Music Video - "Get Out of Iraq: Impeach"

I usually don't post videos, but this one is catchy. The music may not be to everyone's taste, but the message is clear. Enjoy!

Florida To Get Paper Ballots - Fair Elections A Little Too Late

So finally the folks in Florida figured out that they have problems with their voting machines. Well that’s not exactly fair, they figured that out in 2000 with the whole hanging chad fiasco, but now they got the touch screen machines. Guess what? They are error prone and easily rigged.

Sooooo. Now that Jeb Bush is out of office, Florida Governor Charlie Crist says the state need paper ballots. Wow! A politician wanting fair elections in Florida? Things must be changing. Pity they weren’t around in 2000. Had the election then been fair we wouldn’t be in Iraq and the world would be a safer place.

Laura & George Again - Trial Separation?

Like the ubiquitous Bat Boy, the tale of Laura and George's marital problems have become the latest fodder for the tabloids again. As I walked through the supermarket my eye was caught by the headline, "Trial Separation". According to the Globe Magazine, Laura and George have agreed to a one month trial separation. After that who knows?

Again, I take this with a big helping of salt. The real story is that it seems that middle America is now ready to believe that the President's life is the stuff of scandals, and that speaks volumes.

This story keeps resurfacing and I am beginning to wonder if there may be a little smidgen of truth somewhere in it.

Lesbians Register In Mexico's 1st Gay Union

It’s a sad day when our neighbor to the south, Mexico grants more rights to its gay and lesbian citizens that our own country. Of course it’s been a sad day here since Canada legalized marriage between same-sex couples, but that’s another story.

31 states in Mexico grant civil union privileges to same-sex couples, and here in the USA, only a handful recognize the right of gay and lesbians to have their unions recognized by the government.

Yesterday a lesbian couple in Saltillo tied the knot to be the first same-sex couple in Mexico to do so. Who knows, this may start a wave of migration by gay and lesbian Americans to Mexico?

Bomb Scare As PR Stunt? Bad Idea!

Sometimes I have to wonder if people involved in PR even watch the news. The folks at Cartoon Network take the prize for being out of touch with reality. Being a network devoted to animated escapades this shouldn’t surprise me!

Some rocket scientist in their PR department decided placing little electronic gadgets all over Boston and apparently some other cities with blinking LEDs was a great way to promote their new show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". Now let’s do the logic. We live in a paranoid country that jails people for simply saying the word "bomb", and you are going to put gadgets that to the untrained eye could resemble bombs all over big cities? Yea, that will be great PR!

Well guess what? Boston went on red alert for a day, with bomb squads running too and fro and the citizens scared shitless. I suspect the creators of this stunt will be charged with some crime and sent off to Gitmo. In this case, I think that is a good idea. Idiots like these, especially PR people whose very existence is of questionable use to humanity anyway, need to be taken off the street and locked away. Next thing you know, someone will start sending out guys with fake guns to hide on the tops of buildings to promote CSI or some other crime soap opera.

In reality, these geniuses will probably be given jobs in the Bush administration in charge of misinformation and propaganda. After all a scared populace is more malliable.

Molly Ivins, Proud Liberal, Dies At 62

In my mothers vernacular Molly Ivins was an SOB. That stood for "Salty Old Broad". It was the highest compliment my mom could pay anyone, and that was why Molly was her favorite journalist. Molly didn’t put up with fools and she called it like she saw it.

Molly lost very few battles in her life, but today she succumbed to cancer. Molly’s wit and candor will be sorely missed in Texas journalism. Texas will have one fewer voice of sanity after today, and that makes me very sad. Last year we lost another SOB, Governor Ann Richards, a woman cut from the same cloth as Molly. I just hope their legacy will inspire a few dozen writers to speak truth to power. This state needs all of that we can get.

In her last column, on January 12, Molly wrote:

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single
day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help
stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look
ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of
there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge.

Army Investigates Abu Ghraib Gang Rapes By US Soldiers

Just when you though the Iraq war couldn't get any stranger we have this latest atrocity that appeared on YouTube. Soldiers taped an interview of a guard at Abu Ghraib who told of selling female prisoners for sex at $50 a pop. In a quote from the video the unnamed soldier says of the man who was pimping the girls out, "I think at the end of the day he'd made like 500 bucks before she hung herself."

Great PR! Sounds so much like Vietnam I am getting chills. The video was pulled from YouTube and the Army is investigating its authenticity. Until then it is online here at IraqSloger.

Bush Guts Privacy - FBI Snooping On All Internet Communications

Bush is moving at full speed to consolidate power and now has pushed the FBI into a surveillance program like the NSA wiretap program. No communication is private anymore with this plan. The FBI can look at anything you do or write online without warrants. It is a wholesale sweep of digital communications with no particular target in mind.

Next will be the clamp down on media. That is a dire prediction, but Bush seems to be moving full speed ahead to consolidate power before anyone can throw him out of office.

Bush Guts Federal Oversight - Another Executive Order

In a further move toward complete dictatorial powers, President Bush issued an Executive Order yesterday that gives him complete control over all regulatory offices. The directive states that a political appointee must head regulatory offices that have previously been headed by scientists and civil servants.

This move is obviously an attempt to further consolidate power and put a lock on the government by the Bush administration. It effectively expands the powers of the President and is unprecedented in US History.

This should be another warning of Bush’s intentions to become an absolute ruler without accountability or opposition. Imagine how the FCC will issue broadcast licenses with a political appointee at the head. Imagine how the FDA will change the approval process of new drugs with a political appointee as head. Imagine how the EPA will deregulate industry with a political appointee as head.

Bush is once again playing the role of Queen Evileen in the musical "The Wiz". "Don’t nobody bring me no bad news!"

Time to send him really bad news. Impeach him now before we no longer have the option.

Bush Divorce Story Back In The Tabloids

Last December the Globe Magazine, legendary supermarket tabloid featured the First Family on the cover with the shocking headline about an impending divorce for Laura and George. This week there was another cover with a similar story. Now I know that these scandal sheets make things up, or at least blow little details out of proportion, but it does show the mood of the country when scandals about Bush are big sellers at the supermarket checkout.

That means Middle-America is willing to consider that Bush is not the Godlike figure he presents, and also signals a disillusionment with his persona and I would assert his policies as well.

(The cover shown is from last December.)

The Real John McCain - New Video On YouTube

Finally someone is using YouTube for a good cause. Exposing the real John McCain is the latest project of Brave New Films, a socially responsible online film company that is changing the way documentaries are made.

Watch it here, and if you had any notions of John McCain being a moderate, think again! He is a wolf in sheep's clothing and as I have blogged before has made a deal with the GOP devils to be the next candidate.

His duplicity and lies rival Bush's and he comes off as a complete media whore.

Kucinich Warns Bush Of Impeachment

Dennis Kucinich has never done much to excite me as far as a presidential candidate, but his statement yesterday about Bush’s being "up to his old tricks" really got my attention. He used the "I" word, and that was a first. Could the Democratic Party be awakening after its long slumber?

He made a long statement about the Bush administration building up the misinformation towards an Iranian offensive. That seems to be very true to me. Bush is beating the drums loudly on Iran, but what Kucinich sad last was the kicker.

"The degree to which this President continues to take steps to go to war against Iran without consulting with the full Congress is the degree to which he is increasingly putting himself in jeopardy of an impeachment proceeding."

I might have to start looking at him seriously as a presidential candidate now.