The Selective Amnesia Of The Cheney Family

Does Dick Cheney have Alzheimer's? Did he contract it from his years of association with Ronald Reagan? In recently released FBI documents of an interview with then Vice President Cheney, he claimed that he has no idea" who leaked Plame's name to Bob Novak, he does not recall any discussion with Libby of perceived nepotism associated with Wilson's selection for the CIA assignment, and that the vice president is relatively certain that he spoke to someone about the article but he cannot remember exactly who it was.(UPDATE:A list of 22 things Cheney can't recall about the Plame affair) Which is pretty much the same testimony Reagan gave in the Iran-Contra case.
Well, if Alzheimer's isn't contagious, it certainly is hereditary. Take Cheney's daughter, Liz (Please). When President Obama went to Dover AFB to honor returning fallen soldiers, she shot back "I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras. And I don't understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking family members if you can take pictures. That's really hard for me to get my head around...It was a surprising way for the president to choose to do this."
What she fails to remember is that President Bush never met returning caskets at Dover, EVER. Neither did her father. With cameras, or not, the previous administration loved to send US troops to die, make money for their crony friends doing it, and never having to be reminded of the end result of their handiwork. In fact, in 2004, Bush wanted to slash over one billion dollars from the Veteran Affairs budget.
So I guess it's okay for Liz Cheney to blather on about things she chooses not to remember, it's her right as an American. The problem here is that in their mad rush to torpedo the efforts of the Obama administration to undo all the evil inflicted by the previous administration (which is certainly no mad rush unto itself), the Fox "news" organization will put anyone on who is willing to lie or selectively remember events to cast an unflattering light on them to further their corporate right wing agenda.

Satan Is Better Than Jesus

Why, you may ask, and I will tell you.
Studies have proved that intercessory prayer doesn't work, that in fact, God and Jesus either don't have all the magic powers that their followers claim they do, or they really don't give a fuck about humans.
However, Halloween candy prayed over by witches are chock full of demons. So if God/Jesus can't do anything about the demon filled candy offered for free to good little Christian children, they must not be as powerful combined as Satan is on his own.
And if Satan is more powerful than God/Jesus, using the same system used to determine which football team is better than another by virtue of number of victories incurred during a season, that means that Satan is better than Jesus.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel compelled to dress up as The Dude and mooch Milk Duds from my neighbors.......

The Pinnacle Of Retardation

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and 75 other House Republicans have introduced a resolution "expressing gratitude and appreciation to the individuals and families who participated in the Taxpayer March on Washington on September 12, 2009".
I'll let that sink in.



The irony of wasting taxpayer money "honoring" people who protested "skyrocketing deficits, taxpayer-funded bailouts, pork-barrel projects", in other words-wasting taxpayer money, is proof that the Republicans are more interested in embarrassing the Obama administration than actually accomplishinganything that falls beyond their limited abilities.
I mean, sure, those people should be commended for listening to some guy on television who told them when and where they should go, and what they should do when they get there. After all, we are not truly free until we blindly follow the commands of our favorite "journalists" on our favorite "news networks". And it was important to get these people off their couches, into the fresh air where they could walk on, drive on, or fly to taxpayer funded streets, sidewalks and airports to complain about taxes.
Good for you, Republicans, for acting like the self-involved and self-important people we always knew you were.

The Perfect Career Choice For A Prime Motivator

George W. Bush, a motivational speaker? Surely, a former alcoholic and cocaine abuser who skated through life on his famous father's political and business connections has no clue about motivation. Until you think about it.
After all, he motivated citizens of two great cities in two different countries (Baghdad and New Orleans) to find a new place to live. He motivated defense contractors to overcharge the US taxpayers for services in Iraq by cutting their taxes and stopping any oversight. He also motivated a group of cronies to loot money from the Iraqi people.
His lack of oversight within his own administration motivated the office of the vice-president to commit treason and out a CIA operative as retaliation for the people who were motivated to forge documents to start a war being exposed as the motivated liars they are by her husband in a NYT op-ed.
The Bush administration were also motivated not to regulate the banking industry, leading us into the economic mess were in now. Fortunately, he wasn't too much of a motivator that the alleged opposition party dare investigate any of the motivation behind his criminal acts.
And now, in the end, he has motivated the Cheney family and friends to fight to keep Dick out of jail for war crimes he authorized while Bush was off motivating the whole left blogosphere to rise up against him. So, for $100,000 a pop, Bush can motivate people to acquire an approval rating of 22%, just like he had.
And people wonder why the economy's in the toilet.

Grow Up, It's Halloween

The United States has become a haven for overly sensitive, namby-pamby cry babies whose sensibilities are easily offended any time some one dares to make a joke.
Take The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. They've become deeply offended by an 'illegal alien' Halloween costume. the costume features an orange jumpsuit stamped 'illegal alien', a rubber alien mask, and a green card. While I will fully admit the costume isn't clever, or funny, only the most sensitive of types would be offended by it.
Like Jorge-Mario Cabrera, the director of communications for CHIRLA. who thinks because the costume comes with a green card, that it's "an ignorant attempt to poke fun at a small community." Yes, but a small community of criminals who have entered the US illegally. Now, I am not opposed to immigration. Everybody in this country has ancestors who have emigrated from some other place. What I am against is those who operate outside the law, and yet seem to want to claim so sort of legal protection. I'm sorry, but you're a fucking criminal, no better than the previous presidential administration we had, which placed itself above the law as well. And if you're offended-good, you should be ashamed. Don't do disrespectful things then demand my respect.
1 in 6 Americans are living in poverty, there is no work in California, and the real unemployment rate in this country is at 16%. An influx of more unemployed people who are willing to work for less flooding the labor pool is the last thing we need. So don't cry to me if some uncreative redneck decides to wear a costume poking fun at your illegal activity. I'm sure they would find it just as funny if you wore a toothless mask with singed eyebrows and went as a meth-head.
After all, it's Halloween!

Gang Raped By The Corporatocracy In The Permanent Terror-Security Industrial Complex

Remember back in 2000, when George W. Bush was running for the presidency, and a number of female Republican politicians stood up and told us repeatedly that "W stands for women!"?
Or how about last year, when John McCain cynically chose Sarah Palin as his running mate because the Democrats had abandoned women by choosing Barack Obama as their presidential candidate over Hillary Clinton?
Of course, we all knew it was bullshit. The Republicans only care about women when they're white, pregnant, of hooked up to a life support machine. The rest of the time they could careless about women, unless they're trying to keep their wives from discovering their mistresses.
When Sen. Al Franken added an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would not allow the US to do business with corporations that will not let their employees seek legal action in rape cases, 30 Republican Senators voted against that bill, including that guy who last year wasn't going to turn his back on women, Sen. John McCain.
So while right wing bloggers make a big deal about Hollywood liberals defending Roman Polanski, there seems to be a lack of outcry from the right about Jamie Leigh Jones who was brutally drugged and gang raped by her co-workers. Keep in mind, Franken wasn't asking these companies to change their policies, he was asking the tax payer funded government from funding more atrocities by denying companies that condone gang rape any more government contracts.
Guess we know where the right really stands on the issue of women's rights. They're not as important as the right of the corporatocracy to rape them with impunity.

Scannon's Corollary To Godwins' Law

"As an [online] discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches."-Godwin's Law
Any online discussion about Israel will end with the probability of anyone critical of the state of Israel being called an anti-Semite-Scannon's Corollary to Godwin's Law
We weren't always the bad guys. back in WWII, we faced down evil and triumphed, only to become what we feared most, the governmental embodiment of evil.
And no, this is not directed at President Obama, who has been called a Fascist/socialist/communist by the same people who supported the country's shift to the right, extreme far right, under the previous administration.
Right now, the US is considering a reassessment of the 2007 NIE that stated Iran had abandoned it's nuclear weapon program in 2003. Thge terror-industrial complex needs a new monster to shake at us, now that Saddam Hussein is dead and Osama Bin Laden is more than likely passed on as well. That "monster" is Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a man so scary to millions of people that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran that "the world will not wait indefinitely" for Iran to meet it's obligations on it's nuclear plans. Iran has, of course, repeatedly stated that they are seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and has opened up it's nuclear sites for inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has found no evidence that Iran is doing anything except building a nuclear power plant thereby meeting it's "obligations" on it's nuclear ambitions.
In the meantime, the US has thrown it's support behind Israel, which has been accused of 37 different war crimes under the UN Goldstone report. The US, ready to impose economic sanctions on Iran for...absolutely nothing wrong, was one of the six countries voting against a resolution on the so-called "Goldstone report", which accuses both Israel and Hamas militants of war crimes committed during the 22-day Gaza conflict last December and January. Once more becoming part of the terror-industry complex.
Similarly, Israel has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and open it's nuclear sites up for inspection. And, by US law, according the the Symington Amendment, the US is forbidden to send aid to Israel until it does sign the treaty and open up it's sites to inspection.

So now we are the bad guys, the evil empire, ready to terrorize the world or our own people to meet our ends. WE threaten one country with sanctions for obeying the law while simultaneously enabling another to break every law of decency we used to hold as an ideal for the rest of the world.

Community Organized Television Is Coming....................................................Look Out!

Born At The Crest Of The Empire had a link to this post of how the television networks are jumping on the I-Participate bandwagon next week, with 60 television shows mentioning the program, or writing it into their scripts.
Which, since it's an Obama initiative, means once again the cries of "indoctrination" are rising from the right. Funny, I don't remember any complaints pre-Iraq war from these people about the propaganda foisted on the American people. But now, it's different, with that no Xmas celebrating secret Muslim in the White House.
But for me, the humor lies in the comment section over at Big Hollywood.
"I'd like to avoid this nonsense even if it means boycotting all TV for a week."-Oh, don't take such drastic measures. I'm sure Fox News isn't involved.
"I don't watch TV (except Fox news) anyway"-Ladies and gentlemen, the root of the whole problem.
"When coerced, it is not volunteerism, when service is involuntary or unpaid, it is slavery.
It is bad enough that the government is stealing our freedom, now they want us to help. "-Yes, we must do what the television tells us because we are all mindless zombies.
"Voluneerism is something that we should all be compelled to do because it is the Christian thing to do...it is expected of us. Certainly not because Pres. Opompous orders us to do it so it, like everything else, must reflect positively on him (because in Obamaland....EVERYTHING is about him!)."-Ladies and gentlemen, a true display of Christian love and understanding. Everything in America should be compelled to be about Jesus!
"I think someone should plan a counter campaign to turn off the tv during this period. Instead everyone should spend time with their families. I pledge to not watch tv during this period. I will instead enjoy the outdoors, spend time with family, or actually help another person without expecting payment in money or political credit."-As opposed to the rest of the year when you stay indoors, watch television ignore your family and don't do a thing without expecting financial enumeration for it.
It goes on and on, with people bemoaning their inability to watch television without being offended by someone actually asking them to be part of making a better society (oops, that's Socialism)and being indoctrinated into that whole community thing. In all this is a little less sinister than television participating in Nancy Reagan's Just Say No To (Some) Drugs program(which I'm sure they whole heartedly endorsed) back in the 1980's.
I know I will be watching very little of it, not because I hate Obama, but because television is a time thief, and 99% shit anyways. If you define yourself by what you watch on television, you are really nothing at all

2012

End Timers have been making a big deal lately about the Mayan Calendar which "predicts" the end of the world in 2012. While it may not signify the apocalypse, it's a fairly safe bet that the United States Empire will be gone by then, and not because voters will elect Sarah Palin as president.
What we'll begin to see very quickly is the wholesale looting of our country as the dollar loses reserve currency status. That means all those petrodollars the world bought from us to buy oil will be leaving the world's central banks and coming home to roost, drowning the banks we have left here in too much capital. This will spur a round of hyperinflation not dissimilar to what was seen at the end of the Weimar Republic. Foreclosures will increase, but this time it won't just be the lower classes suffering. Unemployment will increase as people scramble to take any job available.
So while the economy has been tanking, and the brokers have been looting, the corporate media lackeys in this country have been dutifully keeping the public distracted with protests against the wrong people, celebrity worship and too much sports coverage to notice that the ship is sinking.
Why is this happening? Because somewhere, someone decided that they didn't actually have to manufacture a product to make money, all they had to do was to convince the brainwashed masses into believing they needed a product bad enough that they'd mortgage their future to keep ahead of their neighbors. Fortunately for them, they had a Congress on their payroll that was only concerned with getting re-elected and so they would do anything they were asked to keep those campaign contributions rolling in. And why wouldn't you want to be a politician when you can work two and a half days a week, make $165,000 a year, and invest in wars you support. So now uniquely American products like the Hummer will be built in China.
And finally, when the American people wake up because their cable television has been disconnected, they'll take to the streets against the crooks who robbed them (the ones still in this country anyway) they'll find that the criminals will be protected by police who have evolved from Andy Taylor into something resembling Robocop. Good luck with that.

Living In Retarded Times

These are definitely interesting times we are living in right now. Despite continuing the war in Iraq, expanding the war in Afghanistan into Pakistan, and threatening Iran, President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Then, following this announcement, Rush Limbaugh agrees with the Taliban (a move that would have him removed from the air at the height of the Bush administration), putting the alleged "patriot" on the side of the enemy in Afghanistan, what with al Qaeda pretty much removed from that country.
Code Pink, an anti-war organization, has announced it's rethinking it's anti Afghan war stance. I guess now war is acceptable, if it fits within your feminist agenda. But how feminist is it when you're sending men to women's rescue?
There is now a movement under way (by Republicant operatives, naturally) to Impeach Obama. Not for any high crimes or misdemeanors, mind you, but for "Obamaism", whatever the fuck that is.
I woke up one morning last week to find those that claim to be the most biggest patriots in this country cheering because the US lost a chance to host the Olympics. The jobs this would have created and revenue generated would go a long way towards helping lift the US out of the Second Great Depression we are in now.And make no mistake about it, we are in a Great Depression. And while jobs are being lost and people are struggling, these asswipes who pretend to be patriots are cheering, not so much for the failure of Obama's programs, but because Bush and eight years of Republicant policies so destroyed the economy that there's nothing that can be done to fix it. The middle class is slowly disappearing, worker's rights are slowly being lost, but rich white men are getting richer and whiter, all because stupid white men are getting stupider and stupider. And n one of this pettiness and bickering will restore us to the former flory that was once the greatest democracy on the planet.

Conservapedia Presents: The Ten Commandments-Revisited

In yesterday's post, there was a story about how Conservapedia was planning on deleting the "liberal" bias from the Bible. But why stop there? As you'll see, they seem to pick and choose which commandments to follow as well.

It's Not In The Bible Anymore

Does the Bible have a liberal bias? Of course it does, which is why the nice folks at Conservapedia have decided to delete the liberal bias from the Bible. No more of the love shit for them, now it's just going to be fire and brimstone and the wrath of God. That'll make for some exciting reading for them.
But why stop there? Why not make the Innkeeper a free market entrepreneur who was well within his rights to make those moochers Mary and Joseph sleep in the stable. Or portray Judas as having a keen business sense and as being loyal patriot for betraying Jesus for a few pieces of silver? There's a lot of Jewish people in the Bible,couldn't an anti-Semite just delete them all, and make Jesus a nice Christian boy who grew up worshipping himself?
It would appear that the wonderful Christians over at Conservapedia don't love Jesus as much as they hate "liberals", which I believe puts them squarely in violation of the whole "Thou Shalt Not Have Any Other Gods Besides Me" commandment. These twisted souls have shown how utterly useless their Bible is by changing the word of their God to fit their belief system, as opposed to changing their behavior to fit the word of their God. But, you would expect as much from the same people who changed the Constitution to allow torture, illegal wiretaps and indefinite incarcerations.

Who Runs This Country?

Or, better yet, who should run this country, seeing how were a republic and all? Lindsey Graham thinks that if we let the bloggers run the country than our best days are behind us. Uh, dude, our best days are behind us.
Who are these elusive bloggers I hear criticized by the people on the right while appearing on the news? Most blogs, big, small, and miniscule (like this one) are run by tax paying citizens who read and report the news that the corporate-owned media refuses to report, or buries while devoting more and more time and space to celebrity gossip or sports "news". Why would we, as a democracy, want the actual people deciding the future of the country. We have let the corporations run this country for too long now and we have rampant unemployment, a stagnant economy and two government sponsored quagmires on our hands. It's been great for the corporations, but bad for 99% of other people in this country.
But who does run this country? Who has been pushing for another war based on lies? The bloggers. or the people who "run" this country? Who is threatening to impose sanctions on Iran for obeying the NPT all the while violating the Symington amendment?
Most bloggers are people of conscience, and blog out of a sense of duty, or outrage at how far we have strayed. very few make a profit, if at all, and are not media darlings or part of the cultural elite. We are, however, citizens, and when the citizens no longer run this country than we have ceased to be the democracy we claim to fight for while dropping bombs on dark skinned people in democracy's name.

How To End The "Stealth Jihad"

I think I was vaguely aware of this but once again, to reiterate, the Muslims are taking over the country! They have one of their own, a secret Muslim fascist communist socialist, as president, and now they're taking over everything else. I know they took over a dollar store down the street, and possibly a corner gas station.
Do I sound paranoid? Probably, but not as paranoid as one Canyon Clowdus, a candidate for congress from Texas (of course! All the wing nuts with funny names are from Texas). Mr Clowdus feels we are experiencing a "creeping sharia" and a "stealth jihad" in this country, and so he wants to bar any more Muslim immigrants from entering this country. Sure, we can stop more from entering the country, but what to do to protect our country from being overrun by this whole "creeping sharia" thing?
What we need is a law, some sort of Constitutional amendment, that would provide for the prevention of establishing laws based on one's own personal beliefs. That would certainly halt the stealth jihad we as Americans are experiencing right now. Of course, that would mean that Mr. Clowdus wouldn't be able to put his God back in government either, but it's all a small price to pay to protect us from the creeping sharia we are experiencing now, wouldn't it? Besides, I don't believe there ever was a time when there was a "God" in our government.

A Tale Of Two Nuclear Programs

The Obama administration has been making much political hay played up for the propaganda push in the press for an attack against Iran because of the revelation that Iran has a secret nuclear facility. Not any more they don't. But Iran has already agreed to open the site up for inspection by the IAEA. It's sole purpose is not a nuclear weapons facility, but is another nuclear enrichment site for it's reactor at Bushehr.
President Obama has accused Iran of "breaking rules that all nations must follow". All nations?
No, there is one nation that has nuclear weapons and has refused calls for it to sign the NPT and open their nuclear sites up for inspection. This nation of moochers has attacked a US naval ship and yet still receives billions of dollars in aid from the US annually. That's enough to fund health care for every American citizen. Meanwhile, this nation commits war crimes and is violation of numerous UN resolutions, and yet still has the audacity to cal for war against the "mad" regime in Iran. (By US forces, of course.)
So why are we planning to attack one regime for obeying international law when another flaunts that very same law?
One word:oil.

One More Time And I'll Be Marching With The Teabaggers

When then-President Bush announced the Wall Street bailout, I was very much opposed to it. These "free-market" devotees should practice what they preach, and if the market couldn't support them, they deserved to go under.
When the automakers bailout came out, I had mixed feelings, being from Michigan where almost every other person (an exaggeration) is involved in the auto industry. But in the end, anyone with enough foresight could have seen this coming when many jobs in the auto industry were shipped to Mexico and Canada. (that whole NAFTA thing) The service industry jobs lauded to replace manufacturing don't pay enough for people to afford $25,000 cars.
Now, they want to bailout newspapers. This is too much.
On any day in the fair city of Grand Rapids, you can walk into your local supermarket, and see a representative of the Grand Rapids Press, standing at a lectern, ready to sign you up for delivery and hand you your free copy of the Press. There aren't many takers, as the copy given you is fresh out of coupons and is all content-if you can call wire service reports and local sports scores news. I don't know how good your local paper is, but here, in the heart of Conservia, it plain sucks.
On January 15, 2003, when protesters around the globe gathered to protest the US intentions on invading Iraq, the Press gave it a tiny square on the back of page one. In the meanwhile, the local Clear Channel gathering to "support our troops" got the full front page of the Metro section.Liberal media bias, no doubt.
I finally gave up on the Press when, after having been banned from submitting letters to the editorial page, I submitted one using a pseudonym in 2005. In the letter, I referenced the Downing Street Memo, or Minutes, as they are known in the UK. A damning piece of evidence that stated that "....the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy..." of invasion for Iraq. You know, the forged Yellowcake Uranium documents from Nigeria, the weather balloon station portrayed as a mobile chemical weapons lab, etc, etc. I received, later that day, a request from the editor of the paper of a link to this "memo", which should have been front page news, but, and this is something for you Teabaggers to keep in mind, dissent against the Bush regime was akin to treason, and exposing the lies they perpetrated was tantamount to sedition. Can't let the people know they're sending their children over there to die for a lie.
So now I can add this to the growing list of things my tax dollars going for that I oppose. The endless quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, the upcoming excursions into Iran and Pakistan, bailouts for billionaires, and now propping up the propaganda. Fuck them all.

Republicans want To Kill Net Neutrality. I Wonder Why. (No, I Don't)

There is no blog topic more unglamorous than Net neutrality. But, it is an important one. Net Neutrality is the notion that a neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams. What it means, essentially, is that all users have equal access to the internet.
But there are some people who feel Net Neutrality is a bad thing. They don't like the Obama administration's recent ruling defending Net Neutrality because they feel it will lead to more "regulation". To these corporatists, regulation is a bad thing. Just ask the folks in California, who had to deal with rolling blackouts during their energy deregulation, or look at how the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act led to the deregulation of our banking system, and the ensuing problems that has created. The corporatists are defending the major corporations, who claim that telecoms have no intention of blocking content or degrading network performance, but if that is the case, why has GOP Senators , who want to add an amendment to a bill denying funding to the FCC for any initiative to uphold Net Neutrality.
What a surprise. The GOP, in recent weeks following the Teabagger protests, have tried to portray themselves as the party of the angry taxpayer, but instead, have shown that they are just as much in the pocket of the large corporations who want to restrict what information you can read on the internet as the Democrats who want to use your hard earned money for handouts to bankers who robbed us while no one was looking (regulating). I wouldn't be surprised at all if some spineless Democrats (a redundancy, I know) joined in, as it is close to an election year, and the corporate campaign contributions go a long way towards suppressing any opponent who might want to try to bring back a government for the people. And if the corporatists have their way, you wouldn't even be able to read about them on the 'Net.

Guilty Dinner Party Girls

How much is a dinner with Sarah Palin worth to you? Factoring in, of course, the cost of the trip to Alaska, would you pay $63,500, proceeds of which go to Ride 2 Recovery, an organization that helps our "wounded warriors" cope with losing a limb in a pointless war designed to line the pocket of Republican Party donors? Well, Cathy Maples of Huntsville, Ala did just that. Ms. Maples is a "big advocate" for Palin, and would love to see her as president. I guess Maples isn't counting on Ralin quitting when things get rough, like she did when she was governor of Alaska. (Notice the article refers to her as former Republican vice presidential candidate and not as the job quitting former governor of Alaska)
In these tough economic times, brought on in part by reckless government spending in a war against a country that posed no threat to the US, very few of us can make a one time payment of that much money, plus round trip air fare to dine with the Retardican Party's icon of dimwittedness, but not everyone is struggling in this economy.
So what does the unassuming Ms. Maples do for a living that affords her such a luxury when many Americans are taking to the street feeling the pinch of an oppressive government taxing them to death? Why, she's a defense contractor, one of the people who are still manufacturing something this country still exports, death and mayhem. I'm not sure how much she is raking in as the government exploits stupid people's paranoia, but it only seems fair that to those who sacrificed a limb to make sure Iraq's oil is denominated in petrodollars and UNOCAL can build a pipeline through Afghanistan, that the people who profited from it give a very little back. Oh, and so profiteers like Cathy Maples can still spend frivolously on meals with whacked out politicos like Sarah Palin. It's a small sacrifice to make so that so few can live so much better than the rest of us because of our socialized defense department.

Teabagger Smackdown

I'll admit I was a little bit confused about last weekend's Tea Party (Teabaggers) Protest in Washington DC last weekend. Just what are they protesting? Government spending? Where were they when the Bush administration was spending more money than any previous administration combined? Health Car Reform? Do they like the possibility of being denied by their carrier for pre-existing conditions? Do they care so little for fellow Americans that they'd like to have them die because they are unable to afford health care? Or is is taxes? Did they not notice while in DC that everything around them, every symbol of our country's (former) greatness was built and maintained using tax payer's money? Or is it because they didn't mind all this stuff when we had a white president?
It was last night, while the kids were watching WWE Smackdown (for the sole purpose of mocking it) that it hit me: Teabaggers are the political equivalent of wrestling fans. Ignorant people being cynically manipulated and exploited for their stupidity. They both carry signs that stretch the boundaries of their ability to write legibly and spell correctly. They both are angry when their "guy" loses a fight/election. These people are not the bottom of the gene pool, they're whatever is left after the gene pool has been drained and plowed over to make a subdivision of McMansions.
Like the wrestling fans who insist that it's all real and nothing is sripted, Teabaggers are blind to the obvious as well. As Bill Moyers points out:

"Something these marchers who came to Washington at Armey's urging could hardly be expected to know. For most of his adult life, their leader has benefited from just the kind of government tax-supported health care he's fighting to keep them from having too."

Only Vince McMahon can be more cynically exploitative.

Nancy Pelosi:Looking Out For Everyone Named Nancy Pelosi

One man's liberty is another man's slavery
In a previous post, I noted that sometimes in order to get the attention of our public servants, all one needs is a vagina. Well, what if the public servant in question already has a vagina, and has no use for another?
Another thing politicians like, and crave almost as much as vaginas is money. Lots and lots of money. Take your beloved Speaker of the House. No sooner had she taken the public option for health care reform off the table did she suddenly become the recipient of a fundraiser from a private health insurance lobbyist. How convenient.
I'll bet her grandchildren love visiting their grandmother because Pelosi has a reputation for taking things off the table. She took censure for Joe Wilson off the table. (Not the Joe Wilson who exposed the Bush administration's Iraqi yellowcake uranium lie, but the one who exposed himself to be a hypocritical exposer of lies, having sat silent through many congressional addresses by President Bush that were packed full of lies waiting for someone to point their finger at the president and say-"You lie!")And, when she first grabbed the gavel as Speaker of the House, immediately took impeachment off the table.
Now, to be fair, the event is open to anyone. Anyone who can cough up $2,400 per person ($5,000 if you represent a PAC). Yep, that's me and you and probably that homeless guy I pass everyday on the way home from work.
Now, I could come up with $2400, but having recently lost my health insurance coverage, that money is about equal to a month and a half of COBRA for me and my kids. So for me, and the other 45,999,997 people with out health insurance, we really have no option, which means democracy doesn't work for us. And ultimately, that means that democracy doesn't work under capitalism at all.