How Many More Times Do I Have To Say It Again?

As my few remaining loyal readers may have noticed, I haven't been as avid about posting here as I have been in the past. While this is partly due to other outstanding obligations, the main reason is I've said it already. Several times.
How many more times do I have to post about the Republican Party being tools, as well as the tool of capitalistic oppression? They seem to revel in finding new ways to keep government out of business while simultaneously finding ways to pass laws aimed to harm the poor, minorities, or gays and lesbians. I've said it before, and while I find the lot of them to be distasteful, saying it again won't change them.
How many more times do I have to criticize the Democratic Party? Their misguided attempts to solve any problem are tempered with their liberal sense of all-inclusion made sure that health care reform didn't offend the insurance companies, making it a mandated pay out for them, and another tax that working families can't afford. Good work.
How many more times do I have to point out that the reason the economy is in the toilet is because our politicians and their corporate overlords thought it would be best to ship all our high paying manufacturing jobs outside of the country? You can pour as many billions of dollars down a sinkhole as you want, if they're not creating permanent full time positions, than the industries hurt by the down turn, housing and automobile manufacturing, will never recover because people are not going to commit to a thirty year mortgage or a three year car loan if they're only guaranteed employment for nine months. Do I have to say it again?
How many more times do I have to point out the futility of fighting a war against an idea? Terrorism is nothing more than a small group of people's response to a greater group of people's injustice against them. Endless and self-perpetuating, every unmanned drone the US sends into Pakistan that kills unarmed civilians, 'collateral damage' as we justified these acts of murder, creates more desperate people who are so determined they will gladly risk life and limb to strike back at us as hard as possible. Do I have to say it again?
I started this blog over five years ago because I didn't want the only opportunity for my children is to become cannon fodder for a privileged class that has no qualms with using lies and deception to send them off to kill and die. There were no WMD in Iraq. Do I have to say it again? There is now, and they belong to the US Army.
I don't plan on gong away. A number of good blogging friends have hung up their keyboards this year, but I intend on continuing to exercise my futility. No matter how many more times I have to say it. Again.

Thanks, Idiot, Now Go Be Snarky Somewhere Else (And Check Your Facts)

That annoying squeaky voice. That smug self-satisfied delivery. That errant speech pattern. The complete disconnection from the truth. No, I'm not talking about Glenn Beck, but Sarah Palin who said at the "Restoring Honor" rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, activists must honor King's legacy by paying tribute to the men and women who protect America in uniform.
Huh? That don't make no sense!
You see, Dr. King opposed the Viet Nam War, as well as imperialistic US military action that diverted money and attention from domestic programs created to aid the poor blacks. Civil rights and antiwar are King's true legacy, not the celebration of the neocons imperialistic aim to inflict US based global hegemony.
In fact, it was that opposition to capitalism that led to his assassination by a conspiracy that included agencies of the US government. But Palin would never read that in the history books of the corporate idiocracy. Those tell us Dr. King was a great man, without detailing too much what he was really about, since economic, social and racial equality makes some people nervous.
And since were on the subject, how are our 'men and women who protect America in uniform' (shouldn't that be 'our men and women in uniform who protect America'?) restoring honor to our country? Neither the 34,000 civilians deaths inAfghanistan nor the 1,366,350 civilian deaths in Iraq were any sort of threat to our country. And their deaths have done nothing to 'restore America's honor', in fact, it's just the opposite. And how are they any different than the 'honor killings' alleged to by professional Islamophobe Pamela Geller?
Restoring America's Honor and honoring Dr. King's legacy would be easy. All it would take is a slight shift in our foreign policy. But getting a couple of thousand television watchers off their couch is a good start.

The Necessity Of Lies About The Necessity Of War

The upcoming weekend is a big holiday weekend, and, as usual, the big oil companies will exploit it by raising gas prices to pocket big profits. And motorists will gripe and grumble, and still pay it, because Americans are still too stupid to invest in any sensible alternative energy, a reliable mass transit service, or anything else that would ease our country's dependence on fossil fuels.
But if you think you're going to see high fuel prices now, just wait until the US and Israel strike Tehran. OPEC has warned war with Iran would mean an unlimited price hike, which means, bend over and grab your ankles, America. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mullen also thinks a military strike on Iran would be destabilizing.
And yet, there we are, surrounding Iran on all sides, prepared to do our worse, all based on lies. Which proves how stupefied the American people have become by the corporate media. They have forgotten that the reason were in Iraq is a bunch of lies. Weapons of Mass Destruction? Now they've conveniently moved to Iran
I could once again debunk every argument you may hear about why we need to go to war with Iran. But I'm as tired of typing them as you are of reading them. But still the lies continue. Because we need them, our corporate media isn't interested in the truth, and are too far embedded in the Washington DC Cocktail Party Set to be honest.
So I give Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the only Democrat I'd ever vote for:
"We are losing our nation to lies about the necessity of war. Bring our troops home. End the war. Secure our economy."
Amen.

Change Can Wait, WE Need To Hold Our Majority So We Can Do Nothing Conclusive For The Next Two Years

As an excellent example of the screwed-up priorities of the Taxed-Enough-Already crowd, they protest when President Obama bails out GM, they protest when President Obama tries to provide health care to millions of fellow American citizens with out any, but when the Senate approves billions more in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not a peep. Even while the Pentagon cut pay for soldiers in Iraq, making this nothing more than a bailout for the Military-Industrial Complex, nothing from the television watching soldier sniffers.
This is also a prime example of the lack of difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties. The Democrats, who gained a majority by exploiting the antiwar sentiment in 2006, and again in 2008, voted for funding a war that Gen. McChrystal has termed a draw. So dumping more money into this sinkhole would be a waste of tax-payer money, right?
Yes, but, being an election year, rather than stand on principal, the Democrats instead choose to let their decisions be guided by their desire to hold onto their cushy jobs where they can bet against the stock market as they pass legislation to deregulate it and probably invest heavily into defense contractors, all with the salary they made from, us, the tax payer.

Still No Change

The Obama administration, brought to power by claims of change, has proven that things have changed, only for the worse. Case in point: Cindy Sheehan, arrested in Saturday's antiwar march marking the seven year anniversary of the illegal US invasion of Iraq may be tried for her campaign. Huh? What? Even the Cheney/Bush administration was smart enough to know that trying a mother grieving over the loss of her son in a pointless unending war would make her a martyr, President Obama was supposed to be smarter than that.
Let's see, teabaggers can protest all they want, hurl invectives and slurs at members of Congress, and they go unpunished. But make a point about the senseless cost of war, and well, it's off to the hoosegow with you.
Of course this was the same Obama campaign that promised talks with Iran without any preconditions Now we have increased calls by members of the administration as well as members of congress for tougher sanctions against Iran. You know, sanctions like we had had with Iraq. And like Iraq, the propaganda has started against Iran. Now we have the US army claiming that Taliban fighters are training in Iran. Never mind that Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Taliban can't even agree on how to run a theocracy, the important point is that the military now has an excuse for it's poor performance in the never ending war in Afghanistan and the corporate media has a new scare to wave at the television watchers.

Who Are These Clowns And Why Do We Deign It To Pay Them $165,000 A Year

Whether you think the US is a democracy or a republic, the truth is it's neither, we no longer have any form of representative government at all.
Exhibit A, the "health care reform". While most Americans support fixing our health care system, offering a medicare buy in and a public option, what we are getting is the individual mandate, a law designed to line the pockets of the health insurance industry. Capitalism sucks bad enough, but when you force uninsured citizens to buy a product from a private concern rather than a government entity, you have taken another step towards the corpocracy.
Exhibit B, war with Iran. Most Americans don't want us to undertake another military confrontation, we haven't made any progress with the two we're already mired in. War with Iran will costs us more money, more lives, and more at the gas pump. Last time gas prices topped $4.00 a gallon, the economy went into a tailspin, another period of high gas prices and you might as well start stocking up on pencils to sell on Wall Street. Aha, you say, but we're not at war with Iran yet. Yet, of course, being the operative word in that statement. Because, you see, next week is the Aip[ac conference and this year, the lobby has built its annual conference, and its entire lobbying agenda around the issue of Iran. I know, I know, Iran actually hasn't done anything wrong, per se, but that didn't stop the US from invading Iraq, so what makes you think Iran will be any different. Well, you say, the Democratic party was given control of congress and the White House by progressives Americans opposed to the ongoing wars. And since that time, the party has done absolutely nothing to end either quagmire. In fact President Obama has even crossed the border of Afghanistan into Pakistan (well not, President Obama himself, of course), so you could even say he has increased the Pax Americana of the Bush administration. And with that in mind, there's no reason he wouldn't continue that Bush administration policy of the US military as the world's police force by bombing Iran for doing something that is well with in it's rights as both a sovereign nation as well as a signee to the NNPT.
So there you have it, two pieces of evidence that our representatives don't represent us at all. Instead, we have a bunch of jokers who sole purpose in life seems to be to grow fat off the public tit (ever see a skinny senior congressperson?) while doing the work of everybody save their constituency. It's become the new American dream.

The Country Has Been Divided For A While Now, You Were Just Too Busy Jacking Off To Commander Codpiece To Notice

Let it be said that although I voted for Barack Obama, I have to this date not been happy with his performance thus far. He has spent too much time looking for a "bipartisan" solution instead of doing what needs to be done. The opposition party has left him out to dry because they only know how to create more problems and not solve them. The problems now facing this country were not brought in by President Obama when he took office, they were there already before he was even elected.
The health care crisis has been going on for twenty years, much of it with Republican control of Congress, and they have done nothing because they don't understand that it's not the quality of car offered by the finest doctors in the world, it's the inaccessibility for millions of Americans due to lack of insurance, or, for those with insurance, the inability to receive the care they need because their providers have denied it to them after taking their money.
In fact, if you named every problem facing the US and it can be directly traced back to the previous administration and it's inability to govern. President Obama is just the person who has to be the adult and fix these problems while the robber barons and banksters sit on their pile of money counting every dime they have ripped off from the US taxpayers.
So when Michael "Savage" Weiner says President Obama ripped the country in half in only one year, I would have to disagree. No, it was the people such as Michael Weiner, the Glenn Becks and their ilk who decided that they didn't like having a black and Democratic president in the White House that have ripped this country apart.
President Obama didn't create the huge deficit, it was there when he got there and people like Michael Weiner cheered on the previous administration as they poured money down the outhouse in wars of choice such as Iraq. Michael Weiner cheered as former President Bush mismanaged the war in Afghanistan, dragging that conflict out longer than any other war we have been involved in. Where were the Michael savages and Glenn Becks and other tea baggers when those cesspools were opened up for our tax dollars to be poured endlessly into?
The reality is, the country has been ripped apart for some time now. It's been nearly seven years now that President Bush unilaterally violated international law and invaded a sovereign nation with no just cause. There were lots of protests, the "liberal" media chose to ignore them, and the "free speech zones" created by the criminal-in-chief insured he'd never become aware of them, neither would you, Mr. Weiner, or the American people. No, the right was living in a fantasy world were everybody had better stand behind the president in a time of war, and conveniently forgot it once the new president represented the two things that scare you more than getting on a plane full of Muslims.
So now, the only thing you can blame on President Obama is the fact that he opened your eyes to a country so polarized that each side has created it's own separate reality, where truth is subjective and lies are acceptable if they help to prop up your insane belief system.

Endless War In A Service Economy

Growing up, my Grandfather had a cabin in Northern Michigan, on an inland lake, a log cabin he had built himself. On one corner of his property was a trailer, a two-wheeled trailer, with the axle in the center and some sort of railing around it, used for hauling wood from the forest, or garbage to the dump. When it was parked, and empty, one end stuck up in the air while the other touched the ground, much the way a see-saw looks when nobody's riding it. As children, we would stand at the lower end of the trailer and run up towards the high end, until that fell with a crash, and we were on the low end again, which caused us to laugh.
It's kind of like our political system. While at the edges, there are those who are doggedly right or left, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democratic, the bulk of American voters run from on side to the other. After several years of Bush cutting taxes and increasing spending started to put a damper on things, voters, the same voters who had voted Bush and Republican previously, ran to high end of the trailer, hoping that the Democrats would change things. Like they had promised. And while the system sank deeper into the shit, those on the right cynically asked "How's all that hope and change working out for ya? To which I reply, about as well as your cynicism and stagnation are working out for you, but I digress.
But as voters run from one side to the other, nobody seems to notice they're not getting anywhere. Things aren't getting better. There getting worse. The party we have chosen as leaders have decided they don't want to do anything that isn't bi-partisan. I guess they don't want to take the blame if things go wrong. The other party is offering nothing new, the same old tax-cuts-and increased-spending solution.
Our time is coming soon. Our schools are running out of funding. Our states are falling deeper into debt. Some can't even pay your income tax refund. Our politicians, both parties, have traded our future for endless war in a service economy. A lot of them are walking away this year, with a pension and a lifetime of free medical care. Most of them into a lobbying position with some mega-corporation that hasn't stolen enough from us. And what will we do about it?
Run to the higher end of the trailer, of course.

She's Baa-a-a-ack!(Actually, She Never Went Away. You Did)

President Obama has a surprise waiting for him as he starts his summer vacation in Martha's Vineyard (who knew he owned property there?) and it's not gun toting astroturfers. It's Cindy Sheehan. Seems she's still upset that even after riding the antiwar sentiment to power, Barack and the rest of the Democratic party have now turned there attention to not solving America's health care crisis, as opposed to not solving it's financial crisis, among other crises facing the administration these days.
Moreover, Obama is continuing the Bush administration policy of rendition of "terrorism" suspects, or heck, anybody it damn well pleases.
So even though the war in Iraq has been proven to be based on lies, and deception, the Democratic party still thinks we should still be fighting it. Good for them. And after exploiting the antiwar vote, they feel it's more important to not do anything about ending these shams, lest chickenhawks label them surrender monkeys.
It's interesting that the antiwar movement barely received the coverage the anti-health care reform crowd is getting these days, and it wasn't until Ms. Sheehan began her vigil outside George W Bush's Crawford ranch that the media paid any attention to the movement. Because, with the arrival of Cindy, a grieving mother who wanted answers as to why her son had to die, that the corporate media could put a face on the movement that war shills could use to paint it as "looney". But I doubt if any of the astroturfers will demonstrate the tenacity of Ms. Sheehan, her pain and anguish are real, as opposed to what amounts to actors hired by the health industry lobby to disrupt serious debate about reforming our seriously fucked up health care system. And I'm sure health care reform will be a lost and distant memory before we see any end to the wars of choice we are fighting in the Middle east.

Stating The Obvious

In the debate over health care reform, one question that has been asked time and time again is, where will the money for single payer health care from?
Taxes. that's right, Obama wants to raise your taxes. Good thing we voted for more taxes because with the economy is full-on depression mode, the one thing working people need to do is pay more taxes. How else could we fund such a massive government undertaking?
Ron Paul has an idea. If we end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and cut our defense budget in half, we'll have all the money we need for a health care program. Of course being a libertarian, (and a doctor), Ron Paul opposes nationalizing the health care industry, but "you don’t want to cut under these [economic] conditions medical care from poor people who have been dependent, or the elderly." That this makes sense is all the more likely that no one in congress will actually do anything about it.
Take Afghanistan. Please. (That is, if you can. No country has ever successfully been able to take that piece of real estate, and that vote-for-me-and-hope-for-change guy isn't going to have anymore success, no matter how many more troops he sends into that quagmire.) And what are we fighting for In Afghanistan? Liberty! The liberty to build a pipeline that only benefits big oil, essentially socializing the army for a select few (who then complain about having to pay taxes). The liberty to increase opium production so the police can have the liberty to arrest heroin addicts at home. The liberty to set civilian death records, liberating Afghanis from this mortal coil. Oh yeah, then there's that whole 9/11 thing, of which the Taleban, as with the people of Iraq, did not partake in at all, but being that America was founded on liberty, we can take all the liberties we want.
Of course, it's noted, that right after Paul made his pronouncement, the "liberal" media changed the subject. Can't have the truth slip out on the news shows, the sheeple might get angry.

I Don't Remember

As many Americans prepare to spend their Memorial Day weekend doing things to honor those fallen soldiers fighting to protecting corporate America's business interests (coincidentally, are exactly the same as America's interests, which is why there are so many box store Memorial Day sales)such as shopping, watching sporting events on television, eating and getting sloppy drunk at family barbecues, I struggle to remember, what was the final reason we're in the quagmire in the first place.
Was it because of the 4000 Sony PlayStation 2 units Iraq purchased in 2000? You know, those toys contain a CPU that can used for military applications, which is a good thing they're made in China, because we'll never have any military confrontation with them any time in the foreseeable future.
I do remember that most of the justifications given by the previous administration were in fact lies cooked up by US intelligence sources to sway a nation of television watchers into supporting a war sold to them by corporate media propaganda. And I think we all remember those lies having heard them so many times we can recount them in our sleep.
And I do remember the reasons those who opposed the war gave for our invasion of Iraq: oil, oil, oil, oil, Israel, and oil. The reasons given, by both pro and anti-war types were nearly innumerable, even using a dollar vs. euro scenario as a pretext.
And since there is no one concrete real justifiable reason that we should have invaded, can any person give me one good reason why we are staying there?

Cheney's Death Squads Need To Be Investigated

George Bush was fond of talking about his legacy in his final days, and how history will vindicate him for his actions. But as more and more revelations leak out from his administration, things may have been worse than we imagined.
Seymour Hersh has a story about how Dick Cheney ran an assassination ring out of the office of the vice president. Extrajudicial executions are always looked back fondly by historians. Perhaps Deborah Jean Palfrey didn't hang herself.
Cheney was always up to no good in the Bush administration, from creating a special conduit of fabricated intelligence on Iraq to authorizing torture of people he wanted to confess to crimes that he himself committed. That is why we need a Truth Commission now, while the evidence is still fresh.
The Obama unchange administration has admitted they intend on defending the criminals from the previous administration against allegations they used torture. Well, they're not really allegations, since they all have admitted to it. Nor do they intend on prosecuting the Bush administration for starting an illegal war. We the people as citizens need to demand our government take action and investigate the many crimes perpetrated in our name by unjust men who used our military as their own private army to profit from war and drive the country to the point of bankruptcy, both financially and morally.

Sorry Bibi, But We Can't Afford Your War

Is it un-American for the government to put a salary cap on the pay of executives scratching around congress for a handout? No, not really. Once you start asking the already overburdened US tax payer to subsidize your extravagant lifestyle, you should just shut the fuck up and take it like, well, a man, but according to Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

"Because of their excesses, very bad things begin to happen, like the United States government telling a company what it can pay its employees. That's not a good thing in America,"

Was it unAmerican for Wall St. demand that companies cut employee overhead or lose their stock value? A move that has left the US unemployment rate at the highest it's been in 16 years? (Which, coincidentally, was right after the last time we left Republicans in charge) I'm sure that if you were one of the over a half a million people laid off last month you might feel differently, especially if you knew that those jobs aren't coming back in a long time, and when they do, they'll be at a much lower rate of pay than what you were making on unemployment.
According to Joseph Stiglitz, the main cause for the economic slowdown that led to the recession, and in turn global depression has been the war in Iraq. The war has cost over half a trillion dollars so far, with no end in sight. We can no longer afford to subsidize the paranoia of Islamaphobes who think the solution to the problem is to drop bombs and shoot bullets, all of which costs taxpayer money. Money better spent on helping those hurt by the economic policies of the previous misadministration.
So even though there is no evidence that Iran is building any nuclear weapons, the soon-to-be PM of Israel Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu still wants the Obama administration to press Iran to stop it's perfectly legal and internationally sanctioned right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, or else Israel, ever the bastion of self-restraint (and such adherents to international law themselves) will strike at Iran.
The US taxpayer can no longer afford to support Israel's wars of aggression and ethnic cleansing, nor can they afford to pay the high oil costs that will be the inevitable result of Israel's cavalier attitude to obeying international law. Considering our new Secretary of State's pledged fealty to another country, I really don't see a change in our position on these matters from one administration to the next.

Another Shoe Bomber

George W Bush paid another "surprise" visit to Iraq, on his farewell tour, where he was the target of a pair of shoes, hurled at him by an irate journalist. No, it wasn't an American "journalist" who barely had the temerity to hurl uncomfortable questions at Bush in eight years, let alone a pair of uncomfortable shoes.
Bush blamed the US-led invasion on Saddam, you know, because he was asking for it, standing over there in Baghdad being all alive and crap. Really, was it Saddam who forged the Nigerian yellow cake uranium documents? Was it Saddam who stood before the UN and claimed a mobile weather balloon inflation trailer was in reality a mobile chemical weapons lab? Was it Saddam who claimed to have WMD? (These are all rhetorical questions and if you don't know the answer by now, there is no hope for you)
Bush now claims that "America is safer" since the invasion, a spurious claim since Iraq never posed any threat to the US in the first place. So what is America safer from? Economic collapse? Crumbling infrastructure? No, America will not be entirely safe until you are back on the ranch at Crawford, doing the one job you were competent at: clearing brush.

Let's Fetishize Christmas!

I can imagine it must be confusing for most Americans this time of year. On the one hand, you want to decorate your yard with the tackiest kitsch you can find. On the other hand, you don't want to let your guard down in your love for America, lest the terrorists catch us unaware. Still yet, you want to show your support for the troops so much that you're happy they're spending the holidays away from their family mired down in an endless pointless war with no exit strategy.
Well, forget about all that "Peace on Earth, Goodwill To Men" crap, it doesn't apply to indigenous brown people anyway, and stick the above "Soldier Santa" in your front yard, because nothing lets you say everything you need to say more than an eight foot tall light-up inflatable Santa dressed in desert camo fatigues. See you dirty heathenistic Ramadan lovin' terrorists. We're going to win because we got Satan Santa on our side. He sees you when you're sleeping and he knows when you're awake, (but just like God, he can't really stop you from strapping yourself with explosives and blowing us up)and he knows when you've been bad or a slave to the capitalistic system (good).
And you can sleep better at night knowing that you did your durndest to keep America safe on this the Holiest of nights, right after the Fourth of July.
Father Christmas-The Kinks

WAR! WAR! WAR!

First, the war on Christmas....

A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island store Friday morning, police and witnesses said.

The 34-year-old employee, a temporary maintenance worker, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

Only in America. One day you're spending your Thanksgiving holiday with your family, the next day, hundreds of people overcome with the spirit of goodwill to men are leaving their bootprints on your body as they fight their way to get at the limited quantity big screen TVs.
Next, the war on drugs.....

The United States' war on drugs has failed and will continue to do so as long as it emphasizes law enforcement and neglects the problem of consumption, a Washington think tank says in a report co-chaired by a former president of Mexico.

What are you going to do? The government imports the drugs, then privatizes the prison industry so they can make a profit from the incarceration of all the people using the drugs you smuggled in and abuse them while their at it.
People have been cultivating pot for smoking since before Jesus, perhaps the US needs to re-examine it's drug laws and policies rather than lock people away for recreational drug use.
Finally, the war on terror.....
George W Bush says he wants his legacy to be that of a liberator of millions. Sure, he liberated millions of Iraqis from this mortal coil and still terrorists keep attacking people. This is your legacy.

O Brother!

JUNIOR
Well people like that reform. Maybe
we should get us some.

Pappy whips off his hat and slaps at Junior with it.

PAPPY
I'll reform you, you soft-headed
sonofabitch! How we gonna run reform
when we're the damn incumbent!

O Brother, Where Art Thou? by Joel and Ethan Coen

How indeed! It seems that one of the planks in the Republican platform this year is reform. Yeah, and when the junkie in charge of the medicine cabinet says he's going to fix things, he doesn't mean with a hammer and saw. And yet, there are people who are stupid enough to buy it, because like Junior O'Daniel, they are dim and thick and incurious.
The themes of the recent convention were all hypocritical in their own right, reform, service prosperity and peace.
Peace?
McCain has already suggested he may reinstate the draft, hardly something we'd need in a time of peace. And McCain was the one who was pushing for an invasion of Iraq on the morning of 9/11. With McCain's incompetent and poor VP pick has stated that war with Russia may be needed, and the imbecile-in-chief is sending special forces into Pakistan, there is no "peace" in the Republican agenda.
It's as if they just took buzzwords that resonate well with American voters and didn't put anything behind them. It's pointless and meaningless, like applying the term maverick to a politician who voted with the president over 90% of the time.

Rising Heroin Use Among Teenagers:It's A Good Thing!

In pre-invasion Afghanistan, the Taliban had successfully eradicated the opium poppy cultivation trade. Now, since the US led invasion of that country, Afghanistan provides 93% of the world's heroin production, or about $4 billion dollars in street value. So, not only are we losing the war on terrorism there, we are also losing the war on drugs. Is there anything the Bush administration can't botch?
Some people have accused US puppet Hamid Karzai of being soft on opium farming, even going so far as to protect the narcotics traffickers and opium producers because they are political allies.
So, with all the protections we have in the US from terrorist attacks, how does the heroin make it's way into the US?

"It's very difficult to say which smugglers are in the government," Hassenzoi said. "I don't know names. But I believe there are people in the government, and that is why we can't stop the smuggling. These people in the government are driving cars without license plates and with dark windows. Nobody knows who they are. Nobody can stop them."

The fall out from all this is that heroin use is rising among teenagers across the US. In order to prevent the Taliban from getting more recruits, we should look the other way while teenagers like Amy Bousfeld die? That is a sick foreign policy and a hypocritical drug policy.
The Taliban never attacked us on 9/11. After we invaded that country in 2001, following the attacks, we allowed al Qeada to slip into Pakistan while we installed former oil executive Karzai as a puppet president so that UNOCAL could build a pipeline through that country from the oil fields of Russia to port in Pakistan. During the jihad following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI used opium cultivation to fund the muhajadeen, but the Taliban had eradicated nearly all opium cultivation from Afghanistan.
Now the US government, not being satisfied with sending young men and women to their deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, have decided that the possibility of your child OD'ing isn't as important as achieving it's goals in the Middle East. Are we safer now that instead of our children becoming methheads, they're becoming junkies instead?

Welfare Warfare

The talking point coming out of the McCain campaign has been centered around the success of the "Surge". "Obama opposed the surge and look how successful it has been!" or words to that effect are being tossed around by the right in an attempt to derail the inevitable. But what they're not saying is that this surge of which they speak is actually a surge of cash to insurgents, paying them money (directly from tax payer's pockets) to not shoot each other, or US troops stationed in Iraq.
What it is, is subsidized unwarfare, coming from the same people who back in the eighties opposed paying people (usually intellectually unfit) to not work. Here's an idea, maybe if we withdrew our troops, we wouldn't have to pay them anything! Because the problem is the insurgents want more money not to kill each other. They must be getting paid in dollars. This is essentially extortion, especially for the neocons, who desperately need the surge to be a success in order to trick the moronic masses into voting for the Feebster, Flip-Floppin' Flapjack Johnny McCain.
But hey, it's not the neocons money! Hell no! They got a big tax cut from Bush (that McCain wants to make permanent) on all the cash they're raking in from the rest of us who are the ones paying for the war that 72% of troops stationed there oppose. But as long as the illusion can be maintained by the war mongers (with a little assistance from the corporate media)the beer swilling television watching imbeciles will think we need to waste our money time and resources in a war that can't be won because our credit can't be extended.

Douglas Feith Is Full Of Crap

So now we know. Douglas Feith is a chickenshit, or else just full of crap. In a segment to be aired on 60 Minutes, he claims that we invaded Iraq because we believed they were going to attack us.
Bullshit.
Feith, as co-author of A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing The Realm, called for removing Saddam Hussein in 1996, not because he was going to attack the United States, but because it would be good for Israel. So when Donald Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense in 2000 he specifically hired Feith to cherry pick and stove pipe intelligence against Iraq, before there ever was a 9/11. So while the reasons given now and then, the war was launched to liberate the Iraqi people( yes, they are much freer now), destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (which never existed, except in the paranoid minds of brainwashed right wing television watchers)(WMD) and to protect the United States( from a country we were already containing with no-fly zones and economic sanctions), the real reason is to protect Israel.
If there were such a thing as justice in this universe, people like Douglas Feith, and all the other neocons who lied us into the war in Iraq would be prosecuted for their crimes. Instead, they'll go on to a six-figure salary at some think-tank while the rest of us suffer under $4.00 a gallon gas, runaway inflation and all the other side effects Feith's decision to lie to the American people have caused. What a shithead!