"Have I told you lately how much I hate these people?"

My brother Michael sent me this the other day. It is from a mutual hero of ours, Mike Malloy:
Katrina Aftermath
All of it, lies. All of it, incompetence. The lies are being made public for every American to see if he or she chooses to. "In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans. But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight." The Bush Crime Family's ongoing, never-ending incompetence -- this time surrounding the single greatest natural disaster in US history -- is being displayed in the hearings being held today before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Nothing terribly revealing where it concerns the inability of this collection of dunces to govern. Not really. Just another rotund, polished Bush Crime Family functionary -- this time former FEMA head Michael "Brownie" Brown - sitting at the witness table, telling the tale of his and his superiors' stupidity, unpreparedness, inability to communicate, false intelligence, missed signals, non-concern, arrogance, toxic narcissism, need to blame someone else, and on and on. Not unlike the way these thugs have mishandled two completely unnecessary wars. Not unlike the way these criminals have mishandled critically unraveling domestic issues such as Medicare/Medicaid, budget deficits, national debt, environmental and energy issues, defense, all of it spiraling totally out of control, blasting the country into a morass of Gordian-knot-like conditions that will take decades (and near-genius leadership) to unravel. The stance this criminal administration takes on every issue -- lie; continue to lie; do not stop lying -- is also once again being revealed. As also were the lies told about Iraq's WMD, the need to "reform" Social Security, the wondrous blessings to flow from the hatefully misnamed No Child Left Behind act, the lies about energy policy, tax policy, all of it, these new lies being told about the disaster that crushed New Orleans are flowing from the mouths of men who could not sit successfully on a rural county commission. And yet, the American public continues to allow them to remain in positions of unchecked power and in charge of the most formidable country ever in the history of the human species, answerable to no one, listening to nothing other than their own crazed voices, moving the country inexorably toward the next disaster, the one that will bring martial law and an end to the democratic experiment. And every time this cowardly, stupid man, George W. Bush, rises in a carefully selected and vetted crowd to crow yet again like a banty rooster strutting through the excrement and slime of a factory fram chicken shed, the lie that contains the greatest danger to the citizens of this country is repeated: "My most important duty is to protect the American people." How much longer do we allow this destruction to continue?

As if that wasn't brilliant enough...

Malloy on the recent hunting accident:
Dick Cheney likes to kill things. Usually things that can't escape, don't have a chance, that are snared or caught in some manner that puts them at Cheney's mercy. Dick Cheney doesn't go "hunting" like a normal hunter. He goes murdering. For the most part, he seems to enjoy shooting game birds that have been made defenseless either by being raised in a completely benign and protected environment -- and therefore unable to respond quickly to a threat -- or by having certain of their wing feathers removed at birth thus leaving them unable to fly efficiently as they age. These birds (and other animals) are kept on ranches in Texas, ranches owned for generations by wealthy Republicans (this one owned by the family of Katharine Armstrong) who understand the perverse needs of their fellow Conservatives: the need to kill without personal risk; the lust for complete power, including that of life or death over other living creatures, all living creatures, including human beings. (See: Iraq, invasion of.) In this context, Cheney, Supreme Court Justice "Mad" Anthony Scalia, and other puffy, slow-moving, Republican killers are let loose on private ranches in order to periodically -- and safely (for them) -- satiate this craving. On these private preserves the cowardly, unsportsmanlike killing can proceed at will, offstage, out of the public eye, unseen. On Saturday last, according to news reports and a very strange article in the New York Times , Cheney and one of his companions -- the hapless 78-year-old corporate lawyer Harry Whittington - were stalking birds from their vehicles, cruising the backwoods roads and trails, shooting through the open windows of their Range Rover or Hummer or Escalade when Whittington got out of the vehicle to retrieve one of the birds he had just shot from the padded comfort of the rear seat. Moving on down the road, Cheney and the rest of his "hunting" party were focused on another covey of deliberately handicapped birds when Whittington came walking up on Cheney's blind side. At that point Cheney turned and pulled the trigger, mistakenly thinking Whittington was a dove, or a pheasant, (or perhaps Donald Rumsfeld.) Or maybe Cheney opened fire fully realizing Whittington was a man. Who will ever know? After filling the victim's cheek, neck, chest and right side, with what is described cavalierly as "little bitty pellets," Cheney's ever-present medical team covered the man in blankets and waited for the rescue crew. Cheney continued his "hunt." The incident is over. No comment. No White House report for more than 24 hours after the shooting. And, certainly, no investigation. Unless poor Mr. Whittington should die. Even then a quick investigation -- by a carefully selected panel of experts -- will conclude it was his age that did him in, not a few "little bitty pellets" from Dick Cheney's shotgun and any argument to the contrary will come only from those who truly hate the United States and are doing everything they can to support the terrorists. I have a suggestion, one that might settle once and forever Cheney's interest in killing and death. Arm him and armor him to the extent that our finest soldiers are armed and protected in Iraq. Surround him with one of those well-trained, combat-ready Iraqi units Cheney tells us is ready to "step up" so American soldiers can "step down." Put him in a standard Humvee and send him and his Iraqi unit to, oh, say, Fallujah. Let him go "hunting" there.