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Joe Lieberman

I think the Democrats should threaten to strip all his senority and remove all his commitee chair positions.  That should make all the health care lobby bribes dry up.

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The further adventures of Shep Smith being the man

I keep taking bets on how much longer before Shep Smith gets canned by Fox News.  He would be fantastic doing the evening news hours on cable where he could just speak his mind.    The guy keeps it real by spitting in the face of his network's obvious bias every day.

There is no such thing as a bad kid

This is why I am working towards becoming a teacher.  Because kids are not made for throwing away.

The petition to free Sara Kruzan is here.  Sign it, standing up and speaking out works.

Poem for Sunday-For a fallen friend

Life has two days:  One peace, one wariness,

And has two sides: worry and happiness.

Ask him who taunts us with adversity,

“Does fate, save those worthy of note, oppress?

Don’t you see that the blowing, raging storms

Only the tallest of the trees beset,

And of earth’s many green and barren lots,

Only the one with fruits with stones are hit,

And of the countless stars in heaven’s vault

None is eclipsed except the moon and the sun?

You thought well of the days, when they were good,

Oblivious to the ills destined for one.

You were deluded by the peaceful nights,

Yet in the peace of night does the sorrow stun.”

 

- The 1001 Nights

"We must have equal rights for everyone"

Poem for Sunday

for my children, growing up interracial in a South that won't accept them.   The more things change, the more they stay the same it seems.

The South

The lazy, laughing South

With blood on its mouth.

The sunny-faced South,

    Beast-strong,

    Idiot-brained.

The child-minded South

Scratching in the dead fire's ashes

For a Negro's bones.

    Cotton and the moon,

    Warmth, earth, warmth,

    The sky, the sun, the stars,

    The magnolia-scented South.

Beautiful, like a woman,

Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,

    Passionate, cruel,

    Honey-lipped, syphilitic--

    That is the South.

And I, who am black, would love her

But she spits in my face.

And I, who am black,

Would give her many rare gifts

But she turns her back upon me.

    So now I seek the North--

    The cold-faced North,

    For she, they say,

    Is a kinder mistress,

And in her house my children

May escape the spell of the South.

-Langston Hughes

Stained by our Nation's Original Sin of Slavery...

What do the GOP and Keith Bardwell, the racist Louisiana Justice of the Peace who denied an interracial couple a marriage license have in common?  They both used the "some of my best friends are black" racism defense this week.  The GOP here and Mr. Bardwell as quoted by the AP here.

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

"They" even get to use his bathroom.  Do they come in the house through the front door or the back?

I still believe that the racists of the South are endangered as an ever shrinking minority.  But stories like this don't make it easy for me to do so.  We live in the South.  I'm white, my wife is hispanic.  My children are obviously not accepted by Bardwell and people like him.

I sat down with my family last night and re-watched Obama's Philadelphia speech on race and I feel great hope for their future this morning. There is a reason Republican party identity is at all time low and their embrace of racism is one of them.  The masses are rejecting Michael Steele's black-face, gettin jiggy wit it nonsense and they are appalled, as are we, by Bardwell and people like him.

But what we know—what we have seen—is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope—the audacity to hope—for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”  -Barack Obama

 

Michael Steele-Road Kill

Back to my earlier comments...just not thinking things through.

The GOP Heroes

The page is here.  It is as stark a reminder of the craven depravity and racism inherit in the Republican Party establishment as we are going to get.  It started with the election of an unqualified, unprepared Michael Steele as RNC Chair as Black token and culminates in a GOP page for Republican Heroes that is dominated with Black and Latino faces, including Jackie Robinson who was not a Republican. 

It is obvious they are stretching to prove a point.  But, its the wrong one.  It is the same ol"some of my best friends are Black people" point.  It is a racist defense made by a racist entity trying to hide the fact that the majority of their party members think Obama is either the Anti-Christ or born in Kenya in order to pander for minority votes.  What the RNC cannot seem to fathom is that Barack Obama did not win the 2008 Presidential Election BECAUSE he is Black.  He won it DESPITE the fact that he is Black.

Columbus Day

My wife was born and raised in the Dominican Republic.  Her mother lives in La Isabela, the place where Columbus first landed in the New World, built his first settlement and the first Catholic Church.  The legacy of the people he left behind on the island is not a glamorous or heroic one.

It is worth re-thinking the holiday. 

Fantasyland

Only in a Cheney Family/Bill Kristol world does NOT torturing people, attempting to follow the Constitution and the Geneva Convention, NOT wasting billions of dollars on an antiquated missile defense shield that wouldn't have worked as designed anyway equal radical foreign policy.

This PAC shouldn't be called "Keep America Safe" it should be called "Americans for torture to keep our patriarch out of jail"

Blog comment of the day

Yesterday at The Washington Monthly on Rush's bid to buy the rams:

Do they have random drug testing for owners as well as players?

Just askin'...

Finally someone says it...

FOX may be a lot of things but a news network isn't one of them.

"They're widely viewed as, you know, a part of the Republican Party -- take their talking points, put them on the air, take their opposition research, put them on the air, and that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network they way CNN is."

 

Poem for Sunday

and in light of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize award...

PRAYERS FOR THE EARTH

For once on the face of the earth let's not speak in any language
Let's stop for one second and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines.
We would all be together in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea would not harm whales
And the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire,
Victory with no survivors
Would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers
    in the shade doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused with total inactivity,
Life is what it is about.
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single minded about keeping our lives moving,
And for once could do nothing,
Perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never
    understanding ourselves
And of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us when everything seems dead
    and later proves to be alive.
-Pablo Neruda

Obama's big gay speech....

....was incredibly small and nothing new since the campaign. 

The fight for equal rights for gay Americans is the civil rights movement of our time and it deserves better attention than it is getting from Washington especially considering the fact that their rights are already guaranteed under the Constitution.  This is not a states rights issue and should not be left to the states to individually decide. 

I'll concede to all of Obama's rethoric and well wishing on the subject as soon as he says or does anything concrete regarding DOMA and DODT.  Until then, not another speech on the subject, please.

Thoughts on Republicans not for America

There was this thought from Steve Benen yesterday:

The president was just honored with one of the world's most prestigious accolades, and the GOP has an interest in undermining any potential benefits the White House might receive as a result. But coming on the heels of last week's delight over the U.S. losing the Olympics, Republicans have set themselves up as the party that roots against the country, and this morning, echoes the rhetoric of the Taliban.

I am just not sure Republicans are thinking this through.  The reflex predictability in their response to anything Obama related is comical at best, tragic at worst because American Democracy depends on TWO functioning parties.  They are working overtime to align themselves AGAINST American Hope and Pride, two sentiments that are deeply critical to American culture and success.

For a test I posted thisjoke list of Republican talking points to the Obama Nobel win to a Rush/Beck/FOX Republican family member of mine and instead of getting the joke, they cheer-leaded the list.  They missed the point entirely which is that Republicans no longer need to speak.  We all know what they are going to say related to Obama before they say it.  They have no stake in the game outside of spoiler.

As an American citizen I feel like a spectator or some sap waiting to become collateral damage to the Republican Party in their war against Barack Obama.  The entire job is supposed to be about the American People, not Republican disdain for not being in power or being led by a black man.  For an example of how much Republicans do not get that,read RNC Chair Michael Steele's response to the Nobel Win here.

Question, is Obama's greatest talent the ability to make his opponents all look like grade-school age, spittle flying out of the mouth, mental midgets?  I am starting to think so.

The Peace Prize

I planned to write a long defense of the award filled with partisan vitriol which would have included a reminder of the great many Bush Administration failings on peace and human rights but I don't think its necessary anymore.  The "what" that has changed in the past 9 months is clear to anyone paying attention.

Instead I am simply feeling very proud right now.  I am proud to have supported President Obama for the inclusive, well reasoned way he promised to conduct America's business in the world as I watch it come to pass.  I am proud that America's standing in the world has increased so much in so little time.  I am once again proud to be an American.

The Lede at the NY Times has a nice compilation of world reaction including this from Shimon Perez:

“Very few leaders if at all were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such a profound impact. You provided the entire humanity with fresh hope, with intellectual determination, and a feeling that there is a lord in heaven and believers on earth.”

 

Blog Comment of the Day

At The Washington Monthly.

"LOL- the noble peace prize winner bombs the moon"

Mad Skillz

Shep Smith is the man

I still don't understand how he keeps his job on Fox but Shep Smith continues to keep it real..

Barrasso looks like a deer in headlights.  Smith knows the issue better than he does and refuses him the layup of regurgitated Republican talking points....love it!  Worth watching.

"It's not a government take over Senator. That's not fair and we both know it. It's not a government takeover because what it would be is a government option if you have insurance now and you like it you can keep it. If you want the government option, a government run, paid for by those who buy it, government run option to try to keep costs down."