Sexual and Child Abuse A NEW GOP SCANDAL

Here we go again...

He was a member of the Mitt Romney campaign, charged with bringing in money to the biggest spending campaign. But, besides sucking up cash for Full of Mitt, Lichfield was also involved with child abuse. He quietly slinked away from the campaign but...not much has been heard about this in all the yelling and screaming over Hsu even though he's been bringing in far more money for Flip Flop than Hsu has brought in for Democrats.

Lichfield is named in a federal lawsuit charging that students of the "behavior modification" schools with ties to WWASPS [Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools, founded by Lichfield] were subjected to "physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse."

...The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Utah, alleges brazen acts of child abuse, including that students of the various programs had been forced to eat their own vomit, clean toilets with a toothbrush and brush their teeth afterward, were chained or locked in dog cages, kicked, beaten, thrown and slammed to the ground and forced into sexual acts.

And this is just one of many more scandals that are simmering in the background of the other GOP sex scandals. Remember that the Blogosphere is digging around Patrick McHenry and others...

Football News

My son's football team played Danbury last weekend and the New Milford Spectrum covered it:

the Wranglers corraled Danbury, 19-0, and the Longhorns gored Plainville, 19-13.

The Wranglers' Mighty Mite 'W' over Danbury's Vikings was built on an edge in total offense of 217 to 27 yards.

A defense which limited Danbury to a single first down was sparked by Caleb Anderson, Isaiah Jenkins, Will Roode and Andre Taylor, who chalked up an interception.

The offense was led by Trent Bryant's 81 yards rushing and two touchdowns and Mike Carrozza's 90 yards rushing.

Tim Gesualdi contributed 20 yards rushing and a TD.

Those players found plenty of holes in the Danbury 'D' thanks to the blocking efforts of Steve Herron, Tommy Gavel, Alex Davlos and Mike Simao.(edited for spelling and other- CM1)

Yeah... I'm proud of Connecticut Kid2. :) He is one of the smallest players and he isn't going to be the star player on any football team, but he is having fun and learning. All of the kids and the coaches on the team have worked hard the last few weeks and they played the entire game as a team.

Fox Caught in a Lie AGAIN

Here is Hannity and Colmes trying to tell people that there really isn't that much support for Ron Paul amongst their viewers regardless of the poll:



And somebody proves The Big Lie... Just another poll showing that Paul is the only credible candidate conservatives have and the corporate lackeys in the media hate it, ridicule it, and lie about it. Denis Kucinich and Mike Gravel get the same treatment too. And the vast majority of the American people align closer to those 3 candidates ideologically than they ever could to the rest of the candidates.

Funding Iraq occupation equals killing the troops

Killing the troops based on a pack of neoconservative republicans' lies... How many unnecessary deaths of American soldiers did your Senator or Representative buy last session?

And is Congress planning on buying more to add to their morbid collection?

Iraq Coalition Casualties:

Period	US	UK	Other*	Total	Avg	Days
6	667	38	5	710	3.26	218
5	933	32	20	985	2.39	412
4	715	13	18	746	2.35	318
3	580	25	27	632	2.93	216
2	718	27	59	804	1.9	424
1	140	33	0	173	4.02	43
Total	3753	168	129	4050	2.48	1631

To View Period Details Click The Period Number

And how do Iraqis feel about all of this?

The Iraqi newspaper, Azzaman, in a blistering editorial bluntly told Prime Minister Maliki he was “in total denial about the daily killings, the uprooting of millions of Irqaqis, the impoverishment of almost the whole country and even the imminent imploding of a whole nation.” The editorial noted Maliki on assuming office had promised to reach out to all factions, but has completely failed to take such action.

Unlike President Bush in Washington D.C., the editors of Azzaman live in daily contact with the Maliki mess.

"This is the reason why our prime minister’s conscience is in total denial of the astronomical figures of civilian casualties and millions of refugees who have fled the country or are languishing in camps inside it."

Military Sexual Trauma NOW

Via NOW on PBS:

Roughly one in seven of America's active duty military soldiers is a woman, but a NOW investigation found that sexual assault and rape is widespread. One study of National Guard and Reserve forces found that almost one in four women had been assaulted or raped. Last year alone, almost 3,000 soldiers reported sexual assault and rape by other soldiers.

On Friday, September 7 (check your local listings), in one of the only national television broadcasts of the issue, NOW features women who speak out for the first time about what happened. One woman recounts her ordeal of rape by her superior officer. Many more don't report the incidents for fear of how it will affect their careers. The shocking phenomenon has a label: military sexual trauma, or MST. NOW meets women courageously battling to overcome their MST, bringing light to an issue that's putting the Army in shame.

It should be broadcast on PBS on 9-7-07... In other words, tomorrow if you are still up reading at this hour. Today if ya catch this with your breakfast. (h/t C&L)

Riverbend Makes it Out of Iraq to Safety

Riverbend makes it out of Iraq and is alive and kicking in Syria:

By the time we were out of Baghdad, my heart was no longer aching as it had been while we were still leaving it. The cars around us on the border were making me nervous. I hated being in the middle of so many possibly explosive vehicles. A part of me wanted to study the faces of the people around me, mostly families, and the other part of me, the one that’s been trained to stay out of trouble the last four years, told me to keep my eyes to myself- it was almost over.

It was finally our turn. I sat stiffly in the car and waited as money passed hands; our passports were looked over and finally stamped. We were ushered along and the driver smiled with satisfaction, “It’s been an easy trip, Alhamdulillah,” he said cheerfully.

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.

...snip...

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.

Wishing and hoping for the best for her and her family, as well as for the many other millions of Iraqis that have left their homes in the hopes of finding some peace and safety for themselves and their families.

Could we get a little oversight here Lieberman? Collins?

Just a little oversight for a change? Instead of your typical hyper-partisan republicanista propaganda against the interests of Americans:

The Department of Homeland Security “has given up on one of its broadest anti-terrorism data-mining tools after investigators found it was tested with information about real people without the required privacy safeguards.”

We know Joe neocon Lieberman has completely ignored his responsibility to provide real oversight following the failures of Katrina, either because he is bigoted towards black people OR poor people OR because he is just a Republican bitch, though it could be some combination of all three?

It’s worth noting, however, that Joe Lieberman, as head of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, promised to investigate the government’s response to Hurricaine Katrina. From January of 2006, when Joe was running for office:

The White House is dodging questions about Hurricane Katrina response and has instructed other agencies to join it in fending off investigators, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said on Tuesday. The White House denies the allegations.

Lieberman went so far as to suggest that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to kill the investigation.

“My staff believes that DHS has engaged in a conscious strategy of slow-walking our investigation in the hope that we would run out of time to follow the investigation’s natural progression to where it leads,” Lieberman said. “At this point, I cannot disagree.”

The Connecticut senator, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, further said no real reason is being given for the administration’s reticence.

“There’s been no assertion of executive privilege, just a refusal to answer,” Lieberman said. “I have been told by my staff that almost every question our staff has asked federal agency witnesses regarding conversations with or involvement of the White House has been met with a response that they could not answer on direction of the White House.”

And once Lieberman was re-elected with no small amount of help from the GOP?

Bush’s Best Democratic Buddy Joe Lieberman gives the president a pass on Katrina.

Jan. 11, 2007 - Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

Lieberman’s reversal underscores the new role that he is seeking to play in the Senate as the leading apostle of bipartisanship, especially on national-security issues. On Wednesday night, Bush conspicuously cited Lieberman’s advice as being the inspiration for creating a new “bipartisan working group” on Capitol Hill that he said will “help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror.”

(As a side note, I think the above paragraph is a pretty clear demonstration of the fact that when Joe says “bipartisan” what he really means is “Karl Rove’s bitch.” Because nobody wants to bring the troops home more than Joe, you know.)

But since so many of our Democratic 08 candidates are current or former members of the Senate, maybe they would like to prod their colleague Joe about his promise to give residents of New Orleans an explanation for the government’s mishandling of the disaster and what happened to their lives?

But how does Lieberman feel about patriotic Americans that want to see him uphold his oath to protect the Constitution? We have a right to privacy and the department Lieberman heads, the Department of Homeland Security, flushed it down the toilet along with the Constitution.

Why should we have to rely on the GAO to keep Lieberman's department in line?

A report by Congress' Government Accountability Office cautioned last March that the program should complete privacy analyses and notify the public of how individuals' data would be verified, used and protected before ADVISE was implemented. "Like other data-mining applications, the ADVISE tool could misidentify or erroneously associate an individual with undesirable activity such as fraud, crime or terrorism," the GAO warned.

Then in separate reports released without fanfare in July and August, the department's inspector general and its privacy office concluded that between 2004 and 2007, three pilot tests of ADVISE used personally identifiable information without first completing required privacy impact analyses. The DHS privacy office concluded the tests "created unnecessary privacy risks."

This is the second such error at DHS. The Secure Flight program to screen domestic air travelers was barred from implementation by Congress after it was learned that it acquired live data for testing rather than using made-up data. That program, however, is going into testing this fall having issued the required privacy impact assessment and dropping the use of commercial data, such as people's credit card histories.

Are you so fuckin' incompetent and so hyper-partisan against our freedoms that you are incapable of running the DHS in an ethical manner? Are you so anti-American that you can't protect citizens from the abuses of illegal data mining operations by your own department?

These questions can and should be asked of Susan Collins, the other incompetent republican Senator tasked with running the DHS, as well. Lieberman and Collins, both of them bush hacks, embrace the ideals of repeated failure, incompetence, and criminal negligence with no accountability.

From an MLN diary posted in July:

From today's Washington Post:

FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers
Hurricane Victims Reported Illnesses
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 20, 2007; Page A01

The Federal Emergency Management Agency since early 2006 has suppressed warnings from its own field workers about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided trailers with levels of a toxic chemical 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers, congressional lawmakers said yesterday.
[...]
As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers, and hundreds have complained of ill effects.

What is Congress's role in a situation like this? To investigate. You might expect that Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, who chair the Senate Committee on Homeland Security—the committee that oversees FEMA—to lead an investigation. But you’d be wrong. Just as they failed to look into the incompetence that led to the Katrina disaster, Joe and Suzy have been AWOL on this scandal too.

To these two republicans (face the facts, Lieberman is a republican now) that are supposed to provide oversight of the DHS and FEMA, what are a few more dead black and poor people? Who gives a shit if the bulk of the displaced survivors are still displaced, and still in mortal danger because of something these two refused to do anything about? And who cares about Americans' fucking rights to privacy? Those are just quaint ideals to these two, these two bush ass-kissers that have embraced the neoconservative goals of an all surveillance all the time fascist society, regardless of rights entrenched in the Constitution they took an oath to uphold.

These two republicans, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, want nothing to do with providing real oversight of their departments repeated failures, want nothing to do with helping the poor and minorities, want nothing to do with protecting our freedoms, want nothing to do with an open democracy.

And they have both come to embody all things wrong and republican during the bush years.

Buzz It! if you want to...

NBC Outs Keith Olbermann

And Countdown's ratings soar!

No... This is not your typical republican type outing that you have had to explain to your kids over and over again the last few years. Last Tuesday I passed along a News Corpse story on Keith Olbermann's Sunday night pre-football game broadcast:

A resounding success for Keith Olbermann and the Countdown crew according to News Corpse:

Last night’s broadcast of Countdown on the mothership, NBC, was a major coup for Keith Olbermann and his MSNBC program.



For all the clamoring for attention that goes on amongst the cable news kiddies, they are all fighting for slices of a relatively small pie. The ratings leader, Bill O’Reilly, averages about 2 million viewers a day. The lowest rated network news program (CBS) pulls in over 6 million. So graduating to the network opens millions of doors to a cablecaster.

Olbermann, not surprisingly, benefited from this. The early results show him with 4.1 million viewers. That only earned him a third place finish, behind “60 Minutes” and “America’s Funniest Videos,” but it was good enough to quadruple his average MSNBC audience. What’s more, (and this has to hurt) it is twice what Bill O’Reilly does on an average night.

Lies about Countdown are most assuredly forthcoming from Rupert Murdoch's Republican stooge, O'Liely, any minute now... You can read more at News Corpse about why there is still room for growth in those numbers for KO and Countdown.

This is a good showing for a brand new entry in the time slot. I suspect that the football game shown afterwards may have helped his numbers a little with people tuning in expecting a pre-game show, or just not wanting to miss kick off. I wonder how his numbers compared to the game's numbers?

The key here is to see if he can replicate (or increase) those numbers when he gets slots like that again. Another good measure of how well he did might be if there is a spike, even a little one, on his regular 8 pm (EST) and midnight slots. That might be some of those NBC viewers going out of their way to find his show on MSNBC. I hope that does happen... One of his Special Comments on a prime time network would probably shake a few viewers out of their seats.

This week News Corpse comes back with numbers showing that the NBC broadcast was a resounding success and it showed in Countdown's recent ratings numbers on MSNBC:

On August 26, 2007, Keith Olbermann's Countdown was broadcast on NBC. Despite a scattered schedule wherein the program was delayed or preempted in many markets, it performed respectably, delivering 4.1 million viewers. But what I was waiting for, was to see if there would be any afterglow that reflected on his MSNBC airing. There was:

Countdown's NBC outing drives viewers to cable.

For the week ending August 31, Countdown averaged 278,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demo. That's a 17% increase over the program average for the 2nd quarter of 2007. It is fair to conclude that this spike was due almost entirely to the promotional value of the NBC broadcast. None of the other programs on MSNBC's schedule enjoyed a comparable bounce. Olbermann's numbers exceeded his 2nd quarter average (230K) as well as his prior week average (242K).

Read more on how these numbers compare to a certain regular nominee for the "Worst Person in the World!" and how this reflects not just on Keith Olbermann and the Countdown crew but, also, on "mainstream progressive news that is factual and compelling."

If you haven't seen Countdown before, here is a clip of Keith Olbermann's most recent Special Comment. These Special Comment editorials have become a fan favorite and hallmark of the show:

"Just over 500 days remain in this Presidency.

Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield.... in these last 500 days.

Consider the singular fraudulence of this President's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of The Petraeus Report... in these last 500 days.

Consider how this President has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream... in these last 500 days.

And consider again how this President has spoken to that biographer: that he is "playing for October-November"… the goal in Iraq is "To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence"… and consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered... in these last 500 days.

In the context of all that… now, consider… these next 500 days.

Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end.

Even if it means your resignation.

Even if it means your impeachment.

Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term.

Even if it means a Democratic Congress -- and those true Patriots among the Republicans -- standing up and denying you another **penny** for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.

This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country... in the next 500 days…

Not while you, Sir... are playing.

Good night, and good luck."

Partial transcript via Countdown's Blog, The News Hole.

Another Edition Of Blog Radio

ePluribus Media presents ePluribus Radio

For those who are around tonight, we are back on the air live for Don't Hijack My Thread! The time, as always, is 8PM Eastern/5PM Pacific and we hope to hear from you. Info is posted at the Political Nexus site (http://www.political-nexus.blogspot.com) as well as below. "Don't Hijack My Thread!" is an interactive discussion on today's hot political topics with a progressive slant. Join "rapid fire" hosts Adam Lambert (clammyc) and David Atkins (thereisnospoon)!

Listen Live Online!
8:00 pm EST
Call in to participate:
(718) 508-9410

Tonight's juicy list of topics include the following:

• Republican hypocrisy - the case of Senators Craig and Vitter
• Bill Richardson's spectacular implosion
• Iraq spending - another $200 Billion?
• Bush and media figures' Iraq visits vs. the reality of ethnic cleansing and the GAO/NIE reports
• "Manly" Bush admits to crying alot - is he cracking up?

Don't Hijack My Thread! will be recording another live show this week and we need callers. Think you have what it takes to sit on hold for upwards of five minutes for a few moments of radio obscurity and acute political observation?

The show is scheduled to tape Wednesday, 8:00 PM (EST), though times are subject to change and update, of course! We are still in BETA testing, after all...

For those interested in calling in, the number is: (718) 508-9410

Don't Hijack My Thread is produced with ePluribus Radio, and the site is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=40864

You can stream the show live as it airs or download it an hour after air time. The link to past shows for podcast or streaming is here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/epradio

TIPS FOR CALLERS:

• Please turn the radio off in the background when you go on air
• We can't screen callers or talk to you off-air, so be ready to state your name or blogger handle when we suddenly throw you live, on air with clammy c and the gang!
• Speak LOUD and CLEAR. We are severely limited in terms of our ability to control sound volume and even audio quality. We are looking into ways of increasing production values
• Familiarize yourself with our format and foibles by taking a listen to last week's show, linked in a previous Don't Hijack My Thread! post. Just click the media player embedded for your convenience--you don't have to download ANYTHING.

ePluribus Media

Nuns For Impeachment of Bush and Cheney?

So says Nicolle Belle at Crooks and Liars:

I think we’ve reached a tipping point, Ladies and Gentlemen:

“The National Coalition of American Nuns is impelled by conscience to call you to act promptly to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for … high crimes and misdemeanors,” the group wrote in a letter written on behalf of its board members.

The letter says that impeachment is warranted for their “deceiving the public under the false pretense that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction” and “destroying” the reputation of the United States and the good will of other nations.

“The time for impeachment is now — before the example of George W. Bush’s regime is set in stone,” they wrote. “Future generations will thank you for preserving the freedom of our nation and its relation to the entire human community.”

read more…

Proving there is a huge difference between the warmongering "Religious Right", an extremist misnomer, and the "Religiously Correct" that chose to put into action the teachings they espouse.

Bloggers Bad Buzz

Take note fellow Bloggers:

Blogger and malware

You may have seen stories in the news recently about malware on Blogger, such has this one from the BBC or this one from Committee to Protect Bloggers. Blogger was not compromised. Instead, the blog posts are from bloggers whose machines were compromised by a Trojan horse. These bloggers had their mail2blogger email addresses in their computers' address books (a perfectly legitimate use case), so when the malicious software spammed every address in their address book with its content, a copy of that email was posted to their blog.

We are in the process of notifying impacted bloggers and recommending that they scan their computers and run current anti-virus software, available in the Google Pack. This is also good advice for all computer users, especially those who may have clicked the links in the emails sent by the virus. For more information about computer security, check out upenn.edu and us-cert.gov.

Watch for notices coming your way if you use Blogger. Take note, and take care to update and run your spyware and firewalls. Also: As soon as you run them you might just want to take the precaution of changing your passwords. It is something that I have learned firsthand needs to be done regularly. My Blog was hijacked once, but I caught it before any serious damage was done.

Do Not Trickle Down My Back

And try to tell me it is raining...

Today's Hartford Courant and New Haven Register share the results of the annual Labor Day report issued by Connecticut Voices for Children, which looks at how well Connecticut's economic growth has been trickling down to wage-earners. Apparently, not very well:

The state's wage earners - low, median and high - earned less in real dollars in 2006 than in 2002, the report said.

Real wages for workers in every category are either flat or have declined, the report said. In real wages, someone who earned $18.36 an hour in 2001 earned $17.75 an hour last year, the report said.

"Health care costs are consuming a larger proportion of total compensation," said Hall, citing one reason for stagnant or declining wages. "There seems to be a disconnect between an economy that's doing well and the wages people are being paid."

The gain in lower-paying service jobs has not quite compensated for the loss of higher-paying manufacturing jobs.

The state continues to keep shedding manufacturing jobs, although the rate of loss is dropping. Those traditionally well-paying jobs are being replaced by lower-paying service jobs. "That is not a positive direction for our state economy and it is not a situation that is going to right itself," he said.

Things were different in the 1980s, when hourly workers saw real wage growth of 14.9 percent; in the 1990s, low wages dropped, but median wages increased slightly and high wages jumped the most.

The articles point out that these conditions are part of a national trend, and Connecticut Voices for Children say that wage-earners would benefit from a change in priorities:

The group is urging the state's policy-makers to strive for more higher-wage jobs, provide more child care and housing subsidies for low-wage families and invest more in education.

In a separate report issued in July, The Connecticut Department of Labor stated that; "we are now just 4,900 jobs short of our all-time high of 1,700,700 reached in July 2000."

The good news is that we're gaining jobs. The bad news is that although we have just about reached the number of jobs we had six years ago, the wages paid for the jobs being produced are not keeping pace with the cost of living.

I have never claimed to be some Economics expert... But I do have some resources that are competent in this area of expertise. And I can read these tea leaves and tell that this is bad. Really bad. This national trend is the direct result of "The Great Republican Experiment" that has obviously completely failed America since the Ronny Raygun administration and their followers started pissing themselves with extremist tax and spend conservatism and fear of the rest of the world.

Live in fear and the American free market truly dies.

Craig is Toast... Next Scandal May Be BIGGER

I shit you not... I am not even going to try and write this stuff because I don't think anyone would even believe me if I did.

Not Safe For Work:
Underage Gay Porn
(Note: Just a story about possible links,
but on a blog containing some adult material)

Safe For Work:
Gay Escort Service
Murder/Suicide
Ex-Marines
Client List?
Republicans
Republicans
And More Republicans

Getting the picture? I swear... If this turns out to be true then the GOPeeon base will be spewing all of the right-wing crack pipes they have had to swallow several times over because of guys like Craig, Allen and Foley.

[update] minor... to fix links. CM1

Iowa Judge Rules for Equality

From the Des Moines Register, and via Crooks and Liars:

A Polk County judge on Thursday struck down Iowa’s law banning gay marriage.

The ruling by Judge Robert Hanson concluded that the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and he ordered Polk County Recorder Julie Haggerty to issue marriage licenses to several gay couples.

“It’s a moral victory for equal rights,” said Des Moines lawyer Dennis Johnson, who represented six gay couples who filed suit after they were denied marriage licenses.

Camilla Taylor, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization, said the ruling requires “full equality for all Iowans including gay and lesbian Iowans and their families.”

“The Iowa Constitution has lived up to its promises of equality for everyone,” she said.

From Love Makes a Family:

Civil unions will provide needed rights and protections for couples and families in our state. But although this law is a step in the right direction, it must not remain the end product. The struggle for marriage equality has always been about more than rights and protections; it is also about dignity and respect and equal treatment under the law. Civil unions create a separate status for one class of people and as long as there remain two lines at the Town Hall—one for same-sex couples and one for everyone else—Love Makes a Family will continue to be here, working towards a day when the final discriminatory barriers to marriage are finally struck down.

The bigoted and overpaid "asparagus-studded choux pastry puffs" at the FIC Blog - A little read offshoot of the disreptuable Family Institute of Connecticut - may not understand the fact that this is just a natural progression of how of the law in an equal society works, so we can only hope that people in this State, people like Jodi Rell, will get over their homophobic tendencies and start thinking about equal rights.

Think Equal.

Bush Screws Connecticut Children

The NewsTimes gives you most of the specifics on this one:

It's a move no one seems to like.

"It seems to go counter to what we're doing in Connecticut," state Sen. Andrew Roraback, R-Goshen, the ranking Republican senator on the General Assembly's Public Health Committee, said Monday.

"We're trying to broaden the net. It's not just us -- it's what many states are trying to do. This sounds like moving in the opposite direction," Roraback said.

State Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, who is vice chairman of the Public Health Committee, said based on eligibility standards, the new Bush Administration rules could disqualify 4,000 to 8,000 children from HUSKY.

"This is a trap," she said. "Its effect will be for children to lose health insurance."

But it ain't just in Connecticut. Governor Spitzer is talking lawsuits in NY:

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Monday threatened to sue the federal government on charges that new regulations on children's health insurance violate an existing program that covers children from lower-income families.

At issue is New York's plan to expand coverage under the State Children's Health Insurance Program to children whose parents earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, from 250 percent currently.

But under new federal regulations that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published on August 17, states would have to cover 95 percent of poverty-level families before expanding access to middle-income children.

The rules also require children to have no health coverage for a year before they can join the state plans.

I hope Blumenthal will jump into a lawsuit if Spitzer decides to move forward on this. Though, I would have preferred it if we had a President that actually cared about the health and welfare of American children so that lawsuits like this - that waste taxpayer's time, resources and money - would never have to be considered.

Of course, none of this would ever be an issue if we had single payer universal healthcare.

[update] Joesaho at MLN points to this diary by Elliot Spitzer at HuffPo:

In the last year, we've seen public opinion building around the principle that no American should be denied health care. The president has answered that call by attempting to limit eligibility for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. SCHIP is a program that provides health care to children whose families make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health insurance.

The president is trying to tell governors like me across the country that until we enroll 95 percent of those eligible for S-CHIP in households making under 200 percent of the poverty line ($41,300 for a family of four), we cannot provide health care to children in families making above 250 percent of the poverty line ($51,625 for a family of four).

Make no mistake. This is a poison pill meant to deny thousands of children health insurance.

While state governments make every effort to enroll as many eligible kids as possible, there will always be some individuals who fail to take advantage of this important program. In New York, we currently enroll 88 percent of children in families making below 200 percent of the poverty level. No state has yet cleared the 95 percent hurdle.

Since many states already enroll children at income thresholds above 250 percent of the poverty level, this means that these new regulations will have the effect of forcing children who already have coverage out of the program. Moreover, New York's historic effort to provide universal coverage for children through SCHIP will not be able to get off the ground because of this bureaucratic sleight of hand.

The president surely knows this. But then that begs the question: Why would he choose to pursue this path?

This isn't about fiscal restraint. The initiative is paid for through a tax on unhealthy cigarettes and other revenue sources. This isn't about good public policy. SCHIP has been wildly successful in providing health care for nearly seven million of our nation's vulnerable children.

The actions of the White House speak to what we've all known for far too long. When faced with the choice of covering thousands of children, they'll bring up the "big government" bogeyman and then stick their heads in the sand, ignoring the realities facing working families across the country.

Maybe Craig is Bisexual?

Maybe the media is asking the wrong question to a GOP member that has been trained in the rovian skill of hairsplitting?

He denounced the longstanding probes by the Statesman -- he called it a "witch hunt" -- for inspiring him to plead guilty to the offense even though he said he was actually innocent. He said he had been "viciously harassed" by the newspaper. "I am not gay," he said twice. "I love my wife."

...snip...

His full remarks on The Statesman read: "For eight months leading up to June, my family and I had been relentlessly and viciously harassed by the Idaho Statesman. If you’ve seen today’s paper, you know why. Let me be clear: I am not gay and never have been.

Gotcha Senator...
But are you or have you ever been bisexual?
I haven't heard you deny that one yet.

Via BooMan:

Sen. Larry Craig is a weird dude. I can't relate. But it's important to remember that Craig tried to weasel out his arrest.

After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, "What do you think about that?" the report states.

Nice attempt to pull rank, dontcha think?

You can snigger about Craig's sexual proclivities and hypocrisy...he deserves it.

But you would not believe what the freak did to get hauled in to begin with...

Via Yahoo News, a few of his hypocrisies in action:

This story would not matter if Craig wasn't using his position to advance the Republican Party's officially homophobic agenda. In November, 2006, Craig flamboyantly endorsed Idaho's successful anti-gay constitutional amendment, HJR 2, which banned gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in his state. Pam Spaulding has more background on Craig's anti-gay voting record here. It's also worth recalling Craig's 1999 interview with Tim Russert in which he mocked Bill Clinton as a "naughty boy" for his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Craig is up for re-election in 2008. Will his carnality in public restrooms put an end to his career in public life? Idaho conservatives may be willing to reward bigotry, but lying is another matter.

No... No hypocrisy there. Just another typical republican gay-bashing gay man who happens to have some kind of shitty fetish. Perhaps a foot fetish as well?

Craig is now saying he is not guilty after, ya know, pleading guilty to this in court:

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has reported that Larry Craig has resigned his appointment as co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, and the campaign has accepted his resignation.

...snip...

Sen. Craig has issued a statement in response to this story: “At the time of the incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct. I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”

There is still no word from the Romney campaign on whether Mitt and Larry ever shared a bathroom. What is it with Republicans and bathroom sex? Remember Florida State Rep Bob Allen? He isn't gay either. He just offered to give a man a BJ and $20 because he thought the guy would beat him up because, ya know, all black men only use restrooms to beat people up...

You remember a little while back we brought you the story of Florida McCain campaign co-chair, Rep. Bob Allen (R). Right on the heels of Giuliani Southern Regional Chairman David Vitter's exposure as a serial user of prostitutes, Allen got caught in a Titusville park restroom offering to pay an undercover police officer to allow him to perform oral sex on him.

Now it turns out that Allen revealed the true reason for the alleged park-john-offer in a tape recorded statement he made just after his arrest.

"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," said Allen, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel. Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a "statistic."

I guess this raises the question of whether if you thought you were about to get mugged by a group of stocky black guys, your first plan of escape would be to try to give one of them a blowjob. But I guess maybe you had to be there.

One day the politicians in the GOP may figure out that most people, even most black people, actually use restrooms to go to the bathroom. The fact that some in the GOP seem think it is only a sexual playground or a boxing ring may explain why they are so full of shit.

[update]Something I wrote over at BooTrib in comments when I first read about this just in case I haven't been clear on my personal view of this in the previous snark:

How do you ascertain what a person is doing in the bathroom stall without illegally invading their privacy... I suggest that gay men find a better way to pick up guys than ever try and stare into my stall 'cause I'd kick the stall door into their face. Not because they are gay, I could care less about that... But because I have a right to privacy. And unless I have clearly heard them ask me to pass them some TP because their stall is out, I am crushing their hand if It comes under the partition because I am thinking about the wallet in my pants down there on the floor around my ankles.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled snark:

Chris Dodd, the IAFF, and Katrina

Matt Browner-Hamlin writes over at the Dodd Blog concerning a big endorsement pickup for Chris Dodd's Presidential campaign:

Dan Balz of The Washington Post previews tomorrow's announcement of the International Association of Fire Fighters' endorsement of Chris Dodd for President.

Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd picked off the first significant prize in the competition for labor union endorsements yesterday, winning the support of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) in what his advisers believe will be an important boost to his campaign.

The firefighters count 281,000 members, making them only the 10th largest union in the AFL-CIO federation. But they are among the most politically active and symbolically prized labor groups in the country because of the heroic actions of firefighters in New York and at the Pentagon when terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001.

The IAFF also was the only union to endorse Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) before the 2004 Democratic primaries and helped sustain his candidacy at a time when he was flagging in the polls and floundering on the campaign trail.
...
Schaitberger said firefighters play an integral role in communities across the country and, perhaps more significantly, understand the caucus process in Iowa "better than all the highly-paid Washington types."

Look forward to more news and updates to come - as well as a live stream of the official announcement tomorrow morning at 11 AM EDT.

MLN has some more on this:

The firefighters did great things for Kerry in the early 2004 contests. If this and other potential labor endorsements don't jump-start Dodd's campaign out of the lower single digits (and asterisks) in Iowa and NH, it's hard to see what will...

Unions like this have an awesome record of getting out in the streets and making things happen for candidates. This may be just what the Dodd campaign's spin doctor would've prescribed... Matt says to "check out these stories in The Hill, Hartford Courant, Associated Press, and The Washington Post on the IAFF endorsement of Chris Dodd for President."

Matt also asked that you do something about the situation in New Orleans on this two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastating landfall:

Today is the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall on the Gulf Coast. A new project called When the Saints Go Marching In is organizing to help the rebuilding of infrastructure lost in the disaster and they're encouraging people to lobby their senators in support of Senator Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Bill to assist the reconstruction.

This is the message on their site:

It's been two years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast region, and still there are tens of thousands of families without homes. 30,000 families are scattered across the country in FEMA apartments, 13,000 are in trailers, and hardly any of the 77,000 rental units destroyed in New Orleans have been rebuilt.

We put together this short film, "When the Saints Go Marching In," to tell several heartbreaking stories. The Aguilar family lost their home and only received $4,000 from the insurance company. Mr. Washington, an 84-year-old man and former carpenter, owned three homes prior to the storm, but is still living in a FEMA trailer. Julie can't return to her job and normal life because the government won't open the public housing she lived in prior to the storm. There are thousands of stories like this.

There is something very specific you can do to help. Sign the petition urging the Senate to pass Chris Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Bill of 2007 (S1668).

The bill is expected to come to a vote soon. Its passage will be an important step toward rebuilding the infrastructure in the Gulf Coast region. In addition to S1668, please also encourage your Senators to go further in helping the public and low-income housing residents who lost their homes in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Please pass the video on and encourage people to sign the petition. It's important we all support the Gulf Coast region's right to return home and put the needed resources toward rebuilding these families' lives.

Go sign When the Saints' petition, watch the movie, and pass it along.

Two years later and the criminal bush administration has yet to do anything substantial to resolve these many issues. America should be ashamed.

And the Numbers for Sunday's Countdown?

A resounding success for Keith Olbermann and the Countdown crew according to News Corpse:

Last night’s broadcast of Countdown on the mothership, NBC, was a major coup for Keith Olbermann and his MSNBC program.



For all the clamoring for attention that goes on amongst the cable news kiddies, they are all fighting for slices of a relatively small pie. The ratings leader, Bill O’Reilly, averages about 2 million viewers a day. The lowest rated network news program (CBS) pulls in over 6 million. So graduating to the network opens millions of doors to a cablecaster.

Olbermann, not surprisingly, benefited from this. The early results show him with 4.1 million viewers. That only earned him a third place finish, behind “60 Minutes” and “America’s Funniest Videos,” but it was good enough to quadruple his average MSNBC audience. What’s more, (and this has to hurt) it is twice what Bill O’Reilly does on an average night.

Lies about Countdown are most assuredly forthcoming from Rupert Murdoch's Republican stooge, O'Liely, any minute now... You can read more at News Corpse about why there is still room for growth in those numbers for KO and Countdown.

This is a good showing for a brand new entry in the time slot. I suspect that the football game shown afterwards may have helped his numbers a little with people tuning in expecting a pre-game show, or just not wanting to miss kick off. I wonder how his numbers compared to the game's numbers?

The key here is to see if he can replicate (or increase) those numbers when he gets slots like that again. Another good measure of how well he did might be if there is a spike, even a little one, on his regular 8 pm (EST) and midnight slots. That might be some of those NBC viewers going out of their way to find his show on MSNBC. I hope that does happen... One of his Special Comments on a prime time network would probably shake a few viewers out of their seats.

Some of you may have missed it but The NewsHole - Countdown's official Blog - live Blogged the event for shits and giggles and without much pre-show hype about that fact.

"We didn't announce it...and it's not that big a deal, but we're going to do a real-time live blog for tonight's show. For all you folks on the West Coast, tune into Countdown AFTER the game for the big show."

Go on over and give'em all some well wishes and kudos for their efforts and successes. And since many of you are probably interested in knowing... Here are the "Worst person in the world!" winners for the NBC broadcast:

More Bathroom Sexual Antics from the GOP

Via BooMan:

Sen. Larry Craig is a weird dude. I can't relate. But it's important to remember that Craig tried to weasel out his arrest.

After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, "What do you think about that?" the report states.

Nice attempt to pull rank, dontcha think?

You can snigger about Craig's sexual proclivities and hypocrisy...he deserves it.

But you would not believe what the freak did to get hauled in to begin with...

Via Yahoo News, a few of his hypocrisies in action:

This story would not matter if Craig wasn't using his position to advance the Republican Party's officially homophobic agenda. In November, 2006, Craig flamboyantly endorsed Idaho's successful anti-gay constitutional amendment, HJR 2, which banned gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in his state. Pam Spaulding has more background on Craig's anti-gay voting record here. It's also worth recalling Craig's 1999 interview with Tim Russert in which he mocked Bill Clinton as a "naughty boy" for his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Craig is up for re-election in 2008. Will his carnality in public restrooms put an end to his career in public life? Idaho conservatives may be willing to reward bigotry, but lying is another matter.

No... No hypocrisy there. Just another typical republican gay-bashing gay man who happens to have some kind of shitty fetish. Perhaps a foot fetish as well?

Craig is now saying he is not guilty after, ya know, pleading guilty to this in court:

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has reported that Larry Craig has resigned his appointment as co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, and the campaign has accepted his resignation.

...snip...

Sen. Craig has issued a statement in response to this story: “At the time of the incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct. I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”

There is no word from the Romney campaign on whether Mitt and Larry ever shared a bathroom.

What is it with Republicans and bathroom sex? Remember Florida State Rep Bob Allen:

The original news story that broke on this apparently had it backwards. I am updating this with an explanation via TPM's Josh Marshall:

Okay, finally the definitive story. Last night we were bringing you the latest on the proxy fight between the Giuliani and McCain campaigns over who could have the most prominent or outrageous campaign official involved in a prostitution scandal. Where we left things was whether Florida state Rep. Bob Allen (R), Florida co-chair of the McCain campaign, had offered to pay a Titusville plain clothes police officer for oral sex or whether he had asked to be paid for oral sex. The price, in either case, you'll remember was to be $20.

Well, mystery solved. Courtesy of TPM Reader VS we were able to track down the arrest report. As officer Kavanaugh explains in the arrest report "Allen engaged me in a conversation in which it was agreed that he would pay me $20.00 in order to perform a 'blow job' on me."

So, advantage Rudy.

Too bad that the newspapers do not correct their mistakes so easily, or willingly... But I apologize for the misinformation and the use of a news paper that turned out to be a poor source. (End of edited update except for a minor tweak at the end.)

Now... I figured I would try and find out if this guy had any of those "Family values" issues out there to hang around his neck, much like Vitter, but I figure it has to be worse than that considering the Florida Rainbow Democratic Club rates him as a "Wicked Witch", the worst rating they give ("Reserved for the absolute worst of the worst") for candidates considering support of their issues on their "Friend or Foe" page:

State House District 32 Next election: Primary 2008

Bob Allen (R) RDC Rating:

If anyone has any ideas on just what he did to get a rating that low from a gay and lesbian group in Florida please chime up, cause I am guessing it will probably be another example of just how hypocritical republicans always are. He must of pissed off them off to get that rating.

If you go to his Government homepage you can check out his bio:

Biographical Information

City of Residence:	Merritt Island
Occupation:	Economic Development/Education
Spouse:	Beth Elaine Allen
Child(ren):	Tia
Education:	Valencia Community College, A.A.
Religious Affiliation:	Protestant
Recreational Interest:	water sports

It is unclear if BJs in a bathroom stall qualify as his recreational interest?

At least neither of these Republicans pulled a full GOP and tried pick up kids like Foley...Or, at least, nothing has been proven in Larry Craig's case, but I certainly do have to say: This has got to be the worst year for political sex scandals in the history of the GOP... And that is saying a lot.

GONEzo Gonzales

They need to demand a special prosecutor to investigate all of this politicization in exchange for meeting halfway in any nomination.

This is the one opportunity they have the leverage to do so.

Here is the announcement of his resignation:



And a little correction on Gonzales statements.

Public service is noble only when it being served by someone that is not completely and totally corrupt and the morally bankrupt. You did no public service in your time as AG.

You served the GOP, and the GOP only. And you, Gonzales, butchered democracy.

The MSM is the Lunatic Fringe

What is the problem with the MSM?

"Sometime Monday afternoon, after Congressman Kucinich took a commanding lead in ABC's own online 'Who won the Democratic debate' survey, the survey was dropped from prominence on the website."

But reduced prominence apparently wasn't sufficient. By Monday afternoon Kucinich was winning handily, so ABC replaced the original survey with a second one, perhaps hoping the candidates the network is hawking would be more successful.

For a time, they were - U.S. Senator Barack Obama took the lead in early voting Monday afternoon and evening - but by late Monday / early Tuesday, Kucinich regained the lead by a large margin in this second survey.

Both Ron Kaul and Denis Kucinich can't get a fair shake in this game for the simple reason that the establishment media and their favourite candidates in both the Democratic party and the Republican won't allow them.

'George, I've been standing here for the last 45 minutes, praying to God you were going to call on me," joked Rep. Dennis Kucinich, in answer to a question on prayer.

The crowd, and the moderator, erupted with laughter.

"You have a direct pipeline, Congressman,' joked Stephanopoulos.

Unfortunately for America the media is the biggest joke in American politics...

There is a very simple reason that the corporate owned and controlled media won't give guys like Kucinich a shot:

Many of us are familiar with the Political Compass. Some at MLN even had their compass score in their signatures for a while, and even took the time to chart some of their own personal scores in March. But do you know where the 2008 Presidential Candidates sit on this political chart?

You should:

My kingdom for a real progressive candidate!

Perhaps you've heard of the Political Compass website, where you can take a test that places you on a grid based on the degree to which you are "left" or "right" on the economic scale as well as how socially libertarian or authoritarian you are.

I'm damn near as moonbatty as it gets: -6.50, -6.67, which puts me in, for lack of a better term, the "deep Southwest" of the grid.

Anyway, thanks to a recent article on London's TimesOnline, we can see how the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates fit on the grid.

This should worry those on the left, and I know that many at MLN scored even further left than I did (I am a Liberal, but I am a moderate Liberal), as they watch the next candidate chosen for the Democratic party who is nothing less than a conservative. That is, if they chose anyone other than Kucinich or Gravel. And right now they aren't even counted in the top 3 contenders.

This is where the Democratic party is failing miserably. They are not really providing any different ideology than the GOP, just a moderate version of it, if they choose any of those conservative candidates on that chart.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden... They are all conservatives, as moderate as some of them may be, they are conservatives nonetheless.

Welcome to America! Where the government is considered a tool for corporations to rob the citizens of the world for the benefit of the few in the establishment.

TPM said what?

Fascism... It ain't just for the tin foil clad Bloggers anymore:

I guess 'pull[ing] the rug' is a kinder, gentler Americanized version of 'stab in the back'. But the core message is the same. There are the troops on the one hand and their domestic enemies at home. And who will win? Andrew Sullivan has a good post on this today. Also look at Jon Chait's piece in The New Republic on Bill Kristol and The Weekly Standard.

Militarism and proto-fascist thinking isn't just something to be studied about the 1920s and 1930s. You can see it today as a growing part of our political discourse, even as the support for it in absolute terms diminishes. It is all of a piece. You cannot separate the bogus war for democracy abroad from the war against democracy and the rule of law at home.
--- Josh Marshall

It is more than just a few turns of the word, though that is always a part of it. It is, unfortunately, the actions that speak louder than any words ever could.

It is not that long ago that this nation was shaken to its core by some hard cold truths and the constant barrage of theories concerning the American government's alleged ties to groups and individuals that should never have had the chance to wield such power over the political directions of this nation:

A subtext in Talbot’s argument is that John Kennedy was killed for his opposition to the militarism that led to Vietnam, Granada, Iran-Contra, and finally the Sunni Triangle of Iraq. Obviously the mixed record of JFK’s foreign policy—with its deployment of special forces and covert operations in places like Indochina and the Caribbean—contradicts the thesis that Kennedy was killed only because he believed in pacifism. But it is impossible to read Talbot’s account of the Bay of Pigs or the Cuban missile crisis and believe that JFK would have given the Joint Chiefs a blank check in Vietnam. He quotes a 1954 statement that Kennedy made on intervention: “I am frankly of the belief that no amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, an ‘enemy of the people’ which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.”

The fact that I am loitering with skepticism near the Grassy Knoll or reviewing the confessions of E. Howard Hunt and James Files does not mean I am ready to blame JFK’s death on the mob, the CIA, Lyndon Johnson, anti-Castro elements, J. Edgar Hoover, Clay Shaw, right-wing extremists, or Lee Oswald. (Sadly, we need all the government documents and yet another investigation, with the most modern forensics. This time the Internet guys can run it.) At the same time, Talbot’s book has let me embrace the empiricism of the conspiracists, who bring to the democracy something absent in the Warren Commission: common sense and inquiring minds.

We will never really be truly certain about much of what happened in those times until all of the "Top Secret" information is finally cleared to released to the general public, and even then there may be gaps left to fill in. The longer we wait , the harder it will be to define what the real truth is.

But we can take what little information about today's politics, the bits and pieces that aren't classified, and make our best judgments based on the facts available to us. Some common sense and inquiring minds...

Take the aims of this new Clergy oriented Federal program:

When the fuck does this get taken seriously by the opposition party?

The video to your right is a shocking KSLA news report which confirms that so-called "Clergy Response Teams" are being trained to by our federal government to "quell dissent" in the event of a declaration of martial law. Pastors and other religious representatives could become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" and how to participate in property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.

Now I'm not a fan of many clergy. I've known a few who were rat bastards including the minister who fucked his teenage congregants, the boss' minister father who has sooooo saddled her with baggage that she lives her life in incredible fear, the Catholic priest who took in my boyfriend when he had to get out of his parents' house, only to try to convince him that god's will was guiding him to express his love physically for the 18 year old kid.....Pat Robertson, James Dobson, that smiling freak Joel Osteen, Creflo "Show me the money" Dollar, shall I go on?

This is an action that is here and now, and documented. The melding of the government and the church is a strong sign of fascism on the move, and a sign that we dare not ignore, especially when it is having an corrupting threesome of "quelling dissent" under a martial Law power orgy.

Past actions that should raise alarm bells, as well, as we watch them repeat themselves in the current corrupt administration are well documented throughout the internet, but rarely used as references by our corporately owned and obedient media. They would prefer to stick to the corporate scripted versions that paint beautiful hues of Democracy, Freedom and Nation Building, which are little more than codewords for empire and fascism when they are actually put into action by this government.

Check out the long, but informative, video look at some of the "Democracies" the USA has encouraged and thwarted in the past and present:

Since the American revolution, democracy has been said to be the best form of government. The notion of 'democracy' strengthened in the 20th Century as authoritarian regimes were imposed in Russia, Germany, and Italy. So, 'democracy' became a common refrain, not only during the run-up to our current Iraq war, but throughout the exercise of our foreign policy since the end of World War II. The truth is that America does not support democracy. Our foreign policy hasn't changed--it's the same as it's been for decades. Propping up dictators in Latin America didn't end in the 50s or the 70s.

It ain't a pretty picture... But as the first excerpt from TPM - from a Blogger that is only slightly to the left of the average American politician - shows that fascism ain't just a word to be used by the tin foil Bloggers anymore. It has gone mainstream with it's resurgence in today's faux Conservative politics and pretty much defines the GOP's neoconservative movement.

But, then again, so do so many other nasty words that could be used to define what has happened in American politics in the last six and a half years:

Sit back and think real hard about the ramifications of such a policy, effectively taking away all rights of Congress to create the law and putting it in the hands of presidential appointees to rewrite as they see fit.

Colin McEnroe was 100% correct. These are the actions of a tyrant, a dictator, A despot.

July 4th is a good day to start calling it what it is -- "absolute Despotism." When you use "signing statements" to gut the meaning of new laws, you're a tyrant. When you hold people in prisons without even telling them what they're charged with, you're a tyrant. When you appove the use of torture by agents of the government, you're a tyrant. When you use your armies to attack another nation that has not attacked you, you're a despot. When you mislead your people about the reasons for a war, you're a despot. When you ignore a law you find inconvenient, you're a dictator. When you send your henchmen out to destroy your legitimate critics, you're a dictator. When you overturn the work of a rightful judge and jury to protect one of those henchmen, you're a tyrant.

Let's use the right words from now on. George W. Bush is not a knave or a fool or a bully. He is a tyrant, a dictator, a despot. He has ruled as a king on the soil of a democracy. His instincts are those of a cruel and perfidious monarch.

We now have a DiC that refuses to listen to the American people.

And to this day, bush still refuses to act on the will of the American people... And the criminal bush administration constantly redefines the boundaries of how bad the American government can be in the hands of the the most corrupt when allowed to by the easily corruptible. The worst that America has to offer. And all the while, the citizens of America are losing more and more rights, and the government is giving more and more control of the levers of power to the corporations. And in the meantime the corporations are bankrupting our economy and, even more importantly, both the government and corporations are morally bankrupting our nation.

You may as well cue the fucking Taps and burn the flag so you can bury it properly along with the icon of freedom that this nation used to provide if things don't change real soon.

Taps performed at Kennedy's Funeral