"Liberal Media" Needs to Apologize

Just about the entire American broadcast media establishment willfully misrepresented remarks by John Kerry to falsely imply he had insulted the intelligence of the American troops in Iraq.

On the day before Halloween, one week before what promised to be a disastrous midterm election for the Republicans, all discussions of the policy failures, criminal misdeeds, and the leadership fiasco in the Iraq war were put aside because of the "botched joke" by John Kerry that was characterized as insulting the troops.

Of course it was nothing of the kind.

Kerry was insulting George Bush - not the troops. A fact that everyone with a pulse who was present at the speech in Pasadena that morning was aware. He made several jabs at Bush, including "George Bush used to be from the state of Texas, now he is from the state of denial," followed by the only two sentences the rest of America ever heard from the speech “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” - those present understood from the context that Kerry was talking about George Bush. His "botch" was to leave out the word "us" as in "you get us stuck in Iraq."

But none of the rest of us knew the context. The media carefully edited out the context and repeatedly and only played a 4 second clip of just those two sentences. Absolutely none included his previous sentences or made it clear that the context was Bush's lack of attention to details that led us to the Iraq fiasco.

Got that?

The entire US broadcast media participated in disseminating a carefully edited smear.

Alone in the broadcast media only Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews seemed to be able to report the truth - on cable.



The rest of the broadcast media continued to uncritically shill for the GOP.

So much for the "Liberal Media" myth, unless "Liberal" means to willfully participate in spreading false propaganda to benefit the conservative establishment. Is that what it means?

It is time for the "Liberal Media" to apologize to the troops for deliberately selling them the lie that John Kerry had insulted them.

And then you and I, dear reader, should apologize for believing them, even if just for a moment.

Lawsuit Filed to Prevent Blackwell Stealing Another Election

Ohio Lawsuit to Reinstate hundreds of thousands of Purged Democratic Voters

by Rob Kall

http://www.opednews.com

Ohio voting rights activist and attorney, Bob Fitrakis, says the Ohio elections may have already been won, responding to reports of massive voter purges in Democratic precincts.

Dr. Fitrakis, told OpEdNews, "Essentially, by purging these rolls, the Republicans, by shrinking the electorate, have already won in Ohio. If they can't win, which is what the polls show among registered voters, the way to win is to use their nuclear option-- to target black voters, young voters and the working poor-- by purging them so they can't vote.

Reports indicate that starting as early as shortly after the 2004 presidential elections, but particularly recently, hundreds of thousands of voters-- mostly urban apartment dwellers (likely black) and students-- who are primarily Democratic-- were sent notifications that they would be purged from the eligible voter lists if they did not respond the letter. But, reportedly, the letter was designed to be easily overlooked, perhaps treated as junk mail. Failure to send in a response caused the voter to be removed from the voting roll.

Fitrakis observes, "They aren't challenging voter eligibility in Republican areas. This is coming from the republican party. They're not targeting their own base.
We asked, "Is there any chance that this can be turned around."

"Yes, A federal judge can issue an order to reinstate all the purged voters." says Fitrakis.

"I would urge the DNC-- the party can't let this stand. They could proceed to Federal court and argue that this is a civil rights case-- against blacks and young people. They could file their own suit. They could join our suit. There are a lot of ways they could do it procedurally. They could intervene as an independent party. They could join our lawsuit I would welcome any action by them.

"They have to realize the election might have been decided by these purges. My book, that I wrote with Harvey Wasserman, reported that in 2004, the only reason the race was even close was because of the purging done in 2004 in the Democratic counties.

"When we go, we'll ask for an injunction, amending this to our existing, arguing that this irreparable harm to the civil rights of hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters, that they're being targetted because of their race and age."

According to Fitrakis, the letters were sent out and purges timed, so voters could not get their voting eligibility status reinstated, because the voting registration period just ended. Worse, there was no reason to purge the voters, which is usually reserved for people who have died or moved out of state. They should have been moved to inactive status.

Fitrakis explained, "They were probably purged because they moved. If they were registered to vote, they were eligible to vote simply by going to the board of electioin. They should have been moved to inactive status. There was no reason to purge these people."

Read the entire article.

They don't give a damn about our freedom

In the years since 9/11 we have become accustomed to a War on Terrorism that does not include the prosecution of terrorists as criminals. That wasn't always the case, after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing the Clinton administration hunted down, captured, prosecuted and convicted all the principal conspirators in the bombing - every single one of whom is now serving a life sentence in federal prison.

The Bush administration did bring one would be terrorist to traditional justice - Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber". He was found guilty and sentenced in 2003 to life plus 130 years. Judge William Young made the following extraordinary statement in his sentencing comments:

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and a just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you.

We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.

Here in this court where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist.

And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists.

We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You're a big fellow. But you're not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.

In a very real sense Trooper Santiago had it right when first you were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and he said you're no big deal. You're no big deal.

What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing.

And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.

I agree with most of what Judge Young so eloquently said.

It is proof that terrorists can and should be treated as criminals. Not promoted to supervillians who's very existence requires us to sacrifice our liberties just to cling to our own safety.

The only thing I disagree with the judge upon is the notion that the terrorists hate our freedom.

They don't give a damn about us - and they certainly don't give a damn about our freedom.

They aren't trying to change how we live in America - except for taking pleasure in our fear - they are lashing out at us for all the wrongs they feel they or their people have suffered - most imagined, some real. Yes, they'd like to break our spirit. But mostly they just don't give a damn about us.

They don't give a damn about us.

What they really want is to win the hearts and minds of the people in their homelands. They are too weak and too impoverished of spirit to do it through good works, education and inspiration. So they do it by inciting fear of the other, by exalting in taking revenge against a bogeyman they invent.

Look at Hezbollah. Shooting 4000 missiles into Israel did nothing to make Lebanon more free, more prosperous, or less threatened by the Jewish state. Indeed it only brought destruction and hardship upon their homeland. But it was successful because it represented a futile swipe at a hated bogeyman - Hezbollah became immensely more popular despite bringing nothing but pain and ruin to Lebanon. Ironically there is another side of Hezbollah, separate from the terrorists, that provides social services, schooling, medical services and reconstruction aid. That Hezbollah could have made Lebanon a better country, instead it is now tasked with treating the wounds inflicted by the terrorist wing. Those terrorists made life much worse for the Lebanese people, for no good reason, but they became heroes.

That is what a terrorist triumph looks like.

The Al Qaeda attack on America was a dismal failure. It didn't break our spirit. It didn't gladden the world at the humbling of a bogeyman. It did the opposite. The world stood with us. In all its diversity the world stood with us in unity. Even the Islamic world stood with us - large crowds gathered spontaneously in Iran to stand in solidarity with the people of America at candlelight vigils. Only a very few people in the entire Muslim world celebrated, most stood up and called us brother.



9/11 was al-Qaeda's most colossal misjudgment. It took billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and years of breathtaking stupidity, megalomania, mendacity, and malice for George Bush to turn Osama Bin Laden's monumental failure into a success.

You see, what George W. Bush wanted to do was win the hearts and minds of the people of America. He was too weak and too impoverished of spirit to do it through good works, education and inspiration. So he did it by inciting fear of the foreigner, by lashing out almost randomly and exalting in taking revenge against a bogeyman.

For a time it worked.

Olbermann Channels Murrow

Keith Olberman deconstructs Donald Rumsfeld's comments equating anti-war sentiment with appeasement, and turns the administration's new fascism meme against itself. Clearly inspired by Edward R. Murrow's commentary on Joseph McCarthy, Olberman directly quotes Murrow at the conclusion.



The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald S. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable comments to the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday demand the deep analysis - and the sober contemplation - of every American.

For they do not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence - indeed, the loyalty — of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land;

Worse, still, they credit those same transient occupants - our employees — with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; And not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as "his" troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile… it is right — and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

More from Crooks and Liars

The Constitution in Crisis

Even though the mainstream media has failed to report on it, the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff has released an exhaustive report on the crimes of the Bush Administration.


The full report is 350 pages. Download it in PDF format HERE

Taking My Country Back

The Second BlueHorde CD mix, Country Style.



These songs come from all over; peace sites, commercial download sites, and my own collections. I've posted listening or download links when available, in some cases videos, in other cases I'm just posting a link to a paysite like iTunes or Rhapsody - Please support our artists. I have not limited my choices to only those songs on a single site, so no iMix for easy purchase. Sorry.

If you are looking for great CD downloads of Country songs with conscience, I recommend the Music Row Democrats 20 Songs for 20 Bucks, and Homeless in America by the Nashville Session Players. Several of the songs in my mix are from these collections.

No Dixie Chicks or Willie Nelson - they were represented on the first mix, but there are some familiar names like Brooks, Kristofferson, and Haggard here. And some less familiar talents that deserve attention.

Listen and enjoy.

1] Honky Tonkers for Truth - I'm Takin My Country Back - play
2] Ronnie Kimball - US Steal - iTunes or play
3] Merle Haggard - America First - iTunes and video
4] Tom Chelston - Bushwhacked - mp3 download and video
5] U.S. Jones - Writing on the Wall - play
6] Kris Kristofferson - Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down - iTunes - 1 minute sample
7] John McCutcheon - Let's Pretend - play mp3 and video
8] Old No. 8 - Talkin' Blues - play
9] John McCutcheon - Duct Tape - video
10] Old No. 8 - Somewhere Down The Line - play
11] James McMurtry - We Can't Make it Here - iTunes and video
12] Kris Kristofferson - In The News - iTunes and video
13] The Mavericks - I Want To Know - iTunes or play
14] Darrell Scott - A-OK in the USA (Goodle USA) - iTunes or play
15] U.S. Jones - Muddy Channel Radio - play
16] Scott B. Bomar - Two Paper Town - iTunes or Listen on MRD Player
17] Sarah Crews - What You Preach - iTunes or play
18] Johnny Cash - The Man in Black - iTunes or play
19] Garth Brooks - We Shall Be Free - Rhapsody and video

This mix was created for personal use - all rights remain with the original artists.
Please support our artists.

How Ill is George W. Bush?

There is definitely something medically wrong with George Bush. His intellectual decline over the last decade is remarkable and obvious to anyone who knew him in Texas before he entered national politics, see this video:



Some are calling it pre-senile dementia - similar to what affected Ronald Reagan during his White House years, but was undisclosed to the public until after his death. Others speculate it is the result of years of cocaine and/or alcohol abuse - so called " Dry Drunk " syndrome or Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome.

Comedian and press commentator Harry Shearer has identified a new Bush tic, the chin swivel or "hula chin". Here's video compiled by Shearer. According to Randi Rhodes at Air America, people who work in drug addiction intervention identify this as a definitive sign of long term cocaine abuse.

Then there is the mystery bulge noticed on George Bush's back during the Kerry Debates.



Although most speculation was that it was a transmitter used to feed cues to Bush during the debate, his poor performance argues otherwise, as does the evidence that he wears the device, whatever it is, at other times, such as while vacationing on his ranch as in the photo above left.

Others suggest it is a medical device such as a LifeVest wearable defibrillator meant to counter atrial fibrillation - a possible culprit in the 2002 fainting spell that was blamed on a pretzel.



Given the president's history of being equilibrium challenged (3 bicycle accidents and falling off a Segway scooter - which is designed to be nearly spill proof), I'd suggest another possibility - the bulge is a personal gyroscope designed to keep the president walking upright.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Again

A 9 minute documentary about CSN&Y's Freedom of Speech '06 tour. Although there is an inescapable deja vu of their anti-Vietnam war activities of the 60s and 70s, this tour relegates the nostalgia to mere backup for a modern message of ending a new misbegotten war and reclaiming democracy tightly focused around Neil Young's sudden masterpiece Living With War released this Spring.



Neil Young: Living With War Today - webpage

The Sundering of Democracy

It's an election year, but will YOU get to vote?

CNN's conservative pundit Jack Cafferty is showing alarming signs of joining the reality based community. Watch his Cafferty Files editorial on attempts to protect our rulers from elections. YouTube embedded link:





Over at Rolling Stone read Robert F. Kennedy Jr's article about how the 2004 election was stolen in Ohio.



Here's Rolling Stone's helpful bibliography for those of you who want to dig into the facts of how the world's greatest democracy was overthrown.

New! Follow up to Kennedy's Rolling Stone article:

Ohio 2004: The Jesse Jackson Interview

Ohio 2004: The Howard Dean Interview

Blackwell Amok: More Dirty Tricks in Ohio

The Voice of Voting Reform

Tom Noe: Bush “Friend” Admits Laundering Money to 2004 Campaign

Finally, Salon publishes an instant article debunking Bobby Kennedy's Rolling Stone piece, while Think Progress debunks the debunking.

Battlefield Earth

Entire US a Battlefield - Constitution Suspended

The Bush Administration has declared the entire world a battlefield in the Global War on Terror - including every square inch of United States territory.

Article two of the Constitution grants the President war powers that give him full authority over the battlefield.

Clearly the forth Amendment is not valid - an army scout does not need to present probable cause to a judge in order to receive a warrant that allows him to spy on the enemy.

The 2nd Amendment does not apply - weapon possession is subject to military authority exclusively.

The First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, press, and religion cannot be extended to the battlefield.

All operations, activities, and personel on the battlefield are under the absolute authority of the commander in chief until such time that hostilities cease.

Sounds like a story from The Onion. But it isn't. The Bush administration has quietly used the 'battlefield' argument to justify its illegal acts, such as wiretapping, detention of Americans without charge, and the violation of privacy laws.

The administration claims that the Supreme Court has approved this doctrine in the Hamdi case, even though they lost that case.

This is no joke, this doctrine is the basis for absolute dictatorial powers for George W. Bush, and this doctrine has already been claimed as law;

A top government attorney declared Tuesday that, in the war on terror, the United States is a battlefield, and therefore President Bush has the authority to detain enemy combatants indefinitely in this country.

...

Bush & Co., however, has not only turned loose the military to spy extensively on the American people, but has also asserted the right to do so in perpetuity. Its claim is that 9/11 turned the homeland into a foreign battlefield, so the nation's historic prohibition against military surveillance of Americans is null and void. And since this war on terrorists has no end ("the long war," Rumsfeld calls it), the Bush-ites maintain that the Pentagon can engage in domestic spying ad infinitum.

...

The core problem—for Gonzales and for the nation—is that the administration’s constitutional assertion of war-making authority at home contains no plausible stopping point. By its own terms, it demolishes restraints not only on surveillance, but also on indefinite detention, on coercive interrogation and even on torture. As the Solicitor General Paul Clement revealingly asserted last summer in oral argument to a federal appeals court, all the world’s a battlefield, and the United States is but one front.

U.S. a Battlefield, Solicitor General Tells Judges
Myth #7: The Supreme Court approves
Seeking Truth On Wiretaps
Inside Donnie Rumsfeld's Orwellian Pentagon

Music for the Horde

Here's some of what I've been listening to while I prepare The Blue Horde blog for launch.



Sing Peace is a mix CD list, most of the cuts are available for free download, I've included listening or viewing links for the few that can't be.
1] Dixie Chicks - Not Ready to Make Nice - plays on webpage2] Pink - Dear Mr. President - download and video3] Low - Nowhere Man - download4] RX - Imagine ... Walk on the Wild Side - download and video5] Jackson Brown - Lives in the Balance - video6] Willie Nelson - Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth - download7] Jonatha Brooke - War - download8] Nerina Pallot - Everybody's Gone to War - Video9] Thomas Pace - Home No More - download10] Ryland Bouchard - Life (What Warriors Sing) - download11] Amy Martin - Consequences - download12] Cat Power - Maybe Not - download13] Neil Young - When God Made Me - plays from webpage14] DJ Monkey - Jerusalem - play15] Elly K - Sing - plays on webpage 

This list is a CD mix I put together for personal use - all rights remain with the original artists.

The Blue Horde is coming

The Blue Horde is the progressive majority; the Democrats, the Greens and the Independents. We are the traditional Republicans who have been left behind by a party that no longer practices the values it preaches. We are the soldiers sent to fight and die for lies. We are the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters of patriots whose lives were carelessly spent for the ambitions of the unworthy. The Blue Horde has been ignored by the corporate media, disenfranchised by corporate voting machines, and marginalized by gerrymandering. The Blue Horde has been marketed to, spun to, and lied to by those who were supposed to serve our interests. The Blue Horde has watched the sundering of a great Democracy.

We've noticed.

We are the Blue Horde, and we're not going to take it anymore.

Democracy is coming to the USA.