MINISTER OF RANTS

BLACK FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2006?!

Damn it, I can't find it again. I saw some wack prediction based on Biblical bullshit on a Jesus blog. The Thumper forecasts a REALLY bad day for stocks this Friday!

Well, it doesn't matter who said it. Let's all wait with our Kool-Aid for the CRA$H - THIS Friday, 100606, got that?

JE-HE-HE-SUS SAVES!

HAS BOB WOODWARD STOPPED DRINKING THE NEOCON KOOLAID?!

In his latest book, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, slated to hit stores on Oct. 2, Watergate investigative journalist and Washington Post editor Bob Woodward says our troops are getting attacked by insurgents 900 TIMES A WEEK!! CBS News reports that this Sunday on 60 Minutes Woodward's interview with Mike Wallace will reveal:

Insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. "It’s getting to the point now where there are eight-, nine-hundred attacks a week. That's more than 100 a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces," says Woodward.

Woodward also reports that the president and vice president often meet with Henry Kissinger, who was President Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, as an adviser. Says Woodward, "Now what’s Kissinger’s advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply, ‘Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.'" Woodward adds. "This is so fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."

When Mr. Bush had key Republicans to the White House to discuss Iraq, he told them, "I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me."

 

PLEASE wake up Tony Snow & TELL HIM!
How will this situation be IMPROVED by EXTENDING TOURS OF DUTY?!

White House Press Whore Tony Snow says the NIE assessment that Iraq is fueling terrorist recruiting is not what he sees. Tony says al Quaeda's fallin' into disarray. Uh-mmm... What about all the OTHER Islamo-Fascist THUG Militias that have sworn to kill every last one of us stinking infidels? WHO is attacking and killing American troops every 15 minutes? Who is blowing up all the women and kids every day in Iraq. BUSHCO apologists also need a copy of Woodward's book. But, of course -  they don't want to be dissuaded from their litany of comfortable myths...

9/11 is Clinton's fault;

The Iraquagmire is Clinton's fault... and Sean Penn's fault... and all those seditious Retired Generals share the blame;

The US loss in Viet Nam is the New York Times' fault... and Walter Cronkite's fault... and Jane Fonda's...

WOULD JESUS TORTURE?...

CHECK OUT DA REV'S NEW POLL:

WOULD JESUS TORTURE?!

You Decide... The poll is in the far-right column.
(Poll Results after the erectile dysfunction ad at 2 minutes 'til the hour...)

WHY THE HELL NOT KINKY?!... HOW HARD COULD IT BE?!... (UPDATE: SEE COMMENTS)...

Current Texass Governor Rick Perry scored only 34% to Kinky Friedman's 44% in a recent poll by a Midland newspaper.

PLEASE check out the comments after the break.
UPDATE:

I have visited Stop Kinky and I urge readers to seriously examine what is posted there concerning candidate Kinky. I must say I find what is posted disturbing. I'm glad I don't have to vote in Texas this year.

I'm an original fan of Kinky & the Texas Jewboys from the '70s ("They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore") and I find his detective novels extremely entertaining. Kinky has seemed to be a breath of fresh air in the current political climate. I'll continue to follow the race with interest. I hope Kinky's flip-flops and flirtation with the wing-nut fringe are an example of inexperience in the political arena - reminiscent of Jesse Ventura's sometimes bizarre statements in Minnesota.

In particular, I urge potential Texas voters to consider ALL the available information. Voting always calls for critical thinking. Unfortunately, emotions and implicit assumptions often influence voting decisions, even the choice of political affiliation. Partisans may stubbornly discount any information that challenges their preexisting beliefs. Consequently, partisan candidates tend to play to the middle to attract the unaffiliated voters - and the status quo is seldom truly challenged. That's why a candidate such as Kinky Friedman who presents as a true independent occasionally arises to attract a following - especially when the public is eager for meaningful change.

Here's my original post: 

Perry, the Republican, and Carol Strayhorn, the Dem, have amassed huge war che$ts compared to Kinky's grassroots campaign - but the mood in Texass is anti-incumbent. I don't know why - but the well-funded Dem Strayhorn is polling at 17%. Kinky's straightforward, reformist, essentially libertarian platform seems to be catchin' fire with potential voters. He's got the majority of the 18-24 crowd. 

Kinky Friedman, singer-songwriter-novelist, and independent candidate for governor, is a secular Jew who is honest to a fault. He lived in a green trailer on his animal rescue "ranch" for years. (I don't know if that's still the case.) He claims he's "the oldest living Jew in Texas who doesn't own any real estate!" 

Kinky on the campaign trail, recently, exclaimed, "People are breaking our way!"

Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed a bandana and dabbed his sweaty brow. "The governor is hot!" he said.

He will say ONLY what he believes. Could this become a trend?! 

(Photo: Kinky; foreground, Cuddles)

IT COULD TURN OUT TO BE A TREND!

Truth in politics. What will we think of next?

But - Kinky wrote this log ago:

"You come to see what you want to see; you come to see, but you never come to know..."

What's it mean?  It means what the people think it means. I think it's a damn good explanation for the ascendance of Ronald RayGunZap and the gimlet-eyed weasel AKA Commander-In-Chief Bushbaby...  and Jimmy Carter... and Jesse The Body!  (UPDATE:  I no longer urge Texans to vote for OR against Kinky Friedman. I'm a Buckeye. I'll watch and wait and report...)

WHERE DOES THE KINKSTER STAND ON THE ISSUES?

For example, on gay marriage, Kinky says:

"Kinky supports gay marriage and equal rights for homosexuals. He believes that the constitution protects everyone. As he says, "I believe love is bigger than government. And besides, they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us."

Kinky proposes several options that, if implemented, would bring new money into the education budget and improve the state of education in Texas:

* Legalizing casino gambling ("Slots for Tots") to bring in billions per year,

* Closing corporate loopholes so that the 10,000 Texas businesses that are not currently paying taxes will be charged,

* Increasing teacher salaries—currently $6,000 below the national average,

* Establishing a Trust for Texas Heroes program to increase the salaries of teachers, cops, and firefighters through a 1 percent tax on oil and gas produced in Texas

* Outsourcing sports funding to sports companies/retailers, and

* Stopping the practice of "teaching to the test." The TAKS shouldn't be the sole focus of education in Texas.

And more...

"The second amendment is every bit as important as the others. Texans have the right to keep and bear arms, as well as to hunt." 

AND - Kinky (says he) supports a woman's right to choose...

Kinky never played with any of the members of this '60s Texass band...
 

WAR ON TERROR? HAVE WE DECLARED WAR ON SOMEONE?!

(Click on any image to ENLARGE it)

Congress hasn't declared a war on anyone!

On September 12, 2001, Congress should have passed a resolution declaring war on al Qaeda. Under the "one-war-at-a-time" doctrine, the US would have pursued al Qaeda to the last operative and the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden.

"War On Terror" is a rhetorical device - a metaphor that has served BUSHCO's purposes for mounting an invasion of one of the ONLY countries in the region that was NOT a clear and present danger to the US. 

A rational argument can be made that we should have punished or toppled the gummints of Syria and Iran for sponsoring ACTUAL terrorist activities counter to US interests. The US has the MORAL AUTHORITY to attack anyone who has attacked us overtly or covertly. We have the authority to attack these countries - which does NOT necessarily mean we have a MORAL IMPERATIVE for war.

I still view the incursion into Iraq as unnecessary and probably unwarranted. No matter how the administration has spun the reasons for invasion - I don't think they can cut the requirements for their incursion in 2003 to fit the "just war" concept...

 

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 - UNITED WE STOOD...

Americans have seldom been more united in outrage and patriotic fervor than we were by the Attack on America in 2001. President Bush played the tune we could all march to - to strike al Qaeda wherever they may be found and to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan in retaliation for aiding and abetting the enemy.

The problems arose and the unity began to splinter when the focus became scattered. Instead of pursuing and destroying al Qaeda, the mission morphed into reconstruction of the Afghan government into a Jeffersonian democratic republic, a difficult task at best. It was a mission requiring a long-term strategic commitment of troops on the ground in all the areas of Afghanistan where the warlords and heroin distribution network lay dormant, not dead.

Afghans of various political and cultural inclinations needed to be able to count on the security of the American troop presence in order to encourage foreign investment and gradual conversion from a feudal socio-economic model to a modern entrepreneurial model dependent upon a stable central government, a fair regulatory and taxation system and a judiciary separate from but equal to the executive and legislative functions.

The Bush administration manipulated the emotions of the American public following the attack on America. They co-opted the patriotic fervor. Instead of helping the citizenry to define and try to understand the threats to their security and sense of well-being, the administration waged an all-out propaganda campaign to DISTRACT the American public from Osama's gangsta network and the good work to be finished in Afghanistan - in order to mount an offensive against a sovereign nation's brutal, but effective government.

The DISTRACTION interfered with the logical, relevant, important discussions of security within our borders. I won't let this post descend into another anti-Iraquagmire rant about body counts and wasted treasury. My purpose is to recall our unity of pain, outrage a nd resolve on 9/12/01. Unfortunately, it's dissipated, pissed away in the wind by a cabal of liars and opportunists pulling the strings of a gimlet-eyed weasel who thinks he's the leader of the free world...

RIGHT WING NETWORK BEHIND ABC/DISNEY'S 9/11 DECEPTION!

(BTW - The Monday episode will feature a 20-minute "commercial" featuring President Bush. It looks like Rove is implementing Himmler's media playbook...)

Discover the Secret Right-Wing Network
Behind ABC's 9/11 Deception
    By Max Blumenthal - Truth Out

    Friday 08 September 2006

    Less than 72 hours before ABC's "The Path to 9/11" is scheduled to   air, the network is suddenly under siege. On Tuesday, ABC was forced to concede   that "The Path to 9/11" is "a dramatization, not a documentary."   The film deceptively invents scenes to depict former President Bill Clinton's   handling of the Al Qaeda threat.

    Now, ABC claims to be is editing those false sequences to satisfy critics so   the show can go on - even if it still remains a gross distortion of history.   And as it does so, ABC advances the illusion that the deceptive nature of "The   Path to 9/11" is an honest mistake committed by a hardworking but admittedly   fumbling team of well-intentioned Hollywood professionals who wanted nothing   less than to entertain America. But this is another Big Lie.

    In fact, "The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed   propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working   from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network   within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz,   who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in   Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project,   he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by   The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to "transform   Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.

    Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC contracted   David Cunningham as the film's director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood   journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing   evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found   an auxiliary of his father's group called The Film Institute (TFI), which, according   to its mission statement, is "dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution   TO and THROUGH the Film and Televisionindustry." As part of TFI's long-term   strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth With A Mission's "global   training network" in film industry jobs "so that they can begin to   impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out," according to a YWAM   report.

    Last June, Cunningham's TFI announced it was producing its first film, mysteriously   titled "Untitled History Project." "TFI's first project is a   doozy," a newsletter to YWAM members read. "Simply being referred   to as: The Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television   event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk about   great expectations!" (A web edition of the newsletter was mysteriously   deleted yesterday but has been cached on Google at the link above).

    The following month, on July 28, the New York Post reported that ABC was filming   a mini-series "under a shroud of secrecy" about the 9/11 attacks.   "At the moment, ABC officials are calling the miniseries 'Untitled Commission   Report' and producers refer to it as the 'Untitled History Project,'" the   Post noted.

    Early on, Cunningham had recruited a young Iranian-American screenwriter named   Cyrus Nowrasteh to   write the script of his secretive "Untitled" film. Not only is Nowrasteh   an outspoken conservative, he is also a fervent member of the emerging network   of right-wing people burrowing into the film industry with ulterior sectarian   political and religious agendas, like Cunningham.

    Nowrasteh's conservatism was on display when he appeared as a featured speaker   at the Liberty Film Festival (LFF), an annual event founded in 2004 to premier   and promote conservative-themed films supposedly too "politically incorrect"   to gain acceptance at mainstream film festivals. This June, while The Path to   9/11 was being filmed, LFF founders Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo - both   friends of Nowrasteh - announced they were "partnering" with right-wing   activist David Horowitz. Indeed, the 2006 LFF is listed as "A Program of   the David Horowitz Freedom Center."

    Since the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992, Horowitz has labored to create   a network of politically active conservatives in Hollywood. His Hollywood nest   centers around his Wednesday Morning Club, a   weekly meet-and-greet session for Left Coast conservatives that has been graced   with speeches by   the likes of Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens. The   group's headquarters are at the offices of Horowitz's Center for the Study of   Popular Culture, a "think tank" bankrolled for years with millions   by right-wing sugardaddies like eccentric far right billionaire Richard Mellon   Scaife. (Scaife   financed the Arkansas Project, a $2.3 million dirty tricks operation that included   paying sources for   negative stories about Bill Clinton that turned out to be false.)

    With the LFF now under Horowitz's control, his political machine began drumming   up support for Cunningham and Nowrasteh's "Untitled" project, which   finally was revealed in late summer as "The Path to 9/11." Horowitz's   PR blitz began with an August 16 interview with Nowrasteh on his FrontPageMag   webzine. In the interview, Nowrasteh foreshadowed the film's assault on Clinton's   record on fighting terror. "The 9/11 report details the Clinton's administration's   response - or lack of response - to Al Qaeda and how this emboldened Bin Laden   to keep attacking American interests," Nowrasteh told FrontPageMag's Jamie   Glazov. "There simply was no response. Nothing."

    A week later, ABC hosted LFF co-founder Murty and several other conservative   operatives at an advance   screening of The Path to 9/11. (While ABC provided 900 DVDs of the film to conservatives,   Clinton administration officials and objective reviewers from mainstream outlets   were denied them.) Murty returned with a glowing review for FrontPageMag that   emphasized the film's partisan nature. "'The Path to 9/11' is one of the   best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and   conservatives should support   it and promote it as vigorously as possible," Murty wrote. As a result   of the special access granted by ABC, Murty's article was the first published   review of The Path to 9/11, preceding those by the New York Times and LA Times   by more than a week.

    Murty followed her review with a blast email to conservative websites such   as Liberty Post and Free Republic on September 1 urging their readers to throw   their weight behind ABC's mini-series. "Please do everything you can to   spread the word about this excellent miniseries," Murty wrote, "so   that 'The Path to 9/11' gets the highest ratings possible when it airs on September   10 & 11! If this show gets huge ratings, then ABC will be more likely to   produce pro-American movies and TV shows in the future!"

    Murty's efforts were supported by Appuzo, who handles LFF's heavily-trafficked   blog, Libertas. Appuzo was instrumental in marketing The Path to 9/11 to conservatives,   writing in a blog post on September 2, "Make no mistake about what this   film does, among other things: it places the question of the Clinton Administration's   culpability for the 9/11 attacks front and center ... Bravo to Cyrus Nowrasteh   and David   Cunningham for creating this gritty, stylish and gripping piece of entertainment."

    When a group of leading Senate Democrats sent a letter to ABC CEO Robert Iger   urging him to cancel The Path to 9/11 because of its glaring factual errors   and distortions, Apuzzo launched a retaliatory campaign to paint the Democrats   as foes of free speech. "Here at LIBERTAS we urge the public to make noise   over this, and to demand that Democrats back down," he wrote on September   7th. "What is at stake is nothing short of the 1st Amendment."

    At FrontPageMag, Horowitz singled out Nowrasteh as the victim. "The attacks   by former president Bill Clinton, former Clinton Administration officials and   Democratic US senators on Cyrus Nowrasteh's ABC   mini-series "The Path to 9/11" are easily the gravest and most brazen   and damaging governmental attacks on the civil liberties of ordinary Americans   since 9/11," Horowitz declared.

    Now, as discussion grows over the false character of The Path to 9/11, the   right-wing network that brought it to fruition is ratcheting up its PR efforts.   Murty will appear tonight on CNN's Glenn Beck   show and The Situation Room, according to Libertas in order to respond to "the   major disinformation campaign now being run by Democrats to block the truth   about what actually happened during the Clinton years."

    While this network claims its success and postures as the true victims, the   ABC network suffers a PR catastrophe. It's almost as though it was complacent   about an attack on its reputation by a band of political terrorists.

(When can we expect to see the movie blaming Clinton for the failure of the Iraq War?!?)

"PATH TO 911" A COMEDY... A "DRAMATIZATION" AS TOLD TO THE SLEAZEY MEDIA WHORES @ DISNEY/ABC BY A BUNCH OF LYING WING-NUTS!

STOP IT! SIGN THE PETITION!

Harvey Keitel spoke out on Showbiz Tonight about the controversy DISNEY/ABC’s COMEDY "Path to 9/11" has caused.

Keitel who stars in the “dramatization” said:

Yeah, I had questions about events – material I was given in the Path to 9/11 that I did raise questions about. Yes, I had some conflicts there… When I received the script it said “ABC history project” – I took it to be exactly what they presented to me. History… It turned out not all the facts were correct…

Showbiz Tonight Q: Do you feel that anything should be changed in this film?

Yes I do. This is a tough issue.– (sure) You can compile certain things as long as the truth remains the truth. You can’t put things together, compress them and then distort the reality.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey and

Clinton

adviser Douglas Band wrote in the past week to Robert Iger, CEO of ABC's parent The Walt Disney

Co.

, to express concern over the COMEDY "The Path to 9/11."

JUST STOP IT!! SIGN THE PETITION!

Questionable things about DISNEY/ABC's COMEDY "Path to 9/11" from Jake Novak...

*Secretary of State Madeline Albright is being played by Lindsay Lohan.
*Obnoxious laugh track plays every time Osama bin Laden appears on camera.
*Plot makes less sense than the first season of "Lost"…
*It's sponsored by HALLIBURTON!

SIGN THE PETITION! (Don't make me come over there!!)


SAINT CLINTON!
He felt your pain.
Now you can bring Saint Clinton into your home.

CALLING THEM ISLAMO-FASCISTS?!... BLAME IT ON MONOTHEISM...

CALL 'EM WHAT YOU WILL...
Y' gotta differentiate 'em in the public mind from all the OTHER MUSLIMS!

I realize that the term Islamo-Fascism has been co-opted by the neo-cons, BUSHCO, and other apologists for the War for Empire , Oil and Corporate Interests – and it is applied by SOME in a cavalier manner that unfairly characterizes one of the three Abrahamic religions - but, damn it, I haven’t been able to coin or discover a BETTER term than Islamo-Fascism that aptly describes the violent Islamic forces arrayed against the West AND the world.

We all worried about the safety of the brilliant writer Salman Rushdie who was forced underground by the official pronouncement of a death sentence by the Ayatollah because of perceived “blasphemy” against the Prophet and Islam. In The Netherlands, documentary filmmaker Theo Van Gogh lost his life for making a film about Islam. There were calls for death for artists who dared to depict the Prophet Muhammad in editorial cartoons in Denmark.

I find the wishy-washy approach to the issue of violent and intolerant Islam by some critics on the left naïve, if not irresponsible. Extremist Islam is more than a phantom created by the neo-cons and BUSHCO as an expedient bogeyman to frighten the electorate and gain support for increased military spending and foreign adventures.

This is not to say that Islamic peoples all over the world are not diverse and even involved in various movements to REFORM Islam – such as feminist movements and youth organizations in Western countries. My focus is not on Islam, but the imminent threat to world peace and to our Western Civilization from Islamists (the academic term for Islamic extremists). They are a few powerful and wealthy groups that are using a perverted interpretation of the Qu’ran, the history of exploitation of the Middle East by Western countries in the 20^th Century AND the unpopular 3-year occupation of Iraq to recruit larger numbers of adherents. Their oft-reiterated goal is global jihad, not merely proselytizing to win converts to Islam, but the subjugation of every nation to the oppressive Laws of Sharia – which are believed by adherents to be divinely ordained, concrete and timeless for all relevant situations.

Islam has a history as a violent, intolerant, oppressive religion that was spread at the tip of the sword, riding on the backs of horses that poured out of Arabia. The same may be said be of other religions, Christianity in particular, but Christianity and Judaism reformed. With few exceptions, Christians, Jews and others don’t follow ancient laws and customs as directed “by God” as most Muslims feel obliged to do. For example, Islam today is the only religion that has Apostasy as crime worthy of capital punishment!

Like Christianity, Islam is aggressively proselytizing religion - intent on converting the whole world into Islam and reconstituting the Caliphate. Extremist Islam is at war with EVERYONE - not just the West. Everywhere non-Muslims and Muslims come into contact, there’s strife. Why is that? The answer is - Islam needs REFORMATION or it’ll continue to react violently to a world where the modernists accept socio-cultural change, diversity and personal freedoms.



BLAME IT ON MONOTHEISM...

For purposes of this discussion – monotheism refers to the three Abrahamic religions. Ahh, there's the rub! Belief in The One True God promotes single-mindedness, obsession, totalitarianism, and conflict.

On top of that - Islam is rooted in a part of the world that rejects modernism (while embracing Western tools and technology). The governments and the religious dictators of the Islamic peoples continue to resist political and economic changes that have propelled the Western world to such an advanced sphere of global influence, as well as unprecedented levels of individual autonomy and broad distribution of material wealth as a reward for work.

The one thing that the fundamentalists fear and vehemently oppose is individual freedom, including the constitutional cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution - separation of religion and government. Islam needs to go through an Enlightenment!

 

"YOU'RE EITHER WITH US - OR YOU'RE WITH THE TERRORISTS..." - CRITICISM OF THE PRESIDENT - DURING WAR?!

PRESIDENT TEDDY ROOSEVELT - our SECOND-GREATEST Republican President - in an editorial he wrote for the "Kansas City Star" during World War I:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

"BULLY!"

"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star" - May 7, 1918