This is one of 5 Republican Supporters who qualify as AMERICAN SUCKERS
Jack Gesteves, 28, Birmingham, AL, Software “I don’t vote for pussies.”

Jack voted hard right and never made the connection with his weed consumption because only dumb black street types ever got caught. Then he misses a stoplight and forgets to toss out the joint on the dashboard, and the cop spots it. Next thing, boom, gun in the face, cop yelling, cuffed and booked…then it turns out he was driving near a school—ten blocks or so, some Elementary School Jack never even heard of. That makes it a mandatory ten-year stretch. Jack stares at his lawyer waiting for the punch line, because it has to be a joke. Nope. Ten years. Ten years as somebody’s bitch, sold to a new guy for a carton of cigarettes, because he had a joint that night instead of a gin & tonic. Jack remembered one night while getting fucked in the ass that he’d actually voted for that mandatory-sentencing deal. And even though he’s trying to find a way to kill himself before they sell his little white ass to the Black Muslims in D Block, he still, you know, believes we’ve got to do something about this drug thing, come down hard on it. He still wouldn’t vote for any tie-dyed loser who was soft on drugs.

How do so many vote Republican when it is clearly against their best interest?

Fans of Cowboy Kahlil shoud stop by and offer their sympathy today

PICTURES OF THE WEEK dumbya and Blair - no comparison


No W that is just another statue -

-----------------

we still don't have Osama or Saddam ________Click the pic for Black Box Voting

BUSH brings in BLAIR to take the blame. .......... BUSH in the African Bush.
"No finger pointing here." says Bush .... "You can clearly see I was in Africa I saw
____________________________________Saddam buying Uranium" GWB


I once compared Tony Blair to Colonel Nicholson -- the British officer whose warped sense of duty leads him to collaborate with his Japanese captors in The Bridge On the River Kwai. But the more I listen to Blair -- as in his speech to Congress today -- the more I'm reminded of Kurtz, the crazed colonial administrator in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. With these words and more Billmon has literally and eloquently dissected Blair and his speech to Congress

WHO THINKS THEY ARE IN THE UPPER ONE PERCENT OF THE COUNTRY WEALTH WISE?

I found this quote and it confirmed a suspiscion that began when the guy installing my muffler down at the local Midas told me that he was real happy about the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy like him because it was the welfare people that were causing the deficits. Is Bush's popularity predicated on a mass delusion that folks making as little as $24,000 a year believe they are wealthy and benefit from the Bush cuts?

""Us versus Them" casts a heavy pall across all the vastness of Bush country. There are the "haves" versus the "have-nots" with an absurdly large number of the have-nots believing they are the haves.
(A recent poll showed that a noticeable percentage of people making $39,000 a year thought they were in the upper one percent of the country.) These delusional haves, who think the new tax breaks are designed for THEM, are more disdainful of the poor than the rich are."

It is easily demonstrable that unless you make more than $100,000 a year that the federal tax cuts will be absorbed by increased state and local tarriffs, nevermind what the cost will be for your children. Maybe Bush is popular because many people are just plain dumb.

UPDATE: If you wish to log your discontent with Mark Shapiro and ESPN a good place to start is on the ESPN NFL message board Visit and leave a piece of your mind.

Limbaugh ESPN blabber ''Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.''


ESPN TEST: survive 8 hours with Sapp, Lewis, and Rice AFTER they hear selected quotes.
''They (Blacks) are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?''
Mark Shapiro, ESPN's executive vice president of programming and production, claimed that the move was made to ''give fans a voice.'' THAT IS THE RACIST ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE LUNATIC FRINGE FANS VOICE OF COURSE
An Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist who called Limbaugh a ''blowhard'' said, ''I'm going to step out on a limb here and assume that not many so-called feminists hunker down to ESPN's `Sunday NFL Countdown.'' The fascinating thing is that on the first day of the news about Limbaugh's hiring by ESPN, no straight news stories went out on a limb to remind readers about Limbaugh's past. The past would seem significant, since he is about to pontificate on the NFL, where well over half the players are African-American. Limbaugh has feasted off berating people of color. African-Americans have come in for supercharged blasts of his hot air. Limbaugh has always had crime and black people on the brain., ''Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?'' ''Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.'', ''The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.'' When Spike Lee said that African-American children should be allowed to skip school to see his movie on Malcolm X, Limbaugh said: ''Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on their way out.''. When a Mexican won the New York marathon, Limbaugh said, ''An immigration agent chased him the last 10 miles.'' ''Let the unskilled jobs, let the kinds of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do - let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.'' Limbaugh's popularity is symbolic of a United States that still quietly buys into his stereotypes.. Limbaugh once complained about African-Americans: ''They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?'' ESPN and Disney should be made to care about hiring someone to cover a majority black sport who does not care about black people. Most important, newspapers should care, even if ESPN and Disney do not.

RECORD breaking REPUBLICAN RESIDENTS RED INK is drowning our country.
Fiscal irresponsibility is unsurpassed in history.
BUDGET DEFICIT GROWS BY 50% TO 450 BILLION and may surpass that.


The deficit for the last two years of this Residents term is greater than any in history. It is official now: this administration intends to bankrupt America while lining the pockets of the wealthy. Fiscal conservatives are Democrats not (cut)Tax and Spend Republicans. The Resident is caught in a war we did not need for a price we cannot afford to pay. Newsweek poll of 33,000 shows 77% want Bush out.
From the Daily KOS
And why do the Republicans need to spin the deficit? Because it'll be in the range of $400-450 billion each of the next two years (probably more) -- far surpassing the previous record of $290 billion notched by papy Bush. And far surpassing the administration's previous bogus estimate of $300 billion.
Republicans say the more important measure of red ink is how it compares to the size of the U.S. economy, because that illustrates the government's ability to afford carrying the debt.
Even gauged that way, a shortfall 4 percent as big as the economy — as this year's and next's will probably be — begins to approach the dimension of the deficits of the 1980s and early 1990s that both parties agreed were untenable. The GOP has blown away any semblance of rationality. Also covered by Angry Bear and Atrios

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated; From JOINT RESOLUTION 114 October 10, 2002 Read this in total for the first time and you will be amazed at the detail of the lie.

BUSH moves to "PASS THE BUCK" Resident refuses responsibility.
Cites "DARN GOOD" intelligence - at least "they are smarter than I is."
"Who lied in George Bush's State of the Union speech" is big mystery in WHODUNIT
Condi is officially toast states THE LIKELY STORY and Notes from Atlanta has a great switch on the Clinton phrasing. Lean Left has a different lie covered, and Prometheus Speaks has simply "moved on"

"When you've got the world by the balls, just squeeze."

From Rice's appearance today on CNN's Late Edition:
BLITZER: Supposedly, it [request to send Wilson] came at the request of the vice president.
RICE: No, this is simply not true, and this is something that's been perpetuated that we simply have to straighten out. The vice president did not ask that Joe Wilson go to Niger. The vice president did not know. I don't think he knew who Joe Wilson was, and he certainly didn't know that he was going. ..They did not brief it to the president, the vice president or any senior officials.

From a newly-released article in Time:
When it got to Washington, the Iraq-Niger uranium report [the forged documents] caught the eye of someone important: Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, told TIME that during one of his regular CIA briefings, "the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report." Cheney's interest hardly came as a surprise: he has long been known to harbor some of the most hard-line views of Saddam's nuclear ambitions. It was not long before the agency quietly dispatched a veteran U.S. envoy named Joseph Wilson to investigate.
Is Cheney hanging Condi out to dry?
FROM SADLY NO
Joseph Wilson was "the Deputy Chief of Mission, the acting ambassador at the US Embassy in Iraq 12 years ago during Desert Shield, the lead-up to the first Gulf War." Vice-President Cheney was "Secretary of Defense from March 1989 to January 1993, [and] directed [...] Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East." Wilson was the last US diplomat in Iraq, and met with Hussein and several high ranking diplomats after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. And somehow we're supposed to believe Cheney might not have known who Wilson was? I don't think so.
The 16 words are also covered by The Blue Bus and Catalyst
So that chiding White House official was right: there was more to the picture. But I'm afraid the bigger the picture gets, the more it looks like a pattern of dishonesty.

Bush's position was at odds with those of his own aides, who acknowledged over the weekend that the CIA raised doubts that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger more than four months before Bush's speech. The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring.
For a complete workup on the sordid "PASS THE BUCK" affair this is an excellent source.

WHY THERE IS A GREATER DOWNSIDE TO THE URANIUM LIE.
(cry wolf in IRAQ and who will help cover the real threat in NK?)
North Korea Says It Has Made Fuel for Atom Bombs

North Korean officials told the Bush administration last week that they had finished producing enough plutonium to make a half-dozen nuclear bombs, and that they intended to move ahead quickly to turn the material into weapons, senior American officials said today. The new declaration set off a scramble in American intelligence agencies — under fire for their assessment of Iraq's nuclear capability — to determine if the North Korean government of Kim Jong Il was bluffing or had succeeded in producing the material undetected. Covered in more detail by Billmon">BILLMON and Blah 3

In the 'Might be tight in NYC between W and Son of Sam if psychotic felons allowed on ballot' dept:
IS ANYTHING MORE HOSTILE THAN AN ANGRY NEW YORKER??
RNC NOT WELCOME
The BIG APPLE gets ready to hang out a huge "not welcome" sign.

Gore, Al ....................................Bush, George W.
4,107,697................................ 2,403,374
60.21........................................ 35.23

These results were almost 2 to 1 statewide for Gore.
In NYC the margin was even greater.
GWB in NYC after stonewalling 9-11 Comm. with "explosive" revelations predicted.
Without doubt the most hostile territory the RNC will encounter outside of Hollywood
No surprise if convention dumps BUSH for Pataki so delegates get out of town alive.

A little Sunday study of the Religion of George W. Bush

The Gospel According to Bush: Good Christian George?

Consider the abundance of empirical evidence that George Bush and his regime are pathological liars, unabashed tools of the ultra wealthy, and no friend to the working man. What then results in their popularity with the multitudes? Aside from the compliant corporate media as a propaganda machine there is the compliance of pseudo Christians like Falwell and Robertson who abet the myth that Bush is "Christlike" which IS what "Christian" means. This is a good time to notice the pseudo Christianity of Pat Robertson who now seems to think W may not be such a good Christian since he seems to favor replacing "Christian" Liberian President Taylor. Of course Pat Robertson's 7 million dollar investment with Taylor in Liberian Goldmines has nothing to do with that.

What kind of man was Jesus Christ? He was a peacemaker.

1) Is George "Bring Em On" Bush a peacemaker?
No. Bush has the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands.
2) Jesus shunned wealth and possessions. Does Bush shun wealth and possessions?
Hardly. He covets wealth, especially oil; none more so than Iraqi oil. His policies have placed huge burdens upon the working poor in America while giving more wealth to the rich.
3) Jesus Christ spoke profound truth in the form of parables. Does Bush speak truth?
He lied repeatedly about the threat posed by Iraq. Bush stated time and again that there is a demonstrable link between the events of 9/11, Al Qaeda, and Saddam Hussein and of course he lied about the Uranium in Africa, the job production of his tax cuts for the rich, and his commitment to education.
4) Jesus Christ life was given to the needs of the outcast, the poor and oppressed. What has Bush done for the working class people?
The answer: absolutely nothing. Bush continues to give ever more welfare to his rich associates and corporate cronies Halliburton, Bechtel, Worldcom, the Carlyle Group. Bush, like all neo-conservatives, staunchly opposes raising America's pathetic minimum wage to an actual living wage. This is detrimental to the family structure and has a perverse effect on the entire social fabric. Bush is a purveyor of class warfare; the avowed enemy of organized labor. He is one of the ruling classes endowed with special privileges that ninety-nine percent of us don't have. His policies always have a common denominator: they disproportionately aid the rich and harm the poor.

A GENTLE REMINDER OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE CURRENT RESIDENT

Only the very rich or very confused could love this guy.
He has destroyed our economy, security, and credibility in three years.
Give him four more and he may be the Last Resident of the United States

A PIECE OF MIND FOR PEACE OF MIND MOVEMENT.

A call to action against the AMERICAN TELESERVICES ASSOCIATION Refer to this previous post

The link above will take you to the ATA contact website. There is a form you can fill out to contact the ATA and give them a Piece of your Mind for violating your PEACE OF MIND

Interestingly there are two 800 numbers for you to call.

I am going to start calling these two numbers at 1pm on Monday EST. I am going to say to the person who answers
"Hi" "Who am I speaking to today?" "Could I please speak to Mr. Tim Searcy Executive Director?"
"Why hello Ms or Mr. ________ , How are you doing today?"
"Isn't it a lovely day today Mr or MS __________?
"I am calling from the Piece of Mind for Peace of Mind movement where I am regional director and a member"
"We are a loose association of individuals who value greatly our Peace of Mind"
"Do you value your peace of mind Ms or Mr _____?"
"Do you like that quiet time with your thoughts or your family after you get home from work"
"Do you hate being interrupted by some jerk trying to sell you something you neither need nor want"
YOUR CALL WILL PROBABLY BE TERMINATED BY NOW so just wing it.

Wouldn't it be interesting if many people called those numbers beginning at 1PM Monday in their respective time zones and continued calling until 2pm in their respective time zones. What if we did that for a week? Do you think the telemarketers would get the message?
Probably not but I am going to try.
Care to join me in this? Please comment. For those of you who support this idea but do not wish to call there is a page of e-mail addresses.
Mass e-mail from the Piece of Mind for Peace of Mind movement to every addressee on the page would be appropriate.

Inspired in part by SKB and this post on the Association of Pickpockets and Muggers but they don't have a website with phone numbers.

9-11 Report to be EXPLOSIVE


A long-awaited final report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will be released in the next two weeks, containing new information about U.S. government mistakes and Saudi financing of terrorists.

Former Rep. Tim Roemer, who served on the House Intelligence Committee and who has read the report, said it will be ''highly explosive'' when it becomes public.
A source familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, cited two ''sensitive areas'' of the report that will command public attention:
• More information on ties between the Saudi royal family, government officials and terrorists. The FBI may have mishandled an investigation into how two of the Sept. 11 hijackers received aid from Saudi groups and individuals.
John Lehman, a member of the independent commission, said at a hearing Wednesday: ``There's little doubt that much of the funding of terrorist groups -- whether intentional or unintentional -- is coming from Saudi sources.''
• A coherent narrative of intelligence warnings, some of them ignored or not shared with other agencies, before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

WARNING IN 2001
The report will show that top Bush administration officials were warned in the summer of 2001 that the al Qaeda terrorist network had plans to hijack aircraft and launch a ``spectacular attack.''

Thanks to Frog n Blog for the tip.

Good timing on this report. It will heighten the pressure for co-operation with the current 9-11 commission.
This stuff was expected and is pretty tame. Bigger questions are brewing at the new commission like why interceptors did not fly.

TELEMARKETERS LOBBY IN SUIT AGAINST DO NOT CALL LIST

What a crock of crap!

Something called the American Teleservices Association (can we get a phone number and call them relentlessly?) is complaining that 2 million people will lose their jobs because of the DO NOT CALL effort. The only reason that is of any concern is the state of the job market due to the Bush Administration. Telemarketing jobs are minimum wage bottom of the barrel employment with high turnover and few benefits.

I am among those who take a very agressive posture toward telemarketers. I am either extremely rude and abusive "Get a *&%$ real job JERK and quit bothering people you moron!!!" OR if I do not need the telephone I simply lay it down next to a speaker that keeps saying 'yes' at random intervals.
The audacity that anyone thinks the telephone line into my home is a conduit they can use as a sales device without my consent is ludicrous. What I cannot understand are people who actually buy things that are sold this way.

Some will say that the poor souls that take telemarketer jobs are just trying to make a living and that kindness is required. Bullshit I say. Telemarketers need to recognize immediately that their job is going to require a very thick skin. Thick skins are like thick heads deserving of scorn when they invade the peace and quiet of my home and interrupt my train of thought. Next time one of these parasites calls feel free to give them a piece of your mind since they have disturbed your peace of mind. The "loving" thing to do is to help them break the habit of preying on poor suckers who buy from telemarketers. It may help save their souls and at least get them thinking about a job that helps people instead of hurting them. TELEMARKETERS ARE TRASH BECAUSE THEY ARE TELEMARKETERS. Stop being a telemarketer and you can regain your humanity.

as Bubba sez "Ok, then"

(cut) TAX and SPEND CONSERVATIVES!!!!

Rumsfeld Estimates U.S. Monthly Costs in Iraq at $3.9 Billion
House Approves $369 Billion for Defense Spending
A few billion here - a few billion there - and it starts to add up.
A couple of Trillion in Tax cuts and a couple of Trillion in "defense" spending and maybe those Halliburton boys might want to get paid in gold.
Does anybody know how much the KBR/Halliburtion boys have gotten this week? Are those checks starting to bounce?
The estimates have doubled on the per month cost of our "adventure in Nation Building" in IRAQ.
Who are these estimators anyway? Ken Lay and Thomas White? Sounds just like that Enron/Worldcom accounting team of Overbill, Stonewall, and Hyde.

What happens in America when there is a total financial collapse?
See below THE SUM OF ALL FEARS.

UPDATE: Halliburton KBR Logcap contract billing now at $425 Million and climbing. When last reported this amount was at $187 Million just 12 days ago. This is only one of two contracts that Halliburtion KBR is profiting by in IRAQ.

LIMBAUGH IS THE MOST RECOGNIZED NAME IN RADIO SURVEY



TBOGG: "I don't listen to talk radio and I don't know anyone who listens to talk radio. So when I hear that Limbaugh is the 'most recognized name' in radio that strikes me as being on the same level as Preparation H being the most recognized name in hemorrhoidal creams. They're both for assholes."

The Limbaughtomy is for the Limbaughtomized as Prep H is for Anal Cyst sufferers.

Do you think we could get a LIMBAUGH TIE to go with those shoes for Tucker?

ONE MILLION COPIES OF HILLERY'S BOOK SOLD


What will you have for your entree tonight Tucker? A nice rare Dr. Marten or perhaps O.J's favorite Bruno Magli's?

THE SMOKING GUN. THE PROOF OF THE LIE. as predicted the British press will sink the Resident because the US Republicans do not control the British Media.

Bush, according to CIA sources, knew ten months before the state of the Union, that the Niger documents were false and used them anyway

Doubts about a claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the African state of Niger were aired 10 months before Mr Bush included the allegation in his key State of the Union address this year, a CIA official has told the BBC.

On Tuesday, the White House for the first time officially acknowledged that the Niger claim was wrong and suggested it should not have been used in the president's State of the Union speech in January.

But the CIA official has said that a former US diplomat had already established the claim was false in March 2002 - and that the information had been passed on to government departments, including the White House, well before Mr Bush mentioned it in the speech.

Bigger Than Watergate!

The story you are about to read is in this writer's view the biggest political scandal in American history, if not global history. And it is being broken today here in New Zealand.

This story cuts to the bone the machinery of democracy in America today. Democracy is the only protection we have against despotic and arbitrary government, and this story is deeply disturbing.

Imagine if you will that you are a political interest group that wishes to control forevermore the levers of power. Imagine further that you know you are likely to implement a highly unpopular political agenda, and you do not wish to be removed by a ballot driven backlash.

This breaking news is being covered across the blogosphere and it gets very scary when it is applied to this post from yesterday: The Sum of All Fears.

42 Years Ago in 1961 I spent the Summer as a Senate Page for Senator Albert Gore Sr.

I was 14 years old and lived alone in a rooming house run by Mrs. Alexandra Columbus where the red X marks the spot behind the Supreme Court Building. Every morning I would stroll past SCOTUS on the way to the NSOB (Now the Dirksen) for breakfast in the Senate Cafeteria. There were usually a few Senators present. I would then hop on the short "subway" that ran from the Senate Office Buildings to the Senate side of the Capitol and to the Senate Chamber by 9:00AM.
Senate pages would set up the desks in the Senate chamber prior to each day’s session that began at 11:00am. We would place a copy of the Congressional Record from the day before and copies of Bills or Resolutions to be considered on each of the 100 desks. Pens, pencils, and legal pads were checked. During the morning and throughout the sessions we would be dispatched to one office or another to pickup some document and deliver it to another for signature and return or simply to drop off. The worst of those tasks would be when dispatched to a far corner office on the third floor of the NSOB for a missive that had to go to a Congressman who was quartered in the far upper corner of the Rayburn HOB. The House pages did not have the luxury of a subway train so a long underground walk was involved. I wore out three sets of heels on a pair of loafers in 3 months on those marble floors.
The picture of Senators above shows Kenneth Keating R NY, Hubert Humphrey D MN the Majority Whip, Jacob Javits R NY, Everett Dirksen R IL who was the Minority Leader of the Senate, Tom Kuchel R CA., Warren Magneson D WA and Phillip Hart. Keefauver and Gore were the Democratic Senators from Tennessee. There was almost a 2/3rds majority of Democrats. I was serving on the Republican side of the aisle because the Democrats controlled patronage and most of the tenured (year long) pages were on the Democratic side.
John Tower joined the Senate from Texas as a Republican while I was there and he was seated next to Barry Goldwater R. AZ who marked his bills every day to tell him how to vote. Norris Cotton R NH., Saltonstall R MA. and Margaret Chase Smith from Maine were among the memorable faces on the Republican side. Pat Robertson's father was a Democrat Senator from Virginia, 'Midnight' Wayne Morse D OR. held a 12 hour filibuster on something strange and kept us there all night; Richard Russell D of Georgia was old and Carl Hayden D AZ class of 27 was older. Strom Thurmond was a Democrat then and not so old. I collected autographed pictures of every Senator that summer.
More Here

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS by Tom Clancy

A Monologue by Herr Richard Dressler:
"Most people believe that the 20th Century was defined by the death struggle of Communism Vs Capitalism and that Fascism was but a hiccup. Today we know better.

Communism was but a fool’s errand - the followers of Marx gone from this earth, while the followers of Hitler are bound and thrive. Hitler however had one great disadvantage. He lived in a time when Fascism like a virus, like the AIDS virus, needed a strong host in order to spread. Germany was a strong host, but strong as it was Germany could not prevail. The world was too big. Fortunately the world has changed. Global communications, cable TV, the Internet; today the world is smaller and the virus does not need such a strong host in order to spread. This virus is airborne.

One more thing let no man call us crazy. They called Hitler crazy but Hitler was not crazy. Hitler was stupid. You don’t fight Russia and America. You get Russia and America to fight each other and destroy each other."

While watching this again on DVD I was struck by this speech and the efficiency with which it could be implemented in today's volitile situation.
North Korea - Russian Nukes - there would not even be a need for a major conflict. Americans now seem so willing to give up freedoms for a false sense of security that rumour of war not war itself could be sufficient for an elected dictatorship to prevail. The first step is the death of truth combined with a complete concentration of power in a very limited number of individuals. Isn't that what we essentially have now? There is much speculation today about one party rule in the USA for the next decade. Grover Norquist-The Republican Party's prophet of permanence indicates a deep belief that very rich white American males will be the most powerful force in the world for the next decade. What is new about that is the lack of any substantial opposition.
Given events like the Texas redistricting and filibuster limits these people could effectively end all semblance of democracy in America. With control of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches along with the money supply, the military, oil, weapons, FBI, CIA, Justice and the Media who is there to stop them.

RUSH NEWSPEAK detailed and defined.

Kevin at Lean Left points out this terriffic PDF document made available by Orcincus with the help of many notable bloggers.
A very small taste:
In Limbaughland, there are still “evil” people in government but since Bushies took over they’re all liberals. Indeed, the demonization of all things liberal has always been a component of Limbaugh’s routine. But now it has become his focus. And it is in that shift, taking place in a context of rising extremism, that he has become openly divisive, and truly dangerous. Limbaugh has in recent months been one of the national leaders in the right-wing campaign to characterize opposition to President Bush’s questionable policies as “anti-American,” a campaign that is closely associated with broader conservative attacks on the underlying ideals of multiculturalism. But Limbaugh has taken the rhetoric another step by associating liberals with Nazis and other fascist regimes.

Consider, for instance, this essay, which appeared on Limbaugh’s Web site on April 17, 2003:
Little Dick Promises Fascism If Elected (There is a brief description of the Gephart Healthcare proposal here)
That’s fascism — a term thrown around by people who don’t have the intellectual chops to defend their ideas, but Gephardt’s plan has features of that discredited ideology. Merriam-Webster: “Fas • cism: A political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”
This is a classic case of Newspeak — diminishing the range of thought (it’s telling that Limbaugh originally filed this under “Making the Complex Understandable”) by nullifying the meaning of words. Democracy, according to Limbaugh, is fascism. In fact, even as he ironically sneers at “people who don’t have the intellectual chops to defend their ideas,” he resorts to the notoriously inadequate dictionary definition of fascism in order to stand the meaning of the word on its head.
I suggest that anyone interested in debunking Limbaugh to download the PDF and keep it handy. There was a huge amount of work that went into this notable document. Thank you Orcinus.

"No Child Left Behind .........errr Held Back............err Held Down"

The dumbya edukashun enishativ: A pat on the head is better than money

THIS JUST IN FROM THE TTLB SHOWCASE:
Rush Limbaughtomy Wins the Showcase


Father for Dean gets my vote for weblog showcase
Many Thanks to the RTB members and others who "voted" on my behalf
Barry B.

This weeks entry from the nomination of TOM at THE FUNNY FARM

Republican Rick Santorum (R-PA) REPUBLICAN ROLE MODEL OF THE DAY # 6
is under fire for likening consensual gay sex with bigamy, polygamy, incest, and adultery. Santorum told the AP, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." Rick Santorum, the pudgy-faced Pennsylvanian is a hero among social conservatives. He make Trent Lott look like a man of principle, John Warner like a deep thinker, and Newt Gingrich like Miss Manners.
His only exposure to life in the private sector was a brief stint as a lawyer and lobbyist (where his clients included the World Wrestling Federation). Nonetheless, Santorum can sound like a militia member denouncing big government: "I've read the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that America will be here 100 years from now,"
After he was elected to the House his chief issue was the House Bank scandal and their goal, to force full disclosure of the number of checks bounced by various members. His biggest supporters were the pharmaceutical and medical-insurance industries, impressed with his implacable resistance to health-care reform. In both the House and the Senate, he has remained firm in his doctrinaire opposition to any kind of meaningful campaign-finance reform.
Hepped up on Gingrich's candidate-training tapes, Santorum’s campaign against Sen. Wofford was notable for its uncalled-for personal nastiness. Responding to Wofford's support for national service, Santorum smirked, "Someone's going to pick up trash in a park and sing 'Kumbayah' around a campfire and you're going to give them 90 percent of the benefits of the GI Bill & $30,000 a year” he lied and then accused Wofford of being dishonest. "I have never seen another candidate in my life who would stand up in front of the voters and tell lies, absolute lies, the way he does,"
At 36, Santorum became the youngest member of the Senate and made a name for treating fainthearted older members of his own party with the same boorishness and arrogance he had displayed toward Wofford. Santorum's personal unpleasantness and affinity for injecting religion into politics have led many liberals to cast him as a sort of Jesse Helms of the North. One looks in vain, however, for any thread of consistent belief. Santorum is pro-life, but supports the death penalty; he opposed NAFTA, but favored GATT; he wants to balance the budget while providing more pork for Pennsylvania. Unlike some of his class of '94 comrades in the House, who are principled in their bullheaded way, he never met a principle he wouldn't swap for a few more votes.

NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN FOR FUTURE ENTRIES you can choose from ideas here and here or offer ideas of your own.

This very cool Electoral Map is provided at the Edwards for President site. It is interactive. By clicking on the resized for electoral votes states you can turn them Blue for Democrats, Red for Repulsicons, or white for unsure and total up the 270 needed for election NOT SCOTUS selection for President not Resident of the USA

THINGS ARE TURNING AROUND ON THE WMD DEBATE
75 PERCENT OF AMERICANS NOW SAY IT WOULD MATTER IF THEY WERE MISLED ON WMD.
53 PERCENT SAY IT WOULD MATTER A GREAT DEAL Take a look at W's face upon hearing about this poll


The Residents handlers are said to be quite concerned and taking precautions that
he does not return to his old drinking habits. Concern escalated yesterday when he
purportedly asked Secretary Powell to join him in prayer to ask God to tell
him the location of the WMD
Less than half of Americans said they were confident that U.S. forces would capture
or kill Saddam, down from 70 percent in March. About 45 percent said they lacked confidence
that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction would be found, up from 15 percent in March.

UPDATE: Maryland poll says majority think Bush STRETCHED THE TRUTH ON WMD

What did George Bush say to PM. Abbas?

Did he say that God had told him to "strike Al Queda and Saddam" as previously revealed?

Should not the press be asking about that report?

According to this report they will have a chance to question Abbas in the US soon.

BILL FRIST THE REPUBLICAN ROLE MODEL of the Day # 4 The shame of Rocky Top
Get ready for the next big FRISTING see skb Frist is pissed because SCOTUS got him out of our bedrooms. So Bill is thinking about a Constitutional Amendment to get back in. This rich Medicaid Fraud already profits by abortions while buying votes opposing them. He's rich because his father founded HCA, the nation's largest hospital company that just agreed to pay $880 million to settle charges of health care fraud the GOP has simply replaced a racist with a corporate crook. Frist was born rich, and got richer - thanks to massive criminal fraud by the family business. the Bush Justice Department suddenly ended a near-decadelong federal investigation into how HCA for years had defrauded Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare (the federal program that covers the military and their families), giving the greedy health-care behemoth's executives a sweetheart settlement that kept them out of the can."
Frist Gets Rich from Abortions While Trying to Outlaw Them
Bill Frist votes to outlaw 99.5% of abortions, good enough to earn him a 100% voting record from the National Right to Life Committee - and 0% from Planned Parenthood and NARAL. But Frist owns at least $5 million worth of HCA, a for-profit hospital chain that provides abortions, thus fattening Frist's own wallet, and that of his brother, HCA's CEO.

More Here on Bum's Rush

"But, Ann, you're mean -- vicious, really -- which is why we do not believe that you in any way serve the public good. "

THE COULTERGEIST has her own dedicated spot Treason
just to cover the Hate and venom of this Republican savage cruel bigot
Visit Man about Murfreesboro for a Coulter-roast on his June 30 blog
Resonance and South Knox Bubba post great pieces on Chris Matthews in a good old fashioned Horse's Ass Kickin Coulter-roast. Read it and comment

UPDATE: The Coulter roasting continues unabated with numerous cites of the Richard Cohen op-ed trashing of the Coultergeist Atrios, puddingbowl, rhetorica, seetheforest, submeat, fromtheswamp, rub, elevendayempire, hnn, nancynall, dangerousmeta, Buzzflash it is great that the blogosphere is taking this on from the start.

ANNOUNCING REPUBLICAN ROLE MODELS OF THE DAY
Check back daily for details on the who's who of the REPUBLICAN PARTY.
One has to ask oneself, "Are these the people I really want to be associated with?"


Please participate by adding your nominees for REPUBLICAN ROLE MODEL OF THE DAY in the comment section.

As someday it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list, I've got a little list.
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed, they never would be missed.
I'VE GOT A LITTLE LIST The MIKADO Gilbert and Sullivan.

WE ARE KNOWN BY THE COMPANY WE KEEP.
THE FUNNY FARM is a great place to get the lowdown on animals of all breeds. Thanks to Tom for sending contestants to Republican Role Model of the Day.
If the comment section is down please e-mail entries to aurabass-at-hotmail.com

REPUBLICAN ROLE MODEL OF THE DAY # 3
SENATOR JOSEPH McCARTHY After World War II McCarthy ran against Robert La Follette to become Republican candidate for the senate. Campaign posters pictured him in "full fighting gear, with an aviator's cap, and belt upon belt of machine gun ammunition wrapped around his bulky torso." He claimed he had completed thirty-two missions when in fact he had a desk job and only flew in training exercises. Sound familiar?
McCarthy attacked La Follette who was forty-six when Pearl Harbor had been bombed, and was too old to join the armed services for not enlisting. On his first day in the Senate, he proposed a solution to a coal-strike that was taking place. McCarthy called for John L. Lewis and the striking miners to be drafted into the Army. If the men still refused to mine the coal, McCarthy suggested they should be court-martialed for insubordination and shot.
McCarthy's first years in the Senate were unimpressive. People also started coming forward claiming that he had lied about his war record. he was being investigated for tax offences and for taking bribes from the Pepsi-Cola Company. In May, 1950, afraid that he would be defeated in the next election. Edmund Walsh, a Roman Catholics priest, came up with the idea that he should begin a campaign against communist subversives working in the Democratic administration.
McCarthy an alcoholic and Roy Cohen savaged witnesses and misused the investigative power of the Senate until censured by the Senate in 1955. He died of alcoholism shortly thereafter.

REPUBLICAN ROLE MODEL OF THE DAY # 2
Bill Bennett "Where Bush Rewards Terror" Who had accused our president of making "concessions to terrorism" and "ceding ... lands to dictators?"
Indeed it was – "William J. Bennett"! What had the president done to merit Bennett's invoking of Munich and the Holocaust? The president had suggested that Ariel Sharon's rampage through refugee camps with tanks, where hundreds were cut down including women and children, was "not helpful."
The icon of homophobic conservatism. Bill (Virtues) Bennett The pompous scold who can blow $8 million on slot machines while he tells us how to live moral lives.

REPUBLICAN ROLE MODEL OF THE DAY # 1
Antonin Scalia "We are fools for Christ's sake. We must pray for the courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world." "Alas being tough and traditional is a heavy cross to bear. Duresse oblige."
He's so Old School, he's Old Testament, misty over the era when military institutes did not have to accept women, when elite schools did not have to make special efforts with blacks, when a gay couple in their own bedroom could be clapped in irons, when women were packed off to Our Lady of Perpetual Abstinence Home for Unwed Mothers.
Justice Anthony Kennedy gave patriotism true meaning in time for the Fourth of July. His ruling eloquently reminded the country, "Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct."
Antonin Scalia is Archie Bunker in a high-backed chair. Like Archie, Nino is the last one to realize that his intolerance is risibly out-of-date.

REPUBLICAN ROLE MODELS OF THE DAY EMERITUS
Tricky Dick Nixon crook and cover up artist
STROM THURMOND Click on this link to hear Strom speak.
Pork Barrel Segregationist
More here

GOD'S OTHER SON GEORGE
UPDATE available here
Palestinian Premier Abbas said that at Aqaba, Bush promised to speak with Sharon about the siege on Arafat. He said nobody can speak to or pressure Sharon except the Americans. He was speaking with factions of the PLO in a post Aqaba meeting.

According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."

And, in what form do you suppose these messages from God come, anyway? Stone tablets? Vivid dreams? Memos from Karl Rove's office? Or perhaps a burning BUSH?


Illustration inspiration fromHullabaloo

Could it be that George Walker Bush is a present day William Jennings Bryan/ Matthew Harrison Brady? Harken back to the Scopes Trial in Dayton Tennessee where the teaching of EVILoution was on trial and the famous populist Bryan came to defend the Holy Bible and the Creationists. In the movie starring Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow, Matthew Harrison Brady is called to the stand as an expert on all things Biblical. "So God speaks to Brady and Brady tells the world" thunders Darrow "Is that the way of it then?" "Perhaps we should have the book of Brady." "We can hex the Pentateuch and slip it in nicely between Numbers and Deuteronomy" "Brady, Brady, Brady, Almighty" Substitute Bush for Brady and forget about Weapons of Mass Destruction and cast a cold clear gaze on this Weapon of Self Delusion.
UPDATE: Last night I sent e-mail to Arnon Regular about the quote in his story for HAARETZ
This is his reply via e-mail this morning:

Dear Mr. Bozeman
The protocols are the official protocols of meetings held last week between mr. Abbas and the palestinian fractions in gaza. mr. abbas speech on GWB was his statement on GWB.no more and no less. its not a proof that mr. bush actually said it but its definite that mr. abbas said it because the protocols are confirmed from his side and the fractions side.

There is no question about what Mr. Abbas said and I have not seen any denial by Bush or his minions.

Interesting that Calpundit in an extremely rare defense of Conservatives has a different take on this event.
Others support my point of view:
Sick of Bush Prometheus Speaks and Hullabaloo each cover this story in a similar manner.

A report this week has Abbas visiting Bush at the White House. It would be interesting to hear Mr. Bush field questions in the Rose Garden upon conclusion of their talks if a reporter in attendance could get Abbas to repeat his claim at that time.

A Little more to the Rights comments on Rush Limbaugh

Rush 'my anal cyst is killing me' Slimeball

3 typical Limbautomized lunacies featured on the ALMTTR blog:
1) “It seems like every time Congress or SCOTUS is in session, our liberties are up for grabs.”
Limbo is of course speaking of the Republican Congress and the Reagan/Bush packed SCOTUS. Has Rush come around to the liberal way of thinking?.

2) On abortion, “The pro-choice people are not pro-choice unless you make the 'right' choice, and every time an abortion is going to take place that doesn't, they feel a setback in their political movement.”
Limbo reverts to his old demonizing ways here claiming that pro-choice people do not want choice but infanticide.

3)"dependents outraged that government won't foot the bill for their antacid, now they won't be able to cram pizza and chorizo down their throats without consequences unless they ante up."
This one is humorous indeed. It draws a mental image of the 'BIG FAT IDIOT' himself bloated and billious stuffed with pepperoni and sausage sitting on that famous ANAL CYST that got this fat CHICKENHAWK his deferment.

"I thank heaven for Rush Limbaugh. Without him I'd be another mind-numbed liberal robot." Jeff
Well congratulations Jeff, you are a mind-numbed LIMBAUGHTOMIZED robot who believes the Republican Congress and the SCOTUS are eroding your liberty. I have to say you are pretty well screwed any way you look at it. Perhaps this site will serve it's purpose with you and break the evil Limbaughtomy spell that you are under. My fervent hope is for your partial recovery. Keep on believing that the Republican Congress and the SCOTUS are eroding your liberty - they are.

JOB CREATION this SKB comment section for a totally unrelated post contains comments about Job Creation.
"Bush hasn't lost jobs nor did clinton add them. The market did. Prove me wrong. " is the verbatim statement by Say Uncle

My position was that during the Clinton tenure a record number of jobs were created and that under the current Resident that jobs will decrease for the first time since Herbert Hoover. Now Say Uncle says that Clinton and Bush were not responsible for this radical swing in the employment outlook. My question to him is why the Residents men are trying to make it appear that his policies do make all the difference. Are they misleading us Uncle?

MORE HERE

We can fully expect that Ann Coulter's TREASON will take up where Ann Coulter's SLANDER concluded. And just how nasty is Coulter’s conclusion? She draws an ugly conclusion indeed. “Except for occasional forays to the Wal-Mart,” she says, “liberals do not know any conservatives.” But conservatives “already know” liberals, she says. Conservatives know liberals as “savagely cruel bigots who hate America and lie for sport.” Incredibly, that is Coulter’s final phrase. It closes her strange, disturbed book.

On the eve of TREASON's release we need to reacquaint ourselves with the LIES of SLANDER and there is no place better to do that than the archives of THE DAILY HOWLER**

Coulter as media whore & Coulter as high heel gunslinger

Bob Somerby meticulously details the misrepresentations and lies in 780 footnotes used in Slander. He proves that Ann Coulter is not to be believed or taken seriously Ann Coulter is a whore in the classic sense. She has sold herself for money instead of truth. If not SLANDER Coulter is LIBEL and her TREASON is against AMERICA for America is not only the self-righteous right. America is all of us. Ann Coulter is dedicated to bringing out the worst in us just like Rush Limbaugh. Ann is waging her own conservative jihad. Draw your own conclusion about who is the "savagely cruel bigot who hates America and lies for sport".
**Scroll to the bottom of the linked page to the entries from July 9, 2002 through July 26, 2002

TBOGG cracks me up

Join the Hullabaloo over at Digbys

For another great take on the dangers of overexposure to Rush
Read this brave and sordid tale about descent into the malestrom of limbaughtomized madness.
Digby Rules.

Mr. Hobbs is wrong again when he states "Al Gore's Liberal News Network is doomed to fail" quoting a source he repeats. Hobbs should check his sources.

Al Gore is not starting a liberal news network

Democratic Veteran and Sick of Bush are new members of the Rocky Top Brigade. HOORAY and WELCOME
We needed the balance after the past few additions we were listing too far to starbord.
The intelligence level of the RTB just increased dramatically

Welcome aboard there Mateys. I look forward to reading you daily.
Be sure to use the RTB Forum when you can

What is a Liberal, a Conservative, a Libertarian, or an Authoritarian
THE POLITICAL COMPASS will let you know where you are.
If you do not know you should read this site and take the test to see where you stand compared to world leaders and historical figures.

-2.2 to the West and -6.9 to the South is where I am. How about you?

Use the RTB Forum for comments

Sunday browsing brought a perfect find
LIBERALS LIKE CHRIST
It is an epiphany for the religious right.
Would Jesus be a Democrat or a Republican?
This is an extensive site with detailed scripture references and it makes a strong case.
Can you refute it?

Make your comments on the RTB Forum

Forked Tongue

The old indian adage "Rich white man speaks with forked tongue" is true.

When speaking with Forked Tongue one uses the NEWSPEAK DICTIONARY

The belief in the supremacy of law is the defining characteristic of our country, and what has made America the strongest and most successful democracy in human history. Now we’ve made an international spectacle of our disregard for the principles of law in the single-minded pursuit of our narrowly-defined (and, in my view, poorly-defined) interests.
What's rotten here has nothing to do with the criminal and everything to do with the cop. If our cause against Iraq was just, we should have taken the time to make the case, and should have appeared willing to accept a different outcome if the facts were against us. Some would call that weakness. Others would say that real weakness is giving in to the passions of the moment, without regard to the larger good that is being destroyed by our righteous, arrogant rage.