Red Christmas

Make pre-emptive invasion and uncounted Iraqi civilian casualties a part of your family's holiday celebrations with the "President George W. Bush" Christmas Ornament. This completely hollow likeness makes a unique gift for friends and family of those who still have income. More than 1000 military coffin ornaments not available.

From a Marine Sergeant to His Son

"'Be studious, stay in school and stay away from the military. I mean it.'
Marine Staff Sgt. Russell Slay, giving instructions to his 5-year-old son, Walker, in a letter to his family shortly before he was killed. He was one of 12 soldiers from Texas killed in Iraq this month."

Source

Strong Correlation Found Between Bush Voters and Brooklyn Bridge Buyers

Most Bush voters believe god created humans in present form. That includes Bush, of course, which would be a direct insult to any self-respecting deity who took pride in her creations. Thus there appears to be no apparent limit to their credulity, even as their lifestyles, jobs, pensions and healthcare disappear. Keep believing, folks. Just for four more years, enough time for the suits to clear the vaults before moving offshore.

On This Day We Give Thanks...

That as a nation, we have...

only four more years with this turkey!

How Sweet It Is

"The unemployment rate is going up in Ohio. The new numbers are out and Ohio had more people out of work in October than any other state. "

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of voters. At least Dubya's puppeteers are getting richer. And you got four more years, heading downhill. Congratulations, Ohio.

Podpeople News

The podpeople are taking over your children's minds... But maybe you don't mind-- if yours is no longer vacant--

Kim Il Sung Would Love This

He may be your leader; he's definitely not mine. What's next, I wonder: 20 meter tall, arm-salute statues of Mr. Vacuity in public squares everywhere, calling the masses to heel...?

VIRGIN CHEESE SANDWICH PREGNANT

Mother of Jesus Returns as High Calorie Junk Food

Crowds of Faithful Flock to Kneel before Half-Eaten Immaculate Snack

Virgin Lunch Gives Birth to Cheezit Crisp

Second Coming with Cole Slaw

Communion with Cheese Wafers and Coke Planned

Faithful Come Bearing Pickles and Potato Chips

"Unmarried Cheese Sandwich Really Virgin?" asks Short-Order Cook Named Joe

Just One Bite Takes Decades Off Purgatory

Wise Men Enter Diner, Ask for Fast Food

Immaculate Concept, only One Bite Missing, nets $28,000

Check back for more headlines as they come in...

Some Folks Can See

Anti-Bush Protesters Battle Police at Chile Summit

"Tens of thousands of people streamed through central Santiago carrying banners and chanting slogans against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, including 'Fascist Bush is a terrorist.'"

When Clinton went abroad, there were always throngs crowding to see him; Bush needs a crowd of bodyguards to scuffle with natives, protect him from people who, like 50,000,000 Americans, can clearly see what Bush voters can't.

Guns Don't Kill People, but 6 Die Anyway

Sheriff's deputies were investigating the killing of five hunters Sunday in northwestern Wisconsin, apparently sparked by a hunting dispute that turned violent.

Six dead, even though guns don't kill people!

End Time for the Pod People: You Want Them Running Your World?

"...many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. They may also believe, along with millions of other Christian fundamentalists, that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.

We are not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. The 231 legislators (all but five of them Republicans) who received an average 80 percent approval rating or higher from the leading religious-right organizations make up more than 40 percent of the U.S. Congress. (The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian Coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who earlier this year quoted from the Book of Amos on the Senate floor: 'The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread or of thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord!')

...DeLay has said bluntly that he intends to smite the 'socialist' worldview of 'secular humanists,' whom, he argues, control the U.S. political system, media, public schools, and universities. He called the 2000 presidential election an apocalyptic 'battle for souls,' a fight to the death against the forces of liberalism, feminism, and environmentalism that are corrupting America. "

No wonder the clear-eyed folks on the rest of the planet are so upset.

From: The Godly Must Be Crazy

By Glenn Scherer

At Grist

Have Assets to Protect?

"...I found out, for the FIRST time, what was really going on in the business, financial press, and political world. Up until this time I didn't have any idea how clueless I was. Unfortunately, this new education has shown a light on a very ugly part of America, one which the elitists in New York and Washington do not want any of us regular Americans to know about.

It is a subject which I could go on about hours - and I touch on it only at this juncture because I believe it is critically important it be brought to your attention."

Have Assets to Protect? Then read all of this:

MURPHY'S LAW STRIKING THE GOLD CARTEL
-- by Bill Murphy

You Read It Right Here (Not in the Mainstream Media)

"So the multi billion dollar question is what happens when China starts selling U.S. dollars to help expand their infrastructure and secure their resources?

Well you're already seeing it. Interest rates go up, the dollar goes down, and gold takes flight upwards. Not to mention upward pressure on oil, gas, coal, copper and other key commodities.

The implications of this fact are staggering. And demand for commodities will be overwhelming. Insightful investors who can see this trend and position themselves now in growth oriented equities holding gold, oil, copper and other key commodities will be sitting pretty if a few years time and will have weathered the U.S. dollar collapse better then most.

This is the hugest threat to the U.S. economy right now yet it's hardly ever mentioned by the mainstream media."

From: Fahrenheit Oil and Gold:
China & the Final War for Resources

by Bill Ridley

Gosh, This Guy Would Make a Good President!

Gosh, This Guy Would Make a Good President! (As opposed to the sub-barrel-bottom product now in office.)

Columbine Lite

"The Liberty Legal Institute came to the aid of parent Delana Davies, who was concerned about officially sanctioned cross-dressing. Davies said having boys dress like girls is part of an effort to push a homosexual agenda in public schools.

An attorney for the tiny East Texas school district says there's no hidden agenda. He said the dress-up day was just intended to be fun for the kids.

Still, the tradition is being scrapped and the district will hold 'Camo Day' instead -- with black boots and Army camouflage to be worn by everyone who wants to participate."

Now there's a fundamental solution! An effort to push an assault squad agenda in public schools. Sort of Columbine lite. Then you're dressed to invisibly hunt down whoever gets in your CROSShairs...

Scum Floats to the Top

And the GOP wants to keep it there. They're going to change the rules (created to nail a Democrat) so that Republican criminals can keep leading the people. If you voted for these people you deserve what you're getting and where they're putting it.

Reckoning

"By behaving in this manner, our ruling elite have become richer and politically more powerful. But through this abuse of power and privilege, America has set the stage for its own demise. We are addicted to foreign credit to the extent that we are doomed financially. It isn't a matter of if but when the day of reckoning will arrive."

Jay Taylor

We Have Met the Enemy

"The right-wing thrives on fear -- fear of homosexuals, liberals and anyone who doesn't fit into their white, elitist view of America. They preach moral values while bedding the spouses of others, talk about ethics while milking the system they are supposed to protect and spout patriotic pabulum while undermining the country.

These zealots are a greater threat to our freedoms than any olive-skinned terrorist. They support the constant attacks on the Constitution by their leaders and excuse the excesses of their administration while condemning similar actions by their opponents.

Thanks to them, America is no longer the land of the free or home of the brave. Thanks to them, we have become the land of the moronic and home of the oppressed. They are a greater enemy to freedom than any Farsi-spouting Muslim cleric ever can be."

Those Who Voted for Bush Should Be Drafted to Fight in His War

"I consider myself a civilian," said Rick Howell, a major from Tuscaloosa, Ala., who said he thought he had left the Army behind in 1997 after more than a decade flying helicopters. "I've done my time. I've got a brand new baby and a wife, and I haven't touched the controls of an aircraft in seven years. I'm 47 years old. How could they be calling me? How could they even want me?"

Still think there won't be a draft? You still trust what Bushwinkle says? Step right up and sign right here.

Let Them Have the Shitholes

"Let them have the shitholes, the Oklahomas, Wyomings, and Alabamas. We'll take Manhattan.

To all those who live in cities--to all those depressed Kerry supporters out there--we say take heart. Clearly we can't control national politics right now--we can barely get a hearing. We can, however, stay engaged in our cities, and make our voices heard in the urban areas we dominate, and make each and every one, to quote Ronald Reagan (and John Winthrop, the 17th-century Puritan Reagan was parroting), "a city on a hill." This is not a retreat; it is a long-term strategy for the Democratic Party to cater to and build on its base.

To red-state voters, to the rural voters, residents of small, dying towns, and soulless sprawling exburbs, we say this: Fuck off. Your issues are no longer our issues. We're going to battle our bleeding-heart instincts and ignore pangs of misplaced empathy. We will no longer concern ourselves with a health care crisis that disproportionately impacts rural areas. Instead we will work toward winning health care one blue state at a time.

.....

We officially no longer give a shit when family farms fail. Fewer family farms equal fewer rural voters. We will, however, continue to support small faggy organic farms, as we are willing to pay more for free-range chicken and beef from non-cannibal cows.

We won't concern ourselves if red states restrict choice. We'll just make sure that abortion remains safe and legal in the cities where we live, and the states we control, and when your daughter or sister or mother dies in a botched abortion, we'll try not to feel too awful about it.

In short, we're through with you people...

From here on out, we're glad red-state rubes live in areas where guns are more powerful and more plentiful, cars are larger and faster, and people are fatter and slower and dumber. This is not a recipe for repopulating the Great Plains. And when you look for ways to revive your failing towns and dying rural counties, don't even think about tourism. Who wants to go to small-town America now? You people scare us. We'll island-hop from now on, thank you, spending our time and our money in blue cities. If an urbanite is dying to have a country experience, rural Vermont is lovely. Maple syrup, rolling hills, fly-fishing--everything you could want. Country bumpkins in red rural areas who depend on tourists from urban areas but vote Republican can forget our money.

You've made your choice, red America, and we urban Americans are going to make a different choice. We are going to make Seattle--and New York, Chicago, and the rest--a great place to live, a progressive place. Again, we'll quote Ronald Reagan: We will make each of our cities--each and every one--a shining city on a hill. You can have your shitholes."

From Urban Archipelago (read it all!)
By the staff of The Stranger

Bushwinkle: Working for Iran

With the CIA now being gutted, US intelligence will be blind. And when a nation's intelligence is blind, the nation is blind. Add loss of intelligence to Bushwinkle's international acumen, and our soldiers are fighting and our taxpayers are paying for Iran and Russia to rule the middle east, once we're spent, which won't take long with Bushwinkle in office. And there'll be no need for me to say I told you so; you'll know, you'll know. If you didn't vote for Bushwinkle, you'd better start doing your financial homework and get into commodities, like the rich have been doing for some time; if you did vote for diminishment of the office of the presidency, then pay no attention to this rant; you deserve what's coming down. Your kids serving in Iraq don't, though.

Quick! We Need Another Army!

The International Atomic Energy Agency has released a report showing that while Iran had been guilty of breaching international safeguards, two years of inspection had found no proof that the country was developing any illegal weapons program. By Bushwa standards, that's an irrefutable reason for invasion. Quick! We need another army! Navy too, while you're at it!

The Majority Deserves the Coming Loss of Liberty

If Bushette succeeds in recreating the CIA in his own image, soon it will be a monosyllabically incompetent, war-loving, macho wannabe organization. Only the best for the majority.

The Naked Promiscuousness of Numbers

John Hostettler, the Congressman representing the 8th district of Indiana, has been convinced by local religious groups to introduce legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number.

"I believe it is time to change the name of the highway. It is the moral thing to do."

Ever wonder how these people manage to procreate? They do it with pods. Get ready for the invasion of the body snatchers. One of them is president, and they’re taking over the country, starting right now.

Last of the ‘No’ Men: Powell Flees the Cuckoo's Nest

Now the mini-Bush can start a war wherever he wants and no one will say anything but YES YES! YES! To replace Powell, Bush lite has chosen Condoleeza Rice, that paragon of diplomatic restraint and demeanor. Get ready, world; Nurse Ratchett is punching in.

Prez Nearly Pretzel Capable, Say Spin Doctors

The White House announced today that President Bush has now fully recovered his pretzel capability and will soon be able to take on the challenging snack once again. His inability to ingest a fragment of hardened starch had been viewed by many of the electorate as a valid index of his ability to, say, lead a superpower.

In preparation for leaping the pretzel hurdle, the President has been practicing secretly with peanuts for several months now, and with a considerable measure of success, but it wasn’t until yesterday that his spin doctors declared him fully ready to commence a program of pretzel resistance enhancement, a strict regimen of physical and mental therapy that, if successful, will in time render the leader of the world's greatest superpower fully capable of eating a pretzel without falling down and hitting his face on the furniture. Sadly, this therapy will not affect his eloquence index.

It remains unclear however, when the President will actually consume his first pretzel since the one that left him dazed and with a bruised countenance, looking as though he were actually incapable of snacking, as is still claimed by a minority. "Our mandate has made it perfectly clear: that scurrilous assertion is even further from the truth than the President’s military record."

“Just because members of the general public continue to eat pretzels with impunity, without falling down or hurting themselves in any way, does not mean they’re capable of leading a superpower,” said the spin doctors, seeking to put a final stop to the general wonderment regarding the apparent pretzel vulnerability of the guy who’s leading the nation. “It's a matter of sensitivity. He fell off a mountain bike too, and believe it or not, a Segway. What can we say, the man has a talent! Moreover, he has no trouble with Cheese puffs.”

One incisive question heard at the presidential pretzel consumption press conference was: Will the doctors allow the president to eat a pretzel while riding a Segway? “Let’s not hurry things; the President is taking this rehab one step at a time; he will however, soon be able to eat a pretzel while invading another country. That is a clear measure of the progress he has achieved during his presidency."

No Contest

Reality breaks in and pisses everybody off.

Christ's Entry into Washington

Christ's Entry into Washington

Bush to Cheney: "There's that asshole from the New York Times..."

Just in Case You Didn't Know...

The corporate tax rate in Iraq is capped at 15%, for the benefit of all those thriving Iraqi corporations, like Halliburton. Thanks to the git that keeps on giving.

Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

4. Supremacy of the Military

5. Rampant Sexism

6. Controlled Mass Media

7. Obsession with National Security

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

9. Corporate Power is Protected

10. Labor Power is Suppressed

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

14. Fraudulent Elections

Sound familiar?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

"Whoever won, it would have been God's will. But because Bush won, God has clearly shown America his blessings. If Kerry had won, it would have proved God was cursing the United States."

--Richard Land (R), Southern baptist

People of this ilk are now in charge of America's future. Your racing thoroughbred is being led into a slaughterhouse.

Nation's Poor Win Election For Nation's Rich

"The Republican party--the party of industrial mega-capitalists, corporate financiers, power brokers, and the moneyed elite--would like to thank the undereducated rural poor, the struggling blue-collar workers in Middle America, and the God-fearing underpriviledged minorities who voted George W. Bush back into office," Karl Rove, senior advisor to Bush, told reporters at a press conference Monday. "You have selflessly sacrificed your well-being and voted against your own economic interest. For this, we humbly thank you."

Added Rove: "You have acted beyond the call of duty--or, for that matter, good sense."

The Onion: brings tears to your eyes.

The Inferiority of Red

"Maps showing Kerry's blue states appended to the "United States of Canada" separated from Bush's red "Jesusland" are circulating by email. Though there is a religious component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. 'How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?' asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush.

...

So our guy lost the election. Why shouldn't those of us on the coasts feel superior? We eat better, travel more, dress better, watch cooler movies, earn better salaries, meet more interesting people, listen to better music and know more about what's going on in the world. If you voted for Bush, we accept that we have to share the country with you. We're adjusting to the possibility that there may be more of you than there are of us. But don't demand our respect. You lost it on November 2."

Ted Rall

God Help America

"THEY say that in life you get what you deserve. Well, today America has deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further into carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world.

This once-great country has pulled up its drawbridge for another four years and stuck a finger up to the billions of us forced to share the same air. And in doing so, it has shown itself to be a fearful, backward-looking and very small nation.

This should have been the day when Americans finally answered their critics by raising their eyes from their own sidewalks and looking outward towards the rest of humanity.

And for a few hours early yesterday, when the exit polls predicted a John Kerry victory, it seemed they had.

But then the horrible, inevitable truth hit home. They had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.

A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity.

A dangerous chameleon, his charming exterior provides cover for a power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves whose goal is to increase America's grip on the world's economies and natural resources.

...America chose a man without morals or vision. An economic incompetent who inherited a $2billion surplus from Clinton, gave it in tax cuts to the rich and turned the US into the world's largest debtor nation.

A man who sneers at the rights of other nations. Who has withdrawn from international treaties on the environment and chemical weapons.

A man who flattens sovereign states then hands the rebuilding contracts to his own billionaire party backers.

A man who promotes trade protectionism and backs an Israeli government which continually flouts UN resolutions.

America has chosen a menacingly immature buffoon who likened the pursuit of the 9/11 terrorists to a Wild West, Wanted Dead or Alive man-hunt and, during the Afghanistan war, kept a baseball scorecard in his drawer, notching up hits when news came through of enemy deaths.

A RADICAL Christian fanatic who decided the world was made up of the forces of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and thus as author of it, believed he had the right to set the rules of engagement.

Which translates to telling his troops to do what the hell they want to the bad guys. As he has at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless towns across Iraq.

You have to feel sorry for the millions of Yanks in the big cities like New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco who voted to kick him out.

These are the sophisticated side of the electorate who recognise a gibbon when they see one.

As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt and the South, us outsiders can only feel pity."

More...

Don't Believe the Fallujah Spin

The fact is that the high level insurgents have all left and will not be caught in that "tight cordon"; moreover, the assault on Fallujah will be considered by the tribally associated Sunnis as an assault upon their heritage, not to mention upon their families. The Sunni community will thus be turned in entirety against both the planned elections and the government itself, apart from the fact that the coalition of the less-and-less willing (Hungary is leaving asap) are creating new insurgents with every civilian they kill. Maybe that's what the colonel meant by "Satan's face."

Is There a Vlad in the House?

Ashcroft has resigned. Some might think of that as good news, but he's only being ousted 'cause he was a fundamental pansy putting bras on naked statues, not ruthless enough in curtailing public liberty. They're looking for someone more like Vlad the Impaler.

How 59 Million People Screwed Themselves

Now let's look at what the international investment houses are saying will be a direct product of the reelection of the incumbent administration in the US:

1. Tax cuts will be made permanent. [Best for the rich]
2. Estate Tax will be reduced to zero. [Good only for the rich]
3. Social security will be revamped in ways not pleasing to the AARP. [Rich don't need pensions; this will help offset their tax cuts]
4. Tort Reform will cap medical malpractice awards. [Good only for the rich]
5. US oil and mineral production will be expanded on Federal land. [The rich get richer]
6. Deregulation of media will continue until there almost isn't any. [Excellent for the rich, who own the media that spin the masses]

From Jim Sinclair [Brackets mine]
(free membership)

The rest of America (excepting those in the highest income bracket, who media'd the masses into a Bush vote) is screwed too, but at least 55+ million voted against bending over.

Uncivil War

"Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass."

Uncivil War

We Can Count on Them

"And now it's America's turn. Our consumer capitalism will
not be destroyed by communism, or by terrorism... but by
it's own excesses. Thus, we need leaders who not only
permit excess, but also encourage it. Bush and Greenspan
are the men we need now. We can count on them to produce
as much ruin as possible."

Bill Bonner

CBS Does the Nasty on Bloggers

CBS is doing the nasty on Bloggers, the paid hitman accusing unsalaried bloggers of not fully certifying their election info re the presidential exit polls (what with their high budgets and expense accounts and all), though of course exit polls aren't the only source of questions about the election that are faithfully being followed up by bloggers to an extent not offered by the conventional mainstream media, who seem not to have picked up on it at all, since it has no 'legs' yet. Conventional media is not in the business of creating legs, only profiting from them. Professionally. I think CBS is just really miffed over the Dan-Rather-phony-document fiasco, wherein salaried and expense-accounted professionals didn't check, of all things, the facts, but bloggers did. They gave it the legs; CBS backpedaled. Hence, some weeks later, The Nasty.

[Nov 10 addendum : Media Black Out on Vote Fraud Allegations]

Time Cover

Just saw the face of George W. Bush on the cover of Time and it was the exact face I'd seen long ago in the poem Uptown written by Allen Ginsberg, that ends:

"IfIhadmywayI'dcutoffyourhairandsendyoutoVietnam" -
"Bless you then" I replied to a hatted thin citizen hurrying to the barroom door
upon wet dark Amsterdam Avenue decades later -
"And if I couldn't do that I'd cut your throat" he snarled farewell,
and "Bless you" I added as he went to his fate in the rain,
dapper Irishman.

That Irishman has Bush's face.

A Moment in the Crusades

"As soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment approached the burning vehicle, they did not find insurgents. The victims were mainly teenagers, hired to work the late shift picking up trash for about $5 a night, witnesses said. Medics scrambled to treat the half a dozen people strewn around the scene. A dispute broke out among soldiers standing over one severely wounded young man who was moaning in pain. An unwounded Iraqi claiming to be a relative of the victim pleaded in broken English for soldiers to help him. But to the horror of bystanders, Alban, 29, a boyish-faced sergeant who joined the Army in 1997, retrieved an M-231 assault rifle and fired into the wounded man’s body. Seconds later, another soldier, Staff Sgt. Johnny Horne Jr., 30, of Winston-Salem, N.C., grabbed an M-16 rifle and also shot the victim."

Source

The New Crusades

"The enemy has a face. It is Satan's. He is in Fallujah, and we are going to destroy him."
--Marine Colonel Gary Brandl, on Fallujah

Source

Suicide at Ground Zero

"A Georgia man fatally shot himself at Ground Zero in New York, in what was believed to be a protest against President Bush's reelection and the war in Iraq.
....

When Veal failed to show up at work Wednesday, his co-workers assumed he was upset that Bush had beaten John Kerry in the race for the White House and was taking a few days off.

'We figured he was just devastated,' Mauney said."

Georgia man commits suicide at Ground Zero

About that Stolen Election...

"Further evidence is emerging every hour that, indeed, this election was stolen. CNN has reported that Bush, surprisingly, won a precinct in Ohio by over 3,000 votes, even though only about 650 people actually cast votes. I've heard reports of over 7,000 votes being just tossed in the trash, in Broward County Florida (one of the greatest Democratic bastions in Florida)- more news, as it develops." More...

The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy

"The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?" More... [Italics mine]

Youth Rocks the Future

..."God forbid if young people ever realized their true power and used it. Maybe what young adults need to continue to do is keep creating their own new media and news sources on the Internet and through other new technologies. Just bypass the old farts on Fox and CNN and all the rest. One thing's for sure -- by never challenging this president on his lies that sent our young off to war, they have proven which side they are on and it isn't on the side of the young or the future.

Congratulations, 18 to 29-year-olds -- you rocked."

Yours,

Michael Moore

Hand Biters

Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed

Onward Christian Soldiers

"If I were still a conservative Christian I can tell you exactly how this election would look to me right now. Kerry is an immoral man of the World, and I thank God that Bush, a man of clear moral integrity who is out to defeat Satan regardless of the forces that stand in his way, has been blessed with victory. He didn't win the election--God chose him as the leader of this nation.

When you blame the voters who chose Bush, you are completely mistaking what is happening in our country today. Bush did not win the election based on ignorance and stupidity. He won the election based on a belief system that has been determinedly advancing across the country because Christians believe it is their spiritual duty to bring people to Christ. And you cannot be successfully brought to Christ until you also commit to serving Christ. You cannot successfully serve Christ unless you do his will. And it is Christ's will that Bush win re-election. Do you see the pattern at work here???" More...

The New Map

Secession of the Blue States

"I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That's pretty powerful stuff, and I didn't see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the President's strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio... well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited "moral values" as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or terrorism, or the economy... Who'd have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that. [Boos.] Now, now. Credit where it's due.

I concede that I put too much faith in America's youth. With 8 out of 10 of you opposing the President, with your friends and classmates dying daily in a war you disapprove of, with your future being mortgaged to pay for rich old peoples' tax breaks, you somehow managed to sit on your asses and watch the Cartoon Network while aging homophobic hillbillies carried the day. You voted with the exact same anemic percentage that you did in 2000. You suck. Seriously, y'do. [Cheers, applause] Thank you. Thank you very much.

There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends here in Los Angeles. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling 'Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!'"

From 'Felber's concession speech'

No Fear, Just Loathing

"Their army is how much bigger than mine? Three percent? Well shucks, Bubba. Now is the time to establish a network and an attitude... You make friends in moments of defeat. People in defeat tend to bond because they need each other. We can't take the attitude that it's over and we give up. We're still here."

Hunter S. Thompson

The Dollar Knows Dubya

"The market for the US dollar has become so large that no central bank alone or in concert with others can cause a change in trend. Sure they can make an impact on a short term basis but this dollar bear will remain until new policies are in place that are certain to reverse the triple deficits...

... the story of the day is the continuing terrible action of the US dollar. The point of total "no return" is the 1995 low of .8194 that the recent breakdown of another bearish Head & Shoulders indicates will happen.

After that, the fat lady has officially sung and the sun will have set on the once mighty dollar.

When the history books are written, it will be said that the war on terrorism was grossly misjudged by the West given its view that terrorism resides at specific geographical locations including Iraq."

Jim Sinclair (free membership)

Now who would misjudge so grossly, apart from 59 million spin-swallowing voters?

More Hurricanes Please?

"Part of the pick-up in jobs was down to the worst hurricane seasons for many years. About 71,000 new construction jobs had been added - the most since March 2000." More...

San Francisco Threatens Secession

Can't really blame them. Sign petition here. I suppose the Village is next.

Another Take

"I don't think America is that divided. I think most of us are ill-informed in two major ways, 'conveniently' split along the lines of the two major political parties available to us. We're told we have two different choices -- you're rooting for this team or that team and the other team is the enemy -- and we believe that and organize our beliefs accordingly."
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He's Yer Spokesman

4 more years America

"4 more years America
If you voted for Bush, didn't vote, or voted no on gay marriage, I hope you get drafted.
I hope they stick you in my unit, and you go with me to Iraq when my unit goes back in September. I will laugh when you see what soldiers in that country face on a daily basis. I hope you work with gay soldiers too. I did. One of them saved my life. Think he shouldn't have the right to get married? Fuck you. He fought just as hard as I did and on most days, did his job better than me. Don't tell me gays don't have the same rights you do.
Think the war in Iraq is a good thing? I'll donate my M-16 to you and you can go in my place."

Kerry Won

"I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with--and therefore contaminated by--the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. [To read about the skewing of exit polls to conform to official results, click here.] Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, 'Who did you vote for?' Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial question, 'Was your vote counted?' The voters don't know."

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Black Tuesday

via BARTCOP

Here Comes the Boomer Shaft

"The Republican-controlled Congress put off dealing with the debt ceiling before adjourning in October, preferring not to force members to vote on the politically sensitive issue of adding to the national debt before the November elections.

The government hit the current debt ceiling of $7.384 trillion on Oct. 14, forcing Treasury to begin a series of bookkeeping maneuvers to keep financing the government's normal operations without breaching the debt ceiling.

Republicans have proposed that the debt ceiling be raised by $690 billion to $8.074 trillion, an amount that would get the government through next September, when the 2005 budget year ends.

The administration says the president has a plan to cut the deficit in half by 2009, but critics contend that the real problems will come in later years as retiring baby boomers put unprecedented strains on Social Security and Medicare."
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Those e-Chads are Still Hanging...

The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

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The Divided States of America

"Worldly America, which of course John Kerry won by a massive landslide, faces, well, the world on its Pacific and Atlantic coasts and freely engages, commercially and culturally, with Asia and Europe in the easy understanding that those continents are a dynamic synthesis of ancient cultures and modern social and economic practices. This truism is unthreatening to Worldly America, not least because so many of its people, in the crowded cities, are themselves products of the old-new ways of Korea, Japan, Ireland or Italy. In Worldly America - in San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego, New York - the foreigner is not an anxiety, but rather a necessity. Its America is polycultural, not Pollyanna.

Godly America, on the other hand, rock-ribbed in Dick Cheney's Wyoming, stretched out just as far as it pleases in Dubya's deeply drilled Texas, turns its back on that dangerous, promiscuous, impure world and proclaims to high heaven the indestructible endurance of the American Difference. If Worldly America is, beyond anything else, a city, a street, and a port, Godly America is, at its heart (the organ whose bidding invariably determines its votes over the cooler instructions of the head), a church, a farm and a barracks; places that are walled, fenced and consecrated. Worldly America is about finding civil ways to share crowded space, from a metro-bus to the planet; Godly America is about making over space in its image. One America makes room, the other America muscles in." More...

17 Reasons not to Slit Your Wrists

"17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of surprise in 2008."

from Michael Moore email

As Bush Gives America Away

"Well, the shock has set in. We've spent the better part of four years publicizing and challenging the president's assault on our forests, western wildlands and wildlife habitats. As a tax-deductible organization, NRDC [National Resources Defense Council] could not oppose or support a candidate for president. But a lot of hopes were pinned on the ballot box as the fastest way to terminate the Bush administration's giveaways to logging, timber and mining companies.

Those hopes were dashed yesterday. The president prevailed, despite his horrific environmental record, which remains at odds with the views of the overwhelming majority of Americans.

We're stunned not so much by the outcome itself. After all, President Bush was a slight favorite to win this election. No, the look of distress on faces all around NRDC's offices today is true alarm at what lies ahead. As sweeping as this administration's attack on the environment has been, things are about to get worse. Perhaps much worse."

NDRC newsletter

The Ned Flanders Nightmare Is Here

"Exulting in their electoral victories, President Bush's conservative supporters immediately turned to staking out mandates for an ambitious agenda of long-cherished goals, including privatizing Social Security, banning same-sex marriage, remaking the Supreme Court and overturning the court's decisions in support of abortion rights.

'Now comes the revolution,' Richard Viguerie, the dean of conservative direct mail, told about a dozen fellow movement stalwarts gathered around a television here, tallying up their Senate seats in the earliest hours of the morning. 'If you don't implement a conservative agenda now, when do you?'"

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In Retrospect

In retrospect, I have to admit it was disappointing that John Kerry was the best the DEMs could come up with. But in both retrospect and prospect, it's appalling that George W. Bush was the best the GOPs could come up with. It's chilling that the latter was preferred by the majority of those voting... The GOP's buzzcut goons all say 'Get Used to It,' but that's going to be impossible unless you're as vacuous as they are...

Canada to the Rescue

"You can help. Open your heart, and your home. Marry an American. Legions of Canadians have already pledged to sacrifice their singlehood to save our southern neighbours from four more years of cowboy conservatism."

The Voters Have Spoken

The voters have spoken: Bush is one of us

What an embarrassing admission.

MISOVERESTIMATED

Well, the majority of Americans appear to have swallowed the fiction that Bush has their best interests at heart, and has voted to encourage him to continue sending their sons and grandsons to Iraq, and their jobs to elsewhere as his cronies downsize. The pensions of all those Florida voters will soon be shrinking, just as their medical costs go up and Bush's pharmaceutical friends get rich. There's a very big open-ended bill heading America's way. Guess who's gonna pay it? Not the ones with the money.