Dennis Hastert: “I’d Rather Be Waterboarding”

Our Twisted Sickfuck of the Week Award goes to Dennis Hastert. After the Republicans passed the Torturers’ Protection Act of 2006, Hastert started spewing.

He said Democratic opponents “voted today in favor of MORE rights for terrorists. So the same terrorists who plan to harm innocent Americans and their freedom worldwide would be coddled, if we followed the Democrat plan.”

No Buttwipe, not terrorists. People ACCUSED of being terrorists. SUSPECTED of being terrorists. DUUUUHHHHH!!!! The third highest-ranking member of our government — he’s two heartbeats away from the presidency — doesn’t know the difference between a criminal and a person who’s SUSPECTED of being a criminal. How scary is that???

For that matter, the White House and a majority of Congress doesn’t know the difference either. ::sigh:: We live in “interesting times.”

Just before the Torturers’ Protection Act was voted on, Tom DeLay wannabe John Boehner was baiting the Democrats. He said “Will my Democrat friends work with Republicans to give the president the tools he needs to continue to stop terrorist attacks before they happen, or will they vote to force him to fight the terrorists with one arm tied behind his back?”

Nancy Pelosi said “Speaker Hastert’s false and inflammatory rhetoric is yet another desperate attempt to mislead the American people and provoke fear.”

Dennis Kucinich said “This bill is everything we don’t believe in.”

John Murtha — one of the few people in this group who actually has first-hand combat experience — said “It gives too much leeway to the president. And I think when you tamper with the Geneva Conventions ... you hurt our ability to protect the troops.”

Make YOUR Vote Count!

Do you want YOUR VOTE to count this November? If so, please Act Now. Legislation is now pending in the House and Senate which will make paper ballots available at every polling place.

The legislation doesn’t go far enough but it’s a start. Congress adjourns at the end of this week, so they only have two days to pass this law in time for the November election. We all need to bombard the House and Senate with e-mails asking them so sponsor and pass this bill.

This legislation urges — but doesn’t require — local jurisdictions to make paper ballots available at every polling place. If this law passes, local jurisdictions will be partially compensated for the cost of providing paper ballots. (Like I said, the law doesn’t go far enough but it’s a beginning.)

This is not a partisan issue. If you’re a conservative and you think it would be just hunky-dory if Diebold wins another election for you, think again. The shoe will be on the other foot someday. When the pendulum swings, it’s gonna swing a loooong way.

Please click here to ask your senators and your congressional representative to pass this law NOW. Make your vote count this time.

Kill It Before It Multiplies

Uh oh, it’s already happening. We’ve all seen those Godawful science fiction movies where this giant three-headed blob is terrorizing the community. Well, Karl Rove is now doing exactly what those slimy monsters always do: He’s Multiplying.

NOOOOO!!!!!!!

As you’ve probably read, the Republican Party will be spending most of its campaign money on local Congressional races. If any Republican incumbent is in the slightest danger of being unseated by a Democrat, the Democrat will be smeared, slandered and Swiftboated. And these local races will be run by a small army of Karl Juniors.

One TV ad shows a picture of illegal immigrants running across the border. Then the camera switches to images of Osama bin Laden and Zacarias Moussaoui. Then, while the word “Liberal” pulses on the screen, the announcer says “No wonder Harold Ford has been rated the most liberal congressman from Tennessee.”

That commercial was created by a Karl clone named Scott Howell. Howell learned the ropes not only from Rove but also from Lee Willie Horton Atwater. Other twisted Rove offspring include Todd Olsen, a direct-mail marketer from Austin; and Terry Nelson, who will be working on John McCain’s 2008 campaign.

Ah, something to look forward to.

My Confession

OK, I’m unable to sleep nights until I admit this: For the past two years I have been single-handedly spamming all of your blogs. Yup, I’m the culprit. All of those times that you checked for new comments and all you found were a bunch of annoying sales pitches — It Was Me!!! BWAAHAAHAAHAAAA!!!!

The above paragraph is a bunch of bullshit, of course. But for some reason Blogger has decided that this site is a spam blog. WTF??? Sure I write some inflammatory posts that piss people off, but — SPAM??? Come on.

Several weeks ago I started getting that F#%$! Word Verification thing in the Blogger menu where you publish your posts. I just thought it was a new Blogger procedure; I was usually in too much of a hurry to click on the Help logo next to the Word Verification. Two days ago I finally clicked on the Help logo and got a message that “your blog has characteristics of a spam blog.” Oooookay.

At some point someone from Blogger will check out the blog and (hopefully) decide that it isn’t a spam blog. (There’s an online form to fill out and send to Blogger Help.)

Oh, while you’re here, check out some of these fantastic deals I can get you on Real Estate, Low Interest Car Loans and Discount House Cleaning. (Just Kidding!!)

Coddling Terrorists

Ever since 9/11, neocons and rightwing nutcases have been trying to make an end run around the Constitution and the Geneva Convention. They’re absolutely certain that every terrorist suspect was caught red-handed trying to kill American citizens. These guilty bastards don’t deserve a lawyer or a fair trial.

Well read this Assholes.

A Canadian citizen (originally from Syria) was arrested in New York in September of 2002 as he was changing planes. He was questioned for 12 days, and then rendered to Syria where he was tortured for ten months. Authorities have now concluded that this 36-year-old computer consultant from Ottawa didn’t commit any crime and wasn’t a security threat.

THIS is why we have a Constitution, the Geneva Convention and access to a lawyer (and family members) for people who are accused of crimes.

UNDERSTAND???

Originally Posted at Bring It On!

Beware of “Property Rights” Scam

Would you sign a petition to stop Eminent Domain abuse? Of course you would. Anybody would. There probably isn’t one person in America — outside of the U.S. Supreme Court — who’s in favor of using Eminent Domain to seize one person’s property and sell it to a developer.

Unfortunately, some sleazy developers and “property rights” fanatics are taking full advantage of Americans’ fear and loathing of Eminent Domain abuse. They want to eliminate ALL environmental and land-use regulations. They know the public strongly favors land-use and zoning regulations, so these pusbags have to use some major sleight-of-hand tactics.

This November, six Western states will have initiatives on the ballot to delete all zoning and land-use regulations. It was quick and easy to get them on the ballot, since everybody wants to sign a petition to “Stop Eminent Domain Abuse.” These initiatives have names like “Protect Our Homes,” “The Homeowner’s Protection Effort” and “People’s Initiative to Stop the Taking of Our Land.” The only things being “protected” are the “rights” of your neighbors’ to surround your house with high-rise condos and strip malls. There’ll be absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Voters in Montana, Washington, Idaho, California, Nevada and Arizona are being exploited and manipulated by this slippery gang of snake-oil salesmen. There’ll be all kinds of scary rhetoric about Eminent Domain abuse; about “protecting your property.” But most of these initiatives don’t even deal with Eminent Domain at all. Behind all the smoke and mirrors, these assholes have only one goal: to make you completely powerless and unable to protect the quality of life in your own neighborhood.

What, you don’t want to have a ten-story apartment building towering over your one-story house? Tough shit.

Technically, these “property rights” douchebags aren’t actually eliminating any land-use regulations. Instead they’re using the zany “logic” that ANY restrictions on what a property owner does with his/her property is a “taking” by the government under the Fifth Amendment. The property owner must be “compensated” by the government (the taxpayers — that’s us) if he’s unable to extract maximum profit from his property. This idea has been kicking around since at least the early '90s; but with this current stealth campaign it has more momentum than ever.

Since most state and local governments are too short of cash to be compensating developers, the property owners will be able to do whatever they want with their land.

Hey, this is pretty cool. You can disobey any law you don’t like, and if the government wants to make you obey that law, they have to pay you. Get paid for obeying the law — I like it.

In order to get maximum use out of my $80,000 sports car, I insist on driving as fast as I want. No speed limits or stop signs; no traffic signals. OR, I can get paid a little “bonus” every time I drive the speed limit or stop at a stop sign. This car is my property and I’ll damn well do what I want with it.

And think of the scams you could pull on the local taxpayers. Anyone could say “I want to cut down all the trees in my yard and put up a 12-story condominium complex. What, I can’t? OK, pay up!”

“I want to turn my 2-story office building into a high-rise. What do you mean there’s a height limit? Show me the money!”

Oregon already has a law just like this; it was passed by voters in 2004. It’s a total mess. Hopefully the voters of these other six states can learn from Oregon’s mistake.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

A Republican Voice of Reason

Jack Danforth is a former Republican Senator and a retired Episcopal minister. And he’s angry at his own party for allowing itself to be hijacked by the Religious Right.

He was appalled by the Terri Schiavo fiasco last year. “The idea that religious groups were having rallies and that the members of Congress were considering legislation and that the president was very much involved — I remember watching that and thinking, This is just wrong.”

He’s also written two opinion columns in the New York Times, blasting Republicans for making wedge issues out of gay marriage, stem cell research and public prayers. He says real faith is about searching for answers, not presuming to know them. He also says “an assumption that ... I am God’s chosen messenger to deliver a certain political message is divisive.”

What he said.

Let the Swiftboating begin.

Calling All Bush Drones

HELP WANTED! No Experience Necessary. Intelligence and Education — Not Relevant. Must have BLIND UNQUESTIONING LOYALTY to George W. Bush.

Right after the fall of Saddam Hussein — somewhere between Mission Accomplished and the showering of American troops with flowers and ice cream — the U.S. began recruiting people to help with Iraq’s reconstruction. All kinds of people were interested: people who were experts in their fields, were fluent in Arabic, or who just wanted some adventure.

Unfortunately, the empire-builders weren’t looking for expertise. The only trait they were interested in was rigid, unthinking dronelike loyalty to the neocon agenda.

Applicants were asked: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? How do you feel about Roe vs. Wade?

One person who answered these questions “correctly” was put in charge of reopening Baghdad’s stock market — even though this person had absolutely ZERO financial experience.

A woman with no accounting experience was hired to manage Iraq’s $13 billion economy. BUT, she was the daughter of a rightwing commentator and a recent graduate of an evangelical university for home-schooled children.

Needless to say, establishing a rightwing Republican agenda in Iraq was the top priority for these employees. Ending food rations, establishing a flat tax — these items were at the top of the list.

Also, a lot of these employees spent most of their time in a luxurious walled-off enclave in Baghdad with swimming pools and fully-stocked bars.

This transitional team had 1,500 employees who worked for America’s viceroy, L. Paul Bremer. One of their former high-level employees now says “We just didn’t tap the right people to do this job. It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings.”

Ah, hindsight.

Michael Powell — Sleazy C#&$!$#!ER!

Colin Powell is a great American. Unfortunately, his idiot bastard son Michael should be rendered to Uzbekistan for waterboarding, shock therapy and stress postures.

Colin’s Twisted Offspring left the FCC almost two years ago, but his trail of slime will be with us for a long time. When he was head of the FCC, Powell ordered a study to determine whether consolidating the media into fewer and fewer companies would have a detrimental effect on local news coverage.

Powell was hoping the study would confirm his pre-conceived idea that consolidated media ownership doesn't affect local news coverage. The study was done by two of the FCC’s own economists.

OOPS! Instead, they found that local ownership of TV stations adds five and a half minutes of total news coverage to a typical broadcast. Local news coverage is indeed jeopardized when the media is consolidated into fewer and fewer hands.

Powell’s response was straight out of the Bush/Cheney handbook: he suppressed the report and ordered all copies of it destroyed. Slippery Son of a Bitch.

The FCC is still planning to go ahead with their plan of having more news coverage being controlled by fewer and fewer CEOs. But they are accepting comments from the general public. (How big of them.)

If you’re against the idea of having even fewer people control what you see and hear, please click here and let the FCC know.

Torture Insurance

The insurance industry is gonna love CIA agents. In addition to car insurance, homeowners’ insurance, life and health insurance, they might also be buying — Torture Insurance?!?!?

More and more CIA agents are taking out policies to cover their legal expenses in case they get sued or prosecuted for human rights violations. They’re worried about not being represented by the Justice Department in case they get hauled into court. Talk about being caught in the middle.

With all the conflicting orders they’ve been getting, they’re bound to end up violating a law somewhere. “Geneva Convention!” “War On Tur!” “You don’t get valid information from someone who’s being tortured.” “Crank up the voltage!!”

A former CIA general counsel said “I’m deeply troubled that CIA officers have to buy insurance…There should be clear rules about what the officers can and can’t do. The fault here is with more senior people who authorized interrogation techniques that amount to torture” and should now be liable, instead of “the officers who carried it out.”

Bush is trying to get legislation passed that would exempt CIA agents from being sued or prosecuted for human rights violations, but passage isn’t likely.

For about $300 a year, an insurance policy would pay up to $200,000 in legal expenses and up to $1 million in civil judgments.

Knowing the insurance industry, there’ll be constant battles over what’s covered and what isn’t. “You tortured Habib on a Wednesday. Coverage is specifically excluded under Section J24iii.”

The Truth About 9/11

Thank God for ABC. They’ve finally broken away from those other liberal TV networks; they’ve dared to tell us The Truth About 9/11. For five years the leftwing media has kept Americans in the dark. But now we know:

The tragedy of September 11th was BILL CLINTON’S FAULT!!!

Entirely!

Clinton had dozens — hundreds — of chances to kill Osama bin Laden, but he just couldn’t be bothered. He was too busy cavorting with Monica Lewinsky, practicing witchcraft and plotting the murder of Vince Foster.

He gave away massive welfare payments to unwed mothers and crack whores. Sapped of our moral fiber and Puritan Work Ethic, our once-great nation was no longer able to defend itself. Damn You Bill Clinton!

Maybe ABC will start broadcasting more inside information like this.

Jerry Falwell has a documentary proving that crime and poverty are caused by Americans who don’t go to church. The pharmaceutical industry has a special report showing the hazards of using natural healing methods and herbal supplements.

These stories have been suppressed for years by the liberal media. ABC — we need you.

Gathering of the Faithful

If you think pagans, feminists and homosexuals are a threat to America’s moral fiber, mark your calendar for September 22nd through 24th. In Washington, D.C. there’ll be a gathering of decent Christians who feel exactly the way you do.

The Family Research Council, American Family Association and Mouthbreathers For Torquemada are sponsoring the Washington Briefing. Click here to register and to get information on all the fun-filled events. From the Pagan Toss to the Witches' Drowning Pool — there'll be good clean fun for the whole family.

As their website says: “This is more than a conference. It’s a call to ACTION!” You’ll get to hear — In Person! — such living legends as William “The Gambler” Bennett, Man Coulter, Sean “Dude Where’s My Forehead” Hannity, Newt Gingrich and Electrodes “Alberto” Gonzales.

Whooooeeeee!!!! Are you getting hot yet??

In addition to being mesmerized by such visionary speakers, you’ll also have a chance to sponsor a student activist for only $50! As the slogan on their website says: “To Prepare the Leaders of tomorrow, we must start training today.” Amen!

If you want to play a role in keeping America a Fundamentalist Christian nation, as God intended, you MUST attend this important event.

Bring your snakes.

Bush and Ahmadinejad: Two Peas in a Pod

We’ve all known two people who hate each other, and privately everyone talks about how much alike these two really are. Maybe this is the case with Bush and Iran’s President Ahmadinejad.

For one thing, they both want to give more and more power to crazed religious fanatics. The other day George W. Bush said “Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities.”

Oops, my bad. That wasn’t Bush; Ahmadinejad said that. It’s getting harder to tell the players without a program.

Bush, er, I mean Ahmadinejad complained that it was difficult to make changes in the country’s universities because their education system has been corrupted by secularism for the past 150 years. But he said that “such a change has begun.”

Ahmadinejad has already “retired” dozens of secular teachers and professors, and he’s replaced a lot of high ranking government officials with gung ho Christian Islamic warriors. He’s planning to revive the fundamentalist goals pursued by James Dobson and Pat Robertson Ayatollah Khomeini.

And there’s still more common ground between Bush and Ahmadinejad — Class Warfare. There are tens of millions of poor Iranians; they’re the backbone of Ahmadinejad’s support. But they’re becoming alienated.

“You haven’t lived ‘til you’ve driven a BMW 740...I’ve paid so many fines for speeding that the government should give me a medal!” Some Yuppiescum from LA, right? Nope, from Teheran.

Ahmadinejad came to power by promising to redistribute Iran’s oil wealth more fairly. He said he’d do this by “bringing the oil money to people’s tables.” Didn’t happen.

As this Newsweek article says, “Teheran is awash in money—an extra $25 billion last year alone. But ordinary Iranians are seeing little of it. Per capita incomes have failed to keep pace with rising living costs; rents are skyrocketing beyond people’s means to pay.”

Hold the phone! Biblethumping tax-cutting Republicans — you have a friend! George W. Bush, stop rattling those sabers. Ahmadinejad is your bud. You don’t hate him; you’re just green with envy.

Are Republicans “Protecting” Us?

Republicans will be playing the Fear Card (again) this November. With their piss-poor record of “protecting” us, this seems like a suicidal approach. It’s true that Karl Rove’s successful strategies are often counterintuitive (i.e. attacking your opponent’s strengths instead of his weaknesses), but it’s hard to imagine Rove’s tactics working again this year.

During the upcoming session of Congress, Republicans are planning to leave almost all of their legislative business unfinished. They will be devoting the entire session to spinning the security issue and “proving” to us that we need to re-elect them so they can keep on “protecting” us. A budget for 2007, immigration, lobbying reform — all of these issues are being left in limbo so the Republicans can prance around and show us how tough they are. OK, how have they protected us?

The September 11th attacks happened on the Republican watch. The person responsible for 9/11 is still at large five years later. In response to the 9/11 attacks (supposedly), we invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. This invasion has transformed Iraq from a brutal (but stable) dictatorship to a free-for-all killing field that’s claimed almost 3,000 American soldiers. We’ve created a record deficit that our great-grandchildren will be paying off. (Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?)

In the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy, we’ve transformed Iraq into the terrorist haven that Bush always claimed it was. Oh, and we’ve alienated practically every country in the world except Israel. And this is the “record” that the Republicans want to run on???

Somebody who’s been divorced twelve times probably wouldn’t make much of a marriage counselor. You wouldn’t take driving lessons from someone who’s had fifteen accidents and 37 traffic tickets. But this is what the Republicans are asking us to do.

They laid the groundwork for 9/11 by repeatedly ignoring intelligence warnings that this exact type of attack would be happening. They’ve been unable or unwilling to catch the mastermind of this attack. The Bush Administration’s international blunders and fuckups have created a better terrorist recruiting tool than al Qaeda could have ever dreamed of.

And now Republicans think we should keep them in office because of their stellar performance. They’re the only ones who can protect us against terror. ROFLMAO!

If a security guard allowed a record number of robberies and assaults to happen on his watch, you’d laugh in his face if he said “I’m the only one who can protect you against criminals.” These Republican fuckups need to be laughed at and voted out this November.

And now Rumsfeld and Cheney are calling opponents of the Iraqi invasion “terrorist sympathizers” and comparing them to Nazi appeasers. Yup, that’s how you win votes — tell two thirds of America’s voters what a bunch of weak-kneed pussies they are. Way to go.

Democrats need to face the terrorism and Iraqi quagmire issues head-on. It would be a fatal mistake (again) for them to just play up the social issues where they’re favored by voters and ignore Iraq, terrorism and our shattered international reputation. Democrats need to grab the fear/terrorism issue and run with it.

When the “Swiftboat Veterans” start cranking up the slime machine, when Republicans yell “cut and run” — we need to jump in there and take them on. We need to demonstrate to voters that five and a half years of Republican “protection” has been nothing more than a pitiful smoke and mirrors show.

As this Newsweek columnist said, we need to turn the Iraqi war into a referendum on the Bush Administration. If you think the Iraqi war is a success, vote Republican. If you think it’s a failure, vote Democratic.

Sounds like a clear choice.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Before FEMA and Brownie, There Was Chuck Quackenbush

If you aren’t from California, the name Chuck Quackenbush probably won’t ring a bell. If you lived in California during the 1990s that name will probably have you spewing out cusswords that would make a drill sergeant blush.

Quackenbush was the California Insurance Commissioner from 1994 until he fled with his tail between his legs in 2000. His response to the aftermath of a 1994 earthquake makes FEMA’s Katrina response look like an emergency landing by the United States Marines. If Brownie was “doing a heckuva job,” Quackenbush is Julius Caesar and Attila the Hun rolled into one.

After the 1994 earthquake in Northridge, CA, a lot of homeowners’ insurance claims were delayed or denied by their insurance companies. Insurance companies were facing a total of $3 billion in fines.

After several years of dithering, Quackenbush collected a total of several million dollars from insurance companies. In return for this HUGE reduction, insurance companies “donated” this money to several political foundations which were furthering Quackenbush’s career.

Quackenbush fled to Hawaii in 2000 and has pretty much stayed off the radar, until now. But like the proverbial bad penny, he’s turned up — in Florida.

He’s now a deputy sheriff in Lee County, FL. Those lucky people. California’s loss is Florida’s gain.

It's That Damn Liberal Media Again

If you still believe any of that rightwing garbage about the "liberal media,"
check this out. (This is from an excellent blog, by the way.)