Vote Now

It is October and it looks like the Democrats may have a fair chance of retaking the House and/or Senate. We know from past experience that such a thing could not happen on the watch of Karl Rove. So we are offering you the chance to vote now on what "October Suprise" the GOP has is store just before mid term elections. What clever piece of orchestrated propaganda will once again frighten and mislead Americans into voting GOP. Your choices are:

a) news of a foiled terrorist plot;
b) heightened threat levels;
c) the capture of the the twenty third Al Queda No. 2 man;
d) some interesting dish on terrorist plot foiled months ago;
e) a widely exxaggerated terrorist plot a la those schmucks in Miami;
f) will the GOP let our enemies pull one off, just to scare the bejesus out of us?(Personally, I like to think not, but I know readers who believe that no low is too low for this crew.);
g) News of some really great information we extracted from a prisoner at Guantanomo after dousing him with the blood of a mestruating pig and threatening his family;
h) war with Iran; or
i) other ___________

I think for it to have an effect, the GOP has to pull something off by October 25th. So get your votes in....

Still At It

I always wonder how long you can flog a very thin line of accusation. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R Oh) is stretching the limit. Yesterday he publicly stated "Sometime I think Democrats want to protect terrorists more than the American people."

I could go on about human rights and the fact that insuring rights for one insures rights for all, but it would be worthless. Mouth breathing jackass.

And the Democrats.... Oh Forget It

According to the news, it appears that congressional Democrats are not even going to attempt to defeat the new and improved Detainee Bill, a bill that effectively creates a category of prisoners with no ability to challenge their confinement in a court of law, and who can be tortured. (If this is an unfamiliar concept to you, the Soviet Union used to call these "gulags.")

Memo to Democrats: You know, sometimes you can just play for pride, for the simple value of not being a complete disappointment to those who have entrusted their country to you.

If That is Crazy...

I just saw the clip of President Clinton's interview with Chris Wallace. This is the interview where the ex Preident was supposedly crazed.

Personally, I give Mr. Clinton props for his restraint. Had a boot boy for this Administration -- that fired the Number One expert on Al Queda (Richard Clarke), that ignored a Presidential Dailey Briefing that Said Bin Laden Determined to Strike US, that closed down the Bin Laden desk at the Pentagon, that ignored virtually all the information given to them in a Defense Briefing by the outgoing Clinton Defense Department, that has tried to pin responsibility for 9/11 on President Clinton, Reagan, and Bush I,

...if that Administration tried to pin 9/11 on me, I would have punched Chris Wallace right in the nose.

Journalism Lite...

On Sunday evening I tuned into the venerable "60 Minutes" and saw Katie Couric's interview with Secretary of State Condelezza Rice. I thought I was watching a Barbara Walter's Special. This was a puff piece, a collection of smiley chatter between two sorority sisters, that might only be appropriate if it aired in times of peace. The interview, as well as Couric's similar effort with President Bush, unfortunately cemented Couric's status as at best lightweight, at worst a boot polisher. For whatever reason, she is unable or unwilling to bring any heat. That two of the archtitects of our current debacle would be allowed to dissemble completely unchallenged (at one point Rice stated that we are not imposing our will, just "assisting" those who yearn to be free) by what we are supposed to believe is a top drawer journalist is simply unacceptable. (One recalls a satirical piece of Chinese lickspittle journalism titled "Mao Is More deserving Of Our Veneration Than Previously Thought")

What substance there was to the piece was focused entirely on Rice' s personal life: her workout routine, her love of music, her search for Mr. Rice. What became apparent is that Secretary Rice has always been a loyal soldier to the powerful men she has served. She has upset no apple carts and taken a dim view of the apple cart upsetters. She has carefully walked in the footsteps laid out for her by older, wiser and more powerful men. I am not sure this type of biography is really what the job calls for anymore...

A Not So Sweet Deal

According to FOX News, the White House and Congressional Republicans have agreed on a compromise regarding the torture of detainees. In short, it appears that detainees can still be tortured, and that detainees (even US citizens) can be held indefinetely without any oversight. If this is true, this compromise represents a radical departure from this coutry's governing principles. It is absolutely unimaginable that we would ever give the Executive the authority to hold anyone indefinetly without judicial oversight. It is unconscionable that we would undertake those cruel and inhuman tactics we so loudly protest when employed by our enemies.

I suspect Christian groups around the country will rally against this type of government sanctioned cruelty and degradation. (Heh heh. I know. Just kidding. Thought we could use some humour.)

MEMO to US : We are supposedly be leading the fight for democracy and justice...

My Own Creation Myth

I heard a man named Clinton this morning speaking on the radio. His sentences had both subject and verb. Each sentence had something to do with the last. His words were precise and confident. He balanced necessity and principal. Once men like this roamed the Earth and were elected President. But they had sex with women not their wives. And the American public -- who never have sex with anyone save their spouse or liking to believe that such is true -- tried to cast him out in the Great Meteor Shower of Self Righteousness. While they survived for a short while, the Clintons were replaced by the Bush Dwellers, a carnivorous species without the ability to see very far ahead, who preyed on weaker beings and angered every other species on the planet.

The Bush Dwellers were challenged by others, but they relied upon the strongest of their species, The Rovers, to threaten and scare them off.

More evolutionary news as events warrant.

And the worm turns .. a little right

Republican guventorial candidate Dick DeVos announced this morning that he thinks our public schools should teach intelligent design. I suspect that DD is trying to stir his conservative base given that he still lags behind Granholm in the polls. The strategy may well ignite his western Michigan base of bible toters; however, I wonder if it will alienate moderate Republicans in Oakland County. They represent a truckload of votes and represent DD's only chance to offset the Detroit vote. Stay tuned.

This Offer Good at Participating Dark Sites Only

This week, the Canadian Government issued a report criticizing the US and Canada for detaining, imprisoning and torturing Mahr Arar, a Canadian citizen. Mr. Arar was picked up by the CIA at Kennedy Airport in 2002 on the belief that he had ties to Al Queda. He was then sent to Jordan and Syria under the US' plan of extraordinary rendition. There he was interrogated and tortured for ten months before being released after the US determined he had no ties to terrorist organizations. The Canadian report concludes that there was never any reason to believe that Mr. Arar -- an engineer from Ottawa-- posed a threat to either Canada or the U.S. This morning, the State Department issued a personal appeal to Mr. Arar:

Dear Mr. Arar,

We are sorry that you were beaten with a metal cable (ouch!!) over a period of ten months while you were asked questions you could not answer. (Our President knows about that last part!) But you know, at the time we were really scared and you know how we love our perceived safety and security.

We are also sorry that we did not inform the Canadian government that we sent you to Syria or that we did not allow you access to the Candian consulate when you were apprehended. (Our bad. But we suspected they may have some messy objections and the whole point of having secret prisons is that they are .. secret). It is unfortunate that we were unable to honor your request to be treated with the dignity accorded human beings. (We can understand how you were misled by all that "culture of life" stuff, but that was not aimed at you.) Please except these complimentary Starbucks gift cards with best wishes for your recovery. I am sure that you will enjoy a good cuppa while not being forced to sit naked in your own filth.

Very Truly Yours,

Simon F. Flogger
(Undersecretary for "Special Procedures" that Violate the Geneva Convention)

PS. The recurrent nightmares will ... well may .. go away with time.

But Mom Said...

I just listened to the President's rather stilted response to Colin Powell's criticism of his plan to conduct trials based on secret evidence and evidence that has been coerced. When listening to this President, one gets the image of a child who has heard the adults talk at the dinner table and then repeats phrases he heard on the theory that they must somehow be convincing.

Chicken Little Redux

As political and civil rights junkies are aware, the Bush Administration has proposed a set of rules for trying terror suspects that includes allowing the admission of coerced evidence and allowing a conviction based upon evidence that the accused has not been allowed to view.

Interestingly, the biggest opponents of the Bushite approach are Republicans such as John McCain and John Warner who are concerned that gutting the Geneva Convention will send the wrong message about America and expose our own troops to abuses.

I find it ironic that so many so called conservatives want to throw out ideas that are the bedrock of our democracy just because Al Queda has blown some air up their knickers. Get used to it. The Republic will, and has, faced many a threat. If you toss out enduring principles of liberty that define this country every time you are a little scared, their ain't gonna be much left.

I Guess We Get the God We Deserve

Time Magazine ran a cover story this week about Christian churches who focus on the message that the Almighty wants you to be wealthy and accumulating wealth is no less than a bliblical imperative. It finally happened. We finally cut out the middle man. We now openly worship money.

Cuz Every Time We Look At Baghdad, We See Antietem

This week, Newt Gingrich wrote an op -ed for the Wall Street Journal inwhich he compared the current President's situation with that of Abraham Lincoln two years into the Civil War. According to Newt, both men faced a public that was souring on the war the current President had committed to. While it is indeed difficult to even think of W and Lincoln in the same sentence, in the wake of the article (and Condi Rice's similar metaphor) we should further examine the parallels between the wars:

The South started the Civil War by declaring their secession and firing on Fort Sumpter. Iraq started our invasion by... making us feel vaguely uneasy.

The South was led by a leader, Jefferson Davis, elected by the Confederacy. Iraq was led by a leader, Saddam Hussein ... installed by the United States.

During the Civil War, the North fought a highly organized Confederate Army. In Iraq, the Iraqi Army gave up the ghost and we are fighting a guerrilla war against civilians.

At the outset of the Civil War the South had a thriving agrarian economy. At the outset of the Iraq invasion, Iraq had been impoverished by years of UN sanctions.

During the Civil War, the leaders of the Confederacy were in the South. During the Iraq invasion, the leaders of Al Queda were ... somewhere else.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln delivered a stirring eulogy to the war's casualties at Gettysburg. During the invasion of Iraq, President Bush refused to visit the graves of his fallen soldiers.

President Lincoln fought the Civil War because he believed that a house divided between North and South, slave and free, cannot stand. President Bush invaded Iraq and started a civil war that has divided the country among religious and ethnic lines.

During the Civil War, Lincoln almost suffered a nervous breakdown and often stayed up through the night monitoring telegraph dispatches from the front. During the Iraq War, President Bush has spent more time on vacation than any of his predecessors in war or at peace.