We're always on the lookout for new players in our sandbox, and several of us have watched Fallenmonk's work for a long time. I recently asked him to join us, and he agreed.
It'll be nice to have another voice to add to the chorus. After all, we're just a rag-tag bunch of ne'er-do-wells with some crazy and unrealistic ideas about Democracy. And freedom. And human rights. And stuff. And working to abort John McSame's deeply flawed bid for a late-term presidency.
So everyone, welcome Fallenmonk.
Oh, and just for fun, here's another Monk, playing a different tune:
Yesterday, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck joined in on the right-wing meme that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) may be a Marxist.
As proof, Beck showed his guest, National Review contributing editor Jonah Goldberg, some things he had “found on the Internet.” (editorial note: Hey Glenn, you missed a couple)
These “things” included a poster of Obama that looked like “revolutionary art” and one of his campaign workers allegedly with a Che Guevara flag.
But perhaps the most ridiculous moment came when Beck pulled out a hat one of his listeners had sent him. The winter hat had earflaps and a red star, similar to Soviet insignia. It also said, “Obama ‘08.”
So let me see if I understand this correctly...
Two individuals who have shown a most dogged and well-paid determination to misunderstand reasonably straightforward concepts such as Marxism, Socialism, Liberalism, and Fascism get together for a little prime-time reactionary hootenanny, consisting of gibbering imprecations and piquant bon mots at each other as they act out their little masquerade of seemingly adult discourse...But then Glennie blows the con by playing preschool dress-up on the air, as JoJo pouts because the set haberdasher neglected to provide a nifty topper for him as well.
I think a page out of the Lee Atwater Big Book O' Talking Point Turkey Shooting fell out of the folder before it got placed into the sticky, cheese-dust stained fingers of Frick and Frack here, to wit:
If you're going to catapult a ridiculously huge lie, be sure not to look hugely ridiculous while doing so.
A majority of the Iraqi parliament has written to Congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave, a U.S. lawmaker said on Wednesday. [...] “What are the threats that require U.S. forces to be there?” asked Nadeem Al-Jaberi, a co-founder of the al-Fadhila Shi’ite political party, speaking through a translator. [...] A Sunni Iraqi lawmaker, Khalaf Al-Ulayyan, founder of the National Dialogue Council, said bilateral talks on a long-term security deal should be shelved until American troops leave — and until there is a new government in Washington. [...] A senior U.S. official said in Baghdad earlier this week that the United States still hopes to reach a new security agreement with Iraq by July,
Now the bad news:
Revealed: Secret Plan to Keep Iraq Under US Control Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors [...] The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.
The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain
The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.
BTW, the "$20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq" is part of the exact same money that
In a related case, a federal judge in New York ruled in September that the families of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks could not claim any part of about $1.7 billion in frozen Iraqi assets in the United States.
The judge noted that President Bush had signed an executive order in March, on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, that confiscated Iraqi assets and converted them into assets of the United States government. "
Does anyone else remember when Bush said:
"We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It's their government's choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave."
Bush previously said it was 'up to the Iraqi people.' (I couldn't find the link to that. The first commenter who does gets a free year's supply of SteveAudioand VidiotSpeak!)
So apparently Shi’ite's and Sunni's do agree on some things. And what they and 68% of Americans agree on is that US troops should not be in Iraq.
McCain and Bush think we should be there as long as Bush/McCain want us to be there, which is either 50 years, 100 years, or 10,000 years. It just depends on which day you ask.
SAN DIEGO—Workers in the San Diego County clerk's office who object to same-sex marriages may be excused from officiating at gay weddings.
County Clerk Gregory Smith says he is considering allowing his employees to opt out of the ceremonies for religious or moral reasons.
Smith says he doesn't think it's correct "to force employees to do it, and I don't think you would want someone who is hostile to your beliefs performing your ceremony."
Quite frankly, this is an insipid decision, on a par with allowing pharmacists to refuse dispensing of materials that conflict with their religious beliefs.
I realize that it takes a certain subjectively fragile suspension of reality to maintain fundamentalist thought of any faith, but these people are government employees who are tasked to uphold the laws of the state that they work for - All of them, not just the ones that they feel comfortable with.
Do the job that you have contracted to do, or declare yourself incompetent to do so on religious grounds and find a more suitable pastime that enables you to maintain your fictions and refrain from inflicting yourself on those who choose not to share your beliefs.
The $$ quote in the last article: "In a statement yesterday, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann said Col. Peter Brownback was removed because the army had turned down an application to extend his active-duty status."
How interesting that in these days of the forced draft, (AKA stop loss), that the Army would refuse to let a senior officer re-enlist!
I'm suuuure that it had nothing to do with Col. Brownback's insistence on making the kangaroo court hop a bit slower and lower.
December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008 Ellas Otha Bates has shuffled of, in 5/4, this mortal coil
The Bo Diddley beat has been used by many other artists, notably Elvis Presley ("His Latest Flame"); Bruce Springsteen ("She's The One"); U2 ("Desire"); The Smiths ("How Soon Is Now?"); Roxette ("Harleys And Indians (Riders In The Sky)"); Dee Clark, a former member of the Hambone Kids (see above) ("Hey Little Girl"); Johnny Otis ("Willie and the Hand Jive"); George Michael ("Faith"); Normaal ("Kearl van stoahl"); The Strangeloves ("I Want Candy"); Ace Frehley ("New York Groove"); Guns N' Roses ("Mr. Brownstone"); David Bowie ("Panic in Detroit"); The Pretenders ("Cuban Slide"); The Police ("Deathwish"); Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders ("The Game of Love"); The Supremes ("When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes"); Jefferson Airplane ("She Has Funny Cars"); The White Stripes ("Screwdriver"); The Byrds ("Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe"); Tiny Letters ("Song For Jerome Green") and The Stooges ("1969").
They left out a few, but considering he had his first hit before I was born it's understandable.
I don't know, or even want to go, to that heaven preachers shout about But if my dying I can't defeat, let me go out to the Bo Diddley beat Go out, go out, Let me go out to the Bo Diddley beat.
(Hey, who's that guy with his back to us in the corner playin' trumpet? That's God man, he thinks he's Miles.)
Bo Diddley will be in good company for his next gig.
Last Monday, at a Memorial Day event in the 26th Congressional District (just outside of Los Angeles), Rep. David Dreier -- chair of the California Republican Congressional Delegation -- said:
"What we say to honor those who serve will never be more than lip service if we don't ensure that our veterans are cared for when they return home."
Turns out, lip service is all Rep. Dreier has for our troops. On May 15, Mr. Dreier voted against the "21st Century GI Bill" -- a bill that would fully fund four years of college for our returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.
That GI bill overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives, 256-166. Then, on May 22, the Senate passed a similar version of the same bill, 75-22. This week, that Senate bill is being sent back to the full House for a new vote and, if passed, will then be sent to the President.
With the Senate version of the "21st Century GI Bill" coming to the House, Rep. Dreier has a new opportunity to stop paying lip service to veterans. You can tell Rep. Dreier that he owes more than words to the troops he and President Bush sent to war -- he owes them his vote. Please sign our petition to Rep. Dreier ASAP and we'll deliver your signatures to his San Dimas office after 12 p.m. on Thursday:
St. McCain also voted against this bill. He no longer has any national security or military support credibility. From VetVoice:
Yesterday VoteVets.org delivered a petition with 30,000 signatures to the office of Senator John McCain. Through that petition, we asked him to support Senator Jim Webb's new GI Bill. And less than 24 hours later, we have an answer:
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, seemed to give a thumbs down to bipartisan legislation that would greatly expand educational benefits for members of the military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan under the GI Bill. McCain indicated he would offer some sort of alternative to the legislation to address concerns that expanding the GI Bill could lead more members of the military to get out of the service.
Both Democratic presidential candidates - Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., - have signed on as co-sponsors, and the bill has gained bipartisan support from 54 senators on Capitol Hill in addition to Webb.
The reason for McCain's refusal to support the bill is about the most disturbing rationale one could imagine.
Officials in charge of Pentagon personnel worry that a more generous and expansive GI Bill would create an incentive for troops to get out of the military and go to college.
Right. God forbid.
Indeed.
Brian Buetler writing at The Nation has the true story of McCain's startling indifference to men and women wearing the uniform he once did. Elitism and privilege, Right-wing hypocrisy in hatred of spending money to help anyone else, who knows? And who cares? Read the whole thing, it's startling:
Times have changed since McCain needed veterans services so urgently. And for many of those thirty-five years, McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, the candidate who talks the best talk on veterans issues, has demonstrated a tendency to work against veterans' interests, voting time after time against funding and in favor of privatizing services--in other words, of rolling back the VA's improvements by supporting some of the same policies that wrecked Walter Reed.
During a March 2005 Senate budget debate, McCain voted to kill an amendment that would have "increase[d] veterans medical care by $2.8 billion in 2006." That amendment lacked an assured funding stream, but lest one mistake this incident for a maverick's stance against budget-busting, there's more. Just a year later McCain voted against an amendment that would have "increase[d] Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes." Two days after it failed, he voted to kill "an assured stream of funding for veterans' health care that [would] take into account the annual changes in the veterans' population and inflation to be paid for by restoring the pre-2001 top rate for income over $1 million, closing corporate tax loopholes and delaying tax cuts for the wealthy." That amendment died quietly, forty-six to fifty-four.
In September 2006 McCain voted to table an amendment to a Defense appropriations bill that would have prevented the department from contracting out support services at Walter Reed. The amendment was indeed tabled--by a vote of fifty to forty-eight, the sort of margin a true veterans' senator might have been able to flip if he really cared about veterans' healthcare.
Straight-talk about McCain is that he's a hypocrite, even worse than Drier, who is just a closet-case self-loathing Republican stooge.
