The Blue Horde

Ohio CAN have a do-over: How to throw the bums out This Year

2011-03-17T01:05:00.003-04:00

Markos "kos" Moulitsas wrote in Ohio wishes it could have do-over in governor's race that Ohio is having major buyer's remorse over the election of John "Lehman Brothers" Kasich as governor. Due to citizen disgust at Kasich's reverse Robin Hood budget and the anti-union and anti-public employee SB5, if the election were held today he'd be blown out by 15 points.

Alas Ohio lacks any recall mechanism for state officials - but that doesn't mean we can't throw the bums out - we do have a citizen's initiative process for placing issues and constitutional amendments on the ballot.

Use the Citizen's Initiative Process to Amend the Governor's Term of Office.

An issue could be put on ballot to amend the Ohio constitution to change the dates of the terms for governor and other elected state officials - including members of the Ohio Senate and House, by ending their terms soon after passage, with the new terms being filled by candidates chosen in a special election. We can put a "recall and reset" issue on the ballot just like the gambling companies put casinos on the ballot.

The Amendment could be written to end only the term of the Governor and Lt. Governor, or it could completely clean the slate and put every office up for reset, or something in between. I'd suggest at least the executive and those Senators elected last November.

In the process we can fix one of the tactics the GOP uses to stay in control of a Blue State. They have the Governor and major state offices elected in mid-term elections when voter turnout is lower, thus favoring Republicans. The initiative could reset those terms to coincide with Presidential terms.

And importantly the initiative could add a recall mechanism to remove elected state officials in the future without requiring a constitutional amendment.

Passage of the Amendment would end the current terms of Governor and some other elected officials and provide for a quick special election to elect new office holders. It would be a very short campaign - a rarity in American politics. The new gubernatorial and state office terms would only last through 2012, and would thenceforth follow the national quadrennial calendar for presidential elections.

Ohio has two possible election dates for the initiative:
August 2 Special Election
November 8 General Election

Irresponsible

2010-11-29T20:14:00.006-05:00

It is time to inextricably link the words Irresponsible and Republican. It is no longer enough to call them the Party of NO, it is time to make their name synonymous with irresponsibility until they change.

The GOP are masters of using language to distort the perception of reality - that is how the Estate Tax - which only effects a small number of the wealthiest families - turned into a unfair tax on dying in the minds of people who will never have to face it after it was rebranded the Death Tax. They achieve this rebranding by having the discipline to put the new terminology into widespread use by all of their politicians and media echo chamber.

Using reasonable discussion and lengthy explanations of the facts does little to counter the reality distortion effect of GOP language or to provoke interest in the attention deficit media. But there is something we can do - add a branding to the counter productive actions of the GOP by using the word Irresponsible every time we say Republican.

Irresponsible Republicans have caused a crisis in our Federal Courts by refusing to allow votes on over half of all judicial nominees - even the ones that have been unanimously approved in committee.

Irresponsible Republicans have blocked passage of an essential Defense Appropriation bill, while our troops are still fighting two wars.

Irresponsible Republicans are blocking the extension of unemployment insurance, saying the jobless are too lazy to work even though there are 5 unemployed Americans for every available job.

Irresponsible Republicans insist on making the slow economy worse by prematurely cutting federal spending and killing the recovery.

Irresponsible Republicans insist that all spending must be paid for - except for the 700 billion in unneeded tax cuts they want to give to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Or when an Irresponsible Republican is in the White House.

Irresponsible Republicans insist on the discredited supply side trickle down theory that cutting taxes will cut the deficit - even after trying that strategy during the Reagan administration and failing. And trying it during the GHW Bush administration and failing, And trying it during the GW Bush administration and failing.

Irresponsible Republicans have announced they look forward to closing down the government in April by refusing to raise the debt limit - even though they never failed to raise the debt limit during the Reagan and two Bush administrations.

Irresponsible Republicans still support using torture - a crime under the Geneva Convention - even though it never provided any useful information and made America less safe.

Irresponsible Republicans are blocking the renewal of Ronald Reagan's START treaty - even though every single living past and present US Secretary of State say it is essential to pass it.

Irresponsible Republicans want to cut Social Security in order to reduce the deficit - even though Social Security is running a surplus, is self funded with its own taxes, and by law cannot spend general revenue.

Irresponsible Republicans risk turning America into an international pariah state by cynically denying man made global warming (even though they know it is really happening) in order to cater to their big energy company donors.

Reasonable explanations won't penetrate the consciousness of the ADD media and low information patriots, but by repeating Irresponsible Republicans each time we deal with their irresponsible behavior we will be showing just who the grownups really are.

Revive Social Security

2010-11-12T22:14:00.009-05:00

Social Security is doing just fine.

Despite the Catfood Commission, Social Security will never increase the national debt. In fact Social Security is just about the ONLY government program that is well funded for as far as we can forecast. It has a huge surplus of well over 2.5 trillion dollars that will continue to grow to well over 4 trillion dollars before it begins to decline. Sometime between 20 and 30 years from now that trust fund will run out, and SS will have to run on its current revenues - just like it did for its first half century of existence. That is not "broken", that is what it was always intended to do. Once the trust fund is gone, we can continue to fund benefits at 80% of current levels basically forever. Not bad, do absolutely nothing at all and SS doesn't have to cut a penny, increase the retirement age or reduce any benefits for at least 20 years, and after that can go forever with just a 20% cut. So why do they want to make those benefit reductions now?

Here's a better idea. Let's enhance Social Security so that it lowers unemployment, stimulates the economy, and restores confidence.

Reduce unemployment by lowering the voluntary retirement age to 60 instead of raising it to 69. Life expectancy is mainly increasing because fewer people are dying young - but people reaching the end of their working years are not actually living significantly longer - and a lifetime of work, especially physical labor, is not easier on today's sexagenarians. 69 might be a good retirement age for a banker, but not for skilled iron-workers, or auto workers, or even janitors. Let them retire earlier and open up those jobs.

Turn FICA into a true flat tax, rather than the regressive tax it is now. Currently FICA taxes are 12.4% of the first $106,800 in earned wages (split between worker and employer), and absolutely nothing is collected for Social Security on any income above that - and FICA taxes are not collected on unearned income such as dividends and capital gains. Let's make it a true flat tax, Collect it on all income - no exceptions. We could then easily pay for lowering the voluntary retirement age, and never have to reduce benefits, and at the same time we could cut the FICA tax rate to about half of its current level.

Reduce unemployment, substantially reduce FICA taxes for most taxpayers, preserve benefits and create confidence in today's workers that Social Security will be there for their retirement. Damn, that sounds downright conservative!

Alito Was Wrong

2010-10-05T19:21:00.005-04:00

Do you remember Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's rebuttal of President Obama during this year's State of The Union address?

"Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections," Said President Obama. "Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito silently mouthed "not true" when Obama criticized the Supreme Court's decision.

Obama was talking about the Court's "Citizen's United" ruling, that threw open the floodgates for unlimited spending on campaign ads by corporations.

In particular, Alito is reported to have been objecting to the claim that foreign corporations would be able to finance campaign commercials in the United States - an interpretation that the Fox News Right had solidly supported in its insistence that Alito Was Right.

Now we get to grade the test. So far this election season campaign ads by outside groups are far outnumbering ads from candidates. One group in particular is more active than the rest - the US Chamber of Commerce (a group which unlike your local chamber represents multinational corporations rather than the small businesses on Main Street) - The US Chamber of Commerce has pledge to spend $75 million during this election season. So where does the Chamber's money come from? Big corporations, including:

State Bank of India (state-run) and ICICI Bank of India
Esnaad, a subsidiary of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
Russian state-run VTB Bank
BP [UK]
Royal Dutch Shell [Netherlands]
Siemens [Germany]
Bahrain Maritime & Mercantile International
Bahrain Petroleum Company (state-owned)
And hundreds more

Foreign-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Running Partisan Attack Ads

Sam Seder: Mosque at Ground Zero: That's Bullshit

2010-08-06T09:00:00.008-04:00

And a related story:

Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But after the ADL publicly called for moving the mosque, I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. More ›

The End of the Middle Class 2

2010-07-25T11:31:00.003-04:00

Also see The End of the Middle Class

Hobos and welfare for America's Rich

2010-07-07T20:15:00.002-04:00

Hobos and welfare for America's Rich

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard July 6th, 2010
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited

Reading William Manchester’s Glory And The Dream over the weekend, I came across this remark from President Herbert Hoover, blurted out famously in the cruelest year of 1932.

“Nobody is actually starving. The hobos, for example, are better fed than they have ever been. Hobos are eating well, in fact one had ten meals in a single day.”

Itinerant worker looking for work during the Great Depression

Hoover took deep offence at reports that children were dying of malnutrition. This is not surprising for a man who first made his global reputation organizing food aid for Belgian children at the end of World War One

By then Hoover had lost the plot, a common problem for those over the age of 45 who stop thinking, stop observing, and rely reflexively on whatever set of views worked for them in the past (I am 52).

He never quite lived down these words. After he lost the lost presidency to Roosevelt in 1933, he was taken to see starving families in Colorado. Though Hoover was too self-righteous to admit error. He insisted that economy was well on its way to recovery until President-elect Roosevelt frightened everybody with his “socialistic” adventurism.

Republicans on Capitol Hill who backed the mobilization of $3 trillion of fiscal and monetary support to bail out the financial system are now going to great efforts to prevent the roll-over of temporary benefits to 1.2m jobless facing an imminent cut-off.

I don’t wish to enter deeply into an internal US dispute between Republicans and Democrats, but I do think think that the American political class will have to face up to the new reality of a semi-permanent slump for a decade or more that will blight a great number of lives. The cyclical recovery that normally makes it possible for most Americans to find a job if they want one is not going to happen this time because the overhang of debt, fiscal tightening, and a liquidity trap have combined to jam the mechanism.

Presidential Reunion

2010-03-03T19:17:00.001-05:00

How to respond to the Party of NO

2010-01-23T09:56:00.002-05:00

Who really deserves the Bankster Bonuses?

2010-01-11T00:14:00.003-05:00

Wall Street Banksters - short for Banking Gangsters - are about to receive another round of failure bonuses, even though they are still holding back from loaning money to credit worthy businesses and consumers and making money instead on exactly the same type of derivatives gambling that just required a 3 Trillion dollar taxpayer bailout a year ago.

Meanwhile, there are people out there doing jobs that ought to be getting the kinds of bonuses that the banksters aren't earning.

Here's one: The pilot of United Airlines flight 634 who safely and smoothly landed an Airbus 319 jet with a set of wheels missing. No skidding, sliding or tumbling. Whoever he is he deserves a Bankster bonus.

Airline pilot used to be a very good paying job. Not anymore. Sure the top pilots make pretty good pay, but its about a third of what they made 25 years ago (CPI adjusted). Even the hero of the Hudson - Captain Chessly Sullenberger - had his pay cut 40% a few years before he proved he is worth more than any Wall Street bankster.

Mock Them

2009-12-30T22:54:00.004-05:00

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab waited until the last 20 minutes of his flight from Amsterdam to Detroit before he attempted to blow up his underpants - he was probably waiting for the end of the in flight movie ... I think it was "Four Christmases" with Vince Vaughn. Definitely worth delaying your martyrdom for an hour and a half.

And before anyone asks - HELL YES I'm making light of a terrorist act. I'm treating it with all the mockery it deserves.

You see, there are a bunch of idiot politicians and "opinion leaders" trying to make hay off of this attempted attack. In effect they are using it to attack us all over again. Congressman Peter Hoekstra, an idiot, immediately released a fundraising letter asking us to help him defeat the terrorists - he's running for governor of Michigan. Senator Jim DeMint is blasting the lack of strong leadership at the TSA even though he personally has been blocking the confirmation of the new TSA chief for several months. Pat Buchanan, Tom Ridge, Dick Cheney and others are outraged, OUTRAGED I say - that the underpants bomber has been arrested and indicted and will be prosecuted in an actual courtroom just like non-law abiding Americans. Some are even demanding that we torture this stupid deluded kid, even though he has been completely cooperative, has admitted to his plans, his ties to al Qaeda (well, to al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, which is not really the same "al Qaeda" as Bin Ladin's al Qaeda, but birds of a feather), and is answering any questions asked of him, but still, they want him tortured ... not for information (which we are getting), but ... just because ... These are the same idiots who claim it is too dangerous to prosecute international terrorists in US courts, even though we have already convicted over 400 of them and they have been locked away in our federal prisons for years without problem. These idiot cowards have such a low regard for American justice that they would have us become exactly the type of lawless nation that the terrorists accuse us of being.

Here's the deal. These terrorists are not supermen. They aren't bigger than life, they don't have super powers, they aren't able to defeat our justice system, they can't escape from our supermax prisons. They are, to a man, pathetic wimps. They are weaklings. They attack innocent civilians because they know they can't handle a fair fight. They use fear because they are too pathetic and lame to be able to use persuasion.

The idiot coward fools who build them up are helping the terrorists and hurting America rather than protecting it. They are collaborating with the terrorists in making us more fearful and less free. Their approach of ramping up the fear is exactly the wrong thing to do. We need to put the terrorists in their proper place - prison - and treat them as what they are - weaklings, wimps and morons. I love that we are calling this latest guy the "underpants bomber", that disdain is exactly correct. We should be mocking these fools in the media, not building them up as bogeymen.

Sensible security makes sense, but the cost is too high if we trade our freedoms for security. We need to respond to the threat of terror with vigilance and mockery.

Eventually one of these morons is going to get lucky and actually succeed in their attack. We still need to mock them. They send a thousand morons, and one is bound to get through. Give them no respect. Refuse irrational fear. Yes, we'll grieve the loss of innocent life at the hands of moronic cowards who are too afraid to put up a fair fight, but we should never fear or respect them.

Related post: They don't give a damn about our freedom

How to do it

2009-11-20T19:56:00.004-05:00

Fox news has taught me that a president must never bow to a foreign leader. Here is the correct way to greet them:

Child Labor Endorsing, Pro-Slavery Freaks

2009-11-12T00:40:00.004-05:00

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The Best Health Care Bill that Money Can Buy

2009-10-26T22:16:00.018-04:00

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The Health Care Reform Bill is slowly falling together. The big insurance companies are getting almost everything they want. Public financing to subsidize them, a requirement for the uninsured to buy insurance or pay a fine, and guaranteed profits. Looks like they lose on the public option -except that it will not be available for the vast majority, only to the uninsured - and only if your state decides not to "opt-out". So it won't really be "competition". If you like the insurance your employer offers - you can keep it, and if you don't like the insurance your employer offers - you have to keep it anyway. So much for "options".

A few congressmen will be offering amendments to make the public option a true option for everyone - introducing actual competition. Others will be offering a bill allowing individual states the right to offer a single payer plan in their state - the proven method for providing the best care at the lowest cost. Use the the chart below to understand how your congressional representative makes their decisions (from the Center for Responsive Politics).

Every member of Congress and the total contributions they have received from the Health Care industry from 1989 through June 2009.

30 Senators side with Gang Rape

2009-10-16T08:57:00.000-04:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Rape-Nuts

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

We're Number 37!

2009-09-19T11:43:00.000-04:00

Send in the Big Dog

2009-08-27T18:19:00.003-04:00

Ted Kennedy's passing leaves Massachusetts without full representation in the US Senate, and the nation without our greatest champion for Universal Health Care right when we need him the most.

With respect to the probability that Massachusetts will change it's law to appoint a temporary Senator until a new Senator can be chosen in a Special Election in February - most of those suggested in the media as replacements are not going to be interested in a temporary position from which they will be barred (as seems likely) from running in the special election

What Massachusetts, and the nation, needs is an strong interim Senator with no interest in a permanent position, but who has the stature, ability and connections to step into Kennedy's very large shoes and push Ted's health care reform through. Even better if that is someone with a long commitment to universal health care, who would find this temporary role as a chance to fulfill one of his own greatest goals.

I can think of one person who perfectly fits those needs:

Bill Clinton

He'd have to change his address, yet again, but he can afford it. He's been vetted - both as a former president and most recently during Hillary's confirmation.

The Big Dog can carry Kennedy's water for 5 months, working to get Universal Health Care passed, while Massachusetts works out who they want to elect for the permanent position. Then he can retire with his greatest legislative failure as president redeemed, and Ted Kennedy's legacy fulfilled.

SOCIALISM! Booga Booga Boo!

2009-08-24T00:37:00.015-04:00

I think conservatives are confused. They see government spending money on social services and think social services ... hmmmm ... socialism. They see the name of the old USSR - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and think ... hmmm ... communism ... is socialism. They look at the name of the Nazi Party - The National Socialist German Worker's Party ... hmmm ... fascism is socialism. Thus in the conservative mind, every form of political-economic system is socialism. Communism is socialism, Fascism is socialism, Capitalism is socialism. EVERYTHING is socialism!

OK.... let's clear a few things up.

Government paying for things is not socialism. Government providing social services is not socialism. Those are both normal functions of a capitalist state - recognized as such since Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations and drove a stake through the heart of mercantilism and defined what would come to be known as the modern Capitalist state. Specifically Smith outlined 3 broad areas of government responsibility; national defense, administration of justice, and providing those public goods which are essential to a free and prosperous society. Those public goods which Smith identified were infrastructure and education - which are essential to both the public weal and commerce. In today's more complex world social safety nets are also essential to commerce. The example of the cost of private healthcare crippling our industries points toward the utility of providing social services within a capitalist system - they are part of the human infrastructure that supports private enterprise and makes it more competitive.

The Nazi Party - formally The National Socialist German Worker's Party, was originally a Worker's party (pro union party) until taken over by Adolf Hitler, he added the word "socialist" to the name in a gambit to attract more working class members, but from the beginning of Hitler's involvement the party was firmly (even homicidally) anti-union and anti-socialist and anti-communist. They finessed the inclusion of "socialism" in their name by saying they were against "liberal" socialism, their "version" of socialism had nothing to do with actual socialism, and consisted instead of a form of social Darwinism.

So what is socialism? It is an economic system where the means of production of goods is owned by the people.

Government buying goods - or services - is not socialism. As an economic system socialism can exist in either democratic or authoritarian political systems.

Authoritarian Socialism is Communism.

Liberal Socialism (not neoliberal) or Social Democracies are democratic states with free enterprise market systems and extensive social welfare systems in which certain key industries may have been nationalized, but those states maintain private ownership of capital. Recently this has been referred to as EuroSocialism. Both modern Capitalist states and EuroSocialist states have mixed economies with both private enterprise and government sector industry, the difference being the relative balance between the two.

Conservatives will accuse progressives of trying to move the balance of the mixed economy in the United States closer to that of European States. And they have a point. But the point is not quite the indictment they make it out to be. To attribute any perceived policy as "socialism" doesn't make it anti-capitalist. Social Welfare programs - which are common to Capitalist and Socialist systems - are not socialist in and of themselves - they are not the means of production of industrial goods. But they do help support the industrial system - social welfare programs ultimately buttress capitalist enterprise. The social welfare system exists to support capitalist industry as much as any other intended benefit.

Perhaps EuroSocialism should be called Democratic Social Capitalism. It's benefit to capitalist enterprise has been well demonstrated in the aftermath of this past year's economic meltdown and the quick recovery of the EuroSocialist sector while we still flounder here in America. With their stronger safety nets many European citizens suffered no loss of health care, less deprivation from high unemployment rates, and were able to keep buying goods at a great enough level to revive industry and return their economies to positive growth. The 2008 recession ended quickly in Germany, France and much of Scandinavia.

I'm not afraid of the "S" word, I just don't think it is used properly. Mostly it is used as an epithet - and grossly incorrectly at that.

Modern progressives believe in private enterprise and private ownership of property and commerce. They don't want government or public ownership of the means of production, they don't want government factories making shoes, or cars, or consumer goods. They think there are things that government does better to the benefit of the public and of private enterprise, and there are things that government funds better but lets private enterprise provide. That's not really Socialism, so lets call it Social Capitalism.

The High Cost of Doing Nothing

2009-08-11T00:12:00.007-04:00

"ObamaCare", the opposition name for the health care reform effort now proceeding through 4 or 5 bills in Congress is rather short on true reform since its number one goal seems to be to preserve the astronomical profits of the industry. But ... is it worse than doing nothing?

The Congressional Budget Office recently scored one of the Democratic proposals, and concluded that it would cost $1 trillion over 10 years, or even $1.5 trillion in the worse case.

My God - how can we afford that! That's like 1/7th of what we spent in a little over a year bailing out Wall Street!

Well, not exactly. The CBO scored an early version without a public option or employer mandate, it now says that plan would "only" cost $600 billion over 10 years and that doesn't include all the savings that would be achieved from such things as new cost controls and far fewer of the very high costs from uninsured people avoiding early care and waiting for expensive publicly funded emergency care. $600 billion - over 10 years - is about a third of what we'll spend on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still - an extra $60 billion a year is a lot of money. Can we afford it?

Better question: can we afford doing nothing?

America has the most expensive health care system in the world - and for that we provide the best health care industry profits in the world, but not anywhere near the best health care outcomes for our population - we are solidly in the second tier of emerging nations in overall quality of health care, no where near the rest of the industrialized world - we are bested by such industrial powerhouses as Costa Rica, Dominica, Chile, Cyprus and Columbia.

For that we are paying nearly twice as much as any other nation - 17.6% of our GDP - over $2.5 trillion this year. Costs are increasing at a rate of over 6% every year, in 10 years time we'll by spending over $4.6 trillion per year, about 21% of GDP.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services actuarial center (in the Dept of HHS) calculates that 47.4% of the total expenditures on health care in the United States will come directly from government sources this year - and by 2019 that will increase to 51.7%.

With National Health Expenditures increasing from $2.51 trillion this year to $4.67 trillion in 2019, and the public paying 47.4% today increasing to 51.7% in 10 years, the extra cost to taxpayers of doing nothing will be $5.66 trillion dollars.

And on top of that the average taxpayer can expect to be paying twice as much for their private health insurance.

Kinda makes $600 billion look like chump change.

Senator Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions III: Tool

2009-07-17T20:27:00.017-04:00

In an interview on NPR Senator Jeff Sessions reiterated his problem with statements Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor made in a 2001 speech.

Sessions:
It was a speech that reflected a judicial philosophy that a person's background, sympathies and prejudices (those were her words) can impact your ruling. She said her background could affect the facts she would chose to see as a judge. That's ... I believe that is a disqualifying thing, frankly.
...
This is so basic to American law, your justice and the result in a court should not depend on the judge's personal views, background or ethnicity. A judge makes ... takes an oath to be impartial, the oath says, ah, you will do equal justice to the poor and rich alike, and that you put on that robe and it represents a fundamental commitment to put aside all those things and to be fair and objective in the process.

His statement includes direct quotes from Sotomayor's 2001 Berkeley speech which included the now infamous "wise Latina" remark. In fact, they are from passages that expand and explain that remark:

Sotomayor:
Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which i am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. but I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.
...
I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that i reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

Notice that taken in context the Sotomayor statements - that according to Sessions represent a disqualification for her appointment, explain the need to ensure impartiality and fairness completely the opposite of what Sessions claims she said.

The fact that Sessions admitted he was directly quoting from those statements proves that he was perfectly aware of what she was actually saying.

His mischaracterizations are nothing less than deliberate lies.

Did the US Navy just save the world?

2009-03-28T18:24:00.007-04:00

The US Navy made an announcement a few days ago that may ultimately put an end to the causes of Anthropogenic Global Warming - they have developed a process that produces replicable evidence of Cold Fusion.

Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion
After 20 years: New life for cold fusion?

Although some claim that it cannot be proven to be the result of fusion, these experiments produce heat, gamma rays, helium, and neutrons, but no radioactive waste. If it ain't Cold Fusion, it's close enough. If this proves out, and can be usefully upscaled, it will mean the end of the energy crisis, oil wars, man made global warming, and your Exxon stocks. Buy palladium futures now.

Sorry about destroying the world

2009-03-27T19:19:00.008-04:00

Dear A.I.G., I Quit!

Yes, I read that letter several days ago. I felt a lot of sympathy for Jake DeSantis and his many coworkers who have borne the brunt of outrage from the public over their company's role in destroying the world. Clearly most of them bear no blame for the Credit Default Swap and Derivatives gambling at the center of the fiasco.

But there was something that kept bringing me back to his letter, even though he said all the right things and comported himself honorably ... something bothered me.

And I think I am getting closer to nailing it down ... there is, behind the heartfelt concern and aggrieved forthrightness a sense of - entitlement.

This is a guy who made great sacrifices - apparently foregoing a 7 figure salary (for a year!) in exchange for a promised million plus bonus ... ummm ... yeah ... but the undercurrent is of course he deserved more money.

He was entitled to those great sums for the important work he did while destroying the world - keeping in mind that he personally was not responsible for the really bad stuff (even though the division that he was the EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT of WAS responsible ...)

I applaud his promise to donate his after tax bonus of 750 thousand dollars to those hurt by his company's work at destroying the world. He is by all accounts a good man, personally generous and well liked. But still, there is something about his fully justified whining that just feels a bit unworthy ... it must just be my own failing to properly appreciate that those who are our betters are entitled to their sense of ... entitlement.

Another view

Cheney Admits to War Crime

2008-12-16T23:34:00.000-05:00

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Still Trying to Kill Joe Hill

2008-12-13T14:37:00.008-05:00

The GOP has decided that breaking a union is more important than preserving the industrial backbone of the US economy. The party issued an Action Alert on December 10, 2008 to Republican senators outlining a strategy to derail the Auto Bailout bill and listed as its first point:

This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.

This is a rather bitter outcome for the automakers who have been big supporters of the Republican Party, contributing 3 times as much to GOP candidates as to Democrats in the last two decades. But of course, the GOP is more interested in beating down a powerful union than in supporting a powerful American business. Most times the car companies feel common cause with the Republicans in weakening unions, but they now must understand that that common cause does not correspond to any GOP interest in preserving their business.

At a time when we are at the edge of a deep recession that most acknowledge looks to be the worst in 70 years - since the Great Depression - the GOP is obsessed with lowering the wages of the middle class - they had no such concern with the wages of the Wall Street bankers who have received over $2 trillion in government dollars to prop up their business.

Thom Hartmann, interviewed by NBC's David Shuster puts the GOP actions in historic context as part of their deliberate effort to destroy unions - which are strong supporters of the Democratic Party - and to deliberately impoverish the middle class.

Michael Moore states it plainly:

Friday, December 12th, 2008
Senate to Middle Class: Drop Dead ...a message from Michael Moore

Friends,

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers start building only cars and mass transit that reduce our dependency on oil.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers build cars that reduce global warming.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers withdraw their many lawsuits against state governments in their attempts to not comply with our environmental laws.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the management team which drove these once-great manufacturers into the ground resign and be replaced with a team who understands the transportation needs of the 21st century.

Yes, they could have given the loan for any of these reasons because, in the end, to lose our manufacturing infrastructure and throw 3 million people out of work would be a catastrophe.

But instead, the Senate said, we'll give you the loan only if the factory workers take a $20 an hour cut in wages, pension and health care. That's right. After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers -- billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever -- the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America.

We have a little more than a month to go of this madness. As I sit here in Michigan today, tens of thousands of hard working, honest, decent Americans do not believe they can make it to January 20th. The malaise here is astounding. Why must they suffer because of the mistakes of every CEO from Roger Smith to Rick Wagoner? Make management and the boards of directors and the shareholders pay for this.

Of course that is heresy to the 31 Republicans who decided to blame the poor, miserable autoworkers for this mess. And our wonderful media complied with their spin on the morning news shows: "UAW Refuses to Give Concessions Killing Auto Bailout Bill." In fact the UAW has given concession after concession, reduced their benefits, agreed to get rid of the Jobs Bank and agreed to make it harder for their retirees to live from week to week. Yes! That's what we need to do! It's the Jobs Bank and the old people who have led the nation to economic ruin!

But even doing all that wasn't enough to satisfy the bastard Republicans. These Senate vampires wanted blood. Blue collar blood. You see, they weren't opposed to the bailout because they believed in the free market or capitalism. No, they were opposed to the bailout because they're opposed to workers making a decent wage. In their rage, they were driven to destroy the backbone of this country, not because the UAW hadn't given back enough, but because the UAW hadn't given up.

It appears that the sitting President has been looking for a way to end his reign by one magnanimous act, just like a warlord on his feast day. He will put his finger in the dyke, and the fragile mess of an auto industry will eke through the next few months.

That will give the Senate enough time to demand that the bankers and investment sharks who've already swiped nearly half of the $700 billion gift a chance to make the offer of cutting their pay.

Fat chance.

What's the deal with Joe Hill? He was the union organizer and song writer who was framed and executed in 1915 as part of the effort to destroy the labor movement. His death backfired, making him a martyr and rallying cry that ensured the movement's continued growth. In 1936 Earl Robinson wrote I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night based on the poem by Alfred Hayes:

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you and me
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead,"
"I never died," says he, "I never died," says he.
"In Salt Lake, Joe, by God," says I
Him standing by my bed,
"They framed you on a murder charge."
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead," says Joe, "But I ain't dead."
"The copper bosses shot you, Joe,
They killed you, Joe," says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man,"
Says Joe, "I didn't die," says Joe, "I didn't die."
And standing there as big as life
And smiling with his eyes
Joe says, "What they forgot to kill
Went on to organize, went on to organize."
"Joe Hill ain't dead," he says to me,
"Joe Hill ain't never died.
Where workingmen are out on strike
Joe Hill is at their side, Joe Hill is at their side."
"From San Diego up to Maine
In every mine and mill
Where workers strike and organize,"
Says he, "You'll find Joe Hill," says he, "You'll find Joe Hill."

Saving Detroit

2008-12-07T21:40:00.006-05:00

OK, I'm been thinking about this for quite awhile. We need to save jobs. And we need to do it smarter than we did for the banks. Ultimately financial institutions only shuffle ones and zeroes, auto companies create real wealth by making things. In a sane world we'd spend the $2 trillion (or more) saving our industries and bicker over whether the banks deserve a mere $34 Billion. But since we live in bizarro world we are now negotiating between Congress and the White (quack) House to advance a mere $15 billion to let the auto companies stay open long enough to lay off half their workforce.

I think I have a better idea. Let's put their entire workforce back to work, on overtime, maybe even let them hire some of the 1.9 million people who have lost jobs this year. Let's do it in a way that puts them on the course to offering the high mpg and alternate fuel vehicles the world - and environment - really need.

Instead of lending them money to lay off workers, let's use that money to buy a whole bunch of cars.

Let's place an order for a million vehicles.

Phase one is for versions of the hybrid vehicles they already make.
Phase two is for their first generation conversions of existing vehicles to plug in hybrids.
Phase three is for a variety of new vehicles to meet special needs and new refined models of plug in hybrids, all electrics, alternative fuels and other new technologies.

The government would use these vehicles as replacements for retiring vehicles in the existing federal motor pool, for new needs, as well as for sales to other governments in the US and abroad, and even to corporate fleets. In other words, It would replace purchases the government would make anyway, except with new technology, plus create an inventory for the government to resell.

And with $30 billion in assured sales, the automotive companies should have no problem obtaining bridge loans to meet short term liquidity needs from the banks who have received $2 trillion in government money.

I know ... it isn't socialism, but it just might work anyway.

Thank You Sarah Palin

2008-11-26T20:37:00.001-05:00

EMBED-236.com: Liberal Ad: Thank YOU, Sarah Palin - Watch more free videos

Typical Day for Obama Volunteers

2008-10-25T09:05:00.003-04:00

The Real Mavericks want their good name back

2008-10-08T20:03:00.007-04:00

Turns out that there were Real Maverick's in the old west long before James Garner's fictional Bret Maverick. However since Garner's "Maverick" was an amiable con-man and gambler he might be the best one to compare to McCain when he calls himself a maverick.

Radio host Thom Hartmann read my comment about Garner's "Maverick" and expanded on it with information on the real Maverick family that popularized the term as chronicled by John Schwartz in the New York Times: Who You Callin' a Maverick?

Thom Hartmann on Maverick

The 700 Billion Dollar Mugging

2008-09-30T20:23:00.005-04:00

This was all premeditated.
This IS the "October Surprise".
It has been planned for years.
And yes ... they plan to steal us blind.

The proof is call-girl Ashley Alexander Dupre.

Ashley, or "Kristin" has no particular connection to the government plan to dump over a trillion dollars of taxpayer IOU's on Wall Street in order to reward Wall Street for it's irresponsibility. She just happened to be the tool used to take down New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who as governor, and previously as Attorney General of New York was one of the only grown ups in government willing to take on the corporate criminals on Wall Street during a time when the Federal government had abdicated its responsibilities and had thrown in with the crooks instead.

Spitzer had to be silenced because he was unraveling the bailout mugging plot. It is laughable to believe that random bank audits led to his exposure as a serial "John" as claimed - the eminent legal expert Alan Dershowitz throws overwhelming doubt upon that notion in The Entrapment of Eliot. Spitzer was under intense domestic surveillance - probably of precisely the sort that Bush won't allow to be reviewed by the courts. You'll note that there are still no criminal charges against him - for good reason - it is doubtful that the evidence could be presented in any court if it was derived as a result of surveillance without a warrant.

Just one month before he was taken down, Eliot Spitzer wrote a Feb. 14, 2008 Op-Ed for the New York Times titled Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers in which he detailed the Bush Administration's efforts to prevent the States from taking any steps to forestall the current crisis.

Even as Spitzer public life was imploding, in March 2008, the first $200 Billion dollar installment of the plan was being made.

What? Whaddya mean you didn't know the bailout started back in March?

Yep, the Fed's Bernanke loaned 1/5th of a trillion dollars to the very same villains we are now promising another $700 billion to. Greg Palast connected those dots back on March 14: Eliot's Mess: The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked. Add to that the $300 Billion spent on the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and Bear Stearns episodes. That's $1.2 Trillion in less than 8 months. Someone is cashing out their chips before leaving the casino.

Remember Deep Throat's imperative "follow the money", or "follow the honey" in Kristin's case ... she's the link that shows us that this mess was planned well ahead of time, and that even a US governor would not be allowed to stand in its way.

Obama makes "Worst Persons" list

2008-09-30T20:11:00.001-04:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Barack Obama has finally landed on Keith Olbermann's Worst Persons in the World list ...

Democracy First First First

2008-09-25T19:06:00.004-04:00

Newly minted US citizen Craig Ferguson loves him some democracy.

700 Billion Dollars, Section 8, and my Tin Foil Haberdashery

2008-09-23T19:19:00.010-04:00

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."
- Section 8 of the Wall Street bailout bill

Nothing to be alarmed about - unless you think giving unchecked power and funds to the people who allowed this meltdown to happen in the first place is ... problematic. And gee ... wouldn't it be easy to steal if no one can oversee what you are doing and no court can hold you accountable? It's not like we haven't seen a billion dollars or 12 slip through the cracks before.

And then there is this - Welcome to the final stages of the coup... which sees this as the fulfillment of Prescott Bush's Business Plot to overthrow the US Government and replace it with a fascist regime. And even if this 'enabling act' fails, they still have this.

Here's some mood music to listen to while checking out the links:

Steve Earle - The Revolution Starts Now

Billy Bragg - All You Fascists

Why They Lie

2008-09-21T23:17:00.008-04:00

Have you been pondering why the "Straight Talk Express" has devolved into a lie machine? Lies every day. Obvious lies. Ridiculous lies. Lies repeated even after they have been publicly proven false. Despite the fact that McCain and Palin are exposed as proven liars, they continue to lie. Even the usually complacent media has dropped euphemisms and started to call them lies - not just "misstatements" or "inaccuracies" or "misleading".

Why?

I found the answer listening to On The Media.

Because it works.
--> Because it works even better when the lie is exposed.
The more McCain is proven a liar, the more he is believed.
Conservative America really is Bizarro world.

Here is what is going on:

The Power of Political Misinformation

By Shankar Vedantam
Monday, September 15, 2008

A series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people's minds after it has been debunked -- even among people who recognize it as misinformation. In some cases, correcting misinformation serves to increase the power of bad information.

In experiments conducted by political scientist John Bullock at Yale University, volunteers were given various items of political misinformation from real life. One group of volunteers was shown a transcript of an ad created by NARAL Pro-Choice America that accused John G. Roberts Jr., President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court at the time, of "supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber."

A variety of psychological experiments have shown that political misinformation primarily works by feeding into people's preexisting views. People who did not like Roberts to begin with, then, ought to have been most receptive to the damaging allegation, and this is exactly what Bullock found. Democrats were far more likely than Republicans to disapprove of Roberts after hearing the allegation.

Bullock then showed volunteers a refutation of the ad by abortion-rights supporters. He also told the volunteers that the advocacy group had withdrawn the ad. Although 56 percent of Democrats had originally disapproved of Roberts before hearing the misinformation, 80 percent of Democrats disapproved of the Supreme Court nominee afterward. Upon hearing the refutation, Democratic disapproval of Roberts dropped only to 72 percent.

Republican disapproval of Roberts rose after hearing the misinformation but vanished upon hearing the correct information. The damaging charge, in other words, continued to have an effect even after it was debunked among precisely those people predisposed to buy the bad information in the first place.

Not too surprising, but then something really strange happens when Conservatives hear a refutation to something they are predisposed to believe. Unlike Democrats, who reduce their belief after a refutation, Conservatives believe the falsehood even more strongly when it has been refuted - often they are nearly twice as likely to believe the lie after it has been proven false.

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same "backfire effect" when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration's stance on stem cell research.

There you have it.

In a Machiavellian (or Rovian) campaign both sides would have an incentive to lie - because even after the lies are exposed, there is some gain among those predisposed to believe the lies. But for conservatives the incentive is overwhelming - the more boldfaced and untrue the lie - and therefore the inevitability that it will be soundly refuted - the more solid the support and belief in the lie among the base. And McCain's biggest problem has been his very weak support among the conservative base. All he has to do to change his lukewarm support from the conservative base into rock solid enthusiastic support is to become the biggest most obvious liar on the planet.

Mission Accomplished.

A Man Without Honor

2008-09-10T01:02:00.008-04:00

I hardly know how to respond.

I don't see how anyone with a conscience can hold his head high in public after "approving this message".

This is the most vile lie, worse than the "Willie Horton" ad.

Obama voted for a bill to help fight child molestation. McCain's ad fabricates a complete lie about it, suggesting he wants to teach kindergartners to have sex.

Don't even try to defend this obscenity. Seriously. Don't.

McCain may have been a hero once.

No more.

He is a man utterly without honor.

More here.

Sarah Palin Education Plan

2008-08-29T16:18:00.005-04:00

Governor Palin on Creationism and Evolution:
"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information....Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject -- creationism and evolution. It's been a healthy foundation for me. But don't be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides."

New Memes in the Echo Chamber

2008-08-29T00:22:00.003-04:00

I ran into an interesting meme from some colleagues at the office. They were upset about how "wrong" it is for Obama to give his acceptance speech at Denver's Mile High Stadium. Unseemly. It should be inside the convention hall and only be open to the delegates.

What the heck?

How in the world do otherwise sensible people develop sense-free opinions like that?

Here's a clue ... they think the smartest two people in the world are Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

Right wing radio sucks the IQ right out of people.

If enough people hear the same nonsense repeated enough it begins to have the ring of truth. Thus the son of a single mother who attended school on scholarships and student loans that he only finished paying off a few years ago is an "elitist" while the multi-millionaire in $500 Ferragamos and a private jet who can't remember how many homes he has is a working class hero.

What next?

Watch for a meme to develop that paints Obama as reckless and impulsive.

Even though Obama's history is clearly of a man who is calm and cool, studied and intelligent, who makes decisions very deliberately and with unusual accuracy.

The classic right wing (Rovian) tactic is to slime your opponent with your own shortcomings and attack their strengths. Thus McCain's well documented short temper, tendency to speak before thinking, and knee jerk reactions will be framed as Obama's faults by the right wing echo chamber. It makes no sense whatsoever, but it will resonate with enough repetition.

The Smartest Move Ever Made By A TV Network

2008-08-19T21:25:00.015-04:00

Rachel Maddow

New show following Olbermann on MSNBC at 9pm EST begins 9/8/8

Finally, something for those who complain about the liberal media to worry about. More Rachel.

Straight Talk

2008-08-19T20:29:00.003-04:00

Double Standards

2008-08-13T16:22:00.007-04:00

If the 'liberal media' is so in the tank for Obama, why does McCain get a pass on marital infidelity while the stupid libido of John Edwards - who isn't even a candidate anymore - is nonstop news?

Personally I am outraged by the sheer idiocy of Edwards, a man who was my first choice in the primaries. How could he do such a stupid thing, and then how could he - and Elizabeth - believe it could be put behind them as he continued his presidential candidacy last year?

The answer of course is that plenty of other candidates have done so. Bill Clinton for example. And Bob Barr who is running as a libertarian right now. And John McCain. So why is this an issue about Edwards, who is out of the race, and not about Barr. Or McCain who is very much still in the race?

Was it because McCain's was almost 30 years ago? When he was a mere youth? (He was about the same age then as Obama is now). Were the circumstances of Edwards affair worse than McCain's?

If John Edwards' infidelity is news, and he's not a candidate for anything, why isn't John McCain's? He reportedly had numerous affairs in the years after returning home from Vietnam to a beautiful wife who had been disfigured in a car accident, and ultimately, by his own reports, he zeroed in like a laser on beautiful a 25-year-old heiress upon meeting her one evening in 1979 while he was still married, promptly lied to her about his age, and almost as promptly left his wife for her. We all extol John McCain for enduring 5 years of extreme hardship in Vietnam. But aren't his first wife's circumstances much like Elizabeth Edwards'? After all, the first Mrs. McCain waited in agony (and presumably fidelity) during those five long years for her beloved husband to return from Vietnam, raising their children while he was away and undergoing dozens of painful operations herself, only to be repaid by a philandering husband who ultimately left her for a younger woman.
- Drew Weston

Watch how Sean Hannity and his fellow cons fall all over themselves when Alan Colmes asks them if they are applying a double standard to Edwards and McCain:

Of course, McCain is excused because he spent 5 and 1/2 years as a POW. (That's his 'little black dress' - appropriate for any occasion.) But what about during his 2000 campaign? Why isn't the media falling all over itself to remind the viewers of allegations that McCain's own campaign had to intervene to keep him away from a pretty young lobbyist?

Is it because Republican sex scandals don't count if they don't involve children or homosexuality?

New McCain Ad?

2008-08-10T18:03:00.001-04:00

"The Hope" is for those viewers who found the McCain campaign ad "The One" to be too subtle.

Playing the Race Card

2008-08-02T00:21:00.000-04:00

No Comment ....

2008-03-05T21:46:00.000-05:00

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Lapdogs

2008-02-13T15:57:00.003-05:00

john.he.is

2008-02-12T19:39:00.001-05:00

by Election08, LA-based comics and actors on politics. Featuring veterans of MTV, ABC, NBC, The Daily Show, Second City Chicago, Reno 911, Current TV, and Showbiz Show With David Spade.

Dear Superdelegates

2008-02-12T17:11:00.002-05:00

We have two wonderful candidates remaining in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Barring a series of landslides in the remaining primaries, it is likely that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton will win enough delegates in the primaries and caucuses to win the nomination - thus throwing the choice to the 796 "party leaders and elected officials" - you superdelegates. Many of you have already pledged your support and vote to one of the candidates, and the rest of you are bound to have a preference, you will have each voted your choice in your state primary or caucus, but please, I beg you to hold your vote at the convention in trust for the Democratic rank and file who have voted and caucused in their state contests.

We Democrats have to be acutely sensitive to the need to live by our democratic ideals, and none are greater than our dedication to clean and fair elections. It would be anathema for us to reject the elected choice of the people in a brokered convention. Particularly after two presidential contests that were nullified by judicial coup and election fraud. A brokered convention would legitimize our nation's continued movement towards a political system independent of the will of the governed.

Please, endorse you choices, campaign for them, support them, and vote for them in your state contests. Exercise your leadership by shaping public opinion and promoting your choice, but please, above all else endorse democracy by holding your convention vote in trust for the people - your opinions, your choices, mean nothing if you do not support democracy first.

A Renewed Declaration of Independence

2007-07-04T15:40:00.000-04:00

Written by Thomas Jefferson and Kingotho, with minor edits by Blue Mark.

July 4, 2007.
By the People of United States of America:

When in the Course of American History, it becomes clear that the powers of the few have once again become out of balance with the checks meant to right them, it is the duty of the citizens of The United States of America to remind those in power of their equal station with the people, and that it is the founding principle of this Nation, that we all must consent to the practice of the powers handed down to them by her people, or that power shall be taken away. It is with this then that we remind the current administration of its long list of abuses, and demand that it turns over its power immediately to the people.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Us, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that humankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of this Nation, and yes to the extent that it is true, the whole world; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the current Administration of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

It was appointed to office amidst strong foul stank of election fraud
It has repeatedly, and without remorse appointed unqualified cronies to offices of sensitive National Security
It has conspired to deny the American People their Rights which have been defended by Blood and Bills since the inception of this Constitutional Democracy
It has prized the excesses and wealth of its friends over the decent and moral possible course of action
It has engaged in unprovoked and illegal military actions under the guise of security, the true object of which being greed and profit
It has rejected science and reason, and substituted with doubt and fear
It has neglected the future, and instead focused on short sighted political and personal gain
It has undermined the morality of our democratic society with torture, secret overseas prisons, and criminalized opposing political protest
It has desecrated the separation of church and state for political and personal gains
It has demonstrated its willing ineptitude during events of massive National Crisis
It has corrupted, to the extent it is able, the Free Press of this Nation
It has demonstrated its willingness to mislead the national debate, and operate in duplicitous secrecy, and impede the discovery of the truth
It has subverted the checks and balances upon its offices
It has perverted the concept of non-dynastic leadership
It has defrauded its power by selling it to corporate and otherwise anti-democratic interests
It has misused the treasure and children of this Nation as tools for the gain of themselves and constituency
It has irreparably damaged the psyche of this Nation, and has created many new enemies and haters of Our Country, worldwide
It has failed to protect the weak
It has failed to provide for the sick and dying
It has consolidated its power in ways that go against the principles of Our Constitution

Throughout these outrages, we have watched as time and again the congress, the courts, and the press lie down and pass their responsibility off, hoping some mythical next level would stand up for what is right, each fearing the repercussions of what may happen if they did their civil duty. This is the mark of a system that has failed. What they have failed to recall was the repercussions of what would happen if they did not execute their civil duty. The first of which being Tyranny, plundering our democracy, sedating our intelligence, and leading to chaos in the face of Global Climate and Civil disasters. Such a governance shall not be allowed amongst free people.

We, therefore, the People and Representatives of the United States of America, in Peaceful Assembly, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of this land, solemnly publish and declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be Free from the Tyrannical and generally Inept Leadership of the Current Administration. And that immediately and without further harm on this Nation, George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, and all of their appointees and officers are hereby ordered to vacate their offices, and relinquish any claims to power or authority of those offices.

Sincerely the Undersigned

The End of the Middle Class

2007-05-12T17:52:00.000-04:00

The stock market has reached an all time high. Total wages grew by 9% in 2005. But the party will soon end. Indeed it ended for all but a privileged few years ago. That 9% wage increase went entirely to the very rich, 90% of Americans saw their income decrease. The real US economy is going into the tank. And that fall is by design.

Consumer spending has been a way of life in the United States. It is the foundation of our economy.

It may not be for much longer.

Unfortunately there has been a war against the middle class over the last 30 years. The standard of living that used to be provided by a single income in the average home now requires two incomes - how many families do YOU know where only one spouse works? - when I was growing up it was about 90%. Unfortunately half of all children now live in single parent homes, many at poverty levels. The American Dream of each generation living better than their parents ended in 1973, today's kids can expect a lower standard of living than their parents.

Good union wages have slipped away as laws that previously protected the right to unionize have been turned against workers and are now used to bust unions and take rights away - union membership is at its lowest rate in nearly a century.

Refusal to punish companies who employ illegal workers at below market wages puts downward pressure on all wages. You won't see any immigration reform that doesn't allow the illegals to stay as "guest workers" of some sort at near slave wages - they are needed in order to keep the middle class poor.

Almost all the tax cuts have gone to the very richest Americans - those Americans who don't turn their extra income into consumer spending like the middle class and working poor do - instead the bulk of their tax cuts go into sheltered investments that provide little economic stimulus, or worse go to luxury goods and foreign investments - there is no "trickle down", only trickle up.

Real wages have fallen - 95% of Americans make less today than they did 6 years ago.

But since consumer spending IS the basis of the US economy, we have seen economic growth over the last 6 years. The big corporations have done well even as main street has had the lights turned off. The richest have never been richer, but 95% of us are not even keeping up.

We 95 percenters HAVE been sustaining the economy. How? By continuing to buy as if our incomes hadn't fallen. In 2005, for the first time since the Great Depression, private debt in the USA exceeded savings. How did we keep spending as if we weren't getting poorer? By borrowing on a spree fueled by the rising equity in our homes - the one economic bright spot in the majority of American's fortunes - our homes continued to increase in value far above the inflation rate due to a housing boom and low mortgage rates ensured by Chinese support of our national debt.

But that is all over now. The housing bubble has burst. Especially on the two coasts much of the equity rich middle class has suddenly discovered they owe more on their homes than they are now worth. No more consumer spending fueled by home equity.

New laws have allowed the credit card companies to rape consumers with usurious rates and fees that quickly force consumers into bankruptcies that, thanks to other new laws, no longer protect assets (unless you are very wealthy and can take advantage of an "Asset Protection Trust"). These are the waning days of the great American consumer driven market.

America is being transformed into a third world nation. Ultimately, when the middle class all but disappears we will be a source of cheap (but very productive) labor for multinational corporations that sell to Europe and Asian markets. We will only consume the very cheapest and tackiest of goods. From Walmart.

Soviet Era Secret Laws come to Amerika

2007-05-12T16:30:00.001-04:00

Ignorance of the law is mandatory.

There is a staple of legal tradition called Ignorantia juris non excusat - Ignorance of the law is no excuse. It prevents the use of willful ignorance as a defense in lawbreaking (unless you are the president and and claim plausible deniability, or Attorney General and can't remember why you fired people). In effect it means that you are responsible for learning the law before you engage in actions that may break the law. Thus a builder can't do as he wishes and then claim that he is innocent of violating the building code because he didn't know the building code.

A side note; ignorance of the law doesn't mitigate guilt, but it can mitigate the sentence or punishment - a case where a businessman contacted customs officials about importing gambling equipment from Canada and was told it was legal, only to be charged later with illegal importation and found guilty, was given the sentence of an absolute discharge - no punishment.

A principle condition of Ignorantia juris non excusat it that the law is knowable - that it has been publicly published and available to those seeking to comply with it. The opposite of that is a Secret law, once a staple of the Soviet Union and Eastern European authoritarian regimes. It has now been embraced by the United States - authorized without notice by the Homeland Security Act.

The validity of secret laws in the United States has been upheld in federal court in cases related to TSA security directives. Where else they may apply we cannot know.

We aren't allowed to know.

THE ARRIVAL OF SECRET LAW

Secret Laws - Washington Monthly

L'Affair Plame - It Doesn't End with Libby

2007-03-08T21:31:00.001-05:00

OK folks, the MSM (mainstream media) is in full Libby obfuscation mode - trying to color him as a loyal victim deserving of a pardon. Meanwhile the media is totally avoiding what we have learned from this case, namely that there was indeed a concerted deliberate centrally organized administration effort to expose a covert CIA agent to the press as an act of political vengeance, a conspiracy that included Cheney, Libby, Rove, David Addington, Richard L. Armitage, and George W. Bush.

There is something else that was revealed by the testimony in the case that hasn't been analyzed by the MSM - the timeline proves that the outing was NOT just in retaliation for Joseph Wilson's July 6, 2003, op-ed column, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” - the plot to expose Valerie Plame Wilson began well BEFORE Ambassador Wilson's article was published.

May 29, 2003 – Libby calls Marc Grossman, then an Under Secretary in the State Department, asking how and why Joe Wilson was sent to Niger about uranium.

“late May and early June, 2003” according to Grossman’s testimony --- Grossman gives oral interim reports to Libby that Wilson was the ambassador who went to Niger (mentioned but not named in a May 6 NYTimes piece by Nicholas Kristof, “Missing in Action: Truth”).

June 9, 2003, according to Grossman’s testimony – Grossman had a conversation with Wilson, who was “upset” about Condoleezza Rice’s claim the day before on Meet the Press that the White House was unaware of doubts about the Niger uranium story. (In his book, Wilson says this conversation “elicited the suggestion that I might have to write the story myself”; he got in touch with the NYTimes the same day. p.332.)

June 9, 2003 – classified documents from CIA are faxed to the Office of the Vice President to Libby and colleague John Hannah, mentioning the Wilson trip but not naming Wilson.

June 10, 2003 – a classified State Department memo written by State’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR) gives Grossman the background on Wilson’s Niger trip, refers explicitly to Valerie Wilson as Wilson’s wife and “a CIA WMD manager.” The memo also strongly debunks the Niger uranium story.

June 11, 2003 – Robert L. Grenier, then “Iraq mission manager” and “point person for Iraq,” receives a phone call from Libby, then is summoned from a meeting with the CIA Director to talk with Libby about Wilson; tells Libby Wilson’s wife is in CIA. (Grenier is no longer with the CIA.)

June 11/12, 2003 – Marc Grossman has a “30-second discussion” about Mrs. Wilson with Libby, according to Grossman’s testimony.

June 12, 2003 – Libby is informed by Cheney in a phone call that Wilson’s wife is in CIA (handwritten note: “CP: his wife works in that div”).

June 12, 2003 – David Addington, Cheney’s government lawyer, receives the same notes from Libby’s office mentioning Wilson’s wife in CP (typed copy).

June 13, 2003 – Richard L. Armitage tells Bob Woodward, on tape, that Mrs. Wilson works for CIA, suggests that Mrs. Wilson sent Wilson on the Niger trip.

June 14, 2003 – CIA daily briefer Craig Schmall briefing of Libby at Libby’s home notes question about Wilson (“ex-amb”) and the Niger trip, notes Wilson and Valerie Wilson by name.

June 23, 2003 – Libby has a discussion with Judith Miller, mentions Wilson’s wife at “bureau” (CIA). (Miller had returned to the U.S. on June 8.)

July 6, 2003 – Joseph Wilson’s op-ed criticizing the Niger story finally appears in the NYTimes. (Brad Blog)

So why was the Cabal determined to punish Ambassador Wilson and burn Valerie Plame Wilson even before Joe Wilson wrote his op-ed? Some suspect it was a pre-emptive strike. But it still begs the question - why burn Plame? Finding out that an ex-Ambassador's wife is a top American spy doesn't exactly discredit him, heck, it bolsters his credibility.

Why Discredit Ambassador Wilson?

The official line in the Administration is that Ambassador Wilson had lied when he claimed the Vice President had sent him on his fact finding mission to Niger. Except that Wilson did not make that claim - he correctly stated that the Vice President's office had made an inquiry to the CIA, and that it was the CIA which then sent him to Africa. But that is such a minor detail that it is hardly worth wasting an official statement on, much less orchestrating career ending media leaks in retaliation. We should also note that Wilson was not the first to assert that the Niger yellowcake claim was bogus - that had been well known inside and outside the administration, and had been reported upon in media by Seymour Hersh and others. Wilson's voice was just another confirmation.

Why ignite a firestorm around discrediting Wilson? One of the basic tools in Karl Rove's tool chest is to bury an inconvenient story by creating a controversy on the periphery of the story - that controversy will focus all attention to itself, leaving the underlying inconvenient truth unexamined. We saw that tactic brilliantly played out in the Dan Rather epsiode where forged documents were created that revealed the truth about George W. Bush being AWOL during his National Guard service. The forgery and Dan Rather became the sole focus of all media attention, ignoring the truth of the AWOL allegations - even though they had been independently confirmed by other news sources (US News and World Report, and The Boston Globe) using only US Government documents.

The attack on Wilson served to draw attention away from the forged Niger yellowcake document. That it was a forgery became a given, all reporting examinined the storm around Ambassador Wilson. Media attention was drawn away from the forgery itself - and its source. That is the essential element; no one should examine how and when the poorly forged document came into being.

We can trace this story back to January 1, 2001, when Niger's Rome embassy was broken into, but only inconsequential items were stolen, among them a wristwatch, perfume, worthless documents, embassy stationery, and some official stamps bearing the seal of the Republic of Niger. That break-in has been linked to former Italian intelligence operative Rocco Martino, who had close ties to Karl Rove's national security advisor Michael Ledeen and has been alleged to have been working for him. Ledeen was an early point man in the Adminsitration's efforts to 'fix the facts' in favor of an Iraq war even before Bush took office. According to Italian sources the items Martino stole were used in making the forged Niger document.

In October 2001 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Burlusconi presented the forged document to George W. Bush - but the State Department and CIA immediately identified it as a fake. Not to worry, Ledeen had a plan to make it useful - he convened a December 2001 meeting in Rome between his Italian connections and top Administration 'fact fixers':

This is where the plot thickens, though. A team of investigative reporters in Italy, working for the respected newspaper La Repubblica, learned that a group of people, allegedly including Michael Ledeen, Defense Department Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Defense Intelligence Agency Middle East analyst Larry Franklin, Pentagon Office of Special Plans member Harold Rhode and convicted bank swindler and Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, met secretly in Rome. Also present, reportedly, were Pollari and the head of the Italian Department of Defense. The La Repubblica reporters, led by investigative reporter Carlo Bonini, claim that it was at this unusual meeting that a plan was hatched to recycle and launder the bogus and discredited Niger documents through British intelligence, so that they would come back to the White House as "new evidence" of Hussein's nuclear ambitions.
Dave Lindorff

Clearly the Administration could not stand up to exposure of its role in manufacturing false evidence. By making Ambassador Wilson the center of the story attention was diverted from the White House's complicity in the creation and dissemination of the forgery. They were then able to stick to their story of being duped by the forgery, and of using it later by mistake - without confronting inconvenient evidence of their complicity in creating it.

Why Burn Plame?

Valerie Plame ran an extensive CIA cover operation out of the Boston brass plate firm Brewster Jennings and Associates. Brewster Jennings' cover was as an energy consulting firm, its role was to investigate, infiltrate, and compromise the trade in Weapons of Mass Destruction (CIA Counter-Proliferation Division).

Brewster Jennings was a NOC operation - Non Official Cover - that means that the CIA employees working for Brewster did not have diplomatic cover, and if exposed would have no protection. These are your basic "mission impossible" rules where "if you are captured, you will be disavowed". In other words - dead meat.

By burning Plame, the White House also burned Brewster Jennings & Associates, and exposed all its overseas operatives, their contacts, and families to arrest and retaliation by foreign powers, mafias and terrorist networks. Unofficial reports are that the fallout in lives was extensive - including the assassination of at least one CIA agent, and that prosecutor Fitzgerald may have received a detailed damage assessment account of Brewster Jennings exposure from the CIA, but was not permitted to use it or place it into evidence.

Why in the world would the White House deliberately destroy a premiere counter-proliferation operation?

Perhaps because the CIA operation had foiled a White House plot to salt Iraq with WMD's just prior to the war, so that they could be found by our troops.

November 11, 2005 -- New aspect of Valerie Plame/Brewster Jennings exposure revealed. According to U.S. intelligence sources, the White House exposure of Valerie Plame and her Brewster Jennings & Associates was intended to retaliate against the CIA's work in limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

WMR has reported in the past on this aspect of the scandal. In addition to identifying the involvement of individuals in the White House who were close to key players in nuclear proliferation, the CIA Counter-Proliferation Division prevented the shipment of binary VX nerve gas from Turkey into Iraq in November 2002.

The Brewster Jennings network in Turkey was able to intercept this shipment which was intended to be hidden in Iraq and later used as evidence that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. intelligence sources revealed that this was a major reason the Bush White House targeted Plame and her network.

CIA counter-proliferation network prevented a WMD "salting" operation by Bush White House in Iraq.

In fact, U.S. intelligence sources report that the first shipment of VX nerve gas to Saddam Hussein was carried out between 1988 and 1989. The gas was shipped to Iraq by a U.S. company that was established in 1987 -- The Carlyle Group. Washington Post Blog

So ...

Who thinks the Plame story is all over now?

Treason

2007-02-27T20:46:00.000-05:00

In a shocking act of treason, a group of American citizens have been exposed as providing millions, perhaps billions of dollars to Sunni Extremist Jihadis and members of Al Qaeda. The very same militias who are responsible for the deaths of 92% of the American troops lost in Iraq.

The only crime defined in the Constitution is that of levying war against the United States or "in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort"; Treason.

United States Code at 18 U.S.C. § 2381 states "whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

Who are this group of American traitors? According to an investigative report by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Sy Hersh, they are:

Vice-President Dick Cheney
deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams
former Ambassador to Iraq and current United Nations Ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
George W. Bush.

THE REDIRECTION by SEYMOUR M. HERSH, The New Yorker

Dare I say that the Patriot Act should be used on President Bush? by Mary MacElveen, OpEdNews

Bush is Funding al-Qaeda, Making Him an Unlawful Combatant by DAVE LINDORFF, The Baltimore Chronicle

"Liberal Media" Needs to Apologize

2006-11-01T19:39:00.000-05:00

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

2006-10-18T13:04:00.000-04:00

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

2006-09-24T20:40:00.001-04:00

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

2006-08-30T22:46:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-07T22:29:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-02T23:03:00.002-04:00

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?

2006-07-31T22:58:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-30T23:16:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-01T22:44:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-24T19:38:00.000-04:00

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

Is Shrub Darwin's 'Missing Link?'

2006-05-21T20:15:00.000-04:00

Real headline fake photo.

Music for the Horde

2006-04-15T16:50:00.004-04:00

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 webpage
2] Pink - Dear Mr. President - download and video
3] Low - Nowhere Man - download
4] RX - Imagine ... Walk on the Wild Side - download and video
5] Jackson Brown - Lives in the Balance - video
6] Willie Nelson - Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth - download
7] Jonatha Brooke - War - download
8] Nerina Pallot - Everybody's Gone to War - Video
9] Thomas Pace - Home No More - download
10] Ryland Bouchard - Life (What Warriors Sing) - download
11] Amy Martin - Consequences - download
12] Cat Power - Maybe Not - download
13] Neil Young - When God Made Me - plays from webpage
14] DJ Monkey - Jerusalem - play
15] Elly K - Sing - download

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

The Blue Horde is coming

2006-04-02T17:53:00.001-04:00

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.

The Blue Horde

Ohio CAN have a do-over: How to throw the bums out This Year

Irresponsible

Revive Social Security

Alito Was Wrong

Sam Seder: Mosque at Ground Zero: That's Bullshit

Fareed Zakaria:

Build the Ground Zero Mosque

The End of the Middle Class 2

Hobos and welfare for America's Rich

Presidential Reunion

How to respond to the Party of NO

Who really deserves the Bankster Bonuses?

Mock Them

How to do it

Child Labor Endorsing, Pro-Slavery Freaks

The Best Health Care Bill that Money Can Buy

30 Senators side with Gang Rape

We're Number 37!

Send in the Big Dog

SOCIALISM! Booga Booga Boo!

The High Cost of Doing Nothing

Senator Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions III: Tool

Did the US Navy just save the world?

Sorry about destroying the world

Cheney Admits to War Crime

Still Trying to Kill Joe Hill

Saving Detroit

Thank You Sarah Palin

Typical Day for Obama Volunteers

The Real Mavericks want their good name back

The 700 Billion Dollar Mugging

Obama makes "Worst Persons" list

Democracy First First First

700 Billion Dollars, Section 8, and my Tin Foil Haberdashery

Why They Lie

A Man Without Honor

Sarah Palin Education Plan

New Memes in the Echo Chamber

The Smartest Move Ever Made By A TV Network

Straight Talk

Double Standards

New McCain Ad?

Playing the Race Card

No Comment ....

Lapdogs

john.he.is

Dear Superdelegates

A Renewed Declaration of Independence

The End of the Middle Class

Soviet Era Secret Laws come to Amerika

L'Affair Plame - It Doesn't End with Libby

Treason

"Liberal Media" Needs to Apologize

Lawsuit Filed to Prevent Blackwell Stealing Another Election

They don't give a damn about our freedom

Olbermann Channels Murrow

The Constitution in Crisis

Taking My Country Back

How Ill is George W. Bush?

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Again

The Sundering of Democracy

Battlefield Earth

Is Shrub Darwin's 'Missing Link?'

Music for the Horde

The Blue Horde is coming