Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the woman who could very well be our next Vice President.

Oh, this just keeps getting better and better:

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday expelled the U.S. ambassador from the oil-exporting country in an escalating battle between Washington and Latin America’s left-wing leaders.

“Go to hell, s— yankees, we are a dignified people, go to hell 100 times,” Chavez shouted at a political rally to thousands of roaring supporters.

Chavez, who calls ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, also repeated a threat he has made often to cut off Venezuela’s oil supply to the United States.

Chavez’ latest tantrum comes not from any direct provocation, but out of solidarity with Bolivia, which earlier expelled its own US ambassador whom it accused of supporting guerrilla violence.  

Take one guess what the attackers hit in Bolivia:

Christ on a cracker what an awful spectacle.  Pissy, vacuous, hypocritical, pompous, dishonest, bitter – all the worst of America splashed on an embarrassingly big, Soylent Green screen.

Oh, and can I just ask one question?  Did John McCain actually do anything after he got out of Nam?

Besides a mercifully brief part of the bio movie recounting the touching story of how Cindy and he first met (John was still married and they both lied to each other about their ages), you’d never know from his three-day enshrinement into the Halls of High Goopertude that McCain had ever left Hanoi.

Of course, this would all be simply pathetic if it wasn’t so goddamn scary.  

“Stand up to defend our country from its enemies. Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.”

You have to watch the video to get a full appreciation of the desperately hysterical, nothing-to-lose atmosphere, but give that segment a German language dub and it would sound eerily like Goebbels announcing the Soviets had just crossed the Oder.

And speaking of flirtations with Fascism, how about this guy’s speech?

Like a bad, way-Off-Broadway Mussolini biopic starring Don Rickles.

What a hockey puck.

And Mrs. Mooseshooter notwithstanding, does anyone doubt that the election of these Christian Corporatists would indeed bring real change in this country, as they claim?  Change not for the better, of course, but in ways that the Founding Fathers sought every Constitutional obstacle to prevent?

Let’s face it: if this authoritarian nightmare of a political convention doesn’t get you off your ass to vote, and convince others to do the same, then you simply don’t understand what is at stake here.

On August 9, 2006, during the waning days of Israel’s offensive military operations in Southern Lebanon, a group of anti-war protesters from the Derry Anti-War Coalition occupied the Raytheon Munitions Plant in Northern Ireland.

OUR MOTIVATION was to prevent war crimes. Israel’s bombardment was causing carnage and destruction in Lebanon, and we knew they were using Raytheon manufactured bombs.

We were particularly outraged by the bombing of the town of Qana. Israel dropped a bomb on one complex there, killing 28 people, the majority of them women and children, crushed and suffocated beneath the rubble.

We believed this required an immediate response. We decided to take action to disrupt, delay and hamper Raytheon’s ability, in whatever way possible, to deliver weapons of mass destruction to Israel and participate in war crimes.

The civil disobedience of the anti-war activists shut down production at the Raytheon plant for three crucial days near the end of the offensive.

The “Raytheon 9” were eventually arrested and charged with Criminal Damage.  Six of those nine protesters were finally put on trial in May of this year.

During their three-week trial in Belfast, the Defendants argued that it is not a crime to resist a war crime. On Wednesday, the jury agreed.

Dennis Kucinich is making my Summer just a little bit more fun.

Today his 35 Articles of Impeachment against President Bush were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where the conventional wisdom says they will languish without a hearing.

But the Committee’s expected inactivity isn’t stopping Dennis.

Kucinich said that if the Judiciary Committee does not act within 30 days, he intends to introduce another, longer version of the articles of impeachment, with 60 counts instead of 35.

“I am not going to let this go. I am not going to let it go. I’ll just keep coming back and they can pile these things up in committee but I’ll keep coming back,” Kucinich said. “I’ll bring it up again, and there will be more. There will be more.”