MSpencer

I've decided I'd like to keep track of all these crazy things the neocons say, specifically about war, World War III, terrorism, Iran, pre-emptive strikes, and shock and awe. I think by not having a list like this, we all slipped up back in 2003, and I think now more than ever we really need to keep track of what people are saying in Washington. I'll keep this post updated and post below that I've added more.

Starting from early June:

1. Daniel Pipes (Link)
Specifically on the topic of Iran:

What I suspect will be the case is, should the Democratic nominee win in November, President Bush will do something. And should it be Mr. McCain that wins, he'll punt, and let McCain decide what to do.

In other words, if you vote for Barack Obama this November and he wins, George Bush will flip and start World War III.

2. Bill Kristol and Chris Wallace, Faux News (Link)

KRISTOL: I think honestly, if the president felt John McCain were going to be the next president he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out. I do wonder with Sen. Obama, if president Bush thinks Sen, Obama win does he somehow think that, does he worry that Obama won't follow through on the policy…

WALLACE: So, you're suggesting that he might in fact, if Obama's going to win the election, either before or after the election—launch a military strike?

KRISTOL: I don't know. I think he would worry about it. On the other hand, you can't, it's hard to make foreign policy based on guesses about election results...

Self-explanatory. If Obama wins, George wants to make sure Iran as a threat is completely nullified. Instead of allowing the President elect to have a say in this, it would be a far more reasonable if he spent his last two months in office bombing Iran with what's left of the US military. Hey, the Air Force and the Navy are doing fine (Except for enlistment being down... massively, and funding being diverted to the Army and public corruption in Iraq).

3. John Bolton (Link)

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton believes Israel will stage a raid against Iran's nuclear facilities if Democratic nominee Barack Obama wins the upcoming presidential election in November.

Bolton, often labeled a resolute neo-conservative, believes the Israeli attack would take place sometime between the day after Obama's win and his inauguration on January 20 of next year.

We all know the US had something to do with the Osirak raid, and if for some reason, Obama wins, we're going to help them launch another one?


More to come, no doubt.

I don't think I can even properly introduce this one.
David Vitter and Larry Craig name themselves cosponsors of a proposed constitutional amendment which would ban gay marriage.
The people embroiled at the center of two of the most entertaining extramarital affairs in recent political memory have thrown their backing behind an amendment which nobody in the western world, except America, would ever really consider.
This just... really... really makes my day.

David Vitter was the one who was implicated in the DC Madam files as being a high profile client of a massive prostitution ring.
But Larry Craig's the more interesting one; he was censured for verbally assaulting Barney Frank (D-MA) for his sexual orientation (He's the only openly gay representative in American history, I think). He was also one of the most outspoken against Bill Clinton's little slip of the pants and was one of the driving forces behind the Defence of Marriage Act, and ten years later, he's caught propositioning a man for oral sex in an airport bathroom.
I love hypocrisy, especially when it continues for... years.

Of course, America needs this amendment. America needs to prevent things like this from happening.

Breaking ground is nothing new in the nearly six-decade relationship of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.

The lesbian couple were the first to participate in a 2004 challenge of California laws against same-sex marriage, exchanging wedding vows only to see the ceremony voided later.

But on Monday, Martin, 87, and Lyon, 84, exchanged vows again. This time, California law -- at least for now -- was on their side.

(snip)

"When you consider these two women, who have been denied their rights for 55 years -- put yourself in their shoes and you start to feel a little bit differently," said Newsom, adding that allowing gay and lesbians to marry is about giving them the respect and dignity they deserve.

Thankfully, we have good, upstanding people like Larry Craig and David Vitter who are always on the watch for evil anti-American ideals like the marriage of two octogenarians who just happen to both be women.
Am I one of the only people that doesn't see a problem with this? Or am I the only one who realizes that allowing two men or two women to marry doesn't mean you're going to allow people to marry chihuahuas?

So, now we're going to start a new segment on the unmitigated idiocy of John McCain. It's very simple; John McCain, under no circumstances, should become President of the United States. Why? Isn't it evident? The man says we should stay in Iraq for 1,000 years, but Army leaders acknowledge that the US Army is at its breaking point, and is unable to undertake another mission in defence of the United States; he claims that Americans are no longer dying in Iraq, but three American soldiers were just killed the other day by Iraqi insurgents; he pulls out rhetoric about corporate tax breaks, one of the Bush administration's greatest contributions to the current financial situation, claiming they will help Americans, but corporate handouts and pandering will not help the average American in any way.
John McCain is not only a shouting lunatic who at one point advocated bombing Iran, but he is a corrupt powermonger who is deep in the pockets of lobbyists.
So, without further ado, Week 1.

What's wrong with John McCain?

1. Oratory skills
I didn't think it was possible to find a worse orator than George Bush, who can usually be likened to a fevered monkey guarding a stash of bananas. However, John McCain, on the eve of Barack Obama's victory, decided he would go head to head with the presumptive Democratic nominee, and delivered a quite "moving" speech. In front of a pea-green background, giving his skin a lovely "zombie-green" tone, he proceeded to "smile" much like a child molester, and gave one of the most substanceless speeches during, not just this race, but this decade. McCain began to list Obama's policies, stating without much emphasis, "That's not change we can believe in," after each one. No explanation, no substance, just... uninspiring, unemphatic rhetoric.

An inspiring man, straight from "The Bride of Chucky"

At the exact same time McCain was rallying his seven or eight supporters (Who you can hear distinctly as being a very small crowd), Obama drove a packed arena in St. Paul wild, the very same arena that will be used for the Republican National Convention.
Is anyone else predicting the end of days for the Republican Party?
Youtube link:
And if you watch the video, it even leaves Fox News, the conservative propaganda machine, completely fucking speechless. Completely unbelievable.


2. Not only domestic corruption, but OFFSHORE corruption
Two weeks ago, MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24844889) reported that Phil Gramm, McCain's national campaign co-chair and presumptive Secretary of the Treasury, "was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy."
The New York Times, however, has more.

Under pressure from the authorities, UBS is considering whether to divulge the names of up to 20,000 of its well-heeled American clients, according to people close to the inquiry, a step that would have once been unthinkable to Swiss bankers, whose traditions of secrecy date to the Middle Ages.

Federal investigators believe some of the clients may have used offshore accounts at UBS to hide as much as $20 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service. Doing so may have enabled these people to dodge at least $300 million in federal taxes on income from those assets, according to a government official connected with the investigation.

(snip)

The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive of UBS and the former head of its private bank, as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank's investment banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in bad investments, many of them linked to risky American mortgages.

So basically, the people lobbying McCain are trying to use him as an accessory in mass tax fraud which cost the US government $300 million in revenue. And the person who's lobbying for them is a part owner and just happens to be the guy McCain wants as treasury secretary.

There's more from Newsweek:

McCain's campaign is already distancing itself from some of Gramm's other work for UBS: his involvement in attempts to sell financial products known as "death bonds," which BusinessWeek described last summer as one of "the most macabre investment scheme(s) ever devised by Wall Street." Not long after joining UBS, the Houston Chronicle reported, Gramm helped lobby Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, to sign on to a UBS proposal in which revenue would be generated for a state teachers' retirement fund by selling bonds, whose proceeds would in turn be used to buy annuities and life-insurance policies on retired teachers. UBS would advance money to the retirement fund, then repay itself, compensate bondholders and pocket profits when insurance companies paid off on retirees who died. According to a banking-industry source, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter, Gramm was involved in efforts to pitch similar UBS products to other financial institutions.

Gramm's office declined NEWSWEEK's request for comment.

So, more corruption.
And John McCain says he doesn't have any lobbyists on his staff...


Unfortunately, that's about it for last week, next post should come on Sunday.

Anyone else leave an exam, and then ten minutes later, in their mind, go back to #11 and realize you understood the theory, the entire concept, and answered incorrectly?
I just left my last exam (genetics), and realized I answered that bit about histone deacetylation incorrectly because I indicated mutations in HDAC, not HAT, would increase heterochromatization. I don't expect anyone to get it, but I expect everyone to be angry.

George Bush is a fucking lunatic.
Why, might you ask?
http://www.reuters.c...736443620080308

I'm wondering how others see this, because from where I'm sitting:
1. President sets up a veritable concentration camp in Cuba.
2. Laws are "passed," others are ignored, under the purported threat of another 9/11. These laws allow just about any authority to detain someone indefinitely without charge or arraignment.
3. President invades Iraq.
4. President's subordinates send HUNDREDS of people to Guantanamo Bay (Stats say 775, but is that number really correct? Will we ever know?)
5. President tries to get wiretapping bill passed, but even John Ashcroft balks at this. As a result, Alberto Gonzales visits him in his hospital bed demanding his signature on either a letter of resignation, or on the domestic wiretapping bill, making Gonzales the only person in the world who can make Ashcroft look like a sympathetic character in comparison.
6. President's toady, Karl Rove, in order to divert attention from the wiretapping fiasco, outs Valerie Plame as under a CIA NOC. As a result, the entire administration is seen to be... a joke.
7. In 2006, after Alberto Gonzales takes over the reigns of Justice, eight US attorneys are sacked. Why? Well, one of them was wildly incompetent and shouldn't have been there in the first place. The other seven were prosecuting Republicans for things such as perjury, and corruption. One of them had been cited months earlier as being an inspiration to the US Attorneys Office!
8. Alberto Gonzales, after being "caught" as it were, is then brought before Congress where he.... lies. Repeatedly. And shows off that he really has no clue of what happens in the day to day operation of his department. In other words, he is revealed to be a complete and total quack.
9. Alberto Gonzales then argues that the writ of habeas corpus does not belong to Americans according to the Constitution. Instead, the Constitution really means you can't take it away, but doesn't that mean it's in place to begin with?
10. Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton are subpoenaed to appear before Congress. At the instructions of the President, they ignore this.
11. Alberto Gonzales resigns, and hires a criminal defence attorney who worked for G. H.W. Bush and worked on the Florida ballot recount team!
12. Then waterboarding comes out. The CIA is torturing people in Cuba. Idiots like Nancy Pelosi who don't care to read what is put in front of them don't have much to say except "So what," while people like John McCain, who was tortured, feel that waterboarding everyone should be mandatory. We don't need to get into an argument over what torture is and if it's useful; the fact of the matter is that they simulate drowning, which is torture, both psychological and physical, and they videotaped it.
13. Some lawmakers are appalled, some aren't. Following a long debate, Congress decides this isn't right, and bans waterboarding and torture at Guantanamo Bay, outright.
14. The President ignores this, and vetoes the bill, for "America."
And thus, the story of how Plame-gate, wiretapping, Iraq, and waterboarding are all linked to George Bush's presidential administration, and all of the fateful decisions he's made.
When we're finally safe, will we recognize the America we've built for ourselves atop the shattered ruins of our Constitution and our previous dedication to human rights?
I wonder.