Stop the InsaniTea!

And all the other GOPers wouldn't let poor little Micheal Steele, play any of their Tea Baggin' Games... and instead the decide to get Alan Keyes who my wife says - "Is sure to show up and pop open a can of DUMB ASS all over the voices in his head..." to handle things.

Oh boy!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The GOP is having all the "Tea Parties" all around the nation as some type of tax protest against President Obama.

Ok, let me just point out the not so obvious. The Boston Tea Party was a protest against the cutting of Corporate Taxes for the East India Company.

The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering financially and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea. This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. The Townshend Duties were still in place, however, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this act was a maneuver to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. The direct sale of tea, via British agents, would also have undercut the business of local merchants.

So in the wake of the Stimulus Bill which was the largest Middle Class Tax cut of the last 50 years - it makes pretty much no damn sense at all to begin protesting Obama NOW - rather than protesting Bush when he turned our surplus into a deficit in 2001.

"The critical state of our economy calls for swift, comprehensive action and this package will provide relief to all communities and all sectors of the American economy," said Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY). "This recovery package will provide tremendous tax relief, health care and job training benefits for families struggling to make ends meet, while also giving businesses the boost they need to create new jobs. We have also designed specific provisions to help State and local governments fund critical infrastructure projects to improve our roads, schools, bridges and airports, while also maintaining and creating good-paying jobs for working families. This package was developed with strong coordination between the House and Senate leaders, President-elect Obama and his economic team. I look forward to working with all parties involved toward a swift passage."

They complain that Obama's budget is $3.5 Trillion, well that's largely because Obama stopped hiding the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars outside of the budget.

The real issue here has nothing to do with the debt, or future tax burden, if that was the problem all of these people would had their hair on fire when they heard we LOST $6 Billion in Iraq Without A Trace!!

Where were you with your Tea Bags then, eh?

As it turns out, Wells Fargo is already starting to pay back some of the TARP funds, and with luck we might actually make a profit on the entire deal. The Stimulus - which not a single Republican member of the House voted for - Seems to be Working Already. But it's still not that - it's the idea of spending on people who NEED the spending. These guys would rather GO GALT, than actually fix the schools, fix the roads, green the economy, pay the police, get off foreign oil, pay the firemen, feed the poor, provide armor and health care to the troops or get anything worthwhile done other than build big bad F-22's which will never get into an Air-to-Air Combat fight a Soviet MIG. Never! It's more likely we'll be spending $150 Million a plane to sink Somali pirates armed with handguns and RPG's.

Yeah, that's efficient.

I worked for a defense contractor for 12 years, the one that built the B-2 Bomber, so I fully understand how military spending really can be good for the economy (it did wonders for Reagan), but so can spending not just on stuff that kills people - spending on stuff that KEEPS PEOPLE ALIVE helps the economy too. And if we want to stop being the world greatest Debtor Nation, we need to start inventing and building some stuff people can actually use, rather than simply trading our debt back and forth.

Let's call all this outrage what it really is - Terminal Selfishness!

These guys don't really care about the nation, all they care about is their own ass in the most narrow short range, myopic way. The odds are very strong that Obama's policies are going to work, and even help the people are who dragging their heels, kicking and screaming like a two-year old in a crazed Tea Tantrum to stop it.

And they're still going to lose.

Then of course there's the "other" meaning of "TeaBaggin'"...

These guys just really need to leave this mess alone.. it's starting to go sour, and stick... at this rate that big stain of stupid is never going to come out.

Vyan

The Cable to Crazy Connection on Guns

Time and time again Cable News Outlets such as Fox and commentators such as Lou Dobbs have deliberately hyped unfounded and unrealistic fears of a Totalitarian Take-Over of the U.S. by Obaman Forces.

AG Eric Holder discussing the 2nd Amendment and Heller decision.



There has been some discussion by the Obama Administration on restoring the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban, but this appears to have fallen onto the back burner, particularly in the wake of a letter from 65 Democrats in the House opposing reinstatement of the ban.

Today in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, 65 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Congressman Mike Ross (D-AR), expressed their opposition to the reinstatement of the 1994 ban on semi-automatic firearms and ammunition magazines. These congressmen cited studies that proved the 1994 ban was ineffective, and they strongly urged Attorney General Holder to stop his effort and instead focus on the enforcement of existing gun laws

Holder has talked about restricting "Cop-Killer" bullets which can punch through body-army and other weapons which might endanger police. I'm neither hear nor there on this issue as I think any gun owner should held responsible for their actions with that weapon under any case. People may, under Heller, have the right to own a weapon - but exactly which kinds of weapons and what you can or can't do with it is another matter. I don't think the second amendment protects a right to own a rocket-launcher, a tank or a home-made bomb. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. At any case the Obama Administration is NOT making this a high priority issue, they are NOT preparing to have a HUGE ROUND UP of weapons, they aren't lobbying Congress to change the law, Congress is lobbying them NOT TO.

People need to calm the hell down. Seriously. This hysteria is costing lives. Stop it and use your heads.

Vyan

Beck: Pres Obama - why don't you just set us on Fire!

So much crazy, so little time...

Here are the most recent approval ratings for Obama and Congress:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 04/05-04/09. All adults. MoE 2% (3/30-4/2 results):

	FAVORABLE	UNFAVORABLE	NET CHANGE
PRESIDENT OBAMA	68 (67)	29 (30)	+2
PELOSI:	36 (35)	46 (45)	+0
REID:	34 (33)	49 (50)	+2
McCONNELL:	23 (22)	56 (55)	+0
BOEHNER:	18 (16)	58 (57)	+1
CONGRESSIONAL DEMS:	43 (41)	51 (52)	+3
CONGRESSIONAL GOPS:	18 (17)	68 (69)	+2
DEMOCRATIC PARTY:	51 (49)	42 (42)	+2
REPUBLICAN PARTY:	26 (25)	66 (65)	+0

Yeah, I can see where Obama must think America feels like setting itself on fire because of his policies - yeah - it's right there between 66 and 68% approval.


Vyan

O'Donnell Pwns Buchannan on Notre Dame Hipocrisy

Just recently on Hardball, Laurence O'Donnell took on Pat Buchanan over the issue of whether President Obama should be Welcomed at Notre Dame. O'Donnell countered that despite his support of the Death Penalty and his war against an unarmed nation - both of which were opposed by the Catholic Church and the Pope - yet Bush was welcomed at Notre Dame without objection.

O'Donnell: Can you identify the Catholic principle that says that the killing of fetus is worse than the killing of an adult?

Buchannan: Everyone of those people in Texas (executed by Bush) was Guilty of Murder. We kill enemy soldiers in War Time, the lack of moral clarity here is astounding!

What the Pope said is this.

In any event, the principle set forth in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church remains valid: 'If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.'"

About the effectiveness and guaranteed Guilt of those under the Death Penalty. the Innocence Project would seem to shed considerable doubt as over the last decade over 200 persons have been found Completely Innocent of the charge, including those on Death Row and even four murder cases in Texas.

As the pace of DNA exonerations has grown across the country in recent years, wrongful convictions have revealed disturbing fissures and trends in our criminal justice system. Together, these cases show us how the criminal justice system is broken – and how urgently it needs to be fixed.

We should learn from the system’s failures. In each case where DNA has proven innocence beyond doubt, an overlapping array of causes of has emerged – from mistakes to misconduct to factors of race and class.

Countless cases
Those exonerated by DNA testing aren’t the only people who have been wrongfully convicted in recent decades. For every case that involves DNA, there are thousands that do not.

Only a fraction of criminal cases involve biological evidence that can be subjected to DNA testing, and even when such evidence exists, it is often lost or destroyed after a conviction. Since they don’t have access to a definitive test like DNA, many wrongfully convicted people have a slim chance of ever proving their innocence.

Bottom line, there is currently no way to know exactly how many innocent people have been executed by the U.S., but the simple numbers indicate that it has happened and it will happen again.

The other issue is clearly abortion, many of the right have this as their signature issue - yet the stats over the past 30 years that when they've had the chance to implement genuine improvements - they've fallen down on the job. During the Clinton Administration there was a marked and DRAMATIC drop in the number of Abortions in the U.S. (most likely attributed to his comprehensive program of sex ed, and condom use)



Republican efforts at Abstinence Only programs have completely failed and put more and more of or young people at risk by arguing that "condoms don't work", even when they DO WORK 98% of the time when used properly. The result has actually caused an increase in teen pregnancies (Bristol Palin!?) and abortions for certain states (usually Red States) and a complete halt to the improvements that we had been seeing under President Clinton. (President Obama intends to re-instate the Clinton programs and bring the number of unwanted and unexpected pregnancies down - and so too the number of abortions)

Embryonic Stem Cell policy is another objection coming from some Catholics at Notre Dame, but the reality is that they have yet to offer a strategy that might possibly "save" the hundreds of thousands of fertilized and unused eggs that are currently being produced by fertility clinics. Until they successfully stage a project to conscript hundreds of thousand of women to adopt and donate use of their WOMBS to bring these egg/children to full term (not to mention feed, clothe and educate them for 18-20 years) they need to accept the reality that the vast majority of these potential lives are going to be lost. Just as we Strive for the Greater Good with organ donations, either the parents/donors have control of their own cells of their own body or they don't. It should be their choice, whether their cells/organs are to be adopted or to be donated to help save the life of others - not someone elses choice.

What I also find problematic in the "All Life is Sacred, except for those lives I don't like" approach is that it could easily be argued that infants are precisely as innocent as the "pre-born", yet America has a infant mortality rate that is frankly ridiculous. We lose 28,000 infants to poor health care every year, we are 29th in infant mortality among all industrialized nations - but still the "Right to Lifers", so often not only support the Death Penalty (even against the innocent), they oppose guaranteed Health Care for Children.

Why is it people can have a "Right to Life", but they can't have a "Right to Living Free of preventable Disease?

Vyan

Ok, So it wasn't Glenn Beck - it was the Gheys!!

From Thinkprogress.

Right-wing groups have said that marriage equality removes the “cornerstone of society” and may “destroy…democracy.” Now, Morality in Media President Bob Peters on linking same-sex marriage to the recent tragic uptick in mass murders:

This secular value system is also reflected in the ’sexual revolution,’ which is the driving force behind the push for ‘gay marriage;’ and the Iowa Supreme Court decision is another indication that despite all the damage this revolution has caused to children, adults, family life and society (think abortion, divorce, pornography, rape, sexual abuse of children, sexually transmitted diseases, trafficking in women and children, unwed teen mothers and more), it continues to advance relentlessly.

It most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement! It is my intention to point out that the success of the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to the decline in morality; and it is the decline of morality (and the faith that so often under girds it) that is the underlying cause of our modern day epidemic of mass murders.

Ok, sure he's not blaming The Gheys!, He's - uh - just blaming all the murder on the SEX! (And those morally bankrupt Gheys who keep trying to not "live in sin" anymore by getting Legit!) Yeah, because we've never in history had people of faith go on a mad rampage and cause mass murder - not in the Crusades, not during the Inquisition, not in Somalia, Ruwanda, Northern Ireland, Waco, Jonestown, Fallujah or Bosnia - no, no no - that could never happen!

Idiot.

Vyan

Glenn Beck Blames Video Games and TV for Violence, but not himself!!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

But our winner, Harold Hill again. It‘s about his continuing attempt to disassociate himself and his inflammatory paranoia about an attack on the Second Amendment, an infringement of gun rights and the need to take your government back from an duly elected president, from a man shooting and killing three policemen in Pittsburgh, because he was afraid of, quote, the Obama gun ban that is on the way.

But now there has bee located criticism so clear, so pertinent that it is unanswerable. A conservative TV host warning that video games and television have a direct cause-and-effect relationship with violence and murder and even the murder of policemen. About the game Grand Theft Auto, this man said “we are training our kids to be killers. If you think that video games are just harmless fun, which everybody always says, you should know that the military, our leaders at the Pentagon, have never seen it that way.”

Who made that pithy observation? The same man who, last May 1st, described what one character in Grand Theft Auto and the people playing the game as him could do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: When a police officer comes after him, he can either light that police officer on fire or cut him in half with a chain saw. This is entertainment?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Oh, hypocrisy and self-absorbed righteousness in unparalleled purity. But it gets better. According to Beck 2008, and no doubt to the surprise of Beck 2009, it is not just video games that can lead to murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: According to the journal of American Medical Association just television, the introduction of television in the 1950s caused a doubling of the homicide rate in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: So video game can cause people to try to kill police, and television caused the doubling of the homicide rate. But Glenn Beck reducing the complexities of the world to the level of a video game for his television viewers, and telling them they need to rise up and take back their country before the government takes their guns, that couldn‘t possibly have anything to do with one of those viewers rising up to take back his country before the government takes his guns.

Glenn Beck, accessory, today‘s worst person in the world.

Now I almost sympathise with Beck for people accusing him of advocating Murder or attacking Police - which in plain fact he didn't do - and his current statements that "only the crazy nutball" is responsible for his own actions" because he's got a point about that. It's nice to hear him talk about how people need to work within our democratic framework, and not necessarily become violent. It's a little damn LATE - sometimes you do have to mention the obvious in the midst of calling our Democratically elected President a TYRANT, FASCIST or TOTALITARIAN - and therefore hardly anyone whose been listening to him for the last few months honestly believes it, but it's nice to hear.

However. when it came to Video games, or "TV" in general - he did seem to have a different opinion - that violent imagery and concepts have an impact on people - and NOT JUST THE NUTBALLS.

Hmmm... Full of Shit, Much?

Vyan

Limbaugh Gets PWND by Republican Vet Listener

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's hard to put into words how GORGEOUS this is to hear, but what's even better is watching Rush's pained expressions as he gets pummeled for his support of Bush's Torture Policy by a Republican who voted for McCain who also happens to be a Vet from both the Marines and the Army.

Full Transcript of call

LIMBAUGH: We're going to go to Chicago. This is Charles. Charles, thank you for waiting and for calling. Great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Rush, listen, I voted Republican, and I didn't -- really didn't want to see Obama get in office. But, you know, Rush, you're one reason to blame for this election, for the Republicans losing.

First of all, you kept harping about voting for Hillary. The second big issue is the -- was the torture issue. I'm a veteran. We're not supposed to be torturing these people. This is not Nazi Germany, Red China, or North Korea. There's other ways of interrogating people, and you kept harping about it -- "It's OK," or "It's not really torture." And it was just more than waterboarding. Some of these prisoners were killed under torture.

And it just -- it was crazy for you to keep going on and on like Levin and Hannity and Hewitt. It's like you're all brainwashed.

And my last comment is, no matter what Obama does, you will still criticize him because I believe you're brainwashed. You're just -- and I hate to say it -- but I think you're a brainwashed Nazi. Anyone who could believe in torture just has got to be - there's got to be something wrong with them.

LIMBAUGH: You know --

CALLER: And I know Bush wanted to keep us safe and all of that, but we're not supposed to be torturing these people.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, if anybody is admitting that they're brainwashed it would be you.

CALLER: No, no, no, Rush. I don't think so.

LIMBAUGH: Charles. Charles, Charles --

CALLER: You, Hannity, Hewitt, and Levin are all brainwashed and you know it.

LIMBAUGH: -- you said -- you said at the beginning of your phone call --

CALLER: Yeah.

LIMBAUGH: -- that you didn't want Obama in there --

CALLER: That's right.

LIMBAUGH: -- but you voted for him because of me.

CALLER: I didn't vote for him. I voted for McCain. I voted Republican.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, so --

CALLER: I voted Republican.

LIMBAUGH: -- you're saying I turned people off to --

CALLER: You turned people off with all your -- all this "vote for Hillary" and all this BS, because you must think people are really stupid.

LIMBAUGH: That was Operation Chaos. That was to keep the --

CALLER: You -- no. It didn't work.

LIMBAUGH: -- chaos in the [unintelligible] of the Democrat primaries.

CALLER: It didn't work. And now what we have with you Hannity, Levin, and Hewitt: sour grapes. That's all we have. And believe me, I'm not -- I'm more to the right than I am to the left.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, of course, you are.

CALLER: I am, and that's --

LIMBAUGH: Of course, you are. You wouldn't be calling here with all these sour grapes if you weren't.

CALLER: Well, I'm so tired of listening to you --

LIMBAUGH: Oh, of course, you are.

CALLER: -- go on and on with this -- you've been brainwashed.

LIMBAUGH: I don't know of anybody who died from torture. I do not ever --

CALLER: We are not supposed to torture people.

LIMBAUGH: I do not ever --

CALLER: Do you remember World War II, the Nazis? The Nuremberg Trials?

LIMBAUGH: I --

CALLER: Do you remember the Nuremberg Trials?

LIMBAUGH: Charles --

CALLER: Klaus Barbie?

LIMBAUGH: Charles, let me say --

CALLER: Huh?

LIMBAUGH: Barack Obama --

CALLER: What's the matter with you?

LIMBAUGH: Barack --

CALLER: You never even served in a military.

LIMBAUGH: Barack Obama is --

CALLER: I served in the Marine Corps and the Army.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, Barack Obama is president of the United States today because of stupid, ignorant people who think like you do. You pose -- you and your ignorance are the most expensive commodity this country has. You think you know everything. You don't know diddly-squat.

You call me a Nazi? You call me somebody who supports torture and you want credibility on this program? You know, you're just plain embarrassing and ludicrous. But it doesn't surprise me that you're the kind of Republican that our last candidate attracted. Because you're no Republican at all based on what the hell you've said here.

Just for the record there's plenty of evidence of people being tortured to death by U.S. Forces.

Newly declassified Defense Department documents describe a pattern of “abusive” behavior by U.S. military interrogators that appears to have caused the deaths of several suspected terrorists imprisoned at a detention center in Afghanistan in December 2002, just two days after former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized the use of "enhanced interrogation" techniques against prisoners in that country.

The previously secret pages were part of a wide-ranging report into detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay known as the Church Report, named after Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, the former Naval inspector general, who conducted the investigation at the request of Rumsfeld. That report, released in March 2004, said there was "no policy that condoned or authorized either abuse or torture," which critics of the Bush administration believed was a cover-up.

But the declassified Pentagon documents, coupled with a report issued last December by the Senate Armed Services Committee, tell a different story and lend credence to claims by civil libertarians and critics of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that refusal to release a fully classified version of the Church Report several years ago amounted to a cover-up.

Yes, we - the U.S. - tortured people TO DEATH.

Don't worry folks, this isn't the last we've heard of this - Limbaugh will probably spend all day tomorrow trying to re-habilitate himself after this one. Just Watch.

Vyan

Dailyshow on Speaking Crazy to Power!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Last night John Stewart produced a tour de force on those - Hannity, Beck, Bachmann and Limbaugh - who've decided to make a carreer of Speaking Crazy to Power.

Stewart: Tyranny? Tyranny?! Listen, you're in the minority now - it's supposed to taste like a shit taco! I recall that when you guy was in power we were asked "Why do you hate America? Love it or Leave it! Sit down and take it! Suck on my Truck Nuts." It's only been 10 Weeks, you guys have a mid-term election in 20 months - you need to learn how to Pace Your Rage!

Yeah, we should know - I'm still using drano flavored mouthwash after 8 years of Bush.

Vyan

Blame America!

So I'm on Twitter and this comes across my screen....

newtgingrich The left blames everything on america It is one of the biggest differences between the left and the rest of us They instinctively blame us

My instinctive response was to shoot back, somewhat from the hip...

Vyan1 @newtgingrich The left realizes America can and should be better and has a responsibility to keep trying to be, the right wallows in failure

On reflection, it may have been a bit presumptious of me to speak for "the left", being as I have always felt to be essentially a centrist - so I put it you - do you "Blame America First" or do you, as I do, simply "Wish for America to be as Good As it Claims to Be?"

If you don't already have an answer, here a little food for thought while you decide.

First I have a somewhat extreme example of what Gingrich may be speaking of - a fairly intense and cutting critique of America from a decidedly left point of view - Naomi Wolf's : The End of America.



In this film, Wolf describes the ten specific steps which have historically been taken - from Stalin, to Mussolini, Mao, Pinchochet, Hitler and Bush - to close down an open society.

I originally diaried and detailed these steps when her book first came out in 2007.

Look at how impassioned Wolf speaks about America being "A Beacon To the World" - and contrast this to the reflexive gingoistic, sports-team cheerleading of America - even when it fails miserably - by those on the right.

Senator John McCain America has been and remains the greatest force for good in history. 8:47 AM Apr 3rd from txt

Like, is that supposed to be news? Is that in doubt? Did someone send out a Fatwa!

Sometimes their "We're Number One, We're Number One - USA! USA!" stuff really does begin to grate, particularly when they can't - or won't - back it up with anything!

I actually stopped following self-styled Progressive Republican Meghan McCain because of this tweet. It was just too much saccharine, my teeth started to hurt and I think it made my ankles swell.

McCainBlogette But on top of everything else, I LOVE being an American. Its the greatest country in the world and I want what's best for our country! 8:42 PM Mar 25th from web

I love America too, but I have to ask - what exactly are we the best at besides self-delusion?

We're the "Greatest"? We're Number One? Really?

According to the Global Health Council the Life Expectancy of an American at Birth, as compared to other counties where this data is available, was 78.2 years in 2007 - which Ranks at Number 38! (Japan was First with 82.8)

When it comes to which is the Smartest Nation, on the basis of IQ scores America is 22nd with an Average of 98. (1st was Hong Kong with 107)

America is indeed the Richest Nation in the world, with the highest per capital GDP of $29,605 - but it's obvious we aren't spending all that money or our health or education.

But then again maybe we are, but simply aren't getting our money's worth

When you look at the UN Health Data Index (PDF Table 6, Page 301) and compare our overall Health Ranking (which is 8th) with our spending on Health Care as a portion of GDP - We're Number #1! (in Costs, but not in Results)



Please note that Japan (which is an incredibly Health Conscious Country) spends almost HALF what we spend!)

Y'know what else we're the best at? We have the most Prisons! (Just chock full of minorities and the poor)

After three decades of explosive growth, the nation’s prison population has reached some grim milestones: More than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars. One in nine black men, ages 20 to 34, are serving time, as are 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men.

Nationwide, the prison population hovers at almost 1.6 million, which surpasses all other countries for which there are reliable figures. The 50 states last year spent about $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections, up from nearly $11 billion in 1987.

Believe it or not, we actually spend more on keeping young people in jail than in school, with the almost the same results in both cases. Lousy.

Lastly, we are also the World's Greatest Debtor Nation!

As a major trading nation, the U.S. exports computers, software, movies, and food, among many other things. And it imports just about everything you can imagine. When the U.S. buys more than it sells, it makes up the difference-known as the trade deficit -by shipping dollars overseas. And in recent years it has been buying a lot more than it's been selling. After averaging a manageable USD $80 billion annually during the 1980s, the trade deficit soared into the USD $300 billion range in the 1990s. And by 2003, this figure had exploded to over USD $500 billion. That's about 5% of GDP, a level that, when it has occurred in other countries in the past, has preceded a sharp decline in the value of the local currency.

I may be admittedly generalizing, but IMO The Left Looks at the precipitous erosion of our Civil and Constitutional Liberties and says - "Something is WRONG, Here!" The Right thinks this is all just fine. Hell, they want MORE of it.

The Left sees our Health Failing, our Rivers choked with toxins, our toothpaste and toys poisoned, our education system crumbling, our deficit and debt climbing, our trade imbalance growing, our prisons overflowing and we say - "NO MORE! It's time to change direction and rebuild our nation" The Right thinks that's just the cost of doing "Business".

Rather than address the real issues and problems America has, the Right pretends anyone who even suggests that there's a problem - is the Problem!

From Michele (Queen of the Anti-American/World Currency Mongers) Bachmann, to Michelle Malkin the only problem they see with America - is that it has to many LEFTY Complainers in it.

Some of them truly believe that America won't win another War, until all the old hippies are Dead

America won't win another war until the 1960s flower children are pushing up petunias.

Radicalized, the flower children morphed into lefty loonies who now masquerade as social progressives. No matter what they rename themselves, however, their agenda hasn't changed.

They still want utopia, and it wouldn't be worth mentioning except that their naiveté has aged into a persistent denial of reality that may have devastating consequences.

Utopia? Not exactly, but we're not exactly willing to Settle on just what we have at the moment.

Truly loving America, is realizing that We Can Do Better Than This.

We have GOT TO do better than this.

Conservatives hate to hear this but despite dozens of warnings to the FAA, PDB's and midnight runs to Condi's office by Tenet, Richard Clarke and Cofer Black - we Still got attacked on 9/11, and when the smoke cleared we let Bin Laden escape at Tora Bora, then we turned around and invaded the Wrong Country, for the Wrong reasons then proceeded to neglects the dire needs of the people of that nation for 7 years, while committing Torture (Yes, damnit it was Torture), random and indiscrimanate arrests and indefinate detention of people we knew were innocent - simply because "They Might Get Lawyers and SUE US!"

Hmm, ya think?

Pardon my plain straight-up American - but who the FUCK ELSE are we supposed to blame for all this?

America did it, so America needs to FIX It. Stand up and Take some RESPONSIBILITY Dag Nabbit.

That's the real difference between left and right - the right refuses to take responsibility for anything. This isn't even an exclusively Republican set us issues, a lot of Democrats voted for the War, a lot of Democrats voted for the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, to undo Glass-Steagal, and for Free Trade without restrictions or regulation.

A lot of people messed up.

But we have a new Administration now, and a chance - merely a chance - to start cleaning this mess up. Unfortunately as we've seen with Steele, Cantor, Boehner and McConnel's stonewalling, as well as Leahy's failure to get *ANY* Republicans to even think about facing the truth, we're probably going to have to do it all without them.

Fine.

You guys can keep whining about "Judicial Activists" oppressing all those poor put-upon straight people who clearly need some protection from The Constitution...

newtgingrich The iowa court destroying the sanctity of marriage against the wishes of iowa voters is the newest example of [J]udicial arrogrance

We'll be over here - "Blaming America" for failing it's citizens, and not meeting it's own ideals, and doing what we can to actually make this union - little by little - a bit more perfect.

Vyan

P.S. Those old Hippies apparently Breed like Rabbits - good luck trying to wait them out.

Conyers calls for Special Prosecutor on Bush Crimes

This is just up from The Public Record by Jason Leopold

On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers quietly released the final draft of an extensive report he first unveiled in January documenting the Bush administration’s “unreviewable war powers” and the possible crimes committed in implementing those policies.

In order to determine whether Bush officials broke laws, Conyers has recommended that Attorney General Eric Holder appoint a special prosecutor to launch a criminal inquiry to investigate, among other things, whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” used against alleged terrorist detainees violated international and federal laws against torture.

It's about TIME!

Following the dismal failure of the Leahy Truth Commission simply because Republicans insisted on covering their ears and eyes to the truth we now - finally -
have a congressional call for the Special Prosecutor.

We know now that the claim "extreme interrogation" of subjects such as Abu Zubaidah - produced ZERO usable or accurate intelligence.

We know now that several high ranking Generals lied to Congress about their knowledge of torture taking place at Gitmo.

On the question of whether the was or wasn't actual torture taking place, that has been settled by the International Red Cross.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo.

BTW the organization which makes the determination under Geneva as to whether torture has occures - happens to be the International Red Cross.

We have always known - or should have - that the UN Convention Against Torture (signed by Ronald Reagan) leaves NO EXCUSES for the use of use of torture. None.

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.M

Excepted from the Conyers Report.

The Bush Administration’s approach to power is, at its core, little more than a restatement of Mr. Nixon’s famous rationalization of presidential misdeeds: “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” Under this view, laws that forbid torturing or degrading prisoners cannot constrain the president because, if the president ordered such acts as Commander in Chief, “that means it’s not illegal.” Under this view, it is not the courts that decide the reach of the law – it is the president – and neither the judiciary nor Congress can constrain him. And where statutory law or the Constitution itself appear to impose obstacles to presidential whim, creative counselors can be relied upon to reach whatever result the president desires.

This dismissive approach to our system of checks and balances was exemplified when the Vice President’s Chief of Staff, David Addington, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on June 26, 2008. As much as any individual in the Bush Administration, David Addington is considered the architect of the concept of unchecked and unreviewable presidential powers known as the “unitary executive” (in a New Yorker profile, a former Pentagon attorney, Richard Schiffrin, said that he left one meeting with Mr. Addington with the impression that he “doesn’t believe there should be co-equal branches”). Yet when I questioned Mr. Addington about the unitary executive theory of government during our Judiciary Committee hearing, he responded, “I frankly, don’t know what you mean by unitary theory of government.”

It's understandable that some in congress, and even President Obama may be reluctant to repeat the Clinton Snipe Hunts of the 90's with something that appears to be a nothing more than "criminalizing policy differences" - but this is far more than just a differences, it really genuinely IS a War Crime and should be handled as such.

Hopefully this will only be the start of the heat turning up on this issue.

Vyan

Update: 6:36 pm: For those who are skeptical of Conyers ability to accomplish this - please remember that HJC has reached a deal to receive sworn depositions from Rove and Harriet Miers in the DOJ Firing Case. The Bolton subpeona is still making it's way through the courts, but it hasn't "gone away" by a long shot.

Click below to sign the Petition on Democrats.com to support a Special Prosecutor for BushCo.