Al Qaeda Rising, Bush Spinning

Today may be Friday the 13th but, sadly, under the Bush 43rd Administration, every day feels like the world’s least fortunate day (that is, unless you’re a fatcat defense contractor, an energy company stockholder, or one of the hundreds of incompetent appointees of this president constantly rewarded for their grave failures). So I suppose it fits that we have been treated this week to the news not only that our Homeland Security czar decides terror levels based on his “gut” but that Al Qaeda has, after probably more than a trillion dollars (the Bushies hide so much) and countless lives have been expended “fighting” Osama bin Laden’s exclusive club, largely reconstituted itself to its “pre September 11th” strength.

Yet it’s not just al Qaeda here we need to worry about. Bush has made the world a far more scary and hate-filled place through his policies and pronouncements. There were, for instance, a number of Muslim-dominant countries that had “favorable” feelings toward the United States before Bush but almost none now.

While he’s spent more money than any other president EVER “reshaping” everything terror-wise, creating endlessly redundant agencies (for example, we have 4-5 people now who seem to be in charge of our wars, including our Commander in Cheat, Bush himself), removing civil liberties left and right as if the U.S. Constitution did not exist, restructuring spy agencies to make them “function better” only to have them work less well than ever before, what do we have?

We have NO greater homeland security than we had before. We are hated far more throughout the world than we have ever been before. We have done the almost impossible: made the Middle East far more dangerous and far less stable than it was before we went into Iraq.
But we also have a president who turned around and refuted his “intelligence experts” and his own gut-rumbling secretary of Homeland Security to claim al Qaeda isn’t restored AT THE SAME TIME Bush congratulated himself for keeping us so damned safe. This, the same man who, for his own political gain, quite obviously engineered the outing of a CIA operative directly involved in the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as political payback because the woman’s husband exposed one of Bush’s flood of lies related to Iraq in the buildup toward war.

And we’re supposed to thank him. Right. Let’s hope he holds his breath until he receives our gratitude.

The Latest Fed Privatization-To-Skirt-Civil-Protections Ploy

While the concept of outsourcing the work of government is hardly brand new with the Bush Administration, the Bushies have no less than a hundred-fold used what I can only see as appropriately called "the privatization ploy" not just to reward companies eager to subsidize the Republicans under Bush/Rove, but to deliberately and egregiously circumvent certain protections and liberties afforded not just by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, but by other federal charters.

Notable examples include former Defense Secretary (and he's not only still on their payroll at a much-inflated "contractor" rate, but maintains a major desk at the Pentagon) Rumsfeld's extremely lucrative privatization of the military to the likes of Blackwater, Bechtel (Rumsfeld's former hunting ground), Halliburton and others; bringing in contract interrogators and soldiers of fortune; IRS collections to private agencies that can do even worse things than the IRS, hiring data mining companies like ChoicePoint to improperly bounce voters (especially those of color), dig into our most private affairs (and those of people in other countries), et al. The list goes on ad nauseum, I'm afraid.

Now the Bushies are set to launch a NEW privatization ploy, according to ABC News: contract with companies to keep sophisticated and detailed records on all our communications via phone and Internet that federal laws prevent the government from keeping themselves. The feds can then use this info, regardless of whether there is any reason whatsoever to monitor us (as in, due cause), while completely circumventing the very laws put in place to protect us from domestic spying/eavesdropping.

When and where the hell does this end? [And yes, I think it can end, but we have to stand up and MAKE it STOP!] Clearly, the Bush Justice Department exists only to persecute citizens.

Springfield, VT Wins "The Simpsons" Honor

No, I cannot quite explain how Springfield, VT (Vermont being my "home" state) got chosen as the official Springfield as part of the upcoming The Simpsons movie premiere, nor do I want to.

However, I will ask this question,"Hey, Fox, did you see the size of the Springfield movie theater? You should be able to fit at least 24 people into the premiere!"

Or... "DOH!"

[Springfield is not in my neck of the woods. Thankfully, neither is Fox.]

Patriot Act Follies

Yet another thing US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has lied about; claiming there are no verified reports of abuses of the U.S. Patriot Act when he has them piling up.

Chertoff Gets Gas; America Foots "Security" Bill

So we went from Tom Ridge as secretary of Homeland Security spending billions to come up with a color-coded (and it was miscoded, actually) terror alert system that was held together with duct tape and chutzpah to Michael (Legion of Satan) Chertoff now putting us on alert because he has a "gut feeling" we're in for fresh terrorist attacks.

Yes, his gut feeling is that:

a) Bush wants to keep terrorizing the rest of the world and doesn't want to be told NO;
b) Bush wants to invade Iran now;
c) even rigged Republican-owned voting machines might not win the Repugs the 2008 presidential vote

Say Hello to...

Citizens for a Legitimate Government.

Imagine that! Almost like fair voting!

Just Say No To Dick (And What a Dick He Is, Too!)

Dick Cheney just isn't loved (quite) as much as he once was (and then, only by very scary people, including wife, Lynne). While he still tells us that his convicted-of-lying-and-obstruction-of-justice former Chief of Staff Scooter Libby is the most honest man he's ever known, the Senate is trying to cut off his funding since Dick claims he is answerable to no one.

Senator Dick Durbin, in the move to cut off such funding, should be very careful around Darth Cheney when he's carrying a gun. As Lynne can attest, "Duck, It's Dick!" Cheney often ejects his ammunition prematurely. [Insert Marine ditty about the difference between a rifle and gun here.]

Bitter Vitters, Fred Thompson "Mole" For Nixon, And Fibby Libby

Even George Orwell could not have imagined, much less felt it would make believable fiction, some of most recent headlines out of the Bush White House, their "moralist" (which always means, "you better live by my moral standards if you want to stay out of trouble, but hey, if I falter, I'll just claim God's forgiveness and keep on keeping on") far right, and their subversion of democracy.

Let's look at a handful, shall we?

*As The Times reported several days ago, Donald Rumsfeld as then Defense Secretary called off a strike against a supposed major meeting of Al Qaeda officials, including the purported #2 man to Osama bin Laden, the former pediatrician al Zawari; because it was just too dangerous for the Navy Seals and CIA operatives who would have attacked; uh... so it's better to keep tens of thousands of far less trained 18 year olds out fighting where the biggest terrorist is often a (perhaps all too justifiably pissed off) civilian?

* Turns out Fred Thompson, the bad actor and even worse politician, may have been a "mole" for Richard Nixon (the original Tricky Dick, although he was never as good at it as Dick Cheney has proven to be), carrying confidential information from the 1970s Watergate Commission to Dick Nixon's White House to help a lying leader avoid pitfalls; really makes you want to entrust Fred with the White House, eh?

* While the tighty righties scream that Bill Clinton's pardon of Mark Rich (who, I believe, gave a considerable amount of money to Republicans beyond the contributions of his ex-wife noted to Democrats) was MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more evil than George Bush's miraculous and quite probably illegal commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence in the PlameGate affair, none of them ever bothered to mention that Libby happened to have been Rich's lawyer and one of those lobbying Clinton for clemency; Libby has certainly been the benefactor of so many riches

* Senator David Vitters (R-Louse... er... Louisiana) who railed against Bill Clinton's immorality while screaming that marriage is too precious to waste on gays who just happens to have been a client of not just the infamous "DC Madam" but also other prostitutes during - and this is just toooooo precious - the same time period he was shaking his moralist finger at Clinton

The Horror in Iraq - The Huh? Factor At Home

Strangely, there was fairly little coverage over the long weekend of a single suicide bomb that took out no less than 104 people - and desperately injured hundreds of others - in the Diyala province of Iraq. What mention it did get blamed Iraq again for its troubles, as if the Bush invasion and occupation - a debacle that has now surpassed the evil of Saddam Hussein - has not created the entire four-plus-year nightmare there. (And, oh yeah, the media noted, too, parenthetically, we're seeing a huge surge in American soldier deaths in just the first week of July - happy Fourth! Yeesh.)

Instead, we heard about President Bush's birthday plans, how easy it was for Scooter Libby to fork over a quarter million dollar "nuisance" fee for obstruction of justice in the PlameGate affair (actually, much of the MSM barely questioned how Libby came to have so much in his coiffers, largely put there by Bushies), and how First Lady Laura says that creating hope in others is a wonderful thing. [Unfortunately, since we're under the oppressive, tyrannical rule of her husband, we wouldn't know one damned thing about inspiring hope.]

Our founding fathers - and mothers - would have their heads explode.