Don't mess with the press - 4th of July - America

Front page - Medford Mail Tribune - July 4, 2018

What is it about

FREEDOM and JUSTICE FOR ALL

that the Party of Trump doesn't like?

Oh yeah.
That's right . . .
the part about
FREEDOM and JUSTICE
FOR ALL.

Demonstration against the ICE incarceration of
1000s of refugee children being ripped from their
parent's arms who are now lost in internment camps
throughout America.
Medford, Oregon, USA - 06.30.2018

Don't be silent.

Vote.

Donate what you can of your
time, energy, talent, and resources
including cold, hard cash.

Call your representatives.

We can do together
what we can not do alone . . .

STOP

this compromised, neo-fascist President
and his spineless, neo-fascist Republican Party
from continuing to undermine our Democracy.

Summer Solstice 2018

Thunder and rain all night and now a cloudy, humid morning. It's almost feels tropical but this is Portland Oregon so I'm not counting on seeing a blue sky today on this, the official beginning of Summer now duly noted.

With over 2500 children currently imprisoned in internment camps by Trump and the Republicans and no end in sight, just fuckwad's useless magic marker scrawl on yet another impotent "executive order", I feel hypocritical and sad even mentioning summer as it calls to mind childhood and the golden days of summer but it is the beginning of summer so somehow make it count for good.

Common ground in the Era of Trump & Republican child internment camps and baby jails

In this darkest moment of Republican children internment camps, this twitter post from Steve Schmidt is a must read. If Republican baby jails isn't a wake up call and turning point, America is doomed.

Steve Schmidt
29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump. It is corrupt, indecent and immoral. With the exception of a few Governors like Baker, Hogan and Kasich it is filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party’s greatest leaders. This child separation policy is connected to the worst abuses of humanity in our history. It is connected by the same evil that separated families during slavery and dislocated tribes and broke up Native American families. It is immoral and must be repudiated. Our country is in trouble. Our politics are badly broken.

The first step to a season of renewal in our land is the absolute and utter repudiation of Trump and his vile enablers in the 2018 election by electing Democratic majorities. I do not say this as an advocate of a progressive agenda. I say it as someone who retains belief in DEMOCRACY and decency. On Ronald Reagan’s grave are these words. “ I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.” He would be ashamed of McConnell and Ryan and all the rest while this corrupt government establishes internment camps for babies. Everyone of these complicit leaders will carry this shame through history. There legacies will be ones of well earned ignominy. They have disgraced their country and brought dishonor to the Party of Lincoln.

I have spent much of my life working in GOP politics. I have always believed that both parties were two of the most important institutions to the advancement of human freedom and dignity in the history of the world. Today the GOP has become a danger to our democracy and values. This Independent voter will be aligned with the only party left in America that stands for what is right and decent and remains fidelitous to our Republic, objective truth, the rule of law and our Allies. That party is the Democratic Party.

Bullshit

Sick and tired of the bullshit GOP and Trump clown show? Princeton Professor Emeritus Harry Frankfurt runs it down. Don't miss it.


BULLSHIT! from Think Nice on Vimeo.
Harry Frankfurt is an American philosopher and author of the New York Times Best Seller "On Bullshit". Although first conceived as an essay over 30 years ago, his theory on bullshit is more relevant than ever before.

Iraq for Sale

I just got back from Tahoe where I attended a MoveOn.org house party. We made calls encouraging people to vote in the upcoming election, ate and then watched the video Iraq for Sale , a really irritating documentary. It exposes the brazen greed of our "conservative" government. It is staggering. STAGGERING .... mercenary corporations like Dick Cheney's Halliburton partnered with their stooges in Washington, Bush and Company, have bilked American tax payers of billions of dollars in "Cost Plus" overruns not to mention the insufferable tragedy of so many lives lost, and so many more hopelessly ruined in their jagged swath. It's criminal and the whores in Congress rubber stamp every bit of it ... for a cut. These guys have got to go!








moveon iraq for sale halliburton blood money caci titan

Party loyality, GOP style

Republicans had a feeding frenzy over Clinton's affair with a 22 year old woman yet they tolerated, even protected, fellow Republican Mark Foley's secret sex life with underage boys.

I wonder if the Gay Old Party will play their Blame Bill Get out of Jail Free card over this. Wouldn't surprise me. They've proven they have no conscience or shame and will do and say anything to avoid the consequences of their actions.













Rep. Foley Bill Clinton stay the course republicans moral majority

Nothing to hide, everything to protect

Excerpt from "The Grave"

"Oft in the lone church yard at night I've seen,
By glimpse of moonshine chequering thro' the trees,
The school boy, with his satchel in his hand,
Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,
And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,
(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,)
That tell in homely phrase who lie below."

by Robert Blair

"I have nothing to hide."

This is the standard answer when someone defends Republicans spying on us without a proper warrant. Otherwise intelligent people totally miss the point thinking it doesn't matter as long as the person spied on is innocent. I marvel at their ignorance. Their passivity stuns me. Either these people are whistling past the graveyard or they are as clueless as animals chew their cuds in the slaughterhouse.

Our Constitutional guarantee of privacy is violated when the government spies on us without a warrant and that, my friend, is a Big Deal. It should be a clue that the conservatives do not want anyone monitoring them when they spy on us. This is because they want secret, full, unrestricted access to all our phone conversations, emails, downloads, credit and banking records. They want to know what we buy, what books we check out at the library, the groups we belong to, and the people with whom we spend personal time. They want to be able to imprison anyone, at any time, for no stated reason, deny the accused access to the evidence held against them and even deny the defendant the right to attend their own trial. Far fetched? You bet it is. It's totalitarianism, baby. Fascism.

Bush & Co are bringing America Fascism on the installment plan. Their illegal actions and our passiveness have created an environment toxic to democracy and freedom. When we stand on the sidelines and let the Republicans disassemble our Constitution we are letting them destroy the very thing that defines and protects us as free people.

"What does it matter? I have nothing to hide." We may have nothing to hide but we sure as hell have something to protect.










fascism Bush republicans NSA warrentless spying constitution

Bush, our pet goat

September 11, 2006

2666: current US death toll in Iraq
20000 - 48100: estimated US wounded in Iraq
41650-46318: Iraqi civilian death toll

9/11: Why did Bush sit reading "My Pet Goat" and ignore the news that the country was under attack? And why did he mire us in this trumped-up war on Iraq instead of going after Osama bin Laden who was the master mind behind 9/11?

Watch our pet goat read as America burns.

bush 9/11 my pet goat osama bin laden

Republican plan

"Yada yada woof woof" - President Bush

campaign conservatives congress election iraq

Rumsfeld's dance with nazis

Following up on Rumsfeld's recent accusation that any American critical of his war on Iraq is a nazi, the NYT just published an article by Frank Rich about Rummy and Saddam. Naturally Rumsfeld didn't embarrass the dictator by criticizing him for torturing political prisoners. I guess there's some kind of twisted honor among sociopaths.

Donald Rumsfeld's dance with the Nazis'

NYT via The Raw Story

" ...what made Rumsfeld's performance special was the preview it offered of the ambitious propaganda campaign planned between now and Election Day. An on-the-ropes White House plans to stop at nothing when rewriting its record of defeat (not to be confused with defeatism) in a war that has now lasted longer than America's fight against the actual Nazis in World War II.

Here's how brazen Rumsfeld was when he invoked Hitler's appeasers to score his cheap points: Since Hitler was photographed warmly shaking Neville Chamberlain's hand at Munich in 1938, the only image that comes close to matching it in epochal obsequiousness is the December 1983 photograph of Rumsfeld himself in Baghdad, warmly shaking the hand of Saddam Hussein in full fascist regalia. Is the defense secretary so self-deluded that he thought no one would remember a picture so easily Googled on the Web? Or worse, is he just too shameless to care?

...Well before Rumsfeld's trip, Amnesty International had reported the dictator's use of torture -- "beating, burning, sexual abuse and the infliction of electric shocks" -- on hundreds of political prisoners. Dozens more had been summarily executed or had "disappeared." American intelligence agencies knew that Saddam had used chemical weapons to gas both Iraqi Kurds and Iranians.

According to declassified State Department memos detailing Rumsfeld's Baghdad meetings, the American visitor never raised the subject of these crimes with his host..."







rumsfeld saddam nazi fascist

John Dean on Rumsfeld

Zendaba

"Nazi" and "fascist" are the New Big Buzz Words the neocans are rolling off the talking points assembly line this upcoming election season. These words are intended to fend off the growing awareness that it's the conservatives themselves who are fascist. As usual, the neocans hope to dazzle, baffle and intimidate voters into staying lock step with the party. The problem is that more and more people are catching on to the fact that, as Dean points out, this current government is a "textbook example of authoritarianism".

Rumsfeld's recent accusation that Americans who disagree with the war in Iraq are nazis is typical over the top offensive game they have played all along. The difference is that now the conservatives are getting desperate and sloppy in their effort to stem the tide by lobbing as many accusations of fascism against their critics as possible in an effort to own the word first. Until recently it has worked to boldly declare black is white, hot is cold, wrong is right but the magic has grown thin.

Seems we have reached a state of critical mass as people from both the "left" and "right" finally grasp the fact that the conservatives in power are a very sick blend of Christofascism and corporate fascism and their stubborn resolve is leading us over a cliff.

Zendaba
Karl, Rummy, Dirty Dick and the Bushman depend on team sport politics to support them but the election is not a football game and truth is not a team sport. People are getting tired of waving pennants from the stands as The Deciders run amok on the field. Americans died winning and protecting our right to dissent and this new strategy is designed to crush us into silence. Rumsfeld and company are the Nazis.

Keith Olbermann recently interviewed John Dean on Rumsfeld's Nazi speech. A lot of people have trouble asking simple, direct questions and even more trouble answering them but these guys do an excellent job of it. The only place I have a complaint is about 4 minutes in when Olbermann asked Dean if there can be a bigger threat to our democracy than the repression of open debate, never mind the issue. Seems to me Dean wandered a bit here, focusing on Rummy's speech instead of addressing the larger issue ... that open debate is indispensable for the health of a free society ... but the debate is on whether Rummy likes it or not.





olbermann dean rumsfeld nazi fascism

Slogan contest

Here's a contest for all you word warriors.

Working for Change is looking for a phrase that cuts through the "cut and run" shield conservatives are hiding behind defending their failed policy in Iraq. Anyone with half a brain knows by now that getting out of Iraq is not "cutting and running" but tagging dissenters as cowards has, so far, been pretty effective. It's a war of words. Simplicity is essential. Brevity is not only "the soul of wit". It is the heart of wisdom. Being a very complicated person I'm having a hard time of it. Can you do better? More info and contest rules here.


Ps. Ah.....and speaking of brevity... the contest ends tomorrow.



writing contest writers

Backfire in Iraq

Casualties in Iraq
2613

Bush's big gun war on terror totally backfired but this idiot hasn't got the brains or the balls to admit it. He led us into a dead end yet insists we "stay the course". He's too stupid to see that, like the government's war on drugs, this war on terror boomeranged, increasing rather than decreasing the problem. In fact, if you compare them, it's clear that both "wars" use the same strategy, blast the hell out of an enemy that multiplies on contact.



Regan's War on Drugs:

• Making drugs illegal automatically fosters an insanely profitable, irresistible underground economy that will only deflate when drugs are legalized and regulated.
• This so-called war spawned a costly yet ineffective bureaucracy that is now entrenched in a sick, symbiotic relationship with the underground drug culture.
• This loop is self-perpetuating.

Bush's War on Terror:

• Terror is a feeling. You can't wage a war on a feeling.
• The Bushites nurture a culture of terror in order to get support and funding for their "war on terror".
• Bush's "big gun" approach to the terrorist underground kills and maims more innocent citizens than terrorists.
• The survivors feel resentment and rage towards us and sympathy for the terrorists as "freedom fighters".
• People in other countries increasingly share this rage and resentment towards the US.
• This loop is self-perpetuating.

There's no quick fix. Iraq is now mired in a civil war. Bush's legacy. It could last for generations. Oops. But I'm not one to pine in silence waiting for an invitation to share my opinion...


My action short list:

• Bring our troops home now.
• Leave diplomats there.
• Clean house here.
• Impeach Bush and Cheney now.
• Throw them into a big hole like say ...
• San Quentin
• Throw fascist buddies including Rove and Rummy in after them.
• Throw the key away.
• Renounce US imperialism.
• Rebuild America.
  
  
  
  
  My motto
  
  
  
  
  
  
  iraq war bush idiot
  
  

Is Bush is an idiot?

The question in this CNN segment is whether or not President Bush is an idiot. If you haven't see it check it out. I'd say it's an historical and appropriate question.


YouTube link



The answer? Yes! Naturally. Bush is an idiot but he's so much more. He is a maniacal ChristoFascist with more destructive power at his command than any other human being on the planet. That's a hair-raising thought in itself, a horror compounded by the fact that his vision of Armageddon shapes and guides both is domestic and foreign policy. It wouldn't be so bad if Bush were merely the village idiot but he's also a fascist, criminal mob boss with unlimited wealth and power at his quivering fingertips. Lovely.







CNN Bush idiot fascism christofascism

12 signs of fascism - No. 1

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”~ Benito Mussolini

Many of the politicians currently controlling the US are fascist. Don't believe it? Compare the 12 signs of Fascism with the actions of  leaders.

No. 1 from the 12 signs of Fascism

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, is always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity are common themes in expressing this nationalism. It is usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often borders on xenophobia.




bush corporatocracy fascist republicanism

Image doping

I took this photo of Mt. Shasta on our way to Oregon this weekend, but as people are touchy lately about doctored photos, I want to warn you that I doped the image. I didn't change it much, just cleared up the haziness and brought out the color of the mountain a tiny bit, but photo isn't the "way it was", whatever that was.


I have to laugh though about all the fuss over doctored images. What do people expect? Take televsion for example. Seconds of TV time cost tens of thousands of dollars but "news" items air for free, courtesy of the sponsors. Truth in reporting? My god! How naive is that? It blows my mind. What are people thinking? That politicians and multi-billion dollar corporations are honest? When the White House releases a photo of Bush it's as staged and phony as any Hollywood poster ever was. It's called Perception Management ... Truth®. "Photo ops"? Come on. It's the fine art of using the camera to lie. Yes! Cameras lie. Movies lie. We all know it but want to believe the news anyway, as though somehow Big Media holds our trust sacred. Viewer beware. If that blows your cookie, wah-fucking-wah. Sober up.


I've always preferred Eastern Philosophy because at least it gives main stage to the idea that so-called "reality" is maya or illusion. But materialists don't want to know that, spoils the fun, plus it's a lot of work using your brain when you're hypnotized. Then add the extra difficulty of facing reality when you're an idiot in the first place. People like nice, spoon-fed American Dreams, pablum for the lazy mind, so now we're up to our eyeballs in lies and outraged when we notice that fact. Crazy, but as the saying goes, "nothing changes if nothing changes" and I must say, harsh as it sounds, change is a hell of a lot harder when you're hooked up to the brain drain.

tv images courtesy of TurnOffYourTV

media perception management news tv photography politics

Specter's FISA bill - Neutering the Constitution

Conservatives are like zombies,

brainless and senseless.
After reading Roy's post "On Being Human" last night I decided I wasn't going to do a political post today. I really wasn't. I swear. Like everyone else, I'm sick of staring into the whirling blades of the political shit fan. Then I read "Echoes of the Nixon era" posted at Salon this morning. It's so disturbing, well ... I just had to write about it. I'll give you 3 seconds to scram, go watch some funny dogs or something ... 3-2-1 ... otherwise, if you want to know what's trying to totally change your world ... proceed at your own risk.

Just after the Supreme Court finally ruled against the administration for something, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Senator Arlen Specter proposes a bill (S. 2543 - the National Security Surveillance Act) that would permanently put the office of president above and beyond the law. If passed the President of the United States would be replaced by an executive branch whose "president" would answer to no one and be accountable for nothing Instead the "president" would be a completely free agent, a dictator at liberty to do whatever he wants in complete, total, and impenetrable secret.

Bush and Senator Arlen Specter

It doesn't matter that Bush is on his way out.
He was just a place holder anyway, a lure to attract evangelicals. The real power brokers in D.C. are groups like the Project for the New American Century which has been around since the middle of the 20th century and plans to rule the entire 21st. Big surprise, its members include guys like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dan Quayle. They only make cameo appearances on the main stage to set things up, then it's back to the shadows where they can best do their nefarious deeds. At this point they must feel pretty confident that whoever steps into the presidency next will do their bidding. Why not? Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Specter's bill requires that...

"all pending cases challenging the legality of the NSA program be transferred to the secret FISA court, if the attorney general so desires, which he will. Second, it makes judicial review of the administration's behavior virtually impossible, as it specifically prohibits, in Sec. 702(b)(2), the FISA court from "requir(ing) the disclosure of national security information ... without the approval of the Director of National Intelligence of the Attorney General." That all but prevents any discovery in these lawsuits. Third, it authorizes, in Sec. 702(b)(6), the FISA court to "dismiss a challenge to the legality of an electronic surveillance program for any reason." Arguably, that provision broadens the authority of the court to dismiss any such lawsuit for the most discretionary of reasons, even beyond the already wide parameters of the "state secrets" doctrine."

Chilling and surreal but unfortunately all too real. In this article Greenwald writes that...

"worst thing that Specter's bill would do is place the president's FISA decisions beyond any kind of meaningful judicial review forever, and immunize the Bush administration from any real scrutiny of the legality and constitutionality of its conduct."

If this bill gets passed we might as well change the, "In God we trust" to, "In Secret Government we trust" and add the old motto of Germany's SS, "My honor is called loyalty."

We may be powerless to stop what going on but we damn sure won't able to do anything about it if we chose to remain ignorant about what's going on. As Greenwald concludes...

"It is one thing for specific warrant applications to be conducted in secret, with only one side present, and with even the decision itself always sealed from the public -- the standard operating procedures for the FISA court. But those procedures are plainly inappropriate for deciding critical questions of constitutional law that determine the protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to all Americans against the government. The parameters of the Fourth Amendment and decisions as to whether our highest government officials have been continuously violating it cannot possibly be determined in secret and then kept secret from American citizens. Yet the Specter bill would ensure exactly that disturbing, and quite extraordinary, result."

specter S. 2543 National Security Surveillance Act FISA "state secrets" conservatives

Voices in the divide

Generally, I think my opinion of the conservatives hell bent on turning America into corporate police state is pretty clear. And I think my horror of the glassy-eyed minions who support the conservative's wars, Karl Rove's zombie marching band, is well established. So it's downright refreshing to write about a Baptist minister (no less) who stands up to the idolatry of merging Church and State, in which so many Christians are currently mired.

Predictably, when Rev. Gregory A. Boyd denounced the right's infiltration and whopping successful take-over of evangelical Christianity, one thousand members of his mega church in St. Paul left. But four thousand remained. I'm from Nevada. That's a pretty good split. The house wins. Good for him. Good for them. I wish this were a trend but most of Christendom, even the so-called "moderates", are keeping a wormy profile as the right-wingnuts slash and burn their jagged path through the world. We shall see but at least Rev. Boyd is awake and making trouble. He's no liberal but he tossed out the politicians and money changers while the rest of shepherds and their flocks stand dutifully in the slaughter house line in Bush Co's deranged parallel universe.

The New York Times did an article on Rev. Boyd but I don't know how long it will be accessible before they lock it up in their archives and slap a price tag on it but there's also a thread on DailyKos that will remain available if you want to read more. Treat yourself. It's encouraging news, which is rare these days.








Rev. Boyd conservative religion christian church

Jimi, the Rockridge Institute, and the rest of my day

Mr. Lee drove to Soda Springs Idaho today to pick up an off-road trailer he bought on Ebay. He'll be back Sunday evening. All in all he'll drive over 1200 miles in about a day and a half. I didn't go because it would be too tough, my knee being in this shape. I slept until after noon, healing takes a lot of energy, then worked on the driftwork website. Unfortunately I was working on a wide screen and checking it now on the laptop, I see it isn't quite right. Later. I'm done for the day.

So no matinee, maybe tomorrow, but here's a sound clip you might enjoy. I'm listening to it at the moment and find it pretty interesting. It's a raw mix of comments, often from concerts, by Jimmy Hendrix.

And from the Rockridge Institute, a very sobering look at the accomplishments made by the Bush administration. Their point is that actually Bush is not an incompetent boob. In fact, his administration has done a lot to advance the conservative agenda. The problems we complain about are not because Bush is an idiot. It is because the conservative philosophy is so terribly flawed and designed to benefit only the wealthiest. Here's an example of the changes the conservatives have ushered in. It's chilling.

The idea that Bush is incompetent is a curious one. Consider the following (incomplete) list of major initiatives the Bush administration, with a loyal conservative Congress, has accomplished:

* Centralizing power within the executive branch to an unprecedented degree
* Starting two major wars, one started with questionable intelligence and in a manner with which the military disagreed
* Placing on the Supreme Court two far-right justices, and stacking the lower federal courts with many more
* Cutting taxes during wartime, an unprecedented event
* Passing a number of controversial bills such as the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Medicare Drug bill, the Bankruptcy bill and a number of massive tax cuts
* Rolling back and refusing to enforce a host of basic regulatory protections
* Appointing industry officials to oversee regulatory agencies
* Establishing a greater role for religion through faith-based initiatives
* Passing Orwellian-titled legislation assaulting the environment — “The Healthy Forests Act” and the “Clear Skies Initiative” — to deforest public lands, and put more pollution in our skies
* Winning re-election and solidifying his party’s grip on Congress

These aren’t signs of incompetence. As should be painfully clear, the Bush administration has been overwhelmingly competent in advancing its conservative vision. It has been all too effective in achieving its goals by determinedly pursuing a conservative philosophy.

It’s not Bush the man who has been so harmful, it’s the conservative agenda.

More at the Rockridge Institute.

Replay

I gotta bitch. I'm sick at heart now that it's clear Special Investigator Patrick Fitzgerald has let Cheney, Rove and Bush skate after exposing Valerie Plame. Un-fucking-believable. No consequences. Nada. I’d say this makes it official. Our Republican "leaders" are completely ABOVE THE LAW. They can commit treason, lie us into war, rig and steal our elections, cheat, take and make bribes, spy on us, torture us, etc, etc, etc. No one will stand up to them or for us. We know how far the Right got in Germany. Now, with the new name, "neoconservative" and new look, "ownership society", they're really cleaning up. Americans are standing in the slaughterhouse line but are too stupid or too busy to notice or care. Old story. Makes me sick.