The first, and only, ongoing, neverending missalette.
We'll always be adding to this missalette. Check back for new entries.
If you have a submission you'd like to send us, contact Brian at
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Editor's Intro
All the Dogs (A Jump Rope Rhyme for Kids)
by Ada Limon
Nuthin' Sirius (a collection of conspiracy theories from the people of California)
by Phil Ramirez
Oasis
(by Elton Cunniffe)
American Reform
(a memoir by Karl Soehnlein)
Chemi Ali
(a poem by Alec Way)
Five Political Facts and Associations
(by Alex Robertson Textor)
Featured submission
by Doug Welch
After the misdeeds of the Do-nothing 109th Congress were exposed in the ongoing investigations into Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, and lately Mark Foley, the American electorate handed the Republican majority its own ass on November 7. Fourteen years of Republican control of the House of Representatives saw the House of Representatives become the Best Little Whorehouse on the Potomac. Tom DeLay’s K Street Project muscled lobbyists to support the GOP. The trend of Congress sleeping through the theft of its constitutional powers to check abuse of power by the President accelerated to the point where Bush Jr. could push through such abominations as the Military Commissions Act and the GOP-brainwashed Congress would rubberstamp the erosion of Habeas Corpus, which is the bedrock of Anglo-Saxon law since 1215 A.D.
The members of the 109th Congress met a total of 239 days in its tenure between 2005-2006. This is well below the 252 days when the 90th Congress met, back in 1948. This earlier congress was called the Do-nothing Congress by wags in the press at the time. Some have tried to resurrect the term and apply it to the outgoing members of Congress; however, they’ve been busy doing a couple of things, giving away our money to donors like large pharmaceutical concerns (see the Medicare Prescription Drugs Act, a massive giveaway to bloated pharmaceutical corporations); then there was the massive carbuncle of corruption lorded over by US Israeli dual citizen Jack Abramoff. Part of this involved Ohio congressman Bob Ney, who is under criminal indictment.
I was going to attempt to recount the many, many crimes of the outgoing crew of thieves that are the 109th Congress, but seriously, at this late date I am so sick of these bastards. Suffice it to say there may not be enough room in hell for all of them. A nice start might be the Potomac River choked on their corpses.
But seriously, is the Democratic-run 110th Congress going to be anything better? We have Charles Rangel calling for the reinstitution of the fucking draft, the entire freshman Democratic class is handpicked by rabid Zionist Emmanuel Rahm of the pro-business Democratic Leadership Council. There had been talk of reversing the ludicrous tax breaks for the rich oil corporations, but I will believe it when I see it. What has been most heavily stated in the rollback of the Neanderthal GOP thugs is that the war in Iraq is going very poorly. The Democrats largely have been trying to attack Bush and the GOP from the right on this topic. They make no mention of the invasion of Iraq as the unprovoked assault on a sovereign state, the dismantling of the state apparatus of one of the most progressive states in the region (look it up, Iraq led the region in literacy, healthcare and progress against infant mortality) and replacing a brutal thug with merciless anarchy and chaos. The Democratic leadership has only criticized the finer points of the Iraq invasion, stating that they could have done it better, with more boots on the ground.
Don’t be deluded in thinking that the Pelosi Congress is going to stop the war. The most recent change in strategy, beyond creating death squads in the Salvador model, has been to engage the Mahdi Army in Baghdad. By concentrating the overstretched US military forces in Baghdad in a futile effort to retake the capital, and in conjunction with the diminishing number of non-US troops, the main line of communication between Baghdad and the port in Kuwait is becoming exposed.
What I am saying is that the US is in danger of having its army in Iraq cut off from reinforcement or resupply if the Shia in the south were to rise up and close the roads. It would be a military debacle on the scale of Dien Bien Phu. The GOP congress to a lesser extent and the Bush White House and its Neo-Conservative counsel have abandoned the use of US “soft power” such as cultural, political and diplomatic influence for hard power, which is nothing less than brute force and the threat of its use. If 150,000 US troops are cut off and surrounded in Baghdad even that will be gone.
Aside from the deafness for a pullout in Iraq, I don’t think the Democrats are going to do anything to roll back the erosion of personal rights that has gone on in the name of the “War on Terror.” In fact, the Democrats ran on the promise to implement the suggestions of the Keane Hamilton Commission. So we have the corrupt, kiddie fiddlers of the GOP being replaced by the pro-police state and pro-military Democrats. I don’t have an optimistic feeling about this, not in the least.
12/13/06
Old Wine, New Bottles(by Doug Welch)
Roused in thee Armchair
(by Ben Tinker)
Smartest Girl in San Francisco
Black Habiru Musings
(by Alec Way)
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