George W. Bush Has Syphilis

Be nice now; don’t mock the afflicted.

Cuba Has Weapons of Mass Destruction!

We don’t have time to argue about this. We must bring about a regime change in Cuba! Every moment we dither is another moment for Fidel Castro to build up his deadly arsenal. He could wreak total destruction in the Western Hemisphere if we don’t ACT NOW!!

But don’t worry, it’ll be a cakewalk. Our soldiers will be greeted as liberators. They’ll be showered with cigars and mojitos by throngs of grateful Cubans.

Seriously though, the discovery of oil in Cuba might change a few things. The U.S. has had a trade embargo against Cuba since 1961. That’s 45 years! The purpose of the embargo was to topple Fidel Castro. NEWSFLASH — It’s not working. He’s still there.

The embargo has mostly hurt Cuban citizens, whom our government (supposedly) doesn’t have any quarrel with. And any American who travels to Cuba is facing a prison sentence and a huge fine if Big Brother catches them.

However, the embargo hasn’t stopped Cuba from having a much higher literacy rate than the United States. Go figure.

Money talks. Oil companies from China, India, Norway, Spain, Canada, Venezuela and Brazil are interested in Cuba’s oil.

At this point, continuing the trade embargo can only hurt the United States. (Ergo, anyone who wants to continue the Cuban embargo Hates America!)

The founder of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association says “Our choice is: Are we going to let those other countries take that oil? Or are we going to look at our strategic interests and recognize that very close to our shores is a substantial quantity of oil that is going to be exploited?”

If you’re still gung ho about the Cold War, afraid there’s a Communist under every bed, etc., AND you want lower oil prices — you’re in kind of an awkward position right now.

Hezbollah “A Formidable Foe.” Who Knew???

And now, straight from the cover of DUUUHHH!!! Magazine: Israel has found Hezbollah to be a tougher enemy than they expected. Heellllooooo!!!!!!!!

Let’s see, what’s that saying about repeating history if you don’t learn from it…and something about neurotic people doing the same thing over and over and over and being just shocked when they keep getting the same result.

Haven’t any of our world “leaders” ever read The Art of War? Supposedly it’s required reading for high-ranking military officers. It’s also part of the curriculum at a lot of business schools.

Apparently our leaders have read the repeated warnings to “Know Your Enemy.” They’ve read over and over not to underestimate the enemy. A country won’t be easy to conquer just because it’s smaller. A guerrilla group won’t be a pushover just because they’re poor or under-equipped.

So our geniuses have read these lessons, and they keep saying “let’s conquer this country; they’re smaller than us.” “Let’s send in a few missiles and take out this guerrilla group once and for all.”

How many times throughout history has this happened? In the 1700s, France and England both dismissed those ragtag peasants and rebels who were dissatisfied. And look what happened.

Every time we sent a few more troops into Vietnam, it was “OK, this’ll finish them off.” Didn’t happen.

Thirty years later, Bush and Cheney said “it’ll be a cakewalk. Our soldiers will be greeted as liberators.” Uh, ahem…

And now it’s Israel’s turn. “Let’s take out that ragtag terrorist group once and for all. They won’t be any match for our tanks and missiles.”

We’ll see…

Yes We Can Win In November

There is absolutely no reason that the Democrats can’t take back Congress in November 2006. You want wedge issues — we’ve got wedge issues. You want images of the Bush Administration being the worst bumblers and fuckups this side of the Three Stooges — hell, the news has already been saturated with these images during the past year.

Karl Rove’s chief M.O. is to attack his opponent’s strong points instead of his weaknesses. The Republicans’ remaining advantage — if they even still have it — is the image that they’re “tough.” They’re tough on terror; tough on crime.

Now, think of Iraqmire, Katrina, dropping a bomb on the Bronx (Hat Tip to Steve O). These Keystone Cops are “protecting” us?? Riiight.

And don’t forget, violent crime in the U.S. has gone up in the past year. Our “leaders” are so distracted with their military adventures overseas, we no longer have the resources to fight crime here at home.

In a word: INCOMPETENCE. If our government was a private company, every one of these worthless failures would have been fired a long time ago.

When Bush vetoed the stem cell research bill, he just reaffirmed the rightwing mindset of “once you’re born you don’t count any more.” He also handed the Democrats the mother of all wedge issues.

Charles Schumer (D-NY) said “There’s a feeling among more affluent Republicans of uncomfortable-ness with where the Republican Party is headed…And they don’t like creationism being taught in the public schools, and they sure don’t like blocking stem cell research. It’s an issue that affects lots of swing voter Republicans who will move to the Democratic side…. When they know somebody who says, ‘My daughter could be blind by age 20, please allow stem cell research,’ they don’t see why not.”

This issue cuts across all political, religious and socio-economic lines. Most of us know somebody who’s suffering from — or prone to — Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or diabetes. The cures for these diseases — and many others — might be found through stem cell research.

The founder of an advocacy group for stem cell research said “We fully expect to hold accountable the politicians who oppose this.”

Another potent wedge issue is the minimum wage. So far at least six states are expected to have a ballot initiative this November for increasing the minimum wage. Some of these are swing states, and this initiative could tip the balance.

Remember all those swing states that had anti-gay-marriage ballots in 2004? This is the flip side.

Twenty-three states already have a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum. As you probably know, the Republican Congress recently voted — for the ninth straight year — to leave the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour, where it’s been since 1997. And they simultaneously voted to give themselves a pay raise. Let’s remember this in November.

Last April a nationwide survey showed that 83% of Americans are in favor of increasing the minimum wage. Drive That Wedge!

Unlike stem cell research and increasing the minimum wage, the Republicans’ favorite hot-button wedge issues — gay marriage and flag burning — are totally empty meaningless slogans. If two guys (or 2 women) want to get married, or if someone is burning the American flag — come on, what actual concrete effect does this have on YOU? There’s only one answer here: None Whatsoever.

The gay marriage and flag burning issues have only one purpose: to make several million rightwing automatons snap to attention and go “Ugh!! Bad!!”

On the other hand, stem cell research and the minimum wage are real issues which actually affect millions of real people.

This Newsweek column has an excellent counterpoint to Rove’s “cut and run.” “If you believe the Iraq war is a success, vote Republican. If you believe it is a failure, vote Democratic.”

You can’t cut to the chase any better than that. Come on Democrats, what’re you waiting for?

So far, Montana seems to be demonstrating what the Democrats can do this November. In 2004 Montana chose Bush over Kerry by 18 percentage points. But this year, 3-term incumbent Republican Senator Conrad Burns is fighting for his political life.

Burns’ Democratic opponent is Jon Tester, a farmer from Eastern Montana. Tester has a flat-top haircut, and the Republican Smear Machine pulled out all the stops in a TV attack ad. The ad showed a barber saying:

“Fella comes in for a trim on his flattop because he’s running for U.S. Senate. Guess he didn’t want anybody to know he opposes a gay-marriage ban. Thinks flag burning is a right. And supports higher taxes. So I told him, ‘You’re gonna need a lot more than a haircut to cover up all that’.... Didn't leave much of a tip either.”

The Democrats came up with a response ad, which said:

“Here’s a tip. The man attacking Jon Tester is an actor. A fake, sent by Senator Burns’ Washington friends to tell lies about Jon Tester.... It’s bad enough that Burns took thousands of dollars from sleazy lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s associate and then changed his vote.”

Touche! Let’s hope that Karl Rove’s tried-and-true smear tactics and wedge issues will fail throughout the country the way they seem to be failing in Montana.

Sometimes, staying the course is stupid. This November, change the direction!!

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Too Much Energy Drilling in Western States

And this time it isn’t just liberals and treehuggers who are complaining. A lot of Republicans and Conservatives are alarmed that wildlife and outdoor recreation are being jeopardized by excessive drilling on public lands.

In Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico and California, Republicans are calling for bans or limits on drilling in national forests. The vice president of Trout Unlimited said “You are seeing more and more opposition from people who are concerned about hunting, about fishing, about drinking water supplies, about a state’s way of life.”

The biggest turnaround comes from Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Montana). He’s been a loyal Bush Republican who never saw an oil rig he didn’t love. But now he’s fighting for his political life this November, so he’s making some changes. Now he wants to ban future oil and gas leasing on national forestland and rangeland in his home state.

Governor Ahnuld has petitioned the federal government for permanent protection of 4.4 million acres of California national forest from road-building. By sheer coincidence, he also is facing a tough re-election campaign.

Senator Craig Thomas (R-Wyoming) recently said that most national forests should be off limits to drilling “because they’re part of our tradition, part of our future.”

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico) is co-sponsoring legislation to block the federal government from drilling for natural gas in an elk refuge in New Mexico.

Thank God for NIMBYism (not in my backyard). There hasn’t been much development or drilling in Kennebunkport, ME or Crawford, TX for some strange reason. Now it seems other Republicans are having the same sentiments about their home states.

From the day Bush got appointed he’s been pushing federal agencies to expedite drilling on public lands (that’s OUR land, people). During Bush's first full year in office, 3,540 drilling permits were issued. During 2005 the number almost doubled to 7,018.

It looks like some of Bush’s most loyal Republicans have finally had enough.

New Abortion Law

Just when you think Senator Bill Frist couldn’t possibly sink any lower, he does. What’s our sleazy video doctor up to now?

The cat mutilator is sponsoring the “Child Custody Protection Act.” Gee, what a nice innocent name for a law. This law will make it a federal crime for ANYONE other than a parent to accompany a girl across state lines to seek an abortion.

Again, that’s ANYONE other than a parent. A grandparent, aunt or uncle, religious counselor — guilty of a federal crime.

These mouth-breathing snake-handling Biblehumpers aren’t satisfied just banning abortion in individual redneck states. They also want to prevent desperate pregnant women from being able to go to a neighboring state. And Bill Frist is once again bending over for the Speak-In-Tongues crowd.

Fortunately, you can help. Please click here to ask your senators to vote against Frist’s new abortion law. If you don’t want the Spanish Inquisition taking over your life, please tell your senators.

And now, here is a test to see if YOU will be allowed to live in the new Christian States of Righteousness (formerly known as America). Check it out. One wrong answer and you’ll be sent to Guantanamo for some Christian "counseling."

YOU Can Stop The War On Drugs

Well, not all in one fell swoop. But you can take that crucial first step.

There’s a chance that the position of Drug Czar could be phased out in five years. But you have to make it happen.

This past March, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced an amendment to the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act. Under this amendment, the Drug Czar position would expire in five years. The amendment was defeated, but support was bipartisan. Out of the 85 votes for the amendment, 47 were from Republicans.

This amendment can still be added — if you act.

Citizens Against Government Waste has called the War on Drugs “a federal wasteland that throws taxpayer money toward numerous high-priced drug control programs that have failed to show results.”

Actually, there have been some results. Millions of non-violent American citizens have been jailed for “crimes” that affected nobody but themselves. We’ve drained trillions of dollars from our treasury. And a lot of our foreign meddling all over Asia and Latin America is the result of our War on Some Drugs.

Please click here to tell your Congressman and Senators how you feel about the War on Drugs. Ask them to include a sunset provision in the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act, so that it will expire in five years.

We’ve spent trillions of dollars and ruined millions of lives. Had enough?

Abortion Causes Cancer, Insanity and Blindness!

Abortion is the new marijuana. When people call a pregnancy resources center, they’re apt to get hysterical warnings about the dangers of abortion. Some of this “information” is straight out of “Reefer Madness” and “Marijuana: Assassin of Youth.”

Some of these pregnancy resources centers are funded by the government — your tax dollars.

This information was obtained by congressional aides who posed as pregnant teenagers. They called 25 of these pregnancy centers during a 5-year period. The callers were repeatedly warned that abortion leads to cancer, infertility and severe stress disorders.

This 5-year report was prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California). There are over 4,000 of these pregnancy clinics nationwide. Most of them don’t receive any federal funding. But the 25 clinics in Waxman’s report are funded by taxpayers.

Of these 25 clinics, two of them couldn’t even be reached (your tax dollars at work). Eight clinics warned callers that having an abortion almost doubles the risk of breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute has found no link between abortion and cancer risk.

Some of the clinics told callers that abortion leads to severe long-term emotional disorders. The American Psychological Association hasn’t found any such link.

By now it shouldn’t be surprising that our government is lying to us over and over and over. And yet…

Waxman condemned these clinics for giving false information about basic medical facts. He said “It’s wrong to pour millions of federal dollars into organizations that are providing false health information to vulnerable teenagers.”

America’s Violent Crime Rate Increasing

Thank you George W. Bush. Now we’re reaping still another benefit from our Iraqi quagmire and our crippling budget deficit. Last year, murders in the U.S. increased by almost five percent. Overall violent crime increased by 2.5%.

And yes, it IS Bush’s fault. Our infrastructure has crumbled and deteriorated more than ever because of our draining treasury. Conservatives don’t care about the infrastructure when it just means “social services.” For the Far Right, “social services” means everything from mass transit to job training programs.

But now the crumbling infrastructure is jeopardizing police protection and crime prevention. Let’s see how the ultra-conservatives will rationalize this. Undoubtedly they’ll find a way to keep supporting Bush’s quest for world domination at the expense of everything else.

America has been distracted by our overseas adventures. A criminologist from Northeastern University said “A lot of the resources devoted have been shifted over from hometown security to homeland security.”

The Mayor of Boston said “What happened is a lot of those community groups that we used to have don’t exist today because the funding is not there. We need to go back to the hard work of crime control, cops and crime prevention, youth programs. They work, but it takes time and money.”

A law enforcement analyst said “Either we pay for programs now or pay for victims later.”

OK, wingnuts, what’ll it be?

Republicans: “We Care”

The Republican Party is being victimized by vicious leftwing propaganda. The Big Lie — orchestrated by godless liberals — is that Republicans don’t care about “regular people.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Let’s examine a few of these urban legends.

“Republicans don’t care about working people.” OK, you just try telling that to our hard-working pharmacists. Some of these pharmacists have very strong moral convictions, and yet they’re being forced to give birth control pills to every cheap slut who comes up to the counter! Who do you think is protecting the rights of these downtrodden workers? Republicans!

“Republicans don’t care about the elderly and disabled.” For years, treehuggers have been trying to limit helicopter flights over the Grand Canyon. Something about “solitude” or the “spirituality of nature” or whatever. The corporations who provide these helicopter flights have used their tremendous clout to defeat any limits on helicopter flights. According to company spokesmen, these flights are very very profitable are the only chance for elderly and disabled travelers to get a close-up view of the Grand Canyon. And you thought a large corporation couldn’t have compassion.

“Republicans don’t care about consumers.” Just recently the Senate approved a bill to allow patients to save money by importing prescription drugs from Canada. But Republicans in the House are expected to save the day by defeating this bill. They’re concerned about consumer safety. Sure these drugs will be cheaper, but they might not be safe. Those icky third world Canadians don’t have the same high standards that we have here in America.

And the biggest lie of them all: “Republicans are threatening our right to privacy.” Now just hold the phone! Who’s been hounding that poor Dick Cheney for the last five years about his secret meetings with energy executives? “Who did you meet with?” “What did you talk about?” “We want to know” and on and on and on…And who’s been pestering the Bush Administration with that communist Freedom Of Information Act, again and again and again? The answer is the same in both cases: Democrats! Republicans have been tirelessly fighting for the privacy rights of corrupt politicians, and they will always protect them from public scrutiny and accountability.

If you're a crooked power-crazed politician, your privacy is being defended by Republicans.

America — A One-Party Country?

By now everyone has a handle on Karl Rove’s methods for duping millions of gullible American voters. Character assassination, attacking your opponent’s strongest point instead of his weaknesses, painting your opponent into a corner by framing and defining the issues — these are all part of the Rove playbook.

But now it seems there’s a whole new level to his trademark combination of shrewdness and deviousness. He has a grasp of niche marketing that few advertising executives or market researchers could even touch.

This column by George Will shows that Rove is so far ahead of his nearest competitor, it doesn’t even matter who comes in second. When Democrats try to argue their position using logic and facts, they’re so outgunned by Rove’s amoral tactics, it’s like a Little League team trying to beat the New York Yankees.

George Will talks about niche marketing and microtargeting. According to his column, Democrats are facing “tremendous odds” in their quest to avoid being marginalized. His column is based on a book by two L.A. Times reporters called “One Party Country.”

In the 2004 election, the Bush campaign had a database called Voter Vault. This database was used for microtargeting more constituencies than you could ever imagine.

One example (out of many): several thousand Russian Jewish immigrants in the Cleveland area were targeted. Speeches (in Russian) urged these people to vote for Bush. Local Republicans had a database on every Orthodox Jewish residence in this Cleveland neighborhood and they knew exactly which emotional buttons to push.

Rove knows more market research minutiae than any ten advertising agencies, and he puts this knowledge to sinister use. Bourbon drinkers are more likely to be Republican; gin drinkers are heavily Democratic. The Rove Machine uses hundreds, thousands, of factoids like this to zero in and figure out exactly which buttons to push with which voters.

In the 2004 election, the Republicans were geniuses at using these custom-tailored messages against “slivers of the electorate” as Will puts it. It amounted to a stealth campaign. These “slivers” were snipped away from the Democrats in so many places, they didn’t register in national polls or on the radar of Democratic strategists.

As Will puts it: “It was the political equivalent of stealth technology in air power: Democrats would feel the bombs explode, but they could not see the bombers.”

George Will says: “Politically, there are not two Americas, the Red and Blue states. There are countless constituencies to be courted with niche marketing. In a closely divided nation, with a small and shrinking number of truly unaffiliated voters, supremacy goes to the party with the best database and most nimble microtargeters.”

For those of us who are alarmed by the Neocon takeover of our government: We need to learn Rove’s tactics and beat him at his own game. We've got our work cut out for us. Can we do it?

Militant Christians on the March. Again.

The Alliance Defense Fund wants to bring the Hellfire of an angry God into your life; into your bedroom. Get ready to be saved, Heathens.

How did this group get such a bland name like “Alliance Defense Fund”? Funny story — they wanted to call themselves the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem Witch Hunters, but it turned out those names were already taken.

The Alliance Defense Fund is a legal consortium which spends $20 million a year arguing for Righteousness and Holy Sanctimony in the courts. They’re determined to overturn decades’ worth of legal precedents set by godless liberals and activist judges.

This group has been battling for God whenever logic and science try to rear their ugly heads. Keeping Terri Schiavo on life support for another forty years; banning embryonic stem cell research; allowing violent anti-abortionists to harass women in front of family planning clinics — all of these righteous causes have been fought for by the Alliance Defense Fund. Behind the scenes, of course.

Turn on a light in a dark room, and that cockroach you see scurrying into a crack is the Alliance Defense Fund.

One of the founders of this group said “What we are really trying to protect are the things this country was founded on.” What country is he talking about, Saudi Arabia??

Another group member said they are protecting “the fundamental ability of Christians to speak their minds on the issues of the day.” Yup, trot out the old “Christians are being persecuted” bullshit again.

A spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said “They’re not for some form of generic religious freedom. They’re for Christian superiority, that Christians take over the courts. They are living in this fantasy world where the majority religion, Christianity, is claimed to be literally under attack.”

The Alliance Defense Fund has provided schooling and training for hundreds of lawyers. Each of these lawyers has to donate 450 hours in return for their training. The plan is for these lawyers to acquire “a distinctly Christian worldview of law.”

Oh, great!

Congress Doesn’t Want to Hear From YOU

If you spend much time on the Internet, you’ve probably signed the occasional online petition and taken part in a few mass e-mailings. Enjoy it while you can. The ability to e-mail Congress may soon go the way of the goose quill pen and the covered wagon.

There’s a new spam filter which enables the user to block out form letters and mass e-mailings. This program is called Logic Puzzle, and so far about sixty members of Congress are using it. Let’s take a guess — think that number will go up or down?

It’s hard to tell how much is accomplished by jillions of online petitions and mass e-mailings. But this has been one of the last ways that a non-VIP can communicate with his/her “representative.” They’re supposed to be REPRESENTING US, remember?

Aside from the specific message contained in a petition or e-mail, these bulk mailings serve another purpose. When a lawmaker receives a petition with hundreds of thousands of signatures, or a bulk e-mail from a non-profit group with millions of members — this is a message in itself. It's a reminder. Hundreds of thousands of constituents feel strongly about this particular issue. And you don’t have time to acknowledge this??? Fuck you!!

These assholes are so busy schmoozing with lobbyists and VIPs, they don’t have time to look at e-mails and petitions from constituents. They’re so busy begging their corporate donors to purchase the next election for them, they don’t even have time to actually read the legislation they’re voting on. (But that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

This is an outrage — an insult! — regardless of your political viewpoint. For your “representative” to be cowering and hiding from you — this is beyond words. The groups who have protested this include: the ACLU, American Conservative Union, American Family Association, Defenders of Wildlife, National Taxpayers Union and the Humane Society. (Those are just a few; the list is huge.)

A member of MoveOn.org said “We should be living in the golden age of politics — an age in which every member of Congress can easily have a two-way conversation with his or her most engaged constituents. Instead, we’re seeing bunkerization.”

Ironically, the author of this column (the link in the first paragraph) is sympathetic to members of Congress who are “overloaded” with too many e-mails. He says “And for members of Congress, it’s not hard to imagine that a bulk e-mailing jamming their inboxes and sucking up their staff’s time would actually get in the way of important communications from lobbyists and corporate donors individual constituents.”

If our pampered “representatives” think this is too difficult, they could always leave their cushy taxpayer-funded “jobs” and try working for a living.

Our taxes are paying the salaries (and perks and pensions) of our “representatives.” And yet they can’t even be bothered to read e-mails and petitions from their constituents?? What kind of “representation” is this? They used to call this Taxation Without Representation. In fact, that was one of the battle cries that led to the overthrow of a government and the founding of a new country, back in the late 1700s.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Patriotism vs. Nationalism

Here is an excellent Newsweek column on the differences between patriotism and nationalism. The article has a lot of quotes from George Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism,” written in 1945. Orwell’s writing has as much meaning today as it did in the 1940s.

Too many people — in every country — think nationalism and patriotism are the same thing. They’re not; they’re completely different.

Orwell defined patriotism as “devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people.” Can’t argue with that.

The subtitle of this article is “The greatness of the United States is unique—and not a model to be exported by narrow-minded nationalists.”

According to Orwell, nationalism is the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or an idea, and “placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.” In other words nationalism doesn’t have to be based on a country. This same fanaticism can be applied to any “ism”: Communism, Neo-Conservatism, Fundamentalism (of any religion), you name it. Whether it’s based on a country or an “ism,” nationalism always has that combination of blind zeal and indifference to reality.

In nationalism, thoughts “always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. … Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception.” And this self-deception leads to disastrous miscalculations based on wishful thinking rather than facts. Orwell says:

“Political and military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties.” Hey, whatever happened to all the flowers and ice cream that grateful Iraqis were supposed to showering our troops with?

Orwell really has our current foreign policy dialed with this quote:

“All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labor, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral color when committed by ‘our’ side.… The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

Sound familiar?

Enron Victims Saddened by Kenneth Lay’s Death

No, seriously, they are. What’s gonna happen to the $43 million of his assets that the government is seeking? He OWES this money to the tens of thousands of people he fucked over. He obtained this money illegally. His survivors are NOT entitled to any of this money — morally or legally.

What about Lay’s co-conspirators (e.g. Jeffrey Skilling)? He’s facing several decades in prison. Will this sentence be jeopardized by Lay’s death?

Vengeance is not a healthy emotion, but still — hundreds of thousands of people (maybe millions) were exuberant over the thought of Kenneth Lay spending the rest of his life behind bars. This is a hell of a letdown for them.

And — this may seem kind of petty, but — there are some horny prison inmates who’ve been, uh, “anticipating” Kenneth Lay’s arrival. They’re feeling deprived and disappointed right now.

And we’re all just a bit suspicious — come on, admit it — Is he really dead?? As Dana Carvey used to say, “how conveeeenient.” Maybe he’s secretly luxuriating in a private villa in Tahiti or Maui. It would sure save Bush from the political fallout he’d be getting after he pardoned Kenneth Lay.

If you’re feeling the slightest twinge of sympathy for Lay, keep this in mind: He recently purchased a $200,000 yacht for his wife. This was AFTER he was already in debt from lawsuits and prosecutions. When asked about this, he said that once you get accustomed to a certain lifestyle, “it’s hard to just turn off the spigot.” Thousands of Enron employees had to “turn off the spigot” when their jobs, pensions and life savings got yanked away from them.

If Hell exists, there’ll be a special place for him there. Crank up the heat.

If there’s such a thing as reincarnation, what future life could possibly be punishing enough for him? How could he possibly be poor enough, oppressed and brutalized enough, and how many lives would he need to go through this?

The New Happy Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney is a new man! Whaddya mean he’s always snarling and glowering and has a lopsided sneer? He hates everybody?? Come on, that was the old Dick Cheney.

The Old Snarling Dick Cheney lived in a secret location and only came out during the Full Moon (or to cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate or to tell some commie liberal to go fuck himself). Now that an election is drawing near, the sneering snarling Dick is emerging blinking into the sunlight — and he’s smiling! He’s talking to people. Real People; not just VIPs and dictators.

“Hi there little boy fuck your mother you little bedwetting liberal we care about you. We want to help lowlife trailer pukes real Americans just like you.”

Here he is at Daytona Beach. “Ahem, uh, I was sent here to talk down to these dumbfuck NASCAR dads and con them into voting for my puppet again On Independence Day, we’re reminded how fortunate we are to live in freedom and call this nation home.”

He continued with “I got five — count ‘em, FIVE — draft deferments during the Vietnam war because I’m so important, unlike you lower-class blue-collar nobodies who aren’t good for anything except cannon fodder We’re grateful above all to the men and women who defend us.”

Cheney even instructed his Secret Service agents to lose their dark suits and wear open-necked un-tucked shirts and baseball caps instead. Whew! He really has changed. Uncle Dickie has come down off his pedestal. He's just like the rest of us. He’s just plain folks. He cares. Vote Republican!

Congress to Vote on Gitmo Prisoners

Last week the Supreme Court slapped Bush back into consciousness, reminding him of the Constitution, the Geneva Convention, and checks and balances. But now the neocons have found a silver lining in the Court’s ruling.

Congress will be voting on this issue, as the Court suggested they do. They will be voting on whether to conduct military tribunals for the SUSPECTED (sorry wingnuts, there’s that big word again) terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Presto! Republicans have found the perfect hot-button issue for this November. Looks like they won’t have to dust off Gay Marriage after all.

We have another Perfect Storm of Karl Rove’s shrewdness at framing the issues and defining the terms, and the invertebrate Democrats falling into every trap set by the Republicans. Just bring in the cameras and force every Democrat to either genuflect before King George, or look into the camera and say “I’m a latte-sipping bedwetting surrender monkey.”

Last Thursday Nancy Pelosi said the Supreme Court’s decision “affirms the American ideal that all are entitled to the basic guarantees of our justice system.” This comment set off alarms all over the Far Right. Majority Leader John Boehner said Pelosi wanted “special privileges for terrorists.”

And OxyContin “Rush” Limbaugh was bleating on his radio show about Pelosi’s “deranged” comment.

Let’s see…the Constitution, the Geneva Convention — “special privileges”??!?!? Only in Neanderthal-land.

As retarded as this “reasoning” is, it’s catching on among the cerebrally-challenged. One GOP strategist said “It would be good politics to have a debate about this if Democrats are going to argue for additional rights for terrorists.”

AAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!! Yes, it probably is good politics. Cut funding for education during the 1980s, and twenty years later we have a generation of dumbfucks who’ll fall for anything.

Some members of Congress are pushing to have the Gitmo suspects tried by Court-Martial. But Bush and his fellow Right-ards are against this idea because it offers too many legal protections.