Bush Administration Fueling/Funding Iraqi Civil War

Has anyone stopped to ask, "What if Bush doesn't want to win in Iraq"? I think it's a pretty solid question to ask.

It seems to me we're spending so much time expecting some sort of exit strategy from Iraq that we're missing the overall picture. That being that the Bush Administration is funding the Iraqi Civil War and trying to start World War III.

This sounds insane to the logical person but hear me out.

We're already in Iraq and Afghanistan creating chaos without any sort of plan. We refuse to pull out even if timelines and benchmarks are not reached. Why? What's in this for us? Oil?

Well the region is loaded with oil. So taking out various countries in the regions strengthens our grip on what's out there and available to US oil companies. It also makes certain friends of the corporations and their shareholders very rich when they determine the eaxct supply amount that is put on the market.

This however is something bigger. The Neo-Cons see this as a game of Risk. Taking one major region out is a means to strike and control another. They have been notably upset since the end of the Cold War and this certainly will stoke a new cold war (or possibly World War) with both Russia and China who most certainly would have their interests hurt by us controlling Iranian and Middle Eastern oil.

Consider this: The Bush Administration is now pushing for a $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. You know, the host country for the majority of the 9/11 hijackers? Not to mention the home country of Osama Bin Laden. So he's arming the Saudis who are Sunnis and whom American officials contend are already playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.

But wait, they're using our troops to protect the Shia government. Not to mention this is after the Pentagon helped Prime Minister al-Maliki train Shia death squads to slaughter Sunnis. This new deal arms both groups and puts our troops in the middle of a civil war.

Then you take a look at Iran. Hawks are pressing for war with Iran and the Administration already put out a release stating that they have a right to go to war with "rogue states" and "islamic terrorists" in 2002.

Their two main points in pressing this case are the same ones they tried unsuccessfully to make with Iraq. 1) They have or are trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction and 2) they are funding terrorists that are doing harm to the U.S. (or in this case our soldiers and Iraqi stabilization).

On the first issue we'd probably have been able to stop the Iranian nuclear program or at least know way more about it had they not outed the CIA's covert nuclear counter-profiliferation agent who was working on Iran, Valerie Plame. Of course we all heard how it was for "political" reasons because they wanted to get back at her husband, Joe Wilson, for exposing their lies on yellowcake uranium coming from Niger and being sought by Iraq.

The more logical explanation was that it shut down the CIA's undercover nuclear investigations in Iran and now with incomplete intelligence it makes the case for war that much easier to make. After all we have no idea just how far along their nuclear program is or what they have tried to obtain at this point.

Also we've been advising terrorists inside Iran to cause havoc there and inflame tensions with Ahmenijhad.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote a memo that detailed plans to invade seven countries after 9/11, which General Wesley Clark brought up in this interview. It mentioned, "Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran".

That sounds like a pretty big swath of countries in the ever growing in reality version of Neo-Con Risk.

And the tensions in Iraq only get worse. al-Maliki HATES Gen. Petraeus and is threatening to arm Shia Militias (in response to our arming the Sunnis) if we don't take him and his Bush-ordained view of Iraq out of there.

The funniest part is we already know what Petraeus will say in September because he follows Bush's orders (contrary to that BS line Bush gives about listening to his generals and not legislating what they do from Capitol Hill) and the White House has made sure to send them to RW shills like Fox and Hugh Hewitt to get their message out early.

Here he's causing more problems with Iraqi leadership, has pushed the Bush view on Iraq down their throats and is going to come back here and feed the same crap to us and we're supposed to take him at face value?

Of course at this point why should we take anybody in this Administration at face value on the tensions in the Middle East? It seems to me they'd rather fund terrorists, arm everybody and start a world war to take the entire region and create another century's worth of cold war with Russia and China.

If we fight them there, we don't have to fight them here. Riggghhhttt....

-Rp

Impeachment! Finally! Well... sort of.

And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Well the Democrats in their efforts to set the record straight about what 'baby steps' actually are, have moved forward to begin impeachment investigations on one member of the Bush Administration. I thought the picture on the left was appropriate since it looks like a downward spiral in which metaphorically the entire Administration has been in since they stole re-election in 2004 (make no mistake about it they stole it and here's some new voter suppression details that have made their way out of the RNC from that election).

Anyway, MSNBC reported that House Democrats will introduce a bill tomorrow that requires the House Judiciary Committee to begin impeachment investigations against Gonzo.

From Crooks and Liars:



Windows Media Video: Play | Quicktime Video: Play

It's about time but still not enough. The only way to get these criminals out of office is full impeachment.

---------------

Now some quick takes on other stuff from this past weekend...

At the CNN/Youtube debates the buzz afterwards surrounded on a riff Hillary Clinton gave towards Barack Obama based on his take on diplomacy. The question was whether the candidates would meet with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Kim Jong-Il of North Korea or Mahmoud Ahmenijhad of Iran in the first year of their Presidency. Obama said that he would and pointed to the Bush Administration's dismal record in meeting with countries that we have disagreements with and in essence using diplomacy as a reward only to those that agree with us.

Hillary countered that she didn't want a meeting in the first year without some sort of preconditions and essentially pawned the concept off to her subordinates to handle as she felt they would get too much PR out of a meeting with the President of the United States.

I see Hillary's point, but it's wrong. Now let me clarify. I am undecided for 2008. Unlike the 2004 race when I knew John Kerry was my guy by February 2003, nobody stands out to me as someone I can fully support. I have heard Obama be wrong on a variety of topics as well (see: aggression towards Iran) so this is not me picking a side in the overall race.

I believe that the President is someone who for the good of our nation, needs to meet with leaders even if they disagree with us or would publicize the meeting to the rest of the world. If we're concerned about going to meet with Kim Jong-Il in North Korea or Ahmenijhad in Iran, don't. Meet in a neutral location and have a summit with countries from the region.

One of the most spiteful things the Bush Administration has done is to shelf diplomacy and push it off on other countries in the region. With North Korea he put the pressure on Russia, China, Japan and South Korea to carry the water for American policies. Some of those countries are not in full agreement with our policies. But it's just like Bush to outsource work that Americans should be doing.

While they did that, idiot boy ran his mouth about an 'axis of evil' and scared North Korea and Iran into speeding up their nuclear programs.

Now I'm not saying Hillary would do that but it's clear that we need to meet with other leaders and hear them out. We may not agree with them on every issue but we don't have to.

When Russia was at the height of the cold war standoff with us we couldn't find much of anything to agree about with them and they were far more dangerous than Chavez, Jong-Il, Ahmenijhad and Castro combined. Yet we met with them in summits and when that didn't work we communicated with them. President John F. Kennedy had Tommy Thompson (no not the moronic former Governor of Wisconsin)as an ambassador there and he spoke with members of Nikita Khrushchev's regime frequently.

By staying in contact Kennedy had an idea of how to address him and empathize with what our enemy ultimately wanted. Did he want nuclear war? No. And I highly doubt North Korea or Iran do either. Khrushchev wanted to look good in the standoff with the U.S. to his own people and because we were smart enough to talk to him and see his side we were able to get them to stand down and a nuclear weapon was never launched in over 40 years of conflict.

Here meeting with our enemies may give them political clout at home but it also gives them piece of mind that we're not looking to attack them for their oil or to overthrow their governments. In turn we can offer Iran and North Korea light water reactors to help with their energy needs and then receive concessions in return in the human rights and diplomatic fields.

It's to everyone's benefit that Americans stand up and converse with everybody. It prevents conflict, gives the people of those countries less of a reason to hate us and ultimately attack us and it provides us with more respect and better standing in the world. Which at this point, is desparately needed. Point goes to Obama.

---------------

-The Republican Presidential Candidates are refusing to do the Youtube debates. And with good reason. After all if you were an insensitive racist warmonger, wouldn't you be afraid to take questions from the public? Besides if these guys learned anything from Bush it's that Republicans only look good when they pre-screen audiences, have them sign loyalty oaths and then broadcast the ones where people fawn over them. Otherwise you could end up with another "Macaca" incident.

Funniest thing about it is the RNC asked their supporters to send in as many slanted questions as they could to play gotcha with Democrats. I suppose that's how they got this idiot's question in there. Of course Biden's response to it was hilarious.

-Rp

Democrats push bills that could split Republican votes...

You'd think in this world there would be some sensible Republicans out there. For the past 7 years though, it's been pretty hard to find any of them.

Luckily, Democrats are finally forcing the rational ones to make a stand. Live or die with this President and his policies and you'll pay a steep price with your constituency.

As this Washington Post article points out, the Democrats are pushing some solid bills with titles that will make it very hard for Republicans to explain to their constituents why they refused them.

Front and center is a Children's Health Insurance Program re-authorization bill. The SCHIP program has worked rather well by all accounts and expanding it seems like a good idea in the day and age where it is blatantly obvious health care in our country is unavailable to too many people.

Even Republicans know the program works and seem ready to step up and vote for it. Not President Bush though, he hates health care for children and has said he will veto the bill.

This will test the mettle of the Republicans who claim to be independent of their historically unpopular leader.

The House Democrats while not being successful on ending the war or attempting impeachment, certainly will have a lot to crow about.

A couple other bills they are working on include strengthening Homeland Security, which Bush has said he will veto and a Congressional Ethics bill which will dramatically cut the influence of lobbyists and the gifts they give to representatives.

Republicans don't like the lobbyist cutbacks because K-Street is their lifeblood. All the work they do is not for their constituents but rather for big corporations and they have always kept those Congressmen well fed at that corporate trough thanks to campaign contributions and lobbyist gifts. But they can't go back to their constituents, the ones who will be voting on them in 2008 and tell them they sided with lobbyists and special interests over the interests of the people the represent.

The Democrats though, have received high marks even from some House Republicans.

"They've had a pretty strong quarter," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), who praised the insurance bill as "creative" and suggested the homeland security bill would pass overwhelmingly. "The first quarter was not so good, and that's why they're not looking so good in the polls, but this quarter is looking very good for them. They can send their members home crowing about their accomplishments, and they've done it in a bipartisan way, which is exactly what they promised to do," LaHood said.

Another bill that could pass and face a Bush veto is the Farm bill. For years corporate farmers have been able to use loopholes to reap financial windfalls at the expense of the American people and family farmers who struggle more and truly need the help to stay in business.

As someone who lived on a farm for 5 years, you cannot truly appreciate the amount of work, dedication and love family farmers put into their business and certainly they are the heart and soul of what America was, is and still can be.

The bill on the House floor is intended to close those loopholes and use tighter corporate tax rules including forcing Corporations to pay their taxes rather than being allowed to use off shore tax shelters to avoid paying their tax bills.

But hey, there is ONE bill the Administration will sign. ONE bill they want passed. What could this terrific idea be?

Nuclear warhead testing.

What did you expect from the most aggressive, neo-con, chicken hawk outfit in power today?

As usual Bush comes to the rescue of the corporations and threatens another veto.

So let's run down the Bush checklist.

Children's Health Insurance = Bad.

Homeland Security = Bad.

Family Farmers = Bad.

Making Corporations pay their fair share in taxes = Bad.

Stopping Lobbyists from buying votes = No word from Bush but Republicans hate it.

Nuclear Warhead testing = Good.

Corporate tax avoidance = Good.

Sick, dying children without healthcare = Good.

Perpetual war = Good. (okay that's unrelated to what I was talking about in this column, but it's a gimmie)

-Rp

Contempt of Congress citation sent to House; White House calls it "pathetic".

Let's put all the speculation in a few of the more recent posts on here, aside. After all we're just speculating now on the worst possible scenarios. Of course the last time I did that was in 2000 when Bush was running for office. I told people he would go to war, destroy the environment, wreck our economy and disregard law like he did in Texas when he had Alberto Gonzales covered his DUI charge.

Of course I didn't realize how much worse it would be than my most extreme predictions. Whenever you rally against a candidate you really dislike more times than not you exaggerate their worst flaws to try to dehumanize them. I guess nothing I could do would dehumanize Bush enough to the crimes he has committed now.

The saddest part is, the American people didn't wake up even by 2004 and made it close enough for them to steal the election from a good man, John Kerry. And now as I predicted after that election, Bush would do as he pleased thinking this was some sort of mandate from the American people and worse, facing no relection to keep him accountable.

What Bush didn't count on was the American people finally catching on by 2006 and electing a Democratic Congress to perform oversight and try to make him accountable.

So when Bush tried to turn the Department of Justice (among other government agencies) into a political arm of Karl Rove and the Republican party, Democrats decided to serve up subpoenas, hold hearings and finally for once make Bush accountable.

The problem is, as shown by his disregard for FISA laws and his signing statements on bills that say that passed laws will only be considered advisory, Bush doesn't care about hearings or upholding the law.

So he stonewalled the committee and told Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers to refuse subpoenas.

The House Judiciary Committee voted 22-17 (yes, there were 17 angry Republican white men in that room trying everything they could to derail the motion) to send the citation to the House for a full vote where Democrats easily hold the majority.

That means this will go to the courts in which Bush still has an advantage thanks to his packing the courts with right wing cronies.

Still in the face of finally having to uphold the law, Tony Snow pretty much summed up the White House's disdain for laws and the constitution (which gives these authorities to Congress).

From The Swamp:

“From our view, this is pathetic,’’ said White House spokesman Tony Snow, suggesting that the Justice Department will make its own findings about any referral for prosecution of contempt and that this likely is “not likely to go anywhere... What you have right now is partisanship on Capitol Hill.’’

Wow. It's hard to fathom from a group of people who break every law they see, the word pathetic coming out unless it was a self description.

So now we go and play ball in the courts. Of course the way this Administration is going, they'll just pardon their own anyways.

Call your Representatives and Senators and tell them to impeach! Anything less will not stop these bastards!

-Rp

Congressman John Olver believes Bush will cancel elections and strike Iran, but won't sign on to impeach.

This is the disturbing stance Democrats seem to be taking. Apparently it doesn't matter what laws this bastard breaks, impeaching him is too drastic for them...

EVEN when they believe he will cancel the 2008 elections (does that declare him our permanent King?) and strike Iran. That's what Massachussetts Congressman John Olver (pictured) stated in a meeting with those looking to get him to support impeachment. This is fucking mindblowing.

When he aggrandized himself on his voting record, I took exception to 24 April 2007. When he asked what I was referring to, I challenged him to co-sponsor H. Res. 333; and he emphatically refused.

-snip-

He is deeply concerned whether we will actually have an election in Nov. '08, as he believes this administration will likely strike Iran from the air, declare a national emergency, and cancel the '08 elections.

The positive thing is he's not the definitive say and it seems FINALLY John Conyers is coming around and getting closer to moving on impeachment.

From David Swanson:

I was a guest today on Bree Walker's radio show. She's the progressive radio host from San Diego who purchased Cindy Sheehan's land from her in Crawford, Texas.

Bree attended an event on Friday in San Diego at which Congressman Conyers spoke about impeachment. Her report was extremely interesting. I had already heard reports that Conyers had said: "What are we waiting for? Let's take these two guys out!" But, of course, what we're waiting for is John Conyers. Is he ready to act? It was hard to tell from that comment. In January, Conyers spoke at a huge rally on the National Mall and declared "We can fire them!" but later explained that what he meant was that we could wait for two years and Bush and Cheney's terms would end. Was this week's remark just more empty rhetoric?

It appears to be more than that. Bree Walker told me, on the air, that Conyers said that all he needs is three more Congress Members backing impeachment, and he'll move on it, even without Pelosi. I asked whether that meant specifically moving from 14 cosponsors of H Res 333 to 17, or adding 3 to the larger number of Congress Members who have spoken favorably of impeachment but not all signed onto bills. Bree said she didn't know and that Conyers had declined to take any questions.

Good news. Someone has to stop these criminals. If not the Democrats... who?

-Rp

UPDATE: Apparently Conyers did not state the "3 more" comment. David Swanson is aligned with Cindy Sheehan so they are going gung ho after Democrats until they get their way. I understand their problems with Democrats not pressing impeachment but Swanson making stories up doesn't help the cause.

Republicans About to Break Records on Obstructionism

From our friends at Prognosis-Progressive:

Conservatives usher in era of unprecedented obstructionism

This year, “Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before.” The pattern of obstructionism is demolishing previous records:

Nearly 1 in 6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes. If this pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous record number of cloture votes — 58 each in the two Congresses from 1999-2002, according to the Senate Historical Office.

McClatchy provides this statistical analysis:



If that doesn't say it all...

But hey, just *possibly* we finally found a bill that Republicans will override a veto on. The highly successful S-CHIP program that provides Health Care for Children is up for passage and of course Bush, being the bastard that he is, wants to veto it. Republicans believe in the program and may line up to override the veto with Democrats. After all can't play the family values meme if you're screwing children over can you?

But this was the line I found to be the most repugnant in the article on this possible veto override by the LA Times:

As they tell the story in Texas, when George W. Bush was governor, he fought hard to put austere limits on a new federal-state plan to provide health insurance for children of low-wage workers in the state. Outmaneuvered by Democrats, he corralled the program's chief sponsor on the statehouse floor and conceded defeat, saying, "You crammed it down our throats."

Well apparently Bush has a habit of attempting to deny children health insurance. Nice to know this was nowhere to be found when the average guy you want to have a beer with was being touted by the media as a family friendly every-man.

-Rp

Unlimited Power

Well Bush had his colonoscopy today and temporarily transferred power to Dick Cheney, making Cheney the President for a couple of hours. Scary thought. Things are back to normal now and as MSNBC reported, "Bush takes back power after colonoscopy". It's actually humorous to think this guy would ever give any power up.

In fact the past 7 years he's been giving America a colonoscopy of it's own. The mainstream media works as the sedative while he uses invasive procedures to probe our most private parts of our lives. From executive orders to illegally wiretap us, get our phone records, read our email, open our mail, get our search engine requests, find out what we were reading at the library, hell they even have a list of everyone who ever took anti-depressants! This Administration has done more probing into our lives than all Administrations before it combined.

So it's only natural that Bush feels himself to be King. After all he's gone 6+ years completely unchecked and been allowed to pass any legislation he wants, sign record amounts of signing statements that allow him to ignore any laws that are passed, refuse subpoenas (see other posts below) at will and generally do what he wants, when he wants.

It's a nice existence for a totalitarian regime.

Except we're supposed to be a democracy. Our voices are supposed to be heard and Congress is supposed to have the right to provide oversights... checks and balances, remember?

Up until this year, Republicans refused any form of disagreement or oversight while in the majority of both the House and Senate. They felt they needed to provide political cover to Bush and Karl Rove who were both huge fundraisers for them and who had gamed the system in such a way that their re-election was assured. Last year the American people finally swamped the polling booths to where even Rove's magical numbers couldn't cheat the system. It was a beautiful thing.

The problem is Democrats, while winning the majority, didn't get enough of one to override the Boy King. And now with Republicans publicly coming out against him but as usual some (Lugar, Voinovich and Domenici) are too chicken shit to vote against him on something as popular as troop redeployment, you can see how he feels confident that he still runs the show unchallenged.

So it was no surprise this past week when he issued a couple more executive orders increasing his power. The first one went under the radar. The media didn't even report it. Remember they are the sedative as we all sleep through his procedures.

The executive order allowed the Administration to seize property of anybody who "threatens stabilization in Iraq".

From the document:

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;

Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.

As we know from the Bush playbook, they consider protesters as anti-patriotic threats to democracy. They go on talk show after talk show declaring such.

What makes anyone think this isn't another way to quell the voices of dissent and opposition?

And per the Bush usual, there are no ways to file a grievance, no courts are involved and there is no legislation to control this.

There have been signs on many of the far left sites who have investigated this that Bush is moving towards martial law. I will provide the links and you make the determination yourself. I do have to say there is compelling evidence that Bush has been trying to find ways to silence his critics as this new executive order asserts.

What concerns most really conspiratorial websites are texts within laws that are passed that seem to slip by (as I said, these sources are not all that reputable so take this for what you will).

So when they freak about martial law, maybe they have something to gripe about. After all, did you know martial law was actually addressed and approved in the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" that Bush signed into law last October?

Following that theme, another site complains about a purported DOD document that is 900 pages long and again remember the source. The supposed document states that there are plans in the works to use soldiers to quell dissent at any civil insurrection and this includes detainment centers. It also outlines the exact troops that will be involved, their locations and tactics they can use.

Now that all sounds terrifying and knowing the trust Americans have had instilled in them since grade school in their goverment, quite improbable to most people. But this is an Adminstration that stole two elections already, breaks the law at will and has no use for the constitution in place.

That's why people are scared.

So I suppose it's up to Congress to finish their oversight and impeach them right? Well the right wingers in Congress would never buckle to their morals and impeach a known criminal because he's one of them.

And Bush, well he keeps plugging along claiming powers the White House never had before. The latest is the Administration-issued "legal opinion" that the Congress can not force Department of Justice officials to prosecute Contempt of Congress charges. So he can ignore subpoenas, refuse his officials to attend or speak at hearings and break the law at will and Congress can't do anything about it.

Maybe the above sites and their claims are conspiratorial in nature, but Bush just keeps giving us reason to worry and keeps giving credibility to the idea that he wants to rule us the way Hitler and the Nazis did.

Facism is back, aren't you excited?

-Rp

UPDATE: Apparently a former Reagan official has now come out saying there's a good chance we could become a police state. Just feeding into everyone's concerns that much more I suppose.

There was a time when Right Wing Neo-Cons (kind of like Eric Edelman in the Department of Defense) tried to run America into constant war and while they didn't run the Presidency or Congress, they made sure to use the CIA to pull stunts to get wars with Cuba, the Soviets, Vietnam and Korea up and running.

Part of what they did was go to Korea and Vietnam right after WWII. While they were building enemies there they tried to instigate war with the Cubans and Soviets here. This brought about the wonderful Operation Northwoods that advocated killing Americans and blaming it on the Cubans to help jumpstart the efforts.

When the President stopped their plans, they murdered him. That's the same sort of cabal that is in office now, and yes there is a Bush-JFK Assassination connection as well. The family has been involved in every evil situation from the beginning of the 20th Century (including dealing with the Nazis during WWII).

-Rp

Tom Tomorrow nails the media again!

I just thought I'd repost this which came from Salon.com two days ago. It nails the media head on.

Just a note that either tomorrow or Sunday I will be back with another post. This one talking about the broad new powers Bush decided to claim this past week preventing Congress from legally declaring Contempt of Congress when he breaks the law as well as preparing for martial law against any of his own citizens that may decide to protest his policies. It's very scary stuff, check back this weekend.



-Rp

Draft College Republicans!

Unfortunately I watched some of the College Republicans' National Convention on C-SPAN late the other night and I must say watching these mindless, misinformed rich kids is a pretty sickening sight.

Max Blumenthal went to the convention and asked the College Republicans who are so gung ho FOR the war, if they would enlist. Not suprisingly none said they would and better yet they described exactly why national health care is something they need to support because as it turns out, Republicans suffer a disproportionate amount of health problems that really need to be taken care of.

Watch the video from maxblumenthal.com, and below go to the CafePress site and pick up your own DRAFT COLLEGE REPUBLICANS sticker. Get the word out about who should be fighting the wars they start.






DRAFT COLLEGE REPUBLICANS CAFEPRESS STORE

-Rp

"Activist Judges"

Remember that term? "Activist Judges"? That's the term Republicans threw around loosely in reference to judges that might uphold pro gay marriage laws in states like Massachussetts. Funny how they're pretty much staying away from that term now. Ever since they got Sam Alito (left) and John Roberts (right) onto the Supreme Court the entire judicial system seems to be swayed to their side.

From the Supreme Court on down to lower court judges (we'll get to that in a minute) the Bush Administration has used their power to position themselves to never lose regardless of what laws are broken.

What's worse is they're reshaping our key laws in record time.

Here's a quick scorecard.

-Ruled AGAINST racial integration at schools, thus basically overturning one of the most important cases in our country's history, Brown v. Board of Education.

-Ruled AGAINST freedom of speech, when they determined a kid having a sign that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" was not a freedom of speech issue and ruled in favor of a school punishing him.

-Ruled AGAINST separation of church and state and the establishment clause by ruling that taxpayers could not challenge Bush's faith based initiatives programs.

-Ruled AGAINST Women's Rights by being the first Supreme Court to uphold an abortion ban that allows no exceptions for the health of the woman.

-Ruled AGAINST gender equality in the workplace by restricting the rights of women to sue their employers for gender discrimination.

-Ruled FOR special interests running attack ads against candidates even beyond current government bans

If they're scoring at home that's Right Wing nutcases 6, America and the Constitution 0.

Now it's not just the Republican tilted Supreme Court that is leading the upheaval of rule of law. Obviously we all know what's happening the Justice Department, but it's the lower courts that are packed with Bush Appointees as well and are using their newfound power to assail our basic principles of constitutional establishment.

For example, the ACLU had won a considerable case striking a serious blow against Bush's illegal wiretapping program. It has been deemed illegal by just about every constitutionl scholar alive and is clearly so by the mere fact that Bush purposely sidestepped the FISA courts to do the wiretaps.

Well the Bushies appealed and once at an appellate level they had a 2-1 Republican appointee advantage at, the ACLU and previous ruling were struck down. Score another one against rule of law.

Then there's that wonderful Judge John D. Bates.

He got two high profile cases in the case of five years which his pals in the White House who appointed him got their money's worth.

First he was the judge that ruled that the Comptroller of the GAO had no right to sue for the records of Cheney's super secret Energy Task Force meetings. Of course now we know more about the meetings and how each oil company got individualized meetings while conservation groups were lumped together in short group meetings. It was obvious who the attention was going to. Transcripts of what was actually said at these meetings though still is not available and probably for good reason. As we've seen through pretty much every policy during this Administration's two terms, the oil companies are priority one.

Then today he saved them again. He ruled that Valerie Plame, the covert CIA agent who was actually working in the nuclear counter proliferation unit trying to figure out what Iran has, could not sue Vice President Cheney, Scooter Libby and all the cretins in the White House who were involved in leaking her name to the press and ruining her career.

Chalk another one up for the bad guys.

Bates owes his current position to the Bush Administration who appointed him in 2001. Oh, and we get to look forward to this lack of wisdom on the FISA courts now as Republican Chief Justice John Roberts appointed him to that court (in addition to his current duties) in 2006.

But hey the kicker is probably why the guy got the promotion in the first place.

According to his bio:

Judge Bates was on detail as Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997.

So there you have it. He was one of the hacks who hunted down Bill Clinton's sex life in the right wing's attempt to impeach him.

Sadly enough, in Republican bizarro world it all comes back to Clinton.

-Rp

It's Clearly Time to Stand Down

Well now what is Bush going to say? Is he going to say that even though the Iraqi people elected their Parliament and have a "democracy" that they are wrong and we're going to enforce our imperialism on them anyways?

Iraq Prime Minister al-Maliki sure put Bush in a tough position when he stated on Saturday that the US troops "can leave anytime they want". Then one of his top aides threw this in:

In addition, he said that al-Maliki has problems with the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who he said works along a “purely American vision.”

“There are disagreements that the strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al-Qaida in the early period but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias,” al-Suneid said.

So Petraeus, the guy Bush and the Right Wing hardliners are pushing for us to wait for a September report on is, no surprise here, not taking into account what Iraqis need or want in their own country. How anyone in the media could give the "waiting until September for an honest assessment from the General" line any creedence is beyond me. Face it, Petraeus is Bush's boy. His first media visit was to the Bush Network, er FOX News spouting the line of successes and saying they need more time... like 9 or 10 years more time. Ironically that's the same line the Bush Administration tells every media outlet they encounter.

He was quoted in the New York Times today saying the surge portion of the war won't fully work until "next Spring".

Why are we waiting until September when it's clear what his talking points are?

So the Prime Minister of Iraq wants us out, how about the Parliament of Iraq? Oh yeah, they do too. On May 8th a majority of Iraqi lawmakers signed a petition for the US to set a timetable to withdraw troops. Then on June 5th, this happened:

From alternet.org:

The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December.

-snip-

Reached today by phone in Baghdad, Nassar al Rubaie, the head of the Al-Sadr bloc in Iraq's Council of Representatives, said, "This new binding resolution will prevent the government from renewing the U.N. mandate without the parliament's permission. They'll need to come back to us by the end of the year, and we will definitely refuse to extend the U.N. mandate without conditions." Rubaie added: "There will be no such a thing as a blank check for renewing the U.N. mandate anymore, any renewal will be attached to a timetable for a complete withdrawal."

Without the cover of the U.N. mandate, the continued presence of coalition troops in Iraq would become, in law as in fact, an armed occupation, at which point it would no longer be politically tenable to support it. While polls show that most Iraqis consider U.S. forces to be occupiers rather than liberators or peacekeepers -- 92 percent of respondents said as much in a 2004 survey by the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies -- the U.N. mandate confers an aura of legitimacy on the continuing presence of foreign troops on Iraq's streets, even four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

So there you have it. We're not wanted there. The Iraqis are clearly standing up and now it's our turn to stand down.

Of course this must have pissed off the White House something fierce because you know they made a call when just hours later al-Maliki's aides were backtracking a bit.

Clearly we need to go. We're in the wrong. The General's September speech will be what Bush tells him to say so waiting for him is pointless.

And now, as if that's not enough. The most Evil Man Alive (only because Hitler's dead because I would guess he would try to outflank him for this award), Dick Cheney, is pushing to begin a war with Iran.

If you thought we didn't have allies before for the Iraq war, I would assume we'll have none in Iran.

In fact our moves there (and the missile defense system we're setting up in Europe) is making Russia nervous. They pulled out of an arms treaty because of it and it seems are gearing up for possible action based on protecting themselves, a notion that wouldn't even be thinkable if Bush and Cheney hadn't made it clear that they don't mind invading anyone that disagrees with them. Russia, eager to avoid conflict with us, offered to help with the installation of a missile defense system in a location that was not threatening to their country. It appears Bush refused which pretty much points out why they want it. They want a new cold war as well as a new World War.

Furthering the tensions with another war in the Middle East will only make us the Nazis to the Muslim World. If idiot Americans actually believe that going into Iran is "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" when our military is ill-equipped for another war and when the creation of an entire future generational legion of terrorists is inevitable, then these people need to be put in mental health institutions and have their voting privileges revoked.

This Article by William Pitt from Truthout explains how the war in Iran would be a disaster.

We're on the brink people. Just where us "crazy liberals" told you it would go when we were protesting in the MILLIONS the Iraq War BEFORE it began. While you were all ignorant to whether or not Saddam had anything to do with 9/11 or if he had WMDs, WE KNEW. And we saw this coming too.

Wake the fuck up!

It's time to get out of Iraq and leave Iran alone. Only then will Iran feel safe and not feel the need to develop nukes for their own protection and only then will the Russians back down from their current elevated stance. WE are creating our enemies. WE are starting the next World War.

It's not too late to stop it. Call your Congressmen and ask for impeachment today. And if they're Republican, CHALLENGE them on their bullshit assertions about Petraeus' September Report or intelligence on Iran.

It may be our only hope. This is not a war we can win.

-Rp

The Dumbest Man in America?

Yes that's Weekly Standard founder and frequent FOX NEWS contributor William Kristol pretending to shoot a gun. I imagine he likes to pretend he's shooting a gun and playing war, kind of like me and my friends did when we were like Nine.

How else could this guy continually be so wrong and so dumb on issues of war? The man has had pretty much every prediction he has ever made blow up in his face when it comes to Iraq. In fact Glenn Greenwald has about 14 of them right here.

Then, as if that weren't enough, he went out advocating a war with Iran.

Maybe he was trying to get ahead of the curve. After all he and his buddies (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Quayle, etc) have a doctrine for an American Empire as part of their thinktank group, "Project for a New American Century". War with Iran would most obviously take the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts and turn them into a Middle Eastern based World War III.

He came out swinging again in an editorial he wrote for next week's edition of The Weekly Standard entitled, get this, "Keep On Surgin'". Yeah it's fun over there didn't you know?

In his column he says the following:

Over the last few months, the United States (finally) surged in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq has now surged against the surge. Iran is surging against the surge. We're pushing them back. Now the Democrats in Congress, the mainstream media, and the foreign policy establishment have mounted their own surges against the surge. So far, Bush is beating them back. If Bush can hang tough, and General Petraeus can keep on surging, the Defeatists will fail. And the United States will have a good chance to succeed in Iraq.

This guy has to be the dumbest guy in America. Considering he was Chief of Staff to Dan Quayle and considering the idiocy of Bush and Cheney that's an incredible feat to lay claim to. But while Bush and Cheney wrestle for another title, "Most Dangerous Man in America, Kristol gets dumbest hands down. Luckily his effect on actual policy comes from pundity on television and a magazine rather then direct advisory to the Bush White House. But you would never know it since they have followed his exact words thusfar and been wrong on every single thing they have claimed would happen.

I wish I could get paid making ridiculous bullshit up and just consistently predicting false concepts that would come out of the war.

Week after week he's on FOX NEWS, granted they have no care for or concept of pesky facts anyway, but he's on there commenting on the latest news and predicting the next steps.

This is like getting an NFL handicapper that you're paying for betting advice on going 0-14 every week and even though he hasn't won a single game for you, you're calling him on Week 16 taking his picks again. Apparently you didn't learn a damn thing from the first 15 weeks, and neither has FOX, Kristol or this Administration.

Maybe Kristol can serve a purpose. He can keep predicting what we should do and we can do the opposite. After all, a 100% success rate would be a pretty fantastic thing when we haven't had a single success in Iraq other than deposing of Saddam Hussein (who clearly ran the country better than we have).

-Rp

"They Still Have No Plan"

It's the same old song and dance with Bush and his supporters. Right Wing rag, The Washington Times unveiled a ton of gall today by attacking Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Iraq today. They published a hit piece entitled, "They Still Have No Plan" in their editorial section.

Essentially it's a criticism that Democrats have no plan for post-withdrawal Iraq. I'm not sure what plan they are looking for but it seems to be their go to criticism on Democrats when it comes to their opposition to this war. Ever since 2003 when we went in the media has been carrying this Right Wing meme that 'Democrats have no plan so they have no right to criticize Bush'.

That makes absolutely no sense so let's shoot this one down quick.

1. The Democrats were in the MINORITY all the way up until this year. They couldn't pass a damned thing if they wanted to. Every plan at that point was up to Republicans and Bush to come up with.

2. The Democrats currently do not have a VETO PROOF majority. The obstructionist Republicans who want endless war like Bush are still there shooting down opposition to his war.

3. The Bush Administration hasn't had a plan since day one! Tony Blair knew it. They just thought they could roll in and everyone would throw flowers and chocolates their way.

4. There does not need to be a plan. Withdraw to the outside borders and then pull out completely. The ONLY way Iraq will work is if they come to a solution on their own. Our very presence there makes it impossible for the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to come up with any sort of political solution. One side always views the other with disdain over our presence and many Iraqis of all persuasions are joining in on attacks on us because they don't want our empirical presence. What plan is there to have?

Iraqis have a national pride that is in shambles by our presence. The Iranians won't be able to just swoop in and take over and I'm not even sure Iranian President Ahmenijhad wants to get caught up in this mess currently. If he did the Saudis would become even more involved and the Iraq War would become a full on Middle Eastern civil war. He would have much more to lose in waging a war with the Sunnis than sitting back and waiting to see how things shake out politically in Iraq.

We're pulling out to protect our troops and give Iraqis a chance to decide on their own what future their country will have. As I stated a few days ago, when given the chance after the American Revolution we messed with things a bit and had some uprisings and riots of our own but we got through it. We can't sit there and play babysitter to a country that is uniting behind one cause: us leaving immediately.

Strangely enough Bush's post war plan has been to send in one surge of troops afters another and none of them work. Then those people behind this idiotic surge like John McCain, have no Plan B in case it doesn't work. Since it won't I guess that means the Bush plan is that "We're Fucked".

Finally and I really want to know this. Why are Republicans always asking what our plans are anyway? Every time they get criticized on this war they pull this tired argument out of their ass. They ignore our plans anyway. John Kerry came up with a very comprehensive plan for the Iraq War and eventual redeployment during his 2004 campaign. The media ignored it and continued (with the help of right wing pundits) to claim he had no plan.

I know the Republicans are too stupid to come up with a plan of their own. Using religious faith never really gets you through real life situations after all. But to continually put the failure of Bush's War on the Democrats who really have never had the power to stop this thing and don't currently because they lack the 60 votes for cloture in the Senate, is just a cheap political ploy made by a bunch of desperate hacks.

Republicans have never had a plan for winning the war in Iraq. As my last post details, the only planning they ever did was lining their buddies' pockets.

Speaking of finances, after the last time Republicans got twelve years to run their failure of an economic plan entitled "trickle down economics" they ran up record deficits and put us on the verge of serious recession.

Democrats got into office and eliminated over twelve years of damage in just eight.

Oh, maybe that's it! They have no ideas and nothing they ever come up with works. Democrats are the best at cleaning up their messes. It all makes sense now why we have to do the work they can't do for themselves.

Sort of like an infant that shits in their diaper but can only cry hoping for an adult to change it. We're the adults. And hey, Republicans love their diapers don't they?

-Rp

Political Terror

"Ooooh! See that? It's a car bomb! Muslims really are terrorists and al Qaeda MUST be behind this! They were Doctors in England? Blame Michael Moore's Sicko! Let's put this out there and scare people back to our party!" - Some ridiculous Republican Strategist Somewhere.

The sad part is it seems they actually want terror attacks to happen. The Chair of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan and oh yeah, whack job Rick Santorum have actually SAID they want terror attacks. They think it would be for the good of the country to bring the people back to the Bush policy.

That photo above came last week from Glasgow. Like most every plot that the Bush Administration has hyped since 9/11 to try to artificially trump up their case for an endless war on terror, this one was not a big deal either. A few agitated muslim doctors with no real connection to anyone got together with a very uneducated attempt to light their car on fire and drive it into a building. Except it didn't really blow up the way they wanted and in fact they had to push the car the last part of the distance. Clearly these were not the 9/11 masterminds at work.

As with every moment when the political heat gets really going, Bush and the Right Wing try to up the fear level. This time they are clearly under fire for breaking the law and committing a felony by ordering two White House aides to ignore subpoenas and not testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee Hearings held yesterday morning.

As usual, Bush tried to distract and deflect. When Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor either outright refused to show or gave selective testimony while claiming executive privilege on harder questions, Bush held one of his rare press conferences on Iraq. Every major network cut into their daily programming for it and the presser was pointless. It was more confirmation of exactly the same talking points he and his other White House lackeys have been spouting for quite some time. More of the same. Stay the Course. Aka, no real plan.

That generally worked but the night before another Bush Administration official decided to plant a generally larger seed with the media to throw them off the trail. Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff came out with this ridiculous tripe about having a "gut feeling" about a possible terror attack in the Summer. He purposely attempted to put distance between his gut and the facts but it had the media either so bent over in laughter or so pressing for White House comment that not once in that presser did a single reporter talk about those pesky subpoenas.

Of course this is not the first time they have pulled this. It's become a very irritating pattern with this Administration that when the going gets tough, the terrorists somehow get tougher.


Countdown with Keith Olbermann did a great piece on how the Bush Administration does this late last year entitled, "The Nexus of Politics and Terror". It puts together a timeline of elevated threat levels and rhetoric versus the scandals of the moment. Crooks and Liars split it into two parts and below are links to the video of this.

WMV Part One Part Two
QT Part One Part Two


The problem with all of this is, who do we or who can we even believe anymore? Obviously not the Bush Administration. While they play the terror card to keep whatever is left of the flock of sheep in line, we are in Iraq making new terror enemies every day just by our mere presence in the region.

The man responsible for this entire war supposedly, Osama Bin Laden, is not a top priority for this Administration anyway.

Remember this? During a debate with John Kerry in 2004 Bush says that he never said he wasn't concerned about Bin Laden, even calling it an "exaggeration". Except for the video proof of the comment.



As it turns out, he wasn't lying about not being concerned. He spoke with his good friend and apologist, Fred Barnes of that Right Wing Rag, The Weekly Standard. In their conversation, Barnes says, Bush told him that capturing Bin Laden is ‘not a top priority use of american resources’. Barnes even went back to the Bush Network, er, FOX NEWS and told them as much.

They've had multiple chances to get this guy. In February 2001, the Adminstration rejected the Taliban's offer to give him up to them in exchange for a drop of sanctions. See for yourself in this brief clip from a presser where they refuse to talk about it.



Then in December 2001, they had him cornered at Tora Bora and let him get away.

Then after all these years where we know he's been in Pakistan, we find out that Bush basically outsourced the war to the Pakistanis. Giving them $1 billion a year in funding and demanding no results or accountability for that money.

He shut down the CIA unit responsible for hunting Bin Laden down. And then, after not caring about whether either Afghanistan or Iraq were sovereign countries before invading, he refused to invade Pakistan claiming... wait for it... that they were a sovereign country.

In fact when Republicans try to drum up terror for support (they have no ideas for this country anymore, their only card is to scare you into voting for their lunacy) they use the ridiculous TV show 24 as some sort of barometer of what can really happen. In their Presidential debates they actually debated to what extent torture is okay because it worked for Jack Bauer and saved a major U.S. city!

But in their arguments based off that show (produced by FOX no less), they always talk of terrorists getting nukes and setting off a dirty bomb against us.

Strange then how we take no action against Pakistan who let the one guy buying and selling these nukes on the black market to terrorists, A.Q. Khan to be free. Not to mention we allowed the Pakistan Government to order us not to question the guy. The guy is clearly able to operate again.

So from all of this what have we learned? The Bush Adminstration does not care about the war on terror. Don't let their aides, lackeys or politically bought and paid for Congressmen tell you otherwise. Terror is a political tactic, a form of control for them. Strangely enough that is exactly what terror is to the actual terrorists.

We have no interest in getting Bin Laden, we have no interest to quell terrorism at all.

So why are we in Iraq? Oil. Not how you would think. We don't want the oil for ourselves. We want it to stay in the ground.

That way big oil controls the supply and can price it where they would profit the most from it. They've established nothing but record profits since Bush got into office, why change a good thing? After all Bush is an oilman and Cheney had energy task force meetings with these people.. so secretive that he refused subpoenas for the documents in those meetings.

Since we've been in Iraq it's been easy to tell who the war profiteers have been. Here in Milwaukee gas jumped from $3.19 a gallon to $3.49 a gallon overnight. 30 cents, just like that. And on Saturday it went from $2.95 to $3.19. 54 cents in less than a week. They're making out like bandits.

Sadly it leads us to the ultimate conclusion. The war on terror was never about Bin Laden. It was about profit. We invaded the places where we could change oil policy by building big pipelines for one major oil company or keeping the oil in the ground for all of them.

Over 7,000+ Americans have died by official count in 9/11 and Iraq combined. These figures are low because they don't count the Afghanistan numbers, the civilians killed or those who died from sickness or non-mortal wounds later after the initial attack.

And Big Oil is smiling all the way to the bank thanks to Bush.

Oh and here's the kicker, it was announced today that intelligence shows that al-Qaeda is back to pre-9/11 strength.

Heckuva job Bushie.

-Rp

Bush Administration to Lie About Iraq War Benchmarks

This is not a surprise. After all they have an aversion to the truth. Otherwise why would they refuse to comply with investigation after investigation, refuse subpoenas, refuse to hand over documents, commute law breakers and ignore PDBs and Iraq Study Group recommendations that could save thousands of lives?

Well it turns out they're about to lie again. The New York Times is reporting that Bush is going to go out and baldface lie to the American public by stating that Iraq has made progress on half of the 18 benchmarks that was set for them in the bill that authorized the surge this past January.

That's a lie because as it turns out they have met Zero of those Eighteen benchmarks. Iraqis have no control of their own puppet government and until the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds make their own political pact we can have no effective solution to stop the violence in Iraq. Bush knows it but refuses to let the war go before he leaves office.

Here's a video from Countdown with Keith Olbermann that clearly points out the fallacy of the coming Bush statements:



-Rp

The Four Step Neo-Con Foreign Policy Strategy

With special thanks to Lerkfish at Democratic Underground for coming up with such a perfect analogy.

1. Whack hornet's nest on someone else's property.
2. Take over the neighbor's property for their own protection.
3. Destroy the neighbor's house.
4. Start breeding more hornets.

I couldn't say it better myself.

-Rp

We get it! Right Wingers are totally nuts...

Yet another interesting article came out today by Shankar Vedantam of the Washington Post delving into the psychological profile of our President and his Administration. Of course his article was basically a review of the thesis made in a new book titled, "Mistakes Were Made (but Not By Me!)" by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.

They make a good case about the cognitive dissonance suffered by this Administration and try to pick through the rationale that Bushco employs on different subjects.

I can remember some on the right trying to manipulate the media and cherry pick psychological arguments about 'Bill Clinton the Womanizer' or 'Bill Clinton the Pathological Liar' but honestly I cannot recall a President or a group core of people that encapsulates so many mental problems as Bush and his Neo-Con/Right Wing followers. Their completely disturbing alternate reality has really gotten psychologists everywhere jumping at the chance to study their behavior.

I happen to own a pretty terrific book on this topic entitled, "Bush On The Couch", which tries to dissect the thought process and emotional state of the Bushies. I encourage you all to check it out.

While both books look fantastic (I have not read 'Mistakes' yet), there are other studies that have been released that seem to back up the theory that there are serious mental issues with right wingers and they appear to begin in childhood.

I figured with the new article I could throw out some extra links for you here to help jumpstart your own studies and give you more info to draw your own conclusions from on this very topic.

-The Hartford Advocate, Dec. 7, 2006 reported: "Study Finds Link Between Bush Supporters and Mental Illness" (article is no longer on their site, here is a reprint of the article)

-Psychology Today, Dec. 22, 2006 published a study entitled, "The Ideological Animal" that studied the differences in personalities and goes through tendencies of people of the conservative and liberal persuasions, it also discusses a 2003 study and is a huge source of information on why conservatives are the way they are.

-LiveScience, May 24, 2007 put out a short article entitled, "Political Preference is Half Genetic" linking political belief to genetics. They also have a brief link to an older study about happiness that mentions that Republicans are happier than Democrats. Of course they are! For the most part Republicans care mostly about themselves (as we have seen with their hatred of social programs to help the poor and needy versus saving extra tax dollars for themselves or Bush's wars). Ignorance is bliss after all. It also was taken before the American public tossed the Republican congress in the trash in the 2006 midterms so take it for what you will.

Now the following two articles are my own personal links to the type of insanity that I find encapsulating the Right Wing.

First, Bush's Administration and their hatred for Gays is amazing. He tried to push an anti-gay marriage amendment, kicks gays out of the military at a time when our recruitment levels are putrid, and then these two articles come out. One is certainly Bush's fault, the other is not but is symbolic of the people that vote for him, the Christian Right, and their own lunacy. Both are great study cases in the psychological study of why the Right is as crazy as it is.

-Pentagon spends $7.5 million on "Gay Bomb".

I shit you not. Listen to the premise from this article:

Just this month, the government confirmed that an Ohio Air Force laboratory had asked for $7.5 million to build a nonlethal "gay bomb," a weapon that would encourage enemies to make love, not war. The weapon would use strong aphrodisiacs to make enemy troops so sexually attracted to each other that they'd lose interest in fighting.

Yep, Gay people can be created in a chemical lab apparently and once someone "becomes" gay, they will drop arms and not fight because apparently gay people are 'pussies'. What kind of dumbasses are in charge here? Oh wait, stupid question. We know already.

-Catholic Church is against destroying Human-animal hybrid embryos.

That's right, gay sex = evil and wrong. Priests having sex = evil and wrong. But embryos with human and animal egg and sperm combinations, they should be kept alive and fought for by the parents! The church is fucking nuts. The issue revolves around destroying any embryos and my guess is they want to be consistently against destruction of embryos because otherwise stem cell research isn't a bad idea and their whole "it's the same thing as abortion" argument gets exposed for the bullshit it is.

But hey, if the Religious Right wants to condone bestiality babies they should consult Rick Santorum and get their talking points straight. After all he opposed gay marriage on the grounds that it was like, "man on dog sex".

Anyway now that we've established through a multitude of medical experts and studies that the right is completely fucking wacko, can we get to impeaching and throwing these people out of office already? After all, their concept of America is clearly a delusion related to their mental condition and we cant allow their delusions to override our reality and destroy 200+ years of democracy.

-Rp

The Hand That Feeds

As most of my friends know, I am a huge Nine Inch Nails fan. Trent Reznor is one of the few creative geniuses in music that has cut through the corporate structure and pushed the boundaries of how the system works. This year he released a concept album called Year Zero and did with the most imaginative marketing concept I have ever seen. He produced an Alternate Reality Game in which fans found USB pens with leaked tracks, image files and clues that led to websites and many encrypted messages. Even phone numbers with recorded messages were put out there. The entire concept was of an totalitarian government, not unlike what Bush and the Neo-cons want America to be, where Americans have to choose whether to remain enslaved or fight back.

On their previous album, "With Teeth", Trent wrote a pretty telling song called "The Hand That Feeds" that asks Americans and specifically Bush followers if they can stand up to their leader and fight back against the propaganda he was forcing onto them.

With Scooter Libby's commutation being on obvious ploy to prevent him speaking out against Bush and Cheney and giving away White House secrets and the Republican Congressmen (Senators Lugar, Domenici, Voinovich, Rep. Doolittle) coming out against Bush's Iraq War (albeit at a time when a vote is not imminent on the topic)... it's a perfect time to ask...

"Will you bite the hand that feeds?"



-Rp

Independence From Republicans

On this Fourth of July I thought I'd reflect on what a great country we could be... and the best way to do that is dispell the myths against Democrats that Republicans use to court voters, the very voters in which their bills do financial harm to.

They trick people to vote for them based on smearing the truth on social issues and playing off their fear.

All of the poor and middle class voters that vote Republicans tend to do so for three major reasons: 1) They are against Gay Marriage, 2) They are against abortion, 3) They believe Democrats will take their guns away.

Also their misinformed views of the Middle East, why the Iraq War was waged and about the real truths of 9/11 confuses them as well.

Quickly shooting all that down:

1) Democrats tend to believe that States should make their own determination on Gay Marriage and have not pressed a bill in Congress to pass Gay Marriage as law. Republicans lie on this issue to scare the voters.

2) Democrats have not passed any pro-abortion laws. In fact their support for sex education and condom distribution are ways to lower the unwanted pregnancy rates. In effect they are attempting to lower abortion rates. Republicans however use this wedge issue, force abstinence only teaching in school which has actually worsened the unwanted pregnancy rates and oh yeah they have never pushed for an abortion-ban law... EVER. They do appoint activist judges (ironically they don't want activist judges when it comes to gay marriage but DO want them when it comes to abortion) to do their dirty work but no Republican politician has attempted to ban abortion, making this issue also a Republican lie to scare voters.

3) Democrats are not anti-gun. We believe in the Second Amendment. We believe in the Brady Bill (as do most Republicans) to try to trace where the guns end up but we don't believe in preventing lawful gun owners from purchasing any non-military grade weapon. Many Democrats are gun enthusiasts who hunt or go to gun ranges. Again this is a Republican lie to scare voters.

4) Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Stop watching FOX NEWS and you'll get this point. Democrats know that our presence is creating an ever-growing terrorist network. They trot out the line, "if we leave Iraq, they'll come here". Sadly enough they'll come here anyway eventually, but strengthening our homeland security by increasing aid to first responders, securing ports and nuclear facilities, bringing back our national guardsmen and relying on and actually listening to intelligence reports when chatter is picked up as it was prior to 9/11 will actually help prevent further attacks.

Leaving there stems the future tide of future terrorists, or at the very least slows it. al-Qaeda's main reason for attacking and hating us was our presence in Saudi Arabia and Iraq during the Gulf War. Pulling out gives less Iraqis reason to hate us and more reason to get involved in rebuilding their country. While we are there, we provide the image of imperial ownership. That they cannot determine their own path because we control their oil and their politicians. They need us to leave to become involved in their own future. There's a lot of work to be done and many that have taken up arms against us would be interested in dropping those arms to create a homeland that represents their beliefs.

After the American Revolution it took our own people to infight and ratify the laws and protocols of the land. There were farmers who rioted and many conflicts that made our future cloudy but we did it on our own, not at gunpoint by the British. We needed to figure ourselves out. They need to do the same.

-Rp