2/19/2007:   Hillary Clinton is one helluva woman. Having measured her options, she has decided not to apologize for her vote in 2003 to give George W. Bush authority to wage war in Iraq, yet she's maintaining her position that we must end the war effort.

I can respect that.

Coming from a period in which the president could be trusted to tell the American public the truth when it mattered, trusted to do wield the awesome power of the U.S. military for good, not evil, she believed George Bush's reports of WMDs along with the rest of the people in Congress. She weighed the possibility of erring in favor of peace against the possibility of allowing a truly evil person to obtain access to nuclear weapons and chose as we all would have.

2/17/2007:   Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Compean are still in prison. All the heat from the media did nothing to George. He doesn't care about them, and he doesn't care about you. He'd rather cut brush on his estate in Texas or have an unsightly mole removed than pull these heroes out of prison. Their convictions are a travesty of justice, their continued commitment to prison a travesty of patriotism. George doesn't give a crap about what's right or wrong. He can't be bothered to be Christian. He can't be bothered to be a leader. He can't be bothered to be American. What an ass.

2/17/2007:   Earlier this month I asked the question, in response to George and the GOP attempting to dismantle PBS again, "What's wrong with that rat bastard?" I'll tell you what's wrong: he's all about power. It comes back to his view of you and your family and your friends as mere resources. Cattle. He sees you through the lense of social evolution, the filter of elitism. To him, you are simply resources to be expended. Look at our troops, dying in a country that had no ties to al Qaeda and who didn't have weapons of mass destruction. Those troops are resources, lower in the economic scale thanks to social evolution and therefore lesser beings to George Bush.

But if we keep educating our youth, if we keep raising the standard of living, expanding the middle class, shortening the disparity between the highest and lowest levels of our society by raising the quality of education and securing good paying jobs in our industrial and technological sectors, then there's less power at the upper echelons. The poor and lower middle classes are food for the elites to feed upon, and breaking the cycle of good educational and career opportunities ensures that the elites will have plentiful resources for another couple of generations at the least.

In physics, power can be generated by bringing two opposites together, usually in the form of heat and cold. Electricity can be generated by tapping into the physical movement of matter when excess heat turns water to steam and the expansive force of the steam is used to turn a turbine. The greater the difference in temperature between the heating mechanism and the temperature the water is coming in before being turned to steam, the more forceful the conversion and the more power generated.

The same can be said of generating political power. Currency is like electricity. Political currency can be generated by using human resources. People who have little will follow people who can promise them more than they obtain on their own. The greater the disparity between the poor and the rich in terms of percentage of the population and percentage of living standard, the greater the power that can be generated from the leveraging of the satisfaction of the needs of the poor, or at least creating the illusion of possibly satisfying those needs. Skillful use of propoganda can make it appear as though there are needs to be satisfied that don't really exist, needs whose solutions require no physical currency. Fabricated issues like abortion and gay marriage require no money to fix, but create the illusion that power is being wielded on behalf of the greater body of the population. But I digress...

George and the NeoCons still don't get it.

We're people, and we're stronger as a people, and the only thing that weakens us is the overwhelming desire that crops up in a few select individuals to milk us for whatever they can get out of us, use us up, and throw us away as though we're expendable. There are people here, as there are everywhere in the world, who feel that they are privileged, entitled, special, above and beyond the unwashed masses, and they should, and maybe even must, live as kings and queens, trodding on the heads of the laymen about them as if their hair were carpet.

The Bush family and those they surround themselves with, their "base" if you will, are such people. They are sick and evil. And they want your kids to serve their kids. They want your grandchildren to be resources for their granchildren to use. And one of the obstacles to their ongoing dream is PBS.

And that's why George Monkey Faced Frat Boy Rat Bastard Murderer-by-proxy Bush is afraid of Big Bird.

2/10/2007:   Barack Hussein Obama, the 45 year old Senator from Illinois, has made history by announcing his candidacy for President of the United States of America. He is a 180 degree shift from the current Presidency in heritage and platform, in education, in honesty, in openness, and most importantly, in loyalty to the grand, unified body of people that are the citizens of the United States of America. If he has good table manners, he's practically a shoo-in.

His sole real competition in 2008 is Hillary Clinton, and boy does she look impressive. The only problem she has is in distinguising herself from Bill's legacy, and the only real hole in his legacy is the GOP railroading he got over his infidelities. But she has more than shown herself to be her own politician, with her own leadership style to the people of New York. The GOP put up a flimsy opposition to her in the last election just to throw a little mud at her because they knew they couldn't beat her. She took a red state that was fed up with the likes of Rudy Guiliani and Forbes and showed them she could be the leader they'd always wanted. New York loves Hillary now, and if she can transform her image in the minds of the electorate of this nation like she did with the electorate of New York, the 2008 election is hers to lose.

The perfect ticket? Hillary for Prez, Barack for VP (or vice versa), and with a promise to bring Al Gore in as Secretary of the Interior and/or head of the DOE. Wow! This nation would flip back around to sanity, justice, and service to its citizens so fast, you'd better have the china duct-taped to the shelf and your kids seat-belted to the couch.

UNLESS...

Unless the Democracts fail to bring Bush to justice. If impeachment is never seriously attempted, I will be the guy dragging the huge crate of tomatoes to Hillary's speeches. I will fight a party that fails, through criminal dereliction, in its duty to set the precedent that murdering our soldiers through lies is orders of magnitude more egregious a crime than lying to some [expletive] who ambushes you publicly by asking you if you're cheating on your wife.

2/9/2007:   I'm not sure what I expected from this movie. There aren't really any bad guys except the laws and perhaps the oppression of the (appropriately) mysterious Sphinx. Tim Robbins was clearly comfortable in the role of William, but it was Samantha Morton that stole the show. Wow. What a powerful role. Her voice, her eyes, her smile, her short hair, her ease with the character. The ending was so striking. I rented this movie, but I think I want it for my collection. Highly recommended.

Side note: I typically despise "emotion" movies, but only because they are typically shallow, poorly written, only about as interesting as the social pecking order of your standard high school class. But movies like this one, and like "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind," ones with really great lines, deep twists as opposed to clever ones. Insanity thrown in without making the characters look like mental cases. Foibles without stupidity. Originality without bend-over-backwards fictionalizing. That's good stuff, the kind of stuff that makes it believable, tangible, touching.

That ending is going to be with me for a while.

2/9/2007:   In yet another shocking development, Ann Coulter has come forward claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith's newly orphaned baby. Ninety-year-old Zsa Zsa Gabor, husband to the third claimant as the baby's sire, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, did not return a request to comment, but insiders have told this blogger that George W. Bush, upon hearing the news, was heard shortly after weeping softly in a locked bathroom.

Okay, I've had my fun. The creepiest part about von Anhalt's supposed affair with Smith was that (and I'm not longer making this up), because he couldn't marry her while he was married to Gabor, he came up with the idea of adopting her instead! The only thing standing in his way was his wife's refusal to sign the adoption papers.

Cue the completely fabricated Fly-On-The-Wall Cam: "Honey, I've been having an affair with a former stripper, ex-Playboy bunny, ex-Guess Jeans model, ex-reality TV star, semi-trashy sort-of celebrity. Sorry. Of course I would never dream of leaving your bank account for someone so broke they'd sell pictures of their dead son to a news rag, but I don't want to just kick her to the curb. I mean, it's not like we make whoopie anymore. So what do you think about being a mother again at 90? You wouldn't even have to get pregnant!"

Hmmm....

No, I'm pretty sure my wife wouldn't go for it.

Wait... what if....

Nah, nevermind...

2/9/2007:   Bush is at it again. He's determined to cut funding for PBS by 25%, forcing that outlet to end-of-life series like "Sesame Street," "Electric Company," and other shows that you and I and our kids grew up on. PBS serves a HUGE and fantastic purpose in our country. And NeoCons like GeeDub who want to reprogram our country to be less ... I dunno, intelligent?... have been trying to cut federal funding for this station for years. And now they're at it again. Didn't we just fight this fight? Should we be expending so much energy on getting George to represent us and our interests? What the hell is wrong with this rat bastard?!

2/9/2007:   The Department of Defense released a report yesterday that comes right out and says the Pentagon purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda.

That's right, the Department of Defense. Under the current Inspector General. Telling you in no uncertain terms that the Pentagon, serving George W. Bush, lied to you. (Yawn) Old information for me, but maybe you live in a cave somewhere, just escaped a few days ago, and it's news to you...

The chairman of the Armed Forces Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, said, "That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war." (Actually, Carl, it was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which we knew at the time that they didn't have.) He continued by saying that the Pentagon's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."

Carl is a master of understatement.

What's almost funny about the whole thing is how Carl kept using the word "inappropriate." See, it's not actually illegal for the President to ask the Pentagon to make stuff up. It's "inappropriate" to cherry pick intelligence (what my mother would call "lying"), but there's no actual law against creating a misleading report and giving it to the President if that's what he asked for. And it's not actually illegal for the President to distribute that report to his cabinet, even if he knows it's complete crap. And it's not illegal for his cabinet to routinely quote that report to Congress and the American people if they don't know that the report is complete crap. Yeah, if you distribute propoganda through the right channels, there's no one to really blame. You can equivocate, point fingers, hem and haw, and in the end your actions, for which over 3000 U.S. servicemen have died thus far, are simply "inappropriate."

Isn't that nice?

Y'know what I think? I think this nation will continue to be broken until such time as we tie the hands of our leaders just enough that they can't lie to us about things that will spill the blood of our youth, suck the strength from our infrastructure, waste our resources, weaken our military, and sully the hallowed offices of our country's leadership.

I also think that if Bush isn't impeached, ignoring the horrible precedent it sets for future administrations and the cost we'll pay for this lack of spine, then the GOP owes Bill Clinton and the American people a HUGE apology.

2/9/2007:   What good are morals if you lack the spine to apply them?

Impeachment should already be on the table. Investigations should already have started. The Democrats have had the power for nearly a month now. Reports keep coming out that Bush lied to the American public and to Congress, reports that vindicate those individuals that stood up in 2003, resigned from their posts in the Cabinet and the CIA and said, "I can't do this -- they're lying to you and I can't be a part of it." We know through Bush's own admission that he illegally spied on U.S. citizens. He'll attack any Middle Eastern country that furthers his pet dreams of world domination, but he'll let law enforcement officials rot in prison for protecting our very borders. The list of his high crimes, misdemeanors, and outright treasons grows daily, and from the high and mighty Democrats, drunken with the heady juice of recent electoral victory we hear....

(Cue crickets.)

What the -?

I think that if Bush isn't impeached, Hillary and Obama may find they don't have the charisma needed to overcome their party's lack of intestinal fortitude. In fact, why wait? I'm shopping around now. I'm going to start researching parties that aren't filled with whack jobs, progressive parties that are very similar to the current Democratic Party, but with... how to say this? Balls. Yes, balls. Great big clacking brass ones, so large that their legs are thickly roped with muscle from carrying them about. Not the kind of balls that have them invading small, helpless countries in order to reshape the world and enrich themselves. No, the kind of balls that would have you kicking the crap out of anyone that threatens this country, like say, oh, I don't know, Osama bin Laden? You know, Mr. Dead Or Alive Or Just Hiding Really Well?

I'm ready to jump ship to a real party of the People. And if I get that far, I'm going to turn around and lead the charge to dismantle the Democratic Party, to gut it and eat it alive, sucking membership out of it until there's nothing left but a bunch of groaning, mealy-mouthed, do-nothing pundits writhing in despair, posturing while whining, and wringing their hands uselessly from atop their pedestals of self-supposed moral superiority.

Dems, get busy or get out of the way and let someone else do the job you should be doing: impeaching George Bush.

2/8/2007:   It should come as no surprise, I suppose, that a man whose very existence seems to rely on breaking the law as though it just doesn't apply to him would hold law enforcement officials in the highest contempt.

Former border guards Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Compean were in prison for only a few days, serving terms of 11 and 12 years respectively for shooting and wounding a known and admitted drug dealing illegal alien, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, when Ramos was severely beaten by a group of Hispanic convicts screaming epithets in Spanish. These are men who were tasked with, and performing to the best of their ability, the duty of protecting our border.

Bush has made it his business to invade small, weak, and ineffective countries half way around the globe while hamstringing the border patrols, and after receiving over 300,000 signatures on petitions demanding the immediate pardon of these two men, after hearing loud, strident calls from both the major political parties for action, what did he do?

He purchased the testimony of the drug smuggling scumbag, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, against the border guards in exchange for immunity, medical care, and a temporary border crossing card. And now that piece of crap is planning to sue the U.S. government for $5 million because he was shot in the butt by guards that thought he was brandishing a weapon while fleeing back across the border when they attempted to arrest him.

These two men are heroes, and Bush is treating them like trash.

Bush said he'd review the case, then dropped it completely, refusing to even comment on it. After the 2007 State of the Union Address, Ramos' wife Monica stated "I have to show my children their father in prison in chains and I have to explain to them that the president of the United States is a liar."

Mrs. Ramos, with all due respect, I've been explaining to my children that Bush is a liar ever since he got us into Iraq.

2/7/2007:   I wonder if being a secret service agent is a tough job? I mean, beyond the normal stresses, the discipline, the training, all that. I wonder if it's a harder job when it's George W. Bush you're tasked with protecting? On the inside you've got to be thinking, "I'm one of the highest trained law enforcement officials in the world, a member of the best equipped, cream-of-the-crop protection force the world has ever known, and I'm guarding a cross between a clothed chimpanzee and Adolph-frikkin'-Hitler. I should have just gotten that damned degree in dentistry. I'd be putting braces on kids and driving a Mercedes..."

Hey guys, here's an open letter to you: Don't give up. Don't let your guard down, even though you may want to. You are tasked with the shape of history. What if Kennedy had lived? What if Roosevelt hadn't? What if Lincoln had lived? What if Reagan hadn't? You are the thin blue line between the highest office in the world and all the folks that want justice after being lied to and having their kin killed in Iraq. Don't let your guard down for a single moment.

Because if you do, Cheney takes over.

Man, I just got the creepy chills....

2/5/2007:   The Bush adminstration proposed cutting federal support for private student loan companies. This makes it harder to obtain student loans, and guarantees that fewer Americans will be able to afford to get decent educations, thereby widening the disparity between the upper classes and the lower classes.

The Bush administration is also pushing for more H1B visas, thereby watering down the tech market, making it a bad career choice for Americans to pursue. There goes our technological edge.

Bush appointed David Deal, a man who was the top lawyer for the American Petroleum Institute for 30 years, as the head of an independent advisory panel to review complaints that oil companies aren't paying royalties on gas and crude pumped out of federal lands. He put a fox in charge of the chickens to guarantee that he, his family, and his oil buddies can continue wringing every penny out of their business unhindered, all while cutting research funds for solar, wind, and water power. Can you say, "global warming"?

Bush submitted a $2.9 trillion dollar budget that doesn't mention anything about rolling back the tax cuts for the rich, but does mention tightening the belt on Medicare and Social Security, while turning the volume up to eleven on military spending. At $624.6 billion, military spending makes up one fifth of the entire budget, and he's looking to cut $78 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. So screw you old and infirm people, we have a lie-based war to endlessly finance!!

1/19/2007:   You gotta give old Nancy this: she came in with a hardnosed plan, and she executed. Oh baby, did she ever.

But George has vowed to fight her, which is like saying he has vowed to fight the American people themselves. Don't think so? Let's look at what he's promising to veto.

Health care. Bills to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research passed the House by a huge margin. Everyone in the scientific community knows that stem cell research holds huge promise for cures to myriad diseases. George is going to veto it because a 120 cell blastocyst is, in his professional opinion, a full-fledged human being and the scores of blastocysts that get flushed down the toilet at fertility clinics because they weren't selected for implantation into the mother aren't. Good to know. Also, George wants you to pay as much as possible for the medications you need, protecting the drug makers' rights to avoid competitive pricing pressures, because, as you may already know, capitalism is only good if it makes George and his political supporters rich.

Education. Dems want loan rates on need-based loans dropped to something manageable. George doesn't. George also wants lots of H1B visas in our country. Put the two together, and George doesn't want the next generation doing anything except manual labor and fast food jobs, and he certainly doesn't want anyone being able to earn enough money doing those jobs to save and get ahead. The rich are only rich by proportion, and making sure the schism between the worth of the wealthiest and that of the other 99.9% of the population is as big as possible is the measure of success. I suspect George got his butt kicked by a computer nerd once, and he's vowed to get even...

Iraq. Dems are going to pass a non-binding resolution opposing an escalation of troop levels in Iraq. Why put more people in a civil war meat grinder? We are not defending American interests at this point. As you're reading this, some kid who might have invented a cure for cancer just died in Iraq. Some kid that might have become a world leader and achieved world peace just got blown up by a roadside bomb. Some kid that might have married your daughter and made the best husband and son-in-law you ever dreamed of just took a bullet to the head. Some kid that might have pulled you out of the way of a drunk driver and saved your life just took an RPG round and was blown to bits. The next world class pitcher got his arms torn off. The next Olympic runner lost a foot. A family lost a mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandparent, child. Someone's best friend was shattered and spilled. We don't belong there, we shouldn't have gone there in the first place, and we need to get the hell out of the way now that we've completely destabilized the place. We should stock up the side we want to win with whatever they'll need and just leave. Military backing should be reduced to letting military supply companies do what they do best, profit from the war by selling weapons, armor, and munitions. But we should not have our troops in harm's way. The sickening part is that George is still rumbling about invading Iran and Syria. He still thinks there's some way to put us in the middle of those countries. He's a backwoods, moron, silver-spoon-brat, Napoleon, and he needs to be removed from this country's highest office.

And about Iraq, former Carter Vice President Walter Mondale said this week, "I think Cheney's been at the center of cooking up farcical estimates of national risks, weapons of mass destruction and the 9/11 connection to Iraq... If I had done as vice president what this vice president has done, Carter would have thrown me out of there. I don't think he could have tolerated a vice president over there pressuring and pushing other agencies, ordering up different reports than they wanted to send us. I don't think he would have stood for it."

But that's the rub: George wants Cheney to use whatever coercion is necessary to get the ends they are striving for. Don't forget these guys, along with Rumsfeld, Libby, and many others in the current administration, are signatory members of PNAC.