Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Backdoor Escrow

Karl Rove: We may have discovered a new way of tracking credit card information through campaign contributions, we could use the intel to establish a blind by way of recruiting new donors. Wolfowitz has assured us that through banking records we could reach out electronically to those associating with but not voting alongside registered Republicans.

President Bush: To me Karl that sounds like the kind of information you could get at a call center in Langley, Virginia.

Karl Rove: Look at it this way Mr. President, we have lied, cheated, and stole and admitted it on the record and we’re still here. What else can we get away with?

- Chris Mansel

Monday, February 27, 2006

Headless Horseman

The Headless Horseman Has Left His Tribe
Said a woman at the checkpoint in her eyes
Her son was a suicide bomber and she wasn’t yet
She collected the well wishes and cashed the checks

I focused on her facial expression to get me thru the hills
Chinooks swept me into a caravan of diplomatic stills
Every rock that could have been thrown went under the wheel
I thought about the Shahikat valley as if from here it was real

The militia sat eating during the day’s prayers I took a poll
How many had seen a chest explode and who fired into the hole
The headless horseman carried a copy of the New Yorker
He laughed and kicked the tires and asked how much longer

We’re going to explode a yellow cake of debris
From McArthur’s grave to the homes of you and me
The headless horseman has left his tribe
And there’s no going back to the other side

- Chris Mansel

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Open Borders: A Sinister Tale on How America Didn't Sleep Again

Let’s abandon all thought, all wisdom and let’s scream into the howling wind of worldwide terrorism and ask why are our borders being put into the hands of those who have harbored terrorists and done business with terrorists? The real question is how long do we have to wait to charge the Bush administration with treason? Do we wait until we have another attack? Do we wait until the new guards of our borders refuse to take our calls?
I have been reading a book by Terror expert Peter Bergen and in that book is a horrifying passage. When you read what is below imagine that our new watchers of our borders have just let this car by on their watch.

- Chris Mansel

“Come upstairs, I have something to show you,” said a Middle Eastern dissident I was visiting in London in 1997. In his study he pulled out a videotape and popped it into his VCR. The footage, shot through the windows of a slowly moving car, showed some of the tens of thousands of Americans living in Saudi Arabia. The camera panned to a sign announcing a housing complex for employees of Aramco, the oil company. Then the cameraman drove into the complex and zoomed in on an American woman pushing her child on a swing. In the next sequence, the cameraman overtook a U.S. army truck driven by a female soldier, who glanced nervously at the camera when she realized she was being videotaped. The tape was poorly shot, but fascinating in a voyeuristic way. It had no narration, but its message was plain: “Look at these infidels trespassing on our holy land.”

- Peter Bergen, Holy War Inc.: Inside The Secret World Of Osama Bin Laden



On the website of Dubai Ports is a note that sends chills down the spine and anger up the sleeve of every American. The note says, “Dubai Ports Reorganized To Create One Global Business.” Below is a date, September 28, 2005. How long ago was this decided? Was it our intention to attack Iraq only after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001? No, it wasn’t. We now know that we were lied to by our government on more than one occasion and is this just another? When this administration took office was all of this planned? As the President has so jokingly remarked, “In fifty years we’ll all be dead.” In fifty years we will all know through the Freedom of Information Act but I don’t think we’ll be laughing! Not even when we walk across the graves of our fallen troops or perhaps the scattered steel fragments of the Twin Towers on a New Jersey shoreline. This is insane, it is unprecedented and all indications show that it could be fatal.

- Chris Mansel

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

When The Only Sane Act is Jumping

“Or like darkness in a wide, wide sea,
waves surging upon waves, with clouds overhanging,
darkness on darkness.
If you stretch your hand, you could hardly see it.
For whom God does not give
Any light, there is no light.”

- The Koran


“The day was overcast and the air was heavy with vapor. Ahead of is the shrouded river stretched between dim walls of forest, half-seen in the mist.”

- Teddy Roosevelt


If you were to interview the Koran you might hear it quote from the Bible and the situation might be the same the other way round. Both books contain information on killing and murder in the name of a higher power. They both contain rules and laws, opinions and stories of example. But to find the common ground between the two I am reminded of a quote from a former fighter pilot who served in Vietnam. In discussing the Ho Chi Minh trail he asked the question, “How do you bomb a dirt road?” The answer is you can bomb the road but you won’t destroy it. Repair will have to be done but you can’t do anything to make the road permanently inoperable unless you drive the explosive into the earth’s core. An extremist believer in the Koran Bin Laden who is also an expert in demolition has twisted the contents of the Koran to suit his uses, as have many in the United States and the English-speaking world. Belief is the constant spark in most acts of aggression.
Just as you may not be able to surmount extremist views, flames or black smoke, sirens or people rushing around in terror you also cannot easily align yourself with the rows and rows of computer screens, satellite phones and rooms of gigabytes sending hundreds of thousands of messages around the world. Both seek to do harm and you must ask yourself which will do the most harm; a crazy man hell bent on the destruction of an entire nation or a liar who seeks a role in war based on his own inadequacies of stability and his taste for fear.
Helicopters can fly over razor wire with no problem but when that same helicopter becomes entangled in the razor wire it finds itself at the mercy of its enemies until it is freed. Our troops patrolling out in the open are at grave risk to roadside bombs. However, the lawmakers, the congressional historians and the cabinet of the presidency thousands of miles away at the safest distance away from wither the razor wire or roadside devices and it is there that the decisions are made concerning those who place their lives at risj everyday.

Dick Rumsfeld: Mr. President we have to begin slowly reducing troop counts in our oversea bases such as Korea, Germany and on American soil.

Karl Rove: We have to do it in such a way as to not draw attention to our already desperate situation of decreasing manpower and also we still need another six weeks or so before we invade and we can get some more data.

President Bush: I’m not going to make the mistake of taking it easy on Iran. We should just bomb these sum bitches until they comply. It’s not like we’ll have Hans Blix on CNN every goddamn thirty minutes.

Karl Rove: All quiet on the Syrian border. (laughs)

Condi Rice: God is great, God is great! (laughs)



- Chris Mansel

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

A Burden of Discovery

“Whether you say a thing aloud or inaudibly,
He has knowledge of the secret and the hidden.”

- The Koran

To label those that we are fighting as just insurgents is to try and decline comment on the body in front of you. More than an insurgency we are facing the leveling of a culture, a way of life and I don’t know any American who wouldn’t become violent and attempt to stop this kind of brutal attack on our way of life. To constantly throw out the phrase, “democratic way of life” is to provide a war of misinformation that worked in other wars but not this one. We are constantly trying to spin our own press releases as soon as they are put out into the public. Indecision is the ground on which this administration builds its troubling and erratic way of providing security.
The Geneva Convention now collecting ash at the bottom of the presidential ash can is still a collection of documents that contain a future of crimes and misdemeanors no matter how this administration tries to burn it under a bushel. When you read writers who use the words, “prolonged mental harm” you have to wonder if they know something you do not.

- Chris Mansel

Freedom Land: American and Iraqi Slavery

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

- Henry David Thoreau

What would bring you to riot? In the film Freedom Land a neighborhood is shut down because a young boy is missing and the authorities believe that someone in this neighborhood is guilty of the crime. The neighborhood though is a project and the authorities that make the decision we find out are white. Soon tensions flare and due to wrong on both sides a riot ensue.
Now just for a moment imagine, that the neighborhood is in Mosul and the authorities are riding around in tanks. Do you still feel the sympathy you did for those in the project? Iraqi’s are people of color, they are not white skinned and they are suffering the indignity of constant searches. The footage you see of soldiers handing out soccer balls is a step in the right direction but I wonder, I just wonder. A soccer ball is one thing but a body bag for a child who was in the line of fire is another. In this country a child shot dead in the line of fire, police fire, would be heralded as a victim. People who appear from everywhere and would place flowers and cards, toys etc and this happens in the film Freedom Land also.
Remember what I said before? There was wrong on both sides in the film and in Iraq as well. As soon as someone did place flowers, cards, or toys at the site where a child was shot someone would place or explode a bomb nearby killing the families of the children and those troops who sought to keep the area safe. But with peacekeepers there is a problem that exists in the police in this country and that is adrenaline. It happen in the film Freedom Land and it happens in Iraq today. If you saw the footage of our troops shooting men who were lying on the floor of a building bleeding you will know or at least have a n idea of what young men and women are capable of a long way from home and when they are feeding off the rush of adrenaline that some crave as bad as heroin or fame.
There is so much wrong in the world that to try and explain it would bring you to tears, so I ask you, why add to it? There is wrong on both sides. The lives lost in Freedom Land were not really lost. Freedom Land was adapted from a novel and the deaths in iraq are dissolving a generation.


- Chris Mansel

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Illumination

In this kind of room there is light but it is not really daylight you see or nighttime. There is a constant flow of information but if you are deep in thought you can block out the noise, the flutter of immediacy. It’s a room in the White House or more accurately beneath the oval office and down a bit that carries the most weight in any national emergency. It’s not the situation room though that is where you thought we were headed; no it’s the room that doesn’t have a name. There is no portrait of a past president. There is no colorful story that passing administrations use. This is the kind of room where those who are not elected by the people decide whether or not a situation advances or suspends. You’ll notice I didn’t use the term end. No, these situations never cease.
The most secret of government agencies have their own shroud of intelligence. Their own cases for existence are based solely on past performance and committee funds them. What goes on in the room in question is far beyond a committee. This is the room where the light looks in and the darkness breed illumination.
How do I know that this room exists? I don’t. But how did I know everything else I have predicted? Look back over the history of the Mansel Report and see just how wrong I have been.
Is this room where no dark or light is seen a metaphor for the collective soul that inhabits the building? Can this room be the direction from where the century of American politics started and where it is now? But one thing I do know is that the fear of the American people is bottled up inside that room and they don’t even know exactly why they are afraid or why they should or shouldn’t be.
America is more than an abandoned district where no voters will show up, it’s more than a tally of polls and it will never be anything more than the conscience of a select few guiding the light of a future that is already lit by the sun and challenged greatly by the stars in the skies and the moment when all is lost and everything is to be gained.

- Chris Mansel

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Hell Is An Arsonist In Trouble's Way

An aide walks into the oval office where president Bush and Karl Rove are sitting and sharing a beer.

Aide: Mr. President, there has been an incident in Texas with the Vice President.

President Bush: Yea? What happened?

Aide: Sir, the Vice President shot someone while hunting.

President Bush: He shot someone while they were hunting?

Aide: Yes sir, and the Vice President was hunting as well.

President Bush: So they were both hunting?

Aide: Yes sir.

President Bush: Is anyone dead?

Aide: No sir.

President Bush: Ok, thanks.

The aide walks out of the room and Karl Rove begins to speak as soon as the door is pulled shut.

Karl Rove: It must have been Whittington he shot. Hell is an arsonist’s in trouble’s way. Every single goddamn time we think we have this place wrapped up tight someone ends up screwing us that actually works for us. Shit.

President Bush: Why you say that?

Karl Rove: Well you know the situation between those two. Shot over a parking lot, my god. Still we better get our doctor’s down there just in case he starts rambling before he gets under the gas. We should also have some folks there to coordinate the spin. We’ll throw McClellan to the wolves on this one. The little limp wrested bastard should have known better than to second-guess me.

President Bush: Maybe a guy with a pillow to stuff in Whittington’s face.

Karl Rove: Yea an orange pillow.


- Chris Mansel

The Least Fatality

“I am silent most of the time – and I wait.”

- Jake Berry

I just got off the phone a moment ago from my first political survey. How I was chosen the caller explained was by random so now I have a bit more faith in the polls you get stuffed with like ballot boxes every time you turn around. Asked for a choice between Democrat and Republican I sided with the Democratic side of thought. Though I feel I should add that the Democratic Party consistently moves about in ways that drive me crazy but it is far better than the other side of the aisle.
I was asked to choose between the two parties from every standpoint. The one continuing name thrown out was Roy Moore. Mansel Report reader you will be proud of the fact that I took pity on the poor lady calling me and did not lash out with the truth about this idiot. Enough said.


- Chris Mansel

Peppered or Hammered?

If you're unclear on the kind of damage that a 28-gauge shotgun can do, the paper that first reported on Dick Cheney's shooting of Harry Whittington has some visual help for you. A photographer for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times has simulated the accident by firing his own 28-gauge shotgun, loaded with birdshot, at a paper target 30 yards away -- the same distance that is said to have separated Cheney from Whittington when the vice president pulled the trigger. The result is up for viewing here.
-- Tim Grieve

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Happiness Is A Warm Gun





"Don't shoot till you see the white of the indictment!"

"When Dick Cheney rode into town all the women folk would hide."

"A pellet, a mullet, a shot fired in anger is going to catch you upside your cranial basket."

"They say don't go hunting with Dick Cheney, on Wolverton Mountain."

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Yossarian’s 2006 Nervouse Breakdown

Yossarian: Mr. President you’ve got to stop this war in Iraq.

President Bush: Uh, I’m afraid I don’t see it that way, yasarin.

Yossarian: It’s Yossarian, but never mind that. There are people dying just to run cars. Jesus can’t you just walk for a bit?

Karl Rove: Would you have the President walk everywhere? It could be dangerous.

Yossarian: Yeah I guess it would, I mean having all those questions lobbed at you instead of roadside bombs in Iraq.

President Bush: We’re going to stay the course.

Yossarian: Stay the course? What is this Joseph Conrad? Stay the course up river where it’s certain death?


- Chris Mansel

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Three Animal Socities

My country tis of thee
All of these celebrities I see
It’s of them I sing
Land where children die
Land of bling bling and lies
From every award show live
Let the truth come to life

Watching, if I had actually watched the recent slew of awards shows I would be reminded that so many whores have entered the mainstream that the self-possession which in another time would have been struck down by ax and mace have become so rampant that the character study of most would reveal demeaning traits.
With so much wrong in the world and who can name it all, it would seem right and the only path to take as to award the survivor than the pretender, the victim rather then the supplier, the addict than the reporter.
From the depths of every good-natured applause is the sound of those very hands pulling away from one another.

- Chris Mansel

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Comics And The Art of Extremism, Both Foreign and At Home

Muslim extremists are in an uproar; they are blowing up buildings, setting them ablaze and offering to gouge out the eyes of any westerner who dare laugh at a cartoon that depicts their beliefs in an unkind manner. But then again these are the same people, the extremists, who will beat and perhaps kill their wives for uncovering their face in public. Set that scenario in this country and see what it would stir up.
To be fair these cartoons are drawn well and the message is clear. Perhaps, now just perhaps we should introduce them to some of the extremists we have in this country. How do you think that would go over? The Muslim extremists aren’t too big on pedophiles, especially those pedophiles that claim to be religious. My god, could this be the end of the conservative movement? Is that the answer? Could it be this simple? Could we clean our shores of pedophile quasi-religious wacko lobbyists death adder rearing Republicans by sending them on a book tour of the Muslim world and several really sharp camera crews from the Fox Network? Just let them stay on the talking points, the imagery, the hate and who knows. But here’s the catch.
They would have to take a representative of each hate group and all of the propaganda. They would have to define and explain their reasons for molesting children in a house of worship. They would have to explain why they were put into a position of political power and saw fit to do the unspeakable acts they rail against every Sunday.

- Chris Mansel

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

An Excerpt of a Transcript for a new online Republican Ad

Dateline has a new show coming out that will feature many in the Republican Party who have through religious and ultra right-wing (read here as militia) sodomites have finally developed a way clear of their own web of wiretaps and email gouging to maintain a steady supply of underage non-adults to satisfy any call for payback for political contributions. Rev. James Dobson a regular mover and shaker on this horrific underground thruway has had close to a million hits on his MySpace site alone.

Anonymous Donor: I gave thousands of dollars to Republican leaders and all I got was this T-shirt that reads, “The Crippled Do It On The Floor.” And on top of all that I am under investigation for crimes against the Fatty Arbuckle amendment. Where oh where will I get my just desserts?

Voice Over: Have you had this difficulty? Well you don’t have to worry about it anymore. If there is one thing the Jack Abramoff scandal has taught the Republican Party is that to get anywhere in this world of truth, allegiance and integrity you must keep the frothing wolves at bay. Now with the help of the criminal underworld, those who do not already share our views of pride and respect for the family, we have developed, we in the Republican Party, have found a way of exploiting the unfortunate of others.

- Chris Mansel

The Soul Burst Open and A Million Little Lives Devoured The Host

It’s time for the Mansel Report to take a different direction; it’s time to tell the truth as the truth can be told in these days of the Patriot Act and FEMA induced labor luncheons. It’s time to act as though everything has happened, which it has and it’s time to say fuck this and fuck that until this and that mean nothing and all you are left with is fuck. Because fuck, that dreaded word we all supposedly fear and all secretly desire can set you free, free enough to harbor ill will and capitol murder on those who say they love you and still refuse to come to your aid when you are screaming in pain on their lawn, the lawn in this case being the terra firma of the America’s.
Let’s begin.

Is it worse that Coretta Scott King is dead or that Michael Bolton sang at her funeral? Speakers at the rally, one of the latest in this nation’s political rallies that featured a casket, rushed to the stage to read the words someone else may have written to express their sympathies to a woman most had no idea about. Four presidents appeared at the rally and four presidents stuttered and consoled themselves into sympathy for themselves and spoke endlessly of what they thought of Mrs. King and not what Mrs. King meant to others in a time of need.
Almost as bad as Michael Bolton singing at Mrs. King’s funeral is the idea of comparing Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Mrs. King. Jackie O as she was known, a woman who walked around like she had crystal under foot and smiled a gleeful look of pre-mortis look of disgust and medication became famous for not being shot, for putting up with a cheating husband, and for simply wearing outfits and not clothes. She married a billionaire and the hearts and minds of commercial America became fascinated with her because they were told to.
Somewhere in the streets of America African-Americans everywhere who could not afford to travel to the funeral and who would have not been perceived important enough or white enough to be admitted to the rally mourn the loss and never lose sight of the fact that the promise land is still over that next hill.


- Chris Mansel

Monday, February 06, 2006

Another Mule Kicking In Your Stall

President Bush: Karl, tell me again why Cheney is down in Alabama speaking at a goddamn horse barn?

Karl Rove: Fundraising for the party.

President Bush: Why doesn’t Dick just write them a check? He’ll be swimming in Halliburton money by March of 2008.

Karl Rove: Well, it gets him out of the way for a little while.

President Bush: Karl, damn it, what is with this guy sitting behind Alberto that looks like an extra from a Nazi war movie. He just stares blankly and doesn’t blink. Get word over there and tell that guy to blink.

- Chris Mansel