Apartheid.

One set of rights for one group.

Another set of rights for another group.

That's apartheid. The dictionary definition, in fact.

Period.

End of file.

(Photo Illustration: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted From: ddharmasphere, snapsi42 and dutchlad / flickr)

Good News for the GOP? Not So Much.
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 04 November 2009

Ever watch "SportsCenter" on ESPN? Pound for pound, it's pretty much the most consistently entertaining program on television, but if you watch enough of it, you really get a sense of the similarities shared between sports reporters and political reporters. ESPN, like CNN, MSNBC and even Fox News, has to fill 24 hours with programming each day. More often than not, there are enough games, events and high-profile arrests in the sports realm to fill the time for ESPN, just as there are usually enough murders, car chases, wars, balloon boys and stories about puppies who found their way home to fill the time for the news channels.

Sometimes, however, both "SportsCenter" and the news networks find themselves seemingly without sufficient content to make the nut. If there's an off-day for most teams during baseball season, for example, ESPN is forced to show the same handful of highlights over and over again, and then has to fill the rest of the time with hardcore analysis of stuff nobody really cares about. Conversely, if one big event happens - Terrell Owens demands a trade to Neptune, for example, or Roger Clemens admits to freebasing pine tar - the entire network focuses like a laser beam on it and leaves everything else on the cutting room floor. The way these events get reported is of a type, as well: One guy says something about it, and she reports on what he said, he reports on what she said, someone else writes an article about what they said, and presto, a consensus is reached because everyone was too lazy to do anything other than report on other people's "reporting."

That is sports journalism in a nutshell, and that is political reporting to a "T." We're all seeing an example of this now that the news networks, as well as quite a number of newspapers, have come together to declare Tuesday's off-season elections in New York, New Jersey and Virginia to be some kind of earth-rattling triumph for the GOP and a devastating defeat for the Obama administration. CNN and Fox have been crowing about a "GOP sweep" thanks to Republican victories in the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and because Maine passed another virulent piece of anti-gay legislation.

It wasn't just the TV talking heads spouting this line. "The Republican victories in the races for New Jersey and Virginia governors put the party in a stronger position to turn back the political wave President Obama unleashed last year," reported The New York Times on Wednesday morning, "setting the stage for Republicans to raise money, recruit candidates and ride the excitement of an energized base as the party heads into next year's midterm elections.... The results in the New Jersey and Virginia races underscored the difficulties Mr. Obama is having transforming his historic victory a year ago into either a sustained electoral advantage for Democrats or a commanding ideological position over conservatives in legislative battles."

Not to break away from the pack here, but the situation deserves a little more in-depth analysis than what we've gotten so far, which has basically amounted to these news people playing umpire during a close play at the plate. Obama is out because they say so, even though it wasn't the last out, there is plenty of game left to play and the blue team is still way ahead on runs. You can't argue with the ump, though, so that out is officially A Big Deal.

Not so much.

First of all, the Democratic candidate in New Jersey, Jon Corzine, was an unbelievably unpopular incumbent who ran a tragically poor campaign. Corzine's unpopularity vastly predates Obama's impact on the electorate, and was the entire reason he lost. As for Virginia, well, that state has been a tough get for any Democrat for a couple of generations now; Obama's success there in the 2008 presidential election was the exception and not the rule for Democrats historically, and speaking of history, the party that wins the White House has gone on to lose the Virginia governor's office one year later every time since the Carter administration, so we're not into any kind of mold-breaking situation there.

Second of all, these were two statewide elections where Obama was not on the ballot, and there is no national significance whatsoever behind two states out of fifty voting for Republicans. Furthermore, Democrats cleaned up in local elections all across the country, especially in mayoral races, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of breathless reporting on this facet of yesterday's vote coming from the news folks. The umpire made the call, and that's how it goes. Or something.

Speaking of the national picture for the GOP, it is difficult to make a cogent argument that two statewide gubernatorial wins are enough to alter the country's opinion of the party, especially since the country's opinion of Republicans remains monumentally bleak. Just two weeks ago, a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported:



Finally, the idea that yesterday's elections bode well for the Republican Party might make for good television, but that doesn't make it right. The race in New York's 23rd District has far more national import than the other two, and the writing on the wall doesn't make for good reading for the GOP going forward. The election went sideways several weeks ago when moderate Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava came under fire from the high priests of the far right because they deemed her not conservative enough. Ersatz luminaries like Limbaugh, Beck and Palin jumped on board the third-party candidacy of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, and the resulting bedlam eventually drove Scozzafava out of the race. Scozzafava stepped aside after endorsing the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, who went on to win Tuesday's election by a margin of 49-45.

This was a nifty win for the Democrats, because the seat was formerly held by Republican John McHugh, who vacated the seat after he was tapped by President Obama to serve as secretary of the Army. Beyond the pick-up, however, is the fact that the whole national Republican infrastructure has been shaken up thanks to this race. The hard-right GOP base revved itself up and successfully tore down an electable moderate member of their own party. If they get it into their heads to do this in other races come 2010, we could very easily watch the GOP eat itself next year, as its ground troops attack and soften up fellow Republicans, making them ripe pickings for Democratic opponents. The Democrats have been expecting to lose seats in 2010, something that nearly always happens during the first midterms of a new presidency, but open warfare within the GOP could very much mitigate the damage.

Speaking of the NY-23 race, memo to news reporters: the Democrat won. It isn't a "sweep" when the other team wins a game. The news people should ask the sports reporters for a refresher course on athletic terminology. It's probably a good idea to have your facts straight before your broadcasters open their mouths or your printing press puts ink to paper.

A wild idea, I know, but it might be for the best.

http://www.truthout.org/11040910

There's so much tension here!

People are mean!

Or judgmental!

Or contrarian!

Or anti-Democrat!

Or anti-Obama!

Or anti-anti-Democrat!

Or anti-anti-Obama!

...and just kinda generally pissed off.

Good.

I have my opinions, you have yours. They have theirs. We have ours.

Etc.

It's been tense around here of late.

But tension is what the Founders intended. If they wanted this shit to work seamlessly, we'd have no separation of powers/three branches of government/free speech/voting rights/printing presses/TVs/internet...and it'd be a whole lot easier that way.

Thank God/Yahweh/Allah/Buddha/Vishnu/The FSM/etc. it isn't like that.

Me raging against you, you raging against them, them raging against us, us raging against those guys, and all of us motherfucking each other with bull-throated ferocity...

...well...

...maybe it wasn't what DU was originally intended to be, but it surely is what it is today.

And thank God (or whom/whatever) for it.

We don't agree.

We're not supposed to.

Welcome to democracy.

GOP sweep my ass.

In Boston, Mayor Tom Menino (Democrat) won a fifth term in office.

Your turn. Did a (D) win where you live? Tell me about it, please.

(Photo Illustration: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t, Adapted From: Senate.Gov / wikimedia)

Little Joe
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Tuesday 03 November 2009

Senator Joe Lieberman managed to shoehorn himself into the center of the national debate over health care reform last week with his announcement that he would filibuster any health care legislation that contained any kind of a so-called "public option." Lieberman, the erstwhile Democrat turned Independent from Connecticut, went on "Face the Nation" on Sunday to reassert his opposition in no uncertain terms. "I feel so strongly about the creation of another government health insurance entitlement," said the senator. "The government going into the health insurance business - I think it's such a mistake that I would use the power I have as a single senator to stop a final vote." He went on to say that, in his opinion, it is the people pushing for a public option who are standing in the way of progress on reform.

Not content merely to potentially derail an important Democratic piece of legislation the Democratic president has made a central priority, Lieberman went on to announce that he will happily campaign for Republican candidates in the 2010 midterm elections. "There's a hard core of partisan, passionate, hardcore Republicans," said Lieberman in a report by ABC News. "There's a hard core of partisan Democrats on the other side. And in between is the larger group, which is people who really want to see the right thing done, or want something good done for this country and them - and that means, sometimes, the better choice is somebody who's not a Democrat."

Why this man is tolerated by the Democratic caucus in the Senate is an enduring mystery, frankly, and not just because Lieberman is a publicity-hogging fraud, although that is most definitely the case. All he lacks is a big red nose, big red floppy shoes and big red tufts of hair sticking up from his head to complete his image as a clown, but anyone familiar with his record over the last several years doesn't need the props to complete the picture. He made Dick Cheney look like Socrates in the 2000 vice presidential debate. He ran one of the most ridiculous presidential campaigns in modern political history in 2004, failing to win a single primary and eventually finishing seventh behind Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Kucinich, Clark and the Reverend Al Sharpton. He lost his own state in 2006 and bailed on the Democrats, managing to win back his seat only by sucking up huge sums of GOP campaign donations, which he paid back by campaigning for Republican Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election and by bashing the Democrats while speaking at the 2008 GOP convention.

The serial list of failures Lieberman has to his name is by no means limited to the campaign trail. During his time in the Senate, he was an active opponent of the kind of financial regulation that would have spared our economy from having to deal with the Enron and Arthur Andersen meltdowns, as well as the calamity we are currently mired in. William Grieder, writing for The Nation in March of 2002, described Lieberman's foul impact in an article titled "Enron Democrats":



The mess he helped create on the economic front is only the tip of the iceberg. He supported the Bush administration's call for offshore oil drilling despite the damage such a program would do to the environment and tourism. He opposed lifting the ruinous Bush administration tax cuts. He supports the privatization of Social Security. He voted to confirm, and later publicly praised, former Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He defended Pastor John Hagee, who called Catholicism "The Great Whore" and said Hitler was a Hunter sent by God to get the Jews to Israel, and later compared Hagee to Moses when he spoke at Hagee's Washington-Israel summit last July. He sponsored the Senate version of the Iraq War Resolution, and supported that catastrophic conflict all the way down the line.

The list goes on, and on, and on, and on.

Enough of this clown. He should be stripped of his Senate chairmanship and sent across the aisle to his boon companions on the right. He should be ignored out of hand on the matter of health care reform, and anything else he decides to address. He has raised being wrong, craven, untrustworthy and useless to the level of high art. Anyone with a full understanding of his record and reputation would know better than to trust him with a job as a crossing guard, and never mind as any kind of a leader on issues of major national and international import. The man is a living, breathing train wreck, and he has no business whatsoever being allowed in the same postal code as the decisions to come that will shape our lives.

For now, he must be endured, because his term is not up until 2012. But he should not be allowed to keep the gift of his chairmanship, he should not be empowered in any way, and when the time comes, the Democratic Party should call down the thunder on any re-election campaign he might endeavor to undertake. Marginalizing Lieberman, and eventually getting rid of him, would be addition by subtraction, and the time to do that particular bit of math is long, long past due.

http://www.truthout.org/1103098

The rest are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeyh/sets/7... /

Author's note: An audio file reading of this essay can be found below the first paragraph at the original link below. - wrp



(Photo Illustration: Troy Page, t r u t h o u t; Adapted From: WSPA, euart / flickr , roberthuffstutter / flickr)

Hilarious Halloween
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Saturday 31 October 2009

Everyone expects to see and hear some strange stuff whenever Halloween comes around. The costumes, the parties, the old ghost stories that always make the rounds and that ever-present breed of individual who takes the season a little too seriously and decides they'll actually try to be a vampire for a night. 'Tis the season. The definition of "strange," however, tends to get bent into all sorts of bizarre new shapes whenever the GOP gets into the game, and several of that party's members have apparently decided to make this Halloween something truly special for the rest of us.

Take, for example, Mr. Roland Corning, former Republican state representative and current assistant attorney general for South Carolina. Back on Monday, a police officer spotted Mr. Corning's SUV parked at Elmwood Cemetery. The officer took special notice of the car, because that cemetery was a known spot for picnics of a carnal nature, and went in to investigate. When the officer approached, Mr. Corning sped away, and the officer gave chase.

When Corning was finally pulled over several blocks away by a second officer, they found him with an 18-year old stripper from the Platinum Plus Gentlemen's Club, a bag of sex toys and a dose of Viagra. Corning and the stripper gave differing explanations for their presence in the cemetery, and when asked about the bag of sex toys he had with him, Corning replied that he always kept those with him, "just in case."

Wait, it gets better.

Corning, being in the AG's office, carries a badge, and flashed it at the officer in the hope that it would inspire some gold-shield camaraderie and lubricate his release. Unfortunately for Mr. Corning, the officer called the AG's office to confirm that Corning actually worked there ... and got Corning's wife Megan on the phone, who also works for the AG. Corning's wife sent the report up the bureaucratic food chain like an Atlas rocket, and before long, his employment at the AG's office was terminated. One has to assume, given his wife's reaction, that his marriage is likewise soon to go the way of the dodo.

Hang on, there's more.

Mr. Corning, during his time as a Republican state representative, was a known holy man and ardent supporter of all that is family values in South Carolina. He once proposed legislation making it mandatory for women on welfare to be given sub-dermal contraceptives. Obviously, for this member of the GOP tribe, fleeing the police, sex toys and strippers are as much a part of good, clean living as eugenics.

While this fiasco was indeed a noble attempt, try as he might, Mr. Corning is never going to take the Top Fool spot away from the reigning champion of idiotic GOP debacles, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Palin, who garnered 25 percent of a recent CNN poll on who Republicans prefer as their 2012 nominee, has been riding the rails to push her new book and, it is to be assumed, a potential presidential run next time around. That plan may be in jeopardy, however, especially if her former-kinda-whatever son-in-law and father of her grandson, Levi Johnson, has anything to say about it.

Levi, who appears all too happy to keep bringing up tidbits of Palin's past with reporters, told CBS News the other day that he had something "huge" on the former governor, and would be more than willing to divulge it before a battery of cameras if she messes with him. He accused Palin of calling her son Trig, who has Down Syndrome, "retarded."

As for any further revelations, Johnson would only say, "I have things that can, you know, that would get her in trouble, and could hurt her. Will hurt her. But I'm not gonna go that far. You know, I mean, if I really wanted to hurt her, I could, very easily. But there's - I'm not gonna do it. I'm not going that far." Palin released a statement blasting Johnson and CBS for the report, to which Johnson replied, "If she's going to go out there and say things to me, about me, I'm going to leak some things on her. I mean that's just how it is."

We can only hope. Happy hilarious Halloween.

http://www.truthout.org/1031092

Author's note: They've got me doing readings of these articles now, so if you're interested, the audio file of this essay is beneath the first paragraph here.

===



(Photo Illustration: Troy Page, t r u t h o u t; Adapted From: ibcbulk, adambrock, rabih, bionicteaching / flickr)

Motivation
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Wednesday 28 October 2009

I can tell you that one of the most amazing surprises of the presidency was the fact that people's prayers affected me. I can't prove it to you. But I can tell you some days were great, some days not so great. But every day was joyous.

- George W. Bush, motivational speaker, 26 October 2009

George W. Bush made his debut as a motivational speaker to a packed house of adoring fans in Fort Worth, Texas, on Monday. Mr. Bush, who has been all but invisible since last January's inauguration of Barack Obama, is apparently trying to raise his profile before the release of his book. He spoke about prayer, challenges and walking his dog.

"In the crowd of real estate agents in suits, housewives in jeans, students and senior citizens, Chris Clarke, 25, a salesman from Dallas, stood at the back," reported The Washington Post on Monday. "Like many people, he said that other speakers were better - Colin Powell was his favorite - but he thought Bush was good. In fact, he said, it could turn out that Bush may be more suited to motivational speaking than being president. He said when Bush misspeaks, it sounds 'incompetent if you are president. But here it can be inspiring. It makes him seem like a regular guy, no better than me.'"

"Man, my life has changed!" said Mr. Bush on his new situation.

Well, so have a lot of other lives since he departed office in failure and disgrace, and not for the better. Unemployment has skyrocketed. The banks took the money he gave them and ran, to the detriment of millions. Mortgage foreclosures continue unabated.

Some things, however, remain exactly the same.

Last Sunday, two gigantic explosions ripped through Iraqi government buildings in Baghdad. The justice and local government ministries, as well as the provincial government headquarters, were targeted at the busiest time of the day. More than 150 people were killed, and more than 500 were wounded. Among the dead were dozens of children at a day care center. The next day, a bomb on a minibus exploded outside Karbala, killing three people and wounding eight. On the same day, gunmen killed two people and wounded two others in Mosul.

In the days before the Sunday attack in Baghdad, gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing one soldier. A car bomb wounded two in Baghdad. A suicide bomber killed one and wounded two in Baghdad. The list goes on, the violence continues every single day, and for Iraq, nothing much has changed at all.

In Afghanistan, eight US soldiers and one civilian were killed by roadside bombs on Tuesday. The day before, 14 Americans, including several DEA agents, were killed in separate helicopter crashes. An American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday. A NATO soldier and two US troops were killed in separate incidents - a firefight and a roadside bombing - on Friday. The list goes on, the violence continues every day, and for Afghanistan, nothing much has changed at all.

Just so we are all clear, Mr. Bush is responsible for this. Mr. Cheney is responsible for this. Mr. Powell is responsible for this. Ms. Rice is responsible for this. Mr. Rumsfeld is responsible for this. Mr. Wolfowitz is responsible for this. Mr. Feith is responsible for this. Mr. Libby is responsible for this. Mr. Rove is responsible for this. The Republican majorities in control of the House and Senate until 2006 are responsible for this. The corporate news media, who championed these catastrophes for years and years, is responsible for this. The defense contractors who look at these two wars as grand paydays are responsible for this.

Not one of these people has been called to account for the murder and mayhem they engaged in during the eight monstrous years of the George W. administration. In fact, according to a recent New York Times editorial, the acts and activities of the previous administration may never be brought to light, thanks to the acts and actions of the current administration:



Feeling motivated?

http://www.truthout.org/10280911

(Illustration: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t)

Not Dead Yet
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Friday 23 October 2009

I don't want to go on the cart!


- "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

For the last several weeks, politicians, political action groups and pundits have been declaring the "Public Option" portion of President Obama's health care reform push all but dead. Republicans, with typical shoulder-to-shoulder unanimity, have been shouting it down with bull-throated ferocity. Well-heeled interest groups have been spraying the airways with anti-public-option propaganda.

Democrats, of course, have been going 17 directions at once and, as usual, gotten exactly nowhere; they're for it, against it, sorta-kinda-maybe-yes-no, oh, please, somebody tell me what to think. Even President Obama, who promised a public option approximately 12,000 times in the run-up to this debate, has been sending increasingly conflicted signals on the matter. He wants it, but can live without it, but won't be happy about it, but might be happy about it if he gets a bill to sign.

There's a word for this: bedlam. It's not very conducive to clarity, and is a large part of the reason much of the public has been less than enthusiastic about the entire enterprise. The Democrats control the White House, House and Senate, but haven't been able to get out of their own way, and the GOP has been doing what the GOP does best: throw rocks, muddy the waters and get people all riled up about existential threats to all that is American even though no such threats actually exist.

Quite suddenly, however, a rather large break in the clouds has come on the public option issue, and for the first time since this debate began in earnest, it actually seems possible the option may win its way into a spot on the final legislation. It began early this week with a new Washington Post/ABC News poll that had 57 percent of Americans approving of a public option being included in health care reform. This number is down from 62 percent approval for the public option in June, when the chaos truly began, but is up from 52 percent approval in August.

On the heels of this poll came new health care reform numbers from the Congressional Budget Office that seem to prove the public option will not be the deficit annihilator described by the GOP. "A preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office projects that the House Democrats' health care plan that includes a public option would cost $871 billion over 10 years," reported CNN on Tuesday. "CBO also found that the Democrats' bill reduces the deficit in the first ten years. This new CBO estimate, which aides caution is not final, is significantly less than the original $1.1 trillion price tag of the original House bill that passed out of three committees this summer. More importantly, it comes under the $900 billion cap set by President Obama in his joint address to Congress last month."

Democrats, ever fearless in the face of positive numbers, suddenly exploded into a frenzy of pro-public-option campaigning immediately after those numbers were released. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) leaped at the new CBO estimate to announce that the House will not allow any legislation to become finalized without the inclusion of a "robust public option."

"In recent days," reported Talking Points Memo this week, "Pelosi has insisted that she intends to send House negotiators to a health care conference committee with the maximum possible leverage for the public option. And House health care principals have been working doggedly to keep the price of reform down with the help of the public option - so in a sense, the news of this final push comes as little surprise: Pelosi is, as expected, using the fiscal responsibility of the robust public option to win over enough skeptics in her caucus to pass it. And she is, reportedly, very close to doing that."

Pretty heady stuff, that.

The action has not been confined to the House on this issue. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia), who had been deeply hesitant about backing any legislation that included a public option, suddenly boomeranged back toward support for it, albeit a version that includes an "opt-out" provision that allows citizens to exit the program if they don't like it. Even more surprising was the fact that one of the most conservative and anti-public-option Democrats in the Senate, Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska), likewise voiced support for a public option with an opt-out provision.

How all this will eventually shake out remains deeply uncertain, but if the public option is to survive and become part of the final legislation, its proponents have picked exactly the right time to begin a full-court press. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this new drive to save the public option came in the guise of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida), the House member who became an instant folk hero on the left when he described the GOP's idea of health reform as "die quickly." Representative Grayson has launched a web site called namesofthedead.com, which allows citizens to tell their stories of friends and family members who have died due to a lack of health insurance.

"Grayson announced the creation of the site on the House floor Wednesday and displayed a poster with the site's address," reported The Hill on Wednesday. "He said the names of those who die because of a lack of health insurance should be identified. 'I propose that we honor their memory by naming them,' he said, concluding his remarks by stating that with health care reform, 'no one will ever die in America because they can't see a doctor.'"

I feel happy.

http://www.truthout.org/1023092

Carper: Senate Bill Will Include A National Public Plan With An Opt Out
Brian Beutler | October 22, 2009, 4:00PM

After a meeting with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) discussed the status of the public plan in the Senate health care bill with reporters. Here's what he said:

"I think at the end of the day there will be a national plan probably put together not by the federal government but by a non-profit board with some seed money from the federal government that states would initially participate in because of lack of affordability. The question is should there be an opportunity for states to opt out later on and if so, within a year, within two years, within three years?"

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10...



Not a full loaf, but waaaaaay more than half.

(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Catching Up With The Crazy
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 22 October 2009

So, I got married two weekends ago, and spent all of last week honeymooning with my wife in front of a stone fireplace in a tiny cabin by a tiny lake in the woods of New Hampshire. No cell phone reception; no TV channels because the tube was still hooked up to an analog antenna on the roof that looked to have been there since the Truman administration; no internet access whatsoever; the only newspapers to be found were at the end of several miles of a rutted, rock-strewn, dirt road, and since neither of us felt particularly compelled to deal with anything except each other, my wife and I pretty much fell completely off the planet.

Coming home, in retrospect, may have been an egregious tactical error on my part. One hour of television news, one hour of reading last week's news dispatches, made me want to pile back into the car and race back to that cabin, where the only stupidity was self-inflicted and the only crazy was the flight pattern of the bats snatching insects off the top of the lake.

"Balloon Boy"? Seriously? Even after the whole spectacle of a boy named after a bird allegedly flying across Colorado in a giant Jiffy-Pop canister was exposed as a hoax, even after all the major news networks found out beyond all dispute that they had all been punked by some erstwhile reject from a bad reality show, they kept showing it, and showing it, and showing it. The father, who apparently masterminded this sad farce, is likely going to get creamed on several fronts - financially and legally for openers - and deservedly so, because as we all know, the states are in dire economic distress and cannot spare fiscal resources to chase down unmanned (unboyed?) floating popcorn bulbs ... but with two wars, health care reform, bank reform, Iranian stress, bombs, death and general mayhem breaking loose all over the joint, one would think the TV guys would choose to focus on something besides an incident that made them all look like absolute fools.

Ha. What am I thinking? Cover the news? Things haven't changed that much in a week.

The Republican Party did its part last week to make sure everyone in America got their USDA recommended daily allowance of dumb by rolling out a new RNC web site that became an immediate first-ballot entrant into the Unintentional Comedy Hall of Fame. For openers, when the site was unveiled, a prominent link to "Future GOP Leaders" when clicked, led to a page reading, "404 Error: This page could not be found."

The rest of the site is riddled with pictures of black people and women, two groups that tend to vote for GOP candidates about as often as water gets turned into wine at weddings. The page dedicated to the history of the party was filled with references to great 19th century accomplishments - the Trans-Continental Railroad and the ending of slavery were most prominently displayed - put the 20th century pickings were, understandably, pretty slim. Best of all, the page dedicated to Ronald Reagan referred to him as "Ronaldus Magnus," which, loosely translated, means "Ronald the Great."

Yeah. That happened.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele covered himself in glory last Wednesday in comments regarding President Obama's health care reform. I could try to describe this myself, but Josh Marshall over on Talking Points Memo pretty much nailed it better than I or anyone else could: "In response to press reports saying that the health care reform train is leaving the station with President Obama at the wheel (or whatever you use to run a train), Michael Steele just told Fox to look out because he is a 'cow on the tracks.'" In other words, in addition to his other shortcomings, Steele is apparently unschooled on the history of train/cow confrontations, though I'm not sure it's a metaphor Democrats will necessarily want to dispute. Later, in a new strike in his ongoing war with his own dignity, Steele pleaded for a 'Rodney King moment' on health care."

Moo.

The Democrats, for their part, were not about to let a bunch of disorganized, technologically-challenged, Republican bovines corner the market on stupidity, apparently. Feel free to check my math on this, but I'm pretty sure a Democrat won the White House by a significant margin, Democrats control three-fifths of the Senate, and Democrats hold a similarly large margin in the House ... and yet the GOP seems to be totally in control of the current health care debate, to the point that the very popular "Public Option" is about to be abandoned by the side of the road like a puppy everyone loves, but refuses to be responsible for. Yes, yes, the insurance companies are strong, the GOP is better at message maintenance, and most of the TV news networks have gone to great pains to sabotage the debate.

But you are in charge, Democrats. You have the votes. As Truthout writer Scott Galindez explained on Monday, "Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) voted for the weakest of the five health care bills passed by Congressional committees. Big deal. If the bill that goes to the Senate floor is weak enough for her to vote for, then the insurance companies will win and the American people will lose ... I really hope the Democrats get it. I hope this attempt at getting bipartisan support was all show, and the Democrats stop worrying about getting GOP support. The label 'party of no' is not new for them. They opposed FDR's New Deal (including Social Security), Johnson's Great Society (including Medicare). Republican support is not needed, and, at this point, let them be on the wrong side of history as they have been on most great reform legislation."

Smartest thing I've seen all week.

http://www.truthout.org/1022091

Classy Gig For Ex-President
David Kurtz | October 20, 2009, 6:25PM

Former President George W. Bush has signed up to be the "special guest speaker" for one of those traveling arena-size motivational speaker extravaganzas:



Bush's first "Get Motivated!" gig is next Monday in Fort Worth. He does a second one in December in San Antonio.

This is the same "business seminar" series that signed up Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Steve Forbes. Laura Bush is also a speaker. The promoters promise:



George W. Bush, one of "America's foremost success experts."

Late Update: I see that National Review's Mark Hemingway attended one of the Get Motivated! events in DC in 2007. Apparently, W. isn't alone among his predecessors:



http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/...

Morning Fix: A premature celebration for the GOP

Republicans in Washington can barely contain their glee at the turn of President Obama's political fortunes in the first nine months of the year but a new Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests the GOP still faces serious perception problems in the eyes of the American public. Less than one in five voters (19 percent) expressed confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decisions for America's future while a whopping 79 percent lacked that confidence.

Among independent voters, who went heavily for Obama in 2008 and congressional Democrats in 2006, the numbers for Republicans on the confidence questions were even more worse. Just 17 percent of independents expressed confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decision while 83 percent said they did not have that confidence. (While Obama's numbers on the confidence question weren't amazing -- 49 percent confident/50 percent not confident -- they were far stronger than those for Republicans.)

On the generic ballot question, 51 percent of the sample said they would cast a vote for a Democratic candidate in their congressional district next fall while just 39 percent said they would opt for a GOP candidate. (As late as this summer, Republicans had seemingly narrowed the wide generic ballot lead Democrats enjoyed for much of the last two election cycles.) And, perhaps most troubling for GOP hopes is the fact that just 20 percent of the Post sample identified themselves as Republicans, the lowest that number has been in Post polling since 1983. (No, that is not a typo.)

These numbers, coming roughly one year before the 2010 midterm elections, show that any celebration on the GOP's behalf is premature as the party has yet to convince most voters that it can be a viable alternative to Democratic control in Washington today.

More: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/mo...

As noted in my other thread, Cleo Trumbo, the wife and widow of Dalton Trumbo, has passed at the age of 93.

Dalton Trumbo's book, "Johnny Got His Gun," was one of the most important and formative books I have ever read. I read several copies to tatters before age 21. This book was banned before and during every major war America has participated in since its publication, and anyone who has ever read it will immediately see why. This book is Gen. Butler's "War Is A Racket" written in blood and prose, it is shattering in every way, and a free copy should be given to every schoolchild before their 18th birthday.

The story in short: a soldier awakens in a hospital bed after being struck by a shell to find himself blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed, and without his arms and legs. He is a breathing piece of meat...except his mind still works perfectly, he figures out his condition, and tries with all his might to beg for death by tapping "SOS...KILL ME..." into his pillow with his head.

These below are the last seven paragraphs of the book, his anthem, his manifesto, his scream. Read it out loud.

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And then suddenly he saw. He had a vision of himself as a new kind of Christ as a man who carries within himself all the seeds of a new order of things. He was the new messiah of the battlefields saying to people as I am so shall you be. For he had seen the future he had tasted it and now he was living it. He had seen the airplanes flying in the sky he had seen the skies of the future filled with them black with them and now he saw the horror beneath. He saw a world of lovers forever parted of dreams never consummated of plans that never turned into reality. He saw a world of dead fathers and crippled brothers and crazy screaming sons. He saw a world of armless mothers clasping headless babies to their breasts trying to scream out their grief from throats that were cancerous with gas. He saw starved cities black and cold and motionless and the only things in this whole dead terrible world that made a move or a sound were the airplanes that blackened the sky and far off against the horizon the thunder of the big guns and the puffs that rose from barren tortured earth when their shells exploded.

That was it he had it he understood it now he had told them his secret and in denying him they had told him theirs.

He was the future he was a perfect picture of the future and they were afraid to let anyone see what the future was like. Already they were looking ahead they were figuring the future and somewhere in the future they saw war. To fight that war they would need men and if men saw the future they wouldn't fight. So they were masking the future they were keeping the future a soft quiet deadly secret. They knew that if all the little people all the little guys saw the future they would begin to ask questions. They would ask questions and they would find answers and they would say to the guys who wanted them to fight they would say you lying thieving sons-of-bitches we won't fight we won't be dead we will live we are the world we are the future and we will not let you butcher us no matter what you say no matter what speeches you make no matter what slogans you write. Remember it well we we we are the world we are what makes it go round we make bread and cloth and guns we are the hub of the wheel and the spokes and the wheel itself without us you would be hungry naked worms and we will not die. We are immortal we are the sources of life we are the lowly despicable ugly people we are the great wonderful beautiful people of the world and we are sick of it we are utterly weary we are done with it forever and ever because we are the living and we will not be destroyed.

If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you.

It will be you-you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.

We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquillity in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/General/...

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For Dalton and Cleo Trumbo.

Cleo Trumbo, wife of blacklisted writer
By Dennis McLellan
Los Angeles Times / October 20, 2009

LOS ANGELES - Cleo Trumbo - the widow of Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted for more than a decade as a member of the Hollywood Ten - died of age-related causes Oct. 9 at home in Los Altos, Calif. She was 93. “She wasn’t a person to be in the limelight at all,’’ Mitzi Trumbo said of her mother. “She really devoted herself to . . . keeping the family together.’’ Dalton and Cleo Trumbo’s son Christopher, also a writer, said of the blacklist and the Red Scare years: “She hated bullies, and that’s what she saw this as. And she was right.’’

The year after they were married, in 1938, Dalton Trumbo’s acclaimed antiwar novel “Johnny Got His Gun’’ was published. He went on to receive an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for the 1940 movie “Kitty Foyle.’’ But in 1947, Trumbo was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee as part of its investigation into “Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry.’’

Cleo Trumbo joined her husband at the hearings in Washington, D.C., where Dalton and nine other men refused to cooperate with the committee by challenging its right to ask questions about their political beliefs. Dubbed the Hollywood Ten, they were blacklisted by the studio owners and later indicted for contempt of Congress, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison.

More: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituari... /