roots, was likely to worsen and could lead to civil war." But senior administration officials insisted that the insurgents were a mix of dead-enders and foreign terrorists.Intelligence analysts who refused to go along with that line were attacked for not being team players. According to U.S. News & World Report, President Bush's reaction to a pessimistic report from the C.I.A.'s Baghdad station chief was to remark, "What is he, some kind of defeatist?"

Yes, reality isn't what it is. It's whatever Bush and his disgusting toadies and enablers decree it is.

And the entire world is paying the price.

America: A Republic, Not a Theocracy

This terrifying article about Christian "Reconstruction" led me to start thinking about just what it is that the far right of the Republican Party really wants. And what it wants is nothing less than the destruction of our country's entire political system and its replacement with a "Christian" theocracy. (This appalling resolution in Missouri is further evidence of it.) Am I exaggerating? Check out this quote from the article:

Reconstructionists aren’t shy about what exactly it is they are pursuing: “The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise,” Gary North, a top Reconstruction theorist, wrote in his 1989 book, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism. “Those who refuse to submit publicly…must be denied citizenship.”

First of all, if anyone tries to deny my citizenship and my right to vote, I will take up weapons and fight them. And no, I don't mean rhetorical weapons. I mean the machine gun/rifle/.38 magnum kind. They will take away my right to vote when they pry it out of my cold dead hands. I'm not the only one who feels this way, not by a long shot. I guarantee any attempt to forcibly impose fundamentalist, "Biblical"Christianity as the test of citizenship will start a Second American Civil War.

And I will be part of it.

What in God's name is wrong with these lunatics? Are they that ignorant of western civilization's history? Have they no knowledge whatsoever of the terrible religious wars that swept over Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries? Don't they understand that the principle of Church-State separation is ultimately designed to protect them? Christian Reconstruction, and its cousin, Dominion theology (espoused by Jerry Falwell, Tom DeLay, and Pat Robertson) is nothing less than an attempt to destroy our country. If fundamentalist Protestant Christianity is imposed legally, will the State order a mandatory tithe? (Don't laugh--some locales did in colonial America.) What will be the status of Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians? What will happen to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, and agnostics? Will homosexuals be physically exterminated? (Again, don't laugh-Christian Reconstruction demands the death penalty for homosexuality.) Christian Reconstruction has very real ties to the Republican Party, which it sees as the vehicle for its success. The threat it poses is very real.

I love the Christians in my life. Most of my family is Christian. Most of my friends are, too. They would never dream of trying to impose their beliefs on my doubting, Deistic self. But the Christian Reconstructionists and Dominionists are utterly unlike them. They constitute the American Taliban, as many have said. They are anti-American fanatics, domestic versions of the Muslim fundamentalists waging war on us. Their doctrines are a cancer which must not be allowed to spread.

The authors of our Constitution, in their wisdom, prohibited religious tests for the holding of public offices. They forbade the establishment of an official faith. The omission of the word God in the Constitution was not an oversight; it was deliberate and intentional. The men who built our legal system were steeped in the history of Europe. They understood the demons that are unleashed when any religion attempts to impose itself on the rest of us. They would be horrified at the Reconstructionists, and would fight them with all their strength.

As for me, I'll simply say this: any attempt by the Reconstructionists to strip me of my citizenship on the basis of my religious beliefs will not be carried out over my dead body.

It will be over theirs.

The Last Bastion Falls

Bush has banked his success in American politics on his perceived "strength" in dealing with terrorism. It was always a lie. Bush is the most incompetent clown imaginable when it comes to fighting terrorists. Now, the U.S. public seems to be catching up, as this latest L.A. Times poll demonstrates. It seems a majority is no longer deceived into thinking that Bush is "protecting" anything more than his own miserable ass and the financial interests of his friends and supporters. This was the last issue on which the Republicans led the Democrats in public opinion. Now it seems to be collapsing.

It's clear why Osama Bin Laden released a video statement in the latter part of the 2004 campaign. Bin Laden knew it would benefit Bush, the candidate he passionately wanted to see re-"elected". Bush is a dream come true for Bin Laden, an American leader so misguided, so incompetent, and so ignorant of his enemies that he represents an asset in and of himself to worldwide terrorism. From ignoring repeated intelligence warnings about 9/11 to authorizing torture against Muslim suspects to embracing the UAE as a partner in "fighting" terrorism, Bush has done more to undermine this nation's security than any other president in American history. Bush is a disaster of the first magnitude. That's why Bin Laden loves him, and why the American people may--finally--be turning against Bush on this issue.

What We Must Do

"I don't have to tell you things are bad, we know things are bad."--Howard Beale in Network

There is no point anymore to me posting more items about the screw-ups, smears, lies, and disasters of Bush and the lowlife bastards around him. You know my opinions: In 2000, Bush was the least qualified candidate for the presidency since William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Following a campaign of astonishing dishonesty, aided and abetted by media figures determined to destroy Al Gore, and with the help of an outright coup d'etat in Florida, he seized the presidency. After Bush ignored numerous warnings about an impending attack, 3,000 Americans were killed by terrorists. The campaign against those terrorists has been utterly bungled. A tragically unnecessary war has been launched, with no end in sight, a war that has been mismanaged at every level and in every way. Right-wing religious fanatics and Halliburton officials make our domestic policy, and a level of corruption unseen in my lifetime washes over Washington like the overflow of a Republican cesspool. In a five year period Bush and the Republican Congress have added three trillion dollars to our nation's debt. Our "prosperity" rests on borrowed money and borrowed time. Science is under attack, reproductive rights are under attack, and an outright traitor, Karl Rove, is making policy. An utterly disastrous attack on Iran is being contemplated. The situation is nothing short of catastrophic.

It's now or never, my beloved friends--either we get rid of the Republicans, or they're going to get rid our nation's future. A Democratic victory of major proportions this November, followed by the election of a Democratic president in 2008, is all that will (maybe) rescue us. We have the candidates. We now need the money, the sweat, and the turnout to make it happen. But one huge factor stands in our way:

IN TOO MANY LOCATIONS, THE REPUBLICANS GET TO COUNT THE VOTES.

I will go to my grave convinced that Al Gore was elected President on Tuesday, 7 November 2000. I am increasingly convinced that John Kerry was ripped off in Ohio and possibly Florida. The Republican Party is led by criminals, and it will stop at nothing to win. The Republicans will break any law, hack any computers, rig any voting machines necessary to "win". Ohio is already rigged perhaps beyond fixing, as the Republican legislature there has rammed through a law forbidding challenges to election outcomes. Our task is therefore clear:

ELECTION REFORM MUST BE OUR PRIORITY.

Look at the polls, folks. The Republican President is in the thirties; the Republican Congress is in the twenties. The people are ready to hand us a landslide victory--if their votes are counted. It is our job to make sure the Republicans are prevented from stealing another election. I'll be writing about this more in the days to come. In the meantime--

JOHN PAVICH FOR CONGRESS IN IL-11

GIVE TO THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE HERE.

And get yourself ready for electoral war.