Michele Bachmann: “My Headaches Are Much Better Now, Thanks to Socialized Medicine”

“I can think coherently, concentrate, focus — I’ve got it all. And I’m not hearing those voices any more. I mean, God still talks to me and tells me what to do, but other than that…”

And she’s as brave and unflappable as ever. When somebody dared her to poke herself in the eye, she said “Oh Yeah?!?!?!? Think I won’t?!?”

Michele Bachmann also contributed her expertise on the overlapping issues of agriculture and government subsidies: “What, you mean, somebody can be a Negro AND a farmer???”

And finally: Rick Perry is brushing up on his foreign policy expertise. He’s being schooled by Douglas Feith, one of Dumbya’s former henchmen. One of the architects of Iraqmire is going to be teaching foreign policy to Rick Perry.

What’s next — spelling lessons from Dan Quayle?

Conservatives: “We’ve Gotten It Wrong Every Time, But This Time We’re Right”

President Obama compared the approaching health care showdown to earlier battles, before Social Security and Medicare were enacted. He said:

“These retarded knuckledraggers who are shrieking against health care reform are the twisted offspring of the same redneck mouthbreathers who were shrieking against Social Security and Medicare.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

Last summer when Rep. Anthony Weiner proposed abolishing Medicare — to give those “Socialized Medicine!” screamers a chance to put their money where their mouths are — there were no takers. Gee, what happened?

Iraqmire is another example of this “I’m always wrong, but trust me anyway” Syndrome.

Oh, and speaking of Iraqmire — brief digression here — our Cakewalk is seven years old today.

Anyway, you remember 2002 and early 2003, when Bush-Cheney were busy manufacturing fear and paranoia and hysteria over Iraq. Weapons of Mass Destruction! Saddam Hussein is Worse Than Hitler! Saddam is a close ally of Osama bin Laden! Etc.

During this period of Operation Whip Up The Inbreds, expressing any disagreement or skepticism was Verboten! It was the verbal equivalent of burning the American Flag or taking a shit on the Bible.

Now, fast-forward seven years.

During a panel discussion yesterday, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R—Calif.) said he was in favor of the Iraqi invasion at the time, but in retrospect he thinks it was a mistake. Moderator Grover Norquist asked him how many Republicans in Congress agreed with him, that Iraqmire was a mistake.

Rohrabacher: "Well, now that we know that it cost a trillion dollars and all of these years and all of these lives and all of this blood, uh, I don’t know many…I, I can’t. All I can say is the people, everybody I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now.”

Norquist asked Tom McClintock (R—CA) the same question.

McClintock: “I think everyone would agree Iraq was a mistake.”

Norquist then asked Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R—TN) the same question. Duncan didn’t give any numbers but said Iraqmire is very unpopular in his conservative pro-military district.

Those traitors! What a bunch of flag-burning Jesus-hating terrorist sympathizers! I’ll bet they weren’t even born in this country. Where are their birth certificates?!?!?

Those Damn Stupid Iraqis!

Condoleezza Rice hit the nail on the head yesterday. It may not be “nice” or politically correct, but she said what needed to be said.

Why does Iraqmire keep getting worse and worse? It’s THEIR fault Goddammit! We did everything right. We brought freedom to those poor oppressed wretches, and how do they repay us? By sitting there festering in their own poverty and pestilence. Ever hear of bootstraps, you lazy bunch of primitive Ay-rabs?? And those hotheaded natives are still running around killing each other, even though we keep telling them to knock it off.

As we've all learned, everything bad that’s happened in America in the past seven years is Bill Clinton’s fault. And by the same token, our 5-year quagmire in Iraq is all Saddam Hussein’s fault. Condi Rice has revealed a shocking insight into the seamy depths of human nature. She said: “Authoritarian regimes are not going to create the condition for the emergence of moderate parties.”

GASP! And here we were all thinking that a dictator “worse than Adolph Hitler” was quietly laying the groundwork for an easy transition to democracy after his overthrow.

Damn You Saddam Hussein!

Another lame-ass excuse reason for our 5-year nightmare is those damn UN sanctions against Iraq. Whose wacky idea was that anyway?

Iraqmire: Five Glorious Years

Where did the time go? It’s been almost five years since we liberated the Iraqi people. And what a cakewalk it was. Our soldiers were greeted as liberators. They were showered with candy and ice cream by throngs of grateful Iraqis. Democracy and prosperity have been blossoming throughout the Middle East ever since then. And best of all, it didn’t cost us a cent. The entire operation was paid for by Iraqi oil revenues.

The scary part is, nearly 20 percent of Americans still believe the bullshit in the above paragraph. (That’s about the same as the percentage who believe the sun revolves around the Earth.) If you're not part of that knuckledragging 19%, please be aware of Winter Soldier: (H/T to KWW at The Dishpan Chronicles for posting about this.)

From March 13th through 16th, U.S. veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan will be testifying about what's really happening there. Please check this site for information, events, media outlets and a very grim video.

Groups taking part in Winter Soldier include: Iraq Veterans Against The War, Veterans For Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against The War, Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families Speak Out.

Again, everyone involved in this 4-day event is a veteran. Anyone who is still in favor of the madness in Iraq — you are hereby summoned.

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Iraqi War: What is it Good For?

Iraqmire — the gift that keeps on giving. Thanks to our soldiers’ long tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan — and too short a rest period between tours — America’s military readiness has been jeopardized. Our military forces are now less prepared to respond to a new crisis.

The Pentagon wants to improve this situation by forging new partnerships overseas. Aye, there's the rub. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is trying to persuade our European allies (if they can even still be called that) to help us in Afghanistan by sending some of their troops over there. And for some odd reason, they aren't too enthusiastic about that idea.

They’ve already seen what a total disaster Iraq has turned into, and now they won't touch us with a ten foot pole. Even if these European leaders are confusing the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars — as Gates says they are — our credibility is shot. Toast. Finito. Thank you Boozo the Clown.

Let's see, what other gifts has Iraqmire given us? Ah yes, the recession. Yup, the R word — nearly two thirds of us think we’re in one right now. And 68% think the surest way to fix the economy is to pull out of Iraq. (48% said pulling out of Iraq would help “a great deal,” and 20% said it would help “at least somewhat.”)

The idea that pulling out of Iraq, and plugging up that trillion dollar rupture in our treasury, would help the economy — this should fall under the “DUUUHHH” category. But surprisingly (or maybe it isn't surprising), most Republicans think that pulling out of Iraq would not help the economy.

[sigh] where to begin…

cross-posted at Bring It On!

Jimmy Carter Nails the Bush Administration

Jimmy Carter enraged the knuckledragging community yesterday by criticizing Bush, his puppetmaster and Iraqmire. He only said what seventy percent of the country is already thinking.

Regarding Dick Cheney, he said: “He's a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world…You know he's been a disaster for our country. I think he's been overly persuasive on President George Bush, and quite often he's prevailed.”

He also said the U.S. tortures prisoners in violation of International Law and that Bush makes up his own definition of torture.

Carter himself was an inept president, but compared to the imbecile currently blighting the White House…

Iraqmire, South Africa and America

The United States isn't the only country having the life sucked out of it by Iraqmire. The same thing is happening in South Africa.

Thousands of white soldiers and police officers — most of them are veterans of the disgraced apartheid regime — have left their jobs and families to work as contractors in Iraq. This is causing a lot of tension and controversy in South Africa; much more so than in the United States.

South Africa is still recovering from the infamy of being one of the world’s worst police states not too long ago. They're trying to live down that image. Compare that to the U.S., which seems to get off on being the global tough guy. While the American Powers That Be are doting and swooning over Blackwater, South Africa has a different reaction.

Their current government has drafted a law that would criminalize all South African citizens who are working as contractors in Iraq. Maybe we could learn something from them.

(Yes I know Condoleezza Rice has issued an order cracking down on Blackwater. Those orders can be rescinded just as quickly as they were issued. We'll see how long this "order" lasts when the cameras have gone.)

The internal tension and embarrassment aren't South Africa's only problems. South Africa’s security is in jeopardy. Local police departments have been drained by the mass exodus of officers fleeing to Iraq for more money (up to ten times what they were making in South Africa). And most of the country’s special forces trainers are now on the U.S. payroll in Iraq.

The country is being bled dry by the War in Iraq. Sound familiar?

Gorbachev Bitch-Slaps Bush

Things have come full circle. The Red Menace that we were afraid would “bury us” — the Evil Empire — is now warning the President of the United States about his dangerous and reckless behavior.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989, accused Bush of “sowing disorder across the world by seeking to build an empire.”

He said that after the Cold War ended, “The Americans then gave birth to the idea of a new empire, world leadership by a single power, and what followed? What has followed are unilateral actions, what has followed are wars, what has followed is ignoring the U.N. Security Council, ignoring international law and ignoring the will of the people, even the American people.”

He continued: “When I look at today’s world I have a worrying feeling about the growth of world disorder. I don’t think the current President of the United States and his administration will be able to change the situation as it is developing now — it is very dangerous…It is a massive strategic mistake: no single center can command the entire world, no one.”

Gorbachev knows first hand what he's talking about. When the Soviet Union collapsed on his watch, the Soviet military was hopelessly quagmired in Afghanistan, which was supposed to be a “slam dunk” nine years earlier. The war in Afghanistan, together with the out-of-control military spending which pushed the Soviet government into bankruptcy, was the death knell for the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, Iraqmire, together with America’s trillion dollar deficit — oops, don’t even go there…

Democrats: A Solution to Iraqmire

This article seems like a no-brainer — something from the cover of DUUUHHH!!! Magazine. It’s supposed to be a way for Democrats to take a firm stand on Iraq without looking like wimps or isolationists. The author — Jonathan Alter — thinks they need a new slogan: “Pull and Strike.”

ZING!! Doesn’t that get the adrenaline pumping. OK, so it’s a lame slogan. But the idea behind it makes perfect sense. It’s so basic a 5-year-old could’ve thought of it. “Pull” means pulling our troops out of Iraq. “Strike” means striking at Islamic terrorist groups wherever we find them.

Isn't this what we should've done right after 9/11?? Anybody??? Nobody ever thought our new president was the brightest porchlight on the block. But we never imagined that his solution to the 9/11 terrorist attacks would be to invade a country which had nothing to do with 9/11 and get us embroiled in a 4-½ year quagmire there, and end up squandering tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

According to Alter, a lot of Islamic terrorist groups are hiding in countries that don’t want them there, and these governments would welcome American airstrikes that zero in on the terrorists’ hiding places. The U.S. will have to strengthen its intelligence agencies for this method to work, and the intelligence will have to be accurate. No more cherry-picking, “fixed” intelligence or useless gossip (“the British government has learned…”).

Again, isn't this what we all thought Bush would be doing right after 9/11/01? What happened?

They're All Ganging Up on the Worst President Ever

The word is spreading. George W. Bush is the worst fuckup in American history. Period. Jimmy Carter got lots of publicity the other day for calling the Bush Administration “the worst in history.” He said “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of America’s basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me.”

He also condemned Bush’s faith-based initiatives. “The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. As a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one.”

Regarding Iraqmire, Carter said “We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered. But that’s been a radical departure from all previous administration policies.”

Some of our allies aren't quite as kind and gentle as Carter was. On the 4-year anniversary of Mission Accomplished Day, the Edmonton Sun slammed Bush’s ridiculous “Mission Accomplished” flightsuit stunt:

“Four years later, more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers are dead, and some 24,000 wounded. Bush administration claims that Iraq harboured weapons of mass destruction have been revealed as outright lies, swallowed unquestioningly by the media. The war costs U.S. taxpayers $200 million a day and $1 trillion so far. And terrorism, in Iraq and around the world, is fueled like never before by propaganda and the impression Americans are occupiers not liberators, bullies not saviours.”

In Argentina a newspaper editorial said:

“Bush is the only U.S. commander-in-chief to have initiated one war, only to have lost three. He never managed to catch bin Laden nor destroy al-Qaeda; he failed to defeat terrorism; he wasted the political capital awarded him by September 11th; and public opinion has come to detest him. The nation, once indulgent of his lies — lethal lies for over 3,000 of its own sons and daughters — no longer believes him. No U.S. President has ever harmed his country as much.”

And that’s not all. In Pakistan, the PakTribune said:

“Thanks to the murderous fools in the current US administration, civil life in Iraq, now at the 'point of no return,' is teetering at the edge of total anarchy. As an accompanying fallout, along with an estimated million dead Iraqis, a morally, financially and diplomatically bankrupt America, the inept charlatans have also successfully managed to thoroughly radicalize the whole region. From Sudan to Pakistan and beyond, the ranks of America haters now stand swollen like never before. The recruiters for suicide brigades now drool non-stop with glee at the long cues of raging applicants outside their murky caves.”

Ouch! And these are our allies (a category which has been steadily shrinking). God knows what the people who hate us must be thinking.

Jimmy Carter, when he was condemning Bush, also slammed Tony Blair for being one of Bush’s skankiest bitches. He said “And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world.”

Blair might have a chance to redeem his skanky reputation. There's a chance he’ll replace Wolfowitz at the World Bank. This could be a new beginning for him.

Yo, Tony: If George W. Bush approaches you again, tighten your sphincter muscles.

John McCain: “We’re Making Progress In Iraq”

Listen up all you doom and gloom Liberals: John McCain says we’re starting to turn things around in Iraq. You got that?? So quit your whining and hand-wringing and start supporting our troops.

OK, so this invasion was supposed to be a cakewalk and it turned out to be a 4-year quagmire that’s killed over 3,000 American soldiers and drained almost a trillion dollars from our treasury. Get over it. Let’s stay over there until we win. There's light at the end of the tunnel. The insurgency is on its last legs.

And if you don’t agree with McCain’s cheerful optimism, it means you don’t support our troops and you want the terrorists to win.

Earth to Republicans: You Lost

We've all seen articles saying that clueless people have no idea that they're clueless. The person who makes the most Godawful chili in the free world always says “oh, the so-and-so’s are coming over; I’ll make my chili.” Etc. Sometimes it seems that Republicans are unaware that they lost the election last November. Consequently they're continuing the same behavior that caused the public to fire them three months ago.

The House has finally had a chance to vote on the nonbinding resolution against an Iraqi “surge.” The resolution passed, 246 to 182. But Republican “leaders” were continually squelching the possibility of even voting on it. What are they afraid of? Iraqmire is probably the biggest single cause of the Republicans’ defeat. And yet they tried to suppress a nonbinding vote on whether to keep on digging deeper into the hole we’re stuck in. Helllooo!!!

Grand Inquisitor Attorney General Torquemada “Alberto” Gonzales has been infuriating the public for years with one power grab after another. Congress has finally attempted to deal with his latest gimmick — firing federal prosecutors for no reason and replacing them with people whose politics he likes better. Diane Feinstein introduced a bill to counter this latest power grab by Gonzales, and Republicans have blocked the bill. What are they thinking?

Last Fall’s election should've been a wake-up call for the American Taliban (Religious Right, Biblehumpers, whatever you want to call them). The vote was an obvious sign that the public DOES NOT want to turn the clock back to the 4th century. The idea that human life is sacred up to the moment of birth (but not beyond); that there's a “homosexual agenda” which threatens to bring America to its knees; that a 2-year-old child could turn gay from watching the Teletubbies on TV — the public trounced those wackoid/sicko ideas last November. This should've been obvious to everyone.

But NOOOOO!!! Apparently, any Republican presidential contender who wants even a prayer of getting the nomination, must get in bed — get down, get funky, get kinky — with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson. And they’ll be put through their paces. If they can do the smarmy kiss-ass politician’s equivalent of picking up a quarter with their ***BLEEP — this phrase has been censored in case any women or children are reading *** then maybe, just maybe, the Grand Poobah will consider them. But first they’ll have to dance. And squirm. And twist. And ***BLEEP*********

Sorry, but the American Taliban’s stranglehold on the political landscape ain't quite what it used to be. John Q. Public understands this (Hell, s/he was shouting it from the rooftops last November), but apparently some Republican White House contenders don’t get it yet. Any Republican with presidential ambitions who thinks he can go down on Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and Pat Robertson and then get right back out on the campaign trail and say “Hi, I’m a moderate Republican” — two words. Clueless. Unelected.

Republicans must secretly enjoy being the minority party. Because at the rate they're going, they're gonna stay that way for a looong time.