Referring to Democrats objecting to Bush's Supreme Court nominees after O'Conner retired, the round mound of radio sound said (in 2005) . . . “I'm tired of these Democrats acting like they won the election. Somebody needs to stand up and say, ‘When you win the election, you pick the nominees. Until then, shut up! Just shut up! Just go away! Bury yourselves in your rat holes and don't come out until you win an election. When you win an election, you can put all these socialist wackos, like Ruth...

Have you seen the reich-wing smear d' jour. Apparently, The Washington Times blog re-printed a statement that Navy grads were requested to leave swords and umbrellas at home during the ceremony . . . which prompted the rabid right to claim that "Full Dress White includes 'wear sword'. More to the point . . . those badges of office have been earned in a manner Obongo and his minions just wouldn’t begin to understand. Important traditions that inspire are kind of lost on the red banner crowd, app...

You've heard this one over and over again in all of its many manifestations: "The top one percent pay 67 percent" or "the top 10 percent pay 92 percent of all the income tax collected" or some such nonesense. This proves again Benjamin Disraeli's contention that "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics." The idea is that because so much government revenue comes from the rich, they are over-taxed and can't be expected to sacrifice any further. Nevermind that because of many other taxes (bes...

would it have revealed something like this? Thank you all very much. Tonight, I have a privilege given few Americans except for very wealthy white men— the privilege of accepting our party's nomination for president of the United States. And I accept it with gratitude, humility and confidence. Dickheads. In my life, no success has come without a good fight: for instance, it wasn’t easy to dump my crippled ex-wife and hook up with this rich bimbo and this nomination wasn't any different. That's...

Think about it--he's got more houses than he can keep track of and spends a quarter of a million on servants. You think that every single individual in his army of employees, practically all of them working in ARIZONA AND CALIFORNIA, are all AMERICAN? Not bloody likely. Lou Dobbs would have fun with THAT story.

People say that we billionaires aren't interested in giving back to society. That's not true! When Karl Rove came to Kansas for a Republican fund-raiser yesterday, we turned out to show our support. Karl Rove is a man to be admired and extolled to the world. He stands on principle! He doesn't let a little thing like legal niceties or even the US Constitution get in the way of making the rich vastly richer. We even got a newspaper write up: Protest over Rove speech is a bit formal BY DION...

2.1 percent . . . that's not even keeping up with inflation. I can't remember a period, even the Nixon-Carter years, when the Dow has been so flat for so long. Jan 2001 Dow at 10,600 (Link) Today, seven years later Dow at 12,159 (Link) That's barely a 14 percent increase over seven years. We'd have been better off buying a bank CD. ***** Thanks to Worst. President. Ever., Democratic and Republican alike get to work a few more years before we can afford to retire. But . . . praise ...

But the agenda (of Congressional oversight) was different during the Clinton administration. The government reform panel alone, for example, issued 1,052 subpoenas related to investigations of the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 2002, and only 11 subpoenas related to allegations of Republican abuse. The panel received more than 2 million pages of documents and heard from 44 Clinton administration officials, including two White House chiefs of staff, acc...

Thanks to the NRA and reich-wingers like Todd Tiahrt, even information about CRIMINALS can't be shared by the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearm Bureau with local law enforcement. However, illegal wiretapping is on-going . . . The solution? Create a GUN-PHONE. Then the NRA and its loyal minions will fight to the death to keep law-enforcement from having ANY KNOWLEDGE of who has that gun-phone and what it's been used for. Think about it. It solves all our privacy problems . . . On edit: :sar...

I also was saddened by Cindy Sheehan's resignation as the spokesperson against the war. When I heard her speak on television, she seemed terribly weary of the entire ordeal. That's very understandable: she and people like her (people like US, in fact) are trying to change an entire political-economic-media SYSTEM that is based on war and the threat of war. It's what the 60's leftists called "The Establishment"--the status quo that has what it wants and knows how to keep it. The Establishme...

Here's my song parody. Enjoy. ***** (To the tune of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch") You're a mean one, Mr. Bush. You really are a heel. You have lied us into I-raq, For petroleum you’d steal. Mr. Bush . . . You're a bad banana Making (pause) oily black deals. You're a monster, Mr. Bush. Your heart's an empty hole. You killed and maimed and bombed them, Yet you want to bomb some more. Mr. Bush . . . I wouldn't touch you, with a (pause) thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole. You're a vile o...

Remember the Francophobe hate-mongering the right-wing wallowed in, when those "sissy snail-eating Frenchies" refused to back the coalition to invade Iraq? French fries became "freedom fries" etc. Now it appears that the Brits want to cut-and-run too. (Link) That's it for me, dammit. No more "English muffins." It's FREEDOM muffins, from now on. And "London broils"? I don't think so . . . FREEDOM broils How about British Thermal Units? Not anymore they aren't: now they're FREEDOM Ther...

Here's a review of Robert Greenwald's latest film I sent to my hometown paper. This is not copyrighted--use as you wish: “IRAQ FOR SALE” SHINES HARSH LIGHT ON WAR CONTRACTORS By Brad Radcliffe As WWII began, President Franklin Roosevelt famously said, “I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.” Robert Greenwald’s latest documentary “Iraq for Sale” suggests our current administration seems to have exactly the opposite view....

“Defending Marriage Act.” “Family values.” “The politics of personal responsibility.” Ever since 1996 when gay marriage first rocketed to national prominence, the Republicans have set themselves up as defenders of rock-solid traditional probity and morality. On January 8th, “Justice Sunday,” our nation witnessed a parade of self-righteous pols and their pious fellow travelers thundering hell and damnation for the pagans and perverts intent on “attacking people of faith." (Image) Comes now,...

Soon after 9-11, President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and the nation saying, “Americans are asking, why do <terrorists> hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. . . . They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” “They hate us for our freedoms” quickly became an oft-repeated talking point. Al-Qaeda first attacked the United ...

As discussed in part 1, conservatives love to trot out the democratic pony . . . if, and only if, it suits their purposes. When democracy runs counter to the goals of corporatism however, corporatism wins every time. We saw it in Iran in 1957 when oil interests worked through western powers to depose the elected government and re-impose the Shah. We saw it in Guatemala where the will of United Fruit trumped the will of the majority, and in South America when we installed a brutal dictator and...

We’re all Americans. Liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican, Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken, we all believe in democracy, right? It’s our core belief—the majority rules. It’s what this country stands for—free and fair elections. A quick look at history since World War II however shows us just the opposite about our conservative compatriots. They are perfectly willing to abide by the will of the majority . . . when it suits them. They are perfectly willing to pay lip-service to the idea ...

Old-style conservatives, bad as they were, had a consistent position that was at least worthy of debate—government should be smaller and less intrusive. While this had the enormous downside of providing fewer essential government services such as food for hungry children, keeping dry-cleaning solvent out of river water and smog out of the air we breathe, small government should mean lower taxes in theory. However under both Reagan-Bush and Bush II, neo-conservatives have grown government while ...