One Year Later, The Anguish Fades, The Pain Doesn't

It's been one year since the most painful, dreadful event I've ever gone through, having to put my sweet cat Jenny to sleep.

Everything I wrote back on that terrible day still bears out with the littlebeast, Jenny was genuinely the sweetest, happiest cat I've ever been lucky enough to be around.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss her terribly, repeatedly.

If the term "soulmate" can be applied to our pets as well as our better-halves, then Jenny truly was my soulmate, she had the ability, through just letting me pet her, to calm me down on rough days and stressful events.

Thankfully, I can remember Jenny with tears of laughter now, not only pain and grief.

GOP Woes Vol. 1-GOP Lobbyist Smacks Lott For Not Wasting Money On GOP

Because, according to one Republican insider, Lott's financial gift to the U of M wasn't a smart use of funds the GOP desperately needs.

Some blame Lott for tough GOP defeat in Mississippi

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Lott created the House opening by opting to leave Congress late last year before tougher lobbying restrictions went into effect. After his departure, Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) was appointed to serve out Lott’s unexpired term, which created the need for the special election to fill Wicker’s seat.

Republicans were irked that Lott would retire early just to serve his own financial interests.
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Lott also bucked his own Mississippi congressional colleagues by supporting Greg Davis, the Southaven mayor and former state legislator who lost to Democrat Travis Childers. The rest of the delegation backed former Tupelo mayor and former Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Chairman Glenn McCullough Jr.
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“Certainly a lot of Republicans are in a bad mood because we’re in the minority and we’ve had this self-inflicted problem in a very important race,” remarked one GOP campaign strategist who works in the Deep South. “Lott chose a candidate with limited general election appeal and I think a lot of people question that.”
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And here's where this post's title is borne out

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One GOP lobbyist on K Street also cited Lott’s $200,000 gift to his alma mater, the University of Mississippi, as contributing to the perception that he’s not doing everything he can to help House Republican reelection efforts. That money, the source said, would have been better spent on contributions to GOP campaigns across the country.
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Now why would Lott want to waste all that money on the clearly-doomed GOP, the same party that rebuked him by removing him from his Senate Majority Leader perch for his remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday?

Besides, it's not as if Lott's the ONLY skinflint in the GOP's Senate wing.

Stingy senators stiff GOP

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Republican senators with millions of dollars in their campaign accounts have given little or nothing to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), despite its desperate pleas for cash funds.

Fewer than 10 Senate Republicans met goals they received for an NRSC fundraiser with President Bush in McLean, Va., Tuesday evening. GOP senators were asked to contribute $100,000 from their campaign accounts or recruit four major donors for the event.
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Republican Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.), Jim Bunning (Ky.), Richard Lugar (Ind.), Pete Domenici (N.M.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Tom Coburn (Okla.), and Larry Craig (Idaho) have given nothing to the NRSC, according to campaign finance data collected by the Federal Election Commission and CQ Money Line, a website that tracks fundraising.
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And according to John Ensign, the GOP Senator tasked with helping the Republicans win Senate races, the miserly Senators are NOT responding to his financial entreaties.

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“We’ve tried fear, we’ve tried positive reward, positive reinforcement, we’ve tried being a little harder on them, we use different things at different times – begging, we beg a lot,” he said.
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And here's what Ensign's begging has gotten the Senate Republicans from Richard Shelby

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Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), who occupies a lucrative fundraising position as ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, has nearly $13 million in his reelection fund. Yet he has given only $15,000 from his leadership PAC to the NRSC.
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At least Shelby's consistent, he favors Govt. on the cheap even with his own party, a group facing a VERY harsh electoral climate.

And it's not like Lott's the ONLY former Republican insider turned lobbyist throwing a wrench in the GOP's legislative efforts.

GOP lobbyists open fire on one of their own

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A gaggle of right-leaning healthcare lobbyists have lashed out at one of their own, blaming a Republican former House Ways and Means Committee aide for assisting Democrats in an attempt to gut an insurance concept conservatives view as the future of healthcare.

Opponents of the Democratic bill have accused the former staffer and current lobbyist, John McManus, of selling out Republican principles by helping the other party weaken a signature conservative policy victory, the creation of tax-free health savings accounts (HSAs), in order to help his client leverage one of its patented products.
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These Republican lawmakers are backed up by a plethora of special interests, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the banking industry to the health insurance industry. Letters decrying the bill and carrying the signatures of at least 40 companies and trade associations landed on Ways and Means Committee members’ desks last week.
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The groups backing the HSA's do NOT put the consumers & patients interests first, so we'll see how well enabling an all-too-often ruthless corporate agenda will play with the voters on Election Day.

There are so many woes hitting the Republicans right now it's absolutely unreal, and these problems are not only always self-inflicted, they're going to tear the GOP apart even worse than the voters will in November.

Such a pity.

(First in a series detailing GOP misfortunes and in-fighting leading up to the November elections.)

Neocons Sense Their Political Downfall

The coming political massacre of the Neocons, and those still, irrationally, sticking with President Bush Jr is showing itself by how so many of the PNAC ilk are now trying to cover up their support, and roles, in enabling the most disastrous President and Administration in US History. In the past, this kind of historical scrubbing and revisionism couldn't be countered effectively, if at all.

Thanks to the internet, that's all changed.

And Exhibit 1 in this respect is Neocon Central, AKA The Project For A New American Century, the group that, more than any other fringe, far-right supporters of Bush Jr, successfully argued for the disastrous invasion & occupation of Iraq.

So, let's take a look at the PNAC site

OOPS!

Looks like there's a problem here, as the only text on the screen is

This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.

Looks like the neocons haven't paid their online bills, whether by design-because they know how unpopular they're about to get with the November elections, and the PNAC is trying to cover it's easy-to-follow tracks-or they feel the financial costs of web access are too expensive, or no longer necessary, in pushing their message.

The PNAC, and others of that ilk, know the less voter attention paid to them and their agendas, the better. Besides, the politicians who share the same views know about these extremist & radical groups, even though most of those politicians constituents probably don't. As long as influential people only-to the extent that's possible-who share the same views, know about & interact with PNAC's members, the more satisfied those neocons are.

But, thanks to something called "research by internet", the neocons PNAC site can still be seen in all its disreputable glory.

Not all the pages listed in the first link come up when clicked, but enough do to make searching around worthwhile

Search Results, 2002-2006

And doing just a little digging around from one page that's works, here's a real gem, one where it takes all sorts of meandering rhetoric to make up for not using the obvious term.

Where's The Word "Draft"?

Take note of everyone who signed the statement, if any of them are given media time for their views, the signers must explain if they're calling for the draft to replenish our over-stretched, under-armored and under-rested troops.

And if not the draft, just how do the more shifty signers envision rebuilding our military?

The PNAC idiots have a double whammy to deal with. They believed that military power alone was sufficient to prop up the US Empire, that those whose lands were occupied by the US military didn't matter, and couldn't do anything to stop the US War Machine.

But insurgents, with no tanks, planes or cannons in their arsenal, have been able to keep our forces bogged down in an untenable situation, a multi-sided conflict between the various factions in Iraq.

The same country which successfully fought the Axis powers in WWII, can't repeat that success in Iraq, a country with a broken military and lack of support to Saddam Hussein, two factors that should have made the Bush Jr policies easier to implement.

As shown by Bush Jr's abysmal leadership, the neocons and their policies are self-defeating in the extreme, which, in turn, has lead to the obvious loss of power, prestige and influence of the US towards those it says it opposes.

Al-Qaeda, Usama bin Laden, Iran and OPEC all have far less reason to fear or respect the US now than before the disastrous Iraq invasion & occupation.

That's the second irony for the neocons. Not only have their policies hastened the downfall of the US Empire they wanted to preserve for themselves, they've also made it far harder for future Administrations to use the military to pursue causes dear to the neocons radical agendas.

The neocons have shown a clear inability to govern sensibly, efficiently or competently. It will take them years to regain any public trust they may have had before the Iraq invasion & occupation.

Whiney, Overly-Hysterical, Thin-Skinned Are The GOP's GOOD Qualities

And if it wasn't the GOP making claims of "stolen" House votes, I'd be crying oceans of bitter tears for the party's travails. This is the reply I left in the article's "comments" section.


Bypass registration with this Bug Me Not link

Special House Committee to Begin Hearing on 'Stolen' Vote in 2007

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"Tomorrow's hearing will begin to pull back the curtain on one of the most shameful chapters of this Congress: a stolen vote on the floor of the United States House of Representatives," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said yesterday.
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Oh, Boehner's NOT talking about the GOP organized & engineered vote on Medicare Part D, the one the Republicans held open for over three hours until they got a vote switched after heavy pressure and outright threats?

If nothing else, as shown by it's fanatical, irrational loyalty to Bush Jr, the GOP has completely destroyed it's most cherished myths, including:

Being strong on fiscal discipline.

Being strong on defense.

Being "supporters" of the US Military.

Being strong on "personal accountability"-unless you're Lewis Libby, then you walk free for helping out a CIA covert agent whose focus was on Iran.

Favors "limited government", except for backing warrantless spying & datamining of US citizens while trying to keep the Executive Branch from well-deserved public hostility at the same time. And voting for federal intervention in the Terri Schiavo case kind of undercuts the "favors limited government" BS as well.

All the Republicans favorite talking points above no longer apply to the federal level GOP, their unreturned loyalty to Bush Jr has completely, permanently and utterly destroyed those now-debunked descriptions.

I'm not a fan of the Democrats-I'm an unaffiliated voter-but the GOP needs to have their noses rubbed in their own arrogant, corrupt, self-defeating messes they've inflicted on the US taxpayers, the next President and the rest of the world, to clean up.

If the GOP had stood up to Bush Jr, or stood for strong Congressional oversight of the Bush Jr Administration, then the party's requests wouldn't be so blatantly self-serving and hypocritical.

Since the Republicans know they're going to get destroyed at the voting booths this November, expect to hear "Strong Congressional Oversight Of The Executive Branch" become a GOP talking point.

Of course, those pushing that Republican meme can't be bothered with strong Congressional oversight of the Bush Jr Administration, but why would the GOP think logical consistency was a quality it's members embody?

When the GOP pushes for full, in-depth investigations into the 2000 & 2004 Presidential elections, only then should the party's claims over this particular House vote be investigated & supported.

The GOP has no moral or logical right to ever bad-mouth anybody else ever again, not after the anti-US, anti-Constitutional, extreme religious-driven agendas the Republicans pushed when they held all the power levers on Capitol Hill.

Slamming His Critics, Not Praising Obama

To help put the following rant in context, there's this bit of drivel from Michael Gerson, one of Bush Jr's former speechwriters. Gerson has the unwarranted gall to tell the supporters of Rev. Wright just how their religious beliefs require them to act.

Bypass registration with this Bug Me Not link

The Perils Of Patronizing

After accusing Obama of "condescension", Gerson decides that the easiest way to escape his black hole of logic is to dig deeper, sinking his own easily-debunked BS further into the muck

Lower-income whites, he argued, "feel their dreams slipping away," and so they turn to resentment against busing and affirmative action, "anger over welfare" and "fears of crime." And Obama not only understands these angry and manipulated souls, he defends them. They should not, after all, be labeled as "misguided" or "racist."

This is the same argument, expressed more bluntly at a San Francisco fundraiser, that Obama made about bitter, small-town Americans who cling to guns and religion. He does not even admit the possibility that these folks might have actual convictions on issues such as affirmative action, welfare, crime, gun ownership or the meaning of the universe. The only thing more insulting than being attacked is being explained.

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Obama's response, I believe, provided a justification for Wright's media campaign to describe black liberation theology. Wright may be a camera-seeking egotist. He is certainly a showman, enjoying his moment. But his main argument seems to be: "No, Barack, I actually hold these theological convictions. You may need to attack me for political reasons. But don't you dare dismiss me as a batty uncle."McCain is now kissing up to the same morally & ethically bankrupt charlatans who slimed his own daughter in the South Carolina primary in 2000, but it's more important for Gerson to irrationally bash Obama.

Because who knows "black liberation theology" more intimately than a white former speech writer for President Bush Jr?

What's that Gerson, you say you need a bigger shovel?

It is a tribute to the power of the Christian message that there is such a thing as African American Christian theology at all. Christianity was the religion held by slave masters -- often distorted into an ideology of oppression. But African Americans found a model of liberation in the Exodus. They discovered that Jesus more closely resembled the beaten and lynched slave than their pious oppressors. And African Americans -- by their courageous assertion of God's universal love and man's universal dignity -- redeemed a nation they had entered in chains.

But for Gerson, THOSE African Americans were somehow unique in their perspective. Apparently, he believes the slaves couldn't possibly be angry about their brutal experiences at the hands of theological thugs. Even better, that "courageous assertions of God's universal love and man's universal dignity" somehow escaped our current President and his war-mongering, bloodthirsty, lunatic neocon backers when it came to dealing with Iraq, which, it's always worth pointing out, had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks which drew the initial US military response against Afghanistan.

It's doubtful Gerson lets Iraqi suffering be the benchmark which "redeemed a nation", be that nation Iraq or the US.

Then again, Gerson does typify an arrogance that's often on display with this Administration, namely the appalling mindset of "it's better to fight them (the terrorists) over there than over here." Just how infuriating must that Administration sentiment be which dictates Iraqi lives, limbs and minds as far more expendable than US lives, limbs & minds.

Why should the Iraqis be grateful to the US for dragging them, unasked, into the US conflict against Usama bin Laden, someone who NEVER set foot in Iraq?

But black liberation theology takes this argument a large step further -- or perhaps backward. The Rev. Wright's intellectual mentor, professor James Cone of Union Theological Seminary, retreats from the universality of Christianity. "Black theology," says Cone, "refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him." And again: "Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy." And again: "In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors."

This emphasis on the structural evil of white America has natural political consequences -- encouraging a belief that American politics is defined by its crimes, a tendency to accept anti-government conspiracy theories about AIDS and drugs, a disturbing openness to anti-American dictators such as Castro and Gaddafi. It explains Wright's description of the Sept. 11 attacks as a "wake-up call" to "white America."

Again, Gerson willfully ignores not only the US invasion and disastrous occupation of Iraq with those two paragraphs, he also ignores any role he played in Iraq's slow-dismemberment. Actions which make the spectacular arrogance of occupying Iraq all the more anger-inducing.

How does Gerson's faith/logic justify staying quiet about US sponsored dictatorships while insisting that strongmen such as Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro must be condemned at every possible opportunity and replaced at the first available opportunity?

Consistency is a quality absent from the Gersons of the world.

And the white Bush Jr speech writer STILL lectures other races about faiths he clearly knows nothing about.

But the deepest flaws in black liberation theology are theological, not political. Jesus did advocate a special concern for the rights and welfare of the poor and helpless. But he specifically rejected a faith defined by social and political struggle, much to the disappointment of his more zealous followers. The early church, in its wrenching decision to include gentiles as equals, explicitly rejected a community defined by ethnicity. No Christian theology that asserts "Jesus is not for all" can be biblical.

Gerson flamboyantly misses the central point about Christ, namely, Jesus never oppressed the poor, the sick, the powerless. Jesus DID get angry at the power structure, or perhaps Gerson never read Matthew 23, in which Christ excoriated the Pharisees and scribes in the temple itself, an example that still has relevance to today's US religious power structure. Accordingly, Jesus is more likely on the side of the slaves and the Iraqis than Gerson and ilk.

Gerson rages against those unwilling to sacrifice their blood, their honor, their treasure for his benefit, so he won't wet himself in terror on a constant basis.

It's a shame the neocon Bush Jr/McCain supporters engineer death, ruin, corruption and misery to keep their terror-fueled, overactive-bladders dry, especially when a simple box of diapers will keep the incontinent Bush Jr/McCain rat-bastard supporters just as dry.

Which brings us to the rant.

(NOTE: The Washington Post allows readers to comment on it's stories, and reading one Bush Jr lackey's fear-based, irrational slam without substance too many got me riled up against the McCain supporters posting fact-hating opinions. My response took the following form, which I didn't post there after all, instead expanding on it with Gerson's latest literary disgrace above.)

How could anyone think someone, like McCain, willing to trash his own daughter in this way-for pure political expediency-is fit in any way to be President?

Of the three candidates, Obama offends me the least, he's far too conciliatory to those who have driven our country into the ground since this President first slithered into the Oval Office-despite clearly losing the popular vote-via unelected, activist judges. The only reason I stick up for Obama at all is because of the totally off the wall hypocrisy shown by the criticism-ESPECIALLY the "elitist" charge-leveled by the McCain/Bush Jr supporters.

But while I may not vote for the Democratic candidate in November, there's absolutely NO way McCain is becoming President. This country despises Bush Jr, and all McCain can offer is more of the same, the same incompetence, corruption, ideology and unearned arrogance on display with Bush Jr and his political/media backers.

With a 71% disapproval rating for Bush Jr, it's obvious the term "bitter" is far closer to the mark than the term "beloved" as it relates to the voters mood.

Anyone supporting Bush Jr's regressive, oppressive, brutal, spiritually bankrupt, hypocritical, cowardly policies has lost the moral right to question anyone else's fitness or character to be President.

If the media insist on still giving air-time to Bush Jr/McCain backers, people who clearly have lost all ability to use logic or common sense, then make sure they have to share that time with critics who are as virulently anti Bush Jr/McCain as that crowd is virulently anti-US Constitution.

It's far past time those who have helped implement and carry out Bush Jr policies be exposed to harsh public ridicule and scorn on a constant basis, and finally shutting up for a change on their part does not even rise to the "least they can do" level to begin apologizing for the damage they've helped Bush Jr inflict on our country, our Constitution, our Military and our standing in the world.

The Bush Jr/McCain lackeys are the real radicals, the real extremists in our society, and they do NOT represent the political, social or religious mainstream in our society.

Case Closed.

The Reality Of "Mission Accomplished"

It's worth noting that NONE of the backers of this disastrous Iraq invasion & occupation have been right about ANYTHING involving Iraq.

They said there were WsMD.

They said there were links between the Saddam Hussein Crime Family, Usama bin Laden and the Sept 11 attacks.

They said the insurgents were a bunch of "dead enders".

They said the US would be welcomed as "liberators", and that we wouldn't be seen, or thought of, as occupiers.

They said the financial hit to the US taxpayers wallets would be minimal, and that Iraqi oil sales would pick up most of the costs.

They labeled those of us against this decision from the start as "unpatriotic", "terrorist supporters", "traitors", "America haters", "Bush haters", "against the troops" and "Saddam sympathizers/lovers".

On every single major aspect of this fiasco, this Administration and it's political & media backers have been 100% wrong.

Not one overly-optimistic, aggressively-naive pre-invasion prediction of post-invasion Iraq by the occupation's supporters has come to pass. The elections which have taken place since "Mission Accomplished" have not brought about a western-style democracy that's at peace with it's neighbors and Israel. Women are now less "free"-thanks to the religious parties & individuals calling the shots in Iraq-than they were under the secular reign of the Hussein regime. Suicide & car bombers, unknown during the Hussein years, are now a daily occurrence. There has been sectarian cleansing of Sunni/Shia mixed-neighborhoods.

Not one major US-financed rebuilding project has come in on time and under budget, if it's been finished at all.

A humanitarian catastrophe of staggering proportions with over 4,000,000 refugees is one result of the Iraq invasion & occupation.

Basic services such as sanitation, power, fuel supplies, security, clean water, medical supplies & facilities and mixed religious neighborhoods are in shorter supply now than during Saddam Hussein's reign.

This Administration oversees torture of Iraqis in the same exact buildings Saddam Hussein used for the same exact reasons, while at the same time locking up tens of thousands of Iraqis without any legal charge pending.

The US military has been battled to quagmire-status by a multi-faceted insurgency, groups which possess no cannons, airplanes, tanks or other heavy weaponry. These same US troops face a nightmare, maddening bureaucracy intent on keeping as tight a financial leash on their medical and psychiatric claims, while also housing injured and traumatized troops in appalling, disgusting conditions and quarters.

Corruption is rampant among US contractors, who are also held immune from any clear wrongdoing & malfeasance they commit against the long-suffering Iraqis.

Iran, kept in check by the Hussein regime, is growing in stature & influence since his overthrow.

All this happened under the direct gaze and policies of this Administration.

I remember just how those of us against this idea from the start had to endure the gloating, unwarranted strutting and unearned arrogance of this Administration, it's bipartisan lackeys and media hacks five years ago.

Of course, compared to what the Iraqis have had to endure (a decades-long brutal dictatorship followed by unchecked carnage), most of us, both for and against this decision, can't claim any real hardship, certainly not the hardship that comes from worrying about family & friends deployed-often more than once-to Iraq.

And with this Administration, withdrawing US troops is seen as a sign of failure, which is why, whether the violence increases or decreases, our military will remain bogged down in Iraq. It's obvious this Administration's only concern now is to pass off it's spectacular incompetence to it's successor.

There is NO overstating the unfathomable damage this President, his Administration and political/media backers have inflicted upon the Iraqis and the US.

All the right groups & individuals have been weakened, while all the wrong groups, regimes and individuals have been strengthened.

That's the real outcome of "Mission Accomplished".