A Little Political Humor

Bill Clinton is placed against the wall, and just before the order to shoot him is given, he yells, "Earthquake!" The firing squad falls into a panic and Bill jumps over the wall and escapes in the confusion.

John Kerry is the second one placed against the wall. The squad is reassembled and John ponders what his old pal Bill has done. Before the order to shoot is given, John yells, "Tornado!" Again the squad falls apart and Kerry slips over the wall thus making his escape.

The last person, George W. Bush, is placed against the wall. He is thinking, "I see the pattern here, just scream out a disaster and hop over the wall." As the firing squad is reassembled and the rifles raised in his direction, he smirks his famous smirk and yells, "Fire!"

A Timeline of Bush Lies

Here's something neat from Mother Jones:

Bush's Timeline of Lies

You need popups enabled and it takes a few seconds to download. Lots of fun!

By the Numbers: Iraq = Vietnam

A lot of comparisons have been made between the Iraq war and the Vietnam war. One of the defenses of the Iraq war are the casualty numbers. After all, we lost 58,000 men in Vietnam but so far have only had 3,200 casualties in Iraq. So Iraq isn't as deadly, right?

Problem is the numbers the Pentagon itself put out that the ratio of killed to wounded is 16:1. That means we have had 51,200 wounded in Iraq (the Pentagon reports only in the mid-twenty thousand range but why should we expect consistency out of a Bush-controlled Government body). The Pentagon attributes the ratio, immensely higher than Vietnam at 1:2.8, to better body armor and better medical battlefield medical techniques and I'll give them that. So, if we were still using Vietnam-era technology, the number of casualties would be 51,200/2.8, or around 18,300. Given we've been at war about five years, the number of casualties per year would be 3,657.

Now Vietnam lasted 16 years and had 58,000 casualties. That places the Vietnam count per year at 3,625 per year. Statistically that's no difference. So there, by the numbers, Iraq roughly equals Vietnam. Not a grand distinction.

Bush Compares Himself to Washington - Where do I Hurl?

Where can I hurl?

Today the Deciderator actually had the gall to compare himself to George Washington, a man who had to be practically shanghaied into running for President and who maintained that Executive powers should be governed by restraint:

"I feel right at home here. After all, this is the home of the first George W. I thank President Washington for welcoming us today. He doesn't look a day over 275 years old," Bush said to laughter. (AP)

Furthering Bush's madness in comparing himself to the first President:

"And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone."

That, as people, including American citizens, are languishing in jails from South Carolina to Guantanamo, denied basic American rights by edict of the man who would compare himself to Washington? As I remember, Washington treated British POWs well and released them at the end of the war in contrast to the British treatment of American POWs. There is no comparison between the heroics and wisdom of Washington and the incompetence and arrogance of the latter-day "George W."

But "W" leaves an opening for us. For the next eighteen months we should never pass up a chance to equate Republicans with Bush, to contrast the deeds of the latter-day "W" with the first. The GOPers are their own worst press right now and as Sun Tzu wrote: "Keep him under a strain and wear him down."

The Long Implosion

In nucular (sic) weapons, the longer the implosion, the greater the explosion. The GOPers have been imploding since the American people rejected their ideology last fall and watching McCain campaign, the explosion just might be beginning.

It looks like John the former Straight Talker needs a little while to get his stump speech in order. Right now, he's spinning like a weather vane, pointing in every possible direction to see which way the wind is blowing. His position on gay rights flip-flops faster than bits in an Intel chip, he's now taking out his war frustrations on Donald Rumsfeld (not that Rummy needs any help in the screw-up department), his position on Roe v. Wade is diametrically opposite to his position as candidate McCain in 2000, in short, he's triangulating to the GOPer base.

That's exactly where we want him. McCain is living in the Conservative past, unaware that a new era of politics was ushered in by the 2006 election. His positions were almost universally rejected - even South Dakota rejected their draconian anti-abortion law. For the former Straight Talker to flip-flop this many times makes him vulnerable. He's always been a far-right politician, his lies in an attempt to win the 2000 nomination are now biting him where he's most vulnerable.

In his flip-flops.

"Keep him under a strain and wear him down" Sun Tzu.

Welcome to the Post Conservative Era

The election of 2006 marked the end of the era of the conservative. Reading an article in Der Spiegel (via Watching America, a website I highly recommend for all progressive thinkers) led me to believe that we are entering the Post-Conservative era of American politics. The writers point out that the Conservative Right were correct about two main issues, free markets and communism.

Now, with Ronald Reagan dead and Margaret Thatcher senile, the conservative movement is now led by the likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. While I believe Reagan actually did have the U. S.'s interests at heart, I believe the latter day conservatives, the Neocons, have little in common with the last Republican I'll ever vote for. We have seen deregulation become air support for corporate consolidation, free-market capitalism become plutocracy, small government become something more akin to a Soviet-era apparat. The Right has abandoned fiscal responsibility. All that's left of the movement is its inertia and, as we saw in 2006, that is running down.

What will follow, I have no idea. I don't think we'll return to the Liberalism of the '60's and I hope we don't mimic the apathy of the '70's. What I hope will emerge is a Democratic leadership motivated by the needs of the people and sensitive to the needs of business. Perhaps our new post-Conservative leadership will take action on global warming, restore the balance between haves and have-nots but one thing is certain, the Right will not die immediately. Conservatism might be on life support but a patient on life support can endure a long time.

I'm reminded of those who, forty years after the victories of the civil rights movement, are still racist. For a long, long time there will be pockets of Reagan conservatives out there preaching the old gospel and attacking those of us who have found another way. The Religious Right will not go away overnight, either, although their betrayals by political leaders may keep them out of politics for a while. We will have to deal with cries of "death tax" and "war on terror" and "soft on defense" and "entitlements" for a long time to come but election 2006 shows one thing: We've turned the corner. The Reagan Conservatives are a dying movement.

Ritter Betrays Labor

After insinutating he would sign the measure repealing the requirement for a second vote to unionize a shop, Governor Bill Ritter betrayed his supporters and vetoed the bill.

While perhaps not as aggregious as Ken Salazar's vote to shred the Constitution and deny habeas corpus to American citizens, this vote would indicate that we got another GOPer-lite in Democratic clothing in Mr. Ritter. I don't think a lot of the shopkeepers, Chamber of Commerce members, CEOs and sweatshop operators who work non-union labor for peanuts and who pressured him to veto the law voted for him in the first place. I don't think they will vote for him even after his blatant betrayal of his political base, either.

I do think organized labor will be hard-pressed to support him. This dumb decision, this pandering to the Right, may cost us the Governor's mansion after we finally won it back. Dumb move, Bill.

Dinosaur Flatulence and the GOP

Sometimes they write themselves. Any opportunity to use dinosaur, flatulence and the GOP in one sentence should never be avoided. How about this one: The flatulent sound of GOP dinosaurs debating global warming provides evidence of their ignorance and their unwillingness to be cured of that state.

I am referring in particular to Dana Rohrbacher (R, Calif) and his comments concerning the cause of a global warming incident 55 million years ago. One must credit the representative with believing that 55 million years ago is a plausible date; however, his paleontology leaves a bit to be desired. He credits the warm up and mass extinctions of the time to dinosaur flatulence. The only problem with his dinosaur fart of a statement is that the dinosaurs had been extinct for around ten million years by the start of the event.

Of course, the ignorant gentleman from California was simply trying to discredit global warming to the benefit of his elitest supporters. Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, is willing to face the truth - the only way we're going to prevent a similar disaster of our own creation is to use less carbon. Rohrbacher apparently disagrees, proof that certain species of dinosaur will never die.

Paycheck Lenders - Proof of the State of the Bush Economy

Today I heard an article on paycheck lenders on NPR. These are legal loan sharks who charge up to 500% interest for people to take out loans against their next paycheck. If the lendee is not able to pay off their loan with their next paycheck, unlikely since their pay is so insufficient that they had been driven to the paycheck lender in the first place, the fees kick in and the lendee is never out of debt.

While there have always been pawn shops and organizations willing to lend against future earnings - some even will lend against a tax return - these groups have grown to the point where they have a powerful lobby in Washington. It is left as an exercise to the student to determine which side of the aisle they lobby hardest. I don't remember seeing these shops in great numbers during our last Presidency, only since the Bush economy has benefitted only the top one or two percent of Americans in terms of wealth have I began to see more and more of these shops around.

The growth of paycheck lenders illustrates one thing: Our economy is not benefitting the lower and middle classes of the economic scale. Investments are growing rapidly, as are corporate profits. Wages have declined under Bush, as has health coverage and the proposed budget would cut benefits for the lower end of the scale more. Bush has proposed 1.6 trillion dollars in tax cuts, primarily for the rich, while cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits by $100 billion. It is this irresponsibility that leads to paycheck lenders becoming more common and the less fortunate becoming even less fortunate. It's Republican values - defend the elite electorate and dupe the others, just as they have done with the Religious Right, just as they have with the Lee Greenwood patriots, just as they have with anyone who isn't a member of their elite supporters.