Now don't get me wrong, I love Charlie. Hell, he sends me a Christmas Card every year and he's funny as hell. But I'd rather that WE get the credit for holding him to accounts than to see him hounded out by repigs.

Is there a Seniority appointment that we would NOT like?

If you've seen the news this morning, you know what happened on West 55th St. yesterday.

There was an audition for that reality show "America's Next Top Model". Thousands of hopefuls crowded onto West 55th St. in Manhattan, waiting for their big chance. Apparently a car belching exhaust went by and someone hollered "Fire" . . or someone shouted "Gun". . and some predatory pickpockets started grabbing purses. . and a stampede ensued.

The audition was canceled and people who had come for miles (one interviewee was from South Carolina, I expect there were some from farther) were left on the curb, heartbroken.

Does anyone here remember the movie "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"

Times are getting so tough that an air of desperation has begun to permeate these "instant fame" shows. The exploitation of misery is getting a little thick out there.

Humans being the thick things that they are... the MESSAGE has been lost in the worship of the MAN. All religious traditions share some basic fundamental facts regarding how people ought to treat each other. All of them manage to crust up those essentials seeds with dogma and new rules that make sense to their host societies at the time... which get further codified in subsequent generations.. until they are unable to transmit that which is most essential.

The gene will only function as required if people manage to transcend the traditions.

I scarfed this graphic from Crooks & Liars, because it is so clear and unarguable. It is to be shown to any remaining republicans you may know... especially the small businessmen, chamber of commerce local bully-type republican...You know.. The ones who still pretend to be reasonable...


(http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/obamas-... )

Since their pocketbook is the only yardstick they use to measure well-being. perhaps it will help you pierce their thick hides. Make sure they know it is their ox being gored!!

He was put in office (NOT elected) in order to spearhead the ideologically bankrupt neo-con policies. He has shoveled out the Treasury to privateers ("Contractors") in every branch and office of the Federal bureaucracy. He has operated at the behest of the Cheap Labor "Free Market" Radicals.. He has starved OUR Government as requested by Grover "Drowned the Government in a Bathtub" Norquist.

It has been a classic Mob "Bust Out" (See The Sopranos story arch about the Sporting Goods Store).

Anyone who thought he would behave differently has never, even ONCE, understood what this guy is about.

cross and look at myself in the mirror.

It is the sanctioning of torture in my name that jolts me from sleep and makes me cry. It is this issue that has me walking away from my dear, blinkered, church. It is this issue that makes it rough for me to go out in "polite company".

Knowing that these crimes are still unaddressed is a festering sore that cannot scab over.

Please, please, please, Barack.. .Do not let this chance to lift our Country up pass you by.

Is "The last, best, hope on Earth" forever beyond our reach?-

Will there ever be a place where no man is above the Law?

As it looks less and less likely that the brazen lawbreakers, the warmongers, the torturers, the despots will be called to account, here in America. . the Country "of the People, by the People and for the People". . .I fall further into despondency.

Was is just a fevered dream?. . this dream of a land where no one can be "disappeared" on the word of a powerful man?

If we cannot hold them to account HERE, in the Land of the Free, what chance has the rest of the world, whose histories are all packed with tyrants, where total power has nearly always rested in a single, all powerful ruler?

the Reactionary Right. If they ever want to see the light of day they will have to return to True North... the REAL center, where America has been all along.

"but we'll be a whole hell of a lot closer."

And this is the genius of the idea of America. There has never been, in the history of the World, a Nation as good as that envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

It is the Ideal America that we all, as engaged Citizens must strive for. That's our collective job. Every now and then, we make discernable progress.

edited to add: REC THIS UP


This is the kind of thing that tends to get buried under all the "stuff du jour" stuff around here.

"further evidence that the decision to endorse torture was made by the administration's most senior officials"

When we have the White House, the Senate and the House, there will be one opportunity to do the right thing. It must be addressed early, it must be addressed loudly.. and it must be addressed UNTIL IT IS ATTENDED TO.

Anything less than a full engagement of the combined efforts of all branches of the Government to fully investigate and prosecute will ruin our reputation for all time in the eyes of the World. We will not get a "do over" on this one. We are either a moral Country that will work in the best interests of Humankind, as we were structured to do by the Founding Fathers.. or we are NOT.

Our Treasury will be so severely strained by this bailout, and servicing our enormous debt, and shoveling money to connected contractors, and subsidizing the oil industry and not taxing any of the people who are TAKING all our money..

that we will literally not be able to perform any of the tasks of good government.

That, along with getting obscenely rich, has been the plan of the oligarchs all along. We will stand by their doorways with begging cups and tug at the forelock beseeching our masters for a crumb from their table, or the great opportunity of cleaning up their offal for the price of a glass of what's left of the clean water in the world.


If we don't get people in government that will stop them.. stop them! it will be torches vs magic "targeted sound" machines in the streets...

The Writ of Habeas Corpus was born on this day in 1215 in Runnymeade Meadow, England.



Let's raise a Goblet and say

"Whew, That Was a Close One"

I know that there has been lots and lots of good legislation passed in the Senate over the course of the last year. Most of it hasn't gone anywhere because the Republicans filibuster it over and over again. And not just the big stuff... even littler things like Amtrak funding gets stuck by the roadblock. And the News Anchors keep droning that "The Democrats failed" to do this or that.

And everyone thinks it's the Democrats fault.

Because no one outside the beltway knows that the Republicans are filibustering.

Because no one on the 6 O'Clock News is telling them.

And every American knows what a filibuster looks like, don't they? It looks like Jimmy Stewart, sweating and raging and losing his voice. It looks like exhausted sausages reading the D.C. phone book at 3am, with everyone else sitting there, bleary eyed.

C'mon Harry! Make those obstructionists do it out in public. Make them do it long enough that the media HAS to come around. Make them do it long enough that the media has to explain it a hundred different ways. The have to fill the air time, you know. Make the media explain it until everyone understands exactly WHAT the Republicans are objecting to.

Health Care for poor children.

Time at home for our exhausted troops.

An end to that God awful war.

When you force the media to explain it, Americans will understand just exactly what has been the problem all this year.

Please Senator Reid, .. Don't allow anymore proforma filibusters.

Best Regards
The Weary Democrat.

From AlerNet.com:
http://www.alternet.org/stories/69164 /


This article gets the context right, with info that you won't see on TV.