Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Yesterday, we discussed McCain's pathetic efforts to distance himself from Bush, when in fact he's practically a Bush clone. Today, we discover via Carpetbagger that he's not so much clone as android:

A senior adviser to John McCain says the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign is now talking with senior White House staff every day.

President Bush and McCain, former GOP rivals, “have an excellent relationship,” Charlie Black said at a lunch hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Black said McCain is “not a protege” of President Bush and would not be an extension of Bush’s presidency as Democrats have claimed. He cited McCain’s differences with Bush on federal spending and the initial war strategy, but was clear that Bush’s White House team is helping the presumptive Republican nominee at every turn of the campaign.

Yup. McCain's absolutely nothing like Bush. He's just programmed by him on a daily basis.

You may wonder, with all of McCain's gaffes, inconsistencies, and tremendous confusion over foreign policy, who on earth would vote for the dumbfuck. Digby has your answer:

The soulless gasbags of the Fox News moneypig shows are arguing this morning that the rebate checks should be "put into the wallets of the wealthy because they'll spend it on discretionary items while the poor will just turn around and just spend it on filling their gas tanks." You see, "the rich create jobs" which is how you stimulate the economy...

That's right. People who watch Faux News and believe everything the "souless gasbags" tell them. McCain can count on them. Folks who don't get knocked breathless by the spectacularly stupid argument that those piddly little rebate checks should go to the wealthy because they'll somehow use the 600 bucks to create some jobs surely won't notice that McCain can't find his ass with a Garmin and an assistant.

They're the same people who believe in the free market and the goodness and decency of corporations even in the face of news like this:

In March, House Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) announced that he was investigating the accidental electrocution of troops in Iraq and pressed Defense Secretary Robert Gates for uncensored details on at least a dozen deaths since 2003. Contractor KBR is at the center of the probe, with questions about whether it irresponsibly ignored wiring problems.

Today, The New York Times has more details on this malpractice, including the fact that senior KBR and Pentagon officials repeatedly ignored warnings by KBR electricians:

One electrician warned his KBR bosses in his 2005 letter
of resignation that unsafe electrical work was “a disaster waiting to happen.” Another said he witnessed an American soldier in Afghanistan receiving a potentially lethal shock. A third provided e-mail messages and other documents showing that he had complained to KBR and the government that logs were created to make it appear that nonexistent electrical safety systems were properly functioning.

KBR itself told the Pentagon in early 2007 about unsafe electrical wiring at a base near the Baghdad airport, but no repairs were made. Less than a year later, a soldier was electrocuted in a shower there.

That's right. KBR knew its wiring could kill people, said, "Oh, well, it'll cost less to pay a wrongful death lawsuit than it will to fix the problem," and let soldiers get electrocuted in the fucking shower.

The contractors who have benefitted from the misery and bloodshed in Iraq at the expense of everyone but themselves will get their comeuppance, though. Even Blackwater sees the writing on the wall:

Earlier this week, ABC reported that the investment firm Cerberus Capital was in talks to buy Blackwater for around $200 million, but Cerberus, which had apparently been exploring the deal since the beginning of this year, got cold feet as soon as the news went public.

It turns out that it's part of a concerted push, The Times reports, to expand Blackwater's business because "whatever the outcome of the US presidential election Blackwater, run by Erik Prince, the Republican former Navy Seal, may find itself without friends in Washington." So there's an effort to prepare for the future, when all those federal investigations and scandals might actually affect the bottom line...

The disgusting little fuckers are even trying to reinvent themselves as a "peacekeeping force" and pimping themselves at the UN. Somehow, with a reputation like theirs, I doubt the UN'll be impressed.

Doesn't it just warm your heart to see the roaches scattering as the light approaches? And the law's a'comin' with a big ol' can of Raid.

I can't wait.