A new steaming pile of Richard Viguerie's bullshit

Richard Viguerie: Conservatives, Beware of Fred Thompson

(Manassas, Virginia) The following are the main points made by Richard A. Viguerie, author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books, 2006), in his white paper, “Conservatives, Beware of Fred Thompson.”

The full article is on-line at
http://www.conservativesbetrayed.com/gw3/articles-latestnews/articles.php?CMSArticleID=1827&CMSCategoryID=19

Fred Thompson disappointed conservatives during his eight years in the Senate (1994-2002). Is there any reason to think this Washington insider and veteran trial lawyer would be any better as President?

Charged with investigating the Clinton White House’s Asia fundraising scandal (“Asiagate”), he proved to be a Marshmallow Republican. And the only time he played a major role on a major piece of legislation, he was on the wrong side of the fence: pushing for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill.

Why McCain-Feingold is so important—and so bad

The real purpose of McCain-Feingold type laws is to silence grassroots activists and protect incumbents. “You were essential to our success,” Senator Feingold told Fred Thompson.

He runs around with the wrong crowd.

He fails the Goldwater Test: Goldwater became the founder of the conservative movement because he alone spoke out publicly against the Big Government policies of Eisenhower. Fred Thompson has been silent—and complicit—about the Big Government policies of George W. Bush.

He fails the Reagan Test: Reagan was a conservative activist for years before he ran for president, and surrounded himself with top conservative aides. Fred Thompson is a stranger to the conservative movement and his longtime associates are not conservative. “Personnel is policy.”

Marshmallow Republicans: Instead he is an integral part of the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party, people like former Senator Howard Baker (of whom he is a protégé) and Senator Lamar Alexander.

There’s a reason why one of Washington, D.C.’s key media liberals is maneuvering for Fred Thompson.

With Thompson as the GOP candidate, liberals could rest easy, knowing their power is safe whether the Democrat or the Marshmallow Republican wins in 2008.

Putting Fred Thompson’s Senate voting record under a microscope

Viguerie looks at 18 votes on important issues to show that while Thompson talks like a conservative, he has worked to increase the power of the federal government, limit the rights of taxpayers and individual citizens, and shut grassroots activists out of the political process.

Fred Thompson on abortion: pro-life, pro-choice, or both?

There’s a good reason why people are confused about Fred Thompson’s stand on abortion. A President Thompson would give pro-life conservatives a lot of supportive rhetoric but little action. So what else is new?

Fred Thompson is not the conservative leader we need, says Viguerie

“For the past year, I have been preaching to conservatives that we should not align ourselves with those who have fatal flaws from a conservative perspective. The imminent entrance of Fred Thompson in the race doesn’t change a thing, for the reasons I have demonstrated here.

“Conservatives, let’s keep our powder dry. The GOP has taken us for granted. Conservatives should make the GOP and the candidates come to us, and let’s make them prove that they are worthy of our support.”

Many more details are contained in the article, “Conservatives, Beware of Fred Thompson,” on-line at
http://www.conservativesbetrayed.com/gw3/articles-latestnews/articles.php?CMSArticleID=1827&CMSCategoryID=19

Where to begin. Jesus, Dick Viguerie is a consumate bullshitter. He knows what he writes and says is either out right lies or half-truths and he doesn't care. I mean scaring the poor dupes who subscribe to this bullshit about McCain-Feingold protecting incumbents. Viguerie knows that Newt Gingrich's Contract with America called for "...term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators." And that was a promise which was promptly forgotten. In states with clean money clean election laws there is a higher rate of turnover than in states without publically financed campaigns laws. Unrestricted campaign contributions by specaial intrest groups, masquerading as "grassroots" organizations, lead to political stagnancy. Politicians become more beholding to major contributors than the citizens they were elected to represent.

I could go on and on about Dick Viguerie but it would get boring. The important thing to remember is that Viguerie is just one of a myriad of Republican operatives whose business is to fool some of the people all of the time.

Jimmy Carter said America deserves a government as good as its people. And from what I've seen a good majority of the American people are dupes, chumps, tools, fools, true belivers, useful idiots, fellow travels and willfully ignorant. So it is true, we have the government we deserve.

Pat Condell: "Religion and Politics"

Pity the poor mercenary

I recently read Blackwater The Rise Of The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, by Jeremy Scahill. One of the unifying themes in Scahill's tome is the March 31, 2004 ambush and slaughter of four Blackwater mercenaries in Fallujah, Iraq.

Since that time the families of the victims, Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Scott Helvenston and Michael Teague, have been seeking to fix blame upon whom ordered two four-men teams consisting of two mercs per SUV, rather than the usual six-man teams (two SUVs with three mercs per vehicle), to escort an executive of "catering" firm ESS from the Jordanian border to Baghdad. One team, Bravo 2, drove around Fallujah, the other team of Zovko, Batablona, Helvenston and Teague,coded-named November 1, took a route right down main street. And the rest, as they say, is history.

We pick up the action in a news story by Joseph Neff of The Raleigh-Durham News & Observer.com:

The Bravo 2 team memos, in emotional, coarse and damning language, placed the blame squarely on Blackwater's Baghdad site manager, Tom Powell.

"Why did we all want to kill him?" team member Daniel Browne wrote the following day. "He had sent us on this [expletive] mission and over our protest. We weren't sighted in, we had no maps, we had not enough sleep, he was taking 2 of our guys cutting off [our] field of fire. As we went over these things we new the other team had the same complaints. They too had their people cut."

The families of the four men killed in the ambush -- Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Scott Helvenston and Michael Teague -- sued Blackwater in Wake County Superior Court in an effort to find out what happened. Blackwater countersued the estates of the four men in federal court, successfully arguing for arbitration, in which the proceedings are closed to the public and the investigation of the incident can be much more limited.

Powell, the site manager, left Blackwater shortly after the Fallujah incident. He will not discuss the event while litigation is pending, said his attorney, Clifford Higby of Panama City, Fla. Efforts to reach the other Blackwater contractors for comment were unsuccessful.

There is a discrepancy here, however. According to Scahill:

[O]n March 24 the company removed [John] Potter as program manager, replacing him with [Justin] McQuown, who, according to the families' lawyers, was far more willing than Potter to overlook security considerations in the interest of profits. It was this corporate greed, combined with McQuown's animosity toward Scott Helvenston, which began at the training in North Carolina, that the families allege played a significant role in the deaths of Helvenston and the other three contractors.

The night before he left, Helvenston sent an e-mail to the "Owner, President and Upper Management" of Blackwater, subject: "extreme unprofessionalism." In this e-mail, obtained by The Nation, he complained that the behavior of McQuown (referred to as "Justin Shrek" in the e-mail) was "very manipulative, duplicitive [sic], immature and unprofessional." He describes how his original team leader tried to appeal to Shrek not to reassign him, but, Helvenston wrote, "I think [the team leader] felt that there was a hidden agenda. 'Lets see if we can screw with Scott.'" Those were some of the last words Helvenston would ever write.

So the question is: was McQuown merely taking orders from Powell or was he acting on his own?

Really why should any of us care? What is really at issue is "What is the root cause of those four men's deaths?" Let's turn to an October 24, 2004 story by Neff and co-writer Jay Price for that answer:

Jerry Zovko's contract with Blackwater USA looked straightforward: He would earn $600 a day guarding convoys that carried food for U.S. troops in Iraq.

But that cost -- $180,000 a year -- was just the first installment of what taxpayers were asked to pay for Zovko's work. Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., and three other companies would add to the bill, and to their profits.

So from my perspective the real villains of this piece are not Tom Powell, Justin "Shrek" McQuown or even Blackwater founder Eric Prince but "free market" fundamentalism and the privatization of essential governmental services, both of which skip hand-in-hand with Christian fundamentalism.

And let us ask, "What if the Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq that day had had a union and a union stewart and had filed a grevience against McQuown or Powell; or had refused the order on contractual grounds?"

Of course "free market" fundamentalism leaves no room for trade or labor unions. Moreover, every newly hired mercenary, as I understand from reading Scahill's book, is led to believe that he or she has signed an exclusive "personal" contract with Blackwater, though it is merely a company-wide standard agreement. In otherwords, Blackwater is playing their libertarian, free market fundamentalist mercenaries for chumps, true believers and Blackwater CEO Eric Prince is laughing all the way to the bank.

Blackwater, Prince and the mercenary industry in general is playing all us Americans for chumps, for according to a July 4, 2007 news story by LA Times reporter T. Christian Miller. Miller writes that as of that time there are 180,000 civilians, both American and foreign, under contract by the United States government in Iraq mostly engaged in traditional building trades, food service and truck driving duties. However, Miller continues

But there are also signs that even those mounting numbers may not capture the full picture. Private security contractors, who are hired to protect government officials and buildings, were not fully counted in the survey, according to industry and government officials.

The number of private security contractors in Iraq remains unclear, despite Central Command's latest census. The Times identified 21 security companies in the Central Command database, deploying 10,800 men.

However, the Defense Department's [Gary] Motsek, who monitors contractors, said the Pentagon estimated the total was 6,000.

Both figures are far below the private security industry's own estimate of about 30,000 private security contractors working for government agencies, nonprofit organizations, media outlets and businesses.

Don't kid yourself. These "private security contractors" are mercenaries, soldiers-for-hire, who receive the biggest chuck of their inflated salaries from the U.S. government either directly, as praetorians for the U.S. ambassador in Iraq and Afghanistan, or indirectly. Hardly anything "free market" about that arrangement.

Another Richard Viguerie update

The bullshit never ends:

Richard Viguerie: Liberals Cry Crocodile Tears on Libby

(Manassas, Virginia) The following is a statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of Conservative HQ.com and author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause, regarding the reaction of the news media to President Bush’s commutation of the prison sentence of Scooter Libby:

“Political liberals and their colleagues in the media have gone into orbit over President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence and are shedding enormous amounts of crocodile tears.

“No one should be shocked by this outrage from the Left. Twenty-four/seven attacks on the commutation are all about the 2008 presidential election.

“This is an exact replay of President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974. By a constant drumbeat of attacks on Ford for the Nixon pardon, they knew they would damage him politically in the 1976 presidential race. And of course, their plan worked perfectly.

“Everyone should be clear that the attacks on Bush and Libby are not about whether or not the prison sentence should have been commuted. This assault is an early artillery barrage to damage the Republicans and elect a Democratic president and Congress in 2008.”

This fuck is betting we forget that back in the spring of this year his panties were in a wad because Bush was "abusing" The Constitution.

They could have build their bicycle trails with this much money!

If the world can get any insaner, if that's really a word, the big business mokes pushing the tri-county local option sales tax, Yes to Destiny, are in the running for going from comparative insanity to the superlative.

'Destiny' supporters raise $455,000
By JEFF ECKHOFF
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Supporters of the proposed "Yes to Destiny" sales tax increase have raised $455,000 over the past six months for a grand total of $770,000 since a political campaign was formed last year to pitch their proposal.

Campaign finance reports filed Thursday show Yes to Destiny has spent more than $402,052 since January to advocate a plan that would raise the Des Moines-area sales tax from 6 cents to 7 cents per dollar.
The Des Moines Register.com

One of the big selling points for this regressive tax scheme is the construction of more bicycle trails. There is little analysis on the Internet of the cost of constructing bicycle trails. The only one, and best, I can find on Google is a study posted April 2004 on the American Journal of Public Health's Web site, on bike and pedestrain trails in Linclon, NE. I'll post the abstract of the study:

We estimated the annual cost of bike and pedestrian trails in Lincoln, Neb, using construction and maintenance costs provided by the Department of Parks and Recreation of Nebraska. We obtained the number of users of 5 trails from a 1998 census report. The annual construction cost of each trail was calculated by using 3%, 5%, and 10% discount rates for a period of useful life of 10, 30, and 50 years. The average cost per mile and per user was calculated.

Trail length averaged 3.6 miles (range = 1.6–4.6 miles). Annual cost in 2002 dollars ranged from $25 762 to $248 479 (mean = $124 927; median = $171 064). The cost per mile ranged from $5735 to $54 017 (mean = $35 355; median = $37 994). The annual cost per user was $235 (range = $83–$592), whereas per capita annual medical cost of inactivity was $622.

Construction of trails fits a wide range of budgets and may be a viable health amenity for most communities. To increase trail cost-effectiveness, efforts to decrease cost and increase the number of users should be considered.

That $770,000 would go a long way to building and extending bicycle trails in central Iowa, even in 2007 dollars. But how did "our" civic leaders spend part of the money raised? Again The Des Moines Register:

"Yes to Destiny" supporters have spent more than $357,250 on consultants in the past six months, an amount that includes $194,511 to a California company that worked on a controversial election flier campaign.

Campaign finance documents made public this week show the Strategy Group, a Pasadena, Calif., direct-mail firm that has worked for such prominent Democratic politicians as Sen. Barak Obama, former President Bill Clinton, Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Leonard Boswell, will eventually earn $232,530 for its work on the sales tax campaign.

The lion's share of consulting fees goes to Polk County Democratic Party functionaries, though county Republicans get a tidy percentage also.

A Supreme Court decision that slipped under the radar

Here's a United States Supreme Court decision of greater import to every one in the United States than striking down an affirmative action law.

Manufacturers will have greater leeway to set minimum prices at the retail level without violating antitrust laws under a Thursday Supreme Court ruling that could hurt consumers and small merchants (emphasis added by me).

By allowing minimum price agreements, the court's 5-4 decision could lead to higher prices, dissenting justices said, as it becomes more difficult for smaller stores and Internet retailers to offer lower-priced goods.

The court said agreements on minimum prices are legal if they promote competition, meaning accusations of antitrust violations will be evaluated case by case.

In a 1991 decision, the Supreme Court had declared that minimum pricing agreements always violate federal antitrust law. But Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that the principle that past decisions should be left alone "does not compel our continued adherence" in this instance.
Forbes.com

Kennedy added that "consumers," business code for two-legged, dullwitted cattle, will actually benefit because big retailers can now invest in more "customer service" without having to worry about being undercut by discout rivels. And the big retail chains will be adding more new and innovative products becuase they can recoup marketing costs faster by charging higher prices, he concluded.

Oddly enough, or maybe not so, one of the biggest winners in this decision is Wal Mart, founded on the philosopy of undercutting prices of its cheif rivels K-Mart and Permida (a discount retail chain I only saw in small Iowa towns and which now may be defunct.) The ruling protects large retail chains from competition from Internet discounters and small family-owned retailers.

So chalk up another victory for pbig business.

"Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass."*

Get out the puke bucket and the gas mask!It's time for an e-mail update from the King of Reactionary Direct Mailers, Richard Viguerie!

What was it about Jerry Falwell that, even after his death, drives liberals crazy?

Journalist Christopher Hitchens called the minister "a little toad" with "chubby little flanks" and called his ministry a "get rich quick scheme,” adding that Falwell may not have read the Bible: "I would doubt that be could actually read any long book…at all.” Said Hitchens: “I think it’s a pity there isn’t a Hell for him to go to.”

Alan Wolfe of Salon.com wrote: "One never wants to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Jerry Falwell, how can one not?"

In the Calgary Sun, Kathleen Parker wrote: "Jerry Falwell's prosaic death has elevated speaking ill of the dead to the level of sacrament.”

Bill Maher, on his HBO program, remarked, regarding Falwell, that "Death is not always sad.”

Amanda Marcotte, John Edwards's former campaign blogger, wrote: "The gates of Hell swing open and Satan welcomes his beloved son.”

In the New York Times, columnist Frank Rich wrote, "Mr. Falwell was always on the wrong, intolerant side of history...Mr. Falwell had long been an embarrassment and laughingstock to many, including a new generation of Christian leaders."

Cathleen Faisani, religion writer for the Chicago Sun Times, wrote that "my initial reaction to the Rev. Falwell’s death was, and remains a relief…The Rev. Falwell was a spiritual bully. He was Tony Soprano."

During one report, CNN lingered for 15 seconds on a protester's sign that placed Falwell's face next to Hitler’s.

Beyond these gratuitous insults were statements in the mainstream media about Dr. Falwell’s legacy that showed a lack of understanding of Falwell, his followers, and the broader world of Christian conservatives.

One reporter or commentator after, another suggested that Dr. Falwell's power waned in the last 20 years. In fact, he simply changed his focus--from a short-term emphasis on direct political activity to a long-term emphasis or producing new leaders for America and the world.

The Falwell legacy includes:

Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, which Dr. Falwell founded in 1965. In 40 years, his 35-member congregation grew to 22,000.

"The Old Time Gospel Hour," the longest-continuously-running religious program on television

Liberty Channel, a satellite-cable network offering inspirational, family-friendly programming;

Liberty Godparent Foundation, helping unwed pregnant teenagers, babies, and adoptive families through a maternity home and an adoption agency.

Elim Home, providing a place of protection and care for men recovering from drug and alcohol addiction.

Liberty Counsel, with affiliate attorneys in all 50 states, providing free legal assistance on matters related to religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and the traditional family.

Liberty Christian Academy, an accredited institution with 1,000 students in pre-school through the 12th grade.

Liberty University, which is creating a new generation of religious-conservative leaders, with a current enrollment of 9,600 on-campus students and over 18,000 in off-campus distance learning programs. The Liberty University debate team has won national championships in all three intercollegiate debating associates for two consecutive years. The first class just graduated from Liberty University's law school.

Since Liberty University was founded in 1971, it has produced more than 190,000 graduates, including about 11,000 who have become pastors and are carrying on the ideas they learned from Dr. Falwell.

Over the next 10 years, Liberty University is on schedule to graduate over 200,000 conservative Christians who will be future leaders in ministries, the law, public policy, and politics. A school of engineering will start in the Fall and a medical school is in the works as well.

Before Jerry Falwell, most evangelical Protestants--if they were involved in politics at all--were Democrats. They made up Jimmy Carter’s base, without which he could never have been elected president.

But after Carter’s IRS falsely attacked Christian schools as segregation academies, and after Carter supported items on the left-wing agenda such as the so-called Equal Rights Amendment, Jerry Falwell helped bring millions of social and religious conservatives into politics on the side of Ronald Reagan and other political conservatives.

The Republican Party owed its 1994-2006 majority in Congress to the tens of millions of former Democrats who followed Jerry Falwell into the GOP.

At the same time, Dr. Falwell broke down ages-old barriers between conservative Protestants and Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and others.

Peter Applebome wrote in the New York Times that Falwell “helped pull off what had once seemed an impossible task: uniting religious conservatives from many faiths and doctrines by emphasizing what they had in common.”

NBC’s Tim Russert acknowledged that Falwell was able to “suggest that religious people, whether they be Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, could come together on conservative issues and have real political influence.”

Zev Chafets, who has written extensively about the relationship between evangelicals and Jews, wrote in the Los Angeles Times that “American Jews who now take evangelical friendship for granted need to know that it is, to a large extent, a grant from Jerry Falwell.”

A man, beloved by almost everyone who knew him, overcame ages-old divisions and brought millions together in a cause that changed the course of history. Dr. Falwell’s legacy will continue to be felt in our nation for decades to come.

Here's what makes Vigerie such a bullshitter. A real American conservative like *Berry Goldwater stood for keeping religion out of politics. Vigerie, on the other hand, welcomes religion in politics.

Update on "Atheist & Marine" "joke"

Older Music Geek's Stupid Stuff has posted the "orginal" version of the "joke" I posted Sunday, "The Atheist and The Marine." He says he got both from me, but I only claim the 2007 version.

Nazis laugh at the funniest things!

Received in my e-mail Inbox this morning:

THE ATHEIST AND THE MARINE

( God this doesn't get any better)


A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was a vowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes."

The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, "Here I am God. I'm still waiting." It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his Chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.

The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, "What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?" The Marine calmly replied, "God was too busy today protecting America 's soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole. So, He sent me."

I fail to find anything humorous in this "joke." But it does illustrate the mindset of the right wing, a violent, militarist mindset.

I suppose I shouldn't have used "Nazi" in my title, as it is a loaded word, but I can also well imagine the same "joke" being told in Germany, c. 1936 or so. Instead of a marine substitute your run-of-the-mill Heer soldat and substitute the punchline with something like:"The Fuhrer was too busy today protecting Germany from Jewish criminals so you can say stupid shit and act like an asshole. So, I acted in the name of Hitler! Sieg heil!!" Ha, ha, ha. Funny stuff, that.

Perhaps the "joke" is a response to piece posted earlier this month at NewsMutiny.com, a little known Internet humor site with some of the most biting satire on the Web. Let quote some of I'd Like to Thank the Troops for Fighting for My Freedom to Say Incredibly Stupid Shit by the fictional George Powers:

Which is why I'd like to thank the troops for fighting for my freedom to say such incredibly stupid shit. Because, naturally, if it weren't for the thousands of American soldiers who've been killed or injured in the civil war triggered by the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government four years ago, I wouldn't be able to go around shooting my mouth off about all the dumb crap that creeps into my head whenever and wherever I want to. The terrorists would have taken over and shredded the Constitution by now, severely impairing my capacity to get people to notice me by aggravating the fuck out of them by regurgitating with impunity the kind of mindless drivel I just got through spewing.

Now, lest you should get the wrong impression, I'm not some communist pussy who professes unconditional support for the freedom of speech, because how controversial would that be? On the contrary, just the other day I posted a message in an internet discussion forum saying people who openly oppose the Bush administration should be shaved bald and put into work camps weaving their former hair into wigs for more patriotic Americans who've been afflicted with cancer or male pattern baldness. You should've seen how many responses I got for that one. I believe it was some kind of site record.

Of course, the scope of the kind of expression I hold the troops in gratitude for protecting from the sinister machinations of the evil-doers is not limited to the incredibly stupid spoken word alone. Rather, thanks to those soldiers' brave sacrifice, I can still wear an attention grabbing t-shirt that reads "Stop Your Global Whining!" around town or put a huge homemade poster of Barack Obama in a turbin with a talk balloon that says "I'm a fag" on my garage.

Well, that last one I ended up having to take down after the home owner's association got wind of it, but that's okay. After all, authority should be obeyed, and I could move out of the neighborhood if I don't like it. Much the same way all these pro-terrorist liberals should stop flapping their gums about the Patriot Act and saving the trees and go move to China if they don't like freedom anymore.

Funny stuff, that. And a tid bit too close to reality for comfort but that is the mark of truly good satire.

Mother & cancer victim, 42, ready to ship out to Iraq

From the way the BuzzFlash.com headline read--Worthy of Monty Python, Except This is the Real Tragedy Bush Has Brought Us: GI to serve in Iraq after cancer battle. "The 42-year-old mother of two from Los Angeles is again poised for duty after an aggressive treatment plan — including a May 22 lumpectomy, a second surgery a week later and a five-day targeted radiation treatment."--I was going to feel sorry for this woman. But then I read the body of the Yahoo.com AP news story:

Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Cowie's mission — and dream — of serving in Iraq almost ended before it began when tests on a tumor confirmed the worst: She had breast cancer.

The commander said, 'Are you sure? You have an opportunity to go home and be with your family and go through this.' And I said, 'No, I have a family here. I have my civilian family, but this is where I need to be and where I'm needed,'" Cowie said.
Soldiers with a history of cancer who need monitoring every six months or less should not deploy, according to Army guidelines. But they can still deploy depending upon the soldier's condition, input from doctors and commanding officers, and conditions where the soldier is assigned.

Cowie qualified because she decided to forgo a potentially six-week radiation treatment and instead use a concentrated therapy, MammoSite. The procedure implants an angioplasty-like balloon that kills lingering cancer cells with radiation while sparing healthy tissue.

O.K., so sue me. But how can you feel human compassion for some one who willfully walks into harms way for an unjust cause? How can you feel human compassion for someone willingly accepting the role of cannon fodder for a morally bankrupt government and political system? How can you feel human compassion for a person who volunteers to oppress the rights of people half-a-world away who have done her no wrong?

WTF???

I received this rather odd picture in my e-mail this morning, accompanied by a request.

Forward this message the same day you received it. It may sound ridiculous, but it is right on time. We believe that something is about to happen. Angels exist, only sometimes they haven't got wings and we call them friends; you are one of them. Something wonderful is about to happen to you and your friends. Tomorrow at __9:12AM___ somebody will address you and tell you something you have been waiting to hear. Please do not break this chain. Send it to at least 7 of your friends.

I can't forward this. First of all I don't have seven friends, so I'm breakin' the chain. Also, I find the picture just the slightest bit disturbing. I mean what's with the sword. Is the "angel" with the sword about to decapitate the praying "angel." I wonder if the "artist" rended this work with a pun on "pray" and "prey" in mind. After all, the kneeling "praying" angel certainly appears to be "prey" for the angel looming up behind, sword in hand.

I always thought guardian angels were more of the Hansel and Gretel variety. Or
on the order of this Nineteenth Century drawing of a newly emancipated
black man, shooing away flies away while a genteel white lady dines. This picture, we are told, was executed in 1876 by one James Wells Champney and simply titled The guardian angel--Eagle Hotel, Asheville .

But I suppose it's a sign of the times that a "guardian angel," as comely as she may appear, would be armed and prepared for action, dealing out mayhem and death when the need arises. I can well imagine a young christian mother whispering softly, as she tucks her darling children into bed, "Sleep tight, little ones. Your guardian angel, with her razor sharp sword will protect you from terrorists and liberals."

About this, I hate being right

I can't begin to remember how many times over the past four years I've said or written that the United States will never leave Iraq until and unless either one of two events happen: Either a battlefield defeat of American forces in detail, meaning high U.S. casualties followed by a mass surrender, and considering the weapons and training of the Iraqi "insurgents," whoever they may be at any given time, a high unlikely scenario; or a general mutiny of all, or at the very least a sizable majority, army and marine units now in Iraq.

So this morning BuzzFlash.com starts the day off with this headline:

Surprise! The "Surge" Was Just an Excuse to Increase Long-Term Troop Levels in Iraq! Dang, You Could Have Fooled Us! "Conditions in Iraq will not improve sufficiently by September to justify a drawdown of U.S. military forces, the top commander in Iraq said yesterday." Commitment to Last For Years, Petraeus Claims.

Which links us to a news story out of the Washington Post.com that says:

Conditions in Iraq will not improve sufficiently by September to justify a drawdown of U.S. military forces, the top commander in Iraq said yesterday.

Asked whether he thought the job assigned to an additional 30,000 troops deployed as the centerpiece of President Bush's new war strategy would be completed by then, Gen. David H. Petraeus replied: "I do not, no. I think that we have a lot of heavy lifting to do."

Asserting steady, albeit slow, military and political progress, Petraeus said that the "many, many challenges" would not be resolved "in a year or even two years." Similar counterinsurgency operations, he said, citing Britain's experience in Northern Ireland, "have gone at least nine or 10 years." He said he and Crocker would make "some recommendations on the way ahead" to Congress, and that it was realistic to assume "some form of long-term security arrangement" with Iraq.

Why am I not surprized. What with 14 permanant bases being constructed at this very minute in Iraq. With the Democratic failure to even send a stripped-down war funding bill to the White House with a timeline for withdrawal last month. With Cindy Sheehan resigning as the public face of domestic resistance to the Iraq occupation. Nope, the country's stuck in Iraq for at least the next ten years. And that's about the only truth in General Petraeus' remarkds.

There is another reason that the United States will not get out of Iraq anytime soon.

Take for example the poor slub seen here, 34-year-old Army Pfc Michale Pittman of Davenport Iowa.

The Des Moines Register story implies, Pittman enlisted rather late in life out of economic necessity, "Pittman attended Rock Island High School and worked as a painter before joining the Army." Apparently the poor deluded bastard was also one of these *quote-unquote* Christians who is out to prepare the world for christ's second coming, convert heathens and kill infidels.

Mr. Pittman's mother, co-pastor of some bible-thumping church or other in Moline, Il, is quoted in Sunday's Quad Cities Times.com

“I thought it was going to happen to anybody’s son, not Michael,” Sandra Hughes said Saturday night when asked whether she worried about this day coming. “I put him in God’s hands and I prayed. I don’t understand it. But you don’t question God. God works out everything for good for those who love him, and I know Michael is in heaven.”

Awww,how charitable of Mrs. Hughes, thinking, hoping that god might not visit a grusome, pointless death upon her Michael. But now he's a christian martyr up in Jesus's heaven waging war on those terrible Muslim martyrs from Muhammand's heaven. Just fuck all of them.

LTE: June 14, 2007

Besides the fact that the local option sales tax proposed by Project Destiny is regressive (meaning, for those of you who don't know, than even small purchases by children will be subsidizing Principal's property tax), the one-third earmarked for "cultural attractions" smells of corruption and cronyism even before it gets out of the gate. Look at the track record of another unelected, not-accountable-to-the-voters area-wide board, CIETC; imagine the cesspool another such board will be, overseeing who gets what and how much for the tri-counties' so-called "cultural attractions."

For instance, if pro-sales tax leaders are so clearly concerned about new, and expanding existing, bicycle trails, a "cultural attreaction" by their accounts, why didn't they simply take the $177,500 donated by the five top corporate contributors to Yes To Destiny and use it toward the purpose?

If yes To Destiny wants my vote, and as of this time it is firmly in the NO column, then it will drop all talk of one-third of total sales tax receipts going to "regional and/or cultural attractions."

I'm no philistine but, sorry, bicycle trails and waterparks ain't gonna cut it with me.

If Project Destiny wants to pitch a project I can endorse, then start talking about construction of a high-speed light rail system connecting all the major urban ares of the tri-county area. I mean with no end in sight to rising gasoline prices and no political will to stop urban sprawl, high-speed light rail would be a better utilization of revenue collected.

Yep, "illegal" immigration will never go away

If anyone needed more proof that the right wing is fashioning "illegal" immigration into '08's "abortion," one need go no further than that old deceiver Richard Viguerie's lattest email missive:

(Manassas, Virginia) Richard A. Viguerie, co-author of America’s Right Turn--How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power (Bonus Books, 2004), celebrated the defeat of the cloture motion in the Senate on the Amnesty Bill and attributed it to conservative New and Alternative Media and grassroots efforts to overcome the pressure from the White House and the Left.

Viguerie said conservatives using blogs, e-mail messages, websites, radio talk shows, cable TV, and direct mail were able to bypass the Left’s near monopoly of old media.

“Ordinary citizens were able to have their voices clearly heard in Washington, D.C., something that wouldn’t have happened a few decades ago,” he said.

“I dare say that for the last week, every blog and radio talk show in the nation was buzzing about this legislation. The opposition to President Bush’s amnesty program for illegal aliens was very intense. Even Senators who are normally isolated from public opinion felt the heat,” Viguerie said.

Viguerie, like Lenin, whips up a small, hardcore cadre of neoKnow-Nothings, nativists and just plain, old fashioned racial bigots into jamming Congressional telephone switchboards and e-mails into opposing the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill.

The current situation, as bad as it is, benefits the business community too much. There will never be a solution to "illegal" immigration, no fences built on the border, no amnesty or deportation.

Why does the Register even print this stuff

Grassley, King to Bush: Enforce immigration laws
JANE NORMAN
REGISTER WASHINGTON BUREAU


June 12, 2007
Washington, D.C. — Two Iowa Republicans called on President Bush today to
enforce current immigration laws, as the president traveled to the Capitol to plead with Senate Republicans to accept an immigration overhaul that he backs.

Both Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Steve King remained opposed to bipartisan legislation pushed by the Bush administration, amid a widening split in the GOP over the volatile immigration issue.

Grassley today with eight other Republican senators sent a letter to the president telling him to enforce border security laws already approved by Congress, whether or not Congress approves legislation.

"Thousands cross our southern border every night, in violation of American law, and President Bush's answer is to try and change that law," said King. "Instead of empty promises and self-destructive amnesty, I call on the president to enforce our rule of law."
The Des Moines Register

I was going to send'em a letter but what's the point. Grassley's in the corporationist's corner and King trawls racist sewers for votes. That, my friends, pretty much sums up the core of today's Republican Party.

Oh, yes, and one more thing, nothing will be done about "illegal" immigration this year, next year or in the foreseeable future.

Of Paris Hilton and George W. Bush

Thanks to BuzzFlash.com for linking to a excellent essay by A. Alexander at The Progressive Daily Beacon.com, America's Lords and Masters: The Trust-Fund Babies.

Neither Paris Hilton nor George W. Bush has any clue whatsoever what life is like for the average person. And, don't think for a moment these mollycoddled brats give a damn either.

Is it really any wonder America has come so completely undone, so quickly? The very first time someone actually dared to hold Paris Hilton to account and she dissolved into a tearful, bed-wetting temper tantrum. And, George W. Bush is no better. Whenever Congress or a reporter makes an attempt at holding him to account for his many failures, the man's demeanor changes completely...and he pitches a little two-year-old-like temper tantrum.

Everyday and in everyway every working-class American stares down more pressure and trouble than Paris Hilton could ever dream of facing for one second in her meaningless, filled-to-the-brim with everything and yet, completely empty life.

The American aristocracy: the parasites living within the intestines of America's democracy, sucking it dry of all its vital life forces. They are America's would-be-rulers-by-birthright --- the trust-fund Lords and Masters(emphasis added.)

The further shores.......

Alexander Cockburn, the oh, so anti-capitalist editor-in-chief of Counterpunch, of is at it again, going the full-tilt bozo contrarian route to dismiss the currently accepted view of humanities' impact on global warming.

Take his latest opus Sources and Authorities
Dissidents Against Dogma. Writes The Nation's editors, home of Cockburn's "Beat the Devil" feature, where this column had it genesis:"In contrast, many of Cockburn's most contentious assertions in his recent columns came from unpublished papers." Cockburn also quotes such global warming deneiers as Zbigniew Jaworowski and Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov (sic.).

Of course, Cockburn makes his case by telling one and all that his fulmination is aimed squarely at the nuclear power industry, whose dastardly deeds he will manfully thwart all on his own if need be.

Which leads me to wonder if Cockburn owns stock options with the wind turbine power companies, oil & gas or both?

New Arkansas GOP Chair:"all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]"

A Fruedian slip? Or does newly promoted Arkansas Republican State Party Chairman Dennis Milligan know something?

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,”
NWANews.com

It's a stupid statement, to be sure, but is there more than meets the eye?

The sicks get sicker

I think the news story posted by the Turkish Weekly.net is a tad bit alarmist, it says:

WASHINGTON — In an era enveloped in large-scale violence and militarism, one of the fastest growing American companies is marketing a controversial product line designed for young children that combines military paraphernalia with the Christian faith.

The majority of the 31 items in the "Soldier of God" product line are decorated with military camouflage colors.

The products are stamped with crosses or crusader crests, as well as the slogan "Soldier of God" amidst stars and stripes.

So I click into the Oriental Trading Company's Web site and found this:

"What Would Jesus Do?" Dog Tag Necklaces. Be a soldier in God's army! Spirit-filled kids love wearing these "What Would Jesus Do?" dog tag necklaces! Tuck them in treat bags at V.B.S. parties and buy extras for your child to share with friends at church camps! Each 2" metal dog tag is on a 24" chain and has a special symbol of faith! © OTC

And this:

Religious Dog Tag Necklaces.
Show your faith with this military-inspired dog tag jewelry. Featuring a painted cross and a spiritual saying, these colorful pendants are the perfect gift for God's soldiers and V.B.S. students! Each 2" printed metal dog tag has a 24" silvertone chain.

Not quite the bloodthirsty, death-to-infidels crap Turkish Weekly.net would lead one to believe but disturbing enough. I didn't find any Bible-thumping G.I. Joe dolls or camo wearing, gun-toting Barbie action figures, though if a buck can be made I'm sure these will soon follow.

Retired British General:'We can't win, so pull troops out of Iraq'

There are signs of intelligent life forms on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

General Sir Michael Rose, a former commander of the UN peace force in Bosnia during the 1990s, said the American and British forces in Iraq were in an impossible situation.

"There is no way we are going to win the war and [we should] withdraw and accept defeat because we are going to lose on a more important level if we don't," he said.

While accepting the allied forces couldn't just "cut and run", Sir Michael said announcing a date for withdrawal would quell widespread fighting between the Sunnis, Shias and Kurds.
Scotsman.com

This contrasts nicely with the moronic blathering of presidential candidate John McCain, who said in an appearance at a Des Moines insurance company yesterday:

Most Americans should accept a long-term United States military presence in Iraq as long as the number of U.S. casualties can drop to almost nothing, Sen. John McCain said Friday.

"The key to this issue is not American presence, but American casualties," he told a standing-room-only crowd of about 250 employees at Nationwide Insurance's offices.

"We have had troops in South Korea for 60 years and nobody minds," McCain said. "If you stay a long, long time, but have the Iraqis doing the fighting, and your people are back in the bases and away from the firing line, I think Americans would be satisfied."
The Des Moines Register.com

LTE: May 31, 2007

Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen needs to re-examine his definition of courage before applying the word to Delaware Senator Joe Biden, "Biden's vote for war funding a profile in courage," May 31,2007 .

Biden's stated reason for siding with the president and Congressional Republicans is that he wants to give our troops all the tools they need to do their job in Iraq, a sentiment often echoed by our own Congressman Leonard Boswell. Yet does the good senator think we, the voters, are so naive as to think our soldiers' job in Iraq is to hand out chocolates and flowers, and build hospitals and schools? The job of our troops in Iraq, quoting Chief Warrant Officer Jim Funk, as profiled by John Carlson, is to "...bust and kill the enemy[.]"

The unstated reason Biden and a majority of Democrats in the Senate and the US House voted for the Iraq ward funding bill is, the Defense Department and defense contractors do business in every state and congressional district in the country. The opportunity to bring home the pork while getting hefty campaign contributions from DoD contractors is simply too good to pass up.

It did not take much backbone for the Democratic presidential candidate to cast his vote with the 80-vote majority of U.S. Senators who handed President George Bush a $100 billion check to continue the occupation of Iraq, at least until September of this year. But do not expect any change then, as White House spokesman Tony Snow, to little press notice on May 30, said President Bush envisions a U.S. presence in Iraq similar to that of South Korea, where American troops have been stationed for over fifty years and counting.

Bush: US to be in Iraq forever

Here y'go peacniks. I been saying for months now that the United States would be in Iraq for a very long time and, the only way out would be a complete and total defeat and surrender of American forces or a general mutiny. Well cast your orbs on this:

WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush would like to see a lengthy U.S. troop presence in Iraq like the one in South Korea to provide stability but not in a frontline combat role, the White House said on Wednesday.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush would like to see a U.S. role in Iraq ultimately similar to that in South Korea.

"The Korean model is one in which the United States provides a security presence, but you've had the development of a successful democracy in South Korea over a period of years, and, therefore, the United States is there as a force of stability," Snow told reporters.
AlertNet.org

Gee, how soon we forget this oft ignored and poo-poo'd news story from 2004

14 `enduring bases' set in Iraq
Long-term military presence planned

By Christine Spolar

From the ashes of abandoned Iraqi army bases, U.S. military engineers are overseeing the building of an enhanced system of American bases designed to last for years.

Now U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 "enduring bases," long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years. The bases also would be key outposts for Bush administration policy advisers.

As the U.S. scales back its military presence in Saudi Arabia, Iraq provides an option for an administration eager to maintain a robust military presence in the Middle East and intent on a muscular approach to seeding democracy in the region. The number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq, between 105,000 and 110,000, is expected to remain unchanged through 2006, according to military planners.
from Chicago Tribune, March 23, 2004 posted at Globalsecurity.org

Obviously with Congressional Democrats giving Bush the pocket change he nedds to continue the Iraq occupation, the administration must feel safe that it can stop the lying about long range U.S. plans for Iraq.

Joe Biden: War profiteer

Just about the time I was ready to give Joe Biden a little slack the jackass votes to give Bush all the frickin' money he wants to continue the Iraq occupation. Then the Delaware-slick has the balls to say he's committed to supporting the troops while at the same time pressuring the pResident to end the occupation. What fucking utter nonsense.

Combover Joe is pushing the introduction of "Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles" to keep our soldiers and Marines safer, so they can do their job more efficiently. Might I remind you that the solider's "job" is to kill some people, capture and incarcerate the ones not killed and oppress the rest. The Iraqi occupation is warfare more in line with Ceasar's conquest and occupation of Gaul than the liberation of France in World War II.

But, of course, seeking to keep his Democratic anti-war bono fides in tact, following handing Bush a blank check on Iraq last week, Combover Joe introducted legislation to repeal the 2002 Iraq war authorization. Somehow that seems to me to be tantamount to letting the horse out of the barn after it has burned down.

Iraqi refugees "westernize" Syria

Now here's a bit of news that should get the reactionary crowds' hearts atwitter:

For anyone living in Damascus [Syria] these days, the fact that some Iraqi refugees are selling sex or working in sex clubs is difficult to ignore.

Even in central Damascus, men freely talk of being approached by pimps trawling for customers outside juice shops and shawarma sandwich stalls, and of women walking up to passing men, an act unthinkable in Arab culture, and asking in Iraqi-accented Arabic if the men would like to “have a cup of tea.”
New York Times

This is wonderful news, is it not? The business of sex is one of the salient features of a "westernized" democracy. And thanks in large part to the U.S. intervention and continuing occupation of Iraq :

Many of these women and girls, including some barely in their teens, are recent refugees. Some are tricked or forced into prostitution, but most say they have no other means of supporting their families. As a group they represent one of the most visible symptoms of an Iraqi refugee crisis that has exploded in Syria in recent months.

O', my yes, don't you see how this development could foster better relationships with the Middle East. Think of it, vacation junkets for sex-starved Calvanistic American and just plain whacko European perverts to Damascus. Closer than Bangkok, more exotic than Las Vegas! What an exciting business opportunity for people in the travel business!

You see, George Bush has brought a bit of "democracy" to the Middle East.

Bush sends conflicting signals on troop withdrawal

Heard last night on television news on way out to dinner:

...the White House is now said to be talking about slashing its combat presence in Iraq by roughly a third, from about 150,000 soldiers to 100,000 — just in time for the 2008 election.
WJZ.com

What a cowinkydink. But wait!

The White House said on Saturday it was premature to talk about reducing troop levels in Iraq after a newspaper report suggested the US administration was considering a drastic cut in force levels next year.

"The business at hand is to complete the mission, and to pursue the present strategy, and any decision for future force levels will be made by the president based on advice from commanders in the field and his national security advisers," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told AFP.
RawStory.com

So, which is it? My personal political cynicism leads me to believe that Bush may pull off such a stunt to thwart the presumedly anti-war Democratic candidate in the presidential election. With a preceived withdrawal of American forces from Iraq much of the wind would be taken out of an anti-war presidential candidate's sails, leaving the field open for a decidedly pro-war Republican.

And my instincts tell me that Bush's heir apparent is none other than pampered, billionaire Willard Mitt Romney. My instincts also tell me that should the Democrats commit another political faux pas, like the recent Iraq war funding vote, or descend into bitter internecine squabbling then the Mittster will be our next president.

It just gets worse and worse, doesn't it?

Why Dems capitulated to Bush on Iraq

Danny Schechter nails the real reason Congressional Democrats wimped out in Thurday's Iraq war budget vote.

...[I]t is sometimes hard to remember that war is business, not just politics. The Military Industrial Complex does business in every state and in every congressional district and the politically distributed pork or war booty employs constituents in every district (emphasis added.) Members of Congress are very aware of that.

The MoveOn’s and anti-war groups are not the only lobbyists in this game. Behind the scenes, employees of war industries and their lobbyists are pressuring the Congress too. Their pressure comes in the form of threats to cut off political contributions unless those they patronize act “responsibly.” They don’t have to make too many threats to the natural born compromisers on the hill for whom selling out is part of buying in. They know who butters their buns.

And then, forever lurking in the background and in foreground, there is the unbrave world of media that gives endless newsprint and airtime to debates about whether the war has been managed well enough. In a media filled with crime shows, this crime goes uncovered as such. Instead, CBS fires a General whose politics they fear may blowback in their face. The reporting is still mostly one-sided and the anti-war movement is barely heard from or seen. No wonder the public is sending mixed messages. They are still being lied to by our weapons of mass deception. There are more new faces in Congress than on the networks.
MediaChannel.org

There. Schechter has written the undeniable truth which the MSM forget and most progressive and liberal commentators seem to ignore. For example, Working Assets blogger David Sirota is highly incensed by Congressioanl Democrats' vote, and righty so. Yet in his blog entries no mention of "The Military Industrial Complex" and its hold over Congress.

Likewise at the anti-war After Downing Street.org, retired US Army Reserves Colonel, Ann Wright, writes:

Thursday, May 24 the US Congress voted to continue the war on Iraq. They called it “supporting the troops.” I call it stealing Iraq’s oil-the second largest oil reserves in the world. The “benchmark” or goal the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is the privatization of Iraqi oil. Now they have the US Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.

And, yes, the rape of Iraq's oil resources is of overridding consideration for Bush and many in the U.S. Congress, but as Schechter points out the tentacles of The Military Industrial Complex stretch into every nook and cranny of the country.

So keeping in mind the power of The Military Industrial Complex, it was an extreme act of political courage for Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd to cast a no vote for the Iraq funding bill. "Although the State of Connecticut is the third smallest state in the union, it is the home of many major defense contractors, including Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, Sikorsky Aircraft, and Electric Boat." (US Department of Justice.gov)

It just goes from bad to worse

I had my angiogram Wednesday and after I got the results I was feeling pretty cocky.

Well, the other shoe dropped yesterday. The routine chest x-ray found a "nodule" on one of my lungs. Don't know how it got there. I haven't smoked a cigarette since 1982 or '83. I know it was the year of my famous "Ronald Reagan mugging Santa Claus" Christmas card. I quite because I'd run out of cash at the same time I'd run out of cigarettes. But, you know, the medical community no matter what you tell them always thinks you're a liar.

We support our troops because...

I had an angiogram yesterday so I could not comment on The Des Moines Register neocon columnist John Carlson's latest effort, or lack thereof. Really, Carlson literally phone-in this piece since all he did was quote in toto an e-mail from one Warrant Officer Jim Funk of Ames, IA serving in Iraq with the Iowa National Guard.

Funk is a helicopter pilot, so he's one of those death ex machina guys who very rarely ever soils his hands as he deals out destruction and mayhem on those below. So without further ado let's sample and examine WO Funk's missive as related by Carlson:

"Hello media, do you know you indirectly kill American soldiers every day? You inspire and report the enemy's objective every day. You are the enemy's greatest weapon.

First WO Funk plays the typical reactionary opening gambit of blaming the media. It's not the president's fault that American soldiers are getting killed in Iraq, it's the media's. That's logical.

WO Funk follows with testosterone laced chest thumping:

The enemy cannot beat us on the battlefield so all he does is try to wreak enough havoc and have you report it every day. With you and the enemy using each other, you continually break the will of the American public and American government.

"We go out daily and bust and kill the enemy, uncover and destroy huge weapons caches and continue to establish infrastructure. So daily we put a whoopin on the enemy, but all the enemy has to do is turn on the TV and get re-inspired. He gets to see his daily roadside bomb, truck bomb, suicide bomber or mortar attack. He doesn't see any accomplishments of the U.S. military (FOX, you're not exempt, you suck also).

Care to read more of this example of machismo gone mad letter? Oh, let's do. This is like watching a bad horror flick.

Funk continues:

A couple of days ago we conducted an air assault. We lifted troops into an area for an operation. The operation went well and our ground troops killed (insurgents){why do you suppose the word "insurgents" is surrounded by parenthesis marks?} and took several prisoners, freed a few hostages and uncovered a weapons cache containing munitions and chemicals that were going to be used in improvised bombs.

Ah, yes, here WO Funk describes the good works our fighting forces do in Iraq. Nothing like whacking a few hajis, eh, WO Funk?

The good warrant officer continues his bellicose rant in a similar vein and concludes:

"Media, we know you hate the George Bush administration, but report both sides, not just your one-sided agenda. You have got to realize how you are continually motivating every extremist, jihadist and terrorist to continue their resolve to kill American soldiers."

What a mature observation. The media is all to blame. God forbid that the mere prescence of your august self, WO Funk, and that of your comerades has anything to do with the Iraqis' ire. If it weren't for the meddling of the "liberal" media Richard Perle's prediction that the Iraqis would greet their American liberators with flowers and chocolates would become true. Embedding those pliant journalist in the initial invasion was a mistake, WO Funk. Hell, the "media" should just get the hell out of Iraq and re-run clips from old John Wayne movies and tell us it's actually footage from the front, shouldn't it WO Funk!

The good warrant officer's attitude and that of 29% of Americans who share it, many of whom will never come close to wearing a BDU, plus the timidity of Congressional Democrats means the United States will never get out of Iraq until either one of two things occurs: A complete and total defeat in detail of a major unit of America forces in Iraq, as the German army at Stalingrad, or a unit wide mutiny by disaffected American troops. I'm not holding my breath that either of these ever occurs.

Face it folks, we're stuck. We're stuck in Mesopotamian muck for a very long time.

Al Sharpton, agent provacateur?

Today the news is ga-gah over Willard "Mitt" Romney's rise in the Iowa poll at the expense of national front-runners Rudy "America's Mayor" Giuliani and Hanoi John McCain.

So but the sensible say, America will never vote for a Mormon, even if he is the scion of wealth and privilege with the looks of a movie star. Looking like a movie star, or at the very least a television mellodrama president counts for a lot these days. But still, say the pundits, America's loonie fundamentalist Catholics and born-again Protestants will never vote for a Mormon.

Enter the Reverend Al Sharpton.



Back on May 7, in New York, journalist Christopher Hitchens debated Sharpton at forum hosted by the New York Public Library. Hitchens is hawking his latest book God Is Not Great:How Religion Poisons Everything. And it was a pretty straight forward discussion between a leftist journalist, trying to regain his credibility after soiling himself over support for Bush's invasion of Iraq, and a half-assed theologian. That was until the Reverend Sharpton opened his mouth and uttered the memorable line:“As for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don’t worry about that, that’s a temporary – that’s a temporary situation.”

Then the shit hit the fan.

Now to put the statement in context Sharpton was discussing the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, in his opinion decidedly church-based, faith-based and god-based. Then followed, seemingly out of nowhere, the jab at Romney.

Of course the equal and opposite reaction followed shortly.

Take for example this blog entry from the comely Erin Di Paolo

I take exception to Sharpton's comments and I am not a Mormon.
I am a Christian whose beliefs do not disagree, on many levels, with Mormons. But I would never accuse Romney of not believing in God.

Who does Sharpton think he is and why does he feel he should be able to get away with such comments when he holds everyone else to a strict code of moral behavior? Every time I turn around, he is on television or in the newspaper, lambasting everyone who makes a comment that he determines to be racist. Now here he is, questioning a presidential candidate's belief in God, yet he feels justified in doing so.

It sickens me, which brings me to my last point: why is Sharpton not receiving as much negative press in this situation as he does positive coverage when he is attacking others for intolerance?

Also Sprach the hot white suburban lady from Denver.

Which brings me back to the title fro this little rant of why I am beginning to suspect the Rev. Al Sharpton is an agent provacateur.

Sharpton from gained fame from his involvement in the Tawana Brawley case, which has been subsequently labeled a hoax. Since that time Sharpton has involved himself in any and all incidents which may have the merest whiff of racial undertones which will garner maximum television facetime. Sharpton, besides his roles as part-time minister of the gospel and fulltime demagogue, was also for a time an FBI informant.

In short, the man should have no credibility, yet to this day he remains a favorite of the MSM.

And this is why I am coming around to Charles Barkely's view of Sharpton. You see, the reactionary right has a contarian streak as wide as the yellow streak down its collective back. So even if in the recent past fundamentalism Protestant and Catholic leaders denounced Mormonism as a cult or worse, once the Rev. Al opens his yap all previous anti-Mormon statements are conveniently forgotten. Much to the benefit of Willard Romney. And, I might add, the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Business of politics & Florida follies

The worst thing to be said about early twenty-first century politics is, like so much else that is wrong with America these days, that it is mired in free market fundamentalism and infantileism.

For your examination, the Los Angles Times reports:

WASHINGTON — For front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, Florida looked to be a major battleground in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

But now, because of an unexpected glitch, those delegates could go to a candidate most Americans don't even know is running: a crusty former senator from Alaska named Mike Gravel. Or maybe to Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, the quixotic peace candidate who barely registers in the polls.

I guess things aren't all that bad if Florida's Democratic delegates go to either Gravel or Kucinich. The problem stems from the fact that Florida Democratic politicians, like California and Illinois Democrats, feel that their state is being left out of the party's presidential nominating process; by the time their state primary comes around it's all over but the shouting. America's more populous states loath little Iowa and New Hampshire's presidential political clout.

What leaders, or at least the business-minded among the Dems, in America's more populous states may also be jealous of is Iowa getting an economic windfall due to the early caucus. After all, Iowa is not a tourist destination in January by any stretch of the imagination. And I have heard Iowa Democrats say that an overriding reason for keeping the early caucus date is to bring dollars into the state. All those professional Democrats and Republicans from out of state need to eat and sleep, and Iowa's restauranteurs and innkeepers are more than happy to oblige. And it keeps illegal immigrants toiling in the food service and hotel/motel industries working and out of sight.

But, y'know, television news crews and presidential candidates would rather be in Flordia than Iowa or New Hampshire in January so

...Republicans in the Florida Legislature — supported by many Democrats — pushed through a measure setting Jan. 29 as the date for their state's presidential primary. Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill.

See the rub is that the Democratic National Committee has a rule that says that, following the Iowa and the new Nevada caucuses, and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, no state primaries can be held until February 5 of 2008. And there are other DNC rules that strip presidential convention delegates from any candidate raising funds in a state which jumps the gun on the primary season. And since there's oodles of campign contributions to be gathered in Florida, Hillary, Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson just can't resist making the rounds of the retirment centers, trailer courts and nursing homes to squeeze a few more shekels out of elderly New Dealers.

Of course Florida's legislative Republicans absolve themselves of any blame. "I don't think anybody made us aware of that until the very end of the process," said Marco Rubio, the Republican state House speaker. *wink*wink*

And, of course, the state's Democrats are only interested in carrying out the will of the people:

"If the choice is Florida is relevant and has no delegates versus being irrelevant and having delegates, I'd choose being relevant with no delegates," said [Jeremy Ring, a Democratic state senator from Broward County and co-sponsor of the legislation]. "We did this so 18 million Floridians could take part in the presidential primaries, not so a few hundred people can go to a party in Denver."

So I say, go for it, State of Florida! Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich can use the support.

Becareful to whom you forward a joke

Jeeze, all I did was forward a joke. This joke:

This piece of information may clear up a lot of things:

On July 8, 1947, witnesses claimed that an unidentified object with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico.

This is a well-known incident that many say has long been
covered up by the U.S. Air Force and the federal government.

In the month of March 1948, exactly nine months after that historic day, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Condolezza Rice, and Dan Quayle were all born.

See what happens when aliens breed with sheep.

Yeah, it's stupid. It's purile. It's nothing more than a joke. Sometimes a joke's a joke, like a cigar is just a cigar.

Now I'm usually pretty careful who I forward e-mail jokes to, but this time I accidently clicked on an e-mail address of someone to whom I never forward jokes. This person seems to think he is some sort of ultra-liberal, therefore above humor of any type. This particular person also fills my e-mail inbox with news stories and e-mail updates, many of which are duplicates.

So last evening I got this reply

You do know though this seems funny, it's entirely inaccurate and completely fiction. I'm for sure the same joke is circulating with a bunch of Democrats and liberals of near the same ages. This takes advantage of those who wouldn't do a simple Goolge or Wiki search to verify birthdates.

George Bush Jr. was born in 46 (July 6, 1946). I know that because I do horoscope stuff and Clinton and Bush were born in the same year of 46 the year of the Dog in Chinese (emphasis added by me.) Cheney's I will always remember because it's that same day not year, as FDR's.

Naturally, I responded in an adult manner, requesting no more spam, thank you.

But here's what really burns my butt. I don't know if the author of the above e-mail is being sarcastic or has no sense of humor. I suspect the latter on the basis of the sentence:This takes advantage of those who wouldn't do a simple Goolge or Wiki search to verify birthdates. It's a joke. If one does not like it, delete it. Don't get on one's moral highhorse and preach. AS I've observed all my life, when one comes to the further shores of politics the ocean becomes a lake; there are Puritans on both the far right and far left. And I say fuck'em both.

LTE: May 18, 2007

The Des Moines Register's editorial staff evidently could not wait for the ink to dry on Jane Norman's May 18, 2007 report about Tom Harkin's low opinion of junk food advertising tie-ins to the popular animated film character Sherk before castigating Iowa's Democratic U.S. Senator, for being insufficiently enthusiastic about the "free market" economy.

Senator Harkin has every right to his opinion, it's guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, that's the way things work in our land of the free. And he is correct to point out that advertising of sugary snacks and breakfast cereals, with little real nutritional value, is contributing to the nation's increasing girth and declining health. Realistically one senator can do little about the United States' so-called obesity epidemic other than voice his opinion.

Yet the Register editorialist takes the Senator to task for taking on the marketing-junk food complex and counters with the puerile libertarian creed that the nation's mothers bear total individual responsibility for the nation's health. And, of course, the irony that The Register derives a portion of its revenue from selling advertising space for sugary and/or fatty snack and junk foods is apparently lost on this editorial writer.

R.I.P., asshole

LYNCHBURG, Va. - The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.
Yahoo.com

Unfortunately, this asshole's evil will not die with him. His organization is too well funded by right wing business interests and useful idiots and true belivers. It will take a hundred years to undo all the damage Falwell and his ilk have done to this country.

Reagan, the god

If this were 2007 B.C. instead of 2007 A.D., this stupid motherfucker would be a god. Oh, what am I saying, this stupid motherfucker already is a god! The only thing missing are the temples and priests, there are already plenty of worshippers.

By many measures, Reagan's administration was a disaster. A disasterous foreign policy in Central America, the repercussions of which we feel today in the form of undocumented immigrants. A disaster for working America, as "the Gipper's" administation signaled the beginning of twenty-seven years, and counting, of unremitting union busting, global outscourcing and stagnation in hourly wages and benefits.

Oh, but he is a hero. He ended the Cold War. Ha, ha! Against a Soviet Union tottering on the brink of economic collapse to begin with! America's baddest of badass presidents picked a fight with a tottering, old geezer, with a walker, and won! And he secured the Free World's supply of nutmeg. What a fuckin' man!!

Which brings me to the reason for the above tirade. As you many, or many not, already know the Republican presidental hopefuls held their first circle-jerk of the '08 campaign season at the Reagan Library. Needless to say it was a veritable love-fest, the inept, inane and under-qualified field of ten "...invoked the name of Ronald Reagan 19 times[.]" However, this wasn't good enough for some conservatives. Especially fulltime GOP fund-raiser Richard Viguerie.

E-mails the Manassas, VA direct-mail king:

“The three leading Republican presidential candidates continue to fail ‘the Reagan test,’” says Richard A. Viguerie, author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause, referring to the debate aired over MSNBC. “The only thing genuinely Reaganesque about the performances of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney was their physical location at the Presidential Library.”

“We won’t have conservative policies with any of the three leading candidates, and most of the others, so I continue to urge conservatives to withhold their support,” Viguerie said.

Viguerie’s Full Statement:

“For the past ten years Giuliani, McCain, and Romney—as well as most of the other presidential wannabees—have given conservatives no leadership against the Big Government policies of the Republican Congress and President Bush. Well, it’s too late. We’re now at the pandering stage of the campaign—pandering for conservative support—and if they wouldn’t speak out before, how can we believe them now?


They Fail “The Goldwater Test”

“Senator Barry Goldwater became the first political spokesman for the conservative movement because out of all the Republican politicians who claimed to be conservative, he and he alone was willing to confront the sitting Big Government Republican in the White House. President Eisenhower’s policies were ‘a dime store New Deal,’ he said on the floor of the Senate. He spoke truth to power.

“Well, again we have a Big Government Republican in the White House, and now it’s no longer a dime store New Deal—it’s a supersized Wal-Mart of a New Deal. The Republican welfare state is far worse than anything the Democrats achieved. To Giuliani, McCain, and Romney I say, ‘I knew Barry Goldwater, and you’re no Goldwater.’

They Fail “The Reagan Test”

“Throughout the 1960s and ’70s Ronald Reagan walked with us. He was there at our conservative functions, and not just at the head table—he mingled with us, listened to our concerns, and made it clear where he stood. Also, our friends were all around him as he governed in California and then ran for president—people like Dick Allen, Ed Meese, Lyn Nofziger, Marty Anderson, Judge William Clark, etc., etc.

“Where are the long-time conservative activists today around Giuliani, McCain, or Romney? I’m not talking about ‘campaign consultants’ who sell themselves to the highest bidder at campaign auctions. I mean dedicated and recognized conservative thinkers and activists who will work only for truly conservative candidates.

“If conservatives were not part of the Giuliani, McCain, and Romney inner circles before they ran for the presidency, we cannot expect them to have conservatives advising them if they get elected. And in politics, personnel is policy.

“P.S. Leave it to the Stupid Party to have Chris Matthews, a liberal Democrat, moderate a debate to select the Republican nominee for president!”

Jesus christ, how far right does this asshole want to go? Attila The Hun! Will you be satisfied, Dick, when little old ladies and little kids are begging on the streets for food? Will you be satisfied when the only programs funded in the federal budget is the military? And Chris Matthews "a liberal Democrat"?!

Look, Dick, I have a way so you can get out of your dilemma. Why don't we exhume Reagan's moldy corpse, get the Disney Studios to re-animate him and you and Grover Norquist can pull Ronnie's strings to your heart's content. And there would be plenty of the braindead who'd vote for Ronnie again, even if he were a zombie.

Acceptable Register comment

Here's a little update on the posts below and what constitutes acceptable an post at The Des Moines Register:

Thank you trooper for your proud service. I have been honored to be in the same army as all of you brave lads, and lasses!
This saddens me like no other!
You kids do not get the recognition you deserve from so many out in the "world" but in your hearts you know you have done the right thing!
Hoohaaah for giving the ultimate sacrifice, you and your family will be in my prayers today. May you R.I.P.!
May hell readily accept these savages that have done this despicable act. The cowards they are!(emphasis added)

Obviously the above poster does not understand the simple dynamics of the Internet, or why it's called the World Wide Web (that's the "www" preceeding every URL.) I don't know how many times I have admonished our reactionary friends that more speakers of Arabic, as a first language, can read and speak English than Eglish speakers can read and speak Arabic.

Here's another one from a different perspective on the same story:

Try to come and hang me, you SOB. I dare you..

What a tool. Sorry about your dead kid, but that kind of rhetoric has consequences, pops, and they are not good.

And here's another sample:

. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. -Jesus Christ.

"There's people that want to pull (the troops) all out," Soenksen said. "Those people should be taken out and hung. It's a slap in the face to every American."

Christ died in vain.

Guess who will feel the wrath of Mr. Michael Cory, Digital Content Editor, next.

Register on top of Iowa news.

This news story was posted at the BBC's Web site two hours ago:

US prison sees keys sold online

A prison in the US state of Iowa has changed its locks after a set of keys was sold online for $12.

The state spent $6,000 on refurbishing the Anamosa State Penitentiary after keys that belonged to a guard who retired in the 70s were auctioned.

Officials at the 135-year-old jail were not sure if the keys still worked but could not take any chances, a warden told KCCI-TV in Des Moines.

Anamosa is a medium-security jail but holds a number of violent criminals.
BBC.co.uk

When I did a Google search for this story, even though, from what I can see, it's a day stale, the "Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon" deigned not to cover it.

The worst man in America

19-year-old Davenport, IA native Katie Soenksen was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq Wednesday. Her grieving father said of his daughter's sacrifice:

"There's people that want to pull (the troops) all out," [Ronald] Soenksen said. "Those people should be taken out and hung. It's a slap in the face to every American."
The Des Moines Register

Thank you, Mr. Soenksen, for your mannered and well-reasoned defense of the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Badge of honor

One of my many Internet personae has been banned by The Des Moines Register. Here is a stern e-mail of warning from a Mr. Michael Corey, Digital Content Editor:

I'm writing to inform you that you due to violations of our terms of
service you're being banned from posting to the blogs or forums for 30 days.

The Register's conversation standards say, in part, that we may remove comments that include:

- Sexually explicit or crude sexual comments about someone.

- Nasty name-calling (language such as "moron" and "white trash").

- Swearing or obscenity.

Here's a few comments we've recently deleted:


Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:00 am
When the government bans guns, all you NRA dudes' d*cks will fall off!

Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:11 am
Laughing Laughing Laughing slycotton82! Sounds like a tampon!!!!
Laughing Laughing Laughing
Gotta go, dude! Laughing Laughing

Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:15 pm Post subject: AvgDude or AvgDoofus?

I don't wanna take anybody's gun. I don't care if Les Baer moves to
LeClair. Kinda hope they do.

I just wanna know why you bad*asses think you have to walk around with
a pistol in yer pants? I mean, the more you guys talk about bein'
bad*sses with firearms, the more you sound like p*ssies. Wink


If after 30 days you feel you can stay within the bounds of the terms
of service and would like to be able to post again, please contact me
then to be reinstated.

This is in reference to a story concerning the firearms manufacturer Les Baer relocating from Hillsdale, Illinois to LeClaire, Iowa. The gist of the news story was that a local LeClaire minister and his wife, J. Elmer Brunk and Cynthia Vaughan, oppose the move and are attempting to block same. So what.

But, of course, that brought out the Second Amendment nuts. And, of course, they began posturing about how big their guns are, and how they love to carry their gun and stroke its barrel, and how everybody should walk around with one. So I decided to have some fun and troll.

Now trolling is more usually a wing nut sport so I thought I'd turn the tables on our reactionary friends. They didn't like it. And, apparently, neither does Mr. Michael Corey, Digital Content Editor. But then again, "THE" Des Moines Register has always tired to maintain an air of gentility in a state full of foulmouthed dirt farmers, hicks hayseeds and white trash. Moreover, I've read some pretty vile things posted at "THE" Des Moines Register in response to comments from my other, non-offending persona, which, unfortunatly, is also blocked because they share the same IP. And some of these same wounded little boys, whom I've so deeply offended, regularly use veiled racist and ethnic slurs, and advocate mayhem, violence and the death penality for criminals, expecially minorities.

Aww, well, even I thought I may have gone too far. But Mr. Michael Corey, Digital Content Editor is merely being fair and balanced.

Lump of the day

There's new hope for couchpotatoes:

Nodaway, Ia. — J.R. Cook would not be the first person to credit a video game system with bettering his life.

He just may end up as one of the first to be right.

Nine weeks and 120 rounds of air boxing, 80 games of air tennis, and several dozen lanes of air bowling into his "Nintendo Wii weight-loss plan," the 27-year-old Nodaway native says he's shed a little more than 20 pounds.

He's shooting for 80 by the end of the year.

News of Cook's quest has reached an international audience, thanks to his blog, www.wiiweightlossplan.com, which registers as many as 25,000 hits a day.
The Des Moines Register

Now don't get me wrong, the fact that this rotund young man is exercising is good. But the question remains:Why does he need a computer video game to accomplish it? Well let J.R. speak for himself:

The idea behind Wiiweightlossplan.com came to me the first day that I had received and started playing my Nintendo Wii back in early January. I knew after a couple hours of playing Wii Sports (and a few sore muscles later) that this gaming system could really be a good workout and could probably help me get back into shape. Best of all though, it was FUN.

However, I'm lazy(emphasis added by me).Wii Weight Loss Plan.com

Nodaway, Iowa is a town of 132 people, out in the middle of nowhere, with plenty of open spaces in which to wander. But this young man, until he received his Wii, perferred the life of a couch potato.

Now, granted, the nearest fresh pizza to be had is at the Casey's General Store in Villisca. That's a hike of five and four tenths miles! Not an ungodly distance, mind you, but by the time one walks the return trip the pizza will either be stone cold or consumed. That is a dilemma.