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POTUS Out the Cage

In one of the few signs that he’s actually read that mere piece of paper known as the U.S. Constitution, George W. Bush vetoed the second bill in his tenure of office today. For those of you who have been living in a cave, the newly elected Democratic House and Senate voted to begin pulling troops out of Iraq. The POTUS in his infinite arrogance has stated from Day Zero that he would veto the bill, considering the overwhelming will of the American electorate to be so much political football.

It seems pretty clear that POTUS has completely stepped on his dick on this one. Support for the war is nonexistent. Two thirds of Americans support the concept of time tables for getting boots off the ground. The few true believers in the administration are left chiming “surge… surge… surge…” ad infinitum while the war, much like the POTUS himself, is (in the words of Ronald Reagan’s biological son and namesake) “a national embarrassment.”

The question remains: by what means will the war be ended? If a sea changing, generation defining election (check the polls, not to mention the composition of the new Congress- the real conservatives have come home to the Democratic Party) isn’t enough to stop the sociopaths, sycophants and other monsters currently occupying the White House, then what the hell will be? More to the point, why exactly are the Democrats involved in a game of political touch football. Have they learned nothing from the last six years of American politics or even for that matter studied the fundamental rules of bargaining? Asking for what one wants as an introductory offer is foolish at best. Treating the people currently in the White House and the Republican side of the aisle as reasonable, thoughtful people flies in the face of empirical evidence to the contrary. The Democrats need to start treating Republicans like what they are- enemies.

Mike Gravel had the right idea at last week’s Democratic Party debate. Congress shouldn’t be passing resolutions about the war, they should be working on a law that makes it a felony to deploy more troops to the Middle East and they should do nothing but write, rewrite, pass and repass the bill until the Haliburpublican Party gets the idea. The American people are not a war-like people at heart, they are a people easily manipulated by their dual sense of justice and destiny. The Iraq War is the latest in a long history (beginning with the Spanish-American War) where a primarily isolationist people had their passions cynically engineered toward jingoism by the interests of capital and their running dogs in the corporate-controlled media.

Some in the liberal anti-war movement are squeamish about cutting off funding for troops in harms way. In the first place, it is worth noting that the Democratic congress is not holding up funding for the troops, POTUS is. However, there is only one clear and consistent position against imperialist war and that is the credo of Rosa Luxembourg- not a man, not a penny for the imperialist war machine. Figures like Barack Obama who claim to be against the war while appropriating funds for it are the worst kind of charlatans and political opportunists, talking out of both sides of their mouth. The troops of the American empire’s war machine cease to be “our boys” the second that they become boots on the ground. In that moment they are no longer your brother, your friend, your co-worker. They are hired killers and the only principled position is to call for their defeat.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Gone Wild

The first debate between Democratic Party Presidential candidates took place last night on MSNBC. While there was little in the way of meaty, substantial questions… this is America. What the fuck were you expecting “your” press to do? Still, the debate was notable for two reasons. Firstly, we were introduced to all of the candidates including my new man-crush, Mike Gravel. Secondly, the Democratic Party seems to have pulled a total 180 from 2004 where there was effectively one viable candidate (I’ll leave it up to you to guess who I think that was). Any one of this year’s lot can beat whatever clown emerges from the Republican primary with the caveat that that’s only true because Mr. Law and Order hasn’t entered the race yet.

Joe Biden

Joementum 2: Electric Boogaloo kicked into high gear at the debate as Old Joe continued his “No Chance ’08″ campaign. Joe’s campaign basically confuses me. He doesn’t have a prayer and he’s not running for Veep so what the frig is he doing? Hopefully he can manage to get through the rest of the campaign without plagiarizing British MPs or talking about how “clean” and “articulate” his opponents are. He was the only person on the stage still for the war which puts him drastically at odds with the electorate in general to say nothing of the Democratic base.

Final Analysis: Joe will drop out in early ’08 after being smote in New Hampshire.

Hilary Clinton

Does Hil remind anyone else of their friend’s bitchy mom that used to shriek bloody murder if you wore shoes in the house? 4rlz, yo, if ’08 is “Mrs. Hilary Clinton” v. The Double G Avengers (Giuliani / Gingrich) pack up your shit and make good on your repeated threats to move to Canada. Clinton basically did the same thing as her husband sixteen years ago. A whole lot of weasel word answers and bullshit on the PATRIOT Act, on her Iraq vote, etc. And don’t forget her permanently affixed botox smile!

Final Analysis: Look for Clinton to start the “How do you feel about Barack Hussein Obama’s support for Islamic terrorist leaders in Illinois? Do you support the Senators ‘rape all white women’ positions?” phone calls around November / December ’07.

Chris Dodd

Chris Dodd is actually not a terrible guy, his record on gun rights notwithstanding. He’s taken very principled stances against the more egregious laws passed by the Republican congress- the first person that I’m aware of to oppose the Military Commissions Act, for example. Still, he doesn’t seem to be capable of facial expression and he’s a Senator which is basically Presidential poison.

Final Analysis: Dodd will drop out before New Hampshire and be on the top tier of Veep candidates but won’t get that either.

John Edwards

Edwards was channeling Bubba Clinton’s ability to talk about some lady that he met at a little coffee shop down the road without you realizing that he’s totally bullshitting you. He tripped up a little on the question about his moral leader but then saved himself by not responding with “Christ” a la Dubya. No, he went one better proclaiming that his moral role models were “my lord… my wife… my father.” All in all this bastard is starting to grow on me like cancer and I may just eat shit with a grin for him the way that people did for his boss in ’04.

Final Analysis: Presuming that he doesn’t step on his dick (and that Al Gore doesn’t enter the race) Edwards is positioned to walk into the convention the clear winner after Clinton and Obama slander each other out of contention. He’ll quite literally crush any Republican (probably even Fred Thompson) getting somewhere around 35 states behind him.

Mike Gravel

I’ve recently decided to switch my allegiance from Dr. No to Mike Gravel for the following reasons:

• Only candidate to straight up call “BULLSHIT” on Exxon’s War
• Only candidate to straight up call “BULLSHIT ARTIST” on the entire top tier
• From Alaska
• Madman with nothing to lose
• Sick ‘stache

Anyone who laughs at Mike Gravel like he’s some kind of joke needs to get punched in the balls. Mike Gravel is quite literally the only person on the stage who wasn’t rehearsed to death by his handlers and the only one staking out clear, strong positions on exactly how and why the world is as completely fucked as it is right now. You want a real alternative? Vote Gravel.

Final Analysis: Gravel will hang in until the convention, won’t release his delegates and may mount an independent campaign.

Dennis Kucinich

The Kooch is best summed up by my father- who would vote for Adolf Hitler if he ran as a Democrat- whose first reaction was “Who the fuck is this geek?” The guy is a total charlatan, grabbing any position he thinks will get him headlines. I don’t remember nearly anything he said as I’ve heard it about ten times before.

Final Analysis: Who the fuck is this geek?

Barack Obama

Has this man ever told the truth about anything? I still think he’s more running for Veep than anything else. Again, just a lot of lackluster, milquetoast liberalism with a slightly more “left” bent. Some facts on the (sort of kind of maybe a little) Black-man-beyond-criticism du jour:

• He voted to re-authorize the PATRIOT Act
• He voted to appoint war criminal Condaleeza Rice to Secretary of State
• He opposed Sen. Feingold’s attempt to censure King George II for wiretapping
• He refuses to oppose a “first strike” nuclear policy on Iran

Final Analysis: The Veep for whatever racist motherfucker ultimately gets the nom, except Clinton.

Bill Richardson

Great candidate, staked out strong positions and admitted that he wants to cut the brown man some slack. Awesome. He’s most consistently against the war, gets a great NRA score, but was pretty reserved at the debate which isn’t going to help him.

Final Analysis: America is ready for a Black or a woman President. They are not ready for a Mexican or Mormon President. Sorry, Bill, you’d have my vote but you just can’t win. Rednecks too numerous to mention think you’re going to move everything brown south of the Rio Grande to San Diego.

Next week the Republican “No Chance ’08″ crowd gets savaged…

VTU Massacre: Pretext For Creeping Fascism

I’m a bit shocked. I had expected the VTU massacre to prompt another backlash against America’s least favorite civil right, the right to keep and bear arms. Instead, the country’s opinion makers have responded to the event with exactly the kind of minivan fascism that is increasingly plaguing America.

Warning! This gesture now prohibited by law!

The LA Times whinges that Virginia Tech says it had no grounds to monitor Cho opining- without any medical or psychiatric credentials of which I am aware- that “Cho, a South Korean immigrant, was clearly disturbed. He seldom socialized at school, rarely spoke, and horrified his creative writing class with bizarre plays featuring violent episodes.” I’m wondering what, specifically, the meaning of “clearly disturbed” is. And seldom socializing? Wow! Imagine that! Watch out, quiet kids, the Soccer Mom Gestapo is coming after you with forced Prozac treatments and rehabilitation via weenie roasts and church-sponsored jambaroos. Perhaps most troubling is the emphasis on Cho’s violent poetry and writing. Get ready for another round of “zero tolerance” in our nations schools with kids getting suspended for “giving guns” and writing that resembled mediocre Quentin Tarantino and Sam Peckinpah.

CNN and <i>Time Magazine</i>, mouthpieces of middle American milquetoast fascism ask “When is it OK to put a student away?” and “What Can Schools Do? respectively. The questions are leading, implying first of all that the school was somehow at fault and secondly that (as is often the claim of nanny-staters) SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!

Of course Cho actually had a history of disturbing behavior other than penning violent revenge juvenalia, something that no person with an IQ over 37 who made it past the age of 8 hasn’t had at least once. I even penned a tale once mockingly titled “Irresponsible Gun Revenge Fantasy Number 81,180 OR My First Restraining Order” which wallows in the same kind of dreary, cuss-laden hatred that Cho was known for producing. I’m not talking about Cho’s alleged stalking, which at this point seems to be little more than “annoying advances.” I’m speaking of his alleged photographing under girls desks. If Cho was to be put away, couldn’t it be for concrete illegal activity rather than metaphysical speculation? Little to nothing has been mentioned about his actual behavior because it does not provide a pretext for locking people up who have committed no crime.

The pretext for psychiatric internment has been laid with the sex offender registration campaigns of the 1990s. It is now a well established legal and social principle that the government has the “right” to track, monitor and otherwise impinge upon the rights of people before they have committed a crime and after they have served their time.

 

Emo girls now completely fucked.

Even the disturbing pictures taken by Cho sent to NBC mean absolutely nothing. Go on MurdochSpace or (even better) IAM: BMEzine and with a minimum of digging you can find pictures upon pictures of emo girls and XHAHDCAWX guys rocking out with their Glocks out. And what of it? This is America, guns and other weapons are fucking cool and anyone who says otherwise is a friggin Bolshevik.

Keep your eyes open, kids. There’s going to be a lot of hand-wringing and crocodile tears in the weeks to come about how we keep the Cho’s locked up before they can rampage.

An afterthought: What of the early reports of second shooters that are now being pooh-poohed  as so much “conspiracy theory” even when coupled with a body count that seems a touch high for one person with no formal training that we’re aware of? Keep asking the hard questions on this one, faithful NewsVirus readers.

Happy Bicycle Day One and All!

 

Happy Bicycle Day From News Virus

 

Thank You, Doctor Hoffman!

The Hero of VTU

“As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 76-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday’s shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 33 dead and over two dozen wounded.

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, “but all the students lived – because of him,” Virginia Tech student Asael Arad – also an Israeli – told Army Radio.”

Full story at Jerusalem Post

Lincoln Day Hijinx!

The GOP recommitted itself to Saint Reagan’s 11th Commandment, closing ranks on Lincoln Day to accentuate the Pollyanna. The event, laughingly called a “Unity Dinner” is perhaps the last gasp of intra-party geniality the electorate will see before backbiting and infighting begins sometime in the late spring. Primary season coming as early as it does this year, it’s hard to imagine that these guys can keep this up much longer. Otherwise the event was largely what one would expect from the autocratic dinosaurs that the Grand Old Party of Executive Power Fanboys has for front-runners this time out.

Front Runners

Giuliani was on the offensive, repeating what will likely be his mantra for the upcoming election, that social issues don’t matter. The Big G still leads in key states in all early polling, and I still maintain that he’s going to name Gingrich as his running mate long before the primary season even begins to wash away his sins. Specifically, his (alleged) socially permissive politics and being from “Nooo Yawrk Citaaay?!” The Manhattan Mussolini once again reiterated his opposition to more government spending on anything other than putting black ski masked thugs on every street corner in America. Internal security and intelligence services on a scale grander than the German Democratic Republic are a great idea but single-payer health care? That’s socialism! He also stated unequivocally that the other Republican candidates are better than Clinton, Obama and Edwards. One can only assume that proto-fascist Tom Tancredo and reanimated corpse Tommy Thompson are included in this assessment.

Big Daddy G’s only realistic opponent thus far, Mitt Romney reiterated his reasons for running for POTUS- he’s handsome and has a successful business record. The son of a polygamist whore that lied his way into office in Massachusetts avoided bragging about hoodwinking liberals into voting for him in favor of showing off his one wife. I was recently saddened and dismayed to find out that he’s received the endorsement of Bill Weld, perhaps my single favorite living Republican. Take comfort in the fact that his bizarre space religion (complete with magical panties!) and affinity for hiring undocumented workers will knock him out in February at the latest.

Former “straight talk express” captain John McCain continued to suck on the balls of POTUS Bush II defending the Iraq War against the heavy anti-war bias that reality seems to hold. Old Man Johnny, listen up: NO ONE IS GOING TO CONFUSE YOUR PIG-HEADED STUPIDITY WITH STEADFAST RESOLVE OR WHATEVERTHEFUCK YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING! GET OFF THAT SHIP BEFORE YOU SINK WITH IT! McCain, taking a page from the Edwards and Thompson camps periodically clutched his chest and proclaimed “‘Lizbeth! I’m comin’ home!”

Who Else?

Tancredo continued to campaign for the nomination of the U.S. Taxpayers’ Party Constitution Party. He lost the Republican nomination sometime last year.

Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback continued to fight rumors and speculation that they are, in fact, the same person with a different kind of comb over.

Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore- someone whose existence I was unaware of until today despite being an election junkie and a resident of VA while he was the gov- was the only candidate to violate the 11th Commandment, referring to “Rudy McRomney” as being a phony conservative. *yawn*

All in all it’s what you’d expect from the Republican “No Chance ’08″ crowd. Rudy forced non-existent comparisons between himself and the Gipper, Romney didn’t mention his supernatural manties or his previous support for abortion rights, McCain used even more energy staving off his fifteenth heart attack than he did making sure POTUS Bush II was pleased with his teabagging skills, and everyone else feigned relevance.

Just wait for the debates. That’s when it gets interesting.

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

Kurt Vonnegut died on Wednesday leaving behind him a loving family, a prolific corpus of writing both fiction and non-fiction, legions of adoring fans and Chuck Palahniuk. With him the final link to the counterculture of the 1960s is effectively severed. While Vonnegut was not a participant in counterculture per se, he informed and shaped the movement with books like Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five being required reading for hippies of both the left and right.

I recall the time that I journeyed to Smith College to see Mr. Vonnegut speak during my first stint at Umass. We stuck out like sore thumbs, what with us being men at an all women’s college. When we walked in the room Kurt immediately turned his attention to us informing us (much to the chagrin of the “womyn” legitimately there for class) that we were welcome to stay so long as we didn’t occupy a seat and kept our mouths shut.

Vonnegut taught us to laugh at the world even when things seemed darkest. He reminded us to remain skeptical of even our most dearly held assumptions. He cut through the bullshit of the postmodern era like a laser-honed scalpel, even though I’m sure that all he wanted to do was write stories with compelling characters.

If there’s any justice in this world, Vonnegut will be held up as the archetypical Word War II veteran, a man who saw a real apocalypse far more terrifying than anything cooked up in a book of desert myths, an apocalypse wholly created by man and his undying ability to dehumanize other men. He was a madly cynical Ezra Pound giggling in the face of danger, repression and death. Much like the dearly departed RAW, we could learn a lot not only from the man’s work, but also the man’s way of life.

See you in the Western Lands…