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Ward and June al Cleaver and their two sons, Walli and Beav al Cleaver shown here in their Baghdad home.
The photo above is said to depict the President's vision of "the typical Iraqi family in the "post Saddam era,
by that I mean the era that is after Saddam," the President is reported to have said. The photo was leaked exclusively
to Worldwide Sawdust by an anonymous but highly placed source who told this reporter that "this will be the

Watching congress do whatever it is that they do is like watching my screen saver, a lot of movement, a bit of color, a little cheap entertainment but ultimately a waste of time.

I would like to have 10 percent of the monetary value of the man hours expended by members of the House, the Senate, and their respective staffs that was piled atop the redolent heap of history's wasted gestures in the recent exercise in futility that was the fight over the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill.

Suppliers in China have admitted to adding melamine to animal feed. The FDA
is trying to screen out the additive, which is now blamed for many pet deaths
Associated Press Photo

1st Armored Division Soldiers conduct a combat patrol in Tal Afar, Iraq in their M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.
Photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon

Editors note: The photograph above was taken in February 2006 at a time when Bush was reporting Tall Afar as an Iraqi success story.
I think Bush saw the city as an example of the Iraqi version of "no child left behind."

Appeasing The Gods Of The Shareholders

Twice a week I have a physical therapy session at the Dayton VA Hospital. I had a heart attack last March 15, (beware the ides?) in October they referred me to cardio pulmonary therapy to build me up for whatever years may lie ahead. They have done an excellent job and I am pleased with my future prospects.

I have been treated at the Dayton VA several times over the years, have volunteered there performing Veteran's memorial services as part of an honor guard, and three years ago said good bye to my father who died in the VA hospice at the age of 80.

The midterm election is barely over and the religious far right is already acting out over incoming Minnesota Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison's stated intention to be sworn in using the Koran rather than the Bible.

Ellison, the first member of the Islamic faith to be elected to the United States Congress has served in the Minnesota Legislature. His desire to use the Koran at his swearing-in ceremony has apparently caused great consternation and hand wringing among some of the luminaries of the religious and not so religious right. Fox News' Sean Hannity, famous for making mole hills appear as mountains could not pass up an opportunity to dig in to this nonsensical non issue last week.

His invited guest was a guy named Dennis Prager who I am told has a right wing talk-show in Los Angeles, I envision the type of show that Donald Fagin sang of in "Night Fly."

My fellow Americans

After spending nearly 400 billion dollars ousting Saddam and the Taliban, eradicating al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations and creating a Model for future Middle East Democracies in Iraq, after vastly improving the lives of the Iraqi people by turning on their electricity and water service, creating a safe and secure environment for them to pursue their lives, rebuilding their schools and hospitals and other critical infrastructure and after getting their oil flowing freely to the export markets, to enable their return to national solvency, you might think that they would be grateful.

But no, last week they returned  to their old ways, proving that Iraq is still the center of the axis of evil just as Dick and Rummy and Wolfie and Me and Turd Blossom  have said from the beginning.

Now this is hard work, in other words we've been working hard to defeat the haters, the evil ones, I like to call them the Islamo-fascists. The ones who hate freedom.

We have made good progress, why, some Iraqis are still scrubbing that purple ink off their thumbs and as Dick (I call him Mister President) likes to say, the insurgents were in their last throes, in other words they were like a pitcher in the sixth inning after too many fast balls, their arms were tired. Why you could go out for dinner and a movie almost anywhere in the Green Zone.

As soon as we turned our backs, as soon as we took a deep breath and a well deserved short break before we began taking our American largesse, I like to call it our Great Ship of Freedom, into the desert in Iran and give the Iranites the same opportunities we gave the Iraqis, or the Afghanians or that the Israelians are even now graciously giving to the Lebanalese, the Iraqis struck again.

Just as they did in the days and months leading up to the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11, there they are again, planning and plotting with al Qaeda to bring down dozens of our airliners over the Atlantic.

And, as some uninformed people at that time, I like to call them Democrats, tried to lay a large portion of the blame for 9/11 on the Saudis, many of the same voices are now being raised against them again, along with another of our most stalwart allies in the war on the evil ones, the Pakistanians.

When will these people understand that the Saudis are our friends, why, their fathers and grandfathers went to college with ours in Texas for God's sake, we were associates in the oil business before Saddam did his first contract killing. The Saudis learned the ins and outs of oil exploration and exploitation at the University of Texas studying the magic of the Texas Railroad Commission just as we did. I appreciate the Saudis, they work hard, they're entrepreneurs, like me and Mist... the Vice President.

And the Pakistanians, they're our closest ally in the war on terror, they've been hunting Osama and his henchmen everywhere they aren't for years, just as diligently, just as tirelessly as OJ hunts Nicole's real killer on the golf courses of Florida. They are always just one step behind him. If that guy slips, they'll be on him like a pair of wet Frye boots.

We didn't spend 400 billion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting Islamic Fascism, and building shining pillars of Arab democratic opportunity, and more hundreds of millions in Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin and a score of other good, God fearing, "Red States" protecting truck stops, skating rinks, and petting zoos, to turn around and hurl blame and insults at our friends the Saudis or the Pakistanians. America is true to our friends, in other words we're loyal to the hand that feeds us.

No, the main problem has always been Iraq, they had weapons of mass destruction and proven ties to al Qaeda, and, they tried to kill my Daddy, and now that we've managed to eliminate Saddam and insure that Iraqi oil will stay in the ground for awhile, we face still more dangers with Ahmadinejad in Iran, and his Hezbollah hirelings in Beirut, which is in Lebanon, these are countries with leaders who we know have worked closely with al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and other evil ones.

We have the evidence. The Pre.. Dick showed it to me, in other words, I've seen it. It's being guarded by six Patriotic American Oil Company Executives around the clock. Those guys work hard, they're entrepreneurs too, and they're in Dicks office all the time.

This evidence is highly classified and locked safely in Dick Cheney's office safe next to our secret comprehensive national energy policy, and the secret plan to save social security, right there next to the secret maintenance schedule for the Alaskan Pipeline.

Dicks got all this stuff, Turd Blossom's got a lot of stuff too, I like to call it political capital, and we'll bring it out at the appropriate time, in other words, when it's timely, like in October. Heh,heh.

"Oil Company Expert" Demonstrates Use Of "State Of The Art High Tech Equipment" To Clean Up Oil Spill

The Alaskan Pipeline, or one of BP's feeder lines connecting to it is suddenly so rusty that it has to be shut down indefinitely, causing an instant 8% drop in US production capacity.

This fact translates into an instant and enormous revenue loss for Alaska, and:

The event will be followed by an instant double jump in gas prices and an instant double secret jump in oil company revenues.

Now, I'm not an oil expert, (Beer is my area,) I have never been fond of the flavor of "Crude Light", although I once drank some Old Milwaukee and found it somewhat reminiscent of 10w40 when served stale, at room temperature, in a dirty glass. But I digress.

In a "News" story in The Washington Post this morning"An Estate Tax Twist Reverses Party Roles On Minimum Wage" Staff Writer Jeffrey Birnbaum leads with one of the most disingenuous paragraphs I have read in a major newspaper in awhile:

For years, organized labor has worked hard to raise the minimum wage, while business groups have campaigned to block such a change. This week in the Senate, however, the AFL-CIO is pushing to kill the wage increase while practically the entire business lobby is demanding that it pass.

Perhaps the word disingenuous isn't strong enough, in fact my departed Quaker Grandmother would have said, "why that Jeffrey is full of beans." My equally departed Grandfather would have agreed with her, but not being cut from quite the same Quaker mold as Grandma,he would have differed with her somewhat on the nature of Mr. Birnbaum's stuffing.

Either way the statement is simply untrue and Birnbaum and his employer are, or should be fully aware of the fact.

Either they are trying to follow John Stewart into the "Faux News" genre and making the attempt without benefit of Stewart's wonderful sense of humor and unique talent for satire or they are in Grandma's phrase "full of beans."

The Democrats and the AFL-CIO are not fighting against an increase in the minimum wage at all and the Republicans are not fighting for it, any more than they are fighting for anything else that doesn't directly benefit the top several percent of those they represent.

The Presidency or Regency of George Bush the Lesser is nothing more or less than a vast carefully crafted criminal enterprise.

The Bush Administration and it's extended crime family has taken organized crime from the mean streets and ethnic social clubs of urban America and transferred it high above those meager environs into the steel and glass, leather and mahogany world of the American Corporate boardroom.

The scale of the criminality of the members of this nefarious organization would make the most experienced and successful Mafiosi or Asian or Russian gangster weep with wildly envious frustration.

No criminal organization in history has had the raw and overwhelming economic power, the political clout, the global reach, the enormous public relations network, the military might, the cooperation of law enforcement and the assortment of like minded corrupt compatriots in the church, the press and nearly every institution of society.

The Washington Post this morning ran an article,  "Bellwethers, Eight Issues That Will Shape The 2006 Elections" or one of a series of articles which is indicative of a coming surf tide of newsprint, virtual and otherwise, which will wash up on the shores of our collective consciousness over the next dozen or so weeks.

Predictions about the midterm election will curl whitely and proudly in the air and regularly and rhythmically slap our calm beaches until we are struck silly with predictions, expert opinions, and statistical analyses of the 06 election. The pundits will come at us with all the passionate certitude, the almost messianic zeal, and none of the shyness of hordes of bookies and racing touts, or carnival barkers.

It won't be just from the Post, I can't be unfair to WaPo, (they do their job as well and often better than most), we will be assailed from all sides, flanked left and right and enveloped vertically and horizontally, surrounded front and rear by print media, broadcast media, both, national and international, by columnists, commentators, gossip mongers prognosticators and legions of attractively coifed and clad microphone wielding talking heads.

The famous, the unknown, the long standing and the novice all will join the 06 Autumn Election Assault from the Media Terranian Sea. They will 'splain it to us Lucy.

I heard the first shot of the invasion in the lead in to The Post coverage this morning, it sounded like this:

History suggests, and operatives in both parties agree, that Republicans are virtually certain to lose ground.

The party that holds the White House almost always loses House seats in the midterm elections held in the sixth year of a two-term presidency.

Only once in the past century has that pattern not held.

I think that in order to pump election coverage full of the proper quotient of statistical arcana, editors, during these critical election seasons, throw all the political writers /commentators into the same locked and padded room with the sports writers /casters /commentators, toss in a few dozen counter guys from auto parts chain stores, add a couple of insurance actuaries and you get:

Dammit Mel, you know as well as I do... The party that holds... almost always.... in the sixth year....with the overhead cam... on fuel injected models with men on base.... in late innings... Naugahyde bucket seats... during post season play.

And you can take that to the bank Mel!

I was forced to look this up (thank God and Gore for the Internet) The first problem I ran into was, what is the definition of a two term president; are three term prexys included? And what about those not elected to their first term, who were elected by the Grim Reaper like TR or Harry T, or those who didn't complete a second term due to a severe attack of unpopularity like RMN?

I quickly grew bored with all this research (I always do) and went and washed up ( I got some of that arcana stuff on me) and fixed my lawnmower instead.

The eight points in the Post's Bellwether article are certain to be at the center of the political discussion though, this stuff ain't Rocket Science, hell, it's barely Lawnmower Repair.

Bush Unpopularity

I stopped by yesterday to visit my friend Jane who I wrote about a few days ago in "Class Warfare At Big Flo's Diner, Let Them Eat Hash."

I thought it was her day off. I was wrong.

It was mid afternoon on a steamy Saturday and she was ironing her uniform for work, but she poured me a beer and we sat on her front porch and talked for an hour or so about the article.

She was amazed, as was I, that so many people, hundreds, took the time to comment on our portrayal of her dilemma, and did so, for the most part, in a positive and supportive fashion.

There are a few ironies involved in this story that I didn't report as I felt that they had nothing to do with the "guts" of the story which, I believed, was the rampant and criminal exploitation of the working class, specifically, of my friend Jane, by the criminal class that is corporate America.

The minimum wage battle continues, with unions and workers fighting for an entry level raise for honest American workers that has been denied for nearly a decade while the dispassionate empty suits of business, their lackeys in local and national Chambers of Commerce, and the evil lick spittle minions they have purchased wholesale in our government at all levels, make pious pronouncements about the "marketplace" and the peril of allowing the government to regulate wages.

In the meantime, I've been talking to my friend, Jane.

Jane is a hardworking person, a decent, honest, American citizen, whose children are grown and now, divorced, has found herself forced to stay in the workplace to support the cost of her health insurance.

The Smirking ChimpOn The Stem Cell Veto:

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," Bush said at the White House, following through on his promise to veto the bill. "It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it."

Above Is Life That Is Sacred To The Decider

Below Is Life That He Crushes

By The Tens Of Thousands

He Is, After All,

The Decider

What Will It Take To Rid America Of This Evil?

Can You Hear Me Now?

For the last couple of years whenever the Chowder Head portrayed above has appeared on my TV screen I have instantly reached for the mute button on my TV remote.

I simply cannot stand the sound of the fraudulent bastard's voice anymore, and, having heard and read enough of him during the first few years after his torturous and calamitous appearance on the national scene, I know full well that he will not speak one word of truth nor provide even the smallest morsel of important information.

At this point I am all too aware that he will offer nothing to enlighten or edify, nothing that will come close to inspiration or even mild interest, so I have formed a firm habit of hitting the mute button whenever I see his smirking face invade my screen.