nolies32fouettes's blog

Pelosi isn't wasting time. Of course the whispers in the Republican party is that the Democrats haven't done anything about Iraq yet. I find it hilarious since they've had 5 years and the only thing they've accomplished is creating a Civil War and living in a State of Denial.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi announced today that House Democrats will hold a forum to discuss the war inIraq on Tuesday, Dec. 5. Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and Maj. Gen. John Batiste will join current and new members of the Democratic Caucus in discussing options for a way forward in Iraq."The war in Iraq is one of the most critical issues confronting our nation, and the American people have clearly called for a New Direction in Iraq," Pelosi said. "We know that 'stay the course' is not working, has not made our country safer, has not honored the commitment to our troops, and has not brought stability to the region. I look forward to hearing from our distinguished group of experts as House Democrats discuss the deteriorating situation in Iraq."  Read More »

Ok..so the Rude PUndit is Rude. But he's damn accurate too!

"When UCLA police officer Terrence Duren used his Taser on student Mostafa Tabatabainejad at the Powell Library last week, it was a brazen act for many reasons.

See, when Rodney King was beaten by the LAPD, it was done in the dark of shadows, with at least the thought that no one was witnessing the actions.

That's where these kinds of things usually take place: behind buildings, in isolated areas, in interrogation rooms, places where cowardice masked by bullshit bravado and unmitigated savagery can occur unnoticed - for the most part. But at UCLA, the campus cops didn't give a shit who saw what they did.

And in that way, in the week that George W. Bush visited the nation itself, we've finally come back, full circle, to the Vietnam era. We're back to when the National Guard could mow down students in broad daylight, when Mayor Daley's thug cops could beat hippies in front of TV cameras and not give a rat's ass who saw, and, indeed, they could be supported by large parts of the public.

The actions of a nation's government sets the bar for the power given to those with any kind of authority over the populace. It's why capital punishment is such a bullshit thing: hey, let's solve violence by killing people. If the government says that it can illegally bomb, say, Cambodia or Laos with no consequences to those who do it, then what does it matter if protesters get their heads bloodied?

If the Congress of the United States actually negotiated to agree upon allowing certain kinds of pain and degradation as not torture, if no one of any standing is accountable to the law or humanity in general, then why not repeatedly tase an uncooperative student who was passively demonstrating against a school rule?"

The rude pundit is proof that you have to look behind the name and see what's written in the book or in this case the blog. Because he's right! Over the last four years, we've watched Cindy Sheehan get brutalized at the State of the Union (which I blogged), we've watched her get attacked by the police in front of the United Nations. Nobody said a bad word about what was happening but the neocons screemed obscenities about her.

Also, last year, I posted on a woman who was beaten by the police just for posting a "World Can't Wait" protest sign. She told it couldn't be put on a post (where many signs already were) but she went to remove it. They beat the living daylights out of her.

The UCLA thing is like those things. More blatent...more in your face. AND more destructive to the security of our people and sanctity of our laws and Constitution.  Read More »

this is too good to resist!

Top Ten Tips for Bush. (My list)

1. Resign.
2. Turn yourself in to the Hague, to Gitmo, to Abu Ghraib...
3. Apologize to Americans
4. Apologize to the World.
5. Hand over your ill-gained riches to the Iraqis people.
6. Return the money your family and friends and contributors made from your terrible policies to the US treasury. (Yeh, people like Halliburton, your nephew, well...all sorts of people who lived high on the hog of your bad policies will have to return their dirty money to the taxpayers.)
7. Never let us see you again.
8. Never let us see your family in politics again.
9. Do not pass GO
10 Do not collect two hundred dollars...and THERE is no "Get out of Jail Free" card.

Especially when you're a president who has broken the law, tortured people, spied without legal warrants, and has just basically peed on the Constitution.  Read More »

World of Warcraft lame?

How can a game that attracts more than 7.5 million users worldwide—and has devastated the competition be called lame? The New York Times covers Warcraft, and South Park lampooned it. Even my own family are WArcraft 'junkies'. (And yes...even Ultima online too.)

So is it lame? I told my dad that slate said it was lame. He grunted and said, "Well, I like it."  Read More »

In my email:

The danger of a 'dignified' exit from IraqTom Englehardt has written a powerful analysis of the politics of devising an exit strategy from Iraq. He says, essentially, that The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group was installed to give Bush cover for "lowered expectations," but that it will offer no new or inspired plans. He details the scope of our base-building in Iraq (reminiscent of the Roman strategy of fortified outposts), and the unreported uses of the airforce, to debunk the idea that withdrawal is what is likely to happen.  Read More »

Yay! Republicans war on the middle-class finally has them running scared.

The midterm elections, which produced the highest voter turnout in more than two decades, resulted in not only the Democratic takeover of both the House and the Senate, but a new political reality that has some free-trade-at-all-cost Republicans writhing in pain.

The free-trade orthodoxy, made up not only of Republicans but still a sizeable number of Democrats, appears to be spouting ever-louder lies and disturbing distortions of truth and reality as their desperation over the ascension of the "Lou Dobbs Democrats" on November 7 is becoming more shrill, verging on outright panic.

To these media merchants of obfuscation and hollow meaningless language, the very idea that ideology and blind partisanship may be giving way to truth must be frightening indeed.

...Will the lies and distortion ever stop? While it's encouraging that Kondracke at least acknowledges the legitimacy of concerns about American workers and their families, he disappoints by trying to dismiss those concerns as a "tide of populism, protectionism, nationalism and xenophobia."

Elitists like Kondracke dismiss calls for balanced and mutual international trade as protectionism and nationalism. He and others completely disregard the $5 trillion in trade debt that the United States has built up through 30 consecutive years of trade deficits. That trade debt is rising faster than our national debt and is simply economically unsustainable, no matter what any faith-based economist would argue. Our political, business and media elites continue to disregard reality.
Like Kondracke, those elites dismiss continuing concerns about the security of our ports and borders -- more than five years after September 11, 2001 -- as mere nationalism and xenophobia. Not a single one of them has been honest enough to admit that failure to secure our borders and ports leaves this nation unacceptably vulnerable to terrorist attack and flooded with billions of dollars of illegal drugs. How can any rational, independent thinker accept such a reality?

Almost a century ago, Henry Ford doubled his workers' salaries so the people on the assembly line could afford the automobiles they manufactured. Ford and his employees helped build the strongest middle class in the world. But today, American business leaders seem intent on destroying jobs and looking at their American employees as liabilities, not assets.  Read More »