Bring On Teh Crazy

Republicans seem to think this midterm election will be a cake walk, that they'll end up with the control of Congress, giving them ample opportunity to continue their obstructionist policies. But I don't think so. Why? Because instead of offering answers and solutions to the myriad problems facing this country, the emperor wannabes new clothes are steaming hot piles of insanity.
First up is the insanity intern and future Palin hopeful Christine O'Donnell, who was revealed to have dabbled in satanism as a teenager, by her own words forcing her to cancel her appearances on the Sunday Morning Talking Heads New Shows on CBS and even Fox. You know when a Republican cancels a chance to knock softball questions out of the park on the media arm of the GOP, something is up, and that something is teh crazy.
Next at bat in the bat-shit crazy line-up is, no, not bat-shit crazy Michelle Bachmann, but the Montana Republican party which, in a moment of pure unenlightened unenlightenment have decided to adding homosexuality as a crime to their party's platform this year. It takes some severe homophobia to want to lock gays away, where you wouldn't be tempted to want to join them. Why else put them in jail, because what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes is something Republicans say that the government should stay out of, right?
And from homophobia, we cross the crazy trail to the phobia du jour of the conservative regressives-Islamophobia! Failed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is proposing a law to ban Sharia Law's use by judges in deciding cases. First off, you should have done that when you were, you know, an actual member of congress, doofus, and not now when it does no good but stokes the fires of a thousand burning Korans. Secondly, we already have that in our constitution, it's called the Establishment Clause, and it bars any decision made based on Sharia Law, Biblical law, Judaic Law, or any other law emanating from some all powerful invisible being who doesn't exist. All this does is play into the ignorance of haters who think that Muslims are taking over the country, and that our president is one of them. And that is the Republican plan. No policies. No solutions. Just pure unadulterated hate. And not a hate based on reality, but an unfounded hate based on insecurity. That is pure paranoia. Which is nothin' but teh crazy!

Mr. 9/11 To Address Republican Convention

Rudy Giuliani is set to give the keynote address at the Republican convention in September. The theme for his address will be "Country First", a bit hypocritical when you realize that John McCain has a plan to send 8000 jobs out of Ohio. Four days will be devoted to "service, reform, prosperity and peace".
So we know what to expect from this farce, lots of flag waving and invocations of 9/11 from the man who destroyed the evidence from the Twin Towers before forensics could examine it. And for all you beer swilling television watching morons who think that the explosion from the full fuel tanks caused the steel to melt, steel melts at 2500 degrees Farenheit , jet fuel, which is essentially modified kerosene, has a flash point of 1200 degrees Farenheit, less than the half required to melt the steel frames. And if you think that items within the structure burned hot enough to melt the frames, let's hope you're not meaning the fire retardant asbestos which filled the building and would have cost the Port Authority over $1 billion dollars to have removed. Perhaps Rudy was trying to hide the evidence of thermate on physical samples.
So the GOP will wave flags and prattle on about service, like how their candidate served his country in a POW camp in North Vietnam, reform, which is kind of hard to run on when you're the incumbent, prosperity, which means that the base has gotten richer while the rest of us struggle under their middle class breaking policies, and peace, from the party of the administration that has started more wars than it has troops to fight, and always based on the most specious reasoning. All of this will be brought to you courtesy of ExxonMobil, which is one of the companies doing extremely well under the Bush regime, and certainly will try to ensure they squeeze every last drop of blood from the working class in the McCain administration.

Great Moments In Character Part 1

From the Democratic Underground:

Surviving crewmen and those who investigated the Forrestal fire case reported that McCain deliberately 'wet-started' his A-4E Skyhawk to shake up the guy in the F-4 Phantom behind his A-4. 'Wet-starts', done either deliberately (the starter motor switch allowed kerosene to pool in the engine and give a wet start) or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft. In McCain's case, the 'wet-start' 'cooked off' and launched the M34 Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that punctured the Skyhawk's fueltank, knocked the M-65 1000 lb bomb off it's 500 lb rated mount, and touched off the explosions and massive fire. The F-4 pilot was reportedly killed in the conflagration, along with 167 of his fellow Forrestal shipmates (including those who died later from wounds suffered). 'Wet starting' was a common practice among young 'hot-dog' pilots. McCain was quickly (they were still counting the Forrestal dead) transferred to the USS Oriskany (the only Forrestal crewman to be immediately transferred).

If you're going to make character an issue, better be sure you're not another privileged party boy who used familial connections to get you out of jams, or destroyed five tax payer provided jet fighters and had your attack dogs brand your opposition as unpatriotic.

FLASHBACK!! "No Plans To Occupy Iraq"

In case you missed it yesterday, President Bush compared soldiers in Iraq to the US soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Actually, we're more like the British, and the insurgents, which are being tagged "alqaeda" by the administration, even though there is no connection, they are the ones fighting off an occupation army intent on exploiting the vast resources of the country for King George.
Of course going into Iraq the US disputed a report that the US wanted long term access to bases in Iraq. Now, of course it's a different story. Even Hillary Clinton wants full time bases in Iraq (which is her way of sucking up to the corpocracy, and why she sucks). Which reminds me of an old joke. How do you know when George Bush is lying? When Dick Cheney's lips aren't moving.

Digging Past All The Right Wing Bullshit: What The Scooter Libby Case Was Really About

The American people are pissed. They are so pissed, that the White House had to turn off it's comment line.Another neocon crime okayed by the criminals in the Bush administration, who seem more concerned with covering their asses than obeying the law. If, like Jonah Goldberg claims, everyone on the cocktail circuit knew tha Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, it just means that the right wing nuts aren't very good at keeping secrets, or they aren't very careful with national security (or both. You decide). However, the prosecutor, the CIA and Plame's former colleagues all have stated that she was a covert operative. Who do you believe? A propagandist with the National Review, or people testifying under oath in a court of law?
But if the commutation (and possible pardon) hasn't got you steamed up, perhaps going back to the original story will.
In the propaganda run up to the Iraqi war, George Bush uttered the famous sixteen words:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Joseph Wilson was sent by the CIA to investigate these claims earlier and reported them back to the CIA as false. When Bush gave his infamous speech, Wilson was mortified that what he reported was being twisted to use as the springboard to war. So he wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times:

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)

There you have it. Bush was using forged documents as it's cassus belli for war, and when it was pointed out to the American people by Joseph Wilson, someone from the Vice-president's branch of government leaked his wife's name to Robert Novak (as well as other journalists)in retaliation. Outing a covert CIA operative (especially during a time of war) is a crime, and as I have pointed out earlier, Plame was a covert operative. James Comey, a Bush appointee, had Patrick Fitzgerald investigate this, and in the course of the investigation, Lewis Libby gave contradictory testimony, in fact perjuring himself, which is another crime.
The Bush crime family, like any good crime family in America, looks out after those who won't roll over on them. So instead of having Libby do his time like Susan McDougal did for the Clintons, Bush commuted his sentence, which Bush (who has detainees in Guantanamo indefinitely without the luxury of a trial) thought was rather harsh.But the lie still lives on, even as more and more people die because of it.

The Bitter Race For Third Place

Is the irony of John "Flapjack" McCain calling out Mitt Romney for his politically convenient position on abortion lost on anyone? Here we have the man who criticized evangelicals in politics now pandering to them. So now we have a real campaign, with two less-than-saintly people trying to outdoor each other in a holier-than-thou competition. Is third front runner status so important that these people have to start throwing each other under the bus?
I guess McCain has to make up for all the support he lost when he backed Bush's wacky immigration scheme, which was not too popular with the love-thy-neighbor-as-long-as-he's-white-speaks-english-and-votes-Republican crowd. And since Ghouliani has carved out a niche with his incessant invocation of 9/11 (which seems to be working, oddly enough), and Fred Thompson cannonballed into the pool of Republican contenders, knocking McCain back even farther than McCain was able to do on his own, McCain had to do something to save his, well "credibility" isn't the right word because he doesn't have any of that left, but something akin to it. So Johnny-Boy decided the best thing to do is to appeal to the Christiansane right. Next I expect he'll be equating Mormons with Satanism, which isn't too far off the mark, as far as the Bible thumping brigade is concerned. Let's hope the campaign gets more interesting from here.

Pardon Me, Pt.II

Now I'm not normally a violent person, but sometimes I wish I could reach into my television and slap that smug self-serving smirk off Bill Kristol's face every Sunday on Fox News. But, I would feel bad about it because, unlike Bill "Dr. Lizardo" Kristol, I have conscience. To him, the ends justify the means, and so what if Lewis Libby lied under oath, there was no crime committed because the Bush administration had declassified Valerie Plame's position.
The whole purpose of the Plame affair was to discredit Joseph Wilson for proving that Cheney's Office of Special Plans had manipulated intelligence (otherwise known as lied) about Iraq's nuclear ambition's.But one wonders if there was no crime to cover-up, why did Libby lie to the special prosecutor?
Bill is the editor of a right wing publication known as the Weekly (Double) Standard, where, concerning the Clinton impeachment he said:

if anyone lied under oath the way Bill Clinton did--knowingly and purposefully in order to thwart a legitimate legal process, or if anyone engaged in an obstruction of justice, the way Bill Clinton did, then indictments would be proper.

Libby's lies were under oath (hence, the perjury charge) which engaged himself in obstruction of justice (hence, the obstruction of justice charge). Like Fitzgerald's investigation of Cheney's office of special plans, the investigation under which Bill Clinton perjured himself, no criminal charges were filed. But because Libby is a neocon, he, like the president and vice-president seem to be out of the reach of justice.

Compassionate Conservatism In Action

Arkansa is going to need to upgrade it's image (Not that it had much of a positive one after foisting Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee on the American political landscape). First US attorney in Arkansas Tim Griffin resigns after evidence ties him to illegal voter suppression. Surely you heard this story, it was buried underneath all the stories about William Jefferson, the foiled "terror plot" and Paris Hilton going to jail.The former Rove aide was "directly involved in voter suppression".
Now comes the story of the head of the Arkansas GOP saying, "we need more terrorist attacks, so people appreciate Bush". Much in the same way 9/11 helped people to appreciate Bush, who was sitting on the lowest poll numbers since Nixon, only to have them go up the next day. And Bush's numbers are way lower than they were on September 10, 2001.
Is it me, or does anyone else find it distasteful the way the Republican party, from George Bush to Rudy Giuliani, wave the "terrorist threat" around to garner votes. The war against terrorism has failed abyssmally, perhaps we should find anotheer way to deal with those wish to harm us. The problem is the Republican head is too hard on the outside and too soft on the inside to deal with terrorism in a rational way. Probably because fear gets them votes. Especially in Arkansas.

Yep, He's That Crazy

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Mohamed ElBaradei in an interview Friday said "I have no brief other than to make sure we don't go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say 'let's go and bomb Iran'." I'm sure Mr. ElBaradei wasn't aware that during the first Bush's tenure, the neocons in his administration were referred to as "the crazies", but I'm sure he's aware that there only two countries who think a military solution is the only way to solve the problem with Iran:the US and Israel.
While Dick Cheney prefers an "end run strategy" around the president if he doesn't get his war on, Secretary of State Condi Rice says The US is not preparing for a war with Iran (we just have half of our naval fleet floating around the Persian Gulf as part of their summer vacation plans) and that Vice President Dick Cheney is in step with that policy. Never mind that chief neocon Norman Podhoretz called for the bombing of Iran now, we're supposed to trust these people's blood lust, and their never ending quest for control over the Middle east's oil reserve, at the genocide of all indigeonous people who just happen to live above it.
In the meantime Bush has called for the release of three Iranian Americans detained in Iran (while still holding five Iranian diplomats "captured" in Iraq.) Of course, when you leak that you are sending covert operatives into Iran, you can't be too surprised at the outcome.
The US is struggling in Iraq, and still hasn't finished up in Afghanistan. Only a crazy person would think that another "pre-emptive" war would be more successful than the other two. Unfortunately, Cheney is as sound as a dollar.

Would You Vote For A Trained Chimp?

Well, the Republican narrative on Iraq has shifted again. Now it's no longer about "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here". Now it's we're "fighting alQaeda to keep their hands off our oil supply (funny, I thought the oil belonged to the Iraqi people)and cut it off to drive gas prices even higher" than the oil companies are doing all on their own. (See, it was all about the oil)The Republican change excuses more times than the number of costume changes at a Cher concert.
So, it must be apparent to anyone who does the math that the Republicans, like the Democrats who gave Bush a blank check to continue the wholesale slaughter, that the voters who demanded change last November were too stupid to realize that they don't have a choice if they aren't able to fill their party's war chest (at least as much as Aipac)because both parties are more concerned with how all this plays out on Fox News than in the way the majority of voters perceive it all. But credit must be given to the Republicans, at least they didn't say they were going to do one thing, and then turn around and do the complete opposite when given the chance. No, they have said all along, and will continue to say that for whatever this week's reason is, that's why we need to be in Iraq. Like a bunch of trained chimps reading from Karl Rove's copy of Joseph Goebbels' playbook(the more you repeat a lie, the more people will believe it), they are going to continue to lay lie upon lie to justify letting our troops die.
But they have abandoned out troops. They need someone who's going to send them off to defend our country, not act as an excuse for defense contractors to continue to fleece the country. Because if you really supported the troops, you'd see that their dying to support a failed foreign policy of pre-emptive war is neither noble nor patriotic, just plain stupid. If you really supported the troops, you'd realize that putting them in harm's way with no clear obtainable objective or exit strategy not only puts them at risk, it puts us all at risk because instead of being here to defend us, they're on the other side of the planet defending....the corpocracy. Proving once again that to the Republicans, the citizens of this country don't matter at all.

Michigan GOP To Deny Reality

Michigan's state GOP chairman wants to bar Ron Paul from any future debates because he had the temerity to suggest that the reasons that the 9/11 commission as well as the CIA gave for the attacks on September 11 were the real reasons, and not the spurious "They hate us because we're free" mantra chanted by kool-aid chugging flagwaving half wits like Rudy Giuliani.
Perhaps Saul Anuzis is worried that after Blinky pounced on Paul's accurate description of the causes of terrorism, Paul's numbers went up and he wound up beating Rudolf by six points in the Fox News text message poll following the debate.
Paul dared to deviate from the accepted Republican reality that allows endless wars to enrich defense, I mean war contractors (because, really, they aren't defending anything but their own wealth), at the expense of the America taxpayer and the inevitable collateral damage that conveniently happens to be a different religion than the money worshipping members of the GOP. Just because our lopsided foreign policy is stacked against the majority of Muslims in the Middle East is no reason for them to attack us, is it? Paul even suggested we had been bombing Iraq every week for ten years, which, according to Mr. Anuzis, is "off the wall and out of whack", even if it happens to be true.

Dick Van Patton

The US has "gained" new intelligence that says Iran is three years away from enriching enough material for nuclear weapons, although where this report comes from isn't clear. The last NIE stated that Iran was at least ten years away, but I'm sure now the Cheney regime has replaced all intelligence officials who wouldn't file falsified reports it wouldn't be too hard figure out where this "new" intelligence came from, much the same way all the commanders in Iraq who dissented on obtainable victory were replaced by the likes of Gen. Betrayus, so Bush could still say he stands behind his commanders.
Cheney is the likely suspect for the change in intelligence (not just because he keeps getting stupider) as he was the one who had the "yellow cake" documents forged. This was what led to the whole Lewis Libby trial, Cheney, enraged that he had been called out as a liar, leaked Valerie Plame's name to the media in retaliation. And according to former British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, Dick Cheney called all the shots in the Iraq invasion that has led it to be the abyssmal failure that it is. Funny how somebody who had "other obligations" when he was of age to serve his country (and gain combat experience) likes playing soldier now that he doesn't have anything to risk beyond his stock portfolio.
That's why we need to get Congress to back Dennis Kucinich's impeachment legislation. If we don't, this heartless bastard will surely start another war doomed to be as abyssmal as the previous two are turning out.

Condi Above The Law

Condi Rice has shown she has little regard for the law of the land by rejecting a House subcommitteee subpeona for her to testify in that whole bothersome "Who cooked the false intelligence on Iraq?" investigation.

Can the Secretary Of State invoke executive privilege? Not really, but they'll do anything to prevent themselves from either perjurying themselves or telling the truth about who forged what document that got us into a war that has no exit strategy.
Meanwhile Gen. Betrayus appeared before Congress to say that setting a timetable is wrong, that the surge will work, despite all evidence to the contrary. How many more Americans will be sent to their deaths in a war that should have not been fought in the first place?
Not enough for Hilary Clinton who feels The US should confront Ira militarily. Easy for her to say, her love ones won't be sacrificed to save the corpocracy and the paranoiacs who run Israel, to whom she made the remarks.
Which brings me to Dennis Kucinich, who today introduced articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney.

Article I, that Richard Cheney had purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and the Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States armed forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security.

That despite all evidence to the contrary, the vice president actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and the Congress of the United States about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

That preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the vice president was fully informed that no legitimate evidence existed of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The vice president pressured the intelligence community to change their findings to enable the deception of the citizens and the Congress of the United States.

Of cousre Condi doesn't want to testify. Cheney and Bush goes and she has to go back to working for ordinary old oil companies. Poor gal.

The Emperor's Same Old Clothes

The president is coming to town tomorrow, already the blockades have been put up and the local media is in pre-orgasmic state unseen since Jerry Ford's funeral. A protest is also planned (of which I will not be attending due to work obligations) featuring Ray McGovern a retired CIA analyst who took on Donald Rumsfeld when the latter was Secretary of Defense.
Bush needs to preach to the kool-aid drinking choir, and they don't get much more kool-aid drinking than East Grand Rapids, where Bush is scheduled to speak. He needs to convince the few remaining supporters that the war in Iraq isn't lost, and even more important, it is still part of the war on terror. Because Zarqawi was there (allegedly), it makes perfect sense to destroy a whole sovereign nation to kill one man (unless that sovereign country is Pakistan, and the one man is Osama Bin Laden)

Bush can parade around East (as it's residents prefer to call it, disassociating and distancing themselves from the minorities and Polacks in regular ol' Grand Rapids) without fear of someone pointing out, hey! look! the president's not wearing any clothes! even though he has been parading around with naked glee at playing the Commander-in-Chief (until he realized, too, that the war was lost and began to seek out a "war czar" to be the scapegoat for the failures of his latest surge)for the last six years or so.
So by the time I leave work, the president wil be flown out of town, the peace demonstrators will all be beaten by police (who says we're not becoming a fascist state?)and hopefully the highways won't be blocked so the presidential motorcade doesn't have to share the roads with us common people that just got done paying the taxes that afford him the ability to fly around and make speeches for wars that can never be won.
UPDATE-My job is out by the airport, so I always worry when Bush or Cheney come to town that I'll be stuck in traffic while these wipes roll by in their motorcade. AS I was leaving the radio station I was tuned top said the highway from the airport to the Gerald Ford Museum would be shut down for the motorcade, so I quickly got on because I didn't want to be stuck with no gas waiting. Then I realized that the highway would be shut down the other way, so I continued on homeward. That's when I realized that Bush would becoming toward me on the other side. That when I looked ahead and noticed a line of cars with flashing lights coming from the other direction. Down went my window, out went my arm, and up went the finger, saluting him and his entourage as they sped pass. I don't know if he saw it or not, but all the way home I felt good (Even though I think flipping the bird is quite grotesque).

Someone Still Doesn't Get It

In a speech before the Heritage Foundation today, Dick Cheney compared the Democrats stance on Iraq to the far left stance of the Democrats on Viet Nam in the seventies. While at least he is beginning to acknowledge the war in Iraq is as unwinnable as the quagmire that was Viet Nam, he still doesn't get it.
For instance, he blasted Democrats as big spending when the war in Iraq has cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, with nothing more to show for it than 3297 dead US soldiers, 655,000 dead Iraqi civilians, and, no matter what Cheney may thinkl, no ground is his so-called "war on terrorism".
He also blew off the will of the people, claiming the sweeping change of last November's election as "minimal". claiming a minimum of 3600 votes would have kept the Senate iGOP hands and fewer than 100000 votes would have kept GOP control of the House (forgetting of course that it only took 57000 black voters purged from voter rolls in Florida that put his sorry soggy ass where it is today, and with that they claimed to have a mandate.
Cheney also continued on with his deluded notion that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq, when in reality, we are an occupation force dealing with an insurgency. Cheney would just as soon keep US troops there indefinitely than send "a message to our enemies that the calendar is their friend, that all they have to do is wait us out -- wait for the date certain, and then claim victory the day after." Unfortunately for Cheney, the claendar is not his friend, come January 2009 we will have a new president, and hopefully it won't be one more concerned with lining the pockets of their corporate buddies than dragging out a pointless war based on lies.

It's Just A Matter of Time

Well, another war is almost upon us, as evidenced by the comment on to day's Free Beer and Hot Wings Show advocating the nuking of Iran for exercising their right to nuclear power. I'm sure that will only result in millions of deaths of people who don't trust their government anymore than most Americans do, while their leaders are safe in some undisclosed location, much like the one Dick Cheney was cowering in on 9/11. And of the course, the resulting radiation will only spread throughout much of the Middle East, especially Iraq, where many of the soldiers supported by yellow ribbon magnets will be downwind from it.
Another sign that we're almost ready to shoot ourselves in the foot again is the announcement that Halliburton has wound up it's Iranian contracts giving it's people time to scramble back to Washington to get more no-bid contracts to rebuild Iran after we blow it to pieces. All we need is a reason.
Thank God that void is being filled by the corporate media, who took this article from Reuters containing this little dandy:

Bleichwehl said troops, facing scattered resistance, discovered a factory that produced "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs), a particularly deadly type of explosive that can destroy a main battle tank and several weapons caches.

from a story about soldiers in Iraq (who should receive some sort of commendation, except, well, they exposed the Bush administration as liars). That's where the Washington Post came, and took the story and changed it to better suit Bush regime lies:

One of the bombs was an explosively formed projectile, a particularly deadly type of device which Washington accuses Iran of supplying Iraqi militants.

See? You can always rely on the corpocracy to cover up each others lies. I have a standing bet with a co-worker that we'll be at war with Iran before the end of the summer (just in time to drive up oilprices for the summer driving season, imagine the windfall oil companies will make from that), but she doesn't think that the Bush regime has the support for another war, but I say they don't have the support for the one they're in now, and it hasn't stopped them for continuing to fight it. Just give the corporate media a little time and they'll have the beer swilling NASCAR watching mouth breathing brain damaged jackanapes up and arms against Iran in no time.

Through The Looking Glass

It looks like the Evil Empire's dirty trick squad is up to something. First came the report of a break in at Minnesota's DFL headquarters, in which a lap top was stolen. This was followded up by reports of break-in at New Hampshire's Democratic headquarters, which came five weeks after a Manchester Democratic headquarters was broken into as well. Hmmmm. Curioser and curiouser.
Could it be someone is seeking dirt on the Democrats? Maybe to justify the firings of all them federal prosecutors? Bush has already stated he will fight Congressional subpeonas of his staff in the ever growing attorney firing scandal. Perhaps learning his lesson following the perjury conviction of I. Lewis Libby, Bush said he would allow them to testify in private and not under oath (kinda sorta like his and Dick's testimony before the 9/11 commission. Am I the only one seeing a pattern here?), in other words, giving them carte blanche to lie to Congress (Hell, Bush did it, why not his staff?). Can we start impeachment yet?

"True" Tortured Confessions

The Same Guy?

Nothing could be more embarassing to the Bush administration following the tortured confession of who they allege to be Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, than this story, which purports the KSM trotted out by the Bushites is in fact an impostor. The claim is that in fact the man we see in photos is actually Ahmed Abdul Qudoos,the man in the above photo on the left. I'm not saying they are the same guys, there is enough discrepancy for me to be doubtful, but then there is the story that KSM actually died in a shoot out on September 11, 2002. If this story is true (and really, who believes the lies of the Bush administration any more?), then who is the man that they claim is KSM?
Even more disturbing is the story that the CIA also has KSM's two sons,aged seven and nine at time of kidnapping, in custody, in case the waterboarding doesn't work, you can always torture the children because what parent would stand by and watch their children be tortured by the assholes who represent our country. Suddenly, it sounds like we're not the good guys anymore when we stoop to that level, in fact, it makes us downright evil, and how any free thinking citizen of the US could justify these acts in the name of "freedom" or "democracy" shows just how far we've strayed in the past six years under the Bush regime.
But all that is irrelevant, since the whole "confession" has backfired on the US (although it has got the beer swilling NASCAR watching tube jockey's attention away from the US attorney scandal brewing in Washington, as well as the Plamegate trial)since in any civilized court, any confession derived under stress (a/k/a torture) is inadmissable, (which is just as well, since one of his confessed "terrorist acts" was towards a bank that wasn't even founded until after his arrest) under new rules adopted by the Bush regime and it's rubber stamp Republican congress, it's all fine and dandy.

Pardon Me?

I guess they know a vendetta when they see one. After all, it was the Cheney regime's personal vendetta against Joseph Wilson for exposing their lies about Iraq that started this whole thing. But now , according to the UK Telegraph unnamed sources have stated that Scooter Libby will be likely to receive a presidential pardon for his crimes because they believe the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, was pursuing a "political vendetta" against them. You can really only be paranoid if you have something that you're trying to hide, and sure enough, these people are trying to hide the fact that they foisted a bunch of lies on the unsuspecting and trusting American people to gain support for a war that should never have been fought in the first place. A war that is now becoming a stinking sinkhole of American foreign policy as well as creating more terrorists that it ever could have hoped to have eradicated.
To those in the Cheney regime, perjury is not a major crime, but have they failed to remember this: it was a charge of perjury that Bill Clinton was impeached for, brought about by a special prosecutor with a political vendetta against the president. Kenneth Starr was a conservative Republican investigating the Whitewater mess (after the first one found nothing), and that had nothing to do with Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones. Patrick Fitzgerald is a Republican prosecutor, so how could his vendetta be political?(Unless, as a proud Republican he was seeking to purge the party of all those who brought disgrace to it. Which wouldn't leave many Republicans in political office anywhere) No, the Cheney regime is just repeating the mantra of the left during the time Bill Clinton was being impeached, that his prosecution was politically motivated, which it was.
I'm sure the pardon is being offered as a carrot-on-a-stick to dangle in front of Libby to prevent him from rolling over on his former boss, so that when his appeals process runs out at the end of Bush's second term, he can receive one of those Christmas pardons like Bush I gave to all involved in the Iran-Contra scandal (where we sold weapons to Iran to fund Central American death squads killing nuns in the name of "democracy"), or like Marc Rich bought, I mean, received from Bill Clinton at the end of his term.

Isn't Iran A Sovereign Nation?

Continuing on the Bush administration policy of hypocrisy, the weapons used in an attack in Iran came from the US. Wasn't it last week that the Bush administration laid claims that weapons seized in Iraq came from Teheran? They then backed off the statement and said they were coming from Iran, but not the government. (You remember, these weapons)Meanwhile, US patrol ships are on alert in the Gulf, as the rhetoric escalates like US carrier groups there.
Then over in Afghanistan, al Qaida releases a video of it's attacks on US forces there. The "terrorist" organization is hiding out in Pakistan, which brings to mind Bush's oft-repeated statement:

"[w]e have made it clear to all nations that if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists, you are an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account."

So shouldn't we threatening Pakistan? Well, according to Porter Goss:

when you go to the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play."

In other words, we can't go into Pakistan because it's a sovereign state, even though it's harboring terrorists. But Iraq and Iran are sovereign nations, too, yet we didn't hesitate to invade them when they didn't harbor terrorists, and Iran even offered to help us with the Taleban in Afghanistan.
The "war on terror" began as we sought those responsible for the terrible attacks of 9/11. 9/11 was also used as a pretext for our invasion of Iraq, even though later, Bush admitted that there was no link.Now Bush isn't even bothering to link Iran to 9/11, instead relying on the resolution passed in 2002 granting him power to invade Iraq, which he acquired under false pretenses, (i.e., by lying). So while the politicians waste time arguing on whether to pass non-binding resolutions on Iraq, instead of investigating and impeaching those who manipulated intelligence to get their oppurtunity to wage an illegal war against a sovereign nation, the Bush cabal is planning to start another war, the third of his presidency. I guess George didn't have to clean his plate before he got dessert when he was a child.