My Gramma's spirit carried me through many dark days

I was only too proud to carry her to her final resting place beside my mother and grandpa.

As poor as this family is with strong men who live long enough to serve their responsibilities, it was gratifying that at least six men could be found on this day of Gram's final journey. One son-in-law, one grandson-in-law, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. All of us crying.

She was light as a feather.

Ninety-five years of glorious life ... she buried two husbands and half of her children, crimes against nature which nonetheless never daunted her spirit. If not for Gram's insistence that her first-born deserved to lie next to her adoring daddy, my mother would have been lost forever in the wind and sands of the godforsaken Nevada desert. Mom preceded and waited patiently beside her father for twenty-three years to rejoin her own mother. Now I have at least one anchor point in my life where I know I shall always find the core of those I loved: Woodvale Cemetery, 7535 Engle Road, Cleveland, Ohio

Last year on a visit I asked Gram why she was so fond of life on a farm. She sparked up and exclaimed "I was a city girl! I never wanted to live on a farm ... it was your grandpa who wanted to live in the country!"

At her memorial service I said my last goodbye to Gram, and asked her quietly to come with my mom to Virginia to see the homestead and farmhouse I am restoring with Patti in homage to the life they both had lived.

I think next year I will get the chickens.

"This is the farewell kiss, you dog!"

The Iraqi journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 28, a correspondent for Al Baghdadia, an independent Iraqi television station, stood up about 12 feet from Mr. Bush and shouted in Arabic: “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” He then threw a shoe at Mr. Bush, who ducked and narrowly avoided it.

As stunned security agents and guards, officials and journalists watched, Mr. Zaidi then threw his other shoe, shouting in Arabic, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” That shoe also narrowly missed Mr. Bush as Prime Minister Maliki stuck a hand in front of the president’s face to help shield him. - The New York Times

From Wikipedia:

In the Arab world: a gesture of contempt

In the Arab world, shoe flinging is a gesture of extreme disrespect. A notable occurrence of this gesture happened in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003. When U.S. forces pulled down a giant statue of Saddam Hussein during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi detractors of Hussein threw their shoes at the fallen statue.
This may be an ancient gesture from the Middle East; Psalms 60:10, speaking of some of the traditional enemies of Judah, says that "Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe...." (KJV)
The shoe represents the lowest part of the body (the foot) and displaying or throwing a shoe at someone or something in Arab cultures denotes that the person or thing is "beneath them." Showing the bottom of one's feet or shoes (for example, putting one's feet up on a table or desk) in Arab cultures is considered an extreme insult. Examples include Iraqi citizens smacking torn-down posters of Saddam Hussein with their shoes, and the depiction of President of the United States George H. W. Bush on a tile mosaic of the floor of the Al-Rashid Hotel's lobby, forcing all visitors entering the hotel to walk on Bush's face to enter the hotel.
During President George W. Bush's surprise visit to Iraq in December 2008, an Iraqi reporter threw shoes at him during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki.

It is also what you scrape dogshit off of.

Jump! You Fuckers!

Lane in Anne Arbor MI:

"I find your approach to this economic crisis dismaying and ill-focused. I keep hearing we have a credit crisis that will cripple us economically. I don't believe this is really at the center a credit crisis, I think it is a wealth crisis. The middle class has been squeezed so hard, there is no longer any wealth in the middle to fuel our economy. The American economy and the middle class have been robbed blind by crazy laws and tax policies that have transferred wealth away from those who work, and toward those who bet we can't keep it up. I am fighting -- hopping -- yelling -- mad about it. And I am sick of hearing that the bail-out is helping me! It is not. It is still protecting the panty-waist financiers from the mess they have made."

- Email sent to Diane Rehm Show, NPR November 26, 2008

This why I keep my shotguns oiled and fresh shells lying out in the garage. When the common people take up arms and march on the arrogant elite I want to be right up front.

* * * * *
Many's the time I've been mistaken, and many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken, and certainly misused
Oh, but I'm all right, I'm all right, I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered, I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or driven to its knees
but it's all right, it's all right, for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying ... I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me, smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying. And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying.

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours and sing an American tune
Oh, and it's alright, it's all right, it's all right, You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day, And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest

-An American Tune Words & music by Paul Simon

* * * * *

Bush's Last Days: The Lamest Duck

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

- Joe Klein, Time Magazine

* * * * *

Obama adds advisors, says "Help is on the way."

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO – President-elect Barack Obama pledged on Wednesday to have an economic plan ready for action on the nation's financial crisis on his first day in office. "Help is on the way," he declared.

He also said his Cabinet would "combine experience with fresh thinking" and pushed back against criticism that he was recycling former Clinton administration officials as he builds his new economic team.

In his third news conference on the economy in as many days, Obama announced he had chosen former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to head a new White House panel to help create jobs and bring stability to the ailing financial system.

Volcker, 81, will head the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. The board's top staff official will be Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist.

Volcker is a legendary central banker who raised interest rates and restricted the money supply to tame raging inflation in the 1980s. It was a painful prescription that helped send the economy into one of the nation's worst recessions.

"He pulls no punches," Obama said of Volcker. "He seems to be fairly opinionated."

Fifty-five days before his inauguration, Obama defended his selection of former Clinton officials to help run his administration.

"The American people would be troubled if I selected a treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever," Obama said.

"What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking," he said. "But understand where the vision for change comes from. First and foremost, it comes from me. That's my job, is to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure then that my team is implementing."

Obama said he wants the new economic panel to provide outside voices for his administration.

"The walls of the echo chamber can sometimes keep out fresh voices and new ways of thinking," Obama said. "You start engaging in group-think."

* * * * *

"Whether you voted for Obama or not, it's hard to watch this crisply orchestrated transition and doubt that the president-elect both understands and relishes the great possibility of this moment. That doesn't mean he'll succeed, and it certainly doesn't mean he won't make mistakes. It means he has big ideas and big plans -- right or wrong -- and I think most people know intuitively that this is no time for small. "

- Eugene Robinson, Washington Post

* * * * *

Jesus! We might actually have elected a President who fucking "gets it" ... about fucking time.

Théâtre de l'Absurde

"Artistic articulation to Albert Camus' philosophy that life is inherently without meaning as illustrated in his work The Myth of Sisyphus. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play". -Wikipedia

Seriously ... Saturday Night Live in its' full-blown Ackroyd-Belushi heyday simply could not write anything nearly as good as this real thing ... although the "Bass-o-matic" came awfully close.

E Pluribus Unum

Four years ago, at the Democratic convention, in the speech that lifted him from obscurity, Obama said: “For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga: a belief that we are connected as one people.”

He never wavered from that theme. “In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people,” he declared Tuesday night in his victory speech to a joyous crowd in Chicago.

In that four-year span, Obama never got angry. Without breaking a sweat, he took down two of the most ruthless political machines on the planet: first the Clintons and then the Republican Party.

- Roger Cohen, New York Times

As you may know the Obama transition team has now set up change.gov as the new transition website. And as TPM Reader SB points out there's already signs of the radicalism McCain and Palin warned the country about.

I've clipped out this section of their organization chart of the US government, which you can find linked on this page.

And as you can see, not only has the president been demoted to a position under the constitution. But the vice-president (as shown by the red arrow) has had his own fourth branch revoked and been reassigned to the executive branch ...

-Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo

America, where all things are possible

Si! Se puede!

To those who would tear the world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you. The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms, or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: Democracy. Liberty. Opportunity. And enduring hope.

Out of many, we are one.

Yes, we can.

His choice?

oops ...

Wasssssup?

'Eeeey .... Opie!

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

McCain says he is going to whip Obama

Interesting.

Save your fork! There's pie

Palin found guilty of unlawful abuse of power as Governor

The laws don't apply to me.




Alaska Legislative investigation finds that Governor Palin has the right to fire Police Commissioner without cause. What was illegal was her office, her staff, and her husband applying unrelenting pressure on the Commissioner to fire a Trooper for personal reasons.

Of course, Governor Palin, the Republican National Committee, and Senator McCain deny everythin', you betcha.

For the first time in American political history, both candidates for President and Vice-President have been formally censored for ethics violations. Senator McCain by the U. S. Congress for the Keating Five influence scandal, and now Governor Palin.

The Legislative committee decision was unanimous by a 12-0 margin, eight Republicans and four Democrats.

Second debate

"He wasn't willing to say it to my face."

“All of the things they said about Barack Obama in the TV, on the TV, at their rallies, and now on YouTube … John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him,” Biden said this morning. “In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.”

- Joe Biden, speaking in St. Joseph, Missouri today

Leadership and the world economy.
Check out the size of the crowd turned out in Indiana, a chronic red state!

"I’m thinking today about my mother. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 53. She fought valiantly, and endured the pain and chemotherapy with grace and good humor. But I’ll never forget how she spent the final months of her life. At a time when she should have been focused on getting well, at a time when she should have been taking stock of her life and taking comfort in her family, she was lying in a hospital bed, fighting with her insurance company because they didn’t want to cover her treatment. They claimed that her cancer was a pre-existing condition."

- Barack Obama, speaking in Asheville, NC today

Viva la Barracuda

Cunning Stunt

Bush, McCain, and House GOP shit on the economy

Dow down single-day record 770 points.

McCain claimed personal responsibility for the bailout bill. Well, my friend, you got it.

Homosexual Representative Barney Frank offers them a reach-around it if will help.

After the House defeated a bill Monday to bail out the financial industry but also impose new federal controls on it, the Democratic presidential candidate said that McCain has "fought against commonsense regulations for decades, he's called for less regulation 20 times just this year, and he said in a recent interview that he thought deregulation has actually helped grow our economy."

"Senator, what economy are you talking about?" Obama asked.

"I read the other day that Sen. McCain likes to gamble. He likes to roll those dice. And that's OK. I enjoy a little friendly game of poker myself every now and then," Obama said. "But one thing I know is this — we can't afford to gamble on four more years of the same disastrous economic policies we've had for the last eight."

McCain? Here is what he had to say ...

"http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/campaign.wrap/index.html

FTFA: "Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain and refused to even say if he supported the final bill. ... This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country," Holtz-Eakin said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/29/obama-to-vote-on-bailout_n_130242.html

FTFA: Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama plans to return to the Senate this week so he can vote for the Wall Street bailout package. The Illinois senator is expected to support the plan, but hasn't committed yet since he's still examining the details. The $700 billion compromise legislation is up for a vote Monday in the House, with the Senate vote expected as early as Wednesday.
A spokesman for John McCain said the Republican nominee plans to be in Washington and hopes he'll be able to vote, depending on the schedule.

- rangercheese on Fark

Stick a fork in it, this thing is done.

meanwhile ... somewhere in Ohio ...

This is serious election!

"That's pathetic" ... and tonight is the first debate

“We have trade missions back and forth,” said Ms. Palin. “We do. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to our state.”

It was surreal, the kind of performance that would generate a hearty laugh if it were part of a Monty Python sketch. But this is real life, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. As Ms. Palin was fumbling her way through the Couric interview, the largest bank failure in the history of the United States, the collapse of Washington Mutual, was occurring.

- Bob Hebert New York Times

Liberal left-wing media bias

Can you say "chickenshit"? I knew that you could.

Buy MY shitpile, Henry!

Henry ... as in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Jr.

http://www.buymyshitpile.com

some times life pleases me

Ha !

Experience

Ignorance of key issues + a lack of intellectual curiosity + a desire to seem decisive and tough = a terrifying redo of George W. Bush.


And, in Alaska today, 1500 mostly female residents of Anchorage showed up to protest Palin's selection:

Lies, and the Lying Liars who tell them ...

"In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove - the man who held the previous record - said McCain's ads have gone too far," said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Media meme alert:
McCain/Palin are liars.
Expect to see more of this in upcoming weeks.
And it'll stick, despite being completely and utterly true.

- Skleenar, Total Farker

Wait, does anyone remember that one political candidate who was a governor, a "christian," was all folksy, pretended to be for small government but really was for corporate giveaways, and was found to be a liar during his campaign? Something about a DUI arrest that he lied about and covered up?

What ever happened to that guy? I bet whatever it was, it wasn't a winning election where he went on to rape the treasury, get us into a war on false pretense, illegally spied on his own people, and was caught several times lying and covering it up.

THE AMERICA PEOPLE ARE TOO SMART FOR THAT.

- timmy_the_tooth, Total Farker

- Obama campaign commercial, 14 September

Freaks

"We accept her! We accept her! One of us! One of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble! One of us! One of us!" (Seriously demented)

Talking Points Memo

Embrace the Pig, II

09.10.08 -- 11:35PM

By David Kurtz

TPM reader and film director James Mangold scripts what he wishes Obama had said today:

So. I'm talking about John McCain's economic policies, and I say: "This is more of the same, you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig." And suddenly they say, "Oh, you must be talking about the governor of Alaska." And now they're making this big fuss and, you know -- here's where most Democrats in the past would carefully and earnestly explain how I meant nothing of the kind.

Heck, I was about to do that. Yesterday, I didn't mean anything but a comment on their policies, one that was obvious to anyone who was there. But today is different. Today I am here to tell you that I am flip flopping. I've changed my mind.

Pig in lipstick. I meant it any way they want to take it.

For weeks we've all watched their low-ball ads and listened to their lies and twisted innuendo, attacks on my family and our values, community service and patriotism, all of it wrapped in our flag-- and last night I thought to myself, Barack, CHANGE isn't letting someone kick you over and over again. CHANGE doesn't mean that the only response to blatant lies, extremism and intolerance is thoughtfulness.

Maybe the reason they think they'll get away with this is they think I'm such a big lofty "celebrity" that I can't get down on the ground and fight like a man. Well, they are wrong. Lies are lies. Not untruths. Not misstatements. Not "questionable" facts. Lies. And lies dishonor our nation.

A great country, the world's greatest country, should not waste its time with trivialities -- but a wise leader cannot pretend the world is as he wishes it was. If this is the kind of fight they want, then I will give it back to them.

So let me be clear what I meant yesterday.

McCain and Palin, their policies and their demeaning campaign are A PIG IN LIPSTICK.

They are OLD FISH IN A NEW WRAPPER.

They are a threat to our future. Because they are the past, masquerading as the future.

You want to go backward -- vote for them.

Getting dirty now ... still more than a month to go ... *sigh*

My father gave me this garage

I signed the mortgage on this old house in August 1997 when the Coast Guard sent me to Yorktown to teach maritime search and rescue techniques. Since then, I was transferred three more times before I finished up my career. Setting up new households in Florida, Georgia, and D.C. naturally entailed collecting various piles of crap at each stop, and in between transfers I would end up bringing the useless (but valuable - hey! I might need that!) detritus to Wolf Creek and dump it into whatever vacant space remained.

While I first lived here from 1997 to 2000, I had a fairly glorious run of renovations. I partially redid two upstairs bedrooms and completely finished the living and dining rooms. A stupid selection of various housesitters over the years turned out to ruin most of my progress, but at one time it was there. The kitchen and bathroom have been and remain too completely horrid to contemplate, but I guess that is what the future is for.

My method of renovation is to take a wrecking bar and completely gut a room to the studs, rewire with modern materials, install insulation, then put up wallboard and wainscoting. I would also rip the ceiling down and re-use the original materials when replacing it, a choice I now regret but oh, well.

This house was balloon framed with rough cut dimensional lumber which was most likely sawn on site during original construction in the 1920s. Studs are 2-1/4" x 4-1/2" - real wood - and even my soffits are 1/2" x 10" x 10' solid pine planks. There isn't a lick of plywood or particle board in the entire place.

Between my penchant for holding on to every odd 2x4 and remnants of expensive stock materials and all the crap I have accumulated over my 52 years, this old house became cramped and crammed and damned with stacks and piles and tools and boxes and who knows whatall. It became clear to me in retirement I was choking on my own success and packrattyness. I could not get at a room to renovate it anymore for all this shit.

Plus my Harley was threatening to rot away under a tarp parked on a concrete slab beside my back deck.

Enough

= = = = = = = = = =

In the 1980s I had a falling out with my father over his treatment of my mother. I guess the only way to sum it up is I disowned him. I never much pursued just what his attitude was toward me since then. I was just happy to get away and out from under.

He became ill and died in 2006. During the settlement of his estate few facts emerged, which I have had to induce. When he received a lucrative corporate buy-out during the 1980s downsizing trend, he chose to place his substantial liquid assets into an IRA. It did and does not surprise me to learn, nor do I blame him in the least bit, for his decision to leave me alone of his four children off the IRA beneficiary designation. I had made clear I did not care to have any more of his shit, his money, or his manipulation in my life.

In the last year of his life, for reasons I will never know, my father changed his real estate trust to name me a partial beneficiary, in equal share of his survivors. Whether or not he re-considered his 1987 IRA decision at the same time is also never going to be known. An IRA takes precedence and is settled before any other estate nomination, and so I received a portion of the proceeds from the sale of his home, and nothing of the majority of his estate. But it would do.

= = = = = = = = = =

I contracted for the garage in December 2007, groundbreaking was in March 2008, and it was turned over to me this August. I balked at first over the internal debate as to whether or not spending the most significant cash infusion I have ever received on one purchase was a wise choice, but a few considerations finally won me over.

Holding money which has strings attached, emotional or legal or accidental, eats like an acid from within the one who tries to hold it. As I had learned while spending my G.I. Bill at the casinos in Reno: "All found money gets parlayed." If you find a folded fifty under the crap table, you MUST place it on the Come Line and take a roll. Do not put it in your pocket. If you have all the numbers covered and all the odds layed and the dice keep hitting and you pull an incredible wadstack from the dealers, you MUST put the boys on the Hard Ways and Proposition bets. You play found money for others. That is the Rule. Greed and small mindedness will eat your karma in gulps.

(ASIDE: This is why all politicians, including my choice Barack Obama, are tainted. At least Obama gets the vast majority of his campaign money from millions of small donors over the Internet in amounts of $100 or less, who ask for nothing more than he be as honest as possible in his promises and actions. McCain ... not so much.)

This is akin to the same karma moneysense my mother demonstrated when she finally received a divorce and property settlement from my father in 1982 after 32 years of marriage. She very quickly sold all his hoarded, beloved tools and toys at steep discount, bought a sinfully luxurious leather chair (upon which she loved to sit) at retail, and walked into a Ford dealership one day and said, "Give me that loaded red and silver Ranger. Write it up."

My mother, who had to fight with increasing venom over the years of her marriage for every single dime given grudgingly, and with strings attached, for hay for the horses, vet bills, or antiques she admired. My mother, who never worked for wages and so had no money of her own earning in her entire life spent raising four children. My mother, who at 52 still saved her chewing gum on the kitchen windowsill for later. God bless her.

When you hoard your ducats in a vault, opening the door frequently to check on all the glitter and gold like Scrooge McDuck, it kills you a little bit every time.

I decided to take the completely unexpected windfall from my father, get rid of it, and spend it all in one instance on real property which will never depreciate. To hire a small Christian contractor with two permanent employees who lives in my county, in order to circulate the money to blue-collar hardworking people in my own community. And to clear my karma account with him for life.

= = = = = = = = = =

I decided this garage is the pivot point for the rest of my life. I retired one year ago from military service, and it has taken me every day of it to reset myself from a lifetime of serving the needs and demands of outside forces controlling my life. Time now to work for my own life.

I spent the past month finishing the ground floor with insulation, wiring, pegboard, and work benches. A separate utility drop with 200 amp service, outlets waist high every four feet, centered over the benches. A 600 sq. ft. apartment size second floor stocked with hurricane and survival supplies. A gun safe rated for one hour at 1400 degrees F bolted to the concrete floor.

My cousin tells me its' design reminds her of the garage my carpenter grandfather built in Columbia Station, Ohio for his new family in the 1920s. The upstairs apartment was where my mother was born. I think it fitting and somehow deliciously appropriate that I expect to die in a place resembling the home where my mother was born. It is the closest to a family homestead that is left in this world. I have asked my 95 year old gramma to join mom in looking in on me from time to time. There are so many concentric circles of karma closing in on one another in this loop of life that I feel it can be a source of constant nourishment for my soul for the years I have left in this world. I see at least a dozen such loops manifesting just in re-reading this blog, which of course is only words on an electronic page.

After 32 years serving in defense of my country, living in an unending series of rentals, never having a place of my own, working on car parts on the kitchen table, trying to get the simplest woodworking project done in the living room, not once in my life having owned a place to park my car out of the elements, I will at last have a safe, solid, secure place to work. When you can't find a tool, you don't have it. Ask Sartre.

My mitre box at last is nailed to the workbench, and I challenge you to understand what this means.

Today I am moving things out of the house and into the garage so I can expose the rooms and walls which I still have to rehabilitate in the house at Wolf Creek.

Thank you, Edgar H. Wolf. Sincerely.

Not going for the Maury Povich vote ...

No, seriously ...

"Absolutely stunning."

I'm the Tax Man

Unfit for Publication

The man behind the smear campaign of "Swiftboat Veteran's for the Truth" crawls out of his shithole to shovel sewage again for the insatiable appetite of the right-wingh.

This time is different. This time we have a candidate who refuses to sit quietly when lies are being painted as the truth:

http://markhalperin.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/unfit_for_publication.pdf

"Once again, bigoted fringe author Jerome Corsi is trying to make money off of an
election, spinning garbage as journalism and relying on the right-wing echo chamber t
pump up sales. Make no mistake: 'The Obama Nation' is nothing but rehashed lies."

Not racist at all ... merely humor ...

Bigger than Brittany Spears

No, I am not pleased ... also, I am not your friend.

Barack Obama speaking today from my family home

He was speaking in Berea, Ohio.

90 days before the election and at last he is calling a spade a spade. And calling the Republican campaign on their bullshit.

I appreciate watching a competent man flexing his shoulders and picking up the pace.

"They know they are lying."

Holding up for public ridicule things which are in fact demonstrably true in order to score political points.

"... these guys take pride in being ignorant."

Indeed. Shameful that the mainstream media still insists this will be close in order to build ratings. It should not even be close. But then again ... in my opinion ... neither should Bush v. Gore nor Bush v. Kerry ever have been close.

And here is the incoherent opponent speaking at Sturgis:




=====================================================================
Bonus joke:
A Jew, a Christian, and Barack Obama are in a canoe.
Obama says, "there is no joke here because there isn't a Muslim in this canoe."

United We Stand

Ein volk, ein Welt

Two hundred thousand stand with America in Berlin.

Analysis from MSNBC Countdown:



The speech in its' entirety from Barack Obama website

Men with dicks predominently pass these laws, after all

Viagra, Yes! Of course.

Birth control medication is a sin!

hahahahahaha

QUIT YOUR WHINING, GET BACK UNDER YOUR OVERPASS, CLIMB INTO YOUR SHOPPING CART, AND PULL YOUR BLANKET BACK OVER YOUR HEAD. Crybaby.

Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, now soaking up gobs of money from United Bank of Switzerland explicitly for the purpose of lobbying Congress to permit the continuing rape of taxpayers and mortgage holders in this country, whose wife was not only a director on the board of ENRON during the period they ass-fucked electrical consumers across the nation by illegally manipulating powerplant production and capacity while laughing at all the suckers, but who also held a seat on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission only to watch passively while Cheney and Haliburton and Co. forcibly extracted this country's natural resources and pissed in your face all the while, is Senator John McCain's primary economic advisor.





If you enjoyed learning to pay fifty dollars to fill your car with gas, pay three dollars for a loaf of bread, hearing your electrical and heating costs will go up thirty percent come November, and riding along with America's descent neck-deep into the shithole this past year ..... you are simply going to LOVE what these ignorant devious Nazis have in store for you in the coming years.

Honestly: these arrogant assholes get me so angry I thank God the Supreme Court at least ruled there is an individual right under the Second Amendment to the Constitution. If nothing else brings this country back to its' founding ideals, there is always that.

I would much rather we solve it with intelligent voting but don't know how much to count on that. I already have my concealed carry permit, just to be sure.

Rough and ready

Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

- David Brooks NY Times

It's satire. It's dirty. It's political. It's about McBush.

DON'T WATCH IT!

(I tried to warn you)

Iowa floods

On website "barackobama.com" ....


On John McCain's website ...


... oh, yeah ... it's Father's Day ...

Habeas corpus part deux

I honestly gag at the thought that this man is one election away from running this county.

John McCain said Friday that the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay detainees is “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

The presumptive GOP nominee said the decision, a 5-4 ruling Thursday that determined Guantanamo detainees have the right to seek release in civilian courts, would lead to a wave of frivolous challenges.

“We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called … habeas corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate because we need to go ahead and adjudicate these cases,” he said at a town hall meeting in New Jersey.

McCain said he has worked hard to ensure the U.S. military does not torture prisoners but that the detainees at Guantanamo are still “enemy combatants.”

“These are people who are not citizens. They do not and never have been given the rights that citizens in this country have,” he said. “Now, my friends, there are some bad people down there. There are some bad people.”

Barack Obama released a statement Thursday saying the Supreme Court decision “ensures that we can protect our nation and bring terrorists to justice while also protecting our core values.”

“The Court’s decision is a rejection of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantanamo - yet another failed policy supported by John McCain,” he said. “This is an important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus.”

Turn Virginia Blue

Enough with these ignorant cracker-ass rednecks

Don't just sit there. Do something.

The frightening thing is it was 5-4 with Bush appointees voting to uphold

"The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

- Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the majority opinion.

The Supreme Court today did what the Founders envisioned it should do: it protected our basic constitutional guarantees from erosion and assault by a corrupt majority within the political class. In so doing, the Court took a mild though important step in reversing some of the worst and most tyrannical excesses of the last seven years. Patrick Henry warned long ago of the unique dangers of allowing executive imprisonment without meaningful process:

Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings -- give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything else! . . . Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.

- full article in Salon

There is an enormous gulf between the substance and tone of the majority opinion, with its rich appreciation of the liberties that the founders wrote into the Constitution, and the what-is-all-the-fuss-about dissent. It is sobering to think that habeas hangs by a single vote in the Supreme Court of the United States — a reminder that the composition of the court could depend on the outcome of this year’s presidential election. The ruling is a major victory for civil liberties — but a timely reminder of how fragile they are.

- NY Times editorial

President Bush on Thursday strongly disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling that clears foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. Bush suggested new legislation may now be needed to keep the American people safe.

"We'll abide by the court's decision," Bush said during a news conference in Rome. "That doesn't mean I have to agree with it." The court's decision was sure to be popular in Europe, where many leaders have called for the closing of Guantanamo.

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.

"It was a deeply divided court, and I strongly agree with those who dissented," Bush said. "And that dissent was based upon their serious concerns about U.S. national security."

Bush said his administration will study the ruling. "We'll do this with this in mind — to determine whether or not additional legislation might be appropriate so we can safely say to the American people, 'We're doing everything we can to protect you.'"

No, Mr. President, you and your henchmen are doing everything possible to scare and coerce the American Sheeple to die on their knees rather than live on their feet.