Mark Drolette

What’s a little depleted uranium in the yard if it helps defeat them terrorists?

By Mark Drolette

The following lead of an April 11, 2007, article e-mailed to me sort of caught my eye (more like pierced it with a radioactive-hot poker):

“Proposed explosives tests upwind from Tracy [California] will release as much as 450 pounds of radioactive depleted uranium dust into the air every year, according to an air pollution permit application filed Friday by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.”

Reading the entire item reminded me of my reaction when I first viewed the Project for the New American Century’s Web site several years ago: it had to be a bad fraternity prank gone even badder.

Who are these people and where did they come from? Developing minds want to know.

By Mark Drolette

Those of us who actually possess developed brains and thus can’t sleep at night contemplating the death-dealing horror this country has become have long been infuriated not only by the naked neocon emperors and their oily collaborators, the Vichy Democrats, but also by the millions of our fellow citizens who think everything’s just ducky with our New American Century of torture, mass murder and looting and thus collectively just sit there, motionless, like a giant rotting carcass unapologetically blocking our path while we desperately clamor to halt the whole hateful hell before it’s too late.

(Whoops: too late.)

I was a paperboy once. How ‘bout makin’ me head of, oh, say, the treasury?

By Mark Drolette

Recently a “friend,” apparently deeming me a titch too serene, forwarded the following blurb from the Web site of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (you don’t know how hard it was to write those last four words):

“Stephen Gallagher, 23, of West Sacramento, has been appointed assistant secretary of public communications for the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. He most recently served as a research associate for the communications and research firm MB Public Affairs from 2004 to 2006. Gallagher previously was a staff writer for the Manteca Bulletin Newspaper and a camp counselor for the San Joaquin 4-H Camp. He also served as an intern in the press office for Governor Schwarzenegger in 2004. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $49,000. Gallagher is a Republican.”

Ol’ Smedley knew a racket when he saw (and slew for) one

By Mark Drolette

On a picture-perfect St. Patrick’s Day morning, I heard that strangely seductive lament of bagpipes drifting through the open window of my downtown Sacramento apartment, a second-story unit right across the street from beautiful Capitol Park (an expanse of delightful urban greenery sullied only by the presence of the White Sepulcher of Corruption, otherwise known as the State Capitol, sitting smack dab in its middle).

Curious, I headed outside.

Spotting a sizeable crowd near the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial that sits just inside the park, I moseyed over.

 

They’re shocked, shocked they tell you

By Mark Drolette

They’re everywhere.

Even in Costa Rica.

Which is where I was recently for the fifth time to check on my house construction and also officially become a legal resident of the country which, among other things, now allows me, for about forty bucks a month, to join its national health care system under which I will be fully covered medically, pre-existing conditions be damned. (You know, just like how we do it in America.)

That’s right; Costa Rica doesn’t care I’m asthmatic or have been married three times. (If multiple marriages don’t sound like a health issue to you, you’ve obviously not met any of my exes.)

The nuts and dolts of America’s downfall

“Hey, Mark: I got a question for ya!” my brother-in-law, a rabid right-winger, said as he approached me from across the yard at a recent family gathering.

That’s when I committed an error in judgment almost as severe as the one my sister made the moment she accepted his proposal: I responded.

“What is it?” I said before I could catch myself. Damn! All those years of therapy and, still, this.

“I guess Slick Willie got caught with his pants down again, huh?” Dolton sniggered as he slithered up beside me.

“What are you talking about?” I asked needlessly.

“You know: your hero, Bill Clinton. Didja catch his meltdown with Chris Wallace on Fox News the other day?”

Good old Dolt and his Bush-supporting, Limbaugh-parroting, ovine brethren: they’re so pathetically predictable. Too late now, though: the battle was on.

“First,” I said, “Bill Clinton is not my hero. I’ve long felt ambivalent about the man.”

“Like a frog?”

“What?”

“You know, amviba -- I mean, amphiba -- well, however that word is said, you know what I mean: like a frog.”

“Well, frankly, no,” I said, “I’ve really never quite known what you’ve meant although, in this case, I think you’re referring to ‘amphibious.’”

“Yeah, that’s it!”

“No, that’s not how he makes me feel.”

“Oh.”

“But, since we’re on the subject,” I continued, “it certainly would be hard to be more toadie-like than was Mr. Wallace during the Clinton ambush.”

“What ambush?” Dolt said indignantly. “He was only asking what people wanted to know: why didn’t Clinton go after Osama bin Laden when he had the chance? Wallace even said he’d gotten a lot of e-mails asking the very same thing!”

“Oh, it must be true, then, if he said it.”

“I’m glad you see my point,” Dolt said, beaming.

How could I miss it, sitting atop his head like that?

“Look, Dolt,” I replied, wondering how painful it was, really, to slit one’s wrists, “the only e-mails a soulless worm like Wallace, or any of the neocon whoreporate media lackeys over at Pravda West, pay attention to are the ones they get from the White House telling them exactly what the latest lie or strawman du jour is. Except this time, their characteristically ham-fisted attempt to rewrite history failed when Clinton called them on it.”

Dolt shook his head. “Yeah? Well, what about that recent documentary on ABC proving Clinton was more interested in getting his knob polished than protecting the country?”

“‘Proving?’ Do you even know what a documentary is? As opposed to, oh, let’s just pick a wild example, a right-wing-produced piece of propaganda piped directly into your home via what used to be the public’s airwaves that’s fully intended to shoo facts down the memory hole?”

He snorted. “Huh! You liberals: always so concerned about your precious ‘facts.’”

“Uh, yeah,” I said while making a mental note to check on the legal definition of justifiable homicide, “we’re funny like that. But, for a little while now, since like when time began, facts have had an odd way of rebutting lies, and the record is clear: the Clinton administration aggressively went after bin Laden while George Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of that rotten lot, all too strangely and conveniently, did nothing before 9/11. Other than plot it, I mean.”

“Please!” Dolton scoffed. “You and your loony tunes conspiracy theories. Besides, Condi Rice recently said the 9/11 commission ‘turned over every rock’ during its investigation.”

“Well, she could only have been describing how the commission finally located Cheney and Bush so their non-testimony could be non-gathered.”

This, my brother-in-law ignored. He’d already returned to a basic, base right-wing obsession: sex.

As in: other people’s.

“What am I supposed to tell little Dolt about the sanctity of the Oval Office?” my brother-in-law went on, referring to my unfortunate nephew, 9-year-old Dolton, Jr. “That the big Dolt thinks it’s just fine and dandy for the president to order some defenseless young thing to blow him in the White House?”

“Yeah, I guess it’s far better instead to tell him the president orders defenseless young things to be blown up from the White House.”

His eyes narrowed. “You know, Mark, when you’re the only country in the world with guts enough to go to war to spread peace, sometimes innocent people die. Besides, we need to get the terrorists before they get us.”

“Not so fast there, Dolt, with that false dichotomy of ‘it’s either them or us,’” I countered.

“That bit sounds suspiciously close to another country’s policy to which our country’s policy is suspiciously close.”

Dolt’s face flushed crimson. “Surely not you, my sickeningly tolerant brother-in-law, are talking about -- ,” he looked around furtively and then said, in a hushed and angry voice, “the I-word?”

“You bet I’m talkin’ about Israel,” I said.

He gasped. “Why, that’s . . . you’re . . . anti-semantic!” he cried.

“No,” I responded, “your beloved Dubya is anti-semantic. Speaking of the devil, though, and considering how I view Bush’s hellish actions and creepy, evil lineage, I could safely be called anti-satanic.”

“I’ve come to expect that sort of crap from you about our brave president,” Dolt hissed as his neck veins bulged, “but you’ve really crossed the line with your Jew-hating garbage. Why don’t you just go ahead and join the terrorists?”

“And who, exactly, would these ‘terrorists’ be?”

“Muslims, you idiot. Palestinians. Arabs.”

“I see. And so, in your book, which would obviously have lots of pictures and monosyllabic words in it, all Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims are terrorists?”

Even Dolt could see the ever-smaller corner looming beyond his broad paint brush.

“Well, uh . . . no, I, uh . . . didn’t mean that . . .”

“You didn’t mean it even though you said it? What is that, then: your best Bush administration impersonation?”

“What I mean is . . . uh . . . ,” Dolt sputtered, “is . . . right . . . that your little bleeding heart apparently doesn’t care that the Palestinians have vowed to push Israel into the sea. Ha!”

“Yeah, we’ve heard that one for years now. Yet I’ve always wondered just how the power-mad Palestinians would do that: brandish their rocks and slingshots while chasing a terrified Israel, with its two to three hundred nuclear warheads and immense military, into the water?”

“Very funny. But even if you don’t care about Israel, you’ll be singing a different tune, and in Muslim, too, when you and your terrorist-loving pals have all helped al-Qaeda win the war on terror and the caliphate comes to town.”

“Uh, there is no Muslim language. A Muslim is a person, one who adheres to the Islamic faith,” I explained.

“See what I mean? Stickin’ up for ‘em every chance you get. Case closed.”

“What’s closed is your mind,” I said. “Anyone who believes Bush’s recent insane assertion that the bogeymen of al-Qaeda could somehow ‘advance their vision of a unified, totalitarian Islamic state that can confront and eventually destroy the free world’ is just as nuts as he and his Project for the New American Century collaborators are. Of course, I can see why Bush and his crooked corporate cronies would be frightened by the prospect of this conspicuously undefined ‘Islamofascism’ he keeps harping about.”

Dolt’s eyes widened. “You can?”

“Sure!” I said. “It would interfere mightily with the good, old American fascism we have now.”

“You’re hopeless, Mark. You’re no better than the terrorists, who hate Israel because it’s Jewish and hate us because of our freedoms.”

I was impressed: Dolt was on pace for a personal best in CPM (cliché’s per minute).

“Then they should quit hating us any moment now,” I said, “since the Bushies, abetted by a criminal Congress, have done a fine job of eliminating those freedoms, especially with the recent passage of the breathtakingly hideous ‘Detainee Bill’ that jettisons habeas corpus, precludes judicial review, ‘legalizes’ torture and allows Bush to imprison people forever.”

“I know where he could start with that last one,” Dolt sneered.

“Which is something I’ll sure you’ll dutifully follow up on once your shoo-in application for Neighborhood Snitch Leader is approved,” I replied.

He didn’t like that so much but I didn’t care; I was steaming now:

“As for the taboo of criticism of Israeli government policies equating to anti-Semitism, you’ve trotted out a couple times,” I continued, “it’s the Big Lie that stifles all debate -- that is, if debate still existed in this cursed land -- about the decades-long conflating of American and Israeli policy that has proved disastrous for Palestinians, Israelis and Americans alike, an ugly whopper dealt to you daily by the complicit media you’ve swallowed whole.”

“You mean the liberal media? Hardly!”

“If you mean the media are hardly liberal, I’d actually find myself agreeing with you for once, which would mean I’d then have to go out and shoot myself,” I replied.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he sniffed.

“But that’s how it is,” I said. “This ‘liberal media’ canard you and your fellow Dittoheads constantly spout: the truth is, the majority of American media are controlled by five mega-conglomerates whose owners are almost exclusively right-wingers and solely interested in acquiring and consolidating even more outlets so they can, what else?, make more money. There’s great advantage to them simply regurgitating what they’re fed by the ruling fascists instead of doing what the late, great First Amendment intended as their real function: keeping an objective eye on government and openly reporting the details.”

“Who cares about ‘details’ when our American way of life is threatened??” Dolt exclaimed, once again proving he never found an unrelated tangent he didn’t like.

“I don’t know, Dolt, maybe it should be threatened.”

“Huh?”

“Well, with our long record of bombing whomever we feel obstructs our ‘right’ to consume as much of the planet’s resources we desire; eviscerated civil liberties; fixed elections; super-galactic consumer and national debt; a record trade imbalance; an endemic, distracting addiction to shopping; a poisoned environment; bursting prisons; a racist drug war; wacko religious fundamentalism; a dismal educational system; enflamed xenophobia; rampant sexism; 45 million Americans without health care; oppression of labor; and a government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations, maybe our cherished way of life could use a little upsetting.”

“Where do you get all this stuff?” Dolt demanded. “It’s like we’re living on different planets.”

What a delightful I image, I thought.

“Besides,” he said snarkily, “it’s pretty funny how I never hear any of this on TV.”

“Hel-lo! Have you not heard a word I’ve said?” I asked.

“I only listen if it’s important,” Dolt spat.

“Then listen to this: you and your fellow good Germans continuously and willingly expose yourselves to, essentially, state-run media that spew ridiculous, non-stop lies like: Clinton did nothing while Bush has done everything to protect America; all Muslims are jihadists whose sole aim is to squelch your right to watch American Idol while you gorge yourself on toxic food and charge more useless crap from QVC; the gutting of the Constitution is actually a good thing designed to, Orwellian-like, protect your liberties while simultaneously sending them down the crapper; Lebanon and Gaza had it coming while tiny, oppressed Israel, the recipient of three billion U.S. dollars annually that help fund the world’s fourth-largest military, is a democratic oasis simply defending itself against swarthy bad people rather than a terrorist apartheid state whose main lobby, AIPAC, has both a stranglehold on American foreign policy and ensured anyone daring to criticize the Israeli government’s inhumanity is automatically slandered as a Jew hater; and on and on and on.”

“Now, wait a -- ,” Dolt began.

“No, you wait,” I said. “I’m not done.”

For once, he was silent.

“And so all of this,” I said, “all of it, is spun and sanitized and sexed-up and spoon-fed in sensationalistic and sugarcoated sound bites to you and your fellow phony patriots, assuring you it’s all part of a grand scheme to keep you safe from some scary plan of world domination by ‘Islamofascists’ that exists only in your masters’ heads.

“You buy the lies and then, worse, spread them, repeating them until they’ve become gospel, thereby making possible both the transformation of a land that once held forth truly lofty ideals into a neo-feudalistic, murderous rogue nation, and the perpetuation of catastrophic atrocities like Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, and next, Iran, where your heroes fully intend, soon, to use nuclear weapons.”

Dolt had remained silent and either had suffered a stroke or was still searching for his next Bushism. At last, he spoke:

“Whatever. You believe what you want to believe, Mark. The fact is, there really are people in the world who seek to obliterate America, and it’s just like the president says: we fight them there, or fight them over here.”

“Well, Dolt,” I answered, “I’ll concede one point: America does have mortal enemies. But you’re a little late. Had you taken but a moment to pry yourself away from the electronic doping tube to look around, maybe you’d have noticed millions of them have already been spread throughout this country for quite some time.”

Panic creased his face.

“Really?? No! Where are they?”

“I’m looking at one.”

Copyright © 2006 Mark Drolette. All rights reserved.

Is fascism really all that bad?

Amidst all that’s been written about Newsweak’s agreement to now let the Bushies vet its reporting in the wake of the magazine’s article about Guantanamo Bay interrogators’ rather rude treatment of the Quran, a particular piece by Terence Hunt of the Associated Press about the whole unholy affair caught my widened orb. After carefully unsnagging it, I focused it as well as I could on a few quotes that were real eye-poppers (as if that’s what I needed at the moment). To (nit)wit:

Hunt quotes Scott McClellan, White House press secretary, thusly:

“The report had real consequences. People [in Afghanistan] have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation. It will take work to undo what can be undone.”

You know, I think McClellan is the only guy almost alive who could make me miss Ari Fleischer. Each is a bald-faced liar, but watching Scotty-boy dissemble for the administration makes it all the more evident that Fleischer actually had a natural-born talent for prevarication. It was even somewhat entertaining at times, in a guilty pleasure sort of way, watching Ari lie through his teeth. With McClellan, I just want to punch him in them. Having said that (thank you for listening), the sickly laughable hypocrisy saturating snotty Scotty’s admonishment of the wayward Newsmeek is so obvious, we’ll just move on here to our next gem, as reported by Hunt:

“McClellan said a retraction was only ‘a good first step’ and said Newsweek should try to set the record straight by ‘clearly explaining what happened and how they got it wrong, particularly to the Muslim world, and pointing out the policies and practices of our military.’”

So let me get this straight: the main function of American media is not to report facts, but rather to promote the gory glory of America’s globe-straddling, imperialistic death machine, otherwise know as the United States military?

Just so long as we’re clear.

This actually might be a good place to pause and ask: did Newspeak get the story wrong? Well, yeah, obviously they did. I mean, come on: Who other than an America-hating commie gay-lover would believe that a member of the honorable U.S. military could even consider throwing a Quran into a toilet? Yes, we all know America has gone to war under false pretenses, killed tens of thousands, wounded countless others, destroyed a country, tortured prisoners, murdered civilians outright (in addition to killing them, all in good faith, of course, as “collateral damage”), infuriated Muslims all over the globe, intentionally alienated longtime allies, precipitated a spike in terrorism worldwide, and ripped off millions of dollars from the Iraqis while purportedly helping them, but, really, now … desecrate the Quran?

Please! That would be over the line.

Moving backward, er, sideways, uh, forward, here’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to Hunt: “It’s appalling that this story got out there.”

“Appalling” is not the first word that comes to mind; “miraculous,” maybe.

Per Hunt, Rice again:

“‘I do think [the article has] done a lot of harm. Of course, 16 people died…’”

So Condi weeps for 16 dead Afghanis. Touching. However, since the U.S. has slaughtered at least 100,000 Iraqis in its imperial land/oil grab on her watch and I don’t remember ever hearing her express similar concern for those poor souls, I do believe that if world domination were a poker game [and some would say it is], I bet her bet would go something like this: “I call your 6250 dead Iraqis with my one dear, departed Afghani.” (At least we now know the approximate rate of exchange.)

Lastly, Rice out-Rices herself:

“‘…but it’s also done a lot of harm to America’s efforts’ to demonstrate tolerance and breed goodwill in the Muslim world.”

I’m sorry. I must’ve missed our noble efforts at selflessly helping our Muslim friends these last couple of years while I was busy being preoccupied with occupied Iraq.

On second thought, though, maybe ol’ Bird’s Nest Hair actually has a point here. Perhaps it’s not so strange, after all, to wonder why Iraqis (the ones who haven’t yet died from bombs, bullets, cholera, or depleted uranium poisoning) aren’t just a little more grateful for America’s big-hearted attempt to rid their country once and for all of weapons of mass destruction, er, smash Al-Qaeda with whom Saddam Hussein was working closely, uh, bring democracy, yeah, that’s it, bring democracy to their now rubble-strewn and cluster bomb-blanketed land. After all, if the Chinese someday invade and occupy our country for our own good after pulling the financial rug out from underneath us by suddenly calling in the mountains of U.S. Treasury bills we continually sell them to prop up our bankrupt economy, I’m sure we’ll all be in the streets singing their praises to high heaven.

Dontcha think?

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see that folks like Rice and McClellan are just naturally doing and saying what representatives of any fascistic regime would say and do. In a weird sort of way, they’re actually being up front about how today’s American press really operates.

All Americans know the traditional media in this country are owned, in classic fascistic fashion, damn near lock, stock, and barrel by the extreme right wing. Well, all Americans, that is, except for the millions who don’t know it (which would be pretty much the same ones who still believe their ballots count; ah, yes, fixed elections: another hallmark of fascism).

But here’s the thing: Look at how happy the ostrich people are! Compared to us, that is. Yes, us: the folks who continuously fret and fume about the incessant government propaganda emanating from America’s TV stations, radio channels, newspapers, and the like. When was the last time you can remember not having that sick little twist in your stomach or hearing the doom-laden thought in your head that goes: “Man, I can’t believe how much my country has gone to utter hell”?

What I’m saying is that when Rice tells you it’s appalling that Newssqueak published a factual story or McClellan says it’s the media’s duty to instruct the world to worship America’s big, hard guns, they’re actually being honest about the current state of the state in spite of their naturally dishonest little selves. Isn’t it time, then, to call off the whole charade, call a spade a spade, and get on with living in totalitarianism’s shade? (A poet I’m not, but that’s OK; fascism disdains the arts and intellectualism, anyway.)

Just think how freeing it would be to finally quit expending all of that energy trying to pump air into the decidedly dead duck that once was our dear democracy. I haven’t admitted this before, but it’s not easy constantly coming up with new, clever names for the loonies in charge. I often revert to “Bushies,” but that has always seemed far too cutesie to convey the sheer evil it represents. “Busheviks,” which is popular lately, is excellent, but I didn’t think of it, so no dice there. What’s left? Bush pigs, Bush dogs, Bush monsters, Bushwhackers, Bushitters … ? See what I mean? My well of creativity, she does not runneth over.

What it relief it would be just to watch WWF instead.

I’m tellin’ ya, this fascism thing has got a lot going for it. No more sleepless nights worrying about things like: “nuclear options,” insolvent pension plans, the problems facing organized labor (no unions, no problem!), who to vote for, destructive nationalism, what religion the new addition to the family will be (‘cause, under fascism, there’s basically only one; one guess), whether corporations will always stick it to the populace (they will, thus serving another basic tenet of fascism: the indistinguishable co-mingling of corrupt corporate and government interests), etc. Short of us going all Founding Fathers-like and whippin’ up a second American R-word (unlikely), all of that stuff -- and more! -- has either happened, is happening, or is gonna happen.

So why the heck stew over it?

Can you imagine all the time we would save if we just figured it was a lost cause and quit fighting -- you know, like the Democrats in Congress? I get giddy just thinking about it. For instance, how many hours a day now do you figure you spend on the Internet or are otherwise similarly engaged, trying to ferret out just a few more kernels of truth? Under fascism, you can throw such cares away and watch the hours return to you like magic, thus making it possible for you to pedal your bike to your third job without worrying about being late or take that Mandarin class in anticipation of our eventual joyful liberation.

Oh, the advantages of fascism! What in the U.S. military-dominated world took me so long to see them?

Not so endearing enduring U.S. military bases in Iraq

It’s not easy writing about something about which I know very little, but I’m going to try anyway. (Hey, you, in the back. I heard that. It has too stopped me before.)

What I think I’m talking about are the fourteen permanent U.S. military bases currently under construction in Iraq. Yes, that Iraq, the country from which we will militarily withdraw just as soon as we get the word from the completely-free-of-U.S.-influence Iraqi government telling us to go (Look for snow in Baghdad that day.)

Well, “go,” that is, except from the fourteen permanent U.S. military bases currently under construction there. But why quibble over semantics when we’re all occupiers and occupied -- I mean, friends -- here?

I’ve tried to learn more about these bases from my elected “representatives,” but, for some reason, it’s almost like no one in our government wants to talk about them. Weird, huh?

E-mails to both senators have gone unanswered. I expect that from the Republican, Dianne Feinstein (yes, I know her stationery says she’s a Dem, but anyone familiar with her politics knows the printer must’ve goofed), but it is strange I’ve not heard back from Barbara Boxer, especially since last year her campaign contacted me about seemingly every fund-raiser in the state, no matter how distant -- gigs with cute, down-home names like “Bowling for Barb in Bakersfield” (a scant 300 miles from my home). (I kid the good senator; she actually receives a Drolette Honorary Lifetime Pass from Truly Sharp Criticism for being the only solon with ovaries big enough to try to at least delay the final nail from being hammered into our republic’s coffin on January 6, 2005.)

My congressman, Democrat Robert “Don’t Ever Rock the Boat” Matsui, to whom I sent a similar query, has since died, which, given past experience, probably doesn’t affect my chances one way or the other of receiving a response from his office worth a damn.

I also e-mailed the Department of Defense (DoD). So far, Rummy is mum. No dummy, the bum.

So: What made me first suspect that certain administration insiders harbored deluded dreams of indefinitely installing, and then keeping, American military personnel in Iraq? Call it intuition. That, and the following item from the Project for the New American Century’s (PNAC) September 2000 report “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century”:

“Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in [Persian] Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein” (page 14).

I know that’s kind of vague, but, hey, if there’s one thing my mom taught me when I was growing up, it’s how to spot a thinly-veiled attempt to take over the world, just as I was always told the nasty Soviet Union was trying to do. Her warnings really weren’t so different, however, from the good counsel of any era’s responsible American mother (though a current savvy one would no doubt drop the last two letters from “U.S.S.R.”).

PNAC’s cracked attack-Iraq tack explains Dubya’s sudden out-of-left-field post-9/11 insistence that it sure would be swell to shell hell out of the fell Hussein, lest Saddam blanket the U.S. with n-bombs from Manhattan to San Francisco (the latter undoubtedly garnering a couple of “aye” votes in the War Room), or kill thousands of Americans by showering them with chemical and biological weapons delivered via Iraq’s vast collection of two, maybe three, plywood-and-baling-wire drones.

Since a five-minute Internet search would have divulged the real reason America’s nutcase neoconpoops craved invading a country that posed absolutely no threat to the U.S., i.e. to move troops out of one oil-laden country with ties to Al-Qaeda and 9/11 (our friend, Saudi Arabia) into another oil-laden country with no connections to Al-Qaeda and 9/11 (our enemy, Iraq), I thought it would be only a matter of time before a reporter somewhere who knew how to work a mouse would look on PNAC’s website and dutifully report to the American public the gross sham the Bushites were perpetrating.

Yet, here we are, years down the various-body-parts-strewn road, and there’s been barely a peep from the cowed sheep comprising the sorry American corporate media. Very little material has, uh, materialized regarding the bases.

The first article about them I remember reading was written by Christine Spolar of the Chicago Tribune in March 2004. She leads: “From the ashes of abandoned Iraqi army bases, U.S. military engineers are overseeing the building of an enhanced system of American bases designed to last for years.”

Later, she writes that “U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 ‘enduring bases,’ long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years” and

“‘Is this a swap for the Saudi bases?’ asked Army Brig. Gen. Robert Pollman, chief engineer for base construction in Iraq. ‘I don't know....When we talk about enduring bases here, we're talking about the present operation, not in terms of America's global strategic base. But this makes sense. It makes a lot of logical sense.’”

It was quite a while before I heard the bases mentioned again, and, considering the setting, my jaw literally fell from my face when it happened. (Don’t you hate it when someone uses “literally” incorrectly? So do I. That’s why I would never do it. My jaw has since been successfully reattached, thank you.)

The mentioner: Senator John “You Bet Your Ass There Really Is Something To All That Skull-And-Bones Crap” Kerry (D-MA); the scene: last year’s first fake presidential debate (it can’t be a real one if our ballots don’t count -- and they don’t).

Per the senator: “And I think a critical component of success in Iraq is being able to convince the Iraqis and the Arab world that the United States doesn't have long-term designs on it. As I understand it, we're building some fourteen military bases there now, and some people say they've got a rather permanent concept to them.”

Gad! What a bombshell, I thought. What followed, though, was even more stunning: Instead of moderator Jim Lehrer pouncing on this like a real journalist would do in one of those museum animatronic dioramas that shows what real journalists used to look and act like before they became extinct, he instead asked Kerry a real softball question: “Senator, what do you think of real softballs?”

After the audience’s tittering finally subsided (despite appearances, a not-so-sophisticated bunch, that group), the moment was lost. The rest of the “debate” was consumed primarily by George W. Bush (who wouldn’t recognize a time clock if one was impaled squarely on his pointy [numb]skull) insisting no fewer than eleven times throughout his petulant performance that just whatever it is the hell he does sure is a lot of “hard work.”

Though Lehrer’s reputation as one of the few remaining legitimate journalists sadly disappeared that night faster than the truth upon a Republican’s arrival, I figured some reporter or columnist somewhere still would grab the reins offered by Kerry and ride with that big horse -- sort of like analogously hopping up on a tall, swift steed and galloping away, wild and unfettered, giddily feeling the wind blowing one’s hair back into a perma-coif not unlike the one adorning the senator’s head, not knowing the exact destination but nonetheless saying “the heck with that, partner” and doing it because, darn it, it’s simply the right thing to do.

Uh, my delirium soon passed when I came to and realized two things: a) half a tab will do just fine next time and b) I live in 21st century America, where the compromised and corporatized Fourth Estate merits the third degree for its second class treatment of the First Amendment.

Search the papers, Internet, and TV as I may, there was nary a whisper about the senator’s surprise slip. I don’t remember exactly what else was going on in the “news” at the time, but the media were obviously otherwise occupied, no doubt hot on the trail of, say, some married white socialite tragically shunned from East Hampton society after declaring she was bearing the love child of her seventeen year-old Puerto Rican pool boy, the actual conception of which was naturally all captured on video and available already online for the amazingly low price of only $19.95 (while supplies lasted).

Even alternative news outlet pickin’s have been slim, with, as far as I’m aware, only a handful of germane articles appearing here and there. Perhaps the most recent is from Joshua Hammer in Mother Jones (March/April 2005), in which he reports:

“Over the past year, the Pentagon has reportedly been building up to 14 ‘enduring’ bases across [Iraq] -- long-term encampments that could house as many as 100,000 troops indefinitely. John Pike, a military analyst who runs the research group GlobalSecurity.org, has identified a dozen of these bases, including three large facilities in and around Baghdad: the Green Zone, Camp Victory North, and Camp al-Rasheed, the site of Iraq’s former military airport. Also listed are Camp Cook, just north of Baghdad, a former Republican Guard ‘military city’ that has been converted into a giant U.S. camp; Balad Airbase, north of Baghdad; Camp Anaconda, a 15-square-mile facility near Balad that housed 17,000 soldiers as of May 2004 and was being expanded for an additional 3,000; and Camp Marez, next to Mosul Airport…”

Hammer writes later: “How long is ‘enduring’?…Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East from 1997 to 2000, recently predicted that American involvement in Iraq would last at least 10 more years. Retired Army Lt. General Jay Garner, the former interim administrator of reconstruction efforts in Iraq, told reporters in February 2004 that a U.S. military presence in Iraq should last ‘the next few decades.’ Even that, some analysts warn, could be an underestimate. ‘Half a century ago if anyone tried to convince you that we’d still have troops in Korea and Japan, you’d think they were crazy,’ says Pike…Suspicions also run deep both inside Pentagon circles and among analysts that the Department of Defense is pouring billions of dollars into the facilities in pursuit of a different agenda entirely: to turn Iraq into a permanent base of operations in the Middle East.”

Hammer also reminds us the lucky recipient of “at least $4.5 billion [going toward] construction and maintenance of U.S. bases” is, of course, “the giant defense contractor KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root)…” (KBR is a subsidiary of Halliburton; ‘nuff said.)

Pretty damning stuff. But, because I believe in corroboration, I decided to go straight to the source: I called the White House. The following is my best recollection of the conversation (if you’d like a verbatim rendition, I’m sure there’s a tape of the call lying around D.C. somewhere; check with Homeland Security first):

Me: “May I speak with the president, please?”

Operator: “He’s out of the country right now.” This was good news, ‘cause it sounded like if I left my number, he’d call me once he got back. I was heartened.

“May I speak with George W. Bush, then, please?”

There was a pause. “The president is out of the country right now.”

“But isn’t that Dick Cheney? Everyone knows he’s really the president, right?”

This time, the pause wasn’t followed by a response.

I immediately changed course since Mom, in addition to warning me about the Russkies, taught me to quit while I was behind.

“Maybe you can help me, then. I’m looking for information about the fourteen permanent U.S. military bases being constructed in Iraq.”

He gave me a DoD link (www.defenselink.mil). I thanked him, and, immediately upon hanging up, thought: “Dang! I forgot to leave my number so the president, whoever he is, can call me back.”

I accessed the link but held out little hope I’d learn anything. I snooped around and espied a U.S. Army study entitled “CJTF-7 ALLOCATION OF THE JOINT LAND ATTACK CRUISE MISSILE ELEVATED NETTED SENSOR.” (Don’t all those capital letters just make you want to go out and kick some TERRORIST ASS??)

I found the report’s synopsis most interesting:

“This study determines which of thirteen enduring bases in Iraq should receive the JLENS.” (JLENS. Sounds, by design, more like designer eyewear from Jennifer Lopez than what it’s undoubtedly designed to do: kill more people more efficiently.) Naturally, I couldn’t access the study itself, and, instead of fourteen bases, DoD has pegged the number at a baker’s dozen (perhaps we’re being charged for fourteen but “only” thirteen are actually being built; love that KBR), but it’s close enough for government dirty work.

So there it is: confirmation from none other than the Pentagon itself that the U.S. intends to stay in Iraq for a mighty long time, no matter how nicely (or not) we’re asked to leave; no matter the myriad phony reasons given for attacking that benighted land; no matter how many times Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and the rest of the murderous fascists who destroy and kill everything they touch cynically swear that our benevolent, peace-loving country’s sole desire is to instill democracy there while it is simultaneously and systematically being eviscerated here; no matter the hell what, actually. Here is proof positive of PNAC’s pinheaded plan, yet it’s too much for the whoreporate media to bother asking about, let alone investigate.

This would normally be where I would conclude the column as neatly and cleverly as possible and then suggest some sort of measure to counter the latest insanity emanating from the White House. However, I’ve a confession: It’s tough shaking the feeling these days that the highest purpose served by any commentary is simply to (hope to) add to the historical record. This seems to be the routine: I get pissed, I report, you read, you get pissed, and then … we do it again. In the meantime, the administration’s utter dismantling of anything truly American continues unabated. (How ‘bout them national ID cards, huh?) My reservoir of trusty helpful hints for fixing our besieged country is pretty dry.

I do have one suggestion, though: Take full advantage now of the Second Amendment (the only one, oddly, that America’s controlling fascists favor), and arm yourself -- heavily -- if you haven’t done so already. Learn all you can about firearms to prepare for the real possibility of a future firestorm in this country. I am not alone in thinking it will get very ugly here fairly soon; after all, for starters, one can’t prop up an insanely unsustainable lifestyle by borrowing over $1 billion a day without adverse consequences, ‘cause, when I was doing it, it wasn’t long before my dealers -- er, creditors -- were at the door.

If the country does indeed blow up, I assume it will look more like a civil war than a revolution given the millions of already well-armed Americans squarely behind the squareheads in charge, but labels matter not when someone is trying to kill you. We should all be prepared. Stock up on essentials, like ammunition, water, and Chee-tos.

For those who have a knee-jerk bias toward possessing weapons, for heaven’s sake, get over it. How can you say you support the Constitution if you cherry-pick your amendments? On a far more practical level, how do you expect to defend yourself against someone who has you in their sights: throw scads of really well-formulated arguments against them?

Because that sure has worked great so far.

Just what, exactly, do these concluding paragraphs have to do with permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq? Nothing -- and everything.

Even two boots is two too many

The Eyes Wide Open exhibition, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, came to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento recently. I live right across the street, so it took me about three minutes to walk to the traveling presentation on a gorgeous California spring day.

Over 1500 pairs of combat boots were arrayed on the lawn, symbolizing the number of reported U.S. military dead in Iraq. Some of the footgear belonged to the deceased; the rest was donated by a surplus store. An adjacent grassy area held about 1,000 pairs of neatly-arranged shoes, a memorial to the estimated 100,000-plus Iraqi citizens killed since America, unprovoked, attacked their country.

As people quietly wandered through the display, many pausing to read the occasional newspaper article or note accompanying a pair of boots, the names and ages of the dead, soldiers and civilians alike, were read aloud by volunteers one by one, each name punctuated at reading’s end by a woman dinging a chime. One by one, that is, except for the periodic Iraqi appellation followed by “and 29 family members, ages unknown” or some similar ghastly number.

And quietly, that is, except for the woman who was obviously upset, spending several minutes loudly telling another attendee and anyone else within earshot that her loved one was in Iraq defending our freedom. I chose not to wander closer; her views were clear. Since I couldn’t disagree with them more, I erred on discretion’s side.

No doubt she feels genuine distress over the danger her family member faces; everyone present at that moment stood amidst numerous reminders of that too-real peril. But no matter how strongly she argues, the hard truth remains: this war is a disastrous, barbaric sham, and her relative’s life is on the line solely to sate the power and greed addictions of the fascists who now control America.

As I walked about, I was struck with an unsettling thought: the boots appeared to be covering a much smaller area than I’d imagined they would. As shame coursed through my brain, I cursed the man without one, George W. Bush, and his crooked clutch of capos, for further despoiling America’s soul and thus, my own.

Was what I had feared might happen, finally happening? Was I somehow becoming inured to the slaughter, despite my hyper-vigilance against just such an occurrence?

Certainly, it’s easier, consciously or not, to shunt aside thoughts of war’s rank atrocity when bombs aren’t smashing through the roof or one’s family is not being raked with .50 caliber body-pulverizing rounds, no matter how staunchly one opposes the fiasco that is Iraq. And, of course, there are also millions of Americans who either support the war or couldn’t care less about its consequences, and for whom it appears second nature to give none of it a second thought (if even a first), a disgustingly monumental non-effort that has all along been enthusiastically abetted by criminally complicit corporate media.

Donning the blinders of contempt or disinterest carries far greater risk than merely being labeled xenophobically compassionless, however. Citizens who condone their rulers’ continuous manifested bloodlust also play Russian roulette on the grandest, gravest scale imaginable.

The Captive Mind (1953) was the first book from the late, brilliant Czeslaw Milosz to be published in the United States. Its section entitled “American Ignorance of War” carries a warning for Americans about “life” in a war-torn, occupied country, a message as germane today as it was five decades ago:

“Man tends to regard the order he lives in as natural…His first stroll along a street littered with glass from bomb-shattered windows shakes his faith in the ‘naturalness’ of his world…[H]e stops before a house split in half by a bomb, the privacy of people’s homes -- the family smells, the warmth of the beehive life, the furniture preserving the memory of loves and hatreds -- cut open to public view…His walk takes him past a little boy poking a stick into a heap of smoking ruins and whistling a song about the great leader who will preserve the nation against all enemies…

“He finds he acquires new habits quickly. Once, had he stumbled upon a corpse on the street, he would have called the police…Now he knows he must avoid the dark body lying in the gutter, and refrain from asking unnecessary questions. The man who fired the gun must have had his reasons; he might well have been executing an Underground sentence.

“Since these conditions last for years, everyone gradually comes to look upon the city as a jungle, and upon the fate of twentieth-century man as identical with that of a caveman living in the midst of powerful monsters…

“The nearness of death destroys shame. Men and women change as soon as they know that the date of their execution has been fixed by a fat little man with shiny boots and a riding crop. They copulate in public, on the small bit of ground surrounded by barbed wire -- their last home on earth…

“The man of the East cannot take Americans seriously because they have never undergone the experiences that teach men how relative their judgments and thinking habits are…Because [Americans] were born and raised in a given social order and in a given system of values, they believe that any other order must be ‘unnatural’…But even they may one day know fire, hunger, and the sword. In all probability this is what will occur; for it is hard to believe that when one half of the world is living through terrible disasters, the other half can continue a nineteenth-century mode of life, learning about the distress of its distant fellow men only from movies and newspapers…”

Milosz writes from brutal experience: he fought in the Polish resistance during World War II and defected to France from Stalin’s Poland in 1951. His two-alarm message of war’s hell and the amazing ease with which humans slide into accepting that which before seemed unimaginable would be well-heeded by anyone living under a regime that, let’s say, has demonstrated zero compunctions about invading and occupying a foreign land and killing thousands in the process to help ensure the future of unfettered crony capitalism.

Admittedly, there’s a tremendous difference between being underwhelmed by a combat memorial and scurrying past bodies lying in cratered streets. But the two are not unrelated, either. The terror-mongering warmakers seek to make the unacceptable, acceptable, to gradually erode the home populace’s resistance to behavior that would normally, or “naturally,” be untenable. This primary aim of the Bushies underlies their incessant blathering about the “war on terrorism,” as they remind us ad nauseam to beware of the terrorists who lurk everywhere, thereby securing sufficient cover through trumped-up fear to continue their vile imperialism unchallenged.

What, though, comes without price? Whether one believes in karma, percentages, or plain old-fashioned retribution, our government’s grim assault on both humans and humanity increases the possibility daily that, at some point, America itself will endure a hellishness guaranteed to make believers of even the most skeptical of Milosz’s counsel.

Pointless political parlor game, American-style

For over two centuries now, a favorite pastime in which Americans have partaken shortly after each presidential election has been to predict the major political parties’ standard bearers for the next quadrennial go-round. The current version is already underway, but because, as you know, our presidents these days are pre-determined, it’s done now purely for nostalgia’s sake.

No matter. Detailed below are my best guesses as to who will next occupy the White House come January 2009, but only, of course, after Americans have first dutifully engaged in a tradition now rendered quaint (like some Geneva Conventions): “voting,” a feel-good process consisting of utilizing inactive screens on electronic boxes that has no actual bearing on who is eventually declared president or king or whatever it’s called by then.

The astute observer will notice my leading picks are all members of the Bush family:

The twins: Having both Jenna and Barbara Bush as co-presidents is actually a stroke of genius. (This is likely the only time, by the way, that both “genius” and “Bush” will ever inhabit the same sentence, so capture it in your mind’s eye.) Because the odds are high against both being in rehab or jail at the same time, one of them is bound to be available for, like, ceremonies and stuff while the other is busy drying/bailing out. While it’s true that having two twenty-something Americans serving as co-commanderettes-in-chief is illegal on at least a couple of different levels, anyone who has paid attention to how their father ruins, er, runs, the country knows he’s never let little things like legalities get in the way.

Besides, who couldn’t look forward to a giggling Inauguration Day speech full of lame hamster jokes and festivities afterwards sure to include fake ID parties and all night keggers?

Laura: I think it’s interesting how certain factions could excoriate John Kerry last year for killing an enemy solider during wartime, yet any discussion of a 17-year-old Laura Welch (the future Mrs. Dubya) blowing a stop sign one clear night on a Texas country road and snuffing out the life of an innocent classmate driving the car she broadsided is somehow off-limits.

Ah, those hypocritical Republicans: gotta revile ‘em. Had a young Teresa Heinz Kerry knocked off a fellow teen in a tragic lawn bowling accident, you can bet Karl Rove would have played it to the dirty hilt. The whole world knows Rove would sell his own mother out for political gain -- if he had one, that is (fungi don’t really have parents).

Subhuman ad hominem homily: Is it just me, or does Laura look, well, slightly reptilian? I don’t think it’s so much her third eyelids or the scales covering her entire body (a good make-up man is worth his weight in gold), but you know how when during the Barbara Walters interview in January Laura suddenly shot out that two-foot long forked tongue and slurped up a fly in mid-air like it was nobody’s business? That right there was what got me to questioning her exact species. I figured Walters would at least ask her about it, but Babwa herself was busy right then biting off the head of a small rodent. That was one weird interview.

‘Course, my recollection could be off a bit.

What does any of this have to do with anyone becoming president? Not a damn thing. But since the ballots we all cast last November had the same relevance, I guess it’s a draw.

Neil: Don’t laugh. People chuckled at the thought of Dubya being elected president, too,
and even though he never has been, we all daily feel the brunt of that sick joke.

The common wisdom is that Neil’s possible political career was shot down before it began just because he was a central player in a $1.3 billion savings and loan scandal in the late 80s. (To prove it wasn’t a fluke, he became integrally involved a short while later with a company [Apex Energy] that also tanked after he invested only three grand of his own dough against a Small Business Administration-guaranteed loan of $2 million.)

I say folks have Neil all wrong: what better experience could you want in a thief executive than bilking American taxpayers out of Big Money? Compared to sibling George, though, Neil’s just getting his feet wet and fingers sticky, and probably could still benefit from participating in another major con job or two of ripping off federal funds before becoming qualified enough to follow in his brother’s goose steps.

Finally, with Neil as Current Unquestioned Ruler, or CUR (“president” just seems so, well, passé -- sorta like our democracy), just think how much fun it would be concocting silly phrases like “Heil, Neil!” or “Kneel, knave, it’s Neil.”

On second thought, perhaps not so much.

Rose: Third on the left as you enter the White House Rose Garden, many observers have noted this plant possesses a quiet yet resolute calmness during all matters, no matter how thorny. It is this steadfast demeanor, many believe, that gives it an inside edge among all 2008 botanical presidential candidates, because, as has been noted many times, “People want a president who isn’t wishy-washy.” (Although, technically, in this case, it would be “a president that isn’t wishy-washy,” ‘cause a shrub isn’t a “who,” it’s an “it”; you know, like Dubya.)

Another plus: Extensive testing has shown this bush registers an I.Q. exactly equivalent to that held by our indumbent. (Disclaimer: A high source -- check that, a highly placed source -- tells me the numbers were fudged a bit to reduce the plant’s final score to preclude undue embarrassment for its gray and green coloring matter-deficient kin. Rumor also says GOP operatives have promised the bush unlimited mulch and soothing monthly de-aphiding baths [March through September only] as long as it keeps mum, even though it hasn’t any mums, only roses.)

Prescott: Some are bound to quibble with appointing a deceased person as president, undoubtedly citing things like constitutional restrictions and a sure unyielding stench emanating from the Oval Office, but I daresay such pifflings thus far have not impeded Prescott’s granddemon, er, grandson, from doing his job of doing a job on America.

Daddy Bush’s daddy obviously possessed a pair of grosse Hoden (and I don’t mean that in a good way). The term’s Spanish equivalent, cajones grandes, may be more familiar to most folks, but the Germanic verbiage is quite appropriate given certain business dealings the former U.S. senator from Connecticut (1952-63) conducted during World War II.

Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell of The Guardian write in September 2004:

“…[recently declassified] documents…show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, [Prescott Bush] worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty” and

“…the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade…Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.”

Just what is it about these Skull and Bones guys, anyway, (yes, Prescott was one) that is just so, well, creepy? What depraved, can-never-see-the-light-of-day acts do the super duper secret society members commit as pledges, of which incriminating photos must surely exist, that they will do anything, including destroy America or even refuse to properly speak English, before breaking the dark bonds of their mysterious order?

Plunder graves? Fornicate in a most despicable manner? Dance the Macarena? (Regarding this last item, the most vile of the three, by far: Anyone who’s seen photos taken at a wedding reception a few years back of a certain individual seemingly merrily engaging in this cultural abomination, that is not me, OK? And I do so know my left hip from my right, thank you very much.)

It’s obvious that America’s current surplus Bush crop comes by its duplicity quite naturally. It’s all in the genes, which certainly is the most convincing argument I can think of for banning both cloning and genetically modified fools.

Barbara: Despite her discombobulating ultra-white hair (reminiscent of the terrifying mythological creatures, las monstruas del pelo blanco, particularly feared for their dreadful penchant for bearing evil, muddleheaded spawn), how can a woman who otherwise looks so motherly saddle the world with offspring like George, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Dorothy, and Toto, too? This sad record of production is almost as abysmal as that of my beloved/hated San Francisco Giants’ grand total of world championships (zero) since I’ve been alive.

Almost.

Yet, according to Al Franken in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, ol’ Barb is plenty protective of her purloining progeny for whom probity is a proven problem. He relates how he and Barbara crossed swords shortly after crossing paths, leaving her, um, kinda cross.

Sharing the same first class section with the third-class former first lady during a flight in January 2000, Franken, naively thinking Barbara was human, made a couple of innocuous jokes about Dubya, one of them implying he wouldn’t be president-elect come November. (Franken was under the same naïve impression then as most of us: that elections actually were.) She was not pleased, however, and by the end of the journey had haughtily dismissed Franken by decreeing no fewer than six times, “I’m through with you,” but not before also telling him she has five children and is “proud of every one of them.”

Now, unless Barbara has a super-secret stash of five other kids somewhere (is she in Skull and Bones, too?), we know exactly of whom she speaks. And she’s proud of them? Anyway, Franken recounts that when he later was at a Bat Mitzvah attended by “Washington insiders, Democrats and Republicans alike,” he discovered the “universal” opinion of these folks: Barbara Bush is a stone “bitch.” For Franken, the most enlightening “insight came from everyone who knew the Bushes. They all agreed. ‘Dubya is her son.’ He’s mean.”

This is why Queen Barbara would make the perfect president for today’s America: she’s mega-mean, has a sense of entitlement beyond belief (a necessity, really, with our new political system of royalist fascism), and is sans any shame that would hinder her ability to continue pursuing the utter dismantling of American democracy already moved along quite well by her louse of a spouse and crude brood.

So there you have my top candidates for who will next sit upon the throne and, in grand
(theft) Bush family tradition, use America as their/her/his/its personal piñata stuffed with tax dollars and cannon fodder to use for personal consumption and impersonal destruction.

An admission: It truly matters not, though, whether any of the above or another member of the tragically ubiquitous Bushes secures the next presidential ‘ppointment since Dick Cheney, from his permanent undisclosed location, will still be in charge anyway, a situation likely to continue even well after his death (if it hasn’t occurred already), since an aura that evil is destined to linger for some time.

Still, now that the Constitution is no longer viable and the time many of us spent trying to defend it is now just so many empty hours, what better way to pass it than by playing a spirited round of “Pick the President”?

Just remember: If you take the Karl Rove or Supreme Court token, you’ll want to take a long shower afterward, too.