wishing doesn’t make it true

Finally, cracks in the dam seem to be growing, if not widening.

Senator Arlen Specter has called for a hearing on Sen. Russ Feingold’s resolution of censure in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It will be held Friday.

That scurrying sound you hear is the sound of Feingold’s fellow “democrats” heading for cover. When it comes to backbone, the vast majority of the Senate’s democrats continue to show themselves to be lacking.

The odd thing is, there is a growing majority in this country – all located outside the Beltway it is important to point out – who are desperate to see some signs of a loyal opposition to this incredibly incompetent, unrepentantly repressive, extraordinarily overreaching (mis)Administration. The public wants to see George W. Bush held accountable to the law and to the Constitution of the United States on which it stands.

Understandably, it is only inside the Beltway that Feingold is considered a pariah. Everywhere else he has gone from being Senator Who? to being a contender, if not the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for President. His favorable numbers almost double those of the president.

Still, the powers that be are working overtime to undermine Feingold. Calls to senate offices of ranking members are frustrating, to say the least. An account of a call to the offices of Senator Edward Kennedy yield no satisfaction – even though the staffer taking the call clearly favors supporting Sen. Feingold.

Kennedy refuses to support or oppose the resolution of censure. Instead, he’s holding out for a full Congressional investigation. The fact that supporting the former does not preclude the latter – and in fact could actually prompt the latter – appears lost on the Massachusetts democrat. It’s dumbfounding.

Meanwhile, gatekeepers of mainstream media are doing their level best to support the (mis)Administration by sitting on their hands.

Media outlets that regularly poll the nation to gauge public opinion have refused to query on the subject of censure, thereby leaving the door open for outbursts like the one made by “Dead-eye” Dick Cheney Friday.

“Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy and the terrorist surveillance program is grounds for censuring the president," Cheney told a Republican fund-raiser in Orlando, Florida, on Friday, adding, "The American people have already made their decision. They agree with the president."

The fact that the shotgun-blasting veep is lying through his teeth is immaterial. There is no evidence – no statistical evidence, at least – to give proof to the lie. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t cut it. And off course, since a lie will circle the world three times before the truth can get out of bed, it’s easy to see the strategy here. Bush and company have been working overtime to tell the public that the domestic surveillance program is legal – evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Thankfully, it appears that, finally, the great Republican echo chamber finally is falling on deafened ears. The lies have come so readily and so steadily that the public is turned off. It’s the boy who cried wolf scenario in action.

We should begin seeing polling data on censure, and perhaps even impeachment, beginning this week. And if we flood the offices of our own senator with phone calls and emails, we can push their fat asses off the fence and get them into the game.

More soon.

good news? you want good news?

If I hear one more preppie Republican pundit bewail the lack of reporting on the good news happening in Iraq, I’m going to engage in projectile vomiting.

Perhaps the ultimate preppie, Laura Ingraham went on The Today Show to suggest the show go on the road to Baghdad or Talafar for a week and interview American soldiers in the field instead of standing on the balcony of a Baghdad hotel reporting about the latest IED explosion.

Thankfully, Keith Olbermann was around to speak up on MSNBC, saying “A note about Laura Ingram's comments. I've known her a long time. I'll in fact give you the caveat that I've know her socially. But that hotel balcony crack was unforgivable. In was unforgivable to the memory of David Bloom, it was unforgivable in considerable of Bob Woodruff and Doug Vought, unforgivable in light of what happened to Michael Kelly and what happened to Michael Weiskopft. It was unforgivable with Jill Carroll still a hostage in Iraq. And it was not only unforgivable of her; it was desperate and it was stupid.”

Let’s be blunt.

If there was ANY good news coming out of Iraq it would be plastered on Fox News (one brief vowel movement away from completely describing what they do to journalism) 24/7. There is no good news. Baghdad emergency rooms have only one hour of electricity per day. No power. No water. No public safety. And plenty of civil war, no matter how hard George and his lackeys try to spin the subject and deny the facts.

George W. Bush's poll numbers are so far down in the crapper that Richard Nixon's Administration is beginning to look like The Good Old Days. You think those numbers would be buoyed by video of happy Iraqis showering our troops with flowers and treating them as liberators? Hell, even some video of a working power plant or water purification facility would help. And if there was even that to show to the people back home, Roger Ailes would shit himself getting a Fox News crew to Iraq with a camera and Geraldo Rivera in tow.

Do you see coverage of good news coming out of Iraq on Fox News? No.

Instead, what you see are Republican operatives bewailing the lack of coverage of the good news in Iraq by mainstream news outlets.

Good news? To borrow a phrase from the Marines, Iraq is a first-class Cluster Fuck.

It pisses me off. All they’re doing is trying to slam down the credibility of journalism and paint journalists as un-American and Liberal Elitists in order to deflect the fact that the Bush (mis)Administration’s War in Iraq is a total fiasco.

But does anyone push back? No.

Bush and Co. went into Iraq for their own personal reasons and they've created a mess. By framing the debate by blaming the "liberal media" for the lack of good news reporting they're trying to pass the blame onto liberals in general and Democrats in particular. And the more they go unchallenged in this attempt, the more they will continue the tactic.

Journalists are being blown up in Iraq. They’ve been kidnapped in Iraq. Italian journalists have been fired on by U.S. Troops as they’re being freed from Iraqi captors. If they venture out tightly controlled sectors of Baghdad, they’re fired on, blown up, held hostage and threatened with beheading.

This kind of Republican strategy is to say the least disingenuous. For them to call journalists un-Patriotic is, in and of itself, the most un-Patriotic thing they can do.

Tell you what -- let's report on what the REAL good news is coming out of Iraq, becuase, irony of ironies, there is good news coming out of Iraq if you're George W. Bush or a member of his inner circle. The Good News for them, the Republican Gospel, if you will, is that Iraq has been a golden teat they've all been sucking on now for three years and to the tune of billions and billions and billions of dollars.

They make it sound like the funding the War in Iraq is about supporting the troops, and that is perhaps the biggest, sickest lie these assholes have ever told. Funding the War in Iraq is about funding Halliburton. It's about funding Kellogg, Brown and Root and the treasure trove of war related business that have sprung up and thrived on the endless supply of no-bid contracts the administration has handed out.

Support the troops? These assholes are billing wounded soldiers for their lost flak vests and meals while in the military hospital. They've cut pay for troops and mis-deployed troops. They've scrimped and handed out needed support material with eye-droppers. All the while they've outsourced everything they possibly can, from laundry services to chow lines, to corporate entities that soak the government at obscene rates. It's no surprise that these supposed cost-cutting measures have been exponentially more expensive.

From now on, whenever you hear one of these Republican War Hawks screech about Supporting the Troops, tell yourself that what he's really saying is "Supporting Halliburton." And then tell the sanctimonious son-of-a-bitch that you're voting for someone else. Someone who might actually -- really -- support the troops and bring them home.

More soon.

president dredd strikes again

George W. “I’m-not-above-the-law, I-AM-THE-LAW” Bush has done it again.

After all the whining and braying about renewing the USA Patriot Act, President Judge Dredd signed the negotiated version of the bill recently. Then he quietly released a “signing statement” saying that the law’s provisions requiring him to inform Congress about the way certain aspects of the law are being implemented do not apply to the Lawbreaker-in-Chief. His war powers supersede any attempt by the Legislative Branch at oversight.

In other words, we have a man serving as Super Commander-in-Chief that a majority of Americans believe is incompetent. Of course, our president believes “incompetent” has something to do with bowel control.

The Bush (mis)Administration treats the War Powers Act like an all-purpose Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. It allows him to tell Congress to kiss his ass if they move to curb his ability to do whatever the hell he wants to do. It allows him to wipe his ass with The Bill of Rights and the Constitution (that damned piece of paper) and ignore court orders telling him to turn over documents.

It’s what allows him to sanction illegal search and seizure raids without a warrant. It allows him to conduct an illegal domestic wiretapping operation. It allows him to outsource security operations to foreign companies with no-bid contracts like the one issued to a Hong Kong company to provide radiation screening for the port system. It allows him to violate the will of Congress to prepare for an illegal war in Iraq under the guise of a war in Afghanistan. It allows him to torture prisoners even as he signs legislation prohibiting that very act.

And no one dare tell the Boy Emperor that he’s wrong.

Just don’t act like this is a surprise. The Bush family has always acted as though it was above the law. The family fortune was gathered by crawling in bed with Nazis in violation of federal sanctions. Attempts by the Securities and Exchange Commission into Bush’s insider trading problems were quietly quashed at the highest levels by his daddy. No matter what business he ran into the ground, there was always someone around with Saudi money to bail him out. And of course, his oath to serve in the Air National Guard meant nothing – he walked away from that obligation when his commanders had the gall to order all pilots to undergo drug testing.

And don’t be surprised to learn that Barbara Bush’s ballyhooed contribution to survivors of Hurricane Katrina turned out to be a tax-deductible contribution to the President’s brother, Neil – think of it as a no-bid contract for his software company. As we know, people who are homeless and jobless are in dire need of software.

In the end, there will be massive Congressional investigations into the Bush (mis)Administration abuses of presidential war powers. It will lead to a fundamental effort to outline in black and white just what powers a President has and does not have in the case of war. There will no doubt be lengthy indictments over these outright abuses.

In the meantime, remember these abuses when the right-wing religious Taliban in this country question anyone’s patriotism who questions George W(alks on Water) Bush. Remember that when President Dredd goes on television and questions the Patriotism of news organizations that cover such extremely subversive things as, well, the news. Remember that when he tells you that, even though Iraqi Sunnis are battling Iraqi Sikhs, it’s still not a Civil War. Remember that when Bush and his cronies demagogue Democrats for daring to hold a Republican (mis)Administration accountable to the rule of law.

A rule of law that does not apply to George W. Bush.

We must make certain that it applies. And applies especially to George W. Bush.

More soon.

oh, man, this guy is getting ready to blow

George W. Bush looks like a man in dire need of blowing off steam. Today, he addressed an increasingly contentious news conference. His face got beet red, his tone got more and more defensive and his body language became more and more tense.

In other words, George W. Bush is a watched pot and he’s ready to boil.

It’s clear that this (mis)Administration is on the defensive. For days now, Bush and his cronies have been pushing their p.r. campaign at the public. The problem is, with the hand-picked crowds Bush speaks to, the same-old song-and-dance isn’t necessary. They believe this hand-picked alcoholic preppie can actually walk on water. To the rest of the country, the message has long-since gone stale.

Look closely at Bush under pressure and you see a man baffled by the fact that his act doesn’t work any more.

It never should have worked in the first place.

Bush and his henchmen have gone out of their way to circumvent the checks and balance system the founding fathers devised to prevent (mis)Administrations like the Bushies from taking power they way they have – covertly, illegally and immorally. They’ve throttled the Legislative Branch into ignoring blatantly illegal actions in favor of political expediency or out-and-out bribery. They’ve cowed the Judiciary – in some cases flat-out ignoring orders to reveal information.

This is an increasingly fascist government facing its first taste of true dissent from both the public and the media and it is not doing well.

It’s only going to get more intense.

More soon.