Odd

Okay, there's odd and then there's this: a guy walks into a bar, see, and he orders two drinks and a steak.

No, no - you're telling it wrong. It was a restaurant. And he got two gin-and-tonics and a ribeye. And then he dashes on the bill.

Four times. At the same restaurant. In one month.

Ahh, but the week after, he was caught. End of story, right? Well, it's actually more odd than that. The guy probably hit that restaurant because it had, even when compared to other restaurant wait staffs, seriously stupid people working there.

First of all, he actually got away four times over four weeks. They served him the same order, and then he dashed on the bill after eating and drinking. A sharp place would have got him the second time. An average place would have got him the third time. But to get away four times?

Bu then the fifth time - what happens? He comes in, make the same order, and they serve him. Yes, he got his two drinks and steak again. Then they gave him the bill - for one meal. So they serve the skip guy and then charge him the single meal price of $26, not $125? Really?

So he skips out and they're waiting for him. And he runs and fights with a cop before he's arrested.

But they couldn't have charged him for the other bills before giving him his fifth steak? Normally, it takes a Repub political appointee to make that sort of mistake.

It seems the stupid is bleeding into the private sector.

Up-Surge!

Now, I have no way of knowing whether there has been more relative peace in Iraq in recent weeks after Gen. Petraeus and his 20,000 to 30,000 extra soldiers hit the streets. I do know that something called a "chlorine bomb" was used to attack us today. And something called a "truck bomb" attacked yesterday. Not exactly what falls under a generally-understood definition of 'peaceful,' but who knows? Maybe that's what neocons think of as peace.

My point, however, is this: there is still no way to 'win' Iraq, no matter how many sporadic outbreaks of peace there may be. The war was lost in 2002 when Rummy shredded the planning in the Pentagon and when Cheney shredded the plans at State. In fact, the war was always un-winnable with the 'leadership' that lied to us to start the whole thing.

So more than four years later, it's slipped beyond any possibility of control. We are solidly in the realm of mitigation.

Why? Because we are, in the cruelest and most extreme sense of the word, illegitimate. Disastrously, we allowed the country to slip into anarchy under our condescending noses. We knew better about everything - and yet did nothing that worked. Worse - when something did work (like providing local security) we immediately stopped doing it.

We have provided no rebuilding that is appreciable. We can't keep the lights and air conditioning going (except in our cushy Green Zone).

And we have allowed - through sheer pig-ignorance - the forces of violence and extremism to take control of the country. It was a Bush-Cheney-Rummy-Rove operation that has produced the kind of results you'd expect from what must surely be the worst management team in the history of the world.

So surge me no surges. As usual, the rightist understanding is about a millimeter deep. A half-hour's pause and they're ready to declare victory. A few more boots on the ground and the deep underlying causes of the catastrophe are magically dealt with.

I think the best we can hope for is a positive Vietnamization. That is, a healing period of separation where the government become extreme in their ideology, followed much later by a government that embraces economic reform and limited political reform.

Any hopes greater than that are made of magic pony manure.

Guilty?

The papers this morning were full of the Aussie terrorist's guilty plea. See? They must have done the right thing by keeping him at Gitmo for five years. He plead guilty!

Of course, you might have plead out, too, if you were going to be banged up in Gitmo for the rest of your life. Now, at least, he has a chance to find an end date to his detention.

That is, also, how the Saudi "justice" system works. They hold a person and beat them and torture them and waterboard them (if they can find enough water) until they force a confession. They take you to a judge. If you recant your confession to the judge, back you go for more treatment.

And so on. They get all the confessions they need in Saudi Arabia.

Apparently, we do as well. We got David Hicks, after all.

It helped that the neocon-friendly PM of Aussie was putting pressure on his pal, the Boy King. After all, you can't administer justice until there is political pressure being applied. Justice is for newspaper cases and the rich, not dirty average Joe Islam.

But what's really rich in this tale is not simply the desperation of the Hicks kid to get out, or the political problems it caused for PM Howard. No, what's truly hilarious is the utter kangaroo-ness of the court.

The military judge wore his hanging robes to the occasion. First:

The plea by Mr. Hicks came after an extraordinary day in a pristine red, white and blue courtroom here. Earlier the military judge had surprised the courtroom with unexpected rulings that two of Mr. Hicks’s three lawyers would not be permitted to participate in the proceedings, leaving only Maj. Michael D. Mori of the Marine Corps at the defense table.

So, bingo! There go two out of three defense lawyers. Can't you just feel the justice?

Then:

After several acrimonious sessions in which Major Mori [the remaining defense lawyer] claimed that the judge, Colonel Ralph H. Kohlmann of the Marines, was biased, the judge insisted that he was impartial and the hearings came to a close.

So there - no bias! Col. Kohlmann says he's impartial, you can take that to the bank, pally. No need for any checks on the system. No need for any review: Georgie and Gonzo and old Rummy all check-marked that the system is fair, and let me tell you: that's good enough for you.

“I am shocked because I just lost another lawyer,” Mr. Hicks said, after the judge said that one of his two civilian defense lawyers, Joshua L. Dratel, had not complied with the judge’s rules for handling a military commission case. Mr. Dratel, a well-known lawyer in Manhattan, has been a central player in the Hicks case.

“Right now you do not represent Mr. Hicks,” said Judge Kohlmann, the presiding judge of the new military commission organization, who assigned himself to the Hicks case.

Referring to the Bush administration’s previous plan for military commission trials struck down by the Supreme Court, Mr. Dratel said in the courtroom before he left that Monday’s events showed that the new commission process was as problem-plagued as the old one.

“You cannot predict from one day to the next what the rules are,” Mr. Dratel said.

Hicks used to be (according to the Gray Lady) a kangaroo skinner. And now he's been skinned by a kangaroo court! Hah!

But seriously folks (I'll be here all week, try the veal), these are supposed to be Americans operating in an American court. Does it not sound like one of those old Soviet courts martial? Does it not sound like a modern Chinese court?

The nice prosecutor says you're a bad man and the judge agrees. And that's all it takes to be banged up for good in America. Don't think this is some put-up job - the judge says so.

The judge rejected each assertion that he was acting arbitrarily or was biased. In an even tone, but with a flushed face that suggested irritation, he methodically moved through the day’s events, turning aside each defense complaint. The defense claims, he said “do not raise matters that would cause a reasonable person to question my impartiality.”

Even before Monday’s hearing, the case against Mr. Hicks had been marked by an unusual public dispute between Mr. Hicks’s military lawyer, who has openly attacked the tribunals, and the military prosecutor.

And Monday, Major Mori was also critical of the judge, saying that some of his rulings seemed aimed at helping the government prove its case against Mr. Hicks. Major Mori said some rulings appeared to be “fixing the rules to fix their mistakes.”

I don't usually quote that much but - oye. You can't do that stuff on "Matlock."

Disgraceful.

Health

I don't know whether this will help her or hurt her, but good for her: Hillary Clinton has promised to institute universal health care if elected.

It's so far overdue in America that it seems silly to even talk about it. The US is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal system. And yet, as is so often the case, the rightists have for years convinced people to work against their own welfare.

How is it that the public has not demanded a real health care system yet? When Clinton & Clinton tried to work it out after the 1992 election, a massive public relations campaign from the for-profit health system (I won't call it "care") sunk them.

People were convinced that they would lose more than they would gain in such a system. Which is psychotic. But that's how things work in the US - if there's a monied interest, it wins over the public good every time.

And so fearful of this noise machine have the Democrats become, they've allowed the rightists to have their system, no matter how stupid and harmful it is.

It's been documented by greater man than I, but in short a public system is both cheaper and more effective than what is in place now. Today, HMO's burn millions of dollars in administrative costs while trying to get someone else to pay for care. It's an ugly layered system where lives are valued in dollars.

It's just wrong in every possible way, but so are the Repubs. And they're the ones driving the health policies.

This is one of those issues where the polling numbers don't matter. It's identity politics - who are you? The Repubs are great at this. They know their programs are unpopular and that people don't agree with them, but they lie enough to make their ideas palatable and sell their own personalities - also a pack of lies.

Take tax cuts for the rich, for example. Nobody but the rich want them. They are intended to "starve the beast" - wreck the federal budget so the government is forced to cut social programs. Nice.

But they never say that - they say tax cuts for for "growth." And it's not that people believe it or disbelieve it - they just don't care. It's close enough to a reasonable excuse, so they tune it out. They aren't for it so much as they are not against it.

And that's all the permission the rightists need to get. It's off to enrich their cronies and starve some poor people.

Democrats operate on a different principle; they want to figure out what's right, and then do that. And they fear the bite of the rightist noise monster. So if the noise monster cows people into thinking that universal health care is bad - even though it is clearly good - then polls will show that people 'don't want health care.'

The combination of the polls and the noise monster itself keeps Democrats from doing the right thing. It was that same monster that finished Hillary's health care program in 1993, and the lesson has been learned: don't try it.

So rather than say "this is the right thing no matter what" and defying the machine and even the polls, the Democrats just leave it out of their program. Sad and stupid.

But good for Hillary - she's back at it. She'll buck the smear and fear machine, and risk the Fox propaganda network's scorn.

Not that they ever stopped scorning her. Or that they will ever stop.

Did It

Well, they did it. 218-212, the House voted in their Iraq resolution. Finally.

Clearly, I think it's time to get out of the Iraq debacle. But no resolution that they were capable of passing would sustain a veto. So, no matter how binding, without a veto-proof majority (which they do not have) the resolution is going to be more message than law.

And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a good start on a dirty job. The misrule of this administration is going to take years to clean up, if we ever do recover at all.

The Democrats risked living up to their vile opponent's talking points by being divided and seeming to be entangled with internecine squabbling. As usual, it was just a bunch of "insider" Washington anti-Democrat bilge. Nancy delivered the bill she could, and now it's time to move on.

Not that the war should go on the back burner. It should be the #1 topic of oversight reviews. But since they weren't going to end the damn thing no matter what they died, it's best to make a statement and move to the next item.

And there's lots to oversee. Typically with psychotics, they reveal their own thinking with preemptive denials. Thus when professional liar Dan Bartlett says "there are no dots to connect," the truth is really that there are nothing but dots to connect.

And their biggest fear is that somebody will start connecting them.

Just as the Plame story that brought down Scooter was just an overture to the story of how the Junta lied us into war, the fired USA's story is an overture to the larger story of a thoroughly corrupted DoJ. And that deep corruption is connected to the conduct of the GWOT (just to catch you up on the acronyms, that's the Global War On Terror).

When you conduct a large enterprise that is dedicated to lawlessness and the use of outlaw practices, those things come to define who you are. Since it was AG Gonzo who was an early proponent of torture and rendition and indefinite chargeless imprisonment and other breathtakingly unAmerican activities, certainly the organization that he runs will come to be just as lawless overall.

When Gonzo orders his cadre to spy on Americans illegally, they learn to ignore the law. Thus, the entire FBI ignored their legal duty to report the use of NSL's - why bother? The boss says it doesn't matter.

And when US Attorneys are given orders to indict Democrats on the local (under the radar) level by a ratio of 5 to 1, they learn that they are not servants of the American People. They are servants of the Rove Republicans. If a few buck the trend, they are out.

Which dot dot dots back to the USA investigation. And from there, forward to the entire web of deadly deceit that has run America for far too long. And at the center, the Bush-Rove-Cheney cabal. The psychotic sociopaths who were vested with complete power.

I think in a couple of years America is going to be like post-WWII France. France was occupied by the German Nazis from 1940 to 1944. In that time, the French were, overall, quiet as mice. They even had their own Nazi government run out of Vichy. The French resistance was depressingly small and ineffective. Far more French worked with their occupiers than against them.

But when the Allies "liberated" them, the resistance members crawled out of the woodwork. Suddenly, there were millions of resistance members. They were all valiant warriors against the Boche.

Right.

And so it will be. "I was against Bush in 1998, before he even ran." "I knew he was up to something, so I voted against him in 2004 - twice!" Right.

Make no mistake: this is a historically shameful period for America. As the recovery commences, don't forget to track the names of the collaborators before they recast themselves as resistance.

Bush North

If any Canadians need be reminded that Conservative Party PM Stephen Harper is Bush North, he told us all yesterday: 'make no mistake: I'm Bush North.'

Okay, he didn't say that, exactly. What he did do is forcefully assert that his Liberal opponents care more about the Taliban than about Canadian troops. Ring a bell?

Americans have been hearing that kind of garbage from their overlords i the neocon Junta for years. Opposition to them and their authoritarianism and bloodthirsty warmongering and you are supporting the terrorists.

So here it is in Canada: question the actions of some troops in Afghanistan, and you are effectively strapping a suicide bomb on the back of a teenager and sending him into a Chuck-E-Cheez.

Canadian Conservatives are adept at holding up the veneer of civility and sanity better than their southern brethren. That may be because the American Junta ruled with zero opposition for over five years (after 9-11), while Canadian Conservatives must hold together a minority government in a parliamentary system.

That means that they must stay in campaign mode. They keep their kabuki masks shined up, and dance the dance of civilization. They can't turn into the slavering extremists that they really are - until they fool enough people to form a majority government.

For the record, we care more about doing right by our troops than anything else. That means that their mission can't be a hopeless American-led farce like the Afghan mission has become. And we are committed to true democratic ideals, including the rule of law.

What that means - because conservatives obviously need it explained - is that while we are grateful for the sacrifices made by our brave and noble soldiers, we still hold them accountable to behave in a legal manner. When they break the law - by torturing prisons for instance - they must be punished. And any commanders who authorized the abuse - no matter how high up the chain - must be punished as well.

Harper obviously would prefer the American model - authorize any excesses and hide behind a wall of secrecy. If discovered, prosecute only the lowest possible rank of offender. And attack any questioning as "supporting the enemy."

It's disgraceful. It's against the proud tradition that Canada has formed, and the standards we've lived up to since the founding of the nation.

Yes, scratch the surface of the Harper 06 campaign stickers and you see Bush-Cheney 04 underneath.

But that's conservative politics - in both countries - in a nutshell. Fool enough people with enough lies and you can get the political power you need to do what you really want to do.

Conservatives never tell you what they're really up to because they know they would never win a single election if they did. That's not in any way a controversial statement - it's a fact that conservatives know all too well, but would prefer if you didn't catch on to.

Take the 'small government' plank that they agree on across the border. Government, according to the conservatives, is too big. Too many taxes. Too much interference with business. That's the public selling point.

What they really believe is that public health must go. Minimum wages must go. Any vestige of a social safety net is wrong. Anyone not born with a silver spoon (like their supporters) should simply hoe the fields and shut the hell up. If you get sick and you can't afford to pay for care you should have the good manners to simply die.

If a business discriminates in their hiring it's their right - government has no say in the matter. They think lawsuits are out of hand, so if that product you buy ends up crippling you, go buy a wheelchair, bub - the courts aren't there to help you.

And the military is an instrument of imperial rule that is at the disposal of the Leader. When the Leader sends them to distant countries to do combat with the locals, you must never criticize. They are not a citizen army or righteousness, they are an arm of the rightist political machine.

Modern conservatives believe in all sorts of 19th century social Darwinism, but that's not what they'll ever talk about. When they are challenged and get testy, they'll lower the mask a bit and you can get a glimpse of what's really in there.

It's frightening - but you must look.

300 - Updated

Haven't seen the movie yet - probably won't go to it in the theater. But there's a great deal of buzz about it, so I thought I'd add to the buzz.

Apparently, comic book great Frank Miller created this homage to the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans held off a Persian army of up to 2,000,000 (according to Herodotus) by defending a narrow pass. The resulting delay allowed the rest of the Greeks to get their act together and assemble a fleet to fight a naval battle, which they won. Without a fleet to supply them, the huge Persian army of Xerxes had to withdraw from Greece.

There are two huge problems with this:

Problem One:

In Miller's nouveau-neocon view, the 300 are the Americans and the Persians are, well, the Persians - Iranians - and terrorists who want to get us. They are very bad people, dark skinned and all that. The Spartans hands are tied by the effete democracy-loving Athenians and a lack of support back in Sparta. In this view, we need to attack Iran very soon if not yesterday.

Not having seen the picture, I don't want to go too far into its reported content. Let me address the one conclusion that is inescapable from the reporting and advertising of the film: Spartans are cool.

Needless to say, the idea of 300 tough guys holding off two million is pretty mind-blowing. They must have been tough indeed. They only lost because they were betrayed, and even at that the last few Spartans had to be killed by thrown spears - nobody could get close to them and live.

But that military prowess came at a price. It's a price that could be paid in 480 BCE, but it is a distinctly unAmerican levy.

That is, Sparta was a totalitarian militaristic state. Actually, to say the Sparta was militaristic is to say that a hydrogen bomb makes a popping sound. They were the most militaristic state in history. Everything in the city-state was geared toward waging and winning wars. The entire government and family structure was made to produce babies who would grow up to be warriors. A non-warrior looking baby (this is true) would be left on a hillside to die of exposure.

The whole thing may sound way cool in a comic book sense, but it's not something that modern people ever could or should contemplate.

Okay, but Miller's not getting at the infanticide, right? That's not part of the story. The story is that the wussy Athenians wouldn't stand up, and left the tough guys to fight for them.

Which would be neat if it were true. Of course, it was the Athenian fleet that eventually won the war. Spartan King Leonidas likely knew his 300 - and the Spartan 300 were joined by 700 Thespians, so it was actually the 1,000 - were a delaying force, and could not hold the pass. He chose only men who had grown sons to take over their households. Before he left for the battle, his wife asked what she should do. King Leonidas answered: "marry a good man and have lots of sons."

Not a a guy who thought he was coming back.

If it's like anything in American history, it's like the Alamo. A hopeless fight lost after a noble effort that helped to ultimately win the war. What it is distinctly not like is anything the hopelessly inept Bush administration has done or will do in the Middle East.

Other than lose.

So, for starters, let's not form a state that does nothing but fight eternally and do nothing else, okay? Even if it makes cool movies and comics and empowers adolescent superman fantasies among Frank Miller's fans.

If the story of Thermopylae can be twisted to support the Junta's chickenhawks, they might as well have the Spartans win and then fly to the moon. If you twist history to that extent, you're writing fiction and might as well take full advantage.

Reason Two:

Here's the biggest reason not to admire the Spartans, other than the war and the infanticide and authoritarianism: they were called the Helots.

The entire Spartan system was built on the backs of the Helots. The Helots were serf/slaves who were bound to the land they worked. They provided all the goods and services that kept the Spartans fighting. They were regularly killed and abused. They were ritually humiliated to take their dignity, and would be executed if they got too fat.

The Spartans would declare war on them regularly and kill thousands with no repercussion. There were between 10 and 100 times more Helots than Spartans at any given time.

Which raises the question: is this what the Junta wants? In all my struggles to discover the true basic motive of modern conservatism, I've never felt this close to it. Is their ideal society a warrior clan with a colossal slave underclass doing all the work?

That's still not it, because the Bush class are not warriors. Certainly the neocon chickenhawks have nothing in common with actual warriors. Sparta doesn't work for them because citizenship would demand that they get off their huge Cheney-like behinds and fight.

Probably medieval Japan is closer to their liking, with a warrior class - samurai - to do their fighting (and dying), a peasant class with no rights at all, and a noble class to ride on top of it all.

Still, you can see how the homoerotic fantasy of 300 would appeal to the neocon dreamers and self-deluded wankers.

When Xerxes demanded that the Spartans surrender their swords and shields. Leonidas replied: "come get them."

The modern neocon verion of that would be:

"Surrender your swords and shields."

Neocon Chickenhawks: "go get them from somebody else while we hide in our mom's basement - you PUSSY!"

Update

I meant to cover this earlier, but one of the truly unAmerican aspects to the Spartan culture is its implication that you must have dedicated elite forces in order to win wars. America's history proves that this is absolutely false. American has always fought its wars with citizen soldiers - the very notion that this movie mocks by its lauding of Spartans and denigration of Athenians (who were also citizen soldiers). From the Revolution to the Civil War to the Spanish American War to WWI to WWII, Korea and Vietnam, America fights with Americans.

It was the fishermen and farmers of the colonies that beat the greatest military power on earth in 1776. It was the boys from Maine and Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and all the other Norther states who preserved the Union - and the farm boys from old Bammy and the Carolina's who sought so effectively to dissolve it.

When you fight the United States, you fight all of us. The draft in Vietnam saw to that. One of the reasons that the armed forces are now a broken organization is that they are not a united force dedicated to the protection of our ideals. The Junta neocons have turned them into a private force of occupation. And so they cannot succeed.

LBJ, when he escalated the Vietnam War, knew that he could not fight on a massive scale without either shattering the army - not a good idea, especially at the height of the Cold War - or keeping a draft.

But the neocons believe, rightly, that a draft would cause another revolt among the young, and won't go there. They want the College Republicans to be able to hold their meetings in public. So they destroy our armed forces on the quixotic crusade.

In WWII we proved that no force on earth can match a united and properly motivated United States. The motive was an existential threat to our way of life, and to the freedom of the rest of the world from Hitler and Hirohito's fascism and murder.

We didn't train up a bunch of Spartans and send them on their way like Hessian mercenaries. We sent men like Dick Winters and his band of brothers.

To suggest otherwise is to entirely miss the point of the United States of America.

Will

This is a topic covered by better bloggers than i (say it isn't so!), but with everything going on in Washington and Darth Cheney just back from what was, let's just say, a 'goodwill tour,' it's worth talking about again.

It's the Green Lantern approach to foreign policy. I won't get into the details (the link explains it), but the idea is that limited minds like the Junta see foreign policy in terms of willpower. Like GL's ring, the application of willpower - in this theory - brings victory.

Thus, to beat the North Koreans, we must stare them down and show strength. To win in Iraq, we must stay the course and show increasing willpower or we will lose and be perceived as weak.

Cheney goes on and on in his speeches about how we must not show weakness or take a step back anywhere, because any sign of weakness is, in itself, a victory for our enemies. It's the psychology of unlimited gunboat diplomacy.

And, certainly, gunboat diplomacy has its place in the world. Showing the flag and rattling the sabre are time-honoured traditions. But shows of strength are only one part of a strategic diplomatic effort. Alone, they are utterly ineffective.

You can't fight everybody all the time. What's more, it's wrong to start wars and invade countries unless the existence of your country or an allied country (or an innocent country) are at stake. Remember wrong? It used to be something we were against.

It's impractical, as the ongoing decimation of American military might proves. And it's endlessly self-fulfilling. People like Darth Cheney see the lack of success in Iraq as a loss of will. We lost Vietnam, according to Junta pal Henry Kissinger, because we lost the will to fight.

So, defeat proves their theory. What would victory prove? Right. So you end up with a theory that is right no matter what the outcome.

We used to do diplomacy. We used to be good at it. Now, our ideal "diplomat" is John Bolton, the disgraced former Junta UN Ambassador. Bolton made a career out of ending treaties. Treaties, to them, are a waste of time. They're just paper that suggests that certain behaviour happen or not happen.

What's revealing about that is what is usually revealing about these doorknobs. That is, the motives that the assign to others are simply their own motives reflected back. The Junta doesn't believe in treaties because it doesn't believe in following treaties.

If they want to make Anti-Ballistic Missiles, they're going to do it (and they are doing it). Forget the ABM treaty that helped us live through the Cold War. If they want to invade somebody, they're going to go do it - no peace treaty means anything to them.

So when other countries agree to things, it is - to them - just paper. They believe that all countries will break all treaties the moment that it's inconvenient to keep them.

And that's true - in an utterly lawless world. But in the world of diplomacy that the United States shaped after WWII, that was completely not the case. World order - particularly in the bi-polar world of the Cold War - was a reality. There were massive consequences to reneging on a promise - even for the US.

But in the no-holds-barred WWE world that Bolton and the neocons are forming, there is no international order. Countries act on their immediate self-interest, and nothing else. Just as the US does. With a law-abiding US no longer an example to the world, we have created a chaotic void where countries are justified in acting out their immediate short-term interests.

There are no longer consequences to bad acts. There is no longer a valid world order to enforce proper behaviour.

Neocons looked at a world that was increasingly peaceful and saw nothing but threats. Their paranoia has become our foreign policy, and they've succeeded in creating the nightmare that they feared most.

And that newly created nightmare is exactly their justification for more violence and war.

Un Done

It's striking how Junta scandals get 'resolved.' As in: they don't. The reality, especially under unitary Junta government, has been that things get big and then they go away. It will be fascinating to see how it all unravels in the coming months and years.

Because they finally found Mark Felt out - or he outed himself, or his kids cashed the nonagenarian in while he still had some market value. Mr. Felt - Deep Throat - was the big secret of Washington, until the Junta started churning out about a big secret a day.

But look and marvel at their record: they've said nothing. They've held their lies. Before you start to admire them, as they admire themselves, and 'stalwart,' remember two things: first, until now nobody has asked them the tough questions. And their fortitude is in aid of treason. Better to admire Osama for his sticktoitiveness in living in that cave all these years.

On the first point, the national media has been an utter disgrace. A self-professed clown of late night television is, by every measure that has meaning, the top national journalist working today. Jon Stewart is the nightly news.

But we all knew that. Just like we all knew that the Do Nothing Congress was part of the problem as well. They never asked a single tough question. That is, except for Arlen Spectre. Arlen has been our consistently best doormat. Spectre has stood up for common decency and justice for his entire career.

And then sat right back down again.

He said he'd get to the bottom of things he never got to the top of. He said the abrogation of habeas corpus took us beck to Runny Mead. And then voted for it.

We don't know why we're fighting Iraq - and may never know. The Abu Ghraib scandal was plauyed off as a bunch of grunts blowing off steam - and dropped.

What was the warrantless wiretapping thing? Don't know. How about that there CIA 'Black Prison System?' Couldn't tell you. Where'd all that money get to? Dunno.

Even the Congress is in the act now. New Senator Jim Webb keeps writing Sec o'State Condo asking whether the Junta thinks they can attack Iran without Congressional approval. Still waiting. Months.

AG Gonzo lied and then, when caught, issued "corrections." Corrections? Do the rest of us get to make "corrections" when we get caught in a lie?

It used to be that a 'scandal' would blow up and the bad guys would at least offer a 'gosh, sorry' and that would be that. Now, something happens and nobody says anything. The political purge of the Federal Prosecutors? Whatever.

And the media, shark-like, continues to move forward. They never revisit these criminal excesses. And the criminal excesses just keep on coming.

But hopefully that will change. The vigorous investigations following the Walker Reed Hospital reports (note: after the reporters) are a good sign. They just need to go further and deeper.

And six years back.

Dots

Bad week for the old Junta. It's not that things are actually getting worse - they've always been performing their duties poorly - it's that the pesky Congress is finally putting in a few hours at the office.

It used to be that you could have the Damed New York Times report on your torture or illegal wiretapping or whatever, and that would be the end of it. Even with Abu Ghraib, you bag a few nasty corporals and sergeants, and you get home before lunch.

Not now. It seems like every time you break the law or lie to a few people, Congress wants to have some hearings or something. It's all very inconvenient. I mean, if they're going to start calling out all the lies and liars, what's a Junta to do?

But here we go: leave a bunch of wounded soldiers in complete squalor and don't treat their wound or pay for their meals and lose their paperwork a few dozen times, and what do you get? A Medal of Freedom? Not anymore. Now you get Congress showing up at the hospital to hold hearings. Hearings! Please.

The good old 109th congress would have swept that under about 10 rugs and indicted the Washington Post reporter for treason (or threatened to - actual indictments are such a bother. Way too much like work - just go back to bed). Now we are firing perfectly good Army Secretaries and generals - like they should have done something about systematic abuses in their command. Like what? Fix it? What Washington are you living in, Pal?

And then there was the FBI absolutely murdering the NSL program, tranpling human rights like a hoard of Mongols (nothing against the Mongols, they just weren't that into Civil Rights). But didn't AG Gonzo tell us that the program was strictly controlled and totally honky-dory? Didn't he triple-secret no crossies promise? Lord, the man pinky promised that there were no violations of civil liberties.

And now this. They purged a few federal prosecutors, and now suddenly it's coming out that prosecutors have gone after like 500% more Democrats than Repubs in the last six years. Whose business is that? Not yours, nosey Parker.

If the Junta wants to use partisan litmus tests as part of their litigation process, who's to stop them? And if nobody does stop them, it's okay to do it. It's like baseball: if you can steal, you go ahead and steal.

Only the Junta does it on a larger scale - like Iraq.

What's funny is their denials. They clearly run everything on the basis of their own political and economic good - why bother to deny it anymore? What - do they think they're ever going to be popular again? Give it up.

Today, Danny Bartlett, the cartoonish mouthpiece (or one of the cartoonish mouthpieces) for the Junta warned us against drawing any conclusions from the hundreds of stupid and anti-democratic things they've been doing.

Bartlett dismissed any broader interpretation of the spate of investigations. "You're trying to connect a lot of dots that aren't connectible," he said.

Yeah. Just because Lucy has pulled the football away when you've run up to kick it in the past, don't think she's going to do it again this time. She's a changed girl! She's like AG Gonzo - you don't focus on the fact that he's told virtually no truth ever to any Congressional committees.

Just know that he's going to tell the truth this time.

Comics and Football

What could be better than to write about comic books and football?

First thing: comics. Specifically, Marvel's Civil War. Now, I guess we do have to drag politics into this, because Marvel's dragged its characters into politics, though in a particularly ham-handed way. I love that phrase, don't you? "Ham-handed." I can just picture the big lummox with hands like whole pigs.

Thing is, Marvel tried to set its liberal elements against its conservative elements. What it did, in fact, was set its authoritarian elements against its libertarian elements. In the series (and ongoing repercussions), Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic team up with the government and scads of heroes and villains to forcibly register all super powered beings and set them to work. And imprison those who won't go along.

Captain America leads the team that opposes them. Cap, a 50-year liberal, resists control by government authority. If he was going to be forced to live his life a certain way by government decree, why did he bother to fight all those wars?

But Marvel, in trying to 'get' today's politics, misses the point. In Marvel's math, both sides have an equal level of virtue. They're both trying to do good, and their conflict is therefore tragic in the finest Greek drama sense of the word. So far so good.

But it completely misses the point of what is happening in today's America. There aren't two sides of angels trying to make things better. There is the side of the truth and the people, and there's the Mayberry Machiavelli's - the Junta.

Look: Iron Man straightforwardly wants to do good by registering and organizing the heroes. And how does he go about it? He goes out and says "I'm trying to make things better by registering and organizing the heroes." That's not how things work today.

Today, the Prince Georgie administration decides they want something. It's almost always something that's to their political or economic benefit - if it's not some total foreign policy nightmare.

The do not have clean hands or clean motives for anything. Even their friends admit that they lie about most things just out of habit. As fair as you could possibly say about them - the most kind way you can put it and still garner consensus - is that they like their secrecy and like to do things away from the spotlight - even altering the spotlight with a few well-placed lies.

Like when the Prince fired Rummy. He spent a couple of months telling the press - the American people - that Rummy would be there for the whole term. He later said he'd planned it for months but didn't want it to be part of the mid-term elections. Yikes!

And so on - with the spying on Americans, the torturing of people, the indefinite holding of "enemy combatants," it's all behind closed doors. Nothing is what it appears to be. But not in Civil War. Marvel creates a fairness that does not exist in reality. Except when they do it subconsciously.

In fact, revealingly, the indefinite imprisonment of the non-registrees (like Daredevil) goes unquestioned in the series. The implication is that it's okay to lock these characters up for good because of who they are. No trial. You wear the red tights with "DD" on the front, and you get disappeared - literally to the negative zone - with no chance of a trial or a lawyer or a judge or charges.

So there is a similar lawlessness, and also a similar disregard for it. The American government thinks it's okay to throw people in prison for life with no charges and no chance to defend themselves - and you should too.

If Marvel had wanted to better reflect today's politics, even in the most general possible way, they were compelled to have the authoritarian forces act purely for their own benefit, and not for some faraway dream of do-gooding.

That's not partisan: it's just reality. And by playing off their two sides as equal - even having Dr. Strange and The Watcher sit it out and hope for the best because it was all so equal, they've fed into the lie that the media has been giving people for the past six years.

We are governed by the most radical anti-democratic government in the history of the nation. They are willing to do or say anything to hold their ill-gotten power. As the voters who had to line up for seven hours to voting the poor areas of Cleveland - and the rich white voters who didn't have to wait at all in the suburbs. They all know the score.

And generally people are waking up to it - in spite of the media and in spite of Marvel comics.

The meme that authoritarians are just trying to do good a different way is, in the context of today's politics, treasonous. Marvel has a history of being on the right side of issues like race and civil rights. They really let us down with the whole Civil War.

And that goes right down to the end - when Captain America saw that he was doing more harm than good and simply surrendered. What is he, ten? To write that he didn't think through his actions ahead of time is ludicrous.

And to think that a veteran of WWII wouldn't realize that some harm comes in the process of doing good is simply stupid. If Cap believed that fighting registration was the right thing to do, nothing would have stopped him. If he thought he could do it non-violently, he would have done so from the start.

But for Cap - or any character - to give up a cause because of some collateral damage is to misunderstand Americans. Rightists think Democrats boo-hoo about collateral damage and dead civilians because we lack will. They don't get it at all. For the cause of freedom - real freedom and true liberty - liberals have been the only true guardians.

That goes back to WWI and WWII, when we led the fight that destroyed Europe - for the cause of true freedom and the fight against evil.

What we object to is a waste of lives and treasure on pointless wars of choice. We're a cop who's willing to shoot his gun and take some bullets; we'll chop down a door and take some burns to put the fire out. But we're not unhinged gunmen looking for the next gunfight. We don't start fires to get the exercise with our axe.

Captain America would know this better than anyone. For a just cause, there would be no stopping him no matter what.

Now, a word about football: what the hell are the New England Patriots doing? They've signed their third free agent WR. They've signed Donte Stallworth, WR Kelley Washington, WR Wes Welker, TE Kyle Brady, and RB Sammy Morris to go along with LB Adalius Thomas. And they've franchised CB Asante Samuel. And they have two first round draft picks.

I've heard some rumours that his is Bill Belichick's last big shot at a SB before leaving the team, but I don't think so. First, where would he ever go to find a more supportive owner or an organization that will give him what the Pats have given him? Why change zip codes just to change?

Second, what's so suspicious about a guy using all the resources at his disposal to improve his team? He could sign those guys, so he did. Some in the media will see something sinister in everything he does - and they should cut it out.

My take is that he watched a team with a crap defense and as scary offense win it all last year. He knows that with a couple of tweaks t the defense and an upgrade to the offense, he can win it all. He understands that the league changes from year to year, from era to era. Sometimes that change is too subtle to see early on - but he's seen it. And he's adjusting before others are.

That's what winners do.

Plus, he has a Hall of Fame QB, and needs to put legitimate targets on the field to take advantage. Tom Brady isn't here forever - QB's careers can come to an end pretty quick. We can't have Brady get hit too much because he has to hold the ball too long because his receivers can't get open. He needs some talent in the WR group who can do what Deon Branch used to do - get off the line quick and be open in three steps.

We have that now. The additions from free agency (and Welker who was a trade) are enough - and on top of that we'll have two first round rookies in the mix.

Good times ahead in New England.

Hurt? Grab a Gun

This is really too much. I almost wrote that it's too much for the Junta, but really, what has ever been 'too much for the Junta?' What depravity has proven to be something they just can't bring themselves to indulge in? Historians should take note: this is like watching the Fall of the Roman Empire on pay-per-view. "America used to be a really big powerful country, Jimmy."

What am I on about today? Is it Karl Rove getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar - and having to admit he played a role in the federal prosecutor firings? No, that's not it.

How about the additional troops being sent to Iraq, above the 21,500 that have been 'surged' there? Apparently, they're just support troops and jailers for the expected increase in prisoners. See, when they sent the 21,500 (most of whom haven't been sent yet because they can't find 21,500 troops to send) they expected them to live out of their kit bags. Only in the last few days have they decided to give them meals and shelter and supply them with bullets (but not body armour!). So it turns out that they'll need a bunch more troops to do those kinds of things.

Who knew?

But that's not it, either. Daily Kos actually reported on this, and I try not to cover ground that others have trod before me (especially the mighty Kos), but this is too much.

Injured US soldiers and Marines are being sent back to Iraq to serve. To fight. Even though the doctors haven't cleared them. Even though they can't carry their gear without further injury.

Not only is the Junta doing more harm to the injured at Walter Reed (and G-d knows how many other places where the Washington Post can't see them) but they are literally sending wounded men into combat.

That is what worries Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, who has long been concerned that the military was pressing injured troops into Iraq. "Did they send anybody down range that cannot wear a helmet, that cannot wear body armor?" Robinson asked rhetorically. "Well that is wrong. It is a war zone." Robinson thinks that the possibility that physical profiles may have been altered improperly has the makings of a scandal. "My concerns are that this needs serious investigation. You cannot just look at somebody and tell that they were fit," he said. "It smacks of an overstretched military that is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield."

Okay. They're stuck. Since the demise of the last and un-lamented 109th Do Nothing Congress, you suddenly can send under-strength units to Iraq without people noticing and actually caring. Now you can't fill out their 'strength' with the wounded. So what are you supposed to do?

It's time to end this farce.

The 110 Congress is less than three months old, so they should get some slack on this, but they must act. Pick a direction and go. Even if it's just investigations, or else a binding resolution that the Repubs in the Senate will have to filibuster - or use their own "nuclear option" on them and rule their filibuster forever out of order.

They have to do something about this.

Captain America

Marvel Comics has killed one of my favorite characters. Fortunately, comic book death is rarely permanent, so we're really just on the clock for his resurrection. Be that as it may, it's a reason to look back at the legacy of the character.

One of the things that has always attracted me to the character is that he's represented the American Ideal, as opposed to the American government or - let's face it - the American right.

Cap and the real America stand for Liberty, in its truest sense. He's stood for justice, even when it was unpopular.

As a WWII icon (the cover of his first comic showed him punching Hitler in the jaw), Cap was very much of the "Greatest Generation." He symbolized America's fight against tyranny, and fight for social justice. He was a Social Security American.

And the character's 'powers' were a part of his character. I mean that in the sense that he had no powers. He couldn't fly. Bullets could kill him (as they recently succeeded in doing). He was tough because he made himself tough with a little help from a serum that upped his physique to the level of an Olympic athlete - but no more.

Every fight for Cap was, then, life or death. Any of the villains he fought had a chance to kill him. They didn't need lasers or intricate death traps - a 9mm would do it. Cap relied on his wits and bravery.

He represented the smart America, the America that won the Cold War because the buttoned-up repressed and censored Russians couldn't match wits with their free-thinking opponents. We didn't win the Cold War with Superman - by bowling them over with our unmatched power. We won with Cap and the battle of ideas.

Oh, how times have changed. And it's somewhat fitting that Cap has been gunned down by cowardly sniper. It's the snipers in the Junta that have skulked around our liberties, taking them out in secret. The snipers that have killed our civil liberties are still out there, still stalking us. How is Cap to operate in such a world?

On at least two occasions in his comic history, Cap dropped his costume when the government insisted that they owned the Captain America identity. In both cases (once becoming Nomad and later just The Captain) he rejected political control and set out on his own - ideals intact.

In the recent Marvel series "Civil War," Cap lead the heroes who opposed government registration and control. America - Cap's America - is not a nation of government control of our lives. It's a nation of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

It's fascinating that the cause of 'no government control of our lives' has become a liberal outlook. It used to be, before the Neocon takeover, that conservatives professed to be libertarian and oppose a 'nanny state' where the government intervened in peoples' lives.

Now, it's the liberals who believe in social justice who are opposing a government that cuts food aid to single mothers but spends billions to build databases of our phone calls. Conservative libertarians who believe that the government should neither feed us nor spy on us are nowhere to be found.

Which brings me to my good friend Buckets Goldenberg. He pointed me to this dreck from the wingnutosphere. I don't usually dredge up this kind of flotsam, but clearly this self-professed "Conservative Voice" needs to get to a civics class right away.

He complains about some sort of judicial decision without acknowledging that everyone in America is entitled to their day in court. The fact that we can try someone we don't like and not find them guilty is a sign of the strength of our system, not the weakness of tyranny. What does this Voice think of Chinese or Saudi courts that convict or political and religious grounds alone? Should we emulate them because we don't like what a court decided in our open system?

And the very thought of a 'liberal media' is so quaint it threatens to make one smile indulgently. But it's truly an example of how far the US has travelled from the intent of its founders and the beliefs that cause millions to fight and die for it over the centuries.

Try to read this, I dare you:

In a nation that has been hijacked by liberalism and is being slowly destroyed by democrat-ick socialism, it is probably importantly symbolic that with the destruction of the Christian Bible and the traditional holidays recognizing the blessings of God; with the elimination of a Constitution that requires strict interpretation and constructionist action to actually work the way the Founders intended; with the spreading of the liberal religions of Darwinism and Global Warming-ism and with the spreading of immorality through the acceptance of atheism and the homosexual agenda, that Captain America be struck down from a hidden threat on the steps of a court house.

Six years of Republican rule, with the Republican Leader having absolute power, and we're being destroyed by "demicrat-ick socialism?" Like what? The Patriot Act? Taxes on the wealthy and corporations haven't been this low since Eisenhower, and social programs are being starved daily.

The "conservative" alternative is outsourcing everything to private industry. But private firms trying to do government work have been tremendously wasteful - and unaccountable. They've wasted billions in Iraq and New Orleans and can't even say where the money went - only that it didn't go to the people who actually needed it.

As for the "destruction of the Christian Bible," the only people destroying it is those who profess to uphold it (in the right wing political sphere). In America, we separate Church and state. If you want to live in a place that is ruled by a religious order, I invite you to live in Vatican City or Saudi Arabia. This is not that country.

As for the Constitution, it's hard to know where to begin. I wish we had some 'strict constructionists' in the White House. Then we wouldn't hear about a 'unitary executive' or witness the abrogation of habeas corpus. The Constitution does tell us how to govern ourselves. When the administration starts playing 'make-believe' and gives itself unlimited power, we are left with Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.

We are a nation of laws - and those laws apply to everyone, even the president. We never embraced official torture before this Junta.

Atheism and the homosexual agenda and all that - please. If this Voice hasn't grown up enough to realize that American people are free to live their lives and hold their own beliefs, then there's little hope for him.

I don't get into all this just to bash the Voice - that's pointless. What it demonstrates is a fundamental misunderstanding of America and American values. It used to be that someone writing these things would be marginalized and shamed as the crackpotism that it represents. Not in today's America.

Now, the intolerance against gays and atheists and non-Christians is acceptable. People used to have some shame about not believing in scientific fact. Now it's okay to rant against "Darwinism and Global Warming-ism."

The nation has embraced its stupidity and its bigotry.

But Captain America never did.

Shocked!

We're starting to see more and more Claude Rains moments coming from the Junta. Raines played the bend-with-the-wind Captain of Police in the great movie "Casablanca." Ordered by the Nazis to close Rick's Cafe Americain, Renault's excuse is that he is "shocked - shocked! - to find gambling in this establishment." The very next second, Emil the croupier hands him his "winnings."

And so it goes for the Junta. They are shocked - shocked! - at most things that are revealed about the nefarious administration. Here's the latest: a report from the FBI's internal investigation shows that the FBI has systematically abused their USA Patriot Act powers to do searches without subpoena. Shocking!

Under the "Fascism: Step One" Patriot Act, the FBI local offices can write "national security letters" to obtain private information about Americans, without the approval of a judge. Of course, they'd never abuse that power, heaven knows.

Except that have - constantly. They've written letters in all kinds of cases to get all kinds of info that's out of bounds. And they've failed to report one out of every five letters that they've issued.

Look: authoritarian countries spy on their own people without limit. Democracies are supposed to be about individual liberty - something that American 'conservatives' used to believe in. Now they just want their girlish strong-man to take charge of their lives and ours.

But this is still (at this writing) a democracy. No branch of government under our Constitution - you know, that thing Georgie swore to uphold and defend - has the right to invade your privacy without good reason. And that good reason is not "it's a lot easier to search records than to actually investigate."

Frankly, given the state of the nation today, our founding fathers might just as well have not bothered with the whole Revolutionary War. What's the point? If Americans are just going to form up around a dumber and more ham-handed King George, why spend a Winter at Valley Forge?

Now????

Looks like the 'surge' of troops into Iraq will continue to 'surge' well into 2008. As if we didn't know. We were lucky just to be told that the surge was happening in the first place, It would be more typical for them to just send another batch of troops without telling anybody.

Which is the entire policy of this Junta: "without telling anybody." Their understanding of the Nixon treason is that Tricky Dick (Nixon, not Cheney) was - get this - not secretive enough. If only he'd been more underhanded, he would have been able to use all those imaginary preznitedual powers to - what? Commit more crimes? Start more wars?

Anyway, the other part that they think Tricky screwed up was in keeping the draft. Sure, you can't reasonably fight an unpopular war half a planet away with 500,000+ troops without conscription. I mean, who the hell was going to volunteer for that?

But the draft meant the war was visible, as were the protesters. You can't fight a no-cameras no-access no-coffins war if there are bra-burning commie feminists marching all over creation, can you?

Indeed no. So Cheney's war must be fought with a volunteer force ("the army that you have"), and with as little home-side visibility as possible. That way, if there's good news you can roll cameras. We're still waiting for some of that. The rest you try to hide.

And the rest is all there is. There's not going to be a V-I Day. Not because our armed forces are not valiant and smart and in every way superior to their opponents. It's that their leadership is the opposite: cowardly and dumb and inferior to insurgent leadership (and al Qaeda leadership as well).

Let's face it: Osama bin Laden is a better leader and commander than George W. Bush. He has faced and defeated a superior foe. He has goaded a far superior enemy into squandering virtually every advantage. By being so much better all around than Georgie and Cheney and Rummy and the entire Junta, Osama has done more than he would have though possible in 100 years.

Not that he had any ties to Iraq - ever. It's just that his attack and taunting presence brought the natural forces of stupidity and over-reach that existed in the hearts of Junta members to the fore. He gave America the excuse to act on its basest impulses, and we did.

Proof today: Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno says that we need our extra troops into 2008 because we're trying something new: security.

You remember security, right? It's the linchpin to the possible success of the Iraq mission, the same linchpin that everyone (including your humble narrator) has been screaming about since before the invasion.

The possibility of 'success' in Iraq (to the extent that it has ever existed) has rested on our ability to provide real security to the population. After security, you can rebuild physically, economically, and politically. Without security, none of that is possible (it's necessary but not sufficient).

We've all known that and said that. It's why Gen. Shinseki said we'd need 300,000 troops or more. All those models they extracted from the occupation of Japan and Germany (neither being a good model for Iraq) were based on a huge occupation force in every part of the country.

But now, four years later, the extra 21,500 troops "reflects the military’s new counterinsurgency doctrine, which puts a premium on sustained efforts to try to win over a wary population."

You know what 'wins over a wary population?' Not allowing wild west lawlessness for four years. Preventing death squads and revenge killings every day all the time would probably help.

I said at the time and will repeat now: Toronto is one of the most peaceful cities in the world (for its size). I would not step a toe out of my door if the police were not there one day. Baghdad is a city of AK-47's and deadly violence. And they expect people to go to work?

Now, if only the Democrats could get their act together and start a withdrawal...

Bagged!

Well, they've canned Scooter Libby. One down - I guess that's good news. I'm enough of a pessimist to think that the rest of them will never see the justice that they so richly deserve. I do envy the Watergate era Dems who got to see their small and democratic version of Bush get full comeuppance (though he should never have been pardoned). Will we ever see the Bush-Cheney-Rove Junta frog-marched out of the White House?

Of course not.

And as for the dubious pleasure of frog-march-watching, I doubt we'll ever see Scooter bagged in that way, either. No doubt Georgie already has his pardon written up and signed. It's just a question of timing now.

The nice thing is that extreme rightists are both dumb and self-interested. When it comes time for some of the non-OVP players to start taking their lumps, they'll sing like the Vienna Boys Choir before taking a fall - no matter how much they claim to love Dear Leader.

Maybe, if the Dems ever get around to impeaching Bush and Cheney and Rove and all the other power-puppets, they'll find that Cheney was right all along: that the OVP is a special wonderland of power.

Cheney does make that claim - not the wonderland thing, just the power (he takes his raw). He thinks that sine the Veep breaks ties in the Senate, that he's above both the Prenzneet and the Congress.

You see, part of the problem that the Martians are now facing in ruling over us in the bodies of neocons (try to stay with me here) is that it starts to get complicated for them. They don't understand the concept of "war" in their culture. They are fully peaceful when it comes to other Martians.

Which is why they cause so much bloodshed on earth: earth people are far too primitive to share the solar system with.

But you knew all that. What they don't get is how earth people can actually believe that "Dick Cheney" is one of them. Surely he's an extreme enough parody of their behaviour for them to catch on - right?

Apparently not.

So Martian Neocon "Cheney" make the patently absurd claim the the OVP is invested with any authority at all, and nobody takes him up on it. Just amazing.

Well, "Dick" - I'm on to you. Your alien notions of keeping us 'in our place' are outmoded and destructive. We will prevail!

We may be a smouldering chunk of coal bobbing along in the asteroid belt by then, but we'll prevail!

Medic!

We've all heard by now of the disgraceful and coldblooded treatment of wounded service personnel at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington. The place is a dank hole, and the people who deserve the best from the nation they sacrificed for have gotten the Bush treatment.

After all, these are not rich political donors who receive lavish praise and four-star treatment. These aren't people with their hand out for a tax cut - they're wounded American warriors, looking to be healed by the army they fought for.

Maybe, if they had some cash-ola for some pay-ola to a few Repub Congressmen or Senators, they could have received better care over the last six years. But, foolishly, they've squandered their money on the meals they were forced to purchase. And besides, they had no time for cocktail parties while their paperwork was being sequentially lost and mishandled.

If only their priorities had been better positioned. Because this Junta is pay-for-play. If you don't have the scratch to pony up, you don't get a menu.

This WaPo article is interesting. It's a tale of two generals. One who, seemingly, was trying to fix things and feels genuine shame about what went on (clearly, he needed to be fired immediately as a ready scapegoat). And another - Kevin Kiley - who seems to have had some apology-like language in his prepared notes, but increasingly slimed away from all responsibility as the hearing went on.

After all, he only lived across the street from one of the biggest dumps housing Walter Reed patients. What would he know?

But this is not the shameful 109th congress. If it were, we'd never see these generals. We'd only get obliging news reports that "everything that could be done has been done."

Nope. Now we get this:

Lawmakers on the committee, who were visiting Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a field hearing yesterday, quickly tired of the general's I-don't-do-windows routine. Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) accused him of spouting "hogwash." Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) called his position "dishonest."

"I want you to know that I think this is a massive failure of competence in management and command," said Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), pointing his finger at Kiley.

Finally.

This is the stuff that should make real Americans angry. This is how the Junta treats not just the foreigners that the want to fence off and torture, but brave Americans. True Patriots in the best sense of the word.

The debasement of our national institutions is still looking for a rock bottom. I hope this is it, but somehow I think the Junta has a few more levels of depravity to reveal.

Adalius!

My wishes have come true! The Patriots (who we can now talk about again) have signed free agent LB Adalius Thomas from Baltimore!

He is the guy I've been wanting since he came on the market. He is the guy this team needed more than anyone else. Sure, there are still some holes (okay, a lot of holes) in the roster, but this guy makes up for a lot.

Thomas is a younger and more athletic Willie McGinest - not to say that he has the ability to change games like Willie. Few have ever answered the bell like Big Play Willie. But Thomas has the skins on the wall that prove he's not an ordinary player, either.

Intentionally or otherwise, it's possible that Bill Belichick went into 2007 as a rebuilding year. He never addressed the loss of Deion Branch. He knew before the season started that his wide outs were sub-par. Second rounder Chad Jackson had rookie hangnail problems from day one.

Rodney Harrison started the year hurt, then came back and got hurt again, along with many DB's (something must be done!). The LB group was thin and stayed that way, even with the arrival (and departure) of Junior Seau.

But there's something of a renewal in the air. We have Thomas. The Pats are talking to Troy Brown-like WR Wes Welker (FA Miami). There's even Randy Moss talk out there, according to Profootballtalk.com.

It's exciting to think about. I'm not sure what to make of the Moss talk. In the NE system, Moss could have a historic season. And I'm sure he knows that. But after watching Terrell Owens blow up an otherwise decent Cowboys team last year, I'm not so hot to pursue a prima donna WR these days.

Still, a lot of positive is in the air.

And I think part of the 06-07 team's problem was an easy schedule. They had too many buttercups. Previous Pats championship teams feasted on the top teams, and were ready for the playoffs. This, year, the Houstons and Tennesees and Miamis didn't help get us ready.

But I'm ready - believe me. Let's get the draft over and get to training camp (a thought shared by 0% of the league's players, no doubt).

Changed His Mind?

This one is really rich. The WaPo is going with: "Bush Shows New Willingness to Reverse Course." Right.

Examples of this include the new talks with Syria and Iran, finally firing Rummy, and the talks with North Korea. Could this be a new Preznit? A whole new Georgie, grown from his petulant moody teen years and blossoming into a twenty-something powerhouse?

Hardly. Though, from what I've heard about Georgie in his 20's, I'd say Laura better lock the liquor cabinet and the Secret Service better start arresting those crack dealers across the street.

No, none of this has anything to do with any "willingness" on Georgie's part. It's just that people understand him better now.

For example, Iraqi PM Maliki knows all too well that the only thing that Georgie and his Junta members understand is force. If there is any choice in the matter, there is no choice. Any opportunity to do what they want - no matter how cruel, deadly, and unpopular - will be savagely exercised. An option to do what they want is the same this as an order to do what they want.

So Maliki throws a meeting with Syria and Iran, and invites Georgie and Condo. What are they to do? Just sit it out and let Iran, Iraq, and Syria decide the future of the region? Hardly.

Condo needs to send some clone of John Bolton to scuttle any decisions from the talks. Can't have people making peace when there are neocons around demanding their ton of flesh.

North Korea finally got them to talk, but only after the NK's had secured a dozen or so nukes. Yes, the same agreement that Bubba got without creating a nuclear NK was secured by Georgie after they had acquired nuclear weapons. Thanks so much.

Rummy was, I think, just got too big for his britches and Darth Cheney had him whacked.

That's why the Democrats in Congress have to get their stuff together. It's been over two months, and they don't have an Iraq policy yet. And nothing that they do will have any effect at all unless it explicitly bans and prohibits things. Any law where Georgie can make a decision is a non-starter.

What's being discussed now is a resolution to allow Georgie to send troops to Iraq without proper training, rest, and equipment, but forcing him to approve the moves explicitly stating that he's sending them there without proper training, rest, and equipment.

The Murtha bill that would prevent him from sending those troops outright was seen as too liberal, too controlling of the 'commander in chief.' Which is complete nonsense. If they'd passed that, Georgie would have still sen the troops, but would have rotated them in from Korea or Japan or some other base. Their lives are his playthings, and he would have played away.

But if they pass this bill, he'll throw a 'signing statement' on it and keep doing what he's doing. He's proclaim that 'as Preznit, he finds the troops good (as long as they're not all wounded and worthless, in which case they can sit in rotting squalor) and ready in a general sense.' And that will be it.

Even after six years, the Democrats don't get that he will do or say anything, that he will break any law or tell any lie to keep his grip on power.

On fact, when a new president is finally elected in 09, I'll honestly be surprised to watch him go.

But, of course, Martians can replace their bodies at will, so he can come back as the next Preznit. Martians will continue to pose as Repub politicians as long as it takes to turn America away from the path of science, reason, social justice, and liberty.

It is only the power of their alien minds that can project such diabolical thoughts as: "tax the poor and middle-class, cut taxes on the rich," and "kill 600,000 innocent foreigners and 3,500 Americans while decimating the greatest military in world history."

Do you really think an earth person could propose those policies? Hardly. "Cut food support to poor single months?" You think someone from earth could pass that?

But I think our Martian overlords are running out of juice. Only another massive terror attack on US soil could keep them in power.

So look out!

Health Care

Here's a shock that is, as usual, no shock at all: Americans want their government o provide health insurance. A majority in this recent poll want it, and 80% say it's more important than tax breaks for the rich. How is it, again, that the Repub party ever won an election?

I mean, their values run counter to those of a majority of the country. Yet their behaviour - bellicose insistence on a non-factual version of reality - makes them more individually appealing to American voters.

And perhaps that's the lesson the Democrats need to learn: don't just be right. It's not enough to be right and offer what their constituents really want - like health care. The rightists and their lap-dogs in the media will hammer back with a made-up version of what they want and it will be an effective counter to the realist of the Democratic position.

As Josh Marshall has described, it's 'bitch slap politics.' The rightist comes out with a frontal assault - will the Democrat hit back and prove equal toughness? Too often, the Democrat appeals to the judges - "that's a lie!" And it is a lie, but in the mind of the voter, the Dem got slapped and didn't hit back.

On the playground, that's 'running to the teacher.' "Tommy hit me, Mrs. Johnson!" And it might work or it might not, but it won't get the respect of the other kids.

Which brings us back to health care. Already, the Times and others are reminding us of the debacle of 1993 when then-first lady Hilary tried to bring health care to Americans but was scuttled by a right-wing campaign on behalf of their friends in the for-profit medical world.

Just stop and think about that: for-profit medicine. Doesn't that seem obscene on the face of it? "I'll help save your life - for a price."

Anyway, the HMO's and the proto-Junta broke it up. Granted, Hilary and the Dems could have handled it better, but why does it come back as their problem now? Why isn't it a problem for the rightists who went to strongly against the wishes of the nation?

That's one of the mysteries of the universe that Glenn Greenwald is so brilliant at exposing, and I'm sure he'll take this one on as well. He's been well ahead of everyone asking that question about Iraq. Things like: "since polls show that Americans are completely against the war and for bringing the troops home, why does the media treat pols like Murtha who also want those things as 'fringe?' Why are they considered outside the lines and not the rightist warmonger who are advocating more war?"

Mars Update:

The repudiation of national health care is definitely part of the Martian program. Bu making health care less available to people, specifically children, or Martian-NeoCon overlords ensure that people will be less capable of thinking and learning and rising above their station in life. Keeping people sick and poor is a great way to keep them 'in their place.'