Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Let's have a conversation about just how entirely fucked in the head this nation has become with Bush in charge.

Faux News would like us to believe that a 15 year old boy deserves to be tortured:

Today, lawyers for Canadian national Omar Khadr, a Guantanamo detainee, released an interrogation video from 2003, showing Khadr weeping and begging for better medical treatment. Discussing the video today on Fox News, host Trace Gallagher declared Khadr had killed an American solider — Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade — and so “maybe he deserves” to be tortured.

Think Progress has a charming little video, which you can go watch if you haven't had your daily dose of apoplexy.

Now, in a civilized society, you don't torture a human being. Not for information, not for anger, not for revenge, you just don't do it period. And you sure as fuck don't dismiss the torture of a teenager by blithely assuming that "maybe he deserves" it.

We have a Republicon Congressman who would like us to believe there's no wildlife in a wildlife refuge where Republicons and their oil company buddies want to drill:

In a press conference today previewing a House Republican trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that’s meant to promote drilling, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) doubted the existence of actual wildlife in the refuge. “We’re going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I’m hoping to see some wildlife,” said Boehner. “But I understand there’s none there.” Boehner repeated his skepticism during an interview on CNN, telling Wolf Blitzer, “I’ll be looking for all that wildlife.” Ironically, CNN paired Boehner’s interview with b-roll of actual wildlife moving around the refuge.

Maybe Mr. Boehner has a different definition of "wildlife" than the rest of us. I'd love to hear it.

Bush in his infinite wisdom vetoed the wildly popular Medicare bill:

As promised, President Bush has vetoed the Medicare bill that would stave off a 10.6 percent cut in reimbursements to doctors and replace it with a slight increase. The bill passed both chambers with a veto-proof majority after a contentious several weeks of debate. And now it continues.

Bush vetoed it, he said in a statement, because of Democratic attempts to roll back certain private elements within the Medicare program. Democrats say the private plans amount to a corporate giveaway and are too costly; Bush frames it as a matter of choice, saying in a veto statement that "taking choices away from seniors to pay physicians is wrong."

When a Republicon says "choice," what he means is, "We're spinning something incredibly stupid so that you think it's a good thing and our corporate buddies can rape you up the ass."

McCain would like us to believe that he knows how to win wars even though he wouldn't pass a basic social studies class:

John McCain hasn’t spent much time talking about Afghanistan during the presidential campaign, but now that “other” war is deteriorating, the Republican candidate has discovered his new-found interest in the
conflict.

Republican John McCain said Tuesday he knows “how to win wars” and that the strategy of increasing troop levels in Iraq should also be applied to Afghanistan. […]

McCain has described Obama’s call for withdrawal from Iraq as tantamount to declaring defeat and points to the lower levels of violence in Iraq as evidence that sending additional U.S. troops there has been a successful strategy.

“Sen. Obama will tell you we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards,” McCain told a town hall meeting. “It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan.”

In other words, McCain’s new policy on Afghanistan — I say “new” because up until now, he hasn’t actually articulated a policy on Afghanistan — can be summarized this way: “Just do what we’ve been doing in Iraq.” Seriously. That’s the policy.

This, of course, doesn’t make any sense. The wars are entirely different. The causes of violence are completely different. The competing factions are completely different. Oh, and by the way, Iraq hasn’t gone especially well.

McCain seemed particularly fond of this line from his speech: “I know how to win wars.” Now, with all due respect to the senator’s military service, what is it, exactly, that leads McCain to think he has this knowledge? McCain hasn’t, you know, actually won any wars.

My suspicion is, McCain means he endorsed the surge, the surge led to victory in Iraq, and if he can just bring more surges to more countries, American would keep winning. In other words, when McCain says he knows “how to win wars,” he means he’s concluded, “Surges = Victories.”

And the Republicons have concluded that, after all we've swallowed so far, we're too stupid to spit out their lies and dumbfuckery now.

They've failed us militarily, economically, diplomatically, legally - fuck it, they've failed across the board. And now they're failing to take us seriously. Remember that this fall.