GOP Scum, Conservatives Play Catch-up, Dems catch up, UN-Israel-Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gun Fun and Who Would Jesus Kill?

It's makes it easy to be a proud liberal when I see things like this.

As many as 61,000 military widows whose husbands died of causes relating to
their military service lose out on thousands of dollars a year in survivor
benefits because of a law that dates from the 1970’s.

Widows and
retirees have spent decades trying to persuade Congress to change the law, which
hits hardest at the widows of lower-ranking service members and is referred to
by many critics as the “widow’s tax.’’

The Senate passed such a change
last year and again this year as part of the military authorization bill. But
House Republican leaders oppose the change because of its steep price tag,
nearly $9 billion over 10 years, Senate legislative aides from both parties say.
A change was not in the military bill that passed the House, but lawmakers who
support the change are hoping to make it part of the bill’s final version, which
is now being worked on by a bipartisan Congressional committee.

The scum on the right will stoop to any low in order to protect the tax cuts of the rich whose butts they love to lick. After five years of failure under Bush and the Republicans, just how big of a cold-hearted dumbass do you have to be to keep voting GOP.

Even the less bright among us are starting to see that Bush is just a load of crap in a silk suit.

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George
Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad."
For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS
BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And
his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents
have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league
by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as these other people."

Yeah, after just five and a half wasted years, even the slow on the uptake conservatives are starting to conceptualize the obvious.

The GOP had their chance and blew it spectacularly. But then rolling over for big business, futher enriching the already rich and starting an endless war based on lies, does tend to wear thin after a while. And let's not forget those supposed Democrats that went right along with them. The GOP screwed up so badly that now the fundraising gap is starting to close. Democracy works, but it requires participation. Something the Democrtatic Party needs to learn.

The traditional fundraising advantage held by incumbent lawmakers -- which
Republicans have regarded as a safety wall in their effort to keep control of
Congress -- has eroded in many closely contested House races, as many Democratic
challengers prove competitive in the race for cash.

In a year of bad
omens for the GOP, the latest batch of disclosure forms filed with the Federal
Election Commission offers one more: Incumbency no longer means that embattled
Republican representatives can expect to overwhelm weakly funded Democratic
challengers with massive spending on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts.

The pendulum seems to be swinging back slowly to the side of sanity, but we are going to have one Hell of a mess to clean up.

It's much easier to start a war than to end one. You'd think that was common knowledge. It's not surprising that a sheltered dimwit from Texas might not know this, it's incredibly surprising that Israel would not. But Israel might have figured that they could use Bush's obsession with Iran to their own benefit. Although, it's hard to understand how a further degradation of U. S. power and credibility would be beneficial in the long run.

The Bush administration was informed in advance and gave the "green light" to
Israel's military strikes against Hizbollah ­ with plans drawn up months
before two Israeli soldiers were seized ­it has been claimed.

The US
reportedly considered Israel's actions as a necessary prerequisite for a
possible strike against Iran. A report by a leading investigative reporter says
that earlier this summer Israeli officials visited Washington to brief the
government on its plan to respond to any Hizbollah provocation and to "find out
how much the US would bear".

With a cease-fire in effect, Israel is playing fast and loose and neither the UN or Lebanon is impressed.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is "deeply concerned"
about Israel's commando raid Saturday in eastern Lebanon, which he said violated
the cease-fire resolution concerning Israel and Hezbollah, his spokesman said in
a written statement.

BEIRUT, Aug. 19 -- Helicopter-borne Israeli
commandos raided a Hezbollah stronghold in the Bekaa Valley early Saturday,
setting off a fierce gun battle. Lebanon called the attack a "flagrant
violation" of a fragile six-day-old cease-fire and threatened to halt troop
deployments in protest.

Israel has every right to defend itself, any country does, but only fools use war as anything other than a last resort.

While I'm on the subject of fools and war, let's check in on our fool and his wars.

You remember Iraq, the country that the Bush Administration put on a media blitz to convince the sheep in this country that we were in imminent danger of being attacked by Iraq, with everything from anthrax to nuclear weapons? Then we learned that that was lies. The country that worked hand in hand with Osama to bring down the WTC. And once again found out we'd been lied to. You know, the country that we're going to present as a model of democracy for the Middle East. It's where most of our military are currently performing target duty for anyone with an AK-47, RPG or homemade bomb. Well it looks likes the Bush magic is working as well over there as it is here.

Civil war? Oh no, not according to Bush. Could this be more Bush lies? What do you think?

The debate is over: By any definition, Iraq is in a state of civil war. Indeed,
the only thing standing between Iraq and a descent into total Bosnia-like
devastation is 135,000 U.S. troops -- and even they are merely slowing the fall.
The internecine conflict could easily spiral into one that threatens not only
Iraq but also its neighbors throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf region with
instability, turmoil and war

.

Even our number one allies have caught on to this.

So are figures for the overall number of attacks on coalition forces, and the
statistics for American military deaths could be worse if not for some recent
improvements in armoured protection. With luck, money and the right kind of
international help, Lebanon can be put back together again. But can Iraq? That
is the stark question which faces both Iraqis and their occupiers. The people of
Baghdad note every day the ominous signs of descent into communal violence. One
week the gunmen go after bakers, forcing those of the "wrong" sect to close up
and leave, and murdering them and their workers if they do not. The next, they
turn to newspaper and magazine stalls, demanding that the "wrong" titles be
removed from sale. Again, death is often the price for disobedience. In the
mixed areas of the city, families are packing to move to safer areas, a process
which has not yet become a full-scale exodus but which certainly could become
one. Even in solidly Shia or Sunni areas, there are conflicts between different
factions and movements, as was illustrated this week when aggrieved tribesmen
attacked the city council headquarters in Basra, British troops hovering
uneasily on the edge of the fight. The grim pattern of intimidation, fear,
flight, murder and massacre is taking shape in all those parts of Iraq where the
communities are, or were, mingled. If this is not civil war, it is moving
sharply in that direction. Two wars, a war of Iraqis against Iraqis and a war of
Iraqis against Americans, threaten to blur into one in a way which could be
beyond anybody's ability, Iraqi or American, to manage or control.

Bush has worked his magic with gasoline in Iraq. Even though it sits on the third largest oil reserves on the planet, they're having to import oil! At the pumps gas is only 64 cents a gallon, but there's hardly any gas at the pumps. It's almost five bucks a gallon on the black market.

Even though Iraq has the world's third-largest proven oil reserves, it is forced
to depend on imports because of an acute shortage of refined products such as
gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas. Sabotage of pipelines by insurgents,
corruption and aging refineries have been blamed.

A gallon of gasoline
now sells on the black market in Baghdad for about $4.92, although its official
price is $0.64. Lines of cars at many Baghdad fuel stations stretch several
miles, and drivers sometime wait overnight to fill their cars.

And remember how Bush tried to mask his lies with more lies about bringing democracy to the Middle East? Well, maybe not anymore.

The last three paragraphs of this story revealed that “senior administration
officials . . . are considering alternatives other than democracy,” according to
a military expert who was just briefed at the White House.

Even a country that we needed to go into, but overstayed our welcome, is showing the fingerprints of the War President's military strategery.

KABUL, Insurgents killed four U.S. soldiers and wounded six others in clashes
Saturday during an upsurge in violence across the country. Two Afghan soldiers
also were killed.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and three were wounded
during operations in the Pech district of the eastern province of Konar, said
Col. Tom Collins, a U.S. military spokesman. U.S. troops in that area are
hunting for Taliban fighters and insurgents linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda
network in remote mountains hugging the Pakistani border.

In the
southern province of Uruzgan, one U.S. soldier and two Afghan soldiers were
killed and three Americans were wounded in a four-hour clash with more than 100
insurgents, according to a NATO statement

.

Thank goodness we live in America where there's not a bunch of nuts running around with automatic weapons. Uh, wait a minute, hold that.

The Knob Creek machine gun shoot in Kentucky attracts thousands of neo-Nazis and other extremists. But the orgy of firepower helps everyone get along just fine.

And for the short on change, fun-loving, uber-Christian that wants to pop a few caps at anyone who's not pale enough or religious enough, a new video game brought to you by those pillars of compassion of the Religious Right, Who Would Jesus Kill?. That's not really it's name, but it should be.

The object of the game is to recruit the members of New York's remaining
"neutral" population to the side of God during a seven-year reign of the
Antichrist. Players have to win over the remaining agnostics and unbelievers of
New York City or kill them -- either before or after they are pulled to the
forces of evil.

Enjoy your Sunday.