Archive for the ‘Military’ Category

The Obama administration has decided, with the wind of wisdom and intellectual honesty at it’s back, to prosecute various conspirators participating in the events of 9/11, in open federal court.  In America.  Land of the free.  Home of the brave.  I applaud this without reservation, but with some necessary modicum of concern.

The venue is correct.  After eight years of bullshit, so is the system and it’s location.

Military tribunals are for pussies and those with something to hide.

Worse case scenario results in some, if not all of the handful being tried, receiving reduced sentences or significantly decreased punishment because of their treatment under the auspices of the Dick-in-Bush administration.  Torture.  I’m here to tell you it’s a legitimate concern.  I understand it from every angle. So yeah, really, the only thing that might possibly mitigate the process in any way is the fact that we tortured the fuck out of them.

We did.  Shut up.  We did.

Wouldn’t that suck.

I do believe Eric Holder is a bright guy and has taken these egregious and flagrant circumstances into account.  Despite the obvious malfeasance on the part of the Dick-in-Bush dynasty, he will get his pound of flesh.  He has the facts m’am.  It will be allright, they do know what they do.

For what it’s worth, we’re no longer dealing with boneheads.  It really is different now.

I hesitate to judge, but I imagine they’ve got this figured the fuck out.

Outside the circle, there is every concern that collateral damage will obviously be brought to light and necessarily prosecuted along side.  There is legitimate hand wringing over what open testimony will focus the antiseptic of sunlight upon.  Beyond Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being waterboarded 183 times.  A practice by the way, we tried and executed a number of Japanese for.  A practice by the way, that allowed us to define various Japanese as war criminals for engaging in.  We killed them for it and we did it to one man one hundred and eighty three times and by all accounts, we got all of our information from him before we engaged in it, and nothing but fucking nonsense thereafter.

By “we”, I mean Dick-in-Bush.

By “we”, I mean idiots.  Fucking clueless fucktards.

What happens when everyone who hasn’t been paying attention discovers this glaring fact?  What if there is more that we don’t know and I bet there is?  Oh, snap.  Fuck me.  Fuck us.

This might be good.

I hate America, you see.  I’ll bet you can tell by my t-shirt.  Or maybe because I will tell you to your face that the the very least of my concerns is or are terrorists.  I think toxic waste is a bigger threat for example or the lack of health care.  Anyway.

It is here we discover the consummate fear of the right wing over this decision to present the facts against these men in in open court.  Military tribunals are a notoriously secret affair.  The record for terrorists by the way, is military tribunals or commissions = 3 (three) convictions.  Class C federal courts = 350 (three hundred fifty) convictions.

Do the math.  Orange whip anyone?

Does this look infected to you?

No one on the right or the left legitimately fears our ability to incarcerate these fucks.  We are really good at putting people in jail and keeping them there.  We do so with more of our people per capita than any other country on earth.  These guys are douchebags compared to your average imprisoned gang member.  Give me a break.

All of the right wing hacks, The Human Shitsmear included, fear that the policies of the Dick-in-Bush administration will be on trial as well.  The irony is that these fucks are now promoting a complete lack of faith or trust in our Constitution and system of justice, ideals they spend every other waking moment, breathlessly pontificating on the liberal lack of respect towards, deliberate corruption thereof or willful disregard for.  Now, abruptly, they revoke all faith in a system of beliefs which has served us for more than two hundred and thirty years; a construct of ideals for which they have never failed to accuse any and all who would seek to define them further, to be in blatant and shameful violation of.  They now denounce blatantly, the idea that this very system can serve us at all in the most extreme, important and precious of contexts.  These people are fucking fools.

I know, that’s convoluted but stay with me.

They fear the truth and justice of the American way of getting to the Goddamn bottom of things.  They fear that we’ll all learn more truth than they intended.  They hate that we will discover where they stepped over the line and made matters so much worse.  That Americans will know what the rest of the world already does.  That we prosecuted multiple wars for no real reason and that it was never in the average Americans best interest but only served to enrich already ridiculously wealthy Americans and that our liberties and rights were simultaneously eroded and allowed to atrophy by razing us with empty fear, empty nationalism and overt jingoism.

They did it all on purpose.  The very same thing the Right wing whackjobs would and do accuse the the mild and sensible Left of is what they panic about us discovering they’ve been up to.  Fuck these guys.  Notice Cheney has shut the fuck up?  Where’s his little dog Liz?  They know we’re getting close.

My guess is the goal of our AG Mr. Holder and the Obama administration is to bring these dishonorable methods to light while they debunk their efficaciousness, highlight the inequity, and ultimately demonstrate that torture is a bullshit methodology and beyond unnecessary in convicting these bastards but potentially jeopardizing and tainting it all together nonetheless. 

Pretty ballsy if you ask me but I like it.  I like it a lot.

And guess what?  The first pricks that decided to try and bring the towers down were dealt with in the same way.  By our flawed system of justice that exists for all Americans.  They’re all in American prisons for life.  Duh.  Remember?  Back in the nineties?

May I have extra sauce?

It’s an opportunity for our imperfect but still shining system to glow a little and show the world that the standard we have for our own can still apply to any who would wrong and kill us on our own soil despite where they come from.  It is my hope that the process will reveal a further glimpse into the complicity of our own and perhaps that is what they are most afraid of.  Nevermind the context or the circumstances, our system is beyond adequate in this instance.  It can, when challenged, mete out judicature in a manner that just might reveal as much flaw as it does direction for recompense and justice.  Ultimate and severe as should be the case.

Extra cheese too?

Nothing to worry about.  No matter.  We will see justice served.

If for whatever reason, convictions are not attained, we will still be supplied fairness with an eye opening understanding of the last administration’s transgressions and the compromises we’ve all become victims of.  Either way, justice will be served.  I am prepared for either outcome.  Are you?

I trust our system in this case.  I imagine it just might be a ripe and timely test of it.  I’m hoping it serves us well.  I’m really looking forward to the process of jurisprudence presenting some very difficult questions.  I’m counting on this being very interesting.  If it fails to at least be interesting, I imagine it will have failed us in general.

As an American, it’s all I can ask and no less than I have right to expect.

I’m asking for pickles on the side.

Waitress?

Drinks for my friends.     

Today the DOJ, in support of the DOMA  (Defense Of Marriage Act), issued a brief using language invoking pedophilia and incest, eerily reminiscent of the vituperation vomited by the religious right ad nauseum since the dawn of the cerebral cortex.

Puns intended.

So much for change.

I don’t care if Obama was aware of this or not.  The only acceptable action here is swift, unambiguous refutation.  Obama and his administration need to get in front of this crap like yesterday.  It’s not just bullshit, it’s madness.  Best case scenario is Obama talking about this before I get out of bed.  The time difference alone gives him a hell of a head start.  Time to show me something Mr. Fierce Defender.

Enough.

Let this pass at your peril.  Hope will turn to doubt.

While we’re on the subject of Our Man, I was none too thrilled by the glaring omissions in his remarks in front of the AMA today.  It was a good speech, but no substantive reckoning that big pharma and big insurance are hopelessly infected by avarice and therefore ground zero for reform and regulation.  No mention of what an inefficient, bureaucratic clusterfuck the FDA is.  These items are at the very root of the problem and no reform has a chance at efficacy without force being brought to bear on them.

Blowing up balloons with holes in them.

The sad truth lies in the why.  Along with the AMA, pharmaceutical and insurance companies are championed by some of the biggest and most influential lobbying cabals in Washington.  If there were stars on K street or Pennsylvania Avenue like Hollywood Boulevard, two thirds of them would be dedicated to these filthy bastards.  For all you sniveling morons who live in such fear of communism, here is a bonafide  Red Menace for you.

Welcome to the plutocracy.  This thing is way bigger than just stubborn Republicans.

Along with energy, campaign finance reform and the military industrial complex, these are the windmills I expect Our Man to be tipping.  That’s why I voted for him.

We loves us some Bill Maher.  Maher said the other night in his New Rules segment:  “…..I’m glad that Obama is president, but the “Audacity of Hope” part is over. Right now, I’m hoping for a little more audacity”.

Me, I’m looking for those balls of zirconia  I thought I glimpsed on the campaign trail.  Dude, please don’t Jimmy Carter us.

Remember how I was pissing and moaning about pumps on lotion and soap bottles not long ago?  Well, for the record, adding water to any of the soap dispensing ones is pretty viable.

Sometimes I think all Americans are either corrupt or stupid.  Often both, but rarely neither.

Drinks for my friends.

I had a pretty swell day today.

I actually went to a barbecue.  I brought a couple good zinfandels, one was a Pejut.

I contributed in other ways.  I grilled some pineapple.  Quartered slabs of it.  I brushed one slab with teriyaki and another with a with a blackberry preserve based homemade bbq sauce.  I sprinkled garlic on both.

I like that both Deanna and Lisa don’t like to smoke in front of the kids.

Me, I don’t care.

I grilled red onions too.  I think my pineapple went over pretty well, it was gone fast, but I brought home some onions.

Extraordinarily nice people.

We watched the first half of the laker game and these women were on it.  I was the only adult male of ten people.  They sort of assumed I’d be some alpha male grill master.  We had ribs, hot links, chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers and I grilled pineapple and red onions.  The women and children were forced to cook the meat as my emasculation bloomed.

I supervised while I smoked a few of Deanna’s Marlboro Lights because they tasted interesting and I was drinking good zin.  They seemed to have a handle on it.

Anyway, shoulda heard the women talking the game.  Awesome.  Kinda bitchy but not missing a single thing.  I’m not a sports guy but I likes me an NBA playoff game.  I was sitting with at least three women that had been paying attention all season.  One told me the Lakers could for sure stop Cleveland.

There was too an enclosed porch on the second floor with widows on three sides.  As it got chillier it was a nice place to watch the sun sink and have a smoke.

Children were the stars of my day.  These little girls, sisters, were diamonds in platinum.  I tried not to smoke in front of them.  They sang to us on the way home.  I can’t put my finger on it.  Their obvious independence, their overt dependence on mother and whatever innocent sweetness they threw my way.  A rosy spotlight on them.

Two sixteen year old boys named Jonathan and a very pretty girl about the same age.  The young lady such a wide eyed doe.  All three literally teetering between adolescence and early adulthood.  I see it in their eyes and read it in their gestures.   Charismatic geeks and thank the powers that be.  Smart, funny and not thugs or idiots.  Good kids.

Then there’s me.  Huffing on Marlboros, drinking wine and soliciting the cooperation of any teen I can coerce into my onion and pineapple experiments.

It was an unconscionably pleasant day.

I brought a plate home.

It is Memorial  Day, a year and a half after the Thanksgiving I first and last met the Grandma.  No sooner did I enter the living room than she was pulling the thin tube for oxygen that ran across her cheek up so that I could kiss her there.  Not much can make you feel that welcome.

I hate war and I don’t believe in your God.  I am respectful of every single American that has served his or her country in any capacity that includes war.  It is a very big deal.  I have an uncle that served and he is damaged.  I’m an agnostic and a Democrat but I’m also an American.  I love this country, but  I’m not afraid to express my disappointment, disgust and dismay.

I am a patriot.

I take it very seriously.

Would any of you out there be willing and of a mind to come at me from there, I respectfully invite you to bring it.

My gratitude for every man woman and child who has defended these principles and this country.

Drinks for my friends.

Republicans are a hot mess.

This poor bastard, Sgt Russel, and the five brothers in arms he felled. All the families too. A big bag of tragedy for no good reason. Not that all involved weren’t brave committed men who’d sacrificed for America more than we can comprehend. All the more sad.

It’s just that it didn’t have to happen. A man on his third tour of hell lost his shit. It seems so random but it’s not. He was in treatment for “stress”. These guys are fucking tough. They are crackerfuckingjack. They tipped Iraq over in weeks. Lots of things are very wrong with this story.

A badass soldier whom I presume was sane before he arrived, killed his own, not just his own, but his fellow soldiers. The antithesis of anything like heroic bravery. Almost as curious as it is tragic. PTSD. A political potato of some heat. Inconsistent to nebulous in terms of definition or perception. Through the roof nonetheless. Our veterans are struggling on a scale we’re not even aware of.

This is a gift from the Bush administration that will keep on giving for years to come.

Just like Vietnam!

The dude does not abide and neither do I. This is insane. See what I’m saying?

I really need for you dear reader, to concentrate here. I’m going to cut and paste a news item from today below, and I want you to compare and contrast the news I’ve written about above with this actual piece that appears below inside quotes. All I will say is that I think the two issues at hand are symbiotically entwined:

“In an interview on Fox News, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney sharply criticized the new administration for agreeing to release photographs depicting alleged abuses at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration.

“I think it is really appalling that the administration is taking this step,” she said in the interview. “Clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and woman in a very negative light.”

“I have heard from families of service members from families of 9/11 victims this question about when did it become so fashionable for us to side, really, with the terrorists,” she continued. “You know, President Obama has a lot of rhetoric about support for American military families, support for our men and women who are fighting for us overseas. But if he really cares about them, then he wouldn’t be making such an effort to release photos that show them in a negative light.” -CNN

Ok, I can’t help it. Liz Cheney you stupid fucking cunt. What about this whole egregious clusterfuck do you not understand? You actually seek with all gallows composure to spin this tragedy into some lame evidence that the Obama administration attempts “….to side, really, with the terrorists”?

In a war started by your father without reason?

Look up her name and insult her personally. Liz, you ignorant slut. You have betrayed your country and if Olberman or Stewart did the same schtick I swear I just turned on the glass teat.

Time for a fireside interlude. Picture me with a blanket over my legs in a wheelchair beside a crackling hearth:

A tale related by an excellent friend.

This story is about a man named Donald.

Donald farts in the car, back on a sweltering day. Turns out to be a withering expulsion, weakening the senses of the propagator. He’s impressed by his own ability to generate an odor that would be a captain of any industry. So inspirational that he wonders about his own health.

He then ventures into a video emporium of the strip mall variety. He feels the build. Pressure in his lower abdomen. And it’s hot. It’s temperature is like heat from a crack in the Earth. As though his bowels are about to volcano.

The gastrointestinal expulsion is nuclear but not cacophonous.

He’s grateful he’s not shat himself.

Get my drift? More or less silent but indisputably toxic.

He understands the affront he’s just committed. He flees to the right, past the first few letters of the alphabet. He works his way quickly to the D’s and F’s. Doctor Detroit to Fargo.

A fresh couple enter the emporium. They immediately ventiure into a cloud of Donald’s anal vapor in the A through C sectiion. They are apalled and disturbed. Their faces are an ugly mask of assault and disgust.

This is Donald’s story.

Drinks for my friends.

My question is, what’s wrong with this picture?

So we’re in the middle of an economic clusterfuck. Um, no shit.

The housing bubble erupted like a volcanically abscessed cow and deflated into a crater with a bottom below sea level. Tragic. I saw it coming. Twenty five percent annual appreciation in home values was unsustainable. Duh. I understood housing sales and speculation to be the last pole standing underneath the tent of our economy.

I was at the table, bought a brand new house in ’94, sold it in ’96 just after I no longer had to worry about capital gains. In and out at the last minute. I was lucky.

The consistent erosion in value of the dollar against foreign currency was troubling. Dragster fueled gold prices were an omen. Unemployment began to walk up a precipitous ladder. Then there was a deficit ballooning like a hemorrhoid after a dinner of habaneros, jalapenos and horseradish. A senseless war we couldn’t begin to afford.

I was and am a salesman, I talk to people all over the country everyday. I saw it coming.

Jon Stewart made a hysterically funny point tonight about how CNBC, a self proclaimed financial network, just missed it. Didn’t see it coming just like Alan Greenspan didn’t. I don’t know about CNBC, but Alan Greenspan is a liar.

How is that? You know, Greenspan turns into an idiot overnight and entire network devoted to the economy has fiscal Down Syndrome?

I predicted it. Read my old blogs. Am I a genius? One could argue it as a purely academic exercise, but that’s not the point. I am as clueless as the next Joe in most matters financial.

Shhhh! We’re hunting wabbit. See what I’m saying?

Here’s my point. We’ve got 90,000 troops in Europe, almost a hundred thousand in Asia and various amounts in twenty or thirty other countries. We’ll be spending well north of six hundred billion this year for “defense”. More than ten times as much as any other country.

Economies expand and contract. America’s economy is contracting at about the same rate as that of the planet. Our actual vulnerability in terms of national security are more congruent and even symbiotic with world economic fortune than any other facet of anything we do here on the blue marble.

Time to reckon and then contract. Not saying we should get all xenophobic at the bacchanal. How about we shrink some of our imperialistic aspirations around the globe? America must sacrifice her codependent love affair with the military industrial complex. If we don’t, we’ll fold like the Soviet Union for the same reasons and in the same way. Trust me.

It will be chaotic, noisy and there will be food lines.

Drinks for my friends.

I hesitate to bore you with the facts, but today is either Labor Day or Memorial day.

That of course, means one of two things. Members of one of two groups will definitely get the day off. That’s pretty big. See, a lot of other Americans get the day off to honor one of those groups.

Thus, a lot of us benefitted from what one of these two groups sacrificed at some time in the past. I’m not entirely sure who they are or what they did for me. I’m unemployed so it really doesn’t matter. I had the day off anyway.

I think I’m channeling Andy Rooney.

So Dumbya heads to Arlington or wherever, with a wreath. Many of us dash to a head stone doing our best somber tango.

I’m pretty sure it’s Memorial Day.

By no means do I intend to impugn the fallen or loved ones who survive them. The wounded, the maimed, the broken, the burned, the limbless or the permanently fucked in the head. Not at all. When I think of all of you, I just can’t stand it. It’s tragic and the epitome of unfair.

“And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did,” -Doubtfire via USA Today

“At issue is an expansion of the GI bill that would guarantee full college scholarships for those who serve in the military for three years.” -USA Today

As you may know, I don’t covet oversimplification. This one however, seems ripe for an Alley Oop. Check me here, but it’s seems McCain is declaring that only those who have volunteered for our nation’s military have a dog in this hunt for equitable treatment of our troops and veterans.

For the sake of argument, let’s go with that for a minute. Why don’t we allow those very same people the Little Bootlicker believes are the exclusive group worthy of voice in this matter, to indeed be the ones to decide?

Let our troops, veterans and if you’re feeling generous, their loved ones, determine the fate of this bill.

Ha! What do you think they’d have to say? I’ll give you one painfully obvious swing at the softest of pitches. Hint: Doubtfire would miss it for the same reason he can’t comb his own hair.

I’m saying he would guess wrong because he’s pretty much on his own planet. His planet is moving away from our sun.

The Little Bootlicker sat out the vote. He’s on record as opposing it. Courage of his conviction?

Our man and the Pantsuit: In favor, and showed up to say so.

Used to be, you served, you got taken care of. I guess we can’t afford that anymore.

Republicans as a rule, stand on the shoulders of our armed forces pretending to champion them while shitting all over their heads and shoulders. They always have. I hesitate to bore you with facts, but you’d do yourself a favor to do a little research into what our men and women are coming home to these days. A fate largely allowed by a Republican majority in congress and endorsed by the stupidest President in history.

Our Executive branch, as well as the entirety of the legislative branch, appear to have a healthy, albeit draconian, work ethic. So far, they seem perfectly happy to send our soldiers back to hell six or seven times. Feet, hands, eyes and ears is all they need to send you back to work until you can’t or you’re dead.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Happy Fourth of July.

Drinks for my friends.

I’m kinda aggravated. But I don’t have much. To say,
that is. Well, that’s not true.

I mean, Oprah’s getting hotter. She really is. If
you see her, tell her I said that. Tell her I like
her hair.

Dick-in-Bush swung the veto at the damp end of a
shriveled phallus today. With a retarded, clenched
orifice resolve, they smote the will of the people, as
well as the legislative arm of the republic.

Struck down, was the rather popular notion that we get
the fuck out of Iraq, because it was a mistake to
begin with and because most of us (not me), bought the
lie.

Let he who hath understanding, reckon the number of
the beast. For it is a human number. It’s number is
28%.

These guys are starting to really look like clowns.
Tenet is on 60 Minutes the other night saying it
wasn’t his fault and they all knew it was bullshit.
We already know that to be true. What’s kinda funny
is, the very next day a herd of underlings come
forward to tell us that Tenet has as much blood on his
hands as everyone else.

Don’t forget, this asswipe got the highest honor a
civilian citizen can recieve. Dumbya himself awarded
Tenet, Franks and Bremer The Presidential Medal of
Freedom at the same time, on the same stage.

The Keystone Cops of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The
Musketeers most responsible.

So much for the military. So much for the executive
and legislative branch.

Judicial branch? I don’t fucking know. Gonzalez is a
douchebag though. Dumbya has even more confidence in
him now that he was able to utter some version of “I
don’t know” over seventy times under oath and on TV
with a straight face.

See, Dumbya’s thinking, “I could do that. If that’s
all I ever had to say, you bet, I could do that”.

Meanwhile, Cheney hasn’t crapped in weeks. Poor
bastard has nothing but full, unopened cans of vienna
sausages in his colon and he just can’t seem to pass
even one. Sooner or later they will emerge as flawed
diamonds or he’s gonna explode like a caged calf on a
liquid diet intended for veal.

I’m actually waiting for the whole thing to blow wide
open. We’re close. It will be preceded by civil
unrest. Americans are stupid but this is ridiculous.
When the going gets wierd, the wierd turn pro. R.I.P.
HST.

I’m going on record here. I’m predicting the demise
of this administration before the next election. The
house of cards will fall. It will implode.

Drinks for my friends.