Modern Republican Masculinity

Super tough guy Republican, Sen Ted Cruz of the very super masculine state of Texas, delivered a speech to a hack Republican organization where he not only questioned the patriotism of two of President Obama's recent cabinet appointees but flat out called them "less than ardent fans of the U.S. military."

The two appointees are Vietnam Veterans Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.  Sen. Ted Cruz has never served a day of his life in the military.  Now what in the world could make two Vietnam Veterans be labeled as unpatriotic anti-Americans while a person who never served so much as a second in combat or much less in uniform be so pro-America????  Very simple.  Cruz supports without question Bush's Endless War program and Hagel and Kerry long ago ended theirs.

It truly is that simple.  Hagel and Kerry, who between them have 5 Purple Hearts from their service in Vietnam, are against America because they no longer support the Republican view of Forever War and no longer support the Republican vision for this country.  While Cruz, who was born in Canada and never served a day of his life in the military, is the epitome of Super Tough Guy, Republican Pro-War American Hero, just as long as someone else is doing the fighting for him, Manly Man all because he's Republican.  It's so old. It's so lazy.  It's so tiresome.  But it's how it is.

If you listen to his whole speech the Republicans in the crowd cheer him on.  They love being told how tough they are and how patriotic they are while calling people who don't support them anti-American.  They cheer and thump their chests with big boastful grins.  It is the pride of their existence.

The All-American Male Conservative Republican

Ted Nugent is a hero to many Republicans.  He kills his own food.  He strokes off to his guns.  He tells the government to take a flying leap even threatening to wage war against it because a free and fair democratic election didn't go as he hoped. He wraps himself in the flag and talks almost non-stop about how much he loves his country.  He has lots of money.  He is his own man.  Independent and proud. We all strive to be as manly, as patriotic and as conservative as Nugent.

Typical Republican behavior no doubt about it.  It's almost narcissistic to a point. But then you realize the whole embodiment is fraudulent.  I can list forever so many Republicans portraying themselves in the same mold as Nugent.  Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Bill O'Reilly, Mike Huckabee, Michelle Bachmann, Sara Palin, Karl Rove, Rep. Joe Walsh, Mitt Romney...etc.  So many it would take hours if not days to list them all.

Because of Nugent's on-camera persona, we sometimes forget that he loves his country so much and is so tough and manly that he got 4 deferments from military service in Vietnam.  But thanks to fellow rocker Dee Snider, we can all remember that not only did Nugent refuse to answer his country's call, he went to huge strides to dodge service all together.  As Nugent himself told a biographer in 1977, he crapped on himself for days and refused to bathe to get out of military service:

Well, on that day I ceased cleansing my body.  No more brushing my teeth, no more washing my hair, no baths, no soap, no water. Thirty days of debris build. I stopped shavin’ and I was 18, had a little scraggly beard, really looked like a hippie. I had long hair, and it started gettin’ kinky, matted up. Then two weeks before, I stopped eating any food with nutritional value. I just had chips, Pepsi, beer-stuff I never touched-buttered poop, little jars of Polish sausages, and I’d drink the syrup, I was this side of death. Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. Poop, piss the whole shot. My pants got crusted up.

Let's get this straight. One of the most macho, manly, warrior patriots of the Republican Party, who routinely calls for armed rebellion against the government, who wraps himself in the flag every chance he gets, and who calls anyone who doesn't believe or vote like he does an anti-American shit on himself for days to avoid fighting in a war during a time when his country needed him most.  Yep.  As Republican as it gets.

"Real Men" now includes people who fled to France to avoid combat in Vietnam

Mittens Romney fled to France and lived in a palace where he had a butler, a personal chef and lessons in French in order to avoid combat in Vietnam.  His excuse is he went to serve his church and read the Book of Mormon-- a book that teaches him the Garden of Eden was in Missouri and that God is from Kolob, mind you.

In the Republican Fantasy World, fleeing to France to avoid war is the very definition of machismo.  It's what "real men" do who are serious about looking tough to our adversaries abroad.  Just ask any Republican, they'll tell ya:

ROUZER: When we get [Romney and Ryan] in you are going to see a big change, you’re going to see number one that America is going to be respected again around the world. You’re going to see all this turmoil that’s taking place, you’re going to see them look up and say guess what, the American people have spoken and maybe we need to cut it out a little bit, maybe we need to tone it down a little bit, because now we have real men in the White House.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No girly men!

ROUZER: That’s right, no girly men.

That's a Young Mittens on the far right.  He was marching to support the war in Vietnam.  Shortly after he marched to support the war, he fled to France to avoid fighting in it.

Being Republican is truly a magical aspiration.  You immediately become a tough guy, a fiscally responsible conservative who is ordained by God; a Very Serious Person who is Super Patriotic. It's like entering this whole other realm of human achievement where reality coexists with complete fantasy.  You can be anything you wanna be.

Gay Vietnam Vet Confronts Fortunate Son Romney

Probably the most real, genuine episode of Mitt Romney and his barbarism ever captured on video.

If my information is correct the video is from December of 2011.  While campaigning in New Hampshire, Mittens decides to sit down at the breakfast table with a Vietnam Veteran and chew the fat.  Complete awesomeness ensues.



Calling this a disaster for Mittens is an understatement.  He looked uncomfortable from the beginning.  You have an obvious blue collar Vietnam Vet sitting next to a billionaire draft dodger.  Romney quickly calculates the two are about the same age and begins to reflect just exactly what he was doing in 1966 while the Vet was in the jungles of Vietnam serving his country.  Romney's answer?  Graduated high school in 1965, off to college for a year and "then I went off to serve my church for a couple years."  Seriously??

Romney didn't just go serve his church for a couple years.  He fled to France to avoid fighting in Vietnam.  He lived in a palace in Paris.  He had his own butler and chef. Only because Romney was a Fortunate Son did he get to avoid Vietnam.  He was drafted 4 different times by his government and he chickened out of every single one. 

Could you imagine what the GOP would be saying if Obama had fled to France to avoid Vietnam?  That he even thought about sitting down at a table with a veteran of the war he ran from would have sent the crusty old white men into conniptions.  Yet Romney is now the standard bearer of the Party that supports War Without End, the Party that thought 100 years in Iraq was fine.  Mittens himself even called the ending of the war in Iraq "tragic."

Essentially what we have in this video is a very wealthy man who fled to France to avoid fighting for his country-- only because he was the son of a millionaire mind you-- telling a Middle Class man who gave up everything to go fight for his country when he was called to do so that he does not have equal rights.  And maybe most appalling, Mittens uses the Constitution to support his intolerance.  The Superiority of Mitt Romney and his Republican Party is appalling. 

That the guy is gay isn't even the best part of this video.  It simply makes it perfect.

Does Sununu Really Want to Bring Up Youth and Patriotism?

This morning Romney supporter Republican John Sununu went on Fox News to blast President Obama's decisions with recreational drugs as a teen and his time as a child overseas to suggest the president needs to learn how to be an American.

Let's see here.  The president-- going back over two decades now-- has routinely admitted to past drug use as a teenager and college student.  Something about half of all people have done themselves.  It's also extremely well known he spent time in a foreign country as a child, a situation in which he had no control because he was after all a child.  This means he needs to learn to be American?

As a child Willard Romney grew up wealthy, the son of a longtime politician.  As a teen and college student, he simultaneously spent his days cheering on the war in Vietnam and dodging the draft.  When he was of prime fighting age, and during a time when his country needed him the most, he fled to France and spent his days living in a mansion valued today at $12 million.

Here's how fellow Mittens Mormon described the French estate:

Although he spent time in other French cities, for most of 1968, Mr Romney lived in the Mission Home, a 19th century neoclassical building in the French capital’s chic 16th arrondissement. “It was a house built by and for rich people,” said Richard Anderson, the son of the mission president at the time of Mr Romney’s stay. “I would describe it as a palace”.

The only thing Republicans hate worse than Democrats are the French.  Does the Romney Campaign really want to talk about time spent as a youth and who is more American?

Romney's Palace in one of the richest portions of Paris

It's valued at $12 million in today's money.  Looks much cozier than the jungles of Vietnam.

It was here in this Paris Mansion that Romney Learned to be American

So Easy For a Chickenhawk to Say

When I read Mittens' comment that even Jimmy Carter would have ordered the raid to kill bin Laden, I immediately thought the same thing as Greg Sargent.

The rub is that in a sense, Carter did give “that order,” as Romney puts it. In April of 1980, Carter ordered the launch of an American military operation designed to rescue Americans held hostage in Tehran. The mission went horribly awry, of course, killing eight American service-men — a disaster that played a major role in ending Carter’s presidency.

The purpose of Romney's answer was not to demonstrate just how tough of a decision it was for the administration, but to render the simplicity of the decision by inferring even the tree hugging diplomacy-loving Carter would have ordered it.  Sad at every level.

Like Sargent mentions, this ignores the fact that the bin Laden raid was built upon the 1980 Tehran raid that failed miserably. We learned from history. Amazing I know. The Obama administration knew enough about the failed 1980 raid that it ordered backup gunships just in case everything went wrong like it did for Carter.  President Obama, in making his order to go after bin Laden, had to have had the Tehran raid staring at him with excruciating realness.

All of this, however, fails to even touch upon the fact that Carter is not the weakling the GOP tries to portray him, which was the exact intention of Romney's comment. Carter is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis Maryland-- one of the finest military academies in all the world. Unlike tough guy Ronald Reagan who lived in liberal Hollywood all throughout WWII and made movies, Carter served his country by fighting in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. After the war, Carter remained in the Navy and served in the nuclear submarine program.  Hardly the job for an appeaser.

It's possible Mitt Romney knows nothing about Carter's background or anything at all about the 1980 raid, which thankfully President Obama did. But comments inferring emasculating conditions against people who actually served their country in time of war from a guy who fled to a palace in France during Vietnam isn't something the American public should take lightly.

Romney Hid in a French Palace During Vietnam

I'm not the biggest fan of Ed Schultz.  I've spoken to him a few times and even in conversations he can get a little gruff.  He does have a point, however.  Especially in his latest segment where he Frenchifies Mitt Romney.

It is true, instead of fighting for his country in Vietnam, a time when his country needed him most, Mittens ran to France and hid from military service.  While in France he lived in a palace where he brushed up on his French and learned the Book of Mormon.  Prior to fleeing to France, a 19 year old Romney participated in a pro-war demonstration at Standford.  The demonstration was to mock the sissy anti-war hippies and show their support for military action in Vietnam.  Romney was a lean 19 year old of perfect fighting age at a time when his country had hundreds of thousands of men fighting in the jungles in the very war he was marching to support.  Romney went to France to live in a palace, learn French and study a book that taught him Eden is in Missouri.  Chickenhawk.

But now Mitt Romney is the leader of the Republican Party.  The Endless War fighting party. The party responsible for letting bin Laden escape and for lying America into Iraq.  He's the tough guy in this race.  Watch and see because Fox News and the GOP will do their best to paint Mittens as the handsome, square-jawed, youthful, decider.  Republicans love this stuff. Just look at war-dodger Reagan.

Editor's Note: a typo in the second paragraph has been fixed.

Cheney Calls Iraq War "Sound Policy"

War cheerleader and Chickenhawk with five deferments from serving in the military during time of war, Dick Cheney, has been making the rounds on our nation's airwaves with complete immunity the last couple of days to tout his new book and brag about Iraq.

This morning he went on NBC's Today show where he tried once again to rewrite history and claimed the invasion of Iraq was sound policy.

“I just don’t believe that. I think the critics at home want to argue that. In fact, I think it was sound policy that dealt with a very serious problem and eliminated Saddam Hussein from the kind of problem he presented before.”

Ahhhhh yes, sound policy.  After nearly a decade, thousands of American lives later, a trillion dollars without raising a single penny to pay for it, it's all sound policy to the War Cheerleaders. He's a sick man.  The disaster him and the Bushies did to this country will take decades to correct.

Coburn Says It's a Good Thing He Can't Pack Heat on Senate Floor

Just like all Republicans, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is a Super Tough Guy. As always, the only thing that is larger than their Supreme Toughness is their Patriotism. Coburn proves both points in an interview to Tulsa World:

Earlier, in Langley, Coburn partially deflected criticism of President Barack Obama - and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke - by blaming the country's financial woes on Congress. He described his colleagues as "a class of career elitists" and "cowards," and at one point, talking about his frustrations, said, "It's just a good thing I can't pack a gun on the Senate floor." 

Yes, in the world Coburn lives, people who don't agree with him are "cowards" who should be thankful he can't carry a gun to work.  The only thing wrong with Coburn's depiction of his manly toughness is that there is nothing in his life's history to back any of it up.

When Coburn was of prime fighting age, a time when he could prove both his manly tough guyism and his Super Patriotism, there was a huge war raging in a far off land called Vietnam.  The country that he loved, of which now he says is full of cowards, really needed him.  Coburn instead chose to stay far away and go to college.  As the son of a very wealthy obstetrician, Coburn was fortunate enough elitist enough to not have to answer his country's call at a time when it needed him most. 

But now all of that is down the memory hole.  Coburn is a very tough gun-loving Republican Patriot that we all should be thankful we don't work with.  Unless, of course, we are a fellow Republican Patriot and then Coburn, who is also a Moral Values Crusader, will help negotiate payoffs to your mistress.

GOP Rep. Joe Barton Thinks He's Waging War Against POTUS

It's almost impossible to imagine what would happen if a Democratic member of Congress had said they wanted to wage war against President Bush. It's even more impossible to imagine what would have happened if the entire Democratic caucus had envisioned itself as waging a battle for the struggle of freedom against the Bush administration.  One slip of the tongue that President Bush was wrong would have landed anyone in the cross hairs of Patriotic watchdogs.  A mention that he was an enemy of America and that you are going to wage war against him would have been incomprehensible.

Yet today, now that George Bush and his failure of leadership is gone, it's perfectly acceptable to not only rebuke the president but to also suggest he is an enemy of the country.  It's perfectly acceptable for Republicans, the very same people that would have yelled and screamed at anyone disagreeing with Bush, to routinely call the President of the United States an enemy and use violent combative language to describe how the new president should be handled.

In a PowerPoint slideshow distributed to Republican Members, Rep. Joe Barton declares that he is waging war against the Obama administration.

"Speaker Boehner is our Dwight Eisenhower in the battle against the Obama Administration," says Barton's presentation, which was obtained by The Huffington Post.

"Majority Leader Cantor is our Omar Bradley," it goes on.

"I want to be George Patton - put anything in my scope and I will shoot it," promises Barton.

The slide is headlined: "What's in Store for the Obama Administration."

Incredible. Just truly incredible. Put aside for a second that Joe Barton has never seen an ounce of combat in his entire life. He has never once worn a military uniform or fought anything. Despite being of prime fighting age during Vietnam, a chance when he could have really proven his George Patton skills, he ran and hid. To hear Barton talk now, some forty years after failing to actually fight for his country, Barton is a bad ass general that wants to fight an enemy in which he says he can "hit the ground running" based on his experience.  Based on his actual personal history, running during wartime is actually something he does know something about.

Put that aside for a second.

Put aside the fact that Boehner, despite being of prime fighting age during Vietnam, sought a discharge for a bad back.  A time when his country needed him most, he ran and hid crying about a bad back that has never stopped him from playing golf. Put aside, too, that Eric Cantor has never once served in the military or experienced one minute of combat.  But now, in the Republican Fantasy World, these three men who have never led men in battle, or much less seen war unless it's on their Fox News teevee sets, really believe that they are three of this country's greatest generals.  Where in any of those three's past is their anything that remotely resembles Ike, Patton or Bradley?  It's insane!

So let's put aside the complete idiocy of just how ridiculously hypocritical the Republican Party has become.  Instead let's focus on who in their right mind gets to behave this way and get away with it.  In what world does an elected member of government get to declare the president an enemy that must be fought and destroyed not get held accountable?  I'm not suggesting that Republicans, or anyone for that matter, can't disagree with the president.  I'm only saying let's hold them accountable to their rhetoric.  If they really get to pretend they are Great Warrior Patriots equal to three of the greatest wartime generals to ever serve, then make them accountable to it.  They should be treated exactly the same way a Democrat would be if he or she did the same thing.

No more special treatment.  No more pretending.  You own it.  You own this fixture of modern Americanism.  If you really see yourself as a Freedom Fighting Revolutionary, then let's do it.  If you really want to bump peter heads to a make-believe world where three men who have never come within a few thousand miles of combat get portrayed as Brave Freedom Fighting Generals, more power to you.  But we aren't going to do it your way any more.

The Annals of Loneliness

I don't know about y'all but listening to two Republicans who have never seen an ounce of combat in their life talk on Fox News about bombing Iran just doesn't cut it for me. It's like watching Martha Stewart talk about paving highways. But at least this time one of the leading chickenhawk generals appears to side with some basic reasoning that attacking Iran might not be the best of ideas.

I can't help but think that invading yet another Muslim country is the last thing this nation needs to do. It's a good thing people like John Bolton no longer matter.

Republican Chickenhawk Smack Down

Isn't it great to watch Chickenhawks get mad and throw hissy fits when someone calls them out on their on their lack of patriotism when their country needed them most.



Republican Tom Tancredo was of prime fighting age during Vietnam but received a deferment because he told the military doctors that he had depression. Even though he was a vocal proponent of fighting war without end, like so many today, he just couldn't bring himself to go fight.

When You Call Them Out, Call Them Out

From lies:

"The Taliban regime is out of business, permanently." Dick Cheney, 2002

"Working with a fine coalition, our military went to Afghanistan, destroyed the training camps of Al Qaida, and put the Taliban out of business forever.” George W. Bush, 2003

To flat out delusion:

"It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger." Dick Cheney, 2009

For nearly 8 years Bush & Co. neglected the war in Afghanistan. They told us the Taliban were defeated, that they were written off in the history books, that they were forever destroyed. They were dead wrong. We've been fighting their back burner perpetual war long enough. Nothing Bush or Cheney said about Afghanistan or Iraq turned out to be true. They were as wrong as any group of people has ever been in history. So when people try to write off holding the Bushies to their past record as merely Bush Bashing, they are as chest-thumping chickenhawks go-- as wrong as their Fantasy World day is long.

War, More War, Thank God for Glorious War

Republican John Bolton just can't get enough war on his Fox News teevee set. This time he's salivating for nuclear holocaust.

Fox News' Warrior Tough Guys (2 Updates)

As I demonstrated the other day, people who watch Fox News-- and there are millions who do-- have been treated to a whole slew of conservative-aimed propaganda just this week. Their viewers have been brainwashed into believing:

• Millions showed up to demonstrate at the 9/12 Tea Bagger protests
• That it was the largest march in the history of DC
• Those attending were "peaceful" and patriotic citizens wanting their country back
• The ills facing this country are all cause by God-less Democrats

As if that isn't enough for five days time, there is also the issue of President Obama changing the plans on the missile defense program originally planned for Europe. It's not that Obama doesn't want to build a missile defense program, he doesn't want to do it in Europe. He also wants to do it cheaper and more technologically advanced than Republicans want. These so-called "fiscal conservatives" want to spend endless amounts of money building missile defense shields for foreign countries but raise a ruckus if one penny is spent here at home. And because of that, Fox News has unleashed their accustomed Warrior Tough Guy Patriots to tell its millions of viewers that President Obama has committed "treason," "surrendered" to the Russians, that he is "weak" and has created a situation worse than the Cuban Missile Crisis.

These are the people that brought us the war in Iraq. They strive for endless war, just as long as they don't have to fight it. Super macho tough talk is all they know. Anyone who does not agree that we should be in a state of perpetual war, that we should completely build Poland a trillion dollar missile defense system, that preventive war is a great idea, is a "weak" treasonous terrorist sympathizer that better vote Republican the next time or risk destroying the country forever. They are the same people that gave us 8 years of George Bush. They chest-thumped his Glorious War and advocated more invasions just for the smell of it. Now today they are mad that President Obama doesn't want to use Europe as a launching pad for a third world war. Millions of people will heed their words just by watching Fox News. It's no wonder Tea Baggers are angry.

*Update:

Not only did Fox News relentlessly promote and in many ways help organize the 9/12 Tea Bagger march, their very own pundit almost entirely devised the whole idea. What if CNN had organized anti-Bush rallies? Or what if Rachel Maddow organized a march on Washington to protest the invasion of Iraq? Of course in the Republican Fantasy World, CNN did promote Bush-hatred syndrome that motivated Bush protesters but GOP conspiracy theories are nothing short of abundant if not endless. After all, we are talking about people that still think Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

Even with that, with all the tough talking Super Patriots and the Tea Bagger promotions, Fox still owes a slight bit of decency to correct its employees when they purposely spread hate-filled conspiracy theories like Glenn Beck did today. He makes a 'Tree of Revolution' and links President Obama to Che Guevara.

Now c'mon! Obama has nothing to do with Che. If anything, people who call for uprisings against the government to overthrow tyranny and oppression like Beck, Fox News and Republicans are doing have almost everything to do with Che. But even I wouldn't go as far as to draw a line linking the GOP with Che. That's ignorant. And so is Beck and Fox News for letting this happen. No sane person would ever watch that channel. There's no reason for any of this. Why aren't other media organizations reporting the blatant bias of Fox? It won't end until they do.

**Update:

Fox News producer coaches Tea Baggers during commercial break.

Cheney Still Tries to Link Iraq with al Qaeda

In his speech Big Dick Cheney still can't get past the fact Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Cheney also tries to make the case that torture was rare, only happened to three men and provided valuable intelligence. That's just not the case at all.

How possibly can the Party of "moral values" really claim torture should be part of the American justice system?

This is an easy one to decipher. Dick Cheney was an integral part of the last 8 years of miserable failure. He was one of the main driving forces for invading Iraq and diverting attention away from the country actually responsible for 9/11. He is almost single handily responsible for two ongoing endless wars and the worst financial crisis in 80 years. Only George Bush bears more responsibility than Cheney. Not one thing Cheney has told us about Iraq, Afghanistan or America has been true in the last 8 years. Hilariously the guy co-responsible for all that has wrought our country to its knees still insists Iraq had something to do with 9/11, that torture is great as a state-sanctioned policy and that anyone who disagrees is only helping the terrorists.

He's an embarrassment to our country.

Please Give Us More War, Or At Least Tell Us How Great War Is

Ben Smith's latest Politico blog post is worth a read if you haven't already. For some reason, maybe because he's deranged, Dick Cheney hasn't realized that his opinion no longer matters. A man with five deferments from military service and who hasn't seen an ounce of combat a day in his life (unless you consider the time he shot his friend in the face with a shotgun while bird hunting) can't get enough Glorious War footage on his Fox News teevee set. Now that no one is listening to him, he's decided to travel around the country and tell people that invasion is the only thing that can possibly save us from annihilation by the evildoers.

"Everybody's in a giant conspiracy to achieve a different objective than the one we want to achieve," Cheney said.

The negotiations are "bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible" in threatening military action against Iran, he said.

"Most of the other nations out there are willing to live with a nuclear-armed Iran" he said, citing France, Germany and the United Kingdom in particular.

Cheney was echoing his daughter's comments during the formal debate at Rockefeller University on Manhattan's East Side.

It's all about talking tough. Of course someone who ran and hid when his country drafted him five times into the military would have to compensate his lack of duty by proving how macho he is with tough, manly words of Forever War. Just as long as he's not doing the fighting that is.

GOP to Cheney: Go Back Into Hiding

Displeased with the former vice-president's recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he's hurting GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings.

The veep, who showed a penchant for secrecy during eight years in the White House,has popped up in media interviews to defend the Bush-Cheney record while suggesting that the country is not as safe under President Obama.

This is smoke and mirrors. There's no way the modern Republican Party can survive without Big Dick Cheney. A chickenhawk with 5 deferments from combat is the pure epitome of what is the GOP. He lurches around the country drooling about small government, fiscal conservatism and how great war without end is and then slithers back into his hole much like bin Laden. There isn't a single Republican who watched his interview that didn't pop serious wood and heed his every word.

How Can Anyone Be a Part of This?

In case you had better things to do this week, you might not have known that it's time for the annual CPAC conference. This is where conservatives get together to talk about how tough and macho and conservative and responsible they are. It's also where conservatives go to talk about Glorious War and Freedom Bombs and about how Great American Patriots they are. As if any of that isn't disgusting in itself, this year the also cheered the nuclear destruction of the city of Chicago.



If that's not enough to get your conservative juices flowing, maybe a tough macho extremely patriotic Cliff Kincaid calling the President of the United States a communist not born in the United States will.



How can anyone possibly be part of this? How can anyone with half a brain cheer the destruction of the nation's third largest city and home of the current President of the United States and then have the nerve to call themselves a patriot? This is the modern GOP, pathetic to its core. This is what the minority Party in American politics has sunk to. It's like watching a Nazi rally in 1930 Germany prior to their takeover of Regierung. It's disgusting and it can't be called anything else but fascism.

Why Is This Man Still Allowed To Speak?

War cheerleader and chickenhawk John Bolton has been popping wood over Israel's attack on Hamas this week. He has routinely called the move by Israel as presenting the United States a perfect opportunity to attack Iran.



In an op-ed today for the WSJ, Bolton cheers that the time to attack Iran is now and the perfect start to an Obama presidency would be an invasion of Iran.

Options on Iran are more limited, but meaningful efforts at regime change and assisting Israel should it decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities would be good first steps.

For people like John Bolton and the remaining remnants of George Bush supporters, war is an obsession. It's all they can do to strut their masculinity around and call anyone who doesn't support war without end an anti-American. But their war-craze has limits. It's war they don't have to fight and die in. Like Bolton said in the 60s when he was of prime fighting age and when his country needed him most, he didn't want to "die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy," but supporting the endless war in Vietnam gave him no such hesitations. The same is true today. War is to be cheered and romanticized just as long as he doesn't have to be the one doing the fighting and dying. War cheerleaders cannot get enough of watching on television war footage or reading on their computer screens how great war is.

More importantly, though, is the decision by the WSJ to allow such a low-ranking and peasantry of importance as someone like John Bolton to enter their op-ed pages. The American people overwhelmingly rejected the notions and ideology of Bolton, George Bush and John McCain. What they say and do does not matter. Their voice is but a lone distant sound in what now guides American policy. Giving them room on a national newspaper is like giving credence to people who believe the sun revolves around the earth-- it's a long ago, anciently discarded belief. Likewise, there's really no reason anything Bolton says should be of enough value to place in a national newspaper or on any cable television news channel. The right wing just can't quite understand how unpopular they are.