Limbaugh Gets Away With It Again

It seems this loathsome piece of garbage won't be charged for illegal possession of Viagra, which he had on him after a trip to the Dominican Republic.

I want an investigation. Dammit, I want SOMEONE to find out what this asshole was doing down there. The DR is a famous "sex tourist" destination. Limbaugh went there with an all-male party. Put 2 and 2 together folks--what was he up to? Nailing teenaged prostitutes? I want to know--and if he was, I want this son of a bitch ruined.

I could rant further, but I'd rather steal a letter from HuffPo on the thread dealing with all this. It's from a correspondent named Bushgirlsgonewild. I hope he or she doesn't mind:

I know that a good establishment liberal would refrain from even discussing the fact that Rush Limbaugh likes to go to one of the underage sex capitals of the world with a bottle of Viagra in one hand and God knows what in the other. Lee Siegel would find it wholly imappropriate of me to even bring it up. After all, Rush and his allies may have spent years harrassing Democrats for sexual indiscretions, but it's beneath the blogs to sink to his level and make a big deal out of this. But I just can't help myself. Nonetheless, one thing I have learned is that it is useless to call Republicans hypocrites. The word has no meaning anymore and we should just retire the concept. Instead, I would propose that we use these many occasions in which wingnuts are revealed for the degenerate phonies they are as "Oprah moments." Rush should be the poster boy for a new movement. It isn't right that he is the only man in America who can get his Daddy's Little Helpers prescribed in his doctor's name instead of his own. Many men, I'm sure, would be grateful not to have to deal with the embarrassment of a pharmacist knowing about his need for Viagra and now that he's known as a user, the least Rush can do is promote the right for all Americans to carry them without a prescription in their names, as he does.

Rush should be urged to share his story with America. Here's he is, an impotent, thrice divorced, ex-drug addict, conservative, parolee who went on a sex tour in the Caribbean and found himself rudely embarrassed for carrying recreational prescription drugs in his doctor's name. Who can't relate to that? This is a man who has been run through the mud and I think we would benefit from a thorough national conversation to try to understand Rush's urgent need for sex in one of the most poverty stricken countries in the world. Wouldn't he feel unburdened if he could share his thoughts with some of his staunch allies like James Dobson or Pat Robertson? Surely they'd be willing to hear his testimony. And from the conservo-libertarian standpoint, I frankly think anonymous Viagra for every American male should be a right, not a privilege. The jack-booted customs agents should not be able to roust good taxpaying citizens who just need a little discrete help when they go on vacation and want to score a couple of underage sex slaves. It's unamerican. Perhaps some legislation is in order. We could call it Rush's Law.

The main thing is that we shouldn't condemn Rush for his hypocrisy. We should extend an understanding hand and help him come to terms with his problems. He's just another flawed, dysfunctional, rich, celebrity Republican drug addict with a taste for kinky sex. Doesn't he deserve our compassion? I think perhaps we need to ask our Republican representatives to step up and show their support for this flawed, but human, leader of their movement. After all, forgiveness is the Christian thing to do.

As some would say, "Heh".

A Song for Bush

Something I think you should hear.

Finally! Messages I Can Relate To

They're called demotivators. All I can say is that it's about freaking time!

Happy Fourth, Everyone! I'll write to you tomorrow.

The Republican War on Press Freedom

It is deeply ironic that on this, the eve of the 230th anniversary of the founding of the United States, we find ourselves in the midst of nothing less than all out assault by the Radical Right, aka The Republican Party, on independent media. The assault is coming in the form of an utterly fraudulent outcry against The New York Times for publishing information on a program the government had already admitted many times was in place. This is one of the most disquieting attempts in American history to muzzle the free press. Media Matters, an utterly invaluable organization, has the story. After listing the many, many coordinated right wing attacks on the Times for supposedly "damaging national security" by "telling the terrorists about how we are tracking their money", MM brings down the hammer--big time:

There was only one problem with this argument: For nearly five years, George W. Bush and other members of his administration have been proclaiming proudly that they have been tracking terrorist financing through international financial institutions. Beginning fewer than two weeks after September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has "been very public about its efforts to track the overseas banking transactions of Americans and other foreign nationals," as a June 28 Boston Globe article noted. Keller addressed this issue in a June 25 letter to his readers, noting that the administration had voiced concerns prior to the article's publication that it "would lead terrorists to change tactics." Keller noted in response, "It has been widely reported -- indeed, trumpeted by the Treasury Department -- that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror." Following are numerous examples:

• In a September 24, 2001, speech, Bush announced the establishment of a "foreign terrorist asset tracking center at the Department of the Treasury to identify and investigate the financial infrastructure of the international terrorist networks." He added, "It will bring together representatives of the intelligence, law enforcement, and financial regulatory agencies to accomplish two goals: to follow the money as a trail to the terrorists, to follow their money so we can find out where they are; and to freeze the money to disrupt their actions."
• In a September 24, 2001, letter to Congress, Bush noted, "Terrorists and terrorist networks operate across international borders and derive their financing from sources in many nations. Often, terrorist property and financial assets lie outside the jurisdiction of the United States." He affirmed his commitment to working with international agencies such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) "to build momentum and practical cooperation in the fight to stop the flow of resources to support terrorism."
• A White House fact sheet published on September 24, 2001, noted the launch of the Treasury Department's Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center (FTAT): "The FTAT is a multi-agency task force that will identify the network of terrorist funding and freeze assets before new acts of terrorism take place."
• In a September 26, 2001, statement, Bush said, "We're fighting them on a financial front. We're choking off their money. We're seizing their assets. We will be relentless as we pursue their sources of financing. And I want to thank the Secretary of Treasury for leading that effort."
• On October 1, 2001, Bush told FEMA employees, "As you may remember, I made it clear that part of winning the war against terror would be to cut off these evil people's money; it would be to trace their assets and freeze them, cut off their cash flows, hold people accountable who fund them, who allow the funds to go through their institutions; and not only do that at home, but to convince others around the world to join us in doing so."
  On October 10, 2001, Bush stated that the "nations of NATO are sharing intelligence, coordinating law enforcement and cracking down on the financing of terrorist organizations."
• During remarks at FTAT, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said, "[W]e have begun to act -- to block assets, to seize books, records and evidence, and to follow audit trails to track terrorist cells poised to do violence to our common interests." O'Neill added, "We have built an international coalition to deny terrorists access to the world financial system."
• A December 2001 report on the steps the administration had taken to combat terrorism noted that the FATF "-- a 29-nation group promoting policies to combat money laundering -- adopted strict new standards to deny terrorist access to the world financial system."
• A September 10, 2004, Treasury Department statement read: "The targeting of terrorist financing continues to play an important role in the war on terror. Freezing assets, terminating cash flows, and following money trails to previously unknown terrorist cells are some of the many weapons used against terrorist networks."

In other words, folks, WE HAD ALREADY ANNOUNCED WE WERE ATTACKING TERRORIST FINANCIAL NETWORKS. The Times revealed nothing--absolutely nothing--that was not known to our terrorist enemies already. In fact, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times published the same story, and yet only the NYT is being vilified. Every element of the Right Wing Noise Machine is vomiting forth lie after lie after lie about this matter. Why? Because it's an election year and the NYT is a favorite target of the ranting cave people of the Right. This whole hideous farce is nothing less than an attempt to silence the free press, to make the media in effect an arm of the Bush Administration, much as Fox "News" already is and CNN is rapidly becoming. This is the Right's attempt to intimidate everyone into "cooperating" with the government's policies. This cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged.

I have spent many years studying authoritarian government. This move here is something right out of the "Cultural Revolution" of Mao Tse-tung's China in the late 1960s, where Mao called on hordes of brainwashed fanatics to destroy the "enemies of the people." I have never seen people more committed to destroying everything this country stands for than the Right. If they are allowed to win this battle, then I see the U.S. descending further down a very dark, very tragic road it is already on.

The Media Matters piece is long, but I urge you to read it all. I also urge you to kick in some money to help them keep up the fight for our country's freedoms. On the eve of the Glorious Fourth, it would be something tangible to do for the country we all love--a country that is in terrible danger of being lost.

A National Embarrassment

I am, admittedly, a total and utter geek. I actually look forward to watching a show on C-Span on Sunday nights. It's a rebroadcast of "Prime Minister's Question Time", a half-hour period every Wednesday where members of the British House of Commons get to ask the Prime Minister anything they want. Half the questions traditionally go to members of the Opposition parties, and the questions can be pretty pointed. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, responds to all questions, whether they are the (usually) friendly softballs coming from his side or the poison darts thrown by the parties opposite. In watching Blair respond over the years, I've always been struck by his verbal facility, his quickness of mind, his ability to form and state arguments coherently, and his impressive command of facts. I disagree with Blair on many things, but you have to admit that he is intimately familiar with the details of public policy in Britain, often showing familiarity with even the smallest issues and the most remote constituencies. And it has occurred to me several times over the past five years that George W. Bush would be pathetic beyond words in such a setting. Blair has every gift of communication that Bush lacks. Blair has a lawyer-like command of argument; Bush can barely string together a sentence that hasn't been written down for him. Were Bush subjected to the kind of environment we see in "Prime Minister's Question Time", he would be (even more of) a national embarrassment. Moreover, I think even a lot of honest Republicans (there are some) would admit this in private.

Moreover, watching the British House of Commons, I remembered something else: on the 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War, which fell on 11 November 1998, there was a ceremony at which the Queen was, naturally, the key speaker. But also in attendance, with no one outranking anyone else, was Prime Minister Blair standing alongside the leaders of all the parties represented in Parliament. It was a very powerful statement of national unity and a recognition of the patriotism of all British citizens, regardless of party. And thinking about this, I thought about Bush again: would he give such prominence to any Democratic leader at such a function were it to be held in this country? Would he be secure enough as a person and magnanimous enough as a leader to give the Democrats such a place in a ceremony like this? And the answer again was, no. He's too arrogant, too insecure, too determined to be held up above all others. He might allow Democrats to attend, but in no way would he allow himself to be anything but the star of the show. And I was embarrassed about that, too.

I crave the day when I can look with pride to the occupant of the White House and see someone of genuine intellectual curiosity, a person who is well read, someone with a strong command of all the issues facing our country, and someone with respect for our language. Yes, Bush's dishonesty, incompetence, phoniness, and hypocrisy are loathsome. But sometimes I think what I despise most about him is simply this: He is the face of my country. He is the best known of all Americans. He is held up as my country's leader. He is now the representative on my country's political system. It is the acute embarrassment and dismay that I feel about this situation that is, in some ways, the hardest thing for me to bear about Bush being in office.

After 230 years, this is the best we could do. And that hurts.

Another Reason to Scrap Electronic Voting

It's the built-in wireless technology that's now incorporated into many electronic voting machines. The possibilities for electoral mischief and cheating are pretty overwhelming. You can see why in this video here.

Republican run firms manufacture a great deal of voting equipment. My reaction to this is simple: I don't like it, and I don't trust the Bush-loving clowns that run these companies any farther than I can throw them. What do I want?

Simple. Paper ballots, marked with X's, and counted by hand with representatives of all political parties on the ballot supervising in each precinct. Would it take a lot longer to tabulate the votes? Sure.

So what?

Time Magazine: Bush Bounce? No, Bush Bust

Read 'em and weep, Georgie. The new Time poll numbers are out and they look grim for the Boy King:

A spate of good news at home and abroad has so far failed to boost how Americans feel about President Bush's job performance. Bush's approval rating slipped to 35% in a TIME poll taken this week, down from 37% in March (and 53% in early 2005). Only 33% of Americans in the survey said they approved of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq, vs. 35% in March, and 47% in March 2005. His management of the U.S. economy lost supporters, too, as 36% approved, compared with 39% three months earlier. Bush's handling of the war on terror saw a slight gain in support, from 44% to 45%.

Yes, in spite of the cheerleading being done by the right wing drones at FOX and pathetic kiss ass-suck ups like Chris Matthews and Fred Barnes, the American people continue to have buyer's remorse. They continue to reject the biggest presidential failure since James Buchanan in the 1850s.

By the way, Bill Clinton's approval ratings in his second term never dropped below 52% in any public opinion survey.

Heh heh heh.

The New York Times: Republican Witch Hunt Victim and Campaign Rallying Point

The utterly dishonest and incredibly vicious attacks on The New York Times for publishing "classified" data have one motive and one motive only: to stir up the so-called Republican base into a lather of hatred just in time for the 2006 election. This editorial from The Progressive Daily Beacon sums it up nicely:

None of this chest-thumping and bluster is because Bush, Cheney, and Republicans truly believe national security has been compromised. Shortly after 911, Bush and Cheney told the world on several television programs that the government would begin tracking terrorist finances. More than that, according to CNN, an outline of the SWIFT program has been posted on the UN website for quite awhile. Should Bush and Cheney be rebuked in Congress or, as one FOX News "expert" said of the NY Times, shot for treason? No, of course, not! This is just more Bush and Republican election-year scheming.

Think about it: It is election year 2006. The Republicans and Bush have offered up their Gay Hate Amendment. Then they participated in a fake debate on Iraq in the Senate, so they could stand around calling Democrats silly names who, by the way, offered up a plan for Iraq that had later been -- more than less -- endorsed by Bush's very own, General Casey. Once the Republicans completed that exercise in absurdity, Bush and Alberto Gonzales arrested seven "terror" suspects in Miami. "Terrorists" who didn't possess a single bomb, no bomb making material, not one gun, and had no ties to al-Qaeda. The Miami terror-scare-seven were supposedly "homegrown Islamic terrorists" who, as it turns out, get their inspiration from the BIBLE. Finally, in election-year '06 Republicans carted out the old Flag-Burning Amendment. Notice a trend here? Well, it is simply more of the same regarding the New York Times.

Amen. This is utterly predictable right wing demagoguery. One of my constant themes on this blog has been the total lack of scruples and standards of decency in Republican campaigns. This latest farce is simply an excuse for the lunatic, radical right that runs America to try to intimidate and silence anyone who disagrees with them.

Stand up for press freedom. Stand up for the First Amendment. And dammit, stand with The New York Times on this one. They've got a lot of faults, but this story isn't one of them.

Typical: Republican Sen. Candidate in NJ Will DELIBERATELY Spread Lies

Wretched little punk Tom Kean, Jr. (I emphasize junior to differentiate him from his father, who has some integrity) has announced that he will use Swiftboat tactics to attack the campaign of Democratic Senator Robert Menendez. And no, the Swiftboat term is not coming from me--it's coming from him:

Kean campaign officials have sought to erode their opponent's public biography, charging that virtually every moment of Mr. Menendez's career has been mired in graft and bossism. That includes his early days in Union City, where Mr. Menendez has said that he acted to thwart a racketeering scheme involving his own political associates and organized crime figures — a claim that is documented in public records and corroborated by independent authorities.

Nevertheless, the Kean campaign will challenge that biography in "a long-form film," Mr. Leonardo said, just as commercials broadcast in 2004 attacked Mr. Kerry's military record. Those commercials, relying on claims by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, purported to expose Mr. Kerry's military decorations as exaggerated or fraudulent. Although the premise and many elements of the Swift boat advertisements were strongly disputed, as a whole they were seen as successful in hobbling the Kerry campaign.

"The similarity between the Swift boat ads and this movie — you have two individuals who have told stories for a political purpose and the facts just don't jibe," Mr. Leonardo said. "And these two individuals were able to get away with telling it their way for more than a decade and a half. I would say it's very similar in that way."

Mr. Kean's most serious charge is that Mr. Menendez was "part of a massive illegal kickback scheme" as a Union City official in 1978, and not the courageous truth teller depicted in his résumé. Mr. Kean charges that Mr. Menendez cooperated with prosecutors to keep himself out of jail.

Mr. Kean's charges are not, however, supported by the public record and were repudiated by independent authorities including the four assistant United States attorneys who prosecuted Union City officials of that era for racketeering and corruption. There is no truth, those former officials say, to the Kean campaign's charge that Mr. Menendez made a deal to keep himself out of prison.

[Emphasis added]

Yes, folks, just when you think these Republican bastards have hit bottom, they manage to dig a trench and dive deeper. Kean is morally and ethically bankrupt and his political career deserves to be utterly destroyed. I hope this bullshit blows up in his face. After he loses to Menendez on 7 November, I hope he fades into a well deserved life of failure and obscurity.

A Devastating Message to the Mainstream Media

You know them, don't you? The ones responsible for giving us the most inept, incompetent, dishonest leadership in our country's history? Well, one correspondent to another blog has a pretty strong summary of their sins--and what they should do about it:

All those years of making excuses for George W. Bush's ineptness, inadequacies, and illegalities have earned you absolutely nothing. You brushed aside his lack of experience and intellectual incuriosity in 1999 and 2000, mostly because you didn't like Al Gore. Your behavoir gave him a much better position from which to steal the 2000 election.

You bought the spin from Bush's minions, ignoring the crisis that was taking place in Florida after the election. You believed every lie they came up with, from 'The votes have been counted and re-counted and re-counted' to 'Al Gore is trying to steal the election,' and you decided that letting Bush take office (in the most literal sense possible) was 'best for the country.'

You papered over the fact that he was scared out of his mind on September 11, 2001 - to the point where he flew to Idaho to hide - in favor of painting him as a 'resolute leader.' You swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, every lie that came out of the White House in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq - in many cases embellishing the lies to make them sound more plausible.

You let the elite members of your profession use their positions as opinion-shapers to shove cooked intelligence down the throats of the American public. You placed that cooked intel on the front pages of every newspaper and magazine in the country, and you played that cooked intelligence at the top of every hour on your cable news outlets.

You never once asked, 'Where is Osama bin Laden?'

You followed him, with your TV cameras, to every single place he went to vent his spleen about terrorists, giving him hours and hours of free face time to repeat his lies. You ignored that people were being arrested for speaking against him, that his audiences were hand-picked, that protestors were being put in pens at great distances from every venue in which he ever appeared.

You bought 'Mission Accomplished' by the pound. You cleared the shelves of 'shock and awe,' exhausted the stocks of 'smokin' 'em out,' drank gallons and gallons of GOP Brand Kool-Aid. You 'embedded' youselves with the military and took everything the military told you at face value - even if it directly contradicted reality as we know it.

You reported staged events like the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue as if they were real news events. And even after the American public started to wise up and wipe the terra-dust from their eyes, you still insisted upon calling him a 'popular president.'

You helped his employees ruin the reputations of fine men who served this country honorably - letting them compare a man who gave three limbs in service to this country with Osama bin Laden. You took a highly-decorated war veteran - you know, the kind of person that you all love to say you 'support' and 'honor' - and ran his reputation into the mud, somehow making his exemplary service seem shameful.

You justified Bush's expansion of executive power to the point where we don't even need Congress, giving them their new job of stage managers for completely meaningless staged events like the Terri Schiavo fiasco or railing against gay marriage and making sure nobody burns an American flag or dares utter the words that Iraq is bleeding us dry, killing our kids and destroying our reputation as 'the good guys,' worldwide.

You made excuses for his illegal spying on the American people. You offered weak justifications for his naked power grab, you laughed off the fact that his second-in-command shot a man in the face.

You made Ann Coulter socially acceptable.

And after all this, Bush and Cheney and Congress and Coulter and every wingnut pundit, whom you've coddled and accomodated every step of the way, show their appreciation how?

They want to muzzle you. They want to imprison you. They want to try you for treason.

Although I've reproduced most of the post, go check out the poster's recommendations for what the media should do about all this.

And then say, "Amen."

Veterans Attack Phony Flag Amendment

Of all the ways the Republicans (and Democrats too intimidated not to go along with it) try to distract Americans from the terrifying failures of right wing governance, the anti-Flag burning amendment, offered up every election year, is perhaps the most ludicrous. Flag desecration is rare. As a national problem, it is of ZERO importance. This whole charade is merely an absurd Punch 'n' Judy show, giving people an excuse to whack those whose views they hate. It's about as far removed from real sacrifice and real, put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is patriotism as possible. It's the kind of thing designed to make people feel good, kind of like putting a yellow ribbon on your SUV.

I despise flag burners, but I despise the American Nazis, the Klan, and Stalinists, as well. But you know something? The assholes have a right to express themselves, too. So I was encouraged to see this:

The most decorated war veteran in the Senate, Hawaii Democrat Dan Inouye opposed the amendment. "This objectionable expression is obscene, it is painful, it is unpatriotic," Inouye said of flag burning. "But, the winner of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, told the Senate, "I believe Americans gave their lives in many wars to make certain all Americans have a right to express themselves, even those who harbor hateful thoughts."

Inouye was hardly alone in that sentiment.

"The First Amendment exists to insure that freedom of speech and expression applies not just to that with which we agree or disagree, but also that which we find outrageous," explained former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, in his classic statement of opposition to attempts to craft a "flag-burning" amendment. "I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away."

Former U.S. Senator John Glenn, a World War II Marine Corps veteran and space-program hero, shares the view that it is not necessary to alter the Constitution. "Those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, who died following that banner, did not give up their lives for a red, white and blue piece of cloth," said Glenn. "They died because they went into harm's way, representing this country and because of their allegiance to the values, the rights and principles represented by that flag and to the Republic for which it stands.

Lawrence J. Korb, a Vietnam veteran and top aide in Ronald Reagan's Department of Defense, said, "(During) my years of military and civilian service during the cold war, I believed I was working to uphold democracy against the totalitarianism of Soviet Communism expansionism. I did not believe then, nor do I believe now, that I was defending just a piece of geography, but a way of life. If this amendment becomes a part of our Constitution, this way of life will be diminished. America will be less free and more like the former Soviet Union and present-day China.

James Warner, a former prisoner of war and domestic policy adviser to President Reagan, argued against the proposed amendment, saying, "People are born free. It says that in the Declaration of Independence. They have a right to express their opinions, even if I don't like the opinions they express or the means by which they express it. They have a right to say it, even if those opinions are incoherent."

Luckily, before they voted, a good many senators considered the words of these veterans, and of Gary May, the chairman the national group Veterans Defending the Bill of Rights, who said. "I lost both of my legs in combat while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam. I challenge anyone to find someone who loves this country, its people and what it stands for more than I. It offends me when I see the flag burned or treated disrespectfully. But, as offensive and painful as this is, I still believe that those dissenting voices need to be heard."

Yes, this is one of those issues that separates the Americans who really understand what America is about from the ones who don't. I'm proud to be an American--and I'm proud to oppose this nonsensical pseudo-patriotic measure.

Yet Another Right Wing Child Molester Convicted

This time, it's the guy who made up a wildly dishonest anti-Clinton ad in 2000. It doesn't really surprise me, to be honest.

A jury deliberated almost two days before convicting Carey Lee Cramer, 44, of aggravated sexual assault of a child, two counts of indecency with a child by contact and one count of indecency with a child by exposure. He was cleared of nine other charges Tuesday.

The sentencing phase of the trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday. Cramer faces up to 149 years in prison.

Republicans: The Party of Family Values

Things the Republicans in Congress Think Are Important, and Things They Don't

Yes, it's the so-called "American Values Agenda" and it's the usual carload of right wing insanity. This is what Congress thinks we should be focusing on:

The "American Values Agenda" also includes a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage — which already has failed in the Senate — a prohibition on human cloning and possibly votes on several popular tax cuts.

"Radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom and redefine the value system on which America was built. We hope to restore some of those basic values through passing this legislative agenda and renewing our country's commitment to faith, freedom and life," Speaker Dennis Hastert' R-Ill., said Tuesday.

The priorities are part of competing attempts by the two parties to appeal to target voters in the fall campaign, with control of the House and Senate at stake. It's unclear how many of these bills might clear Congress and reach President Bush's desk, given the controversy many will cause and the relatively short time remaining before the two-year Congress ends.

Still, political strategists argue that by bringing controversial issues to a vote, one party can broadly emphasize differences with the other on an issue such as abortion, and increase the determination of its own supporters to go to the polls. Several GOP aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Republicans were hoping to increase voter intensity among conservatives.

"Radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom"?? Absolute raving, lying bullshit. This whole sewer of legislation Hastert and the other rightwing thugs are pushing is the same tired collection of measures intended to stir up hatred of gays, make gunowners paranoid, score meaningless pseudo-patriotic points, and feed Religious Right persecution fantasies. Yes, it is indeed merely an election year ploy to stir up the ugliest of the right's fanatics and get them to the polls.

Meanwhile, David Sirota makes a strong case for what's really wrong:

- The American Journal of Public Health reports more than 1,700 African Americans die each week because they don't have the same access to health care as other Americans.

- The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 110 workers die each week in workplace fatalities - many of which could be prevented by better enforcement of basic workplace laws by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (which is being gutted by budget cuts).

- The Pentagon reports roughly 15 American soldiers die each week in Iraq.

- The Institute of Medicine reports 346 Americans die each week because they lack health insurance.

- The Environmental Working Group reports that 192 Americans die each week because of exposure to asbestos.

Please, please, PLEASE, in the name of what is right, sane, fair, and truly American, PLEASE give the Democrats--

• Your money.
• Your time.
• Your effort.

We can go on letting America be swindled, lied to, and distracted by the Republicans who are dragging this country into catastrophe, or we can fight back.

There isn't much time left. What will you do to stop the phony "American Values Agenda"--and force Congress to look at real American values?

Now Damn It, THIS Is How You Fight Back!

I love it! Right wing scumbag Senator George F. Allen tried to question Democratic Senate candidate Jim Webb's patriotism, and Webb RIPPED Allen a new one:

Arlington—The campaign of U.S. Senate candidate Jim Webb today called the attacks on Webb’s patriotism by Allen’s campaign, “weak-kneed attacks by cowards” and demanded that Allen and his campaign apologize.“George Felix Allen Jr. and his bush-league lapdog, Dick Wadhams, have not earned the right to challenge Jim Webb’s position on free speech and flag burning. Jim Webb served and fought for our flag and what it stands for, while George Felix Allen Jr. chose to cut and run. When he and his disrespectful campaign puppets attack Jim Webb they are attacking every man and woman who served. Their comments are nothing more than weak-kneed attacks by cowards. George Felix Allen Jr. needs to apologize to Jim Webb and to all men and women who have served our nation,” Webb spokesman Steve Jarding said. [Emphasis added]

On Tuesday, George Felix Allen Jr. and his campaign issued a press release in which the Allen campaign, through Wadhams, implied that Webb’s position in support of the Free Speech Amendment to the U.S. Constitution amounted to a political act and not a defense of our Constitution, which Webb fought for and for which he was highly decorated. George Felix Allen Jr. did not serve.“I believe it is precisely because of bush-league attacks [Heh!] like this that John Zogby, a highly respected, independent polling expert just this week said that Dick Wadhams is not fit to serve as a campaign manager and that George Allen should find a new manager,” Jarding said.“While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.’s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada. People who live in glass dude ranches should not question the patriotism of real soldiers who fought and bled for this country on a real battlefield,” Jarding said.

Oh YEAH, baby! HELL yeah! If John Kerry had counterattacked the lying Swiftboat assholes two years ago as fast and as mean as Webb just counterattacked George Felix Allen (AKA "Waste of Skin), the history of our country would be a lot happier now.

I Just Want to Hear Him Deny It

There is a story in politics, commonly attributed to Lyndon B. Johnson, about how LBJ wanted to circulate a rumor attacking his opponent in a Texas election. Johnson, it's said, wanted to spread the story that his opponent liked to have sex with barnyard animals. One of LBJ's aides said, "We can't prove he's a pig f----r."

"I know that," replied Johnson. "I just want to hear him deny it."

Rush Limbaugh was detained for several hours at the Palm Beach airport yesterday for having non-prescription Viagra (and maybe some other stuff as well, it's not clear). He was returning from the Dominican Republic, a popular "sex tourism" destination where rich white men can have sex with underaged, desperate, sex-slave Dominican girls. Putting two and two together, I wonder: is that why Pigboy was down there, committing legal rape with the help of his non-scrip ED medicine?

I can't prove it. I just want to hear him deny it.

Bush Bounce? Bull.

Check it out, gang. He's still DESPISED by the vast majority of the country.

Kos Fires Back at Right Wing Clown David Brooks

Since conservative New York Times columnist and Bush apologist David Brooks has seen fit to attack the entire Democratic/liberal/progressive/left blogosphere, our friends at Daily Kos (who have been the specific target of Brooks' ire) led by mcjoan, have decided to fire back. It's both devastating and hilarious. Brooks is exposed as the very articulate wanker and fraud that he actually is. I enjoyed it tremendously.

The sheer damned nerve of someone like Brooks is amazing to me. Right wing hate radio has been spewing out lies and filth for more than a decade. Republican shills Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly call anyone who dares to criticize Dear Leader a traitor and a terrorist lover. Republican campaign operatives, led by Karl Rove, attack Democrats with every vile, despicable charge imaginable. (My "favorite": a Republican National Committee pamphlet in 2004 which said that Democrats want to outlaw the Bible!!) And who is responsible for lowering the national level of discourse? Why, us, of course, in the Dem/Lib/Prog/Left blogosphere! What a crock.

Hey Davey boy. It's called fighting back. I know you prefer your Democrats to be all cringing and apologetic and meek. Too bad. You and the other conservative shills are helping to destroy our country by aiding and abetting the worst collection of liars and outright thieves in American history. Those of us in the opposition are going to fight you tooth and nail. If you don't like it, that 's too bad.

Deal with it.

Russ Feingold: My Kind of Democrat

In regard to Connecticut's primary battle, he hits EXACTLY the right note: he will support the winner of the Democratic Primary, whoever it is. That, by the way, is something Joe Lieberman refuses to say. Money quote:

Senator Feingold gets it. This is not about betraying a member of the Senate Democratic caucus or about sending the right or wrong signal to the Beltway press. This is about democracy in action. This is about allowing Democratic voters, and not the party bosses, decide the fate of the party. And no matter how the Democratic electorate in Connecticut votes in August -- whether it is to renominate Joe Lieberman for a fourth time or to give Ned Lamont the opportunity to run in the general election -- Democrats should, just like Russ Feingold, pledge to support the Democratic nominee.

Damn straight. I'll even--choke--support Lieberman, if only to keep the seat (nominally) Democratic.

But I'm still for Ned Lamont.

Very Cool

Check this out to get a sense of perspective. (Be sure to scroll all the way down.)

I Saw Jonathan Kozol Last Night

The esteemed author of Savage Inequalities and The Shame of the Nation was speaking Friday night at the school at which I teach. I have only read brief excerpts from Kozol's books and an article here and there. I was completely unprepared for how passionate, informed, funny, and caring he really is. And his message is an important one.

It is Kozol's contention that we are abandoning our poorest kids to lousy educations because we refuse to spend the resources on the poor that we need to. The source of the funding disparities in American education? Reliance on property taxes as the chief source of school funding, which means that in devastated inner city schools, the money just isn't there. He made a number of powerful and compelling points, which I'd like to summarize briefly:

• The states with the four most segregated school systems (in order) : New York, Illinois, Michigan, and California.
• Sometimes wealthy people who spend over $40,000 a year on New England prep schools for their teenagers will ask Kozol, "Is money really the answer to education problems?" Kozol said that sometimes he just simply replies, "Well, it sure seems to work for your kids."
• His greatest inspiration and close friend? Fred (Mr.) Rogers, whom Kozol called one of the greatest advocates for children ever to bless our country. Kozol told a wonderful anecdote. He and Mr. Rogers were visiting an inner city school. A delighted little six year-old boy ran up to Mr. Rogers, hugged him, kissed him on the head, and said, "Welcome to my neighborhood!" (I kind of choked up hearing that because the ability to inspire that kind of love in children is rare. I genuinely respected Fred Rogers, who was a beautiful human being in every way, a genuine hero.)
• Kozol asked, (my paraphrase) "Why do the best people have the worst schools named after them?" He cited Martin Luther King and Jackie Robinson as examples, each of whom generally has wretched schools named in his honor. He asked why can't the bad schools be named for the people who are truly hostile to public education, like William Bennett, Clarence Thomas, or George W. Bush?
• Kozol earned my lasting gratitude for saying what I've contended for a long time: the purpose of "No Child Left Behind" is to humiliate the public schools by demanding such high standards (my favorite example is 100% math proficiency in all high school students by 2014) that no public school could possibly meet them. This will allow the Radical Right to label the public schools as failures, and "soften the ground" (Kozol's phrase) for privatization of the school system and vouchers.
• Kozol ripped into high stakes standardized testing, saying it is doing terrible damage to genuine teaching. Many inner city principals are now so terrified of looking bad on standardized tests that they have their teachers doing nothing but drilling for the test, sometimes even to the point of reading scripts to the children, from which there can be no deviation. (This is tragic, in my view.)
• American public schools are more segregated now than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King.
• There are schools in Los Angeles so crowded that one teacher Kozol met had six classes a day of approximately 40 kids each. If you're not a teacher, you may not fully appreciate how staggering a burden that actually is. The school, with 5,000 kids, only has classrooms for half of them. The other half learn in trailers that have been set up next to the schools. How can kids in a such a setting compete on an equal basis with kids from beautiful, well-funded suburban schools? (My school is the latter, fortunately for me.)
• There needs to be more emphasis on aesthetic beauty in our schools. Ugly, decrepit surroundings kill the spirit of children. (Hear hear!)

I fully intend to immerse myself in Kozol's books, and I urge all teachers (and anyone else who cares about education) to sign up for his e-mail list. He is a true friend of teachers, principals, and above all, kids. And of course, that makes him a true friend of America.

"Are You an Ann Coulter Republican?"

Bingo! EXACTLY the question we need to start asking every prominent Republican in the country. We need to wrap America's #1 crack whore around the neck of the right wingers--and watch them squirm and try to weasel out of a response.

If the pundit-class Democrats were waiting for an engraved invitation [for an opportunity to demonize the Republicans], it just arrived.

The question, "Are you an Ann Coulter Republican?" should confront every Republican running for every office in the land, from President to dog catcher. Every Democratic candidate should accuse his or her opponent of being in favor of poisoning Supreme Court Justices and killing Congressmen. At every opportunity, every Republican should be made to answer: "Do you agree with Ann Coulter that the 9/11 widows are witches and harpies?" And George W. Bush, Tony Snow, Dick Cheney, Laura Bush and Barney (the only lapdog with a good excuse) should be confronted with these questions as well.

Republicans have been able to maintain a Kabuki symbiosis with all manner of cave-dwellers by speaking in an elaborate, dog whistle-like code. They hold racists, homophobes and rapture acolytes close enough to keep their votes without ever having to either publicly embrace or disavow such extreme viewpoints. That relationship with white-sheet America has been essential to their electoral strategy for decades.

But Ann Coulter has furnished us with a turn-key solution. We can now easily put them in the logical fork they should have been forced into years ago: disavow Coulter's vile, sub-human ravings, or embrace them. If they distance themselves from her, they risk alienating the mouth-breathers who demand such red meat as the price of their loyalty. If they embrace her, they lose significant swaths of the middle - the decent folks who are the reason Republicans talk about Dred Scott and "state's rights" rather than criminalizing abortion and gutting civil rights laws. ...

Many lefties wonder why we give Coulter the prominence she so clearly craves. They think we lose by raising her profile. But I think she is exactly the hate-contorted face we want on the Republican Party. We need to make Ann Coulter the third rail of Republican politics, just as Michael Moore was for Democrats two years ago. (They can be equally significant as symbols; there is obviously no comparison in talent or accuracy.) [Emphasis added.]

How will the Republicans choose? It matters little, so long as we force them to go one way or the other. Humanity lines up against her. But if they prefer to align with her, perhaps we can finally have an honest confrontation between an unmasked, rabid radical right and the rest of us.

Oh baby! I couldn't have said it better. As I've said before, Ann Coulter IS the Republican Party. She says what a lot of the rest of them think. Not only should we hold that wretched asshole herself accountable, we should hold the entire Republican Party acountable for her. So remember, when confronting a Republican politician, ask the magic words:

"Are you an Ann Coulter Republican?"

Keith Olbermann is My Hero

Watch this CLASSIC video takedown of a right-wing buffoon who falsely accused American soldiers of committing a war crime in World War II.

Thank you, Keith. Thank you again.

Republican Puppets in Congress Kill Halliburton Oversight

Is there a corporation in America more corrupt, more thieving, more dishonest, and more rapacious than Halliburton, "Dick" Cheney's old company? Now that Enron has sunk, it really has no competitors. Halliburton has been exploiting and ripping off American soldiers in Iraq, gouging and cheating them in every way. Democrats introduced measures to gain some control over this situation, but, predictably, the Republicans in Congress dutifully obeyed the White House and killed the measure.

The corruption the Democrats uncovered was shocking:

"What we have discovered is pretty unbelievable," said [Democratic Senator Byron] Dorgan last week. "We have direct testimony from physicians, Army doctors, and others about providing nonpotable water for shaving, brushing teeth that is in worse condition as water than the raw water coming out of the Euphrates River."

"Let me describe some of the firsthand eyewitness issues in Iraq," Dorgan continued. "Brand new $85,000 trucks that were left on the side of the road because of a flat tire and then subsequently burned. 25 tons, 50,000 pounds, of nails ordered by Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), the wrong size, that are laying in the sands of Iraq. 42,000 meals a day charged to the taxpayers by Halliburton and only 14,000 are actually served."

After telling the amazing tale of the KBR Halliburton subsidiary ordering hand towels for soldiers embroidered with the "KBR" logo, to allow them to double the price of the towels, Dorgan told one Halliburton whistleblower's story of his company serving food date-stamped "expired" to American troops rather than throwing it away.

"[Halliburton was] serving food at a cafeteria in Iraq for the soldiers, and a man named Roy who was the supervisor in the food service kitchen said that the food was date-stamped 'expired,''' said Dorgan. "In other words, it had a date stamp, which meant the food wasn't good anymore, and he was told by superiors that it doesn't matter. Feed it to the troops. It doesn't matter that they had an expired date stamped - feed it to the troops."

But apparently the support-the-troops types on the Republicans side of the aisle only support them until their major contributors are caught feeding them possibly-tainted food before they go into battle - at that point, I guess the love is gone.

But, lame excuses in hand, the Republicans in Congress decided to ignore all that. Our "patriotic" Republicans care more about their campaign contributors than they do our troops.

NOW are you going to get going and start working for a Democratic victory on 7 November?

More Lying BS from Republican Criminal Cheney

"Dick" Cheney continues to peddle the astonishing lie that the Iraq War is contributing to the safety and security of the United States, the same discredited "fight 'em there so we don't have to fight 'em here" idiocy. The Boston Globe swats this garbage down hard:

To begin with the obvious, Britain and Spain were both fighting in Iraq, and it didn't prevent them from being attacked. Whatever has accounted for the quiet at home, it isn't the combat in Iraq.

In addition, ``security and safety" have not exactly been the lot of all Americans in the last few years. Just before Cheney made his remarks, the US death toll in Iraq reached 2,500. The administration can breathe a sigh of relief that the tally is unlikely to reach the 3,000 mark that most people associate with Sept. 11 when the fifth anniversary of the attacks arrives in three months. But the number is close, suggesting that as a counterterrorism campaign, the war in Iraq has been a massive error. One might ask the vice president whether it would not be more correct to say that the terrorists are not attacking us in the United States because it is easier to kill Americans in Iraq.

If the strategy is working, then the number of terrorists should be declining. But a State of Iraq chart published in The New York Times last Friday shows the number of foreign fighters -- those most likely to carry out attacks against Americans -- is growing, up to 1,500 from 1,000 a year ago. Those migrating to Iraq are not the remnants of Al Qaeda. Instead, as studies by the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz and the Saudi researcher Nawaf Obeid have shown, they are newly radicalized individuals with scant experience in Islamist violence.

Iraqi insurgents -- an increasingly jihadist cohort -- now number 20,000, according to the Times chart, a 20 percent increase over the last year. That comes after a year in which US troops were scoring regular successes against the rebellion.

Yes, Cheney will continue to spout the same lying bullshit no matter how much evidence piles up against it. As PBS demonstrated this past week, Cheney was the driving force behind the Iraq disaster and the lies necessary to get it going. Cheney has a personal stake in defending this catastrophe, and he doesn't give a DAMN that 2500 Americans and 30,000 Iraqis have died (so far) because of his monumental fuck-up. For Cheney, it's now all about saving face.

Disgusting. Unsurprising but disgusting. And by the way: where are the so-called "mainstream media" on Cheney's company and its subsidiaries doing business with both Iraq AND Iran back in the 80s and 90s, in violation of American law??

Just asking.

Democrats, Define the Issues!

Don't let Republican bullshit like "cut and run" or "stay the course" shape the election year narrative.

On Iraq (thank you, John Kerry!):

THEY LIE AND DIE

and (Thank you Josh Marshall):

THE REPUBLICANS: MORE OF THE SAME

And for the national election, not some wimpy slogan like, "Together, We Can Do Better". Let the Democratic battle cry be,

HAD ENOUGH?

or

STOP BUSH. VOTE DEMOCRATIC!

Let's take the damn gloves off.

Just So We're Clear (Again)...

• The Republicans have killed off measures to raise the minimum wage, on which 7 million workers, mostly adults, depend.
• The Republicans continue to push for the repeal of the Estate Tax, a move which will benefit about one-half of one percent of taxpayers.
• The Republicans are blocking the renewal of the Voting Rights Act.
• The Republicans have raised the national debt limit by $3,000,000,000,000 in the last few years and are still working to make Bush's tax cuts for the upper class permanent.
• The Republicans are pushing to give the U.S. permanent bases in Iraq.

And that's just this week.

Lying Idiot Santorum Claims to Have Discovered WMDs!

Little Ricky is truly going off the deep end in the face of his impending electoral annihilation on 7 November. He claims that WMDs were indeed discovered in Iraq and therefore Bush's war was fully justified. Unfortunately for him, his claims are neither novel or significant:

"While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991," the Iraq Survey Group reported in 2004. "There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered."

"The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," said President Bush in October of 2004, as cited at Think Progress.

"There is nothing new here," said Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) in a statement. "Nothing in this report, classified or otherwise, contradicts the Duelfer Report, which assessed that we would find degraded pre-1991 weaponry in Iraq.

Harman also blasted what she feels is selective declassification by the Bush administration. "When the intelligence community disseminated classified intelligence conclusively establishing that one of the Vice President's much-touted justifications for war was blatantly wrong, my request to declassify that information was denied," she added. "When the request comes from Republicans and can be spun in an attempt to support a Republican position, however, the answer is markedly different."

What. A. Cretin. Santorum has truly become pathetic.

Here's a Fun Game! Who Said It--Hitler or Ann Coulter?

Check your aptitude here!

CIA: Osama Bin Laden WANTED Bush to Be Re-"Elected"

That's the explosive story being put out by Ron Suskind, author of a new book on the war on terror called The One Percent Doctrine. (You can see Suskind discussing with Wolf Blitzer this and other revelations from the book here.)

Why would Bin Laden want Bush to win in 2004, and to that end, why would he release his inflammatory tape the weekend before the election? Simple. Bush has been the greatest recruiting tool imaginable for Bin Laden. Bush's sheer ham-fisted incompetence, his couching of the war in terms that make it sound like a Christian crusade, and his disastrous decision to invade Iraq have all enormously assisted Al Qaeda. Based on his private sources, Suskind is confident in asserting, therefore, that the CIA concluded in 2004 that Bin Laden was supporting Bush.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: W--Bin Laden's favorite enemy.

The Washington Post's Pathetic Lies

In a powerful piece in today's Consortium News, Robert Parry tears the latest lies and distortions of the Washington Post's editorial board to shreds. Some of you out there might still think that the Post is some kind of liberal icon, but it isn't. This isn' the Watergate era Post. This is the Bush apologist Post, the Neocon loving Post, the Post that helped lead our country into its disastrous misadventure in Iraq. The WAPO editorial board has long been dominated by disgusting cheerleaders for Bush and Cheney. The board's members miss no opportunity to attack and smear anti-war critics. Parry's key points:

More than three years into the Iraq War, the Post’s top news executives remain steadfast defenders of Washington’s neoconservatives who pushed the dangerous doctrine that military invasion was the way to “democratize” Muslim countries in the Middle East. In 2002-2003, the Post’s senior editors cast Iraq War skeptics out of the polite opinion-page society – and are still at it.

After last week’s House debate on Iraq, here is how the lead Post editorial treated Bush’s critics for favoring a prompt U.S. military withdrawal:

“Many Democrats, looking to exploit bad news without appearing to rejoice in it, demagogued about presidential ‘lies,’ obtusely denied any relationship between Iraq and the war on terrorism and called for troop withdrawal without honestly facing the consequences of such a move.” [Washington Post, June 17, 2006]

If you parse the Post’s comment, you would have to conclude that Democratic war critics are truly despicable and crazy people. They eagerly exploit the “bad news” deaths and maiming of American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, while concealing a private joy over this mayhem for crass political reasons.

Parry is more polite than I am about these things. I scour the liberal/Democratic/Progressive blogosphere every single day. I have found NO "rejoicing", overt or covert, about U.S. losses, on ANY of them. Those of us on the Center/Left mourn, with genuine grief, every American casualty of Bush's insane, tragic, needless war. To imply that those of us on this side of the fence are happy to see our wonderful young men and women killed or injured is a fucking lie. And for the Post's editorialists to contend that there is some kind of actual relationship between the war against terrorism and the War in Iraq is so appallingly dishonest that it should discredit the Post permanently.

The Post has drunk the Bush Kool Aid completely. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it asserts that no one in the Bush Administration lied about anything related to the motives for the war. Read Parry's article, and then you'll do what I did when thinking about the WAPO's lies, slander, and Bush propaganda:

You'll call bullshit.

PBS's Frontline: Cheney Was the Driving Force in the Iraq War Fiasco

Disbelief. Frustration. Deep anger. These are the reactions I predict you'll have if you watch a rebroadcast of PBS's Frontline documentary, "The Dark Side". (Not able to see a rebroadcast? Then watch it online here beginning Thursday afternoon.) The meticulously researched show leaves no doubt in one's mind: Cheney manipulated and pressured the intelligence community to give Administration officials confirmation of their pre-conceived notions, mainly that Iraq had WMDs and that Al Qaeda and Saddam were connected. Never has Cheney's role been laid out so clearly--or so damningly. Watch it if you can.

And then renew your determination to politically neuter this bastard on Tuesday, 7 November.

"Jesus is Not a Republican"

This brilliant essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education by evangelical Christian Randall Balmer is one that deserves the widest circulation. Balmer is appalled at the alliance the Religious Right has made with a corrupt, morally bankrupt Republican Party. He says that evangelicalism in turn has been corrupted as the major Religious Right leaders seek to impose, by means of government compulsion, their own vision of a theocratic America on a pluralistic society. Balmer demonstrates that the moral compromises being made are completely and utterly distorting the true message of the Gospel. A key passage demonstrates the force of Balmer's critique:

And what has the religious right done with its political influence? Judging by the platform and the policies of the Republican Party — and I'm aware of no way to disentangle the agenda of the Republican Party from the goals of the religious right — the purpose of all this grasping for power looks something like this: an expansion of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the continued prosecution of a war in the Middle East that enraged our longtime allies and would not meet even the barest of just-war criteria, and a rejiggering of Social Security, the effect of which, most observers agree, would be to fray the social-safety net for the poorest among us. Public education is very much imperiled by Republican policies, to the evident satisfaction of the religious right, and it seeks to replace science curricula with theology, thereby transforming students into catechumens.

America's grossly disproportionate consumption of energy continues unabated, prompting demands for oil exploration in environmentally sensitive areas. The Bush administration has jettisoned U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which called on Americans to make at least a token effort to combat global warming. Corporate interests are treated with the kind of reverence and deference once reserved for the deity.

The Bible contains something like 2,000 references to the poor and the believer's responsibility for the poor. Sadly, that obligation seems not to have trickled down into public policy. On judicial matters, the religious right demands appointees who would diminish individual rights to privacy with regard to abortion. At the same time, it approves a corresponding expansion of presidential powers, thereby disrupting the constitutionally mandated system of checks and balances.

The torture of human beings, God's creatures — some guilty of crimes, others not — has been justified by the Bush administration, which also believes that it is perfectly acceptable to conduct surveillance on American citizens without putting itself to the trouble of obtaining a court order. Indeed, the chicanery, the bullying, and the flouting of the rule of law that emanates from the nation's capital these days make Richard Nixon look like a fraternity prankster.

Yes, the Religious Right has indeed made a deal with the devil. It has done so in the hopes of establishing official government sanction for its leaders' theology. Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, Reed, and all the other corrupt, power-mad Pharisees of the Right want to sweep away the whole of America's political and philosophical tradition and do nothing less than establish a theocracy, a theocracy that will elevate Christian fundamentalism to a dominant political force that can never be legally challenged. I shudder at this possibility.

I urge you to read Balmer's entire essay. And I also urge you to share it with others. In this time of impending social disaster, it is vitally needed.

Andrew Sullivan: "What's Really Happening at Gitmo?"

Sully runs this profoundly disturbing piece today. If only a small part of it turns out to be true in the end, it's appalling. Bush, Cheney, and Attorney General Gonzales have authorized brutal and savage treatment of terror suspects--whether those suspects have been shown to be actual terrorists or not. This treatment makes a mockery of American ideals and has dragged us into the very territory which we accuse (rightly) our enemies of occupying.

Look, I know the Islamist terrorists are bastards. I know they treat their own prisoners atrociously. Is that really the standard of behavior to which we want to be held? I know there are plenty of Americans who cheer what's being done at Guantanamo. And many more refuse to believe it. (For many months, I was one of the latter.) But the evidence is getting too overwhelming to ignore. All real patriots should find these accusations deeply troubling. It is simply one more terrible chapter in the sordid, atrocious story of the catastrophe that is the Bush Republican administration.

Republican Child Molester Helping to Run GOP Campaign in Arizona

This kind of thing has become so disgustingly typical that I really can't say I'm surprised any more:

A man convicted of "corruption of minors" after being accused of having sex with two teenage girls is working as the campaign manager for a Republican candidate for Congress in Arizona, according to documents obtained by ABC News. Steve Aiken, a former Quakertown, Pa. police officer and self-proclaimed reverend, was convicted of two counts of corruption of a minor stemming from his 1995 sexual relationships with two teenage girls. He served almost two-and-a-half months at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.Aiken is listed as campaign manager for Randy Graf, a Republican in a five-way primary for the Congressional seat in Arizona's 8th district.

**********

Since his conviction, Aiken also has worked as a spokesperson for the Traditional Values Coalition, a Washington lobby group that represents over 43,000 churches. A spokesman for the Coalition would only say, "He is no longer with us."

They hired the son of a bitch AFTER his conviction?? Didn't they check??

Aiken says the Secret Service raised his convictions when he was invited to a White House event in Sept. 2004. Aiken says he was eventually able to explain and gain access to a series of special briefings for Republicans inside the White House. [Emphasis added]

Well, Thank God he's not one of those morally degenerate liberals. He could never have gotten a briefing in the White House if he sank that low.

He still has good conservative values. After all, he's only a child rapist.

Again: Traitor Rove Was NOT Exonerated; He Simply Got Away With It

Arianna Huffington demolishes the idiocy and lies surrounding Karl Rove's escape from indictment in this typically powerful post:

But even if he's never charged, Rove still confirmed the identity of a covert CIA operative to Bob Novak who then published it. He leaked it to Matt Cooper who, unlike either Novak, tried to expose what the Bush White House was up to. Rove then lied about being the source of the leak for a year, in the process hanging Scott McClellan out to dry by letting him tell the press and the American public that Rove had assured him he had no involvement with the leak.

And, even if you believe Rove's improbable tale that his conversation with Cooper had somehow slipped his mind, he was reminded of it by Viveca Novak via Luskin by the spring of 2004 and could easily have ended Cooper and Time's prolonged fight to protect him as a source and told the president that he had been one of the leakers (saving his boss from the embarrassment of vowing to fire anyone involved, then pulling back on that pledge once it became clear that that would mean cutting loose his beloved Turd Blossom).

Rove: Professional smear artist. Pathological liar. Traitor. A person who puts the interests of the Republican Party above all and doesn't give a damn about America.

That's why he's the Boy King's favorite advisor.

A Story You Need to Read About Republican Election Theft

This is one of the most troubling, enraging things I've ever read about our political system. It's a story of outrageous, shocking Republican vote fraud, vote suppression, and outright criminal behavior. It credibly calls into question the legitimacy of not only the 2000 election, but that of 2002 and 2004. It is a dire warning of what is happening to our democracy, as the Republicans have hijacked it and bent it to their own ugly, dishonest ends. I know I often take an urgent tone in my postings, an urgency driven by my profound anxiety for the future of our beloved country, but this is indeed something you should read. Some brief excerpts among the author's MANY examples and observations of Republican fraud:

It [Election Day] was a long hard day. I stayed at the EP headquarters from 6:00 in the morning until 8:30m that evening. I don't think I had one minute to myself that entire time.

One of the last phone calls I fielded was from a volunteer who had witnessed some election officials carrying the official ballot box at her precinct into a room where no one else could see what was going on. When she was prevented from following she called me. I asked her if any Democratic poll watchers had been present as the box was carried off. She said she wasn't sure but that she'd try to check. She called back in a little bit to say she couldn't be sure, but that now the ballot box had been taken out to someone's car and placed in his trunk. She had noticed that the official seal had been broken before the man got in his car to leave.

It doesn't seem right. Should I follow him? she asked me.

It was late. I knew she's been there all day in the rain. I knew the early reports had Kerry winning Ohio (and much of the rest of the country) based on the exit polling. Most of all I was tired and ready to get back to my Hotel and get some dinner. I made an executive decision.

No, don't worry about it, I told her. I'm sure one of the Democratic Party observers knows what's going on. Come on back.

Are you sure? She asked. Yeah, I'm sure. Just write up a report when you get back. She said okay, and hung up.

Later that night, sitting on my hotel bed, watching TV as the "official" returns came in, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. Miraculously, stunningly, what had appeared to be an easy Kerry victory was fading away leaving behind a bitter taste in my mouth, as state after state switched from the Kerry column to the Bush column. I kept remembering that last phone call. A gnawing anxiety, fueled by my guilty conscience, began worming its way through my gut. I'd made the wrong decision. I'd fucked up big time. I finally turned off the television around 1:00 a.m. too depressed to keep watching.

In the weeks and months that followed I read as much as I could about the trail of "dirty tricks" by Republican operatives, the myriad of "irregularities" that somehow always favored Bush over Kerry, the affidavits from voters of intimidation, long lines, etc., that made it difficult to vote if you lived in a Democratic precinct, and all the various statistical analyses that tended to show just how improbable Bush election had been. But I didn't need convincing at that point. I already knew the election had been stolen.

I'd know since that night lying on a bed in a Hilton Hotel, far from my family and friends. Known even before I got a call from my daughter, in tears over Kerry's defeat, and anxious for her older brother, about what a Bush victory could mean for his future. I knew because I'd just been a witness to it. Nothing I'd done had prevented it. Not the money I contributed, nor the time I had put in as a volunteer. Not one damn thing.

***********

...at present we are at the mercy of a silent coup. One where the media and the leadership of the Democratic Party have been effectively muzzled. One that is watered by a spigot of corporate money pouring into the coffers of Republican politicians and lobbyists. And one that is beholden to the radical agenda of certain fundamentalist right wing Christian pastors whose congregations provide the organizational muscle to pull it off. People ask if this is really happening why don't the Democratic leaders believe it? I think they do. I think Al Gore and John Kerry both know their presidencies were taken from them. And I think many of their fellow Democrats believe it too. But they're afraid to talk about it, afraid of destroying their political careers should they ever dare to speak about what they know to be true. So I'm writing this diary to let them know that I believe that these elections have been stolen. And there are many more like me. We'll have their backs if they ever have the guts to do what Mark Crispin Miller and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have done, which is simply to speak the truth. Our elections are a sham and its about time more people started saying so, inside the Democratic Party, and out in the progressive net roots. Because until we conquer our fear of this topic, until we confront our denial of the truth, we have no hope of taking back our country from the criminals and fanatics that are now in charge.

That's why.

I hope you'll join me.

You better believe I will. How about you?

Democrats, RIP INTO the Republicans on Social Security

The radical right is going to try it again if they win this year, folks. They're going to try to privatize Social Security, despite the overwhelming rejection of privatization by the American people in 2005. Bush's attempt to push this atrocious step was defeated overwhelmingly, and it set his administration on the path to ruin (along with his total incompetence in dealing with Iraq). But Democrats seem to have forgotten the positive energy of this victory. Josh Marshall reminds them of the importance of this crucial issue:

Social Security works for Democrats on two distinct levels. The first is on a simple level of values.

At least three full generations of Americans have lived under a system in which Social Security is fully woven into the fabric of American life. With deceptive polls, supporters of privatization managed to fool themselves into believing that the public supported replacing Social Security with private accounts, but they don’t. The spring of 2005 showed that quite clearly.

But that’s not the only way the Social Security issue works for Democrats. What last year’s Social Security privatization drive showed was that the vast majority of congressional Republicans weren’t willing to stand up to President Bush when he was pushing a policy their constituents opposed. They cheered the president’s efforts, praised his vision and in most cases were willing to sign on to his effort. On this key issue they put their political connections above the people who put them in office.

Some of those Republican members of Congress even resorted to ridiculous tactics to avoid coming out with a clear position on the issue and a clear choice between their constituents and the head of their party — stunts that should make them mockeries this year on the campaign trail.

Hear hear! Along with the massive confusion and anger surrounding the new Medicare "drug benefit", the Republican attack on Social Security is just the thing we need to win back the overwhelming majority of America's seniors--voters who deserted us in 2004. (Had seniors voted Democratic at the rate they did in 2000, Kerry would probably have been the clear winner.)

Democrats, don't let the voters forget who established America's most successful social program ever--and don't let them forget that the Republican radicals are attempting to ruin it.

Slapping Down Republican Lies on the Economy

The inimitable bonddad on DKos has again just slapped down more Republican lies concerning the actual state of the U.S. economy. The Republicans, who took a SURPLUS of $128 billion when they took over and converted it within two years to a DEFICIT of $337 billion are crowing about the effectiveness of their financial management(!!) Amazing! It's as if FEMA was bragging about what a damn good job it did in New Orleans! Republicans are again talking the same, discredited, idiotic supply side-trickle down trash that's been shown to be bankrupt again and again and again. The Right is arguing that the tax cuts are "paying for themselves". An absolute falsehood. Key points:

According to the CBO, revenues from individual taxpayers decreased from $994 billion in 2001 to $793 billion in 2003. In other words, the first tax cut decreased revenue by 20%. I don't remember any trumpeting of this achievement three years ago...

According to the CBO revenues from individual taxpayers totaled 809 billion in 2004 and 927 billion in 2005 - 6.7% less than when Bush took office. So after two tax cuts, we will probably have tax revenue levels above those when Bush took office 4 years after the first tax cut. Meanwhile, discretionary spending increased from 825 billion in 2003 to 967 billion in 2005 - an increase of 17%. So, through the end of 2005 we have a decrease in individual revenue of 6.7% and an increase in discretionary spending of 48%. Finally, the Republicans -- the party of fiscal conservatism -- have increased total debt from 5.6 trillion to 8.3 trillion over the last 5 years. That's [2.7] trillion dollars invested in government securites that could have been invested in the private economy. This is not the record of success; it is the record of blind adherence to a now debunked theory (if you can call something written on a cocktail napkin a theory.)

Remember there is no lie the Republicans will not tell in order to keep their place as the primary looters of the American people. Their policies are pushing this country to catastrophe. We need to keep fighting them with the thing of which they are most terrified: the truth.

Ronald Bailey's Message to Libertarians: Vote Democratic!

In an important article in Reason magazine, Ronald Bailey lays out a compelling case for libertarian-minded voters to go with the Democrats this year: the need to block Bush and Cheney's radical right wing agenda and Bush's incessant attack on our civil liberties. Key paragraph:

The Democrats are right about one thing—the Republicans on Capitol Hill have slithered into a comfortable culture of corruption. It's not just the corruption of too cozy relations with lobbyists, but it is also the corruption of power wielded without restraint. The federal budget under the Bush Administration—ably helped by the big spenders in the Republican House and Senate—is hemorrhaging money faster than LBJ's Great Society did. In addition, the Bush Administration and Congress revealed even more incompetence in their bungled response to the flooding of New Orleans by hurricane Katrina. Congress is wasting time on debating and voting on the Gay Marriage Amendment and the Flag Protection Amendment. And even worse, the Republican Congress supinely allowed the rise of an imperial presidency which authorizes wide-scale domestic spying, the torture, and indefinite detention of prisoners—policies that make the president into judge, jury, and jailer. The Bush Administration even asked the Department of Justice about the legality of halting the 2004 presidential elections in the event of a terrorist attack. Why? After all, the recent Iraqi elections were not halted because of terrorist attacks and Spain went ahead with its general election three days after the Madrid train bombing in March 2004. Finally, let's not forget the tragic mismanagement of the war in Iraq.

I couldn't have made a better list myself. I've argued for years that libertarians should be making alliances with Democrats. Democrats have been chastened by their setbacks. They are now the party of fiscal responsibility, even fiscal conservatism. They are the party committed to defending civil liberties, personal freedom, the right to privacy, and open government. Whatever other differences libertarians have with Democrats, one thing is clear: the Republicans are the avowed enemies of everything libertarians hold dear. If we are to stop the establishment of a Republican-run theocracy in the United States, we need to work together. So to all libertarians, I say,

"WELCOME ABOARD!!"

A Republican Senator Being Interviewed

The Republican Strategy for 2006: Smear the Democrats as Weak, and Run on the Corpses of 9/11

This memo from the House Republican leadership lays out the essence of the Republican strategy in the upcoming election: smear the Democrats as weak and cowardly and invoke 9/11 as an excuse for Iraq again and again and again. (By the way, isn't it interesting that Republican cretins use the term "Democrat Party" instead of Democratic. I guess adjectives are tricky for them.)

I suppose after all the years I've spent studying Republican campaign filth I shouldn't be surprised or shocked, but I still am. There is literally NOTHING Republicans will not do to win. There is no lie, no trick, no dishonesty, no slander to which they will not stoop. From the Republican National Committee distributing a pamphlet in 2004 which claimed that Democrats wanted to "outlaw the Bible" (!!) to Republican brownshirts in Congress braying that Democrats "support Al Qaeda", the Republicans have shown a willingness to sink to gutter level repeatedly. They have to be fought; they have to be defeated. So it's time for Joe the Broken Record to repeat the following:

• Recruit as many people as you can to kick $10 a month in for their favorite Democratic candidate.
• Don't let the Republicans count the votes. Take legal action if necessary to demand a verifiable voting paper trail. Fight the installation of Diebold touchscreen voting.
• Attack right wing assholes online, on TV, and in the print media. Write e-mails and letters, especially to media idiots like Chris Matthews who relentlessly smear Democrats and kiss Bush's ass. Let these Republican media whores feel the heat--big time.
• Register as many new Democrats as you can, and get them to the polls on 7 November.
• Volunteer your time to Democratic campaigns.

Folks, we are in a war for national survival here. Traitor Karl Rove is already implementing his newest slanders and spreading his latest bullshit. Are you just going to sit there and take it--or are you going to fight back?

I know it sounds cliched, but it's true--our children need us to do this. Please, in the name of what is right and decent, don't let them down.