Republican Scandal Of The Week

ICHC Very Demotivational

I'm actually wondering if I should change that head to read "Republican Scandal of the Day." Because, yaknow, there's just no keeping up with those motherfuckers.

Every time you turn around, there's yet another one in the paper, on your TV, at some Web site, saying or doing something totally unacceptable or getting busted for not keeping their pants on.

I sure do miss the days when the Democrats had all the sex scandals and the Republicans stuck to what they do best — robbing the people blind.

CA State Senator Roy Ashburn

Forgive me for not covering all the other scandals — Rand-Away Paul's reprehensible comments on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the right of private property owners (even those who do business with the public) to discriminate; Roy Ashburn's sudden 180 on LGBTQ rights after he got busted driving drunk with a young man in his car, having just left a GAYGAYGAYGAYGAY bar; Professor George Rekers, married (can you say "beard," children? I knew you could) co-founder (with James Dobson) of homophobic organizations Family Research Council and NARTH (one o'dem "cure teh ghey" groups) and his rent boy (who gives ass-levitating massages, I hear); et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Because, frankly, I'd be here all day with stubby bloody little finger-stumps if I tried.

Meet Nimrata Randhawa Haley. Nimrata seems to be suffering the same Westernizification disease that has afflicted Louisiana governor Piyush Jindal. Just as Piyush became "Bobby," so Nimrata has become "Nikki" in her attempt to please the Betty Browns of this world.

Nimrata "Nikki" Randhawa Haley

In case you didn't know who Betty Brown is and don't want to clicky teh linky, Ms. Brown is the Texas State legislator who asked Americans of Asian descent to change their names to names that are "easier for Americans to deal with." Thereby implying, of course, that such Americans are not, you know, real Americans. Well, she won't have to worry about Nimrata and Piyush. Any American, even an Asian-American, can say "Nikki" and "Bobby."

Nikki Haley is a South Carolina representative in Washington, D.C. Apparently, a former colleague of Nikki's, one Will Folks, claims they've been boffing. They met when they both worked for South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (yeah, the guy who was "hiking the Appalachian Trail" on Nude Hiking Day, when he was supposed to be in the office, or at least reachable by his staff, not to mention his wealthy wife who bought him the job).

At the time, Folks was one of Sanford's top spokesweasels. It's not clear exactly what Haley was other than a hot mama with a nice booty. However, Folks apparently is leaking the nasty details of their affair in a slow drip to the South Carolina press. None of it has convincing probative value, but a lot of it is pretty damn suspicious. For one thing, Mr. Folks apparently worked for Ms. Haley's campaign at one time. During which period, some 700 telephone calls were made, mostly by Ms. Haley to Mr. Folks, many of them late at night, and some of them lasting several hours.

Ms. Haley defends herself with the claim that she works hard and works her staff hard as well. (Perhaps she should have avoided the word "staff.") That's all well and good, Nikki, but if my spouse got on the phone at 11 pm and stayed on for three fucking hours, I would not be a happy camper at all. It would take some smooth smooth talking and lots of excellent sex to quiet my suspicions, if you know what I mean. And she was calling him at 2 am and talking till 5 am. OK, so, what's the story here, Nikki? I work hard too, but I would never call a colleague at 2 am. I would assume that they were sleeping the sleep of the righteous and just.

We've all pulled all-nighters, sometimes several days or weekends in a row. Would you feel it was cool to call a colleague who was not also pulling an all-nighter, after 10 pm? I sure wouldn't. Hell, I've been chewed out for calling people after 8 pm, especially if they have young children.

And three hours? Seriously, girl-child, if it takes you three hours to discuss your bidness, you in the wrong line of work.

The most interesting thing about this very strange and creepy story is, Ms. Haley has yet to deny it. She's said things along the lines of she doesn't want to give any weight to this story and it's not worth her time and energy and yadadadayada. But she hasn't actually denied that she had an affair with the guy. The furthest she has gone is to say:

"I have been 100% faithful to my husband throughout our 13 years of marriage," Haley said in a statement. "This claim against me is categorically and totally false."

See, now, it would have been so easy for Ms. Haley to say, "I never had an affair with Will Folks."

But that's not what she said. And we hairsplitters know there's a difference between lying outright and lying by implication.

More to the point, Ms. Haley said she "barely knew" Will Folks. That's quite possible, of course, we don't all know every single one of our former colleagues or employees well. But if you make 700 phone calls to someone, some of them lasting two or three hours, it gets kinda hard to argue that you don't know them well. People I don't know well might get one telephone call a year from me. On the other hand people I'm screwing like a bunny, yeah, I'm so there with the three-hour phone calls (much as I hate using the phone) and the everyday emails and shit.

Oh, and Nikki Haley has the endorsement of Scary Failin', aka Babble Spice. Who was rumoured to be screwing her husband's business partner some time ago, although the guy sealed his court records so none of us will find the hard evidence. Birds of a feather, and all that.

OTOH, you know, given that soon-to-be ex-Governor Sanford was making the beast with two backs (or whatever else he was doing) with Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentinian beauty for whom he dumped his wealthy wife Jenny, just recently; Lt. Governor Andre Bauer (also running for the same post) recently informed a shocked nation that giving welfare to poor people just encourages them to breed like stray animals; Third-string Repugly candidate Gresham Barret, polling at a whole 16% has won the endorsement of Darth Cheney himself (that should be teh kiss of death right there) — nah, we still hope she loses to the Democrat.

Satan always asks, "WWCD?"

Now, normally, we at this fine blog could give a fuck who's fucking who, you know? The more people fuck the less likely they are to be beating the crap outa each other, right? OTOH, the Scary Failin' ranks of Fambly Valyooz hypocrites really, really get our fucking goat. We'd like to see them all pilloried in public, pelted with rotten fruit and past-use-by-date eggs. They fucking suck because they want everyone but their sick sad selves to abide by rules that they themselves can't live by.

So, Nikki, here's a little song for you from the South Carolina electorate — Why don't we get drunk and screw:

Stumble It!

The Bullshit Must Stop NOW

ICHC

We're in the midst of the worst ecological disaster of our lifetimes, in case you didn't know. That would be BP's oil rig leaking billions of gallons of oil into the ocean. The ocean that feeds and sustains us.

The RightWingNutJob Noise Machine, aka Faux Noise and Rupert Murdoch's various rags (the Wall St. Journal, various local fishwrap in different cities), the various "pundits" and opiners, talk show hosts and mouthpieces for the corporatocracy are already trying to spread the meme that President Obama and the Federal government that he heads are somehow culpable in this disaster. They're calling it "Obama's Katrina."

Oh, yeah? Well, I got your Katrina right here, fuckwits. What, do these idiots think that we have forgotten what happened during Hurricane Katrina? That was a mere five years ago, you bilious bloviating bilebags. We all lived through that, in person or vicariously. We have not forgotten the terrible scenes we saw.

So, peeps, if some RWNJ starts haranguing you with this bullshit? Here's what you tell them:

Timeline of events courtesy of Media Matters For America, a nonpartisan fact-checking organization devoted to exposing inaccuracy in reportage.

April 20 (10 p.m.): Oil rig explosion. An April 21 ABCNews.com article reported, "An overnight explosion in the Gulf of Mexico rocked the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast, sending spectacular bursts of flame into the sky. The fires were still raging today." The U.S. Coast Guard's National Oil and Hazardous Substances Response System assigns primary responsibility for cleaning up oil spills to the spiller as the responsible party.

April 21: Deputy Secretary of Interior, Coast Guard dispatched to region. An April 22 White House statement noted that following a briefing with President Obama, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe, and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, "Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes was dispatched to the region yesterday to assist with coordination and response." The Coast Guard announced that four units were responding to the fire, with additional units en route.

* Search and rescue efforts begin for 11 missing. An initial focus of the response was the search for 11 missing crewmembers. The search was called off April 23.

* BP confirms U.S. Coast Guard was "leading the emergency response" In an April 21 press release, British Petroleum stated that it was "working closely with Transocean and the U.S. Coast Guard, which is leading the emergency response, and had been offering its help - including logistical support."

* CNN.com: "The U.S. Coast Guard launched a major search effort." An April 22 CNN.com article reported:

The U.S. Coast Guard launched a major search effort Wednesday for 11 people missing after a "catastrophic" explosion aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico engulfed the drilling platform in flames.

Another 17 people were injured -- three critically -- in the blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon, which occurred about 10 p.m. Tuesday. The rig was about 52 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, said Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry. As of late afternoon Wednesday as many as six firefighting vessels were working to contain the massive fire caused by the explosion.

"It obviously was a catastrophic event," O'Berry said.

April 23: Coast Guard "focused on mitigating the impact of the product currently in the water." On April 23, the Coast Guard stated:

The Department of the Interior, MMS [the U.S. Minerals Management Service], and the Coast Guard continue to support the efforts of the responsible parties to secure all potential sources of pollution. Both federal agencies have technical teams in place overseeing the proposals by BP and Transocean to completely secure the well. Until that has occurred and all parties are confident the risk of additional spill is removed, a high readiness posture to respond will remain in place.

Although the oil appears to have stopped flowing from the well head, Coast Guard, BP, Transocean, and MMS remain focused on mitigating the impact of the product currently in the water and preparing for a worst-case scenario in the event the seal does not hold. Visual feed from deployed remotely operated vehicles with sonar capability is continually monitored in an effort to look for any crude oil which still has the potential to emanate from the subsurface well.

"From what we have observed yesterday and through the night, we are not seeing any signs of release of crude in the subsurface area. However we remain in a 'ready to respond' mode and are working in a collaborative effort with BP, the responsible party, to prepare for a worst-case scenario," Landry stated early Friday morning.

April 25: Response team implements plan to contain oil spilling from source, weather delays cleanup.

* Storms delay response efforts. An April 25 Associated Press article reported, "Stormy weather delayed weekend efforts to mop up leaking oil from a damaged well after the explosion and sinking of a massive rig off Louisiana's Gulf Coast that left 11 workers missing and presumed dead." AP further reported:

The bad weather began rolling in Friday as strong winds, clouds and rain interrupted efforts to contain the spill. Coast Guard Petty Officer John Edwards said he was uncertain when weather conditions would improve enough for cleanup to resume. So far, he said, crews have retrieved about 1,052 barrels of oily water.

* Oil recovery and cleanup were to resume after adverse weather passed. On April 25, the unified command team responding to the spill stated:

The unified command is implementing intervention efforts in an attempt to contain the source of oil emanating from the wellhead at the Deepwater Horizon incident site Sunday.

The unified command has approved a plan that utilizes submersible remote operated vehicles in an effort to activate the blowout preventer on the sea floor and to stop the flow of oil that has been estimated at leaking up to 1,000 barrels/42,000 gallons a day.

Also, BP is mobilizing the DD3, a drilling rig that is expected to arrive Monday to prepare for relief well-drilling operations.

Additionally, the oil recovery and clean-up operations are expected to resume once adverse weather has passed. These efforts are part of the federally approved oil spill contingency plan that is in place to respond to environmental incidents.

April 26: Response crews "to resume skimming operations." On April 26, the response team stated, "Sunday, an aircrew from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sighted five small whales during an over flight in the vicinity of the oil spill, which currently measures 48 miles by 39 miles at its widest points with varying levels of sheening, and is located 30 miles off the coast of Venice, La." The command team further stated, "Following adverse weather that went through the area, response crews are anticipated to resume skimming operations today," including 1,000 personnel, 10 offshore vessels, 7 skimming boats and more than 14,000 gallons of dispersant. At that point 48,384 gallons of oily water had been collected.

April 28: Federal officials realize spill was far more severe than BP led them to believe. An April 28 New York Times article reported, "Government officials said late Wednesday night that oil might be leaking from a well in the Gulf of Mexico at a rate five times that suggested by initial estimates." The Times further reported:

In a hastily called news conference, Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had concluded that oil is leaking at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day, not 1,000 as had been estimated. While emphasizing that the estimates are rough given that the leak is at 5,000 feet below the surface, Admiral Landry said the new estimate came from observations made in flights over the slick, studying the trajectory of the spill and other variables.

An April 30 Associated Press article reported, "For days, as an oil spill spread in the Gulf of Mexico, BP assured the government the plume was manageable, not catastrophic. Federal authorities were content to let the company handle the mess while keeping an eye on the operation." The article continued:

But then government scientists realized the leak was five times larger than they had been led to believe, and days of lulling statistics and reassuring words gave way Thursday to an all-hands-on-deck emergency response. Now questions are sure to be raised about a self-policing system that trusted a commercial operator to take care of its own mishap even as it grew into a menace imperiling Gulf Coast nature and livelihoods from Florida to Texas.

April 29: Napolitano declares spill "of national significance"; BP insists its "plan can handle this spill." On April 29, BP official Doug Suttles appeared on ABC's Good Morning America and stated, "At this point, I believe our plan can handle this spill, and that's what we're doing." That day, Napolitano declared the spill "of national significance," explaining that "we can now draw down assets from across the country, other coastal areas, by way of example; that we will have a centralized communications because the spill is now crossing different regions."

* EPA preparing for oil to hit shore. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson commented at an April 29 press briefing: "[A]s the oil does hit the shoreline, EPA will provide support to assess the impacts on the coastal shoreline and play a key role in implementing the cleanup. As a daughter of the Gulf Coast, I know that it is our job to ensure people that we will be eyes and ears working with the states who have valuable and vital resources to monitor air, water and land quality." Jackson also stated that the EPA has deployed air-monitoring aircraft "that is gathering information on the impact of the controlled burn on air quality, both in the area of the burn, and, of course, further away."

* AP: "Air Force sends planes to help with Gulf oil spill." An April 30 Associated Press article reported: "Two Air Force planes have been sent to Mississippi and were awaiting orders to start dumping chemicals on the oil spill threatening the coast, as the government worked Friday to determine how large a role the military should play in the cleanup."

* WSJ: Navy joins Obama's "robust response." An April 30 Wall Street Journal article reported that "The U.S. Navy said it will send more than 12 additional miles of inflatable oil booms to the Gulf, as well as seven towable skimming systems and 50 contractors with experience operating the equipment." The article continued: "The Navy is making two large facilities available to the Coast Guard personnel and BP-employed contractors who are currently taking the lead in fighting the spill. Military officials said the booms and skimmers were being sent to a Naval construction base in Gulfport, Miss. The Navy also opened its air base in Pensacola, Fla., to the effort."

The timeline is clear. The incident was reported on 4/21 and the same day, the Deputy Secretary of the Interior and the Coast Guard were on the scene. BP assured everyone that the situation was under control, and minimized the scope of the disaster.

Seven days later, the Coast Guard realized that BP had underestimated the leakage by a factor of five times or more, and had no plan to deal with the disaster. President Obama has told BP that they must pay for the cleanup, but he has assigned the highest level of resources to this crisis.

So I'd better not hear "Obama's Katrina" coming out of anyone's mouth, any time soon. Because Katrina was what caused me, finally, to take a stand against Gee, Dumb? Yeah! and his cohorts, the Bouchebags who squatted in the White House and the Houses of the People and every administrative office and department in this country.

Here are a few ways in which Hurricane Katrina differs from the current disaster:

• BP, NOAA, NASA — no organization could have predicted the oil rig accident.
  
  
• Hurricane Katrina had been predicted weeks beforehand. There was plenty of warning, it was hurricane season, and researchers could see the hurricane approach landfall.
  
  
• BP oil rig explosion — 11 dead
  
  
• Hurricane Katrina — 1,500 dead
  
  
• BP oil rig explosion — Federal Government/POTUS response: same-day dispatch of Coast Guard and high-ranking official to determine nature and extent of damage
  
  
• Hurricane Katrina — Federal Government/POTUS response: Bush flew to McCain's to celebrate birthday party
  
  Remember this?
  
  
  
  Meanwhile, Dick Cheney was off on a week-long fishing "vacation" in Wyoming — supposedly. And Condi Rice was checking out the plays on Broadway, diverting herself with a little shoe-shopping at Ferragamo. Here's the timeline of events, if you want to see for yourself.

Bush waited for FIVE WHOLE DAYS between the time aid was requested and the time he finally reported back to work. He was too busy enjoying photo ops with John McCain's birthday cake and horsing around with a guitar and lying to seniors about his new Medicare drug benefit.

Meanwhile, this just in: Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old company which won so many no-bid contracts after Dick picked himself to be Georgie's Veep, is implicated in the widening scandal. And has been involved in similar environmental disasters.

Moreover: President Obama has already directed that BP will pay the cost of cleanup. BP has, apparently, agreed.

So I'd better not be hearing nothing about no fucking Katrina.

Stumble It!

Politics: Right-wing Terrorists

OMG WTF, where do they FIND these guys? Raw Story is reporting that one Wayne Simmons, a "pro-assassination CIA analyst," (fortunately now retired from the CIA) called Dick "Dick" Cheney:

“one of the most honorable men on the planet”

who would never break the law.

Are you fucking kidding me? Dick "Satan-spawn" Cheney, who has repeatedly lied to Congress, the President of the United States (his boss), and probably deity itself at this point? What the fuckin' fuck does this guy mean by honorable? A lying chickenshit chickenhawk who had "other priorities" keeping him out of the Vietnam War (five, count 'em, FIVE fucking deferments), but had no problem sending soldiers to die in a pre-emptive war in Iraq? The son-of-a-syphilitic-turtle dropped out of college as soon as he had spawned the sprog required to keep him from shedding his precious blood in foreign wars, but had no shame — none — about sending other people's sons and daughters to get killed, maimed, and permanently injured.



This is "honorable?" What dicionary is this motherfucker using?

FTA:

A story in the New York Times this past weekend, corroborated by the Washington Times on Monday, said that Cheney was aware of a secret CIA program that had been kept hidden from Congress for more than six years, and was part of the decision process to keep it from Congress — something that, if true, would be a violation of federal law.

Simmons told Fox News, “For anyone to think that Vice-President Dick Cheney would do anything illegal is nothing more than political grandstanding.”

You know, here Dick is openly and blatantly busted for violating federal law, i.e., committing a crime. And this brain-infected moron actually has the chutzpah to sit in front of a mike and say that the founding member of the Chickenhawk Brigade would never do anything illegal? Bud, is the sky blue on your planet, or is it some other colour?

Oh, wait, look, the scumsucking puke had this to write in a letter to the NYT:

“Suggesting that we intentionally misled the American people for partisan political purposes or some quid pro quo personal gain is an unconscionable attack on our honor and long service to this nation, [...].”

This, of course, was in response to an article in said paper that had exposed the fact that certain elements of the government and its agencies had "intentionally misled the American people for partisan political purposes or some quid pro quo personal gain."

I wonder if Simmons EVER served in the military? Or is he a member of the 82nd Chairborne? It seems one of the biggest problems with the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against is the fact that so many "military analysts" and theoreticians never actually had to serve on the ground.

Perhaps that's why they misunderstand the meaning of common terms such as "honourable" and "illegal." Perhaps that's why they have lied and continue to lie to us about virtually everything.

I'm about to embark on some serious reading about the Vietnam War. The only way to stop war is to understand it — its roots, its beginnings, its place in the history of our individual and collective lives. We must stop people like this from poisoning the well of common discourse. If this country is to be saved intact with its honourable Constitutional roots, we must all work together, Republicans and Democrats, Liberals and Libertarians.

We cannot pretend that a government that is supposed to be "of, by, and for the people" is best served by those who would lie to us and kill our children. There is no honour in lying a trusting people into giving up their children's lives and saddling their grandchildren with debt just so that some very nasty, creepy old men can live with riches beyond what they can ever use.

Image from the Houston Press

While KBR — remember KBR? An "offshoot" of Halliburton, the company that Dick "Dick" Cheney helmed, and ran into the ground fiscally until he rescued it with no-bid contracts after finding himself the best possible candidate for VP? — was electrocuting the military in Iraq with substandard facilities and poisoning them with substandard food and water, it was using our tax dollars to buy — and throw away — people, as well as machinery, in the great swindle that we've been taught to call "Operation Enduring Freedom," or, more accurately, "This fucking hideous unprovoked war in Iraq."

That last link is to a Rolling Stone story about an ex-military man who went to Iraq as a civilian contractor and got seriously fucked up, so if you have a sensitive stomach, you might not care to read it. Alternatively, if you're, like, contemplating eating or anything like that, don't click any of the links about the poisoned food and water. I think I just gave up eating permanently. Jesus, what vomitous little shitbags like Dick Cheney and Wayne Simmons have done, and are doing to the military is enough to make you puke blood.

Those of you who are into that kind of thing might wish to let Faux Noise know that you don't approve of Mr. Simmons' somewhat cavalier interpretations of polysyllabi like "honour" and "illegal," and such. It appears words of one syllable are more his speed. Mr. Simmons also believes in assassinating foreign leaders. Something tells me the Founding Fathers would have happily given him a trial for such undemocratic beliefs, which would have surely led to a justified firsthand experience of execution, since they did not believe in assassination. What a walking enema!!

Stumble It!

The Opposite of Peace Is — War?

Been reading a lot about World War II lately. My father fought in that war. He lost the hearing on one side thanks to shrapnel that perforated his eardrum. He lost many of his friends. He nearly lost his life.

But my reason for reading is both greater and lesser than a desire to know a little piece of my father's history: I am writing a novel set in that period.

And today, I came across something that encapsulates very nicely the malaise that the reading of the past several weeks has engendered in me. FTA:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, War Is A Racket

While Japanese farmers, office workers, and civilians were restricted to the grayest of lives by the sumptuary laws enforced before and during WW II, while Japanese intellectuals trembled under the heavy hand of the thought police and suffered torture by the Kempeitai, while Chinese peasants starved and their children were forcibly inducted into the military to fight against superior armies and lose their lives for a pittance, the wealthy crooks who engineered these wars became wealthier still. Come rain or shine, they continued to find ways to profit from the vast human suffering.

George W. Bush paid for the war in Iraq by borrowing billions of dollars from the Chinese. Now your grandchildren will have to repay that debt. I hear some people say Obama is creating a huge debt by borrowing additional monies to stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, the hole that Bush left has to be patched before everything else leaks out of it. And the only way to patch that hole is to stimulate the economy into spending.

People forget that the U.S. economy runs on consumer spending. Before George Dumbya left office, the Iraq war had already cost us three TRILLION dollars. We are bringing our troops back now, but that costs money too. Then there's the issue of reintegrating them into the smashed civilian economy. All the while, the war profiteers like Dick "Dick" Cheney sit back on their seats and bwa-ha-haaa themselves into something like an orgasm. I wish it were an organism. Something intestinal and painful and lengthy.

How many kids have lost their parents in this war? Iraqi kids? Somewhere between one and five million? American kids? Somewhere between three and ten thousand? Nobody really knows. In 2004, when the total casualty figures were around 2,000, Scripps stated that 900 American children had lost a parent to the war. However, the casualty toll has doubled since then, and most of the soldiers in this war have been professional military and reservists, which means they tend to be older, married, and have more children.

How many kids are getting back parents who are not the people they used to be? Broken in body or mind or both? How many kids have to grow up really fast, to become caretakers to their parents instead of being children any more? Smedley Butler was right. War IS a racket.

Blackwater mercenaries made two to three times the salaries of military men for the same work. No-bid government contracts made a lot of people very rich. The wholesale plunder of Iraqi oil made other people (or sometimes the same people) very rich. To us, the taxpayers, is left the broken mess, the debris, the tortured, the cripple, the lame, the halt, the blind, the miserable, people who are still fighting the war in their heads, crying themselves to sleep or drinking or drugging to forget. And they are living among us as are their suffering parents and spouses and children.

The dividends of peace are happy human lives. However, these do not represent adequate profits to those whose greed drives them to profit above all else. And to achieve those profits they will willingly sacrifice every last man, woman, and child of us upon an altar of blood.

Crossposted over at The Peace Tree.

La Casa de Los Gatos apologizes for the dearth of recent posts. A bout of illness laid us low, and having had our first meal today in nearly a week, we can safely say we now have energy to start blogging again. To think that a little food can make so much difference ...

Stumble It!

Memorial Day

It's the day to remember all those who served in their nation's military forces. We tend to blame soldiers for the crimes of war, but in reality, soldiers are drilled into obeying orders, mostly without thought. "I was only following orders" ceased to be a defense to charges of war crimes after World War II, when the victorious Allied nations tried their military counterparts of the Axis nations and put them to death for doing some of the same things we — or our nation's leaders, rather — are doing today. Waterboarding used to be called "Japanese" or "Chinese" "water-torture," an indication that our forebears knew quite well what it was and did not hesitate to call it by its proper name. What would they think of us, their descendants, and Dick Cheney's "enhanced interrogation"? Methinks they would weep for a nation that has so lost its moral compass.

To all the families of the soldiers who have died in service of their nation, thank you for your sacrifice. May you find peace. May we all find peace, and soon.

“War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.”

— Niccolo Machiavelli

Stumble It!

Entertainment: Srsly

With sincere apologies to Jeffo:



I have just ONE request/addendum: Can we deport Flush Rimbowl and Dick "Dick" Cheney to the Lose Star State right before secession?

Stumble It!

Entertainment? Say WHAT?

Given that we just commemorated the anniversary of the Jewish Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto (April 19th), I, personally, find these lying mealy-mouthed fuckheads from Fux News and their ex-Bushwa friends too fucking hard to take. Apparently, Jon Stewart does too.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
We Don't Torture
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Look, you pitiful, hypocritical, butt-sucking, rump-swabbing, anal-poisoned (thanks Flush Rimbowl), yam-sniffing (thanks, Maru!) detritus off a devil's hoof, I realize full well that you don't have the first clue about what comprises ethics, honour, morals, righteousness, good, truth, justice, and what-all. But when you trot out Darth Cheney from whatever pit of evil he frequents to frolic about yawping about how he thinks he and his comrades-in-evil have nothing to apologize for, well, then, you pathetic wastes of air, it's time for a dozen or more resounding thwacks with the trademarked La Casa de Los Gatos' Golden Bat o'Clue:



Dick, here's a list of my wishes for you:

• May you die soon in excruciating agony a thousand times worse than any of the tortures your minions inflicted on people;
  
• Until you die, may you develop some hitherto unknown ailment that causes you agony a thousand times, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, see previous item.
  
• May you go down in infamy for all time so that no creature ever mentions your name again without appending to it the descriptors of "torturer, murderer, liar, vermin, unethical swine, profiteer, dirtbag, Satan'spawn, whoreson," and the like ad infinitum;
  
• May you never know another night's peaceful sleep from this day forward;
  
• May all living creatures shun your touch and turn away from you, including your own family;
  
• May you be haunted by the voices and faces of those who have died and suffered because of your acts, direct or indirect, and your omissions;
  
• May death become sweet release for you, to be desired with all your energy, and may it elude you until life is nothing but pain and torture, to the same extent that you made others' lives pain and torture.

You vile scum of worthless protoplasm, more evil than the world has ever known, may no medicine alleviate an instant of all the pain I wish on you.

Stumble It!

Politics: The KO Punch

I like Keith Olbermann, even though I don't always agree with him. He's incisive, articulate, and more lucid than any of the idiots at Faux Noise or the other yammerati the news channels foist upon us.

And, of course, when he is addressing my two least favourite monstrosities, I find him, and his words, utterly, irresistibly, discombobulatingly pleasant.

So, if you will, listen to him address that Satan who is largely responsible for the loss of your job, your health insurance, your 401(k), and possibly, your home.

Begone, foul spawn of Satan! he says. I agree. I'd like Cheney airlifted to Mosul, stripped of any insignia of rank or office (including his tie, belt, shoelaces, and suit jacket), and dropped among the civilian populace. I have a feeling they really won't be as, ummm, inhibited in their welcome to him as his fellow Americans perhaps might.

LOLcattitude from ICHC

PS: Apologies for light posting. I seem to have come down with a flu.

Stumble It!

World: Gaza Brings Out Teh Stupid

Wherever they've been hiding. Although, being stupid, most of them are publicly flaunting their stupid in great revolting gobs.



For those of you who just can't bear to read the depressing news, we have Serious Cute at the end of this post. Go ahead. Skip to the video. See if I care.

Here, for example, walking dildo and successful Zippy the Pinhead impersonator Bill Kristol, a Wingnut Welfare recipient if I ever saw one, bleats about how Israel's invasion of Gaza is a great favour to Obama. I mean, c'mon, you worthless impostor of humanity. Why not pull off the mask and bodysuit and tell us all about relationships on your planet, someplace far, far away from our galaxy (I fervently hope)? Because by all that's holy you haven't a fucking compassionate bone in your body to come up with shite like this.

"If you care about the peace process you should want Israel to embarrass and humiliate Hamas. That's the only chance -- there would be no peace process if Hamas were governing Gaza.

You pathetic little pig. I can't wait for you and Bush and Dick and all of you worthless ambulatory turds to fall off the world stage. Break a leg, fella. In fact, break all of them. Jeeze!

People are dying in their hundreds and you and your fellow Neocons are burping up this crap. Meanwhile, your associates in the halls of power have used their remaining muscle to prevent an immediate ceasefire, preferring to turn a blind eye to reports of Israel firing on Red Cross personnel and vehicles, of Israel refusing to allow medical aid to reach the victims of their bombings, many of them little children.



Even as your other dirtbag friends are running ads on American TV networks begging for aid to Israel, which is the major recipient of US taxpayer money. Which they're using to bomb little children, pregnant women, sick, elderly, and disabled people. Meanwhile, protohuman slime molds named Jack Abramoff and Xtianist pastor Hagee are behind this whole ad scam. Knowing the two of them and their dubious associations, chances are if you send them any money it's going directly into their own bank accounts. People like Hagee could care less if the Jewish people are wiped out in a second holocaust, since that will bring them closer to the Rapture they all work towards and pray for.

Even as our 401(k)s are turning into 101(k)s, Raw Story reports that

The administration of President George W. Bush alone has provided over 21 billion dollars in U.S. security assistance over the last eight years, including 19 billion dollars in direct military aid as freebies.

So while we, the taxpayers, are cutting back on all our expenses, begrudging money for the movies or dinner out, forgoing new clothes, selling stuff we don't need or use, putting off vacations and needed home repairs, and even our goddamned health care — the Israeli government is getting billions of OUR dollars and! AND! using our latest and greatest military offerings to slaughter others in our names.

They're using our top-notch military hardware to retaliate against home-made rockets and bombs that "traumatize" people. Their response to these pitiful weapons, which are the epitome of FAIL, is to kill. For every Israeli killed so far, over 100 Palestinians have paid with their lives. The entire country is being punished for the acts of a few.

And you wonder why there is an al Qaeda. The article also states that while the U.S. military gives the latest weapons and weapons technology to Israel, it also sells such weapons (after they're tested on the Palestinians and the Lebanese by Israel) at hugely inflated prices to the Arab nations. That's a bitter pill to swallow, eh, knowing that you're subsidizing the killing of your co-religionists, or tribe, or fellow ethnics, or whatever you want to call them?

We don't even need to remind ourselves of the Israeli military's readiness and willingness to attack American troops, unarmed American protestors, and humanitarian aid workers and medical teams.

Meanwhile, malcontents in Lebanon have begun firing rockets into Northern Israel. Holy quacking duckshit. I can't entirely blame them, it's gotta be a small group or even random individuals who are sick of seeing what's happening to Gaza. The Israeli elections will be held in a month and the leaders are trying to terrify the people and play on their fears to win by outdoing each other in killing Palestinians. I guess some Lebanese feel strongly enough to do something about it. Hezbollah was quick to distance themselves from these acts, as was Hamas. Given the fact that in the last encounter between Lebanon and Israel, Hezbollah conducted a very disciplined campaign, I tend to believe them. Besides, it's a lousy three fucking shells, yaknow?

Meanwhile, our Congresscritters strive to prove that they have but one neuron between the lot of them, by offering "staunch and unwavering support for Israel [...] recognizing its "inalienable right" to defend itself from attacks by Hamas."

Give it a rest, you feeble fucks. You can't even take care of the shitload of business that's been dumped on your workdesk, and now you're all fighting to get up on the nearest table so you can wave your teenie weenies at the press. Shut the fuck up already. Get ready to prosecute Bush, Cheney, and the entire criminal cabal. Figure out what to do about the totally fucked military situation. Come up with green alternatives to the transport money cities and states are demanding. Figure out how more of us can get decent fucking health care. Close the tax loopholes that allow these fucking CEOs to assrape us all without the benefit of lube even as they send our jobs overseas in the fucking hundreds of thousands. Jesus fucking J.H. Christ and his black brother Harry! You've got me so fucking mad I can't even stop to take my pain meds. You worthless POS just voted your own selves a sweet fucking pay raise out of our pockets. Work for our goddamned money, you louts. The free ride is SO over.

That limpdick closeted fairy queen Mitch McConnell is prancing around on the stage allowing as how the war and deaths are all the fault of those nasty nasty Hamas Islamists. WTF is that about? Can't someone put a cork in him? Mitch, you ambulatory rectum, don't you have enough work to do?

Meanwhile, that motherfucking asshole (man, I'd love to put HIS dick in a box. I'd throw the rest of him into the compactor and mail the box to his Mrs.) Richard "Dick" Cheney has the outright fucking GALL to tell us that Bush's actions are not illegal because if they were he would've been impeached. What kind of circular logic is THAT, you infernal spawn of Satan? Wipe the blood off your chin before giving us your answer. Foul, ancient, walking rottenness. He demeans everything good, noble, admirable, and beautiful about humanity just by his existence. Dick, you and your rotten brood should be swept aside, root and branch, into the dustheap of history.

But wait, here's the best part: Darth has the unmitigated gall to tell us that he's a "warm, lovable" sort of guy who had hardly any influence at all in the WH. Georgie made all the decisions, he says now. Remember, this is the guy who admitted authorizing torture. Somebody must've put acid in his metamucil.

And as the number of Palestinians, mostly children, killed in Gaza climbs over 700, Tom Cruise had this to say about the death of Jett Travolta, son of his friend John Travolta. All death is horrific. Why aren't more people speaking out about the parents in Palestine who have to bury their children? Not to take away anything from Mr. Travolta's pain, I'm sure he's a terrific father and absolutely loves and adores his children, but are American children more valuable than Palestinian children? Where are all those "pro-life" people now when babies are being slaughtered halfway across the world? Starved to death, denied medical care, torn apart by bombs. Won't you people speak up? Or are only some children deserving of life?

Enough with ranting. Here's a cute chick we can all ogle:

Stumble It!

Politics: From The Department of

You Can't Make This Shit Up: KKKarl Rove, aka Turdblossom, aka Brainfather of the Thousand-Year Republican Reich is attempting to give our new President advice on the politicization of the Justice Department.


Yes, that would be the same KKKarl Rove who, under Bush's tenure, politicized the Justice Department — by firing out of hand, and for no good reason anyone has yet determined, many excellent career attorneys (like David Iglesias, to offer just one example) for not being, what's a good phrase? Partisan hacks? Tools? Extreme Christian-Reichwing conservatives willing to bend over and take it in the keister for KKKarl? And by hiring hacks like Monica Goodling to oversee the hiring practices of the Department. Monica Goodling*, whose sole qualification for the position consisted of an unvarying allegiance to the Republican party.

* Note: Link to a PDF of DOJ investigation of Goodling.

Jason Linkins has the dirt over at HuffPo, with a big ha-ha of bitterly ironical laughter. Truly, it sucketh the chrome right off a high-rise building to have that motherfucker KKKarl offering his counterfeit two cents on the issue of politicizing the very office that is supposed to ensure justice for all. On the plus side, our new President is ignoring the little maggot.

We've blogged about this before, repeatedly. Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. attorney for Pennsylvania; David Iglesias, New Mexico; Monica Goodling; Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor; and the ongoing corruptionfest known as the Abu G show.

The cherry on KKKarl's shitpile-dessert has to be his disingenuously-posed question about the (obviously greatly-hoped for, at least by KKKarl) firing of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. KKKarl had targeted Fitzgerald for investigation, for the unthinkable crime of actually investigating the KKKarl Cabal. Hopes ran high all over blogtopia (y,Sctp!) for well over a year. Hopes that Fitzgerald, keen, methodical, impartial, painstakingly devoted to Justice, would find a way to topple the Evil Empire built by Cheney, Rove, Bush, and their rage of hunchmen.

Hopes that died a sad death when it became clear that Fitzgerald was stymied by factors outside his control. But we dare say that the thought of revenge burned brightly in our breast anyway. Many of us prayed and hoped and worked for the day when this vile and wretched ambulatory bag of putrescence would finally be brought to justice for the vast and thorough corruption he had worked on the nation. The political discourse that he had flung into the gutter. The bitter partisanship that he cultivated like some malodorous fungoid. The fear, paranoia, hate, bitterness that divided us from each other in this nation even as his puppetmaster's other favourite puppet was flapping his gums about being a "uniter, not a divider."

No one has singlehandedly contributed as much to the destruction of everything this nation stands for as this nasty little man. Is it too much to hope that karma bites him in the tush? What would be a suitable fate for him? We'd like to wish him a thousand incarnations as a cockroach, but most cockroaches probably have a more beneficial relationship with humanity than this scum. Multiple lifetimes as a scum-sucking bottom-feeding eel? A diatom? A bacterium that survives on fecal matter?

Perhaps we'd settle for seeing him alongside Dick and Al in an orange jumpsuit. Don't forget the wrist and leg shackles.

Stumble It!

Politics: Satan Indicted, Part Two

As we noted yesterday, Dick "Satan" Cheney and Alberto Gonezales were indicted, which news brought dances of joy throughout the nation.

Blogging buddy and commenter ConnecticutMan1 points out that there's more to the story, and thank'ee kindly, fella.

The Brownsville Herald has the details. For those who can't be bothered to click the link, the gist of the story is that one Juan Angel Guerra, District Attorney for Willacy County, Texas, apparently has bigger balls than most of our other officials, elected or appointed, who have watched Satan and his puppet Dumbya McDrunkerson destroy this country for the past eight years.

Five other officials were also indicted, all high-level officeholders in Texas. According to the Herald, Cheney has about $85 million invested in Vanguard alone. Yaknow, there was a time when Dick Cheney drove his family around in a second-hand VW Beetle. And we can't find any record of him making brilliant financial decisions while he was head of Halliburton. Although there's plenty of evidence that Halliburton lost money while he was at the helm.

Nowadays, by some mysterious process not entirely clear to us, Satan's favoured child apparently has huge amounts of money to invest in various companies. Because you just know that ol' Dick, like most investors, heeds the good advice of financial mavens and does not keep all his eggs in the single basket of Vanguard.

The article goes on to state that our esteemed Vice president "is charged with exerting pressure on how much prisons are paid to house detainees." Interesting. A conflict, in fact, of interesting. After all, if you're the Veep and you weigh in on an issue like this, is there anyone who will actively oppose you? Or blow a whistle? Especially when they know that your father is the Devil himself?

Interestingly, one of the other entities indicted by the Willacy County Grand Jury is a corporation known as GEO. GEO is one of the private companies that run prisons for a profit. Apparently, prisoners have died in prisons run by the GEO Corporation. No surprise there, since a private corporation is, naturally, more interested in low costs and high profits than in keeping the people under its control safe, healthy, or even alive.

Over at HuffPo, writer David Latt asks if Cheney will escape prosecution via a Presidential pardon (now, don't get upset just yet) and then resurrects our hopes by pointing out that the Spawn of Shaitan has not yet been convicted, merely indicted. Even a president as ignorant and uncaring as Dim Son cannot pardon someone who has not been convicted.

Now, as we all learned in law school, a good prosecutor with a grand jury as his tool can indict a ham sandwich. Satan's Porker Dick is a little more than a ham sandwich, however, and will no doubt seek to slither out of that long-hoped for confinement in Guantanamo with matching orange jumpsuit and shackles. Either that or he'll rip off his human disguise and be revealed as some reptilian lifeform, like V or something. Oh, yes, and the judge has yet to sign the indictment before the prosecutor can serve it upon Satan's Own Child.


Image from The Onion

The prosecutor in this case is about to leave office soon. Let's hope a judge signs and the order is served upon Shaitan II on 21 January or very shortly thereafter. Perhaps someone else would consider taking up this issue? Congress? Anybody?

Note: Will Bunch, over at Attytood, says this indictment ain't gonna put Satan's Favourite Son in jail anytime soon. (Google it. He's never heard of our tiny little blog with its three readers.) Will, you really know how to shatter a person's dreams, don'tcha?

But Will does have an excellent article up on the prison in Texas that's behind this indictment. Read it if you have even a trace of human feeling or sympathy for the undocumented workers who might have cleaned your home or church, or kept your garden healthy and beautiful, or served your food, or picked your fruit and vegetables. Guantanamo is terrible, Abu Ghraib is a burning sore on our collective conscience, but most people don't even know what our paid officials are doing to people right under our noses.

Image from codshit

So, even if Iblis Himself doesn't end up in a nice fall-coloured piece of clothing paid for by teh taxpayer, a person can (and should) always hope and plan and work to have the miserable son of a turtle indicted for at least a few of the many, many crimes he has committed.

Stumble It!

Politics: Satan Indicted

Well, well, well. Strike me down with a feather. Or paint me pink and call me a Cadillac. Or something.



The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Richard "Satan" Bruce Cheney, the current Vice-President of this fine nation, has been indicted by a South Texas grand jury

" ... on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers."

The story goes on to explain on exactly what grounds Satan was indicted. See, apparently Dickie Boy owns a stake in the Vanguard Group

" ... which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and 'at least misdemeanor assaults' on detainees by working through the prison companies."

Remember when we blogged about the prison-industrial complex in this country? This country which has imprisoned approximately one per cent of its total population? How that job of imprisoning the working poor had then been outsourced to private industry which was charging taxpayers a hefty fee for "taking care" of our unfortunate fellow-citizens even as it exploited their labour and used it to drive down the wages of the working poor further?

Well, it looks as if some prosecutor has finally discovered a pair of cojones lying around and clapped them on. Oh, yeah, and we forgot to mention that Alberto Gonezales was also indicted, on the grounds that he had stopped an investigation into the abuses going on in these detention centers.

Hallelujah. Will wonders never cease?

La Casa de Los Gatos recommends a glass or two of the spirits of your choice in celebration. Will Al and Satan's Dick actually make it into a prison? With orange jumpsuits and leg shackles? Will they be making our license plates?


Oh, frabjous day, callooh callay, he chortled in his joy. (Thanks, Lewis Carroll!)

Stumble It!

The Police State: Defined

ICHC

We here at La Casa de Los Gatos have blogged repeatedly and at length upon the police state that has come into public (and unabashed) existence ever since one Gee Dumbya and his evil cohort Dick "Satan's Spuzzer" Cheney got their hands on this once-great nation.


Today, we have both heartening and disheartening news to impart to our friends and visitors. Times like these you don't know whether to laugh, cry, or take an increased dose of your psychoactive fucking meds, right, SGTG? The heartening news is that one Sheriff Thomas J. Dart of Cook County, Illinois, has decided he's had enough of using the state's power to forcibly evict people from their homes. Yup. He's not gonna do it no more. Says Sheriff Dart:

"These poor people are seeing everything they own put out on the street. ... They've paid their bills, paid them on time. Here we are with a battering ram at the front door going to throw them out. It's gotten insane," he said.[...]

"These mortgage companies ... don't care who's in the building," Dart said Wednesday. "They simply want their money and don't care who gets hurt along the way.

"On top of it all, they want taxpayers to fund their investigative work for them. We're not going to do their jobs for them anymore. We're just not going to evict innocent tenants. It stops today."

Dart said he wants the courts or the state Legislature to establish protections for those most harmed by the mortgage crisis.

[...]

"When you're blindly sending me out to houses where I'm coming across innocent tenant after innocent tenant, I can't keep doing this and have a good conscience about it."

Wow. This is a human being, peoples. We have often wondered how cops can do their job, because a lot of it seems to involve protecting the person or property of the rich and brutalizing the poor and defenseless. Whether it's wearing a tee-shirt at the mall to which the hired dogs of the mall owners object, or making a joke that security guards at a hospital don't think is funny, we, the common people, are constantly in danger of having our ass busted because we said or did something someone rich or powerful didn't particularly care for.

Sometimes we follow every fucking rule in the book, and we still get our ass busted. They kick us out of our homes. They take away our kids. They beat us up and throw us in jail because we exercise our constitutional right peaceably to assemble as set forth in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights guaranteed in the Constitution:

"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".

They make being homeless an offense with their loitering laws. They arrest us for being the wrong color, or driving the wrong car, or dressing in a way of which they don't approve.

Then along comes someone like Sheriff Dart and says, "I'm a man with a conscience and it goes against my understanding of wrong and right to kick people out of their homes when they have done nothing wrong." And you wonder, what kind of world would we have if every cop and security guard and enforcer consulted their conscience before tasering a teenager with a broken back nineteen times; or shooting an innocent woman to death before her children; or breaking down the door of an elderly, blind, diabetic cancer survivor.

And you wonder, whose side are we on, really? Who's on our side? Who's on which side? Because the Illinois Bankers' Association responded to Sheriff Dart's statements thus:

The Illinois Bankers Association opposed the plan, saying that Dart "was elected to uphold the law and to fulfill the legal duties of his office, which include serving eviction notices."

The association said Dart could be found in contempt of court for ignoring court eviction orders.

"The reality is that by ignoring the law and his legal responsibilities, he is carrying out 'vigilantism' at the highest level of an elected official," it said. "The Illinois banking industry is working hard to help troubled homeowners in many ways, but Sheriff Dart's declaration of 'martial law' should not be tolerated

Martial law? The man whose conscience won't abide kicking tenants who are not guilty of any wrongdoing out of their homes is accused of imposing martial law? Of vigilantism?

Personally, we would rather see Sheriff Dart expend his (and his staff's) energies and monies apprehending murderers, thieves, rapists, burglars, child abusers, batterers, and disturbers of the peace. You bankers got everyone into this mess. You've already taken $700 BILLION of our dollars to help you out. Quit whining, as Phil Gramm, your good friend (and John McCain's) and deregulator of the banking industry stated recently. You're not fooling us with your gabble about trying to "help troubled homeowners in many ways." We know only too well that your "help" mostly consists of "helping" yourself to their assets and those of other taxpayers in general.

Video footage of Sheriff Dart giving Illinois bankers what-for available here.

The bankers are not on our side. John McCain't, who is good friends with many many bankers and lobbyists calling for further deregulation of the financial industry, is not on our side. John McCain't is, however, on the same side of these issues, apparently, as the White House, which today issued this unbelievably heartless statement. From the article:

During today’s press briefing, White House press secretary Dana Perino suggested the Bush administration would oppose any effort to extend jobless benefits — a stance the White House has taken before. She explained their position by saying, “we want people to be able to return to the workplace as soon as possible.” The suggestion was that extending benefits somehow prevents people from returning to work.

She concluded by saying that “the best way to help” the economy and unemployed people is for unemployed people to simply “get back to work.”

Where's OUR fucking bailout, George? You think it's so easy to "get a job" and "go back to work"? Not after you exported all our jobs, you fucking prick. Why didn't you tell your Wall Street friends that? They got $700 BILLION and we get the bum's rush. And our children's children will be paying for all those manicures and pedicures AIG executives were getting EVEN WHILE THEY WERE NEGOTIATING THEIR SHARE OF THE BAILOUT!!!



If you don't vote for Obama/Biden after reading this, it is your bounden duty to hie thee to the nearest area inhabited by large, hungry, dangerous animals (for example, sharks, lions, or tigers). Take no weapons nor any protective gear. Strip naked at the site and give the animal of your choice a passionate kiss. Hopefully we'll see no more of you in this life. With any luck, in the next you will reincarnate as a small, nasty-looking arthropodic life-form which will be instantly killed and eaten repeatedly until you have worked off all your truly crappy karma.

Stumble It!

2008 Elections: More of the Same

From Mark Frauenfelder over at BoingBoing, a graphic (in many senses of the word) illustration of the past 8 years with Chimpy McDrunkensot and Dick "dick" Shootemintehface.

Vote for this guy if you want more of the same:

Stumble It!

Politics: Republicans Wish NOLA Would Quit Whining

Photograph courtesy of Reuters

No, really. They do. Because, you see, as Republican spokesweasel Jim Ellison of Oregon says, "We already do enough for New Orleans." Y'all hear that, New Orleans? Be sure to check that with your Governor and the other fine Republicans y'all elected to high office.

You can watch him say so on CSPAN, here:

"The fact is," said Ellison, "hurricanes happen. We didn't stop anything for Florida, and New Orleans has certainly been through it. President Bush in his wisdom has put qualified FEMA people in place. They're ready for it."

Ellison continued, "I don't think we should have interfered with our convention because we already do a lot for the people of New Orleans."

So? Whaddya think? Is this guy fucking crazy, stone ignorant, deluded as fuck-all, or on REALLY good meds?

Damn, Oregon, where did you find this walking bag of doggy do?

On the other hand, he kind of has a point, yaknow? Without the Republicans, there would be at least 2,000 more people in NOLA, requiring, oh, let's see, food, housing, health care, social services ... instead of which, we can have a certifiable looneytune Exorcist for Governor and a diaper-wearing, prostitute-schtupping, criminal for a Senator ... decisions, decisions.

On a related note, we're pleased that Gustav appears to have avoided NOLA, mostly, although AP is reporting that about 1 million people are without power. Bloomberg says insured losses will run to $10 billion.

In other news, Governor Goodhair of Texas (Rick Perry) used Gustav as a fortuitous excuse to duck the Republican convention, and who can blame him? Jor Jee and Dick "the dick" Cheney had previously announced that they will not attend, having "other priorities." Governor Arnold "steroid microdick" of California had to use a different excuse (the budget), but other Gulf Coast governors were happy to go along with Goodhair - Charlie Crist of Florida, Bob Riley of Alabama, and Haley Barbour of Mississippi joined Governor Goodhair in greeting conventioneers via taped messages.

Bobby Jindal of Louisiana was able to avoid even that, on the grounds that Gustav was liable to strike his state the hardest. Cindy McCain then proceeded to render the audience, composed largely of lobbyists and volunteers, immobile with her basilisk stare. A not-so-good time was apparently had by all.


Meanwhile, Sammy Hagar was trying to raise funds for NOLA over at the Republican Convention (SAY WHAT??? We thought those lying motherfuckers said they were canceling the convention!), but apparently the Republican conventioneers, delegates, journalists, and lobbyists (damn! They let lobbyists in? Will wonders never cease?) agree with Jim Ellison. Either that, or they're too fucking cheap to shell out a few shekels. Tough luck, Sammy. Ya need to start playing for a better class of customer, dude.

Here's hoping all is well in NOLA and the rest of the Gulf Coast for beasties of the two-leg and four-leg variety. Hope y'all get your power back soon. Meanwhile, try to stay dry and avoid watching the Republican convention — you can't afford an aneurysm when transportation is difficult.

As for you wonderful Republican friends, may we leave you with a tribute from Frank Zappa? It's called:

Cocksucker's Ball

Hey, this is for all the Republicans in the audience!

Cock-sucker Tammy get your mother fuckin' dammy
We're goin' downtown to the Cock-Suckers' Ball
Fuck, suck an' fight
'Till beginnin' of the broad daylight
We don't need no
Goddam taxi here
We're gonna trim them holes in a
Rockin'-chair
Take off all the rags
We're gonna play a little game
Called tag
Tomorrow night at the Rock Cock-Suckers' Ball

Come on you moe-ass singers and you
Mick dick slingers
We're goin' downtown to the Cock-Suckers' Ball
Fuck, suck an' fight
'Till beginnin' of the broad daylight
We don't need no
Goddam taxi here
We're gonna trim them holes in a
Rockin'-chair
Take off all the rags
We're gonna play a little game
Called tag
Tomorrow night at the Rock Cock-Suckers' Ball
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Tomorrow night at the Rock Cock-Suckers' Ball!

Thank you, you're too kind!

(Copyright Frank Zappa)

Stumble It!