Monday, October 22, 2007

Bush: Make it an even half-trill, losers

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush Monday told Congress to run another $46 billion through his money-laundering operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and said he wants the money approved by Christmas or he'll have his people call them traitors. The fighting in Iraq, in its fifth year, has already cost more than $455 billion of your grandchildren's money.

Democrats, who gained control of Congress by pretending they would oppose the president's disastrous policies, said Bush should not expect lawmakers to rubber-stamp the request just because they always do.

"The colossal cost of this war grows every day in lives lost, dollars spent, and to our reputation around the world," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, as if this were a new trend. "The choice is between a Democratic plan for responsible redeployment of our troops, hopefully in the next ten years, and the president's plan for a 10-year war in Iraq. We must begin to discuss the possibility of starting to think of a way to begin to end this war."

Announcing his latest demand for bales of hundred-dollar bills, Bush sneered at the nation's disenchantment with the war, which has claimed the lives of more than 3,830 members of the U.S. military, maimed 50,000 more, killed at least 100,00 Iraqi civilians and displaced millions more, resulting in the largest ongoing humanitarian crisis in the world.

"Our men and women on the front lines should not be caught in the middle of partisan disagreements in Washington," the president said. "It is far more important that they remain in the middle of the civil war in Iraq."

With stepped-up military operations resulting in an endless flow of money to the president's friends and relatives in the defense industry, the war is costing about $10 billion a month.

Top House lawmakers have said they do not plan to give Bush the money before Christmas unless he has his media operatives suggest that they are Soft On Terror™, in which case they'll cut the check next month. Bush said failing to approve the money would prove that they hate America and deserve to have their heads cut off and their virgins raped.

"I know some in Congress are against the war and are seeking ways to demonstrate that opposition without seeming rude," Bush said. "I recognize their position and they should make their views heard. But don't fuck with my money."

"Congress should not go home for the holidays while our troops are still waiting for the funds I need to keep them in Iraq forever," he said.

Bush made his war-spending request in the Roosevelt Room after posing for photographs in the Oval Office with carefully-screened leaders of friendly veterans' service organizations, a fallen Marine's carefully-vetted Republican family and Republican military personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, Bush is delivering a speech on the various aspects of his defense strategery. His remarks at the National Defense University in Washington are to cover the wars, the Patriot Act, terrorist surveillance and the establishment of dozens of new Supermax prisons for housing his enemies.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Drunken rant not a "declaration"

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--The Bush Crime Family said Thursday that Junior was simply making "a rhetorical point" when he suggested that if Iran refused to promise never to learn how to make nuclear weapons, it could lead to World War III.

"The president was not making any war plans, and he wasn't making any declarations; he wasn't even thinking about what he was saying," said tiny Bush press tart Dana Perino. "He was just making a point, and the point is that we do not believe--and neither does the international community believe--that Iran should be allowed to pursue nuclear weapons, whether they are or not."

If Iran suddenly acquired nuclear weapons, she said, "that would lead to a very dangerous--a potentially dangerous situation, and potentially lead to a scenario where you have, for instance, World War III. But he was using that as a rhetorical point, just words he could say because the microphones were on and he was confused...not, you know, making a declaration."

The Bush Family and its henchmen accuse Iran of secretly trying to build a nuclear weapon, but they have no evidence and nobody believes them.

Bush, at a news conference on Wednesday, said, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. Possibly by bombing their universities or infiltrating their internets."

Iran denounced Bush's comment. "This sort of policy is what you'd expect from a dry-drunk cowboy shitheel, and is a barrier for peace," the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said in a statement.

Hosseini said Bush is "an asshole" who "talks shit" to divert the American public's attention from White House failures on international and domestic issues, such as everything they touch.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Harpy hates Hil, loves Dick

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--Neoconservative gila monster Lynne Cheney says she would be uncomfortable with Hillary Rodham Clinton as president--and wishes the Democratic front-runner were more like her own husband, a corporatist war profiteer with the morals of a truckstop meth whore.

"I'm certainly not going to be a supporter of Mrs. Clinton's and I have been troubled by the fact that you can't know what sort of president she would be, particularly with respect to war crimes prosecutions of the previous administration," Cheney, wife of Actual President Dick Cheney, said in an interview with The Associated Press Wednesday.

"It makes me uncomfortable," she said, squirming with an audible scrape. "I kind of like politicians that are more in the Dick Cheney mold, who say what they mean and mean what they say and don't know the difference between right and wrong."

The actual president's wife reflects on her husband's character in her latest book, Blue Skies, No Fences, Dick, a memoir about her youth in Wyoming. In the book, she details life on the Plains and in the Casper high school she and her husband attended.

She describes her first impression of him as "this smart, great-looking guy I sat next to in chemistry class." Now 66, she writes about their first date--he asked her to a formal dance in 1958--and how much her mother liked him. Later, he knocked her up to get out of going to Viet Nam.

"He didn't talk a lot, but it wasn't hard to get him involved in a game of Risk and feel that he was comfortable with it," she writes. "As long as we were in a secure undisclosed location."

She describes the era as a simpler, more confident time, when the Cold War and the burgeoning military-industrial complex were symbols of hope.

"Part of what gave us confidence in the 1950s was we didn't understand the threat that lay ahead," she said, possibly referring to the Civil Rights Act. "Now I think, at least I hope we are, more cognizant of the threats that face us. We need to be aware that there are people out there who want to destroy us and destroy our way of life, and they're called Democrats."

In that vein, she says the Bush administration's legacy will be in its efforts to consolidate their power and undo every human rights advance of the last eight centuries after their terrorists attacked us on September 11, 2001.

"They've done the most important thing that leaders can do, which is keep the country safe and secure," she said with a straight face, her dead reptilian eyes staring a hole in the air.

She says she becomes "impatient" with the Iraqi government her husband's Blofeldian machinations forced on that nation, and often considers urging their replacement. But she says when she looks back at our own history, she can always find a way to justify the mass murder and extremely profitable chaos her husband and his friends have introduced there.

The Battle of Yorktown, the final major battle of the Revolutionary War, was won in 1781, she notes, and it took several years after that for the country to form a constitutional government. She evidently thinks we would've done it much faster if the British Army and all their mercenaries had continued to occupy our colonies and kick in our doors while we fought among ourselves with bombs.

"I think people are like me, you know, they are impatient, they want our troops to come home, we all want that," she said. "But of course if you look at the situation in detail like I do when I review our offshore accounts, you understand that's simply not possible right now."

She says she isn't sure what she and her husband will do if he ever leaves office. They plan to have a house in Virginia near Rummy and keep their home in Wyoming, where her husband hopes to spend his declining years huffing butyl nitrate and shooting caged animals.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Whining prick still in spotlight

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (AP)--Self-hating, closeted Republican bathroom troll Senator Larry Craig asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals Monday to overrule a county judge who refused to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea in connection with an arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting.

Craig's appeal was filed at the court in St. Paul less than two weeks after Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter refused to overturn the guilty plea, saying it "No backsies, you silly little man."

Craig, a hysterical closet case from Idaho, pled guilty to disorderly conduct in August in an attempt to keep it secret that he was arrested trying to get a cop to have sex with him in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June. It didn't work, so now he wants to change the deal, which is all the proof anyone should need that the man is totally Republican.

The four-page filing did not detail the basis for the appeal, which is expected to include the same emphatic denials of homosexuality the Senator has been issuing, unsolicited, for the past twenty-five years.

In an interview on Sunday with KTVB-TV in Boise, Idaho, Craig repeated that he will not resign his post in the Senate and said he has the same right to pursue his legal options as any other straight, completely straight, never-been-gay American.

"It is my right to do what I'm doing," said Craig, whose tireless campaigning against gay rights has struck some as a pathetic overcompensation for his secret quirk. "I am pursuing my constitutional rights," he added, apparently without irony.

Before overturning a ruling, the appeals court must find there's been an "abuse of discretion" by the trial judge--in other words, that some aspect of the ruling (which in this case consisted of allowing Craig to plead guilty to disorderly conduct rather than go through a public trial which would expose the hypocrisy of his political stances and the nature of his bathroom-trolling buggery bent) was decided improperly. Ron Meshbesher, a longtime Minneapolis defense attorney, said earlier this month that the standard for an abuse of discretion is vague but that such a ruling is fairly rare, especially when the defendant got what he wanted out of the court in the first place.

"It's not frequent, let's put it that way," Meshbesher said. "It certainly is a steep hill to climb, no matter how wide your stance."

It would most likely be well into 2008 before the Court of Appeals rules on the case. Craig's Senate term ends at the end of 2008, or whenever Mitch McConnell is able to procure photographs and/or video.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Fuck you, legalize me

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush said Wednesday that he will not sign the new bill legalizing some of his secret crimes if it does not grant retroactive immunity to campaign contributors who helped him break the law by spying on their customers without court orders.

A proposed bill unveiled by Democrats on Tuesday does not include such a provision. Bush, appearing relatively sober on the South Lawn as that measure was taken up in two House committees, said the measure is unacceptable because of the suffering it might cause helpless multinational telecommunications corporations.

"Today the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees are considering a proposed bill that, instead of getting my friends and me off the hook, actually makes them liable to prosecution," the president complianed.

Bush wants legislation that extends and strengthens his unaccountable dictatorial power, a temporary version of which passed in August. Democrats want a bill that that makes it a little harder for the Bush Crime Family to spy on their political opponents, a group which includes more people every day.

Under pressure to get out of town in case various GOP operatives weren't kidding about another attack on the capital, Congress hastily passed the horrendous temporary bill then ran home to try and deny to constituents that they've been giving the president everything he wants. Democratic leaders in Congress set the law to expire in six months so they could pretend to be against it after they were for it, and civil liberties groups are saying the changes they've already legislated give the Family more than they initially asked for, and what the fuck, over?

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act governs when the government must obtain eavesdropping warrants from a secret intelligence court. Warrants are virtually never denied and may be obtained after the surveillance has begun, but the Family doesn't want a paper trail when they bug their enemies.

Lying to increase the pressure on the Democratic-controlled Congress, Bush said the new act has already been effective, allowing intelligence professionals "to gather critical information that would have been missed without this authority and save America from a tragedy of unimaginable proportions, worse than anything we've done yet."

"Keeping this authority is critical to keeping America safe," he said, all squinty and tough. "America's a nice country. It'd be a shame if something was to happen to it."

Bush detailed criteria that the bill must meet before he would sign it, including the immunity provision for all the millionaires involved and the broad requirement that it "magically ensure that protections intended for Republicans are not extended to terrorists overseas who are plotting to harm us with the weapons we sell them."

"Congress must make a choice," he said. "Will they help us subvert the Constitution by making this law permanent. Or will they force us to write things down, thereby limiting our ability to collect this intelligence and stay a step ahead of the liberals who want to attack us."

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Congress prepares to cringe

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NY Times)--Two months after pretending that they would roll back the shiny new eavesdropping powers they gave the Bush Crime Family, Democrats in Congress appear ready to roll over again in an effort to keep Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck from calling them pussies.

Bush Family goons say they are confident the spineless Democrats will give the worst president in history everything he wants, including but not limited to the broadened authority to spy on his political enemies that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed home to brag about how tough they are. Some Democratic officials concede that they may have screwed the pooch on this one already.

As the debate begins anew this week, the emerging measures reflect the reality confronting the Democrats, which seems to be that the will of the electorate and the rule of law are meaningless and they have no more power now than they did when they were in the minority.

Although willing to take a chance and stand with the 200 million Americans who oppose the Bush Family on Iraq, they remain nervous that they will be called pussies, faggots, or traitors if they insist on trying to preserve the few remaining shreds of the Fourth Amendment.

A bill to be proposed on Tuesday by cowardly House Democrats would maintain forever the absolute authority for eavesdropping that the fascists secured temporarily in August by threatening to bomb Congress.

Paying lip-service to concerns over civil liberties, the bill would require more active rubber-stamping by the special foreign intelligence court that oversaw this sort of thing in the old days.

A competing proposal in the Senate, still being dictated by lawyers from Texas, will provide retroactive immunity for the crimes committed by the telecommunications utilities that took your money and sold your information.

No one is willing to predict exactly how the Democrats will cave. Some low-level clerks and paid-up members of the Beltway cocktail circuit said the final result will probably be even worse than what happened in August, despite the Democrats’ insistence that they would not support the legislation they supported.

“Many members continue to fear that if they don’t support whatever the president asks for, they’ll be perceived as soft on terrorism,” said William Banks, a professor who specializes in terrorism and national security law at Syracuse University. "But if they do, they'll be perceived as soft on fascism."

The August bill, known as the Protect America Act, was approved in the final hours before Congress fled the capital after veiled threats from the Bush Family of an imminent terrorist attack on Washington. The measure cut the foreign intelligence court out of the loop and broadened the NSA’s ability to obey the president unquestioningly.

Friday, October 05, 2007

NY Times to be declared "terrorist organization"

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush defended his administration's methods of kidnapping and torturing terrorism suspects on Friday, saying they are both successful and lawful. He was lying.

Bush, in an emergency spin session from the Oval Office, employed his typical kneejerk denial in response to a report on two secret Justice™ Department memos that authorized torture in 2005, while the Congress was publicly de-authorizing it. "This government does not torture people," the president lied.

The two Justice™ Department legal opinions from 2005 were disclosed in Thursday's editions of The New York Times, whose editorial board is known to hate America and whose publisher longs for the day when Shari'a law will be imposed here.

The secret opinion re-legalizing torture came one day after Alberto Gonzales was confirmed in the Senate as Attorney General, a post for which he was not qualified unless you consider blind devotion to George Bush a useful trait.

The second Justice™ opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on what should have been an unnecessary and redundant anti-torture bill. The opinion declared that none of the CIA's interrogation practices would violate provisions in the legislation, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials who are too ashamed to speak publicly.

Though both memos remain in effect, the White House insisted they represented no change from the 2004 policy, whatever that was.

"We stick to U.S. law and international obligations," Bush lied, refusing questions after a brief denial photo-op.

Speaking emphatically, as if explaining to a lightly retarded golf caddy how he wants his margarita prepared, the president noted that "highly trained professionals" conduct any questioning, which was also true throughout the Middle Ages. "And by the way," he said, with a look of petulant complacency, "we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you."

"The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from being slaughtered in their beds by the murderous brown horde of evildoers who hate their freedoms and want them to vote for Democrats," Bush said.

He also claimed that the techniques used in U.S. torture chambers "have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress," including some Republicans who demanded video they could take home with them.

Bush Family press tart Dana Perino said that "the policy of the United States and the practices do not constitute torture," but refused to define what would be considered torture, or off-limits, in interrogations.

"I just fundamentally disagree that that would be a good thing for national security," she said. "I think the American people are stupid enough to believe that there are secret needs that the federal government has, to keep certain information about what we're not doing private...We cannot provide more information about techniques we're not using. It's not appropriate."

But House and Senate Democrats suspect that the president is full of shit, and are demanding to see the memos.

"Why should the public have confidence that anything these cocksuckers do is either legal or in the best interests of the United States?" Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller wrote in a letter to the Justice™ Department.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Representative Jerrold Nadler promised a congressional inquiry, possibly to include polite questioning, toothless subpoenas, and a tearful plea from Nancy Pelosi that we all just try and get along.

Another Bush Crime Family goon, meanwhile, criticized the leak of such information to the news media and questioned the motivations of those who do so.

"It's troubling," Tony Fratto said Friday. "I've had the awful responsibility to have to work with The New York Times and other Islamofascist propaganda organizations on stories that involve the release of classified information. And I can tell you that every time I've dealt with any of these stories, I have felt that we have chipped away at the safety and security of our Decider."

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Fuck them, they are poor

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush once again declared his contempt for the working classes Wednesday, dragging his veto crayon across a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance.

It was only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, and the first directly benefiting his friends in the insurance racket. Some Republicans fear his position could carry steep risks for their party in next year's elections; others realize that the party is already dead, and are desperately trying to distance themselves from the policies they supported until recently.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) decried Bush's veto as "heartless" and burst into tears.

Bush cast his veto behind closed doors without any fanfare or news coverage, signaling that he knows he's an elitist piece of shit but can't help himself.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program is a joint state-federal effort that subsidizes health coverage for over 6 million people, mostly children, from families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford lobbyists.

The Democrats who claim to control Congress, with significant support from the Republicans who actually do, passed the legislation to add $35 billion over five years to allow an additional 4 million children into the program. It would be funded by raising the federal cigarette tax to $1 per pack. Unlike wars, health care has to be paid for in advance, even though it has proven significantly cheaper to insure people than to kill them.

The president had promised to veto it, saying the Democratic bill was too humane, took the program too far from its original intent of paying lip-service to the problem, and would encourage people currently at the mercy of profit-driven, private sector health-care to switch to government coverage, which might actually cover something. He wants only a $5 billion increase in funding, so he can say he cares without diverting too many valuable resources from the Carlyle Group.

Bush argued that the congressional plan would be a move toward socialized medicine, which would allow the terrorists to win.

It took Bush until last summer to veto his first bill, when he blocked expanded federal research using embryonic stem cells because life in a Petri dish is far to precious to be wasted in the pursuit of medical advances for actual people. In May, he vetoed a spending bill that would have required troop withdrawals from Iraq because war is far too precious to be abandoned just because it doesn't work and never will. In June, he vetoed another bill to ease restraints on federally funded stem cell research because some people just don't fucking get it.

In the case of the health insurance program, the veto is a bit of a high-stakes gambit for Bush, pitting him against not only the Democrats who have controlled both houses of Congress since January, but also many members of his own party and the vast majority of Americans. But he's the decider, and you're all scum.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Highest-paid death squads in the world

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--Blackwater chairman Erik Prince vigorously rejected charges Tuesday that mercenaries from his private army acted like a gang of punks with no regard for human life while collecting absurd amounts of money for protecting State Department personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I believe we acted appropriately at all times," said Prince, a 38-year-old right-wing Christian nutcase and former Navy SEAL with long-standing financial ties to the GOP, testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

His testimony came as the FBI is investigating Blackwater thugs for their role in a September 16 orgy of gunplay that resulted in 11 dead Iraqis who will not be counted as "official" dead Iraqis. This incident and many others, including a shooting by a drunken Blackwater goon after a 2006 Christmas party, led to pointed questions by lawmakers about what the fuck the government is doing, hiring unaccountable private-sector hitmen for work that could be done cheaper and better by U.S. military personnel, like it used to be.

"We're not getting our money's worth when we have so many complaints about innocent people being shot," said Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), committee chairman, at the conclusion of a nearly six-hour hearing. "And it's unclear whether they're actually being investigated by the State Department, because the president's girlfriend runs that joint and the bitch won't tell us anything."

The committee agreed not to look into the September 16 incident during Tuesday's special hearing about the September 16 incident, after the Justice Department requested that Congress wait until a suitable cover-up can be arranged.

Prince cast his company--which has received billions of dollars in federal contracts as a result of his family's tireless financing of Bush Crime Family political operations--as a scapegoat. He said his staff was comprised of courageous individuals who face the same threats and high-stress environment as U.S. military personnel, but for a lot more money and with no accountability to military justice. He made it sound like a real bummer.

Often leaning back to hear his lawyer tell him his haircut didn't look gay, Prince repeatedly refused to say whether people he fired for random murders were guilty of murder, and said it should be up to the Justice Department to pursue charges against them.

In the case of the Christmas eve shooting, Prince said the company fired and fined the individual, as well as recommending that he seek treatment for his alcohol and anger-management issues.

"But we, as a private organization, can't do any more," he told the House panel. "We can't flog him. We can't incarcerate him. If he was some random Iraqi, we could shoot him in the back of the head and ditch him in the street, and he wouldn't even make the count. What do you want from me? Money?"

The Blackwater chairman said he would be willing to pay for legislation that would guarantee that his employees and other private goon squads working for the State Department are subject to prosecution in U.S. courts if the president would then commute their sentences. The House is expected to consider such a bill on Wednesday, if everyone isn't too busy condemning the free speech our brave soldiers and venal mercenaries are killing and dying to protect.

At the same time, Prince said the government's decision to include the FBI in the investigation of the September 16 incident is proof that oversight and accountability already exists. Everyone laughed.

State Department officials said Tuesday the criminal prosecution of such cases was out of their hands and should be handled by the Justice Department, which would not be allowed to because of national security.

"The president's girlfriend has made clear that she wishes to have a probing, comprehensive unvarnished examination of the overall issue of security contractors working for her in Iraq," said David Satterfield, the smirking Iraq point-man for the State Department. "Which will be much better for us than any kind of investigation of specific events."

Waxman also cited a November 2004 plane crash in Afghanistan--by jacked-up, joyriding Blackwater pilots who didn't know where the fuck they were and crashed into a canyon wall, killing everyone on board--as an example of what he said is the company's cavalier attitude toward its murderous disasters.

Prince acknowledged pilot error led to the crash, but said his company's aviators often fly missions in difficult conditions, such as ignorance or drunkenness. He said the military violated its own rules by loading people and explosives on a booze-cruise canyon run. But Blackwater flew the mission anyway because that's what its government customer wanted, he said, and go fuck yourself.

"There is no FAA in Afghanistan," he said. "What crashes in Afghanistan stays in Afghanistan."

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Dems come out flailing

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--Leading Republicans in Congress on Thursday declared that troop withdrawal legislation is treason because the United States has made significant progress turning the corner to stay the course in Iraq, and cut-and-run Democrats should shut the fuck up and make with the money, like always.

"It should be off the table," House Republican leader John Boehner said of Democratic attempts to pass legislation to force President George W. Bush to withdraw some of the 168,000 U.S. troops defending Iraqi oil from Iraqis.

The Republican wide stance followed months of speculation that Democrats would probably do anything to avoid being called pussies on TV. In recent months a small but growing number of Republicans have said it is time to develop a bipartisan strategy to bring troops home, but they're up for re-election next year and no one believes them.

Democrats pointed to a new report that said the Iraqi army was improving to bolster arguments for starting to withdraw U.S. forces, but their puny majority and preponderance of facts is no match for old-school Republican shit-talking.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told reporters of "significant progress in Iraq," without saying what kind, and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the 4-1/2-year war effort was "finally paying dividends," but would not say to whom.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, is working on a bill to start a withdrawal of troops this year but with no firm date for completing the pullout, no attempt to tie it to funding, and no reason to believe it will work.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Democrats would renew their strategy of empty posturing and pathetic dithering over the Iraq war. Surrendering without a fight, he implied that Democrats would avoid insisting on timetables or anything else before screwing up their courage and voting to give the president whatever he wants.

Republicans just laugh at them. "We're at a crossroads, you weaklings. Pour it on. Seize the moment and be like us. Show you have the balls to do what we want, and take withdrawal off the table," said Graham, who posed as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force reserves in Iraq for several days last month, then left because it's hot there.

Next week Congress will hear from U.S. Iraq commander General David Petraeus Maximus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker. Both are expected to report significant military progress in Baghdad since the start of the escalation last January, since that's what their scripts say.

Republicans are hoping their phony testimony upstages a more realistic non-partisan assessment delivered to Congress this week by the congressional investigative agency. It said the Iraqi government had failed to meet 11 out of 18 political and military goals, and pretty much sucked at the others, as long as you're asking.

Reid alluded to "things we can do on a bipartisan basis" to get the 60 votes needed in the Senate to avoid procedural roadblocks to legislation, then went back to sleep.

Any legislation urging troop withdrawals without timetables could lose the support of some Democrats running for President.

"If we take away deadlines, benchmarks, timelines, what is the urgency that will move them (the Iraqi government) to act?" asked Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, a leading presidential candidate.

Chicks are too emotional.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Richardson jumps the shark

OSCEOLA, Iowa (AP)--In a bid to prove that understanding the expediency of sucking up to special interests isn't an exclusively Republican trait, Democratic presidential longshot Bill Richardson said Tuesday that his comment about it being God's will that Iowa votes first was just off-the-cuff pandering for the locals.

Campaigning in south-central Iowa, the New Mexico governor faced questions about his witless and bizarre comment Monday, when he suggested that the U.S. Constitution and the Holy Bible require Iowa to lead the nomination process.

"Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary," he said Monday. "And I want you to know who was the first candidate to sign a pledge not to campaign anywhere if they got ahead of Iowa. It was Bill Richardson."

The Des Moines Register reported on Richardson's stupid, stupid comments to the Northwest Iowa Labor Council Picnic in Sioux City.

Asked about it Tuesday, Richardson said: "Look, that was an off-the-cuff comment where I was sucking up to the locals so I said Iowa and New Hampshire should be first, because I really want people here to like me. If I don't pull at least third place here, I'm toast."

When pressed further, he said Iowa should launch the primary calendar because "it's a tradition in American politics that has worked," like gay-bashing and terrorism.

"Iowa scrutinizes candidates through a grass-roots state. They are very good at winnowing down candidates," he said. "They don't listen to national polls. Iowa voters are very independent and issue-oriented. And they'll never go for a fat half-breed if I don't kiss their ass a little bit."

During Tuesday's stop in Osceola, Iowa, Richardson said he was troubled by the frequent bickering between leading candidates Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, all of whom are better public speakers than he is.

"I think it's important to stay positive in this campaign," he told about 100 borderline alcoholics lured to a co-op winery by the promise of free samples. "Isn't Iowa great? God loves you people more than anyone."

Much has been made of the possibility of electing the first female or black president, but Richardson said that he didn't plan to put more emphasis on his Hispanic heritage if he can get attention through the time-honored tradition of obsequious gibberish.

"I don't like to be typecast. I'm very proud to be Hispanic, but if I used my mother's maiden name, like everyone else, it would be so obvious that I'm trying to just do it for votes," he said. "I'm after everybody, not just Hispanics, so I have to be prepared to say anything."

Richardson said he's up against tough competition at many campaign stops in early states, including the Labor Day appearance of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

"I'm campaigning against one formidable Clinton — now I'm facing two formidable Clintons," he said. "If they bring Chelsea out, I'm fucked."

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Singing in the boneyard

NEW YORK, NY (AP)--Draft-dodging Fascist presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani will talk about how tough he is at the sixth anniversary remembrance of the World Trade Center attack, as he has every year, but some relatives of those who died in the Bush Family false-flag operation said the solemn ceremony is no place for presidential politics.

The former mayor, who became a multi-millionaire cashing in on the disaster that catapulted him to international fame, has participated in every ceremony since the attack, paying much more attention to the threat of terrorism in hindsight than he ever did as mayor. Relatives of some 9/11 victims said this year is different because now he is a declared presidential candidate.

"He's cashing in on 9/11 like it's his own personal tragedy. It's a photo op on a campaign swing for him," said Jimmy Riches, a deputy fire chief whose son was among the 343 firefighters killed when the buildings were imploded in the spectacular finale to the operation.

Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was also killed so we could have war in the Mideast, said she was stunned that the city would ask a presidential candidate to speak there, even one basing his entire campaign on the event.

"They should have every other single presidential candidate then, because this is outrageous," Regenhard said, choking back a wave of nausea. "This is going to be seen across the country as a blanket endorsement from us. It's totally inappropriate."

No declared presidential candidate has ever spoken before at the Ground Zero ceremony; indeed, candidates have typically suspended campaigning on September 11 out of basic human decency, which is not known to be a Giuliani attribute.

Giuliani's crooked henchman Tony Carbonetti, a degenerate gambler and second-generation crony, noted that the former mayor lost beloved pawns in the attack, and pretended that his activities that day will not be political.

"If you know Rudy Giuliani, he'd be down there paying his respects whether he was invited or not," Carbonetti said. "This is something that happened to him as a person, as a New Yorker, as a mayor and as an American. To say he's politicizing it--Marone! He would never do anything like that. And I will fucking kill anyone who says he would."

The centerpiece of the annual commemoration is the hours-long reading of the nearly 3,000 victims' names, which pauses for brief readings, musical selections and moments of silence marking the times when the two planes hit and when the pre-planted thermite charges brought the towers down.

Organizers said Giuliani will not be a name reader; he and other elected officials are scheduled to read aloud passages from My Pet Goat.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who will also speak at the ceremony, said Tuesday it was appropriate for Giuliani to attend because he showed up for work on September 11, 2001, and has exploited every anniversary since to keep his name in the news.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Lying little prick to step down


WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--Lying little prick Alberto Gonzales has resigned as Attorney General, an official said on Monday, ending a controversial tenure as chief law enforcement officer that blemished the otherwise spotless administration of President George W. Bush.

The official confirmed a Web site report of the resignation by The New York Times, telling Reuters an official announcement would be made later in the day, after the president gets some solid food down.

The 51-year-old Bush butt-monkey was at the center of a political firestorm over the purge of insufficiently partisan federal prosecutors last year, which critics in Congress complained were totally uncool.

Gonzales worked for Bush when he was governor of Texas in the 1990s, covering up his drunk driving convictions and helping him sign execution orders. He served as White House lawyer in Bush's first term as president, declaring torture legal and the Geneva Conventions "quaint," before becoming the first crooked Mexican to serve as attorney general in February 2005.

Current and former administration officials had said the department's integrity had been damaged under Gonzales with controversy over the stacking of the federal courts with GOP operatives, his support for Bush's unconstitutional warrantless domestic spying program and other issues.

Several senators have said they had lost confidence in Gonzales and his ability to head the Justice Department. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was quoted on several occasions saying, "Harumph!"

While pretending mistakes were made in the handling of the dismissals, Gonzales denied the firings were politically motivated to influence federal probes involving Democratic or Republican lawmakers, but he was lying.

Bush has defended Gonzales and cited Gonzales' rise as an achievement for "Hispanics," the largest imaginary minority in the United States.

"I haven't seen Congress say he's done anything wrong," Bush said at a recent news conference. "Pussies."

Gonzales drew fire from civil liberties groups for writing in January 2002 that parts of the Geneva Convention were "obsolete" and some provisions were "quaint."

He also was criticized for Bush's warrantless domestic spying program adopted after, or perhaps before, the September 11 attacks. Only in January, in an abrupt reversal, Gonzales said the program finally would be subject to court approval. And then last month, cowardly Democrats in Congress said, "No, that's all right. Don't bother."

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Stop or I'll yell stop again

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--A House committee chairman led the craven hand-wringing Wednesday over the Bush Crime Family's claim that a White House office involved in the illegal purge of millions of e-mails can keep records from the public.

The Justice Department™, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bushco, introduced this stunning new line of shit in response to a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which seeks to force the White House Office of Administration to say what it knows about the disappearance of an undisclosed number of messages.

The White House has provided few details about the e-mail problem, and they were all lies. It came to light more than a year and a half ago and resurfaced amid the uproar over the replacement of competent U.S. attorneys with dull-eyed Bush Family goons, which so far has resulted in investigations that go nowhere, hearings where no one says "liar," and subpoenas no one enforces.

For Representative Henry Waxman, the fight is just one of many his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee intends to lose to the Bush Family over access to documents. Democrats took control of Congress in January, but you'd never know it.

"The White House obsession with secrecy is absurd," said Waxman (D-CA). "The White House is inventing new legalisms to thwart oversight and public accountability. If only there were some kind of constitutional remedy for dealing with high crimes and misdemeanors in the executive branch."

In response, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said, "Why is the Oversight and Government Reform Committee so obsessed with oversight and government reform?"

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the White House office in question has processed hundreds of information requests on behalf of the media, advocacy groups and the public over the past decade. The White House Web site lists the office among the "entities subject to" the law.

But on Tuesday, in a bid to kill the suit by CREW, the Justice Department™ contended the office has no substantial authority independent of President Bush and is not subject to the law, which is pretty much what they say about everything.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the Family's position is in keeping with its well-known disdain for democracy and the rule of law.

"When they don't want to comply with the law, they just shamelessly argue they are not subject to the law," she said.

In its filing in U.S. District Court, the Justice Department™ admitted that the White House office is required by law to comply with FOIA and has never previously refused, but things are different now, so fuck off.

The department cited an irrelevant court ruling in the 1990s that the National Security Council was not subject to the disclosure law.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said the administration's position was "akin to the vice president's declaration that he is not a part of the executive branch. You know--bullshit."

Vice President Dick Cheney has said his office is exempt from sections of a presidential order that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify because his executive branch office is not part of the executive branch and besides, executive privelege.

With backing from the White House, Cheney's office argued that the offices of the president and vice president were exempt from the order because that's not really who they are.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Boned again

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--A Bush Crime Family-owned judge Thursday dismissed former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit demanding financial redress from the Bush Family goons who leaked her agency identity.

Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Actual President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to disclose her identity in 2003, which they are on record as having done. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband's criticism of the administration.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, a whore, dismissed the case on "jurisdictional grounds" and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.

Bates dismissed the case against all defendants: Cheney, White House ratfucker Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis "Shitbag" Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Plame's lawyers said from the beginning the suit would be a difficult case to make in an incipient fascist dictatorship like 21st Century America.

Plame's cover was blown in a syndicated newspaper column in 2003, shortly after Wilson told the truth about the Family's march to war in Iraq.

Armitage and Rove were the sources for that article, and they still have security clearance because it isn't treason if Republicans do it. Nobody was charged with leaking because Libby lied to the FBI and obstructed the investigation, for which he was duly convicted. Bush commuted Libby's prison term before he served any time, to keep him from talking.

"This just dragged on the character assassination that had gone on for years," said Alex Bourelly, one of Libby's lawyers, a whore. "To have the case dismissed is a big relief."

Plame and Wilson pledged to appeal.

"This case is not just about what top government officials did to Valerie and me." Wilson said in a statement. "We brought this suit because we strongly believe that politicizing intelligence ultimately serves only to undermine the security of our nation."

Though Bates said the case raised "important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials," he said there was no legal basis for the suit because he is a whore.

Bates also sided with administration officials who said they were acting within their job duties as henchmen for our demented child-king and his cyborg puppet-master. Plame had argued that what they did was illegal and outside the scope of their government jobs, being treason and all.

"The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory," Bates wrote, using "alleged" because the more accurate "proven" would have angered his idiot liege-lord.

"But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by outing secret agents to members of the press, is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials," Bates said.

Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, a whore, said Rove was pleased to have the case behind him.

"The risk of being liable for personal damages is not something anybody I know takes seriously," Luskin said.

Bates, who spent the 90s hassling President Clinton over the stinking huge pile of nothing that was Whitewater, was given this gig in 2001. He previously distinguished himself as the whore who ruled that Dick Cheney didn't have to say who was on his "Energy Task Force."

Sunday, July 15, 2007

The enemy of my friend's enemy is...

BAGHDAD (LA Times)--Although Bush Crime Family mouthpieces have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from the Family's employers in Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is an intelligent man who loves his children. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has told the truth about the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy sent by close friends of its Commander-In-Chief.

The problem casts a spotlight on the incestuous business relationships between the nasty old oil-rich bastards who run the Middle East and the nasty old oil-rich bastards who run the U.S.

In the 1980s, the Saudi intelligence service sponsored Sunni Muslim fighters for the U.S.-backed Afghan mujahedin battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan because it was a good way of shipping potential troublemakers out of the country. At the time, Saudi intelligence cultivated another man helping the Afghan fighters, Osama bin Laden, the future leader of Al Qaeda who would one day provide the Bush Family with everything it ever wanted by masterminding the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has long been the primary source of the money and manpower for Al Qaeda: 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks were Saudi. The other four were not from Iraq.

The Saudi government does not dispute that some of its youths are ending up as suicide bombers in Iraq, but says it has done everything it can to stop the bloodshed short of creating some sort of economic infrastructure at home.

"Saudis are actually being misused. Someone is helping them come to Iraq. Someone is helping them inside Iraq. Someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are, though it has always been the U.S. State Department in the past. We aren't getting any formal information from the hated Iranian Shi'ite proxy government who are laughably pretending to run Iraq," said General Mansour Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry.

"If we get good feedback from the Iraqi government about Saudis being arrested in Iraq, probably we can help," he said, without specifying whom.

Defenders of Saudi Arabia pointed out that it has sought to appear to seek to control its lengthy border with Iraq and has pretended to fight a bruising domestic war against Al Qaeda since September 11, much as the U.S. has pretended to fight a War on Terror™.

"To suggest they've done nothing to stem the flow of people into Iraq is wrong," said a U.S. intelligence official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was lying. "People do get across that border. You can always ask, 'Could more be done?' But what are they supposed to do, try?"

Others contend that Saudi Arabia is allowing fighters sympathetic to Al Qaeda to go to Iraq so they won't create havoc at home by demanding that the House of Saud actually govern rather than simply ruling.

Iraqi Shi'ite lawmaker Sami Askari, an advisor to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, accused Saudi officials of a deliberate policy to sow chaos in Baghdad, and he will never be invited to Crawford.

"The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia has strong intelligence resources, and it would be hard to think that they are not aware of what is going on," he said. "Especially with Dick Cheney flying over there to brief them whenever they demand it."

Friday, July 13, 2007

Surge protector

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AFP)--President George W. Bush on Friday fought to buy time for his ongoing rape of Iraq, as his chief spokesweasel grudgingly admitted that the war-torn country's puppet lawmakers would take an August vacation, just like Bush always does.

"You know, it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August," White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow said in the air-conditioned pressroom. "My understanding is at this juncture they're going to take August off, but you know, they don't really do much anyway."

"I'm not in a position, at this point, to try to gainsay what the Iraqis are doing," he added, noting that the U.S. Congress will take a similar recess from August 6 to September 4, during which time they will travel to their home offices to catch up on their pro-impeachment mail.

In a fresh blow to Bush's dream of an endless war, two of his Republican party's elder statesman, Senators Richard Lugar and John Warner, urged him to start pulling U.S. troops out of the sectarian clusterfuck we created there by the end of the year.

They released their plan one day after Bush rejected any changes to his endless war plan until two months from now, when the most recent U.S. Iraq commander, General David Petraeus, gives a glowing report on the troop surge strategy or starts looking for another job.

The legislation, which appeared designed to unite those Republicans who hope to be re-elected with Democrats trying to end the war, calls for a new plan to be delivered to Congress by October 16.

The move came one day after the House of Representatives voted to withdraw most U.S. combat troops by April and as Bush held a videoconference with top military aides in Baghdad and Washington to hammer home his point that the war can, and must, continue at least until he leaves office.

"What happens in Iraq matters to the United States of America. A violent, chaotic Iraq is crucial to my financial security," Bush said as he heaped praise on U.S. contractors making hundreds of millions of dollars from failing to provide basic services in the strife-torn country.

While he spoke, the aides around the conference table at the White House, including part-time Defense Secretary Robert Gates and soon-to-be-ex-Joint Chiefs chairman General Peter Pace, sat with dazed expressions from trying to match the president drink-for-drink at lunch.

Bush--who has vowed to veto any legislation mandating what he calls a "hasty troop withdrawal" and everyone else calls "ending this disastrous and illegal occupation"--also underlined that "there's still a lot of money to be made."

The first report, made public Thursday, showed the Iraqi government making "satisfactory" progress on eight of 18 political and security benchmarks set by Congress, and scoring a "piss-poor" or "non-existent" rating on the rest, with barely 60 days before the next assessment is ignored.

"I grant you it's not a lot of time," said White House spokesmodel Dana Perino. "The president is saying, 'Let's give it a little bit more time to work,'" she added, and smugly noted that the Democrats lack the two-thirds majority to override an inevitable Bush veto.

She also emphasized that craven, delusional House Republicans had, with few exceptions, sided with the White House in Thursday's vote--even as increasing numbers of the party's heavyweights in the Senate have broken with Bush's plan upon realizing it's a career-killer.

But there was no mistaking the panicked urgency of Bush's public relations push, as the normally invisible Gates was to hold a news conference, while U.S. Secretary of State and Back-up First Lady Condoleezza Rice took to the airwaves to defend her man's troop increase despite the report.

And the dumb-as-mud president himself summoned a phalanx of conservative chickenhawk pundits for a group handjob at the White House on why his approach deserves more time.

Bush's strategy of indefinitely deploying 30,000 more troops in Iraq is "a work in progress," whined Rice, who appeared on all major U.S. television networks in another desperate attempt to downplay her boyfriend's profound failure as a leader and as a man.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Skeletor has gas

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday that his recently improved digestion means the threat to the United States from al Qaeda has not returned to levels ignored by the Bush Crime Family just before the September 11 attacks nearly six years ago.

Chertoff played down media reports inspired by his ongoing flagrant electioneering on behalf of the GOP, that the militant network was now as great a threat to U.S. soil as in the months before the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York, when the president was enjoying a marathon drunken binge on his fake Texas ranch.

"I wouldn't put it at that level," he told ABC's Good Morning America. "I do think we've accomplished an awful lot in dismantling their activities overseas and in building our own defenses, especially considering the president's loyalty to the House of Saud, where most of their funding comes from. But I do think the level of intent on the part of the enemy remains very high, which results in some intestinal discomfort for me, particularly when so many members of this administration are under investigation in high-profile scandals."

The Washington Post
reported the militant network has significantly rebuilt itself and established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan, where they are under the protection of a nuclear-armed military dictator who claims to be our ally. It cited a new intelligence report to be misunderstood and lied about by Chertoff and other top officials at a White House meeting later Thursday.

Top intelligence analysts also told Congress on Wednesday that al Qaeda's training activities, funding and communications have increased as the militant network has settled into new bases in remote areas of Pakistan, and that there's not a damn thing to be done about it because our military is mired in the ongoing and endless bloodbath in Iraq, which never attacked us and doesn't seem to appreciate our occupation.

Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune this week that his "gut feeling" was that the United States faced a heightened risk of attack this summer, but that he wouldn't change the federal alert level until his colon goes into spasm.

Then on Thursday he told NBC: "We don't have any specific information about an imminent or near-term attack on the homeland, like we did before 9-11, which no one could've predicted. We're looking at the strategic picture over the next six months to a year, or five or ten years, or fifty. We're evaluating where that is."

He said his concern that the United States could be entering a period of heightened risk was based on greater al Qaeda activity in Pakistan and Africa, an increase in public messages from militant figures including Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, and a history of summer attacks. But it may all have been a result of some bad clams.

Monday, July 09, 2007

I fuck the law. Then I jog.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--The Bush Crime Family on Monday dared Congress to take them to court for refusing to provide information and testimony demanded in an investigation into last years's purge of insufficiently obedient federal prosecutors.

White House counsel Fred Fielding, in a letter to two congressional chairmen, called their demands "unreasonable because it represents a substantial incursion into presidential prerogatives, such as bullying his former employees into keeping their goddamn mouths shut."

Congressional leaders made it clear they were prepared for a court battle unless it can be demonstrated that the federal courts are so hopelessly stacked with Bush Family operatives that it's pointless even to continue pretending we have a government.

"I hope the White House stops this stonewalling and accepts my offer to negotiate a workable solution," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who also hopes his hair will grow back.

Democrats have sought compromise because they fail to understand that a substantial majority of Americans would like to see the president hounded from office and drowned in one of those giant lakes of fermented pigshit they have in Texas. They have gotten so used to being whipped like incontinent mutts by the Bush Crime Family's button men that they don't know how to behave now that they don't actually have to take it anymore.

Bush is relying on a legal doctrine known as executive privilege, which he understands to mean that he is above the law and always will be, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow brushed off the threat of a possible congressional contempt citation, saying, "Fuck those pussies."

"What we do believe is that we are on perfectly solid legal ground," Snow said, too stupid to realize that Nixon believed the same thing thirty-three years ago.

Congress wants the documents and testimony to determine if the firing of nine or thirteen or twenty-eight of the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys last year was the result of Bush Crime Family efforts to maintain access to federal power forever.

Bush and his longtime buttboy, crooked U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, insist the dismissals of the federal prosecutors were justified but may have been mishandled, meaning they didn't think anyone would dare question them. Gonzales, with Bush's support, has withstood bipartisan calls to go back to Texas and work at Wal-Mart.

The Family has offered to allow current and former lackeys to talk to lawmakers, but only if they can do it somewhere hidden, and there's no record of it, and everyone's allowed to lie. Leahy and others say the offer is unacceptable, which means they'll probably end up accepting it.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee and one of the most mealy-mouthed bastards ever to draw breath, said, "I think, candidly, there's a lot of posturing going on both sides."

In his letter, Fielding refused to explain why Bush thinks executive privilege can be applied to absolutely anything he wants, then asserted presidential privilege again to block subpoenaed testimony by two former aides, Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers, who will be the ones looking at jail time while their former boss takes another vacation.

"Contrary to what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the courts that will decide whether an invocation of executive privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who won't be riding on any small planes anytime soon, if he knows what's good for him.

There was no immediate indication how much longer Democrats would seek to reach an agreement with the White House before taking the matter up with a U.S. Attorney who can be fired by the president at any time, for any reason.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Clowntown

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--If Patrick Leahy can get his head out of Arlen Specter's ass for a minute, the Senate Judiciary Committee may seek testimony from controversial prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about the obstruction of justice case against vice presidential aide Lewis "Shitbag" Libby.

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican member of the committee, revealed his astounding ignorance and whipped-whore mentality by saying, "I still haven't figured out what that case is all about."

Libby, the one-time top aide to Actual President Dick Cheney, was found guilty in March of obstructing an investigation into who blew the cover of a CIA analyst whose husband dared to expose some of the bullshit leading up to the Iraq war.

Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, but Cheney hand-puppet George W. Bush commuted the sentence in order to keep the cover-up going, because no one learned a damn thing from Watergate.

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who clearly loves the terrorists as much as he hates the troops, has called for the Judiciary Committee to seek Fitzgerald's testimony on the matter.

"Reluctant as I am to agree with Senator Schumer, I think he's right," Specter said on CNN's "Late Edition," then took the opportunity to repeat the right-wing lie that no crime occurred.

"Why were they pursuing the matter long after there was no underlying crime on the outing of the CIA agent?" he asked, as if undercover CIA agents are exposed by the executive branch every day and he can't see a problem with it. "Why were they pursuing it after we knew who the leaker was?" Specter continued, pretending that lying to federal investigators to prevent them finding out what happened isn't a felony.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee, exposed himself as a lily-livered shitheel by implying that he needs Specter's blessing to call Fitzgerald.

"If he has no objection to Mr. Fitzgerald coming forward, I think you may very well see Mr. Fitzgerald before the Senate Judiciary Committee," Leahy said on the same CNN program. "It's not up to me, of course. I'm only the chairman. I wouldn't want Dick Cheney to have to tell me to fuck myself."

Fitzgerald's critics point out no one was ever charged with leaking the CIA agent's name and like to pretend that this isn't because the investigation was sabotaged by Libby's proven obstruction. They are scum and they are traitors, but people keep putting them on TV.

Leahy said he saw no point in summoning Libby himself because "his silence has been bought and paid for," then wet himself thinking about the stern looks he might have to endure from Dick Cheney in the near future.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Lest we forget

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Monday, July 02, 2007

No felon left behind

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush spared former White House goon I. Lewis "Shitbag" Libby from a 30-month prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, stepping into a criminal case with heavy political overtones on grounds that Dick Cheney told him to.

Bush's move came within hours of a federal appeals panel ruling that Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case. That meant Libby would have to report to prison just like any other convicted felon, and would be just a shower-room butt-rape away from flapping his gums about who actually runs the administration and what they're doing.

"I respect the jury's verdict," Bush lied in a statement. "But I have been told that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive for a loyal Republican. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend any time in jail."

Bush left intact a $250,000 fine--which will be paid by actor-turned-senator-turned-lobbyist-turned-actor-turned-presidential candidate Fred Thompson--and two years' probation, which is a few months more than Paris Hilton is serving. Miss Hilton is not known to have burned any CIA assets or lied to any federal grand juries.

Libby was convicted in March of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to federal agents investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity. He was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair raised the bar for Republican treason.

Reaction was harsh from Democrats.

"As Independence Day nears, we are reminded that one of the principles our forefathers fought for was equal justice under the law. So much for that," Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said through a spokesman.

Libby's supporters celebrated with cocaine and teenage boy-hookers.

"That's fantastic. It's a great relief," said former Ambassador Richard Carlson, who helped raise millions for Libby's defense fund from the Bush Crime Family's neo-conservative enablers. "Nobody in our club should ever have to go to prison and I'm glad the president had the courage to do this."

A message seeking comment from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office was not immediately returned, because some people work for a living.

Bush pretended Cheney's former hatchet man was not getting away with murder.

"The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said. "His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation even longer than Paris Hilton. The chump-change fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting, though not as long as his future career as a lobbyist."

A spokeswoman for Cheney said simply, "The vice president supports the president's decision." "Supports" means "made."

The president's announcement came just in time to ensure Libby will not spend a single night in jail for his treason. He recently lost an appeals court fight that was his only chance to put the sentence on hold, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had already designated him inmate No. 28301-016.

Bush's statement made no mention of the term "pardon," and he made clear that he was not willing to wipe away all penalties for Libby while anyone's looking.

The president parroted the Libby Fan Club argument that the punishment did not fit the crime for a "first-time offender with years of exceptional service to my family."

Yet, he added, "Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. But not on my watch."

Bush then stripped away the prison time.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Nixon was a piker

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush, the most crooked piece of shit ever to hold the office, claimed executive privilege Thursday and rejected demands for White House documents and testimony about the Family's purge of insufficiently partisan U.S. attorneys.

His decision was denounced as "Nixonian stonewalling" by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who admitted privately that he meant to say "the most pernicious bullshit I've ever heard of," but was too angry.

Bush rejected subpoenas for documents from Bush Family cheerleaders Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor. The White House made it clear that neither one would testify next month, and that Congress should shut the fuck up and stop bothering them with this "rule of law" crap.

Presidential counsel Fred Fielding said Bush had made a reasonable attempt at a cover-up but the filthy Democratic-led Congress forced the confrontation by issuing subpoenas. "With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by asserting that the president is above the law."

The assertion of executive privilege was the latest turn in increasingly hostile standoffs between the administration and the Congress over the illegal and disastrous Iraq war, unlimited executive power, the War on Terror™ and Vice President Dick Cheney's bizarre claim that he is a fourth branch of government, untouchable by the laws of man. A day earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee delivered subpoenas to the offices of Bush, Cheney, the national security adviser and the Justice Department about the administration's unconstitutional warrantless wiretapping program.

White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow weighed in with a whining rebuke of Congress. He accused Democrats of trying "to make life difficult for the White House. It also may explain why this is the least popular Congress in decades." He refused to speculate whether putting impeachment back on the table would make them more popular, or less.

Congressional committees sought the documents and testimony in their investigations of crooked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' rape of the Justice Department and the firing of eight or nine or twenty-seven federal attorneys over the winter. Democrats say the firings were part of a scheme to rig elections and stack the courts so none of these bastards will ever go to jail. The White House contends that U.S. attorneys are political appointees who can be hired and fired for almost any reason, including honesty.

In a letter to Leahy and Conyers, Fielding pretended Bush had "attempted to chart a course of cooperation" by releasing more than 8,500 pages of irrelevant documents and sending Gonzales to Capitol Hill to lie to Congress.

The president also had offered to make Miers, Taylor, head ratfucker Karl Rove and their flunkies available to be interviewed by the Judiciary committees in an undisclosed D.C.-area motor lodge, with no writing implements allowed and under no obligation to tell the truth. Leahy and Conyers rejected that proposal, but not before calling back to ask if it was a joke.

The Senate Judiciary Committee's senior Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said the House and Senate panels should accept Bush's original offer, and that President Kennedy was killed by a magic bullet.

Fielding explained Bush's position on executive privilege this way: "For the president to perform his unique constitutional duties, which are unlike the duties of any president in history, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice from the people who explain things to him, free and open discussions, blah blah blah blah blah."

This "bedrock presidential prerogative" exists, in part, to protect the president from being compelled to disclose anything to Congress or anyone else, Fielding argued.

The most famous claim of executive privilege was in 1974, when President Nixon went to the Supreme Court to avoid surrendering his idiotic tape recordings in the Watergate scandal. The court unanimously ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes, and now he's dead.