It sure was Monday - 2/25/08

We are kicking off tonights roundup by announcing the rollout of a national ad campaign by our friends at VoteVets (ad is at the end of tonights post). Our blog is proud to have a long standing association with that fine organization, and as such, it is my honor to pass on the information that they are launching a national ad campaign to push back against the M$M meme that McCain has unequivocal support of vets and their families. He doesn't. If you can help VoteVets get their ad on the air, click here.

Ya think?!?!? St. John "four more years, four more wars!" McCain is backing away from his admission that it all comes down to Iraq, and he is tragically out of step with the American public. On Monday McCain told the AP that in order to win the White House he has to persuade a war-weary electorate that the latest incarnation of a policy on Iraq is succeeding. If he can't, "then I lose. I lose," he said bluntly. Immediately he tried to soften it, but the cat is out of the bag and up the tree, my friend.

John doesn't realize that the purpose of the unsustainable surge was never intended to help the next Republican nominee. It was intended to run out the clock for the current occupant so he can limp across the finish line with his bubble unpunctured. It's about the next schmuck losing Iraq, and everyone else can go pound sand so far as the delusional, self-satisfied Charlie Gordon squatting in the Oval is concerned.

Is Clear Channel trending Blue? Maybe it's merely a case of reading the handwriting on the wall? Whatever is behind it, Monkeyfister is fascinated...I ran the three purchasing parties through Open Secrets.org. Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners both seem to be heavy Democratic supporters. Providence Equity Partners gave to Lincoln Chafee pretty heavily in the past, but, they appear to be fully in the Democratic arena this cycle...Has there been such a heavy tilt in the Force? I wonder what is happening here. I'm already fascinated. Me too, mf, me too.

THIS is the sort of thing I am talking about when I say I want to be represented by fighting Democrats. Let McCain spin his campaign finance BS until he has himself tangled beyond escape. Whatever. While he is doing that, the DNC is cutting to the chase and petitioning the FEC to have campaign finance regulators look into McCain's unique, er, "arrangement" with his loan and public financing. Or as my people sometimes say...Keep it up, and before you know it, it'll be time for the lawyers!

What Atrios Said...

Those of us in the know understand that the "gang of 14" thing was not a victory for Democrats, or bipartisanship, but a blessing bestowed on the Republican right to cheat by promising that Democrats wouldn't do anything to make them want to cheat.

But it pissed off conservatives because while they want conservative judges to be appointed, what they want even more is to extend a middle finger to Democrats as often as possible. In other words, they wanted the Republicans to cheat so they could laugh at the impotent Democrats.

Their politics is mostly driven by a desire to say "fuck you!!!!!!!!" to their perceived political enemies. There isn't much more there.

Pretty much sums it up, Dr. Black.

Ashcroft will Testify - after stonewalling for a couple of months, John Ashcroft will testify on the latest GOP feather-your-cronies-nest scam: appoint them as monitors of defendants in federal cases!

SMU Professors Protest Bush Library...Wow. Usually a presidential library is considered a coup and universities clamber for the acclaim. Not the case with the Bush 43 library - getting the library placed at SMU took three years of debate and negotiations, and now that they have agreed, the professors are pissed. Turns out they don't want a censored library on campus. Go figure. Academics value integrity over ideology. Who could have suspected such an uppity response?

On second thought, I hope the door does hit you in the ass on the way out...and I hope you get a big honkin' splinter, and it gets infected, and you suffer severe complications...I told you last week about former Guantanamo chief prosecutor retired Colonel Morris Davis, who resigned rather than serve below pentagon political appointee Chief Council William J. Haynes, who said "we can't have acquittals" in regard to detainees...Well, today Haynes suddenly resigned his position at the Pentagon. No word yet on whether the war-criminal bastard has lawyered up...

Now, as promised, here is that ad:

Morning News Round-Up: Hubby's Birthday Edition

Months before the CIA destroyed those tapes that (apparently) shows CIA operatives torturing suspects, a court order was issued demanding they not destroy evidence. But it's all cool - while everyone was focused on Guantanamo, the torture was apparently going on in those CIA "black sites" in places like Uzbekistan and the like.

Immigration is, apparently, the "new gay" in Republican circles. So long as they have someone to hate and blame for all the woes in the country without sweeping their own back stoop, they can continue on their self-righteous and deluded merry way. Praise Ja-hay-Zeus!

Violence in Iraq seems to be increasing as the unsustainable Surge™ of American forces draws down. Today, 27 were killed and at least 100 injured in bomb blasts in Amara as separate Shiite groups battle for control of oil and political power. (Washington Post puts the death toll at 46 and injured at 149 - so far.)

China has gone on a buying spree and accumulated lots of passenger aircraft, but a pilot shortage means they have no one to fly the new aircraft. They need to add 2500 new pilots per year for at least two decades to get the worth out of their shiny new toys. For the first time, Chinese authorities are allowing foreign pilots to take the stick and rudder and fly their aircraft, poaching pilots from as far away as Brazil.

After four years of neglecting the conflict in Afghanistan to concentrate on the clusterfuck in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is criticizing NATO allies for not doing enough to save American bacon in the forgotten war.

Illiteracy is soaring among Iraq's refugee children. At least 300,000 are not enrolled in school in the countries where their families have sought refuge. Prior to the U.S. invasion of the country, Iraq had one of the highest literacy rates in the region.

Last night on the CBS Evening News, Republican contenders Huckabee and Thompson asserted that global warming is "overblown." Is that so? They should tell it to Greenland.

That's all for now - I leave you in the capable hands of Pale Rider. I'll be back this evening. If we're lucky, I won't be blogging drunk...

Sunday Surrealism

Oh good grief - take one Sunday to venture forth and hit multiple grocery stores and markets, and the entire world tilts on it's axis while you're out!

A new Des Moines Register poll upset the apple cart for both the Democrats and the Republicans. For the first time, Barack Obama has inched ahead in what is still a statistical dead heat. But the real surprise was on the Republican side, where Huckabee is firmly in the lead at 29% - up from 12% in October.

KKKarl Rove continued his stunning rewrite of history on Sunday. You might recall that the Charlie Rose viewing audience last week watched as his nose visibly grew while he said with a straight face that the administration didn't want the AUMF vote to happen when it did, right before the 2002 midterms. He repeated the lies yesterday, with added fabricated detail! Now his delusions have manifested themselves in a false construct of reality that makes that meanie Daschle the warmonger, not the pure goodness that is George aWol Bush! Daschle stopped laughing long enough on Monday to push back on the Bill Press Show. Worth noting: Even loyal Bushies Fleischer and Card threw his moldering carcass under the bus.

And isn't it time that someone took Senator McCain's hand and led him off the stage, settled him comfortably into a chair and fetched him a nice bowl of pudding? McCain is giving Rove a run for his money in the revisionist history area. For a couple of weeks now he has been peddling the line that the political reconciliation didn't happen because "there are no Thomas Jeffersons in Iraq." In some versions, he asserts that Saddam Hussein killed them all. (No, Senator - reconciliation didn't happen because Iraq is a lawless state with deep ethnic divisions and hatreds, and cataclysmic change in that nation was quite literally akin to turning a bull loose in a china shop.)

Then there is a huge financial mess unfolding in Florida, and the taxpayers may end up adding a new verb to the lexicon: Jebbed.

But the most surreal story of all was the one about big business pushing their agenda on the feckless failure, trying to get all manner of goodies bestowed upon them, their shareholders and their coffers - they want reforms to such frivolous and popular things as the Family and Medical Leave Act which protects workers from termination while they are treated for illnesses, and mandates that employees be given time off when a family grows via birth or adoption. In my career, I was a shift supervisor in healthcare and clinical lab settings. I have both accommodated and used FMLA, and on balance, it's a good law. Neither I nor my crew abused it. It does not need to be "fixed." CAFO's (concentrated animal feeding operations) are looking for exemptions for the waste generated by these huge factory farms.

What makes self-serving push so surreal is that for months, Democrats have been the primary benefactors of the campaign largess of big business.

They don't even try to cover up the craven any more, do they? But...doesn't plutocracy much spell the end for all once-great civilizations?

Friday Night Round-Up

Let's take care of the important stuff first...My most sincere and heartfelt thanks to Pale Rider for standing in for me while I was occupied in the corporeal realm. Let's encourage him to grace us with his withering takedowns of the likes of Derbyshire and Hanson and other assorted assholes, fucktards and morons. He has a gift, and I so enjoy pulling that bow!

Now...for that news roundup...

The Army is having problems and not just with recruiting and retention. Desertions are up 80% since 2003, when the biggest deserter of them all decided that it was God talking to him and not cocaine-induced dementia that made him hear those voices that told him invading Iraq was a stellar notion. Desertion rates are at their highest level since 1980.

Marine Lt. Colonel Jeffrey Chessani today became the highest ranking officer to face a combat-related court martial in over 30 years. He is charged with Violation of a Lawful Order and Deriliction of Duty, accused of mishandling the fallout from the 19 November 2005 massacre of civilians in Haditha. It was decided that Chessani should face trial after a hearing officer was scathing in his condemnation of the officer for failing to immediately go to the scene and initiate an investigation.

Two-plus years after Hurricane Katrina crystallized the Bush kleptocracy, Mississippi (Governor: Haley Barbour, former RNC head) is in violation of federal guidelines that state half of all federal aid for storm recovery be distributed to low income residents. Instead of the mandated half, poor residents have received only about 10% of the aid disbursed to date and affluent residents ahve received the other 90%. Mississippi - again, governed by Haley Barbour - is the only state that the feds waived the rules for.

The Senate Republicans succeeded in temporarily cutting off funding for the Iraq misadventure. The House last week approved $50 billion in war funding, but attached a timeline for withdrawal. The Senate failed to pass the legislation. Pelosi says they will not consider another funding package this year. John Aravosis at AMERICAblog summed it up best:

So in a nutshell, the Democrats were ready to give George Bush $50 billion for Iraq today and the Republicans killed it because they don't want to provide any oversight whatsoever. The Republicans think the war in Iraq is going great, and to prove it they just took $50 billion away from our troops.

The Republicans own this war. Remember that in one year when we're still in Iraq, we still haven't won, and the Republicans are still telling us that we need yet another six months to finally show progress.

But apparently the faithless, feckless fools of the GOP don't just hate our military - they hate our farmers too! They killed the farm bill today.

We always suspected, and now we know: It was indeed official policy for the U.S. military to keep Red Cross monitors from Guantanamo detainees.

And the Inspector General for State? Yeah, it turns out that his brother is on the Blackwater Board of Directors. Blackwater is under contract to the State Department to provide security for diplomats in that country, and murdered 17 civilians in a bloody, murderous rampage on September 16 in Nissour Square in Baghdad.

Wednesday, in brief....

I picked the wrong week for a crash!

But here is what caught my ear on the radio today..

China has declared religious symbols and literature forbidden items at the Olympics. No bibles, and presumably Korans, Talmuds and Bhagavad Gitas...So when the Israeli and Greek athletes file into the stadium for the opening ceremonies, will they be allowed to display their flags?

Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy, eroding at last the tiniest shred of an island of morality the religious right had to stand on. It isn't about the issues, it's about power. Don't let the feckless, willfully ignorant bastards tell you otherwise. Fucking hypocrites.

The State Department has joined in the pile-on and posted a letter by a Foreign Service Officer on Dipblog that implies that the officers reluctant to serve in the embassy in Iraq are Wimps and Weenies.

The Dollar continues to slide, and oil prices continue top climb, and Hundred-dollar a barrel is in the immediate future. Feeling smug about my long-standing dedication to public transportation...

House and Senate negotiators approved a $459 war-funding bill, but didn't cave on an additional $70 billion the bloodthirsty Republican chickenhawks wanted to continue the criminal war apace, with no restrictions whatsoever. It's something, but I'm still pissed off at Democrats in the Congress who think that the campaign issue next fall is more important than doing what's right now and defundign this clusterfuck.

And aWol will have a veto shoved down his craven throat - water-projects legislation. It ain't SCHIP, but anything that makes that fuckers temple-vein throb - I'll take. Mine has been pounding for seven freakin' years. Someone else can have a turn...