Rocketboom.com video depicts evangelicals and their opinions.

The first two persons speaking, mind you, are ORDAINED, Evangelical ministers.

I usta remember when a paster was kind of expected to have some of that book larnin' that's jus' too dangerous for people like the Huckabees and the Jukes back up in the holler.

Well, 'cept for those things about not screwin' livestock. Lessn' the only other choice was your sister, 'cause, well, cain't hunt squirrels if'n you go blind.

Lots of people are saying it's unfair to pick on folks from Tennissee for such obvious stupidity. Indeed, I grew up with the same sorts in Washington State. They talk just the same (slightly different accent, same casual disregard for grammar and fact) and the wronger they were, the more sure they were right, because, the Good Book Said So.

You'd probably be unsurprised to find out that if you actually looked it up in the good book, and you could even find something vaguely like what they were referring to, it said something completely different. Funny to realize that the Catholics didn't want to give up Latin because then the People would know what the Good Book said. I imagine this sort of counter example is the sort of thing Jesuits use to torment Dominicans with.

But really and for true - these are the exact thirty percent that put Bush into cheating distance of the Presidency. These are the same thirty percent that try and shut down anyone trying to commit any act of decency or common sense in our nation. And they are just as fanatically stupid as they sound.

We have to start taking them seriously - as a serious threat. NOT as people who's faith and opinions deserve respect, (for they are, as they are more than happy to point out to you, one and the same) but as potential terrorists and of course, fomenters and cheerleaders for being terrified and using terror and torture in order to inflict "God's wrath" on unbelievers.

It is, I suppose, an ironic but fortunate truth that a disproportionate share of their offspring will be paying for the sins of their fathers. But then, seven generations ago, they were as well.

At Cemetary Ridge.

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Bush must be ON drugs to appoint this Drug Warrier...

AlterNet: Drug Warrior's Shadow Looms Over California's Pot Clubs:

The appointment has many in California's medical-marijuana community wondering if Russoniello would intensify the crackdown on the state's cannabis clinics. As federal prosecutor for the Northern District from 1982 to 1990, he was a cofounder of the CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) program, an annual series of paramilitary federal-state raids on pot farmers and their neighbors. He also accompanied Nancy Reagan to the Oakland elementary school where she first intoned her anti-drug mantra, "Just say no," in 1984.

Russoniello fitted in well with the Reagan administration's crime policies, which switched enforcement priorities from white-collar crime to drug offenses. (In fact, Rudolph Giuliani, then the third-ranking Justice Department official, interviewed him for the job.) The Reagan "war on drugs" whacked marijuana farmers and small-time black crack dealers with five-year mandatory minimums and intensified forfeiture laws so that someone caught copping $50 worth of dope could have their car confiscated. In a 1994 interview with Smoke and Mirrors author Dan Baum, Russoniello recalled that he was happy that the department was going to get tough on drug users as well as on dealers; that he believed drug treatment was a government-sponsored crutch, that methadone maintenance merely prolonged addicts' dependence; and that the widespread pot farming in Northern California was like "an open wound on our prayer hand."

Oh, well that sure as hell flushes California's electoral votes down the toilet for any Republican OTHER than Ron Paul. And probably Oregon, Washington and maybe more than half of Nevada.

All these years and I am still being amazed by Bush's amazing political tone-deafness.

Or doesn't he realize just how much small grower "pot money" is going to go to Democrats, statewide, at all levels?

Only One Interesting Question Remains

clipped from harpers.org This resurrects the process of official cruelty under the Stuart monarchs in seventeenth century England. Persons accused of state crimes very frequently were interrogated with the use of specific techniques, including the rack, the thumbscrew, and waterboarding. King James I personally described the process in The Kings Booke (1606). He would, on the advice of his officers, “approve no new torture,” but he would certainly avail himself of the existing practices. In ascending order of severity they were: thumbscrews, the rack and waterboarding. That’s right. Waterboarding was considered the most severe of the official forms of torture. Worse than the rack and thumbscrews. King James I of England, portrait by Daniel Mytens (1621). He believed in waterboarding… and the Divine Right of Kings… funny how that runs together. In the depraved humor of Dick Cheney, of course, it’s just bobbing for apples at a Halloween Fair.

The Harper's article lays down background Clipmarks didn't have room for:

..this week, a CIA agent, John Kiriakou, appeared, first on ABC News and then in an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, and explained just how the system works. When we want to torture someone (and it is torture he said, no one involved with these techniques would ever think anything different), we have to write it up. The team leader of the torture team proposes what torture techniques will be used and when. He sends it to the Deputy Chief of Operations at the CIA. And there it is reviewed by the hierarchy of the Company. Then the proposal is passed to the Justice Department to be reviewed, blessed, and it is passed to the National Security Council in the White House, to be reviewed and approved. The NSC is chaired, of course, by George W. Bush, whose personal authority is invoked for each and every instance of torture authorized. And, according to Kiriakou as well as others, Bush’s answer is never “no.” He has never found a case where he didn’t find torture was appropriate. Here’s a key piece of the Kiriakou statement:

LAUER: Was the White House involved in that decision?

KIRIAKOU: Absolutely, this isn’t something done willy nilly. It’s not something that an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he’s going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner. This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department.

He then goes into the process in considerable detail. Watch the video here.

So let us just recap what we know:

1. We know that Waterboarding is not only torture, it's really, really severe torture.
2. We know that Torture is a crime under various international laws as well as and under our own, seeing that treaties we are signatory to have the force of law.
3. We know that George Bush knowingly and personally approved every single instance of torture, according to this testimony.

So only one question of interest remains:

Was he actually masturbating during NSC sessions regarding torture, or did he wait until he got back to the Oval Office?

In the Valley of Elah

I just sent this off to the publicity people for a new film, opening in theaters now, as they say.

I don't usually do film reviews on graphictruth.com, and I am not wanting to be on your list of "usual suspects," though I'm interested in UNusual films.

The hook for me was that my state senator and majority leader, Harry Reid, handed off a copy to John Kerry - who watched it and sent out a notice to his entire mailing list.

Graphictruth.com is pretty much about what it sounds like, and it sounds like this is a very graphic truth indeed.

For me, the fact that the ball started rolling on this in 2003 is to me the most interesting part of this story. It takes that long for the consequences of some acts to materialize, sometimes even longer.

This seems to be all about unintended, unimagined and unimaginable consequences.

I really, really do not want to see this film. I expect it will give me nightmares.

Can you please send me a review copy?

Regards;

Bob King
Graphictruth.com

I can count the number of times I've done something like this on my thumbs. And I'm doing it knowing that it is going to have a certain message, it is going to portray a certain reality that will be unpalatable to those who think that the War in Iraq and the War on Terror are inseparable.But in fact, when you go to war - every time, and for whatever reason, you must pay the Butcher's Bill - and the horrifying truth is that each and every soldier who faces combat is affected forever. This paragraph comes from John Kerry's letter.

The former top operating officer at the Pentagon, a Marine Lieutenant General, once said of Iraq that "the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions --or bury the results."

I've never seriously considered myself to be anti-war. It strikes me rather like being anti-hurricane.

It really doesn't matter to the hurricane whether you are philosophically opposed to it's existence or not. One can prepare for it, one can avoid being in it or choose to endure it, one must respond to it intelligently and clean up the mess so that life can return to normal. These are common sense observations, and wars come upon us for many reasons, many of which are no more under our control than the weather.

I am pro-peace - and to me, the best way to ensure peace and the best way to return to a state of peace subsequent to war is to have a very efficient and powerful response to aggression, and as realistic an appreciation as possible as to the costs of war upon the people asked to fight it and those who must stay at home. Above all, don't stupidly create conditions that may provoke a war.

There is a huge, indefinable, but real price that must be paid over the generations for every act of war, for ever war that starts due to foolishness, misadventure, miscalculation, aggression, need, greed, the hunger for power or the desire for "living room."

Thousands of years ago, Sun Tsu considered all these things in his "Art of War," a book George W. Bush has clearly never read, or at least comprehended. Source: Shonshi.com; Links indicated with question marks lead to related discussion threads:

If one gains victory in battle and is successful in attacks, but does not exploit those achievements, it is disastrous.

This is called waste and delay. ?

Therefore, I say the wise general thinks about it, and the good general executes it. ?

If it is not advantageous, do not move;

if there is no gain, do not use troops;

if there is no danger, do not do battle. ?

The ruler may not move his army out of anger; the general may not do battle out of wrath. ?
If it is advantageous, move;

if it is not advantageous, stop. ?

Those angry will be happy again, and those wrathful will be cheerful again, but a destroyed nation cannot exist again, the dead cannot be brought back to life. ?

Therefore, the enlightened ruler is prudent, the good general is cautious.

This is the Way of securing the nation, and preserving the army. ?

And I could not resist adding this further citation from the very first page:

Before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will win, because many calculations were made;

before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will not win, because few calculations were made; ?

Many calculations, victory, few calculations, no victory, then how much less so when no calculations?

By means of these, I can observe them, beholding victory or defeat! ?

It seems that in this case, foresight was 20/20.

Technorati : 2003, 2008, George W. Bush, Harry Reid, In the Valley of Elah, Iran, Iraq War, John Kerry, Sun Tsu, The Art of War, anti-war, peace, strategy

To the Boys and Girls at No Such Agency.

Call this an exercise in free-enterprise intelligence analysis and a strong advisory that in tapping our phones, you might just be distracted from far more significant indicators of what's going on domestically.

I am concerned - as everyone else should be - as to what displays like this do for public respect for the rule of law. It's certainly eroding mine, and making me consider applying for a concealed carry permit so that I may ensure my own safety without involving such people. When a person as risk-averse as myself starts seeing a pistol and a lime pit as being potentially a safer response to aggression than a call to 911, it represents a serious erosion of everything that the word "civilization" represents.

While the possibly racist and certainly political nature of this incident is well worth screaming about, such incidents transcend the importance of those two considerations, because there is one factor that is more important than race or politics.

The day "authorities" assume the right to pick and choose which citizens (even David Duke) may attend on any basis other than fire regulations - it's time to set a match to the place and build anew. If you think that's an Unamerican and unpatriotic thing to say, or even think, I refer you to the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence.

Our Revolutionary war and our Civil War both started with what, in my opinion, were far fewer sins of less significance than we have endured under George Bush's misrule. Our self-appointed Masters, our self-styled earls and would-be Counts should thank God and Al Gore that the Internet has for this time proven a more attractive battleground than the fields and valleys that still reek of the blood of Patriot dead. And the forces of reason are winning, the voices supporting the president have steadily diminished until there remain only those that any rational and reasonable administration would be embarrassed to associate with; the Dead-Enders like Coulter, Malkin and O'Rielly - those incapable of uttering a single paragraph without saying something that is either racist, illiterate, breathtakingly stupid or an obvious lie. Often it's all of the above.

Bush is the dog. These are the fleas. Any questions?

But should they be of the cynical opinion that the Internet provides an outlet with no real impact, one they can shut down any time they like - I should advise them that given current technology, the best they could expect to do is choke down the bandwidth - and essentially create a huge, Pearl-Harbor level event to motivate people to switch to more active demonstrations of non-compliance. Amazing how it's progressed from geeky obsession to critical infrastructure in ten years; all, apparently with the implications eluding those who are too self-important to sully themselves by exploring it themselves. Considering it's incredible importance of these here "tubes," it's kind of insulting to have a leadership so technically impaired and intellectually challenged that they cannot grasp the implications.

You can't shut it down. There would be an instantaneous financial panic.

But the fact that SAC was unable to maintain operational security on an attempted clandestine transfer of six nuclear cruise missiles should have been a clue as to the danger it presents to the ambitions of the powerful. The fact that hundreds, if not thousands of former military persons with appropriate knowledge have unhesitatingly shredded every single lame and implausible "explanation" for this incident should be another clue.

And one reason for our seething discontent with our leadership is that they have not bothered to demonstrate any great competence for or even great interest in the the posts of power they hold. Why should we even consider permitting your ambition? Those who lust after the power of kings should be at least capable of wiping their own assess without needing instructions printed on each sheet of toilet paper. And I most especially include politicians of all stripes and sexes noted more for their ambition than their principles. Yes, Ms. Clinton, that does include you.

Right on top of the pile.

It concerns me that your outrage at the transgressions against the American People, our rights and our liberties are so very muted, it seems to me that such powers tempt you unduly. And I give you the credit of being smart enough to be really dangerous.

Yes, we need to talk about health care. But it seems to me that when there's a sitting lame-duck president who is clearly seeking a pretext to nuke a sovereign nation in order to create a "national emergency" that will facilitate whatever increasingly delusional plans exist in his addled brain, it's not the first priority.

I'm going to vote for whoever understands this. And if I don't get the chance to vote, a conspiracy theorist paranoia which seems to have evolved into a very credible suspicion, I will stand up and march alongside anyone with the courage to say "enough!"

I've never taken any precautions regarding having my communications monitored by the government, so I'm sure there is a file somewhere. The only thing I ask is that someone read it, and consider that I - and likely everyone else in same bin I'm in - are saying the same things, have been saying it for some time, and have been expressing increasing frustration and impatience. And as a whole, we have been willing to give endless benefit of the doubt, we have been enormously patient with you, oh, our arrogant masters, and have been rewarded with responses that would make a mildly retarded five-year old feel patronized.

The latest form letter from my Republican Senator, John Ensign, in response to my expressed concerns about illegal detentions, secret trials and erosions of the constitution has convinced me that self-importance and ideology can produce all the same symptoms of congenital retardation. Clearly, he's a 15 watt bulb in a 200 watt socket, barely capable of breathing and holding up his own hair.

As far as I'm concerned, he is the best single argument against the neocon ideology and it's culture of intellectual, social and moral corruption - he appears to genuinely believe and support it's every jot and tittle. Even now. He's THAT stupid.

And apparently, - at least according to his correspondence with me, that is how intelligent he thinks I am.

We all know the intelligence infrastructure is monitoring the Internet, our telephones and indeed all forms of private communications between citizens in defiance of custom, law and constitution. We know this in part because our Dear Leader, he who is propped up by the Assets of Evil, has bragged about it. Publicly. To reassure us that we are safe in his hands from the forces of Terror.

I, for one, am convinced that he would not recognize a real terrorist plot if arrived on his desk wrapped in flayed human skin powdered in anthrax with a video recording of Osama Bin Ladin chanting "this is a terrorist plot."

Dear goddess in heaven, can't you revoke his security clearance or something? But we know you are at least trying to monitor our private communications and our public blog postings. Just in case we are harboring terrorists in Hoboken or Eureka. So, presumably, at least one poor underpaid G4 knows what the rumblings in these here "internets" reveal and has dutifully forwarded it to those who need to know.

How can it be that such critical intelligence can so clearly be dismissed as unimportant; irrelevant to the clear and clearly stupid goals this administration and it's supporters cling to like some unwashed, urine soaked blankie?

Please try again. Use smaller words. Perhaps a big red felt marker would help. Jump up and down if you have to. Supply diagrams.

I'm not hooked into the intelligence community - but with an Internet connection and a three digit IQ, I'm prepared to draw some of my own conclusions, based on access to information and correlative resources Allan Dullies would have cheerfully sacrificed his left testicle to have. I wonder if it's dawned on anyone at CIA, DIA or NSA that millions of people analyzing and sharing publicly available information is a resource that likely trumps anything Carnivore or the NSA eavesdropping can reveal?

There simply are not enough warm bodies with the right security clearances and qualifications for it to shake out any other way. It hasn't helped that gays, liberals, and apparently anyone who speaks Farsi or Arabic is considered a security risk.

You may well be concerned at the resources broadband Internet puts in the hands of rogue and third world states, as well you should be. And I'd be surprised if you were not concerned about the reliability (and motivations) of sources in the EU, Israel and the Middle East.

But you should be even more concerned about what this means in the hands of an increasingly impatient citizenry who are easily able to act on the maxim "Trust, but Verify." I'm sorry, "trust us, we know what we are doing" is no longer a credible response. It's a punchline, as hilarious as President whastisbeard saying "we have no homosexuals in Iran."

So far, and I state this regretfully, that the last seven years have demonstrated either a complete failure on the part of various intelligence agencies to gather useful, actionable and relevant information, the inability to analyze it, or the complete failure to communicate it's implications to people making decisions. What we see expressed in every decision, policy and appointment is a complete ignorance of or a stunningly foolish indifference to consequence.

And I state this without any need to assume "realpoltik" motivations, hidden agendas, or the need to placate the American people with reasons for actions they find palatable.

Even in the most cynical light, taking the word of the "Project for a New American Century" and accepting the idea that it's proper to act with frank and deliberate intent to dominate the world and impose a Pax Americana, this administration's actions have made that vision laughably absurd. We are LESS of a world power now than we were when George Bush took office, with LESS military might, LESS ability to apply economic pressure, LESS influence by any measure - and we are trembling on the brink of irrelevance - of becoming not merely a second-rank power, but a scattered assortment of balkanized, competing states.

Such a consummation is devoutly wished by many - many of them being our supposed allies. Should there be any degree of civil unrest, much less outright civil war, those leading it will find no lack of financial and military support.

And if you can't meaningfully interdict the drug trade - I don't think you are gonna do any better stopping the flow of supplies to any determined insurgency. Our borders make those of Iraq look like the Berlin wall. And we are all painfully aware of how successful we have been in our efforts against determined insurgencies. I think it rather likely that insurgent citizens can do rather better than Iraqis, or even the North Vietnamese Army. After all, while they did have General Giap - an admitted military genius - Bush has fired every military leader that has shown any evidence of understanding the military realities well enough to object to his ambitions - so there will be no "leadership gap."

So the only way for this administration to "win" a civil war is to not declare one. I mention that aloud as it's one obvious possibility, considering all the many and various preparations George has made, against that day.

Why George's manifest and compounded stupidities seem to lead toward some fulfillment of Armageddon matters little. The final battle for world domination is an inherently BAD thing - EVEN IF Jesus comes in glory to save the shell-shocked remnant of the Just. However, I doubt that would occur. The bible is pretty clear that if you think you know the hour and the day, you are wrong. I'm pretty sure He would consider it presumptuous for some world leader to force His hand.

And I think it would be amazing, frankly, if there are many, if any world leaders willing to permit it. If anything, they are tacitly, if not actively conspiring to allow us to destroy ourselves, rather than take more active countermeasures. However, if there are not British, French, Russian and Chinese missiles allocated for every single aircraft carrier and strategic asset - including the Dark Cube With No Address - I would be absolutely flabbergasted.

But have great faith in Bush's ability to fail, even without help. What I do care about is that presumably smarter and saner people continue to permit him to live in the White House, instead of a secure basement suite in Bethesda - along with Dick Cheney, a man with equally obvious and severe mental disqualifications for office.

At some point, you have to decide whether or not you signed on for such a thorough professional cornholing, and consider what price you are paying to continue excusing behaviors you would not tolerate from your toddlers.

An Intelligence Brief for the First Amendment Militia.

I came very close in my youth to being scooped up by Navy Intelligence - as a recruit, not a suspect.

I have the sort of mind thatlends itself to the detachment and educated paranoia required to be a good intelligence analyst and I was heavily courted based, I suspect, on test results that really should have been confidential. Ah, but it was the Cold war, don't you know. Even the dismal results of my physical during my ASVAB panel didn't discourage them. After all, it was highly unlikely I'd get any exercise at all, much less risk combat after boot camp, and they were very willing to promise that my physical limitations would be taken into account. However, the coin flip came down against them - otherwise, I'd probably have had quite a different life.

I have never had any difficulty raising my right hand with my left on my own integrity and swearing to "protect and defend the constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic," but even then, I had some hints that it might not be possible to honor that oath AND honorably serve in a military capacity.

Remember, this was just before the final whimper of the Vietnam war and at the height of the Cold War, back when actual professionally qualified paranoids were taking National Security very damn seriously indeed, on both sides. And if a civil liberty or the odd civilian got caught in the gears, very well and oh, too bad.

At the time, I didn't have the intellectual basis to tell you why that was all wrong and an entirely futile and pointless exercise - but somehow, I knew that The Greatest Game was not for me.

But I never stopped thinking in the way that made me potentially valuable, and indeed, what I do now is not dissimilar to what a CIA analyst does, or a Wall Street analyst, for that matter. It's all about putting together disparate shreds, hints, trends and fragments of apparently unrelated information from obscure sources to develop a crude picture that, while imperfect, is ideally better than nothing.

And that is what this paper is; a deeply incomplete and inherently unreliable picture which I hope will yet be better than nothing, erring on the side of prudent paranoia.

There's more...

The Internet is an outright stampede of information, giving me access to information no government - much less a would-be totalitarian government - is comfortable having widely known. Indeed, there's been no need to access any information that's particularly obscure or even from fringe sources. It's all out there, you simply have to integrate it through the lens of a nasty, suspicious, cynical and un-trusting mind.

I have no government or even media contacts worth the name. Indeed, I have very few contacts. Come to think of it, outside of family... damn few.

All of this comes from the stream across my screen - which means that my conclusions are potentially verifiable by anyone with Internet access.

So consider the following to be the product of an untrained but suitably paranoid intelligence para-professional, who has been tracking the domestic and foreign affairs situation since 2001 - when 9/11 concentrated my attention.

I have two immediate concerns: First, distinct hints and rumors that the Bush Administration is considering the idea of generating a pretext to declare martial law and suspend elections. The pretext is concern one, for it's certain to involve mass casualties exceeding 9/11, but the second, martial law, is my most serious worry. Not because I think that the Bush Administration can successfully impose martial law and a subsequent totalitarian state. It's because I fear they believe they can succeed. Whatever the outcome, that presumption promises mass casualties equaling or exceeding the First Civil War.

Chertoff has spread broad hints about his "gut feelings," about the likelihood of a bi coastal terrorist attack, presumably to test the depths of our remaining credulity, and that is only one such hint.

I don't know what his sources have told him, but mine suggest that to be a very bad plan. Skepticism about 9/11 itself has grown deeper and broader with every release of information and piece of evidence that indicates a complete lack of official interest in who was responsible and how it was accomplished.

The lack of any sensible, much less humane or responsible action in response to the information the general public KNOWS the administration must be aware of makes me grimly unwilling to presume anything that remains unknown to reflect well upon George Bush.

There is a high probability that a number of radicalized activists would assume it to be a false-flag operation and a much larger population would consider it to be a distinct possibility. Should there be a national response of the imposition of martial law in response to widely separate terrorist attacks, many would feel justified in operating under just that assumption. Some might take immediate action - but the true threat to the Administration are those who quietly fall off the grid, or worse yet, remain in place.

Bluntly, this administration has squandered it's credibility to the extent that if they say the sky is NOT falling, there will be a run on umbrellas.

If the immediate response to an apparent terrorist attack was to declare martial law, disarm the population along with local law enforcement while rounding up Muslims, liberals and intellectuals for indefinite detention, I think there would be the great likelihood of an immediate outbreak of fairly well-organized resistance, seemingly from nowhere.

The Department of Homeland Security places great store in analyzing Internet chatter. So do I. To give one example, I was rather surprised to learn that there are more than 35000 results for Ghillie suits. That's "sniper camouflage" for the uninitiated. Of course, most recommend them for paintball games, even when selling military surplus or providing instructions on how to make your own.

But how else would you train an effective small infantry unit these days in a cost effective and secure manner?

Paintball, Lazer Tag and war gaming of all kinds, online and off.

So that one piece of data is an indication of an already organized and trained potential resistance, one that has very possibly evaded the serious attention of intelligence agencies.

But as tempting as it is to dismiss and disparage the current occupants of the White House as blind, ideological fools, I do not believe they are so foolish as to have not foreseen resistance as a certain outcome. Indeed, with all the talk in the MSM about Al-Queda setting up cells in the US, I would guess that any such resistance would be welcome and immediately attributed to Al-Queda.

Further, I think they may well be anticipating that response and planning on using initially isolated acts of resistance to clamp down with an iron fist, to confiscate all weapons from civilians - in order to keep them out of the hands of terrorists, of course - and generally impose a rule of fear enforced with systemic brutality, trusting that civilian inertia, compounded with outright terror will allow the minority of reliable Bushistas in and out of traditional military to keep a lid on civilian unrest.

I would argue that such a gamble might have worked two or three years ago, but with the administration so obviously on the run and so very dependent on their ability to delay legal sanctions against them, I doubt the majority of Americans will suspend disbelief in their favor. As a result, they cannot rely on civilian co-operation with martial law. It will quickly become clear that there will be a need to literally occupy many, if not most cities in the West, Northwest and Northeast, simply to secure strategic assets. It will be critical to maintain transport across the Midwest, so even certain cities that might be reluctant to resist martial law will find themselves under highly repressive federal control.

That is to say, under ideal circumstances, if you wished to preclude any organized uprising, that is what you would have to do. But, as with Iraq, the forces needed to do the job, and the forces available to do the job differ significantly in terms of numbers, equipment, preparedness, training and, indeed, in almost every other regard, with the most significant distinction being "reliability."

I've run the math, and even by withdrawing all armed forces from everywhere - including all National Guard troops and reserves- it would be by my calculations difficult to impossible to control either California or Texas in the face of a determined insurgency. I do not think that the employment of mercenaries would help for long - mercs like to be paid and dislike casualties. Furthermore, they would be paid in debt funded money under circumstances where the economic basis for the currency is in abatement - or out of scant gold reserves. Either way, it's not a long-term proposition.

I consider Iraq to be a much better template for something resembling "success" in controlling a large, unruly region, and frankly, I expect that "region" to include the United States as a whole. There might be more initial support within the highly religious Red States, at least outside of the urban areas - but it may be that Katrina has undermined that expectation to a significant degree, and the rural population is likely to be less controllable. In any case, the areas that will arguable present the greatest difficulty in terms of government control also represent the greatest concentrations of manufacturing capability and expertise. This geographic fact places absolute limits on how long such an effort can be sustained.

Now, let's consider the implications of the Secret Service's new Uniformed Division. I'm not sure whether to compare them to the SS, the Gestapo or the Praetorian Guard.

Let's say they have 2000 effectives. No, let's add a Fermi. 20000. Is that enough? I'm not sure it's enough to actually hold the Legislative district against determined opposition. It's certainly NOT enough to hold Washington DC as a whole, much less enough to act as a national police force.

But it's existence is pretty clear evidence that Bush doesn't trust the Capital Police, FBI or CIA, or the intelligence assets of the State Department to keep him safe and properly informed.

Blowback. It's a bitch.

I'm assuming that the capital would be abandoned as unsecurable, possibly even sacrificed, in a move that would dispense with any number of inconvenient legislators and civil servants. This leaves a number of alternate command and control facilities - but also communicates to the American people just how very terrified the Junta (for that is what it will be, at that point) is of them.

Now, remember what sorts of people did the vetting for the critical civilian personnel sent to Iraq? I bet they have done an equally good job vetting applicants for the SS Uniformed Division. I believe that because their political reliability will be of necessity an overriding concern, essential to any of the three likely intended missions. So they are not likely to be drawn from the best or the brightest - they will be drawn from the unimaginative and the reflexive authoritarians, people who automatically follow orders and go by the book with a touching belief in the effectiveness of overwhelming firepower.

Such were the men of the SS Panzer division that "took" the Warsaw Ghetto. Theirs was not to reason why, theirs was but to do or die. I believe more than ten percent did, with enough total casualties as to render the entire formation useless.

It's not difficult to imagine their performance being just about as good as FEMA's before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. But even if it were perfectly competent, with absolutely secure communication and years of tactical experience as a unit, it probably still would not matter.

At this stage of the game, building such a force with any expectation of it performing as well as existing units is a forlorn hope, and it's only the choice of those who have no other other choices. That should tell you something of the actual strength of the President's hand.

I'm fairly sure that the SSUD will not be greatly more effective than, say, a highway patrol division or a sheriff's department in a counter-insurgency role, although they should perform decently in terms of providing base security wherever the President and Vice President have gone to ground.

But I don't think that even those refuges will be as secure as, well, as secure as I would wish, were I in that position.

For example, I doubt that state and local law enforcement will be on the "side" of a federal military government, for one very good reason; local law enforcement officers will be "suspect number one," the very first to be disarmed and sent to detention camps or drafted into service in locations far distant from any unofficial contacts they might have.

I think it's safe to assume that from how the military handled Iraq's security forces, and I'm afraid it makes a great deal of operational sense in terms of who is in a position to organize and equip an effective resistance. Seeing as the various state Highway Patrols and Investigation agencies are as likely to be loyal to their governors as to the President, the same distrust and dispersal is likely to be expressed toward them. Likely such persons will either be imprisoned or drafted into service in some other state, and with the families of some held hostage in FEMA camps when that seems prudent.

In fact, if I were an LAPD officer, I'd be considering some personal fall back options right now, which might include clandestine arrangements with the Crips and or the Bloods. They, after all, will be high on the "round up and remove" lists too.

The Pirate Lafitte turned the tide for us in New Orleans, way back when. There is plenty of precedent for the support of freedom by Organized Crime - even when it's not actually in their long term interest. "Lucky" Luciano's support for the war effort was critical in WWII for instance.

Consider the sheer number of trained military leaders that have resigned their commissions or retired over the last several years. I don't consider it wise to presume that trained tactical and strategic minds have remained idle or stopped talking to one another.

Now, consider how excruciatingly vulnerable the military infrastructure is to sabotage, and how few military secrets will exist when people realize that their secrecy oaths no longer bind them.

So, the advantage federal forces have against the American people are not so great as might first appear, and indeed, they only really hold the upper hand so long as people are as yet unsure as to what lengths the Administration might go to remain in power and un-prosecuted.

Once there is an outright breach of the peace and United States armed forces are engaged in open warfare against the American people, any such advantage disappears. We - the civilian population - have overwhelming numerical superiority, superior local knowledge and a very startling amount of individual firepower. We will enjoy internal lines of communications by definition, will probably be able to enjoy at least rough parity in terms of intelligence and will have much better morale.

Meanwhile, individuals all over the US know how to brew fuel from - well, damn near anything that will ferment, or be pressed for oil, and they will generally prefer to operate on foot in any case.

So, bye-bye refineries and oil storage depots, and therefore goodbye to government mobility. You can presume that freeways and rail transport will be disrupted - they are obvious deathtraps for the armed forces.

BTW, ever wonder what a Barrett .50 semi-automatic rifle would do to an unarmed surveillance helicopter? Pretty much the same as it would do to an armored copter, if it had armor piercing ammo. There are a LOT of them in civilian hands, even at ten grand a pop, and even more less costly bolt-action .50 cal boy-toys. Any of them, in the hands of a competent marksman, can reach out and touch someone at ranges in excess of a mile.

Among other inconvenient facts, this means that local civilian forces can deny the use of a huge number of airports to the Government. One or two rounds though an engine on takeoff or landing, repeat as necessary. Our military relies very heavily on air superiority for success, and unlike in Iraq, I doubt very much their planners should take that luxury for granted.

Oh, would it cost ten grand to fabricate a knock-off of a Barrett in a basement machine shop? Not hardly. I can get precise plans for the equally useful Ma Deuce and BAR off the Internet. Despite the slick sales brochures from the manufacturers of fancy air defense missile systems, a quad .50 is a damn respectable deterrent to anything with wings.

Remember, an insurgency doesn't have to contest air superiority - they just need to make maintaining it expensive. That task is relatively cheap.

"But it's ILLEGAL for civilians to own armor piercing ammo and fully automatic weapons" you gasp incredulously!

Yeah. Illegal - and damned easy to fabricate, in quite a few calibers. As well as explosive ammunition and Teflon coated ring perpetrators for handguns. Mortars? Home depot has lots of pipe. A ten gauge shotgun shell works just fine as the propellant for a 30mm mortar round. Another one will impact-detonate it. The whole thing could be made from PVC pipe. Military grade weapons are not actually more expensive than civilian grade weapons, in general, they are far LESS expensive, designed to be mass-produced from cheap materials.

All that is required is a state of martial law - and widespread contempt for those attempting to enforce it.

Of course, "silvertips" for taking out elk are perfectly legal. Your average weapon for antelope or elk with such a round up the spout will put a hole the size of your head in a human being - and body armor without ballistic plates won't stop them. A head shot at a hundred meters or more is pretty trivial for a good hunting piece with upscale optics. A WWII surplus Garand rifle (30.06 caliber) can put a solid brass bullet through an engine block at 500 yards.There are hundreds of thousands of such weapons and surplus rounds in civilian hands.

Remember that given the force and equipment depletion caused by the Iraq War, any government forces will be lucky to have armored vehicles capable of stopping 9mm hardball.

Fully automatic weapons, handguns and long-arms of all varieties, hand grenades, silenced weapons that evade metal detectors, disposable rocket launchers and of course explosives such as C4 can be easily created in small machine shops and basements. If you are crazy enough to run a meth lab, well, creating explosives isn't a great deal more dangerous - and no easier to detect.

How's that War on Drugs going? Any widespread shortage of methamphetamine? Didn't think so.

Anyone with a two year college physics degree could use C4 to create a crude but effective "Plate Charge," such as has been used in Iraq. Hell, we have amateur rocketeers that for legal reasons have to take their contraptions to White Sands or Woomera to shoot them off. For FUN.

Would you be willing to assume them all to be good, loyal Republicans willing to tolerate a dictatorship - or would at least a few be casting around for suitable warheads?

But I'd fully expect there to be plenty of current military munitions available, up to and including stinger missiles, antipersonnel and anti-tank mines, even artillery... along with the national guard veterans who "liberated" them. Quite possibly along with the entire force complement of the local armory.

Now, an insurgency might start out as a tiny, doomed minority, and my worst case fear assumes Bush adminsitration planning on such a doomed and fringe resistance as the actual pretext for the imposition of Martial law.

But the probable overreaction to either a genuine or false-flag insurgency would surely work just as it has in Iraq, for exactly the same reasons, because it would be the same people in charge, operating with the same equipment and operational doctrine - and drawing from the same troop supply. In other words people who believe against all evidence that it's militarily possible to occupy, pacify and control a large modern urban area with a hundred years of hidden, forgotten and unrecorded infrastructure.

You may as well attempt to eradicate the roach population.

All an effective insurgency needs to do is avoid direct conflict while inflicting cheap casualties, The Iraqis haven't shown any great depth of imagination in that regard and are still doing fairly well.

Even if you throw in as many as 50 thousand Christianist fanatics as shock troops, people who gobble up "Left Behind" and "The Turner Diaries" as gospel, that simply makes the conflict a "target-rich environment." This is aside from the difficulties of training and equipping such a horde, or the wisdom of creating our very own domestic Taliban.

I leave aside the imponderable question as to what the rest of the world would do if the United States descended into a protracted civil war of any degree of intensity, but I doubt very much a Bush Junta could rely on the absolute neutrality of either immediate neighbor.

Now, this is a possible future I do not wish to experience. I encourage passive resistance, protest and proactive first-amendment activities at this point, especially when those activities approach that which the administration would prefer to refer to as "espionage," and reasonably sensible people would refer to as "whistleblowing."

People should be particularly alert for suspicious governmental activity. If you see somebody who reeks of G-Man in a place he shouldn't ougtta be - report it to your local emergency co-ordination facility. And by local, I mean "town, city or state." Meanwhile, take pictures with your cel phone, just in case something should happen later.

If you don't have a cel phone that takes pictures, get one. Ideally, a pay as you go cel phone.

Oh, yeah, that's another thing. How successful do you think that the government could be in shutting down or filtering internet access, when the opposition doesn't care about such trivia as bandwith theft, IP spoofing, illegal use of encryption, hiding pirate server farms in sewers, while the infrastructure, software and the majority of all computer talent is resistant to the whole idea?

I'd be stunned if, under conditions of a general civil war, that government communications would be secure or their servers immune from attack, if for no other reason than the widespread disaffection of federal employees who have access to such networks - either with passwords, or with keys to junction rooms.

Obviously, the latest executive order enabling the seizure of assets from anyone the Administration THINKS might be a threat to their war effort in Iraq, underlines the depth of concern the administration has regarding this possiblity, seeing as it's written so broadly it may as well be one of Richileu's Letters d'Cachet.

While liberals and leftists and activists understandably feel a great deal of concern, seeing as the immediate effect is to criminalize the peace movement, this seems to me to be much more directly aimed at those who have been loyal up to now, or up to a point. Cindy Sheehan is not so wealthy that such "asset forfeiture" could preclude her activism. No, it's aimed at the Coors family, the DuPonts, the Mellons and the Scaifes - anyone with enough personal resources to be able to seriously threaten the government, and the cussedness to do so. I'm sure there's a few millionaires and billionaires of various political persuasions who are even now shuffling portfolios and real property with that end in mind.

People who have enough money for this to be a serious threat are also quite capable of seeing the threat for what it is, no matter what attempts there are to camouflage it as being aimed at "them Liberal hippy peaceniks."

I have absolutely no idea how effective such threats will be, though, but my assumption is that that threatening very wealthy and powerful people with arbatrary forfeiture is unwise, to say the least. There are very wealthy people who are not part of the Bush crowd - but who are not unconnected or to be presumed to be toothless. And then there are those who are of the Bush crowd, who may well be of a mind to instruct Bush as to which is the tail and which is the dog that wags it. The threat is likely to be taken more personally and more urgently by people with a few mere millions in property and little liquidity - which represents a big foot on the neck of most small and medium entrepreneurs.

The only way I see they have a faint chance of pulling off a successful coup is by killing off as many "Liberals" as possible in some orchestrated or subcontracted terrorist attack that is so shocking, so horrifying that nobody could believe that it was not the work of some radical group of madmen. You know, like 9/11.

Look up "Project Monarch." You will find it within the tinfoil hat zone of the Internet, but nonetheless, it's existence and activities were confirmed in congressional hearings, where the CIA promised faithfully that all such programs have been shut down.

Riiight.

The government has long been fascinated with the potential uses of crazy people, and a great many changes in government and society seem to involve the convenient and inexplicable access of a crazy person to an inconvenient one. JFK, say. Or Bobby. Or Martin. So this would only be a difference of scale.

Evaluate for yourself the probable target zones and discuss the eventualities with those you trust and distrust alike. But for myself, I'd say get the hell out of the Bay Area, at least. After all, an earthquake would be a damned good pretext for a little "liberal cleansing." Consider how many people from New Orleans have disappeared into FEMA camps, where they languish still.

By the by - if you are working at NSA or any other intelligence agency - I am specifically speaking at you. Run this post of mine through your own brain with any additional information you might have. Come to your own expert conclusions and determine your best course, considering the worst-case implications of what you know and how many ways everything could go south for you and your loved ones.

Consider also where your true loyalties lie and what you may have said or done to indicate less than absolute willingness to personally suicide for the greater glory of Bushco. Consider who might well mention such reservations in their pursuit of career advancement. Then take such steps as seem reasonable and prudent, while remembering a famous quotation: "Two may keep a secret, if one of them is dead" - Benjamin Franklin.

Everyone else, buy yourself a copy of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein. With cash. Off line. From a used book store.

Resistance is not at ALL futile.

Nyet to missile defense shield, Putin says.

Yet another Foreign Policy Triumph!

Russia withdraws from arms treaty - CNN.com: "President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty due to 'extraordinary circumstances ... which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures,' the Kremlin said in a statement.

Putin has in the past threatened to freeze his country's compliance with the treaty, accusing the United States and its NATO partners of undermining regional stability with U.S. plans for a missile defense system in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe."

Yep, with all the potential fallout of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If you won't impeach Bush because he has committed illegal acts, how about impeaching him for deliberately, stupidly and willfully endangering our national security?

Resign, Sir!

A belated Fourth of July post from me, courtesy of Crooks and Liars, via digg. Keith Olbermann delivers arguably his most pointed and most powerful Special Comment yet on the ramifications of Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence. The video is also on YouTube and is embedded above, but C&L has a transcript.

We enveloped “our” President in 2001.

And those who did not believe he should have been elected — indeed, those who did not believe he had been elected — willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and sharpened it to a razor-sharp point, and stabbed this nation in the back with it.

Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.

Did so even before the appeals process was complete…

Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice…

Did so despite what James Madison –at the Constitutional Convention — said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president…

Did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder:

To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish — the President will keep you out of prison?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens — the ones who did not cast votes for you.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States.

The Comments on Digg, C&L and YouTube are worth reading. Even the Usual Idiots seem to have lost heart for their mindless apologeas, with a few "dead ender" exceptions. There is a literal flood of video responses on YouTube, too. The following is from a Ron Paul fan - a truly devastating bit of Bush-Bashing.

I took the time to include a response to one such dead ender, by the name of asknotaxe , who's comment was so astonishing that it demanded a reply beyond the limits imposed by YouTube.

Keith Olberman seemingly has forgotten the 211 presidential pardons Clinton granted in the last 9 weeks in office, and thew 121 on his final day of office? Olberman is a windbag. Listening to him wax philosophic about democracy and war makes me puke. I am a US soldier, and don't need some liberal toad eulogizing my service....we are volunteers. So just shut the fuck up and sleep quietly under the blanket of freedom and security provided by better men than yourselves, non serving liberals.

What makes you think "people here" approve of those pardons? I don't recall the details of all of them, but a few - even several - stuck in my craw.

But as I recall, none were pardons of people that had been convicted of crimes committed directly on Clinton's behalf.

Meanwhile, Sir, your unwillingness to consider the evidence; your mockery and contempt for those who do, your self-definition as being "better than" those who do not blindly follow the Leader does not ring freedom's bells in MY ear.

No, Sir, what I hear is the tramp of jackboots and knocks on the door at midnight.

You, Sir, have managed to capture the sheer arrogance of the Redcoat, the unthinking tone of superiority of - not then Nazis, but of an Italian fascist soldier.

Worse yet for you, you sound something like a cross between an Italian Fascist and a Vietnam-Era Helicopter General.

Where, sir, is my Habius Corpus? Where, Sir, is my guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, or a fair and speedy trial by a jury of my peers? Where, Sir, does the Constitution define "Free Speech Zones?" What happened to the Posse Comatatus act - and for what reason?

And for what reason did Haliburton get a no-bid contract to build internment camps? Should I believe they are really intended just for uppity brown people, or as "relocation camps" in case of emergency?

The guard towers and razor wire argue against that "explanation," Sir.

So, you see, us "liberals" - that is to say, those of us with various political views who have not been seduced by the warming tickle of smoke being blown up our asses - do not find the "blanket" you refer to as being either warm, comfortable, or having anything whatsoever to do with "freedom."

When an armed and enthusiastic thug tells me to "shut the fuck up" and be quiet in the NAME of freedom, something is terribly wrong.

But I rather think that when you get your marching orders to try and impose martial law upon us "spineless liberals" who "never had the guts to serve," you may find yourself in for a bit of a surprise.

First, I think you may be astonished at how many of us are armed and who take defending the Constitution very seriously indeed, despite a very realistic view of the outcome for us in a personal sense. Second, I believe you will be stunned at how many of us ARE veterans, unlike myself and Third, the embarrassing holes in your own ranks as many take the higher path of honor blazed by Gen. Robert E. Lee.

An interesting further question - one of some professional concern for those such as yourself, I should imagine - is what cause will appeal to all the competent military leaders who's careers foundered upon the rocks of unwelcome candor? Come the day you are led into battle against the American People - as you may well be, given the history and nature of this viciously stupid administration - are you entirely sanguine about the competence of your chain of command and it's ability to anticipate emerging threats and respond effectively? Given it's track record in the "Cakewalk," I mean.

Nah, I suspect you to be just another Redcoat who doesn't believe that a bunch of rag-tag ruffians can achieve anything against the might of the Empire, a fetishist drone of the National Security State, and until the last moment, I suspect you will be unable to comprehend the fact that the individual Citizen - not the CINC - is the intended sovereign agency in this nation. Those of us who understand that - well, you've probably bunked with a lot of them.

So, if you do not respect MY potential ability to fuck you up at range - respect theirs.

Redcoats learned to fear "The Widowmaker," the deadly accurate Pennsylvania rifle. capable of reliably putting a 50 caliber slug into a man's head at 200 yards.

Well, sir, it's descendants are here, and rather a lot of them are in the hands of Citizens. And for those of us who cannot scrape up the ten grand needed for weapon and optics - well, there's always Home Depot, sporting goods stores, and various things dismissed as "wacky" by those who've not considered the immutable laws of physics, such as spud guns. Anything that can shoot a potato 1000 yards and crack the sound barrier in the process has some potential for elemental mischief.

The bottom line is this: George Bush will not be able to steal this nation from it's Citizens. He may be able to screw it up, fragment it, balkanize it, kill thousands upon thousands of us, but ultimately, you cannot enslave free citizens. Killing us is your only option - and we have you outnumbered.

I certainly do not advocate civil war. I'm horrified at the prospect. But the ultimate outcome, given the forces at the command of Bush,, even assuming only "scattered resistance" and complete willingness to bear arms against the citizens of this nation, the outcome will come down to the numbers. And that's a damn graphic truth.

Know Something About Kieth Olbermann?

This Right-Wing tabloid site wants to know.

And, well, obviously they are having a lot - repeat, A LOT of trouble finding any real ammo to use against Olbermann, since the worst thing they can say about him is that his ratings are low (on MSNBC? Imagine that!) and this:

Keith Olbermann's career schizophrenia continues. He's a Sports Guy. He's a News Guy. He's a Sports Guy (again). Oops, back to News. And guess what? Now he's back to Sports, according to Keith's personal PR flack aka TVNewser:

More! "Olbermann Schizophrenia: Is he a Sports Guy or a "News" Anchor?"

Yep, being able to do more than one thing well is a clear sign of inherent, invidious, elitist Liberalism. Judging by the journalistic standards of this blog, so is walking and chewing gum at the same time.

This link was advertised to me via google promising to "Expose Olbermann's lies." As I expected, this was a usage of the term, "lie," that I was previously unfamiliar with. A "lie" in this usage seems to be a truth that makes you want to stick your fingers in your ears and chant "la la la la I can't HEAR you!"

I see this as symptomatic of the sad, impotent and pathetic devolution of the right-wing blogosphere, that this blog gets enough eyeballs to justify a google Adwords account. They don't take just ANYONE, you know.

So, the dead-enders are still out there - but clearly, they are being driven to a subsistence diet of undiluted stupidity as the former stars of the Right are, one by one, falling away toward the center, leaving the core ideologues exposed in their dogged determination to win their Culture War against everyone and every institution that is smart enough to know better.

Hell, if you are smart enough to put three thoughts in a row, you are savvy enough to realize that the Administration can't. And a lot of former Republicans have come to the conclusion that what they stood for, indeed, what they still stand for, was seen as simply a set of talking points by the Administration; a means to get to an end that was nothing good, Republican, conservative or apparently achievable.

There is only so far wanting to believe can take you in the face of an overwhelming flood of fact. Bloggers, to be relevant at all, have to swim in facts and even (gasp) differing perspectives on them. After a while, it's hard to ignore that of the facts that are in, the facts speak against the President, that:

• He has indeed lied in order to wage war against Iraq.
• entered office with the intention of waging war against Iraq.
• used (or even contrived) 9/11 as a pretext for that war (and in that, did nothing to actually find, prosecute and execute those who were actually responsible).
• Illegally wiretapped citizens.
• Suspended Habius Corpus.
• Kidnapped and tortured people without even the pretense of due process.
• Tried to establish a legal basis for torture - despite it being explicitly illegal and ineffective.
  
• Is in Contempt of Congress on multiple counts (signing statements)

And yet, given nearly totalitarian powers even FDR did not wish to have, has managed to completely fail to win a war our armed forces were equipped and trained to win - a war of maneuver in the deserts of the middle east - by putting them into urban combat zones, the sort of warfare that eats armies for lunch.

Understand this very clearly; there was absolutely no reason for anyone to expect that our military forces would be unsuccessful in securing Iraq with good intelligence, solid planning, competent leadership and enough boots on the ground. Even those of us who doubted that it would be as easy as described would not have gone so far as to use the word "difficult."

We asked "why Iraq, and why now." I cannot recall many asking "what if we can't win?"

So, not only did he lie us into war, he fucked up that war. Why? Well, never presume malice when stupidity is a sufficient explanation. But if George Bush's intent were to destroy this nation, cripple our vital alliances, isolate us in terms of world opinion and still lead us open to a far more probable threat of terrorism, in that light, he's been consistently correct in his choices of policy and personnel.

What we are seeing here is the result of a total failure of leadership, even by the standards of a corrupt, corporatist, kleptocratic, nepotist and increasingly fascist-lite ruling elite.

It would be wise to recall that, first, the French Revolution occurred because of and in response to leadership of such quality. And second - the outcome, driven as it was by a situation driven beyond extremes, resulted in some extremely Bad Things.

Now, I don't know about you, but I think that the existence of social stresses that could lead to civil war to be a very significant National Security Issue. So, I think it's time we all took a deep breath, got over ourselves, and made a choice to stop making war on other people. Especially when those people are fellow Americans.

Update: this post was linked on Olbermann Watch and this was the only comment there:

You know what I see as symptomatic of the sad, impotent, and pathetic devolution of the LEFT-wing blogosphere? They can't even spell Olbermann's first name correctly while trying to defend him. Kieth? How hard is it to spell K-E-I-T-H?

If that's the only criticism, I believe we can take every actual point as being unaddressable by those who I am addressing.

Sad, ain't it? That, and the fact that once again I'm accused of being "a liberal."

tag: Miserable failure, Impeach, George W. Bush, 2008, Civil War, Revolution, Global Terrorism, Kieth Olbermann, Keith Olbermann, Spelling Flames

Bush can't keep his lies straight

Keith Olbermann lists all the various reasons and excuses Bush has used to justify the Iraq war.

I had a roommate once who was a total sociopath, and it took me less than a month to realize that all his "reasons" were really excuses. In fact, he did what he did because he wanted to do it and gave whatever excuse he thought would work that moment. He really had no clue that sane people keep track of these things.


It's been clear for a long, long time that whatever reason exists in George Bush's mind for the war - if any mind or reason exists in any commonly understood sense - it probably isn't one of his utterly disposable excuses.

I stopped keeping score long ago, so I hadn't realized how very damming the sum of his lies had become. But it is truly damning, and indicative of someone utterly incapable of being responsible for the consequences of his decisions. Whether he's a sociopath, a dry drunk, or simply too stupid and isolated to comprehend the issues on his desk does not matter to me, any more than his statements about his political philosophy or his "deep, Christian faith."

He's as inconsistent in those areas as he is in the context of the war, so I conclude that these positions are just as momentarily convenient as any other.

Some of his statements are particularly revealing of an incapacity to deal with the reality of other people, and the idea that his actions give legitimate cause for offense. The latest example is his dismissive reaction to Matthiew Dowd in particular and all parents of service members in harm's way as being "too emotional" to have a valid opinion.

It's pretty easy to demonstrate a widespread skepticism about our misleader.



Then, of course, there was his amazingly insensitive and inept handling of Cindy Sheehan. Whatever you think of her,she's a nightmare of his own making, a visible symbol illustrating his contempt for and impatience with an increasingly critical citizenry.

It has long since become impossible for me to have any respect for the man - and if I am to maintain respect for the office of the President of these United States, I must continue to loudly call for his immediate resignation. If he will not do that, he must be impeached.

Meanwhile, whatever he wants of Congress, and whatever he says to justify his demands must be presumed to be as disingenuous as all his previous interactions with that body, and, I must add, with people representing all parties. I would strongly suggest that various members get together and compare notes on what he has said to them to justify particular votes. I'd bet money that these stories will neither add up nor bear any great resemblance. And I'd be stunned if he's delivered on promises made to secure votes, even with solid supporters such as our own Sen. Ensign.

Congress - and particularly the Republican members - had best realized that the supporters of a liar and a fool are likely to be associated with the lies and foolishness in the public mind. People cannot help but wonder, in the face of overwhelming evidence of his willful, callus and incompetent leadership and contempt for the citizenry, whether that support is the result of blackmail, gullibility or corruption.

More to the point, they probably don't care. They just know that loyalty to a miserable failure is placed above loyalty to their constituents, and there can be no good reason for that.

tag: Impeach the President, George W. Bush, Miserable Failure, ITMFA, Congress, Veto Threat, Matthiew Dowd, Cindy Sheehan, accountability, surge, sociopath, integrety, Iraq, Iran, Too Emotional, Parents of Soldiers, War Critics, Sen. Ensign

Of Ships of State, riverboat races, and the price of meaningless victories.

I'm no fan of big government, so the siren song of Thatcherism seduced me for a while - back when the Iron Lady was still in office and Ronald Reagan was best buddies with her and "Lyin' Brian" Mulroney of Canada.

Both Commonwealth leaders were allowed to give both nations a solid dose of Conservative medicine and then shown the door. They did not achieve the cult status Regan has, and yet, I believe both will be shown in the historical view to have done more for their nations - and for less personal reward - than Reagen or any of his intellectual heirs. And I don't mean individually; I mean, in toto.

The Parliamentary tradition has certain strengths - and one of those is sort of a genetic memory of why it came to be and in the United Kingdom, especially, what happens when it is set aside in the name of expediency and a "Strong Executive."

All governments are a system of checks and balances, and one of it's most important roles is to serve as a check on the powerful, both those who have great power, and those who would like to have great power. It is a means of guiding and advising those who desire to wield power, to keep them in check and working for the benefit of all, rather than establishing their own little individual warring fiefdoms.

In our particular form of government, the tradition - though somewhat inchoate - is for citizens to seek out those who, like George Bush and Dick Cheney need power like they need air, and then hold them accountable for using it well by means well short of violence. while explicitly stipulating that the citizens hold that ultimate right at need. That's your Second Amendment, right there.

Those who try to subvert those checks in the name of some sort of "victory" are like those riverboat captains who'd put a brick on the safety valve in order to win a race. Sometimes the boiler will hold and sometimes it won't, leading to the conversion of a transitory victory into a permanent last place finish.

When the boiler of the ship of state is starting to spit rivets, prudent passengers seek to remove the brick.

Our system of checks and balances was set up to ensure that no single person was likely able to concentrate enough power to overcome the interests of competitors seeking to concentrate power, so that, in order to maintain their basis of power and defend it against the encroachments of others, they must perforce actually do th