Inglis Lies On C-Span, Compares Iran To Hitler

I was watching C-Span a few minutes ago where they had U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina on to talk about Iran and the situation in the Middle East. This guy is a typical liar, defending Bush's manipulations of intel and lies about Iraq's non-existent WMDs by dismissing it as honest mistakes.

But what was really sickening was his likening of Iran's pursuit of nuclear energy to the rise of Hitler in the 1930s. I for one would like to know how he draws that conclusion, because it's a flat out lie.

First of all, there is no evidence to date to suggest Iran is anywhere close to having or obtaining nuclear weapons. As one blog put it:

"this accusation is not unfounded, however, one must keep in mind that no evidence has been presented which absolutely incriminates Iran as having nuclear bomb building intentions. Click the following link from the BBC for a chronological timeline of the crisis: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4134614.stm.

As one can see, Iran’s tactic has been mostly one of insistence upon its right to nuclear research and enrichment of uranium. Iran asserts this right from Article IV of the NPT of which Iran is a state member and signatory of the Additional Protocol."

And then of course we have the same tactic being used against Iran that was used against Iraq, namely, being required to prove a negative. Iraq had no WMDs, but even when it presented the demanded documentation to the U.N. it was taken as "proof" it was hiding something it didn't have. There is nothing Iran can do to prove its nuclear ambitions are anything but peaceful, because the minds of the accusers have already been made up; Iran is considered guilty, and nothing will dissuade the Bushies from pressing their lies before the United Nations Security Council saying Iran is guilty.

But there lies the danger in making assumptions. After the fiasco in Iraq and the increasing overtures of war against it, Tehran may decide (or perhaps has already decided) that in the face of a growing threat from both Israel and the U.S. developing nuclear weapons might be the only way to maintain peace through mutually assured destruction. So even if Iran's nuclear ambitions are in fact peaceful and pragmatic (oil reserves have reached their peak, so unless a massive reduction in oil consumption occurs supplies will continue to dwindle, and that will require shifting to alternative energy sources) it is entirely possible that the country may decide to develop nukes in hopes of warding off an invasion Iran sees as inevitable.

But that train of thought never occured to Inglis, who chose to take the highly dishonest route of likening Iran's nuclear ambitions to the rise of Adolph Hitler in Germany.

Hitler rose to power at a time when Germany was about as broken economically as it could be, after the sanctions imposed by the Allied Powers following the first World War. He exploited the people's fear, humiliation, and thirst for revenge to instill an ultra-nationalistic fervor in the populace, building up a powerful war machine. And Hitler used that machine openly and flagrantly. Iran, on the other hand, is not an economically broken nation nor does it possess the military sophistication of the U.S. and Israel. The government is made up of religious fanatics, and they do have a lot of leftover hatred and resentment toward America and Israel, but many of these individuals are smart enough to realize they'd have no chance whatsoever fighting any war with the West, especially in a world where they could not count on the support of the rest of the region much less other potential or rising superpowers (such as China).

Not that Iran is as much of a cakewalk as Iraq was following the first Gulf War; I think it anticipates a U.S./Israeli invasion and is planning accordingly having watched what happened to Iraq. They know we cannot sustain a long-term war against guerrilla fighters, as the chaos in Iraq and the debacle in Vietnam proved. Furthermore, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has destabilized the region allowing Tehran to insinuate itself into the politics of the puppet-government installed in its former enemy nation. Chaos in Iraq from the civil war there, as well as the still-present threat from al-Qaeda, ensures that if another invasion does occur it will come at the price of opening up multiple fronts leaving the U.S. and Israel even more vulnerable to attack. Already our military is mired in Iraq and weakened by the incompetence and arrogance of Donald Rumsfeld from his slimy rock at the Pentagon.

But to draw any kind of parallel between Iran and Hitler is not only historically false, it is foolish. The same parallel was drawn between Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler, and most reasonable people at the time were ignorant enough of the facts to believe those lies and exaggerations. Americans are growing increasingly frustrated with the occupation of Iraq, recognizing it as a failure and a distraction from the war against al-Qaeda. They are also increasingly coming to realize they were lied to in the wake of 9/11 by a dictatorial regime bent on exploiting their fear and anger in order to puruse a personal political agenda, namely, global empire. They may not stand for a repeat performance in Iran, and are likely to take it out on the GOP this November.

That Bob Inglis and other Congressional Republicans are still so willing to help spread the same lies that led to war in Iraq speaks of the utter contempt these scumbags have for the intelligence of Americans. South Carolina's 4th District must make Inglis pay for his deceptions by voting him out of office in November.

Judge Finds Tobacco Firms Deceived Consumers

The original article header for this Washington Post online article had a different title, specifically: Tobacco Firms Deceived Consumers, Judge Finds. Then, the Post pulled the link and put the article back up under a different title, namely: Big Tobacco Lied to Public, Judge Says.

I can only guess why the Washington Post did that. Maybe their editors got a call from some lawyer threatening a huge lawsuit or something; I mean, it's one thing to be caught lying to the public in general. But to be caught lying to one's own consumers, specifically? That would affect sales! And the press simply can't print a headline that would affect a company's sales, now can it?

Or maybe the Post simply found a shorter, less space-consuming headline. Who knows.

At any rate, I want you to think about the implications of the article for a few moments. Here's a bit of interesting information from said article:

A federal judge ruled yesterday that tobacco companies have violated civil racketeering laws, concluding that cigarette makers conspired for decades to deceive the public about the dangers of their product and ordering the companies to make landmark changes in the way cigarettes are marketed.

But U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said that under a 2005 appellate court ruling, she could not impose billions of dollars in penalties that had been sought by the Justice Department in its civil racketeering suit against the eight defendant tobacco companies.

So a judge can find that a company lied about its deadly product, but can't do anything to hold them accountable like imposing a hefty fine for deceit that led to the deaths of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of smokers over decades?

While the article states that the ruling "will cost the industry millions of dollars -- a fraction of the cost of sanctions the companies faced at the outset of the case," it goes on to lay out the fact tobacco companies willfully and deliberately lied to consumers and destroyed evidence. Why a more devastating fine cannot be imposed on companies that got their customers hooked on a highly addictive drug so they would keep buying a product that would eventually kill them with cancer and respiratory diseases--and engaged in a massive conspiracy not only to cover it up but to continue the cycle by targeting younger "replacement" consumers in ad campaigns--is beyond my comprehension.

Tobacco companies have, through deceit and willful practices, sold a product that slowly kills its customers. They should be punished by sending their executives to prison that knew the truth and still engaged in those practices. They should be fined into bankruptcy and shut down. But they won't be, because that would rob an increasingly corrupt government of hundreds of millions of future bribery dollars paid out by tobacco lobbyists.

Case in point, current U.S. House Majority Leader John Boehner passing out blank checks from the tobacco lobby on the floor of the House of Representatives, trying to bribe his fellow members into supporting pro-tobacco legislation.

In 1995, Boehner handed out campaign checks from the tobacco industry to members on the House floor at a time when lawmakers were considering eliminating a tobacco subsidy.

Why Boehner is even still in Congress much less the House Majority Leader is a question that should be answered with something along the lines of, "damned if I know, let's vote the bum out!" by his constituents. Whether or not that happens is up to the election-rigging J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state and candidate for Ohio governor even though he himself has committed numerous criminal acts violating voting laws.

As we inch closer to the November elections in Ohio, it is imperative that voters turn out in enough numbers to oust the GOP from power. Newspapers report the growing anger at the Republican Party by Ohio voters, and by voters across the nation. They're sick and tired of the rampant, unchecked corruption and criminal wrong-doing by a GOP-dominated government that has stripped away civil liberties and padded the pockets of the already very wealthy--all at the expense of the public.

Ohio voters must turn out in droves to vote out Boehner, Senator Mike "I never saw a doctored 9/11 image I couldn't exploit" DeWine, and the majority of the state's Congressional GOPers. Most importantly, they must turn out in enough numbers to vote out the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature and elect Ted Strickland governor.

The future of our state, and our nation, hinges on taking back power from those who abuse it to further their own ends.

EDIT: In case you require further proof of those abuses of power, look no further than here. A dictatorship trying to justify and make legal blatant lawbreaking by a sitting occupant of the Oval Office. If this were Clinton doing it, the GOP would be all over his ass screaming for his head. But it's George W. Bush using the NSA to spy on Americans without warrants, so to them it's okay. This is the reason ALito and Roberts were appointed to the Supreme Court, folks.

NOTE: You may have noticed there is no longer a feature on this blog for leaving direct comments. That's because I have a discussion forum for you to make use of. If you'd like to make a comment, please feel free to sign up for my forum. It's the first link in the right-hand link column. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to reading what you have to say.

More B.S. From Israel

I've remained largely silent on the whole Israeli invasion of Lebanon, because quite frankly what can be said about the situation that won't be taken by some readers (falsely) as anti-Semitism? And what could be said that really hasn't been said already a million times before?

But a news article from Reuters today had me thinking that letting this go without comment would be against my personal sense of decency.

Okay, so Israel is demanding it will halt its pull-out from Lebanon unless the Lebanese military steps in to bolster the cease-fire. Except, and as Israel's government well knows, Lebanon's military has been pretty badly pounded and is unable to deploy. So what we have here is a demand by Israel's government that it knows cannot be met, just so it has an excuse to keep its forces in Lebanon.

Jews suffered a great deal in the last century, but they're not the only ones to have someone try to wipe them off the face of the planet as the ongoing genocide in Darfur and the Congo and other parts of Africa can attest. And frankly, sooner or later the Holocaust stops being a valid excuse for unprovoked aggression against neighbors in the region, and enforcing a system of apartheid against the Palestinians.

Don't get me wrong; it's one thing to defend yourself from people trying to kill you. But you don't accomplish that by killing innocent women and children. Hezbollah may have kidnapped a couple of soldiers, hoping they could manage a prisoner swap. But that does not excuse waging war on the whole of Lebanon, reducing its neighborhoods to rubble and murdering women and children while preventing any and every means of escape or aid from happening.

Now before anyone starts thinking about calling me a Jew-hater, I want you to think about the dangers of nationalist thinking, the kind that sees any and all dissent as unpatriotic, treasonous, or an attack on the entire people or nation. Germany went through that phase in its history, and look what happened. Israelis need to realize that their government and the minority of extremists to which it caters have turned into the very thing that tried to wipe out all Jews more than sixty years ago. Nationalist thinking prevents critical self-analysis, and forces rational minds out of the discussion--indeed, it ends all discussion.

The fact of the matter is the only way to get at Hezbollah and organizations like it is to get at the causes that allow terrorism to flourish. Go back to the 1967 borders, dismantle the illegal settlements in the occupied territories, make peace with the neighbors. Israel might be surprised at how the terrorist groups attacking its civilians lose influence and power.

More B.S. We've Heard Before

As British authorities make another arrest in the al-Qaeda bomb plot, thus demonstrating that the war on terror must be fought with solid police work and international cooperation instead of brutish military occupations of countries that neither attacked or threatened us, George W. Bush chose to bring out the same tired old horse puckey.

"America is safer than it has been, yet it is not yet safe," Bush told reporters at the National Counterterrorism Center just outside Washington. "The enemy has got an advantage when it comes to attacking our homeland: they got to be right one time and we got to be right 100 percent of the time to protect the American people."

Coming from a dictator who has been wrong 100% of the time, that's actually a bit frightening. And for the record, America has never been more vulnerable no thanks to that treasonous little turd Shrubya and his minions.

The Bush regime is preparing to expand its invasion and occupation of oil-producing Middle East countries to a four-front war. Any disciple of Sun Tzu knows it is just plain stupid to fight a war on multiple fronts. Yet despite the bungled occupation of Iraq, the stretching and weakening of the U.S. military, and diminished international support, the regime is going to go ahead with its plans anyway.

Those asking why can look no further than simple lust for power; and the impatience of evil men in their old age anxious to complete their goals before time finally, thankfully, forces them off this mortal coil. These inhuman monsters do not care how much innocent blood they have to spill to carry out their plans for world domination.

So expect to hear the same B.S. about Iran and Syria (another target of the Bush regime) that we heard about Iraq. And expect the iron boot of a thuggish government completely hijacked by ideological madmen to further stamp out liberties at home and squash dissent in ways reminiscent of Orwell.

We've Heard This B.S. Before

Reading the news online, one gets a distinct and sickening feeling of déjà vu. George W. Bush, having lied repeatedly and shamelessly about Iraq, kicked off his regime's campaign to invade Iran with another pack of lies--and they're ones we've heard before.

Bush added Lebanon to Iraq and Afghanistan as a front in what his administration calls the global war on terror. "The conflict in Lebanon is part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region," he said.

One may find any number of examples featuring Bush or one of his fellow liars making similar claims against Iraq before invading that country, linking it to the broader war on terror. Hitler would be proud, or very jealous, listening to the Shrub lie his ass off in his endless attempts to rowse up the populace to another unprovoked war.

"It's no coincidence that two nations that are building free societies in the heart of the Middle East -- Lebanon and Iraq -- are also the scenes of the most violent terrorist activity," Bush said.

Yes, and that is directly attributable to the terrorist activities of the Bush regime and its equally terrorist counterparts in the Israeli government. Bush took the U.S. into Iraq and turned it into a terrorist magnet in the throes of civil war. Ehud Olmert launched an invasion of Lebenon even though that country had no control over the actions of Hezbollah, choosing to level a country that was already trying to move toward democracy and away from terrorism.

George W. Bush and his treasonous regime had made up their minds long before September 11, 2001 to invade Iraq and pave the way for a complete takeover of the Middle East, where the largest known oil reserves are located. They don't care that they've fucked up the occupation of Iraq, and they don't care how much innocent blood will be spilled for their greed. As long as they get their little world empire, everyone else is just fodder.

Most Americans did not support going into Iraq in the first place, not without a U.N. mandate. Now that the lies and incompetence have been revealed, we want out. And we don't want to live as an empire, or exist under the yoke of a homegrown dictator who thinks he can turn our country into a police state. This November, America needs to hand control of Congress over to Democrats who will put a stop to the Bush regime.

Britain Foils Bomb Plot Ignored Previously by Bush & Co.

As Joe Lieberman prepares to launch his quixotic independent run to keep the Senate seat he lost on Tuesday, it becomes more apparent that giving him the boot was the right thing to do.

Earlier today, news agencies began reporting of British authorities foiling a bomb plot by al-Qaeda to attack America again using airliners. According to CNN, the plot was mere days away from execution.

What should not be at all surprising is the fact Bush & Co. had absolutely nothing to do with preventing this attack; apparently, they didn't even know about it until earlier this week, as authorities in Great Britain were preparing to make arrests.

It is appallingly clear that had the British not acted in enough time, another terrorist attack would have occured on American soil while Bush & Co. sat on their asses and did nothing--because they were too busy focusing their attention on Iraq and turning America into a corporate police state.

Bush's regime purged the CIA of any and all people who might have been capable of uncovering this planned attack, replacing those people with yes-men with no understanding whatsoever of the Middle East or of how to do proper intel work.

It is a sickening demonstration of the apathy and incompetence of the Bush regime. Al-Qaeda should, nearly five years after the September 11th attacks of 2001, have been wiped out long ago. Its continued existence, and the continuing threat to America from that organization, proves the invasion and occupation of Iraq has not made us safer. It took the actual efforts of another country to do the work our own government should have been doing.

What will happen when al-Qaeda learns from its failure this week to carry out its attack, and manages to avoid being caught until it finally succeeds in launching another terrorist attack on America, with massive loss of life? What will happen when once again, it happens under the watch of the Bush regime?

No politician can run for office this November and honestly say that maintaining the occupation of Iraq will prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Considering how close al-Qaeda came to killing thousands more Americans, every politician still in support of the war in Iraq should be shifting his position to one of leaving that country and returning focus to going after Osama bin Laden and his network of terrorists.

In a war that has been abused and mismanaged from the beginning, and that has failed on every level under Republican misleadership, putting any candidate who stands in support of Bush's imperialistic policies in office could cost American lives.

A Win For Lamont & Connecticut, A Selfish Display By Clueless Joe

Well, if you're one of the many supporters of Ned Lamont who spent the night hoping and praying he would win the Senate primary in Connecticut, your hopes and prayers have been answered. Lamont won last night's primary, by a margin of 52 percent to his opponent's 48 percent.

That's a comfortable four point lead, and strong enough to send a clear message to those politicians who betray the needs and wishes of Americans by supporting George W. Bush and his enablers in Congress.

Unfortunately, Lamont's victory wasn't enough to send a message to one selfish, pig-headed imbecile who has proven time and again that he just doesn't get it. Joe Lieberman is working to meet today's deadline to get on the November ballot as an Independent.

And thus is the clueless incumbent's selfishness revealed, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that he is out of touch with voters. Lieberman falsely claimed he was a "good Democrat," but he has proven otherwise--first by betraying Democratic principles to side with Bush and the Republican Party on critical issues, and now by telling Democratic voters in his home state that he doesn't care about them, their wishes or their ideology; that he's running to keep his Senate seat even though they told him they don't want him in office anymore.

Except it's not Joe Lieberman's Senate seat anymore, not in any way that counts. Voting Democrats in Connecticut made it clear that they are tired of watching Clueless Joe betray their principles and their party, and they want someone else--Ned Lamont--to have a go at it. If Lamont proves inadequate over the course of his six year term, then voters will replace him just as they did their current senator.

But I really kind of doubt Lamont will make the same mistakes Joe Lieberman did to alienate the majority of his constituents. And to be blunt, the outgoing senator (after November) can only hurt the party he has betrayed and walked away from by staying in the race.

In a three-way race Republicans hope Lieberman will draw away enough Democratic and Independent votes from Lamont to squeak their own candidate, Alan Schlesinger, into office to take a critical Senate seat and solidify the GOP's stranglehold on that body. Of course, if the incumbent stays in the Republicans may pull Schlesinger in favor of a stronger candidate who can pull off that task. All because of Joe Lieberman's selfishness and cluelessness.

Republican Joe needs to wise up and recognize that it was his own shift to the far right and his own ambitions that did him in as a politician. The majority of Democrats in Connecticut realized long ago that their senator had chosen to distance himself from them, and walk away from their values. They don't want Social Security gutted in favor of private accounts only affordable to people with money to burn; they don't want rape victims told they "can always take a short drive to another hospital" if the one they go to for treatment denies them the medication they need to prevent an unwanted pregnancy; they don't want someone who will block a filibuster needed to keep a fascist off the Supreme Court; they didn't want the federal government interfering in the Terri Schiavo case; and they don't want their kids kept in Iraq to kill and die in a pointless, fucked up war that itself was begun on a stack of lies and greed.

Yet on all those issues and more, Joe Lieberman stood with the Republican Party and against his own constituents.

Ned Lamont's campaign may have started out as a "single-issue" race. Maybe. I have my doubts about that. But it grew to be much more than that. It became about showing Joe Lieberman that he is out of touch with Connecticut on a host of issues important to its citizens, and that if he won't get back in touch and represent their values then he needs to go. But as usual, Lieberman hasn't the courage to face the facts. He is allowing his own selfishness, ego, and moralizing self-righteousness to damage the party he claimed to support and be a part of. The only one fooled by Joe Lieberman's "I'm a good Democrat" rhetoric was Joe Lieberman.

Hopefully, Democratic leaders in Washington will recognize it's more important to keep Connecticut's Senate seat in party hands than to risk losing it to a Republican just to placate Joe Lieberman's selfish pride.

Why Connecticut Must Tell Republican Joe "NO."

This is it, my last column on Joe Lieberman before tomorrow's primary in Connecticut. Before Democrats in that state cast their ballots, it is important to know why they must vote against Republican Joe Lieberman. These are but some of the many reasons:

1. Lieberman voted for George W. Bush's Energy Policy Act of 2005, which gives huge tax cuts to oil companies--the very same companies driving up gasoline and oil prices and reaping the profits while average Americans pay through the nose at the pumps.
2. He supports the far right-wing notion that hospitals should be allowed to refuse to provide rape victims the "morning after pill," which prevents pregnancy within the first seventy-two hours after intercourse.
3. In 2000 Lieberman stood in support of a policy very similar to Bush's desire to gut Social Security and turn it over to private investors. So far, there is little to indicate he has changed that position very much.
4. Lieberman voted against a bipartisan measure to bring down the cost of medicines for people unable to afford high prescription drug prices.
5. Lieberman has consistently stood in support for "free" trade policies that hurt American laborers.
6. Lieberman voted to confirm John Roberts, Bush's hand-picked nominee for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Roberts has a very pro-corporate record. Similarly, Lieberman voted to kill the filibuster of Samuel Alito--thus ensuring his confirmation largely along party lines. Alito, as you probably know, thinks George W. Bush ought to be a king and thinks there is nothing wrong with police illegally strip-searching children. Alito is also very pro-corporate. So why didn't Lieberman vote for cloture to make sure the filibuster failed? Because he knew Alito would be confirmed along party lines. So now, with Lieberman's help, we have two fascists on the Supreme Court who will do everything in their power to protect Bush & Co. and their agenda.
7. And of course we all know Lieberman's record of apologizing for and defending the Bush policy in Iraq, his attacks on critics of the war, and his desire to keep American soldiers in harm's way indefinitely.
8. Then there is Lieberman's selfish position that even if he loses in tomorrow's primary, and against the will of Democrats, he will continue to run. Elected officials are supposed to listen to their constituents and do what their constituents tell them to, not go against them time and time again on the issues that really matter.
   

These are just some of the reasons Lieberman needs to be voted out of the running in tomorrow's Connecticut primary. Joe Lieberman has undermined Americans and the Democratic Party on critical issues so often, parroting the Bush doctrine so often, it is now impossible to distinguish between his beliefs and those of his idol: Shrubya.

Friday, on the American Prospect's website, I read a very compelling column giving very good reasons why Lieberman needs to take the hint and drop out if he loses the primary tomorrow by the percentage polls are predicting (54-41 according to Quinnipiac). All the signs are there for an unprecedented defeat of an incumbent in a primary election. If Republican Joe stays in, hoping to keep alive a quixotic bid to keep his job in November, not only will he lose again but his career in politics will undoubtedly come to humiliating end.

And if Connecticut voters need any more reasons to vote for Ned Lamont tomorrow, especially those opposed to the continuation of occupying Iraq, it is this: a pummeling for Lieberman in tomorrow's primary will force any and all potential contenders for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 to come out strong against staying in Iraq. More and more Americans are turning against that mess in the Middle East, and they are outraged at the lies, failures, unaccountability and continuation of bad policy. No Democrat with ambitions for the presidency can win the nomination in 2008 unless he comes out against the occupation and in favor of a sensible change in strategy in the war on terrorists. But we won't get such a candidate unless voters in Connecticut and the rest of the U.S. come out strongly against any candidate who supports Bush's policies and agenda.

Democratic voters in Connecticut need to consider the importance of voting for a candidate who will represent their values, instead of his own ambitions and ego. They need an opponent in the U.S. Senate to the Bush regime's endless litany of crimes and abuses of power. How well Democrats fare in the 2008 presidential election also depends on what message the party sends to those who consistently betray both country and party.

What did I tell you?

Looks like the Senate killed the House of Representative's extortion bill, which tried to tie a minimum wage increase to a huge cut in estate taxes.

What made this bill so bad? Well, here's a quote from TomPaine.com:

Even for veterans of minimum wage horse trading, the coupling of the bill to repeal most of the estate tax with a minimum wage increase set a cynical new low. The increase in the minimum, to $7.25 by 2009, simply replaces the value by which inflation has eroded the wage over the past few decades, giving a direct lift worth around $1,200 per year to about 6 million low-wage workers. And it does so without adding to the $300 billion budget deficit.

The estate tax reduction—which clocks in with a 10-year cost of $268 billion—returns about $1.3 million to 8,200 wealthy estates, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. CBPP also points out that the size of the tax cut would grow with the size of the estate; as many as 900 estates worth more than $20 million would receive an average tax cut of $5.4 million in 2011.

It gets worse. The lobbyists for the National Restaurant Association managed to inject a paragraph into the minimum wage part of the bill that would have significantly lowered the pay of minimum wage workers who work get tips (like waitpersons) in seven states.

So what we would have been forced to endure was a toothless increase in the minimum wage, while the very wealthy would have gotten yet another tax cut. Fortunately, enough saner minds prevailed in D.C. to shoot down this extortionist tactic, though the Republican Noise Machine may yet be able to use the Senate's failure to pass it as a weapon with which to attack Democrats for the midterms this November.

Next entry: Why Connecticut Must Tell Republican Joe "NO."

Stacking the Deck In PA, and Selling a Soul

There is a reason Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsyvania had a disgusting bodily discharge named after him, and the latest evidence of that reason was displayed in the revelation that he and his comrades in the GOP are funding a Green Party candidate in hopes of splitting the liberal vote.

The Luzerne County Green Party raised $66,000 in the month of June in order to fund a voter signature drive. The Philly Inquirer reported yesterday that $40,000 came from supporters of Rick Santorum's campaign (or their housemates). Also yesterday, we confirmed that another $15,000 came from GOP donors and conservatives. Only three contributions, totaling $11,000, remained as possible legit donations.

Today, I confirmed that those came from GOP sources.

That's from the link above. This is the strategy Mr. Sphincterrific is using: Santorum knows if it comes down to a two-way race, his chances of keeping his position against a Democratic challenger are about as good as surviving stepping between a bottle of Jack Daniels and Robert Downey Jr. He's trailing that badly in the polls. So, in hopes of dividing and conquering, he's funding an Indy candidate who wouldn't have been able to get on the ballot otherwise. If he can get Carl Romanelli to siphon votes away from Bob Casey, the Democratic challenger with the best shot at unseating the demonic incumbent, he might be able to squeak by to another term.

But the most horrible thing about this is not just the filthy political dealing of Santorum and his fellow Republicans; it's the fact a Green Party member sold his soul for the chance to run a campaign he knows would only serve to help a monster like Santorum keep his position. Romanelli has sold every principle he might have once had, just for the chance to screw over a Democrat. He's supposed to be trying to beat the corrupt Republican, not the one hope Pennsylvania has of getting rid of said corrupt Republican.

If this is how the Green Party is going to run in elections, then Americans are better off turning to a political party whose members will not sell their souls to the GOP.