All the Vitriol isn't (just) because Obama is Black

He's a Damn Dirty "Liberal".

Crossposted from Dailykos.

Although Ministry of Truth made a great many good points yesterday with his Kosdiary "Why don't you just get it over and call him N----", I think he's missing a much deeper point that everyone who is left of center in this nation needs to understand.

Those on the right don't Fear and Loathe President Elect Barack Obama simply because he's Black - that a negative bonus point for them - it's largely because he's Democrat and for them - as I stated back in 2006 - Liberal Bashing in the New Racism

In 2006 I said...

John Lennon once sang that "Woman is the Nigger of the World". In the last few weeks, something has become increasing clear to me. Times have indeed changed from the bad-old days of the Civil Rights movement and women's suffrage. No longer is it women who are the chief second-class citizen of this nation. It's not the gays. It's not the immigrants. It's not minorities, be they Black, Brown, Red or Yellow.

Granted, there are an increasing number of issues which affect each of them, but the one method for getting a full on smash-mouth whack at all the above - without being called nasty names, and being accused of being uncivil, impolite, or basically a Fucking Dick - is to attack just one group.

Liberals.

In Hating the "Enemy",... Namely Us. I pointed out what the usual type of attacks against Democrats from Republicans have been for some time...

# Sean Hannity suggested that the DNC may have been behind the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos, asking: "Was that a DNC plot too?" (The Sean Hannity Show, 9/10/04)

# Laura Ingraham stated that Democratic Sens. John Kerry (MA), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (DE), and Barbara Boxer (CA) are "on the side of" North Korea leader Kim Jong Il because they were opposed to John R. Bolton's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. (Hannity & Colmes, 4/11/05).

# Ann Coulter on Bill Clinton, "he was a very good rapist" and "molested the help" and on Al Gore, "Before we knew he was clinically insane" - "He seemed kinda gay".

# Bill O'Reilly says he doesn't do "personal attacks", except of course for when he does.

I'm not saying that the most recent vile attacks on our current President haven't been ramping things up to a entire new level of ugly and vicious - not to mention completely unjustified - but the ground work for this type of thing has been well laid for a very long time, and it's been part of the MAINSTREAM of Political discourse for that entire time.

It's only natural that with the Trifeca of a Smart/Left-of-Center, African-American, PRESIDENT would drive some people completely up the batshit crazy cave.

But just imagine if that President were a Republican like say, Colin Powell? What if it were Michael Steele? What if it were Alan Keyes (who the Repubs carpet-bagged in to challenge Obama for the Senate?) What if it were someone they find "acceptable" (and easily bribable) like Armstrong Williams?

You think we'd be seeing bone-through-the-nose cartoons about them? You realize how loudly they would bellow at Watermelon Patches on the White House Lawn, if it were a Black Conservative were President?

To this very day - they complain about how badly Clarence Thomas was treated and say his grilling was entirely Racial - then turn around in a blink and accuse Justice Sotomayor of so-called Reverse Racism. for accurately following precedent.

They'd be more than willing to tolerate the "Blackness" of those particular people and pat themselves on the back for us - at least in public - just as Laura Ingraham was able to be good "friends" with the rather Gay David Brock back when he still a part of the Right-Wing establishment before he regained his dignity and self-respect (as well as sanity) and started Media Matters.

As he wrote in his book Blinded by the Right.

...of all the conservatives I had met since coming to Washington, I grew closes to Laura. For several months after we met in November 1994, we were inseparable companions. Laura drew me out of my shell; she helped me to relax and enjoy myself among the conservatives. She was a much more prodigious networker than I was, and she was also a wicked gossip, befriending the likes of Rush Limbaugh and George Will, then repeating their often creepy confidences to me.

Even after he came out they remained close...

Laura took the place of a mate. We were out on the town virtually every night together, cohosted seveal parties and dinners at my home, and vacations in souther California with the Huffingtons. [Long before Arriana's split with her gay husband Michael and her own eventual disenchantment with the right] We shared a lot of laughs. Despite her public persona as a voice of Gingrichism, I also saw in Laura a glimmer of humanity, softness and vulnerability, buried beneath all of the role-playing. In candid moments, she confided she didn't believe much of what she was saying on the airwaves. Channeling into our politics our emotional problems [in Laura's case, the pain of a difficult childhood, and her tortured relations with men, whether married or not], we were both trapped in devices of our own making.

But then he learned the truth.

I hadn't known of Laura's antigay past at Darthmouth, where, along with her then-boyfriend Dinesh D'Souza, she had participated in the infamous outing of gay students, who were branded "sodomites," until I cringed as I read about her Dartmouth Review exploits in a 1997 profile in Vanity Fair. To make matters worse, I was quoted int the piece saying that Laura was unreservedly accepting of homosexuality, which in my presence she always had seemed to be.

We'll, you were one of the "good ones" David. Like Andrew Sullivan, acceptable for deviant ways because of your "Right" thinking. Then that changed.

The bottom line being that if Barack Obama were A Conservative - we wouldn't be seeing any of this crap. He'd be "One of the GOOD Ones" - not one of those Reparations Seeking, Angry, Socialist, Black-Nationalist, Commie, Pinko, Anti-American, White-Hating, LIBERALS! that they so fear.

It was the Liberals - like John, Robert and Teddy Kennedy - who fought against Racial Oppression during the Civil Rights movement. It was Liberals who removed blatant racial bigotry from our immigration policies. It was the Liberals who fought against the crimes of the Vietnam - and Iraq - Wars. It was the Liberals who fought for Women's Equality. It was the Liberals who fought for the protection of the Elderly. It continues to be the Liberals who fight for the Sick and the Dying.

Very often, the ones who feel the most vicious brunt of Racial Hatred aren't black people or brown people. It's those LIBERALS who dared to stand beside them, like the Freedom Riders. They called them "Race-Traitors" "N--gger Lovers!"

The same is true of those who stood with women through suffrage.

Liberals represent All of the Oppressed and Disenfranchised. The Workers. The Poor. The Gay. The Alternative Worshipper. The Dismissed. The Ignored. THE HATED!

If we think things are bad now, we should remember just how bad they used to be. Back when the person they called "Socialist" - was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.



Barack represents for them something they fear above all other things. The potential for a resurgent and vibrant new Liberal Movement which would bring together all of these factions and forever change the power structure of this nation. Barack WILL Take "Their" (White, Christian, Straight, Right-Wing and Priviledge) America away from them, and share it with the rest of us. All of us.

Barack is a dramatic shift away the bleak, but determined, outlook I wrote about in 2006.

But Last year Rosa Parks died. This year saw the passing of Coretta Scott King. Many of the old Civil Rights Warhorses are losing their steam (Rep. John Conyers being a notable exception). The time is coming where we will need to begin the planning and actualization of a new Human Rights Movement.

A movement that focuses on spreading and protecting the basic and fully equal rights to election integrity, personal privacy, habeas corpus, trail by jury, freedom from torture, access to affordable healthcare, quality education, security, retirement protection, comprehensive sex education, preservation of reproduction rights and access to contraception along with an improved adoption and foster care system for alternative parenting options, an aggressively green energy policy, and the right to love and marry one consenting adult of your choice for all persons, regardless of race, nationality, religous persuasion, gender or gender orientation.
In short, for Freedom. But not Freedom as the Right defines it, as the "Right" to amass power and fortune unto onto oneself by taking it away from everyone else. True Freedom is not just a manifestation of personal desire, it has to be tempered with public responsibility, it is the right to do as you please, except when your actions begin to limit the freedom of others. We have to be willing to protect each others personal freedom as carefully as we protect our own, or none of us will be free.

This New Freedom Movement will need to fight as relentlessly as does the Reich-Wing, if not nearly as underhandedly.

We need to embrace who we are. We are the Fags. We are the Niggers. (Yes, dammit I'm saying it - and I'm Black!) We are the Dykes, the Kikes, the Goyim, the Gaijin, the Rag-heads, the Geeks, the Freaks, Weirdos, Nutballs, and Moon-bats. We are also the bold, whom fortune will ultimately favor. The meek who will inherit the Earth.

We're coming for our rights, and we're not stopping until we have them -- all of them. It won't be easy, it's going to be painful, difficult, dangerous, frustrating and thankless - but worth it.

Are you with me?

Now in 2009 I ask again but with renewed vigor, we are coming for our Rights - we won't get them easily or all at once. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow then the next day - if not then, the day after that, but we WILL have them. All of them.

Are you with me?

And are we with Barack?

It's not just Barack they're truly afraid of, it's all the rest of us.

Vyan


Updated For those who've stated that Ideological Bigotry is somehow lesser than Racial Bigotry either in intensity or Danger : Watch these.

Couple Arrested for wearing Anti-Bush T-Shirts.



2008 RNC Protestors charged with "Terrorism"


During the Bush Era people with Anti-Bush or Anti-Iraq Bumper Stickers on their cars were targeted, harassed and excluded from even being involved in Presidential Town Halls. Now people bring AR-15's to them.

Vyan

Anderson Cooper Destroys Jim Greer on Obama's School Speech

Crossposted from Dailykos

So Obama had the temerity to want to speek to our school children and try and encourage them to Stay In School - naturally Republicans have to criticize and claim his trying to "Indoctrinate our Kids into his Liberal/Socialist Agenda!" But, y'know it's not like about Politics or anything.



Yeah, it's not like President Bush didn't try to do anything like this when he spoke to School Children about his Agenda for School Reform (ie. No Child Left Behind)

Or that anyone demanded prior approval of "My Pet Goat!"

Transcript - http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0909/03/acd.01.html

JIM GREER, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN PARTY OF FLORIDA: Well, first of all, Anderson, I think the speech Tuesday will be significantly different than the one he was going to give 48 hours ago. The lesson plans he sent out...

COOPER: Whoa. We'll talk about the lesson plan in a second, but the actual speech. You have no evidence of what he was actually going to talk about.

GREER: Well, I will tell you and it does tie in with the lesson plans because that's what started everything. When the lessons plans talk about writing about how we can help President Obama, talk about his new ideas, talk about what he's done since he has become president and what makes you admire him and the initiatives he's put forth, that, to me, is an indication that his speech Tuesday was going to somehow talk about public policy issues. When you ask students to talk about how they can help him versus how he can help them.

COOPER: But before making this announcement in which you basically say that he's going to speak about all these things, I mean, just factually speaking, you had no facts to make that statement.

GREER: Well, I believe the facts were in the lesson plans that as a parent I should be concerned about what he's going to say. He's been very vocal, very aggressive about what his vision of America is not only today but in the future.

And based on these lesson plans I wanted to make sure that my children, as I believe most parents around this country would believe, should not be exposed to his vision without their consent.

COOPER: OK.

GREER: And their ability to take a look at what he's going to say.

COOPER: Just so I'm accurate, though, you did not see an advance copy of the speech, did you?

GREER: No, until just...


...

COOPER: Jim, did you object -- President Bush -- I want to play our viewers what President Bush said in front of school children when he talked to kids about No Child Left Behind. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any attempt to roll back the accountability in Washington, D.C., will be- -- I'll fight any attempt to do that. Just not going to let it happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So that's in front of the kids. Did you -- did you object to that at the time, Mr. Greer?

Ok, so Bush made a speech to kids to advocate his policy agenda of No Child Left Behind.

Greer claim - "Well, he didn't distribute a lesson plan that asked children to write how they can Help the President?"

Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't (although chances are He Did since the people would have been in the Dept of Education then are probably the same people now and probably wrote that kind of lesson plan out of habit)

But we do know that the Bush Administration Bribed conservative columnist Armstrong Williams with $240,000 to promote "No Child Left Behind", and that Bush did leave behind georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov where we can go back through the memory hole and see what else he did.

Like this statement at the Waldorf Astoria President Bush gave in support of his call to Reauthorize No Child Left Behind. It even has Video of Bush making his statement with a crowd of children surrounding him.

Bush: Last week the school system here in New York City received the Broad Prize for Urban Education. This is one of the most prestigious education prizes in the country. The award is given every year to large urban school districts that have shown the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement, while narrowing the achievement gap amongst poor and minority students.

In bestowing this recognition on New York City, the Broad Prize Committee highlighted the city's strong leadership. And that starts with Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The Mayor is a no-nonsense guy who understands that if you set a goal, you expect to see results in achieving that goal. He knows how to ask tough questions and he's pretty good about moving aside bureaucracy that will inhibit the people he has selected to achieve the goal. The person he selected to be the chancellor is Joel Klein, who really is one of the country's finest school superintendents.

I also believe that part of the reason why New York City did well is because of the No Child Left Behind Act, which raises standards, insists upon accountability in the schools all across our country. The No Child Left Behind Act is working. I say that because the Nation's Report Card says it's working. Scores are improving, in some instances hitting all-time highs. Children across America are learning. The achievement gap that has long punished underprivileged students is beginning to close. And I'm going to spend a little time talking about that today.

Yeah, it's not like Bush tried to push his radical Right-Wing Agenda on our kids or anything.

Oh by the way ScienceDaily has a slightly different take on NCLB.

The study shows as schools came under the accountability system, which uses student test scores to rate schools and reward or discipline principals, massive numbers of students left the school system. The exit of low-achieving students created the appearance of rising test scores and of a narrowing of the achievement gap between white and minority students, thus increasing the schools' ratings.

This study has serious implications for the nation's schools under the NCLB law. It finds that the higher the stakes and the longer such an accountability system governs schools, the more school personnel view students not as children to educate but as potential liabilities or assets for their school's performance indicators, their own careers or their school's funding.

The study shows a strong relationship between the increasing number of dropouts and school's rising accountability ratings, finding that:

* Losses of low-achieving students help raise school ratings under the accountability system.
* The accountability system allows principals to hold back students who are deemed at risk of reducing the school's scores; many students retained this way end up dropping out.
* The test scores grouped by race single out the low-achieving students in these subgroups as potential liabilities to the school ratings, increasing incentives for school administrators to allow those students to quietly exit the system.
* The accountability system's zero tolerance rules for attendance and behavior, which put youth into the court system for minor offenses and absences, alienate students and increase the likelihood they will drop out.

Talk about your "Rationing" - shouldn't we call these the "Dumb Panels"?

So what was President Barack Obama going to speak to students about again? "Staying In School?" Coincidence? I think not.

Vyan

Update: Turns out I was right - Geeb did present a Lesson Plan Too. H/t Comments

* The lesson will begin with the students exploring the biographies of the President, Mrs. Bush, Vice President, and Mrs. Cheney.
* The class will identify examples of elements found in a biography.
* Once students have identified the elements, a classroom chart listing the characteristics will be created.

Extension Activity One
The teacher will lead the class in distinguishing between 'biography' and 'autobiography'. The students will create their autobiography utilizing the elements identified on the classroom chart.

Extension Activity Two
Students will select and read a biography/autobiography of a famous American. Biographies of presidents are available at www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/. Biographies of first ladies are available at www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/.

Parent's Guide

After your child explores the biographies of the President, Mrs. Bush, Vice President, and Mrs. Cheney, use the following example questions to extend his/her thinking:

* What are some examples of elements you found in the biographies?
* Where did the President (Mrs. Bush, the Vice President or Mrs. Cheney) attend elementary school? Why is completing elementary school important?
* Name a children's book mentioned on one of the biographies. Why is it important to read?
* The word 'biography' means the story of a person's life. What do you think 'autobiography' means?
* If someone wanted to write a biography about you, what would you want them to include?

And now a little interlude from some friends of mine (known Vernon for almost 20 years) Cult of Personality Anyone?

Vyan

Will Congress Pull the Trigger (Option)?

Next week President Obama will address a joint session of Congress with his vision of Health Care Reform. The question of course is exactly what will he say, but almost more importantly - what will the member of Congress and the Public Hear?

Some including both Olympia Snow (R-Mn) and Joe Lieberman (Joe-CT) are showing limited support for the Public Option, if it comes with a "Trigger".

From Thinkprogress.

The White House is “holding intensive talks” with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) about her “proposal to use the public plan as a fallback option.” In Snowe’s vision, “if prices don’t fall by a certain percentage and coverage doesn’t expand beyond 95% in a given state” after reforms have been implemented for a time, “the plan would call for adding a government insurance option to that state’s choices.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said yesterday “that he would not vote for a health care bill that included a government-run option.” “There will be no shot at 60 votes, because I’m not the only one,” said Lieberman, adding that “if we start this out and three years from now a case can be made that the private market is not working effectively, I would support the public option.”

So if these negotiations go forward we might actually have a Public Option on the table With 60 Votes to Implement it - IF - and that's a big "IF", the private sector fails to contain costs within a fairly short window.

In recent days I've argued that the Public Option isn't the be-all-end-all of the bill, and received quite a bit of push back, which was fair enough. What's currently on the table without contention is the opening of a new Health Exchange, affordability credits, a permanent ban on both pre-existing conditions and insurance rationing of care based on cost (no matter what the screamers might say about "End of Life Consultation" or "Comparitive Effectiveness Studies") - that's a good thing.

The debate coming from those such as Anthony Weiner have been, That's Not Enough! The CBO has reported that significant cost savings are unlikely unless a Public Option is included in the plan as a competitor to private insurance. From TPM.

The plan carries a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion, and would lead toward an estimated 97 percent of all Americans having coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Chris Dodd said in a letter to other members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. [...]

The [employer mandate] provision is also estimated to greatly reduce the number of workers whose employers would drop coverage, thus addressing a major concern noted by CBO when it reviewed the earlier proposals.

Without the Public Option the initial CBO cost estimate of the Kennedy/HELP bill as over $1 Trillion, afterward it dropped by $400 Biliion over ten years.

With this information on our side We have the Factual Advantage and need to press it. The only question is whether the Threat of a Health Exchange and a Public Option is enough to change and improve the behavior of Private Insurance Industry?

No, we don't have to give the insurance companies a multibillion dollar windfall - not if they don't improve costs and stop dropping people from coverage. We can bring them to heel, the question is how agreesive does it need to be?

During the last attempt at Health Reform - such a threat actually did help. At the beginning of Hillary Clinton's proposed care system the rate of Medical Inflation (if I recall correctly) was somewhere around 8%. The goal of her plan was to bring that rate down to about 2-3%, and even though the plan didn't pass congress...That's exactly what happened as the private industry actually implemented many of her suggestions on their own as a way of Pre-Empting her. They moved more to a focus on HMO's, they began implementing thier own version of "Associations" (Which in the current plan is called an "Exchange" in the House or "Gateway" in the Senate)

You can even see that the current debate is aleady makind a difference, I just saw a commercial for a private based exchange called EHealth.Com where you can price and feature shop on your own for health insurance (just like Federal Employees do through their own Exchange)

Go ahead and take a look and see for yourself, from what I saw the prices are actually pretty good. And with Pre-existing Conditions Banned and subsidies available for those who are out of work or poor, it all gets all the better.

Here's the thing, I'm absolutely for a Public Option. But if we can get the private industry to straighten up and fly right with simply the mere Threat of it, and not implement it until they Fail (which of course they might, but then again - if they do that completley destroys all arguement against a PO doens't it?) - then I'll go for that too.

It might have to happen as through a split bill in the end, but I don't care. Getting the job done is getting the job done.

If we can accomplish what the threat of Hillary Care did, and have the Public Option sitting on the shelf ready to go when needed in a year or two - if the only thing we're arguing about is how SOON the Public Option will kick in - I think we win the best of all possible worlds in both the short and the long term.

I'm sure many will disagree, but maybe it's worth considering, maybe it's worth supporting if it gets us exactly what we want. Better quality health care available to All Americans.

Vyan

Rachels Amazing Interview with Tom Ridge

After a long-winded session of Back Peddling by Ridge over his thoughts and feelings that Homeland Security "might" have been politicized - the best part is during the second section of the Interview here where Rachel hones in the invalid basis for starting the Iraq War and does something no other Journalist has bother to do in 6 Years - Point out the Truth!

MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show - 1 Sep. 2009: Rachel interviews former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on politicizing terror threat level during the Bush Administration. Maddow clearly has no patience with Ridge pulling out the "faulty intelligence was responsible for Iraq fiasco" crap and his backpedaling.

PART ONE OF INTERVIEW: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

MADDOW: I think you making that argument right now is why Republicans after the Bush and Cheney administration are not going to get back the country's trust on national security. To look back at that decision and say 'we got it wrong but it was in good faith' and not acknowledge the foregone conclusion that we are going to invade Iraq that pervaded every decision that was made about intelligence. Looking back at that decision-making process, it sounds like you're making the argument that you would have made the same decision again.

Americans need to believe that our government would not make that wrong a decision, that would not take such a foregone conclusion to such an important issue, that the intelligence that proved the opposite point was all discounted, that the intelligence was combed through for any bit that would fit the foregone conclusion of the policymakers. The system was broken and if you don't see that the system was broken and you think that it was just that the intel was wrong - I think that you're one of the most trusted voices on national security for the Republican party, and I think that is the elephant in the room. I don't think you guys get back your credibility on national security until you realize that was a wrong decision made by policy makers; that wasn't the spies fault.

RIDGE: Well, I think you are suggesting that it was only driven by, quite obviously the people who made the decision knew more about the threat than you and I do. And again I think it is a pretty radical conclusion to suggest that men and women entrusted with the safety of this country would predicate a decision upon any other basis other than to keep America safe. Later on it may have proven that some of the information was inaccurate, but there were plenty of reasons to go into Iraq at the time - the foremost were the weapons of mass destruction, that obviously proven to be faulty. But the fact of the matter is, at that time, given what they knew, and they knew more than what you and I did, it seemed to be the right thing to do and the decision was made in what they considered to be in the best interest of our country.

- snip -

MADDOW: If you can go back in time and sell the American people on the idea that 4,000 Americans ought to lose their lives and we ought to lose those trillions of dollars for democracy in Iraq, you have a wilder imagination than I do. We were sold that war because of 9/11. We were sold that war because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction from this guy who didn't have them, and our government should have known it. And frankly a lot of people believe our government did know it and it was a cynical decision. And maybe everybody wasn't in on it and maybe that is a radical thing to conclude...

Repeated Ridge claims the people who ultimately made the decisions had better information than either "You or I"?

You mean people like Dick "String 'em up and Crush their Testicles" Cheney?

Here's something they knew:

The head of Iraqi Intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, had Defected before the War and TOLD US that Saddam had already destroyed all his previous WMD stockpiles. Bush choose not to believe him and said "Give me something I can use..." They then paid him off with $5 Million to keep quiet, after having him forge a letter that framed Saddam for 9-11!

Suskind says he spoke on the record with U.S. intelligence officials who stated that Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, his book relates, Bush decided to invade Iraq three months later — with the forged letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam bolstering the U.S. rationale to go into war.

George Tenet phoned and sent faxes to the White House saying the "Yellowcake Story is Bogus"... so Bush didn't quote the CIA or Tenet, he quoted the British who hadn't figured out that the Niger Document was forgery yet.

When Joe Wilson called them on it, they blew his wife's cover as a covert CIA Agent - which under normal and sane circumstances would be called "Treason" - and tried to claim his objections were just "Nepotism". Yeah, ok - where's the Yellow Cake then?

In order to help prove the Saddam/9-11 link Cheney requested that the head of Iraqi Security be Waterboarded (A Prisoner of War In Iraq - to whom the OLC Memos Didn't Apply), even though he was already cooperating - he just wasn't telling them what CHENEY wanted to hear.



Cynical? Maybe so and Maybe not, but Fracking BULLHEADED and CRIMINAL! You Betcha!

Here's a parting shot from my new Video - just because it's Right on Point - Show them the Truth and some people will simply Never Believe it.



Vyan

Have we Forgotten Who We're Dealing With?

Just a few thoughts...

It's been pointed out time and time again, that some people in this nation - are simply Impervious to Fact. Unwilling and unable to accept a simple truth.

There are NO DEATH PANELS.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

He Never "Palled Around" with a Domestic Terrorist.

No one is planning to "Take your guns away" (Although for some of these guys, that might be a real good idea)!


It's just well past the point of the patently ridiculous, and we all have to come to grips with it. Some members of our country are pathologically deluded.

And what's worse, is they like it that way.

Yes, a lot of this comes from Fox News non-stop pandering Fear and Loathing.

Some of it comes from Right-Wing Radio.

But a lot of it, comes right from the frightened fevered imaginations of otherwise regular citizens like your neighbors, or your cousins, or your brother.

They want to be on the Right side, the good side - they just aren't.

They want you to see their copy of the U.S.S. Constitution!

Right here. I got a book here called the U.S.S. Constitution. I’m sure everybody’s seen this before. And you know what? I’ve this book three times now, and I’ve referenced it dozens of times and I can’t find one little paragraph in here that says the government has the right to take over our health care.

They desperately cling to an America that never existed. Where the rugged achieved and they were no handouts (except for the tens of thousands of acres of free land the Government provided to thousands of settlers in the 19th Century - or the GI Bill after World War II - or... well, you get the picture)

They don't know what happened to Their America.

And they won't be reasoned with. They won't be bargained down to some mutually equitable compromise. Not on Health Care. Not on Guns. Not on Torture. Not on the Environment. Nothing.

Just yesterday the Arizona AR-15 Toter wished Death on the President and preferred that it come "Sooner rather than Later".

This is not some rhetorical flourish - this is a Death Threat.

The guns have already started firing, at the Holocaust Museum, in Pittsburgh at the Police, at Dr. George Tiller and more...

We've already had the "Lone Wolves", now comes the Organized Attacks.

These people will not be talked down.

As the August Recess comes to an end we need to remind our Representatives that we're counting on them to deliver the Change we Need. Come Hell. Come High Water. Come Hot Lead or Cold Steel.

Edward M. Kennedy is gone.

We no longer have his shoulders to stand on to help lift is up, when we're down.

Our time is now.

Let's get on with it.

Vyan