Why is it that more compromised W becomes, the less capable he becomes of compromise?

Last winter, when millions of Americans said they'd support our troops, they weren't expecting they'd have to do it six people at a time.

"Operation Iron Hammer" is the name the US military has given its new crackdown on Iraqi insurgents. Excuse me, but aren't hammers supposed to be made of steel?

Then again, if you can build a rationale for war from fluff and create a quagmire from desert, why not make a hammer from iron?

Nazis originally coined the term "Operation Iron Hammer."          It was used in a campaign meant to smash the USSR. So the Pentagon has chosen not just a stupid name but a fascist, losing, stupid name. So maybe it is appropriate. (According to MSNBC's website: ''Eisenhammer,'' the German for ''iron hammer,'' was a Luftwaffe code name for a plan to destroy Soviet [power] generating plants in the Moscow and Gorky areas in 1943.")        

"Operation Rubber Hammer" would be more appropriate because the policy will undoubtedly bounce back and smash Bush in the nose.

"Operation Ironhead" would be a good name for the court-appointed Bush administration's foreign policy initiatives. Like iron, the initiatives are soft yet dense.

Senior citizens are often forgotten in our society but the AARP          is boldly demonstrating the elderly's influence by using its collective wealth and strength to sell seniors out by supporting the hideous prescription drug bill.  

Considering its support for the Medicare prescription drug scam (which will further engorge Big Pharma and the health protection rackets --aka/health insurance conglomerates--by fleecing the elderly and all taxpayers) "AARP" now stands for "American Association of Republican's Patsies."

The AARP is a great organization to join if you don't have the time to give your address to direct marketing firms that target oft-vulnerable seniors.

Price supports are one thing. This bill creates LIST price supports.

Here's what the Medicare prescription scam says: Let's lock in these artificially inflated prices before they have a chance to be driven down by sanity and competition.

Let's take the vast purchasing power of the federal government and use it to buy vacation homes for corrupt corporate officials rather than crucial medicine for elderly people on fixed incomes.

And let's make sure that the poorest old people are the first to be unable to afford life-extending drugs. Now there's an easy way to reduce the number of Democrats.

The AAARP's ads in support of this scurrilous bill admit, "It's not a perfect plan." Right -- a perfect plan would have Social Security checks direct-deposited in the Republican National Committee's bank account.  

This bill forces seniors to make their prescription purchases through private insurance plans. Conveniently enough, the AARP offers just such coverage. Kind of takes the mystery out of why an organization that is supposed to be a progressive advocate for seniors is suddenly operating like a heartless corporation. It also explains why its top official has the title "CEO."

At this rate, the AARP will soon come out in support making Social Security a workfare program.

It's time for AARP CEO (and Newt Gingrich crony) William Novelli to become an American retired person.

Considering the jingoism at the center of its bluster, Republican NATIONALIST Committee is more like it.

Bush recently stated that he wants to outlaw torture. He could take a big step in that direction by never again attempting to pronounce the word "nuclear."

He could take a bigger step by refraining from retrofitting his rationales for attacking Iraq because such rationalizations cannot be made without the torture of logic.

He could take the biggest step of all by resigning his stolen presidency.              Hundreds of millions would be released from the torture of knowing he sits in the Oval Office.

Bush looked so reverent when they played "God Save the Queen" at the state dinner at Buckingham Palace because he thought the anthem was in honor of J. Edgar Hoover.

Considering how much Tony Blair has been a Bush lapdog, W's British trip should have been called a "51st state" visit.


Britain almost brought its troops home from Iraq this week - to provide the additional security necessitated by the visit of the court-appointed prez.

Not since the buzz bomb has England had such an unpleasant guest.

Too bad Edward R. Murrow is no longer with us. He'd have been perfect to cover Bush's visit. "This is London. And this... is pitiful."

Bush refused to address Parliament -- but only because his people hadn't had time to buy it. When the chapter about the George W. Bush era is written, it will be labeled: A New Low.

W is considering a quick turnover of power to Iraqis in Iraq in hopes of precluding a quick turnover of power to Democrats in Washington.

The Miami police have employed strong-arm tactics against globalization protesters. Florida officials take a dim view of anyone who demonstrates political views outside of an easily overlooked ballot box.  

It is advisable to drink bottled water -- especially since most municipal water supplies have been fouled by all the plastic plants that have sprung up to make water bottles.

It was outrageous that the cancelled CBS miniseries implied that Nancy & Ronald Reagan spoke ill of gays. They didn't speak ill of gays, they just shook them down for Nancy's wardrobe.
W keeps saying "We'll stay in Iraq until the job is done." Just how long it will take to transfer the Treasury to court-appointed Bush Administration cronies and pump the contents of Iraq's oil fields into a few Texan's off-shore accounts is unclear -- but as soon as those things happen, the job will be done!

There is more sincerity and truth in ten minutes of a Home Shopping Network jewelry special than was seen on C-Span 2 during last week's Republican Senate Jurisimprudencathon.  

Nice job by the Supreme Court when it refused to hear the idiotic case of the would-be carvers of the Ten Commandments into courthouses.              Thou shalt give it a rest.

That is the first time I have ever written the phrase, "nice job by the Supreme Court." I must be mellowing.  

Rush Limbaugh assiduously asserts he wasn't involved in laundering the vast amounts of money he paid to drug dealers for his hillbilly heroin habit. Like any good Republican he sent his money out to be laundered.  

Was there anything more disgusting than the scene of all those white men helping Bush sign the new restrictive abortion bill?  

You know what  those guys were doing? Whispering to W, "Make a 'G.' No a 'big' G."
They all looked like they had had partial brain abortions.

What a surprise, eight powerful white guys decided that they care more about the well being of an embryo than that of a woman!

So-called "partial birth abortions" (a political and intentionally vague term) are very rare procedures, generally employed to save a woman's life or health or because it has become obvious that the fetus will suffer from extreme birth defects. It seems "choice" might be a good option to leave available in such cases.  

To listen to the pie-eyed, anti-choice moralists, you'd think it's a procedure used by millions of woman too busy with Satan -worshipping and promiscuous behavior to have an abortion performed during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Bush thinks "Pro-Choice" is a company that makes baseball caps.
You wear them on your Ironhead.

**********

Screed section.....

Get Out!

Not one of the recent dozens of deaths or hundreds of grievous injuries suffered by US troops in Iraq make the hundreds of deaths or thousands of grievous injuries suffered by Americans in the previous months in Bush's needless war any more sane or justifiable. (Which is not to mention the exponentially larger Iraqi casualty totals, a practice apparently outlawed in US media). Get out Bush. Get out now. Stop slaughtering innocents on the pagan altar of your Reptilican brain. You are wrong, this is a disaster and your horrible legacy is so damned far down the tubes that it is now actually lower than Karl Rove's motives. ******* Invest Wisely

Considering the latest avalanche of news about mutual fund scams and currency fraud perhaps Americans will finally decide that the best way to make a living is to work for that living  rather than attempt to get rich quick by investing in institutions that are designed to rip off workers and retirees. (Ever notice how the stock prices leap when companies layoff measurable portions of their employees? How are such corporations  good "long-term investments" for anyone dependent on a paycheck?) Many corporations are thriving because of the glut of virtual slave labor that globalization provides. It has removed boundaries for profiteering while building economic dungeons for workers.

We need to remember that all investments aren't literally economic. For instance: we must invest our time to organize and stand with fellow workers against an ever-growing gang of robber barons and their rape of our economies. We must also get over the foolishly nationalistic (redundancy noted) belief that we can solve all of our problems by simply "buying American." We must make an effort to invest our purchasing dollars in companies that treat their workers well -- whether it means the products are made in the USA or Brazil, in Sweden or Japan, in Mexico or South Africa. It means that when Wal-Mart makes the brazen attempt to put their competition out of business by charging less than wholesale prices for the most popular Christmas toys, we must either demonstrate the will power to only purchase the items upon which they are intentionally losing money, or better yet, never walk into Wal-mart in the first place. After all, the most popular toys are probably just plastic crap made by exploited workers.

If we can't be in Miami in person over the next several days to join protesters in a stand against the madness of globalization, we can be there with them in solidarity by vowing to end our collaboration with the forces of economic evil in our workplaces and our marketplaces. This will require us to become better fellow workers and wiser consumers. These are two investments that will surely pay dividends that result in the best deal of all -- a more just world.

*******        Putting Michael Jackson in his place-- at the end of a discussion of larger news stories. ( Warning: This is even more of an opinion piece than I usually write.) First a joke to loosen you up: Michael Jackson's new release Number 1 is selling like Number 2.

And now, turning to the screed... I don't much like cops or DA's. I don't like the inanity of media priorities that allowed Michael Jackson's arrest on child molestation charges to garner more airtime than the Turkish terrorist attacks, the massive British protests, the latest Wall Street scandal, the Quagmire in Iraq and the Republican energy and Medicare scams put together. I also don't like an awful lot of nasty things I have heard said about Jackson's alleged victim, an at-the-time pre-adolescent terminal cancer patient. The kid is now miraculously in remission. Jackson takes credit for this --others may think the child survived because his story needed to be told. Pedophiles are devious people and it takes a devious person to realize that dead children tell no tales. Sadly, I feel Michael Jackson is capable of  drawing just such an evil conclusion. Jackson, the world's ultimate consumer, always tells us how much he cares for children. Well if he cared so much about kids he'd do less conspicuous consumption and more constructive charity. The next time he feels like taking a multimillion-dollar shopping spree perhaps he should consider buying back the water rights for a small African nation that's been forced to privatize the precious commodity by IMF loan-sharks instead. That would surely help lots of children. I fear the sad truth is that Michael Jackson only cares about kids he can get his hands on. If this means he has to make occasional grandstand plays on behalf of other children, well that's just an operating expense.

The self-proclaimed King of Pop is about as dangerous as someone can get, at least someone without an army: he's a pedophile with an unlimited budget. Face reality, an adult who adds an amusement park and zoo to his fortress/compound that's replete with a hidden passage between the master bedroom and the "Shirley Temple" room is flaunting a predilection for preying upon youth. Besides, innocent people rarely pay eight-figure settlements to families of children to silence them and persuade them to drop criminal and civil child sexual abuse cases. MJ did just that in 1993. Now Jackson says he can't wait to fight these latest charges. I figure his sudden lust for jurisprudence was discovered when he realized that this time he can't muffle a child's cry with a large enough pile of dough.

Michael Jackson needs to be segregated from children -- not from justice and the rest of the world behind the gates of his creepy Neverland Ranch. I'd be perfectly happy if this segregation came by way of confinement in a facility for the criminally insane. Few could argue that this sad and damaged individual isn't eligible for a scholarship to such an institution.

If you'll forgive a metaphorically-necessitated roundabout acknowledgement of a spirit world, Jackson proves that Satan is a wimp. George W. Bush corroborates this truth. Perhaps W will someday face the accountability that now stalks Jackson. Now that the die is cast, we don't need is OJ-level MJ coverage and speculation as the case unfolds. Such focus would take the media off several pressing stories, all of which will embarrass Satan/wimp Bush.

Still, we mustn't downgrade the seriousness of the case against Jackson because of our disgust with the media swarm. We must let the media know that we understand that Jackson's story won't be told until a judge or jury speaks and that we can wait for that result. We've got to hold the media accountable for covering the larger story of the court-appointed Bush administration's molestation of human rights, the environment and our very way of life. Such editorial scrutiny will only help kids. Goodness knows that cutbacks in human services necessitated by Bush giveaways to the ultra-wealthy have made the USA a more dangerous place for children. The further misappropriation of our national treasury for an insane war and a "rebuilding project" -- that will do a lot more good for Houston's economy than it ever will for Baghdad's -- is making the world  still less safe for children. How many cases of domestic child abuse will be overlooked because we have committed nearly $200 billion to a cause that has orphaned, maimed and killed thousands of Iraqi children? How many bad cases will be made against innocent adults by child protective agencies simply because workers are as overwhelmed and overworked as a national guardsman on his thirteenth month of active duty overseas? One such case would be way too many and there are surely have been more than that.

Michael Jackson's story is important because it demonstrates how a society in denial about the abuse of children will let the perpetrators of crimes against children hide in the brightest of spotlights. It is that same propensity for denial that allows a measurable portion of Americans to delude themselves into believing that the crimes committed by the court-appointed Bush administration-- at the center of the global stage -- are actually acts of bold leadership and great patriotism. Bush's story is much bigger and more important than Jackson's but both situations cry for justice.