Courtesy of Urban Outfitters

Via MSNBC.com

I'm disgusted. How fucking horrible. Look, I have a healthy sense of humor. Believe me. So I hope they don't object to my t-shirt with the tagline, "USA: Home of the KKK, Minutemen and Tom DeLay"

The Minutemen are Nazi Pigs

Via Ornicus:

At a recent anti-immigrant rally in Laguna Beach, the connection was made explicit.

The rally was held July 30. It apparently was a follow-up of sorts to a similar rally held in the same locale on July 16, in which a local anti-immigration activist decided to protest a local arts festival's financial support for a day labor center for undocument workers. This rally drew the participation of the Save Our State campaign (an ostensibly mainstream anti-immigration organization) and the Minutemen's Jim Gilchrist. It also drew a contingent of neo-Nazis.

Pictures of the Nazi flag proudly displayed at their rally can be found at the link. For those of you who are sympathetic to the Minutemen cause: Congratulations, you are also getting labeled a Racist Thug.

Bush is playing limbo

How low can he go?

Less than half of Americans now say they think President Bush is honest, according to an AP-Ipsos poll taken at a time of increasing concerns about Iraq, a potential problem for a president who won re-election declaring that "people know where I stand."

The percentage of people who say they consider Bush honest has dropped slightly from the start of the year. In January, 53 percent described him that way in the AP-Ipsos poll, while 45 percent said they did not believe he was honest. Now, people are just about evenly split — 48 percent saying he's honest and 50 percent saying he's not.

So much for that mandate. A liar can only juggle so many lies before the truth comes out. It's about time this country starts to remove the scales from their eyes and see George Bush for what he is--a liar and a terrible leader.

Bush's Weekly Radio Address

This weekend George W. Bush will give his radio address; thanks to Atrios, we have the script ahead of time. Do you think he even mentions the deaths this week of Marines? Not a f*ing chance, he's touting "economic progress."

Excerpt via Atrios:

Good morning. As families across the country enjoy the summer, Americans can be optimistic about our economic future. In the past four years, our economy has been through a lot: we faced a stock market decline, a recession, corporate scandals, an attack on our homeland, and the demands of an ongoing war on terror.

To grow the economy and help American families, we acted by passing the largest tax relief in a generation. And today, thanks to the tax relief and the efforts of America's workers and entrepreneurs, our economy is strong and growing stronger.

There are no words to express my outrage. There better be a re-write. I would hold my breath, but I don't want to be another casualty of George Bush's incompetence.

BooMan Unleashed

The Booman Tribune has become my online home base for a number of reasons. There is a perfect mixture of politics and play, great diaries and investigative reports, and a strong sense of community that exists because we have a fair and articulate leader.

When Booman speaks, you listen. The truth is hard to ignore.



If you haven't signed up for the site, I highly recommend it. It's free and the discussions are lively. See you at the Frog Pond.

Shadows of the Past

We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country, we could be quiet, we could hold our silence, we could not tell what went on in Vietnam Iraq, but we feel because of what threatens this country, not the reds insurgents, but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out. . . .

In our opinion and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam Iraq which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.

We found that not only was it a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever Saddam Hussein, but also we found that the Vietnamese Iraqis whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.

We found most people didn't even know the difference between communismIslamic rule and democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies fields without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Viet-namesethe insurgency, Al-Qaeda or American.

We found also that all too often American men were dying in those rice paddies streets for want of support from their allies. We saw first hand how monies from American taxes were used for a corrupt dictatorial regime. We saw that many people in this country had a one-sided idea of who was kept free by the flag, and blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties. We saw Vietnam Iraq ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism — and yet we listened while this country tried to blame all of the havoc on the Viet Cong insurgency.

We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly at My Lai Falluja and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum.

We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals Iraqis.

We watched the United States falsification of body counts, in fact the glorification of body counts. We listened while month after month we were told the back of the enemy was about to break. We fought using weapons against "oriental muslim human beings." We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater. We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken, and after losing one platoon or two platoons they marched away to leave the hill for reoccupation by the North Vietnamese insurgents. We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose, and we couldn't retreat, and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point, and so there were Hamburger Hills and Khe Sanhs and Hill 81s and Fire Base 6s Fallujas and Mosuls and Basras and Tikrits, and so many others.

Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese democratizing the Middle East.

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam Iraq, someone has to give up his life so that the United States
doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake.

Someone has to die so that President Nixon George W. Bush won't be, and these are his words, "the first President to lose a war." can retain his position as a "War President."

We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam Iraq? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? . . . We are here in Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country — the question of racism which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions such as the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. That is what we are trying to say.

It is part and parcel of everything.

An American Indian friend of mine who lives in the Indian Nation of Alcatraz put it to me very succinctly. He told me how as a boy on an Indian reservation he had watched television and he used to cheer the cowboys when they came in and shot the Indians, and then suddenly one day he stopped in Vietnam and he said, "My God, I am doing to these people the very same thing that was done to my people," and he stopped. And that is what we are trying to say, that we think this thing has to end.

We are here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We're here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatrick, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Powell and so many others? Where are they now that we, the men they sent off to war, have returned? These are the commanders who have deserted their troops. And there is no more serious crime in the laws of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never even leave their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They've left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission — to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more. And more. And so when thirty years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

--excerpted and modified from John Kerry's statement before the Senate Armed Forces Committee, April 22, 1971

Shrub

Lazy.

I'm Pro Choice

No, this isn't an entry about abortion. Sorry to disappoint you.

I have a serious problem with the direction my country has been heading over the past five years. The Republicans try to blame Clinton for all their woes; yet I don't recall discussing torture, erosion of civil liberties, or widespread anti-americanism in the 1990s.

Ronald Reagan once asked during his campaign, ""Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" He struck a tone of distinct change from President Carter's vision of America and gave America a choice. A bad one, in my opinion, but the people understood that there was a difference.

Twenty-five years later the United States faces a new decision. We can either continue down the path of our country's destruction, or we can finally say "Enough is Enough!" and send the neo-cons back to their holes. The grassroots of the Democratic party must force our elected leaders to take a stand and not sway in the wind regarding our basic principles: equality for all Americans, rights to privacy and the fostering of hope that can bring about a true United states. The people must understand that when they vote for a Democrat, they are not voting for Republican-Lite. We cannot afford to have "more of the same".

It's ironic that electoral success for the Democrats could lie in the shadows of Ronald Reagan's famous quote. Those of us in the grassroots have to make sure that the American people are given a real choice. We have to take our country back from these monsters.

Immigration Storm Clouds Gathering

The summer months in the desert Southwest are a mixture of blistering hot days followed by the methodical rolling-in of the thunderheads in the afternoon; bringing lightning, thunder and rain to the parched earth.

As I was watching a storm roll through the city today, the immigration reform issue came to my mind. (Really...) I have a habit of googling 'immigration' in their news section to see if anything new has popped up. I've noticed an uptick of articles over the past months and was drawn again to the fact that storm clouds are gathering in the horizon.

The Republicans are searching for their next issue to divide Americans and it looks like immigration will be at the top of their list. Rumblings of thunder below the fold...

For starters, I've got Georgia on my mind:

During the last primary campaign for the U.S. Senate, the three Republican candidates - Johnny Isakson, Herman Cain and Mac Collins - each visited the Daily Post to speak with reporters and editors. At each session, the candidate was asked the following: "What is the No. 1 issue on the minds of Georgia voters?" All three candidates gave the same answer: immigration. [snip]

Immigration, it seems, has become a touchy subject in some quarters. Nothing else will have greater impact on the future of our nation. Yet when it comes time to have substantive discussion, many would rather not. Perhaps they fear not being "politically correct." Perhaps they fear being labeled "racist." Perhaps they don't want to disturb an inexpensive labor force. Perhaps the politicians don't want to alienate a voting bloc. [snip]

Adding to the frustration is that many come here illegally. Without proper documentation, they skirt the laws the rest of us are expected to follow. Some U.S. citizens see the influx as a threat to their way of life. The Post receives more letters concerning immigration than any other topic.

Clearly, U.S. immigration policy is waffling in the wind. We have laws we don't enforce. We have borders we do not patrol. We have an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants in this country. It seems we're stymied for fear of being regarded as politically incorrect.
At all levels of government, the issue of immigration needs to be outed. Leaders and citizens of our cities, counties, states and the nation should discuss problems and solutions. We need to face the problem head-on. Immigration is no place for kid gloves.

Gwinnett Daily Post - GA (emphasis mine)

Or how about this flash of lightning from my home state. Are you ready for Goldwater V2.0?:

Republican Party activist Don Goldwater announced his candidacy Tuesday for governor in 2006, sounding some of the same conservative themes once heard from his uncle, 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

"The state is headed in the wrong direction," said the 50-year-old candidate. "We must return to the basic principles of limited government, individual liberty and economic freedom."

Goldwater said he would push for tax cuts and school choice and combat illegal immigration. He said he would fully enforce a voter-approved immigration law, including its requirement that voters produce identification at polling places.

He called illegal immigration destructive to the state's health care industry, a burden on public schools and a threat to public safety.

"No longer can we turn a blind eye to illegal immigration, hoping that it will just go away," said Goldwater, who is seeking to unseat first-term Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano. (emphasis mine)

If the Republicans have their way, especially the increasingly nasty strain of Republicans ala Kyl and Cornyn, there will be a modern-day witch hunt in this country with anyone who resembles an immigrant being a target. Mark my words, there is no tin-foil hat on my head.

The Republicans are still trying to craft their response to the immigration "problem". They aren't stupid, they know that their past antics scream of bigotry. They don't want to smell a whiff of racism in their response. It will be devastating towards any inroads they've managed to make with Latinos and other minority groups. They are clearly being careful with this issue:

Two Cabinet members were no-shows yesterday at a U-S Senate committee hearing on immigration.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao canceled their appearance at the hearing focusing on two immigration bills filed in the Senate. One bill is co-sponored by Senator John McCain and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and the other is co-sponsored by Senator Jon Kyl and Senator John Cornyn of Texas.

Aides say Chertoff and Chao will testify later.

"Later" will occur after the Rovian minions have fully calculated their response to the two competing Senate bills on immigration. Will the Democrats be ready to weather the storm? or will they step up to the plate and change the wind?

Crossposted at Booman Tribune

The "Fuck You" President

George W. Bush continued his misAdministration of the United States today by giving a big middle finger to the Senate and anyone else who disagreed with him regarding the appointment of John Bolton to the United Nations.

I was waiting for Melody Townsel's response to this:

As I posted here, and some of you commented upon over the weekend, Bush's move to appoint Bolton today is exactly what it looks like: A giant "fuck you" to anybody who questions his presumed authority and dares to believe in the spirit of advise and consent.

This is the "fuck you" presidency.

Don't like our battle against global extremism? Fuck you.

Don't think a CIA agent, or an ambassador's wife, are fair game? Fuck you.

Don't care for Rove's tactics? Fuck you.

You believe there should be a balance on the court? Fuck you.

Support our constitutionally promised systems of checks and balances? Fuck you.

The Bolton appointment is just the latest, and one of Bush's best, "fuck yous." And not just "fuck you" to Democrats, but a "fuck you" to Republicans like Voinovich who didn't just lie back and think of England over this appointment.

For more information on John Bolton, check out the wikipedia entry for this A-Grade Asshole.

To see a video on why this this appointment is completely outrageous, click this link. It shows Bolton, in his own words, pontificating on the destruction of the United Nations.

George W. Bush, the "Fuck You" President