No war criminals here

Congress and the White House are busily engaged in trying to force other nations to grant an exemption for Americans so they cannot be tried by an International Court for war crimes. They do this by threatening to withhold financial assistance of various kinds from countries that refuse to sign on to this exemption. You have to admit that under the present circumstances this is critically important from the American point of view. After all, we wouldn’t want Bush/Cheney and the neocon mafia they run to be held responsible for their blatant war crimes, nor would it do for any of our out of control military personnel to be held responsible. What does it matter if some civilians are murdered, raped, and pillaged? It’s all in a day’s work, and all for the Lord.

Oh, and by the way, the Bush/Cheney Administration has decided to cut financial assistance to college students. The Pell Grant Program is being cut back so that an indeterminate number of students will find it more difficult to attend Colleges and Universities. This makes real sense to the powers that be because who wants an educated population who might not vote for idiocy. They are obviously aware that a democracy can only survive if it has an informed electorate, and as they are intent on destroying democracy, it is perfectly clear what needs to be done. We need more citizens who believe in creationism and the literal truth of the bible. No more science, it’s just too much of a nuisance.

There was a piece somewhere today that suggests that member of Congress do not actually read the bills they are required to vote on. Surprise! When you get a thousand plus page bill one day and are expected to vote on it hours or a day later of course you can’t read it or understand it. This is precisely how we got the Patriot Act. And precisely how they can insert innocuous little items like making everyone’s tax returns available to any Congressperson who might want to snoop, as well as little anti-abortion rules and regulations. Also, of course the billions of dollars in pork that clutter up all of these bills. It’s a great system.

Finally, for the moment, is Bush’s request for millions of dollars for abstinence education. Although studies have shown that abstinence education, where it has already been tried, doesn’t work, Bush is determined to pursue it. As it turns out he didn’t get all the millions he wanted for this, just most of them. When it was suggested that perhaps more research was necessary he replied “we don’t need no more stinking research.” Rest assured, we are in good hands.