Deeply Blue, Ill, but not Sick!

Just Say the Word, Oil be There for You

2007-05-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

No doubt you've seen pictures of Darth Cheney emerging yesterday from a plane at Baghdad airport with his shiny new flak jacket. What could possibly have led him to leave his secret lair? Has his conscience finally gotten to him for being the impetus behind a campaign of deceit to start a war based on lies? Has the body count approaching 4,000 US soldiers, not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, finally pushed him to do something to reverse the horrors his inhuman policies have caused? Hmmm, I don't think so. What could possibly lead an administration led by two oilmen to send the vice-president off to Iraq? Let's see what Darth himself had to say....Cheney’s unannounced visit to Iraq, part of a Middle East tour, signals growing US impatience at Iraq’s slowness in passing laws on oil distribution. Surprised? I'm not.

Lordy, I DON'T Believe!

2007-05-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

How can anyone belong to a political party that is so co-opted by the ultra-extreme right wing Christianists that 3 out of 10 of their PRESIDENTIAL candidates are willing to stand up in a public forum and announce that they don't believe in evolution?????!!!!! These are college educated men (well, of course it's only men, this is the republican party after all!) who have been exposed to the outside world and have held positions of responsibility in our government. How appropriate that they were standing in the "library" of that deep thinker, Ronald Reagan!

Bush Makes Things "Perfectly Clear"

2007-01-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

NPR published the article reprinted below today on the latest plan for Iraq dreamed up by the same White House geniuses who have got us in the quagmire we find ourselves. They plan to get tough with Iran by threatening to attack them on Iraqi soil. How long before US troops end up chasing combatants across the border into Iran? The writer of the article, being a student of history, saved himself some work by just updating an old article from 1973. Here's his submission to his editor:

Note to editor - please delete all text in red.

President Nixon Bush vowed on Monday to respond firmly if Cambodia Iran foments violence in Vietnam Iraq, but said he had no intention of invading Cambodia Iran.
Washington has accused Kampuchea Tehran of undermining efforts to bring stability in Vietnam Iraq. Two U.S. aircraft carriers have been stationed in the Gulf as a warning to Cambodia Iran.
"If Cambodia Iran escalates its military action in Vietnam Iraq to the detriment of our troops and, or, innocent Vietnamese Iraqi people, we will respond firmly," Nixon Bush told ABC NPR in an interview.
The Nixon Bush administration has repeatedly told Cambodia Iran not to fuel violence in Vietnam Iraq, and U.S. forces detained a number of Cambodian Iranian officials in raids over the past month in Vietnam Iraq.
Nixon Bush has insisted he wants to resolve the dispute with Cambodia Iran diplomatically, but also has kept his options open. Nixon Bush's comments on Cambodia Iran, along with tougher financial sanctions and actions against Cambodian Iranian involvement in Vietnam Iraq, have revived speculation about a possible U.S. attack on Cambodia Iran.
Nixon Bush told ABC NPR he was not planning to invade, but would do "whatever it takes" to protect U.S. troops in Vietnam Iraq against Cambodian Iranian attacks.

Well, Duh!

2006-10-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't you know that the newspaper that would endorse Mark Kirk because he's a moderate (!), would also have a headline like today's classic..."Baghdad Strategy Flawed". Gee, I was shocked to learn that the gang of corrupt and incompetent Republicans who came up with the genius plan to attack Iraq three years ago, have not been successful in their campaign over the past two months to get control of Baghdad. Only the editors of the Chicago Tribune would consider this newsworthy enough to be a headline. What's tomorrow's headline..."Bush May Not Be Genius" or "Kirk Votes With Bush"?

Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear

2006-10-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, Hastert is really going all out in taking responsibility for his ineptness, and possibly criminal actions, in supressing the truth on the Republican scandal. I guess when he said "the buck stops here", no one noticed he was pointing at the sacrificial lambs on his staff. He announced yesterday that anyone on his staff who covered up the Foley scandal will be fired. I'll bet his co-chiefs of staff John Halderman, Jr. and John Erlichman, Jr. are sweating this thing out!

Go Denny Go!

2006-10-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

Let the record show that I was indeed ahead of the curve in calling for Dennis "Head in the Sand" Hastert's resignation days before the Washington Times, perhaps the most conservative newspaper in the country, published an editorial calling on Hastert to resign. It's also been pointed out that Hastert was a teacher before getting elected to the House. A teacher! Don't you think someone trained as a teacher would have the decency to take SOME action to investigate "over friendly" emails from a 50 year old man to a 16 year old boy? Talk about a lack of shame! How can you stay in office when you ignore evidence of child abuse in order to hold onto a 'safe' congressional seat? Have you no sense of shame, Mr. Speaker?

And isn't it interesting that John Shimkus, Republican Chairman of the House Page Board that oversees the page program, knew of Foley's activities with pages but never mentioned it to the one Democratic member of the Board. Must have slipped his mind...

Bonus posting - anyone who lives in eastern Lake County or northeastern Cook County, the 10th Congressional District of Illinois, has got to check out this...http://www.kirknbush.com/

Hey, Ho, Denny Must Go!

2006-10-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

As disgusting as it is to see another sanctimonious, conservative, holier than thou Republican exposed as a pervert, we are now seeing that the Republican leadership has known about this hypocrite sniffing around underage pages for months, maybe years. In order to hold onto power by keeping Foley's seat safely in the Republican column, Speaker Hastert turned a blind eye to what was obviously inappropriate behavior that has now been exposed. The only honorable course he can now take is to resign as Speaker. He can't hide behind legal niceties and attempts to parse the series of events in such a manner as to show he didn't know for sure that someone was wrong. These were underage minor children entrusted to the House of Representatives. As leader of the House, he must take responsibility for the fact that he KNEW something improper, and most likely illegal, was going on and chose not to pursue the truth. This is a true national scandal. These are minors being pursued by a sexual predator and a coverup by the Republican leadership. Don't listen to anyone (and I'm sure Faux News has trotted out the usual Clinton haters) trying to compare this to Monicagate. That scandal involved a willing woman in her twenties who flirted with and ultimately chose to have a dalliance with a weak-willed man. It was not a 52 year old man sending messages to a 16 year old boy asking "Do I make you a little horny?"
The next questions that need to be asked are "who else in the Republican leadership knew about this and chose to keep it secret?" What did House Majority Leader John Boehner know and when did he know it? What did the former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay know and when did he know it? What did House Majority Whip Roy Blunt know and when did he know it? What did House Assistant Majority Whip Mark Kirk know and when did he know it?

The Second Seven Day War

2006-09-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

I am so sick and tired of the current occupant of the White House going around the country telling the same lies over and over. I know this is part of the Republican/Rove election strategy and sadly it has worked very well in the past, but it still makes me sick. Bring back the good old days when Bush would take 6 week vacations and clear brush. Are we going to have to listen to six weeks of Bush giving the same speech on how his "war" in Iraq is somehow related to fighting terrorists? There is NO war in Iraq! The war was over in about seven days. That's about how long it took for our military to sweep through and take total control of the country. They fought and quickly defeated an enemy that was defending its territory. THAT'S what a war is and that's what our military (and all military) are trained to do. Our forces did a fantastic job and after that week of fighting, we should have started to bring them home and replace them with UN forces. Our military is not a police force, but that is exactly what they have been doing for the past three years as they have been picked off in small numbers (that add up to thousands) by murderous Iraqi thugs. If we had done the right thing and cooperated with the UN and sent in a multi-national force that was led by soldiers from Muslim countries, to act as a buffer among the Iraqi sects, thousands upon thousands of lives would have been saved. These troops really WOULD have been greeted as liberators. And the only cost would have been sharing of the reconstruction contracts with companies other than Halliburton, giving up control of the oil in Iraq, and admitting that maybe you made a few mistakes in your war "planning"...three things Bush and the neocons will never do. These failures are the main reasons, among many, that Bush will go down as the worst "president" in history. In two months we have the chance to vote out of office the enablers of this failed policy and start the process of doing what should have been done at the end of those seven days...start bringing our troops home and getting the UN and other countries involved. The return to sanity begins November 7.

Lake Foresters for Dan Seals

2006-08-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

Can Dan Seals really unseat an incumbent? Two events in Lake Forest this week put in sharp focus why Dan Seals will be elected our next Congressman on November 7. On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of attending an afternoon gathering at the home of our state senator, Susan Garrett, featuring Senator Dick Durbin (does any state have two better Senators?!) and Dan Seals. The turnout was amazing. In our mostly Republican community on a rainy Tuesday afternoon at 4:15, with almost no advance notice, somehow over 150 people managed to sneak away early from work or family duties to meet Dan Seals and to hear Durbin eloquently describe why representatives like Dan Seals are needed in Washington. He pointed out how Mark Kirk has failed to represent the moderate viewpoints of his constituents as John Porter did before him, how he has voted with Bush over 90% of the time and how he “has broken your hearts” with so many of his votes, such as those supporting a war based on a mountain of lies, and the embarrassment of his Terry Schivo vote. On Thursday afternoon, I attended the forum on food allergies at my daughter’s school, Everett Elementary. This is clearly an important issue and Mark Kirk was in attendance and I congratulate him for supporting this scientific research. But why (10 weeks before the election) is he finally attending forums in the district? Where has he been for the last 6 years? Who has ever seen him other than at a parade or at an event where the attendees are carefully screened? Granted he doesn’t require audience members to sign loyalty oaths as Bush does, but he sure doesn’t go out of his way to find out what the people of his district think. We have been waiting for three years to hear about the secret info he was privy to that convinced him that Iraq had WMDs. When the right wing of his party tried to begin their plan to dismantle Social Security, did he hold any public meetings (despite numerous requests from his constituents) to tell us what he planned to do about their privitization scheme? With oil companies posting profits higher than any company in the history of the world, did he hold any meetings explaining why he voted to give billions in tax credits to these same companies? When someone votes the party line 90% of the time, why would he not mention on any of his campaign materials that he’s a Republican? As a proud member of “Lake Foresters for Dan Seals”, I encourage all “Porter Republicans”, independents and Democrats to join me in voting for a true fiscal conservative and social moderate who will faithfully represent the Tenth District and will make us proud – Dan Seals.

Is Lebanon Unique?

2006-08-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

Anyone with half a brain (which excludes the current administration in the White House) knows that Americans will continue to be shot at and killed in Iraq as they are seen as an occupying force. The only solution is to do what should have been done in the first place - send international troops, led by troops from Muslin countries, into Iraq. Why is it that Bush agrees on the need to send in international troops to secure the peace in Lebanon days after hostilities end, but refuses to do the same thing three and a half years (and thousands of lives) after his disastrous folly in Iraq?! Gee, could it be because Lebanon doesn't sit on a huge pool of oil and doesn't have a ton of "projects" that his Halliburton buddies can make billions a year on?

Infinite Greed: A Child's Primer

2006-04-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to explain to my 11 year old the difference between Democrats and republicans. I give him the usual,"Dems are more concerned with working people, GOPers are the party for the super rich and large corporations". Yada, yada, yada. But he's pretty insightful and keeps asking me for better definitions. I think I'll have him read today's Tribune front page. It's a lovely little story about what the republican party is all about and how their lack of morals and their total incompetence directly leads to international disasters and the deaths of innocent people. We all know Halliburton has received billions in no-bid contracts to do the grunt work (serving meals, cleaning toilets, washing clothes, etc) for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (service expanding soon to Iran!). Because these countries are so dangerous, KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, had to be given these deals quickly, secretly, and probably in Cheney's private hideaway. But also, the rates KBR charged were many times more than the going rate for services in these countries. Why? Well, I'm sure they claimed that the unconscionable rates they were charging were necessary to convince American workers to go to a war zone to provide these services. So, did they hire Americans to do this work at handsome rates of pay? Nope. Did they hire Iraqis to help lower the high rate of unemployment? Nope. What did they do? C'mon, you can guess...they "outsourced" the hiring to "third parties" who recruited poor, uneducated workers from third world countries who were lied to about where they were going, had their passports confiscated when they arrived in Iraq, and most gruesome of all, a dozen of them were kidnapped and murdered. KBR could have made a ton of money by pocketing the cash from their bloated contracts and hiring American or Iraqi people to do the work. But in a classic example of unlimited greed, they had to cut corners to make two tons of money. If that required having to go to the ends of the earth (literally) to find people whose domestic situations were so poor that they would accept these jobs as indentured servants, well, that's fine with them. These are the type of immoral, infinitely greedy companies the republicans are happy to associate themselves with. Well, son, Democrats not only wouldn't do business with these companies, but would lose their lunches if they were in the same room with them.

Think YOUR Job Sucks?

2006-04-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

Who has the worst job in America? Sure, we see survey after survey that ranks the worst jobs and usually something like coal miner or waitress or fruit picker tops the list. But I think that poor Scotty McClennan has the worst job in America. This poor schmuck is sent out day after day on national television to tell the same half truths, misrepresentations and outright lies that are the hallmarks of the Bush administration. Today he has to try to keep a straight face while claiming that Bush's cynical selective leaking of classified information was "in the public interest" rather than for political reasons. He then goes on to say that Bush decided to declassify and release some information to rebut "irresponsible and unfounded accusations" that the administration had manipulated or misused prewar intelligence to buttress its case for war. John Stewart's writers can't come up with anything funnier than this! But poor Scotty has to stand there and watch what little shred of personal integrity he has slip away as he repeats the same lies. At least he'll get a nice cushy job after this...probably as spokesman for Halliburton.

Do You Want a Thief Bugging Your Phone?

2006-03-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

It is great that the discussion in this country has turned to censuring the president. After the Democratic landslide in November, we can advance this talk to that of impeachment. But one thing that is never talked about in all the back and forth about whether the president should have the power to ignore laws and the Constitution and order the wiretapping of citizens without any court supervision is a PRACTICAL discussion of how this will (and no doubt does) actually work. The republicans will defend the idea of letting the president ignore the rule of law "because he's fighting the terrorists". But that argument is so specious. Even if you are so blind as to think that Bush would only decide to wiretap actual terrorists, it is not the president who actually makes these decisions. He's just setting the policy. THE ACTUAL DECISIONS AS TO WHO TO WIRETAP IS MADE BY ADMINISTRATORS. Does anyone have any doubt that if the administration is given such unfettered power that someone like Cheney, or Karl Rove (or will be delegated to someone like a lower level White House aide in charge of religious pandering who just happens to be a major shoplifter) won't decide to order wiretapping of anyone who is "not supporting the troops" by actually expressing their opinion that maybe everything Bush does isn't 100% perfect. You only need go back 33 years to the last totally corrupt republican administration which did just that when their botched break-in of the Democratic offices at the Watergate complex revealed their lower tech version of electronic eavesdropping.

Can Your Ratings Be a Negative Number?

2006-02-28T11:32:00.000-08:00

Many people are shocked at the latest poll showing that Bush's approval rating has dropped 8 more points to 34%. I must say I am completely astonished...how is it that a third of the people in this country can STILL think this man is doing a good job? Can that many people be so out of touch? Or is it just that the greedy, tax-cut-loving republicans will support Satan as long as their tax rates are kept low? Bush's next target is the 23% approval rating of the last totally corrupt republican president, Tricky Dicky, in 1974 just before he resigned in disgrace. It's a tough target to beat, but I'm confident he'll make it following the passage of his and Cheney's articles of impeachment by the new Congress after the November Democratic landslide.

South Dakota Chickens

2006-02-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

What's the matter with the brave right wingers controlling the South Dakota legislature. Sure, they showed their bravado by passing a new law criminalizing abortion, but then they kowtowed to compromise by putting in an exception for when the mother's life is in danger. What cowards! Who do they think they are, playing God by deciding who should die in that situation? If they truly believe that the fetus is a person at conception, then who are they to decide whether a pregnant woman in imminent fear of death without a termination of her pregnancy should have any rights? After all, who says it's "her" pregnancy? Obviously, these crusaders for the fetus have decided that they are the ones to decide what happens to every fetus. Yup, they love the fetus...they believe in doing everything they can to protect a fetus UNTIL it is born. Then, the fact that children are born into poverty without access to decent medical care is not their problem. If a kid's parent decide to have children before they have saved enough money from their minimum wage jobs to create a decent trust fund for their offspring, well, that's just bad planning on their part...they didn't take advantage of all the wonderful tax cuts the republicans have provided. Now, that abortion is on the way out, they have turned their sights on the morning after pill. Just because a woman is raped or a victim of incest, apparently that gives her no rights over those of a potential fetus. The next step will be to make birth control pills illegal. Without these coming "reforms" from the republicans, we will have a situation where women might think about having sex outside of marriage, or even God forbid, for their own pleasure instead as part of their "wifely duties"!

But Officer, I Only Had One Beer With Dinner

2006-02-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

Now that Deadeye Dick has come forward four days after shooting his friend in the head, we are all supposed to fall in line and buy his new found openness. I'm not saying the vice president of the United States was drunk when he shot his friend in the head. I'm just saying that his actions after he shot his friend in the head make perfect sense if he did. Cheney now admits to having "one beer with lunch" the day he shot his friend in the head. Many a police officer has heard this story when stopping a car weaving down the road. I'm sure it would be the first time a bunch of Texas bigwigs were drunk when they were driven by luxury automobiles to a spot where they could pour out of the cars and shoot a group of farm raised animals for their enjoyment. When the police showed up at the ranch to speak to Deadeye, they were told to come back the next morning. Try that next time you shoot your friend in the head, and see what the cops do.

Hey Dick...Yikes, Duck!

2006-02-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

Maybe the gun nuts have the right idea after all. If all the right wing nut jobs agree to pen themselves in to those "shooting ranches" in Texas and take pot shots at each other, I say give them all the guns they want, including those automatic weapons the NRA recently made sure are available again. As you've probably heard (but not from the White House as they were obviously trying to keep this secret...from force of habit, I guess) Dick Cheney shot Harry M. Whittington, a 78-year-old attorney from Austin, who is a longtime supporter of President Bush and longtime friend of Karl Rove. This happened in Texas (where else!) at one of these "ranches" where rich old "sportsmen" gather to shoot animals that have been herded towards their guns by real outdoorsmen. Apparently, this gives these guys a feeling of being real hunters. I would imagine if they miss the animals herded towards them, then they probably get to shoot one of the birds still in its pen. Whittington was shot by Cheney after the two men got out of the car they were riding in to shoot some birds...ah, the thrill of the hunt!

All Duh News...

2006-02-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

Today's news brings almost nothing that was not already apparent to anyone with half a brain. Among the "revelations" that would bring a response of "Duh, really" are: that the Bush administration cherry picked intelligence info to justify a rush to war with Iraq. Paul Pillar, aformer CIA official for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, writes in the Foreign Affairs journal that the White House used the intelligence to justify a decision it had already reached. Really, I'm shocked! We also find out that Michael "Heck of a job" Brown contacted Bush officials at his ranch a day earlier than previously revealed and they did nothing. "Brown testified Friday that he notified top White House and Homeland Security officials on the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore that "we were realizing our worst nightmare" and that New Orleans was seriously flooding. He dismissed as "just baloney" and "a little disingenuous" claims by agency officials that they didn't know about the severity of the damage until the next day." Once again I'm shocked that an administration tempered by the quick actions of a "leader" that reads a childrens book for seven minutes AFTER his country has been attacked, would stay on vacation for another day and ignore a Democratic city that was being flooded and whose people were dying. Finally, we learn that Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby testified that his "superiors" authorized him to leak classified information to reporters. Gee, I wonder who that superior was? It certainly would be out of character for Cheney to violate the law to attack an innocent person for base political reasons. Come on, media, please give us some "news" !

What's Hypocrisy Daddy?

2006-02-07T07:34:00.000-08:00

My ten year old was doing his vocabulary homework the other night and asked me for the definition of one of his assigned words, hypocrisy. After a little thought, here's what I came up with. A bunch of right wing republicans are trying to justify Bush's crimes of directing illegal wiretapping by talking about the theory of the unitary executive, which proposes that all federal executive power is vested by the Constitution in the President. That crackpot theory effectively elevates the president to the level of King in that he is not limited by the actions of the legislative or judicial branches. Here's the definition of hypocrisy...take those same republicans and take them back in time to 1992 as Clinton is assuming office and ask them their opinion on the unitary executive. And to have even more fun ask them for their same opinion if the other Clinton was ever elected president!

A SOU Free Evening

2006-02-01T06:21:00.000-08:00

So, I was at a meeting late last and didn't get home till 8:00. My kids appealed to my sense of guilt for being away all evening and asked if they could stay up till 9:00 and watch TV with me. What to do? Do I subject them to the spectacle of watching the speech reader for the soulless republican party recite the usual list of lies? Is it right to take the chance of having them see Cheney or Hastert die on camera of a heart attack as they try to heave their massive bulks out of their chairs a dozen times to applaud? Oh, look kids, there's a Dirty Jobs special on the Discovery Channel. I'm sure we enjoyed ourselves more (and learned more) than the poor people who subjected themselves to watching the so-called State of the Union. It's so much easier to watch or read the analysis after the litany of lies is broadcast. I'll ignore the first half of the speech that rehashed the same old lies about Iraq. And don't get me started on the hypocrisy of the Abramhoff party talking about the need to tighten ethical standards in politics! When the history of state of the union speeches is written years from now and they are rated from high to low, it will be noted that the blatant lies told in 2003 to justify an unjust war was the worst example of any use of this platform for setting policy. Close behind this will be the speech in 2006 that attempted to justify illegal spying on American citizens. So, what did we find out? We're addicted to oil! How insightful, coming from the spokesman for the pushers! Big Oil has run this administration's energy policy even since Cheney held his secret meeting with Ken Lay and all the Big Oil execs in the first weeks after their "win" in 2000. And what was their response this past year as we were suffering from massive increases in gasoline and natural gas prices? Why, a massive transfer of billions of our tax money to Big Oil under the guise of "encouraging exploration for new supplies". Gee, I'm not the smartest guy around but I think if I was running a large oil company and prices are at an all time high, I would probably want to make sure that the company is spending a few of the record billions of bucks in profits to ensure that I have a ready supply to sell. But that's just me, maybe if you're from Texas, you don't stick a shovel in the ground without a massive tax break. Glad I didn't waste my time watching last night's speech or any of Bush's readings of other people's words and ideas. Gee, by missing last year's speech I didn't hear about all the wonderful things that we're going to be done to reform Social Security this year. I'm sure anything Bush read last night will look just as irrelevant a year from now as Social Security reform looks today.

"Warrants? We Don't Need No Stinking Warrants"

2006-01-25T08:46:00.000-08:00

The neocons who run the White House are so brazen (no doubt due to their big balls, small brains as pointed out by the Daily Curmudgeon), that they are sending out Bush to read speeches that DEFEND their criminal actions in spying on thousands of its citizens. The only way that such a clear violation of citizens' rights could happen in this country is when an evil cabal of people manage to install someone as president who thinks the Constitution of the United States is an annoyance: “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!” But, let's not be unreasonable. I admit that on 9-11-2001, it was perfectly reasonable for a commander-in-chief to say, "Damn the niceties of civil rights, start tapping the phones of anyone connected to the animals that did this." I'll even admit that on 10-11-2001 that you could make a case for illegal wiretaps. But at some point in late 2001, someone with an inkling of what it means to be an American would have stood up in a White House meeting and said, "You know, the crisis has somewhat passed and I don't think it's unreasonable to go to the SPECIAL COURT SET UP JUST FOR THIS THING and get warrants for these wiretaps." It's not like they would have any trouble getting warrants, as in the 25 years the secret court had existed, of the thousands of warrant applications it had received, it denied a grand total of FOUR. I'm sure if anyone in this administration had suggested following the law, they would have been met with blank stares, replies of "why bother" and a pink slip.

Gimme an "I", Gimme an "M"...

2006-01-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

Back on July 21, 2005, in only my second blog entry, mine was a very lonely voice calling for the impeachment of the "president". I'm now happy to say I was just a little ahead of my time, as a new Zogby poll shows that a majority of Americans now support impeaching Bush for wiretapping by a margin of 52% to 43%. Back in July, I was musing that Bush must be investigated on the emerging Valerie Plame scandal and most likely the trail would lead to impeachment. I could just as easily been posing impeachment for creating a web of lies to justify a rush to war, or creating a web of lies (see a pattern here?!) to push through a prescription drug law that is a boondoggle for the pharmaceutical companies. Today, we can add impeachment articles for total incompetence (New Orleans), absence of compassion for those in need (New Orleans) and racism (New Orleans). The case for impeachment at this time based on the outrageous criminal wiretapping by an administration that believes it is above the law is best put by former congressman, Elizabeth Holtzman, who served four terms in Congress, where she played a key role in House impeachment proceedings against the last totally corrupt republican president, Richard Nixon: "the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)--and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws--that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of President Bush. A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law--and repeatedly violates the law--thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office." Have more beautiful words ever been written?!

This Is Progress?

2006-01-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

How is it that Iraq, a country that is in total disarray, has settled all claims of vote fraud within one month of an election, and I'm still waiting to hear the truth about how the voting in Ohio was manipulated in 2004 using voting machines from Diebold whose CEO guaranteed a win in Ohio for Bush. Even when the republicans had their vote stealing people in place in Florida in 2000, it took us months to get a final settlement from Scalia.

Good News, Boom News

2006-01-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

First, the good news...it's becoming increasingly clear that the country is rising up to force the Bush adminstration to abandon the mindless "stay the course" approach to their disaster in Iraq and begin the process of bringing our troops home. Latest example of this was the incredibly large turnout of people for a symposium on Iraq in the sleepy town of Northbrook on a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in January. Ellen describes the day much better than I can here. She also mentions that our absentee congressman, Rooster Kirk, was surprisingly not present for yet another important open meeting in his district. He probably should be excused as his leader, Tom DeLay, was at the time scurrying to try to protect his lucrative leadership position. Now that the party of the culture of corruption has finally given up hope of keeping DeLay in charge of the dirty money chute into their pockets, they are very busy trying to find someone who can paint a false front of supporting campaign reform while making sure that the money continue to flows to them behind the scenes.
Now, the bad news...it's not going to matter anyway as it looks like the planet will be blown up soon. Those paragons of stability, the religious crazies who run Iran, have decided to openly resume development of nuclear weapons. They don't even try very hard to hide their intentions as they use the ridiculous justification that their work is for peaceful, nuclear power research. When you are sitting on more oil than your can ever pump out of the ground? Hmm, sounds a bit suspicious. Let's see, their president actually claimed that the Holocaust never happened and that Israel should be wiped off the map. I wonder what their first target will be? Until three years ago, the world was a safer place because these crazies would be put in their place by the reasoned actions of other countries, especially the superpowers. Economic sanctions would be threatened, technology would be embargoed, United Nations pressure and sanctions would be brought, and if all else fails, the military might of the United States would be brought to bear and nuclear facilities of rogue nations would be bombed or more secretively destroyed. These type of actions were effective because of the strong moral international reputation of the United States and its allies that backed them up. That moral reputation has been totally ruined by the precipitant actions of the Bush administration in Iraq. To think that the US could go before the world and propose that it must unilaterally act militarily to stop Iran is laughable. No matter what evidence they would present, no one would be believe them as they will be comparing it to Collin Powell holding up a vial of "anthrax" and all the other distortions used by the neocons to rush to war in Iraq. Our only hope is that Iran will need more than a few years to go nuclear. Once our government starts to shift to sanity in November with the election of a Democratic House and Senate, we can begin the long process of restoring the reputation of the United States and making the world a safer place.

The Rooster Gets Tough

2005-12-23T07:40:00.000-08:00

It's nice to see that someone in the Republican party is finally standing up and talking about taking action against the sleeze and corruption that has taken over the grand old party. Convicted congressman Duke Cunningham (R-Leavenworth) and soon to be convicted Tom DeLay (R-Lucifer) and Bob "this vote for sale" Ney of Ohio and all the other Republican soon to be ex-congressman and prison inmates must be quaking in their boots at the proposal from Mark Kirk. Congressman Kirk currently is in his last term (absently) representing the 1oth congressional district of Illinois. He follows the leadership of his president by only appearing in public at staged events with the "public" consisting only of his hand-picked supporters. Bush has chosen the wildly imaginative nickname of Markie for our congressman, even though Kirk has pleaded with Bush to call him Rooster. Now, what kind of supposedly grown man has to give nicknames to everyone? As I recall from my youth, the people who gave out nicknames were either bullies or idiots. Your choice...yes, you can pick both. Now, we also need to ask, why would anyone ASK to be called Rooster? Anyways, statesman Kirk has said Congress must reassure voters that it is taking its members' ethics problems seriously. He wants to deny pensions, floor access and parking privileges to congressmen who are convicted of felonies. That's right you merchants of sleeze...when you sell out your country for a few thousand dollars in bribes, you will no longer have a reserved parking space at the Capital!!!!! After serving a couple of months at a country club type prison (assuming you don't get a presidential pardon) and returning to Washington to make several times your congressional salary as a "lobbyist" in one of the many K Street firms whose staffs are managed by DeLay, you will have to find your spot to park your Lexus. Try finding a space in the overburdened parking garages of DC and pay $18 out of your own pocket for the privilege. If that doesn't get Republican congressmen to abandon their corrupt ways, I'm sure the Rooster will come up with something even tougher...could we someday see felons being denied a table at the congressional cafeteria?!