Crashing the Gate

Karl Rove takes this book seriously. He read and studied it because he is determined to crush the progressive net roots, grassroots rise of people powered politics. Crashing the Gate is written by Markos Moulitsas who started DailyKos and Jerome Armstrong, founder of MyDD.com. I ordered today. If they have a plan, I want to read it.

Even though they are corrupt, ridged and inept to the core, the one thing these bastards do well is manipulate public opinion. And, as back-up, they control the voting machines so no matter how very wrong they are, it's going to take a huge, collective effort to kick these losers to the curb.









crashing the gate karl rove people powered politics jerome armstrong politics election markos moulitsas

Colbert at Correspondence Dinner video

RE-RE-RE-RE UPDATE: The Colbert links keep getting removed but for the moment you can see them here in all their scathing glory.

Entire Dinner video.google

Colbert alone video.google

Google gets overloaded but these links have been good from the start:

Colbert 1
Colbert 2


It's so satisfying knowing that the cowardly King George and his court had to just sit there and sweat it out in front of the cameras while Colbert repeatedly kicked them in the bush.

(NOTE: Full transcript here)



stephen colbert white house correspondence dinner cspan bush colbert clip

AJR 39

"At both the state and national levels, we will be paying for the Bush Administration's illegal actions and terrible lack of judgment and competence for decades‚—not only in the billions of dollars wasted on the war and welfare for the rich, but in the worldwide loss of respect for America and Americans. Bush and Cheney must be impeached and removed from office before they undertake even deadlier misdeeds, such as the use of nuclear weapons. There are no bounds to their willingness to ignore the Constitution and world opinion‚—we can't afford to wait for the next disaster and hope that we can survive it."

That paragraph is what California Assemblyman Paul Koretz of Los Angeles added to Assembly Joint Resolution No. 39 turning it into a bill to impeach Bush and Cheney. Thank the gods somebody's got some guts! Later Koretz's told the press this bill,

"bases the call for impeachment upon the Bush Administration intentionally misleading the Congress and the American people regarding the threat from Iraq in order to justify an unnecessary war that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives and casualties; exceeding constitutional authority to wage war by invading Iraq; exceeding constitutional authority by Federalizing the National Guard; conspiring to torture prisoners in violation of the 'Federal Torture Act' and indicating intent to continue such actions; spying on American citizens in violation of the 1978 Foreign Agency Surveillance Act; leaking and covering up the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, and holding American citizens without charge or trial."

Thank you Mr. Koretz and the other intelligent people who made my day. It had taken a very bizarre turn for the worse late this afternoon. I was back at that church run thrift store where the fat, amped-up old lady works and browsing for books when a guy with one of those oily personalities was suddenly standing in the middle of the aisle completely blocking it. I excused myself and wedged by but he struck up a sticky conversation anyway. On the surface it was ordinary but it gave me the creeps anyway. Some indefinable something about the guy was really unsavory. A few minutes later the whole store could hear him blabbering to the cashier that he thought "we" should nuke Iran because gas prices are too high then, "after everything has been turned to glass, send the Marines in to paint red and white stripes all over everything."







NUCLEAR WAR?!?!#!


Holy shit! A real, live Bushite! No compassion. No logic. Not even a sense of consequences. Stark raving insane and, as if that wasn't enough, immersed in a bitter irony. He had the audacity ... the hubris ... no ... he was so deranged that he added, in a quieter tone meant to reassure us that dropping nuclear bombs on people is okay if he thinks so because he is a "Christian and a man of peace."

I gotten to the point that I even recoil from "nice" church folks and this is exactly why. They harbor and legitimize these maniacs. This fellow was a member of the Methodist church that runs this particular thrift store so the cashier, who is also a member, nodded and smiled and commiserated with him. Protecting herself from a raving lunatic is one thing. Although I wish I had, I didn't confront him either but when I asked her what she thought she simpered, "Well, gas prices are too high". I blasted her and she grew ever more ambiguous and friendly even throwing in the grimy little notebook I wanted a price on for free.

So they are out there, the Jesus freaks who have their heads so far up their asses they look down their noses at the world. They believe Bush in spite of the fact that he is a blatantly corrupt, scatterbrain dolt, dope, dunce, idiot, halfwit nitwit, numskull fool, criminal liar, evil traitor, pinhead, nincompoop.

Impeach the whole lot.

Okay. Okay. I'm done. For now.

On the brighter side:

Coming soon ...
The 7 o'clock Magpie
Another thrilling adventure
from the Bird Park!

impeach bush cheney ajr 39

The Decider? God help us!

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George Bush reminded us all the other day that he's IN CHARGE! Not only is he a madman, the guy's a boob.

"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

"I read the front page"!?!? I realize that for Bubble Boy, even reading the front page is a big deal. Sadly, I don't believe he even does that.

I am fully convinced that Bush is fully capable and, as The Decider, almost certainly secretly planning a nuclear attack on Iran. Just as fundamentalist Muslims devote themselves to their Jihad, Bush is devoted to his Apocalypse and has proven himself to be a liar and traitor willing to do anything to achieve his ends. He is a truly dangerous fool but if we let him continue bulldozing the way for this insane fundamentalist crusade we have only ourselves to blame.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee ... I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee ... that says, fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. Fool me ...you can't get fooled again."

~—President George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 (Listen to audio or watch the video)

Unfortunately, we have proven again and again that we are willing to be fooled again and again.


Come on. At least sign the petitions:
Oppose attack on Iran
True Majority Petition against invading Iran


bush iran nuclear war decider fundamentalism

Leaks, lies and the body count

US Iraq body count to date

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The Bush legacy is like a bad, Hollywood movie. Too bad for us it's real.

They lied us into war.
Then they exposed and destroyed
US undercover operations
in the Middle East
just to protect their dirty secret.

cheney bush leak plamegate

The Leaking Bush

US Casualties to date: 2047
US Wounded to date: 17469
US National Debt as of Friday, April 7th at 19:08:51 hours GMT: $8,394,278,717,242.32

Forget about pointing the National Debt. It increases $27,067. 49 per second or $2.44 billion dollars a day. Before Bush, our budget was balanced.


When asked about US undercover agent Valerie Plame's identity being leaked to the press in a press conference on October 6, 2003, President Bush replied: "And, you know, there's a lot of leaking in Washington, D.C. It's a town famous for it.

And if this helps stop leaks, this investigation in finding the truth, it'll not only hold someone to account who should not have leaked -- and this is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action. But also hopefully we'll help send a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop as well."

So now that we know Bush is the "leaker", people are splitting the hairs of his latest lies. Does he or doesn't he have the right to lie, spy and absolve himself? In 2003 he signed a presidential mandate in which he conveniently gave himself special permission to do just that. Big surprise. But it's irrelevant. "Legal" or not, Bush ordered the outing of a US spy, an act of treason punishable by death during a time of war. And why, you might ask, did the President of the United States betray his own country? Money and power. His Administration perverted the panic of 911 to sell their long cherished, pre-911 desire to invade Iraq, grab its oil and resell it to us at an astronomical profit.

Bush lied about WMDs. He lied when he said Saddam Hussein had connections to Osama bin Laden and Al Queda. Remember Osama bin Laden, the chap behind the 911 attacks? He's the guy we should have gone after but, in a criminal abuse of power, Bush used the 911 panic to help the rich get richer selling war, murder and mayhem in the name of national security. And now, how ironic. Bush is the leaker he said he'd fire if he ever found out who leaked! It would appear Mr. Bush is having an identity crisis.

Anyway, these facts alone should be enough to impeach and imprison the bastard and his crooked cronies but once again our US Senators and Representatives, who we elected to protect our Constitution, will roll over and play dead. Talk about spin! It is beyond mind boggling. Bush and Company never change their strategy. Why should they? It works. They deny their crimes until they can't deny them any more, then they proudly flaunt them. Celebrate them. Turn them into virtues. Publicly anoint themselves with their lies as though they are God's own words and, above all else, these lying sacks of shit....never, never, never back down. Their pride is breath taking. It is interesting with this latest twist in Plamegate, to see Cheney turn on Bush doggie style, but it's just more political theatre static. Anyway, everybody knows that Cheney really runs the White House. Bush is just the pretty face, the down home, dyslexic, trust fund billionaire. He's stupid but cute so people cut him slack. Cheney, on the other hand, is brilliant but he's a drunken, ugly asshole. No big deal for him. He prefers the shadows.

Sadly, Americans are stupid with fear. This works for the sellouts in Washington because, so gripped, people refuse to recognize the fact that the President is not only leaking, but our glorious, titanic "Ship of State" is on the rocks.





bush republicans news plamegate
national debt

Impeach Bush, Cheney, Rummy & Rove

2296

Throw them all in jail!

What to do when the Emperor has no clothes

Garrison Keillor
Chicago Tribune / Salon.com
Published March 1, 2006

What to do when the emperor has no clothes? These are troubling times for all of us who love this country, as surely we all do, even the satirists. You may poke fun at your mother, but if she is belittled by others it burns your bacon. A blowhard French journalist writes a book about America that is full of arrogant stupidity, and you want to let the air out of him and mail him home flat. And then you read the paper and realize the country is led by a man who isn't paying attention, and you hope that somebody will poke him. Or put a sign on his desk that says, "Try much harder."

Do we need to impeach him to bring some focus to this man's life? The Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker carries an article by Jane Mayer about a loyal conservative Republican and U.S. Navy lawyer, Albert Mora, and his resistance to the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. From within the Pentagon bureaucracy, he did battle against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo, who then was at the Justice Department, and shadowy figures taking orders from Vice President Dick "Gunner" Cheney, arguing America had ratified the Geneva Convention that forbids cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners, and so it has the force of law. They seemed to be arguing that President Bush has the right to order prisoners to be tortured.

One such prisoner, Mohamed al-Qahtani, was held naked in isolation under bright lights for months, threatened by dogs, subjected to unbearable noise volumes and otherwise abused, so that he begged to be allowed to kill himself. When the Senate approved the Torture Convention in 1994, it defined torture as an act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering."

Is the law a law or is it a piece of toast?

Wiretap surveillance of Americans without a warrant? Great. Go for it. How about turning over American ports to a country more closely tied to Sept. 11, 2001, than Saddam Hussein was? Fine by me. No problem. And what about the war in Iraq? Hey, you're doing a heck of a job. No need to tweak a thing. And your blue button-down shirt--it's you.

But torture is something else. Most people agree with this, and in a democracy that puts the torturers in a delicate position. They must make sure to destroy their e-mails and have subordinates who will take the fall. Because it is impossible to keep torture secret. It goes against the American grain and it eats at the conscience of even the most disciplined, and in the end the truth will come out. It is coming out now.

Our adventure in Iraq, at a cost of billions, has brought that country to the verge of civil war while earning us more enemies than ever before. And tax money earmarked for security is being dumped into pork-barrel projects anywhere somebody wants their own SWAT team. Detonation of a nuclear bomb within our borders--pick any big city--is a real possibility, as much so now as five years ago. Meanwhile, many Democrats have conceded the very subject of security and positioned themselves as Guardians of Our Forests and Benefactors of Waifs and Owls, neglecting the most basic job of government, which is to defend this country. The peaceful lagoon that is the White House is designed for the comfort of a vulnerable man. Perfectly understandable, but not what is needed now. The U.S. Constitution provides a simple, ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes and the failure to attend to the country's defense. Impeach him and let the Senate hear the evidence.

----------

Garrison Keillor is an author and the radio host of "A Prairie Home Companion."

Thanks to Liberal Agit-Prop for the photo Naked Bush.

Global warming, polar bears and Republicans

Here's a quiz:
What do polar bears, hurricane victims, and global warming have in common?

Answer:
They are all being ignored by the Republicans.

Polar Bears are starving to death because global warming is destroying their habitat. They are another species that may become extinct because of it.

The Republicans prefer to either deny the situation or bullshit about it. Other than giving lip service to change, they are completely unwilling to submit to the regulations of the Kyoto Protocol designed to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. One of the first things Bush did he when became president was withdraw the United States from the Kyoto Protocol. As always, he is motivated by greed, guided by ignorance and full of hubris. But the Republicans can't bully, bribe, blackmail, baffle or buy off the weather. Instead they are trying to muzzle scientists that speak up about global warming. Bush should be muzzled. Whenever his lips are moving, he's lying.

"It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," said NASA's chief climate scientist James Hansen of the Bush administration's effort to silence him after the speech he gave last month. "One threat was relayed to me that there would be 'dire consequences — not specified,'" if he spoke up, he told ABC News. Hansen stressed that if we don't act now, "earth will become a different planet."

Bush's addiction to oil

Body Count: 2248



Bush lied the other night when he said he wanted to reduce America's addiction to oil. The real news of the day is that he just hit up Congress for 120 billion more dollars to support his illegal, immoral oil grab in Iraq. And that's money is just for the next few months. Then he'll need more.

Comments about his so-called "concern" were just meant to take some of the heat off of himself. It worked. At least momentarily he deflected attention away from the shit he's up to his neck in... like wire tapping, the outing of Valerie Plame, his lies about WMDs. These things are not "old news". They are crimes he committed for which he should be impeached, convicted and sent to jail.

Lies and spies

Bush runs a rogue government. We all know they leaked the identity of a legitimate US undercover agent (Valerie Plame) in order to clear the way for their illegitimate war. As their only defense, they admit that they are spying on Americans but we can be certain that they are lying about the scope of their spy operations. So where does the power of this cloak and dagger power grab end? Bush is just the current face on a hydra-headed cabal that runs this country from the backroom so how far does this thing go? Who are they? What else are they planning? We know they already have secret, torture camps. They can "disappear" people at will. They recognize no moral or ethical limit. There's a new and disturbing peak at what they have in store for us in the article below. Gralla condenses a longer article on the subject that appeared in this Washington Post article. Check it out. We cannot afford to be ignorant or naive any longer. This madness has to stop.

Feds Want A Wiretap Backdoor In All Net Hardware and Software
by Preston Gralla

Think the federal government is too intrusive? You ain't seen nothing yet.
An FCC mandate will require that all hardware and software have a wiretap
backdoor that allows the government to tap into all your communications.
The mandate expands the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), and requires that every piece of hardware and software sold include the backdoor. The rule isn't yet final, but once it is, all vendors will have 18 months to comply. And in fact, says Brad Templeton, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), some router makers already include such a backdoor. So your hardware may be vulnerable. There are several problems with this rule. First is the obvious massive intrusion into all of our privacy. Second, says Templeton, is the way that the rule will stifle innovation. According to the Washington Post, he claims that the rule will "require that people get permission to innovate" would create "regulatory barriers to entry." He adds "The FBI gets veto on new companies." The final problem is that if all hardware and software has a backdoor, it's an open invitation to hackers. So we may be faced with a double-whammy: The feds and hackers working their way into our systems. The EFF, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the COMPTEL association of communications service providers, and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief last week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to try and stop the FCC. Here's hoping they win.

Dec. 14th speech another Bush evasion

2152


Pres. Bush made a show of taking responsibility for invading Iraq under "wrong intelligence" in his speech today. It was just another carefully worded evasion of the truth. Bush and Company didn't invade Iraq under "wrong intelligence". They made up the so-called "wrong intelligence". In other words, they lied to the American people about Suddam Hussein in order get support for their invasion of Iraq. When will people get that through their heads?

The fact is Suddam Hussein had NOTHING to do with the terrorist network. Bush and Company are oil men. They are the ones who sell us gasoline. They wanted to secure the oil fields of Iraq for their personal economic advantage, i.e. to stay billionaires as long as possible as oil reserves dry up. They tried when Bush Sr. was in power but Sr. had enough sense to see we can't conquer Iraq. Iraq is at war with itself. Attacking Iraq only means inheriting its ongoing civil war. Saddam, bad as he was, kept that at a simmer. Bush is like a guy who throws a brick at a bee hive so he can steal the honey. It's stupid and dangerous. You can't win in a fight with a swarm of pissed off bees. It's stupid and dangerous. There are smart ways to do business with bees. Bush is a stupid thief and a traitor. I'll listen to him when he takes responsibility for the outing of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame. Not a second before.

We need leaders who will stimulate the development of alternate forms of energy instead of miring us in an unwinnable war for what's left of dinosaur oil.

Censoring the dead

From the beginning the bodies of military personal killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been brought back to the US under cover of darkness. The administration doesn't want Americans grasping the reality of the situation. Now the government is doing the same thing with the bodies of the dead strewn throughout New Orleans. Like the soldiers, Bush wants to keep them out of sight and has ordered a media black out on images of corpses. If he had given New Orleans the money it requested, desperately needed, to repair the levees the damage and death toll would have been much less.

Now Bush has decided to head up the investigation into his administration's criminally inadequate response. I can't believe people are going for it. Naturally he won't find himself or his bungling, bloated bureaucracy guilty of anything. It's really disheartening.

Bush clowns as the dead float in New Orleans

1892

Bush's "zero tolerance" policy

1882

Bush fiddles and golfs as the leavy breaks and people drown.












 
"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this — whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud and I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."-- George Bush

Essentially, Bush is saying "Let them eat cake" as people search for food and water from gutted, flooded, abandon stores. As usual, this billionaire loser is totally out of touch with reality. He's even got his henchman Attorney General Gonzalez "on the case". Maybe they'll send the big, bad looters to Guantanamo.

So, what was the President doing as Katrina tore through the South? Golfing and clowning around with more photo-ops. And where is the National Guard? Mired in Iraq fighting the war he lied us into. What an asshole.

Reality gap messes with Texas

1862
Shooter Larry Mattlage's truck

Larry Mattlage doesn't want Cindy Sheehan and her supporters protesting the war on Iraq in his neighborhood so he menaced them with his shotgun. When a reported asked him why he did it he said, "figure it out for yourself". He told police that he was "just gettin' ready fer dove season, officer".

Then Larry Northern attached a steel bar to the back of his pickup truck and plowed over the flags and roadside crosses, crushing the names of American soldiers killed in Iraq into the dirt. What do you want to bet he's one of those guys who rattles off "ga bless 'merica"at the drop of a cowboy hat?


I doubt many of these glib "patriots" have kids in Iraq. Bush certainly doesn't but he has no problem recommending other parents encourage their children to join the military. He should insist that his drunken daughters to do a stint in Iraq. They could use a taste of reality.





Too bad Dubya doesn't have time to meet with Cindy but he says he needs to ride his bike. After all, he is on vacation, again. Even Lance Armstrong dropped by the estate. And besides... you know how Republicans are. They can't take much reality.

Mission accomplished?

Another revolting development

1853

Village Voice
"Last week, however, Comey announced he was leaving the Justice Department to become the general counsel of the defense contractor Lockheed Martin. In his absence, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is the most likely choice to be named as the acting deputy attorney general, and thus the man overseeing special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's work. But McCallum has been a close personal friend of President Bush. Justice Department officials are once more grappling as to how to best assure independence for investigators. And Democrats on Capitol Hill are unlikely not to question any role in the leak probe by McCallum."

If you're at all conscious, you have at least heard of Plamegate. You get extra credit for knowing that Fitzgerald is the prosecutor in the case. He's investigating the administration's outing of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame. Now with McCallum's appointment, Rove has direct control over the prosecutor investigating him. Too bad for truth and justice. No surprise though. These days it's either "truth and justice" or the "American way". Can't have both. With the radical right, they are mutually exclusive. McCallum will do whatever Karl tells him to do, which is exonerate him and the rest of the administration's treasonist nazi bastards. Revolting.

Bush, vacation king

1833.....13769

President Bush is sometimes referred to as King George. And why not? He and his neocon buddies like to think of America as an empire rather than a democracy. Also, Boy George is the vacation king. Since he took office, he has spent nearly a year of that time vacationing just at his estate in Texas. That doesn't take into account the time he spends vacationing elsewhere. His current month plus at the ranch is his 49th vacation . And he was there just prior to the terrorist attack on 9-11. Yes, Mr. Home boy had information that an attack on the US was being planned but he went on vacation anyway.

I just read that George also takes two hour lunch breaks every day and doesn't "do" nights or weekends. Naturally the Republicans do their best to cast a mushy, golden glow over the whole thing. His press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Bush's latest vacation is "a time, really, for him to shed the coat and tie and meet with folks out in the heartland and hear what's on their minds." Really.

Then why won't Vacation King listen to what's on Cindy Sheehan's mind? Is it possibly because she'd like to see his ass impeached? She's the mother of the National Guardsman recently slain in Iraq. She went to Texas to confront Bush. I guess Cindy hasn't heard that nobody confronts Bush. Nobody!

If his so-called "meetings with the folks" were ever anything more than photo ops with very carefully screened audiences, a meeting with Cindy should be the one. But no. Instead, federal and local law enforcement officials halted her advance toward Bush's 1,600-acre estate.

Bush could hold a town hall meeting. Really. He could shed his coat, radio prompter, and bullet proof vest, roll up his sleeves for real and put his hand out to people, people other than in a hand-picked crowd. But he'll never face people who are angry, hurt or frustrated by the bogus war he started, his support for traitor Karl Rove or any of the other impeachable offenses he's committed. Instead, our self-declared "War President" poses for manly photos of himself chopping wood and driving his truck, pretending to be the all American guy he never was and never will be. We need real leaders, not playboy wannabes, greedy spineless senators, lackey judges or media whores like Robert Novak who are only too happy to support treason for the promise of a buck.

A Newsweek poll released Saturday shows that only 34% of Americans still approve of Bush's handling of the war. These are undoubtedly the idiots that only their news from Fox & company. Folks in the heartland are sick of your bullshit, Mr. Bush, and guess what? The whole country is the heartland, not just your medicated, pie-eyed followers. Since you left for your 5 week vacation, 34 more Americans have died in your war and 27 more have been injured. What are you going to do about that?

Bush - missing in action

1829
 
President Bush left Tuesday for his ranch in Crawford, Texas. It's his 49th vacation there since he took over the j_o_b. This time he'll be gone 5 weeks, the longest presidential retreat in 36 years! Retreat is right. Forget about the war, our dead, the world. Since "Mission Accomplished", George Bush is in full retreat from his personal, number one shit tsunami, Treasongate.

Just how much has this clown been "on vacation" during his presidency? First off, it's estimated he's at his ranch 20% of the time. Then there are his frequent visits to other plush hidey-holes like Camp David and his parents' compound in Maine. And for that round the clock protection, he takes mind-numbing drugs to help him keep his cool. All in all, Dubya is out of his office (and mind) what... 25, 45, 75 percent of the time?

But you can bet Treasongate has got Bushy Boy's attention. He absolutely cannot afford to lose Karl Rove. "Turd Blossom", as Bush affectionately calls this criminal master mind, is his "brain". So what does Dubya do? Like always. Duck out and leave matters to Turd Blossom, the dirtiest player to ever run country. Seems nearly everyone in Washington is under Karl's thumb so it's a crap shoot how all this will play out. However, one thing is certain. None of these thugs will look good with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.

Republican Jesus