Truespeak

As Georgieboy blathered, babbled, and contradicted his way through his monthly press conference today, he gave the bloggers plenty to feast on. From his contradictions about Social Security's solvency to his nonsensical answers concerning the legislative process, George is a blogger's wet dream. Every time he opens his mouth he gives us something we can make fun of even if it's nothing more than his "why do you guys keep asking me these hard questions" tone.

But today I thought the defining moment came in one of the less memorable moments. When asked about John Bolton's status as the UN nominee, Bush replied in a way that really summed up everything that is wrong with his administration. He said:

BUSH: You know, I thought -- I thought John Bolton was going to get an up or down vote on the Senate floor, just like he deserves an up or down vote on the Senate floor, and clearly he's got the votes to get confirmed. And so I was disappointed that once again, the leadership there in the Senate didn't give him an up or down vote. And the reason it's important to have an up or down vote is because we need to get our ambassador to the United Nations to help start reforming that important organization.

As I mentioned to you I think at the press conference in the East Room, that the reason I picked Bolton is he's a no-nonsense kind of fellow who can get things done. And we need to get something done in the United Nations. This is an organization which is important. It can help a lot in terms of the democracy movement; it can help deal with conflict and civil war. But it's an organization that is beginning to lose the trust of the American people, if it hasn't already, and therefore, we need to restore that trust. We pay over $2 billion a year into the United Nations, and it makes sense to have somebody there who's willing to say to the United Nations, let's -- why don't you reform? Let's make sure that the body works well and there's accountability and taxpayers' money is spent wisely. And it's important that people in America trust the United Nations, and Bolton will be able to carry that -- that message.

Now, in terms of the request for documents, I view that as just another stall tactic, another way to delay, another way to not allow Bolton to get an up or down vote. We have -- we've answered questions after questions after questions; documents were sent to the -- to the intelligence committee; the intelligence committee reviewed the NSA intercept process and confirmed that Bolton did what was right. And so it's just a stalling tactic. And I would hope that when they get back that they stop stalling and give the man a vote. Just give him a simple up or down vote.

Q: What about the filibuster as a tactic, in general, sir?

BUSH: Well, it's certainly been a tactic that's been used on judges and Bolton, if this is a filibuster. I don't know what you call it. I'm not sure they actually labeled it, filibuster. I'd call it -- thus far, it's a stall -- stall headed toward filibuster, I guess. All I know is the man is not getting a vote, and it's taking a long time to get his vote. And we've -- he's been through hearings and questions and questionnaires. And it's pretty obvious to the American people, and to me, that you can tie up anything in the United States Senate if you want to. But it also ought to be clear that we need to get an ambassador to the United Nations as quickly as possible. And so I hope he gets a vote soon.

If you disregard the fact that he said "up or down vote" six times (remember what he said about why he repeats himself), you might have noticed that he seems to be criticizing the Democrts for trying to do the right thing. He doesn't like the fact that they are taking their time to make sure they do the right thing. You also might have noticed over the last four years that this seems to be the modus operandi for Georgieboy's entire tenure in office.

Ever since he was first installed by the SCOTUS, it's been hurry, hurry, hurry. He doesn't wait for anything. Right after taking office, he pushed through tax cuts. Had he waited he might have seen the economic ramifications those tax cuts would bring. But no...Can't wait! Soon thereafter came September 11 and we had to hurry up and pass the Patriot Act to give law enforcement the necessary tools to effectively fight the war on terror. Had we waited, Congress may have had time to review the constitution-destroying piece of garbage before approving it sight-unseen and we could have then passed a more equal and effective piece of legislation. But again...Gotta' hurry! Had we taken the time to let the weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq complete their job, we probably would have known that Saddam Hussein did not possess the weapons of mass destruction that we thought he did and thousands of soldiers would still be alive and unhurt. However...No time to spare! And now Georgieboy is telling us to hurry up. After all, we need to get an ambassador to the UN and we need it quickly.

The truth is, the Democrats are waiting on information that just might save the country from rushing into yet another mistake. Confirming the wrong person to the post could have future consequences that would be hazardous to our future foreign relationships. In other words, they're trying to get it right the first time. For four years now, we've been watching an administration that has taken the attitude that any idea is a good idea. You know, just because you have an idea doesn't necessarily make it a good one. Take Social Security for instance. The administration's idea involves private accounts that nearly two-thirds of the American public opposes. But all we hear is "Well, at least we have a plan." Yeah, they've got one alright. It's a shitty one, but they've got one. However, that doesn't mean that congress should rush right out and pass it. As the old saying goes, "If you can't find the time to do something right today, when are you going to find the time to fix it tomorrow?"

George wants the Democrats to hurry up and confirm John Bolton. He wants them to hurry up and pass his Social Security plan. He wants them to hurry up and... Well, you get the idea. Unfortunately for him, the Democrats are trying make sure that they get it right the first time so they don't have to fumble around in the future trying to correct another mistake. We've already seen it with the tax cuts, the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, and countless other blunders from the current administration. Excuse us for trying to learn from past mistakes.

So Georgie's just going to have to be patient. We Democrats are going to do our best to make sure that he doesn't screw up anymore than he already has.

In an attempt to goad Saddam Hussein into a war, US and British forces began an air assault on Iraq in 2002. Months before the UN Resolution 1441.

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

[snip]

The new information, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001, and that the RAF increased their attacks even more quickly than the Americans did.

During 2000, RAF aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone over Iraq dropped 20.5 tons of bombs from a total of 155 tons dropped by the coalition, a mere 13%. During 2001 that figure rose slightly to 25 tons out of 107, or 23%.

However, between May 2002 and the second week in November, when the UN Security Council passed resolution 1441, which Goldsmith said made the war legal, British aircraft dropped 46 tons of bombs a month out of a total of 126.1 tons, or 36%.

By October, with the UN vote still two weeks away, RAF aircraft were dropping 64% of bombs falling on the southern no-fly zone.

Tommy Franks, the allied commander, has since admitted this operation was designed to “degrade” Iraqi air defences in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war.

It was not until November 8 that the UN security council passed resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq with “serious consequences” for failing to co-operate with the weapons inspectors.

The ramifications of this story are numerous. First, this proves that we had decided to invade Iraq long before it was publicly announced. Second, this lends credence to the Downing Street memo that said "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." And third, WE KNEW THAT SADDAM DID NOT POSSESS WMD!

If we thought that Saddam truly possessed WMD, wouldn't this have put our security at risk? Wouldn't this have endangered the entire Middle East and possibly the world? Clearly, this is either the most reckless administration in history or we knew ahead of time that Saddam didn't have the WMD that we claimed he did. Which means that Colin Powell was sent to the UN to LIE! Which means that all of those speeches were full of LIES! Which means that this war that has killed over 1600 men and women that are being honored on this Memorial Day was predicated on a LIE!

It's as if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and all the others are saying, "Happy Fuckin' Memorial Day, everybody! Your loved ones didn't have to die, but then you wouldn't have anything to do today would you?"

(I'm not sure what's more offensive, my government lying to my face or the mainstream media ignoring it completely. This morning I scoured all of the major US news outlets and I can't find anything even mentioning this. Damn liberal media!)

For a while now I've been following this story out of Ohio concerning the Republican party and some rare coins. It seems that back in 1998 $50 million of the state's worker's compensation money was invested in these rare coins. The involvement of one of the party's largest donors, Tom Noe, made it a little suspect but nobody seemed to get too upset about it. Until now. It was recently discovered that over $10 million worth of coins is missing. It's suspected that some of that $10 million may have been used to make contributions to political campaigns including that of one George W. Bush. Today we learned that the director of the states worker's compensation fund, James Conrad, is going to resign.

(DailyKos has a nice summary of the whole mess here complete with links.)

This whole thing smells fishy. Someone needs to fry. (No pun intended.)

Have a great weekend everybody!

As if we needed any further proof that any organization is unable to investigate itself, the Marine Corp provides us with this.

The Marine Corps dropped murder charges Thursday against an officer accused of riddling two Iraqis with bullets and hanging a warning sign on their corpses as a grisly example to other suspected insurgents.

[snip]

Prosecutors said Pantano, 33, intended to make an example of the men by shooting them 60 times and hanging a sign over their bodies - "No better friend, no worse enemy," a Marine slogan. Pantano did not deny hanging the sign or shooting the men repeatedly.

[snip]

The hearing officer recommended Pantano face nonjudicial punishment for allegedly desecrating the bodies by reloading and repeatedly shooting them. But the commanding general decided Pantano should face no punishment for any of his actions.

60 times? Reloading? No punishment? And we wonder why how our image gets tarnished? It must be that false Newsweek story that turn out to be not false.

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat for having a "blame-the-troops" attitude, let me say that I believe the actions of this one soldier to be outside the norm. This is an example of one soldier behaving poorly and should not reflect on all of our troops. However, those cultures or countries that are in opposition to us will use this to paint our entire country as unjust and bent toward the destruction of the Muslim culture. If we are going to allow this type of behavior to go unpunished, how can we expect to win the hearts and minds of anyone?

The sad truth is this: As long as we allow our own soldiers to commit barbaric acts of desecration and murder, we will never be able to promote democracy and freedom in that part of the world. Part of democracy means equality and justice for all. That can't come to fruition unless we are willing to live by the standard ourselves.

If his story is legitimate, I could have understood the shooting. But not sixty times. Not reloading. Not hanging a sign. This is barbarism and allowing to go unpunished makes the entire Marine Corps complicit in the event. And it damages our country's already tarnished image. We can do better.

As he did so many times as the Governor of Texas, George W. Bush has once again decided that he will not "err on the side of life." By promising to veto any legislation that promotes easing the current regulations on embryonic stem cell research, Bush has consigned what could become millions of people worldwide to a death that could possibly be postponed. According to Bush crony/de facto spokseman Tom DeLay:

[...] it would be wrong for the government to finance "medical research predicated on the destruction of human embryos."

"An embryo is a person," the Texas Republican said.

"This bill tramples on the moral convictions of an awful lot of people who don't want their tax dollars to be spent for killing innocent human life," DeLay said.

As usual, though, he is not giving you the complete story. DeLay makes it sound as if embryos will be destroyed without consideration for the alternatives. However, the bill he was discussing takes into consideration all of the alternatives before the stem cell option is even available.

Rep. Mike Castle, the Delaware Republican who introduced the bill, said it "draws a strict ethical line by only allowing federally funded research on stem cell lines that were derived ethically from donated embryos determined to be in excess."

Under the bill, couples who have undergone fertility treatments and have embryos they won't use can then make the choice of putting them up for adoption, giving them directly to another couple, storing them, discarding them or donating them to science, co-sponsor Rep. Diana DeGette said during debate.

"The only federal funds used under the Castle-DeGette bill are federal funds to then develop those embryonic stem cell lines" donated to science, the Colorado Democrat said.

The ethical problem begins with the assumption that a life is going to be destroyed for the sake of research. However, many of the unused embryos that researchers seek to use will be destroyed anyway. Does it make it more ethical to destroy them without any gain whatsoever than it does to gleen potentially life saving information from them? I think not. As it stands now parents can choose to donate their children's organs to help others in the event that the child is injured beyond saving. Is it really any less ethical to donate your unused embryos that will be destroyed anyway? Again, I think not.

Outside of the life issue, the biggest obstacle to stem cell research appears to be that nobody is really sure what benefits can come from it. But let's go back and look at our history shall we? Have we always been sure of the outcomes of our experimentations? What about the Wright brothers? How about the polio vaccine? What about manned space flight? Were we convinced that all of these endeavors would turn out positive? What if the Wright brothers crashed? What if Dr. Salk was wrong? What if man couldn't survive in zero gravity? In every case there was a potential risk, but the prospect of progress outweighed the risks. In fact, the Bush administration's own policy in the war on terror involves the risk of possible death for thousands of soldiers all for the sake of progress.

The House of Representatives has done the right thing by passing this bill and it is expected that the Senate will do likewise. It would be in the best interest of millions of individuals if George W. Bush would "err on the side of life" and support this potentially life-saving piece of legislation.

Maybe I was a little quick to judge last night's deal concerning Bush's judicial nominees and the nuclear option. I still don't think it was in our best interest, but it's certainly got the Republican base all in a tizzy. Check out the comments from Free Republic.

It appears as if the right is viewing this as a major defeat for their side. Check out Dobson's reaction:

This Senate agreement represents a complete bailout and betrayal by a cabal of Republicans and a great victory for united Democrats.... We share the disappointment, outrage and sense of abandonment felt by millions of conservative Americans who helped put Republicans in power last November. I am certain that these voters will remember both Democrats and Republicans who betrayed their trust.

ConservativeOutpost says "GOP grabs the ankles:"

this is bad for the GOP in general. I'm not talking about PR here...I'm talking about the conservative grassroots crowd that is the backbone of the party. The people who lick the stamps, make the phone calls, knock on the doors, etc. when election time rolls around. They worked their tails off for George Bush in 2000 and 2004 precicely so he WOULD be able to nominate and get confirmed pro-life, pro-family conservative judges to our nation's courts. For them, THIS was the prize...and now the Republicans in the Senate are giving them reason to feel, again, that their hard work doesn't pay off. Bad mistake.

Power Line seems pissed:

What a hideous deal! The Democrats have agreed to cloture on only three nominees, and they have made no commitment not to filibuster in the future, if there are "extraordinary circumstances." Of course, the Dems think any nominee who is a Republican is "extraordinary." The Dems have just wriggled off the hook on some of the nominees that, politically, some of them did not want to be seen voting against.

Someone explain to me why the Republicans haven't been rolled once again. To me, it looks like a pathetic collapse on the part of the Republicans--not the leadership, but Senators like McCain who sold out their party.

And those over at Confirmthem.com are less than pleased:

This deal is a load of cr@!` It is not compromise, but capitulation. And I say that as somebody who did agree that a certain form of compromise was acceptable. But this comrpomise treats a couple of nominees, Saad and Myers, as pawns. It makes them not people, but expendable objects. And that is unconscionable.

So maybe I jumped the gun a little. I don't like the deal but neither do the Republican faithful and if this deal actually drives voters away from the Republican party it could become a major victory for us. I'm not going to hold my breath though. I have yet to meet too many conservatives that can follow through on their promises. Besides, once the party leaders see the dissention in the ranks, they're liable to whip the nuclear option back out in the blink of an eye (say maybe around July of 2006) if they think it will win them some votes. You'd think the conservative base would get tired of being treated like cheap whores on election day, but they don't seem to mind.

According to the AP, we have a deal.

In a dramatic reach across party lines, Senate centrists sealed a compromise Monday night that cleared the way for confirmation of many of President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, left others in limbo and preserved venerable filibuster rules.

"In a Senate that has become increasingly partisan and polarized, the bipartisan center held," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., one of 14 senators -seven from each party - to pledge their "mutual trust and confidence" on the deal.

I have to wonder...why? Why did the Democrats make this deal? What advantage have we gained? After opposing these nominees for all this time, we've just decided to say, "Okay, we give." WTF? Talk about caving in!

According to the actual agreement, the Democrats will only filibuster future nominees "under extraordinary circumstances." Once again, WTF? Who determines what are and what aren't extraordinary circumstances? Didn't we think that the current nominees were "extraordinary circumstances?" Isn't that why we were filibustering them in the first place. And what happens if we decide that the requirement of "extraordinary circumstances" has been reached and the Republicans don't agree? I think this quote from Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) pretty much sums it up:

Some of you who are looking at the language may wonder what some of the clauses mean. The understanding is – and we don’t think this will happen – but if an individual senator believes in the future that a filibuster is taking place under something that’s not extraordinary circumstances, we of course reserve the right to do what we could have done tomorrow which is to cast a yes vote for the constitutional option.

Translation: "This deal doesn't mean a fucking thing. If the Democrats filibuster we just might decide to change our minds and reneg on the deal."

I don't get this deal. In my opinion, the Republicans just won. They got what they wanted without having to give up anything yet. If things don't go their way in the future, they'll just whip out the nuclear option again. We surrendered without them having to actually fire their weapon. They just waved it in our face and we threw up our hands. I really shouldn't be all that surprised I guess. After all, we're dealing with the likes of Lieberman and Salazar. If I were Harry Reid, I'd be pissed. These guys just cut the legs out from under him. How can we expect to be taken seriously in the future?

As they say, one step forward, two steps back. We can't continue to give in. We held the high ground on this issue. The polls were with us and we gave it up. Bad choice in my opinion. Bad choice.

It's been a busy day. Today was the last day of student attendance for this school year. Between trying to corrale the students and finish my work, it was pretty exhausting. So tonight, I'm going to direct you to a recent speech by Bill Moyers, formerly of PBS. On May 15, Moyers spoke to the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis. It was nothing short of stunning. You can read the entire speech here, or you can listen to a recording of it here.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

As some of you know, CPB was established almost 40 years ago to set broad policy for public broadcasting and to be a firewall between political influence and program content. What some on this board are now doing today — led by its chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson — is too important, too disturbing and yes, even too dangerous for a gathering like this not to address.

We’re seeing unfold a contemporary example of the age-old ambition of power and ideology to squelch and punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable.

Let me assure you that I take in stride attacks by the radical right-wingers who have not given up demonizing me although I retired over six months ago. They’ve been after me for years now, and I suspect they will be stomping on my grave to make sure I don’t come back from the dead.

I should remind them, however, that one of our boys pulled it off some 2,000 years ago — after the Pharisees, Sadducees and Caesar’s surrogates thought they had shut him up for good. Of course I won’t be expecting that kind of miracle, but I should put my detractors on notice: They might just compel me out of the rocking chair and back into the anchor chair.

Who are they? I mean the people obsessed with control, using the government to threaten and intimidate. I mean the people who are hollowing out middle-class security even as they enlist the sons and daughters of the working class in a war to make sure Ahmed Chalabi winds up controlling Iraq’s oil. I mean the people who turn faith-based initiatives into a slush fund and who encourage the pious to look heavenward and pray so as not to see the long arm of privilege and power picking their pockets. I mean the people who squelch free speech in an effort to obliterate dissent and consolidate their orthodoxy into the official view of reality from which any deviation becomes unpatriotic heresy.

That’s who I mean. And if that’s editorializing, so be it. A free press is one where it’s OK to state the conclusion you’re led to by the evidence.
[.....]
I decided long ago that this wasn’t healthy for democracy. I came to see that “news is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity.” In my documentaries – whether on the Watergate scandals 30 years ago or the Iran-Contra conspiracy 20 years ago or Bill Clinton’s fundraising scandals 10 years ago or, five years ago, the chemical industry’s long and despicable cover-up of its cynical and unspeakable withholding of critical data about its toxic products from its workers, I realized that investigative journalism could not be a collaboration between the journalist and the subject. Objectivity is not satisfied by two opposing people offering competing opinions, leaving the viewer to split the difference.

I came to believe that objective journalism means describing the object being reported on, including the little fibs and fantasies as well as the Big Lie of the people in power. In no way does this permit journalists to make accusations and allegations. It means, instead, making sure that your reporting and your conclusions can be nailed to the post with confirming evidence.

This is always hard to do, but it has never been harder than today. Without a trace of irony, the powers-that-be have appropriated the newspeak vernacular of George Orwell’s 1984. They give us a program vowing “No Child Left Behind,” while cutting funds for educating disadvantaged kids. They give us legislation cheerily calling for “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests” that give us neither. And that’s just for starters.

In Orwell’s 1984, the character Syme, one of the writers of that totalitarian society’s dictionary, explains to the protagonist Winston, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”

An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy — or worse.
[.....]
the success of NOW’s journalism was creating a backlash in Washington.

The more compelling our journalism, the angrier the radical right of the Republican Party became. That’s because the one thing they loathe more than liberals is the truth. And the quickest way to be damned by them as liberal is to tell the truth.

This is the point of my story: Ideologues don’t want you to go beyond the typical labels of left and right. They embrace a world view that can’t be proven wrong because they will admit no evidence to the contrary. They want your reporting to validate their belief system and when it doesn’t, God forbid.

Never mind that their own stars were getting a fair shake on NOW: Gigot, Viguerie, David Keene of the American Conservative Union, Stephen Moore, then with the Club for Growth, and others. No, our reporting was giving the radical right fits because it wasn’t the party line. It wasn’t that we were getting it wrong. Only three times in three years did we err factually, and in each case we corrected those errors as soon as we confirmed their inaccuracy. The problem was that we were telling stories that partisans in power didn’t want told … we were getting it right, not right-wing.

I’ve always thought the American eagle needed a left wing and a right wing. The right wing would see to it that economic interests had their legitimate concerns addressed. The left wing would see to it that ordinary people were included in the bargain. Both would keep the great bird on course. But with two right wings or two left wings, it’s no longer an eagle and it’s going to crash.
[.....]
“I wore my flag tonight. First time. Until now I haven’t thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans.

“Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustained me, whose armed forces protected me, and whose ideals inspired me; I offered my heart’s affections in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother’s picture on my lapel to prove her son’s love. Mother knew where I stood; so does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax returns on April 15.

“So what’s this doing here? Well, I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo — the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the good housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration’s patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s little red book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread.

“But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They’re in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks even as they call for more spending on war.

“So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash). I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what Bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it’s not un-American to think that war — except in self-defense — is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomacy. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.”

It's quite a long speech, but as you can see from these excerpts, it's well worth it.

Have a good weekend! I'll see you back here Monday night.

I can just picture the look on the faces of the right-wing fundies when they read this.

Porn star and former gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey will be joining her boss, Kick Ass Pictures president Mark Kulkis, in attending a dinner with President Bush in Washington, D.C. on June 14.

Kulkis was invited to attend the event by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which is organizing the event. Over a two-day course of NRCC events preceding the dinner, Carey and Kulkis will be attending a meeting with presidential advisor Karl Rove, giving their recommendations on important national issues.

“I’m hoping to run as Lieutenant Governor of California next year,” Carey said. “Since Arnold {Schwarzenegger} is a Republican, I thought this dinner would be a great networking opportunity for me.”

And if that's not enough, she's also a criminal.

Mary Carey, a pornographic film star who ran for California governor in a recall election in 2003, has been arrested in a raid on a new strip club in this Tacoma suburb, police said.

Carey, whose real name is Mary Cook, was among five people arrested early Saturday at Club Paradise. Eleven others were given citations, police Lt. Bret A. Farrar said.

All 16 were accused of violating the local adult cabaret ordinance, some by getting too close to customers and others — including Carey— by touching themselves in a sexual manner.

Ewwwww! Georgieboy might not want to shake hands with her.

This is a perfect example of the hypocrisy that pervades this White House. First, you run for office on the promise that you'll "restore dignity to the White House." Then you get re-elected by the "values voters" of America. Then you invite someone who makes a living by sucking cock on camera to the White House for a National Republican Congressional Committee event. Classic.

But this is typical. When it's election time, the Republicans are the party of Christian morals and family values, but for those in between years it's all about money and whores (and I'm not just talking about the ones that'll give you a handjob in the alley for $10). The Republican party will do anything to get themselves elected including hijacking a person's faith only to throw it back in their face later. Dobson and Falwell must be so proud.

Has the warranty run out on our new government, because it looks like we're a little disappointed with it.

As the Senate marches closer toward a nuclear showdown over President Bush’s judicial nominees, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the American public is dissatisfied — with Congress and its priorities, with Bush’s plan to overhaul Social Security and  with the nation’s economy and general direction. Moreover, a majority believes that the Senate should make its own decision about the president’s judicial nominees, rather than just generally confirming them.

Wow! It only took four months and our Republican controlled everything has already worn out its welcome. Let's look at some of the numbers.

"Just 33 percent of the respondents approve of Congress’ job. That’s down 6 points since a poll in April and 8 points since January."

"According to this poll, by 47 percent to 40 percent the public says it would prefer Democrats controlling Congress after the 2006 elections."

"Just 20 percent of those polled say the economy has gotten better over the past 12 months, an 11- point decline since January; 51 percent believe that removing Saddam Hussein from power was not worth the cost and casualties of that war; and only 36 percent support Bush’s plan to allow workers to invest their Social Security contributions in the stock market."

"Regarding the contentious debate over Bush’s judicial nominees, just 34 percent say the Senate should generally confirm the president’s judicial picks as long as they are honest and competent, while 56 percent argue that the Senate should make its own decision about the fitness of each nominee to serve."

"Overall, according to the NBC/Journal poll, 52 percent believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, while 35 percent think it’s on the right track."

So how does something like this happen? After all, let's not forget that Georgieboy had a mandate just a few months ago. Remember? He was going to spend his political capital. Well, let's see. What has our Republican controlled government been focused on lately? I seem to recall Terri Schiavo being a big deal. Steroids. We've held hearings on that. Filibusters. Can't forget Poland the filibuster. Oh yeah, and there's that one guy that looks like Ron Goldman's father, what's his name....Oh! John Bolton; Bush's UN nominee that lied under oath.

You know, it's refreshing to see our Republican controlled government focused so intently on things like controlling the deficit, extricating ourselves from Iraq, solving the Social Security problem...wait...never mind.

You see, our Republican controlled government has spent so much time whining and posturing about the Democrats' unwillingness to kiss their ass, that they've neglected their duties. All the while they're cozying up to the radical fringes of their party, protecting an ethical train wreck, and running from their past. Meanwhile, the American public, red and blue alike, is getting tired of the excuses, the lies, the abuses, and the empty promises.

So it comes as no surprise that the public is less than satisfied with its choice this past November. In fact, all of the latest polls show a lean toward the Democrats regaining control of Congress in 2006. Man! That buyer's remorse sure is a bitch, isn't it. Heh!

Sometimes you just have to step aside and let the blog write itself.

George Galloway, British MP, in a statement before the US Senate, by which he is implicated in the UN Oil-for-Food scandal.

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

"You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

"Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

"Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

"Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

"You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

"There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

 "And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

"Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

"Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

"Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

"You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

"And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

"But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

"Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

"In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

"The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

I have nothing else to say. I think Mr. Galloway pretty much covered it all.

Now I have heard it all. The new Star Wars movie is anti-American!

The last episode of the seminal sci-fi saga "Star Wars" screened at the Cannes film festival Sunday, completing a six-part series that remains a major part of popular culture — and delivering a galactic jab to U.S. President George W Bush.
[.....]
Reaction at advance screenings was effusive, with festival-goers, critics and journalists at Cannes applauding at the moment the infamous Darth Vader came into being.

But there were also murmurs at the parallels being drawn between Bush's administration and the birth of the space opera's evil Empire.

Baddies' dialogue about bloodshed and despicable acts being needed to bring "peace and stability" to the movie's universe, mainly through a fabricated war, set the scene.

And then came the zinger, with the protagonist, Anakin Skywalker, saying just before becoming Darth Vader: "You are either with me — or you are my enemy."

To the Cannes audience, often sympathetic to anti-Bush messages in cinema as last year's triumph here of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" attested, that immediately recalled Bush's 2001 ultimatum, "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."

Give me a break! Look, if conservative America has a guilty conscience about what has been done in their name, who's fault is that? George Lucas'? Please!

What's even funnier is the comments made by some of our best and brightest who were sent there by Matt Drudge. Let's sample some of their wisdom, shall we?

So Hollywood is upset at the world view of America. And where does the world gets it's view of America? Duh- from Hollywood movies and TV shows. And a fine job you're doing, Mr. Lucas. Keep it up. You and Michael Isikoff's fake article about flushing pages of the Qur'an are doing a great job of PR for America. Isikoff's work has hospitalized one hundred and killed 20. Feeling queasy? I hope some Hollywood visionaries reap their rewards personally. Visit Iraq or Afghanistan. I'm sure the Taliban and terrorists will gladly put them in one of their videos for the internet.

************************************************

George Lucas is a great film maker. He is a joke as a politician, or a real leader. I think that Hollywood fame clouds the little voice in your head that says "I have not been selected to lead the free world, because I make movies"

Lucas needs to do what he does best, film stories that are make believe, and let President Bush do what he does best, lead the free world. Imagine if Bush created a seventh Star Wars and he announced it would trump all the rest ! This is how ridiculous Lucas sounds to a sane, non doped up audience outside of Marin Co. CA.

I think the best way to sum up teh War situiation is the lennon-esque phrase, " Give War a Chance"

************************************************

Lucas is an utter disappointment and there are no two ways about that.

Bush dissenters are stuck trying to find vague connections between a bad science fiction movie written by a Hollywood liberal to prove that Bush is wrong. That's what the Libs have stooped to. Great job guys!

ous Lucas sounds to a sane, non doped up audience outside of Marin Co. CA.

I think the best way to sum up teh War situiation is the lennon-esque phrase, " Give War a Chance"

************************************************

I can only chuckle at all the knuckleheads who obviously can't stand Bush or anything he stands for. They fall all over themselves to equate Bush with anything they consider evil. In the article the writer says that Lucas doesn't mention Bush by name but was obviously referring to him when he said, "most bad people think they are good people". Of course Osama bin Laden's name doesn't pop up here.
But then to the Bush haters OBL is another Che Guvara. Their sense of right and wrong is skewed by their feelings of guilt about living in the greatest country ever to exist.
Oh yeah, Bush is just like Saddam.
These are the same people who would let an invading army take over just to avoid the violence and then be silent as they watch their neighbors get shipped of to God knows where and never come back.
Arrogant fools.

Oh my, I could read poetry like that for hours!

Unfortunately, the point these dolts are missing is that this story was written over thirty years ago. Georgie-boy was still trying to dodge the draft at that point. But the conservatives are not going to let a ripe chance like this go by without screaming about oppression. Oh, the poor downtrodden conservatives in this country. They are discriminated against on a daily basis. Honestly, this pathetic screed against the liberal media and Hollywood has really gone too far. Quit blaming them for your guilty conscience red America. The only person you have to blame is your own dear leader. He's the one that put you in this awkward situation of having to choose between loyalty to your country and your own conscience.

Rush Limbaugh, the largest and loudest of the AM blowhards, has once again made an ass of himself.

Rush Limbaugh said on his nationally syndicated radio show that Evanston Township High School students "don't know anything about World War II" and "they've probably never heard the name Adolf Hitler" because they're so focused on a multicultural curriculum.

Some Evanston kids want to show Limbaugh what they know. They want to debate him on American history.

"I think [a debate] would be great because then we'd prove him wrong and open up his opinion a little bit," Sarah Loeb, an ETHS sophomore, said Thursday.

Not only is this a completely ignorant comment about something he clearly doesn't understand (I know, that's an everyday occurance for Rush) but it's also a very revealing statement about the radical right. The article goes on to say:

Limbaugh's comments came after he read a Christian Science Monitor article Tuesday that profiled global studies courses required at ETHS. Limbaugh railed against multicultural education generally and singled out the North Shore school.

"What multiculturalists is, is balkanizing this country," Limbaugh said Tuesday. "People are coming here from various parts of the world and they're bringing their cultures with them and the multiculturalists are saying 'your culture is better than the American culture. The American culture is discriminatory, it's racist, sexist, bigot, homophobic.'"

Railed against multicultural education? What year is this, 1805? What is wrong with understanding other cultures? Unless of course you're a racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobe.

Do you find it odd that Rush thinks it's important for our youth to know about Adolf Hitler but not for them to understand the Middle Eastern culture? If you read the opinion piece by Molly Bingham that I linked to the other day, she makes the case that we will never have peace in the Middle East unless we understand who and what we are dealing with.

But Rush doesn't want to understand. Rush would rather live in his oxycontin-colored world and believe that everything is okay as long as Georgie-boy says it is. His Nazi-like view of other cultures is truly alarming. However, not nearly as alarming as the millions of listeners that absorb his bullshit without ever stopping to question it. Hey fat ass, there are literally hundreds of other countries in this world. We have to deal with them when it comes to world affairs. Don't you think it would make sense for our future generations to understand what they are like?

Oh, and another thing. Unless you're 100% Native American, your ancestors came here from another country, it just wasn't called multiculturalism at the time. Back then it was called immigration. A lot of people did it. Why do you think our country is called the melting pot of the world? Hint: It had nothing to do with the fondue craze of the seventies.

In case you were wondering, Rush was completely wrong about the students not knowing anything about history.

"It struck me as incomprehensible that somebody would think multiculturalism antithetical to American values," Supt. Allan Alson said. "I was stunned that he had such certainty that our kids were not knowledgeable about basic American history when in fact our student do extremely well" on standardized tests in that area. "It's a shame he lets his conclusions determine his evidence."

Rush, you are a dickhead! You sit on your ass and bloviate about things you know nothing of while you hide behind your microphone. You are not an educator. Don't pretend like you know what it's about and what it should be doing. I'll tell you what, you refrain from pretending like you know something about education and I'll stop pretending like I know anything about doctor shopping. What do you say? We got a deal?

SIDENOTE: The Frist watch has now entered day four and still no vote. Instead of responding with the vote that he claims the American people want, Frist has decided to resort to the age-old tried-and-true Republican method of smearing the shit out of their opponent. The guys over at dailyKos have the story. It's almost laughable it's so pathetic.

Have a great weekend! I'll see you Monday night.

Apparently Sen. George Voinovich is, if the big bad wolf is the Republican party leadership. I take back everything I said about him. He pussed out, plain and simple.

A key Republican senator on Thursday said he would allow the nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to go to a vote in the full Senate despite his conviction that Bolton was the wrong man for the job.

If he's the wrong man then Voinovich should have voted against him and saved the full Senate from having to waste time voting on the wrong fucking man! Apparently, Voinovich decided to pull a Hagel. He'll vote for him in committee but not in the full Senate. WTF? You see, originally I thought that this was just a way for Sen. Hagel to save face. He would vote to send him to the floor but then vote against him so he could go back home and pretend his hands were clean if everything went bad. But after hearing Voinovich's words today, I think there's more to this than just chickenshit politics. Voinovich said:

"I am not so arrogant to think that I should impose my judgment and perspective (on) the U.S. position in the world community on the rest of my colleagues. We owe it to the president to give Mr. Bolton an up or down vote on the floor of the United States Senate."

Do you see it now? I do. This is about the nuclear option. A while ago I posted about my thoughts on the Bolton nomination.

By picking John Bolton, Bush knows that the Democrats will go ballistic. The Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will grill him during the hearings and will most likely all vote against him. However, Georgie's got the advantage. He holds enough votes to get him through committee and even confirmed. So he's kind of killing two birds with one stone, if you like. Not only does he get a hard-liner at the UN, but he can also exploit the Democrats' opposition as more left-wing obstructionism.

Georgieboy doesn't give a shit about the UN. By sending Bolton he's basically giving the whole UN a great big middle-finger "fuck you." Plus, he and his flunkies can roll out the video of Sen. Boxer and Sen. Kerry and Sen. Obama grilling poor John and say, "See how angry they are? See how partisan they are? They're being obstructionists."

This is a set up and now Voinovich is on board as well. The Republicans are using the Bolton nomination as fodder for their anti-filibuster fight. They know the Democrats are going to oppose him and this only helps them to paint the left as the party of obstruction. Meanwhile they're selling their souls to Frist and Rove in the name of party loyalty.

What's truly awful about this is that it's the American people who will suffer so the Republican party can gain a little political capital. The face of America at the UN will now be that of John Bolton. When the world's ambassadors deal with us it will be done through a brash, manipulative, "kiss-up, kick-down" person. But hey, it'll make the Democrats look bad, so fuck it!

So I want to know...Who's playing politics now?

As I posted yesterday, Sen Minority Leader Harry Reid has basically thrown down the gauntlet to Majority Leader Bill Frist by saying let's vote on the nuclear option. As I'm writing this, Sen. Frist has not responded. I'm not going to hold my breath. I think Frist knows he just got his bluff called.

Another challenge was thrown down recently and this time it was to George W. Bush.

Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002 -- well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval.

The Times of London newspaper published the memo -- actually minutes of a high-level meeting on Iraq held July 23, 2002 -- on May 1.

British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity, and Michael Boyce, then Britain's Chief of Defense Staff, told the paper that Britain had not then made a decision to follow the United States to war, but it would have been "irresponsible" not to prepare for the possibility.

The White House has not yet responded to queries about the congressional letter, which was released on May 6.

Hmmm. No response. I wonder why?

Now here's a little something to make the Republicans happy.

A lawsuit seeking to force Vice President Dick Cheney to reveal details about the energy policy task force he headed and the pro-industry recommendations it made was scuttled Tuesday by a federal appeals court.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously found that two private groups that sued Cheney failed to establish that the federal government had a legal duty to produce documents detailing the White House's contacts with business executives and lobbyists.

The lawsuit, filed by the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, alleged that energy industry officials effectively became members of the task force, while environmental groups and others were shut out of the meetings. It also argued that the task force was a federal advisory committee with an obligation to publicly disclose its operations.

The appeals court disagreed. "There is nothing to indicate that nonfederal employees had a right to vote on committee matters or exercise a veto over committee proposals," it said. The court ordered a lower court to dismiss the case.

Those damn liberal judges! Someone has to put a stop to them. Uuuuggh!

To counteract the Republican joy, however, there was this today from the Financial Times.

Real wages in the US are falling at their fastest rate in 14 years, according to data surveyed by the Financial Times.

Inflation rose 3.1 per cent in the year to March but salaries climbed just 2.4 per cent, according to the Employment Cost Index. In the final three months of 2004, real wages fell by 0.9 per cent.

The last time salaries fell this steeply was at the start of 1991, when real wages declined by 1.1 per cent.

Stingy pay rises mean many Americans will have to work longer hours to keep up with the cost of living, and they could ultimately undermine consumer spending and economic growth.

Tax cuts are working! They're working, I tell you! Uh...uh....9/11! War on terror! Hey, look over there!

And finally tonight, if you haven't already read this opinion piece from Sunday's Louisville, Kentucky, Courier Journal, I highly recommend it. It's a little long, but well worth the time.

Lesson One: Many journalists in Iraq could not, or would not, check their nationality or their own perspective at the door.

One of the hardest things about working on this story for me personally, and as a journalist, was to set my "American self" and perspective aside. It was an ongoing challenge to listen open-mindedly to a group of people whose foundation of belief is significantly different from mine, and one I found I often strongly disagreed with.

But going in to report a story with a pile of prejudices is no way to do a story justice, or to do it fairly, and that constant necessity to bite my tongue, wipe the smirk off my face or continue to listen through a racial or religious diatribe that I found appalling was a skill I had to practice. We would never walk in to cover a union problem or political event without seeking to understand the perspective from both, or the many sides of the story that exist. Why should we as journalists do it in Iraq?

Things have been pretty hectic around kissfan mansion lately. With the school year winding down, things have been happening pretty fast and furious. I hope to get back to some actual blogging in the very near future. But for now, I'll see you back here tomorrow night!

So sayeth Bon Scott.

And it certainly applies to Senator Harry Reid. After numerous threats from the conservatives to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, Sen. Reid says "bring it on."

Two weeks ago, Bill Frist and I exchanged proposals in an attempt to avert a vote on the nuclear option.  

One proposal allowed for up or down votes on all but four judges - which many of us on both sides of the aisle considered to be the goal of this hyped battle over judicial nominations.  

It also took the "nuclear option" off the table, which even Ken Starr said yesterday was damaging to the Senate as an institution and "amounts to an assault on the judicial branch of government." This compromise would break the gridlock over these seven judges, and allow us to get back to doing the people's business.

Senator Frist's proposal does nothing to end the judicial impasse, as it would wipe away the very checks and balances that have prevented an abuse of power for more than 200 years.

That result is unacceptable.  

I still consider this confrontation entirely unnecessary and irresponsible. The White House manufactured this crisis. Since Bush took office, the Senate confirmed 208 of his judicial nominations and turned back only 10, a 95% confirmation rate.  Instead of accepting that success and avoiding further divisiveness and partisanship in Washington, the President chose to pick fights instead of judges by resubmitting the names of the rejected nominees.

This fight is not about seven radical nominees; it's about clearing the way for a Supreme Court nominee who only needs 51 votes, instead of 60 votes. They want a Clarence Thomas, not a Sandra Day O'Connor or Anthony Kennedy or David Souter.  George Bush wants to turn the Senate into a second House of Representatives, a rubberstamp for his right wing agenda and radical judges.   That's not how America works.

I believe there are two options for avoiding the nuclear showdown, which so many of us believe is bad for the Senate, and bad for America.

But I want to be clear: we are prepared for a vote on the nuclear option.  Democrats will join responsible Republicans in a vote to uphold the constitutional principle of checks and balances.  

If it does come to a vote, I asked Senator Frist to allow his Republican colleagues to follow their consciences.  Senator Specter recently said that Senators should be bound by Senate loyalty rather than party loyalty on a question of this magnitude.  But right wing activists are threatening primary challenges against Republicans who vote against the nuclear option.   Senators should not face this or any other form of retribution based on their support for the Constitution.  In return, I pledge that I will place no such pressure on Democratic Senators and I urge Senator Frist to refrain from placing such pressure on Republican Senators.  

I also suggest two reasonable ways to avert this constitutional crisis.  

First, allow up or down votes on additional nominees, as I addressed in my proposal to Frist two weeks ago.   If this is about getting judges on the courts, let's get them on the courts.

Second, allow the Senate to consider changing the rules without breaking the rules.   Every one of us knows that there is a right way and a wrong way to change the rules of the Senate; the nuclear option is the wrong way.  Senator Dodd will go to the floor this afternoon to expand on the way the Senate changes its rules.

I suggest that Senator Frist introduce his proposal as a resolution.  If he does, we commit to moving it through the Rules Committee expeditiously and allow for a vote on the floor.  It takes 67 votes to change the rules.  If Senator Frist can't achieve 67 votes, then clearly the nuclear option is not in the best interest of the Senate or the nation.

Either of these options offers a path away from the precipice of the nuclear option.  But if neither of these options is acceptable to you, let's vote.

In other words, "Whip it out, fucker! Let's see what you've got!"

I may not agree with Sen. Reid on every issue (abortion), but he has been a fighter since the word go. Between Reid and Howard Dean, I think the Republican party has been back on its heels lately. For so many years the Democratic Party has been one of acquiescence. If you need any proof of that look at how John Kerry handled the Swift Boat attacks. Look at how easily the Democrats rolled over on the Patriot Act or the war in Iraq. We gave in. But no more. Sen. Reid and Howard Dean have decided that the best defense is a good offense.

Obviously Reid is convinced that Frist doesn't have the votes. Either that or he's playing the biggest bluff in politics. Either way, he's clearly got a pair and he's not ashamed to whip 'em out when he needs to.

It will be interesting to see how Frist reacts to this. Will he take Reid up on his challenge or will he be forced to admit defeat? The way I see it, the balls in his court now. The longer he delays the weaker his position becomes.

Kudos to you Sen. Reid. You just took the upper hand.

This is George W. Bush's America?

MR. RUSSERT:  On September 1, 2001, you [Gary Schroen, former senior CIA agent] began a 90-day phaseout retiring from the CIA.  Then came the horrific day of 8:46 AM, September 11, 2001.  All our lives changed.  You were asked to stay on at the CIA.  On September 13th, you were summoned to the office of Cofer Black, the head of counterterrorism for the CIA.  What did he tell you?  What was your mission?

MR. SCHROEN:  The mission was to--the first part of it was to go in and link up with the Northern Alliance, formerly headed by Ahmed Al-Massoud, and to win their confidence and their agreement to cooperate militarily with us. They were the only armed force on the ground in Afghanistan opposing the Taliban.  The second part of it was, once the Taliban were broken, to attack the al-Qaeda organization, find bin Laden and his senior lieutenants and kill them.

MR. RUSSERT:  Kill them?

MR. SCHROEN:  Kill them.

MR. RUSSERT:  Wasn't it illegal for us to kill foreign leaders?

MR. SCHROEN:  I don't think at that point that the--I think the administration had gotten to the point where bin Laden and his guys were fair game.

MR. RUSSERT:  As part of war?

MR. SCHROEN:  As part of war.

MR. RUSSERT:  Mr. Black gave you specific instructions on what he wanted you to bring home.

MR. SCHROEN:  That's true.  He did ask that once we got bin Laden and killed him, that we send his head back in a cardboard box on dry ice so that he could take it down and show the president.

MR. RUSSERT:  Where would you find the dry ice in Afghanistan?

MR. SCHROEN:  That's what I mentioned to him.  I said, "Cofer, I think that I can come up with pikes to put the heads of the lieutenants on," which is the second part of what he wanted done.  "Dry ice, we'll have to improvise."

Unbelievable. I'll bet the values voters are so proud.

In his continuing effort to dismantle everything from the Clinton administration, Georgieboy has now declared war on trees.

Following through on a pledge to change Clinton-era protections on 58.5 million acres of forest, the Bush administration on Thursday announced it will let governors petition for more or fewer restrictions on logging, mining and other development there.

The action, affecting forests mainly in the West, impacts the "roadless rule" that President Clinton had put in place little more than a week before leaving office in January 2001. Clinton’s regulation blocked road construction as a way to prevent logging, mining and other industry activities in the backcountry.

Under existing local forest management plans, some 34.3 million acres could be opened to road construction. That would be the first step in allowing logging, mining and other industry and wider recreational uses of the land.

Why doesn't he just get to the point and say, "Fuck the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge, fuck the national forests, and fuck all you environmentalists." It's what he really wants to say. I just wish he'd quit beating around the bush about it. (No pun intended.)

Congratulations corporate America. You got what you paid for.

Ah, the undeniable wisdom of David Putty.

That was the thought that came to mind as I read this:

Eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial, Kansas education officials began four days of trial-like hearings to consider changes to how Kansas students are tested on the origins of life.

Science groups are boycotting the hearings, held by a Board of Education subcommittee, because they view them as being rigged against evolution. The board could revise its science standards in June to include both the theory of evolution and criticism of it.

Many scientists fear that the board will follow recommendations from advocates of "intelligent design" in adopting standards critical of evolution. Conservatives hold a majority on the 10-member board.

(If you're not familiar with the Scopes Monkey Trial, it's a facinating story. It was as much theater as it was debate. For a [somewhat] quick synopsis, check out this site. In my opinion, it makes today's legal shows like Law & Order seem very mundane in terms of courtroom drama.)

I believe that the Kansas State Board of Education may be on the verge of a legal catastrophe. To understand why, we must go back to 1968 and the Supreme Court decision in Susan EPPERSON et al., Appellants, v. ARKANSAS. No. 7.

The case was brought by an Arkansas science teacher against the State because she feared legal repurcussions if she addressed the subject of evolution as put forth in the school districts new textbook. At the time, Arkasas (and Mississippi) had a law on the books making it illegal to teach any scientific theory that was in opposition to the book of Genisis. With the support of a local parent, the case was brought to a hearing in front of the Arkansas Supreme Court which upheld the law. Upon appeal to the US Supreme Court the court found in favor of the teacher and declared the law unconstitutional.

Arkansas' statute cannot stand. It is of no moment whether the law is deemed to prohibit mention of Darwin's theory, or to forbid any or all (270) of the infinite varieties of communication embraced within the term 'teaching.' Under either interpretation, the law must be stricken because of its conflict with the constitutional prohibition of state laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The overriding fact is that Arkansas' law selects from the body of knowledge a particular segment which it proscribes for the sole reason that it is deemed to conflict with a particular religious doctrine; that is, with a particular interpretation of the Book of Genesis by a particular religious group.

Make no mistake about it. Intelligent design is the new guise for creationism as put forth in the Book of Genisis. And according to the Intelligent Design Network's website, their best argument for the inclusion of intelligent design appears to be "Hey, why not." Check out the PDF titled "TEN REASONS WHY "EVOLUTION ONLY" IS LOGICALLY, SCIENTIFICALLY AND LEGALLY CONTROVERSIAL." The only real "reason" that I can come up with based upon this document is because they don't believe in evolution. They have no scientific evidence to prove their position. Maybe it's just me, but I find it ironic that they want their "ID" theory taught in science class, yet can't provide any true scientific evidence to support it. But hey, that's conservatives for you. They aren't going to let something as trivial as proof or facts get in the way of ramming their agenda down your throat.

What the KSBE is doing has already been declared unconstitutional. Basically, they are trying to sneak one past the goalie under the cloak of science. If the board votes in favor of intelligent design and this is allowed to go forth, it will open the door to more and more religious influence in the public schools thereby igniting a political firestorm all across the country that would legalize censorship and discrimination. This can not be allowed to happen. Write to your local newspapers. Call your local radio hosts. Make sure that people are aware of this potential hijacking of our Constitution. With enough pressure, the KSBE may actually bow to common sense.

The key passage from the 1968 Supreme Court decision:

Government in our democracy, state and national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine, (104) and practice. It may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of noreligion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite. The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.

As early as 1872, this Court said: 'The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect.' Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 728, 20 L.Ed. 666. This has been the interpretation of the great First Amendment which this Court has applied in the many and subtle problems which the ferment of our national life has presented for decision within the Amendment's broad command.
    
Judicial interposition in the operation of the public school system of the Nation raises problems requiring care and restraint. Our courts, however, have not failed to apply the First Amendment's mandate in our educational system where essential to safeguard the fundamental values of freedom of speech and inquiry and of belief. By and large, public education in our Nation is committed to the control of state and local authorities. Courts do not and cannot intervene in the resolution of conflicts which arise in the daily operation of school systems and which do not directly and sharply implicate basic constitutional values. On the other hand, '(t)he vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools,' Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 487, 81 S.Ct. 247, 251, 5 L.Ed.2d 231 (1960). As this (105) Court said in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, the First Amendment 'does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.' 385 U.S. 589, 603, 87 S.Ct. 675, 683, 17 L.Ed.2d 629 (1967).

Be sure to cite this in your letters. Refer to it in your conversations. The law is on our side.

Link:

In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment -- yet, it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other, made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free. (Applause.)

Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces.

This nation thanks all the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country. And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done.


-May 1, 2003

 

...This Is Now

Link:

A suicide bomber pretending to be a job seeker blew himself up Wednesday morning outside a police recruiting center in this Kurdish provincial capital, killing at least 60 Kurds, most of them prospective policemen, and wounding 150 others as insurgents pressed an effort to destabilize Iraq's infant democratic government.

A well-known terrorist group, Ansar al Sunna, which has been active in northern Iraq, took responsibility for the blast and said it was intended as retribution for the involvement of Kurdish troops fighting insurgents alongside American forces in flash points like Falluja and Mosul.

Near the recruiting center, blood was splattered over buildings, and pieces of flesh were strewn on the pavement, in trees and on top of damaged cars. Iraqi and American soldiers used plastic bags to collect the remains.


-May 4, 2005

I don't know what else to say. It just keeps coming. Terrorists have been attacking our country at a rate of once every ten years. They're attacking Iraq, a country the size of California, once every few hours. All this freedom must be horrifying.

April 28, 2005:

Q: Do you feel that the number of troops that you've kept there [Iraq] is limiting your options elsewhere in the world? Just today you had the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency say that he was now concerned that the North Koreans, for example, could put a weapon, a nuclear weapon on a missile that could reach Japan or beyond. Do you feel, as you are confronting these problems, the number of troops you've left tied up in Iraq is limiting your options to go beyond the diplomatic solutions that you described for North Korea and Iran?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I appreciate that question. The person to ask that to, the person I ask that to, at least, is to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, my top military advisor. I say, do you feel that we've limited our capacity to deal with other problems because of our troop levels in Iraq? And the answer is, no, he doesn't feel we're limited. He feels like we've got plenty of capacity.

May 3, 2005:

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has issued a report to Congress that said the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan could hamstring the U.S. ability to fight other wars, a senior military official told CNN.

The chairman, Gen. Richard Myers, supplied the report, an annual document on the U.S. military's ability to carry out war plans, to the lawmakers.

Whoops! Apparently, Gen Richard Myers didn't get the memo. Or maybe he didn't watch the press conference. Or maybe he just forgot. OR maybe one of these two jackasses is lying! My money's on the short, stupid one.

How embarrassing. He claims, on national television no less, to have spoken to his "top military advisor" only to have that advisor directly contradict him less than a week later. This all begs the question, does he really not know? I mean, is it possible that he is this out of touch? Or is he just making shit up as he goes along? Either way, I think it's pretty solid evidence that we are dealing with a complete buffoon.

AAARRRRRRRRGH!

All aboard the Wayback Machine!

From November 28, 2004:

MR. RUSSERT:  Two interesting developments over the last month or so.  A report came out that the state with the lowest level of divorce is Massachusetts.  The states with the highest level are the so-called Bible Belt in the South.

DR. FALWELL:  Yes.

REV. SHARPTON:  That's because they watch "Desperate Housewives."

MR. RUSSERT:  Also "Desperate Housewives"...

REV. SHARPTON:  That's right.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...a widely viewed television series, particularly in the South.

REV. SHARPTON:  Because...

MR. RUSSERT:  Why is it that the red states...

DR. FALWELL:  Because the South doesn't belong to the New Testament Church anymore than the North.

MR. RUSSERT:  Right.

DR. FALWELL:  We have a responsibility to preach the Gospel.  But I would take that poll a little further.  Among born-again, Bible-believing Christians who take the Bible as the word of God, you'll find those stats are non...

MR. RUSSERT:  They don't watch "Desperate Housewives"?

DR. FALWELL:  I hope they don't.

Well, brace yourself Reverend. You're not going to like what Laura Bush had to say:

I am married to the president of the United States, and here's our typical evening: Nine o'clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep, and I'm watching Desperate Housewives— with Lynne Cheney.

What? The first lady of the United States watches Desperate Housewives? Does she know she's going to rot in Hell for that? Reverend Falwell must be so disappointed. But the debauchery doesn't stop there, oh no. Apparently the Washington women are all nothing but a bunch of trollops.

One night, after George went to bed, Lynne Cheney, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes and I went to Chippendale's. I wouldn't even mention it except Ruth Ginsberg and Sandra Day O'Connor saw us there. I won't tell you what happened, but Lynne's Secret Service codename is now "Dollar Bill."

Ewwwww! That's a mental picture I didn't need to see. An aroused Karen Hughes could scare off a sailor pulling into dock, but a sweaty Ginsberg and O'Connor? Cough...cough..hack! I just threw-up in my mouth a little. Excuse me.....

Well if that wasn't enough (and in a just world it would be more than enough), Laura felt it necessary to tell us about Georgieboy's experiences with beastiality.

I saw my in-laws down at the ranch over Easter. We like it down there. George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place. Andover and Yale don't have a real strong ranching program. But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse.

Now that's actually funny! George W. Bush with a handful of horse spooge! I'm sure even the good Reverend could get a chuckle out of that.

But despite all of the sinning, whoring, and horse masturbation, Laura Bush does seem to at least glimpse the truth. In a very enlightened moment, she made this comment:

George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw — which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.

Well at least she hasn't lost the ability to recognize a complete hack when she sees one.