Yellow Dog

As the US bombs Falluja, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, this article from Reuters notes that "Leading Iraqi politicians called on re-elected President Bush on Thursday to rely more on talks and less on the gun to solve Iraq's problems."

Good luck. If Americans wanted a president who relies on diplomacy and negotiation, they wouldn't have re-elected Cowboy Bush. Inexplicably, millions of voters chose not to change horses in mid-apocalypse.

So get used to headlines like this one from this morning:
"Convoy Attack Wounds 20 US Marines in Iraq"
"Four Car Bombs, Attacks Kill 37 in Iraq's Samarra"

And remember these words of wisdom from leading Iraqi politicians:

"The United States should stop acting like an occupier, hand more control to Iraqis and stop backing a security apparatus that could start resembling that of Saddam Hussein," they said.

"American use of unchecked force will not work. Look at the security forces that have multiplied in the past few months. The result has been less security, not more," said Haidar al-Ubadi, a senior official in the Shi'ite Al-Dawa party, which worked with U.S. and British forces after last year's Iraq war to peacefully stabilize several Iraqi cities.

International News Article | Reuters.com

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the most divisive president in recent history (even more so than Clinton) would play on people's hate, fear, and prejudices to win the election. Bush certainly couldn't run on his record.

In a pathetic attempt to "reach out" to all Americans, including the 55 million who voted against him (the largest percentage ever to vote against a sitting president), Dubya said yesterday in his press conference, "I will work with anyone who shares my goals." The unmitigated arrogance continues....

As one of my favorite columnists, Don Williams, illustrates, it is indeed a "sad day in America":

"Consider four more years of Bush. One thousand-four-hundred-sixty-one days and nights marching in like an occupying army, trailing a sick cargo of simplistic patriotism, false pride, incoherent pronouncements, cruelty, mendacity, destruction….

Bush thinks he has a mandate, you can see it in his eyes. So get ready for new nuclear weapons, aerial bombardment, innocents killed in the name of the Lord, impassioned and united enemies, broken treaties that'll make the world less safe.

Get ready for crooked dealings in the name of energy, for bills that'll deface the environment and sweetheart deals for polluters.... Get ready for national debt as far as the eye can see or else new taxes on the middle class and poor.

Get set for a continuing procession of heat waves, storms, droughts and more papered over with lies about the effects of global warming. Get ready for drilling in virgin wilderness, roads into forests that pre-date humankind's arrival in America. Get ready for mountaintop removal and destruction of our streams.

Assuming they all stay on, get ready for more lies from Dick Cheney, more false optimism from Donald Rumsfeld, more double-talk from Condoleezza Rice, more compromises from Colin Powell, and God-knows-what from John Ashcroft and ideologues like Paul Wolfowitz.

Get ready for fuel shortages and economic upheaval and unprecedented borrowing.

Someone described Nixon as “the darkness reaching out for the darkness,” and so it is with Bush. The prospect of four more years of that spiteful grin, that stuttering incoherence, that tendency to make grand and empty pronouncements and pander to our fears, dreams and patriotic impulses is almost too much to bear for thinking people, for reading people, for people who reach out for the light."

As Rethuglicans try to drag us into the darkness, it's up the yellow dogs to reach out for the light.

Don Williams comments - A sad day in America

I am really growing weary of the media spin that "values" decided this election. Of course, there's a very specific definition of what Republicans mean by "values," and, interestingly, they seem to cherry-pick the values that mean something to them and ignore other basic values of human life.

Republicans cynically used gay marriage ballot initiatives in 11 states (including Ohio) to turn out their right-wing, extremist, fundamentalist Christian base. Ironically, as an organization called Americans United to Preserve Marriage was trying to scare voters away from the so-called "liberal senator from Massachusetts," statistics were released on Monday that show that the state of Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the US (perhaps religious righties should focus more on keeping marriages of heterosexuals together and less on trying to keep two consenting adults of the same sex apart).

The right wing hypocritically rallies around hotbutton, "wedge" issues like gay marriage and abortion (and abortions, by the way, have increased over the last four years under Bush) but never register their disapproval for the slaughter of innocent children (not to mention over 1100 US soldiers) in Iraq. They re-elected a president who has the worst jobless rate since Hoover, the highest poverty rate, and the highest number of people without healthcare--does that sound like family values? What about a president who tries to cut healthcare for our veterans or to take away after-school programs for our children? Or to increase the amount of pollutants in the air we breathe? If you critically examine the policies of Bush, it's easy to see what "values" his policies embrace--they are the values of corporate America and his rich buddies and not the values of middle-class working America.

I will give Bush credit--he is very good at "talking the talk" and mentioning his values and pandering to the right-wing fundies by dropping the word "God" into his speeches. Now he needs to "walk the walk" by creating policies that actually demonstrate that he cares. In words versus deeds, Bush is all words.

A Victory for 'Values,' but Whose? (washingtonpost.com)

Now that the election is behind is, here is the kind of Bush news we can expect over the next four years:

From the AP:

--Gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese-American businessman — the second U.S. citizen seized this week in Baghdad — and videotape Wednesday showed the beheadings of three Iraqi National Guardsmen and an Iraqi officer.

--Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a roadside bombing 12 miles south of the capital.

--On Tuesday, insurgents blew up an oil pipeline and an oil well in northern Iraq in a pair of attacks that shut down oil exports from the north, probably for the next 10 days, Iraqi oil officials said.

Come to think of it, there is a kind of justice to the fact that Bush/Cheney will have to clean up their own mess in Iraq rather than passing it off to a more capable administration. I hope, for the sake of our soldiers, they put more time into planning at this stage (after the fact) than they did before the war began. Perhaps the importance of actually having a plan, having the troops needed to secure weapons and explosives, and having a strategy for winning the peace will sink in before we go to war with Iran.


Yahoo! News - Iraq Gunmen Seize Second American in Week

One thing I've been asking myself over and over is how it's possible that 51% of Americans support a candidate who has made such a mess of things--from the war in Iraq, to the faltering economy and loss of jobs, to the huge deficit, to the destructive anti-environmental policies. Anyone else in the US with a job record like Bush's would be canned immediately.

This columnist, Jamie Foxer (a college student) captures my feelings completely with regard to individuals who vote based on style over substance, personality over policy:

"My message to Red States and Republicans: I don't want to see a single tear about dead soldiers anywhere on the globe from Red States or Republican families. You've forfeited your right to be legitimately angry about our embroilments abroad when you voted for the man who sent your sons/daughters to die unnecessarily. I don't want to hear laments about how we find ourselves still quagmired in Iraq and the President is saber-rattling about starting a War with Iran.... I don't want to see a single cry of surprise or outrage if another terrorist attack does occur....we've had ample evidence to prove that Bush's arrogance has proved a recruiting boon for equally angry radical Islamists in the Middle East. We've made that easier for them, and an attack more likely.

I don't want to hear a single complaint about gas prices going up or a Republican losing his job or the economy deepening its inequality...you knew who you were electing in this election and you knew his record on the economy.

If you get searched on some airplane and detained at an airport, don't act indignant that they stopped you; instead reflect on how you made it possible for the "big brother" government to continue, and worsen. If you have any integrity left, Republicans and Red States, you will suck up all "second-thoughts" in the Bush 2nd term and spare us, the Democrats, the pain, anger and anguish of having to say, "not only did we TELL YOU SO, you could see it for yourself for the last 4 years!". You knew...damnit, you knew what you were doing...and you still gave power to this dangerous fool.

We deserve the government we elected, we deserve the corruption, fearmongering, and war-waging that will occur in the 2nd term, we deserve every single part. We have nothing more to do than wade through Dante's last circle of hell and hope we come out the other side with some semblance of our Republic."

A Dark Day in America: Bush takes presidency

Today is the day.

With one day left until the election, we are in the dog days of the campaign, and the heat is on. It's time for Yellow Dogs to unite and bring an end the Bush regime's reign of terror.

With 9 more US soldiers killed in Iraq over the weekend, an American kidnapped in Iraq today, a news story (NBC) estimating missing prewar stockpiles that may total 250,000 tons, an expose (CBS) on soldiers' lack of armor, radios, and bullets, and an ongoing FBI probe into sleazy Halliburton no-bid contracts in Iraq and Cheney's shameless war profiteering, the news just keeps getting worse and worse.

It's time for change.

John F. Kerry: "This is the moment of accountability for America.... All of the hopes and dreams of our country are on the line. The choice is clear."

In an interview today, Kerry said voters should reject Republican charges that he's not tough enough to take charge, and he recalled his own Vietnam experience. "When I turned my boat in Vietnam into an ambush and I went straight into the ambush and overran it, I didn't see George Bush or Dick Cheney at my side," Kerry said. "So I'm not going to take a second seat to anybody in my willingness to be tough to defend the United States of America. I did it when it mattered, and as president I will defend the United States of America with everything I have."

As Americans are being ambushed by Bush and his failed policies, it's time for us to turn our boats into the ambush and overrun it.

Take back America--Vote Kerry.

projo.com | Providence, R.I. | AP Headlines

Unbelievably, GOP stategists have called the tape of Osama bin Laden released on Friday "a little gift," noting that "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush." That's an outright admission that they are campaigning on fear, which is all they've got left.

And they are campaigning based on twisted logic, as this NYT piece points out:

"The Bushies' campaign pitch follows their usual backward logic: Because we have failed to make you safe, you should re-elect us to make you safer. Because we haven't caught Osama in three years, you need us to catch Osama in the next four years. Because we didn't bother to secure explosives in Iraq, you can count on us to make sure those explosives aren't used against you."

That's right, a reminder of Bush's incompetence, failure to capture OBL in Tora Bora when he had a chance to, and distraction from OBL in rushing to war with Iraq is a "gift," much like the "gift" that the yellow dog leaves in the backyard--in other words, "a load of crap."

Here's more:
Reuters > Op-Ed Columnist: Will Osama Help W.?

The New York Times > Opinion > Did U.S. mistakes let bin Laden escape from Afghanistan 3 years ago?


And here's a statement on the OBL tape from 9/11 widows Kristen Breitweiser and Monica Gabrielle:

"We cried when we saw the tape on Friday of Osama Bin Laden. He's tanned and healthy. He does not look desperate or scared. He does not look like a man on the run.

Three years ago, President Bush promised us he would capture Osama Bin Laden--Dead or Alive. He didn't do that.

The man that murdered our husbands, is back terrorizing our country again. The videotape of him has brought us back to 9/11. We feel threatened. We feel vulnerable. We are scared.

Our question to President Bush is: Why didn't you catch him when you promised us you would? Why is this mass murderer--this madman-- still out there making videotapes and terrorizing our country three years after you promised our country that you would make us safe from him? President Bush, why cant you keep us safe from this madmen?"

And Bush is running on a platform of keeping America safer? I'll say it again--what a load of crap.

Happy Halloween!

There is nothing scarier than four more years of Bush.
VOTE KERRY!



Check out more pumpkin carving, compliments of Mr. Left -- Jack'O'Lanterns for Kerry!

Lots more pumpkins: Bush Bashing Pumpkin Contest