Iraq vet suffering PTSD snaps, takes out sister, mother, self.
Army Spec. Abel Gutierrez. That was his name. George W. Bush is responsible for these three deaths just as he's reponsible for so many others. And there is no hell after he dies, just darkness, just like for the rest of us. There is no hell, other than the one George W. Bush created on Earth for our soldiers (amongst many other man-made hells), and GWB as a fortunate son will never experience that.
-- Badtux the Cursing Penguin
Jesse was a lousy politician, he is dispositionally incapable of the give-and-take and compromises needed to be an effective politician. But he needs to get his own television show, dammit, he's fun, entertaining, and you can't intimidate him. This is one of the few times that I've seen Sean Hannity fail at his attempts to bully his guests.
-- Badtux the Entertained Penguin
It is fashionable to despise lawyers. Lawyers defend the lowest of the low, the rapists and murderers who, well, rape and murder. They devise despicable defenses for their clients' behavior -- "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury! The lady in question did in fact solicit sex, nay, demanded sex from my client, and solicited, nay, demanded that it be rough sex, and all he did was indulge her very requests! So the fact that this woman appears in this photo bloody and bruised and raw in the nether parts, well, it was her very request that my client do this to her!" On the other side of the coin, lawyers (as prosecutors) send innocent men to death row and oversee a prosecutorial system that is so efficient in sending men and women to prison that the United States has more people behind bars than any other nation on Earth -- even more than dictatorial hellholes like Cuba and China, and half of whom are convicted of "crimes" that constitute nothing more than consensual commerce between private parties, not anything of violence.
But the thing is, that's a lawyer's job. Even the vilest of criminals is warranted a defense according to the Constitution of the United States of America. Yes, it is vile that a lawyer can stand before a jury and say "she asked for it" when a woman was clearly brutally raped. But that is what our Constitution calls for him to do: to serve the interests of his client as best he can, even if it requires him to make an argument which is vile and offensive. It is assumed that the prosecution will be equally aggressive at making arguments painting his client as vile and evil. It is the job of the court, of the jury or the judge, not of the defense attorney, to decide whether his client is innocent or guilty. It is the defense attorney's job to make whatever argument will best serve the cause of getting his client off, even if that argument is as vile as "she asked for it".
Which is why I am concerned about some of the loony lefties going after Bush's lawyers, the ones who wrote the legal papers that Bush waved around in defense of torturing prisoners. Yes, John Yoo is not going to win "Humanitarian of the Year" awards, just as the lawyer arguing "she asked for it" in a rape case is not going to win "Humanitarian of the Year" awards. But he was tasked with writing a legal paper defending the administration's torture policies, and he properly served his client. If he had advocated torture within the Bush Administration that would be one thing. But he didn't. He merely wrote a legal paper after the fact to defend his client, the office of the President of the United States of America. It is his client, President Bush and President Bush's subordinates, who decided to torture -- not John Yoo.
If we are to be a nation of laws rather than a nation of thugs with guns, we need lawyers. Criminalizing the practice of law is not conducive to rule of law, and I cannot see how any sane sensible person can encourage it. The end result of that sort of nonsense is inevitably rule of gun, which tends to result in the most vile and evil people imaginable being in charge, those who have least compunctions about murdering other people. If we are to have rule of law we must have lawyers. Alas, but true.
-- Badtux the Law Penguin
America was not attacked by purple unicorns during the administration of George W. Bush. Thus the administration of George W. Bush will be judged as a success by history. He successfully defended America from the purple unicorn menace.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
George W. Bush is apparently trying to get out of town ASAP, but he still has a few hours to go to pardon members of his administration for their illegal spying on Americans, torture, and other such crimes. This is a running post that's going to be updated throughout the day with Bush's pardons as they happen.
Update #1: Bush commutes sentence of two Border Patrol agents convicted by a jury of shooting a unarmed Mexican man in the back then tried to cover it up. Because, apparently, shooting an unarmed "cockroach" in the back should get a commendation, not a prison sentence, oKKKay?
Update #2: It is now past midnight in Washington D.C. and Bush's pardon power has turned into a pumpkin. Unless he unloads a whole stack of'em signed today on tomorrow morning with that shit-eatin' grin of his, that's all, folks. Makes you wonder what he has on Obama such that he's so sure Obama isn't coming after him or his administration for what they did, illegally spying on Americans and all that. Or maybe he figures that with a Supreme Court stacked with his and his daddy's appointees, any attempts at prosecuting him and his cronies will run into a Supreme blockade. Or maybe he just doesn't give a shit anymore, made sure his own hands were clean and doesn't give a shit about anybody else in his administration, and will laugh and laugh and laugh when the Bigus Dickus gets indicted for outing a CIA agent in retaliation for her husband's coming out against the Iraq war or gets indicted for war crimes for ordering the torture of prisoners of war...
-- Badtux the Watching Penguin
Watch an Iraqi journalist say "shoo!" to George W. Bush. Watch George W. Bush duck with as much agility as he ducked service in Vietnam.
Yep, ole' Georgie still has his duckin' moves...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
The "leader of the free world", Jenna, and Not-Jenna show the world how dignified a U.S. President can be as they watch the Olympics.
Note the scabbing on the Chimperors' right arm. Looks like Chimpy McBoozy's been hitting the bottle and falling down drunk again...
-- Badtux the More-dignified Penguin
(Probably the permanent formal wear, heh)
In a word: no. Yes, it's likely that lower echelons of the CIA and State Department were aware that Georgia intended to attack South Ossetia. But no, Bush didn't in any way give them "permission" to do so, and it is unlikely that his aides had any understanding of why the lower echelons were sending them this information about some place they'd never heard of. Saying that Bush somehow gave Georgia "permission" to invade South Ossetia ascribes far too much competence to George W. Bush and the people around him.
In the end, George W. Bush is a tool of ideologues who have as their goal the destruction of the United States Government, which they feel is too much an impairment to their ability to make profits off of the suffering of other people. He is not a Putin or even a Medvedev who controls the machinery of state, Bush doesn't control even what he has for breakfast. Anyhow, one of the side effects of this is that the competence of major arms of the U.S. government has been destroyed by driving out competent people and replacing them with incompetents who can then be used as an excuse to dismantle portions of the U.S. government. An example is the U.S. Secretary of State, who as National Security Advisor was warned that al Qaeda was about to strike inside the United States by hijacking airliners and, rather than issue a directive to the domestic law enforcement services to be on the lookout for al Qaeda operatives trying to hijack airliners, instead feebly asked the people at the meeting where she was warned to gather more information. As her reward for incompetence she was made Secretary of State. That is the sort of incompetent person that is appointed to positions in the U.S. government today. Even if the CIA advisors in Georgia noticed the preparations to invade Ossetia, there was literally nobody competent in the U.S. government that they could communicate that to, all the competent people have been fired or pushed out into retirement as part of the plan to destroy the U.S. government...
So in any event, the notion that the U.S. somehow "allowed" Georgia to do this does not pass the laugh test to those of us who have viewed with dismay the dismantling of major portions of the U.S. government over the past seven years. Most of the upper echelons of the U.S. government are no longer competent to walk and chew gum at the same time, much less evaluate urgent notices from CIA operatives overseas... and these people have nuclear weapons. That is scary. Very scary.
I notice that people outside the United States ascribe more competence to the U.S. government than it deserves. I suspect that this happened to the Georgians -- they got mixed signals from the morons at the U.S. State Department and decided that this was a deliberate action on the part of the U.S. government to say that the U.S. would back them if they took action without actually saying so. Sad for all the dead Georgians and Ossetians, this ascribing of competence to the U.S. government was utterly wrong. The U.S. government is a bunch of morons with nuclear weapons, and should be depended upon for nothing more than invading the wrong country (the only country in the Middle East that did *not* contribute to the WTC destruction) and sending aid to "democracies" that boil and skin alive their own people.
-- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin
President Bush's iPod: The Complete Playlist
That one is probably pretty short, given that I doubt President Bush can figure out how to operate an iPod. The spammers need to use more plausible subject lines, methinks.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
62,000 jobs lost in June. But the unemployment rate didn't change. Because those people aren't employed. They aren't unemployed. They simply... aren't. And John McInsane hasn't a clue. As he said himself, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should." And at a January town hall meeting in Concord, N.H., McCain told the crowd, "I am not an expert on Wall Street. I am not an expert on some of this stuff." If you've "disappeared" the unemployed, well, maybe that's not a problem. No people, no problem, as Stalin put it, right?
Welcome to Orwell's America.
-- Badtux the Orwellian Penguin
As I mentioned in my previous post, there are over 600,000 soldiers and Marines back from Iraq and Vietnam who need help. But never fear, Dear Leader feels their pain. To honor the sacrifice of US soldiers and Marines killed, maimed, blinded, disembowelled, decapitated, castrated, rendered insane, and otherwise shattered by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is he going to fight for full funding for the VA? For more money for treating PTSD and better processing of disability payments for people whose brains were forever ruined by being rattled around in their skulls like a buncha marbles in a beach ball?
Uh, no. He is going to... err... ah... give up golf.
And penguins weep :-(.
-- Badtux the Unsnarky Penguin
Look, God. I didn't ask for much. Just a minor smiting or two of our overgrown man-child who serves as President in order to chasten his smirking dry-drunk ass a little bit. Maybe a sinkhole to swallow his pig farm in Crawford while he's not there, maybe one of his Air Force One jets catch on fire while he's not in it, maybe one of his slut daughters get photographed doing a little naked girl-on-girl action at a tittie bar, that kinda thing, y'know?
But God, please note that Crawford is spelled C R A W F O R D, *not* Daisetta. You missed, you silly goofball! Please, please, PLEASE get your aim right next time, okay? Because Texas's biggest asshole really deserves Texas's biggest sinkhole, y'know?
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Five years after Dear Leader declared "Mission Accomplished!" in Iraq, what, exactly, has been accomplished? Well:
Mission Accomplished, indeed!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Click on the thumbnail for the big ad. Please feel free to print out and distribute wherever!
Oh, I thought about putting a little comic strip thought bubble coming out of John McCain's mouth saying "you pesky kids get off my lawn!", but I couldn't figure out how to make the composition work. Hey, I'm a coding geek, not a visual design artist!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Some borrowed snark from YouTube:
Such ungrateful people. Just because there are more Americans on Food Stamps than ever before. Just because millions of American Families are being evicted. Just because what few American jobs that are not going to China, are being filled by H1-B foreigners. Just because gas, food, everything is shooting up in cost. Just because Pensions are shrinking or disappearing. Just because Bush's FAKE "war" on terror leaves the Mexican border wide open. You all talk like he is doing a bad job!
Couldn't have snarked it better myself!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Major Wall Street brokerage collapses, sold off for pennies on the dollar.
Yeah, that Bush economy sure is doing great, yessiree, and that $300 stimulus check is gonna do a lot of good. Heckuva job, Bushie! Boy, Republicans are just so great for the economy, aren't they? Which is why every single "up" time in the economy for the past sixty years has been during a (duh) Democratic presidency. When will the general public notice this? Hmm...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Once upon the time, the United States was the number one economic power on this planet. That was before the Bushevik Revolution. Now...
Well, we're Number Two, behind the EuroZone. Which, unlike the United States, has not dismantled its industrial infrastructure and shipped it to China.
Expect to hear tighty righties admitting that the U.S. is no longer the world's #1 economic power sometime... well, never. Denial ain't a river in Egypt, sad to say. And as for what that says about the future of the U.S. military... well, history is harsh about the fate of empires which lose economic vitality. Loss of economic vitality is inevitably followed by loss of military supremecy, and, shortly thereafter, by loss of empire. Just ask the Soviet Union. Oh wait, you can't...
Bloggin' from Soviet America,
Badtux the Economics Penguin
