MiltBlog

Pat & Jerry & Jesus...

2007-05-15T17:26:00.000-04:00

(A tribute to a special kinda guy... Good luck, Jerry... yer gonna need it...)

Pat & Jerry & Jesus

By Milt Shook

“Pat, Jerry, have a seat,” Jesus instructed as the two evangelists as they entered the room, which was appointed with few furnishings and plain walls. It was obvious from their surprised looks that a Spartan room occupied by a black man was not expected. The fact that he was also sporting a bit of a slouch due to a bad back, and wearing jeans and a yellow polo shirt probably didn’t comport with their image of what was about to happen.

Jesus motioned to two large, straight-backed white chairs situated next to a large white desk, and the two men sat just as Jesus stood. Neither man looked directly at Him, however, which He found irritating. Apparently, these two had bought the whole “eye aversion” bunk. That damn book was a pain in the ass.

Jesus stared at them for a bit. Though they were a little surprised, they still seemed a bit cocky, though he was sure that wouldn’t last long. “Do you two know why you are here?” He asked finally.
“Yes sir,” Jerry said confidently through a thick drawl. His eyes were focused on the wall directly behind Jesus’ left shoulder. “We’ve passed to the other side, and we are here to receive our just reward.”

Pat silently nodded agreement, though he seemed more skeptical than Jerry. His averted eyes focused on the white flag hanging by the door.

“Well, I can assure you; you will receive your just reward,” Jesus said, “Everyone does. Peter usually handles this crap, but you’re both special cases, and I wanted to take care of this one myself. There’s a reason both of you were called at the same time.”

“We appreciate that, Lord,” Pat said, nodding. His Southern drawl was completely fake, and was accompanied by a truly obnoxious combination smirk/chuckle, a mannerism that had irritated Jesus no end whenever he caught the televangelist’s program. He was obviously still in character, which was disturbing, given the circumstances.

“Jerry and I have been great friends in Your service for many, many years,” Pat continued with a smirk/chuckle. “It seems appropriate for us to be called home together. I’m not sure I liked drowning, but it must have been quick, because I don’t remember it.”

“You didn’t drown,” Jesus said. “Both of you fell from a 60-foot yacht as you fished off the coast of Florida, and you were eaten by sharks.”

“Was that what happened?” Jerry said, with a hearty laugh. “However you called us home is okay; this is where we belong.”

Jesus gazed at Jerry with a blank stare, which seemed to catch the man off guard, despite the fact that his eyes were still averted. “So, Jerry; what did you do during your life to make you worthy of a place next to me?”

“Well, Lord, I am but a humble servant, so I’m not sure I deserve a place next to you, exactly,” Jerry said. “I worked all my life to take your Word to the masses, and sang your praises to all corners of the Earth. But I only did as I was called to do, so anyplace in Heaven is acceptable to me.”

“I see,” Jesus replied pensively, before turning to Pat. “And Pat, why do you think you belong here?”

“Well, Lord,” Pat smirked/chuckled, “I, too, worked all my life to spread your Word, and I lived by your Word throughout my life, in the hopes of earning an eternal home here.”

Jesus shook his head quietly and began to pace back and forth behind the desk. His agitation caused both men to shift nervously in their seats. “This is why I wanted to handle this myself,” he said finally. “You two have heard of ‘Judgment Day,’ have you not?”

“Yes, Lord,” both men replied simultaneously.

“Well, Judgment Day is a load of crap,” Jesus said. “There is no such thing.”

The two men gasped, and their averted eyes widened.

“You know what else is a load of crap?” Jesus asked rhetorically. “That whole thing about averting your eyes! Will you two at least have the courtesy of looking at me when I speak to you? I know the whole eye aversion thing is one of those rules you people glom onto while ignoring the more important ones, but up here, it’s kind of a joke. There are a lot of joke rules in the Bible.”

“Really, Lord?” Jerry asked earnestly.

“Oh sure,” Jesus said. “It’s amazing how many otherwise intelligent people fall for some of that garbage. Seriously; why would you even think that God – a Being that is all-powerful and could destroy all life in the blink of an eye – would kill one of his creations for wearing linen or eating pork? Why do you think I rescinded the Ten Commandments while I was down there? Don’t kill people and treat each other honestly and fairly; that’s all you need to do, really.”

Jesus had to suppress a grin; he’d already detected a small crack in their arrogant veneer. He smiled at them with a touch of sarcasm and continued.

“As I said, we don’t normally do judgment here,” He said. “Most of that junk was created by religious control freaks on Earth many years ago, in a vain attempt to keep people in line, and that’s all. Seriously; on any given day, millions of souls pass over; who’s supposed to process all of those? It wouldn’t be much of an afterlife if we brought people up and forced them to work as processing clerks, would it? Instead, we have a huge computer, which essentially sorts people into categories, based on their actions; some folks stay here while others go, well, elsewhere. We rarely make exceptions to the process, but you two were nothing if not exceptional. You certainly deserve special consideration.”

“Well, thank you, Lord,” Jerry said enthusiastically. Pat again looked unsure and remained quiet. Before their arrival, Jesus had pegged Jerry as the dumber of the two; he had apparently been right.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Jesus said. “Let’s start with this question; do you two really believe you represented my views accurately during your lifetime?”

Pat winced and said nothing, as Jerry nodded affirmatively and said, “Yes, Lord, I think I did exactly that.”

“Did either of you even read what I said regarding rich people, camels and needles?” Jesus asked pointedly.

“I sure did, Lord,” Jerry piped up. “It was a great quote; very profound.”

“And why do you think I said that?” Jesus asked.

“Because rich people are rarely pious,” Jerry replied. “And it takes piety and submission to Your Word to make it into Heaven.”

“No!” Jesus snapped. “That’s not why I told the story. For Pete’s sake, Jerry; anyone can be pious, or at least pretend to be. It’s not difficult to proclaim belief in a deity and feign reverence for God, especially when you live in a society in which it’s pretty much required for membership. Most so-called ‘believers’ only believe because they’re afraid not to. Therefore, piety is a piece of cake. The camel line was supposed to illustrate just how difficult it is for people who squander their lives acquiring money and material possessions to do those things which are necessary to get on God’s good side.”

The two men again fidgeted nervously in their chairs, as Jesus turned to Pat.

“Pat, when you came up here, your net worth was estimated at between $200 million and $1 billion,” he observed. “Let’s split the difference and say you were worth half a billion. Is that close?”
“Yes, Lord,” Pat answered with a sheepish smirk/chuckle.

“During your time on Earth, what steps did you take to alleviate the suffering for those on the bottom of society?”

Pat seemed stunned by the question. “Lord, I gave millions of dollars to the poor while I was down there.”

Jesus gazed deep into Pat’s eyes and responded succinctly; “Bullshit.”

Pat recoiled and gulped. “Excuse me?”

“First of all, that’s not what I asked,” Jesus snapped. He found himself straightening up, which hurt his back and made him angrier. “But let’s start by clarifying something. My instruction to help the poor and downtrodden was never about writing checks. When someone asks you for a cloak, I didn’t say give him a dollar to help him buy one; I told you to give him yours! The fact is, you not only didn’t give anyone a cloak, but all of the money you used to help the poor came from your donors, not you.”

“That’s not fair!” Pat exclaimed. “I tithed my entire life!”

“So what?” Jesus chided. “Tithing is at best a minimalist approach to giving. For someone struggling to get by, a ten percent tithe is a big deal. But you were so rich, ten percent barely phased you. You paid your own salary out of donations to your so-called ministry, and you apparently gave yourself some pretty sizable bonuses, from the looks of your personal holdings. Put another way, despite such incredible generosity, you still managed to accumulate a half billion dollars throughout your life, courtesy of donors, who thought they were buying a ticket to Heaven.”
“Lord, it’s just not that simple,” Pat smirked/chuckled nervously. “The world has become very mercenary; we needed lots of money to preach the Gospel to the world. Satellites, transponders, cameras, studios -- all that costs lots of money.”

Jesus sighed. “And yet, people donated so much, you were able to spend all that and still amass such a fortune. Seems to me you fell short somewhere. Half a billion dollars would have relieved the suffering of an awful lot of people.”

“Yes, Lord,” Pat smirked/laughed nervously, “And if I had lived longer, my plan was to evaluate all sorts of options and write a will designed to funnel the money to foundations which would help a lot of people.”

“Pat, you were almost 80 when the shark ate you!” Jesus snapped. “You were born into a wealthy family in the first place, and you accumulated wealth for your entire adult life of more than 60 years. During that time, hundreds of millions died, and billions of others suffered. While people of modest means managed to scrape enough together to help the poor, you – a so-called religious leader, no less -- primarily used your immense wealth to gain more wealth.”

“Lord, I had to ensure the survival of my ministry,” Pat explained. “I wanted your Word to go out to all the people on the entire planet!”

“I don’t mean to insult you,” Jesus remarked, “but have you ever actually read anything I actually said? You seem to have a seriously warped view of my Word, and I feel that’s being kind.”
“What do you mean, Lord?” Pat asked. “I did everything according to Scripture. I dedicated my entire life to it.”

“Oh, really?” Jesus asked sarcastically. “Care to tell me where I ever suggested that one man – or even two men -- proselytize to every single person in the world? Even if I approved of the concept of ‘Christianity’ – and I most certainly do not; I can’t stand that word – with a billion or so of you down there, what’s the point of having a handful spread the word to everyone else? And frankly, I’m not sure I’m not sure I liked much of what you said in My name. For example, do you honestly think I would have supported your call for the assassination of the elected president of another democratic country?”

“Yeah, I did make an error there, Lord,” Pat admitted with a smirk/chuckle, “which is why I chose to humble myself and offer an apology that time.”

“You didn’t choose anything,” Jesus said. “A whole lot of people – including many who normally liked you -- became upset and forced you to back off, and you asked them to forgive you for a slip of the tongue. I wonder; if you expected forgiveness for your so-called sins, why were you so unforgiving of others, such as homosexuals?”

“Homosexuality is an abomination!” Jerry interjected, to which Jesus responded with a derisive glance.

“I agree with Jerry, Lord,” Pat smirked/chuckled. “The Bible says a man who lays down with another man should be killed. I never went that far, of course. Some did, but I most certainly did not”
“You sure didn’t seem to have a problem with doing what you could to make them miserable while they were alive, though, did you?” Jesus said.

“What do you mean, Lord?” Pat asked.

“Well, neither of you seemed to have a problem working to limit the rights and freedoms of homosexuals,” Jesus said.

“Lord,” Jerry explained, “The only homosexuals I had a problem with were those who flaunted their lascivious acts, and who tried to teach our children that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?” Jesus asked. “You mean teach people how to love each other regardless of the preconceived notions they were force-fed as children? Where do you two get this crap, and don’t tell me the Bible! The Bible also says you should be killed for eating pork, and I didn’t see you limiting the rights of those who sell sausage and bacon. I never condemned homosexuality at all, and I certainly did not condemn homosexuals, in any case. Homosexuality is a sort of population governor; it is most definitely not a sin. But even if it was a sin, where do you derive the authority – spiritual or otherwise – to limit the rights of anyone? I never advocated a limit on human rights, and certainly not for people acting on their natural tendencies.”

“Well, I just find the whole idea revolting,” Jerry said. “No way something like that can be natural.”
“Shh, Jerry,” Pat admonished. “Don’t make him mad.”

“I’m already pissed off!” Jesus said. “The only reason you two are even here is because I’m trying to decide whether you’re false prophets, or just incredibly stupid.”

“Well, Lord,” Pat replied. “I am neither. I studied Scripture for years; my opinions derive from a very careful reading of Scripture. I also have a law degree, and have personally counseled some of the most powerful men on Earth.”

“If you studied me for so many years,” Jesus snapped. “then it should be easy for you to cite anything to indicate that I thought it was okay to engage in the persecution of homosexuals in My name!”

The force of the last few words caused Pat and Jerry back into eye aversion mode.

“You two had better look at me,” Jesus admonished.

Immediately, the men turned their attention to Jesus, who continued;

“For Pete’s sake; I busted my hump trying to teach people to hate the sin, but love the sinner. Yet, you two supposed experts spent your respective lives making up sins out of whole cloth, and lumping sin and sinner together so as to condemn them both, for no reason other than to keep certain people down. For some reason, people like you feel the need a group to put down, in order to get your message across, whatever that is. Take your stand on abortion, for example. You two always feigned concern for the fetus, yet you did nothing to actually lessen the number of abortions.”

“Now Lord, I wholeheartedly disagree with that,” Jerry piped up, “The Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was an abomination, and I spent more than 30 years trying to overturn that unfortunate decision, and make abortion illegal.”

“Okay,” Jesus said, nodding. “But what did you do to actually stop abortions?”

“Lord, making abortion illegal would have stopped most of them from happening,” Jerry drawled. “If women and abortionists faced jail time, the number would have dropped dramatically.”

Pat nodded in agreement. “I agree,” he smirked/chuckled. “I tried my darnedest to overturn that decision. Allowing women to have abortions was simply not in keeping with your teaching about the sanctity of life.”

Jesus stared at the men and shook his head. “I’ll ask again, gentlemen; what did either of you do to stop abortions? You’re both supposedly so smart; a reasonable answer shouldn’t be too difficult – “

“For the record, Lord,” Jerry said, “only Pat said he was smart. Officially speaking, I haven’t claimed any sort of intelligence.”

“Duly noted,” Jesus replied sarcastically. “Why would either of you believe a law would stop abortions? Let me clue you in – people drank during Prohibition, and they continue to do illegal drugs during your so-called ‘war on drugs.’ Laws don’t stop people from doing those things they feel are necessary for survival, and that’s what this is about. The key to stopping abortions has nothing to do with giving the government the power to throw women and doctors in jail; it comes from reducing the desire for abortion, which means having compassion for the woman and her plight, and acting before she gets to the stage where she’s considering it. Funny thing is, while you two worked so hard to pass a law against abortion, you actively supported budget cuts for programs designed to help poor women and their already-born children. Do you have any clue that such a move made women more desperate and more likely to choose to terminate the pregnancy? And what about the effect on the kids they already had? You showed all sorts of compassion for the fetus, but none for the baby once it came out of the womb.”

“Lord,” Jerry said, “my ministry oversaw operations that actively tried to place orphaned children into good, Christian two-parent households. We were able to place thousands of children into nice homes. We also passed out large bags of groceries to those in need in communities all over the world.”

“We did a lot for the poor as well, Lord,” Jerry insisted. “Volunteers from our church went around the communities and handed out bags of groceries to the elderly and infirmed. There weren’t very many poor families near our church, so we didn’t get to do as much as I’d have liked. And just like Pat’s ministry, we worked hard to place orphaned children into good, loving Christian homes.”

“Well, you didn’t do enough if you were both millionaires at the end of the day,” Jesus remarked. “But the whole adoption issue brings up two questions; what did you do to help the children already in good families, and just happened to be poor? And how many children did you not place, because the people who wanted to adopt them were either non-Christian, single or gay?”

“We had to be discriminating, Lord,” Jerry insisted. “Ours was a Christian organization, and we owed it to our congregation to adhere to strict Christian principles, as well as the law. We couldn’t, in good conscience, put children into non-Christian homes, one parent households or gay households. May I also remind you that, not only was homosexuality considered to be against Biblical principles; it was against most state laws.”

“First of all, your demonstrated knowledge of ‘Biblical principles’ is very suspect at this point,” Jesus remarked. “But even worse you don’t seem to care about the children. On the one hand, you touted adoption as an alternative to abortion, but then you made it more difficult for children to be adopted. What sense did that make?”

“Our goal was to place children in the best homes,” Jerry replied.

“No, your goal was to place people in homes that complied with your strict definition of what constituted an acceptable ‘lifestyle’,” Jesus said. “Do you realize, in your country alone, nearly a million children remain in the system, at any given time, and will never be adopted? At the same time, thousands of loving people want to adopt them, but are turned away because they’re not ‘perfect parents’ under your unrealistic definition.”

“Lord, we just thought it was wrong not to do out best to place those children into good, solid homes with two stable parents,” Pat chimed in. It was obvious he was trying to deflect some of the criticism away from his friend; a laudable trait, albeit a little late in the game.”

“First of all, you lived in a country in which nearly half the kids in the country were being primarily raised by one parent at any given time,” Jesus reminded them. “Second of all, many children in two-parent Christian households are poorly raised and, in many cases, severely abused, and you actually supported politicians who actively cut funding to programs that addressed those problems. So, not only were the two of you very rich, you actively supported cutting programs that helped the very people you were supposed to help. And in the process, you were pretty much maximizing the number of abortions. Of course, that doesn’t surprise me; very little of this made any sense at all. At the same time you two were crying about the fetal casualties, you were also advocating against most birth control methods. That’s absurd.”

“I’d like to talk about the birth control issue,” Jerry responded.

“Please,” Jesus replied. “I’m all ears.”

Jerry cleared his throat and launched into full preacher mode. “Most birth control violates God’s law because it wastes human life. All human life is precious, and most birth control methods cheapen, and even take, human lives. The Bible teaches us that life begins at conception.”

“Yeah, you’ve been telling people that for years,” Jesus said. “But it’s a crock. I never said it, that’s for sure, because it makes no sense. I swear your knowledge of basic biology is as bad as your knowledge of Scripture. Sex and procreation are mechanical processes, Jerry, not feats of magic. Every time a man ejaculates, millions of sperm are released, right?”

“Right,” Jerry nodded sheepishly.

Jesus was forced to suppress a snicker. Why were humans so intimidated by sex? He bit his lip and continued. “On average, even the most fertile women will get pregnant 10% of the times she has intercourse, and out of every dozen or so fertilized eggs, only one will implant and begin gestation. Therefore, based on your logic, nature wastes more ‘human life’ than any human using birth control. According to you, approximately ten million sperm and a dozen or so conceived embryos are wasted by natural processes by every sexually active couple -- including those sacred married couples -- during the course of a month, making that couple equivalent to the worst serial killers imaginable. The whole concept is ridiculous.

“But forget about biology for a moment,” Jesus continued. “What about the moral aspect of this? Even if your logic was sound, your work to change the law was a long, arduous process. Which brings us to the same question; while you were working to change the law, how many abortions did you prevent?”

“Well, I can’t speak for Pat,” Jerry replied, “but our church was very active in counseling women against aborting their child.”

“Same for us,” Pat agreed. “We sent protesters to abortion clinics to block the doors at times, and we even set up alternative clinics where, instead of abortions, we’d tell them about You, Lord.”

“I see,” Jesus replied. “So, you lied and committed outright fraud in My Name?”

“Well, um…” Pat stuttered, as he fidgeted in his seat.

“This is the problem, gentlemen,” Jesus said. “I asked people to go out and encourage others to be better than they were. I never made any hard and fast rules about anything, contrary to what people like you teach in order to keep people in line. People act according to their conscience and circumstances, and their actions don’t always conform to a rigid set of absolute principles; times change, as it were. If you teach people to treat each other more justly, people faced with difficult choices will ultimately make a moral one. If you two had bothered to read what I actually said, you would have figured out that God is not the authoritarian prick you make Him out to be.

“With regard to abortion, for example, my words should have encouraged you to advocate for more sex education in schools; greater birth control availability; more support for single mothers in trying to locate runaway fathers and certainly more comprehensive welfare programs. Seriously; how can you, as so-called Christians -- boy, do I hate that word -- care so much for a fetus, but not give a damn about those already born?”

“We did care about them, Lord,” Pat piped up. “That’s why we set up huge foundations dedicated to feeding and clothing the poor.”

“Foundations which required those asking for clothing to sit and listen to a sales pitch in order to qualify,” Jesus added sarcastically.

“It was not a sales pitch,” Pat said defensively. “We were trying to get the word out about you, Lord.”

“Don’t you think the simple act of handing out clothing and food, no questions asked, would have been sufficient for ‘getting the word out’?” Jesus asked. “Why do you have to preach constantly, and berate people for making what you consider to be wrong choices? Can’t you just perform an act of kindness and encourage folks to pass it on? And if you cared about the poor, why did you work so hard to reduce government assistance for them?”

Pat immediately went into smirk/chuckle mode. “We advocated against certain government programs because we felt it was our job as Christians to help the poor, not theirs. Besides, government was too inefficient.”

“Why does it matter who does the job, or where the money comes from?” Jesus snapped. “I say, the more the merrier! If it’s possible to get everyone in a society to pitch in and help those in need, why discourage that? I didn’t say exactly how you were supposed to help the downtrodden; I just said to make sure they got the help.”

“The government’s incompetence is legendary,” Pat replied sarcastically.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jesus said, “You accumulated $500 million you were unable to transfer to the poor; how efficient were you? How many millions remained cold and hungry, or even died, while your supposedly ‘efficient’ organizations collected far more money than you managed to spend?”

“We also had a problem with the way the government collected taxes,” Jerry said. “Coercing people to pay was simply not the best way to go.”

“You have to be joking with this,” Jesus replied curtly. “Most of your donations came about because of coercion! Scaring people into giving by implying they’d face eternal damnation if they didn’t support you isn’t coercion?”

Jerry and Pat looked down sheepishly. It was obvious things were not going as they had expected. It was difficult to read shame or humility on these two -- he wasn’t even sure they knew what they were -- but their initial arrogance had been seriously diminished.

“It just chaps my ass that while you two bozos worked so hard to supposedly save fetuses, you also worked your butts off to cut the poor off at the knees,” Jesus said.

“Lord, we were teaching people to fish,” Jerry said. “You know the old saying, ‘If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime,’ as it were.”

“You’re not supposed to starve them while they learn to fish!” Jesus snapped. “How were you teaching people to fish by making them poorer, and forcing them to choose between heating or eating?”

“When backed into a corner, you’d be surprised at the strength people find within themselves,” Jerry remarked.

“Excuse me, but don’t even begin to tell me what people are capable of!” Jesus snapped. “Your entire premise is a complete crock. Following that reasoning, theft should be okay because taking your things had the effect of forcing the victim of the theft to grow. Don’t you get it? People should be entitled to a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, at the very least. Yet while you were down there, you cynically sided with those who seemed to think a single mother trying to scrape by on a few hundred a month was being handed the keys to a mansion and a sports car.

“And let me be brutally honest,” Jesus added. “If you’re going to claim moral leadership, compassion is a must. And I don’t mean the cynical misuse of the word that certain of you engaged in, either. Don’t think I didn’t notice that little ‘compassionate conservative’ fraud; there are lots of people in a heap of trouble for throwing that word around and not following through, let me tell you. Compassion is about caring for the well being of all people, not just those of whom you approve. In fact, people who actually understand what I actually said know you’re expected to specifically help the ones you don’t approve of.”

“Lord, with all due respect, we lived in the United States of America, the greatest country in the history of the world,” Jerry opined, as though he was back in the pulpit. “In our country, anyone willing to work hard can become as rich as he’d like. Most poor are so because they’ve historically been unwilling to take the initiative to do something about it.”

“Bullshit,” Jesus shouted. Before the eyes averted, he added, “And keep looking at me!”

Pat and Jerry gulped. It was obvious they now understood the term “fear of the Lord.”

“This is why I called you here, and why I’m doing this myself,” Jesus said. “People who use the term ‘Christian’ -- I swear I hate that word – and claim religious and moral leadership seem to have no clue what I was about. I spoke of God’s love; I didn’t go down there to draw attention and glory for myself; I was trying to get you to pay attention to Him. Truth be told, the original plan was for me to retire and enjoy Heaven like everyone else. Unfortunately, that’s not working out too well, because I have to constantly deal with people like you. Why is it too much to ask that people like you get it right?”

“We’re sorry, Lord,” Jerry muttered sheepishly. Not entirely sincere, but perhaps humility was possible with these two, after all.

“The reason there are poor is because that’s where the human race is with regard to its evolution,” Jesus said. “And yes, gentlemen, not only his your knowledge of biology suspect; evolution is a fact, gentlemen, not just a theory.”

The two men gasped, as though the mere thought was inconceivable.

“Oh, please,” Jesus chided, “Why would anyone make a world with varying climates and weather patterns, and not make every species adaptable? Actually, humans are the only species God did create.”

“I knew we didn’t descend from apes!” Jerry drawled happily. He obviously enjoyed being correct.
“Actually, you kind of did,” Jesus snickered. “The fact is, humans were essentially gorillas with minds. They most certainly weren’t the good looking modern white people you see in most depictions of Adam and Eve. Ever see that movie, ‘Clan of the Cave Bear?’ Like that.”

“Well, I had a feeling the creation story rang truer than the rest of the Old Testament,” Pat said smirked/chuckled. “Adam and Eve were the first humans.”

“Well, not exactly,” Jesus said. “God actually created a few million humans over the course of several millennia, and dispersed them all over the world. He used the gorilla template, designed it to walk a little more upright, removed some hair and added reason to the thought processes. That last part hasn’t worked out so well, though. The whole idea was to create a being that watched over all of the other beings; a caretaker, if you will. Unfortunately, all that reason seems to have made things worse. The only thing humans can do better than apes is destroy things.”

“We’ve also conquered many diseases,” Jerry noted.

“No, actually, you haven’t,” Jesus said. “Remember evolution? All you’ve managed to do is force certain diseases to mutate into other diseases.”

“Many humans also work hard to alleviate human suffering,” Pat said.

“Of course, most human suffering on Earth is caused by other humans in the first place,” Jesus reminded him. “Most human suffering would cease if you people just stopped treating each other so badly. Speaking of which, Pat, perhaps you can explain those diamond mines of yours?”

“What do you mean, Lord?” Pat asked.

“Pat, remember who you’re talking to,” Jesus said. “We both know how your so-called ‘church’ made a lot of its money.”

“We developed a very successful cable television network,” Pat smirked/chuckled nervously. “That’s how we made our money.”

“No, Pat, it’s not.” Jesus grinned, but he was not happy. Why would someone purposely obfuscate to Him while standing before Him in such a position? He understood human arrogance, but based on their alleged belief systems, at stake was the big enchilada; eternity. “You want to stick with that answer?”

Pat stared back defiantly. “Yes, Lord, I do.”

“So, you didn’t own a series of diamond mines?” Jesus asked pointedly.

“I owned shares in some diamond mines,” Pat said. “I used most of the money to fund my ministry, and help the poor in the countries in which the mines were situated.”

“I see,” Jesus said. “And how much assistance did you direct to the poor in those countries, exactly?”

“I tithed, of course,” Pat said.

“So you gave the country that provided you with slave labor a whopping ten percent?” Jesus asked.

“Those were just vicious rumors,” Pat smirked/chuckled. “As far as I knew, there was no slave labor used in any of my mines.” He was having a difficult time focusing on Jesus; it was obvious he was lying.

“So, the dictator of that particular country used slave labor in the hundred or so other diamond mines he owned, but not yours?” Jesus remarked. “He must have been in a great mood. What sort of deal did you make to get such a concession?”

“Lord, I bought the mines from friends, and they made those sorts of arrangements long before I got into it,” Pat explained, his smirk/chuckle now missing. “I was merely an investor with several others; I had no input into the day-to-day operations of the mines.”

“But you knew they were run with slave labor,” Jesus said.

“I didn’t know that,” Pat insisted.

“Well, they were, and I’m pretty sure you knew,” Jesus said. “But frankly, even if you didn’t know, you should have. You always claimed such moral superiority, but isn’t a truly moral person always aware of the effects of his actions on others? I know that it’s commonplace for humans to think ignorance is a valid excuse for their transgressions, but you can’t do so and then claim the moral high ground. When you invest in an enterprise, you do so of your own free will, and you bear the burden of responsibility for anything that occurs as you rake in the money from that enterprise. Not only were those mines run using slave labor, you did little or nothing to ease the suffering of those providing that labor. You should have known, and you should have done everything in your power to stop the practice.”

“I see your point, Lord,” Pat admitted. His smirk/chuckle had returned, but seemed more subdued. “But there were so many things going on in my own country. People all over the United States were violating God’s law Word left and right. People were lying, cheating and fornicating all over the place, and I felt they would stop, if only they knew Your Word.

“So, to get people to act morally, you chose to act immorally, and look the other way as an abomination – a true abomination – was happening right under your nose?” Jesus asked.

Pat hung his head in what Jesus could only assume was mock shame. Jesus cleared his throat, and immediately, all eyes were on Him.

“I’d like to know where it is written that it’s okay to treat people badly, if your intentions are good,” Jesus said. “Even if you two had the best of intentions in telling people about God, that doesn’t excuse the moral turpitude you demonstrated in raising money to support that endeavor. You two were all about money and power, and little else.”

Jesus sauntered over to the desk, picked up a mug and took a long sip of water. To their credit, the two evangelists remained quiet.

“The problem with humans at this stage of their evolution is their view of capitalism, to be quite honest,” Jesus continued. “Capitalism is a fine economic model, if properly regulated, but it’s become a religion with people like you and Pat. Money has supplanted God for a lot of you so-called preachers. I see no evidence that your supposed piety was anything but a power grab, by using God to create fear in people, to make them feel they had to support you.”

“Lord, I resent the implication that I was after any sort of political power,” Jerry said. “My goal was simply to reverse the trend in which Christians suffered some very significant discrimination by the government.”

“That’s absurd,” Jesus snickered, “Last I checked, more than four-fifths of the people in your country considered themselves Christian. By definition, it’s impossible to discriminate against a majority in a democracy. So, there was no discrimination, actually; just a separation of church and state.”

“There is no such thing as a separation of church and state in the Constitution,” Pat insisted.

“Pat, I thought you had a law degree,” Jesus snickered. “There is a very clear separation of church and state in the Constitution, your country’s founders put it there quite purposefully. They had either experienced, or were familiar with, real religious discrimination of some sort, and wanted to prevent further instances of it. By the way, those founders were not all Christian, although the Christians all felt that separation was a good thing, and I agree. Even I advocated for it, if you’ll recall. Don’t you remember what I said about rendering unto Caesar?”

“But, Lord,” Jerry complained, “They took prayer out of the schools, took the Ten Commandments out of the courthouse and they even kicked the Baby Jesus out of the town square in many places. I’m telling you, groups like the ACLU are organizations borne of Satan himself.”

“Pat, who do you think you’re talking to?” Jesus laughed. “I am the ‘Baby Jesus’! They only took prayer out of the public schools, and the Ten Commandments out of the secular courthouse. As for Nativity scenes, I just have one thing to say. The basis for Christianity – and one of the reasons I can’t stand it – is that I am somehow God. If that was true, I would think the Commandment about false idols would apply to any depiction of me, baby or otherwise.”

“I never looked at it that way,” Jerry muttered.

“Of course you didn’t,” Jesus replied. “That’s why I’m here; you poisoned a whole bunch of people against my actual message, by pushing your alternate view of things, and did far more damage than the ACLU could ever dream of. Separation of church and state is an absolute necessity, and I think you know that, and a lot of other things you feign ignorance on. I think your motivation for making people think such the opposite was purely power-related.”

“I beg your pardon, Lord,” Jerry complained. “But I sincerely thought I was following your teaching.”
“Don’t insult me,” Jesus said. “Look at your record. You invoked God against groups like the ACLU; you claimed that God encouraged terrorists to kill people; you even insinuated that diseases like AIDS were God’s revenge and implied that God would turn his back on folks should they vote for Democrats. Do you seriously think God takes sides in elections?”

“We supported candidates we thought were the most Godly,” Pat said. “I simply wanted a government that supported good moral values, and did what was right.”

“And yet, you most often supported the candidate who was least moral, many of whom demonstrated questionable ethics, at the very least,” Jesus said.

“I will admit, some we supported later turned out to be a bit less than advertised,” Pat smirked/chuckled, “But we both supported conservative Christian candidates, because we thought they were best for the country.”

“Well, I seem to remember a presidential candidate whom you claimed was ‘blessed by God,’” Jesus said. “And you continued to give him unerring support even after he started an unnecessary war against a country that was unable to defend itself; even after it was clear that he had overseen the torture of hundreds of people, and even after he cut programs for the poor and infirmed, while handing that money to the rich. Of course, you two were among the richest people in the country, I’m thinking you probably didn’t mind.”

“I never put my own welfare ahead of the welfare of society as a whole,” Jerry insisted. “My emphasis, however, was more spiritual, encouraging people to prepare for the next life. The President was a good man, though in the end, it was clear he was in a little over his head.”

“A lack of basic intelligence and common sense was the least of his problems,” Jesus said. “That man lied and cheated to become president in the first place, never owned up to any of his mistakes, either before or during his presidency, and then proceeded to preside over the most corrupt regime in the history of your country. By the time he was finished, almost half of his administration had been indicted for some ethical violation or another. And then, just before he left office, this paragon of virtue pardoned every last one of them. There was nothing moral about him, or most of the politicians you supported, and yet you were loyal to the very end.”

“I reject the implication that I acted in an unethical manner!” Pat said. His legal training had taken over, and he seemed hopping mad, causing his smirk/chuckle to become somewhat manic. “I was taught Your Word by some of the greatest Biblical scholars of the 20th Century, and I worked hard my entire life to live by that Word. I wasn’t perfect, to be sure – all men fall short of the glory of God, after all – but my intentions were always honorable.”

“Well, I think the slaves in the diamond mines would disagree,” Jesus remarked.

“In Pat’s defense,” Jerry said, “if he hadn’t run those mines, someone else would have. At least the money went for a good purpose; spreading Your Word far and wide throughout the world.”

Jesus turned to Jerry and glared ferociously. “You have to be kidding!” He snapped. “So, it would have been okay for Mother Teresa to rob trains, as long as the money went to help the poor? That’s insane! Using slave labor to raise money for a church is not defensible by anyone. And neither are some of your actions, Jerry. Weren’t you once investigated by the government for selling fraudulent bonds to build your church?”

“Yes, Lord, I was,” Jerry said. “But I was found innocent.”

“No, you weren’t,” Jesus sniffed. “In fact, at the time of your death by shark, the government was looking into several questionable financial dealings, including that one. You also once claimed that God Himself was underwriting your church’s bonds, and that He had a Triple-A rating. Why would you think it okay to make a fraudulent claim in God’s name, except as a vain attempt to intimidate people into doing your bidding?”

“That wasn’t it at all,” Jerry stammered. He had slipped out of preacher mode, and into “earnest” mode. “When I was a very young man, God called me to preach the Gospel. I started a small church, and within a few years, the church outgrew two buildings. It was then that I decided to go on television; that way, everyone who wanted to attend services could. We bought some time on a local station, and found our message was reaching more people than we ever imagined, which encouraged us to reach out to everyone in the country and the world. That takes money – lots of money. To get the money we needed, we needed investors –“

“Stop right there!” Jesus interrupted. “Again, I ask - who told you to do all of that in the first place?”
“You instructed all of your followers to go out and preach the Gospel, Lord,” Jerry replied. “That’s what I was doing.”

Jesus sighed. “Even assuming that the stuff you were preaching made sense – which is not a safe assumption -- if each so-called ‘Christian’ talked to a few others, everyone would know about me. What purpose does it serve for you and Pat to attempt to reach the entire world? Do you think you have some sort of special knowledge others are not privy to?”

“No, Lord,” Jerry replied awkwardly, “of course not.”

“So,” Jesus said, “was there a reason -- other than unbridled arrogance, of course -- for raising tons of money by fraudulent means, using the Lord’s Name in vain?”

“In my entire life, I have never used the Lord’s name in vain!” Jerry objected.

“Of course you have!” Jesus said. “What do you think that term means, anyway? You think it just applies to people who use God’s name as an expletive? No! It’s about invoking His name to get something, or giving him credit or blame for something He had nothing to do with. Every time you even implied that God would smite someone for engaging in activity you didn’t approve of; every time you suggested God would give someone a horrible affliction should they not give money to the right preacher; you were using His name in vain. You know what else qualifies, and pisses God off no end? It’s what idiots like you call faith healing. Every time one of you claimed to heal someone and gave yourself and God the credit, you pissed him off royally! God simply doesn’t work like that. Diseases are actually living, breathing organisms; He doesn’t control what they do. Put simply, God doesn’t do magic tricks.”

“Well, we didn’t call them magic tricks,” Pat interjected. “We called them miracles.”

“Magic tricks, miracles,” Jesus said, “It’s a distinction without a difference, Pat. Things don’t work that way. Speaking of diseases, both of you have said on various occasions said that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuals, or worse, God's punishment for a society which tolerates homosexuals. Why would you say such a thing?”

“Well, as I said before,” Jerry explained carefully. “I felt that homosexuality was an abomination, and that God punished those who disobey. Now, I guess I know that was wrong.”

“It’s not only flat wrong, Jerry,” Jesus said. “It’s also completely illogical! Think a little, will you? As I said before, according to your belief system, God is the most powerful being in existence. So why did you always portray him as some sort of frustrated diva? Why would any superior being have temper tantrums and make his own creations suffer because they sin? I’m puzzled as to why you insist on imbuing God with the worst of human traits?”

“I guess I never thought of it that way,” Jerry said. “But the Bible contains many instances where God exacted retribution on those who violated His laws.”

“First of all, you need to know that most of the stories in the Old Testament are just that; stories,” Jesus said. “They’re not meant to be taken literally, as historical fact. For example; doesn’t it strike you as a bit illogical that Noah was able to find two of every animal species in the world and fit them all on a wooden boat about the size of a small cruise ship? And , why would God destroy all life with a flood because a few humans acted up? In order to have faith – real faith, and not false piety, you must understand what you actually claim to believe. For example, in your beloved Christianity, I’m supposed to be the Savior, right?”

“Of course,” they both answered simultaneously.

“And didn’t the Old Testament say the coming of the savior would mean the end of such retribution?” Jesus queried.

“Yes, of course it did,” Jerry answered authoritatively, as Pat winced.

“Okay,” Jesus said. “So you knew this, and yet claimed that such things as AIDS and terrorist attacks were God’s retribution. Glad we got that straightened out.”

Jesus turned his attention to Pat and smirked. “How about you, Pat? Why did you portray God as some sort of pissy prima donna?”

“I probably misspoke a few times, Lord,” Pat admitted, the smirk/chuckle replaced with a serious tone. “But mostly, I praised God for His remarkable love and compassion for the human race –“
“And warned them that they were headed for Hell if they didn’t comply with some made-up behavioral rules,” Jesus added. “You both seemed to be experts on what was supposedly good and bad behavior, but neither of you did anything to make the world a better place.”
“I disagree, Lord,” Pat said. “I set up several very large foundations that had as their sole mission the feeding and clothing of the poor.”

“And you required those you fed and clothed to sit and listen to someone preach to them in order to get their food,” Jesus reminded him. “God’s love is unconditional, so why do you two always feel the need to place conditions the few things you do for people?”

“Jesus, I realize that I have not been a perfect human,” Jerry said. “But I tried hard to do your work while down there. Just like Pat, I set up foundations to feed the poor, and instructed members of my church to go out into the community and give help wherever needed. My operation was nowhere near as large and complex as Pat’s, and far more of my money went to actually preaching the Word.”

“What about living the Word?” Jesus asked. “How much of My Word did you actually live out?”

“I lived a good, clean, God-filled life, Lord,” Jerry responded. “I worked hard, took care of my family, never had sex outside of marriage, only cussed a few times, and never broke the law. I was very clean cut, as they say, because I believed that being so brought me closer to you.”

“Same here, Lord,” Pat smirked/chuckled. “I was a good father, a wonderful husband, and always honest and forthright. I always told people what I thought, even if they really didn’t want to hear it at times. I also never said bad words, and I prayed each and every day, so that I could be closer to you.”

“I prayed, too,” Jerry rushed to add. “I prayed several times a day, and always kneeled to do so, to display the proper reverence.”

“You know, if you two are examples of religious leadership in the world, it’s no wonder people have such a hard time believing. I’m glad the two of you took care of your families, and it’s good that you saw fit to try to live your life in a pious manner. But most people do that, regardless of religious belief; that certainly doesn’t qualify you as any sort of religious or spiritual leader. There’s a lot more to my teachings than simply doing what you’re supposed to do, like taking care of those you should take care of and not saying bad words. It’s about taking care of those on the bottom, regardless of whether or not they’re related to you by blood, and regardless of whether or not you approve of the things they do, if they are not hurting anyone else. You can preach and preach until the cows come home, but without actions to back it up, there’s no point to any of it. People all over the world do wonderful things for others, including many you claimed were condemned to Hell because they didn’t believe that I am God. By the way, I’m not God; I’m just a messenger for Him, so stop referring to me as ‘Lord’; it makes me sound too regal. The name’s Jesus.”

“I’m sorry, Jesus,” the two replied.

“It’s okay,” Jesus said. “The point is, people all over the world do great things. They go into poor areas and build homes and schools; they teach people to read and write; they vaccinate children and adults and show them how to live better lives. They’re on the fast track to the afterlife, make no mistake about that. The strange thing is, you two Christian leaders have worked your asses off trying to elect a government that actually undermines the efforts of people who have dedicated their lives to being angels. You spent your lives creating obstacles for people like that, and acted as if you thought knew better than anyone else what I was about.”

“That’s simply not true,” Pat replied.

“It is true, Pat,” Jesus said. “And based on that, I’ve decided that the two of you have no place here with me.”

“What?” both men gasped at once. They turned ashen, and every ounce of remaining arrogance was drained from them.

“Oh, my God,” Jerry cried. “We’re doomed to an eternity in damnation. I can’t believe it!”

“Well, don’t believe it,” Jesus said. “Hell is another of those concepts that is ridiculous on its face. Seriously, you guys, God is a rational being; what sense would it make to toss a soul into a fiery pit for all eternity, based on less than a century of life and some really bad choices? There is no Hell.”

“Oh, thank God,” Pat responded.

“Yeah, be sure to do that next time, won’t you?” Jesus quipped.

“Next time?” Jerry asked.

“Yes, Jerry,” Jesus said. “Surely, you’ve heard of reincarnation?”

“Yes, of course,” Jerry said.

“Well, that was another thing you got wrong,” Jesus said with a grin. “People like you laughed at Shirley MacLaine and Buddhists for being crazy, but they know what they’re talking about. We usually do a better job of erasing the memory of past lives, though; in Shirley’s case, there must have been a clerical error. Anyway, that is what we do with souls who are simply not ready to be here. You get to go down there and do it all over again.”

“Thank you, Lo- er, Jesus,” Jerry said. “I promise to learn from my mistakes and do better next time.”

“Me, too,” Pat nodded in agreement.

“You two simply don’t listen, do you?” Jesus asked pointedly. “Didn’t you just hear the part about memory erasure? You’ll have to start from scratch. There’ll be a few evolutionary adjustments, but other than that, you’re on your own.”

“I don’t understand,” Pat said.

“I know,” Jesus said. “That was your problem for most of your 80 years on Earth. You don’t get to learn from your mistakes; in order for the human race to evolve, it has to develop better instincts. You two were lazy and power mad; you’re your reliance on God and Me was incidental to your true goals and true nature. If you could have achieved the same level of power through gardening, you’d have been florists. You two were abject failures, but the failure was God’s, not yours. We’ll make some adjustments and throw your souls back down there over and over until we get it right.”

“Then what was all of this for?” Jerry asked. “If you knew where we were going when we got here, why did you put us through all of this?”

“For fun,” Jesus replied. “I thought a fitting end to your lives was to butt heads with me. I needed a little play time. I mean, there are a lot of false prophets on Earth, but the two of you were especially abominable. I even suggested to God He create a Hell, just for people like you. Lucky for you, He has more patience than I do. Anyway, gentlemen; off you go. I’m done with you.”

And with that, the room went dark.

Um... Ewwwwww...

2007-03-29T13:46:00.001-04:00

Creepy... And not in an Addams Family way, either...

Bolton Has His Head Handed to Him

2007-03-26T22:12:00.000-04:00

I wish our press had the guts of the British press. Watch John Bolton get his head handed to him at the hands of the Brits...

Tony Snow on Executive Privilege

2007-03-21T08:25:00.000-04:00

From an excellent article by Glen Greenwald at Salon, here is a compilation of what current White House mouthpiece Tony Snow (and select others) said previously about the concept of executive privilege. We'll have to watch the spin machine today, to see what happens...

Tony Snow - Op-Ed - St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 29, 1998 :

(HEADLINE: "Executive Privilege is a Dodge")

Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.

One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law.

Tony Snow, Fox News, March 18, 1998:

In our latest Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll, we asked a series of questions about executive privilege. Most believe it's an attempt to stonewall Ken Starr's investigation. There's an even split on whether the White House has something to hide. And a majority thinks conversations with the first lady should not be covered.

Did the president invoke executive privilege to preserve the presidency or hold Ken Starr at bay?

Paul Gigot, Fox News, March 8, 1998:

GIGOT: Senator Torricelli, the president has from the very beginning pledged to cooperate with the investigation, said he wants to get the truth out sooner rather than later.

Would you define claims of executive privilege as cooperation? . . . But aren't claims of executive privilege usually reserved for national security matters -- in particular, matters of state secrets and foreign affairs?

Kate O'Beirne - Capital Gang - May 2, 1998:

O'BEIRNE: Let me say, Mark, I think Newt Gingrich delivered a really good speech. He gave voice to that which millions of people know to be true. I don't think it's good news for the Democrats. The Republicans have had trouble finding their voice on this and they're scared off by being told it just has to do with the president's personal, private behavior. And Newt Gingrich, I think, has given voice to them in a way that's not helpful to Democrats.

He says there are two principles involved, the public's right to know, because secrecy has so benefited Bill Clinton, and second, no one is above the law. Now, if the public increasingly sees this scandal about their right to know, so much for executive privilege and Secret Service privilege, and no one is above the law, Bill Clinton's in a lot of trouble.

Tony Snow's Show - Fox News - May 10, 1998

SNOW: Mr. Burton, back to your committee -- if you cannot immunize those witnesses, that's the kiss of death. You're not going to have any more hearings. . . . .

BRIT HUME: And have you been assured, sir, that you will remain as chairman of that committee through the coming months.

GOP COMMITTEE CHAIR REP. DAN BURTON: Yes. I have no problem with that, and I don't think the speaker does either.

We're going to continue on it until we get the truth for the American people, or at least do our dead-level best to get the truth for them.

You know, the president could solve a lot of this problem if he wouldn't hide behind executive privilege, if he'd just come out and tell the American people the truth.

Anyone wanna bet there's a little bit of hypocrisy coming out of the White House today?

This is How the Press Here Should Be...

2007-03-16T16:44:00.000-04:00

This is an interview from Irish television from about a year ago. Look at it, and tell me that American reporters shouldn't emulate this more. This is what the press is supposed to be about. Bush is a stuttering fool in this reporter's hands, because he IS a stuttering fool...

As an American, I'm embarrassed that this person (of course I mean Bush) represents our country throughout the world. Note how many times he rudely insists that she "let me finish." Word to Bush; an interview is a two-way conversation, not one question and one monologue.

Oh, and a lie is a lie, even when you say it in a forum that most Americans will never see...

Rahm Emanuel Did WHAT?

2007-03-15T20:00:00.000-04:00

There's an article in this morning's issue of The Hill that has me laughing a bit, to be honest.

It's an article by Jonathan Kaplan, which makes the claim that Rahm Emanuel has ordered freshman Congresscritters to stay the hell away from Stephen Colbert and especially The Colbert Report. Of course, I think it's ridiculous that anyone should tell these people what to do; after all, they were smart enough to get elected; there is no reason why they shouldn't be able to step around the verbal land mines Colbert might throw their way.

That's not what made me laugh, however. The following passage is what made me laugh out loud:

Last year, as the House Democrats’ chief election strategist, Emanuel engineered the party’s takeover of the House by capitalizing on a nationalized midterm election.

Seriously; is that funny or what?

Emanuel didn't engineer anything last year. Let's get something clear here; Democrats won in 2006, because Republicans screwed the pooch. If the GOP had shown even the least bit of competence the last two years, Rahm Emanuel wouldn't be able to claim he engineered anything. In fact, if you look more closely, most of the candidates Emanuel supported early on lost big in the primaries.

You see, Rahm Emanuel is a product of the DLC, a group whose ship has sailed. We are on the cusp of a very progressive era in this country, and Rahm Emanuel had better realize it soon, or he will be out of a job.

Engineered the win? Tom DeLay and George W. Bush engineered the election win more then Rahm Emanuel.

Karl Rove and the Shiny Keys

2007-03-15T16:04:00.000-04:00

You know, I have to wonder how many people are buying this stupid crap about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They've had this guy in prison for four years now, most of that time in secret prisons, and now, all of a sudden, he's getting all chatty, telling us about all of the crap he's supposedly pulled over the last 15 years or so.

The strange thing is, all of this is coming out just after the Attorney General's Office and the Department of Justice has come under fire for firing US Attorneys because they weren't going after Democrats enough.

Actually, more to the point, Khalid is getting all chatty just as Karl Rove is in danger of being thrown under the bus. And if you think it's coincidence, you don't know Karl Rove.

First of all, these alleged "confessions" are worthless, if they actually happened at all, and to be honest, I think they're bullshit, straight out of the fertilized Rovian mind.

But let's suppose they actually happened. Let's pretend that Khalid is suddenly telling us what we want to know. What good is the information? Are we supposed to be relieved because - phew! - Osama bin Laden isn't actually guilty of anything? Are we supposed to pack it in and go home when it comes to the "War on Terrrrr," because gosh -- we got the mastermind of all of these dastardly deeds? What is the purpose of this secretive administration suddenly giving us the straight dope on what this Khalid guy did?

And if these "confessions" were real, they'd still be useless in a trial -- at least in a trial as the United States system of justice fashioned a trial. There is no way to verify their truth, because everything is secret. The people at Gitmo are not allowed counsel, they are not given their rights, and they are tortured. Bush himself has all but admitted that they used torture on Khalid; therefore, any confession would be inadmissible anyway.

It sure does say a lot about the alleged usefulness of torture, though, doesn't it? I mean, they've had this guy for four years, and presumably, they've tortured him many times in four years. Yet, they're just now getting him to admit certain things? I mean, today, he apparently admitted that he personally beheaded Daniel Pearl.

Aw, screw it, folks; this isn't Fox Noise Channel; I don't do bullshit. This isn't real; it's a Karl Rove fantasy, cooked up for your entertainment. You see, Rove thinks we still buy his line of crap, so he keeps on feeding it to us. It's really incredible, if you think about it, you know? He wants us to think of the Bushies as "tough on terrrrr-ism' again. He wants us to think that we can't possibly win the "war on terrrr" without them. Because, see, if we think that way, then we can more readily forgive them for their politicization of the US Attorney's offices.

But it's not going to work. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in custody, and has been for four years, and cannot hurt anyone any longer. He should be put on trial, but the fact of the matter is, he's done.

On the other hand, the Bush Administration is still out there, breaking the law in every way they deem necessary...

Priorities, people... we have to set priorities...

Peter Pace -- Wingnut General

2007-03-13T06:10:00.000-04:00

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff came out in favor of the wrongheaded and stupid "don't ask, don't tell" policy, in which gay people are allowed to serve, so long as no one knows they're gay. According to General Pace, homosexuality itself is "immoral," because he was brought up to believe that.

"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Pace said.

In other words, straight men in the service can go to strip clubs, whistle at strange women, visit prostitutes, etc. -- you know, all of the things "boys" will do, because that's "normal" and "natural." But if "other" people in the service are in a monogamous, very devoted and loving relationship with someone of the same sex, that is somehow "immoral." And why is that "immoral"? Because Pace was "brought up" to think it was.

In other words, folks, we are being led by people who think that their personal prejudices are sufficient for discriminating against others. And in the case of the military, they are shortchanging the country, by disqualifying people because of their sexual preference.

Okay, not only is that sick and twisted, but you know what, General Pace? We don't give a rat's ass what you "believe," nor is it your place to "condone" what two people do in the privacy of their own home and their own bedroom. Your job is to make sure the military is prepared to fight, and that's all.

No one is talking about guys sneaking out of their bunk in the middle of the night and porking some other guy there; that would be called rape, and should be dealt with severely. But if two consenting adults are in a relationship, and they keep all of their sexual activity as private as any married couple in the service, just who the hell are you to determine whether or not people should serve based on that? Whether or not you think something is "immoral" has no bearing on this issue. What if another General thought smoking was immoral, and decided that all smokers should be banned from the service? I know there are probably some generals who are personally averse to drinking; suppose they got to ban anyone who'd ever consumed alcohol?

Think that's ridiculous? Think again. There was a time in our history when it was thought that interracial marriage was "immoral," and that black soldiers should sit at the back of the bus. There was a time when a General or ten thought that it was "immoral" for blacks to serve with whites in the same platoon; should that have been a valid basis for implementing that policy?

General Pace, you seem to be under the assumption that how you feel personally about gays has any bearing on anything; it most certainly does not. This "don’t ask, don't tell" policy is ludicrous, and it's resulted in more than 10,000 soldiers -- many with special skills which could have helped immensely in Iraq -- being dismissed during the last few years. We accept criminals in the service, but not gays?

Come on, folks, wake up; this is America, isn't it?

General Eaton on "Real Time": Republicans Suck

2007-03-12T12:16:00.000-04:00

Why would you not take the word of a general over an AWOL draft dodger.

This administration is not for the truth; it's the worst thing to happen to anyone in the military now, or anyone thinking about joining in the future. Face it, folks; one major consequence of this administration's failures in Iraq and throughout the military will be a reticence on the part of people in the future to even get involved. There may be times in the future when we are forced to go to war; will we be ready?

I'm just happy people are finally coming out and telling it like it is. The government and the military are broken, folks; and they've been broken by people who claim to be pro-military. They're not, of course; they're pro-theft from the military budget. There is a difference, of course...

Rudy on Abortion in 1989

2007-03-12T12:09:00.000-04:00

Gee, I wonder how long it'll take for the Wingnuts to dismiss Giuliani as a candidate after seeing this clip?

Okay, so Gonzalez resigns... then what?

2007-03-12T11:30:00.000-04:00

Over the last few days, the calls for Alberto "Torquemada" Gonzalez to resign have reached a fever pitch not seen since, well... since John Ashcroft was in office.

Now I agree that, under normal circumstances, Gonzalez should have been gone by now. In fact, he shouldn't have received approval in the first place. I mean, the guy was the architect of the Bush torture policy, that has made us less secure than at any time in our history.

But seriously, what do we hope to accomplish, should Gonzalez resign? You can make a case that it would go a long way toward taking back the country, and show Bush that the government still belongs to us, but would it, really?

Here's what will happen; Gonzalez resigns, and Cheney gets him a cushy job as a lobbyist for Halliburton. Meanwhile, his replacement will be someone just as odious; someone who has been asked the same questions that Bush asked of Gonzalez, and who gave the same answers. And given that we only have 49 votes in the Senate, at best, he'll squeak by, and be a carbon copy of his predecessors, Gonzalez and Ashcroft.

No, folks; if we want a change in the Attorney Generals office -- and I mean a real change in attitude toward the Constitution (you know, like acknowledging its existence, and their need to follow it), the only solution is to get rid of the two at the top. Unfortunately, as noted, we only have 49 votes in the Senate. Still, if there was a trial, Democrats could put everything into evidence, and the people could see just how absolutely corrupt this Administration is, and perhaps the resultant political pressure will be enough to swing 20 Senators over. At the very least, it would make it very difficult for any Senator running in 2008 to win anything...

Torquemada's resignation would be like removing an earlobe, when what is needed is the removal of the entire head. The entire Administration has to go, folks...

A Joke?

2007-03-12T10:13:00.001-04:00

Q: How many bleached-blonde, boney, right-wing, political pundits who resemble transvestites does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Just the one.

Are You Really a Liberal? Putting Wingnut in his place...

2007-03-09T11:54:00.000-05:00

This is an article I stumbled upon today, that I find rather interesting. It's written by a guy named Selwyn Duke, and it was published in Blogcritics. Ironically, all through this "magazine," they refer to themselves as "superior writers," but this is certainly anything but.

My comments are in RED...

Writers such as myself devote a lot of ink to the species known as liberals. And when you carry your banners openly on the field of battle, you define yourself and relinquish any claim to that most illusory quality, impartiality. This places you in the crosshairs, although you can take solace in knowing that your adversaries will always miss left.

Some of the liberals who contact me spew callow vitriol, at times peppered with language that would make a guttersnipe blush. But there’s another type of “liberal” respondent. This person is almost always civil, even when indignant. He’ll query me and wonder how I could ascribe all the qualities I do to liberalism, mystified that I would impugn an ideology possessed of but the most ethereal of virtues. Then, either confused or fancying me so, he’ll provide a dictionary definition, something always to the effect of:

“lib-er-al-ism . . . a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of man, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for tolerance and freedom for the individual from arbitrary authority in all spheres of life.” (Webster's Third New International Dictionary)

An excellent definition, if I do say so myself. This is the heart of what I believe, and what most liberals I know believe. We're all for progress -- human progress is the only way we as a species survive. But let's move on, because this article will astound...

Well, I’ll be. Only Darth Vader would oppose such pristine philosophy. The problem here, though, is that using a dictionary to understand your politics is much like using one to try to understand your religion. “C’mon, Duke, aren’t you just a conservative trying to rationalize away inconvenient facts?” ask the naysayers. Well, read on.

Okay, so you’ve read the above definition and it sounds like what you would like to be. So you’ve got it all figured out. Are you sure?

First, understand that the meaning of the word liberal is fluid. In the World Book Online Reference Center, 2006 it states:

"The exact meaning of liberalism varies with time, place, and circumstance, and with who is using the term. The term can apply to government, social behavior, religion, economics, or other areas. It can refer to a set of personal values or to a system of political beliefs. Ideas regarded as liberal in some cultures may not be considered liberal in others."

This is a guy who considers himself a "superior writer," as you'll note if you go to the original of this piece. And yet, he has taken a dictionary definition, which is essentially meaningless (we'll both explain why in a bit), and modified it with the opinion of a writer at World Book. You see, this is the essence of what's wrong with right wing ideology, folks. They are so rigid in their thoughts and philosophy, they cannot see how the above in no way negates the basic definition.

In fact, it even varies on the same page of a dictionary. While Dictionary.com does have a definition equivalent to the aforementioned, it also has,

“a movement in modern Protestantism that emphasizes freedom from tradition and authority, the adjustment of religious beliefs to scientific conceptions, and the development of spiritual capacities.”

In fairness, that’s also similar to the first definition, but then there’s this,

“A 19th-century Roman Catholic movement that favored political democracy and ecclesiastical reform but was theologically orthodox.”

Now, today’s liberals don’t exactly cotton to theological orthodoxy, so we’re starting to see separation. “But this isn’t the 1800s,” you say? True enough. Of course, though, the real world isn’t a dictionary, either. But let’s take the next definition from the World Book:

“An economic theory in favor of laissez-faire, the free market, and the gold standard.”

Well, hell’s bells, what have we here? I, oft-described as a wingnut by some of my un-fans, embrace this principle enthusiastically. Yet, those liberal critics eschew it. Hmm, are they the true liberals or am I?

Are you still sure you know what liberalism is? I’m not done yet.

Truly ironic is when you find that in real life, in keeping with the World Book quotation, the definition of liberalism varies depending on location. For instance, while conservatives in cold war America were ardently anti-communist, their philosophical soulmates in the Soviet Union were known as liberals. Behind the iron curtain, the conservatives were the communists.

See how this works in Wingnut world?

The truth is, the definition of 'liberal' never varies. The fact that this guy thinks it does demonstrates exactly why the United States is so screwed up right now, having been run by these ideologues for so long.

The problem with all of the above is that it requires an absolute definition for everything, and that is rarely the case. In his examples above, for example, he is attempting to define conservative and liberal based on his preconceived notions. Conservatives AND liberals in Cold War America were anti-Communist! Sure, there were a few liberals on the fringes who declared themselves "socialist," but they were the exceptions, and their brand of "socialism" and "communism" was a idealistic brand, borne out of a pure reading of Karl Marx. They hated the Soviets, but they also hated the approach to "fighting Communism" taken by conservatives of that era. We on the left agreed that Communism as practiced by the Soviets and the "Red" Chinese was horrible, but we believed in leading people away by example, not by trying to kill or jail every single Communist.

The conservative approach to Communism produced Joe McCarthy and the Vietnam War. Our approach was to make freedom so appealing that those living under communist regimes would eventually topple them. And our approach worked, by the way.

But this isn't even where this guy goes completely off base...

The reason for this is as simple as the issue it raises is complex. More constant definitions of “liberal” and “conservative” inform that, simply put, a conservative believes in “maintaining the status quo” while a liberal believes in changing it. Thus, Joseph Stalin and Joseph McCarthy both were conservatives – in their respective environments, that is. Moreover, each one had liberal opponents in his country and liberal allies elsewhere.

Stalin and McCarthy were both conservatives, and their policies killed people and/or ruined lives. Keep that in mind as you continue reading...

But this raises very interesting questions. If a liberal succeeds in implementing his changes to the point where they become the status quo, doesn’t he, by definition, become a conservative? And doesn’t the erstwhile conservative, after losing this cultural war and assuming that he endeavors to change the new status quo, in a way become a liberal?

In a way, yes, but not really, because the fact of the matter is, we live in a democracy. I know this is a foreign concept to a wingnut, but in this democracy, our policies should usually fall in the middle, and if the checks and balances do their job, neither right nor left should be able to dominate. The reason is simple, of course; the vast majority of people are neither liberal nor conservative on everything, and policies which push too far to one side or another are not appealing to most people.

This is why the right wing cannot govern. They cannot see that there really isn't a dichotomy in this country's political discourse. They sit in the extreme right corner of the spectrum, and they are focused like a laser on the extreme left corner, and they can't see that the country likes a little bit of conservatism, and a little bit of liberalism. The "status quo" in this country has only rarely been dominated by the far right, and every time, it's led to disaster.

And this phenomenon can be seen clearly if we examine our political history. The ideology that animated the hands of the Founding Fathers and became prevalent in the young United States was known as “Classical Liberalism.” Embraced by Thomas Jefferson and the other signatories to the Declaration of Independence, it espoused limited government, property rights, laissez-faire economics and freedom from government intrusion. And inherent in it was the belief that man derived his rights not from government but from God.

Again with the revisionism. I don't blame him, though; it's not possible to be a wingnut and not revise history. History doesn't agree with their philosophy.

Have you noticed that they always cite the Declaration of Independence, and not the Constitution? There's a reason for that. It's because the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document; it's a statement of intent to commit treason, and the only way they could get enough people to go along to make it worthwhile was to make that idealism accessible to as wide a swath of people as possible. The language in the Declaration is a rhetorical device, designed to piss off the King, but also to rouse the rabble. (By the way, it was so incredibly effective that only 13 of 38 colonies joined in with the revolution that followed...)

The Articles of Confederacy and the Constitution, however, tell a different story than he claims above. Did the Founders espouse limited government? Well, it put all sovereign powers in the hands of a federal government; does that answer your question? If not, how about the fact that the federal government was given the absolute power to regulate all commerce between the states? How about the fact that the Constitution observed copyright and patent rights, but severely limited them, for the good of the people as a whole. And freedom from government intrusion? The most conservative of the first few presidents, and one of the crafters of the Constitution, John Adams, passed the Alien & Sedition Acts. Moreover, James Madison had to be bullied into including a Bill of Rights in the first place; a half dozen states had to threaten not to ratify without it.

Essentially, what this guy's suggesting is that the Founding Fathers were somehow (wink wink) conservative, as the right wing defines it these days. They were not. Many of the things that they wanted to do, such as end slavery altogether, they could not, because the political realities of the time wouldn't allow them. Again; the way our country is supposed to work is that all sides find grounds on which to compromise. That's why many fundamental changes come so incredibly slowly in this country; it's by design; a design of a bunch of progressives working with a largely conservative populace.

By the way, one of the things the Founders did accomplish at the time was the elimination of religion from the public arena. Irony, anyone?

What’s important to realize, however, is that the designation “classical” was only added to this original liberalism upon the subsequent emergence of modern liberalism. This was to distinguish it from the latter, which had become a different ideology altogether.

No, actually, it wasn't. It was added because liberal thought has evolved, and the term distinguishes progressivism's roots from its current course. But the basic goal -- human progress and evolution -- has never wavered.

Much different.

Today’s liberalism prescribes government action – in the form of a law, mandate, regulation or program – in every sphere of life, from child-rearing (anti-spanking laws) to hiring (EEOC) to school admissions (quotas) to sports (Casey Martin in golf, Title IX) to diet (banning trans-fats). Its adherents on the Supreme Court gave us the Kelo decision, an attack on property rights. It preaches that government has a place in religion (forcing Catholic hospitals to provide contraception), but religion has no place in government, quite the opposite of Jefferson’s conception of the separation of church and state. Now its minions have gone so far as to attack freedom of speech with hate crime/hate speech laws and even seek to redefine marriage and allow homosexuals to adopt children.

This guy is fearless in asserting his ignorance, isn't he? And get a gander of the self-contradiction in the above paragraph.

First, he says that it's LIBERALS who "prescribe government action," and cites for us examples; the whimsical "anti-spanking laws" (which are not exactly very widespread, and not supported by most liberals, unless you mean anti-child abuse laws, of which we approve); the EEOC (how dare all those people who were denied jobs before ask the government to intercede and regulate the marketplace, as the Constitution demands?); school admissions quotas (you see, wingnuts pretend to be unaware that the "liberal" courts outlawed quotas almost THREE DECADES AGO!); sports quotas (Title IX simply dictates equal FUNDING between men and women's sports; that sure isn't a quota.); and diet. (For the record, I don't care of people eat trans fats. But I am unaware of many restaurants that put on the menu "cooked with trans fats!" so I suggest a compromise; make them put it on the menu, so that consumers can make an informed choice.)

In other words, he makes stuff up. The few that are true above were obviously demanded by the people affected by those laws, or they wouldn't be on the books, would they? You see, the right wing doesn't care much for democracy.

But here's the rub about the above. Note that he complains about LIBERALS "prescrib(ing) government action. But then he cites the Kelo decision as "an attack on property rights." That was a Supreme Court decision, and the swing vote on that case was Anthony Kennedy, who is hardly a liberal. I won't discuss that case in detail, but it expanded the use of eminent domain to private development. And get this; many liberals, myself included, were also outraged by the decision.

Then, this guy gets into the bizarre.

He claims that, because Catholic hospitals are required to dispense birth control when prescribed by a doctor, we are somehow saying that we claim that government has a place in religion, but religion has no place in government? Since when is running a public hospital, open to others besides Catholics, a religious function?

He claims that we liberals "attack" freedom of speech with hate crimes/hate speech laws, which is just bizarre coming from an ideological side that tries to drive people off the air for saying certain words, and who obsessed over Janet Jackson's right breast for weeks a few years back. And where is all of this "hate speech" legislation, anyway? Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage engage in hate speech daily, and I don't see liberals demanding that government intervene and knock them off the air. On the contrary; we want them to stay on the air. But we also want a Fairness Doctrine, to make sure everyone has access to airwaves that ALL of us own.

But here's the most bizarre claim; that, by demanding that same sex partners have the same rights in marriage as anyone else, somehow WE are asking the government to intervene. No, that would be the right. You see, society defines marriage; states only give tax benefits. Essentially, it is the far right that is asking the government to intervene and define marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act is a wholly right wing creation, and it essentially circumvents a societal definition of marriage and imposes one on everyone involved.

The funny thing is, liberals generally only ask the government to do the job they were assigned under the Constitution; to treat everyone equally, and to regulate commerce, so as to make the system fair. It's actually the far right who is always asking the government to step in and stop people from doing things. They demand that the government censor anything they find too sexy. They are the ones who have been insisting that government is better able to make reproductive decisions than the woman. They're the ones who always petition networks and the FCC and demand that programs that they don't like go off the air. It was the RIGHT who drove Howard Stern off terrestrial radio, not liberals. It's the RIGHT who is always trying to hand the government the power to spy on you. Liberals want the government to make things fair. Just about anything the government does to regulate business is the result of business failing to do the right thing on its own.

Because of this transformation, today’s rough equivalent of classical liberalism is Goldwater conservatism. (Note: I believe it is a myth that these ideologies are the equivalent of today’s libertarianism, as is commonly held.) And it should surprise no one that individuals of the latter stripe have long embraced the former’s principles. Once the founders’ liberalism became the status quo, it was no longer revolutionary. Then its proponents quite naturally became known as the protectors of the status quo, or, conservatives.

Of course, some liberals would say they’re evolving. But as I have demonstrated, both liberals and conservatives evolve; the question is, how are they evolving and is some atavistic adjustment in order?

Conservatives do evolve. The problem is, people like this guy are not really conservative. There is no way in hell anyone in their right mind could possibly believe that forcing the government to define marriage so that it falls within very narrow parameters is a "conservative" notion. These "conservatives" have presided over war without merit; runaway government debt; tax cuts without equal cuts in spending; spying on the American people under the guise of "security;" these people are not "conservatives." And right wingers do NOT evolve. The ideal world for these people is a world in which there is no business regulation at all; in which everyone and their grandmother is armed to the teeth, with no regulation; in which abortion is illegal, and children who are in a home that they don't approve of are taken away to be raised by the state... you get the idea. Their ideal world is one in which white males are rich and dominant, and everyone else falls in line with their view of the way things "should" be. That is most certainly not evolution.

Of course, they don't believe in evolution, anyway...

Let’s examine this with a parable.

Imagine America as a ship. The people aboard are a motley crew, liking different positions and forever arguing over whether it’s best to place the helm in the right, middle or left portion of the vessel. Now, in this tug-of-war, the helm shifts left and right as the strength of one side or another waxes and wanes. Of course, a passenger can occupy any area he wishes. But the further you stray to either side, the lonelier you become, so most stay within earshot of the band and buffet table. Overlooked by virtually all, however, is that the ship is off course and steadily drifting left because engineers working below, out of plain sight, are manipulating the rudder.

What this means is that those who wanted to be on the left still do, oblivious to the fact that the “left” is now further left than before the ship left its previous position. And those who wanted to be on the right are still happy to be there, not realizing that the “right” is now also further left than before. For each group to be closer to where it initially thought prudent, the left would have to move to the right side, and the right would have to untether a life boat and go over the side.

This explains the so-called “neo-cons” and “compassionate conservatives.” On the starboard side of a boat whose latitude and longitude have changed, they’re just the liberals of twenty-five years ago.

And this is why I’m ever more reluctant to brand myself a conservative. Conservatives are satisfied to occupy the “right” side of the political spectrum, not realizing the spectrum has been positioned by the “positioned” (Antonio Gramsci). Liberals are never happy unless they’re on the left side of the spectrum, even though, had they lived a generation before, arrival at society’s present center would have been their greatest ambition. In other words, conservatives tend to be defined by a defense of liberals’ previous conquests, while liberals are defined simply by a desire to change what conservatives are defending.

This guy is drinking from the same Kool-Aid cup as David Horowitz and his ilk.

The problem with his little parable is that, if there were 100 people on his ship, 80-85 would be in the middle or thereabouts, and wouldn't even notice who was moving really far to the left and really far to the right. They would also find that the galley is in the center of the ship, and those on the far reaches of that ship will be the last ones to eat.

In other words, it's a stupid analogy, and it's not true. I'm not a Goldwater conservative, but Goldwater was a conservative, in the truest sense of the word. He didn't care if men wanted to marry men, because it was none of his business. He didn't care about whether or not women had abortions, because it was a personal decision between her and her doctor. When it was discovered that Richard Nixon was a crook, Goldwater spoke out against him, because he put the country ahead of his own personal ideology.
And that, in a nutshell, is why people like this guy, and Limbaugh, and Hannity, and O'Reilly and (especially) Savage are not "conservatives." They don't know right from wrong. They don't care about right and wrong. They only care about power, and how to get it for their side, and how to keep it.

And now that he has shown a complete lack of understanding of what liberalism means, he now tries to redefine it...

And this is the problem with modern liberalism: It is an ideology bereft of principle. Because nothing is sacred to liberalism, not even its own provisional principles, it may change society but then is changed by it. When will liberals ever say we have enough laws, regulations, mandates, taxation, bureaucracies, programs, and rending of tradition? Conservatism’s limitations are obvious. Even if it sought to, it couldn’t reduce government to less than nothing. But liberalism in our time has no fixed platform, no end game. It forever seeks to alter the status quo but is always defined by its opposition to it. It is not an ideology as much as it is a process, one by which change is effected but never cemented. It is a rebel without a cause, having long ago forgotten that change is meant to be a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Thus, it is perennially in flux, with its only constant being change itself.

"Bereft of principle." Don't you just love it? Their heroes are the rogues gallery I mentioned above, as well as Ann Coulter, Roger Ailes, Tom DeLay, Ted Haggard, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson; all people without principles. And the list could go on forever. What are the right wing's principles? To take as much money from the poor as possible and give it to the rich? To give as much power as possible to large corporations, at the expense of the people who live here? To saddle our kids with so much debt as to make future tax cuts impossible? To wait until we run out of oil before acknowledging that we may be doing damage to our planet? To push your religion on everyone else, to the point that you claim that everyone who doesn't believe the way you do is wrong? To put everyone in jail who doesn't comport to your vision of what the world should look like?

I'll tell you what liberal principles are, in a nutshell; basic fairness for everyone, and to each his own, until such time as it interferes with another's rights. We don't think Limbaugh should be taken off the air; we think our airwaves should also contain the truth. We don't care if Wal-Mart exists; it just shouldn't be able to run everyone else out of business, and we don't think the rest of us should subsidize health care for its employees, you know? And I am offended by statements such as "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here," because its principle is pure cowardice, and suggests that the purpose of our troops is to act as decoys to keep the bad guys away. We also believe in war as a last resort, to save lives, not as a negotiating tool.

So, if you would tell me you’re a liberal, I would ask what I did of a kind-hearted but credulous soul who uttered the same proclamation to me many years ago: By birth or by choice?

Party affiliation or ideological orientation is not synonymous with ethnicity. Some people are so wedded to the word liberal that they behave as if being so labeled is an immutable characteristic. Often very traditional, it’s as if these folks are saying, “Ma’ pappy was a liberal, and ma’ gran’-pappy was a liberal, and ma’ great-gran’-pappy was a liberal. . . .”

Well, I can't speak for all liberals, and would never purport to, as he apparently can. But I am a liberal because I believe that most humans are good and kind people, and should be treated as such. I believe in the rule of law and basic fairness as real concepts; not as something the far right sees as throwing people in jail and letting people with money walk over people without.

But being married to liberalism is to be with a woman who changes with the fashions. One year she’s an alabaster complected flower holding a parasol, then she’s burning her bra. Later still she’s dressing like a pop-tart with her midriff exposed. Then she’s frequenting a workout gym, a tanning salon and a martial arts dojo. Finally you receive divorce papers and learn she’s living with her friend “Rosie” in San Francisco. In the end, as you wonder what happened to the lady you married, you realize that she was never really a lady at all, but a chameleon.

Now, if you are a person this piece is aimed at, don’t misunderstand me. You don’t have to abandon your ideology – it abandoned you a long time ago. This is not your grandfather’s liberalism.

Yes, I'm afraid it is. I am all for basic justice and fairness for all people, and there will always be those who will try to take that away. My father and grandfathers were all union men, and many of the conditions the unions fought against have come back in spades, and the far right is trying to make sure they stick this time. It's a sad fact that we find ourselves fighting the same fights our grandfathers fought and thought they won, but the fact is, we do.

Of course, you may not listen to me. But just know that if you misunderstand what liberalism has come to represent and are loyal to the designation, you may vote for a candidate billed as liberal in the thinking that he is one of your number. But invariably this means voting for leftist politicians who you may, quite correctly, associate with liberalism. Your mistake is that you don’t associate “liberalism” with liberalism.

The end result, however, is that you find yourself ruled by leaders who don’t truly reflect your values.

Now, see, that's the difference between liberals and wingnuts. It's also the difference between real conservatives and wingnuts. I don't expect leaders to reflect MY values. They are not MY leaders, they are the leaders of a democracy. Democracy means that our leaders should reflect the values of 300 million people, not just me.

One more time; Until the last six years, this country's leadership had never leaned fully left or fully right before. Now, it has, and you see the consequences. Our government was completely broken, because they put their so-called "principles" ahead of the good of the country. The "good of the country" should always trump the "values" of a small group of people any day, and true leaders would know that. The problem is, while true conservatives do want policies that are good for the country, right wingers only care about their "constituencies," which happen to be folks on the fringes.

If you want to see what happens when political ideology trumps "the good of the people," look at the aftermaths of both the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. After the 9/11 attacks, all sorts of people were promised all sorts of help, none of which ever arrived. First responders are still waiting for funding for communications equipment, for example, and families of the victims are still waiting for help. Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, but the aftermath was a greater disaster than the storm. The government failed in its mission, and it failed precisely because ideology trumped duty to the people. Wingnuts believe that government is largely unnecessary, and should be "starved" in order to get runaway spending under control. The problem is, the right wing government took on the responsibility itself, in the name of "Homeland Security." See, they want total control over everything, at the same time they want to reduce the people's dependence on the government. Got it?

Yeah, you're right; it's pretty stupid. But then, they have no principles, so what do you expect?

As for me, I will echo the sentiments of late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, “He who marries the spirit of the age will be a widower in the next.” One thing you can be sure of is that the next age’s liberalism will be different yet again, an imposter that cannot boast any consanguinity with Jefferson’s brand, which still exists but bears a different name. Perhaps it’s time to say, its name is my name too?

Well, Fulton J. Sheen was a right wing loon, and he was absolutely wrong. It depends on what the spirit of the age is. If the spirit of the age embraces liberty, equality and justice, how could you not embrace it? And why would you end up a "widower," except for the fact that there are always people trying to take those away? You know, like denyong folks their civil rights because of the color of their skin, their religion, or their sexual preference?

And let me end with this; Jesus Christ and Thomas Jefferson were more liberal than conservative, and they were certainly not right wing. Neither woudl approve of today's far right. I've read both extensively, and can say that without reservation.

McCain's Bullshit Express

2007-03-09T10:57:00.000-05:00

Why does the media still refer to McCain as a "maverick" and try to stoke memories of McCain's so-called "Straight Talk express" from 2000? He is so far off the mark, it's impossible to take him seriously anymore.

Forget the fact that, if he won, he'd be almost 73 when he took the oath. Forget the fact that he's pandered to every single group one can think of in his unrealistic quest to become president of the United States. There is only one thing that matters here:

The man has no grasp of reality.

Yesterday, he was in New York, trying to scare up funds from people too stupid to realize he has no chance of winning, or perhaps those who simply need or want a tax deduction. This is what he said about the "war" in Iraq:

"This is our last shot, my friends; this is our last chance," he said.
But he added a variety of indicators will show "within months" whether that strategy is working. If it is not, he said, other options would have to be considered.
"The American people may get so frustrated, no matter what the other options are, they may say, 'Get out of it,'" McCain said.

Okay, will someone please tell this man the "war" was over a long time ago, and that there is no "last chance," there is no "strategy", and there is no "working" to be had.

You see, folks, Iraq is a nation that was cobbled together by greedy countries who wanted oil many years ago. The creation of "Iraq" threw several different warring ethnic groups together in one country, and used authoritarian dictators to hold things together and prevent a war. Bush's invasion and removal of the government, the ruling party and the army has reignited an inevitable civil war, between factions within Iraq.

In other words, we have no role in the current "war," because it's between Shi'ites and Sunnis, with a few rabble rousers in there for good measure. In such a situation, we have but two roles;to secure the borders and keep the fighting contained at this point; and to engage the parties in talks. That's it; that's all we can do. There is nothing to win or lose, and we actually have no stake in this "war," because we're not actually fighting anyone. Even if you believed we had a beef with Iraq going in, that beef was with the Iraqi government, which has been gone for years now.

So, when John McCain says that we should throw more troops into the middle of an Iraqi civil war, and refers to the actual throwing of the troops as a "strategy," you know he's lost it. adding troops to the middle of someone else's civil war is not a strategy; it's just stupid.

Rove on Obama

2007-03-09T10:47:00.000-05:00

"He's charismatic, he's articulate, he's a very strong figure on the national stage," White House political adviser Karl Rove told an Arkansas crowd. "But something tells me that people are going to say (they want) experience and depth. As a result it's going to be, 'Can he live up to the standards?"'

Forget the "articulate" word for a minute, will you?

This is a guy who's the architect behind the worst presidency in history, and he's the one claiming a president needs "experience and depth"????

His boss still doesn't have experience and depth, and he's been occupying the White House for six years...

Read more here...

More Right Wing Hypocrisy

2007-03-08T13:11:00.000-05:00

I'm absolutely certain that if you asked the average wingnut who Marc Rich was, he would remember, and he would be livid. For those of you who don't follow the wingnuts very closely, Marc Rich was the financier that Bill Clinton pardoned on his last day in office, and the poster boy the Right used for years after, to demonstrate just how corrupt Bill Clinton really was.

To the average wingnut (and quite a few liberals for that matter), the pardon of Marc Rich was inexcusable; proof that Bill Clinton was as corrupt as they come. There were calls from all sides to end the presidential pardon concept altogether, and rightly so...

Um, can you guess the name of the lobbyist who asked Clinton to pardon Marc Rich?

I'll give you a hint:

The wingnuts are begging Bush to pardon him as we speak....

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/03/02/clinton.library/

Air America 2.0

2007-03-08T11:39:00.001-05:00

AIR AMERICA 2.0 BEGINS TODAY

Mark Green

Today my family formally purchased and took over Air America Radio. Why? Because if progressive values were a stock, now is the time to buy.

This hasn't always been true, as the cycle of politics demonstrates. In recent decades, politics seems to have been governed by physics for every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction. William F. Buckley Jr. started The National Review in the 1950s to rebut what he saw as the dominance of liberalism in the academy and opinion journals like The Nation and The New Republic. From 1970-72, Public Citizen, Common Cause and the NRDC were all created in reaction to Nixon's depredations. Similarly, People For the American Way grew out of the rise of the Religious Right under Reagan in the mid-80s.

New progressive think tanks over the past 10 years, most recently and prominently the Center for American Progress, were created to counter AEI and Heritage. And of course, the Huffington Post and Air America were born in reaction to the electronic propaganda of Drudge and Limbaugh et. al.

Air America was a large, smart idea to counter the near-monopoly on talk radio by the far (f)right. But like most start-ups, the business plan collided with reality. Six CEOs over its first three years and various missteps and misspending sent it into Chapter 11.

It's now ready to go from The Perils of Pauline to The Little Engine that Could. How? First, by focusing on the radio fundamentals of making a strong line-up even stronger; second, by connecting to other major progressive organizations to be mutually fortifying; and third, by being a multi-media content company involving other information platforms mobile, video, broadband, blogs, websites. It's time to think outside the (radio) box.

The twin goals are to make it profitable and influential. One without the other won't work. If it's not a business, it'll go out of business.

But it'll be a business with a sharp point of view. The era of on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand liberalism is over -- or as Robert Frost once wrote, "a liberal man is too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel." For all those who worry about messianic misleaders governing on a right wing and a prayer, Air America 2.0 will be an answer. For all those fearful of plutocracy and theocracy, the pro-democracy hosts of AAR's programs are the answer. If the conservative media continue to spout propaganda and call it news, we are the alternative of truth, justice and the Air American way.

It's no longer enough just to hope that The New York Times will cover a rally or press release. The relatively new combination of The Huffington Post, Alternet, MoveOn, Center for American Progress and Campaign for America's Future, The Nation and The American Prospect, DailyKos and Talking Points Memo and so many labor unions means that Air America will be part of a larger progressive infrastructure heard by a widening audience. For if we can't now grow and prosper as Democrats -- given the 110th Congress, given the unmitigated disaster that's Iraq, given a slew of top-quality presidential aspirants -- when will we?

So Air America will aggressively cover national politics and policies in ways that will be informative, opinionated and entertaining. All three. We'll be full of news and views. Two views especially. First, America should stop attacking Muslim countries in ways that multiply terrorism. Second, instead of only talking about exporting democracy, Washington should begin practicing it here at home, for example by making sure elections aren't auctions, which means the public funding of public elections.

Speaking personally, my brother and I are excited by this important challenge and look forward to working with the Air America professionals in front of the mic and behind it who have held this dream together. Steve Green has been a very successful businessman accustomed to making money -- and he doesn't intend for AAR to be an exception. I've been an author, public interest lawyer and the NYC Public Advocate; for me this feels like a continuation of so much I've done for the progressive movement over three decades. Air America is like a public advocate for the country, exposing problems and offering solutions.

So we're both optimists in the spirit of Walt Whitman, who wrote that "America is always becoming." Well, Air America too is always becoming.

But that requires a conversation called democracy. In the spirit that dialogue beats monologue, I am today contacting the New Hampshire Republican Party and the New York Post editorial page. Since the Democratic Party of Nevada actually invited Fox News to host that state's Democratic debate, I asked if Air America could host the first Republican debate in New Hampshire, assuring them that we too can be fair and balanced.

And to Bob McManus, editorial page editor of The New York Post, I proposed that he come on Air America to discuss his views and that Air America commentators would in turn once-a-month write an op-ed on his pages, because it's better to exchange ideas than insults. His 720,000 readers should hear from us and our 2 million+ audience should hear from him.

We have many fresh ideas for programming, for technology, for partnerships with sister organizations. But it's this conversation called democracy that's the cornerstone of Air America 2.0. We intend to listen to our listeners; to increase our listeners ; and hope they will join our journey to a better network, better programming, and a better country. To tell them that it's your America, and your Air America.

Originally Released on The Huffington Post (March 6, 2007)

Here's an interesting case...

2007-03-07T13:39:00.000-05:00

U.S. woman sues for child-rearing costs after failed abortion

(AP) - BOSTON-A woman who had an abortion but still gave birth has filed a lawsuit against two doctors and a family planning organization seeking the costs of raising her child.

The complaint was filed by Jennifer Raper, 45, last week in Suffolk Superior Court and still must be screened by a special panel before it can proceed to trial.

Raper claimed in the suit that she found out she was pregnant in March 2004 and decided to have an abortion for financial reasons, The Boston Globe reported in its Wednesday editions.

Dr. Allison Bryant, a physician working for Planned Parenthood at the time, performed the procedure on April 9, 2004, but it "was not done properly, causing the plaintiff to remain pregnant," according to the complaint.

Raper then went to see Dr. Benjamin Eleonu at Boston Medical Center in July 2004, and he failed to detect the pregnancy even though she was 20 weeks pregnant at the time, the lawsuit alleges.

It was only when Raper went to the New England Medical Center emergency room for treatment of pelvic pain in late September that year that she found out she was pregnant, the suit said.

She gave birth to a daughter on Dec. 7, 2004.

Raper and her lawyer, Barry C. Reed Jr., refused comment when contacted by the newspaper, and a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood said the organization does not comment on pending litigation.

Massachusetts' high court ruled in 1990 that parents can sue physicians for child-rearing expenses, but limited those claims to cases in which children require extraordinary expenses because of medical problems, medical malpractice lawyer Andrew C. Meyer Jr. said.

Raper's suit has no mentions of medical problems involving her now 2-year-old daughter.

----------------------------
Okay, now I have mixed feelings about this one.

I do think she has a partial case. The doctors did screw things up; that's for sure. But come on; her child is 2 years old now, she's been raising the girl for that long, and she's just now noticed it's kind of expensive? When she found out in September 2004, it was probably too late to get an abortion (again), but adoption was still an option. I think the medical people should have some liability for screwing up so badly, and if the daughter had serious medical problems that mayhave been caused by the botched abortion, that should be covered. But the total cost of raising a presumably healthy daughter?

It'd be interesting to see intelligent comments on this one...

Limbaugh the Racist

2007-03-05T14:22:00.000-05:00

I just got this in my e-mail from Media Matters... Rush Limbaugh is a racist pig, that's all I can say...

From the March 2 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: Basically, there's a history of slavery in Obama's family. On his mother's side. We have this, it's in the Chicago Tribune. We also have a -- yes. I said there's a -- Obama's mother had slaves. Forebears, relatives of Obama's mother had slaves. And it's in the Chicago Tribune.

Many people know that Barack Obama's father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas, but an intriguing sliver of his family history has received almost no attention until now. It appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to a genealogical research and census records. The records, which have never been addressed publicly by the Illinois senator or his relatives, were first noted in an ancestry report compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner, who works at the Library of Congress and practices genealogy in his spare time. That would mean it's his hobby, for those of you in Rio Linda.

The report on Reitwiesner's website carries a disclaimer that it's a first draft, one likely to be examined more closely if Obama is nominated. Not only that; we also have found out that Reitwiesner's research identifies two other presidential candidates, [Sen.] John McCain [R] of Arizona and [former Sen.] John Edwards [D] of North Carolina, as descendants of slave owners. Three of McCain's great-great-grandfathers in Mississippi owned slaves, including one who owned 52 slaves in 1860. Two ancestors of John Edwards owned one slave each in Georgia in 1860. And now we know that Al Sharpton's relatives were owned by relatives of Strom Thurmond's family out there. So I guess we could say that if, since Obama has -- on his mother's side -- forebears of his mother had slaves, could we not say that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then wins the presidency, he will own Al Sharpton?

[...]
LIMBAUGH: The real question is, you know, when it, we end up having to pay reparations for slavery, where's the money for Obama's family going to go? To him? He may be interested -- let me see if I can find something very quick. I don't know if I put it at the top of the stack, but there's, this whole thing here, ah, yes. Here it is.

---------------------

Why are these people so incredibly obsessed with Obama's race?

Oh, wait... I already answered that, didn't I? Limbaugh's always been a racist... it's just more overt these days...

Oh, Those Darn Fake "Conservatives"

2007-03-05T11:43:00.000-05:00

You know, this may come as a shock to a lot of people, but I like conservatives. REAL conservatives, that is.

I am a liberal when it comes to most social issues, but when it comes to my personal life, it is actually quite conservative. I don't smoke, I rarely drink, I don't do drugs, and I rarely watch any movie or program that features gratuitous sex or violence. I guess what makes me liberals is the fact that I don't care if others watch that crap, and I don't want it banned; I just change channels, or don't plop my money down.

Now, I have watched the word "liberal" transform into something akin to an epithet over the years. Most people spit the word out as if it was a hair in their spaghetti. So, I can certainly empathize with actual conservatives, and the consternation they must be feeling over the co-opting of the term "conservative" by such pond scum like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin and Michael Weiner-Savage, just to name a few.

These people, as well as most of the so-called "pundits" on talk radio and just about everyone on Fox Noise Channel, are not conservative in any way, and to tar all conservatives with the same brush must be galling to real conservatives out there. They are right wing; wingnuts, if you will; they are most certainly not conservatives.

These describe themselves as "conservative," but they are anything but. What sort of "conservative" would diss the widows of victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, as Ann Coulter did a while back, when she claimed that these widows were somehow enjoying their 15 minutes of fame? And this past weekend, at the "Conservative" Political Action Conference, when she spent four minutes railing against the "liberals" running for president on the Democratic side (you know, like former "Goldwater Girl" Hillary Clinton) and referring to the very married and child-rearing John Edwards as a "faggot."

Last week, the day after Melissa Etheridge won an Academy Award for the song she wrote and recorded for "An Inconvenient Truth," Michael Weiner-Savage played a short clip from her acceptance speech, in which she thanked her wife, and proceeded to go ballistic, claiming that the mere thought of such a thing upset his gag reflex and made him "puke," and insinuating that the mere existence of same sex marriage is in itself "child abuse." Now, I'm assuming that, since such children are (based on Weiner-Savage's hate-filled definition, anyway) being abused, they should all be wards of the state. Do actual conservatives really think that all children who aren't being raised by parents of their approval, should be removed and raised by the state, using a bunch of our tax money?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Then there is the always odious drug-addicted lying gasbag, Rush Limbaugh. How conservative could Limbaugh possibly be, having been through countless marriages, by popping thousands of oxycontin received via his doctor-shopping escapades, and his apparent need for huge amounts of Viagra as the now-unmarried "Rushbo" vacationed in the Dominican Republic recently? Okay, forget his personal habits; how about his obsession with Barack Obama? If you look closely at Obama, he's actually quite conservative, politically speaking. Yet, all Limbaugh seems to be able to focus on is the man's race. Within the last month or so, he has referred to Obama as a "half-minority" several times, and has repeatedly called upon the Senator to renounce his white heritage. Seriously; is this what conservatives are about these days? I had no idea that Alan Keyes, JC Watts, Clarence Thomas or Michael Steele were forced to renounce their black heritage in order to be an "acceptable" conservative. (And honestly, with the exception of Alan Keyes, I think "conservative" is a fair label for all of them.) So, why is Barack Obama now required to identify himself as either black or white in order to satisfy "conservatives"? Is that a conservative trait nowadays?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

And how about Newtie Gingrich? he's a "conservative," right? Then why did he, at the same CPAC at which Ann Coulter demonstrated her incredible compassion, blame the "uneducated" people of New Orleans for not being "smart enough" to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina? I'm pretty sure most actual conservatives would agree that the federal government shouldn't have had the job of protecting people from a hurricane in the first place. But the fact of the matter is, the "conservatives" running the government at the time insisted that natural disaster operations be handled by their newly-created behemoth Department of Homeland Security, and many of those people, who were not unintelligent, but poor, were left with no way out of the city, except possibly a really long walk; but to where? Also, these people were left homeless by a huge wall of water that flowed over the failed government-built levees; why are they still homeless? While I would agree that most actual conservatives tend to be against such government programs in the first place (a point at which I respectfully part company with my truly conservative brethren), don't they also feel that, in a democracy in which others disagree, the government that takes on such responsibility should tackle such responsibility to the best of their ability? And is it a part of the conservative way of thinking that, when a car falls into a sinkhole on the freeway, the fault is that of the driver?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Michelle Malkin, who has to be the lightest-weight "thinker" on the far right, was substituting for Bill O'Reilly a few weeks ago, when the subject of a "Passenger Bill of Rights" came up. The issue came up after hundreds of passengers were stranded on the tarmac for nine hours, and many more had to scramble for other arrangements, when an airline suddenly canceled flights. So Democrats, led by Barbara Boxer, came up with a solution to the dilemma, which they called a "Passenger Bill of Rights." Her response: "I’m skeptical of anything that has Bill of Rights tacked on to it." Is the denial of rights a conservative viewpoint?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

When Bill O'Reilly says that a kidnapped boy must have had a "great time" with his captors and settles a sexual harassment suit with a co-worker, can we all agree that he is not really a conservative? When convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy describes the best way to shoot a law enforcement official, can we all stipulate that he is not a conservative?

For the sake of good, true political discourse, we have to make clear that people such as the above and, frankly, any of the others who spew hatred and stupidity on a daily basis are not "conservative." They are right wingers; or Wingnuts, as i call them. William F Buckley, George Will and others who (most of the time) expound on issues with reason and intelligence should most certainly be treated with greater respect than the reprobates who make up most of the right side of the left-right debate in this country. Our discourse isn't really broken, and this country is not nearly as divided as you are made to think. For some reason, the media has chosen to focus on right-wing extremist idiots with no educational or experiential background on the subjects they sound so authoritative about, rather than people with credentials, or journalistic experience, and they label them "conservative." I think that's unfair, and it's time it stopped.

Yeah, I thought you actual conservatives would agree with me...

I am working on a much longer form version of this for the web site, so stay tuned.

This is what they do...

2007-02-22T15:15:00.000-05:00

Check out this amazing new video from Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films, which details the incredible attack machine at Fox Noise Channel, and its focus on Barack Obama. His middle name is Hussein; he's a smoker; he's done nothing for African-Americans; he's an unknown...

This is the difference between the left and the right in a nutshell, folks. We don't care if Mitt Romney is a Mormon; the right does. We don't care that Giuliani was married three times and had an affair while in office; the right does. We don't really care if Bush did Coke in the 80s, had a DUI in the 70s, etc., except that he lied about it. They, on the other hand, can't even begin to point to their own record in office, or their own politics, because it's so abhorrent. All they can do it throw negatives at the other side and hope something sticks.

This is sleaze, folks... Check it out...

Democrats Resurgent

2007-02-21T14:50:00.000-05:00

It must really suck to be a Republican these days.

Though it's really early in the 2008 campaign, and anything could happen, it's hard to imagine how it won't be an absolute blowout. They have a base that has absolutely no tolerance for anyone who isn't as whacked out, ideologically speaking, as they are, while the rest of the public has no stomach for the slash-and-burn politics they seem to prefer. The Republican leadership consists of people who are either under indictment, or at least under suspicion, and even after a bunch of them were drummed out on their asses in 2006 for doing nothing, they continue to do nothing, except attempt to prevent the Democrats from doing something, since they lost power.

Seriously, folks; they're BLOCKING a non-binding resolution against increased troops in Iraq? That's the best they can do?

In 2008, 33 Senate seats will be up for election, and only a dozen are held by Democrats. Seems kind of strange, then, that the Republican Party wouldn't be paying the groundwork for trying to keep as many of those seats as possible, huh? If they "only" lose 5 seats, they're pretty well screwed, and there is a very good possibility they could lose 10, which would give the Democrats 60 seats, and pretty much neuter the GOP for a while.

And look at the two fields vying for the nomination of each party. On the one side, you have Clinton, Obama and Edwards, while on the other side, you have McCain, Giuliani and Romney. Is that sad or what? A 72 year old fake "maverick" whom the wingnuts can't stand; a temperamental ex-mayor who had one good day in office, which just happened to be the worst day in America since World War II; and a Mormon moderate, attempting to pander to the same far right that McCain is pandering to. Well, at least this will be the first time since 1972 that the Republican ticket hasn't featured a Bush or a Dole.

You see, there's a reason for this, of course. The far right took over the Republican Party some time ago, and while their rhetoric is attractive to a lot of people, their ideology contains one major flaw; they can't govern based on their philosophy. You see, it's really cool to say that government needs to be smaller, but you have to understand that people expect the government to perform at a certain level, and there are now 300 million people living here now. And while it's perfectly fine to make lower taxes for most people a goal, their strategy is to "starve" the government of revenues to make it cut spending. Unfortunately, that's purely ass-backwards, especially when you're adding to the national debt to the extent they are.

You see, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina wasn't actually a Bush screw up; it was the inevitable by-product of a philosophy that proclaims that government is too incompetent to do anything important, like take care of its people after a disaster. It's also why the family of 9/11 victims have gotten exactly jack from the government with the Republicans in charge. If the government takes care of those people the way they should, then it's pretty difficult to proclaim the government as "incompetent," isn't it?

Now, with that logic leading your party, politically speaking, why would you even question why the Democrats are resurgent, and the GOP is screwed for at least the next few elections?

If the Republican Party is to make a comeback, they will have no choice but to jettison these clowns, the way the Democrats did a generation ago, and let them flail away on the fringes, where they belong. You might have to vote Democratic for a few cycles, but it will be worth it in the long run, so that you don't have to roll your eyes every time a Republican "leader" speaks.

The Break-Up?

2007-02-21T09:38:00.000-05:00

When your approval rating is hovering around 30% (and the mere existence of a war will inflate that number, so it's actually around 25%), even the lapdog doesn't want to hang out anymore.

It seems that Bush and Australian Court Jester - er, Prime Minister, John "Moe" Howard are pretty much on their own from now on. It's no longer a coalition, but pairs figure skating.

You see, Bush's soon-to-be-former lapdog has decided he wants no part of Iraq, no part of the Bushies, and he's apparently learned the lesson of the American election better than Bush and the Republicans have, because his aim is to provide support and training, and turn Basra over to the Iraqis as soon as possible. "What all of this means is not that Basra is how we want it to be. But it does mean that the next chapter in Basra's history can be written by Iraqis," Blair said.

See, it took him a damn long time, but he finally gets that there is really no point to an open-ended commitment to stay and fight in a country that is experiencing civil war. The actual enemy, Saddam Hussein and his regime, have been gone for nearly four years now, so to continue a "war four years after the defeat of the enemy is the epitome of foolishness.

As you read this article, note that Britain has apparently been pulling its troops out all along. In other words, we are now a "coalition" of two - The United States and Australia. Okay, not really. The fact of the matter is, it's a coalition between Bush and Howard, as the people in both countries want this over...

Kiss My Asteroid

2007-02-20T14:01:00.000-05:00

It's not enough that we have to deal with George W. Bush as president, famine and pestilence in various pockets all over the world, an atmosphere that is warming at an alarming rate, because we can't live without energy, and we can't figure out a way to generate it without burning old dinosaurs, war, terrorists and hatred in all forms. Now, we have to deal with asteroids.

Seriously; why does the news media insist on ignoring those things which actually have an immediate impact on our lives, such as economic and foreign policy, in favor of stories designed to plant a seed designed to scare the shit out of people? Think I'm being facetious?

You can die if you eat peanut butter!
If you ingest trans fats, you'll blow up and die!
If you inhale second hand smoke, you'll get cancer and die!
Terrorists are plotting to blow up every building in the country!

The fact of the matter is, almost all peanut butter is safe. Even Peter Pan is safe, except for a select number of jars. And trans fats? You've been eating them for years, and while they're certainly not great for you, the recent image of people eating them and keeling over as if they ingested cyanide is a bit overblown. Second-hand smoke is irritating as hell, but given that only one person in my family has ever gotten cancer, despite the fact that I am one of only a handful of people in my family who haven't sucked in first-hand smoke, it's hard to believe the direct cancer connection from breathing it in occasionally in public. And terrorists? Please; I'm more worried about the volume of morons on the streets who make right turns into traffic while smoking and talking animatedly on their cell phones than I am al Qaeda.

So, pardon me if I roll my eyes at the latest story that is sure to find its way into newsrooms every where. Someday, an asteroid may hit the Earth. This, from ABC News:

Circle your calendar. April 13th, 2036 could be a really, really bad day on planet Earth.
A group of astronauts and engineers warns that an asteroid may pass uncomfortably close to Earth that day. The chances it will actually hit are just one in 45,000, but even at those odds, the scientists warn, the United Nations should consider a response.

A response! How do you respond to this? The talk is that it could come within 10,000 miles of the planet, and there is only a 1 in 45,000 chance it will hit Earth. On the other hand, what if we develop some technology that might work, but theocrats have taken over, and insist that we not mess with "God's Plan"? Then, there's that whole anti-science thing the right wing has developed over the years. Do we really want them in charge of something like this?

I find it all hilarious, frankly. At some point in the future, humans will be wiped off the planet. There is no controversy in that. But why is this a news story now, and what is it intended to do, exactly?

Here's a thought. As with all cataclysmic news stories, put them into the perspective that we can't and won't live forever, and do your best to enjoy the time you're here...

If you don't, I'll make sure the Klingons come down here and kick your ass...

Is XM Sirius?

2007-02-20T11:25:00.000-05:00

If you want to see a manifestation of the emptiness of the American business model at work, check out the announced merger between satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius.

Okay, so two companies have a great idea, right? Let's put up a satellite, and create a DirecTV of sorts, but for radio. Genius, right? And there's competition, right? You know, because two large companies with more money than brains have the same stupid idea at the same time. Get it?

So, each company tries to one-up the other one, by providing the best programming EVER. One group of idiots pays Howard Stern a half billion dollars that they don't have, to talk dirty for a few hours a day. Another pays Major League Baseball more than that (again, with money they don't actually have) to air baseball games for the next decade. Anyway, you get the idea.

Now, as a concept, satellite radio is very attractive. As someone who has spent long days and nights driving through western deserts searching for anything that wasn't country music or right wing extremist talk for hours at a time, I definitely see the market for truckers and such.

But there is almost no reason for anyone else to have a satellite radio, except for the fact that most terrestrial radio stations suck. The two companies that started this mess had absolutely no imagination whatsoever. At least 80% of the programming between the two services is roughly the same; a whole bunch of jukebox channels, and rebroadcasts of radio and tv programs already available to most of the country. (Yawn) They both feature overpriced hardware, and a frustrating assortment of "exclusive" agreements that make it frustrating for, say, a fan of baseball AND football to be satisfied with either.

It's a business model that is doomed to failure, even if they are reduced to one company with no competition.

Here's the business model I would have used, and one which would have produced a much better product for everyone involved. You can get a clue from the XM name.

Treat XM (or Sirius) as a separate radio band, of sorts. You can still charge a monthly rate, if you want, but if you approach this the right way, you probably wouldn't have to. Instead of your company making all sorts of agreements to provide programming yourselves; LEASE channels to others. XM can act as a de facto FCC on their satellite, and allow others to lease space to broadcast what they want. It would make for a far more interesting product, and it would create an outlet for people who can't otherwise get onto the radio. And while a lot of the programming would be much like exists now, it would open things up to others, who can't afford to buy an AM or FM station.

I have a feeling the XM/Sirius merger won't go through. If it does go through, then one of the satellites will have to be given up, because it's not legal for one company to own both satellites. Another company should come along and give this model a try. Imagine a satellite system with a core grouping of channels run by the company, with the bulk of their programming provided by people who just want an independent outlet for their creativity, or their political point of view...

Satellite radio can be a whole lot better...

McCain: Watching a Crash and Burn

2007-02-20T10:53:00.000-05:00

You know, one has to wonder who's advising John McCain in his current presidential campaign. Yeah, I know who it's supposed to be, but is it possible for those people to be so incredibly stupid?

On Saturday, McCain whined in Iowa about Harry Reid calling a Saturday session to discuss the non-binding resolution expressing displeasure at the Bush Administration's desire to expand the abject disaster that is the Iraq "war" "...a charade, a joke, a publicity stunt on the part of the Democrats, because they wanted to embarrass the president.” and “an insult to the public and our soldiers to think a cloture vote to cut off debate on a motion to proceed to another cloture vote to cut off debate about a meaningless resolution is anything other than a partisan stunt and an evasion of our responsibilities.” He also suggested that the very existence of a Saturday session was a waste of tax dollars.

Hmmm...

This can't be true, because I would assume that, if he has a brain cell in his head, Bush is already sufficiently embarrassed by the conduct of this "war." In fact, McCain himself called the "war" a failure. Earlier in his speech, he said that Donald Rumsfeld "will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense (for his) mismanagement” of the war. (Of course, this is a flip-flop, given that McCain heaped all sorts of praise on Rummy when the former Secretary of Defense resigned from the position.

So, let's get this straight; McCain thinks Rumsfeld is the worst Secretary of Defense ever, and has completely screwed up Iraq, yet oversight of Bush's "plan," which essentially consists of throwing 48,000 troops into this "mismanaged" fiasco and demanding even more money from the taxpayers, is not at all important?

Do we really need another president who doesn't understand the oversight responsibilities of the Congress?

And memo to McCain; Senators and their staffs are on salary; the waste of tax dollars is paying you a salary, while you go on campaign junkets in Iowa, when the Senate is in session. We don't pay you to whine; we pay you to do your job for the people of Arizona. The real waste was six years of paying you people a full salary to put in a three day week and get nothing done.

And to the rest of you; a non-binding resolution is not a "waste" of anything. It's a necessary first step to sanctioning the president and ending our involvement in this civil war. Got that?

It's Time...

2007-01-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

No one likes Bush's new Iraq plan except Bush and those in his circle who would kiss his ass no matter what he said or did.

The thing is, Bush doesn't care. When Senator Schumer claims that the Congressional Resolution condemning Bush's plan and demanding the end of the war "will send shockwaves through the White House and through the country," he shows a basic misunderstanding of how the current Executive Branch works.

There will be no "shockwaves" through the White House, because they are impervious to criticism. You see, this is what you get when you elect (?) a group of people who view their job as being the country's Board of Directors, and this country as a large corporation, rather than a country that owes a duty to its people. They think they're in charge, as Bush makes evident when he insists that he's the "decider," and as Cheney makes evident with his dismissal of all opinion except his own, and his labeling of Democrats as the enemy, which he does constantly.

Forget Iraq; forget the cynical exploitation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One situation sums up this Administration better than any other;

Hurricane Katrina.

Millions of people heard about the effect of Katrina on the Gulf Coast, and either mobilized and tried to help, or attempted to find out how they could help.

On the other hand, the people in charge stayed on vacation, flew the other way and held fund raisers for their political cronies.

They just don't care, folks. They never have cared, and never will.

We have to make it clear that THEY work for us, and not the other way around.

I have always been against impeachment, precisely because there is no way to get rid of these people. Even if we have an impeachment trial, I figured there was no way to convict.

Now, however, I don't think it matters whether or not they are convicted. It's time we put everything on the table. It's time we made public everything they have done over the past six years.

Watch the main page at miltshook.com as I lay out my case for impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. It's a little different than most arguments for impeachment...

I Couldn't Have Said it Better Myself...

2007-01-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

This, from an article at Reuters, says it all:

"Iraq was put under occupation, which was an idiot decision," Mahdi said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

In one 10-word sentence, the Vice President of Iraq has summed up exactly why there is absolutely no "win" possible in Iraq.

Can it be said any better than that? This was the dumbest move in the history of foreign policy. Vietnam was definitely a blunder, but it was nothing compared to this. At least with Vietnam, the stupidity followed some sort of implied doctrine at the time. This one was built on lies and deceit, by a group of people who took office under false pretenses, who displayed massive incompetency with regard to preventing the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, who exploited that tragedy to further their cause, whatever that is. The bottom line is, they are using our troops as tools in some personal vendetta or game or whatever this is, and everything about it reeks of incredible incompetence and stupidity.

The first thing you need to know about Iraq is that it's not a nation created hundreds or thousands of years ago by a group of people with a single purpose and direction, like the United States, or France, or even Germany or Britain. Iraq was cobbled out of whole cloth from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, by countries that only cared about the oil. In cobbling Iraq together, they brought together three disparate groups who really didn't like each other very much. Actually, they absolutely hated each other, and were never given a chance to work it out. From the beginning of Iraq's existence, it has been run by authoritarians, because the main purpose was to squeeze the country for whatever money could be squeezed from it. In other words, Saddam Hussein was just the latest in a long line of authoritarians charged with running a country composed of three ethnic groups that hated each other. There is no doubt that Saddam was a tyrant who brutalized Shiites and Kurds on a regular basis, but while he was doing that, but supplying us with lots of cheap oil, the same folks who backed this invasion had no problem with him. Think about this; the crime that Saddam Hussein was hanged for was committed at a time when Donald Rumsfeld was shaking hands with him and making deals for weapons to use against Iran in their war.

Before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, he told Bush 41 he was going to do so, if the Kuwaitis didn't cut oil production, so as to prop up the price. Bush 41 dismissed the threats as a "local matter," and then feigned shock when Saddam followed through on his threat.

Bush 41 then put together an actual coalition and drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and back into Central Iraq. They also helped create a northern territory for the Kurds to operate in, without interference from Baghdad. He chose not to invade Central Iraq and destabilize the government, because the experts told him what would occur, and that another Vietnam would be the result.

In 1998, when it looked as if Saddam Hussein was starting to gear up the military machine again, President Clinton pretty much wiped it out with a series of air strikes; air strikes which the Republicans derided as "wagging the dog," because they didn't believe Saddam had any weapons that we needed to worry about.

So, fast forward to 2002, when the Bush Administration was trying to make its case for invading Iraq, all of the following were facts:

The Iraqi government was isolated in the central part of the country, with little in the way of weapons, little in the way of an Army, no warplanes, and certainly no weapons of mass destruction.
There were no terrorist cells located in Iraq, in part because they and Saddam Hussein hated each other. Al Qaeda would be more likely to kill Saddam than to work with him against Americans.
All three ethnic groups were staking out claims in the three various sectors of Iraq created by the 1991 Gulf War; the Kurds in the north, Shiites in the South and Sunnis in the center.
Sanctions had weakened Saddam Hussein to a great degree, and his government was on the verge of collapse. It certainly had little or no power in the north and south, which were operating somewhat autonomously.
Before the Gulf war in 1991, Iraq had a very advanced economy; one of the most modern in the Middle East, populated with millions of Western-educated professionals. It was most certainly not a barren desert of backward wanderers.
Most experts on Iraq recommended against an invasion, and even Bush's own father, writing in his memoir, suggested that an incursion into Baghdad would have a detrimental effect, because it would reignite ethnic tensions that had simmered for centuries, and had been exacerbated by the very creation of Iraq.
The Pentagon at the time recommended roughly 3-5 times the number of troops that Bush 43 was prepared to send, to secure the country.

So, given this fact set, look at how Bush 43 has conducted this war:

He went against the advice of pretty much every expert he consulted, despite the fact that he himself didn't even realize there was a difference between various Muslim groups.
While there was a plan for the first wave of "shock and awe," which managed to dislodge the already incredibly weak government, there seemed to be no plan for keeping the country secure after the removal of the government, which is and always should be a key component of military strategy. (Actually, a major component of a strategy on anything is what to do when you're successful, isn't it? Well, Bush has never really been successful at anything, so perhaps he didn't realize this, eh?)
They didn't send enough troops, they underestimated the insurgency at every turn, they didn't arm the troops properly, and we're pretty sure most of the arms the insurgents used against us at the beginning came from several weapons depots that we built and then didn't secure.
The first thing that was secured after the initial invasion were the oil fields, not the borders. It's quite ironic, given the Republicans tendency to whine about border security with Mexico. Apparently, they didn't think guarding the borders with Iran and Syria were particularly important, so they instead guarded Baghdad and the oil fields.
They made the Ba'ath Party illegal, thus disenfranchising a healthy portion of the Iraqi population.
They disbanded the Army -- you know, the only people in Iraq trained to actually defend Iraq -- without even determining which soldiers were loyal to Saddam and which ones were loyal to Iraq.
Instead of hiring qualified Iraqis to rebuild the infrastructure of the country, they handed out no-bid contracts to companies friendly to the Bush Administration. In other words, instead of hiring a fully qualified Iraqi truck driver to move things along the streets of Baghdad for about $25,000 or less, more than $100,000 of your tax dollars are going to pay non-Iraqis working for the contractors.

The list goes on and on. The fact of the matter is, the current administration screwed up when it went into Iraq, because they didn't understand what they were unleashing. (All they had to do was talk to the CIA -- the CIA has warned about this sort of thing for decades. But worse than screwing up four years ago, they continue to screw up, by trying to apply a simplistic to a very complex situation. If you think you can install a clean, independent democracy in Iraq, think again. What democracy will bring -- and has brought, if you look closely enough -- is a Muslim extremist theocracy that is aligned with Iran, which will be seen as a major danger to the entire Middle East. It makes no sense for us to continue being there, because this is a regional conflict that will necessarily realign the Middle East over the long haul. But it will be a long haul, and you can thank George W. Bush for starting it.

These idiots call this a "war." Okay, if this is a war, then who's the enemy? It's not terrorism, because there really aren't that many terrorists over there; most of the violence is being caused by the factions within Iraq, and neither one of them seems to have a stomach for outside groups like al Qaeda butting into their affairs. Is it Iraq? I thought we were liberating them; why would we liberate them and then fight against them? The fact is, this is a civil war, there is no other term for it, and all we can do is pull back and let them fight it out.

Bush's invasion of Iraq without the rest of the world behind him, and without a plan for what to do if he was successful, was absolutely "an idiot decision," and it's time we acknowledged that and started to get the rest of the world behind us to fix this thing. The only thing we can do is pull back to the north and south, and discuss the situation with the other countries in the region and keep them from jumping in and turning this into World War III.

And then perhaps we can actually go after terrorists, such as the ones who brutally attacked us more than five years ago.

There is no choice

2006-11-06T13:28:00.001-05:00

At least, there shouldn't be a choice.

This election, more than any other, is not about Republicans vs. Democrats, and it's not about liberals vs. conservative.

It's about right vs. wrong. It's about moral vs. immoral. And the current incarnation of the Republican Party is neither right nor moral. Not even close.

Now, I normally recommend voting for the best person, or at least for the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately, that's not the case this election and next. For the next two elections, we have no choice but to vote for the person with a "D" next to his or her name.

The problem is, the Republican Party leadership has been taken over by some of the biggest scumbags in the history of American politics, and that is no mean feat. It is likely that every single Republican in a leadership position in Congress will be engulfed in a major scandal, if they haven't been already, but will be in a position, as leaders, to limit the investigations and effects. So, our only alternative is to prevent Republicans from being in leadership positions. And the only way to do that is to take away their majority.

This is not to say that all Republicans are bad people. But the Party itself is rotten from the neck up, and the only way to repair the damage is to cut off the head.

If you vote for a Republican, even if that Republican is politically inoffensive, you work to perpetuate Republican rule. Reasonable Republicans rarely get top leadership positions; those go to the most corrupt Republicans, based on the amount of money they've provided to the Party during election cycles and beyond.

The Republican Party has become corrupted to a greater degree than the Democratic Party ever thought of, and again, that's saying something. When the Democrats were in charge, the king of pork was Robert Byrd, but Byrd was an amateur, compared with the taxpayer fleecing that is going on these days.

Voting Republican this election is a vote in favor of the incredible corruption that has taken over to a greater degree than ever before. There's always been corruption in Congress, and both parties have been guilty to some degree. You'll certainly never hear me talk about the infallibility of Democrats. Richard Daley had vote stealing down as an art form long before Karl Rove set foot in politics. But it's gotten to the point that no one has to actually perform in office anymore. All a Republican politician has to do is promise to toe the line, and he or she will be rewarded with lots of money and power. If you want to see how deep the corruption goes, one only need look at John McCain.

Now, I have never been a fan of John McCain or his voting record. But McCain has always stuck to his guns, and rarely strayed far from his core beliefs. I always respected McCain, even as I disgareed with him on most issues. But nowadays, I hardly recognize McCain. Once in a while, he comes out with a strong stand on an issue, such as torture, and then mysteriously backtracks and seems to lose his nerve and then suddenly backs the Administration's position. He used to have a healthy disgust for the religious bigots that now serve as the Republican Party's "base"; these days, he practically smooches Jerry Falwell's ample buttocks and "reaches out" to these psychos. This is not to suggest that McCain is corrupt; what I am suggesting is that the corruption in the Republican Party runs so deep that no one can escape its clutches. You either kowtow to the leadership of the party, or you commit career suicide.

And if you want to see just how bad things have gotten, look at what the Republican stands for these days, and compare that with your own actual beliefs:

Out of control government spending, combined with tax cuts that only affect the richest 1% of Americans.
No-bid government contracts handed out to patrons of the Republican Party leadership, with little or no oversight, while at the same time refusing to provide the proper armor and munitions to the troops because they were "too expensive."
Cash payments in the billions of dollars to contractors all over Iraq, with no accountability whatsoever.
A war begun based on a lie, and the simultaneous losses of two wars, based on that decision, and subsequent decisions to ignore the military experts and forego a plan to stabilize and exit Iraq and Afghanistan.
The decrying of complaints about the war as "unpatriotic" at the same time they cut veterans' benefits and combat pay for soldiers.
The administration of torture , and thus the virtual abandonment of the principles of the Geneva Conventions, and the removal of the one protection our soldiers had from mistreatment by an enemy during war.
Complete and absolute incompetence when confronted with an emergency, and seeing pride in that lack of response
A government that puts politics ahead of duty to the people at every turn. They refused to give up their vacationsto help the thousands of people in distress after Hurricane Katrina, but cut off their vacations and ran back to Washington in record time when it looked like they could score points with the base with terri Schiavo.
They not only want to be able to spy on us at will, they want to do so with absolutely no oversight.
They have no stomach for accountability. They refuse to provide the constitutional check on the administration that is spelled out in the Constitution, and they refuse to police their own.
While they claim to want government out of our lives, they have done more to reduce our individual freedoms than any group in history. They don't care who steals our tax money, but they are jumping through hoops to keep an eagle eye on our bedrooms.
They want to force their religious beliefs on the rest of us.
They want to tell you who you can and cannot associate with.
They want to tell you what you can and cannot read.
They want to limit free speech, by controlling the outlets through which free speech flows.
They have attempted to suspend habaes corpus. There is no way this will get through the courts intact, but the fact of the matter is, they want to create an environment whereby the president, or someone representing the president, can throw someone in prison, for no apparent reason, and leave him or her there indefinitely, without benefit of trial or counsel, and without letting anyone else know who's there.

To you actual conservatives, think about it; there is nothing even remotely "conservative" about today's republican Party leadership. They are far more radical than the most radical elements of the left during the 1960s, and they are truly a danger to our liberty.

Even if you don't like the Democratic Party, for the future of this country, you have to send a message to the leadership of the Republican party, and allow the moderates to take the party back from the extremists who are running the show right now. There is no other choice. Democrats were in charge of Congress for most of the 40 years before the Republican "revolution," and none of the above happened during that time, so even if you're not ideologically smitten with the Democrats, you have to know that nothing incredibly radical will change with them in charge. But our government has to be checked, before more damage can befall it. We have a disastrous domestic economic policy happening without oversight. We have a disastrous foreign policy happening without oversight. We have a president who thinks he can circumvent legislation he doesn't like by applying signing statements, and a Congress without the will to tell him he can't. We have a Congress that rubber stamps every disastrous decision this Administration has ever made, and which has no problem turning everything in the world into a political blunt instrument with which to pound the Democrats on the head.

There was a time, not so long ago, wherein the concept of "loyal opposition" was the norm. It really IS possible to disagree with someone, without labeling them "traitors" or "unpatriotic" or even "baby killers." That day seems to be gone, but it can be regained. The key is to rid the government of extremists of every stripe, whether extreme right or extreme left. I think, however, you would be hard pressed to find an extreme leftist in the government right now, so the concentration will have to be on the right.

If you care about this country and its future, for this election and the next, you must vote for a Democrat. And it's not enough to stay home, or withhold your vote altogether. You MUST vote AGAINST the corruption, the immorality and the anticonstitutional values that the current leadership of the Republican Party represents.

Welcome to MiltBlog

2006-10-24T22:48:00.000-04:00

This is where I keep things up to date during the day...

Hope you enjoy... and think...