Deeply Blue, Ill, but not Sick!

Just Say the Word, Oil be There for You

2007-05-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

No doubt you've seen pictures of Darth Cheney emerging yesterday from a plane at Baghdad airport with his shiny new flak jacket. What could possibly have led him to leave his secret lair? Has his conscience finally gotten to him for being the impetus behind a campaign of deceit to start a war based on lies? Has the body count approaching 4,000 US soldiers, not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, finally pushed him to do something to reverse the horrors his inhuman policies have caused? Hmmm, I don't think so. What could possibly lead an administration led by two oilmen to send the vice-president off to Iraq? Let's see what Darth himself had to say....Cheney’s unannounced visit to Iraq, part of a Middle East tour, signals growing US impatience at Iraq’s slowness in passing laws on oil distribution. Surprised? I'm not.

Lordy, I DON'T Believe!

2007-05-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

How can anyone belong to a political party that is so co-opted by the ultra-extreme right wing Christianists that 3 out of 10 of their PRESIDENTIAL candidates are willing to stand up in a public forum and announce that they don't believe in evolution?????!!!!! These are college educated men (well, of course it's only men, this is the republican party after all!) who have been exposed to the outside world and have held positions of responsibility in our government. How appropriate that they were standing in the "library" of that deep thinker, Ronald Reagan!

Bush Makes Things "Perfectly Clear"

2007-01-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

NPR published the article reprinted below today on the latest plan for Iraq dreamed up by the same White House geniuses who have got us in the quagmire we find ourselves. They plan to get tough with Iran by threatening to attack them on Iraqi soil. How long before US troops end up chasing combatants across the border into Iran? The writer of the article, being a student of history, saved himself some work by just updating an old article from 1973. Here's his submission to his editor:

Note to editor - please delete all text in red.

President Nixon Bush vowed on Monday to respond firmly if Cambodia Iran foments violence in Vietnam Iraq, but said he had no intention of invading Cambodia Iran.
Washington has accused Kampuchea Tehran of undermining efforts to bring stability in Vietnam Iraq. Two U.S. aircraft carriers have been stationed in the Gulf as a warning to Cambodia Iran.
"If Cambodia Iran escalates its military action in Vietnam Iraq to the detriment of our troops and, or, innocent Vietnamese Iraqi people, we will respond firmly," Nixon Bush told ABC NPR in an interview.
The Nixon Bush administration has repeatedly told Cambodia Iran not to fuel violence in Vietnam Iraq, and U.S. forces detained a number of Cambodian Iranian officials in raids over the past month in Vietnam Iraq.
Nixon Bush has insisted he wants to resolve the dispute with Cambodia Iran diplomatically, but also has kept his options open. Nixon Bush's comments on Cambodia Iran, along with tougher financial sanctions and actions against Cambodian Iranian involvement in Vietnam Iraq, have revived speculation about a possible U.S. attack on Cambodia Iran.
Nixon Bush told ABC NPR he was not planning to invade, but would do "whatever it takes" to protect U.S. troops in Vietnam Iraq against Cambodian Iranian attacks.

Well, Duh!

2006-10-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't you know that the newspaper that would endorse Mark Kirk because he's a moderate (!), would also have a headline like today's classic..."Baghdad Strategy Flawed". Gee, I was shocked to learn that the gang of corrupt and incompetent Republicans who came up with the genius plan to attack Iraq three years ago, have not been successful in their campaign over the past two months to get control of Baghdad. Only the editors of the Chicago Tribune would consider this newsworthy enough to be a headline. What's tomorrow's headline..."Bush May Not Be Genius" or "Kirk Votes With Bush"?

Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear

2006-10-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, Hastert is really going all out in taking responsibility for his ineptness, and possibly criminal actions, in supressing the truth on the Republican scandal. I guess when he said "the buck stops here", no one noticed he was pointing at the sacrificial lambs on his staff. He announced yesterday that anyone on his staff who covered up the Foley scandal will be fired. I'll bet his co-chiefs of staff John Halderman, Jr. and John Erlichman, Jr. are sweating this thing out!

Go Denny Go!

2006-10-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

Let the record show that I was indeed ahead of the curve in calling for Dennis "Head in the Sand" Hastert's resignation days before the Washington Times, perhaps the most conservative newspaper in the country, published an editorial calling on Hastert to resign. It's also been pointed out that Hastert was a teacher before getting elected to the House. A teacher! Don't you think someone trained as a teacher would have the decency to take SOME action to investigate "over friendly" emails from a 50 year old man to a 16 year old boy? Talk about a lack of shame! How can you stay in office when you ignore evidence of child abuse in order to hold onto a 'safe' congressional seat? Have you no sense of shame, Mr. Speaker?

And isn't it interesting that John Shimkus, Republican Chairman of the House Page Board that oversees the page program, knew of Foley's activities with pages but never mentioned it to the one Democratic member of the Board. Must have slipped his mind...

Bonus posting - anyone who lives in eastern Lake County or northeastern Cook County, the 10th Congressional District of Illinois, has got to check out this...http://www.kirknbush.com/

Hey, Ho, Denny Must Go!

2006-10-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

As disgusting as it is to see another sanctimonious, conservative, holier than thou Republican exposed as a pervert, we are now seeing that the Republican leadership has known about this hypocrite sniffing around underage pages for months, maybe years. In order to hold onto power by keeping Foley's seat safely in the Republican column, Speaker Hastert turned a blind eye to what was obviously inappropriate behavior that has now been exposed. The only honorable course he can now take is to resign as Speaker. He can't hide behind legal niceties and attempts to parse the series of events in such a manner as to show he didn't know for sure that someone was wrong. These were underage minor children entrusted to the House of Representatives. As leader of the House, he must take responsibility for the fact that he KNEW something improper, and most likely illegal, was going on and chose not to pursue the truth. This is a true national scandal. These are minors being pursued by a sexual predator and a coverup by the Republican leadership. Don't listen to anyone (and I'm sure Faux News has trotted out the usual Clinton haters) trying to compare this to Monicagate. That scandal involved a willing woman in her twenties who flirted with and ultimately chose to have a dalliance with a weak-willed man. It was not a 52 year old man sending messages to a 16 year old boy asking "Do I make you a little horny?"
The next questions that need to be asked are "who else in the Republican leadership knew about this and chose to keep it secret?" What did House Majority Leader John Boehner know and when did he know it? What did the former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay know and when did he know it? What did House Majority Whip Roy Blunt know and when did he know it? What did House Assistant Majority Whip Mark Kirk know and when did he know it?

The Second Seven Day War

2006-09-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

I am so sick and tired of the current occupant of the White House going around the country telling the same lies over and over. I know this is part of the Republican/Rove election strategy and sadly it has worked very well in the past, but it still makes me sick. Bring back the good old days when Bush would take 6 week vacations and clear brush. Are we going to have to listen to six weeks of Bush giving the same speech on how his "war" in Iraq is somehow related to fighting terrorists? There is NO war in Iraq! The war was over in about seven days. That's about how long it took for our military to sweep through and take total control of the country. They fought and quickly defeated an enemy that was defending its territory. THAT'S what a war is and that's what our military (and all military) are trained to do. Our forces did a fantastic job and after that week of fighting, we should have started to bring them home and replace them with UN forces. Our military is not a police force, but that is exactly what they have been doing for the past three years as they have been picked off in small numbers (that add up to thousands) by murderous Iraqi thugs. If we had done the right thing and cooperated with the UN and sent in a multi-national force that was led by soldiers from Muslim countries, to act as a buffer among the Iraqi sects, thousands upon thousands of lives would have been saved. These troops really WOULD have been greeted as liberators. And the only cost would have been sharing of the reconstruction contracts with companies other than Halliburton, giving up control of the oil in Iraq, and admitting that maybe you made a few mistakes in your war "planning"...three things Bush and the neocons will never do. These failures are the main reasons, among many, that Bush will go down as the worst "president" in history. In two months we have the chance to vote out of office the enablers of this failed policy and start the process of doing what should have been done at the end of those seven days...start bringing our troops home and getting the UN and other countries involved. The return to sanity begins November 7.

Lake Foresters for Dan Seals

2006-08-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

Can Dan Seals really unseat an incumbent? Two events in Lake Forest this week put in sharp focus why Dan Seals will be elected our next Congressman on November 7. On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending an afternoon gathering at the home of our state senator, Susan Garrett, featuring Senator Dick Durbin (does any state have two better Senators?!) and Dan Seals. The turnout was amazing. In our mostly Republican community on a rainy Tuesday afternoon at 4:15, with almost no advance notice, somehow over 150 people managed to sneak away early from work or family duties to meet Dan Seals and to hear Durbin eloquently describe why representatives like Dan Seals are needed in Washington. He pointed out how Mark Kirk has failed to represent the moderate viewpoints of his constituents as John Porter did before him, how he has voted with Bush over 90% of the time and how he “has broken your hearts” with so many of his votes, such as those supporting a war based on a mountain of lies, and the embarrassment of his Terry Schivo vote. On Thursday afternoon, I attended the forum on food allergies at my daughter’s school, Everett Elementary. This is clearly an important issue and Mark Kirk was in attendance and I congratulate him for supporting this scientific research. But why (10 weeks before the election) is he finally attending forums in the district? Where has he been for the last 6 years? Who has ever seen him other than at a parade or at an event where the attendees are carefully screened? Granted he doesn’t require audience members to sign loyalty oaths as Bush does, but he sure doesn’t go out of his way to find out what the people of his district think. We have been waiting for three years to hear about the secret info he was privy to that convinced him that Iraq had WMDs. When the right wing of his party tried to begin their plan to dismantle Social Security, did he hold any public meetings (despite numerous requests from his constituents) to tell us what he planned to do about their privitization scheme? With oil companies posting profits higher than any company in the history of the world, did he hold any meetings explaining why he voted to give billions in tax credits to these same companies? When someone votes the party line 90% of the time, why would he not mention on any of his campaign materials that he’s a Republican? As a proud member of “Lake Foresters for Dan Seals”, I encourage all “Porter Republicans”, independents and Democrats to join me in voting for a true fiscal conservative and social moderate who will faithfully represent the Tenth District and will make us proud – Dan Seals.

Is Lebanon Unique?

2006-08-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

Anyone with half a brain (which excludes the current administration in the White House) knows that Americans will continue to be shot at and killed in Iraq as they are seen as an occupying force. The only solution is to do what should have been done in the first place - send international troops, led by troops from Muslin countries, into Iraq. Why is it that Bush agrees on the need to send in international troops to secure the peace in Lebanon days after hostilities end, but refuses to do the same thing three and a half years (and thousands of lives) after his disastrous folly in Iraq?! Gee, could it be because Lebanon doesn't sit on a huge pool of oil and doesn't have a ton of "projects" that his Halliburton buddies can make billions a year on?

Infinite Greed: A Child's Primer

2006-04-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to explain to my 11 year old the difference between Democrats and republicans. I give him the usual,"Dems are more concerned with working people, GOPers are the party for the super rich and large corporations". Yada, yada, yada. But he's pretty insightful and keeps asking me for better definitions. I think I'll have him read today's Tribune front page. It's a lovely little story about what the republican party is all about and how their lack of morals and their total incompetence directly leads to international disasters and the deaths of innocent people. We all know Halliburton has received billions in no-bid contracts to do the grunt work (serving meals, cleaning toilets, washing clothes, etc) for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (service expanding soon to Iran!). Because these countries are so dangerous, KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, had to be given these deals quickly, secretly, and probably in Cheney's private hideaway. But also, the rates KBR charged were many times more than the going rate for services in these countries. Why? Well, I'm sure they claimed that the unconscionable rates they were charging were necessary to convince American workers to go to a war zone to provide these services. So, did they hire Americans to do this work at handsome rates of pay? Nope. Did they hire Iraqis to help lower the high rate of unemployment? Nope. What did they do? C'mon, you can guess...they "outsourced" the hiring to "third parties" who recruited poor, uneducated workers from third world countries who were lied to about where they were going, had their passports confiscated when they arrived in Iraq, and most gruesome of all, a dozen of them were kidnapped and murdered. KBR could have made a ton of money by pocketing the cash from their bloated contracts and hiring American or Iraqi people to do the work. But in a classic example of unlimited greed, they had to cut corners to make two tons of money. If that required having to go to the ends of the earth (literally) to find people whose domestic situations were so poor that they would accept these jobs as indentured servants, well, that's fine with them. These are the type of immoral, infinitely greedy companies the republicans are happy to associate themselves with. Well, son, Democrats not only wouldn't do business with these companies, but would lose their lunches if they were in the same room with them.

Think YOUR Job Sucks?

2006-04-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

Who has the worst job in America? Sure, we see survey after survey that ranks the worst jobs and usually something like coal miner or waitress or fruit picker tops the list. But I think that poor Scotty McClennan has the worst job in America. This poor schmuck is sent out day after day on national television to tell the same half truths, misrepresentations and outright lies that are the hallmarks of the Bush administration. Today he has to try to keep a straight face while claiming that Bush's cynical selective leaking of classified information was "in the public interest" rather than for political reasons. He then goes on to say that Bush decided to declassify and release some information to rebut "irresponsible and unfounded accusations" that the administration had manipulated or misused prewar intelligence to buttress its case for war. John Stewart's writers can't come up with anything funnier than this! But poor Scotty has to stand there and watch what little shred of personal integrity he has slip away as he repeats the same lies. At least he'll get a nice cushy job after this...probably as spokesman for Halliburton.

Do You Want a Thief Bugging Your Phone?

2006-03-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

It is great that the discussion in this country has turned to censuring the president. After the Democratic landslide in November, we can advance this talk to that of impeachment. But one thing that is never talked about in all the back and forth about whether the president should have the power to ignore laws and the Constitution and order the wiretapping of citizens without any court supervision is a PRACTICAL discussion of how this will (and no doubt does) actually work. The republicans will defend the idea of letting the president ignore the rule of law "because he's fighting the terrorists". But that argument is so specious. Even if you are so blind as to think that Bush would only decide to wiretap actual terrorists, it is not the president who actually makes these decisions. He's just setting the policy. THE ACTUAL DECISIONS AS TO WHO TO WIRETAP IS MADE BY ADMINISTRATORS. Does anyone have any doubt that if the administration is given such unfettered power that someone like Cheney, or Karl Rove (or will be delegated to someone like a lower level White House aide in charge of religious pandering who just happens to be a major shoplifter) won't decide to order wiretapping of anyone who is "not supporting the troops" by actually expressing their opinion that maybe everything Bush does isn't 100% perfect. You only need go back 33 years to the last totally corrupt republican administration which did just that when their botched break-in of the Democratic offices at the Watergate complex revealed their lower tech version of electronic eavesdropping.

Can Your Ratings Be a Negative Number?

2006-02-28T11:32:00.000-08:00

Many people are shocked at the latest poll showing that Bush's approval rating has dropped 8 more points to 34%. I must say I am completely astonished...how is it that a third of the people in this country can STILL think this man is doing a good job? Can that many people be so out of touch? Or is it just that the greedy, tax-cut-loving republicans will support Satan as long as their tax rates are kept low? Bush's next target is the 23% approval rating of the last totally corrupt republican president, Tricky Dicky, in 1974 just before he resigned in disgrace. It's a tough target to beat, but I'm confident he'll make it following the passage of his and Cheney's articles of impeachment by the new Congress after the November Democratic landslide.

South Dakota Chickens

2006-02-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

What's the matter with the brave right wingers controlling the South Dakota legislature. Sure, they showed their bravado by passing a new law criminalizing abortion, but then they kowtowed to compromise by putting in an exception for when the mother's life is in danger. What cowards! Who do they think they are, playing God by deciding who should die in that situation? If they truly believe that the fetus is a person at conception, then who are they to decide whether a pregnant woman in imminent fear of death without a termination of her pregnancy should have any rights? After all, who says it's "her" pregnancy? Obviously, these crusaders for the fetus have decided that they are the ones to decide what happens to every fetus. Yup, they love the fetus...they believe in doing everything they can to protect a fetus UNTIL it is born. Then, the fact that children are born into poverty without access to decent medical care is not their problem. If a kid's parent decide to have children before they have saved enough money from their minimum wage jobs to create a decent trust fund for their offspring, well, that's just bad planning on their part...they didn't take advantage of all the wonderful tax cuts the republicans have provided. Now, that abortion is on the way out, they have turned their sights on the morning after pill. Just because a woman is raped or a victim of incest, apparently that gives her no rights over those of a potential fetus. The next step will be to make birth control pills illegal. Without these coming "reforms" from the republicans, we will have a situation where women might think about having sex outside of marriage, or even God forbid, for their own pleasure instead as part of their "wifely duties"!

But Officer, I Only Had One Beer With Dinner

2006-02-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

Now that Deadeye Dick has come forward four days after shooting his friend in the head, we are all supposed to fall in line and buy his new found openness. I'm not saying the vice president of the United States was drunk when he shot his friend in the head. I'm just saying that his actions after he shot his friend in the head make perfect sense if he did. Cheney now admits to having "one beer with lunch" the day he shot his friend in the head. Many a police officer has heard this story when stopping a car weaving down the road. I'm sure it would be the first time a bunch of Texas bigwigs were drunk when they were driven by luxury automobiles to a spot where they could pour out of the cars and shoot a group of farm raised animals for their enjoyment. When the police showed up at the ranch to speak to Deadeye, they were told to come back the next morning. Try that next time you shoot your friend in the head, and see what the cops do.

Hey Dick...Yikes, Duck!

2006-02-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

Maybe the gun nuts have the right idea after all. If all the right wing nut jobs agree to pen themselves in to those "shooting ranches" in Texas and take pot shots at each other, I say give them all the guns they want, including those automatic weapons the NRA recently made sure are available again. As you've probably heard (but not from the White House as they were obviously trying to keep this secret...from force of habit, I guess) Dick Cheney shot Harry M. Whittington, a 78-year-old attorney from Austin, who is a longtime supporter of President Bush and longtime friend of Karl Rove. This happened in Texas (where else!) at one of these "ranches" where rich old "sportsmen" gather to shoot animals that have been herded towards their guns by real outdoorsmen. Apparently, this gives these guys a feeling of being real hunters. I would imagine if they miss the animals herded towards them, then they probably get to shoot one of the birds still in its pen. Whittington was shot by Cheney after the two men got out of the car they were riding in to shoot some birds...ah, the thrill of the hunt!

All Duh News...

2006-02-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

Today's news brings almost nothing that was not already apparent to anyone with half a brain. Among the "revelations" that would bring a response of "Duh, really" are: that the Bush administration cherry picked intelligence info to justify a rush to war with Iraq. Paul Pillar, aformer CIA official for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, writes in the Foreign Affairs journal that the White House used the intelligence to justify a decision it had already reached. Really, I'm shocked! We also find out that Michael "Heck of a job" Brown contacted Bush officials at his ranch a day earlier than previously revealed and they did nothing. "Brown testified Friday that he notified top White House and Homeland Security officials on the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore that "we were realizing our worst nightmare" and that New Orleans was seriously flooding. He dismissed as "just baloney" and "a little disingenuous" claims by agency officials that they didn't know about the severity of the damage until the next day." Once again I'm shocked that an administration tempered by the quick actions of a "leader" that reads a childrens book for seven minutes AFTER his country has been attacked, would stay on vacation for another day and ignore a Democratic city that was being flooded and whose people were dying. Finally, we learn that Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby testified that his "superiors" authorized him to leak classified information to reporters. Gee, I wonder who that superior was? It certainly would be out of character for Cheney to violate the law to attack an innocent person for base political reasons. Come on, media, please give us some "news" !

What's Hypocrisy Daddy?

2006-02-07T07:34:00.000-08:00

My ten year old was doing his vocabulary homework the other night and asked me for the definition of one of his assigned words, hypocrisy. After a little thought, here's what I came up with. A bunch of right wing republicans are trying to justify Bush's crimes of directing illegal wiretapping by talking about the theory of the unitary executive, which proposes that all federal executive power is vested by the Constitution in the President. That crackpot theory effectively elevates the president to the level of King in that he is not limited by the actions of the legislative or judicial branches. Here's the definition of hypocrisy...take those same republicans and take them back in time to 1992 as Clinton is assuming office and ask them their opinion on the unitary executive. And to have even more fun ask them for their same opinion if the other Clinton was ever elected president!

A SOU Free Evening

2006-02-01T06:21:00.000-08:00

So, I was at a meeting late last and didn't get home till 8:00. My kids appealed to my sense of guilt for being away all evening and asked if they could stay up till 9:00 and watch TV with me. What to do? Do I subject them to the spectacle of watching the speech reader for the soulless republican party recite the usual list of lies? Is it right to take the chance of having them see Cheney or Hastert die on camera of a heart attack as they try to heave their massive bulks out of their chairs a dozen times to applaud? Oh, look kids, there's a Dirty Jobs special on the Discovery Channel. I'm sure we enjoyed ourselves more (and learned more) than the poor people who subjected themselves to watching the so-called State of the Union. It's so much easier to watch or read the analysis after the litany of lies is broadcast. I'll ignore the first half of the speech that rehashed the same old lies about Iraq. And don't get me started on the hypocrisy of the Abramhoff party talking about the need to tighten ethical standards in politics! When the history of state of the union speeches is written years from now and they are rated from high to low, it will be noted that the blatant lies told in 2003 to justify an unjust war was the worst example of any use of this platform for setting policy. Close behind this will be the speech in 2006 that attempted to justify illegal spying on American citizens. So, what did we find out? We're addicted to oil! How insightful, coming from the spokesman for the pushers! Big Oil has run this administration's energy policy even since Cheney held his secret meeting with Ken Lay and all the Big Oil execs in the first weeks after their "win" in 2000. And what was their response this past year as we were suffering from massive increases in gasoline and natural gas prices? Why, a massive transfer of billions of our tax money to Big Oil under the guise of "encouraging exploration for new supplies". Gee, I'm not the smartest guy around but I think if I was running a large oil company and prices are at an all time high, I would probably want to make sure that the company is spending a few of the record billions of bucks in profits to ensure that I have a ready supply to sell. But that's just me, maybe if you're from Texas, you don't stick a shovel in the ground without a massive tax break. Glad I didn't waste my time watching last night's speech or any of Bush's readings of other people's words and ideas. Gee, by missing last year's speech I didn't hear about all the wonderful things that we're going to be done to reform Social Security this year. I'm sure anything Bush read last night will look just as irrelevant a year from now as Social Security reform looks today.

"Warrants? We Don't Need No Stinking Warrants"

2006-01-25T08:46:00.000-08:00

The neocons who run the White House are so brazen (no doubt due to their big balls, small brains as pointed out by the Daily Curmudgeon), that they are sending out Bush to read speeches that DEFEND their criminal actions in spying on thousands of its citizens. The only way that such a clear violation of citizens' rights could happen in this country is when an evil cabal of people manage to install someone as president who thinks the Constitution of the United States is an annoyance: “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!” But, let's not be unreasonable. I admit that on 9-11-2001, it was perfectly reasonable for a commander-in-chief to say, "Damn the niceties of civil rights, start tapping the phones of anyone connected to the animals that did this." I'll even admit that on 10-11-2001 that you could make a case for illegal wiretaps. But at some point in late 2001, someone with an inkling of what it means to be an American would have stood up in a White House meeting and said, "You know, the crisis has somewhat passed and I don't think it's unreasonable to go to the SPECIAL COURT SET UP JUST FOR THIS THING and get warrants for these wiretaps." It's not like they would have any trouble getting warrants, as in the 25 years the secret court had existed, of the thousands of warrant applications it had received, it denied a grand total of FOUR. I'm sure if anyone in this administration had suggested following the law, they would have been met with blank stares, replies of "why bother" and a pink slip.

Gimme an "I", Gimme an "M"...

2006-01-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

Back on July 21, 2005, in only my second blog entry, mine was a very lonely voice calling for the impeachment of the "president". I'm now happy to say I was just a little ahead of my time, as a new Zogby poll shows that a majority of Americans now support impeaching Bush for wiretapping by a margin of 52% to 43%. Back in July, I was musing that Bush must be investigated on the emerging Valerie Plame scandal and most likely the trail would lead to impeachment. I could just as easily been posing impeachment for creating a web of lies to justify a rush to war, or creating a web of lies (see a pattern here?!) to push through a prescription drug law that is a boondoggle for the pharmaceutical companies. Today, we can add impeachment articles for total incompetence (New Orleans), absence of compassion for those in need (New Orleans) and racism (New Orleans). The case for impeachment at this time based on the outrageous criminal wiretapping by an administration that believes it is above the law is best put by former congressman, Elizabeth Holtzman, who served four terms in Congress, where she played a key role in House impeachment proceedings against the last totally corrupt republican president, Richard Nixon: "the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)--and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws--that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of President Bush. A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law--and repeatedly violates the law--thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office." Have more beautiful words ever been written?!

This Is Progress?

2006-01-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

How is it that Iraq, a country that is in total disarray, has settled all claims of vote fraud within one month of an election, and I'm still waiting to hear the truth about how the voting in Ohio was manipulated in 2004 using voting machines from Diebold whose CEO guaranteed a win in Ohio for Bush. Even when the republicans had their vote stealing people in place in Florida in 2000, it took us months to get a final settlement from Scalia.

Good News, Boom News

2006-01-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

First, the good news...it's becoming increasingly clear that the country is rising up to force the Bush adminstration to abandon the mindless "stay the course" approach to their disaster in Iraq and begin the process of bringing our troops home. Latest example of this was the incredibly large turnout of people for a symposium on Iraq in the sleepy town of Northbrook on a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in January. Ellen describes the day much better than I can here. She also mentions that our absentee congressman, Rooster Kirk, was surprisingly not present for yet another important open meeting in his district. He probably should be excused as his leader, Tom DeLay, was at the time scurrying to try to protect his lucrative leadership position. Now that the party of the culture of corruption has finally given up hope of keeping DeLay in charge of the dirty money chute into their pockets, they are very busy trying to find someone who can paint a false front of supporting campaign reform while making sure that the money continue to flows to them behind the scenes.
Now, the bad news...it's not going to matter anyway as it looks like the planet will be blown up soon. Those paragons of stability, the religious crazies who run Iran, have decided to openly resume development of nuclear weapons. They don't even try very hard to hide their intentions as they use the ridiculous justification that their work is for peaceful, nuclear power research. When you are sitting on more oil than your can ever pump out of the ground? Hmm, sounds a bit suspicious. Let's see, their president actually claimed that the Holocaust never happened and that Israel should be wiped off the map. I wonder what their first target will be? Until three years ago, the world was a safer place because these crazies would be put in their place by the reasoned actions of other countries, especially the superpowers. Economic sanctions would be threatened, technology would be embargoed, United Nations pressure and sanctions would be brought, and if all else fails, the military might of the United States would be brought to bear and nuclear facilities of rogue nations would be bombed or more secretively destroyed. These type of actions were effective because of the strong moral international reputation of the United States and its allies that backed them up. That moral reputation has been totally ruined by the precipitant actions of the Bush administration in Iraq. To think that the US could go before the world and propose that it must unilaterally act militarily to stop Iran is laughable. No matter what evidence they would present, no one would be believe them as they will be comparing it to Collin Powell holding up a vial of "anthrax" and all the other distortions used by the neocons to rush to war in Iraq. Our only hope is that Iran will need more than a few years to go nuclear. Once our government starts to shift to sanity in November with the election of a Democratic House and Senate, we can begin the long process of restoring the reputation of the United States and making the world a safer place.

The Rooster Gets Tough

2005-12-23T07:40:00.000-08:00

It's nice to see that someone in the Republican party is finally standing up and talking about taking action against the sleeze and corruption that has taken over the grand old party. Convicted congressman Duke Cunningham (R-Leavenworth) and soon to be convicted Tom DeLay (R-Lucifer) and Bob "this vote for sale" Ney of Ohio and all the other Republican soon to be ex-congressman and prison inmates must be quaking in their boots at the proposal from Mark Kirk. Congressman Kirk currently is in his last term (absently) representing the 1oth congressional district of Illinois. He follows the leadership of his president by only appearing in public at staged events with the "public" consisting only of his hand-picked supporters. Bush has chosen the wildly imaginative nickname of Markie for our congressman, even though Kirk has pleaded with Bush to call him Rooster. Now, what kind of supposedly grown man has to give nicknames to everyone? As I recall from my youth, the people who gave out nicknames were either bullies or idiots. Your choice...yes, you can pick both. Now, we also need to ask, why would anyone ASK to be called Rooster? Anyways, statesman Kirk has said Congress must reassure voters that it is taking its members' ethics problems seriously. He wants to deny pensions, floor access and parking privileges to congressmen who are convicted of felonies. That's right you merchants of sleeze...when you sell out your country for a few thousand dollars in bribes, you will no longer have a reserved parking space at the Capital!!!!! After serving a couple of months at a country club type prison (assuming you don't get a presidential pardon) and returning to Washington to make several times your congressional salary as a "lobbyist" in one of the many K Street firms whose staffs are managed by DeLay, you will have to find your spot to park your Lexus. Try finding a space in the overburdened parking garages of DC and pay $18 out of your own pocket for the privilege. If that doesn't get Republican congressmen to abandon their corrupt ways, I'm sure the Rooster will come up with something even tougher...could we someday see felons being denied a table at the congressional cafeteria?!

Blank Justifies the Means

2005-12-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

Is it possible for the ends to justify the means when there is no end? In an amazing feat of chutzpah, or maybe he just doesn't listen to or understand what he is reading when giving a speech, Bush today said that he accepted responsibility for taking the U.S. to war in Iraq based on faulty intelligence while saying the invasion still was justified by the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and international terrorism. Coincidentally, this came just one day after Kenny Boy Lay gave a speech pointing out his innocence against charges of being the poster boy of corporate criminals. Taking direction from his leader and pardonner, Ken's next speech will no doubt take responsibility for ruining the lives of thousands of employees and customers of Enron, but that his actions were justified because he and his buddies made a lot of money.

Republican Guilty of Petty Theft

2005-11-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (Thief-CA) resigned from Congress today after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. The Dukester, you may recall, was the genius who sold his home to a defense contractor for $700,000 MORE THAN IT WAS WORTH and figured no one would notice. He also took bribes "through a variety of methods, including checks totaling over $1 million, cash, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees and vacations. " He must feel totally bewildered today. After all, he was only doing what many of his fellow Republicans do every day. His problem was that he was just a little too obvious, but more importantly, he didn't steal enough. Notice that this administration has not even accused anyone of stealing over $8 BILLION that "disappeared" from US funds earmarked for Iraq reparations. We also haven't heard about any problems with all the $100 million no-bid contracts from post-Katrina relief. Nobody from Halliburton or Enron (other than small fish) are in jail today, and Ken Lay and Cheney's buddies will surely get pardoned if they are ever convicted. Cunningham is only the first of many Republicans to fall. Speculation is that the Abrahoff investigation will involve up to 35 Republican congressmen involved in taking bribes or in Republican speak "lobbying activities". And those that don't resign will surely be turfed out in the November, 2006 election landslide of honest, Democratic candidates.

Even Texas Has Seen the Light

2005-11-22T07:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, indeedee, politics does make for strange bedfellows. I never thought that I would want to link to Aljazeera.com. But they have the uplifting story of The Daily Texan calling in an editorial for the resignation of Dick Cheney calling him "a pandering liar and a corporate tool”. Now, I have very seldom looked positively at ANYTHING that comes out of Texas. The list is almost endless: Bush, DeLay, Enron, Big Oil, bigger hair, big, stupid belt buckles, big egos (for no apparent reason), line dancing, the Cowboys, the Astros, pickup trucks, and just general stupidity. When a newspaper in Texas, even a college one, calls for the removal of the biggest threat to democracy, you have to think twice about maybe there's some good in Texas after all. In discussing why Big Oil executives lied before Congress last week about meeting with Cheney early in 2001 to help write the disastrous energy policy the adminstration has foisted on the American consumer, the editors posit that they lied "because they fear being associated with the Vice President, who assembled an energy bill that ignored the needs of consumers and was rigidly biased towards energy industries like coal and oil, whose executives and lobbyists sought and were sought out to influence and guide our nation's energy policy directly into their coffers”. As proof of why Cheney must go, they point out his seeming inability to ever tell the truth, “Over the course of his tenure in office he has proved himself to be a dependable geyser of misinformation, revisionism and bald-faced lies. From the hubris of his pre-Iraq lies "[Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons" to his more recent lies (denying on a cable news show that he was Lewis Libby's source for outed CIA agent Valerie Plame's name) our Vice President just can't seem to prevent himself from telling tales." And most entertainingly, they show that Cheney even lies about lies, "Cheney even lies about his previous lies, so as to not get caught lying, as is the case with his statements regarding Mohamed Atta on June 20, 2004. In that instance, Cheney directly contradicted a video document of himself on a previous news show, saying the exact things he had just denied he had ever said". Come on, Dick, for once in your miserable life, do the right thing...resign! Even your home state wants you out. Well, technically Cheney quickly shifted his residence to Wyoming in 2000 as he was picking himself to be vice-president...this guy even lies about where he lives!

What a Difference a Delay Makes

2005-11-21T07:59:00.000-08:00

It seems in the past month or so that the fog is starting to lift in this country and we may finally be back on the right track. The Republican game plan of telling the same lie over and over no longer appears to be working. As Cheney comes out of his hole and makes a few speeches asserting that his administration did not lie to Congress and the American people to justify their precipitant (and profitable for his Halliburton cronies) rush to war, no one is paying any attention. It's clear to everyone that he is simply lying through his fangs.
The game plan of attacking as unpatriotic anyone who questions their lies and incompetence is also not working. When they attack Jack Murtha for telling the truth about their failure to plan for anything (outside of securing oil wells) on how to help Iraq govern itself, even their own party doesn't buy it, and Bush is forced to backtrack from their usual nasty tactics.
Why did things change in such a positive manner? Why did the press finally start asking questions that make obvious how evil and incompetent this administration is? I think it might relate back to October 19 and the indictment of Tom Delay. That seems to have been the catalyst. Like the pulling down of Stalin's statue seemed to energive the former Soviet citizens clammoring for change, the toppling of the Republican poster boy for bullying and abuse of power has seemed to have started us back on the path of progress. Here's hoping this is just the beginning.

ROE RIP

2005-11-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

It's absolutely comical to watch the right wing and Alito himself backpedal to try to explain the smoking gun which proves he will be the swing vote to overturn Roe v Wade. It's like Louie in Casablanca declaring that he is "shocked, shocked that there is gambling going on" in Rick's Cafe as he is pocketing his winnings. What a surprise to find evidence that a judge nominated by a president who kowtows to the religious right, from a party that has plainly stated its intent to overturn Roe is actually anti-choice. Roe was overturned on November 2, 2004 when the majority of this country who are pro-choice either didn't bother to vote or voted against their interests. These same people will be surpised when they see that overturning Roe is just the first step of this unholy alliance between the religious right and the republican party. The mullahs who control republicans will see to it that sex is put back where it was in the 50's. The next step is eliminating morning after bills for political, not medical reasons. I predict that by the next presidential election, it will be impossible for unmarried women to obtain birth control pills in at least 15 of the red states.

Torture's Path of Destruction

2005-11-16T06:47:00.000-08:00

With the latest horrors from Iraq showing that Iraqi government troops are torturing prisoners , the cynical viewpoint is to say that the Iraqi military is learning well from their American teachers. One might also say that the orders passed on to out troops from Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, and Cheney that led to torture abuses were picked up by the new Iraqi military command. However, the more important issue to deal with is that because the US has fostered torture, we are now viewed in the world community as no better than these animals who have tortured their prisoners to the point that "two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers." The US has no moral standing on these abuses and our soldiers and civilians will suffer similar torture for many years because of the immoral actions of the Bush-Cheney administration. Not only do we have a President who obviously is so totally out of the loop that he continues to make speeches claiming that the US doesn't torture, but we actually have a vice-president doing all he can to keep any law being passed that would forbid torture in the future. How embarassing is this? It's like "The Omen" movies storyline has come true, and Satan has been elected and is dragging the country lower and lower. As horrible as it is with the torture situation, the real problem comes with Iran. There is no doubt that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and that their religious dominated quasi-govenment that calls for the destruction of Israel is unstable enough to use them. With our moral influence being at its nadir due to the abuses of torture and lies to support precipitantly invading Iraq, the US has no chance to stop the approaching disaster from Iran. Is there hope on the horizon? Maybe. The Senate passed a resolution with 79 votes that takes the first steps in getting out of the Iraq quagmire. The same Senate passed the anti-torture bill with 90 votes. The truly sad thing is we had to have an anti-torture bill. That's what happens when you have a venal administration that actually is pro-torture!

Talking Points = Lie

2005-11-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a shorthand version of the Republicans daily talking points bulletin: LIE. Telling a lie over and over again has been a very successful tactic of this administration. In a blatant example yesterday, Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, stated on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that the facts that have shown Bush and Cheney misled the country into war were "flat wrong." What rabbit hole did this guy climb out of? "We need to put this debate behind us," he said. Yeah, if I got caught telling a series of blatant lies that caused thousands of deaths, I'd want people to forget it, too. He then had the unmitigated gall to say, "It's unfair to the country. It's unfair to the men and women in uniform risking their lives to make this country safe." Yeah, isn't it a little unfair to the 2,000 plus US soldiers who have died for a lie, too. It gets worse...Hadley said the intelligence Bush used to push for war"was roughly the same intelligence that the Clinton administration saw. They drew the conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a threat to peace, that he had weapons of mass destruction. They acted against him militarily in 1998," Hadley said, referring to the administration of Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Yeah, remember all the thousands of US troops and Iraqi civilians that were killed under Clinton's measured response?
John Edwards also wrote in yesterday's Washington Post, "The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate," Edwards wrote. "The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war." Shorthand version of Edwards position: Bush lied to rush the nation into an unnecessary war. If John Kerry had repeated this statement forcefully 13 months ago, he would be President today.

It's the Oligopoly, Stupid!

2005-11-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

As the Senate holds hearings to grill oil company executives on their obscene, windfall profits, no one mentions the actual reason why these windfall profits exist. The fact that they only needed to talk to executive from FIVE companies is the problem. Ever since Reagan, and the corporate cronies that controlled him, allowed the antitrust laws and regluations to be gutted and flooded the federal courts with "free-market" judges who think monopolies are just fine, the oil industry has been in an orgy of merger and consolidation. How difficult is it to control prices when you now have only 4 or 5 companies that control virtually the entire US oil and gas market? It's comical to listen to these hypocrits defend raising gas prices 24 cents in the hours after Katrina hit as a proper market response! Anyone with a basic knowledge of supply and demand knows that if the market is running properly, prices rise and fall according to market conditions. Why is it that gas prices are raised instantly everytime there is a remote threat to production like a hurricane 1,000 miles away from the Gulf, but weeks after prices haven't fallen back down? The polite terms are inperfect competition in an oligopoly. The plain reason is that a small number of people fix the price of oil and gas and have no fear of the White House or Republican controlled Congress doing anything about it. Senators complain that the oil companies should at least invest their profits in America. I say they already have. They spent millions on buying a president and vice-president.

Education Woes

2005-11-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

Well, today's good news is that Democratic victories in gubenatorial races in the major states of Virginia and New Jersey are a precursor of what will happen in 2006. As I have been saying since November 3, 2004, Republicans in their drunken orgy of power mongering will so turn off the electorate that we will take back the House and Senate. Democrats can then set our sights on righting the wrongs of November 2, 2004 either through impeachment or by simply rendering this administration meaningless. What better indication do we need that Republicans and their unholy alliance with the so-called Religious Right have led this country down the wrong path than to look at the state of education? Remember, this is the party that wanted to eliminate the Department of Education. When their leadership realized that this showed their disdain for the middle class a little too obviously, they shifted gears and tried to get a voucher law passed to help drain critical resources from the public schools and transfer public tax money into their elite boarding academies and southern "Christian" (read: white) schools. On the same day that the Chicago Tribune reports that average student test scores have not improved in 5 years, and as tax money is being wasted on a publicity stunt of over 3,ooo White House employees having to return to class to learn the basics of ethics, that most Republican of states, Kansas, adopts new "science" standards that are actually the opposite of science. In their zeal to impose their religious stories as fact, Kansas redefines “science” so that it’s not limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena. Wonder if they would be OK with teaching that it is just as likely that the so-called intelligent design came from aliens (maybe even liberal aliens - ooh, how scary!) as posited by numerous sci-fi writers. That would call their bluff and show that this ridiculous ID smokescreen is simply another way to try to force creationism into the schools as something other than fiction.

Multiple Choice Question

2005-11-08T07:01:00.000-08:00

What item has the least chance of survival right now?
a - a chicken with a cough in China
b - a Peugeot parked outdoors in a Paris suburb
c - a lawyer on Saddam's defense team
d - Credibility in the Bush White House.
No matter how loudly Bush may scream that "We do not torture", no one believes it. It's about as believable as Nixon saying he's "not a crook" or Winnie the Pooh saying he wasn't going to eat that jar of honey but was "just going to taste it." Why can't anyone in this administration tell the truth about anything?! Look, just admit that some of these terrorists are vicious, indiscriminate murderers of innocents and are not derserving of the protections of the Geneva Convention, and the neocons want to let the CIA use torture tactics to extract info on future attacks. I think many people would be OK with this, as targeting people who behead innocent people on videotape for their own warped political/religious reasons just might be deserving of being tortured. But they'll never do this, because then they would have to admit that only a handful of terrorists fall into this category and they would have to separate them from the poor captured slobs who happen to be Saddam's driver and the like. It's much easier to lump them all together, build secret prisons and let the interrogators do their worst. When you direct your Attorney General to find loopholes in the Geneva Convention, when you put someone like Rumsfeld in charge of defining the rules of interrogation, when you insist on the CIA being excluded from any law forbidding torture of prisoners, when you continue to hide pictures of prisoners being abused in Abu Ghraib, when you build secret "black site" CIA prisons throughout Eastern Europe and Asia, you can't expect anyone to believe your claims that torture is not being done. And who will pay for these excesses? Pity any American prisoner taken in the next 20 years for it will be at least that long before the reputation of the US can be restored.

Bush Never Lies About Lying

2005-11-07T07:11:00.000-08:00

Are Republicans so blind that they can't see the hypocrisy that comes out of their own mouths? No, it's part of the regular game plan to tell a lie over and over again in hopes that an inattentive electorate will start to believe it. Today, Bush unequivocally states that the US under "his watch" (he probably thinks that refers to his timepiece) does not torture prisoners. This follows within weeks of his administration violently opposing John McCain's amendment that took the radical position of stating that the US will not torture prisoners. Once it was clear that even the Republicans would vote for this amendment (HOW can you oppose it?!), Cheney goes to work to put in an exemption for the CIA. The debate on this issue has an increasingly isolated Cheney on one side and McCain, 89 other Senators, Rice, most of the Cabinet and human beings on the other side. It is now clear that the debate on torture has become so ludicrous that only Cheney could make it: the US will never torture prisoners but we have to have an exception to any torture restrictions for the CIA, even though they will never use it (wink, wink). How obvious is this?! I've racked my brain to come up with an example of what this is like, and all I come up is OTHER Bush/Cheney attacks on our institutions: we need to eliminate environmental regulations and the Clean Air Act to clean up the environment, we need to take money out of Social Security to solve its cash flow problems, we need to attack countries that have nothing to do with terrorism to fight the war on terror. And they wonder why Bush's approval ratings are at an all-time low domestically and internationally. Amazing.

Turn Off That Center Field Camera!

2005-10-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the World Champion Chicago White Sox! What a great team...and that's the critical word - TEAM. There are plenty of teams in baseball that have better players than the Sox, but no one played better as a team than they did. Somehow, a team without a single .300 hitter (the general cut-off for determining a very good hitter) managed to win 99 games in the regular season and still improved their game in the playoffs. Those of us who coach Little League players will have another example to inspire the kids with. It clearly shows that while the other team may have superstars, you can beat them if you play as a team. Jermaine Dye had a great series and was deserving of the MVP award, but really the MVP should have been split up among all 25 players. Did you notice when Dye was given the award, the first thing out of his mouth was about how they played together as a team, how everyone liked each other, etc. I don't think he used the word "I". It reminded me of that other great team who has dominated pro football the past four years, the New England Patriots. When players were being introduced at the Super Bowl in 2002, the St Louis Rams offense was introduced first and all their All Pros and superstars at nearly every position were introduced one at a time. When it was the Patriots turn to be introduced, the PA announcer simply said that the Patriots had decided to be introduced as a team and the players all ran onto the field together. I turned to my fellow Patriots fan and said "Game over." And I was right, because they were the better team.

So, how am I going to relate the Sox victory to the game of politics? Something schmaltzy about how the Democrats have to work as a team, or how Harriet Miers must feel like the Astros today? No, nothing like that. The problem I have is with technology. TV pictures have become too good. Some background first: a few weeks ago, the Ranter family TV which had provided nine years of loyal service decided to start showing a clear picture with the frequency of Cheney emerging from his undisclosed location. After several attempts to repair it in the only way we have come to be able to repair complex electronics (turn it on and off a few times, if that doesn't work... hit it) it was clear that a new TV was needed. As the price of high definition (hi def) TVs have dropped quite a bit, I decided to upgrade to this new technology and I have to say it is quite amazing. By simply hooking up your new hi def TV to that old antenna in your attic or on your roof that you abandoned when you got cable and then satellite TV, you are able to get (free!) a picture far better than cable or satellite and as bright, sharp and clear as you've ever seen. Football and baseball games show a level of detail that makes you feel you are at the game. The impact on DVDs is also striking. I was watching Finding Nemo with my six year old for about the 50oth time and I saw details of the reef and the fish in the background that I had never seen. So, what's the problem? Well, the two games in Chicago were just fine. However, when they got to Houston, every time the center field camera panned in on a right handed batter, I couldn't avoid having my vision spoiled by the fact that I could clearly see in the first row that silver haired matriarch of the Bush family sitting there with her husband. PLEASE, haven't the two of you done enough to harm this country without spoiling our evening of trying to just enjoy the World Series. Maybe we could forget about the four years of economic disaster brought to us by the adult Bush as he extended the ridiculous policies of the Raygun years of the rich getting richer and maybe something trickles down to everyone else, but now we are suffering because you didn't have the good sense to put your son in a place where he can't hurt anyone. Come on, you don't see "Kenny Boy" Lay sitting in the front row. No, he may be a crook, but he has the good taste to sit outside of the TV cameras' view in a sky box while he chats on the phone with the White House Director of Pardons. So, please Mrs. Bush, convince your husband to spend some of the millions he got from the Saudis and buy a sky box. Besides, in the stands you might have to mingle with "those people." But we really don't have to worry about Houston being in the World Series next year. After the Red Sox broke their 87 year streak without a World Series victory in 2004 and the White Sox broke their 88 year drought last night, surely next year will see the Cubs ending their 97 year cold streak!

He Questions US?! Wilson Must Be Destroyed!

2005-10-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Now we are finding out that Scooter-boy got his info on Valerie Plame from Cheney. Is this coming from the Scootster deciding that the trail of lies has to end and it's time to admit that there was a concerted effort from the very top to attack Joe Wilson and anyone else who dared to question the pack of lies for war put forth by this administration built on lies and theft. No, Scootie claimed before the grand jury that journalists told him about Plame. Notes in his own handwriting obtained by prosecutors show that he actually got the name directly from Cheney. Most likely, he also got his marching orders to reveal Plame's covert CIA status to obtain revenge against Wilson for having the temerity to question whether this administration may have fudged a bit in justifying starting their holy war on Iraq that they had been planning since before they stole their first election. And what was the reason for taking the ultimate step of revealing a CIA operative's identity and ruining her career? Take a look at the actual Memo that Wilson wrote. Is it a scathing attack on the administration? No, it simply details what he did in investigating the fake memo that implied that Iraq was attempting to obtain nuclear material and states that if this is the same memo that the administration and England are using to justify war, then maybe something needs to be investigated. The really sad thing is that the article ends with a lament that 200 American soldiers have died already in Iraq. Now as we approach ten times that number, it is time to identify and prosecute the real traitors.

No More Brownies!

2005-10-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

Harriet Miers is not qualified to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. There, I said it! Why is it so hard for Democratic Senators and progressive Republicans (all three of them) to say this? Is she a highly, qualified lawyer? Absolutely. Has she served her client well and helped him out of problems caused by his stupidity? You betcha. Does this qualify you to serve on the Supreme Court? No way! She never has served as a judge at any level and her ridiculous attempt at answering basic constitutional questions shows that she has no background in federal jurisprudence. She is simply one of the one million lawyers practicing in the US. The fact that she happens to have Bush as a client makes her no more qualified to be on the Supreme Court than it would be for Bush's stockbroker to head the SEC, his chauffeur to be Secretary of Transportation, or one of his National Guard buddies (assuming one can be found that actually remembers seeing him) to be Secretary of Defense. Although I have to admit that any of these choices would be superior to the hacks, cronies, incompetents and crooks that have been foisted on us so far. Why all this hesitancy to come out and say what everyone knows? Is it because this is considered a "woman's" seat on the bench? Haven't we come far enough in recognizing the accomplishments of women in this country that we can attack one who is simply unqualified for a job. Come on, there are literally thousands of female attorneys in this country more qualified than Harriet Miers. We've seen in New Orleans what happens when you allow cronies to fill important positions. Now I'm not saying hundreds of people will die if Miers is given a pass. But, clearly the standard of what it takes to ascend to the highest bench will die, as will many of the rights that have been fought for over the last 50 years.

First US Woman President...No, Not Geena Davis

2005-10-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

As we await the joyous news of the indictments of Rove, Scooter and the rest of the culture of corruption cabal, we need to look ahead to what this may mean to helping this country get back on the path of progress, prosperity and honesty. Assuming Rove and Libby are indicted for crimes committed in the White House in their official capacity as the closest aides to the president and vice-president, the obvious question arises as to what is the culpability of Bush and Cheney and how will their crimes be investigated. This is especially true if the indictments are for perjury, as the question of suborning of perjury by Bush and Cheney becomes a real question as I pointed out in this blog last July. How will this next step of the investigation of Republican crimes be handled? In a classic case of being hoisted with your own petard, the Republican controlled Congress allowed the special prosecutor statute to expire. Without a special prosecutor option, it appears to me that the only real option to determine if the president and vice-president have committed crimes is for the House to vote articles of impeachment. The House investigators can then examine the evidence and present it to Congress. Of course, this Congress would never dare take such a step, but after the Democratic landslide of 2006, we will have a House given a mandate by the people to clean up our government and to reverse the harm caused by the corruption and incompetence of the leaders of the Republican party. Once the articles of impeachment are voted, how will the trial in the Senate turn out? Well, given the ridiculously low standards set by the Republicans (here comes that petard again!) in their misguided attack on Bill Clinton, I'd say Bush will be getting an even longer vacation than he's used to and Cheney may want to start turning his undisclosed location into a retirement home. If lying about adultery qualifies as a high crime and misdemeanor, then surely suborning perjury, and lying to Congress and the American people to justify a personal war that costs thousands of lives will also make the cut. With Bush and Cheney out, the new Speaker of the House installed after the election, Nancy Pelosi, will be sworn in as President.
I know, I know, this speculation is an unlikely tale, and maybe I've been watching too many episodes of Commander in Chief. But you have to admit that this scenario is not as unlikely as an independent being chosen to run for vice-president. In fact, the most unlikely part of the show is that President Bridges is portrayed as an obvious Republican, but also as a man of impeccable character and high intelligence.

Barack's Vision

2005-10-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

If you are in need of some inspiration after being bombarded with the corruption of DeLay, Rove, et al. and wonder how the Democrats will turn things around in 2006, read Senator Barack Obama's insightful analysis of the Democratic Party's future. Not only will you see how we can fashion our message to create what I believe will be the biggest landslide since the Republicans gains in 1994 using their cynical list of lies in their "Contract with (on!) America", but you will have yet another reason to be proud of our junior senator.

He's STILL doing a heck of a job!

2005-09-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

If you just came out of a 5 year coma and are wondering why things are so screwed up, you only need listen to a few minutes of Brownie's testimony to a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to supposedly investigate the unmitigated disaster that New Orleans suffered at the incompetent hands of this idiot. Why do we need a 9-11 type commission when we have these Republican apologists and cover up specialists who are SO dedicated to getting all the facts out there. Amazingly, Michael Brown is STILL on FEMA's payroll as a "consultant". WHAT do you have do to get fired from this administration?! Brownie had the incredible gall to blame the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans, who just by coincidence are Democrats, for all the problems. Apparently, the fact that Brown, like most idealogues installed by this administration of criminals and incompetents, had no experience in the area he was supposed to be running and could not even successfully run horsie shows was not a factor. Democrats mostly shunned this sham of a hearing but the one Democrat who appeared told Brown, "I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans." He should have stolen a quote from the McCarthy Army hearings and simply asked him, "Have you no shame, Mr Brown, have you no sense of shame?"

Kerry Speechwriters a Bit Slow

2005-09-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

Why the hell didn't John Kerry give this speech LAST year? If he had given hard hitting type speeches like this that pointed out the hypocricies, corruption, and incompetence of Bush and the crowd that controls him, we wouldn't be in the messes we are today. Kerry would have had more than enough votes counted in Ohio and elsewhere so that any shennanigins by Diebolt wouldn't have mattered.

"Being There"

2005-09-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

Remember that great movie about how Chauncey Gardiner, that simple minded fellow who through a hilarious series of events found himself next in line to be President of the United States? Watch it again and you begin to get an idea how the federal government, with all the resources at its command, could have been so incompetent in dealing with the disaster on the gulf coast. We have known for a while now that FEMA has been used as a Chicago-style patronage dumping ground for presidential buddies, bozos and Florida officials who helped "count" the votes in 2000. The fact that "Brownie" didn't bother to ask for aid until five hours after the hurricane passed is about right for an administration led by a dolt who sat there doing nothing for seven agonizing minutes after he was told that America was under attack on 9-11. We now find out from the latest Newsweek that the sycophants and yes-men that Cheney has chosen to baby-sit Bush are so afraid of giving him bad news that they fight about who will have to do it. When they finally get around to it, they then have to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to him what the problem is. Remember this is the guy who proudly stated that he doesn't read newspapers (this explains how he could say "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." when there had only been a nine part Times-Picayune series on just that exact scenario). Now we find out that outside of a little ESPN, this Chauncey doesn't even watch TV news. Who doesn't switch on CNN when there is a national disaster? OK, I can understand his reluctance to watch CNN, but couldn't someone have turned on FOX news for him. In between their reading of press releases written by the RNC, they actually report on some news. Incredibly, an aide had to create a tape of news clips from TV reports so Chauncey could watch it during his flight to the gulf coast last Thursday. Could it be that he was petulantly ignoring the hurricane because it caused him to miss the last two days of his five week vacation or could he (or ANYONE) be that clueless?

Cheney Back, Vacation Resumes

2005-09-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

Now that Dick Cheney have finished his own long summer vacation in Wyoming, he is speeding to the Gulf Coast only a week and and a half after the hurricane hit. This schedule is in keeping with "Brownie's" FEMA rapid response plan. The president of vice was also delayed as he had to be sure that the ink had dried on all no-bid contacts for Halliburton to take over the administration of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. There was a further delay as he had to help Halliburton open new off-shore accounts to accept direct deposit of federal Treasury funds for these new contracts, as the current off-shore accounts for Iraq war profiteering are all full. Now that his boots are on the ground, we can expect things to really happen. While en route to New Orleans (via stage coach, apparently) Cheney noted that the hurricane was in its "last throes." I'm sure the refugees will get a little misty eyed when they see his General McCarthy-like figure step out of a helicopter and roll up his sleeves and get to work ensuring that all reconstruction work is carefully doled out to the highest contributors of the 2004 campaign. The only refugees who may have felt better than these are the ones in the Houston Astrodome who were visited by that paragon of compassion, Barbara Bush, who pointed out how "those people" huddled on the floor of yet another sports stadium were "already poor" and so were so much better off. As they say, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.
With Cheney's steady hand in charge, Barb's boy is able to put in for the two days of vacation he was "cheated" out of by the inconvenience of this hurricane. He did try to get his whole five week vacation in as he waited for three days after Katrina hit before doing anything. But finally, he did agree to return to Washington two days early. Bush will probably ask Cheney if he can have a whole week off as several of his August days were "ruined by that dead kid's mother who was so rude as to camp a few miles from my ranch."

The Dumbing Down of the Presidency

2005-09-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Should anyone be surprised that thousands of poor people in Louisiana died while the federal govenment disaster bureaucracy that has been spreading around billions to Bush friendly corporations in the past five years did nothing? Should we surprised that FEMA is headed by a friend of a friend (ie. big money fundraiser) of W who was fired from his previous job of running an organization that held horsie shows? Who's responsible for this disgusting turn of events? Look in the mirror. If you are one of the millions of people who have tuned out politics and only voted, if at all, based on superficial soundbites you heard while watching your reality TV shows, then you are to blame. This sad state of affairs has been going on for at least 25 years. In 1980, a majority of voters decided it would be a good idea to vote for an actor...an actor! as President of the United States! Jimmy Carter was a good and decent man, someone who could get things done. Look what he has accomplished on his own since leaving office. How many houses have been built for the poor, how many countries have held fair elections, hell, how many books has he written? What Carter didn't have were spin doctors to make him look good. The Republicans had that area covered and the money from the venal corporate men who knew that once they had installed their operatives (Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al) in government that the gravy train would never end. Once these operatives were out of office they paid them off with corporate jobs they weren't qualified for but paid them millions so they would be ready to go back in and rape the federal treasury for their corporate masters when the next Republican puppet was installed. The evil right wing cabal provided the money and control of the national media to prop up Reagan and make him look competent while they plundered and stole. Twenty years later they ran a campaign aimed at potential voters who didn't like to pay attention to poilitices that pointed at the idiot son and effectively said, "How hard can it be to be President, Reagan did it." And so we end up with a so-called leader who is acknowledged to be (charitably) less than a genius. If voters are willing to settle for this, why shouldn't he appoint people with no qualifications to head disaster planning and relief? The lesson of Katrina is that elections matter...if you don't pay attention, people die needlessly.

Incompetence = High Crimes

2005-09-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

Are we not at the point where the sheer incompetence of the President amounts to an impeachable offense? Does anyone have any confidence that we will survive the next crisis with this monumentally incompetent administration? Our only hope is for the Congress to take the lead and vote articles of impeachment against Bush and Cheney and get them out of office as soon as possible. If lying about sex with a willing bimbo is a “high crime and misdemeanor”, then surely the inability to do ANYTHING to help people literally dying in the streets of New Orleans is grounds for being removed from office. But the republicans will say that Bush is doing all he can…after all he cut short his FIVE week vacation by a couple days. He returned to Washington and when the entire country was looking for leadership and hope, gave perhaps the worst speech in the history of the Presidency. And since that point has apparently done nothing. With all the resources of the federal government and the trillions of dollars at the disposal of the Homeland Security Department, to have done as little at this point is not only impeachable but is criminal. And incompetence is the best spin they can put on this. One can clearly argue that the main reason for this inaction is blatant racism. We all see that the faces on CNN in such desperate straits are those of poor, black people. Does ANYONE have any doubt that if these faces were white and wealthy (“I call you my base, heh, heh,heh”) that every Greyhound bus, plane as well as military transports would have instantly been deployed to the area to evacuate these people from this hell hole?
Those of us safely away from the devastation are hit with $4 a gallon gas by the rapacious oil companies. And what’s the response from this administration? Do they point out that the gas in the pipelines has nothing to do with any small reduction on future production and that instantly raising prices as they have is immorally taking advantage of a national tragedy? Of course not, what we get is a reaction that NOW, we can tap the strategic reserve to help Big Oil keep the gas flowing. In the minds of the Republicans, the strategic reserve is not to be used to safeguard the country but only to maximize oil companies’ profits. Congress should immediately repeal the energy bill passed last month that would give these crooks even more billions at the expense of the federal treasury.
The lesson for the rest of us is that it truly matters who we elect to lead us. Does anyone seriously believe that this suffering would be going on under a John Kerry administration? In the next election I work on, if a cynical non-voter tells me that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, (after I resist the urge to beat them senseless), I’ll have a two word response…New Orleans.

Vacation's Over, Back to Ranting

2005-08-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Well, August is about over and like that workaholic in Texas, it's time to get back to work. Mrs. Ranter took our two kids on a two week tour of all the amusement parks between Chicago and Maine. I flew to NYC and met them at the midpoint of the vacation. Like the election of a Republican presidential shill for Big Oil, our family road trips are a perfect indicator of when gasoline prices will rise. This trip covered 3,700 miles and last summer I took the kids on a trip out west that covered 5,000 miles, also at the time when gas prices hit their peaks. Of course, the corporate controlled media continue to trot out the ridiculous assertions they are fed by their corporate masters on why prices are rising so fast...China's using too much oil, it's too difficult to increase refining capacity, supplies are at near maximum...funny the oil companies always manage to find more supplies when prices rise. The fact that Republicans have allowed the oil industry to merge to the point where there is no more competition and price/production fixing is very simple to accomplish is never cited as a reason for the increase in oil prices. The talking heads of TV will actually read something put in front of them that says that a disruption of a day or two in oil prodcution in the Gulf of Mexico is a valid reason for oil hitting $70 a barrel.
But it's nice to see that the Republican economic plan is working just as planned. Yesterday, it was announced that the poverty rate in this country has risen for the fourth consecutive year. The last year the rate went down was Bill Clinton's last year in office. So, it's clear that those tax cuts that helped the super rich become obscenely rich have had the usual trickle down effect as they did under Reagan. Don't worry though, those poor people can move ahead by joining the Army...there's plenty of jobs available in Iraq, with future jobs in Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc.

Bush Passes Gas (Bill)

2005-08-09T07:17:00.000-07:00

Isn't it incredibly ironic (and hypocritical) that on the same day that a barrel of oil hits an all-time high, that Bush would sign his beloved energy bill. A putrid piece of legislation that even its supporters (read: bag men for Big Oil) acknowledge will do nothing to lower the price of gas for consumers, Bush had the unmitigated gall to sign this give away of the Federal Treasury to oil companies at a solar energy test facility in Albuquerque. This is the equivalent of going to Florida to sign a bill that guarantees that all votes be counted fairly. Lest anyone think that the cost of gas is going to moderate anytime soon, listen to what Bush was given to read by Cheney and his Big Oil buddies, "Most of the serious problems such as high gasoline costs or the rising dependence on foriegn oil, have developed over decades. It's going to take YEARS of focused effort to alleviate thise problems." Don't say he didn't warn you.

Ayatollahs Stock Up On Sunscreen

2005-08-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

If I were a political or military leader of Iran, Syria, North Korea, and any country with large oil reserves, I would be treading lightly right now, after hearing that the Bush administration is negotiating with Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen to accept transfer of their nationals who are currently imprisoned at Guantanomo Bay. If these negotiations go as expected, 70% of the prisoners currently at Gitmo will be gone. Hmmm...wonder what's up...who's going to be filling up all those vacant cells? Matthew Waxman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs (yup, we need an a Defense Dept official whose only job is to handle detainee affairs) claimed that this was a normal process, ``We, the US, don't want to be the world's jailer. We think a more prudent course is to shift that burden onto our coalition partners.'' It would have been nice if they took the same approach in coalition building for jailing prisoners as they did in actually invading a country. Of course, then it would be difficult to see that all the spoils of war go to Halliburton.

What Energy Bill?

2005-08-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

As a confirmed "numbers person", it has always been my opinion that if you want to see the motivation of many people (especially Republicans) look at the dollars involved. I've felt this way even before Mark Felt told Woodward and Bernstein to "follow the money" to discover the facts behind the last, totally corrupt, presidential administration. While everyone has been agitated this past week about CAFTA passing, no one paid much attention to the new energy bill. While there is the legitimate issues of whether it will cost jobs in the US, CAFTA will have little, if any, effect on most Americans given the small amount of trade ($15 billion) that we do with Central American countries. The energy bill is a much diffferent case. What little discussion we heard from TV's talking heads was about how daylight savings time will be extended to Halloween. No one talks about how this bill is the bastard child of the secret meetings Cheney held with energy executives right after Bush was first appointed by the Supreme Court. These meetings were so secret that the administration fought for years through the courts to even keep secret who was at the meeting! It took Republicans almost five years to get this bill passed, during a period in which they had control of Congress and the nation clearly expressed a desire to have a strong energy policy. How bad can this bill be if it took this long? How big a theft from the US treasury can be involved here? Follow the money...

So what do the numbers show? How about $14.5 billion in tax breaks for energy companies. Well, that doesn't seem so bad. After all, with a current population of over 296 million, that works out to $48.85 each for every man, woman, and child in this country. That seems like a small price to pay for a strong, balanced energy policy. And you know, it WOULD be a good deal. Unfortunately, this money will do almost nothing to strengthen US energy policy...but it WILL do wonders for the profits of oil companies. I wonder if any of them were present in Cheney's hideout for the secret meetings? Guess we'll never know for sure! But wait, let's be fair my Republicans friends (yeah, I have some!) will say. These tax breaks have to go to the oil companies. Otherwise, they won't explore for new oil or expand refinery capability so they can sell us more $3 a gallon gas. Well, that certainly understandable a position to take (if you get major PAC money from oil companies). After all, in the second quarter, Exxon Mobil had net profits (that's NET, after all expnses are paid, this is what goes back into their big pockets) of only $7.64 billion (yup, BILLION). Since this net profit only amounted to $84,888,889 per DAY that quarter, one can see why they would be hesitant to invest any of that money in order to drill a little deeper (or in the National Wildlife Refuge) for more oil to make even more money. And why should they spend any of their money, when with a few well-spent piddling millions, you can buy enough politicians to get the federal taxpayers to pay you billions. Many wondered in 1999, why a group of seemingly smart oil and gas people would lead the charge to raise millions of dollars to run the neer-do-well son of a failed president as their candidate. Oh, how that investment has paid off for them!

The Science of Religion vs. The Religion of Science

2005-08-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

Now that Bush has aimed his massive intellect at the issue of whether our planet evolved as science has proven through rigorous research covering millions of years of hard evidence or as told to him by his Sunday School teacher, we need to take a hard look at how we will teach children to reconcile these two "theories." Bush, speaking in one of those rare situations where he is not reading a speech that almost always produces the most hilarious results, told a group of reporters Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution. No doubt Republicans will now propose federal legislation to rewrite all science textbooks to reflect the idea that intelligent design (read: creationism) is just as valid a theory as evolution, especially in states where this obvious sop to the religious right might gain them a few more uninformed voters. Where the money will come from to pay for all these new science textbooks has not yet been determined as previous Republican legislative efforts have funneled most federal education dollars into more student testing. However, the vice president has decided that the contract for these new books has already been awarded to Halliburton’s newly created textbook division. It only remains for Halliburton to fill in the dollar amounts to the contract.

In order to keep the separation of church and state balanced, the new legislation should also include a provision that all Bibles be recalled and reprinted with a chapter added right after Genesis. This chapter will be written by secular scientists and will point out in summary fashion their “theory” of how science has proven that the creation story in the Bible has no basis of fact but was a nice, simple story that was written thousand of years ago for people without the strong intellects of today’s leaders. For space reasons, the chapter will be printed in 4 point type, with wide margins and will be limited to 5,000 pages, if possible.

The scientific and religious communities are keenly awaiting developments on what new areas of debate will be opened by the intellectual curiosity (or is it curiosity of intellect?) of the current inhabitant of the White House. Based on comments overheard from the Oval Office during a strong thunderstorm recently, the National Weather Association has recently completed a research paper on the process by which lightning strikes create thunder and how it is unlikely that they are due to “angels bowling.”

Back Door Bolton vs. Ryno

2005-08-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Isn't it interesting that Bush sneaks Bolton into the UN through the service entrance one day after Ryne Sandberg is enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Could the contrast between two people be bigger? In Cooperstown, you have a man who humbly does everything right over his career and never caused anyone to seriously criticize his actions. In New York, we will have a man who even his supporters acknowledge doesn't have the basic skill of the job - diplomacy. Ryno talks of his deep respect for the game and how he always felt the game was bigger than him or any other single player. Bolton talks of blowing up the UN building and no doubt will carry out the neo-cons warped view that a world body that strives for world peace is a hindrance to their goal of the US as the world's bully and generator of maximum benefits to their friends (Halliburton recently announced that its war profit division, KBR, had a profit increase of 284%) . Sandberg was voted into the Hall in only his third year of eligibility. Bolton had to be snuck in under a recess appointment as he couldn't make Senate approval, even with the Republicans controlling 55 seats. It used to be that a President wouldn't even consider trying to get Senate approval for someone so obviously unqualified. No one considered trying to squeak through an appointment with 51 votes. Presidents looked for candidates who could command universal respect because their qualifications were outstanding, and the confirmation process was almost always perfunctory and candidates were approved by unanimous voice votes. Now, we have an administration that appoints stealth candidates with small paper trails as Supreme Court Judges with a hope of squeezing them through the Senate, and where an appointee fails to meet that incredibly low standard, they use the recess appointment to circumvent the will of the American people and to insult the representatives of the rest of the world.

Hey Goofy, Sign My Chest!

2005-07-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

I will readily admit that many days I am ranting about some stupid, unneeded law the Republicans are trying to pass, but today I am pointing out an area that screams for legislative action but neither party has shown the guts to take the lead. We need a federal law that makes it illegal to charge anyone for an autograph and restricts those who may ask for an autograph to kids age 16 or less. Yesterday, OJ Simpson showed up at a sports memorabilia show in Rosemont near O'Hare and signed 115 autographs at $100 to $125 each before he was told to leave the show. And best of all, do you think he was kicked out by the convention manager because he viciously killed his wife and her friend? No, it was because he was not scheduled to be in the booth that day. How demagnitized does your moral compass have to be to schedule OJ Simpson as a way to make money and how warped do you have to be to want to own something that he actually touched? But autograph buying and selling is a big business, despite the fact that anyone with half a brain realizes that a piece of paper with someone's signature on it has zero intrinsic value; it's only worth what the next sucker is willing to pay for it. Now it's bad enough bothering some celebrity for an autograph, but how empty does your life have to be to PAY someone for an autograph, or even worse to buy an item that someone else got autographed.
How did the autograph process start in the first place? I believe it was because years ago we were a more rural country and cameras were rare. People would go to the big city and meet a "celebrity" and when they returned to the farm, no one believed them. So on their next trip to the big city, after gushing when they meet some actor who just had a hit movie after 10 years of waiting tables, the country bumpkin after saying "I've been your biggest fan forever" would ask for a signed piece of paper as proof for the folks back home. Everyone has a camera on vacation these days. Hell, we even have cameras in our phones. So, snap a shot of yourself with the next famous person you bother and skip the meaningless piece of paper. I mean, grow up!
By making it illegal to charge for an autograph we will wipe out the worthless memorabilia industry, and all those sports shops at the malls can be converted into something useful, like more candle shops. The amount of money currently wasted on autographs could easily erase the national debt. Autographs will then become what they should be, a cherished keepsake for a child who will soon grow out of it. When 10 year old Johnny gets Sammy Sosa's autograph on a foul ball his dad caught at Wrigley a few years ago, that's a great item to put on his bureau in his room. Today, if Johnny's friends need a ball for today's game in the back yard, there's no reason Johnny shouldn't grab that ball because he's grown up, something memorabilia collectors never do.
There is one more clause that needs to be added to this new law. Kids are limited to asking for autographs from real persons. This would be referred to as the Disney World clause. Up until about ten years ago, the lines to have kids meet Mickey and Minnie and have their pictures taken together by mom and dad were fairly short and moved quickly. Then Disney started selling autograph books in the park's shops. Quickly, lines snaked for seeming blocks as some 22 year old kid sweating in a Winnie the Pooh costume tries to scribble Pooh's name in countless books with his overized paws.

Bulletin: Republican Discovers Science!

2005-07-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

In a shameless move today, Senator Bill Frist (R-Expediency) announced that he is abandoning his kowtowing to the Religious Right on one issue and will support limited stem cell research. Republicans as a group have been following the Bush "compromise" policy of limiting research to existing cell lines. Now, maybe many Republicans can claim ignorance that this policy will squelch potential breakthroughs for a host of debilitating diseases, but Frist had no such defense. The man is actually a trained physician. To have waited as long as he did to change his position is indefensible. While a shocking rebuke to the Bush administration policy that "science is evil", Frist's move is in keeping with past Republicans who desperately want to be president some day. Many of us remember the Republican primaries in 1979 in which Bush the Adult articulated very sound and supposedly deeply held beliefs on a woman's right to choose that were somewhat progressive, at least for a Republican. When it became apparent that Reagan would win the nomination and was considering Bush for veep, old HW instantly became the most rabid anti-choice politician around. And in the biggest flip flop of all time, after 40 years as a confirmed hedonist, Georgie Jr dried out, became born again, and let Daddy's circle of friends dress him up like a responsible candidate.
Frist went on today to say that he will continue to closely review the potential of a scientific breakthrough against the likelihood that it may gain him some votes in key primaries. "I have directed my staff to talk with my friends in Kansas to see if this evolution theory can be squared with the science of creation as detailed in a 2,000 year old book written by a religious organization. And while I have great doubts about the motives of this Newton fellow and his apple, I am keeping an open mind about the existence of gravity."

Jim Screws Up, Jay Walks the Plank

2005-07-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't you love to have a job where if you royally screw something up, one of your underlings gets fired? Well, if you can't get a CEO job, the next best thing is congressman from Wisconsin. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis) was totally out of control last month, sending a letter to Joel Flaum, the chief judge of the 7th circuit of the federal court. He actually demanded that Flaum do something about an individual case. This action was wrong on so many levels that it makes one's head spin. What makes it even worse is that Sensenbrenner is chairman of the House Judiciary committee that controls the budgets of the federal court system. The obvious bullying intent was "do things my way, or you just might see your budget cut next year." This is so typical of how Republicans have become drunk with power. And what was the heinous case that caused Sensenbrenner to take such a spectacularly stupid action? The trial judge in a drug case decided to give a minor participant in a larger case who possessed a small amount of the total drugs involved an eight year and one month sentence. Sensenbrenner in his letter claimed (later shown to be wrong) that under sentencing guidelines, a 10 year sentence was required. Well, one can see how a difference of 23 months in such an everyday drug case would bring the halls of justice crashing down if not rectified immediately. So, when all this came out in the open, what do you think happened? Sensenbrenner had to resign in shame, right? Of course not! Remember, we are living in Republican Bizarro world. Jay Apperson, chief counsel of the House Judiciary subcommittee who brought the case to Sensenbrenner's attention and who publicly defended Sensenbrenner's action with his ridiculous letter resigned last week. That will teach him! You know, Sensenbrenner's actions were so off the wall and so wrong, I am expecting Bush to pin a medal on him real soon.

Roberts Nomination Withdrawn

2005-07-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

In somewhat of a surprising move, the White House announced today that it is withdrawing the nomination of John Roberts to the US Supreme Court. The move was especially surprising as Roberts had been accumulating almost universal acclaim from individual senators as he has been holding a series of meetings with them. Even Democratic Senators such as Joseph Lieberman have had positive things to say about Judge Roberts after meeting with him. White House Press secretary Scott McClennan announced the withdrawal today and was roundly jeered by the White House press corps with chants of "Liar, liar, pants on fire..." However, everyone was shocked when Judge Roberts later met with the press and confirmed that in this rare case, McClellan was actually sent out to tell the truth. Not surprisingly, Roberts was perplexed by the move. "I never got a straight answer from the president on why, Bush mumbled something about not being able to come up with an acceptable nickname for me and then he trailed off." Cheney then told me that my growing acceptance by senators was proof that I did not meet the qualification standard as set by this administration. "We don't nominate anyone for important positions unless they are unequivocally unqualified for the job. Why do you think we put out the word last week that we were considering nominating someone to the Supreme Court who wasn't even a lawyer? Hell, look at me. The only qualifications for vice-president are that you follow the president's lead and that you are ready to fill in if the president should die. Everyone knows I tell Bush what to do and I've got one and a half feet in the grave. We now have a secretary of state who has shown herself to be totally incompetent in running a large organization or in matters of diplomacy. We're trying to ram through a guy to be our Ambassador to the United Nations who has even less diplomatic skills than Condi and is on record with saying that blowing up the UN building would not be a problem. The Energy Department is run by former CEOs of Big Oil. The EPA is run by major polluters. Chris Cox (R-Fortune 500) is our choice to run the SEC after having been our point man in Congress in pushing legislation to weaken any laws that protect investors and to push laws that protect our friends who run companies like Halliburton and Enron. And Defense? Rummy scares ME...the guy makes Dr. Strangelove look like a peacenik." Roberts then related how in a state of shock he asked Cheney how an entire administration can be based on putting the exact wrong person in every important position. Cheney just winked at Roberts and said, "You have met the President, haven't you?"

Cheney the Hutt Emerges

2005-07-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

What does it take to get the least-seen official in the federal government to come out of his "undisclosed location"? I have a mental picture that Cheney's hiding place looks just like Jabba the Hutt's mountainside cave as seen in Return of the Jedi. I see a large, dark space carved out of a mountain filled with neo-cons (none of whom ever served in the military...like their leader) strutting around in their battle gear and armor (armor that should have been given to the real troops who needed it), loudly proclaiming how tough they are and how they will bring democracy to the next axis of evil...as soon as Halliburton's balance sheet needs an even larger injection of billions from the federal treasury. And sitting above it all is Cheney the Hutt, smiling as he nods off, while a team of cardiologists monitor his vital signs and a larger team of Wall Street analysts calibrate Cheney's vitals to their investment portfolios.
So what national crisis caused Cheney to rouse from his slumbers, order that his battlecruiser be made ready, and actually make an appearance on Capital Hill? Was the Rebel Alliance trying to amend the Patriot Act? Or were they trying to come up with a real solution to Social Security that would not involve shifting a Trillion Dollars from the US Treasury to Wall Street brokers for setting up "personal" accounts? No, worst of all, it was to thwart an attack from inside the Empire's own ranks. Three well-known "liberal" Senators, John McCain, Lindsey Grahan, and John Warner had the temerity to draft legislation that would no longer allow the military to hide prisoners from the Red Cross (a dastardly organization that apparently strikes fear in the heart of conservatives!), and would prohibit cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of military detainees. Cheney can easily see how such crackpot legislation might lead to restoring, in some small way, the reputation of the US in the international community. It might also hamstring a military prison commander who wishes to create the next Abu Ghraib. But most importantly, it would create the first, tiny restriction on the imperial power presently held and used with great vigor by Cheney and his puppet to jail anyone, at any time, at any place with no requirement for ever bringing charges, or even acknowledging that a person is being detained. Certainly no reasonable person has a problem with enemy combatants who were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq being dealt with by the military and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. But is it reasonable for a US citizen to step off a plane at O'Hare and be whisked away to a brig and never be charged with a crime? Is Jose Padilla guilty of attending a terrorist training camp, planning to blow up Chicago apartment buildings and to plant a "dirty" bomb, or did he just make the mistake of visiting Afghanistan at the wrong time? We will never know unless he is charged with these crimes and convicted. To allow any President to have the unlimited power to secretly arrest, imprison, and forget about anyone he chooses is a recipe for abuse, and is a perfect example of why Lord Acton said over a century ago, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Are Republicans Allergic to Ethics?

2005-07-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

Has the weight of public scorn heaped on the Republicans for their lies and corruption finally pressured them to stop treating ethics as if it were radioactive? Yesterday, the Republicans finally caved in and allowed the House Ethics Committee to be activated. Why did it take this long? Well, in January as they were being sworn in to a new term, the Republicans in one of their first actions, attempted to impose rule changes to the Ethics Committee that would essentially render it powerless. Then to be on the safe side, the Republicans turned on their own. They replaced committee chairman Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo) who was considered more interested in ethical standards than partisan coverups ,with a new chairman more closely tied to the Republican leadership cabal. Why did they feel changes were needed? Well, the committee chastised Tom DeLay (R-Hades) THREE times last year, and this year he was facing much more serious charges relating to illegally raising money to hijack more House seats in Texas, travelling around the world illegally on lobbyist paid golf tours, etc, etc, etc. This doesn't consider the issue of how can self-respecting office holders allow themselves to be bullied into retaining a leader with such obvious disregard for ethical standards. We all know that Delay's a prodigious fund raiser and funnels huge wads of campaign cash to those House members who remain loyal to him. But don't you sometimes reach a point, Republicans, when simple decency is more important than money? Nah, I didn't think so.
Will the newly constituted Ethic Committee spend all its time investigating DeLay? No way! The party of "Ethical rules, we don't need no stinking ethical rules" has plenty of other bench players ready to move into the starting line up of political corruption. Take Duke Cunningham (R-Military Industrial Complex) a House member who obstensibly represents San Diego. As a member of House committees dealing with defense appropriations he attracted a lot of attention from defense contractors. One defense contractor apparently liked Duke's home in San Diego so much that he bought in from him for $1.6 million dollars. This certainly doesn't seem like an outrageous sum for a home in that area. But what the Ethics Committee might want to look into is that the house went up for sale 9 months later for $900,000. Now, I don't spend a lot of time keeping up with the California real estate market , but I don't recall any crash last year. In fact, I believe San Diego real estate prices were UP about 25%. Maybe there's nothing that stinks about this deal and the defense contractor just made a bad deal, or maybe he let his teenage kids have parties there and they trashed the place. Finding the real reasons for suspicious transactions like this is what the Ethics Committee is for. Investigations by a real committee will find out all the facts, including the fact that Duke lives on a yacht while in DC that is owned by the same defense contractor who bought his house.

John Roberts' Smoking Gun

2005-07-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

Once again, the Republican obfuscation machine is running as smoothly as ever. By rushing up the schedule for nominating Roberts, they have taken the criminal antics of King Karl off the front pages. But more importantly, they have framed the issue of Roberts' qualifications in the best light while ignoring the dark side which screams for investigation.
The big issue about Roberts background that is being discussed is his work for the Solicitor General. There is talk about seeing his work papers, especially as they relate to a brief he signed urging that Roe v Wade be overturned. What a smokescreen! The work that he did while working for that paragon of fairness, Solicitor General Ken Starr, was as an attorney... an advocate. He was simply parrotting the openly held position of the mullahs who ran the legal department for the adult Bush that Roe should be overturned. That was his job. His personal opinion on Roe in that situation is not an issue. Would he vote to overturn? We don't know and quite frankly we shouldn't know. Judges should be chosen for their abilities as interpreters of the law, not for their personal opinions. For all we know, Roberts may come onto the Court and render any discussion of overruling Roe v Wade moot by holding a remedial basic law class for Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist in which he explains the principle of stare decisis. The process of picking a judge should be to pick a qualified person (you know, Bush, it's ok to pick a woman; a country that's 50% women should be represented on the Court by more that 11%) that is fair and judicious. Someone who does not let his partisan feelings interfere with the rule of law. Does John Roberts pass that test? The issue that no one is talking about is that Roberts voluntarily went to Florida in November, 2000 to advise the Republicans in their attempt to quash any investistigation of how Jeb's minions counted the votes. He wasn't an attorney representing his client here. Hell, he paid his own way to Florida and just showed up. Is volunteering to disenfranchise voters a judicious act? Does it show the type of temperment that a judge needs? Isn't this what should be investigated and what any hearings should concentrate on?

WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?

2005-07-21T00:23:00.000-07:00

It has been over thirty years since the last totally corrupt Republican administration caused the average citizen to lose all hope that politicians could ever be trusted again to tell the truth. After four and a half years of being bombarded by lie after lie, from Medicare “reform” to Iraq “WMDs”, we now face a potential crisis caused by revelations of the apparent crime committed by Karl Rove and the question of who else in the White House may be involved. While the Republicans try to muddy this issue by trying to make it appear more complicated than it is, the political and legal ramifications are clear cut. On the legal side, the special prosecutor will continue his investigation to show that Rove intentionally outed a CIA operative for purely political reasons in violation of federal law. Given Rove’s past activities, one may have little doubt that the reporter’s notes are accurate and that Rove revealed “Wilson’s wife’s” CIA status as political payback for Wilson’s failure to tow the party line on creating a drum beat for war, when he revealed that the administration was blatantly lying about Iraq trying to obtain nuclear materials in Africa. But that is a legal issue that will be played out in court and we shouldn’t waste our time arguing about it. However, it is amusing to watch the hypocrisy of Republicans who attacked Bill Clinton like rabid dogs for legalisms like “it depends on your definition of is” attempting to dance on the head of a legal pin arguing that because Rove did not use the woman’s actual name, he did not violate the statute.
What we should be talking about is the political issue. Two years ago when the Wilson issue first arose, the White House sent out its spokesman to tell the press and the American people that “it was ridiculous to think” that Kark Rove or anyone else in the administration was involved in the crime of revealing a CIA operative’s status. We now know that this was a lie. Anyone who knew it to be a lie and who repeated the lie under oath to the grand jury investigating this crime is likely to be found guilty of perjury. Anyone who encouraged others to tell this lie would be guilty of suborning perjury.
What should our next steps be find the truth and try to restore some semblance of trust in our political systems that have been decimated by this administration?
First, the American people should pressure their Congressional Representatives, especially Republicans, that Congressional hearings should be held now. This issue is too important to wait for the 2006 elections to play out in which an electorate sick of the lies, hubris and hypocrisy of the party of Tom DeLay will usher in a new House ready to face their responsibility.
Second, these hearings must determine when and to whom Rove revealed his crime. Given the fact that Rove is Deputy Chief of Staff, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he had informed Bush of his culpability. As Scooter Libby (what kind of grown man goes by Scooter?), Chaney’s chief of staff was also involved in these shenanigans, it is not unlikely that Chaney was involved. If that is the case, the House should then vote an article of impeachment for subordination of perjury against both the president and the vice-president. Certainly there will be calls to add articles for the lies relating to the justification for the war in Iraq.
Third, the Senate will then have the responsibility to hold a trial to determine if the president and the vice-president actions are “high crimes and misdemeanors” amounting to impeachable offenses. Only then will this country be back on the road to restoring trust in our federal government.

John Roberts...could (will) do worse.

2005-07-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

Is John Roberts qualified to sit with the Supremes? Absolutely, he is a brilliant lawyer and has served competently as a federal judge. Could we do better? Absolutely. Could we have done worse? Oh yeah, big time...and we will! On a personal level, the best thing about the Roberts nomination is that he graduated from law school the same year as me and everyone is commenting on how young he is! Back in the ancient days of my youth, federal judges were generally vetted and recommended by a time honored process run by the ABA. The ABA sent a list of well qualified judges and lawyers to the White House and the President made his choice. While not a perfect process, it did help many of the giants of American jurisprudence ascend to the bench. This started to change under Nixon...surprise! ("Halderman, add these commies from the ABA to the enemies list.") He nominated two ideologues for Supreme Court vacancies (one of whom, as I seem to recall, later was arrested on morals charges) who were rightly rejected by the Senate, and the partisan gauntlet was thrown. Have the Democrats abused the process to keep otherwise qualified judges out for partisan reasons? Yup, but Republicans have made it into a bloodsport. And so, we now have a nominee who can very likely sit on the court for 3 decades who has the basic skills needed for the job but whose main qualification is that he's been a judge for only two years. Such a short term results in a very short paper trail and so little ammunition will be available to those Senators who may want to see a more moderate nominee. This approach backfired on the adult Bush when David Souter, a supposed conservative with a short trail as a state judge in New Hampshire, turned out to be a solid moderate voice on the court. Republicans are not taking any chances this time. Are Republicans worried that Roberts might go over the dark side of moderation? Not likely, the guy clerked for Rehnquist.
Why Roberts? It's a brilliant political move and sets them up for the real firestorm to come. Roberts will be easily confirmed and establishes a safe conservative seat. The next couple openings will likely cut into the moderate side. After all Stevens is 85, and others are past or approching their 70s. All moderates will be replaced by die hard conservative women and/or minorities. Enough Senators will be hard pressed to oppose such nominees given the lack of diversity on the bench. Once these conservatives have taken over the Court, the radical Right will get what they paid for when they got their boy in the White House. As that Court eats away at all the progress that has been made in the past 50 years, the most notable of which will be overturning Roe, maybe then the sleeping electorate will wake up and realize that the Republican party does not represent their values and Democrats will sweep back into power and start the long process of repairing the damage that is to come.