DeRosaWorld

Bush/Cheny/Bin Laden Game Plan

From The New York Times October 14, 2001:

"They are the nightmares, the worst confluence of misguided decisions and startling violence, that politicians and oil executives ponder briefly and then shoo away:

That sympathizers of Osama bin Laden sink three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and choke off the narrow, bow-shaped channel that funnels 14 million barrels a day from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world. That the United States attacks Iraq, and Israel launches a huge strike against the Palestinians, driving them from their camps and staking out more land -- all of which spurs the Persian Gulf states to cut off oil for the West. Or perhaps that a popular uprising, led by sympathizers of Mr. bin Laden, topples the ruling Saud family in Saudi Arabia, by far the world's largest oil producer.

''If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he'd turn off the tap,''said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. ''He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel'' -- about six times what it sells for now.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the subsequent battering of the global economy have stretched the edges of imagination. Most Western politicians and oil industry experts say they believe assurances from the Middle East that oil supplies will stay stable as the American-led attacks on terrorist groups continue. But in such a profoundly changed world, they concede, anything is possible."

It seems like the Republican Party's neocon strategy takes its lead from Osama bin Laden. They have managed to execute the terrorist leader's global game plan almost perfectly including his $144 a barrel dream.

They are the nightmares indeed.

Obama And His Technicolor Dreamcoat

 

"Taking a page from President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday that he wants to expand White House efforts to steer social service dollars to religious groups.

Risking protests in his own party with his latest move toward the political center, Obama said he is stating long-held positions — surprising to some, he said, after a primary campaign in which he was “tagged as being on the left.”

In recent days, with the Democratic nomination seemingly in hand and a general election battle with Republican John McCain ahead, Obama has been sounding centrist themes with comments about guns, government surveillance and capital punishment. He’s even quoted Ronald Reagan.

But Obama’s plan on faith-based initiatives departed from the Bush administration’s stance on one fundamental issue: whether religious organizations that get federal funding for social services can take faith into account in their hiring. Bush has said yes; Obama says no.

“If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help, and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion,” Obama said Tuesday, touring a Presbyterian Church-based social services facility. “Federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs.”

So, ever since the Philadelphia race speech, I have been very nervous about our presumptive Democratic Party nominee. And the fact that he seems to want to be all things to all people is scaring me.

He is running against a fool and a despised and disgraced Republican Party. He should be taking the fight to them and kicking the ass of their most loyal and foolish supporters and that includes the hypocritical religious right.

Next we will be hearing that Dick Cheney is on his short list for Vice President.

Bush, Jr. Losing Afghanistan, Too

"At least 45 international troops, including at least 27 Americans, died in Afghanistan in June, the deadliest month since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban, according to an Associated Press count.

It was also the second straight month in which militants killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan than in Iraq.

The Taliban in June staged a sophisticated jailbreak that freed about 900 prisoners, then briefly overran a strategic valley outside Kandahar. Last week, a Pentagon report forecast the fundamentalist Islamic militia would maintain or increase its attacks, which are already up 40% this year from 2007 in areas where U.S. troops operate along the Pakistani border.

In Iraq, at least 31 international soldiers died in June: 29 U.S. troops and one each from the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. There are 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, along with 4,000 from Britain and small contingents from several other nations.

The 40-nation international coalition is much broader in Afghanistan, where only about half of the 65,000 international troops are American."

Anyone one to lay this at the feet of Presidetn Bush, Jr. or are we waiting to blame the next Democrat?

How about some of those Russert's rules next time ole' Prick Dick Cheney visits his Meet The Press friends.

Either Your Signature Or Your Brains Will Be On That Contract

"Iraq said on Monday it has failed to sign technical support agreements with global oil majors which were aimed at helping boost the war-torn country's oil production.

Iraq is negotiating with Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Total, and a consortium of other smaller oil companies, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said at press briefing.

"We did not finalise any agreement with them because they refused to offer consultancy based on fees, as they wanted a share of the oil," he said."

The clock is ticking for Dick Cheney and Bush, Jr. to bring about Armageddon.

No matter how much money they pump into Iraq, they can't pump out any oil.

They are getting so frustrated they might just try to blow up Iran...with Nancy Pelosi's and Harry Reid's approval of course.

Suck On This Republican Party

 

"President Bush, Senator John McCain and their Republican allies are calling on Congress to give away more federal lands to Big Oil. But oil companies do not need more places to drill – they are sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands – or 81 percent of U.S. oil reserves – that they have already leased but have not developed for drilling."

The Republican Party doesn't know whether to shit or die.

They need to be erased in 2008.

No one is buying their anti-American lies anymore.

Sunday Morning Music

John Gorka performs Temporary Road.

Saturday Musings

- - Some political notes from the field and a DeRosaWorld poll: I was in Pennsylvania and New Jersey last week and talked a lot of politics with a lot of people. I think Senator Obama is going to take both states by a large margin. Most people I spoke with were Hillary supporters, but it is any Democrat against McCain for them. These are the 'Archie Buckers' the Obama campaign painted with racist colors during the primaries. They have forgiven him.

They are so sick of the Republican Party and President Bush, Jr. that they are supporting Obama. Race may or may not be an issue for them, but not a show-stopper. They are afraid of McCain and despise the policies of the Republicans that have brought about the housing foreclosures, the high price of gasoline, and the Iraq war and shame. Shame, a word I heard repeated.

They are also tired of all the right-wing media bleating on and on and on in defense of the Bush, Jr. Administration. They don't believe it anymore. They are afraid that their sons will be drafted. These are the things they are talking about.

The politics of fear worked too well and now the electorate is afraid of the Republicans.

There is a concern about Obama out here, but it is not the color of his skin. They are worried because they know nothing about him. They are afraid of his inexperience. They are afraid he will fail before he can turn things around. They are now pinning their hopes on an unknown. That is how desperate they are. So if the skinny kid with the funny name doesn’t have any more Larry Sinclairs out there with pictures of him snorting cocaine off his boner, then I think we are going to have ourselves a Democrat in the White House come November…and he is going to get a lot of white support, both male and female, rich and poor.

- - The progressive blogosphere was of a mixed mind this week. Some wanted to be mad at Senator Obama for caving into the FISA bill…and they are right to be mad. What was he thinking?

Others were begrudgingly clapping for Senator Clinton for supporting their man…and they are right to be happy. The Hillary supporters are going to come out strong for Obama in November. Could the same be said of the Obama supporters if the Democratic Party nominee were Senator Clinton?

- - The Stonewall Riots began on June 28, 1969 in New York City on Christopher Street at the Stonewall Inn. The NYC cops got as good as they gave that day. This day is still celebrated in the bars of the West Village. Before Stonewall is a great documentary about the gay community and the times leading up to the riots.

- - I couldn’t fit Don DeLillo’s Underworld into the carry-on, so I took two slim Gore Vidal novels with me, hoping the Office of Homeland Security didn’t open my bag. In A Yellow Wood and Dark Green, Bright Red are two very honest and unique novels. They have been reprinted in England; you cannot get them in America. I got them from Amazon UK. (Beware the weak dollar vs. the euro.)

Two post World War Two novels that the New York Times either didn’t care for or refused to review because of The City and the Pillar scandal. In A Yellow Wood (1947) is a rare look at life in New York City immediately after the war as veterans come home and take up the business of America. And in that glorious time between VJ Day and the Communist witch hunts when American artists thought they could be honest with us and themselves. This is the time of film noir in Hollywood. Something was wrong. The defeat of fascism didn’t bring peace, just prosperity. There was something new out there that was in charge now, and to be afraid of …and it turned out to be us.

Dark Green, Bright Red (1950) is a great example of the cliché “ahead of its time”. This book shows us what America was up to in Central America before most Americans could find Guatemala on a map; empire building, with a little sex in it. If there was ‘special rendition’ in 1950, Vidal would have been shipped off to the basement of the Pentagon for revealing state secrets.

- - Yes, I did have a soft pretzel and of course cheese steaks. Three cheese steaks in fact. I also had some decent Chinese Food, something California is in as short supply as water. How hard is it to make an egg roll with a little hot mustard on the side?

- - Get yourself some good sipping whiskey and buy Emmylou Harris’ All I Intended To Be. At first you’ll sit and feel sorry for yourself and feel the aches and pains of middle age, but by the end you will be refreshed and ready to get up and face the world. She captures that middle-aged need to put your feet up feeling. Fuck the young; let them suffer with the High School Musical soundtrack. This album was made for adults by adults.

- - One last word on flying in modern America. It sucks and the airline industry should be ashamed of itself. If they don't want to do the job anymore, give it up and let us have a lot of smaller, independent airlines with the American, small  business mentality. Let's make the FAA do its fucking job and in this new century let the major airlines go the way of TV news, movies, rock & roll, cheap gasoline and other 20th century Americana. Something needs to change because Americans need and want to travel around this great country of ours and the current major airlines do not deserve our business. Americans do not deserve being treated like this.

NPR Sucks Part Four

From Mediabistro's Revolving Door newsletter:

"NPR publicists Laura Perloff and Leah Yoon are leaving to join John McCain's presidential campaign... "

Don't let the door hit your conservative asses on the way out. 

NPR, the dick-suck internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of noncommercial news, talk, and entertainment programming, is leaking some of its quietly conservative staff to the Republican Party's presidential campaign.

I wonder if NPR is letting Fox News pick their replacements.

US Airways Blows

The Go-Go's sing Vacation.

Three hours sitting on a fucking crowded airplane with no electricity or air-conditioning.

We were locked and loaded and heading towards the runway at the Philadelphia International Airport and we were called back to the gate because of a "computer problem". So a computer was swapped out which meant no power or air and three hours later we set off on our five hour flight.

They asked us to lower the window shades to help keep the cabin cool.

After takeoff, an announcement was made regarding how much the snack boxes ($5.00) and lunches ($7.00) would cost us if we wanted to eat. Then they apologized again when they realized they had no food to sell.

US Airways...double suck.

No Shit? Neocon Strategy a Failure?

"The administration lacks an updated and comprehensive Iraq strategy to move beyond the "surge" of combat troops President Bush launched in January 2007 as an 18-month effort to curtail violence and build Iraqi democracy, government investigators said yesterday.

While agreeing with the administration that violence has decreased sharply, a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the "New Way Forward" strategy remain unmet.

The report, after a bleak GAO assessment last summer, cited little improvement in the ability of the Iraqi security forces to act independently of the U.S. military, and noted that key legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament had not been implemented while other crucial laws had not been passed. The report also judged that key Iraqi ministries spent less of their allocated budgets last year than in previous years, and said that oil and electricity production had repeatedly not met U.S. targets."

Why would this news be a surprise? Bush, Jr. and the neocons lied the United States, not only into this war, but away from the real war on terrorism.

There was never a plan for the day after we defeated the Iraqi army. There has never been a plan to secure the peace. There is no fucking oil pumping into the US economy. There is no exit strategy and there sure as hell ain't no strategy to win.

But we did hang the bastard!

George Carlin

"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"

Saturday Musings

- Tim Russert’s funeral was a bit surreal. I guess when you serve the Emperor; you get an Emperor’s funereal. The military honors kind of raised the bar for dead journalists, though. I mean what do we do when Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Walter Cronkite go? And can you image the funeral pyre for Rush Limbaugh?

- So, our Democrat-Congress gave immunity to the telecoms. FAIL.

- So, our Democrat-Congress keeps funding the Iraq war, no questions asked. FAIL

- Maybe someday someone will explain to me how George Bush, Jr. gets away with frightening and bullying everyone from journalists, to politicians to the military. He seems like a fucking moron to me.

- How’s the price of gasoline at your pump?

- Thank god President Bush, Jr. is visiting the flooded Midwest. It has been rumored he can part the waters.

- NASA confirmed there is ice on Mars. Of course, Earth has brought global warming to Mars by digging up the ice and letting it melt in the sun. If I were the Martians, I'd attack as soon as possible. Send the tripods now, before it is too late and you end up with McDonald's and second hand cigarette smoke.

- The airline industry, remember those guys and the $$$$billions taxpayers gave them after 9/11…well they are going to start raising prices and restricting flying with minimum stay-over requirements. Can we have the 9/11 money back?

- Too bad Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party crushed most of the unions in America. Maybe they would have wanted to help the average American. Ah, well.

- Don DeLillo’s Underworld blogging continues: Last week I finished the Prologue: The Triumph of Death. Now this was no ordinary prologue, this is about fifty pages of new wave cinema edited sports prose about October 3, 1951 and the Giants beating the Dodgers for the Pennant at The Polo Grounds, the same day the Russians set off an atomic bomb. I guess this would be called a tour de force. Among others we meet Cotter, a kid who jumps the gate to see the game and ends up with the game winning ball in his possession.

Part One: Long Tall Sally jumps us up in time to 1992. We meet Nick and learn that in the montage from the Prologue, Nick was the kid on a roof listening to the Game on the radio. He now owns the legendary baseball. He also has a typical, fucked up suburban life in Arizona. But, he also has a strange ex-lover who is painting Cold War era bombers in the desert. See this is a post-modern novel, so things are going to be revealed backwards. Man, some of this territory was covered fifty years ago by Norman Mailer. We get it.; being a middle-aged American male sucks, especially if you only moved to fucking Arizona instead of all the way to California.

The centerpiece of this section of the book is, I think the hot-air balloon ride Nick and his wife take over the nuclear bomber art exhibit. There is also a long passage full of wonder inside a condom store. Nick figures out that one of his friends and co-workers is banging his wife. Lot’s of experimental cross dialog in which you don’t know who is a talking. This just reminds me that John Huston’s Key Largo is on TCM. Huston did some sound/cross-dialog experiments in that movie. I stopped reading and put the television on and watched a couple of movies at the same time. I kept switching channels between TCM and IFC. There was a French movie on about a group of kids who decide to kill the leader of their group, for no real reason.  There is a small scene where two of the kids are riding on a motorcycle and they stop so one of them can throw-up. They were drinking and partying too much earlier. The kid who was sick asks the other if he has any gum because his mouth has such a bad taste in it. The kid offers him a strawberry flavored condom. The sick kid takes it and pops it io his mouth. And I thought. This was better that that entire condom store passage I just read in DeLillo.

Anyway, I am not quite ready to cry “bullshit” on Underworld, just yet. It may be the great American novel and because Cotter showed up again at the end of this section. So we are back in time tracing the baseball.

I’ll keep you posted on Part Two next weekend.

- Speaking of French new wave…Are you ready for this?…Belinda Carlisle has a new album out, Voila in which she sings completely in French. It doesn’t get no better than this folks. The Go-Go’s lead singer has always been a secret favorite of mine.  Guys, if reading Don DeLillo makes you worried about turning 50 or 60, Belinda Carlisle singing Jezebel in French is the cure for middle-aged angst.

Fuck You Nancy And The Majority You Rode In On.

"U.S. President George Bush has praised Congress for its bipartisan cooperation on domestic surveillance and new war funding.

At the White House Friday, Mr. Bush called on the House of Representatives to pass the domestic surveillance legislation Friday. He urged the Senate to take it up quickly.

House and Senate leaders agreed on a compromise bill Thursday.

The measure, which permits the government to eavesdrop on the communications of suspected terrorists without first obtaining a court's permission, could also protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits stemming from their involvement in the controversial warrantless surveillance. 

Federal judges could dismiss lawsuits if companies can show they received written certifications that the White House asked for their participation and assured them of the legality of the surveillance.

Mr. Bush also said he was pleased Congress passed what he called a responsible war funding bill that gives American troops the funds they need without timetables for withdrawal from Iraq.

By a wide margin Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved more than $160 billion in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure in coming days.

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, said she is disappointed the bill did not include a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq."

So what are the advantages of a Democratic majority? Nancy Pelosi just took an elephant trunk up the ass.

Join the club, Madame Speaker.

 

Today Is The Day Summer Begins

Yo La Tengo perform Today Is The Day, a very cool song to open the summer of 2008.

The Failure Is Truly Monumental

A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantanamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam - thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them - and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.

The radicals were quick to exploit the flaws in the U.S. detention system.

Soldiers, guards or interrogators at the U.S. bases at Bagram or Kandahar in Afghanistan had abused many of the detainees, and they arrived at Guantanamo enraged at America.

The Taliban and al Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad, Islamic holy war, against the West. Guantanamo became a school for jihad, complete with a council of elders who issued fatwas, binding religious instructions, to the other detainees.

Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby , until recently the commanding officer at Guantanamo, acknowledged that senior militant leaders gained influence and control in his prison.

This Administration is an endless devastation. This is not America as long as members of this government walk around free. We are not citizens, we are fools.

Why did we worry about the Cold War for so long? We lost it.

Why cry about a War on Terror? We gave up.

The enemy came from within.

It is not just a matter of waiting them out until election day and things will be all right next January. They stole election day.

These men and women need to go to jail and history has to write their names down as the traitors they have been.

NPR Sucks Part Three

I have caught two "opinions" recently on NPR radio in the morning from young, arrogant white guys bragging...no scolding listeners on their ignorance concerning how good the American economy is doing and how credit and debt is a good thing. There is no credit crisis in America if you are like them and smart and manage it correctly.

This morning, some young prick form The Cato Institute told me how industrious he was and asked "is my student loan paying itself off?" How wonderful he is. Conservatism done right.

If you are in trouble, I guess you are not as smart as they all are at the Cato Institute. What is being said is actually bullshit and a little more than creepy.

NPR sucks.

President Bush, Jr. Owes Us An Explanation

Our President, our Vice President and our former Secretary of Defense are guilty of war crimes.

How do we explain this to our children?

"The U.S. military hid the locations of suspected terrorist detainees and concealed harsh treatment to avoid the scrutiny of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to documents that a Senate committee released Tuesday.

"We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around. It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques,"Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, a military lawyer who's since retired, said during an October 2002 meeting at the Guantanamo Bay prison to discuss employing interrogation techniques that some have equated with torture. Her comments were recorded in minutes of the meeting that were made public Tuesday. At that same meeting, Beaver also appeared to confirm that U.S. officials at another detention facility — Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan — were using sleep deprivation to "break" detainees well before then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved that technique. "True, but officially it is not happening," she is quoted as having said.

A third person at the meeting, Jonathan Fredman, the chief counsel for the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, disclosed that detainees were moved routinely to avoid the scrutiny of the ICRC, which keeps tabs on prisoners in conflicts around the world.

"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD (Defense Department) has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman said, according to the minutes.

The document, along with two dozen others, shows that top administration officials pushed relentlessly for tougher interrogation methods in the belief that terrorism suspects were resisting interrogation."

 

WTF?

It's Going To Be A Bad Week In The Great Game

 

Hundreds of people have fled their homes in a district of southern Afghanistan fearing fighting between troops and the Taleban.

The militants and locals say Taleban forces have seized villages in Arghandab district near Kandahar city.

Afghan and Nato officials say they are redeploying troops to respond to "any potential threats" from the rebels.

But the US-led coalition says its troops have found no evidence the district is controlled by the Taleban.

On Friday about 350 Taleban fighters escaped with other inmates from a jail in Kandahar. Only a handful of prisoners have been recaptured.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says the jail raid was a major coup for the Taleban, which draws much of its support from the south of the country.

It was not immediately clear if the freed Taleban inmates were among the fighters who seized the villages on Monday.

Afghan military officials say 300 troops were flown to Kandahar on Tuesday, while others arrived on Monday.

Witnesses have told the BBC there has been a build up of Nato-led and Afghan forces in Arghandab district.

And Bush, Jr. laid down the law in England: Don't even think about pulling British troops out of Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan. Well, he is still the Decider, I guess.

Hey Mr. President. Why Don't You Come Back Now and See How Iowa Is Doing.

Iowa officials are concerned about towns along the Mississippi River as floodwaters in the state's eastern counties began to drain toward the river.

Two weeks of flooding has left five people dead and forced more than 38,000 from their homes as several major rivers that feed into the Mississippi -- including the Cedar, Des Moines and Iowa rivers -- overflowed their banks.

The National Weather Service warned that the Mississippi River was expected to crest at nearly 26 feet at Burlington, Iowa, on Wednesday. That's about 11 feet above flood stage, partly because of levee failures along the Iowa River that have dumped more water into the system.

In Washington, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said the flooding has devastated his state's corn crop and may have inflicted up to $1 billion in damage to Iowa's agricultural sector alone. The flooding has forced farm-equipment manufacturer John Deere to idle two plants in Waterloo, he said.

"Across eastern Iowa, the flooding rivers have washed out railroad lines; Mississippi barge traffic has come to a halt; and closed major roadways," said Harkin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. "Thousands of Iowa businesses, large and small, have been impacted."

In Cedar Rapids, residents were allowed to return home temporarily to retrieve keepsakes and other items Sunday, but authorities said Monday that strike teams had determined the neighborhoods were no longer safe, even for a quick visit.

Bush, Jr. really doesn't give a shit about what goes on in this country or how its citizens are doing under his reign.

Oh No! We Need Another Republican President.

 

"An international smuggling ring may have secretly shared blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon with Iran, North Korea and other rogue countries, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The now-defunct ring led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan is previously known to have sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea. A draft report by former top U.N. arms inspector David Albright says the smugglers also acquired designs for building a more sophisticated compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and other developing countries, according to the Post.

The drawings were discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen; they were recently destroyed by the Swiss government under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to keep them out of terrorists' hands. But U.N. officials said they couldn't rule out that the material already had been shared.

"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," Albright wrote in the draft report, which was expected to be published later this week, the Post reported."

Just when America thought it could relax and have a Democratic President, all our enemies may have nuclear weapons plans! We need a sort of war hero guy as our President. Boy, I'm glad we caught this now before it was too late.

Sunday Morning Music

Let's rock. I'm Losing You by The Faces (featuring Rod Stewart).

Saturday Musings

- Tim Russert didn’t want to learn the lesson all working class Irish, Italians and Jews learn the hard way. Never trust the WASPS.

- The Great Game in Afghanistan took a hit this week. About 870 prisoners escaped during a Taliban bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan that knocked down the front gate and demolished a prison floor, And in western Afghanistan today, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military vehicle, killing four Americans.

- Bush, Jr. is still in Europe.

- The Cedar River was a force to be reckoned with this week in Iowa. And Des Moines’ levees were ruptured by the Des Moines River today. Let’s hope the government response matches the task.

- The Supreme Court decided that habeas corpus is an important part of the American Constitution. Bush, Jr. said he would nod his imperial head and abide by the Court’s ruling, although it was only a 5-4 decision….huh?

- The world continues to shake and quiver. Northern Japan took a hit yesterday. Is mother nature trying to tell us something, like “get off”.

- Speaking of getting off earth, NASA’s latest Mars lander, Phoenix has collected particles that offer a snapshot of millions of years of life on the Mars. NASA is hoping to find evidence of the existence of water and life-supporting organic minerals in the polar region. Now wouldn’t that be a kick in the head?

- I hope that lift off clip thing that fell off the Space Shuttle doesn’t fall and hit me in the head. Something else to worry about.

- I’ve been under the weather lately, knocked down by one hell of a cold, with a slight fever, heavy chest congestion and lots of runny nose. Yesterday I made a lunch out of a can of imported tuna in olive oil from Genoa, Italy, a clove of fresh garlic and some rigatoni. I felt a lot better. I try to hold off the American over the counter medicine if I can, but not this time. Mucinex and Afrin are my bff.

- Glen Campbell has an album coming late summer in which he covers his favorite rock songs. I am so excited. There will be some Green Day and some U2 and god knows what else. That old boy can sing and play the guitar.

- Emmylou Harris, the reigning queen of alt-country also has a new album. All I Intended To Be. I need to catch up with Emmylou. She’s keeps churning out records and changing partners and I just can’t get enough of her.

- Don DeLillo’s Underworld…okay, so the opening is Pafko At The Wall, a tour de force of sports writing that seems like he turned his manuscript over to Oliver Stone to edit. I don know. There is something so un-noble about this so noble a moment in baseball. The kid listening alone on the rooftop and the people spilling out in to the streets captures the uniqueness of the moment, but most of the characters are out of the film noir era, post WW2 America that scared the hell out of the Republican Party and J. Edgar Hoover (and enamored the French). It is a big book and I will blog about it here each week until finished. The opening is certainly crafty, but am I reading the great American novel? I’ll let you know.

Tim Russert: A Working Class Hero Is Something To Be

Tim Russert died, at work, while preparing for his show, Meet The Press. He was a fixture in televised American political journalism. He started out in politics working for Daniel Patrick Moynihan and then Mario Cuomo, two New York liberal icons. His working class, Irish Catholic roots seemed strong and sure. His Jesuit education and penchant for Bruce Springsteen and beer made him one of us.

But like almost all journalists his age, especially television personalities, something changed with the coming right-wing takeover over of the media and the country’s political agenda. Russert, like Chris Matthews, a fellow Democratic-trench fighter, didn’t fight this, they embraced the right-wing, maybe subtly at first, but then with both fists and clung on for the ride; a ride that led to book deals, and high salaries and celebrity status in Washington.

Clinton-bashing was a requirement. There was no stopping the revolving door of Newt Gingrich and his Republican Party perverts stopping by Meet The Press to flame Democratic politicians and politics, and like St. Peter, denying he knew Christ, Tim Russert sat in front of us all and denied his working class roots and the Democratic Party and pretended he did not know us.

And it got worse with Bush/Cheney. The election of 2000 was just fine with Tim Russert. The Iraq war is just fine with Tim Russert. The economy is just fine with Tim Russert. Swift boat Veterans for Truth were just fine with Tim Russert. There were no “GOTCHA” questions for Bush, Jr. or Cheney during debates. Russert seemed to especially idolize Cheney and his team. Then they threw him under the bus.

Even at the end of this Administration, this horrible Presidency, Russert didn’t seem bothered by the lies that are now so evident; told on his show, with him nodding his head. 

It would have been interesting to see if this Sunday he would have had Dennis Kucinich on Meet The Pressto discuss the 35 Articles of Impeachment that he read into the Congressional Record this week. I doubt it. In fact, I can almost see him mocking the resolution in his round-table discussion with his close, rich, Republican friends and fellow political pundits.

Unfortunately Big Russ’ boy’s final epitaph will be, for me, the words of Dick Cheney’s communications director Cathie Martin during the Scooter Libby trial. She testified that she "suggested we put the vice president on Meet the Press, which was a tactic we often used. It's our best format", allowing the administration to "control the message".

The message will just have to be controlled by someone else this General Election.

Can Can We Add Budweiser, Tomatoes and The Chrysler Building To Bush, Jr.'s Failures?

No one is minding the store and god-forbid we ask some agency in America to protect the American food supply, so now our tomatoes are poisoning us.

The King of Beers, Budweiser is no longer an American beer? So no tomatoes at your barbeques this summer and no Budweiser, unless you hate America.

The art deco symbol of 20th century American empire, The Chrysler Building is to be owned by the United Arab Emirates? Well now that is saying something for the Bush Family legacy. What a gift.

It's a fire sale here in the U.S.A. folks. In just eight short years, President George Bush, Jr. has managed to burn the house down. Scorch the yard. Destroy the neighbors fence. And he still plans to steal the door knobs and silverware before January. What a desolation.

If You Suck Satan's Cock, Expect A Facial

The Right Wing Republicans are flailing their weak arms and soft hands desperately trying to keep their heads above water and stay meaningful in the American political system they have destroyed.

The Next Right is a new website that is trying to hold the line in a war that has been lost. It is a Bunker mentality, but a bunker mentality that still controls the media. And there-in lies the danger.

The price of gasoline is a Republican Party problem. It is a Bush, Jr. Administration problem.

"Every poll taken and every conversation with a real person outside of DC shows gas prices as the number one issue in the country... and today Senate Democrats schooled us on it.  “Republicans Defend Big Oil” is the basic message we sent the country after the energy debates in the Senate today, we'll really win elections on that one."

There is no changing the direction of the arguement on this issue. Americans know the truth.

George Bush, Jr and Dick Cheney cared more about Saudi Arabian Bin Laden family members than American citizens on September 12, 13, 14, 2001. Remember that folks. Remember the special flights out of America.

Oil Rules the Republican Party. Nothing else matters. A website can't change that.

The Supreme Courts Says What?

"Foreign suspects held in Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in US civilian courts, the US Supreme Court has ruled.

In a major legal setback for the Bush administration, the court overturned by five to four a ruling upholding a 2006 law which removed such rights.

It is not clear if the ruling will lead to prompt hearings for the detainees....

Brushing aside arguments that the suspects were enemy combatants being held at a time of war, the court said the detainees had "the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus".

This is the right of detainees under the US constitution to be heard by an independent judge."

So what is a neocon to do? It's not like the Supreme Court is packed with left-wing pinkos. Next time we should just let Dick Cheney appoint the Justices.

Republican Party Congressional Election Strategy: Let's Lose Every Seat

The Republican Party is going down swinging for corporate power. You would think at this point it would be every man for himself and that some political survival impulse would kick in.

I guess once you turn to the dark side, there is no going back.

"Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.

GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won't do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.

The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime."

Kucinich For Vice President

This was a beautiful thing to behold. I put C-SPAN on and they played Representative Dennis Kucinich's entire reading of his 35 articles of impeachment. He spoke all night. You won't find much corporate American media coverage about this story today.

"Former Democratic presidential contender, Dennis Kucinich, has called for the impeachment of George W Bush claiming that the president set out to deceive the nation, and violated his oath of office with the Iraq war.

The Ohio representative yesterday introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

Kucinich unveiled a list of alleged illegal and improper acts by Bush, including war crimes.

He accused Bush executing a "calculated and wide-ranging strategy" to deceive citizens and Congress into believing that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States.

He went on to say that Bush and Cheney lied to Congress and the American public about the reasons for invading Iraq in 2003 and abused their offices in order to conduct the "War on Terror" following the 9/11 attacks.

"Bush misled the American people and members of Congress to believe Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction so as to manufacture a false case for war. President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office," Kucinich said.

He has already introduced a similar impeachment resolution against Vice President Cheney."

 

As American's Suffer, Bush, Jr. Partys In Europe

Frat-boy-In-Chief goes off to an unwelcoming Europe who is counting the days when America can get back to being America again.

"A lot of people like America. They may not sometimes necessarily like the president but they like America," Bush said in an interview with POP TV of Slovenia. "They like what America stands for."
Goddamned right, asshole.

Hit the road and don't let the prison cell door hit you on the ass on the way out.

He lied to everyone over there. Lost Tony Blair his job. Fucked up the Middle East even more than it already was. Strengthened terrorists and Islamic extremists. Is squatting on half the oil in the world and gas prices are breaking American's backs.The US dollar is in the shit-can. Is this a victory march?