How much mendacity are we expected to just....take???

I honestly don't know how many more things like this I am expected to absorb and still retain my sanity.

In December of 2002, when military trainers arrived at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp to train interrogators, they built their entire class around a chart that spelled out the effects of "coercive management techniques" and how those "techniques" might be employed against prisoners at the camp. The torture methods detailed on the chart included exposure to extreme temperatures, prolonged constraint, and sleep deprivation.

What the trainers did not tell the budding Torquemadas sitting in rapt attention was where that chart originated - and what disgraceful company Americans would all to soon be keeping.

Perhaps they were unaware - and if so that is a deplorable commentary in and of itself. But that chart they now used as a training tool had a nefarious, infamous origin. It was compiled by communist China as a how-to template for breaking United States Air Force personnel captured in Korea, designed to secure confessions, whether they be real or imagined.

The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Albert D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities.

Those orchestrated confessions led to allegations that the American prisoners had been “brainwashed,” and provoked the military to revamp its training to give some military personnel a taste of the enemies’ harsh methods to inoculate them against quick capitulation if captured.

In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after reviewing the 1957 article that “every American would be shocked” by the origin of the training document.

“What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions,” Mr. Levin said. “People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don’t need false intelligence.”

No, we sure don't. False intelligence gets us, among other things, a never-ending war in Iraq. The chart was verbatim to the half-century old template save one word...The original was titled "Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance." The version used at Guantanamo wisely dropped the word "Communist" from the header.

A spokesman for the Department of Defense, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder, refused to speculate on the etiology of the chart, but also seemed to be trying to put some distance between the Gates Pentagon and the Rumsfeld Pentagram. “I can’t speculate on previous decisions that may have been made prior to current D.O.D. policy on interrogations,” Colonel Ryder said. “I can tell you that current D.O.D. policy is clear — we treat all detainees humanely.”

Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatrist who also studied the returning prisoners of war and wrote an accompanying article in the same 1957 issue of The Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, said in an interview that he was disturbed to learn that the Chinese methods had been recycled and taught at Guantánamo.

“It saddens me,” said Dr. Lifton, who wrote a 1961 book on what the Chinese called “thought reform” and became known in popular American parlance as brainwashing. He called the use of the Chinese techniques by American interrogators at Guantánamo a “180-degree turn.”

The current occupant of the oval office has insisted that the use of torture has saved American lives and prevented terrorist attacks against this country, but that amounts to asserting facts not in evidence, or as they call it in the common vernacular "just making shit up." That is what your president does, America. He is a thug, a punk and a low-class cretin, and he has dragged you down with him when you didn't protest his perfidy and his propensity for being a lying sack of shit.

His bloodlust and thuggery, and willingness to play fast and loose with the rules has led to the dismissal of charges against one of those so-called worst-of-the-worst who might actually be a bloodthirsty, murderous terrorist!. The harshest interrogation inflicted at Guantánamo was reserved for Mohammed al-Qahtani, a member of Al Qaeda suspected of being the intended 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. Terror charges against Qahtani were dropped suddenly and unexpectedly about six weeks ago. Officials at the time said the charges might be refiled at a later date, but declined to say whether the decision was influenced by concern about Mr. Qahtani’s treatment.

Another detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an alleged member of al Qaeda who stands accused of playing a major role in the bombing of the American destroyer U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000, was charged with murder and other crimes two days ago. In previous hearings, Mr. Nashiri, who was subjected to waterboarding, has said he only falsely confessed to being involved with the bombing because he was tortured.

A few years ago I said in a fit of pique that I did not spend my entire fucking life fighting the cold war, only to pave the way for a worse brand of authoritarianism and thuggery to take over here at home - and I was dismissed as being melodramatic and histrionic. Well, I was right. And I was not only not being melodramatic nor histrionic - I might actually have been understating the case.

Oh boo fuckin' hoo!

The GOP can go piss and moan about GENERAL Wesley Clark calling it like it is all they want so long as it is out of my earshot.

Try it around me and get a face full of claws.

They opened that can of worms with this stunning display of respect for the sacrifice of those who serve. We know exactly what they think - service is only to be respected if a republican offers himself up, Democrats are just phony soldiers.

Well, Fuck them and their faux outrage.

When the GOP condoned this and didn't condemn it - on the floor of their convention - they lost all right to pretend to be outraged when that big, fat chicken came home to roost - and now it's crapping all over the car parked underneath the tree. I say "so fucking what?"

The Chickenhawks made their fucking featherbed. Let them lie in it.

~~BG

Hey, can I join in? Because there's no shortage of wingnuts out there who opened this can of worms up a long time ago...well, not so long ago.



And, well, what's one Veteran criticizing another Veteran worth to ya?

Let's not forget what old Bob Dole had to say:

Aug. 25, 2004 Yesterday, Bob Dole joined Republican critics who claim that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry doesn't deserve the Purple Hearts he won in Vietnam. Dole said, "three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds." But is bleeding even necessary? How do you earn a Purple Heart?

Yeah, I think the wingnuts can tamp down on their faux outrage here...

--WS

Attention war architects: If every last one of you was surrounded by idiots...it follows that every last one of you is an idiot

As the Bush administration limps toward the finish, those who enabled the criminal enterprise as it made illegal, immoral and unjust war are scrambling to deflect blame for the clusterfuck in Iraq to anyone but themselves.

We just got done mocking Doug "Stupidest Fucking Guy on the Planet" Feith and now Paul Bremer is weighing in with his two cents worth of revisionist history.

In my view, one of the more unfortunate aspects of having lawyers involved in the project was they determined that under international law, we became an occupying force and that was confirmed by the UN security council resolution.

I used to say to the Iraqis it is also not very fun being an occupier, especially for an American; I always thought it was an unfortunate term.

There was nothing I could do to change the noun, occupation. When Iraqis raised their concerns with me all I could do is sympathise and say "I understand you’re problem but there it is, it’s the international law."

The political ramifications and psychological ramifications I think were in many ways more important because of the implication to the Iraqi’s that we were an occupying and not a liberating force.

For many Iraqis they were delighted we had thrown out Saddam Hussein and his cronies. But they wake up the next day and hear that we’re occupying them and look out the door of their house and see Americans in tanks… I think it had an important, negative political ramification.

I think it was the case that as we were unable to provide security for Iraqi citizens, that’s when the coalition became less and less popular.

We could see in the opinion polls we did starting in September of 2003; there was a steady decline in the Iraqi view of the occupation as their concerns about security rose - you could see a direct relationship.

So it's the lawyers fault that you idiots didn't think through the ramifications of what you were about to do?

But my favorite bit is how he has completely rewritten the part about his decision to disband the Iraqi military. He now says the entire army deserted. Understandable, you see, because they were mostly poorly treated Shia draftees...

But three years ago, he was fiercely defending his decision to disband the Iraqi army, insisting it was the most important step he took in his entire tenure as Viceroy of Iraq in the wake of the invasion.

Read the whole thing - just put on hip-waders first, because it gets pretty damned deep.

How audacious can this mendacious asshole get?

KKKarl Rove was on Fox News Sunday this morning, whipping a new fear pony in an effort to bolster support for perpetual occupation of Iraq - If we leave, oil prices will skyrocket.

If we were to give up Iraq with the third largest oil reserves in the world to the control of an Al Qaida regime or to the control of Iran, don’t you think $200 a barrel oil would have a cost to the American economy?

Seriously. He said it with a straight face, too. Never mind that he has been stunningly wrong on pretty much everything except the most effective methods of election rigging, we should believe him now!

Of course, he is still peddling the "al Qaeda could take over" meme, too. Even though everyone with two functioning neurons to rub together realizes that the notion is ridiculous. Iraq is 70% Shi'ite, and al Qaeda is a Sunni fundamentalist group. Just as there was no al Qaeda in Iraq before the US invasion, there will be no al Qaeda in Iraq after the US withdraws. They will either be slaughtered by Iraqis or they will flee for their lives.

And besides all that - the American presence in Iraq has had the exact opposite effect on oil prices. Instead of listening to the bullshit he spews, lets take a look at what the numbers say:

Now that Americans are (finally!) catching on to the terrorism fearmongering as a cause for continuing the occupation of Iraq, the GOP has been forced to come up with a new bogeyman to flog in support of perpetual war. It's in our economic interest to stay the course!

Never mind that we undoubtedly could have made great strides toward weening ourselves off the fossil fuels tit if we had spent all those billions on a Manhattan Project type alternative energy development program.

Fortunately, I think the whole "nothing to offer but fear itself" bidness is about played out. People are slowly shaking it off, pulling their No Fear t-shirts out of the bottom drawer, and telling the bastards to piss off.

Someone get a copy of the memo to Karl, because he obviously didn't read it the first time it was issued - Fear doesn't sell any more. No matter how you package it.

About that surge™ and it's so-called "success"

In one way, and one way only, the Surge™ has been a stellar success. It has allowed the miserable failure posing as a president to buy a year and hand his unholy clusterfuck off to the next president. But as the sand slips through the hourglass, he is furiously getting down to business setting up the chess board so it will be an utter albatross around the neck of the next president.

Wednesday the White House confirmed that aWol's budget, to be revealed next month, won't fully fund the war in Iraq for the coming year. Immediately upon the new Congress being seated and the next President taking office, major cost questions will have to be confronted. And the criminal enterprise passing itself off as a presidency will skate out of town leaving the troops in the field unfunded. Should McCain prevail in securing the nomination and gaining the presidency (fat chance, I know) leaving the troops unfunded and in harms way would be a final "Fuck You" from Bush to McCain. Remember, McCain is making perpetual occupation a centerpiece of his campaign.

But not only is aWol not funding it - he is strong-arming the Iraqi puppet government, insisting it give the United States broad authority not only to conduct combat operations, but also to guarantee that mercenaries like the thugs from Blackwater be granted legal protections that would continue to shield them from Iraqi law. The current international mandate will expire before the end of the year.

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials.

At the same time, the administration faces opposition from Democrats at home, who warn that the agreements that the White House seeks would bind the next president by locking in Mr. Bush’s policies and a long-term military presence.

The American negotiating position for a formal military-to-military relationship, one that would replace the current United Nations mandate, is laid out in a draft proposal that was described by White House, Pentagon, State Department and military officials on ground rules of anonymity. It also includes less controversial demands that American troops be immune from Iraqi prosecution, and that they maintain the power to detain Iraqi prisoners.

Basically, what the bastard is trying to do is put in place a security arrangement - which in normal times with a law-abiding president would require a treaty and senate ratification. But these are not normal times and this is not a law abiding president. The reality is, he could not get the approval of 2/3 of the Senate, so he is bullheadedly going on his own merry way and the rest of the country be damned. Representative Bill Delahunt (D, Mass) pulled no punches:

“Where have we ever had an agreement to defend a foreign country from external attack and internal attack that was not a treaty?” he said Wednesday at a hearing of a foreign affairs subcommittee held to review the matter. “This could very well implicate our military forces in a full-blown civil war in Iraq. If a commitment of this magnitude does not rise to the level of a treaty, then it is difficult to imagine what could.”

Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, who raised concerns in a letter to the White House in December, said the negotiations were an unprecedented step toward making an agreement on status of forces without the overarching security guarantees like those provided in the NATO treaty. He added that the Democratic majority would seek to block any agreements with the Iraqis, unless the administration was clear about its ultimate intentions in Iraq.

Senator Jim Webb was outspoken about his disgust with aWol's ploy. “There’s no exit strategy, because the administration doesn’t have one,” Senator Webb said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “By entering this agreement, they avoid a debate and they validate their unspoken strategy.”

And then there are the eighteen benchmarks set forth to measure the success of the "New Way Forward" that Resident Evil™ laid out when he decided to "surge" troops back to previous levels. A whopping three of the eighteen have been met. Two of eight governmental benchmarks and one of eight security benchmarks have been met. None of the economic goals have been realized.

Remember that the ostensible purpose for the troop buildup was to give the Iraqi government "breathing space" to achieve political reconciliation. A year later, and the surge by necessity drawing down, progress has been minimal, and what has been achieved is not sustainable. Iraqis have not made the necessary compromises to achieve reconciliation. The only thing they seem able to agree on is that vacations are a grand notion, so they have adjourned parliament and spent fully two of the last twelve months on vacation.

They will never step up and deal with the hellish reality the idiot Bush has created for them, so long as Americans occupy the battlespace. Not only is there no military solution, the presence of our military precludes the political solution from occurring.

The only way the political leadership in Iraq is going to step up is for the United States to set a date certain for withdrawal of American forces. It is the only way to prompt the recalcitrant Iraqi leaders to make the compromises necessary for political reconciliation. As American forces redeploy over the remainder of 2008, the best hope is for a "diplomatic surge" to take place among Iraq and all of the neighboring states. But the current administration is not likely to be amenable to such an approach - remember that Syria and Iran are bordering states, and the Bush administration considers them "bad actors."

When one puts the pieces together, it is easy to see that aWol's decision to go forward with the AEI's Surge™ strategy, the only success the shell game (with live shells!) has realized is running out the clock so the next president will be the one who has to clean up his murderous mess.

Heckuva job, there George, you mendacious drooling cretin. Heckuva job.

It's enough to piss off Pollyanna herself!

On the day that House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on legislation that will codify in law the prohibition of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation torture methods when interrogating suspected terrorists; CIA director Michael Hayden came clean and admitted that the CIA had destroyed video evidence of "harsh interrogation techniques" employed in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah (yet another top lieutenant of ObL - but aren't they all?) and another unnamed suspected high-ranking al Qa'eda member. (Zubaydah is one of three suspects who has been identified as having been waterboarded. Waterboarding, in case you have been under a rock for the last two years, is not just a "dunk in the water" as that bastard Cheney so glibly put it. It is controlled drowning.)

From the Washington Post:

All the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 on the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the CIA's director of clandestine operations, officials said. The destruction came after the Justice Department had told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys. A CIA spokesman said yesterday that the request would not have covered the destroyed tapes.

The tapes also were not provided to the Sept. 11 commission, the independent panel that investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which demanded a wide array of material and relied heavily on classified interrogation transcripts in piecing together its narrative of events.

The legislation hammered out on Thursday will, in essence, make the Army Field Manual the last word on acceptable interrogation methods.

It also sets up a battle-royal between congress and the candy-assed, draft-dodgin' coward, Chimpy McWarPorn.

Of course, he is threatening to bravely veto the bill.

The spin coming off the decision to destroy the tapes is almost enough to create it's own gravitational field. The spooks doing the torturing are identifiable, and would be criminally liable. Period.

The spin is that the tapes present a security risk. "Beyond their lack of intelligence value -- as the interrogation sessions had already been exhaustively detailed in written channels -- and the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them, the tapes posed a security risk," Hayden said. "Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them to and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and it sympathizers."

This, children, is what is known in the common vernacular as a bullshit story.

The CIA is in the business of keeping secrets, and of protecting their employees and the families of their employees (well, unless you are Valerie Plame Wilson, then you are Fair Game, but I digress.) They could most certainly secure a couple of videos. What they were scared of was the long arm of the law as the earth erodes beneath the feet of the feckless, and the fifth horseman (Accountability) appeared on the horizon. The tapes were destroyed because they likely contained evidence that could land former GOP congressman and CIA chief Porter Goss in the slammer, and Donald Rumsfeld might be in the next cell.

I am left with but one thought as I mark off another day of life under the inept, corrupt and floundering Bush regime...thank god these bastards are incompetent to their very core. You only think we are screwed now - If they had the savvy to pull off a two-car parade, then we would really know from screwed.

The Huckabee Meltdown: Part II

You don't have to look very hard to find people in northwest Missouri who feel like Mike Huckabee is guilty of felony murder.

That is because he was the guy who made sure that the monster who raped a distant relative of Bill Clinton was released from prison - and let no one tell you differently - that fucker was released for one reason - to stick it to Clinton.

Well, Clinton didn't pay the price for the fecklessness of the Arkansas GOP and their all-too-easy-to-manipulate, slow-witted governor Mike Huckabee.

Instead, Sara Andrasek and Carol Shields paid that price.

With their lives.

They were murdered by the paroled rapist.

In 1984, Dumond was convicted of raping a 17-year-old cheerleader, who happened to be a second cousin, once removed, to Bill Clinton. If not for the family connection between the victim and Bill Clinton, Dumond would have rotted in an Arkansas prison and died, unknown and unmourned. That would have been justice.

Instead, the Arkansas GOP went into full-froth mode...Dumond was innocent! He was railroaded by that bastard Clinton! He must be freed!

Bullshit. He was a predator and a rapist and a murderer. That mattered not a whit. (Besides, his victim was just some little strumpet related to Clinton - she probably liked it!)

The Arkansas GOP is, in essence, sucking hind-tit to the freakin' mafia where ethics are concerned. At least the mafia respects the families!

And now, the Huckster is triangulating.

The Huckster pressured the parole board behind closed doors, and they granted the murdering monster parole - without Huck having to affix his signature to the release. When the victim pleaded with Huckabee to keep the man in prison, he dismissed her, telling her that he believed that the man was reformed and repentant, and would pose no future threat. (Haven't we heard that "looked into his soul" line of crap before?)

I do not believe for one second that anyone in Arkansas thought the bastard was reformed.

If they truly believed he was reformed, why was one of the conditions of his parole that he had to leave Arkansas???

While he was in prison in Arkansas, some desperate, unloved, sad and pathetic man-hungry idiot Christianist trollop married him. (I have never understood those stupid, stupid disgraces to my gender, and I never will.) So anyway - this idiot bitch lived in the KC metro, and that fucking monster came here to live with her. And within a year, he was murdering women.

One of the women he murdered grew up in Eagleville, MO - a town of about 400 on I-35, just a few miles south of the Iowa line. Eagleville is about 12 miles from the town my grandparents and in-laws called home.

You say "Mike Huckabee" within 50 miles of Eagleville, and you see pure hatred flash in the eyes of the locals. You hear him called names like "mother-fucker" "moron" and, most appropriately, "murderer."

When Super Tuesday rolls around, that bastard will not do well in this state - if he hasn't imploded and withdrawn by then.

Here's hoping...

Putting out a fire with gasoline

It would have been a sight to behold, and I wish I had seen it...

On Veterans Day, Matty B came to KC to the world headquarters of the VFW for the obligatory medal ceremony that happens every November, and after the event, three KC Star reporters tried to get an answer from Baby Guv about the brewing email scandal in Jefferson City. He quite literally broke into a run to get away from the likes of Kit Wagar, Steve Kraske and Dave Helling.

As the reporters closed in, a security guard (who looks disturbingly like that guy on Springer) shoved Wagar, who was pushed back into Kraske, who was knocked back into Helling - who is a pretty big guy, so presumably he didn't go anywhere. But Kraske was suddenly faced with having to acknowledge that there is indeed a story there, and he should prolly say sumthin' about it, and damnit to hell, thats gonna deal a setback to his secret desire to be Matty B's next press secretary...But Helling had that damnable camera of his running, and the video was all over the interwebs an hour later...

For those unfamiliar with Missouri's latest gubernatorial malfeasance, it's a potboiler.

It all started a few weeks ago when Tony Messenger, political reporter for the Springfield News-Leader came into possession of an email from Blunt chief-of-staff Ed Martin that indicated Martin was performing political work from his state-funded office, and that is a violation of ethics rules. Messenger started asking questions of the governors office, and under the states Sunshine Law, he asked to see other emails like it. He was told that other emails didn't exist because Martin and other officials in the Blunt administration routinely deleted emails, which violates violates public records rules that mandate openness and transparency, and to that end, email retention.

Well, the governors office went into full freak-out mode and proceeded to compound their troubles exponentially. They denied they were aware of the policy on email retention - but the AP soon turned up with an email from a lawyer who served in the Blunt administration who said he had advised the governors staff to stop deleting email.

And here is where it gets really weird and the hubris becomes palpable. Scott Eckersley, the attorney who gave the administration the advice they didn't want to hear was fired and slandered and had his character and his ethics challenged; and Eckersley, a devout Mormon, was accused of getting porn emails at his state email address. (Don't we all get offers for penis enlargement, and gender is no deterrent?)

The issue has consumed a tremendous amount of newsprint all over the state, and it has been scathing of Blunt and Martin, and sympathetic to Eckersley. And two weeks in to the whole fiasco, the Blunt administration cut off their nose to spite their face. The administration filed a complaint with the state bar association, claiming that Eckersley violated the confidentiality he owed the governor as his attorney when he talked to the press. The complaint is tacit acknowledgment that Eckersley did indeed advise the governor and his staff to stop deleting emails.

And by Thursday of last week, baby guv had unveiled a new plan to archive every single email that is sent or received on state computers, because he wants to "avoid confusion" - except his staff seems to be the only folks who are afflicted by confusion. But that didn't stop him from blaming Jay Nixon, the current Attorney General. Blunt, in a stunning display of audacious gall, said his new scheme would "prevent what has happened in Attorney General Nixon's office, where the spokesperson said that e-mails are routinely deleted." Nixon, as every Missourian knows, is challenging Blunt in next years governors race, and in the words of Hotflash, my good friend and fellow co-blogger at Show Me Progress (and by the way, she has been absolutely tireless on this issue) Blunt isn't just going to lose next fall. He is going to get demolished.

The Delusions of Donald Rumsfeld

A year after his forced departure from the Penatgon, a series of Rummy's brain droppings has been made public.

I started reading with the normal, requisite liberal scorn for all things Rumsfeld, but before I got to the bottom of the first page, I was shaking with anger.

Donald Rumsfeld is a piece of excrement, and he is not even the same species as me.

He never thought once about the lives of the young men and women he was sending into battle. He never thought twice about the lies. He was more concerned with how he looked, and what the public perception was than he was about the lives and well-being of the soldiers who obeyed the orders he originated.

He dismissed all "Muslims" as lazy and unwilling to work hard or perform physical labor. He encouraged his underlings to keep ratcheting up threat levels. He consciously conflated Iran and Iraq in a quest to get yet another war ginned up.

The memos paint a picture of a fossil, a relic, a jingoistic dinosaur; not merely incapable of considering any position not held by him, but rigidly disdainful of anyone even capable of considering other points of view.

Grandiose affect, overblown sense of self, disdain for all others, dismissive of any reality that does not comport to his whim, unable to resist boiling everything down to a "bumper sticker" slogan...

A living specimen of DSM-IV described psychopathologies, with Axis II personality disorders heavily represnted...

Better Democrats, Please

Can we get some real Democrats?

Or at least some who know how this game is played?

You see, we are a nation founded on Liberty, but some among us have a pretty screwed up idea of what constitutes Liberty. Unfortunately the poltroons in need of a refresher course are our elected representation.

If they will not hold this administration accountable, they do not represent me.

If they will not make the obstructionist pricks in the GOP actually fillibuster a bill, they do not represent me.

If they think they can govern from the center, they do not represent me.

If they will not uphold the Fourth Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they will not uphold the First Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore Posse Comitatus, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore the Insurrection Acts of 1807, they do not represent me.

If they will not restore Habeas Corpus, they do not represent me.

If they will not revoke torture as official policy of this administration, they do not represent me.

If they will not vote for common-sense troop protections like the Webb Amendment, they do not represent me.

If they compromise on any part of the Constitution, they do not represent me.

If they do not stand up to the Deserter in Chief, they do not represent me.

If they do not take concrete steps to end the occupation of Iraq, they do not represent me.

If they get on board with a decades-long occupation of Iraq, they do not represent me.

If they do not represent me, I will support primary challengers.

***************

I was pissed off at the MoveOn ad, too - but not because it offended me. I was pissed off about it because I knew the frothing fuckwits would get worked up into a lather and draw fortification from it, at just a time when the public was getting there on their own.

But once it was out there, it was the job of the Democrats to defend the First Amendment, and ask pointedly "where was the criticism when Kerry was swift-boated and when Cleland was smeared?

Instead, they lined up to take turns shredding the first amendment. Here is the thing about the First Amendment - it guarantees FREE speech - it does not guarantee that speech will be tasteful, or that no ones feelings will get hurt. It just means that it is FREE.

It means that I can tell Claire McCaskill that she is a disappointment and a disgrace and I am seriously starting to resent all the time that I spent on her campaign.

Fat lot of good it did me, for the way her votes have fallen.

Every single Democrat who has fallen in line needs a primary challenger. The rot in Washington is to the core in both parties. Democrats who won't stand up now need a primary challenge. If you are a Representative who wants to abdicate your responsibility to impeach this criminal administration, you need a primary challenger. If you are a senator who can not defend the Constitution, you need a primary challenger. If you are a Democrat who does not protest the long-term occupation of Iraq, you need a primary challenger.

The answer here is not to fall into an abject funk - it is to get pissed, and stay pissed, all the way from today through the first Tuesday in November 2008.

And I just did something I have never done before. I made a donation to MoveOn. Not only that, throughout the rest of the month, I am donating half of every donation that comes in to this blog to MoveOn, just because it will agitate the fuck out of the squawking chickenhawks on the right. I want yellow feathers to fill the air. I will not be happy if less than three foam-flecked fuckwits fall over twitching, having stroked out at the audacity of us dirty fucking hippies.

In closing, I want to remind every Democratic politician that elections have consequences - and so do their votes. They need to keep in the front of their mind that a failure to act upon the consequences we hit the Republicans over the head with in 2006 will lead to more consequences. It's called a stiff primary challenger with netroots fundraising support, bitches.

(hat tip to Pale Rider for his help with this post. The closing paragraph is almost all him.)

I suppose I have to blog about that speech...

...or risk getting a "Bad Blogger! No Biscuit!" citation.

But really...what is to say? It was the Diet Coke of Presidential Speeches. There was no substance and the flavor wasn't quite right, but nonetheless, it was pretty much what was expected; rancid aftertaste and all.

But like Diet Coke is calorie free, the Resident's speech was fact free:

• "Iraq's national leaders are getting some things done," such as "sharing oil revenues with the provinces" [The oil law fell by the wayside, was doused in gasoline and set alight a full day before the bullshit banquet was served up this evening.]

• Bush made the proclamation that Baqubah, capital of Diyala province, (once, (impossibly) simultaneously considered both restive and the al Qaeda - Iraq mothership) is now pacified. "[t]oday, Baqubah is cleared." stated the President. [The pResident makes this claim, yet on 27 August the head of the Foreign Service Office in Diyala said the security situation was far from stable and impeded access to both sustenance and energy needs.]
  

• Further separating himself from reality, he thanked "the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq." [He was only off by a dozen or so. Give a dry drunk moron credit for not fucking this up worse...]
  

• He referenced a panel report assembled by Marine Gen. James Jones, and presented to congress last week, but he misrepresented it, saying that "the Iraqi army is becoming more capable..." [The report actually says that the Iraqi Army "cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven." It also described the 25,000 member national police force as being infiltrated to the core by sectarian militias, and at best of specious loyalty. The Jones report recommended that it be disbanded.]

• He pointed to the relatively restive Baghdad of today, as compared to the Baghdad of a year ago, and pointed to lessened violence in the capital as evidence that his Surge™ strategy is showing success. [When the ethnic cleansing is complete, the supply of people fleeing and being murdered naturally dries up.]

At least in Japan miserable failures like the fool currently occupying the oval office have the decency to go sideways. But not this Dionysian fuckwit. He will go to his grave, at far too distant a date, and after enjoying too much health for too many years, convinced that we lost Iraq because I personally didn't clap loud enough.

"Return on Success"?

Tell these people and their families, who returned all right, but with your feigned success charged at their expense.

Today's testimony has me in a funky mood

The Democrats were so spineless today. How pathetic. I hope the Senate does a better job tomorrow. I don't have any high hopes for my Democratic Senator. But I have hope that Jim Webb and John Kerry will be willing to show a little more spine. We'll see.

The spineless wimps of banality in the House scratched their chins thoughtfully, and furrowed their brows most Seriously. They will begin to debate, and in Serious Tones, they will deem the Surge™ has shown just enough signs of progress that they must advance General Westmoreland Petraeus another Friedman Unit. Of course, the defining characteristic of the Friedman Unit is that it is an automatically resetting unit.

The Surge™ has been a failure. The Surge of PR has been successful. Bush will run out the clock. And every day that blithering idiot and the evil, warmongering Cheney are in office, the closer we are to this:



Fuck it. I think I am going to pour a big-assed glass of Whiskey and spend the rest of tonight drinking. Heavily. I'll bring the outrage tomorrow.

A graphic is worth a thousand words

Six hours later, and I'm still in shock

He just stood in front of the VFW and did a backflip with a 180 and stuck the landing - and nobody noticed! I actually think he freakin' believes his own bullshit!

After rejecting parallels with Vietnam, he is suddenly stripping to his skivvies and ready to climb into the sack with those very comparisons, albeit with a kinky twist. Now it seems he thinks that we should have stayed in Vietnam - you remember Vietnam - that was the war that he, draft-dodging, war-mongering, chickenhawk that he is - refused to fight, the draft he dodged - you remember Vietnam. I certainly do, and so do my aunt and uncle who lost their oldest son....And Veterans of that conflict embarrassed me today by clapping for that sonofabitch who so spectacularly failed the test back then.

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Mr. Bush said. "Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields."'

And the idiots who voted for this clown called Kerry a flip-flopper. None of you should EVER call a Democrat a flip-flopper in my presence again. Not with this fucking political gymnast representin' y'all.

Well - I am not the only one who was stunned speechless by the "say anything, what do I have to lose?" resident's speech. Noted UCLA historian Robert Dallek, who has written extensively about the conflict in Iraq as compared to Vietnam, accused Bush of playing fast and loose with history.

"It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president," he said in a telephone interview.

"We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn't work our will," he said.

"What is Bush suggesting? That we didn't fight hard enough, stay long enough? That's nonsense. It's a distortion," he continued. "We've been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It's a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out."

So - will the mainstream media give him a[nother] pass, or will they finally call him on his delusional bullshit? What will you bet he gets a pass? But I think I have maybe figured out why...it is that he is just so fucking wrong, wronger than anyone has ever been, so wrong that in the history of incompetence and failure he gets a special category...That there is just an air of "Holy shit. Where do I even start???"

Well - enough already with the feeling overwhelmed. Pick a point and start making sense, and don't stop.

The Rebranding Effort is Under Way

Let me state my position unequivocally to preempt spin. I am not necessarily anti-war across the board, but I am and have always been anti Iraq war. I am as pro-G.I. as you can possibly be, but I am as opposed to Resident Evil and his 'policies' as is possible as well. He is a warmongering toad, and a danger to the Republic.

But the MBA president sure has a good marketing team. The marketing team is so effective that they have convinced staunch withdrawal advocates that another Friedman is called for.

The most vapid bullshit is being repackaged and sold...and Democrats are lining up to buy it. Hillary has been so fished in that she swallowed the hook.

"We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Anbar province, it's working," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday.

BZZZTTT!!! Wrong! What is happening in Anbar has nothing - nothing - to do with the so-called Surge™/troop buildup and everything to do with deals being struck with Sunni insurgents that involves massive amounts of firearms and ammo. Consider this for a moment: 170 million mostly 9 mil. rounds for Iraq, and stateside our police forces train with paintballs because there is insufficient ammo. (I have been very vocal about pointing out that the Romney boys and the Bush twits are ducking duty, but Chelsea Clinton isn't in uniform either, and if Mommy is going to be a war-monger on the stump, it's only fair to point that out.)

John Edwards called her on it, too. "Senator Clinton's view that the President's Iraq policy is 'working' is another instance of a Washington politician trying to have it both ways," Edwards campaign manager David Bonior said in a statement. "You cannot be for the President's strategy in Iraq but against the war. The American people deserve straight talk and real answers on Iraq, not double-speak, triangulation, or political positioning."

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), an Armed Services Committee member seems to get it. "I don't know of anybody who isn't desperately supportive of the military," she said. "People want to say positive things. But it's difficult to say positive things in this environment and not have some snarky apologist for the White House turn it into some clipped phraseology that looks like support for the president's policies." (emphasis mine)

Congress comes back in two weeks, tanned rested and refreshed, having sold out the Fourth Amendment on their way to the beach. But when they come back, they are in for a surprise, because America will be standing watch, silently scrutinizing from the gallery. And it will just get worse for them from there. We, the People, have had it, and we are taking matters into our own hands. On September 4, we begin to stand watch, and on September 21, we observe the first Iraq Moratorium Day.

Participate, people. Be a worthy descendant to the founders who put it all on the line to give us a Republic that these fools have pissed away.

Debunking a presidential budget myth

Everyone is focused on September right now – as well they should be – but everyone is focusing on a portion (Iraq) of the big picture.

The real fight is about the budget for FY 2008, which starts on 01 October. Let’s be kind in our assessment, and just say that the administration certainly seems to be embracing magical thinking where the nation’s checkbook is concerned. You see, if we aren’t kind, we have to say that the president is lying his ass off and pushing malicious propaganda. (The latter is likely true, but we are feeling inexplicably magnanimous tonight. If it persists, I'll get checked out.)

Last Thursday the president spoke to the American Legislative Exchange Council in Philadelphia, and his speech was so far divorced from reality that, frankly, it left me wondering what exactly was the combination of drugs he was enjoying at the time? I mean, the BS is so easily debunked that it seems like they aren't even trying any longer.

He boasted that he had overseen a budget deficit that has been declining in recent years, and that his policies would realize a surplus by FY12.

Problem is, he forgot a couple of really, really salient facts. (Or maybe they are inconvenient so he committed an intentional sin of omission?)

If he is going to take credit for reducing the deficit, he has to admit that he created it. Prior to his administration, there were four consecutive budget-surplus years, with a forecast of $5.6 trillion in continuing surpluses. This robust economic forecast was the justification for the Bush tax cuts, but even after the surpluses were revealed to be imaginary, massive, record-high deficit spending continued unabated. (Never before have we cut taxes in time of war.)

Additionally, the word “debt” never fell from his lips during the entire speech. He either doesn’t realize, or again opted to willfully omit, that while the deficit is falling, the debt is climbing. In fact, his term in office will realize a $3 trillion increase in the national debt.

But it gets better! He said we have a responsibility to fix our problems! It wouldn’t be fair to pass these problems off "to future Congresses or future generations." All the while ignoring that the interest payments on the debt will be crippling for the next three decades, thanks to that $3 trillion dollars added to the debt. Oh – I almost forgot! There is a hell of a lot of short-term borrowing that is coming due and we don’t have the cash to satisfy the debt. So we have to refinance. (We all know someone who got in trouble with a payday loan that took on a life of its own. This is like that, only on a national scale and its trillions instead of hundreds.) The ghost of the George Bush presidency is going to haunt this nation for years to come.

When he bragged that the current (FY 2007) deficit would be "lower than the national average over the last 10 years."

There is only one way to make that statement true: omit the years FY98-01 and still call it a decade. When FY98-01 are included, the average deficit drops to 0.9% of GDP, but the number that the president cited for FY08 was significantly higher, 1.5% GDP.

Translation: He wasn’t really saying this years deficit represents the lowest percentage of GDP in a decade, it will just be lower than any of the six consecutive deficits he has presided over. (Doesn’t sound quite so sexy that way, though, does it?)

He went far afield and insisted that congress should send him budget appropriations individually, not in a combined omnibus spending bill, and not in the form of continuing resolutions, but individual appropriations bills. (This has never been asked before, and is quite baffling in the petulant audacity it takes to even ask.) Not once in the past six years has the White House expressed any concern whatsoever Interesting, given that FY01, 03, 04, and 05 were all funded by omnibus spending bills, and the entire government has operated on continuing resolutions this year, FY07, because the republican rubber-stamp 109^th congress failed to pass a budget.

But the coup de grace of unmitigated gall was the proclamation that the Congress was obligated to, “in a time of war” pass the Pentagon budget before the August Recess! (Isn’t there something happening in September that makes that suggestion especially off-putting?)

Out understanding is not so stunted as the president prefers to think it is, apparently. For instance, we know that the fiscal year does not start until 01 October, and that any funds appropriated for FY 2008 now would not be available for dispersal until then, no matter when the Pentagon appropriations are passed! His petulant, pandering insistence is disingenuous at best. Or maybe he just forgot…

His credibility on this issue is suspect in any case. Over the past six years, Congress has adopted the Pentagon appropriation by the start of the summer recess only once (FY05). Twice (FY04 and 07) it was enacted in the last days of September. Three times (FY02, 03 and 06) it was enacted well after the fiscal year began. At no time during this period did the White House ever call on Congress to adopt the bill beforethe August recess or criticize it for not getting the work done before the fiscal year began.

Also casting a cloud on his credibility is his complete and utter refusal to criticize the Iraqi parliament for taking an August recess. Again he strikes a disingenuous pose. That “time of war” he referenced is taking place in their country and they are off on holiday after accomplishing exactly nothing.

Now, analytical disagreements are par for the course when budget and appropriations projects are debated. But the president’s statements about the budget are so patently and obviously false that they read much more like propaganda than policy differences. The mind boggles at the audacity. It really truly boggles.

[Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose]

We need some new rules

For starters, we need to rename our policy institutes to more accurately reflect the product that comes out of those fever-swamps. They push agendas, reality be damned and critical thinking be suspended.

When agenda-whoring is the major gist, call them what they are – Belief Tanks. And call their "analysts" what they are, too – Agenda Whores.

With September looming, and the true believers having difficulty moving the goalposts to November, the Idiots from Brookings™ are back. Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack take to the op-ed pages of the New York Times today to proclaim that “we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.”

O’Hanlon and Pollack bill themselves “as two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.” They are very quick to point out that they are ‘two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq’ but they fail to mention that they were frothing hawks who poo-pooed those of us who were fucking right before hand. Pollack wrote an entire damned book laying out “the case for invading Iraq,” and took the case for war to the Cheetos-and-Hot Pockets crowd on Oprah in 2002, where he enthusiastically beat the war drum and pushed the false intelligence about Iraq as justification to war.

O’Hanlon is nearly as odious as Pollack. He has shared Pollack’s zeal for war with Iraq. Prior to the invasion, he predicted a “a rapid and decisive” victory. Now, he is intent on flipping war critics to the “surge supporters” column, and his plans revolve around a long-term occupation.

Now that these pathetic fools who have been wrong around everything are back from another “fact finding” trip to Iraq, they are off on a PR junket touting “stay the course.” This weekend on CNN, the hapless O’Hanlon claimed that the war “is going brilliantly at this point.”

CNN correspondent Arwa Damon refuted his claim in an interview with Tom Foreman: .

FOREMAN: Arwa, is there a sense in Baghdad on the ground that that’s exactly what’s happening?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Tom, actually not when you speak to the Iraqi people. In fact, most of those that I’ve spoken to will not really say that they feel that the situation is getting better. Remember, they’re not measuring their own security in terms of numbers of U.S. casualties or numbers of bodies that were found unidentified throughout the entire capital. They are measuring their sense of whether or not things are getting better by the level of comfort with which they can leave their homes. For most Iraqis, they are still just as petrified of falling victim of sectarian violence or any other sort of attack that could take place in the capital today as they were before the surge began.

O’Hanlon breathlessly points to some non-existent metrics to bolster his puffery and support for this failed war:

He is excited about the delivery of “basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people,” and he sings Hosannas to the ‘reliability‘ of Iraqi security forces, and he is simply wide-eyed over “how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working.”

Too bad none of these things that have him so tickled are actually, you know, happening the way he says. In reality, residents of Baghdad now get only one or two hours of electricity each day, the Iraqi security forces are deserting in large numbers, and reconstruction has stalled.

Only a died-in-the-wool idiot would look to these never-right morons for advice.

So I guess they find a ready audience in aWol.

[H/T Think Progress & Glenn Greenwald]

[Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose]

It’s beginning to look a lot like perjury

Senate Democrats hit the ground running this morning and immediately fired off a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement demanding the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate the Attorney General. "It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements," four members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote.

They asked Clement to immediately appoint an indepedent counsel from outside the Justice Department to determine whether Gonzales "may have misled Congress or perjured himself in testimony before Congress."

"We do not make this request lightly," wrote Sens. Charles E. Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

A draft copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press shortly before a news conference planned by the senators.

Neither Gonzales nor the Justice Department had immediate comment about the letter. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he supports the request.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, in a separate letter Thursday to Gonzales, said he would give the attorney general eight days to correct, clarify or otherwise change his testimony "so that, consistent with your oath, they are the whole truth."

The four senators said that Gonzales' testimony last year that there had been no internal dissent over the president's warrantless wiretapping program conflicted with testimony by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey and with Gonzales' own statements this week before the Judiciary Committee.

They also said Gonzales falsely told the panel that he had not talked about the firings with other Justice Department officials. His former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, told the House Judiciary Committee under a grant of immunity that she had an "uncomfortable" conversation with Gonzales in which he outlined his recollection of what happened and asked her for her reaction.

"The attorney general should be held to the highest ethical standards," the senators wrote.

Yes, the chief law enforcement officer in the land should absolutely be held to the highest of ethical standards. Unfortunately, when we are talking about the Bush Organized Crime Syndicate; that ideal just doesn’t mean the same thing as it does to you and me (presuming you view the Rule of Law and the Social Contract as more than mere technicalities.)

Abu G Went Up the Hill to Carry Bushie's Water

Alberto went back up the Hill today and once more faced a stern and scowling Senate Judiciary Committee. By the time it was all said and done, Senator Leahy was hinting at perjury charges and Senator Specter raised the specter of a special prosecutor.

Noting aWol’s unprecedented invocation of executive privilege, Specter observed that “the president’s word stands and the constitutional authority and responsibility for congressional oversight is gone.” He went on to voice that one of the alternatives he has been kicking around is the appointment of a special prosecutor. “The attorney general has the authority to appoint a special prosecutor,” said Specter. “You’re recused, but somebody else could do it. You’re recused because you know all of the principals. You have a conflict of interest. But doesn’t the president have an identical conflict of interest?”

The AG did not disappoint those of us who have come to expect the very worst from his pathetic, pathological appearances.

He disputed charges that morale in the Justice Department has plummeted under his leadership, saying that morale can best be measured by "output." The department's output in the last six months has been "outstanding," he asserted.

"I've decided to stay and fix the problems," he said in response to a question.

Senator Leahy was decidedly not buying what Gonzo was selling:

But Gonzales came under withering criticism from the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), and from its top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.)

"The attorney general has lost the confidence of the Congress and the American people," Leahy said. He said the administration "has squandered our trust" and told Gonzales bluntly, "I don't trust you."

And Senator Specter seemed to blast the hapless Gonzo with both barrels:

Specter said there was "evidence of low morale" at the Justice Department and blasted what he described as Gonzales's lack of "personal credibility." He called the department "dysfunctional." Specter raised the prospect of calling for a special prosecutor to press a potential contempt-of-Congress citation over the White House's refusal to provide certain documents and sworn testimony regarding the firing of nine federal prosecutors last year. He denounced the Bush administration's stand that it would prohibit the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from pursuing a contempt citation.

"Now if that forecloses a determination of whether executive privilege has been properly imposed, then the president in that manner can stymie congressional oversight by simply saying there is executive privilege," Specter said. That would spell the end of congressional oversight and take the controversy "to a really incredible level," he said.

"Now we've been exploring some alternatives," Specter said, noting that "the attorney general has the authority to appoint a special prosecutor." He told Gonzales, "You're recused, but somebody else could do it."

Specter added, "We also have the alternative of convening the Senate and having a contempt citation and trying it in the Senate."

Gonzo’s pledge to stay on and roll up his sleeves and get to work setting the department back right is simply staggering. WTF???

There is no confidence in the Attorney General from the rank-and-file in the Justice Department. They are despondent and have zero confidence in their compromised, beleaguered “leader.”

Senior staff has resigned in unprecedented numbers. Candidates refuse employment with the department. At least half of the top jobs at Main Justice are unfilled and others are staffed with temps.

Legislative priorities are not being addressed, including revisions to the intelligence laws and anti-crime proposals. "It takes away from normal work," one recently departed Justice official said about the persistent controversy over Gonzales's role in the firings and the use of improper political considerations in hiring career employees. "It obviously has a serious impact," said the former official, who would discuss the department's internal workings only if not identified.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called on Gonzales to resign, but he has steadfastly refused, taking the slings and arrows of public and congressional outrage for his boss. He staunchly, stubbornly hangs on, knowing that his boss will never fire the firewall that stands between him and criminal investigations and prosecutions. The Senate has no confidence in him, and the vote indicates. No, it wasn’t sixty – but it wasn’t less than fifty, either. Remember that.

Let’s face it – without Gonzales, a competent attorney general would have to be installed. The Democratic-controlled Congress would not confirm a lackey like Gonzales. (Imagine Jack Danforth as AG…Oh, reverie…Not only would those Main Justice jobs get snapped up by well-qualified candidates, there would be resignations in the West Wing sufficient to stop the administration dead in its tracks.)

So make with the impeachment of this hapless, sad little man who feebly feigns a desire to do his job, now that it’s all come undone and he is exposed for what he is: a not-to-bright, ideologically driven, inept and compromised failure.

Let me finish with an installment of “What My Lawyer Said”

“This is precisely why I have been a raving lunatic for months … about the necessity of initiating an impeachment investigation, even if it is only as to Gonzales to start. Running out the clock in order to protect our majorities, gain some seats and install a Democratic administration does not cut it. That is akin to doing some public service announcements and hoping crime disappears in your community. The facts and extent of harm must be fleshed out in a formal investigation, the public must be allowed to understand the full nature and extent of what has occurred, and those responsible must be held to account. If not, the ugly beast continues to raise it’s ugly head with impunity in the future.”

Well said, Counselor.