Prayer and Probability

2006-06-26T16:07:00.000-04:00

Trouble In The Heartland
Okie from Muskogee Against Bush’s War

“I’m not for the war in Iraq because I don’t believe they’ve explained why they’re doing it.” so said Merle Haggard in a Newsweek Interview. For so many reasons this portends serious trouble for the GOP and the Radical Right. Haggard is representative of the red state ‘Everyman’ that has been the electoral base of the Republican Party for some time. Without that support the GOP faces hard times this November. Democrats should not think that the heartland is turning into shaggy long haired, draft card burnin’, dope smokin’ San Francisco peace freak hippies. No, they still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse in Muskogee, Oklahoma. However they are getting fed up with their sons and daughters getting the killed and maimed for reasons that were as contrived as a Karl Rove prayer meeting. They dislike losing at anything, especially a war. Their alienation will only grow stronger as the repetitious cycle of death and desolation continues.

There is a ray of hope for Bush and his gang. All they have to do is start ‘winning’ the war. That would bring the faithful back into the fold. However, after more than three years it is apparent that that is easier said than done. And of course this begs the question of what does ‘winning’ entail? (1A) Does it mean a cessation of all hostilities? (1B) Does it mean bringing all U.S. troops home, and if so, when? (2) Does it mean a free, united, and democratic Iraq? (3) Does it mean stopping Iraq from being a haven for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups? (4) Or perhaps it just means U.S. access and control of the Iraqi oil fields. The only ones of these that stand a scintilla of a chance is bringing all the troops home, or securing the oil fields and this will require the opposite tack of committing at least 500,000 troops till Hell freezes over. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

The Sunnis, Shi’ites, and the Kurds have been fighting for centuries and they will continue no matter when the U.S. leaves. The attacks on Americans will continue until all the troops have been withdrawn. The only option open to the U.S. is to declare victory and come home. Obviously this negates definitions 2, 3, and 4.

Iraq was formed by the British after World War I in order to consolidate their oil interests. They drew political lines with no regard what so ever to centuries old cultural, religious, and ethnic realities. It was all about the oil as it has been ever since. There is no precedent or history of democracy in any area of Iraq. In the late fifties after a coup the military did attempt to form a quasi-republic. However the government initiated several anti-corporate programs like nationalizing the oil industry and recognizing the Iraqi Communist Party. This led to another coup, this time backed by the CIA. This coup brought the Ba’ath Party and Saddam Hussein to power in the early sixties. They were soon overthrown themselves but regained power for good in 1968. Despite all the declarations to the contrary America has never been interested in having democracies established in the oil rich countries of the Middle East.
If we were we would never had the CIA engineer a coup to topple the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953. You see they were preparing to nationalize their oil industry too. Say what you will, but we have been nothing but consistent in our Middle East policy.

The Bush War has accomplished one thing, it has allowed Bush to become the ‘uniter’ he claimed to be in 2000. He has succeeded in uniting the entire Islamic world against America. And as such he has created the most serious threat to the nation’s security since Adolph Hitler. Instead of going after the terrorists that attacked America he went after the oil fields of Saddam Hussein. Rather than protecting America he has endangered us for decades to come. Instead of destroying the terrorists of 9/11 he has created and enabled new ones. There was no al Qaeda presence in Iraq prior to March 2003, now there is. Saddam did allow non al Qaeda terrorists to live or operate in Iraq while he was in power but he did not allow them to initiate or conduct attacks against the U.S. Granted he did this out of fear not altruism, but he kept a lid on it none the less. Now Iraq is a primordial soup for terrorists and will remain so after we have gone. Just how does this make the Republicans the party of national defense?

Thankfully today there is no hope for definition number 4 to come into play. However if people like Bush continue to be placed into positions of authority there may come a day when they will start another war and through more lies and deceptions may decide that committing 500,000 or more is not too much of a sacrifice for others to bear.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-06-02T14:41:00.000-04:00

To Impeach or Not
The Art and Science of Politics and Mercy

I like Dave Lindorff, he is a very good journalist. He is quite intelligent and he almost always is on the correct side of an issue, after all he most often agrees with me. In a recent article on Counterpunch he plugged his new book, "The Case for Impeachment," which he co-authored with Barbara Olshansky. In the book they lay out convincing proof of George Bush’s sins, high crimes, and misdemeanors. And if ever there were a President deserving to be impeached it is Bush. His legal and moral conduct while President has been abysmal and traitorous. Let’s face it his whole life has been that way, but the statute of limitations has run out on most of those offenses committed before he was appointed President.

Lindorff points out that a majority of Americans want Impeachment if Bush okayed NSA spying. Of course that is only one of the many instances along Dubya’s trail of deceit and treachery. And I know that a recent poll said George was the worst President in 60 years, but we need to take a closer look at that poll. First what is this 60 year crap; they only missed it by 157 years. The first President was elected in 1789. Next the poll rated Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton the BEST Presidents over those 60 years.

What? Ronald Reagan committed impeachable offenses himself while in office. And it was he who started and led the attack by the country’s economic elite against Middle America. There most likely wouldn’t even be a Dubya if not for Reagan. As for Clinton, he was nothing more than a Corporate Republican dressed in Democratic clothing. He took Reagan’s war against the Middle Class even farther. He deregulated everything in sight and kissed Corporate butt at every opportunity. Let’s face it if one could forgive and forget Richard Nixon’s minor indiscretion of trying to subvert the Constitution, even he was a much better President than Reagan or Clinton. Certainly his economic policies were much more directed toward the average American.

I know that Bush is the worst President in American history and I understand that that is universally accepted throughout the world. I know the world will be a much better place once Dubya is out of office. But the 2006 elections should not be run on the impeachment issue. It definitely should be run as a referendum on Bush and the radical right. Their agenda needs to be recognized for its hateful and anti-democratic policies. It needs to be soundly renounced and defeated at the polls. It is imperative that Democrats regain control of at least one House of Congress.

This election is about stopping Bush now. If the Democrats regain control of one of the Houses they should then begin an extensive investigation into all of the illegalities committed by the Bush Administration. It should be thorough and complete. Bringing the whole truth to light is much more important than some hasty punishment of someone like Bush. Do not forget the horrible mess that Dubya has placed the nation in. Working our way out will be no easy task. It will require much hard work. Bring out the whole truth but do not do it at the expense of starting to correct all of Bush’s mistakes. If continuing the investigations goes past 2008 so be it. Correcting the downward trend of the past 26 years cannot be done in two.

The Democrats need to get focused and stay focused. History will condemn Bush for the liar and tyrant that he is. The best punishment the Democrats can impose on him is to make sure the unjust and autocratic world he has worked so hard for is buried for ever.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-06-01T19:11:00.000-04:00

GOP 2006 Agenda

2006-05-31T11:37:00.000-04:00

Barry Bonds Is A Scumbag
It isn’t Complicated

An article I read today posed this question,” How will you remember Barry Bonds?” One of several options was ‘It is complicated’. The author chose that as part of his answer. He said, “You'll tell them he cheated and that his story is both sad and complicated.” Well two out of three ain’t bad. He is right, it is sad and Bonds is a cheater, but it isn’t complicated. It is so simple that an old drug user and baseball man like George Bush should even be able to understand it. But then rumor has it steroids were part of the the Texas Rangers’ game plan while he was an owner and managing general partner.

Before continuing I know my friends would insist that I come clean. Yes I have used a drug or two in my lifetime. They say I am prejudiced toward Major League Baseball (MLB) but I say my conclusions are undeniable and solidly proven.

Here is my case. It is true that I have not attended, watched, or listened to a major league game since 1994. It does not mean that I have lived in a cave so I do know that the Red Sox won the Series in 2004. And yes I do hold it against baseball that I missed that Series, but that is another story. In 1994 MLB went to the dogs. It was part of a trend started by the NBA and later joined by the NFL. It was a trend of greedy owners and greedy players sticking it to the fans. So I got mad as hell and said I am not going to take it anymore. Even though I was a sports junkie, I gave up professional sports, all of them. It would take another 10 years before I was able to kick the habit entirely and give up college sports as well.

But I digress, back to baseball, it is the greatest game ever, even better than curling. I love baseball. I refer to real baseball not the the bastardized version of the American League. It is a game of strategy and nuances. It is a thinking person’s game. It was my game of choice in my youth. It could have been my road to fortune. No, not based on my abilty. I was great with a glove and had good speed but I had a little difficulty with the curve ball. I also had a pack rat mentality and shoebox upon shoebox of baseball cards. If I would have just saved them I probably could have owned the Rangers instead of bad mouthing them.

Like the rest of the world, baseball started going through significant changes in the 1960’s. The players and fans began to realize that the sport was not just a game, it also was a business. The age of corporatization had arrived for baseball. Players responded by finally putting some teeth into their union, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), and making use of agents. The first collective bargaining agreement for MLB was reached in 1968.

Two years later Curt Flood, a St. Louis outfielder, challenged the ‘reserve clause’. This clause tied the players for life to the team that held their contract. They were not free to negotiate with other teams. With a dose of hyperbole Flood said he was the same as a ’slave’. Flood was an African American but using slave was insulting to the history of Black people in America. He was making $90,000 a year in 1970. Flood was right in his fight he was not in his choice of words. He lost the battle, the courts decided against him and his baseball career was over. But the players won the war, in 1975 an arbitrator ruled against the owners and the reserve clause.

Between 1975 and 1994 there were two lockouts and three strikes. The rules say 3 strikes and you’re out. So it was with baseball for me. Baseball had become a bunch of self-centered and overpaid players in collusion with corporate pigs for owners. The everyday fan did not fit into the equation. It finally dawned on me that if I wanted to look at and support rear ends I would have become a proctologist. Hail, farewell, and good riddance, I’m never going back.

Now all that doesn’t make Barry Bonds a scumbag. Using drugs doesn’t make him a scumbag. Alcohol was the Babe’s drug; gambling was Pete Rose’s. Cheating, using drugs while denying it, and promoting a win at any and all costs attitude is what makes Barry a scumbag. A scumbag he will remain until he quits lying and starts helping solve the problem instead of adding to it. It isn’t complicated. It’s simple as sin.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-27T20:14:00.000-04:00

The Bush Doctrine
Unending War

2006-05-25T15:02:00.000-04:00

In Defense Of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling
They Have Been Wrongly Accused and Convicted

I do not mean that Lay is innocent of the 6 counts on which he was convicted today or that Skilling is innocent of the 19 for which he was convicted. They are guilty as sin of those and more. No, I mean they have been wrongly accused of being a couple of rotten apples in the otherwise pure and pristine barrel of Corporate America. They are not the exception, they are the rule. There is something rotten in Wall Street, and it is not being directed by Heaven. Nay if we follow it, the stench, we find it to be Wall Street itself.

Wall Street and Corporate America have tried to hide behind a façade of amorality. They attempt to cover-up their misdeeds and illegalities by assigning them to a nebulous and ill-defined world of ‘business’. They are not accountable for their actions, “It’s only business,” magic words that relieve them of all responsibility. It is quite ironic that Big Business would adopt such an attitude after all the trouble it went through to get the government to declare that Corporations have the same rights as living breathing human beings. This the government finally did in 1886 when it was so decreed by the Supreme Court in its Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision. They want and have all the rights but none of the obligations. Thus it has been for the past 120 years, and the result is the devolution into Bush World.

David Sirota in his new book, Hostile Takeover, gives this warning from Thomas Jefferson,

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Jefferson said this in 1816, almost 200 years ago. Like all aristocracies, corporate behavior has not improved with age. It has steadily declined. The trial is over and Corporate America has won, it is now the government.

Oh, its all been legal, bought and paid for on the open market. Greg Palast facetiously says we have “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” Of course it is neither the best nor a democracy. It is Bush World 2006. It is the world of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-24T21:30:00.000-04:00

PS To Hillary
Getting Started

Here are a few ideas to help you get started. First clean up the electoral process. George Bush and the radical right have made a mockery of our system. Without fair and honest elections there is no democracy. This is not to say that in the past the Democrats have not done their part to subvert freedom. In fact their disenfranchisement of African American voters is one of the primary causes of our current predicament. The Democrats have always been slow learners, when they learn at all. It took them almost a century to see the error of their ways. But see it they did.

Now the Republicans have not only picked up the mantle, they have extended it to everyone who does not think (sic) like they do. And they are not satisfied with just preventing those who disagree with them from voting; they now try to change the vote of those who slip by and do vote. This is the state of America in 2006. You want to be remembered by history, then lead the fight to rebuild and restore democracy from its shattered remnants brought on by the Republican Revolution.

The first step in this new revolution is to return to all paper ballots in all elections. There is no argument that can be made against this. Cost and waste, what is the cost of freedom? How is it a waste to promote the fair and accurate count of each vote? Either your vote counts or it doesn’t. You either have a democracy or you don’t. Our current situation gives proof that just saying you do does not make it true.

The public’s right to quickly know, to know what; a number pulled from an electronic hat or who actually got the most votes? Polls should be open for several days; we should promote participation not hinder it. All exit polls should be strictly prohibited. The nation’s not knowing will cause chaos. Now that’s a good one. In 2000 we didn’t know for 5 weeks, and the chaos only began after 5 right wing Supreme Court justices went against their life long proclaimed belief in states rights and dictated George Bush to be the next President.

All attempts to prohibit a fair process should be dealt with for what they are. They are not just pranks or unintentional actions by over zealous campaign workers. They are deliberate attempts to subvert the will of the people. They are an attempt to place the perpetrators’ jackboot on the throat of freedom. All such actions should be prosecuted to the fullest and the penalties severe not just a few months in a local country club facility or a slap on the wrist. The politics of Donald Segretti, Karl Rove and Lee Atwater are the politics of death for democracy.

All federal campaigns must be publicly financed. Since 1976 with the Buckley v Valeo Supreme Court decision the one man one vote democratic concept was codified into the one dollar one vote malignancy of Corporate Domination. The costs will be minute compared to the savings made by putting an end to the corporate welfare sustained by subsidies and tax breaks. An election process no longer bought and paid for by the privileged few is a necessity for a democracy.

Hillary, these changes are the easy part and they must be changed before the real work to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, “ can be started.

Letter To Hillary

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-23T13:54:00.000-04:00

An Open Letter To Senator Clinton
Do The Right Thing

Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of their country and party. Now is your time. I love you as a Senator despite all your warts. But I have to tell you even in my wildest imagination I cannot conjure up any set of circumstances that would persuade me to vote or work for you in a run for the Presidency, at least not in 2008. If you are nominated I will no doubt return to my old habit of voting for a third party candidate. Though I must admit Dubya is so bad that I did vote for Kerry in 2004.

Do not take that as a sign for a scintilla of support for the Democratic Party as it is now constituted, for it most definitely was not. With very few exceptions I find the Democratic leadership to be void of character, courage, and creative vision. I believe that opinion to be shared by most Americans. The current wave of anti-Bush and anti-Republican distrust and dissatisfaction is just that, anti-Bush and anti-Republican. Do not confuse it for a New York minute with an ounce of solid support for the Democratic Party. That distrust and dissatisfaction probably will, or least could, manifest itself in November. The nation now understands that Bush and his duplicitous cadre of radical right-wingers must be stopped.

If indeed that does happen, most pundits and Democratic spinmeisters will no doubt declare it to be the dawn of a new political day. Trust me on this, that will show how out of touch they are with the electorate. Unless the Democrats evolve and come to life, this November will be but a brief respite from the vast right-wing conspiracy you spoke of in 1998. The loyal(?) opposition, the Democratic Party is in terrible shape. I say again, anti-Bush does not equal pro-Democrat.

Here is something even your handlers can understand, numbers. Since World War II the Democratic nominee for President has received over 50% of the vote all of two (2) times in 15 elections. The first was in 1964 when LBJ was the recipient of the pent-up sadness for a slain President. This coupled with the perception of his opponent as being a mad bomber allowed him to get 61.8 % of the vote. The second and last was in 1976 when Jimmy Carter pulled 50.8%, only 50.8% in the next election after Richard Nixon, think about it. Not even Bill could hit the halfway point. After 1994 the Democrats could not even maintain majorities in Congress. You and your party are on extremely feeble life support.

You have no one to blame but yourselves. You have abandoned the Democratic tradition of representing Middle America, the common man, and the downtrodden. You (Democrats) have become the ugly sister of the Republicans and you have adopted their trait of whoring yourself to Corporate America and to power and privilege. That is why I won’t help you (Hillary) in 2008. I don’t trust you and given the choice of being stabbed in the back by foes or alleged friends. I choose foes. At least that lets me keep the illusion (delusion) of having friends.

Please take this as being personal for every thing I say is personal, therein lies the problem, with you it isn’t. As long as your ambition to be President goes uncontrolled you will continue to say what your handlers think a particular audience wants to hear. So you see there is no you, only an ever changing projection devoid of substance.

Having said that let me add something positive. I probably will support Democratic candidates for Congress in 2008. I would even support a Democratic Presidential candidate if it were someone like Dennis Kucinich, or perhaps a John Edwards,but not you, not in 2008. However if over time you truly exhibit qualities of leadership I would most welcome you as a candidate.

You may feel that for you it is 2008 or nothing. Age may be a contributing factor. If a Democrat other than you were elected in 2008 you would be 69 in 2016. So let me suggest an alternative. Run fast and hard for reelection this year, then help any and all Democrats in 2008. Fire all your handlers, yes including Bill. Stop being afraid and start leading. Then become THE Democratic spokeswoman. Push a true Democratic agenda as Senate Majority Leader in 2011. We all must make sacrifices and it will be Senator Reid’s in 2010. If he decides to run for reelection in 2010 he must step down as Democratic leader.

As much as you want to be President in 2009, you cannot win. In 2000 George Bush said we needed a ‘uniter’, he said it was him. He willfully lied. You want to be and may actually believe you are a ‘uniter’, but alas you are not. If you run for the nomination you will split your party and revitalize the radical right, but if you did not run you could have a big say in who is nominated. To be a ‘uniter’ you must actually unite. The choice is yours and it will take hard work and effort. But America cannot long survive much more Bush. Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of their country and party. History awaits your decision.

PS

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-22T12:09:00.000-04:00

Natalie Maines Was Wrong
The Man Makes The Clothes

Tomorrow the Dixie Chicks release a new CD, Taking The Long Way. It chronicles their three year fight against right-wing tyranny. On March 10, 2003 during a concert at Sheperds Bush Empire in London, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks spoke these now famous words,

"Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas,"

It was just 10 days before George W. Bush began his deceitful and fabricated war on Iraq. Her and the group’s career took a full speed crash into a wall of censorship and banishment constructed by right wing extremists in their defense of liberty. Freedom of speech to them is a one way street.

She was obviously light years ahead of the curve on that sentiment. Unfortunately in the intervening three years Mr. Bush and the far right have accelerated their attack on the truth, justice, and liberty and in so doing have caused most Americans, even loyal Republicans, to come to the same conclusion. The Presidency of George W. Bush is now recognized as a total failure and catastrophe. America and the world cannot long survive his continuing assault on human rights and dignity all for the enrichment of a privileged few

But here is where Ms. Maines was wrong. A couple of days later she issued an apology to Mr. Bush. She said,

“As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect."

In today’s world the man or woman and the office or position are one, there is no separation. In fact that is the way it always has been. Only a deliberate and concerted effort by those in power and those wanting power, from history’s beginning, created the illusion that there was and should be an unnatural division. To say the President of the United States deserves respect is no different than saying the President of Iraq, no matter who it is/was deserves respect. When Mr. Bush lies, cheats, and steals the President lies, cheats, and steals. Those are not qualities worthy of or deserving respect.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-20T17:18:00.000-04:00

Defending America Part 5
The Next Generations

Generations two and three of the radical right are worse than generation one. Not only are they intellectual cowards, they are moral and physical cowards as well. They are scared little men and women who not only were/are willing to let others put their lives on the line in defense of freedom, they insist upon it.

From 1945 to 1991 the far right continually shouted that communism and the Soviet Union were deadly threats to American democracy and freedoms. Today it is terrorists. They preach(ed) that sacrifice was/is needed from all. Here is a partial list of those who have worked in the current Administration that have refused to heed their own call. I list the highest government or political station they have thus far attained. Draft Dodger signifies the person used some kind of deferment between 1948-1973 to avoid military service. Did Not Enlist means the draft did not apply to this person because of age or sex.

Let me assure you that I do not say or imply that all people who used deferments or did not enlist in the military or either cowards or unpatriotic, but I am saying it about those listed below. They and those like them who scream about dangers to our nation then do nothing about it except insist someone else act, are cowards of the worst kind. Those who start and support unjust wars based on lies and Machiavellian manipulations while requiring someone else’s sacrifice and blood are not patriots they are traitors to freedom and democracy.

Executive Branch
George W. Bush - President – Draft Dodger & AWOL(deserter) from National Guard
Karl Rove – Senior Advisor to the President – Draft Dodger
Dick Cheney – Vice President – Draft Dodger 5 deferments
Condoleezza Rice – Secretary of State - Did Not Enlist
John Negroponte - Director of National Intelligence – Draft Dodger
Stephen J. Hadley – National Security Advisor – Draft Dodger
Paul Wolfowitz - Deputy Secretary of Defense – Draft Dodger
Elliot Abrams – NSC Special Assistant to the President – Draft Dodger
Gordon England - Deputy Secretary of Defense – Draft Dodger
Richard Perle - Assistant Secretary of Defense - Draft Dodger
Douglas Feith - Undersecretary of Defense – Draft Dodger
Peter Rodman - Assistant Secretary of Defense – Draft Dodger
Lewis "Scooter" Libby – VP Chief of Staff – Draft Dodger
Michael Chertoff - Secretary of Homeland Security – Draft Dodger
John Hannah - Assistant to VP for National Security Affairs – Did Not Enlist
Spencer Abraham – Secretary of Energy – Draft Dodger
John Bolton – US Ambassador to UN – Draft Dodger
John Ashcroft – Attorney General – Draft Dodger
Theodore ‘Ted’ Olson - Solicitor General – Draft Dodger
Andrew Card – White House Chief of Staff – Draft Dodger
Joshua B. Bolten - White House Chief of Staff – Did Not Enlist
Michael Brown – Director FEMA – Did Not Enlist

Senate
Trent Lott – Senate Majority Leader- Draft Dodger
William Frist – Senate Majority Leader – Draft Dodger
Mitch McConnell – Senate Majority Whip – Draft Dodger
Jon Kyl – GOP Policy Committee Chairman – Draft Dodger
Rick Santorum – GOP Conference Chairman – Did Not Enlist
Orrin Hatch – Judiciary Committee Chairman – Draft Dodger
George Allen – Foreign relations Committee – Draft Dodger
Saxby Chambliss – Select Intelligence Comm – Draft Dodger
Sam Brownback – Foreign Relations Comm – Did Not Enlist
Norm Coleman – Foreign Relations Committee – Draft Dodger
John Cornyn – Armed Services Committee – Draft Dodger
Mike DeWine – Select Intelligence Comm – Draft Dodger

House
Dennis Hastert – Speaker of the House – Draft Dodger
Tom DeLay – Majority Leader – Draft Dodger
John Boehner – Majority Leader – Draft Dodger
Roy Blunt – Majority Whip – Draft Dodger
Deborah Pryce – GOP Conference Chairman – Did Not Enlist
Christopher Cox – GOP Policy Chairman – Draft Dodger
Peter King – Homeland Security Chairman – Draft Dodger
Peter Hoekstra – Select Intelligence Chairman – Draft Dodger
James Sensenbrenner- Judiciary Chairman- Draft Dodger
Joe Barton – Energy Chairman – Draft Dodger

This is but a small list and does not include those officially not in government, people like Richard Scaife, William Kristol, Antonin Scalia, Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Lee Atwater just to name a few. Every time these and others like them open their mouths and deceitfully declare to be the true defenders of liberty they dishonor all those who truly were and are. To quote Dalton Trumbo, “You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress.”

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-19T16:37:00.000-04:00

Defending America Part 4
A Pattern Established

“I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department,” Senator Joseph McCarthy, February 9, 1950. With this speech he institutionalized the sleazy tactic of the Republican radical right of branding their opponents as Communists and/or traitors to America. The Democrats could not be trusted with the national security. It was an issue that only could be handled by Republican right-wingers. It was a lie that the GOP has propagated for the last 56 years. How ironic that this deliberate deception has actually done more to destabilize and endanger American security than other word or deed since then.

In his lust for power with what has now become GOP SOP, McCarthy demonized any and everyone who disagreed with him. America had ‘lost’ China. It was because the State Department was overrun with Communists. At best McCarthy was an idiot with no knowledge or understanding of history. China was never ‘ours’ to lose. China had been struggling to regain her sovereignty for over 100 years. It had endured the drug addiction, exploitation, forced acculturation, and proselytization attempted by the West. With the defeat of Japan the ongoing twenty year civil war picked up intensity. It took Mao four more years to finally defeat Chiang Kai-shek. It was a triumph for Chinese nationalism, but the radical right portrayed it as another brick in the wall of the worldwide monolithic Communist conspiracy. McCarthy went on the attack.

God and country were in a life or death struggle with evil. Leading the attack from within was our own State Department. There were Communists and evil-doers everywhere. The State Department went through a forced radical lobotomy as result of McCarthy’s charges and diatribes. The China and Far East desks lost most of their knowledgeable people; people who knew and understood the Orient. They were replaced by people who either couldn’t find their own rear ends with the help of the entire Seventh Fleet or by people who made the cowardly lion look like Sgt. Fury.

This along with the ascension of a fanatical and virulent anti-communist John Foster Dulles to Secretary of State permanently damaged and scarred American foreign policy. Dulles was so obsessed that in the 1930’s he helped rearm and industrialize Nazi Germany and Hitler. This combination of idiots, cowards, and fanatics then proceeded to do irreparable harm to national security.

Their lack of knowledge and their adherence to right wing dogma led to the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953, the overthrow of the Guatemalan government in 1954, and the subverting of the Geneva Peace Accords of 1954. This latter action led directly to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The radical right thus insured America would never be in a state of peace. They need a world full of enemies to maintain their power and control. When one enemy falls they must create another, how else can they be the defenders and protectors of hearth and home? Those who came later just followed the path already paved with one glaring and blatant exception, the unwillingness to give a personal commitment or self-sacrifice.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-18T14:44:00.000-04:00

Defending America Part 3
Communist Conspiracy Or National Interests?

The 80th Congress convened in 1947. For the first time since the Depression Republicans controlled both houses, due in large part to their newly adopted campaign tactics of fear and hate. The radical right wasted little time in applying its campaign techniques to actual governance. The House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC launched an investigation into the influence of Communism on the motion picture industry. Redbaiting began in earnest. One of the main witnesses called to verify the presence of subversives was Ronald Reagan.

In 1948 HUAC had an investigation into Alger Hiss and Communist influence in the State Department. An up and coming freshman Representative, Richard Nixon, led the charge. Nixon would later say, “We won the Hiss case in the papers. We did. I had to leak stuff all over the place because the Justice Department would not prosecute it. Hoover didn't even cooperate. It was won in the papers. We have to develop a program, a program for leaking out information. We're destroying these people in the papers. I had Hiss convicted before he got to the grand jury....I no longer have the energy, [but we need] a son of a bitch who will work his butt off and do it dishonorably. I know how to play the game and we're going to play it."

Events of the late forties and June 1950 only fueled Republican right-wing attacks. In the summer of 1948 Stalin made an incredibly stupid move by throwing a blockade around Berlin which was in the Russian sector of post war Germany. This forced the U.S. and its allies to airlift supplies into the city for almost a year. Then in September 1949 the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. Less than a month later Mao Tse-Tung (Mao Zedong) claimed victory in the Chinese revolution and established the Peoples Republic of China. In June 1950 Communist North Korea launched a surprise attack against the U.S. backed South Korea.

The Republican extremists were correct in judging the USSR to be a threat to American imperial and economic interests, but then again the U.S. was a threat to Soviet ambitions also. Had it been in the early 20th century or before, the end result would most likely have been a war. Despite their overall stupidity both sides are to be commended for not allowing conflicts to erupt into a nuclear confrontation. But there were and are serious consequences to the far right’s actions. By using lies and the politics of fear and hate in their grab for power the right-wing created an atmosphere conducive to demagoguery and abuse. It didn’t take long for the Republicans to start taking advantage of that atmosphere.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-17T13:55:00.000-04:00

Defending America Part 2
A Republican Myth

The far right and the Republican Party began to try to define post war society in terms of fear and hate. It is a style of politics that they have adhered to ever since. Despite the wishes and beliefs of the left the world can not be made perfect. However it can be made better and many of the reasons that it has not must be laid at the feet of the GOP and the radical right. They have made their world of fear and distrust a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The radical right was correct in recognizing the Soviet Union as an enemy. But it was an enemy of a competing imperial empire not a world wide conspiracy against democracy. The Russian revolution, never much for freedom and egalitarianism, morphed into a horrible dictatorship under Stalin. He was a tyrant not an ideologue. He used Marxist dogma to lend legitimacy to his rule and to justify the horrors he committed.

The Soviet Union had better reason to be distrustful and suspicious of the United States than the U.S. did of Russia. In 1918 and 1919 the U.S. sent more than 15,000 troops into the Soviet Union as a part of a Western force trying to subvert the Revolution. The dictum that you’re not really paranoid if they are out to get you surely applies here. None of this is meant as an apology for the USSR. Stalin was evil and Stalinism was brutal. It is a tossup between Stalin and Mao Tse-tung as to who was the worst murderer in history.

Under Stalin USSR foreign policy was the same as the United States’; they both gave aid and comfort to a nation based on that nation’s geopolitical support of the provider of the aid. Neither Russia nor America demanded the recipient to be ideologically pure and America couldn’t care less whether the receiving nation was a democracy or dictatorship as long as it at least claimed to pray to the God of capitalism and opened its markets and resources to United States’ corporations.

The elections of 1946 gave the radical right their first opportunity to use their anti-democratic philosophy and tactics. They were successful in several instances, not the least of which was the election of Joseph McCarthy to the Senate and Richard Nixon to the House. GOP extremists were off and running and they have never looked back.

Defending America Part 1

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-16T13:22:00.000-04:00

Defending America Part 1
A Republican Myth

For 60 years the Republican Party has been fomenting the illusion that it is THE political party concerned with national defense. It is an illusion built on lies and deception and it has been the bread and butter issue for the radical right for every election since WW II. After the war the Republicans were in dire need to find something to hang their hat on. Their social policies had proven to be complete disasters during the twenties and thirties, so much so that it boggles the mind that they resurrected them in the eighties. Their foreign policy was just as bad. A surprise attack by the Japanese and the impatience of Adolph Hitler in declaring war against the United States could well be the only things that saved America from the Republican isolationism of the thirties and forties. Had the Republicans had their way we might be wearing brown shirts and marching in goosestep today. Of course there are those who say that doesn’t sound so far off from some of the radical right’s current wishes.

So with nothing but bankrupt and failed policies after WW II the GOP went looking for new ideas with which to seduce the American people. They found the answer to their prayers in Communism, that giant monolithic threat to world peace, mom, apple pie, and the soon to be American way of life as provided by good ol’ corporate capitalism. It provided both foreign and domestic devils to rail against, and so they did for the next 45 years

Rather than admitting that the Soviet Union was a post war imperial nation not unlike us, the Republicans branded Communism as a unified world wide conspiracy. They branded the Democrats as the Chamberlains of the new world, appeasers that would not stand up for America. This has proven to wildly successful for the far right, they still use it today. It was as false and misleading then as it is now. With the aid of hindsight it is obvious that the Republican tactics of fear, hate, and lies of the post war era were much more detrimental to American security and freedom.

Defending America Part 2

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-15T10:01:00.000-04:00

A Five Month Plan – Part 2
A Referendum On Dubya

The November election is nothing more or less than an up or down vote on George W. Bush and his gang of right-wing radicals. It is a national referendum on whether to continue the policies of divisiveness and destruction of the last six years. Are we to continue the politics of the extreme for the betterment of the few or, are we to turn to a different path of healing and hope for an endangered world, a world that has suffered through six years of deliberate callousness and abuse? It is the world of George Bush as planned by Karl Rove. It is a world of power and greed fueled by hate and fear.

As I have said over the last few days it is a world that has been in the making for the last 40 years. It is a world so evil that the crowning stage could not be allowed to be settled by a majority of the electorate. It could only come about by a coup set in motion by an ambitious prince stealing an election for his older brother. Then in true fascist fashion an elite cadre, consisting of a woman and four men, refused a democratic solution by dictating the legitimacy of the theft. And you wonder at the state of the world today?

Only the intervention of a madman, and perhaps voting machines, allowed this extremist coup to survive this long. Osama bin Laden had no idea of the havoc he was unleashing when he carried out his treacherous attacks of September 11th. Of course he would have been thrilled had he known, but the law of unintended consequences gave him a much larger victory. We can only pray that it will not be permanent.

Had there been no 9/11 the major political story for 2002 would have been the economy, Wall Street, and the corruptness of Corporate America. The Democrats would have won at least one House of Congress if not both and in 2004 King George would have been deposed, buried in the trash heap of other dictatorial wannabes. But at least he would not have had to bear the burden of being the worst President in American History.

Again, it is not that the Democrats are so good, it is that Dubya has turned out so inconceivably bad. Had America known in 2000 how extreme, uncaring, and inept
Bush was not even his lying stealing brother could have saved him. The Supreme king makers would not have come into play.

So this election is a referendum on George W. Bush. The next few days we will look in more detail at individual issues, issues propagated by his lies and deception.

A Five Year Plan Part 1

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-13T14:23:00.000-04:00

A Five Month Plan Part 1
Facing Reality

As I said yesterday it is imperative that the Democratic Party regain control of either the Senate or House. In order to do this they need to forego such things as demanding a candidate lay down his life for a green-eyed newt found only in the four corners area of the United States and at a cost of the loss of three billion jobs in America. They need to let go of the idea of the government giving $20 trillion for the next Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit in which all the adults attending must wear Speedos and be accompanied by a twelve year old. In short they need to wise up.

Anyone not on life support or a card carrying member of the Radical Republican Right (RRR) knows America is in deep trouble and must turn away from the extreme and hateful agenda of George Bush and his cronies. The problem for Democrats is that they too know this but they have been unable to do anything about it. The reasons for this are several. While they might not be brain dead many are running on low octane; their bulbs are dim at best. Another common trait for them is lack of courage; leadership implies that you are out in front not following the pack. Some are enamored with the sound of their own voice; they enjoy their fifteen minutes. Some just enjoy the notoriety of being a victim. Some place their own selfish narrow agendas ahead of the overall good and in so doing insure not only the defeat of their own cause but the steady decline of the nation as well.

Here is a hint; as long as George W. Bush and those like him are in control, unless you are a card carrying member of the RRR, your life and your agenda are going to continue down the tubes. America must change, but it is not going to be overnight or in five or six months. It will take time to overcome the RRR coup. It will come as the RRR coup itself, in increments. But we must begin the first step now. The RRR chokehold on government and liberty must be broken. Step one must be November 7th. Vote for any and all Democrats regardless of whether they jump out of closets, sanctuaries, or boardrooms. The five month plan is to work and vote for all Democrats.

And that is all it is, a five month plan. If I am drowning I don’t care if an eight foot tall transvestite, a gay bashing steel worker, a corporate vice-president, or a purple haired Martian throws me a life preserver; I’m grabbing it. I’ll worry about saving a sinking ship after I’m out of the water. To my way of thinking my martyrdom only helps the RRR. Take a clue from the RRR, let the other guys fall on their swords.

So I am giving the Democrats 5 months; then they must give me 2 years to take action and start steering America on a different course. Right now there is no one on the Democratic horizon, well perhaps Dennis Kucinich, that I would even consider supporting for President in 2008 as long as they hold on to their philosophy and deeds of today.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-12T12:28:00.000-04:00

The Sword Of Damocles
The Dubya Legacy

George W. Bush, the radical right, and their extremist followers have placed America and the world in a most precarious and dangerous position. They are in an out of control headlong rush to consolidate corporate hegemony, power, and profits; and to dictate the thoughts and way of life of the entire global community. In their attempt to empower and enrich the privileged few they have left the health and well being of everyone on planet Earth hanging by a hair.

That hair is fraying, and if allowed to continue will bring life as we know it to a screeching and abrupt halt. Time is no longer a luxury. If we are to survive, action must be taken now, we can no longer Bet On The Come. We must derail the Bush and radical right’s train to oblivion. The first step must be accomplished on November 7th of this year. It is imperative that the Democrats win control of the Senate and/or House of Representatives. As I said yesterday the House is the only viable possibility this year. The Democrats must have one and only one goal, get elected, kick a Republican. To this end the various factions and splinter groups that make up the Democratic Party must give up their time honored demand that any and all Democratic candidates strictly adhere to and profess faith in whichever dogma that particular group regards as sacrosanct. There is really not that much difference between the radical right and the radical left except that they pray to different gods and up to now the radical right has been much savvier about politics.

But this election is only an emergency stopgap. America will change whether by our own design or by the capriciousness of someone or something else. Our chance of survival and living “the good life” is much better if we change ourselves. But who is to lead this change, Democrats, Republicans, or some yet unknown? No matter who it is there are certain knowns that must be dealt with. The American society based on unlimited consumption is doomed. We live in a world of limited resources and the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America are demanding and will continue to demand more and more of those resources. They will get them.

The American society being sustained by foreign holders of American debt is also doomed. Right now Japan is the largest holder of American debt, soon it will be China. Notice something here? We’re talking Asian. To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Asians are different than you and me,” not better; not worse; just different. One of the ways they are different is their concept of time. There are many things we should have learned from our experience in Vietnam. The one I refer to here is the Asian attitude toward patience. They do not live by the Western concept of immediacy. The long term to them is long term; not three months till the next quarterly statement; and not till the end of the day and the closing stock price. Right now the Chinese, in particular, deem it to be in their best interest to hold up the American economy. This will not always be the case; then they won’t.

The American society based on the individual internal combustion engine is doomed. It will not be very long till $3.00 for a gallon of gas will be nothing but a nostalgic memory of the good old days. Soon oil will be powering the engine of the Chinese economy not the American automobile. The Age of Ford will be no more.

These are just three of the certain changes to come. There are many more some will be man made, some will be natural. The Pacific tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, and Hurricane Katrina all give evidence to impending disasters that will happen. Life IS hard and challenging enough for everyone without having to deal with an artificial world created by Bush and those like him for the betterment and enjoyment for an elite and chosen few. It is our world if we so choose. Who do you want to make that decision?

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-11T16:24:00.000-04:00

Betting On The Come
Democratic Strategy for 2006

The 2006 mid-term elections are less than 6 months away and the Democratic Party, lap dog, er loyal opposition, to the totally corrupt ruling Republican regime has yet to come anywhere near formulating a plan for confronting and correcting the moral, physical, and fiscal decay in which America has become mired. The Democratic leadership is thus far quite content to know that all the known world either now acknowledges or soon will that the GOP Congress and Bush Administration are the most corrupt and inept in United States history. The problem is that the Democrats believe this recognition is going to automatically manifest itself into an overwhelming number of votes for Democrats. Some are even saying 2006 will be a 1994 in reverse. They are in for a rude awakening.

In 1994 the Republicans took control of both the Senate and House. They gained 8 seats in the Senate and 54 in the House. This year the Democrats need to have a net gain of 16 in the House to become the majority party. They need to gain 7 seats to take over the Senate. Odds are decent, but not close to certain, that even if the Democrats continue on their current road to nowhere they will be able to win a slight majority in the House though they can kiss the Senate goodbye.

The nature of American politics has been basically reactionary since 1968, some will say longer. This is one reason for the current success of the Republican Party. They understand and use reactionary tactics much better than the Democrats. The Democrats will never be able to out reactionary the GOP, the sooner they understand this the better they and the country will be.

The Republican Party has not been a party of forward vision since Lincoln. It is a party based on an interpretation of Adam Smith and 18th century British economics. For better or worse the economics of Adam Smith are more outdated than an Altair 8800 computer with an Xmodem. And this interpretation is not only outdated it is completely false, for few that sing the praises of Smith have even read him and fewer still understand him. While Smith was a strong advocate of private property he was totally against the acquisition of power and wealth by monopolistic or oligopolistic concerns. He believed in the dignity and worth of the individual. He would have hated the evolution of the corporate capitalist state into a consumptive society believing only in Social Darwinism and survival of the fittest, (elites).

It is time for the Democratic Party to once again be a visionary party. It is time but do the Democrats have the heart, will, and guts to grasp the wheel of destiny and to steer a new course or will they continue to somnolently drift in the current of corruption and failure of the reactionary right.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-10T14:13:00.000-04:00

The Three Stooges
Bush The Small, Bush The Lesser, and Bush The Least

George ‘Dubya’ Bush, the Lesser, said today that his brother Jeb Bush, the Least, would make a great President. This seems to be at best very presumptuous and at the worst very cynical and stupid. It could be that Dubya was thinking that no President could ever be any worse than he, the Lesser, is and by comparison anyone else would have to be better. But history belies this way of reasoning. Up until Dubya most people thought no President could be worse than Ronald Reagan, we now know that to be false.

It is not hard to discern several patterns among the Bush family. They are greedy, class conscious, not very bright, unsympathetic and not empathetic, and most of all they are willing to say and do anything in their lust for power. While all politicians embody some of these traits the Bushes are the poster children for all of them. This coupled by the trend of decreasing competence from father, the Small; to child, the Lesser; does not lend much confidence or hope that that the Least would only be as bad as his brother the Lesser, much less better.

Of course in the above paragraph I refer to fairness and justice of governance, not the capability to get elected. The Least has had six years to improve and perfect on the illegal and unscrupulous tactics he used to steal the Florida vote for the Lesser in 2000. We know for a fact that Diebold and other companies have been working hard to insure that the “right” vote count prevails in all elections. No doubt the Least and other members of the radical right have spent countless hours working on new plans and derivatives that would make sure that only the correct names show up on future voter registration logs.

While this may seem to be contradictory with the incompetence I spoke of earlier it most definitely is not, for the skills needed to be elected are often diametrically opposed to the skills that insure fairness and justice in the operations of government. I wholeheartedly admit that the radical right has honed the skills of winning (stealing) elections to both a science and an art form.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-09T13:38:00.000-04:00

Kuintessential Republicans Part 6
The K Street Gang – A Gingrich and Corporate Apologetic

The main thesis of Continetti is the evil and badness of big government. The quagmire of corruption that we find in Washington today is not the fault and responsibility of the Republican Party and corporate America which have been running an anti-democratic takeover since 1968. All our problems can be laid at the feet of big government. If the government were smaller then there wouldn’t be any corrupt lobbyists trying to buy and bribe our elected officials. Here is a conservative either without a clue to the intrinsic nature of corporate capitalism and human beings; or a person who is a cynic and is desperately trying to conceal and cover-up the workings of big business and their GOP toadies.

Another point of the book is the political rehabilitation of Newt Gingrich. In this Continetti is showing the desperation of the far right in their attempt to avoid catastrophe in 2006 and 2008. This shows just how panicked the extreme right is. They have totally forgotten about the Democratic Party. If ever there was a group so inclined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory it is and has been the Democratic Party. Since the ending of WW II the Democrats have received over 50% of the popular vote all of two times, 1964 and 1976. That’s 2 out of the last 15 elections. In 1964 Johnson got 61.8% that’s because he got a huge sympathy vote for a slain President and his opponent was totally inept. In 1976 Jimmy Carter only got 50.8% of the vote, this after the greatest scandal in American politics, at least up to that time. Bill Clinton won with 43% of the vote in 1992, thanks to Ross Perot. He was reelected in 1996 with 49.2% of the vote. And by that time he had become a corporate Republican wearing Democratic clothing when indeed he wore clothes. That’s it that’s all, there are no more. Anyone afraid of the Democrats is on the verge of being as dumb as they, Democrats, are.

Granted George W. Bush is by far the worst President in United States history. Granted that it is now obvious that if this fact is not universally recognized by no later than 2012 earth will soon be a pretty crappy place to be. Despite these things it is only problematical that the Democrats will achieve much success beyond possibly the 2006 Congressional races. They are a party of no present, no future, and a 70 year old past. They have no vision, they have no memory. They have no substance or soul, their essence is as ephemeral as an early morning fog on a hot August day.

They most likely will be too dumb to understand that my Democratic vote this fall will be not be a clarion call for the virtues of the Democratic Party but rather a shout of disgust and disdain against the hatred, the corruptness, the ineptitude, and the inhumanity of George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

K Street Part 1

K Street Part 2

K Street Part 3

K Street Part 4

K Street Part 5

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-08T13:09:00.000-04:00

Kuintessential Republicans Part 5
The K Street Gang – Policy and Dogma Beginnings.

In The K Street Gang Continetti says that a few GOP powerbrokers became corrupt and fell into a morass of illegalities and deceit. He says it began after the Republican takeover of the legislative branch of government in 1994. While he is correct about the fall, he is mistaken about its length and depth. As I have shown in earlier posts, criminal and unethical behavior became the SOP of the GOP beginning with the 1968 presidential campaign. That is one of the reasons Karl Rove has been demoted and relegated to oversee the 2006 elections. This just goes to show how out of touch with reality Dubya and his gang truly are. They do see the need to place some distance between Rove and his creation but they do not realize Karl will not have time to try and steal yet another election; he will be far too busy fighting his criminal indictment while trying to stay out jail.

The soldiers for the radical right’s assault on democracy were being recruited in 1968; the political dogma and manifesto would have to wait until 1971. It was then that Lewis Powell a corporate lawyer and staunch supporter of big business wrote a memo to and for the National Chamber of Commerce. In it he said the United States and western society were under attack from leftist and radicals; if we were to survive as a nation Corporate America and big business must begin a counterattack of guerrilla warfare to preserve the corporate way of life. Among other things he called for big business to start and feed a massive public relations campaign; he called for an attack against education by stacking college faculties with Corporate sympathizers and censoring text books; he called to put pressure on the judicial system to be more supportive of Corporate America; he said the right must fund ‘think tanks’ that would support the right’s point of view; and the GOP right began to do exactly what he said. Two months later Richard Nixon nominated Mr. Powell for a vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Justice Powell’s defense let me say that it is unlikely that he wanted his ideas to be carried out in such undemocratic means by the extremists who helped found and fund the American radical right wing, men like Paul Weyrich, Richard Mellon Scaife, and Joseph Coors. And it is unlikely in August 1971 that he knew the Republican Party had already begun to subvert democracy through the illegal, covert, and clandestine actions of such groups as the Nixon ‘plumbers’ and the College Republicans. But by that time it was too late the seeds had been planted; the money would flower; and young Turks like Karl Rove and Lee Atwater would adopt and pass down the tactics of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, or as he is better known, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

K Street Part 1

K Street Part 2

K Street Part 3

K Street Part 4

K Street Part Last

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-05T12:47:00.000-04:00

Kuintessential Republicans Part 4
The K Street Gang – College Republicans and Young Fascists

When Nixon became President he made future convicted felon H.R. ‘Bob’ Haldeman White House Chief of Staff. Haldeman hired future felons Charles ‘Chuck’ Colson, Dwight Chapin, and Donald Segretti to the White House Staff. Politics in America was changed forever. From day one as President, Nixon’s mind was on November 7, 1972, the next Presidential Election Day. Nixon’s paranoia was the defining characteristic of his four year reelection campaign. All decisions were based on it. Early in 1969 covert operations were set up to destroy the electoral process. Nixon would be reelected by crook or crook.

Colson and Chapin were placed in charge; Segretti became one of their main conspirators. Segretti recognized the need to reinvigorate the GOP with a youth movement; to this end he began recruiting operatives from the College Republicans organization. Karl Rove was one of the first recruited. He was sent to Illinois for the 1970 Senatorial campaign where he began his continuing campaign of lies and deception against Democracy and the American people. In the late 1990’s Rove would say this about his work in 1970,"It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it.
He calls it a prank that he tried to subvert a Federal election(s). Freedom loving Americans must call it treason, for winning elections by lying, cheating, stealing, intimidation, and blackmail have from that time on become not only the modus operendi of Karl Rove but the Republican Party in general.

Though the FBI had evidence of Rove illegalities in the 1972 election for whatever reason they chose not to pursue the matter. In their defense they probably had their hands full with much bigger fish like their boss; John Mitchell, Attorney General; John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs; H.R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff; and Richard Nixon, President of the United States. This is not to mention their entirely separate criminal investigation of Nixon’s Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, for accepting bribes and falsifying federal tax returns.

In 1973 with the help of Lee Atwater and George H.W. Bush, Rove honed his duplicitous techniques by stealing the election for National Chairman of the College Republicans. Rove and Atwater ran such an underhanded and dirty campaign that the final decision had to be decided by the Republican National Committee Chairman, one George H.W. Bush. It must have seemed like old times in 2000 when another stolen election was sent to the United States Supreme Court for a final decree.

From that time on the College Republicans became a cesspool and breeding ground for anti-democratic forces. Some of the more nefarious alumni include; Karl Rove National Chairman and future ‘brain’ of George W. Bush; Lee Atwater, Executive Director, future Republican National Committee Chairman, and campaign manager for George H.W. Bush; Jack Abramoff National Chairman, Tom DeLay sycophant, and future felon; Grover Norquist Executive Director and bosom buddy of Jack Abramoff;
and Ralph Reed Executive Director, Pat Robertson protégée, and crony of Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist. Rick Santorum future Senator from Pennsylvania was also a member. One name is conspicuous in its absence, Tom DeLay. One can only surmise that at the time the College Republicans were not reactionary and anti-democratic enough for DeLay’s taste.

K Street Part 1

K Street Part 2

K Street Part 3

K Street Part 5

K Street Part Last

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-04T12:00:00.001-04:00

Kuintessential Republicans Part 3
The K Street Gang – Radical Republican Agenda

A bitter and paranoid Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968. The seeds of a devolving Republican radical right had taken roots. Also a pattern of subverting the existing American government became SOP of the GOP. In May 1968 after LBJ announced he would not run for reelection the United States entered into peace negotiations with North Vietnam. Henry Kissenger covertly intervened with the North Vietnamese to kill the talks until after the 68 election. After the election Kissenger was immediately rewarded for his treachery. He was named Nixon’s National Security Advisor. The Nixon campaign also held secret talks with the South Vietnamese before the election. They met with South Vietnam’s President, Nguyen Van Thieu, and told him he would get a better deal with Nixon rather than with Johnson or the Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey if he were elected. This style of treachery and treason would be repeated by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 Presidential campaign. William Casey, Reagan’s campaign director met secretly with representatives of Iran to insure they would not release the American Embassy hostages before the election. The hostages were released on Reagan’s inauguration day and Casey was named Director of the C.I.A.

The 1968 election marked the change of the Republican Party to the anti-(small d)democratic party. Their only 2 concerns would be their election/reelection and the advancement of the nation’s corporate rulers and elites. Nixon solidified the first goal and Reagan cemented the second. Of course these had always been a part of the Republican platform, but after Nixon and Reagan they became the only parts of the Republican Radical Agenda.

K Street Part 1

K Street Part 2

K Street Part 4

K Street Part 5

K Street Part Last

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-03T10:49:00.000-04:00

Kuintessential Republicans Part 2
The K Street Gang

In 1960 John Kennedy trounced Richard Nixon in the Presidential election by a little over 100,000 votes out of almost 69,000,000 cast. The electoral count was 303 to 219. Though he never contested the election Nixon always believed Kennedy and the Democrats stole the election. He could have been right.

Kennedy won Illinois by less than 9000 votes out of almost 4.8 million cast. There is no doubt that the Daley Cook County political machine aided by the Chicago mafia significantly added to Kennedy’s total. However the State GOP party was pulling the same kind of stunts for Nixon downstate. But all things considered Daley and the mob probably stole more votes than the downstate good ol’ boys. It might be worth noting that voting machines were used in Cook County for the first time in 1960. Kennedy won Illinois’ 27 electoral votes.

With Lyndon Johnson on the ticket as Vice-President, Kennedy carried Texas by 1,167,567 votes to 1,121,310 votes for Nixon, a difference of a little over 46,000. At the risk of having some infer that other states’ politics are clean let me say that Texas politics is and always has been extremely dirty. The Johnson Texas machine made ample use of the graveyard vote as well as shanghaiing Mexican illegals to the polls to cast democratic ballots. It is debatable as to whether they stole almost 50,000 votes though. Kennedy won Texas’ 24 electoral votes.

If you choose to believe that both states were stolen, Nixon did, and if you reverse their electoral count Nixon would have had 270 electoral votes to Kennedy’s 252. Nixon would have been President, we may or may not have had Watergate, Nixon probably would not have resigned, and a certain amount of the extreme right’s vitriol and hatred might have been averted or contained.

K Street Part 1

K Street Part 3

K Street Part 4

K Street Part 5

K Street Part Last

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-02T15:15:00.000-04:00

Kuintessential Republicans Part 1
The K Street Gang And Before

Matthew Continetti, a young staff writer for The Weekly Standard, has written a new book titled, The K Street Gang. It is a self-serving Republican version of the history of the K Street Project, the wildly successful, up till now, GOP and radical right, strategy to subvert our democracy and to dictate our direction as a nation. Its main theme is to provide a measure of damage control for the exploding Republican and extremist culture of corruption over the past 35 years.

Continetti does this in a number of ways. Since there is no longer any way to cover up all the crimes and illegalities, he tries to limit responsibility to a handful of GOP operatives, most notably, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist. While he is quite correct in labeling them opponents of democracy and honest government, he tries to whitewash the depths of the deceit and treachery. He says they are basically good guys who got caught up in their lust for power and money. This is undoubtedly true, at least the part about their lust and greed. But he tries to lead us down the primrose path when he says those traits and behavior came after the Republican Revolution of 1994. By limiting the timeline he is trying to confuse and obfuscate the pattern of lawlessness and abuse of power since the Nixon Presidency.

The seeds for the radicalization of the right came with the 1964 landslide loss of Barry Goldwater to Lyndon Johnson. No one likes to get the daylights kicked out of them, and the GOP rightwing certainly was no exception. This trouncing coupled with their natural tendencies of aggressiveness, combativeness, and their inability or unwillingness to forgive lit the fire and gave birth to today’s radical right.

K Street Part 2

K Street Part 3

K Street Part 4

K Street Part 5

K Street Part Last

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-05-01T12:40:00.000-04:00

Mission Accomplished
“My fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

Today marks the third anniversary of victory in the Bush War, at least as proclaimed by George ‘Dubya’ Bush. Since then 2260 American troops have been killed and over 17,000 have been wounded. This means that over 94 percent of the deaths and 97 percent of the non-lethal casualties thus far have occurred after George played cowboy by making a carrier landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, strutting across the flight deck, and declaring the war to be over. By definition those percentages can only rise. It would seem that George was as clueless about his war as he was about Vietnam when he just disappeared for a year while hiding out with the Texas Air National Guard. Despite all the lies and duplicitous machinations of Karl Rove and the radical right media little George has never been much of a warrior, neither as a faux soldier nor as the commander. We have always needed many good men when Dubya was involved. As I have said before his credo is, “No sacrifice is too great for others to make.”

If it were anyone other than Dubya it would almost be incomprehensible that the Commander-in-Chief would be so clueless, after all the planning of the war had been going on for over 10 years. I would say that George is a slow learner but that would be an insult to the slow learners of the world. It is time for the American people to hold Dubya accountable for his lack of intellectual ability. For 25 years Rove and Bush’s other handlers have succeeded in hiding this failure behind a façade of commonness. They have projected the image of George as just one of the guys, a ‘good ol boy’. It is time to recognize that the image of Bush as an empathetic everyman is as false as his warrior image. George, plain and simple is and always has been just like his father, a spoiled rich kid, an economic elitist. The family credo is “No sacrifice is too great for others to make.”

Dubya also said, “We're helping to rebuild Iraq.” This begs the question, just how? After three years tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured. Their entire infrastructure has been destroyed; they are on the verge of civil war. The entire society is a breath away from total collapse and chaos reigns. Rather than extinguishing the flames of terrorism Bush has rekindled them into a raging conflagration. But when it comes to Bush World, “No sacrifice is
too great for others to make.”

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-01-11T10:39:00.000-05:00

Shame On George Bush Part 1
New Bush Same As The Old Bush

Shame on George W. Bush, yesterday in a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars he said he should not be held accountable for the lies he and his administration propagated in order to start a war against Iraq. He said he should not be held accountable for the thousands of American deaths or the tens of thousands of American injuries that are the result of those lies. Shame on George Bush for saying that to tell the truth about his deceit would bring, “comfort to our adversaries.” Shame on George Bush for saying it is irresponsible for pointing out his many lies. When he says, “The American people know the difference between responsible and irresponsible debate when they see it. They know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being prosecuted and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people,”he delves even deeper into his world of deception and depravity.

Shame on George Bush for hiding behind the troops he demands to risk their lives in a war based on his lies. He says, “This war began with a sudden attack on September the 11th, 2001.” That is not true. It has been proven many times over that Iraq and Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. This war began on Thursday, March 20, 2003, though it had been planned for at least 12 years earlier.

Shame on George Bush for implying that he supplied our troops with all the necessary equipment and supplies they needed. He said, “And we must continue to provide these troops with all the resources they need to defend our nation and prevail in the global war on terror.” This is another lie. He didn’t send them with the proper resources and he still has not provided them. Soldiers’ families to this day are still supplying body and vehicular protective armor to their sons, daughters, husbands, and wives who are risking their lives in the contrived Bush War.

Shame on George Bush just for being George Bush, he has shirked responsibility and the truth his whole adult life. He never admits his mistakes. He denies them until some benefactor bails him out. Even though his father got him into the Texas Air National Guard in order to avoid Vietnam, this was too demanding for George. He went AWOL for a year and then had the temerity to ask for and receive an early discharge. He claims to have been a successful businessman yet every venture he started failed until someone like a Saudi prince or the Harvard Corporation came to his rescue. He claims to be anti-corruption yet he made almost a million dollars on insider trading of Harken Oil. Had his dad not been President he most likely would have been brought to trial by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He claims to be a defender of private property and for lowering taxes. Yet while he was involved with the Texas Rangers baseball team he asked for and received eminent domain to get land to build a stadium and a sales tax to pay for building it.

Shame on George Bush, America deserves much better than him and his radical supporters.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-01-10T07:20:00.000-05:00

The Epitaph Of Tom DeLay
He Who Lives By Corruption Dies By Corruption

The king is dead, long live the king. Well, not really, we desperately need a new king and a new court in January 2007. Do not consider this a ringing endorsement of the Democratic Party but rather a condemnation the totally corrupt Republican Party. As of today the Democrats are just the lesser of two evils albeit much less. There is nothing in their recent history to suggest that the Democrats understand this or if they do that they will act upon it. But we can always hope; we don’t even have that under the current regime. The Republican Party has so damaged the fabric of our society that we are on the last throes of life support, only the Democrats offer any chance of resuscitation.

There are those who will say that the Republicans and Tom DeLay only fell victim to Lord Acton’s famous observation that, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This has been proven true time after time, but it does not apply to our current predicament. The GOP was taken over by thugs, bullies, liars, and cheats. They were already corrupt before taking power. Since then they have continually infused their poisonous bile throughout the body politic. Tom Delay is a perfect example. He was a corrupt coward and bully long before being elected House Majority Whip in 1994. In fact that is why he was elected Whip.

In quintessential Karl Rove-Orwellian doublethink DeLay had this to say when he capitulated and was forced to stand down for reelection as House Majority Leader, "During my time in Congress, I have always acted in an ethical manner within the rules of our body and the laws of our land.” It shows the contempt which he and his fellow Republicans hold for the American people, for he has been admonished by the House 3 separate times and is currently under indictment in Texas. The only reason he has not been kicked out of Congress is because the Republicans are in control. It remains to be seen if his next term is in the ‘big house’.

Lets face it, DeLay could not find a code of ethics if it were tattooed on his rear end and he had an aircraft carrier full of searchlights and the entire 7th fleet to help him. DeLay has made a habit of lying and breaking the law his entire adult life. He was sited by the IRS on multiple occasions for not paying income taxes and for not paying the payroll taxes when he owned an exterminating business (Albo Pest Control). He was twice taken to court by business associates for fraud and cheating and he had to pay court imposed settlements. In one case he lied under oath, this after he was elected to Congress.

DeLay is now and always has been a true believer of the Bush credo,”No sacrifice is too great for others to make.” A prime example in his life would be his fervent support for sending American troops to Iraq. Yet when he had a chance during the Vietnam War to fight for the ideals he paid lip service to, he took a pass. He used student deferments and a high lottery draft number (312) to fight the ‘red menace’ from deep within the heart of Texas. He later claimed that he tried to enlist but all the spots had been taken by minorities who wanted and needed the ‘work’.

Thomas Dale DeLay liar, thief, bully, and coward is politically dead. He lived by corruption; he died by corruption.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2006-01-08T11:16:00.000-05:00

Ticket To Paradise
Daniel Webster v Pat Robertson et al

Several clergymen both real and fictional have been making headlines recently. Pat Robertson never one to have his foot out of his mouth for very long has done it yet again. In fact this condition has become so commonplace he will probably require surgery to have it removed. Mr. Robertson’s ailment is not a recent malady. He has been afflicted with it his entire life. In fact he most likely inherited it from his outspoken racist father, A. Willis Robertson, U.S. Senator from Virginia for 20 years (1946-1966). Pat’s elitist and racist politics have never strayed from the bigoted ideas of his father.

It is way past time for the Christian community to stand up against the un-Christian rantings and deeds of Mr. Robertson and other charlatans like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson. Their teachings are of politics based on power and prestige taken by the few to the detriment of the many. Any resemblance to their diatribes and the teachings of Christ is coincidental and mainly unintentional. They always add a speck of truth to their systematic lies in hopes of giving legitimacy to their false agenda and propaganda. A perfect example is their claim that Christianity is under attack in America. That is definitely true. What is not true is their claim that the attack comes from the left and a ‘liberal’ media. The attack comes from themselves and other members of the radical right that preach hate and divisiveness by instilling fear into their followers. All one has to do is read the New Testament to see that that Mr. Robertson et al are not the purveyors of truth that they claim to be but are the disseminators lies and false teachings. Don’t take my word for it, read the Gospels and decide for yourself. Do not think this is an attempt to proselytize on my part for it is not. I seek not to convert but only to point out the vast discrepancies between the teachings of the ‘Religious Right’ and the teachings of Christ.

The Book of Daniel, a TV show about the life of an Episcopalian clergyman, Daniel Webster, had its premier Friday. It debuted to wide spread criticism from the extreme right. They attacked it with a vengeance. TV stations in Indiana and Arkansas refused to air it. I loved it; it depicted the state of the ‘Church’ with an irreverence that needs to be shown much more often. Jesus walked on water; today’s Church is at best up to its neck in raging torrents. The Church has for centuries been more concerned with institutional dogma and power rather than living up to the ideals of Christ. This program shows the Webster family with all its human frailties trying to deal with such a situation. They do it by truly loving and caring for each other. It is a dark comedy but a comedy nonetheless. It shows the paradoxes and absurdities of life. I burst out laughing several times. I found myself disgusted several times.

The show was summed up when Christ told Daniel, “Life is hard for everyone.” That is something we should all be aware of. And if we are we should soften our hearts like Daniel Webster and family. Given an option of going on the stairway to heaven tended by Pat Robertson or Daniel Webster, I choose Daniel.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-29T15:55:00.000-05:00

A Tale Of 2005
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times

In reviewing the past year not much need be said to recall the worst of times. There were natural disasters of hurricanes
and earthquakes and man-made disasters like the Bush war in Iraq and the Bush war against America. There will always be natural disasters and those who think they can control nature are running a fool’s errand. There will always be man-made disasters because man is not perfect nor can he be made so, those who think otherwise are engaged in an exercise in futility. However man can influence the regularity and intensity of both kinds of disasters.

We must quit trying to separate ourselves from nature. We are part of the natural world, the earth is our home. We must begin to treat it as such. Man has always exploited nature, some cultures more so than others. But over the past two centuries as mechanical technology has become the dominant force in shaping the world, exploitation has far surpassed preservation. We must learn to live in harmony with nature not just consume it for short term material gain. If we fail to do this we are on certain course to destruction. To put it in technical terms we are bending over and kissing our rear goodbye.

We must stop separating ourselves from each other. Mankind is one with our self. To quote John Donne, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” As long as man continues to divide the world into the “us against them” fight to the finish scenario of extremists like Osama bin Laden, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and other right-wing radicals there will be no advances in the world political situation.

To say it was the best of times a certain perspective is needed. For clearly the Bush driven world is and has been nowhere near the best. In scientific terms, it sucks. To put it in biblical terms, it is on the highway to hell. However 2005 clearly has marked a turning point in America’s understanding and knowledge of the mean spirited Bush and company. America has caught up to the rest of the world in seeing them for what they are, lying incompetent weasels bent on making the world in their own image. It is an image of world domination by the few (economic and corporate elites) that rests squarely on the backs of the many (everyone else).

2005 was the best of times because it brought the attempted putsch of the radical right to a screeching halt.
They had nothing but failures the whole year, starting with their grand scheme of welfare for Wall Street, Social Security privatization. This was the number 2 priority of the Bush gang from the start, second only to gaining American dominance in the Middle East. As the year went on their top priority also slipped from their grasp, though they still refuse to admit it. It is a refusal sustained by thousands of deaths and injuries of Americans and Iraqis. But no sacrifice is too great for others to make.

Seriously wounded by failing to achieve their two main objectives, the right –wingers are gradually losing their grip of power. The media at long last has awakened from the dogmatic slumber induced by the radical right’s attack on the 1st Amendment. Karl Rove is no longer able to deny or bully his way out of his many acts of lying and duplicity. In fact he is just on his way out. Bill Frist and Tom DeLay are too busy trying to stay out of jail to put enough pressure on their party members to vote their inclination against the Geneva Convention or to void the Constitution. With a main supplier (Jack Abramoff) of illicit funds to their campaigns on his way to the big house most Republicans are being forced to look for legal and legitimate donations. This requires them to at least pay lip service to the values of everyday America, values like following the Constitution and obeying the law.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-28T11:06:00.000-05:00

Compassionless Conservatism
A Not So Merry Christmas

On Saturday June 12, 1999 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa George Walker Bush defined his candidacy for President of the United States as such, "Is compassion beneath us? Is mercy below us? Should our party be led by someone who boasts of a hard heart? I am proud to be a compassionate conservative. I welcome the label. And on this ground, I'll take my stand. I am running because my party must match a conservative mind with a compassionate heart.” There has never been a more hypocritical or deceitful statement in the history of American politics. Mr. Bush was most egregious in the non-adherence to this idea while he was Governor of Texas and has been faithfully consistent in his non-adherence throughout his presidency. There is one qualifier. Bush has always been extremely compassionate to the haves and have-mores; the elites who comprise his social and political base.
This ‘compassion’ has come at the expense of all the rest of America, not just the poor and destitute, though as always the burden lays heaviest on the poor. ‘Tis long past the season to hold Mr. Bush accountable for his folly.

While Mr. Bush has been unwavering in his support of welfare (tax cuts and subsidies) for the wealthy and corporate America, he has more than compensated by cutting back assistance to the poor, needy, old, and the young. Most of these cuts include the scaling back of such luxuries as medical care, heating assistance, food, child care, education, and quality of the environment. Despite these and other draconian cutbacks he continues to push the country further and further into massive debt. He has fostered a war in Iraq that several members of his administration had been planning since 1992.
He lied his way into war and continues to lie in order to prolong it.

We shouldn’t be surprised at George’s actions since becoming President, it follows the same playbook he used while Governor of Texas. It was the same game plan; rob the poor to give to the rich, increase corporate profits by any means possible especially deregulation, and to reward his elitist friends while trying to destroy his political opposition (enemies).

Mr. Bush professes to be a Christian, and while it is beyond the ability of anyone to see into his heart, it is not beyond the ability of anyone to determine if his deeds correspond to the life and teachings of Christ. I do not know if Mr. Bush and his right-wing supporters have read the Christian Bible, but I do know if they have they have failed to understand even its most basic tenets and concepts. I defy any Pat, James, or Jerry to say otherwise.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-24T05:50:00.000-05:00

Merry

Christmas

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Or Whatever

Some people would kick on mother’s milk. That’s an old saying in my neck of the woods, the Blue Ridge Mountains, meaning some people are never satisfied or happy. In recent weeks a small but vocal segment of the Christian community has raised the concern that there are those in America who are trying to steal Christmas, grinches who would strike out at the very heart of our nation. They are doing this by banning manger scenes, prohibiting the singing of traditional Christmas carols, doing away with ‘Christmas‘ trees, enticing us to do ‘holiday’ shopping, and worst of all not greeting us with a “Merry Christmas” as we attempt to spend our hard earned cash. Could anything be more un-Godly or un-American, after all, that hard earned American cash plainly says, “In God we trust.”

The time we celebrate the birth of Christ for Christians has traditionally been the most wonderful time of the year. It is a time for honoring the life of Jesus and his teachings of loving and giving, though I have sometimes thought that he might be more pleased if we would make that a daily rather than seasonal happening. I believe Christ couldn’t care less how we greet each other whether, "Merry Christmas", "Happy Hanukkah", "Happy Kwanzaa", "Eid Mubarak", "Happy Holidays", "Happy Arbor Day" or any other greeting as long as it is given in love and respect.

Before we start complaining about the loss of Christmas and its traditions perhaps we should learn a little more about them. Christ’s birthday most likely was not December 25th. In fact there is no consensus among scholars as to time of year; some say spring, more say fall, and others say winter. There is a general consensus on why December 25th is celebrated. It is generally accepted that the Emperor Constantine chose the date to help consolidate his power. He had become the ruler of the Western Roman Empire in 312 and gradually took over the Eastern Roman Empire as well. Constantine became a Christian but the Empire had many pagan religions also. In an attempt to bring more unity, he and the Roman Catholic Church joined the celebration of Christ’s birth which was celebrated on various dates including December 25th to the pagan celebration of Sol Invictus, the return of the sun, celebrating the winter solstice.

I am sure that Christ loves any instance of giving, but I do wonder if he can be pleased with how modern corporate society has commercialized the celebration of his birth. I can’t help but think he would be more pleased if all the money spent on Christmas was used to feed the hungry, to give shelter to the homeless, and to provide medical help for the poor and indigent.

St. Francis of Assisi is given credit for the origins of the Christmas carol in 13th century Italy. The Christmas tree did not come into existence until the 16th century. Most agree that it had its origin in Germany around 1520, though the legend that Martin Luther began the tradition seems not to be true. And contrary to popular belief Christmas cards got their start in England in 1840, not Kansas City, Missouri.

There is no nefarious plot to steal or subvert Christmas, at least no more than has been going on for the past 100 years or so. To get upset over a greeting given in love or friendship is decidedly non-Christian. Why not sing Jewish songs of praise in December pageants? Christ was a Jew, I am sure he did. I appreciate a greeting of Happy Hanukkah or happy holidays I am not insulted by it, so in the same vein to one and all, Merry Christmas.

2005-12-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

Radical Right vs. 4th Amendment
It’s Legal (For Us) To Break The Law

Ever since the days of the Nixon Presidency the radical right has been paranoid of everyone that doesn’t profess an allegiance for and adhere to their narrow minded definition of America. Over the years it has developed into a pathological state of mind that is not only consuming them but eating away at the very fabric of our society. It is no better exemplified than in their obsession to gather as much information as possible about any and everyone that they (extreme right) consider enemies. To this end they have used every means possible to enhance their intelligence gathering of those perceived enemies. It is done under the cover of darkness and secrecy then when their crimes and misdeeds come to light they first deny all, then they scream, National Security, National Security!!

Now once again the radical right finds itself exposed for breaking the law. They have already begun their denials of it wasn’t illegal but if it was it was for America’s own good. You know the drill it is the doublethink ploy of hate is love or war is peace. They use a variation for most everything they do.

One of the main defenses cited for we weren’t guilty of illegal spying on American citizens was the November 18, 2002 ruling by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. This was an appeal by the Federal Government of a unanimous FISC ruling in May 2002 that upheld restrictions on government spying. The government was determined to undermine the law, so they filed the first appeal of a ruling under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FICA) of 1978 in 23 years and 15,000 cases. The law states that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is to pick 3 Federal judges to sit on a 3 man Court of Review. Usually the Chief Justice picks a bi-partisan court, but in this case Chief Justice Rehnquist picked 3 Republican judges that were appointed by Ronald Reagan, including the ultra right extremist Laurence Silberman who was one of the main attack dogs in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The radical right didn’t want a majority opinion, they wanted a unanimous decision and they got it.

In their decision the Court of Review cited the case of Truong vs. the United States as supporting the Presidential power of ordering unwarranted surveillance. There is the problem that Truong was before the passage of FICA which limited government spying, but so much for facts, er, technicalities. And there still is the problem that the larger bi-partisan court originally voted unanimously (7-0) against that power.

The extreme right also has tried to use selective parts of FICA under the United States Code to justify Bush’s excesses. They site TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 36 > SUBCHAPTER I > § 1802. In part it says, “Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year.” However they neglect to include the following,
“(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at—
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party.”

The radical right also has said that Congress set conditions of war and therefore that expands the President’s power. Obviously they haven’t read TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 36 > SUBCHAPTER I > § 1811 which says in its entirety, “Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for a period not to exceed fifteen calendar days following a declaration of war by the Congress.”

Considering all this, is it possible that the mid-term elections might be about impeachment?

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-20T10:39:00.000-05:00

Bush Declares Constitution Null And Void
It Is Old And Outdated

“This new threat required us to think and act differently,” with these words George Walker Bush declared his imperial (dictatorial) presidency. He said he was above the law of the land. The nation hadn’t heard such hubris since the days of Contragate and before that Watergate. As Reagan and Nixon did with those two crimes the Bush Administration attempted to conceal and justify their law-breaking with the standard radical right
explanation of “National Security”. Unfortunately for them the old, ‘we had to destroy it so we could save it’ routine doesn’t play any better today than it did in the past. And there is a reason for that, it is totally insane. It makes sense only to the intellectually, morally, and ethically challenged. That certainly explains why Bush and his cronies chose to use it.

It didn’t take the President very long to start his pattern of lying and deceiving. His tenth sentence was this, “Our mission in Iraq is critical in the victory in the global war on terror. After our country was attacked on September the 11th and nearly 3,000 lives were lost, I vowed to do everything within my power to bring justice to those who were responsible.” After more than 4 years he is still trying to mislead the American people into believing Iraq had something to do with 9-11. His WMD ploy failed, he hasn’t much else to use. Bush is running scared, he always has eventually. He and Karl Rove wanted desperately for others in his administration and party to be the ones in the public spotlight, the ones defending the lies and deception. But as many succumbed to scandal and indictment, Bush has had no option except to place himself on the firing line. This was a great plan on September 12, 2001. It is an act of desperation in December 2005.

After decades of cowering before the onslaught of the extreme right, the Media at long last seems to be rediscovering a backbone. As more and more lies and crimes of conservative reactionaries come to light the media is refusing, albeit slowly, to close their eyes to all the excesses. Hopefully as Richard Cohen has called for, we are entering the era of accountability and leaving the ‘I am responsible but it is someone else’s fault’ era.

One of the first things we must hold Bush accountable for is this from his opening decree yesterday, “As President and Commander-in-Chief, I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country. Article II of the Constitution gives me that responsibility and the authority necessary to fulfill it.” Nowhere does it give him the right to define and select what parts of the Constitution he decides to defend and protect. In fact the very reason for the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights is to prevent some hegemonic dictator or would be king from being able to steal the people’s rights.

In trying to secure these powers for himself Bush went on to add a plea for the extension of the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” Bill, or as he likes to euphemistically refer to it, ‘The Patriot Act’. He said,”Another vital tool in the war on terror is the Patriot Act. After September the 11th, Congress acted quickly and responsibly by passing this law.” Well they acted quickly at least, kind of. It was passed after an all night writing session conducted by whom no one knows. It just mysteriously appeared around 8 A.M. and was put up to vote without allowing Congress to get a chance to read the bill. Bush calls surrender your rights to me without knowing what you do responsible! Well he would.

Then Bush got really weird. He defended his attack against the poor and under privileged of America by saying, “We were wise with taxpayer's money and cut non-security discretionary spending below last year's level.” He went on to say, “We passed bankruptcy reform and class action lawsuit reform…, we need to keep taxes low, and make the tax relief permanent. We must restrain government spending, and I'm pleased that the House today has voted to rein in entitlement spending by $40 billion, and I urge the United States Senate to join them.” As I said yesterday the only sacrifices Bush calls for are from someone besides himself and his moneyed class. It is way past time to hold him accountable for his war against the Constitution and the American people.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-19T15:39:00.000-05:00

The Politics Of George W. Bush
Fear And Lying In The West Wing

George Bush is running scared. Fear, the very emotion he has used for the past four years to bully and scare the nation into following his radical positions has turned its ugly head toward him. He and his Orwellian trainer, Karl Rove, failed to understand that once loosed the beast takes a life of its own. They tried desperately to regain control over it this weekend with two speeches (1 and 2 to the nation. They attempted to turn the beast once again toward the American people. It is possible perhaps even probable that they will succeed in the very short run. They used their standard extremists’ tactic of lying and misrepresenting the facts and this has proven to be quite successful in the past. But since they so seldom deal in truth, Bush and Rove miscalculated once again. Once the truth is set free and is known there is no covering it up again. Their resurgence will be brief if at all.

They will fail because they are already being consumed by their own fear. Both speeches lacked the constantly used macho swagger that Bush and Rove so admire. They even made an attempt to project a small sense of contrition and candor but it was revealed for what it was, political spin, because all that they said that went wrong was someone else’s fault not theirs.

As always we just have to take their own words to show how corrupt they are. Bush said, “I see a global terrorist movement that exploits Islam in the service of radical political aims -- a vision in which books are burned, and women are oppressed, and all dissent is crushed.” Now can anyone and I mean anyone tell me the difference between that statement and the goals and tactics of Bush, Rove, and the far right.

With a classic example of misdirection Bush said, “September the 11th, 2001 required us to take every emerging threat to our country seriously, and it shattered the illusion that terrorists attack us only after we provoke them. On that day, we were not in Iraq, we were not in Afghanistan.” It is true that we were not then in Iraq or Afghanistan, however bin Laden cited the American presence in Saudi Arabia (we have had a military presence there since 1943), along with our support of Israel, and his desire to overthrow ‘corrupt’ Islamic governents as the reasons for the attack on the World Trade Center, not American involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan, for quite clearly there was none.

Dubya also made this statement, “I will make decisions on troop levels based on the progress we see on the ground and the advice of our military leaders -- not based on artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington. That is an excellent idea. But again he has done just the opposite. He hasn’t listened to his military commanders and has made decisions based solely on timetables and plans set by politicians (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Fieth, etc.) in Washington.

Bush’s entire Presidency was best summed up by him when he said, “We're approaching a new year, and there are certain things all Americans can expect to see. We will see more sacrifice -- from our military, their families, and the Iraqi people.” How true and we will continue to see no sacrifice from him or his elitist supporters. He continues to ask for tax cuts for the wealthy while our troops are ill equipped in Iraq, while he asks for spending cuts for education, unemployment, medical benefits for poor children, and assistance for food and housing. Yes for Bush, No sacrifice is too great for others to make.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-17T15:46:00.000-05:00

The 1st Amendment R.I.P.
NY Times Secretly Concealed Bush Spying in U.S.

The New York Times quietly laid to the rest the First Amendment of the United States Constitution in October 2004. In a belated obituary published December 15, 2005 the Times admitted its complicity in the death. It confessed to bowing under pressure from the Bush Administration to withhold explosive information concerning President Bush’s, and other members of his Administration’s, blatant abuse of the Constitution. Bush was currently running for reelection and did not want knowledge of his malfeasance to be made public.

Bush’s conduct was eerily reminiscent of the 1972 reelection campaign of Richard M. Nixon in which Nixon and his cronies constantly ignored the Constitution and broke several laws concerning individual rights and privacy. Bush’s handlers even copied the standard radical right defense of placing all bad news under the protective blanket of “National Security”, a defense implemented and used often by Nixon. Unfortunately the Times was either too afraid or too ignorant to withstand the pressure. Considering all the things that have happened at the Times the past few years perhaps it is time for them to change their masthead to, "Some of the news that's fit to print."

By failing to stand up for their own rights, the Times failed all America. By failing to fulfill their obligations the Times failed America. Their thirteen month late mea culpa does not relieve them of responsibility for contributing to the harm done to America and the world by the right-wing extremists of the Bush Administration. Had they published Bush’s high crimes and misdemeaners when they first learned of them he very probably would not have been reelected. They effectively became the Supreme Court of 2004.

The First Amendment’s death was neither sudden nor accidental. It had been under constant attack by the Republican far-right for 40 years. Its condition had steadily deteriorated over that time. With the First Amendment’s passing the G.O.P. extremists have finally won. From now on all news will have to conform to their narrow-minded and strict regulations. If any news detracts from their authoritarian usurpation of power, hinders their dictatorial decrees, or inhibits the growth of corporate profits it will be censored, but only for reasons of national security. We can expect a dramatic increase in their Orwellian plan of rewriting history. For instance will it be long before all history books will declare that that FDR’s New Deal was nothing more than a communist plot to prevent America’s corporate and moneyed elite to rightfully maintain and continue their positions of privilege as expressed by Herbert Spencer and his concept of survival of the fittest?

This may seem extreme to some but then who would have thought that the New York Times would not immediately report that the President of the United States had broken the law and had broken his oath of office, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-16T09:57:00.000-05:00

Brit Hume Lobs Softballs To Dubya
He Still Strikes Out

Fox News prefaces its transcript of the Brit Hume interview of President Bush with this statement,”This is a partial transcript of ‘Special Report With Brit Hume’ from Dec. 14, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.” It shows a remarkable albeit unexpected degree of candor. First it tells us that it is a manufactured piece since it is not given in its entirety. Second it reinforces the fact that it is manufactured by saying it has been edited. Next it tells us that it doesn’t make sense without being doctored. Unfortunately it doesn’t tell us who wasn’t making sense President Bush, Hume, or both. But after reading it, it is fairly easy to make that determination for ourselves.

At the beginning the interview Bush gives faint support to Donald Rumsfeld when he answers a question about Rumsfeld staying in the Administration to the end. Bush says, “Yes. Well, the end of my term is a long time.” It sounds like Donald ought to be updating his resume.

Hume then shows either an unbelievable degree of ignorance or an improper amount of prejudice when he says this about Karl Rove, “He went through some trials and tribulations — and they appear largely to be over now.” Bush wouldn’t touch that with a 10 foot pole. He only admits the obvious and says they are friends and that Karl was responsible for his being President. He says not a word about Karl’s troubles being over and he gives no defense of him at all. This becomes all the more noticeable when Bush later does comment about another on going criminal investigation, that of Tom DeLay. When Brit asks, “Do you just — do you believe he's innocent?” Bush answers, “Yes, I do.” But Bush also says this when asked if he expects DeLay to return as Majority Leader, “I don't know whether I'm expecting it. “ It sounds like Bush’s faith in DeLay’s innocence is nothing more than a goodbye kiss. Hume also sets up Bush with opportunities to mutter the standard Bush and GOP inanities about how they are on a higher plane than their opponents, and how the Democrats are as responsible for the mess in Iraq as his administration and party are, since they (Democrats) had the same information he did. He says the Abramoff scandal is tied to the Democrats as much as the Republicans.

There was one hard question Hume asked Bush. He asked him about the number of Iraqi deaths in his war, “Where'd you get the number 30,000?” That was a mistake for Bush answered, “That was a number that's been floating around the public. You know, it was a number that was in the press. The 30,000 Iraqis, I must tell you, it's speculative. I don't think anybody knows the exact number.” Realizing his mistake Hume moved on to other things rather than challenging Bush further.

Hume closed the interview by asking Bush, “Let me get your thoughts, Mr. President, on — on how you think or hope you'll be remembered.” Bush replied, “I hope that first, as a person, I'll be remembered as a fellow who had his priorities straight: his faith, his family and his friends are a central part of his life.” Not a mention at all of the how he treated the American people or the condition of the country. I don’t know how his faith will be judged, but I do know that he favored his family and friends at the expense of the rest of us. And you know what they say, two out of three ain’t bad.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-15T09:29:00.000-05:00

Deconstructing George W. Bush
“Faulty Intelligence,” Never mind

George Bush actually admitted yesterday that the reasons he invaded Iraq and went to war were wrong and false. In classic Gilda Radner-Emily Litella fashion he went on to say never mind, “Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision.” Say what? The reasons were wrong; the intelligence was false (read manufactured) but the decision was right. It is impossible to reason against such a mind set. It is the mind set of predetermined ideas and actions regardless of any and all evidence to the contrary. It is the mind set of dictators and demagogues.

“In the war on terror, Iraq is now the central front…We're hunting down the terrorists and their supporters. We will fight this war without wavering.” In saying this Bush failed to mention that the terrorists are in Iraq BECAUSE of the American invasion. He gives as justification for his war, his invasion of Iraq. He goes on to say. “We removed Saddam Hussein from power because he was a threat to our security.” But just two paragraphs later he admits the reasons for saying and believing this were false. ”And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.” Notice he implies that he didn’t know it was wrong from the start.

Now I suppose it is possible that Stephen Hadley, the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor at the time of the Iraqi invasion, did forget to tell his bosses, Condoleezza Rice and George Bush that the CIA had written 2 memos stating that Iraq was not trying to build WMDs. He admitted that he did forget and did not tell them. But that does make me wonder why he was not fired immediately? Instead he was promoted to National Security Advisor after Rice was promoted to Secretary of State. Oh well, ours not to reason why.

Bush also said, “the terrorists cite Vietnam as a reason they can prevail,” and found inspiration from, “the collapse of the American power in Vietnam -- and how they ran and left their agents.” What horrible irony that he doesn’t realize that had he volunteered to go to Vietnam instead of cutting and running, had Cheney and most of the others in the administration volunteered instead of scampering after deferments perhaps things would have been different in Nam and the terrorists would not have that inspiration.

On the many mistakes he has made in Iraq, Bush says, ‘We have fixed what was not working, and we have listened to those who know best: our military commanders.” This begs several questions, like when did Bush start listening? You would think that since he was determined to invade Iraq he would get and listen to his military commanders’ advice. And he did, he listened to Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki when Shinseki told him that at least 250,000 thousand ‘boots on the ground' would be needed. He listened to General Tommy Franks, Commander, United States Central Command, the General in charge of the invasion when Franks told him more than 200,000 troops would be needed. Bush listened he just didn’t follow their advice. Instead he went along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld when they said 130,000 would be more than enough. Let’s see here, Bush starts a war based on lies and false information, and then doesn’t take the advice of his military commanders instead relying on the thoughts and ideas
of a guy who went AWOL from the National Guard, a draft dodger, and a post Korean War Navy pilot who never saw a day of combat. These are the guys that are going to make America safer?

They can’t even make the troops they sent to Iraq safer. To make up for not sending enough troops, they under equipped those they did send. They sent insufficient supplies and equipment and much of the material they did send was defective, so much so that the troops’ families back in the States had to provide the proper equipment for them. That is how the Bush Administration has honored the men and women they sent to Iraq.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-13T13:30:00.000-05:00

The Killing Fields
Stan ‘Tookie’ Williams 1953-2005

AT 12:35 A.M. PST December 13, 2005 San Quentin prisoner C29300 died. Stan ‘Tookie’ Williams was killed by the state of California. He is the 1003 person put to death since the U.S. resumed capital punishment in 1977 with the firing squad death of Gary Gilmore. That is roughly 1003 too many.

I object not only on Christian moral grounds but also on humanistic philosophical and political reasons as well. To me the theoretical purpose of government is, “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” The government should do all this while being the least intrusive as possible.

That is a short but loaded paragraph. Its implementation is the practical purpose of government, and is no easy task. Every concept must be defined and agreed upon. Is a more perfect union formed by cutting taxes, or perhaps providing health care for the indigent? Is justice nothing more than the unequal balancing of litigants’ net worth? Is the common defense best met by building an SDI (Star Wars) system or fighting world hunger? Is the general welfare best promoted by loose environmental standards or mass public transportation? Who is to sacrifice to secure the blessings of liberty, the lower part of the American socio-economic scale or everyone? How are we to define intrusive, by sins of commission like collecting a fair income tax or sins of omission like ignoring emission standards? That is what government is about.

So where do government executions fit in to this.
How is society made more perfect by imposing a state death penalty? Study after study details how the death penalty does not deter crime, better living conditions do. The state should not be involved in retribution or revenge on an individual capital level. It should promote non-lethal punishment and rehabilitation if possible. “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” If the government then feels that it has a legitimate right to take a life in its defense, then it legitimizes the taking of life when the people feel the government is failing its purpose. “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

I do not know if Stan Williams is guilty or not. I do not believe our society is the better for the state of California killing him. I do know that innocent people have been executed. Is there a certain ratio that justifies such a thing? Perhaps one innocent execution for every ten guilty, or hundred guilty, or thousand guilty, I do know the only way to prevent the one is to prevent them all.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-12T11:51:00.000-05:00

Karl Rove R.I.P.

Karl Rove, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States is a dead man walking, politically speaking that is. His meanness, hate, and arrogance all of which he used to mask his feelings of inadequacy have finally caught up with him. His last ditch pleading with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has come to naught. Fitzgerald has the goods on him, and will drop the hammer soon after the New Year. It couldn’t happen to more deserving person. Rove will go down in history as a true enemy of liberty, freedom, and democracy.

Rove tried using the standard GOP defense of I didn’t remember when he was questioned by the Grand Jury on October 14, 2005 about his lying to them (the Grand Jury) on two different occasions, once on October 15, 2004 and again in February 2005. Only last minute begging by his lawyer along with the promise of being more candid spared Rove from indictment along with Scooter Libby. The respite will be short lived. Rove is toast.

Rove will soon learn ‘I forgot’ just doesn’t cut it. Obviously one thing he has forgotten is that that defense didn’t spare his one time boss Dwight Chapin. Chapin was one of the main leaders of Nixon’s dirty tricks campaign of 1972. He is the one who sent orders and instructions to the College Republicans and Donald Segretti. Chapin was convicted of perjury for answering "I don't recall" when asked whether he had given Segretti specific orders to attack Democrats in the primaries.

Good ridance to bad garbage. So Karl as I said before “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

Congress And The BCS
Two failures For A Metaphor

At long last Congress has decided to live up to its responsibilities to the American people. It finally has taken up a matter of utmost importance to the maintenance of our society. Of course I refer to straightening out the quagmire we know as the BCS, Bowl Championship Series.

Here is a brief summary of the intricacies of this pressing problem. First the BCS is one of two ways of determining the yearly champion of Division 1 NCAA college football. It involves polls, computers, algorithms, and a championship game. The other way is a poll of sportswriters taken by the AP at the end of the season. One of the problems is these two ways do not always coincide; in fact they haven’t on two separate occasions since the BCS and its precursor, the Bowl Alliance, have been in effect(1995). There were co-champions in 1997 and 2003.

Another problem is that despite all the computers and algorithms there have been questions practically every year, save 2005, as to whether the best teams are even playing in the BCS Championship Game. Still another problem is that of monopoly. There are 4 bowl games in the BCS. They pay $12,000,000 to $14,000,000 to each of the 8 teams that play in those 4 games. The 4 BCS games have been dominated by 6 conferences (SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC, Big East, & PAC 10) plus Notre Dame, an independent with no conference affiliation. This makes for a total of 66 schools. There are 119 schools in NCAA Division 1. Of the total 41 BCS games played (counting this year) since 1995, schools from the elite 66 have made up a total of 81 teams selected. That leaves a grand total of 1 to have been selected from the other 53 Division 1 teams. They want a bigger slice of the pie. So you see the dire situation in which the nation now finds itself.

You shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that other problems such as the war in Iraq, no health care for 45 million Americans, the outsourcing of jobs, the Katrina aftermath, or any one of the myriad of problems facing us has been solved. It is just a matter of prioritizing for the Republican dominated Congress. It is not unlike the Donald Rumsfeld approach to problems; go after what is easy and available instead of the difficult and true, re: going after Iraq rather than Osama bin Laden. Besides there are a lot of voters, er, fans who are clamoring for a solution.

Now while Congress is trying to tackle this problem people are still being killed in Iraq, dying in America for want of medical care, waving goodbye to their jobs, and are still homeless in New Orleans. But looking on the bright side if Congress gets to work we may have a true Division 1 Football Champion in a few years.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-08T11:16:00.000-05:00

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Or Whatever

Some people would kick on mother’s milk. That’s an old saying in my neck of the woods, the Blue Ridge Mountains, meaning some people are never satisfied or happy. In recent weeks a small but vocal segment of the Christian community has raised the concern that there are those in America who are trying to steal Christmas, grinches who would strike out at the very heart of our nation. They are doing this by banning manger scenes, prohibiting the singing of traditional Christmas carols, doing away with ‘Christmas‘ trees, enticing us to do ‘holiday’ shopping, and worst of all not greeting us with a “Merry Christmas” as we attempt to spend our hard earned cash. Could anything be more un-Godly or un-American, after all, that hard earned American cash plainly says, “In God we trust.”

The time we celebrate the birth of Christ for Christians has traditionally been the most wonderful time of the year. It is a time for honoring the life of Jesus and his teachings of loving and giving, though I have sometimes thought that he might be more pleased if we would make that a daily rather than seasonal happening. I believe Christ couldn’t care less how we greet each other whether, “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Hanukkah”, “Eid Mubarak”, “Happy Holidays”, "Happy Arbor Day” or any other greeting as long as it is given in love and respect.

Before we start complaining about the loss of Christmas and its traditions perhaps we should learn a little more about them. Christ’s birthday most likely was not December 25th. In fact there is no consensus among scholars as to time of year; some say spring, more say fall, and others say winter. There is a general consensus on why December 25th is celebrated. It is generally accepted that the Emperor Constantine chose the date to help consolidate his power. He had become the ruler of the Western Roman Empire in 312 and gradually took over the Eastern Roman Empire as well. Constantine became a Christian but the Empire had many pagan religions also. In an attempt to bring more unity, he and the Roman Catholic Church joined the celebration of Christ’s birth which was celebrated on various dates including December 25th to the pagan celebration of Sol Invictus, the return of the sun, celebrating the winter solstice.

I am sure that Christ loves any instance of giving, but I do wonder if he can be pleased with how modern corporate society has commercialized the celebration of his birth. I can’t help but think he would be more pleased if all the money spent on Christmas was used to feed the hungry, to give shelter to the homeless, and to provide medical help for the poor and indigent.

St. Francis of Assisi is given credit for the origins of the Christmas carol in 13th century Italy. The Christmas tree did not come into existence until the 16th century. Most agree that it had its origin in Germany around 1520, though the legend that Martin Luther began the tradition seems not to be true. And contrary to popular belief Christmas cards got their start in England in 1840, not Kansas City, Missouri.

There is no nefarious plot to steal or subvert Christmas, at least no more than has been going on for the past 100 years or so. To get upset over a greeting given in love or friendship is decidedly non-Christian. Why not sing Jewish songs of praise in December pageants? Christ was a Jew, I am sure he did. I appreciate a greeting of Happy Hanukkah or happy holidays I am not insulted by it, so in the same vein to one and all, Merry Christmas.

2005-12-07T11:44:00.000-05:00

The Epistemological Administration??
Rumsfeld’s SAIS Speech Continued

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld took some questions after his speech, ‘The Future of Iraq’, at SAIS Monday. One of the questioners opened with this statement, “You've become famous for or, shall I say, epistemological musings in the press.” No doubt he was being facetious for this Administration has been the least reflective and cerebral of all administrations and yes I include the Reagan Administration. A quest for and understanding of knowledge has never been a goal or tool of Bush the Lesser and company. In fact their concern is the opposite. They work with an Orwellian doublethink system
not in search of knowledge and truth but in search of the perfect duplicitous Rovian spin of reality.

One of the main Rove-Luntz tactics of doublethink is saying something often enough in hopes of dulling the senses and having people accept a proven lie as the truth. A perfect example of this is this statement by Rumsfeld Monday when he was asked about Iraq, “But we didn't go in there for oil. We're not going stay there for oil. We went in there for the reasons the president stated.” This begs the questions, Just where were those weapons of mass destruction? What were the ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda? What plans did Iraq have to threaten and attack America? What knowledge did we have to back up those wild assertions? Were we searching for the truth or trying to justify an agenda? Another questioner pointed this out when she said, “And there's a comment here, a discussion of the Defense Science Board, referred to as your own advisory think tank. And it says that, "The architects of the Iraq war lacked necessary knowledge of Iraq and its people and that they failed to factor in well-known lessons of history."” What were those reasons again?

As always Rumsfeld tried to pass responsibility for failure of the Administration’s knowledge and policy on to someone else, in this case Congress. To quote him, “no one asked Cheney in his confirmation hearings about Iraq. And no one asked me about Afghanistan. And yet, after September 11th, we were required to go halfway around the world to a landlocked country in a matter of days and weeks.”

He did let something important inadvertently slip about Afghanistan when he said, “I mean, in Afghanistan, the Soviets had -- I don't know -- 200,000 people in that country for year after year after year after year.” So the Soviets sent 200,000 troops into Afghanistan to support a friendly government and they lost. We sent all of 8800 to bring down an unfriendly government as well as to destroy al Qaeda. However we did send 160,000 into Iraq which had nothing to do with 9-11. It was so Reaganesque, just like in 1983 when he invaded the Caribbean nation of Granada two days after terrorists killed 241 Marines and American soldiers in Lebanon. On further reflection perhaps the gap between Reagan and the Lesser isn’t as great as I first thought.

Rumsfeld Transcript

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.

2005-12-06T10:39:00.000-05:00

Through The looking Glass
Into The Distorted World of Donald Rumsfeld

Yesterday Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave speech at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. That is I think it was yesterday. If we only go by what he said it could have been December 1991, January 1998, September 2001, or probably any day between December 1991 and December 2005 or even December 2020. The message is always the same; Iraq is a mortal threat to the United States. It intends to attack America and destroy ‘our’ way of life. Now that wasn’t true in December 1991, January 1998, or September 2001 and isn’t true today. Considering how badly the Bush Administration
is screwing up who knows if it will be true in 2020?

Here are some quotes from yesterday’s speech.

1. “If we do not succeed in our efforts… to defeat the terrorists in Iraq this is the kind of mayhem these terrorists emboldened by a victory will bring to our shores. Let there be no doubt.”

2. “Simply put, defeating the extremists’ aspirations in Iraq is essential in protecting the lives of the American people.”

3. If we allow al Zarquari and bin Laden to seize power Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic Caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East and would threaten the legitimate governments of Europe, Africa, and Asia. This is their plan.”

I have provided a video link for the SAIS speech and ensuing question and answer period. It lasts for just over an hour.

I have a few problems with Secretary Rumsfeld’s theories. Statement number one sounds a lot like the days of Vietnam when we had a choice of confronting the Godless Communists in Southeast Asia or on the California beaches. His understanding of Iraq is no better than his lack of understanding Vietnam. An even bigger problem is when and how did terrorists end up in Iraq?

Saddam Hussein was/is an evil vicious man. He’s a man to whom human life means nothing. To call him scum of the earth is to put scum in bad company. He supported terrorists during his entire reign of terror. However the scope of his activities changed after the first American-Iraqi War. He no longer was involved on an international scale as he was in the 1980’s. With one exception his terrorism became regional in nature. His regime has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President Bush in 1993 in Kuwait. Hussein gave financial support to Hamas and other Palestinian groups. He aided Iranian dissident groups like Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and the PKK a separatist group fighting the Turkish government. Iraq never again reestablished its prewar international terrorism.

This in no way is meant to lessen the horror and viciousness of the groups he supported. But it makes totally false the assertion that Iraq would participate in attacks against the United States. In fact he may have helped prevent them. After the first war he did provide sanctuary to some terrorists such as Abu Abbas of the 1985 Achille Lauro incident, Abdul Rahman Yasin, the 1993 bomber of the World trade Center, and mass murderers Abu Nidal, and Abu Ibrahim. However rather than give them funding and support they were placed under a house-like arrest and were not allowed to leave the country. But when Rumsfeld, Bush, and Cheney say we are now fighting terrorism in Iraq, they are correct. They planted the seed. They gave it life.

Never let it be said that I am not willing to compromise. So in that spirit let me say that quotation number 2 is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. America will not be safe until the war mongering extremists are defeated.
Granted there might need to be some discussion as to just who the extremists are and just what their agenda and aspirations are.

Rumsfeld as always tries to use the Administration trick of tying bin Laden to Iraq. It is now the only way to legitimize the invasion. There were no weapons of mass destruction. They tried to manufacture evidence but got caught at that. They have no options but to lie about bin Laden. Lying is not a second nature to Bush and crew, it is their only nature. America will not be any safer until they are gone.

Rumsfeld Part 2

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-12-04T09:25:00.000-05:00

The Last Exit To Baghdad
On The Highway To Hell

After reading “Victory In Iraq”, President Bush’s latest work of fiction, I am more convinced than ever that America is not going to be able to disentangle itself from the self created morass anytime soon. Not only do we not have a plan or some workable timetable to get out, we haven’t bothered to define one very important term, ‘get out’. Just what is meant by this?

From before day one of the invasion it has been the intent of the war planners to establish permanent military bases in Iraq. That has not changed. Rather than say we will eventually leave we say our position will evolve with the changing conditions. Nothing wrong with that in fact it makes sense in as far as it is tied to a withdrawal strategy. But ‘The Lesser’ carefully avoids saying this. He avoids it because he has no intention of doing so. Oil is the life’s blood of the modern world. The radical neocons have no intention of not having the American military in close proximity to its source. The neocons also want the added layer of American involvement in Israeli affairs. And the Bush family gets to protect the ruling al Saud family in Saudi Arabia. The Royal Family is terrified of the possibility of revolt and upheaval in the Kingdom. Resentment of America has forced us to withdraw our troops from Saudi Arabia, but this way they are just across the border. Knowing how catastrophic our invasion of Iraq has become some no doubt think we would never send troops into Saudi Arabia to fight. Those who think this have failed to understand the true radical agenda, the building and sustaining of an American Empire based on the preeminence of military power.

There will probably be three or four permanent bases
in Iraq, one in Kurdish territory, one in eastern and western Iraq, and probably one close to Baghdad. There will also be a continued build up of forces in Kuwait. These bases will all have large airfields to enable the quick and large deployment of troops. Though most likely these bases in Iraq will be self-sustaining with no contact with the Iraqi people it is most unlikely that they will engender peace and goodwill toward the United States.

The prospect of permanent bases was brought up last year by a small contingent of the media but has not been raised since. It is time for not only the media but also the Democrats and all of the American people to start asking tough questions.

Bush's Ghostwriter?

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-12-02T08:56:00.000-05:00

The Loyal Opposition
Teaching A Dead Dog An Old Trick

Over the past few weeks a faint but noticeable pulse has been detected from the heretofore dormant carcass of the Democratic Party. At first many thought it was only a hallucinatory flashback to the vibrant and turbulent times of the ‘60s. But closer examination does show signs of life emanating from the Democrats. It is a revival long time coming. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes it gives hope to a new life, a turning away from the divisive and destructive politics of the Republican Party and their ruling clique of the radical right.

This revival also gives rise to a conundrum. How is it to be sustained? The radical right did not seize power from mainstream America by preaching the worth of love and peace. They grabbed it with their gospel of hate and fear. Their political Bible taught the tactics of the repetitious use of lying, cheating, and stealing. They proved to be successful beyond the wildest dreams of even the most crazed reactionary. But if the Democrats resort to the use of the same evil ways then the new boss would be the same as the old boss, if indeed they did win.

Politicians almost always take the easiest way out. So the temptation will be great to simply copy the mean-spirited plan of the radical right. The Democrats must resist that at all costs. To do otherwise is to admit ‘we have met the enemy and he is us.’ However there are some things that should be taken from Rove, Atwater, and the evil ones. First everyone should read the following, Machiavelli’s, The Prince; Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War; and Clausewitz’, On War. These two treatises should also be read, 'Frank Luntz Republican Playbook' and David Horowitz’, ‘The Art of Political War’. These writings basically make up the true Bible of the radical right. The gist of their message is that all is fair in war, politics is war, and therefore all is fair in politics. It is nothing more than a philosophical rationalization to justify their lying, cheating, and deceiving their way to the usurpation of power.

These writings need to be read not to emulate the radical right’s despicable tactics but to understand their siege mentality and their ‘us against them’ attitude. An attitude that was best described by one of Karl Rove’s favorite writers, Vladimir Lenin, when he proclaimed, “In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.” Karl and the gang certainly took those words to heart.

There is one exception and those who have read many of my blogs are familiar with it, repetition. I use the terms extremists, reactionary, right-wing, far right, etc etc again and again. All opposition to the extreme right should make use of a vocabulary that accurately defines the far right-wing for what it is. So be repetitive. It is the repetition of truth, and while it may get to be boring it is not the repetition of lies.

All links give full text if you page down.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-12-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

Victory In Iraq
The ‘Lesser’ Definition

In yesterday’s most recent ‘Rovian doublethink’ 5600 word proclamation by George the Lesser, the first thing he addressed and called for was victory in Iraq. This would entail an “Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, and secure,” a noble but surely unattainable concept. It not only ignores the current situation in Iraq but also its history. Iraq was initially established after World War I to enhance and protect British oil interests. But that has completely changed. Iraq now exists to enhance and protect American oil interests. Surely everyone can see the difference.

Now other than substituting one imperialist for another, the situation in Iraq is remarkably unchanged. The national boundaries were drawn by the British in total disregard for the religious, cultural, and ethnic differences of the indigenous peoples there. After all, despite these serious problems there was the overriding glue, oil.That is still the one overriding concern. We need pay no attention to these minor conflicts between Sunni, Sh’ite, and Kurds. Even though they have existed for centuries the allure of western money and materialism will make them magically disappear, or so goes the current neocon theory. It is a theory conceived in avarice and pipe dreams.

The situation in Iraq under Saddam was horrible, in retrospect the only thing good we can say about it is that it was better than the current situation two and half years after the Bush invasion, high praise indeed. It is now apparent that it will take years for the Iraqis just to work their way back up to the deplorable conditions of Hussein. Bush not only is wrong he is lying when he calls for victory in Iraq. He knows there will be no victory for America. Sooner or later it will end the same way as Vietnam, we will declare victory and then come home. The only questions are when and how many Americans and Iraqis will be killed and wounded before we accept the inevitable.

This war has been in the planning stages for years. I use the word planning loosely for obviously there was no tactical thought given to the preparation and conduct of the war. There was no tactical or strategical thought given to a post Saddam era. Lesser and company have been flying by the seat of their pants. It is time for a new pilot.

Do not misunderstand me, oil and energy will be at the front of America’s problems for quite some time. They will get worse before they get better. The question our current situation poses is how are we going to deal with these problems? Are we to take the Bush and radical right‘s unilateral solution of aggressive preemptive strikes to protect and secure oil fields, or do we wish to work with the international community to achieve peace and prosperity for all?

A Plan ?

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

Karl Rove
A Cancer Within America

On March 21, 1973 John Dean spoke these words to the President of the United States, “We have a cancer--within, close to the Presidency.” It would be months before the American public would be made aware of the initial danger. It would be decades before we would finally learn that it had metastasized throughout the right-wing body politic. Fueled by hate and anger it would consume the heart of the Republican Party and place the very foundations of our democracy in mortal jeopardy.

For no longer is politics the art of compromise. Right-wing extremists have turned it into a take no prisoners, winner take all battle for power and wealth. They are attacking the very soul of the nation in the false name of God and patriotism. They invoke the name of Christ all the while ignoring the basic tenets of his teachings. They wrap themselves in flags as they call for the need of sacrifice, a sacrifice from others not themselves.

Karl Rove is at the center of the cancer.
He was there at the beginning. He and it have grown in a malicious symbiotic relationship over past three decades. At first he was just a foot soldier doing dirty tricks and sabotaging opposition campaigns. Now he is a commanding general doing dirty tricks and sabotaging opposition campaigns. Through him and others like him the art of politics has morphed into the science of skullduggery.

Rove is one of a handful of Americans whom history will judge as being truly detrimental to the cause of our democracy, men like Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Paul Weyrich, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, and to a lesser extent Lee Atwater, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, and Jack Abramoff.

The worst political carcinogen is money so I would be remiss not to mention some of the people who paid the foundation for the toxic cesspool that was to give rise to the radical right; Richard Scaife, John M. Olin, and Adolph Coors to name three. These and others like them financed the ascendancy of the anti-democratic forces born of the extreme right. Forces that if left unchecked will continue to polarize our society and eat away at the very roots of our liberty and freedom.

Karl Don't Let The Door Hit You On The way Out

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-28T13:40:00.000-05:00

What Was Not A Lie?
The Lesser’s Twisted Path

Has Bush the Lesser ever told the truth? In all my research I have found one possible instance. While running for President in 1999 he was asked about his use of illegal drugs. He answered, "I could have passed the background check on the standards applied on the most stringent conditions when my dad was President of the United States - a 15-year period." He has never clarified that statement, so we are left to ponder just how far back that 15 year period goes. Does it go back 15 years from 1999, from 1989 when his dad became President, or some time in between? Actually I have to include another statement he made, "I have not used illegal drugs since 1974." That means that I may have found two statements where he told the truth, since one does not necessarily preclude the other. But given his history we must at least seriously consider that he was lying at least once if not both times.

What brought this to mind was Frank Rich’s piece in yesterday’s New York Times, “Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt …” It dealt with The Lesser’s deceit from start to unending of the Iraq war. Rich asked the question,” What was not a lie?” This got me to thinking why should we limit the question to just one aspect of Bush’s life? The answer was simple we shouldn’t. He is the one who ran on restoring morals and ethics to government. He and his trainer, Karl Rove, have lied continually about everything in their rush to power. Now granted it is the nature of politicians to lie, but most try to tell the truth at least every blue moon, not so Bush. Whether its drugs, Iraq, corporate malfeasance, being compassionate, funding projects he pays only lip service to, etc etc, he lies about it all. But on the positive side we have never had such a consistent President.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-27T11:23:00.000-05:00

Fairy Tales and Horror Stories
A Long Day’s Journey Into Night

For over thirty years right-wing extremists have attacked the American psyche with fictional propaganda based on fear and hate. They have been enormously successful in their appeals to the basest instincts and reactions of human nature. They have succeeded in reducing our society to its lowest depths. They have failed to lead and inspire us to the higher of levels of human accomplishment that all peoples should strive for. This will be their legacy after the light of truth finally breaks free from the chains of lies and deceit forged by the likes of George Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, et al.

That day of liberation is now dawning. Their temple of delusion can no longer be supported by a quicksand foundation of untruths and falsehoods. It is collapsing before our very eyes. The one-time solidarity of the corrupt elite of the GOP is falling apart faster than a seeding dandelion in hurricane. The back-biting and infighting is reminiscent of the Tyrone family and its disintegration in Eugene O’Neill’s, 'Long Day’s Journey Into Night'. If it were not for the fact that this deterioration signified a triumph for truth and democracy it would be almost unbearable to watch.

It is only going to get worse (or better depending on your perspective) when Congress reconvenes after the first of the year. Battles for leadership will be fought in both houses. Each member up for reelection will be scrambling to put as much distance as possible between himself/herself and the zealots of the administration who have placed the country in such a precarious position. Upcoming legal proceedings and investigations will only add fuel to the flames.

As I have said before the extremists will react in the only way they know how, more of the same. They will tell more and bigger lies. They will become much more dangerous as they increase their dependence on instilling fear. They will fail if and I stress if, the people, the media, and the opposition party will stay the course of truth and not the course of destruction that Bush and company want us to follow.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-25T10:09:00.000-05:00

Justice In America
A Tale Of Two Nations

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” So says the narrator in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “The Rich Boy”. Nowhere is it more apparent than in the United States legal system. Notice I used the term legal as opposed to judicial. The reason for that is because judicial implies justice, and justice implies fairness and equal treatment under the law. If only those implications had some basis in reality. Alas, they do not. It has no basis in the laws passed by Congress and state legislatures any more than it does in criminal proceedings. But today I wish to talk about the court system.

Earlier this week Larry Ellison, CEO of the Oracle Corporation settled a civil suit to the tune of $122,000,000. The California suit originated because Oracle stockholders were trying to get back some $900 million Ellison made by selling Oracle stock just before a bad projected earnings report was made public in 2001. What a travesty of justice.

First why is the only action being taken against Ellison in civil court not criminal court (there is a federal civil action still pending)? The man stole close to a BILLION dollars!! Now there are those who might say he made his sale without knowledge of the soon to be released earnings report. There certainly is precedent for that, both President Bush the Lesser and Senate Majority Leader William Frist made similar sales, though not for such a large amount. And they too said they had no prior knowledge of bad reports, Bush with Harken Oil, Frist with HCA. When Bush the Lesser made his sale he was on the Board of Directors of Harken Oil. Oh, I almost forgot The Lesser was also on the Audit Committee of the Board. Among other things The Audit Committee is responsible for seeing that the company’s financial records and the dealings with the outside auditors are on the up and up. They would be privy to all reports before they were made public. One more thing that bastion of integrity, Arthur Anderson, was the outside auditor. Bill Frist’s connections to HCA were even closer, his father started the company.

Now some might say men like Ellison, Bush, Frist, Kenneth Lay, etc are smarter and more prescient than most people. Again that could be the case; a recent study showed that the sages in the U.S. Senate got a 12% higher return on their investments than the national average. Maybe they are smarter than you and me, or maybe they have access to information that we don’t. Of course some of the more unscrupulous might say that does make them smarter than you and me. And a problem for corporate officers is that if they truly were smarter and more prescient how did they allow their companies to get such an unprofitable situation in the first place?

But I digress, back to Mr. Ellison. Let’s say he has to cough up another $122 million in the federal suit, by my less smart calculations that still leaves a profit of $656, 000,000 for good ol Larry, without having to spend a day in the slammer. Now as strictly a thought experiment let’s say that 656,000 of us less smart people commit armed robbery at the local liquor store and steal a thousand dollars each. Lets then say that we are caught, tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison. That would increase our prison population by over 33%. My question is this, how can we justify, or legalize, not increasing the prison population by 0.000045 of 1% for someone who stole well over half a billion? You know those guys must really be smarter than you and me.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-24T06:42:00.000-05:00

Happy

Thanksgiving

2005-11-22T17:01:00.000-05:00

Luntzian Newspeak, Rovian Doublethink
Guiding Principles/Principals Of Right-Wing Extremists

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. So says the ruling oligarchy of Oceania in 1984. The repetitive use of false and meaningless phrases is one of the ways the elite Inner Party accumulates and maintains its power. It is also one of the ways the far right extemist supporters of George Bush maintain their power. How ironic or perhaps just foresightful that George Orwell would pick a year that would coincide exactly to the time that the radical right of America was building and expanding its power base.

The reactionary right actually began its purge to power about a decade earlier and would have a wait another decade for its subversive tactics to finally wear down the resistance of an aimless and drifting Democratic Party. Over the past decade the extremists have tightened their stranglehold on our now struggling democracy. Just in the past few weeks have signs of life begun to show in those whose responsibility it is to resist the forces of radical right repression. Only time will tell if these are true signs of revival or if they are just the final throes of a dying resistance.

The answer depends largely on what the American people do. Will we continue to be like Orwell’s unthinking Proles who are willing to accept any and all lies conjured up by the Party as long as they are clothed in Newspeak gibberish and patriotic inanities? Will we continue to fall prey to Rovian doublethink attacks on the truth? Or will we clear our hearts and minds and finally demand accountability from those who have sent our sons and daughters to fight and die in Iraq for a plan [1] for oil and power first formulated 13 years ago? Will we ask why we are not fighting Osama bin Laden instead of an Iraqi nation and people who had nothing to do with al Qaeda before George Bush sent troops into Iraq? Will we stand up and say America is a land of equal opportunity and not just a playground for rich and powerful elites to take what they want? Will we stand up and say we want the real definition of America, not the false manipulative one of Frank Luntz and Karl Rove?

[1] Roots Of Bush War

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-22T08:12:00.000-05:00

An Open Letter To George W. Bush

Understanding, Not Rewriting History

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-21T12:11:00.000-05:00

Clinton’s Call To Civility
Noble But Useless

For the past few weeks former President Clinton has been making speeches and calling for a drastic change in the nation’s political environment. He says we need a depolarization by becoming a kinder gentler America. His grasp of the obvious has been enhanced since he left office. I agree with him completely, kind of, too bad that he is wasting his breath.

There will be no reformation of our political wars until the right-wing extremists who have hijacked our nation are forced out of power. They grabbed power by turning mean and vicious. They have held it by becoming meaner and more vicious. Anti-democratic extremists like Karl Rove and Lee Atwater are the new masters of the political universe. America will not regain her democratic principles waiting on a change of heart from men and women whose political manifesto consists of teachings taken straight from Machiavelli’s, The Prince; Orwell’s Inner Party’s’ tools of newspeak and doublethink, and countless writings of Lenin. Power is their god of choice. Democracy for them was neither a forethought nor an afterthought.

To think they will change the tactics of lying, duplicity, and dirty tricks they started during the Nixon regime is to be delusional. They have defined and refined them for over thirty years. They have proven to be most successful and beneficial for the right-wing elite no matter how catastrophic to the rest of America. These usurpers of freedom will not relinquish the reigns of power. They will have to be pried from their cold politically dead fingers. We will not return to a more civil society until there is a regime change in Washington. Of course that in itself will be no guarantee but it is the only hope.

The politics of the right gave birth to our current turmoil. History has shown it is the politics of destruction. How ironic that the revolution of the reactionary right used the same tactics of Lenin and the extreme left. But then that would explain the fact that both upheavals gave rise to the repression and exploitation of the masses by the elite few.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-18T15:30:00.000-05:00

Variations On A Theme
Devolution Of The Media

Earlier today I wrote a piece on the evolution of the corporate media. Though I alluded to the fact I did not openly state that it is often more a process of devolution than evolution. Let me correct that now. The reason I feel compelled to set the matter the straight is that I read a column, “A lie for a just cause,” by Jonah Goldberg in the LA Times soon after I entered my blog. It is part of the right-wing extremists attempt to rewrite history in order to protect and defend George W. Bush. It is a piece of intellectual and historical drivel.

Mr. Goldberg starts by saying President Bush really didn’t lie about the reasons behind the Bush-Iraq War. Then he goes on to say that even if he did lie it doesn’t mean anything. After that he really gets convoluted and off-the-wall. He tries to make a comparison between Word War II and the Bush War. He says FDR lied us into WW II. He must have temporarily forgotten about Pearl Harbor but it does come to his mind shortly thereafter when he accuses FDR of provoking the attack by sending a single ship into Japanese waters on December 4th. In Mr. Goldberg’s defense it is quite probable that he does not know that Japanese plans for the attack were drawn up before November 5th. But then the Busheviks have never let the facts stand in the way of good yarn.

For a lie to seem credible it helps to a have smidgen of truth in it. This Mr. Goldberg supplies when he says “The Bush Doctrine is not chiefly about WMD and never was.” How true, it has always been about oil and money. But then he tries to slip the big lie in when he says, “Like FDR's vision, it balances democracy, security and morality.” I guess he decided to allow FDR back into his (Goldberg’s) good graces. He concludes his work of fiction by saying Mr. Bush will go down in history as a great president. All I can say is if history judges Bush to be a great president then the revisionists will have won and the world will not be a very nice place for most of those who are here.

This was Jonah’s first regular column for the Times. He is part of Jeff Johnson’s, the Times publisher, purge to turn the paper into another reactionary rag. He’s off to good start. A little history of Jonah, he is the son of Lucianne Goldberg, of Linda Tripp fame. She is the one who had Tripp tape the conversations with Monica Lewinsky. Long before that she was in the cadre of dirty tricksters employed by the far right to wreck the Democrat’s chances in the 1972 elections.

Jonah began his journalism career by doing commentary on the Lewinsky tapes and being in the forefront of the attacks on Bill Clinton. He says he originally wanted to be a fiction writer. I’m sure his mother is proud that he has reached that goal.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-18T10:45:00.000-05:00

Humpty Dumpty Had A Great Fall
The Corporatization Of An Icon

You can’t go home again said Thomas Wolfe a very good author from just down the road a piece in Asheville, North Carolina. In his book of the same name he tells about the changes that communities and individuals go through during their lives. One of his main illustrations is the evolution of Corporate America as exemplified by Wall Street and the banking institution during the 1920’s.

Evolution is a fact of natural and corporate life. There is no general timeframe. Just as it varies with species in the natural world so it does with species in the corporate world. But the process has certainly accelerated in the corporate world during the past thirty years. It is not a given that all evolution is for the better. No better example exists than that of the media.

It had seemed if not immune at least resilient to the cancerous incursions of unlimited and uncaring growth of corporate theology. For almost 200 years, up until the mid-seventies the press had stood firm in its belief in and defense of the First Amendment. No better example exists than that of Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and the Washington Post when they withstood a firestorm of attacks for their search for truth during the Watergate affair. It might be the media’s proudest moment.

That was then. We are all older now if not wiser. Men like Woodward were my heroes. They stood for all that was right with America. They showed that no man was above the law. Our nation had gone through more than a decade of upheaval trying to establish the equality of all men. Bob Woodward and those like him showed that maybe we really won.

That was then this is now, thirty years later. The press no longer stands for all that’s right with America. In fact in many ways it embodies all that’s wrong with America. The bottom line is no longer truth and justice, it is the dollar. The press evolved from fighting the good fight for what’s right to fighting for a good quarterly statement. Evolution is an ongoing process so it did not stop there. Now they are fighting for a higher daily stock price closing.

No better example exists of this than Bob Woodward. He has gone from a champion of truth to a champion of Corporate America. I am afraid this hurts me more than it does him. There are several lessons to be learned here. For me one is that we need to be aware than when we place someone on a pedestal they are not suddenly imbued with only perfect qualities they are, as always, only human. If they fail to live up to my expectations of perfection the fault lies with me not them.

For Bob, I hope he learns the importance of not giving up the idealism of our youth for the power and materialism of the corporate world. I hope he learns that we can not rest on the laurels of our past. When Humpty falls, “All the President’s Men” will not be able to put Humpty together again. But as any good newsman and writer like Thomas Wolfe knows no story is ever over, Bob can still correct his own.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

The Battle Is Join’d
Bush the Lesser Goes To War

It is now obvious that the Bush Administration used Friday the Eleventh of November, the day to commemorate the ending of one war, to start yet another, this one with his own people and country. Rather than admit the error of his ways and ask the American people to forgive him for lying about the Bush-Iraq War Mr. Bush did what Karl Rove, his General Tactician, always has him do. Deny the truth and accuse the opposition of being unpatriotic. It has been the standard GOP war plan for the past 30 years. In following this advice the President continues the fateful journey of his Presidency along the chaotic path of a King Lear.

The comparisons are painfully unavoidable. Karl Rove is the Fool. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are Bush’s Goneril and Regan. However, with all due apologies to Mr. Shakespeare there is one rewrite that is required. There is no Cordelia. Her part must be incorporated into a hybrid Lear/Narcissus protagonist.

Up to now the plot lines between fact and fiction have been practically indistinguishable. We have a leader clearly in love with himself at the expense of all others in his realm. He gets his advice from a fool who babbles and mutters in a form of double-speak. Not being up to the challenge of governing he gives his power and authority to two subordinates. They in turn in their frailty and weakness drive the country into chaos and despair with their greed and lust for power.

There is no happy ending to Lear. The best that can be said is that Lear does finally see how wrong he was and truly repents. But that can not stop his destruction or the destruction of his world. We have not yet reached the final act of our real life morality play. We may still be able to overcome the madness and put an end to the chaos and death before it consumes us all.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-16T14:29:00.000-05:00

The Dark Side
A Matter of Perspective?

The PBS show Nova aired a program, Newton’s Dark Secrets, about Sir Isaac Newton last night. It covered the standard biographical data such as he was the inventor/discoverer of the calculus, with all due apologies to Leibniz. It talked about his work with optics and his discovery that visible white light was not pure and homogenous as believed since Aristotle but that it was composed of light of the different colors which combined to give white light. It told of his work with telescopes, and of his confrontation with a falling apple which he said led to his theory of gravity. Of course it also included his three laws of motion.

Most people familiar with Newton are acquainted with his scientific life. But few are aware of his deep commitment to religion and alchemy. He was deeply religious and felt there was a fundamental unity to the universe. One of his primary reasons for writing his monumental work, Principia Mathematica, was to show that the laws of nature and science gave proof and evidence of God.

His work with alchemy was not for the standard desire of changing different minerals into gold but for understanding the unity of the world and to give him a better understanding of some of the inherent problems in his theories. Perhaps the most glaring was his concept of absolute time and space. Despite the fact that an absolute space and time were necessary for his theories of dynamics and motion, he never was completely reconciled to them. This intuition was later borne out by Albert Einstein in the early 20th century with his Theory of Relativity.

How strange, or perhaps not, that Newton one of the cornerstones of the Ages of Reason and Enlightenment was so deeply immersed in the metaphysical. How brilliant that he did not fall into the accepted dualism of reality that was not seriously scientifically challenged until the rise of quantum theory. Though he was doomed in his desire to prove God, for it is not provable, he held on to his belief that there was no separation between God and his creation.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-15T16:26:00.000-05:00

Evaluating The Great Uniter
Bush The Lesser Is Found Wanting

“I am a uniter, not a divider, “so said George W. Bush in an election day 2000 op-ed in USA Today.

Yet yesterday with a speech given at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska he was anything but. In a policy shift first evident in his Veteran’s Day speech last Friday, he continued to step to the fore front of his administration’s attack on the truthful origins of the Bush-Iraq War. While it is always encouraging to see a leader out in front of his troops we shouldn’t give Mr. Bush too much credit. Attrition and desertion have left him little choice. Most of the big guns of the Republican Party have been rendered useless because they are either under indictment or cast under suspicion of unethical and illegal behavior. And those who aren’t are jumping overboard like rats off a sinking ship. He can’t even unite his own party.

The President and his Ship of State are being battered by a tumultuous sea of discontent, a sea blown into frenzy by four and a half years of his lying and deceit that have caught up with him. He is standing on the poop deck staring into the past trying to right his ship by waving the flag and standing on the Bible. He fails to understand that using flag and Bible for props only works for so long. Sooner or later there have to be substantive connections to a leader’s use of symbols. When there are none the people not only lose faith in the leader but in the symbols as well. These are causes of disunity not unity. Will the Bush Presidency come to be known as the Age of Polarization?

Until Bush accepts the truth about his war his longing to be a uniter will remain only a pipe dream held by the delusional few. In his speech yesterday he mentioned 9-11 seven times. He condemned Osama bin Laden, the perpetrator of 9-11, just one time. He named al Qaeda four times but one of those doesn’t count because he tripped over his tongue and repeated himself once. However he accused Saddam Hussein ten times and even condemned the Democrats five times.

Here is the first of the two themes in his speech, “When our nation was attacked on September the 11th… We had to take a hard look at every threat to America after September the 11th, and when we did, one stood apart: Saddam Hussein.”

Here is the second, “Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war, but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people.”

On further reflection perhaps I have misunderestimated the President. If he keeps making inane misstatements and lies like the above, surely it won’t be long before the whole country unites against him.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

Liar Du Jour
Stephen Hadley

It’s getting to the point where you need a scorecard to keep track of the Bush Administration’s current purveyor of propaganda and disinformation. Mr. Bush rarely steps up to the plate himself; his Friday’s Veteran’s Day speech is a notable exception. The current unlucky pinch hitter is one Stephen J. Hadley, his reigning National Security Advisor. Mr. Hadley subbed for Scott McClellan at the last White House Press briefing. The reason for the substitution is that the Administration had to keep McClellan out of the line of fire after the uproar about his stating it was accurate that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby had leaked secret intelligence about Valerie Plame’s identity. The Administration then tried to rewrite history by saying Mr. McClellan actually said, “I don't think that's accurate.” Scott McClellan Unfortunately Mr. Hadley did not fare too well himself when the questioning got around to intelligence. As you can see his defense left much to be desired when questions arose.

Q Can I just do one follow on the intelligence? You said the prewar intelligence was clear. It was also wrong.
MR. HADLEY: Which clear?
Q You said the prewar intelligence was clear.
MR. HADLEY: Right.
Q It was also wrong, wasn't it?
MR. HADLEY: I said it was, I believe, a strong case -- a strong case was what I said in answer to the earlier question. And a lot of it --
Q You said the intelligence was clear.
MR. HADLEY: -- and a lot of it turned out to be wrong.
Q A lot of it turned out to be wrong.
MR. HADLEY: We know that.
Q Why -- I'm sorry, I didn't --
MR. HADLEY: Is there a follow-up? Can this be the last follow-up?
Q This will be the last follow-up.
MR. HADLEY: Good.

It is fair to ask why was Hadley there in the first place, not replacing the hiding Scott McClellan but in a position to substitute for Scott. The only feasible answer is President Bush’s penchant for promoting/rewarding lying and incompetence. You might remember that Hadley was promoted to National Security Advisor after his boss Condoleezza Rice was promoted to Secretary of State earlier this year.

How could a person who publicly admitted that he had ‘forgotten’ about two secret CIA memos that stated the Niger allegations about uranium were most likely false, be named National Security Advisor. It wasn’t like he forgot to take out the trash. He ‘forgot’ that Iraq really wasn’t trying to build nuclear weapons!! He first knew this in October, 2002 and he ‘forgot’ to mention it to his then boss, Ms Rice, before she wrote a New York Times op-ed titled, "Why We Know Iraq is Lying" on January 23, 2003. He forgot to mention it to the big boss, Mr. Bush, before his State of the Union speech on January 28, 2003. And finally Mr. Hadley still hadn’t remembered when he wrote his own op-ed for the Chicago Tribune on February 16, 2003. In fact Mr. Hadley did not remember until July 22, 2003 when the mass deception became public knowledge.

In his defense Mr. Hadley did try to resign for his ‘memory lapses’ but President Bush did not accept it. Obviously this kind of Michael Brown incompetence would need to be rewarded. It was in January 2005.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-12T12:08:00.000-05:00

I Stand Corrected
I was wrong

Yesterday I said there would be honor in President Bush’s Veterans Day message in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania but there would be none for the messenger. Well, I was wrong. There was no honor in the message. I honestly believed that Bush would not use a day set aside to honor the sacrifices of America’s veterans for his own selfish concerns. I was wrong. I thought he would not try to wash away his lies and deception with the blood of others. I was wrong. I did not believe that any President of the United States would stoop so low as to dishonor our men and women in the military. I was wrong. You see I forgot the Bush creed; no sacrifice is too great for others to make. I will not make that mistake again. To quote Mr. Bush, “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." Well put and well said Mr. President.

Not content with fighting an unjust war in Iraq under false pretenses, Mr. Bush yesterday extended the fight to the American people. In a shameful effort to hide the duplicity and illegitimacy of his administration’s reasons for war in Iraq President Bush declared a new war on truth and history. He did it with a standard Karl Rove tactic of projecting his own use of lies and dirty tricks onto his opponents. Karl may be down but he is not out, yet.

During his opening salvo Mr. Bush declared,” It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how the war began.” Now that is true when taken strictly in the context of the sentence itself. But the assumptions, that Bush and company told the truth initially, it implies are totally false. Like all good lies you must throw a little truth into the mix to make it more believable. Karl’s thought processes have always been wide and shallow not deep.

There is only one good thing that can be said about the Administration’s Iraq Policy. It has been totally consistent. They have lied every single time. The Bush-Iraq War was not a result of 9/11. It had been planned out years in advance before the Supreme Court’s appointment of Bush to the Presidency [1]. This certainly gives a new meaning to Bush’s statement yesterday when he said, “Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision.” The Bush agenda and vision has already sacrificed thousands of victims with no end in sight. His vision was a bomb in search of a fuse. He had to wait less than eight months for someone to strike a match. Only reluctantly did the Bush Administration go after Osama bin Laden the true perpetrator of the 9/11 attack. And considering their lack of success in bringing him to justice we can’t help but wonder if in their hearts and minds his capture was ever a high priority. Certainly the outlay of men and money against bin Laden as compared to that against Saddam Hussein gives pause.

In an attempt to manipulate the emotions of the American people Bush invoked the dead specter of Communism to rally support. He had this to say yesterday,” Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims. Its leaders pretend to be an aggrieved party, representing the powerless against imperial enemies. In truth, they have endless ambitions of imperial domination -- and they wish to make everyone powerless, except themselves.” I ask you, does that sound like al Qaeda or does it sound like the dogma and ideology of Bush and his legion of right-wing extremists?

In a desperate attempt to salvage his failing Presidency Bush threw down the gauntlet. This time he openly declared war on the truth. Mr. President I have but two things to say. Change it has to come. We won’t be fooled again.

[1] Roots of Bush's War

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-11T14:11:00.000-05:00

A Matter Of Honor
On the 11th Hour of the 11th day of the 11th Month

Four score and seven years ago today the Guns of August finally fell silent bringing an end to the war to end all wars. Were that it were so. For we are no closer today than we were those 87 years ago to ending war and bringing peace on earth. And now we find ourselves engaged in a debilitating and destructive war in Iraq. It is a war that has been in the planning for at least the past fourteen years [1]. It is a war brought about by the lying and deceit of the George W. Bush Administration. It is a war in which more than 2000 American soldiers have perished and over 16,000 have been wounded. It is The Bush War.

Today President Bush travels to Pennsylvania to pay tribute not only to those who have fallen and served in Iraq but to all those who have given their lives in service to America. The message will be covered in honor. The messenger will not.

How ironic that he traveled to Pennsylvania for this speech, the very state in which the greatest tribute ever, to those who sacrificed their lives in battle, was given [2]. For sacrifice to President Bush is not a personal matter, but something for someone else. He asks of others what he himself was unwilling to do. Not only was he unwilling to pay the sacrifice of fighting in a war, he lies about it. He has said several times he was willing to go to Vietnam but this document [3] bears witness to his lies. He can wrap himself in a 100 flags and 2000 deaths but for George Bush there is no honor.

[1] The Bush War
[2] Gettysburg Address
[3] Bush Refuses To Go
Overseas

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-10T12:06:00.000-05:00

Tuesday's Elections
A Proper Perspective

After analyzing election results Democrats are dancing in the streets as they proclaim the dawning of a new day in American politics. A new South is going to rise again. A recalcitrant West is finally beginning to see the light. A revitalized North is going to redouble its efforts in the fight for truth, justice, and the American way. Wow, it invigorates body and soul just thinking about it. It sounds wonderful. The problem is that it is the sound of nothing more than tired and worn out clichés. It is formless utterances without a base in substantive reality. But then Democrats have been detached from reality for some time.

The main thing Tuesday’s elections tell us is that the most important thing in any election is money. To quote Greg Palast, America is “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” Though I admit it sometimes seems as if we’re being short changed and ripped off. Regardless it portends bad news for the Democrats. Corporate America and the wealthy elites who are the real base of the GOP will pony up suitcases full of money to protect welfare subsidies and tax breaks that the Republicans have bestowed upon them for the past 5 years.

The God ‘problem’ will continue to haunt the Democrats. Tim Kaine was elected governor in Virginia because he confessed his faith. We will never know if he would have done so without being pushed into it by his opponent. Jerry Kilgore, the Republican nominee, might go down in history as being the candidate who ran the most inept and self-destructive campaign in any election. He did not lose because he called on George Bush for help, for that was a last second grasp for salvation. He lost because he deliberately threw away his faith and values ace card and left Kaine no choice except to pick it up. He ran the standard Karl Rove – Lee Atwater campaign of lies, slander, and deceit, which was to be expected. What was not expected was Kilgore’s attack on Kaine’s Christian faith. When Kilgore accused Kaine of being against the death penalty he left Kaine no alternative but to explain why, and the why was because of his Catholic faith. It was manna from Heaven.

Democrats should not expect such gifts from the GOP next year, for it won’t happen. As mean and dumb as they are Republicans have always been faster learners than Democrats, well at least for the past 40 years. The John Kerry ostrich method of confronting faith and values is a proven failure. With the gross corruption and pandering to the wealthy by Bush and his fellow Republicans the Democrats hold their fate in their own hands. Whether they are brave and smart enough to accept it will largely determine their success next November.

The Democrats' problems do not end with God and money. Science is working against them also. I do not mean the evolution - intelligent design controversy, for both science and religion deal with creation mystically and metaphorically. I mean something much more tangible, the building of rock solid impenetrable GOP Congressional districts. The Republicans hold a majority of governorships and state legislatures. Thus they have the power of the pen to use in their defense or should I say offense. They have used it quite inventively in many cases. They have drawn Congressional districts with shapes so bizarre that they make even the most elaborate mathematical fractal appear commonplace and mundane. Karl Rove and Tom Delay have become the Einstein and Turing of Bush World.

There is good news for the Democrats. Paradigms of thought come and go as their tenets fail and become unworkable. Given the condition of Bush World it is hard to believe that the Republican paradigm of greed and avarice can continue much longer. However the faithful of Bush World will not go gentle into that good night. Dying paradigms never do.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-09T12:07:00.000-05:00

Storming The Bastille
The Wretched Of the Earth

Paris is burning says David Ignatius in an op-ed piece in this morning’s Washington Post [1]. Sadly he is right. France is being engulfed by flames that have been steadily smoldering since the end of WW II and the end of French colonialism. He rightly says that the race issue in France has been a conflagration waiting to happen. He quotes James Baldwin as saying in the 1970s, “"someday it (racial tension) will explode." Right he was. However Baldwin never had his finger fully on the pulse of race relations in France. He knew they were not right but he was never able to translate his truly insightful knowledge of race relations in America to an understanding of the French situation. To complete that understanding it would be helpful to turn to Frantz Fanon [2], a French revolutionary in the ‘50s and early ‘60s.

Fanon was born on the French island of Martinique in the Caribbean. He came from a family background of African slaves and indentured servants. Even though he grew up under the burden of French colonialism he fought with the Free French Army during WW II and was a decorated hero. He went to school in France and became a psychiatrist. He began writing on race and colonialism in the early ‘50s. He supported a doctrine of violence in overthrowing colonialism and imperialism. He has been an influence on groups like the Baader-Meinhof Gang in the ‘60s and ‘70s to al Qaeda of today.

With the possible exception of Gandhi, Fanon’s understanding of race and colonialism is not to be surpassed. His call to violence is intolerable but for anyone with a desire to understand our chaotic world of today, his writings are essential.

[1] Why France Is Burning

[2] Frantz Fanon

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-08T15:17:00.000-05:00

Remedial Ethics 101
An Exercise In Futility

White House ethics classes began today and for the life of me I can’t understand it. Who could have thought this up and what were they thinking? Let me say that there are those who say ‘exercise in futility’ is the wrong epithet that I should say contradiction in terms when discussing the Bush White House and ethics. Perhaps they are correct for I have no evidence to the contrary. But let’s pretend that someone in the White House actually thought sending 3000 Administration employees to remedial ethics class was a good idea.

I repeat, what were they thinking? It is a clear cut admission that the Administration is totally corrupt and running out of control, so much so that the only way to correct it is to bring the problem to the attention of the nation and world. This is not a Karl Rove scheme, for while Karl is not the brightest bulb in the bin even he is not that stupid. Besides Karl’s modus operandi is not one of candor and forthrightness but instead one of lying and deceit.

Then to compound the problem after admitting how corrupt they are they want us to believe that they can repent. They expect us to accept that the real decision makers among the 3000 alpha males and females who have spent their entire political lives scratching and clawing for power are suddenly going to change their previously admitted corrupt ways now that they have reached the apex of the political universe. Hey stranger things have happened, Moses parted the Red Sea and Lazarus rose from the dead. But I have to admit that believing this administration can and will change stretches my faith beyond its limits.

To whoever thought up this course of action let me say, I do not think you are stupid I think you are naïve. I also think you are brave, courageous, and truthful. Unfortunately those are not traits conducive to a long live in the Bush Administration. Good luck, it is time to update your resume.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-08T08:34:00.000-05:00

Kilgore Steps Up Attacks on Kaine
He Lets Loose The L-word

On election eve in Virginia GOP candidate Jerry Kilgore finally fired his big guns against Democratic nominee Tim Kaine. Not satisfied with calling Kaine too compassionate while at the same time comparing him to Hitler, Jerry ran about a zillion TV commercials accusing Kaine of being a liberal. Obviously I was mistaken earlier when I said there were no depths to which the Kilgore campaign would not sink. For the past thirty years there has been nothing worse in American politics than being labeled a liberal. Even liberals acknowledge this for they are no longer liberals but progressives. Perhaps they forget the problems inherent in the concept of, ‘A rose by any other name,” as told to us by sages from William Shakespeare to Umberto Eco.

To be a liberal is to be worse than an axe murderer or child molester. Without doubt Jerry and the Virginia Republicans believe this for the GOP candidate for Attorney General, Robert McDonnell, has child molestation issues of his own. His one time campaign manager and chief aide is a convicted pedophile.

It remains to be seen if this media attack, I would use the term ‘blitzkrieg’ except it comes as no surprise, will be successful. But as I said before, if it is, shame on Virginia.

[1] Kilgore Part 1

2005-11-07T14:19:00.000-05:00

The Moral Equivalent Of War
Or The War We Should Be Fighting

Make no mistake about it the Iraq War, the Bush War, call it what you will as long as it doesn’t include “the War on Terror” is about markets and resources. It has nothing to do with terror or terrorism. The Bush Administration even admitted this last summer when it attempted to rename the war, perhaps anticipating the current firestorm over just why we are in Iraq.

The terrible thing is that we didn’t have to find ourselves in this destructive quagmire. We were given plenty of time and ample opportunity to avoid it. In April 1977 the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, gave a speech [1] to the nation detailing the dire peril in which we would soon find ourselves. He declared war on America’s addiction to oil. He listed proposals for reduced energy consumption and for new alternative energy sources. He acknowledged, “Many of these proposals will be unpopular. Some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices.”

We were not willing to make those sacrifices as a nation then, just as we are not willing today. Let there be no doubt that as long as American troops are fighting in Iraq we, the American People, do endorse the Bush Creed, ‘No sacrifice is too great for others to make.”

To date that sacrifice has been made with the lives and blood of almost 20,000 U.S. troops and even more Iraqi citizens. So for now we have no moral equivalency, we just have a war.

[1] Carter 1977

[2] Greenhouse

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-05T11:35:00.000-05:00

Longing For Old Virginia

I am a Virginian born and bred, well to be more precise I was born in Tennessee but that is only because the nearest hospital was in Tennessee. Let me repeat, I am a Virginian. Both my mother’s and father’s ancestors came to America in the 1600s. They were Virginians too. I love Virginia. When we studied Virginia History in school it was really United States history at least until 1865. We were the first Americans, well discounting the indigenous peoples and a handful of Spaniards. But we won the wars so we got to write the history. Those are the rules. Some of you who have seen my profile may be asking if I love Virginia so much, why I didn’t go to UVA (University of Virginia) instead of the University of Michigan. Suffice it to say that it was partly due to the Bible, Virginia’s revolutionary tradition, and the Port Huron Statement (1), amongst other things.

For the past few years Virginia has been considering changing the official state song, currently, “Carry Me Back to old Virginny.” The reason is that the lyrics are offensive to many people. The state set up a website where you could vote for a new song. I voted for “Longing For Old Virginia”. I voted for it for two reasons; one it is a love song, two it was written by A.P. Carter. Carter started the singing group The Carter Family which is known as "The First Family of Country Music." A.P. Carter is from my home county and I have walked and climbed his beloved Clinch Mountain many many times. It is visible from my back deck. I love it too.

What this is leading up to is that there is a gubernatorial race in Virginia this Tuesday. One of the candidates, Jerry Kilgore, is from my home county also. No, this isn’t to be a ringing endorsement. It is anything but. Though Jerry and I grew up in the same place we learned different values, we must have for his words and actions are not compatible with the Christian values I was taught. I am not saying that Jerry is not a Christian. I can not see in his heart only God can do that. What I am saying is that his words and actions are not reconcilable with the words and actions of Christ.

Jerry, a Republican, is running what has been the quintessential GOP campaign of the last 30 years. It follows the standard Karl Rove handbook. It is a mean-spirited campaign fueled by lies, dirty tricks, and hate. Kilgore’s campaign is being run by one of Rove’s more ‘talented’ protégées, Scott Howell. If you are not familiar with the name then you have been negligent in your civic responsibilities. In 2000 Scott helped derail John McCain’s primary campaign in South Carolina by starting several vicious lies and undermining McCain with various dirty tricks. Other dirty campaigns run by Howell include the Senatorial campaigns of John Thune of South Dakota, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, and Jim Talent of Missouri. But by far the worst, at least to me, was his despicable and traitorous treatment of Senator Max Cleland of Georgia. Howell ran ads comparing Cleland, a Vietnam hero, to Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and bin Laden. Howell did this in support of a cowardly Saxby Chambliss, a draft dodger in the 1960’s. Chambliss was then elected to the Senate, shame on Howell and the people of Georgia for falling for his lies.

Do not misunderstand me Chambliss is not a coward for not wanting to go to Vietnam. He is a coward for attacking the patriotism of a man who did go, a man who sacrificed an arm and both legs to that war. He is a coward for supporting the sending of troops to far off lands to fight in wars when he was unwilling to do that himself. Shame on Scott Howell for supporting such a man.

And now Scott is up to his old habits in Virginia. He has used one of his standard tricks, associating the opponent, Tim Kaine, with Hitler. There are no depths to which Howell and Kilgore are not willing to sink. They have attacked Kaine for his Christian belief in the sanctity of life. They attack him for his personal belief of being against the death penalty. For someone who has never seen the need to risk his own, Jerry sure seems to enjoy the taste of blood(2). Shame on Scott, shame on Jerry, and shame on Virginia if the new Governor is named Kilgore.

1 Port Huron Statement

2 "Hang em High" Jerry

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-04T10:37:00.000-05:00

Miracles Will Never Cease
Or is It Just Wishful Thinking

A story in yesterday’s New York Times gave my spirits a real boost. It was entitled, “Democrats Seek a Shift to Issues That Will Favor Them.” It should be blatantly obvious why I found this so refreshing. There are several reasons. First, it could signify that the Democrats have taken that first baby step in the long trek back to legitimacy and respectability (1). A corollary of this could be that the right wing extremists’ reign of terror could finally be coming to an end. Of course it is way too early to jump to such a conclusion. One step does not a journey make.

The Democrats call for a closed session of the Senate could be nothing more than a lucky step in the right direction as they continue to stumble and meander blindly. Also their recent history does not lend a great deal of confidence that their new found backbone is anything more than momentary. After all the beginning of the Democrats’ fall can be traced at least as far back to 1970 with future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell’s letter to the National Chamber of Commerce. Powell’s letter was in response to the anti-Corporate atmosphere that was being exhibited by the nation’s youth during the Vietnam War. In the letter he called for wealthy conservatives and the Corporate Class to start fighting back. He called for the right to start funding think tanks that would publish books and papers to promote the Corporate Agenda. It did not take long for reactionary right wing extremists to take up his suggestions in earnest. The Democrats have yet to recover. And they can not undo 35 years of work and planning overnight. It will be a long process. However a Democratic revolution like the one the GOP engineered 1994 could speed up the process immensely.

Yet another reason that the Times’ article gave me hope was the possibility that the Times itself was beginning a journey of its own, one back to discerning the truth and being able to grasp the obvious. These are two traits that have been missing from the Times for a while. The Times of 1970 is not the Times of 2005. They have been overtaken and consumed by the Corporate Attitude mentioned above. Perhaps the worst example of this is their use of eminent domain to take someone else’s property in order to expand their corporate headquarters. In their quest to expand their empire they have been somewhat less than diligent in their pursuit of truth. The Jayson Blair and Judith Miller fiascoes are perfect examples of their failure.

In their attempt to be fair the Times gave the GOP response to the Democrats’ actions. There certainly is nothing wrong with that. The first sentence to the GOP reply is,” While Republicans acknowledge that they are struggling at the moment, they reject the idea that Democrats can employ a national theme to win Congressional elections, particularly in House races.” They rightly quote House Speaker Dennis Hastert when he says the Democrats have no plan. Again nothing wrong with that, in fact it is true. But then would have been a perfect time to mention two other huge reasons why it will be difficult for the Democrats to gain control of the House. The first being the corporate payouts to men like the indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who then divert the money back into the political coffers of GOP Representatives like Tom DeLay. The second being the inventive redrawing of Congressional District lines again by men like Delay that has made gerrymandering a true art form.

So while I have hope for a revitalized Democratic Party and New York Times, it is undeniable that both have a distance to go before that becomes reality.

(1) Why I Am Not A Democrat
(2) Why I Am Not A Republican

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-03T09:36:00.000-05:00

The following is a satirical piece I wrote for a contest on another blog. link below

Their Rock is Not As Our Rock

“For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah,” Moses spoke those words in Deuteronomy when warning Israel of her enemies. He was warning Israel that they would be under constant attack from all sides. How right he was and his words are just as true today if not more so. Our great Christian nation is surrounded by the forces of evil. These forces are being led by Godless heathens whose sole desire is the destruction of our values and American way of life.

Praise the Lord that we have such God fearing leaders like George Bush and Dick Cheney to defend our freedom. They are all that stand between us and the damnation of the burning fires of Hell. We should all get on our knees and thank God that he has sent us such patriots in these perilous times. They have no fear and are constant defenders of the weak and poor of our society. They are men of great sacrifice and their love knows no limits. This is why Satan hates them so much. He hates their unending defense of family, flag, and all that’s right with the world. I tell you now that as long as we have men like George Bush as President and Dick Cheney as Vice-President America will stand tall in the eyes of the world. We will always be seen as the last bastion of truth and justice in a world being consumed by evil, evil that is being led the whores of Babylon and countless other disciples of the Devil. These whores are found everywhere even in the bowels of the very organizations of our government that are entrusted with our defense. A perfect example is that of Valerie Plame. She is no doubt in league with the Devil. Why else would she hatch a plot to send her Commie loving husband, Joseph Wilson, to Africa to undermine the life saving defenses being planned by our great leaders?

Now we find the liberal left wing extremists of the media trying to attack the Vice-President for his selfless outing of one of the whores. These liberals are enmeshed in a sinful life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Their concern is not with the defense of God’s favored nation but in their own hedonistic life styles. We must kill and destroy this satanic liberal cabal for they hate God, this nation, and all Christians. Yes my friends, “their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah."

Yours in love and peace

the blue blog

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-02T09:35:00.000-05:00

Fitzgerald Champ or Chump Redux

Monday I asked if Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was a ‘champ’ or a ‘chump’. I sorely hope that the answer is a champ. Today in his column (1) Pat Buchanan gave his answer, champ it is. Mr. Buchanan laid out his argument with his usual eloquence. But with his very first sentence he destroyed any credence his opinion might have. He opens with, “Unlike Archibald Cox and Lawrence Walsh, Patrick Fitzgerald is no posturing partisan who assumed he had been chosen by Divine Providence to take on a White House and bring down a president.” Therein lays the problem. There has only been one posturing partisan political hack, er, Special Prosecutor whose sole intent has been to bring down a president. That hack, man, is Kenneth Starr.

History has yet to decide whether Starr was just a small small man in search of a great stage or a hired gun by the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife and other right wing extremists in their destructive pursuit of the great white whale. Starr is the only Special Prosecutor to step outside the Constitution in an illegal quest to entrap a president. We must note that Mr. Cox and Mr. Walsh while remaining within the law both investigated other presidents who went about their jobs by trying to subvert the Constitution.

Mr. Buchanan’s failure to even mention Kenneth Starr much less express outrage at his tactics makes one wonder if Pat is indeed the true believer of conservatism and freedom that he claims to be or if he is just another posturing partisan. Another thing that gives me pause is his defense of Karl Rove. Pat says,” He (Fitzgerald) heeded a plea from Rove's attorney not to indict his client, who, after all, had told Fitzgerald the truth about other crucial conversations, but had forgotten the Cooper phone call.” Why does Pat say Rove told the truth? He never has in his entire political life. The one consistency he has exhibited is his compulsion to lie and deceive. Why would a conservative and believer in democracy defend Rove who is one of the main Republican extremists trying to tear down democracy by destroying the electoral process?

Buchanan goes on to praise Fitzgerald for conducting a limited investigation as dictated by law. Obviously Pat is not familiar with the law. He should read Title 28 Section 600.4 paragraphs (a) and (b) of the Code of Federal Regulations (2). This is the law under which Fitzgerald conducted his investigation. It plainly allows the Special Counsel to expand his original investigation by giving him authority to, “investigate new matters that come to light in the course of his or her investigation.”

About the only thing Pat got right in the column was when he placed blame on Congress for not doing its job. But then who controls both houses of Congress? If Bill Clinton were President under this same set of circumstances he would have been impeached and convicted a long time ago, and rightly so.

(1) Pat Buchanan
(2) Title 28 CFR
Fitzgerald

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-11-01T10:16:00.000-05:00

Gonzales Champ or Chump?

OK, I admit that is a rhetorical question. I ask it only to point out that the Attorney General has obligations under Title 28 Section 600.9 (1) of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) as well as the Special Counsel. The Attorney General is required to inform the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Judiciary Committees of each House of Congress when any Special Counsel investigation is concluded. So it would appear that Mr. Fitzgerald’s investigation will yet see the light of day. But, there’s always a but, in the very next paragraph Mr. Gonzales is absolved of all responsibility. “The notification requirement in paragraph (a) (1) of this section may be tolled by the Attorney General upon a finding that legitimate investigative or privacy concerns require confidentiality.” What greater concerns can there be than the political future of yourself and those responsible for your rise to glory. Please do not suggest an overriding concern for the good of the nation. The Bush Administration has ignored this concern for 5 years there is no reason to think they will start now. Perhaps Mr. Gonzales will prove me wrong. Perhaps the Cubs will win the World Series next year. Perhaps the end of the world will occur next month. Certainly the odds are much more in favor of the latter two.

Mr. Bush has already laid the ground work to insure that the Special Counsel’s report will never be made public. He did this on November 1, 2001 with Executive Order 13233(2). It says that no Presidential documents of an ex-President can be released without his/her approval. It goes on to state that the ex-President can set up family or a group to make these decisions after the death of the former president. The order allows for a series of designees to be appointed, so control could go on ad infinitum.

Mr. Bush probably issued the order originally to prevent the release of documents from the Reagan Administration that would prove to be embarrassing if not worse to his father, George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s Vice-President. E.O. 13233 undermined a provision of The Presidential Records Act of 1978 which allowed a twelve year only window for Presidential documents to be unavailable to the public after the President left office. So in 2001 the Reagan/Bush papers were available to the public,kind of. Reagan’s E.O. 12667 (3) had laid the groundwork for disemboweling the 1978 statute.

(1) Section 600.9
(2) EO 13233
(3) EO 12667
Fitzgerald Champ or Chump

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-31T17:04:00.000-05:00

Fitzgerald Champ Or Chump

Is Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald playing games with the Bush Administration or with the American people? His indictment of I. Lewis Libby on Friday gives us no clue. What will come next? If there are no more indictments, or Libby is allowed to plea bargain we can pretty much say that the fix is in and Libby was chosen as the sacrificial lamb. Mr. Fitzgerald has said he will not be issuing a report, but that is only partially true.

Under the old Special Prosecutor’s Law a formal report was required to be sent to Congress for each investigation. But both democrats and republicans had had enough of that and they allowed the law to expire in 1999. A provision for a Special Counsel was set up in Title 28 Section 600 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) when the law expired and a requirement for a report to Congress was included. However this mistake was soon realized and the code was amended in 2000. Now any Special Counsel is required by law (1) to issue a confidential report to the Attorney General. “At the conclusion of the Special Counsel's work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel. “ I think it is safe to say that is problematical whether Alberto Gonzales will release it to the public.

(1) Title 28 Section 600 CFR
Gonzales Champ or Chump

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-29T15:30:00.000-04:00

The Roots Of This War
The Creation of Bush World

Some of the deception and lies of the Bush Administration are finally beginning to come to light with the indictment of Scooter Libby. How far and how deep the light will reach remains to be seen. We can certainly hope that the true nature and reasons for the Bush Iraqi war will finally come into public view.

For over four years the Bush gang has tried to sell the American people a bill of false goods. They say we are in Iraq because of the attack on 9/11 and to fight terrorism. Neither of which is true. In rare moments of candor or more likely just momentary slips of the tongue Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have all admitted that were no weapons of mass destruction. Claims of pre-war Iraqi ties to al Qaeda were at best nothing more than the delusions of an administration already predisposed to invade Iraq. But again most likely, they were deliberate lies used to foster the Bush and neocon agenda of world dominance.

Just hours after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was calling for an attack on Saddam Hussein. The next day (9/12/01) President Bush told his intelligence groups to find an Iraq connection to the attacks. Paul Wolfowitz reiterated this message three days later at Camp David. Obviously the administration did not want the facts to stand in the way of a good hidden agenda.

This agenda is perhaps best defined by Richard Barnet in his book, Roots Of War. In it he says the Holy Grail of American defense and security managers is this, “The world will be rescued through American power and technique. Those who know how to use power and are not afraid to use it will save themselves and all humanity.” Welcome to Bush World.

We can trace the origins of this line of thinking back to 1950 with the top secret NSC-68(1) paper that dealt with the containment and defeat of Communism. But by 1992 Communism had collapsed and new enemies had to be found to sustain the vast ‘military-industrial complex’ that President Eisenhower had warned us about in his Farewell Address to the nation on January 17, 1961. Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz were just the men to find them, and so they did.

In 1991 then Defense Secretary Richard Cheney had his under secretary for policy, Paul Wolfowitz, draft a plan for the American military in the post cold war era. Completed in 1992 the forty-six page document was titled, “Defense Planning Guidance," (2) . The original document listed seven scenarios for potential problems, with Iraq being one of the main two. One solution called for a unilateral and preemptive strike by the United States. The election of Bill Clinton forced further official development of these plans to be put on hold.

However, being out of power did not stop the neocon extremists from continuing to work for the overthrow of Hussein. In 1996 they prepared a report calling for his overthrow. In 1997 they formed the Project for the New American Century (3). Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby, and Elliott Abrams were all charter members of the group. In January 1998 they sent a letter(4) to President Clinton calling for military action and the removal of Saddam.

On December 12, 2000 when the Supreme Court effectively appointed(5) George W. Bush President of the United States the neocons were assured of being able to implement their plans. All they needed was some way to finagle a plan that would justify it. On September 11th Osama bin Laden provided the excuse.

1 NSC-68
2 DPG
3 PNAC
4 Clinton Letter
5 Bush v Gore

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-27T17:50:00.000-04:00

The End Is Nigh

I have incontrovertible proof. There are those who say that the recent spate of wars, pestilence, floods, and earthquakes give proof that the world is nearing its end. But they are wrong. As terrible as those things have been human catastrophes have occurred for as long as there have been people. No, the proof I have is far more undeniable. The Red Sox and the White Sox have won back to back World Series.

The odds of that happening are far greater than the possibility of the sun rising in the west tomorrow or that Bill Frist really didn’t know that HCA stock was going to take a dive. No, we’re doomed. None of us are going to get out of here alive. So I suggest if there are things in your life that you need to set right now is the time, for there is no time like the present.

There is perhaps one argument, slight though it may be, for a different explanation. It is possible that some cosmic foot fetish is engulfing the universe. And as comforting as that might be to some there are those who would consider that to be a fate far worse than the end of the world.

If by some miracle we do survive and the Cubs win the World Series next year, all bets are off.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-27T11:09:00.000-04:00

Harriet Takes One for the Team
Is there joy in Mudville?

That noise you hear is a giant sigh of relief coming from the Oval Office. President Bush has convinced Harriet Miers to withdraw her name from consideration for appointment to the Supreme Court. A bad as it is for Mr. Bush that he took another body blow to his Presidency, it could and would have been much worse. MS Miers did not stand the snowball’s proverbial chance had the President insisted on a vote. She was going to drag Mr. Bush down. The only question was, how far?

That question will remain for some time. The President is wallowing in mud and it is only going to get deeper with the coming indictments against several senior members of the White House staff. It is not inconceivable that we will have to start referring to Vice-President Cheney as Spiro II. Mr. Bush probably already wishes his problems revolved around a zipper that could not stay up rather than the quagmire of deceit and corruption his Administration continues to sink into.

How will the President react with his next selection to the Court? Will he circle the wagons and let his shrinking base, now mainly consisting of the reactionary-right, dictate a candidate somewhat to the extreme right of Attila the Hun? If he does, he seriously risks alienating the vast moderate majority of the nation. Or will he choose a more centrist nominee, and thus risk losing the backing of the extreme right that has been the life’s blood of his entire political career? Happy hunting Mr. President.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-27T09:10:00.000-04:00

Try Try Again

Hats off to Congress, the House of Representatives has conceived an idea that is worthy of kudos. To be more precise revived is a better word. It isn’t a new idea; in fact it is quite old. It is that of second chances.

While their concept is indeed praiseworthy, the House’s application leaves much to be desired. In fact it is probably unconstitutional and definitely immoral. Secretly attached to the House version of the bill that updates the Patriot Act is a little codicil that allows the government extra chances to implement the death penalty. If after a guilty verdict in a trial that allows the death penalty the jury is not unanimous in prohibiting it, the new law would allow the government to convene another sentencing jury to try again. So even if the vote was 11-1 in favor of life in prison the prosecution could still try for the death penalty by empanelling a new jury in the sentencing aspect of the case.

Despite the fact that this particular way of implementing the idea is cruel and inhuman the concept of second chances should not be discarded. Off hand I can immediately think of one instance where it would be of great benefit to the nation. Congress should vote to put it in use for all Federal and Congressional elections. The way to do this would be to add the category (candidate) ‘None of the above’ for every Federal and Congressional office being contested. If ‘none of the above’ received more votes than any candidate then a new election with all new candidates would have to be held. If this law were already in place just think how much better off we would be today.

Now there are those who say that this would not guarantee a better set of candidates. I agree, but does anyone think that they could possibly be any worse.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-25T18:45:00.000-04:00

Why I Am Not A Democrat

First, almost to a man and woman the Democratic leadership is dumber than rocks, no offence to rocks. I use the term leadership loosely here and certainly not literally for there is no one out front of the Democrats. I don’t know if anyone aspiring to leadership in the party can spell it (leadership). I do know that no one can correctly define it. Some pundits liken the Democrats to a rudderless ship. But this is a poor analogy for it implies that there is solid cohesive body that only lacks direction. A much better one is to compare the ‘leadership’ to a gaseous cloud that has no solid substance or form and shifts with the prevailing winds.

This begs the question, why? How to put this delicately? There is a lack of intestinal fortitude amongst the ‘leadership’. In fact if you took them in toto you could not come up with one complete set of intestines. Not a single one would take a stand on whether the sun rose in the East without checking the latest poll or focus group. Give up on having one talk seriously about God, creation, and life. They might offend someone or worse appear to be intellectually weak, strange thinking for a party that claims devotion to freedom of speech and tolerance.

As to being intellectually weak I freely admit there is no scientific proof of God, despite the efforts of Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, et al. But there is also no scientific proof that there isn’t God. Coincidently Godel, Bell, and the quantum theorists show that even if you stand on the bedrock of the certainty of math and science you have one foot in quicksand. Science and religion hold many things in common, not the least of which is the idea of, seek and you shall find, be it through faith and prayer or theory and experiment.

To lead you must have and take positions on various matters. Here are some words of wisdom paraphrased from a great leader, “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time.”

Why I Am Not A Republican

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-25T16:00:00.000-04:00

Why I Am Not A Republican

First, almost to a man the GOP leadership is meaner than a junkyard dog. Unless you are willing to give them large caches of money, stand on their Bible, and wave their flag their only consideration is to rip you to shreds. This in itself seems to be counter productive for a party whose trickle down philosophy is based on unlimited consumption. I mean after all how can we keep consuming after they have chewed us up; spit us out; and left us lying by the side of the road. They continue on their ‘road to the good life’, but if they follow it to its natural conclusion it becomes the ‘highway to nowhere’.

Actually I’m all for standing on Bibles and waving flags. I have done that most of my life. But there is a problem. We read the same Bible so it must be a matter of interpretation. For my part I fail to see how loving God and my neighbor, or helping the poor and the weak, is exemplified by cutting education and health care. Is it Christian love to cut the wages of the poor while increasing tax breaks to the rich? The argument is that the rich will take this largesse and create more jobs and better wages for the rest of us. But who are they kidding, any jobs created are being shipped overseas and wages/benefits are being driven down if the jobs are allowed to remain. If a society wants to be moral and just then it must be judged on how it treats its weakest members.

I also believe in America and waving the flag. But there is a problem of definition. My America is a land of opportunity for all, a land of justice and fair play. It is a land of loving, giving, and sacrifice. The GOP and the Bush Administration pay lip service to all those things, but in deed they spawn a polarized nation based on winning at any and all cost. Bush world is a world of hate and taking. It does believe in sacrifice, in fact the Bush credo is,” No sacrifice is too great for others to make.”

Why I Am Not A Democrat

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-25T11:17:00.000-04:00

Tough Times For A Christian

Prelude: A definition of terms
Christian, anyone who believes in the life and teachings of Jesus and does their best to live their life in accordance with his two commandments of Matthew chapter 20, verses 37-40. For those of you unfamiliar with them this is the gist; love God with your total being and love your neighbor as yourself.
Neighbor: mankind in general, all individuals in particular.
God: Unfortunately I find myself at a loss for words. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy.

A non-definition of terms
Religious right is not synonymous with Christian. For some of the religious right any correlation between their lives and the above definition is coincidental and purely unintentional.

For anyone upset by any or all of the above, fear not, for I am not your judge. I do not know what is in your heart. However, each of us bears responsibility for judging actions, so I do.

My faith and belief is being sorely tested by the implosion of the current Bush Administration. I find it increasingly difficult not to feel absolutely giddy over America finally awakening from its slumber of the past 25 years. Of course there is nothing wrong with that. In fact it would be totally unchristian not to be ecstatic about a nation finally realizing that its values since the Reagan years have been co-opted by greed, gluttony, and avarice. No, the problem is that I find myself not only being unable to feel sorrow and pain for those individuals who are seeing their world collapse, but in some instances I am feeling pleasure and happiness in their situation. There is no degree of rationalization that could ever excuse that. Hate the sin not the sinner. I pray I do better.

But God has told us all along that we are human and not perfect. And he loves us anyway. There sure is a lesson in that.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-24T18:20:00.000-04:00

Karl, Don’t Let the Door Hit You On The Way Out

As the nation prepares to bid adieu to Karl Rove now would be a perfect time to reflect upon the condition of the democracy and electoral process, he has so ruthlessly attacked for the past thirty-five years. The picture is most distressing. Our nation is the most polarized it has been since the 1860’s. Dark clouds hover on the horizon where once there were clear skies. Feelings of anxiety and hopelessness pervade our society’s psyche. Feelings continually fed by the machinations of Rove and a cadre of fear mongers.

From the outset of his political career Rove has functioned with a ruthless single mindedness defined by hardness of heart. His modus operandi, Lying and Cheating, has been as effective in its results as it has been debilitating to our collective soul. So intimidating has he been that friend and foe alike have often mistaken the intensity of his meanness of spirit along with his breadth of trivia knowledge for the depth of intellect. The closest political analogy we could make to him would be Joe McCarthy.

Karl began his political career in earnest in 1970 while like so many other GOP ‘chickenhawks’, he was dodging the draft. He was enrolled at the University of Utah but spent most his time doing jobs for the College Republicans national organization. He was primarily involved in the 1970 Illinois state elections. It was there that he began to develop and hone the ‘dirty tricks’ that have come to define his work and life. He shortly thereafter expanded his education by working on the scandal laden 1972 Nixon presidential campaign. To Rove disrupting and stealing elections became as American as cherry pie.

Most of his life Karl has preferred to play Rasputin to someone else’s Nicholas/Alexandria. How ironic if his fall leads to the demise of the reactionary right-wing much as Rasputin’s helped fuel the demise of the Romanovs. The one exception was in 1973 when he ran for national president of the College Republicans. In that race he found an equally unscrupulous soul mate, Lee Atwater, who helped him steal the election. It was a lesson well learned by the unholy alliance. Atwater went on to become chairman of the Republican National Committee. Rove went on to become the conscience or the lack thereof for the 43rd President of the United States.

Karl failed to graduate from college but he did graduate ‘King of the Mountain’ for sleazy slime ball politics. There he has ruled with impunity until now. His arrogance finally overcame him. He thought he was above ethics and the law; he certainly is not the first. So we DO come to bury Caesar not to praise him. Karl, a bruised and battered America has but one thing to say to you, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.

2005-10-20T10:58:00.000-04:00

We make presidents crazy??

“We make presidents crazy.” So says Peggy Noonan in a WSJ.com Opinion Journal article today (10/20/05), titled “How Bush Can Save Bush.” In it she calls for the President to reach inside himself and save his presidency much as he did in 1986 when he overcame his addiction to alcohol. I join her in admiration of Mr. Bush for overcoming such a problem. However, I do not consider Mr. Bush or any other President to be or to have been crazy in the conventional sense of the word. Dumb, senile, incapacitated, ill-informed, paranoid, arrogant, uncaring, or mean-spirited in some combination could apply to most if not all Presidents but not crazy.

She also says, “he's made mistakes,” of judgment and philosophy and that it would not be hard to make a list. The lord knows that’s the truth. But to imply that some ‘we’ had something to do with it is just not right. To say we make anyone anything is to relieve that person of responsibility for his own life, something that both Mr. Bush and Ms Noonan claim to be sacrosanct. It would be an abdication of the core of their philosophy. And certainly not something a patrician like President Bush would find useful in combating Jim Hightower’s infamous declaration that he, Mr. Bush, was born on third base but believed he had hit a triple.

My biggest concern though is her implication that one incident in Mr. Bush’s life is more indicative of his courage and character than the rest of his life’s history. Other than her one example the whole of his life is a tale of being bailed out by some general, government official, millionaire family friend, Saudi prince, corrupt Congressman, or Machiavellian spinmeister. Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while.

2005-10-17T18:10:00.000-04:00

The Continuing Frist Saga

Like a bad penny that keeps turning up, HCA/Columbia and its ongoing scandals keeps rearing its ugly head and intruding into the affairs of Senator Bill Frist. The Congressional Quarterly and Washington Post reported that Senator Frist sold his stock in his family started and controlled HCA(Hospital Corporation of America) before a disappointing earnings report was released to the public. Sometime between June 13 and July I, Frist sold his stock in HCA which was being held in a blind trust. His wife’s and children’s stock was sold before July 8. On July 13 HCA announced that its quarterly earnings would not reach expected levels. The price of the stock fell to $49.90 after the announcement. It had reached a high of $58.22 on June 22.

The question immediately arises as to why Frist would make such a move that could deal a serious blow to his 2008 presidential ambitions. In light of the continual revelations of corporate scandals and insider trading, from Enron, World Com, Tyco, et al to Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky for the past 25 years it would seem to be quite an act of hubris.

Perhaps he thought he was only taking a page out President Bush’s playbook. After all Mr. Bush suffered no political problems after he did the exact same thing in 1990 when he sold Harken Oil stock before a bad earnings report was made public. Of course that was for mere pocket change, ‘only’ $850,000. The Frist sale is said to be worth many millions.

More likely is the fact that he has yet to suffer any consequences from the HCA/Columbia Medicare scandal. For those of you memory issues that is the biggest Medicare scandal in history. The company had to pay $1.7 billion in fines and reimbursements. That is billions with nine zeros. But then again no one had to serve any jail time. Good thing they were not in New Orleans, there’s a place that takes theft and looting seriously. Just ask Merlene Maten, the seventy-three old grandmother who was arrested and imprisoned over 2 weeks for allegedly stealing a sausage from a New Orleans deli after Hurricane Katrina.

Or maybe, the Senator is just counting on the voters’ history of short term memory and an even shorter attention span. If indeed this is the case, I believe he is in for a rude awakening. After 25 years of corporate domination, greed, and corruption I think the American people are ready to say enough. I know I am.

2005-10-17T16:20:00.000-04:00

“Hang ‘Em High” Jerry
Is Jerry Kilgore a Christian Conservative or just another right wing reactionary?

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Kilgore he is the GOP nominee for Governor of Virginia this year and like me he professes to be a Christian. However some recent pronouncements by him make me believe there is a contradiction in our individual understanding of Christian. He has come out as strong proponent of the death penalty. And try as I may I can find nothing in the life or words of Christ to justify such an opinion. It takes a convoluted deconstruction of the Gospels to even imagine such a thing much less say it.

Unfortunately this is not the only conflict Mr. Kilgore has with the teachings of Christ. He also is a strong supporter of President Bush’s social agenda which is not just indifferent to life outside the womb, but openly hostile to it unless of course you find yourself among the economic elite of America. Mr. Bush and Mr. Kilgore openly push welfare for the wealthy at the expense of medical care, education, and the overall standard of living for most Americans. They are both firm believers in and defenders of Social Darwinism and its credo of ‘survival of the fittest’.

While this is undeniably antithetical to Christian beliefs it is totally consistent with the Bush motto of life ‘No sacrifice is too great for others to make.’ Perhaps the best example of this is Mr. Bush’s and Mr. Kilgore’s passionate defense of war while avoiding placing themselves in harms way to defend their convictions and all the while calling for sacrifice. ‘Do as I say not as I do,’ or “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” we each not only get to, but have to, make that call ourselves.

2005-10-17T05:00:00.000-04:00

Treasongate Part 4
Iraq: 1968-1988

1968 Ba’ath Party regains control of Iraq. Saddam Hussein named Vice-President. He immediately begins consolidating power.

Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) formed. It immediately becomes the main decision making organ of Iraq.

1970 Iraqi Settlement with Kurds, their rebellion ends

1971 President Nixon takes the U.S. Dollar off the ‘gold standard’ beginning the free-floating currency exchange system.

Iran occupies Iraqi islands in the Persian Gulf

1972 Iraq begins nationalization of its oil industry

Iraq and Soviet Union sign friendship pact

1973 Iraqi troops occupy As Samitah, a border post in the northeast corner of Kuwait. The Arab League backs Kuwait and the Iraqis withdraw.

The fourth Arab-Israeli War, Yom Kippur, takes place

OPEC announces oil embargo against all nations that supported Israel. The price of oil quadruples.

1974 Kurds, with backing from Iran, start a new rebellion.

1975 Algiers Accord signed by Saddam and Shah of Iran It temporarily ends border disputes and brings the Kurdish rebellion to an end.

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia assassinated

Vietnam War ends, Saigon falls to North Vietnamese

1977 Anwar Sadat becomes first Arab leader to visit Israel

1978 Camp David Accords signed by Egypt and Israel

Shah of Iran faces increased internal opposition

1979 Shah overthrown in Iran, Islamic republic formed.

Militants occupy U.S. Embassy and take hostages

Saddam Hussein becomes Chairman of RCC and President of Iraq

Soviet Union invades Afghanistan

1980 Iraq-Iran War begins

U.S. begins funding Afghan Mujahedeen

Ronald Reagan elected President

1981 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat assassinated

Ronald Reagan signs Top-Secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17) authorizing U.S. support for Contra rebels in Nicaragua

1982 Congress bans further assistance to the Contras

U.S. Forces sent to Lebanon for second time

1983 U.S. Embassy bombed in Beirut, killing 63 people

October 23 Suicide bomber destroys marine barracks in Beirut, 241 marines are killed.

October 25 Geographically challenged Reagan orders invasion of Caribbean Island
nation of Grenada.

Donald Rumsfeld, Special Envoy to Reagan, goes to Iraq and meets with Saddam

1984 Marines pull out of Lebanon

Iran accuses Iraq of using chemical weapons in the war

Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad

Ronald Reagan issues Top secret National Security Decision Directive 139 stating U.S. determination "to avert an Iraqi collapse."

1985 In one of history’s biggest ‘flip-flops’ the Reagan Administration begins negotiations for arms sales to Iran

Reagan signs the secret “Arms for Hostages” finding

1986 Reagan Administration secretly uses money from arms sales to Iran to illegally fund Nicaraguan Contras

Arm sale story breaks in Lebanese Press

Attorney General Edwin Meese admitts that profits from weapons sales to Iran were illegally made available to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

1987 An Iraqi jet fighter attacks the Navy ship USS Stark while it is patrolling the Persian Gulf, 37 sailors are killed and 21 others are injured

The U.S. Congress issued its final report on 18 November 1987, which stated that the President bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides and his administration exhibited "secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law."

1988 Soviet Union withdraws from Afghanistan

Iran-Iraq war ends

George H.W. Bush elected President

Treasongate Part 1

2005-10-17T04:40:00.000-04:00

Treasongate Part 3
Iraq history 1945 to 1968

1945 Iraq is a founding member of the Arab League and joins the United Nations

Arab Ba'ath Party founded

1946 Britain announces its plan to end its Palestine mandate and to withdraw by May 1948

1948 British mandate ends May 14, State of Israel proclaimed.

May 15 First Arab Israeli War starts.

1949 Mao Zedong founds the Peoples Republic Of China

Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb

1951 Iranian Parliament votes to take power away from the Shah (Mohammed Reza Pahlavi) and votes Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh Prime Minister.

1953 Fearing Mossadegh’s reforms and national oil policy, the CIA and British engineer a coup that drives him from power. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi reassumes power.

1955 To counter Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s growing influence in the Arab world Iraq joins the Baghdad Pact along with the Britain, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan. The U.S. while actively invoved in the work of the pact, does not officially join.

1956 Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal

The Second Arab-Israeli War ensues

1957 President Eisenhower issues the Eisenhower Doctrine which said the U.S. would employ American forces to protect the independence and integrity of any nation in the Middle East

1958 Egypt and Syria come together to form the United Arab Republic (UAR)

July 14 General Abdul Karim Kassem and Iraqi military over throw King Faisal II. He and the crown prince are executed. Iraq is declared a Republic with Islam the state religion.

July 15 United States sends 70 ships including 2 aircraft carriers, 5800 marines, and 8500 Army troops to Lebanon to help ‘stablize’ the region

July 19 New Iraqi Republic signs a defence pact with the UAR

United States officially joins Baghdad Pact and begins to strengthen ties to Iraq

1959 Iraq withdraws from Baghdad Pact

Saddam Hussein begins work for the CIA. Assassination attempt on Karim Kassem fails

1960 Karim Kassem helps found OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)

CIA begins funding Kurdish rebels

1961 Kuwait gains independence. Once again Iraq plans to invade but they back down when Britain threatens to attack.

Kurds begin armed conflict with Iraqi government

1963 Karim Kassem assassinated by Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party. The party takes power for nine months then is kicked out by the military. Colonel Abdul Salam Arif takes power.

1964 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) founded

1966 Abdul Salam Arif killed in a helicopter crash

1967 Third Arab-Israeli War takes place, The Six Day War

1968 Yassir Arafat is elected chairman of PLO

The Ba’ath Party retakes power in Iraq, Saddam Hussein named Vice-President

Treasongate Part 4

Treasongate Part 1

2005-10-17T04:20:00.000-04:00

Treasongate: Part 2
20th Century Iraq – to Post WW II

1908 Oil discovered at Masjid-i Suleiman in western Persia (Iran)

1911 Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) founded to look for oil in Mesopotamia (Iraq)

1914 World War I begins

Britain captures Basra from Ottoman Empire

1916 Secret Sykes-Picot agreement signed by Britain, France, and Russia. It details the division of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) after the war. Northern Mesopotamia (Mosul) to go to France and southern Mesopotamia to Britain.

1917 Britain captures Baghdad

Britain issues the Balfour Declaration that calls for a national home for Jews in Palestine.

1918 WW I ends

Britain captures Mosul 2 weeks after Mudros Armistice signed by Turkey and Britain.

1919 Paris Peace Conference meets to dictate terms of peace and begins the awesome task of divvying up the spoils of war

Britain realizing the importance of oil and that possession is nine-tenths of the law reneges on the Sykes-Picot agreement and decides to keep all of
Mesopotamia.They offer France larger concessions in Syria. By virtue of their revolution, the Russians cut themselves out of the deal.

1920 New Trust Territory of Iraq formed as a British mandate. Boundaries are drawn for political-economic reasons rather than societal and cultural

Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds all riot for months. There are thousands of casualties.

1921 Britain set up Emir Faisel as King of Iraq with an Arab government under British mandate

1925 First Iraqi constitution implemented. It called for a constitutional monarchy, a parliamentary government, and a bicameral legislature.

1927 Oil discovered in Iraq

1928 United States, having been left out of the Mid-Eastern oil spoils demands new rules. The Red Line Agreement is drawn up. This gives American oil companies 23.75 percent interest in the TPC, which is renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company(IPC) in 1929.

Muslim Brotherhood started in Egypt

1929 Britain says its Iraq mandate will cease in 1932

1932 Iraq given Independence, but Britain establishes the precedent of maintaining military bases in Iraq.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia established with Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud king

1937 Saddām Hussein born

1938 Oil discovered in Saudi Arabia

1939 Iraq plans to invade British Kuwait but plan is cancelled when King Ghazi is killed in an automobile accident

WW II begins

1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor

1943 President Roosevelt declares Saudi Arabia and the Middle-East to be of vital importance to U.S. interests

First American military base in Saudi Arabia built at Dhahran. Coincidently Dhahran was the site of the largest oil field in the world.

Treasongate Part 1

Treasongate Part 3

2005-10-17T04:00:00.000-04:00

Treasongate: Part 1
A Brief (Western) History of Early Iraq

15 billion years ago, give or take a few billion, all the energy and matter in our known universe came into existence via the 'big bang'. Eons of violence and turbulence ensued.

4.5 billion years ago, give or take a few hundred million, the earth was formed. More eons of violence and upheaval followed.

3.8 billion years ago, give or take a hundred million or so, life appeared on earth. Billions of years of unending violence and change continue.

100,000 years ago, give or take a few tens of thousands, man came into being. Violence continues self consciousness and death became permanent fixtures of earth.

3500 BC give or take a century or so, man invents the plow most likely in Mesopotamia.

4 BC, give or take a couple of years, Jesus Christ is born.

570 AD Mohammed born

638 AD Muslims capture Jerusalem

1095 AD Pope Urban calls for first crusade

1452 AD Johannes Gutenberg reinvents movable type in the West

1453 AD Ottomans Defeat Byzantine Empire

1492 AD Moors defeated at Granada, Muslims kicked out of Western Europe

1535 AD Ottomans capture Baghdad

1650 AD Archbishop James Ussher calculates the creation of the universe to have been the evening before October 23, 4004 BC. For some unknown reason he could not be more precise.

1702 AD Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab founder of Wahhabism born

1859 AD Edwin Drake drills the first producing oil well, in Titusville, PA.

Treasongate Part 2