YouTube Debate

It's been widely reported that only John McCain and Ron Paul will appear in the Repub version of the YouTube debate that the Democrats recently held. And there are lots wondering why that is. There are a couple of good theories at TPM (link to the right).

First, Rudy doesn't want the FDNY to get a clear shot at him on national TV. That sounds about right as far as it goes, but Rudy needs to think of some answers to that one - those guys aren't going away, and 9-11 is virtually the only 'issue' in Rudy's arsenal. Sure "stay on offense" but how about helping some of those friendly fire casualties?

That works for Rudy, but what about Mitt and Tancredo and the other brownshirts in the running? Theory number two covers them pretty well.

That is the idea that the Repub issues sound okay when the candidates and talking heads pretty them up, but when the real Repub base gets to talkin' about "immigration reform," it gets pretty ugly pretty quick. "Hey - what're ya gonna do 'bout them Messkins? Theys overrrunnin' our white nation with their ni..." And that's the end of that.

however you slice it, Repubs are about the ugliness in the American soul. They're the party that's willing to spend a billion every couple of days to stay in Iraq, but finds child health care too 'expensive.' Huh?

What are their issues? Fighting and fighting and fighting - that's not quite a winner with the general public. What about Gitmo and torture? What about AG Gonzo? In the hands of less-than-perfect spin, these issues are bound to seem as ugly as they really are.

We can't have too much truth out there. As Steven Colbert said, "reality has a well-known liberal bias."

I don't think that entirely hold up because I don't think that Rudy and Mitt realize just how extreme their positions really are. They don't see that the country has taken more steps toward fascism in the last six years than any time since Georgie's granddaddy plotted a coup against Roosavelt in the 1930's.

They don't see that 'immigration reform' in the minds of their voters means 'keeping Black people out.' They don't see the hate toward gays and Muslims that's been fuelled by years of Karl Rove's "Southern Strategy."

What they do see is that they will be chosen by the "elite." The big-money donors that supply wingnut welfare to bloggers and think tanks and candidates will be the people who make or break them. YouTubers are just so common, candidates can't be seen to stoop to the level of actual voters.

In the age of the Imperial Presidency, rightist candidates must stay above the dirty masses that the Filthy Hippies seem to love. The primaries will be decided by the blood-and-guts social conservatives, war conservatives, and authority loving conservatives. Repub voters looking for their next Glorious Leader don't want to see him addressing commoners on YouTube. They want him at a podium threatening those barbaric Muslims and telling us how much more we should torture people.

Once the red meat primaries are over and the next king is chosen, the smear and fear can begin. Once again, the candidate will strike a heroic pose and stay above it while their proxies go out and spend the corporate cash to Swift Boat the hippy leader.

That's the only plan that makes sense for them.

Once again, the key to becoming the next Imperial President is looking likethe Imperial president. Remember - Georgie only appears in front of hand-picked crowds (supporters or military bases). He doesn't answer people's questions, he only answers supporters questions.

It's about image. And YouTube is the wrong look for our next sovereign.

Fascist Coup

No, I'm not referring to the last six years. Though, obviously, the words do apply. The Bush Junta is like a fascist coup in slo-mo. But this title refer to what Georgie's grandfather was up to in the "dirty thirties."

Ahh, the 1930's - possibly the decade that Georgie and Cheney and the rest of the authoritarian right are trying to return us to. After all, they tried their damnedest to eliminate Social Security. It seems like they've always had it in for the New Deal. But there's a new BBC report based on new documentation that says:

BBC: Bush's Grandfather Planned Fascist Coup In America
Do No Evil – The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America,believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

According to Historycooperative.org, this was part of the popular fascist leaning and anti-Semitism of the day. Western labour efforts at organizing unions was conflated with hard-core communism, and was seen by popular thinkers like Hitler as Jewish conspiracies:

In the 1930s, the anti-Semitism of corporate America likewise revealed itself to be the other side of the coin of anti-socialism, anti-Marxism, and red-baiting. Most American businessmen denounced Roosevelt's New Deal as a "socialistic" meddling in the economy. The anti-Semites of corporate America considered Roosevelt to be a crypto-Communist and an agent of Jewish interests, if not a Jew himself; he was routinely referred to as "Rosenfeld," and his New Deal was vilified as the "Jew Deal." 17 In his book The Flivver King, Upton Sinclair described the notoriously anti-Semitic Henry Ford dreaming of an American fascist movement that "pledged to put down the Reds and preserve the property interests of the country; to oust the Bolshevik [Roosevelt] from the White House and all his pink professors from the government services ... [and] to make it a shooting offense to talk communism or to call a strike." 18 Other American tycoons also yearned for a fascist saviour who might rid America of its "reds" and thus restore prosperity and profitability. Du Pont provided generous financial support to America's own fascist organizations, such as the infamous "Black Legion," and was even involved in plans for a fascist coup d'état in Washington. (Hofer and Reginbogin, 585–6

And, or course, Prescott Bush was up to his neck in Nazi money by then, and apparently right in the thick of this conspiracy.

Look: the Great Depression was having two effects on big business: it was depressing their earnings (poor babies) and radicalizing labour, only a bit more than a decade after the Soviet communist revolution in Russia. That's scary stuff if you're a social Darwinist tycoon who thinks that the rich are a better species than the poor or anybody who didn't look and think like them.

They were going to overthrow the democratic government in the United States because of the New Deal. They were that opposed to concepts of fairness to the poor an working class, and that in love with what was then a shiny new niche of autocracy - the National Socialism (which has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with jingoistic nationalism) of Germany and Italy.

So that's the roots of the tree that we're swinging from today. The president's grandfather was a fascist.

That's not to say that old Prescott was every accused of any crime that I know of, other than collaboration with these 'industrialists.' And he did deal with Nazi financiers in Germany, to the point where the Truman Commission in the Senate had to force him to stop.

So what does that mean today? When you look at the clearly authoritarian behaviour of the Junta, it's clear that they have so sympathy or understanding for the 'lower classes.' They're happy to let fraudsters loose with no restrictions in Iraq and on projects like Katrina reconstruction. Bechtel did less than half the work they were paid billions for. And don't even start on Haliburton. They seem quite happy to give big corporations billions of tax dollars to do with what they please.

And they please to pocket it.

This doesn't come from nothing. George W. didn't come from the homestead of Eugene V. Debs. Families venerate their patriarchs, none more so than rich American WASPS. For an American to even countenance the sort of treason it would take to plan a coup is outrageous. But it's the fringe of the farthest right wing of American 'political' thought.

And while HW Bush fought WWII and served many public trusts (as Ambassador to China and head of the CIA for example), young impressionable Georgie never had his feet to the fire - ever. He has no life experience to show him that old Prescott was a loony.

So when his sycophants/masters tell him that he is above the law in all cases, he believes it. When they tell him Social Security is bad because - what? Old people should still work in sweat shops? Eat dog food? He believes them. Why not? It was the Jew Deal that ruined things. Hell, they probably thought we picked the wrong side to join in WWII.

It's surreal to think that the racial-theory social Darwinists from the 1930's still cast their shadow, but they do. Prescott's grandson is calling the shots.

And the coup continues 75 years later as the Constitution is slowly roasted.

Prez

I'm not really the target audience for them, but really, how pathetic are the Repub presidential candidates? I can't remember a year when the pickings were so utterly sad for one party. It's no wonder that "None of the Above" is that party's frontrunner - even among their state governors.

Rudy is a complete misery - and he's the frontrunner among humans. The guy shares none of their core principals - on abortion and gay rights particularly - but the faithful are willing to let that slide. Rudy, for his part, makes the right noises about choosing Supreme Court Justices to take away abortion rights.

The reason he's in the lead is simple: he's an unapologetic totalitarian. He wants to "stay on offense" by being as offensive as possible to as many people as possible. Could he really be their nominee? When, as a pro-war candidate, he blew off the Baker-Hamilton commission to make money?

Well, the money-making thing might be in his favour. Clearly, there is nothing Repubs put before profit.

Mitt Romney, too, has flipped and flopped and comes across as a political operator. He's also a 'blood and guts' guy who wants to "double Guantanamo." But he's also a Massachusetts guy, and has a hard time faking authenticity - the thing Little Georgie can do in his sleep.

John McCain, by all rights, should be the frontrunner. He was only a Karl Rove slime away from getting the nomination in 1999. But he's been throwing away his credibility like it's year-old yogurt for the past year (at least), and cozying up to Georgie, hoping for a Rovian mojo transplant. Repubs are sick of him.

Which leaves Fred Thompson, the former actor and senator. Thompson, and I can't stress this heavily enough, has inoperable cancer. Umm, Fred? Go home.

But it says a lot about the field of nobodies and wannabe dictators who are trying to out-war each other that Cancer Guy is the one they're all worried about.

Of course, I thought Georgie was a complete joke back in '99, so who am I to judge? Just listen to actual Repubs and their actual frontrunner: None of the Above.

Dictator

Stunning. Actually, it's stunning that anything can still be "stunning" coming from this wannabe dictatorship. Still. Stunning.

The WaPo reports this morning that the radical Junta controlling the executive branch of the American government will instruct its "Justice" department to refuse to prosecute Contempt of Congress citations in cases concerning executive privilege claims. Stunning.

In America, certain parts of the government are meant to be non-partisan. The job they do is far too important for any party to use their narrow interests to guide them. Also, important legal and scientific considerations must be more important than the relative success or failure of a political movement over time.

Americans understand this. George Bush and the authoritarians who work for him and support him politically do not.

Justice must be blind or it is not justice. When the slope-browed brown-shirts use the United States Department of Justice as a branch of their extremist movement, the ideal of America dies.

The argument today is that since US Attorneys serve at the "pleasure of the president" (boy do they love saying that one), they can't act against the executive. That, of course, is psychotic lunacy. UN Attorneys are appointed by the president, but serve the American people. They are meant to be - and have been - non-partisan.

When you explicitly make the role of the top federal prosecutors into partisan political warriors, you defeat democracy. Democracy can only exist where there is freedom - free speech and real justice. When the executive owns justice, there can no longer be any freedom - if you oppose politically, you get thrown in jail. You get prosecuted. If you support the Leader, you walk away free - no matter what.

Isn't that what we have today? Politically toxic terror suspects - suspects - are jailed for life with no access to any justice. Political supporters like Lewis Libby walk away from extremely serious charges.

My question, as always, is this: who wants to live in a country like that? Who, exactly, is the constituency for a lawless authoritarian Junta? Obviously, there are a core of 26-30% of US voters (I won't call them Americans) who want to live in a country like that. I feel sorry for them.

The other constituency is the 47 Senators who will steadfastly refuse to bring standards of freedom and justice back to the country that was once great because of those very standards.

Here's what they need to do:

Both chambers [of Congress] also have an "inherent contempt" power, allowing either body to hold its own trials and even jail those found in defiance of Congress. Although widely used during the 19th century, the power has not been invoked since 1934 and Democratic lawmakers have not displayed an appetite for reviving the practice.

That's the challenge. They must not back away from it. The country is in peril of losing its soul. Can Democrats find the guts to save America?

New Truman Commission

You go!

Mike the Dog

Thanks, Mike Vick. Thanks for bringing the ugly spectacle of dog fighting to the public consciousness. Those poor animals you allegedly slaughtered in cold blood when they turned out to be more human than your own twisted soul and refused to rip into the flesh of other doge for you have done a service and can rest in peace. Through their sacrifice, we know about you and the scum you deal with in your dog fighting world.

Now we know. I'd never heard of dog fighting before. Cock fighting, certainly - just as I knew that vicious pursuit to be illegal.

Vick can have no excuse. He's not trying to make a living - he's a rich football star. Can you imagine what sort of bloodless vampire he must be to need this blood sport the way he apparently does?

Pro athletes - especially those with the potential to be all-time greats, as Vick has always been considered (though he's never proven it on the field), are treated differently from a young age. Different even than rock stars an other celebrities, who usually come to their success after high school (who thought anything of Mick Jagger in the 11th grade?).

Most great athletes are great from a formative age, and become accustomed to having everything their own way. So it's imperative that they make the right choices - because the bad choices they make are usually made all the way. They stick.

So, a normal mutant dog fighting fan might go to see the blood and carnage - and maybe they'll let him execute a losing dog! Mike Vick puts a few dozen grand into "Bad Newz Kennels" and runs the show, reportedly betting in the $20,000 range.

So now we know - and hopefully the attention can help shut down more of this "Bad Newz."

Mike didn't strangle, hang, shoot, electrocute, and drown his non-vicious and losing dogs in vain. They died so the Feds could dig up their bodies, take down this star scumbag, and help expose this evil world to the light of justice.

Thanks, Mike.

Divide

I've been reading the excellent Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and it struck me that there is a real similarity between the antebellum debate on slavery in the US and what is going on right now with the Bush administration.

Slavery is one of the great historical evils that humans have done to one another. The American version was particularly odious, not only because of its stark brutality and inhumanity, but because it was being done in a nation that had committed to ideals of freedom and justice. Nothing of the sort could exist alongside slavery.

But at the time it was controversial. We look back now and, thankfully, can see no two sides to it - slavery is now and was then utterly wrong.

And so, too, is the war in Iraq. and the executive secrecy and power grab by this administration.

Please understand that I'm not suggesting any equivalency between slavery and our current problems. The only commonality is that both were the cause of a deep and dangerous constitutional crisis, and both have clear right and wrong.

When the Senate debates the war, the Repubs are clearly on the wrong side. When the administration snubs Congressional oversight in order to hide their crimes of illegal spying, torture, and other offenses (like the politicization of every federal department - including Justice), they are clearly wrong.

There is a bright shining historical light glaring on this whole debate. We are all on either the side of light or the side of darkness.

This is not the Manichean framework that Glenn Greenwald says is at the heart of the Bush failures in his indispensable new book: A Tragic Legacy (which I've read and will review). This is not to excuse anyone or let bad behaviour off the hook because it's done by "good" people.

Clearly, Congressional Democrats are feeling heat, deservedly, for not prosecuting the case against this administration more forcefully. Their polling numbers are down where Bush's are - because they haven't fought his excesses hard enough.

This administration has tried for six years to redefine the United States, both internally and to the world. Domestically, they've turned toward the police state, with unrestrained spying and illegal detention. But don't forget the tax cuts to the rich and destruction of any social safety net. And the politicization of Justice, medicine, science, drug enforcement - everything.

Internationally, we are now the country of unprovoked war, torture, illegal and indefinite detention, and opposition to all international agreements including Kyoto and anything else that slows at all the accumulation of power by industry. We are also the greatest debtor nation, borrowing billions daily for our own indulgences.

I don't really have to make the case here, but it strikes me that it is a slavery moment. Do you support this or do you oppose it? And, like the slavery 'debate,' there is no fence to sit on. There is no way to not have an opinion on slavery - a 'no opinion' is an agreement. Similarly, today there is no longer any political middle.

Either one opposes the outrages of this administration against all American - and human - standards of decency, or one supports them. Even by silence.

Their Fault

Interesting news day. The Dems force an overnight session in the Senate, but the Junta loyalists don't crack. As TPM points out, the Junta's propaganda arm (ie the MSM) bizarrely refuse to call it a 'filibuster.' It's only a filibuster when the Dems do it, right? Apparently, and sadly, so.

But what I found interesting was the way that the Junta gets to have everything be somebody else's fault. Let's take two examples from this morning.

First, the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is a blistering slam dunk case that the Toddler Prince has done everything, as we'd guessed, completely wrong. But wait! It's not his fault!

In identifying the main reasons for Al Qaeda’s resurgence, intelligence
officials and White House aides pointed the finger squarely at a hands-off
approach toward the tribal areas by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, who last year brokered a cease-fire with tribal leaders in an
effort to drain support for Islamic extremism in the region.

See? Even though: "President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed."

It's that darn Musharraf, who everyone agrees is fightin gto keep control of a wobbling relationship with the extremist US and his Islamist population. Him. It's his fault. It's not six years of Junta strategy, thousands of lives lost and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted. It's that Musharraf.

I hope the stenographers got that right, because otherwise it means that there's a clear and unmistakable intelligence document that says the Junta has utterly failed.

And then there's the tainted products coming in from China. You know - the anti-freeze toothpaste, the deadly pet food, all that. The stuff they executed their food minister over.

It's a good thing they did that and grabbed all the headlines, because there's another side to the story. That is, the FDA is failing to protect American consumers. Failing completely. As in, food product imports have doubled since 2003, and the number of FDA inspectors have been cut in that same time period.

I'm not sure there are strong enough words for this.

Check it out:

According to testimony Tuesday before a House subcommittee, they have been able to bring tainted products into this country because the F.D.A. has neither enough resources nor inspectors to stop them. And each year it has become easier: since 2003, the number of inspectors has decreased while imports of food alone have almost doubled.

Recently consumers have had a crash course in the hazards of imported products, especially those from China: pet food and pig and chicken feed contaminated with melamine; counterfeit toothpaste with diethylene glycol; fish contaminated with antibiotics and a suspected cancer-causing agent; the use of carbon monoxide to make decomposed fish look fresh.

This is pure Repub/Junta ideology. Government regulations are bad. Government inspectors are just in the way of commerce. And yet, is there any real constituency in the US for gutting the FDA in the face of tainted imports? Does anyone out there support the sale of decomposed fish?

And yet...

Despite headlines about these imports, the F.D.A. intends to close 7 of its 13 laboratories that test for these problems. Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the subcommittee, said the closings “would likely expose Americans to even more danger from unsafe food, particularly imports.”

And they're not just closing any labs. According to the article, the San Francisco lab has a reputation for knowing their stuff, such that importers do their best to go to other regions to bring in their crap.

So, of course, in the twisted universe of the Junta, the San Francisco lab is targeted for closure.

Once again, the blame goes to the bad foreigners and not the incompetent Junta. Really, it must be such a comfort to believe in their sub-human philosophy; failure is their cornerstone. Success and intelligence are their enemies. They believe that government doesn't work, so they set out to prove it.

The FDA can't protect you, see? There's proof - it didn't protect you. Same with FEMA. Don't look too close and see that the agencies have been gutted of professionals and staffed up with know-nothing political cronies - that's not the point. The point is that you spent tax dollars on the FDA and it didn't protect you, so what's the point?

Needless to say, if you put Repub political operatives in charge of a lemonade stand, it would explode and devastate the community. If you put competent, experienced little girls in charge, it thrives.

By the same token, the war policies have been so completely bungled and wrong-headed that even the best military in the history of the planet couldn't make them work. And now, since the GWOT is a complete failure, we must point the blame at Musharraf.

Or somebody. Give them time and they'll find somebody to blame if they look hard enough - other than in the mirror.

Now This

Interesting week in Junta foreign policy. For six years, it's been all swords and no plowshares. Our entire foreign policy apparatus was tuned to one channel: intimidation. We were the power players, the guys who acted tough and backed up our words with fists.

But of course it was all a sham. How could it not be? The supposed 'tough guys' were chickenhawks and bully's. The Georgie-Cheney chest thumping only showed how hollow and chicken-chested they really were. True tough guys don't have to prove it by beating up on weaklings. Real bad-asses are both smart and deadly - like the US under Clinton.

Truly powerful people - and nations - don't worry about pathetic nonsense like "emboldening the enemy." True power acts in the interest of itself - and has the generosity of spirit to worry about others as well. It doesn't worry about what mood it might summon in others by doing the right thing.

But for six years, we've been too weak and simple-minded to be tough and civilized. We've been too weak to engage our 'enemies' in real diplomacy. You remember real diplomacy don't you? It was the thing we used to do before we went on the bridge-burning binge that's made us less safe in the world.

But, with the ship in flames and going down fast, Georgie finally grabbed a lifeline - Clinton's North Korea policy. By doing what he should have done six years ago - negotiating with NK instead of threatening them - we finally got them to shut down their nuclear reactor.

Mind you, they've already built a half-dozen nuclear devices. They now have for-real weapons of mass destruction that Clinton didn't let them have. It's tragic and stupid - like everything else the Junta does.

And now we're even going to talk to the Iranians. The Iranians! You know, the people with both the interest and the power to calm a lot of the violence in Iraq? The Axis of Evil member that Cheney and the NeoCons have been angling to bomb for years? Those Iranians.

And - to top it off - Georgie's going to have a Middle East Peace Conference. Of course, by refusing to invite the Arab countries that don't recognize Israel's right to exist, he's once again shut out the only people who might influence the Palestinians to compromise. If they're going to talk to Iran and North Korea, why not invite their close friends the Saudis?

It would be funny if it weren't so tragic. After six years of John Bolton spitting in the eye of nearly every country on the planet - friend and foe alike - Georgie's discovered diplomacy in his last 18 months.

His Hail Mary play is a cry for help. He must realize that his place in history is solidifying around the bottom of the heap. Even he must be able to see that he has absolutely no accomplishments. Not that he's done nothing, but everything has gone so horribly wrong.

If he can chuck it down the field with this 'diplomacy' stuff, maybe the game won't have been a shut-out. He's getting no love on the NK deal - Americans are crediting Clinton and NeoCons are outraged that he picked up the phone to begin with.

And the situation in Israel has changed since Hamas took over Gaza and Fatah was chased to the West Bank. Now Abbas is under pressure to save his movement and his skin, so he may be willing to talk.

Will the Iranians talk? Well, they've been trying to since 2002. Condo lost their fax (she says she never got ). Please.

But none of this will save the Toddler King's legacy. He's the worst.

NFL '06

As a warm-up to my eagerly awaited NFL predictions for the coming year, Let's look at how I did last year:

Predicted Record/Real Record - games different

NFC East:
NYG - 12-4/8-8 - 4
Dallas - 10-6/9-7 - 1
Washington - 9-7/5-11 - 4
Philly - 8-8/10-6 - 2

NFC North:
Chicago - 11-5/13-3 - 2
Green Bay - 4-12/8-8 - 4
Minnesota- 3-13/6-10 - 3
Detroit - 1-15/3-13 - 2


NFC South:
Carolina - 12-4/8-8 - 4
Tampa Bay - 9-7/4-12 - 5
New Orleans - 8-8/10-6 - 2
Atlanta - 7-9/7-9 - 0


NFC West:
Seattle - 11-5/9-7 - 2
St. Louis - 4-12/8-8 - 4
Arizona - 3-13/5-11 - 2
San Francisco - 1-15/7-9 - 6

AFC East:
New England - 13-3/12-4 - 1
Miami - 9-7/6-10 - 3
New York - 5-11/10-6 - 5
Buffalo - 4-12/7-9 - 3


AFC North:
Pittsburgh - 11-5/8-8 - 3
Cincinnati - 10-6/8-8 - 2
Cleveland - 8-8/4-12 - 4
Baltimore - 6-10/13-3 - 7


AFC South:
Jacksonville - 11-5/8-8 - 3
Indianapolis - 10-6/12-4 - 2
Tennessee - 4-12/8-8 - 4
Houston - 3-13/6-10 - 3

AFC West:
Denver - 10-6/9-7 - 1
San Diego - 9-7/14-2 - 5
KC - 8-8/9-7 - 1
Oakland - 6-10/2-14 - 4

Okay, first, what did I get right? Well, I only nailed one exactly right - Atlanta at 7-9. I got five within one game. And I got (and I think this is the best measure of success, in that it's the measure I did best in) 12 within two games of being right.

Now, if you just chose randomly, you'd have done better than that. You need no further proof that this is not a gambling site, nor that I'm absolutely hopeless at picking winners.

For the many wrong picks, let's start with the one I missed by 7 games - Baltimore. Yikes. They were better on both sides of the ball than I'd though, and also their division was much weaker than I thought it would be - the other three teams were a collected 9 games worse than I'd predicted.

I was six wrong on San Francisco, and five wrong on the Jets and Bucs. With the 49ers, I just don't like their coaching, and I don't believe in their QB. Their RB - Frank Gore - came out of nowhere (or at least I was blind to him). Once again, their division was weaker than I though it would be by four games, and the NFC was overall a real weak sister.

With the Jets, again, I didn't like the coach. In this case, I've become a believer in Mangini, while I still think the 49ers Nolan was an unqualified hire who's topped out. While many are putting San Fran into the 'rising' column, I think they're going to drop like eighth grade French (thanks, Carl).

I also thought Jon Gruden was a better coach than his record. I had the Bucs rebounding to 9-7, but they dropped to 4-12 instead. I didn't think Gruden was capable of 4-12. I'd expected the Bucs to do what Baltimore did - both are defense-first teams coached by former offensive geniuses.

By far my worst call was the number of 4+ wrong predictions: 13 of them. Ouch. That's more than I got within two. I'd say I was slipping, but you have to actually rise before you can fall.

Stil, I'll take another shot at it this year. And I'm happy that my Pats prediction was only off by one. Here's a preview of this year's calls:

Pats 16-0.

Impeachment

The calls for impeaching the Toddler Presnut and his KGB Controller, Cheney (what else could explain their combined behaviour?), have increased recently, at least among the bloggers who follow this Junta. With the monumentally unpopular commutation of Lewis Libby's sentence (I think calling him 'Scooter' makes his sound too teddy-bear. The guy's a felon, not Winny the Poo), Toddler's approval ratings are settling south of 30% for good. His public lawlessness is well-known.

So why not impeach?

Surely, if there ever was a Chief Executive who needed removing, it's Toddler. Literally, everything that Americans used to be proud of about their country has been despoiled. What's left to salute? Rule of law - nope. Moral superiority - hardly. Freedom and democracy - get real.

The list goes on and on. There is no part of America that is really American any more. Hell, we can't even say that we're trying to be an example to the world. We're not trying. Under Toddler, we're the greediest most selfish loud whiny and destructive kid in the sandbox.

So why not impeach?

One reason, which I haven't seen discussed anywhere, is that impeachment would only be effective if you got both the Toddler and his KGB Controller. You couldn't leave the top KGB agent in the world as president. Can you imagine what that guy would do? I suppose we've been governed by his twisted desires for six years now, but still.

So whack them both. Settle all the family's business.

Aye - there's the rub. Who's third in succession to the presidency? Condo Rice? Karl Rove? Robert Gates? Nope.

Nancy Pelosi. Speaker of the House.

So, by impeaching the Chimp and Vice Chimp, they'd be putting Nancy into the White House. And that's not really tenable. It would be hard enough to pull off the impeachment, but to put a leader of the opposition party in as head of state would be a wrong thing.

It would be wrong because that's not what America's about, and we still have to worry about that, even if they don't. I think that may be what she had in mind when she declared impeachment 'off the table' back in January. She's not going to back a move to aggrandize her own self into the presidency.

That being said, the historic level of 'high crimes an misdemeanors' being committed daily by this third-world style syndicate in charge compels a reexamination of that stance. It's going to take years of progressive policymaking to fix the country - if it does indeed ever get fixed.

And the media would have a right-wing seizure if Democrats tried to install one of their own without permission. And in American we can't just call a special presidential election - we have one coming next year anyway.

But the loss of life and liberty that continues unabated demands action now - we can't afford to wait until 2009 to stop these thugs.

I just hope Congressional Democrats read their low poll number closely and start acting. It's already too late for many who haven't survived this murderous regime.

Core

I'm back. Been attending the World Conference on Disaster Management. As always, the "World Conference" is right across the street from me. They haven't had the good sense to move the thing to Tahiti.

I haven't had my nose in the new as much as usual, but as I dived back in, it all seemed surreality the same. Is it January or July? Do we still have great hopes that Democrats will be able to pierce the Cheney shroud of secrecy or stop the war?

Because the war is still on. The surge is still surging. Subpoenas have been issued, but what truths have been dragged into the light of day? What sunlight of justice has penetrated the deeply treasonous darkness of the executive offices?

Pretty much nothing. The Senate is still refusing to do anything about the war, other than supporting Georgie's increasingly disjointed and surreal prosecution of it. They voted to stop debate on a bi-partisan measure to mandate proper rest for troops between deployments.

Americans wouldn't have done that.

And yet, we're not so much talking about "Americans" as we are about the enemy of real Americans: movement conservatives. Because the vote was 56-41 in favor of closing debate (allowing the bill to go forward). And that's just four shy of the 60 votes needed. Really, if two could get peeled away from the 41 it might make all the difference.

Which brings us to the real question: are there 41 core anti-American votes in the Senate? If there are, they will be able to stop every important piece of legislation from now until Democrats wipe the floor with Repubs again in '08 (the way they did in '06). If not, we may see some movement.

What constituency is left for the Junta? There is the core 26% (and falling) who will march ahead of the chickenhawks cowering behind them. And then there's the rest of us.

And yet, minority right-wing opinion still dominates the Senate and the airwaves. Media opinions are at least two years behind where the population is now. Apparently, 300 million Americans can see reality better and quicker than 300-odd "elite" media pundits.

If there are two Senators who keep the Junta afloat at the magic 41-vote lock-down number, maybe our impeachment efforts can start there.

Just as a warm-up.

No Floor

Terrorism has its roots in a peculiar sort of narcissism. Terrorists seem to believe that whatever sort of grievance they have against the world (or some of the people in it) is much more important than any sort of civilization. In order to advance their cause, there are no limits on their behaviour.

I was thinking of that when I read about the medical doctors who conspired to blow up Glasgow airport and certain well-populated areas of London. Doctors!

Presumably, they swore an oath to only help and never hurt. They are, again presumably, well educated. And yet they somehow decided - in a group - to commit mass murder. Clearly, civilization is too much and much too good for the likes of these creatures.

And again when I read about the standoff in Pakistan where radical Islamic militants are using women and children as human shields, the thought occurs: "is there no floor to the behaviour of these people?"

I mention civilization, because I believe there is a generally understood meaning to the term, however vague it may be. The idea of civilization is that humans need to act in accordance with certain very basic but important rules in order to live together. Without these rules, we devolve into an animalistic state of fighting constantly for personal survival.

No society countenances theft, or murder, though both are defined differently in different places and times. Children and non-combatants are not to be intentionally harmed or killed. There must be an attempt to be fair to all adults and respect a set of laws. Again, these ideas can be defined with legitimate differences in different societies, but those societies that do not enforce them are not civilized.

Certainly radical Islam and the barbaric law of Sharia are not civilized. And they prove it day in and day out. They do not have the necessary societal components to be considered among the family of nations.

But then, when you consider the actions of Georgie and his radical Junta, are they any better? Certainly, the Islamists must be jealous of the body count of innocents that the US has racked up in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands are needlessly dead because of the crazy dreams of American NeoCons.

And, in using torture and illegal detention, the rule of law is eliminated. The attempt at fairness has ended. The floor - the lowest depth we will sink to - has fallen away.

It's a startling thought to be able to argue that the actions of the United States can be compared to the actions of international terrorists and radical Islamists, but can there be any doubt?

How is it possible that the Junta has been able to recruit so many agents who are happy to pull on the jack-boots? That keeps me up at night - that there are thousands of military personnel and other (FBI, CIA) agents who have been eager to toss away every form of civilized law and obey the extreme un-American orders of this government?

Because if they'd had the guts to resist or resign, the damage might have been mitigated. If the corporate fat-cats had said: "thanks for the right to despoil the earth for profit and carry away all the tax dollars we want, but it's not right. We're Americans too."

But no. Like the enemies we've helped to create around the world, we no longer have any limits on our behaviour. We've fallen under the narcissistic spell that says: "your plight is unique, so you don't have to limit your behaviour in any way."

We didn't found the country like that. We didn't beat the British Empire, the Third Reich, Imperial Japan, and the Warsaw Pact like that. Our accomplishments have been made as a civilized country. Only our great failures have come when we've turned our back on civilization.

New Exemplar

Oh for crying out loud - now he's George Washington. In his Fourth of July speech (to a military audience, naturally - any civilians would boo him), our Toddler President likened his chosen fiasco in Iraq to the American Revolution. What's next, the Clone Wars?

So far it's been WWII, then it was the Cold War. Then he was Winston Churchill, then Harry Truman. Now it's the Revolution. Wow. Such grasping. And in each case, he's clearly the polar opposite of the exemplar he calls forth.

He's not Churchill, the savior of Western Civilization, but rather Chamberlain, the British PM who looked into Hitler's soul and saw a guy he could deal with. You know, somebody to appease. By the way, Georgie, how's the soulfulness in Vlad Putin's eye's these days? Havin' fun getting conned in Kennebunkport?

He's sure no Truman - though he's just as unpopular. But the true heart of a war hero and straight shooter like Truman has nothing in common with Georgie. Truman chose to stay engaged with the world when Americans, tired from their war sacrifices, wanted to turn inward. Senator Taft and Tom Dewey sure did - and it's a good thing those Republicans were not given any power. We faced a real international threat to our existence then - international communism.

Truman didn't have to lie about the threat to grasp at straws of power the way Georgie has. His opponents internationally were an existential threat to the US. And his internationalism and treaty-building saved America and the world.

If Taft or Dewey had been able to gain the power they wanted, we'd all be speaking Russian now. And Georgie would have dodged out of the Soviet draft through his parents influence.

And now Washington. Oye. That's a hard one to even mock. Washington put his life and fortune on the line to create a nation of laws - laws that this little Georgie has done nothing but mock and shred. Washington fought for the Constitution - Bush fights to tear it up.

As usual, it's the polar opposite that's most appropriate. King George III was the scion of royalty, never threatened with actual combat, ruled with supreme power, and was humiliated by an insurgency across a vast ocean.

Happy 4th, Georgie. But no more history for you - it's like makeup on a child: the more you put on, the dumber you look.

Arsonist vs. Firemen

Happy 4th of July! May America one day regain its independence!

I was looking at this article about recent polls that put Georgie and Congress on about equal footing. Bush is going anywhere from 26% to 32%, and Congress is going 27% to 35%. But that's not the story. They've both arrived at the same spot, but they're coming from completely different directions.

The Democratic Congress was voted into a majority last November to stop the madness - and they haven't done it. In fact, they haven't been able to restrain the Worst Executive Ever from making things worse.

They backed down from setting timetables to stop the war - pathetically. They've sent subpoenas that have been ignored, they've held oversight hearings where Junta operatives have either pleaded stunned amnesia or simple belligerence. "Sure I did it - what are you going to do about it?"

People want their country back, and they voted Democrat expecting to get it. But the Dems, as much as they have tried, are stymied by the lawless megalomaniacs in the White House. They don't recognize any legal constraint (unlike real Americans) and they use Congressional subpoenas to line bird cages.

Congress, to their shame, has not summoned the courage to really fight. Their lawfully executed subpoenas are being laughed at. Their will to de-fund the worst excesses of the Worst Executive has proven to be non-existent.

It's like the Arsonist and the Fireman. The arsonist becomes un-popular by setting homes on fire. The fireman, failing to put out those blazes, becomes equally unpopular.

A fireman who does not put out the fire is no good to anybody, and becomes a target of well-deserved scorn. After all, if he's not going to put out the fire, why not give the hat and hose to somebody who will? The fireman who doesn't stop the fire becomes an agent of the Arsonist, preventing others from doing the good work.

Nancy Pelosi and her compatriots need to get on with the job of dousing the Junta, or get the hell out of the way.

Scooter

Well, well, well. Scooter Libby didn't spend a minute in jail. The blogosphere is positively throbbing with reaction. Fred Thompson is happy. Americans are appalled.

Nation, I urge you to chill. Did anyone expect that Scooter would do his time like a man? Was there ever a chance that the Junta would fail to give him a pass on his treasonous felonies?

No. Please.

Georgie commuted his jail time, but not his probation or his $250,000 fine. Clearly, that is yet a further dirty political trick to keep Scooter's mouth shut. As long as his appeal goes on, and there is both a criminal conviction and a penalty, Scooter and the Junta can keep their mouths shut, claiming non-interference with an ongoing case.

Has there ever been a bottom to their behaviour? Is there a sign anywhere that they've reached the limit on their depravity?

I mean, compared to the lakes of blood and uncountable mountains of cash squandered in Iraq, this Scooter thing doesn't even rate. These guys will do anything - anything - to aggrandize themselves and excuse their inexcusable conduct.

So don't sweat Scooter. He's just a symptom.