The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a virulent new strain of sexually transmitted disease. The disease is contracted through dangerous and high-risk behavior.

The disease is called Gonorrhea Lecthim and is pronounced "gonna re-elect them...."

Many victims contracted it in 2004, after having been screwed for four years. Cognitive characteristics of individuals infected include:
antisocial personality disorders, delusions of grandeur with messianic overtones, extreme cognitive dissonance, inability to incorporate new information, pronounced xenophobia and paranoia, inability to accept responsibility for one's own actions, cowardice masked by misplaced
bravado, uncontrolled facial smirking, ignorance of geography and history, tendencies towards evangelical theocracy, and categorical all-or-nothing behavior....

This destructive disease originated only a few years ago from a bush found in Texas .

There's lots of video clip traffic here and there, showing various progressive TV ads. Ned Lamont has a corker.

http://interestingtimes.blogspot.com/2006/10/insanity.html

Best. ad. evah.

Stephen Hadley, Mr Bu$h's National Security Adviser, slid into Baghdad yesterday on a (naturally) unannounced trip to try to work out some magic plan for the US to hold onto its only overseas tributary. The fact that no Bu$hCo official goes to Baghdad other than on an unannounced trip gives a good indication that they don’t believe their own lies propaganda optimistic forecasts of how well things are going in Iraq.

All Bu$hCo nomenklatura fly into Baghdad, of course, since it is entirely too dangerous to drive in from Kuwait. All supplies are trucked in that way, and a recent videotape supplied by Ansar al-Sunnah indicates they understand just exactly how vulnerable the US troops in Iraq are. The tape describes the road convoy routes as “The Sword that Cuts the Arteries of the Infidels."

The video bears a resemblance to another of the group’s past releases, “Path of Glory ,” in which two men identified as Husam al-Shamri and Mohammed Abu Hajer, a member of Ansar al-Sunnah’s military office, sit and discuss the attacks which unfold and provide clarification for the group’s purpose in these actions. Abu Hajer explains that the supply lines of the enemies are like the beating heart in the body, and the enemy cannot function without supplies. To cut off the supplies then, is like “stopping the heart beat of the enemy”.

Footage from operations conducted within the Northern, Southern, Western, and Eastern regions are shown and described by Mohammed Abu Hajer, captions under each clip providing a description of the individual attacks. He explains that due to the isolated terrain of the western region there is very little influence from the Iraqi government and Shi’ite forces. However, this area and the Eastern region are where the Mujahideen show the captured drivers and alleged members of Jeish al-Mahdi they capture and execute."

According to the NY Times:

Though American officials would describe Mr. Hadley’s talks only in the vaguest of terms, one option widely discussed in Washington and Baghdad in the days before his arrival, according to American and Iraqi officials, is a substantial increase in the number of American and Iraqi troops patrolling Baghdad. It would signal yet another effort to reassert control over the Iraqi capital, which officials in both governments said remains their top priority.

If you can’t even control the capital city of your overseas empire, you don’t have an overseas empire.

The worsening security situation in Baghdad is a good indicator that the occupation, like every other George Bush venture in the last 30 years has been a miserable failure. Every morning reveals piles of bodies that have been tortured and executed, usually by a quick round in the back of the head (“gangland fashion”, as our inept, bought-and-paid-for media keeps describing the state of the victims.) The fact remains that multiple Iraqi and US checkpoints have failed to stem the growing slaughter. Sunni and Shiite gunmen roam freely through the night, dragging victims from their homes, and doing their work. During the daytime, the gunmen seem to roam freely while disguised as Iraqi national police or soldiers. People are abducted wholesale from buses, shops, business places and executed.

Considering the recent news from Iraq it is obvious there aren’t enough US troops in Baghdad to maintain security. CENTCOM had become a bit coy about just how many troops are currently in the Baghdad area, but knowledgeable experts have tendered estimates from “12,000” to “a whole bunch.” The most knowledgeable experts, however, say there are not nearly enough.

We briefly discussed this option, facetiously suggesting the logical solution:

Here’s an idea: Lets’ move all the US forces into Baghdad. Then we’ll have 140,000 US troops and 12,000 Iraqi Army and 17,000 Iraqi national police there.

Maybe that will work. If nothing else, it will put all the troops closer to the Baghdad International Airport, to make it easy to evacuate them.

The NY Times article about Mr Hadley’s surreptitious visit speculates that reasons for the trip include:

…[P]roposals now being discussed inside and outside the two governments range from how to permit greater autonomy for Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish sections of the country without splitting the country apart; how to share oil revenues among Iraq’s population; and an amnesty for those who attacked Iraqi or American troops.

The ideal solution for Bu$hCo and Israel, its only real ally in the Middle East, would be a formalized dissolution of Iraq, creating three autonomous regions loosely linked in some form of federalized entity vaguely resembling the CIS, which was the successor to the USSR. This is one of the major goals of the Yonin Strategy.

Oil revenues, of course, are not going to be shared with Iraq. This has been formalized by Executive Order 13303, issued on May 22nd, 2003. It declares the oil, its revenues, proceeds, etc are the property of US oil companies. If it is absolutely necessary to allow Iraq a few crumbs from the feast table, that might be grudgingly given, with the usual fraudulent accounting so well associated with US oil companies.

An amnesty for Iraqi nationals is a serious sticking point. While certainly all the members of the central government and Parliament believe this is necessary for some sort of domestic calm, that would be a hard item to sell inside the US. US troops will have to stay there for many years. Some say five more years, some say ten. We say US troops will have to stay there until all the oil has been taken. Whatever troops are kept there will certainly have excellent morale, knowing that the Iraqi resisters killing them off will have an amnesty in this life, as well as a favored place in Paradise when they die.

Words can be hammers, or swords, beating and slashing through walls of ignorance and lawlessness. Two examples might be our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Yet, words have meanings, and shadings, and can be interpreted differently, and thus can be as light as a feather, as momentary as a cloud’s shadow. An example of such might be a comical “get well” card from a co-worker.

Because words are also fragile things, even though they leave indelible footsteps, the Department of Defense has taken the extraordinary step of establishing a website to explain away all those inconvenient inconsistencies between what they say, and as everyone knows, the facts have a liberal bias.

One could also say that what they’re doing is explaining why what you heard them say is not what they meant. Because our Defense Department is a one-man franchise, like Bu$hCo itself, we find the 21st century equivalent of the Red Guards of the 1960s, little red book raised high, chanting in unison as they parrot the opinions of Chairman Rumsfeld.

Isn’t it interesting that Bu$hCo is a cult of the personality, like dictatorships of the past?

Case in point: this story.

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday that anyone demanding deadlines for progress in Iraq should "just back off," because it is too difficult to predict when Iraqis will resume control of their country.

The DoD website carefully explains that the AP is wrong and Secretary Rumsfeld never said that, as can be plainly seen by reading the transcript of the press conference from which the AP erroneously created this false quote. While addressing a question about how the “benchmark” system of transferring control of the country to the Iraqi central government, Secretary Rumsfeld said.

You could sit down today and take the remaining 16 provinces in the country and say, well, when -- today, when do we -- the U.S. and the Iraqis -- government -- think that this province might move over to the governance of the Iraqis instead of the multinational force? What about this province and that province? And you could lay out and say, well, in this quarter or this two- or three-month period that might -- we might be able to do that, and lay it out. And as I've said before, in some cases you may beat it; you may do it faster than that. In some cases you may do it later than that. In some cases you may do it exactly when you thought and then find it didn't work out, and then you'd have to go back in, take it back, fix it, and then give it back again.

Now, you're looking for some sort of a guillotine to come flowing down if some date isn't met. That is not what this is about. This is complicated stuff. It's difficult. We're looking out into the future. No one can predict the future with absolute certainty.

So you ought to just back off, [em added] take a look at it, relax, understand that it's complicated, it's difficult, that honorable people are working on these things together; there isn't any daylight between them. They will be discussing this and discussing that; they may have a change here or a change there, but it will get worked out. And the value of it, in my view, is that you are, in effect, establishing priorities. You're saying, among the coalition and the Iraqi government, that the goal is to kind of get from where we are to there, and "there" is having the Iraqis govern their country and provide for their own security. And the way to get there is in steps. And we've already passed over two provinces to the Iraqis, and we've already passed over some divisions to the Iraqi military chain of command.

Hopefully, this clears up any confusion you readers might have had about the AP and its erroneous quote of Secretary Rumsfeld.

In an editorial on October 24th, the NY Times wrote:

There have never been enough troops, the result of Mr. Rumsfeld’s negligent decision to use Iraq as a proving ground for his pet military theories, rather than listen to his generals. And since the Army and Marines are already strained to the breaking point, the only hope of restoring even limited sanity to Baghdad would require the transfer of thousands of American troops to the capital from elsewhere in the country. That likely means moving personnel out of the Sunni-dominated west, and more mayhem in a place like Anbar.

Mr Rumsfeld’s personal website for correcting the record wrote to the Times on the same day, (New York Times Involved in Mythmaking) indicating that serving generals, still on active duty and still in uniform, have said that Mr Rumsfeld has given them all the troops they need. The letter offered the Times the chance to correct its editorial. (The letter made no commentary about general officers no longer on active duty, and thus no longer under Mr Rumsfeld's command, who have stridently criticized the handling of the conquest and occupation of Iraq.)

These statements are not new, nor difficult to find in public sources. So the implication is that either the New York Times believes these generals are not being truthful, or that they are too intimidated to tell the truth. If the Times feels this way, way not say so? For our part, we vigorously dispute either assertion about these distinguished military leaders.

The Times claims to correct “all errors of fact.” Please correct this at once or provide us with demonstrable facts that support your assertion.

As noted on the official Rumsfeld correction webpage, “The New York Times has declined the Pentagon’s request to correct its editorial.”

There are other examples, and one could spend hours searching the website to learn just how often our media, and reality, have conspired to confound Mr Rumsfeld’s view of the world.

Saddam trial verdict may be delayed again

Breitbart News is reporting that the verdict in Saddam Hussein’s trial, which was scheduled to be delivered on November 5th – just before the mid-term elections – may be delayed.

The chief prosecutor at the court trying ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity has said that the verdict, due in seven days, could be delayed again by up to two weeks.

Two weeks ago the Iraqi High Tribunal delayed the judgement in the trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite villagers from the village of Dujail until at least November 5.

But chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi told AFP: "There are checks which still have to be completed.

"If the judicial body overseeing these checks has not finished by November 5, I expect the court to delay its next hearing by one or two weeks before announcing the verdict," he added on Sunday.

US officials close to the court have said the Iraqi panel of judges is working carefully on a lengthy judgement against Saddam designed to withstand both an expected appeal and the scrutiny of international legal experts.

A high Bu$h maladministration stated, on conditions of anonymity because he has a wife and children, that reports of Mr Bu$h falling on the floor and chewing a carpet in rage are “exaggerated.”

There have been suggestions that Prime Minster Maliki was threatened asked in his videoconference with Mr Bu$h to keep to the schedule that was dictated.

Andrew Sullivan rarely has anything useful to add to the public discourse. We’re eagerly awaiting his swan song article, when he announces that he is retiring from public writing, and we would happily chip in with a modest honorarium to hurry along that day.

But he has an article in today’s Times – no, not that one, the good one in the UK, and it’s the usual collection of faulty logic, poor grammar and spelling, misplaced assumptions, unfortunate metaphors, and ridiculous observations as he tries to explain “the colonies” to his countrymen. Normally we wouldn’t bother, but the title just struck us as somehow….. appropriate.

The backwoods folk are beginning to doubt Bush

On the eve of an election it is the usually disciplined, on-message, obedient Republican party that is at war with itself.

The polls don’t help. They suggest an imminent drubbing, and the newspapers and blogosphere have been full of what are termed “pre-mortems” or “precriminations”[sic]. When a ship looks like it’s sinking, it gets harder to enforce discipline. But the Republicans are coming to terms with the fact that their very success in expanding their party over the past two decades, compounded by the pressure of what appears an all but lost Iraq war, has led to fractures they can no longer paper over.

I’ve been traveling [sic] across America these past two weeks to battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as Illinois, Wisconsin and California. The anger at Congress is palpable. But what’s most striking is where it’s coming from: not so much from Democrats as from restless conservatives and Republicans.

We’re surprised Andrew hasn’t discussed the R’s big problem – hypocrisy about crime, laws, and teh gay thing. But still, we are happy that he’s finally gotten out of the elite, latte-sipping, Volvo-driving Eastern enclaves he normally inhabits.

We suppose he’s unknown in the “backwoods” where they would surely have ridden him out of town on a rail if they had recognized him.

Most critically, it is the rural heartland that is beginning to question Bush and the war. First, they trusted him as a man of God. Then they blamed the media for distorting reality in Iraq. Then their patriotism kicked in as the president urged them to “stay the course”. But now this segment of the population, people who have disproportionately sent their sons and daughters to fight in the bloodsoaked streets of Ramadi and Falluja and Baghdad, show signs of revolt. If Bush loses these voters — or if they are too demoralised to vote at all — the omens are truly dark for the Republicans.

The party’s strategy, after all, has long been not to persuade moderate, suburban America, but to register, organise and mobilise millions of rural evangelical voters who had not voted in large numbers since the 1920s.

Issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage brought these voters to the polls and made the difference. Without them in Ohio in 2004, John Kerry would now be president. The Republicans also gerrymandered their constituencies to ensure these voters were spread around enough to provide narrow margins of victories across the country. The victories were always close ones, nonetheless.

Andrew’s right about the evangelicals, of course, but quite wrong about Ohio, 2004. The Republican win there was due to having Ken Blackwell as Secretary of State. It’s true – you could look it up.

There’s much more, and we would encourage you to read the entire article. It’s surely one Andrew could have written from the front porch of his “cottage” in Provincetown, and saved himself the trip. If nothing else, Andrew is master of the obvious.

These three stories are related, somehow, but we can’t quite get the point.

Breast milk boosts mental health in kids n babies

A new study has found that babies that are breastfed for longer than six months have significantly better mental health in childhood. The findings are based on data from the ground-breaking Raine Study at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, that has tracked the growth and development of more than 2500 West Australian children over the past 16 years.

NYC mothers protest a security guard's action to discourage public breastfeeding

With posters saying “Breast milk is love, life, lunch” and “Wall Street Needs Some Mama Love” attached to the back of their strollers, a group of about 30 mothers staged a “nurse-in” at the Winter Garden on Thursday, July 21.

The protest, led by the Tribeca Mommies and the Hudson River Park Mamas was organized after Leandra McCormick, 26, was told by a security guard employed by Brookfield Properties to cover up or move to a more secluded area of the mall if she wanted to continue nursing indoors.

“She came over to me and said, ‘Don’t get mad but you have to cover up because people might get offended,’” said McCormick who had gone into the Winter Garden on July 6 to feed her 7-month-old daughter, Leandra McCormick III. “It was 90 degrees outside and I was afraid [my daughter] was going to get dehydrated,” said McCormick. “So I went inside where it was nice and cool.”

Slightly embarrassed but mostly insulted, McCormick who was accompanied by three other women and their infant children, asked to speak to the mall manager. She was directed to the security manager instead. “No one could tell us the mall’s policy,” said McCormick, “they just told me I couldn’t go exposing myself like that.”

Eventually McCormick and her friends left the Winter Garden and continued to nurse on a bench outside.

Women protest breastfeeding rights

A Grand Rapids woman says she was told to stop breastfeeding her baby at the Kent County Clerk's Office. That sparked a protest by other mothers.

It's a movement of sorts. Calling themselves "Lactivists", local moms spent their lunch hour Thursday breastfeeding on Calder Plaza in downtown Grand Rapids. "We want to make it public. We want people to know it's okay to nurse in public," said nursing mother Julie Nietling.

This "nurse-in" was prompted by a situation Nietling says was inexcusable. Jennifer Seif was at the Kent County Clerk's Office applying for her baby's birth certificate when she began breastfeeding. Seif says County Clerk Mary Hollinrake asked her to cover up or leave.

"Nobody has the right to tell me how I can feed my baby and when he's hungry. I have to feed him," Seif told 24 Hour News 8.

Deputy Clerk Sonya Dean says Hollinrake received two complaints from other customers who were offended because Seif's breast was fully exposed.

Apparently it has something to do with babies, we suppose. It appears babies are only allowed in public in western Australia. Maybe it’s some sort of strange religious cult thing, or possibly American children are just supposed to be stupider than in other countries?

Mr Bu$h had a videoconference yesterday with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. During the conference they discussed the growing rift between Bu$hCo and the Iraqis who seem to be developing a growing sense that they’re actually a free and independent country.

BAGHDAD, Oct. 28 — President Bush stepped into an increasingly fractious relationship with the Iraqi government in a videoconference with Baghdad on Saturday after days of angry comments by Iraqi leaders about what they see as American meddling.

The 50-minute conference between Mr. Bush and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki took place after an acrimonious conversation late Friday between Mr. Maliki and the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. According to an aide to Mr. Maliki, the Iraqi leader said that he was “a friend of the United States, but not America’s man in Iraq.”

That should be self-evident. Ambassador Khalilzad is our man in Iraq. After all, Prime Minister Maliki doesn’t get his instructions from himself. (As far as we know he has not been seen in public talking to himself, so he must be getting his instructions from Khalilzad.)

In the videoconference, Mr. Maliki, sitting beside Mr. Khalilzad in the Green Zone, opened with praise for Mr. Bush, according to Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. “History will record that because of your efforts Iraq is a free country,” Mr. Maliki said, echoing a statement he made on his trip to Washington three months ago, according to Mr. Snow, who sat in on the session.

According to a high Bu$h malAdministration source who begged to remain unnamed because he had a wife and children this greeting of praise took up the first 45 minutes of the 50 minute videoconference. It has been reliably reported that such preambles are now mandatory in any face-to-face meeting with Mr Bu$h.

Mr. Snow said that Mr. Maliki made “no demands, and it was a very cordial discussion.” But the prime minister, he said, made clear that he wanted to move quickly toward “an Iraqi assumption of command and control” over forces operating in Baghdad and elsewhere.

A Maliki spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, said the prime minister had said the Iraqi government wanted more control over its army, which operates under Americans.

The Arabs, Iraqis included, are a very polite race when engaged in discussions. It is customary to proceed slowly, and to approach topics of interest in politely couched terms, often using “veils” when discussing a topic. The same unnamed official quoted above said this request meant, “When the fuck are you infidel bastards going to leave us alone?”

IN a possibly related developent, CNN is reporting that,

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Gunmen fired on Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's convoy, wounding one guard, in one of the capital's southern suburbs Sunday, an Iraqi government spokesman said.

Al-Maliki was not present in the convoy, however, which was traveling in Baghdad's Rasheed district, the spokesman said.

After the incident the U.S. military and Iraqi forces conducted a search for those responsible.

The attacks comes a day after al-Maliki told U.S. President George W. Bush that he answers first to the Iraqi government and people, according to an Iraqi official.

A-Hah! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

In today’s Times:

The federal government is investigating the takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company that has been linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chávez.

The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, the Smartmatic Corporation, and is trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s operations, government officials and others familiar with the investigation said.

The inquiry on the eve of the midterm elections is being conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, the same panel of 12 government agencies that reviewed the abortive attempt by a company in Dubai to take over operations at six American ports earlier this year.

The committee’s formal inquiry into Smartmatic and its subsidiary, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif., was first reported Saturday in The Miami Herald.

Because while Bu$hCo saw no problem in our ports being operated by the country that financed the 9/11 attack, having our elections possibly overseen by a man who was democratically elected would be great danger.

The NY Times is reporting this morning on a very troubling situation.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — Frustrated with laws and regulations that have made companies and accounting firms more open to lawsuits from investors and the government, corporate America — with the encouragement of the Bush administration — is preparing to fight back.

Now that corruption cases like Enron and WorldCom are falling out of the news, two influential industry groups with close ties to administration officials are hoping to swing the regulatory pendulum in the opposite direction. The groups are drafting proposals to provide broad new protections to corporations and accounting firms from criminal cases brought by federal and state prosecutors as well as a stronger shield against civil lawsuits from investors.

Although the details are still being worked out, the groups’ proposals aim to limit the liability of accounting firms for the work they do on behalf of clients, to force prosecutors to target individual wrongdoers rather than entire companies, and to scale back shareholder lawsuits.

That all seems sensible, doesn’t it? Why should accountants be held accountable for the quality of their work? Isn’t it unfair to penalize accounting firms when they lie and obfuscate on their quarterly and annual reports for corporations? Where’s the problem as long as the corporations continue to provide a report with a healthy bottom line, because that’s what inspires confidence in institutional investors, which are what really drive our go-go, hyperized stock market these days.

And why should a CEO, President, or Board of Directors be held accountable for evil or crimes committed in their names? Is it really their fault if a few bad apples misinterpret their continuing demands for greater profits each quarter? After all, no one is holding Mr Bu$h or our Congress accountable for doing that exact same thing.

The point is that American law views a corporation as an “individual” – a legal entity so as to allow it to own property, ensure its continued existence after the death of the founder, and to provide for distributed ownership. (That last item would be those three shares of Amalgamated Buggy Whip your Aunt Mae left you in her will.)

As for scaling back shareholder lawsuits, well, that’s a given. What is the point of allowing the little people to tell you how to run a business?

To alleviate concerns that the new Congress may not adopt the proposals — regardless of which party holds power in the legislative branch next year — many are being tailored so that they could be adopted through rulemaking by the S.E.C. and enforcement policy changes at the Justice Department. [ed: stealth legislation]

The proposals will begin to be laid out in public shortly after Election Day, members of the groups said in recent interviews. One of the committees was formed by the United States Chamber of Commerce and until recently was headed by Robert K. Steel.

Mr. Steel was sworn in last Friday as the new Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance, and he is the senior official in the department who will be formulating the Treasury’s views on the issues being studied by the two groups [emph added].

Thanks heavens this isn’t being left in the hands of “activist judges.”

About a month ago we published this piece:

*******************
Many thanks to Cookie Jill from Skippy’s (y/sctp) bit of the outback for this:

if waterboarding isn't torture... according to the wall street journal and bushco, why then was waterboarding one of the "tortures" cited in convicting the japanese for war crimes committed during ww2?

so...is waterboarding torture?

interestingly, the united states has long since answered that question. following the end of the second world war we prosecuted a number of japanese military and civilian officials for war crimes. including the torture of captured allied personnel. at one of those trials, united states v. sawada, here’s how captain chase nielsen, a crew member in the 1942 doolittle raid on japan, described his treatment, when he was captured,

It’s worth reading the rest.

We suppose if you’re a Republican legal precedent only counts when you want it to.

***************************

We received a reply to this article today, from a poster who bills himself as
“wondering why u people are in America” and emailed in from Fayetteville Technical Community College, in North Carolina, apparently through a Yahoo email account claimed by “Captain America.”

It’s a thought-provoking comment, and we include it here, in its own separate post, because it raises issues that deserve to be examined in full, and not merely as a month-old postscript to an article.

You people that don't agree with the way we are getting information out of the people that killed over 3000 Americans at one time , need to go tell this crap to the kids of the men and women that burnt or jumped or were just left at the top of a tower to die that this is not right and i don't know you think being 100 floors up in the air and a plane with 300 passengers on it flew into the building you are in and it is just a matter of time before you die and never see your family again i thinkl thats a little like torture too dont you. Now take all this crap and stick it were the sun ain't jack____!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The above was carefully cut and pasted from the original comment posted on this site.

We’re a bit at a loss as to how to respond. Yes, it’s shameful and true, we’re caught short on wordage. We bet Sister Mary Ignatius is spinning like a chicken on a spit right about now.

TORRINGTON -- Charles Gardner was on the front steps of his home Wednesday when he handed over his entire Social Security check to George W. Bush, or at least someone who looked and sounded a little like the president.

But police here say Gardner's election season contribution didn't go to a politician trying to stuff his party's coffers, but to a gun-wielding man wearing a rubber Halloween mask resembling the two-term Republican from Texas.

Gardner said his weekly routine went haywire just after 11 a.m. as he unlocked the front door of his 767 Migeon Ave. apartment. That's when the man pushed a gun barrel against his temple and demanded money -- or else.

Gardner, 39, said he began collecting Social Security benefits four years ago when doctors told him his kidneys were failing. He was at the hospital early Wednesday for dialysis treatment, then made a trip to the bank to cash his $1,000 check

I have no comment, does anyone else?

Thanks to the Uberblonde for the tip.

Here’s another quick example of why the wingers are out of step, as shown by the NRO cornerites. John Derbyshire, surely one of the more gullible poster children over there glories in the fiction that a man who can’t parse a simple sentence is a voracious reader:

Asked by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week programme on Sunday what was the last book he read, President Bush answered: "I'm reading A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900. It's a great book." He went on to say that he was taking from it the importance of taking the long historical view.

Now who really believes George Bu$h can read any book in under a week? That notwithstanding, it doesn’t seem likely that a man who has no regard for history would read something of that sort. This is from an ABC (Australia) interview with Bon Woodward after the publication of his third book on Bu$h Denial. You know, the one where he tells the truth.)

KERRY O'BRIEN: You've reported on seven presidents, starting from Richard Nixon. How do you think history will judge George W Bush?

BOB WOODWARD: Obviously, I don't know. When I interviewed him for the second book the last question was exactly that, "How do you think history will view your Iraq war?" He kind of shrugged in the Oval Office and put his hands out and said, "We won't know, we'll all be dead. " I'd give the same answer.

Shamelessly lifted Noted at Josh Marshall’s TPMCafe:

In a sign of just how much American politics has shifted in recent weeks, GOP Rep. Clay Shaw is running the first Republican ad we've ever heard hailing the accomplishments of President...Clinton. The narrator's first words in the radio spot, delivered in an upbeat tone, are: "President Clinton is coming to South Florida this week!" The ad then runs through all of Shaw's successes working with the former President. Its conclusion: "So as Palm Beach County welcomes Bill Clinton to town, let’s say thank you to Clay Shaw. He’s independent and effective." A Time poll in August put Clinton's approval rating at 70% — nearly double that of his successor. To listen to the ad, click here.

The ad principally extols President Clinton’s achievements, emphasizing that there was a sense of “partisanship” in these achievements, and of course Clay Shaw was there! Working hand-in-hand with President Clinton to bring these achievements to fruition.

There’s something really astonishing about hyping the arrival in Florida of a man you once excoriated.

The ad mentions three specifics: Clinton’s welfare reform, the elimination of the senior citizen penalty in Social Security, and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.

If you‘re a Democrat or Liberal, or Progressive, you probably have an intact memory and can recall those years after the R’s gained control of Congress and starting writing some of the most pernicious, evil, hard-hearted legislation that has ever shamed this country. (Well, yes, that’s all true, even though even though all those laws don’t hold a candle to the oppression written during the Bu$h malAdministration.) They rammed laws down President Clinton’s throat as if they were getting even with helpless and impoverished Americans. We’re lucky that President Clinton was a master politician and was able to remove some of the worst evil in those laws

The ad mentions welfare reform which was always a lynchpin in Republican plans at restoration, since that was a code word for “fixing them uppity niggers.” The law as written and forced through was so harsh, Clinton tried to restore some of the $55 Billion in lost aid benefits. Who wanted no part in ameliorating some of the worst effects of the law?

Pres Clinton wants Congress to restore about one-fourth of $55 billion that would otherwise be saved by new welfare law over next six years, to soften impact of law on poor people and immigrants; are drafting proposals to revise law as part of balanced-budget plan Clinton will submit to Congress in February; proposals would seek to restore food stamp eligibility for many legal immigrants who have not become citizens, would increase food stamp allotments for families with high housing costs, and would relax stringent work requirements on able-bodied adults who have no dependents; Repr Clay E Shaw Jr, Republican author of new welfare law, and Sen Don Nickles, assistant Republican leader of Senate, say Republicans have no interest in Administration's efforts to soften effects of law[.]

From Clay Shaw’s website:

Madam Speaker, I strongly support H.R. 5, legislation to repeal the earnings penalty for hard-working seniors age 65 and over.

Due to this quick work, seniors will soon receive all the benefits that they are owed, even if they continue to work after reaching the age of 65. That is their choice. As the name of our legislation suggests, they deserve the freedom to choose to work without losing Social Security benefits.

The ad also discusses the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (which was written by now-retired Senator Bob Graham [Democrat, of course,] and Congressman Shaw just signed on to it.) This Act provided $7.8 Billion to undo almost a century of man-made additions and abuses to the natural Florida habitat. It is worthwhile noting that this act was furiously resisted by the Pujol family (Florida Big Sugar) which is the largest financial donor to the Florida Republican Party. Among other things the act required Big Sugar to significantly reduce its phosphate fertilization of the cane fields that actually form part of what used to be the northern reaches of the Glades. This phosphate runoff is one of the major causes of lowered water quality not just of the Florida aquifers which provide our drinking water, but also of the water flowing through our rivers and canals into the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, where it kills off our tropical coral reefs.

So we find Representative Shaw, always a friend to the wealthy and powerful surprisingly pretending that Bill Clinton got where he was only with his help.

In truth Shaw was on board with President Clinton’s efforts to save Social Security back in the late 90s. You can read about his ideas, which were much more sensible and less radical than Mr Bu$h’s here. The article notes that Shaw was ready to push President Clinton’s plan forward

Rep. Clay Shaw, a Florida Republican who chaired the Social Security subcommittee during Clinton's term, said he spoke with Clinton at a signing ceremony on a bill that eliminated the Social Security penalty for those working after retirement.

When Clinton handed Shaw a ceremonial pen, Shaw said he told Clinton, "Now, Mr. president, let's do the rest of it." Shaw said Clinton replied, " 'If you get the leadership of the Democratic Party to go along, I'm there.' "

Shaw said he is convinced that if it weren't for the impeachment, Social Security reform "would have been done during his administration. I strongly believe Bill Clinton wanted this to be his legacy."

John Humphreys of BBC radio had a short article in yesterday’s News online:

To be honest, I didn't really want to come to Iraq to present Today - there are many people far better qualified than I am to talk about this complex country and the mess it's in, but you learn a lot very quickly.

The first time a rocket lands within a few yards of you in the heart of the British compound is pretty instructive. There's someone out there who wants to kill you for no better reason than you're British.

Basra may be a picnic compared with the hell of Baghdad, but even so the violence overwhelms everything.

When you can't drive into the centre of the city; when even the helicopter which brings you into the Foreign Office compound can fly only at night; when the shortest trip outside the British base needs a military escort of 18 men and a column of armoured vehicles.

But I'm leaving shortly. The soldiers who have to spend six months at a time here have my sympathy.

Living in Fear

But how much worse to be an Iraqi citizen who sees his country in such a state.

The middle class live in fear. Not just fear of the rockets, but of the very men supposed to protect them.

A surgeon told me police broke into his house, attacked him and his wife and stole their valuables - they were lucky they weren't murdered.

The British forces don't trust the police either. But the working class have it worse - most of them can't even get a job.

Did I sense any hope? Up to a point.

The British are doing their best. There are plenty of decent Iraqis working hard to rebuild their country. The oil is being pumped out of Iraq's fabulously rich fields.

But so much of the oil revenue is being stolen and the corruption is eye-watering. And if the death squads continue unchecked, God knows what will happen.

I'd love to say that I shall leave Iraq more optimistic for its future than when I arrived, but I'm afraid it wouldn't be true.

When I first read this article I found it difficult to just pick out a few paragraphs to riff on, because every paragraph suggests a different thread to work with.

Many people from the world of the media can go to Iraq and report on the bad news. Idiots on the right who complain about good news never being reported are fantasists. There is no good news. If there was good news you’d have 100 reporters out and about writing about it, rather than two, with the other 98 huddled up inside the Green Zone.

If you read this piece and went back to the article I referred to you’d have grasped the essential fact about reporting in Iraq: it’s damned dangerous, the military knows it, the press knows it, and no one goes “outside the wire.” And the military doesn’t want American or European stringers out there because they can’t control them as easily as they can the representatives of Big Media. Mr Humphreys is to be congratulated for spending his week in Hell with some squaddies.

Theoretically, Basra is supposed to be safer than Baghdad, which is safer than, say Injun country out in the wild west of Anbar province. But when transport helicopters only fly at night and trips “outside” are major expeditions, you’re losing. Actually, the very fact that things have deteriorated this far means you’ve already lost.

Two points: Mr Humphreys asks if he sensed any hope and then qualified his answer “up to a point.” He speaks of the Brits “doing their best” but adds that even with good Iraqis working hard to rebuild, and oil being pumped out of the ground, the corruption is staggering. There will always be corruption with men; temptation and weak wills are part of our imperfection. A healthy society controls corruption and crime with rigorous laws that treat all men equally but firmly. Iraq is a lawless society, although it wasn’t always like that. A society that respects all the members of the commonwealth obeys its laws, either from that respect or from fear of legal retribution. (Come to think of it, healthy society, rigorous laws, and equal treatment could also apply to the US under Bu$hCo.)

The other point Mr Humphreys makes is the lack of hope among Iraq’s middle class due to lack of jobs. Lack of meaningful jobs with a chance for improvement will create a fractured society also. Crime will blossom and grow. Civil unrest will expand, swallowing the society in death and destruction. Cultural psychologists, anthropologists, and thinking people understand lack of decent jobs, and lack of hope is the root cause of much of our urban crime these days. (Urban crime, in itself, has become a code phrase in our society.)

Like Mr Humphreys, I don’t feel any optimism about the future of the American/British imperial enterprise in Iraq either. The madness will continue, because of the stubborn, narcissistic ideology and egos of a few willful, lawless men, and that in itself is madness.

While we’re very busy not staying the course for the upcoming elections, General Casey, the commander of US troops in Iraq, has realized that the most powerful army in the history of the world can’t keep public order in Baghdad, the capital city of our overseas empire. Even the recent reinforcement of the Baghdad security forces by the stop-lossed Stryker Brigade hasn’t done the job.

BAGHDAD, Oct. 24 — In trying to build support for the American strategy in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said Tuesday that the Iraqi military could be expected to take over the primary responsibility for securing the country within 12 to 18 months.

But that laudable goal seems far removed from the violence-plagued streets of Iraq’s capital, where American forces have taken the lead in trying to protect the city and American soldiers substantially outnumber Iraqi ones.

It seems a lot of our erstwhile allies have a reluctance to fight outside their home areas. As the Times article describes it,

[T]he actual number of Iraqi boots on the ground on a given day is routinely less than the official number. In areas where the risks and hardship are particularly great, the shortfall is sometimes significant. In fiercely contested Anbar Province in western Iraq, the day-to-day strength of the Seventh Iraqi Army Division in August was only about 35 percent of the soldiers on its rolls, while the day-to-day strength of the First Division was 50 percent of its authorized strength.

Another complication is that the even-numbered divisions in the 10-division army have largely been recruited locally and thus generally reflect the ethnic makeup of the regions where they are based. So, much of the Iraqi Army consists of soldiers who are reluctant to serve outside the areas in which they reside. Several battalions have gone AWOL rather then deploy to Baghdad, an American military officer said.

General Casey has defined Baghdad as the “central front” in Iraq, which Bu$hCo has defined as the “central front” in the war on terror, which is the “central front” in Bu$hCo’s war on the Constitution.

Here’s an idea: Lets’ move all the US forces into Baghdad. Then we’ll have 140,000 US troops and 12,000 Iraqi Army and 17,000 Iraqi national police there.

Maybe that will work. If nothing else, it will put all the troops closer to the Baghdad International Airport, to make it easy to evacuate them.

MJS, phoning it in at Jesus’ General, has a good photoset article up, which bears repeating:

Get Out The Vote, Neocon Style #8, Special Freudian Collector's Edition

Ego

Id

UPDATE: Jesus' General readers have been doing some totally irresponsible speculating as to the Neocon Superego identity, but Democracy is messy, so there you go. Nominate your choice for Neocon Superego in the comments section.

From Wikipedia: Super-ego

Freud's theory says that the super-ego is a symbolic internalization of the father figure and cultural regulations. The super-ego tends to stand in opposition to the desires of the id because of their conflicting objectives, and is aggressive towards the ego. The super-ego acts as the conscience, maintaining our sense of morality and the prohibition of taboos.

I'm pretty sure we're talking about Barbara Bush here.

There just isn't anyway to add much to this.

Speculating that Iraq is not like Viet Nam, Steve Gilliard reminds us of what happened to Ngo Dinh Diem.

Rumors abound that the US government is looking to replace the Maliki government with a troika of strongmen.

First it was Tet, now it's Diem

The article is a good explanation of how we replaced a failing government in a failing war.

There have been some indications that Prime Minister Maliki, Bu$hCo’s latest puppet, is not working out as an effective mouthpiece. We’ve had him offering amnesty to resisters in order to try to create an effective regime and bring about internal stability. The R’s foolishly thought that was a good idea, until the idea was actually explained to them. He quickly changed his tune when summoned to our White House to have a “come to Jesus” moment with Mr Bu$h and those members of Bu$hCo who actually understand something about running a government. (Our thoughts about that meeting are that it could have been held in a phone booth, because it seems like no one in Bu$hCo really knows how to run a government.)

Mr Maliki does have some problems; operating a coalition government always is an exercise in compromise, something that is completely unknown to Mr Bu$h. About the only thing Iraqis seem to be united in is their obvious desire to see the backside of Americans leaving their country. Mr Bu$h, who seems to believe that once you sit on the throne everyone automatically does what you want, is having some problems understanding why Mr Maliki can’t handle his job as Prime Minister.

While they both were installed through rigged elections, Mr Bu$h has had a much easier time since he enjoyed a significant majority in Congress – a majority that was united in its eagerness to grab as much cash as possible from deep-pocket special interests. When the gravy train is tootling down the tracks at 90 miles an hour of course you support the executive.

Mr Maliki, on the other hand, has had to deal with a Parliament composed of a multitude of political parties, each with its own agenda, and with a fractious population busy slaughtering each other when they’re not busy resisting Mr Bu$h’s occupation and slaughtering American troops.

As for the “Tet” comparison, we certainly hope we’ve seen our “Tet” in Iraq. Through the 23rd, the Pentagon has admitted to 93 Coalition deaths in Iraq. We always take this figure with more than a grain of salt because the Pentagon does not count deaths that occur in the Landstuhl Germany hospital, in Walter Reed Hospital, or in transit to those hospitals. And lets be honest, when has Bu$hCo, or Bu$hCo’s Pentagon ever told the truth about anything?

We don’t want to see any higher monthly counts, although the voice of experience keeps threatening us about the dangers of low expectations. Contrary to the lying crap one hears from the death-worshipping right, we on the left do not pray all night long for massive casualty figures. The right tends to forget that many of us on the left are in fact veterans. (Far more than those on the right, it appears,) and we tend to understand the import of death and wounds in battle far better.

One thing is certain: once again, following a life-long tradition, Mr Bu$h has failed. And, again following that tradition, Mr Bu$h is incapable of admitting error or failure. We have (at least) two more years of this madness that is Iraq.

Shamelessly lifted from Eric Alterman:

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Bushcronium." Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311. These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. The symbol for Bushcronium is "W". Bushcronium's mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass". When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

Paul Kiel, the indispensable muckraker at Josh Marshall’s TPMmuckraker has a delightful tidbit today:

Jack Abramoff, FBI

How busy has Jack Abramoff been? U.S. News reports:

Jack Abramoff, the lobbying scandal figure, has become such a chatty rat that probe insiders say he's been given a desk to work at in the FBI. We're told he spends up to four hours a day detailing his shady business to agents eager to nail more congressmen in the scandal. And when cooperative witnesses spend that much time inside, they get a desk.

Prosecutors have requested that Abramoff be placed in a prison close by so that their hours of fun can continue.

Since we like to comment on all news articles we feature here at Main and Central, we have this to say:

It’s going to be a long winter.

There is an excellent video highlighted at FDL who got it from Jim Gilliam.

It’s worth watching, and then for heaven’s sake go over to Do More Than Vote and help out in a local election. Give a few minutes or a few dollars for the sake of our nation’s and our children’s futures.

Reuters is reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rewritten The Rocky Horror Picture Show by taking a step to the right:

JERUSALEM, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert moved closer on Monday to shoring up a government under fire over the Lebanon war by adding a far-right party whose leader wants to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

"We are joining the government," Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beitenu party, told reporters after talks with Olmert.

For those tuning in late, the Yisrael Beitenu Party believes in annexing major parts of the West Bank, among other policies guaranteed to make the Palestinian Question burn for another decade. Its founder, Avigdor Lieberman, left the Likud Party, believing it was too moderate, and favored coddling Arabs and Palestinians. He has a novel view of “ethnic cleansing” of Israel:

Avigdor Liberman, a former Likud member, ... is known for his plan to redraw the Green Line border with the Palestinian Authority in such a way that the areas of "Meshulash" ("Triangle", eastern Sharon) and Wadi-Ara (which was transferred to Israel from Jordan as part of the 1949 Armistice Agreements) will return to Arab sovereignty. This will mean that some third of the Arab citizens of Israel would lose Israeli citizenship. He justifies the idea of giving up a part of the State of Israel by arguing that the residents of the area are Arabs who see themselves as Palestinians rather than Israelis, and therefore should be encouraged to re-unite — including, controversially, providing financial incentive for Arab Israeli emigration out of Israel whenever territorially applicable — with the Palestinian Authority as part of establishing two separate national entities: one for Israelis and one for Palestinians.

While many in the international community advocate the “two state” solution, this plan, by disenfranchising quite a few Arabic Israeli citizens without assisting the Palestinian Authority with financial support, will put further economic burden on the Authority, which is already nearly bankrupt. As reported by Electronic Intifada in April, 2006:

Canada and the United States of America (USA), followed by the European Union and Japan, have suspended their financial aid to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). This came in the wake of the Palestinian legislative council elections that were held last January, the resulting victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) that secured the movement a parliamentary majority, and the subsequent formation of the Palestinian government by the Hamas parliament bloc. These parties, in an attempt to compensate for their decision to cut aid to the PNA, have decided to continue to provide humanitarian assistance through United Nations (UN) institutions and through non-governmental organizations (NGO's).

Democratic elections in Arab communities are only valid if West-approved parties and candidates win.

Additionally, many of these Arabic Israeli citizens live and work in Israel. By changing their nationality through administrative fiat, they will become “foreigners” and will be required to obtain PA passports and undergo daily “inspection” (and harassment) at IDF checkpoints, which will just add to tensions.

But this partnership will give Olmert a larger majority in the Knesset, thereby protecting his job. He has been the subject of a lot of criticism because of the Israeli defeat by Hezbollah in the Lebanese incursion earlier in the summer.

Isn’t it amazing what politicians will do in order to save their jobs? Fire. Gasoline.

Matt Stoller, writing at MyDD, asks why Whining Joe needed $387,000 “walking around” money.

Petty cash disbursements over $100 are illegal. So why did the Lieberman campaign need around $387,000 in petty cash during the last few weeks of the primary? No answer to the question, and no admission of error.

Tammy Sun, a spokeswoman for the Lieberman campaign, said the money was used for payments to young field workers hired in the closing weeks of the primary. She said they were paid $50, $75 or $100 a day.

Sun was unable to say Saturday why the workers, some of whom appeared to have stayed for days or weeks in dormitories at the expense of the Lieberman campaign, were not listed by name and salary.

The report listed tens of thousands of dollars for rooms rented at a YMCA in Stamford, Fairfield University and a culinary school in Hartford, as well as more than $50,000 for rented buses and vans that transported the workers around the state.

The FEC reports are made public so that citizens can know what candidates are spending their money on. It is amazing to have nearly $400,000 of just plain cash on your FEC report. Was Lieberman buying votes with the money, using the cash as 'street money'? Was he paying 'volunteers' to disrupt Lamont events? Or was it just a large canvass operation where he paid huge numbers of volunteers in, um, cash? And why is he paying people listed as volunteers?

A cynical man might think the cash went to places that just can’t be listed on FEC reports, such as union officials, ministers, and other politicians to continue support for Connecticut’s only Independent Republican. And a cynical man with a really evil mind might wonder whether some of that cash stuck to Whining Joe’s fingers. That would be illegal, too.

Many people might not know the name of the author of the phenomenal comic strip Doonesbury. Even more don’t know what Gary Trudeau looks like because he hates being in the public spotlight. But some vets know him as a man:

IN THE BANQUET ROOM WERE MEN WHO WERE BLIND, men with burns, men with gouges, men missing an arm, men missing a leg, men missing an arm and a leg, men missing an arm and both legs, men missing parts of their faces, and a cartoonist from the funny pages.

We were just a few blocks from the White House, at Fran O'Brien's Steak House. Fran's was hosting a night out for casualties of the current war, visiting from their hospital wards.

It's hard to know what to say to a grievously injured person, and it's easy to be wrong . You could do what I did, for example. Scrounging for the positive, I cheerfully informed a young man who had lost both legs and his left forearm that at least he's lucky he's a righty. Then he wordlessly showed me his right hand, which is missing fingertips and has limited motion -- an articulated claw. That shut things right up, for both of us, and it would have stayed that way, except the cartoonist showed up.

Garry Trudeau, the creator of "Doonesbury," hunkered right down in front of the soldier, eye to eye, introduced himself and proceeded to ignore every single diplomatic nicety.

"So, when were you hit?" he asked.

"October 23."

Trudeau pivoted his body. "So you took the blast on, what . . . this side?"

"Yeah."

Brian Anderson, 25, was in shorts, a look favored by most of the amputees, who tend to wear their new prostheses like combat medals. His legs are metal and plastic, blue and knobby at the knee, shin poles culminating abruptly in sneakers.

Trudeau surveyed Brian's intact arm. "You've got dots."

"Yeah." Dots are soldier-speak for little beads of shrapnel buried under the skin. Sometimes they take a lifetime to work their way back to the surface. At this, Brian became fully engaged and animated, smiling and talking about the improvised explosive device that took his vehicle out; about his rescue; his recovery; his plans for the future. Trudeau, it turned out, had given him what he needed.

("In these soldiers' minds," Trudeau will explain afterward, "their whole identity, who they are right now, is what happened to them. They want to tell the story, they want to be asked about it, and you're honoring them by listening. The more they revisit it, the less power it has over them.")

Trudeau has been talking to injured vets for a couple of years now. It's partly compassionate support for people he has a genuine regard for, and it's part journalism -- the damnedest sort of reporting, for a professional cartoonist.

This story might be surprising at first glance, but to the seasoned Doonesbury fan it seems like a natural. Has any cartoonist in recent times explored the human condition and America with as much empathy as Trudeau?

"Doonesbury"… survived and metamorphosed over the years into what is essentially an episodic comic novel, with so many active characters that Trudeau himself has been known to confuse them. "Doonesbury" has always remained topical, often controversial. Unapologetically liberal and almost religiously anti-establishment, Trudeau has been denounced by presidents and potentates and condemned on the floor of the U.S. Senate. He's also been described as America's greatest living satirist, mentioned in the same breath as Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.

But for simple dramatic impact and deft complexity of humor, nothing else in "Doonesbury" has ever approached the storyline of B.D's injury and convalescence. It hasn't been political at all, really, unless you contend that acknowledging the suffering of a war is a political statement. What it has been is remarkably poignant and surprisingly funny at the same time. In what Trudeau calls a "rolling experiment in naturalism," he has managed every few weeks to spoon out a story of war, loss and psychological turmoil in four-panel episodes, each with a crisp punch line.

One of the daily strips that had the most emotional impact for me occurred after the fall of Saigon. Phred, B.D’s Vietnamese friend was celebrating the regime change, and wondering how B.D was handling it all. The last panel in the strip showed a football-helmeted B.D. head bent low as if suffering under an intolerable weight, watching the unforgettable scene of desperate crowds scrambling to board the “last helicopter” on the roof of the US Embassy. As much as I hated that war and despised the fools who got us into it, I felt that crushing sadness and sense of loss that Trudeau drew in B.D.’s defeated body.

NOTE: This article appears in the Sunday Washington Post. Because of disgust and outrage over how Fred Hiatt has debased and degraded a once-magnificent newspaper by groveling for the Bu$h malAdministration, we have a policy of not linking to WaPo articles. This story is an exception because it has a noble purpose: relating how a decent American handles the excruciating issue of dealing with wounded vets, and how his matter-of-fact humanity seems to help them. Readers have never commented on this policy of exclusion and their silence might signify approval. This WaPo article was linked to with pride.

Thanks to the Iguana for bringing this forward:

A telecom expert goes online to explain why the NSA wiretapping is completely ineffective. In short, its because the terrorists use point-to-point VoIP instead of dedicated wires or wireless, and it is encrypted (modern encryption is completely undecryptable.)

I assume that they are not stupid, and that they know this, so the obvious explanation is that the only purpose for it is to spy on us.

We can’t vouch for the accuracy of the information contained within the video clip, but it souds good, doesn't it? We have discussed the issue of the NSA wiretapping program here and here.

Most importantly, we discussed the realities of any program Bu$hCo initiates here.

Those of us who have watched the Bush malAdministration closely over the last 5 years have formed a rather cynical view that the political opportunists within the government have seized upon this program to monitor those they consider the REAL threat: political opponents, such as Democratic Congressmen, journalists and public dissenters. Let’s face it: this program is a ‘gimme’ for them. And this sort of spying is completely illegal under the FISA statutes.

It’s fascinating to note that the White House has been insisting that Mr Bush has the authority under the “Unitary Executive” theory to do anything he feels like as long as he claims its for national security. The spying on Americans, whether true security threats or merely political opponents is illegal under the FISA law and the Constitution. Mr Gonzalez’s new law will retroactively permit what Mr Bush has been doing for five years.

“No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” US Constitution, Art 1, Sec 9

“No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law…” US Constitution, Art 1, Sec 10.

Senator Reid? Congresswoman Pelosi? Are you paying attention?

Michael Yon is a writer/photographer who reports on what’s actually happening in Iraq, as opposed to the Bu$hCo version of reality stage-managed by CENTCOM. He’s got an article in the October 30 edition of The Weekly Standard and while we are more than loathe to actually link to anything connected with the evil and odious Likudnik agent William Kristol, this article is interesting enough to warrant breaking our self-imposed rule.

A tip of the too-small Kevlar helmet to War and Piece for the recommendation.

In a counterinsurgency, the media battlespace is critical. When it comes to mustering public opinion, rallying support, and forcing opponents to shift tactics and timetables to better suit the home team, our terrorist enemies are destroying us. Al Qaeda's media arm is called al Sahab: the cloud. It feels more like a hurricane. While our enemies have "journalists" crawling all over battlefields to chronicle their successes and our failures, we have an "embed" media system that is so ineptly managed that earlier this fall there were only 9 reporters embedded with 150,000 American troops in Iraq. There were about 770 during the initial invasion.

Many blame the media for the estrangement, but part of the blame rests squarely on the chip-laden shoulders of key military officers and on the often clueless Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad, which doesn't manage the media so much as manhandle them. Most military public affairs officers are professionals dedicated to their jobs, but it takes only a few well-placed incompetents to cripple our ability to match and trump al Sahab. By enabling incompetence, the Pentagon has allowed the problem to fester to the point of censorship.

Any of our 25 or so readers who are grey enough to remember the media in Nam will understand this problem immediately. The military doesn’t have professional PIO staff. Some young stud arrives in the combat zone, expecting to get a glamorous and career-enhancing command assignment, or some sweet staff job and encounters the S1. “Oh, you took an English Lit major in school? Great. You can be our new PIO. Don’t let those reporters dick you around.”

The lack of a professional PIO branch may be a hidden benefit, though, in the Bu$h malAdministration where lying is deliberate policy, and denying the lie when caught is just daily business. In Mr Rumsfeld’s space cadet DoD money is considered better spent bribing Iraqi newspapers for good war news than buying better armor for the troops.

I believe now as I did then: The government of the United States has no right to send our people off to war and keep secret that which it has no plausible military reason to keep secret. After all, American blood and treasure is being spent. Americans should know how our soldiers are doing, and what they are doing while wearing our flag. The government has no right to withhold information or to deny access to our combat forces just because that information might anger, frighten, or disturb us.

By allowing only a trickle of news to come out of Iraq, when all involved parties know the flow could be more robust, the Pentagon is doing just that. Although the conspicuous media vacuum can be partly explained by the danger--Iraq is arguably more dangerous for journalists than Vietnam or even World War II, when reporters were allowed to land on D-Day--some of the few who will risk it all are denied access for no good reason.

It’s quite an enlightening article and we heartily recommend reading all of it.

Michael Yon maintains his own website and it’s also illuminating.

TPMreaderDK, who pinch-hits on weekends so Josh Marshall can get some rest, has a terrific post:

You haven't truly made a pop cultural impact until you start showing up on eBay.

Mark Foley, come on down! You have achieved eBay status.

Looks like the Mark Foley action figure is drawing some bids

Yes, it’s cruel. But we’re mocking the American culture here, as well as a Republican,

Writing in the NY Times’ Political Memo column, Adam Nagourney discusses the chances of the Democratic Party achieving a Congressional majority:

Guardedly, Democrats Are Daring to Believe

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — There is something unusual bubbling in Democratic political waters these days: optimism.

With each new delivery of bad news for Republicans — another Republican congressman under investigation, another Republican district conceded, another poll showing support for the Republican-controlled Congress collapsing — a party that has become so used to losing is considering, disbelievingly and with the requisite worry, the possibility that it could actually win in November.

“I’ve moved from optimistic to giddy,” said Gordon R. Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. “I really have.”

Reading something like this from Nagourney is rather like getting a compliment from your worst enemy. You’re waiting for the inevitable “but”.

Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who is in line to become chairman of the Financial Services Committee in a Democratic House, offered wry evidence of the changing perception of the race. His office, Mr. Frank said, has been contacted by a portrait-painting firm offering to talk about possibilities for the traditional committee chairman’s painting, one of those perks of power long absent from the lives of House Democrats.

“I’ve acquired a lot of new friends this year,” Mr. Frank said. “And I haven’t gotten any nicer.”

This is a nice tidbit, and rather cute. Even non-partisan insiders seem to feel a sense of momentum. Knowing Nagourney from his past performance, however, this is expected:

Mr. Rove has made it clear that he considers Democratic optimism unjustified, predicting that his party’s cash advantage and get-out-the-vote expertise will dash Democratic dreams yet again. And Democrats say they welcome every passing dawn with relief, fearful that the next one will bring a development that could fundamentally alter the nature of the race, like the re-emergence of Osama bin Laden on election eve, which is what happened in 2004.

A cynical man might think Adam got his check last week from Ken Mehlman.

Irony suffered yet another session of “death of a thousand cuts” when Condoleeza Rice, our alleged “Russian expert” met with members of the independent news media in her Moscow hotel just before meeting with associates of President Vladimir Putin to discuss Russia’s intransigence in not agreeing unquestioningly to Mr Bu$h’s demands that North Korea must be punished for making him look bad just before a domestic election.

As reported by the NY Times:

MOSCOW, Oct. 21 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized shrinking Russian press freedoms, questioned the enforcement of a restrictive new law on foreign private groups here and called for eased tensions between Russia and neighboring Georgia when she arrived here Saturday to discuss the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Ms. Rice’s remarks raised the possibility of a testy atmosphere for the discussions in Moscow, the last stop of her pan-Asia trip aimed at urging tough enforcement of the Security Council sanctions imposed on North Korea a week ago in response to its Oct. 9 underground nuclear test.

In a symbolic decision that no doubt will be scrutinized by the Kremlin leadership, Ms. Rice invited senior editors of Novaya Gazeta, a leading independent journal, to a meeting at her hotel. The session, which included the son of the assassinated journalist Anna Politkovskaya, came just before she headed into official government meetings.

Earlier, Ms. Rice said that the future of a free Russian press and electronic media “is a major concern” of the United States government.

“There is still an independent print press,” she said. “Unfortunately, there is not much left of independent television in Russia.”

It fascinates us here at Main and Central that Ms Rice is so concerned about the existence of a free print and electronic media in Russia, while she and her “office husband” and his gnomes have been working so assiduously to eliminate any semblance of independence in the US.

Duncan Hunter, a Fascist Party representative from California wants CNN expelled from Pentagon embedding with US units in Iraq.

SAN DIEGO The chair of the House Armed Services Committee asked the Pentagon today to remove C-N-N reporters embedded with U-S combat units. The network televised portions of a video on Wednesday showing insurgent snipers targeting U-S military personnel.

Executives said the tape came to the network unexpectedly through contact with an insurgent leader.

Representative Duncan Hunter wrote in his letter that, quote, "C-N-N has now served as the publicist for an enemy propaganda film featuring the killing of an American soldier."

San Diego-area Republicans Darrell Issa and Brian Bilbray also signed the letter.

C-N-N executives defended their decision to air the footage, saying its news value outweighed other concerns.

After all, if we all do the ostrich dance, like the R’s are trying to do in this election season, everything is wonderful, and progress in Iraq is exceptional. We’ll be seeing those flowers and chocolates any day now.

Let’s not admit the illegal invasion and occupation has killed 3,000 Americans, and maimed another 20,000. And actually seeing Americans killed is positively satanic. That's only permitted in Republican Party campaign ads highlighting 9/11, which is solely owned by the RNC.

After the well-respected magazine Lancet published a peer-reviewed study estimating Iraqi deaths due to violence at 655,000, the Decider-in-Chief objected:

President Bush slammed the report Wednesday during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. "I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey," he said, referring to the top ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, "and neither do Iraqi officials."

"The methodology is pretty well discredited," he added.

Ali Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said in a statement that the report "gives exaggerated figures that contradict the simplest rules of accuracy and investigation."

Last December, Bush said that he estimated about 30,000 people had died since the war began.

When pressed whether he stood by that figure Wednesday, he said, "I stand by the figure a lot of innocent people have lost their life. Six hundred thousand -- whatever they guessed at -- is just not credible."

The report actually used well-established statistical criteria that were customary throughout the sampling industry.

It seems that there has been yet another flip-flop in Bu$hCo:

Oct. 20 — The United Nations office in Baghdad says that Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has ordered the country’s medical authorities to stop providing the organization with monthly figures on the number of civilians killed and wounded in the conflict there, according to a confidential cable.

The cable, dated Oct. 17 and sent to United Nations officials in New York and Geneva by Ashraf Qazi, the United Nations envoy to Iraq, says the prohibition may hinder the ability of his office to give accurate accounts in its bimonthly human rights reports on the levels of violence and the effect on Iraqi society.

It seems the numbers now must be massaged by apparatchiki before being published, as is common with all Bu$hCo enterprises.

Mr. Qazi, a former Pakistani diplomat, says that the order to let the prime minister’s office take over the release of the numbers came down a day after a United Nations report for July and August showed a serious upward spike in the number of dead and wounded. The leader of the Health Ministry in Iraq appealed to be allowed to continue supplying the figures to the United Nations but was turned down according to a subsequent letter from the prime minister’s office, Mr. Qazi’s cable said.

Josh Marshall’s invaluable TPM Café brings us a video introduction to a local debate in upstate New York.

The Democrat, John Hall, is encouraged by the local TV station to debate an empty chair.

Bang! Zoom! A courageous TV station. More of this please

Glenn Greenwald is still one of the very best resources for pointing out the stupidity of Fascist politicians:

[T]o recap McCain's position: (1) in order to win in Iraq, we need to expand our military by 100,000 more troops; (2) we don't have anywhere near 100,000 troops to send to Iraq, and nobody suggests that we do; (3) a draft is absolutely unnecessary.

I don't think McCain even knows what to say about Iraq at this point -- the Straight Talker refuses admit that it was wrong because he was one of the loudest cheerleaders for it, but there are also plainly no viable options to change what is occurring -- so all he does is babble incoherently about it. As best I can tell, his position is that we need 100,000 more troops to win, and that young Americans one day are going to realize this and there will be a spontaneous and massive wave of volunteers eager to go to Iraq and fight in combat there because they will realize -- like McCain and the President do -- just how Very Important it is that we win.

This is the fool who wants to be President in case Mr Bu$h ever decides to leave our White House. He once was what we term an American hero; he survived over five years of imprisonment and torture in North Vietnam and finally signed an anti-American screed written in Vietnamese when he couldn’t take any more pain. Having acknowledged that, he sees no problem at all with Mr Bu$h’s demand to have the right to torture anyone (including American citizens) he designates as an ”enemy combatant.”

We’re not psychiatrists, but we certainly wonder whether Senator McCain is in some early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Advocating for 100,000 more troops to be dispatched to the meat grinder of a failed invasion and occupation without having any earthly idea where they might come from, and happily consigning other humans to the torment he suffered make a compelling argument that Senator McCain has surpassed his usefulness to the country and should be urged to retire to some quiet corner of the earth.

This is a real news story put out by Yahoo, and not a piece from The Onion.

MIAMI (AFP) - The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rumsfeld is "a man whose patriotism focus, energy, drive, is exceeded by no one else I know ... quite simply, he works harder than anybody else in our building," Pace said at a ceremony at the Southern Command (Southcom) in Miami.

Rumsfeld has faced a storm of criticism and calls for his resignation, largely over his handling of the
Iraq war.

But he got a strong show of support from the military establishment at Thursday's ceremony, where Navy Admiral James Stavridis took over Southcom's command from General Bantz Craddock.

"He comes to work everyday with a single-minded focus to make this country safe," said Stavridis who was a senior aide to Rumsfeld before taking on the Southcom job.

"We're lucky as a nation that he continues to serve with such passion and such integrity and such determination and such brilliance," said Stavridis, 51.

Dear G_d in heaven. This goes beyond mere bootlicking. We are now in public fellatio territory. Do these men have no shame at all? Are they so desperate for their careers that they will humiliate themselves this way? Has the military become so cultish under Bu$hCo that blasphemy is now required in order to remain on active duty?

The nation is in trouble. We are faced with a political civil war, - fortunately not a shooting war – over the direction this country will take in the future. Whether we will continue as a democratic republic, or become a dictatorship ruled by one man in a bizarre cult of the personality like we saw in post-Weimar Germany, or throughout the long tangled history of post-WWI Russia, later known as the Soviet Union.

We could go on for several more paragraphs about all the ills facing the nation these days, but then this is not an article about a country ruled by a corrupt, criminal political party dedicated to the destruction of the middle class and further impoverishment of the already-poor, while servilely catering to the demands of the ultra-wealthy and large corporations.

It’s rather about a country that is not quite a mirror image of the US, but an excellent metaphor. Iraq is torn by a more advanced form of civil war, based upon religious differences rather than political and economic ones. An excellent argument has been advanced that this is more than a civil war.

An article in today’s NY Times points out that the latest Bu$hCo drive to minimize Iraq before the mid-term elections has failed.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 19 — The United States military command in Iraq acknowledged on Thursday that its 12-week-old campaign to win back control of Baghdad from sectarian death squads and insurgents had failed to reduce violence across the city. A spokesman for the command said intensive discussions were under way between American and Iraqi officials on ways to “refocus” the effort, which American officials have placed at the heart of their war strategy.

When you can’t even control the capital city you’re engaged in a useless struggle.

We listened to several interviews with Republican incumbents and candidates this morning on NPR. Each Fascist stressed the same talking point: this election is not about George Bu$h and his evil campaign to destroy America but rather purely local issues, to be decided by the local voters. All of this is fertilizer, of course, since American voters are vaguely more intelligent than these people give us credit for. If you believe this election isn’t a referendum on George Bu$h, do a quick survey and see just how many R’s make no mention whatsoever of their party affiliation on their websites ad campaign literature. More and more Republicans are imitating Joe Lieberman, the quintessential Republican, and pretending they are “independent.”

Meanwhile, in Iraq:

In one of the most somber assessments of the war by American commanders, a statement read by the spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said the campaign had been marked by increasing attacks on American troops and a spike in combat deaths. Attacks soared by 22 percent, he said, during the first three weeks of Ramadan, the holy month now nearing its end. With three new combat deaths announced on Thursday, the number of American troops who have lost their lives in October rose to 73, representing one of the sharpest surges in military casualties in the past two years.

General Caldwell said American troops were being forced to return to neighborhoods, like Dora in southwestern Baghdad, that they had sealed off and cleared as part of the security campaign because “extremists” fighting back had sent sectarian violence soaring there. The security plan sent heavy deployments of American troops into troubled neighborhoods, reversing the previous policy, which was to allow Iraqi troops to police the capital.

CENTCOM is faced by two distinctly separate factions: the first is the resistance, which is focused on attacking the invader and occupier, and killing as many as possible until domestic political pressures force a withdrawal. This is a war they can’t lose, ultimately, because each killing of an Iraqi by American soldiers creates three or four resisters among the family and tribal survivors. The second is an internal power struggle for control of Iraq once American forces have been ejected.

We were pre-ordained to fail in both wars, in the occupation because ideology and arrogance demanded the use of too few resources. One cannot wage war on the cheap. In this day of high-tech and high-priced weaponry, one must invest all the resources of a nation in order to gain victory. The danger of economic bankruptcy might be the most realistic argument against war.

We were doomed to fail in the second war, the internal civil war, because ideology demanded the disbandment of the Iraqi Army, which was the guarantor of internal tranquility. History could well decide that whether or not Saddam Hussein was a bad man, the important point was that he and the army kept domestic peace, the Iraqis had functional schools, hospitals and water and electric plants, all of which My Bu$h’s arrogant actions have removed from the landscape.

General Caldwell’s frank admission that the US is now reduced to playing “whack-a-mole” is probably the first truth officially spoken by CENTCOM:

“The violence is indeed disheartening,” General Caldwell said. While the sweeps have contained violence in some areas, over all, he said, the campaign to gain control of the city “has not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence.” As a result, he said, “We are working very closely with the government of Iraq to determine how to best refocus our efforts.”

Such a statement deserves the same response that Field Marshal Rundstedt gave to Hitler’s headquarters after a successful invasion and a series of Allied tactical victories in France.

“Make peace, you fools.”

The Likudnik neocons, in service of the Yinon Strategy, created a fantasy of American overseas empire. Bu$hCo and the Republican Party, eager for free oil and the chance to create a free-market corporate state in the Middle East, eagerly signed on. The grand experiment failed as we on the left loudly and futilely insisted it would. It is time to withdraw while we still have an army to save and rebuild. Hopefully the left will survive the coming storm of fraudulent claims that we caused the failure, and one day we might have the chance to once again restore truth, freedom and honor to America.

Jim at rangeragainst war has yet another excellent commentary on the war against Iraq domestic stability:

I believe it is a mistake to look to the Vietnam experience as the template for the guerilla-type of war being conducted in Iraq. I have commented previously on this site that the Iraq experience is closer in tone to the IRA campaigns in Northern Ireland.

It would be wise for the U.S. military trainers to resurrect and mine Carlos Marighella's Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla for concepts that are relevant to Iraq. The U.S. government will not admit it, but a guerilla war is what we're fighting in Iraq.

It has been obvious for several years that we are fighting a nation determined to eject us from their land. Perhaps it is ironic, but they understand the evil of Bu$hism far better than Americans.

Yes, there is also a civil war going on. But this civil war is among religious zealots who were set free from the iron hand of domestic stability when Mr Bu$h achieved the position of power (access to military force) necessary to exorcise the psychological demons that torment him. Before the Iraqis were killing each other with bombs, they were attacking the American occupiers.

The important thing to mention when discussing this with water cooler friends is that before we invaded to prove Mr Bu$h is a real war hero, the Iraqis had schools, hospitals, clean water, and 24/7 electricity. They also had a working oil industry that supplied them with 5 cent gasoline, and free food subsidies for each Iraqi family.

As Ranger Jim says, it’s a guerrilla war. The religious civil war is just a little bonus.

Wandering around the internet tubes I happened upon a fine essay over at our friend, rangeragainstwar.

[T]his isn't exactly a travelog. It's a gloss on the principles of war and how these are necessary to win, and how we have ignored them in Iraq and Afghan[i]stan. Following are a few examples of the failure that can result by straying from these principles.

Go forth and read, learn, and propagate. If every leftie, Liberal or Progressive, read once piece like this every day, and encouraged one friend or acquaintance to read it and discuss it, we’d be a free country in no time at all.

It’s early Thursday morning and I’m kinda sorta officially back. The family visit continues; my son and daughter-in-law fly out late this afternoon. We had a wonderful visit, with a three-day trip down to the Keys. I’ve posted a few photos of the place we stayed here. Naturally, they were loaded in the wrong order, with the shots that are logically the introductions on page 2, and the closing shots on page 1. Hey! I’m a Democrat and a Liberal. Am I supposed to get everything right?

We visited Key West on the first day. This was a 98 mile trip from the place we stayed. (I can be precise about the distance because in the Keys everything is measured from a “Mile 0” point in Key West. Location addresses on the Overseas Highway (Rt 1) can be given as “MM98” or as a more recognizable mailing address, such as “98000 Overseas Highway.” This is probably the only place in the US where the Post Office isn’t officious and picky, like that maiden aunt who always insisted on hugging you when she came for Thanksgiving dinner.

The Key West trip included the mandatory visit to Sloppy Joe’s, the bar made famous by Ernest Hemingway’s tormented liver.

One wall of the place is dedicated to Papa Hemingway, with photos, artwork, and other memorabilia. And, yes, there is a merchandise store, and yes, my daughter-in-law bought me a Papa Hemingway t-shirt.

It’s a delightful watering hole, with a high ceiling, wide open doorways and a cool tile floor in the Caribbean tradition. There’s a full supply of all the usual drinks, of course, and a good variety of domestic and foreign beers, including Stella Artois!!. The food tends towards the bar/lunch variety: Sloppy Joe sandwiches (of course) a very nice conch fritter served with a Key Lime mustard. For you traditionalists there is a cocktail sauce made of equal parts chili sauce and horseradish, and the fried grouper sandwich which is found all over the Keys. They also sell fried calamari rings, and if you’re man enough to eat a plate of those, bunky, the second helping is on me. As you would expect, foods tend towards salty and spicy because they’re in