Howard Dean is first along with Paine and Puddle.

DFA Night is the best!

s/b Night School

September 18, 2007
Craig makes first visit to Capitol since sex scandal broke

Listen to Craig's exchange with CNN.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho made a surprise appearance Tuesday the U.S. Capitol, his first since the scandal broke last month over allegations he tried to solicit sex from an undercover police officer in a restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The Republican senator had a brief exchange with CNN's Ted Barrett at a Capitol entrance:

Barrett: "What brings you back to the Capitol today?"
Craig: "Go to work."
Barrett: "Are you intending to vote today, sir?"
Craig: "That's my plan."
Barrett: "Why decide to come back today?"
Craig: "Because I'm a serving United States Senator from Idaho."

Craig then stepped into the senators' dining room on the first floor of the Capitol. On the way he passed a visibly surprised Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who gave Craig a big welcome back handshake.


***********

My question is, what kind of hand shake was it? Were their palms both facing upwards? :)

Just donated to the DNC to pay for the organizers...front page a great picture of all of them together for the first time.

www.dnc.org

I donated a little extra since my state tried to break their fundraising in their effort to be first.

And something we should not forget.

"Seven Good Reasons To Keep Our Troops On Iraq Battleground"..scary letter.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/836

That letter is stil the mindset of many in our country.  Even some Democrats.

That letter is stil the mindset of many in our country.

I think, or at least hope, that it's the mindset of a small minority of nuts in the final spins of desperation for their lost cause.

Dancing partner for Vice President Gore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA42VrqGK...


Run Al Run!

7. Susan, PERFECT! Oh and what a cutie too. :)
thank you.

Womens world cup in China............next Saturday, USA vs England in 1/4  Finals...................who to go for?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73eB-aAo8Eg&mode=related&search=

Happy Birthday, Puddle, and again to you, Paine.  :-)

Breaking news ... and lawmakers (mostly Rethugs) who plan to follow putzCo's example in ignoring subpoenas ...

So much for the rule of law.

================
Wilkes Subpoenas 13 Lawmakers
By Paul Kiel - September 18, 2007, 11:36AM
Brent Wilkes goes subpoena crazy. From the AP:

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, House Republican Whip Roy Blunt and 11 other members of Congress have been subpoenaed to testify in the trial of a defense contractor charged with bribing jailed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

All of the lawmakers said they do not intend to comply with the subpoenas.

[...]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004...

All of the lawmakers said they do not intend to comply with the subpoenas.

The party of law and order. 

"The Fed cuts by one-half percent the federal funds rate, a rate that heavily impacts how much interest consumers pay on debts."

So much for Bernanke doing the right thing for the good of our country and not special interest.

UNBELIEVABLE.

Does it feel like we have a Fascis government? It does to me.

Dan Froomkin, who continues following the AG story, and good for Patrick Leahy!!!

C'mon Dems ... PLEASE stand firm on THIS one!

==============
The AG Bush Needs
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, September 18, 2007; 12:52 PM

President Bush is prioritizing.

It used to be he could install pretty much anyone he wanted pretty much anywhere in the federal government.

When it came to top jobs, that typically meant loyal, compliant members of his inner circle. They not only shared his views on issues across the board -- but they weren't going to exhibit any of that pesky independence thing.

In today's political climate, however, Bush has come to realize that he can't always get what he wants. But if he plots cleverly enough, he can get what he needs.

In a new attorney general, what Bush needs is someone who will support the radical and unprecedented expansion of executive power that has become the hallmark of his administration.

Michael B. Mukasey fits the bill.

[...]
But First: Turn Over the Documents

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David M. Herszenhorn write in the New York Times: "Two Senate Democrats warned Monday that the Judiciary Committee would delay confirmation of President Bush's choice for attorney general unless the White House turned over documents that the panel was seeking for several investigations. . . .

"Senators Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and Charles E. Schumer of New York -- vowed on Monday to use the nomination to extract information from a reluctant White House.

"'All I want is the material we need to ask some questions about the former attorney general's conduct, on torture and warrantless wiretapping, so we can legitimately ask, "Here's what was done in the past, what will you do?"' Mr. Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, said. . . .

"The White House wants Mr. Mukasey confirmed by Oct. 8, when the Senate leaves for its next recess. But Mr. Leahy said there would be no quick confirmation without the documents. He said he had told the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, that 'cooperation with the White House would be central' to scheduling hearings."

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Kaput to the dollar, I'm afraid.

Bernanke is just another putCo creature.

er, I meant *putzCO* ... but you knew that!

FT has a poll up about what people think about the Fed's decision to cut.

Right now, the nos are winning.

================
http://www.ft.com/cms/6c2bf1ce-91b7-11da...

Pleasant surprise ... even Joementum is arguing FOR the DC voting Rep.

Even a stopped clock can be right twice a day (OK, only once, if it's a digital 24-hour clock). Wonder when Joe's second right moment will come ... probably not today.

The last for now ... apparently, it's time for the *Men in Black.*

=================
Peru meteorite crash 'causes mystery illness'
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Tuesday September 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A meteorite has struck a remote part of Peru and carved a large crater that is emitting noxious odours and making villagers ill, according to local press reports.

A fireball streaked across the Andean sky late on Saturday night and crashed into a field near Carancas, a sparsely populated highland wilderness near Lake Titicaca on the border with Bolivia, witnesses said.

The orange streak and loud bang were initially thought to be a plane crashing. When farmers went to investigate, however, they found a crater at least 10m wide and 5m deep, but no sign of wreckage.

The soil around the hole appeared to be scorched and there was a "strange odour", a local health department official, Jorge López, told Peru's RPP radio.

Later the farmers complained of headaches and vomiting. Police who went to investigate the crater were also stricken with nausea, prompting authorities to dispatch a medical team that reached the site today.

"The odour is strong and it's affecting nearby communities. There are 500 families close by and they have had symptoms of nausea, vomiting, digestive problems and general sickness," said Mr López.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33076...

Hoyer takes aim at Moran’s AIPAC comment

By Mike Soraghan

September 18, 2007

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went after fellow Democrat Jim Moran of Virginia Tuesday, calling on him to retract his comments about the Israel lobby.

“His remarks were factually inaccurate and recall an old canard that is not true, that the Jewish community controls the media and the Congress,” Hoyer said at a news conference in the Capitol.

In an interview published in the September-October issue of Tikkun magazine, Moran said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, “has pushed this war from the beginning … They are so well-organized, and their members are extraordinarily powerful — most of them are quite wealthy — they have been able to exert power.”

Asked if he considered Moran’s remarks anti-Semitic and if he should apologize, Hoyer reiterated that he found them “factually inaccurate” and said Moran should “retract” them....(MORE)

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/hoye...

The "Jewish Community" doesn't control the media, but wealthy right wing Revisionist Zionists do have undue influence, and help to sustain the bias of reporting events of the ME and Palestine-Israel.

All of the lawmakers said they do not intend to comply with the subpoenas.

Then they should be arrested for contempt of Congress.  Isn't that how it works?  As much as I criticize the dems, the repugs have no ethics, no sense of morality, zip, nada.  The US att'y charged with kiddie porn....Is he a bush nominee?  Repug?

************* 

Shame on Steney who said of Moran:

“His remarks were factually inaccurate and recall an old canard that is not true, that the Jewish community controls the media and the Congress,"

Of course the "Jewish community" does not control Congress or the CM.  AIPAC does not represent the Jewish community  and never has.  Amazing how Hoyer spun that.  I've never liked that man.

Democrats are eating their own which doesn't make for victory in 08.

These officers referred to have to listen to the Lt Col. who wants them to refuse to bomb Iran and even go so far as to court martial bush/cheney. Oh please,  military, please stop them.

 WoW!  Truthout is no longer being allowed to copy and paste to here.  The article simply won't paste so I'm coming in thru the back door.  It's here, folks.  Fascsm big time.

OK, now I can't even paste from text edit.  I wonder if I"M being censored.

Go to truthout.org for a great article about the military being afraid that bush will bomb iran. 

just a drive-by...here's a happy birthday song from the Beatles for puddle & paine...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glNjsOHiBYs

bbl after our re-organizational meeting

11.  I think they'd better rethink that and contact their lawyer.  LOL

Judges can issue bench warrants which the officers of the court can enforce. 

Bush Setting America Up for War With Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091807J.shtml
Philip Sherwell and Tim Shipman report for The Telegraph UK: "Senior American intelligence and defense officials believe that President George W. Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran. Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran's nuclear weapons program are doomed to fail."

OK, now it's working.  Whew!   

Would Bush judges issue bench warrants?  This should get interesting.

25.  I've posted Bowman's letter on hannah

Bowman, btw, is a former presidential candidate and a current congressional candidate.  This time as a Democrat.  He's also a bishop in the United Catholic Church, which probably makes him a bit of a weirdo.  But, his letter to the officers makes sense.

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Barack Obama today announced a bold and innovative plan to reform America’s tax code so that it works for the middle class in a speech to the Tax Policy Center in Washington, DC. Obama’s plan would provide a substantial tax cut for nearly all working Americans, for homeowners, and for low- and middle-income seniors.   
Obama made the case that our current tax code reflects the wrong priorities by rewarding wealth instead of work, and he pledged to restore fairness to the tax code to strengthen the American economy.
Obama’s middle class tax relief plan would provide $80-85 billion in tax cuts to America’s workers, seniors and homeowners by:

• Cutting taxes for 150 million Americans and their families, allowing them to get a tax cut of up to $1000.
• Easing the burden on the middle class by providing a universal homeowner’s tax credit to those who do not itemize their deductions, immediately benefiting 10 million homeowners, the majority of whom make under $50,000 per year.
• Eliminating the income tax for any American senior making less than $50,000 per year, eliminating income taxes for about 7 million American seniors.
• Simplifying tax filings so millions of Americans can do their taxes in less than 5 minutes.
  

Obama would pay for his tax reform plan by closing corporate loopholes, cracking down on international tax havens, closing the carried interest loophole, and increasing the dividends and capital gains rate for the top bracket.
The plan can be viewed in full HERE <http://my.barackobama.com/page/-/HQpress/Fact%20Sheet%20Tax%20Fairness%20Speech%20091707%20FINAL%20IH.pdf> .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have the whole speech, and what fine philibuster material it is. lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Birthday puddle

Mike wrote "Womens world cup in China............next Saturday, USA vs England in 1/4 Finals."

While you’re at it, why not update us on how the paint is drying in the upstairs bedroom? For more exciting news, the Wings kick off their exhibition season tonight against the Wild in Minneapolis.

The thirteen non-co-operating witnesses are:

Democrat Ike Skelton of Missouri; Republicans Dennis Hastert and Jerry Weller of Illinois; Democrat Silvestre Reyes of Texas; Democrat John Murtha of Pennsylvania; Republicans Darrell Issa, Duncan Hunter, John Doolittle and Jerry Lewis of California; Republicans Peter Hoekstra and Joe Knollenberg of Michigan; Democrat Norm Dicks of Washington; and Republican Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Wilkes is going to be appointed a public defender because his regular lawyer refused to undergo the intensive back-ground check required to let him see classified information.

District Judge Larry A Burns seems in charge of the case. 

Larry Allan Burns was approved by 91 votes in the Senate in September of 2004.  There were nine senators who did not vote--a rather peculiar bunch

Do these retired people have any clout when  it comes to stopping the BH?

Abizaid: World Could Abide Nuclear Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091807A.shtml
Robert Burns reports for The Associated Press, "Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed regime in Tehran, a recently retired commander of US forces in the Middle East said Monday."

25.

seashell :-)
=============
Maybe they have a filter for the word "trut$out"

NY Times is probably after them for copyright infringement because they publish a lot of those paid-for editials "Times Select"

By Chris Hedges

Bill Clinton has written a new book. It is called “Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World.” He will give a portion of the proceeds to charity.  Giving, the former president informs us, gives us fulfilment in life and is “the fabric of our shared humanity.”

His book is the political equivalent of “Marley & Me” It is filled with a lot of vapid, feel-good stories about ordinary and wealthy Americans setting out to make the world a better place.  ....

 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070917_giving_and_taking/

this is why our country is going to hell. hey it's almost there.

I feel for my friend kesh.

Republican lawmakers today blocked the Senate from taking up the D.C. voting rights bill, dealing a major blow to the District's most promising effort in years to get a full member of Congress.

The vote was merely on whether to begin action on the bill. But only 57 senators voted in favor, short of the 60 needed to proceed. Without enough support to vault the Senate's procedural hurdles, the bill is expected to stall for this year, and possibly next year as well.

My apologies to  the dialups, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

Predatory accumulation cannot be cancelled by elimosinary actions.

20.JudyforDean

The last for now ... apparently, it's time for the *Men in Black.*

Peru meteorite crash 'causes mystery illness'
=============

Seems like toxic gas or heavy metal vapors, which can be deadly over the short or long term, depending on the concentration.

41. Monica Smith
==============
Vulgar language is so much more efficient.

The live coverage of the student being tased is nothing short of torture.  Did you hear his screams? 

IMPEACH, COURT MARTIAL  ANTHING PLEASE NOW.

And Kerry should be calling for the removal and jailing of this BH cadre.  You mean  he didn't hear the screams?  Did you notice the vapid smiles on the 2 girls faces while he was being removed?  What kind  of monsters were in the audience? Two young women, SMILING.

I am getting truly alarmed by the consistent ratcheting up against Iran ... and I am not the only one ... this is truly insanity.

If putzCo are not only allowed, but also enabled, to do this, then an election next year will be the last of our worries.

We must be contacting our Senators and representatives with our concerns. Given how they have already behaved, I cannot believe that they will do anything to stop this unless we make clear that it is absolutely unacceptable.

IMPEACH putz and prick ... it may be the ONLY way that we will EVER get our country back.

===================
Tehran's misguided defiance
Propelled by sabre rattlers on both sides, Iran and the west are hurtling towards confrontation.
Simon Tisdall
September 18, 2007 2:30 PM

Asked in Tehran earlier this year about the possibility of a US military strike on Iran, a senior official laughed out loud. "Are you serious?" he asked. "They will never attack us. That would be madness." His amusement was genuine - and chilling.

Ignorance and complacency about American motivations and intentions abound in equal measure in the land of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Uniquely among the countries of the world, Iran has been almost entirely cut off from US cultural, social and economic influence since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

This semi-voluntary, semi-imposed isolation is changing as an ever more youthful population reaches out to the west. And long-held certainties are fading that the US, having behaved so injuriously towards Iran during the Shah's time, would not dare do so again. Local media have been agog with speculation that Israel's US-approved air raid inside Syria earlier this month was aimed obliquely at Iran.

All the same, old political habits die hard. Mr Khamenei, an instinctive conservative of the Khomeini school, told worshippers at Friday prayers that the US was fighting a losing "psychological war" against Iran.

[...]
What Tehran, fatefully, appears not to understand is that the longer these western splits persist and the further Iran's nuclear activities advance unchecked, the more likely that, exasperated, out of time and egged on by vice-president Dick Cheney and Israel, George Bush will opt for force.

As the pressure builds remorselessly, attempts to keep the diplomatic process on track seem to be failing. Mr Kouchner's tough words provoked Germany into publicly advocating a much softer line this week under which, Berlin said, new sanctions might not be needed at all. Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN's nuclear weapons chief, whose latest, self-propelled inspections pact with Tehran has deeply angered the US and Britain, also waded in, warning the west's whole policy was spinning out of control.

[...]
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simo...

A glimmer of good news ... another one down ... more opportunity for Howard's DNC strategy.

================
GOP loses another to retirement
By: Josh Kraushaar
Sep 18, 2007 12:29 PM EST

Rep. Jim Ramstad’s announcement that he’s retiring from his Minnesota seat is the latest in a wave of Republican retirements that are dimming the GOP’s already long chances of recapturing control of Congress in 2008.

Ramstad is the seventh Republican this election cycle to announce a planned departure, even as party leaders have tried to limit the number.
[...]
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/090...

Oh my Gawd ... this guy is probably R-naturally, but whatever political persuasion he is, in my opinion, should be strung up by his thumbs and castrated.

And that's just for starters.

These guys think of our children as their own personal playthings.

===================
Federal Prosecutor Arrested In Child Sex Sting

DETROIT -- A U.S. Justice Department official has been arrested on suspicion of traveling to Detroit over the weekend to have sex with a minor.

John David R. Atchison, 53, an assistant U.S. attorney from the northern district of Florida, was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Detroit Monday afternoon.

An undercover officer posed as a mother offering her child to Atchison for sex, according to police.

[...]
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14132...

Huckabee triumphs in ‘Value Voters’ straw poll

September 18, 2007
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) was the big winner of a straw poll of “value voters,” garnering 64 percent of the vote and easily beating all other GOP presidential hopefuls.
http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/huckabe...

More memories of the Other Quagmire ... and how things stay the same.

===============
Vocabulary lesson
Submitted by Rick Perlstein on September 18, 2007 - 5:07pm.

"Betrayal" is a crucial concept when it comes to understanding conservative failure. When it comes to national security, it may the most important concept of all.

The word's been invoked in anger a lot in Washington this week, but not because people are angry at the people doing the betraying. They're much angrier at the people pointing it out. You're not allowed to call betrayers betrayers. Especially if they're military men. As our vice president recently put it, with a mawkishness which hardly becomes him, "It's bad enough when politicians turn their backs on a war they voted for and supported when it was popular But no one in politics, regardless of party, should hesitate to object when an American soldier at war is mocked and insulted."

No, you're supposed to put a general up on a pedestal. Because generals never tell a lie. Only, we've tried this before. It didn't work out so well.

Back in Vietnam, another politicized general, William Westmoreland, always claimed enemy force levels were no higher than 300,000. They were actually closer to half a million. But Westmoreland suppressed the CIA reports that showed this was so. This so General Westmoreland could come to Washington in the fall of 1967 and say, "The ranks of the Viet Cong are thinning... The end begins to come into view." He supported this with the claim that the number of enemy in 1966—285,000—had now declined to 242,000. Even though, according to the CIA, the number was as high as 600,000. Westmoreland simply refused to include irregular guerrillas in his count. Kind of like the way Petraeus's people only count Iraqis shot in the back of the head as victims of sectarian violence. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."
[...]
http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/vocabul...

Bravo Balto Sun, for having the gonads to publish this article!

===================
Published on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 by The Baltimore Sun
A Double Standard on Academic Freedom in The Middle East
by George Bisharat

Two hundred thousand Palestinian children began school in the Gaza Strip this month without a full complement of textbooks. Why? Because Israel, which maintains a stranglehold over this small strip of land along the Mediterranean even after withdrawing its settlers from there in 2005, considers paper, ink and binding materials not to be “fundamental humanitarian needs.”

Israel, attempting to throttle the democratically elected Hamas government, generally permits only food, medicine and fuel to enter Gaza, and allows virtually no Palestinian exports to leave. Lately, it held up delivery of materials needed for printing textbooks. As a result, Gaza students began the year facing a 30 percent shortage of texts.

No full-page advertisements in major American newspapers have publicized Israel’s violations of Palestinian children’s right to an education. No editors, syndicated columnists or presidents of major universities in this country have denounced this callous measure. Our politicians have demanded no remedial action. Instead, they continue, verbally and materially, to support Israel in its near-total blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians, kids and all.

[...]
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007...

The last for now ... news that I guarantee you'll never see on Faux.

===================
Bush's 'proxy war' claim over Iran exposed
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - In his prepared statement to the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees last week, General David Petraeus claimed that Iran is using the Quds Force to turn Shi'ite militias into a "Hezbollah-like force" to "fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq".

But Petraeus then shattered that carefully constructed argument by volunteering in answering a question that the Quds Force, an
elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, had in essence left Iraq. "The Quds Force itself, we believe, by and large those individuals have been pulled out of the country, as have the Lebanese Hezbollah trainers that were being used to augment that activity."

Petraeus' contradictory statements on the Quds Force are emblematic of a US administration propaganda line that has in essence fallen apart because it was so obviously out of line with reality. Nine months after the George W Bush administration declared that it was going to go after Iranian agents in Iraq who were threatening US troops, the US military still has not produced any evidence that Quds Force operatives in Iraq were engaged in assisting the militias fighting against US troops.
[...]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East...

PROGENY OF GEPETTO

By David Podvin

In 1962, the Joint Chiefs Of Staff unanimously recommended that President Kennedy bomb New York City to frame Fidel Castro and provide a pretext for conquering Cuba. It is one of history’s most amazing coincidences that four decades later New York City was bombed and Saddam Hussein was framed and Iraq was conquered… imagine the odds against the original military plan recurring with such precision. In any event, John Kennedy was a liberal Democratic president rather than a conservative professional soldier so he opted against bombing the American people. Joint Chiefs Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer then illegally attempted to destroy all evidence of the proposal so that he could deny it had ever been made, but the general was as inept as he was deceitful and some documentation survived.

During the Vietnam War, the American military again engaged in grotesque deceit. Commanding General William Westmoreland lied to Congress about the war’s progress, rhetorically transforming defeats into victories. The Pentagon routinely issued phony statistics and crafted false analyses that were designed to hoodwink the public. Following the needless deaths of fifty-eight thousand American soldiers and more than a million Vietnamese civilians the conflict finally ended, but the dishonesty of the armed forces did not. America’s military leaders lied about how many defenseless people were slaughtered during the Panama invasion. They even lied to their own afflicted soldiers about Gulf War Syndrome.

Despite conclusive historical evidence that the military has not earned a presumption of candor, liberals are being excoriated for doubting the congressional testimony of General David Petraeus. From the Republican perspective it does not matter that Petraeus is provably talking nonsense about American progress in Iraq – what matters is that liberals have no right to notice Petraeus is talking nonsense, and anyone who does notice is marginalized as being unpatriotic. Talk radio and Fox News and the rest of the Falangist commentariat feign outrage that a decorated military man is having his integrity questioned. Conservatives passionately argue that as a wounded war hero Petraeus is above reproach, but at the 2004 GOP convention these shameless hypocrites impugned wounded war hero John Kerry’s integrity by wearing Purple Heart-shaped band aids.

The contention that American military officers are somehow morally superior is absurd. General Nathan Bedford Forrest founded the Ku Klux Klan. During the Great Depression, General Douglas MacArthur ordered a homicidal attack against starving American World War I veterans who were begging for pensions. At the conclusion of World War II, General George Patton advocated annihilating the Soviet Union. General Curtis LeMay proposed unloading our nuclear arsenal upon North Vietnamese women and children. And then there was General Benedict Arnold.

These military leaders shared a common trait, but the trait was not integrity. They were all right wing nuts. According to a recent survey, ninety-seven percent of the military brass are registered Republicans, and like Lemnitzer many belong to the Doctor Strangelove wing of the party. The last two Democratic presidents experienced insubordination from the Pentagon because the military frequently prioritizes partisanship over patriotism.

There is also is the incomparable corruption of America’s self-styled super patriots. Generals and admirals routinely lobby on behalf of multi-billion dollar weapons systems, then leave the military and receive lucrative kickbacks from the manufacturers of those systems. In banana republics this illicit practice is known as “screwing the peasants”, but in the United States the peasants are discouraged from mentioning the phenomenon lest they be maligned as subversive.

In Animal Farm, George Orwell lampooned the mirage of Western egalitarianism by noting allegorically that while all animals are equal some are more equal than others. Orwell feared and despised the animals who were more equal, those beings to whom the rules do not apply. Dwight Eisenhower later dubbed these beings the “military/industrial complex”. Eisenhower feared and despised them, too. So did Abraham Lincoln, who spoke bitterly of dishonest generals and war profiteers.

Today, the power of the military/industrial complex stands at its zenith. Corporate America subsidizes both major political parties. Its mainstream media controls what most Americans learn, and therefore controls what most Americans think. Like all generals Petraeus is a functionary of the financial elite, so his critics are shouted down by the politicians and commentators who are also functionaries of the financial elite. American freedom of speech exists only as long as it does not threaten the ruling class, and the ruling class now possesses sixteen trillion dollars worth of Iraqi oil that it prefers not to relinquish. As a result, it is deemed traitorous to challenge the credibility of a transparently deceitful general who insists that national security dictates staying the corporate course.

Given the lay of the political landscape it would be vocational suicide if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama condemned soldierly mendacity. However, I am not an upwardly mobile Democratic politician and most likely neither are you, so let’s indulge in some forbidden truth.

General Petraeus committed perjury when he said that the war is going well. While he presented a dazzling array of meaningless statistics painstakingly compiled to distort reality, the relevant number remained unspoken. By the military’s own estimate, there are more terrorists in Iraq today than there were a year ago or two years ago or three years ago or before we invaded. That is a trend line slanting ominously towards defeat. There were fewer Nazis in 1945 than in 1941 because we were winning. There are more al-Qaeda now than in the past because we are losing. The Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu formalized the concept twenty-five hundred years ago: when the enemy is increasing in size, things are going badly. The teachings of Sun Tzu are West Point curriculum, so Petraeus knew that he was deceiving Congress with his upbeat testimony.

The general also lied when he said, “We have never given weapons to tribals. What we have done is applaud when they ask if they can point their guns at al-Qaeda.” This whopper represents the brazen deceit of someone who knows that being caught lying incurs no consequences. Petraeus had already acknowledged in June that he was arming Sunnis to combat al-Qaeda. Yet when testifying before Congress the general lied with supreme confidence, knowing that a huge Orwellian choir of sheep was massed to drown out anyone who challenged his deceptions.

Totalitarians consider the truth to be seditious. The truth is that the United States military lies frequently, and patriotism dictates acknowledging that truth. The alternative is to follow blindly as the progeny of Gepetto prosecute unnecessary corporate wars that damage our nation. Combating military lies with objective facts guarantees being accused of treason, but failure to do so guarantees being complicit with treason.