To piggyback on sphilk's fine diary here:
http://www.dailykos.com/...

I'd like to keep the full court press on the Scheunemann Effect because I believe this information needs to come fast and furious with many, many ad buys to follow.  I prepared the diary yesterday but was unable to post it due to rules & regs but will do so today in the spirit of getting the truth out until the media, the Obama Campaign, the 527's or all of these groups take notice.

Please follow...

August 13, An Undisclosed Location. Do you agree with Florida Democrat Robert Wexler and Ohio Democrat Dennis Kuchinich that Bush and Cheney should be impeached? Do you feel that the war in Iraq was conducted with the incompetence that rivals FEMA in New Orleans? Or that it was a mistake? Do you feel that rather than enhance our national security, the war - 4,000 dead, 19,000 wounded, and $1 Trillion spent, has strengthened Iran and weakened the United States? Do you feel that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, should be an effective emergency response force, or an agency of incompetence and a gold mine of patronage? Do you believe that the Department of Justice should focus on race, religion, party and politics when hiring and firing staff and investigating and prosecuting corruption? Do you work? Do you need health care? Do you want your children to be able to get an education, then find rewarding work? Do you believe in "government of the people, by the people, and for the people?"  The "DemoPunks" don't.

There's a line from a Babylon 5 episode (I'm a big fan of the series) which has always stuck with me.  Several characters are discussing the political situation on Earth following the imposition of martial law.  One character says that people love it - crime is down, things are calm, peaceful.

"Yeah, the peace of the gun," replies another character.

We have a vague notion that the "inevitability" of democracy's spread throughout the world may be a false claim, but we don't know for sure, and don't know how to evaluate the idea.  So even Democrats hesitate to call the idea nonsense.

Frances Fitzgerald wrote "Fire in the Lake," published in 1972.  This book described the debacle that results when Americans try to insert American values and institutions into a society (Vietnam) that cannot accept them.

From outward appearances no member of Congress, no present or recent member of the administration (let's include Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and the State Department) and none of the Sunday morning interview hosts has ever read this book or any similar book.

Last week Fox News ran a story about how things were going so well in Fallujah that they've opened their first KFC franchise to keep the locals hooked up with quality Fried Chicken...

Ever since 9/11, Bush/Cheney have showered billions of dollars in aid on the Pakistani government and military, despite abundant evidence that Musharraf and the ISI were continuing to support the Taliban. The Pakistani military spent the vast majority of their booty on weapons designed to confront India, rather than Islamic terrorists. All the while Bush/Cheney have insisted that Pakistan was "our vital and loyal ally". Well, guess what? Pakistan is not our BFF. They are actively pursuing their own interests, and have played Bush as a patsy.

Forgive the "yeah, we know" nature of some of this; crossposted from my blog on myspace where this was actually news to an alarming number of people.  I'm sure everyone here knows this already but I was having a slow day.

Anybody notice the McCain campaign stop the other day where he was touring a supermarket to show how the man who claimed to know nothing about the economy (until he claimed he didn't claim that) was so concerned with food prices?

Well, anybody notice where he stopped to talk for the cameras? Was it in front of the meat? Bread? Rice? Corn? Uh, no.

He was interviewed standing in front of the dairy section, particularly the part containing the CHEESE. Yes, cheese. Processed, dyed, individually wrapped slices of bland, nutritionally-valid but comically-charged American CHEESE.

Dewd, don't you have a single advance man who could have situated you in a slightly less comic part of the store? The only thing inherently funnier if he'd been standing in front of the bologna.

Remember that old "Axis of Evil" thingie concocted by Bush and Co.? Here's a refresher (emphasis added):

I found the news about IndyMac intriguing this morning.  Mortgage lender IndyMac of Pasadena, California has been diving down the path of illiquid insolvency since this time last year (here's a chart I posted elsewhere showing the skid as a reflection of stock price). The gradual failure prompted a letter from a Senator (Schumer, NY) a few weeks ago, which precipitated a run on this bank. The bank was seized by FDIC regulators yesterday subsequent to the run. This is the second largest bank failure in history.

John Reich, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, a chronic Republican community banker who spent twelve years working for Republican Senator Connie Mack's staff, and appointed by President Bush in 2005, blames Schumer for the run on the bank. But looking at the institution's stock price over the past year, one readily sees that investors have known the place was cascading towards Armageddon for the past year.  In fact, it was Reich (BTW, it's pronounced "rich," and isn't that rich?) himself who...

More than time for Obama and Democrats to take a stand in protecting the future of our middle class. We have jailed executives who stole a few million dollars from a few thousand shareholders. Now, Congress should stop to be more than naive, and give more money to Fannie Mae.

President George W. Bush launched a "farewell tour" to Europe in order to "solidify" relations, among other delusional objectives to bolster his self-importance in the judging eyes of History, as opposed to remedy in a small measure his demonstrated incompetence - and that of his administration - over his two mandates as President.

A newly declassified report reveals true motivations for sending Maher Arar to Syria - where he was tortured - as the U.S. reopens the probe into his mistreatment (h/t) (emphasis added):

(Seriously, spot the lie, win a cupcake)

So this morning Secdef Gates decapitated the airforce command.

General Mosel and Secretary Wynne are tossed

now the official story is  http://news.lycos.com/...

The top military and civilian leaders of the U.S. Air Force were forced out Thursday over the handling of nuclear weapons, the Defense Department secretary said.

woah?  Since when did a bushe ever get fired for INCOMPETENCE (Mike Brown, condi rice, john bolton,
doug feith, paul bremer,,,,,,)

I feel as if I have stepped into the pages of Great Expectations and everyone has become Magwitch, transported to Australia in shackles aboard some vessel designed for the purpose of housing and transporting criminals at sea.  But of course that was the 19th Century...and earlier.  That's not now.  Right?  And then, along comes today's Guardian report.  And I am left with one reaction:

We have bloody prison ships?  Prison ships?  

Ask, the diarist who broke this story here, wondered if we should be surprised.  The bulk of this diary was constructed as a response to Ask's query.  I wanted to move it to a diary of its own because...well, because I tend to write gentle, thoughtful, peaceful, poignant diaries, and every once in a while it just feels good to let out some of the emotion that eight years of these evil jackasses has welled up in me.

So, on this Memorial Day, and approaching (unbelievably) the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I saw a story in the NY Times from Reuters which made reflect on the fact we haven't hunted down and captured and/or killed Osama Bin Laden yet.

More after the jump...

(Updated below)

The following constitutes mainly a repost of something I've written last year, along with new commentary added. The reasons for this are two-fold: A) there has been zero development on the matter since last year; and B) today is BloggersUnite's Human Rights day.

I hope I will be forviven for borrowing from Megadeth - but the question posed in this title essentially summarizes the last seven years which have followed the tragic day of 9/11.

The following likewise summarizes these same last seven years:

"Violence is the last refuge of incompetence" - The Sixth Principle of Incompetence.

What is this Country waiting for?

This is Our Government, those in Washington work for Us!

Little georgie likes to say "His Government", it ain't his, He Works For Us, as do everyone appointed and hired to federal jobs!

The Government we have isn't just Incompetent, It's Totally Corrupt!

And it isn't only those hired to Represent that have no Backbone, it's this Whole F**cking Country!