The impending Judge Samuel Alito vote is likely to pass, pleasing Ann Coulter to no end. It'll pass, given the illegally-stacked (or haven't you been paying attention to the DeLay/Abramoff/etc. debacles?) Republican stronghold in Washington. The fucking Democrats can't find their balls with roadmap in hand, though it's a moot point given how the Supreme Court's unprecedented interference with the fateful Presidential election that put the current hyena pack into power demonstrated the bankruptcy of the Court as a judicial body and/or moral institution.

Alito is the kind of devout patriarchal selective "Constitutionalist" we've come to recognize: like "Christians" righteously supporting war, capital punishment & corporate crimes while decrying abortion, Alito passionately argues his obsessive fixation on the Constitution while opportunistically skirting those portions of the Constitution and Bill of Rights contrary to his blinkered affiliations (the founding fathers so reviled the potential power of corporations that they established clear laws to regulate and contain any corporate entities growing into challenges against the people and government; the railroads actively began dismantling those restrictions in the late 1800s, and since the corporations mobilized their forces in the 1970s and Reagan embraced deregulation, it's been all downhill for the individual in the U.S. of A.). The perverse irony that those who sought so vehemently to cripple/discredit/impeach Clinton within the past decade increasingly espouse the Unitary political philosophy (which Alito is linked with, though he dodged explicit attempts to probe that aspect of his views during his hearings) that concentrates unprecedented Presidential power into the hands of the current President and Administration snowballs with the clear presumption that they will remain in power: the power brokers the Republicans have become presume ownership of our nation in perpetuity.

Karl Rove has scurried back into the spotlight, claiming only the Republicans are actively embracing the necessary "post-9/11 world," once again linking the Bush Administration's actions and 9/11 as somehow justification for whatever they do (on January 20th, Rove attacked Democratic critics of the Administration during a Republican National Committee meeting, saying, "That doesn't make them unpatriotic -- not at all. But it does make them wrong -- deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong"; see The Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2006.) Now that he feels bold enough and suitably out-of-scrutiny for the Valerie Plame outing (a blatantly treasonous act, whoever is responsible, and Rove is still highly suspect), Rove's canny manipulation of public & politics skillfully manifests: of course, as soon as public outrage against Bush's arrogant claims to have the inherent power to supercede law begins to reach critical mass, we conveniently are provided with Osama bin-Laden's resurfacing on Jan. 19 in a new audiotape sent to al-Jazeera TV, ending more than a year of silence. Tuesday night, Bush will no doubt cite this new threat from al-Qaeda as well as the bloody conflict in Iraq as justifications for continuing to consolidate his powers as the "unitary executive." Give me a break. "Oh, puh-leez, President Bush, save us!" Ya, right -- the man who boasted during his heart-sickening press conference yesterday morning how he and his Administration is reserving the right to ignore those laws it does not like is going to save us.

Rove clearly plans to ride the War on Terror into another election season, having orchestrated an Orwellian obfuscation and confusion of rhetoric so impeccably that any attack on the US will now be seen as evidence of the validity and necessity of the Bush Administration rule rather than horrific proof of its abject failure.

Are we such sheep, such saps?

I'm sick to death of the travesty my country has become. The active dismantling of all existing protection of citizens from monolithic corporate power is yielding weekly devastation in increasingly personalized and intimate arenas (coal mine disasters, anyone? Orchestrated implosion of Medicare?). Our senators are complicit in all this: amid the "protecting the little guy" rhetoric of the Alito hearings, why didn't even one Senator get to the core of the issue and query the Judge's views on the court's gradual acceptance (there was never a ruling or judgement) of corporations as entities recognized as having the rights of individuals, protected by the Constitution? (Well, of course, our Senate is in the same corporate pockets -- we'll never hear that particular issue raised, much less debated.)

Another election season is brewing.

Time to play hardball, if anyone has 'em to play with: I mean, we should be seeing billboards with Jack Abramoff in his duds representing the Republican K-Street faction that has sold us all down the river. We should be seeing explicit links between the current Medicare disaster and the coalition of government and pharmaceutical & insurance interests that forged this nightmare (the key elected officials involved stepped out of the Capital into cushy jobs with insurance and pharmaceutical firms). We should be seeing vast roadside side-by-side images of the burning Twin Towers and Bush walking hand-in-hand with his Saudi guest and the moniker, "BROKEBACK NATION."

It was Saudi terrorists with (real) boxcutters, not Iraqis with (imaginary) weapons of mass destruction, who brought 9/11 raining down around our ears. The Iraq War is a sham and a crime, and all that has led to it and all that has followed is among our darkest moments in history. The sham 9/11 link is the magic button they continue to push to induce sheep-like complicity. Bush's upcoming "State of the Nation" address will no doubt hammer that link anew, now justifying his blatant disregard for the law (most recently and prominently regarding illegal wiretapping of Americans in the name of 'national security').

There are no links between 9/11 and what we've become mired in as a nation. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud -- the wealthiest businessman in the Muslim arena -- himself said, "September 11 was a deep wound. These kinds of wounds take many years to heal, not just three or four. Yes, the terrorists were Saudis, but most Saudis do not agree with them. I hope things like King Abdullah visiting Texas will help bring us together" (Fortune, October 3, 2005, pg. 32).

No worries, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud: we are such a pig-ignorant "These Colors Don't Run" shithead jingo-patriot nation, Bush and his cronies have successfully diverted the populace rage to uninvolved parties, against whom we wage all-consuming undeclared war. The long-standing US-Saudi relationship is the only aspect of the FDR legacy Bush and the neo-cons aren't intent on dismantling: it was indeed FDR who forged the post-WW2 "US protection for Saudi oil" pact every President after has honored (the Bush clan of course also profits enormously from said pact.)

By the way, FOX News lovers, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, richest man in the Muslim world, among the largest and most successful of all foreign investors in the U.S., increased his holdings in Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp (corporate proprietor of FOX News, among countless other media venues heavily pro-Bush and his cronies and aggressively burying any news or discussion of their fuckups, faux pas, and crimes) "to 5.46% of the voting shares and reaffirmed his support for chairman Rupert Murdoch..." Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud says, "We approve of his [Murdoch's] strategy and approach.". He is in fact pushing for Murdoch to expand his media empire into the Middle East.

I'm sure Hamas is all for that; don't you think Bill O'Reilly will fit right in?

This week's Palestinian election results demonstrates we are reaping what we sow in spades -- we have further radicalized and polarized the region, and the extremists are looking mighty good to oppressed populations. The lunacy of the argument that one of the threadbare justifications for the Iraq War is "keeping the war over there" is bearing unexpected fruit.

It may not be the orchard we as a nation thought we were planting, but the harvest is upon us.