Letter Never Sent

The unemployment rate has hit its highest levels in 9 years. That’s not even taking into account the millions of people who have to work 2 jobs each to support their families. The Bush administration offered up two scapegoats, Paul O’Neill and Lawrence Lindsey, to cover for its complete and utter lack of economic initiative or sound policy. Who woulda thunk it that a huge tax cut to the richest Americans would fail so miserably? The richest Americans, even from a capitalist perspective, don’t create jobs unless you consider cleaning mansions a good job. This is a bad sign of things to come. On the other hand, if we hit 10% unemployment maybe people will start looking to hang someone from the streetlights in Washington and things might get done.

This was too funny. I have to start using this phrase. Of course, Ari Fleischer got his panties in a bunch. I saw some bullshit story about how women apparently find him very sexy. Gag me. He always has his mouth hanging open like some sort of waterhead. Remember, if you work for Hitler Jr. and his minions no criticism or you will feel Ari’s wrath. It’s a good sign that even many influential Republicans have little respect for the Bush gang.

Ex-Bush Aide Apologizes for Criticism

A former senior aide to President Bush apologized yesterday after being quoted as saying a band of “Mayberry Machiavellis” is running a White House in which politics trumps policy.

The Esquire magazine article — which extensively quoted John J. DiIulio Jr., the former head of Bush’s stalled effort to aid religious charities — represents a rare criticism by a one-time insider of a Bush White House that has placed a near-total lid on internal dissent.

Reuters: US Government Asks Court to Seal Vaccine Records:

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) – Attorneys for the Bush Administration asked a federal court on Monday to order that documents on hundreds of cases of autism allegedly caused by childhood vaccines be kept from the public.

The current 1,000 or so autism cases are unusual for the court. Because it received so many claims, much of the fact-finding and evidence-gathering is going on for all of the cases as a block.

NY Times: Justice Dept. Seeks to Seal Vaccine Papers

Lawyers for the families said they were outraged by today’s move. They said the government was trying to prevent families from obtaining damaging information about the preservative, which could later be used against drug companies in civil courts.

Congressional Republicans inserted a provision into the domestic security bill, signed into law on Monday by President Bush, that is intended to protect Eli Lilly, thimerosal’s manufacturer, from lawsuits over the preservative. The provision would force families to seek compensation through the vaccine court instead of civil courts.

Robert Byrd of West Virginia on last Tuesday: Byrd, at 85, Fills the Forum With Romans and Wrath:

ASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — As his colleagues hurriedly tried to give the president a domestic security bill, Senator Robert C. Byrd took the floor this morning to tell them of a “truly great” senator from the first century A.D. named Helvidius Priscus. One day this Roman was met outside the senate by the emperor Vespasian, who threatened to execute him if he spoke too freely.

“And so both did their parts,” Mr. Byrd said. “Helvidius Priscus spoke his mind; the emperor Vespasian killed him. In this effeminate age it is instructive to read of courage. There are members of the U.S. Senate and House who are terrified apparently if the president of the United States tells them, urges them, to vote a certain way that may be against their belief.”

Mr. Byrd, of course, is not one of those timid souls, and his recent speeches have been extraordinary even for the maestro of senatorial rhetoric, who turns 85 on Wednesday. While his colleagues have debated the fine points of the domestic security bill, he has been virtually alone in asking the larger question: Why is this new department suddenly so necessary? What will the largest and hastiest reorganization of the federal government in half a century do besides allow politicians to claim instant credit for fighting terrorism?

“This mon-stros-ity,” Mr. Byrd has been calling the bill, repeatedly lifting its 484 pages above his head with trembling hands and flinging them down on his desk with the fury of Moses smashing the tablets. Mr. Byrd used to be known less for his distaste of federal bureaucracy than for his love of federal aid — he once vowed to be West Virginia’s “billion-dollar industry,” while his critics crowned him the “prince of pork.” But now he is riffing against big government.

“Osama bin Laden is still alive and plotting more attacks while we play bureaucratic shuffleboard,” Mr. Byrd told the Senate. “With a battle plan like the Bush administration is proposing, instead of crossing the Delaware River to capture the Hessian soldiers on Christmas Day, George Washington would have stayed on his side of the river and built a bureaucracy.” Mr. Byrd imagined Nathan Hale declaring, “I have but one life to lose for my bureaucracy,” and Commodore Oliver Perry hoisting a flag on his ship with the rallying cry, “Don’t give up the bureaucracy!”

From DefenseLink:

Caller: Hello to Secretary Rumsfeld, and thank you to Infinity Radio for putting this together. My question, how does our national security have anything to do with Iraq, and has the United States illegally armed Iraq?

Rumsfeld: Has the United States illegally armed Iraq? I don’t know quite what you mean, but no, I don’t know of anything the United States has done that’s illegal at all. If you’re asking, has the United States ever provided arms to Iraqis, as opposed to the Iraqi government, the answer is yes, there are various Iraqis that are in opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime and it is correct that some time, in past years, they have provided some military capabilities to some Iraqi opposition forces. And then there’s the Kurdish forces in the north, and I believe that the United States, again, going back some years, provided some military equipment to the Kurdish forces in the north.

Kroft: I think he may be talking about when the United States was backing Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.

Rumsfeld: Well, I am told that we did not, but I don’t know, I was not in the government during that period. I saw an article in Newsweek that reported on some — I think it was various types of biologicals. And I’m told that they went through a medical relationship that we had with many countries in the world, and they were for medical purposes. But, I don’t know of any weapons that went to Iraq. I do know that the United States government in the 1980s, I’m told, as I said, provided intelligence to Iraq.

FROM ABCNEWS.com:

From the slave of God Osama bin Laden to the people of the countries in alliance with the unjust government of the United States:
Greetings to those that have followed the faith. The road to safety starts with lifting aggression and it’s fair to be treated equally.

What happened since the strikes of New York and Washington and until today, the killing of Germans in Tunis and of French in Karachi and the bombing of the huge carrier in Yemen and killing the marines in Failaka and killing the British and Australians in Bali and the recent Moscow operation, in addition to some other operations here and there, are only a reaction and an equal treatment that the sons of Islam have carried out, in fulfilling the orders of their God and their prophet.

What Bush, the pharaoh of today, does, in terms of killing our children … and what Israel, the ally of America, does in terms of destroying houses on their residents, in destroying the houses on their residents, including elderly people, women and children, using U.S. planes in Palestine, should be enough for the wise of your leaders to stay out of this criminal gang.

Our people in Palestine are being killed and tortured for around a century now, and when we defend our people in Palestine, the world is disturbed and it unites against Muslims under what they call the fight against terrorism, unjustly.

What do your governments have to do with the criminal gang in the White House that’s against Muslims? Don’t your governments know that the White House gang is the greatest killer of this era? Here’s Rumsfeld, the Vietnam butcher, he killed over 2 million people in addition to the injured, and Cheney and Powell are responsible for more killings and destruction in Baghdad than Holako of the Tatar.

So what do your governments have to do with an alliance with America to attack us in Afghanistan, and I specifically mention Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia. We had warned Australia before against its participation in Afghanistan, in addition to its unjust support of the separation of East Timor. It ignored the warnings until it woke up to the sounds of bombings in Bali. Its government then claimed, unrightfully, that they were not targeted.

Have a look at those killed from your side and those who were in alliance with you in Tunis and Karachi and Failaka and Bali and Amman to remember our children that are killed in Palestine and Baghdad daily and to remember our killed ones in the mosques of Khost and remember those who were killed intentionally in weddings and celebrations in Afghanistan.

Look at those killed from you in Moscow to remember those killed from us in Chechnya. Until when will destruction, killing and orphaning children be ours and security, stability and happiness be yours? This is an unjust division, it is time for an equal division of goods. As you kill, you will be killed. As you bomb you will be bombed and wait for the bad.

The Islamic society started, with God’s help, to fight you with its children, who have promised God to continue to fight hard to reach justice and stop injustice as long as they live. In the end, I ask God to give us strength for the victory of His religion and to continue to fight for Him, until we meet Him and He’s satisfied with us, and He is capable of that. Our last prayer is thank God the most graceful.

Hi, welcome to America where we have a corrupt one-party system maintained by brute force, mind-numbing propaganda, and political assassination. Right-wing militarists now control all branches of the government effectively destroying any remnants of the system of checks and balances that has managed to keep the government somewhat gridlocked. The fascist party has managed the triple-crown, the absolute control of the judicial, executive, and legislative branches. The opposition party, the Democrats, have secured their place in history as eunuchs. As Bush had eerily promised, America now ‘speaks with one voice’. Expect the Forever War to kick into high gear.

The suspicious and convenient deaths of Mel Carnahan and Paul Wellstone garnered two Senate seats for the Republicans which contributed heavily to their seizure of power.

fas-cism: n. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

dic·ta·tor: n. One invested with absolute authority; especially, a magistrate created in times of exigence and distress, and invested with unlimited power.

I did the early voting thing. If you don’t know who you would like to vote for at least vote against people who supported the Iraq War, or for the green party, or at least vote against that douche bag Bush by voting against Republicans.

With the news of the Wellstone crash, the talking heads on the television have been reiterating that the weather was bad, the weather was bad, icing, icing, but WhatReallyHappened.com called bullsh*t on this. View the clear radar image yourself.

Just saw this and my stomach sank.

Sen. Paul Wellstone Dies in Plane Crash

I first thought was holy shit, and my second thought conditioned by long habit was ‘This close to election day? With the senate up for grabs?’. I just don’t know about this. It might be just coincidence, but what a coincidence. The Senate’s most liberal senator dies in a plane crash? A couple of weeks before election day. Remember that Paul Wellstone was one of the few senators to oppose the Iraq resolution. He actually changed his position at the last moment. Be sure to vote out all your war-mongers this election day!

I’m not saying there is necessarily anything nefarious about this just that this is incredibly strange. It might be recalled that during the last elections Democrat Mel Carnahan also died in a plane crash.

Just a reminder of some of the strange political deaths that have taken place during the two Bush administrations and the Clinton administration. Lots of unexplained plane crashes and ‘suicides’.