I have a few problems with the President praising the criminal George Bush

Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the End of Combat Operations in Iraq | The White House

So tonight President Barack Obama jumped the shark by praising the criminal George Bush for heroically lying this nation into an illegal war against a sovereign nation that has led to the death of thousands of young men and women in our armed forces and the maiming tens of thousands more.  Of course, Bush broke a lot of laws, many of them Constitutional, but for some reason he has been given a pass like Foggerty's Fortunate Son.  This has had the effect of rendering American justice a joke, a laughingstock even by Iranian standards.  A nation of law my ass.

If there is a set of lenient standards for the rich and harsh standards for us poor, then equality does not exist in America any more.  If a rich man can steal the Presidency of the United States, allow a major terrorist attack on our soil, start 2 wars he couldn't finish, spy on us Americans, eavesdrop on our phone calls, torture innocent-until-proven-guilty prisoners to death without the Constitutional requirements of due process, leave this nation in one of its worst economic disasters in history and walk away from it without the cops carting him off to jail, then you know this country's ethics stink and its morality no better than sewage waste.  If justice is not equally applied to all citizens regardless of status, class or wealth, then we are no better than those peasants of the past who once served queen or king or noble  because they were forced to.  Bush is American nobility it seems, so, like his medieval counterparts, will face no justice even though our laws and the voices of the dead demands it.

Another issue I had with the speech was this whole "we went into Iraq to disarm it" crap.  No, we invaded Iraq to get at her oil as any one with the memory will recall.  Bush and Cheney suggested that the Iraqi oil revenues would cover the cost of this quixotic war venture as well as pad their pocketbooks with lucrative PR&B contracts.  There was nothing to disarm. 

Some think the invasion was right simply to get rid of Saddam, but that's horse puckies as Col. Potter would say.  The American government under Republikkkan leadership put Saddam in power.  They kept him in power, armed him and helped suppress those that would oppose him.  It's our government's fault Saddam killed all those 100s of thousands of people in all those unmarked graves we find.  They were killed by OUR bullets and gassed by our anthrax.  Saddam couldn't have been the tyrant he was without our federal government actively supporting him.  So the Iraq war is more like a mob hit then anything else and our soldiers were the hitters.

So here we are now and it's almost 2011.  Tempus fugit, they tell me.  America still chooses to exist in a "post 9/11 world" instead of pursuing the truth about what really happened and who was really involved in the events of that day.  Until I saw the rocket launched from an Army helicopter into the Pentagon for myself, I wouldn't have believed it either.  Still the images are there for all to see.  The 8 odd seconds of amateurishly doctored footage the FBI released that they had previously confiscated from area businesses around the pentagon clearly shows it if you adjust the settings on your video playing devices properly and go frame by frame.  The helicopter and missile are removed, of course, but their aura or ghost images remain.  You can see the missile advance as whoever doctored the video (badly) added fire explosion appear on the upper parts of the frame.  Until someone can tell me the truth about that, I will never accept that we live in a post 9/11 world because our military or secretive intelligence agencies were involved somehow.

Well, those are the only 2 groups that I could think of who own helicopters here in the United States.  Perhaps this truly was a cabal and Bush has more to answer for than we the people are willing to admit to themselves.  Whatever the truth is, my government had some involvement in that day.

Actually, that's the last thing I took from the Iraq speech.  The myths of 9/11 are going to be perpetuated and used over and over again to justify all manner of extremes from our federal government, a government that can now, thanks to Bush, assassinate it's own citizens if a few powerful men decide you need to die.  Right now, you can be declared a traitor without any court oversight at all.  As if any American court could even call these powerful men to justice! Even the will of the people wasn't powerful enough to accomplish that.

Me, I'm from the Mark Twain school of thought that all politicians are liars and are hiding something.  So when our government tells you a made up story and tries to bury the facts, you know they are hiding something.  Why didn't Bush or Cheney agree to be sworn to testify under oath?  Because they were hiding something.  Innocent people always want to take the stand in their own defense, but these 2 cowards hid behind their lawyers and cried executive privilege!

Free people should ALWAYS view their government with questions and suspicions because these leaders of America are all a bunch of crooks and snake oil sales people bent on selling you a product.  If only it weren't so easy to sell us their wars and adorn them so easily with the gaudy ornaments of patriotism, heroism and the like; just a little something to give everyone in America a sense of communal pride at what glorious bastards we have become.

George Bush is no hero.  History proves he was never lawfully elected President though we Americans were sure good at bending over taking those last 8 years those smarmy bastards shoved up our collective puckered sphincters.  And do you know why we touched our toes and spread our cheeks?  Because we know our Democracy is a sham; we know our government is out of control; because we know in our heart of hearts we will never, ever have equal justice or an end to war ever again because a few greedy men who already have everything they could ever want have greed in their hearts and dollar signs in their eyes.

George Bush destroyed my America, left it to bleed a slow death, the same way he'd kill little animals as a boy, he watched it with those same dead eyes and that same grotesque fascination.  He has cursed all of us with this new America, this post 9/11 Orwellian farm where we have come to find that some animals are indeed more equal than others.

Beck, the Tea party and domestic terrorism

So Murfreesboro, TN remains a hot bed of bigoted hatred against Muslims.  Those who have followed this story at all (IF you could tear yourself away from your busy lives long enough to be bothered to care) already know that the fanatic, white Christians of Murfreesboro have their teats in a wringer over a proposed mosque being built in their community so they have sent attacking dogs after the Muslims there, set fire to the Mosque construction site AND shot at said site.  Luckily no one's been killed yet, but give it some time.  After all, the last group of fanatical whites to oppose a religious group sent their victims into gas ovens.  We can only guess what spectacular method of execution Americans can dream up for Muslims.  Given what was done to our Native American population by our collective hands, we may only guess it will be breathtaking in its showmanship and barbarity.  Back in the day, this is the sort of thing our sacred Constitution was supposed to protect minority groups from (the very definition of a Republic form of government), but today the radicals on the right willingly ignore that fact.  To them America is white, armed & Christian and these zealots are not colorblind.  It is no accident that black people are the highest group of people in American jails or prisons. 

Their fault for not being born mulattos I guess.

Now, there are people in places of power that just couldn't be happier about these activities, like Rupert Murdoch.  Murdoch, a foreigner and Australian (thank God he's white yeah?), is very old and probably senile but he's richer than God, so he has no common day worries like us yokels here on Main St.   Murdoch owns Fox News, the official channel of Republikkkan propaganda.  He claims not to have knowledge of any bias on his "news" network, but if that is true that must mean he's an oblivious idiot who lucked out amassing a fortune and I don't buy that for one second from this old shrewd and cunning cad.  He knows exactly what his Fox News does and he laughs about it all the way to the bank.  You can almost here his snarky laughter on his way there as he toasts those stupid Americans for helping make his bank accounts so damn full.  Of course it is in Murdoch's interests to rile up the commoners as it sells his newspapers, keeps his ratings high and sells lucrative ad space.  That's why he allows it to happen.  Besides, those dupes in Murfreesboro are no threat to him or his fellow Australians.

So to make money and make America a reality show laughing stock to the entire planet, Murdoch allows Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and other Republikkkan criminals to say as they please whether it's true or not.  Fox News has demonstrated its willingness to do this repeatedly since the Clinton years and it has reached a fever pitch yet again now that a Democrat has taken the White House.  People forget the complicity of Fox News in the whole Clinton/Lewinsky fiasco and the venom which they spread that led to impeachment proceedings.  You can see why.  Karl Rove and other top Republikkkan strategists needed to create such a fiasco so that when George Bush unlawfully assumed the chair of President, they'd have a get out of jail free card for themselves.  After all, the whole Fox/GOP caused Lewinsky scandal is the entire excuse given for not impeaching George Bush by elected officials.  "Oh the nation doesn't want to go through that again!" they jovially proclaimed.  Which goes to show that elected officials do not listen to my voice (as they ought in a Republic) because I surely wanted and still want justice brought to Bush, but I digress and my fellow Americans don't have the stones to demand it.  But I'm off on a tangent and should get back to the matters at hand.

So we come to Glenn Beck, the Goebells of his people who preaches God, guns and revolt against the federal government for reasons of insanity (i.e. fundamentalist Christianity).  He and I share in common that we were both raised in fundamentalist Christian homes (his was Catholic and mine was Assembly of God), we were both traumatized by it and we both suffer psychological conditions (although the conditions differ). 

Beck is a self made man who was obviously influenced by the false prophet Rush Limbaugh.  He's also a Mormon, which should automatically disallow him from speaking for the Tea party (Mormons are as deluded by Satan as Catholics are after all and equally deserving of Hell fire for not accepting the true faith of Jesus Christ according to fundamentalist Christian teaching), but somehow has managed to overcome these detriment far better than Mitt Romney.    Maybe it's a "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of thing.  Or maybe Beck has officially (yet quietly) renounced his demonic Mormonism for Life Giving Salvation in the true faith.  Who knows? Maybe the Tea party is simply Beck's dupe.  What matters is that millions of people around this nation listen to his radio show or watch his TV show and that is getting to be a problem.

Here we hit the problem of free speech.  Now, in America, we don't all have free speech like those big buildings called corporations have, now that buildings are people with human rights thanks to those twisted fucks sitting on the Supreme Court.  We commoners are to be seen and not heard after all (now shut up and buy something before I throw you in jail maggot!).  We don't get TV shows handed to us like the Becks and Hannitys of the world even though we all have something important to say.  But they have our speech fairly well bottled up, even here online where they still read your shit and invade our privacy.  They have us broken down into graphs and polls.  Since when do you ask 500 people something and extrapolate that this is how all 360 million Americans feel and think?  That's crazy.  But they use these numbers regardless as if the polls themselves, like those concrete buildings on conscience, spoke for all of us 360 millioon singular, independent Americans.

Beck is a corporate goon, a willing henchman and accomplice to Murdochs indifference to what happens to the plebeians of America.  Beck sits there day in and day out spewing his lies happily making money to do so hand over fist, an American style Tokyo Rose, spokesperson for Australia, draped in the American flag and the blood of our fallen soldiers.  Beck claims he does this for his deep, passionate love for America but, if this were so, he'd be doing his schtick for free, not making one slim dime on "trying to save his country", but that's not what Beck is in this for really.  He's in it for the love of money and he is getting very rich indeed.  Still, I suppose even Goebells got paid; I shouldn't be too surprised that greed is a universal moral among those who seek power.  But Beck abuses his power as does his friend Palin.  Beck actually foments rebellion and hints at executions.  So if a person can't yell fire in a crowded theater, why does Beck get to get away with it in a crowded country?  It is no accident that Murfreesboro is becoming violent, or that a cultural center/YMCA for Arabs has become a little mosque on the crater, or that Arizona is becoming militant like most of the South.  Murdoch, Beck and his kith and kin have stirred up all of this knowingly and willingly.

So now we have the radicals firing the first shots of what could swell into a bloody mess.  Hatred, a Tea party value since day one, is in abundant supply amongst its followers.  The conspirators in this movement whisper of overthrowing the government and executions of the highest officials as they polish their weapons and listen to Beck encourage their rage, their bigotry and their stupidity.  Their anger takes on a new level of vehemence because not only is the guy in office a Communist (what the right views all Dumbacrats as). he's black.  The President has it wrong to think his Presidency is above race because it simply isn't.  White America is judging Obama everyday through bigoted eyes and only an idealist (yet fool) would deny this.  It's all about race in America.  Murfreesboro wouldn't even be in the news if white folk were building anything.  African Americans wouldn't enjoy their 1st place lead in prison population if not for good ole fashion American racism.  Hell, the LA riots over the King verdict wouldn't have happened if race weren't an issue.  Race, is the 500 pound gorilla in the room that Americans don't talk about, don't want to talk about and live in utter denial of even though it's wrecking our house.  As they say in therapy, you can't fix your troubles if you don't first admit you have one.  We as a nation need some therapy.

Yet there is Beck yammering away like he's really somebody although he could be tossed aside and replaced by someone more disturbing than he at any moment.  So he keeps make his show as over the top ridiculous as he can and the yokels are eating out of his hands like goats at a fair petting zoo.  To be expected after all.  As Herr Goebells has said: The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success one fundamental principle is born in mind constantly-- it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."   Again, it is no accident that many Americans think Obama is a foreigner Muslim bent on taking down our Constitution.  Beck has a lot to answer for and I hope that if anyone does end up dying from his hate speech he faces either criminal charges for conspiracy to commit murder or face a civil suit arguing the same.

Terrorism strikes outside Nashville, 800 miles from Ground Zero | Jay Bookman

Terrorism strikes outside Nashville, 800 miles from Ground Zero | Jay Bookman

It’s an 886-mile drive from Ground Zero in Manhattan to Murfreesboro, TN, outside of Nashville. But to some, that’s apparently too close.

“Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.
Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.
Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said.
The ATF, FBI and Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office are conducting a joint investigation into the fire, Anderson said….
The chair of the center’s planning committee, Essim Fathy, said he drove to the site at around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning after he was contacted by the sheriff’s department.
“Our people and community are so worried of what else can happen,” said Fathy. “They are so scared.”

Great. Just great. Let’s be blunt: What happened over the weekend represents an act of domestic terrorism, directed at peaceful people — many of whom are no doubt American citizens — who want nothing more than to live and worship in peace.
Some people have tried to cut the baby in half regarding the proposed Islamic Center/mosque in New York City, arguing that sure, technically, Muslims have the “right” to build where they want to build, but they’d be more “sensitive” if they moved the project elsewhere. But as the Murfreesboro case demonstrates, it’s not really about proximity to Ground Zero and sensitivity is not the cure. It’s about vile and unAmerican discrimination. Such bigotry must be confronted and denounced, not placated.
Just last week, on his “700 Club” show, Pat Robertson weighed in against the Murfreesboro mosque, warning that it was probably being funded by Saudi Arabians as part of a conspiracy to impose sharia on the Murfreesboro area. As the Nashville Tennessean reports:

“Islamic Center officials have said they are building the center in stages because they are using only local funds to pay for it, and they have not accepted contributions from elsewhere.
But Robertson claimed money from wealthy Muslims in Saudi Arabia could be used to pay for construction of the mosque. That Middle East country, he said, practices a more extreme form of Islam.
“This isn’t just religion,” the televangelist said.
He went on to say that Muslims could end up taking over the city council to pass ordinances that require public prayer and foot washing. The new Islamic Center is outside the Murfreesboro city limits. An existing center is much smaller and has been in the city for years.
Robertson said a Muslim takeover would mean girls would have to wear headdresses to school… Thursday, Robertson said local officials could end up being cowed by Muslims’ ability “to bribe folks.” A $10,000 bribe could easily influence a public official in a small town, he said.”

The Muslim community in Murfreesboro comprises some 250 families, some of whom have lived in the area for more than a generation. They plan initially to build a 10,000-square-foot worship facility on the 15-acre tract, followed later by an activity room, offices, gymnasium, a swimming pool, outdoor athletic fields and possibly a cemetery.
But some opponents have apparently charged that the Muslims’ real goal is to build a terrorist training facility. Others have been only slightly less blunt in media interviews.
“They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group,” Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area, told The Associated Press.
Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators who recently wore “Vote for Jesus” T-shirts and carried signs that said “No Sharia law for USA!,” referring to the Islamic code of law.
“No mosque in Murfreesboro. I don’t want it. I don’t want them here,” Evy Summers said to WTVF. “Go start their own country overseas somewhere. This is a Christian country. It was based on Christianity.”
Fathy, the head of the Muslim group’s planning committee, told the Tennessean that friends back in Egypt are surprised to hear about crimes against mosques such as Sunday’s vandalism. “They cannot fathom this,” he said. “They always look at the U.S. as the place where democracy is practiced best.”
That’s what we are when we are at our best, when we don’t allow the extremists in our own midst to set the agenda.

Oil, bribery and the CIA - The National Newspaper

Richard Orange, foreign correspondent

In June 2004, the lawyers for James Giffen, the defendant in the “Kazakh-gate” bribery case being heard in the US relating to offences allegedly committed in Kazakhstan in the 1990s, made an application to the presiding Judge William Pauley III: they wanted classified government documents. Lots of them.

These, they said, would show that anything Mr Giffen had allegedly done – he was charged with arranging about US$80 million (Dh293.7m) in bribes for Kazakh oil contracts – had been done with the full backing of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

To Mr Giffen’s lawyers, it was a “public authority defence”. To others, it looked like something else.

“The practice is referred to as ‘greymail’,” says Scott Horton, an assistant professor of law at Columbia University.

“This is an increasingly popular defence because you can put the intelligence community on the defensive and the intelligence community’s instinctive reaction is to say, ‘Let’s get rid of this’.”

In Mr Giffen’s case it worked like a charm: more than six years after the defence team’s request, the CIA had still not provided some of the documents.

The original prosecutor has long since given up the case and moved to private practice. And this month, his replacement agreed to let Mr Giffen plead guilty to nothing more than a “misdemeanour tax count”.

“Kazakh-gate”, the scandal that inspired the George Clooney film Syriana and became one of the largest US foreign corruption cases in history, is nothing if not colourful.

By the mid-1990s, Mr Giffen had established himself as “Mr Kazakhstan”, the personal adviser to the country’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev, at the peak of the new “great game” – the battle involving Russia, the US and the world’s major oil companies for access to the Caspian Sea’s vast energy resources.

What Mr Giffen was alleged to have done to achieve this, however, was revealed only after a Kazakh government attempt to discredit the former prime minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin badly backfired.

A search of Swiss bank accounts set in motion by the Kazakh government, intended to prove Mr Kazhegeldin had been siphoning money from public coffers, instead turned up a Kazakh government account holding $85m, most of which, allegedly, had indirectly come from oil companies.

By 2000, the US department of justice claimed it had followed the trail of the account back to Mr Giffen who, it alleged, was acting as a middleman for oil companies. It was then alleged that they wished to bribe the Kazakh government in return for contracts.

The prosecution’s 2003 indictment detailed the lavish gifts Mr Giffen had allegedly bestowed on Kazakh officials to win contracts: two snow-mobiles; $180,000 in jewellery; $30,000 in fur coats; and a luxury speedboat. He had even allegedly paid the fees for the Kazakh president’s daughter’s Swiss boarding school.

But when the court concludes later in the year Mr Giffen could be convicted of nothing more than incorrectly filling in a tax form.

The greymail defence was most famously used by Lt Col Oliver North and Joseph Fernandes in the Iran-Contra trial, and by the former FBI acting director L Patrick Gray after the Watergate scandal.

But the aftermath of George W Bush’s presidency has seen it back with a vengeance, with lawyers for officials such as Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, using versions of the defence to fend off cases.

Sometimes, even if graymail is not an option, it seems US government connections can drastically slow down an investigation, in central Asia at any rate.

Corruption allegations have for several years hovered over Mina Corp and a closely related company Red Star Enterprises, two Gibraltar-based companies that had won contracts since 2002 to supply fuel to the US air base in Kyrgyzstan.

The FBI began an investigation in 2005 into whether Red Star and Mina Corp were involved in allegedly corrupt contracts that enriched the former Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev to ensure the continuation of lucrative fuel contracts with the US department of defence on Kyrgyz soil.

The Kyrgyz state police have investigated the companies’ Kyrgyz subcontractors for suspected financial links to the president’s family, but so far the US department of justice has not become involved.

Meanwhile, a US Congressional investigation into the contracts has experienced long delays in obtaining documents and the investigators only recently managed to talk to Chuck Squires, the operations director for both companies (who is also a former US defence attache), Erkin Bekbolotov, a Kyrgyz partner in both companies, and Doug Edelman, a US partner with both companies.

US investigators visited Kyrgystan on August 13 and 14 and have since conducted interviews in London with Mr Squires and Mr Bekbolotov, after serving a subpoena on the companies in the US last month.

The classified information procedures act (CIPA), enacted in 1980, was supposed to limit the graymail defence but according to Abbe Lowell, the head of the white collar crime practice at the Washington law firm McDermott Will, “embarrassing” cases can still be shelved.

“Today, under CIPA, there is still the inherent pressure on the intelligence community to decide if any prosecution that may result in the disclosure of classified information is worth the leak or offence it wants to prosecute,” Mr Lowell says.

What’s new in the Giffen case is the use of the strategy by a businessman.

Mr Giffen, whatever he may claim, was not in Kazakhstan primarily to further the interests of the US: he was there to make money via Mercator, the merchant bank he controls.

Attempts by businessmen to use graymail in the past have had little success. That Mr Giffen’s graymail defence looks likely to be so successful raises worrying problems for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s campaign against corruption, which has seen anti-bribery laws such the US foreign and corrupt practices act put in place in 38 member countries.

Almost any US businessman working in “difficult” countries is likely to keep the CIA informed of much of what happens to them.

“There is this whole arm of the CIA that interviews businessmen who are doing business overseas, so it’s pretty easy to construct a graymail defence for anyone,” says Mr Horton.

Report of shots fired near mosque site being investigated | tennessean.com | The Tennessean

Report of shots fired near mosque site being investigated | tennessean.com | The Tennessean

Rutherford County Sheriff’s deputies are investigating a complaint about shots being fired this afternoon near the construction site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro on Veals Road off Bradyville Pike.
The report came just hours after a fire of suspicious nature damaged construction equipment at the site.
A group of congregation members was at the site looking at the damage done to construction equipment by the fire overnight when they heard nine shots fired from two directions.
The incident occurred around 3:15 p.m. The congregation members reported hearing six shots coming from one direction, and about three minutes later they heard three more shots from another direction, said Saleh Sbenaty, a congregation member and MTSU professor.
He wasn’t sure if the shots were being fired at the Muslim group, but in the aftermath of the fire, he said they felt it necessary to report, the Daily News Journal reported on its website.
Several deputies are at the scene investigating the incident, he said.
One piece of construction equipment was damaged over the weekend when it was burned, and three other pieces of equipment were doused with some sort of accelerant, Sbenaty said.
The sheriff’s office, FBI and Bureau of ATF are investigating the fire.

How Bush and Blair plotted in secret to stop Brown - Telegraph

How Bush and Blair plotted in secret to stop Brown - Telegraph

Tony Blair attempted to prolong his time as prime minister after he was warned that George W Bush’s US administration had “grave doubts” about Gordon Brown’s suitability to follow him into No10, well placed sources have revealed. Patrick Hennessy and Andrew Alderson
Published: 9:24PM BST 28 Aug 2010

The White House warnings, which were reiterated by other leading US-based figures, played a key role in Mr Blair’s attempt to cling on to power until at least 2008, and to groom David Miliband as his successor, The Sunday Telegraph has been told.

Mr Blair hatched his plot to stay on longer than planned after being told that President Bush and those around him would have “big problems” working with Mr Brown.

Senior officials in the US administration sounded the alert after a meeting between Mr Brown and Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush’s secretary of state, in which Mr Brown “harangued” her over American policy on aid, development and Africa.

 After the uncomfortable session, sources said she reported her misgivings to the White House, and they were sent on in turn to Mr Blair.

After taking the warnings on board, Mr Blair signaled his intention to stay on at No 10 until at least 2008, the year of the US election to choose a successor to Mr Bush.

However, he was forced to abandon this plan following a “coup” led by Mr Brown’s supporters. Mr Brown eventually became prime minister in June 2007 and pursued a foreign policy that was far more independent of America than Mr Blair’s had been.

The “understanding” between Mr Bush and Mr Blair was revealed to The Sunday Telegraph by well-placed Whitehall sources. However, the former prime minister’s spokesman last night denied that a “message” had been sent.

One source said: “This at last answers the question of why Tony Blair tried so hard to stay on: the Americans were far from happy about the imminent succession of Gordon Brown. They left him in no doubt about that.”

Mr Blair is to address this sequence of events in his keenly awaited memoir, A Journey, which will be published this week. However, ahead of publication, this newspaper has pieced together the central narrative of his final years in power.

The fact that Mr Blair acted on US warnings over his likely successor will dismay many in the Labour party who were deeply unhappy about Mr Blair’s readiness to back Mr Bush at all times, particularly over the decision to wage war with Iraq in 2003.

Following the meeting with Miss Rice, Mr Brown’s advisers were convinced that Mr Blair was starting to groom Mr Miliband, the then environment secretary, as his successor. They were particularly enraged when Mr Blair described Mr Miliband in an interview as “my Wayne Rooney”.

However, Mr Blair also played what Brown allies now see as a “double game”, warning the then chancellor that he needed to adopt a different attitude towards senior American politicians.

Mr Miliband, who failed to challenge Mr Brown for the top job in 2007, will this week step up his campaign to become Labour’s leader. He will tell a rally of 1,000 supporters in London tomorrow that under him the party would be a “living, breathing movement for change in every community”.

In the summer of 2006, Mr Blair’s trip to America was widely seen to be his US swansong. It included a meeting with Mr Bush in Washington. However, on his return his allies noticed a new-found determination to stay on at No 10. In the late summer he gave a notorious interview in which he denied any plan to leave office any time soon.

It was this, along with what was seen in Labour circles as an“unacceptable” refusal to condemn Israel for its attack on Lebanon, that sparked the coup that forced him to name his departure date.

A senior Labour source said: “After Condi Rice met Gordon for the first time she complained to the White House about the way he behaved. No 10 suddenly starting getting these messages from the White House that there were grave doubts about the desirability of Gordon taking over. It wasn’t just the White House either, it was other people based in the US, business leaders, people like that.”

Mr Blair is expected to use his book to launch a passionate justification of going to war with Iraq and to speak warmly of Mr Bush. He is likely also to spell out his regret that he did not move faster to reform public services in Britain, often in the face of opposition from Mr Brown.

As well as political disclosures, the Royal family is waiting with great interest to see what the former prime minister writes about his relationship with the Queen, Prince Philip, the Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. The Sunday Telegraph disclosed three years ago that, according to friends, the Queen had been left “exasperated and frustrated” at the legacy of Tony Blair’s decade in power.

The monarch had become “deeply concerned” by many of New Labour’s policies, in particular what she saw as Downing Street’s lack of understanding of countryside issues, her closest confidants reported.

However, Royal sources said this weekend that the Queen and Mr Blair had always had a good working relationship at their weekly private audiences and that he was always “charming” towards her.

 

on Glenn Beck and exploiting the troops

Glenn Beck rally: Sarah Palin and President Obama agree on one thing - CSMonitor.com

I am what the media describes as an "independent voter" which is newspeak for "there are no political parties that represent me or share my voice" in Big Brother's current lexicon.  Sure, I used to be a dyed in the wool Democrat (never registered) after Reagan ruined my interest in the Republicans ("I was a kid then", my only defense), but the modern day Republikkkans are rabid, racist religious fanatic playing for keeps because this is their mythological "end times" and the modern day Dumbacrats are... well... their pussies who come off as GOP lite.  So much for a true opposition party to balance out the extremes of the other, eh?  They are the 2 sides on Two Faces infamous scored Peace dollar coin.  Whether it's flipped heads or tails, our country bears the abuse of the outcome.  Some more than others.

As George "the bumbler" Bush slept at the switch (as I recall, at the time, he was far more interested in being at the Crawford ranch every weekend and raiding our nations $350 billion surplus to cause the greatest national deficit EVER), a shocking event was allowed to happen on American soil, a crime so stupefying and horrendous Americans still do not know the entire truth of that day because they genuinely don't want to know.  Better to live as stupid sheep than to think for one second that their very own government might have been complicit in the outcome of 9/11.  Bush and his treasonous cronies have gotten away with a horrible crime and we Americans, our heads firmly in sand (or between our fat, smelly buns), have allowed them to get away with murder.  And I'm not talking just the murders of 3000 people in the Trade Centers, I'm talking the murders that continue to go on, sporting the American flag as a shawl.

Geroge Bush's solution to the problem of foreign terrorists was cynical at best.  "Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here."  "Protecting the Homeland" was it's marketing slogan.  "Homeland" continues to stick in my craw for it's similarities with "Fatherland", but the yokels love it so I'm forced to endure Nazi references almost daily.  But these Nazi references have become the way of daily life here in America.  It is the criminal George Bush's legacy to all Americans.    I suppose I have only the public education system to blame for thinking this way, contrary to so many of my countrymen, but back when I went to school we were taught that only the Soviets invaded other nations, only the SS had unlimited police powers, only the greatest monster of the 20th century used the Jews as an excuse for genocide, which, I'm sorry to say it my friends, is exactly what this nation does EVERY DAY when it takes sides with the Israelis and their civil war with their brother Muslims because all those tribes in Arabia are from the same kith and kin as it declares in the Jewish Torah, the Christian Bible and the Islamic Qu'ran.  Now, maybe that thought is the fault of years and years of interest in religious and mythology studies, but dammit people, we need to wake up and see what we are being twisted into becoming.  This is not America.  This is not what anyone who founded this country intended!

All the villains exemplified above have something else in common that we as a nation are forced to endure every day.  They LOVE their armies.  They would use their armies for any purpose they wished in the name of power, greed and global supremacy.  No body in power of any militaristic nation cares about it's population.  The rich and well to do don't do the dying nor the corporate masters nor the merchants of war.  No sir, I'll tell you who will be doing the dying.   It'll be us little guys, we yokels and rubes.  It'll be children barely turned 18 in need of a job, not old enough to drink but old enough to die for the whims of the rich elite who truly run our nation, these lovers of war who never have to fight it or see the horrors of it.

This kind of blatant militaristic nationalism just reminds me of the Germans.  Sorry, it does.  The message from both inept, outdated (and much in need of replacing) political parties is that war is just great because, darn it, we just aren't safe like we used to be since Bush allowed 9/11 to happen so we have to surrender all of our liberties or else the terrorists win.  Huh?  Doublespeak is another Big Brother speciality.  Like claiming that our military has invaded 2 pissant, meaningless desert nations for my freedoms.  The Afghanis never threatened my freedom, nor did the bloody Iraqis.  It was my own government, it was the Bush Patriot Act that took my liberties away and paved the way for the abuses of Big Government we see still very much alive today even though the criminal Bush is no longer in office.  Our military isn't doing one thing for me but getting shot at and dying needlessly for the greed of rich, old white men.  That's not freedom and it certainly has nothing to do with my rights.  

So today when Glenn Beck purposefully held his "rally" at the spot of Martin King's legendary "I have a dream" speech, I was disgusted because I saw it for what it truly was.  This was Beck and pals declaring that they were a  civil rights movement for ignorant, white, militaristic fundamentalist Christians who see themselves increasingly persecuted by the rest of "godless, liberal America".  As Beck himself recently declared, "... we reclaim the civil rights movement...we will take that movement because we (white, Christian folk) are the people that did it (began the civil right movement) in the first place."  

Somehow this is tied to a message of military service and support of the troops that the liar Beck claims MLK would have wanted.  Whatever that's supposed to mean.  What support are we giving the troops when we allow them to die needlessly everyday?  What?  I sent some toothpaste and plastic shavers to our boys in Afghanistan?  I'm sure that means a lot to the kids dodging bullets.   Support the troops because they are fighting for stolen freedoms?  They die for the remembered idea of liberty before the evil of Bush Republikkkanism took it all away from us.

Both political parties have a lot of share in the blame to go 'round for this terrible state of affairs and are both guilty accomplices in breaking international law, using our military as a dread scalpel to shore up domination of foreign oil reserves and natural riches.  Both sides using the troops as shields against oversight and the accountability Beck and friends claim they represent.  Well, they sure dropped the ball when Bush illegally sat as President and stripped the Bill of Rights of any real meaning or power.  Now their upset because Obama carries on Bush era programs and powers.  If the Tea Party had come to be back then, I'd certainly think they at least had integrity, but they don't.  Just like Republikkkans and Dumbacrats, they pull that cloak of war and the troops tight around them like Superman's capeand preach the virtues of American liberty and freedom which hasn't existed since Reagen took office and subverted the whole American justice system and deregulated everything so rich folk could fuck everything up and charge huge fees for terrible service.  Ugh!  

Anyway, because of this lack of action before Obama was elected, the Tea Party today is a lunatic fringe movement with no credibility except to religious folk and Southerners and Beck is their Goebells.  I have repeatedly tried to watch Beck to get an understanding how he could be so twisted, but I never could go past 5 minutes as his dizzying paranoia is another thing that causes my brain to hurt.  You just want to slap him, shake him by the lapels and yell, "Get a hold on yourself man!" which, in fairness, is probably something he would like to do to my progressive self as well.  Still you don't stand where MLK did and claim white people are being discriminated against so support the military.  That's just John Hinkley shit there, not John Brown.

 

Videotaping Police Is Often Cause for Arrest - ABC News

Americans are pretty stupid when you come right down to it.  How else do you explain the surrender of our civil liberties as enshrined in that most sacred of documents, the US Constitution?  Yes, Americans still buy the myth that they are a free people living in a free society.  I do not know how this can be with the avalanche of evidence to the contrary. 

If you are spied on by your own government, a government that clings to the right to execute any citizen it wishes without trial, you are not free.

If the police are a de facto arm of the US military and violate your civil rights under the Patriot Act (yet another ghost to haunt this country left to us from the criminal George Bush), you aren't free.

If you can't criticize the government or march peaceably in protest against it ANYWHERE YOU DAMN WELL PLEASE (fuck those so called free speech zones or when police select where you can or can't protest), you are not free.

Now, if you can't do something as harmless as recording the police, you ARE NOT FREE.

In fact, the only real "freedom" left to Americans is where they can shop.  And maybe that's part of the answer to why Americans are so ignorant and dumb regarding their freedom.  Maybe all this materialism and choices of stuff to buy make us believe we really are a great and free society when we really aren't.  Maybe all these high def tvs and ipods are lulling Americans into a false sense of reality where they are as free as free can be while the federal government and their willing accomplices in state governments are contriving every day to take just one more civil liberty from you and me.  How can you not be free when you can go to the mall whenever you please?  Ugh!

I suppose as a species us dumb apes are prone to be subservient to the power and might of oppressive governments, as our history on this planet clearly demonstrates.  Still, I always believed that we Americans were better than that.  I always believed that the frontier spirit that forged this nation would cause Americans to be naturally resistant to the schemes of power by greedy, rich men in government, but I see that was a fallacy I clung to.  If it weren't a fallacy, the Patriot Act would never have become law, Bush would have been tried for crimes against this nation and its Constitution.  Hell, if Americans still valued freedom, they would have ousted the Bush junta once it was revealed that the Bushies were eavesdropping on our phone calls and reading our e-mails!  But they just don't care about their freedoms anymore.  The American people have become sheep like the Russians were sheep to the old Czars or the Germans to the Nazi party or even the Romans of the old Republic when Caesar took over.

So let's not have any more of this self aggrandizing illusion that we are a unique and free people.  We haven't been free for a very long time.

Turkey to Remove Iran From Enemies Watchlist | Middle East | English

Turkey to Remove Iran From Enemies Watchlist | Middle East | English

If I could, I'd sit down with President Obama and discuss the Middle East situation in detail.  Granted, I'm no Juan Cole, but I'm well read and have a keen instinct in this area. 

To understand our Middle East foreign policy, one must embrace madness as, surely, it is unabashed lunacy to predicate our nation's foreign policy on New Testament Christian mythology, which is what our nation has done faithfully since 1948 in its unstinting support of the state of Israel.  Let us be perfectly clear here: The Israelis are Arabs too.  Says so in the Old Testament in Genesis, the 1st book of Moses as found in the Torah, amen.  It may even say it in the Koran if I bothered to look (I've tried, I really have, to read the Koran but most English translations read like a King James Bible which makes my head hurt.  Ah if only Stephen Mitchell would translate it!).  The point is, this is what is called an ole fashion family feud.  Both sides come from the same blood, but neither side embraces it.  In short, our Christian based foreign policy has us choosing sides in a de facto civil war.  This ain't Yanks and Rebs it's Arabs and Jews born of the same fathers, from the same stock, each claiming that the Original Dad (God) loves them best.  Think of Israel as a lost tribe of Arabia and think of us as Germans choosing sides in the Spanish Civil War.

That is harsh and critical of my country's government, but truth is truth no matter how many lies you embrace to hide it.

Getting the US out of that mess is a priority.  Israel needs to stand down, make it's nuclear program public and cease and desist all acts of espionage against this nation before I would even use the term "ally" unless, in addition to fundamentalist Christian mythology foreign policy, we also believe in "with friends like these, who needs enemies?" a good, sound foreign policy rule. 

I suppose one might counter the policy is more "keep your friends close and your enemies closer", but given our botched Iranian policy, that's an utter fallacy.  Ah, Iran!  The very nation that 2 mere years ago all the intelligence professionals said was still at least 15-20 years from even remotely being able to produce a nuclear weapon.  Remember?  It was on the TV and in the papers for close to a week.  Nah, why would you recall that when, since then, the war hawks have been squawking about how imminently dangerous Iran is.  Keep in mind that our erstwhile buddy Israel is 1) actively lobbying our elected representatives to invade Iran while 2) actively planning to attack Iran, possibly within the next year.  In essence, the Hatfields are asking the American government to intervene and help kill the McCoys.

The problem is that by choosing sides, the US seems like an aggressive juggernaut bent on conquering Middle East countries with rich oil supplies to all the world, save her European allies who also want in on the spoils of war.  Capitalism is a real hoot isn't it?  But by choosing sides we have set up a dangerous divide.  Russia and China are active allies of Iran, so is most of the Middle East and parts of Africa.  It gets strange when you toss in fundamentalist Christian mythology.  These fundamentalists see Russia and China as the End Times Gog and Magog as revealed in Ezekial.  It's like a bad self fulfilling prophecy.  Fundamentalist Christian ethos defines our foreign policy and has found itself a situation that closely enough resembles their prophecies to act with brazen over-confidence.  This situation is the fulfillment of the Christian hope that Jesus finally returns in time to save them all while the rest of us suffer in hellish agony until the last battle.  Complete horse manure but they believe it as firmly as I believe it's daytime and the sun is bright.

Now Turkey turns against the West after decades of trying to garner acceptance as a European NATO nation.  Turkey could have been a bridge between our consumerist, decadent Western way of life to the entire repressed, anal Middle East.  Instead the "great" nations of the West spurned Turkey at every turn.  Lately, Israel and Turkey has had some bad international incidents and when Turkey looked to the United States for support, we came back with condemning them for the Armenian genocides of a century or so ago.  Today, Turkey rejoins Asia Minor, it's experiment in embracing the West a failure because of the West's insensitivity.  Today, Turkey joins a growing list of nations who are beginning to see all the US assertions against Iran as propaganda, the very same propaganda used on the American people to justify George Bush's illegal invasion of a sovereign nation (and a regieme we put into power to boot).  Same story only dressed in Iranian clothing.

As we further lose credibility with all the world save white folks, we are painting ourselves into a corner, a corner forced upon the American people by the criminal George Bush and this so called "post 9/11 world" which is his eternal legacy to the American people and the whole thrice damned world.

how to tell you are dealing with retards or republikkkans (which is invariably the same thing as being retarded)

This whole mosque at ground zero thing has gone far enough, you ignorant bastards!  We live in America and in America you are free to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't harm anyone else.  We are not Freedom whores, giving up our rights or liberties simply because a frothing bunch of white racist, supremacist assholes say "Do it our way or else!"

That's not what America is about.  Racism is not okay.  What you have morphed Christianity into, this dark mockery perversion isn't right.  Why don't you get that?  Why can't you understand your own depravity for what it is, you sick bastards?

Jesus, all this over a cultural center that's more like a YMCA.  That's a mosque?  That's like saying a homeless shelter is a church or that AA isn't religious mysticism.  Where is this God of yours when you need him to smack some sense into you lunatic bitches.

Pussies to the Left of me, lunatics to my Right and here I am stuck in the middle with you

N.H. legislator resigns over Palin remark - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com

Wishing bad things upon Sarah Palin is a bit of a gray for me because I strive to be ethical in my day to day life (which is more than I can say for Mrs. Palin).  Still, I am a human being prone to outbursts when I see unethical acts perpetrated on a national scale under the auspices of mere politics.  Like when Palin supports state sponsored Arizona racism or has rifle scope targets over the faces of Democrats on her web site.  For me, this is nothing new; the radical Right has always preached a gospel of violence against anything remotely liberal Left (even when the Left has abandoned its liberality for the sake of becoming GOP Lite).  Calls to gun down Democrats or to overthrow them is as common from the Right as finding white sheets at a KKK rally and their level of invective has only increased exponentially with the coming of the Obama administration, the first legally elected President since 2000.  From Beck actively preaching insurrection, to Limbaugh preaching hate of black folk, to Sarah Palin and her scope sights its all about wiping us progressives and so-called liberals off the map so the Republikkkan vision of a white, Christian America can come to pass.  My point is that those on the Right are the ones responsible for the lack of civility in our national discourse and the ones who have brought pure hate into the mainstream where they make millions of dollars in profit from it, profit being the most important thing to a Republikkkan.  Money to them trumps God and country or the welfare of their fellow citizens (especially if they are colored, a moniker that covers all dark races nowadays instead of singling out the blacks).

So when New Hampshire legislator and Democrat Tim Horrigan wrote in his Facebook account that "I don't wish Sarah Palin dead ... but not merely for compassionate reasons. I also want her to live because a living Sarah Palin is less dangerous than a dead one.  A dead Palin is more dangerous than a live one." it didn't bother me too much.  Still, something happened because now the erstwhile representative is resigning and making a full, humbled apology and all I can do is scratch my head and wonder why.

But that's the rub isn't it?  It's like everyone in the Professional Left got together one day and agreed to drink in all the abuses offered by the Right and not to dish anything out in return.  The Left has decided it is more prudent just to keep taking their beatings without any word of defense lest they be cut off and ostracized from the herd of liberals and has become akin to a battered, co-dependent spouse who can't leave her abuser because she loves her tormentor.  That is the Democratic party of today.  Oh sure you have a few standouts like Weiner of NY or Grayson of Fla but these "bitches" are already being turned out like Ohio's Kucinich, i.e. marginalized for the sake of placating the intractable Right.

I should very much like to remind the Dems that they are pussies and the Republikkkans are dicks and as anyone who has seen Team America: World Police can tell you, pussies don't like dicks because they get fucked by them.  Time to stop being pussies and start being dicks.  Hopefully you silly twits (twats?) figure this out before the next Shirley Sherrod happens.

People Like Me or caught between the "professional" left and right

When the Who penned the classic lines "meet the new boss/same as the old boss" they probably didn't know that nearly 40 years later their words would still be so damn timely and urgent, especially in the America of today where frustration with all things political is reaching a fevered pitch.  Everyone's feeling it on both the left and right of the political spectrum.  The right is feeling it because they feel bamboozled by the old, illegal Bush administration which didn't go far enough to promote their agenda; the left is feeling it because Obama is more Republikkkan than anyone could possibly imagine and hasn't gone far enough to promote their agenda.   Two sides of the same coin. 

Never mind them though, what about the People Like Me, the poor of America that those left and right a-holes are supposed to be looking after?  We American poor come from all walks of life; no truer, fabled melting pot can be found in America than when you are amongst us in the lower classes.  Time was that we lower classes were just old timers, addicts, crazies or the disabled like myself (and go eff yourself Dr. Flannagan, you drunken butcher!), but now the lower classes are expanding with working families and children being added to our fold every day.  It's like the Baby Boom for bums!  To add to the fun of being impoverished, the Washington power structure has even given us Oppressors: the Professional Left and Right, a de facto Coalition of the Haves.

On the Professional Right (the elected Republikkkans) they say increasing wages, health care or social services is "redistributing the wealth", which is rich people speak for "I'm not giving up my money!"  To justify this inhumane and morally bankrupt position, you need to vilify the poor.  So when Sen. Orrin Hatch claimed all unemployed people were "lazy drug addicts", he wasn't kidding.  You help poor people, but shiftless layabouts, eff them.

On the Professional Left (the elected Dumbacrats) they say that because us poor Americans want free health care and an end to war that somehow we are deluded losers, living in a fantasy world of drugs.  There's that accusation again.  Hey assholes, not every poor person is on drugs though Lord knows it might help them through their miserable days!  Jesus, you people are out of touch with Main St. America!

But I (as usual) digress.  Both sides hate the poor of America.  That's why there was no real heath care reform.  That's why the politicians are cutting into the Food Stamp program and planning to gut Social Security.  That's why there is no social justice left in this nation.  The game is rigged against the poor and all we get for our frustrations are insults and degradations from those who perceive themselves as better than us by virtue of their pocketbooks and choke hold on our government.  No poor person can win office anywhere in America; even low level local government positions require money to run for.  It's like buying into the World Poker Tour though if you can afford it and play your cards right, eh Sarah Palin.

Normally I'd hope for a civil uprising to free ourselves from our shackles, but nowadays we Americans live under a well armed and well armored Police State thanks to both Clinton and the illegitimate Bush and these hired thug cops of the government are into cracking the heads of peaceful demonstrators so a civil uprising won't work.  This is where I start to understand some of the Tea Party philosophy but I just can't get behind their rampant racism, homophobia or their unquestioning support of the rich and Israel.  Ugh!  It's like an Ed Wood movie!  Who else could have scripted so awful an outcome for our once great Republic?

winning afghanistan pt. 2 or "and another thing..."

I see that the fine white folk of Mufreesboro, TN have come up with their own variation of "shoot them all in the face" and have released their hounds on American Muslims, literally.  Now, as we all know, back before our time, the South used to release their dogs on black folk trying to obtain equal rights, as well as fire truck hoses.  They even burned down the black man's churches.  This was okay because, as all white Southerners know, God is white and would hardly hang out with a congregation of cocoa butter smelling, jerri curl having no good niggers.  See, to the South, religion means you are Christian and that all other faiths are of the Devil and, thus, cults with no real foundation in reality.  And these Muslims?  Why, they are Satan's personal allies on a crusade to destroy America from within with their pagan beliefs so they must be stopped by any and all means necessary.  The dogs are just a warning to the Muslims, a message that clearly revealed the dark intent bound within their Southern hearts: If'n y'all think them dog bites hurt, imagine how much more a bullet.  Build your mosque and we'll burn it down in the night.  Note to klan, white sheets optional.

This is the new norm in America, this virulent hate of everything different.  Oh sure, we've had racism since our country began, but this is different.  Now it's every fundamentalist Christian white person against the darkies and false gods of the entire world only, unlike the 60s, these zealots better armed, better coordinated and, judging by the media they listen to, quite willing to launch insurrection against the federal government.  This new hate is one of the lasting impacts of the illegal Bush administration, another legacy to remember them by.  Granted, Bush didn't start the Christian Coalition or make Southern Baptists but he sure knew how to use them and manipulate them and they sure knew how to use and manipulate governmental national policy, a repressive agenda bent on robbing every American of their natural rights as outlined in the Bill of Rights.  But...

After rigging yet another vote to crown the illegitimate Bush to a 2nd law breaking term, the Bush folk didn't need the right anymore.  It was smooth sailing because the Bush White House was above the law.  This made the right angrier and wilder with the Tea party the first expression of this rabid, frothing mob.  We see the result.  Hate is everywhere.  Distrust, suspicion.  Talk of revolt and going to war.  No compromise.  Lies become truth.  It is enough to make me want to scream, I get so upset about it.  But how does one fight against hate or racism when the haters know they are correct to have all that murderous rage inside them?

Which takes me back to my last post, which I pray no one takes seriously because I was venting my frustration over what I read of the wars everyday.  But I realize now how many in the Tea party could take my ironic message to heart  Some in government too. 

See, whether we like it or not, our history proves we Americans know a thing or 2 about oppressing other cultures.  Like giving the Indians small pox blankets to wipe them off the Earth or slavery of the blacks or the wanton slaughter of Filipinos during the turn of the century or the WWII internment camps for the Asian Americans.  Today it's Muslims and the Mexicans who look like Muslims. 

I guess this is what's bugging me.  Regular Americans as eager to get rid of the Muslims as happily as any German hunting down Jews, filled with the same resentment and spirit of hate.  That's not America.  That's not what America is about.

Maybe it's my own fault for being upset by all this.  I choose not to live in fear of other people because they are different.  I don't care if 100 9/11's happen, I would still choose to live free than lose any jot or iota of freedom.  I'd rather die free than live on my knees or cowering under the covers.  To be an American demands bravery and what could be more bold than embracing all humanity as brothers?  What would show more courage than holding a few men guilty of their own actions instead of holding a whole race under a dark cloud of seething hatred? 

In the Bible is a warning to the followers of Christ that in the Last Days good would be called evil and evil good.  How true.  Ask those good people of Murfreesboro if what they are doing is good and right and to a person they will say it is and that Jesus would not only be okay with their actions, He would wholly endorse them.  Sicking dogs on women and children is most holy.

I just figured out how to win the war in Afghanistan

So, just how likely is it that I, a psychically damaged Taoist has solved the greatest military riddle of the last 1000 years?  Ha!  It came to me as I was reading the strange, conflicted story of the 4 then 6 then 8 now 10 soldiers then medics then missionary doctors murdered by the Taliban over the last weekend.  The Taliban claims that they shot the eye care professionals because they were proselytizing fundamentalist Christianity, a claim that the Christian aid organization International Assistance Mission vehemently denies, which they naturally would whether they were actually preaching or not.  Who to believe? 

Still, it seems to me that the Taliban had a decided tactical advantage here.  Obviously our missionary eye doctor friends could not differentiate friend from foe.  And that's the very trouble our armed forces are having now as the Afghan war turns especially bloody.  Ah yes, it's a freak show for sure, the likes of the girl on Time magazines cover.  Dismemberment, maimings, roving Taliban hit squads, slit throats, "accidental" civilian bombings, friendly fire, enemy fire.  It's no wonder our abused-by-their-own-government fighting men and women are coming back basket cases.  How sane would you be?  Always hunting, always hunted, guilt with every wrong decision.  Ugh!  Makes me want to scream in horror just thinking about it.

But I digress.  I have figured out how to win the Afghan war in under a month so we can bring our soldiers home:  Kill all the Afghanis.  What are there?  Maybe a million of them?  Hah!  More people were killed in Darfur than even live in Afghanistan!  Whenever our troops see someone of dark skin they should just shoot them in the face and be done with them.  We are a Christian nation right?  We follow Yahweh, Jesus and the Holy Bible, right?  Well, let's get Biblical on their asses.  Remember in Joshua where the Jewish army killed all the men and took all the women and children as slaves?  Who in the Western world could argue the morality of it?  We should be all like, "Well if Allah tells you to kill, Jesus' Father Yahweh allows us to wipe you off the face of the Earth!"  If the don't believe it, let's see how those swarthy Afghanis want to kill or blow shit up when their male population is down to a mere 5000.

Now, this may seem extreme for those with faint hearts or who have that strange Communist idea from our Constitution in their head that all human beings have rights, but let's face it: our government has been overthrowing foreign governments and actively participating in or aiding in some repressive regime's genocides since before we were born, so this idea is nothing new.  We just lack the courage of our convictions.  We are now a people of hate and racial profiling, so lets use that to our army's advantage.

By the way, this bold war strategy applies to our immigration policy as well.  Just shoot the illegals in the face; they'll think twice about crossing our borders, I assure you.  This has the added bonus of helping to keep the Mexican population down, preventing them from becoming the majority by 2050 over real Americans, who are white.  All other races live or die by our leisure.

wasting my time

I get angry that we Americans are no longer in control of our country.  It is one of the few things the Tea Party and I agree on.  I get wanting smaller government with state's right trumping the interests of federal government.  What I don't get is their blindness to the fact that the very party they support was the one who instituted all the laws they are whining about now.  Obama didn't bring these laws into existence, Bush did.  Obama is just playing with the same deck of cards personally left to him by the greatest traitors in American history: Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and George Bush.  What did you think was going to happen you hoodwinked son's of bitches?!

Look at you all!  You're barely even human anymore, your inner ape has taken over and your venom, your hatred, your cynicism is killing our country.  You are allowing bad people to use you and manipulate you.  The Republicans are not your friends.  Do friends rile you up into such a frenzy that you behave no better than any other goose stepping bastards from history.  You are a mob believing it is an army and willing to use yourselves thus against the very government you helped create. 

Ugh!  Don't you hate it when you realize you're wasting your time.  Here I am pontificating to nobody at all about the evil of the Republikkkans & the Tea party.  No one's going to read this.  I chuckle.  No one's going to read this at all.  Even if some one did it's not like I'm offering any deep insight or anything.  I just get frustrated and writing is all the vent I have.  I certainly don't have Fox's Nazi-esque propaganda noise machine to get out any kind of message, nor Sarah Palin's bully pulpit because I'm poor.  If I had their kind of monetary resources, I too could gather a following but I don't so I can't and theirs no point crying about it.  Still, their voices are no more important than mine supposedly, in our not-so-fair Democracy, but, because they can, the Palin's & the Beck's & the Limbaughs and all their followers and maniacal imitators force their voices over mine, they drown myself and people just like me out, make our opinions not matter and our votes irrelevant.  How do we common folk compete against an army of frothing white, Evangelical Christians trying to transform America into their own warped image?  When does a movement become so blatantly dangerous to society as a whole and the participants become so goddamn twisted and warped that among them are potential assassins waiting to happen?

And that's probably what's going to happen.  One of those yahoo's are going to kill someone important and the federal government will clamp down hard on all of us, except the rich folk.  The rich folk never have to worry about whatever police state we once free Americans have to endure and suffer under.  They have cash and the can do whatever they please.  You Tea party bitches are dumb to think raising taxes has anything to do with you.  It's a tax on the wealthiest Americans, not you you simpletons!  If you make under 50K a year, you have no business worrying about taxes.  The rich are manipulating you so that you let them stay rich and not pay their fair share.  Ugh!

There I go again.  I can't help it.  I love this country, it's rich history, it's people and I see it being destroyed from within simply so bad people can hang on to their gold.  This country can be something great again if we put aside our bigotry and hate and let go of the world.  Let the world take care of itself, we need to take care of America now.  Our ancestors knew to tend to their own affairs and mind their business.  We Americans need to bring that dose of history back into our daily lives. 

Palin says Brewer has 'cojones' and reveals her own self loathing

FOXNews.com - Palin Says Brewer Has Something Obama Lacks: 'Cojones'

In the name of fairness, I must tell you I don't think very much of Sarah Palin.  Asides from being a religious, fundamentalist whacko, she's a ditz so she doesn't know much about anything to begin with, yet she feels competent enough to journey to China and trash talk and lie about President Obama.  To me, this was the modern generation's Jane Fonda going to North VietNam moment.

Now, for some reason I can't fathom, Palin's Fonda impersonation played well for the yahoos in the sticks, those batter-brained, white trash idiots who cling to the Republican Party or the Tea Party ideology like it was the Bible writ in God's hand.  They never seem to understand that when rich folk are involved, the political game is already fixed; you are now just being used and exploited.

Ugh!  I'm getting too worked up already!  Calm down, Mike, breathe.

Anyway, it all boils down to hypocrisy and Sarah Palin is perhaps the biggest hypocrite I see in the public eye on a daily basis.  True, in America, we are all entitled to (some) free speech and (some of) our opinions but shouldn't we naturally have within us the personal integrity to say "hey, I'm just making this shit up" when we lie on purpose?  And Sarah Palin lies on purpose a lot!  She, like all Conservatives are always talking about individual responsibility, so where is it?

Today it is being widely reported that Sarah Palin said quote: "Jan Brewer has the cojones that our president does not have.  If our own president will not enforce our federal law, more power to Jan Brewer."

Seems innocuous enough but why didn't Sarah Palin just say "balls"?  Why not "Jan Brewer has the balls that our president does not have"?  Can't cite censorship because they say "balls" everywhere on TV and everybody knows what "cajones" means anyway.  Nuts, balls, sack, the family jewels.  Oh, wait, is that just a more politically correct way of saying "balls" for the white, genteel, upper crust Republicans these days?  "Oh and darling please tell the African Americans to get off my cajones about welfare"?

Jan Brewer has balls is what Sarah means to say and if Sarah herself had balls she would have said so instead borrowing a word from the immigrants she actively supports repressing in Arizona, thus revealing to us all the wider hypocrisy of the national Tea Party movement, Republicans and their "self responsibility".  Why can't Arizonans just be honest and say they are targeting Mexicans?  It isn't like the cops are gonna ask us white folk for our papers (never mind that the Russians are white too) are they?  "You got your papers Smith??" isn't going to happen.  So be honest.  You don't want Mexicans in your state. 

If she weren't such a dunce i might think Sarah Palin was simply trying to be ironic by using "cajones" instead of "balls" but instead she just pulled a Tina Fey on herself proving once and for all she deserves all the ridicule she gets.

US Has Plan to Attack Iran, Mullen Admits -- News from Antiwar.com

US Has Plan to Attack Iran, Mullen Admits -- News from Antiwar.com

by Jason Ditz, August 01, 2010 

Just weeks ahead of a planned P5+1 talk with Iran, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen announced on Meet the Press that the military has drawn up plans to attack Iran, though he insisted they would only do so ‘if necessary‘

Mullen said the prospect of attacking Iran is “well understood” and that it remains “an important option” for President Obama. Iranian officials warned they would retaliate if attacked by the US.
The US has been threatening to attack Iran for several years, but perhaps the most memorable was a comment by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last year, in which she threatened to attack Iran “the way that we did Iraq.”
The US invaded Iraq in 2003 on the basis of false claims regarding its nuclear program. The US threats against Iran are likewise based on allegations centering around their civilian nuclear program.

US Military Lies About July Iraq Death Toll -- News from Antiwar.com

US Military Lies About July Iraq Death Toll -- News from Antiwar.com

by Jason Ditz, August 01, 2010 

After spending most of last week paging over evidence of the US military lying about the scope of the civilian death toll if Afghanistan, it seems that it is Iraq’s turn, with the US military publicly lying, claiming that only 161 civilians were killed in Iraq in July.

The Pentagon’s comments were meant to “refute” figures from the Iraqi government showing the death toll at its worst point in over two years, with 532 Iraqis killed. The US toll would’ve put the deaths at a relative low, certainly appealing as the Obama Administration tries to spin the continuation of the war past his August drawdown date as a sign of success.
Appealing but of course ridiculously, obviously false. 117 Iraqi pilgrims were killed over a single weekend in early July, and 50 were killed in an attack on a Karbala checkpoint last week. Those two incidents alone already put the toll above the US figure, but of course there were hundreds of additional deaths.
President Obama initially promised to have all troops out of Iraq by May of 2010, which was later revised to “all but 50,000 by August 2010,” a figure which itself appears unlikely to be met. The US State Department is currently creating its own alternative army to continue the war past a prospective military pullout at the end of 2011.