Category: Politics

Leaving Bushworld……..222 days

Justice Kennedy, today: To hold the political branches have the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will is quite another.

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From 2002:

“That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” the Bush aide told the journalist. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do.”

New Fox Sitcom! Everybody Loves Bush!

Well, our least favorite President of all time and forevah, George W. Bush blew into Rome, Italy yesterday to be greeted by adoring fans and happy little Italian warmongers.  

The President, who may not be particularly popular here in the United States of America packs him some serious WOW! power over in the “Old Country” across the pond.  Even the Pope was shaking his BUSH – ONE MORE TERM! pom-pom’s as Airforce One touched down on Italian soil.

OK.  Now that the dream sequence is over for the opening show of our new Fox Sitcom, let’s discuss what really greeted our Cowboy-In-Chief when Air Force One touched down on Italian soil.

George Washington Said There’d Be Days Like This

George Washington said our hope of maintaining our precious freedom lies with making common cause around the constitution.  When Obama focuses on unity, he’s not just using a pretty word for effect.  He’s talking about what Washington called the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity.

Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.

Washington says one way can lose our freedom is to allow a faction to direct, control, counteract, or awe the constitutional deliberations of our government.  If we allow this, it can be fatal.  It replaces the voice of we the people with the self-interested will of one party, or group, or cabal, or sect.  If we allow a faction to take the reins of power from we the people, the situation is created so that in time, cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will take away the power of the people and hold the reins of government.  In the end, they will destroy the institutions, laws, and traditions of our constitutional government.

17 All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.

18 However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

If we care to preserve the “engines” of our government, we will impeach George W. Bush.

The Republicans Are Fucked {Warning: Appropriate Language}

MAN did that feel good to write!

I wanna do it again

The Republicans are Fucked!

May I suggest that you try it too? Just write it down somewhere, in a comment or something. Political caution, responsible blogging, not taking your enemy for granted, hubris, arrogance, being “looney,” all are good reasons for not writing that sentence. But today I don’t care. The Republicans are Fucked with McCain as their candidate, running in favor of a war manufactured from lies that makes us less safe, a crumbling economy that is directly tied to that war, outrageous gas prices as a result, and a rising tide of incriminating evidence detailing just how horrifically bad Bush, McCain and every other Rubber Stamp Republican Congressdufus have fucked the entire country…..The Republicans are FUCKED! And for once….they are even (sort of) facing reality! That is just how fucked they are…they are so fucked that they …Republicans…actually have to admit something! Namely….that they are fucked! I have waited all of my life for the Republicans to be this fucked….and now they are! Hold your heads high, progressives, liberals and radical lefties! Allow a smile to crack your oppressed by traitorous totalitarian theocon idiots for eight years facial muscles! Sure you gloomy gus’s out there will point out that we are all fucked by their active repression on Climate Crisis, that we are mired in a complete clusterfuck in the Middle East and that we all may starve or be foreclosed out of our houses or destroyed by tornadoes on the way to buy $5 a gallon gas while being spied on by our own government….but…. look on the bright side! They are even more fucked than we are ….and we might actually be able to fix some of this stuff soon! Maybe.

It’s early, there is plenty of time left for everything to ‘go south,’ but for today……I feel like doing an inappropriate Happy Dance….

ordinary americans

Liberals need another George McGovern-and perhaps conservatives do too

In the home stretch of the ’72 campaign, [George] McGovern said, “Government has become so vast and impersonal that its interests diverge more and more from the interests of ordinary citizens.”



I was digging around the internet for statistics on liberals, conservatives, and moderates. And ran into a conservative (Bill Kauffman) writing with reverence about the left’s George McGovern. Interesting, I thought.

Especially the part where he talks about McGovern crediting George Wallace’s appeal as a candidate to “a sense of powerlessness in the face of big government, big corporations, and big labor unions.” He asked Wallace for his endorsement, though as he recalls with a smile, “He said, ‘Sena-tah, if I endorsed you I’d lose about half of my following and you’d lose half of yours.'” Well, maybe, guv-nah-but just think of the coalescent possibilities of the remaining halves.

“It is not prejudice to fear for your family’s safety or to resent tax inequities. … It is time to recognize this and to stop labeling people ‘racist’ or ‘militant,’ to stop putting people in different camps, to stop inciting one American against another,” said McGovern, who called the Wallace vote “an angry cry from the guts of ordinary Americans against a system which doesn’t seem to give a damn about what is really bothering people in this country today.”

What hits me in my gut is that last line…

…an angry cry from the guts of ordinary Americans against a system which doesn’t seem to give a damn about what is really bothering people in this country today

McCain’s speech leaves Fox News speechless (video)

Our managing editor forwarded this.  Haven’t laughed so much in months (amidst renewed encouragement for an Obama win against McCain). A quick post to share (in case you haven’t yet seen it):

Enjoy!

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government

Here’s the text if you can’t make the leap:

Freedom of the Press

       A press that is free to investigate and criticize the government is absolutely essential in a nation that practices self-government and is therefore dependent on an educated and enlightened citizenry. On the other hand, newspapers too often take advantage of their freedom and publish lies and scurrilous gossip that could only deceive and mislead the people. Jefferson himself suffered greatly under the latter kind of press during his presidency. But he was a great believer in the ultimate triumph of truth in the free marketplace of ideas, and looked to that for his final vindication.

Jump…

The Politics of The People’s Champions

Yesterday I introduced the concept of The People’s Champions for discussion and refinement by the community. This is a continuing exploration of the concept, please join in!

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It is the politics of fear that have brought us to this sorry turn. If there is one thing that Bushco can be said to have done well (besides making the rich obscenely richer and the poor obscenely poorer and kill folks) it is their masterful use of the politics of fear. They cowed Congress, they cowed the press and with a few exceptions…they cowed the populace. This phenomenon is far from over. It will be on prominent display from now until the election…and beyond.

It is manifested most clearly in the Emperors New Clothes metaphor, where no one of prominence has survived standing up and pointing. Every person who has done this has been smeared marginalized or ignored. The lesson was well learned and is still observed. But the proverbial (impeachment free) table is turning. His lame duckness, the weakness of his successor and the nations desire for change are conspiring against him. As are the sands of time that are removing us from the trauma of 9/11, the trauma that made that fear the most powerful force in the land.

Obama is a symbol of that…but as a symbol he is perhaps most enduringly affected by it. He cannot buck the fear to0 hard without incurring a backlash….from those forces and voters who still treasure or use that fear. Due to the success of the ‘wedge issue effect’ of that fear that has succeeded in dividing the nation, he cannot be seen to be “angry,” or attack Bushco other than on pure policy grounds. That would be ‘shrill’ or ‘looney.’ He, as I have previously stated, needs surrogates to attack for him. The Peoples Champions would be one aspect of that strategy. These three Great Men, backed by a citizen coalition could attack Bushco….and metaphorically live to tell the tale. In fact I think this is what it will take, since we have exhausted nearly every other option. Is it possible? It is certainly worth a try!

The People’s Champions

Crimes have been committed in the last eight years. War crimes. Treason. Our government stripping our rights and spying on us. Torture. These crimes have been committed in all of our names. We have tried our best to publicize these crimes on the internet, hoping the Corporate Media would brig them to full light for the nation to address. As is being currently illustrated by McClellan’s book and by the Pentagon Propaganda scandal…The Press has failed the People.

We have tried to have the crimes redressed through the channels the Constitution has provided, imploring and demanding that our Representatives start the impeachment process. Their incredibly weak efforts at performing their oversight duties have so far produced only a stalled court case over the right of Congress to even subpoena the criminals in the executive branch. Our Representatives have failed us. We have demonstrated peacefully in the streets, our Right to assemble has failed us, as the protest have been ignored by both the press and the government.

The People have been repulsed at every turn in their quest to even have mere investigations into these crimes. The Powers That Be are invested in the status quo to the point of paralysis. With no one to speak for us in the Press (except Olbermann) and only a few brave Congresspeople speaking out…the People need a new way to press their case to punish the criminals, restore their rights ad make sure that a host horrifying precedents are it set by letting these crimes pass into history.

Today I propose that we try something new, to enlist three champions of the People in our quest for Justice.

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“Stab Your Friends In The Back” Republicans? Screw ‘Em!


I’m not feeling very generous towards Republicans these days.  No matter what they now say, they let Bush, that bald other-president and all their cronies assault our country and attempt to lay waste our core beliefs.

Impeachment’s too good for those cats, but what the ‘ell… Bring it on!

But they aren’t the only ones to blame.  I blame all Republicans.  

Iraq.  And lying.

Especially for 2004.

Lying.

And the last 8 years of attempted fascist rule.

And Iraq.

And Iran (a preempt).

And for putting me in the position where, eventually, I’m going to have to forgive them for all that, and much more, because someday I’ll end up coming to my senses and see that that’s the only way to forgive myself for writing essays like this one.

Damn Republicans!

Planet Shit Dispatch: Hillary Hustle Edition



The Hustle


Denver, CO – At the main entrance to Denver International Airport there is a towering statue of a blue fiberglass bronco with blazing eyes. Mustang is the closest thing to a horse from Hell that I have personally ever seen and the fucker is eerily disturbing on a very basic level. It pops up visibly from miles away as you drive into that massive airport that is closer to the fucking Kansas state line than the Mile High City like some primitive warning to ward off warring tribes, very primal. The story behind the damned thing apparently is more than somewhat macabre as it fell upon the sculptor one Luis Jiminez, killing him prior to being finished which to the more superstitious amongst us is in and of itself enough to send chills up the spine and make the roots of hair follicles tingle. The brutal irony of this monstrosity guarding DIA with the coming war for the future of the Democratic party at the Denver convention this August is absolutely delicious.

Sausage Making

I dunno why, I watched much of the Rules Committee meeting on C-SPAN today.

It’s strange — I haven’t been following the process in detail the whole time, and yet today I ended up watching most of the meeting.

And I also spent a lot of time reading comments at Daily Kos on open threads and diaries.

I feel like a virgin who just got laid — and it wasn’t terrible or anything, but it sure wasn’t very romantic.

Yeah it was that vulgar.

They say making laws is like making sausages, you don’t want to know too much about the details or it would nauseate you.  I’d say the same for all of politics.

And I’m finally willing to be nauseated.  Heh.

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