A Quick One, 'cause he's a wank

(Apologies to the Who)

Novak's been quiet
For nearly three years
He was to write yesterday
But he ain’t clear


Novak’s been quiet
For nigh on three years
His column of yesterday
Was still in arrears

(switch tempo)

In D.C. your lying is a well-known thing
Your bi-weekly is very well known, hollow it rings
Your columns very famous for the little pearls
Whose travesties can explain this fucked up world

(change tempo)

Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la
Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la

We have a remedy
You’ll appreciate
You're so full of shit
It's far too late

We’ll bring you undercover things
Help pass your time
We’ll give him a noc's name
Why would we lie to you?

Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la
Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la
Fa la la la la la
Fa la la la la la

We have a remedy
Fa la la la la la la
We have a remedy
Fa la la la la la la
We have a remedy
Fa la la la la la la
We have a remedy
Fa la la la la la la

(spoken)
We have a remedy.
We have!

Little Bob, why don’t you stop your lying?
I’m gonna make you feel all right

(change tempo)

My name is Karl R.
I’m an Chimpy driver

I know her well
I know why you feel blue
’Cause she’s his wife
She’ll be exposed to you

Joe Wilson exposed us
He ain’t no liar, but why bother
So let’s have a column for the old Chimpy driver
So let’s have a column for the old Chimpy driver

Please take this leak
Come make a call to me
We’ll sort it out
In 500 words, maybe

It’ll come right
You ain’t no fool, I ain’t either
So let’s have a column for the old Chimpy driver
500 words for an old Chimp driver
500 words for an old Chimp driver

(change tempo)

We’ll soon be out
We’ll soon be out
We’ll soon
We’ll soon, soon, soon be out

We’ll soon be out
We’ll soon be out
We’ll soon
We’ll soon, soon, soon be out

Come on, old whores

Soon be out
Soon be out
Soon
We’ll soon, soon, soon be out

We’ll soon
We’ll soon, soon, soon be out

We’ll soon be out
Soon be out ...

(change tempo)

Plame, Plame, Plame, Plame, Plame, Plame, Plame, Plame,

K-lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo
K-lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo
K-lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo
K-lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo, K-Lo

I can’t believe it
Did my lies deceive me?
Where's my kick back on arms?
Creatin' new harm?

It’s like a dream to be with you again
Can’t believe that I’m with you again

I outed you and I must admit
I wrote that colum, am full of shit
On the Chimpy driver’s lap
And later with him, had a nap

You are forgiven, you are forgiven, you are forgiven ... (ad lib)

You are forgiven

Have I mentioned how my favorite part of Phantom of the Opera...

Is the conclusion.

(Come to think of it, my favorite part of every Andrew Lloyd Weber musical is when it is over -- except for Starlight Express, that was AWESOME!)

REUTERS/Jim Young

Unleash the Hounds

The WSJ Editorial Board will never allow this sort uppity behavior from fact-based reporters to stand:

“They’re wrong all the time. They lack credibility to the point that the emperor has no clothes,” said one staffer whose reporting has been at odds with an editorial crusade.

Truer words never spoken.

It's the little things...

That give you the true picture of progress in the "Empire" Bush has created.

"We arrest lots of gunmen and they just walk free the next day. They're always from the Mehdi Army or the Badr Brigade or the Islamic Party. So what's the point of our job?" he said.

Many in Baghdad wonder the same thing as checkpoints set up as part of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's crackdown on violence spawn ever greater traffic jams but have failed to prevent dozens dying in sectarian shootings and bombings this week.

"We do nothing but create huge traffic jams with these checkpoints," Abdullah said.

Pointing to the traffic backed up on Senak Bridge, a major artery over the Tigris river, he said: "I am standing here. But I have no desire to be here."

Celebrate Stupidity

By this measure, shouldn't Bush have celebrated that only 3,000 died on 9/11 rather than the 6,000 initially feared?

Today, the Office of Management Budget projected a $296 billion federal deficit for fiscal year 2006. Bush held a press conference arguing that this is a vindication of his economic policies.

Actually, it would be the fourth largest deficit of all time. Here’s the top five:

1. 2004 (George W. Bush) $413 billion
2. 2003 (George W. Bush) $378 billion
3. 2005 (George W. Bush) $318 billion
4. 2006 (George W. Bush) $296 billion (projected)
5. 1992 (George H. W. Bush) $290 billion

When President Bush came into office, he inherited a surplus of $284 Billion. At that time, the Bush administration predicted a $516 billion surplus for 2006.

"Ah discovered this in mah ass this morning."

REUTERS/Yuri Gripas (UNITED STATES)

Nah, too easy

It's like that scene out of "Judgment at Nuremberg" (hare, hunter, field)

Bush, dinner, Special Olympics.

I'll let the rest of you do your worst.

I, on the other hand, being a person of education and refinement will stay with the more high brow jokes...




...seconds later...

They've been Evil for a Long Time

Bad Ol' Rummy & Big Time.

Tiger Force, we've written about it before.

Women and children were intentionally blown up in underground bunkers. Elderly farmers were shot as they toiled in the fields. Prisoners were tortured and executed - their ears and scalps severed for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings.

Two soldiers tried to stop the killings, but their pleas were ignored by commanders. The Army launched an investigation in 1971 that lasted 41/2 years - the longest-known war-crime investigation of the Vietnam conflict.

The case reached the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Nixon White House.

Investigators concluded that 18 soldiers committed war crimes ranging from murder and assault to dereliction of duty. But no one was charged.

But Cheney & Rumsfeld observed their crimes being covered up, as if it never existed and no one ever heard about it.

It was the Toledo Blade that exposed it.

Thirty years later.

Now those same two individuals have been around for the pretext of war; Abu Ghraib, John You, Waterboarding, Guantanamo, Steven Green, Haditha, and the never ending declarations of "progress", "stand down as they stand up", "no one anticipated (fill in blank)" and "last throes".

More Treason

The NY Times is exposing Bush Administration Shinola as the shit it actually is.

Alert Melanie Morgan's vapah-izin' lynch mob!

On Mr. Bush’s watch, triple-digit budget surpluses have turned into annual triple-digit budget deficits. There’s no information in the midsession report to alter that utterly dispiriting fact. Yes, the report is expected to project that this year’s deficit will be somewhat less gargantuan than last year’s — probably somewhere between $280 billion and $300 billion, versus a $318 billion shortfall in 2005. That’s not much to crow about.

But Mr. Bush is likely to gloat, anyway. Earlier this year, the administration conveniently projected a highly inflated deficit of $423 billion. With that as a starting point, the actual results can be spun to look as if they’re worth cheering.

The razzle-dazzle won’t end there. As he did in his remarks on Saturday, Mr. Bush is sure to use today’s event to credit tax cuts for a projected “surge” in tax revenue. The Treasury is expected to take in about $250 billion more in 2006 than in 2005, for a total take of $2.4 trillion. Devoid of context, the number looks impressive.

In fact, it is $100 billion less than the $2.5 trillion revenue estimate the administration touted when it set out in 2001 to sell its policy of never-ending tax cuts. Even with this year’s bigger haul, real revenue growth during the Bush years will be abysmal, averaging about 0.3 percent per capita, versus an average of nearly 10 percent in all previous post-World War II business cycles. That might be excusable if the recent revenue improvements could reasonably be expected to continue. They cannot. Much of the increase in tax receipts is from corporate profits, high-income investors and super high-earning executives, sources that are just as unpredictable as the financial markets to which they’re inevitably linked.

When will the treason that is, exposing lies, come to an end?

The "dog & pony shows" are only going to get worse. For example, the why we can't let Iran be like North Korea; and the return of orange alerts -- ready for debut later this Summer and Fall.

In a world where the obvious is treated as treason

This, apparently, is no longer worthy of being news:

In between panels, I ran into Colin Powell and asked him if we are ever going to get out of Iraq. "We are," he told me, "but we're not going to leave behind anything we like because we are in the middle of a civil war." Powell and Jack Murtha both talking about civil war in Iraq -- shouldn't that be headline news?

Which is why I say, please, please, please, go read Billmon.

Wow, a new low

That the Corner-kidz would take the opportunity to mock the championship-game losing French in the World Cup is hardly a surprise.

That they would reach a new low is a bit of one, natural athlete John Podhoretz sharted forth:

More World Cup Observations [John Podhoretz]

This is astounding: A French player assaulting an Italian player during the finals match. I gather that the incident began when the Italian player said, "You know what? I like Jews."

Posted at 5:20 PM

Wow, that's fuckin' classy.

Never focusing on the Good News

The usual liberal press bias, emphasizing the bad things about Iraq:

CNN’s Nic Robertson: “One international official told me of reports among his staff that a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog’s head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed.”

What they don't mention is that it was an adorable Norwich Terrier!






Yes, you're damn right I just don't care to be tasteful about this fucking nightmare anymore.

"Hello Dell Tech Support?"

"Where's the "any key"?"

later...

Say, that's an interestin' accent. Are you from the South?

(Kimberlee Hewitt/White House photo/Handout/Reuters)

Who Is Gonna Dig Us Out?

Reading mainstream reporting out of Iraq and Afghanistan these days might lead one to think the old US of A has its mighty hands full. Bad news is everywhere and we are long past the time when public opinion can pull a 180. And while we haven't reached the point where liberal opinion writers are uniformly and correctly framing the issue (not as how we have bungled the whole adventure but that it was an immoral cause from go), we are making a difference. No, not the middling triumvirate, the mass of people that the blogosphere speaks to and for. Exhibit A is Ned Lamont. Who knows whether Lamont can beat Ol' Joe? What I do know is when we have the attention of big name conservative writers like David Brooks and entrenched old fashioned beltway cocktail party Democrats like Lanny Davis who can do nothing but scratch their nuts and throw rocks at us, we must be doing something right.

But the bigger question is, now that the current white house malefactor and his thugs hve run the ship aground and plan to leave it there until they can try to lie their way through two more elections, who has the real chutzpah to lead us out of this mess? Clue: Not a Republican and not Vilsack, Clinton, Kerry, Bayh, Warner, or Edwards. At least IMHO. Am I leaving anyone out?

Alternative Realities

After the blood-affair that is and continues to be Iraq -- after the NY Times, the Washington Post, NBC News, the respected British Press (the Times) report on the incredible upsurge in sectarian violence.

After a weekend when it is reported that the Iraqi police are infiltrated and dominated through and through by sectarian militia groups.

After a weekend where Sunni groups threaten to pull out of the Iraqi unity government and call on the UN to bring in "peacekeepers" to do the job the Americans will not and cannot perform.

It is, indeed, stupifying to read the post from ERNEST T. BASS, ESQ today to be this (naturally a quote from somewhere else):

The Shia terror against Sunni Arabs has a name, Abu Deraa. He's being called the "Shia Zarqawi" for organizing death squads to take revenge after Sunni Arab suicide bombs kill Shia. . . .

But now, with Zarqawi dead, and most of the country at peace, more and more Sunni Arab tribal chiefs, politicians, business leaders and clerics are resigned to Shia domination. That means giving up the Sunni Arab warlords, gang leaders and terrorist chiefs, the people that make most of the violence happen. It's not like the Sunni Arab leadership can just push a button, and make their bad guys go away. In Arab culture, the process moves a lot more slowly, and involves lots of talking, coffee, promises, deceit and drama. Apparently the drama has been convincing, because the Shia politicians running the country have persuaded Shia military and police units to go after Shia death squads. All of this is going to take months to play out. There will be cries of "Betrayal!" from the Shia community. Some Shia cops and soldiers will balk at busting fellow Shia, even if the perps are stone killers with dozens of bodies on them. However, the national leadership has agreed that peace with the Sunni Arabs, and an end to the vengeance killings, is necessary. Making this happen is the next crucial battle in the war.

Yes, another round of Situation Normal All Fucked Up...and Insty saying "THAT IS ALL PART OF THE MASTER PLAN".

I swear Reynolds isn't a law professor, he's Baldrick from Black Adder with one new "cunning plan" of a disaster after another.

As Atrios commentor "Left in Front" points out, the source of Insty's wisdom is Strategy Page, founded by James Dunnigan -- a Avalon Hill-type War Game enthusiast.

To use another role-playing game analysis, Insty is sure that one of these days Bush is going to roll a pair of "natural 20s".

Such is the nature of our Iraq policy, our War on Terror Policy, and it's prime defenders.

While everyone was panicking (or laughing) about North Korea's floppy dong

India was test firing (and failing at present) it's own long-range missile.

If it was me, I'd call it the "VINDALOO", but sadly it probably isn't all that funny.

India has shrugged off the unsuccessful maiden test of its ambitious nuclear-capable long-range missile, as red-faced defence scientists began trying to work out what went wrong.

"For the launching of missiles like Agni this kind of problem is not unusual and there is nothing to worry about it," Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee was quoted as saying by the United News of India news agency on Monday.

The Agni-III missile, which defence sources say has a range of 4,000 kilometres (2,480 miles), developed problems after a successful take-off Sunday from a site off India's east coast

I'm uncomfortable laying odds both because, I'm no Bill Bennett, and because who wants to bet on where a nuclear holocaust is going to happen? Nevertheless, I'd be more worried about the destabilizing of India having an ICBM than I would North Korea.

But nonethless, this is what we got all those Indian Mangos for.

Ann Coulter responds to Plagiarism Charges, Day 5

"Veni, Vidi, Effingo"

Progressively Progressing into being Progressively Worse

Freeance!

Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.

A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors echoes the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.

And from the Washington Post -- More details on the how we have mismanaged to take a wretched place and turn it into hell:

Shiite Muslim militiamen rampaged through a Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad early Sunday morning, killing more than 50 people and discarding bodies in the streets, according to Iraqi officials and witnesses. Hours later, attackers struck back, detonating two car bombs near a Shiite mosque...

...One resident, Hazim al-Rawi, said he gathered up his family and fled the neighborhood after he saw 15 bodies outside his home.

"Some of them were tortured with drills," he said of the bodies. "Some of them were hanged by ropes."...

...Police picked up 57 bodies from the al-Jihad neighborhood, and three Interior Ministry policemen were also killed there, said Ali Hussein, a commando with the Interior Ministry who ferried bodies to Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital. Gen. Saad Mohammed al-Tamini of the Interior Ministry confirmed that more than 50 people were killed.

Some of the corpses that littered the streets lay handcuffed, pocked with bullet holes, while others were pierced with bolts and nails, witnesses said.

Iraqi officials and residents of the neighborhood identified the gunmen as members of the Mahdi Army, the powerful militia controlled by the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. In the past three days, Iraqi troops, with the support of U.S.-led forces, have raided the homes of militiamen and detained some of their leaders.

Time for Bush to tell us how swell things are and how another corner has been turned.

Time for Cheney to emphasize how "right" he was about the last throes and all that.

Or Karl Rove:

"You know it's not going to be U.S. style. It's not going to be a Midwest small-town atmosphere. It's going to be Iraq with deeply felt sectarian strains with bad guys and people with lots of guns, but it is going to be a functioning society. It already is a distinct improvement on the society that existed."

Uh-huh, how many Friedman Units will that take?

Or Joe Lieberman can do it.

Or Thomas Friedman can give us another six months to measure things -- six more months of records down at the morgue.

Meanwhile, in that other Paradise

The sad truth is that the Administration's foreign policy has run aground on the shoals of its own incompetence.
-Josh Marshall

From Times-On-Line:

AFGHANISTAN was supposed to be the success story. Two months of precision bombing by American B52s — in revenge for the Taliban’s refusal to throw out Al-Qaeda after the terrorist attacks in America on September 11, 2001 — soon had the Taliban fleeing over the border into Pakistan...

...By August 2002 Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, was describing events in Afghanistan as “a breathtaking accomplishment”. He pointed to Afghanistan as “a successful model for what could happen to Iraq if individuals were liberated, allowed to vote freely and to work”...

...Far from Afghanistan being a model for Iraq, Iraq has become a model for Afghanistan. There have been 41 Afghan suicide bombings in the past nine months, compared with five in the preceding five years. IEDs — improvised explosive devices — have become a fact of life. Three were left in roadside handcarts in Kabul last week to detonate as buses went past.

According to United Nations officials, not a day passes without a school being burnt down or a teacher being murdered, often in front of schoolchildren.

If there is one factor most responsible for the Taliban resurgence it is the war in Iraq, which distracted the attention of London and Washington at a critical time. While US marines were toppling statues of Saddam Hussein and then finding themselves fighting a bloody insurgency, the Taliban regrouped and retrained in Pakistan.

As Marshall and Kevin Drum point out, all of this comes at a time when the media is starting to report that the Bush Administration has, in essense, decided to try this approach to foreign policy, "hey, let's stop being douchebags", as if they were even competent enough to have even that as a policy.

This is the first post-World War II Administration that has managed to combine gross incompetency and strategic insanity (and yes, I'm including the Johnson Administration - whose error was the culmination of a sound containment strategy taken too far). They managed to exploit the tragedy of 9/11, of which they managed to contribute, and turned it into a tool for making one gross strategic AND tactical failure after another.

From the time they outsourced at Tora Bora in the Fall of 2001 to the present it has been an unremitting deluge of error -- always projected onto it's nominal victims (Democrats) or its real ones (Afghanis, Iraqis, and American Soldiers) -- as well as those of the future -- the nation as a whole.

It is time for the constant talk of success being imminent to be realized for what it is, as large a lie as has been perpetrated on the American public since the three-fifths clause.

This weekend, Bush's father was in Virginia taking part in a minor ceremony as part of the construction of an Aircraft Carrier which will bear his name. There are more Aircraft Carriers coming down the pike -- and if the GOP continues to steal tacit victory from the jaws of what should be permanent political defeat, eventually they will continue to ignore Democratic Chief Executives and name a carrier after the Chimp-in-Chief, or even worse after Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. The "Pacemaker" as the Cheney (USS-79) will eventually be called will the the mystery ship of the Navy as it will always be in an undisclosed locale and a secret port.

But I digress, recently, the Navy sank a decommissioned American Carrier, the USS America*, and in a true metaphor for our times...



I hereby re-designate that ship the USS George W. Bush.




*Thanks to Mudge for reminding me I forgot to put the name of the ship in, thus leaving my metaphor snark without much of a punch.

Um, yeah

The self-imposed snuggy -- not exactly a confidence builder. Mr. Barthez in the penalty kick phase was a veritable Maginot Line of impregnibility.

But in fairness to him, stuff was obviously riding up on him.

(AFP/DDP/David Hecker)

Ann Coulter Addresses Plagiarism Charges Day 4

"Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders."

I'm almost in shock

I hadn't heard of this, but last week came this item from NBC News.


Who doubts that similar machinations will, or are, taking place at this moment to try to save the GOP's ass -- once again.

Tell me how the "liberals" lost Vietnam again?

Thanks to Daily Kos commentor Al Rogers.

Meanwhile, the progress continues

As Atrios points out, we have now "actually" completed "one Evan Bayh unit" of time since the Lieberman of the Hoosier State said this:

Bayh said if the Iraqi factions “get their political act together — and we will know this in the next six to eight weeks… if they can form a government… then there’s something to work with there.” If not, then “we’re out.”

This was said on May 22, 2006. So by my calendar that is 48 days, so we're pretty much in that 6 to 8 week area.

Naturally, living in the "Greater Iowa Area" if I see Senator Bayh at the HyVee or BeBops I'll be sure to ask him about this:

Up to 40 people, including women and children, were killed on Sunday when Shiite gunmen went on a rampage against residents in predominantly Sunni districts of Baghdad, Interior Ministry and police sources said.

It was the worst outbreak of sectarian violence to date in the capital, which has seen hundreds of bodies dumped in the streets over past months amid worsening communal bloodshed.

And as Juan Cole notes via the NY Times, the Iraqi government which took one Friedman Unit to assemble after elections, may be taking only a half-Friedman (an "FU") to collapse:

Sunni Arab politicians are considering withdrawing from executive offices in the Shiite-led government because militiamen have yet to free a Sunni legislator kidnapped this month, a Sunni leader said Saturday.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, a leader of the main Sunni Arab political group, which holds 44 of the 275 seats in Parliament, said the bloc would also continue its boycott of the legislature for a second week.

That was written before 40 Sunni were killed in Baghdad by Shiia militia.

The Mighty Whitey

Bobo's committment to excrement has been hitting new heights the last two Sundays, but this Sunday the greatest "wank" of all spews forth from his "talking point" inspired template.

Projection anyone?

the highly educated, highly affluent, highly Caucasian wing of the Democratic Party has turned liberalism from a philosophy into a secular religion, and then sought to purge a battle-scarred warhorse on the grounds of insufficient moral purity.

You know Bobo, Charleton Heston took part in those marches too. I don't see a lot of African Americans following him in droves to the NRA.

As Jane Hamsher at FDL points out, "noted" caucasian Maxine Waters is coming to the state to campaign for Lamont.

So as usual it all comes down to this.

When a conservative tells Democrats how to be Democrats - and Democrats listen...

That's how you get...

- Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
- Idiotic proposals for Social Security Reform
- Restrictions on Civil Liberties in the name of "security"
- No increases in the minimum wage
- Torture
- National Times wasters like the Clinton Impeachment process
- Justice Thomas & Justice Alito
- Oh, yes, and little mistakes like Wars that should not have been fought

Lieberman has been at the forefront of enabling, if not outright supporting, all of these things.

I find myself enjoying the new cover of Time

Probably Not true

But too much fun not to post:

“President Bush’s speech to the nation Monday. If he doesn’t say he’s a gay American or at the least a bisexual one then he shouldn’t be making one at all. And the notion that it would be in regards to writing bigotry into our nation’s Constitution is reprehensible. Too bad it isn’t me doing the rebuttal because in 1984, I watched him perform (with the enthusiasm of homosexual male who had done this many times before) a homosexual act on another man, namely Victor Ashe. Victor Ashe is the current Ambassador to the nation of Poland who should also come out like former Governor McGreevey of New Jersey and admit to being a gay American. Other homo-erotic acts were also performed by then private citizen George Bush because I performed one of them on him personally.

I am the woman this website (bushssecretlifein84.tripod.com) speaks of that has been posted on the net nearly two years now. None of this would be the business of anyone but President Bush’s little ruse to save his failed presidency by using DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] to divide Americans one from the other has to be exposed as the act of a desperate closeted homosexual man. The only crime in being GLBT is in the hiding. The President needs to come clean with the American people about his own past sexual behavior before he tries to besmirch the humanity of people in search of sincerely committing to the same bonds of matrimony he’s afforded. He violated his own vows of monogamy having a homosexual affair with a long time family friend of whom his wife had no knowledge. His hypocrisy seems to know no bounds.

Found at Steve Gilliard's place.

What a surprise

Stay afraid.

Be afraid!

Are you afraid yet?!

Don't you wanna be cool, like everybody else?

THEN BE AFRAID!!!!

'CUZ WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE IF YOU DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN!

One former intelligence field officer says, and two other CIA officials confirm, that the alleged plot by Muslim extremists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York City was nothing more than chatter by unaffiliated individuals with no financing or training in an open forum already monitored extensively by the United States Government, RAW STORY has learned...

...“They are not professionally trained terrorists, however, and had no resources with which to carry out the operation they discussed," Giraldi added. "Despite press reports that they had asked Abu Musab Zarqawi for assistance, there is no information to confirm that. It is known that the members discussed the possibility of approaching Zarqawi but none of them knew him or had any access to him.”

Two other intelligence officials with experience in the field on extremist operations concurred--and expressed concern that what could have been an operation to eventually track known extremists (should they eventually make actual contact with funds and training,) seems to have been exposed for political gain.

Your Protectors
AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

NOW BE AFRAID!

A Message from Al Gore

Something for the ladies.

You'll have to excuse me

But instead of blogging today, I'm going to be doing what I'd rather do and make sweet sweet love to Joe Biden's wife.

And when it's over, she'll say "Thank you, come again."*


*Thank goodness I travel with a portable snare drum

Hey, thanks for getting on top of this so fast...

Anne Frank diary burning sparks outrage in Germany

Ann Coulter Addresses Plagiarism Charges Day 3

"I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Democratic Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department."

David Brooks...

You're a Shnook.

Tonight on the Newshour Brooks laments what "the netroots", sites like Dailykos, are doing to poor Joe Lieberman. Vicious attacks, he says.

Good lord, how come it's always kos. Couldn't those motherfuckers once, just once, see what vitriol the middling triumvirate are capable of.

Fuck Brooks and, come to think of it, fuck Lieberman too!

Compare & Contrast

For Peggums -- It is all Black & White

Yesterday:

All deaths are sad, and some are shocking and sad. Ken Lay's this week was both, though I don't suppose it should have been a shock.

Putting aside all judgments and conclusions, all umbrage, outrage and indignation, and all debates on who was most responsible for the Enron scandal--putting all those weighty and legitimate concerns aside--isn't it obvious that Ken Lay died of a broken heart? We forget that people do, or at least I forget, but they do.

Last September in the wake of Katrina:

As for the tragic piggism that is taking place on the streets of New Orleans, it is not unbelievable but it is unforgivable, and I hope the looters are shot.

Of course, Ken Lay was convicted by a jury of being a criminal -- and the "tragic piggism" of post-Katrina turned out to be far overblown.

But hey, rich white guy dying at a "vacation home" versus hordes of poor mostly black people stuck in a fucking hell hole -- who could expect the Wall Street Journal editorial page or Peggy Noonan to be appropriate?

Ann Coulter Addresses Plagiarism Charges Day 2

Because it appears she'll have to:

Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my publisher. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us done, time and time again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . plagiarism today . . . plagiarism tomorrow . . . plagiarism forever.

Once again, I'm proud to be an American

It's a white cake!
REUTERS/Jason Reed

Such dignitude.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

It's his birthday so for once this won't be his only blow job of the evening.



What?

Too far?

Oh Kenny boy!

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
oh Kenny Boy, the pipes, the pipes a laying
you're kind of dead, and in the mountains die
so prison's gone, and my pardons not needed
'mis you, 'mis you must go and about you lie.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
but come you back when summer's in the meadow
like when the Jeebus did, I love him so
'tis i'll be there in sunshine or in shadow
oh Kenny Boy, oh Kenny Boy, i loved you so.

REUTERS/Jason Reed
and if you come, make sure you clean up afterwards
and my polls be dead, as dead as they can be
you'll come and find the place where i am backwards
and kneel and say a "whoa" there for me.

REUTERS/Jason Reed
and i shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
and all my dreams will warm and go to war
if you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
i simply sleep in peace until you beckon like a whore

Wow, Larry King

"Tough" as ever.

"Larry King Live" is the first stop in any damage control operation — a chance to explain oneself to the least contentious journalist in the land.

And that is why President Bush invited the CNN talk show host to the White House on his 60th birthday. The standoff with North Korea over its missile tests, the war in Iraq and ever-sliding ratings in the polls have given the president little reason to celebrate. Mr. King gave the president a chance to defend his policies without risk of interruption or follow-up.

If you love Bush so much, why don't you marry him?
Although even in softball land moments of light come in:

G. BUSH: He also has said he's going to win his primary.

LARRY KING: I know you like him.

G. BUSH: You're trying to get me to give him a political kiss, which may be his death.

LARRY KING: You hugged him before the State of the Union, right?

No, I know you generally...

Larry, Larry, Larry, it wasn't a hug, it was a big wet sloppy man kiss.

I suppose this is more treason

Revealing the "Bush Administration's Classified Recruitment Plans"?

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."

...

The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone."

An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.

The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."

"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "

He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."

I'd like to thank Joe Biden

For participating in the 2008 Nomination Process, I hope he enjoys the home version of the game with his Slurpee.

Network news honchos please feel free to take me (and others) up on our often suggested advice over the years and impose a ban on Senator Biden as the "voice" of the Democratic Party for a significant period of time.

Because it's his birthday

I'll move on to other world leaders that creep me out.

For example there is the John Derbyshire-esque President of Russia:

Vladimir Putin's decision to stop a small boy as he walked through the Kremlin and kiss his stomach was prompted by a desire to "touch him like a kitten," the Russian president said on Thursday.

Okay.

I'm just going to slowly back away from this post and think of something more pleasant, like a solid blow to the testicles.

And now for some levity

I give you (at about the 1:45 mark)

Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses!

Freeance of the Press

As if it wasn't hard enough to get news reports out of Iraq, now the U.S. is going all launching "Operation FoxNews":

The military has started censoring many [embedded reporting] arrangements. Before a journalist is allowed to go on an embed now, [the military] check[s] the work you have done previously. They want to know your slant on a story — they use the word slant — what you intend to write, and what you have written from embed trips before. If they don't like what you have done before, they refuse to take you. There are cases where individual reporters have been blacklisted because the military wasn’t happy with the work they had done on embed.

That's from Rod Nordland, Newsweek's former Baghdad bureau chief.

Tell us about the painted schools motherfuckers!

Have A Great Birthday Mr. President!

I'm sure the Iraqi people join all Americans the world over (after all, who doesn't want to be just like us!) in giving thanks on this day that you were born, had the courage to take the war to the terrorists, and will bring justice, American style, to the heathens.

Oops. Maybe I spoke too soon--things not going so well in Iraq. Oh well, it never is your fault anyway. It just isn't supposed to happen that way, at least not in the You-nita States of Murica we all know and love.

"Never in my mind could I have imagined such a gruesome sight," Abu Firas Janabi said of the day in March when his cousin, Fakhriya Taha Muhsen; her husband, Kasim Hamza Rasheed; and their two daughters were slain and their farmhouse set ablaze.

"Kasim's corpse was in the corner of the room, and his head was smashed into pieces," he said. The 5-year-old daughter, Hadel, was beside her father, and Janabi said he could see that Fakhriya's arms had been broken.

In another room, he found 15-year-old Abeer, naked and burned, with her head smashed in "by a concrete block or a piece of iron."

"There were burns from the bottom of her stomach to the end of her body, except for her feet," he said.

"I did not believe what I was seeing. I tried to fool myself into believing I was in a dream. But the problem was that we were not dreaming. We put a piece of cloth over her body. Then I left the house together with my wife."

At least four American soldiers from a nearby checkpoint are the prime suspects. The case, which includes the alleged rape of the older daughter, has caused a firestorm in the United States and Iraq. And the soldiers, including one charged Monday with rape and murder, have become lurid symbols of the American military at its worst.

Hope you enjoy it.

July 5, 2006 11:17 p.m.

The phone rings at the NY condominium of Andrea Mackris:

*ring*

Andrea: (sleepily) Hello?

Bill-O: (slurring) Andrea, Andrea, it's me ... Bill O'Reilly. Y'know, that Bill O'Reilly.

Andrea: (waking) Bill you know the terms of our settlement stipulate that you are not to contact me for any reason!

Bill-O: Ah know...but I've been out on the town, having a few, and I visited some old haunts when it hit me, this brilliant thought.

Andrea: But why are you calling me?

Bill-O: Ah don't have Keith Olbermann's number Andrea, besides it's really about you...you and your large, large breashiticles. I bought a big new dildo.

Andrea: BILL!

Bill-O: Hear me out, don't be a 'murica hather! It's twice as big as any other falafel I've ever had. And you know what I'm a gonna call it? Huh? Huh?

Andrea: I'm going to hang up Bill.

Bill-O: Type-OH-Dong II!!! Pretty good isn't it? How'd you like to join me in sitting on it? I still got it, you know you want me baby!

Andrea: Good bye Bill!

*click*

Bill-O: Oh, okay, I'll send one of my guys over in the morning with a $500,000 check. But it was worth it. I'm going to name one of my facial blotches after you Andrea. VICTORY IS MINE!

Well, what can I really say?

Aren't we just waiting for the GOP Congress to merge the 4th of July with Bush's birthday anyway, like they did with Washington and Lincoln's Birthday?

Imagine what it would have been without that "Armstrong Williams" payola!

From Reuters:

African-Americans' share of U.S. national income has narrowed in recent years as a weak job market helped unwind earlier strides, according to a report published on Wednesday.

A black family's median income was 62 percent of the earnings of their white counterparts, down from 63.5 percent in 2000, the Economic Policy Institute said.

"The racial gap widened by 2004 as a result of the recession and the jobless recovery that followed," said Jared Bernstein, economist at the Washington think-tank.

I'd like to thank Mr. Compassionate (I'm on Vacation) Conservative.

For anyone that thinks that elections everywhere aren't suspicious

Watch the Mexican Election returns between liberal Obrador and conservative (and designate of Vicente Fox) Calderon as returns come in a small but signficant lead heading the other direction in the last few returns:

Now unofficially close enough to steal.

And they say Mexico is a vastly different culture...hell they are just coming closer to our version of subtle election theft.

Ann Coulter Addresses Plagiarism Charges

From her Townhall Column:

I remember my old man. I think that they would have called him sort of a little man, common man. He didn't consider himself that way. You know what he was? He was a streetcar motorman first, and then he was a farmer, and then he had a lemon ranch. It was the poorest lemon ranch in California, I can assure you. He sold it before they found oil on it. And then he was a grocer. But he was a great man, because he did his job, and every job counts up to the hilt, regardless of what happens.

Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother -- my mother was a saint. And I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for three years in Arizona, and seeing each of them die, and when they died, it was like one of her own.

Yes, she will have no books written about her. But she was a saint.

Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

Okay, who is he?

You know that Kim Il Jong is a blogger.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a senior South Korean official says Kim is believed to have a genius-level IQ of 150 or 160. An intelligence source describes him as a "computer wizard" who surfs the Internet, is fascinated with new technologies and is determined to develop North Korea's fledgling software industry.

Personally, I'm would have guessed he and Jeff Goldstein were one and the same ... except for that whole IQ thing. There is considerable video evidence that while he may be sympatico in many ways, he is neither pendulous Pam nor Michelle Malkin.

Is he at RedState? That would make sense in a way.

So, you're just a cheap slut then?

Lieberman, tries to bend reality some more.

"I know President Bush. I wouldn’t say he’s a friend of mine. and trust me, I am no President Bush."

Golly Joe, if you keep bending over most of us are gonna see that you are really in love.

"Yes, this is Karl Rove Mrs. Lay"

"Reminding you that Ken always wanted a small, private -- and I mean private funeral"

Mrs. Lay: "Actually, I'm not sure..."

Rove: "I'm not sure you understand me, Mrs. Lay, and perhaps those gentlemen you see outside your window can explain it to you better -- Ken wanted a small, private funeral, without people outside the family attending."

Mrs. Lay: "Well, since I have no choice."

Rove: You don't. Sorry for your loss. You never heard from me."

*click*

The Man and the Phrase that will sweep the Nation!

"Kiss My Grits", "Aaaaayyyyyy", "I'm comin' Elizabeth", "Wha' chu talkin' bout Willis?"

All phrases that burned their way into our national consciousness in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

Well, it truly is about time to create a character and a phrase that can be used for all manner of situations.

I suggest the following:

Perhaps you have suggestions of your own. We here would be delighted to hear them!

Cross posted to RH-AD.

For some, it's Independence Day

But others have different priorities:

We Better Get Serious with North Korea [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
for interrupting my barbecue if no other reason is more compelling for State Department types.
Posted at 4:34 PM

...

Defining "Fast" Down [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Cindi Sheehan and friends are holding an antiwar fast. Except most partipants sound like they won't be sacrificing too much :

K-Lo sacrificed "fifths" in order to show support for the troops.

June is busting a cap all over

Yes, we are making real progress over there.

Baghdad's central morgue received 1,595 bodies last month, the most since the bombing of a Shia shrine in February prompted a wave of sectarian killings.

Doctor Abdul Razzaq al-Obaidi, the morgue assistant manager, said on Wednesday that the tally for June compared with the 1,375 bodies the morgue received in May and 1,155 in April.

"June is the highest month in terms of receiving cases of violence since Samarra," he said.

Most of the bodies had gunshot wounds to the head, he said, a common feature of sectarian, execution-style killings.

Once again, I await Steve King's telling D.C. morgue stats. Although as an assist, it appears that as of the end of May 2006, D.C. had 62 homicides so far for the YEAR.

2005-2006 comparison -- PROGRESS!!

Fez tip to Moonbotica.

It is to laugh

Bullshit Moose and the Bullshit Moose Party, turds of a feather, smell together.

I'm just waiting for Joe Lieberman to start talking in the third person, then their symbiosis will be complete:

The Moose argues that the Joe Lieberman is invaluable to the donkey even as an independent.

Much of the left's animus toward Joe Lieberman is driven by the view that his partisan credentials are suspect. However, if anyone has paid his progressive dues it has been Joe Lieberman...

...The truth is that Joe is not just a good Democrat. He is the best Democrat in the tradition of Truman and JFK. There is no doubt that those two historical figures would be more comfortable in the Party of Lieberman than the Party of Kos.

And what will he be saying around Labor Day

When to try to save his party's sorry ass he starts drawing down troops?

President Bush warned on Tuesday that setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal of Iraq would be "a terrible mistake" and took the rare step of mentioning the precise number of war dead.

"I'm going to make you this promise," Mr. Bush told a cheering throng under a blistering late-morning sun. "I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done."

When it can help his polling at the best possible moment, as if by magic, "the job will be getting done".

Playing politics for Bush is "getting the job done". Saying you want to keep troops from "dying in vain" doesn't mean much when, in fact, they have died and will die for Bush's vanity.

Jon Stewart has a point...

Self-Evident

I can only imagine what George Washington would think of the fact that ESPN provided LIVE coverage of the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest today. Coverage which I, Atta J. Turk, watched a good portion of, for the same reason I watch all sorts of bizarre things that I see on the teebee or the internets.

But I think the main reason I kept it on is because of the sheer ridiculousness of the announcers. The "analyst" -- yes, an analyst for competitive eating, go figure -- was so earnest and over-the-top in his treating this unholy gluttony as a competitive sport it was hysterical.

I swear at one point, the two competitors were described thusly.

The Japanese Guy, who is a "stick" but wins this every year was described as being "Michael Jordan", "Tiger Woods" and "Babe Ruth". Now the last one, I could see, given the Babe's passion for hotdogs, but otherwise, um, no.

But the American challenger, my hand to all that is holy, was described as "setting a standard for Italian American athletes like Joe DiMaggio, Mario Andretti, or Alberto Tomba".

Now, think about that for a minute -- not only are those asinine comparison's but Alberto Tomba is straight-Italian, there's no "American" in there.

Such are the inanities of our age.

Six, no, Seven Missile Launches

Sure, maybe a couple were duds.

But you have to admit, Kim launching six seven missiles in a day is pretty damned impressive. I haven't been able to do that since I was a teenager.

He must really enjoy that ripped-off Japanese Monster Movie porn.

Inconvenient

I saw "An Inconvenient Truth" this weekend -- all I can tell you is, GO. It will truly open your eyes to the danger we are in for our future. Those on the right who go after it because it involves Gore should be forced to live in Bangladesh as punishment. It really isn't partisan to want to save the fuckin' planet.

And an indication of how bad it is getting was given yet again...

CHICAGO (AFP) - Two environmentalists became the first people to reach the North Pole by canoe and on foot in summer, in an expedition aimed at drawing attention to how global warming is threatening polar bears with extinction, the explorers said in a satellite telephone interview.

When they got there on Saturday, the Pole was covered with water.

"What really surprised us was the state of the ocean," said Lonnie Dupre, 45, a carpenter from the Midwestern state of Minnesota.

"We've seen the ocean bursting up under our feet," he said. "We expected flat, condensed ice from about 86 degrees north but when we got here the ice was completely pressured and fractured everywhere."

I don't find puddles at the North Pole comforting.

(AP Photo/Greenpeace, ZUMA Press, Eric Larsen)

Some would say Flip-Flop

But people on FoxNews would never think of such a label for Dear Leader.

Republicans both inside and outside the White House say Mr. Bush, who has long insisted on comprehensive reform, is now open to a so-called enforcement-first approach that would put new border security programs in place before creating a guest worker program or path to citizenship for people living in the United States illegally...

...But one Republican close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, predicted that Mr. Bush would ultimately abandon the idea of a path to citizenship.

Giving up, though, would doom the legislation in the Senate. Mr. Pence met last week with leading Republican senators, including Mr. Specter, John McCain of Arizona and Mel Martinez of Florida.

Bush is ultimately going to choose the "base" on this one - which means essentially beating any non-white over their "virtual" head. The "so-called" genius Karl Rove has completely botched this one. Hispanics are going to vote this year, their base has been energized by idiots like James Sensenbrenner -- and they are not voting Republican.

From all of us at Rising Hegemon

Cut and Ran

Two years ago we found out that with respect to released "classified" lies to discredit Joe Wilson, George Bush decided to "get it out"*.

Last year we now discover that George Bush "cut and ran" with respect to Bin Laden. I'm sure that E.D. Hill will have to have a conniption about how this is the fault of the Democrats.

WASHINGTON, July 3 — The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

The decision is a milestone for the agency, which formed the unit before Osama bin Laden became a household name and bolstered its ranks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Bush pledged to bring Mr. bin Laden to justice "dead or alive."

...

Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.

Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken.

"This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

*Like a bad Seinfeld reference isn't it?

Unfortunate

Steve Gilliard found this...to put it mildly it is rather unfortunate -- what a disaster we've wrought in Iraq.

Thanks Bush.

Coalition forces keep streets of Iraq safe
By Spc. George Welcome

Pfc. Steven Green, B Co. 1-502 prepares to blast a lock off the gate of an abandoned home during a search of homes in Mullah Fayed on Dec. 2.
Spc. George Welcome Printer-friendly version

YUSUFIYAH, Iraq (Army News Service, Dec. 9, 2005) – Soldiers from Task Force Baghdad, alongside Iraqi forces, constantly search the streets and alleyways of Baghdad and surrounding communities for weapons, insurgents and anti-coalition propaganda. The searches are thorough, yet the Soldiers still respect people's rights and property...

This is the same Steven Green accused of four murders and rape of an Iraqi family.

Scalia: Liar or Idiot?

Well known and highly resepected American criminologist Samuel Walker -- unlike many famous academics he has been at one school, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, for most of his career -- accuses Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia of wrongly citing his work "to support a terrible decision, holding that the exclusionary rule — which for decades prevented evidence obtained illegally by police from being used at trial — no longer applies when cops enter your home without knocking."

While this could have other effects, consider if criminologists and criminal justicians complained when their work is misused by policy makers. And that happens every day. Consider the reach and influence of the Supreme Court, this is quite interesting.

Is Scalia using whatever academic and legal materials are on hand to support his conclusions even if the materials and the arguments (or his position) don't match? Interesting, if albeit a little scary. Is Scalia a liar? In a time where facts are not just stupid things (Ronald Reagan) but they have become irrelevant (Bush, jr), the fact that a member of the Supreme Court would take a writer's words out of context to justify the opposite opinion means either Scalia is stupid (see Reagan again) or he deliberately misused a writer's ideas to support a political position that he had taken regardless of the facts or writing on it.

Call me crazy, but isn't that a bad position for a member of the Supreme Court?

They Made it This Way

Context for Journalists as we approach our American National Holiday.

It is with great lack of context that those who call themselves journalists report on this boondoggle in Iraq. Journalists are increasingly reporting on how Al Qaeda operatives -- and the whole Al Q network -- are beginning to use Iraq as a terrorist training ground. Furthermore, several British lawmakers in parliment contend that Al Qaeda is effectively using Iraq as a propaganda tool to advance their reach into the hearts and minds of the young in the Middle East. And, of course, many of us 'netizens have been screaming about this -- its just that we don't have red enough or blonde enough hair or big assets to get any coverage from the mainstream media.

But let's us take a pause from the red faced faux news at Fox, or the increasingly conservative CNN, or the mealy mouthed newies on the former big broadcast networks and consider something they the members of the mainstream media refuse to embrace, regardless of the facts.

1. Bush created the context for Iraq to be used this way by Al Qaeda.
2. The failure is not with the women and men who serve in the millitary.
3. This debacle has nothing to do with the American people.
4. It did not have to be this way.

Bush and the neo-conservatives sought to punish Saddam and create a beachhead for U.S. foreign policy in a pivotal region of the Middle East. And they failed… completely, utterly, in almost every way imaginable. And it did not have to be with way.

The only outcome that Bush has managed is to bring higher and higher levels of economic and political instability to Iraq. They created through their incompetence and misunderstanding a crumbling infrastructure to Iraq.

And Iraq had one of the best-built infrastructures in that region (although that was accomplished through tyranny, death, and destruction but ask the Native Americans in North America about that in the American neck of the woods).

They have created senseless death and slaughter to thousands of Iraqis, shameful treatment of American soldiers, reckless disregard to years of foreign policy and coalition building, and the death of the American image abroad. I could go on and on... And it did not have to be this way.

Bush, Rumsfield, Cheney, and all the others created this context. They made Iraq like this. Not Saddam -- who was a bastard to say the least -- But Bush made it this way.

So journalists, do your job. Describe the context that they created. Examine the implications for the future of U.S. foreign policy now and into the future. Take apart the bullshit neologism of preemptive military action and behold the context it creates: Schools for terrorists. Discuss the impossible job that our soldiers who acted in good conscience based on real heartfelt patriotism have been given.

This current administration of the American ship of state under Bush made Iraq this way. Do not hide from the facts because they do not fit some pre-determined political or economic or military philosophy. They created the opportunity and environment where terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 could get stronger, gather more followers, and make the entire world less safe.

If that does not describe abject failure, I do not what does. And it did not have to be this way. They made it like this.

Republicans Reenact

The Killian Memos.

(AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Not so straight talk express

McCain draws closer to Bush.

It's down there somewhere Senator.

Satan still has him on layaway

Dick has more work to do...

Vice President Dick Cheney got a clean bill of health after routine medical tests on Saturday to check on aneurysms on the backs of his knees and a high-tech pacemaker inserted in his chest in 2001.

Cheney's office said the vice president underwent his yearly routine physical at George Washington University Medical Center, which included an electrocardiogram.

Usually best served cold

Who said?

Martinez was borrowing a point from Sen. Joe Biden – which is always a dangerous gambit because you never know who said it originally.

That's right, Ann Coulter.

Never mock a fellow plagiarist Ann, it'll make your dick shrink.

A Fourth Of July Reflection

As we approach the holiday intended to celebrate the courage of our forbearers whose Declararion of Independence set this nation on its democratic course I am reminded of the most recent successor to that proud lineage of governance: George Walker Bush.

I resurrect a favorite picture from the archives:



To those who doubt Dear Leader's resolve, I say: do not misunderestimate the courage it took Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Tenet, Rice, and Rove to assure Chimpy that taking the battle to the terra-ists was the right thing to do.

Though Chimpy and his merry band of followers did not have the resolve in their formative years to sacrifice while others of their generation gave life, limb, and sanity...it takes a lot of courage to send people to die for your sins.



Picture from here.

Coulter even more of a *unt than previously thought

You know she's bad enough in her own right, but the Rude Pundit long ago was on to her being a plagiarist.

John Barrie, the creator of a leading plagiarism-recognition system, claimed he found at least three instances of what he calls "textbook plagiarism" in the leggy blond pundit's "Godless: the Church of Liberalism" after he ran the book's text through the company's digital iThenticate program.

He also says he discovered verbatim lifts in Coulter's weekly column, which is syndicated to more than 100 newspapers, including the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Sun-Sentinel and Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

Which leads to the question, what is more disturbing Ann Coulter, or the fact that there is someone who's ideas she steals?

What proportionality? What Democracy?

In return for a kidnapped soldier...

Israeli aircraft sent missiles tearing through the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday in an unmistakable message to his ruling Hamas group to free an Israeli soldier.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a Cabinet meeting that
Israel would go after "higher-caliber targets" in the future — a reference to senior Hamas officials inside and outside the Palestinian territories, a high-ranking political official said.

We would never excuse this from any sovereign state...or would we?

If the Bush Administration is serious about allowing democracy to florish in this part of the world, you cannot excuse attacking such a government with this much disproportionality. We've had more than a quarter century of disproportionality along the eastern Mediterranean and what and where has it gotten us?

I look forward to the comments and emails accusing me of anti-semitism.

The Penumbra of Dictatorship

So much for privacy and war powers:

The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.

``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. ``This undermines that assertion.''

Addicted to Oil being an Asshole

What a dickweed,

The stock cars weren't the only things buzzing the track at Daytona Saturday -- Vice President Dick Cheney made his grand entrance when Air Force II flew in low over the crowd gathering for the start of the NASCAR race.

Cheney's appearance at the Pepsi 400 was another chance this year for Americans to get a glimpse of the extraordinarily powerful vice president who normally operates behind the scenes. From the baseball diamond to the speedway oval, Cheney is turning up at lots of high-profile venues as part of an all-hands-on-deck effort at the White House to improve the GOP's standing going into the November election....

***

Upon arrival, Cheney's motorcade went around the track at a relative crawl of 60 mph, passing fans on the infield who waved flags for their favorite drivers. Then Cheney attended the pre-race meeting, where he got a standing ovation from the drivers and their crews and his excited staff took pictures with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Just as the race was about to start, Cheney took to the stage in front of a large U.S. flag and the drivers and delivered a patriotic message to more than 100,000 fans.

Meanwhile, 2,536 2,537.


"Babies taste best when you eat 'em back and forth like sweet corn."

(Alan Diaz/Pool/Reuters)

Yeah, um, yeah funny. It isn't like that didn't get old in the first ten minutes. So then, I'm kind of tired...

Would you do me the favor of running over here into my fist?

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Maybe somebody might want to ask the "Real Doll" of Republican Politics about this...

From Josh Marshall:

...Ken Mehlman, now head of the RNC, had a White House official keeping Jack Abramoff up to date on events in Guam, around the time Abramoff took credit for getting an investigation into his work on the island deep-sixed. We already know that at Abramoff's behest Mehlman killed an appointment at the State Department because the would-be appointee, Allen Stayman, because Stayman wasn't good news for Abramoff's sweat-shop owner clients in the Marianas islands.

At a certain point you start to detect a pattern, no? Mehlman was a fixer for Abramoff while Mehlman was political director at the Bush White House. And now he says he barely knew Jack Abramoff.

SPOT THE MEHLMAN!

Progress!!!

Well we are at least one Bayh Period (6 weeks) into the latest Friedman Unit (6 Months -- an "FU") of Iraq's latest last chance to come together before the media is supposed to "judge" whether Bush's policy is a complete an utter failure.

Meanwhile...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A parked car bomb exploded at a popular market in a Shiite slum of Baghdad, killing 66 people and wounding 87, authorities said.

AP Television News footage showed a huge plume of gray smoke rising from the scene in the Sadr City neighborhood, and flames shooting through the windows of several scorched cars.

The explosion, which occurred at 10 a.m., devastated several shops in the sprawling district in eastern Baghdad, police Col. Hassan Jaloob said.

Meanwhile, Congress Steve King (Idiot-Iowa) was found trying to find a place in D.C. that had worse things happen.