Impaled by the Media

A vampire is running for governor of the North Star State. How would we know? Jonathan "The Imapler" Sharkey held a news conference last week announcing his campaign for governor and let us know he's a vampire.

Sharkey seems quite earnest and, although he really needs a good Web designer, his call for impaling criminals just might catch on.

Chances are no one would ever have heard of Jonathan the Imapler except that a local TV station decided that it would be a fun story, and so they covered the news conference where, in addition to announcing his candidacy, he explained that he's a moderate sort of vampire, "I'm a Satanist who doesn't hate Jesus, I just hate God the Father," and who drinks only his wife's blood.

And then the reporter mentioned that the Impaler's wife is, herself, a pagan ...

... and two days later she was fired from her job as a school bus driver,

... and a day after that they were evicted from their home.

Thank god they weren't gay.

Impaler to Run for Governor - KSTP

Princeton Witch Disputes Hiring - KSTP

Remote Control

Mechanically, quietly, and unfettered by any sense of mercy or conscience, the Hound hunts down and kills any enemy programmed into it. Sheer efficiency makes the Hound a potent tool in the war and it affords the safety of distance, both physical and emotional, from the real results of their actions.

The mechanical Hound is one of the most vivid images from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

"The mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.

Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the fire house areaway. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentle paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine."

A U.S. Air Force National Guard pilot flies a Predator, equipped with powerful cameras and missiles, that flies continuously over the area in and around Iraq. Here he sits in a control room in a hardened hangar at a U.S. Air Force base hundreds of miles away from the target. Most likely neither he nor his commanding officers have ever visited Bajur in Pakistan, and certainly no U.S. Senator has ever been there.

"Now, it's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do? It's like the wild, wild west out there. The Pakistani border's a real problem," said Senator Evan Bayh, noting that the "real problem" lay with the Pakistani government's inability to control that part of its country. "So, regrettably, this kind of thing is what we're left with."

Senator Trent Lott added, "I would have a problem if we didn't do it. There's no question that they're still causing the death of millions of -- or thousands of -- innocent people and directing operations in Iraq. Absolutely, we should do it."

The death toll from the 3 A.M. remote controlled air-strike included five children, five women and eight men. According to Pakistani intelligence Ayman al-Zawahiri, the "#2 al Quaeda" whom the U.S. said was the target of the attack, was not among the dead and had not been in the area.

The drone, the CIA and a botched attempt to kill bin Laden's deputy - The Observer (UK)

When Bush Signs Legislation the Joke's on Us

Magnanimously, George W. Bush appeared to concede and sign into law new legislation banning torture even though he'd fought the measure for more than a year. But, unnoticed, he simultaneously reserved the right to completely ignore the new law and continue unabated his program of secret renditions and admitted torture.

He accomplished this sleight of hand while secluded on his Texas ranch during the New Year's weekend by issuing a "presidential signing statement" setting forth the conditions under which he was willing to sign the new law. In other words, Bush was signing the legislation on the condition that it would be interpreted exactly the way he wants.

In the twisted logic of the Bush regime this means that if anyone even dreams that the new law might curtail Bush's expansive view of presidential power then he will simply insist that his signature is invalid because it violates the conditions he announced when he signed it ... and if the anti-torture law wasn't signed then it must have been vetoed ... and if it was vetoed then it never became a law ... and therefore, he's not in violation of the law since it never became law in the first place.

Presidential signing statements are not new. Ronald Reagan adopted the strategy and signing statements have proven useful when an administration needs to clarify what it believes the legislature's intention was. What is different now is the sheer number of times the Bush regime has issued its own interpretations of legislation. Reagan issued 71 signing statements in his eight years, George H. W. Bush 146 in four years, and Bill Clinton 105 in eight years.

However, George W. Bush has found it necessary to challenge the U.S. Congress' intent and re-state legislation to his liking more than 500 times in the six years of his regime.

"It's good to be the king," exclaimed the dim-witted Louis XVI as portrayed Mel Brooks in his film History of the World, Part I. Audiences at the time thought it was a comedy. But America under the rule of George W. Bush is no laughing matter, and it is clearly not a democracy.

White House Letter: How Bush tries shaping new laws to his liking - International Herald Tribune

It's a Great Day for Something

Almost silently the un-manned U.S. "Predator" aircraft flew in low over the neighborhood rooftops yesterday, bombing three homes in Pakistan and killing 17 people.

Hundreds of miles away, in an air-conditioned trailer, the U.S. pilot stared at a color monitor and flew the aircraft by remote control.

The breathless headlines in U.S. media said we were pretty sure we'd gotten the "#2 al-Qaeda."

Hours later the foreign press revealed that Ayman al-Zawahri, the target of the attack, was nowhere near the site. "Their information was wrong, and our investigations conclude that they acted on a false information," said a senior Pakistani official, "He was never there. This is what we know after a detailed probe."

Meanwhile, U.S. media reported that in Iraq insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter killing two Americans. Not reported were the facts that these two bring the total number of U.S. dead to 34 so far this month and 2,214 since the U.S. invasion. And no mention was made of the estimated 27,814 Iraqis who have been killed during the U.S. war.

But today is a new day in the suburbs and it's going to be sunny and warm. A good day to drive the SUV to the gas station.

Today in Pakistan more than 8,000 tribesmen staged a protest to condemn the airstrike, which one speaker described as "open terrorism" and an intelligence official said that more than 30 were killed in the air attack but that the remains of some bodies had "quickly been removed" after the strike.

Maybe get a car wash too. That magnetic "Support Our Troops" ribbon is getting a little hard to read through all the grime.


al-Qaeda No 2 not at US air strike site - MidDay (India)

Police Track Down Quaker Terrorists

In the tireless quest to root out terrorists wherever they may hide, the National Security Agency used local police to infiltrate and track anti-war protesters as they prepared to demonstrate outside the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

The target of this domestic surveillance was the a group called Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, affiliated with the local chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, whose members include many veteran city peace activists with a history of nonviolent civil disobedience.

There may or may not be an investigation, but the findings, of course, will be not be released to the public because we wouldn't want to tip off the terrorists, now would we?

NSA used city police as trackers - Baltimore Sun

Our enemies are not fools and they, at least, read history

U.S. military expenditures already total more than all other nations on earth combined and now economists report that the real cost of George W. Bush's War on Iraq exceeds $2 trillion--about ten times more than the administration had previously admitted.

In the movie Syriana, a foreign leader observes that a nation that accounts for one-half of the world's military expenditures in order to protect the interests of 5% of the world's population cannot long prevail as a world power.

Enticing an enemy into spending itself into bankruptcy would be an excellent alternative if you could not hope to prevail on the military battlefield.

Hey! Wait! Isn't that the strategy we used to defeat the Soviet Union?

Iraq war could cost US over $2 trillion, says Nobel prize-winning economist - Guardian

Revenge of the Mutt People

All the while walking the precincts for Kerry and reading Joseph Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas, the questions kept nagging, "Why do they keep electing Republicans? Why do they vote against their own interests?"

Joe Bageant may have the answer. It's the logical consequence of our arrogance and failure to give a damn about the "Mutt People" who are now angry and out for revenge:

"We will either see that Americans, religious or not, get educated equally so they won't be suckered by political and religious hucksters or accept that uneducated people interpret politics in an uninformed and emotional manner, and accept the consequences. America can no longer withstand the political naivete of this ignored white class. Middle class American liberals cannot have it both ways. It has come down to the simplest and most profound element of democracy: Fairness. Someday middle class American liberals will have to cop to fraternity and justice and the fact that we are our brother's keeper, whether we like it or not. They are going to have to sit down and actually speak to these people they consider ugly, overweight, ill educated and in poor taste. At some point down the road all the Montessori schools and Ivy League degrees in the world are not going to save your children and grandchildren from what our intellectual peasantry, whether born of neglect or purposefully maintained, is capable of supporting politically."

Joe Bageant: Revenge of the Mutt People

Git 'R Dun

"The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the reconstruction of Iraq, told reporters. "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."

Roughly half of the $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort has been eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein. About 20 percent of the reconstruction package remains unallocated. All that and there's still what authorities say is tens of billions of dollars of work yet to be done merely to bring reliable electricity, water and other services to Iraq's 26 million people.

Still, George W. Bush does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February. Other foreign donors and the fledgling Iraqi government will have to make up the difference, administration officials say.

U.S. Has End in Sight on Iraq Rebuilding - Washington Post

Ricky's Intelligent Designs

In 2001 he championed a "teach the controversy" amendment and earlier this year Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) commended the Dover Area School District for "attempting to teach the controversy of evolution."

But Senator Santorum was no where to be seen during the six-week trial and one day after a Federal judge ruled that the district's policy on intelligent design was unconstitutional, Santorum said he was troubled by court testimony that showed some school board members were motivated by religion in adopting the policy.

And, he went further and said that he disagreed with the school board for mandating the teaching of intelligent design, rather than just the controversy surrounding evolution.

Finally, working himself up into a real lather, Santorum--who sits on the advisory board of the Thomas More Law Center, which defended the school board in court--said that the case offered "a bad set of facts" to test the concept that theories other than evolution should be taught in science classrooms. "I thought the Thomas More Law Center made a huge mistake in taking this case and in pushing this case to the extent they did," Santorum said, adding that he intends to withdraw his affiliation with the Michigan-based public-interest law firm that promotes Christian values.

Santorum now critical of Dover case - Philadelphia Inquirer

Plan of Attack: Iran Version

Like the skillful way in which the master magician leads you to watch his left hand while he palms the gold coin with his right so that at just the right moment you're convinced that he's made a coin materialize out of thin air, so the Bush administration seizes every opportunity to move while the nation is otherwise distracted.

While we all were otherwise occupied ... what was it? The War on Christmas? The round of victory speeches? The revelations of domestic spying? No matter, all the while the Bush administration was secretly marching us inexorably toward an invasion of Iran, as early as this spring.

With scant attention, CIA chief Porter Goss slipped into Turkey to deliver dossiers suggesting that Tehran is cooperating with al-Qaida, and providing frightening details of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. What is more, Goss assured Ankara that the Turkish government would be informed of any possible air strikes against Iran a few hours before they happened and suggested that the Turkish government would be given a green light to strike camps of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iran on the day of the invasion.

The US and Iran: Is Washington Planning a Military Strike? - Spiegel International

Reagan and Bush: The War Presidents

If you believe that Ronald Reagan was responsible for ending the Cold War, then you've got to believe that Richard Nixon was responsible for putting a man on the moon. A more accurate rendition of history would, of course, reflect that each was simply the occupant of the Oval Office when history was made thanks to initiatives set in motion by Harry Truman and Jack Kennedy.

Yet the fact that the Cold War ended during the time span of the Reagan administration has led a vocal minority of conservatives to claim that Reagan himself was the supreme architect of Soviet defeat.

Disturbingly twisted parallels can be drawn between the Ronald Reagan/Cold War and the George W. Bush/War on Terror couplings:

Unlike most U.S. presidents--but like George W. Bush--Ronald Reagan entered the White House with no background in national security or foreign policy.

Like George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan's qualifications were open to ridicule.

Unlike his Cold War predecessors--but like George W. Bush--Ronald Reagan showed little interest in mastering the intellectual side of foreign affairs.

Like George W. Bush, rather than achieving an acquaintance with U.S. policy from reasoned study, Reagan's knowledge was firmly based in personal experience.

And, perhaps most ominously, the fact is that the Soviet Union was not defeated militarily, but rather by the U.S. willingness to simply out-spend its enemy--apparently like George W. Bush's War on Terror.

Ronald Reagan Memorial

Seeing Things No One Else Does

"In 2006, we expect Iraqis will take more and more control of the battle space, and as they do so, we will need fewer U.S. troops to conduct combat operations around the country. In the coming year, we will continue to focus on helping Iraqis improve their logistics and intelligence capabilities so more Iraqi units can take the fight and can sustain themselves in the fight," said George W. Bush at about the same time as suicide bombers in Iraq killed 183 people including 7 Americans.


Bush Sees Changed Military Role and Reduction of Troops in Iraq - Los Angeles Times

111 Killed by Suicide Bombs - Scotsman

This is supposed to make us feel better?

It turns out that the most recent round of spying on Americans in their homes didn't start with the Bush Administration. In fact, much of the spying on you and your neighbors was started before George W. Bush issued his executive orders in violation of his oath to uphold the Constitution.

In the weeks after the September 11 attacks the NSA acted all on its own to begin monitoring telephone calls and e-mail messages between the United States and Afghanistan to track possible terror suspects and then broadened the eavesdropping operation to include other international communications and eventually domestic communications as they tapped into some of the nation's main telecommunications arteries to trace and analyze large volumes of phone and e-mail traffic to look for patterns of possible terrorist activity.

And they did all of this before George Bush issued any orders at all.

So now let's see if I've got the outline right:

George Bush says he's exempt from existing law because he's acting as commander in chief of his "War on Terror," even though war has never been declared by Congress.

And, Dick Cheney helpfully adds, it shouldn't matter anyway because we got it all wrong back in the Nixon era when we put a new restraints on presidential power.

Besides, there are bad people in the world who want to kill us and who hate us because we love freedom.

But, in the end, the joke's on us! It turns out, our very own government has been carrying out these illegal activities all along, we just didn't know about it.

I feel so much better. Let's switch the channel and see how those coal miners are doing.

Files Say Agency Initiated Growth of Spying Effort - New York Times

Uh-oh. When the terrorists are smarter than your own leadership, now that's a problem.

Imagine that! What did those dastardly terrorists do as soon as George W. Bush started eavesdropping on Americans? Why they immediately stopped using telephones and the internet and started using live messengers instead. That's what they did.

(And, by the way, the source is bit of news is the internet magazine of the Washington Times, the usually reliable supporter of the Bush administration owned by Sun Myung Moon.)

So, let's see. If the terrorists were no longer using their telephones, why exactly was it necessary to spy on Americans? Why is it still going on? Why is this man still in the White House?

Wiretaps Fail to Make Dent in Terror War; al Qaeda Used Messengers - Insight

Those in the Best Position to Know

Nearly half of US military personnel no longer support George W. Bush and about the same number feel that the US should not have gone to war in Iraq. That's down from about two thirds a year ago.

What is more, only 64 percent support the Pentagon leadership, compared to 70 percent a year ago, about the same number that feel that the US military is "stretched too thin to be effective."

In fact, the only number that has improved is the number opposing restoration of the draft. Only 68% now oppose a draft, compared to 75% last year.

Troops Sound Off: Poll Finds High Morale, But Less Support for Bush, War Effort - Military Times

He cannot stop himself so we must stop him ourselves

Something snapped. It finally happened. The long awaited coin finally dropped.

Maybe it was his delusional New Years' Eve edition of the weekly President's Radio Address, where he said the economy is booming, the Iraqi people are rejoicing in the afterglow of their new-found democracy, the people of the Gulf Coast are celebrating their return home, and there's practically nothing wrong anywhere in the whole wide world.

Or perhaps it was his swaggering and defiant attack on reporters at a military hospital in San Antonio the next day who had the audacity to ask again why he thought it was okay to break the law and spy on Americans.

There have been so many signs over the years. Sometimes the episodes are amusing, sometimes just confusing. Increasingly they are threatening. But at some point Americans need to begin to wonder what's going on in his head. Sooner or later we'll all have to come to grips with the fact that the state of mind of the President of the United States is a matter of national and worldwide security.

Consider this: A man struggling with his own anxiety and feelings of inadequacy will employ various strategies throughout his life:

1) through alcohol and other substance abuse;

2) by being a born-again Christian, being connected to God, by feeling that he'll be saved in any kind of a rapture, by feeling that he's always on the side of the Good;

3) by making other people anxious, so he can project his anxiety into the rest of us;

4) simplifying things, dividing the real world from his own inner world, into good and bad, into black and white;

5) by being dismissive or cruel to other people, by making them anxious, and by gratifying his own sense of power to compensate for feeling helpless;

6) and by becoming detached from the consequences of his behavior.

In the words of psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank, "Bush will not stop of his own choosing. He will only have to be stopped."

Bush's Mental State Raises Serious Questions - Uniorb

Bush on the Couch : Inside the Mind of the President - Justin A. Frank

Neocon Coup at Pentagon

With almost no notice at all President Bush signed an executive order changing the line of succession for Secretary of Defense.

In so doing he placed three Cheney-Rumsfeld lieutenants between Donald Rumsfeld and career military professionals, increasing to four the layers of Neocon ideologues separating George W. Bush from anyone who even resembles a professional solider.

The Neocon minds that brought us the debacle in Iraq now have unfettered control of the mightiest military force the planet has ever known. And, speaking of Iraq, the insurgency continues to grow with three Americans and 20 Iraqis killed yesterday.

Pentagon Succession Demotes Military - The Sun News

A Nation of Laws

"As the result of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there are no Constitutional limits on the power of the U.S. Presidency."

It's a story line that would make Sinclair Lewis proud with logic so twisted logic that it would make even Lewis Carroll blush.

First the he gets caught violating his oath of office and breaking his solemn promise to defend the laws and constitution of the United States. Immediately he denies the whole thing. But two days later admits that he's done it, but not very often, and he then defiantly boasts that he will do it again, reasoning that he has an obligation to protect us all and, besides, the law is stupid.

But in the following weeks the usually flaccid media reports that there has been massive spying on Americans ... millions of phone conversations and e-mails, and not at all limited to a few "terrorist suspects." And it emerges that it would have been remarkably simple to just comply with the law that he's broken and that he'd almost never have been denied the legal authority to do as he wants.

So why pointlessly break a law that's easy to follow and really doesn't get in your way at all? And why do it on such a massive scale, not just an accidental transgression her or there? The vice president knows the true objective: to restore presidential power to pre-Nixon levels.

But then, for a whimsical Alice in Wonderland style twist, yesterday the resources of our government of the people were deployed to launch a criminal inquiry to determine who leaked the truth in the first place.

Ah, but that's just the cliffhanger ending. In the distance you can hear talk of "impeachable offences ..."

Cheney and His Patsy, Bush, Face Impeachment Furor
-- Mathba

Slash and Burn

"CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 30 -- On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.

If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch -- or until the president can come home and do the honors himself."

"Recreational," "Therapeutic," say his supporters. "Staged," "Distracted," say his detractors.

Still, the image of George W. Bush forcefully and violently having his way--albeit with sagebrush--and especially when there's no real need to do it, well that picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Down on the Ranch, President Wages War on the Underbrush -- Washington Post

This explains quite a lot: Mutants Rule the Earth

Strom Thurmond must be spinning in his grave. And all of his racist ilk ought to be re-thinking a few things.

Meanwhile, Eldridge Cleaver must be dancing in his grave. And the Black Panthers (the ones who haven't been killed, that is) are finally vindicated.

It turns our that it's normal to be black. In fact, white folks are really just genetic mutants. Scientists have discovered the precise genetic mutation that caused normal brown human skin to turn white.

Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin - Washington Post

The Unintended Consequences of Breaking the Law

Yow! Talk about unintended consequences!

Did President Bush anticipate this on that Saturday morning when he strutted up to the podium and defiantly announced that he ordered our government to spy on its own citizens and said that he didn't care if it was against law and would keep doing it?

Or maybe he hoped that a couple of weeks of terror talk would convince even defense attorneys that we need to trust Bush in his War on Terror.

No such luck. Lawyers for defendants in terrorism cases all across the nation are preparing legal challenges to illegal wiretaps ordered by George W. Bush.

Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts - New York Times

It's not an increase therefore it must be a withdrawal

Headline news! Troop Withdrawals in Iraq!.

After playing word games for a couple of days, suddenly the day before Christmas Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced good news. "Troop Withdrawals in Iraq!"

In typical Rumsfeldian fashion, though, it's hard to tell what's really going on.

The total number of US troops in Iraq will be reduced by 7,000--from the current 160,000 to 153,000--but half of those will be moved just across the border to Kuwait and the rest won't be sent home but rather will be kept close by in case they are needed on short notice. Still, that's 7,000 moved out of Iraq. Get it? Troop Withdrawals in Iraq!

And, somehow or another, 7,000 troops who had been told they would soon be going to Iraq will now stay in the US. For them and their families this must seem like Troop Withdrawals in Iraq! (Coincidentally, guess which happy families will be featured over and over again on the Fox News shows.)

Still it's all a bit confusing because, no matter how you cut it, even after all the movement to and fro there will still be 15,000 more US troops in Iraq than the 138,000 that were there a year ago. But that's due, we're told, to the build-up of US troops before the Iraq elections (two, three, more of them) which were supposed to bring democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people followed by Troop Withdrawals in Iraq! but instead seem to have fueled even more violence requiring the continued presence of US troops in iraq.

Is there a pattern here? First violence increases in Iraq. Then we send in more US troops to restore order. The increased presence of US troops leads to even more violence which, of course, requires even more US troops.

US General Peter Pace seems to get the picture. Two days after Rumsfeld announced Troop Withdrawals in Iraq!, General Pace said that there really are no firm plans to withdraw troops. In fact, just the opposite, "the number of US troops in Iraq could increase not decrease," because "the enemy has a vote in this, and if they were to cause some kind of problems that required more troops, then we would do exactly what we've done in the past, which is give the commanders on the ground what they need. And in that case, you could see troop level go up."

Of course the "Troop Withdrawals in Iraq!" headline was never retracted.

Iraq Contingent May Grow if Attacks Persist - LA Times

He said what?

Ten days ago we first learned that George W. Bush broke the law by ordering spying on American citizens. He hasn't denied it, in fact he's admitted that he knows he's breaking the law and plans to continue doing it.

But instead of the fact that the President of the United States of America is breaking the law, the focus remains on whether or not he has a good reason to break the law.

Colin Powell said that the day that he went before the United Nations with a cartoon fantasy story about mobile biological labs was the low point in his career. His failure that day was a major factor in America marching off to war in search of a mirage. Yesterday he proved that he hasn't learned from the experience--and neither has the media.

Both of the following lead sentences are accurate:

"Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on Sunday that it would not have been "that hard" for President Bush to obtain warrants for eavesdropping on domestic telephone and Internet activity, but that he saw "nothing wrong" with the decision not to do so."

"Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says President Bush was right in authorizing a domestic spying program."

But the headlines all across the world are less subtle: "Powell Sees Nothing Wrong ... Backs Domestic Spying ... Eavesdropping Is Okay"

What he really said is:

1) the Bush administration obviously chose to break the law,

2) it was pretty stupid to break the law because it's so easy to get a warrant to what they wanted to do,

3) the Bush Administration didn't consult him as Secretary of State, but if they had he'd have supported domestic spying and told them to follow the law.

Powell Backs Bush on Domestic Spying - Voice of America, 12/26/05

Powell Speaks Out on Domestic Spy Program - New York Times

Christmas Story

Timmy was particularly pleased with the reaction when they opened the Christmas present he'd brought.

"Your logic tells you, all right, these people, they only come here for the money. They speak Spanish. They're used to the desert and hot weather. What are they doing in Minnesota? And the answer is the fact that we give everything away."

So much for Minnesota Nice. And to hell with the spirit of Christmas. Just the way Timmy the Boy Governor calculated they'd respond when he stirred up fears and hatred for his own political ends. Lagging in the polls and on the verge of a spectacular court loss in his bid to convince ordinary citizens that a "health impact fee" is not a tax, Timmy needed something big to shore up his anti-urban "I've got mine, up yours" conservative base.

Enter Worthington, Minnesota, a town of 11,000 out on the western prairie where the meat packing plants offer low-paying and high-risk jobs that attract immigrant workers. It's quite the symbiotic relationship. The immigrant workers are willing to do the jobs that no one else will take for the wages the packing houses pay and then they spend most of their earnings right there in town. Of course some of the immigrant workers have to use phony IDs to get the jobs. Most everyone--the packing houses, the authorities, and the local merchants--knows this. But here in America, where we love our freedom (especially when it's so lucrative), don't ask don't tell seems like the best policy.

But then Chief of Police made the mistake of mentioning that the fake IDs become a real bother when his officers pull over an immigrant worker for a routine traffic stop.

Word flashed to the Office of the Governor who immediately saw the opportunity. Stowing away for the moment his Christian beliefs and what Jesus said about the poor and caring for your neighbor, Timmy the Boy Governor brought the full weight of his office to bear, ordering a study, and then releasing a scathing report saying that there could be more than 80,000 illegals in Minnesota and that they cost Minnesotans upwards of $175 million a year (not quite half of what Timmy the Boy Governor's snafu with the cigarette tax will cost, but who's counting).

Never mind that the report has since been discredited by most everyone, even the experts mis-quoted in it. Never mind that Timmy the Boy Governor himself has since disclaimed most of his own report and now says that he realizes that immigrant workers contribute far more to the State's economy than they cost.

That was never the point.

The point was to feed the ugliest instincts among us and to remind citizens that things could always get worse and so you'd better keep your nose to the wheel and vote for conservative ideologues because they'll watch out for that guy over there who just might be out to steal your stuff.

Minnesotans can do better than this.

One Town's Concern - Star Tribune

Success: American Style Democracy Flowers in Iraq

The election is too close to call, the government says, it's going to take a while to count all of the votes. Everyone should just settle down and be patient. Trust the process, they say.

But the process doesn't seem to be working. There are rumors of ballot fraud and all sorts of shenanigans at the polls. Next thing you know people are demonstrating in the streets demanding a fair count.

Finally the courts step in and rule that the members of one party will not be seated, no matter what the final outcome of the ballot count.

It was the Democrats in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004. Now it's another Anti-Bush group, the Sunni Arabs. Truly we've succeeded in bringing American style democracy to the region.

Elsewhere in Iraq, nine civilians including children were killed when a suicide bomber detonated her explosives inside a market and an American soldier died when a roadside bomb exploded under the truck in which he was riding.


Ex-Baathists Banned From Parliament - Kansas City Star