Speaking of truthiness . . .

The Guardian's Michael Tomasky is getting really frustrated trying to be fair and balanced about those nasty Republicans. But seriously, it is hard to find fault with what he says. And it is impossible to fight a clean and principled election against people who make lying both a virtue and an art form. Check his points against the Truth-o-meter and see what he means.

Hola, Daniel (y Rosario)

Hasta La Vista, Baby to Donald. I find it a delicious irony that ex-Commandante Daniel Ortega, with wife Rosario Murillo as the power behind the throne, wins the presidential election in Nicaragua and the next day his old nemesis Donald Rumsfeld is forced to resign in disgrace. Nicaragua is desperately poor, with most of the population in extreme poverty. And this is all down to Rummy and his Cold Warrior chums crushing the life out of the country with years of low-level warfare and economic blockade after the Sandinistas first came to power.
There are a lot of little ironies in Nicaragua's political scene. Like Ortega's running mate, who is an ex-Contra and whose house was commandeered by Ortega years ago. (As a gesture of reconciliation, however, Ortega has since paid him compensation, but he kept the house.) Other excellent news from the US elections. Democrats now control the House. Other details to follow . . .

Bye, bye, Scott McClellan

Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons

There is a brilliant commentary article by Richard Drayton in today's Guardian.

This is not the country that I once knew

Former US President Jimmy Carter's article in last week's Observer is a strong and unequivocal condemnation of the current administration's abrogation of international treaties and agreements, and the inevitable forteiture of international respect and credibility that follows. And, as a man of faith (a faith far more demonstrable and sincere than that of Mr. "God-told-me-to-attack-Iraq" Bush), Carter also deplores the increasing militarism and fundamentalism of American Christianity. A must-read article.

Before the deluge

Could we be seeing the beginning of the end for the Bush administration? Could there be a premature departure in deepest shame, a la Nixon? We can but hope. It feels like the tipping point is just around the corner, and the feverish comment on the ins and outs is very alluring.
DH asked: what the heck kind of a name is "Scooter" for a grown man? "Frat boy," I answered.

Iraq to US: Where is our money?

George Monbiot, in Fraud and Corruption, delivers a scathing indictment of the Bush administration's fast-and-loose policy with money, in this case other people's money. (I would add, in this case, the money of a people they cynically subjugated under the flimsy guise of saving them from a worse dictator.) Most of this I pretty much either knew or suspected, but to see it all gathered together, carefully documented and laid out in one place is a sickening experience.

Seymour Hersh: "We have been taken over by a cult"

I got this from Pete (WWW of Fat Buddha). Seymour Hersh's article in Counterpunch, We've Been Taken Over By a Cult, is a transcript of a rambling, jittery and yet totally sincere speech he gave at a synagogue in New York. It is pretty chilling reading, as he harkens back to My Lai, fast-forwards to Abu Ghraib, and speculates on the amount of damage the President's cult can do to the US in the next four years.

Steve Bell

I am just sad that I am too old to offer to bear Steve Bell's children. This man is an effing genius.

Send in the clones

The above is from a real Bush-Cheney '04 advert. (Except without the circles and arrows, in case you don't see the obvious cloning.) Read all about it at Daily Kos, mostly.

"Furious George"

In a welter of shameless name-dropping, Deborama wants to thank Pete of the Whole Wide World of Fat Buddha for linking to Markos of the Daily Kos, who is now writing a column in Guardian Unlimited. This one is titled "The Madness of George" and it is pretty good news for those who have long suspected that there was something a bit undisciplined, unpredictable and well, frankly un-presidential about the Shrub, now to be known as the Burning Bush.

George Soros enters the fray . . .

GeorgeSoros.com is a new site with an associated blog which is dedicated to the proposition that "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests and undermining American values". The WaPo says: "Soros is a figure whom Republicans should extol -- arguably the world's most effective capitalist anti-communist. He made his money the old-fashioned way, on Wall Street." And the LA Times Book Review says of his book The Bubble of American Supremacy: "Soros' intensely polemical but also succinct and well-reasoned book ought to provide a welcome template for how the candidates might begin to think their way through to a more coherent view of America's place in the world." And Booklist's reviewer says (briefly and to the point): "This may be the one anti-Bush book that reaches an audience beyond the Democratic amen corner."

Why Bush Left Texas

Finally someone (and I'm not surprised it's someone at The Nation) is doing some serious journalism about the AWOL issue.

The Onion | Coalition: Vast Majority Of Iraqis Still Alive

This story at The Onion has a definite "glass is more than half full" kind of slant. "According to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, of the approximately 24 million Iraqis who were not killed, nearly all are not in a military prison. Bremer said "a good number" of those Iraqis who are in jail have been charged with a crime, and most of them have enjoyed a prison stay free of guard-dog attacks, low-watt electrocutions, and sexual humiliation."

On the Home Front

In some ways, this is the most frightening of all the stories in the grim saga of America's War on Terra - er - Terror. At Rio Rancho High School in New Mexico, the prinicipal commits an egregious violation of the First Amendment rights of the whole student body. It all started with an extracurricular club of students learning to perform in "poetry slams" and the very successful reading by one girl student of a poem critical of Bush administration war policies and education policies. The principal of the school and its military liaison then went on a massive witch-hunt, firing the teacher advising the poetry group, banning all teaching and reading of poetry in the school, tearing down posters and art-work they deemed "un-American" and subjecting the students to patriotic assemblies where they were told to "shut their faces" if they disagreed with the prinicipal's politics. The mother of the offending student poet, also a teacher, was ordered to destroy her daughter's work, which she refused to do, also being threatened with dismissal. (Note: I have been meaning to post this for a few days and forgot. Thanks to my non-blogging friend James who sent it to me in an e-mail and prodded my memory.)

Nous sommes desoles . .

que notre president soit un idiot. Nous n'avons pas vote pour lui. Yahoo! News has a story about a laundry label with political panache. Very amusing; might come in handy for a trip to Quebec.

Tom Hayden tells it

A very powerful article by Tom Hayden in the Nation, concerning the myths of the Vietnam War and why now is the time to examine them and refute them.
"If I were George W. Bush, I would be terrorized by the eyes of those scruffy-looking veterans, the so-called band of brothers, volunteering for duty with the Kerry campaign. They look like men with scores to settle, with a palpable intolerance toward the types who sent them to war for a lie, then ignored their Agent Orange illness, cut their GI benefits, treated them like losers and still haven't explained what that war was about. They know Jane Fonda is a diversion from a larger battlefield. They are the sort who will keep a cerebral United States senator grounded, who have finally figured out who their real enemies are and who are determined that this generation hear their story anew. They are gearing up for one last battle. Chickenhawks better duck."
Thanks once again to non-blogging friend Joani for this link.

US now in the hands of a group of extremists - Soros

In a follow-on from another article I posted about (the Bubble of American Supremacy), George Soros, writing in the Guardian, charges that a small group of extremists has control of the US government. The crux of his charge is this:

The US can lose its dominance only as a result of its own mistakes. At present the country is in the process of committing such mistakes because it is in the hands of a group of extremists whose strong sense of mission is matched only by their false sense of certitude.
This distorted view postulates that because we are stronger than others, we must know better and we must have right on our side. That is where religious fundamentalism comes together with market fundamentalism to form the ideology of American supremacy.

The truth about "No Child Left Behind"

Greg Palast was fired up at G W Bush's mention of the "no child left behind" pledge in his State of the Union address to write this scathing editorial.

You know and I know the testing is a con. There is no "better option" at the other end. The cash went to eliminate the inheritance tax, that special program to give every millionaire's son another million.
You know and I know that this is not an educational opportunity program - because you offer no opportunities, no hope, no plan, no funding. Rather, it is the new Republican social Darwinism, educational eugenics: identify the nation's loser-class early on. Trap them, then train them cheap.
No Child Left Behind is of one piece with the tax cuts for the rich, the energy laws for the insiders, the oil wars for the well-off. Someone has to care for the privileged. No society can have winners without lots and lots of losers.

Thanks to my non-blogging friend Joani for e-mailing this link.

Overrun in Atlanta, by Joel of Pax Nortona

I know! I know! I'm behind in my blogging. I knew (some) about the events in Atlanta on the 15th, but I didn't post anything then. And then I didn't even read blogs yesterday. So today I readPax Nortona's excellent post about it. It's a great image - Bush running scared from a small angry crowd, despite all his overwhelming protection, and then to cap it all - an all white Dixiecrat fundraiser in Atlanta. How does this guy get away with it?