Online Journal Editors' Blog

How convenient! It only took the Pentagon four years to come up with this tale, claiming George W.’s crucial Texas Air National Guard payroll records were destroyed, allegedly with those of “numerous other service members,” during an operation “to salvage deteriorating microfilm.”

"Destroyed" in 1996 and 1997, yet. Even more convenient, considering he obtained a new Texas driver's license in 1995. A tidying up operation in preparation for a run for the White House?

In a letter signed by C. Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Office, that accompanied a CD-ROM of Bush’s records that had already been released, Talbott said, “Searches for backup paper copies of the missing records were unsuccessful.” Some 60 pages of Bush’s medical files and other records were also withheld on privacy grounds.

How interesting that the records “destroyed” were only for the first quarter of 1969 and the third quarter of 1972. The question of whether Bush was paid for these quarters, which would prove whether he fulfilled his obligation or deserted, could be cleared up from his income tax returns for 1969 and 1972. Yes, people in the military have to file tax returns. It’s doubtful that the dog that ate the microfilm is still around.

With each passing week, the cacophony grows louder about having to call off this year’s elections in the event of another “terrorist attack.”

The corporate media chorus keeps dutifully singing, “The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming” to Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft’s tune, “We Don’t Know Who; We Don’t Know When; We Don’t Know Where; We Don’t Know How, but We Have Credible Evidence and the Attack Will Be Bigger than 9-11.”

Gotta keep that fear card in play, not to mention having a game plan if the Pakistanis fail to pull Osama out of a cave—preferably during the Dems’ convention—to save Bush’s sorry derriere.

Far fetched? Not when you consider retired General Tommy Franks’ remarks to the right-wing NewsMax last November: "It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world—it may be in the United States of America—that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important."

Goodbye, freedom! Hello, dictatorship!

The “replacement” government—also known as the Armageddon Plan—is already in place. And the numbskulls in Congress are being urged to commit suicide by voting for an unconstitutional provision that will allow for “emergency elections” should the vast majority of them be wiped out in an attack on the Capitol.

To further the diabolical plan, the Bushies want to make sure there are as few as possible foreign journalists in the country to record the event. To accomplish that, the new visa rules that take effect next week will require foreign journalists whose visa are expiring to leave the country in order to renew them at a US embassy or consulate abroad. It could take from four weeks to six months before their applications are processed. Neat, huh?

Be afraid, folks. Be very afraid. Our only hope of thwarting this scheme and keeping the freedoms we still have is by spreading the word of what is on the Bushies’ drawing board to as many people as possible.

Like the kid on the playground who can’t stand losing and picks up his baseball bat and goes home, an angry George W. stomped out of a press briefing Thursday when asked questions about his relationship with indicted former Enron chief Kenneth Lay, whom Bush had dubbed “Kenny Boy” back in the salad days when Lay and his wife were pouring some three-quarter of a million dollars in GOP campaign coffers from 1989 to 2001.

Not able quite yet to shout, “Off with their heads,” Bush’s temper grows shorter by the day. Asked during a campaign appearance in North Carolina how John Edwards, John Kerry’s choice for vice president, stacked up against Dick “Potty Mouth” Cheney, Bush snapped, “Dick Cheney can be president.”

Yeah, right, if old Snarling Potty Mouth doesn’t wind up in an orange jump suit for his “big time” Halliburton skullduggery. But at a cabinet meeting, in response to aides worried about Cheney being indicted by a French court and the probes undertaken by federal prosecutors who haven’t yet figured out how to sweep the Cheney-Halliburton scandal under the rug, Bush reportedly growled, “F*uck ‘em all.”

Aren’t you so f*cking glad, that f*cking Bush and Cheney brought f*cking honor and dignity back to the f*cking White House?

Is Bush planning to pull another PR stunt in Iraq?

The word floating in from a military source in Iraq is that George W. may be planning another quick photo-op in Baghdad for three purposes: stealing the thunder from John Kerry’s announcement of his choice for vice president; tamping down Saddam Hussein’s performance last Thursday in a dubious “court” (what little of it US authorities didn’t censor) by strutting macho-like to show the Iraqi people he is stronger than Saddam; and attempting to boost his sinking poll numbers.

Ah, but there is another element to the Bushistas’ madness, according to the source: “The last time Mr. Bush was here General Sanchez requested all the kids who saw Mr. Bush write home to their families and local newspapers to tell them how happy they were that Mr. Bush came to visit them. A few moments ago we were ordered to have thousands of ‘commemorative presidential’ letterheads published for distribution to the kids so that their letters home will saturate the States and many more letters than last time will make it into the media…This PR crap that Mr. Bush's Karl Rove dreams up is disgusting. Are we over here fighting an insurgency or reelecting [sic] a bad commander in chief?”

You have to admit that there is no bottom to the filth the Bush cabal comes up with. And how can someone who wasn’t elected be reelected?

There was no fanfare. No tight shots of a hand-picked group of cheering Iraqis, like the ones assembled for the toppling of Saddam’s statue. Not even George W., in a flight suit, emerging from a fighter jet on the deck of a US aircraft carrier in the middle of the Persian Gulf to personally preside over the grand moment. This “mission accomplished” was all done in secret with 30 minutes notice.

In the now all too familiar sneaky Bushistas’ way, the American viceroy, L. Paul Bremer III, Tuesday “handed over power” — sort of — to the newest interim Iraqi puppet government, headed by a CIA asset.

Except it wasn’t night. It was 10:26 in the morning, Baghdad time, when the fearful Bremer relinquished the keys to Saddam’s palace in a secret ceremony and made a dash for a waiting C-130 to fly him out of Iraq. The excuse for the hastily convened ceremony that should have taken place publicly today? To ward off more violence by those dastardly “insurgents.” Hey, any excuse will do.

And it wasn’t really power or sovereignty that Bremer conveyed in a letter he handed to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, because it was preceded by 97 ‘irrevocable” edicts — thou shalts and thou shalt nots — that Bremer had written over the past week. The real power will rest with Ronnie Reagan’s Honduran death squad and Nicaraguan contras facilitator, US Ambassador John Negroponte, who will take his directions from the Bushies, and the US military. The perfect guy to put in charge of the biggest taxpayer-funded private business enterprise and employment (for anyone other than Iraqis, that is) agency in the world, a.k.a. the US embassy.

Maybe now, grateful for being “liberated,” enjoying “democracy” and having regained their “sovereignty,” the Iraqi people will hug and kiss our folks, and throw flowers at their feet, as Rummy predicted, you think?

Are the corporate media newsfakers who saw this snuff video so stupid that they didn't notice that the duplicating equipment kept being turned on and off, and that the audio and time track were added afterwards? Also, the wall color in the video seems to be the same as the walls in Abu Ghraib prison. And, if they closely watched the person standing on the left, that several frames were duplicated?

Aside from questions about the orange jumpsuit Nick Berg was wearing and the plastic chair he was sitting in that suspiciously looks similar to a chair Pfc. Lynndie England was photographed in at Abu Ghraib prison, the most telling thing about the video is what is absent when Berg's head is severed: blood. Slicing through the carotid arteries of a live person would have produced a geyser of blood spraying the executioner, the person holding down Berg and those gathered in closely. But there is no blood. There is not even a pool of blood on the floor where Berg's body lies. That can lead to only one conclusion: Berg was already dead before the grisly decapitation.

And how from that video could anyone tell that the person clad in black was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a high level al Qaida operative, whom the US military reported was killed April 3 in the bombing of Falluja? Did the Bushies lie about that, too, or has al-Zargawi also been resurrected like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was reported killed in a Sept. 11, 2002 shootout with Pakistani police in Karachi only to be arrested on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, as the new alleged mastermind of 9/11 and the executioner of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl?

Is the Berg murder another sloppy black op ordered by the Bushies to divert attention from the torture of Iraqi prisoners or was the military behind it in an attempt to destroy the crazed Bush administration?

According to TBR News (The Madness of King George), several unnamed sources claim that George W. suffered “what one of his aides called ‘a very minor seizure’ and as a result of this, the President [sic] has a very difficult time following any unscripted conversations.”

"The President [sic] takes oral medication at least twice a day according to [redacted] because of an unspecified "indisposition' and this subject is strictly off limits for any casual staff conversation," according to the TBR report.

"At one point during a staff conference, the President [sic] stood up and began to speak in an unknown language. Mr. Rove was able to stop the President [sic] and get him to resume his seat. It was reported by [redacted] that for a period of time (about fifteen minutes) after this incident, the President [sic] appeared to be 'somewhat confused and very inarticulate.'"

Have the years or drinking and possible drug use caught up with Bush? Might this explain his inability to think on his feet; his inability to express himself other than in a kindergartner’s terms, when he isn’t mispronouncing or misusing words or issuing ungrammatical sentences, such as “Is your children learning?” More importantly, is this the reason his handlers could not trust him to face the 9/11 commission alone, much less testify under oath?

Was the pretzel incident due to a seizure? Might George W. have already been suffering seizures while in the Texas Air National Guard, which would explain why he was grounded, never took a required physical exam and skipped out on fulfilling his Guard service? Could this also explain why to this date Bush refuses to release his medical records?

If this isn’t a hoax, we are in serious trouble and the American people have a right to know, and must demand full and unequivocal disclosure.

In a move sure to please the White House that is determined to keep Americans from seeing the coffins of the US troops who have died in Iraq, the eight affiliates owned by Sinclair Broadcasting won’t be running tonight’s Nightline paying homage to those troops who have paid the ultimate price for Bush’s war.

Why, said Sinclair vice president and general manager, they have determined—they who are allowed to profit from the public’s airwaves— that Nightline anchor Ted Koppel’s ” motivation is to focus attention solely on people who have died in the war in order to push public opinion toward the United States getting out of Iraq.”

Well, if that is Koppel’s motivation, its about time.

As for Sinclair, the FCC should revoke its broadcast license.

Perhaps we shouldn't be pointing this out to the Bush people, but George W. is campaigning on his failures and calling them successes: 9/11, tax cuts for the rich, deficits, an economy in the toilet, climbing unemployment as more and more jobs are sent offshore, Afghanistan, Iraq and his bogus, but endless, "war on terror."

Then what can Bush run on when his whole term in the White House -- a term handed him by the Supreme Court -- has been nothing but lies, coverups, broken promises, illegal wars and failures?

Do the Bushies think the American people are that stupid or have they already rigged the electronic voting equipment?

While Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were on the floor voting Thursday night, committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) seized the opportunity to kill a bipartisan request to federal prosecutors to investigate Republicans' theft of memos from Democrats' computers and tossed the issue back to the Senate's sergeant-at-arms to decide what to do.

Following a contentious day in trying to find compromise language on how to proceed, Democrats believed they had time to cast their votes on the floor and return to the committee before a vote was taken there.

"'We weren't boycotting this -- we thought we had 10 more minutes,' said Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who said some Republicans wanted to stop or curtail the probe because they did not want any revelations about 'which interest groups received these stolen documents' about the battle over the judges," according to a Reuters article.

Reuters reported that Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle "released a report last week showing how two Republican staffers, both of whom have since left the committee, improperly retrieved sensitive documents from Democratic committee staff computers."

Earlier in the day, Pickles said he thought "a referral to the US attorney's office was probably the right course of action."

George W. Bush keeps cutting money for everything that would help the people, and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan now wants to reduce their Social Security benefits and add to the number of years they have to work in order to collect. Yet, the Bush administration has the money to continue paying Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted felon and fugitive from justice, and his Iraqi National Congress about $340,000 a month for "intelligence" about Iraqi insurgents.

This is the same Chalabi who supplied the Bush administration with false, misleading and fabricated information in order to promote an illegal war against Iraq. This is the same Chalabi who took the Bushies and New York Times reporter Judith Miller down the garden path about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction." This is the same Chalabi who was convicted in absentia in 1992 by a Jordanian court for bank fraud, embezzlement, and currency-trading irregularities, following the collapse of the Petra Bank that he set up in 1977. And this is the same Chalabi who is currently serving as a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and who has his eye on becoming Saddam's replacement.

Is Jordan, an ally du jour, so afraid of the US that it is not demanding Chalabi be handed over to serve his prison term? Silly question.