Recently in Politics Category

These folks don't seem to understand what's gone wrong in America. They just know something has gone really wrong. They are trying to make sense of it. I suspect that we all are.

I guess Glenn Beck offers some bizarre and simplistic way for them to vent that frustration and to have hope that things will get better if they believe in empty slogans that they repeat through out the interviews: "restore honor," "take back America," "work for freedom," "bring this country back together."

For Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and FOX to create such a divisive, ill-informed nation is just shameful and unpatriotic. All self-proclaimed news organizations have a duty to journalistic integrity that informs citizenry. FOX perpetuates an unfair and unbalanced, propagandized, limited world view that promotes ignorance, fear, angst, powerlessness, and a class-based society that preys on the less fortunate.  It's just wrong!

Related articles:

• 'America Is Better Than Glenn Beck' (newser.com)
• Judge H. Lee Sarokin: Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Are Restoring Dishonor to America (huffingtonpost.com)

And I hate it that the front door to the house isn't private property.  Daily, people leave fliers and business cards and unsolicited junk on the door!

This week's big news story:  the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that the government can, without a warrant, sneak onto your property, your driveway, and place a GPS tracking device on your car that tracks everywhere you go.  We no longer have a reasonable expectation of privacy for our driveways, which even delivery people can use.

Shockingly, this ruling is actually getting some media coverage.

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."

Source:  Time

Some have pointed out that if you are wealthy, you probably live in a gated community or have gates around your property that would extend your zone of reasonable expectation of privacy.  So only the poor people have less privacy.  But that's OK, isn't it?  I mean, wealthy people don't commit crimes.  Wealthy people don't bilk billions, even trillions out of the unsuspecting.  Enron never happened.  No Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme.  No Wall Street bail out while the captains of capitalism lived off the slaughtered fatted cow.

Besides, privacy died long ago in this country — during the George W. Bush administration, I do believe.  His cronies called it The Patriot Act.  Just the name says "Run!  Don't walk!"  During his administration and the Republican rein of terror, not only were hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras installed all over this nation, but warrantless wiretaps, "enhanced interrogations," and god knows what else were made the order of the day.

And who are we kidding?  I'd bet my last dollar that the US government routinely snags the GPS satellite data from specific cars at will.  There really is no need to place anything on the cars of serious criminals.  That's so last century.  Only puny local police departments have to actually walk onto someone's driveway to plant a GPS under their car.  The big time crooks already have GPS as part of the most fashionable bling package.

The totalitarian state is here.  Is now.  We live it.  The Constitution and Bill of Rights are just window dressing from a time gone by.

Related articles

• Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars (cnn.com)
• Warrentless GPS Tracking Of Your Car Is Legal If You're Not Wealthy Enough To Protect It (dvorak.org)
• The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves (time.com)
• The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS (time.com)
• Judge Kozinski Doesn't Track with the Ninth Circuit on GPS and the Fourth AmendmentCalls his fellow judges 'cultural elitists' when it comes to privacy. (abovethelaw.com)

I've had all of the Tea Party insanity I can stomach.  They now want a Constitutional Renaissance.  What kind of horse shit is that?!

They want to revisit the 1st amendment, the 14th amendment, and states rights.

Freedom of religion only will apply to the religions they want it to apply to.  The 14th amendment should only apply when they want it to apply.  When civil rights gets in the way of what they want, they want the states to be able to vote civil rights back into the stone age when you just grabbed you a woman by the hair of the head.  And no more income taxes!  (But what of their precious military budget?!)

These people aren't just racists.  Their "movement" isn't just a well-funded marketing stunt to hinder the elected government.  They are dangerous.  They are home grown terrorists with deep roots in religious extremism — probably not much different than the beginnings of the Taliban.  They are the ignorant puppets of the super wealthy.

The day these fools get elected and start mucking up the US constitution is the day I leave the USA.

And while I'm venting my disgust for the sell out of America, I've decided to boycott Target because of their recent large contributions to radical extremist conservatives.  And then we have Fox so-called-news that just donated $1,000,000 to GOP gubernatorial candidates.  Fair and balanced my ass!  Are they going to disclose these contributions when they cover matters related to those races?!

We will soon have the best laws money can buy.

Related articles:

• Exposing Tea Party frauds (thehill.com)
• Constitution à la carte (dailykos.com)
• Tea Party: It's Not Just Taxes, It's The Constitution (npr.org)

I have always argued that, if you are funded with the public's money, the public has a right to know what you're up to with that money.  Transparency in a democracy is essential.  It prevents such hideous excess as the city manager of Bell, CA, making over $1.5 million in publicly funded salary and bonuses, which in my mind is a criminal act.

I've become so critical of the current "system," which I personally consider completely broken, that when I read or see/hear any news coverage, I immediately wonder, "Who is paying for me to receive this message?  Who is behind trying to influence my thinking in this way?"  And now that corporations can contribute any amount of money they want to our political system, the political influence peddling even gets more convoluted.

The Sunlight Foundation is working to peel back the layers of hidden influence.  They have designed a cool tool, Poligraft, such a clever name, to assist in disclosing who is funding what in Congress.  So when you read something on line, the hidden connections are just a click away.

Check it out by watching this short video.

Related articles:

• Sunlight Foundation Launches Poligraft, Bringing New Transparency To Political Reporting (huffingtonpost.com)
• Poligraft Tracks Influence on Government (readwriteweb.com)
• Poligraft Adds Level of Campaign Finance Analysis to News Articles (news.firedoglake.com)
• Poligraft Tool for Journalists, Politicos, Voters (currentbuzz.org)

A few weeks ago I was in Saratoga, NY.  I had landed in Albany and took a cab to the wonderful inn in which I staid.  My cab driver was a young man from Afghanistan, of all places.  We had an interesting conversation about the whole Afghanistan mess.

He echoed what I had heard in the news:  that suitcases literally filled with millions of US dollars (in cash) are flown out of the Kabul airport every day.  This, he says is common knowledge.  It's business as usual.  No one asks any questions.

Juxtapose this against the lavish inequities of poverty and extreme wealth in the city.  It's insanity.  Then, add to this mix the fact that 96% of the $9.1 billion dollars designated for reconstruction in Iraq is unaccounted for.  That's &8.7 billion with a "b" dollars that has vaporized into thin air.  (Read this Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction pdf report.)

Now I realize we are talking about two different countries, but how much has been designated for Afghanistan?  How much is accounted for?

This should be a scandal of the highest order!  This should be bleeding from every headlines in this country. Why do we so rarely hear about this in our media?!  I'm a fiscal conservative.  The Republican party is wailing about the deficit.  Wail about $8.7 billion in missing government funds!!!!  Those are deficit bucks, baby!

But that's not the only interesting part of our conversation.  I expressed to the young cab driver that I didn't know why we were really in their country.  He asked me politely if I wanted to hear his ideas on the matter.  Certainly!

1.  The drug trade coming out of Afghanistan is powerful and lucrative.  He was unsure of the US roll in the drug trade but thought it indeed was involved.

2.  The country is sitting on a fortune in rare minerals the world wants, even needs.  The oil is pretty meaningless.  He thinks this is why Russia was there for a decade and now the US.  Interesting that this has been common knowledge among the people of Afghanistan but only recently has surfaced in the western media.

Our government is out of control and a direct part of the problem!

I have been fascinated for much of my adult life with what people say they believe and value versus what people actually do in their lives.  I include myself in this observation of values versus behaviors.  I have always believed we are our most powerful selves, we are authentic, when we do what we say we believe — when our beliefs and our behaviors are aligned.  Seldom does this seem to happen.

Notable, thoughtful, and widely-respected christian author, Ann Rice, recently posted on her Facebook page that she has "quite christianity."  She is publicly abandoning what christianity has come to mean today.  She is not abandoning her faith.  But the Christ of her faith practice is being so grotesquely misrepresented by the church of today, she feels compelled by her Christ to leave that church.  She has stated that she is going into the wilderness.

In other words, Ann Rice finds such a tremendous disconnect between what she believes as a person of faith in Christ and the organized church that purports to follow that Christ, she is compelled to do what she believes, which is requiring her to quit organized christianity which she believes no longer represents her God.  I find this very significant.  To live what she believes is the work of Christ, she feels she must abandon organized christianity which has so seriously lost its way.

I must say, I have new found respect and admiration for Ann Rice!  You can hear her speak of her concerns in this short video interview.

Richard T. Hughes, Distinguished Professor of Religion at Messiah College and author of Christian America and the Kingdom of God, recently wrote this:

... 83% of the American people claim to be Christians. If those Christians lived as they are taught to live by the teacher they claim to follow, the American public square would be a very different kind of place.

If one reads the New Testament—the charter for the Christian religion—one can discover rather quickly what that tradition is all about

• Jesus tells his followers to tell the truth
• Jesus tells his followers to make peace.
• Jesus tells his followers to turn the other cheek.
• Jesus tells his followers to bless those who persecute them and pray for those who misuse them
• Jesus tells his followers to extend justice, especially to the poor and the dispossessed.
• Jesus tells his followers to serve as bridge-builders and agents of reconciliation
• And Jesus tells his followers to love one another, even their enemies

But based on their words and behavior, we may safely conclude that many of the Christians who dominate America’s public square routinely reject the teachings of Jesus, in spite of their claims to the contrary.

...  After all, since 83% of the American population identifies with the Christian religion, that 83% could make an enormous difference in the tone of American politics if those Christians actually practiced what they profess to believe. They could also make a positive difference in American politics if they held other Christians accountable when they engage in deception and slander in order to score political points.

America’s churches and their pastors therefore have a grave responsibility: to urge their members to serve the public square as peacemakers, as truth-tellers, as people devoted to justice, and as men and women who are actually willing to practice what Jesus taught. If America’s churches refuse to take up this task—which, after all, is a task that is central to the Christian calling—the consequences for our country could be dire, indeed.

Source:  Belief Blog

The entire article, linked above, is well worth reading.

In my lifetime I have seen the self-proclaimed follows of Christ become anything but Christ-like.  I have seen the influence this misconstrued  faith practice has had in our corrupt political system.  I have witnessed people who label themselves as believers clutch a self-serving agenda that has little to do with how Jesus actually said we should live our lives.

What 83% of Americans say they believe and what they do with their lives is stunningly out of sync.  We are living in an ill-informed, dysfunctional, disillusioned state where our hearts and our minds are no longer aligned.  We have stopped being our best selves.

Ann Rice and Richard T. Hughes have had the courage to say, "Enough, already!"  Hopefully they are among the first prophets to lead our nation back to a life of genuine, authentic faith practice.

Related articles:

• Anne Rice Quits Christianity (beliefnet.com)
• Anne Rice Abandons Christianity, But Not Christ [EvolutionBlog] (scienceblogs.com)
• Writer Anne Rice: 'Today I Quit Being A Christian' : NPR (daddyhogwash.com)
• Anne Rice and organized religion (beliefnet.com)

Periodically, the wealthy Republicans begin salivating over all of the money in the Social Security system. They want to dump it into the free market because, as everyone knows, when we privatize non-profit administered funds into a for profit model, the wealthy can get even wealthier. (I personally believe that's why the Republics are pushing the "charter school" movement too — all of that money in the education budget could be lining the pockets of wealthy entrepreneurs.)

Just imagine: Where would today's elderly Americans be if the Republican party had gotten its way during the hideous Bush/Cheney years (the later stating that "deficits don't matter") and pushed the Social Security system funds into Wall Street!? What idiots! MoveOn.org has a great response to the top 5 Social Security myths, since the Republicans are at it again. The 5 myths they address are listed below. Check out the facts about each myth at MoveOn.org's article.

1. Myth: Social Security is going broke.
2. Myth: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
3. Myth: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
4. Myth: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs
5. Myth: Social Security adds to the deficit

Senior citizen's, don't let the shameless Republicans lie their way into convincing you to lose your benefits. Vote Democrat in the November elections.

I have had growing concerns about the growing surveillance state in the USSA:  The United Surveillance State of America.  Apparently the Washington Post has them too.

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

Source:  A Hidden World Growing Beyond Control

With the ineffectiveness of such unencumbered agency work as well as the unparalleled and unknown true cost of this growing secret "security" dark side, with no oversight, and with the unprecedented deficit, we have a huge problem.  The Republican party is always ranting about reducing the size of government while they are funding the largest top secret buildup of hidden government right in plane sight.  Let's reduce government.  And this is where we need to start.

I do not trust my government at all.

Watch the trailer to the upcoming (Fall, 2010) PBS Frontline Special, Top Secret America at this link. Keep in mind that for a healthy democracy to work, it must function in the public forum. Tyranny lives in the shadows. What is the post USA democracy going to be?

PBS wbesite for Top Secret America.
Follow the story on Twitter @PostTSA
Use the hashtag #topsecretamerica

Related articles:

• Top Secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control (washingtonpost.com)
• WaPo Reveals "Top Secret America": How Post-9/11 System Is Not Working (mediaite.com)
• Wash Post's series on 'A hidden world, growing beyond control' (americablog.com)
• Top Secret America (slog.thestranger.com)
• WaPO Secret America, site up (warintel.blogspot.com)

I have made no secret of my disdain for the Mormon effort to influence the outcome of an election in the state of California by spending millions of dollars to mount a campaign of lies and deceit.  I have never understood why the Mormon church is so aggressively funding this campaign against civil rights, and I had no idea as to the magnitude and scope of their efforts and their financial influence in the election.

Why, exactly, are these people so insistent on forcing people who do not share their religious beliefs to live by their religious beliefs?

What is striking about the numbers is that although Mormons make up less than two percent of California's population, they made up more than 71 percent of campaign contributions, according to the film. Jeff Flint, a strategist with Protect Marriage, the group that spearheaded the Prop. 8 campaign, told the New York Times that 80 to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts were Mormons. "

[Source: '8: The Mormon Proposition' - Exclusive Clip Reveals Church Coerced Members to Raise Millions For Prop. 8 Campaign (VIDEO).]

I haven't seen this Sundance Film, but this very excerpt is shocking and disturbing, portraying their church more as a cult of strong armed coercion than a faith practice.

Related articles:

• '8: The Mormon Proposition' is a powerful expose (trueslant.com)

On one of my flights today I noticed a heavyset man in the row in front of me reading some religious magazine.  I caught the title of one of the articles and almost threw up.  I forget exactly how it was worded, but it basically was about how much more religious persecution could the church take in these last days.

My god!  The very people who persecute other people whining about their little fantasy persecution complex.  I was disgusted.  I remember this same language when I was being brought up in the extremist religious right:  how God was blessing us every time we were persecuted for our faith.

The problem was, only the most mentally unstable among us would believe that religious people in Pensacola, one of the most religious and extremely conservative cities in the nation, were being persecuted!  By who?  By what?!  But oh, the yoke of persecution was just so hard to bear.

Nutcases!

Then, to explicitly bring my point into the sharpest possible focus, the title of the next article was:  Same Sex:  Different Marriage!  I've blogged before about this perverse mingling of church and state with religion owning a civil right over which government should be a guardian and protector.  If religion wants to have it's own holy sacrament above and beyond the civil right to all of the benefits and accommodations of legal marriage, fine.  Knock yourself out.  Call it something else.  Make it your own.  You can even deny people your holy sacrament if they aren't willing members of your little religious club.  You've got that right!  But don't deny people civil rights!  That's evil.

I wanted so badly to say to this man:  Over Weight:  Different Marriage.  (Both he and his wife were exceedingly so.)  You see, even if these extremists were correct, and I personally don't believe they are, and being gay were a choice, certainly they must admit that being overweight is a choice.  And, in the church in which I was raised, it was called a "sin!"  You were defiling the temple of god — your body, because of your own selfish, hedonistic, gluttonous ways.

So, why shouldn't we vote on fat people's right to marry?  Why shouldn't fat people be denied the right to marry?  The research indicates they have children who also grow up to be fat.  See, they are recruiting, just like the wacky religious extremists insist the gays are.

Isn't it all just ridiculous and absurd?!!!!!! There is just no difference!  I don't know:  Maybe some gay people choose to be gay.  Maybe some fat people choose to be fat.  Maybe some gay people are born to be gay.  Maybe some fat people are born to be fat.  The point is people should have the legal right to marry the person they love when the other person is of age and consents because they love them back.

You probably find my calling this man and his wife "fat" offensive and disrespectful.  Good!  You should.  Just as you should find calling a person a fag just as offensive and disrespectful.  But one is condoned in this culture and the other not.  Oh, the difference a single letter makes!

My god, sometimes I think we live in the weirdest world filled with people trying with incredible meanness to impose their will on others!  Enough already!

Have you paid your War Bills yet? You have until midnight!  Maybe this will help you put things in better perspective:

Meanwhile, the military share of the budget works out to about $1.6 trillion.

That figure includes the Pentagon budget request of $708 billion, plus an estimated $200 billion in supplemental funding, called "overseas contingency funding" in euphemistic White House-speak), to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some $40 billion or more in "black box" intelligence agency funding, $94 billion in non-DoD military spending, $100 billion in veterans benefits and health care spending, and $400 billion in interest on debt raised to pay for prior wars and the standing military.

The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation-adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing.

Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53.3 percent of total US federal spending.

Related articles

• Bill Maher To Tea Baggers: Take On Defense Spending And I'll Believe You (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• A War Society: US Spends Over 40% of World's Military Spending (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)

If you ask me, and because you've visited my blog–you have, Sarah Palin is nothing more than a cheesy opportunist. She quits public service because she can make money, lots of it. Well, the people of Alaska are probably better off. Now Sarah plays the role of the court jester on the national stage, and she's getting rich doing it. I don't begrudge her the money. I do disdain her hypocrisy and outright lying.

(CNN) -- First-class commercial air travel for two or a private jet -- "must be a Lear 60 or larger" -- from Alaska to California and back. A deluxe hotel suite "registered under an alias." And two unopened bottles of still water with "bendable straws."

That's what former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin wanted from a California state college foundation as part of her speaking agreement, according to a draft of a confidential contract allegedly lifted from a Dumpster by two students.

Source: CNN

Yesterday she was babbling on about the Obama deficits. Idiot. George W. Bush created these! George W. Bush spent the $1 trillion dollars on the completely unjustified wars based on his lies and deciet. George W. Bush turned a budget surplus into a global financial crisis.

I was just in Canada. They marvel at our financial mess. They are stupified about what we wasted the money on that put us into this financial mess—war! They just don't understand why we supposedly think their national healthcare plan is such a mess. Admitting it isn't perfect, they are proud of the fact that they spend their tax dollars helping people and not killing them.

Sarah needs to shut up and go away. She's like the nation's roach—always showing up when you never want to see her again.

Justice John Paul Stevens' service to this nation has been substantive. I am fearful of what the court will become as he retires.

Justice John Paul Stevens’s departure from the Supreme Court represents the end of an era. Just not the one you are probably thinking of. Stevens’s unblinking devotion to human rights, civil rights, and the rights of the little guy have led him to be widely seen as the Last Great Liberal Justice, the end of a lineage that included William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and William O. Douglas. But Stevens is something else entirely. He is actually the last of the Moderate Republican Justices.

Source: Dan Froomkin

Frankly, I'm with those who believe that Justice John Paul Stevens didn't become more and more liberal. Rather, the court became radicalized in its extreme conservatism. Justice Stevens never changed.

Related articles

• John Paul Stevens Retiring: We Need A Liberal Justice (oliverwillis.com)
• Memories of Justice John Paul Stevens From His Former Clerks (nytimes.com)
• Justice Stevens to Retire After 34 Years (nytimes.com)

Cost and value. Value and cost. The "deal" is some magical balance between cost and value.

Let me see. The Iraq war cost us $712,616,300,000 as I typed this sentence and has already gone above that—way above that in normal people budgets. The Afghanistan war cost us $260,099,900,000 as I typed this sentence and has already gone above that—again, way above that. So the total cost of these two wars is nearly one trillion dollars, which looks like this: $1,000,000,000,000.00.

So, was it a good value? Did we get our money's worth?

Well, I don't know what we really bought for all of that insane amount of money except a HUGE national debt.

What would we buy for the reported $940,000,000,000.00 health care plan in congress right now? Well, millions more Americans, not all, sad to say, would get some health coverage. The insurance industry will probably make a killing. Maybe thousands of Americans lives will be saved or they will live in better health or less pain.

So is it a good value? Well, at least I have some sense that we are buying something that will help people and not kill them. At least I have some sense that this money will aid people in living healthier lives and not maim people for the rest of their lives. At least I have some sense that I am purchasing something for my tax dollars that I believe has a moral value.

Spending a trillion dollars to learn that Saddam never had any weapons of mass destruction was a complete waste of money. Spending about the same amount to give our own citizens a higher quality of life isn't.

Why did we ever destroy the national trust on these two meaningless wars? Why is killing people more important to our government that helping our own citizens?

The extreme, religious right-wing conservatives have won yet another significant victory in their efforts to force their world view down the throats of unsuspecting Americans. I personally don't care what they choose to believe. But I take HUGE issue with their feverish evangelical approach to forcing everyone else in the nation live by their narrow belief system. In fact, I resent the hell out of anyone, right or left, forcing their beliefs on me, let alone forcing them on unsuspecting children to whom they didn't give birth!

Knowing they could never pull this off in California, the conservative movement targeted Texas, the state that gave the nation George W. Bush. In a 10 - 5 vote along party lines, the Texas Board of Education voted to approve the following conservative tenets being taught in their state's Social Studies curriculum and supported by the state-adopted textbooks:

• stress the superiority of American capitalism
• question the founding fathers commitment to a purely secular government
• present Republican political ideologies in a more positive light

Make no mistake, this is a carefully planned, well executed strategy by the ultra conservative think tanks. They have turned their initial claims of their own personal religious persecution into the wholesale religious persecution of the entire nation.  The end result will be religious tyranny, a return to the middle ages.

This decision in Texas has enormous ramifications for the entire nation—hence why it was targeted. The school textbook industry sells more textbooks in California, but too many people here have diverse thinking. But Texas is ripe for the picking. The good people of Texas think conservatively—very, ultra conservatively. Texas has the second largest textbook purchasing power in the nation. This is significant.

Now, the textbook industry will rewrite the Social Studies textbooks so they can sell them in Texas. This means the remainder of the nation will be forced to buy the drivel with which the ultra conservatives want their children in Texas indoctrinated. Mark my words:  This is a political victory of the highest order with long term ramifications of the most serious kind.

The extreme right-wing conservative think tanks have taken the minds of many unsuspecting Americans with their ownership of FOX so-called "news."  They have taken ownership of the conservative Republican party of which I was once a part. They have manipulated to control the highest court in the land. Now they are seeking the minds of the nation's children.  This is serious!  My country is actually under assault!

These extremists have quietly and patiently executed their strategy well under the banner of traditional values, heritage, and the homeland for decades.  The only way I think Americans can fight this momentous trend to force the nation to live by a narrowly-defined, prescriptive set of religious values that divest diversity, deep thinking, critical analysis, social justice, economic opportunity for all, open mindedness, tolerance, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of faith practice, et. al., is to support countervailing strategies that are just as well planned and executed.  As I've said, people who have divergent opinions and thoughts are the carefully selected target.

And as I've said before, I've become increasingly disgusted with what my nation is rapidly becoming, where the will of the few is increasingly being inflicted on the many in wealth aggregation, religious practice, legal policy, and now school curriculum. The extremist conservatives are well funded and organized at the grassroots level. It's time to stand up to them in an equally well funded grass roots effort.  The problem:  unlike the radical conservative thinkers of their movement who can manipulate their masses with a highly defined, carefully crafted agenda of fear, open minded people who think critically lack a central focus around which to organize.

We have lacked a motivating rallying cry around which to centralize our efforts.  Let this be it:  preserving our true American heritage from those extremist conservatives who are rapidly redefining it and marginalizing everyone who thinks differently from them!

Where are all of the libertarians that want the freedom to live their lives as they personally define the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness?!

Tim is so not happy!

Related articles

• Texas Textbook MASSACRE: 'Ultraconservatives' Approve Radical Changes To State Education Curriculum (huffingtonpost.com)
• Texas Approves Conservative Curriculum (politics.slashdot.org)
• Texas conservatives rewrite history | Richard Adams (guardian.co.uk)
• Texas Becomes Laughingstock Once Again: State Board of Ed Determines History Is a Liberal Conspiracy (schoolsmatter.info)
• Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards (nytimes.com)
• Texas ed board adopts social studies standards (sfgate.com)

Bloomberg reports today that, astoundingly, Iraq is now opening its doors to BP, Exxon Mobile, and Shell for the first time since 1972, when the country, under the leadership of the now executed Saddam Hussein, nationalized all of its oil fields. Astoundingly, this will open the 3rd largest oil reserves in the world directly to western countries.

And, um... why are we complaining about the bank bailouts? How much money did the citizens of this country spend on (and will continue to spend on) making this happen for the oil corporations? (Not to mention the number of people that were killed!)  If there is a hell, unfettered capitalist greed needs to rot in it.

Obama is just so smart! Even numerous conservatives admit he didn't just take the Republicans to task, he decimated them!

Image via Wikipedia

Allow me to introduce Senator Jones (R) from AIG and Senator Smith (D) from United Healthcare and Representative Tung from China... This is so bad. So very, very bad.

The Campaign to Legalize Democracy is circulating a petition in response to yesterday's ruling that legalized unlimited political bribery by corporations in the USA. Signatories include Bill Moyer, Howard Zinn, Jim Hightower, Bill McKibben, and Tom Hayden.

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count.

* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments."

[Source: Constitutional amendment petition: run government for people, not monied interests.]

... as Republican Justice John Paul Stevens put it:  

"Under today's decision, multinational corporations controlled by foreign governments" would have the same rights as Americans to spend money to tilt U.S. elections ..."

[Source: Our Charming Corporatist State.]

Government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. Today the Supreme Court (5-4) just handed the Republicans (and a lot of Democrats too) a huge bonus: unfettered access to corporate funding, effectively making a broken political system completely unaccountable the to will of the people.

The legacy of George W. Bush lives on to feast on the soul of democracy for profit.

At least Larry Lessig has a more reasoned view. Me, I'm just disgusted.

I've actually been thinking more and more about leaving the US. I mean: for good. I find myself so disillusioned with what is happening in my native land.

My country forces education reform that is destroying creativity, problem solving, deep thinking, and analysis of knowledge to inform carefully considered long term solution-making for the immediacy of factionalized curriculum memorization. My country will not move beyond prejudice and discrimination. My country is squandering our national (as well as international) resources. My country is flinging privacy and personal freedom as fast as it escalates fear. My country cares more about greed, money, and possessing things than it does about people and their basic wellbeing. My country is removing the separation of church and state and forcing people to live by tenets of religion in which they may not personally believe. My country allows business, built on greed and outsourcing, to become so large they can not fail and must receive tax payer's money to keep the executes rolling in fat bonuses with shameless abandon. My nation's government is bought and sold by transglobal corporations and makes divisiveness its core ethic.

I can do little of nothing to stop or change any of this.

I wonder if this is a natural part of getting older--seeing the world through more jaded eyes. But I see other nations, not without their faults to be sure, at least maintaining some more moderate and productive sense of balance. I just think the US government is fundamentally broken and inept.

I shared last night at dinner that I actually don't think the US will be able to move to a better place within my lifetime. This saddens me greatly.

I've supported Lawrence Lessig's work for some time. I've had his "Change Congress" link on my site for some time. In this video he sums up things, and, unlike my dismal state of disillusion, offers a ray of hope. He doesn't frame the problem as conservative versus liberal or Republican versus Democrat. He is insightful and brilliant.

Ah, The Heritage Foundation... They share their wise and timely advice on what President Obama should do in response to the suffering in Haiti: call on a senior Republican to lead the Haitian response efforts. And what senior Republican official do they suggest? Yes, the only one with a proven track record in such matters: George W. Bush!

I'm serious. That's who they suggested.

No, really...

That frames the quality of thinking from the Heritage Foundation rather adequately now, doesn't it! Did they forget already, or are they just stupid?!

We all know Sarah is now an employee of Rupert Murdoch. What we didn't know, until the book and the recent 60 Minutes episode, was the astounding level of her lack of qualification for being being a heartbeat away from the presidency. But that didn't matter to her at all, because "It was God's will" for her to be the Vice President, she said.

This interview is as enlightening as it is frightening. It's worth the attention of the nation.

Well, hopefully she will continue to show how lackluster she is as she stars on FOX not-News. Maybe she will go rogue. But probably, she will just quit--you know, like she did as governor of Alaska.

Shouldn't this guy, of all guys, be aware that his statement is beyond simply untrue; it is absurd to the extreme!

I was ambivalent about the former mayor. Now I think Rudy Giuliani is crazy. Or, maybe he's very, very smart: the Republicans are trying to rewrite the history of their unspeakable failures. If you say it enough times, people will believe you!

Click the image to see him say it firsthand and to hear the words come out of his mouth. It's incredulous!

Politico has named its political lie of the year, a dubious distinction. And, of course, it would follow, this then names the liar of the year as well--the person espousing the lie of the year.

"Death Panels"

According to CNN, when confronted about her lie of the year, Sarah Palin acknowledged she knew her lie wasn't a true statement, stated she said it to get everyone's attention, and said she would do it again.

When will she ever just go away?!

Funny guy. How dare he slap people in the face with their own hypocrisy. He supposedly was going to interview people in front of WalMart about defending traditional marriage and then, when they blubbered on about their support, ask them to sign his petition banning divorce. He says he's confident they will support his bill because it's not about taking their rights away. It's about defending traditional marriage. Hysterical. I wonder how things are going.

Rob Cockerham interviewed John Marcotte, a Sacramento man who filed a petition with the California Secretary of State to get a voter's initiative onto the 2010 ballot in California that would make it ban divorce"

(Via Interview with John Marcotte, author of bill to ban divorce - Boing Boing.)

OK, so this post is only being written for 2 people... :o)

Most people who only quasi-know me, mistakenly assume I'm a just a liberal. In some ways I am. But most mistake my strong libertarian views for liberalism. And on most social issues, I tend to be very libertarian and sometimes liberal as well--and proud of it too might I add. However, I have a few notable exceptions.

On crime and punishment I tend to be rather conservative. I'm all for compassion and mercy, but when I hit the wall, I hit it hard.

When Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister then serving as governor of Arkansas, granted clemency to Maurice Clemmons nine years ago, he cited his age: Mr. Clemmons was 16 when he began the crime spree for which he was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.

link: Old Clemency May Be Issue for Huckabee - NYTimes.com

From where I sit, if a 16 year old is sentenced to over 100 years in prison, I suspect the little @*&! should never see the light of day again. Period. His/her only redemption is to remain in prison. Period.

Huckabee's clemency wasn't just a lapse of good judgement. 

In my humble opinion, anytime an official grants clemency or parole to a convicted criminal who then goes on to commit further crimes, s/he isn't just exercising bad judgement, s/he is complicit in their criminal conduct and should be treated as such. In so doing, we would have fewer horrible decisions made for political gain, financial reasons, and social ruin.

Huckabee has the blood of 4 officers on his hands. He too is responsible for this act.

And let's set the record straight: George W. Bush and the Republican Party spent this nation into oblivion and bankruptcy by cutting taxes and spending the budget surplus and vast amounts of money on a needless, pointless war to make their buddies at Halliburton wealthy beyond belief. Nancy Pelosi had nothing to do with it at all. Those who say otherwise are ignorant and/or liars!

And these people didn't want their children to hear President Obama challenge children to do their best in school? These religious extremists are dangerous! They are the radicals that have already ruined the country! I feel so bad for their children.

A new conservative children's book titled Help! Mom! The Radicals Are Ruining My Country! prominently features Nancy Pelosi as an evil villain. Author Katharine DeBrecht, whom you may have seen on Fox News, explains:

"When Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House all we heard was how wonderful it was that a mother and grandmother rose through the ranks to such a position. In reality, that mother and grandmother has played an enormous role in ensuring that our children and grandchildren are shackled with debt for decades to come."

link: Conservative children's book vilifies Nancy Pelosi - Boing Boing

I took my money out of WaMu when it bellied up and was taken over by a bank that then had to receive bailout money. I wasn't fearful I would lose my money; I was outraged at banking mismanagement, abuse, greed, and more! Years ago I went to a single credit card with no fees that automatically pays itself off every month without my doing anything. More and more I avoid big box corporations for local businesses. I blog non-stop about this disgusting mess we're in. And I walk or cycle along the ocean every chance I get to stay sane.

But Michael's right. There are other things on this list I need to start doing--regularly!

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions.
2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans.
3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists.
4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota.
5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us--just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska*.

FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:

1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. ... Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email.
2. Take over your local Democratic Party.
3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office yourself!
4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money. Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us than there are of them!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on the local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure. (You can download them from my website.)
5. Start your own media. You.

FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS:

1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union.
2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one -- the kind where you have to pay up at the end of the month or you lose your card.
3. Do not invest in the stock market.
4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say in how your business is run.
5. Take care of yourself and your family.

Yours, Michael Moore

link: Michael Moore: My Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now

* Yeah, isn't it ironic that Alaska really is the most socialist state in the union!!! (For those that don't know, in Alaska you have no taxes and the state sends every resident a check every year from the oil revenue!)

For some time now I've thought the insurance industry was a corrupt monopoly that needed to go to the woodshed. Maybe that time has come!

Democrats launched a drive at both ends of the Capitol on Wednesday to strip the insurance industry of its decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws, part of an increasingly bare-knuckled struggle over landmark health care legislation sought by President Barack Obama.

If enacted, the change would put an end to "price-fixing, bid-rigging and market allocation in the health and medical malpractice" insurance areas, said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy said he would seek a vote on the plan when the Senate debates health care legislation in the next few weeks.

Leahy made his comments at the same time the House Judiciary Committee voted 20-9 to end an industry exemption that dates to 1945. Three Republicans supported the move.

Senior Democratic officials said the leadership was inclined to incorporate the measure into the broader health care bill expected to be brought to the floor for a vote within a few weeks. No final decision has been made, they added.

together, the actions reflect the fury Democrats have shown in response to recent insurance industry attempts to influence the shape of legislation. The events occurred less than a week after the insurers' trade association issued a report saying a measure that cleared the Senate Finance Committee would produce sharp increases in premiums for millions who currently have insurance. end of excerpt Source: MSNBC

link: Dems aim to strip insurers' antitrust protections // Current