Something else to bring you down...

"I can't imagine anything worse, your loved one is killed in Iraq and you've got to deal with Fred Phelps."

Dick Cheney: A haunted combat vet

Who in their right mind would equate Dick Cheney shooting a 78-year old acquaintance in the face and chest, mistaking him for a quail, with Viet Nam veterans haunted by the devastating experience of battlefield combat? Joe "Primary Colors" Klein that's who.

But then, there he was, with that haunted look in his Fox News interview, saying, "[T]he image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind. I fired, and there's Harry falling ..." Hunting had given him "great pleasure" in the past, but he wasn't so sure now. In fact, he sounded a lot like the combat veterans I've spoken with over the years, for whom the living nightmare of firing a weapon under questionable circumstances is a constant theme.

Does anyone seriously entertain the notion that Blind Dick Cheney has an empathetic bone in his squishy body? What passes for hunting prowess to some is really much closer to animal slaughter and all the sociopathology behind it. Think about it. What kind of person takes pleasure from destroying 70 small pen-raised animals in a few hours time? That's just sick.

Watch the Birdies

I admit it’s been hard to get out of my mind the image of Cheney slaughtering 70 pheasants for a single day’s amusement, but then again there are so many other things to keep an eye on, including whether or not Congress is going to let the Bush Administration slither out of its violation of the law against eavesdropping without a warrant. On February 17 Scott McClellan was quoted as saying, “What we have talked about with some Congressional leaders is codifying into law what his authority already is"—in other words, they want Congress to write into law the very authority they claim already exists under the law. This is a load of shit. Even if our weak-kneed legislators ultimately believe that Bush should be given the power to wiretap without a warrant, they should first force Bush to acknowledge that he acted outside of the law. After that they can try to persuade their colleagues to change the law. Taking this course, though, would (should) open the door to impeachment. The Dems have called for a full inquiry before the Senate Intelligence Panel but have put their proposal on hold until March 7 to give the administration time to negotiate. What’s to negotiate? It’s Congress’s job to determine whether the President violated the law. Call your Congressman and demand hearings now.

Cheney Fell to Pieces

Cue Patsy Cline. The Daily Telegraph offers a little peek at Vice President Pantywaist, who according to another guest at the Armstrong Ranch last weekend was "a pitiful sight." Cheney is the worst kind of coward.

"This is a man who has been instrumental in sending thousands of troops to Iraq, but who fell to bits when faced with the reality of shooting someone and seeing them bleeding on the ground."

Five deferments to avoid fighting in Viet Nam, but no deferring the invasion of Iraq, and probably no hesitation or even any thought about sending thousands of young men and women to kill and be killed. The last section of this Newsweek article strongly implies that Dick alone gave the order on September 11, 2001, to shoot down United Flight 93. The entire article is kind of odd in that it also implies history will be kinder to Cheney than the current media view of him. I doubt it. And the fact that Bush didn't offer any kind of consolation to Dick, not even a phone call, doesn't surprise me in the least. I think he enjoyed the whole situation more than David Letterman or Jon Stewart.

Drunks and Skunks

Cheney taking responsibility at this point is cheap. He's let it sit out there for several days that Whittington was at fault for not announcing himself when he approached the hunting party from behind. Every Cheney apologist has blamed Whittington. For Dick to come out now and say, "I pulled the trigger" still suggests that he doesn't truly believe that he was at fault, but that he knows thats the "right" thing to do. But like everything else over the last five years, it smacks of the way this administration has "taken responsibility" for all the damage it has done, from the invasion of Iraq, to it's nonresponse to Hurrican Katrina, to leaking classified information and outing a CIA operative. It amounts to: I'll take responsibility, if you insist, but only other people will feel the consequences.

Elmer Fudd Goes Hunting

Shhhh...wew hunting wabbits! I'm gonna bwast that scwewy wabbit!

"If Cheney was shooting at a bird and he loses sight of it because a hunter was standing between him and the bird, you have to have your head up your ass to pull the trigger."

Thanks to Taylor Marsh for the great insight into where Dick's head was!

Letters to the Editor = Treason

If you had any doubt that our country was hurtling toward fascism ask Laura Berg what she thinks.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico wants the government to apologize to a nurse for seizing her computer and investigating her for "sedition" after she criticized the Bush administration.
...
Berg, a clinical nurse specialist, wrote a letter in September to a weekly Albuquerque newspaper criticizing how the administration handled Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. She urged people to "act forcefully" to remove an administration she said played games of "vicious deceit."
...
"From all appearances, the seizure of her work computer was an act of retaliation and a hardball attempt to scare Laura into silence," the ACLU said.

How Did These American Soldiers Die?

Did Katherine P. Singleton and Debra A. Banaszak die from dehydration?

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.

Karpinski testified that a surgeon for the coalition's joint task force said in a briefing that "women in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the port-a-lets or the latrines were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and in 120 degree heat or warmer, because there was no air-conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep."

    "And rather than make everybody aware of that - because that's shocking, and as a leader if that's not shocking to you then you're not much of a leader - what they told the surgeon to do is don't brief those details anymore. And don't say specifically that they're women. You can provide that in a written report but don't brief it in the open anymore."

    For example, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, Sanchez's top deputy in Iraq, saw "dehydration" listed as the cause of death on the death certificate of a female master sergeant in September 2003. Under orders from Sanchez, he directed that the cause of death no longer be listed, Karpinski stated. The official explanation for this was to protect the women's privacy rights.

    Sanchez's attitude was: "The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory," Karpinski quoted him as saying. Karpinski told me that Sanchez, who was her boss, was very sensitive to the political ramifications of everything he did. She thinks it likely that when the information about the cause of these women's deaths was passed to the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld ordered that the details not be released. "That's how Rumsfeld works," she said.

    "It was out of control," Karpinski told a group of students at Thomas Jefferson School of Law last October. There was an 800 number women could use to report sexual assaults. But no one had a phone, she added. And no one answered that number, which was based in the United States. Any woman who successfully connected to it would get a recording. Even after more than 83 incidents were reported during a six-month period in Iraq and Kuwait, the 24-hour rape hot line was still answered by a machine that told callers to leave a message.

    "There were countless such situations all over the theater of operations - Iraq and Kuwait - because female soldiers didn't have a voice, individually or collectively," Karpinski told Hackworth. "Even as a general I didn't have a voice with Sanchez, so I know what the soldiers were facing. Sanchez did not want to hear about female soldier requirements and/or issues."

According to icasualties.org Singleton and Banaszak are the only female fatalities without an official cause of death. Karpinski mentions several women dying from dehydration. Who are the others? Karpinski also says more than 83 incidents [of rape by male soldiers] were reported during a six-month period in Iraq and Kuwait. My head is spinning. I'm guessing no one has been brought up on rape charges. Are they at least discharging these sociopaths?

"2245 Dead -- How many more?"

That was the "slogan" on Cindy Sheehan's T-shirt. If that's a slogan then the Democrats should adopt it.

Honor The Troops: Throw the Mothers of the Deceased in Jail

Yup they did it.

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was arrested and removed from the House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush's State of the Union address, a police spokeswoman said.

Sheehan, who was invited to attend the speech by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., was charged with demonstrating in the Capitol building, said Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. The charge was later changed to unlawful conduct, Schneider said. Both charges are misdemeanors.

Sheehan was taken in handcuffs from the Capitol to police headquarters a few blocks away. Her case was processed as Bush spoke.

Schneider said Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan to the speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.

SOTU: He just won't say it

And it's over.

And you know that's not water he's drinking.

SOTU: Don't Say "Katrina"

Will he say it? He said "natural disasters."

Yeah Dems! Celebrate rebellion.

Here we go, health savings accounts. He can never say OBGYN ever again. I think my uterus just screamed.

Clean safe NUKULAR energy. Drink again.

There is nothing more ironic than hearing this man talk about rigorous math and science education. Look kiddies, you can be a drug-addled C- student and still be the leader of the free world.

Abstinence my ass. Condoms, birth control, and emergency contraception.

"Natural Disaster," NOT Katrina.

SOTU: The Wanking Continues

Freedom, liberty, democracy, repeat.

He's looking kind of cakey. Bad foundation.

Iran, oh brother, drinking more.

Roomie: "Who are these isolationists you keep talking about?"

I hope these standing ovations are hard on arthritic knees.

PATRIOT ACT. SIT DOWN.

Hillary's look of utter disdain just about killed me.

Oh no, here come the tears

Shameless creep. Using some dead soldier and his family to boost his approval rating.

Let's All Clap for Freedom!

Sit down, goddamit. Do Not Stand uP! Let's all clap for Evil!! Hey, I thought we weren't continuing reconstruction? Looks like Arlen Specter just got it--"my legacy will be...WHA!!!"

Shit

Is he about to have a stroke or what? Danger, danger, Will Robinson! 8:15 the first September the Eleventh mention

Does he Dye?

Looks a little less gray this evening. Only his hairdresser knows for sure.

SOTU Live Blogging

And we're off!

Here he comes President 39%.

Roomie's remarks: "You almost wish it was like Japanese Emperors who when they shamed themselves they would kill themselves."

They arrested Cindy Sheehan? Bastards!

If your playing the drinking game you just got a round of Sept. 11-Iraq War. Bottoms up.

Lots of empty seats. Hmmm.

Interesting the use of pre-World War II rhetoric. Interesting and wrong, because I don't think anybody is arguing for a return to an isolationism world view. It's about smart diplomacy dumbass.

Fuckin' Lieberman.

SOTU Preshow

Can we say panic mode?

As presidents before him have, Mr. Bush is addressing the United States' reliance on foreign oil. "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," Mr. Bush plans to say. "The best way to break this addiction is through technology."

The excerpts do not elaborate on the allusion to technology, which seems to confirm predictions that Mr. Bush's speech will propose more use of alternative fuels for automobiles, like corn-based ethanol, and will suggest a revival of nuclear-powered projects.

Nor do the excerpts suggest that Mr. Bush will again call for drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska, a politically explosive proposal that has thus far failed to make it through Congress.

Till Death Do They Depart

As red rabbit noted a few days ago, had anyone on the left been quoted, as was Ann Coulter, as saying, even in jest, that a conservative Supreme Court Justice should be poisoned, the outcry would have been swift and unrelenting. And yet if there’s one kernel of truth in Coulter’s puerile drivel worth considering it’s that there’s something deeply wrong with a system where justices serve for life, which means if you want to remove someone from the bench it makes a lot of sense to imagine him/her dying. (How about a contest for the best scenarios in which Thomas and Scalia breathe their last? I've got one involving Thomas and a Coke can--just a joke, ya'll.) As I argued last year it’s time to amend the Constitution so that Supreme Court Justices serve 12-year terms on a staggered basis. Every four years the President gets three court appointees. Sure, there’s a lot to debate on this matter, but the key point is we ought to have the debate. (I suspect the idea of W’s having six appointees over his two terms is absolutely horrifying, but had this kind of system been in place I’m willing to bet there’s no way the frat boy would have been elected in the first place—it simply wouldn’t have been close enough to steal.)
The Senate is an obvious venue for this discussion, if only because the sole justification for having such an anti-democratic body as the Senate (how can it be fair that five million folks in, say, Arizona, get as much say as twice their number in Illinois?) is that its putative role is to provide a place for deliberation about matters of governance, shielded from the storms of daily politics—a place for statesmanship. Of course, the last time that the Senate played that role was, well, never. Which is to say, isn’t it time that the 42 Senators who voted “nay” to confirming Alito pointed out that they represent at least as many, if not more, Americans than the 58 who voted “yea,” and that there’s something deeply wrong about a non-democratic body having the power to assist the executive branch in giving a lifetime appointment to someone unacceptable to half the nation's citizenry?
To be sure, there’s no substitute for building a progressive majority, but along the way we need to look at those existing structures that thwart the progressive elements already at work in the polity.