Billmon:
Or, as the test pilots in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff put it, the Republican mothership is "augering in" …
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October 10, 2006
WB: Crash and Burn
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Okay, I’m not happy that, as somebody else pointed out on another thread, after nearly six years of Republican negligence and incompetence, it takes a sex scandal to actually turn public opinion strongly against the Republicans. That, while unpleasant to have to face, is expected, really — if people could think, they wouldn’t have voted the Republicans in in the first place. What IS a bitter pill to swallow is that people suddenly have stopped thinking the Republicans are better at preventing terrorism as a result of Foley and Hastert. In the minds of many Americans, apparently, the dialog runs “you want to blow up a city bus full of more-or-less innocent people, but since I have a thing for jailbait, I’m going to let you go.”
Oh, well, if I wasn’t expecting to be disappointed, I wouldn’t follow polls.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Oct 10 2006 5:28 utc | 1
So the public is turning on the Republicans for now. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Posted by: Rowan | Oct 10 2006 6:27 utc | 2
I think it’s a bit early to bring out the champagne (not that I will do so in any case). A swing back to the repubs is just one “gulf of tonkin” event or another 9/11 away. The speeches for these are already written.
I think it’s a bit early to bring out the champagne
not for me it isn’t, pass the bottle (;
Posted by: annie | Oct 10 2006 8:56 utc | 4
Yay! from systemic overt back to covert!
Even if the dems win, you lose. The rulers have their own agenda, and your well being aint it.
Hate to piss in the punchbowl, but I thought it quite refreshing to have the agenda out in the open for a change.
In other words, no matter who you vote for, the Government acts on it’s own accord.
It is a machine that will continue so long as you oil it, Clinton and Bush both look the same to me.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2006 9:47 utc | 5
Hey, Uncle. Buy a pair of wooden clogs, hold them in reserve.
A transfer of power at least should slow down the exercise of power. So if we keep changing parties every two years, the functionaries will be so busy changing the plaques on the doors and the desks in the corridors of power that nothing (bad or good) will be done.
Who needs a bathtub?
This is the best argument I can think of in favor of a US mid-term election of Democrats.
Posted by: jonku | Oct 10 2006 9:52 utc | 6
From a (slightly modified) letter sent today
I would indeed like to see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rice and their cohorts at the Hague, but have no hope that the presently constituted Democratic party will take any steps in that direction, even assuming they overcome the Diebold barrier. I have a strong suspicion that the recent sex scandal on Capitol Hill is only the tip of an iceberg of blackmail that keeps Congress singing in tune with the approved neocon/establishment melody. Almost everyone has something in their lives that they prefer to keep out of the public domain, be it non-standard sexual proclivities, problems of addiction, simple cowardice, corruption or criminality. All the more so for politicians who frequently seem to score high on all these vices. Moreover, since both the Mossad and NSA are very good at “communications interception” the most plausible explanation for congressional submission to the neocon lobby and CFR orthodoxy(at least in my opinion) is wide scale blackmail with both carrots and sticks being
freely brandished). Otherwise I find no plausible explanation for
the unidimensional character of American foreign policy debate,
at least as it is practiced in “respectable circles”.
Needless to say, this is only my (paranoid and “conspiracy nut”) view, but there are others who share it. When we hear this type of conjecture on CNN then I’ll believe that something has happened worth taking note of. A mere change in the nominal congressional leadership will, in my opinion, be more cosmetic than real with regard to foreign policy (especially MidEast policy). That wouldn’t bother me if it were the result of a true
national consensus on the boundaries within which the parameters of that policy must be set, but, as outlined above,
I tend to see the impasse in U.S. MidEast policy as the result of the subornation of that policy to powerful and unscrupulous vested interests, including both the Likkud lobby and America’s own powerful petrocrats, who seem, alas, to have been reading from the same hymnal over the last six years.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 10 2006 10:43 utc | 7
We still have 4 weeks to go before the mid-term elections, and this administration has shown they will stop at nothing to retain their stranglehold on power. I’m cautiously optimistic, but nervous.
Posted by: Joe F | Oct 10 2006 12:28 utc | 9
The Fixer!
Papa and Uncle James:Bush the Father is Not Happy…He Calls Uncle James
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2006 12:33 utc | 10
GOP to Boldly Investigate Themselves
hahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahah ahahahahahahah ahahahaha, uh, hahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2006 12:41 utc | 11
By the way, how is Pat Roberts doing with Part II of the intelligence investigation?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2006 12:56 utc | 12
One of the polls (ABC IIRC) has a pdf file that goes into some detail. Most of the Dem lead was there before Foley and is due to the Iraq issue. Iraq isn’t going to go away, but people have four weeks to forget about Foley. After you read an IM or two, pederasty fatigue sets in quickly.
Posted by: Roger Bigod | Oct 10 2006 13:36 utc | 14
the “mystery gay” was House Speaker Denny Hastert himself?
A couple of days ago, Americablog reported rumors of another secretly gay Republican congressperson involved in scandal. John Aravosis refused to divulge the name (even in private correspondence — yes, I was nebby enough to ask), although his published piece cleverly hinted that the “mystery gay” was House Speaker Denny Hastert himself. Now, a number of web sites — and even Randi Rhodes! — have reported that Hastert is indeed the man on the hot seat.
Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 10 2006 13:47 utc | 15
Why isn’t anyone talking about the fact that Denny AssTurd lives in a D.C. townhouse with two “staffers” who are both gay! And when Denny’s wife comes into D.C., she has to stay in a hotel. Do tell.
Denny in a three-way…Ewww.
Lou | Homepage | 10.10.06 – 11:53 am | #
Interesting post in the AMERICAblog forum.
Posted by: lysias | Oct 10 2006 16:41 utc | 18
“I would indeed like to see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rice and their cohorts at the Hague, but have no hope that the presently constituted Democratic party will take any steps in that direction, even assuming they overcome the Diebold barrier.”
HKO’L, where did you get that quote?
I do believe that if the public doesn’t like what the current politicians are doing they should throw the bums out. After that, deal with the next bunch of bums. &C.
About politicians being compromised, that seems quite likely too. The whole thing has a momentum of its own, power, favours, extortion, blackmail. One leads to the next. Or so it seems.
As for the impasse over Mideast policy, that seems to be the case. But if you listen you can hear the screams of children all over the world — some of them are Israeli kids in poverty (it’s a poor country to visit I’m told) and more of them are in the so-called disputed territories — that euphemism hides the taking of family farms away.
Lots of babies screaming in the US too, and slightly older ones running amok in Brazil. I can’t even imagine what the border is like between mainland China and the Economic Empowerment Zones down by Hong Kong and the coast.
This will continue. I myself wish that someone with good geography skills might explain how the whole Mediterranean Ocean (Spain France and Italy to the north) impacts the Syrian coast etc., and how the ocean south of the Middle East, above Africa, is to the south of the oil-bearing countries. One annotated map might do it.
What is the name of the ocean between Africa and India onto which feed the Straights of Hormuz?
Posted by: jonku | Oct 10 2006 16:46 utc | 19
If theres some truth to these Hastert allocations, then they have indeed, been “augering in”.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 10 2006 16:58 utc | 20
Hastert!?…Third in line for the Presidency? Right behind Bush and Cheney? (nyuk nyuk) Even after the Pugs buggered the Gays on the marriage issue, that’ll cock up the Gay vote for sure.
Posted by: pb | Oct 10 2006 17:06 utc | 21
Both the Republicans and the Democrats, that is the two of them together, will dominate or destroy the ME.
Sheehan singing along on a guitar, Hastert being gay or not, Foley a pedophile or not, my neighbor a lesbian or not, there having been water on Mars, or not, Britney having a cute baby, or not, suburbia dying or not, none of it makes a whit of difference.
Posted by: Noirette | Oct 10 2006 17:31 utc | 22
being the queen of gossip that i am i would just like to point out that i ALREADY posted the hassert gossip on some OT thread and a little more last night @ poetic justice. heavens. stay alert people! madsen wrote about this daaays ago.(on the 7th to be precise). moon is sooo behind the curve (no pun) on sex gossip!
now, for the real juice i want to know what happened w/the child prostitutes at the mariana islands.
Posted by: annie | Oct 10 2006 17:34 utc | 23
hannah, i like your letter. did you write it and who was the recipient? i wouldn’t have thought the ending wasn’t part of the letter had you not mentioned you forgot to close the blockquote.
Posted by: annie | Oct 10 2006 17:38 utc | 24
@annie
Yes, you get the props for the sex gossip, my post was just added and updated info. I take most of wayne madsen w/a barrel of salt, but I do not totally discount him. However, the cannon link I posted had more ‘corroborative’ and synthesized information.
and damn good point on the the child prostitutes at the mariana islands …
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2006 18:08 utc | 25
“She was forced to perform lewd sex acts with customers before a video camera…[but] in fact…she wanted to do nude dancing…to support her family.” — Congressman Ralph Hall (R-TX 4th), Nov. 1997.
Remarks to the United States Congress (drafted by Jack Abramoff), attacking the integrity and believability of a girl who had been repeatedly, publicly raped for three years starting at the age of 12, then had risked her life to tell the world of the horrors on the Mariana Islands being protected by corrupt U.S. Congressmen led by Tom Delay and Ralph Hall himself. Read Hall’s Full Speech here (pdf).
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2006 18:13 utc | 26
listen to the way malberg responds when malloy talks about the marianas. starts around 2 minutes in. this is what the republicans really don’t want to talk about, their little island for sex and indentured servants.
Posted by: annie | Oct 10 2006 18:26 utc | 27
Wow! good vid annie, thanks!
Mike always kicks ass, the last part of the vid is well worth the price of admission.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 10 2006 18:47 utc | 28
Both the Republicans and the Democrats, that is the two of them together, will dominate or destroy the ME.
Will Rogers used to tell a joke about how the white man gave the red man Oklahoma to be his homeland for “as long as the grass shall grow and the wind shall blow.” But after the first gusher strikes the white man moved in and liquidated the reservations and grabbed the tribal lands.
“But wait,” said the red man. “You promised Oklahoma would be mine for as long as the grass shall grow and the wind shall blow!”
“Sure,” the white man said. “But I didn’t say nothing about oil.”
Different continent; same principle.
Posted by: billmon | Oct 10 2006 19:02 utc | 29
Yep, HKO’L. Party discipline, even Congressional discipline, is a matter of carrots ($, votes, pork futures, sex) and sticks (closet skeletons, threats, sex, and panopticism), seasoned with a pinch of black leather, spikey heels, whips and an occasional small plane crash.
It’s not a warm feeling I am getting about Repubs moving over just far enough to share the cock’s seat, just as the bedraggled, dying pigeons of 6 yrs of disastrous misgovernment come home to roost. I want the present operators on the day shift to get full credit for the debacles. Voters tend to associate bad news with whomever is in office when the formal notice arrives. A big Dem victory now could protect for the Repubs’ chance to come back to the ring with a fighting chance in 2008.
Dems taking a single house of Congress with a small majority seems the best outcome for now IMO. Everything slows down, and a single Dem House can start investigations. If they will. Still depends on those carrots and sticks.
Annie & beq – Can I join you with a little St James, to a change of the weather?
Posted by: small coke | Oct 10 2006 19:17 utc | 30
Oh well I always knew it was going to happen. Everyone get sucked in to the football game once it got close to kick off.
The whining and wailing and gnashing of teeth in MoA will begin about February. Most of December and January will be filled with ‘celebrations’ that will have some of us vomiting in the corner. Those who remember that the only difference between rethug imperialism and dem imperialism is that the dems lie about the murders and rapes more.
The clue to the Foley and Hastert scandals (so now the pro-gay dems are outing people? Reminds me of 6 months ago when the anti-racist dems were telling amerikans all arabs were terrorists that couldn’t be trusted with an amerikan stevedoring company) Anyway the give-away is that anti-rethug opinion had firmed up without the Foley mud-slinging.
As I suspected some interest group has seen the way of things and decided to jump on the bandwagon with the Foley ‘scandal’ thereby getting in before the rush. Most interest groups don’t really care which one of the trough guzzlers wins as long as it is the one that they have backed. Methinks that the rethug alliance with Diebold will not be long for this world, although Diebold might still be used to boost the rethug vote if the swing towards the dems was too great.
If there is one thing that those who tell amerikans which way to vote have learned from the BushCo debacle it is that too much power causes complacency, arrogance and incompetence. They will be striving to ensure that doesn’t recur.
Once elected, the dems aren’t going to spend a moment worrying about what those on the left think or want, thay know that vote is guaranteed, they will be far too busy ‘solidifying their base’. That is appealing to the voters they believe to be ‘right of centre’. Their new supporters that they won’t want to lose ever again.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 10 2006 19:38 utc | 31
re: the US gulag that is the Marianas — no wonder that
Finally, and this is not the least aspect of this research, close to 220 million children around the world are economically exploited, half of them in dangerous activities (mines, explosives manufacture, arms manufacture, toxin treatment) and over 5 million are slaves. Yet, hope comes from precisely this sector of child labor, since these data, while frightening, are in decline over several years. Thanks to the legal instruments the international community has created over the last twenty years beginning with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), consciousness has been raised more and more: legal systems are evolving; and some improvements are appearing. Every country in the world with the exception of two (Somalia and … the United States) has ratified this treaty today.
footnote
“and the pig got up and slowly walked away…”
Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 10 2006 21:05 utc | 32
uncle#28, if you liked the last one check out these two in a later segment “if you can’t buy it, kill it“, they all implode!
Posted by: annie | Oct 11 2006 0:15 utc | 33
@ jonku and annie
I wrote it, and sent it to my son. I think that the only
remotely probably event that could shake the American public out
of its torpor would be irrefutable, widely distributed, and detailed
evidence that the official 9/11 story is a hoax. Probably this will never happen as a “single breakthrough story”, but the continuing drip-drip-drip of piecemeal revelations may, at some point, be sufficient to produce a public demand for radical change. At least
I allow myself to dream such dreams, and trust that the future is richer and more unpredictable than my imaginings.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 11 2006 5:09 utc | 34
@Hannah K. O’Luthon et al…
Rummy, Bush, Cheney, rice etc, will die unthinkably rich, in their sleep, in their own own beds, well tended and content, at an advanced age. Life isn’t fair.
911 will fall into the same legend as the Kennedy Assasinations…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 11 2006 5:30 utc | 35
this completely blows my mind. blows my mind!
pieces of the puzzle. i have yet to watch part 2
Posted by: annie | Oct 11 2006 16:46 utc | 36