Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Another rich white guy from the Nixon days

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--President Bush on Tuesday named Henry "Hank" Paulson as his new Treasury Secretary, as he seeks to lift his sagging poll ratings by handing over all of our money to a powerful Wall Street player.

The surprise announcement that the Goldman Sachs chairman would succeed John ("Not Tony") Snow at Treasury followed weeks of speculation that Bush was about to Decide Something and won strong initial backing from lawmakers eager to invest all of our money in high-yield airplane games.

Paulson, 60, is a former Nixon thug and heavy Republican bagman who presided over Goldman's insider trading scandal three years ago. He is poised to take the reins of an economy that grew at its fastest rate in 2-1/2 years during the first quarter, benefiting Exxon-Mobil's major shareholders and a couple dozen other friends of the Bush Crime Family, but shows signs of slowing as consumers run out of money.

"It looks like they got someone who will be an iron fist and, if any problems arise, will be able to step in and break some fuckin' legs," said Marc Summerlin, an economic consultant ignored under Bush in his first term.

It remains unclear whether Paulson will take a stronger role in originating economic policy than did Snow, who was seen by some as a meat-puppet reading from a White House script.

Paulson raked in more than $38 million in overall compensation last year, some of it legally.

Bush has been peevish when sober and violent when drunk as the civil war in Iraq, the destruction of New Orleans, exposure of the blatant and wanton corruption of his administration, the shredding of the Constitution and the obliteration of the middle class overshadowed what has been, for him, robust economic performance, and helped lower his approval ratings to 30 percent, or right around Michael Jackson territory. Republicans worry Bush's woes may leave them open to an ass-fucking in the November congressional elections.

Appearing in the White House Rose Garden with Snow and Paulson and a pitcher of margaritas, Bush praised the corporate thug's ability to explain complicated economic concepts in words even a wet-brained Texas Mama's boy can understand.

Paulson will be the point person defending Bush's tax cuts, which the president insists have made his people money.

"He will work closely with my Congress to restrain the spending appetite of my federal government and keep us on track to meet our goal of cutting my deficit in half by 2009," Bush said, smirking.

Currency strategist Ashraf Laidi of MG Financial of New York said the pick of a Wall Street figure of Paulson's stature might be seen as a desperate and senseless last-ditch shot in the dark to prevent the dollar slide from accelerating.

Referring to a U.S. push to prod China on trade and currency, Bush said Paulson will "help ensure that our trading partners play by our rules, don't fuck with our multi-nationals, and lend us a lot of money to invest in the stock market."

Some Republicans have complained that the job of Treasury secretary lacks the luster in the Bush administration that it had during the tenure of Robert Rubin and other Clinton-era Treasury chiefs who understood economics.

Signaling he wanted to change such perceptions, Bush said Paulson would "follow in the footsteps of Alexander Hamilton," the first Treasury secretary and a U.S. founding father, later shot by the Vice President.

Monday, May 29, 2006

Bush pays lip service to war dead, film at 11


ARLINGTON, VA. (AP)--President Bush, whose fearless part-time service in the cockpit of an obsolete fighter jet helped keep Texas secure from the Viet Cong, delivering a Memorial Day message surrounded by the graves of thousands of military dead, said Monday that the United States must continue fighting the endless and unwinnable war on terror in the name of those who have already given their life in the cause, or something.

The president spoke after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

"The best way to pay respect is to value why a sacrifice was made," Bush said, quoting from a letter that Lt. Mark Dooley wrote to his parents before being uselessly killed last September in a random desert shithole.

Noting that some 270 fighting men and women of the nearly 2,500 who have fallen since the unrelated terror attacks of September 11, 2001, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Bush said, "We have seen the costs in the war on terror that we fight today."

"I am in awe of the men and women who sacrifice for the freedom of the United States of America," declared the president, who is also in awe of soulless corporate pirates like his dad, willing to trash the entire world in pursuit of extending their genetic material and untaxed wealth into the bloody intercontinental marketplace of the future. He nevertheless drew a long standing ovation from the hapless troops, families of the slaughtered and other dupes gathered at the cemetery's 5,000-seat white marble amphitheater.

"Here in the presence of veterans they fought with and loved ones whose pictures they carried, the fallen give silent witness to the price of liberty and our nation honors them this day and every day," he said. "Now watch this drive."

Frist: Never mind, nothing to see here

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--While House members are still angry about an FBI search of a congressman's office, the Senate's leader says the controversy has been "pretty much swept under the rug."

Senate Majority Leader Bill ("Katzenjammer") Frist said Sunday he had been threatened with water-boarding by Attorney General Alberto ("Torture Boy") Gonzales and quickly concluded that the FBI acted appropriately.

"I no longer think it abused separation of powers," Frist said on Fox News Sunday. "I think when there's allegations of criminal activity by a Democrat, the American people need to have a law enforced."

Frist, (R-TN), was responding, perhaps definitively, to the search conducted May 20-21 in the office of Representative William Jefferson, (D-LA).

FBI agents carted away computer and other records in their pursuit of evidence that Jefferson accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for helping an exiled Nigerian prince to acquire an undisclosed number of millions from a government bank there. It all began as an unsolicited e-mail solicitation, so you just never know.

It was the first time in the history of Congress that a warrant had been used to search a lawmaker's office instead of burglar tools at midnight.

House Speaker Dennis ("Chins") Hastert, (R-IL), and Democratic leader Nancy ("Antsy") Pelosi of California responded with a rare joint statement, protesting that the FBI had not notified them and that the search violated their sense of entitlement and inviolability.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which plans a hearing Tuesday on the constitutionality of the search, said the FBI overstepped its authority. Representative James ("Shit-eyes") Sensenbrenner, (R-WI), idiotically compared the search to a Capitol Police raid of the Oval Office.

"This debate is not over whether Congressman Jefferson is guilty of a criminal offense," Sensenbrenner said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. "Obviously he's guilty: he's black, and he's a Democrat, and he cannot use the constitutional immunity of Congress to shield himself from that or any evidence of that. But it is about the ability of the Congress to be able to get paid without worrying about someone dropping a dime."

Hastert complained directly to President Bush, demanding that the FBI return the materials, and was told to go fuck himself. Bush then ordered that the documents be sealed for 45 days until congressional leaders could be blackmailed into agreeing with the Justice Department on what to do with them, a move that Frist said he supported "to get this off the front page."

"I think we've seen it pretty much swept under the rug now, I hope," Frist said Sunday. "I trust our Republican Department of Justice."

Before Bush's compromise, the showdown last week led the desperate House leaders to threaten budgetary retaliation against the Justice Department, according to a senior administration official invented to spread the story. Justice officials, including Attorney General Gonzales, raised the prospect of resigning if the department were asked to return the documents, but everyone knew that was bullshit.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Hastert: We are mad as hell, et cetera...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--House Speaker Dennis ("Chins") Hastert demanded Wednesday that the FBI surrender documents it seized and remove agents involved in the weekend raid of Representative William Jefferson's office, before they get cocky and try it with a Republican.

"We think those materials ought to be returned," Hastert said, adding that the FBI agents involved "ought to be pistol-whipped just for thinking they can fuck with Congress."

The Saturday night search of Jefferson's office on Capitol Hill brought Democrats and Republicans together in rare election-year accord, with both parties protesting agency conduct they said violated the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine and made everyone terribly nervous about keeping cash around the place.

Democrats, meanwhile, sought to wean Jefferson off the House's most appealing teat.

"In the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus and preventing the American public being distracted from a shitload of Republican bribery scandals, I am writing to request your immediate resignation from the Ways and Means Committee," wrote House Democratic Leader Nancy ("Antsy") Pelosi in the one-sentence correspondence.

Jefferson had no immediate comment but said the day before that he would die in a hail of bullets before he would surrender the seat. He has not admitted any wrongdoing, despite an FBI affidavit that said agents had found $90,000 and a human head in the freezer in his house.

"I will not give up a committee assignment that is so vital to New Orleans at this crucial time for any uncertain, long-term political strategy like cleaning up the sinkhole of corruption that is the House of Representatives," Jefferson said Tuesday. "If asked, I would respectfully suggest that you get out the kneepads, Nancy."

Republicans, meanwhile, were being careful to express their panic and outrage over the possibility that massive corruption could lead to legal action without appearing to defend a Democrat, their natural enemy in the wild Potomac swamp.

A day earlier, Hastert (R-IL), complained about the raid personally to President Bush, who couldn't believe this fat little bastard would have the balls. Other House officials have predicted that the case would bring all three branches together at the Supreme Court for a constitutional showdown in which dozens of lives could be lost.

In April, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., personally told Bush that "the president doesn't have a blank check" during a discussion of Bush's illegal and unconstitutional warrantless domestic wiretapping program, which is evidently more expensive than anticipated.

Hastert kept up the weak, irregular drumbeat after the FBI's raid of Jefferson's office.

"My opinion is that they took the wrong path," Hastert said after Bush had him removed from the White House. "They need to back up, and then we need to stand there for a while, making small talk."

White House officials said they did not learn of the search until after it happened, and that no one could have predicted it. They pledged to work with the Justice Department to soothe the fears of crooked Republican lawmakers.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying, "We have a great deal of respect for the Congress as a coequal branch of government, although we don't really think of them that way." But he also defended the search: "We have an obligation to the American people to pursue the evidence where it implicates Democrats."

Justice Department officials said the decision to search Jefferson's office was made in part because he refused to comply with a subpoena for documents last summer, but mostly to draw the public's attention from the impending indictment of Karl Rove.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

White House: Troop cuts a childish fantasy


WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--The White House on Tuesday ridiculed the idea of major troop withdrawals from Iraq anytime this decade. "We're not going to sort of look at our watches and say, 'See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!'" said White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow, his teeth flashing.

The establishment of another government in Baghdad again this week has stirred talk of troop reductions by the United States and Britain, the two major partners in terms of collateral investment in Iraq. But with the insurgency's last throes still going strong, both the White House and Pentagon indicated it may be too soon to make decisions on troop cuts.

"The conditions on the ground tell us that our job's not done," Snow said, his hair perfect. "And by 'our,' I mean, of course, 'their.'"

At the Pentagon, Brigadier General Carter Ham told reporters that no one here ever knows anything until it's too late too stop it, and he cautioned against expecting major reductions before half-trained, part-time, under-equipped Iraqi troops with divided loyalties show they can handle the insurgents we created.

"We want to do it as soon as we can but you can't do it too fast," said Ham, who is deputy operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He cautioned against "rushing to failure, like when it was decided to invade."

British Prime Minister Tony ("Poodle") Blair, Bush's chief business partner in the Iraq venture, visited Baghdad on Monday and agreed with the country's newest leadership that Iraqi forces would start assuming full responsibility for fighting blindly in a three-sided civil war next month or the month after, certainly by the end of the year, one hopes, beginning a process leading to the eventual withdrawal of all coalition forces not permanently deployed there.

British media quoted an unidentified old fogey traveling with Blair as saying coalition forces should be out within four years, but probably won't be. Blair and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declined to set a timetable for that withdrawal, but made a date for lunch.

"We are there at the request and behest of the Iraqi government, a valued subsidiary," Snow said, his eyes shining. "We'll stay only as long as the Iraqi government wants to stay there. But at this point, we are not going to harness ourself to an artificial timetable, what some of you might call a 'calendar' or 'schedule.'"

Blair will be in Washington for dictation from President Bush on Thursday and Friday about Iraq and other subjects, such as the impasse with Iran over its nuclear program and steroid use in baseball.

The U.S. has about 132,000 troops in Iraq; Britain has about 8,000. Both Bush and Blair have dropped in the polls as the cakewalk has extended into its fourth year. Bush's approval rating is the lowest of his presidency, but he doesn't care much.

"As we've robotically chanted all along, when Iraq stands up, we'll stand down," Snow said, moonwalking elegantly. "And whether that actually means anything, we're going to find out. We've also said 'conditions on the ground' and 'troop withdrawals' and that sort of thing, because those phrases poll well. And that, and that alone, is going to be the ultimate factor.

"The most important thing to do is to make sure that we have laid the basis for a successful, self-governing, peaceful and stable Iraq. That's why we overthrew the government, disbanded the army, and littered the countryside with ordnance in the first place."

Defense Secretary Donald H. ("Hammerhead") Rumsfeld is holding three days of meetings at the Pentagon this week with the heads of all the major war-fighting commands. These are regularly scheduled meetings that focus more on long-range investment schemes than on relatively dull issues like U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

Rumsfeld was pressed at another pointless Senate hearing last week to say whether the American public could be assured of a major U.S. troop withdrawal by year's end.

"I can't promise it," Rumsfeld said irritably, adding that he nonetheless is hopeful that it will happen. "Goodness gracious, yes, that would be super."

General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who also testified, was asked whether U.S. troops could be withdrawn completely from any of Iraq's 18 provinces within the next three months.

"You must be on glue, sir," Pace replied.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Bush praises this week's Iraqi government


CHICAGO (Reuters)--President George W. Bush, under pressure to show something in Iraq other than a $280 billion clusterfuck, said on Monday the United States will increasingly play backseat driver in Iraq as Baghdad's newest unity government orders letterhead.

Bush made no pledges about withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in the wake of Saturday's hilarious formation of another new unity government in the midst of a three-way civil war.

But he said to take advantage of a moment of opportunity, "the United States and our corporate partners will work with the new Iraqi government to adjust our business plan and strengthen our market share, to achieve victory over our common enemies, whoever they may be."

"As the new Iraqi government grows in confidence and capability, America will play an increasingly secretive role," Bush said.

He said in a speech to an association of Republican restaurant operators that he had instructed Secretary of State Condoleezza ("Wormhole") Rice and Defense Secretary Donald ("Hammerhead") Rumsfeld to tell Iraq's new leaders how it's going to work, "so we'll be in the best position to help them do what we want."

Bush said he saw the new government of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds as another historic turning point in Iraq three years after he declared the mission accomplished.

"The main reason I've come today is to talk to you drooling idiots about a watershed event that took place in Iraq. On Saturday in Baghdad, Iraqis formed another new government, and the world saw me say it was the beginning of constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East," Bush said.

Bush is trying to rebound from sagging poll numbers driven largely by a loss of American confidence in his ability to juggle the War on Terror, the War on Privacy, the War on the Middle Class, the War on Journalism and a strenuous vacation schedule, as well as the Iraq war, where more than 2,400 Americans have died to prevent Iraqi oil from being traded in euros.

The United States has about 133,000 troops in Iraq, not counting 50,000 black-bag mercenaries.

Bush, a twitching, surly mass of dry-drunk Texas twang, heaped praise on the newest Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and other management trainees, while noting that the new government is still a toothless corporate front and that it must work to improve security and work for peace.

"The unity government must now seize this moment," Bush said. "Before too many of them are assassinated."

Saturday, May 20, 2006

U.N. say Gitmo gotta git, Moe

GENEVA (CNN/AP) -- The Bush Crime Family should close its jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and any secret prisons it may be running, a U.N. panel said Friday.

"The state party should cease to detain any person at Guantanamo Bay and close this detention facility, permit access by the detainees to judicial process or release them as soon as possible," the U.N. Committee Against Torture said in an 11-page report issued in Geneva, Switzerland, and instantly condemned by the Bush Family for its liberal bias.

The report concluded that detention of suspects without charges being filed is a throwback to medieval totalitarianism and that the war on terrorism is a pathetic fraud perpetuated mainly for the benefit of Big Oil.

The U.S. dismissed the report, calling it "gay."

John Bellinger, the State Department shyster who led the U.S. delegations at the panel hearings earlier this month in Geneva, called the detention charge "shameless left-wing spin."

"This is an issue that we know is out there, but there is nothing in this convention that says anything about holding unaffiliated goat-farmers in a makeshift prison for the rest of their lives, so it's really irritating that these liberal pricks are calling for the closure of Guantanamo," he said. "But I guess Hillary gets what she wants, doesn't she, girls?"

The United States has defended its use of the Guantanamo facility to hold "enemy combatants" without charges during the war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks, which changed everything, including the definition of "liberty." About 500 detainees are thought to be held there, some of whom may have been connected at one time with the Taliban, currently enjoying a resurgence of power in Afghanistan despite concerted U.S. efforts to ignore them.

Bellinger told reporters at a briefing Friday that the report ignored the calculated whitewash that the Bush Crime Family shared with the committee.

"We are disappointed that, despite the fact that the committee acknowledges the extensive fabricated materials that we gave to them, they don't seem to have relied on the carefully-constructed material that we fed to them in preparing their report," Bellinger said. "And so as a result there are numerous errors of what we call 'fact,' just simply things that they've got what we call 'wrong' about what the U.S. law or practice is or isn't in there."

The White House said Friday that President Bush has indicated he would like to shut down the Guantanamo facility but was awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on whether detainees can be driven into the sea to get rid of them, according to The Associated Press.

"It is important to note that everything that is done in terms of questioning detainees is fully within the boundaries of American law as interpreted by that greatest living legal scholar, Dick Cheney," the AP quoted White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow as saying.

Snow also told the AP that the United States ensures detainees have food, clothing and a bucket to poop in, and gives them the chance to worship their strange brown god.

"In short," Snow told the AP, "we are according every consideration consistent with not only the law but the rules of common hospitality to the people who are guests at Guantanamo."

The report also suggested that operating secret prisons may be inappropriate for the Land of the Free and called on Washington to close any "it may be running" or face censure from human rights advocates such as the government of China. It said U.S. interrogators should stop using "water boarding" and other questioning techniques that amount to torture.

American officials reportedly have acknowledged using water boarding as one of the more extreme techniques to elicit five year-old information from suspected Afghani goat farmers.

The technique involves strapping down interrogation subjects and dunking them in water or otherwise making them drown, though not all the way most of the time.

According to the AP, the U.S. delegation grudgingly admitted that there have been about 800 investigations into allegations of mistreatment in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Department of Defense found misconduct and took action against more than 250 service personnel, but not their superior officers; there have been 103 courts-martial and 89 service members were convicted, of whom 19 received sentences of one year or more, but in much nicer prisons. Defense department spokesmen marvel at what one called, "a remarkable string of coincidences."

Bush: Hable inglés o usted debe irse

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--The White House bravely took both sides in a dispute over English being the national language Friday, as a broad immigration bill aimed at providing millions of dollars to Bush Family cronies in the fencing business moved toward a final Senate vote next week.

Bush's support for the dueling sides doesn't stray from his long-held wish to learn English himself, said White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow.

"What the president has said all along, among other things, is that he wants to make sure that people who become American citizens have as much command of the English language as people who become president," Snow said. "It's as simple as that."

The Senate on Thursday approved an amendment sponsored by Senator James (Not Gay) Inhofe (R-OK), that would declare English the national language. Errors in grammar and syntax would be punishable by fine, on a sliding scale depending on the offender's first language. But it also approved an alternative proposal sponsored by Senator Ken (Not Mexican) Salazar (D-CO), designating English the nation's "common and unifying language" while there's still time. Before the vote on the alternative, Inhofe smashed a bottle of cheap tequila over his head and shook his fists at his colleagues, sneering, "You can't have it both ways, faggots."

The White House seemed to. "We have supported both of these," Snow said of the two amendments. "And we still do."

Attorney General Alberto (Torture Boy) Gonzales, speaking Friday at the Star Bath House in Houston, added to the confusion.

"The president has never supported making English the national language," Torture Boy said, fanning out his twenties in anticipation of another game of Hot Rico. "I don't see the need to have legislation or a law that says English is going to be the national language. But I'm not very interested in laws."

As governor of Texas and a presidential candidate in 2000, Bush supported bilingual education programs he never intended to fund. He sprinkles Spanish into his presidential speeches whenever his handlers tell him to, and has released political commercials in Spanish when drunk. But he also has said the national anthem should be sung in English, since its words were inspired by a war with England and its melody stolen from an old English whorehouse tune.

The president plans to address the need to buy fencing from Halliburton in his weekly radio address Saturday, right after the "Top Ten Ways to Distract the Public From Your Criminal Incompetence" segment. He has generally favored a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that would keep them working for less than minimum wage as long as possible, as well as a guest worker program that would bring more foreigners to the U.S. to fill jobs in the rapidly-expanding McHousecleaning and McLawnmowing industries. Both are central elements of the bill before the Senate.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), an ardent opponent of the bill, conceded Friday it is likely to pass next week. "The Senate is basically just a big, reeking pustule," he said. But he also predicted to reporters that it won't become law unless House and Senate negotiators are able to fill it up with corporate giveaways and maybe some religious stuff.

The adoption of Inhofe's amendment drew a heated protest Friday from Latinos, but it was in some other language.

New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, the only Republican to reject the Inhofe proposal, said the country should "move beyond the notion that English, and English only, will ensure the future of the United States. I mean, there's Arabic, for example."

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Robertson: God says Seattle is fuct

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP)--In another in a seemingly endless series of bizarre pronouncements, religious broadcaster and noted asshole Pat (Blood Diamond) Robertson says God told him storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America's coastline this year.

Robertson has made these startlingly deranged predictions at least four times in the past two weeks on his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded as a tax dodge.

Robertson said the revelations about this year's weather came to him while he was submitting to the ritual laying-on of hands by volunteer Christian showgirls during his annual personal prayer retreat in January.

"If I heard the Lord right--and he usually speaks very slowly and clearly in a loud voice with just the slightest hint of a Southern accent--the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, "There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest, to punish all the Sodomites and feminists there."

Robertson has come under intense criticism in recent months for suggesting that American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip, and that diamonds really are a girl's best friend.

Hayden: Everything is legal, as far as I know


WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--El Generalissimo Michael (Wiretap) Hayden, U.S. President George W. (Rain Man) Bush's nominee for CIA director, strongly defended an illegal and unconstitutional domestic eavesdropping program on Thursday, saying it was vital to protect the Bush Family against Democrats and did not violate the civil rights of loyal Americans with nothing to hide.

Facing softball questions from Missouri Republican Senator Kit (Toolbox) Bond about his role as architect of Bush's illegal and unconstitutional domestic spying program, Hayden said it was narrowly targeted to 200 million suspected terrorists, closely supervised by GOP spooks and regularly reviewed by Karl Rove and others.

"We have a very strong secret oversight regime," Hayden said. "Secret targeting decisions are made by people in the secret U.S. government most knowledgeable about al Qaeda, al Qaeda communications, tactics and procedures.

"There is a secret probable cause standard. Every targeting is secretly documented," he said. "No one has said there has been a secret targeting decision made that hasn't been well-founded, as far as anyone knows."

Under the illegal and unconstitutional secret eavesdropping program, the National Security Agency monitors telephone calls and e-mails originating abroad to or from suspected terrorists and/or media figures without first obtaining a court order, unless you ask the president.

Hayden, former NSA director, had been expected to face tough questions at a Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing about the warrantless eavesdropping, which the Bush Crime Family has defended as legal and necessary to protect citizens from Arab telemarketers.

Bush nominated Hayden, a four-star Air Force general with a shady intelligence background, to replace Porter (Pimp Daddy) Goss, who was forced to resign as CIA director this month after clashing with prostitutes at the Watergate Hotel.

Committee Chairman Pat (Bob) Roberts, a Kansas rubber-stamp Republican, gave a strong defense of the warrantless eavesdropping and said this and other illegal and unconstitutional activities needed to remain secret to be effective.

"I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and certain civil liberties. But you have no civil liberties if you are dead or suspected of being dead," Roberts said.

Michigan Democratic Senator Carl (Hot Carl) Levin, in his opening statement, said the two most recent CIA directors, Goss and George (Slam Dunk) Tenet, had left the agency in disarray and presided over crucial intelligence failures, especially in advance of a 2003 military invasion in which Iraq was apparently mistaken for North Korea.

"One major question for me is whether General Hayden will restore analytical independence and objectivity at the CIA and speak truth to power or whether he will shape intelligence to support administration policy and mislead Congress and the American people as Director Tenet did," Levin said.

Hayden addressed that in his statement. "When it comes to that phrase we become familiar with and don't really understand, 'Speaking truth to power,' I will indeed lead CIA analysts by example. I will, as I expect every analyst will, always give our nation's leaders our best analytic judgment," he said. "After that it's a crapshoot, though, isn't it?"

As head of the NSA, Hayden crafted and implemented the warrantless eavesdropping program that remained secret until it was leaked to the America-hating left-wing media by deep-cover al-Qaeda double agents within the CIA.

Critics have questioned the program's legality and said Bush should wind up in prison, drinking pruno and dropping the soap regularly, for authorizing it.

Another report in USA Today last week, which the Bush Crime Family pretended not to have heard of, revealed that the NSA had amassed a giant database on the telephone calling patterns of millions and millions of Americans.

In addition to constitutional concerns, critics of the warrantless eavesdropping program say it violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a 1978 law created in response to the wretched excess of the Nixon administration for the purpose of keeping shit like this from happening again.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Sensenbrenner wants a log

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNET News)--A prominent Nazi on Capitol Hill has prepared legislation that would eliminate Internet privacy rules by requiring that logs of Americans' online activities be stored.

The proposal comes just weeks after Attorney General Alberto (Torture Boy) Gonzales said Internet service providers should retain records of user activities "until we've had a chance to go through them," a move that represented a bold new front in the Bush Crime Family's War on Privacy.

Wisconsin Representative F. James (Shit-eyes) Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans' online activities so that police can more easily "whip up criminal investigations." Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year, with the hoods and the beating and everything.

In addition, Sensenbrenner's legislation--expected to be announced as early as this week--would also create a brand-new federal felony targeted at bloggers, search engines, e-mail service providers and other enemies of the state. It's aimed at any site that someone-- anyone--might have "reason to believe" facilitates access to the new communism, Child Pornography, through, for instance, random links inserted into political comment threads by ruling party trolls.

Speaking to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children last month, Torture Boy warned of the dangers of pedophiles and Democrats using the Internet anonymously and called for new laws from Congress, since the old ones are impossible for Bush Family hacks to obey. "At the most basic level, the Internet is used as a tool for sending and receiving large amounts of child pornography on a relatively anonymous basis," Torture Boy said. "In a post-9/11 world, when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have been attacked in broad daylight by Child Pornography, I can't think of anything more important than keeping that bandwidth where it belongs, in the hands of senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security."

Until Torture Boy's speech, the Bush Family had explicitly opposed laws requiring data retention, saying it had "serious reservations" about anything being written down, ever. But after the potential for blackmail and extortion was explained in words of two or fewer syllables, top administration officials began talking about it more favorably.

The drafting of the data-retention proposal comes as Republicans are trying to do more to please their fascist masters before the November election. One bill announced last week targets MySpace.com and other social networking sites lacking major corporate backing. At a meeting last weekend, social conservatives called on the Bush administration to step up action against pornography, especially undocumented teenage Mexican pornography taking jobs from American kids.

Sensenbrenner's proposal is likely to be controversial. It would substantially alter U.S. laws dealing with privacy protection of Americans' Web surfing habits and is sure to alarm Internet businesses that could be at risk for linking to illicit Web sites, as well as anyone who has ever navigated away from the Yahoo home page, for any reason, even for a minute.

A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee said the aide who drafted the legislation was not immediately available for an interview on Monday due to a serious hookers & gack binge over the weekend.

U.S. Justice Department spokesman Drew Wade said the agency generally doesn't care enough about law as an abstract concept to comment on legislation, though it may "issue a letter of opinion" later, but backdate it to simulate contemporaneous integrity.

One unusually totalitarian aspect of Sensenbrenner's legislation--called the Internet Something Adults Something Something Something Youth Act--or Internet Safety Act--is that it's vague enough to allow Bush Family hacks to come in later and make it say whatever they want it to say.

Instead of describing exactly what information Internet providers would be required to retain about their users, the Internet Safety Act gives Torture Boy broad discretion in drafting regulations. At minimum, the proposal says, user names, physical addresses, Internet Protocol addresses and subscribers' phone numbers must be retained, as well as viewing preferences.

That generous wording could permit Torture Boy to order Internet providers to retain records of e-mail correspondents, Web pages visited, and even the contents of communications. "We would never, ever use this information in any way that would conflict with established Republican practices," he said, smiling that little smile that makes you want to slap him.

Ve have vays of making you pregnant

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Post)--New federal guidelines require all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves as potential vessels of sacred Christian life if they want to be acknowledged by the health care system.

Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause will be given mandatory folic acid supplements, will refrain from smoking on pain of public stoning, will maintain a healthy weight through fasting and/or government exercise programs, and will keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control through prayer.

While most of these recommendations are well known to women who are vessels of sacred Christian life or seeking to become vessels of sacred Christian life, experts say it's important that women obey federal mandates throughout their reproductive lives, because about half of pregnancies are spontaneous and unplanned and any damage done to a sacred fetal Christian between conception and the time the pregnancy is confirmed could result in banishment or other punitive measures.

The new federal guidelines aim to "increase public awareness of the importance of preconception health in our sacred Christian breeding stock" and emphasize the "importance of managing risk factors prior to sacred Christian biogenesis," said Samuel Posner, co-author of the guidelines and associate director for science in the division of compulsory reproduction at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which issued the mandate.

Preconception care should be delivered by any doctor a patient comes in contact with, as often as possible. It involves developing a "reproductive health contract" that details when and how often children are planned, then delivers on schedule, said Janis Biermann, vice president for re-education and health promotion at the March of Dimes.

Women should also make sure all vaccinations are up-to-date and avoid contact with lead-based paints and cat feces, Biermann said.

The mandate requires that women stop smoking and discuss with their doctor the danger alcohol poses to a sacred fetal Christian.

Research shows that "during the first few weeks of sacred Christian biogenesis"--during which a woman may not yet realize she's a vessel of sacred Christian life--"exposure to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs; lack of essential vitamins (e.g., folic acid); and workplace hazards such as lead paint and cat feces can adversely affect fetal Christian development and result in pregnancy complications and poor outcomes for both the vessel and the infant," the report states.

Obstacles to preconception care include getting insurance companies to invest in breeding stock and putting the new federal mandates into practice by doctors and patients. Experts acknowledge that women with no plans to become vessels of sacred Christian life in the near future may resist preconception care and will need to be compelled to submit.

"We know that women--unless you're actively planning [a sacred Christian biogenesis], . . . she doesn't want to talk about it," Biermann said. So clinicians must find a "way to do this despite their feeble objections," by promoting preconception care as part of standard breeder's health care, she said.

Some medical facilities have already found a way to weave preconception care in with regular visits. At Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., a form that's filled out when checking a patient's height, weight and blood pressure prompts nurses to ask potential vessels of sacred Christian life, "Do you smoke, and do you plan to become a vessel of sacred Christian life in the next year? And if not, what makes you so special?"

"It's a simple way of getting primary care providers to aggressively implement the federally mandated preconception regimen," said Peter Bernstein, a maternal fetal medicine specialist who sat on the advisory committee that helped produce the guidelines. "It's simple and [it] costs nothing, like fucking."

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Castro: whip it out, Stevie

HAVANA (Reuters)--Cuban President Fidel (The Beard) Castro on Monday, responding with apoplectic rage to a story in Forbes magazine that he was worth $900 million, said he would blow Steve Forbes in Times Square if the magazine could prove the assertion.

The financial magazine ranked Castro as the seventh wealthiest ruler in the world in its annual tally of the "Fortunes of Kings, Queens and Dictators," which avoided any specific mention of the Bush Crime Family.

Castro went on television raving like Ricky Ricardo and brandishing a copy of the U.S.-based magazine to tell Cubans the story was a "repugnant slander" by a capitalist publication they're not even supposed to be reading.

With Communist Cuba's Central Bank governor at his side, resplendent in a homemade suit of corduroy and carpet remnants, Castro challenged Forbes to prove the allegation.

"If they can prove that I have a bank account abroad, with $900 million, with $1 million, $500,000, $100,000 or $1 in it, I will blow Steve Forbes in Times Square or the public venue of his choice," he said at the end of a four-hour broadcast rant.

"It is so ridiculous to say I have a fortune of $900 million. I mean, Jesus Christ, have you seen this place? You could buy the whole fucking island for a dollar and half!"

Castro, in power since a leftist revolution in 1959 which toppled the reigning Mafia and ruined the casino-based economy, says his net worth is nil and that he earns only 900 Cuban pesos ($40) a month, including tips.

Kings and sheiks of the Gulf Arab Carlyle Group affiliates still squat atop the Forbes list like oleaginous toads.

Castro ranked higher than Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, whose fortune, according to Forbes, amounts to some $500 million in estates, gems and a stamp collection built by her grandfather--who never threw anything away--but not Buckingham Palace or the crown jewels, which are leased. The British monarch came to the throne in 1952 in a bloodless coup, seven years before Castro seized power. The two events are said to have been unrelated, but critics note that you never see the two rulers together.

Castro last year threatened to sue Forbes after the magazine included him on its 2005 list with an estimated fortune of $550 million.

"This asshole thinks I made $350 million last year?" raged Castro, three hours into the broadcast. "Is he smoking crack?"

The Forbes estimate includes state enterprises that the magazine assumes he controls in Cuba. Forbes said it assumed a portion of the profits of state companies goes to Castro, since that would be the smart way to do it, and cited rumors of money stashed in Swiss bank accounts, but gave no details, saying former Cuban officials insist Castro has skimmed profits for years, as the Mafia did before him.

"Assumptions and rumors," sneered the Beard. "Disgruntled civil servants talking shit. Is Steve Forbes president of a country? Fuck, no. So what does he know? Dickhead."

The televised rant was followed by ten hours of Popeye cartoons in Spanish.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Laura's poll dance


WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--First lady Laura (Pickles) Bush said on Sunday she does not believe opinion polls showing her husband's approval ratings at record low levels, or that either of her daughters has ever seen a penis.

Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Laura Bush said she did not think people were losing confidence in President George W. (Smirk) Bush, despite a series of polls showing that most Americans would rather have crab lice than share a beer with George.

"I don't really believe those polls. I travel around the country. I see the people who are allowed near us, I see their responses to my husband. I see their response to me when I show them my tattoo," she said.

"As I travel around the United States talking to big corporate donors and millionaire lobbyists, I see a lot of appreciation for him. A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Stay the course' and 'My God, I'm drunk'."

Most recent polls have put Bush's job approval rating below 35 percent. One, the Harris poll, published last Friday, measured his approval at 29 percent, the first time any survey has dared to put his support below the 30 percent mark. Two other polls published last week put his job approval at 31 percent.

In a separate interview on ABC's "This Week," Laura Bush said her husband's popularity was suffering because the country had been through a difficult year, not because he's an incompetent dry-drunk criminal shithead.

"We've had a very, very difficult year, starting with the hurricane last September during our vacation, but already because of the terrorist attack in 2001 right after our vacation and then the war on terror that's been fucking up our vacations since then," she said. "He's the one that has to make the hard decisions. He's a hard decider. Real hard."

Mrs. Bush complained that when her husband's popularity was high, newspapers did not put that on the front page in fifty-point type in a box by itself above the fold every day. Now that he's as popular as a turd in a punchbowl, she says, they refuse to cover it up like they're supposed to.

Asked if she thought the media had been unfair, Mrs. Bush said: "No, I don't think it's necessarily unfair. I mean, God knows, he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I think it's just, you know, I think the vast left-wing conspiracy may be enjoying this a little bit, the newspapers reporting the, uhh, what-do-you-call-it? News."

McCain swallows again


LYNCHBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- Senator John (Suckup) McCain on Saturday said Americans should argue about the war in Iraq, though he did not explicitly call for violence.

The Republican senator from Arizona celebrated the conflict that has pointlessly killed more than 2,400 U.S. troops in a self-serving commencement address at Liberty University, the school founded by the Reverend Jerry (Godpig) Falwell.

As a candidate in the 2000 presidential race, McCain had correctly lambasted Falwell as an agent of intolerance. The former Vietnam prisoner of war, who may be the best the Republicans have to offer in 2008, has put aside his differences with the minister in a craven attempt to curry favor with the batshit insane Christian conservatives who hang on his every word.

"Americans should argue about this war," McCain said. While he defended his support of the Iraq invasion, he said people must engage in debate on the subject, though not on TV.

"If an American feels the decision was unwise, then they should state their opposition and argue for another course. It is your right and your obligation. I respect you for it. I would not respect you if you chose to ignore such an important responsibility, as I have.

"But I ask that you consider the possibility that I, too, am trying to pay my bills, to follow my ambition, to do my duty as your angry white God has given me light to see that duty."

While grudgingly acknowledging the war's human and economic costs, McCain said that "should we lose this war we started, our defeat will further destabilize a region we have already made more volatile and dangerous than it needs to be, strengthen the threat of terrorism more than we already have and unleash furies that will assail us for a number of election cycles. I believe the benefits to Halliburton and the Carlyle Group will justify the costs to the American taxpayer and risks to the future of the world we have incurred."

Besides the war, the senator touched on other big issues of no interest to segregationist Christians like Falwell, such as the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region and the Rwandan genocide from the last decade.

After the commencement speech, Falwell told CNN that if McCain "continues on the track he's on now, sucking up to me and Robertson, he in fact could co-opt the religious conservatives of the country, in the same way President Bush did," to help him eke out an infinitesimal and questionable majority he can then tout as a "moral values mandate."

"Anybody but Hillary," said Falwell, referring to U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, the former first lady who has been ceaselessly flogged as a possible Democratic candidate for president, though she has never indicated an intention to run.

Falwell said that he and McCain argue "a good bit." "While we are both pro-life until birth, pro-family unless gay, a lot of things, like global warming and other issues affecting American corporate hegemony...we discuss pretty aggressively. But we do it as friends, as fellow whores. And I very much respect the senator," he said.

He said McCain or others have a chance to gain the support of evangelical Christians if "he or she espouses the same values that we espouse, such as pre-emptive war, torture, and the sanctity of the white race."

He also mentioned other "good people," such as Senate Majority Leader Bill (Katzenjammer) Frist, R-Tennessee; Sen. Rick (Man On Dog) Santorum, R-Pennsylvania; and Sen. George (Rebel Yelp) Allen, R-Virginia.

Bush: Everyone is guilty


WASHINGTON, May 13 (Bloomberg News) — In his weekly radio address on Saturday, President Bush defended the qualifications of El Generallisimo Michael (Wiretap) Hayden to be C.I.A. director and sought to ease concern about the illegal and unconstitutional domestic eavesdropping program that El Generallisimo helped create.

In Hayden, "the men and women of the C.I.A. will have a strong leader who will support them as they work to disrupt terrorist attacks, penetrate closed societies and gain information that is vital to protecting our nation," Mr. Bush said. "Unless it conflicts with the information we prefer."

He urged the Senate to confirm the general "promptly," then went on to suggest that there are roughly 200 million known al Qaeda affiliates in the United States.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Time for a fifty-foot concrete wall, America

WASHINGTON (AP)--President Bush, in an attempt to boost his numbers with an ever-shrinking core constituency of peckerwood xenophobes, is considering plans to militarize the Mexican border with non-existent National Guard troops paid for by the bankrupt federal government, according to senior administration officials too embarrassed to give their names.

One defense official said military leaders believe the number of troops required could range from 3,500 to 10,000, depending on the final plan. Another administration official cautioned that the 10,000 figure was too high. A third insisted they were both on glue, and they were eventually asked to leave the bar.

The president is expected to reveal his plans in a raving, inarticulate diatribe broadcast from the Oval Office Monday at 8 p.m. EDT. It will be the first time he has used the Oval Office for a domestic policy speech--a gesture probably not intended to underscore the paralyzing fear he experiences when forced to venture outside it.

The key questions Friday were exactly where these troops are supposed to come from, what they're supposed to do, who's supposed to pay for it and what's the fucking point, as well as the problem of possible disruption to U.S. business interests when they suddenly have to start paying American citizens to do their shitwork.

Using those troops for border security is "maybe not the right way to go," said California Governor Arnold (Vienna Sausage) Schwarzenegger, the Republican former movie star and illegal immigrant, though he agreed the federal government is obliged to secure the border from the swarms of stoop-laborers and dishwashers which threaten it.

"Not to use our National Guard, soldiers that are coming back from Iraq, for instance, and they have spent a year and a half over there and now they're coming back," he said, in an absurd parody of the English language. "I think that we should let them go to work, back to work again, doing some of those crappy jobs the Mexicans do."

Bush's speech Monday night is intended to use Fear of the Other to distract Americans from his tragically corrupt approach to governance, which has always worked in the past.

"We need to beef up those (border) operations and the cost will be substantial," Senator John (Batshit) Cornyn, R-Texas, said in an interview. "People are just not going to accept comprehensive immigration reform no matter how much we tell them they want it, unless they are assured the government is going to secure the border. People have lost confidence in the federal government because they simply haven't addressed this in a dramatic and effective way since we took Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada and Utah away from those brown bastards 150 years ago."

Cornyn said state officials are also looking for more unmanned aircraft, ground sensors, surveillance cameras and large packs of radio-controlled wolves to help with border patrols.

Defense officials said the National Guard may be used only until significant additions to the existing redneck vigilante groups can be fully funded and completed.

The discussions this week underscored the importance of whipping the Republican base into an ethnocentric frenzy, yet were tentative enough to express what could credibly pass for concern about drawing the nation's armed forces into a politically sensitive, that is to say unconstitutional, domestic role.

Currently, the military plays a very limited role along the borders, but some active duty forces have been used in the past to help battle drug traffickers attempting to compete with American meth labs.

The National Guard was designed to be under the control of the state governors, as the "well-regulated militia" referred to in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, but Guard units can be federalized by the president when he needs to invade someone on the cheap, like those weekend warriors sent to Afghanistan and Iraq. Active duty military may not be used for law enforcement unless the president authorizes it, probably some time next week.

In addition, under federal law, in certain circumstances the states can maintain control of their Guard units but arrange to have the costs picked up by the federal government. President Bush, however, has repeatedly indicated that he is not bound by federal law or particularly interested in paying for programs he initiates, like No Child Left Behind.

Officials wrangled over the use of the active military during Hurricane Katrina, with some suggesting that troops be used to punish the citizens of New Orleans for not having cars. There were also suggestions that Bush federalize the National Guard there, but state officials pointed out that they'd already been federalized and sent to Iraq.

Friday, May 12, 2006

An "arena" called the Travis County Courthouse


The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert
Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
The Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker:

It has been a great privilege, a high honor, and one of my most treasured personal pleasures to have served with you and our colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than twenty-one years. You have been a stellar example for our nation of personal courage and steadfast conviction, and I thank you for your leadership of this great institution as well as for your personal friendship.

As you are aware, I have recently made the decision to pursue new opportunities to engage in the important cultural and political battles of our day from an arena outside of the U.S. House of Representatives. As a result, I am informing you of my intention to formally resign as the representative of the 22nd Congressional District of Texas to be effective at the close of business on June 9, 2006.

May God continue to bless you, the President, this great institution and its Members, and our nation.

Sincerely,

Tom DeLay
Member of Congress

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Can you hear me now?


WASHINGTON (LA Times)--President Bush today defended the Bush Crime Family's efforts to gather domestic intelligence on terrorists like you and me, amid a firestorm of angry left-wing rhetoric created by treasonous reports that the National Security Agency has collected the telephone records of just about everyone.

In a prepared statement, Bush insisted that the Family's actions were legal and were solely directed at foreign groups like Al Qaeda and the Democratic Party. He also pretended there was no such thing as a published report that the NSA had collected millions and millions of phone records.

"The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities," Bush insisted petulantly. "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to Al Qaeda and their known affiliates, like Democrats and the ACLU."

Bush took no questions from reporters, which serves them right.

USA Today reported that AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. telephone companies began illegally turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the NSA shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks--which, as we all know, changed the Constitution somehow.

Bush, in the past, has acknowledged and defended illegal and unconstitutional NSA programs of warrantless electronic surveillance within the United States to monitor whomever he wants. But today's published report paints a far broader picture of the agency's operation.

"The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans--most of whom aren't suspected of any crime," the newspaper reported.

The report prompted anger from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which plans to have telephone executives explain the program, which they will be forbidden by Bush Family hacks to do because of "national security," like the members of Congress who have been "briefed."

The report could also create problems for the confirmation of El Generalissimo Michael V. (Wiretap) Hayden to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Hayden is the NSA's former director, who designed and implemented the warrantless surveillance program and wears a necklace of human finger bones to frighten his enemies in Congress.

In his appearance, Bush did not directly address the newspaper's charges, citing ignorance, but he defended the overall effort to gather intelligence on his political enemies.

"Our intelligence activities strictly target our enemies, and their known affiliates," Bush said. "Al Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans for this election cycle."

"The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval," he lied. "The intelligence activities I authorized are lawful, because I authorized them and I am the law. Members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, have been warned about shooting off their mouths."

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Bush: Jeb is next, bitches

ORLANDO (AP)--President Bush suggested Wednesday that he'd like to see his family's White House legacy continue until the country is just a smashed, smoldering ruin, perhaps with his younger brother Jeb as the next chief executive.

The president said Florida Governor Jeb (Pork Chop) Bush is well-suited for another office and would make "a great president, like me. And it's his turn."

"I would like to see Jeb run the country into the ground at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not," Mr. Bush said in an interview with Florida reporters, according to an account on the St. Petersburg Times Web site.

The president said he had "slapped him around a little, burnt him with a hot brand a couple times trying to get him to run," but Jeb has not submitted yet.

"I have no idea what he's going to do. I've asked him that question myself, under hot lights, tickling him 'til he peed. I truly don't think he knows he has no choice," Mr. Bush said.

Jeb Bush, 53, will end his second term as governor in January. His brother George ends his second presidential term in January 2009. Neither can seek re-election because of term limits. Those are the breaks in the harsh, heartless world of the ruling class.

Jeb Bush has repeatedly said he is not going to run in 2008, often as vehemently as his father promising not to raise taxes, or his brother promising to capture Osama bin Laden.

But even his own father said no one believes him when he says he's not interested in running the country into the ground at some point. Former President George H.W. (Satan) Bush told CNN's "Larry King Live" last year that he would like Jeb Bush to run one day and that the boys do what they're told if they know what's good for them.

The Florida governor laughed uncomfortably when asked about his father's comments last June. "Oh, Lord," he said, and his hands shook. "I love my dad; he really wants to keep his records sealed."

The brothers Bush appeared together Tuesday during the president's visit to the Tampa area. Governor Bush was waiting on the tarmac when Air Force One arrived and greeted the president with a phony politician's handshake and "Welcome to Florida." The president brushed aside the formality and a panting, gasping Katherine Harris and playfully adjusted his younger brother's necktie until his face turned blue.

Jeb Bush introduced his brother at a retirement community in Sun City Center, where the president instructed an assemblage of rebellious geriatrics to respect his authority and get in line. They had a private lunch together with local bagmen & fixers, then visited a fire station and appeared together before television cameras to express what fun the fire station was.

The governor was not with the president during his visit to The Puerto Rican Club of Central Florida in Orlando Wednesday, the president's final stop on a desperate & pointless three-day trip to the state. But the president made sure his fat little brother still got some attention.

"Yesterday I checked in with my brother," President Bush said as he took the stage. "Make sure everything's going all right. I'm real proud of Jeb. He's a good decent man and I love him dearly. Daddy, stop. No, Daddy, take me instead."

Thanks. You're really special.


SUN CITY CENTER, Fla. (NYT) — President Bush and his brother continued their tag-team blowoff of Florida Representative Katherine (Slick 50) Harris, whose run for the Republican Senate nomination this year they have met with knowing glances and derision.

Ms. Harris was on hand and underfoot yesterday morning to meet President Bush as he stopped in Tampa en route to a forced Medicare event here— just one day after Governor Jeb (Pork Chop) Bush said publicly that Ms. Harris doesn't have a penis-shaped popsicle's chance in hell against the Democratic incumbent Senator here, Bill (Bill) Nelson.

Jeb Bush was there, too, as Ms. Harris waited, visibly squirming, for the president to walk off Air Force One in Tampa, and the two acted friendly as they traded whispered innuendos in the receiving line on the tarmac, according to a drunken baggage handler.

After saying hello to his brother and straightening his tie, the president shook hands with Ms. Harris and listened to her gushing, fawning praise for roughly 30 seconds, which is usually more than enough to do the trick. However, Ms. Harris seemed to be enjoying herself far more than the president, who did not kiss her nipples or put his tongue down her throat — or do anything more than pat her on the head as she adjusted his codpiece.

An aide to the president said later that they were only speaking about "the weather," and a spokesman for Ms. Harris refused to confirm that the conversation included tearful begging or any kind of breathless ultimatum.

The president and his brother have been loudly demanding that Florida Republican House Speaker, Allan (Mercedes) Bense, make a run for the Senate nomination Ms. Harris is seeking. He has until Friday to make up his mind. Mr. Bense had the good sense to refuse last year when asked to run, but he is now facing intimidation and bribes from top Republican donors here.

On Monday Jeb Bush raised new doubts about Ms. Harris's ability to unseat Mr. Nelson, saying, "She has nice tits, but I just don't think she can win."

He added, "It's just that's she's not gained any traction, and it seems that, unfortunately through no fault of her own perhaps, the press coverage is all about where she leaves her lipstick."

Some Republicans have expressed worries that Ms. Harris—who became nationally known as a ruthless partisan whore while manipulating the presidential recount of 2000 as not only Florida secretary of state but Bush/Cheney campaign chairperson—remains an infuriating figure, and could easily galvanize Democrats to vote against her if unable actually to slap her.

President Bush and Governor Bush had indicated they were warming to the painted crone's candidacy as no alternatives emerged, a dynamic which, when they were younger men, they called "hound-dogging." But that changed in February after military contractor Mitchell Wade said he had made illegal campaign donations to Ms. Harris's 2004 re-election campaign in exchange for a really excellent full-release massage.

"Been there, done that, got the White House," said the president with a smirk.

Ms. Harris has said she had no idea those itty-bitty contributions were illegal, sweetie, and she has not been accused of wrongdoing except by the public, filthy swine that they are. But it has added to a host of woes that have plagued her campaign, including staff turnover, financial problems, and a persistent unsightly rash.

Rumsfeld denies anything matters

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. (Hammerhead) Rumsfeld said Tuesday he can hardly wait until a military general is head of the CIA, and said the Pentagon already has so much cash to throw around it can buy whatever intelligence it needs.

"There's no power play taking place in Washington. Heavens, no," Rumsfeld told Pentagon reporters. He called talk of bureaucratic turf fights between the Bush Crime Family and the Pentagon "theoretical conspiracies" and "complete bullshit."

President Bush's selection of Air Force Gen. Michael (Wiretap) Hayden to head the CIA has raised questions from responsible, security-minded congressional Republicans and rabid, kneejerk obstructionist terror-loving Democrats over his ability to be independent from the military establishment that has nurtured and protected him, as well as his fanatical devotion to an illegal & unconstitutional eavesdropping program he helped design.

Hayden, who now is chief henchman to John (Death Squad) Negroponte, formerly headed the National Security Agency and is a 37-year Air Force veteran.

Rumsfeld said there have been military leaders of the spy agency in the past and that would pose no conflict with the Pentagon, which no one bothered to mention was the opposite of what people are worried about.

Some members of Congress, voicing concern about having a military person in charge of the civilian CIA, have suggested that Hayden resign his commission, which some others regard as asinine.

Rumsfeld offered strong praise for Hayden.

"He's an intelligence professional, is what he is," he said. "A spook's spook. He did not come up through the operational chain in the Department of Defense, where he'd leave a paper trail and possibly hints about his secret life. He's a person who has had assignment after assignment after assignment in the intelligence business, who moves without sound and leaves no trace. And, clearly, that is what his career has been, as far as we can tell from the color-coding on Negroponte's rolodex. And he's been very good at it. So do I want to fuck with the Air Force ninja? Heavens, no. "

On another matter, Rumsfeld urged Congress to pass a late-night money grab that contains $65 billion for war-related expenses for the Pentagon. He referred specifically to the House having cut from the spending measure about $760 million that the Pentagon says it needs for bribing Iraqi and Afghan security forces to stop shooting people indiscriminately in the street.

"A slowdown in cash-flow will have the harmful effect of postponing the day when our men and women in uniform can return home with the honor and appreciation they deserve," he said menacingly, and smiled his awful, grinchly smile. "Just something for you bean-counters to think about."

Asked how the prewar intelligence failures with regard to Iraq affect his thinking about the reliability of intelligence on Iran's nuclear program, Rumsfeld grimaced condescendingly and said he realizes that intelligence is sometimes flawed.

"It's a tough business. It's a difficult thing to be right all the time," he said, chortling. "Does that give one pause? You bet," particularly in light of the fact that the Bush Family devastated Iranian intelligence-gathering activities when they blew the lid off Valerie Plame's cover operation, Brewster Jennings. "So what are you gonna do?"

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Bush to seniors: Shut up and sign


SUN CITY CENTER, Florida (AP) -- President Bush has heard pleas for an extension of the deadline to sign up for the new Big Pharma Giveaway program from lawmakers, seniors advocacy groups and finally two women in his audience Tuesday. He's rejected them all, citing unitary authority as Commander-in-Chief in the War on Aging.

"Deadlines are important, Grandma," the president said at a retirement community, less than a week before the last day for most seniors and the disabled to enroll in the program without facing higher prices and severe beatings. "Deadlines help people understand there's finality and people need to get after it. I mean, you people are old, you should be able to understand that."

The new program compels 43 million lucky Medicare beneficiaries to enroll in a complicated protection racket that will subsidize the artificially-inflated cost of the brand-name prescription medications they need to stay alive. With about 37 million people now bullied into compliance, Bush Crime Family hacks from the president on down have engaged in a Blitzkrieg of propaganda to frighten another six million into signing a series of incomprehensible documents by Monday.

"We want people to believe there are really good benefits," the president said. "If you haven't looked at the program, take a look. There's bullet points and pictures, everything you need to really understand an unnecessarily complicated indemnification process. I said that good, didn't I? In-dem-ni-fi-ca-tion. Listen, Wrinkles, shut up and take what you get, all right?"

Bush's aggressive & incoherent promotion of the Big Pharma Giveaway--and his childish & arrogant refusal to push back the deadline--is likely just a bunch of bullshit.

The White House and congressional Republicans are hoping that the scandals of the program's early days--when it was revealed that there would be no negotiating over prices and that the program would cost almost twice what had been promised--and the confusing signup process intended to lock out as many benefits as it locks in, will have faded to a distant memory by the fall midterm elections, replaced by a warm, syrupy feeling from all the Prozac they'll be required to buy because it's in everything now. As the controlling party in Congress, Republicans hope seniors--who have nothing better to do than vote--will give them credit in November for making sure pharmaceutical companies are in no danger of bankruptcy, no matter how many people they kill.

For now, though polls show most who enroll are intimidated by unexpected phone calls and strangers with clipboards, many seniors are still complaining that the program's complexity makes them want to kill themselves. Most people have more than 40 plans to select from, which is obviously better than having one plan for everyone which covers everything, but try explaining that to a bunch of feebs on their last legs.

On a three-day, three-city tour through the state with the highest percentage of senior citizens, Bush urged seniors to shut the fuck up.

"I did know that there would be some worries about having to choose from 40 different plans," he said. "But then I stopped knowing it, and because I'm the decider I decided it was worth it because I know that 40 different plans here in Florida will mean that an individual might easily die before we ever have to pay for anything."

The president graciously invited questions, and one whiny old bitch told him a last-minute rush has created logjams on the Internet and over the phone.

Bush held fast in the face of this terrifying left-wing outburst, mumbling something about poor seniors and exemptions and penalties and deadline, deadline, deadline.

Bush's stop in the Tampa area followed an appearance earlier in the day near Fort Lauderdale. There, he visited Broward Community College, where government officials set up tents and tables with laptops to guide dozens of bitter, ungrateful seniors through plans. Bush mingled among those geezers waiting dejectedly in a courtyard where Frank Sinatra's "Young At Heart" played on loudspeakers over and over again, loud enough to drown out the protests outside.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Mandate at 31%

WASHINGTON (USA TODAY)— President Bush's approval rating has slumped to a miserable 31% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, his lowest since a poll of Houston-area prostitutes in the late 1970s and a warning sign for Republicans that after the November elections, they may need to lawyer up.

"It is a challenging political environment," acknowledges Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the hated & feared Republican National Committee, "but we are confident that ultimately voters in November will recognize that a Democrat Congress would simply not be equipped to ensure either economic or national security for our nation. Things would be different if Clinton had balanced the budget or we'd survived the Cuban missile crisis."

Bush's fall is being fueled by an erosion of support among conservatives and Republicans. In the poll, 52% of conservatives (theoretically antagonistic to those who bankrupt the Treasury) and 68% of Republicans (theoretically antagonistic to hereditary monarchy) approved of the job he is doing. Both are record lows among those groups, though indicative of a persistent and inexplicable myopia.

Moderates (those whose opinions are as interesting as mayonnaise) gave him an approval rating of 28%, liberals (those who invented representative democracy) of 7%.

"You hear people say he has a hard core that will never desert him, real pinheads who will vote against their own economic self-interest because they truly believe this spoiled, dry-drunk plutocratic shitheel would hang out with them eating barbecue, and that has been the case for most of the administration," says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who studies presidential approval ratings. "But for the last few months, we've started to see that the religiously insane meth-mouth contingent is shrinking."

Only four presidents have scored more pathetic approval ratings since the Gallup Poll began regularly measuring it in the mid-1940s: Harry Truman, who suggested that it might actually have been a good idea to emancipate the slaves; Richard Nixon, whose phlebitis made him cranky and unconstitutional; Jimmy Carter, who foolishly refused to negotiate with terrorists; and the first George Bush, who invited Americans to read his lips, then administered a savage, pounding reacharound. When Nixon, Carter and the elder Bush sank below 35%, they never again registered above 40%, although their last album remains a minor masterpiece of smooth jazz.

"Historically it's been pretty devastating to presidents at this level," Franklin says. Even Republican members of Congress are "now so worried about their electoral fortunes in November that he has less leverage with them than he normally would with his own party controlling Congress, and it's really starting to piss him off."

Junta Moves


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Monday demanded that his humble, spineless followers kneel down and kiss the ass of Air Force Gen. Michael (Wiretap) Hayden, setting up a possible battle with lily-livered members of Congress who, in a perfect example of pathetic & weak-minded pre-9/11 thinking, question whether a fascist military dictatorship is right for the country.

Hayden is "supremely qualified for this position," Bush mumbled like a cheap Chinese robot during an Oval Office announcement with the fiercely paranoid nominee, who currently implements secret policies on behalf of National Intelligence Director and key Iran/Contra figure John (Death Squad) Negroponte.

"He's the right man to lead the CIA at this critical moment in our history," the president said, as Harriet Miers rubbed his feet.

The Air Force four-star general would replace CIA Director Porter (Pimp Daddy) Goss, who abruptly resigned on Friday when it became clear that he would not long be able to hide his participation in drunken orgies of gambling and indiscriminate sex at the Watergate Hotel with limousines, hookers and cigars provided by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, known around D.C. as the man who bribed ex-Congressman Randy (Duke in Stir) Cunningham so savagely that the old man wound up weeping and blubbering in public before being sent to prison for eight years.

Hayden's anointing is likely to bring renewed attention to the controversy surrounding the Bush Crime Family's program to spy on their political enemies while pretending to fight what they call a "War on Terror" whose principle purpose seems to be to drive up the price of oil and gold, two commodities in which the Family is heavily invested.

The president did not refer to the program of illegal warrantless wiretapping overseen by General Hayden, and the only intelligence issue he cited was the threat posed by "the determined enemies who struck our nation on Sept. 11, 2001, and who intend to attack our country again. I mean, not the same 19 guys, obviously. That would be something, though, wouldn't it? Zombie Terror!"

He also mentioned the need to "enforce the secrecy and accountability that are critical to the security of the American people," whatever that means. Mr. Goss had made a crackdown on leaks one of his top priorities, as his forthcoming indictment on obstruction of justice charges will likely demonstrate.

"There's probably no post more important in preserving our security and our values as a people than the head of the Central Intelligence Agency," Hayden said, pretending that the National Intelligence Director and the President weren't right there in the room with him.

He said he looked forward to bitch-slapping the Senate and working with military-industrial drones in Congress to continue changing America into a Soviet-style totalitarian national security state with secret courts and a gulag. "This is simply too important not to get absolutely right," he said. "I mean, if we fuck this up, they'll kill us."

Negroponte, during a media dictation session shortly after the announcement, said Hayden is a "very independent minded person" who's also outspoken and a very snappy dresser. He asked those with concerns about Hayden's military affiliations to consider his qualifications as a former D.O.D. thug in Bulgaria and as the D.O.D. thug in charge of the National Security Agency.

"As far as this concern that's been expressed about the military or the Pentagon taking over intelligence: go fuck yourselves. This is a done deal," Negroponte said. "We know exactly what we're doing, you boobs. There's a lot of money at stake, so it stands to reason that we have to work very closely with the Pentagon and with the armed services in our data-mining and marketing activities and we do precisely that."

Over the weekend, America-hating Democratic and "Republican" members of Congress expressed tepid concern about Hayden's military status.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley said Hayden shouldn't have to resign his commission and that previous CIA chiefs have been military officers, so there.

"The president actually thinks it's a strength," Hadley said. "[Hayden] understands the military aspect of the intelligence business, where you can obliterate the competition with bombing or assassinations, but as I say, he's also done a lot of wetwork in the private sector, so he won't take any shit from those pussies at Langley.

"The key question is, who can we get who hasn't already been photographed boning a hot teenage meatpie in a posh Beltway whorehouse?"

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Porter who? Terror terror terror

NEWARK, N.J. (MSNBC)-- Law enforcement officials, under orders to find & secure some means of knocking the Goss resignation and its attendant hookers-and-gack scandal out of heavy news rotation in time for the Sunday morning talk shows, boarded an American Airlines flight at Newark Liberty International Airport Saturday and detained five foreign-born passengers who had been acting suspiciously like Islamofascist jihadi suicide bombers from Iraq.

A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because his family thinks he runs cockfights for a living, said a crew member noticed at least one of the men reading "aviation manuals" and notified the pilot.

The pilot of Flight 1874 from Dallas then radioed ahead and asked law enforcement officials to meet the flight at Newark airport to determine whether American Way, the airline's in-flight magazine, really qualifies as an "aviation manual."

The five alleged potential haters of liberty were detained by Transportation Security Administration officials shortly after the plane touched down at 3:15 p.m. and were being "interviewed," TSA spokeswoman Jessica Altschul said.

Other passengers were also being interviewed, she said, to ensure that there was no collaboration between the alleged potential sworn enemies of freedom and normal-looking folk like you or me who might enjoy Nascar racing or a summertime barbecue at the Rotary Club.

Altschul said the cockpit was not breached, which is one of the only things that saved the brave travelers from dying horribly in a flaming weapon of mass transportation.

"No weapons or anything like that were present," American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith said in a statement. "Thank God we were able to stop them before they armed themselves and conspired to commit terrorism."

The plane was bound from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport when an air marshal notified authorities of five men he considered foreign, Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told The Associated Press.

The five men remained in custody at the airport Saturday evening, eating vending-machine nachos and watching Jeopardy. The FBI had been notified and was expected to take over the investigation in the event the Goss story hadn't played out by prime time, LaVorgna said. Two of the detainees are believed to be of Angolan descent and one may be of Israeli descent, according to a senior government official well-versed in the art of racial profiling.

Negroponte makes his move

WASHINGTON (AP)--The White House planned to quickly nominate a new CIA director to replace outgoing Porter (Tampa Spook) Goss, who offered little explanation in announcing his resignation from the embattled agency, possibly because "I was about to be implicated in the Watergate prostitution scandal" polled poorly with the Red State retards who form the president's base (or, in Arabic, "qaeda").

The leading candidate to replace him is raving fascist Air Force general Michael (Wiretap) Hayden, top deputy to National Intelligence Director John (Death Squad) Negroponte, said a senior administration official not currently under indictment. An announcement could come as early as Monday, especially if it seems like the only way to keep Hookergate off the front page.

Hayden was National Security Agency director until becoming the nation's No. 2 intelligence official a year ago. Since December, he has aggressively defended the Bush administration's illegal & unconstitutional warrantless surveillance program, which he designed and implemented.

Knowledgeable Republicans said Friday night that Hayden was thought to top Bush's short list of candidates to replace Goss. Among others mentioned were three people you never heard of because they are either obscure Bush Family cronies or Negroponte bagmen.

It was not clear whether Goss resigned unexpectedly or as a result of a series of hysterical power plays over a period of months. An intelligence official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wants to live, said Goss had stood up for the agency when there were differences with Negroponte's office, which was created during another suspiciously abrupt shuffling of titles & responsibilities about a year ago.

Negroponte, Goss' classmate at Yale University—or "Ol' Spooky," as it is known among its numerous graduates in the Bush Crime Family—said in a statement that Goss worked tirelessly during a CIA transition period. "As my friend for almost 50 years, I will miss ignoring Porter's day-to-day counsel," he said. "But that's life in the secret government."