tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-224533752024-03-07T18:06:35.406-06:00What Happened to My Country?Thoughts from someone who remembers when we respected our president and enjoyed the esteem of the world; when our airwaves weren't polluted by rancid, hate-filled diatribes of reckless talking heads; when our Senators and Representatives legislated first for the good of the nation and not special interest agendas; when religion was spiritual, not political; and, the rights of women were respected, not constantly under attack by political panderers. We can do better.Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.comBlogger746125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-86841879311591312762021-04-03T11:25:00.005-05:002021-04-03T17:19:02.738-05:00 WHAT HAPPENED, INDEED.....<p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>I had no idea when I first started posting a few years ago what was ahead for our country. What was ahead was to be so dark that my imagination failed. Our country has been swamped by hatred and bigotry unleashed by a man without a moral compass... heck, forget the compass, he has no morals whatsoever. </span></span></span></i><span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span> </span></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Donald Trump started his "<i>career</i>" in politics by questioning if our first Black president was born in the United States. My thoughts were, "<i>No one would pay attention to him</i>." Wrong.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>He next popped up on my radar by saying in 2015 that he was running for President of these United States. "<i>What a joke!</i>" I thought. Wrong.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>After he was elected it soon became clear that he was going to be the wrecking ball for the far-right conservative movement... nothing was sacred.... nothing too low.... nothing for the country... the ends justify the means.... his base loved it. I thought, "<i>The good people in the GOP would sit on him.</i>" Wrong. Some did try, but they had to leave the party to try.<br /></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>As I write this today, I am faced with the realization that the GOP, after 4 years of tearing down the foundation of the government in an attempt to discard "<i>by and for the people</i>" are continuing to be <i>"by and for Trump</i>" and the GOP. Period.<br /></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Trump, his enablers and minions went so far as to foment an insurrection by attacking the U.S. Capitol, threatening lawmakers and the Vice President in a bid for power trying to nullify the Presidential election. Now, since this failed, the GOP is now manipulating State laws by low-handed legal maneuvers and propaganda, supporting the big lie that Trump won the election... all applauded by Vladimir Putin and Russia who have Trump and evidently much of the GOP in their pocket. Don't doubt it. <br /></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>By taking the country back decades, to the "<i>good old days</i>;" by promoting the suppression and persecution of Blacks and "<i>others</i>;" by passing arcane voting laws; by chipping away at the rights of women, LGBTQ and anything else the GOP deems as threatening their white-supremacy and fringe-religious prejudices; the GOP has exposed the rancid underbelly of the country. I was living in la-la land. I had no idea.<br /></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>This rant will do nothing to change this headlong rush to autocracy. I don't have the answers. Will those who are misled or uncaring start to see what is going on? Will they understand the consequences, what it means to live under a dictator? Do they understand that their rights will be trampled, their lives altered and not for the good?</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We must do more than hope so. Speak out, vote, support those trying to preserve our democracy. I live in hope that some day we can say.... "<i>The democracy survived, but look at what almost happened to our country.</i>" </span><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <br /></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><b> <br /></b></span></span></p>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-64437348517756490222013-06-21T15:41:00.000-05:002013-07-02T12:38:55.289-05:00Gov. Branstad Knows Best<h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If you happen to be a poor woman living in Iowa and on Iowa's form of Medicaid, you'll have to <b>get permission</b> from Governor Terry Branstad if you choose to lawfully end your pregnancy, as reported in <a href="http://desmoinesregister.ia.newsmemory.com/?token=bc612f54f533d52ed1880676ce3fdbc6&cnum=2719415&fod=1111111STD&selDate=20130621&licenseType=paid_shared_subscriber&site=D2&sub=pnttz@msn.com&edate=20130621&source=nletter-top5&source=nletter-top5"><span style="color: blue;">The Des Moines Register</span></a> today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A provision of the newly signed state-sponsored Iowa Health and Wellness Plan gives Brandstad the "<i><u>final say</u> on whether to pay for abortion services provided under the program.</i>"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">He admitted it was a political compromise.... read far-right demand.... but that "<i>he was comfortable with the new responsibility</i>."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here is how he explains this indignity.... Branstad, who is a member of the Catholic faith, said "<i>he would seek advice from medical experts when required to make a determination on whether state dollars would be spent on an abortion</i>."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So poor women of Iowa, it's obvious Branstad thinks you're not only poor, <b>but morally inferior and stupid</b>, and thus incapable making a decision on this personal, very personal, health care right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Where is the ACLU when we need them?</b> Isn't this an abridgment of not only the First and Fourth Amendments of the U. S. Constitution, but it also nullifies the intent of Roe vs Wade to protect a woman's reproductive rights.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's nice that Branstad is comfortable with his ultimate veto power over this most personal of decisions, but the women of Iowa should be up-in-arms at the idea of another old white far-right male imposing his anti-choice religious views on them, by Iowa law no less.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This also places Iowa in the unique position of being the <b>only</b> one of the 50 states to suffer this daddy-knows-best embarrassment. </span></h2>
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Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-61229571667070962282013-06-20T17:10:00.000-05:002013-06-20T17:10:55.053-05:00<h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At last Obama seems poised to enact measures to address global warming. According to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/science/earth/obama-preparing-big-effort-to-curb-climate-change.html">New York Times</a>, he is preparing regulations for carbon dioxide emissions of power plants.... electric power plants being the biggest polluters responsible for nearly 40 per cent of our country's greenhouse gas emissions. A major step in the right direction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Expect to hear weeping and wailing from the power industry, as well as scare tactics from in-their-pocket politicians.</span></div>
Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-15208663316888575662013-06-20T12:11:00.001-05:002013-06-20T17:32:37.229-05:00<h2>
<b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The Ayatollah Would Approve!</span></b></h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Since when does U.S. citizenship hinge on church membership? Margaret Doughty must wonder "what happened to her country" .....the one she's lived in for 30 years. The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/margaret-doughty-atheist-citizenship_n_3469358.html">Huffington Post</a> fills us in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-47620442460663436072011-10-27T08:13:00.005-05:002011-10-27T08:43:41.195-05:00Cain: GOP's Latest ShowmanThis opinion piece, appearing in this morning's Des Moines Register, rips the veneer off of the GOP's public face. A must read.....<br /><br />Written by HARRY BROD<br /><br />HARRY BROD is professor of philosophy and humanities at the University of Northern Iowa. Contact: <a title="mailto:harry.brod@uni.edu" href="mailto:harry.brod@uni.edu">harry.brod@uni.edu</a><br /><br />With the most recent poll showing Herman Cain leading in Iowa by a margin of 10 points over his closest rival, it's time to take a longer look at the Cain candidacy, a longer view that looks back to the former candidate whose mantle all Republican contenders now claim, Ronald Reagan.<br /><br />There's a direct line from Reagan to Cain, but it's not in terms of values or issues, where Reagan was much too moderate for the current crowd. I mean the line from Reagan the actor to Cain the motivational speaker, the line that underscores the increasing victory of style over substance.<br /><br />Sincerity is everything in politics. If you can fake that you've got it made, goes the old saying. Renowned physician Oliver Sacks (the basis for Robin Williams' character in the movie "Awakenings") tells of patients with a condition that turns them into sort of human lie detectors - they spot insincerity, and find it hilarious. Sacks once walked by a room in which a group of such patients were laughing hysterically. Peeking in to see what was going on, he found them glued to the TV, watching a Reagan speech.<br /><br />Reagan understood the importance of stagecraft. He was controversially the first president to return a military salute, a violation of military protocol. Not even five-star General Eisenhower did that as president. He respected that the privilege of saluting comes with the uniform, not from the title of commander-in-chief.<br /><br />Cain's got a commanding stage presence, too, but he takes too much command. He reacts to interview questions thrown at him like a batter at home plate, swinging hard at pitches he likes but ignoring others, even those in the strike zone. One wonders if the swagger Republicans like will continue to be popular. Americans tend to want their chief as well as pizza executives to answer the questions they're asked.<br /><br />Today the way to convince people you're doing or would do a good job as president is by appearing rather than being presidential. When he tried to actually function as head of our executive branch President Bill Clinton was criticized as a "policy wonk," and President Barack Obama tries hard to avoid that label. As far as I can tell, wonkiness is a charge that they're trying to do their job.<br /><br />Or at least that they're trying to do the job the Constitution envisions for them. But the line from Reagan to Cain traces a different job description, emptying the job of real content and leaving it as a figurehead position, not so much chief executive as national spokes model.<br /><br />There is indeed a policy agenda behind the Republican emptying out of the presidency, but it's not spoken out loud. The policy is privatization, meaning increasing corporatization of our lives, with the essential functions of once public institutions like schools, prisons and the military increasingly outsourced to private contractors, putting them outside the democratic process by which they could be controlled.<br /><br />That's why the Republican Party is out to prevent government from functioning. Convince people that government is inherently dysfunctional, and corporations are there to fill in the gap. The less government does, the more unregulated and excess profit there is to be made.<br /><br />For those puzzled by Cain's new ad featuring his campaign manager blowing his cigarette smoke into the camera while the song sings "I am America," it's Cain repaying his corporate sponsor. He got his political start as a Washington lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association and made his mark by turning it into a front organization for the tobacco industry by opposing regulations on smoking in restaurants, a move opposed by many restaurant owners who thought his actions were bad for small businesses.<br /><br />The lines spoken by candidates in the Reagan-Cain line are written by someone else. These candidates are a mouthpiece for the corporate interests behind them, and their seemingly presidential style is just skillful corporate ventriloquism. I'll let you figure out what that makes them.Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-2675374105930081812011-10-18T10:26:00.009-05:002011-10-18T11:03:50.796-05:00GOP's Spooky Candidates<span style="font-family:arial;">As Halloween draws near, ones thoughts turn to things scary, even<strong> bizarro</strong>.<br /><br />Like demons.<br /><br />But for some evangelical Christians, demons <strong>stalk</strong> us year-round. They believe demons have taken hold of parts of our country, especially Washington, D.C.<br /><br />O.K… I can live with the D.C. part.<br /><br />As the recent </span><a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-17-US-Taking-Dominion/id-ac17c8c747964cff9894d0fd0c09709b" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:arial;">AP release</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> “<em>Election-year goals of fringe Christian group questioned</em>” points out, some Christian religious leaders, like Lou Engle the leader of The Call prayer marathons, has <strong>warned</strong> that the tornado that decimated Joplin, Missouri this year was evidence of God’s judgment on the country over…. wait for it…. abortion. Demons are punishing women over choice, so they leveled Joplin. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Say what?<br /><br />And, Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer, views the acceptance of same-sex marriage as a <strong>sign</strong> of the end times. The end times, the <strong>favorite theme</strong> of the follow-my-nutty-ideas-or-you’ll-burn-in-hell pulpit thumpers (pass the plate).<br /><br />But here is the creepiest part, these apocalyptic <strong>doomsayers</strong> were the organizers of GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry’s Houston prayer rally in August, a week before he announced his candidacy. The end of the world is an intense focus of many of the religious leaders involved in the rally. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Now <strong>that’s </strong>scary.<br /><br />Actually, Perry <strong>should </strong>be holding prayer meetings about God’s judgment on <strong>Texas</strong>, as large parts of that parched state burn like the portal to hell-fires.<br /><br />But, it isn’t just Perry, as Karl Giberson and Randall Stephens reveal in today’s New York Times editorial, “</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/opinion/the-evangelical-rejection-of-reason.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>The Evangelical Rejection of Reason</em></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>… The Republican presidential field has become a showcase of evangelical anti-intellectualism. Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann deny that climate change is real and caused by humans</em>.” Perry and Bachmann also <strong>dismiss</strong> evolution as an unproven theory.<br /><br />Giberson and Stephens <strong>expose</strong> the anti-intellectual fundamentalist evangelicals who promote (and profit from) the idea that “<em>their country has been overrun by a vast secular conspiracy</em>.” </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">They point us to the earth-is-10,000-years-old leader, Ken Ham; the-founders-intended-America-to-be-a-Christian-nation, David Barton; and the really scary, gay-people-are-unnatural (and SpongeBob SquarePants </span><a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/keyword/james-dobson/featured/4" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:arial;">promotes gayness</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">), James C. Dobson. They left out the Rev. James Farwell who warned that Teletubby Tinky Winky might be gay. All of this would be funny…. if it wasn’t so <strong>relentlessly</strong> promoted.<br /><br />These anti-intellectual scare-mongers want to take over our government…the Tea Party (useful dupes) is wrestling for control of the GOP, and intend to place the evangelical boogie-men’s hand-maiden, or man, in the White House. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Egads! </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">By the way, no Mormons, i.e., candidates Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, need apply for evangelical political blessings... they're not <strong>real </strong>Christians.<br /><br />“…<em>when the faith of so many Americans becomes an occasion to embrace discredited, ridiculous and even dangerous ideas, we must not be afraid to speak out, even it it means criticizing fellow Christians</em>.” <strong>Amen to that!!!</strong></span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-309958305200952372011-10-17T11:39:00.006-05:002011-10-17T12:09:47.636-05:00GOP's Anti-Patriotism<span style="font-family:arial;">Sullivan Ballou was a major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers during the Civil War. He wrote </span><a href="http://www.sunherald.com/2011/07/23/3294268/a-touching-letter-from-a-union.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:arial;">this letter</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> to his wife in Smithfield, 14 July 1861 from Washington, D.C.:<br /><br /><em>Dear Sarah, The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.<br /><br />I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American civilization now leans on the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing, perfectly willing, to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government and to pay that debt.<br /><br />Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence can break. And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly, with all these chains, to the battlefield.<br /></em><br />Sullivan’s letter continues for many paragraphs as he expresses his undying love for his “<em>dear Sarah</em>," his hopes to see “<em>our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us</em>,” and how when his last breath escapes him, "<em>it will whisper your name</em>."<br /><br />So how do our politicians today uphold this honorable, <strong>courageous</strong> recognition of the vital role our government plays in the lives of all of us. The recognition that civilization leans on the triumph of the government. The reverence for the great debt we owe to those who went before us? The <strong>burning inspiration</strong> that together our country can do great things, for and with each other?<br /><br />Under this noble lens, it's hard to watch the current crop of GOP candidates elbow each other aside in their eagerness to <strong>curry favor</strong> with the anti-government, pro-corporate me-first Tea Party. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presidential wanna-be Michelle Bachmann at a Tea Party rally called the current administration a "</span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002836-503544.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:arial;">gangster government</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">,” to great applause, and even claimed in a recent debate that citizens should pay <strong>no </strong>taxes at all. <br /><br />The current GOP-majority House blocks <strong>job-creating</strong> measures intended to lift us out of the financial morass they are largely responsible for under the Bush/Cheney administration. Their constant drum beat is for <strong>tax breaks</strong> for corporations…. corporations they and the Supreme Court have labeled as “people” with the right to <strong>spend unlimited sums</strong> of money to buy elections. As GOP presidential candidate </span><a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/08/video-romney-corporations-are-people-too" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:arial;">Mitt Romney said</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> this year at the Iowa State Fair, “<em>Corporations are people, my friend</em>.” <br /><br />GOP presidential candidate </span><a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20100611-Perry-says-nation-s-soul-is-7990.ece" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:arial;">Rick Perry calls</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> the upcoming election a religious crusade to put God in charge of government. God is the cloak scroundels use to <strong>mask</strong> their raw lusting for the power of the presidency, however unqualified and self-serving. Bible-thumping rheotric designed to obscure their <strong>lack</strong> of patriotism.<br /><br />Where are the GOP presidential candidates who will uphold Sullivan Ballou’s honorable, unselfish recognition of the <strong>vital</strong> role government plays in the lives of all of us?... and the great debt we owe to those who fought and died for this government? <strong>Their sacrifice wasn't for corporations.</strong><br /><br />Sullivan Ballou was mortally wounded at the first Battle of Bull Run a week after he wrote this letter. He was a <strong>true</strong> patriot… by definition a person who loves, supports, and defends his country and its interests with devotion. It says nothing about slash and burn devisive ideology against his government.<br /><br />Grand Old Party, where are your Sullivan Ballous?</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-36232683366636997012011-02-12T11:56:00.000-06:002011-02-12T11:57:13.306-06:00D.C. Under the Far-Right Heel<span style="font-family:arial;">What would the country look like if the increasingly far-right Republican party had total sway over our government? They campaigned on jobs, jobs, jobs. How about a reality check.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Take for example Washington, D. C. Although the GOP-controlled U. S. House has been in power just a little over a month, they are busy negating the will of the D.C. taxpayers.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Today's article in the </span><span style="font-family:arial;">New York Times</span>,<span style="font-family:arial;"> "<em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/opinion/12sat3.html">Even Less Representation</a></em>", gives us a glimpse of what Republican control looks like:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"<em>The district’s hard-won home rule came under assault from day one with a House rule scrapping the already pathetic power of its elected representative..... This overreach was rationalized by cynically redefining the city as just another part of the federal government.... now piling on with a proposal to overturn the district’s legalization of gay marriage duly enacted last year under home rule</em>.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"<em>Then came the Republicans’ broad assault on federal financing of abortions in the states, tailored to include a particularly insidious clause, barring the Washington district government from using even local taxes for legal abortions</em>"</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">While we have watched transfixed in the last weeks as the Egyptians dramatically moved their country toward democracy, the far-right in our bastion of freedom are relentlessly trying to dismantle ours. To insert their religious beliefs into laws that mandate government intrusion into, and control over, our most basic freedoms.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If these rights come under the heel of federal and state control.... what other of our rights could be next? This is what is happening in our country. You can change this.... 2012. Vote.</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-83192588050886162042011-02-10T11:35:00.002-06:002011-02-10T11:40:50.137-06:00What's the GOP Tea Party Brewing?<span style="font-family:arial;">Our country is being battered by a take-over attempt, the battle-plan drawn up by the religious right and corporations. Sure, they call themselves "patriots." But, that's just to keep the unwary faithful from catching on. Winning would result in a corporate-theocracy, based on their narrow interpretation, not just of the Constitution, but of the Bible. The vehicles are the tattered remnants of the GOP and the flamboyant Tea Party led by the looniest of tunes, no need to name them. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The once-Grand Old Party is being dragged behind the stampeding Tea-herd, yoked to them as a result of their obstructionist, personal-attack history. Hopefully, these false patriots have set themselves up to become history. It's just a matter of time until voters realize the "shining city on a hill" is Dubai.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The GOP/Tea Bag consortium proclaims they want smaller government, more liberty, but almost every action they take moves the country in the opposite direction. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It was the Republican administration who misled us into the moral and fiscal swamp of the Iraq war and nation building. It was the Republican administration who put into place the unfunded budget-busting drug program for senior citizens.... a giant boondoggle for the drug and insurance companies. It was the Republican administration that assembled the Homeland Security Administration behemoth, the biggest single expansion of government, ever.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It was the Republican administration who put us on the path to unsustainable debt.... and a good argument can be made that it was done deliberately in order to later say we can no longer afford Social Security and Medicare. For them, corporate welfare is fine, individual help is unpalatable.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Smaller government, fiscal restraint. Read the tea leaves, that's not in the brew.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As for freedom and liberty, GOP liberty is only for some. All are equal except women, gays, and non-believers, next up to receive the GOP backhand. Corporations have been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html">awarded</a> personhood by the ability to pour money into our electoral process thanks to our no longer Supreme-judgment court. Sad to say, the highest court in our land has become just another tool in the GOP/Tea Bag toolbox. Left unfettered, is the United Corporate States of America far off?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As for the promise to create jobs, forget that. What the GOP/Tea Baggers crave is social reform, made in their religious-moral-code image. In their perfect world, women would be forced into burkahood as control over their <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/lawmakers-spar-on-abortion-ahe.html">reproductive rights</a> fall under government control. Gays would be denied civil rights while corporations would be granted more rights... to pollute, to manipulate financial markets, and to further deregulate our food products. And clean energy, less dependence on oil. Forget it.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But there will be a reckoning..... 2012 is coming. We can reject this toxic brew. What happens to our country is up to us.</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-83945911040519339712010-03-05T10:00:00.002-06:002010-03-05T10:14:58.399-06:00RNC Fundraising Underbelly<span style="font-family:arial;">The D.C. <strong>lobbyists</strong> have been taking all the <strong>blame </strong>for the distorted campaigns against the Obama administration... especially <strong>health care reforms</strong> that would start to bring the insurance industry to heel and <strong>benefit</strong> millions of U.S. citizens.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But it's <strong>not</strong> only the lobbyists.... they're just the employed <strong>messengers</strong>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The lobbyists are, after all, openly, <strong>blatantly</strong>, in the pay of big insurance, big pharma, big oil. They <strong>don't</strong> work for the little guy, the working middle-class.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But, our <strong>elected</strong> representatives aren't supposed to be<strong> paid</strong> lobbyists, aren't supposed to act like a big legislative wood-mulcher, taking in principled reform and <strong>spitting out dirty chips.</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>But they are</strong>. And we now can see how the GOP is fueling that chipper.... the RNC's marching orders linked to Kevin Huffman's "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/04/AR2010030403276.html">Tweaking the GOP's fundraising strategy</a>," in today's <em>Washington Post</em>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Republican National Committee in its <strong>zeal </strong>to keep its fund-raising troops in perfect goose-step, gave <a href="http://www.politico.com/static/PPM136_100303_rnc_finance_leadership.html">this presentation</a> at its February <strong>RNC Finance Meeting</strong>. Here is a page from their 72-page <strong>blueprint</strong> for fundraising success for the upcoming elections. At it's heart, literally, are the motivating factors to be used to raise money from evidently <strong>clueless</strong> donors:</span><br /><br /><br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445150695560476338" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 303px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7EjWkmpZqLHK007ydJWPrfKIYyvnrd1J5ek7U6iHwsi0b_HDTHJkeVnRQYWqu32UkXYgtYaRaAg03wiMzyvmIl-MSKHUQ3DCRU94FJcalnR7Nq9v3CGFNlUaRK28D7a5QXPCgg/s400/GOP+marketing+plan.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The image of a heart usually brings to mind thoughts of <strong>love</strong>, caring.... warm and fuzzies. But this is a <strong>rock-hard</strong> heart that divides GOP donors into two classes, the average <strong>knee-jerk</strong> Joes, and the <strong>heavy-hitter</strong> big shots, or wanna-be big shots, the major <strong>ego-driven</strong> donors.</span></p><span style="font-family:Arial;">What are the RNC's recommended fund-raising strategies? The <strong>number one</strong> tactic is "FEAR!!!" Number two? "<em>Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration</em>." And there is the tried and true... SOCIALISM charge. This is so<strong> important</strong> a tactic, it got a page all to itself:</span><br /><br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445154602136532722" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 302px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGtlX4MJfbCidACOpM0eQa4Oss3Q2KorwDcUJrp1xbuh9lmZ-iLZa1wfc5CP0Xqou4kEnZXG1C6RL32EFkaHEgeV1m4Q27gFwdHPE2NvyZxxV4a2fKIyZZpRE1gs6zx1vpORAMQA/s400/GOP+Socialism.jpg" border="0" /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The <span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>red-alert</strong></span> type trumpets a Chicken-Little-sky-is-falling approach .... "<em>Save the country from trending toward Socialism</em>." Woooooo.... the "S" word. And it <strong>works</strong> too, haven't you noticed?</span> </p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">But perhaps the <strong>saddest </strong>statement of the GOP fund-raising mindset is the <strong>attack</strong> mentality of reducing your opponent to an agent of the <strong>Evil Empire</strong>.... wonder what Ronald Reagan would think of the misuse of that phrase. The GOP is into <strong>Evil</strong> BIG TIME! You know like the "Axis of Evil." Here are the RNC's evil suggestions:</span></p><p></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5445157965272504178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 308px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wgWazOO4pZTBIYklrBhXPuuzwg5tBLmLBSlVWxDY0kLU8xQHbi9A6M4CGnArUv_W2J36k0V3RdM7Wu8PcZNFbd_EFSy95BoiE7kaEg6XvBi76NjyVmoxzS8yv2jT_mlmXFf3iQ/s400/GOP+Evil+Empire.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-family:arial;">Obama in white-face as the Joker is something we've seen before... oh yes, as a big placard at the "grass-roots," "spontaneous," <strong>Tea Parties</strong>. It's a PARTEEEE... but the GOP isn't a party to be proud of.</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-29156102657746311502010-01-22T15:00:00.000-06:002010-01-22T15:00:14.059-06:00End Senate Minority Rule!!<span style="font-family:arial;">If it is true.... and it was at the least a <strong>major </strong>deciding factor.... that it was the proposed <strong>health care legislation</strong> that bloodied the tide in blue Massachusetts in <strong>last Tuesday's election.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">That put an <strong>ex-nude-model conservative</strong> who vowed to defeat that legislation into the Senate seat held by the late <strong>Ted Kennedy</strong>, whose lifelong crusade was affordable health care for all... then there is only one place to <strong>point the finger</strong> for that defeat. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Harry Reid. The<strong> let's-make-a-deal</strong> Democratic Senate Leader and the <strong>60th vote rule</strong>.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Oh, there were many other factors in play. The all-out court press of the insurance company <strong>lobbyists </strong>who spread the green around to sway legislators and <strong>confuse the issue</strong> for voters, for one. And, the health care legislation <strong>was</strong> complicated and confusing.... until Reid and the <strong>Senate extortionists</strong> gave it a focus.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong>A deciding factor.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Thanks to the blackmailing, underhanded and downright <strong>unethical behavior</strong> of two Senators, and the <strong>complicity</strong> of desperation by Reid, the voters saw a <strong>mugging</strong> of the taxpayers, and they revolted.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Who could miss Independent Senator <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/health/policy/14health.html">Joe Lieberman's holdup</a> of this legislation. He had loudly proclaimed just <strong>months earlier</strong> that parts of the health care bill should be an<strong> extension</strong> of the already functioning <strong>Medicare program</strong>. But, when this was introduced into the bill, he <strong>withheld </strong>his needed 60th vote until it was <strong>stricken</strong>. With Joe, what you <strong>hear</strong> is not what he <strong>means</strong>. Don't forget, he's a Senator from Connecticut, the <strong>insurance-capitol-of-the-world</strong> Connecticut.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">That was bad enough. And voters surely took notice, but then perhaps dismissed it as Joe being Joe.... which<strong> isn't</strong> a compliment.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The <strong>brazen holdup</strong> that finally soured the Massachusetts voters came from the heartland, from Nebraska's Senator<strong> Ben Nelson</strong>. His <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/19/AR2009121900797.html">60th vote holdout</a> started as a right-to-life <strong>roadblock</strong> that quickly morphed into Nebraska being granted certain Medicare benefits <strong>free</strong>, forever. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Nelson actually <strong>stopped</strong> the health care legislation train and told the conductor if he didn't give everyone on the train <strong>from Nebraska</strong> a free Medicare ride FOREVER he would <strong>derail it</strong>. And, conductor Reid punched Nelson's ticket. There was a <strong>national gasp</strong>.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The country, even Nebraska, was <strong>up in arms</strong> over this, <strong>disgusted</strong> is perhaps a better word. And this desperation on the part of the Democratic leadership in Congress to make <strong>any</strong> concession to pass the legislation, and President Obama's <strong>reluctance </strong>to wade into the issue and actually take charge, showed the voters of Massachusetts all too clearly that no one knew <strong>where</strong> this train was going. <strong>They wanted off</strong>.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Tuesday, Massachusetts Democrats and Independents <strong>sent the message</strong> loud and clear.... they <strong>didn't like the direction</strong> the Obama-Reid train was taking them. Free rides for some while keeping others hostage was a <strong>no-go. </strong>They <strong>cancelled</strong> the Democrats 60th vote.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So now the Democrats <strong>no longer have</strong> the filibuster-breaking 60th vote they need to pass almost <strong>anything</strong>. Not that they ever <strong>did</strong>, having to <strong>depend </strong>on the likes of Lieberman and Nelson, but the appearance at least was there. But that wasn't even the <strong>worst </strong>thing that happened to the Democrats, and more importantly <strong>the nation</strong>, this week.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">While the nation's attention was diverted by the Massachusetts train wreck, the Supreme Court <strong>struck down</strong> the concept of one-<em>man</em>-one-vote democracy. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The Supremes reached into the<strong> bedrock</strong> of our republic and tore apart its foundation as violently, and uncaringly, as the mind-numbing Haiti earthquake disaster. The shock waves will <strong>crumble our voting booths</strong> into a rubble of irrelevance. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The Supreme Court decided Thursday that <strong>soul-less</strong>, vote-less,<strong> non-citizen</strong>, steel and paper corporations are <strong>people</strong>, protected by the Constitution's freedom-of-speech guarantee. So, Wall Street,<strong> banks</strong>, insurance companies, oil companies... all those wonderful folks who brought you our budget-busting <strong>recession </strong>and more, now have the right to spend <strong>all they want</strong> on elections.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">As <strong>David D. Kirkpatrick</strong> said today in <em>The New York Times,</em> "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22donate.html">Lobbyists Get Potent Weapon in Campaign Finance Ruling</a>" ....... "<em>The Supreme Court has <strong>handed lobbyists</strong> a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official that if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend <strong>unlimited sums</strong> explicitly advertising <strong>against your re-election</strong></em>."</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong>All legislators</strong> will be the lackeys of special interests. The monied carriage-class will <strong>rule</strong>, and the rest of us.... the poor, sick and plain ignored.... will just <strong>pay </strong>for their ride.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Obama did show <strong>some</strong> outrage, stating after the decision that it's “<em>a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,</em>” while Democrats vowed to <strong>push legislation</strong> to install <strong>new spending limits</strong> in time for the fall campaign. Predictably, Republicans disputed the partisan impact of the Supreme's decision.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So.... will it take <strong>60 Senate votes</strong> to put the<strong> brakes on</strong> the political spending of the newest class of citizen.... corporations? If so, <strong>forget it</strong>. Nothing will get done for <strong>flesh-and-blood citizens</strong> until the Senate <strong>reinstates</strong> the "majority rule" conduct of business, and <strong>derails </strong>the current "minority can stop anything" obstructionism.</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-4383654589422286112009-06-15T09:29:00.002-05:002009-06-15T09:58:41.108-05:00Behind Iran's Election Results<span style="font-family:arial;">On Sunday's NBC <em>Meet the Press</em>, Vice President <strong>Joe Biden</strong> hinted that Iran's election results last week didn't seem quite right... <strong>politicos</strong> shake their heads over the odor of corruption and huffing news outlets question their validity.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Of course, our <strong>own </strong>elections have been rife with questionable results.... think of the <strong>Supremes</strong> deciding the 2000 presidential contest.... while our <strong>hackable </strong>electronic ballot systems are nothing to brag about.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">What we have here seems to be very <strong>wishful thinking</strong>, and an attitude of "do as I say, not as I do." </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Americans want Middle East peace, they want <strong>President Ahmadinejad</strong> and his <strong>scary rhetoric</strong> shown the door.... just like we did to Bush/Cheney in 2004.... oh yes, we didn't do that to The Decider and Darth Dick. Instead, while the world held it's breath, we <strong>elected them</strong> to a second term, after they <strong>lied</strong> us into the worst foreign policy blunder in our nation's history, the war in Iraq.... the Middle-East-<strong>destabilizing</strong> war in Iraq.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Well, now <strong>we know</strong> how the world felt. According to the <em>Washington Post</em>, the rumors of Ahmadinejad's <strong>political </strong>demise were very premature. As reported by <strong>Ken Ballen</strong> and <strong>Patrick Doherty</strong> in "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html">The Iranian People Speak</a>," it appears the "<em>election results in Iran may reflect the <strong>will </strong>of the people</em>."</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">On what do they base such an <strong>outlandish </strong>statement.... on a scientific national poll conducted in Iran three weeks before the election. Ahmadinejad was the <strong>preferred </strong>candidate two to one, and those results <strong>reflect </strong>the election's results. The poll was "<em>conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award</em>." Oh.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">That's <strong>not </strong>what we want to <strong>believe</strong>. Our <strong>instant-gratification</strong> conditioning hasn't the patience. But, closing our minds and living in a <strong>blame-game</strong> la-la land won't change the reality.... nor a system where <strong>all Iranian candidates</strong> are chosen by a <strong>non-elected</strong> supreme leader. Here is where the poll's results are<strong> very</strong> interesting, and encouraging. And, far from the expected <strong>safe </strong>answers one might expect in a country with an oppressive regime in power.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">While preferring Ahmadinejad, for now, <strong>four out of five</strong> indicated in answer to the poll's questions that they wanted to <strong>elect</strong> the supreme leader, chose <strong>free elections</strong> and a <strong>free press</strong> as priorities, and <strong>77 percent </strong>"<em>favored normal relations and trade with the United States</em>." Those weren't safe answers.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So, while choosing Ahmadinejad.... change <strong>is </strong>in the air. Isn't<strong> that</strong> what we should be talking about, and <strong>encouraging</strong>?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">In Iran, there are now <strong>major protests</strong> by supporters of the opposing candidate. One thing all the ballyhoo has done is to evidently <strong>unsettle</strong> the supreme leader. He's now calling for an <strong>investigation </strong>into the election. But then, why not. He can't lose. He picked <strong>all </strong>the candidates.</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-55965371922993248222009-06-12T09:28:00.000-05:002009-06-12T09:28:13.654-05:00The GOP is Icing Up<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjG1yIKF4LeHxOWc_1SNo9bsRKnB-eZ-vFx6u8v4-UiflMpHOj5u8KIt2oImErYsiQMIsiWfmUtkHCUcbq2sDTGTSZsuOIUcBLn7jw2dD1t3C8nB0pK9zYAguPt0VviYfBhT_3rg/s1600-h/GOP+mammoth+large.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346445576285598578" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 275px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjG1yIKF4LeHxOWc_1SNo9bsRKnB-eZ-vFx6u8v4-UiflMpHOj5u8KIt2oImErYsiQMIsiWfmUtkHCUcbq2sDTGTSZsuOIUcBLn7jw2dD1t3C8nB0pK9zYAguPt0VviYfBhT_3rg/s400/GOP+mammoth+large.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">This great illustration appeared with "<a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1904136,00.html">The Ice Age Cometh</a>" by right-leaning columnist, <strong>Mike Murphy</strong> in <strong>TIME</strong> this week. His op-ed is chock-full of good advice that the <strong>pooh-bahs</strong> in the GOP will likely ignore.</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">Murphy is facing facts, "<em>Saving the GOP is <strong>not </strong>about <strong>diluting</strong> conservatism but about <strong>modernizing</strong> it to reflect the country it inhabits instead of an America that no longer exists</em>."</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">Murphy is referring to <strong>demographics</strong>, the surge of Latino and under 30 voters who are turned off, and away, by <strong>pitchfork-waving mobs</strong> chasing gays through the GOP countryside. Ditto-heads... tribal GOPers whose "<em>radio dials are stuck on AM</em>"... who viciously scrabble at the constitutional bastion between their church and the state. The "<em>all men are created equal</em>" state.</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">We are a two-party nation. We need a strong GOP with sound values. To survive, they must tune-out the hairy mammoth's clarion-trumpet.... and yes, even the musty Reagan yesteryear's moldy oldies. Or, as Murphy warns.... "<em>A GOP ice age is on the way</em>."</span></div>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-21620912209627312922009-06-08T07:18:00.008-05:002009-06-08T12:56:45.522-05:00Friday is Iran's Defining Moment<span style="font-family:arial;">There is an event <strong>this week</strong> that could spell the difference between a <strong>peaceful </strong>settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict, reduced tensions in the Middle East, and a halt to the <strong>threat</strong> of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists; or.....</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong>Escalating</strong> the current dangerous <strong>Israel/Palestine</strong> conflict, increasing <strong>tensions</strong> in the <strong>Middle East</strong>, while <strong>enabling</strong> the <strong>unstable ambitions</strong> of a nuclear-capable <strong>terrorist-funding</strong> regime. A regime headed by a<strong> holocaust-denying puppet</strong> of radical religious leaders.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">There is an <strong>election</strong> scheduled for this Friday in <strong>Iran</strong>, and much of President Barack Obama's aspirations for Middle East peace, and <strong>curbing the bloody mayhem</strong> of jihad-inspired terrorism, rest on the outcome.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">As reported in the <em>Washington Post</em>, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/world/middleeast/08iran.html">In Iran, Harsh Talk as Election Nears</a>," by Robert F. Worth, this final week of Iran's presidential campaign, <em>"has reached a level of <strong>passion</strong> and acrimony almost unheard-of in </em><em>Iran</em><em>."</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">As Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hurls <strong>fantastic </strong>accusations at his opponents, he is also ducking incoming fire, <strong>impassioned fire</strong>, and not from just his rivals, but also from long-suffering Iranians who are<strong> mad</strong> and <strong>not going to take it anymore</strong>.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">For years Ahmadinejad has resorted to <strong>inciteful </strong>and false rhetoric.... from a constant refrain of <a href="http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/04/questions_about_ahmadinejads_f.php">threats</a> against Israel, "<em>to wipe them off of the face of the earth</em>"..... and against any Western power that stands by Israel who "<em>from now on will not see any result but the <strong>hatred</strong> of the people. You should not claim that we did not give a warning</em>," he saber-rattles, to his oft repeated <strong>denial</strong> of the horrific WWII Jewish <strong>holocaust.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">But, he also<strong> misled</strong> and terrorized his<strong> own people</strong>. In his last presidential campaign he promised the Iranians relief from poverty and a focus on domestic issues, what they got was a "<em>police state</em>" as one Iranian openly charged, and a foreign policy his leading opponent, reformist <strong>Mir Husein Moussavi</strong>, calls "<em>adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism and superficiality</em>.” </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">This time, Ahmadinejad's hateful-rhetoric is <strong>backfiring</strong>.... unofficial polls suggest <strong>54 percent</strong> of Iranian voters would <strong>support Moussavi</strong>, while Ahmadinejad lags at 39 percent.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So much rests on the result of Friday's election, and<strong> not</strong> just for the Iranian people. By showing Ahmandinejad the door, they can lop off the <strong>festering head</strong> of a regime bent on taking the people <strong>back </strong>to the zealous, social-freedom-eviscerating, hard-line piety of the <strong>1979 revolution</strong>, and <strong>stop</strong> the plunge toward a nuclear abyss.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">As one Moussavi supporter said, “...<em>at the beginning of the Islamic revolution we were all like Ahmadinejad, but <strong>we changed</strong> our path and our way. </em>” Another Iranian added that she was speaking on behalf of her friends, "<em>We love our religion, but they have<strong> used it</strong> as a tool to take people’s rights</em>.”</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The good Iranian people can send a <strong>message</strong> to a hopeful world.... we're taking our<strong> lives</strong> and our country<strong> back</strong>. We chose <strong>peace</strong> over conflict,<strong> hope</strong> over fear. We're looking forward.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">We wish them Allah's speed.....</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-76622645203248279062009-02-10T11:18:00.001-06:002009-02-10T11:20:02.644-06:00No "Bi" in GOP Partisanship<span style="font-family:Arial;">What we have here is a <strong>failure to communicate.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The Obama administration is failing to<strong> fully communicate</strong> to a panicky nation facing economic meltdown the fact that an obstinate GOP is <strong>crying wolf</strong> over a lack of legislative bipartisanship while refusing to conduct <strong>themselves</strong> in a bipartisan manner.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">By Senate procedural rules, the minority party can hold up.... or frustrate.... any legislation by invoking a "filibuster" debate which means the measure under consideration has to get sixty percent, <strong>sixty votes</strong>, to end the filibuster and put the bill to a vote.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">President Obama and Democrats have been <strong>watering down</strong> their economic stimulus legislation in the name of bipartisanship.... looking for bipartisanship participation, for those sixty votes, paring down <strong>job-creating</strong> spending programs and<strong> increasing</strong> tax cuts, the GOP's snake oil cure for all ills.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">It's time to realize that for an <strong>all-politics-all-of-the-time</strong> GOP, there is no "bi" in partisanship. It's still <strong>their way</strong> or the highway. When time was of the essence as increasing unemployment hurtled unchecked toward depression levels, the Republican party looked to <strong>score points</strong> with their radical base.... good of the nation be damned!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong>Eugene Robinson's</strong> advice<em>...."<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/09/AR2009020902097_pf.html">Roll Over Republicans</a>" </em><span style="font-size:85%;">(WaPo) </span> As he points out today, <em>"Bipartisanship is safe and effective when used as directed. In the present circumstance, however -- dire economic crisis, hardheaded Republicans, time running out -- bipartisanship is doing more <strong>harm</strong> than good. President Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress can no longer afford to let <strong>comity</strong> defeat <strong>common sense</strong>."</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Robinson shares our anger over the end result of this<strong> begging-for-votes hijacking</strong> by a GOP bent on<strong> frustrating</strong> the process.... <em>"One of the most <strong>effective</strong> items in the House bill was $79 billion to be transferred to state governments, which are hurting; in California, our most populous state, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is ordering furloughs of state workers. Any dollar given to the states will <strong>fly out the door</strong> by sundown. That <strong>$79 billion</strong> would have<strong> instant</strong> impact.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /><em>"But in the Senate, the ad hoc "gang" of moderate Republicans (all three of them) and conservative Democrats <strong>cut </strong>those state funds to <strong>$39 billion</strong>. It's wrong to see this as the <strong>normal</strong> give-and-take of legislative sausage-making, the usual trek down a well-worn path toward the golden compromise that everyone can live with. This is not, repeat <strong>not</strong>, a time for compromise. Meeting in the middle, which the Senate sees as its role in our democracy, renders the whole exercise potentially useless. If we don't get <strong>enough</strong> money into the economy, and if we don't do it <strong>soon</strong>, we risk wasting a king's ransom on a stimulus that's too puny to stimulate."</em><br /><br />Robinson is onto something. <strong>Bipartisanship isn't working.</strong> The conundrum is <strong>how</strong> to get past or around the GOP grandstanding obstructionists.<br /><br /><strong>Harry Reid,</strong> take note..... the next time the GOP Senators want to "filibuster," do it the old-fashioned way. Don't agree to a filibustering <strong>set-time</strong> debate .... make the naysayers stand up and talk all night, or however many days and nights they choose, so their <strong>filibustering impediment </strong>is seen by Americans for what it is. A <strong>cynical roadblock</strong> to progress.<br /><br />Make the Republicans <strong>own </strong>their delaying tactics. Make them literally <strong>stand up</strong> and be counted as they impede and obstruct. Otherwise, these blackmailers will continue to impose their <strong>bullying tactics,</strong> in the guise of "debate" with cries of non-partisanship, on a nation desperate for government action.... <strong>now</strong>.<br /><br />Robinson advises.... <em>"Obama and the Democrats have public opinion <strong>on their side</strong> and the wolf at the door. Republicans need to get <strong>out </strong>of the way -- or get <strong>run over</strong>."</em><br /><br /><strong>Hear! Hear!</strong></span><br /></span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-21765867366582321882009-02-09T08:35:00.002-06:002009-02-09T09:28:15.569-06:00"My Kingdom for a Horse....."<span style="font-family:arial;">The <strong>current stimulus package</strong> making it's torturous way through both houses of Congress is like the saying..... what do you get when you ask a <strong>committee</strong> to put together a horse? <strong>A camel.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Nothing wrong with a camel, but the country<strong> needs a horse</strong> to start pulling us out of the economic ditch.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong>Paul Krugman's</strong> asks today in <em>"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09krugman.html">The Destructive Center</a>"</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(NY Times)</span> .... <em>"What do you call someone who <strong>eliminates </strong>hundreds of thousands of American jobs, <strong>deprives </strong>millions of adequate health care and nutrition,<strong> undermines</strong> schools, but offers a <strong>$15,000 bonus to affluent people</strong> who flip their houses?</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"A proud <strong>centrist</strong>. For that is what the senators who ended up <strong>calling the tune</strong> on the stimulus bill just accomplished."</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The <strong>centrists</strong> in the Senate just <strong>created a camel</strong>, and President Obama seems unable, or unwilling, to fix it.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Krugman opines, <em>"One of the <strong>best features</strong> of the original plan was <strong>aid</strong> to cash-strapped state governments, which would have provided a quick boost to the economy while preserving essential services. But the centrists insisted on a $40 billion cut in that spending.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /><em>"The <strong>original plan</strong> also included badly needed spending on <strong>school construction</strong>; $16 billion of that spending was cut. It included <strong>aid to the unemployed</strong>, especially help in maintaining health care — cut. Food stamps — cut. All in all, more than $80 billion was cut from the plan, with the great bulk of those cuts falling on precisely the measures that would do the <strong>most</strong> to reduce the depth and pain of this slump.</em><br /><br /><em>"On the other hand, the centrists were apparently just fine with one of the<strong> worst</strong> provisions in the Senate bill, a tax credit for home buyers. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research calls this the <strong>'flip your house to your brother'</strong> provision: it will cost a lot of money while doing nothing to help the economy.</em><br /><br /><em>"All in all, the centrists’ insistence on <strong>comforting the comfortable</strong> while <strong>afflicting the afflicted</strong> will, if reflected in the final bill, lead to substantially <strong>lower</strong> employment and substantially <strong>more </strong>suffering."</em><br /><em></em><br />It was Obama who lifted the flap so the "lower taxes" camel could poke it's nose into his change-we-can-believe-in tent. We are in this economic mess because the GOP rich-get-richer <strong>trickle-up policies</strong> cost trillions and didn't work.... and according Pulitzer-winning economist Krugman and many others, this camel of a bill <strong>isn't </strong>the economic horse we need now.<br /><br />MSNBC's <strong>Chuck Todd</strong> puts a fine point on this today in his <em>"First Read" </em>posting<em>....</em> many ask just<em> "how the Obama White House and the Democratic committees allowed themselves to <strong>get worked over</strong> by the Republicans.... how did a Republican Party that had turned a budget <strong>surplus </strong>into a projected trillion-dollar <strong>deficit </strong>get away with becoming paragons of fiscal responsibility? "</em><br /><br />Krugman points out, <em>"After all, many people <strong>expected</strong> Mr. Obama to come out with a really strong stimulus plan, reflecting<strong> both</strong> the economy’s <strong>dire straits</strong> and his own <strong>electoral mandate</strong>.<br />Instead, however, he offered a plan that was clearly both too small and<strong> too heavily reliant</strong> on tax cuts.</em><br /><br /><em>"Why? Because he wanted the plan to have <strong>broad bipartisan support</strong>, and believed that it would. Not long ago administration strategists were talking about getting 80 or more votes in the Senate."</em><br /><br />There's a lesson for Obama here. His high-minded attempt to build a <strong>bipartisanship</strong> tent ran into the "loyal" opposition's ideological <strong>take-no-prisoners</strong> stone wall.<br /><br />Has Obama learned this lesson?<br /><br /><strong>Evidently not.</strong> This weekend he was busy trying to <strong>saddle</strong> this unwieldy stimulus camel.... <em>"Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands, the scale and scope of this plan is right,”</em> he declared on Saturday.<br /><br />As Krugman laments.... <em>"No, they didn’t, and no, it isn’t."</em></span><br /></span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-47274743703218080552009-01-16T10:25:00.003-06:002009-01-16T16:05:33.216-06:00Finally.... It's Over!<span style="font-family:Arial;">Last night <strong>Bush The Decider</strong> wistfully <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011503436.html">bade farewell</a><span style="font-size:85%;"> (WaPo)....</span> trying to paint a good face on the stinking corpse of his administration with self-serving <em>"I was <strong>willing</strong> to make tough decisions"</em> <strong>legacy-speak</strong>.<br /><br />Excuse me, but isn't the<strong> job</strong> of the president <strong>making</strong> tough decisions?<br /><br />As Georgie piled on the lipstick, we were reminded that he <strong>never could</strong> color within the lines.... so now we're left to clean up the <strong>smeary mess</strong> of his eight years of misapplied ideology.<br /><br />Which brings us to what he did<strong> right.</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">As <strong>Robert Creamer</strong> so pithily <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/the-one-big-thing-george_b_158092.html">points out</a> <span style="font-size:85%;">(Huffington)</span> .... <em>"History will record that George W. Bush made <strong>one </strong>critically important contribution to our country -- and to the entire world. He and his administration provided <strong>unquestionable proof of the bankruptcy</strong> of radical-conservative ideology, and set the stage for a qualitatively different progressive era in American politics.<br /><br />"By assuring that all of the <strong>fruits</strong> of the growth of productivity in our economy went to the <strong>wealthiest</strong> 2% of our population, the Bush administration set the stage for the current economic collapse.<br /><br />"By actually putting into practice the <strong>Neo-Conservative theories</strong> of pre-emptive war and unilateralism, George W. Bush demonstrated their <strong>failure </strong>more persuasively than could the most articulate progressive critic.<br /><br />"By <strong>abandoning</strong> our historic commitment to <strong>due process</strong> and sinking into the dark world of <strong>torture</strong>, George W. Bush and his partner <strong>Dick Cheney</strong> isolated themselves from the growing worldwide commitment to human rights."<br /></em><br />The last few weeks we have watched Bush and his <strong>Rovian enablers</strong> relentlessly apply his legacy lipstick. But a suffering nation knows the<strong> truth</strong> beneath the rosy facade..... <em>"he will be remembered as the man who set the stage. He has played the Hoover to Obama's Roosevelt, the James Buchanan to Obama's Lincoln."<br /></em><br /><strong>The omens are good.<br /></strong><br />Yesterday while Bush was trying to prop up the<strong> toxic remains</strong> of his poor judgment, lousy execution and disastrous outcomes, a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011502571.html">skilled pilot guided</a> <span style="font-size:85%;">(WaPo)</span> his crippled passenger jet to a hard, but <strong>safe</strong>, landing on the Hudson River in New York.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Rescuers rushed in and with <em>"level-headed teamwork"</em> <strong>saved all</strong> the passengers.... <em>"the weak and infirm, including an infant and an elderly woman in a wheelchair."<br /></em><br />It's a <strong>good sign</strong> as next Tuesday <strong>Barack Obama</strong> takes over the piloting of our distressed nation that a <strong>reckless Bush administration</strong> put on course for a crash landing. With Obama's thoughtful leadership and a spirit of teamwork <strong>we can all</strong> come through.</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-45139854725453704072009-01-01T09:30:00.001-06:002009-01-01T09:31:20.131-06:00A "Can Do" 2009<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBtkllxyLfv-jP5g26YLnjCBVKjcJxoP0VhMfZolktniRTotmi01x9gY0pWwjCBMMXEykXtNcDC1odUpS6tTZPwz418Keb8y_UmZUxjtbyJG-G2f_TdUcBqD62qqMHOraRGanYLg/s1600-h/2009+bush+obama.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286346162783894402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 265px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBtkllxyLfv-jP5g26YLnjCBVKjcJxoP0VhMfZolktniRTotmi01x9gY0pWwjCBMMXEykXtNcDC1odUpS6tTZPwz418Keb8y_UmZUxjtbyJG-G2f_TdUcBqD62qqMHOraRGanYLg/s400/2009+bush+obama.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:Arial;">The Washington Post looks at 2009 today in <em>"<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/31/AR2008123102775.html">The New Year </a>- There is good reason for trepidation, but also for hope."</em></span><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Most of us know about the<strong> trepidation</strong>, so let's<strong> focus</strong> on the hope.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><em><span style="font-family:arial;">"A new presidential administration is on the way, full of ideas and vigor."</span></em></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Ideas, vigor.... YES!</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">And just to put a fine point on president-elect Obama's resolve to move ahead, another WaPo headline tells us that on Monday <em>"<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/31/AR2008123102897.html">Obama, Pelosi to Discuss Scope of Economic Package</a>."</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">"Sources said Obama and Pelosi will discuss the scope and timing of the economic recovery package, which Obama has said will be his first priority upon being sworn into office. Pelosi has said her goal is to have the legislation on the new president's desk and ready to be signed on Jan. 20."</span> </em></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Obama's <strong>thirst </strong>to get things moving with <strong>solid policies</strong> is more than the <strong>empty Texas boast</strong> we've come to expect. As <em>WaPo</em> editorializes.... <em>"Policy will<strong> matter</strong>, and in this regard it is good to know that the president-elect is <strong>not </strong>given to following the<strong> tired formulations</strong> of the left, the right and the various shills and operators who dominate so much of what passes for public discussion. He is <strong>pragmatic</strong>, open-minded and thoughtful. But, as he knows, he will also have to take on some powerful forces, those aligned with his party and those in opposition, and that will take <strong>courage</strong>.</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"And in the end, of course, it will be <strong>not just policy</strong> that saves us but, as always, the energy, imagination and desire of <strong>the people</strong> -- people who see opportunity where others do not and who have the freedom to pursue it.</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"Some well-known words from Abraham Lincoln, delivered to Congress in December 1862, have been cited often in the past few months. They are worth citing once more on this day: <span style="font-family:georgia;">'The <strong>dogmas</strong> of the quiet past, are<strong> inadequate</strong> to the <strong>stormy present</strong>. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must <strong>think anew</strong>, and <strong>act anew</strong>. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall <strong>save our country.</strong></span><strong>' "</strong></em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Out with <strong>dogma</strong>, in with pragmatism... out with <strong>division</strong>, in with cooperation... out with <strong>pandering</strong>, in with courage.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong>Yes we can!</strong></span></div>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-25795535117996986932008-12-31T10:37:00.003-06:002008-12-31T10:42:55.330-06:00January 2009... End of an Error<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFNExlmzybd-t5qo0k1mHbXGa6NorOJh_Wh1pnDy5pHaq9o5cWMxfYeg9K1hb3vsuCfryqap4t0J3EX0_pFKMcM3WOHtuK6LXm7IXfkHiAtMl5vwfDEHjex4KkEeM_8yr1-nKyQ/s1600-h/Bush+legacy.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285992268670582562" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 250px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFNExlmzybd-t5qo0k1mHbXGa6NorOJh_Wh1pnDy5pHaq9o5cWMxfYeg9K1hb3vsuCfryqap4t0J3EX0_pFKMcM3WOHtuK6LXm7IXfkHiAtMl5vwfDEHjex4KkEeM_8yr1-nKyQ/s400/Bush+legacy.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">This is the<strong> last day</strong> of the year 2008. A year when the effects from the missteps, failures and <strong>duplicities</strong> of the <strong>tumultuous eight years</strong> of the Bush administration came home to roost. Or, should we say, were<strong> flung</strong> at him.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;">As <strong>Bob Herbert</strong> laments today in <em>"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/30herbert.html">Add Up the Damage</a>"</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(NYTimes)....</span> </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">"This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and <strong>torture</strong> and rendition; who turned the Clinton <strong>economy</strong> and the budget surplus into <strong>fool’s gold</strong>; who dithered while New Orleans <strong>drowned</strong>; who <strong>trampled</strong> our <strong>civil liberties</strong> at home and <strong>ruined</strong> our reputation abroad; who let <strong>Dick Cheney</strong> run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job."</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">The invasion of Iraq is a good example of the <strong>wrecking ball</strong> the White House mafia took to our country. Herbert reflects on the <strong>devastation</strong>.... </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">"The Bush administration specialized in<strong> deceit.</strong> How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely <strong>essential </strong>response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had <strong>nothing to do</strong> with the Sept. 11 attacks?</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">"<strong>Exploiting </strong>the public’s understandable fears, Mr. Bush made it sound as if Iraq was about to <strong>nuke</strong> us: 'We cannot wait,' he said, 'for the final proof — the smoking gun that could come in the form of a <strong>mushroom cloud</strong>.'</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">"He then <strong>set the blaze</strong> that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than <strong>4,000 American lives</strong> and <strong>hundreds of thousands of Iraqis</strong>.... The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach <strong>$3 trillion or more</strong>, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz."</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">So just how does The Decider <strong>view</strong> this sorry Iraq-war chapter in his <strong>catalog of horrors?</strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">"A year into the war Mr. Bush was <strong>cracking jokes</strong> about it at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association. He displayed a series of photos that showed him searching the Oval Office, <strong>peering behind curtains</strong> and looking under the furniture. A mock caption had Mr. Bush saying: 'Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere.' ”</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Couldn't you just <strong>die </strong>laughing.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Now The Decider is trying to <strong>tidy up</strong> the record of his <strong>apocalyptic reign</strong> by rewriting history. But, we were given a more <strong>accurate </strong>image to remember him by in the form of a <strong>size 10</strong>. No, not the measurements of his ego-inflated all-hat-and-no-cattle Stetson, but the <strong>shoes</strong> of an irate reporter flung at his head during his recent <strong>legacy-burnishing trip</strong> to Iraq.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">For a Bush <strong>legacy summation</strong> after eight years of <strong>pent-up frustrations</strong>, for a you-deserve-no-breaks-today <strong>job evaluation</strong>.... on the <strong>your-place-in-history</strong> scale of 1 to 10, this shoe-fly moment was a ten plus.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">On January 22 Barack Obama will<strong> right</strong> the national course and<strong> restore</strong> the forward momentum our nation enjoyed before we were so<strong> rudely</strong> interrupted.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">That most of all is why we <strong>celebrate</strong> the arrival of 2009, a <strong>Happy New Year! </strong></span></div>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-84791742235760862702008-12-30T13:16:00.001-06:002008-12-30T13:17:12.287-06:00In Some the Superficial Runs Very Deep....<span style="font-family:arial;">Sometimes when you're <strong>least expecting it</strong> you are gifted with a <strong>"wow"</strong> moment.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Today's "wow" moment erupted on <em>MSNBC'</em>s early show <em>"Morning Joe"</em> hosted by <strong>Joe Scarborough</strong> with sidekick <strong>Mika Brzezinski.</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">From time to time Mika is able to lure her father <strong>Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski</strong> onto the show to share his<strong> foreign policy wisdom</strong>. Today, as all too often happens, arrogant Joe thinks he knows it all and uses his best "final word" <strong>pushy attitude</strong> to talk down views differing from his own and started down that path with Dr. Z.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">But..... today, Dr. Z <strong>turned the tables</strong> and delivered a jolt to Jivin' Joe. He interrupted Joe in mid-spout after Joe flatly stated about the current dangerous Israel-Hamas escalation of the Palestine conflict.... <em>"you cannot blame what's going on in Israel on the Bush administration."</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Unable to bear Joe's <strong>sound-bite-analysis</strong> any longer, an exasperated Dr. Z stopped Joe in his tracks and <strong>face-to-face</strong> charged him of having <em>"such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on, it is almost embarrassing to listen to you."</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong>Wow!!!</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Mika, as evidently is her assigned task, did her squirming best to <strong>restrain </strong>Joe's typical <strong>slash and burn</strong> response.... even throwing her father under the bus by explaining to the obviously ego-bruised Joe that her father's "stunning" comments would pass for <strong>affection</strong> in their family. For shame Mika. <strong>What price honor?</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The <em>Morning Joe</em> show has<strong> great guests</strong>, but Joe needs to drop the rude "Imus wanna-be" routine. He can't pull it off and despite Mika's best efforts, too many times he boringly makes <strong>himself</strong> and his talking-point world view the story, taking time away from the truly interesting and knowledgeable opinions being offered by <strong>real </strong>experts.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Here is the <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28433263#28433263">video</a> of this "wow" encounter.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Thanks for the upper, Dr. Z.... we needed that! <strong>Happy New Year!</strong></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-7319662841815925922008-12-11T10:04:00.000-06:002008-12-11T10:04:35.812-06:00GOP Senators: Put USA First<span style="font-family:arial;">What are the GOP Senators <strong>thinking</strong>? <em>"<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/10/AR2008121001679.html">Auto Bailout Clears House but Faces Hurdles in Senate</a>."</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(WaPo)</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"The House last night approved an emergency plan to <strong>prevent the collapse</strong> of the nation's <strong>domestic</strong> automobile industry, but the measure faces serious opposition in the Senate, where <strong>Republicans are revolting</strong> against a White House-brokered deal to <strong>speed $14 billion</strong> to cash-starved General Motors and Chrysler."</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">After giving <strong>white-collar financial types</strong> over a<strong> trillion dollars</strong>.... with barely a string attached.... to bail them out of the fix we're in largely because of<strong> their</strong> reckless lending and "bundling" practices, Republican senators.... especially <strong>southern senators</strong> who are protecting their <strong>foreign-owned</strong> local auto manufacturers.... are threatening to <strong>risk all</strong> to "stand on principle" and <strong>reject </strong>a comparatively paltry $14 billion bridge-loan to the <strong>blue-collar</strong> Big Three.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Risking all means....<strong> bankruptcies</strong> that would throw up to <strong>3 million</strong> out of work and possibly turn a deep recession into a <strong>1930s depression!</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Already<strong> rocketing unemployment</strong> makes such a<strong> denial</strong> of financial help an even more <strong>death-defying act</strong>.... <em>"<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/11/wall-street-expects-joble_n_150159.html">New Unemployment Claims Surge Unexpectedly</a>."</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(Huffington)</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"The </em><a class="rcLink" id="KonaLink0" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/11/wall-street-expects-joble_n_150159.html#" target="_top"><em>Labor Department</em></a><em> reported Thursday that <strong>initial </strong>applications for jobless benefits in the week ending Dec. 6 rose to a seasonally adjusted <strong>573,000</strong> from an upwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em></em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"New jobless claims last week reached their<strong> highest level</strong> since November <strong>1982....</strong>"</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">And the GOP wants to play <strong>Russian Roulette</strong> with millions of jobs. It's time to forget <strong>mindless ideology</strong> and <strong>narrow lobbying interests</strong>.... it's time to vote<strong> for</strong> America. <strong>Pass the auto financial aid bill!</strong></span><strong> </strong>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-30657198906235114262008-12-10T10:33:00.001-06:002008-12-10T10:35:02.194-06:00Blag the Extorter<span style="font-family:Arial;">Just follow your nose. It's not like Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich didn't already <strong>exude the stink</strong> of corruption.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">In <strong>April of this year</strong>, a <em>Chicago Tribune</em> investigation revealed that at least <strong>three of every four $25,000 donors</strong> to Boss Blag <strong>got something</strong> from the administration.... including jobs, contracts or favorable regulatory rulings.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">A<strong> month later</strong> Illinois lawmakers passed an <strong>ethics reform bill</strong> targeted <strong>directly</strong> at Blagojevich and his record-setting efforts to collect campaign contributions from state contractors.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">The <strong>effect</strong> of this legislation .... it kicked Boss Blag's arm-twisting into <strong>high gear</strong>....<em> "with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target,"</em> according to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. </span><span style="font-family:Arial;">The end of July <em>The Tribune</em> reported that in the <strong>month </strong>since lawmakers <strong>passed the ethics bill,</strong> the governor ramped up his efforts by collecting more than a <strong>quarter of a million dollars</strong> from those with business before the state.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Besides using his office in an effort to<strong> trample</strong> the <em>Tribune's</em> editorial voices of criticism, Boss Blag <strong>thumbed his nose</strong> at the state's attempts to reign him in .... toward the end of August he <strong>vetoed</strong> the ethics bill saying he wants it to be tougher and to <strong>include lawmakers</strong> as well as himself.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Undoubtedly Boss Blag knew he was being bugged and taped.... but he must have thought he was the windy city's <strong>Tony Soprano</strong>..... too smart for the Feds, using his "organization" to make <strong>crime pay</strong>, big time.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">His <strong>big take</strong> would be the <strong>selling of the U.S. Senate</strong> seat vacated by president-elect Barack Obama. By Illinois law, as governor, Boss Blag is the only person who can name Obama's replacement.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Note to Illinois lawmakers: You couldn't <strong>see</strong> this situation developing? You were happy to just<strong> let</strong> this extortionist name your <strong>one of two</strong> U.S. Senators for Illinois?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Yesterday.... federal prosecutor Fitzgerald of <strong>Scooter Libby investigation fame</strong> made Boss Blag and his chief of graft,<strong> John Harris</strong>, do the perp walk, arresting them on corruption charges.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong>Yet......</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Despite Fitzgerald saying that <em>"the breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering,"</em> hours after his arrest Boss Blag was <strong>out of jail</strong> on his own recognizance.... <strong>on a $4,500 bond</strong>.... chump change to Boss Blag.<span style="font-size:85%;"> (<a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/politics&id=6545958">ABC</a>)</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Today he's back in the governor's office and as of this writing still has the <strong>sole power</strong> to appoint Obama's replacement.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Even though according to the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-investigation-timeline-1208,0,2680294.story">Tribune timeline</a>, the <em>"federal criminal investigation"</em> of Boss Blag began in <strong>June of 2004</strong>, an investigation of what has been labeled as a <strong>political crime spree</strong>, he was, and still is, allowed to continue to <strong>abuse</strong> the considerable power of his office.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">We need to hear much more.....</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-25183656018866776012008-12-09T08:24:00.000-06:002008-12-09T08:25:00.114-06:00The Crawford Crawl<span style="font-family:arial;">Here's a <strong>little ditty</strong> to set your foot to tappin', and your <strong>spirits soaring</strong>. Listen here to.... <em>"<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I9-BJtvQzE">Crawl Back to Crawford</a>"</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(YouTube)</span> by <strong>Matt Farmer</strong>, performed by the<strong> Blue State Cowboys</strong>: </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>CRAWL BACK TO CRAWFORD</em></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>VERSE</em></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Well, for eight long years</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>We've been payin' your rent</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>But now your lease done run</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>And all our money's been spent</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>So pack up your bags and take a last look around</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>At how you drove a great nation straight into the ground</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em></em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>CHORUS</em></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>And don't let the door</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Hit you in the ass on the way out</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Don't bother with the goodbyes</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Just make sure that you stay out</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>There ain't no need to call</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>No need to write</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>We don't even need you to turn out the light</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Just crawl back to Crawford, brother</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Promise that you'll leave us alone</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em></em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>VERSE</em></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Every step of the way, your story's been the same</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Just cruisin' through the world</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>On your daddy's name</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>You had the oilmen friends</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>You had the Skull and Bones</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>But it never would have happened if your name was Jones</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em></em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>BRIDGE</em></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Slam dunk, privatize, deregulate</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Tax cuts, trickle down</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>The politics of hate</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Flag pin, waterboard</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Intelligent design</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>You were handed your throne by just five of the nine.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Thanks, Matt and the Blue State Cowboys, <strong>we needed that!</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Matt and the Cowboys are <strong>from Chicago</strong> and, as Matt said, they wanted to <em>"offer our musical tribute to W's 'legacy.' "</em> </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Many of us will admit to suffering from <strong>Bush Derangement Syndrome...</strong> and while this musical gem offers some respite, we'll only find lasting relief when <strong>The Decider</strong> crawls back to Crawford!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">After eight<strong> long</strong> years.... just <strong>41</strong> more agonizing Bush-days to get through.</span>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-41416371082583575362008-12-08T10:14:00.005-06:002008-12-08T10:30:38.150-06:00Unveiling Bush's Legacy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZUmgC3E7WkYaRExV6w1SHs1UUHgn-sJXXQTyFWtTKUhSEn5PNtCKRMVDV3i34jG1qbuPPOfvEK2OkA8pnliRTaTcABN___q6xcsju-UnJWPfW_B_CPRIQY5J22C-2ufYyXFWQw/s1600-h/Bush+portrait.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277450719721517330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 284px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZUmgC3E7WkYaRExV6w1SHs1UUHgn-sJXXQTyFWtTKUhSEn5PNtCKRMVDV3i34jG1qbuPPOfvEK2OkA8pnliRTaTcABN___q6xcsju-UnJWPfW_B_CPRIQY5J22C-2ufYyXFWQw/s400/Bush+portrait.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;"><em>"Welcome to my hanging."</em></span><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">So said popularity bottom-feeder President George W. Bush <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/12/print/20081206-3.html">at the </a><strong><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/12/print/20081206-3.html">unveiling</a> </strong>of his Union League of Philadelphia's<strong> portrait.</strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Continuing to <strong>entertain </strong>his receptive audience, he complimented the artist, <strong>Mark Carder</strong>, for his fine job and observed, <em>"I was taken aback by how much gray paint you had to use."</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">He later remarked, <em>"I'm especially proud to be co-recipient with a guy I call '41'... we <strong>owe our achievements</strong> to the same savvy political counselor and firm disciplinarian: <strong>Barbara</strong>."</em></span></div><br /><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">After these witty and self-deprecating remarks The Decider made an <strong>unabashed grab</strong> for <strong>Abraham Lincoln's</strong> distinguished coattails.</span></div><br /><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">The Union League presidential gallery displays portraits of every <strong>Republican </strong>president since <strong>Lincoln</strong>. Bush seized on "Abe's" <strong>controversial leadership legacy</strong> saying.... <em>"the principles on which he stood have stood the test of time: <strong>All men are created equal</strong> under God, he said, unflinchingly throughout his presidency. <strong>Liberty</strong> was given to every man, woman and child on the face of the earth. He has taught Presidents that you must act on your principles and make tough decisions, regardless of the political consequences.</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em></em></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"I have been a..... I have drawn strength from his example. I have <strong>learned lessons</strong> by reading about Abraham Lincoln"</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Oh, pleeeeeze.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Too bad The Decider <strong>didn't live up to</strong> his own rhetoric <strong>or</strong> Abe's example.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">An editorial in today's <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>"<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/opinion/08mon1.html">Tortured Justice</a>,"</em> paints a far different portrait than the one Bush wants us to see.... <em>"The nation’s courts continue to grapple with the <strong>abuses </strong>committed by President Bush’s administration in the name of fighting terrorism. The extent of the <strong>damage to American liberties</strong>, and how lasting it will be, will be told in part by the outcome of two cases that are to be heard by the federal courts."</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em></em></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that turns on <strong>Mr. Bush’s claim</strong> that he can order people living in the United States to be <strong>detained</strong> by the military<strong> indefinitely</strong> without charges. The case involves Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who was in the United States <strong>legally.</strong> He was declared an enemy combatant in <strong>mid-2003</strong> and has been held in a Navy brig since then..... This intolerable reading of the law would leave a president free to <strong>suspend </strong>the rights of anyone, <strong>including American citizens</strong>."</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">The second case involves <em>"a Syrian-born Canadian with <strong>no ties to terrorism</strong> who became a victim of the Bush team’s lawless policy of 'extraordinary rendition' — the <strong>outsourcing</strong> of interrogations to foreign governments known to<strong> torture prisoners</strong>.</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"Mr. Arar’s ordeal began in 2002, when he was seized by federal agents as he tried to change planes on his way home to Canada from a family vacation. After being held <strong>incommunicado </strong>in solitary confinement and subjected to harsh interrogation without proper access to a lawyer, he was 'rendered' to Syria, where <strong>he was tortured</strong>. He was locked up for almost a year in a dank underground cell the size of a grave before he was finally let go."</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em></div></em></span><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">The Union League Bush portrait depicts a benignly smiling man.... not the ruthless, law-breaking, <strong>Constitution-rending</strong>, outlaw president who <strong>destroyed</strong> the American ideal of equal justice for all. </span><span style="font-family:Arial;">Hopefully when hanging The Decider, the Union League doesn't place his portrait anywhere near honest Abe's.</span></div>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22453375.post-43433852490541984532008-12-07T10:10:00.004-06:002008-12-07T14:42:50.385-06:00Sixty-seven Years After Infamy....<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWM70M-BI92eckxjhLbjBr99U7rQODUlnSwm67-nAFyvQLgvExOA4H8CKlkz1wgYo-Qdg6bAZO6wh6Sz9Ms1lhRXuf0a010TbXP_EF2SKPYnibvirvZx51t1TYg1usKvaZ6BOuLg/s1600-h/Pearl+Harbor.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277074807857941762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 298px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWM70M-BI92eckxjhLbjBr99U7rQODUlnSwm67-nAFyvQLgvExOA4H8CKlkz1wgYo-Qdg6bAZO6wh6Sz9Ms1lhRXuf0a010TbXP_EF2SKPYnibvirvZx51t1TYg1usKvaZ6BOuLg/s400/Pearl+Harbor.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><div><em>"<strong>December 7, 1941</strong>.... a date which will live in infamy.... the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. "</em></div><br /><div></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;">So said <strong>President Franklin D. Roosevelt</strong> as he asked Congress for a <strong>Declaration of War</strong> sixty-seven years ago.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">On that day Japan <strong>also attacked</strong> Hong Kong, Guam, <strong>the Philippine Islands</strong>, Wake Island and Midway Island.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">In response to this all-out attack, Roosevelt clearly and<strong> forcefully</strong> declared.... </span><em>"As commander in chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our <strong>whole nation remember</strong> the character of the onslaught against us...."</em></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">Today it is much different. Seemingly<strong> nationless enemies</strong> strike civilian populations.... cloaked<strong> </strong>suicidal <strong>terrorism</strong> is the new norm,<strong> not</strong> declarations of war between nations.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Arial;">As <strong>Richard A. Clarke</strong> who was the White House counterterrorism coordinator under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush explains today in his op-ed <em>"<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/05/AR2008120502606.html">Plans of Attack</a>"</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(WaPo)</span> .... <em>"Ten young men land a small boat at a quay in a city of 18 million people. <strong>Within minutes</strong> of setting ashore, they are <strong>throwing grenades</strong> and <strong>raking crowds</strong> with automatic weapons fire. Days later, almost 200 people are dead, more are wounded, the financial capital of a nation of a billion people has ground to a halt, and the world is riveted.</em></span></div><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /><div><em>"To most of the world, the <strong>Mumbai massacre</strong> seems inexplicable and random, like the periodic devastation caused by typhoons or tornadoes, or simply pointless, just killing for killing's sake. But the attack was <strong>neither </strong>random nor pointless. The carnage in Mumbai was goal-oriented, an attempt to advance an overall strategy that is being <strong>ruthlessly pursued</strong> by the Islamist radical network."</em></div><br /><div></div>That is the face of conflict today.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /><div>Even Osama bin Laden's <strong>dastardly 9/11 attack</strong> on the twin towers <strong>wasn't a Pearl Harbor</strong>.... it wasn't backed by a nation <strong>declaring war</strong>. The very nationless nature of the attack allowed the Bush presidency to name its <strong>own target</strong> for retaliation.... Iraq.... leading America down the shadowy path of their <strong>selective-intelligence</strong> "war on terrorism."</div><br /><div></div><div>Clarke maps out the <strong>terrorism minefield</strong> facing the Obama administration.... <em>"Seven years after 9/11, the United States has neither <strong>eliminated</strong> the threat from al-Qaeda nor <strong>secured </strong>Afghanistan, where bin Laden's terrorists were once headquartered.</em></div><br /><div></div><div><em>"To accomplish these two tasks, we must now eliminate the<strong> new</strong> terrorist safe haven in <strong>Pakistan</strong>. But that will require effective action from a weak and riven Pakistani government. It might also depend upon dealing with the long-standing India-Pakistan rivalry."</em></div><br /><div></div><div>In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt <strong>galvanized the nation</strong> through his leadership and call for shared sacrifice as he declared war on Japan. It now falls to Barack Obama to <strong>rally </strong>the nation, and the world, to a <strong>common goal</strong>.... the defeat of the <strong>hydra-headed</strong> terrorist monster.</span></div>Nancy Tyrrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06950888037740015041noreply@blogger.com0