Back from the American Airlines voyage of the damned

Man. Just had a 6 hour voyage from Chicago to DC. Apparently we had a little tornado in the area here, and that shut down the airports.

And can I just say, when did the cheapskate airlines start charging 2 bucks to check your bag curbside? Because the airlines would prefer if we all lined up inside to check our bags and make their crew work twice as hard and make the lines twice as long? Apparently charging us 5 bucks for a tostito wasn't enough for the airlines, now they need to start making us pay to make THEIR job easier. And, to add their cheapness, American Airlines puts a big ole sign up informing you that not only will it cost you 2 bucks, but the gratuity isn't included, thank you very much.

I've got one word for American Airlines and all the rest of you hideous American carriers: Bankruptcy.

The surest way to get service back to the quality it used to be is to get rid of a carrier or two and let the rest start making some real revenue again. We paid $15 billion or so after September 11 to bail these useless teet-suckers out, and what did our 15 billion get us? A lousy tostito and smaller seats. I always flew American because of the bigger leg room. Apparently that's a thing of the past too, at least on the flights I've been flying lately. It's as bad as flying United now (I have 28 inch legs and I stopped flying United years ago because of their absurdly cramped seats).

I'm not impressed.

I've said this before. Fly foreign carriers to go abroad and you not only get free liquor and a hell of a lot better service, AND actually get good food (Delta's pasta surprise, in business class no less, on the way to Europe a while back made high school cafeteria food taste good). And there's another thing - I worry whether flying US carriers to go abroad entails greater risks. It's just my own personal opinion, but in the great rankings of "Great Satans," we're the greatest to these nutjobs. So if I fly a US carrier abroad - or fly domestically on a carrier that just so happens to be named after the "Great Satan" - I'd like a little appreciation for supporting the home team.

Our airlines need to learn that we have a choice as consumers. And my choice is to finally let some of these hideous wretches go bankrupt. I'm sick and tired of being treated like I'm intruding on Bill and Ted's excellent adventure every time I fly a US carrier. Read More......

Oh, yeah, tomorrow's the speech to finally explain Iraq...again

So, we get yet another speech tomorrow that's going to clear up the whole Iraq mess. It's really phenomenal how the media keeps falling for this:

The administration is under pressure to convince increasingly skeptical Americans that the president’s strategy for Iraq is headed in the right direction nearly three years after the U.S.-led invasion. The president is to give a speech on the subject Wednesday at the Naval Academy and the White House is to release a 35-page document titled “Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.”

Yep, it's been three years in to a war we started but finally they've come up with a "victory" plan. This guy really is the WORST PRESIDENT EVER. Read More......

Because the Speaker of the House has nothing else to worry about

Forget Iraq, ignore the deficit, never mind the budget crisis, pretend the GOP caucus isn't self-destructing, Dennis Hastert is dealing with real issues:

Hastert, R-Ill., in a letter to the Architect of the Capitol, recommended that the annual Capitol Holiday Tree, as it has been called the past several years, be renamed the Capitol Christmas Tree.

"I strongly urge that we return to this tradition and join the White House, countless other public institutions and millions of American families in celebrating the holiday season with a Christmas tree," Hastert wrote to Architect Alan Hantman.

Read More......

Viveca Novak's testimony supposed to help Rove

Busy day, so we never got to the Washington Post article claiming that the testimony of Viveca Novak from Time Magazine was going to help exonerate Karl Rove:

The reporter for Time magazine who recently agreed to testify in the CIA leak case is central to White House senior adviser Karl Rove's effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Viveca Novak, who has written intermittently about the leak case for Time, has been asked to provide sworn testimony to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the next few weeks after Rove attorney Robert Luskin told Fitzgerald about a conversation he had with her, the two sources said.

This didn't make much sense to me. More spin from Rove's team? Read More......

Open Thread

Give some good thread. Read More......

Clueless Joe

Lieberman, the biggest cheerleader for the Bush war in Iraq, was on CNN touting the great progress he saw during his recent visit. He said, "I can only report what I saw."

However, Atrios heard some on the ground insight about Joe's perspective:

Time magazine Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware on Morning Sedition this morning:

I and some other journalists had lunch with Senator Joe Lieberman the other day and we listened to him talking about Iraq. Either Senator Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he's completely lost the plot or he knows he's spinning a line. Because one of my colleagues turned to me in the middle of this lunch and said he's not talking about any country I've ever been to and yet he was talking about Iraq, the very country where we were sitting.

Read More......

Warner commutes death sentence

From Reuters:

Virginia Gov. Mark Warner will stop the execution of convicted murderer Robin Lovitt, who would have been the 1,000th person put to death in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, CNN reported on Tuesday.

CNN is in contortions about the political implications of this decision given Warner's political aspirations. Read More......

Froomkin looks at Bush's "safety zone"

It's shrinking:

What does it say about the president of the United States that he won't go anywhere near ordinary citizens any more? And that he'll only speak to captive audiences?

President Bush's safety zone these days doesn't appear to extend very far beyond military bases, other federal installations and Republican fundraisers.

Couple more months and he probably won't leave the Oval office. Read More......

Republicans now saying WMD were found in Iraq

And we wonder why 70% of Republicans think Bush is a good president? Because they're gullible idiots who lie, and are willing to be lied to. And if you're a Republican reading this, and it pisses you off, good. Do something about it. You sit back and you let your own far-right party leaders and party organizations lie to you and lie to the public, and you do nothing to correct those lies or hold those leaders accountable.

Do something about it, or stop complaining when we rightfully point out that the GOP is a party of liars, idiots, and lemmings.

To wit: The latest email I just received from Newsmax, a far-right GOP-sucking online news-zine. The subject line of the email: WMDs Found in Iraq!

Uh huh.

According to the Newsmax email (apparently it's on behalf of Human Events, another Republican rag, and they're pushing some new book that exposes the media's bias - uh huh), we learn that we've discovered in Iraq:

1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium

1,500 gallons of chemical weapons agents

Chemical warheads containing cyclosarin (a nerve agent five times more deadly than sarin gas)

Over 1,000 radioactive materials in powdered form meant for dispersal over populated areas

This is only a PARTIAL LIST of the horrific weapons verified to have been recovered in Iraq to date. Yet, Americans overwhelmingly believe U.S. and coalition forces found NO weapons of mass destruction.

The question is... WHY do they believe this lie?

So why is that Americans don't know about this amazing truth? Two guesses. More from Newsmax:

Have you heard that Osama bin Laden is on kidney dialysis? I'll bet you have. Much of the Western media report bin Laden's presumed affliction as a matter of fact -- and most Americans believe it. But...

...it's just not true.

Now, you may well be thinking: "Why would the news media want to make me believe that Osama bin Laden is a very sick and perhaps dying man?" Well, here's why...

The news media are -- overwhelmingly -- against the Iraq War.

Wow, pretty amazing stuff. Only problem is, the story about Bin Laden on dialysis didn't come form the media, it came from, among others, George Bush's number one ally in the war on terror, Pakistani President Musharraf:

"I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a ... kidney patient," Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on Friday in an interview with CNN.

Musharraf said Pakistan knew bin Laden took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. "One was specifically for his own personal use," he said.

Holy crap in my pants, Batman. But there's more. The "lie" about bin Laden and dialysis also came from a senior official in the Bush administration. From the same CNN piece:

"A senior Bush administration official said.... U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and "it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a mountain hideout."

Doh! But I'm confused. Newsmax and Human Events and the far-right Republicans running the GOP wouldn't lie to us, would they?

But, hey, notice how CNN is all too happy to publish these "lies" about Bin Laden needing dialysis - so maybe Newsmax is right, CNN WANTED to get these lies out there. More from CNN:

Other U.S. officials contradicted the reports of bin Laden's health problems, saying there is "no evidence" the suspected terrorist mastermind has ever suffered kidney failure or required kidney dialysis. The officials called such suggestions a "recurrent rumor."

What? You mean CNN, a member of the liberal anti-Bush fag-loving mainstream media actually publicly doubted the Osama dialysis story? But Newsmax and Human Events told me that the mainstream media was actually PUSHING this story. I'm so confused.

Like I said. The Republican party is the party of liars, idiots, and lemmings. And don't forget traitors too. They can't handle the truth, so they'd rather just make shit up.

And by the way, I hear we're winning in Iraq. Read More......

Open Thread

Keep it coming... Read More......

Bush to announce a "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq"

Huh? Three years too late.

Think Progress has the scoop and asks the right question: Shouldn’t we have had a “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” before the war started? Read More......

This is a photo begging for a caption

"I... can't... breathe..." Read More......

Why is the Pope so obsessed with gays?

The Prada-wearing Pope approved one of the first major documents of his papacy today. It's basically just another theocratic slam on gays:

The Vatican published its long-awaited document on gays in the clergy Tuesday, saying men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies should not be ordained but those with a "transitory problem" could be if they had overcome them for three years.

The Vatican and other religious fanatics spend more time thinking about gay sex than most gay people I know. It's really quite odd.

I heard on the Today show that the Vatican studied this issue for 10 years. What were they doing all that time? What makes these religious types such experts on homosexuality? Their obsession is a little too creepy. Me thinks they doth protesteth too much. Read More......

Bush on the GOP campaign trail

Bush is out working for the GOP candidates:

Despite his low standing in the polls, President Bush is working to help Republican House and Senate candidates build their campaign war chests while promoting his own troubled agenda.

The president is expected to assume the campaign role more often in the coming months as the 2006 congressional election year begins.

Let's hope Bush can do next year for the rest of the GOP what he did for Jerry Kilgore in Virginia this year. Read More......

Who else in the GOP profited from corrupt defense contractor MZM?

MZM, Inc is the slimey contractor that bought off disgraced Congressman Duke Cunningham who quickly resigned yesterday and pleaded guilty to accepting $2.4M+ in bribes from MZM. Talking Points Memo is connecting the dots and our old friend, Katherine Harris and at least one other in Congress seemed to have enjoyed a flurry of campaign contributions from MZM. Oh dear, more scandal for the GOP coming in 2006. Read More......

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Any GOP officials getting indicted or convicted today? Read More......

Another neocon mess/scandal in Iraq?

Good grief, do the neocons and GOP always have to have the US taxpayers fund their experiments in politics? If they want to fund the clowns that provided the US with false information about pre-war Iraq let them do it with their own money and let the neocons go and fight and die for this nonsense. The US Air Force is now recognizing that they made a mistake when they handed out a $45M+ no-bid contract to fill Iraq with translators who were political exiles, no doubt with ties to the bogus information that was used for starting the ridiculous war in the first place. It's quite clear that the GOP and their wingnut leadership cannot be trusted with US taxpayer money or any political process either at home or abroad.

"Our Defense Department has continued to pay, through pliant contractors, for a flock of Iraqi political exiles as our paid political agents in Iraq," said Charles Tiefer, a government contracting professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

Read More......

Mansions, yachts, cash...all in return for government favors from GOP Congressman

I sure hope that someone in Congress creates a special committee to investigate the full extent of this and bar any of the defense contractors from being involved in any government business, not to mention paying back all of the money that they manipulated from the system. The Senate was half right about causing a stir related to the UN oil-for-food scandal, though they conveniently overlooked the US's involvement not to mention American citizens involvement, so perhaps they want to plan press meetings to discuss and review the gross corruption within the GOP.

Good 'ol Duke can cry a river for the TV cameras but that doesn't hide the fact that the guy was a disgrace to the nation. This kind of corruption is too often considered something that only happens in other countries but with the money that the GOP has thrown around for Iraq it should come as no surprise. 2006 is going to be a tough year for the GOP with all of the corruption scandals that are now coming forward. Why does the GOP hate America? Read More......

Dear Canada,

Hope to see you soon in Iraq. The weather is warm. Wish you were here. And if you elect a conservative pro-Bush government next month, you very likely will be.

Signed, George Read More......

Open thread

Final nite of playing with Carmela the wonder dog. Back to DC on Tuesday... sigh. Read More......