Um, how about ANY management?

The White House, i.e., Georgie B., tells Congress not to micromanage his war.  It could only be micromanagement if indeed there was any macro or mid management to begin with.  If there’s one thing Georgie’s little sand adventure has been missing from start to finish, it’s oversight by grown ups – the kind who are aware of 21st century political realities (Sorry Condi and Dick – the cold war really is over), and are not grandiosely deluded (buh-bye Donald and Paul).  He’s ignored his best advisers, and the Iraq Policy Group.  This is a situation crying out for management of ANY kind, micro or otherwise.

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George W. Bush is a criminal.

George W. Bush has betrayed the oath of his office, violated the Constitution of the United States, and broken the laws of the land.

Warrant-less wiretapping of United States citizens is illegal under the United States Constitution. There is no amount of stretching of the President’s power that can expand it so far as to contravene the Constitution of the United States. As the Honorable Judge Anna Diggs Taylor points out in her recent opinion outlining the illegality of Bush’s warrantless wiretapping, it is the same Constitution which grants the President his power that contains the Forth Amendment. In establishing and continuing the illegal wiretapping of American citizens, the President of the United States have broken the laws of the Congress and violated the United States Constitution. He is a criminal.

There are no circumstances, however exigent, that revoke the rights, liberties, and protections of the United States Constitution. The war on terror is meaningless – a complete sham, a craven mockery – if it attempts to compromise that which it purports to defend.

Republican’s and others may say that the innocent have nothing to worry about, or that objecting to the impugning of the Constitution is un-American in a time of war, and aids and comforts America’s enemies. They are the true cowards. There is nothing more precious than our freedoms. Our freedoms are the only things worth fight for.

It takes strong, brave people to live free. A government that must illegally listen in on the private conversations of its citizens, or hold suspects without trial for fear that the charges against them can not stand when openly contested, is a weak government.

Now the Republicans are going to say that if George doesn’t get his way in being able to violate the rights of American citizens, then the war on terror is jeopardized. If the government has to violate the rights of American’s and George has to subvert the will of the Congress and the Constitution to hunt down the terrorists, then the terrorists have indeed won.

We can not make ourselves more secure by making ourselves less free. It is our freedom and liberty – our right to be free from the intrusion of the government in our homes, and in our speech, and our associations – which are what make our country worth defending. By sacrificing our freedoms on the alter of his failed war on terror, Bush has raped the Constitution and given the finger to the founding fathers and all those who have ever fought to enlarge our freedoms rather than diminish them.

Because we never gave a sh!t in the first place…

…why should we now?

Since in the U.S. HIV is still predominately a gay men's disease, and after over 25 years of the epidemic, rates of infection are STILL on the rise, why should the government, or anyone else who isn't directly impacted every time they have sex, step in to do something about it? 

Mission Accomplished, Part II

We gave them democracy and all we got was this crappy genocidal theocracy….

or how about:

We give them a little democracy and look what they do with it….

As BushInc. and Co. can’t seem to get straight, elections don’t necessarily equate to democracy. Jeez. You’d think they’d know that by now. They are perfect object lessons in that fact.

Juan Cole points out the bit that Shrub and his pals seem to have missed in liberating Iraq, and the downside to the election of Hamas.

Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority. Elections in the absence of this key societal context can produce authoritarian regimes and abuses as easily as they can produce genuine people power.

Well, Mr. President, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

9/11.

Mission accomplished, Part I

USAid reports that Iraq is out of control. I would seriously hope this fact comes as no surprise to anyone, notwithstanding the sunny portrait that the bush propaganda brigade tries to push through the msm.  What is most interesting to me is that the conflict assessment, attached to an invitation to bid on government contracts, was made by a governmental agency.  Obviously this was a holdout from Emperor Georgie’s regime of sunshine and roses reporting about Iraq.  Just think of all the schools being built, and the six hours of water and electricity per day available to the residents of Baghdad.  So there’s the beginnings of ethnic cleansing and genocide between the Sunnis and the Shites – every society has its little blemishes.  We gave them democracy for gosh sake – the right to elect themselves a theocracy….
See insightful comments regarding this story, which I learned of through Alternet.

George, the Domestic Spy

I am quite hoping that Georgie’s illegal wiretaps set the stage for his impeachment. It would serve his arrogance right.

It astonishes me that there are those individuals who would sacrifice basic civil liberties upon the alter of a false sense of security, especially since nothing the bush administration has done has really made us any more secure. In fact, by making some information obtained through illegal wiretaps fruit from the poisoned tree (i.e., impermissible in a criminal proceeding), bush has probably done more harm than good in the fight against terrorism.

I believe I am paraphrasing Molly Ivins correctly here when I say, “Making ourselves less free does not make us more safe.” What do we have that is worth safeguarding if not our civil liberties anyway? How is Georgie’s breaking the law making us safer? Safer to do what? Speak freely? Talk without fear of a government wiretap on our phone?

Further, if we do give up some of our rights and freedom in the name of security, then haven’t the terrorists won? Isn’t it their goal to make us afraid? How can they not take glee when the American people distrust their President for acting in a corrupt and illegal manner? Georgie took out Saddam – a dictator who tortured and spied on his own people. There’s some irony in that. It is George who hates freedom. Why does George W. Bush hate America? Why does George W. Bush want to take away the freedoms of American citizens? Isn’t it George who is offering aid and comfort to the terrorists by playing right into their hands?

See Elizabeth de la Vega’s excellent piece (no, she doesn’t say that George is a terrorists’s tool) on TomDispatch.

9/11.

Deliberately misleading.

Alberto Gonzales, and Scott McLellan coming up the rear, smears Al Gore for calling for an investigation of Emperor Bush’s illegal wiretaps. Gonzales insinuates that Clinton authorized a similarly illegal search of Aldrich Ames. The problem with Gonzales’ logic is that the search conducted under Clinton was, at that time, legal. This begs a certain question. Isn’t the argument that Gonzales is making in effect, “Clinton did it, so why can’t we?” First, as noted, the particular factual circumstances and legal standards were different then. (With Ames it was for a physical search instead of a wiretap, and no warrant was required.) Gonzales, normally so quick to point out the finer nuances of the law in regards to things like what constitutes “torture” obviously knows this. This kind of purposeful dissembling by Gonzales is done to mislead and deceive. Second, if Clinton had done something as facially illegal as a search in violation of the laws and express intent of Congress, the right wing would have been all over him in a heartbeat. As it was, they had to fabricate and stretch lame non-stories such as Whitewater to try to get something to pin on him. Third, even if Gonzales’ insinuation was true, that the searches under Clinton were illegal, and they were conducted without a warrant, it would not make Georgie’s illegal listening any less illegal.

Finally, how dumb do Gonzales and McLellan think we are? You’d think they’d be aware by now that pretty much every insinuation or statement they make is going to come up for factual verification by not just the msm, but the blogsphere. At this point they’re just insulting our intelligence.

9/11.

Fair Warning.

So help me God, if you smoke outside the door of my apartment one more time, I will hunt you down and beat you to death with my can of Lysol Neutra Air.

On again, off again….

You think this is bad, this is what I’m like when I’m on my medication.

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