The usual ignorant, right-wing whiny-ass titty babies are in full throated much ado about nothing: this time it's the President of the United States' address to school children, urging them to do well in school. This is a speech that presidents give -- both GOP and Dems have done it.

Of course, if our President were white and Republican, there'd be no problem -- these same vomit-dribbling jerks would be urging all of us to respect the presnit and make our children listen to his words of wisdom. And, of course, these are the same folks who just cream their tighty whities over the idea of forcing other people's children to pray in school, regardless of what those children's parents might want for them.

It's official. The GOP has become the party of GOTCHA -- Grand Old Thugs Crapping on and Hating America. GOTCHA.

What's this with the disruption of town halls? Why do GOPpers fear having Americans hear two sides of the health care story? Why do these politicians -- who have gold-plated insurance coverage, led by people like Rush Limbaugh (whose insurance pays for oxycontin and Viagra so he can go rape little boys in foreign countries) -- continue to lie and mislead and disrupt?

Why do they hate America? Why are they pissing on the millions who have died to protect America? Why do they advocate assassination of our president and other non-GOP politicians? Why are they racist thugs? Why are they sexist, misogynist, religious bigots? And why do they have a voice? Well, they have the right to say and believe as they wish. The troops die for GOTCHAs to be the lying, thuggish jerks they are making themselves out to be in front of our eyes.

Dear Sarah,

A lot of people in this country have to answer tough questions every day. You might even call them "gotcha" questions, and you'd be right. But guess what: life IS a gotcha. You've been handed a powder puff and are whining about how it's a bomb, set to detonate you and your precious campaign. You may be right about the bomb, but nobody handed it to you. You made it yourself.

You have NO clue about reality. So here... let me show you some REAL gotcha questions -- the kind that somebody like you has NEVER had to answer.

For women who can't make enough money to raise their kids, asking the question "Which do I pay for, groceries or the heating bill?" is a big gotcha.

John McCain's choice of a relatively unknown, inexperienced short-term governor of an unpopulous state on grounds that she's pro-life, creationist-loving, gay-hating, Christianist, and oh, a woman, is about as cynical as anything I've seen in 50 years of presidential politics. He passed over some extremely qualified, experienced people of both genders in order to be "mavricky" (leading me to think that he made this decision with his little head, not his big one).

So, I have some questions for Ms. Palin that need answering:

1) You say you are pro-life, which means that you are against a woman's right to manage her own health care choices in reproduction. Yet, you made a very serious choice to get on an airplane while in labor, endangering the life of a fetus you claimed to have wanted. You also endangered the lives of the people on that plane, since if your birth process had gone awry, an immediate landing would have been necessary. How can you insist on that sort of choice (which was wrongheaded, selfish and frivolous), yet deny other women the very serious choices they need to make for their own health? You apparently (along with most Christianist men) think that other women than yourself are too stupid to make their own choices.

CNN - Four soldiers and a reserve police officer were arrested Sunday on suspicion of looting cigarettes and alcohol from a store in this tornado-ravaged town, state officials said.

*****

I am not surprised this is happening; people in authority tend to abuse it, and now that we've seen how it was abused in New Orleans by the Bushites, the lower echelons who get their kicks by "officiating" in this way look to the Bush administration for guidance. What they see is corruption, looting (on a large scale), and disrespect for other people. So, they figure, what's a few cigarettes and booze? The guys in D.C. are getting all kinds of goodies, time for me to get mine.

From Common Dreams, via Fountains of Light.

A Woman's Worst Nightmare
By Cindy Sheehan
Dec 10, 2006, 4:00pm

On Friday, December 8th, after 4 and ½ long days, the jury in the trial of the "Pink 4," which includes me, Medea Benjamin, Gold Star Aunty Missy Beattie and Reverend Patty Ackerman, finally received our case for deliberation at about 2:30 PM. The judge summoned us back into the courtroom at 6:15 PM and we were excited for the verdict, only to learn that the jury had not yet reached their verdict and we would be staying in NYC until at least Monday when the jury would continue its deliberations on the 5 counts for each of us.

I had an idea while sitting here cleaning off my hard drive to get rid of a lot of useless stuff -- which kind of reminded me of George Bush. Every time this faux president opens his mouth, the most inane nonsense comes out, usually as he tries to sound all folksy and "down home." Pretty funny for a kid who went to school in the northeast, did Yale, hid from the Viet Nam war by chasing tail in 'Bama, but hey -- we all have our trials to overcome. Since Bush can't overcome his, it occurred to me that we could use his idiocy to do some social good.

Here's the idea: every time this phony country corn dog opens his mouth and says something really stupid, like purposely mis-stating the name of the Democratic Party (i.e. the 'Democrat' party), let's make a donation to a cause that helps people. Make it something he and his Rethug friends hate, like Planned Parenthood or a women's shelter, or Sierra Club or the Nature Conservancy, or something like that. Easy to do -- just listen to him talk, and when he says "Democrat Party" or "chilrun" or "we don't cut and run" (although the Rethugs in Congress and the Senate ARE cutting and running NOW, leaving behind a HUGE mess for the incoming Democrats to clean up), make that donation. The more he missteps, the more he mumbles, the more he deliberately insults people, the more money goes to help those his administration is screwing over.

Certainly he was a twisted, evil person when he ruled Iraq, but he had nothing to do with 9/11. Nor Al-Qaeda.

This sideshow of a trial is just what Rethugs want people to think about, rather than focus on the fact that they've done NOTHING about the 9/11 attacks except take away Americans' rights, hassle us at airports, tried to frighten people with Arab "boogiemen," authorized obscene torture in the name of America, tossed billion-dollar contracts at companies to "serve" our servicepeople (and instead those companies are pocketing the money and giving our service people sewer water and substandard food), and other assorted bullshit that has nothing to with capturing Osama bin Ladin and taking on Al Qaeda directly. Taken in this context, Hussein's trial and execution should be a sideshow, not the main event.

I just got a call from a relative in Colorado. She is a Republican and claims that since Democratic candidate for governor and former District attorney Ritter "broke the law" by dealing with an illegal immigrant who subsequently went out to California and molested a child, it's okay for Bob Beauprez, Republican, who has used illegal access to the NCIC, a criminal records database only available to legal law enforcement, to inform an ad that paints Ritter soft on crime, to break the law in return because, as she said, "It gets us the truth." When I asked her what truth, she said "The truth about a man who let an illegal immigrant go so he could molest a child."

I invite readers to send this letter to the White House, post it on your blogs. This issue affects us all, and our image as Americans around the world.

Dear W,

I read today and yesterday in the Boston Globe that secular aid organizations are less likely to receive funding for their overseas missions than are your friends in the "faith-based" community, most notably Dobson of "Focus on the Family."

The money these "faith-based" groups receive is a bonanza for them, allowing them to extend their missions (which are to give aid and help, but also to proselytize for Christianity -- evangelical Christianity). I can't help but wonder how much of that money is going to pay for the fancy cars, houses, silk suits, and jewelry worn by these slick-talking "Christians" and their wives.

Really. If they lie and coverup a child molester and stalker, who knows what else they have covered up and lied about?

This is a scandal larger than the Clinton antics in the White House (which were accomplished with a 22-year-old woman, not an underage child). Those antics were enough to bring out the full unctuous rage of the "Party of Values" - complete with Senator "I never met a health pill bribe I didn't like" Orrin Hatch" shaking his wattle at us in full, high dudgeon.

So, where's the wattle now that underage children have been stalked by a Republican man? Where's the outrage from the "Reverend" gentlemen who head up the Christian Right?

That stink you smell emanating from Washington, D.C.? It's not just Bush flushing our rights down a toilet. It's not just the smell of Abramoff's money lying on the desks of politicoes of the right. It's the whiff of sexual predation by a Republican who figured that underage pages were his prey. There's also a stench emanating from the filthy mouths of Republican apologists and others who even now are whining about some kind of Democrat conspiracy. It's so smelly that I can't even see the word Republican now without thinking "ugh." And that's unfortunate for the few (very few) decent Republicans out there (if there really ARE any). When I see the letters GOP I think "Grand Old Perverts."

But that's because neither they nor their children have to fight in this senseless war. They've made it easy to suck in the children of the not-rich, not-white, not-privileged folk in this country, dragging THEM into a meatgrinder that they keep their own children out of. They've passed laws (like No Child Left Behind) that have put the names and addresses of America's children into the hands of rapists masquerading as military recruiters. And now, today, we read that Republicans also send emails to the children of Americans, sexually soliciting them.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/29/congressman.e.mails/index.html

From Today's Boston Globe:

"MY DAUGHTER started high school last week. This milestone was marked by the arrival in our home of a ream of paperwork. Along with the usual bureaucratic permissions, I found tucked into this package a seemingly innocuous form that carries extraordinary consequences: failing to fill it out might result in my daughter being harassed, assaulted, or being fast-tracked to fight in Iraq.

This form asks us whether we want to opt-out of having our daughter's contact information sent to the US military. If we overlooked this form, or did not opt-out , our high school is required to forward her information to military recruiters. This is thanks to a stealth provision of the No Child Left Behind law. It turns out that President Bush's supposed signature education law also happens to be the most aggressive military recruitment tool enacted since the draft ended in 1973.

"Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?"
by Thomas C Greene -- 17th August 2006
The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air;
And a loud voice came forth out of the temple of Heaven, From the throne, saying, "It is done!"
--Revelation 16:17

Binary liquid explosives are a sexy staple of Hollywood thrillers. It would be tedious to enumerate the movie terrorists who've employed relatively harmless liquids that, when mixed, immediately rain destruction upon an innocent populace, like the seven angels of God's wrath pouring out their bowls full of pestilence and pain.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/28/senate.harris.ap/index.html

The moderates in the right wing can protest all they want that Katharine Harris does NOT represent the party, but she does. It doesn't matter that she's losing her head in this race, her venomous attacks on the separation of church and state are resonating with voters who make up the core of the Republican Party. And it is to those voters that Republican politicians have to answer if they want to retain their seats in the corrupt administration they've helped create.

Personally Harris and her brand of ugly, faith-based bigotry make me sick and sad for this country. She has the right to say and believe as she wishes, but she doesn't have the right to run a campaign that seeks to win by dividing people by religious belief. The fact that she thinks she can get away with this foul speech is more evidence of the legacy of ruin heaped on the United States by the Republican Party and its mullahs of evangelical hate.

Huzzah, boys! Huzzah! Let's take those scoundrels and win one for our man!

You folks from the middle and lower classes, you fight it out on the ground. We'll stay up here in the chopper and keep an eye out!

To the bigots who are pushing the Defense of Marriage Act:

Do you really want to go there? I mean, let's look at this rationally (yeah, I know, rational and right-wing thuggery don't usually mix, but work with me here, willya?).

So, today we have the "state" involved in the marriage scam. It's another "fee-based service" that helps keep states' coffers full, and I'd think that states would leap at the chance to collect MORE fees like this, and be happy to marry any consenting adults who come forward, regardless of race, creed, gender, or political persuasion.

Not everybody wants to let other people marry whoever they please, and so we have these laws here and there that are trying to limit marriage to "one man and one woman" for the purposes of procreation (gittin' laid and poppin' babies, in the vernacular). Furthermore, most of the dimwits promulgating these laws want to make sure marriage is limited to those who profess some belief in a sky fair, magical sky daddy, and other forms of invisible deities invented by those with overactive imaginations.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if one segment of American society demands, takes, or is accorded special consideration, members of that segment will find a way to take advantage of it.

Specifically, I am speaking of the religious right, which has assumed for itself the role of America's conscience, whether the rest of us wanted these people to do it for us, or not. In recent years we've seen a major assault on freedom and tolerance and human dignity in this country. Certainly much of it has been spearheaded by the religious merchants of bigotry who insist that this country follow their rules about such things as marriage, childbearing, child-raising, medical decisions, voting rights, voting rights, and many other aspects of public life.

Well, you have to hand it to Michelle Malkin and the other fulminating screechers of the right-wing punditocracy. They've latched onto something with this New York Times travel story. At last they have something to sink their teeth into -- and their call for action, kidnapping other people's children to punish them for taking pictures and writing stories about Cheney's and Rumsfeld's summer palaces--er, homes--is just so deliciously terroristic.

I sometimes wonder if Dubya knows the terrorists have won. We now have home-grown terrorists publishing crap and lies (which even the Secret Service and Rumsfeld's people are surprised at), and using that crap to threaten other people's safety.

Ugh. This is sickening:

http://www.armchairsubversive.com/

Notice how none of these guys are gay? How they're all supposedly good Christian men?

This says volumes about the Party of "Values."

So, Republican Senator Grassley has decided it's time to tax pimps and prostitutes (see Senator seeks tax on pimps, prostitutes) for more details. Wow. I stand in awe of the man's ability to single out his own peeps for taxes. I mean, pimps, prostitutes, and Republicans seem to have a lot in common these days. So, it takes a special courage to single out your cohorts (both on the streets and in the halls of congress) for taxation.

I guess Senator Grassley thinks we've solved all the other problems in the country: deficit spending, a war without a cause, corporate special interest group influence, lying politicians, the interference of government in people's personal business, racism, bigotry, and hate. It must feel sooo good for him to find a special cause he can champion in the face of overwhelming public ignorance of the way pimps, prostitutes (and the lying politicians who patronize them) are getting away with paying NO taxes.

The mainstream media has now invented a vast "left-wing blog conspiracy." Color me surprised. A group of reporters who have nothing better to do than practice self-aggrandizement and play the cocktail weenie circuit in D.C. are concerned that bloggers may be on to something.

Ladies and gentlement of the press, I got news for ya. If the idea of a vast right-wing conspiracy was so laughable to you all when the Clintons were in office, then the "existence" of a conspiracy of bloggers on the left is equally laughable.

We're all blogging because we have the means to do so. Right, left, middle, you name it, folks blog. And some of them are pretty active. They're doing the job reporting the news that you guys in the press used to do before you got more interested in jerking off with the big boys.

Dear President Bush,

I couldn't help but notice that 2,500 soldiers have now died in Iraq, and a couple more are in the hands of folks who'll likely be beheading them anytime now. Could you please explain to me how that fits with "Mission Accomplished"? (And for an extra brownie point, can you explain why the White House considers dead and kidnapped Americans to be simply "numbers"?)

Also, I read that the same day you visited Iraq on the sly, employees of our Embassy in Baghdad sent a cable explaining how their lives are in danger, the females are being threatened by Islamic extremists, and people have to wait 12 hours in line for gas. Can you also explain how THAT works with the old "Mission Accomplished" meme? (A meme is an idea (good or bad) that gets into the public discourse if it's repeated often enough, even if it's wrong.)

Lies told by the President?

Americans Dying in a War That Didn't Need to Happen?

Drug "Benefits" for Older Americans that are Nothing More than Welfare for Big Pharma?

Screeching about how People in New Orleans spent Money on Porn while the same Screechers are Deadly Silent About the No-Bid Crony Contracts and Incompetent Management by FEMA?

The Shrill Shrieking of Right-Wing Harpies who Invite People to Murder Congressmen and Senators and Supreme Court Justices?

The Deadly Silence of the Right Wing and Republicans as Those Harpies
Attack Fellow Americans?

Congressional Seersucker Suits?