All Music Lovers Are Now Criminals

In their relentless quest to punish their own customers, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued college students for downloading and sharing music files as well as parents for their children's activities. But this one really hits rock bottom.

The RIAA has now sued someone for loading legally purchased CDs onto his personal computer. In Scottsdale, Arizona, Jeffrey Howell loaded his CD collection onto his PC for his own private listening. But because he also had a peer-to-peer program on his system - even though it was specifically set up not to share anything - the RIAA sued him anyway.

The rationale is that simply having the program was the legal equivalent of sharing all the music on his PC whether or not he was actually doing it. It's like a bank teller getting arrested because he was on duty when someone else robbed the bank.

Not only does this fly in the face of the organization's own FAQ (which clearly says, "record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use, we want fans to enjoy the music they bought legally") it defies all logic and common sense. Think about it - the RIAA is actually saying that anyone who buys a CD from Amazon or Best Buy and puts it onto their computer is breaking the law. And let's not even get into the possibility of suing everyone who owns an iPod or other music player.

Every time the RIAA gets into a snit over something like this, they drive away more of their customers. Copy-protection on the CDs broke some older CD players and computers. Other CDs couldn't be played at all. CDs are loaded with one or two genuinely good songs while the rest is filler. Corporate record studios pump out mass-produced tripe which hews to very narrow tastes while refusing to step outside those brightly-defined lines.

And they wonder why their sales figures keep going down.

This isn't going to help things. With the RIAA seemingly determined to make every music lover into a criminal by default, it wouldn't surprise me if more and more people simply give up on buying CDs altogether and just download what they want. After all, to quote Joey from Friends, "If you're going to do something wrong, do it right!"

The Ghouls Come Out

With yesterday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, some commentators wasted no time using the rising chaos to handicap the American presidential race, saying it would be good for this candidate or that candidate. But Fox's John Gibson really has to take the cake. In the "My Word" segment of his TV show last night, he used Bhutto's death to indulge in some good old-fashioned exploitation:

So even though today's carnage was on the other side of the planet, it really did strike close to home, and all Americans should be worried about what happens now. The way Americans can deal with this crisis is to carefully consider their vote. This election is about the same issue the last election was about... the War on Terror. It's not about health care, and as important as our economy is, it's not about that either. We need someone who has the strength of mind and the resolve to see through an ugly fight that will have to be fought. It's not a choice. The people who killed Bhutto would kill you too, and if the next president gives them a chance, they will do it.

Translation: Vote Republican or else.

Gibson obviously thinks that after six solid years of fear-mongering, we still have some terror left in us. But even Republican voters have caught on: Rudy Giuliani's campaign, based solely on 9/11, is sinking fast. Tom Tancredo, who cloaked his nativist bigotry in 9/11 fear, dropped out, and other GOP fear-and-loathing candidates are likewise spinning their wheels.

Expect the rhetoric to get more shrill and desperate as the election campaign grinds on. It's the only way the GOP can possibly win.

No Muslims Need Apply

"Based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Thus spake Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and the only Mormon running for president.

This is boneheaded, not to mention just plain bigoted, on so many levels. Muslims are made to feel (yet again) that America sees them as "less than" and is out to get them. A potential Romney Administration would be deprived of a source of expertise and moderation. Finally, suggesting that government should be staffed based not on qualifications but on religion proportionate to the general population would exclude Jews (1.4% of Americans), Muslims (0.6%) and pretty much everyone else except Protestants or Catholics.

Even Mormons, who comprise 1.4% of the population.

Someone should remind old Mitt of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States, the part that says, "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Looks like he just flunked that part of the test.

Time to Check His Meds

"He hasn't crossed the line. As a matter of fact, I don't think that he will cross any lines. I think he truly is somebody who believes in democracy."

President Bush explaining that although Pakistani military strongman Pervez Musharraf declared martial law, suspended the Constitution, and put political opponents under house arrest, he's still a nice guy

Cheap Bastards

Imagine you're a soldier in the US military. You joined the Army to see the world, to get money for college, to get out of a dead-end town, whatever. You are sent to Iraq to prop up a sham government against a broad-based popular insurgency while at the same time trying not to get killed in the crossfire of a civil war. You watch politically-connected mercenary armies like Blackwater parade around armed to the teeth and raking in big bucks while you have to make do with substandard equipment and your family struggles to make ends meet back home. Despite your best efforts you are shot or blown up, after which you are discharged from the military, shipped back to the United States and cast adrift in the underfunded bureaucratic nightmare that is the VA health system.

And then you get a letter from the Pentagon ordering you to return part of your signing bonus because you didn't finish out your commitment. Doesn't matter that you were wounded in the line of duty, pay up.

It is, to put it mildly, inhuman. What sort of bloodless leech could possibly think up such a scheme? Can the Pentagon not afford its latest gold-plated weapons system? Are they really passing the hat so Halliburton can get a few more billions in bonuses?

HR 3793 has been introduced in the House to put a stop to this ghoulish practice, and it already has 219 co-sponsors. This one really is a no-brainer.

Vote For Me or This Guy Will Kick Your Butt

Out of the many endorsements gathered in this election cycle, one of the strangest certainly must be the one Mike Huckabee garnered from Chuck Norris. You know, the guy who kicked butt for eight years on TV in Walker: Texas Ranger.

That Chuck Norris.

Anyway, Huckabee and Norris have teamed up to present what must surely be one of the worst campaign ads of all time. Not "worst" as in blatantly dishonest, racist or xenophobic - we've got plenty of those, from George Bush the Elder's infamous Willie Horton ad to Tom Tancredo's vote-for-me-or-brown-people-will-kill-you ad - but "worst" as in laughably bad.

The script is pretty funny:

• "My plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck Norris."
• "When Chuck Norris does a push-up, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth down."
• "There's no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard, only another fist."

And so on.

So let me get this straight - Huckabee actually thinks the world is an action movie? Does he really think all he has to do is shoot up a room full of people and we win, with no one getting hurt except for the bad guys, with all the helpless civilians magically unscathed? Cue the end credits? Has he mistaken the real world for a late-night showing of Norris' 1985 flick Invasion USA, where he single-handedly defends America from Commies who - I swear I'm not making this up - blow up a county fair in Florida?

Thanks for lightening the mood, Mike. Too bad you actually seem to believe this nonsense.

Barbaric

The government of Saudi Arabia can charitably be called medieval. There is no freedom of speech, press, or religion. Women are forbidden from driving. (They can fly airplanes, but have to be driven to the airport. Go figure.) Anyone with an Israeli stamp in their passport is barred from entering the country.

But this latest story is just sickening.

Last year, a 19-year-old woman was sitting in a car with an ex-boyfriend when she was abducted and gang-raped by seven men. The rapists were sent to prison, which is something, but the court wasn't finished.

For being in a car with a unrelated male, her punishment was ninety lashes with a whip. The woman's lawyer naturally considered this unjust to say the least and appealed.

The result? Her sentence was increased to two hundred lashes and six months in jail. And her lawyer was disbarred.

That'll show her.

This is sadly not unusual in Saudi Arabia. The country can be called "intolerant" like the Sun can be called "warm." The religious police known as the mutaween patrol the country meting out punishment for anything deemed insufficiently Islamic. On-the-spot beatings or even killings for listening to Western music, drinking alcohol or dressing "immodestly" are not uncommon.

These are the same delightful people who back in 2002 allowed fifteen girls to burn to death in a fire at a Mecca school because they were not dressed properly for escaping the flames. The mutaween not only prevented rescue crews from entering the burning building, they even beat the girls who did get out and forced them back inside for not wearing head scarves and black robes.

Don't expect anything from Washington other than a gentle tsk-tsk for this latest outrage. The Saudis supply too much of our oil and the royal family's business interests are too intertwined with those of the Bush family for anything more.

The Gift of Health, For a Fee

Can't figure out what to get that special someone for the holidays? Well, if he or she is one of the 47 million Americans without health insurance, a company called Highmark has the perfect idea: a health care Visa gift card. The website proudly calls it "The Easiest Way to Say 'I Care.'"

Really.

This is just (pardon the expression) sick on so many levels. The United States is the only industrialized country in the world without some form of national health coverage, and it shows; millions have to go to the emergency room for even basic health care, and far too many others are forced into bankruptcy by soaring medical costs. It is truly obscene that some marketing vulture seized on this national disgrace as the opportunity to make a buck.

Remember that LifeAlert commercial from the early 1990s, the one that preyed on our emotions by showing a old lady wailing, "I've fallen and I can't get up!" while sprawled helplessly on the floor? That one was hawking an emergency communicator, but this gift card is even more insidious.

You see, while you can put up to $5000 on the card, you don't actually get $5000 worth of health coverage. No, you first pay $5 to get the card itself and then pay $1.50 a month after nine months. Doesn't matter if you use the card or not, it still costs. It is entirely possible that you try to use the card when you really need to, only to find out that it's worthless.

By what is truly an incredible coincidence, Highmark is a health-insurance company which runs Blue Cross/Blue Shield programs in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Last year, they were sued by the AARP for denying senior citizens health coverage by withholding needed information and settled out of court.

And now they have come up with another way of making money. It's a win-win for the company - take customers' premiums, deny them the care they paid for, and then make money off them again by selling them these gift cards.

After all, why bother going to the trouble of actually making things better for everyone, against the wishes of the well-heeled insurance lobby, when you can just foist off a gift card and declare the job done?

Privacy Is Whatever We Say It Is

Over the past few years, the Bush Administration has taken a hatchet to the dictionary, redefining "torture" to exclude...well, torture. And now they're at it again. We have always defined "privacy" as government or other entities keeping their noses out of our personal business, but that's being redefined as well.

We already know that the White House secretly worked with AT&T to vacuum up billions of telephone calls, E-mails and Internet browsing histories in total violation of law and morality. Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, now says that privacy no longer means keeping your personal business private. Rather, it means that the government can spy on everything you do as long as the resulting data isn't misused.

Somehow, that isn't very reassuring. Is anyone else wondering whether a politically-connected company - Halliburton, for example - is getting a no-bid contract to fill America with telescreens?

Vote for Me or Die

In this election cycle, when the various GOP candidates are competing to see who can torture and bomb more than anyone else, I suppose it had to happen sometime. Rep. Tom Tancredo, the rabidly anti-immigrant long-shot candidate, now has a TV ad which sums it up: vote for me or die horribly.

Tancredo is, of course, no stranger to controversy. He supports nuking Mecca in the event of a nuclear terror attack, has called Miami a "Third World country," and addressed a pro-Confederate group as members dressed as Southern officers sang "Dixie."

But this takes fear-mongering to a new level. Tancredo's position is clear: hate anyone who doesn't look like you, because any one of them could be a terrorist. (He seems to have forgotten a fellow by the name of Timothy McVeigh.)

Sheesh.

Unconditional Surrender, Again and Again

Am I dreaming or something? Did the Democrats win control of Congress in last year's elections or did they not? Because it sure doesn't look like it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have knuckled under to President Bush again and again this past year. More blank-check war funding, more unrestricted spying, you name it - the Democrats have repeatedly handed Bush one victory after another without putting up a real fight.

The latest example of their surrender was the under-cover-of-darkness confirmation of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General. Sure he won't renounce the use of torture. Sure he says the president can ignore the law as long as he uses the magic words "national security." Sure he'll refuse to enforce Congressional contempt subpoenas against the White House. Confirm him anyway.

(Speaking of Mukasey, blogs are reporting that Reid rushed through the Mukasey vote in exchange for being allowed to vote on a military spending bill that doesn't include off-the-books spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He wouldn't even allow traveling senators time to get back to Washington in order to vote. Thanks for nothing, Harry.)

And people wonder why Congress' polling numbers are even lower than Bush's. It's not because they confront the White House and make life miserable for the president; it's because they simply refuse to do so. It doesn't matter how unpopular Bush is - in fact, he has now become the first president with a 50% "strongly disapprove" rating. (Even Nixon didn't get that high.) They just won't do it.

Why in the world won't they do their jobs? Are they really that scared of GOP attack ads, that they'll roll over and play dead whenever Bush makes unhappy noises? Do they not realize that the American people so can't stand Bush that another round of dishonest talking points won't make a dent? Or are they so in love with the notion of bipartisanship that they still haven't figured out how the Republicans define it - make the Democrats bend over and give them everything they want?

With media-anointed "front runner" candidates refusing to support an Iraq pullout until at least 2013 and being similarly wishy-washy on other issues, the Democrats are running the real risk of a third-party movement splitting the vote next year. Is the party leadership so beholden to playing it safe that they'll give up yet another presidential election?

Enough cowardice. It's way past time for some real cojones on Capitol Hill. If they keep on going like this and lose the White House next year to a Bible-thumping theocrat like Mike Huckabee or a corrupt would-be dictator like Rudy Giuliani, it'll be their own damn fault.

Here We Go Again

It's two weeks to Thanksgiving. Stores are hawking Christmas trees, Christmas decorations, Christmas music, and so on and so forth. (The really enterprising stores started putting all this stuff up right after Labor Day.) I guess that means it's time for Bill O'Reilly and Fox News to go into their annual "War on Christmas" paroxysm of spluttering outrage. And this year, the jihad starts in Fort Collins, Colorado.

You see, last year there was a kerfluffle in Fort Collins because the city rejected requests to include a Chanukah menorah in the city's official holiday display. Because of this, an official "Holiday Display Task Force" was convened to find ways of including non-Christian residents in the official celebrations. One of their recommendations was to use white lights rather than colored lights as part of the displays.

As Bugs Bunny used to say, "Of course you realize this means war."

On his TV show last night, O'Reilly went into a frothing rage over the decision, calling it "insane...an assault to diminish Christmas for secular progressive reasons," blaming (nonexistent) ACLU lawsuits and sneering that "we're going to decorate Fort Collins public buildings with snowflakes."

A guest didn't stop there, calling it "something out of the old Soviet Union."

For the record, people in Fort Collins or anywhere else are perfectly free to put up or not put up any decorations they choose. The task force's recommendations are just that - recommendations, with no force of law - and concern themselves only with official city decorations, not any private displays. But that doesn't matter to Bill.

O'Reilly has been pushing his "War on Christmas" nonsense now for years, and every time around it just gets more shrill and hysterical. He should quit before he bursts a blood vessel or something.

You Call This Progress?!

"If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you'd be saying, God, I love freedom - because that's what's happened. And there are killers and radicals and murderers who kill the innocent to stop the advance of freedom. But freedom is happening in Iraq. And we're making progress."

President Bush denying (again) that Iraq has become a quagmire and regurgitating (again) the usual buzzwords to hide from reality

Welcome to Beautiful Downtown Baghdad

It sounds like a joke. Granted, pretty much anything that comes out of the White House these days sounds like a joke, but this really sounds like a joke. It's not a joke, though - it's real.

In an apparent attempt to make Baghdad look less deadly, we now have A Visitor's Guide to Baghdad's International Zone, posted on an official Pentagon website and supposedly "written by tourists for the tourist" in 2006. To no one's surprise, the authors are not casual visitors at all but are actually a GOP think tank staffer and a "confirmed war tourist."

This guidebook renames the much-hated Green Zone into the less sinister-sounding "International Zone" (IZ) and offers some helpful hints for interested tourists, including:

• "Moving about the IZ is a fairly easy venture. Unless you crash through a very visible and well marked gate, you should have no concern about accidentally venturing into the red zone."
• "Probably one of the oddest named parts of the IZ, Little Venice is the neighborhood between the former US Embassy complex and the U.S. Chancellery building. It is believed to be nick-named Little Venice because of the many cement waterways, bridges and fountains that adorn its streets and park."
• "FOB Honor is the site of one of the most recognizable buildings from the "shock and awe" campaign waged in March 2003."
• "A number of buildings dot the horizon as seen from the International Zone. While tantalizingly close, the current security situation dictates that most IZ occupants will probably never to do more than view them from afar."

And so on.

An American officer serving in Iraq begs to differ:

The mentality associated with walking around this nation like it's your own little sight-seeing trip stuns me. You look at the backgrounds of the authors - a CA [civil affairs] guy and an NGO [non-governmental organization] guy - and you just expect better of them. Instead, every local they saw on their sight-seeing wound up seeing the ultimate in ugly American tourists. How can we claim any credibility in anything we do when they see that this is how seriously we take the responsibility we have assumed by doing what we as a nation have done here, and are claiming to do now... Thanks for the efforts you so very clearly expended in your time here, guys. There's nothing like a little understanding.

This one is mind-boggling. I know the Bush Administration is desperately trying to put lipstick on this particular pig, but this is just mind-boggling. What on earth were these people thinking? Do they really believe that people can be fooled into mistaking the shooting-gallery Green Zone for poolside at a resort somewhere?

Where are professionals when you really need them?

They Won't Be Able to Run Away, You See

"When the State Department appears to be filled with reluctant personnel, let's turn to those who have bravely followed the American flag in the most dangerous of assignments... They are veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters and you can be sure that when called on for difficult assignments, they won't convene a town meeting to protest. Especially for those whose mobility has been impaired by wounds, State Department positions, not only in Baghdad but around the world, will provide excellent jobs as well as availing our nation of their enormous talent."

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), suggesting that diplomats resisting forced posting to Baghdad be fired and replaced with wounded veterans

It's OK When We Do It

"In our opinion, no."

White House press secretary Dana Perino, on being asked whether it is acceptable for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf "to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism"

Please Tell Me You're Kidding

"One man's torture is another man's CIA-sponsored swim lesson."

GOP strategist Rachel Marsden on CNN, opining that waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay is no different from a dip in the pool at the local Y

Oh Yeah, They're Exactly the Same

"Eighty-eight percent of the country believed in slavery at one time. Was that correct?"

Foreign Service general director Harry Thomas, responding to State Department staffers complaining about being forced to serve in Baghdad and who pointed out that only twelve percent of department staffers believe that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is supporting them

Why Won't You Just Get Sick and Die Already?!

Here we go again.

To nobody's surprise, President Bush has once again proved he just doesn't learn. This time, he's threatening to veto - again - the SCHIP bill reauthorizing federal health coverage for children of working-class families who can't afford to buy private insurance.

"There's a bill moving through Congress that's disguised as a bill to help children," he said on Wednesday, "but I think it's really a trick on the American people."

You'd think from the hammering he got after the first veto, he might have realized that this fight is a guaranteed loser. But of course he hasn't. He's determined to bash ahead no matter what the consequences.

As a rule, people don't like it when kids get hurt. Bush hasn't figured that out, and from all appearances he never will.

The GOP is making unhappy noises but is generally standing behind their leader. Let's see if the Democrats have the stones to make this a real campaign issue.

I'll Take My Football and Go Home, Too

"If the Senate Judiciary Committee were to block Judge [Michael] Mukasey on these grounds, they would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for Attorney General. And that would guarantee that America would have no Attorney General during this time of war."

So said President Bush today at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, one of his few remaining bastions of support. Why does he sound a lot like a spoiled brat on the playground, threatening to quit a game if the rules aren't bent to allow him to win?

It's not like Mukasey, now facing an uphill battle to be confirmed as Attorney General, has particularly distinguished himself. After all, when asked repeatedly if waterboarding and other tortures are, well, torture, he delivered a perfect fog of obfuscation. Not only that, he proclaimed that Bush has the unlimited power to ignore any laws he likes just by using the magic words "national security," the Constitution be damned.

Has Bush really made the prospect of public service so toxic that no qualified candidate will come within a mile of the job? Are we really stuck with this loyal Bushie of a nominee, whose best qualification appears to be that he isn't as dreadful as his predecessor? Since when it is an impossible standard that an Attorney General should be dedicated to enforcing the law rather than warp it for the political pleasures of his boss?

Bush is acting like a petulant brat, telling the Senate to do it his way or else. The Senate should vote no on this nomination, with another vote telling Bush to grow up.

Waah, Again

"Judge [Michael] Mukasey is not being treated fairly. He's made the rounds on Capitol Hill, he's answered questions, he's been to hearings."

President Bush, complaining that the Senate is taking its "Advice and Consent" role seriously and not just rubber-stamping his nominee to be Attorney General

Waah

Pity poor President Bush. For six years, he had a Congress who did everything his way, no questions asked. Allow indefinite imprisonment and torture of anyone whenever the president feels like it? Sure! What about rubber-stamping permanent war in Iraq? No problem. And blowing any hope of budgetary sanity out of the water and putting us in hock to other countries? You got it.

But now the Democrats are in charge of Congress. (It's hard to tell that sometimes, given how often they roll over and play dead, but that's another story.) And the president doesn't like that.

Bush basically threw a hissy fit outside the White House yesterday after meeting with Republican (and only Republican) Congressional leaders, complaining that the mean old Democrats aren't letting him win. In other words, they're acting like an actual opposition party and not just a pale imitation of one.

How dare they try to oppose him, the Maximum Leader of All He Surveys? Don't they know there's a war on? Don't they know that Bad People are holed up in their caves, watching C-Span and chortling to each other? How can we expect to win the War on Terror™ if all these namby-pamby wimps keep yapping about useless stuff like "freedom" and "accountability?"

Um...George? You might have forgotten this, but America is still a democracy, and opposition to your policies and priorities is in fact allowed.

So grow up.

Build Your Own Press Conference, FEMA Edition

Remember Hurricane Katrina two years ago, when FEMA and its director Michael "Heckuva Job, Brownie" Brown botched the situation and gave up information only when publicly shamed into doing so? Well, in response to the California wildfires, FEMA management was determined not to make the same mistakes twice and held a full press conference Tuesday to be more responsive to the public.

Sounds fine, but there was one tiny problem - the press conference was fake.

After all, when you have one of these things you run the risk of reporters asking uncomfortable questions. I mean, who wants to be asked something like, "Why were so much of the California National Guard's resources sent to Iraq?" It's much easier to put on a phony press conference in which you look good for the cameras and you know for certain what the questions will be.

So FEMA employees simply pretended to be reporters and put on a show. The cast included:

• Cindy Taylor, deputy director of external affairs
• Michael Widomski, deputy director of public affairs
• John Philbin, director of external affairs

Together, they lobbed the softest of softball questions at deputy administrator Harvey Johnson. For example, take this hard-hitting query and its equally piercing response:

Q: Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?
A: I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far.

And this nonsense was carried live on Fox, MSNBC and other channels.

Every time you think these guys can't get any more cartoonish, they go and top themselves. Unreal.

We Promise Not to Kill Anyone This Time

Remember Blackwater USA? The American company that has about a thousand armed mercenary soldiers - oops, I mean private security contractors - in Iraq? The guys who are winning hearts and minds by indiscriminately killing Iraqi civilians? And one of whose employees killed an Iraqi vice presidential security guard while on a drunken rampage?

Well, considering what a terrific job they've done keeping the peace in Iraq, they are now offering their help in California, keeping order amid the wildfires. For a fee, of course.

Really.

You can't make up stuff like this. Can you imagine what would happen the first time someone who's trying to get back to the burnt-out shell that used to be their home gets frustrated and tells off a mercenary?

Torture or Die

"This program has produced critical intelligence that has helped us stop a number of attacks - including a plot to strike the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, a plot to hijack a passenger plane and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, California, or a plot to fly passenger planes into Heathrow Airport and buildings into downtown London... Those who oppose this vital tool in the war on terror need to answer a simple question: Which of the attacks I have just described would they prefer we had not stopped?"

President Bush defending the use of torture to extract information, not mentioning that most of the supposed terrorist "plots" were stopped by law enforcement without using torture or were already revealed as fakes to begin with

Lowering the Bar

If you watched President Bush's press conference last week - or if, like me, you can't stand the prospect of seeing all that smirking, giggling verbal flatulence and read the transcript instead - you may have noticed a very significant change in the official line on Iran.

It used to be that attacking Iran is essential because they're working on building nuclear weapons. But that excuse fell apart because the United Nations weapons inspectors - you know, the guys who were 100% correct on Iraq not having banned weapons but who were shoved aside so Bush et al could get their longed-for revenge on Saddam - all insist that Iran is not actually building a bomb. Now the rhetoric has changed: attacking Iran is essential because they know how to build nuclear weapons.

Heck, that's no secret. Anyone with Internet access and two minutes to run a Google search can find instructions on how to build one of the damn things. So since the knowledge of how to build a nuke is so readily available, does that mean Bush reserves the right to attack anyone at all?

This is a frightening ratcheting up of the official war line. Who cares whether Iran is actually building a bomb? Merely knowing how to build one is enough for this crowd.

Two failed wars aren't enough for this bunch. Do we really need a third?

GOP Hates Americans?!

There was a quite telling moment during last night's Republican presidential debate. Ron Paul pointed out, very accurately, that the American people are sick of the endless war in Iraq and want our troops to come home. So what happens? The audience boos him.

Oh, For Pete's Sake

Today, the House failed by thirteen votes to override President Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill. Had it passed, it would have expanded the federal program providing health insurance to kids from working families who otherwise could not afford it.

And now we know why, courtesy of Representative Steve King (R-IA):

Is there any excuse these guys won't use for political bashing?

Take Your Finger Off the Button, George

"The president was not making any war plans. He was not making any declaration. He was making a point."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, trying to reassure people that President Bush's "World War III" reference did not mean he's hot to nuke Iran

Irrelevant

President Bush must know what he's become in the eyes of the American people - a whining and petulant man desperately begging us to support him just one more time. That's the impression I got from watching his press conference yesterday.

Why else would he lamely insist "I am relevant" when explaining why he wielded his veto pen to cut off the health coverage of millions of children? Or mutter darkly (while snickering, no less) that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from [having] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

(Note that he changed the script slightly - he did not accuse Iran of actually trying to build a bomb, only of getting the required know-how. It seems that his handlers realize the old scare tactics aren't working and are changing to new ones.)

He doesn't get it. There's a reason why the latest poll shows him with a 24% approval rating, why his saber-rattling against Iran isn't selling, why the public is upset over his denying health care to working-class kids.

Perhaps it's because he continues to insist that the United States does not torture when everyone knows prisoners are routinely beaten and waterboarded. Maybe he really believes that he can get away with torture by redefining it, but he's sure not convincing anyone else.

Q: A simple question.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. It may require a simple answer.
Q: What's your definition of the word "torture"?
THE PRESIDENT: Of what?
Q: The word "torture." What's your definition?
THE PRESIDENT: That's defined in U.S. law, and we don't torture.
Q : Can you give me your version of it, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever the law says.

Perhaps it's because he's asked when he's going to admit the Iraq War cannot be won militarily and responds by raising the specter of al Qaeda and demanding that Congress hand over even more spying power to him.

Or perhaps he insists that "I feel good about many of the economic indicators here in the United States" when all but his super-rich pals are falling further and further behind.

But it's really all of the above. Bush comes across as someone denying the reality that is staring him in the face, pushing one more lie, hoping to deceive the American people just one more time. No one believes him anymore, and even he knows it.

And we have four hundred and sixty days left to go until someone else becomes president.

Some People Just Never Learn

Now that their attempted smear attack on 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family has imploded in the face of public revulsion, you'd think Michelle Malkin and company wouldn't try it again, at least not this soon. Well, guess what - they're at it again.

Bethany Wilkerson was born with a serious heart defect and receives health coverage through the SCHIP program which has driven the right wing so bonkers.

She is two years old.

That has not stopped Malkin et al from frothing at the mouth, attacking not only Bethany but her parents as well. Malkin sneeringly called Bethany a "child-sized human shield." Mark Hemingway of National Review went further, taking Dara and Brian Wilkerson to task basically for procreating while poor.

What is it with these supposedly pro-life people that actual children drive them so crazy? Do they hate kids that much?

So Much for the Whole "9/11" Excuse

Remember back when the White House got caught secretly spying on our phone calls, E-mail messages, and so on? The number one excuse given by President Bush and his fellow fear-mongerers was that it was all because of 9/11, that we should get used to Uncle Sam watching everything we do rather than risk another attack. It was a blatant appeal to our fears, but it made a perverse sort of sense.

Well, guess what? Along with everything else from this Administration, that was a crock too.

The Daily Kos website is reporting that in February 2001, the White House started recruiting American telecommunication companies to facilitate government eavesdropping without all those pesky judicial warrants.

In case your math is a bit rusty, that was a full seven months prior to the 9/11 attacks. So Bush et al came to power and immediately started in on a massively illegal domestic spying program.

Out of the various companies pressed to cooperate, Qwest was the only one to refuse, and it seems just a tad suspicious that shortly thereafter, the company was abruptly denied government contracts and its CEO investigated for insider trading.

Will Congress look into this latest outrage? Hold their feet to the fire!

Two Minutes Hate, GOP-Style

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were - in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police.

George Orwell, 1984

Orwell would either be horrified or grimly satisfied at the way the Republican Party and the conservative movement in general - Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Sean Hannity, and so on - have absorbed the concept of the Two Minutes Hate. In the novel, the Hate is used to channel the emotions of the Oceanian populace into hating this person or that, rather than have them start thinking about why life is as miserable as it is.

So it is with today's conservatives. Watching them switch their hatred from topic to topic and from person to person is like watching Orwell's dark vision come to life. One week, the object of their fear-and-loathing agenda is Mexican migrants looking for work. The next week, it's MoveOn.org. The week after that, it's a boy who asked why President Bush wants to take away his health care. Today, it's FreeThought Radio, a new atheism-centric show on Air America Radio, about which Fox News is screaming that it's a "war on God." And every year around this time, it's the "War on Christmas."

But the basic pattern of the Hate never changes, even if its target does so regularly. It's always a dire threat to civilization as we know it. We are always under attack from someone or other, and the latest target is always - always - the most evil and blackhearted enemy in the history of everything, topping only the one that came before it. And once the Hate has run its course, whether it is refuted by simple facts or met by public revulsion or simply runs out of steam, it switches effortlessly to its next target.

And it is always used to distract the American people from asking questions, from thinking for ourselves. Why run the risk of people wondering why our soldiers are needlessly dying in Iraq when they can be told to hate Sean Penn instead? What better way to prevent people from asking why the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world which does not provide some form of national health coverage than by focusing their worries and fears on a twelve-year-old boy with brain damage? It can certainly backfire temporarily, as with this week's aborted smear campaign against Graeme Frost and his family, but then it simply changes direction to target the next threat.

One wonders if the Republicans' Two Minutes Hate strategy will ever run its course, whether the people being so callously manipulated will ever wake up to that simple fact.

I hope it will, but I fear it won't.

UPDATE: With the Frost smear having gone down in flames, the Two Minutes Hate has switched to Al Gore, who in 2000 won the popular vote and this morning won the Nobel Peace Prize for his climate-change work. To nobody's surprise, Fox News and various right-wing blogs have started attacking Gore en masse.

We Love the Jews So Much, We Want Them to Stop Being Jews

"We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say... We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all."

Ann Coulter on CNBC's The Big Idea to (Jewish) host Donny Deutsch, explaining why she wants all Jews to convert to Christianity

Suffer the Little Children

We all know that the American right wing makes a big deal out of publicly claiming to be pro-family and pro-child while privately doing everything they can to screw America's not-wealthy families to the wall. The hypocrisy is expected if not exactly welcome. But even I thought they wouldn't stoop to going after sick kids.

Boy, was I wrong.

Two weeks ago, Graeme Frost, a twelve-year-old boy from Baltimore, gave the Democratic response to President Bush's weekly radio address, asking Bush to sign the bill expanding SCHIP health insurance to include more children who need it. As we all know by now, Bush vetoed the bill, claiming it would deprive the insurance industry - currently in desperate straits and forced to sell blood to pay its bills (that's a joke, by the way) - of profitable customers.

Graeme happens to know something about SCHIP. Three years ago, he and his sister were badly injured in a car crash and left comatose. Both children have brain injuries and need special care, especially the daughter. Their parents don't have thousands of dollars a year to buy health insurance, and even if they did, no company would cover them due to the kids' "pre-existing conditions." It's only SCHIP that allows them to get the health care they need.

For the crime of speaking out, of opposing Maximum Leader Bush and his plans to turn America into an "ownership society" where you're SOL if you don't have the scratch, Graeme and his family have been targeted by the right wing.

An anonymous post on the hard-right Free Republic bulletin board accused the Frost family of being pretty well-off and not needing the SCHIP insurance. They go to a private school which costs $40,000 a year for the two of them! They own their own home! Others in the right-wing media landscape, from Rush Limbaugh to Michelle Malkin and everyone in between, picked up on the theme and attacked Graeme and his family for being fake poor people. The right-wing blogs are full of vitriol, hatred and even death threats. The family also has to deal with various wingnuts harassing them at their home and place of business.

Of course, all these shrieking nutjobs don't bother to mention a few salient facts:

• Graeme is able to attend the school only because he gets a full scholarship
• Graeme's severely disabled sister can go to the same school only because Maryland is required by state law to pay for her education
• The family was able to buy the house for $55,000 in 1991 only because it was in a rough neighborhood

But that doesn't matter to these people. Like the sheep-like citizens of Oceania in 1984, they have been given a target. Who cares if the facts aren't with them? The Hate is on!

The whole thing makes me want to throw up. How can anyone attack children, let alone sick children? Is there really no depth to which they won't sink? These are truly loathsome people.

Gitmo Who?

"Reports about very innocent people being thrown into detention, where they could be held for years without any representation or charges, is distressing."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, finally admitting that arbitrarily imprisoning hundreds of people at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely without charges or trial might not be the best approach - no, wait, she was actually criticizing the military crackdown in Myanmar.

"Compassionate Conservatism" in Action

"On this day it is also appropriate to recognize the important role the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has played in helping poor children stay healthy. To preserve that role and ensure that poor children can get the coverage they need, SCHIP should be reauthorized."

President Bush proclaiming "Child Health Day" on October 1

"[U]nder this bill, government coverage would displace private health insurance for many children. If this bill were enacted, one out of every three children moving onto government coverage would be moving from private coverage."

President Bush just two days later, putting insurance company profits over kids' health by vetoing SCHIP

In His Defense, He's Been Leader of the Free World for Only Six Years

"The United States salutes the nations that have recently taken strides toward liberty, including Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan [KEYR-geez-stan], Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a], Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Morocco."

From a leaked draft of President Bush's speech to the United Nations, complete with phonetic guide

"I think that's a offensive question. I'm going to just decline to comment on it."

Press Secretary Dana Perino at a White House press gaggle, responding to a question on whether Bush has "a hard time pronouncing some of these countries' names"

Just Plain Ghoulish

It is no secret that Rudy Giuliani has based his presidential campaign solely on the fact that he was Mayor of New York on September 11, 2001. He's not even bothering to mention anything else, and the fear-and-loathing rhetoric of his speeches gives even Karl Rove's wettest dreams a run for their money. He stops just short of saying, "Vote for me, or Osama bin Laden will come to your house, kill your kids and shave your cats." He's pretty shameless, and his wholesale expropriation of the terrorist attacks as his personal property is, to say the least, unseemly.

But this one is just plain ghoulish.

Abraham Sofaer, a Giuliani supporter in Palo Alto, California, is hosting a fundraising party for the campaign tomorrow night in his house. No problem there. The kicker is that he wants his attendees to each chip in nine dollars and eleven cents for the campaign.

That's right: "$9.11 for Rudy."

Even by this campaign's standards, that's pretty darn awful. And it's telling that while the Giuliani campaign has made the occasional clucking noise of disapproval, they're notably silent on whether they're going to accept the money.

Then again, what do you expect from a guy who dumped his second wife via press conference?

Because One Pointless War Just Isn't Enough

It's no secret that the warmongers in the White House are itching to attack Iran before President Bush's term ends in January 2009. They've certainly tried hard enough to sell the American public on the necessity of bombing Tehran and taking out the Middle East's new Public Enemy #1, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He's building nukes! He's in bed with Al Qaeda! He was part of the mob that took over the American Embassy back in 1979!

Fortunately, the public ain't buying this time. We already got lied into supporting one war by this crowd, and we're not inclined to believe them again.

But that doesn't mean they're not trying.

Newsweek is reporting that Vice President Darth Cheney tried to manufacture an excuse to attack Iran:

A few months before he quit, according to two knowledgeable sources, [David] Wurmser [Cheney's Middle East adviser] told a small group of people that Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz - and perhaps other sites - in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out. The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran.

This is truly scary. Cheney is already salivating over the prospect of using tactical nuclear weapons in Iran, a move which is quite simply madness. Has the Bush Administration really become so power-mad that they would really nuke a country which has not attacked us and is not developing nuclear weapons (according to the UN nuclear watchdog group that was enimently correct in saying the same thing about Iraq)?

I have the sinking feeling that they really are that nuts.

Hiding Behind the General

General David Petraeus has been good for President Bush. As the public face of Bush's Surge™ in Iraq, Petraeus did his master's bidding and provided a medaled front man behind whom Bush can hide when the going gets tough.

As is happening right now.

Prior to Petraeus' dog-and-pony show before Congress last week, the Washington Post revealed how he manipulated Iraqi casualty figures to make it look like the violence was decreasing when in fact the country remained as bloody as ever. This sometimes took truly ludicrous forms, such as how deaths were counted if victims were shot in the back of the head but not if they were shot in the front. Polls both before and after the PR stunt said a majority of the American people didn't believe a word he said.

Then MoveOn.org put in their two cents with their "Petraeus or Betray Us?" ad and the world exploded.

Well, not literally. The sun continued to rise and the sky remained blue. But from the GOP's temper tantrum, you'd think that's what happened. Republicans took to friendly media outlets (including, to no one's surprise, Fox News) demanding that MoveOn be kicked out of the country and that the New York Times be investigated for running the ad in the first place.

Amid all the brouhaha, one should not lose sight of the simple fact that the ad's assertion - that Petraeus deliberately fudged the numbers so his political bosses in the White House could look good - went entirely unchallenged. Indeed, all the evidence supports it.

Yesterday, the Senate demonstrated its support of freedom by passing a resolution condemning MoveOn for daring to criticize Bush's fig leaf. And in an effort to further milk the righteous outrage, Bush took to the airwaves in a rare press conference.

It cannot be a coincidence that the very last question was a softball from Bill Sammon, a faithful stenographer who writes for the hard-right Washington Examiner:

What is your reaction to the MoveOn.org ad that mocked General Petraeus as General "Betrayus," and said that he cooked the books on Iraq? And secondly, would you like to see Democrats, including presidential candidates, repudiate that ad?

With the planted question phrased in just that manner, Bush had his cue to get into his carefully scripted snit, with no follow-up questioning allowed:

I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. military. And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat[ic] Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad. And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org - or more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal. It's one thing to attack me; it's another thing to attack somebody like General Petraeus.

The hypocrisy is staggering even by Bush's standards. After firing principled officers for refusing to put a happy face on Iraq, he finds one to be his personal PR flack in selling the Surge™ to a skeptical public. (Not to mention the professional Pentagon brass, which warns that the military is in real danger of breaking due to the war.) And when the Surge™ goes sour, Bush uses Petraeus to deflect disapproval and proclaims that any criticism is an attack on the entire military.

In other words, shut up and salute. No criticism of the armed forces is allowed, regardless of how richly it's deserved or whether the military is being used for political cover. How easily we forget that Republicans routinely attack military figures - and more harshly than MoveOn did - whenever it suits their purposes to do so.

Bush's handlers obviously realize that hiding behind Petraeus gives him the best chance of keeping his poll numbers from sinking any lower. If that means turning a decorated Army officer into just another political hack - well, that's life.

The Whole "Cratering the Economy" Thing Was Someone Else's Fault

"You know, you need to talk to economists. I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low and being fiscally responsible with the people's money."

President Bush, forgetting that he took a $230 billion budget surplus in 2000 and recklessly blew it on endless war in Iraq and tax cuts for the rich, turning it into a $9 trillion national debt

Except Your Kids Are Dead

"Every day is Mother's Day as far as you're concerned, isn't it?"

President Bush to mothers of soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan

Besides, Getting Killed in Iraq Is Your Job

"One, I'm too old to be out there, and two, they would notice me."

President Bush, making excuses as to why he talks tough on Iraq (e.g., "bring them on" and "we're kicking ass") but won't do any of the actual fighting and dying

Imagine How Democrats Would Make Out

"You're basically saying that we should take our marching orders from Al Qaeda?"

Fox News "journalist" Chris Wallace, on the attack during a Fox-moderated GOP Presidential debate after candidate Ron Paul advocated withdrawing all American forces from Iraq

Oh Yes, That Makes All the Difference

"If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian. If it went through the front, it's criminal."

A "senior intelligence official" quoted in the Washington Post, explaining how casualty figures were manipulated so the White House could claim that fewer Iraqis were being killed; other officially uncounted deaths include Iraqis killed by car bombs, Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, etc.

Jews Aren't Part of His Base Anyway

"I send greetings to those around the world celebrating Rosh Hashanah."

President Bush, announcing the Jewish New Year one week early

So Why Not Ban Straight Divorce?

"In countries that have redefined marriage, where they've said, okay, it's not just a man and a woman, it can be two men, two women, the marriage rates in those countries have plummeted to where you have counties now in Northern Europe where 80 percent of the first-born children are born out of wedlock. We don't need more children born out of wedlock; we need more children born into wedlock between a mom and a dad bonded together for life."

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), explaining why he opposes marriage equality for gays and lesbians

"Slow News Weekend" My Fanny

Good Lord - go away for a holiday weekend and everything happens at once.

First off, President Bush's "surprise" visit to Iraq. Notice that he stayed far away from Baghdad, where some of the sectarian civil war's worst fighting has been happening and where the Iraqi "government" is in shambles. No, he went to Al-Asad Air Base, a gigantic and heavily guarded American military outpost with a thirteen mile fortified perimeter. Thus kept far away from any of the actual Iraqis whom he claims to have liberated, Bush shamelessly exploited the thousands of soldiers stationed there for a photo op.

"Those decisions [on finally leaving Iraq] will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground," he said manfully, "not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media. In other words, when we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure. To do otherwise would embolden our enemies and make it more likely that they would attack us at home."

That pretty much sums up Bush's presidency right there. Set up other people to take the fall when your policy decisions go bad. Smear anyone who disagrees with you as spineless wimps. And use psychological terrorism of your own to scare people into supporting you even though everyone knows you have no idea what you're doing.

Once again, we see how Bush is so hopelessly delusional he can't recognize reality even when it walks right up and bites him.

Second development, also from the Bush Administration. We're seeing a level of rhetoric against Iran that's heightened even by this crowd's standards. Speaking to the friendly American Legion, Bush said that "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere."

And where have we heard this one before? "We will confront this danger before it is too late."

Yes, Bush is trying to repeat the very same act that deceived us into invading Iraq when no threat was present.

Who cares that nuclear engineers and inspectors all insist that Iran is maybe a decade from developing such weapons? Who cares that Iran scholars both inside and outside the Beltway all say that an attack would be, to put it lightly, counterproductive? That Iran's production facilities are too widespread to be destroyed by anything other than a massive and sustained invasion? That it would cause the Iranian people to rally round the Tehran government? And that it would give Al Qaeda yet another recruiting poster?

And finally, the hypocritical moralists of the Grand Old Party forced Senator Larry Craig to resign for being gay. Let's not beat around the bush here (as it were, har!) - Craig was shoved out not because he covered up a disorderly-conduct arrest but for being homosexual. After all, the GOP was just peachy with Senator David Vitter's commerce with various ladies of the night. What's worse - patronizing prostitutes or cruising airport bathrooms?

OK, they're both pretty icky and not very defensible. But it's just wrong that the Republican Congressional Caucus gives Vitter a standing ovation and then gives Craig the heave-ho.

Eating Their Own

Back when Senator David Vitter (R-LA) admitted to fooling around with prostitutes, GOP reaction was notably muted. He was not condemned by his colleagues nor was he urged to resign.

Sheesh, what a difference the word "gay" makes.

As everyone knows by now, Senator Larry Craig (R-IH) pleaded guilty and paid a fine for cruising for quick nookie in an airport bathroom. Good Lord, from the way the right wing has gone off on him, you'd think he read from the Koran on the Senate floor:

Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN): "Senator Craig pled guilty to a crime involving conduct unbecoming a senator. He should resign."

Senator John McCain (R-AZ): "I believe that he - that he pled guilty and he had the opportunity to plead innocent. So I think he should resign."

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI): "However, he also represents the Republican Party, and I believe that he should step down as his conduct throughout this matter has been inappropriate for a U.S. senator."

Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN): "While additional concerns are being raised, Senator Craig already demonstrated that he is unfit to serve in the U.S. Congress when he pled guilty. I believe that he needs to step down."

And so on. Ain't it fun to watch moralistic Republicans turning on their own?

Corruption and Callousness in Iraq

All I know is first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm a human being. Goddammit, my life has value." So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I want you to get up right now. Get up. Go to your windows, open your windows, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Things have got to change my friends. You've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open your window, stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) in Network

Granted, the Bush Administration has set a pretty high standard for outrage over the last few years. From blowing off pre-9/11 warnings to lying us into invading Iraq to letting New Orleans drown to everything in between, it often seems like nothing these clowns do can royally piss us off anymore.

Trust me - that will change once you read the Rolling Stone article "The Great Iraq Swindle." In exquisite squalor, it details how the Bush Administration not just allowed Iraq to become a playground for corrupt war profiteers, but actively facilitated the process.

Contracts were handed out not on the basis of competence or ability, but on connections. Politically active Republicans were given the job of (re)building Iraq's financial and governmental infrastructures despite having no experience whatsoever. Contractors focused on squeezing the absolute maximum profit out of the US taxpayer - that's you and me - rather than actually doing the job, resulting in unusable projects and wrecked facilities.

It has gotten to the point where there are more American contractors (who in another age would have been more correctly called "mercenaries") in Iraq than American soldiers.

The Bush Administration, far from cracking down on rampant fraud, has done everything in its power to protect these crooks by derailing even criminal investigations.

The part of the story that truly got my blood boiling was not the hundreds of tons of cash handed out in payments and bribes with little or no accountability, nor of the billions of dollars stolen by crooked contractors. No, it's the story of one Russell Skoug, hired by a company called Wolfpack supposedly to maintain air conditioners for a Halliburton (there's that name again) subcontractor. But when he arrived in Iraq, he was told to fix Humvees. Never mind the fact that Skoag was not an automotive tech, nor that the limit of his car-repair knowledge was how to change the oil.

After being allowed to do what he was hired for in the first place - with his tools being limited to a screwdriver and a Leatherman - he was being driven in a convoy when a bomb went off under his vehicle, severely injuring him.

Before bringing Skoug to Iraq, Wolfpack promised they would cover all his expenses, including medical ones. But when he was injured, they refused to lift a finger to help him.

They refused to coordinate his evacuation and care. They refused to cover his medical costs, despite American law requiring that every contractor fully insure all of its employees in a war zone. And they even refused a direct appeal from Skoug's wife that they help the man they discarded.

"After I have put forth to help you all out," Wolfpack owner Mark Atwood whined via E-mail, "you are going to get on me for your husband not having insurance."

Think about that for a moment.

A company puts an employee in the middle of a war zone and then callously jettisons him when everything goes sour. Sorry about that, pal, but you're on your own.

A year after he was wounded, Skoug is now crushed by more than half a million dollars in debts, mostly from medical costs.

That's the Iraq War in a nutshell. The fat cats make out like bandits, raking in billions that in another age would rightfully be called obscene profiteering. And it's the Russell Skougs of the world who get screwed.

If that doesn't piss you off, nothing will.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Larry

I firmly believe that people's private lives are their own business, and as a rule I have less than no interest in the sex lives of politicians. They are, after all, only human, with the same drives as everyone else. That rule, however, goes by the wayside when a holier-than-thou person gets caught in matters of the zipper.

The latest example of this? Senator Larry Craig (R-IH), who we now know was arrested back in June for "cruising" an undercover cop in a Minneapolis airport bathroom. He tried to talk his way out of it with some "do you know who I am?" bluster, but pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a $500 fine. Now that this minor awkwardness has become public, he claims he wasn't cruising anyone, pleaded guilty only to avoid further embarrassment, and calls the whole flap a "he said/he said misunderstanding," to the derisive hoots of many.

Now, it just so happens that Craig has made a name for himself being one of the more vociferously anti-gay voices in the Senate, opposing such items as gay marriage, civil unions, gays serving in the military, and the expansion of federal hate-crime laws to cover gays and lesbians. And yet he has been rumored to be gay himself (or, at the very least, bisexual) for many years.

And so Craig joins a long, long list of Republicans and conservatives who loudly proclaim their moral uprightness in public while behaving very differently in private, including:

• Representative Mark Foley, who was forced to resign from Congress when it was revealed that he had hit on underage male pages for years and was protected by the House leadership
• Über-pastor Ted Haggard, who resigned from his church leadership position after being caught patronizing a male escort and buying drugs from said escort
• Representative Bob Allen, who was arrested after offering $20 to an undercover police officer to let him perform oral sex on said officer
• Senator David Vitter, who proclaimed that "remaining faithful after [marriage] is the best choice for health and happiness" but admitted consorting with prostitutes from the infamous "DC Madam" escort agency
• Jack Ryan, who dropped out of his Senate campaign against Barack Obama once it was revealed that he had tried to talk his then-wife into group sex
  
• Former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who told his second wife he was dumping her by holding a press conference at which he introduced the woman who would become his third wife
• Former Representative (and House Speaker) Newt Gingrich, who not only served his first wife with divorce papers while she was recovering from cancer surgery, but led the impeachment jihad against Bill Clinton while cheating on his second wife with the woman who would become his third wife
  

And so on and so forth. While progressives are generally leaning back to enjoy the spectacle, conservatives have gone berserk and are turning on Craig with a vengeance, demanding that he resign from his Senate seat.

Hypocrisy is a very bad thing. You'd think this would be pretty obvious, but all these politicians, preachers, pundits, and everyone else who makes a career out of being more righteous than the rest of us still haven't figured it out. If you talk the talk, you'd better make real sure you can walk the walk.

UPDATE: Craig just gave a statement in which he strenuously denied doing anything wrong, insisted he is not gay, blamed the Idaho Statesman for investigating his hypocrisy, and said he only pleaded guilty "in the hope of making it go away." Interestingly, he also admitted keeping his family in the dark about his arrest, implying he would never have told them at all had it not become public. This story isn't going anywhere.

Another One Thrown Under the Bus

After weeks and months of insisting that he would not resign, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has done just that. It seems that President Bush, who (in)famously stuck by Gonzo long after he became a political disaster, finally realized there is no up side to keeping him on the payroll and has thrown him under the bus.

So now what happens? Washington rumors say Bush will nominate Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff as the new AG, apparently because he has not disgraced himself like Gonzales did. But Chertoff has his own problems, particularly in the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina two years ago.

You may remember that when the storm hit New Orleans with full force, the levees broke and people started drowning in the streets. And it was Chertoff who waited more than a day to begin relief efforts with the "White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response." This despite repeated pre-landfall warnings from the National Hurricane Center that Katrina would hit the Gulf Coast and hit it hard. DHS' response just went downhill from there.

It is tempting to declare that no one could ever bring the level of politicized quackery to the Justice Department that Gonzales did, but it's dangerous to underestimate a Bush appointee.

This gives Senate Democrats a golden opportunity to finally muck out the White House stables. If they're smart, they'll simply refuse to move on a nomination until Bush finally come clean on all the warrantless spying and other illegalities they've been up to. The GOP and Fox News (one and the same, really) will doubtless scream "obstructionism," but the Dems should stick to their guns. We may not get another chance like this again.

Spy or Die

For six and a half years, President Bush and his crowd have often said they don't care what people think. Whether it's massive anti-war demonstrations (before and after the invasion of Iraq), opposition to the Patriot Act or just plain stinky poll numbers, the Administration goes on as always, blissfully ignorant of the real world.

Earlier this summer, Bush rammed the "Protect America Act" through Congress, giving him the power to spy on anyone he likes, whenever he feels like it. He doesn't even have to pretend that it's related to terrorism, only that it is "directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States." The American people were, to put it mildly, pissed off, and that reaction just might be making an impact on the White House.

That has to be the reason National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell made such a ludicrous comment to the El Paso Times. Basically, it boils down to this: let us spy on you whenever we want, however we want, without a peep of complaint - or die.

Or, in his words:

A: ...Now part of this is a classified world. The fact we're doing it this way [with public debate and media reporting] means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they're using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means and when they go to an alternative means, remember what I said, a significant portion of what we do, this is not just threats against the United States, this is war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Q: So you're saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?

A: That's what I mean. Because we have made it so public.

Now, the American people have a depressingly high tolerance for super-patriotic and jingoistic bluster, but generally don't take well to naked threats. McConnell obviously knew he had gone too far, as he backtracked almost immediately: "It's a democratic process and sunshine's a good thing. We need to have the debate." But it's what he said first that reveals what he really thinks.

So not only are we supposed to let Bush et al spy on us without any restraints or accountability, we're also supposed to shut up about it?

Bush's favorite explanation for why Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 is that "they hate our freedoms." It appears that he is trying to prevent additional attacks by taking those freedoms away:

• Freedom from unwarranted government surveillance (see above, also the indiscriminate tracking of all domestic and international phone calls as well as claiming the power to read our E-mail and snail mail)
  
• Freedom of speech (the White House's procedures for barring demonstrators and other insufficiently worshipful Americans from Bush's public appearances)
• Freedom of travel (the "no-fly list," accused of being manipulated to keep dissidents off planes)
• Separation of powers (Bush's "signing statements" defying hundreds of laws)
• Habeas corpus (the Military Commissions Act, giving Bush the power to imprison anyone he likes indefinitely)

And so on and so forth. In a thriller novel, George W. Bush would be revealed as Osama bin Laden's sleeper agent in the White House. It sure seems that way; Bush is certainly doing everything he can to turn America into the kind of frightened and compliant nation any dictator would kill for.

Bush and Vietnam, Together At Last

Ever since it became clear that the Iraq War would not be a glorious crusade but rather an intractable quagmire, it has been compared to the Vietnam War. Both conflicts were rooted in blind ideology, launched based on lies, and kept going long after everyone knew they could not be won by military means.

President Bush never went to Vietnam and never fought alongside those who did - John Kerry, for one. Rather, he was safely posted to a "champagne unit" of the Texas Air National Guard, well known for keeping sons of the state's rich and powerful out of harm's way. (And he didn't even show up for all of his deployment to boot.) But that didn't stop him from drawing his own parallels between the wars, as he did today in a Kansas City speech to the VFW convention.

"There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam," he told the assembled veterans, "and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle -- those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that 'the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today...' Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility -- but the terrorists see it differently."

Astoundingly, Bush seems to be arguing that we were attacked on 9/11 because we withdrew from Vietnam twenty-six years earlier. Not only that, he falls back on the Rambo excuse, that we lost Vietnam because we didn't see it through and weren't "allowed to win." In his little world, we could have won the war if only we had the gumption to drop more bombs, kill more people, and devastate the entire region even more than we actually did.

Not surprisingly, his conclusions are strikingly different from those reached by people who actually know something about the war.

"What is Bush suggesting?" asked historian Robert Dallek. "That we didn't fight hard enough, stay long enough? That's nonsense. It's a distortion. We've been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It's a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out."

And just to show that the only President we've got really don't know much about history, he also said that "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'killing fields.'"

Um...George? The Khmer Rouge's killing fields were in Cambodia, not Vietnam. And they were overthrown by the very same Vietnamese you were out bashing today.

It's truly unbelievable that Bush would use one useless war to try and justify our continued involvement in another useless war. Once again, he gets an F in basic American history. Can't we flunk this guy out already?

Who Needs Democracy Anyway?

"By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government... President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming 'ex-president' Bush or he can become 'President-for-Life' Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons."

- Philip Atkinson of the conservative group Family Security Foundation, explaining why a Bush dictatorship and a global Pax Americana would be a good thing

Bush to Kids: Drop Dead

With President Bush's approval ratings hovering around those of athlete's foot and a significant percentage of Americans calling for his impeachment, you'd think he'd choose his battles a little more carefully. But apparently not. You see, he (or the people who pull his strings, same difference really) has issued new regulations barring states from expanding public health coverage to children from middle-income families.

And his reasoning? The more kids who are covered by the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the fewer who can give their business to private insurance companies.

Really.

To minimize the risk of such substitution, Mr. [Dennis] Smith [the director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations] said in his letter, states should charge co-payments or premiums that approximate the cost of private coverage and should impose "waiting periods," to make sure higher-income children do not go directly from a private health plan to a public program. If a state wants to set its income limit above 250 percent of the poverty level ($51,625 for a family of four), Mr. Smith said, "the state must establish a minimum of a one-year period of uninsurance for individuals" before they can receive public coverage.

Who could possibly have anything against wanting to help kids get the health care they need? We have millions of uninsured children in this country, to say nothing of uninsured adults, and Bush's response is to add to their numbers?

That's not only wrong, it's actively evil. We're getting into James Bond-villain territory here. I can just see Bush standing in for Auric Goldfinger, aiming an industrial laser at kids' nether regions and chortling wickedly.

Let's hope the Democrats use this as an issue in next year's elections. If they have the stones to do so instead of just knuckling under as usual, they'll get a clean sweep.

You Can Say That Again

"Sean [Hannity] is not a journalist."

- Bill Shine, Fox's senior vice president of programming, on why it was not inappropriate for Fox News pundit Sean Hannity to host a fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani despite Fox's long history of attacking other networks for the same thing

Say What?

• "This seems to put us in the 'trust us' category. 'We don't do it. Trust us. And don't ask us about it,'"
• "Every ampersand, every comma is top-secret?"
• "Are you saying the courts are to rubber-stamp the determination of the executive of what's a state secret? What's our job?"
• "I feel like I'm in Alice and Wonderland."
• "The bottom line is the government declares something is a state secret, that's the end of it. No cases. The king can do no wrong."

- Reactions of judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Bush Administration's position that not only do they have the power to spy on anyone whenever they feel like it, but the courts have to bug out as the spying issue is a "state secret"

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Back in January, President Bush, who makes a big thing out of claiming to listen to his generals, ignored said generals' warnings and announced a Surge™ of American soldiers fighting in Iraq. Ever since then, the White House and their media flacks have consistently declared that the turning point will be in September, when General David Petraeus is set to issue a status report to Congress. (The latest turning point, that is - there have been so many of them it's easy to lose track.)

Wait for Petraeus' report in September and let the generals do their job, we are told over and over again. Those of us rude enough to point out that the Iraqi mayhem was actually getting worse and not better are attacked for being anti-American, anti-military, etc, etc. As the carnage mounts daily, the White House even tries backtracking on all its previous edicts of September as a magic date, insisting they never said any such thing.

And now, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that just to make sure the report says what the Administration wants it to say without the intrusion of any inconvenient reality, they're going to write it themselves:

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government. And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.

To quote Gomer Pyle, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!" It's just another PR stunt by the same people who brought us the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq (remember that?) back in 2005.

Petraeus has already gone on record faithfully parroting GOP talking points. Given that fact - and Bush's well-known tendency to fire anyone who tells him what he doesn't want to hear - it's a safe bet that he will tell Bush the Surge™ is a big success. It's an even safer bet that the White House will then tell Congress and the nation that the Surge™ is in fact a tremendous success, the greatest ever in military history.

And as for the Iraqi people - you know, the ones who are dying by the dozens and hundreds every day in this savage civil war - well, who cares about them?