The Conservatard

Unsurprisingly Saddam Husein was put to death early Saturday morning. The Sydney Morning News has a decent coverage of the event here. It seems that the PNAC mo-fo’s finally got some of what they wanted, and it only cost the American taxpayer a half of a trillion dollars and 3000 dead solders. What a deal, for the conservatards that is.

Now Mr C. is not crying any tears for old Saddam, he was a tyrant and a mass murder. The very least punishment that he deserved was life in prison, but execution works as well. So don’t accuse Mr C. of being a Saddam lover or any conservatard bull shit.

Now comes the next part of the equation. What do we do with the existing fascist dictators that dragged us into all of this nonsense? You know who Mr C. is referring to, Lord W. and Dearth Cheney. The same neo-conservatard liars, cheats and war mongers that have flushed American democratic rights down the toilet. The same group of corporate thug puppets that attacked Saddam’s regime, killed 3,000 American troops, severely injured over 20,000 American solders, caused the death of over 600,000 Iraqi citizens, wasted over 500 billion dollars of American tax payer money, tortured prisoners of war, and gutted the constitution? What do you do with individuals like this?

Aside from the fact that Nanci Pelosi has said that “Impeachment is off the table”, what recourse if left to the American public? Prosecution, investigation, censure? Who knows? Either way, as long as Bush-Co. and all of the like minded rat finks that have crept into positions of authority are still around, America and the world is not safe from corporate tyrants and fascism.

Scarborough Country, which is the show hosted by former Republican Joe Scarborough shows on MSNBC right after Countdown with Keith Olberman. On Wednesday, Joe wen’t all out bashing Bush’s latest “strategy” of increasing the ground troops in Iraq. Criticizing Bush is nothing new even to MSNBC, but what makes this interesting is that Scarborough is a Republican that has historically supported Bush and the Iraq occupation.

Nothing in the discussion is really new to politically informed readers. You may even say that some of the comments like “the presidents actions are boarding on criminal” are rather naive. However, Mr. Conservatard views it like this. The last defenders of this criminal administration are finally starting to wake up and smell the coffee, so to speak. It is refreshing to see the main stream “corporate” media start to emerge from the fog of self deception.

Who knows if the discussion on Scarborough Country will make a bit of difference? However, with the word “impeachment” being repeated several times during the segment is a good sign. If more news shows start objective analysis of the Bush regeims actions and bring up the subject of impeachment, the option of impeachment may begin start registering with the American public. Perhaps even the Foxtard News channel viewers may even start thinking for themselves.

In the Chicago Tribune editorial section today an Op-Ed piece called “A Dangerous Attack On Leaks” points out the perils of the latest Bushtard attempt to keep its dirty little secrets out of the public eye. The article sheds some light on additional points that Mr. Conservatard didn’t think to point out about the futility of the Bushtard’s department of “justice” attempt to subpoena the ACLU for the leaked documents.

This is an odd use of a grand jury subpoena, which is customarily intended to gather information, not censor it. In fact, the ACLU says it can find no other occasion when a grand jury subpoena demanded the surrender of all copies of a document.

The government has ample means to prevent leaks of classified information. But it’s settled law that, once leaks occur, the government may not censor publication of such material, barring some serious threat to national security.

The purpose of the subpoena is clear: to permit the federal government to suppress information about matters of potential public interest, even if it would cause no harm. This new tactic would effectively allow the government to engage in prior restraint by blocking publication of such material–something starkly at odds with the 1st Amendment. That would be a radical departure from practice, an infringement on press freedom and a serious loss to public understanding of how the government operates.

…The chances are good that the ACLU will prevail in the end. Prior restraints are the essence of what the framers meant to banish when they wrote the 1st Amendment. The Supreme Court emphasized in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case that the government may bar publication of secrets only when “disclosure of any of them will surely result in direct, immediate and irreparable damage to our nation or its people.”

If the government can demonstrate that such a risk exists in this case, it should do so. Otherwise, it should back off.

Chicago Tribune: December 17th, 2006

Mr. Conservatard agrees with most of the editorial points. However, it seems that most main stream journalists don’t realize that the current Bushtard / Darth-Cheny administration could give a rats fanny about the constitution, the bill of rights or democracy. The current regime has done everything in its powers to use and abuse the rights of most Americans. The use of a subpoena is only the latest in their bag of tricks to try to bully and squash the truth about the daily activities of their outlaw administration. If they could get away with it, Mr. C. is sure they would use much stronger tactics against any organization or person that would dare to point out their evil ways.

Let us hope that the editors of the Tribune are correct in the fact that the current executive regime will be shot down in court . Otherwise the main stream press may just find their new found “balls” for reporting on actual events handed back to them wrapped up in an arrest warrant.

I just read an interesting article on The Smirking Chimp called “An Important Story You Didn’t See” gives some real insight about why the US military is broke. It is a bit of a read but well Worth it.

Some of the more insightful parts of the article are ….

“The (Army’s) equipment shortages explain why Gen. John Abizaid, the top commander in the middle East, recently told lawmakers that the US couldn’t maintain even a relatively small increase of 20,000 soldiers in Iraq. “The ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something we have right now,” he testified in November.” (Jaffe, WSJ)

If you are looking for someone to blame for the wartime Army budget emergency look no further than Ike’s “military industrial complex.” Even in peacetime that bunch roots through taxpayer’s wallets with reckless abandon. But an actual war sparks a feeding frenzy. Multi-billion dollar weapon systems get approved faster than a Las Vegas hooker can turn a trick, often entirely independent of its relevance to the war at hand.

…There you have it. Equipping infantry soldiers at $24,000 a crack ain’t bad work, if you can get it. But slamming taxpayers $32 million a copy for a fleet of F-18 fighter jets, now that’s a spicy meat-a-ball! Or how about this mouthfull — $320.5 billion for a ballistic-missile submarine program – and that’s the base price. You want options? They got options. Add $97 billion for the missiles; $46 billion for submarine propulsion research, development, testing, production, and operations; and $220 billion for attack submarine construction, weapons, and related systems. Now you’re talkin’!

Ships, subs, planes and all the high-end, high-tech gizmo’s that go with them, are SO much more profitable for defense contractors than the care and feeding of Army grunts that’s it’s no contest. And these high-dollar honey pots are also much more “boast-worthy” for politicians in districts where those contractors maintain plants — and defense contracts make damn sure their facilities are strategically located around the country.

Which explains why the poor grunt on the ground is getting the short end of defense spending. Lockheed can’t build and sell infantrymen. And profit margins on rifles, bullets and bulletproof vests is small change compared to the other stuff that can be sold to Uncle Sam. So, why waste a perfectly good war on nickel and dime infantry stuff when they can go for the real gold?

by Stephen Pizzo | Dec 13 2006 - 8:41am :http://www.smirkingchimp.com/

I don’t know if I could agree with the author more. The way that US citizens and tax payers are being assaulted by the corrupt Bushtard regime and the “military industrial complex” makes me want to move to Switzerland. However, after the last six years of Bustard foreign policy, I doubt that any civilized country would give a work visa for U.S. citizens. I hear that Argentina is nice this time of year.

The NY Times today printed an article called U.S. Subpoena Is Seen as Bid to Stop Leaks. According to the article the Bustard’s department of “Justice” issued a subpoena to the ACLU to return a leaked government document from 2005. The document in question, say the Bushtards is “Top Secret”, and is related to national security. The ACLU counters that it is nothing of the sort and at worst would be “mildly embarrassing” to the administration.

Federal prosecutors are trying to force the American Civil Liberties Union to turn over copies of a classified document it received from a source, using what legal experts called a new extension of the Bush administration’s efforts to protect national-security secrets.

The novelty in the government’s approach is in its broad use of a grand jury subpoena, which is typically a way to gather evidence, rather than to confiscate all traces of it. But the subpoena issued to the A.C.L.U. seeks “any and all copies” of a document e-mailed to it unsolicited in October, indicating that the government also wants to prevent further dissemination of the information in the document.

…The subpoena, however, raised the possibility that the government had found a new tool to stop the dissemination of secrets, one that could avoid the all but absolute constitutional prohibition on prior restraints on publication.

The disputed document, according to the A.C.L.U., is three-and-a-half pages long and unremarkable, and its disclosure would be only mildly embarrassing to the government. It added that the document “has nothing to do with national defense.”

…The Espionage Act makes it a crime for people who have unauthorized possession of some kinds of national security information to receive, retain, disseminate or refuse to turn it over to the government when asked. But A.C.L.U. lawyers say the document does not meet the statute’s definition and that, in any event, a subpoena is an improper way to enforce the law.

In its filing, the A.C.L.U. also argues that the government is misusing the grand jury that issued the subpoena.

By ADAM LIPTAK

December 14, 2006, The New York Times.

Well isn’t it special that the Bushtard administration is looking out to protect our “national security”. And isn’t even more special that everything the Bushtard administration seems to do is “top secret” and an issue of “national security”. Come on now, if the document in question was really a matter of national security, of vital interest to protecting our nation or even really embarrassing don’t you think that the ACLU would have made it public by now?

In another day and age Mr. Conservatard would probably agree that “secret documents” that relate to national security shouldn’t be leaked to the public. Unfortunately, because of the last six years of the Bushtard lies, deceptions and abuse of power, it’s hard to even consider that they are telling the truth about the contents of the document. Due to the Bushtards unconstitutional actions regarding prisoner torture, detention and denial of a due process to anyone who is even suspected of being a terrorist, how can anybody think that this time the government is telling the truth?

The ACLU has been one of the few groups to actually take a stance against the blatant illegal activities of the Bushtard administration. They were the first ones to sue the government over illegal NSA domestic wiretapping of US citizens. Mr. Conservatard might not agree with everything that the ACLU has done in its history, but this time he’s with the ACLU. He realizes that his two cents have absolutely nothing to do with how the federal judge will decide on this case. However if the public in general takes notice and speaks up to support the ACLU, perhaps the good guys will win this time.

Perhaps, but not likely.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I was in a “debate” with a relative about Venezuela. The point my relative was making is that Hugo Chavez is a communist. To prove his theory he pointed out that the Chavez government has been suppressing free speech in the media. I said that may be and I was not aware of the exact actions that the Venezuelan government has taken against journalists. I countered that the real reason the Bush administration hates Chaves is because he nationalized the oil industry and forced the oil companies to pay up dues that they owed Venezuela.

I had to admit that my relative was correct in the fact that suppressing free speech is wrong and will ultimately backfire on those that suppress it. I did, at the time, mention that the US basically suppresses the media but in more subtle ways. In the states reporters may not be thrown in jail for reporting on the truth, but it is harassed. Harassed in the sense that they will be fired or lose choice assignments. Since most of the mainstream media is owned by five major corporations that have close ties to the Bushtards it is not that hard to stifle true journalism. The more obvious recent examples are with ABC canceling Nightline that was hosted by Ted Koppel and CBS firing Dan Rather.

Then I began to think about direct political oppression of journalism. The most example of American Democracy repressing journalistic freedom is not in North America but in the newly formed Iraqi government. In fact the US military has arrested reporters and is currently holding onto one right now. The reporter is an Iraqi working for the Associated Press named Bilal Hussein and the US military has been holding onto him since since April 12, 2006.

(more…)

It seems that the Bushtards are going to try to get the current lame duck congress to lift a two decade hiatus on off-shore oil drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Bristol Bay lies just north of where the Aleutian Islands meet the Alaskan mainland , it was taken off the table for oil drilling in 1988 after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

In the article Bush may end drilling ban in Alaskan Bay, Associated Press writer John Heilprin sheds a little light on the latest attempt by the Bushtard administration to undo established rules to help fill the coffers of big oil companies.

WASHINGTON - President Bush is deciding whether to lift a ban on oil and gas drilling in federal waters off Alaska’s Bristol Bay, home to endangered whales and sea lions and the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.

Leasing in a portion of the area rich in oil and natural gas ended nearly two decades ago — while Bush’s father was president — in the outcry after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.

…”If the Bush administration decides to allow drilling in Bristol Bay, it will simply illustrate the level to which they will sink to satisfy Big Oil,” Carl Pope, the Sierra Club’s executive director, said Saturday. “They are willing to risk a valuable, renewable resource like Bristol Bay’s salmon fisheries for limited, shortsighted drilling plans.”

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, a senior member of the House Resources Committee, said opening up Bristol Bay and expanding drilling off Florida’s coast — a goal of House Republicans before losing power to Democrats — would amount to “a last minute giveaway of public lands as an early Christmas present to the big oil companies.”

…The Minerals Management Service said accidental spills could foul coastal water quality, and the noise and pollution from more ship traffic could disturb or kill seagoing creatures. It said even a large spill probably would harm only a small portion of the fish populations, but could pose a serious threat to marine mammals.

…Congressional protections put on the area in 1989 were lifted in 2003 at the behest of Sen. Ted Stevens , R-Alaska, who said he had been acting at the request of constituents in the region.

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer

I wonder what Mr. Stevens means by “constituents” in the region? Could these “constituents” be big oil cartels that don’t give a rat’s fanny about the indigenous life of the region? Could the “constituents” in question be the same schmucks that helped buy the White House? Are these the same “constituents” that have set up a puppet executive administration that sends our nation into unnecessary wars killing thousands and costing the U.S. taxpayers billions so that they could have a few more duckets in their purse?

When Mr. C. warned his reader that the Bushtards will not go down without a fight, he meant it. The “constituents” that placed George W. Bushtard and company in the White House paid a lot of money and have broken a lot of laws to get what they wanted. These “constituents” will not let something as silly as “freedom”, ”Democracy and the “will of the people” stand in their way of what they want. The residents of Bristol Bay better stock up on the dish detergent this Christmas, because Exxon is coming to town.