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: The Rantings of a Terrorist

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Max: The Universe Is A Cold, Twisted Bitch

Rush Limbaugh just signed a $400,000,000 deal with Clear Channel.

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: Puny Words! Why You Hurt BillO? BillO Smash!

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: 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: Agree to Disagree, as Long as You Shut the Fuck Up

Archbishop Burke wants infidel punished

St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said this morning that St. Louis University basketball coach Rick Majerus should be disciplined over his public comments supporting abortion rights and stem cell research.

Majerus made his comments at a campaign appearance for Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday night during an interview with KMOV (Channel 4).

During an interview with the Post-Dispatch today in Washington, where Burke is attending the March for Life, he said the coach should be disciplined.

"It's not possible to be a Catholic and hold those positions," Burke said. "When you take a position in a Catholic university, you don't have to embrace everything the Catholic church teaches. But you can't make statements which call into question the identity and mission of the Catholic church."

Max: Nice Work if You Can Get It

Max: America's Armageddonites

America's Armageddonites: "Utopian fantasies have long transfixed the human race. Yet today a much rarer fantasy has become popular in the United States. Millions of Americans, the richest people in history, have a death wish. They are the new “Armageddonites,” fundamentalist evangelicals who have moved from forecasting Armageddon to actually trying to bring it about."

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: 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.

Max: Benny Don't Like Nobody

Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Pope Benedict, elaborating his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, says science has narrowed the way life's origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.

The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory.

But Benedict, whose remarks were published on Wednesday in Germany in the book "Schoepfung und Evolution" (Creation and Evolution), praised scientific progress and did not endorse creationist or "intelligent design" views about life's origins.

Max: Shadow Army

Jericho: Time Friends

This was made here.

Max: Huh?

Attorney General Denies Right to Habeas Corpus

AG: “There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away.'

Arlen Specter: “Wait a minute. The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there’s a rebellion or invasion?”

AG: “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended” except in cases of rebellion or invasion.”

AS: “You may be treading on your interdiction of violating common sense.'

Wow. Newspeak is fun.

Max: The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth

As long as they kick ass and take names.

The leaders of BattleCry claim that their religion and values are under attack, but amid spectacular light shows, Hummers, Navy SEALs and military imagery on stage, it is BattleCry that has declared war on everyone else. Its leader, Ron Luce, insists: “This is war. And Jesus invites us to get into the action, telling us that the violent—the ‘forceful’ ones—will lay hold of the kingdom.”

Max: Thomas Jefferson Hates America

Muslim Congressman Sworn In On TJ's Koran

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

I love it when the founding fathers stick it to the right-wing nutballs.