Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 by admin.

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Friday, April 24th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

As the horrific Bush Administration torture strategy continues to unravel and reveal, and I listen to the talking heads splitting hairs about what is and what isn’t torture and/or whether torture was justified and/or “yielded results,” I can’t help but hearken-back to the endless days I spent listening to the Clinton impeachment hearings as the strident and self-righteous Henry Hyde repeated, ad –nauseam, that the president must be impeached for perjury and other “high crimes” because, above all else, WE MUST UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW!

Remember that? Remember the crime for which Clinton was impeached? Perjury. Bill Clinton was only the second president in US history to be impeached and it was for a crime completely unrelated to the office he held. The Republican-led House of Representatives tried to throw Clinton out of office for lying about having sex with Monica Lewinsky. That was it. No one was tortured, no wars were started needlessly , no one died. Even so, the entire country was put on hold while the right-wing played-out its righteous indignation. And let’s not forget the Starr investigation.

Now here we are, 10 years later, and  Bush, Cheney, et al have managed to escape Washington with nary an official accusation of any kind  leveled against them. We all knew that during the 8-years of Bush rule the Executive Branch was riding roughshod over human rights and the constitution. It’s no longer a question of whether they acted in accordance with the law. The memos and reports just now surfacing show that they not only side-stepped the law but intentionally diverted it. No one in this country, not even certain Fox News “journalists” can deny that they authorized the widespread use of torture on detainees at various U.S. run prison facilities around the world.

Is that enough or must we get Bush in a courtroom charged with littering and catch him lying about whether the gum wrapper was Juicy Fruit or Double Mint?

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld, and anyone else in the Bush Administration involved in the promotion and authorization of torture must be held accountable. There needs to be a full investigation. Charges need to be filed. Public trials need to be held. We need to redeem ourselves for ourselves, for our children, and in the eyes of the world as a nation that believes in its own principles.

Henry Hyde has passed-on,  so I’ll say it for him: WE MUST UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW.

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Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 by admin.

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Thursday, April 16th, 2009 by admin.

Quite a few brilliant analytical articles appeared on Huffington Post in the aftermath of yesterday’s teabagging by the reality-challenged right-wingnut brigade. Here are a few:

Sharing Tea Bags with Right Wing Extremists by Bob Cesca

One of the very bizarre accusations overheard at the tea bag protests Wednesday was that President Obama is somehow a “fascist.” At the same time, and often in the same protest, he was also accused of being a “communist.” Of course it’s ideologically impossible to be both, in the same way it’s impossible to be both informed and a FOX & Friends host, but then again I’m expecting too much logic and message coherence from people who spent all of Wednesday protesting against socialism and wealth redistribution while gathered in publicly funded — dare I say “socialized” — parks and town squares. Click to continue…

The Five Strands of Conservatism: Why the GOP is Unravelling by Drew Westen

In one sense, it isn’t hard to see why the Republican Party seems to be coming apart at the seams. When you get caught gutting the regulations that had kept us for 70 years from another stock market crash like the crash of 1929 and another collapse of the banking system like the one that occurred during the Great Depression, and when your policies throw millions of people out of their homes, jobs, retirement, and doctors’ offices, the next bottle of elixir you sell is not likely to fly off the shelf, especially if it’s the same whine in a new deCantor. Click to continue…

Reporting from the Tea Bagger Hate-Fest in Sacramento by Joseph A. Palermo

The hatred was palpable today on the State Capitol’s steps. Hatred for taxes, hatred for government, hatred for state workers, hatred for teachers, hatred for Democrats, and hatred for all of the straw men that leap from the imaginations of talk radio jocks. But the most hated figure of all at today’s “Tea Bag” anti-tax rally in Sacramento was President Barack Obama. Click to continue…

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Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

Back in the heat of the election last year, TV and online reporters forayed courageously into crowds of Palin/McCain supporters to  interview them about why they loved the Republican ticket and hated Obama. Never very clear about either, these sign-wielding, slogan-spewing, demonstrators rarely had more to say than the misinformed and/or disinformational talking-points issued by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the GOP leadership.

Today, teabaggers out in fairly meaningless numbers all over the country stand in impotent protest against a president who only took office a few months ago about problems in our economy that have been brewing  for 10+ years. As far as I can tell, these are the same people who blindly supported Sarah Palin last fall because she said the “right” words and all the anchors at Fox News all had a crush on her.

Never mind that the unfortunate term “teabagging” could have easily been avoided had anyone at Fox News or in leadership of the conservative groups hosting the so-called tea parties held even a 5th grade knowledge of the Boston Tea Party.

Like when it occurred.

In 1773.

Over 125 years BEFORE the tea bag was invented.

Remember American History class? Remember your classmates who didn’t do the homework, slept in class, doodled, traded notes, etc., and barely passed with a C? This is for them:

Now class. As I said, there were no tea bags back then. The tea at Boston Harbor was thrown into the water by British colonists from chests commonly used for tea exportation. That’s right,British colonists, not United States citizens. Why? Because the American Revolution was just being birthed and wouldn’t come to fruition for several years.  The colonists responsible for the Boston Tea Party were protesting taxes levied by their sovereign, King George III, without the consideration of colonial legislatures. That’s what set them off. Taxation without representation.  Is any of this ringing a bell? Oh, I forgot, you were asleep.

So, is there any significance to be drawn from a parallel between the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773 and the Washington Teabagging of April 15, 2009? Let’s see…

1773 -  Dictatorial monarch in desperate attempt to raise revenue  levies taxes on remote colonies only to elicit a profound outcry from said colonies. Monarchy greatly concerned, but steadfast.
2009 - Democratically elected president in cooperation with representative legislature cuts taxes for 95% of all citizens only to elicit a profound outcry from those who stand to benefit. Federal government puzzled.

1773 - Protest motivated primarily by taxation without representation and the iron-fisted rule of a monarchy and ocean away.
2009 - Protestors mostly unclear why they’re protesting except that it has something to do with socialism and maybe fascism, but not sure how.

1773 - Some protestors disguise themselves as Indians to deflect potential legal repercussions from themselves onto an oppressed minority.
2009 - Some protestors dress as Indians because they don’t understand the bigotry behind the original motivation for the  Indian garb worn by some Boston Tea Party participants.

1773 – Colonial leaders know the gravity of their situation and understand that their actions will likely be met with serious consequences.
2009 – Any real impact or important message is lost in the snickering of pretty much everyone because of the use of the term “teabagging.”

1773 - Word of the protest and the monarchy’s extreme reaction gets out in a few weeks to other colonies and the American Revolution is under way.
2009 - Minute-by-minute coverage of the non-event fills the airwaves, cable news, and the Internet for endless hours.  Almost everyone loses interest by the close of the day.

It might have been much more effective to mirror a different tea party to draw attention to the current situation.

Wonderland – Alice sits, uninvited, at a tea table after a long and tiring adventure only to find it occupied by three psychotic characters. She attempts to apply logic to the insane jabbering of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Gives up. Leaves.
2009 – Obama brings to the table exactly what he promised during an extremely long and tiresome election only to find it dominated by the same jabbering, psychotic characters who opposed his presidency on unclear grounds all along. He tries to use logic to reason with the loudest opposing voices…

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