Category : Bush

The Washington Post’s profile of Dick Cheney reveals there is “unannounced standing order” in the White House: “Documents prepared for the national security adviser, another White House official said, were ‘routed outside the formal process’ to Cheney, too.” [/digg]

This is unbelieveable. Cheney has set up a Shadow White House, a secret one designed to give him control over information going from and to Bush.

Sorry if this blog seems like the “Dick Cheney really sucks, mkay” blog lately, but I think it’s amazing how blatantly unconstitutional Cheney’s mindset and the Bush/Cheney White House really is. We need to get this asshole out of here NOW. He has remade the executive branch in his own image, but with himself floating above the pyramid like an all-seeing eye. Sauron, er, I mean, Cheney, is clearly trying to build a dictatorship.

Somebody has called for a general strike. At this point, I’m prepared to second that motion.

We can’t depend on Laura to manage this task. If she was doing her job we wouldn’t be at war right now. There’s only one person who can give the president the blow job he so desperately needs. There’s only one person whose undying devotion and selfless emasculation could possibly sway Bush. There’s only one person who could possibly imagine giving Bush the fellatio that could free us all from his despotic regime. One person… one man. Tony Blair.


Come on, Tony. You owe us this much. Give Bush a BJ and get caught!… so we can impeach him. It’s a dirty job, but you owe us big-time, Tony. Pucker up.

A tiny reason, if you need one:

California has threatened to sue the feds for blocking efforts to raise fuel efficiency standards. The Bush administration is accused of leaning on EPA and colluding with automakers in order to strangle California’s attempt to get rid of their huge fucking smog problem.

Dear Bushie: Thanks for the fucking help.

Ah, joy. The Bush administration … which, not that long ago, was proclaiming their love for the environment… and some fucking stupid people out there actually seemed to believe them!! Get some eyes, people, and put them in your head. The adminstration says one thing and does another: do you need a goddamn map to a clue?!

Sorry, I’m just frustrated that we haven’t impeached the fucking fratboy clown and his evil puppetmaster, Cheney, yet. What the fucking are we waiting for? A fucking sign from heaven that these assholes are up to no good?! The writings on the fucking wall, man. Some people just too blind to see.

But seriously… what the fuck are we waiting for? … for Dick Cheney to reveal that he eats skewered eight year old girls for breakfast every morning?!! …. We’ve already guessed that!!!!

We’re beyond the, “Oh my goodness… the Bush adminstration seems to have violated a few teensy laws, and maybe launched **oopsies!** a war that looks based on fraudulant reasons… Leapin’ Lords to Betsy! He might be… (gasp!)… a liar…. even a… a… villain!” phase, aren’t we? If somebody reading this just realized, YESTERDAY, that Bush is an asshole and a liar and a warmonger and a phony, then I would like to be the first to welcome you to planet Earth. Welcome. How was your stay in Lollypop Land?

So why aren’t we impeaching the fucker yet? Gary Kamiya at Salon takes a stab at it. You might not like what he finds…

But there’s a deeper reason why the popular impeachment movement has never taken off — and it has to do not with Bush but with the American people. Bush’s warmongering spoke to something deep in our national psyche. The emotional force behind America’s support for the Iraq war, the molten core of an angry, resentful patriotism, is still too hot for Congress, the media and even many Americans who oppose the war, to confront directly. It’s a national myth. It’s John Wayne. To impeach Bush would force us to directly confront our national core of violent self-righteousness — come to terms with it, understand it and reject it. And we’re not ready to do that.

If he’s right then we’d better come to grips with our problem — quick. We don’t have much time. We’re spiraling more each day into a the war-like fascist society the Bushies so desperately want to create. They are programming us for war, for service and fealty, for unquestioning belief in their essential decency. We don’t want to dig too deep lest the knowledge prove too painful, right? Just sit back and watch some TV, citizen.

How many of you are prepared to go all the way?

How far down into the abyss are you willing to go? … What if you’re already in the abyss but you believe you’re in a happier place, fresh like a green field in the summer. Instead of putting a fragrant purple flower to your nose you’ve actually got a tentacle of media infusion jammed down your throat and you’re wallowing in a slimy, dark, nightmare pit of fear and frenzy. You’re Neo in the Matrix. Once you take that red pill there’s no going back.

You can’t really see the world the same way again. Once you wake up you’re simultaneously horrified and relieved, somehow. Knowing the truth is not as hard as some make it seem. But looking back at your actions may scare you more than anything. Looking back at the zombie, so deluded, believing what they’re saying… What would you have done had you not become aware?

People are at different levels of awareness. Some people scoff when somebody brings up the Bush family’s Nazi-associated past. … Others see a pattern.

I urge you not to think of World War II as some distant, bronzed history which was most defintely a one-time deal, and which exists outside the normal flow of time as an idealized war faught against a horrific, satanic demigod. Far from being the exception, Hitler is the norm. Many world leaders are megalomaniacs. It can happen here. It has.

When you look at the similarities, its clear the neocons belong in the same camp as the Nazis. Calling them Nazis is not some cheap smear or baseless insult. It’s God’s honest truth.

As we awake to the potential of the world — the grand potential of a post-impeachment world — let’s not be afraid of the darkness that lurks within. The horrible truth should not be denied. It must be embraced despite its terrible core.

May whatever deity you believe in grant you the strength to look into the gaping maw of refined, practiced and fully self-aware… evil.
( atheists should invest in some adult diapers )

The Culture is Not Coarse Enough

I hear a lot of people on both sides of the ideological aisle complaining about the “coarsening of our culture” or some similar trash. Fuck that shit; our culture is not coarse enough. People are too hung up on manners and social norms. Sure, it’s nice to have polite people around, but it’s also nice to have people who tell it like it is. And somebody needs to inform our “culture” that we should be fucking rioting.

Is there a nice way to say we should take to the streets and burn shit? ‘Cause I’d like to say it in polite company and watch them jump into the moshpit of the streets with a torch and an axe. It’s time to say “enough of this shit!” and tell The Man to fuck off. The Man in this case is the evil Bush Reich, a collection of fascists, zealots, traitors, liars, thieves and hypocritical scum-sucking whores to power.

Why should we give the Bush regime the courtesy they’ve never given us? It’s time to stop playing nice. Do you wanna know what should really happen? Bush is a mass murderer who should not only be impeached, he should be sent over to Iraq for trial, where he will be executed like Saddam. It’s only fitting. And Cheney? Shit, we should play a game with his fate. I say we play the Most Dangerous Game with his ass. We should send him out in the woods, naked, with a 30 minute headstart on the homeless people with shotguns who will be hunting him like a pheasant. Whomever bags Cheney gets his mansion. Seems fair to me.

Fuck being nice anymore. I say the culture is not coarse enough. Let’s let these assholes know they can’t get away with their lies, obstruction and misdirection anymore.

Apologize to Al Sharpton for your sins!!

Are you white? Are you somewhat sympathetic to Don Imus and his situation? Have you ever said an offensive word? Well, it’s time to apologize to Al Sharpton.*

Now that Imus has been fired this little witch-hunt is apparently over. Is anybody else scratching their head, wondering what this little kerfuffle was all about? Obviously, Imus is a moron and used some shitty language, but I have trouble believing the Rutgers basketball team is really crying themselves to sleep at night. Who the fuck cares what he thinks/says?

Despite the thin-skinned temperance of the basketball players, I can at least understand why they are upset and demanding an apology (and groveling, 30 lashes, some ass-kissing and a book deal), but what I’m confused about is why Imus needs to apologize to Al Sharpton? … I thought Jesse Jackson was the emperor of black people.

Man, South Park totally called this one. Yes, Imus is a fucking moron (as is Micheal Richards), but this whole scenario seems like a media-generated distraction. I mean, Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress and he still has a job. George Bush lied to Congress, America and the world to lead us into war and he still has a job. WTF?

I think our priorities are pretty fucked up in this country. Whatever happened to “sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me”? Apparently, the Rutgers basketball team does not subscribe to this philosophy. Meanwhile, Bush’s words led directly to broken bones, shattered skulls, crushed vertebrae, lacerated flesh and all the other attendant injuries related to dying in a fraudulent war over oil. But is the media whipping up a shitstorm over that? Incredibly, no. They are not as fawning as before, but they still treat him with unaccountable respect. He deserves to hang like Saddam, but the MSM is still treating his polices and speeches deferentially. The media could easily launch into a witch-hunt to bring down this administration. It has just demonstrated it has the power, in the case of Imus, despite Imus having the support of 63% of Americans. Bush, meanwhile, has the support of only 30%. That’s quite a disparity. Can somebody explain to me how this could happen? Certainly Bush didn’t call anybody a “nappy-headed ho” but he did lie to us repeatedly in order to lead us into war, a war that has left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, along with 3,000+ American soldiers. Near as I can tell Imus has not killed anybody. What gives?

Does it make me a cynic if I believe this witch-hunt was manufactured by the media to provide a well-timed distraction at a point in time when the Bush regime is increasingly on the run? Or does it make me a realist?
__________

*Apology not necessary if you are black and/or a rapper. If you are a rapper, you can call any woman a “ho” and it’s okay. Snoop said so.**

** I can’t believe I agree with Michelle Malkin on something. I feel so dirty. I’d better go apologize to Al Sharpton.

Even as the grassroots impeachment movement gathers steam, the mainstream media and the Democrats are doing to their best to mock, derail, ignore and sabotage the efforts of concerned Americans across this great country.

Did anybody choke over the preceding paragraph? Did you think that Democrats would be eager to avenge the impeachment of Clinton? Well, you’re wrong. The Democrats are avoiding the issue like it was radioactive. And the media, well, we all know the liberal media is… liberal. Right? Wrong. The media is not left or right, it’s corporate. The media does whatever sells, folks. Their only true ideology is profit. As the Propaganda Model states, the media does not sell news — they sell us, the consumers of news, to the businesses that pay for ads and PR. We are the product.

Who perpetuates the myth of the liberal media anyway? Oh, that’s right… The media does! Especially the Bill O’Reillys and Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world (there seem to be a lot of these folks. How did they manage to find employment in the big, mean liberal media machine?).

Despite their lies, the media is certainly not liberal, but the lie has become self-perpetuating so that people think “if the media does it, it must be liberal!” thereby allowing conservatives and corporatists to define liberals with their own labels and bias. It’s a really neat trick. Goebbels would be proud. The left-wing is so weak and pathetic that it mostly just nods its head and cowers in the corner lest Bill O’Reilly raise his voice again (of course, these are just the liberals the media allows us to see). In reality, the media skews conservative on many things, including the war, the economy and the prospect of impeachment.

Let’s take a look at this Reuters article on Vermont’s grassroots impeachment effort and see how the media distorts things to serve a certain point of view.

More than 30 Vermont towns passed resolutions on Tuesday seeking to impeach President Bush, while at least 16 towns in the tiny New England state called on Washington to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

Known for picturesque autumn foliage, colonial inns, maple sugar and old-fashion dairy farms, Vermont is in the vanguard of a grass-roots protest movement to impeach Bush over his handling of the unpopular Iraq war.

Notice how Vermont is portrayed as pastoral. The subtle message is: “These backwards-ass hicks think they can impeach the president. Isn’t that cute?”

Now that we’ve established that Vermont’s voters are bunch of tree-hugging, bean-curd-eating hippies we proceed to “The Big Lie”, which Reuters needs to work on a bit since it really sticks out like a sore thumb in this piece. See if you can spot it:

After casting votes on budgets and other routine items, citizens of 32 towns in Vermont backed a measure calling on the U.S. Congress to file articles of impeachment against Bush for misleading the nation on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and for engaging in illegal wiretapping, among other charges.

Five Vermont towns passed similar resolutions last year.

The idea of impeaching Bush resides firmly outside the political mainstream.

The new Democratic-controlled Congress has steered clear of the subject, and Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold’s call last year to censure Bush — a step short of an impeachment — found scant support on Capitol Hill, even among fellow Democrats.

Did you find it? It’s the mostly-unsupported argument in the middle. “The idea of impeaching Bush resides firmly outside the political mainstream.” THIS IS A LIE. A big one, too. If the reporter/propaganda-spewer (Jason Szep) had done any research (and I believe he must have), he would’ve noticed that Americans overwhelmingly support impeachment. From the Zogby poll:

By a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new Zogby poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

This is “firmly outside the political mainstream”?!!

Well, in the reporter’s defense it must be said that the Democrats and the Mainstream Media (MSM) have done everything in their power to keep it out of the political mainstream. This is done via articles such as the one we’re talking about, wherein people supporting accountability are mocked as pastoral peasants, slandered as left-wing nutjobs or talked down to like illiterate boobs. So much for the free and impartial press.

The Democrats are certainly party to this travesty. They have betrayed the very Americans who voted for them.

Not surprisingly, Democrats supported the consideration of impeachment by a broad margin (76 percent) while Republicans opposed (66 percent). However, 29 percent of Republicans told Zogby pollsters that they supported Congress examining impeachment over Iraq.

It should be noted that AfterDowningStreet.org had to commission this poll because the Media certainly wouldn’t do it themselves. If we had waited on them for such a poll, we’d still be waiting.

Despites the media’s lies of omission and distortion impeachment is gathering steam across the nation, not just in Vermont as the article tried to imply. New Mexico, Washington state and cities across the nation are moving towards, or have already passed, resolutions supporting impeachment. The Media doesn’t want you to know this.

As for the Democrats, their spinelessness is appalling, especially considering what happened less than 10 years ago. Funny, I don’t remember people taking to the streets to demand Clinton’s impeachment. In fact, polls showed most people opposed impeachment for Clinton. I would’ve liked to see Clinton impeached for other reasons, but the charges he was impeached for were pretty trivial, and it was clearly a political witch-hunt. This time around the polls favor impeachment, but the Media is nowhere to be found whipping up impeachment fervor, and the Democrats, far from leading the charge, are carrying up the rear. They’re being dragged into this fight by the common folk, and many of them show no signs of supporting impeachment. It’s as if Bush were there best buddy all of a sudden. Suspicious, wouldn’t you say?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The Mainstream Media is a corporate-controlled institution that the oligarchy is using to promote and maintain fascism. Bush, as a fascist, is their hero. The MSM and Bush led us into this bloody war in Iraq, hand-in-hand; t
hey’re practically attached at the hip. They would sooner spit on their own mothers than encourage the impeachment of their pretty-boy fascist führer. The Democrats are controlled by the same oligarchy and their part is to basically “rollover and play dead” for the fascist Republicans. We must feed the war machine with our babies. The economy depends on it, since so much of it is rooted in the military-industrial complex.

So what can you do about it? Well, start by supporting the organizations out there that are spearheading the impeachment effort. Quite frankly, there are so many that I have a hard time keeping track of them all. Here’s a quick list of some of the bigger ones:

AfterDowningStreet
Vote To Impeach
Impeach Bush Coalition
Impeach For Peace
ImpeachPAC
The Four Reasons
The World Can’t Wait

Apathy is not a strategy. What are you doing to change the world?

From Digg. Full story here.

A group of governors asked Bush and Marine Gen. Peter Pace about their backup plan for Iraq. What would the administration do if its new strategy didn’t work? The conclusion they took away was that there is no Plan B. “I’m a Marine,” Pace told them, “and Marines don’t talk about failure. They talk about victory.”

“Plan B was to make Plan A work.”

Talk about some scary shit. Are these two running a war or a comedy show?

If the Democrats don’t smell weakness here and move in, it’s because they’re controlled by the same folks who control the neocons. I was hoping there was another game in town, but it looks like We the People are alone in this fight. And most of us would rather watch Larry the Cable Guy than put pressure on our representatives. We know this is stupid…. are we still going to stand for it?

Sometimes I think the world would be better off without us. If we can’t fix this maybe our species doesn’t get to survive. We’re destroying our planet and killing each other. All these years and we still haven’t figured it out.

“The ultimate Plan B is pull everybody out,” said Stephen D. Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adviser to the Defense Department. “Nobody wants to do that. Most are looking at the middle ground between surge and pullout.”

Well, let’s go for Plan-fucking B already, asshole!! “Nobody” wants to do that? Who the fuck are you talking to, Biddle?! Get us the fuck out of there. NOW! We don’t want to be an Empire anymore, okay? So fuck off and die.

Biddle, who noted that new Iraq strategy proposals “proliferate hourly” in the public domain, said another variant is to set up “heavily defended forward operating bases out in the desert somewhere [and] either sit there and mind our own business and do nothing except be present — enabling us to say we’re still there — or, in a somewhat more activist flavor, to conduct raids of various kinds” against al-Qaeda bases and rescue missions for Iraqi military units.

Oh great, we can be warlords in western Iraq and Somalia just like all the other gangsters and thugs. We could conduct raiding parties like pirates or vikings. Brilliant. This fucking egghead is just brilliant. This weak-ass, spineless piece of shit is suggesting the United States of America assume the position of the lowest of the low — a marauding band of beggars and thieves.

First of all, al-Qaeda is mostly an illusion, a creation of the CIA during the Afghan war against the Soviets. Secondly, they were just an excuse to kick our country in gear. The Powers That Be decided that they wanted us to be aggressive and bloodthirsty to further the consolidation of their empire so they cooked up 9.11 to whip us into a frenzy. But now the excitement has worn off and we’re stuck in the middle of the desert with a bunch of people who are so crazy they’re killing each other more than us.

Let’s face reality, wake up from this nightmare, impeach Bush/Cheney and bring the troops back home! Then we can apologize to the world, undertake massive economic reforms, investigate the wrong-doings of the government going back 60-some years and put things right politically. We’ve really let things get all fucked up, so we’ve gotta clean house. First on the list are those spineless scorpions — the neocons. Then we can get the vampire bats (fat aristocracy/business) and the filthy rats (criminal networks) and the scheming spiders (secret ruling cabals) who have woven this network of fear and exploitation.

Can we agree that this war is bankrupt? It’s all over but the crying… and some more killing if the neocons get their way. That’s why we have to sweep them from power. If we don’t act soon we can expect more of the same. Attacking Iran would be colossally stupid… in other words, it’s right up the neocons’ alley.

World Conquest is a Lonely Sport

Tony “Poodle” Blair has decided to pull out of Iraq. Sort of. Eventually.

This more of a big deal symbolically than realistically since Britain only had around 7,000 troops in country anyway (they had around 45,000 for the invasion — you know, “the fun part”).

Hopefully this will cause people in America to scratch their softboiled heads and wonder, “Well, uh, why are we still there? Is the U.K. safe from terrorism now?” You will recall, of course, that the UK/USA alliance was keen to fight the terrorists “over there” rather than “over here.” What changed? Was there some anti-terr’rist bust in Iraq that I missed? Did they somehow solve the terrorism problem in the UK? Oh, if only such a solution worked in the US too! Maybe they have perfected some sort of anti-terror aerosol spray. But then, that wouldn’t really fit with with the neocon MO, would it? Terror is their bread and butter. They need it to govern. Blair is only doing this because he knows his term is almost up. He obviously plans to declare victory and hope that the public just forgets about the whole thing. Will they forget all of the lies and manipulation and sexing-up of intelligence dossiers? Experience shows they might.

But that won’t be so simple in America. We’ve borne the brunt of this conquest (well, except for the Iraqis, but nobody counting them, right?), and Bush pulled out all the stops to sell this war. Now it looks like we’re all alone in this boondoggle.

I don’t mean to disparage Kazakhstan’s 29 troops. Or the 41 troops Estonia has over there. Truly, a fearsome fighting force. I quake in my boots just thinking about them. And Moldova’s troops, all 12 of them, are so incredibly powerful that I think it would be fine if we left them in charge and took our 132,000 troops back home to preside over the president’s trial for treason.

But we may have problems doing that since King George is the commander in chief. Still, Congress has certain powers, including the power of the purse strings. Cutting off funds for the war is a harsh and dangerous course…. but so is leaving the troops in Iraq indefinitely. It’s time to take a stand, people. If it’s a constitutional crisis Bush and neocons want, then that is what they’ll get. I think there are enough pissed off Democrats in the House and Senate to make this a very interesting fight. I suspect that much is being played out behind the scenes. The neocons know that it’s time for them to leave, but like a drunken and belligerent house guest they are steadfastly resisting all attempts at reason. More drastic actions may be required. (Fun way to get rid is a belligerent houseguest: Tell them their car has been towed. Hopefully they’ll be on the front lawn by the time they remember they took the bus. Use this time to lock the door and pull the shades)

I’m ready to take to the streets if necessary to compel the neocons from power. I know my shit don’t amount to much, but it’s all I got. I wish I could lend more to the struggle. I know there are some people, even in the ruling class, who have had enough of the neocons. I trust that they have a plan to remove them from power… but it sure is taking a long time. I don’t know what’s playing out behind the scenes, but I can’t imagine the neocons have many allies left. Regardless, it’s time to end this game. World conquest is not a good way to make friends.

The two biggest criminals in this country are both implicated in the Plame affair. As Scooter Libby’s trial progresses and things look worse and worse for Cheney’s ex-right-hand-man his defense team is casting blame in every direction… including toward “the top.”

Last week, Libby’s attorney Theodore Wells made a stunning pronouncement during opening statements of Libby’s trial. He claimed that the White House had made Libby a scapegoat for the leak to protect Karl Rove – Bush’s political adviser and “right-hand man.”“Mr. Libby, you will learn, went to the vice president of the United States and met with the vice president in private. Mr. Libby said to the vice president, ‘I think the White House … is trying to set me up. People in the White House want me to be a scapegoat,'” said Wells.

Cheney’s notes seem to help bolster Wells’s defense strategy. Libby’s defense team first discussed the notes – written by Cheney in September 2003 for White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan – during opening statements last week. Wells said Cheney had written “not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others”: a reference to Libby being asked to deal with the media and vociferously rebut Wilson’s allegations that the Bush administration knowingly “twisted” intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq.

However, when Cheney wrote the notes, he had originally written “this Pres.” instead of “that was.

The “meat grinder” is generally taken to mean “the DC press corps”. So, after re-inserting “this Pres” into Cheney’s note it reads: “not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.”

It’s not surprising that strategy concerning the Plame affair would be discussed at the highest levels. But Bush has been denying all along that he knew anything about the leak.

When Cheney testifies will he throw Libby under the bus like Addington? I can’t wait to find out. What happens when the top two liars in the country are implicated in a scandal, tied to an illegal war that’s been used to justify illegal wiretapping? Well, if Republicans are in charge: Nothing. However, I have a smidgen of hope that the Democrats will pursue impeachment. They’d better hurry up about it because I keep hearing more and more noise about starting a war with Iran. It sounds like the preparations for a joint U.S./Israeli strike are almost complete.

It certainly seemed as if he was trying to brag about how “democratic” we are to actually bother holding elections during war time in his radio address:

“We saw that freedom earlier this week, when millions of Americans went to the polls to cast their votes for a new Congress. Whatever your opinion of the outcome, all Americans can take pride in the example our democracy sets for the world by holding elections even in a time of war.”

We won’t make that mistake again!

Bush is trying to use his loss to make himself look magnanimous. Secretly, I think, he’s wishing he had invented an excuse to suspend elections.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

Bush eats a kitten, gets boost in polls

Glenn Greenwald has pointed out how the media silently covers Bush’s tracks by changing their own stories to hide evidence of Bush’s bald-faced lying:

At some point, the Post changed what was the accurate reporting — that Bush expressly acknowledged that he “misled” reporters because he had “indicated that he had made the decision to replace Rumsfeld before the elections” — by claiming in the new version that he merely “contemplated” Rumsfeld’s exit before the election. Worse, the Post deleted entirely the accurate statement that the President “appeared to acknowledge having misled reporters.”

I don’t see why he’s incredulous. Bush has been protected like a princess by the press from day one. This is certainly not his first blatant lie, and the media has ignored most of those as well.

Hell, Bush could eat a baby kitten live on TV and the networks would censor it from all subsequent broadcasts, deny that it was a big deal, and then accuse anyone who made a stink about it of suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. No doubt some neo-cons would manage to smear the kitten’s good name by implying that she was a terrorist sympathizer. Democrats in Congress would be conspicuously silent and once the networks had completed their Orwellian re-writing of history no one would be able to prove that there even was a kitten.

Now, let’s all just assume that the photo above is just a really good Photoshop job.

I’m talkin’ 20 percent approval. More stats from the Bloomberg poll:

A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of Americans age 18 to 24 found Bush’s approval rating was 20 percent, with 53 percent disapproving and 28 percent with no opinion. That compares to a 40 percent approval rating among Americans of all ages in a separate Bloomberg/Times poll.

… [snip] …

For example, 26 percent of those age 18 to 24 who consider themselves religious approve of the job Bush is doing, compared with 12 percent of those who say they are non-religious. The poll surveyed 811 adults aged 18-24 and 839 minors aged 12-17. It was taken June 23 to July 2 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

If early indications are a guide, Bush and the Republicans also have a challenge with the next wave of young voters. The poll found his approval rating was 21 percent among those age 12 to 17, with 44 percent disapproving and 35 percent having no opinion.

Hahahahaaaaa!!! Man, Bush can’t even fool the fucking 12-year olds! Hahahahaaa… Oh man. That’s too funny. Those are some looooow numbers. 12 percent of nonreligious 18-24ers approve of Bush. 12 percent! That’s barely more than a fucking rounding error!

Glad to see the younger generation has Bush figured out. Too bad a bunch of the older folks haven’t caught on yet. 40 percent seems high, actually; most of the polls I’ve seen indicated mid 30s at best and low 30s at worst.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter to — certainly not to Bush. He’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. And the American public is too fat and lazy to rise up against their corporate oppressors, so that’s not an issue. We’ll just continue to take his shit. We can be all united in hatred of him, but it doesn’t really matter.

I guess if we lived in a democracy, it might. But democracy is largely a sham in this country. Politicians don’t go after democracy — they go after votes! And votes can be pried from the voter in any number of ways, legal and otherwise. Once your political machine is no longer a hotrod, but a planet-sized monster like the Republican party, it’s not really about democracy, it’s about sucking votes into your octopus-like apparatus. Democracy, like freedom, is just something you talk to voters about. We don’t live in a democracy; we live in a constitutional republic that has been taken over by dark forces.

I don’t think the 12 to 17 year olds really understand the fact that we’ve had a de-facto coup by “moneyed interests”. But I think a growing number of people — especially the young — are beginning to understand that:

  • The system is rigged.
  • Bush is a puppet.
  • We are utterly owned by corporations.
  • Money is the only thing that matters to most people.
  • We’re destroying our world and making a handsome profit doing it.
  • TV is full of shit.
  • They’re not telling us everything.
  • Politicians are professional liars.
  • The Market is just gambling that’s government sponsored/approved.
  • If you refuse to play by the rules, the system will fuck you.
  • More war, chaos and bullshit are on the way.

…And things are not always as they seem.