Quote du jour

Hey look! Morons! Children, gather round: we're seeing a moron's rare forays outside of its home turf. If we're very quiet, maybe they'll eat out of our hands!
-- jasmine

Bush advertorials

Another conservative columnist was exposed for taking money from the Bush Administration to promote one of its programs. This time it is Michael McManus, whose column "Ethics & Religion" appears in 50 newspapers.

This guy writes a column about ethics and he did not disclose that he was being paid to promote the program that he was lauding in his column.

see: Third columnist caught with hand in the Bush till at Salon.com

That bring the total to three so far.

• Michael McManus $10,000
• Maggie Gallagher $41,500
• Armstrong Williams $241,000
• 50.8% of the electorate duped into voting for a second term...Priceless

Apparently the Bush Administration knows how bad their programs are so they have to pay people in the media to promote them. They also paid a PR firm more than double what the Clinton Administration spent on PR in its second term.

Who will be next in this scandal? And has anyone in the Bush Administration lost his job because of this?

Iraqi Elections

I just want to interrupt the GOP's self-congratulations to remind everyone that voter turnout in Cuba's last election was 95%. And, as Mr. Zakaria points out "Elections Are Not Democracy." Let's see what happens in the next few months. I hope that Iraqis take control of their country and ask the Americans to leave.

Elections Are Not Democracy
The United States has essentially stopped trying to build a democratic order in Iraq, and is simply trying to gain stability and legitimacy

By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek

Feb. 7 issue - By the time you read this, you will know how the elections in Iraq have gone. No matter what the violence, the elections are an important step forward, for Iraq and for the Middle East. But it is also true, alas, that no matter how the voting turns out, the prospects for genuine democracy in Iraq are increasingly grim. Unless there is a major change in course, Iraq is on track to become another corrupt, oil-rich quasi-democracy, like Russia and Nigeria.

In April 2003, around the time Baghdad fell, I published a book that described the path to liberal democracy. In it, I pointed out that there had been elections in several countries around the world?most prominently Russia?that put governments in place that then abused their authority and undermined basic human rights. I called such regimes illiberal democracies. In NEWSWEEK that month, I outlined the three conditions Iraq had to fulfill to avoid this fate. It is currently doing badly at all three.
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Goons

In the past few days we have seen how much of a uniter George "Dubya" Bush has been. The supporters of the Bush Administration's with-us-or-against-us policies and rhetoric have shown their true colors here and other places. They made false allegations of harassment, they have themselves harassed others who disagree, and they've even go so far as to say that they wanted to visit me and do me physical harm.

These paratrooper goons think that I am behind some plot bombard dumbgirl's blog with nonsense posts filled with foul language. Why? Because that paranoid attention whore that we all know told them so. So I got a ton of hits from their forum and the another forum of one the members. The results of those hits is in the comments of my posts below. But on their forum they posted stuff like this:

rlbgfish173
'Nam Vet
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject:
Kids, being I am from the old school paying someone a visit ment going there not sending e-mail to this fag, so where does he live?

Jumper208
Creator of this Mess!
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 3:24 am Post subject:

donna wrote:
He lives on the east coast, PA, I believe.

It appears he's in Harrisburg. Hell sticky, that's only a few miles from us!

gixxer
US Paratrooper
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 1:31 am Post subject:
This dude is a chump!!! A serious grade "A" O2 thief....Reminds me of some of the jackass kids I attend college with, too much time on
their hands and no value of service to one's country.


Jumper208
Creator of this Mess!
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 3:40 am Post subject:
I still have his email, and yahoo messenger, so I can still play with him!

These guys remind me of middle school bullies who pick on the kids in the lower grades.

Actually being falsely accused of something and then being harassed by these guys brought back a forgotten memory that has been tucked away in my brain for many years. I went to an elementary school that consolidated the neighborhood schools in town but the schools in the outlying townships stayed open and the kids from those schools joined us in 6th grade. This school also had no walls between classrooms and we sat at round tables instead of those little individual desks. Well, at the start of 6th grade I sat at a table with three other people and two of them were friends from another school. From day one those two, a boy and a girl, did things to get me in trouble. The teacher would come over and yell at me because they threw something or made a loud noise. They also threatened to beat me up after school.

Up until that point I loved school. But that year I did not even want to go. My grades even suffered that year. I had always gotten all As but that year I got lower grades in a class or two. I was so shy that I could not even approach the teacher to tell him what was happening.

I hadn't thought about that period of my life for many years. I guess I would not be the person I am today if I had not gone through that.

"Everything Is For The Best In This, The Best Of All Possible Worlds."
-- Dr. Pangloss in Candide by Voltaire

So, back to the goons. They don't know me. I doubt that they read any of the posts on this site. Yet they come her and call me a traitor, a "goddamned fucknut", a "sorry ass peice(sic) of shit liberal", a "FUCKING PUSSY", etc. Why? Because they don't agree with my politics.

A while back a guy named Jake used to visit this blog. He was a former military guy who was 100% behind Bush. He'd come here and comment on my posts and I'd comment on his site. We disagreed yet we were civil and read what each other had to say. This was back before the war. I haven't come across many so-called conservatives since then who are willing to participate in a conversation. I usually get "you don't support the war therefore you hate the military and you hate America so go live in France."

So much for being a uniter.

Quote du jour

What is the goal toward which we are heading? The peaceful enjoyment of liberty and equality; the reign of that eternal justice whose laws have been inscribed, not in marble and stone, but in the hearts of all men, even in that of the slave who forgets them and in that of the tyrant who denies them.
-- Robespierre, "On Political Morality", 5 February 1794

That is Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robspierre trying to justify "The Terror".

[W]e have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.
George "Dubya" Bush, Second Inaugural Address

Hmmmmm...*scartches chin*

That is George Walker Bush trying to justify...

Welcome Paratroopers!

Ms. Donna is now whining on yet another message board about being harassed by me. Okay, not exactly, now I am supposedly harassing DumbGirl. Nonetheless, she used the same old tactic that we've seen many times before. She has a new group of people willing to believe her stories.
see:
http://www.usparatroopers.org/nuke1/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2758

click on images to enlarge:



It's funny, she falsely accuses me of something and then recruits a bunch of people to do the very thing that she claims I did. At least Amy is above that. Amy only left one comment where she vented through an alias because she honestly thought that I was harassing her. No big deal.

Anyhow, all of you military types are welcome to comment here but please read the posts before commenting.

Thank you.

Evangelical Christian

...does The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
watch the video

"...religion does not have a monopoly on morality."
--Jim Wallis

Dubya: a modernday (albeit dumber) Robespierre?

President Bush's second inaugural speech is Jacobin to the core. It stands outside the American tradition. Declaring American values to be universalist principles, Bush promised to use American power to spread democracy and to end tyranny everywhere on earth.
-- Paul Craig Roberts

Isn't it treason to compare Dubya to anything French? Not yet.

Jacobin to the Core

by Paul Craig Roberts

After listening to his inaugural speech, anyone who thinks President Bush and his handlers are sane needs to visit a psychiatrist. The hubris-filled megalomaniac in the Oval Office has promised the world war without end.

Bush's crazy talk has even upset rah-rah Republicans. One Republican called Bush's speech "God-drenched." It has begun to dawn on the formerly Grand Old Party that a bloodless coup has occurred and Republicans have lost their party to Jacobins, who cloak themselves under the term "neoconservatives."

What is a Jacobin? Jacobins ushered in the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. The Jacobins saw themselves as virtuous champions of universalist principles that required them to impose "liberty, equality, fraternity" not merely on France by a reign of terror, but also on the rest of Europe by force of arms.

Unlike America's Founding Fathers, who exhorted their countrymen to cultivate their own garden, Jacobins were not content with revolutionizing France. They were driven to revolutionize the world

President Bush's second inaugural speech is Jacobin to the core. It stands outside the American tradition. Declaring American values to be universalist principles, Bush promised to use American power to spread democracy and to end tyranny everywhere on earth. As one of Bush's neocon puppetmasters, Robert Kagan, approvingly wrote in the Washington Post on Jan. 23, "The goal of American foreign policy is now to spread democracy, for its own sake, for reasons that transcend specific threats. In short, Bush has unmoored his foreign policy from the war on terrorism."
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There's more good stuff there, go read the rest.

Scenes from today's anti-abortion march in DC

There were religious fanatics who want their religion to be the law of the land.

Sorry lady, evangelicals don't even consider you catholics as christians.

You lost--32 years ago--get over it.


Pro-life president?


A nod and a wink to DumbGirl et al.

My friend went to catholic school from 1st through 12th grades (and is a practicing catholic today), she told me that the nun who ran the school's Pro-Life Club would hand out a sign up sheet with two choices on it:

Do you want to join the Pro-Life Club?

1. Yes, because I believe that human life is sacred.
2. No, because I believe in killing babies.

They also got extra credit if they signed up to go on the bus trip to DC for the march.

More on the inauguration

From Greg Palast:

Oaf of Office
by Greg Palast

Watching John Kerry lip-synch the oath of office, I couldn't help wondering, 'what if.'

Here on stage in Washington was the winner-class warmed and protected by cashmere and tax cuts against the strange, nipple-chilling cold. Hell had frozen over.

Our President said, "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation." Well, no, it isn't.

Our President said, "We will widen retirement savings and health insurance." No, he won't.

Our President said, "America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains." Yes, he will.

Our President said, "And our country must abandon all the habits of racism." Oh, sure.

He doesn't believe a single word he's saying. And all over America, everyone knows he's lying and America is truly relieved.

America doesn't want to give up the habit of racism. Karl Rove doesn't. Jeb Bush doesn't. If not for challenging hundreds of thousands of voters in Black precincts of Ohio and other swing states, if not for purging thousands more from voter rolls for the crime of voting while Black, you wouldn't be president now, would you, Mr. President?

You won't "pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains," unless they are chained by your buck-buddies in Saudi Arabia.

You'll "support democratic movements" so long as the citizens of Venezuela don't get carried away and decide that democracy means they can choose a leader you don't like.
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Lisa Rein has video of the Daily Show coverage of the inauguration speech here.
I liked this part:

Dubya: "When you stand for your liberty, we will stand for you."
Jon Stewart: "offer not valid in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and all of Africa."

And he could have added quite a few more. When Bush said that I thought about the Palestinians in the occupied territories. After all, the Bush Administration claims that it was only enforcing a UN resolution when it decided to invade Iraq. Israel is in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 yet the US government continues to supply Israel with military aid and weapons. Why is Bush not enforcing those UN resolutions?

Panfish on Desperate Republican Houswives

I saw this posted by Panfish and I had to smile:


Why you shouldn't waste your time arguing with Republican Christian fundamentalist housewives.

Celebrating Freedom, Honoring...

Corporate donors.

Dubya smirked his way through another inauguration yesterday. It made me physically ill to watch, I had to leave the room during his speech (I caught the replay on CSPAN).

I thought back to the 2000 election. After the Supreme Court ruled and the House certified the election I put aside my active opposition to this tool of the neo-cons for a while. I remember thinking that this form of government has held up through bad presidents before in its 212 years, how much harm could could this guy do in four years? Well, we found out, didn't we.

So rich, white evangelical christians converged on the Capitol yesterday to celebrate another four years in power. Four more years of war! Wooohooo!!! They danced and drank champagne. Meanwhile, the kids that they sent to fight their war of American imperialism are dodging bullets and bombs in Iraq and 1,370 families of American soldiers are mourning. These balls and celebrations were largely paid for by corporate donors who the GOP spokesman kept calling "volunteers".

I flipped around to see if any of the networks were covering the protests. ABC had several reporters covering it and CSPAN2 televised the ANSWER protest. It was not until I watched Democracy Now! this morning that I got a sense of what was happening.

Nonviolent protesters were met with force by the over 7,000 uniformed police. At this event, which the Presidential Inaugural Committee dubbed "Celebrating Freedom", people were arrested for heckling the president. The police even had people dressed as protesters in the crowd--in this photo the two men wearing kuffiyehs are actually undercover police arresting the female protester.

My favorite group of protesters yesterday:

Here we go again

...another 'pre-emptive war' in our future?

Special forces 'on the ground' in Iran

Ian Traynor
Monday January 17, 2005
The Guardian

American special forces have been on the ground inside Iran scouting for US air strike targets for suspected nuclear weapons sites, according to the renowned US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

In an article in the latest edition of the New Yorker, Hersh, who was the first to uncover US human rights abuses against Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison last year, reports that Pakistan, under a deal with Washington, has been supplying information on Iranian military sites and on its nuclear programme, enabling the US to conduct covert ground and air reconnaissance of Iranian targets, should the escalating row over Iran's nuclear ambitions come to a head.

Acting on information from Pakistani scientists knowledgeable about Iran's nuclear programme, Hersh reported, US commandos have penetrated territory in eastern Iran seeking to pinpoint underground installations suspected of being nuclear weapons sites.

Hersh told CNN yesterday: "I think they really think there's a chance to do something in Iran, perhaps by summer, to get the intelligence on the sites.
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Euphemism of the day

Pre-emptive War:

American imperialistic aggression

Torturer

Tsunami, pt 2

It took nearly a week but some of the "christian" bloggers have chimed in on the tsunami. I guess they had to wait to get the official word from the Bush Administration before they could comment.

A big surprise, they are comparing aid to the the victims of this natural disaster to Iraq. Dumb Girl has a map of Asia with the words "worth humanitarian aid" across it and a map of Iraq with "not worth humanitarian aid" on it. Mr Dumb Girl writes in the comments section, "The US has 4% of the world's population and provides nearly half of the world's food relief/aid EVERY DAY..." I would also point out that the US has about half of the world's wealth. Also Japan has about half the population of the US and they led the world in foreign aid for most of the past twelve years. Mr Dumb Girl goes on to say, "The US also supports international stability with its global reach military capability and ALL nations benefit from the sacrifices of the US soldier and the taxpayer behind him....The world owes President Bush and the US taxpayer a hearty THANK YOU instead of criticism." Is he serious? That is just laughable. Ask the people of Nicaragua, Chile, Cuba, Iraq, Vietnam, etc. how grateful they are to US for intervening in their affairs.

...more later