Bush: There's only one war, and it's mine

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters)--Iran must stop supporting armed groups trying to resist their oppressors in Iraq and Lebanon, President George W. Bush said on Monday, conflating the war between Israel and Hezbollah with his merciless oil-grab and pretending he did something last week.

As a fragile truce took hold in southern Lebanon, Bush again squarely blamed Hezbollah for provoking the month-long conflict and said that the group had suffered defeat no matter what most of the world thinks.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah earlier claimed his guerrillas had achieved a "strategic and/or historic victory" over Israel.

Bush has blamed Iran and Syria for supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon ever since it was explained to him, and on Monday called on Tehran to back off from supporting armed groups in both Iraq and Lebanon, or he'd be really pissed.

"In both these countries, Iran is backing armed groups in the hope of stopping the armed groups I'm backing," Bush said, drawing the region with a broad brush to support his stance that the people who live there are intent on blocking U.S. efforts to colonize the Middle East, and it's because they're terrorists.

"The message of this administration is clear. America will stay on the offensive against al Qaeda whenever they open a branch office in a country we've invaded. Iran must stop its support for terror or face the unintended consequences, and the leaders of these armed groups must make a choice. If they want to participate in the political life of their countries, they must submit to whatever form of government we impose."

The U.N. Security Council resolution calls for an embargo on the supply of arms to Hezbollah and other militia groups in Lebanon, which means another middleman will have to be added to each transaction. The White House acknowledged earlier that disarming Hezbollah would take time and cost money and be really hard, but some future administration could probably do it.

Hey, kids! It's Terror Time!

GREEN BAY (AP)--President Bush said Thursday that a foiled potential plot to blow up multiple flights from Britain to the United States shows "this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." He did not explain how fascism can exist without state and/or corporate sponsorship.

"This country is safer than it was prior to 9-11," Bush said from the tarmac at Austin Straubel International Airport in Wisconsin. "We've taken a lot of measures to protect the American people. Color-coded terror alerts have saved more lives than penicillin. But obviously we still aren't completely safe, as the Connecticut Senate primary shows. It is a mistake to believe Ned Lamont is no threat to the United States of America."

The president laid the blame for the would-be attack squarely on the al-Qaeda-type terrorism franchises that have flourished as a result of his policies.

"This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who are Christian fascists," he said.

Bush read from remarks he had written himself on sheets of lined white paper with a blue crayon. He spoke for just two minutes and took no questions. His brief message mostly appeared to be a promise that his administration was working to keep citizens safe from Democrats.

"The American people need to know we live in a dangerous world, but our glorious Republican government will do everything we can to protect our people from those dangers," the president said.

The president urged Americans to be tense and fearful, and to silently bear the many inconveniences that will result from the increased threat level that the Connecticut Senate primary prompted him to approve.

While drinking at his fake ranch in Crawford, Texas, over the last several days, Bush repeatedly thwarted aides attempting to interest him in the investigations that led to the arrest of 21 people in Britain who are accused of being involved in the plan. Officials said the plot would have involved explosives smuggled on board flights in hand luggage.

White House Channel anchorman Tony Snow said Bush approved raising the threat level for all flights from Britain to red, designating a severe risk of terrorist attacks, but insisted in the same breath that "it is safe to travel."

"You can't go overboard when you're trying to save lives on an airplane," Snow said, confusing reporters traveling with Bush on Air Force One. "Especially with midterm elections coming up."

"What we do know is that there were some people who were determined to try to carry out a plot to kill people on a horrifying scale," Snow added. "And we can't have private citizens behaving that way."

Because the president had been ignoring regular briefings on the developments, Snow said no one bothered rousing him from his tequila stupor as action by British authorities was made public.

Bush called the cooperation between British and U.S. officials "awesome" and "excellent."

After the remarks, Bush toured the Fox Valley Metal-Tech factory, using a machine to bend a piece of metal as if he'd ever worked a day in his life, and greeting employees who stopped to stare by playfully shouting, "Get back to work or we'll send your fuckin' job to India!"

Using the workers as a cheap backdrop, Bush spoke briefly to his traveling group of reporters, shills and buttboys about the importance of supporting small businesses by keeping big corporations from paying taxes. He did not mention the terror plot and wandered away when they asked questions about it.

Later, Bush headlined a $1,000-per-person fund-raiser that brought in over $500,00 for the Wisconsin Republican Party in nearby Oneida. At an Oneida police station, he also met privately with families of soldiers killed in Iraq. There were no arrests.

Cheap prick smears smart guy

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNN)--Overpaid tools working for Joe Lieberman's "Fuck you, I know God" campaign say that "dirty politics" and "Rovian tactics" are to blame for what they call an "online attack" on their shitty, shared-host $15-dollar-a-month campaign Web site, as Connecticut voters headed to the polls Tuesday in record numbers.

The former Democratic vice presidential candidate and sanctimonious windbag is seeking his party's nomination for a fourth term to the Senate, and doesn't feel he should have to.

"Rovian" is a reference to White House ratfucker Karl Rove, whose strategy always involves playing as many lying, filthy tricks as possible, no matter how stupid they may seem, on the theory that one or two of them might work.

The Web site and its low-rent server crashed Monday afternoon as traffic increased on the eve of the election, and Lieberman campaign manager Sean Smith instantly began shrieking that they were under attack by the Lamont campaign, or that "bloggers" had somehow "hacked in," or something.

"This type of dirty politics has been a staple of the Lamont campaign from the beginning, from the nonstop personal attacks on the Senator's record to the intimidation tactics, like having a lot of Democrats show up at their events instead of a couple, and other offensive displays of popularity, to these coordinated efforts to disable our Web site," said Smith in a statement e-mailed from a Starbucks to reporters Monday evening.

"There is no place for these Rovian tactics in Democratic politics, and we demand that our opponent calls off his supporters and their online attack dogs. And print this in your morning editions or I'll have you killed."

The Lamont campaign has denied any involvement. In fact, they offered to send their technicians over to help. The offer was refused.

When asked by reporters at a campaign stop Tuesday if he or his campaign was responsible for the incident, Lamont said, "No, it's that cheap bastard Lieberman. He should've ponied up for the bandwidth."

Darth Cheney on tour '06

TAMPA (AP)--An anticipatory buzz fills the room with jingoistic gibberish. Six crisp American flags, erect as stuffed & mounted soldiers, line the dais. More than an hour before the vice president's scheduled arrival in a lead-lined refrigerator truck, the GOP faithful stand at the ready.

Never mind that Dick Cheney is regarded by most Americans as an evil cyborg bent on world domination. To this crowd, in this place, he is Jesus the Avenger, returning from some unnamed, crackling firepit trailing briefcases full of cash in the wake of his electromagnetic slipstream.

And Gus Bilirakis, a state legislator hoping to inherit his father's seat in Congress, is happy to bask in the vice president's weird green glow, having pocketed $200,000 in campaign contributions from Cheney's twilight materialization late last month.

"He's a dynamic leader, like Professor X or Captain Kirk," gushes Tampa attorney Monica Lothrop after Cheney's standard vote-Republican-or-die-horribly speech. "It was just a thrill to be able to pay to see him in person."

Five and half years into the Bush residency, Cheney's image may have taken a beating overall but "he's still Elvis to a lot of the batshit insane paleo-conservatives," says Marshall Wittmann, a Democratic Leadership Council flack. "When he comes in, money and enthusiasm flow like a severed artery."

Cheney, always a reliable bagman, is outpacing his schedule from the 2002 midterm elections in a desperate attempt to keep his party in power and stay out of prison. He has already logged 80 fundraisers this election cycle, bringing in more than $24 million, not including tips, with the heaviest campaign travel still to come. By comparison, he logged 106 fundraisers for all of 2001-2002, but that was with an older model heart.

Democrats hope the strategy backfires and lands him in an early grave, and they're working harder to use Cheney's visits against the Republicans. Democratic consultant Jenny Backus says Cheney is one of the top two or three "super-villains" that Democrats use in direct mail appeals to enrage base voters and raise money.

"Just like the Republicans used to use Ted Kennedy to say we're bad drivers," she said, "the Democrats are now using Cheney to say they're international criminals."

And come this fall, when both parties whore for the "swing" voters--those glassy-eyed bozos who don't know shit about anything and have the attention span of a six year-old--look for some Democratic candidates to churn out campaign ads tying GOP opponents to their Dark Overlord in hopes that disgust with the crimes of the Bush cabal will rub off.

Cheney may bring in a lot of cash, says Democratic consultant Dane Strother, but "the problem is that when he races through town with his convoy of armored SUVs and whisper-mode black helicopters and tells the same proven lies he's been telling for years in the same creepy, guttural tones, he leaves a stack of headlines. And come mid-October, you tie the Republican candidate to the Bush-Cheney efforts to undermine the Constitution and remake America and the world in their own dark image and, boom, there are the headlines and the pictures."

Some GOP candidates are finding ways to put distance between themselves and Cheney, even as they greedily suck up the campaign checks that his visits attract. Certain Cheney fundraisers are closed to the media, for example, and rumors of weird blood rituals including human sacrifice are inevitable.

During a recent manifestation in upstate New York for GOP congressional wannabe Ray Meier, Cheney urged Republicans to make the imaginary war on terror their top issue in the 2006 elections. But Meier later told reporters, "I don't really know anything about the guy. He just wanted to bring some money up and I was like, sure, whatever."

In March, when Cheney invaded New Jersey to raise money for GOP Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr., the candidate didn't arrive until 15 minutes after Cheney left. Kean said he got stuck in traffic; Democrats suggest he feared being shot in the face.

National GOP officials insist there is no downside for Republican candidates to a Cheney visit, and that he is composed entirely of human tissue.

Dragon Lady still going down...

ORLANDO(AP)--Representative Katherine Harris' desperate, doomed Senate campaign received a grand jury subpoena from federal investigators, but she stuffed it into her frilly hydraulic undergarments and tried to pretend nothing was wrong, prompting several staff members to quit when they finally figured out that the infamous Bush operative has the morals and judgment of a diseased & dying sewer rat, a former aide said Wednesday.

The Justice Department is investigating Harris' dealings with Mitchell Wade, a jumped-up gunrunner whose patrons have included ex-Representative Randy Cunningham (R-CA), currently incarcerated.

Harris, an über-Republican sock-puppet, has trailed Democratic Senator Bill Nelson in most polls. Fundraising has been pathetic, GOP leaders have tried everything their pointy little heads could imagine to find another candidate, and several sets of staff members have quit in recent months rather than risk being photographed in public with the painted harridan of Sarasota.

Some Republican leaders have warned that Harris--the former Florida secretary of state who played a key role in the fraud and betrayal that disenfranchised thousands of Florida voters in 2000 and gave the White House to a dry-drunk, serial-killing imbecile--is so hated among Democrats and other sentient life-forms that she could drag down the entire GOP ticket into some fetid, stinking crawl-space where even your precious estate tax abatement isn't safe.

In June, the Harris campaign staff was startled to receive a bill for thousands of dollars' worth of legal work that contained a reference to "DOJ subpoena," according to the aide, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because Ms. Harris carries a gun.

It was only then that Harris disclosed that the campaign had received the Department of Justice subpoena, the aide said, and demanded that staff members get down on all fours so she could play horsie.

About two weeks later, the aide and several other campaign staff quit, citing ailments from nervousness to chronic blistering.

Harris was reached on her cell phone Wednesday by the AP, but pretended she had a bad connection and referred the call to her campaign office, where the phone rang and rang and rang before campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Marks reluctantly admitted that Harris is cooperating with the investigation, but insisted she is "not a target." She would not comment further, and begged to be left alone with her gin and worthless rèsumè.

The receipt of the subpoena was first reported by The Tampa Tribune, which spoke with former campaign manager Glenn Hodas, currently convalescing in an undisclosed location. Hodas, the third person to hold the position and the first to survive, resigned after three months on the job, saying only that Harris was a savage, insatiable beast with no understanding of the phrases "No," "You can't" or "Please, don't."

Wade has admitted giving Harris $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions and a backrub. Harris put on fresh lipstick and sought $10 million in federal money to help Wade's company, MZM Inc., set up a Navy counterintelligence program in her district. The request was rejected like last night's clinging barroom skank.

Harris has said that she's only a girl, she can't keep track of every five-figure bribe she gets and anyway, why don't we meet in private later and we can talk about all this? Okay?