Robbing us Blind: part 3
Once again, Matt at the Daily Outrage has the scoop on how Dick Chenney and his Haliburton buddies are liberating the American taxpayers from the burden of heavy wallets, using their monopolgy in Iraq to ovecharge on gasoline.

Another good link
Be sure to check out Misleader.org, a new site dedicated to highlighting (and debunking) a specific bit of Bush-administration misinformation each day.

Dude, Where's My Country?!? Revelations on Ashcroft

Yep, I bought the new Micheal Moore book (the edition printed for distribution outside the US, so it's uncensored!). I have to say, there's some absolutely scary sh*t in there.

For example, here is one particularly disgusting bit of treachery by John Ashcroft that I missed out on (probably because the US media barely reported it). After more than a hundred suspected terrorists were rounded up in the month following the September 11th attacks, Ashcroft stopped the FBI from running background checks to see if any of the people who'd been arrested had purchased firearms recently. He claimed, despite the fact that these people had already been denied the right to a lawyer, the right to remain silent, and most other rights we all take (or used to take) for granted, that the US government didn't have the right to keep people, even people in custody for being possible terrorists, from buying weapons! Then, when his own Justice Department officials researched the issue and determined that the government DID have the right to do the checks, Ashcroft suppressed the report.

Finally, in a horrible irony that again went unreported by the US media, Ashcroft appeared in Congress in December of 2001 before the Judiciary Committeeand and berated "liberals" for whinning about civil liberties being withdrawn to fight terror. He said that they were "providing ammunition to the enemy..." and added, "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of 'lost liberty', my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists."

This comment is the pinnacle of hypocrisy coming from the very man who defended the suspected terrorists rights to buy and own assault rifles. But the hypocrisy doesn't stop there. Ashcroft, in the same hearing, indicated an Al-Quaida training manual and said ominously "al Quaida terrorists are told how to use America's freedoms as weapons against us."

Indeed: The Violence Policy Center reports that one al Qauida manual, "Firearms training for jihad in America" instructs al Quaida "soldiers" specifically on how to use the US's lax gun laws to kill Americans. A few exerpts:

"(in the USA) firearms training is available to the general public. One should try to join a shooting club if possible and make regular visits to the firing range."

"Useful courses to learn are sniping...Handgun courses are useful, but only after you've mastered rifles."

"If you live in such a country [that allows citizens to own assualt weapons, and the US was previously specifically mentioned], obtain an assault rifle legally, preferably an AK-47..."

"Repsect the laws of the country you are in and avoid dealing in illegal firearms...Learn the most of what you can according to your circumstances and leave the rest to when you actually go for jihad."

So, as Moore asks in his book, why--when the Bush administration is recinding the Bill of Rights for suspected terrorists right and left--why are they bending over backwards to ensure that they DON'T encroach on their right to bear arms?

(all quotes courtesy of Moore's Dude, Where's My Country)

Congress and "President" agree: killing mothers is "pro-family"

That's right. The US Congress has passed the deceptively-titled "partial birth" abortion bill, which makes it illegal for doctors to perform an emergency extraction procedure to save the life of a pregnant woman.

Now, when a pregnant woman (possibly already the mother of other children) finds herself in the horrible situation of a potentially-deadly birthing emergency, there is no longer any question about whose life will be spared. Before, it was between the woman, the father (if present), and the doctor. Now, the Congress has come in and removed any decision by decreeing: the woman must die. That's what has happened with the passing of this bill. That's the truth behind the "partial birth abortion" proceedure which has been so vilified by the anti-choice faction.

This kind of inaccurate rhetoric is typical of the anti-choice movement: "Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania, a lead sponsor of the bill, called the late-term abortion procedure an "affront to the dignity of human beings."

"This kind of treatment to an innocent child, who would otherwise be born alive, who is healthy with a healthy mother ... there is no excuse for it," he said."

The problem is that this proceedure ISN'T done on healthy women with healthy babies. It's done when a pregnancy (one being carried to term mind you...in other words, these are women who WANT their babies) goes horribly wrong and if the doctor does nothing, then both the mother and baby will die.

I'm disgusted but not surprised that the reactionary, "christian" right-wing has enacted this law, a law which goes beyond pre-Roe-V-Wade laws (becuse even before Roe V Wade, abortions to save the mother's life WERE legal). But I am extremely disappointed to see the way CNN is reporting it.

--According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit group that conducts sexual and reproductive health research, 2,200 late-term abortions were performed in 2000. That was less than 0.2 percent of the 1.3 million abortions performed that year.

During the procedure, known to doctors as intact dilation and extraction, the fetus is partially removed and its skull collapsed. The bill the Senate passed Tuesday would impose penalties of up to two years in prison for doctors who perform the procedure, and they could face civil lawsuits as well. --

The problem here is that CNN has fallen prey to (or perhaps deliberately repeated) a common distortion used by the anti-choice faction. They site statistics for "late term abortions" (which can be any abortion performed in the third trimester, and SOME statistic-compilers even include anything after the first trimester) and then use the description ("skull collapsed") for the extraction proceedure, which is only done a few hundred times a year and ONLY to save the mother's life. The extraction proceedure is the method officially endorsed by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to deal with specific life-threatening birthing tragedies. I'll repeat, if it is not done, then the woman dies.

Then, the article says "Abortion opponents have said the procedure is cruel, while abortion rights advocates argue any move to restrict abortion would erode a woman's constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy accorded by Roe vs. Wade. " creating a perfect (but incorrect) "strawman" pro-choice argument. Actually, pro-choice people, and anyone who cares about mothers and women, are against this law because it means WOMEN (some of them already mothers) WILL DIE.

As an afterthought, the article does note:
--But Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, called it a "very sad day for the women of America, a very sad day for the families of America."

"This Senate is about to pass a piece of legislation that for the first time in history bans a medical procedure without making any exception for the health of a woman," she said in remarks before the vote.

"I want a civilized society. That means you care about the women of this country. That means you care about their pregnancies. That means you want to help them through the most difficult times. That means you don't play doctor here."


Now, I don't have much faith in the average American, but even I can't believe the average American is so cruel and mysogynist that s/he'd want a grown woman with a family and friends who love her to be allowed to die in miserable pain in a hospital bed so that a doctor can pull her now-motherless baby from her still-warm corpse. And yet, that's what the truth of this bill is. So, I have to believe most people were simply duped by the increadibly despicable (and, unfortunately, effective) propoganda by the "religious right" on this issue. They actual believe that there are women out there who carry a pregnancy through to the last minute and then tell the doctor "I don't want this baby after all, will you just crush it's skull for me" and that there are doctors who say "sure, no problem".
The people responsible for this propoganda--and ultimately responsible for this law--are the most reprehensible people I can think of right now.

To beat a dead horse once more (hey, if we're going to be pulling babies out of their mother's corpses, why not beat a dead horse or two), you can check out the rant I wrote about this bill a couple months ago.

Barbara Speaks Out
Here are two stories about Barbara Bush joining in the Republican whining about attacks on her son (which are nothing compared to the dirty politics her husband made famous) and saying she shouldn't be bothered with the details of how many US soldiers die each day in Iraq.

Virginia Burning
Hesiod has the story of a Virginia family whose home was burned down because they had the audacity to protest the war quietly and peacefully by posting a sign on their house.

The comments section to Hesiod's original post is worth reading...at least the first eleven (including mine! toot toot).

You can just bet finding the perpetrator of this crime will be high on John Ashcroft's list of priorities...right up there after "clip tonails and alphabetise collection of hymnals".

The Malaysian Rush and more Bush hypocricy.
So, among other statements which went unreported, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammed, said last week that "Jews control the world" and get others to do their killing for them. He also called for an end to all violence and said Muslim suicide bombers should stop killing innocent people in Israel but that was left out of most reports about his speech. Everyone focused--understandably--on his apparently anti-semitic words.

I'm not even going to go into the question of whether Jews run the world or not, because I don't see any point. I don't think they do, and for people who do think so, I'm not going to sway them one bit.

My interest in this story is two-fold. First of all, George Bush and the rest of his regime have absolutely NO moral ground to rebuke Mahathir. There are a multitude of reasons for this, but I'll focus on one for now...the Bushies did nothing when a US general made a similarly hateful speech against Islam (see story two posts below). The psychotically-christian general, named Boykin, has refused to recind his comments and the Bush regime has backed him by--amusingly, considering their blatant attack on the Bill of Rights in recent years--saying he was only expressing his opinion and that's whay we get to do in a democracy.

Rumsfeld: "There are a lot of things that are said by people that are their views, and that's the way we live. We are free people and that's the wonderful thing about our country, and I think for anyone to run around and think that can be managed or controlled is probably wrong."

The irony is staggering, isn't it.

But back to Mahathir and why I call him the Malaysian Rush. I noticed that he's using the Rush Limbaugh you-can-tell-I-was-right-by-the-way-everyone's-crying-foul argument: "The reaction of the world shows that they [Jews] do control the world," .


In summation:

Mahathir said: We should all stop killing each other and watch out for those evil Jews.

Boykin said: We [the US] are waging a war against en evil religion of idolatry [Islam], and I know MY God will defeat THEIR god, because mine is the REAL god.

One guy was criticized for his comments and one guy was called "an officer that has an outstanding record " by Donnie Rumsfeld. Guess which one was Muslim, and guess which one was Christian.

Typical. How can anyone honestly ask of "the Muslim world" (the homogeneous community that only exists in the Media and in Judeo-Christian paranoia): "Why do they hate US [the USA] so much?" I'm astounded more of them don't hate us with our "leaders" making these kind of statements (not to mention, Ann "Goebbels" Coulter...see story below).

T-shirts for the left.
For those of you who haven't already discovered it off to the side of the Eschaton blog, this is a great link if you're looking for birthday or x-mas gifts for your liberal, libertarian, centrist, inteligent, or just plain rational friends.

My favorite is the Ann Coulter T-shirt, which has a picture of the Goebbels-wannabe with one of her "best" quotes: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them all to Christianity." (Gee...with her constantly on media-donated soapboxes spewing that kind of warm, christian message, I just don't understand why Muslims are threatened by the US anymore!)

God, Guts and Guns, part 3

"Holy religious fanatics with control over massive amounts of weapons, Batman!"
This religious rant by a general in the US Army is one of THE scariest things I've read yet...and that's saying a lot. He sounds like he's gunning for Pat Robertson's job on "The 700 Club".

The Bushies PR BS.
"Nevermind that a lot of innocent people are being blown to pieces and buildings are being destroyed...look at all the GOOD things that are happening in the country!" This is the line being fed to the media and American Public by the Bush regime's new "progress in Iraq" PR campaign.

Interesting, huh. Imagine if someone had proposed this anti-chicken-little philosophy to Americans after September 11th. Think about it. (And thanks to Hesiod for pointing this out.)

Even Republicans are questioning the new Bush PR-blitz.