PSoTD

My opinion on much of Joe Lieberman's politics: The majority of people are sick of it. They think our political system is sick. I blame politicians and news media who have created an environment of symbiotic dipshittery.

When is Freedom From Paying Taxes for the Iraq Debacle Day?

One of the things that the National Democratic Party ought to be doing is creating a seal of sorts for the National Republican Party that it can use in the long-term as part of its message about the Republican Party.

And it should definitely carry imagery of one Mr. George W. Bush - probably a recognizable silhouette. That Party deserves to be tagged with the Dubya stigma forever.

Stewart should win in a landslide. McCain's candidacy is caught in a Bushslide.

Bush's good times - when make believe wasn't disproven:

April 24, 2003
President Gives Iraq Update to Workers of Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio
Remarks by the President at Lima Army Tank Plant - Lima, Ohio

Our mission -- besides removing the regime that threatened us, besides ending a place where the terrorists could find a friend, besides getting rid of weapons of mass destruction -- our mission has been to bring a humanitarian aid and restore basic services, and put this country, Iraq, on the road to self- government. And we'll stay as long as it takes to complete our mission. And then all our forces are going to leave Iraq and come home. (Applause.)

And we're making progress. There's tangible, visible progress on the ground there in Iraq. Step by step, the citizens of that country are reclaiming their own country. They're identifying former officials who are guilty of crimes. That deck of cards seems to be getting complete over time. (Laughter.) They're volunteering for citizens patrols to provide security in the cities. They're beginning to understand that they need to step up and be responsible citizens if they want to live in peace and a free society.

Many Iraqis are now reviving religious rituals which were forbidden by the old regime. See, a free society honors religion. A free society is a society which believes in the freedom of religion. And many Iraqis are now -- (applause.) Many Iraqis are now speaking their mind in public. That's a good sign. (Laughter.) That means a new day has come in Iraq. When Saddam was the dictator, and you spoke your mind he would cut out your tongue and leave you to bleed to death in a town square. No fooling. That's how he dealt with dissidence.

Today, in Iraq, there's discussion, debate, protest, all the hallmarks of liberty. (Laughter and applause.) The path to freedom may not always be neat and orderly, but it is the right of every person and every nation. This country believes that freedom is God's gift to every individual on the face of the Earth. (Applause.)

Last week there was an historic gathering that occurred in the city of al Nasiriyah, where Iraqis met openly and freely to discuss the future of their country. And out of that meeting came this declaration by the Iraqis that were there: Iraq must be democratic. And that's the goal, the commitment of the United States and our coalition partners -- Iraq must be democratic. And as new Iraqi leaders begin to emerge, we'll work with them. One thing is certain: We will not impose a government on Iraq. We will help that nation build a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. (Applause.)

Our country and our good allies are working to create the conditions for lasting peace. We're aiding the advance of peace by seeking the advance of freedom. Free societies do not nurture bitterness, or the ideologies of terror and murder. Free societies are founded on the belief that every life has equal value. Free societies -- free societies turn creative gifts of men and women toward progress and the betterment of their own lives. American interests and American founding beliefs lead in the same direction. We stand for human liberty. (Applause.)

More Bush BS from yesterday:

Second, the Democratic leadership's proposal is aimed at restricting the ability of our generals to direct the fight in Iraq. They've imposed legislative mandates, they passed legislative mandates telling them which enemies they can engage and which they cannot. That means our commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from legislators 6,000 miles away on Capitol Hill. The result would be a marked advantage for our enemies and a greater danger for our troops

I can't see how the advantage would be any greater for the enemy, or the danger any greater to the troops, than allowing George W. Bush to be Commander in Chief. That has been absolutely disastrous. So, if we're for improving our chances, the first course of business should be removing Bush from office.

To be fair to Sheryl Crow, it's only natural to think of TP when you think of Karl Rove.

Even George W. Bush knows he's a "turd".

While waiting for my doctor's appointment today, Fox News was shoved down our throats in the waiting room, and low and behold, there's the Amazing Shrinking President on television, trying to convince America that he's right about Iraq and Congress is wrong. Did he look believable? No. Did he look like he believed what he was saying? Not particularly. He looked like a man who is defeated himself, but won't admit it to anyone else. Defeated in his efforts, defeated in his philosophy, with no energy and no effort to find "the answer" for the country beyond repeating what he has done and said.

Bush is defeat, personalized. As long as he's in charge, America has been defeated, because of lack of brainpower and reasoning and ability in the White House.

It's too late for Iraq as it was envisioned. Bush has lost it. Bush. Has. Lost. It. And he's spent 4 years, treasure and blood doing so. And he's committed to losing more until his term is over.

Americans decry losing wars, and they decry those who point out a losing effort, and they decry those who want to get out of losing wars. But there's a point where brains have to trump brawn, that mind must be used over muscle, that the wise must be listened to over the loud. We can't win this war with George W. Bush as President. There's no way. He's not a leader - look at the national polls. He's not smart about war. Look at our Iraq experience. He's a drain on this country. And he's not doing anything now except managing until the end of the season, to take a baseball analogy. He knows he's going to be fired. It's just that he knows the owner will wait until the end of the season to dump him.

Is America really going to let this awful President keep us in Iraq? Only if Congress lets him.

Is it time we have a national discussion about the merits of the Navy's Blue Angels? They've been around a long time - Nimitz ordered them started - and I understand that they have entertainment value, but what is the real value to the Navy, in actual evidence?

Any Republican that still thinks that Alberto Gonzales should be Attorney General prioritizes loyalty over all other values. In fact, all other values are superseded by loyalty. It's a damaging choice of highest value, but it's the choice of those who are insecure as their own decisionmaking.

This also explains the 30 percent or so that still think the Loyalty Chief is doing a good job.

If Bush had poll numbers that were above urinal cakes, the idea that Gonzales' staying on is loyal would be laughable. He would be seen as damaging to the Bush presidency, and loyalty would require him to leave the Administration.

However, with Bush's continued minimal level of support, Gonzales actually doesn't hurt him much. Those of us appalled by the self-admitted pathetic management by Gonzales have already been appalled by similar management results in Iraq and with Katrina. We are not surprised by the mismanagement. We are grossly disappointed that it is approved by the President to continue.

But with Katrina and to some point with Iraq, eventually those loyal were let go in an effort to protect the President's standing in America. Brownie was dropped. Paul Bremer was sent packing. Even Rumsfeld lost his title.

Bush's poll numbers are hurting America, because he no longer has much to lose, and he's behaving as if he knows it. He expands the war, he says he's planning to veto funding for the troops, he keeps Gonzales though even Senate Republicans are calling on Gonzales to leave. And honestly, what does Bush have to lose?

In terms of support, it's hard to say what would wake up the remaining 30 or so percent. Bush could eat a baby's head served to him by Cheney on television, and as long as he was repeating Republican mantra while doing it, there would still be this unmoved support. "Mistakes were made," Bush would admit, "but there was no way of knowing I was eating a baby's head. Now stop talking about this, or the terrorists win." And Limbaugh and crew would repeat it, and the loyalty-driven Bushies would repeat it, and the Bushfollowers would accept it.

Competence, understanding, effectiveness and intelligence all matter, and America has suffered from a deficit of this from the Executive Branch through this decade. All we get is Republican loyalty, which just brings another heaping bowlful of new shit every month or so. When are the 30 percenters going to wake up and realize that loyalty is a one-way street with this Administration, and they're going to end up suffering as much as the rest of us?

According to Rove:

In a question-and-answer period after his speech, Rove was asked whose idea it was to start a pre-emptive war in Iraq.

``I think it was Osama bin Laden's,'' Rove replied.

He really gives Stanford a bad name.

There's a lot of pathetic sick people out there.

After showing a government issued photo ID – his green card – and a driver's license to prove his Virginia residency, Cho Seung-Hui charged $571 on a credit card and walked out of Roanoke Firearms with a new 9 mm Glock 19 and 50 rounds of ammunition.

"If we see a resident alien with a credit card, it's usually a good indication that they're a good upstanding citizen, not someone who would go on a shooting spree," Markell says.

Need a Glock?

There's too many people who immediately wanted to jump on the possibility that yesterday's murders at Virginia Tech could have been a conspiracy - and perhaps terrorism. The world is full of angry people, and unfortunately, too many of them are willing to commit violence. There's no conspiracy in that.

But, I have to admit, this incident suggests something out to me - how possible it is that one person - one previously relatively unknown person - could entice the United States to the brink of war. Just imagine if this shooter had been from the Middle East. Imagine further that the murderer had come from Iranian descent, with relatives still in Iran. The angry people of America would be out in force, deep in bloodlust. No proof of connection to Iran would be accepted by this crowd. Would Bush try to satiate their bloodlust?

More conservatives jump ship.

I think this is pretty astute analysis about the appearance of Gonzales on Tuesday by Jeffrey Toobin:

TOOBIN: Well, Gonzales has two things going for him on Tuesday. One is the Democrats on that committee are absolutely terrible at asking questions. They are incompetent questioners, as they illustrated during the Roberts and Alito hearings. They like to talk much more than they like to ask questions. So that's a big thing that Gonzales has going for him.

No shit. I am so sick of the speeches when serious questions are needing to be asked. I hope, in a way, that Toobin's point should be a spur to these Senators to get their shit together and ask the toughest of questions.

Gonzales promises to Republicans that there will be enough invented backstory to give his US Attorneys version plausibility with Republican partisans.

I have nevertheless asked the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to further investigate this matter. Working with the department's Office of Inspector General, these nonpartisan professionals will complete their own independent investigation so that Congress and the American people can be 100 percent assured of what I believe and what the investigation thus far has shown: that nothing improper occurred.

Why did Republicans elect such a stooge...

Turkey's army chief said Thursday the military had launched several "large scale" offensives against rebels in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, and he asked the government for approval to launch an incursion into neighboring northern Iraq.

Washington repeatedly has cautioned Turkey against staging a cross-border offensive, fearing that it could destabilize the region and antagonize Iraqi Kurds, who are allied with the U.S.

But Iraq's government is barely able to control its own cities. U.S. commanders, who are battling the Iraqi insurgency in the middle of the country, are stretched too thin to take on Turkish Kurds hiding in remote mountains near the frontier.

On Monday, the Turkish government demanded again that U.S. and Iraqi officials crack down on guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

"An operation into Iraq is necessary," said Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, the head of Turkey's powerful military. "The PKK has huge freedom of movement in Iraq ... It has spread its roots in Iraq."

Buyukanit said the military already was moving against separatists in the southeast.

Iraq's Parliament building bombed.

Iraq really, really, really needed us to have a different President, one that could think and plan and consider repercussions, one that would set policy after considering all the options instead of trying to create backstory after setting policy. They desperately needed us to change leadership directions in 2004. We failed them, and by we, I mean all the Americans that imcomprehensibly voted for Bush. Well, actually it was comprehensible, it just wasn't very responsible or intelligent or useful or grown-up.

Oh, and those people failed the rest of the world, and the rest of America, as well. And if they're not sorry and ashamed for doing it by now, then I suspect they'll never be. These are not the people that should run our government. They are not the people who should be in news media. They are the people that in the future should be ignored and avoided under almost any circumstance. They cannot govern, this much is clear. None of them deserve another chance. They are failures, and they are committed to continuing failure, and building backstories in an attempt to legitimize their failures. Stop them.

They go on sale Thursday. About time...

I've been wondering about something - why isn't Joe Lieberman running for the Democratic Party nomination for President? We all know his history - ran as VP candidate in '00, ran for President in '04 and failed pretty miserably, but still, what is keeping him from running now? From all of his accounts, he believes that the Democratic Party is poorly divided on the Iraq and WOT questions, and running for President would be his chance to lead. Sure, he wouldn't have a chance to win the election, but that's not necessarily what leadership is all about, and he would still have his cushy Senate job waiting for him when he finished running, if his philosophy towards that in 2000 and 2004 is any indicator.

To be clear, I wouldn't vote for Joe Lieberman. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have anything to offer to the debate.

Has anyone asked Joe Lieberman why he isn't running? I wonder if he recognizes that he's so reviled by so many Democrats that at this point, he must lay low and away from anything he actually wishes to support. Would a Joe Lieberman candidacy create MORE or LESS support for the Iraq War? Would it create MORE or LESS support for the way Bush has waged the War on Terror?

Why isn't Joe running?

There's no good reason to run ANY political debates on Fox's propaganda network.

Are your public schools closed today for Good Friday?

If so, why? At this point in time, how many families and children are involved in observing this day in a way that prevents them from going to school? I guess I'm not quite sure of the reasoning as to why government takes today off. As a society, we clearly don't expect the private sector to take today off. So what's the reasoning for the public sector?

From the Palladium-Item:

t's no secret that U.S. Rep. Mike Pence is solidly behind the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

On the floor of the House and in visits back home with Hoosier constituents, the Republican 6th District representative makes no bones about his position that the war in Iraq is the proper and correct course for the U.S. He's a straight shooter, if you will, and speaks with great conviction.

But last weekend, during a visit to Iraq and its capital city of Baghdad with three of his congressional Republican colleagues, his comments left a lot of folks shaking their heads.

Joining Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Rep. Rick Renzi on a walk-through of a Baghdad marketplace, Pence declared that the experience reminded him of "a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."

It seemed to many back home in Indiana — and to some of the merchants in the Baghdad neighborhood Pence visited — an incredibly inappropriate comment.

Consider that during the tour Pence and the other lawmaker s wore bulletproof vests and were accompanied by 100 American troops and armored Humvees as Blackhawk and Apache helicopters kept watch overhead.

Doesn't sound much to us like a summertime Hoosier market.

Maybe this sounds more like a summertime Hoosier market:

21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.

State of the Day and The Anonymous Liberal are also appalled by all of this.

Wouldn't surprise me. Shouldn't surprise McCain, either.

A newborn baby was one of at least 14 children and adults killed when a suicide bomber detonated a lorry laden with explosives close to a primary school in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday.

The latest massacre of Iraqi children came as 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.