More fun from the right

So, Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig was arrested, fined, and plead guilty to lewd behavior in public - trying to solicit gay sex in an airport bathroom.

Normally, if someone wants to have an extra-marital affair, that's nobody's business except for that person, the co-adulterer, and the spouse who was cheated on. If somehow all 3 parties are knowledgeable if this and are OK with it, it's a private matter.

Secondly, I don't care what political party he's from, nor how the Bush Administration has "interpreted" the Constitution - people should still be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

But, here's the 3 "big buts".

1. Craig was caught in the act, and plead guilty. He didn't keep his antics private, they were in public, and that is a crime. His insistence of "misinterpretation" after conferring with his lawyers rings more than a bit hollow


2. This is not new behavior from Craig. He's done it before, it was known, it was reported, and those that revealed it were chastised by the conservative media for daring to bring it up, and usually accused of lying. During Craig's latest election and prior to his arrest, his fellow conservatives said Craig's private sexual behavior was irrelevant. Now they say he's a disgusting "weasel" who should resign.


3. Like most big politicians in the new conservative movement, Craig touted himself as a "family values" candidate. That would be the kind of person who opposes any form of adultery or homosexuality. This coming from the mouth of a man who repeatedly had sex with anonymous men in public bathrooms.

The hypocrisy is overwhelming, yet so typical of what the Republican Party has degraded to. Craig's fellow Republican Senators looked the other way as they all spouted support for each other because of superior morality. Now that Craig's antics have gotten beyond the GOP closed doors and into the public eye, those same previously-supportive Republican Senators are now calling for an ethics committee review of his case.

Want some more hypocrisy? How about Craig scolding Clinton for his affair, while having many of his own.

The truly sad thing is that there is so little shock at the level of hypocrisy, morality and turncoating coming from the GOP. That is how far they have sunk, and the public is pretty much used to it.

Who's ignoring the commanders?

Dubya likes to defend his military decisions for his (so-called) plan for war against Iraq by saying that anyone that doesn't agree with him is going against the military commanders on the ground. (also, those not agreeing with him are also labeled as pro-terrorist, traitors, defeatists, or a myriad of other names, but that's not relevant to the upcoming Pace quote)

We all know that the US military recommended troop levels of 500,000 to 600,000 for an invasion in order to prevent an insurgency and keep peace. Dubya overrode that and made his own military plan that insured a robust insurgency that would drag out the war.

Now, given the current grim reality of dubay's war, the top military commander in the country could no longer stand silently by. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace wants to cut the number of Americans forces in Iraq next year by nearly half.

Once again, dubya is ignoring the military experts in favor of his war plan. And it's just going so well so far, isn't it?

Wow, another rat deserts the corrupt ship

Alberto was dubya's personal lawyer (with a background in real estate, not Constitutional law), and continued to serve his master's best interest even when it was against America's interests - in direct violation of his charge and oath when appointed to be Attorney General. Now he is the latest "inner circle" bushie to run away. Just the latest corrupt follower who pledged loyalty, and was given "full confidence" of Bush - yet still ran away (or was pushed) when questions started to be asked about their conduct in office.

Gonzales joins Rove, Miers, Bartlett, McClellan, Allbaugh and Hughes in the latest round of loyal Texan followers to bolt. Of course, Bush himself is a Connecticut kid that went to Harvard. I'm sure he still gets a good laugh out of duping real Texans into believing that he's one of them.

It's also amusing that Bush blames politics for Gonzales leaving, as if this were a decision made by anyone other than Gonzales or Bush. That would be the Bush that owes his entire political career to dirty tricks, politics of personal destruction, and flat-out lying.

Heck of a job, Gonzales. Or dubya. Depending on whether or not the resignation came with or without a boot to the ass.

Say what?

OK, so I've brought up the point about the Bush Administration overruling the US Army during the initial attack against Iraq, and leaving the weapons stockpiles to the insurgents. Recently, we found out that they misplaced a couple hundred thousand weapons. Again, nobody dare try blaming the troops - they have a very vested interest in keeping weapons out of the hands of those who would use them against US troops.

Well, here's the latest grasp by the Bush Administration. From a decidedly conservative-leaning news source, no less - Time


"Indeed, the men Bush now casts as freedom-loving allies in the battle against al-Qaeda are the very same insurgents dismissed by the Administration for years as thuggish dead-enders committed to reconstituting Saddam Hussein's brutal regime."

So, after ordering troops to shoot at these folk, he now wants the troops to embrace them. Are there any war decisions coming from the White House that are not catastrophic?

No more turdblossom?

Officially, Rove resigned today. There was a good headline on The Huffington Post:
Rove's Legacy: Lame-Duck President,
Unpopular War, And Democratic Congress
Sorry, I don't have time to comment right now. Stay tuned...

Till then, here's some fun facts from US News and toons.

Mitt full of cash

So, Mitt Romney won the GOP's Iowa straw poll. He spent over $2M in television advertising, paid 60 volunteers $500-1000/month to talk him up, had a sleek direct-mail campaign of undisclosed cost, and paid a consultant nearly $200,000 to direct his straw poll production. So, we have no idea how much he really spent, but it was certainly over $3,000,000. How many votes did he get in this win? 4,516. That's it. He paid over $650 per vote.

Frankly, nothing against Mitt, Iowa or the GOP in this. It's just an illustration of how screwed up the current system can be.

BTW, vote tallying was delayed as 1,500 ballots had to be hand-counted, because the Republican party was using the unauditable, now uncertified Diebold machines. A little irony there, eh.

Here's an article on Mitt's victory on Ariana's news outlet.

Oh, and this tidbit from The LA Times. Now that he has come into the limelight, this millionaire 190-250 times over decided to stop investing in companies that do business with Iran. Apparently he had no problem doing so when he wasn't under scrutiny. Nor does he have problems investing in the Sudan's state oil company. You know, that government involved in genocide. But hey, at least that oil brings in money, that's all that matters.

A walk down memory lane

Heh, guess the neocons were not able to suppress all the recordings. And, in case you don't see a video player above, here's the direct link.

As a bonus, here's a montage: on YouTube. Search around, there's a lot more evidence to be found.

Environmentalists want to destroy the environment?

No, compact fluorescent bulbs are not bad. They are good. If you watch FOX "news", you might be confused. My only recommendation is to watch actual news, it will be less confusing.

Here's the explanation from The Sierra Club. It debunks Fox's report with actual facts.

As a bonus, here's some Fox/global warming interaction.

Penn and Teller Evolve

Just a reminder - the extreme fundamentalists are still out there (which is fine, of course) and have their chosen beliefs (again, fine) and continue to try to force their beliefs onto others at the expense of public education (that is not fine).

For an entertaining take on this old my religion doesn't allow science, so we must ban it argument that's been going on for centuries, check out this video by Penn and Teller.

For an even more entertaining extrapolation, here's The Onion.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with religion. I have my beliefs, and in general, they are none of the general populace's business. Therefore, you will not catch me demanding that my religious beliefs must be pushed onto others.

Think about the end game

If you're like most Americans, you don't have a ton of time to research the news. The mass media is very convenient, so it's what a lot of us rely on. In the past, this wasn't such a bad idea, as news organizations prided themselves on impartial and investigative journalism. Now, with the advent of "infotainment" news where the big mainstream sources usually have a conservative bent, it's easy to miss important facts. It's even easier to forget what has transpired, as the mainstream media rarely shows the cause-and-effect of neocon policies that harm the US, no matter how important it is for us to be in the know.


First, a couple of refreshers. When we were being sold the fabricated justification for waging war against Iraq, we heard all about Iraq being behind 9/11 and their nuclear weapons program aimed at America. We heard all about how conquering Iraq would be easy, and would certainly not take six months. All this and much more to justify a cessation against the hunt for the actual 9/11 perpetrators so we could focus on securing a cheap supply of oil (reminder - before we started dropping bombs on Iraqis, gas was $1.50/gallon).

Knowing what they were plunging us into, the Bush Administration even claimed that waging war on Iraq would essentially be free, because their oil money would pay for it all. What a whopper of a lie that was, as a generation of Americans will be in debt to Saudi Arabia and China for the loans we've taken out to pay for Dubya's war.


So, what is the neocon plan for Iraq? They had been planning this war for many years and just needed an excuse to launch missiles. They were privy to the actual intelligence about how the country works, not just the "they're evil" so-called intelligence that they broadcast to America. Part of that plan was seen during the invasion, on the road to Baghdad. The military warned against a major insurgency, and therefore recommended capturing and holding on to Iraqi weapons caches as part of the invasion. The Bush Administration overrode this recommendation, and ordered massive weapons caches to be abandoned by the US military. These weapons, of course, were in turn used against US soldiers.

Now we're finding out that huge piles of US taxpayer money is being used to purchase military weaponry, only to have those weapons disappear. Once again, the US plan for Iraq is resulting in arming those who would most want to kill Americans.


Now Bush is putting together a plan to pour $20,000,000,000 worth of US weapons into in the Middle East. The neocons are claiming that heavily arming what they consider "moderate" dictatorships will somehow cause less death and destruction.


Remember, before Dubya's war against Iraq, the Iraqi people (not that bastard Saddam, I'm talking about the actual people) could care less about America and Americans. The Bush Administration policies towards Iraq has now created at least a generation that now, justifiably, hates the US for what they have done.

The Nation dared to actually interview Iraqis. You will never hear from everyday Iraqis from the mainstream media, because the news is not good.

Now ask yourself - given what has been done, what do you think the primary motivation of the Republican Party was in waging war against Iraq? Sure, their immediate motivation is to be all about the oil, that's obvious. But what's their planned endgame for starting wars and flooding the region with weapons? Think about it before you consider re-electing this plan again in '08.