Bush and Cheney Lying Through Their Teeth About the Escalation--er, I Mean the Surge

And more than 500 people were killed just days ago by suicide bombers.

Are you really surprised? They claim violence is down and that U.S. losses are down. Both are simply damned lies.

(Hat tip: Juan Cole, Kevin Drum)

Fighting Back: An Excellent Example

A fighting Democrat, Brent Budowsky, lays the lumber to Fox "News" and all of its lying con artist helpers here. Budowsky is referring to a right winger who was blatantly lying about him:

Strange but true: the distorted vision of media promoted by Fox News lies at the heart of the Republican problem...

Fox will have a segment with an inherently demeaning title implying Democrats are soft on terrorism or unpatriotic. They bring together a partisan and biased right-wing host with the partisan help hired by the Republican right. Then they find the weakest Potemkin Democrat they can, and conduct a pseudo-debate in Putin style that is rigged from the beginning.

For several years, it worked, but it has now become an albatross around their necks...

The more they win their one-sided debates in their unfair and unbalanced echo chamber of delusion, the more they lose touch and the more they lose votes.

Anyone reduced to calling me an über-lefty is out of fighting shape, and I feel her pain. I am glad she enjoys my writing; she would enjoy even more what I privately advise senior Democrats to do, which is consistent with what I write publicly...

We need to fight back EVERY DAY against the Radical Right's Noise Machine. This is a strong example of how you do it.

Can Nothing Be Done to Stop a War With Iran?

The fanatics who control our government and the propagandists who work for the "news" organizations that support them are going to start a massive propaganda push soon after Labor Day for a war with Iran, a war they claim to be already in progress. All the despicable outlets of radical Right propaganda--Fox "News", The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the neocon "think tanks"--will be baying for blood and demanding that other people's sons be sent off to die. The Democrats in Congress are too ineffectual and timid to offer strong opposition to this madness, and I really am convinced Bush and Cheney no longer care what people think of them. Glenn Greenwald, as usual, has some incisive thoughts about all this, right here:

The groundwork for an attack on Iran is so plainly being laid in the same systematic way as the attack on Iraq was and by the same people. Last week, [Greg] Djerejian read and then dissected the full "trip report" issued by [Kenneth]Pollack and [Michael] O'Hanlon following their return from Iraq. In addition to including even more propaganda-bolstering claims about Iraq than was found in their Op-Ed, Djerejian noted that the report also recites the most mendacious aspects of the administration's case for war against Iran, including the truly idiotic accusation regarding "Iran's ability to supply al-Qa'ida" -- an accusation so absurd that nobody other than Joe Lieberman has been willing to voice it until now. Yet now it issues from our most Serious Democratic, "liberal" foreign policy "scholars": Iran is arming Al Qaeda.

The true danger here is that even if there would be marginally more political opposition to an attack on Iran than there was for an attack on Iraq -- and surely there would be, perhaps considerably more opposition -- those who favor an attack are still politically strong within the administration. And there simply are no factions which would oppose such an attack that are anywhere near strong enough to stop one. Who and where are they? What are the political factions which have sufficient political strength and who are willing to risk political capital to stop such a confrontation?

By stark and dispositive contrast, those who are pining for an attack on Iran -- from the Weekly Standard to the AEI and various generic warmongers of the Dick Cheney/National Review strain, as well as our most pious evangelical Christian warriors -- are zealous adherents, True Believers. Bringing about a military confrontation with Iran has always been, and continues to be, their paramount priority.

Unless there is a strong and concerted groundswell NOW to stop this insanity, I fear the consequences will be even more horrendous than those which grew out of the deeply ill-advised war in Iraq. The lunatics are running the asylum, folks--and they're dragging us all down to disaster with them.

In the name of what is decent and rational, won't somebody do something?

UPDATE: Check out this sickening video. It compares what Fox "News" was doing to stir up war in Iraq and what they're doing to stir up war with Iran. G-d damn it, they're pulling the same bullshit again, and they need to be CALLED ON IT.

Get a Sense of Perspective

You can find it here.

Or, you can get it in a different way here.

It's Time For One of My Favorite Lists!

It's the big list of Republican sex offenders!

Aw, what the hell, let's look at this one, too! (There is some overlap, of course.)

And don't forget Sen. David Vitter (hookers), Sen. Larry Craig (trolling for gay sex in a public restroom), and Ted Nugent (statutory rape, in all probability).

And what was Rush Limbaugh doing with Viagra on an "all guys" trip to the underage sex capital of the Western Hemisphere, the Dominican Republic? And does Rush like teenage girls or teenage boys? Just asking (Fox "News" style, ya know).

"Fair Tax": Prescription for Disaster

There is renewed talk right now of abolishing the income tax, FICA, the estate tax, and all other federal taxes and replacing them with a 23% national sales tax. The idea is being bandied about by former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, one of the Republican candidates for president. While the idea might seem superficially plausible, it would in fact be an economic catastrophe. An unusual, radically anti-tax organization called Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership has a surprisingly comprehensive and well-argued attack on the Fair Tax proposal here. Among its highlights:

We're likely to end up with both a national sales tax and an income tax. Even if legislation required abolition of the income tax (as HR 25 does), a “national crisis” would soon cause the income tax to be “temporarily re-instated” and the Internal Revenue Service would remain in our lives on an “emergency basis” that never ended.

Likelihood: High probability.

It gets worse. A 1998 analysis by the William Gale of the Brookings Institute calculates that in reality (to pay all current government expenditures while also compensating for such factors as tax evasion), the national sales tax might have to run as high as 67 percent. AFT disputes that high figure. But they do not dispute that their initial “23 percent” tax rate would actually be achieved by adding 30 percent to the purchase price of goods.

Bruce Bartlett a senior fellow for the National Center for Policy Analysis, slams the 23 percent claim, also, saying it's too low even to cover current government spending. He writes in the National Review:

When Congress' s Joint Committee on Taxation scored the Linder proposal [The “Fair Tax Act”] four years ago it estimated that it would actually require a tax-inclusive rate of 36 percent, not 23 percent, to equal current federal revenues. Calculating the rate in a normal, tax-exclusive manner would mean a 57 percent rate.(2)

Likelihood of the tax actually being more than 23 percent: Certainty.

**********

Inflation will kill you. For decades, the income tax gradually crept up as government-caused inflation pushed Americans into higher and higher tax brackets. This outrage caused horrific hardship before Congress was finally forced to index the income tax to the inflation rate (meaning that if your income goes up with the inflation rate, your tax rate doesn't). There is no indexing with the sales tax. As goods become more expensive, you have only two choices: pay more in taxes or do without the things you need.

Consider just one example. You've been saving to buy a new house. That house now costs $260,000 (which is already 10 times what your parents would have paid for an identical house in 1968). Your “FairTax” on that home will already be a whopping $78,000, for a total purchase price of $338,000. Then government printing presses go into high gear. While you're still saving up for your down-payment, double-digit inflation takes over and the price of your house zooms 20 percent in one year. The house now costs $312,000. Your “FairTax” on that house is now $93,600 for a total purchase price of $405,600. And you have to wait another year to buy it. And if inflation continues to go up, your hopes recede even further. (And all this is without mentioning the increased mortgage interest you'll have to pay over the decades to cover both the government-caused inflation and the government-benefiting tax.)

Likelihood of inflation boosting the sales tax: Certainty

**********

The FairTax is monumentally unfair to retiring Baby Boomers. People who have paid 1/4 or 1/3 of their income in taxes for 40 years will now have to pay an equally high tax on all the after tax income they've managed to put aside for their retirement. Every time Boomers buy anything with their lifelong savings, they'll be double taxed.

Likelihood: Certainty

**********

The tax will be used to track your entire financial life. While H.R. 25 does not contain any requirement that every purchase be linked to an individual's ID, the trend toward tracking every purchase is growing. We expect that eventually, your “national ID cash card” will be required when you buy anything. Or giant databases will combine the records of your credit cards, store loyalty cards, radio-frequency ID tags on merchandise, government ID, etc. into one vast set of interlinked records, immediately accessible to – and subject to manipulation by – government agencies.

Therefore, the national sales tax will eventually be used to track – and manipulate – what we purchase. Instead of merely being profiled by Wal-Mart or Safeway, your buying habits will be available in detail to the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, university researchers – you name it.

**********

Although the tax is initially only to apply to services and new items, here's another projection: Swap meets, farmers' markets, gun shows, and garage sales will automatically come to be considered prime places for black market activity. Either the tax will eventually be extended to used items, or all such free markets will eventually be heavily regulated and patrolled – or banned outright as havens for the new anti-sales tax criminals and resisters.

Likelihood: Certainty (of black markets); high probability (of regulating used and private sales)

And remember – to whatever extent some people manage to keep more of their own money through black-market purchases, those who buy on the legal (taxed) market will end up paying higher taxes to feed the insatiable federal government.

**********

The national sales tax will give government another reason to make cash purchases illegal. Because buying with cash will make it easier to evade the sales tax, taxing authorities will quickly conclude that buying with cash is a sure indicator of criminal activity. The federal government has already classed all large cash transactions (in some cases, that means amounts as low as $750) as “suspicious.” Expect cash purchases of all sorts eventually to become criminal under the sales tax regime. After all, as government and the media will soon tell us, “It used to be that big drug dealers and crooked businessmen evaded taxes on large purchases. But now millions of Americans are cheating their countrymen every day by evading tax on billions of small, but cumulatively huge, purchases of milk, coffee, CDs, and tee-shirts!”

**********

Cash purchases, of course, will also make it more difficult for government social engineers and corporate marketers to make sure your buying habits meet their standards. Cash purchases make it harder to tell whether you're guilty of eating too much butter, consuming too much beer, or owning too many guns. That will be yet another reason to make all purchases trackable. But the excuse given will be to prevent the terrible crime of sales tax evasion.

Likelihood: High probability.

Absurdly, the article concludes by advocating the abolition of ALL taxes. (Now how in the hell do these people propose funding such activities as defense, infrastructure maintenance, national law enforcement, and all other vital services provided at the Federal level, not to mention Social Security, the abolition of which would be a disaster?) Still, the article makes persuasive arguments, and ones that I think need to be heeded.

Even lunkheads can be right sometimes.

Knocking Down Bush's Vietnam "History" Lesson

You can read about it here.

Don't let Bush lecture us about a conflict that he couldn't be bothered to get involved in. He's either lying or ignorant or both. And he's dead flat wrong--as always.

Piece of Human Excrement Nugent Threatens Democratic Candidates

Can you IMAGINE the uproar that would result if a Democratic entertainer said something like this? (And listen to the audience reaction. That's the most disgusting part, and it shows what of kind of repulsive assholes think Nugent is cool.)

The monstrous double standard in American society still stands: Democrats get crucified as "traitors" for merely criticizing Dear Leader; Republicans get to make death threats against Democratic leaders, and escape scot-free.

Nugent, by the way, is not a fringe figure in right-wing circles. He appears on Fox "News" and this summer got a guest editorial on the Wall Steeet Journal's insane asylum of an op-ed page. He also appeared at Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry's inauguration. Additionally, he is a friend of George W. Bush. All of the people who give him prominence and recognition should be made to answer for this scumbag imbecile and his vile threats.

By the way, check out my recent post about Nugent here.

Ted Nugent, draft dodger, woman-hater, racist, machine gun worshiper: Proud Spokes"man" for the Republican Party.

Poor guy. It must be tough when even Viagra doesn't help any more.

The Radical Right Now Wants to Ban Birth Control

Yes, you read that right. They particularly want to ban the birth control pill and all emergemcy contraception. Read about it here.

For now, the candidates vying for the Right to Life endorsement are doing their best to avoid directly answering mainstream voters' simple questions on the subject, such as, "Do you support couples having access to safe and effective birth control options, including emergency contraception?" Considering that even 80 percent of self-described "pro-life" voters and a majority of Republican voters strongly support contraception, it's no wonder why.

These people are amazing. They hate abortion and so they want to ban contraception, which will prevent abortions. They ludicrously claim birth control is a form of abortion. They also seem to think it's their right to impose their so-called "morals" on the private lives of everyone in America.

We need to flush out the rightwing Republicans on this. Make them tell the adult population of America--and especially women--that they have no reproductive rights at all. Make the Republicans say it over and over again. Make them highlight it in their platform and at their convention.

And then watch them lose by even more than they were going to anyway.

Stupidest. People. In America

Ya think you've heard it all, and then you hear about this.

You feel embarrassed for people like these cretins.

Fuel from Sugar? Why Not?

Newsweek has an interesting article on how Brazil has done it.

Why not us?

Look, if Hillary is the Nominee, I'm Supporting Her 100%

If there is one thing we can say about the Republicans, it's that while they may have the knives out for each other before the convention, they come together afterward and they vote for their nominee. If Giuliani is the nominee, the radical pro-life people WILL vote him, and I don't give a rat's ass what Dobson says. They stick together because, as insane or delusional as their ideology might be, they understand something basic. In order to govern, you have to WIN THE G-D DAMNED ELECTION. A lot of people seem to have trouble with this concept.

I'm old enough to remember 1968, back when I was a teenage member of the Dark Side. Richard Nixon, facing a split conservative movement (Wallace to his right), won by the narrowest of margins. Hubert Humphrey wasn't the ideal candidate in the eyes of many Democrats, and a lot of them either didn't contribute money to him in the fall or work for him in the general election campaign. Worse, many of them stayed home on election day. Humphrey came within striking distance in New Jersey, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, and California, but he fell short. Think of the terrible consequences that followed: the Cambodian bombing, 25,000 additional dead Americans in Vietnam, Spiro Agnew as Vice President, reactionary Supreme Court judges, and perhaps worst of all, the "Southern Strategy", as Nixon moved to the right to grab the Wallace voters. When George McGovern was destroyed in 1972, we saw the end result of giving Nixon the power to do all this. Ever since '68, the Democrats have faced an uphill struggle, and one that could have been avoided if they all had forgotten their anger and worked for, given money to, and voted for Humphrey. That's the real consequence of "ideological purity."

We saw a similar catastrophe in 2000, as the Nader voters foolishly withheld their support from Gore (97,000 in Florida alone) and made the election close enough for Bush, Cheney, and Rove to steal by way of what can only be called a right-wing coup d'etat. Do I REALLY have to remind you of all the hideous consequences of that coup? I think not.

Now, we have "purists" in the party who declare they will not vote for Hillary if she is nominated. They are willing to let a dangerous fascist like Giuliani or a two-faced liar like Romney seize power other than violate their "principles". They object to this policy of Clinton or that policy of Clinton, and so are prepared to plunge this country into a THIRD BUSH ADMINISTRATION. And such people think of themselves as "good"!! It's enough to make me go nuts.

Let me tell ya, pal, John Kerry wasn't my first choice in 2004, but I worked my heart and soul out for him, and in Wisconsin, a team of fantastically dedicated people (my contribution was very minor compared to many up there) won the state for Kerry. When Democrats put aside their differences, they WIN. When they get in a huff and decide to stay home, they LOSE. And in losing, they allow the radical right wing criminals to drive this country into the abyss. They allow the neocons to stir up insane wars. They allow the Theocons to destroy church-state separation. They allow fanatics to wipe their ass on the Bill of Rights. That's what happens when we fail to pull together.

Hillary is not my choice. I'd love to see Al Gore as our nominee, or failing that, John Edwards. But if Hillary is the nominee, I want to make a few things clear to all of you:

I WILL GIVE MONEY TO HER CAMPAIGN.

I WILL REGISTER PEOPLE TO VOTE WHO ARE FOR HER.

I WILL WRITE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FOR HER.

I WILL CAMPAIGN FOR HER DOOR TO DOOR, BY PHONE, AND OVER THE INTERNET.

I WILL PASS OUT OR MAIL OUT LITERATURE FOR HER.

I WILL GIVE PEOPLE RIDES TO THE POLLS ON ELECTION DAY.

I WILL VOTE FOR HER AND ROUND UP STRAY VOTERS WHO HAVEN'T VOTED YET.

Because, you see, I fully understand the basic premise here: A Republican victory in 2008 will push our country closer to its death and will have the most terrible consequences for the whole world. It will vindicate Karl Rove. It will mean letting neocon psychotics like William Kristol continue to drive us toward disaster. It will allow the religious fundamentalists to continue to ride roughshod over everyone else. Hillary is not my choice, but she is so much better than ANY Republican that I will have no moral or ethical choice but to go all out for her. If Hillary is our nominee, I will be 100% on her side.

Got it?

Sean Hannity: Lying Son of a Bitch

Hannity is FALSELY accusing Barack Obama of having called U.S. troops murderers, when the record clearly contradicts his fraudulent propaganda. Media Matters nails the greasy little punk here.

And no, I don't care if my title seems too blunt. After you look at this, you'll feel the same way.

Truly Ugly and Depressing

It may be a feature of all wars, but that doesn't excuse it or make it any better.

(Hat tip: Sully)

More of That Great Republican Economy

Whenever some Beltway moron tells you that prices are mostly stable "except for food and energy", please remind them that these are TWO OF THE FREAKIN' THINGS EVERYBODY HAS TO HAVE!! (And isn't it interesting--two oilmen seize power in 2000 and the price of gas almost triples in six years.)

I jes' gets crazy sometimes.

Setting the Record Straight

Take a look at this post, where you can see Jon Stewart of the Daily Show knocking down the lies of one of Cheney's defenders, a biographer. The Cheney acolyte he was talking to actually had the nerve to assert that no one has been called traitor because they opposed the war. Vyan on DKos sets the record straight in powerful fashion:

--Ann Coulter : Barack Obama's Lead in the Polls is "Good for Al-Qeada"
--Townhall : Liberals hate fellow Americans more than terrorists.
--Fox News: Let's find the Happy Insurgents now that Democrats have taken over Congress.
--Bill Kristol : Obama's anti-war stance shows that he would have been pro-slavery.
--Right-Wing Radio Pundit Buzz Patterson : "Democrat politicians, big media, academia, popular culture, and nongovernmental organizations" of forming "a Fifth Column" that is "facilitating defeat against Islamo-fascism" and that Most Liberals are Traitors.
--Radio Host Mike Gallagher on Fox News: the U.S. government should "round up" actor Matt --Damon, "The View" host Joy Behar, and MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann and "put them in a detention camp until this war is over because they’re a bunch of traitors."
--Fox News Host : Wall Street Won’t Let A ‘Puny Little Traitor (who leaked the NSA Story)...Take Down Our Market’
--Bill O'Reilly on Cindy Sheehan : I think Mrs. Sheehan bears some responsibility for this [publicity] and also for the responsibility for the other American families who lost sons and daughters in Iraq who feel this kind of behavior borders on treasonous.
--Tom Delay : Pelosi and Reid are getting "very, very close to treason" by opposing the Iraq war.
--Donald Rumsfeld : War Critics are like Hitler Appeasers
--Neil Cavuto : "Did Americans who took Hugo Chavez’s oil today commit treason?"
--Melanie Morgan : New York Times editor Bill Keller is guilty of treason and that "Keller and his associates" should be thrown "in prison for 20 years.
--Michael Reagan : Howard Dean should be arrested and hung for treason."
--Coulter : It is simply a fact that Democrats like Murtha are encouraging the Iraqi insurgents when they say the war is going badly and it’s time to bring the troops home... They fill the airwaves with treason...These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors.
--Dennis Hastert : liberals want to take "the 130 most treacherous people, probably in the world...and release them out in the public eventually."
--CNN host Chuck Roberts: Ned Lamont is the Al Qeada Candidate.
--Cal Thomas : The Taliban wing of the Democratic Party cannot countenance any "heretics" who do not toe their line.
--South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson : "Which one of the Democrat [sic] contenders are going to take [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] to task about giving aid and comfort to the enemies by claiming the global war on terror is lost?"
--Dean Esmay on New York Times reporters: "Exposing such a secret program is not whistle-blowing -- it is high treason. When I say 'treason' I don't mean it in an insulting or hyperbolic way. I mean in a literal way: we need to find these 21st century Julius Rosenbergs, these modern day reincarnations of Alger Hiss, put them on trial before a jury of their peers, with defense counsel. When they are found guilty, we should then hang them by the neck until the [sic] are dead, dead, dead."
--Michael Savage : former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright "should be tried for treason, and when she is found guilty, she should be hung."
--Coulter on the Hamdan Decision : [Y]ou just expect Democrats to side with Al Qaeda." Coulter also stated that she couldn't "imagine that this country could have won World War II if this is the way one of the parties was behaving."
--Rush Limbaugh : "Did (Joe) Wilson lie about Niger? Did Wilson commit treason?"

Yes, the right wing psychotics get in full homicidal maniac mode when it comes to dealing with anyone who dares to oppose their reckless, insane, America-destroying policies. Cheney himself has accused those of us who oppose the continuation of this useless war of being disloyal. Little Punk Sean Hannity likens liberals to terrorists. This is nothing less than American Fascism at work, and we can't let these bastards get away with it. We're not only going to nail the Lunatic Right every time they throw this vomit at us. We're going to defeat them.

Totally.

Utterly.

Completely.

Count on it.

On Jobs, The Republican Record of Failure is Clear

Remember how the tax cuts--the same ones that have added over $3 TRILLION to the national debt--were going to add all kinds of jobs for the benefit of America's workforce? Read 'em and weep:

The plain fact of the matter is that job creation under Bush has been LOUSY, especially when compared to our last successful president, Bill Clinton. The only thing the Bush tax cuts did was to reward Bush's supporters and cronies. On the job front, they failed miserably.

Just like Bush himself.

Best. Blog Post Title. Ever.

You can find it here.

Beautiful. Good article, too.

Gingrich's Vile Fear Tactics

The utterly loathsome Newt Gingrich, prominent conservative Republican, strikes another low blow. Yes, illegal immigrants are more a more dangerous threat than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (You can find a sane discussion of the effect of illegal immigration on crime here.)

Yeah, when the GOP is slumping, you can always whip up the Republican base by bashing the Mexicans. I mean, those Hispanics are so...dark and menacing and hard to understand. No wonder conservatives hate them. They're so different, after all, from... actual people.

I Can't Say It Any Better Than This

Jim Moore, writing in Huffington, has a devastating piece today on the pile of treasonous slime that goes by the name of Karl Rove. Rove, as you may already know, has resigned from his position in the White House. Moore is the most tireless chronicler of Rove's vile career, a career which has had effects on the health of our political system that can only be called disastrous. Moore swings the hammer against Rove hard:

Rove's great mind might have been put to great use. Instead, he has decided to view as an enemy any fellow citizen who doesn't think like him and his party. All of the institutions of our government, like our judicial system, which used to be considered politically sacrosanct, have now been polluted by his political ambitions. Changes in environmental regulations allowing the clear-cutting of forests have been renamed The Healthy Forests Initiative while deregulation of factories discharging dangerous particulates into the air has taken on the Roverian brand of The Blue Skies Initiative. He hides our own complicity in his disgusting work through the manipulation of language and we are comforted and less resistant. We all ought to be ashamed; not just Karl.

People wonder what his future will be and I'd like to think there will be a moment of atonement for Karl but he has not shown a shadow of conscience. He will command great fees for public speaking and is likely to be on retainers to dozens of corporations seeking his influence and insights. Of course, he will write a book and offer his perspective on the Bush administration; he cannot stop himself from spinning. I, however, still believe in the truth and its survivability and am confident history will condemn Rove and view him as a man who divided his own country to win and cared not a scintilla about the consequences of his actions beyond political victory. I have been accused for more than 25 years of overstating Karl's importance and his influence but I am certain history will judge him the most profoundly disturbing political force our country has seen in almost 100 years.

Amen to that! In the third item I ever posted on this blog, in June 2005, I asserted that Rove was a cancer on the American political system. (There is still an active link in that post, by the way, to an article from The Atlantic on Rove's despicable career. I urge you to read it.) Karl Rove is the worst person in American politics, in my view, and that's saying something when you think about a political system that has vomited forth Bush, Cheney, and all of their lying right wing sycophants. He is the nerve center of all of it. He is a pathological liar, a sweating, pudgy, amoral little pimp for whom our nation's traditions and laws are little more than toilet paper. May the Democratic Congress have the guts and spine to keep investigating him. May he be prosecuted and convicted. And may he end up rotting in a federal penitentiary, like any other traitor.

Rudy Giuliani's Pathetic 9/11 Lies

This son of a bitch has been exploiting the 9/11 atrocity for his own benefit for six years. He shamelessly and ruthlessly campaigns on the corpses of the World Trade Center's victims. Now, he brazenly declares that he is an "expert" on terrorism. The Village Voice responds with a thunderous, "Like hell you are." This exhaustively researched article nails Giuliani's lies in a devastating manner.

At every turn Giuliani has been untruthful. In every way he has grossly exaggerated his anti-terrorism credentials. And remember, it was "Rudy" who insisted on putting the emergency command center for New York City in the WTC--against the advice of his own experts. Giuliani's incompetence helped cause the deaths of more than 100 firefighters at the WTC, because they had to deal with inadequate communication gear--gear Giuliani had failed to upgrade. (Maybe that's why the heroic firefighters hate him and are working against him so passionately.)

Giuliani is just another Republican fraud trying to pass himself off as a hero. He is nothing of the kind. He's a ghoul who is using the dead to push his wretched political career. Learn the facts, and then remind yourself what a bloody disaster this bastard would be as president.

Want a third term for Bush? Elect Giuliani.

Egad, I Love Charles Pierce's Writing

He's got a wonderful letter in Alterman today, great even by his formidable standards. You can read it all here. Highlights:

Note to Keith Olbermann: You know I love you madly, and John Gibson [of Fox "News"] is indeed a pompadoured hack with a grin like a Gaboon viper, but giving an autographed photo to a political organization so said organization can raise money off it really is a very big no-no for a newsperson.

**********

In short, and I know that I'm taking a big chance in saying this, but Mitt Romney is without question the biggest and most obvious fake ever to attain public office, and that includes Jesse Ventura and Caligula's horse. The larger point is that, to win the nomination of the clown college that is the modern Republican Party, he almost has to be. Why this is the case, it would seem to me, is worth a few minutes on our television chat shows, which seem now endlessly devoted to the topic: The Democrats -- What In Hell Is Wrong With Them, Anyway? There's a really big fish in a really small barrel over here, kids.

Gawd, I just love it!

Quite Possibly, This is the Most Important Thing You Should Do Today

It's to join Wes Clark in his national effort to stop the catastrophe of a war with Iran, a war that our insane vice president is pushing for. If we flood the White House with millions of emails, maybe it will give the upper hand to those in the Bush Administration who are trying to stop Cheney's ultimate act of madness. It's not the only thing those of us opposed to this incredibly reckless act should do--but it's a start.

Sign Wes's petition here.

The Danger of Declaring America a "Christian Nation"

And it isn't just that it excludes non-Christians like me from being considered "real Americans". It's also that the designation practically cries out this question: Which variety of Christianity are we supposed to be? The Founders understood the dangers of this demand for official recognition. The omissions of the words "Jesus", "God" and "Christian" from the Constitution were NOT oversights; they were deliberate, despite the fact that most founders were Christians. (Although not all--Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson were very probably Deists.) This article sums it up pretty well, usimg a current controversy as its springboard:

On August 6, 2007, the New York Times reported on an interesting dispute between the campaign of Sam Brownback and that of Mike Huckabee. According to Times reporter Sarah Wheaton, the following remark set off the dispute:

“‘I know Senator Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002,” Mr. Rude wrote. “Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor’s.” The message struck some as an attempt to highlight Mr. Brownback’s Catholicism in a state with a large Protestant electorate.

The comment interested and even amused me, because on another website, I’ve recently been fielding comments from people who believe that we live in “a Christian nation.” Yet here they were, Catholic and Protestant political figures, quarreling just as they did back in the 16th and 17th centuries-the very reason that a separation was proposed between Church and State.

My correspondents also informed me that the Founders were personally devout and orthodox in their views and that the Constitution was derived from the Bible. No doubt they also believe that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of our legal system (actually, it’s the Code of Justinian.)

It’s hard to figure where in the Bible my correspondents found any discussion of checks and balances, the separation of powers, the regulation of commerce, or impeachment.

What about the influence of John Locke? I asked them. Locke, himself a devout Christian from a Puritan family, inspired Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom written in 1777 and passed, thanks to James Madison, in 1786. Jefferson’s statute is particularly indebted to Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), which you can read in its entirety here. In it Locke declared, “Neither Pagan nor Mahometan, nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion. The Gospel commands no such thing.”

The attempt to set a religious test for public office, which now seems to be firmly a part of Republican politics, is potentially deadly for America. Do we REALLY want the State to be taking sides in Christian doctrinal disputes? Do we really want to exclude Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, atheists, and simple deists from being defined as Americans in the true sense? The radical right wants America to be a theocracy. Nothing could be more tragic for America's future than for these people to get their way.

Oh Please Oh Please Oh Please!

Please let the Republicans nominate him.

The Way the Right Wing Criminals Operate

Phoenix Woman explains it here.

If I believed in hell, these bastards would be heading there just for what they did to Vince Foster.

WTF?? Pat Tillman's Uniform and Diary Were BURNED After His Death?

Just what in the G-d damned hell is going on here?

Did they not want America to find out that Pat was a liberal Democrat and a Kerry supporter? That the man whose death Bush was using as a propaganda tool loathed Bush and Cheney and their illegal Iraq war?

I want some f---ing answers.

Right Wingers: We Can't Fight Poverty, But We Can Subsidize Fox "News"

Here you go, folks--yet another reason the right wing hypocrite frauds need to be voted out of office: Fox News' parent company paid no taxes in two of the past four years despite enormous profits, because of government sponsored corporate welfare. Yes, we can take care of Rupert Murdoch, but we can't take care of millions of people hanging on by their finger nails.

My GOD, I loathe these radical Republican bastards.