Mr. Shrub often fielded questions, sometimes unsolicited, from the audience.
Q: Do you really believe the things you say, or are you accidentally misleading us? A: Now you’re getting kind of personal. So I guess what you’re suggesting is I’m a person. We’ll talk later. You won’t be aware of it, but we’ll be talking.
Q: Why do you keep lying us into wars? A: It’s true that in war, truth is the first casualty, and we have to do a little deceptionizing, but only on the battlefield (the world) and only during the war, which is, regrettably or not, permanent.
I think we’re all agreed that killing large numbers of civilians should be a last resort. But we have to act, because the UN is irrelevant. We’ve seen to that.
Q: Did you kill Lumumba? A: In August, 1960, Allen Dulles told Lawrence Devlin to get rid of Lumumba. Devlin sat down with Mobutu. In the September 14 military coup led by Mobutu, Lumumba was put under house arrest. Now, from this do you get the idea there was some involvement of the United States in that governmental correction? Well, as John Foster Dulles said to Ike, “the Russians are appealing to the poor people of the earth, who have always wanted to plunder the rich.” Think about it. But not too much.
Q: Why did you invade Iraq instead of North Korea? A: Well of course Iraq has oil, while Korea has—help me out here—well, you answered your own question. We don’t need any more nuclear weapons.
Q: Why do you devalue the lives of people of color by making wars in their countries? A: We’ve been accused of hiding the hurting, of conducting a video game war, an antiseptic war. We are not antiseptic. We have nothing against the septic peoples.
Q: Cuba? A: Cuba is a good question. But it’s not a good answer. Cuba has a choice: self-determination or being part of our hemisphere.
Q: Isn’t the United States a failed nation? A: Look, you may not have child care, health care, education, or jobs. But that’s because women, unions and immigrants don’t know their place.
Oil. Not Vinegar. President Bush has always stood up to the oil companies. When they enter the room, he stands up. Granted, Exxon/Mobil’s value has increased by a trillion dollars due to Bush’s activities at the east coast office of Exxon/Mobil—which is to say, the White House.
To the victor go the oils.
Why all these oil wars? Simply put: To the victor go the oils. And more and more of our foreign oil is coming from overseas.
Read between the pipelines: We need hydrogen-powered cars. But meanwhile, on to Iraq. We can rescue East Hydrogenia later.
Yes I know there’s oil in Texas. But saying we should bomb Texas because they have oil is like saying we shouldn’t rent Ryder trucks to Euro-American Christian men.[1]
But it’s not really about oil. It’s not. It’s about access to oil— not our access to oil, but other people’s access to Our Oil. For example, if you cut off Syria’s access to our oil in Iraq, then you can get them to behave. We’ve talked to our friends in the region about this, and this is what Israel said: Syria has troops in Lebanon, thereby deciding what the future of that nation will be. And that’s Israel’s job.
Do you think we’re going to invade a country to get vinegar? Well, we might surprise you. What would we do with oil and no vinegar?
Peace. Not Puppets. All you demonstrators need to get your message, whatever it is, across peacefully. People have been arrested for demonstrating with weapons, like phones and puppets. Phones look like guns, and puppets look like politicians. We’re most interested in the ringleaders of puppet-making, though we won’t necessarily be arresting corporate CEOs.
The earth is mainly warming on campuses.
6,000 years ago, when the earth was formed—in Kansas, I think—universities weren’t full of liberals. The earth is mainly warming on campuses. These totalitarianationistic professors brainwashing our youth—they come in, they say “Is it warm in here or is it just me?” Get the answer wrong, you’ll never get a job.
Nike was sued for false advertising. As if there was true advertising. It’s a violation of their right to buy free speech.
Enronitis About Enron: the administration had little to do with that, aside from the President, the Veep, the Secretary of the Army, the United States Trade Representative, and top economic and political advisers.
The Pentagon is considering a North American command. It has so far the Pacific, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East. It just never occurred to us to use the military to defend the United States.
The United States is putting $100 million toward convincing women on welfare to marry their kids’ dads. Not to worry, the money is being taken from battered women’s shelters.
Congo Gold The good folks at Barrick Gold Mining funded three things: both sides of the Congo civil war and the campaign of W—perhaps on the advice of the adviser to their International board, George HW Bush.
Don’t Yugo There Milosevic wanted to dominate the Muslims in Bosnia. So we had to help those Muslims before other Muslims did. We couldn’t have that war spreading to Greece. Then Turkey would want some too.
I can take two, three countries at a time. You know what Che Guevara said about two, three many Vietnams, don’t you? You don’t? Good. Well, we need to be able to fight two or three wars at once just in case we decide to instruct two or three countries to hate us at the same time.
Chile
There’s different kinds of democracy, just like communism. There’s theirs and their ours. In Chile they’re still practicing, and they haven’t got it right yet, so we made a small correction for them. Swapped out some parts. Their President was micro-managing the specifics, so we thought it would be good to switch it to generals.
Afghanistan Warlords have feelings too, you know. We’re going to find out who’s arming those Muslim fundamentalists, and if turns out to be us, well, we’re going to commission a study on that.
The old empires used to give people countries, for free, by drawing a line in the sand. So when they wanted to draw a line around India, using indigenous materials, of course there was lots of tea, you put the tea in the sand, you get stan. Later, the Soviets adopted that model and created a bunch of stans over here.
Texas Texas has long been a good friend to the United States. Texas actually is right on the edge of our great Southwest, which used to be someone else’s great Northeast. But like Jorge Arbusto[2] says, tu casa es mi casa. That might seem like chutzpah, but I think it shows cojones. Which you shouldn’t, of course.
Death Penalty Capital punishment takes many forms. A tax on dividends, that’s Capital punishment. And when people start asking questions about Capital punishment, you need the death penalty. If you haven’t asked any questions, you have nothing to worry about.
Honor Roll I’d like to pause for a moment of glorification for the late, great Jim Critchfield, a CIA operative (now it can be told) who fought the Nazis, then recruited them to fight the Commies, then supported Saddam’s party into power. He retired and became an adviser to Sultan of Oman. You think he doesn’t sleep well at night? And of course, these days, day?
[1] Timothy McVeigh rented a Ryder truck to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building.
[2] Spanish for both Shrub and Bush. Economical with the tooth.
Sweatshops: Welfare recipients calling for information now reach operators in India. “Labor migration,” “outsourcing”—way out—“offshoring”: These Indian workers are highly qualified: they are very good at explaining to the recipients that they need to go out and source themselves some jobs.
In many countries employees have the right to organize. Here at home, too, the right is organized.
Unions try to oppress the workers into thinking they’re oppressed.
Of course the students are against these job programs. They’re students. They don’t like jobs. They’ve been trying to shut down the anti-poverty groups like the WTO and the IMF. My advice is to do what you’re good at. Maybe it’s studying, maybe it’s partying. And let Phil Knight do what he does best. Let him make shoes. With help from his, let’s say, associates.
Some of these countries have been accused of keeping two sets of books. That’s normal. It’s called double entry bookkeeping.
Companies have been moving jobs to places where you don’t have intermediaries—third parties trying to get in between the associates and the associators. So it’s just the company, the subcontractor and the teenage girl. And the people that bring the barbed wire. And the army. There’s no interference from people agitating for complex labor formulas like minimum wage and 12-hour day and bathroom breaks.
Now, when you professional activists decide that these job conditions aren’t good enough for our overseas subjects—objects, pronouns, whatever—when you decide that for them, that’s cultural imperialism. That’s wrong. If they want to work in sweatshops, eat at McDonald’s, that’s their business. If they want to wear Nike—well, they can’t afford that. Or McDonalds.
But keep in mind, without us, there wouldn’t be any jobs. There’d just be the old system of poverty that some people will say results from the old imperialism. Well, that’s why we’re trying to fix it with the new imperialism. New, improved sweatshops. British imperialism might have been bad for some people, but I’m here to tell you it was sure better than what went before. It’s not true, but I am here to tell you that.
For example, take the Philippines. which we did. There’s this export zone there called Cavite, and can you believe it, the workers there—sorry, associates—tried to bring in unions. Trying to oppress the workers into thinking they’re oppressed. No. The sweatshops represent great progress. For example, in the Philippines there’s unions all over the country, except in the export zones. So we’ve established a beachhead of openness, with nice big open shops. People criticize these zones because they’re surrounded by guards and walls and barbed wire. You know, we wouldn’t have to do that if it wasn’t for the terrorists trying to get in. Terrorists—you know, unions. Unions are terrifying. Me.
We’ve sponsored a number of competitive athletic events, like the Race to the Bottom.
In fact, it’s a system that works so well that some factories in the Philippines have packed up and moved into the zones, for security from these terrorists. The zones are like industrial parks, but with taller walls. They offer generous benefits, like tax holidays—companies pay no taxes for five years. It’s true the people in the area can’t fund their schools or hospitals, but you really don’t need an education to work in these places, and you’re not going to live that long anyway. So what’s to whine?
We also get the communities competing, offering competitive wage structures to attract the zones. In fact we’ve sponsored a number of competitive athletic events, like the Race to the Bottom. It’s a kind of a bidding war, which is a lot better than a shooting war. In a bidding war, people die, but nobody notices. Here. You.
What do they want, work and wages both? Greed is a problem.
FTAA The FTAA would create a market of close to 800 million people, accounting for approximately 11 trillion dollars in GDP. Some say the FTAA is just NAFTA in stereo. Some are concerned that this is all a push by big business in the United States and a political ploy to bring the hemisphere under America’s total dominance. That’s not sporting. I’m sporting. Some folks go in for extreme Frisbee, extreme shopping, extreme hanging out. I go in for extreme trade. It’s not for weak, sissy, third-rate, third-world type countries.
I know some want to know exactly where the extreme factories are. They’re at undisclosed locations. But I can tell you this: they’re near a McDonalds.
Market fundamentalism allows for a temporary adjustment period, during which workers have less, shall we say, work. Then they get more work. But at less wages. What do they want, work and wages both? Greed is a problem.
We’re not cutting their wages, we’re making their jobs easier by automating them. The people are then freed up to get another job. In fact, the stores are being entirely automated. The products are dispensed from a machine in a new sub-chain called the Auto-mart.
Free Trade zones bring growth. Lots of indicators are up. Hepatitis, ozone particles, birth defects, clearcutting. Wages, we’re working on. Or not.
NAFTA supports privacy rights. Private ownership of education, health care, energy, water. True, water rates have doubled, along with cholera and hepatitis. And killing of anti-privacy rights demonstrators, who are members of the public—what hypocrisy. Privatize the public? Hey, I’ll look into it.
NAFTA provides protection against big government, protecting big and medium-big corporations. NAFTA Lawsuits have been used to repeal a Canadian law banning a chemical linked to nervous system damage—a clear violation of the right to privately govern your own nervous systems. And others’.
Walmart Many of you have asked, why hasn’t Walmart gotten into sponsorship? Why isn’t there a Wamart Arena, why aren’t there Walmart Orioles, Tarheels, or at least Razorbacks? Walmart tours by Britney Spears? Limp Bizkit? Toby Keith? String Cheese Incident?
These are too small time. Walmart needs to do Walmart Disneyland. Walmart CNN. Walmart Senate. Disney built a town, “Celebration”—small time. Walmart Pennsylvania, maybe. Walmart Argentina.
Some call it a union-busting, community-killing, slave labor-inducing behemoth. But kids enjoying shopping at Walmart. And kids enjoy sugar, too.
They’re up to $285 billion a year in sales, larger than the five closest competitors. It’s like the US spending more on military than all others combined: the only way to be safe.
People slandering Walmart are a bunch of special interest harpies. Labor, health care nuts, environmentalites—the environment’s always criticizing us. The Wal’s response: “Critics have an unfair advantage. They’ve got nothing else to do but criticize. We’re too busy making our customers happy to really get out and tell our story.”
I was over in China, there’s a great wall there, and a free market, known as the Great Walmart of China, and they have a lot of people joining the union. Of course it’s a company union, the company being China. Actually, that’s the only country where Walmart associates can join a union.
October Surprise There are two Americas: there are the red meat states, and then there are the vegetarian states. The red states have emptied out; thanks to agribiz there are now only two guys per state, working the farm—plus the white guy that owns it. Then there’s the black vote—Bush won by that, just by one, Clarence Thomas. Listen, we bought that election fair and squarish. Bush didn’t lie. God would not tell the Prez to lie. Checkmate.
Monitoring the dubious practice of allowing everyone to vote has been called election fraud fraud by some. There are various methods: “Spoiling” ballots, rejecting “provisional ballots,” ballots with parts of democrats’ names missing, not counting the absentee ballots, “caging” lists to challenge voters with “suspect” addresses, new voter ID requirements—we’re going to have the best identified Americans in the world. If your ID has a middle initial and your voter card doesn’t, you think we’re going to let you perpetrate initial fraud?
Then there are the arguably misleading robo-calls: You cannot vote, your polling place has been changed—well, people who can’t see through cheap hoaxes shouldn’t be voting.
Extreme Interrogation Prez Dub has explained that everything we do is within the law, by definition. It’s not torture. It’s cruel, inhumane and degrading, true. War is a degrading place. But America is about values. And torture. Anyway, the White House counsel advised Dub that in a new kind of war, Geneva Convention limits on prisoner abuse are “quaint.” Anyway, it works. The use of dogs in interrogation works: people will talk to a dog.
Guantanamo is just the Cuban name for that base. It’s long for the proper name, Gitmo. And we’re doing just that. There’s a lot of support for our camp there—not among the indigenous Guantanamese people so much, maybe, but they’re brainwashed. And not by us!
Bush would like to close Guantanamo. Which he’ll do by rejecting all the calls for closing it until it turns out to be his idea.
You can’t have the Red Cross looking at CIA jails. You’re either with the CIA or the CIA knows your library card number.
The guy who provided the info that wasn’t, you know, info, on links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, was a Qaeda dude in custody, Ibn al Shaikh a-Libi. He probably gave that info under extreme interrogation, resulting in us getting into this war, so you see: torture works! Although the info wasn’t exactly info, it was certainly actionable disinfo. It’s true that it’s not true that al Qaeda is there. Fortunately, we got there before them, so they didn’t come. They’re hiding out in, well, whatever we’re invading next.
The suicides in Guantanamo are clearly acts of war. They’re killing themselves, and that’s our job. They’re pulling all that fancy psychology lingo on us and saying sometimes a suicide is just a suicide. Trying to cover their acts of war with big words. Just like the suicides of South Korean farmers—acts of terrorism against freedom. Or anyway free trade. The suicides are a public relations stunt. They’re stunt men. It’s a circus. It’s a show biz. And by the way, non-union. Undercutting our good union stuntmen. We call on AFTRA to condemn this scab stunting. Just because they’ve been there five years with no trial they think all my trials Lord soon be over?
Basically we have a choice. We could stop torturing, humiliating, abusing their religion, and so forth. Or we could just stop people from talking about it. This is not rocket surgery, folks.
This Washington Post report about secret prisons, that is a scandal. That’s a very dangerous road. We’ve got to do something about the Post. And about secret prisons—first of all we’re using the ones that were already there, so we’re recycling. Anyway, you have to respect local tradition. Imported tradition. We’ve got get to the bottom of this, so we can get on top of it, get out in front of it, and get it behind us.
Empire The American empire started informally in 1898, and was formally declared in 2002. PR is very important in democratic societies because it’s wrong to control the people by force, unless they’re black or something. So you have to control them through their minds, so they’ll do what you want with only PR guns pointed at them.
We don’t overlook massacres by our allies. We oversee them.
Back during the Cold War, when we were trying to get people on our side against an adversary, we were willing to overlook deficiencies in the systems of the Our-Siders. Genocide, massacres, fascism—as long as it was authoritarian fascism and not totalitarian. We don’t do that anymore. So governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, etc., they still have shortcomings, but we don’t overlook them. We oversee them.
The United States has had a “quiet indifference” to repressive regimes in the past, including Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Colombia, Saddam Hussein, and maybe a couple others—well, a couple hundred others—you know, if you define quiet indifference as sponsorship and the past as the present. But we had to do this to win the Cold War, to prevent the Soviets from taking over. If they had, they might have killed 100,000 Guatemalans, and that was our job.
It’s actually not so much an empire we have as “benevolent global hegemony.” I prefer to think of us as a benevolent dominatrix. We help out. Some nations are non-aligned, but we can straighten them out.
And even if it is an empire, it’s the world’s first ever non-imperialist empire. It’s not imperialism when we re-draw the map of the Middle East and effect regime change. Imperialism was Britain. This is the United States and Britain. We recognize now that the Monroe Doctrine is wrong. Our sphere of influence is not the Americas, it’s the world. And it’s administered by—well, The CIA’s budget is secret. I could tell you that it’s $44 billion. But I won’t. Then I’d have to extraordinarily rend you.
We don’t really need a foreign policy—there’s only the one country now. And just the one flag. Hey, these colors don’t run. Well, they run the world, of course.
People say we’re isolated in the UN. It’s not true that we’ve only got Israel there. We’re in a strong alliance with every kind of Marshall Island, and also the entire Palau.
We don’t have any hostile intent toward anyone who wants to be our friend. As long as they’re weaker than us. If they try to be as strong as us, that’s hostile.
Arnold The Austro-Hungarian empire is back. We’re not going to have a girly-man state anymore—Hasta la vista, baby! He’ll be a hands on governor. I mean, on his Hummer. The Hummer—now, as tanks go, it’s rather small and pitiful. But it’ll suffice for city driving.
Arnold is not going to govern. Karl Rove is. His grandfather was much higher up in the organization than Arnold’s dad. Arnold’s dad was an officer, but Karl’s grandpa was state party chairman. And we’re not talking about the Republican Party here. Well, the republican party of its day, maybe, in Europe.
“Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.”
The business of America is none of your business.
He’s going to pump up Sacramento. And sculpt the schools. Put power juice in the energy system. He hasn’t got all his policies in place, he’s still kind of groping for some of them. He’s a good man. Handles himself well. And others. He’s met thousands, and only handled six, that we know of.
Look at his ballot measures: harder for teachers to get tenure, hold down the number of nurses in hospitals, require unions to hold votes before using dues for political purposes. It’s a lucky thing we have corporations and wealthy people, because democracy is not cheap. Today, elected office is more expensive than ever. Corporations outspend unions 12:1 or maybe 24:1, so it stands to reason we must make the unions get permission to spend money in politics. Unions are always meddling in politics—e.g., they spent money to defeat these bills. Anyway, the business of America is none of their business.
Social Security I’m not saying all seniors are terrorists. But they’re being manipulated by their leaders. It’s just like Big Labor, only it’s Big Old.
Dubya now states that the intelligence is faulty: there were no weapons of mass destruction. That’s not true. We know they’re there. We still have the receipts. Always thought he was kind of a leftie. Girlie man conservative. Not gay, but a little light in the Humvee.
2006
We’re gonna fix these fix these high gas prices, not to worry. We could go after price gouging, or we could open up the Arctic wildlife park. No-brainer.
Children of NAFTA 12 million illegals want amnesty, just because we destroyed their economies. Their economies can’t compete over there, so they come over here and compete. That’s unfair competition. If they’re not careful, we’ll give back the other half of Mexico, and see if their McDonalds can compete with ours.
This is a nation of immigrants. Right. But you see, the Italians and Irish learned English. The rest of the world is learning English. If we have more than one language here, that’s like saying we’re like just another country. We know that’s not the case, because God blessed America first, and then ran out of time. South America is not blessed. We felt sorry for them, so we lent them our name. At the prime rate, of course.
Tony Snow from Fox is the new press sec. If you’re wondering why we would put in a press sec named Snow, well, it wasn’t my idea. To put across the White House line he’ll have to drop the fair and balancing act. Did I say act? Well, all the world’s a stage.
Nicaragua Now, we’ve explained to the Nicaraguan people that they are not to vote for their former dictator again; this is not El Salvador, after all. If they want a former dictator, we can provide one off the shelf.
Sudan In Sudan, Christian blacks are fighting against Moslem Arabs. You know, I’ve always liked black folks.
We’re pushing for democracy, the respect of elected leaders—offer not valid in Palestine or Venezuela.
The US, Saudi, and Pakistan, that’s the Axis of Us. We’re going to find Osama by not looking for him. That’s when he least expects it.
Iran We’re now using free money—Saudi, for instance—to work against extremists in Iran. I guess you might call it a sort of a contra Iran strategy.
I don’t see why Iran feels like they have to have nuclear weapons, just because they have them in Russia, Pakistan, India, Israel and the US.
The offer is open to sit down and negotiate with Iran, as soon as they capitulate.
If the UN won’t do our job—its job—we’ll just send some peaceful battleships over to Iran. And if they pretend to feel provoked and attack us, we’ll have to self-defensatively preact.
You’re either with the decider or you’re a suicider. The Islamo-fascism-doers are the real reason we went into Iraq. We didn’t say it then because we couldn’t pronounce it.
The invisible hand does extraordinary renditions of reporters’ questions.
We told Iran that they could have nuclear energy. But that’s when they had a Shah. When he left, he took the permission slip with him. People are already criticizing our war over there and it hasn’t even started. Give a war a fair shake. It’ll be better than Iraq—that was practice. We’ve got it now. Or will have.
In Iran they ban reporters from questioning the system. If a reporter questions the system here at home, we just don’t hear about it. Because we don’t have a system here. We just have the invisible hand of the market. The invisible hand does extraordinary renditions of reporters’ questions.
OK, so it turns out to be not quite true that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. But is has become true that they are helping to not help us in Iraq. Therefore since we are good, they are bad—Axis-ly bad.
Syria of course is in the Axis of Evil, and one of our most intractable enemies, except for the things we have in common, like torture. The Syrians are being notably unhelpful, and we will not tolerate an axis of unhelpfulness.
Judy Miller Libby feeds info to Judy Miller, Miller puts it in the New York Times, Cheney cites the Times. Finally: government efficiency.
Let’s not confuse the axis of evil with the evil of access. But to be fair, Miller did forget who she got that info from.
Most journalists were understandably jealous because she was embedded, and they couldn’t get positions in the government. Most journalists aren’t able to take on a second job, but she was able to multitask. Indirectly, of course, they do: we tell them what’s going on, and they print it.
In the end she was ordered off the beat, but she’s got so much rhythm—I mean, for a stenographer. Some call her a danger to journalism, since she facilitated the war in Iraq, which admittedly did kill a lot of journalists.
Scooter Libby For outing Valerie Plame as a CIA officer, the Scoot was Indicted for two counts of perjury, two counts of false statements, and one count of obstruction of justice. Everybody wants to know: why not espionage or conspiracy? Well, there’s a precedent. This is like when they got Al Capone for tax evasion. Not that Scooter’s like Al. Cheney’s more like Al.
Did he not know Plame was covert? Cheney says Libby is competent and capable, at least at perjury and obstructing justice. Did W know he told Cheney to tell Libby to tell Judy to out Valerie? What did he not know, and when did he first not know it?
David Addington Replacing Libby on the secrecy desk, he’s been hard at work withholding information on Cheney’s energy meetings, Enron, and 9/11. He dressed down an aide who brought up Section 3 of the Geneva Convention. Do you know what Section 3 says!? No? So far, so good.
We clearly weren’t ready. The storm hit the Gulf Coast like a Walmart.
People without cars were stuck, but the Americans got out. The good people of Katrinia are struggling to recover, but some are making unreasonable demands, like the right of return. That would destabilize the good people of New Orleans, the people with, you know, cars. We’re going to see a better, stronger New Orleans, with a brighter future. With white jazz bands.
People are criticizing the Prez for strumming while New Orleans drowned? He’s not strumming happily. Look closely at the pictures and you’ll see that those are very sad chords—being one fret off from actual chords.
James Reese owns the only private street in New Orleans. He brought in Instinctive Shooting, International, from Israel. Reese is in Mayor Nagin’s administration, and has said he doesn’t want black and poor people to return to New Orleans. After all, they are the public, and his street is not zoned for them.
This is not a time for finger-pointing; this is a time for ignoring who allowed this to happen.
The rules mandating 5% of city contracts to minorities have been waived, and presently it stands at 2%. This is because of W’s approval rating among blacks being down to 2%. It’s down from 19%, since Katrina. And about that looting down there, you have to be understanding of the situation. Hey, let Halliburton be Halliburton. Those contracts are Big and Easy. And as for those violent gangs, it’s understandable. They were paid to do that in Iraq, now they’re home. Well, not the Israelis, they’re not home. Although, like Americans, they make themselves at home wherever they go.
The President’s appeal to individuals to open their hearts and wallets after he closed the federal wallet on levee strengthening might seem hypocritical. But people should do what they’re best at. The army corps of engineers, that notoriously bloated bureaucracy, thwarting private initiative, that’s what they do. Others just do hypocrisy. This is not a time for finger-pointing, this is a time for ignoring who allowed this to happen.
We will put America’s problems behind us, where we can’t see them.
Flood control has been a priority of this administration. We’ve devoted a lot of attention to cutting that budget. Sure, if they would’ve spent the $208 million on flood control, they wouldn’t have to spend the $26 billion now. But that just gives us a chance to implement our master plan. In a bold, visionary move to rebuild the Gulf Coast, we’ve cut $50 billion in services to the poor. From the relatively comfy, we’ve cut $70 billion. In taxes. We’re helping out with school vouchers as well. New Orleans will become a beacon, a bold experiment in putting America’s problems behind us, where we can’t see them.
Rest assured, the oil industry cares. They’re going to provide low-cost heating oil for low-cost people. So far, the Venezuelan oil industry is the main participant. By main, of course, I mean only.
But let’s be clear: if you use enough oil to alter the climate, and take the money away from infrastructure maintenance and give it to the war effort, so that when the climate comes calling it wrecks cities and you can’t rebuild them, and the surplus redundant poor people are all driven out, the state doesn’t have any money, and has to make it by selling off schools, hospitals, and public housing—what can I say? Mission accomplished….In all modesty, God did it. But we helped.
It’s important to settle things with the alleged Palestinians in the so-called occupied territories. Israel has been working very hard to defend the West Bank against attacks by its inhabitants. Meanwhile the Palestinians, masquerading as children, have been using Iraqi-bloc rocks to destabilize the only democracy money can buy. And they’ve been doing suicide bombings, which is a war crime. I’m sure things will work out as soon as they stop praying to the wrong God.
Election Andrew Jackson wasn’t the last guy to show how a defeat in Florida can lead to the Presidency.
Sometimes you have to remove felons, people with names like those felons, people with friends with names like those of felons.
Anyhow, it won’t affect the President’s upcoming landslide re-election. Kerry can’t win. He won’t do what it takes—tossing 10,000 white possible felons off the rolls.
Speaking of Kerry, you won’t see W throwing his medals away. Medal. Meds. Was it medals or ribbons? There are known ribbons and unknown medals, and less good medals.
Kerry flip-flops. Fights in a war, then opposes it. Traitor to his self. Then he criticizes W’s mode of near service.
Kerry’s a complicated guy. He wants to repeal certain tax cuts, and keep others – I like a simple guy. W doesn’t do nuance.
W was not elected the first time, of course. He was chosen. Clearly. By Jesus. 100 million Jesus fans can’t be wrong. 1-1/2 billion Mohammed fans could be. Possibly. Probably. But Jesus—first of all, his name is in English. And he was a Christian, and this is a Christianate nation, with all due deference to our citizens of lesser religions. But the real Christians are Protestanters. They built this nation with the Protestant work ethnic.
For those planning ahead: Yes, there will be an October surprise, I can’t tell you where, but it will be red or at least deep orange. The Democrats, of course, are already engaged in pre-emptive sore losing.
Regarding Defense: there’s no war like a holy war. Look at the Crusades – there were many of them. We’re going to put the Jesus back in Jihad. I will still be your commander-in-thief, but I will be focused more on domestic problems, such as women. And surpluses. Clearly the pie has gotten higher, and we can put more food on your family, but we want to have tax breaks for those who want to contribute to the drug war in Colombia, which is a drug war and not a war. But if the drug dealers are terrorists, that’s different. We will not let terrorists hold this nation hostile.
Why drugs? It turns out that the Communists were all on drugs. Marijuana leads to Marxism, as you now know. The Colombian guerrillas are selling drugs to raise money to take over America. Or anyway, South America, to whom we have graciously lent our name. At the going rate. FARQ that.
As Cheney explained, the ability to criticize is one of the great strengths of our democracy. So you better do it this week. You never know when you’ll lose your abilities.
Song: You take the issues out, you put emotions in, you take yourself out of the loop and you doctor up a spin, you do some mumbo jumbo and you turn your views around, that’s what it’s all about.
2005
IRAQ-not yet Gate Is the war over? Well, if we leave, there could be violence there. We haven’t finished training Iraqi troops to secure democracy so that nobody can get at it. Democracy’s like oil that way, you don’t want people getting at it. Some alleged Americans have been disrupting democracy, by, you know, participating in it. You know who you are. We’ll talk. You won’t realize it at the time, but we’ll talk.
International law is very clear about the responsibilities of an occupation force. It has the responsibility for the safety of the citizens. Fortunately, we’re not bound by international law. We’re not international. We are the world.
The framers of the Magna Carta didn’t anticipate these people who aren’t even Christians, trying to come into our Christian courts, endangering our judicial system by participating in it. They should have thought of that before they decided to be Middle Eastern. Getting in the way of our attempt to bring them democracy. Granted, some of them might be civilians, might be innocent. But a military court can judge that as well as a military band can play music.
Last week we denied we used White phosphorus as an offensive weapon. Turns out we did. But not on civilians. That’s not scheduled for admitting till next week. Let’s get on the same page of the calendar. But in fact there was some torture. We found out about this while we were directing it.
Downing Street-gate There’s really nothing new in those memos. It’s all been covered up before. At the time, we thought that Saddam might attack us. He did not, goddamn it. So we had to straighten that out. We thought sure he would attack us after we bombed. He did not. This was a clear provocation. It’s a choice between Mr. Bush and Mr. Hussein both calling each other liars. I realize that’s a bit of a tough call.
When a thug comes to power through intimidation, and then acts the same way on the international scene—and I’m not just talking about W here. Don’t forget, Saddam was creating mass graves over there. And that’s our job. Saddam Hussein will be brought to trial for his war crimes. We’ll try to get his accomplices but we don’t always remember our own phone numbers, do we?
You either get it, or you’re gonna get it.
37% support the war. They’re part of the hep, properly educated, with-it group who know what’s going on, who know how to use swell slang. They understand that the needs of the Republic are best served by the Republican party. The other 63% clearly are part of the axis of not getting it. And let me say, you either get it, or you’re gonna get it. That’s because 63% of the American people are giving aid and comfort to the enemy by opposing America. These people are led by the liberal press, Amnesty, and other terrorist groups. Criticizing the war helps the enemy. And I don’t mean me.
As W has explained, the war on terrorism is like the war on communism. In both cases, it’s good to have an enemy. Some people say we can’t win this war in Iraq. These people are just fringe dissidents. People like retired military officers. Present military officers. People who don’t know what I’ve told them to know.
Dubya W still has strong support in some sectors. Soldiers, as we saw in the impromptu scripted video chat op. In fact, we’re thinking of scripting the American people.
Some are saying the soldiers didn’t say what they felt. Of course they did. We told them what they felt and they said it. Scripting an impromptu chat with soldiers is not a war crime. This is not rocket surgery, people. It took place in Tikrit. The proper pronunciation is TIKrit, but the soldiers can’t all say that, and we take care of our soldiers. While they’re soldiering.
We’re trying to defeat a backward, dark philosophy, put forward by backward, dark people. You don’t want a Muslim fundamentalist government coming in and telling you what you can’t read. You want a Christian fundamentalist one, right?
The rescue of Fallujah was precipitated by the unprovoked killing of four Blackwater mercenaries. Blackwater hires “patriots.” Some from Chile, trained under Pinochet. Pinochet was a patriot. He defended our country, down there. Not that their country is ours. But su casa es mi casa, pardon my French.
Understand: we originally armed Iraq through a Chilean front company—under dictator Pinochet, our dictator/s.o.b. Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in ’83, for Reagan, to re-establish relations –The Chummy with Rummy show. Of course he did. Why do you think it was called the Republican Guard?
You know, Saddam Hussein used gas on his own people, and on Iran. Of course it’s true we supported him. That’s because at that time, Iran was bad. Now we’re in a situation where Iran is bad again. Ari said “We’ve made clear to Iran that we would oppose any outside interference in Iraq’s road to democracy.” Our role is, rather, Inside Outerference.
So the CIA established a communications link with Saddam Hussein back when he was our son of a bitch, and we were able to document the use by Saddam of mustard gas against Iranian troops. In fact, we made a list of the locations of the units where this mustardization took place. Granted, we made the list before the attacks. Well, that’s American know-how, or know-when. But we were not biased. We were even-handed. We were sending arms to Iran too. It was win-win. Or lose-lose, from the local perspective. If you call that a perspective.
Former Unocal consultant Hamid Karzai is now President of Afghan. I know a lot of you object to the presence of accomplished people in government—the former CEO of Halliburton, for instance. You’d rather have leaders who were—what, investigative reporters? Protest demagogues? Amy Goodman for Supreme Court Justice? Barbara Lee ambassador to UN? Arundhati Roy president of India?
The news we’re getting from Iraq is accurate, trustworthy, thorough, and complete, because the reporters are able to go out for six, maybe seven minutes at a time. Sometimes twice a week.
The coalition forces are in command of the country. That’s the coalition of Sunni and Shiite insurgents. We have had less good moments. But we’re rebuilding Iraq, except for the hospitals, roads, electricity and buildings.
The Iraqi resistance is in its last throes. When they’re done with those throes, they will throw us out. But we have achieved something fundamental there: fundamentalism.
As to how many casualties there have been among the—what do you call them, Ingratis, no, Iraqis, that’s it—we don’t do body counts. That would be quotas.
Ahmed Chalabi, and the Iraqi National Congress—I can’t take credit for that. Richard Perle found him at the University of Chicago in the 80s. Chalabi, who’s been embedded in England since 1956—well of course he had to flee Iraq. They were going to imprison him. Embezzlement came after embeddlement. Embezzle—well, he is a mathematician after all. I’m here to tell you those charges are trumped up. It’s not true, but I am here to tell you that.
Iraq was in violation of all kinds of UN Security Council resolutions. We’re not in violation of any. We would be, but we vetoed them.
Bolton the UN? Or Dismantling? Dub has appointed John Bolton ambassador to the UN. Some questioned the wisdom of appointing someone to the UN who opposes the UN. Well, we can’t leave that post empty; we need someone there to make W look like Gandhi.
School of the Americas? Watch. It closed on a Friday, opened on a Monday, with a different name. Are they anti-semantic?
40% of its students are from Colombia. But that doesn’t tell you anything. Others are from Guatemala. And let me just say here, genocide gets a bum rap. Seriously, we had to help the Guatemalan people. Otherwise, they might help themselves.
Liberation theology is really just a failure to excommunicate.
Nicaragua I ran contras. I had to. We were faced with an infestation of liberation theology, which is nothing more than a failure to excommunicate. The people there were disrupting democracy by participating in it. Colombia
The government has been very effective. Plan Colombia has been in place for six years, and prices for cocaine are now cheaper than ever. Of course that wasn’t the goal, but you have to admit, it is an effect.
We stand for peaceful, eventual, moderate, partial change down there. And we will not settle for more.
Radical change would play into the Soviet-Cuban-Iraqi plan for the region. We have to help that government defend the country against its people.
“Palestine” Why are people getting so agitated about gated communities? The wall is a fence. Except where it’s a wall. It has to be. True, Palestinians have died, which is sad. But Israelis have been killed, which is worse.
The IDF has demolished shops in the West Bank because they were built illegally. No word yet on plans to demolish Jewish settlements.
Some say Palestinians are like Native Americans. They’re not. First, there’s no casinos there. Second, there’s no such soccer team as the Jerusalem Jihadis.
The Middle East is a mysterious region. It’s not inscrutable—that’s further east. But it is mysterious. So people ask me questions, for example, “How could there be Palestinians? There’s no Palestine!” I decided to look into this. It turns out the Palestinians left some time ago—voluntarily of course—and took Palestine with them. This was back when you were allowed four carry-ons.
Now it seems they want to come back—this is called the Right of Return. It might surprise you to learn that I support this. There’s a precedent: The Israelites left some time ago, came back 2,000 years later, and everything’s been fine. So it’s a good timetable, and it’s available. And while they’re waiting their turn, the Palestinians could prepare. For example, they could work on civilizing themselves. Anyone can tell you they’re not civilized. Just one obvious example: suicide bombings. Why can’t they drop their bombs from airplanes, like civilized people?
We have learned a lot from Gaza, now that we have been able to get a look at it. We have to first of all acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians. They face suffocating poverty, and no one knows why. The recent study undertaken by Israel has been inconclusive, despite the use of many hi-tech study jets and learning tanks. Nevertheless, it is clear we must deplore the extremism of Hamas, which forces Israel to kill civilians. Hamas must renounce its violence, which has caused responses from Israel. Hamas claims to be still responding to something that happened in 1948. Granted, it happened from 1948 to 2010, but it is time to stop living in the past-induced future.
Of course, at the root of it all is the Hamas occupation of Israel. That is to say, Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist (we will save “as a Jewish state” in case they later do recognize the Right. Moveable goal posts are such an important part of any diplomatic tool box.) Now some would say that Israel does not recognize a Palestinian state’s right to exist. But the people who say this are in custody.
Some people will tell you the problem is actually the other occupation—the one by Israel; but that’s so over and done, except for land, sea, and air. And the West Bank, which has nothing to do with Gaza.
Israel used precision-targeted weaponry, which enabled them to hit civilians, their own soldiers, and the UN. They certainly used disproportionate force, resulting in the suffering of alleged children and other possible non-combatants. On the other hand, Tzipi and Condi met and they had cute names.
The Red Cross said it became a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Israel said there was no shortage of human needs. Well, as I have always said: you’re either with Israel or you’re with the Red Cross. But just to be sure, I’m watching these developments 24/7. Or anyway, I’m watching 24.[1]
One can see that the Meddle East is not simple, and the solutions are not winner-take-all. You have to achieve balance, which is difficult. You have to balance the needs of the West Bank with the needs of the World Bank. And since the countries are so close together, with Israel being right next to Palestine, or over it, or around it, or all of the above and more, they must learn to get along. Perhaps Palestinians can learn to appreciate Israeli foods, like hummus, as Israelis have learned to appreciate Palestinian customs, like having land. Otherwise, the Israelis will be forced to continue their occupation, which is bound to succeed in providing democracy and happiness in the end, as we have seen in Iraq and are about to see in Afghanistan. So I say to Tzipi and Bibi and all the other cute-named leaders: Mazel Tov, in advance.
The Patriot Act Some say the Patriot act is directed at those of Arab descent. Not true. It’s directed at all dissent.
When your only tool is a hammer, you better make sure you have lots of nails.
Now about Patriot Act II, or Patriot Reloaded: if you’re not reading the wrong books, you have nothing to worry about. Anyway, without the Act, you wouldn’t know where the free speech zone is. Was.
5,000 people have been detained under this act, and only one convicted of a crime. Which just goes to show, when your only tool is a hammer, you better make sure you have lots of nails.
300 cities passed resolutions against the Act. This never would have happened if we’d had it before—they wouldn’t have known we had it. But conditions are pretty good in those 300 cells where those terrorist mayors are held.
PBS Now we have the innovative No Children’s Television Left Behind program.[2] There’s an added benefit: when those stations go off the air, the channel can be picked up by faith-based programmers, blessedly free of gay tvtubbies. Clifford the big red dog’s a bit light in his Nike’s, you know. Look, you’re either with us or you’re with Bert. Who’s with Ernie.
I’ve just washed my brain and I can’t do a thing with it.
Basically, we’re trying to give you back your $1.20 a year, so you can go out with 4 friends and rent a video. Or invest it in your retirement fund. Some people think $1.20 a year for public tv is well worth it. Jeez. Don’t they know there’s a war on?
If PBS would get with the program and compete freely, the markup of the magicplace would achieve the same results as in the airline industry.
Face it, we live in a demographic society. Do they want freedom from being canceled by offended advertisers? That’s not in the Constitution. Anyhow, they are a liberal biased organization, with the exception of William Buckley, the McLaughlin group, and McNeill/Lehrer. But Sesame Street—whoa, that’s a liberal bird there.
France The young grandchildren of immigrants in France are unemployable. We know this; studies show that companies won’t hire them.
Race People who complain about prisons don’t support affordable housing.
We have a plan for more affordable housing: prisons. But we must make sure when prisoners are released that they get jobs. And of course transportation to those jobs, in Malaysia.
Colin Powell is a symbol of progress. He has addressed the Senate. And it’s hard to appear before an organization that doesn’t admit blacks. But there’s progress: we don’t have literacy tests anymore. We have drug tests. Prison budgets are higher than education budgets, and that makes sense: an educated black person won’t vote Republican, but an imprisoned one won’t vote at all. Raker of Muck Greg Palast reports that the 57,000 people removed from Florida voter rolls included 500 convicted of crimes committed several years in the future. A sort of pre-emptive strike of criminals from the rolls. Plus 4,000 others with blank conviction dates. But it is not true that that list was withheld from the media. They didn’t ask for it.
People who complain about prisons don’t support affordable housing.
The ethnic cleansing of the voter roll was done by a unit of Arthur Anderson, who did so well for Enron. In their defense, those voters were biased anyway. The job was done thoroughly: they carefully removed black alleged possible relatives of future felons with the same name. The Dems can throw some white felons with the same name as possible future allegeds off the rolls too. It’s all good.
Trade NAFTA is transforming the corn economy, because corn, you see, is rather easily converted into a common Mexican product known locally as maize. The new agreement, which for some reason the farmers don’t agree to, gives these farmers a chance to go into town, and stay there. Maybe you can’t understand that. Let’s make up an example closer to home. Suppose you went down to the village square—sorry, to downtown—all right, to the mall—and you wanted to hear your favorite fiddler, I mean synthesizer player—all right, your favorite Muzak tune, and they’d replaced it with some weird Turko-Laotian bagpipe player who couldn’t even play in English. How would you feel? You’d feel like your culture had been malled! But luckily we have laws against Turko-Laotian malling. You’re welcome.
Twenty more countries will be eligible for debt cancellation as soon as they open up their markets so we can destroy their industries. They are in urgent need of refarm. They need to privatize so our private eyes can come in and make sure the right companies buy it. As long as you’re willing to devote your economy to the growth of my wealth and not your health, we’ll all be fine. Some of us.NAFTA is a big success: it’s created lots of jobs for Latin Americans, right here in the U.S. Many of them are working two or three jobs, it’s so successful. And they’re sending money back to their families down in the other America. Redistribution of wealth! We’ve vanquished the tyranny of the special interests, like labor and the environment, over profits—we’ve been liberated from that. But in Bolivia, formerly known as Bechtelia, the Indians are revolting. And for what? They don’t just want to nationalize the oil, they want to nationalize the government!The world is like the stock market. In fact, the world is the stock market. Everything else is French.
Coalition Against Central America (CACA) What did the Coalition Against Saddam Hussein have in common with the Coalition Against Central America? Some would say that CASH is CACA. Those who say this, I have their addresses. So I suspect they’ll make no more addresses.
Remarks on the “Death Squad” “Revelations” Here in this country we’re lucky to have a wide-open democratic system where the various parties and candidates compete freely, vigorously debating the best way to make it appear that we have a wide-open democratic system in which the various parties and candidates compete freely.
As a result, things occasionally come out. Now it comes out that the government, in the case of the alleged participation of the Guatemalan military in the putative death squad activities, were economical with the truth. They withheld information, that is, they disassembled. That’s a postmodern term indicating there isn’t any one particular precise truth, but rather, many perspectives. Well, our perspective was that we had to work with Mr. Alpirez[3], to be a moderating influence on him. Just think how many he could have killed. But we have, or rather they have a democracy down there, and if they get fed up enough with those death squads then they can replace them with other ones, perhaps more modern, or post-modern ones. We can help with that.
I know you’re all gloating about the revelations about Chiquita. But what would youdo? Let’s say you’re running a banana industry, growing bananas, overthrowing governments and so on, and you’re trying to protect your workers against terrorism from, you know, unions. You’re taking them to the NLRB?
Venezuela-Syria-Cuba We can see that Venezuela is a Cuban pawn: we have satellite photos of Cuban-style health clinics in the barrios. (That’s Spanish for ghetto, which shows how anti-Semitic they are.) They’re giving free medical care to the children, which undercuts the prices for medical care throughout the hemisphere. So in essence they are scab doctors. These scabs are festering and will be dealt with.
Meanwhile, Cuba is now a Venezuelan colony, dominated by their oil imperialism, just as dominated as they were by the Soviet Union. In other words, Venezuela is the new Soviet Union, the evil oil empire. They’ve tried to evade this criticism by saying they’re merely in the axis of pretty bad. Further, Chavez is trying to distribute the oil wealth among the “people.” That’s class war. Venezuela used to have a free enterprise system. Chavez is destroying that: he wants foreign oil companies to pay money for the oil. It’s like bribery. He calls it “taxes.” His English is not so good.
Chavez is going around the country reading to the public from Orwell, Dickens, Hugo. Victor Hugo. He says it’s Victor. That’s the key. What the Dickens is he doing?! it’s Orwellian.
Congress is sponsoring radio and TV in Venezuela, to counteract Chavez and his state’s monopoly on the media. They control all the radio stations except 14. But that one that they have is really, really controlled.
Meanwhile they are threatening America with eye exams and cheap oil. Cuba is threatening us with free medical care and weapons of mass dentition. The National Endowment for Democracy, which has operations in 70 countries, is fighting back. We are helping in elections in Nicaragua, Philippines, Belarus, Georgia, Panama, and Haiti. Supporting democracy throughout the world, by supporting the candidates who support democracy, which is us.
Chavez is providing cheap heating oil in the Bronx—obviously buying votes. He’s a dictator; he’s pulled his soldiers out of SOA—doesn’t want them to have access to all the modern information on whatever it is we teach there.
“I am a soldier,” he says, “and I would not kill a cockroach. I would allow her to go her way, to live.” Now we can’t have soldiers favoring female cockroaches, can we? Not in Our Hemisphere.
The noted constitutional scholar Pat Robertson has been discoursing on the finer points of the proposed disposition of Mr. President Chavez’ case, and his life. A different point of view was expressed by the scholar Bill O’Reilly, who felt the case of the President of Syria was more important: that he move on, from his life. Some say there’s a danger that if our scholars continue to discourse publicly on this strategy that scholars in other countries may publish papers on such matters as the legality of President Bush’s life.
But we are not really looking to assassinate Mr. Assad[4], we’re just looking for someone to replace him. We do feel his time is up, and so we’re initiating a candidate search. We’re looking for his successor. Actually there are several national leaders in various nations for whom we’re conducting a replacement candidate search. In Syria we’re looking for an Oxford grad, perhaps a businessman. We might look in the want ads—that is, ads for people who are wanted, perhaps for activities connected with business. That’s the talent pool.
And speaking of non-coups, people ask why we are so dead set on changing the regime in Cuba? What threat are they to the U.S.? None, not to the united ones, but to the state of Florida. They are out to dominate the good Cubo-Floridian citizenry. But Florida will resist, and defend their tradition of free—of elections.
Culture War There is a revolt in this country against elite liberal terrorist-lovers, a revolt of the regular American people, led by their champion, George Bush. Now I know, George went to Yale, but in his defense, he got C’s. He likes to ride around on his ranch and fall off things. He’s not that smart, and that’s why regular folks trust him. Regular folks have new leaders. Cheney, from Wyoming. Regular cowboy folk guy from Out West. From out of the west a man came riding—well, a tank. Now we’ve all heard about Cheney’s heart surgery—yes, he had one put in. He had a blockage—he was differently ethicized or some weird medical thing like that.
Regular people are in revolt against snobs. Regular people aren’t ashamed to go to Walmart. Meanwhile the elite’s over there trying to keep prayer out of Trader Joe’s. They come into your workplace with their unions, you know, and try to make all the men get married. To each other. Here’s the question: would you rather be forced into an uncivil union that forces men into civil unions, or do you want regime change in Iran? Don’t be a girlie American. USA.
Nukes The Cold War will be solved by global warming, which in turn will be solved by nuclear winter.
I was talking with some Eskimos the other day, and they were upset because their sidewalks are melting. This is supposed to be our fault, somehow. Look, the world is getting smaller. That’s why we need the mini-nukes. Anyhow, their polar bears apparently can’t walk on water—Jesus Christ. Not to worry: the Cold War will be solved by global warming, which in turn will be solved by nuclear winter.
Now it turns out the Iranian nuclear program was approved by the US presidential chief of staff in the 80s—Mr. Cheney, as it happens. It wasn’t for weapons, it was for saving the Shah, in case of war and an oil shipment cutoff. Well, they don’t have Shah anymore, so there’s no need for nuclear energy, according to US law. If the purpose of their program is to bring back the Shah, we can help with that. But we know their purpose is to have nuclear weapons. We know. We have photos of aluminum tubes.
Supremes Justice Alito has issued a dissent: a woman should have to tell her husband before having an abortion. But he’s positive, too. About juries. All juries. Well, all white juries. In 1986, he co-authored a Justice Department opinion that employers should be able to fire HIV-positives. That was negative. So, he’s balanced.
Justice Rehnquist was against Brown and for Plessy. A segregationist, he volunteered in Arizona to challenge black voters. Roberts, on the other hand, believes that the judicial branch should stay out of law enforcement, the Congress should stay out of the way of the President, and the Geneva conventions should stay out of Gitmo.
[1] A TV show promoting torture
[2] A scheme to defund PBS.
[3] Army colonel on the payroll of the other CIA, known for his hobby of terminating other people’s lives.
[4] Bashar Hafez al-Assad assumed power in July 2000.
Dr. David Kelly, suspected of being the BBC source for stories that the British government “sexed up” its dossier on Iraq to say that Saddam could fire some weapons within 45 minutes, has been found dead near his home. Any suspects that may be apprehended are expected to be kept under close guard, and transferred to prison through basement garages that are restricted to police and their close associates in the nightclub business.
Wal-Mart has banned discrimination against gays and lesbians, except for married ones. The store does not offer domestic partner benefits; all their benefits go not to partners but to associates. According to a spokesman, they have to make up their minds which they want to be.
Another reason it will not recognize gay civil unions is that this would violate its principle that all unions are uncivil.
