All Things Must Pass

Ollie North Says Only Christians Will Go to Heaven

Yeah, he didn't mention whether Christians who smuggled drugs into this country and sold weapons to terrorists would get in. I guess a really bad guy who recants and is saved at the last minute can go to heaven, but kind, gentle, quiet, ethical Muslims will not. These are the kinds of right wing nuts in charge of this country now. Is anybody else sick of this my God is better than your God crap? Break out the Buddy Christ and start recruiting the children for the next crusade! Hey, Ashcroft's already got an inquisition going! Let's have a big hoedown with Falwell and Roberts and all the other perfect people who will want to celebrate the news that they won't have to share heaven with the infidels! I am so sick of these people. I hope they are all in the next building to be attacked by terrorists. At least these assholes have done something to deserve it.... Especially you, Ollie.

Hate Mail

I got this letter today from someone who apparently stumbled into my Bush quotes page:

Mr. Supak,
you can be as angry as you want about this past election, feel slighted, whatever. But how many times does a man have to win an election before he wins the election? The fact is that George Bush is doing an admirable job in dealing with this whole terrorist thing, although you being the liberal that you are will probably be against any kind of agressive action, and i can't even imagine how things would have gone had Gore been elected. I'd place my bet that maybe we'd lob some missiles and forget the whole thing, only so they could do it again. I personally think that the country is much better off with Bush as its leader and i think he has proven his worth and dedication to the American people. Sure, he has trouble with saying things correctly. I find it amusing as well, but we've all said stupid things. we all mess up our grammar and syntax occasionally, but that has no effect on the caliber of person we are. Moreover, the only reason your stupid phrases aren't posted on webpages is that you're not famous enough for it to matter what you say. You don't give interviews in front of cameras or speeches broadcasted nationwide. If you were famous and did have a microphone stuck in your face constantly, then maybe there would be a webpage about you...saldy, the internet is lacking :(
--
Danielle Karnes

Well, I suppose you never heard of the Gore commission report which advocated much tighter security at airports, making screeners federal law enforcement personnel, etc. When Bush stole the election (that's right, the media companies counted all the votes in Florida and Gore won), he tabled the commission findings and even agreed with the airlines that the proposals to save Americans from this threat were too expensive and bad for business. Now Bush and his fellow republicans are trying to give away billions in corporate welfare to profitable companies with no conditions that the money create jobs. This money will just go to the rich people who got him appointed as president, and, if you bother to read the bill, which I notice republicans are loathe to do, you'll see it actually rewards these big companies by making it so they don't have to pay profit on money they move OUT of the country. People are unemployed and unable to get unemployment in many cases. Many of these people are directly affected by the terrorism, and yet your compassionate conservative has said no more money for new york, no money for victims, just money for bombs and his rich friends.

Wake up, sweetie. This country was taken over by an oaf who is controlled by the same extreme right wing nuts that were mad when his Dad turned out to be a moderate.

I suppose you think killing abortion doctors is OK. Because Ashcroft the Pentecost has not investigated the Army of God for the Anthrax hoaxes sent to planned parenthood. Oh, and have you noticed how no one in the right wing got a letter. Only the liberal media and pro-choice politicians. I suppose you don't mind the government telling you what to do with your body. I suppose you don't mind letting people die of diseases that could be cured by stem cell research. I suppose you think it's OK to let Mexican trucks drive all over this country without inspecting them. I suppose you think it's OK to give your hard earned tax dollars to the rich. I suppose you think it's OK that Bush's family is invested in the Carlyle Group which makes money off of war. I suppose you think it's OK to ruin a pristine wilderness to drill for oil we wouldn't need if we increased SUV gas mileage by 3 - yes, just 3 - miles per gallon. I suppose you think it's OK to give children asthma and lung cancer by burning more coal instead of using alternative energy and conservation. I suppose you think it's OK to take billions out of Medicare and Medicaid, leaving poor people and their children with no health care. I suppose you think it's OK to kick people with kids off welfare, leaving them begging and dying in the street. Why don't you tell me where you live so I can send the little 5 year old I saw crying and hungry getting pushed around in a shopping cart by his homeless mother. Oh - wait - I know, you'll send the kid and his mom to church, where they can pray and God will make everything better! I suppose you think everything is OK - you don't worry about the environment, or health care, or any of the other things that actually help Americans. Because you're sure the rich people know best and will take care of you.

As far as what Gore would be doing in this situation, I think it's pretty damn obvious what has to be done here. I could do it. We certainly don't need Jr., who was coked up and AWOL while he was supposed to be in the Air Guard, which his father got him into to keep him out of Nam. Gore was in Nam - volunteered because he knew if he didn't go then someone else in his town would have to. Gore was Army. Bush was a dope head drunk. Our armed services are doing the job they are trained and paid to do and to suggest they would be doing differently under a president who actually served is utter hilarity.

Why don't you write me back when you've grown up and actually have something substantial to say. Oh, and by the way, I put up the bloopers because I think an idiot president makes us all look bad. The POTUS is supposed to be a representative of America. And, sadly, I guess he is, since there are so many idiots in this country who only care about god, guns and money.

Now if you'd like a little education on why people like Jerry Falwell should be strung up by their balls, and why Bush should too for supporting assholes like him, then read my real political pages:

http://supak.blogspot.com

And to see, interactively, how Gore won Florida if you actually COUNT ALL the votes (overvotes and undervotes), go here:

http://nyt.com/pages/politics/recount/index.html?rd=hcmcp?p=041TUJ041TRg47nWF012000mXfgkXflT

Then, when you take the butterfly ballot into account, there is absolutely no doubt who actually won. PLUS, the only way Bush could even get close is because small red-neck states have their votes count more than bigger states, because of the bonus votes in the electoral college based on a state's senate seats. So, a vote in South Dakota actually counts twice as much as a vote in California. Now that's real patriotic, huh?

And, you know, the insinuation that even if Bush didn't really win we're all better off because he's in there now, after the attacks, is utter horse-shit. That's like saying, hey, we should put Pat Buchanon in there even though he only got 1% of the vote, because he'd really be tough on terror. This is a democracy that people have fought and died to protect and that means that the person who gets the majority of votes wins. Sadly, assholes like you have destroyed that concept, and there are plenty of patriots rolling over in their graves over that.

For more on the Gore Commission report, which Republicans and the airline industry stopped the implementation of, go here:

http://www.algoreisourpresident.com/demrep-01.html

And, after you've gotten your head out of your ass and your compassion out of your wallet, write me back with something interesting to say. I'm sure they teach you better than that at James Madison.

Scott Supak
doing my best to piss off the religious right

PS - I'm a liberal not a pacifist. The fact that you generalized that deduction tells me a lot about you. I think we should be kicking ass over there, and I'm quite proud of the fact that we are. I'd bet we would be no matter who was president. Even liberals got pissed about the attacks. In fact, it really pisses me off that you would insinuate that your fellow Americans somehow care less about the country because we want more unemployment money for working people. And, finally, I have had microphones stuck in my face and I've never made a grammatical error on camera. I'm well educated and proud of it. And my Daddy didn't pay for any of it. I've also never snorted coke.

A question for a Clinton hater who wants to end all welfare

Except corporate welfare, of course. Which brings up the question of "Where's Ralph?" Is Ralph Nader driving around Iowa and New Hampshire in a brown Ford Taurus, without body guards? No, because Nader would rather hand elections to Republicans than try to run as a Democrat.

But I digress. Here's a question I'm sending to Stephen Moore, Clinton hater extrodanaire and Senior Fellow at the CATO Institute, who really wants to see thousands of starving children in the street. It'll teach their lazy parents a lesson.

Go ahead and delete now, you chicken shit. You don't have the balls to argue this one, I'm sure. It involves starving children of which you seem to think there's not enough.

Hey, the fact that corporate welfare is alive and well and Ralph Nader can't be found to comment should make you very happy!

I have a question for you. When welfare recipients in 26 states are kicked off the doles this Jan. 1, and they and their kids start lining up on the streets begging for food, are you still going to claim that Bill Clinton's welfare reform plan (which really belonged to the Republicans in congress) was too weak? These kids that will be starving should just tell their parents to get a job, huh? Maybe a job in the airline industry, or one of the other big companies who the government is bailing out? Republicans have argued that giving out corporate welfare creates jobs. So, if we give billions away to all your rich buddies that got Bush's coup into the White House, then they'll create jobs for all these people who are getting kicked off welfare, right? Or maybe the churches will take them in. Jerry Falwell's church will be the first to open its doors to these new homeless families, right?

You should also be happy that the corporations that give Bush millions while purporting to be the free press are all looking the other way on this one. Will you look the other way when you have to step over starving 5 year olds on your way to your nice office or house? I know, I know, you worked for it all and deserve it. Those starving kids, well, all they did was be born to some lazy scum who didn't want a job. They don't deserve the same chance as your kids, although, if your kind had your way, they could thank you for not being aborted.

I encourage anyone to send this viscious bastard any questions you might have about how giving money to corporations during a recession creates jobs (it doesn't, but he'll have some ready made mumbo jumbo to tell you why).

John Dean shocked by another secretive Republican administration

That's right. John Dean points out that when a president is this secretive, it's not a good thing.

If John Dean, yes the John Dean of Nixon fame, is worried that this Republican president has way too much to hide, then I think we should listen. This is VERY IMPORTANT, yet no one is getting upset about this! What the hell is going on in this country? We're just letting Cheney and Bush trample everything that matters: the environment, civil liberties, etc. The gun nuts and Jesus freaks are taking over the country and no body is doing anything about it!

Aw, hell, just read what Mr. Dean has to say.

Better Dead than Fed

The Republicans, so cozily protected by the Capitol Police (a federal work force) is telling American that we should be happy to have low bidders providing security at our airports. Well, this angry liberal just wants to wretch at this point. My friends say i need to calm down. But I say they need to get off their asses and do something about the right wing, big business, military industrial complex Ike warned us about. Why is it that when a man gets a blow job in the oval office the right wing nuts nearly start riots over it, but when Dumbya steals the election, puts his junta, taken from big business board rooms, in charge of giving our tax dollars to the rich and bomb makers, nothing happens. Everyone sits back and says, Oh, isn't it horrible? But what are we doing about it? All the people who voted for republicans because of guns or abortions need to get their heads out of their asses. Abortion is still legal and gun control will not go away. You've sold the store to a punk ass fraternity rich boy who couldn't find oil in Texas, was AWOL from the Air Guard during Nam because he was snorting coke and getting drunk on his daddy's money. He embarasses us all everytime he tries to speak.

Read the angry liberal's notes on airline security. I'd like see an answer from any republican Senator or Representative on this one.... Greedy fucks don't give a shit about this country - they just want to know what it can do for them....

Hawaii pictures Hawaii desktop wallpaper pictures

War Profiteering by the Bush administration

I can't seem to get off this topic. It infuriates me. This blantant hand off of middle class tax dollars to the wealthy and to corporations is making me sick. The fact it's being done by an administration that needed staged riots by congressional staffers and a crooked Supreme Court to complete its coup, well, that just makes it worse. And to add to that atrocity, take into account that the two biggest reasons middle America voted for this schmuck are abortion and guns. I don't see anybody talking about stopping abortion. And I sure don't see Ashcroft giving people their assault weapons back. This administration has turned out to be about one thing and one thing only: money to their friends. In a world where 50 million can buy the mayorship of New York, imagine the kind of money involved in stealing the presidency.

Now to the present. After Sept. 11, we need to spend substantial sums on reconstruction and homeland security, and the sagging economy could use a temporary stimulus. But George W. Bush has threatened to veto any additional domestic spending beyond the $40 billion already agreed upon — "We wage a war to save civilization itself," he declared on Thursday, but apparently this war must not cost more than 0.4 percent of G.D.P. And the administration favors "stimulus" proposals that have nothing to do with helping the economy, but everything to do with its usual tax-cutting agenda.

From Another Useful Crisis by Paul Krugman, NY TImes, 11-11-01

It's enough to make me sick.

Business tax cuts do not create jobs

Apparently all the Harvard Economists working for the Resident missed the day where any responsible Econ Professor teaches that Corporate Tax Cuts (corporate welfare) do not create jobs. The only time corporations create new jobs is when sales increase. When sales decrease, they lay people off. If you give a corporation a tax cut, that does not increase sales. If you give a poor or middle class American the same tax cut, they spend the money, which increases sales, which creates jobs. Coming to work today I heard another Republican saying we need to give these corporations money so they can create jobs. What a load of trickle down shit. It just doesn't work that way, as we discovered with Reagan's shit trickling down the legs of the rich to the poor. We learned from Clinton's middle class tax cuts that that money goes directly into the economy, instead of directly into a bank. Anytime a Republican says he wants to give money to rich people and corporations, you can directly translate that to mean "give money to the rich people who got me elected."

One way to create jobs is to have a war. The weapons manufacturers are doing very well. Companies that make smart bombs are doing very well. Interestingly, those companies are partially (substantially) owned by The Carlisle Group. The Carlyle Group is owned by some very interesting people, like Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci (college roommate of the current Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld), former U.S. Secretary of State and Florida election rigger James A. Baker III, George Soros, Fred Malek (George H.W. Bush’s campaign manager, forced to resign when it was revealed he was Nixon’s “Jew counter”--further ties between the Bushes and Nazis, but that's another story), and George H.W. Bush himself.

To get into that, I'd like to print my response to a letter from united4love.com that wanted me to send a letter to Bush saying, essentially, that "I believe love may be our best weapon to combat terror at home and abroad." While that is way to "touchy-feely" for me, I can understand the sentiment. I just don't understand why people would waste their time writing to Bush about it. Do they really think this guy will stop the bombing? All his friends and all his Dad's friends are getting rich building the bombs and cutting their taxes. Why would they stop? Here's my answer to these well meaning people:

You should start campaigning against Bush now. We must defeat this fraud who would shrug off your letter as a pitiful bleeding heart pacificist rambling. They are interested on ly in the manufacture and sale of weapons. The war in Afghanistan costs at least $1 billion a month. A lot of this money goes to weapons manufacturers, which are owned by the Carlyle Group, which James Baker and Jim Carlucci own $200 million stakes of, of which the Bin Laden family owns a $2 million stake, and for which former President Bush consults (he probably has a stake in it too).

So, welcome to another war for profit. Oddly enough, by going into debt to finance his tax cut, we are triply rewarding the rich by cutting their taxes and then selling them bonds which we have to pay off at 5% for thirty years, while we spend the money from the bonds on tax cuts and a war machine they build and sell to us.

"Beware the military industrial complex." -- Dwight Eisenhower

So, please, I beg you to put your energy into overthrowing this junta that took over the White House illegally.

Bush Blah Blah Blah

Once again the Resident was stuttering through a speech that was all talk and no action. He described public health officials as "real heroes of America," but once again has done nothing to reward these heroes. Instead, he supports the House "stimulus" bill, which is just a big giveaway to Cheney's favorite energy companies (like Enron, which apparently couldn't keep track of the money these politicians want to dole out). Hey, Georgie Boy, if you really think these nurses, EMTs, fire fighters, cops, and other public service employees are the real heroes, then why don't we double their salaries? Or at least give them a big raise? Instead, contracting budgets from falling tax revenues will force layoffs, less work, and smaller pay checks. If the way you greedy Republicans dole out the cash is any sign of what you really believe, then your heros are the CEOS who make hundreds of times more than the average employee, even when the company is crashing and burning. The Bush heros are the corporations that got him elected who will be rewarded for moving their profits out of the country. That's the Bush patriotism. That's DeLay's patriotism. And then they say, well we have to give these rich people their money back, because they create the jobs, well, Georgie, I hate to challenge that MBA you worked so hard for, but if a company isn't selling anything, they're not going to hire anyone, no matter how much cash you give the CEO for moving money out of the country. Wake up people! This regime has to go. Evict Resident Bush!

New pictures from Hawaii

Just put up these two pictures of Hawaii over at hawaii-stuff.com. This protea picture was taken at Olinda Country Cottages and Inn where there's a field full of them! This picture of Spencer was taken at Pearl Harbor from the bow of The USS Bowfin submarine, which is open for tours. It's really cool. And Spencer loved it when I banged my head so hard while crawling through a door that the whole sub rang like a bell!

I'm slowly but surely adding stuff to the Hawaii stuff site. I have plenty more pictures of Hawaii to put up there as desktop wallpaper pictures. This protea picture makes great desktop wallpaper! While you're checking out all our free desktop wallpaper pictures, don't miss the Italy pictures and New York City pictures at Robin's site. She takes great shots that make terrific wallpaper photos!

MBNA $3.0m Philip Morris $2.9m Microsoft $2.4m AT&T $2.4m UPS $2.3m Bristol Myers Squibb $2.1m Verizon $2.0m Pfizer $1.9m SBC $1.9m Enron $1.8m Citigroup $1.8m Federal Express $1.7m Time Warner/AOL $1.6m Credit Suisse $1.6m Ernst & Young $1.5m UST $1.5m Morgan Stanley Dean Witter $1.5m Lockheed Martin $1.5m Union Pacific $1.5m Freddie Mac $1.4m Bell South $1.4m Glaxo Wellcome $1.3m Amway $1.3m Price W'house Coopers $1.3m Deloite & Touche $1.3m Eli Lily $1.3m Goldman Sachs $1.2m Anderson W'wide $1.2m Merrill Lynch $1.2m Exxon Mobil $1.2m WorldCom Inc $1.2m Lehman Brothers $1.1m International Paper $1.1m General Electric $1.1m Global Crossing $1.1m MGM Mirage $1.1m Koch $1.0m Aflac $1.0m Paine Webber $1.0m American $1.0m Financial Gp Boeing $1.0m Southern Co $1.0m Ltd Inc $950k BP Amoco $950k KPMG $900k Am'can Airlines $900k Schering Plough $900k Brown & Williamson $880k Bank Pharmacia/Upjohn $850k One $850k Qwest $850k Anheuser Busch $850k Cintas Corp $828k MandalayResort Gp $810k Lehman Bros $810k Reynolds Tobacco $810k Fannie Mae $800k Bank of America $800k American Int Gp $800k GAF $800k Chevron Texaco $800k Paso $790k CSX $770k Burlington North $770k General Dynamics $750k American $740k Home Prods Joseph Seagram $740k PepsiCo $720k Chase Manhatten $700k FPL Group $685k Dominion Resources $680k Prudential $900k USX Corp $650k Northwest Airlines $650k Aventis $650k First Energy $640k Reliant Energy $640k Walt Disney $640k WalMart $630k Cisco Systems $630k Texas Utilities $630k AEI Resources $630k Westwood One $620k Amgen $600k K Mart $590k UAL Corp $570k Home Depot $560k Duchossois Inds $550k Archer Daniels Midland $530k Edison Int'l $530k Ford $510k General Motors $510k Daimler Chrysler $500k

The One Eyed Man

Paul Krugman's article in Halloween's New York Times seems to be the only thing I've seen in any major media that mentions the criminal activities taking place in the House of Reps and the White House. These people are ripping off the American Public under the guise of economic stimulation. The only thing they're stimulating is the salivary glands of the corporations that got them elected.

For example, it's not too surprising that calculations by Citizens for Tax Justice show General Motors, with its 380,000 workers, getting a check for $800 million. But it's quite amazing that TXU (formerly Dallas Power and Light), a company with only 16,000 employees, would get a check for $600 million. And there are a number of medium-sized companies that, like TXU, are in line for surprisingly big benefits. These companies include ChevronTexaco, Enron, Phillips Petroleum, IMC Global and CMS Energy. What do they have in common?

Well, they tend to be in the energy or mining businesses; and they tend to be based in or near Texas. In other words, the one-eyed bearded man with a limp looks a lot like Dick Cheney.

Why is it that no one is listening to people like Krugman and Huffington about this. Does everyone just figure this will all go away in the Senate Conference Committee? I wouldn't count on it. There are plenty of greedy Senators who would steal from the orphans of New York firefighters. In fact, by giving all this money to corporations, that's precisely what they've proposed.

In a bad economy, when consumers (2/3rds of the economy, stupid) aren't spending, companies won't produce. All the tax cuts, bribes, and payola in the world won't get these companies to create jobs that simply aren't needed. If we put money in the hands of consumers, they will create jobs by spending the money. When corporations see sales increasing, then they'll create jobs. We tried supply-side, trickle-down economics before. It didn't work. Bush can hide all the Reagan Era papers with proof that Bush Sr. was "in the loop" on Iran-Contra, he can hide all the papers that prove payola to the corporations that got rich under Reagan, and he can hide all the papers that prove Lindsey, Carlucci, and Baker are crooks, but Georige boy cannot hide that fact that he is the puppet of big business who just wants to pay off all these corrupt companies that paid for his coup.

Meanwhile, Guiliani is setting maximum firefighter and police numbers at ground zero at 24. In other words, there will be no more recovery. They're just going to scoop up the wreckage and remains together and dump them. Hey, Rudy, where's all the money going? If you're not spending it on Firefighters and Police to continue recovering bodies and body parts, then where are you spending it? I thought these people were our heroes? Yeah, like every other Republican, you talk a good game. If firefighters, cops, and teachers were really heroes, we'd double their salary tomorrow. See any Republicans lining up to vote for that? Ah, they're too busy voting to give billions to these Republican campaign donors.

Arianna Huffington amazes me again - she's ripping the House Republicans a new one

And it's a good thing too! Their heads are so far up their old ones that they don't work anymore. I knew there was a big handout to businesses in this bill passed by the House republicans. I didn't know that one of the many gifts to big business is that money they ship out of the country won't be taxed as long as it stays out of the country. In her well written article yesterday, Arianna wrote:

It allows multinational corporations such as GE and Ford to avoid paying taxes by shifting profits to their offshore subsidiaries -- but only if those profits remain overseas. Tell me, how exactly is providing incentives to keep money out of our economy supposed to stimulate our economy?

They wouldn't spend any money beefing up security when Al Gore's commission recommended it. That's because they don't give a crap about the safety of average Americans. They wanted to spend that money on tax cuts to the corporations that put them in office. And, ironically, it's not even the kind of tax cuts (the kind with provisions) that will create new jobs! This is war profiteering and these people should be put in prison for it.

Arianna Huffington's new book is called How to Overthrow the Government.