A Congressional Barbeque

Congressman Robert Wexler grills Condiliesalot Rice.

The lieing, shoe-shopping ditz continues with the Bush Doctrine of Smoke, Mirrors, and Bald-faced Lies.




And, yes, she DOES wear jack-boots............but they're Ferragamos.

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"Bush doctrine: The president as commander in chief can do whatever he wants regardless of Congress"

simply put...

[T]he Bush doctrine: The president as commander in chief can do whatever he wants regardless of Congress. There must be no checks and balances, no accountability. There must be no disclosure to other branches of government, whether legislative or judicial. Oral findings, or, if necessary, secret memos, make the illegal legal merely by saying they are legal in the name of presidential authority. The operational need to know determines who knows.

i don't think dick cheney or david addington would disagree...

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The Bear is waking up

I'm not talkin' 'bout Yogi Bear, either. I've posted on this sort of thing many times. The International Herald Tribune confirms my fears.

A mystery in Beijing: Who runs the military?

BEIJING: As China converts its growing economic power into military muscle, a lack of transparency and a habit of secrecy pose formidable challenges in assessing the country's long-term ambitions, according to defense experts.For foreign governments and analysts monitoring the Chinese military, one of the biggest mysteries is who is actually in charge.

Nominally, President Hu Jintao, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, the top military command body, is head of the armed forces, but there is considerable doubt among experts about the extent of the authority that he and his fellow civilian leaders exert over the 2.3 million-strong People's Liberation Army.

[...]

In addition to defending Chinese territory, most Chinese and foreign analysts agree that Beijing aims to build a force capable of enforcing its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan.

But China's current thinking about when force is justified or what perceived threats are driving its accumulation of firepower remains unclear for most foreign governments and analysts.

Some foreign military analysts believe that there is now considerable debate under way in the Chinese military about the role of pre-emptive force in some circumstances including the use of nuclear weapons.

If and when we strike Iran with tactical nuclear weapons; it will set precedent and give China the international green light for pre-emtive nuclear strikes. On what grounds will we have to complain?

The Bush administration has repeatedly complained about this lack of transparency and called for increased military exchanges with Beijing. "The outside world has limited knowledge of the motivations, decision making and key capabilities supporting China's military modernization," the Pentagon said in its annual report on China's military power released late last month. "China's leaders have yet to explain adequately the purposes or desired end-states of the PLA's expanding military capabilities."

Well, Duuuuuuhhhhh!!!! Bush has yet to explain adequately the purpose of ours. This attitude of, 'Do what I say, not as I do' bullsh*t has got to stop. It is absurd, ludicrous, and down-right farcical, for the Bush Administration to complain about a 'lack of transparency'. In addition to that, he is sending out the signal, that, "If you've got Nukes, we'll talk to you". What better incentive could we provide to the smaller nations?

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The Chickenhawk-in-Chief Speaks!

Date: June 5, 2007 Location: Prague, Czech Republic

The most powerful weapon in the struggle against extremism is not bullets or bombs -- it is the universal appeal of freedom. Freedom is the design of our Maker, and the longing of every soul. Freedom is the best way to unleash the creativity and economic potential of a nation. Freedom is the only ordering of a society that leads to justice. And human freedom is the only way to achieve human rights.

Expanding freedom is more than a moral imperative -- it is the only realistic way to protect our people in the long run. Years ago, Andrei Sakharov warned that a country that does not respect the rights of its own people will not respond to the rights of its neighbors. History proves him right. Governments accountable to their people do not attack each other. Democracies address problems through the political process, instead of blaming outside scapegoats. Young people who can disagree openly with their leaders are less likely to adopt violent ideologies. And nations that commit to freedom for their people will not support extremists -- they will join in defeating them.

For all these reasons, the United States is committed to the advance of freedom and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. (Applause.) And we have a historic objective in view. In my second inaugural address, I pledged America to the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. Some have said that qualifies me as a "dissident president." If standing for liberty in the world makes me a dissident, I wear that title with pride.

From Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

From the Yurica Report

What Did Mr. Bush’s 2nd Inaugural Address Really Mean?

Biblical Code Unraveled

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Opposed to Bush? "The rule of law is out the window. Wild West hangin' justice is in."

bush and his criminal compadres present themselves as the saviors of the american people, protecting us from the horrors of global "terrorism," which, if not confronted at exorbitant financial and human cost in iraq, will cross the ocean and attack us on our homeland... sadly, far too many people in the united states have swallowed this nonsense, hook, line and sinker, without stopping to consider that the fight is not between u.s. citizens and "terrorists..." rather, it is between those who support vs. those who resist the interests of the bush family and its highly interconnected networks of money and power... no one has documented this better than robert parry... what follows are the four paragraphs introducing parry's latest post on his consortium news, chronicling the staggering hypocrisy of george w. bush in the context of the recently released anti-castro terrorist, luis posada carriles...

George W. Bush likes to present the “war on terror” as a clear-cut moral crusade in which evildoers who kill innocent civilians must be brought harshly to justice, along with the leaders of countries that harbor terrorists. There are no grays, only blacks and whites.

But evenhanded justice is not the true core principle of the Bush Doctrine. The real consistency is hypocrisy: violence which Bush favors – no matter how wanton the slaughter of innocents – is justifiable, while violence that goes against Bush’s interests – even an insurgency against a foreign military occupation – must be punished without remorse as “terrorism.”

In other words, if Bush hates the perpetrators, they are locked up indefinitely without charge and, at his discretion, can be subjected to “alternative interrogation techniques,” what most of the world considers torture. The rule of law is out the window. Wild West hangin' justice is in. Even the ancient fair trial right of habeas corpus is discarded.

However, when the killers of civilians are on Bush’s side, they get the full panoply of legal protections – and every benefit of the doubt. Under this Bush double standard, therefore, right-wing Cuban terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, though implicated in a string of murderous attacks on civilians, get the see-no-evil treatment.

parry's conclusion is stark...

[T]he Bush family regards terrorism – defined as killing civilians for a political reason – as justified or at least tolerable in cases when their interests match those of the terrorists.

Terrorism is only a moral evil to the Bushes when the violence against civilians clashes with the Bush family’s interests.

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