A Time for Change

The last time I looked in a Fox Forum, there were numerous threats referring to President-Elect Obama’s allegedly inevitable assassination and various other threats and racism.  Fox does not appear to me to moderate much and if they do, I cannot imagine what they delete!

Progress was made.  While I did not have time to go through hundreds of comments to a simple request by Greta Van Susteren to comment on Obama’s stamentment concerning Blago-what’s-his face’s appointment of Burris, I did not see any of the death threats and assassination comments that have been so numerous.  However, racism and questions concerning his birth certificate still abound.

Greta, I used to like your show when you were on CNN, but after your blatant pandering to that airhead media hound Sarah Palin and your quantum lack of editorial control over your blog, I wonder who you really are.  Who is your audience?  Here are few few rather interesting examples of the type of comments seen at Greta’s blog, and these have been the nicest that I have seen.

Comment by bydesign001
December 31st, 2008 at 11:09 am
Btw, while PEBO is busy golfing and pretending to not hear the world, Israel is committing horrible acts in an “In PEBO’s face kind of way”. I guess it’ll be another month and a half before he comes up to voice an opinion on that one.

Comment by bydesign001
December 31st, 2008 at 11:08 am
If PEBO has nothing of value to say, he should continue keeping his mouth shut and eyes on the tee. The Governor of Illinois’ appointment was legal. PEBO, Durbin, Reid, Pelosi and all the other idiots can not come along now and re-write the laws at whim. When it is all said and done, it will be quite clear that Blagojevich was not what the six stooges would call a “team player”. Even though he is accused of being as dirty, slimy and grimy as PEBO, since he was a bad boy and did not lay down and play quietly, he was outed as punishment.

What the Governor of Illinois is accused of is business as usual, i.e., The Chicago Way. If Blagojevich is guilty, then so is PEBO. If Blagojevich should resign and let the state of Illinois move on, then so should PEBO and let America be America.

You can not have it both ways. The law trumps even PEBO. While I do not know for how long, it does so right now.

Comment by Liberal Slayer 

December 31st, 2008 at 7:21 am   

Diane,

Remember when the MSM and DUMOCRATS excoriated the Republican Conservatives in the House for trying to stop this bailout mania?

Now with a straight face they are blaming them! Welcome to Socialism, brought to you by Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank, and Obama!

Apparently President Bush has thrown in the towel and even he is part of the Dumocrat socialist hegemony!

Had the Dums not blocked the regulation of Fannie and Freddie we would not even be here today!

To all those who so willingly fell into line with their Messiah, this is what you have to look forward to. You play the PEBO way or he’ll crush you underfoot.

Comment by Diane 

December 31st, 2008 at 7:16 am   

if and when the cronies decide to pay trillions to the blacks, I want mine too.

every single group of people that migrated to America have been mistreated!

I am sick of the blacks crying and whining about the past!

Oh, and, and every single crime victim should be entitled to millions too. Why not?

The white collar criminals running the country give their pals millions. Why not H-O-N-E-S-T
citizens? Oh, but wait..it’s okay to steal from the taxpayers isn’t it slimeballs in D.C.?

Comment by Ted 

December 31st, 2008 at 4:20 am   

Challenge, can anyone prove this wrong?:–

1. Constitution Article II requires USA President to be “natural born citizen”.

2. BHO’s website admits his dad was Kenyan/British, not American, citizen when BHO was born.

3. BHO is therefore not a “natural born citizen” (irrespective of Hawaiian birth or whether he may be a 14th Amendment “citizen” of USA) — as confirmed in the Senate’s own McCain qualification resolution agreed to by BHO.

4. Supreme Court has already docketed two upcoming conferences, 1/9/09 and 1/16/09 — between dates Congress counts electoral votes (1/8/09) and Presidential inauguration (1/20/09) — to address Berg Case and fashion relief on BHO’s eligibility to be President.

5. Since no facts are in dispute, Supreme Court rules on Summary Judgment to enjoin BHO’s inauguration as President.

6. Therefore, BHO is not inaugurated as President.

7. Vice President Elect Biden is inaugurated Acting President under the 20th Amendment to serve until new President is determined — the procedure for which determination to be set out by Congress and/or the Supreme Court so long as in conformance with the Constitution.

Comment by obama is a what? 

December 31st, 2008 at 3:23 am   

obama is a what? Not a citizen, not a person, not trustworthy, not totally human, not a half breed, everyone who voted for that Kenya native should be sent for retraining in the aspects of american pride.
You begged, cried, pleaded, and bow to the almighty now live with the evil you have created and serve for. For he is your almighty. Heck you don’t ever even have to worry about paying your mortgage or car payment because he (obama) will pay it for you as that idiot said in the news. the bad part is that you obama supporters believe that to be gospel.

omment by georgia 

December 31st, 2008 at 1:36 am   

TMnTEXAS————————even negroes try to get away from “all negroe” housing.It’s a proven fact here in southeast ga.They (((TRY))) to live in heavily white neighborhoods because they feel safer.I would never have believed it –if I didn’t SEE it repeatedly.The delightful black couple that bought our last home were buying into an all white neighborhood—You would have thought they had died and gone to heaven!!! I was happy for them because they are particularly good people….they have taken excellent care of the place and improvements are ongoing.NOT ALL BLACKS ARE THE SAME.It’s SAD that neighborhoods invariably fail when they move in in great numbers.WHY????I can’t figure that one out.

omment by TMnTexas 

December 31st, 2008 at 1:24 am   

Eligibility case finds ’standing’?

New suit claims unique state law enables citizens to demand proof
Posted: December 30, 2008
9:54 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn

Attorney Stephen Pidgeon

A new case challenging Barack Obama’s natural-born citizenship and, therefore, constitutional eligibility to serve as president has the potential to clear a hurdle that caused several other similar cases’ dismissal: the issue of “standing.”

In the case brought by Pennsylvania Democrat Philip Berg, for example, a federal judge ruled against the lawsuit in deciding Berg lacked the “standing” to sue, arguing that the election of Obama wouldn’t cause the plaintiff specific, personal injury.

In Washington state’s Broe v. Reed case, however, plaintiff’s attorney Stephen Pidgeon says a unique state statute grants everyday citizens the required standing.

For the rest of the story - http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=84966

Comment by rlw 

December 31st, 2008 at 1:17 am   

I CAN JUST SEE IT NOW ……OSAMA BIN LAUDIN (sic) BOMBS TWO OF OUR WARSHIPS AND THERE ARE CASUALTIES …..PEBO RETALIATES BY FIRING SHORT RANGES MISSLES SOMEHWERE IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF HIS WHEREABOUTS LANDING SOMEWHERE IN THE DESSERT OR IN THE MOUNTAINS AND I SEE OSAMA IS LAUGHING !!!!!!!!!

Then there is the Sarah palinesque, end of days worrier:

Comment by Cathy in Ohio 

December 31st, 2008 at 12:54 am   

There are too many people in high places fielding the way for obama. Any other time in history this man would not have gotten this far. A 3000 year old quiet volcano in Russia is now active, Yellowstone is experiencing increased activity, Israel/Hamas, the list goes on and on, time is ripe, prophicies (sic) are being fulfilled. I think the US is supposed to have a muslim pres. during the end times. It would complicate things if we had a righteous, God fearing president.

Greta, is this the dialogue that you want to have on your blog?  These crazy fringe looney racists?  Well, if it is, congratulations, seems like you have drawn a lot of them.

So here’s how it works according to my tagger novemberfifth.blogspot.com:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about myself:

1.  Clown ornaments on Christmas trees creep me out;

2. I voted for Ronald Reagan instead of Walter Mondale.

3. I used to sell my paintings and drawings in various cities in the US.

4. I live in the South, but miss the snow and cold weather.

5. I love to travel and find that the unexpected provides the best moments to remember.

6. I have a degree in English Literature which I converted to a career in law so that I could write and talk for a living.  

My six tags:

Chamay0
willpen
walkndude
Intelligence
Left Eyed Jack
inevitableconflict

Barack Obama Will Use the Lincoln Bible

Some Atheists and non-religious groups have filed a lawsuit in Washington to ensure that all references to God are left out of the inaugural ceremony.  CNN reports that  the lawsuit specifically seeks to remove “so help me God” from the end of the Presidential oath.   The lawsuit further seeks to prevent ministers from delivering an invocation during which they may “discuss God and religion.”  According to Fox News:

The 34-page legal complaint similarly seeks to enjoin Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., from adding the phrase “So help me God” to the presidential oath of office.

“We’re hoping to stop prayer and religious rituals at governmental functions, especially at the inauguration,” Barker told FOX News Radio.

“The inauguration is not a religious event. It is a secular event of a secular country that includes all Americans, including those of us who are not Christians, including those of us who are not believers,” he continued.

Barker, who said government’s not picking sides on the issue of religion is “hard wired into our Constitution,” called the 29 members of the suit all atheists and agnostics who love their country and participating in the inauguration. 

“Yet we are subjected to someone else’s religious views with the endorsement of the government, which makes us feel like second class outsiders,” he said.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is the same group that fought to have atheist displays next to holiday displays, most notably in Washington state this year.

He said if Obama wants to hold a private religious ceremony, that would be more appropriate than having religious figures up on stage at his swearing in ceremony.

The lawsuit focuses on the “the Establishment Clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”  The oath of office that presidents take on Inauguration Day is actually embedded in the U.S. Constitution — at the end of Article II, Section 1, though it doesn’t include the words “so help me God.”  There is not much legal support for the lawsuit and Barack Obama may always make the personal choice to add the references to God anyway.

The proponent of the lawsuit, Michael Needow, the “California atheist who unsuccessfully challenged the use of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Doesn’t Mr. Needow have something else to do?  I get that people are concerned about separating church and state, particularly where there are so many religious extremists trying to force they views on others, e.g., pro-life, but I really think this is such a waste of time and it just makes the extremists all crazy and paranoid.

What about that middle ground?

Vanity Fair Article

If you have not read the Vanity Fair Article “Farewell to All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House,” you should.  It reminds me of when I was reading a book on the Reagan presidency, which noted how Reagan drifted off during Cabinet meetings and was disengaged (or to put it bluntly, he slept and made comments on the squirrels outside).  Taking a look at Presidencies like George Bush that have no record of any accomplishments is ugly and fascinating.

 I hope you have a chance to read the article, but I thought I’d give you a little preview of interesting bits here.

• “On the day of the inauguration the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, declares a moratorium on the Clinton administration’s last-minute regulations on the environment, food safety, and health.” 
• “Just after the inauguration, Bush disengages from the International Criminal Court and other international efforts.”
• “…people like Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and so forth, which allowed one perception to be “the dream team.” It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin–like president—because, let’s face it, that’s what he was—was going to be protected by this national- security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire. What in effect happened was that a very astute, probably the most astute, bureaucratic entrepreneur I’ve ever run into in my life became the vice president of the United States. He became vice president well before George Bush picked him. And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush—personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum.”
• “The contrast with having briefed his father and Clinton and Gore was so marked. And to be told, frankly, early in the administration, by Condi Rice and [her deputy] Steve Hadley, you know, Don’t give the president a lot of long memos, he’s not a big reader—well, shit. I mean, the president of the United States is not a big reader?”
• “Secretary of State Colin Powell tells reporters that the United States intends to “engage with North Korea to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off.” The next day, Powell is forced by the administration to backpedal. Other early administration actions—abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty, abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change—signal that America’s way of doing business has changed. In time, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld will characterize traditional U.S. allies as “old Europe.”
• “…the new [Bush] administration was not interested any longer in a multilateral coordination” with our allies.
• “… Mr. Rumsfeld was not about listening and being cooperative. Mr. Rumsfeld was about getting the way of the United States, and don’t get in my way or my juggernaut will run over you.”
• “A task force assembled and led by Vice President Dick Cheney unveils a blueprint for the administration’s energy program. The report, “National Energy Policy,” which had been in the works since shortly after the inauguration, calls for increased drilling for oil and more nuclear power. The energy task force becomes an immediate focus of controversy—and lawsuits—because its records and the list of advisers, mainly representatives of the oil and gas industries, are never divulged by the White House.“
• “Christine Todd Whitman, the E.P.A. administrator, was one of several people in the Cabinet, along with Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who strongly supported a proactive position on climate change. And she was, I think, in Europe telling European governments that the U.S. position was to regulate carbon dioxide. And when she got back home, she had an interaction with the president in which she was very brusquely told that that was off the table. The turning point, essentially, was that Cheney grabbed hold of this issue and took down the whole notion of regulating CO2.”
• “With big bipartisan majorities, Congress passes Bush’s $1.35 trillion package of tax cuts, the centerpiece of the administration’s economic program. The tax cuts are skewed heavily toward the affluent. Those making $1 million a year receive an average tax cut of $53,000. Those making $20,000 a year receive an average tax cut of $375. A second round of tax cuts will be enacted in 2003. By 2004 the budget deficit will exceed $400 billion.”
• “When Bush announced his “compassionate conservatism” [during the 2000 campaign], Elizabeth Dole’s communications director mocked him. He goes, Oh, that’s a great thing if you want to be president of the Red Cross, right? And that man was Ari Fleischer. Those are the people that ended up populating the White House. When the president’s tax package first came through Congress and first came through the Senate Finance Committee, his promise to have a tax cut for charitable giving for people who don’t itemize their tax deductions wasn’t even in the plan. [Senator] Charles Grassley looked at this and went, Oh, gosh, there must have been some oversight. And he was the one who inserted it into the tax plan. And the White House is the one that pulled it out.”
• August 6, 2001 While vacationing at his ranch, in Crawford, Texas, Bush is given a Presidential Daily Briefing memorandum whose headline warns that the al-Qaeda terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, is “determined to strike in U.S.” After being briefed on the document by a C.I.A. analyst, Bush responds, “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”
• “That night, on 9/11, Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, You know, we’ve got to do Iraq, and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him—like, What the hell are you talking about? And he said—I’ll never forget this—There just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks. And I made the point certainly that night, and I think Powell acknowledged it, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. That didn’t seem to faze Rumsfeld in the least. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It really didn’t, because from the first weeks of the administration they were talking about Iraq. I just found it a little disgusting that they were talking about it while the bodies were still burning in the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center.”
• After 9/11, “Karl [Rove] wasn’t receptive to ideas that would’ve called the country to certain things and brought them to a common purpose and a sense of shared sacrifice. Karl came from a perspective of: you defeat people in politics by calling one side bad and one side good.”
• “October 26, 2001 Bush signs the USA Patriot Act, which among other things gives the government far-reaching powers to conduct surveillance. In addition, Bush will issue a secret executive order authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretaps on American citizens and others living in the United States, bypassing the procedures mandated by Congress.”
• “November 1, 2001 A presidential executive order exempts presidents, vice presidents, and their designees from provisions of the 1978 Presidential Records Act and permits unclassified archived materials to be kept sealed in perpetuity, rather than being released after 12 years, as the law allows.”

There are many many, more interesting excerpts, but I’ll leave you to chew on this one.  Think about it each and every time Bush, Cheney, Condi or any other member of the Bush Administration claims to have made this nation “safer.”

Gary Berntsen, C.I.A. intelligence commander at Tora Bora: We knew [Osama bin Laden was in the Northeast sector of Afghanistan] —he had fallen into the mountains with about a thousand of his followers. That’s why we threw a BLU-82 [the bomb known as a “daisy cutter”] at him. At one point we knew where he was; we allowed food and water to go in to him. And then we came in with a 15,000-pound device. Bin Laden was outside the lethal effects of that blast. I understand he was injured.

I got a message out and made my request for inclusion of what I believed was needed—800 Rangers. The army of the Eastern Alliance on the north side had blocking positions there, so al-Qaeda couldn’t get back out into Afghanistan. But I was always concerned about the Pakistani side. I explained clearly that this was our opportunity to, so to speak, kill the baby in the crib. I was very concerned about them breaking out [south] into Pakistan, because I knew, if they did that, containing this thing would be a significant problem.

Unfortunately, the decision was made at the White House to use the Pakistani frontier force. What the White House didn’t understand is that the frontier force had cooperated with the Taliban. So they used individuals who were very, very sympathetic to the Taliban to set up purported blocking positions.

Osama bin Laden is still thought to be at large in Pakistan and Al Qaeda is conducting and funding operations there.

“Mission Accomplished” – Arrogance and buffoonery at its finest

Think about it for a moment.  In the name of the people of the United States of America, the Bush adminsitration “cooked the books” on a reason to go into war in the first place and then invaded a country that was functioning and had an infrastructure and then so totally devastated it that the Iraqi people still have not comlpetely recovered.  Now that’s progress, isn’t it?

When we talk about “winning” the war in Iraq, there are no winners.  We have left the country in a worse position than when we invaded and the only benefactors of this misguided war have been the companies with which Bush and Cheney have financial ties and other associations.  So the losers of this war are (1) the Iraqi people and (2) you and me, the American taxpayers.  And we will be footing the bill for this debacle for a long, long time.

More Iraqis have died from the war in Iraq than under Saddam Hussein, hundreds of thusands more.  There is less electricity, running water, Iraqi national treasures are gone from Museums, women in parts of the country are harassed and are no longer allowed an education.  

There is a draft 513 page report detailing the Bush administration’s quantum failures in this war along the lines discussed above.  According to the New York Times, “the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.”  

In one passage, for example, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department “kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week! ‘We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.’ ”

Mr. Powell’s assertion that the Pentagon inflated the number of competent Iraqi security forces is backed up by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former commander of ground troops in Iraq, and L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator until an Iraqi government took over in June 2004.

So, not only did no one know what they were doing, but the adminsitration regularly and routinely lied to us to cover up the fact that they didn’t know what they were doing, as if we didn’t get that anyway.

Among the overarching conclusions of the history is that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II, the United States government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale.

So after all of the lies, the deception, the cronies getting paid billions of dollars and after no one ever took any responsibility for what happened in Iraq, where does that leave George Bush’s legacy in Iraq?  The report speaks for itself.

The bitterest message of all for the reconstruction program may be the way the history ends. The hard figures on basic services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed.

Mission accomplished!!  Now that’s a legacy.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

November 4, 2008 – the day that changed the world

There are those moments in your lifetime when you just know that life will never be the same again.  The great stock market crash of 1929.  The day that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.  D-Day. The ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education. Kennedy’s stand against segregation when he announced that he would go forward with the Civil Rights Act in response to continuing Southern violence against efforts to desegregate the South. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream Speech.”  Lyndon Johnson going forward with the Civil Rights Act, which was really political suicide.  Robert Kennedy’s remarkable primary run where he was treated as a rock star everywhere he went based on his civil rights record and his stance on the Vietnam war and poverty. The day the National Guard shot students to death at Kent State who were protecting the war.  Watergate.  Nixon’s resignation. The Supreme Court giving the election to Bush and November 4, 2004.

The phenomenon of Barack Obama is part of that great history in American politics where a leader with vision has been able to instill in the public a sense of a greater purpose in life than each person’s own self interest. And what a strak distincion from the past eight years. He has given us what was so shockingly and irretrievably taken away when John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were murdered before  they were able to complete the work that they had started to take this country to the heights that they had envisioned, but we had yet fulfill. 

How prophetic it was that Robert Kennedy himself said that the country would be ready for an African American President  in 40 years and it was exactly 40 years until that came to pass.  I read a remarkable piece by Max Hastings of Britain’s Daily Mail. Sometimes you have to go outside of this country to get a true perspective on what really happens in this country and how that appears to others in the world.  I liked it so much that I wanted to share a  portion of the article with you.  Here it is:

… The most exalting event of 2008 has been the election of Barack Obama, first black President of the United States of America.

Three months ago, I stood in a park in Kansas City amid the largest political crowd the state had ever seen and a sea of placards proclaiming ‘Time For Change’. Almost 100,000 people joined in euphoric adulation of the Democratic candidate.

They roared when he appeared, and cheered as he spoke with the calm dignity which characterises him. ‘We meet at a moment of great uncertainty for Americans,’ he said.

And because Americans are the most optimistic people on Earth, on November 4 they elected him their President. And because the leader of the U.S. is the most powerful man on Earth, he became our leader, too.

And we rejoiced in his triumph, and passionately want to believe in him. Ever since I first reported from the 2008 U.S. election trail back in May, I have nursed a fear that Obama might have something of Tony Blair about him.

He is assuredly a brilliant politician, a charismatic personality, one of the greatest political speakers of modern times. A worm of doubt persists, about whether he also knows what to do in government, how to use power with conviction.

But for now, like almost everyone else I am pushing such thoughts under the bed. We should merely celebrate the fact that, three weeks from now, the world’s greatest nation will be led by someone other than George W. Bush.

Obama is a remarkable man of the highest intelligence. He is bound to disappoint expectations, because these have been set absurdly high.

But there is a chance, just a chance, that he will display the greatness which his office so desperately needs, at a time when he will be called upon to lead the world out of the gravest economic crisis of modern times and the Middle East is convulsed by renewed conflict.

If ever, in the months and years ahead, you feel tempted to think ill of President Obama, just keep reciting to yourself: ‘He is not John McCain and the moose-hunter . . . He is not John McCain and the moose-hunter . . .’ This mantra should help us to feel better in the bad times.

It could always be worse….John McCain and the moose hunter

But my expectations for President-Elect Obama are higher.  I think that Barack Obama with all his gifts, if given the opportunity, can lead this country to a change it has not seen in 40 years or more.  We are on the precipice of a great beginning and need a real leader to help us through the quagmire of the myriad problems in a world that has become increasingly interdependent and antagonistic.  He will not be a perfect leader, that would be far too much to ask of him, but what we can do is to ask him to do his very best for all of us as one nation.  At a time that we need it more than ever, he has seen that despite our differences we are all Americans.  Evangelicals, pro-choice, gays, NRA and Team Sarah members and American Muslims all love this country. Sometimes it takes a real leader with courage to remind us of that and take some of us kicking and screaming into the future when it is a time for a real change. 

I will leave you with the words of one of the greatest Presidents we ever had and a man who I admire enormously.

So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.

The aftermath of the shooting

Wake up America!  We are a really violent nation.  Every Christmas I read these stories where children are given guns as some weird rite of passage.   Well, there is no frontier anymore and we don’t need the wild west in the cities.  How many Columbines and other needless deaths must there be before we have laws to protect people from children with guns and to protect children from having guns? 

This Christmas it happened again.  in Chandler, Oklahoma an 11 year old boy in the Fifth Grade, Michael, who had already been given a .22 caliber Rifle last year, was given a .22 pistol as a Christmas present.  Michael was playing with it with a friend when the gun went off  and a bullet hit him in the forehead.

The local paper quoted a neighbor as saying, “It is kind of a rite of passage growing up in the country to have a gun. I had my first gun when I was 9 or 10.” 

Michael and his friend were playing with the gun went it went off.  This is a personal tragedy for the parents that could easily have been avoided, but had Michael lived who knows how his life could have benefited society. Newspaper and TV accounts talk about what a great kid he was, now no one will ever know.

In a 1998 Associated Press article, 19 years ago, the US had the highest rate of gun deaths among the 36 richest nations.  That amounted to 14.24 per 100,000 people in 1994. “If you have a country saturated with guns – available to people when they are intoxicated, angry or depressed – it’s not unusual guns will be used more often,” said Rebecca Peters, a Johns Hopkins University fellow specializing in gun violence. “This has to be treated as a public health emergency.”  

If you look at the Centers for Disease Control website for the years 1999 – 2005, deaths from guns per 100,000 from newborns through 85+ years of age is a shocking 80,603. If you lower the age to newborn to age 18, it is 9,256. 1 death is too many.  Those numbers are obscene in a civilized society.

After Columbine, mothers banded together for million mom marches on Washington for tighter gun control laws. In advocating against gun control, not a an, but gun control for gun-related deaths involving children, Fox News made fun of the effort since it had essentially dwindled to nothing by 2001.  By all means, let’s demean an effort to avoid another Columbine. Good job, as usual, Fox News.

Why assault weapons are sold is beyond me.  Surely those weapons are not necessary for hunting?  

If you look at the news, there are numerous stories about the “skyrocketing” number of people purchasing guns, requesting concealed weapon permits and purchasing assault weapons. I hope that the Obama Administration brings some sanity to this issue.  Gun control is not a ban.  We should be setting an example instead of setting the “Pulp Fiction” example where men dressed as Santas gun down whole families and leave 10 children without parents and others shoot people in movie theaters because they talk.  

As a nation we are obsessed with guns and it is killing us.

Much has been said of Bush’s “legacy” lately, but I must say that I have been flabbergasted that he continues to vacation while the war between Hamas and Israel rages.  Violence in Afghanistan is increasing with roadside bombings and kidnappings becoming more and more frequent.  Terror attacks are becoming more grand and more frequent due to a failed policy with Pakistan.  Due to the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan and India are on the verge of war.  In Zimbabwe a horrific dictator fails to act while his people die of Cholera and we take “sanctions” that exacerbate the problem…and there is so much more and this is just the foreign policy “legacy.”

Obama really cannot step in yet, Bush acts as if he wants him to do so so that he can ride his lazy butt into the sunset of his retirement early.  Could Obama have any more on his plate because of the travesty of the failed Bush presidency?  Consider the following quote from Larry Sabato, founder of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, who said as to the state of  foreign affairs, ”There are a few more biblical plagues that could occur, but not much else. It’s a good thing [Obama] named his team early, because they are going to need every day and every hour before January 20 to get ready.”

And people were worried about Obama’s ability to handle foreign policy?

Ex-employee who murdered dog to get back at ex-boss

These are the eyes of a very, very sick human being. This waste of a human life shot and killed a border collie, Quinn, who can be seen below, at the Turlock Golf and Country Club in Merced County, California simply because he was was mad at his former boss.

Franco Garcia Aguilar, a 21 year old with a history of  ”domestic violence,” was laid off from the golf course’s maintenance crew in November.  On December 16, he walked onto the golf course to the kennel where Quinn was boarded and shot the dog 3 times with a 12 gauge shotgun.  The dog never had a chance with this beast.

Aguilar confessed while being held on a domestic violence charge. He faces animal cruelty, burglary and the domestic violence charge.

Aguilar’s boss was responsible for the dog who was not only the golf course’s unofficial mascot, but frolicked with the Canadian geese to keep them at bay and out of play at the course.

I certainly hope that this California District Attorney doesn’t cut some kind of a deal with this brute who was far more of an animal that Quinn.

Quinn, a gentle and sweet border collie

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Racist Who Sent “Barack the Magic Negro” to RNC Committee Members

Even if the election results had not convinced you that the GOP is a party enmeshed in the smoldering flames of a total meltdown, then the most recent events should certainly underscore it for you.  Ladies and Gents, there is a fearsome struggle going on between moderates, who are starting to run from the party with their hair on fire, and, I’ll be nice, “conservative extremists,” who would like to take the country back to when it was ok when women didn’t vote, African Americans “knew their place,” and you could burn books in the library without creating a stir in the evil “main stream media.”

As you’ve heard by now, Chip Saltsman, pictured above, sent a CD to RNC Committee Members with a song “Barack the Magic Negro” and various other little racist ditties directed at Latinos’ Spanglish.  Of course, his defense is, it’s a “joke,” except a lot of people don’t find it very funny.  This was sent on the heels of the “base” showing up at rallies with Barack Obama signs on monkeys and the party’s poster child was championing anti-intellectual mob McCarthyism by repeatedly calling Obama alternatively a “Domestic Terrorist” and/or a “socialist.”  Lincoln must be rolling over in his grave.

CNN now reports that there is supposedly a call for a first-of-its-kind meeting concerning who will have the joy of taking over the GOP as its Chairman. Most of the leaders who called for the emergency meeting support Mike Duncan, who denounced the racist Saltsman CD.  Newt Gingrich, of all people, also made a public statement that the CD should be grounds to disqualify Saltsman.  Others in the GOP, including Saltsman, have actually defended this CD.  

The Republicans have forgotten that rural America has become more urban and and white America is becomingly increasingly tan.  The various attitudes within the GOP toward this CD clearly show that there is a quantum disconnect with what can and does offend. It contains material directed to every potential voter that the Republicans might try to have vote for them in the future, including the same old tired mantra that the Democrats are somehow less American that their conservative counterparts.  What about those Reagan Democrats that the party once so prized?  Now that they are less “American,” is the GOP still interested in them?

The Washington Post reports that Saltsman actually issued a statement, “I firmly believe that we must welcome all Americans into our party and that the road to Republican resurgence begins with unity, not division. But I know that our party leaders should stand up against the media’s double standards and refuse to pander to their desire for scandal.”  Disconnect?  Big time.  It’s not the media, take a look in the mirror Chip. 

So who will head the RNC and where will the new Chair take the party?  Chip the racist?  I am not sure, but if you want to know where the meeting is, just follow the mob with the white sheets and torches.  There won’t be many moderates there for sure and if they bother to come, they will be forced out quickly on the party’s way back to McCarthyism.

According to the Washington Post, last week the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent think tank, issued a report that heavily criticized the Bush administration’s funding of the war in Iraq. The report can be found here.  The study found that the war in Iraq “has already cost more in inflation-adjusted dollars than every other U.S. war except World War II.”

The cost for the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan could grow to $1.7 trillion by 2018.  The report is critical of the Bush Administration’s funding through “giant” emergency spending measures rather than through appropriation requests.

“The process has reduced the ability of Congress to exercise effective oversight. It has also tended to obscure the long-term costs and budgetary consequences of ongoing military operations,” the report says. It also warns that such emergency bills have included “substantial amounts of funding for programs unrelated to the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Direct costs of the wars have increased from about $17 billion in 2001, when the United States overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan, to $93 billion in 2003, when the  U.S. military invaded Iraq, and $182 billion for 2008. 

Th report was also highly critical of  Bush having paid for the wars through borrowing rather than increasing taxes and spending cuts, which will ultimately cost taxpayers more. “Direct costs of the wars have increased from about $17 billion in 2001, when the United States overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan, to $93 billion in 2003, when the U.S. military invaded Iraq, and $182 billion for 2008. Those costs cover military operations, the building of Iraqi and Afghan forces, foreign assistance, and veterans benefits.”

Halliburton, the company for which Dick Cheney was chief executive until he stepped down to be the co-President with George Bush, won contracts worth billions of dollars that were no-bid and coordinated with Cheney’s assistance.  Moreover, Dick Cheney has continued to receive compensation from Halliburton while one of the company’s subsidiaries is making substantial profits from the wars.  In 2003-2006, KBR, a division of Halliburton made $17.2 billion in revenue from the Iraq war.

So, not only should Bush and Cheney be tried for war crimes, but Cheney should be investigated for war profiteering.

Laura Bush

First it was Bush himself who did a number of interviews to wax romantic about his failings and try to put a positive spin on a dismal record.  Then Condoleeza gave it a try and that didn’t work either.  Then came the Cheney interview debacle where Cheney unapologetically bragged about the “successes” of the Bush administration and the unprecedented power that he wielded over George Bush in formulating pro-torture policies, domestic wiretapping, lying to the American people about the reasons for the War in Iraq and numerous economic policy failures.  

At the end of the farewell Bush legacy tour, a poll reveals that 75% of the American public want the door to hit Bush on the way out of the Oval office.  The end result was that chatter concerning trying the gang of four (George, Cheney, Condi and Rumsfeld) for war crimes increased exponentially.

Having failed thus far to make a dent in the theater of public opinion about the Bush “legacy,” now Laura Bush was trotted out on Fox News Sunday to try to resurrect some positive image of her husband’s presidency.  I have always liked Laura Bush.  She was fair and kind throughout her term as First lady, which presented a stark contrast to the manners and methods of the George and Dick despicable duo tactics.  

Poor thing, she really stated the obvious.  True, Saddam was toppled because of George Bush, but at what cost to the US and the Iraqi people?  Not to mention the credence that the failed war in Iraq has given to Osama bin Laden and his minions that America is still an Imperialistic nation bent on occupation of and a crusade against Muslims living in the the Arab world.

What was most telling was her concession that soldiers were drawn away from Afghanistan to fight in Iraq, but she claims, as she must, that this did not ultimately create a problem in the war on terror despite  heightened violence that is causing renewed instability.

”Well, I don’t know that I would agree with that at all,” Mrs. Bush said. ”I don’t think that’s true at all. We’ve stayed very, very invested in Afghanistan. Not as invested militarily, maybe, and maybe that’s what the critics say, that it should have been more military. But I think we stayed very invested.

”We’re invested both financially with tons of support to Afghanistan, as well as every other way. I’ve met thousands, literally thousands, of different people who are Americans who are invested in Afghanistan in some way. Women who are helping women there, the educated. Women who are helping with microfinance so that women can build small businesses and support themselves.”

But not the Bush Administration that never made good on its promises to stop the drug trade and to bolster the Afghan infrastructure so that the US is safer.

Mrs. Bush was even so bold as to address her husband’s quantum failure to assist the victims of hurricane Katrina.  She said that she was “sad” that the federal government didn’t respond faster, which was her husband’s responsibility, “but that debate over the federal response overshadowed heroic efforts during the tragedy of the U.S. Coast Guard and other responders,” which is to the credit of the Coast guard and not her husband.

You have to feel sorry for her being married to such a total failure.

Mug Shot

On Christmas day in Philadelphia, at the Riverview Movie Theatre, patrons watched “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. A family was talking during the movie.  James Joseph Cialella, 29, told the family, which was sitting in front of him, to be quiet and they argued.  Cialella ended up throwing popcorn at the son and then approached the family from the side aisle  and shot the father in the arm as he stood between Cialella and his family to protect them. “Cialella was carrying a Kel-Tec .380-caliber handgun clipped inside his sweatpants,” according to CNN. After having shot the father, Cialella sat down to watch the movie.  Police were called to the scene where he was arrested.

So, there was road rage and now there is movie rage? 

Mike Duncan (Right), Cureent RNC Chairman

The Republicans have had a serious problem with open and obvious displays of racism before and after the 2008 election.  This week TeamSarah.org was exposed for having comments on its website that discussed the murder of President Obama.  Fox News had similar comments on its blogs.  The the news came that Chip Saltsman sent out a CD to members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) entitled, “We Hate the USA, ” and contained songs such as “Barack the Magic Negro,” “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright place, wrong pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish banner.”

Now current RNC Chair, Mike Duncan, is having to apologize for Saltsman’s racism.  CNN reports that “The chairman of the Republican National Committee said he was “appalled” by a song called “Barack the Magic Negro” on a CD distributed by [Chip Saltsman who is] one of his political rivals.”  However, Politico reports that Saltsman continues to defend his racism, but Duncan issued a statement 22 hours after the story broke saying “The 2008 election was a wake-up call for Republicans to reach out and bring more people into our party. I am shocked and appalled that anyone would think this is appropriate as it clearly does not move us in the right direction.” 

The fact that the GOP stayed silent on this issue for 22 hours speaks volumes about the party and its indifference to racism.  How will minorities ever consider this party when party leaders and those seeking to chair the party defend such an offensive CD when it is clearly indefensible.

Perhaps the GOP’s answer is to become more and more extreme as mainstream America leaves them behind.  

When did the GOP just become the OP?  According to the Los Angeles Times,  the root of the current GOP  relates back to McCarthyism and that Sarah Palin is the new candidate to pick a very old standard to wave. The article traces the current party back through each Republican President to the McCarthy era.  

What I found really interesting is the following: “As historian Richard Hofstadter described it in his famous essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” McCarthyism is a way to build support by playing on the anxieties of Americans, actively convincing them of danger and conspiracy even where these don’t exist.” Sound familiar?  Condoleeza Rice’s now infamous mushroom cloud? Sarah Palin’s cries that Barack Obama was pallin’ around with a domestic terrorist and that he was a socialist (even though her husband belonged to a group that wants Alaska to secede from the US and she was responsible for imposing taxes on oil in Alaska and redistributing that to Alaskans).

The article traces McCarthyism to Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41 (remember Willie Horton) and his son George 43 (swiftboat attacks) in what the Times refers to as a “slash and burn” style of politics” that unites Catholics and Evangelical Protestants “who, along with Southerners, would form the basis of the new conservative coalition. Nixon simply mastered what McCarthy had authored. You demonize the opposition and polarize the electorate to win.”  Lee Atwater to his disciple Karl Rove.

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That’s why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama’s relationship with onetime radical William Ayers. 

And that is also why the Republican Party, despite the recent failure of McCarthyism, is likely to keep moving rightward, appeasing its more extreme elements and stoking their grievances for some time to come. There may be assorted intellectuals and ideologues in the party, maybe even a few centrists, but there is no longer an intellectual or even ideological wing. The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs – Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Palin. It’s in the genes.

While the McCarthy era was before my time, it certainly felt McCarthyistic under the Bush regime of Karl Rovian attacks on patriotism that would shame most decent human beings.  John Kerry certainly understands that.  The extremists in the Republican party have long tried to characterize Democrats as somehow “un-American” even though hard-working Democrats pay taxes and go off to war far just as Republicans do.  In this last election, America rejected Palin’s McCarthyistic approach and opted for one America.

But where does it end for Palin and the extremists?  What is the end game here?  As the right moves farther and farther to the extreme, and I certainly think that Palin is there already, which would explain why she doesn’t want mainstream America to hear just how radical her views are, what will be their outlet for these views?  At what point is it not very funny to create racist CDs?  When does it become not so humorous to post comments about the murder of the President-Elect on conservative websites.

Polls have shown that mainstream America is moving farther and farther away from this brand of politics, it is much easier to see that the country is more likely left of center rather than right, at least socially.  There are very good Republican politicians out there who I have, and would again vote for, but it is that part of the party that fervently wishes to impose their extremist views on me that repulses me.

I also truly believe that Americans are sick of the politics of fear and that they want an intellectual President that understands the big issues and how to tackle them.  The proof of that is Barack Obama’s approval ratings are soaring.  

After the last eight years and after having rejected McCain / Palin, I don’t think there was a time when the country was more ready for a thinking man to take the lead.  We don’t need to have a beer with a leader, but we do need one who understands what the real problems are and tries to fix them rather than creating more based on some extremist ideology that does not reflect the will of the majority of the people in this country.