Chalabi the liar now in charge of Iraq's oil industry.

Ahmed Chalabi, the former President of the exiled Iraqi National Congress (pretty much a false claimant to the Iraqi throne) and Bush's original puppet to put in charge of newly "freed" Iraq (but Ahmed quickly was exposed as being unpopular in Iraq), has been put in charge of Iraq's oil industry---despite his total lack of experience. Chalabi was also a major source of Bush's false information about Saddam's non-existent WMD programs.

Supposedly, Ahmed's appointment is only temporary until the Iraqi gov't can finally decide on a more permanent replacement. But he was also named deputy prime minister, so this guy isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

But let's be realistic. Ahmed is very unpopular and not trusted in Iraq. So how'd he this most crucial appointment? The U.S. undoubtedly decided it, for both payback and for future benefit.

Kinda reminds me of when Bush put a Unocal employee (Karzai) in charge of Afghanistan. The pipeline deal isn't in motion yet, I don't believe, but it got a whole lot closer. Now the U.S. oil corporations are a whole lot closer to securing their "influence" in the Iraqi oil industry. (The recent statement by Pakistan and India that they're eager to work together economically just might put that pipeline right back on track.)

It's not wrong, per se, to try to get other nations in line with America. The more "friends" the better. But to use subversive means, it ALWAYS backfires. America tried to install a favorable Iraqi gov't in the 1950s by helping the Ba'athist coup that eventually put Saddam Hussein in charge. We see how that turned out. And we put the Shah in charge of Iran around the same time, and in 1979 the Iranian people revolted. They ousted the Shah (EDIT: not killed him, as I originally wrote in error) and put the America-hating Ayatollah Khomeini in charge. Plus they held 50 hostages which ended up getting Reagan elected. And there are many similar South American examples of failed manipulations.

So when I see Chalabi getting installed into high office in Iraq, I get anxious. If we can't get behind the leaders that the Iraqi people can get behind, then there is a growing potential for disaster. Every decision Chalabi makes in favor of the U.S. will be more reason for Iraqis to not trust their government. And that leads to violent upheavals. The last thing America needs is another Iran-like revolution, where the American puppet becomes a reason to hate America. That would put us right back where we started, and Bush's invasion all for naught.

(Unless you're Halliburton, and then it's all gravy baby. Another invasion means another stack of billions!)

FBI held back info on terrorists.

Remember the PDB made infamous by Fahrenheit 9/11, the one called "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S."? According to this story, it contained watered down information. The full information gathered by a terrorist caught in 1999 was left out.

On one hand, the story gives weight to the idea that Bush honestly didn't know the attacks were coming. But on the other hand, it gives weight to criticisms of why Bush would put terrorism-in-the-U.S. on a back burner in favor of trampling through states who sponsor terrorism. If the attackers are here, aren't they the first priority?

As usual, more answers beget more questions.

Delay-ing tactics.

The GOP is now backing off from protecting Tom Delay from an ethics investigation. The timing and pattern of events lead me to believe that there is an underlying scheme in play.

Delay's done. He's too tainted to keep. But that doesn't mean he isn't still useful. The GOP has played the controversy like an organ. With every new Delay scandal, they show even more support and the Democrats scream "foul" even louder. This has been building up for months, and now in stereo with the identical furor over the UN ambassador nomination. It's a crescendo of obfuscation.

And lost in the noise is Bush. Particularly his budget. Billions given to energy corporations, Alaska open for drilling, more billions for a war that was "accomplished" two years ago, and the costs being defered to future generations. Also lost is the losing campaign by Bush to convince America a looted Social Security program is better than a secure Social Security plan. And going unheard is the new laws taking away workers' rights in court, the chaos still in the streets of Iraq, and the gathering of nations to ally against U.S. interests. Not to mention all the other problems I can't think of right now.

The Dems are gonna keep getting manipulated like this until they back up, get a plan, and find a ballsy leader who will speak in language that most Americans can bet behind. Until then, they're gonna keep falling for these smokescreens.

GOP literally revising history.

Congressional reports are often the note-taking of committee meetings. They are general statements of what happened, including who attended and whether a vote passed or not. Until now, they have been mostly free from the bitter, petty partisan hackery that we see on our TVs. The GOP has brought such civility to an end.

The Democrats are furious at how the GOP has gone back to rewrite these reports to embarrass them. And the rewrites are not pretty! Descriptions of amendments were originally written in a neutral tone. But regarding one particular abortion bill (the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act), the GOP went back and rewrote the Dems' descriptions in the 2002 report.

(An explanation of this amendment first, the Dems said the bill had a serious flaw--it allowed a rapist-father to sue anyone who may have assisted in the cross-border abortion, no matter how tangential.)

DEMS' COMMENTS: "a Scott amendment to exempt cab drivers, bus drivers and others in the business transportation profession from the criminal provisions in the bill (no 13-17)".

GOP REWRITE. "Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution if they are taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional transport."

(For more examples, check here.)

It's pretty plain that the Dems weren't trying to protect "sexual predators." But the truth has never been an obstacle to Republicans. The amendment would prohibit a parent from suing a taxi driver who took a fare across a border to get an abortion (keep in mind, many cities are along state borders). The taxi driver is just doing his job. It's not against the law for a teenager to take a cab (and many teenagers look like young adults).

There are other smears in the report as well. There are amendments by Dems that wanted to keep relatives and others from being prosecuted if they in any way aided the teenager in getting the abortion. The GOP repeatedly characterized this as protecting "sexual predators." If a girl gets pregnant by her boyfriend, and she is then aided by her parents, clergy, bus drivers, etc. to go get an abortion, are they ALL "sexual predators"?

And imagine, a father who rapes his child can sue the taxi driver for taking his child across a river where the abortion doctor is. The GOP law intimidates others from helping the incest victim, and even allows the incest rapist to cash-in with a lawsuit if they do. Thanks, GOP!

The GOP smears want us to believe that the Dems are protecting rapists. Of course, that doesn't even pass the laugh test. But this law isn't about protecting children. (When have the GOP actually cared about children?) It's about scaring the living shit out of everybody. They want to be able to sue and prosecute anybody they can claim was part of the long chain of actions that gets the girl from pregnancy to abortion. The person who drives her, the person who lets her use their phone, the friend who held the cab door open while she got in--EVERYBODY.

You'll notice that they don't write the same expansive laws regarding Corporate theft. Ken Lay couldn't possibly have stolen millions without somebody holding a door open somewhere along the way.

Again, the GOP isn't about YOU. It's about the rich. Screw you.

And now, screw the historical record. It, too, is just a tool for the GOP agenda.

Can America 'weather' Santorum's crookedness?

This is how Republicans take your money and stuff it into the pockets of rich people.

Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) is pushing hard for legislation that serves no good purpose to the public. In fact, it "solves" a problem that has never been mentioned--ever.

Santorum wants to subsidize private weather bureaus. Yup, he's damn tired of the taxpayer-funded National Weather Service giving their forecasts away to the public. These forecasts, which pretty much everybody uses, aren't "free." They are paid for by American tax dollars. And for the time being, Americans are getting their money's worth.

But Santorum is hell-bent to end it. He wants a law that disallows the NWS from "giving away" forecasts by posting them on the internet because--wait for it, it's pretty disgusting--it is "unfair competition" that keeps news services from profiting from them! Yup, Santorum wants Americans to pay for weather forecasts, then deny them direct access to that information, so that some corporations can make a few extra bucks.

Dontcha love it when politicians work for "the people"?

If only this was idiotic or evil. Instead, it's pure bribery. Santorum is literally selling legislation. He has received several thousand dollars in campaign contributions (for 2006) from AccuWeather, which is based in--yep, Pennsylvania. He took their money, then he wrote them and a dozen other PA companies a subsidy bill.

You're a real piece of slime, Santorum.

I've said it before and I say it again: the GOP serves no one but the rich and the corporations. There is no purpose to this bill but to make sure corporations--not the taxpayer--benefits best from public services.

Oil+Greed=Orgy in Texas

Saudi oil paid a visit to American money this past week. They had a good laugh at all the profiteering.

Sensitive to the Americans' cost of gas to drive to work, Bush shipped another million jobs to India in return for all the bicycles their middle class isn't using anymore...

Check out what WASN'T discussed during the visit.

Church and State: The Final Merger

I couldn’t believe my ears Sunday. I was driving home and turned on the radio. It was a religious program. And the topic of the day was, believe it or not, the Senate rules regarding filibusters.

(Out of about 200 judicial nominations, the Democrats have blocked just ten or so. But the GOP and churches are acting as if the Dems have blocked them all.)

There is no denying it now. There is no more waiting to see. It is here. It is now. And it is very, very dangerous to our religious freedom, our democracy, and our Constitution.

The GOP and Religious Right had their “coming out” party this past Sunday. They called it “Justice Sunday,” but really is was a funeral for checks and balances.

What I was hearing was the sound of blatant hypocrisy. The host of the event, the Family Research Council, brought in a line of Republicans and pastors to preach the gospel of One-Party Rule. And the current obstacle to that end is the Senate filibuster. The current opinion of this group is that the use of a filibuster to prevent an up-or-down vote on a judicial nominee is EVIL. It’s against God and Christ. It’s against the divine plan of merging Church and State in America.

It’s also something this very group PRAISED just a decade ago. When Clinton wanted to appoint a gay man as an ambassador, the FRC wrote at length of the absolute constitutional NEED for the filibuster. It was good, it was just, it was... the needed tool (at the time) for the divine plan of merging Church and State in America.

Here’s what the FRC spokesman said on NPR those years ago: "The Senate," he said, "is not a majoritarian institution, like the House of Representatives is. It is a deliberative body, and it's got a number of checks and balances built into our government. The filibuster is one of those checks in which a majority cannot just sheerly force its will, even if they have a majority of votes in some cases. That's why there are things like filibusters, and other things that give minorities in the Senate some power to slow things up, to hold things up, and let things be aired properly."

I wish this were the only instance of “religious” activists using their influence to peddle purely-secular Republican causes. It isn’t. Churches across the country saw preachers at the pulpit saying a vote for Bush was a vote for God. It didn’t matter that a vote for Bush was really a vote for unchallenged corporate rule.

The real problem here is not that religion is taking over our government. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Political schemers have taken control of American churches. They praise the sanctity of profit and accumulated property. They convince people that money can buy influence with God (“pay off your vows/pledges to this TV show and God will give you the car you want”; it’s indulgences all over again).

Religious freedom is at risk in America. These fundamentalist whackos aren’t seeking to increase our freedoms. They intend to fuse money and God, then canonize the righteousness of accumulated wealth, then impose that singular vision--all packaged abundantly with images and rhetoric of Jesus--on every person in America.

Controversy over Bush's terrorism numbers.

Is Dubya winning the war on terrorism or losing it? Well, according to this story, the number of "significant" acts of terrorism worldwide TRIPLED from 2003 to 2004.

The difference isn't the actual acts of violence, but how the Bush administration has been tallying the numbers. Bush has been cutting out certain types of terrorism to keep the number low. For example, 9/11 would be counted by Bush but the Oklahoma City bombing would not. But also, Bush hasn't put the manpower in place to accurately keep track of worldwide terrorism numbers. There's nothing like seeing a policy maker make policy based on phantom or recklessly erroneous numbers. Reality's never been George's strong suit anyway...

Who greased gay Guckert's entry into Bush's back door?

This is becoming a genuine mystery. A fake reporter for a fake news site writing fake praise for a fake president is curious enough. But according to Secret Service records, Guckert's comings and goings were done without being noted by the Secret Service. So either security is worse at the WH than along the Mexico border, or a gay propagandist is so favored by the President that he has seemingly unlimited clearance. If the GOP is so steadfastly anti-gay, why do they let one run unrestricted through the White House? It makes me wonder just what services he was offering. He might be a fake reporter, but he was a very real gay escort for hire. For an examination of the security gaps regarding Guckert, check here.

GOP to raise your taxes and give them directly to corporations.

Who says conservatives don't believe in the redistribution of wealth? Nah, they only believe it's wrong to redistribute money downward. It's perfectly good to redistribute it upward.

Case in point: the Universal Service Fund. The USF is a fee attached to your phone bill that is used to pay for making sure that phone service is available everywhere (hence "universal") in America. It helps pay for poor areas, rural areas, and places such as schools, libraries, etc. As far as I know, it just pays for infrastructure (wires, poles, etc).

Right now, the fee we all pay is based on our long distance phone calls. If you make only 1 minute of LD calls in a month, you pay "x amount" that month. If you make 100 minutes of LD calls in a month, you pay "100x amount."

Can you solve the mystery? Who is in power right now? Whom do they serve? And who pays the most in USF fees every month? Now, guess who's about to get screwed?

Yup, the GOP is considering a MAJOR cash gift to our corporations (those wonderful people who pay virtually no other federal taxes at all). And this money is to come out of YOUR pocket.

The math here is simple. Corporations make the vast majority of long distance calls every day. It's a part of their business. And the bigger the business, the more LD calls they make. So this can't even be spun as a boon to small businesses. It's a pure gift to mega-corporations, people like Microsoft who call all over the world every day.

The GOP plan is to make the fee a FLAT fee. So your 20 minutes of LD calls this month will cost you as much USF tax as a mega-corporation--with its huge offices and thousands of employees on the phone at the same time--who makes that much maybe every second. The loss of USF money will have to be made up somehow. Yours will have to come up.

This is a huge tax raise on the working poor and the elderly. Heck, even regular working people can't afford this. We could consider doing away with the USF altogether, but why should we take phones away from rural people just to give cash to the rich? What kind of society is the GOP trying to build here?

There's also a hidden threat in this. A flat fee will not only cost your more in taxes, but the phone companies will take a huge loss on LD profits. There's a chance that this bill will force phone companies to end their flat fee LD packages. That means we're going back to the days of counting our minutes when make LD calls. So we're getting punished two ways--just to give more money to the corporations.

Good God, when are people going to wake up and see the damn TRUTH?! The GOP is only about serving the rich. You'd think that would turn people's stomach. If you think the Dems are bad for taking your money and giving it to the poor, the GOP comes off infinitely worse. It's just despicable to take money from those who need it and giving it to those who DON'T need it.

Private vs personal, the GOP's sleight of hand tricks.

Do you know the difference between a private social security account and a personal social security account? The polls. Since polling has showed that Bush's scheme to destroy social security gets a better response when he calls them "personal accounts" instead of "private accounts," the label has been changed. And it took all his political and media stooges about half a second to fall in step. Gone is the word "private."

And in typical GOP hypocritic fashion, their stooges are attacking any media person still using the term "private" as being biased, partisan, and engaging in the argument themselves. So, the GOP stepped in shit and expect the media to clean it up for them. They get angry when they don't get a full return (i.e. complete subservience) for their money.

But all this has a silver lining. It shows that the general public understands what privatization really means. It means gutting the quality of something. But it also means American must be on watch for other euphamisms. As in "liberating the Iraqi people" actually means "looting the Iraqi people's oil reserves." But some things just take time to explain.

Propaganda, who's to blame?

The Senate voted this week 98-0 to shut down the Bush administration's propaganda machine by banning "government agencies from using taxpayer funds to disguise video press releases as real news." (The 98-0 vote tally was due more to the spending bill that this ban was attached to, but I'm still impressed WV Dem Robert Byrd got it attached in the first place.)

Bush's response? "Don't blame us for lying, blame the media for believing us." Or something to that effect. I have an idea, George: take responsibility for your own actions. If you don't produce fake news reports in the first place, the whole issue disappears. Or maybe try this: don't create policies that Americans won't support unless they're lied to. I know, I know, I'm falling on deaf ears. Telling George not to lie, or not to screw the public, is like telling the sun not to shine.

But George and I agree that the media is partly to blame. Any news outlet that simply passes on press releases unchecked is guilty of betraying a public trust. I don't care what the media company's bias is, they have an obligation to fact-check. If a White House press release says George's prescription drug bill is going to cost $200 billion, but a the Government Accounting Office says it will actually cost $400 billion, that needs to be in the story. America hasn't been getting that kind of responsible journalism these past five years. They've just been parroting whatever the GOP tells them to say.

Ah-nold's true colors.

I thought Arnold Schwartzenegger's election to governor of California would be harmless, despite all the chest-beating by nationwide Republicans. But it's looking like Ah-nold is now showing his true policy beliefs. And he's plummeting in the polls because of it.

Instead of taking on the big special interests--such as Big Energy, Big Insurance, and Big Pharma--who have proven time and again they intend to milk Americans for every dime (CA's energy scandal was particularly devious), Ah-nold has decided to bring down a whole 'nother level of special interests... California's nurses, firefighters, police officers and teachers.

Just like the previous "actor" who ran California, Ah-nold believes that paying wages and benefits to those who work is the greatest problem in society. (Reagan called the minimum wage "evil".) Pension plans, not price gouging by energy companies, is what needs fighting. At least as Ah-nold sees it.

And just like Reagan, Ah-nold might be a second-rate actor, but he's become a first-rate Republican. Thank God he can't be president.

India and China’s new world order: why we can’t ‘go it alone’ without them.

I originally started talking about this back when 9/11 and Bush's elective war got me curious about U.S. foreign policy and potential backlashes. The last thing America needs is for the other major world powers (especially economic powers) to decide that America is dangerous and that they must form alliances against us. I imagined that if China (over 1.3 billion population) and India (over 1 billion population) ever put aside their differences they could use their fast growing economies to change the world's economy. India and China each have a booming middle class that makes up 1/3 of the world's customers. America desperately wants and needs a piece of that pie.

What's more, America has shipped many thousands of its jobs to India (technology) and China (manufacturing). If these two nations decided to put pressure on the U.S., they could do so very easily. What could we use as leverage against them? Military leverage is almost worthless. We can't even subdue a country the size of California. And what economic leverage could we use? Can we threaten to not let China make our products? Or India to not provide tech? That would stop us in our own tracks.

So imagine hearing this bit bit of news this week. India and China have woke up. They see their economic potential to reshape world markets. And you can bet they're not scheming to put America in charge.

So when I hear idiots in America mouth off that America can "go it alone" and the rest of the world better fall in line, I think of old political concepts like “balance of power.” They're not going to sit around and let the U.S. pick them off one by one.

There's more. Recent U.S. behavior has not sided well with the interests of China and India. Consider these entanglements:

Bush and Congress just sold Pakistan fighter planes. U.S. ties to Pakistan over terrorism has made India nervous enough, considering India and Pakistan are enemies and now have nuclear missiles pointed at each other. And then Bush goes and sells Pakistan jets which are useless against terrorism but very good against...India. India might be taking this personally, the act of providing their enemy with the means to kill them. (This backlash has already happened with Muslims, who resent the U.S. giving Israel the means to obliterate Palestinians.)

Bush has run this country based on massive foreign debt. A large part of our borrowed money comes from Japan. China hates Japan. And recently, Chinese protesters took to the streets raging about new Japanese textbooks that whitewash the Japanese invasion and torture of Manchuria in the 1930s. The Korean War was, in part, to keep the Chinese and Communists out of South Korea--which is a launching point for attacking Japan. We still have troops there to protect Japan. Once China has its manufacturing base up enough to sustain a war, settling the score with Japan is a very real possibility. And the U.S. is stuck in the middle.

Add to that the current hostilities with North Korea and it’s a bigger mess. Even though China has distanced itself from NK, there's no comfort that NK wouldn't take advantage of a new Sino-Japanese war to rebuild ties with China.

And ther’es also Taiwan. In 2001, Bush didn't make China happy by saying he'd consider using force to prevent China from retaking Taiwan (formerly Formosa, a part of pre-WW2 China, and a very wealthy province). If China and Japan go at it again, there’s a chance China could take the opportunity to re-take Taiwan. Where would the U.S. stand? Neutrality is not an option. And I doubt many Americans would favor China over Japan--there’s just too much history on this. (But American politicians might enjoy voiding our debt to Japan, and businesses might prefer we stick with China since they provide so much manufacturing for us.)

And how would Russia come into play? As the Soviet Union, Russia had more nukes pointed at China than the U.S. Russia and China hate each other too. If China and Japan go at it, which side (if any) would Russia take? It would effectively be Russia and Japan against China.

Now back to India. If India links its economy with China, that means they cannot remain neutral if China is threatened. So it would be India, China, and maybe North Korea against Russia, Japan, Taiwan and maybe the U.S.

...and Pakistan? Would Pakistan pass up a chance to claim the disputed boundary territory with India, and maybe even destroy India’s economy with a multi-front war?

And for the final piece: the Middle East. One of the excuses for inflating gas prices in America is that we now have greater competition for oil resources. China and India’s growing economies mean they have a fast growing need for oil, and half of the world’s supply is right where Bush is knocking down governments to enable U.S. corporations control of Middle East oil industries. If you’re China or India, it is most definitely not in your interest for your enemies’ ally to be rapidly taking control of the world’s biggest oil reserves.

This all sounds convoluted, but the point is that China and India would make up a massive economic force that the U.S. must have positive relations with. But we’re also inextricably linked to their bitter enemies, and most of our foreign policy positions and decisions have not been favorable to them. That puts the U.S. in some very fragile diplomatic positions.

The Niger liar revealed, plus the laundering of false intelligence

Within 24 hours, the infamous Niger documents presented by Colin Powell to the U.N. (before the invasion of Iraq) were proven to be forgeries. There's no question it was all a lie. And no question why (to start an unprovoked war). The only mystery remaining was who forged them.

If this story holds up, we now have a name.

Former CIA head of counter-terrorism, Micheal Ledeen.

The document was generated in America, then funneled through foreign intelligence services, then "received" publicly by U.S. intelligence officials. Also, it was dispersed to and through as many places as possible so they could say "it comes from many sources, so it must be true."

Apparently the right-wing control of U.S. media is so complete that even when foreign intelligence officers warn that information is not reliable, that part never gets spread. Case in point, Germany relayed the false information provided by Chalabi's drunken relative (see previous blog) with the caveat that it wasn't trustworthy. That didn't matter. The Bush administration ran with it without any criticism by the media.

It's starting to look like the Bush administration used the Germans as intermediary regarding "Curveball" with the purpose of keeping the CIA from speaking with him directly. Note that once the CIA did meet "Curveball" they dismissed him immediately. Too bad (for truth, justice, and the lives of our soldiers) that this meeting didn't happen until long AFTER the invasion. The key here is that while it might be true the CIA was honestly deceived, it was the BUSH ADMINISTRATION doing the deceiving.

It's all coming together now.

Delay's veiled threats to U.S. judges...

These Republicans are so DRUNK with power that they simply cannot control themselves. After the GOP failed to manipulate the Florida and Federal courts to get a ruling they liked regarding Terri Schiavo, House Leader Tom Delay made some not-so-veiled threats of retaliation against the courts.

He said of the courts: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve..."

And that's not his only such statement. On April 1, Delay went on record saying:

"We will look at an unaccountable, arrogant, out-of-control judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president."

And from 1997 (long before Schiavo):

"The judges need to be intimidated... If they don't behave, we're going to go after them in a big way."

If ANYBODY is out of control, it's the Republican leadership. They are hell-bent to destroy EVERY check and balance in our government and turn America into One-Party-Rule. It's simply amazing how they can merge the worst of Fascism with the worst of Communism. Americans are getting screwed at a whole new level now.

Lock and load! Florida to get more deadly.

Now that pandering to the religous nuts is over, it's time to pander to the gun nuts.

Apparently, the NRA must be feeling left out of the "pandering pie" the GOP so generously served during their orchestrated Schiavo debacle. So Jeb Bush has shifted--very quickly--from "err on the side of life" to "err on the side of TAKING life." He wants Floridians reaching for their guns as soon and as often as possible.

I'd like to know what Bizarro Christianity these GOP worship. There's nothing pacifist about encouraging bloodbaths.

Now, I'm not against armed self-defense. But this law is completely INCOMPATIBLE with Christ. And that's what bugs me. These are the same posers who pretend they're so religious and holy--and then turn around and say we should be killing each other MORE than we already do.

Culture of life, my fat ass.

As good as (Bush) gets.

From the “Bush is really telling you the truth” department:

Bush was quoted on NPR today saying that his trip to the Pope’s funeral was “the highlight of his administration.” At first, I thought he was a big phony simply parroting what his handler, Karl Rove, told him to say. While that might still be the case, after a few minutes of reflecting on his 4-plus years as Prez I realized that ol’ George was probably telling the honest truth.

Him taking time off to go to a dead Pope’s funeral overseas is most definitely the high point of his administration.

It’s better than his tax cuts for the rich, his pointless education plan, his sleeping-dog approach to terrorism (pre-9/11) and corporate crime, his schemes to eliminate chunks of the Bill of Rights, his lies to start an unprovoked war, his other tax cuts for the rich, his violations of treaties, his open-door plundering policy towards the environment, his erosion of class action lawsuits, and his plot to bleed social security dry.

So, yup, his traipsing off to Europe for a photo-op to pander to American religious nuts sure looks pretty darn good by comparison.

Now if we could just have a pope die about every week, we could keep him from running America any further into the ground...

Bush 'popularity' a myth

You hear it over and over again in the media. Ol' Dubya is one popular president. The election was a "mandate" of his approval.

Not so fast. The "uniter" is gloriously standing atop the LOWEST approval rating for second term president since WW2. Bush is floundering at 45%, the only president to be under 56% at this point in his second term.

So the next time some right-wing stooge tells you how popular Bush is, or some lazy media hack parrots what the GOP tells him/her, take note of what the Gallup Poll is showing. Just like everything else in the Bush era, his "popularity" is pure propaganda.

Laughing in YOUR FACE!

At first I thought I was warped into some wacky Bizarro-America, where insanity rules. But after a moment's thought, it dawned on me that this is another case of Bush really telling you the truth--even though his supporters are too abtuse to understand it.

Who said Saddam's possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (and related program) was a "slam dunk"? Who was the chief intelligence officer when all that "bad intelligence" led America to an unproked invasion of another country?

Well, it's the same guy who Bush just gave the HIGHEST CIVILIAN AWARD possible--the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is "awarded by the President of the United States to persons who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

The guy who bungled so badly it facilitated an unnecessary war deserves a reward for it? That's about as stupid as saying the president who let 9/11 happen should be re-elected! But I digress...

The key here is the phrase "contributions...to national interests...or significant...private endeavors." Yup, ol' George Tenet, former director of the CIA, got a medal for opening the door for Oil Barons to loot Iraqi oil.

Bush is laughing in America's face. But I doubt these dullards notice it.

Bush based war on word of 'crazy drunken liar'

New information (look here and here) about the pre-war Iraqi intelligence is saying that the U.S. relied on a "crazy drunken liar" for its critical source of info about Saddam's WMDs. You're probably thinking "we already knew that," but it's not referring to our current president. Supposedly, he's still on the wagon.

The "crazy" "alcoholic" "congenital liar" was code-named "Curveball" and provided some 100 "intelligence" reports about Saddam's schemes to build and hide a WMD program. He is the cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the former Iraqi National Congress, a group that expected to take over Iraq if Saddam was ever removed.

To put this in perspective, take note that U.S. intelligence did not meet "Curveball" directly, and only got his reports second hand through Germany. Only when the CIA directly inverviewed "Curveball" in March 2004 did they discover the deceit. That makes hackles rise on my neck. Bush launched a war based on information that was never verified by U.S. intelligence. Bush literally just took some stranger's word for it all.

But that's not the worst part. The truly outrageous part is that EVERY piece of information that WAS obtained first hand, directly by U.S. intelligence, CONTRADICTED what this "drunken liar" had to say. So there's no way Bush can wave this off as an "bad intelligence" unless he's referring to his own blatant stupidity. There was plenty of pre-war information at hand to raise serious doubts about the accusations against Saddam. Bush willfully rejected truth and fact for rumor.

I can think of no stronger example of INCOMPETENT leadership.

That is, however, if you assume Bush had honest motives. If you accept the ugly truth that Bush was simply opening doors for the Oil Barons, then he was not only capable but very successful.

Either way, the asshole should be impeached.