FRED THOMPSON: MALE PROSTITUTE, NO OUTSIDER AT ALL.

FREDLAND--This individual--not a man, not-at-all--is a joke. He voted for the war in Iraq in 2002, and his basic platform bears a striking resemblance to that of George W. Bush. Now, the RNC and their allies are trying to make this other geriatric half-actor into another Ronald Reagan, even making explicit references to the Gipper. Great. The problem is, Reagan, his administration, and subsequent administrations (with help from Congress) helped start most all of the problems we're facing now with the GOP running amok and wrecking (more of) civil society than Reagan ever could.

Reagan and the last-two presidents just finished their backers' long-term plans for America: a dismantling of all the gains that the working-class has achieved since the 1930s, and general disenfranchisment (the right to vote). That's exactly what Fred Thompson represents, and it's a trend that he would continue if he's elected president. He would finish the job on all of us. In fairness to real prostitutes, Fred Thompson is lower than a whore. Thompson has also stated point-blank that he still supports President Bush's 2001 tax-cuts for the wealthiest that he voted for as a senator from Tennessee, while pushing the burden onto the shoulders of all working Americans.

He consorts with adulterers like Dan Burton (R-Ind.), that guy who cheated on his wife in the 1980s (he has a love-child in Indy) and who subpoenaed the Clinton administration 1,000-times over the same thing. Fred Thompson also still stands behind "Scooter" Libby, even though it's been established he lied to FBI investigators. Now, he's smoking Cuban cigars while he critcizes Michael Moore for taking 9/11 first-responders to the island nation (where he gets his cigars from). Oddly, all that does sound like Ronald Reagan...

Today, we hear that Freddie is tapping (pun-intended) soon-to-be former-U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin to help him with his campaign--and we can safely assume--serve as an advisor in his hypothetical administration if he wins in 2008. This is a rather galling move, picking someone who is going to be under investigation for "caging" practices in the 2004 elections--or does he feel he needs Tim Griffin to win? Does the RNC as well? Probably. There is more-than-enough smoke here that is not being investigated by the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission, and it all hinges on the U.S. Attorney firings (and hirings).

Like V.I. Lenin, Griffin has virtually no prosecutorial or even defense experience whatsoever. Why not just admit you hate Black (in-private, "niggers") people and the poor? Because it wouldn't be tolerated by the public, that's why.

Backers look for Fred Thompson to use a June 2 speech to Virginia Republicans to step closer toward the race. Thompson allies have had discussions with Tim Griffin, the Arkansas U.S. attorney and Rove protégé, about taking a top job with the campaign. (WSJ.com, 05.30.2007)

It's almost as if someone were leaking this information to scuttle Griffin's chances to do...well, anything at all. One of those "leakers" could be Monica Goodling, but she was under oath, and mentioned Griffin's role in voter caging in her opening statement before the House Judiciary Committee last week. One could assume some of the recent investigations have stirred-up some evidence. It wouldn't have been hard to find since it was under everyone's nose since at least November 2004. At any rate, WSJ appears to be the media source of this story.

The firing of the U.S. Attorneys was likely motivated for a few reasons: by appointing Griffin in Arkansas as a U.S. Attorney, the RNC and the Bush administration could continue the obstruction and the cover-ups of what are serious violations of federal elections laws, and groom him for Thompson's campaign. It also helps to shift operatives like Griffin around when it's convenient. The question is, why the hell is Tim Griffin and several others like him walking-around, when they should be arrested and investigated under suspicion of violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965? We know he wasn't going to investigate himself as a U.S. Attorney, don't we? Maybe he should for good measure.

Language barring the obstruction of a person's right to vote based on their race is in the 15th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, incidentally, it's a high-crime.We have a Democratic majority in Congress now, and this isn't going fast enough. Here's the entire 15th amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, passed by Congress in 1870:

Amendment XV
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

As we all know, the vast majority of Black Americans don't vote Republican, and likely never will unless they become more like the party of Lincoln again--let's not hold-our-breath on that one. An independent counsel needs to be created--perhaps multiple ones--to handle all of the sundry crimes of the GOP and the Bush administration over the last six years.


It's also beginning to appear that the Democrats cannot be trusted entirely with a credible investigation of all of this, and want to preserve many of the loopholes that allowed them to occur at all. They need to start explaining why. Federal Investigators need to be empowered with the ability to follow the trails wherever they may lead. If it leads to Democrats--even people like John Murtha--then that's how it goes. If you break the law and get caught, you should pay. Otherwise, what's the point of laws at all? If even a slim-minority of the rich can get-away with their crimes, you have a serious threat to civil society and reasonable order. This is why Paris Hilton is going to prison, though it's no for long enough. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to explain why "impeachment is off the table," when the president has admitted to breaking hundreds of federal statutes.

Fred Thompson is not a very good actor at all (unless you count his performances on the campaign trail and in Congress, since he's a great liar). Lying is what acting is all about. Law & Order stopped being a decent show when Michael Moriarty was fired for criticizing top cop Attorney General Janet Reno for her poor-handling of the Branch Davidians at Waco in 1993 (80 of them died in fires, probably caused by tear-gas grenades, and many of them were children). Imdb contends:

Michael Moriarty resigned at the end of the fourth season after a long, vocal battle of words with Attorney General Janet Reno, who was making efforts to censor television violence. He felt that NBC was trying to silence him when two talk show appearances on the network were pulled at the last moment and his role was reduced considerably in the fourth season episode "Mayhem." Dick Wolf claims this was entirely coincidental. Moriarty claims he was forced into a situation where he had to resign. His character, EADA Ben Stone, also resigned on the show. After quitting the series, Moriarty moved to Canada, where he considered forming a political party. (imdb.com, '"Law & Order" (1990)', trivia section)

Actor Michael Moriarty still resides in Canada and is a citizen of the country today. He appeared in an 2006 episode of Showtime's "Masters of Horror" in Larry Cohen's "Pick Me Up." Since most American movies are shot in Canada now--don't ask why--Moriarty still gets plenty of work. He should, he's one of the best living actors on earth, while Thompson is decidedly not. The Moriarty affair was a very ugly case of the Clinton administration's attack on critics, but it was handled quietly and was hardly noticed at the time. Fox News is reporting on their website today that Thompson has quit the show:

The show's creator and executive producer Dick Wolf said Thompson asked for his release Wednesday. Wolf said the former Tennessee senator told him he "has not made a firm decision about his political future," but the show's production schedule would create constraints. Thompson has yet to announce he's seeking the Republican presidential nomination, but GOP officials with knowledge of his plans say he'll make his first formal campaign move soon. (Foxnews.com, 05.31.2007)

That's great, Fred, but you have nothing to offer that's substantially different from George W. Bush and his corrupt administration. The public senses this in your empty rhetoric, but the lemmings could elect you yet. Like Reagan, you played boring authority-figures, but that doesn't translate into real leadership or a vision that truly binds us as Americans.

Fred Thompson, you offer no new vision for this nation, and you are hardly the "outsider" you portray yourself as, any more than Ronald Reagan was when he hanging-out with the big-shots at Bohemian Grove. One of the worst things about these caging-techniques is that it has disenfranchised our troops. Remember that when you see the ads thanking them for protecting our freedoms. Thompson doesn't stand for those traditional American values anymore than he stands-for traditional conservative ones. He's not a conservative at all, but he is an actor pretending to be one. It should be noted at this point that Jesse Jackson is pushing a bill proposal that would make a voter's right amendment to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It's high-time we passed one, firming-up every American's right to vote.

Challenging the right to vote of ethnic minorities is nothing-new to the GOP and the RNC. It has its rewards for the expediters in prominent appointments, such as the case of the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, once an operative very much like Griffin in the Arizona GOP:

During elections from 1958 to 1962, Rehnquist was the director for the Republican Party’s “Operation Eagle Eye” program in Arizona. Leading teams of lawyers to various polling stations in Arizona, members of Operation Eagle Eye (dubbed “ballot security”) attempted to use legal methods to dissuade black voters. Before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Rehnquist and his colleagues were often quite successful at using legal methods to rig ballots, thereby creating an undemocratic election. (Calvin College Chimes, 04.27.2001)

It's hard to miss someone like that, isn't it? But the fun didn't end in 1962...except there was a problem after 1965. The Voting Rights Act. This didn't dissuade the RNC, however, and in 1981 they were caught once again trying to challenge the eligibility of minority voters. This time, they signed a consent decree vowing never to do caging-techniques or any attempts at the obstruction of minority voters. Thompson is the quintessential "insider," while real outsiders like real actor Michael Moriarty are sidelined for their very real challenges to unaccountable power. Fred Thompson isn't a rebel, he isn't an outsider--he's just another insidious ugly-American scumbag with a twelve-ton ego and no real balls. If he was for real, he'd be Michael Moriarty. Addendum: whatever happened to MARK FOLEY?

"Fred Thompson Quits 'Law & Order,' Moves Closer to 2008 White House Bid": http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,276634,00.html

The Wall Street Journal's Page-9 blurb (scroll down to "OBAMA INTRIGUES, Giuliani faces high expectations in focus group.": http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118006384372114446.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

TPMuckraker, 05.30.2007: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003315.php

"Was the 2004 Election Stolen?," by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

Images of Griffin's emails on caging-lists: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4594

"Repairing the U.S. System of Voting 50 Concrete Steps," by Harvey Wasserman, Bob Fitrakis and Steve Rosenfeld: http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/11/repairing_the_u.html

"William Rehnquist's racist record revealed": http://www-stu.calvin.edu/chimes/2001.04.27/perspectives/story02.shtml

IMDB on Michael Moriarty's firing from "Law & Order": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098844/trivia

IS THERE A 9/11 COVERUP AND CONSPIRACY?

REALITY--Why of course there is--to hide the fact that President Bush is incompetent and that the attacks of September 11th, 2001 were his fault and responsibility because it's his job to prevent such threats to our safety. From late-2001 until around late-2004, this myth held...until it became obvious that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan weren't going to be as easy as invading Panama or Grenada. You don't need a conspiracy with the clowns who run this country--incompetence aids the aims of corruption.

That's because our so-called "military superiority" is a lie that has been perpetuated to ensure that the defense contractors get-paid. A $6,000.00 USD, gold-tipped RPG (pioneered by the Swiss!) can take out an American M-1 Abrams battle tank--and have--that costs us millions. Do the math. We don't need these weapons-platforms when an AK-47, IEDs, and RPGs, and all the other hastily-assembled weapons and booby-traps render them useless. A 9/11 conspiracy? That's a red-herring, the whole system is far worse.

Today, 10 American soldiers were killed when their helicopter was shot-down by what is probably a $3,000.00 USD RPG, possibly a heat-seeking missle (though this is unlikely). Do the math. Cindy Sheehan picked a good time to quit, frankly. The war will now be decided by the insurgency and the religious warlords. Turkey appears poised to invade some of the northern regions of Iraq in order to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state. Things are playing-out, and it's now on whatever inevitable course we have allowed ourselves to be charted down. Now is the time for the real war of words. Keep hammering, folks, and keep bothering your representatives. Make their lives a living hell.

THANK YOU CINDY, FOR CARING AND SACRIFICING: SHEEHAN QUITS THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

"Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real anti-war movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an anti-war rally... ."--Senior Presidential advisor, Karl Rove, Fall of 2005.

"None of these professional peace-messaging types could have invented Cindy Sheehan. She's the real thing, and she's not alone. There's a contingent of military families that have a more genuine grievance than most anti-war people -- and certainly pro-war people." --Tom Hayden, October 2005. (Rolling Stone)


www.dailykos.com --She's posted her diary entry, and it's probably the last one. This has been a long journey for Cindy, and I completely understand her having enough with all the bourgie idiots and all of the divisiveness within the so-called "antiwar movement"...more like a bowel-movement, really. Of course, I'm against the war as the majority of Americans are, but it's unrealistic to think anyone can end the inertia of any conflict.

Unfortunately, only the Congress and the president, and the troops (if they decide to mutiny or desert--it's illegal to enjoin them to desert) can do that, but Cindy has done a great job highlighting the suffering. Without her, we wouldn't know a smidgen of how Iraqis and our troops are suffering in this criminal war. Her reasons for leaving the movement are my own (I wisely left last-Fall). Here's the most important conclusion:

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system? However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."
(dailykos.com, diaries section)

This is why you didn't see Cindy's columns in many places, like Huffington Post, any why you saw her coverage diminish over time. She wouldn't play ball with the DNC and her supporters, those eternal suckers of the pseudo-Left. Mainstream Democrats are in for some really ugly surprises when this war finally hits-a-wall, possibly after September. Both parties are willing to drag us all into hell to achieve total control over the oil in the region of not just the Middle East, but those coveted ones in the Caucasus. It's a bipartisan-approach, since they serve corporations first. You have all forgotten that most of them voted for this war in late-2002, and continue to support the war's aims. They just don't like how it went off.

The only-thing that has eroded their support of the war is the overwhelming will of the public in the 2006 midterms, and the constant hammering of people like myself. I have no ill-will towards Cindy Sheehan, she's done everything a person can do, and she's a hero. Her treatment by so-called "liberals" is unsurprising, it's your sadly predictable primate politics rearing-its-head. Groups like Moveon.org, the Democratic Underground, and all the other groups on the so-called "Left" (quit fooling yourselves, you're arch-conservative--right-wing) have failed Americans who want a better future in their lust for power and influence. It's unsurprising that those calling themselves "liberals" or "Left" have hurt Cindy, just as she was hurt by the hawks in Congress, the White House, and all of their allies in the mainstream media.

Congressional Democrats have gone a long-way in courting them. We've heard stories that they meet with the party leadership on a weekly-basis, advising them on what to do. What we don't hear is the influence and promises they get told by these Democratic leaders in Congress--what are they dangling in-front of them? In some cases, it's probably the possibility of a future career in politics. It doesn't matter, because this train is going to hit that wall, and all those who supported this war are going to have a whole lot of explaining to do. They already have had to, and the public won't have the old excuses.

As for Cindy's moral blandishments, I don't think she's completely correct. People do what they can do, and they have to survive first. That doesn't include all the bourgies she's attacking, however, they deserve to ridiculed and attacked by the rest of us on the Left. I encourage everyone to inundate Moveon.org and the Democratic Underground with the most hateful, ugly emails they can muster. They're scumbags trying to exploit all of us again--as though the workplace and the battlefield aren't enough.

I've said it many times, but you can only have a genuine social movement from below. It must spontaneously emerge out of necessity, and it will. As a matter of fact, it is as I write this in the form of the impeachment movement. Cindy, you did us proud, and we appreciate your sacrifices, we're out here. You're Mother America. People will get-up when they come for their kids, their livelihoods, and even their lives. It's too-bad it has to come to that, but that's how human-beings are. Without a real threat to themselves from within, they don't move, they don't act. Taking a few anthropology classes will tell you that, or just observing people and their (mis)behaviors.

IT'S OFFICIAL: THE CD AND MUSIC INDUSTRY ARE IN THEIR DEATH-THROES!

Could it be that they ripped people off for too-many years? It's really hard to feel any pity here, though I hope the honest little labels survive this. There's a good chance that many of them will, at least if they've kept their integrity and serviced their fan-bases appropriately. Many little indies have done this, like Ipecac, Wordsound, Relapse, Warp, Sympathy for the Record Industry, Touch and Go, Hydrahead, and many-many others.

I don't have a problem with kids downloading the new 50 cent album, because it sucks. Jay-Z too. If all these mainstream gangster rappers never made another dime off of their music ever again, I wouldn't lose any sleep. Surprise! They aren't making any money off of their stupid albums, that day is nigh!

Even as the industry tries to branch out, though, there is no promise of an answer to a potentially more profound predicament: a creative drought and a corresponding lack of artists who ignite consumers’ interest in buying music. Sales of rap, which had provided the industry with a lifeboat in recent years, fell far more than the overall market last year with a drop of almost 21 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (And the marquee star 50 Cent just delayed his forthcoming album, “Curtis.”) (New York Times, 05.28.2007)

That's right, sales of rap have plummeted by almost 21% in 2006, and it doesn't appear to be any rosier in 2007. Watching these morons lose is pretty exhilarating, but it was the major label execs who wanted to dumb things down and block creativity by forcing these morons on us. The music sucks, and people don't want to pay a lot of money for bullshit hype, so they burn it, download, and so on. If there's never another 50 Cent album ever again, that's fine. Maybe he can go out and get shot again like the fool he is.

Again, the majors created the "creative drought" by shutting-out everyone else. They thought they could simplify the playing-field by narrowing the range of artists and genres, but they forgot one thing: culture doesn't work that way, and artists have to rise organically through merit. It's the fans who decide what is and what isn't a hit, not the labels. They forgot this, and they've alienated music fans for a very long time.

When the technological-fix presented itself to consumers, they took it right-away--what loyalty should they have had to major labels? Just think of all the rock-n'-roll bios and interviews of the army of artists who were ripped-off. You don't think that had an effect too? You're nuts. The CD was created expressly to raise the price of music. Before CDs, an album was around $8.00-$9.00, but the industry realized that you could charge more with a new format--$14.99-$16.99, sometimes more in the early-days of the CD. Also, they could rip-off their roster, since they never contracted for royalties on the new format.

Prince is one great example of the army of artists who were robbed in this manner, that was one main reason he left Warner Brothers in the 1990s. Their response was to make him look crazy. The reason he used the "symbol" was because Warners owned the rights to the name, even though it's his legal name! With no proper protections for artists and consumers through governmental regulations (and adequate international copyright protections), the industry is collapsing naturally. Noting the death of the CD, it must be a very happy day at the home of Steve Albini. Support artists and new music, just remember to pay them if you like their music. Otherwise, there won't be any.

Today's New York Times obit on the music industry:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/arts/music/28musi.html?ex=1338004800&en=8b793f4928e17a8e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The Analog Brothers--Pimp to Eat: The best hip-hop album ever?

This one dropped in mid-August of 2000, and got a little coverage, but not much. Even Ice-T and Kool Keith seemed to think it was one of their minor works! They were wrong, this is some of the best hip-hop ever.

I've heard just about everything in rap (pity me), and this is really as classic and cutting-edge as all the greats of rap like Grandmaster Flash, or Afrika Bambaataa. What makes it so great is that it consciously looted the past, the present, and the future.

"Pimp to Eat" could be released now, and it would still be fresh. Sure, there are tracks with titles that date it a little ("2005"), but overall, these are some of the finest moments that Ice-T and Kool Keith have ever had.

The best part: it's loaded with that Parliament/Bernie Worrell analog-synth sound that literally drags me back into the 1970s again...that's a good place to be these days!

From the hilarious cover, to the insane and comedic rhymes and great beats, it just kicks. You cannot lose with a lineup that includes Jacky Jasper, Kool Keith, Ice T, Marc Live, Black Silver, DJ Cisco, Rhyme Syndicate, & Pimp Rex; all of them are associates of either Kool Keith or Ice-T, and all are incredible at writing whacked-out music and off-kilter rapping (and most all of them can freestyle too). Anyway, there was coverage in URB, some interviews, and a tour. That was it. Nu Gruv didn't have the budget of the major labels, and rap fans love hype if they love anything at all.

Maybe that's inevitable: anything that's genuine or real has to be underground nowadays. Maybe that's always been the case, and that it's OK. But wouldn't it be cool if Keith and Ice could be Black Elvis again? I mean no disrespect to either of them, I'm just wishing for some breakthroughs like Elvis. He came out of nowhere!It wasn't the big labels that made him, it was the fans. It wasn't the hype--that came later--it was the skill and the freshness. Ice-T had his period of major fame and he still does on tv. Kool Keith had his time in the Ultramagnetic MCs, Dr. Octagon, Dr. Dooom, and all his other side-projects, but this album shoulda, woulda, coulda been huge.

Pimp to Eat is unashamedly Black, and couldn't be anything else! I could see a new Black Nationalist Movement grooving to this shit, like they did to James Brown's "Say it Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)." Without quoting it, it's a celebration of Black culture, even the dregs, the pimps, the hustlers, the shills, the junkies, crackheads, stickup men, with a healthy-dose of humor.

Ice-T even lampoons himself on "Who Wanna Be Down?" It must be heard to be believed, and probably one of the rarest things in rap: merciless self-deprecation.

The cuts that really hooked me were "2005," and "Analog Annihilator VRS. Silver Surfer," some of the heaviest L.A.-based rapping I've ever heard. It just has the right mix of pachuco and pimpness, very hard and cutting. But hey, that's really the whole concept of this album: it's pimp rap! That's what you get. "So Bad" has roots in so many R&B and blues songs--and high camp--about a mother's worries about her bad son, so familiar that it doesn't need comment. It's in the American genetic makeup now, something in the water.

Listening to this album, you may not exactly be down, but you can enjoy the few delights of pimpdom, that rarified universe of Iceberg Slim and his cousins the Analog Brothers. Find it, burn it, earn it, learn it (and yearn it). Best rap album ever? I'd be hard-pressed to find one that's better, though I would nominate Sensational's "Corner the Market" (1999) and Dan the Automator's and Kool Keith's "Dr. Octagonecologyst" 12" series and LP (1996) as major contenders.

What makes this so fun is they get that rapping has to have the same elements of "playing the dozens," of alter-ego grandstanding and the putdown. It's all in good fun, though, and the pimps elevate hip-hop to an art. "Pimp to Eat" takes a very free genre and shoots it into the stratosphere, which shouldn't be surprising considering the talent here.

THE PRICE OF GAS IN SOUTH BEND/MICHIANA: $3.55

MICHIANA--This area has a lot of Catholics--some Republican, most Democrats--and I think that gasoline has been kept cheap here for political-support for the GOP. We get a lot of consumer testing here too, and some have likened the region to a social laboratory. I would say they're correct. At $3.55-a-gallon, the oil companies must think that either the support doesn't matter anymore, that voters are shifting-away from the GOP in Indiana, or...who knows?

I hate driving anyway, maybe we'll get those corner grocery stores back again. Hey, with the recent dust storm that preceded the cloudbursts we got here a couple-weeks-ago (a tornado hit New Carlisle, I believe), I'm expecting Woodie Guthrie to pull-up into our driveway. There will be hobos, oh yes...and I haven't even told you about how much scrap-metal is coveted around here lately. Four bums were murdered here over it. My brother went to the same scrapyard they were selling their metal at, and all he saw were crackheads--and couples. They had literally anything you could find made of copper, aluminum, iron, steel, etc. .

Anyway, all I do know is that gas was always cheaper here than almost anywhere in the United States with some exceptions in the South because refineries were nearby. Just three-days-ago, gas was $3.65-a-gallon, when AAA was reporting it thirty-cents lower. I'm not suggesting they were lying, but I think the averaging was off is some respects. If gas is $3.65-a-gallon in Michiana, it's within ten-cents almost everywhere in the Midwest (figuring-in taxes). It's going to get above $4.00-a-gallon, so I think parents will be spending more time with their kids. ;0) I actually like the possibilities in all of this, it will ground most Americans. We need it.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: INVESTIGATE MONICA GOODLING'S REVELATIONS ABOUT "CAGING-LISTS"

Washington D.C.--This week, we learned from the opening statement of Monica Goodling that Bush-appointee Tim Griffin was involved in "caging" of Black voters in the 2004 elections. It's time to start asking questions about the Parsky Commission:

Despite my and others' best efforts, [Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty]'s public testimony was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects. As explained in more detail in my written remarks, I believe that the Deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the Department's internal assessment of the Parsky Commission, and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote "caging" during his work on the President's 2004 campaign.

This is of stunning import, and should be addressed immediately by the Judiciary Committee, the White House, and all of Congress. An explanation is demanded--now--by we the American public. We're aware that you're going to want to sweep this under-the-rug, but we're not going to let you. This entire investigation of the U.S. Attorney scandal hedges on caging-lists, the real crimes committed by the Bush administration and their attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, as well as operatives of the national Republican Party.

This is literally the last straw, and we're going to wash all of you out if we don't see a real commitment to democracy and the rule of law regarding "caging" practices in our elections. They are a violation of federal voting-laws, in-particular, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. There can be no faith in this government--or in the notion that we live in a democracy--until the issue of caging-lists and the illegal, coordinated elimination of voters from elections is addressed. Also, you have some charges to file against former-Deputy Attorney General McNulty, he has perjured himself before a committee of Congress, a gross violation of federal law. Get to work, we're not taking any excuses.

HE WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS: A BIRD CRAPS ON PRESIDENT BUSH

"Jacques: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages." --William Shakespeare, from the play"As You Like It," 2.7.

wArSHINtUHn--Was it Freudian or Jungian? I'd say Jungian. As he stated, "I think Gonzales is doin' a good job," a sparrow crapped on the president's sleeve. Perhaps the universe is alive and intelligent, just not in that dumb way those intelligent design (ID--OK, maybe Freud) folks thought. The ID folks (evangelicals barely in-disguise--transformers) would have us believe that because there is some logic in the design of matter, organisms, etc., that there is some "higher order" that created things, or some higher intelligence.

That's strange, because I've never noticed any real order or logic to the world almost at all. I once tried to explain this concept to some fellow-demonstrators, and they just wouldn't meet me half-way on it, they wouldn't even try. It always ended with: "That's a human perception," but I disagree. While I agree that our faculties are flawed, they've served us well overall. What we see and hear, feel, touch--it's all relevant, because it's all we have.

Frankly, I think they were scared shitless at the idea that we're alone in the universe and that there is no fundamental logic in the design of anything. They fear there really is nobody in-charge of things, but who wants to believe they're on a runaway train with no controls? I think this is part of why we have so many conspiracy theories out there. People would rather believe someone--anyone--is out there and in-charge than nobody. I hate to say it, but in the global picture, it's true. This isn't to say we cannot limit the power and destruction of scoundrels, but they're not ever going-away.

There will be no moment where these is total equilibrium in human society, it will always be a struggle. So: what's scarier? A bunch of scoundrels running literally everything, or that they do have power, but that it's limited and that we're all vulnerable to this temporal reality we inhabit? When I put to someone I used to protest with, they got very-very angry. All the ideas you have about Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon--all the scoundrels of history--are wrong. They're human tragedies and failures, not truly powerful individuals. They never were.

The tired American myth has been of that rugged individualist who struggles against the repression and constraints of society, but George W. Bush has upended all of that. Is he a success? Is he truly in-control? Is he in-control of Iraq? Afghanistan? America? Sometimes, you don't really want people to win against the natural repression that comes with living in a civilization. You cannot have people doing whatever they want, it doesn't work (sorry kids). That's part of the reason for sexual-repression, it's a natural outgrowth of our genes, our environment--it is anthropology itself. Wanting total freedom from civilization's constructive constraints is part of a death instinct, and a denial that the tension between human aspiration and society is eternal.

Yes, we should strive to be better, but that's mostly an inward-experience. Certainly, individuals should have their basic-necessities guaranteed, but it isn't a licence to do whatever we want either. This is probably why I don't have any time for Libertarianism, it's too romantic. I think if it ever had its way in the United States, it would end as most romantic movements do: in tragedy, and possibly totalitarianism. The neocons fit-the-bill, you could almost call them "uber-Libertarians." They didn't come from Russia, they didn't come from Turkey, or even Nazi Germany. They came from the United States. They came from us.

If the bird crapping on George W. Bush's arm reminds us of anything, it's that nature doesn't stop for anyone or anything, it continues without us. It impassively watches the extinction of millions-of-species, while new ones are generated, and the universe doesn't care in-the-backdrop. Our deaths mean absolutely nothing, and guilt is likely part of our survival-mechanism. This is it, our only universe. Right, the bird crapping on him doesn't objectively mean anything, yet we are attached to all of the universe temporally. What we see and hear, and even conclude, is as correct as we're going to get.

I personally think that the universe flows-through us in ways we don't yet understand, and there could easily be "living-information" throughout the known universe. There is so much we don't know, that we have no choice but to trust scientific empiricism and our senses. We can speculate too, there's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes, I really think there is some kind of collective consciousness, I just don't think of it as some "higher order." It's more like the wind, or water, almost like another level of matter and energy. That still leaves us with no one in-control, but it's comforting to think that all living-things are conserved in some way. As above, so below.

WITH THE MAINSTREAM PRESS APPLAUDING, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. CHENEY RECONFIRMS HIS CONFIRMATION IN HIS FAITH IN HIS OWN PERFORMANCE

wAsHINtUhN--That so?

WHAT'S UP CHUCK?: MANSON DENIED PAROLE FOR THE 11TH TIME

CALIFORNIA--What people don't understand is that Manson doesn't want to be let out anyway. The whole thing was a pathetic string of crimes and murders that resulted from a drug deal gone-wrong that resulted in the murder of dealer Gary Hinman. Manson associate Bobby Beausoleil stabbed and mutilated Hinman, and Manson came and finished him off. The LAPD bagged Beausoleil first.

From there, it spiralled into a desperate attempt at freeing Beausoleil with copycat murders, period. Was it all Manson? That's a stupid question, the others equally share Manson's guilt. They've done their best to try to cloud this issue, playing-into former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's strategy of "Helter Skelter" that was merely what it was going to take to sink the Family in the courts. That doesn't make it fact.

They're all guilty and should remain incarcerated for life. The sad thing is that it was seized-upon by the mainstream media to smear the counterculture and the anti-war movement. It was--and still is--substantially successful in this regard. They're all cold-blooded killers and cannot be trusted in civil society. They were spared the death penalty in 1970, and they should at least have to serve a life-sentence for the murders they all committed, especially Tex Watson and Susan Atkins. Simply opposing the system does not a hero make.

What you have are a bunch of runaway-kids who couldn't cope well when they headed-out to California, that land-of-plenty. Former failed-pimp Charles Manson was just one of numerous wolves who preyed on the gullible kids in the Haight in 1966-67. It's a safe-bet that most of the Manson Family members were abused in some form as children, but it doesn't excuse what they did at all. It just explains it better.

He previously told a prison counselor that he refuses to participate because he considers himself a "prisoner of the political system,'' said Patrick Sequeira, Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, who attended the hearing. The board voted to deny Manson parole for at least five years, the maximum allowed by law. He will not be eligible for release again until 2012.Despite his age, Manson "continues to pose an unreasonable danger to others and may still bring harm to anyone he would come in contact with,'' the board wrote in its denial. Manson has had 12 disciplinary violations since his last parole hearing in 2002. He refused to take advantage of rehabilitation programs, and he would not participate in a psychiatric evaluation, Sequeira said.
(AP,05.23.2007)

The mainstream media created a monster in Charles Manson, and a monster is what they got--he's more-powerful than he ever would have been, and has tens-of-thousands of people out in the world who actually admire him. For this reason, his interviews are edited in specific-ways to screen codes and messages, and his media appearances have lessened over time. They made him more dangerous than he could ever have dreamed of, or ever wanted to be. Why write about Manson? He from this region, and even lived for a time in Indiana. His stays in juvenile correctional system--because that's what it was and is--were horrific, and it's a small-wonder he declared war on society after being in them. Charles Manson stole his first car in Indiana, his first major crime.


In that sense, I agree with him: the system made him, and it is corrupt and rotten. The only difference between Charles Manson and George W. Bush is that one of them is in prison. That's an illustration of how powerful Bush really is, and how powerful Manson isn't. In order for the smear to work, you need to maintain the myth of democracy and Bugliosi's prosecution strategy:

Manson believed the Beatles song "Helter Skelter" warned of an impending war between blacks and whites and hoped to spark such a conflict by killing whites around Los Angeles in such a manner that blacks would be blamed. Manson is in California State Prison, Corcoran, 175 miles northwest of Los Angeles, which is home to some of the nation's most infamous killers. He is kept in a protective housing unit that allows interactions with only 17 other inmates, including Sen. Robert Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, prison officials say. (Reuters, 05.23.2007)

Only Manson didn't believe in Helter Skelter. In the drug deal gone-wrong, Manson and his Family had sold some drugs to one Bernard Crowe, a Black dealer who Manson thought had connections to the Black Panthers. Crowe confronted Manson saying the drugs they sold him were no good. Manson ended up shooting Crowe in the chest. This, in-turn, led to the confrontation between the Manson Family and Gary Hinman, the guy who sold them the drugs. It was July, 1969, with the real trail-of-blood coming in August. Manson and the Family feared that Crowe had been killed and that retaliation by his people was imminent. This wasn't the case--Crowe survived his wound and never went to the police or anyone else, as it usually plays-out in the criminal underworld.

Smearing "PIG", "HEALTER SCELTER" in blood at the scenes of the LaBianca and Tate murders was to throw the police off, possibly leading to Crowe and his associates. At that time, they were slang phrases that were associated with Blacks, not Whites. But once the Manson Family thought Crowe was probably dead, that's when the fear and paranoia of retaliation began.

The ones who really thought there was a "coming race war" were in the L.A. prosecutor's office, as they were illegally aiding the LAPD and the FBI in a counterintelligence war against the Black Panther Party (for Self Defense) and Black nationalism in Los Angeles. This is just obvious, but it's not an argument for releasing Manson, it's an argument to jail both of them and their co-conspirators for life. Charles Manson is 72-years-old, and he will die in prison. Ultimately, there isn't anything wrong with that fact, but society also failed him (and us) a long time ago. In that sense, he really is a "political prisoner," but then, so is everyone else in our penal system, seen through that lens.

Gary Hinman's old house: http://www.charliemanson.com/places/hinman-ad.htm

The Chronicle, 05.23.2007: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4831475.html

Reuters, 05.23.2007: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-05-24T003023Z_01_N23263024_RTRUKOC_0_US-CRIME-MANSON.xml

THE DAY AFTER: MONICA GOODLING'S TESTIMONY

"I was not the primary White House contact for purposes of the development or approval of the U.S. attorney replacement plan." --former-legal counsel and White House Justice Department liaison Monica Goodling testifying yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee.

Washington D.C.--She's saying she wasn't "the keys to the kingdom" (after all, that would be Jesus) in deciding who was and wasn't going to be fired and appointed as a U.S. Attorney--but who was? We didn't get that yesterday, and this writer--and most of the public--believes that she knows full-well who it is. The problem is that she would incriminate herself, which is why she has continued to invoke the Fifth amendment to bar that. It's up to the House (and Senate) Judiciary committees to press her on who this is. Goodling is saying she never conferred with presidential advisor Karl Rove about this at any time.

This is odd, considering she was the Justice Department's liaison to the White House--she went there and spoke with them face-to-face about the firings and all other issues pertinent to the running of that department. She was the message-girl for Alberto Gonzales, as well as his senior legal advisor. It seems her advice wasn't that good. Perhaps it's her credentials, maybe more akin to monopoly money in the legal world:

Indeed, Goodling, a graduate of conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson's Regent University law school who served as a senior counsel to Gonzales and the department's White House liaison, said Bush political adviser Karl Rove never contacted her about the firing of any prosecutor. One of the dismissed U.S. attorneys was replaced by a former Rove aide. Goodling was subpoenaed as part of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's probe of Gonzales' firing last year of nine of the 93 U.S. attorneys, all Bush appointees. (Reuters, 05.23.2007)

Regent University?! That's not a real college, is it? It's time to ask this question: how many individuals with Goodling's religious university credentials have been inserted-into all of the departments of government by the Bush administration? This is creepy stuff, and has the shades of a silent-coup. By placing as many of these people within the bureaucracy, you begin to have what is essentially a parallel institution, or a "fifth-column." Parallel institutions are part of how NSDAP seized-power in Germany in 1933. Are we seeing the fruits of "faith-based" subsides? Power was certainly on their minds.

Goodling had been a divisive figure at the Justice Department since she arrived in early 2002, gaining a reputation for having a mercurial temperament and being prickly toward career employees, said numerous current and former officials who worked with her. Goodling and Sampson "knew politics, not law," said Bruce Fein, a senior Justice official during the Reagan administration. "This extent [of] neophytes running the department is highly irregular." Goodling started at Justice in a newly created position as senior counsel to the head of the public affairs office. (Washington Post, 05.23.2007)

That's right, even a Reagan appointee thinks the Bush-approach stinks of corruption and cronyism. New-positions were created within the Justice Department to employ people like Goodling (just the case with her example and the recently resigned Randall Tobias). These are patronage jobs for favors rendered (in her case, from Pat Robertson), nothing more...except also upending traditional structures of government. Unsatisfied that their ultra-conservative ideology didn't fit in a functioning bureaucracy, the neocons set-out to wrench the gears of government to prove it doesn't work. We know now it doesn't when the GOP is in-office.

We also learned that Goodling had a real crying-jag when she learned on March 8th that she was going to have to testify: "All I ever wanted to do was serve this president, this administration, this department." But you have served it, and you still are, dearie. You're just another human-parachute that the president needed to avoid responsibility for his crimes. You're just another patsy. I guess crying would be appropriate (for a girl), but how could she have thought this would end any other way? How could anyone? 9/11, of course, the moment that most of America lost its mind to fear.

The most important revelations are that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's testimony before Congress "was incomplete," according to Goodling. Needless-to-say, both are denying her claims, with McNulty citing that he delivered what he knew "truthfully" to "the best of his knowledge" when he testified under oath. That's great. He's gone on to say that Goodling didn't brief him on everything, therefore, that's why he didn't know it. Problem: she was not his boss. Yes, Alberto lied (again)--he previously stated he had been avoiding former aides, but he did talk to Goodling, one of the lynchpins in getting the stories straight.

A former Justice Department official told House investigators Wednesday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to review his version of the prosecutor firings with her at a time when lawmakers were homing in on conflicting accounts. Gonzales has testified he hasn't spoken with witnesses. "It made me a little uncomfortable," Monica Goodling, Gonzales' former White House liaison, said of her conversation with the attorney general just before she took a leave of absence in March. "I just did not know if it was appropriate for us to both be discussing our recollections of what had happened." (AP, 05.23.2007)

Again-and-again, Alberto Gonzales lies, yet the president "continues to support" him. This is because the president is also a liar, as well as the majority of his administration. His word really means nothing, yet Congress is capitulating to him on other fronts. Well, not immigration, at least not his own party. Then, there's the surge-surge that won't work-work. By late-September, you're going to see a very broken-individual occupying what's left of his administration. The beauty of it all is that given that the GOP ensures the war won't end while a Republican is in the White House, it also ensures they won't keep it in 2008.

The fun doesn't stop there, however. Ignoring the landslide outcome of the 2006 midterms, they're going to lose even more seats in both houses of Congress. Add-to-the-mix even more scandals involving GOP-incumbents (for now), and you have a potential washout. What's so funny about it is that they are making it inevitable by their continued blind-support of the Bush administration and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The question is: why? What are they being told? What are they being convinced of? Perhaps another attempt at stealing an election is in-the-works? Only they hear the song of the sirens, so it's time to lash them to the mast.

It's a strange contention that Goodling never met with Harriet Miers or Karl Rove. Did she commit perjury? This is unlikely. Perhaps they covered their tracks better than we all suspected, but a smoking gun is out there, somewhere. One could assume that it's on the "missing e-mails," and all the other documentation that the Bush administration refuses to turn-over. Remember that Goodling was offered limited immunity if she testified, being granted it for nearly everything but perjury, so it's unlikely that she's lying about anything. She'll be called to testify again. Per usual, the mainstream press and the wires did their best to ignore something of extreme importance (so did Congress) in Goodling's prepared opening-remarks:

Despite my and others' best efforts, [Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty]'s public testimony was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects. As explained in more detail in my written remarks, I believe that the Deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the Department's internal assessment of the Parsky Commission, and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote "caging" during his work on the President's 2004 campaign.

Removing any references to the caging-lists, the wires can be said to be engaging in an "excision." "Caging-lists" is of incredible importance, because along with voter apathy, it's part of how the GOP has been able to win elections since the early-1980s. By kicking Blacks and the poor off of voting-lists through the use of registered junk-mail, they have created a space for themselves. Blacks don't vote Republican. At this point, all the neocons have left is to do what they do best--smear her and attack her credibility. The problem is that they're not saying any of it under oath. They should be compelled to, particularly former Bush legal counsel Harriet Miers, and Karl Rove, a senior advisor to the president.

Granted, Monica Goodling isn't the most credible individual, but she was appointed by George W. Bush. That has to count for something, doesn't it? The story coming-out about Goodling's performance now is that she was "tirelessly dedicated to the Bush administration," and "antagonistic" "with an ideological style." That sounds like a Bush appointee to this writer. Monica Goodling deserves no sympathy whatsoever, but she should be listened to. She knows an awful lot about numerous other crimes. Welcome to the return of Jim Crow.

Reuters, 05.23.2007: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070524/pl_nm/usa_prosecutors_dc

The smear-campaign begins, 05.23.2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201601_2.html

AP on the Goodling testimony, 05.23.2007: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070524/ap_on_go_co/fired_prosecutors_44;_ylt=AgrnJzDDezVhlQjkaGEfA5Ab.3QA

AFP, 05.23.2007: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/070523/usa/us_justice_politics&printer=1

Monica Goodling's under-reported opening-statements: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/files/1179932493MG%20Spoken%20Remarks_Page_1.jpg

ANOTHER FLY IN THE OINTMENT OF AN IMMIGRATION COMPROMISE: BORDER PATROL HELICOPTER CRASHES INTO RESIDENTIAL AREA OUTSIDE EL PASO

SAN ELIZARIO, TEXAS--The U.S. Customs and Border Protection folks aren't saying what time it happened yet, but the copter crashed into a house and smashed a truck up durned good. Still think border patrols are effective? You're alone, especially if you talk to people who live along the border. It won't work in any regard, you would have to militarize the entirety of American life, and it still wouldn't work.

The helicopter slammed into a yard and hit a pickup truck. The pilot and passenger, who was a Border Patrol observer monitoring the area for illegal activity, were taken by ambulance to a hospital, Senior Border Patrol Agent Patrick Berry said. No one on the ground was hurt. (AP, 05.22.2007)

Sorry folks, we're all going to have to accept that life in Mexico is lousy, American business is to blame, and that they're coming here anyway. They're not leaving. We have to make our policies and decisions based on that fact. I welcome Mexican immigrants, both "legal" (since we stole New Mexico, Texas, California, and everything else) and "illegal" to this country, as well as Canada.

Keep coming, we want and need you to help us rebuild labor! A demographic wave is more powerful than all the atomic weapons, chemical-bombs, and all the armies on the planet combined. It's unstoppable. Sometimes, change that helps people happens on-accident. Maybe more than we'd all like to admit! Keep coming folks, we need you, immigrants have always improved America. North American Unions: quit playing-with-yourselves and start organizing these folks.

AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070522/ap_on_re_us/helicopter_crash_3;_ylt=AmVX30Zvf7oFnYfKM5C7ySeMwfIE

MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN?: DEMOCRATS DRAFTING LEGISLATION WITH NO-TIMETABLES FOR IRAQ FUNDING

Washington D.C.--We know that the real confrontation is coming in September, when the president and General Petraeus report on the progress of the 28,000-troop surge. All Monday's back-peddling--if it's even true--will do is put off the real confrontation until then, but considering the direction that Iraq's going, byt September, the president isn't going to have many allies in Congress left. What's interesting is that most Americans somehow think the White House and Congress are only now disregarding the will of the voting-public--they're wrong, that's what political incumbents do best in Washington when they're not manipulating that will (with a lot of help from cultural managers).

It's unclear what might have tipped-the-balance here, but what we do know is that Hillary Clinton has been on television today back-peddling on her support of the war, an amazing about-face that she's been known for. There has possibly been some behind-the-scenes event here that we're going to learn about shortly, but rest assured that the politicos are always getting their marching orders from the wealthy. There is a strong-possibility that there is a move here to limit the damage to the Office of the President of the United States itself, that coveted seat in the 2008 elections.

Several congressional sources reported privately that timelines, fiercely resisted by Bush, and the cause of his veto of a previous 124 billion dollar funding bill, would likely not be included. However the bill, intended to finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq until the end of September, would include some kinds of benchmarks to force Bush to report on the Iraqi government's progress on security and political issues, sources said. "We have moved the ball forward," said another source, a Democratic staffer, on condition of anonymity. "Whatever bill the president is going to sign is going to contain some kind of benchmarks." (AFP, 05.21.2007)

But this is also part of a GOP counter-attack. In just hours of the writing of this piece today, the House votes--or doesn't--on whether to reprimand Congressman John Murtha for confronting GOP Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mi.) on earmarks in Murtha's district:

Murtha has not disputed a Republican claim that he stormed across the House floor May 17 to confront Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Rogers had tried unsuccessfully to strike a $23 million Murtha earmark—or narrowly targeted spending item—for a drug intelligence center in Murtha's district. In a House speech Monday, Rogers said Murtha threatened him by saying, "you will not get any earmarks now and forever." (AP, 05.22.2007)

Is it true? It seems to be incontrovertible, and the vote may or may not happen today. What it does appear to be, however, is a coordinated attack on Rep. Murtha, regardless of how one feels about his guilt or innocence in the affair. It's likely there is only one reason, and that's what he's being accused of: "bullying for partisan reasons." We've seen almost nothing-but this behavior from Republicans in Congress and the White House for six years, but the real bad guy is John Murtha. What the GOP in Congress is saying is, "only we get to do that." Hopefully, the vote will be struck-down.


Back to the backing-down: this has been stated by the press before, on May 2nd. By May 4th, the press was told otherwise, but it appears this one will be sticking. If the mainstream press loves to announce anything, it's a Democratic defeat, but this one is getting less-play than usual. The question is why. Going back, one could read the Washington Post's May 3rd piece and conclude it was written this week:

Beyond that, Democrats remain deeply divided over how far to give in to the White House.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) indicated that the next bill will include benchmarks for Iraq -- such as passing a law to share oil revenue, quelling religious violence and disarming sectarian militias -- to keep its government on course. Failure to meet benchmarks could cost Baghdad billions of dollars in nonmilitary aid, and the administration would be required to report to Congress every 30 days on the military and political situation in Iraq. (Washington Post, 05.03.2007)

It's been two-weeks, and little has changed...except it appears that the Democrats are really going to capitulate on timetables this time. Yes, they've reiterated that they're "still committed to ending this war," yet the smell of defeat is there. It's not sexy, is it? It's more of that musk of defeat and fear of losing elections, when they really have it in-the-bag if they continue to push the president to end the war in an aggressive and unrelenting fashion.

This is occurring in other quarters, particularly with the U.S. Attorney firings scandal and the future of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Last week brought us the resignation of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, a Bush appointment and architect of the war in Iraq. Tony Blair will be also be stepping-down in June. With the president running-out of allies everywhere, radical measures and desperation are going to be the hallmark of the last days of the Bush administration. Simply fighting for survival will be their top-priority, forget any agenda.

The real problem in Congress for critics of the war everywhere are the hawks in both parties who insist on their continued support of the president and the war. What they want--in many cases--is an Orwellian reality of endless war. The time is coming--next year--to flush these scumbags out of Congress forever. If anyone could illustrate more their commitment to undermining the security and the lives of the American people, they would have to be the Bush administration itself or Al-Qaida (same thing). Was the May 3rd "concession" by Democrats a dry-run for this week? Were they "testing-the-waters" at that time? If they were, they should know that the public isn't having their capitulation to the Bush administration on any front. Yet:

Though details of the bill were sketchy, Democratic sources said it included some type of political and security benchmarks the Iraqi government would be required to meet. There were also reportedly elements on enforcing troop readiness standards and an attached portion raising the minimum wage of US workers, apparently in an attempt to appease the liberal anti-war wing of the Democratic Party. Democrats will argue that despite their failure to compel a troop withdrawal, Bush is now facing strict oversight on his war policy, unlike the docile acceptance they say prevailed when Republicans controlled Congress. (AFP, 05.22.2007)

It was a wait-and-see in the beginning of this month, but it appears that the Democrats are obsessed with being wimps and the whipping-boys of the GOP. We should be asking them why. Like last time, it's a hard-call on whether any of this is even true, or simply a disinformation campaign. It's possible that Democratic proposals to halve or even scrap the guest worker program in the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill is a response, a wedge the president cannot afford if he wishes to have any discernable legacy (that isn't negative). Wilfully ignoring or misreading the November 2006 midterms can be bad for one's political health. Non-binding benchmarks do nothing to curtail the president's illegal war, nor do they contribute to ending it.

AFP on the Democratic back-peddling, 05.21.2007: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070521234624.sosbrhri&show_article=1&cat=0

and: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070522/pl_afp/usiraqcongress_070522173738;_ylt=AvcLO1zdQV4q7AiDFJ7g70OMwfIE

AP Today on congressman Murtha: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8P9HAKO0&show_article=1&catnum=-1

AP on the "capitulation: today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070522/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq;_ylt=AtkPWUU91QQ9OSP.0l0EbzGMwfIE

RESIGNATION OF ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES IMMINENT: GOP SENATE LEADER SPECTER HINTS AT IMPENDING NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE

“I was very upset. I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.” --former deputy-Attorney General James B. Comey. (NYT, 05.15.2007)


Washington D.C.--The heat is truly being turned-up on the Bush administration and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. One of the primary reasons is that they're not turning over emails and documents that have been legally requested under proper congressional decorum. Now, the calls for resignation are coming from Republicans in the Senate, and it's not just Specter. As predicted at this site and elsewhere, they've been uncovering things that are far worse than the U.S. Attorney firings. Even Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) seems to be tilting in this direction, and Specter has been hinting there are many others in the GOP who will follow his own lead:

Specter and other senators said they were particularly troubled by testimony last week that Gonzales, when he was Bush's White House counsel, pressured then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to certify the legality of Bush's controversial eavesdropping program while Ashcroft was in intensive care. In his testimony, former deputy attorney general James Comey said he thought the no-warrant program was questionable and violated the law. Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andy Card then headed to Ashcroft's sick bed at George Washington University Hospital in an unsuccessful bid to convince Ashcroft otherwise. The program was eventually certified after it was modified. On Sunday, Schumer sent a letter to Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, asking if they personally ordered Gonzales to Ashcroft's hospital room. When asked twice by reporters last week, Bush refused to answer. (AP, 05.20.2007)

There are still holdouts, like Lindsey Graham, but they're going to be in the minority soon. Maybe in a couple days. The resolution for a no-confidence vote will be non-binding, and meant as a symbolic gesture. However, it will substantially neutralize the attorney general's ability to work with Congress with any real seriousness or credibility. It's just another first step, but a momentous one considering the treatment this administration has been used to. There will be incredible acrimony, but in-the-end, Gonzales is going to be leaving.

To a degree, Specter is offering the Bush administration the chance to let Gonzales resign with some kind of dignity, and limiting the damage to the GOP. It could be a test by the GOP leadership whether the Bush administration even cares how much damage they are doing to the Republican Party. This writer wagers the neocons have never cared about this at all, at any point, because of their narrow-aims and interests. This should be unsurprising to anyone.

In the backdrop of all this, you have six (in toto) GOP Senators calling for Gonzales to step down--even urging him to do so. The charges of "political theater" by the Bush administration remind one of all the theater we were treated to in run up to the war in Iraq. It nearly outdid the pathos of classic Greek tragedy, or even the bawdiness of the Jacobites, Marlowe, or even Shakespeare. Dramatic it was, and dramatic the war has been, possibly the single-largest three-act play since Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. But back to that bedside visit with former-Attorney General, John Ashcroft.

Comey testified that he viewed the late-night hospital visit as an untoward effort to do an end-run around his opposition and approach a weakened Ashcroft while he was in intensive care."I was very upset. I was angry. I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me," Comey testified.The encounter took place on March 10, 2004; the spy program, which was being periodically reviewed by administration lawyers, was due to expire the next day. (L.A. Times, 05.15.2007)

This was pretty explosive stuff, and the wires certainly covered it well...but tv? Not so good. CNN barely covered it, and I must have blinked and missed it on CBS. Most of the major news outlets were more concerned about the fires in California, Florida, and elsewhere. Just not the ones in Congress. But that's the jobs of editors--to edit out the things that are just too hard for all of us to handle. How kind of them. They put out fires, and try to contain the overall-picture of these events. More perception management.

None of that matters, and people are finding-out this information regardless. Just providing you these wire links is part of that job. It isn't necessarily journalism, it's having enough confidence in oneself to take the job of the editors away, all by deciding for ourselves what's going on. You don't have to buy my analysis, do your own. That's why there are links at the end of most of posts here. That said, it's pretty obvious that things are being shaken in the Capitol by the blogs, and that it doesn't take a genius to see what most of the motives at-play are in Congress.

Much of this is a result of a more efficient dissemination of information via the internet. People are not only getting better information, they are also able to more readily communicate with their representatives in Congress and their performance. This is a political earthquake of the best kind.

AP, "Specter: Vote Could Force Gonzales Out," 05.20.2007: http://news.lycos.com/dynamic/stories/G/GONZALES_PROSECUTORS?SITE=LYCOS&SECTION=home&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

L.A. times on the Ashcroft incident, 05.15.2007: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-surveil16may16,0,2533246.story?coll=la-home-nation

The New York Times on the former-deputy Attorney General's (James B. Comey) , 05.15.2007: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/washington/15cnd-attorneys.html?ex=1179892800&en=c41d70bfa982b4fe&ei=5018&partner=BRITANNICA

Playing the Dozens: Your momma, your poppa, and your greasy-greasy grannie.

--Yo momma is so fat, when she jumped into the air she got stuck.
--Yo mama's so ugly, when she looks in the mirror, the reflection ducks.
--Yo mama's so ugly, well.. look at you!
--Yo mama's so ugly, she looks like you.
--Yo mama's so ugly, she could only be Yo mama.
--Yo mama's so ugly, they filmed "Gorillas in the Mist" in her shower.
--Yo mama's so ugly, they push her face into dough to make gorilla cookies.
--Yo mama's so stupid, she got stabbed in a shoot-out.
--Yo mama's so stank, that her shit is glad to escape.
--Yo mama smells like hot ass on a cold day. (from pimpdaddy.com)

1982: my eighth-grade year in our blunderful educational system in America. This was when there was a lot of court mandated school busing (due to Brown vs. the Board of Education, 1954), and our school was no exception. In the case of my experience, all of the rich kids from Jefferson School got bused to our crappy little Edison Elementary, away from much better teachers and resources. The reaction of many Jefferson parents--most of whom were doctors, lawyers, business owners, etc.--was incredibly vocal and racist.

When their kids came to our school, they'd boxed-up some of those resources, while shunting the rest of us away from them. This escalated when we all went to the same high school, where you basically had two separate educational-paths that kept most all of us from having a decent learning environment (while the rich kids got an excellent one). I can remember skipping-classes to go home and read something relevant, and it was common for us to be taught the same thing year-after-year! But they couldn't do it with every required class, either at the elementary level, or high school.

That was when the fun began, and we'd pillory the lone punks and the jock-stragglers. Our school had more Black and poor kids (like myself), and Edison could be seen back in the 1970s-1980s as a dumping-ground for lousy teachers, so-called administrators, and "problem students" (meaning "not white," or from poor or "broken-homes"). The best part of all this was that many Black kids got to go to the better Jefferson!

But many of us "problem children" stayed at Edison, both Black and White. The mix of White rich kids, poor White, and poor Black kids was pretty explosive, with most of the Jefferson kids constantly complaining at how they were getting shafted at our shitty school. Well yeah, welcome to our world assholes.

Every morning--it seemed--there was a major fight between Blacks and Whites when everyone was getting off of the buses, and it was repeated when they got back on at 3 PM. Almost all of the fights surrounded the waiting-time at the buses. The racial tension wasn't just palpable, there were parents coming out and yelling racial-epithets at Black students, their children doing likewise, and the Black kids sending it right back at them (and more stinging).

You had Polish-American students (an extremely racist group at this time in Michiana), Hungarian-American (a little better), Irish-American, all the WASPs, and me and my little brother (German-Czech-American). Where did we fit in? Nowhere really, but most of the Black kids knew we were getting shafted too, so we got treated better by them. To this day, I can say Black people have generally treated me and my family better than White America ever has or ever will.

Naturally, President Reagan, the GOP, and even many Democrats in Congress were opponents of both providing adequate funding for predominantly-Black schools, and mandatory busing as a cure for that lack-of-funding. We heard tales of the single-parent Black families (headed by mothers) being the cause of Black poverty, and other such ridiculous arguments. It was all just racism and racist-assumptions about Black Americans.

It was this kind of racist wrongheadedness that created the need for mandatory crosstown busing, and yet what he really wanted to give Black Americans was nothing. He just couldn't get away with it at that time. Reagan was truly a horrible human being, and he wasn't alone in his racism, it was (and is) still deeply-rooted in White mainstream thought. What was so exhilarating about all this busing though is that we got to have first-hand experience fighting those lily-white motherfuckers from Jefferson in every possible way.

There was some real unity between groups of us Black and White kids who fought these scum. The fights were verbal and physical (I'm not one to duke, so I had to use my wits). It was literally a front-line class war that had all the shades of race and class that typify the American experience. Of course, there were sell-out Blacks who were already bourgeois-types before all of this, but the worst ones were the White sell-outs who were basically working-class--the suck-ups, the sycophants, and the social-climbers. All of us Black and White kids would endlessly attack these morons and ass-lickers. The best way was by-insult: Playing the dozens (also known as cutting or snaps).

Compared to the Black kids, I wasn't shit at this, but they were ingenious in their comebacks. You couldn't top them, it was impossible. How could you? They invented the dozens, it comes from West African traditions. It's older than old. The rich kids couldn't cope with it at all, until the lure of sports hypnotized everyone, and George Lucas united a divided nation (snicker). However, the fights continued into High School anyway, and the real divisions never went away. Playing the dozens was frequently the prelude to a fight, but it was also a way to avoid all of that. As brutal and vulgar as playing the dozens is, it's more civil than kicking someone's ass.

And so, J-7 is really a part of this tradition: I'm belittling people with power because there's no choice in the matter. One of the best approaches to taking-down the abusers of power is to confront them and denigrate who and what they are, it works. There is a tradition of this in our own history, and Black Americans are a part of this, they more than compliment it.

From the Ranters' written attacks on the monarchy and the aristocracy, to the Levellers and Diggers and their communalism, from the pamphlets during the run up to the American Revolution, to the Abolitionists, the rise of the unions, to the attacks by cartoonist Thomas Nast on Boss Tweed and Tamanny Hall's corruption, reviling and mocking power works.

NEA (National Education Association) school integration timeline: http://www.nea.org/brownvboard/integrationtimeline.html

Your home for the dozens: www.pimpdaddy.com

The Ranters (brief histories): http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/ranters.html
http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/glossary/ranters.htm

The Profoundly Racist Moynihan Report (1965): http://www.blackpast.org/?q=primary/moynihan-report-1965