Most of America vs Bush

Republicans want us to believe they are representative of average Americans, whom they see as primarily white, middle-class, homophobic, protestant, and anti-intellectual. But who are we, really?

What is clearer and clearer is that "America" is made up of Gays, Lesbians, Latinos, Blacks, Asians, Liberals, leftists, socialists, freaks, outlaws, deadbeats, beats, artists, agnostics, athiests, and a host of those who don't quite fit the easy categories designed for them. The Bush administration can, in Dick Cheney's words, go fuck itself. It is out of touch and out of time. And WE will inherit the earth.

No wonder they are so frightened.

Bush vs Fiscal Responsibility

Charges of fraud in Iraq contracts
U.S. authority lost track of millions, auditor reports


For those who can't bring themselves to believe that we invaded Iraq so corrupt Bush associates could make lots of money, just consider this:

A comprehensive examination of the U.S.-led agency that oversaw the rebuilding of Iraq has triggered at least 27 criminal investigations and produced evidence of millions of dollars' worth of fraud, waste and abuse, according to a report by the Coalition Provisional Authority's inspector general.

The report also says that U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq failed to keep good track of nearly $1 billion in Iraqi money spent for reconstruction projects and can't produce records to show whether they got some services and products they paid for.

The CPA, for example, paid nearly $200,000 for 15 police trucks without confirming they were delivered, and auditors have not located them, the report said. Officials also didn't have records to justify the $24.7 million price tag for replacing the Iraqi currency, which used to carry Saddam Hussein's portrait, the report said.

The report is the most sweeping indication yet that some U.S. officials and private contractors repeatedly violated the law in the free-wheeling atmosphere that pervaded the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild the war- torn country.

Now let's consider the longterm implications of Paul Bremer's "decrees" that demand U. S. private company control of Iraqi oil and its profits for the foreseeable future. So we have insured the "freedom" of the Iraqi people - they are free to take our charity and obey our orders. How else can you interpret what we are doing there?

Tom Ridge vs Bush's America

Report: Ridge may resign after election

Without meaning to, Tom Ridge, our fearless leader of the Department of Homeland Security, has demonstrated clearly why George W. Bush needs to be retired. Ridge has announced that he is likely to resign from his government post after the upcoming election because he isn't making enough money to see to the education of his two teenage sons. Ridge makes $175,700. If he can't pay for college for his sons on that salary, how are ordinary Americans whose average incomes is MUCH less supposed to do it? Can there be a clearer picture than this of what the priorities of the Bush administration are? Of who they are really helping - and who they don't give a shit about?

Kerry vs Himself

A constant theme at the Democratic Convention is that John Kerry is a "fighter." But if this is true, why is the current Democratic Party platform so timid? Why were convention speakers warned to watch what they say? Why were protesters relegated to a caged "free speech zone"? Why has Kerry insisted on taking a position that is to the right of the majority of convention delegates on the issue of what to do about U.S. troops in Iraq, the Patriot Act, and the phoney "War on Terror"?

The only consistent theme of the convention was electing an alternative to Bush, and while I can't fault that as a priority, I would feel a lot better if I thought the Democratic ticket would actively fight for a progressive agenda. That I just don't see.

Biden vs Bush

Senator Joe Biden Shames Bush

At the Democratic Convention tonight Senator Joe Biden makes the ultimate putdown observation about the Bush administration - "In order to lead someone has to follow; no one is following."

Nuff said.

God Against Saddam

The Full Story Isn't it convenient that Saddam is now likely to drop dead before haveing to face a real tribunal? Is America a great country or what?

Poetry vs Bush

Adrienne Rich Smacks Our Dubious Leaders

SOB is reading a wonderful book by Adrienne Rich, What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. I REALLY needed a break from the flat, phoney BS that is presented on TV daily as the political reality in this country. This book helps to clarify what is wrong with the political process that is simply business as usual. This week's Democratic convention is an empty show. We wish it were not so, but it is.

Let's figure out a way to have a meaningful citizen centered process. What we have is not one.

Bush vs Mental Health

Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior


This is a story we won't see in the mainstream press but had better pay attention to:

President George W. Bush is taking powerful anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.

The prescription drugs, administered by Col. Richard J. Tubb, the White House physician, can impair the President’s mental faculties and decrease both his physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a crisis, administration aides admit privately.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” says one aide. “We can’t have him flying off the handle at the slightest provocation but we also need a President who is alert mentally.”

Personally, I think I prefer the idea of Dubya medicated against overreatcting in emotional situations.

The Dems Cop-out by Copying the Bushies

Behind Barbed Wire, A 'Free Speech' Corral


Everyone knows the political conventions are empty shows - scripted and managed beyond any hint of spontaneous life. But worse than the empty show inside the convention is the suppression of political expression outside. In what would be an extreme example of autocratic, undemocratic, and anticonstitutional behavior even if done in support of the Bush administration, the Democrats have allowed the city of Boston to literally imprison protestors in a small multiply walled cage called a "free speech zone." Out of sight of convention delegates and reporters, this cage - allowed to hold no more than one thousand persons at a time - is a direct affront to the ideas of freedom of speech and assembly.

In the most basic terms, when citizens who wish to speak out against those in power must assemble in a cage far from those they wish to address - there is no longer any freedom of speech or of assembly. If Kerry wanted to prove he was a real man worthy of our support, he would take himself - and the press that would follow - into the "free speech" zone and call attention to the reality of a world where ordinary people and their grievances are hidden. Of course he won't do that. It doesn't fit the script, the image that his handlers want to convey.

This is so like America at large. More and more politics is about image and totally divorced from the realities of people's lives. And if you try to complain the police will see to it that you either shut up or take your complaints to a cage where you can be watched by the goon squad and kept safely away from your betters.

Welcome to the new America.

Obama vs Bush

Barack Obama for America

The Democratic Keynote speaker stakes out a position for all Americans. As he says, "only in America" is his story really possible. You know as well as I do that the Republican party would never make a place for a "mixed race" mavrick who advocates help for the disadvantaged over the wealthy and endowed.

Teresa Heinz Kerry says "shove it" to the Repugs

Shove It

With nothing else to focus on, the national bottom line media today did everything it could to make a major scandal out of Teresa Heinz Kerry telling an obnoxious right wing reporter to "Shove it."

Sorry, that is not something to attack her for; it is something the majority of Americans would like to be able to say face to face to these assholes.

Such is life in our America.

Bush vs This Land

Watch the hilarious duet between fearless leader and his Democratic challenger, This Land Was Made for You and Me. You'll never see either of these guys the same way again.

Undecideds vs Bush

Undecided Voters Don't Think Much of Dubya


Given the likely importance of undecided voters in this year's presidential elections it can't make Republican's feel very comfortable to learn that their guy is not well regarded by the undecided crowd:

Voters who haven't firmly committed to a presidential candidate are in a sour mood.

They tend to be more disapproving of President Bush, have a gloomier view of the economy and be more likely to think the country is headed down the wrong track. The mood of these persuadable voters prompted one veteran Republican strategist to warn the Bush campaign that dramatic steps are needed to prevent them from bolting to Democrat John Kerry.

The Republicans are already planning "dramatic steps." Just last week they were considering what would be required to postpone the election. The week before they were giving the Pakistanis deadlines for capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and friends. The week before that they were rolling out the same felon scrub list strategy in Florida that Greg Palast revealed as one of their vote fraud tricks in the 2000 election. Who knows what next week has in store?

Clarke vs the 9/11 Commission

Former National Security Advisor Richard Clarke commenting on the recent 9/11 Commission report in today's New York Times Op-ed section is critical of the commissioners' failure to address responsibility, but is pretty clear about what he believes should have been said:

Among the obvious truths that were documented but unarticulated were the facts that the Bush administration did little on terrorism before 9/11, and that by invading Iraq the administration has left us less safe as a nation. (Fortunately, opinion polls show that the majority of Americans have already come to these conclusions on their own. )

What the commissioners did clearly state was that Iraq had no collaborative relationship with Al Qaeda and no hand in 9/11. They also disclosed that Iran provided support to Al Qaeda, including to some 9/11 hijackers. These two facts may cause many people to conclude that the Bush administration focused on the wrong country. They would be right to think that.

What is really hard to understand is the failure of this understanding to translate into more general outrage at Bush and his advisors. Conservative Republicans continue to make excuses for these people in what seems to be pervasive public psychosis - almost like some widespread version of the Stockholm Syndrome where those whose lives and future have been kidnapped come to identify with their captors and start to act against their own best interests. As one pundit put it, "For ordinary folks to vote for George Bush is like the chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."

John Kerry vs Democrats

Many years ago a very astute political observer summed up his reaction to a Democratic convention by telling me he was convinced the Democrats suffered from a "death wish." In the two decades following that judgment I have seen the view vindicated again and again. This year, with justifiable anger against a president that has misled, misdirected, and further impoverished most Americans, we would expect the Democrats to use that anger to promote their own candidates. But no, according to the New York Times, Dem (or should it be 'dim') presidential candidate John Kerry maintains that during the upcoming convention he wants to project only a positive tone:

Mr. Kerry seemed determined to tame, at least through the four days of the convention, the intense anti-Bush fervor in his party that has been a driving dynamic of this campaign. Mr. Kerry said that he did not want the convention to turn into a parade of attacks on the president, and that his campaign was seeking to minimize the anti-Bush oratory voiced by convention speakers.

I understand the importance of showing what one is for, but in the past the happy, happy convention face the Democrats tried to put on just came across as sappy and shallow. Face it, one of the reasons for the increased interest in this year's race is gut level hostility at the Bushies and a grass roots kind of push back against their policies that is almost a reflexive self defense response.

I ask, does anyone remember Republican functionaries warning about the need to tone down the overt anger and hostility directed at President Clinton? That anger has been a long term motivating force for conservative Republicans is obvious. Why should Democrat's deprive themselves of their best emotionally motivating issues just so they can come across as optimistic for the convention's phony photo ops?

Bush vs Injured Americans

In a truely stunning demonstration of where their real priorities lie, the Bush administration has launced a campaign against citizen's right to sue corporations. According to a story in today's New York Times:

The Bush administration has been going to court to block lawsuits by consumers who say they have been injured by prescription drugs and medical devices.
The administration contends that consumers cannot recover damages for such injuries if the products have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In court papers, the Justice Department acknowledges that this position reflects a "change in governmental policy," and it has persuaded some judges to accept its arguments, most recently scoring a victory in the federal appeals court in Philadelphia.
Allowing consumers to sue manufacturers would "undermine public health" and interfere with federal regulation of drugs and devices, by encouraging "lay judges and juries to second-guess" experts at the F.D.A., the government said in siding with the maker of a heart pump sued by the widow of a Pennsylvania man. Moreover, it said, if such lawsuits succeed, some good products may be removed from the market, depriving patients of beneficial treatments.

Thus we see that what is important for the Bush administration is maintaining the viability of the American medical industry, reqardless of the human cost of medical mistakes, fraud, and accident. Why this has only now become such a pressing priority is not stated. In fact, the tort system encourages better, not worse, regulation and enforcement of standards that promote public health. Without the ability to sue manufactures for harmful outcomes, what leverage would the public have to force government to pay attention to their needs - as opposed to the needs of business?

9/11 Commission Lays an Egg

9/11 panel report: 'We must act'
'We do not have the luxury of time,' says commission chairman

Can you believe it? After two years wasted in interviewing irrelevant persons and looking under rocks that are safely out of reach of any threatening situation, the 9/11 Commission concludes that there is general blame but no specific persons are at fault.

 

A room full of elementary school kids using only their own intelligence could have come up with the list of recommendations the commimssion produced. Saying we need a better "dialogue" with the Muslim world is a no brainer. But how do we do this? The report doesn't say. And listing all the things we need to do to prepare for the next attact is simply to repeat what was said immediately after 9/11 but wasn't done. We are three years away from that horrible situation and still talking about training and equiping "first responders." Let's all ignore the fact that the Bush administration has failed in its promise to fund this effort. 

 

And the real stupidity is the recommendation for an intelligence Czar to oversee the various intelligence agencies. Sure, just what we need - another level of management. As should be evident from the facts, many of the worker bees in lower levels of the FBI and CIA had a good idea of what was happpening but couldn't get their managers to pay attention and follow up. It was, after all, management that didn't think reports of Arabs learning to steer airplanes (but showing no interest in take off and landing) was a problem.  And consider, we have the monumentally idiotic agency, the Department of Homeland Security, because congress decided we needed to put many functions under a single management structure to better coordinate information and resources. What has been the result? Tom Ridge, ruler of the scary color of the week, has functioned as a lobbiest for duct tape and plastic sheeting but no one believes the "homeland" is any more secure.

Kerry Out Bushes Bush

Kerry wants zero-tolerance for gang violence

Not to be outdone by Bush, who made steroids a major focus of his last State of the Union address, Kerry proves he can be equally silly by making "gang violence" a major focus off his presidential campaign, proving once and for all that the Democrats have learned that idiotic, symbolic, wedge social issues that the federal government shouldn't even be involved in, are good politics.

Canada looks better and better.

Bush a Year Ago

This from SOB almost exactly a year ago:

Sunday, July 06, 2003
On Running the Country Like A Business

Dubyah likes to act as though he is a man of great business savy, and as the only CEO, MBA President he is the perfect example to use to evaluate the oft repeated mantra that the country should be run more like a business (Enron?). The Likely Story has a good overview of the misconception that Republicans are good for business and Democrats are bad, and that therefore Repubs would be better for the economy. This common sense view, however, is simply not true and has been widely debunked. But the actual facts are so striking that they bear repeating. An overview of the average GDP during all 20th century president's administrations since WWII is striking:

Average Annual Real GDP Growth
-----------------------------------
Johnson:……5.08
Kennedy:……4.60
Truman:……3.88
Clinton:…… 3.70
Reagan:……3.36
Carter:…… 3.28
Eisenhower:……2.96
Nixon/Ford:……2.79
GHW Bush:…… 1.95
GW Bush :……1.35

Average for Democratic Presidents: 4.03%
Average for Republican Presidents: 2.78%

Given the present state of the economy wouldn't you think that savy businessmen would recongize that the future of their business is in jeopardy as long as the current Bush policies are in place? Business can't long survive without customers and with unemployment at 6.4% and growing, and the tax burden on average citizens increasing as State and local governments have to find additional sources of revenue to make up for the federal tax breaks for the super rich, the prospects for a real economic recovery seem dim.

Come on, think about it - 1.35 %. This is pitifull! The worst performance of any president in 60 years. The country simply can't afford it. Things were better during Carter's administration - and I well remember how bad they were then. We have to get rid of this guy. As Howard Dean says, "The Republicans are terrible with the economy." It's time to make this truth clear to everyone. We have to take our country back from the Kleptocracy soon or there will be no country left to salvage.

Bush Supports Terrorists and Undermines Our Security

Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror


SOB has just finished "Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror," a book written by a top intelligence agency figure and published under the name "Anonymous" (at the insistence of the CIA). It is a hard book and gives the reader no hope of any easy solution to the many problems we face in the middle east. Consider, 'Anonymous' makes the obvious point that our policies create problems, cause people to hate us, and generate opposition. Thus, it is clear that the President is lying when he says that "the terrorists" hate us for our freedoms. No, they hate us for our policies. This has been so clear for so long. Bush's elementary school explanation for why we were attacked is totally silly. 9/11 was blowback for decades of bad policy in the middle east. We need to own up to responsibility for this. If we are going to destabilize a country's currency and political atmosphere, we can hardly be surprised when citizens of that country push back at us for our interference.

People can only whine "Why do they hate us?" if they have not been paying attention. They hate us because we have treated them as if they are idiots who have no understanding of their situation. Alas, they are more aware than most American citizens are of how the world works - and of whose interests are likely to be supported. And of who pays the price for America's profit.

Bush and Friends Outfoxed by MoveOn.org

Unfair and Unbalanced

Yesterday the SOB household hosted an Outfoxed party where a number of frustrated citizens gathered to view the new documentary, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," a new documentary by filmmaker Robert Greenwald. The group represented Americans of multiple generations, from college students to retirees, and the film was greeted with enthusiasm. Many of us have long since quit ever watching FOX for the very reasons highlighted in this film, and it was very entertaining to see this partisan and biased media outlet cut down to size.

Props to MoveOn.org and Common Cause for their support of his effort. Citizens with half a brain have much more power than they realize. Let's continue to pay attention and cry foul whenever FOX (or any of the cowardly networks) fall into the trap of being simple propaganda outlets.

Thanks to all who attended. Let's do it again.

Bush vs Financial openness in Iraq

U.S. keeps Halliburton data from U.N. auditors


Remember how often our faux president claimed that Iraqi oil was for the Iraqi people? If he really beleved that then why is the Bush administration preventing an honest audit of what has been done with Iraq's oil during the first year of the liberation-occupation?

The Bush administration is withholding information from U.N.-sanctioned auditors examining more than $1 billion in contracts awarded to Halliburton and other companies in Iraq without competitive bidding, the head of an international auditing panel said Thursday.

Jean-Pierre Halbwachs, the chairman of the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, said that the United States has repeatedly rebuffed his requests since March to turn over internal audits, including one that covered three contracts valued at $1.4 billion that were awarded to Halliburton, a Texas-based oil services firm. It has also failed to produce a list of other companies that have obtained contracts without having to compete.

And why would the Bushites block such an inquiry? What might they have to hide?

The dispute comes as the board released an initial audit by the accounting firm KPMG Thursday that sharply criticized the U.S.-led coalition's management of billions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenue.

We are assured over and over by otherwise sophisticated and intelligent people who should know better that oil had nothing to do with Bush's invasion of Iraq. Please! If Iraq were not sitting on top of the second largest reserve of petroleum in the world we would not be spending billions of dollars a week to be there. As it is, those billions are likely to have been spent by the Bushies in a vain effort at securing for themselves that which they cannot have. Instead, they will be seen by future generations as blind - if not evil - men who squandered their chance and their nation's treasure on a desperate gamble with dice that were loaded against them. They conned themselves and the country. With any justice, the upcoming election will see them trounced by their own poor judgment. Remember Bush's words that end Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" - "...won't be fooled again."

Let's hope.

Bush vs Iran

Regime change in Iran now in Bush’s sights

The Bush regime, always masters of bait and switch and other misdirection tactics, are responding to all the bad news about Iraq by trying to divert attention to Iran:

PRESIDENT George Bush has promised that if re-elected in November he will make regime change in Iran his new target.
Bush named Iran as part of the Axis of Evil along with North Korea and Iraq almost three years ago. A US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that military action would not be overt in changing Iran, but rather that the US would work to stir revolts in the country and hope to topple the current conservative religious leadership.

The official said: “If George Bush is re-elected there will be much more intervention in the internal affairs of Iran.”

In another sign that the administration's overt foreign policy focus is shifting, the soon to be released September 11 report will suggest that Iran, not Iraq, was engaged in helping al Qaeda:

Iran gave free passage to up to 10 of the September 11 hijackers just months before the 2001 attacks and offered to co-operate with al-Qa'eda against the US, an American report will say this week.

The all-party report by the 9/11 Commission, set up by Congress in 2002, will state that Iran, not Iraq, fostered relations with the al-Qa'eda network in the years leading up to the world's most devastating terrorist attack.

I can hear it now - "OK, so Iraq was an honest mistake, but we have it right this time. Iran is a threat to us and our allies, we need to attack to insure that they don't attack us first."

We know that FOX News would go along with this, but how long will the average American be willing to have both the current news and immediate history subject to such revisions and twists? Is anyone paying attention?

Bush Supporters vs Democracy

Unpopular juntas never like UN observers

Tom Tomorrow reminds us to fasten our seatbelts before the upcoming presidential election because it is going to be a very bumpy ride. As a preview example of Bush 'democracy' in action:

Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-FL) represents 600,000 Americans in the Duval County/Jacksonville area.

During the 2000 election, 27,000 ballots went ptooey from faulty machines, just in Rep. Brown's district alone. The chicanery that followed is a part of the public record.

And you can guess the relative skin shades of the folks whose votes a) were not for the governor's brother, and b) didn't count.

Yesterday, the Congresswoman was censured by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

Why? For speaking the obvious out loud, without fear or hesitation, that's why:

"I come from Florida, where you [the GOP leadership] and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said get over it. No we're not going to get over it and we want verification from the world."
The backstory: about a dozen members of Congress, including several leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, recently called for UN observers to verify American elections, given the hanky-panky we all know is coming.

The ruling junta, displaying their usual integrity, promptly produced a bill forbidding any such thing, shouted the Congresswoman down when she wouldn't just Go Fuck Herself™, censured her, and then had her comments stricken from the Congressional Record.

Nice "democracy" we got here.

Citizens vs Bush

NY Times Ad for Impeachment

View this advertisement in the New York Times recommending the impeachment of George W. Bush. The ad demands the impeachment of the president for a variety of good and serious reasons, none having to do with lying about sex.

Our Man in Baghdad

Allawi Accused of Murdering Prisoners

This from Juan Cole:

eyewitnesses are saying Iyad Allawi personally executed several prisoners in late June just before the Americans turned the country over to him. Of the eyewitnesses, he says:

They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs. They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death" . . . Iraq's Interior Minister, Falah al-Naqib, is said to have looked on and congratulated him when the job was done. Mr al-Naqib's office has issued a verbal denial.

Allawi was once a Baathist hit man in London who fell out with Saddam and then directed terrorist operations against Baghdad. Some reports suggest that one of his operations once resulted in the bombing of a schoolbus in which school children died.

How worse can it get? Well, how about this from Seymor Hersh, the reporter who first reported the Abu Ghraib prison scandal:

The US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison. "The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."

Bush vs Democracy in America

In a week where the Bush administration has publicly acknowledged planning to postpone the upcoming presidential election if faced with terrorist attacks while simultaneously proclaiming that we are "safer" because of his policies - but asks for four more years to finish his great work - it might be good to get the perspective of history on our "democracy." From early in the 19th Century, Alexis de Tocqueville's great analysis "Democracy in America" has this to say:

"The Americans have no neighbors and consequently they have no great wars, or financial crises, or inroads, or conquests to dread; they require neither great taxes, nor large armies, nor great generals; and they have nothing to fear from a scourge which is more formidable to republics than all these evils combined: namely, military glory. It is impossible to deny the inconceivable influence that military glory exercises upon the spirit of a nation."

My, how things have changed. Now Bush actually brags that he is a "wartime president," we maintain a huge standing army, we spend more on our military than any country (indeed, some years more than all other countries combined), and we are allowing our executive branch to plan to postpone the election - something that has never happened in our history - without any public outcry.

If we really let this happen, we will deserve what we get.

Bush vs Our Security

Pentagon, Citing Fears, Plans to Shut Child Center

In multiple speeches this week our miserable failure of a cheif executive has proclaimed that we are 'safer' now that he has bravely turned us into a rogue state by invading and occupying a country that was no threat to anyone. The Pentagon is responding to our new sense of safety this way:

Citing intelligence that the Pentagon is the second most likely target for a terrorist attack in the capital region after the White House, military officials want to shut the day care building next to the Pentagon by the fall.

If we get any 'safer' the Dept of Homeland Insecurity will probably be recommending that we all dig WMD shelters in our back yards. Next we can practice duck and cover.

Welcome to the past that Republicans have long been so nostalgic for.

Bush vs Sanity

Is Bush Totally Nuts?

As SOB has noted several times before, our faux president seems to be legally insane. If insanity is not being able to distinguish between external reality and internal imagining, then Bush is clearly certifiable. He continues to maintain that invading Iraq (itself a "war crime" under the Nuremberg criteria) was justified because Iraq - though it had no weapons of mass destruction - MIGHT develop such (if it found some way to get the money and avoid weapons inspectors), and MIGHT give them to terrorists - despite the terroists being religious fanatics and Saddam being very much secular and not inclined to give away anything, and thus MIGHT be a threat to the strongest military power on earth in his wildest dreams.

And for this nonsense tens of thousands of American youth have been maimed and hundreds killed and many (uncounted) thousands of Iraqis brutalized and murdered.

If Bush doesn't qualify as a homicidal maniac, no one does. And he is our 'president' and therefore our responsibility. We need to take a deep breath and then remove this disturbed person from office.

Bush vs Dick Cheney?

Dump Cheney Movement Gains Momentum


In a week when it was revealed that the doctor who certified Vice President Cheney's fitness to be president was impaired due to drug addiction, and polls show that Bush has a better chance with either John McCain or Colin Powell as VP than he does with Cheney - speculation is heating up about how long it will be before we hear that the Veep has withdrawn from the race due to health problems. This would be one way to make an otherwise predictable and scripted photo op convention have a bit of drama:

The Cheney discussion emanates from GOP concern that he is a drag on the ticket. Andrew Kohut, director of The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, said that the polling data he has studied indicate that the numbers for Cheney "are pretty negative to what it had been."

Some of that, he said, stems from a perception that Cheney has pulled Bush to the right, noting that the president's record is "very inconsistent with the way Bush conducted himself" during his six years as governor of Texas.

Cheney is popular with the GOP's conservative base. But he has served as a lightning rod for Democrats because of his ties to Halliburton, the Texas oil firm that received a no-bid government contract to help rebuild Iraqi oil fields, and his refusal to divulge the names of energy company executives he met with in piecing together the administration's energy policy.

He also notably hurled an epithet recently at Sen. Patrick Leahy, who he accused of questioning his integrity.

Imagine! How can anyone think that one would question Dick Cheney's integrity? A man who sees no problem in still receiving payments from his former employer that is currently the recipient of multi-billion dollar no bid contracts with the government? Can you spell "conflict of interest" boys and girls?

Bush vs Saddam Hussein: the Show Trial

Who v. Saddam?

A long article in this week's New York Times magazine presents a preview of the upcoming 'trial' of Saddam Hussein. Among the many interesting questions that SOB has wondered about here, only a few are addressed by this article, but it is worth asking them so that as this piece of scripted 'history' unfolds we can better appreciate what is really happening. So, just a few of the questions and issues the press doesn't want to trouble us with:

(1) Exactly what laws can Saddam be charged with violating? If we say "international law" then how can the U. S. continue to proclaim that such laws do not apply to U. S. citizens?

(2) Can we really prove Saddam's direct responsibility for any particular act of brutality? The Times piece suggests that is unnecessary because he will be held responsible as the senior official. If we buy this argument then how can the Abu Ghraib torture scandal be limited to "a few bad apples" and those in charge not be held accountable?

(3) If this is supposed to be a real impartial and fair trial, what sense does it make to place Salem Chalabi - nephew of convicted felon and accused Iranian spy Ahmed Chalabi - to head the prosecution? Chalabi, a prosperous London attorney, was appointed by the U. S. to this position despite complaints from Iraqis that he is an outsider and that prosecuting Saddam should be handled by actual Iraqis.

(4) If the international (and Iraqi) community is to have any confidence that this is a real trial and not some piece of propaganda theater, why was Saddam's arraignment censored? Why was sound recording forbidden? Why were transcripts heavily edited?

(5) And the hardest question for Americans to answer - if Saddam is to be held accountable for all the terrible things that he has been charged with, aren't those who supported him and made his crimes possible equally guilty? In other words, will Donald Rumsfeld (among others) be placed in the dock to answer for providing Saddam with more military aid after he "gassed his own people"? Will the executives of companies that sold Saddam dual use and/or clearly military materials face charges? Will those who supported selling Saddam biological agents to be used in germ warfare face charges?

The hypocrisy of the "trial" of Saddam Hussein is such that smart money is betting it will never happen. It would be too much of an embarrassment to the U. S. (especially to those currently in power who were complicit with some of Saddam's worst "crimes".) It wouldn't be at all a surprise if Saddam has a sudden heart attack - or a Jack Ruby-like vengeance death carried out by some sympathetic and grieving relative of one of his victims.

Of course, if a "trial" actually happens, don't expect cameras and microphones in the courtroom. And the official transcript - like most freedom of information request releases under this administration - is sure to be heavily redacted.

Bush vs Gay Marriage

Let Them Eat Wedding Cake

In today's New York Times Barbara Ehrenreich (who is temporarily replacing the clueless Tom Friedman) has a wonderful piece about the Bush administration's very peculiar sense of priorities in both opposing marriage for gays and advocating the spending of millions of dollars to promote marriage for poor straight women:

Commitment isn't easy for guys — we all know that — but the Bush administration is taking the traditional male ambivalence about marriage to giddy new heights. On the one hand, it wants to ban gays from marrying, through a constitutional amendment that the Senate will vote on this week. On the other hand, it's been avidly promoting marriage among poor women — the straight ones anyway.

Opponents of gay marriage claim that there is some consistency here, in that gay marriages must be stopped before they undermine the straight ones. How the married gays will go about wrecking heterosexual marriages is not entirely clear: by moving in next door, inviting themselves over and doing a devastating critique of the interior decorating?

It is equally unclear how marriage will cure poor women's No. 1 problem, which is poverty — unless, of course, the plan is to draft C.E.O.'s to marry recipients of T.A.N.F. (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). Left to themselves, most women end up marrying men of the same social class as their own, meaning — in the case of poverty-stricken women — blue-collar men. But that demographic group has seen a tragic decline in earnings in the last couple of decades. So I have been endeavoring to calculate just how many blue-collar men a T.A.N.F. recipient needs to marry to lift her family out of poverty.

The answer turns out to be approximately 2.3, which is, strangely enough, illegal.

As she points out later in the piece, the real motivation for focusing on "traditional" marriage as a campaign issue is to shift the focus from uncomfortable realities - such as Iraq - about which the Bushies don't have a clue.

Overwhelmed by Bushit

SOB stunned into silence by information overload

It was one of those weeks; so much happened that was worth commenting on that SOB didn't know where to start. Just to summarize:

(1) the Supreme Court bitch-slapped Dubya over his presumption that the executive could detain people indefinitely without charges, defense, or any due process, thus throwing the entire Gitmo operation into a tailspin and leaving our Gulag keepers scrambling for a new approach,

(2) it was revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney's personal physician - the one who had assured us of the Veep's health despite multiple heart attacks - was a drug addict and guilty of prescription fraud and has been removed from his job at George Washington University Hospital because of it,

(3) John McCain appears in a new series of pro-war adds for the Bush administration, proclaiming Bush's "moral clarity" (despite the underhanded and sleazy attacks McCain suffered during the Republican primary in 2000 at Bush's hands) and warning that if terrorists get their hands on those mythical "weapons of mass destruction" we will be fighting for our very survival,

(4) Kerry's choice for Vice President, John Edwards, is attacked by the Republicans for not having enough experience (six years in the U. S. Senate) - as opposed, for example, to George W. Bush whose sole experience in government was six years as governor of Texas, a job that by design requires little of those who hold it (at least Edwards was successful in his former chosen profession, unlike Bush who ran one failing business after another and was fired from the board of Caterair for failing to contribute anything of value),

(5) Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron and top Bush campaign contributer, finally does the perp-walk (well, the Bush Justice Dept finally had to do something - it is only four months until the election and they couldn't let Kenny-boy skip out on the public humiliation that many Americans were demanding - whether he will actually be punished for his massive fraud is another question),

(6) the useless figurehead Tom Ridge, director of the Dept of Homeland Security, popped up from his hiding place to warn America to expect a major terrorist attack aimed at disrupting the November elections, and while he could provide no details about when or where, he was absolutely confident that the plans were nearing completion and were being guided by Osama bin Laden or other top al Queda figures - based on what? - of course he couldn't say, but, you know, "trust us," even though this warning is not serious enough to raise the scary color of the day from yellow to orange,

(7) the Army revealed that the reason it couldn't provide Bush's pay records from his long ago days in the National Guard in order to resolve the issue of whether or not he really fulfilled his service obligation was because they had been "accidentally destroyed" while trying to preserve them; this idiotic excuse is very much like the variant heard last week in response to a freedom of information act request for a copy of a government database, which declared that any attempt to copy the data would result in damaging or destroying it,

(8) three U. S. citizens were arrested in Kabul, Afghanistan for running a private prison where they attempted to coerce information from suspected terrorists that they had "arrested" based on suspicion arrising from facial hair, clothing and general appearance,

(9) the State of Florida released its newest list of 48,000 suspected felons who are to be purged from voter rolls, causing some county election officials to refuse to cooperate because the list is so "flawed" - containing names of nonfelons as well as those that should be purged - just as the list used before the 2000 election to disenfranchise thousands of Florida Democrats - mostly black - most of whom were not felons but have not been reinstated - despite a court order - even to this day, (this slap at black voters was just amplified this week when Bush refused an invitation to speak to the National Convention of the NAACP - making him the only president in my lifetime to refuse this invitation),

(10) the New Republic reports that Pakistani officials have been pressured by high members of the Bush administration to either kill or capture HVTs (high value targets) - especially Osama bin Laden - soon, and preferably announce their death or capture during the first three days of the Democratic National Convention, thus clearly playing politics with the "war on terror,"

(11) and on Friday the much anticipated Senate report of pre Iraq war intelligence was released, with its not too surprising conclusion that the CIA had exaggerated the threat of Iraq's WMDs, that no meaningful link existed between al Queda and Saddam, and - to me not very persuasive - claim that the Bush administration was not at fault for pressuring the CIA to give it the intelligence it wanted.

There is, of course, much more, including the release of the new book _Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror_ by 'Anonymous' (a high ranking intelligence specialist in Islamic terrorism generally and bin Laden specifically) whose thesis is that George W. Bush is bin Laden's greatest ally - that everything he has done in Iraq actually increases al Queda's support in the Muslim world and undermines our own security. As SOB has pointed out many times, 9/11 didn't happen because these guys "hate our freedom," but because they hate our polices, our priorities, and our constant and inept meddling in the affairs of Muslim countries. 9/11 was 'blowback' for a half century of ill conceived policies in the middle east that propped up corrupt Arab dictatorships, helped impoverish millions of ordinary Muslims, uncritically supported Israel in its continuing illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and its former illegal occupation in Lebanon, and continuing pressures on numerous Muslim countries to adopt changes that, to most Muslims, seem to be contrary to their faith. Contrary to the simple faith based assumptions of Bush and company, citizens of Iraq will never be secular in the same way that Democrats and Republicans are, and Iraq will never be Texas with palm trees.

Bush vs Our Peace of Mind

Tom Ridge reminds us to be very afraid

Today, the head of the Dept of "Homeland" Security warned Americans that Al Qaeda plans a major terrorist attack before the Nov. 2 elections. However, he claims there are no specifics and no information that he can communicate to help the public know what to do to protect itself - and more revealing, he doesn't plan to upgrade the scary color of the day. In other words, we should be afraid in general, but not do anything about it.

As Michael Moore pointed out in his current film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," the Bush administration is following the Orwellian perpetual war scenario in which fear is used constantly to keep the public willing to accept restrictions on its freedoms and not question government policies that benefit a small minority at the expense of the majority.

Is America a great country or what?

Bush vs Iraq's People

GAO: Iraq Worse Off Now Than Before U.S. Invasion


Yesterday George W. Bush proclaimed, yet again, that we had 'liberated' the Iraqi people and that their lives were improving because of our work in rebuilding their war torn country. However, a new report by the General Accounting Office disputes this rather dramatically:

In key areas, Iraq is worse off now than before the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, a new General Accounting Office report says.

Electricity, country-wide security and the legal/judicial system were among the key areas cited by the bi-partisan investigative arm of Congress.

The report concludes that Iraqis, overall, are worse off now than before the U.S. invasion.

Specifically:

Electricity in 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces, was available fewer hours per day on average last month than before the war. Nearly 20 million of Iraq's 26 million people live in those provinces.

Only $13.7 billion of the $58 billion pledged and allocated worldwide to rebuild Iraq has been spent, with an additional $10 billion about to be spent. Most of the money has been used to run Iraq's government ministries.

The court system overwhelmed, backlogged far more than before the war and judges are frequent targets of assassination attempts.

The new Iraqi civil defense, police and security units are suffering from mass desertions, poor training and poor equipment while fraud and scandal are more prevalent than before the war.

The number of what U.S. officials deem "significant" insurgent attacks skyrocketed from 411 in February to 1,169 in May.

But of course the Bush administration and its legion of tame media repeaters continue to chant the mantra of phantom improvement. This is the standard Bush method, ignore the inconvenient physical reality and create a virtual verbal reality to cover it up. It is, like every supposed success of this administration, the triumph of public relations over reporting and analysis. After all, who cares if the Iraqis see their lives as getting better as long as the American public believes they do. After all, the Iraqis don't vote - even in their own country.

Bush vs Democracy

Tomorrow is America's birthday; we celebrate the day in 1776 when we proclaimed our independence from Great Britain and declared ourselves a free and sovereign nation. That is what we supposedly want for all peoples. It is certainly what Bush and company keep saying to justify our invasion and occupation of Iraq. Yet our behavior continues to give the lie to our words. For example, this week is the annual Smithsonian Folk Life Festival on the National Mall. SOB just returned from his habitual Saturday morning walk in downtown DC and is almost calm enough to write about it without too much sarcasm. Every year the Folk Life Festival features a region of the U. S. and one or more foreign countries - with food, music and cultural exhibits. The featured country this year is Haiti, whose democratically elected government we have just helped to overthrow and whose democratically elected president we kidnapped (for his "own good") and transported half way around the world to the Central African Republic where he was kept under house arrest until rescued by a delegation of concerned private citizens. The true indignity of featuring Haiti in this festival is that the signs all say "Haiti: Freedom & Creativity" - without the least sense of shame or discomfort that we can pretend to honor something that we have attempted time and again for almost two centuries to suppress.

Haiti, despite the happy signage, is not free. It is occupied by U. S. Marines - yet again - and ruled by an appointed group of nonelected puppets acceptable to the U. S. and other elite business interests. The story is not even known to most Americans because it hardly registered in the press. After all, Haiti is not important to us. It has no oil. It isn't sexy. It has committed two major sins which will forever condemn it to oblivion - it is both poor and black. The press, however "diverse" it thinks itself to be, continues to behave as if countries that are primarily black are not really civilized, thus not really important. And to be the poorest country in the hemisphere is just confirmation of Haiti's lack of significance.

Haiti has never been forgiven for being the first country of black slaves to win its freedom - and from the white world's dominant military power at the time, the French. Our founding fathers refused to embrace the new nation and it has suffered one assault after another for almost two hundred years. Our government has always sided with the landed and moneyed elite against the interests of Haiti's large exploited and poverty stricken population. And more often than not we have been willing to use the U. S. military to enforce whatever policies we felt were good for business - whatever the price to poor Haitians.

As Mrs SOB reminded me when I came home fuming about the hypocrisy of referring to Haiti's freedom, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." For the Haitians, that is truer than Kris Kristopherson ever imagined.