Jericho: Billboard of Stupid

This is just great.

So, let me get this straight: this idiot thinks that if we put a Democrat in the Oval Office we'll have another September 11th-like tragedy. Interesting.

I love that this article is posted on FoxNews' web site. Why? Because both this idiot and FoxNews missed a vital point:

Bush was in office on 9/11!

That's right, a Republican. There was a Republican in office when 3000 Americans died. Was it his fault? Hmmm .... ?

I love how this guy also thinks the terrorists have something to do with high gas prices. Sir? Did you miss the boat? Ya know, the oil tanker that Chevron named "Condoleezza Rice"? Bush, Rice and many others in the Bush administration have major ties to Big Oil. Big Oil has been posting record profits in the last several years. And it never occurred to you, Mr. Billboard, that maybe, just maybe, Big Oil orchestrated all of this?

The perpetrators of 9/11 were in Afghanistan. Yet, we have five times as many troops in Iraq as Afghanistan. Why? I'll tell you why: Iraq has oil and Afghanistan has none! The hype and fear generated by 9/11 has allowed the Big Oil politicians to put together a war that not only uses untold amounts of oil but protects their oil interests. Meanwhile, speculators have driven up the price of oil on that fear.

In Iraq, they pay $.50 a gallon for gas, that's right, fifty cents - and those prices are subsidized with your tax dollars. We are paying nearly $5 a gallon and that includes taxes.

Big Oil is complaining that they can't use several areas that have been reserved, preserved for natural and human use. Yet, they sit on millions of unexplored acres. Why? It's too expensive, they whine! They have billions in profits, but it's too expensive to drill in ares that they have had left for years. Spend some money, Big Oil! Make some jobs, Big Oil! Drive down the price of gas, Big Oil! Or ... give up the rights to the land you are not using!

But they don't want that, do they? They want the market to remain up. They make more money and don't put out additional cost or effort.

So, I agree with Mr. Billboard. I believe the terrorists are in cahoots. I believe that they and Big Oil and the Automobile Manufacturers are have conspired to rob us all. If they haven't conspired, Big Oil has certainly taken advantage of this tragedy. They are profiting from 9/11 and from our dead soldiers. That's called Profiteering. It should also be called Treason.

Who is Big Oil? Look to the White House and you will see it's most obvious incarnation.

Max: Bush Has Plans To Screw Us For Eternity

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

Shrub is a shaved head, a white cat and a volcano based lair away from being a fucking Bond villain.

Max: Atheism in the Millitary

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

One of the darkest developments of many dark developments in the Bush years has been the slow ascent of Christianism as a core value of the military. The promotion of Christianists throughout the armed services, the insistence by the president that no public institution be regarded as a place where religion should be silent, clear discrimination against Jews and atheists in military educational institutions: the possibility of a secular military dedicated to defending all Americans regardless of their faith or lack of it has been called into question under the current administration. The resilience of the ban on gays - while the military has granted a record number of waivers to criminals - can only be understood if one sees the US military as an increasingly religious institution at this point, and not a rational secular one. The latest story of an atheist soldier being threatened by superiors is believable in this context.

Once again, Sullivan shows his fellow Christians what "Christian" -- Christ like -- means as he calls Christians in the military out for their mistreatment of Atheists in uniform.

Max: Former Secs. Of State State The Obvious

"Shut Guantanamo," ex-diplomats say

Five former U.S. secretaries of State on Thursday urged the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran.

The former chiefs of American diplomacy, who served in Democratic and Republican administrations, reached a consensus on the two issues at a conference in Athens aimed at giving the next president some bipartisan foreign policy advice.

Max: Damn Skippy

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: FBI and MLK Jr: Lessons for Today


As part of a recent CNN special called Black in America much new information came to light about the FBI's surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., information that should stand as a stark warning of the dangers of allowing one branch of government to engage in surveillance of American citizens without oversight from another.

Max: Bush Sez The Constitution Doesn't Apply Inside The US

Administration Asserts No Fourth Amendment for Domestic Military Operations

Today's Washington Post reports on a newly released memo, 'Memorandum for William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States' (March 14, 2003) , which which was declassified and released publicly yesterday. Balkinization has commentary on the very troubling opinion.

While the newly released memo focuses on 'asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators,' it contains a footnote referencing another Administration memo that caught our eye:

... our Office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations. See Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and William J. Haynes, II, General Counsel, Department of Defense, from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Robert J. Delahunty, Special Counsel, Re: Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States at 25 (Oct 23, 2001). (emphasis added)

Max: Pentagon = Pacifist Cowards

Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda not linked, Pentagon says - CNN.com

The U.S. military's first and only study looking into ties between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda showed no connection between the two, according to a military report released by the Pentagon.

The report released by the Joint Forces Command five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq said it found no 'smoking gun' after reviewing about 600,000 Iraqi documents captured in the invasion and looking at interviews of key Iraqi leadership held by the United States, Pentagon officials said.

I was once told only pacifist cowards who don't care about their family's well being hold such ridiculous beliefs.

In all non-humorous honesty, I don't see how anyone ever believed the Saddam/al Qaeda connection. My faith in certain people was shaken by their willingness to buy into such obvious bullshit. Some things said about me when I refused to drink the Kool-Aid still sting a bit. I try not to think about it most of the time. However, when the news finds time to slip such reports in between their Brittany updates, it all comes back. How many have died for this lie?

Sorry for once again failing to support the troops by pointing out the ugly truth that, regardless of how clearly brave and dedicated our military is, every troop who died in Iraq died for a FUCKING LIE.

Max: You Have The Right To Remain Silent

Via Reuters

Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported.

The nonbinding, symbolic measure, passed in Brattleboro and Marlboro in a state known for taking liberal positions on national issues, instructs town police to "extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them."

Max: Shrub Getting Head

Disturbing

Max: Shrub - Liar or Moron?

Once again, Keith Olbermann is the only one who calls Shrub out for his crimes.

There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight.

We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too transcendentally stupid not to have asked, at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.

Max: Putting Airstrip One In Its Place

US says it has right to kidnap British citizens - Times Online

[The Bush Administration] has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

Jericho: Wanna be "dangerous"?

Read this article and laugh at George Bush!

According to the new estimates, Iran has stopped its nuke program. Even if it restarted its program, it wouldn't have enough enriched, weapons grade uranium until at least 2010, but probably closer to 2015.

However, enriched uranium could do more for the electrical power needs of that country than it could for building one, count'em, ONE bomb.

The Bush administration has repeatedly touted the joy and beauty that is nuclear power. But, when a country, who might have some questionable values and goals, gets enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear power plant, suddenly they are "dangerous". What? Did Haliburton lose the contract to build the plant?

I love this quote: "...Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon" - ummm, Dubya, buddy - that's not exactly top secret info any more. Fifty or sixty years ago, maybe. But not today!

So, just to make sure that we are all "dangerous" - here is all the info you will need to build a nuclear bomb. That's right! If you read the previous link, you will have "the knowledge". You won't have enough fissionable materials - but neither does Iran - so you, too, can be a rogue state and a future nuclear power!

If you can obtain some fissionable material, either from a friendly rogue state, a friendly rogue U.S. agency or your local University - you, too, can join the Nuclear Club.

Dubya, pal, have a look at the Internet some time. The truth is out there.

Max: Why We Must Go War With Iran

Around 60% of all foreign militants who entered Iraq to fight over the past year came from Saudi Arabia and Libya, according to files seized by American forces at a desert camp.

The files listed the nationalities and biographical details of more than 700 fighters who crossed into Iraq from August last year, around half of whom came to the country to be suicide bombers, the New York Times reported today.

Max: Be Proud America

Waterboarding [nearly drowning someone who may actually know something of value or may just be Canadian] is something of which every American should be proud.

Be proud.



Be proud!

Max: Buyer's Remorse

The human mind isn’t very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion. We don’t deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any other big number. Millions, billions, a trillion — they all start to sound the same.

The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.

Max: Wasting Time

President Bush accused Democratic lawmakers on Friday of wasting time by passing legislation to expand children's health coverage, knowing that he would veto it again. At the same time, he criticized Congress for failing to approve spending bills to keep the government running.

For reallies. Why is Congress wasting it's time with trivialities like children's health when they could be rubber stamping his nutbar agenda?

Max: Welcome to the BRA (Banana Republic of America)

Via the NYT

Richard Thornburgh, a former Republican attorney general, told a Congressional hearing that his client, Dr. Cyril Wecht, a Democratic officeholder in Pennsylvania, was indicted on federal charges that should not be federal charges by a United States attorney who targeted Democrats.

At the same hearing, more evidence emerged that the prosecutions of Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor, and Paul Minor, a prominent Mississippi Democrat, may have been political hits. And a University of Missouri professor testified that his statistical analysis showed that the Justice Department engaged in “political profiling.”

Dr. Wecht’s case has gotten little attention, but that may change. Mr. Thornburgh said prosecutors are using “unprecedented” legal theories to turn mostly “nickel and dime transgressions” into major federal felonies. He charged that while United States Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan went after Dr. Wecht and other Democrats, she ignored the offenses of Republican officials, including a congressman whose staff accused him of using government employees in his election campaign.

Jericho: God King George

... get used to calling him that.

Have a look at this Wired article.

I'm not a big fan of George's sense of humor. The man has no poker face. I think he just dropped his trousers and we were all there to see it.

The sad thing is that I will probably one of the few people protesting when he takes over and shreds the Constitution. No one believes it can happen here.

Max: Say What Now?

Max: Republicans Hate Our Soldiers

I would like to dedicate this video to Senate Republicans who filibustered to death a bill that would have required that US troops be granted as much time home as they spend risking their lives in Iraq.

Max: 9/11x6

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."

"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes."

"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

Here's to what used to be what the USA stood for.

Fuck you all for the sheep you are.

Max: Broken Government

When the Republicunts are so far gone that they are getting ripped on by a former Nixon official, shit's done hit the fan. Now if only we can get someone from the Johnson or Carter administration to write a book ripping the Democrats for being spineless shits who act like the Reps still run Congress.

Max: An Idiot Returns to His Village

Attorney General Gonzales resigns - CNN.com

"Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation Monday in a brief statement at the Justice Department. art.gonzales.ap.jpg Alberto Gonzales was dogged by controversial issues including wiretapping programs and fired U.S. attorneys. 'Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government services as Attorney General of the United States effective September 17.'"

Max: Moyers on Rove

Max: The Gospel According to Shrub

Shrub talk about the Big G.

1. I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did. Sharm el-Sheikh August 2003

2. I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job.
Statement made during campaign visit to Amish community, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Jul. 9, 2004

Max: Turd Blossom Pruned

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

Karl Rove, George W Bush's most trusted and senior adviser, has paid tribute to the US president as he confirmed his intention to leave the White House.
Mr Rove, who will step down at the end of August, said he was "deeply proud" to have served Mr Bush and the US.

But he insisted the time was right to leave, saying he was quitting the White House for the sake of his family.

Jericho: Get over it, Tree-Huggers!

We have talked several times on this site about alt-fuels and the advantages of Plug-In Hybrids, Hydrogen and Ethanol powered vehicles. I think I can speak for Max when I say we support advancements in alt-fuel usage. Oil is an addiction this country has to give up.

Finally, we see a step in the right direction.

Okay, maybe not the Plug-In/Hydrogen vehicle, let's try for plug-in, flex fuel hybrid first, umm-kay? But, I think you see where I'm going. Seeing Bush with an extension cord in his hand makes me feel good all over.

But, the idiot environmentalists have got to step in and make a fuss!

"Making our cars and light trucks go farther on a gallon of gas is the single biggest step we can take toward saving American families money at the pump, ending our dangerous addiction to oil, and curbing global warming," said Dan Becker, the Sierra Club's director of the global warming and energy program.

Okay, first, Dan, put down the pipe. Obviously, you are not in this conversation. Allow me to catch you up. E85 will do exactly what you are describing. The "E" stands for ethanol. The "85" is for the percentage, by volume, of ethanol in a gallon (or liter for that matter) of fuel. If we are using 85% less gasoline, isn't that cutting our gasoline usage by 85%? To get gains like that, you would have to nearly double the MPG of the average vehicle. This would mean a Ford Explorer that got 30 city and 42 highway MPG. It would be great if it existed, but the only way to do it would be to make the vehicle out of paper! And if you think the American public is giving up their SUVs - where have you been the last two decades?

E85 will do more than save money for families in this country, it will make money for families in this country and aid the environment in the process. American farmers will be called upon to grow feed stocks to make the ethanol in question. Material that is currently headed for landfills will be used as fuel. And, in the end, carbon held in the earth will remain there and carbon in the atmosphere will be reduced - or at least not increased. By all accounts, North America will take up alt-fuels, but oil will drop in price and fuel the developing economies in China and India, unless they, too, get sold on alt-fuels. It would be nice if large and influential groups, like, say, the Sierra Club, helped these countries see the light.

Dan, saying "Let's have more MPGs" is one thing. Telling us how to get there is another thing. E85 is compatable with our current infrastructure in every way. It reduces our usage of oil by, you guessed it, 85%. It adds jobs to this country. It will lower the price of domestically produced oil and thus lower the price of fuel in general. As E85 takes hold, it will become cheaper to produce and further cost savings at the pump, in the taxi, at the grocery store, etc. Dan, do you have a plan that does the same? We'd love to hear it.

In closing, Dan, I must say this to you: SHUT UP! Use your pulpit to support something worthwhile. Don't be a stumbling block in the process. We all want lower MPG, but this is a huge step in the right direction. Let's get this off the ground, this is something that can be done TODAY, then we can work on that 40 MPG Explorer.

Max: Shadow Army

Max: How Shrub Is Insuring We Are Well And Truly Fucked

We are funding al Queda.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites. But, from the Administration’s perspective, the most profound—and unintended—strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran. Its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made defiant pronouncements about the destruction of Israel and his country’s right to pursue its nuclear program, and last week its supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on state television that “realities in the region show that the arrogant front, headed by the U.S. and its allies, will be the principal loser in the region.”

Instead of going after bin Laden and al Queda, Shrub tricked the less distrustful of us into thinking that Saddam had a part in 9/11. So we let bin Laden go so we could get into a quagmire in Iraq. Now, thanks to the mess we made, we are now funding the people who thought 9/11 was a pretty neato thing.

Why this fucker has not been frog-marched out of the White House and into his own cell at Gitmo, I do not know.

Jericho: Time Friends

This was made here.

Max: Yay! War!

Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring | Iran | Guardian Unlimited

US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington.

The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office.

Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Mr Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandon ambitions for regional expansion.

Max: The Land Of The Free

Bush Claims Right to Open Mail

The New York Daily News today reports on a signing statement President Bush quietly issued two weeks ago, in which he asserts his right to open mail without a warrant.

Signing statements have historically been used by presidents mostly to explain how they intend to enforce the laws passed by Congress; Bush has used them to quietly assert his right to ignore those laws.

Max: Secret Documents To Be Declassified

On HowStuffWorks.com

So what can we expect to learn when these pages become accessible to the public? We're not talking about small secrets here. Experts says the documents will tell us about the inner workings of such events and periods as World War II; the Cold War; the McCarthy-era search for Communist sympathizers in the United States and the very real presence of Soviet spies in the U.S. government's upper ranks; the Cuban missile crisis; the Vietnam War and the government's anti-war-protestor activities including surveillance and penetration of activist groups; the CIA's secret experiments with LSD; the Camp David Accords that resulted in a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt; the Iran hostage crisis in 1979; and the Soviet Union's attack on Afghanistan that same year.