Friday, July 18, 2008

No Hope

Hunter has an eloquent post about how the criminal Bush administration and those complicit in their crimes will simply get away with it.

I say it's time to "storm the Bastille," but everyone else is too busy waiting for the Rock Band II to come out.

Why do we even bother supporting these clowns? Time to consider exercising my 2nd amendment rights, since my 4th amendment rights are about to be gone.

SUGARRETAW|WATERRAGUS

Cool like Lucas with the Lid Off, as it should be since they were both made by the awesome Michel Gondry.

The video...



The Making of...

Libertarian candidate Bob Barr endorses AccountabilityNowPAC

At least there's one presidential candidate willing to fight for our civil liberties!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Presidential Honors

Mine is one of the signatures that helped get the "George W. Bush Sewage Treatment Plant" on the ballot, and I am highly confident such a fitting honor will be bestowed.

Glad to see other like projects are in the works for Mr. 28%, and even thoughts about how to honor vice Dick.

America doesn't pardon war criminals

Well said, Andrew!

America doesn't pardon war criminals. It prosecutes and, in the
past, has even executed them for the same techniques that Bush and
Rumsfeld and Cheney endorsed. (emphasis mine)

Bad day for legal justice

Revenge obsessed sociopaths in America may be rejoicing, but for the very few of us who believe that laws come before men, today we were thrust headlong into bizarre-o world by one Judge James Roberts, who - from a certain perspective - just issued a ruling that translates to it being okay that you get to be tried for a crime without even being charged with a crime.

Armchair warriors and those that jack off to Sean Hannity and 24 might sidle up to this ruling as being fine and good since it only involves terrorists, but they do that because they're dumber than boxes of rocks, and couldn't solve for two if they had one in each hand. What most people won't get is that laws we establish in America are laws that can be applied to everyone in custody in America.

Terrorists, and those who aid and abet them, should be treated as criminals, even criminals under special circumstances. But we need not bend our laws, or break them, or retroactively remake them after they've been broken. Without a respectful rule of law, anarchy is not far away. Believe it or not, there are a bunch of lubed up Hannity fans out there packing a whole lot of heat that are just itchin' to prove my point (against my wishes as it were).

The 52 Million Dollar Man

looks like Obama doesnt need my money after all, which is good since there are some terrific progressive candidates that do. as does the ACLU.

from Kos:

Barack Obama has another amazing fundraising month:

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised $52 million in June, the campaign said on Thursday, a jump from last month and more than double the $22 million raised by his Republican rival John McCain.

June is his second best month ever (he brought in $55 million in February).

The stunning tidbit from June's totals is that the average donation has decreased, from around $100 in February to $68 in June. In other words, while the average amount donated has decreased, the number of donations has increased. A lot.

As the article notes, McCain raised $22 million in June, which, in any other year, would be quite a in and of itself. But it's clear that whatever fears existed over the last month or so that enthusiasm for an Obama candidacy would wane and affect his fundraising was misguided. Indeed, it is McCain who is the victim of a seemingly insurmountable enthusiasm gap.

A Gallup poll at the end of June revealed that "61% of Democrats said they were more enthusiastic than usual about voting in this year's election, while just 35% of Republicans said that." A recent Pew poll (PDF) found that 13% of Obama supporters have donated to his campaign, while just 7% of Republicans who support McCain have donated to his campaign.

In short, what was true at the beginning of this race is still true, and will likely be true up until election day: Democratic voters are more engaged in the process, more enthusiastic about their candidate, and more likely to reach into their pockets--even at $5, $10, or $20 at a time--to put an end to Republican governance.

For more on Obama's huge fundraising numbers, check out the discussion in sharris0512's diary here.


http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/338071613/55309

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Talking Points Memo | More Appeasement?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/204413.php

Josh is skeptical about the Guardian's reporting of a US diplomatic office opening in Tehran, but I have heard from an Iranian woman recently back from Iran that people on the streets over there are gearing and talking about the same thing. So maybe there's some truth to this.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Penguin called...

he wants his unbreakable fighting umbrella back.

Privileged Executive...

Can someone please tell me where it is written - in any legally binding form - this thing they call "Executive Privilege"? Maybe it's written just above or below that line where it says the congress has to surrender its nuts to the president.

Time to MoveOn!

Dreams of justice

Maybe this means that, once president, Barack Obama can declare George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - and most of SCOTUS - enemy combatants and lock them away for decades in a military brig.

FISA (and torture) CYA

I've been really spun up about Obama's FISA vote, scratching my head trying to find reasoning for his reversal, which felt like a serious kick in the crotch. But while Obama's flip-flop on the issue was heartbreaking, he wasn't really the one to blame for this capitualtion. The real head-scratcher was the number of Democrats that supported this bill. What could they all possibly know that they aren't telling us that would make support of this bill - a bill that is an affront to our Constitutional Fourth Amendment rights - so necessary? Trying not to be too cynical, I was wanting to give them the benefit of the doubt, that maybe there was some kind of information of an imminent attack that was being collected. Maybe they were genuinely looking out for our best interests.

As it turned out, giving them the benefit of the doubt was actually the cynical view. What was really going on should have been obvious to me from the start. The support of the FISA bill, much like the support of the Military Commissions Act that got rid of the writ of habeus corpus, was a CYA - Cover Your Ass - move, and nothing more.

While I had seen information about this before, it must have been pushed out of my brain by all of the new and disgusting information about our elected leaders that I absorb on a daily basis. Glenn Greenwald did a great job compiling the information that supports this reasoning behind the Democrat's capitulations.

The bottom line is that way back in the days after 9/11, and many times since, the Democrats totally caved in to demands by the Bush administration, demands that were very likely illegal, and/or un-Constitutional. Cowards all, they were trying to act tough or avoid looking weak, so they bought into the chest-thumping Bush bluster which dictated that in order to be tough we had to throw away all those sissy civil liberties we enjoyed, those pesky little things written into our founding documents, and ignore the Geneva Conventions, and torture prisoners, deny potentially (and actual) innocent detainees the right to challenge their detention (a centuries old right), and spy on American citizens.

It wasn't just Bush's fault. It was the fault of senior Democrats also. Pelosi, Rockefeller, Harman, and many others. They weren't looking out for us then, and they aren't looking out for us now. They are only worried about keeping their jobs. In my mind, they ALL need to go. Pathetic, gutless cowards! They make me sick.

We need to do everything within our legal limits to throw these scumbags out of office. A good first step is to send a message to them that they will listen to and receive loud and clear. What do politicians listen to more than anything? Money.

That's why I've joined Strangebedfellows to send a Money Bomb on August 8th. Anyone who cares about and believes in the principles this country is supposed to stand for should join the cause!

Sunday Sketch on Wednesday - CiC Test


This one couldn't wait...

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

the rut.

heh heh.

racist toys

I think my grandparents had one of these. Here's a top 10 list.


Pablano exposed!

The political pollster that has been more accurate than nearly all other pollsters, especially the big ones, is identified.

(Dumb) Intellectual Humor

A man living in Unit #1 on Shay Street was one-upped by his nemesis who moved in across the street.

Get it?

Monday, July 14, 2008

I hate stupid reporters

Hard to believe, but I've been seeing tighter journalism coming from NY Daily News. The NY Times has just become a major rag.

Check out this piece of drivel from William Yardley at the Times. Here's my note to him (I'm just picking on one point, but I could have gone on much further:

Mr. Yardley,

Could you please provide proof for your assertion that Barack Obama has shifted his position on Iraq? As someone who has closely followed the rhetoric of all candidates, I can't find anything in Obama's statements anywhere that anyone would consider a "shift". I challenge you to prove that you are not a hack journalist, and invite you to provide evidence to support your claim that Obama has shifted his position on the Iraq war. Otherwise, you should print a retraction or an apology.

Sincerely,
Jake Barlow

Will I flip-flop?

So I walk into this bar... well, it was actually a cafe. I didn't actually walk in. No, I did. But I rode there on my motorcycle with my wife. We both walked into this bar cafe. There's no punchline. We just walked in.

We were there for a meeting of supposedly like-minded Obama supporters, and without dragging this out much more, we got on to the subject of the recent FISA vote, and Obama's support for that garbage bill, and why I decided to stop donating time and money to the Obama campaign. I was there to air my grievances face-to-face with other Obama supporters, instead of anonymously online in that big-ass group of pissed-off supporters angry over the FISA flip-flop. But I wasn't just venting, I was also looking for an open discussion, hoping to gain insight into the perspectives of others on this issue. I learned a long time ago that it was pointless to stand around pissing and moaning about a problem without having an intention to actually solve the problem. So there I was.

Or, there we were. Talking about this FISA issue. Some folks weren't wholly versed on the matter, and some seemed to be. All seemed to understand that this was a serious issue. A thoughtful discussion ensued, and I was actually surprised by a bit of insight I got from the discussion. Ironically, the insight didn't come directly from this conversation, but comically enough, the insight was allowed to happen based on something I read earlier in the day. I say 'comically' because what I had read earlier was in a write-up about the new Batman movie.

As cheeky as it sounds, there was some gravity in that write-up, as with most Batman write-ups post-Heath Ledger. The point that was being made is that despite the power of Heath's performance, and that of the character the Joker, the director was intent on making the Joker an 'absolute' in the story. The story wasn't 'about' the Joker, but the Joker was the catalyst for the story.

I meditated on that idea of catalyst all afternoon. Then, after I walked into the cafe and started on about the FISA BS, what came out of the discussion was the idea of Obama being not the embodiment of change, but the catalyst of change.

From the perspective of Obama as an absolute in the equation for change, it becomes imperative that he win this election, if for nothing else than the possibility and survival of all of the change movements that will erupt after his victory. Much like all of the social justice and liberty movements that sprung forth from JKF's and MLK's successes, so too will many worthwhile social justice movements explode into being if Obama wins.

But if McCain wins, there will be no explosions of justice, but explosions of bombs on innocent peoples. There will be no eruption of justice or liberty, but the exact opposite. If the ever-malleable McCain wins the oval office, twilight will have set on America, and only darkness will follow (at least for all besides the top 10%).

So at this moment, I am still incredibly pissed about this FISA bill, and incredibly disappointed in Obama's support for it. I'm not fired up and I'm not ready to go. But I am ready to re-consider my attitude, and may actually swallow hard and take one for the team. Not for the sake of Obama's team, but for the sake of the progressive movement at large.

Forgetting about Barack Obama the man, and embracing Barack Obama the idea is meaningful in more ways than most can imagine in one sitting. For America to elect an black man as president will cement in the minds of "low information" peoples of the world the idea that America is truly the land of opportunity and equality. And while the intellectuals might bicker over the nuances of whether he is white enough or black enough, right enough or left enough, they will all undoubtely accept that a black American president is truly transformational.

The possibilities that will emerge from an Obama presidency are almost too much to imagine, but the crushing repression and suffocating lack of possibility that would follow a McCain presidency is very easy to imagine. We've been living a form of that for nearly the past eight years, and it will only get worse with McCain, the malleable master of the flip-flop. The Pander Bear.

Sunday Sketch - FISA Pigs

Coming in under (or just over) the wire. It's sad that only on my 2nd Sunday Sketch, I almost blow it. But not without good cause!

This idea is what I think about the "bi-partisan" effort on the FISA bill.