tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25918954622888399472024-03-14T03:11:02.899-04:00Non-Partisan Witch HuntPulling No Punches Since 2009RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-43239905296638576452010-08-25T19:14:00.001-04:002010-08-25T19:35:00.944-04:00Don't Let Domestic Terrorists WinTerrorism: the sytematic use of terror as a means of coercion. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).<br /><br /><div align="justify"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 140px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_y-Kto3MxSdc/SO9ea8Z0FHI/AAAAAAAAAz4/nZak7B4E8QE/s200/PAlin+ugly+face.jpg" border="0" /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sW65ilskOC8/Sg8RGz9D0DI/AAAAAAAAXaY/6WLazjW1alY/s400/NewtGingrichNYTPortrait.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 202px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 199px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sW65ilskOC8/Sg8RGz9D0DI/AAAAAAAAXaY/6WLazjW1alY/s400/NewtGingrichNYTPortrait.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/01/27/PH2009012701302.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 220px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 199px" alt="" src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/01/27/PH2009012701302.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://everseradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/glenn-beck.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 212px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 154px" alt="" src="http://everseradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/glenn-beck.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://images.askmen.com/photos/michael-savage/83851.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 165px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 153px" alt="" src="http://images.askmen.com/photos/michael-savage/83851.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.loonwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PamelaGellerUndead-e1277488194648.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 191px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 153px" alt="" src="http://www.loonwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PamelaGellerUndead-e1277488194648.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://cdn.crooksandliars.com/files/movieimages/2009/10/10481.jpg?key=1256537787"><img style="WIDTH: 210px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 174px" alt="" src="http://cdn.crooksandliars.com/files/movieimages/2009/10/10481.jpg?key=1256537787" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/image/rick-lazio-1.png"><img style="WIDTH: 182px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 175px" alt="" src="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/image/rick-lazio-1.png" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://api.ning.com/files/RCNkP20pKhlW0u1IToHOiMu4KfZfacndDRu5QnEARfzTc*xsXbu-BK3DlI5XZ25aVAzYnj9yi97EtWUbB*Raip37i-b-kesE/CarlPaladinoTellsItLikeItIs.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 172px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 175px" alt="" src="http://api.ning.com/files/RCNkP20pKhlW0u1IToHOiMu4KfZfacndDRu5QnEARfzTc*xsXbu-BK3DlI5XZ25aVAzYnj9yi97EtWUbB*Raip37i-b-kesE/CarlPaladinoTellsItLikeItIs.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2010/04/megyn_kelly_inset_nuke-cropped-proto-custom_2.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 209px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 155px" alt="" src="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2010/04/megyn_kelly_inset_nuke-cropped-proto-custom_2.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/11/1268328907316/Liz-Cheney-001.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 246px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 154px" alt="" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/11/1268328907316/Liz-Cheney-001.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.cromwellburnsinhell.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/levin-223x300.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 113px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 153px" alt="" src="http://www.cromwellburnsinhell.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/levin-223x300.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This is a wall of shame: </div><div align="justify"> </div><ul><li><div align="justify">Sarah Palin, the half governor with even less of a brain. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Newt Gingrich, consumate hypocrite, present day hatemonger. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Rush Limbaugh, drug addict and con man, populist worth 1/2 a billion dollars. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Glenn Beck.....too much to say. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Michael "Weiner" Savage, the self hating Jew who also hates gays, Muslims, immigrants, and so forth, <em>ad infinitum</em>. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Pamela Geller, rascist bigot blogger who personally supported genocidal war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Laura Ingraham, who, like Glenn Beck, supported Imam Rauf and Park51 before she was against it, [or rather, got the memo]. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Rick Lazio, former Congressman, failed Senate candidate, who uses imagery from 9/11 in a cheap campaign ad where he calls Imam Rauf a terrorist sympathizer. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Carl Paladino, an icon of conservative thought who promises to use eminent domain to thwart First Amendment Rights. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Megyn Kelly, pretty face of Fox News, master of injecting commentary into what passes for journalism. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Liz Cheney, Sith Lord, with the special power of being able to lie through her teeth. </div></li><li><div align="justify"> </div></li><li><div align="justify">Mark Levin, a man of such small character it is astonishing he can hold so much hate.</div></li></ul><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Make no mistake: these folks, among others, are using their bully pulpit to frighten both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to use the issue of building houses of prayer and worship as a wedge issue, to <em><strong>coerce</strong></em> Americans into changing their behavior and give up on their most sacred and central beliefs.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">They are to be castigated and socially cast out. They are an afront to what American means. Do not let their poison coming from the lips of others go unanswered.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">But let us not forget some heroes in this fight against the tyranny of the [m]asses:</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">Mike Bloomberg, Ron Paul, Elaine Brower: Real Americans.</div><div align="justify"><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-4npEHXMGVg/TFl_9jbhcxI/AAAAAAAAD7M/XzkOlr9-J1w/s1600/michael-bloomberg.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 249px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 191px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-4npEHXMGVg/TFl_9jbhcxI/AAAAAAAAD7M/XzkOlr9-J1w/s1600/michael-bloomberg.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/20100221_paul_190x190.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 190px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 190px" alt="" src="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/20100221_paul_190x190.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2008/11/02/amd_brower.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 140px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 192px" alt="" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2008/11/02/amd_brower.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />These are just a few who have shown the courage and conviction to stand up for what is truly right: the feedom of all Americans to worship their religion, and the right of Americans to use their private property in any way they see fit, within the boundaries of the law, a law which applies equally to all.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-72063659081529017262010-08-23T10:20:00.011-04:002010-08-24T11:08:14.889-04:00Park51: The Front Line in the Fight for Real American Values<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">If you are reading this blog, you are aware of the made up controversy surrounding the construction of a Muslim cultural and community center, which includes a mosque, about 2 blocks north of the World Trade Center site, called Park51. This past weekend there was an anti-"mosque" protest and a counter rally in support of the cultural center.</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Looking at some of the signs by those anti-mosque protesters filled me with a terrible resolve and yet great sadness. Allow me to disgust you:</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><br /><blockquote><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">"A Mosque at Ground Zero Spits on the Graves of 9/11 Victims Stand Up America"</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">"Sharia Sharia Sharia"</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">"Building a Mosque at Ground Zero is Like Building a Memorial to Hitler at Auschwitz"</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">"Stop Islam"</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">"No Mosque at a War Memorial"</div></blockquote><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">I'll stop there, because I am nauseated this happened in my city. </div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This is a fake controversy, created by racial and religious bigots, picked up by Fox News, and now pushed to this point. I hate to remind such hatemongers like Pamela Geller, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the knuckle draggers so secure in their own self evident superiority in the eyes of some amorphous creator: this is the United States of America; if you hate the central creed of this great nation, then leave.</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">As for all those overly sensitive persons who think "it's too close," I have to ask: "Too close to what? Why?" I say to them: "Stop conflating one group of Muslims for another. Muslims are not fungible. There are many sects, just like in Christianity, and it is simpleminded to lump them altogether."</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Islam, like Christianity, runs the gamut, from right to left, and high minded to low. A Catholic or Presbyterian would not want to be lumped together with the Westboro Baptist Church or the Christian Identity Movement. Yet that's what everyone against the Park51 project is doing to them, who are members of the peaceful, mystical Sufist sect. If you don't know what Sufism is, or why this is relevant, then look it up and learn something.</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Now, to salute a truly great American, Elaine Brower, one of the founders of a group called the New York City Coalition to Stop Islamophobia. She was inspired by her thrice deployed Marine son to action when he said to her:</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><blockquote>"Mommy, I thought we lived in America. I thought I fought for freedom. What's going on with these people?"</blockquote></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Ms. Brower is not Muslim. But she answers the clarion call of the central freedom of our nation, and is not cowed by the doomsayers or the inflamed emotions of event he truly righteously angry. But she sees through the fog of emotion and hatred to that which is the prize: the inexorable march forward of this nation toward freedom for all citizens.</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">It is always easier to go with the herd and pick on the unpopular kid. It is always more difficult to defend the downtrodden against the unthinking masses. These days it is American Muslims that are the class peon, and Elaine Brower is standing up to the bullies.</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">And make no mistake: those ignorant, dour faced, flag waving, angry sign holding, hate filled crowds are the bullies. Even if they think they are right.</div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The Park51 project has become, unwittingly, the front line in the fight for religious freedom and cultural acceptance in the United States. There is no compromise with hatred and ignorance. I implore Ms. Brower and the principals of the Park51 project to not back down. Don't let the bigotry of the masses frighten you. You have the power of the Constitution and the righteousness of the promise of this greatest of nations behind you.</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-55258032950312742872010-08-17T20:01:00.002-04:002010-08-17T20:10:02.931-04:00Faux News Exposes Itself: Fair and Balanced Is Finally Just a SloganIt has been reported today that the parent company of Fox News, News Corp., has donated $1,000,000 to the Republican Governors' Association. Uh, okay.<div><br /></div><div>I suppose the standard Fox set for itself, "Fair and Balanced," a standard it never actually tried to live up to, has finally been exposed to be nothing more than a slogan, mere puffery.</div><div><br /></div><div>It means that no one - not Bill O'Reilly, nor Sean Hannity, nor Megan Kelly, nor the braintrust that anchors Fox and Friends - can in good faith claim that they are reporting the news without spin, or that any interview conducted is evenhanded.</div><div><br /></div><div>I never believed Fox News was fair and/or balanced. But now, by the very actions of the parent News Corp., Fox News, they of mighty rating and poor journalism, has been publicly reduced to what they have always been: the mouthpiece of the right wing of the GOP.</div><div><br /></div><div>It seems that some lyrics of one of my favorite bands applies here:</div><div><br /></div><div><blockquote>"Pat yourself on the back and give yourself a handshake, because everything is not yet lost."</blockquote></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-43792625560247992882010-08-15T11:28:00.012-04:002010-08-15T12:32:38.625-04:00Dear Sharron Angle, About Those Second Amendment Remedies.....<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dear Sharron Angle,</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">You famously said the following in January:</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 33px; "><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."</span></span></span></p></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 33px; font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:22px;"><p style="font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now I will agree with you, in basic substance, that the Second Amendment is the final check on a real tyranny. I'm not sure that spending too much, bailing out AIG and the automakers and reforming healthcare really qualifies as a tyranny, but I digress.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It is also true, and I am sure you'll agree, that the right to marry whom you want is a fundamental right. Even the Supreme Court has said so, like in </span></span></span><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Loving v. Virginia</span></span></span></b></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, 388 U.S. 1 (1968).</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At present the case of </span></span></span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Perry v. Schwarzennegger</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, wherein a Federal judge initially appointed by Ronald Reagan and confirmed under George H.W. Bush, Vaughn R. Walker, found that California's Proposition 8, outlawing gay marriage was unconstitutional, is likely heading to the Supreme Court of the United States of America.</span></span></span></span></span></i></b></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Judge Walker found that Proposition 8, among other things, violated the due process clauses and equal protection clauses, and was based on stereotypes and prejudices which are out of date. It was an act of supreme courage in our balkanized times.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sharron, it is obvious that once this case reaches the Supreme Court which way 8 of the judges will vote. We all know that the liberal block of Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan, and Ginsburg will most likely vote to uphold Judge Vaughn's ruling, and that the activist conservatives of Alito, Scalia, Roberts the Umpire, and Thomas will do Constitutional gymnastics in order to find some lousy reason to reject it. Then there is the wild card of Justice Kennedy, and upon him ride the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans who only want to get married and be miserable like the rest of us - just kidding!</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So let's say that Kennedy goes with his activist conservative pals, like he did on the abominable </span></span></span><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">C</span></span></span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">itizens United v. FEC</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, wherein he wrote the opinion, and created out of whole cloth a corporate aristocracy from nothing.</span></span></span></span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Let's say they overturn Judge Walker's decision, and reinstate that blessed example of a tyranny of the slimmest majorities, Proposition 8, and in so doing remove a fundamental right from approximately 10% of American citizens, and throw equal protection under the law under a bus, as well as a long line of cases, including </span></span></span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Loving v. Virginia</span></span></span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span></span></span></i></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I think we can all agree that the gay population of the United States is probably not the most heavily armed demographic. I know very few gays who know what Mossy Oak [tm] is, much less own any. But I was wondering what you would think is the appropriate </span></span></span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Second Amendment Remedy</span></span></span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> - your word, not mine - for a group of people that have most certainly lost a </span></span></span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">fundamental right</span></span></span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> by an </span></span></span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">actual tyranny</span></span></span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of a majority, and to have that removal upheld by a bunch of unaccountable activist jurists sitting in their ivory tower, answerable to no one.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Anyway, get back to me when you can, but before Election day. I know a lot of people that would be interested in your answer, myself most of all.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">TTFN,</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 14px/18px arial; width: auto; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">RayRay</span></span></span></p></span>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-85001040485137332010-08-08T16:54:00.004-04:002010-08-08T20:24:13.232-04:00Change the Fourteenth Amendment? Step Away from the Stupid!<div style="text-align: justify;">I have heard a lot these days about amending the Constitution, namely the Fourteenth Amendment. These calls have come, during the midterm election year, solely from the GOP, and in particular the Republican leadership: House Minority Leader John Boehner, Senators John Kyl and John McCain of Arizona, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to name just the highest ranking, Senator Lindsey Graham. Let me say it right now: this is not just a bad idea, it is a thinly veiled cynical strategy to invent a wedge issue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Fourteenth Amendment is probably, when taken as a whole, the single most important amendment to the Constitution. It is among the first civil rights legislation in American history, and almost certainly the most sweeping. It forced, for the first time, the states to abide by the Bill of Rights, which the states had been free to ignore before 1868. It was written with the express intent of creating American citizens from non-citizens, which in our present day includes the children of illegal immigrants.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For those of you unfamiliar with the Fourteenth Amendment, here's the complete text:</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 27px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">"Section 1.</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.</span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 19px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Section 2.</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Section 3.</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Section 4.</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.</span></span></p></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 28px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Section 5.</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">"</span></div></blockquote><div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Conservatives have waved <b><i>A LOT</i> </b>of signs and made <b><i>A LOT</i></b> of in the last two years about the Constitution. Yet there appears to be a lot of consternation on the right about what they actually like about the Constitution. Some have called for a repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment - you know, where <b><i>WE THE PEOPLE</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> actually vote for our national senators. Why does the hard right hate freedom?</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now we have them clamoring to change the Fourteenth Amendment because of that pesky first sentence of Section 1. Apparently, conservatives belief it is their birthright to deny the right of citizenship as a birthright, so long as they do not approve of the parentage of such people. It's not as if one can control where their parents are living when they are born.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is an old libel at work here. That old libel is that of the "anchor baby," as slanderous as the once popular conservative mantra against public assistance known as Cadillac-driving welfare queens who have the babies just for the money, 'cause that's where all the money is. No one has ever met one of these welfare queens, just as no one ever met an anchor baby.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No one comes to to the United States of America to have babies. They come to the United States of America for the same reason every person after Columbus came here: to build a better life for themselves and their families. And as our Founding Documents make clear, the rights enjoyed by American citizens are not bestowed by any government, but are a natural result of our Creation. So who we to deny what both the Creator and our wise fathers saw fit to set down: that everyone born here is a citizen, owing fealty to our national creed of hard work and liberty, and owed equal protection under the law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now let's be clear about something: Congress cannot pass a law, and the President sign that law, which would in any way alter fundamentally how an Amendment to the Constitution operates. Therefore, any call for "looking into" or "holding hearings" on changing the Fourteenth Amendment is simply balderdash, a distraction from the very real failure of the GOP to have any agenda aside from "We're not the black guy in the White House" to run on in the midterms. That's about as plain as I can say it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In case you didn't pay attention in your civics class, to amend the Constitution or an Amendment requires whatever changes or additions to be passed by supermajorities [66%] of each house of Congress, as well as then being ratified by three-quarters of the states, or 38. California, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Washington and Oregon, through either their Congressional representation or their state legislatures, are more than enough to prevent this from happening. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So why propose the impossible?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Furthermore, and not for nothing, but the natural born citizenship of the sitting President is <i>still</i> fodder for tabloids and right wing blogposts. Allegedly 1 in 4 Americans has a question about President Obama's place of birth. This mendacious narrative dovetails nicely with attacking the Democrats for not dealing with illegal immigration through changing of the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This is doubly dishonest because the GOP has a recent history of saying "No" to everything, even to matters which they had either previously backed or proposed, and this includes immigration reform.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, as with all the numbskull calls to either build a wall along the Mexican border, or find and deport all the illegal immigrants, no one takes the long view. Okay, let's amend the Constitution to prevent the children of illegal immigrants from being citizens. Great. Now where are they citizens of? What if mom is from Ecuador and dad from Guatemala? What happens to a now instantaneously created permanent underclass of stateless infants? And how does the government react to any of this without growing larger and more imposing? Will mothers now have to carry documentation of their child's citizenship every time they enroll in school, go to a doctor, or a hospital? Finally, who will pay for this, or more importantly, will this pay off for us?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The short answer is "no." No one thought any of this through beyond screwing over people with brown skins. Personally, I like creating new citizens - it increases the population, and therefore the tax base, so we can all continue to enjoy the the success of our nation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-11132609961307963642010-08-07T15:16:00.004-04:002010-08-07T16:06:05.285-04:00Between the Bombs, and After<div style="text-align: justify;">Yesterday marked the sixty-fifth anniversary of the day the Enola Gay dropped Little Boy onto the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The result was a miniature sun, a pillar of fire, and the immediate extinction of 80,000 people, with many tens of thousands of deaths to follow within the next year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This Monday, August 9, will mark the sixty-fifth anniversary of the day that Bockscar dropped Fat Man onto Nagasaki, vaporizing anywhere from 40,000-75,000 additional people. As with Hiroshima, many tens of thousands more would die within the next year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, would give a radio address on August 15, 1945, stating Imperial Japan's intention to unconditionally surrender. What happened in the 9 days between the annihilation of Hiroshima and Hirohito's surrender?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are some who have questioned the decision to drop the atom bombs on Japan, and some have sought to revise this history to reflect present day regret. I, being a student, albeit amateur, of the art of history, am always hesitant to revise it. Yes, there are times when the popular story told to 7th grade social study classes might give a certain spin or gloss over inconvenient facts. But at the university level I found that my study of history revealed many hard truths.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of those truths is that the decision to use nuclear weapons against Imperial Japan was probably the right one. This is not to say that, since it was the correct decision, there is not a price to be paid. America still has not, in its national soul of souls, come to grips with that horrific Faustian bargain, and Japan's national character has been indelibly altered, for better and worse, because of it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While it was, militarily and politically, the correct thing to do, that does not mean it was the moral one. If there is karma, or a price to be paid in final judgment, those chickens have not yet come home to roost. As for Imperial Japan, as terrible a price she paid in her defeat at the hands of the United States, it cannot be said that she did not have it coming. And when I say that I am not labeling Hiroshima and Nagasaki payback for Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was, taking the long view, a justifiable attack on a military target, with a limited [some 3,000] number of casualties, largely confined to military personnel. In other words, Pearl Harbor was no Nanking, no Korea, no Bataan. Pearl Harbor was, relatively speaking, small potatoes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So about those 9 days - what happened? Well, at first Imperial Japan took Hiroshima on the chin. That's says something about the testicular fortitude of the Japanese people. After Nagasaki - three days later - it became clear to them that they were risking national suicide. Unfortunately, the idea of immolation for the sake of jingoistic pride was okay with several members of the Ministry of War, who then attempted a coup to prevent a surrender.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Known as the Kyujo Incident, the coup was attempted on August 14-15, and thankfully failed, otherwise there might have been up to three or four more cities turned into lakes of fire and the denizens reduced to photographic shadows. Failing that, the United States and her allies would have been forced to invade the Home Islands, and the human costs would have been even more terrible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, looking back at this now somber time in the first days of August, let us remember that there are times when the most terrible decision is sometimes the right one, but that may not allay the final judgment on all of our souls when the day of reckoning arrives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is also instructive to the point that revising history to tell the narrative that is either more expedient or palatable is the wrong path, and the powers that be in Texas and elsewhere should take heed. For failure to learn the lessons of history shall only doom their repetition.</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-11344385567651741232010-07-31T13:53:00.006-04:002010-07-31T16:23:57.000-04:00Anti-Defamation League: Your Stupid is ShowingBetween my seven month old twins and the complete idiocy of what passes for political discourse these days, I haven't written for over 5 months. However, the debate over whether a group of Muslims may open the Cordoba House - an Islamic community center including a mosque - two block north of the World Trade Center site has brought me back out of my cave.<div><br /></div><div>And it wasn't the vacuous statements of Sarah Palin, nor the bald bigotry of others like Newt Gingrich, or the general insanity of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity [hey, that rhymes!]. No, it was that the Anti-Defamation League has thrown in with the likes of them.</div><div><br /></div><div>The ADL's self proclaimed mission statement is as follows:</div><div><blockquote>"The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens." See it at http://www.adl.org/about.asp?s=topmenu</blockquote></div><div>However, with respect to the proposed Cordoba House, the ADL has decided that "feelings" trump reason, conscience, and law. (For example, see: Amendment 1 to the Constitution). The ADL's statement on the Cordoba House? Here it is:</div><div><blockquote>"Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain --unnecessarily -- and that is not right."</blockquote>Catch that? Reason, conscience and law matter not. Feelings matter most. Especially since we're talking about Muslims. Imagine the self righteous, apoplectic anger that would result if it were an American Muslim community fighting to prevent something like the building of a church, or a synagogue, a memorial to American soldiers, or one to September 11, or perhaps a memorial for the Holocaust. This is a disgusting display of anti-Muslim hate that is but thinly veiled. And I expect it from some, but not the ADL.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead of taking the high road - the hard road, the tough row to hoe - the ADL has gone for the cheap thrills of divisiveness and religious hate. The fact remains it is easy to pick on the unpopular kid. Just ask Gov. Jan Brewer, the perpetrator of the single most cowardly political act of 2010, until the ADL went all anti-Islam. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, having thrown in with cheap, slimy faith hustlers like Palin, Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), and Carl Paladino, the ADL has defamed itself and everything it stands for, and done a great deal to undermine its great history of courage in the never ending struggle for civil rights and equal protection. Kudos. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's the bigotry, stupid. You know, the stuff you said you were there to fight against.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anti-Defamation League: you are dead to me.</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-84657885241758816302010-02-26T12:14:00.007-05:002010-02-26T21:07:37.651-05:00Sarah Palin is Petarded<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Sarah Palin is the political equivalent of bonbons. She is also like the STD herpes: the gift that keeps on giving. She has put her foot in her mouth so many times she probably has a gotten treatment for hoof and mouth disease.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Most recent case of her special brand of leaping before looking was when she decided to courageously take on "Fox Hollywood's" animated "The Family Guy" when they had a character who had Down Syndrome, just like her youngest son, Trig.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">While Trig was never brought up, nor was the character a send up of the mentally disabled, nor were there any jokes made at the expense of the mentally disabled, the character did say that her mother was "the former governor of Alaska." Therefore, this was made out to be, in true Palin fashion, an attack against Trig, and therefore she felt "another kick in the gut."</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Palin would rant on Fox News, and she had her teenage daughter, Bristol, write a piece on Palin's Facebook page. This was around February 16.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">That's when Sarah Palin got, as they say in some quarters, "Pwned."</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Apparently, Sarah went off half-cocked, again [see: "paling around with domestic terrorists"], not knowing who she was talking about, as the voice actress, Andrea Fay Friedman, was born with Down Syndrome. That information was released around February 18, just enough time for Sarah to make the rounds to her job on Fox News to whine about Fox Hollywood.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Ms. Friedman told the former governor that she needs to get a sense of humor, and that the bit was not an attack on Trig, but rather a matter of "sarcasm."</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">While only a sometime purveyor of The Family Guy, at that moment I discovered an entire new respect for the show's creator and key voice actor, Seth McFarlane. He laid a perfectly baited trap and waited till he saw the whites of the molars in the back of Palin's always flapping mouth.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Notice there has been a good bit of silence from Caribou Barbie since then. That's the sound of failure.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Now, for the record, Ms. Friedman did make the following dig against Sarah: "My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes."</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 25px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Ouch.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">But this brings me to my second point: Sarah Palin has set herself up as the defender of the mentally disabled, but all she seems to do is exploit the mentally disabled, and by extension, her son Trig.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Now, Palin has also set herself up as a hunter and firearm enthusiast, but I never really believed it. I have been dubious about her claims as a hunter - a google search of photos reveal only two photos, and it is not clear whether the ex-gov actually shot the animal in question, or just posed next to it. After all, what politician worth any salt misses a photo-op?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(68, 68, 68); line-height: 33px; "></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Also, a similar google photo search reveals only 3 photos of Sarah Palin holding any sort of firearm: a posed one with a trap shotgun, opened, and over her shoulder; another of her reloading a trap gun at a range; and another with her using what appears to be an M-4 on some sort of electronic shooting range, the only photo [and there is a video on youtube] where she is holding a firearm in a "ready" position. And she doesn't look particularly comfortable with it. Not an experienced marksman.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Added to this is that her former future son in law, Levi Johnston, said she was not a hunter nor did she know how to handle weapons. While he, as a source for anything Palin related, might be questionable, of all things to blow her spot up about, why this one, unless it is true? He is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but such a dagger goes to the heart of Palin's self made credentials.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">So, when I read in the news today Palin would be the keynote speaker at the annual national meeting of the National Rifle Association in Charlotte, North Carolina, I couldn't help but think that she was using the NRA the same way she uses Trig.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">While I am sure Palin loves her son, she also has no difficulty exploiting him, using him and his disability as a sword and shield for her own shortcomings. But she has little interest promoting the interests of others like Trig, evidenced by her behavior, most recently in this Family Guy flap. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Similarly, I doubt she is a hunter, much less a true shooting enthusiast. But she can lay some good digs on Obama, like how is is working now to ban all guns, at the NRA meeting.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The NRA, incidentally, treats gun owners the same way Palin publicly treats Trig: as a sword and shield, but never really standing up for their interests. They love to drum up drama and fear, as drama and fear equal dollars into their coffers, and in the pockets of perennial Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. They, and he, would rather lose fights to make money than stand up for responsible and beneficial gun ownership. More business than civil liberties group.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">So perhaps this is a match made in heaven, but I doubt it. Palin is going to a friendly environment, going to bash the president for things he has not done, nor will ever do, and they will love her for it.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">And pay her a pretty penny, I am sure. Well, maybe they are all petards, and they deserve each other.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 25px; font-family:Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size:medium;"></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size:13px;"><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"></span></blockquote></span></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-17700271612406137412010-02-14T16:18:00.007-05:002010-02-14T21:14:16.388-05:00The Road to Hell is Paved With Intellectual DishonestyHey there, true believers, RayRay is back with his first post of the new decade. I am truly sorry for my failure to post earlier, but I do have two excuses.<div><br /></div><div>My first excuse is that my newborn twins keep my attention away from The Witch Hunt. Those little buggers can take a lot out of a man by the end of the day.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second excuse is that I have become extremely tired of the political scene, that "politics as usual" are unusually terrible. From feckless Democrats to shameless Republicans, I have been on an unofficial hiatus from politics, because I just can't take the brainless stupidity, from the "retarded" to the sublime.</div><div><br /></div><div>To highlight this despicable dynamic I shall use the current, and ridiculous, "debate" about global warming and climate change, and I shall endeavor to use unassailable facts to make my point.</div><div><br /></div><div>To recap, conservatives have used the recent blizzard on the East Coast as demonstrable proof that global warming is a debunked hoax. I assure you that the knuckle-draggers at odds with some 90% of publishing scientists who study climate change are incorrect, and here is why:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) it is known that the climate of Earth has fluctuated throughout the 5 or so billion years it has existed;</div><div><br /></div><div>2) in the past the Earth had periods of intense warmth, for instance, during the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, when the dinosaurs walked the earth;</div><div><br /></div><div>3) carbon dioxide, CO2, among other gases, are known as "greenhouse gases" because they absorb heat and / or infra red wavelengths of light, and do a similar job on sunlight as the glass of a greenhouse does. You can prove this for yourself with two makeshift greenhouses, two lamps with lightbulbs of the same wattage, and by putting a small piece of dry ice in one of the greenhouses;</div><div><br /></div><div>4) until recently humans released a tremendous amount of chloroflourocarbons, aka CFC's, which reacted with the ozone in the upper atmosphere. CFC's were used a propellants and refrigerants. Ozone (O3) is a molecule which just so happens to absorb the higher intensity wavelengths of sunlight known as "ultraviolet," and our CFC emissions have put a sizable hole in the ozone layer, permitting more energy through the atmosphere and to the surface of the planet;</div><div><br /></div><div>5) since the Industrial Revolution humans have begun to burn what we now know as "fossil" fuels for energy. Fossil fuels include petroleum, coal, and natural gas. These are called "fossil" fuels because they were once living things, either plant or animals. Incidentally, these animals and plants whose fossils we burn lived at a time when there was a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere, and the Earth was much warmer, and we are busy re-releasing that same CO2 back into our atmosphere;</div><div><br /></div><div>6) naturally occurring vulcanism accounts for a large amount of what we term "air pollution," but even if this pollution accounts for between 50-75% of known air pollution, that means that human activity accounts for the rest. In a closed system, such additional pollutants become significant over time, much like the expected weight gain of a person who normally ingests a 2500 calorie diet who decides to eat 100 extra calories per day. By the end of a year, that person will have gained a significant amount of weight; the same type of dynamic is at work in our atmosphere. Taken together with the known damage to the ozone layer, which permits more energetic sun rays through the atmosphere, it is inescapable that human acts influence the climate, and that the double effect of more energy into the system is coupled with the dynamic that more energy is absorbed by it;</div><div><br /></div><div>7) the last decade was the warmest on record;</div><div><br /></div><div>8) both the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets have retreated visibly. The nations whose borders extend above the Arctic circle have begun to formulate plans for the sea lanes expected to open up as a result of this. There is a dearth of sea ice for polar bears, and the permafrost of both North America and Far East Asia has begun to melt, causing the steady collapse of villages which were built upon them; </div><div><br /></div><div>9) in April of 2009 the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica collapsed. It was the size of Jamaica. The average temperature around Antarctica has risen 3.8 degrees F in the last 50 years;</div><div><br /></div><div>10) glaciers around the world, from the Rockies to the Alps to most famously on Mount Kilimanjaro have begun to retreat or disappear;</div><div><br /></div><div>11) Senator James Inhofe, perhaps the most vocal deniers of global warming, is a Young Earth Creationist. He denies the overwhelming scientific evidence as to the age of the Earth, the universe, and various other scientific truths. Being on the same side as Sen. Inhofe in a scientific based argument is akin to arguing you weren't drunk driving because you didn't crash your car. Alongside the likes of Mr. Inhofe we have such intellectual luminaries as ex-Governor Sarah Palin [who could see Russia, but not melting permafrost, in Alaska], Glenn "Hari-kiri" Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush "I did not straw purchase illegal narcotics through that woman" Limbaugh. Arrayed against this veritable think tank of scientific brilliance we have merely a bunch [read: 90+%] of stupid "scientists," people who foolishly devoted their lives to studying the "why's" of the universe instead of getting into the lucrative industry of punditry. How's that scientific method workin' out for ya?</div><div><br /></div><div>When all is said and done, global warming is NOT a political issue. But because some people see Al Gore on one side of an issue, or because some people get their grants from the American Petroleum Institute, or just because some people read the Book of Genesis as if it were a science text book, we have this, among the stupidest of political debates. It pains me to have to actually have such idiocy as part of our political discourse, as it is a mere hairsbreadth above debating the veracity of the Theory of Evolution or the Big Bang or if the Earth actually goes around the Sun. It comes down to an argument over, on the one hand, a) vast scientific consensus versus b) inane, uneducated opinion based political posturing for, at best, scoring short term political points, with a bumper sticker slogan.</div><div><br /></div><div>To then argue, in self imposed ignorance, that the recent storms prove anything, is sheer intellectual dishonesty, and the worst kind of political posturing, as it only inures to the detriment of all of us.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, if there is an afterlife, I hope that these foolish deniers of what is otherwise rather solid science get to look upon Earth from the Hell they are surely headed to for their sins of bearing false witness and for their greed, and see their children and grandchildren suffering for their sins in the temporal world. But this would be cold comfort for me, as I don't think there is an afterlife, and I must hope that the masses realize the evidence before their eyes before it is too late.</div><div><br /></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-27630984138353114962009-11-25T19:17:00.007-05:002009-11-25T20:11:03.428-05:00Sarah Palin: Leave the Foreign Policy to the AdultsI learned of this Sarah Palin gem just the other day. While being interviewed by Barbara Walters, (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgizfYZFPC8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgizfYZFPC8</a>), who is an interviewer a few grades above Katie Couric, Palin let slip with this missive regarding Mid-East policy:<br /><br />Palin: "I disagree with the Obama Administration on that. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon because that population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people are going to be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. and I don't think the Obama Administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish<br />settlements cannot expand."<br /><br />Walters: "Even if it's Palestinian areas?"<br /><br />Palin: "I believe the Jewish settlements should be allowed to expand."<br /><br /><br />This is so distressing simplistic, not to mention outright cruel toward the misery of the Palestinian people and their [usually self defeating] national aspirations, that I really am at a loss for words. Remember, this is a person who wants to be President of the United States. It is also distressing that she has such little regard for the property of others.<br /><br />Honestly, aside from a quixotic and myopic world view, what is behind this opinion? Why should the settlements be allowed to expand? Further, I cannot square her opinion that the United States has no right to tell Israel what to do in occupied Palestinian territory, even though we all but guarantee its existence with our aid, yet she is four-square behind our very questionable war in Iraq. Can she possibly rectify this?<br /><br />Of course it goes without saying that the settlements are a political football in Israel, with large swaths of the population not supporting them, or their growth, and rather, look at the settlers as right wing religious radicals endangering Israel with their insistence on occupying what the Palestinian people see as their land.<br /><br />Her statements about Afghanistan were equally simplistic. According to Mrs. Palin, our goal should be to listen to [Gen.] McChrystal. Ummmm, with all due respect, that's not a goal. When asked again "What should be our ultimate goal?" Mrs. Palin responded:<br /><br />"Afghanistan, the people there, the government there should be able to take over and to have a more peaceful existence there for the people that live there without American interference, if you will."<br /><br />Mrs. Palin: Afghanistan has been a hellhole of warring tribes since at least the Soviet invasion of 1979. There are at least four major ethicities and multiple languages, not to mention tribal and clan rivalries. Though NATO is fighting one group of people there numbered in the hundreds, perhaps the low thousands - that's al Qaeda, there has been an ongoing rise in the Taliban since they were toppled in 2001. See: <a href="http://www.military-world.net/Afghanistan/2387.html">http://www.military-world.net/Afghanistan/2387.html</a>.<br /><br />And not for nothing, but after inheriting the political brownout that is Afghanistan, within which the Bush Administration did just enough to not succeed over the course of seven (7!!) years, Obama is not "dithering" if he is taking some time - a few days? - to consider what should be done in a land so exquisitely hostile to foreign invasion that it already had a history of defeating two superpowers. Before spouting off at the mouth the most famous quitter in recent memory should perhaps learn a little bit about those subjects she seeks to be in charge of.<br /><br />And what happened to the conservative principal of not talking ill of a war President? Won't that upset the troops, shaking their confidence in their Commander in Chief? Just saying.......RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-63841003025588432452009-11-18T15:49:00.005-05:002009-11-18T16:20:37.869-05:00Newsflash: Everyone Guaranteed Same Rights Under the Constitution!An inconvenient truth, to be sure, but everyone is entitled to the same rights, and in particular, even the nastiest scum-suckingest dirtbags this side of the Khyber Pass.<br /><br />I know it doesn't sound right, but that's the bottom line. We don't get to choose, on the basis of <em>sympathetic and emotional reasons</em>, who is entitled to avail themselves of their rights under the Constitution. That's because those rights are, in the words of the Founding Fathers, <strong>"endowed by their Creator."</strong> [see: The Declaration of Independence; Fifth & Sixth Amendment to the Bill of Rights, etc.]<br /><br />Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound fair. But if the government can, <em>sua sponte,</em> decide who is entitled and not entitled, then they aren't really <em>rights, </em>are they? More like privileges bestowed upon children who do their homework before supper.<br /><br />So, even when such scum-sucking dirthbags like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are, after criminal investigations by foreign countries, captured by foreign services in a non-war zone, and turned over to the United States for interrogation and trial in connection with their various crimes, then at that point he is entitled to a fair trial under our Constitution. That's the breaks.<br /><br />That's our Constitution and those are our laws. If you don't like it, then go live in another country.RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-70975714203256991792009-11-17T13:08:00.004-05:002009-11-17T13:27:25.185-05:00New York City: Tough Enough to Try Khalid Sheikh MohammedNotwithstanding the protestations of former United States Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, as well as some others, like Mike Lupica, New York City is the perfect place to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. First: this is the situs of his crime. Second: we deserve first crack at this killer. Third: this is how the justice system is supposed to work.<br /><br />No, a military tribunal is NOT the place to try him. Zacarias Moussaoui was properly tried and convicted in a 5th Circuit District Court in Virginia, and we, as a nation, were better for it. We showed him and his ilk that even filthbags of his type can receive a fair trial under our (superior) system of justice and government.<br /><br />And so it should be for Mohammed. <br /><br />No, he will not be permitted to grandstand by a Federal judge. No, the court will not be turned into a circus. Yes, he shall be given a fair trial, as his Consitutional right, and he will be fairly convicted. And then he will spend a long time in Federal prison, rotting away, until he is executed, if it comes to that.<br /><br />Rudy's arguments ring hollow. He was strongly in favor of trying Moussaoui - what changed since then except the President? Military tribunals, with their air of being a kangaroo court, will not suffice, especially for a defendant of this magnitude. As for the "extra risk" cited by Giuliani - what risk? That New York City is going to become a target for terror? Been there, done that. Twice. Such should not be a concern when meting out justice.<br /><br />Also, terrorists, by their definition, seek to <em><strong>terrorize</strong></em> a population into changing their ways. If we change our ways to suit KSM and his alleged acts, and abrogating our Constitution in the process, are we not giving in to the wishes of those same terrorists?<br /><br />Let us not permit Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his lousy brethren, to change our ways. Let us demonstrate the superiority of our ways by giving him the fair trial he Constitutionally deserves, and then the punishment he has coming to him.RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-69189954350570800912009-11-15T16:16:00.001-05:002009-11-15T16:32:43.040-05:00Palin the Destroyer: The End of the Republican Party as we Know it?<div>From the far northern wastes of Alaska came a politician like no other. Wild, beautiful, religiously conservative to the extreme, mavericky, roguey, pit-bully and a full on hockey mom with lipstick. She descended on the Republican Convention from out of nowhere as the newly minted vice-presidential candidate and delivered a tour de force of an acceptance speech. Verily, the halls of the DNC trembled at this woman who would be king by her own hand. But, and some would say luckily, the fates were not impressed, and she appeared to be vanquished. </div><div><br /></div><div>But the fates sometimes work in mysterious ways.</div><div><br /></div><div>The idea that Sarah Palin could destroy the Republican Party occurred to me shortly after the 2008 Presidential Election. I saw how many conservatives openly despised John McCain, apparently because he wasn't hot under the collar to check the content of a woman's womb and had some convictions of his own [campaign finance, for example]. But he was reliably conservative in just about every other way, not to mention he fit nicely into the militarism fetish so popular with conservative circles, and said everything right in his stump speeches about nominating strict constructionist conservative judges.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet Palin excited a certain sector of the GOP base so much that she eclipsed the top name on the ticket as a draw. People seemed to hang on her every [disingenuous] repetition that she said "Thanks, but no thanks" to the bridge to nowhere. The audiences got so fired up at her claims that Barack Obama was the BFF of a domestic terrorist that some began to believe Obama was a member of The Weather Underground, even though he was in grade school during their brief existence of radicalism.</div><div><br /></div><div>I never thought my gut instinct would prove correct, and that Sarah would recede back to governing Alaska. She had, after all, cratered in the eyes of about 66% of the American populace after famously whiffing on softball questions tossed under-hand by the cream-puff journalist, Katie Couric. Seriously, if you can't give one newspaper you read, or one Supreme Court case you disagree with, you are not informed enough to be president. Sorry. She also made clear that she was challenged when it came to such other matters like forming cogent sentences or making sense when talking without a teleprompter.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then Sarah quit her day job of being governor, saying it was done, and that she didn't want to be a lame duck with only the second half of her term to be completed. At this point I thought she was finished for good, that there was some Federal indictment waiting to be disclosed or that her soldier son was being discharged for violating "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."</div><div><br /></div><div>Boy, was I reading the tea leaves wrong. Somehow Ms. Palin inserted herself into the healthcare debate, notwithstanding the utter vapidity and stupidity of her "death panels" claims. But the Palinistas ate it up, happy to believe anything coming from between her lips. </div><div><br /></div><div>Even though she was eventually rebuffed, and her strident assertions vitiated, Sarah Palin has not gone quietly into that good night. Most recently she has joined forces with the master astroturfer, Dick Armey, in the search for Republican Party purity. </div><div><br /></div><div>Her first foray into witch hunting her fellow Republicans was in the 23rd Congressional District in New York, where a special election was held to fill a seat left vacant after Republican John McHugh was nominated to be Secretary of the Army in the Obama Administration. This seat has been reliably Republican since Reconstruction, or the 1870's for all of you who never studied American history. Enter Sarah Palin. Instead of backing the local GOP pick, Dede Scozzafava, she instead backed Doug Hoffman, a man who didn't even live in the district. Why? Because Scozzafava is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and was pro-stimulus bill. Aside from those considerations, she is a reliable Republican, pro-gun, pro-hunting, pro-small business. But Palin, as the pretty point-woman for her pals, labeled her a liberal and a RINO, and drove her from the race, giving the election to the Democrat, and thus creating the verb "to Scozzafava." While there is a late breaking recount in the district, which may eventually throw it to Hoffman after the absentee ballots are counted, the damage to party cohesion has been done. You can now count the number of national Republican officeholders in the northeast on one hand.</div><div><br /></div><div>There is now a concerted effort by a significant quarter of the GOP to get more votes by enforcing party purity and moving the party even further to the right. When you think about this it becomes difficult to see the logic, but that's what's behind Sarah Palin's and Dick Armey's foray into the NY-23. We will surely see primary challenges to Republican incumbents deemed not sufficiently conservative in election cycles to come.</div><div><br /></div><div>To kick off this silly notion, and to put a truly fine point on it, reliable conservative Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), listed as the 15th most conservative senator by the National Journal, has been Scozzafavaed in his home state. It was reported in the November 12, 2009 New York Times, Graham was censured by the Charleston County Republican Party "for many of the positions he has taken that do not represent the wishes of the people of South Carolina, such as: passing cap and trade energy bill, bailing out banks and granting amnesty for illegal aliens." </div><div>When conservatives like Graham, who are truly conservative yet also have integrity and intellect and an admirable ability to compromise, are driven from the party, the GOP will be an even more laughable shell of itself. The Party of Lincoln and the Party of Reagan will have become the know-nothing party of that wild, lawless barbarian politician from the northern wastes, Palin the Destroyer.</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-55220427043021237582009-11-11T11:52:00.004-05:002009-11-11T12:31:27.542-05:00At the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month...Ninety-one years ago today The Great War, The War to End All Wars, The First World War was brought to a close. The artillery barrages continued until the last minute, and then the armistice went into effect. What would then become known as Armistice Day would eventually, over time, morph into Veteran's Day here in the United States.<br /><br />I suppose the name change was required as the First World War was more a prelude of horror to come, and in fact, many more wars, with millions more veterans, have come to pass. And are still ongoing.<br /><br />The First World War was possibly the worst war for the common soldier - never has the field of lethal projectiles ever been as dense, either before or since. But the battlefield and its terror has not abated, and in fact has only grown to encompass all the places a soldier might be deployed. Notwithstanding the inhuman conditions at the front in World War One, there was a safe area "behind the lines." Today our soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan do not know such a luxury. Nor did the soldiers who fought in Vietnam. And of course, enough cannot be said about our veterans of the Second World War and the Korean War, who slogged through some of the worst conditions, as hot as Hell or as cold as Hades.<br /><br />Today the Witch Hunt honors our veterans in all of our wars, past and present, declared or not, and humbly thanks them for their service when they were called to duty. You do us credit.RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-57407853487832228432009-11-09T17:15:00.007-05:002009-11-13T15:43:22.352-05:00The Night They Brought The Wall Down: Twenty Years Later<div>It is amazing to me that it has been twenty years since they brought the Berlin Wall down. I remember watching in absolute shock as the denizens of Berlin took hammer and pick to that great division and brought down the single most telling and literal symbol of the Cold War.<br /><br />I was 15 at the time, a sophomore in high school. Myself and my peers are probably the last generation to grow up during the Cold War, where NATO and the Warsaw Pact stood ready to defend their economic and social ideologies with all the weapons at their disposal, even the unthinkable ones.<br /><br />Those were the beginning of some heady times. After Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev decided to dispense with the hardliners in each of their nations and come together as human beings, and talk to each other, the cracks in the Soviet edifice began to show. But the fall of the Berlin Wall was the actual death knell of the Soviet Union and her satellite states.<br /><br />I visited the Soviet Union with my high school in the winter of 1991, and from what I was told it was like visiting a completely different nation from the former trips. Were we tailed by KGB agents? Sure, but even we could spot them. And the everyday people in the street were openly friendly to us, unlike in former times when they were afraid to be seen consorting with Westerners.<br /><br />For years peace began to break out all over the globe. The Russians, and their Eastern European brethren, began to cry for freedom, be it artistic, political or economic. And they got it. Except for some hot spots where Communism held down ethnic rivalries and national aspirations, like Yugoslavia and Chechnya, a new day seemed to be dawning.<br /><br />It even got to a point where Arab, Russian and NATO troops, lead by an American coalition, invaded and freed Kuwait from Saddam Hussein and his summertime invasion. And there even hit a point where, as a senior in college, I thought that there might even be peace in the Middle East, with the handshake on the White House lawn. That dream ended with a bullet in the head of a great man, Yitzhak Rabin, from a gun shot by a fellow Israeli.<br /><br />My friends and I have often looked back at the days of our youth, where the Super Powers deployed great armies upon the land of Europe, and great fleets above and below the waves of the Seven Seas, with wonder and a bit of fondness. While I can still, with a bit of effort, still feel the fear of the nuclear Sword of Damocles which hung over the head of all mankind, all of us pine, at least a little bit, for the stability of the Cold War.<br /><br />For since then it has not been all roses. Tens of thousands were massacred in brutal civil wars in the Balkans. Authoritarian governments have retrenched in Russia. Peace never took hold in the Mid-East, and in fact, several more small wars have been fought between Israel and her Arab neighbors. Authoritarian China has come onto the world scene as the new economic super power, and appears to have foregone a switch to a liberal democracy before adopting capitalism.<br /><br />The religious Islam the United States courted to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was, unfortunately, left to its own devices after the USSR pulled out of that country. Left unchecked these men would then attack America, at first abroad, and later on our own soil. They were the watershed of the Post Berlin Wall world, now the Post 9/11 world.<br /><br />Back in the Cold War you knew where you stood, and where everyone else stood. Alliances were rock solid. Even terrorists were the proxies of one side or the other. In the end all disputes went up the ladder; and if they had to go high enough, and the big guys got involved, people jumped when they were given the word. Nowadays things aren't so clear. Check that: they are not clear at all. Everyone has an agenda. National politics, without the threat of total annihilation, have taken a dreadful turn, with labels used by both sides completely out of proportion with whatever argument they are supporting.<br /><br />Yet the continuation of the Cold War, as a detente or an arms' race, would have been unconscionable. Thinking in terms of just resources wasted on ICBMs makes me angry, for these are weapons we had no intention of using, but had to have "just in case." Military minds and strategic thought were not thinking straight back in the 1950's and 1960's, when the call for thousands of nuclear devices went out. And each of these devices were tens, if not hundreds or a thousand, times more powerful than the firecrackers the United States [rightly] used on Japan.<br /><br />By the 1980's there was a palpable undercurrent of fear in all the populati<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sv3EmmpaEhI/AAAAAAAAADA/HsEkVU5PHxc/s1600-h/Time+Mag+Pershing+II.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403691295402758674" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 243px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sv3EmmpaEhI/AAAAAAAAADA/HsEkVU5PHxc/s320/Time+Mag+Pershing+II.jpg" border="0" /></a>ons of the world, or at least I felt it to be so. Nuclear weapons and the arms' race was always a huge matter in the news. I can recall several different covers of Time magazine dealing with either nucelar arms talks, or the deployment of one weapons system or another, and in particular the Pershing II, which some say did a great deal to bring the USSR around.<br /><br />I was a child of people who grew up with air raid drills; hiding under their desks; duck and cover. We children of the mid 70's didn't such have things to cling to or terrify us. By then it was rather common knowledge that nuclear hostilities were the end of it all. What brought people completely around, though, was seeing it in movies. At least that's my opinion.<br /><br /><em>The Day After</em> (1983) by ABC[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG2aJyIFrA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG2aJyIFrA</a>] and <em>Threads</em> (1984) by the BBC [<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN8-VP810aA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN8-VP810aA</a>]are two terrifying movies, with truly horrifying attack sequences, the links of which I inserted above. These two movies, in my estimation, brought home the complete pointlessness of the nuclear arsenals, except to keep at bay another nuclear arsenal. Their entireties are also available on Youtube, and I highly recommend both of them.<br /><br />The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago today. An entire generation has grown up without it, and without the fear of the invasion of the Red Hoardes from the East, or the complete destruction of everything. But this same generation has bore witness to the instability of the Post Wall Era, the Era of the 9/11 World. We are now 8 years after the Fall of the Towers, as painful a memory as I have. But our world is none the better for it. Like it or hate it, our nation is still mired in a conflict in Afghanistan, with an enemy almost too small to defeat; and we are still heavily deployed in Iraq, though mercifully it does appear to be more stable.<br /><br />These times offer me no comfort, even the cold comfort of mutual assured destruction. While the United States, nor any Western nation, nor even most Asian nations, faces any sort of existential threat, as were the Super Powers and their respective alliances were to each other, there is no stability. At home or abroad. It's as if the removal of the USSR as a threat and counterbalance to the United States has thrown off the kilter of the world, leaving all of us off balance.</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-27992557776765980222009-11-07T13:14:00.003-05:002009-11-07T13:42:01.964-05:00Capital Vices: Dick Cheney's Casual Relationship With TruthThe unindicted co-conspirator cum-former vice president, who is presently worshipped by the right for "keeping us safe," [even though he vice-presided over the biggest failure to "keep us safe" in American history], who is attempting to foist his truth and integrity challenged daughter Liz upon national politics, none other than Dick Cheney, pulled an Alberto Gonzalez when interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the Valerie Plame Affair, where a CIA agent under cover was outed for the sake of political payback by the Bush Administration.<div><br /></div><div>If you recall, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, was convicted of lying to investigators and obstructing justice in connection with this scandal. When interviewed about Libby's notes, which indicated Libby had learned of Valerie Plame and her identity as an under cover agent for the CIA <i>from</i> Cheney, Cheney would respond to investigators 72 times that he did not recall.</div><div><br /></div><div>Apparently, lack of memory was epidemic at the Bush White House, which is convenient considering the various acts of incompetence, dishonesty and malfeasance committed there. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bill Clinton lied under oath in a civil deposition. About an extramarital affair. No one died as a result. Nor was national security compromised in any way. Yet this was the underlying cause of the Republican attempt to unseat him via impeachment and trial by the Senate. To the present day the name Clinton is spat out by conservatives and right wing commentators, largely as a result of this episode.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dick Cheney lied to Federal investigators about political payback where a CIA agent under cover was outed, and her career ended, because her husband uncovered and made plain the lies of the administration regarding a <i>casus belli</i> which lead us into a war where now 4,276 Americans have been killed, not to mention the untold thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yet the mindlessly hawkish and partisan conservatives will not relent and give up the old criminal, undermining the integrity of the neo-conservative worldview and its criticisms of the Obama Administration, which, incidentally, includes justifying torture and undermining the Constitution because of fear.</div><div><br /></div><div>And this is the same crowd crowing about "freedom" from medical care, but absolutely swoon over the PATRIOT Act like it's the bees' knees, and love it when the NSA performs warrantless wiretaps in abrogation of the law and all concepts of American justice. Will someone restore some intellectual vigor to conservative thought? Please?</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-19928550305675682762009-11-05T10:29:00.003-05:002009-11-05T10:40:42.554-05:00Happy Guy Fawkes Day!The title of this post has nothing to do with its contents. Rather, I just wanted to remind the people of the gunpowder, treason and plot.<br /><br />That said, I have a little rant about these ballot measures, namely the recent Maine popular vote, as well as California's Prop 8 of 2008, which give cover to the haters in our nation when they choose to divide us over what are otherwise fundamental rights - whom to marry, make a family with and associate our lives.<br /><br />The cover is that these measures, being a popular vote, make the denial of Civil Rights seem the will of the people. But that is simply the tyranny of the majority at work, something which is abhorred by a Constitutional system of government. Respect for minority opinions is a piece of the bedrock upon which our Republic is founded, and, parenthetically, one of the problems with trying to export our system to places which have no such liberal tradition, like Iraq or Afghanistan.<br /><br />Think of it this way: when the case of Loving v. Virginia came down in the 1960's, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws (laws preventing blacks from marrying whites), do you think a ballot initiative rolling back this case would have passed in Alabama or Mississippi? Or Vermont?<br /><br />This is the problem with having a simple majority decide fundamental and/or Civil Rights. We The People are, though better than most nations, not much better than a mob. And such fundamental matters, like who is a person's spouse, or next of kin, or who should have a say in end-of-life matters should not be left up to the mob or which side has a better turnout on a given election day.<br /><br />In the end it demeans the concepts of a constitutional democratic republic, respect for minorities, and Civil Rights. For if the mob can decide who is permitted to marry or not, based on little substance beyond a phobia of a given minority, then the door for more abuses of mob mentality is left ajar.RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-7790944994312474922009-11-04T13:46:00.009-05:002009-11-04T14:20:43.585-05:00November Comeuppance<div align="justify">It looks like both sides of the aisle got some comeuppance yesterday. And we will be hearing the chattering classes parse yesterday's election results as if they were reading tea leaves of absolute truth. </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">But these are my observations:</div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><ul><li><div align="justify">- John Corzine, a weak incumbent in a state, New Jersey, which is in a constant state of flux, was destined to lose to any challenger with enough Moxie. Congratulations to Chris Christie on his victory. And condolences for having to now govern New Jersey, the state voted "Most lacking its own identity." As far as national politics goes, this registers as a C- on the Witch Hunt scale of importance. Yes, it is good for the GOP to have won the statehouse. But it is not that big a deal, as Jersey fluctuates the party of its governor regularly. This is not a repudiation of Obama as much a repudiation of Corzine, who did a bad job and never delivered on his promises.</div></li><li><div align="justify"></div></li><li><div align="justify"></div></li><li><div align="justify">- The Virginia election, where the GOP was also victorious, also registers relatively low. I give this one a C+ in importance, if only because Virginia was one of the new "blue" [geez, I hate the color coding of America] states in 2008, and it would have kept Obama rolling and the GOP on its heels. Again, not so much a repudiation of Obama, but more of one than the New Jersey results. But we'll hear about this like it was the second coming of Ronald Reagan.</div></li><li><div align="justify"></div></li><li><div align="justify"></div></li><li><div align="justify">- The 23rd District of the Great State of New York went to the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, who narrowly defeated the Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman. This one is, for me, elucidating, inasmuch as a ton of national media attention was poured onto this race, mostly because the Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, dropped out after being pressured by national conservatives, namely Sarah Palin and Dick Armey. Apparently, Scozzafava was not conservative enough, and in the quest for absolute ideological purity, specifically the desire to invade wombs and prevent gays from marrying, Palin and Armey, those scions of Northeast politics, drove her out. Then they selected a guy who isn't even from the district, who had little idea of the "parochial" interests of the area, and who lost. In a district that had been reliably Republican since the Civil War, more or less. I guess this might be a repudiation of Palin and Armey and GOP purity. Or maybe not. As for impact, I give this race a C, and only because Palin got burned.</div></li></ul><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="left"> So, the Democrats, feckless as usual, failing to deliver, have been given a wake up call. Maybe they'll pull their craniums out of their rectums and actually do something with their massive majority. And let the Blue Dogs be put on notice: failure is worse than doing something unpopular.</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"> But the GOP has also been given a wake up call, and I hope they hear it. We need a counter balance to the Dems, and "No" just isn't it. And the alarm ringing this morning was that party purity is not a winning ticket, it's stupidity; and while Palin and her buddy Armey are really ideologically pure, national political strategists they are not.</div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"> Finally, I would like to place a pox on the houses of all those ninkompoops who voted yesterday in Maine to repeal the law permitting gay marriage. You guys suck. I mean that. What you did was mean, hurtful, and hateful, and I don't care that you think your opinion matters. Suck eggs. And the backers, be they the Catholic or Mormon or other churches: you suck, too, using Christ as your aegis for hate and divisiveness. Really. I think if churches want to be this involved in politics, fine, but then we get to tax the crap out of you. </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"> Now I also want to start my own stupid petition regarding marriage: I want to ban marriage for all the other proscriptions as set forth in Leviticus. That means if you eat shellfish, an "abomination," you are not allowed to be married. Wear cotton/rayon blends, also an "abomination," then you too shall be denied marriage. Oh, you like bacon cheeseburgers? Abomination, no marriage for you. Any takers?</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-90642061336147828092009-10-27T20:42:00.005-04:002009-10-27T21:07:06.317-04:00October Observations<div style="text-align: justify;">It has been a while, and I apologize. Times are a little crazy, and time itself has not been a commodity I have had a lot of. That said, here are some Autumnal Observations for all of the Witch Hunters:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">Today's New York Times had a byline, on page A19, which reported that in California a gang rape, wherein 6 men, over the course of 2 hours, raped and beat a 15 year old girl outside of her high school during a homecoming dance, was witnessed by a dozen people who did nothing. If this is not a case study in favor of a strong carry and concealed law, I don't know what is.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">It appears that Harry Reid has found his manhood and put it out there he is proposing a healthcare bill with a public option. Olympia Snowe is displeased, but so what? Last time I checked, she was in the minority party, with about 18 fewer votes, none of whom want to vote for healthcare reform, with or without a public option. It is refreshing that the lie of bipartisanship can be finally put to bed.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Joe Lieberman, (I - CT), really doesn't like his job anymore. After campaigning for every Republican he could get within arm's reach, he has announced he will join a filibuster against any bill with the public option. Good for him. </li><li style="text-align: justify;">Sarah Palin, the most popular quitter of recent memory, should perhaps stay out of New York State politics. She is presently backing the Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman, against the Republican Dede Scozzafava, for the Congressional election in the upstate 23rd District. The Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, is overjoyed. However, Newt Gingrich is not, as he believes the infighting, essentially over the concept of party purity, will weaken the party nationally. Palin is joined by such New York stalwarts as Dick Armey, now of the inaptly named Freedomworks, and Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty. Scozzafava's crimes against the GOP? She is pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. But she has a triple A rating from the NRA - my kind of Republican.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">The above story gives me great pause over the issue of government intervention in people's lives. Is it me, or is it a form of cognitive dissonance to say that the government can tell consenting adults how to order their family, or if a woman should have an abortion and make such a crime, but cannot pay for everyone's healthcare out of taxes. Hmmm...</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">Until next time Witch Hunters: keep the fires burning. And I shall endeavor that the next time shall be sooner than the last.</div></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-79715937021825150982009-10-03T14:35:00.003-04:002009-10-03T14:58:38.599-04:00A True Hero Passes: Rest In Peace, Marek Edelman<div style="text-align: justify;">The New York Times reported today in its obituary section the passing of Marek Edelman, M.D. He was 90 years old, and lived in much of his later life in Lodz, Poland.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Few people know who Dr. Edelman was, and until today I was among those ignorant of his mark upon history. But it would be little exaggeration to say there are few among us qualified to shine his shoes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dr. Edelman was the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. If you never heard of this incredible, three week long event, then please look it up. Suffice it to say that 220 young Polish Jews, with a very few handguns and hand grenades, temporarily halted the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, stopping the all mighty Wehrmacht in its tracks, and holding off a German force more then ten times their number.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Their story is one of the myriad tales of true heroism, grit, and intestinal fortitude that the Second World War has left with us. But the history of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has always had a special place, where the few stood against many in a hopeless fight, as if to say that they would not go quietly, and perhaps to save a few of their own. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Theirs is a story of true heroism, where the righteous find themselves in a man made Hades, and yet do not succumb in utter hopelessness at the futility of their stand against evil incarnate. This man fought the Nazis and their henchmen with his bare hands as he watched them kill his loved ones, and he not only survived but left his indelible mark on his foe and lived to tell the tale.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He is an example of a real hero, when regular people rise to the unimaginable challenges placed before them, and even if they may not succeed, they are to be hailed simply for their perseverance in the face of unimaginable adversity.</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-33546052991845362862009-09-26T11:11:00.009-04:002009-09-28T15:51:57.544-04:00Confederacy of DuncesThere is a myth in the circles of those who study history that the American Civil War was <i>not</i> over slavery. Rather, those who take this view narrow the underlying <i>casus belli</i> of the Civil War to States' Rights, to a fight of Americans to preserve some sort of freedom. <div><br /></div><div>In a way they are right, but only when the white elephant of slavery, the freedom to enslave their fellow man, is ignored. And to this end it becomes apparent that in order to have made such a cause for war that rich planters, particularly in the Deep South such as Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina, convinced poor tenant and yeoman farmers from Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina to die. And to say it plainly, the cotton moguls of their day convinced the poor whites of the South to die in the hundreds of thousands for the freedom to own human beings and do what they would with this human chattel.</div><div><br /></div><div>By the grace of God, or despite it, this war of the South was lost, at the most terrible cost in human lives. And none of the enlisted men of the South who fought and died, or were maimed, or just scarred by the carnage of the first industrial battlefield and total war would have ever, in a million years, owned a slave, or a plantation, or ever have been privy to the Southern Gentility they were fighting to preserve. They were fools fighting to preserve the fortunes of tycoons, paying for human flesh in bondage with their blood.</div><div><br /></div><div>These are the thoughts which raced through my head as I watched my fellow Americans come together in Washington, D.C., on September 12, 2009, to protest the prospect of healthcare reform and a public option, holding signs lauding the absent Glenn Beck and the rude Congressman Joe Wilson, waiving around the Stars and Bars [that rag of Southern treason] and the idea of secession. I kept thinking how these people in their thousands [not the hundreds of thousands or millions, as some would prevaricate] and how many of them appeared to be stolid working and/or middle class. From the twanging accents I heard from those interviewed a lot seemed to come from former Confederacy.</div><div><br /></div><div>There they were, their great host gathered from across the nation, to protest reform, and to keep the <i>status quo.</i> They were there in the name of freedom: the freedom of gigantic multinational corporations to make medical decisions for them; their freedom to go bankrupt from skyrocketing medical costs; the freedom of insurance moguls to make more money in a week from premiums and denying coverage than the protesters would make in a year. They were protesting for the freedom to die from lack of medical care. </div><div><br /></div><div>And the cause of Mr. Wilson's absurd outburst, that illegal immigrants might receive medical care, only undercuts all of the Jesus talk and crucifixes, the overt religiosity of these misguided people. Apparently George W. Bush took the compassionate back out of conservative when he left office. How would Jesus vote? </div><div><br /></div><div>For these normal, workaday everymen to be fighting for the fortunes of billionaires, patently against their own interests, and against the interests of the tens of millions of their fellow Americans who are without medical coverage, makes them the new fools in our new Civil War. </div><div><br /></div><div>And make no mistake: we are at war with ourselves. When the man who tried to shout down the President in the House Chamber during a joint address is made a hero by the disloyal opposition over this, we are at war with ourselves. When shouting down using bumper sticker slogans ["You lie!"] replaces reason and discourse, we are at war with ourselves. When the <i>de facto</i> leadership of the GOP calls the half black, half white, raised by his white grandparents President a "racist" with a "deep seated hatred for white people or the whole white culture" we are at war with ourselves. When President Obama is described not only as a socialist, but also a Nazi and a "radical communist" without any sense of irony, we are at war with ourselves. When divisiveness is seen as patriotism, and ludicrous lies unquestionably accepted as truth, we are at war with ourselves.</div><div><br /></div><div>So the new Confederacy of Dunces marches on, led by Glenn Beck and now Joe Wilson, to preserve the fortunes of the already wealthy and guarantee the middle class becomes poor. So we can only hope that by the grace of God, or despite it, the fools lose this war, too. And before we pay the price in the blood of Americans.</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-79522127384060697272009-09-14T20:02:00.007-04:002009-09-14T22:23:59.221-04:00Do You Want That With or Without Profit Motive?In their never ending quest to prevent a government takeover of healthcare, except if you are under 18, or over 65, or a veteran or are indigent, the right wing has flogged this old horse repeatedly, and it goes something like this:<div><br /></div><div>"I don't want the government, (or a government bureaucrat, or now a death panel), making decisions and getting in between me and my doctor! And universal [socialized] healthcare will result in rationing! And the USA will become the USSR!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, if one is lucky enough to possess really good health insurance, who do you think makes these decisions? Corporate insurance adjusters who are driven by the bottom line. Bureaucrats. Their job, as in all cases where an insurance company is involved, is to find out ways their company does not have to pay out on their policies, or, to find out how to pay as little as possible. So a patient might not end up with the drug or the procedure that they were expecting to get, and that their doctor had, in his judgment, decided that patient should have.</div><div><br /></div><div>And it should be patently obvious that by limiting the amount of healthcare doled out in the country to the above groups plus those who can afford their own insurance and those who are fortunate enough to have health insurance through their job, and thusly leaving out 40 or 50 million American citizens, is rationing healthcare.</div><div><br /></div><div>Looking at certain situations where there is a government mandate to provide health insurance can be instructive. In one case there is the workmens' compensation situation, and on the other hand there is the no-fault automobile insurance. While both are mandatory within their respective spheres, one is administered to via a government bureaucracy and the other not. </div><div><br /></div><div>Workmens' compensation is an imperfect system, but injured workers get healthcare they need for as long as they need, and a bureaucracy of government adminstrative judges oversee each case to prevent fraud and abuse. On the down side, workmens' compensation can be slow, often taking a long time to approve a given course of treatment. And while the insurance industry uses their own doctors to perform independent medical examinations of claimants, a claimants physician's medical opinion is given a lot of weight.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then there is no-fault, which applies to those injured in automobile accidents. In the no-fault context there is little to no government administration. After approximately one month of treatment, a claimant is sent to see an insurance company doctor, and once a claimant is examined by that doctor there is a 95% chance any further treatment claims will be denied, no matter the actual condition of the claimant or how much pain they are in or how much therapy they really require. And the opinion of the claimant's doctor does not matter for a hill of beans. That's a private insurer directly affecting patient treatment and rationing care in order to protect their bottom line.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then there is single payer healthcare, like Medicare. A claimant goes to her doctor, a treatment is prescribed, and the doctor is paid, though perhaps not as much as he would like [but who is?]. And patient satisfaction with Medicare is through the roof. And it is socialized. And patients get all the care they require. The same goes for the Veterans' Administration. And so far the USA hasn't become the USSR. Hmmm....</div><div><br /></div><div>So, we are at the crossroads of healthcare reform. And the arguments of evil government bureaucracy and rationed care are revealed to be empty arguments, mere chimeras without real substance. And went you get to the bottom line do you want medical decisions made by a corporate bureaucrat worried about the bottom line, or by a bureaucrat who is only seeking to avoid fraud and abuse?</div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-35407968872857527372009-09-11T10:24:00.007-04:002009-09-11T10:41:56.509-04:00Forever in Our Memory, Forever in Our Hearts<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sqphg_ycW-I/AAAAAAAAACY/ngSPCwHELS0/s1600-h/brooklyn-bridge-twin-towers-nyc-ny.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380219924354194402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sqphg_ycW-I/AAAAAAAAACY/ngSPCwHELS0/s400/brooklyn-bridge-twin-towers-nyc-ny.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sqpe2LrZfbI/AAAAAAAAACQ/6VtfDe7YglM/s1600-h/twin+towers+old.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380216989788241330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 354px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 345px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sqpe2LrZfbI/AAAAAAAAACQ/6VtfDe7YglM/s400/twin+towers+old.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sqpesoh1PLI/AAAAAAAAACI/7ENsx7WccgA/s1600-h/twin-towers+recent.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380216825734053042" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 288px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 360px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sqpesoh1PLI/AAAAAAAAACI/7ENsx7WccgA/s400/twin-towers+recent.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/SqpekTN3isI/AAAAAAAAACA/KIzNQ5skuBg/s1600-h/twin+towers+night.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380216682574219970" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 273px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/SqpekTN3isI/AAAAAAAAACA/KIzNQ5skuBg/s400/twin+towers+night.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/SqpedYgb70I/AAAAAAAAAB4/VTE_Dx3kpJo/s1600-h/Twin+Towers+%26+Gull.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380216563735195458" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 267px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/SqpedYgb70I/AAAAAAAAAB4/VTE_Dx3kpJo/s400/Twin+Towers+%26+Gull.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/SqpeWivFPyI/AAAAAAAAABw/jrYXEuArusY/s1600-h/pre_9_11_cva67_in_ny.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380216446221893410" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 284px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/SqpeWivFPyI/AAAAAAAAABw/jrYXEuArusY/s400/pre_9_11_cva67_in_ny.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />For today I shall refrain from politics. Today is a day for all of us to be Americans, and remember the things that make us great, and knit us together as a nation. </div><div> </div><div>It is also to remember my fair city as she once was, and as she should be again. Rebuild the Twin Towers, the soaring pillars of the sky, arms of Atlas, bastions of commerce, and the anchors of the skyline of my mind.</div><br /><div></div><div>Peace to the victims and their families.</div></div></div></div></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-54620625160519084772009-09-10T18:16:00.014-04:002009-09-10T19:06:57.782-04:00"EPIC FAIL" Somehow Falls Short: Joe Wilson's Unmaking<div align="justify"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sql7DKLcsoI/AAAAAAAAABo/fuv9BSJ23No/s1600-h/Congressman+Joe+Wilson+R-SC.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379966524072964738" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 338px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lwbZuVIvs3M/Sql7DKLcsoI/AAAAAAAAABo/fuv9BSJ23No/s400/Congressman+Joe+Wilson+R-SC.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><span style="font-family:georgia;">After yelling out "You lie!" at President Obama during his widely televised address to a joint session of Congress, Congressman Joe Wilson's [R-SC] derisive jeer may have been the shout heard 'round the world. And while some have defended the distinguished gentleman's two word hem and haw, they are few and far between.<br /><br />In fact, Mr. Wilson himself begged an apology from the White House just after the speech was over. But the damage was done: to himself; to his district for electing a man of such little respect for our institutions; to the Palmetto State, who is still suffering with her insufferable governor; and the United States itself.<br /><br />Last time I checked no one in my life has, during an address to Congress, heckled a President in the midst of giving his remarks. I suppose when you think you can't get lower, you find that you have yet to hit rock bottom. And the galling thing is that it is Joe Wilson who is lying - the President's bill, like it or hate it, is not written to cover illegal immigrants, which is the underlying claim for Mr. Wilson's bellow of falsehood.<br /><br />Now, allow me to be frank: I was a vociferous opponent of President George W. Bush. I did not respect the man nor his vision nor his policies. But I did respect the office. I would never have stood for, or stood by, or defended a member of Congress acting in such a disrespectful way towards Mr. Bush while he was giving an address. He was the goddam President.<br /><br />This is not to say that Mr. Bush, or for that matter Mr. Obama, is above criticism or derision. But like all free speech, there is a time and place. And that time and place is not during an address to the joint session of Congress. Save it for Twitter, which apparently Rep. Eric Cantor could not have waited until the end of the address, but I digress.<br /><br />But now it is Joe Wilson's time for derision and for his failure to come home to roost like assorted poultry. Already his Democratic opponent has reportedly raked in well into the six figures for his 2010 run, and Mr. Wilson's disrespect for the highest office in the land has continued to marginalize his already squeezed party in a manner he in no way intended on the grandest stage possible.<br /><br />Flush from a summertime of town hall hijinks and follies, after knocking a good 20+ points off President Obama's approval rating, the GOP and Mr. Wilson were smelling blood in the water. Instead, Mr. Obama appears to have roped the dopes in Muhammed Ali fashion, assisted in great measure by Mr. Wilson's dopey cry during a brief pause in the speech. What was not counted on was that this was no longer a town hall meeting, and that the hot days of summer are now passed us. It was time for the adults to get back to work, and naked insults to the face of the President were no longer going to work. It looks to me, dare I say it, that the deather movement and their associates have hit their high water mark, and the tide of hatred, so chic in hot July days, has begun to recede in the evenings of cool September.<br /><br />I suppose we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Wilson and his Freudian slip. He has, with a mere two syllables, shown us his true face, and perhaps the true face of his party: quick to hate, shameless with insults, but with zero substance to defend their indefensible positions when faced with inexorable truth.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2591895462288839947.post-71640390384058126852009-09-06T11:35:00.012-04:002009-09-06T14:07:33.604-04:00The GOP: Gone to Plaid<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">In their never ending search for irrelevance the Republicans have orbited the alien worlds of the Birthers, the large dark clouds of Deathers, and throttled it up passed ludicrous speed. They have reached the unknown reaches of the darkest space only known as Nonsense. </span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">The latest and not greatest partisan attack is lead this time by the supposed "moderate" Republican, Governor Tim Pawlenty, who came out Friday against President Obama addressing the nation's schoolchildren.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">These days a "moderate Republican" is even an even more rare creature, apparently, than the allegedly mythical "moderate Muslim." One thing that appears to be a curious link, though, is the acceptance, nay, courting by both Muslims and Republicans at large of persons hewing to a fundamentalist religious faith, faiths which question the very fabric of the modern world in light of religious texts written by desert dwellers hundreds or thousands of years ago. I think unicorns and basilisks are more numerous in these trying times. But I digress.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Governor Pawlenty, sidestepping any concerns of actual content in his criticism, went to say that Mr. Obama's addressing American schoolchildren was: "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">At a minimum it's disruptive, number two, it's uninvited and number three, if people would like to hear his message they can, on a voluntary basis, go to YouTube or some other source and get it. I don't think he needs to force it upon the nation's school children." </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Perhaps the Governor should stop acting like Obama is some alien from another planet who violently took over the White House and start acting like he is the President of this country. In addition to his first amendment right to say what he wants, he is the leader of our nation, and is in his very element when addressing American citizens, including kids. Further, he was overwhelmingly elected, so his views are, more likely than not, shared by his fellow Americans, and is not some sort of intellectual swine flu to be assiduously avoided.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">The egregious stupidity is not even remotely over, and Pawlenty continued: "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">It is time we stand up to President Obama," as if the ridiculous and disingenuous conflict over healthcare reform is some sort of Republican resignation in the face of change.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Then: "It is time we stand up for our principles, and it is time we stand up for the American people."</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Pray tell, Governor, what are those principals? Disloyal opposition? Truculence? Lies and prevarication? Where is your integrity? What is the Republican vision aside from mindless recalcitrance?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Not satisfied with letting one Republican governor disgrace himself</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney jumped into the fray of absurdity with: "If the president wants to encourage students to stay in school and study, that's appropriate," he said. "However, he should be careful not to cross the line to discuss political issues or policy matters."</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Seriously? The President is a distraction, but if he </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">must</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> address the nation's schoolchildren he should shy away from policy? Who the heck do you think you are, Mr. Romney? He's not only a </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">politician</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> he's THE PRESIDENT!! Why can't he talk to the nation's children about policy? It's part of the job description, lest anyone forget "Just say no."</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">And please, spare us any twaddle over "</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">indoctrination</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">" of our kids. Precisely, where do people get off? He is not some Manchurian candidate, he's the President. His interests are inextricably ours; his ideology, like it or not, by virtue of having won an election, is the dominant one. Elections do have consequences.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Republicans and conservatives should stop acting like petulant children, uncover their ears, stop loudly singing to themselves, and grow up. Because, truthfully, the left does not always have all the answers, and a loyal opposition, with actual ideas and something to contribute, is essential to the two party system and the preservation of freedom in the United Sates.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But right now one of the parties is acting like a bunch of kindergartners when we need more grown-ups.</span></span></div></div>RayRayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08718037136482754673noreply@blogger.com0