Happy Halloween!

For Halloween-Eve...

One of my favorite, most favorite, most favoritest-favorite artist in the whole world is the wonderful Edward Gorey. He was not only an illustrator, but a prolific author as well. His work speaks to my soul, and always has. So, for Halloween Eve, please enjoy one of my favorite Edward Gorey stories:

For more on Edward Gorey:
an article here
Goreyography
Edward Gorey House
The Gorey Details (I love this one!)
and of course the Wikipedia site.

Duh- Duh- Double Standards

An article in the Sac Bee states: Democrats' agenda is sketchy. That's one of the most popular criticisms to make against Democrats these days - that they "don't have a plan," etc. The sub heading of the story, for those who don't want to do the painintheass registration thing, says,

"Minimum-wage hike, lobbyist limits and oil-subsidy repeal are identified as early priorities."

Okay, what's sketchy about that? Furthermore, it's kind of ironic, not to mention typical of right-wing two-faced hypocrisy, that right-wingers howl and whine about what Democrats plan to do when they're in office, but out of the other side of their faces they accuse Democrats of not having a plan. Which is it? They can't have it both ways, can they?

Well, it turns out they can - because now, with the election so close, the Republicans are suddenly pretending to be Democrats! Schwarzenegger is passing one piece of "liberal" legislation after another. Santorun runs ads where he boasts of cooperating with Pelosi. Bush says he's ready to channel Murtha and "cut and run". And on and on. LOL! The Republicans are now wishing they were Democrats!

Repukes for Sale! Get Your Repukes Here!

Yup, the most efficient government money can buy: Big Oil's 10 favorite members of Congress

@#$%^

Bush Officials Were ‘Rooting’ For North Korea to Test Nuclear Weapon, just they were 'rooting' for the 9/11 disaster to occur. All part of the 'plan' they're so proud of.

More from the Party of Moral Superiority

Yeah, those Republicans play fair and square, alright.
Ohio GOP Smears Al Franken In Press Release With Doctored Photo, Fabricated Quote
Bunch of sleazeball liars and their enablers.

AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!

Severe Election Problems Seen in 10 States! Damn! If this doesn't get straigtened out like right-the-f**k-now, there's going to be hell to pay, because there's an awful lot of us who will be ready to grab the pitchforks if we go to bed on election night with polls dramatically favoring Democrats, and find that, once again, the results magically transformed into a Republican victory. How long must we be subjected to this vote theft!?

And another thing: this is something the repukes should care about, too. If they establish the precedent that this election fraud is okay, then eventually the opposition party will say, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and mount a counter-attack (or counter-a-hack).

UPDATE: More problems in Sacramento...

----------------------------------------------------
By the way, here's a great post at Is America Burning about protecting our vote, etc.

What Do We Expect?

What do we expect after we vote? Well, I'll tell you -- or, rather, Ken Grandlund will, in another one of his eloquent essays on progressive politics. I highly recommend this post by Ken, because it really speaks for so many of us. We don't ask much, do we? Just a little honesty, integrity, and Common Sense.

By the way, Ken's post brings something to mind. The Republicans were, not too long ago, and several times, presented with a golden opportunity: to demonstrate that theirs was the superior political ideology, as they have claimed for so long; to finally prove that they could actually back up their words with deeds. As we know, they have failed miserably.

Well, if the Democrats manage to win this election (I'm not ruling out another election fraud fiasco until the dust has settled), they will be presented with the same opportunity. I believe that this is vitally important -- they have the golden opportunity to prove that they are not a party of liars, theives, perverts, and traitors, as the Republicans are. If the Democratic party cannot achieve this one, simple task -- to not be like Republicans -- then I say screw 'em. It will be time, then, for progressives to get really progressive, and migrate en masse to an alternative party.

From the LOL Files

ABC News: New Iraq Strategy Includes a Shift in Rhetoric:

"In a sign the administration is re-evaluating its own rhetoric on Iraq as the midterm elections approach, White House spokesman Tony Snow announced Bush would no longer use the phrase 'stay the course.' "

I know, it's already been written about. But I just can't let this one go by. It's just too hilarious. "Stay the course", for those too young to remember, was a Reagan-era phrase to begin with, and every repuke ever since has made it their motto. The Bush cabal has been repeating it for years, over and over and over and over and over. And, the repukes and their ministers of propaganda have said just as often that anything other than "stay the course" is cut-and-run treason. So now Bush himself is the cut-and-run guy? Just like during Vietnam? LOL!

Why Do Lies Have to Last So Long?

An article asks, "Why has Iraq war lasted nearly as long as WWII?"

I'll tell you why. Because we never planned on leaving in the first place! Did this guy buy that line of BS about going to Iraq, overthrowing a dictator, and then coming home!? What a gullible sap! Ha! We're talking about a government of war profiteers and embedded government contractors! It's a permanent occupation, man, it's an acquisition, we have annexed Iraq the way Saddam Hussein tried to annex Kuwait.

Just google permanent bases in Iraq or some such thing. I keep having to repeat this: we are there forever!

Uh-oh: Updated (see bottom)

This does not bode well: Absentee voters report flaw

Sacramento County election officials said Monday that they have received dozens of complaints from residents who reported they were mailed incomplete or flawed absentee ballots.

After investigating, officials said Monday afternoon that the county will mail 40,000 potential absentee voters, telling them to recheck their ballots and informing them how to request a new ballot for the Nov. 7 election.

Absentee was supposed to be the safe way to vote. At least, it became the progressives' method of choice: "I'm gonna vote absentee!" we told ourselves and our friends. Well, like everything else that is in any way good, it seems the powers-that-be have deemed absentee voting too much of a threat. Once it's gone, we'll be pretty much screwed.

I guess the only way to get representation in government is to become a crooked lobbyist.

Update: More of the same! California is another Ohio, it seems.

But Right-Wingers Never "Nuance"

Okay, on the one hand:
Priest admits he fondled Foley.

On the other hand:
Priest denies sexual relationship with Foley. Right. Sure, he

"...described several encounters that he said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate."

Ya think?

"They include massaging Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being nude in the same room on overnight trips."

"...might perceive as sexually inappropriate"? I should think so. But, then he adds :

"...Mercieca said there was one night when he was in a drug-induced stupor and there was an incident but he couldn't clearly remember."

Okey-dokey, then.

The priest's story is bad enough. Especially in light of the fact that nobody is surprised by this sort of behavior by a Catholic priest. Nobody. It's business as usual. It's so well-accepted that Foley and his attorneys know that involvement with Catholic priests can now be used as an excuse for a lifelong pattern of sexual deviance.

Two pitiful souls whose cycle of exploitation has come full circle.

The American Taliban Marches Onward...

The worst threat to America is already here.


thanks to Worried & Granny for the link

If This is the Next "October Suprise"...

...Then we can expect autumn leaves to be followed by a picturesqe Nuclear Winter.

The aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason and the fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, is, as I write, making its way to the Straits of Hormuz off Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it... War with Iran -- a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East -- is probable by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as three weeks.

Quite a read, this article.

The optimist in me says the October Surprise will simply be another Diebold-assisted stolen election. The pessimist in me says armageddon makes for one hell of a halloween party.

We Keep Trying

Signing a petition might not change anything in the grand scheme of things. But the very existence of such a petitition; very need for such a thing, is truly awful.

Anyway, I like the statement. Too bad those who run our government feel otherwise.

The America I Believe In doesn't torture people or use cruel, inhumane treatment... doesn't hold people without charge, without fair trials, without hope, and without end... doesn't kidnap people off the street and ship them to nations known for their brutality... doesn't condone prisoner abuse and excuse high-ranking government officials from responsibility for that abuse... doesn't justify the use of secret prisons... and does not rob people of their basic dignity.

thanks to Worried at Is America Burning? for the link

It's Friday, Oct 13, 2006, and...

The World is Quiet Here.

Old McDonald Had a...

...international free-trade incident a-brewin', apparently.

Oh, the irony. "Minute-man" types want to put a new Berlin wall along the Rio Grande, while farmers, who are hardly a bunch of birkenstock-wearing, tofu-and-granola-chomping liberals, are saying they need Mexican workers to maintain Americans' cheap-chubby way of life. It makes for grand theater, potentially: tighty-righties will sell their own grandmas if it makes them an extra buck or two, but unless they allow Mexican workers to enter the US freely, they (and we) will start to see a chain reaction of cost increases. Not just produce; no way, Jose. It will effect all the other goods and services touched by farming. Foods of all kinds, canned, bottled & jarred. Oils. Pet foods. The trucking industry, and all the business touched by that. It'll be something to see, alright.

My opinion about illegal immigration? Glad you asked. Here 'tis: I believe we are citizens of the planet. I believe we should all be able to cross borders freely, without restrictions, and live and work wherever we want and/or are able to, limited only by our ablity to learn a language or a trade.

Sometimes, conservatives are still heard to say that America was built on such opportunity, that it is one of the most important facets of American character. Why are so many "conservatives" now afraid to live in a country like the one they claim to honor? Oh, that's right - in the age of terror, those same conservatives are the most terrified of all.

Ooops...

Did I forget about Columbus Day? Apparently. Well, it's best left forgotten, I think. A celebration of European expansionism? Whatever. I know it was bound to happen eventually, but I'm sure Native Americans would rather have seen things play out differently. I guess they didn't have a bunch of Republican anti-immigration howlers to put up a giant fence.

(With Dark, Ominous Cello Music in Background...)

G-g-ggaaauuuhhh!

From out of the depths, the musty animated thing ambles forth, shuffling through the graveyard of dead rhetorical justifications, clutching the mad vision he has nurtured from deep within the cold crypt of the Nixon administration from which he sprang. The sneering hunchback walks! Augh! He lives, and yet he has no heart!

Once a human not too unlike many others, he rose to ultimate power (behind the throne) of the party of "optimism." He still rises to cry out to his minions,

...But not much happy talk follows. Not a lot of hope, either. He does, though, talk about the prospect of "mass death in the United States." ...he is back on the road delivering a grim message about danger, defeatism and the stakes of the coming election.

But for now, the danger is contained:

More than half of Cheney's fundraisers in this two-year cycle have been behind closed doors.

And, like vampires who cannot look into a mirror, the Sneering Hunchback's minions cannot even bear to suffer his foul presence:

Even at a lunchtime speech to Wisconsin Republican donors that was open to reporters, gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mark Green did not stand on stage, ensuring no pictures of the two together on the news, and some other Republican candidates did not attend at all.

But still, he remains their dark master, and they bow deeply to him.

..."It's a very, very hard job that he and the president have, that they've had handed to them. You can belittle people for the things they should or should not have done. But..."

The translation for humans is this: "It's a very, very hard job that he and the president have, that they've had handed to them" [by the Supreme Court, bypassing the will of the voters and casting our precious right to vote into their bottomless pit of oblvion]. "You can belittle people for the things they should or should not have done." [And well you should, because those things make the difference between a country led by a real leader, and one held in the diabolical clutches of a slathering villain like Dick Cheney, Lord of the Halliban, and the reigning Ghoul-in-Chief.]

By the way, Don't forget what they do in his fiendish laboratory...

Random Thoughts...

1.
Abramoff Knew US Would Invade Iraq in March, 2002... seven months before Congress authorized the president to go war.

2.
Here in Northern California, Bush flew in to speak at a closed-door rally at a country club for local politico John Doolittle (R-Abromoffwhore). "For the first time in his career, (Doolittle) is going to have the opportunity to introduce the president to his constituents, and he is tremendously excited about that," Doolittle spokesman Richard Robinson said… The lunch is a $2,000-per-person fundraiser for Rep. John Doolittle with about 300 in attendance at Serrano Country Club. A political science professor at University of the Pacific in Stockton, said Bush's four-state fundraising trip plays to his strength while reducing the risk of political embarrassment. "This is a place, just like an Air Force base or an Army base, where he's not going to get a lot of hecklers," he said of Bush's visit to California's agricultural heartland. "He's always been highly controlled with his events. What they want here are good, positive media events -- do no harm is very important to them -- and money.” And, incidentally, Doolttle's wife Julie Doolittle's company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, earns a 15 percent commission on money she brings in for the Doolittle campaign, meaning their household could take in more than $90,000 as its share of donations from Tuesday's 311 paying guests.

3.
From the LOL files: "No sooner did Congress authorize construction of a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border last week than lawmakers rushed to approve separate legislation that ensures it will never be built" That's why they call themselves Minutemen... 'cause that's how long their legislation was effective.

4.
And finally, Marijuana may stave off Alzheimer's, but I forget why.

Me? Suspicious?

In light of pre-Foley-scandal reports that Conservative websites claim Rove has been promising GOP insiders an 'October surprise', my wheels are spinnin' about how the alleged October Surprise is or is not connected to the scandal. Did "Foleygate" actually catch the repubican party by surprise? Or, is it part of a greater scheme? After all, the information was brought to light by a republican. But how could that be used by them to their advantage?

The only possible scenario I can come up with at this point, if I had to, is that the scandal would serve to divert attention from the extremely bad news about the two wars (Afghanistan & Iraq), then the repuplicans will follow up by stealing the election with electronic voting machines.

Anyone else? I'm open to suggestions.

ROFLMAO!!!

Jeb Bush hides in supply closet: "PITTSBURGH -- Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took refuge in a subway station supply closet when he was greeted by protesters on his way to a campaign event for a Pennsylvania Republican senator. Officers used stun guns to subdue two protesters, saying they disobeyed orders to disperse, Bob Grove, a Port Authority spokesman reported. 'It was a very tense situation. They were very close to the governor and shouting on top of him,' Grove said. The protesters, members of the United Steelworkers union and an anti-war group, chanted: 'Jeb go home.' "

A question:

Could this election cycle be the beginning of a new era of alternative political parties? The author of this article says,

"If the Democrats can’t take the Hill now, they deserve to go the way of the Whigs... the Democrats’ message is murky. In the Senate, they decry the Mexican fence, then more than half of them vote for it. They label the Iraq war as a mistake, then vote $70 billion more for it. They object to Bush’s torture bill, yet flinch at a chance to block it in the Senate... It was that kind of profound indecision on a moral issue (slavery) that led to the demise of the Whigs before the Civil War."

Indeed. I'm registered as an independent, but I end up voting democrat as the only viable opposition party against the republicans, who are by far the greater of two evils.

Maybe partisan politics is changing in America. In the time since I've been blogging and monitoring politics more closely (since about June 2004), I've seen a lot of dissatisfaction among democrats. The "Kerry betrayal" of 2004 (when Kerry conceded while there were thousands of absentee votes yet to be counted) clinched it for many of us: the democratic party, we were harshly reminded, could not be depended upon to represent the interests of Progressives - we who are proponents of human rights, civil rights, social justice, fiscal responsibility, and sensible national defense. Sure, they have done some good things, but they also put us in Korea and Vietnam and kept us there, and many of them seem to acquiesce to the repukes so often it's embarrasing.

Similarly, I have also been noting a lot of dissatisfaction among self-described "conservatives" for many months, maybe a couple of years, toward the republican party. True, most of them describe their problem by proclaiming that Bush is too liberal (I swear, they actually believe that). But nevertheless, stupid dissent is still dissent. Dissatisfaction seems to be the rule among party (ex)loyalists today.

There are lots of alternative political parties. The 21st century is still young... maybe we'll see a change in our lifetime. After all, it has happened before.

Remember the Reagan-Bush White House Prostitution Ring?

If not, here's the story reproduced from the days before the "interweb":

Reagan-Bush White House Prostitution Ring, Page 1
Reagan-Bush White House Prostitution Ring, Page 2

That's about the time they coined the phrase "family values", isn't it?

We're Keeping Lists, You Know

Right-winger are so above reproach, aren't they? Morally superior? Ethically immaculate? Chosen by God? Led by divine guidance? Of course they are. Here are some examples of rightwing conservative family values*

Example #1
Example #2
Example #3
Example #4

* to republicans, "family values" = the amount they can get from selling your children.

I So Totally Love This Clip.

Enjoy: Crooks and Liars » Cliff on Predatorgate and oh so many Republican scandals. Go ahead. Play it again and again. I did. 8^)

I Can't Stop..! (Updated)

I swear, I try to stop just blogging about news items, I try to stop blogging about the stuff that you've probably read better posts about elsewhere, but as dogs are my witness, some stories come along and no matter how hard you try to ignore them they grab you and look at you and make faces and make ridiculous noises and jump up and down and point and laugh and then cry and then look at you again and scream at the top of their lungs, republicans are the most painfully ridiculous creatures ever to be excreted from the asses of the thundering dinosaurs! Why? Well, for one thing, Bill Frist, repuke hotshot and another beacon of modern conservatism, says we sould put the Taliban back in power!

That's right, the same Taliban that we spent eighty-some-odd-billion or so dollars to over throw, along with countless gallons of soldiers' blood and pounds of flesh, the same Taliban that supposedly had more to do with 9/11 than Iraq did, the same Taliban who's downfall was supposedly a crucial part of republicans' "spreading democracy"... that's who Frist, presidential hopeful and republican extraordinaire, says should be put back into power. "We can't beat them," says the proud member of the party of optimism, chosen by God to spread freedom throughout the third world. Or is he spreading something else?

Those darn flip-floppin' republicans... I guess he was for the invation and overthrow of sovereign nations before he was against it.

UPDATE: Oh, I almost forgot to mention - remember the republican talking point that Bush & Co keep repeating, emphatically, to justify their foreign policy - "We must honor the solders' sacrifice by completing the mission" - ? Right. What is it they accuse us on the left of... "cut and run"? Right.

GOP=Gross Old Perverts

Okay, here's the deal in a nutshell: The "right", that is, conservatives, republicans, neocons, and other fascism-apologists are all over the blogoshere and the media trying to justify Foley's actions by claiming that Clinton's affair was somehow comparable. That is ridiculous, and here is why:

Clinton had consentual sex with an adult. His action was not sanctioned by the democratic party; it was in fact condemned by them (and still is).

Foley, on the other hand, is a pedophile, in fact, a serial pedophile, whose depraved perversion was officially sanctioned and protected by republican leadership. The main difference between Foley and Clinton is pedophilia vs. conenting adult behavior. That's the difference between these champions of hypocrisy who have, for years, fashioned themselves as the epitome of conservative values, and the rest of us who are lucky enough to see right through them: they protect and nurture child molesters, while we find such behavior repugnant. Their followers, aupporters, rationalizers and apologists, slavishly defend them, as if brainwashed, swearing that these are the morally superior leaders, and they all swear that the greatest evil on earth is liberalism.

Add to that, the fact that anyone who allows such behavior to go unchecked, let alone protects it by covering it up, is complicit, right? I mean, if you know someone is molesting a child and you allow it to go on, are you not part of the problem (to put it mildly)? How about of someone is molesting your child, and another person knows about it, but keeps it a secret to protect the molester? Those who call define themselves as conservatives, even as the leaders and examples of true modern conservatism, think that's okay, apparently.

I think that says a lot about us and them.

Hope

Please, please, please...