Donald Rumsfeld Needs to Read His Own Memos

Last week, he said he would refuse to call the "bad guys" in Iraq "insurgents" anymore because they didn't deserve the label and besides, they were almost all defeated now.

This week, he's calling them insurgents again.

Remember, kiddies: we go to war with the Defense Secretary we have rather than the Defense Secretary we want.

So How Long...

do you think Bush would hold up under torture?

I mean, a tough question makes him sweat a few gallons.

I also suspect anything harder than "Do you want a chili dog or beans or dinner?" is a tortuously difficult question for Little Lord Bushleroy.

Now They Eat Brent Scowcroft

Brent Scocroft, Bush I's Dick Cheney, is being pillaried because he's speaking up - and has been - about this administration's egregious behavior. Telling in his most recent missives are remarks indicating that he has known and respected Cheney for a very long time, but he does not know this Cheney.

I don't think anyone does, except perhaps Cheney's equally perverted, mean spirited, tyrannical wife... the only possible top to a Dick bottom.

So Cheney's put out the word now - widely used as a talking point - that ol Brent is senile.

What class!

Mind you, we've heard for sometime that Brent largely only speaks up when Bush I - who feels totally ignored by Sonny Boy to the point where he does love-nuts with Bill Clinton - thinks Bush II is fucking up beyond all comprehension.

I'm starting to like Brent a hell of a lot more now than I did during Bush I's term. But I can never forgive Bush I and Babs for turning Georgie Porgie loose upon the world. They knew better than anyone that Bush II was the world's grandest fuck-up short of Joey Buttafuocco (there's a stinky blast from a sordid past).

She's Really Back This Time...

and she's pissed.

'nuff said, eh?

Scooter "Crutches" Libby Still Has It?

And why?

Why would Scooter Libby, under indictment, still have the highest level of the nation's security clearance?

I mean, one of the big red flags AGAINST someone getting any level of security clearance has always been ANYTHING that might make you easily compromised - meaning that you have something hanging around in your current or past that someone else could threaten to disclose. One would think Scooter Baby - and ol Turd Blossom Karl Rove - would certainly fit that bill (a few thousand times over).

I'm Baaa-aaa-aaack

I'll spare you the long story about the projects from hell, disks sent to publishers that went missing, followed by an Internet worm that took my entire network out from early afternoon Wednesday until just a few hours ago, despite the fact that I've spent my entire holiday weekend on it (I seem to have skipped giving thanks on Thursday). I'm still trying to get Outlook Express to accept my message store and then triple disinfect every file that should have gotten to a publisher last week. It's another all nighter at Chateau Someone Else's Schadenfreude Ecstasy.

Ugh.

But it's nice to "see" you all again, and man, do I hope you had a better holiday and more reasons to give thanks. I also hope your turkey is history (the last of mine went into soup and sandwiches today).

Bushies Love Activisit Judges When They Are Theirs

Here:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A judge threw out a lawsuit Wednesday that sought to block the No Child Left Behind law, President Bush's signature education policy. The National Education Association said it would appeal.

The NEA and school districts in three states had argued that schools should not have to comply with requirements that were not paid for by the federal government.

Chief U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman, based in eastern Michigan, said, "Congress has appropriated significant funding" and has the power to require states to set educational standards in exchange for federal money.

The NEA, a union of 2.7 million members and often a political adversary of the administration, had filed the suit along with districts in Michigan, Vermont and Bush's home state of Texas, plus 10 NEA chapters in those states and Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah.

Bush's home state of Texas, where illiteracy, poverty, juvenile executions, and teen pregnancies lead the country (what a great standard), and which is arguably considered the worst state for education - bad before but a sharp falloff during the Bush years (governor and president).

Would You Hire This Man?

Ah, but the government did. Kept paying disgraced FEMA director Michael Brown even after the debacle of Katrina. And I have ZERO doubt he'll get lucrative government contracts from our Chief of Homeland Manipulated Insecurity.

Brown has set up his own emergency planning agency.

Imbecile.

Promise I'll Post Soon

Things are bizarre and getting more so.

But until I can, please feel free to discuss any of the following in Comments (and there's far more than I list, so have a shot):

• The Murtha Moment - the Congresswoman from Ohio, Ms. Schmitt, who has sullied the Iraqi war veteran she ran against as well as Murtha, should NOT walk down any dark allies in front of me any year soon
• How the GOP hijacked the Murtha statement to force a ridiculous vote on immediate pullout just to make sure no pullout happens
• Condi and Donny (Rumsfeld) running about saying they aren't Bob Woodward's Plamegate "Creep" Throat
• Reports that some of our "detainees" in our custody have been found dead with drill holes in their heads, hands, feet, and torso - American-made drills, we hear - while more about widespread abuse of apparently innocent people is coming out
• The Israeli vote that took Ariel Sharon out of the extremist right wing Likud party and may force early general elections (dumpster Sharon, please)
• Bush's extremely poor performance in Asia, especially China, where he went into "better" trade negotiations by ridiculing the Chinese in Japan
• The deepening Abramoff-DeLay scandal while Tommy "Bug Boy" runs about proudly proclaiming he still runs Washington single-handed
• Wolf Blitzer's embarrassing attempt to find his own testicles yesterday while interviewing Rumsfeld; Wolfie at least asked Rumsfeld tough questions three times before he gave up and let Rummy ask himself questions and then give the answers he chose
• The 147th report of al Zarqawi's death - don't worry; we'll resurrect him next time we want to blame him for something
• Howie Kurtz's even greater embarrassment on CNN yesterday while interviewing MoDo (Maureen Dowd) trying to turn Judith Miller's act of treason into a matter of "just a cat fight between girls"

There's a million topics to discuss before we all come down with Avian flu. ;)

Off Topic

A few folks have kindly inquired privately where else I write. In fact, my work pops up all over the place - for example, I used to write for a Los Angeles paper (although I've never been deeper into LA than LAX). A search at Amazon.com on "Kate J. Chase" shows you most recent book titles.

But some very recent stuff is found here:

How to Talk to and Support a Friend or Loved One Diagnosed with Cancer
How to Protect Your Home Office or Business Against Disasters
Parents: Don't Assume Software Keeps Your Kids Safe Online
Looking for a Job? Katrina-Ravaged Areas Need You
Come to Vermont to Leaf Peep or Ski But Stay for Good Food

John McCain: The Answer to Energy Worries is Nuclear Power

I happened to catch McCain on Letterman last night - although I generally ignore CBS these days since they bent over and spread it to the right wing on the whole Bush National Guard debacle where the lies still well outnumber any semblance of truth.

McCain insists the answer is nucular (his phrasing), that we just harbor unreasonable fears about it.

Well, here's my take on nuclear. Yes, it has much potential. The problem is that since the very beginning of our harnassing of it, we've done so blind. We have no good way to dispose of spent crap from nuclear energy (or weaponry), we have little protection for these plants that don't need to be attacked to cause problems (hello Three Mile Island!), and we still don't begin to understand its ramifications.

My partner, John, had a father who was, as a metallurgist, involved in a nuclear accident back in the '50s. A completely unnecessary accident that could have been prevented except that the company he worked for wanted results that could not be achieved safely. His boss ordered him to conduct an experiment that was guaranteed to blow up. It did.

That he survived at all was a miracle. But it cut his life much shorter. And, sadly, we're not much farther along in dealing with the ill effects of radiation as we were then. Quite honestly, I doubt we'll ever have a way to fully use nuclear power safely or a way to save people exposed to massive doses of it (a particularly gruesome death where those last 2-3-4 days put hell to shame).

Anyone recall Chernobyl? That site is still - about two decades later - so toxic and yet the sarcophagus literally built around it to contain it is disintegrating, land for miles and miles around it still a devastated wasteland, people still living with the horrible effects. That's how we deal with nuclear accidents; we hide them under a blanket and smile. Unfortunately, radiation permeates and penetrates through a LOT, including blankets.

So let John McCain move into a nuclear reactor and tell us how his cancer's doing a few months later. Then tell us nuclear power is the answer.

Anyone Watch the Bear Fights in the House of Reprehensibles on Friday?

If only they had directed some of that hot rhetoric up here to the great frigid north where it is highly unlikely we'll see the bare ground again until sometime in April (hint: crocuses are a May-June bloom up here as some indication of long the winters are).

Poll: So Who Leaked CIA Agent Valerie Plame's Identity to Bob Woodward?

Which Senior White House Official Told Bob Woodward About Valerie Plame if Not Scooter Libby?

Karl Rove Dick Cheney George Bush Other (Andrew Card, John Bolton, Stephen Hadley, Condi Rice)

To select multiple entries hold the Ctrl key (or the Apple key)

Free polls from Pollhost.com

Our "New" Great Security Plan

Build a huge fence between Mexico and the US.

Can you say, "No bid Halliburton contract with overages well into the billions"?

I just knew you could.

But all kidding - and there wasn't much, trust me - aside, when Israel did this it was a very BAD idea. In a VERY RARE expression of criticism by Bush of Ariel Sharon, our Commode in Chief said the wall was a very bad idea.

Ah, but we're good at telling other countries they can't do what we do ourselves. And as much as Bush said the Israeli wall was a bad idea, our tax dollars went to Israel to help pay for it.

This is like Bush's speech today in which he blew up at North Korea saying there was no discussion until N Korea gets rid of ALL its nuclear stuff. But America has more nukes than the entire rest of the world put together. Why aren't we getting rid of ours? Though exactly where we'd get rid of it is in question considering the half life of this crap is astronomical. But I'm sure Halliburton would be very willing to accept another multi-billion dollar no-bid contract to pretend to get rid of it safely while actually placing it in the Jersey Pine Barrens or as part of the "new and improved" levee system in New Orleans.

Having no scruples, no ethics, no humanity really clears the way for you to proceed exactly as you'd like - the rest of the country, world, and universe be damned.

I R Not Ded

Oops, sorry. I was using President Bush's "How I Learnt Real Good Uzing Phonetics While at Harveyard Doing My MBA (or Megalomaniac Bastard-eye-za-shun of A-thor-a-tee)" as my style guide.

His followup book was an even bigger bestseller, "Hooked on Cocaine and Comix".

Former Corp for Public Broadcasting Head Tomlinson Broke the Rules

This is a known, but investigators now agree that Ken Tomlinson spent his time as head of PBS by trying to make it a right-wing flag waving network.

Even After All That's Come Out About the Bushie Lies

Bush practically called anyone who questioned his decision a traitor today.

Talk about taking responsibility.

D is the Grade for the New Medicare Drug Plan, Part D

Even a PhD complains he can't begin to make hide nor hair of the "great" plan that will, no doubt, end up screwing seniors.

For Those Still Claiming the Bushies Lied

Heh.

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Marty McNett of Burlington (Letters, Wednesday) believes there is no proof that President Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so we should lay off claims that he did.

I refer McNett and anyone else who is laboring under that misconception to read "Iraq On The Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements On Iraq," prepared by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform -- Minority Staff Special Investigations Division, March 16, 2004.

This 36-page report goes into great detail about outright false and deceptive public statements by Bush (55 misleading statements), Vice President Dick Cheney (51), former Secretary of State Colin Powell (50), former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (29) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (52) on the subject. These 237 misleading statements were made in a variety of forums (53 interviews, 40 speeches, 26 news conferences and briefings, four written statements and articles and two appearances before Congress) beginning at least a year before the war began, and their frequency peaked at key decision-making points.

Here are a few excerpts: In October 2002, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research concluded in the National Intelligence Estimate that "the activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons."

Fewer Than 1 in 10 Americans Want a Congressman Willing to Play Ball With Bush

This USA Today/Gallup poll is the worst yet:

Fewer than one in 10 adults say they would prefer a congressional candidate who is a Republican and who agrees with Bush on most major issues, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday. Even among Republicans, seven of 10 are most likely to back a candidate who has at least some disagreements with the president.

Bush's job approval rating sank to a record low 37%. The poll finds growing criticism of the president, unease about the nation's direction and opposition to the Iraq war.

"All of this is a culmination: How we ended up going into Iraq, gasoline prices, the underlying economic jitters, the sense that the president is out of touch with what the average person wants," Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio says. "What good news have people heard?"