Cruel and Unusual Punishment, Property Rights

Our founders didn't specifically outlaw torture and brutal executions because they aren't effective deterents to criminal behavior. They forbade 'em because they didn't want their country to grow up to be cruel and despotic, capable of intimidating even its citizens into a state of unquestioning obedience.

It's disgusting behavior, beneath the dignity of us and our heritage.

That's all. It's uncivilized.

The Constitution was also set up to protect the individual from blocs. The notion that a few wealthy developers with more access to political appointments and sharing a steam room at the club with the governor or mayor can vote to take your ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD, hand it at charity prices to a real estate company, and put a friggin' mall on it is atrocious.

Two groups, the oil companies and the construction/development companies are thriving in this stagnant economy, and they should have to go out and buy their own raw materials. The wierdo-socialist government is propping up these companies, not because they're weak, but because they're too fat to stand up.

A billion dollars for the oil companies to go find oil in the 'energy bill'. Eminent Domain as a mechanism for companies to get tasty tax parcels at bargain prices. It's almost as bad as prividing the Republican State of Alaska with $3,000,000 to produce a film about road building in Alaska. But not disgusting, like officially standing on the principle that the Geneva Conventions against torture are 'Quaint'. It's not quaint, it's a founding principle of our Republic.

What is our country coming to?

Hold not thy nose

So I've been hearing about a guy from Philadelphia, a Drexel professor, who threw his hat into the upcoming Pennsylvania Senate race. He's running as a Democrat against Casey Jr.

I don't like Juniors to begin with, especially the political dynasty juniors. But when they run for office using the same platform/paddle the bad guys use it turns my stomach.

And I don't plan to hold my nose and vote against Santorum without also doing something positive. The trouble is, Santorum can't be allowed to win. The other problem is: In a few years, someone is going to have to take the White House away from Georgie Junior, and when that happens the country is going to see they've stuck it together with crazy glue. Scratch that: FUCKING CRAzy glue.

I wonder whether it would be best for the long term to leave P(R)ick in the Senate to exlplain away and apologize for all the permanent damage he and his idiot horde have caused. Because the lies can't transfer so easily to the next administration.

We saw Specter at the gym the other day, and he's looking pretty bad. A faithful raquetballer, he's in good shape for an old, old, old man. But the cancer came up with the last two 'old's in that phrase. He was sprightly. And he'll vacate a seat after the coming 2006 'election'.

So let's talk about this Pinnochio fellow. Can he win ? Should Santorum be forced to stay? He wants to bail out to start runnin' fer Prezy-dent. Should we give him two years off ?

Pants afire, but lots of smoke too

Where there's smoke there's fire. The President's smokescreen to obscure the past is thematic. Revisionist History, obstructionist history...

Don't you love the way they change the subject from Sheenan's vigil to "I just think it would be irresponsible to pull out of Iraq. I thought about it, but I don't think it's a good idea." I do. I love that. It makes me look forward to the next administration struggling to repair the damage done to the WHite House, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Treasury, the Environment, the International FLow of Goods and Services, the ... the concept that Jesus doesn't want us to throw stones. Remember, he died at the hands of an angry mob.

One day there will be a National Park Trail, similar to the tracks of George Washington, but it will include plaques wherever Bush Jr. spoke, and it will say "George Bush Lied Here."

Never a dull moment, but still no surprises

The White House is stonewalling on the Roberts files. Find 'em yourself.

The President slid Strap-on Bolton into you hiney. Should have been ready for it.

The highway bill, the energy bill, every bill has been about getting paid- except two kinds.

1) The bill coming due when China realizes they don't need our currency to be worth anything to buy their cheaply produced American stuff. Where are we going to go to get it? They have the technology, the brands, the infrastructure, if we need to get things to carry out our little American Dream, fuck us.
The West will sell us the rope we use to hang them"- Lenin.

2) Bill Clinton. Check my facts: The most popular president in the past 50 years balanced the budget, produced the military little Rumsfeld and equally little Bush used to half-ass conquer the lazy part of the middle east. His salary was $250,000. Bush blew the surplus and then some, plunged us into almost $8,000,000,000,000 debt, and gets a whopping $400,000 plus expenses. Talk about a CEO President! This asshole makes more money than his successful predecessor. And his supporters don't even realize they're voting for Enron-scale fraud, graft and downright shit-on-you disregard.

Tax the churches. Tax all income, not spending. Consider it your dues to belong here, where the opportunity is worth chasing. Check me again: a 1% tax on all earnings from business conducted in the US. Wages, interest, real estate.

Blabs

Hey, this wasn't intentional. But I did it. Here: Look at a wart. It's okay to make the occasional mistake. I was going for something about how people can't keep their mind going in one direction with all the hyperdistracting reality around us. But you can see where it went. Lost focus.

I hate blogs. But I guess I don't.

Some people appear to be able to focus. I try hard to focus on the domestic US. This is where I live, and I grew up in a conservative household helieving that government is a lowly profession, government shouldn't affect our lives in a restrictive way, and that people should have real jobs producing something or providing a valuable service.

So I criticize the hypocritical 'Conservative' faction. They are as a rule reactionary and radical. But they want to get involved in our behavior. They want to throw markets out of balance and create special classes of person: the Company and the Leader. These two entities would operate above and transcend responsibility. They don't hug their kids or watch cartoons, they just wield and get.

So restrictions on the behavior of companies and leaders are Different. Leaders should have to check with their bosses before they leave their desk to use the bathroom. Gotta watch them. And companies are owned by individuals who learn they can profit immensely by ignoring, cheating, stealing, usurping,... A for-profit company is like a person, but without morality or conscience. Gotta watch them too.

Enron should have zero influence with our government. It's that simple. But they don't because the fox is minding the asylum.

So I'm for regulation of businesses and the government, and freedom for the people.

I think I'm starting to get it.

So the energy bill, right? It doesn't solve any energy problems, but it eliminates problems in the energy industry, right? Things like taxes, the right of localities to influence where a nuclear reactor can go? Things like capital investment requiring money from the investor?

I don't like it. It's a bad bill. It's another empty list of words. All the Congress knows how to do it give money away and help themselves and others shirk responsibility.

Why Santorum would be better as actual shit than figurative

You can use shit in your garden to help your flowers grow.

Seriously, I usually stop early in my analysis of Santorum. He earns his asshole stamp as soon as he argues against the existence of privacy. Then he gets another merit badge in buggery by equating homo sex with bestiality. By the time he blamed Puritan Boston for causing the Catholic Church around the world to condone and protect child molestation and homo sex, I was already on to the next page.

But here are some things we should also remember about that asshole Rick Santorum, USS:

• Santorum believes millions of people are uninsured because, "some people don't want [insurance] - like the Amish." [Harrisburg Patriot, 6/10/97]
  
• Santorum believes child care is a "Washington" issue that ordinary Americans don't care about. [Congressional Quarterly, 3/9/05]
  
• He said that the environmental movement's days are numbered and that environmentalism is against nature. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/24/95]
  
• He believes in privatizing Social Security. [Congressional Record, S3231, 4/5/05]
  
• Santorum thinks it's wrong to help single mothers earn a college degree. In his book, It Takes a Family, Santorum said that "The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong." [It Takes a Family, pg. 138]

I don't like Casey, but I hate this motherfucker. I hope he hasn't saved any of his Senator money, and that his family has to figure out like mine did how to survive on its own efforts in the George Bush Eco-Oh No!-nomy.

Public Enemy Number One

The Rove story is now out of the news. Scooter and Cheney are nowhere to be seen. Bush is installing Strap-on Bolton as our interface with the rest of the world. Jesus freaks are glued to the 700 Club praying for their man Roberts no one else seems to know.

And Guess who's back: Scott Peterson! You remember him from such smokescreens as: Cheney bought the Energy Policy from Enron", and "Honey, the Supreme Court Went Duck Hunting with Cheney Before Hearing why we Shouldn't Know Anything about National Policy Decisions Made in Cooperation with the Most Crooked Outfit in US History ". He was also big during "Condoleeza didn't read the fucking memo either- It was the FBI's job."

Of course the Republicans had some influence over US Energy Policy, but they have some legitimate claim to that since they did get control of the government. The Most Crooked Outfit might be the RNC, but the one I'm poking at is ENRON. The ones who took your parents' retirement money. The ones who bankrolled their Houston savant into the White House. You know, their accountants are now in charge of auditing the government. Remember Enron?

Of course they did it by strictly controlling the message. And the news. And access to reality. And with the cooperation of Fox, the media wing of the Repsychoican party, they present daily talking points, hammer them for weeks, and complain about the terrible job the Democrats are doing running the country.

Scott Peterson. I never thought I'd hear that irrelevant name again.

Rick Santorum: Great Republican, Shitty Person

I saw Rick Santorum hamstrung by the hard-hitting George Stephanapolous yesterday. Ricky's been thumping his new book, claiming the lesbians are taking over. Radical feminist leaders, you see, are conspiring to compromise the morals of our country and ruin our youth. And yes, the children have too many rights.

Asked by Georgiethe bulldog to identify at least one of these radical feminist leaders, Ricky said,"uh,... you know, I uh,... Gloria Steinem?"

He has no basis for his stupid book. He's just another Republican pimping his religion to help increase the tension between people who read the news and people who get it from TV. Fox.

Gotta lose this douche.

God Bless America! God Damn America! End the Save the World!

Seriously, is the Republican Party blind, evil or just stupid?

They inherited a staggering surplus from Clinton, turned it into $8,000,000,000,000 in debt, and they're giving themselves an unfunded pay raise.

They gave up on our AntiCommunist Democracy-pushing foreign policy in Taiwan and elsewhere because China now owns $700,000,000,000 in US securities and is in a position to sink the US economy (Midwest be warned: They're moving into agriculture, and that's all we keep you around for).

They try to eliminate taxes for some AND death for Terry Schiavo, the two things we know to be true.

They rally around and appoint to lifetime jobs Evangelist wingnuts who claim social security is a communist victory, despite the ironic Red victory of their mortgaging our future and subordinating our foreign agenda to China.

The only labor money they get is from the Merchant Marine managers' associations, probably owned by another donor, Wal-Mart (opensecrets.org). They surround themselves with Dennis Koslowski, Ken Lay, Ahmad Chalabi, and gird themselves against Big Bird. They essentially pardon Eric Rudolph, and jail Martha Stewart- for NOT insider trading.

The Republican Party is perfect for you who want the world to permit opposites, who claim to be and to not be. You guys rule: I admire your youthful exhuberance for fantasy.
You do however need to be castrated and set out to pasture, perhaps in the pelagic sea, surrounded by those you care about. That's a joke. You can't all be out there AND be alone. I'm trying to speak Republican. Did you get it? Or are you stupid? Or maybe you just don't understand yourselves?

Wow, these Republicans don't care WHAT we think.

Mr. Pitts,
Wow, the Party is on a roll!

In a rush to give yourselves a raise= cost-of-living adjustment before a 1-month vacation? A one-month vacation? Really? How about a 1/12 reduction in pay instead? How about doing something to strengthen the dollar by securing jobs at home ? No, that's your job. You don't deserve a raise if for no other reason than that you took $90K from DeLay. That really matters to me: Half your salary from a thief.

Instead, I suggest you get a job for that month, maybe practice earning a living- you'll have to start soon if you don't start working for Pennsylvania. I haven't had any time off since 2001, and I resent that your crew can't do anything but cut taxes, raise deficits, and bandy about the meaningless social issues your party gets elected to blabber about. That's it, right? You pander to the emotional social-control zealots uncomfortable with change- uncomfortable with the present, so you can follow the devil into the Armani boutique. Right? Gotta be, that's what you do.

Maybe you're in the wrong line of work. Lobbyists like DeLay make out very well, and they only have to be as qualified as a Congressman.

The Texans running the Congress and the Administration are stealing money faster than they can collect it, since they've absolved themselves from Taxation. They've also tried to outlaw death in the Schiavo case. Death and Taxes being the only things we're taught are true, it's fitting your party works so hard to overrule them.

Congress has failed to act on issues Americans care about, like skyrocketing gasoline prices, health care, and the ethics scandals. Congress is listening to the interests of big money contributors and lobbyists and not to us, the taxpayers. That's why I oppose the congressional pay raise this year.

That Damned Party

Mr. Pitts:
I got a letter from you this week claiming the $8 Trillion deficit compels you to vote in favor of trimming the budget of some monies typically going to PBS. Now I see your colleagues don't care about such concerns, planning to dedicate about ten times that much to Sugarland, TX and a few companies in a position to affect and benefit from the rising price of energy. All this slipped in with the so-called Energy Bill.

I know you owe Mr. DeLay a lot of consideration, since he gave you $90,000, but your integrity is at stake. Your party's fiscal responsibility is at stake. Your job is on the line here.

Fix it. Get that non-voted amendment out of the so-called Energy Bill.

I'm appalled to read that Tom DeLay inserted a $1.5 billion giveaway to oil companies like Halliburton and Marathon Oil after the energy bill was negotiated between the House and Senate. I urge you to do everything you can to see that this provision is removed from the bill.

Joe Pitts is a chump

Got a letter from Representative Pitts. His stamped signature acts as a postage stamp.

Said he's sorry we have a difference of opinion, there's just too much deficit to keep funding the CPB, nearly $8,000,000,000. Of course the Bush administration inherited a balanced budget and didn't grow the military yet. Shrunk it. And the Republican Congress wrote the laws that spent the red. And mortgaged ironically our functioning government to Red China. Whee! This is fun!

He didn't mention the $90,000 he took from Tom DeLay, and neglected the topic of the VP's residuals from the company walking away with tens of billions of unaccounted dollars in Iraq. Yes, Cheney, the Republican Vice President. Believe it or not, he's still getting paid by Halliburton. Or is it KBR? Bechtel? Not sure, the smog is quite thick.

But back to Pitts: He represents a Texan. He's a PA Congressman for the party that took a massive surplus away from America. Out with him.

Roberts v Voting Rights

Why would the Reagan administration instruct a Solicitor to work at narrowing the applications of the Voting Rights Act?

And why would George Bush, the most contested US President in history, nominate Roberts to the Supreme Court after Roberts' decades as a business lobbyist and generally fringeoid Federalist Corporate Libertarian?

Because in his heart, Bush believes nothing. Just wants to corner enough cash to isolate himself and his peers from the coming environmental/geopolitical economic crises he's fomenting by empowering China to leverage more control over US foreign and domestic policy by owning the mortgage to the US Capitol.

Wheee,
Joe

A little-known Commandment

"Thou shalt not bear false witness"

Okay, so Roberts is a great guy if your a Christian Jihadist. But you have to ignore that rule. Because he's already a liar.

That's one commandment I try to live by. I don't want to live in an alternate universe while interacting with y'all, so I try to make sure the things I claim are true in my imagination AND on the ground on the planet.

This is a problem I have with the Political Christianics: They don't act like Jesus, and they pick, choose, parse and apologize their way through the Ten Commandments. And they say "They're Commandments, not suggestions," relying on the Power of Suggestion to insinuate by repetition their participation in a community of Faith.

But if they have faith, if they have trust in the Lawd (can't pronounce it respectfully, can't write it in English. Put a name on it, you gain control over it. It.) they'll wait for the WILL to be realized and stop voting. And I really hope the give back some of the extended life expectancy they've gotten from Science.

And I hope they give back the tens of Billions of DOLLARS Halliburton et al have swindled while recouping profits lost during Dick Cheney's tenure as boss over there.

You're doing it again:

Open letter to the media and journalism industry:

Remember when the war happened, and looking back we were unable to find anything in print critical of the war, demanding consistent rationale? And when we went to war to find the WMD Rumsfeld sold Saddam we didn't find them? And the journalists were pious and said they should have been more outspoken, actually reporting things they went out to learn?

Well, the whole Federalist Society thing came up today. The lying White House demanded a retraction, but more evidence that Roberts is interested in restoring a monarchy or at least a stratified society on our soil has come up. No outlets appear to be critical of anything new the President is trying to get away with, and the gushing grinning coming from the Pat Robertson crowd of for-profit professional lobbies doesn't appear to distract them.

But the Rove thing is still in play. And it's being ignored. Karl Rove violated American National Security Law, compromised our interest AND worked to further Bush's goal of nuclear proliferation by backwater bad guys like Pakistan.

You're forgetting it: You weren't going to be dumb cheerleaders any more.

President George H W Bush

How does the former President Bush feel about the Valerie Plame imbroglio?

As the former spook-in-chief, he was understood to be very sensitive to the security and HR needs of his subordinates over there. On the George Washington Memorial Parkway, there's an exit to the GHWBush Center for Intelligence. The irony there is too thick to spread, but hey- A George Bush Center for Intelligence might look like the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA. They have tours for kids.

I want to hear from our former President about why his son makes kissy face with the Saudi Prince. Did he ever come down to the basement and catch George and his buddy Rove practicing their kissy faces together, in case a real girl would ever give..

It's hard not to write plain nasty things about them. But I heard from Colin Powell, he went on the Daily Show, clenched his teeth and smiled the impossible smile, reviewed the GOP talking points and tried to dodge the absolute shame he helped Bush bring upon our country.

Now I want to hear from the wimp.

Republican = Apologist

Santorum bravely deflected the Church Sex Scandals toward the 'liberals'. Apparently, the liberal social mores of our oldest Puritan city encourage bestiality and privacy, which Santorum came from Virginia to defend Pennsylvania against.

He's a chump.

His wife should go home and make some cookies, and a Santorum daughter can look forward to a life of low-class toil. Because he works against everything a liberated human should want.

He's a fag.

Santorum is Latin for "Phony whore".

All kidding aside, Rick Santorum's another asshole Republican excusing the behavior of his allies and casting blame for their atrocious misdeeds on his political enemies. We enemies of the Apologist Republican Party ironically encourage the free trade of thought and discourse. And privacy. I bet Santorum has plenty of personal security, lots of high gates to protect his privacy, even though he got on the Senate floor and argued there's no such Constitutional right.

Let's look VERY HARD at the public Republican. They always say the opposite of their real message...

Rove, row your boat

Karl Rove and his little friend George have no interest in our security. They're all about politics.

Rove committed a crime, and the Republicans are doing the same thing they always do: muddy the water.

Stay on task: Republican apologists must be removed from our government. They represent nothing but excuses, why the economy tanked, why they can't get bin Laden, why they didn't arm the soldiers they sent, why they turned Powell into a laughing stock when he did that stupid marionette dance for the UN. Accountability is the last thing they want and the first thing they promote.

They excuse Bush for lying to the world and sending hundreds of thousands of Americans to Iraq to generate SERIOUS military-industrial complex revenue. They excuse Cheney for lobbying hard to help out with the profits of the contractor he ran ineffectively during his brief civilian career. They excuse Rice for saying, "It wasn't my job" when asked why she wasn't on top of FBI and CIA reports and memos entitled "Osama Bin Laden is going to Hijack a Plane and crash into something Important." They excuse Frist for coming to the Senate as a secular pragmatist and converting to Wingnut to gain a solid constituency, prostituting his faith for money. They excuse DeLay for violating every rule of the Congress and of election finance and even of his own state. They excuse Eric Rudolph for bombing random passersby. Now, the architect of the coup, Karl Rove is getting a pass for violating a sacred trust and injuring our national security by outing Plame and helping the proliferators of weapons.

Helping the bad guys? Of course: These Republican leaders love our enemies more than they do us. Make no mistake. WHen they go off topic, stay on task: Rove committed a high crime. Eventually, one will have a hissy fit and go off script.

Where are they now?

Where is:
Karl Rove's Prison Uniform?

The money Halliburton/KBR overbilled us and lost oversease?

The Iraqi money in the Iraqi Bank when Bremer took over ?

President Bush's military records, DUI records?

Where are the criminals executing for Nixon in Watergate?
Oh- I know where they are=> SPEAKING FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Where is the guy who helped Reagan
1)Steal US missiles
2)Smuggle them into Iran
3)Trade them to Iran for money and hostages
4)Take the money to fund illegal operations in South America?

SPEAKING FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY