Nothing more really needs to be said

what's really fascinating is this shithead dumbfuck says the people can handle the truth or whatever. Well.... President Joe Biden has been saying that he's keeping his hand off the DOJ, and Merrick Garland is keeping his hand off the Special Counsel Jack Smith. So, I ask him, what the hell different does he think he's gonna learn. Fucking republicans need to start thinking about governing, and fixing the problems this country has, instead of looking foe revenge because their false idol is crashing down on them.

it does seem as if too many people have a problem with reading comprehension. So as a public service...

A reading comprehension test. 

 SANIBEL, Fla.— People are taking full advantage of visiting Sanibel with no causeway tolls, and business owners said they are loving this idea. Clare Harris at Billy’s Rentals said, “We’ve definitely seen an uptake in customers today; it’s wonderful.” Harris said the toll fee being waived has helped her get more customers on bikes. “It’s just great to see the families come out,” Harris smiled. The Brandl family being one of them. Liz Brandl is visiting Sanibel with her family. She said, “We’re going to go on a bike ride and go see the lighthouse with the kids and then we wanted to go out and explore some beaches today.” Liz said not having to pay the toll fee made her visit to Sanibel even better. “It was wonderful! It was really easy to enter; we appreciate saving the money coming over here,” smiled Liz. Plus, the rest of the Brandl family was so happy to be able to be back on the island. Jeff Brandl said, “It was beautiful; it was good to see things coming back after the hurricane.” When asked if he was going to have fun today, Nolan Brandl exclaimed, “Yes!” The Sanibel and Captiva Islands Chamber of Commerce says suspending toll fees comes at a cost of 30 thousand dollars each day, that’s 180 thousand dollars total over the six weeks period. Harris stated, “This island is so special, and you can go out for a bite, enjoy the beach and the sancap saver where you can absolutely go out enjoy some of the restaurants as well.” The Sanibel Causeway toll fee is being waived today and every Sunday for the next five Sundays.

https://abc-7.com/news/local/lee-county/2023/08/01/sanibel-causeway-tolls-waived-for-six-sundays-to-support-local-businesses/

The child

On this Electoral College day...I like to reflect on 'the serious answer'...

12-14-2020

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214709776

'An anguished question from a Trump supporter: "Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?"

 The serious answer: Here’s what we really think about Trump supporters - the rich, the poor, the malignant and the innocently well-meaning, the ones who think and the ones who don't... 

• That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought "Fine."
• That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, "Okay."
• That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, "No problem."
• That when he made up stories about seeing muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, "Not an issue."
• That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you chirped, "He sure knows me."
• That when you heard him illustrate his own character by telling that cute story about the elderly guest bleeding on the floor at his country club, the story about how he turned his back and how it was all an imposition on him, you said, "That's cool!"
• That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw. That when you heard him brag that he doesn't read books, you said, "Well, who has time?"
• That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, "That makes sense."
• That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, "Yes!"
• That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man's coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, "What a great guy!"
• That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, "Thumbs up!"
• That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, "That's the way I want my President to be."
• That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, "What a genius!"
• That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, "That's smart!"
• That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was the middle of water and you have said, "That makes sense."
• That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, "falling in love" with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, "That's statesmanship!"
• That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids. has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas - he explains that they’re just “animals” - and you say, “well, ok then.”
• That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise.

 What you don't get, Trump supporters in 2019, is that succumbing to frustration and thinking of you as stupid may be wrong and unhelpful, but it's also...hear me...charitable.

Because if you're NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.'

~~

by Florida writer Adam-Troy Castro

How VP Harris Can Sideline Moscow Mitch

 NOV 14, 2020

https://newsflector.com/how-vp-harris-can-sideline-moscow-mitch/

Even if the Democrats don’t win control of the Senate, there is a way to strip Mitch McConnell of his power for good: priority recognition.

According to Article I, Section 3, Clause 4 of the Constitution, the Vice President is also the President of the Senate. The Majority Leader is not a position that exists anywhere in the Constitution. The reason that the Majority Leader has near-dictatorial powers to control floor votes is because of a tradition that dates back to 1937. The tradition is that the Vice President gives the floor leaders priority recognition. Most notably, this is not a rule in the Senate.

As President of the Senate, Vice President Harris could give any senator priority recognition. That senator could then decide on all legislation that is brought before the entire Senate. Even with a minority in the Senate, Vice President Harris could simply give Chuck Schumer priority recognition. He could decide what is voted on and what isn’t.

This would change everything. Without Mitch McConnell to hide behind, the moderate Republican Senators would be forced to vote down every Cabinet member, bill, resolution, everything that Harris would want done. Without McConnell, anything even remotely popular with at least two senators would pass. Including getting a cabinet assembled.

I see some debate as to what the Senate rules do and do not permit. I encourage everyone to read this article on the actual written rules (below) and why the Majority Leader is so powerful today. It should be noted, however, unlike the House of Representatives, a large part of the Senate rules is tradition. As Mitch McConnell will gladly tell you, tradition is not written rule.

Also, This wouldn’t be the first time Schumer has done something like this. And yes, while there’s the possibility of rule changes, they cannot change the Constitution.At the end of the day, Madame Vice President Harris is President of the Senate. Period. Not Mitch McConnell

What makes Senate leaders so powerful?

by James Wallner

August 1, 2018

https://www.legbranch.org/2018-8-1-what-makes-senate-leaders-so-powerful/

The floor leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties dominate today’s Senate. They play a central role both in crafting major bills and in shepherding them through the legislative process from beginning to end. And they cultivate carefully the expectation that they are responsible for setting the Senate’s agenda and for regulating the ability of their colleagues to participate in the decision-making process by offering amendments. 

For example, consider recent claims by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that he alone decides what bills get considered on the Senate floor. When asked if the Senate would consider legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller, McConnell responded, “I’m the one who decides what we take to the floor, that’s my responsibility as the majority leader, and we will not be having this on the floor of the Senate.” Or take Harry Reid’s, D-NV., regular habit of deciding what, if any, amendments were permitted to be offered to bills when he was majority leader.

Yet notwithstanding the mounting frustration among rank-and-file members during the tenures of both leaders, neither Reid nor McConnell saw a significant challenge to their leadership. The takeaway from this is that party leaders wield more power today than at any other point in the Senate’s history. And it suggests that rank-and-file members, despite their clear frustration with the status quo, cannot imagine the Senate working without the active involvement of their leaders.

That members have been conditioned to think in this way sheds light on the paradoxical source of leader power in today’s Senate. Put simply, party leaders are powerful because rank-and-file senators defer to them to manage the institution how they see fit. This deference is not mandated by the Senate’s official rules. Rather, it is simply grounded in its past practice. The implication is that frustrated members can easily change how the Senate operates at any point. All that’s needed is a willingness on their part to recast their relationship with the Senate’s leaders.

STANDING RULES VS. PRECEDENTS

Unlike their colleagues in the House, the power of the Senate’s leaders is not derived from the institution’s formal, or written, rules. There are currently forty-four Standing Rules of the Senate that govern everything from non-controversial issues like the oath of office (Rule III) and the committee referral process (Rule XXVII) to controversial issues such as the process to end debate (Rule XXII). For the most part, the Standing Rules are very general and do not address circumstances that may arise in specific parliamentary situations.

The Senate operates daily largely according to informal, or unwritten, rules established pursuant to a collection of precedents. According to the late Senator Robert C. Byrd, D-WV., “Precedents reflect the application of the Constitution, statutes, the Senate rules, and commonsense reasoning to specific past parliamentary situations.” Former Senate Parliamentarian Floyd M. Riddick argued that precedents embody the practices of the Senate pursuant to the Constitution, its Standing Rules, and any relevant rule-making statutes. These practices serve to “fill in the gaps” contained in these procedural authorities when they fail to address specific parliamentary situations. In this sense, the impact of precedents on Senate procedures is like that of judicial decisions in case law. Both have the force of formal rules/laws and are thus binding in the same way on future action.

PRECEDENTS AND LEADER POWER

Party leaders derive their power from the Senate’s precedents, not its Standing Rules. Of the forty-four rules, only ten mention the majority and minority leaders. And those ten rules do not grant the leaders any real power vis-à-vis the rank-and-file.

[A list of the Senate rules that mention specifically the majority and/or minority leader is included at the end of this post, along with a short description of the relevant provisions in each. A full list of the Senate’s Standing Rules can be found here.]

Under the rules, all senators are essentially equal. That is, no senator is more powerful than another. However, the majority leader is clearly considered to be the most powerful senator today. This perception is based on his ability to make motions to proceed to legislation and nominations and to fill the so-called amendment tree (i.e. offer the maximum allowable number of amendments to legislation to block senators from offering their own amendments). Both are based on his ability to be recognized first by the Senate’s Presiding Officer. But the leader’s preferential recognition and, by extension, his ability to make motions to proceed to bills and nominees and his ability to fill the amendment tree, are grounded only in precedent. And the leader’s power in these areas is perpetuated simply by senators’ continued deference to the majority leader to wield them however he chooses.

The majority leader has the right of first recognition pursuant to precedent. The leader was first granted priority of recognition in 1937 because of a ruling made by Vice President John (“Cactus Jack”) Nance Garner while presiding over the Senate. On his own initiative, the Vice President decided that “in the event that several senators seek recognition simultaneously, priority of recognition shall be accorded to the majority leader and minority leader, the majority [bill] manager and the minority [bill] manager, in that order.”

By creating the right of preferential recognition, the Garner precedent serves as the foundation on which leader power is based in the Senate today. Since any member can technically make a motion to proceed to legislation or a nomination under the Senate’s rules, being the first to do so enables the majority leader to set the schedule and control the agenda to a limited degree. Note that the minority leader is the next most powerful senator under this formulation. This is because he has preferential recognition after the majority leader. That technically makes him more powerful than the other 98 members of the Senate, including those in the majority party.

It is the prerogative of the majority leader by long-standing practice to move to proceed to the Senate’s floor business. According to Senate precedent, “motions to proceed to the consideration of bills and resolutions on the calendar are usually made by the majority leader or his designee, who, as spokesman of his party and in consultation with his policy committee, implements and directs the legislative schedule and program.” But there is no explicit provision in the Senate’s rules or precedents stipulating that motions to be proceed can only be made by the leader. In reality, any rank-and-file member, or the minority leader, can make a motion to proceed to a bill or nominee on the Senate floor. They simply choose not to and instead defer to the majority leader to do so.

Priority of recognition also allows the leader to block votes on undesirable amendments. The ability to be recognized first before other members enables the majority leader to fill the amendment tree. Like the leaders’ preferential recognition on the Senate floor, today’s amendment process was largely established by precedent and not by the institution’s Standing Rules. That is, the amendment process evolved over the years and is based on a continued interpretation of past parliamentary practice. Those precedents stipulate the nature of amendment that may be offered at a particular point in time (i.e. first or second degree; perfecting or substitute). According to precedent, “Any senator recognized is entitled to offer an amendment when such amendment is otherwise in order, but he cannot offer an amendment unless he has been recognized or has the floor.” The process of filling the amendment tree thus follows precedent to block members from offering their own amendments.

LEADER POWER DEPENDS ON MEMBER DEFERENCE

Senate leaders have no formal power under the institution’s rules to compel their colleagues to comply with their dictates. Rather, their continued ability to control the Senate rests on nothing more than the continued deference of rank-and-file members. And given the precedential nature of leader power in the Senate at present, the rank-and-file can change overnight how the institution works should they choose to do so. 

PARTY LEADERS AND THE STANDING RULES

1.     Rule XV: Amendments and Motions

Requires a senator offering an amendment (or making a motion to recommit a measure with instructions) to provide copies “to the desks of the majority leader and the minority leader before being debated.” 

Note that it is the desk, and not the leader who sits at the desk, that is empowered here.

2.     Rule XXII: Precedence of Motions (i.e. the cloture rule)

Stipulates that post-cloture debate time may be extended beyond the 30-hour limit set by the rule if approved by three-fifths of senators duly chosen and sworn (typically 60). When that happens, the rule specifies that “any such time thus agreed upon shall be equally divided between and controlled by the majority and minority leaders or their designees.”

Stipulates that during post-cloture debate, “a senator may yield all or part of his one hour to the majority or minority floor managers of the measure…or to the majority or minority leader.” Yet the rule goes on to place limits on the total amount of time leaders can have yielded to them, stating, “…but each senator specified shall not have more than two hours so yielded to him.”

Shortens the time required to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed to a measure if it “is signed by 16 senators, including the majority leader, the minority leader, 7 additional senators not affiliated with the majority, and 7 additional senators not affiliated with the minority.” Under normal circumstances, the rule requires only 16 senators to sign a cloture petition for it to be operative.

3.     Rule XXIII: Privilege of the Floor

Allows the Committee on Rules and Administration to promulgate regulates permitting currently-banned individuals (i.e. registered lobbyists, etc.) from the Senate floor for ceremonial events and “events designated by the majority leader and the minority leader.”

4.     Rule XXV: Standing Committees

Authorizes the majority and minority leaders to jointly increase, albeit only temporarily, committee memberships “by such number or numbers as may be required to accord to the majority party a majority of the memberships of all standing committees.”

5.     Rule XXVI: Committee Procedure

Prohibits committees from meeting two hours after the Senate first convenes “and in no case after two o’clock postmeridian unless consent therefore has been obtained from the majority leader and the minority leader (or in the event of the absence of either of such leaders, from his designee).”

Requires the majority leader or his designee to announce to the Senate whenever consent has been granted under the rule and to specify the time and place of such meetings.

6.     Rule XXVIII: Conference Committees; Reports; Open Meetings

Stipulates in several places that total debate on motions to waive points of order authorized by the rule is limited to not more than one hour “equally divided between the majority leader and the minority leader or their designees.”

Stipulates in several places that total debate on appeals from the ruling of the Presiding Officer/Chair is limited to one hour “equally divided between the majority leader and the minority leader or their designees.”

Requires conference reports (i.e. bills agreed to by the House and Senate in a conference committee) to be publicly available for at least 48 hours before a vote. But this provision “may be waived by joint agreement of the majority leader and the minority leader of the Senate, upon their certification that such waiver is necessary as a result of a significant disruption to Senate facilities or to the availability of the Internet.”

7.     Rule XXXIV: Public Financial Disclosure

Clarifies the relationship between leadership staff and the member of leadership (including the majority and minority leaders) that employs them for purposes of the financial disclosure reporting process.

8.     Rule XXXVII: Conflict of Interest

Clarifies the relationship between leadership staff and the member of leadership (including the majority and minority leaders) that employs them for purposes of the rule.

9.     Rule XLI: Political Fund Activity; Definitions

Authorizes the majority and minority leaders to designate an employee(s) in their respective leadership offices to perform political functions in accordance with the rule.

10.  Rule XLIV: Congressionally Directed Spending and Related Items

Requires in certain circumstances that the majority leader, or his designee, certify that any congressionally directed spending items (i.e. earmarks) included in a bill are done so in accordance with the rule.

Stipulates that total debate on motions to waive points of order authorized by the rule is limited to not more than one hour “equally divided between the majority leader and the minority leader or their designees.”

Stipulates that total debate on appeals from the ruling of the Presiding Officer/Chair is limited to one hour “equally divided between the majority leader and the minority leader or their designees.”

 

This article originally appeared in the Legislative Procedure blog on July 31, 2018.

James Wallner is a senior fellow of the R Street Institute and member of R Street’s Governance Project and Legislative Branch Capacity Working Group teams. resident of the Senate. Period. Not Mitch McConnell.

 

The case against war.
Support and defend. I have always insisted that my employers observed this with regard to employee rights. The armed services ask, at the outset, that the employee relinquish those rights. This seems contradictory to me. That’s not a citizen’s army. It’s a hit squad. In any fight you need a defense as well. Agility, training and strength may also be a factor. The best a soldier can do is take no action that violates that contract. Such are truly patriots. A modest draft, with an exemption for other projects in the national interest, seems like a reasonable option. To be clear, the armed forces are for the national defense in the world that is or will be in a short time.
Moving on, what size military do we require? The question is best answered by an accurate assessment of our enemies. I would submit that they are fewer than we would expect, given the devastation we have caused. In any rational assessment, it is time to stand down from our current posture and begin to adapt away from confrontation. Just a tiny bit? For a prolonged time? The nuclear option seems remote enough to lower production to the lowest level possible. We need a Department of State that understands foreign relations and doesn’t see an enemy under every rock. This applies to the intelligence agencies as well. The patriot Act should switch names with the Whistleblower Act.
It is a remarkably clear path. Just ask who fears peace? Then look as the conglomerate enemy of peace reveals itself. And then ask why. The world is remarkably peaceful but for those suffering from greed.  

get outa jail

.                                 Change of Circumstance
Some union huh? The United States was born out of revolution. The crazy king was treating his own people as second-class citizens. The French and Spanish kings were not doing this. Where is the justice in that? This ill treatment came about in the lifetime of most of the original patriots. The king and many of his island subjects were paying a dear price for the Seven Years War with France. The declaration of independence is replete with examples of the injustices. At this very time in history a revolution of ideas was occurring, the enlightenment. Mix the two and you have something that even the authors of the constitution could not fully grasp, nor did they pretend to. They simply tried their best.

The preamble to the constitution, which legal scholars agree, has no force in law, States: ”We the people (herein after known as property holders) in order to firm a more perfect union (of states) … do establish this constitution.” The founders were petty successful in that but for the various suffrage movements, slavery, the sovereignty of native nations and immigration. And so, the revolution continues. We have changed the meaning of the preamble, which is our right, to mean what it says, without the brackets. We and by extension, the rest of the Americas have become pluralistic. So much so that authoritarian leaders throughout the world feel threatened. Witness the fall of communist regimes in eastern Europe, the Arab Spring, the world wide indigenous movement to protect the land and water, the struggles to preserve cultural identity throughout Africa, in India and in China. The voice of ‘we the people’ is being heard in Moscow and throughout Russia. The people allied against authoritarianism is a powerful struggle and it began in the US by accident. You gotta love it if you’re not one of the landed gentry. In their way they require authoritarian protection because ownership was never a sound idea.

Looked at from this lens, it is not so unusual that the socialists and libertarians are joining forces, temporarily, to rebel against the status quo. They can fight together or die separately. Their combined pressure on the powers that be is showing considerable strength. So much so that the propagandists are  being forced into exposing themselves. In addition, the real news people cannot keep fully abreast of what is really going on.

Now let’s talk about the military. Truman, to his credit, integrated the armed forces long before it happened in the rest of the country. As a pluralistic entity the military is no friend of those who seek to divide us. Let’s call this the Crackers Dilemma. They continue to try to subvert the military, who they want as a natural ally, but to little avail. The military is prone, however, to socialist and libertarian notions. This is because they have long been a part of the fabric of the country. The military is also witness to what Ike deemed ‘the military industrial complex.’ They see the role of Raytheon, Haliburton and others every day and they see the high cost of war. I do not expect the military to blindly accept this cost, especially when led by chicken hawks, as they currently are.

A word about the spiritual world. Moral leadership has little to do with sermonizing. It is all about doing the right thing in so far as you can see what the right thing is. The truly innocent do not suffer from guilt, nor do they deny it. They do not see good and evil (original sin) but rather, they see what is. They know well that they will be persecuted for speaking the truth and they try to act in accordance with this fateful knowledge. As such, they are not subject to the falsities of Mammon (an old name for materialists). The truly spiritual do not see sanctity of life as a cause but as an end. The hypocrisy of senseless war is too apparent to feel otherwise. To speak of such matters is beyond me except to say that pure evil and pure goodness are unknowable in our realm. Thus, even Putin has some good qualities, perhaps as many as Falwell. Hypocrisy and the lack of structural moral leadership has led religion into decline save for those who pray aloud.













  

your and you're. knowing the difference

The White House

regime change

Collusion

COLLUSION. Is an agreement between two or more persons to defraud a person of his rights by the forms of law, or to obtain an object forbidden by law. It implies the existence of fraud of some kind, the employment of fraudulent means, or of lawful means for the accomplishment of an unlawful purpose. May Hosiery Mills v. United States

District Court in and for Dist. of Montana, C.C.A. Mont., 64 F.2d 450, 454.

A secret combination, conspiracy, or concert of action between two or more persons for fraudulent or deceitful purpose.

W. E. Bowen Improvement Co. v. Van Half ten, 209 Mo.App. 629, 238 S.W. 147, 149; Daly v. Haight, 156 N.Y.S. 538, 541, 170 App.Div. 469.

BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY

REVISED FOURTH EDITION

This one’s for Florida residents.

The Supreme Court ruled in U.S. TERM LIMITS, INC. v. THORNTON, (1995), that neither Congress, nor the States have the power to impose term limits, or any other requirement beyond that which is enumerated in Article One of the U.S. constitution.

To assist dick scott, the skeletor of Florida, here is how to amend the constitution. Please read it carefully, and stop embarrassing us and yourself with your lead off ad to replace Bill Nelson in the Senate.


Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

  this is the ad I'm talking about

Tough Guys in the Senate

So, they voted to continue funding the abomination in Yemen. Each party struggles to take the strongest stance in the fight with our many enemies. *The neo-liberals and most of the Republicans think it is a good idea to contribute to the continued destruction of one of the poorest countries on earth. The Saudis’ want it to be their breadbasket when they make the move to desalinate with nuclear power--very forward thinking of them. We want to keep Arabia as a partner in order to keep the price of energy low, thereby harming the emerging oil rich countries of Venezuela, Brazil, Iran and, of course Russia. I suppose the politicians feel that the voters are to ignorant to understand the geo-political maze of the modern global economy; that the economic benefits of slaughtering a million starving people has to be understood in all of its rich complexities; that those who oppose the atrocity are weak, stupid, do-gooders with a kind heart but no sense. Well to them I say “you are the misguide ones.” I could expand on my reasoning but if you cannot figure it out for yourselves with the following clues A) moral compass B) survival of the species C) imagination, you will never achieve enlightenment. You see, I am trying to be forward thinking; if I were otherwise, I would just say “fuck you.”

*On the motion to table

Democratss voting YEA: Coons DE, Cortez- Masto NV, Donnelly IN, Heitkamp ND, Jones AL, Manchin WV, Menendez NJ, Nelson FL, Reed RI, Whitehouse RI, Risch ID (way to go RI)

Republicans voting NAY: Moran KS, Paul KY, Lee UT, Daines MT, Collins ME

The State of the Union

We are now in the process of taxing the persons of the United States to develop a Military and security system that is beyond belief. At he same time that we are gutting all regulatory agencies, diminishing social programs and down sizing the State Department. Democracy is dying or dead in most states and civil liberties are being eroded faster than ever before. The media holds on to the quaint notion that it is still possible to change our circumstance or, in the case of state controlled media, that this is normal.

Some believe that a Democratic wave in this years elections could reverse the power grab. For the most part it will only change the name of the oppressors. Democrats have no intention, beyond lip service, of lessening the security state, of reestablishing the 4^th or 8^th amendments, restoring regular order, building up the State Department or increasing social programs. They can’t even agree on “Medicare for all”.

Division is the word of the day, racial, economic, political, social and international. The state of the union? Dead. The state of the republic? Sold. The state of democracy? A few voices in the wilderness. And the charade goes on. That’s the way it is. Goodnight and good luck.

Hey, American People!

By Sheila Samples
December 13, 2010

"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whew. Nasty. That was one hell of a campaign season; one hell of an election. Democrats emerged, bruised and broken, yet their mindset seems to be -- hey, we survived Bush, how bad can it be? Sadly, the grim truth they refuse to face is -- we didn't survive Bush...

The radical right-wing, neo-conservative, religious-based, hate-empowered GOP once again owes the half-crazed ideologues in the Supreme Court a hearty thanks for plunging yet another dagger into the heart of democracy with its Citizens United corporate giveaway. And no Justice on that venerable body is more ideologically rigid than Dick Cheney's hunting buddy Antonin Scalia, who ramrodded the Court's 2000 Presidential "Selection" for George W. Bush, and is now out there taking aim at the century-old 17th Amendment to the US Constitution, which is literally the last barrier to a corporate-owned nation.

The 17th Amendment allows U.S. Senators to be elected by the people, rather than by individual state legislatures. Recently, referring to the Constitution, Scalia said the 17th Amendment "has changed things enormously. We changed that in a burst of progressivism in 1913, and you can trace the decline of so-called states’ rights throughout the rest of the 20th century..."

We need another "burst of progressivism" -- and soon. We are in the throes of a political convulsion, an intellectual and moral battle that we are increasingly in danger of losing. It's time to stop, take a deep national breath, and then...take a deep national bath. This nation has been in a spiraling nose dive for a decade...We need to make a genuine effort to actually see what we've only been looking at -- actually listen to what we've only been hearing.

Neither party spent much time talking about the issues; the real problems facing this country. Perhaps that's because the Republican party is a greedy force, too corrupt and venal to change -- and the Democratic Party is a shameless enabler, too timid and flabby to make a difference. Throw the corporate media in there, where it's all politics all the time because that's where the money is, and it's easy to see -- if you're really looking -- why we're caught up in the patriotic spirit of waving the flag for more tax cuts, trading freedoms for safety and following our presidential Pied Piper into the quagmire of endless war.

Republicans are dangerous. Like Bush, they are morally depraved, in that they feel no guilt or remorse for anything they say or do, regardless of the outcome. It's far too easy in this Tea Party sodden society to rationalize that murdering, wounding, displacing millions of innocent human beings was, and continues to be, necessary in order to protect the American people.

They say they are against big government, and justify their destruction of the social network by repeating "the american people...the american people...the american people" in mind-numbing repetition, much as Bush justified his bloodlust with a constant "september the 11th...september the 11th...september the 11th."

The only things Republicans have ever given to the American people is depression, poverty and despair. And their foot-stomping threats to shut down the government until their billionaire donors get a tax cut is a clear warning that more is on the way.

Having a Black man within a country mile of the Oval Office has driven a majority of Republicans, and some Democrats -- as liberal radio commentator Mike Malloy says -- "bat-shit crazy," and they are determined to destroy President Obama. Just days before the mid-term election, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared, “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Really? With the barrage of critical issues swirling throughout this nation -- more than 15-million "american people" unemployed and, every day, more losing jobs, homes, unemployment insurance, health insurance, their very lives -- yet nothing is more important than destroying the President?

Lest anyone think the old Kentuckian was racist, just days after the election, he chucked his hood and went into safe, regressive "american people" spin, saying for all practical purposes -- the american people reminded us this week that we work for the american people and we owe it to the american people and to future generations of the american people to work together to find solutions to present troubles of the american people and to help guide our nation of american people to better days...

“The formula is simple, really," McConnell said. "When the administration agrees with the American people, we will agree with the administration. When it disagrees with the American people, we won’t … If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction.”

Simple translation -- what all Republicans are saying if you listen -- Our way, or the highway -- and to hell with the American people.

Neither party can escape its history. American people struggling to prevent the American Flag from becoming their funeral shroud should remember that the Great Depression did not come about by accident. While Americans were standing in soup lines, the Republican administration was carrying Big Business through the crisis. Banks, insurance companies and corporate donors all got bailed out; big business got tax cuts -- but there was no relief for "the american people."

Sound familiar? Yes, because President Obama, in his cowering attempt at bipartisanship, is taking us "forward to the past" so rapidly that our knees are hitting our chins for nothing less than endless war, a recession caused by a permanent rich-man's tax cut and the final shredding of our social safety net. It is likely that our veterans, our children, our elderly will be forgotten or cast aside simply for the enrichment of lobbyists who paid for Republican campaigns and are now swarming all over the Capital.

Time is running out. Like Jon Stewart said when explaining the reason for his Oct. 30 Rally to Restore Sanity on the National Mall, the American people -- regardless of their political affiliation -- "Know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together."

So let's do it! The time is right. Let's give Scalia another badly needed "burst of progressivism." After all -- like McConnell says -- we're the american people...

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is an OpEd editor, and a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.

Federal Wage Freeze:

It's Like Tipping the Rich for Being Rich
the Rude Pundit
11/30/2010
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2010/11/federal-wage-freeze-its-like-tipping.html

see also:
Obama imposes pay freeze on 2.1 million federal workers
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/fede-n30.shtml

Unemployed and Unnoticed
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/pr20101130/index.html


Let us not argue for a moment the economics of President Obama's proposed federal employee pay freeze, except to say that it's about as uselessly symbolic a gesture as giving a piece of fruit to a fat man. Instead, let us think for a moment about the utterly dumbfounding and worthless political nature of the act. Because the Republicans are like that fat guy, and they're gonna take that fruit and say, "That's great. Now give us the rest of the groceries 'cause we're fucking fat and hungry here."

There was something just sorrowfully pathetic about watching the President, in the midst of negotiating some kind of endgame on tax cuts and while trying to figure out how to extend unemployment benefits, decide to triangulate and unilaterally give in to one of the Republicans' demands. What the hell happens now? Does the White House think that John Boehner will all of a sudden understand that the President is serious about working with the GOP? John Boehner doesn't fucking care. Motherfucker just had a meeting with Randall Terry, a terrorist as much as any radical imam anywhere.

The freeze applies to the across-the-board increases in salaries of federal employees, amounting to about 1.4%. It's not enough, of course, for Republicans. It's never enough. Odd-looking Mormon Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Nevada said that "the proposal does not appear to curb step increases. If that is the case, this announcement is nothing more than a hollow press release. At the end of the day, this policy will serve only to frustrate current employees while doing nothing to curb our debts." You know what that means? There's a chart of salary steps within each federal pay grade. For Chaffetz, who, as a congressman, earns more than about 99% of federal employees, it's not enough to freeze cost of living pay increases. Nope. Even within an unchanged pay scale of the government, you cannot advance salary-wise. That means that the poor fucker who's making $23,296, at grade 3, step 3, to clean Chaffetz's piss off toilets at the Capitol not only won't get a pissant general raise, but he can't move up a step to $24,024. You may say, "Well, that's the nature of a freeze," but you're not wiping up after Jason Chaffetz.

But let us not neglect that the backdrop for the pay freeze is deciding whether or not federal tax cuts should expire on income over $250,000 (or $1,000,000) a year. Essentially what Obama is saying is that a shit mopper at the Capitol ought to make less money so that the Koch brothers can afford to make more ads about what a socialist fucker Barack Obama is.

Two million people are about to lose their unemployment checks. Wall Street execs are making more money than ever while attempting to have their taxes cut. That's about as clear a case for wealth redistribution as one can make, except, of course, is that the right wants it redistributed to the rich. What President Obama doesn't seem to get, or hasn't demonstrated that he gets, is that the Republicans don't fucking care about anything other than making Barack Obama pay for being Barack Obama.

And if this post seems incoherent, like sputtering without meaning, it's because the Rude Pundit doesn't get it, either. What he doesn't get is why the pay freeze? Why another capitulation? What does it achieve, other than alienating even more people? When Obama finally caves on tax cuts for the wealthy, it'll be like federal workers just gave a tip to rich people just because rich people are so fucking great because they're rich.

The thing about a line in the sand is that, the second the sand shifts, the line disappears, as if it was never there to begin with.

Only If We Let It

By Sheila Samples
October 17, 2010

"History will repeat itself -- only if we let it"~~Mike Malloy

Hardly a day goes by that we are not inundated with demands to attack Iran. Our media, our Congress -- packs of neoconservatives -- have been howling for war on Iran for years. And years.

This reckless axis has been relentless in its orchestrated effort to manipulate and influence public opinion. And, if we are to believe the myriad of polls, it's working. According to investigative journalist Gareth Porter, who wrote on July 30 that "polling data for 2010 show a majority of Americans have been manipulated into supporting war against Iran -- in large part because more than two-thirds of those polled have gotten the impression that Iran already has nuclear weapons."

Horror Tent Revival

Is it possible that a majority of Americans can be lured again into the tent of horror to support yet another bloody war? Have we learned nothing from history -- the blatant lies that catapaulted us into Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan? It's amazing how easily our handlers control us; enrage us; shape our beliefs, our opinions. As George Orwell wrote in 1948 about those controlled by Big Brother...

"A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp."

For centuries, those in power have known that fear is the easiest of emotions to work with. As with Iraq, and now Iran, we are paralyzed with fear; fear of "known unknowns" -- of factually unsubstantiated threats about Iran's lust for Israeli blood. Many of us have been ducking and covering for so long that we have lost the ability to reason; even to think beyond the "truth" that is hammered into our national consciousness with blow after blow of an Orwellian sledge hammer -- we must support, and protect, Israel, no matter the cost.

It's tempting to pretend that we believe Iran's refusal to give up its nuclear energy program -- which it has every right to pursue as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- is proof that it is an "evil Islamic regime" whose maniacal leaders are feverishly working to wipe Israel off the map. Tempting to take at face value the sinister warnings of those like Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident fellow at AEI and Weekly Standard contributing editor, who warned in his April 2006 article, "To Bomb, or Not to Bomb -- That is the Iran Question"...

"Given the Islamic Republic's dark history, the burden of proof ought to be on those who favor accommodating a nuclear Iran. Those who are unwilling to accommodate it, however, need to be honest and admit that diplomacy and sanctions and covert operations probably won't succeed, and that we may have to fight a war -- perhaps sooner rather than later -- to stop such evil men from obtaining the worst weapons we know."

Gerecht, a former consular officer for the State Department and CIA Mid-East specialist, is, like most of his neoconservative peers, pathologically obsessed with Iran's destruction, and is as good as it gets when using fear and misinformation to justify that destruction.

Porter also wrote in his July article that "the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran." Porter pointed out that Gerecht first revealed his "Israeli-neocon fantasy as early as 2000, before the Iranian nuclear program was even taken seriously, in an essay written for a book published by the Project for a New American Century." Gerecht argued that, if Iran could be caught in a "terrorist act," the U.S. Navy should "retaliate with fury."

Now, a decade later, that appears to still be Gerecht's position. In his ponderous July 26, 2010 Weekly Standard piece, he writes...

"...if nuclear weapons in the hands of Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards are an existential threat to the Jewish state -- and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like his predecessors, has said that they are -- Jerusalem has little choice. Bombing is the only option that could likely alter the nuclear equation in Iran before Khamenei produces a weapon. The Obama administration might fume, but it is hard to imagine the president, given what he has said about the unacceptability of Iranian nukes, scolding Jerusalem long. [...] The left wing of the Democratic party has been going south on the Jewish state for 30 years, but congressional Democrats, who've been pushing for new sanctions against Iran more aggressively than the White House, are not that far gone. By and large, the Republican party would hold behind the Israelis."

Here, Gerecht is echoing the belief blurted out by Netanyahu in 2001 when talking about a broad attack on Palestine and undermining the Oslo Accords -- "I know what America is," Netanyahu said. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way."

Sadly, there many more like Gerecht -- Dick Cheney and his efforts to do an "end run" around a balking Bush to force an attack on Iran; Norman Podhoretz with his constant refrain "bomb Iran before Iran bombs us"; National Review's Larry Kudlow who says if Israel furiously attacks Iran, it will be "doing the Lord's work"; the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol and Daniel Pipes with their confident forecast that Bush would attack Iran before leaving office if Obama won the election.

Then, there's the US Congress, whose members can agree on absolutely nothing to ease the suffering of their own citizens, but stand shoulder-to-shoulder in passing resolution after shameful resolution for Israel's right to defend itself and against Iran's right to do the same. If Senator Joe Lieberman's mouth is moving, you can bet he is demanding an attack on Iran -- and he was joined by his cohort Senator Lindsey Graham just last month, who said we must sic our military on Iran, "with the goal of overthrowing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

But by far the the most strident is the wild and woolly former UN ambassador John Bolton. He runs at top speed from one media outlet to another, calling for Iran's destruction -- just as he did for Iraq. I can't help it. This guy is grotesquely fascinating. As I wrote in September 2008 about this issue...

It's no laughing matter, but the sight of this tousle-headed, "got milk?" maniac running in circles, warning of -- demanding -- a nuclear holocaust is good for a grin, albeit a grim one. Even as he was being forced onto the United Nations over national and international objections, Bolton was hot on Iran's trail. He insisted that Iran is the most dangerous critter out there -- harboring terrorists, arming terrorists, training terrorists -- sending bombs, IEDs, weapons to Iraq to kill Americans. If it weren't for Iran, there would have been no 9-11 attack because Iran provided safe haven for the box-cutting killers headed our way. Bolton warned if Iran managed to produce a single nuclear weapon, Israel, the United States -- the world -- was toast. He promised that Iran will come after us. "That's the threat," Bolton barked, "that's the reality whether you like it or not. And it will be just like Sept. 11, only with nuclear weapons this time."

Time Out

Considering the consequences of history repeating itself, perhaps we should call a "time out" and take a closer look at Iran. We didn't bother to check out the accusations made by these same bloodthirsty warmongers against Iraq -- false cries of weapons of mass destruction, lies about Saddam Hussein aiding and harboring Al Qaeda terrorists -- we had but a scant 45 minutes to dive under our duct-taped plastic or we would surely die. Now, after hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings have been destroyed -- millions displaced -- trillions of dollars wasted, far too many of us say we were not to blame. Hey -- we were lied to. Besides, that was years ago. It's all history now.

Iran, as a major civilization, dates back to 4000 BC and, although it has been invaded by Greeks, Arabs, Turks, even Mongols, it has no modern history of attacking or occupying other nations. However, unlike other areas that continue to be devastated by US and Israeli assaults, history shows that Iran is capable of defending itself. Both its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and frisky little president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have promised to do exactly that if attacked.

In August, Khamenei said "the consequences of a US attack would be grave...not merely regional, but will cover a vaster scene." If our warmongering babblers took a closer look at that "scene," they would see the destruction of the 32 US bases in the region as well as the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz -- the gateway to the world's oil.

Regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions, both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have said over and over (and over) that Iran seeks nuclear power for generating electricity for medical purposes and for its growing population. In 2005, Khamenei issued a Fatwa that "the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons." And, in spite of blatant lies and distortions to the contrary, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to verify Iran's pursuit of peaceful nuclear energy.

The timeline of Iran's nuclear program from the 1950s shows that Iran has never sought nuclear energy for anything other than peaceful purposes. In 1957, the Shah opened the American Atoms for Peace in Tehran, and signed an agreement with the US for cooperation in research on peaceful uses of nuclear technology. And, in 1968, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on the first day it opened for signature.

Before we buy into railings from those like Gerecht about evil Iran's "dark history" in pursuing nuclear weapons, perhaps we should study the dark history of two other nations -- one that obliterated the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in mere moments just 65 years ago...that used napalm, chemical weapons, and deadly toxins against the Vietnamese...that uses deadly depleted uranium to wipe out entire generations and to deform future generations...or perhaps the other one that takes great delight in dropping white phosphorus bombs on a trapped civilian population with nowhere to run...

The Choice is Ours

If our evil axis succeeds in its lust for war on Iran, yet another March 19, 2003 "Shock and Awe" will come roaring through. We can choose to sit, once again transfixed by sounds of explosions, gunfire, sirens, screams -- and once again listen to Mike Malloy say in a dead voice stripped of all emotion...
"This is a dark day.
This is a filthy day.
This is a day for shame..."

Or we can rise up and stand firm. As Malloy also says, over and over (and over) -- "We know the truth. We no longer have an excuse for remaining silent."

History is replete with examples of citizens uniting and changing the course of history. When that happens, empires -- even a shining empire on a hill -- must change...or fall.

History. Round and round it goes. Will the US and Israel attack Iran? Will history repeat itself?

Yes, but only if we let it. The choice is ours.

nine years later

Tear Down The Statue Of Liberty

by Mary Pitt
September 19, 2010
　
It seems that the Statue of Liberty has lost its meaning and so might as well be razed and the island on which it stands can be put to better use, something like another huge amusement park for the enrichment of Disney or some other large entertainment corporation. If you doubt that this is true, try reading and really thinking about the words that are inscribed on its base:

Send me your tired, your poor
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Your huddles masses yearning to be free
Send these your tempest-toss'd to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door

Does that make sense to you? As if we didn't have enough tired, poor, and wretched refuse of our own! Why should we import more? There just isn't enough money to keep them alive but they would be better off dead, right? Just ignore them and let God handle the problem.

If those who sprung from the Tea Party to win the primary elections really represent the "will of the people", we all have to change our political philosophy. A good start at that can be accomplished by the destruction of the Statue of Liberty. It, like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, has become another tool for the take-over of our government. We all need to "dumb down" even more than during the Bush administration and stop bothering to read those historic documents and the history of the country. You see, our leaders will be those who wear Statue of Liberty costumes to Tea Parties even though the impressive statue was not even there during the Revolution. It was a gift from France (!) to celebrate the centennial of our beginning and the assistance that we gave them in the fight for their own democracy.

The ultra-religious Right has also neglected to familiarize themselves with the contents of the Constitution. They insist that President Obama is not a citizen despite his birth in Hawaii because his father was Nigerian. In one place, the Constitution speaks of "natural-born" and in others the phrase "within the jurisdiction of the United States". This means that anybody who is born in a facility or location where the laws of the United States apply is, thus, a natural-born American citizen. There was no outcry about John McCain being born in Panama both because his parents were American and because he was born in a military facility. Further, upon the granting of independence of the Philippines, children of one Philippine citizen and an American could choose their nationality.

Now we find ourselves faced with the problem of the tired, the poor, the tempest-tossed wretched refuse from Mexico and points South. There are too many of them to deport all at once and many are parents of United States citizens who are too young to leave behind. Would it over-crowd the country to let them stay? Surely, this great nation can manage to do all the paperwork that would be necessary to document them. Then, perhaps rather than to build walls, we could build ports of entry at the border where they could present themselves for documentation. After a computer check to prove that they are not felons or diseased, the proper papers could be furnished to let them walk in openly. Initially, it might be necessary to provide housing while they wait but, if the Golden Door will open for them, they will tolerate it patiently.

That Golden Door has opened for people from every nation in the world and every one of them who came with the yearning for a better life has become a productive part of society. Why not now? Because it would take too much money? Aye, there's the rub! We would have to pay taxes to cover the expenses and the payment of taxes has become a burden to those with "money to burn." And the more they have, the harder they hang onto it. They don't want to pay an honest wage for an honest day's work and they don't want to pay taxes!

Despite their loud protestations of Christianity, they have chosen to serve Mammon. AND THEY ARE WINNING! We thought our nation had undergone a change for the worse during the Bush administration but, if we allow this union between the religious right and the extremely wealthy to succeed in taking over our country, none of our sacred documents will mean a thing. In that case, we may as well tear down the Statue of Liberty, burn the Constitution, and stack the Declaration with the other books of fairy tales.

"Once upon a time, in a land far, far way, there was a beautiful land where all people were created equal and had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

This writer is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.

With Friends Like These

by Mary Pitt
September 7, 2010

My middle-American heart swelled with pride in January, 2009, as our new President took his oath of office: pride in an America that could choke back two hundred years of prejudice and go to vote for a young, untried man to lead us out of the swamp in which the last holder of that seat had stranded us; pride that we had survived with sufficient strength that we could avail ourselves of the opportunity to rebuild out nation to the land of freedom and opportunity that we once enjoyed, and pride that the common people had come out in force to win the election and restore our ownership of our own democracy.

How wrong!

The very same people who elected this man and, in addition, gave him a predominantly Democratic Congress to assist him in his task, are the ones who are sitting on their haunches and wailing like a pack of forlorn hound dogs. "He set the wrong priorities!" "He isn't doing enough!" :He isn't doing it fast enough!" He's a failure!" These are not the words from the opposition. They are the words of his supporters! Those same people who turned out in droves and, at times, literally fought their way to the polling places so they could participate in the re-birth of a nation. The same ones who declared their Progressive stances celebrated the end of Bush-Cheney with hoots and cheers. We were admirers and friends of Barrack Hussein Obama and were aching to get on with the task ahead. These wonderful people are now opting to get off the bandwagon and walk!

It started very early. "He should not have appointed Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State. She will sell him down the river." "He has kept too many retreads from Bush and Clinton administrations." "He failed to jam the health care measures that we wanted down the throats of Congress." In short, while Obama has completed some tasks which many thought, and attempted to prove, were highly improbable, he is now being condemned for failing to perform the impossible! "The budget is still not balanced!" "The deficit is growing!" "We still have combat troops overseas!" This sort of thing is to be expected from the right wing as they attempt to regain their congressional control but to hear it from Democrats and even Progressives is disheartening, to say the least.

This widespread depression among the Progressives is certainly understandable. We wanted universal health insurance issued by the government with uniform premiums, total coverage, reasonably priced with no allowance for profit; we wanted some form of public employment to compensate for the loss of jobs; we wanted re-negotiation on all the "fair trade" agreements which took the factories offshore; we wanted a prompt end to the Bush wars. We wanted Christmas! However, we were not able to provide a Congress with a sufficient majority to carry those plans through against the determined opposition of the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats arrayed against us.

So now what do we do? We sulk in a corner, vote third party or vote with our feet! We act like a bunch of unhappy children on Christmas morning because "Santa Claus is a fake!" This is the time for us to re-affirm the dedication that we professed for the improvement of humanity by stepping up, stepping out and working for the new Congressional Progressive candidates for re-election and giving the President as much support as we did before his election. We can still control the damage inflicted by the Tea Party and the millionaire manipulators behind the Republican Party so we can continue to get as much improvement as possible in the next session.

It's time to put on our Big Boy pants, roll up our sleeves and get out the vote for Our Side. Just remember that it took eight years for George Bush to tear down the nation as we knew and loved it and it was silly of us to expect Barack Obama to re-assemble it in less than two years. Let's get out and promote the Progressive viewpoint, turn out the vote, and give the only President we have as much assistance as we can for the next two years. Then there will be plenty of time for us to choose a new progressive candidate for 2012. Allowing Republicans to take total control will result in the cancellation of improvements that we have accomplished and cause still more damage to democracy. Otherwise, we will find ourselves with another Great Depression and/or another war.

The choice is ours.

Mary Pitt is eighty years old and has spent a half century working with handicapped and deprived people and advocating on their behalf while caring for her own working-class family. She spends her "Sunset Years" in writing and struggling with The System.

Conspicuously Silent on the Hurricane Katrina Anniversary

Right-Wingers Are Conspicuously Silent on the Hurricane Katrina Anniversary:
by the Rude Pundit
8/31/2010
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2010/08/right-wingers-are-conspicuously-silent.html

Michelle Malkin, whose Shih Tzu yips of desperation for relevance have grown hoarse of late, puts the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in context for us all: "[D]on't expect any of these reconciliation-seeking leaders to confront the indelible stain of racial demagoguery left by the left in Katrina's aftermath." Yep, that's right. For Malkin, it's time for the left (especially the black left) to apologize to white people for saying mean things about them because of Katrina. Or implying mean things, as when she slams Jimmy Carter for saying, at Coretta Scott King's funeral, "We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, those who were most devastated by Katrina, to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans." That bastard.

The conspicuous silence from the right wing punditeratti on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina was almost comical. While MSNBC and CNN did extensive reporting from New Orleans and with their major show host offering commentary, over on Fox "news," it seems like Murdoch garbled out an order to avoid the topic. For, truly, if the best you've got is Neil Cavuto doing an in-studio talk with disgraced FEMA director and horse wrangler Michael "Brownie" Brown, then your network just doesn't give a rat's ass about the subject. Otherwise, a couple of brief reports, a Shepard Smith thing, and we're out.

Nothing from O'Reilly, from Hannity. Not a word from Limbaugh. No oh-so-precious tweets from Palin.

Indeed, in daring to even evoke Katrina, Malkin stands out as having a kind of idiotic bravery, for she veered from all Beck and all "mosque" to actually speak the name that dare not be spoken: George W. Bush (as in, "Hating George W. Bush means never having to say you're sorry").

You'd've thought someone from the Bush administration might wanna say something, maybe even Cheney or the man hisself. But perhaps he's still waiting for that judgment of history, which he seems to think will vindicate every fuck-up and reverse all the damage he did. Or maybe he's just hoping, aided and abetted by the right, that everyone will just forget he was there.