It's Fun To Picture Blog In Your Pajamas

What a whirlwind winding up the last 3 months of 2008 for me.

I started a new job in September, and after a quick "figure out where everything is" phase of the job, traveled most of November. Which was crazy. It put me in the position of early voting, which I've never done before as I have always LOVED pulling the lever on actual voting day. I was way out of my normal element, out of town, in St. Louis watching the whole election develop.

Before I knew it, it was frikking THANKSGIVING, which means December is immediately around the corner. And from then til now (and probably most of January,) I've been a little VBA code warrior, which was not my original understanding of the new job, but there is so much goodness coming out of it, I really don't mind that extra dimension. It's just really been a fight for time to blog, as you, dear reader, can tell from my shameful lack of posting in these very politically interesting times.

December then posed it's own time crunch issues: Visitors We Love Were Coming To Party During The Holidays. That means really paying attention to serious menu planning and food shopping, but that's really a cheap excuse.

My partner Mr. B (also known as "belch") is my co-blogger for this post. And what we really do, is what we know: Food & Partying. It's our hobby and form of entertainment. We do it for ourselves, our neighbors, and our loved ones. It's not only economical, it's a form of creativity and we both have always thought that hospitality is a form of love. But it eats a lot of damned time.

But! Since we just had a leap second added at 12:00 UCT today, VOILA! There became enough time available to picture blog a little. We're sitting here, either ridiculously or humorously (for fabulous gay men who are NOT venturing out for New Year's Eve) in our pajamas, champagne in hand, looking toward the New Year, by looking at the photos from last weekend.

[If you click on the photos you'll get an enlarged version.]

We decided to try making chocolate candies this year. We made all the candies in this shot except the famous "Mozart Kugeln" which I just adore. There are chocolate dipped cherries (rolled in fondant), white chocolate molded candy with a peanut and chocolate ganache in the middle, and chocolate dipped pretzels. They all came out pretty good.

Belch: After painting the detail in those "christmas present" candy molds? Fuck that. Sticking with simpler shapes from now on. What a pain in the ass."

Cake. Cake is good. We are no stranger to cake, but started a new twist with this chocolate madness. What we do is split up the work. I'm good at machining out product, but belch is FABULOUS at making it look nice. So I made the sponge and the ganache for this cake. Belch did all the "eye candy" on it, including drawing out that that crazy topper.

Belch: Icing is fine, but you gotta go vertical for an eye-popping topper. I call this design "Thought Catcher" (lol)

Belch: My sister, her camera, and boobs. A giant bowl of shrimp cocktail. Why does UC wear that Santa hat?

Belch: My other sister is evidently the "Ghost Of Christmas Pictures." She and boob-sister cover their faces and I always wonder why? I think it's because They Are Wanted By Law Enforcement Officials.

40+ years aged people making zoom zoom noises. Yes, it happens. Judge not.

Belch dresses a table like nobody else. But I have to say that little bungalow era houses like the one we live in lend themselves to holiday decorations really nicely.

Lobster pot pie!

Belch: That shit was GOOD!

The neighbors are in on the whole decoration biz too.

Hope that 2009 find you all well, happy, and wise.

Cheers!
UC and Belch

The Standard Response

Hah! I learn via Digby / Taylor Marsh that the Standard Response to Wingnuts should be:

"You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you." - Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski

It's simply delicious that it's delivered to Morning Schmoe. Check it out at about 7:00 into the piece:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Good bye 2008!

Time to straighten some things out about the Warren outrage

[note from UC] Please welcome my dear friend, Margaret DFH (Dirty Fucking Hippy.) This is her first contribution to this blog, and won't be her last. She'll have her own byline here in the very near future. Please welcome Margaret, and here is what she has to say:

I've never written a diary here before but I am just so sick of the reaction by some in the hetero community who seem to feel that we in the LGBT community are somehow "whining" about Obama's selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Obama's inauguration. John Cole for example thinks that we are "an idiot chorus" and that we are guilty of "crazy outrage" and "whining". Lynda Resnick calls our hurt and anger "unwarranted" and she goes on to say:

"Rev. Rick Warren is a cuddly bear of a fellow, full of good cheer and a great sense of humor, even about himself."

There are many others who seem to feel the same way about Warren and about the issue but these two represent on the one hand, the anger at the LGBT commubity for daring to speak up and on the other hand, the patronizing bullshit from those who truly don't get the cause of our upset. Let me attempt to explain to the clueless, (the Resnicks) and to the STFU crowd, (the Coles) where my own anger comes from.

I have been transgendered my whole life and it's always been reasonably apparent that I was not born female. I mean, I can look drop dead gorgeous if I wanted to spend several hours getting ready to go outside every day but the reality of my existence is that I get up an hour before I have to be at work, take a shower, slap on some rudimentary make-up and go. The result being that the attentive can always tell that I used to be male.

There lies the problem. I used to be much, much worse at being able to "pass" as a woman, having not had the benefit of being taught to use cosmetics properly. This had caused me to be threatened and a couple of times, attacked and beaten. On one infamous occasion, I suffered several broken ribs and the Houston police arrested me on the grounds that I "should have taken a different route" having been threatened by those people before. No charges were ever filed but I was forced to walk home from the downtown police station. Lacking a job and health coverage, (and being young), I never had those ribs treated. In fact, I only found out that they had been broken years later. On a different occasion. I had the orbit of my right eye shattered and my skull fractured. On still another occasion, I was raped, (something I've never told anybody until this very second), and repeatedly kicked in the groin.

What all of these people who find or outrage "tiresome" or "crazy" have in common is that it's likely that none of them have ever been beaten for their orientation or for their appearance. Oh I know most males at one time or another get the shit knocked out of them, usually by a drunk friend but I seriously doubt that any of them have been literally beaten to within an inch of their lives. How easy it must be to be so sanctimonious and to call people names for trying to speak up for the wrongs committed against and upon us.

Personally, I would like to see John Cole take any one of the beatings that I have endured. I'd like Lynda Resnick to be taunted and have objects hurled at her head for walking down the wrong street. I'd like to see both of them denied employment, unemployment benefits and shelter because their sex doesn't match their gender. I'd like them to have to walk a mile in my shoes before they tell me to shut the fuck up about the Warren selection.

Remarkably, there are some in the LGBT community who feel the same way as the heteros which I totally don't get at all. Melissa Etheridge seems to think that Warren is a nice guy and has "open arms and an open heart". I think that she may be conflating personality with ideology. I once had a roomate who worked for John Cornyn when he was Attorney General in Texas. I've met the man and in person he is a super nice guy. Soft spoken, respectful and even warm but that doesn't stop him from being a narrow minded, bigoted asshole ideologically, He voted with Bush nearly 100 percent of the time and he pushed for that abominable Constitutional amendment in my state. Melissa, I hate to say this but you are dead wrong. Of course Rick Warren seems like a nice guy! He's a preacher and he wouldn't be a very succesful one if everybody thought of him as a pompous, self rightgeous, bigoted jerk!

So, for me, every time it gets cold and the left side of my rib cage hurts, every time I try to use the peripheral vision in my right eye and see flashes of gold, every time I can't sleep because my urinary tract is burning and I'm popping Urelle and Pyridium like m&m's, I'll think about Obama selecting Pastor Rick Warren. A man who, despite not having been personally involved in the injuries I've suffered, is just as guilty as the perpetrators of the violence because by encouraging his flock that we, the LGBT aren't really human after all, he may as well have been there, holding me down and egging them on. And that's just the way it is, regardless of what Cole or Resnick or even Etheridge think about it.

Maybe when one or more of them have the shit beaten out of them for the "crime" of wanting to pursue happiness like everybody else gets to do, maybe then they'll change their opinions. Either way, right now, they have no standing to even address the issue.

I'm not going to say that I will no longer support Obama but I will no longer trust him. I'd be an idiot to do so.

A Little Night Music

There are a lot of things about Christmas that bug me, but there are some great features which I just LOVE! This would include Vince Guaraldi and his input of jazz into Christmas songs. Begone, Hymm! Behold the Jazz Trio!

Wish I had a trio, dang it.

Anyhow, here's "Christmas Time Is Here." With some house shots. The other thing that's quite fun to me about this time of year as that one needs no excuse to make the house frikking GAUDY. Which we do. With glee.




Party, bitches! Cheers to you and yours.

UC

So What?

A look at the outgoing chump:

Catch that?

BUSH: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take–

RADDATZ: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

BUSH: Yeah, that’s right. So what?

Bush's "Marie Antionette" moment, exposed!

"Let them SUCK THIS!"

Read on dear blogger, from HuffPo's Erica Heller:

"So what?' said the man in charge of the free world, when asked about whether or not Al-Qaeda was in Iraq before we were. So what? Huh? Were chillier, crueler, more cavalier words ever spoken? Somehow, this seems to be lost in the news today but my brain refuses to flush it. Perhaps because my blood is still boiling. It seems to me that with those two extraordinary, positively barbaric words, we finally got to see the true Bush, without artifice, without the smug, sneering frozen mask of pre-prepared, freeze-dried answers to questions, which he always seemed so infuriated at having to answer. Indeed, he is the very epitome of a So What President. So what if the Katrina victims rot? So what if the world hates us? So what if our actions resonate everywhere with dire, catastrophic consequences? So what if people are starving and have no health care in one of the richest nations in the world? And so what if we leaped into an unnecessary war with manipulated "evidence", in which thousands have perished, utterly pointlessly? [Emphasis added]

As the late night teevee ads say: "WAIT! There's More!" From frikking TWEETY via HuffPo:
(Watch the whole damn 14:50 of this. Entirely illuminating.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"Where do you get this from?" Matthews screamed. "We can't find the weapons, we can't find the rationale, what kind of mortal threat? Where do you get these words from? Mortal means you die.

"You guys sold the war as a nuclear threat to the United States...you sold every trick you could to get us into this war," he continued. "And now you're backpedaling. And I do find it astounding....Four thousand people are dead because of the way you feel. And Frank Gaffney, you're wrong about this."

"It is regrettable that they had to die," Gaffney said, "but I believe they did have to die," citing Hussein's chemical, biological, and nuclear capabilities. "The danger was inaction could have resulted in the death of a great many more Americans than 4,000. And that's the reason I'm still delighted that we did what we did."

"The American people don't buy it, Frank," Matthews said. [Emphasis added]

No, We Don't Buy It.
Actually, So What Frank, I give a shit if you're delighted.

So President-elect Obama, take note. To date, you're not giving progressives any nod or weight whatsoever in your appointments. You should. Keeep those troops in Iraq; keep fighting the alleged "good war" in Afghanistan"; keep appointing 'more of the same' folks in your cabinet.

Cause guess what? You're not going to get any slack from the media like Bush is about your previously made promises. Wake up, Obama. This particular Bush story has no legs because of the partisan take of the media.

Right now, you're basically saying "So what?" to a big chunk of the folks that elected you for the sake of "post-partisanship" and "pragmatism." It might all be cool now for you, but you're looking at one term as far as I can see.

To which I say:

No diff. So What?
----------------------------------------
UPDATE:

Atrios' Wanker of the day, today Wednesday December 17th is Obama!

I don't care about his color, except for the fact that Obama ain't blue enough for me. I knew that going into the voting booth, but it still rankles me.

How Can We Miss You

When You Won't Go Away?

This is just sick. Mary Beth Buchanan, whom I've previously dubbed the Queen Bee-Yotch of the Loyal Bushies, has stated that she intends to stay on as US Attorney in the Obama administration, despite being the worst partisan in the most partisan DoJ of all time.

The story, from Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly,

When the U.S. Attorney purge scandal was at its height, some federal prosecutors became famous for getting fired for purely political reasons. Other U.S. Attorneys became notorious for being loyal Bushies who seemingly used their offices to advance the Republicans' agenda.

Take Mary Beth Buchanan, for example, the U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh since 2001. Buchanan has been accused, repeatedly, of being one of the more blatantly partisan prosecutors in the country, and using her post to launch politically-motivated investigations. With Bush's second term nearly over, many have been looking forward to Buchanan stepping down, as all U.S. Attorneys do when the White House changes hands.

But therein lies the twist. As Faiz noted this morning, Buchanan wants to stay right where she is.

Despite a new administration coming into power, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said she plans to stick around.

"It doesn't serve justice for all the U.S. attorneys to submit their resignations all at one time," she said yesterday. [....]

More than that, she said she would consider working in the Obama administration. She would not discuss what her future might hold beyond the U.S. attorney's office.

"I am open to considering further service to the United States," Ms. Buchanan said.

Well, that's certainly generous of her to offer, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the Obama administration will replace her very quickly if she refuses to step down.

And there's more, from the 11 O'clock News:

She’s been described by colleagues as the quintessential loyal Bushie. “She is very focused to the department first of all,” said one assistant U.S. attorney, who asked not to be named. “She’s not independent, and I don’t think she wants to be.”

During her tenure, Buchanan has been criticized for bringing politically-motivated investigations and charges against politicians in Western Pennsylvania, none more famous than the public corruption case against a local high-profile Democrat Dr. Cyril H. Wecht. Former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh told Congress that the Wecht prosecution is “not the type of case normally constituting a federal ‘corruption’ case brought against a local official.” (and let US not mention the Collar bomb "investigation")

Buchanan hired Monica Goodling, and she hand-picked a Pittsburgh attorney to serve as the U.S. prosecutor in Alaska, going over the heads of Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski. She also had a peripheral role in the U.S. attorney scandal:

She did talk with [Gonzales chief of staff Kyle] Sampson about some of the prosecutors who were ultimately fired, including Carol Lam, U.S. attorney in the Southern District of California…

But the most involvement Ms. Buchanan seemed to have in the firings, according to the report, was in meeting with former U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan of the Northern District of California.

Buchanan “has been criticized because her office has brought a number of high-profile cases against Democrats during her tenure, but rarely targeted members of her own party.” And now Buchanan wants to volunteer her services to President-elect Obama.

Here's a suggestion: Mary Beth, offer your services to defend Bush. He'll need all the help he can get.

Here's a stronger suggestion, for Barack Obama: Keep this woman on as US Attorney for more than 48 hours after your inauguration and you might as well announce your intention to become the electorate's nightmare - George Dubya Bush's third term. Keep her on longer than a week and she'll probably try to prosecute you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dan Hicks Performs "I Scare Myself"

(Because I couldn't find How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?)

Pink Floyd University - "On The Turning Away"

Have you ever been beaten senseless, just for being who you are?

I have. It's not a wonderful experience.

This picture is of David Graham, who at the time two years ago in 2006, was 26. He was a favorite to win the Australian version of the TV show "Big Brother" and tearfully outed himself on that program. And yep, he totally paid for it. With the beating of his life.

This is the physical version of the political version of what just happened in California with the passing of Proposition H8. In my opinion, what happened was that thugs jumped into the political process in the form of the Mormons, who mugged gay people of their previous ability and right to marry in that state.

This is the first time I can think of that rights were actually TAKEN AWAY in proposed legislation. The struggle for any groups rights have met defeat to actually gain the right sought, but never taken away to my knowledge. If someone knows of another case where that would be true, please speak up and let me know. I''d truly be interested in trying to compare the situations.

Now, let me get to why this is a Pink Floyd University Post. A snip from the lyrics of "On The Turning Away":

Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away

Which I believe is the point that RFK was really pounding during his run for the presidency. And it's fun for me that someone else has a bent that puts politics and Pink Floyd together:

Just change "negro" to "gay" and "Viet Nam" to Iraq/Afghanistan". Voila, today's realpolitik, plus!

I frankly do not think, as many folks have written on blogs or newspapers, or said on cable and other outlets, that it is the fault of African Americans that Prop H8 passed in California. I agree with Kathryn Kolbert of "People For The American Way," who wrote:

As a mother who has raised two children in a 30-year relationship with another woman, I fully understand the depth of hurt and anger at voters’ rejection of our families’ equality. But responding to that hurt by lashing out at African Americans is deeply wrong and offensive — not to mention destructive to the goal of advancing equality.

Before we give Religious Right leaders more reasons to rejoice by deepening the divisions they have worked so hard to create between African Americans and the broader progressive community, let’s be clear about who is responsible for gay couples in California losing the right to get married, and let’s think strategically about a way forward that broadens and strengthens support for equality.

Others have taken on the challenge of looking at the basic numbers and concluded that it is simply false to suggest that Prop 8 would have been defeated if African Americans had been more supportive. The amendment seems to have passed by more than half a million votes, and the number of black voters, even with turnout boosted by the presidential race, couldn’t have made up that difference. That’s an important fact, but when African American supporters of equality are being called racist epithets at protests about Prop 8, the numbers almost seem beside the point.

Republicans and white churchgoers, among many other groups, voted for Prop. 8 at higher rates than African Americans. There are few African Americans in the inland counties that all voted overwhelmingly to strip marriage equality out of the California constitution. So why single out African Americans? Who’s really to blame? The Religious Right. Let’s start here:

Conservative evangelical leaders who are unremittingly hostile to the rights of gay people and who put Prop. 8 on the ballot and bombarded pastors, churchgoers, and the public with lies about gay people wanting to destroy their religious liberty and come for their children — even suggesting that Christians would be thrown in jail if Prop 8 passed.

Mormon Church leaders who turned Prop. 8 into a national religious crusade against gay couples, badgered Mormons nationwide to give heavily to the campaign, and recruited thousands of footsoldiers for door-to-door canvassing (special kudos to the courageous Mormons who challenged the Church leadership)

Conservative Catholic leaders who betrayed Catholic teaching about human dignity by enthusiastically joining forces with campaign organizers who portrayed supporters of gay equality as evil and satanic. “Yes on Prop 8” leaders whose view of the campaign as a battle between good and evil led to an “ends justifies the means” campaign that included grossly distorted ads, mailings, and robocalls directed at African Americans and falsely portrayed Barack Obama as a Prop 8 supporter.

There will be plenty of post-game analysis of the No on 8 campaign’s choices and strategies, and that’s not the purpose of this memo. But it is clear that the Yes on 8 campaign had a far more aggressive and systematic outreach to African American religious leaders and voters. If we either take black voters for granted because they are “supposed to” be liberal, or we write them out of our campaign strategies because we label them inherently homophobic, we cannot turn around and make them the scapegoat for our failings.

[Emphases and links added]

I really don't think that writing out black voters for any of the reasons Kathryn stated is the way to go. Nor do I think that labeling them homophobic is they way to go either, but having said that, the black men and hispanic men that I have had for friends and lovers in the past have often bemoaned the distance that's been created in their families for their own acceptance, and in my opinion, that gulf has at least been the same, or a little greater for those men I've known. There's plenty enough homophobia to go around, and it doesn't need a particular racial home as far as I'm concerned.

Homophobia just needs to go away.

Really, don't want a gay marriage? Don't have one.

Last reminder from The Wise Pink Ones:

Its a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting its shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that were all alone
In the dream of the proud

If you ask me, The Church Of Pink Floyd [so to say] would really be far more church-y than the Mormons and any other church folk who ran with the "Yes on 8" crowd.

Mary Magdalene was a whore if you believe the book. When I was gay bashed the first time in in 1979 [I was homeless and a easy target frankly], it was a prostitute and a transvestite who scooped me up and took me in and healed me, and then steeled me to the tough road ahead that was going to be in Phoenix at that time. That education was painful, but enduring.

At the end of the day, the day keeps on changing. I'm pretty OK with it that the battles for equality continue, as long as they actually do continue. And battle it is with the Mormons in particular and the Religious Right in general. After all, I have the whores and trans on my side.

I think that me, whores and trans are actually far more respectable at that same end of the day. After all, we're not the ones who are doing the "Turning Away."

TAGS: Pink Floyd University, Equal Rights, Ain't walking on eggshells, Why is it so difficult for people to be FAIR?

Meet Me In St. Louis

Feels weird to me. First time in 1,000 years that I won't be home during election night. I'll be in St. Louis, Mo.

"I feel elegant, but I can't breathe... "

"What'd you get me for Christmas? I hope it's a hunting knife.."

All the above kinda made me think of Utah Savage.

Going Viral - Partial Transcript

Sarah Palin Gets Punked by "The President of France."

Just listening the second time I can't believe how she just plowed through the conversation no matter how ridiculous 'the President of France' got. This is my favorite part:

'Sarkozy': "You know my wife Carla would love to meet you, even though she was a bit jealous that I was supposed to speak to you today."

Palin: "Well give her a big hug from me."

'S:' "You know my wife is a popular singer, and a former top model, and she is so hot in bed. She even wrote a song for you"

Palin: "Oh my goodness, I didn't know that."

'S:' "Yes, in French it's called “Mettre du rouge a levre sur un cochon,” or if you prefer in English, Joe the Plumber (sings)"

Palin: "Maybe she understands some of the unfair criticism, but I betcha she is such a hard worker too, and she realizes you just plow through that criticism."

'S:' "I just want to be sure I don't quite understand the phenomenon, Joe the Plumber. That's not your husband, right?"

Palin: "That's not my husband, but he's a normal American who just works hard and doesn't want government to take his money."

'S:' "Yes, yes I understand, we have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France - It's called Marcel, the guy with bread under his armpits, Oui."

Palin: "Right. That's what it's all about, it's the middle class and government needing to work for them. You're a very good example for us here."

'S:' Uh, I seen a bit about NBC, even FOX "news" wasn't an ally as much as usual.

Palin: Yeah, that's what we're up against.

'S:' I must say Governor, I loved the documentary they made on your life. You know us loves Nailin' Palin.

Palin: Oh, good thank you. Yes.

'S:' That was really edgy.

Palin: Oh, good.

'S:' I really loved you. And I must say something else, governor. You've been pranked by The Masked Avengers. We're two comedians from Montreal.

Note: "Mettre du rouge a levre sur un cochon" means 'putting lipstick on a pig' or alternately 'on a slut.'

What more can you say about Palin's epic introduction to the world of foreign affairs?

Cross-posted from Les Enragés.org

Boo!

Boo!

100,003 Attend Denver's Obama Rally

Ed Note: I wantonly swiped this post from my friend NosyBear who is a blogmate from Les Enrages.org. It was quite the event yesterday, and I'll add video later. - UC

Apparently in estimating the size of the crowd in Civic Center Park in Denver today, the Denver police missed three people: Myself, UC and UC's partner. Here's what 100,003 people look like in Denver's City Center Park.

If you squint really hard underneath the American flag back in the trees, you'll see the three of us the Denver PD missed. I'm the guy next to the pink pixel representing a pink hat worn by a lady standing next to me. For scale, since this was apparently taken using a telephoto lens, it's about a half-mile from the podium to the capital steps. The police are actually estimating more than 100,000 so it looks like we beat St. Louis for the biggest Obama rally in the nation.

Not bad for a state that eight years ago was considered reliably red.

Of course, there were a couple of McCain protesters. We saw these guys trying to look inconspicuous. Of course, our crowd wasn't their crowd - they had nothing to worry about but I'm sure they projected their biographies onto us and thought they were faced with a hundred thousand clones of themselves. I'd have been quiet, too. Not shown is the nun with a placard calling Obama a baby killer. Gotta love that one - when contraception and comprehensive sex education would eliminate most abortions, they can only think the best course the one most discredited: Ban abortions.

A bit more crowd-watching. They were hanging from lamp posts. They were in the trees. They were atop the Denver Post building and the Denver Art Museum. The crowd was huge, polite, and 80% of them had early voted. And finally, we found two of the undercounts:

Not to be premature but it looks like next Tuesday evening will be a very short one for John McCain.

Expect video from UC later....

p.s. Forgot to mention McCain was here last week. The estimated crowd at the National Western Arena (think Stock Show) was 4,000 people. Cheers!

TAGS: 100,000 in Denver, Obama Rally, Undercounts, Don't Tell Anyone our Weather's This Good

Not Enough Katherine Harrises To Steal This One

I keep looking at the map and I just don't think there are enough Katherine Harrises or Ken Blackwells in America for McCain to win. Isn't doubting that McCain can steal this election un-democratic? Am I calling down the thunder? What makes me think that the force is with us now?

Let's go back and look at how the last two Predisential elections went down.

I have no doubt that in 2000, illegal voter suppression disenfranchised tens of thousands of Florida voters creating a contest that settled within hundreds of votes.

The results of the recount court battle led to the U.S. Supreme Court handing the election to George W. Bush. Despite the ridiculous logic applied to the imfamous case, the problem was not the decision of the court, but rather the narrow grounds on which Gore's legal team contested the vote. Only when the proper legal application of voter intent--which included overvotes, which were not included in Gore's challenge--was applied to the recount by a consortium of journalists did we finally have conclusive evidence that Gore really won. Many irregularities took place in other states, but the scene of the crime was in one state--Florida.

Four years later, in 2004, illegal voter suppression disenfranchised enough voters for George W. Bush to take Ohio's decisive electoral votes. Once again, the election came down to the state that everyone thought it would come down to for months ahead of the election.

So yes, when the last domino of the election happens to be the state where your brother is Governor and this person

is in charge of elections, then yes, you wind up with this:

And, four years later, if the person in charge of the vote in Ohio is throwing out votes based on the weight of the paper used for their registration, you get this:

again.

Imagine with me for one second that John McCain's team is every bit as good as Greg Palast says they are at suppressing votes. E-vote flipping has been evident as well. Still, in order for this to work, the McCain campiagn still needs to know which states' votes to suppress.

How can they do that when they face the reality of losing Georgia? Stealing Florida or Ohio or both will only mitigate the landslide, not bring victory.

By the way something, it even looks like the Supreme Court is not on their side anymore.

UPDATE: Just because I'm calling it doesn't mean anyone should get complacent. Remember, the goal is a complete shut out. Not one vote for McCain. Now get back to work.

This Is NOT A Post From "The Onion"

Seriously. File this under the department of "you can't make this shit up."

In the letter, McCain urged Russia's U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, to contribute anywhere from $35 to $5,000 to help ensure McCain's victory over Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, currently ahead in voter preference polls.

"If I have the honor of continuing to serve you, I make you this promise: We will always put America -- her strength, her ideals, her future -- before every other consideration," McCain assured Churkin.

Moscow's mission to the United Nations issued a terse statement on the Republican presidential candidate's letter, saying that the Russian government and its officials "do not finance political activity in foreign countries."

[...]

It is illegal for U.S. presidential candidates to accept funds from foreign sources. The McCain campaign accused Obama earlier this month of not doing enough to screen for illegal contributors and asked U.S. election officials to investigate.

What fantastic, intelligent and disciplined management the Repugnicans bring to their game!

Not.

McCain Has A New Rival

Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate
May Steal Support From McCain

Profile:

Experience:
Shot at least seven men for giving him the stink eye

Reason For Running:
Wants to Rid Washington of flimflam men, hornswogglers, jakes, jukers, and no-good four-flushers

Signature Issue:
Yelling at people

Proudest Accomplishment:
Once punched Teddy Roosevelt square in the mouth

(From The Onion)

UPDATE: You think I'm kidding? Look at this very recent New York Times/CBS poll. Do you notice that while Obama's support has gone up by 5% in one week, McCain's has gone down by 6%? Where do you think that other 1% could have gone?

It's sure as hell not like those kind of people don't exist.

SCAMS!

Variations on the Nigerian Royalty scam are on the rise. What I think is really detestable is these ones found me via resume posting and job board accounts like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. That's right, these creeps target people seeking work and won't mind robbing them blind of their last chunk of money.

Here's what they look like:

Start working with us today! All that you need is to have the bank account
and the opportunity of checking your e-mail twice day. *Previous
experience in finance/accounting is not a mandatory requirement.

It could even be a part time! Your earnings will depend on your
speed and accuracy of completing assignments. Salary starts from
$3,000 USD(2,057 EUR) per month.

Please contact us: Liberty.Trading.Team@gmail.com for additional
information. We look forward to hearing from you as soon as
possible.

Sincerely,Liberty Trading team, Michael Gilson,
Liberty.Trading.Team@gmail.com

And another:

I am Maxwell Dean, marketing manager of Es Textiles & Fabrics Company .
We are into Raw materials Production of textile and fabrics which I Supply to my
customers in the American geographical region and Europe, For making of good
clothes and Fabrics.

Our customers in AMERICA intend to pay with USA Money Orders, which
is hard for me to cash here in the Cyprus . So I decided to search for a reliable and honest person in USA to help me in cashing the Money Order and send me cash here in Cyprus. All you need do is this; you will accept payment from my customers Coming to you in Money Orders. You will take it to the Bank to have it deposited. You shall be rewarded with a payment of 10% for every payment you receive.

Please if you are interested, forward all requiredInformation below to me :
Your Name:
Mailing Address:
State:
Zip Code:
City:
Country:
Cell/phone number:
Age:
E-mail address:
Present working Status:
Have you done this type of work before ? YES / NO

You must have a bank to process payments !
Reply me as soon as possible only if you are interested as soon as I
receive the above details from you work will commence.

Regards,
Marketing Manager'Maxwell Dean
E-mail : maxdeanbiz@gmail.com
Phone No: +9054288735018
Website: http://www.estextile.com

If you know low information folks seeking work and have their resumes up at Monster and other websites, let them know to beware of these jerks. Sad thing is I am sure there are others targeting the same group, and some targets thinking its something that these 'opportunities' could help their period of unemployment.

Sidewalk To Nowhere

While catching up on blogs I came across this little piece of loveliness and harmony via Glenzilla's place.

While the video speaks for itself about the kind of tribal values of the dead-ender 24%-ers still hewing to those fabulous Republican Party Principles, Glenn was actually going off on the media. I applaud his efforts as he makes some great observations, like:

And worst of all, all of this rage and this innuendo is taking place in the most volatile climate of all — one of severe economic distress and anxiety — and these mobs are increasingly becoming convinced, because the Right and the McCain/Palin campaign is leading them to believe it, that this economic crisis is the fault of the black candidate — Obama — for making banks give mortgages to racial minorities. As an email printed just now by Jonah Goldberg put it — defending someone at a McCain/Palin rally today who screamed he was “very angry” at Obama the “socialist”:

He, and the rest of the conservatives in this country are sick and tired of being taken for granted, having our money stolen by the government and given to lazy, ungrateful people who don’t contribute or produce (or often, aren’t even citizens) anything.

This is what happens when you stoke the fury and resentments of people looking for scapegoats and work them into a blind rage. And they didn’t just pop up and start believing this. They’re saying this because the core premise of the McCain/Palin campaign has become that Barack Hussein Obama is a Terrorist-sympathizer, being funded by secret Arab sources, who hates the military and the troops. As McCain now asks in his most sinister tone in every speech: Who is the real Barack Obama? As National Review’s illustratively deranged Andy McCarthy put it: ” Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn’t; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he’s qualified for public office.”

Glenn's points are well taken, and the rest of his post does the usual thourough job of painting the whole corrupt media picture.

On a related topic where Glenn did not opine, I will. That's about the outcome of the election.

Let's say that the Thugs are unsuccessful in stealing the election and Obama wins, which I'm pretty comfortable saying since I believe the margin is now too wide to overcome, even with thievery.

The. Dogs. Are. Loose.

The Thugs are preparing and unleashing their foul and vicious members. It's not that I am so worried about Obama's safety. I am worried about every brown skinned person, every gay person, every person willing to speak out against the Reichwings failed and corrupt policies. People of peace will be voilently confronted by these angry dogs of war in the street because "since your not with us, you're against us." Any persons our groups perceived as "other" or "that one" by these turds is going to have a tough time of it, as they/we will be blamed for their precious fanatsy universe crumbling and reality rearing it's long absent head. Commanded by the likes of Sarah Palin these lunatics will be back to bombing Planned Parenthood any day now.

On the other hand, there are these guys. Let's hope there are tons more like them.

TAGS: Wingnuts, Insanity, Sidewalk to Nowhere, If the Thugs steal the election this is how they'll rule, Collectively A Room Temperature IQ, Paste Eaters, Failed Kindergarten Etiquette

Buses and Trains

My new commute to work is somewhat contrarian to a lot of people's commute; I live very near downtown Denver and work out in the suburbs. Actually the Tech Center is not really a suburb, but a business cluster, surrounded by 'burbs.

So most people are commuting the opposite direction, flowing into downtown. Interestingly, people on the bus and train are talking about presidential politics, and a lot. I would guesstimate that it's about 9 to 1 running pro Obama.

They really don't like McCain or Palin.

But I suppose you'd expect dirty fucking hippies who take public transportation instead of driving an SUV solo like a REAL AMERICAN to be all commie pinko like that wouldn't you?

I'm Coming Out Against Sarah Palin

A wee bit o wisdom and experience of the gay brothas and sistahs about The Evil Mooselini:

So, um, this gay atheist says "Keep The TaliBaptists From Coming to A Theater Near You! You're Next!"

D E F E A T Mc C A I N!

No Time For Blogging Today!

Hi blogosphere.

Since I started my new job/schedule, there has been literally "No Time For Blogging Today!" That should settle down in a week or so, but in the mean time, very light and sparse posting.

Can I just say this about my commute? I'm highly amused in the mornings when my train is flying down the track, and the cars on the freeway are moving reeeaaalllll sssssllllooooowwww.

One more thing. All "Yea" voters on the bailout were schlubs. Don't let them change the language to "rescue" from "bailout." In fact call it THIEVERY!

Gone Zo But Not Forgotten

Former A.G. A. G. Back In The Headlines

It's been a long time since we've heard about former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The little worm probably thought he wriggled off the various hooks he'd impaled himself on in service to his idol Führer President George W. Bush. Think again. From The Atlantic (via Crooks and Liars):

In March 2004, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales made a now-famous late-night visit to the hospital room of Attorney General John Ashcroft, seeking to get Ashcroft to sign a certification stating that the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program was legal. According to people familiar with statements recently made by Gonzales to federal investigators, Gonzales is now saying that George Bush personally directed him to make that hospital visit.

This incident is one of the worst examples of abuse of power in an administration rife with - indeed characterized by - abuse of power. I blogged about this dramatic story back in May of 2007 when the testimony of James Comey revealed the incident in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee. I lamented a day later that it had been virtually ignored by the Lamestream Media (abbreviated LaMe) - in stark defiance of the journalistic rule, "if it bleeds, it leads."

My opinion then, to which I still adhere, was that if the American public knew what went on in John Ashcroft's hospital room it would have led to Bush and Cheney's being lynched impeached. So I think one correction needs to be made to Murray Waas's otherwise excellent article about these new developments. The 'now-famous' visit to Ashcroft's hotel room is nothing of the sort. I would bet that it's only famous to the denizens of Greater Left BlogSylvania, because a) the LaMe have kept schtum about it, so 70% of the public have never heard the story and b) the complicit House and Senate chose not to make an issue of this political dynamite, that could well have put Bush, Cheney, and Gonzo in the dock defending against treason charges.

For a more thorough understanding of the issues surrounding this incident I urge you to read the entire Waas article and/or my own post from May of last year (links will open in new windows.) There are two new stories here, the first the revelation above, from Gonzo's own lips, that George Bush personally directed him to make that hospital visit. That's big. There's been speculation about this, Gonzo testified that he was acting 'on the authority of the White House' but until now that left the possibility open that he was under Cheney's direction. (TPM Muckraker has archive YouTube footage of Gonzo's testimony that goes to this issue.) This new revelation, if true, puts Dubya's skinny neck right on the chopping block. The deliberate and underhanded effort to subvert the Constitution and the rule of law in a naked grab for power is undeniable.

I just have to insert a reminder here. When this hospital room incident happened, Gonzales was still White House Counsel, John Ashcroft was the titular Attorney General but was not actively carrying out the duties of that office, and James Comey was the acting Attorney General. It's important to know that to understand the level of impropriety of Gone-Zo's actions.

The second aspect of the story that's new is the information "that in another instance the President asked [Gonzales] to fabricate fictitious notes." Parts of that story appear in the Murray Waas article linked above. Waas has a separate article here about the fabricated notes aspect of the story. This one puts Gone-z0's neck on the block, and I have to comment that it is simply shocking to see how compliant AGAG is with the most outrageous requests from his president.

President Bush reauthorized the surveillance program on March 11, 2004, one day after the hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to sign a certification saying that the program was legal and could therefore continue.

In reauthorizing the surveillance program over the objections of his own Justice Department, President Bush later claimed to have relied on notes made by Gonzales about a meeting that had taken place the day before (March 10), in which Gonzales and Vice President Cheney had met with eight congressional leaders—also known as the “Gang of Eight”—who receive briefings about covert intelligence programs. According to Gonzales’s notes, the congressional leaders had said in the meeting that they wanted the surveillance program to continue despite the attorney general’s refusal to certify that it was legal.

But four of the congressional leaders present at the meeting say that’s not true; they never encouraged the White House to sidestep the objections of the attorney general and continue the program without his approval.

Investigators are skeptical of the notes because Gonzales did not write them until days after the meeting with the congressional leaders, and he wrote them after both Bush and Gonzales had together signed a reauthorization of the surveillance program.

Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time he met with the congressional leaders, has told investigators working for the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General that President Bush personally directed him to write the notes so that he could “memorialize” what the legislators had told him, according to a report made public by the Inspector General’s Office on September 2 and sources close to the investigation.

The timing of when Bush directed Gonzales to write the notes is important: investigators say the fact that they were written after both the meeting and the reauthorization of the program might indicate that they were written in order to provide an after-the-fact justification for the signing of the reauthorization—and that that timing might have given Gonzales a motive to lie in the notes.

For the sake of clarity and brevity I'll try to sketch this out in bullet-point form.

• The Bush/Cheney crime syndicate wanted desperately to be able to wiretap whomever that they wanted to, whenever they wanted to, without oversight.
  
• They knew damn well that this was illegal, as the FISA statutes had made this particular insult on the Fourth Amendment a FELONY - specifically emphasizing that the President himself was not only not exempt from the law, but after Nixon's transgressions was the very target of the law
• The Department of Justice seems to have initially certified the surveillance program on good faith, but significantly had done so without the White House really having disclosed what it was they were signing off on.
• When the DoJ got details (probably not full details) of what Bush/Cheney were actually doing with the initial authorization, they declared the program to be illegal, and vehemently declared that the certification would not be renewed.
• By the time the initial certification was to expire, Attorney General John Ashcroft lay in Intensive Care in the hospital, was recovering from surgery and under heavy sedation.
• Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card were dispatched to Ashcroft's hospital room with a manila envelope containing the renewal of the DoJ certification that the surveillance program was legal.
• James Comey had already refused to sign this document. Ashcroft, Comey and other chief officials at DoJ as well as Robert Mueller, director of the FBI had all threatened to resign if the illegal wiretapping program continued.
• The President personally phoned ahead to advise Ashcroft's wife that Gonzales and Card were on their way. This led Ashcrofts Chief of Staff to call Comey and Mueller to advise them of what was about to go down.
• Comey sped to the scene to prevent Ashcroft from being pressured while he was in no condition to defy a two-on-one play to subvert justice. Mueller called the FBI agents assigned to guard Ashcroft and order that under no circumstances was Comey to be removed from the room.
• Ashcroft, to his credit, refused to be steamrolled, telling Gonzales and Card, "I'm not even the Attorney General right now, he (Comey) is." Thus the illegal attempt to obtain the illegal certification of an illegal program was thwarted.
• Phase Two begins. Having failed to subvert the Justice Department, the White House turned their efforts to the Legislative Branch. Gonzales and Dick Cheney met later the same day (Mar. 10, 2004.) with the so-called Gang of Eight.
  
• The next day President Bush re-authorized the surveillance program HIMSELF!! through an executive order - exerting a dictatorial power that he did NOT have under any interpretation of the Constitution of the United States of America.
  
• At some point AFTER this bogus 'reauthorization' Gonzales cobbles up notes giving a false account of the meeting with the Gang of Eight - an account wherein the Gang of Eight said they wanted the surveillance program to continue.
• The Congressmen who attended the meeting said that they did NOT express such desire.

In the shortest summation I can distill this to - the President of the United States committed fraud in order to usurp the powers of both the Judicial and Legislative branches, in order to commit a large number of serious felonies. More alarming, nobody tried to stop him in the face of these patent High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Glenn Greenwald discussed these related stories with Murray Waas in Friday's Salon Radio segment. If this isn't Shock and Awe directed against the very foundations of the country I don't know what would be.

---

Geez Louise. Could it get any worse for the beleaguered Gonzales? It appears so. TPM Muckraker reports that the DoJ is going to release a report on Monday about the Prosecutors' Purge scandal. In that short report TPM recalls a predicition made by David Iglesias, who was one of the US Attorney's dismissed under questionable circumstances:

I expect them to conclude that there is sufficient evidence to show that former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty committed perjury in their statements before Congressional committees and investigators.

Seems like Alberto's got a whole lot of 'splainin' to do.

Cross-posted from Les Enragés.org

Plum Ridiculous

My next door neighbor, The Lesbian, has some fabulous plums.

Not those! Sheesh. These.

Never fails. Since her tree is on the other side of her house, I never see it very much and I always forget about the damn plums until the tree is ready to burst. Anyways, we send the Resident Tree Climber From Across The Street (also known as "shwimbo"; She Who Must Be Obeyed) up on her mission: Pick!

The haul? Damn near 80 pounds. What to do with them? Give bunches away. The Lesbian took almost 50 pounds to Denver General, and the staff and patients did much damage, demolishing the haul. The rest? Half in fresh fruit amongst 6 of us neighbors, the rest in JAM. Belch and I set up the Outdoor Jam Processing And Stuff To Can Other Goodies Unit.

You get a Big Ass Pot and cook down 15 pounds of those suckers. Add way too much sugar and pectin.

Then CAN THE BITCHES!

You end up with this:

While we had the Outfit up and running, it dawned on me, "Hey, I have all the stuff to make a shitload of Chutney Hot Enough To Make A Hindu Scream. Let's make some!"

Green tomatoes, Cayennes, Thai Hots, Jalapenos, Loads Of Mint all were just laying around in the garden, and miraculously there just happened to be some apples onions and raisins in the pantry.

Observing me on my rampage, Mr. B was not about to be left out of the game. He's all "Hey, aren't you gonna pick those goddamn cukes? They look ready to me."

You pick 'em Mr. Smarty Pants.

He did.

And a armload of dill too.

At the end of the day, much propane, much produce, and about 100 beers later, we ended up with this collection:

10 quarts of dill pickles, 12 pint and 12 half pints of Plum jam, 3 and a half pints of Death Chutney.

Not a bad haul for a Sunday.

Villainous Scumbags - Now With PROOF!

Well who could have possibly foreseen this bailout coming?

The Whitehouse, that's who. Because guess what? They wrote the bailout plan months ago:

Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up
as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He
acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.

Amid growing criticism of the initiative from multiple quarters, Fratto
sought to defend its key principles and argue against changes.

Hmm mmm. And showing Sara Palin yet again, How Things R Dun When Ur Preznit:

But Bush himself continues to do little to explain his plan, and he has refused
to be questioned about it.

When it could have been cheaper, did the Administration do anything? - No.

When it would have had more time for scrutiny, and not play into the end game of Presidential Politics, did they do anything? - No.

Did they write this plan in private, when all along in public they were saying "The Economy Is Strong"? - Yes.

These villainous swine planned this trillion dollar transfer, and they're executing it brilliantly.

Pitchforks and Torches!

We're All Leningrad Cowboys Now

Let's just change out "loving" for "money" and we've got a FABOO Socialist Song For Today's Wall Street!

Товарищ, дайте мне все ваши деньги!
(Comrade, give me all your money!)


TAGS: It's Great to Socialize Risk and Privatize Profits!, We're all Socialist Cowboys Now, Can haz sum bailout 2 plez?

¿Pinche, o Estupido?

What is McCain possibly thinking?

Josh Marshall thinks of a few options to explain:

Option #1: McCain is so addled he not only doesn't know who Zapatero is but doesn't even know where Spain is located.

Option #2: McCain was not confused but actually meant his very belligerent comments about Spain and the Zapatero government (Scheunemann's line).

Option #3: Through some mixture of confusion and inability to understand the interviewer's accent, McCain was confused about who he was talking about and decided to wing it, assuming that the person he was being asked about was some other left-wing strong man from Latin America and answering with the standard boilerplate about standing up to America's enemies.

None of the above are suitable for a President of the US; particularly from a guy who claims his strong suit is foreign policy.

With apologies to George Bernard Shaw's My Fair Lady -

McCain, on Spain, is mainly quite inane. - (By George he's lost it!)

221 Years Ago Today

221 years ago to the day, America’s founders gathered in Philadelphia to sign one of the most important documents in history. Our Constitution Of The United States.

It is Ours. It doesn't belong to Bush, Cheney, McCain or even Obama. It is unequivocally Ours.

It not only enumerates Our rights, it enshrines them. In my opinion, it is the most important document in my life, in your life in Our life.

My favorite part of the Constitution is the Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution. Interestingly, wikipedia says:

" It was thought by the Federalists during this time that there was no need for a bill of rights as they thought that the preamble spelled out the people's rights."

Those people were so used to the day-to-day struggle with the tyranny of kings that they all assumed everybody understood what was meant in the Preamble:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United
States of America."

Wisely, they decided to go ahead and spell out what Justice, Liberty and general Welfare meant.

There are far more astute and gifted observers regarding civil liberties than myself, so I'll let them do the talking from some of their current writings:

Sen. Russ Fengold:

On this day in 1787, our founding fathers signed the Constitution, making us a nation of laws, not of men. The basic concepts of justice, liberty, and inherent human rights outlined in that founding document, are at the very foundation of our strength as a nation.

But 221 years later, the United States is facing one of the darkest chapters in its Constitutional history. The Bush administration has treated the Constitution and rule of law with disrespect unparalleled in our nation’s history. The list of this administration’s assaults on the Constitution is breathtaking: it includes the warrantless wiretapping program, its interrogation policy and justifications for the use of torture, its extreme positions on the legal status of detainees that have been repeatedly rejected by the Supreme Court, and its refusal to recognize and cooperate with Congress’ constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight. This is a shameful legacy that must be undone in the years to come.

Glenn Greenwald:

During the last several nominating conventions, the areas outside the convention hall have become increasingly subject to the same degree of micro-control as events on the inside. With each convention, the physical area of extreme control expands to a larger and larger perimeter. Justified by resort to the same rationale used to suppress liberties in general — vague invocations of “security” — both political parties are now able to relegate dissent, protests and disruptions to unseen and highly controlled environments, far removed from the conventions themselves and far out of sight from delegates, political figures, and the establishment media outlets which televises the convention.

[...]

But while Denver was sterilized, St. Paul was overtly militarized. Beginning the weekend before the GOP convention began, many private homes in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area were raided by machine-gun-wielding, inter-agency SWAT teams, who forced everyone in the targeted houses to lay on the floor in handcuffs while the homes were searched, with the agents carting off laptops, journals and political pamphlets. Lawyers and journalists who were already on the scene or sent there were handcuffed. Advocacy groups having nothing to do with any planned protests were plainly targeted for these pre-convention raids — most notably I-Witness, a group of videographers who had videotaped police action during the 2004 GOP Convention in New York and helped to compel the dismissal of many criminal charges against arrested protesters and had traveled to Minneapolis to do the same.

On the Sunday evening before the convention began, downtown St. Paul resembled the Green Zone in Baghdad far more than an American city. Brigades of law enforcement officers were, by design, extremely visible in the entire area near the GOP Convention, and were flamboyantly displaying their array of weapons, marching in military formation, and chanting. The tension and intimidation levels even before the Convention began were palpable, and the results — truly extraordinary even judging by the metrics of how militarized our police forces
have become — were predictable.

Naomi Wolf:

What I had called a "fascist shift" in the United States, projections I had warned about as worst-case scenarios, was now surpassing my imagination: in 2008, thousands of terrified, shackled illegal immigrants were rounded up in the mass arrests which always characterize a closing society; news emerged that the 9/11 report had been based on evidence derived from the testimonies of prisoners
who had been tortured -- and the tapes that documented their torture were
missing -- leading the commissioners of the report publicly to disavow their own
findings; the Associated Press reported that the torture of prisoners in U.S.-held facilities had not been the work of "a few bad apples" but had been directed out of the White House; the TSA "watch list," which had contained 45,000 names when I wrote my last book, ballooned to 755,000 names and 20,000 were being added every month; Scott McClellan confirmed that the drive to war in Iraq had been based on administration lies; HR 1955, legislation that would criminalize certain kinds of political thought and speech, passed the House and made it to the Senate; Blackwater, a violent paramilitary force not answerable to the people, established presences in Illinois and North Carolina and sought to get into border patrol activity in San Diego.

The White House has established, no matter who leads the nation in the future, U.S. government spying on the emails and phone calls of Americans -- a permanent violation of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment. The last step of the ten steps to a closed society is the subversion of the rule of law. That is happening now. What critics have called a "paper coup" has already taken place.

So there you go. This is what's happened to Our Constitution in the last eight years. It's proof that We The People can have it, only as long as we keep it. The first step in reclaiming it, and healing it as far as I'm concerned is to deny John McCain the presidency of the United States.