But wait again -- there’s still more!

Apparently, we couldn’t resist offering our Readers just a little morsel of satire after all ….
(These two pieces were suggested by our very own Readers in response to recent news and Scallion posts.)

Happy reading!

In brief: news we’d like to see

Bush junta takes “reality vacation” in Iraq

February 13, 2006. After Dick Cheney’s recent hunting accident, in which he shot a lawyer he was hunting with, high-ranking members of the Bush junta realized that they just don’t get enough sport. “It’s not enough to send kids to their doom while we all avoided active duty military service ourselves,” Cheney remarked. “Judges and lawyers are activists and therefore make great targets, but ol’ Whitty was just too easy. I’m lusting for a hunt I can really sink my teeth into.”

In response to Cheney’s statements, American taxpayers chipped in to buy the entire Bush administration and all the Congressional Republicans who skipped out on front-line military service a luxury reality vacation in lush, sunny Iraq. “I can’t think of anything more appropriate than to place these men into a fair fight situation where the targets they shoot at will be shooting back at them -- a much more appropriate definition of ‘sport,’” remarked Dr. Zoe Owens, Ph.D. philosopher and author of such introspectively religious books as “Jesus Holy Christ Almighty.” “In every situation these men have ever confronted, the cards have been stacked in their favor thanks to money, power, and privilege -- not so on the front lines of Iraq, where they will see first-hand the devastation and despair their policies have wrought. It will be interesting to see how they handle a truly fair fight.”

PETA applies Christian, vegan pharmacist morals

February 13, 2006. PETA members nationwide are following in the footsteps of vegan and Christian pharmacists who have chosen to do their jobs selectively based on their morals: Christian pharmacists refuse to dispense birth control while vegan pharmacists refuse to dispense medications containing animal products of any kind. This leaves a stunning array of medications that the vegans will not dispense, from natural hormones (e.g., the estrogen replacement Premarin, which is made from pregnant mare urine) to a vast array of drugs that contain lactose or other cow’s milk ingredients. Many vegan pharmacists are also debating whether to dispense drugs that relied on animal testing for their development.

Similarly, PETA members have stationed themselves in leather goods stores to discourage patrons from buying leather; grocery stores to prevent customers from buying meat, eggs, honey, and milk; and restaurants to dissuade people from eating food with a face. One PETA member who waits tables at a local Outback Steakhouse and who refuses to serve steaks remarked, “Why should ‘Christians’ be the only ones with ‘morals’ in this country, and why should only they be allowed to shirk their jobs because of it? If it’s acceptable for them to do their jobs selectively because of their beliefs, then I shouldn’t have to serve dead animal carcasses to obese, ignorant Americans who’d be better off eating a salad anyway.”

The implications of this rising trend of morality-based selective job performance are stunning. Engineers in the defense industry are starting to refuse to work on bombs; workers in the manufacturing, farming, and power industries are refusing to perform tasks that pollute the nation’s land, air, and water; and private servants are refusing to work for their obscenely rich Republican employers because it is against the servants’ morals to suffer a Republican to live. “Oh, it’s just awful,” whined Mrs. Betty Fatcat in an interview from her home in Potomac, Maryland, where she and her husband reside while Congress is in session; they own several other homes and yachts worldwide. “All the servants just walked out: the cook, the maids, the gardener, and even my driver. I actually had to figure out how to work the telephone so I could call for help. I can’t believe how surly the operator was; she must not have known who I am. Anyway, I was eventually able to summon what they call a taxicab to drive me someplace I could get what I needed. The automobile was so horrendous that I was afraid to touch anything. The smelly little man driving it finally stopped in front of a -- what do you call it, again? -- grocery store. Well, I had never been inside one before in my life. I was so mystified that I ran out again and hopped right back into the taxicab and went back home. I’m sure it was just as well: if the place was full of that many peasants, they can’t have had what I wanted anyway.”

Rumors have also started of new religions being founded on the premise that all tasks are immoral and that employees should be paid not to do anything at all.

It remains to be seen how the nation’s employers will react to employees’ increasingly widespread selective task performance.

But wait, there's more!

Yes, yes ... we know ... we just made a rather lengthy post today. But we received this commentary minutes ago and decided it was too good not to share!

http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=8530

We personally plan to follow Mr. Reese's advice and send the message he suggests at the end of his article to Mr. Bush at comments@whitehouse.gov.

Will you?

Hey Bush: Obey the Law
by Charley Reese

It was appropriate that the issue of government domestic spying was raised at the recent funeral of Mrs. Coretta Scott King. Martin Luther King Jr. and his family were victims of a vicious domestic spying program instigated by the federal government.

The parallels with today's domestic spy program are almost exact. It was done in the name of national security. It was authorized by the president, John F. Kennedy, and the attorney general, Robert Kennedy, and carried out by the FBI. There was a war on – in that case, the Vietnam War as well as the Cold War. It was kept secret from the public.

The FBI not only tapped King's telephones but also planted bugs in places where he was staying. One tape, which allegedly implicated King in an extramarital affair, was sent to Mrs. King.

Now think about this. Here is the federal government secretly spying on an American citizen and trying to break up his family and disrupt the civil-rights movement. And this was not done by some right-wing fanatic, but by two bona fide liberals, the Kennedy brothers.

The current president says he has authorized domestic spying without warrants only on those connected to terrorists, but he refuses to provide even Congress with enough information for his claim to be verified. As you can see from the King affair, even people with good intentions can abuse government power in the heated atmosphere of war. We don't know who is being spied upon. We would not even know spying was going on but for a whistle-blower who tipped off The New York Times, which sat on the story for a year before finding the courage to publish it.

That every tyrant who ever lived rationalized his abuse of power by claiming to be protecting the people or the empire or the country is kindergarten basic civics. We should know better at this point in our history. We are a nation of laws, not an empire and not a monarchy. Our Constitution deliberately created a weak chief executive.

The president, for example, is not our commander in chief. He's the commander in chief of the armed forces. As far as we civilians are concerned, he is just the administrator of laws passed by Congress. He cannot make laws. He cannot assume powers not given to him by the Constitution or by Congress. He must obey all the laws just the same as you and me.

A problem for many Americans is that they have never lived in the free republic created by our forefathers. We became a war state during World War II, and the Cold War was used as an excuse to maintain a war state and to expand it. We are spending more on defense than most of the rest of the world combined at a time when the only threats we face are isolated attacks by a loosely organized band of criminals. The government in Washington has become as secretive as the old Soviet Union.

Too many Americans are willing to let demagoguery scare them into writing a blank check to any politician who claims he will protect them from the boogeyman. I, for one, will never surrender this free republic, no matter how many enemies, real or imagined, are at the gates. What would be the point? Our ancestors fought for freedom and independence, not for a dictatorship. You can't be free if you give the president unlimited powers to violate both the laws and the Constitution.

The tension between a government of law and a government of men runs throughout American history. What worries me is that while there seems to be constituencies for every special interest in the world, there is little or no constituency for liberty and the rule of law.

I would like to see all Americans send the president a simple message: "With all due respect, sir, obey the damned laws or resign. Both the law and the Constitution require warrants for domestic spying. Get them. Both the law and the Constitution require that Congress exercise oversight. Cooperate with Congress. You are a public servant, not a God-anointed ruler of a kingdom."

So much outrage ... so little time!

Since we of The Scallion are still officially on hiatus, we are saving ourselves a bunch of time and effort by combining a sampling of our recent political letters into a single post ... and we hope our faithful Readers will bear with us. We hope to be back soon writing the satire that so naturally falls from the ridiculous and absurd we see around us every day.

Happy reading ... and remember: this is OUR country, and it is up to us to hold our government accountable and TAKE OUR NATION BACK!!!

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From the "News We Just Might See" Department ...

So ... pharmacists can deny women access to their prescription birth control medications on the grounds of said pharmacists' "moral" beliefs? Then here is a headline that can't be far away:

Vegan pharmacist refuses to fill prescriptions for Armour thyroid (which is produced from dessicated pig thyroid glands) on the grounds of God’s will and his religion;
same animal rights activist pharmacist also refuses to fill prescriptions for medications compounded with milk products and vaccines compounded with horse serum.

We at The Scallion only regret that we are still on hiatus and thus do not have the time to write the article that goes with this piquant headline.

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This plea was written to our elected and selected officials to hold the chimposter (aka Smirky McFlightsuit) accountable for his many crimes in office, including the use of illegal wiretapping and domestic spying to silence dissent and activism for progressive causes. Luckily for us at The Scallion, we're not holding our breath.

How much more are we supposed to take?

Crime 1: Bush stole the 2000 election. Since that went so well, he stole 2004, too. Granted, he had help from his brother Jeb, from his buddy who counts the votes in Ohio, from ChoicePoint, and from Diebold. But the fact remains that Bush has never been a legitimate President of the United States.

Crime 2: Bush failed even to attempt to guard against the unique, imminent, and pressing threat of al Qaeda, despite briefings, warnings, and other information he received. Americans are left wondering from his attitude whether Bush was too stupid to take the threat seriously or whether he welcomed the 9-11 attacks as the "new Pearl Harbor" he needed to justify invading Iraq, which, oddly enough, he *knew* had nothing to do with al Qaeda or 9-11.

Crime 3: Bush and his entire administration consistently mislead and lied to the American public regarding justifications for invading Iraq. More than enough proof can be found here: http://democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/
pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_rep.pdf

Crime 4: Bush oversaw and approved the kidnapping of Haiti's Jean Bertrand Aristide, who is, unlike Bush, a democratically elected leader of his nation. Apparently, in places like Iraq and Haiti, Bush prefers to foment death and destruction rather than democracy and hope.

Crime 5: Bush has consistently shown that he believes himself above the law. During his "reckless youth," which apparently stretched well into his thirties, Bush earned convictions for DUIs in Maine; he paid for abortions before Roe v Wade legalized them in America; and he skipped out on his cushy Texas Air National Guard job while more responsible men his age were risking their lives fighting overseas. In the Oval Office, Bush has striven to divorce America from the Geneva conventions, to legalize torture, to incarcerate political prisoners and prisoners of war without even lip service to the due process of the law, and to strip Americans who disagree with him of their civil rights.

Illegal wiretapping and other forms of illegal search and seizure fall into the latest category of crimes for which Bush is directly responsible. He has shown himself time and time again to be incapable of handling authority without severely abusing it.

It is way past time to IMPEACH BUSH NOW!!!!!

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Another desperate plea to government officials and local newspapers to hold Bush accountable for illegal wiretapping and domestic spying:

George W. Bush is NOT above the law, and he is NOT THE LAW!

In the history of our once-great nation, no other occupant of the Oval Office has ever shown such rampant disrespect and disregard for the rule of law as George W. Bush.

It’s not enough that Bush and his cohorts consider the Geneva Conventions sufficiently “quaint” to lock up and torture prisoners without charges, trials, or access to legal aid.

No, Bush thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to skip the rubber stamp of FISA by spying on Americans without warrants or probably cause. Given how accommodating FISA and FISC are, it is unconscionable for Bush to pursue such illegal domestic spying. There is only one reason to skirt FISA wholesale: not even the FISA rubber-stamp would approve what Bush is doing!

Illegal domestic spying is not about tracking terrorists: it's about a potential breach of the Constitution. The administration’s claims that the spying program is narrow and is limited to people with ties to al Qaeda are illogical: Mr. Bush ALREADY has the authority to track terrorists; last time I checked, al Qaeda qualified for that epithet. Further, the New York Times, which has been one of Bush’s biggest Iraq war cheerleaders, reports the facts differently, saying the data was overwhelming and often led to spying on innocent Americans.

Despite White House claims accusing only Democrats of objecting, both Republicans and Democrats believe Mr. Bush may have broken the law: Republicans like Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback, John McCain, and Arlen Specter have offered some of the harshest criticism of the program.

Congress never gave Mr. Bush authority to conduct the secret program, despite contradictory claims of authority to conduct secret wiretaps gratis a post 9-11 Congressional resolution. The non-partisan Congressional Research Service found that the resolution didn't authorize the program and found it "unlikely" that any court would agree with the White House's “justifications.”

It is time for Mr. Bush to obey the laws he swore to uphold and protect, including our Constitution!

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This plea was written to our elected and selected officials to seek lobbying reform. Luckily for us at The Scallion, we're not holding our breath on this issue, either.

Lobbying threatens our democracy!

Our founding fathers were wise enough to realize that governments can be bought and sold by individuals and organizations with sufficient funds. This, my friends, is corruption, plain and simple.

The corruption caused by lobbying and pandering to special interests ensures that the government represents ONLY society's MOST powerful -- yet government is pledged to represent ALL Americans, including if not especially the LEAST powerful who have nowhere else to turn.

Please be a true American hero: restore integrity, morality, responsibility, and accountability to our government by reining in lobbying and putting an end to corruption. Since everyone does well when everyone does well, even the corporations will come to thank you someday.

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The piece below was written by a Scallion staffer in response to one of those ignorant broadcast flame-mails that purports that the ACLU is wrong to fight for separation of church and state because, since “God” is mentioned in all 50 states’ constitutions, preambles, and other laws, church and state are not really separate.

I often wonder whether the people who send around things like this really understand what the separation between church and state means. It does not mean that the people who wrote this or that preamble or constitution -- be it federal, state, or local -- were atheists. Neither does it mean that they were all protestant Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, or whatever else. It simply means that no single religion is permitted to enjoy favored status with the government. The whole idea behind this notion is that, if the government does not favor one religion over another, then it will not persecute those who do not belong to the favored religion. If the ACLU is wrong to fight for this ideal, then I am wrong to support them because it seems like plain common sense to me.

Too often, I see pieces like this being broadcast to promote the dismantling of our civil right not to be Christian and to promote exclusive control of the government by fascist-Christian (as opposed to true Christian) interests. Yes, I actually know people who think making our government explicitly Christian would be the best thing for the country -- and I don't think they realize that the Christians who would be running the show are not their own parish priests and ministers but the rich and powerful Jerry Falwells of the world, who have an agenda that Jesus Christ would not recognize as his own. It seems to me that the implication of losing this civil rights battle falls very little short of an American Taliban where people like me will no longer recognize America as the free and fair nation it used to be.

When you determine to hold fast to sacred expressions you hold dear, you are witnessing first-hand the beauty of the separation between church and state! By law, you are accorded the civil right to say all those sacred words and to hold dear all those wonderful celebrations without being beholden to someone who would have you do or think differently. This is what the ACLU is fighting for!

The only difference between you and someone else is that that other person chooses to say or hold dear other words or traditions or even none at all. It is just as foolish to expect someone who doesn't believe in God to say "one nation under God" as it would be to demand you or me to say "one nation under the flying spaghetti monster" just because flying spaghetti monster worshipers came into majority. Similarly, you and I should never be forced to omit "under God" just because atheists are in the majority. The separation between church and state allows each of us to worship as we choose -- or not.

What makes the ACLU great is that it fights for the equal protection of all groups. This prevents each minority from having its rights trampled by the majority. As a woman, I find it very comforting that the ACLU is out there protecting my rights so that they will not be trampled by the people who, by their enormous wealth, have so much more power than I do. So, yes, I find the rights of minorities to be very important, since, as a woman, I count as a minority in the sense of having less political clout than a man. Even if I don't personally agree with what some or other minority wants for itself, I respect its right to pursue its civil rights and its dreams. To me, it's all about protecting minorities from the tyranny of majorities. This is what America was founded on -- it's why the Puritans left England. Even though I don't agree with everything the Puritans ever said or did, I still think it's a great ideal.

Lastly, I just wanted to share a thought regarding "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays."

I've been saying "Happy Holidays" for years because, to me, that expression encapsulates what I was taught regarding the "holiday season," which I always understood to include Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah, and New Year's. I tend to use "Happy Holidays" between Thanksgiving and Christmas; "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah" as Christmas and Hanukkah approach; and "Happy New Year" just after Christmas. I also use "Happy Holidays" when I am not sure whether I am addressing a Christian. To me, it is a joyful expression that wishes all the joys of the entire holiday season to whomever I am addressing.

I've never seen "Happy Holidays" as detracting from Christmas, and it mystifies me that some people have chosen to perceive it that way: similarly, do we as Americans really want to demote Thanksgiving and New Year's from enjoying holiday status simply because they are not Christian holidays? It seems to me that the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot that is designed to turn people against each other by making them choose sides in an either-or that does not really exist.

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The essay below denouncing Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court nominee was not written by or for The Scallion, but it expresses The Scallion's point of view to a tee. Scallion staffers promulgated it to their elected and selected officials in the hopes of changing the disastrous outcome ... for which we can all thank the spineless "Democrats."
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/8/204534/2589

" I must save this government if possible. What I cannot do, of course I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed." - Abraham Lincoln

When Lincoln said that, it was a Civil War which threatened to divide our country. Today, there isn't a war between citizen and citizen, but between citizen and government. Why? Because the Bush administration has attacked the interests of the American people, squandered its fortune, and caused so many to die in war. Today's divide is not between north and south, but between the people and its government, a government which has proved over the last few years that it is created by and for the powerful rather than the citizenry of these United States.

There are times when a certain form of governance becomes toxic, where those in the public trust act not as civil servants, but as self-serving politicos. We are living in such a time.

The Congress no longer belongs to ordinary Americans; it belongs to the lobbyist who can cut the largest check. The Presidency no longer leads, but misleads. And the Judiciary (specifically the Supreme Court) is set to belong to the most vile, extreme, and un-American element of our society.

Democrats can either surrender this government to a party which seeks to destroy it, or we can take Lincoln's advice and play our available cards. To those who say filibusters--judicial, patriot act, etc--are too politically costly, I say that failure to filibuster is conceding that this nation isn't worth fighting for. Instead of worrying that we will be labeled "obstructionist," I say we filibuster Alito, filibuster the Patriot Act, filibuster time and time again until this crazy government comes to a screeching halt. Enough is enough. The list of scandals is overshadowed only by the list of names of the 2,190 whose deaths have yet to be honored by this administration.

At what point will our party realize that it's not just the midterm elections at stake here? Politics is secondary to the fact that our country has changed, drastically, over the last several years. What is that change? It is the unraveling of the American flag thread by thread. It is erasing the Bill of Rights letter by letter. It is, ultimately, about waking up one day and not recognizing this great society as the "America" we know and love.

This new year requires a new attitude by the Democratic Party. The party must acknowledge the gravity of the political climate today. It is not a time to crack jokes on Sunday talk shows; it is not a time to mince words or to parrot political consultants. It is a time to speak with the courage and conviction that is required when one is fighting for the heart of their country.

Democrats will not win by pledging to "do better." We will not gain a majority or even the Presidency in 2008 by approaching the American people as politicians. If we are to win, we must rediscover what it means to serve at the will of the people. We must show voters that we are willing to fight, not just talk, for their interests.

Time and time again, we've heard pundits gleefully recount the fact that the GOP is suffering, but the Democrats can't capitalize on it. It's true, to an extent. Where Bush is at 40% approval, he should be at 10%. Where we are ahead in congressional polling by 10 points, we should be ahead by 30. Why have we not been able to react properly to the plethora of scandals the GOP has laid before us? Because of fear.

Fear is what stifles the speech of our leaders, tying their tongues so they can't say the word "LIE." They write letters blasting the administration, but it is fear that holds them back from expressing the same level of outrage when speaking on national television. Fear is what caused so many Democrats to run away from Murtha's plan. We fail as a party not because we lack conviction, but because our words and actions are paralyzed by fear. We're afraid to be labeled as cowards, as commies, as traitors.

And in those rare moments when Democrats have spoken based on conscience rather than poll numbers, we, the party faithful, get all excited. The blogosphere buzzes with cheers for the "smackdown". Thousands of comments are dedicated to the discovery of "a spine." But what does it say about our party that we rejoice in what should be a commonplace event?

A Democrat speaking clearly, truthfully, and following through on his speech should not be an anomaly. It should be the norm in our party. Yet where there should be outrage and action on the part of our leaders, we get instead silence or mealy-mouthed platitudes and ineffective soundbites.

If you're anything like me (read: a political junkie who loves her country), then you're thoroughly exhausted. You're tired of being outraged by scandal after scandal. You're sick of waiting for the truth to be exposed. Your heart is still filled with sorrow from the 2000 and 2004 elections, because you mourn for what this country could have been, and what it has become.

WE get it. We're the heart of the party: the ones working ourselves to the bone day after day. We're the ones without healthcare, the ones with our family members serving overseas. We're the ones kicked out of public events and placed on watchlists because of our political beliefs. We're the ones with kids who are taught "intelligent design" as part of the war against science. We're the ones who can't get married, the ones whose homes are subject to sneak and peek searches, the ones who have to wait 12 hours to vote and who pray that our votes will actually be counted. It is us, goddammit, who truly realize what this country has become and where it is headed. It is our rights being stripped away from us, our America slipping away before our eyes. All we ask is that our party recognize this. That a holistic approach towards government is needed. That while the Democrats focus on individual battles, it is our entire government which needs to be saved.

As Lincoln noted, our nation will never be destroyed from the outside. We are the world's greatest military power. No terrorist or rogue nation will ever be able to destroy us. Not with hijacked planes or nukes or cavalries. No, if we are to be destroyed, it will be from within--because we destroyed ourselves. It will be because we, as a party, were too afraid, too complacent to stand up as the Constitution is being pried from our clenching hands.

I admit, I've let myself get hopeful about our party's effectiveness. Bursts of courage, from Murtha to Feingold, have led me to conclude that our party is up to the task of saving this government. But a little part of me anxiously fears that such instances of courage may be isolated events, rather than a shift in our party's approach to politics.

Now is the time for courage. Now is the time for our party to realize the enormous task before us: saving this government. If we embrace that theme, we will once again know victory. And that victory will not just be defined by how many congressmen have a "D" after their name. It will be defined, ultimately, by restoring America to the nation it once was: a nation with a government for the people, by the people, and the greatest country on earth.

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This cheery letter was sent to comments@whitehouse.gov by a Scallion staffer.

I want to know why George W. Bush hates America so very much.

I want to know why Bush's fascist junta hates America so much that they are hell bent on destroying our democracy and, with it, our nation ... and taking down as much of the world as possible in the process.

I want to know why Bush and his junta all hate God and Jesus so much. I want to know why they are all so determined to murder as many people as possible -- directly by wars and indirectly by enforced poverty -- when God tells us to love our neighbors and when Jesus tells us that we are all brothers and sisters. I want to know why they have turned their backs on Jesus' teaching that "whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto Me." I want to know how they came to decide that greed, power lust, ruthlessness, and mercilessness are better family values than those Jesus taught.

I want to know how Bush and his junta are able to face themselves in the mirror without vomiting in disgust.

I want to know if they get nightmares from all the death, disease, heartbreak, and misery they have wreaked upon hundreds of thousands of innocent people nationwide and worldwide. I want to know if their sleep is haunted by visions of the faces of all the innocent children they have maimed and killed through their domestic and foreign policies.

I want to know whether they think it makes God happy to see them wantonly and recklessly destroying the planet He so lovingly created for us. I want to know what they plan to use for a replacement when they and their corporate cronies have used this planet up and have rendered it incapable of supporting life.

I want to know if all the money they are getting from Halliburton and their other cronies is really worth it to them -- if all the money and power really makes them happy at the end of the day. I want to know if they honestly think there really is enough money and power in the world to satisfy them all … or if they will always be lusting for more and more, never satisfied even after wringing the planet and all its people bone dry.

Mostly, I want to know when Bush and his entire benighted junta will RESIGN.