Ladies and gentlemen - I believe the President may have been drinking or may have been drunk during this press conference. Seriously. I’ve seen and heard a lot of drunk talk in my time and with the amount of word slurring, stammering and stuttering, I believe he was unhinged. CNN in the after speech coverage is talking about Bush snapping at their reporter. He did lash out, again, as a drunk would, irrationally, at reporters who were doing their job.

And his banter with the press, which often bordered on the cute/abusiveness you get from drunks, leads me to believe even more that he was on something.

I have NEVER been so embarrassed for my country because of my leader. I was hoping against hope that men in white coats would come and lead him gently away to a facility in which he could get some hope. At this point, I’d even take Cheney for the remainder of this term. He’s an asshole but at least he’s articulate and, I trust, sober.

Bush seems to have had some very key and elementary phrases drilled into his head and he repeated them ad nauseum, as if he had some kind of psychiatric disability. Never have I heard such rambling and disjointed speech and syntax from a President.

And never have I heard such disconnect from reality as from this President. His disconnect from reality to me, borders on dangerous. It’s like the captain of the ship is on deck drunk and the ship is heading for the icebergs.

In many cases Bush ranted like a child for a toy and blamed Congress over and over while NEVER taking any responsibility for what the seven and a half years of HIS presidency have done to this country. Highly irresponsible and childlike.

On ANWAR - even the CNN commentator says drilling in ANWAR does not feel immediate. And he’s right. It will take more time and money to extract that oil than it will be worth - you can do it certainly - but the price will even be higher than it is now. Don’t trust me - ask the geologists - they’ll tell you the same thing.

I do think Bush may have inadvertently admitted to peak oil. If you wish to wade through my notes that follow, you’ll see the point where this admission is all but made. I really think this is the only part of his comments that people need to take notice of and draw the necessary conclusions. We are in an era of declining oil PRODUCTION and RESERVES. Nothing will be the same again and this President missed a golden opportunity to be an adult and speak frankly to the American people about the real challenges we face and the fact that our non-negotiable lifestyle is on borrowed time and the sooner we agree to a new era of self-sacrifice, conservation and transformation, the easier it will go for us.

But instead he raved, literally raved, that drilling ANWAR and more tax cuts will solve the problem.

We’re in very deep trouble here and our leadership has gone off the deep end. I fear for our future. Certainly the markets of which Bush so much of his faith in, can’t but look at this disjointed, raving performance and not fear for their own future.

transcript follows:

Live blogging

Opening statement:

So much it’s the usual crap about expanding oil production and ANWAR. Same old, same old. 1 million additional blls a day but not the cost to actually extract is figured into that. Increases in production do not “likely” mean lower gas prices.

Its supply and demand.

More than 30 years since refinery. As the oil companies – they know it’s a losing proposition. Not Congress. And the lack of refining keeps prices high – look at the current stories about oil co. profits.

He’s lying. But that’s par for the course.

On food - again, blame Congress. Unbelievable.

He’s stuttering like an idiot.

He’s not talking about the international food scene and the World Bank and IMF and what they’ve done to developing country.

Mortgages - again, blame Congress. Amazing. Not one work about how his investor class buddies raped the housing market by creating an investment bubble. Not one word on the Fed and it’s horribly destructive policies.

Not since Nixon has a President so lied through his teeth about the current crisis.

Useless press conference.

Q: on waiting until the stimulus pass - should we do more now - moratorium on gas.

A: He still believes his “stimulus” will have any effect. Amazing. Again - more on exploring oil and gas in US territories - lying - environmentally friendly ways.

Bush pumping for his big oil friends to the bitter end. Completely self-serving and lying. We DONT have the reserves to make any appreciable move toward self-sufficiency.

No word on gas tax. Typical.

Q: Persuasing Saudis on output levels.

A: (stuttering). Speaks on Americans anxiety levels. “I do understand that.” Bullshit. This is HIS ECONOMY. Like a complete idiot he keeps talking about finding energy at home. Batteries in cars. Ethanol. I think he’s either drunk or mad. Saudis? Put the arm on his buddies? Hah!! Again on the refineries - the oil companies DONT WANT NEW REFINERIES. Finally on the Saudis - more stuttering and stammering. “There’s not a lot of excess capacity in the world right now. . . demand is rising faster than supply.” Finally! The TRUTH! But its PEAK OIL MR PRESIDENT HAVE THE BALLS TO SAY IT!!!!!!!!!

Q: Biofuels and food.

A: Denies the reporters question basis. Says 15 percent of food rise from ethanol. High price of gas will spur more exploration in ethanol. In our national interests that our farmers grow energy. WRONG. Says he’s deeply concerned about people in want abroad. Hard to believe. He really sounds exasperated and drugged. Wants people to buy food from local farmers. Huh? Blames Congress again like a little child throwing an tantrum over a toy.

Q: gas tax moratorium again

A: open to any ideas (which means nothing). Says its a political question. Again says hes concerned about food, gas and home issues. Lying. Blames Congress again. Stutters and stammers. Says he won’t jump into a presidential campaign. A non-answer or a “no.”

I’ve never been more embarrassed

Q: PEAK OIL QUESTION!!!!! ALERT!!!! (didn’t call it peak oil though)

A: claims he’s put a lot into ethanol. Making ethanol out of wood chips and grass. “We’re in a transition period.” Hmmm - an admission without an admission.

People - read between the lines - PEAK OIL IS REAL.

Well there ARE reserves to be found in ANWAR!!!! That’s a given !! 27 million gallons (?!) not being utilized. Again and again this lie - that we can be self-sufficient due to ANWAR. Repeating it like a psychiatric tic. “When you say ANWAR you don’t care about the gasoline prices people are paying.” Bullshit lie.

Q: Stop filling strat petrol reserve.

A: in this case - it wouldn’t affect price. (and ANWAR would?). Makes the case with purchases on SPR vs. demand. It won’t affect price. But that oil ISNT for the people - its for the GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY. Says Al Quaeda wants to blow up oil facilities. Has this man NO SHAME?! Bringing THAT up? So WHY hasn’t it happened yet Mr. President?

Q: Afghanistan - attempt on President’s life are we succeeding.

A: Were making progress - resilient enemy that wants to kill. What life was like prior to LIBERATION of the countries. Hey Mr. Prez - little girls aren’t going to school NOW! Complete unreality. Complete lies. The Soviets couldn’t hold it - why can we? Karzai was an oil company executive. That’s never mentioned.

I think we’re making good progress.

(cuts off the reporter’s question curtly. Yeah we live in a democracy)

Q: Iraqi strategy are we winning.

A: (getting angry). We’re making progress in Afghanistan but there’s tough fighting. etc. etc. tap dancing. He’s flailing about and sounding more like a madman than usual. Claims its in our interests. Yelling at reporters WERE IN A GLOBAL STRUGGLE AGAINST THUGS AND KILLERS!!!! (he’s unhinged). Sounds like he’s been drinking - like a drunken rant.

Q: Bombing of Syrian facility - didn’t discuss it when it happened but now releasing photos. Why the turnaround?

A: Said he briefed 22 members of Congress about it. Concerned early disclosure would risk confrontation in the Middle East (translation - Israel told him to hold it). Now he’s talking very carefully and quietly. Claims didn’t want to let the NKs know we knew more about them. Sending a message to Iran and the world. Still can’t pronounce nuclear. He sounds like he’s really groping for answers here. I can’t follow his line of speech/thought. Disjointed. Tell Syria their intransigence (he slurred the word I really do think he’s been drinking).

Q: On Congress’ intransigence. A softball question from a rightie no doubt.

A: “I believe they are letting the American people down.” UNFREAKINBELIEVABLE. HE’S LETTING THE PEOPLE DOWN. Psychotic. Goes back on the FISA issue - wants to spy on Americans unfettered. To protect us. Columbia free trade. Claims more exports. Hard to believe it will affect Americans in any way. Talks about exports going overseas being good. Now he’s ranting again.

(more inside jokes with the press who plays along)

Q: What are you doing short term on gas - tomorroes GDP numbers.

A: Haven’t been shown - they’ll show we’re slowing down. Says ANWAR is an intermediate term project. “The market will do as much to encourage conservation as anything now.” No matter how many people are hurt. Getting testy with reporter - again. “Make me lose my train of thought - maybe that’s what your wanting me to do.” “NO magic wand to wave.” Gets his dates on Congress action on ANWAR mixed up. Again slams the environmental argument. Also wants his tax cuts for the rich permanent. Again - defend the “have more’s” at all costs/

Q: Feel Jimmy Carter undermined your policies by meeting with Hamas?

A: Peace is undermined by Hamas. Hamas is bad, very bad. Won’t talk to them. Stutters/stammers. “We’re witnessing a struggle between though who understand and appreciate liberty and those who want to stop the advance of liberty.” (I don’t think Bush understands what liberty means). Brings Iran into the equation. More on Hamas. Line of thought appears disjointed. Won’t blame Carter. Won’t mention Carter.

Q: More on Carter - did you contact him.

A: I didn’t talk to him and I don’t know. (Amazing he wouldn’t be in contact with a former President who is talking to a foreign entity).

Continues to slur his words and stammer.

This is REALLY getting embarrassing to listen to.

Q: Congress adds to supplemental spending bill do you support these measures.

A: 108 billion is 108. Made by position (on ceiling) clear. Won’t accept micromanaging of the war. will work with Congress on Vet’s benefits (actions/words - still lying).

Q: Big urgent problem (missed question w/customer).

A: Very important for President to understand that America is still endanger from attack. blah blah blah spread of liberty (at business end of a rifle) blah blah blah isolationist/protectionist blah blah blah. “Have faith in the capacity of liberty to be trans formative.” (sigh). Continued stammering stuttering. Blames the country for losing its nerve. “I do believe its a gift from the almighty to every man woman and child” (now I KNOW he’s crazy) - he’s using religious hoo ha to argue for making the rich richer. Unbelievable.

“you’re looking good in yella” - to reporter.

More embarrassing and unprofessional behavior.

Q: Aren’t we in a recession? Zimbabwe

A: “I will tell you these are very difficult times and we’ll let the economists define it for what it is” (Cowardice). WANTS TAX CUTS!!!!! SAVE THE RICH!!!! THAT WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING!!! Talks about Hope Now whose impact I have heard nothing about. Zimbabwe - need to respect the will of the people - its clear they voted for change - AS THEY SHOULD HAVE (note tone of voice - we run the world). Groping. . . violence and intimidation is unacceptable. Says nations in the region should step up and lead. (after all this isn’t the middle east and they don’t have oil).

“Thank you for your interest - enjoyed it.”

Mike Whitney in Counterpunch.

But how many Americans have even read A Man for All Seasons?

Or know anything about Sir Thomas More?

In the land of the stupid the intelligent man is not king but some kind of freak. But I digress.

Whitney is writing about the show trial Bush has planned for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But he stumbles badly leading off with this quote as presenting some kind of contrast between the Bush administration and the Clinton:

“This is the time to demonstrate to the world that the United States need not abandon its principles even as it seeks to ensure the safety of its citizens.”

– Janet Reno, former Attorney General and member of ACLU Guantánamo Defense “Dream Team”

Unless, of course, they were women and children in a compound at Waco. But we needn’t pick solely on Reno - we always have the sterling example of Madeleine Albright.

See the Democrats have been just as bloodthirsty as the GOP when conducting our foreign and domestic policies.

And if you doubt the Democrats are not as heavily invested in the military-industrial complex did you catch this story in CommonDreams:

Senator John Kerry, the Democrat from Massachusetts who staked his 2004 presidential bid in part on his opposition to the war, tops the list of investors. His holdings in firms with Pentagon contracts of at least five million dollars stood at between 28.9 million dollars and 38.2 million dollars as of Dec. 31, 2006. Kerry sits on the Senate foreign relations panel.

Members of Congress are required to report their personal finances every year but only need to state their assets in broad ranges.

Other top investors include Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Republican with holdings of 12.1 million - 49.1 million dollars; Rep. Robin Hayes, a North Carolina Republican (9.2 million - 37.1 million dollars); Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin (5.2 million - 7.6 million dollars); and Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat (2.7 million - 6.3 million dollars).

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Democrat and former governor of West Virginia who chairs the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, invested some 2.0 million dollars in Pentagon contractors, CRP says.

Other panel chiefs who invested in defence firms include Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Independent who presides over the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman, the California Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

In all, 151 current members of Congress — more than one-fourth of the total — have invested between 78.7 million dollars and 195.5 million dollars in companies that received defence contracts of at least 5.0 million dollars, according to CRP.

These companies received more than 275.6 billion dollars from the government in 2006, or 755 million dollars per day, says budget watchdog group OMB Watch.

Yes they’re all pretty heavily invested in the Matrix. So what is to be done.

Well they’ll have their show trial for Mohammed.  Whitney writes:

On the other hand, the ACLU, which has courageously decided to defend Mohammed, will try to demonstrate the basic unfairness of the proceedings (which provide defendants with fewer rights than civilian trials or courts-martial) and how the Bush administration has violated the law at every turn by denying Mohammed due process and by using harsh interrogation techniques, including torture, to extract a confession.

Bush is no friend of civil liberties or justice. Since he first took office in 2000, he’s waged a persistent and systematic no-holds-barred attack on the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions. Last week, a 30-page memo authored by senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo surfaced, showing that the Bush administration worked assiduously to create a legal framework for justifying the cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees in their custody.

“Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner’s eyes poked out? Or, for that matter, could he have ’scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance’ thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb? What about biting?”

According to Yoo’s 81-page memo, which was declassified last week, the president had the legal authority to order any of these acts of barbarism because, as Yoo says, “Federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped by the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief.” The memo also repeats the Yoo’s assertion that an interrogation tactic cannot be considered torture unless it results in “death, organ failure or serious impairment of bodily functions.”

Wow. Remind me not to piss off a man with that kind of power.

I think that’s the point. And most Americans could care less about giving due process to some towel head. Kill them all, God will know his own and all that. The whole world is watching and we could care less.

As far as the ACLU, I always remember my parish priest, Msgr. Schumacher, railing against the ACLU from the pulpit on many Sundays. And heads were nodding all over the congregation.

See this is the salient point of all this. If we really ARE the country we teach our children we are, we would be giving even Mohammed the benefit of the law. After all, if the case is such a slam dunk, what’s the harm? We demonstrate to the rest of the world that we ARE a nation of laws and not a budding torture state dictatorship.

We can’t say, well, we’ll give corporate criminals and their high priced attorney every benefit of the legal system but the people we don’t like because of their race, religion, economic status, etc., we’ll railroad through the courts.

Oh wait, we pretty much do that already.

Never mind.

But anyway, Whitney ends with the quote from A Man for All Seasons that I read while studying law (one class) at Cleveland State. Not that anyone in the society cares about such things, but it’s refreshing to read it anyway:

“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety’s sake!”

Notice the brief flash of the angry smirk as he heads toward the mound.  And notice that he couldn’t wait to get in and out of there are back to the friendly confines of some multi-millionaires box where we he would receive the fawning adulation he expects.

Danny Schechter’s latest, as always, is a great if terrifying read.

NEW YORK — If you walk through London’s High Gate cemetery and wander over to the grave of the late Karl Marx and then listen closely with your ear to the ground, you might hear a repetitive murmur of the phrase “I told you so” in a distinctly German inflected accent.

You might also see the earth moving ever so slightly as what’s left of the bones below turn over in the realization that capitalists, not the proletariat, are the ones bringing down the system.

Schechter’s story points out that tent cities of the dispossessed are now springing up outside of Los Angeles:

Today’s Contemporary Americana! 

Would we call these “Bushvilles?” I suppose Kevin O’Brien and the rest of the capitalist bootstrap enthusiasts would object. Well, screw them. Hopefully.

I always like to compare and contrast because its fun and ironic in that post-modernistic sense. So compare and contrast the above BBC story to this snippet, also from Schechter’s story:

A week earlier, Bear Stearn’s former CEO bought a Manhattan condo for $28 million, no mortgage needed. In December, compromised Wall Streeters walked off with $31 billion in bonuses, just a billion below the record set a year earlier.

So if they can walk away, why can’t the Skaggs?

Reported the San Francisco Chronicle

“As their home values tumble and their mortgages rise, these “walk away” homeowners” decide to cede their houses to their lenders. “It’s throwing good money away after bad” to pay an escalating mortgage on a home that’s plunging in value, said Army Sgt. 1st Class Nicklaus Skaggs.. He and his wife, Tishara, stopped paying their mortgage in February. They signed up with a new company called You Walk Away to help guide them through the multi-month foreclosure process.”

Other homeowners are so angry that they trashing or burning their own homes.

I’m all for that except it seems misplaced. Should we not be going to the homes of the former CEO of Bear Stearns all all the other Wall Street robber barons and trash and burn them? Preferable with them inside their homes?

Ah yes, Americans are so polite and law abiding. We wouldn’t dream of doing things like that anymore. We’ll just take whatever shit we’re fed. We don’t expect justice any more.

Oh my! I am criticizing American society? That’ll never do. I’ll never be President. Everyone knows this is paradise. And its getting more like paradise every day.

By the way, I linked the You Walk Away site to the above snippet. The Chronicle didn’t, but I figured I’d do my bit to help out anyone in desperate straits.

Now I see a lot of comments on various boards that these desperate homeowners just are getting what they deserve because they’re stupid American losers who actually bought the American Dream when they should have realized they weren’t entitled to it.

After all, just because someone dangles the Dream in front of you, the one all the commercial media tell you that you deserve, doesn’t mean you actually should grab for it. Have you gamed the system successfully? Well?

Of course, the people who are excoriating the American schmucks who got screwed out of their homes are strangely silent about the corporate chieftains who ran these little schemes that are now causing the whole economy to implode. I guess the message to our kids is now crystal clear. Rub your American flag lapel pin a little extra hard and remember this land is your land. Or at least it was. Now it belongs to the Chinese and the Arab sovereign wealth funds.

And yet there’s still enough righteous indignation among the Lou Dobbs crowd that they’re working themselves into a high dudgeon about what Barack Obama’s pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said from the pulpit. I can’t vouch for the ‘we invented AIDS’ claim and the total story of 9-11 remains in dispute. But in any case, what else did Wright say that was inaccurate?

As anyone who has bothered to ferret out the true history of the United States knows that Wright’s take on America is, if not in essence, accurate, is at least understandable as history is always written by the victors.

But telling the truth is a mortal sin in American politics and society. We drank the kool aid in grade school where we NEVER learned the parts of American history that were left out - the smallpox blankets, the Trail of Tears, the 1863 Draft Riots, the Haymarket riot, the Wobblies, the  Filipino Insurrection, the Bonus Army, Tonkin Gulf, and on and on.

No, no, no. Can’t have that. You’ll have to read Howard Zinn on your own kiddies.

So it’s no surprise that Americans have a predictable Pavolvian reaction to Wright’s invective, especially well-to-do white people.

What seems especially clear at this point is that the powers that be most emphatically do not want Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee or President of the United States. That, despite his slavish fealty to AIPAC and the Wall Street brokers who have pumped his campaign full of cash.

He’s a hope, albeit a faint one that apparently must be crushed at all costs even if it means Hillary’s dirty tricks brigade join forces with the right wing’s flying monkey squads to make it happen.

One wonders if Obama, if he really understands the depths of the financial mess the next President will inherit, really would want the job? John McCain readily admits to his ignorance of economics so he doesn’t really care. But even Clinton must understand that any serious measures that could be taken to stem the hemorrhaging will only make the short term pain worse and make the next POTUS even more hated than Bush, if such a thing is possible.

So one seriously has to wonder if there’s some other kind of game afoot.

Today Bush said the following:

“The surge … has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror,” the president said. “We are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated.”

Does that sound like someone who is planning to give up the reins of power in 10 months?

Now that the pesky Admiral Fallon is out of the way, there are many who feel that the attack against Iran is inevitable.  In such a case, Bush could screw things up so thoroughly that he’d declare a national emergency and assume dictatorial powers including postponing the election.

OK, it sounds crazy but with the economy also tanking spectacularly the cornered rats might be getting desperate.  A national emergency would short circuit all pesky investigations into the giant financial swindle now unraveling and protect those who were instrumental in the swindle and instrumental in the war - leading right up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Needless to mention the usual caveat: I’d be happy to be dead wrong about all of this. But I think we need to put these scenarios on the table since so many very bad things are already happening and several more are in the offing.

And vigilance supposedly was always the price of freedom, right?

Paul Craig Roberts in ICH

I may be a little slow on the uptake or late to the party or however you want to put it, but this makes a lot of sense to me as well as scares the hell out of me:

Bush began violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in October 2001   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10488458/  when he spied on Americans without obtaining warrants from the FISA court.  

Bush pressured telecom companies to break the law in order to enable his illegal spying.  In court documents, Joseph P. Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest Communications International, states that his firm was approached more than six months before the September 11, 2001, attacks and asked to participate in a spying operation that Qwest believed to be illegal.  When Qwest refused, the Bush administration withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  Nacchio himself was subsequently indicted for insider trading, sending the message to all telecom companies to cooperate with the Bush regime or else. http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/former-telcom-ceo-bushs-illegal-spying-began-months-before-911-attacks/ 

Bush has not been held accountable for the felonies he committed and for leading telecom companies into a life of crime.  

As the lawmakers who gave us FISA understood, spying on people without warrants lets a political party collect dirt on its adversaries with which to blackmail them. As Bush illegally spied a long time before word of it got out, blackmail might be the reason the Democrats have ignored their congressional election mandate and have not put a stop to Bushs illegal wars and unconstitutional police state measures.  

Perhaps the Democrats have finally caught on that they cannot function as a political party as long as they continue to permit Bush to spy on them. For one reason or another, they have let the Orwellian-named Protect America Act expire.

More than six months before 9-11.

Blackmailing Democrats.

Hmmm.

All of this to protect ‘us’ from those dark skinned hoards who are poised for a massive invasion of the USA.

There are people who absolutely buy the bullshit they’ve been fed by this administration. One such person was in my store yesterday, absolutely convinced that this is why Barack HUSSEIN Obama could never be President of the United States.

He’s a Muslim sleeper cel agent, she confided in me.

“Really,” I asked. “How do you know.”

“Because I heard it on Focus on the Family.”

Oh, of course.  Unimpeachable source.

And she’s not the only one. There are others I’ve run into in this small town that fervently believe it to be true as well. One, a very nice lady who operates a local business believes the rumors about Obama because she saw it on Fox News “and they always give both sides of the story.”

I swear I am not making that up.

It’s enough to make you want to head for a small cabin somewhere in the Yukon Territory.

And they’re also hunky-dory with having all their communications listened to by government agents if it will ensure some swarthy Arab won’t make them wear a Burka one day and pray to Allah. Of course, they pray to Allah already, they just don’t realize it. God is white like they are.

OK, I’m digressing from PCR but so be it.

It makes perfect sense when you consider how quickly the Dems’ Iron Crosses folded up after the 2006 elections. Of particular odor was Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin who verbally assaulted the mother of a Iraq soldier who dared to question his enabling of the Bush war machine.

Remember?

TINA RICHARDS: Are you going to be voting against the supplemental?

REP. DAVID OBEY: Absolutely not. I’m the sponsor of the bill.

TINA RICHARDS: To continue the war?

REP. DAVID OBEY: It doesn’t. The President wants to continue the war. We’re trying to use the supplemental to end the war. But you can’t end the war by going against the supplemental. It’s time these idiot liberals understand that. There’s a hell of a difference between defunding the troops and ending the war. I’m not going to deny body armor. I’m not going to deny funding for veterans’ hospitals and vets hospitals so you can help people who have medical problems. That’s what you do if you’re going against that bill.

TINA RICHARDS: But there should be enough money already in the regular defense bill—

REP. DAVID OBEY: Well, there isn’t.

TINA RICHARDS:—without continuing the funding for the war.

REP. DAVID OBEY: There isn’t. There isn’t. That’s not the way it works. The money in the defense bill, it pays for a standing army, but it doesn’t pay for these recurring costs. We’re going to add over a billion dollars more to what the President is asking for in that bill, so it should deal with exactly some of the problems you’re talking about. How the hell do you get the money to the hospitals if we don’t provide the money?

TINA RICHARDS: Well, are you going to be in support then of—

REP. DAVID OBEY: I hate the war. I voted against it, to start with. I was the first guy in Congress to call for Rumsfeld’s resignation, but we don’t have the votes to defund the war, and we shouldn’t, because that also means defunding everything we’ve got in that bill to help guys who are the victims of the war.

Sounds like a guy running from something. Perhaps his conscience. Perhaps he’s one of the ‘blackmailed Dems’ who would like to have a backbone but don’t want to jeopardize their cushy seat on principle.

Robert Weissman in CommonDreams lays it out beautifully, so please read his article.

Yes, I watched our little war criminal and enemy of the people blow through his state of the union, exhibiting his little smirk that I would pay very good money to see someone roundhouse kick it right off his face.

I lost track of how many times I yelled “LIAR!!” at the screen but by the end of the speech, my blood pressure had to be racing. And I especially loved how the members of the Fascist Party (what I will henceforth call the GOP until I think of something better), leapt to their feet as Der Fuhrer shouted that the big telecoms must be protected at all costs from lawsuits arising from helping the government spy on American citizens.

If you encapsulate on of the biggest problems with this country today, that repugnant and nauseating scene perfectly captured it. A Parliament of Whores jumps like little monkeys on strings to protect their corporate masters and the American people and the Constitution be damned.

It seems that in light of the State of the Union speech, fascism (corporatism) among the right is clearly out in the open now.

One thing I know for sure - the bastards in Washington have no idea of the pain on Main Street.

It’s something I see every day lately right in front of my eyes.

We’re starting to hurt very badly out here. I know - I talk to everyone - the small business owners, the ad sales reps from local media outlets and even the postal carries. They all tell me the same thing. And I can see it in the lack of foot traffic in my own business the last few weeks.

We’re dying out here - slowly, painfully, and that bastard in the White House just stands there and smirks and thinks about helping AT&T.

Yes I hate George W. Bush. But its not an unnatural or unfounded hate.

I hate this man for what he has done to my country and what he has done to the Middle East.

I hate him for his lies and his casual decisions that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

I hate him for what his policies have done from Main Street to New Orleans.

I hate him for debasing the United States in the eyes of the world.

I hate him for who he is - a pampered prince of privilege who had everything handed to him from day one who seems to believe that God anointed him for his life.

He is a murderer, a liar and a master thief.

And his last State of the Union, with all its lies, its smirks and its Reichstag like fawning adulation from the traitors in the audience made me sick for my country and my children’s future.

May this man rot in whatever Hell awaits people like him and Dick Cheney and all of the neocons and assorted Satan’s little helpers that enabled him.

Let the other Keith do it because in this case, he speaks for me 100 percent. I have nothing further to add to his commentary other than this: President George W. Bush, is, in my estimation, an enemy of the American people. Olbermann nails it.

Another group of real American heroes

I don’t know whether my headline makes any sense in the bridge world (to me bridge is the card game equivalent of calculus) but I wanted to at least give someone at the Pain Dealer credit for a good column so today’s bouquets go to Connie Schultz for bringing the bridge controversy to the attention of Cleveland readers.

From the column:

Debbie Rosenberg didn’t want to be anybody’s hero.

She didn’t want to be a martyr, either.

She just wanted, in her own small way, to let others know she was an American uncomfortable with her country’s role in the world.

And so, when the 39-year-old mother joined her six teammates onstage to accept the women’s World Bridge Championship trophy in Shanghai last month, she held up a small sign. It was the back of a menu, and on it, one of them had scrawled:

“We did not vote for Bush.”

That was it. No calls for impeachment. No profanities or insults against the commander in chief. Just six words from seven women who do not support the policies of the current president.

It was a protest on a whim.

“We were expected to stand on the stage while they played the national anthem,” Rosenberg said in a telephone interview from her home in New Rochelle, N.Y. “And we started talking about how we could make a simple statement to our international friends that we don’t support what our country is doing in the world right now.“

Yeah, just like the Dixie Chicks. Except this time, three years later, overall public opinion is against George W. Bush and his idiotic war. But that doesn’t matter, of course. Its not the people who lead, as Hermann Goering once famously said, its the small group(s) in power who cow public opinion.

The federation wants to suspend them from competition for a year, followed by another year of probation. The board also wants Rosenberg and her teammates to perform 200 hours of community service “that furthers the interests of organized bridge” and offer an apology to be drafted by a federation lawyer. A hearing is scheduled for this month.

The board of the federation also apologized for the women’s behavior to their counterpart in China — where they imprison and torture their dissidents.

Touche Connie. Wonder if the folks at the High and Mighty Bridge Board get the irony. Probably not. One thing not really stressed in this column that appears in the writeup on the incident in The New York Times is that these people actually make a living playing bridge (if I could make a living playing computer solitaire and mah jongg I’d be there). So before you pass judgment on these (apparently all) women, admit you’d do it too if you could.

So the tinhorn satraps at the United States Bridge Federation want to really, really make these people hurt. Why? According to the Times:

By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of “treason” and “sedition.”

“This isn’t a free-speech issue,” said Jan Martel, president of the United States Bridge Federation, the nonprofit group that selects teams for international tournaments. “There isn’t any question that private organizations can control the speech of people who represent them.”

Not so, said Danny Kleinman, a professional bridge player, teacher and columnist. “If the U.S.B.F. wants to impose conditions of membership that involve curtailment of free speech, then it cannot claim to represent our country in international competition,” he said by e-mail.

Ms. Martel said the action by the team, which had won the Venice Cup, the women’s title, at the Shanghai event, could cost the federation corporate sponsors.

Gee we really are getting quite loose in this country throwing around terms like ’sedition’ and ‘treason’ for a little sign, eh? These same people would probably have no problem adding ‘concentration camp’ and ‘forced labor’ to the punishments they’d like to see these women suffer for the audaciousness of expressing an opinion.

So we have a small but vocal and powerful minority of neo-fascists who bay for blood when anyone publicly doesn’t toe the American triumphalist line.

And then we have the second part of the one-two punch - the loss of corporate sponsors (with corporations of course run by conservative people). Again a small, but very powerful group of people can wield outsize influence, well, because the Supreme Court gave them personhood under the law back in the 1880’s and, frankly, most Americans feel their jobs and livelihoods are held hostage through fealty to the corporate state.

Which brings us to the most important line in Schultz’s column:

At moments such as this, it seems that a bitter and mean-spirited minority is trying to hijack our country.

Give that lady a cigar. That’s is exactly it in a nutshell with one respectfully submitted correction: there is no ’seems’ here - it is real and it is happening.

Again, what we need to do about it, as a collective group of progressives and as a collective society is grow a pair. I admire the Dixie Chicks for releasing “I’m Not Ready to Make Nice” but notice they only did it when public opinion swung their way.

Now if I were one of these ladies, my first (and perhaps only) reaction would be to tell the United States Bridge Federation to go f#% themselves, but again that’s just me. Of course, a lawsuit would also be forthcoming as well and I would expect one here too. More diplomatic people might take a different tack but in my mind, its way, way past the time to be diplomatic about these situations.

Either we are a nation that respects freedom of speech or let’s introduce a bill in Congress to revoke the First Amendment so we can stop teaching our children official lies. And please don’t hand me the crap about private (corporate) speech here. American corporatism is fast closing off many avenues of free speech and free expression and something needs to be done to break their power very soon. We could start by revisiting Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company and take legal personhood away from corporation before they take legal personhood away from us.

This little bridge incident is not little. It represents a despicable trend away from the values we said we held dear as Americans and fosters a society where we start using ‘the German look’ (over both shoulders) before speaking about non-approved political thought.

Its time to stop apologizing and cowering and start standing and shouting.

Thanks again to Connie Schultz for this column.

See, its not all bad at the PD!

Paul Craig Roberts’ latest article starts with this quote:

Which reminded me of this quote:

“… effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. The whole art consists of doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct.”– Adolf Hitler

Learn from the best I always say.

Which brings us to this story from AHN which has this headline:

Bush: Ignore the Bloggers, Listen to the Terrorists

From the story:

Quoted from the live broadcast, Mr. Bush continued to say that the nation must spend more time listening to the messages and threats of Osama bin Laden, and “less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protesters.”

Mr. Bush said that the terrorists aim to establish a totalitarian Islamic empire, and that they move along the belief of refusing compromise or dialogue with “infidels” , with Bush saying that the U.S. has been included in that list.

Likening the threats of bin Laden to the warnings sent out by historic figures such as Lenin and Hitler, Mr. Bush said that unlike how the public responded to the mentioned leaders, the people must listen to bin Laden.

“Some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war,” MSNBC quoted the president. “In a time of war, it is vital for the president to have a full national security team in place.”

Mr. Bush also called for Congress to turn more of their time towards funding plans for the war in Iraq, and less time planning for other causes such as children’s health care - something for which he accused Congress of overspending.

Again stating that “we will fight [the terrorists] overseas so we do not have to fight them here at home,” President Bush said that the only way to defeat terrorism is to “advance freedom as the alternative to radicalism.“

So a few things come to mind. How long will it be before Bush and his flying monkeys consider Code Pink and other ‘disloyal’ bloggers to be ‘domestic enemies’ which are ‘aiding and abetting’ the ‘enemy?’

Don’t laugh. I truly believe that if many cons had their way (including right wing bloggers and radio hacks like David Horowitz) that domestic concentration camps would be full of such people.

And in fact, this may be the start of a campaign to demonize public dissent leading up to the planned invasion of Iran. Of course, all the presidential emergency directives stand ready for the President’s stroke of his pen to plunge the US into a state of martial law.

Of course, it may also be a bit of desperation on Bush’s part: to redirect an increasingly antsy and fickle American public away from the growing chorus of naysayers and back on point.

Its hard for me to believe that when I read Justin Raimondo’s latest article in which he cites the following figures:

A new Zogby poll says 52 percent of the American people favor attacking Iran to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons. A recent Pew survey similarly indicates that war hysteria is on the rise, with 82 percent convinced that a nuclear-armed Iran would pass off nukes to terrorists, and two-thirds believing Iran is likely to attack the US. The yearlong hate-fest directed at Tehran is clearly paying off.

I can’t say I’m surprised. After all, as of this past summer, 41 percent of the American people still believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for planning, financing, and/or carrying out the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Gee, I wonder how they got that impression….

Yeah, gee, me too.

So perhaps Bush is overplaying his hand slightly, just to make sure that when the time comes for the false flag attack and the invasion of Iran that the American people can be counted on to mechanically rally ’round the flag. Because as another Nazi once said:

So Bush hammers on the theme that the Islamist radicals wish to establish a world-wide empire of Islamofascism and that America is on the hit list. Of course, this is ridiculous on its face since Americans, the best armed nation in the world, would never allow it. And we’d take the world down in a nuclear holocaust if any serious attempts were made to turn this country. People seem to forget all those nukes we have sitting in the silos. They aren’t there to make North Dakota a tourist attraction.

And I would also ask Mr. Bush what kind of empire he’d like to establish around the world? Sure, I’d die fighting against any attempt to make me live under sharia law but is our system of establishing a world wide empire of happy little slave laborers toiling for an increasingly detached and arrogant ruling elite lest we get treated like Iraqis any better?

You exchange one slavery for another.

You know what I want? I just want to live under a kind of freedom that we used to assume was part and parcel of our American birthright. The kind of freedom where I can smoke a joint on my front porch without half the local SWAT team showing up in full battle dress. The kind of freedom where we take care of our own with universal single payer health care and each person and business can achieve their full potential without having to worry about losing everything in illness. The kind of freedom where every commercial transaction I make with my own property doesn’t come on some bureaucrat’s computer and subject to their scrutiny. The kind of freedom where I don’t have to worry that my government is checking every website I visit, every book I check out of the library and every country I intend to visit. The kind of freedom where I don’t feel guilty until proven innocent at the airport. And so on.

The terrorists didn’t take our freedom away. Our government did and we let them; ostensibly to make us ’safe’ as if safety could ever be guaranteed in this world.

I don’t fear Bin Laden as much as I fear demagogues in my own country who sell me fascism under the guise of freedom and security.

And they sell me one war after another.

No Mr. Bush, I do not feel like a citizen whose nation is ‘at war’ unless you think we’re ‘at war’ with the whole Islamic world and maybe that’s what you want. Other than giving up our civil liberties, what else have you asked Americans to sacrifice for the ‘war effort?’ Nothing. You told us to keep on shopping - spending money to keep the economy humming for the benefit of the wealthy. Well guess what Mr. President? We’ve spent ourselves into an economic crisis: the dollar is collapsing as the world’s reserve currency. Are your proud of that Mr. Bush? Is that why you’re not mentioning it, or about $100 a barrel oil and the collapsing housing market?

Yes, everything is just cheery on our side of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Yes we can continue to drown in spending on eternal war for eternal peace while neglecting the neediest here at home: the children. Hey if their parents can’t game the system effectively enough, screw ‘em! They deserve whatever they get, right? Its survival of the fittest. If the children want more money for health care let them buy expensive lobbyists just like everyone else.

What a country we live in where a national leader can say with a straight face that guns and bombs and making their makers even more obscenely wealthy comes before the health of our nation’s future. It makes me so proud Mr. President, so proud to be an American when I hear you say that. Truly we are the shining city on the hill. Its Ayn Rand’s hill, but that’s the natural order of things, isn’t it Mr. Bush?

So we will continue to fight these phantom terrorists (the people of Iraq who are trying to take their country back) ‘over there’ we can watch the sunset of our society ‘over here.’ And you can keep on repeating that baldfaced lie over and over because you KNOW that a nation whose people have been so dumbed down and conditioned to do as they are told will believe it. Not all of them, but enough of them to keep society at large in control.

Because they believe that  if we don’t continue to slay the Arab peoples over there they’ll come into the US through those porous borders, the border you refuse to guard so your friends can get their cheap labor to pit against the American worker. Those borders Mr. President.

Is there no shame left? How do you define “freedom” Mr. President?

Is there no rationality left? How do you define “radicalism” Mr. President?

Or are we just helpless to watch everything we used to know and love about our world slip away in a tidal wave of greed and destruction?

London Independent via CommonDreams

In a further embarrassment for Mr Bush yesterday, Malcolm Nance, an advisor on terrorism to the US departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations and Intelligence, publicly denounced the practice. He revealed that waterboarding is used in training at the US Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School in San Diego, and claimed to have witnessed and supervised “hundreds” of waterboarding exercises. Although these last only a few minutes and take place under medical supervision, he concluded that “waterboarding is a torture technique - period”.

No shit, really?

I wonder if the PD would like to rethink their support of Michael Mukasey for attorney general? Apparently some other Senators are suddenly a little queasy about it.

Spine? Well, hold off on that pardner until the actual vote comes down.

El Presidente thinks such questions are unfair.

“I believe the questions he’s been asked are unfair,” Bush said in an Oval Office session with reporters. “He’s been asked to give opinions on a program — or techniques of a program — on which he has not been briefed.”

Briefed. Ad in “ok, this tactic is legal because we say it is. And so will you, right buddy?”

End of brief.

As for Bush, we’ll he’s too much a patriot to say one way or another whether waterboarding, that quaint medieval custom which I discussed at length in an earlier blog posting, is torture. Even though Mr. Nance, who knows more about these things than Bush ever will, says it is.

Bush also refused to discuss his own view of waterboarding, saying that to do so would help those trying to attack America.

“There’s an enemy out there. I don’t want them to understand, to be able to adjust one way or the other,” he said. “The American people have got to understand the program is important and the techniques used are within the law.“

Don’t laugh. There are a lot of people out in Kansas and Alabama who believe him when he says things like this. Partly because they’ve been trained to believe all authority, but also because many of them really don’t give a hang what we do to brown-skinned people who worship the wrong God.

As hard as that is to stomach, we have to admit to ourselves that Bush benefits from the deep-seated racism that swirls around his base like a toxic cloud. I have heard enough references to ’sand ni—-s’ to last a lifetime.

And take note every time Bush says ‘there is an enemy out there.’ Understand most people in this country don’t understand it is an enemy we largely created through our own foreign policy over a span of decades.  That really doesn’t matter to most people anyway. History is for losers. This administration creates its own reality both at home and abroad.

From now until the end of time, if people like Bush have their way, there will always be ‘an enemy out there.’ A useful enemy, like the Soviets were, to justify our shameful spending on war armaments to the detriment of our children’s education. The right people make money and they care not for the rest of us.

And we torture. God help us we do. And the whole world knows this even if people deep in the American hinterland close their ears, eyes and minds to the truth. And as we torture, we lose the moral high ground we used to care about in our interactions with other nations and peoples. We no longer care if they love and respect us.

Oderint Dum Metuant

Somewhere Thomas Jefferson grieves.