There are a few topics I have been meaning to get to this week. So since Sunday is going to be cleaning and laundry day for me around the house, I might as well apply the same logic to some of the idiots demanding my attention this morning.
Fred Thompson
Fred Thompson, a Republican presidential candidate in waiting, decided he didn’t have to wait to be as idiotic as the rest of the Repug field this week, when he suggested that the 1986 immigration law signed by President Reagan is to blame for the country’s illegal immigrants and bemoaned a nation beset by “suicidal maniacs.”
“Twelve million illegal immigrants later, we are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women and children around the world,” the former Tennessee senator said. “We’re sitting here now with essentially open borders.”
I am thinking Fred got his talking points paper mixed up with a script from one of his perps on Law & Order. Hey Fred, I’m quite sure that if you ask the Native Americans, they will tell you the first piece of immigration history that led to suicidal maniacs was called the Mayflower. And the last I checked, Mexican immigrants still had a long way to go to catch up with Timothy McVeigh in terms of kills by bombing.
And to think many people are looking to this guy as the savior of the Repug field. Welcome to the Momo club, Freddie.
Jimmy Carter
For a moment, I thought he was President again. He did something right, and then immediately turned around and shot himself in the foot.
First, Carter correctly referred to Dubya (in terms of foreign policy) as the worst President ever. Then he played the old game about being taken out of context (WRONG) before saying his words were not well chosen. All of this because of the tradition that past presidents don’t criticize the seated president.
*sigh*
First let me say that this is a stupid tradition. The Presidents works for (or is supposed to work for) us, the American people, and not for the past presidents. Second, if you make a comment, have the courage to stand by it, rather than back down and look like what you are, a Golden Momo.
Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds
So how many people even noticed that Roger Clemens signed with the Yankees and is playing minor league ball? Perhaps the better question is, “who cares”?
Roger has signed on with a team whose season is already over at the end of May. I can’t say that it could happen to a better team, or a better guy.
The bitterness comes not from being a Red Sox fan, but from someone disgusted by the fact that this guy, who in his 40s is in better shape than most other players in the league. Can you say steroids? Sorry Rog, pitchers don’t pitch like this at this age unless they are using performance enhancers.
Speaking of performance enhancers, Barry Bonds is set to break the home run record of Hank Aaron. That in itself is an absolute travesty. Aaron’s career was symbolized by class and sportsmanship. To be passed by the likes of a cheating, selfish punk like Bonds just shows how far out culture has fallen in the past twenty years.
This is the only time I will comment on the home run record, because in my view 755 stands, just as Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs stands. Cheaters like McGuire, Sosa and Bonds have no business in the record books.
The Media
Talk about how far our culture has fallen…
This week in the news, the most prominent stories outside of Iraq were:
* Rosie leaving The View, and the constant clips of her, Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Donald Trump.
* Brittney carrying a bible.
* A dog mauling a 7 year old.
* How bad the new “Pirates” movie is.
* Fred Thompson sticking his foot into his mouth.
* The Cannes film festival.
After that they got back into real news, but this is what we are demanding of our news agencies because we insist on mindless drivel. Our news agencies should be spending their time on important things, but as a culture we seemed to have redefined “important”. Instead of being concerned for our world and having an unrelenting focus on a liar’s war, a travesty taking place in Africa, or the global environment, we insist on things that help us to avoid thinking.
And the media is just fine with all of this, because it protects their de facto monopoly on information and doesn’t force them to hold our corrupt government accountable.
The Kennedy Assassination
Speaking of not thinking, new information came out this week suggesting that the bullet fragments in the Kennedy Assassination to not lead to the “slam dunk” conclusion of a lone gunman. Hello? Hello? Is there anyone other than someone in complete denial who still believes in the “Lone Gunman” theory? For God sakes even Congress, the most inept of American institutions, concluded decades ago that there was more than one shooter based on the evidence available. It doesn’t matter who you think might have done it (the Mob, the CIA, Cuba, etc.), could we all at least accept that Kennedy was not killed by Oswald, and that a coup d’etat was carried out in the U.S. in 1963?
The same people who deny this however, no doubt believe that Dubya actually defeated Al Gore in 2000. That would be the second coup d’etat in the last half-century.
Where is someone like Ike when you need him?
The worst for last; Dubya
Well, we now have another three-time Momo winner. What a surprise that it is Dubya.
Perhaps the most important news story of the week was the fact that the CIA had accurately predicted the fallout of a U.S. invasion of Iraq before the invasion took place. The following is from one of my favorite places for information, Truthdig:
Senators Shame Bush Over Prewar Intelligence
Posted on May 25, 2007
The Senate Intelligence Committee has declassified and released two prewar intelligence reports that warned a postwar Iraq could struggle with sectarian violence and might benefit al-Qaida and Iran. Democrats on the panel, along with Republicans Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe, criticized the Bush administration for ignoring the prescient warnings.
New York Times:
WASHINGTON—Democrats on a deeply divided Senate Intelligence Committee accused the Bush administration [Friday] of ignoring warnings in 2003 from the nation’s spy agencies that a post-war Iraq could face violence and division and that an invasion could strengthen the hand of Al Qaeda and Iran.
“Sadly, the administration’s refusal to heed these dire warnings, and worse, to plan for them, has led to tragic consequences for which our nation is paying a terrible price,” said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the Democratic chairman. It was one of many dueling statements accompanying a long-awaited committee report on the spy agencies’ pre-war predictions of the effects of toppling Saddam Hussein.
Republicans replied that the 226-page report exaggerated the prescience of the intelligence agencies. They noted that the 2003 assessments barely mentioned the possibility of a Sunni insurgency—a point the committee’s Democratic majority voted not to include in the text—and were “certainly not a crystal ball.”
And this is the guy who listened to both the intelligence community and to his commanders on the ground? I’m thinking not.
Speaking of our incapable war leaders, here is the most recent update, as the U.S. death toll for May is now over 100. Dubya must think he is getting paid by the corpse.
3,452 American troops
killed in Iraq to date
3,729 Coalition troops
killed in Iraq to date
Are “major combat operations” over?
Have we been greeted as liberators?
Is there democracy in Iraq?
Is the mission accomplished?
Did we win yet?
