Dracula Davis and his dumb excuses

The congressmoron from my district - the embattled Rep. Geoff Davis (R-Kentucky) - has struck once again! This time, he's coming up with flimsy excuses for his tobacco vote.

The House voted overpoweringly this week to give the FDA some oversight over tobacco. Tobacco is a drug. And that's what the 'D' in the FDA stands for.

But Drac voted against giving the FDA this power.

I realize that tobacco occurs in nature. And I know that scientists now work with tobacco to find alternate uses for it, instead of just letting the crop be monopolized by big cigarette makers. Today, researchers are close to making new medicines and petroleum substitutes out of tobacco.

But it's still a drug. And the government can and does regulate drugs. This is accomplished through the FDA. If you regulate, you can at least sort out what's safe and what isn't. The bill passed by the House wouldn't let the FDA ban tobacco outright - but it would allow tobacco to be regulated.

The FDA's ability to regulate tobacco is especially crucial because smoking is the cause of 25% of Americans' health expenses.

Still, Geoff Davis voted against letting the FDA regulate. His excuse is that the FDA is overworked already. Gee, whose fault is that? Drac's allies have helped defund the FDA for years. They believe in "big government for thee, not for me." (Or is that the other way around?)

If Davis is worried about the government getting too big, he's a hypocrite. This is the same creep who wanted to force schools to conduct strip searches, after all.

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=blog11&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3ab350a982-db16-4131-ac34-f3b198d6c9fbPost%3a48937b2e-171e-4baa-a342-14ef74d33393&plckCommentSortOrder=TimeStampAscending&sid=sitelife.cincinnati.com;
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-11/2005-11-30-voa79.cfm?CFID=20230407&CFTOKEN=49309506)

Eastern exposure (a blast from the past)

Eastern Avenue in Cincinnati was a lengthy street that largely followed the Ohio River east of downtown. The name of the road was solid, respected, and quite descriptive.

But in 2006, part of it was renamed to Riverside Drive - and in 2007, much of the remainder was renamed as well. This change to the city map exposed a problem that goes far deeper than just the name of a street in East End. It unearthed an entire saga of downright vile classism.

CityBeat reported that the name change was demanded by developers and by wealthy residents of new luxury condos along the road. Sounds more upscale, you see. Working-class folks who had lived for decades along this same long avenue opposed the measure.

The change followed a botched survey. City officials mailed surveys to people along the road asking for a vote on whether to change the street's name. However, instead of each person having one vote, people got one vote for each parcel they owned. So developers who had parcels to sell got to cast numerous votes.

A longtime grievance in Cincinnati - America's most conservative large city through much of my lifetime - is that money rules. People don't. If you're poor in Cincinnati, your voice doesn't count. It's like that still today.

While supporters of the name change said a majority of the votes backed their stance, a report by the city planner said only 38% of the surveys that were sent out were returned. Many of the remaining 62% weren't even delivered!

When the city recounted the ballots by limiting them to one vote per person, they found only 88 votes in favor of the name change - even though the neighborhood had about 1,700 residents.

In addition to the humiliation of hard-working longtime residents who are forced to call their street by a different name, after having no input on the name change, it turns out the city did its damnedest to try to make sure working-class residents got forced out of the neighborhood altogether.

Before the posh condos were erected around the early part of the decade, Eastern Avenue featured parks and old, small, sturdy homes that housed working-class Cincinnatians. But the city deliberately set the stage for the unasked-for transformation. When longtime residents refused to sell to developers, the city had building inspectors find issues with their houses - which the residents had to pay to fix. When they couldn't afford to fix them, they had to sell and move out.

Then they couldn't find a home in the same neighborhood, because luxury condos were the only dwellings being built! In other words, countless residents were priced out of their own neighborhood - at the hands of a city government that was eager to appease developers. Some of the folks who had lost their homes had roots in the neighborhood going back 6 generations.

They lost their homes all because of classism and greed.

Eastern Avenue will always be Eastern Avenue to me. If I drew a serious map of the city, I might call it Riverside Drive (which is more than what I would've done when Riverfront Stadium was fuckheadedly renamed to Cinergy Field, in which case I would've ignored the name change). But in conversation, it ain't Riverside Drive.

Is it too late to officially change the name back to Eastern Avenue? Better yet, is it too late to make sure residents who were forced out of East End are able to return?

(Source: http://citybeat.com/2007-02-14/news.shtml)

Caught a live one!

Finally!

Now I think I can catch who's been behind those harassing phone calls I was getting from 000-000-0000 a few weeks ago. I got another harassing call today at 1 PM, but this one was from a live number that I traced right to the culprit's doorstep.

The one today happened to have a 202 area code - which I knew was Washington, D.C. And nope, it ain't the Decider who's making these calls. I looked up the number online, and it turns out an outfit called Faith & Family owns a whole block of about 13 numbers in the 552 exchange in the 202 area code. And wouldn't ya know it, it just happens to include the number that called me today.

I checked my personal log, and it turns out other numbers in this block had been making similar calls to my old number back in 2006 and 2007.

So what is Faith & Family? It turns out its full name is National Committee for Faith & Family, a project of something called Citizens United. Citizens United is a dominionist right-wing hate group based in Washington, D.C. The founder of CU is the man behind the demonstrably false William Horton ads from Mad Dog Bush's '88 campaign.

Besides Faith & Family, other CU projects include Citizens United for the Bush Agenda. I swear I am not making this up. Another CU project is known as Boycott France. (Many suspect that this project killed off MP3.com, depriving indie musicians of their livelihoods. If that's the case, CU is guilty of racketeering for that alone.)

One of Faith & Family's causes is its petition against hate crimes legislation. (They claim committing hate crimes is a constitutional right.)

Now (to paraphrase a popular song from before my time), why is CU pickin' on me? A better question is, who from my area who I attended school with has gone to Washington to work for this hate group?

It's obvious why an outfit like CU would object to my stances, for I'm a progressive populist. I founded The Last Word in 1993, and that alone put me in the crosshairs of the extreme right wing. I was somewhat well-known in my area at the time because of this endeavor.

It's only fitting that someone who harassed me when we were in school would go to work for an extremist group like this. All of the attackers from school who I can name offhand are conservative. Every damn one of them.

You know something? It's been almost 20 years since we were in school together. Get over it already. It's a sad state of affairs when spoiled brats who you went to school with get to be 35 and continue making harassing phone calls.

Another question: How did they end up with my number after I had it changed? It doesn't help when at least one online phone book lists it despite it being supposedly unlisted.

At least now I've caught the organization that's behind much of this harassment campaign. It seems almost beyond belief that a national organization would employ someone who makes long-distance harassing calls to someone they haven't seen in decades - thereby confirming what the victim of this campaign had already said. This is like when I predicted they'd post bad reviews of 'The Fight That Never Ends' without even reading it - then they proved me right by posting bad reviews.

I also wonder if the employee behind this didn't also volunteer for John Spencer's Senate campaign in New York in 2006 - for I also got a harassing call from the Spencer campaign at the time.

I'm going to make sure people know what Citizens United has been up to.

(More info: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United)

Bank refuses to cash check for grieving family

Last month a Navy medic from southern California was killed in Afghanistan. But when the U.S. Treasury presented his family with checks for $50,000 to pay for his burial, his family was promptly told by the bank that they couldn't cash the checks for 2 weeks.

The family needed the money to pay for his funeral services - but the bank was refusing to let them have the money until after the funeral. This despite the fact that the family members were loyal customers of the bank for 10 years!

Investigating the situation a bit more, the story becomes even more outrageous. It turns out the bank's behavior is spurred by the financial reporting requirements of the Patriot Act.

You read that right: The Patriot Act is such a miserable excuse for a law that it's preventing the family of a fallen Navy medic from paying for the young man's funeral - with checks that came from Uncle Sam, no less. This is beyond outrageous.

What are the right-wing drones at Free Republic saying about this? Of course they're defending the bank and the Patriot Act. They're telling the family to "stop bludgeoning a bank manager who is following the law" and to "don't make a big stink about it."

Why do Free Republic and the authors of the Patriot Act hate the troops?

This is more proof that the Patriot Act (parts of which have already been struck down as unconstitutional) needs to be repealed at once.

(Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local&id=6297756)

Alaska governor faces investigation

If you're a Republican in Alaska, this hasn't been your week.

First, Ted Stevens got indicted. And now Republican Gov. Sarah Palin - considered a rising GOP star by the punditocracy and conservative intelligentsia - is facing an investigation amid allegations that she tried to get her sister's former husband fired from his job as a state trooper.

Although the trooper had previously been deservedly disciplined for misconduct that he committed, other charges against him had been dismissed.

If Palin is found to have abused her office, she may face impeachment.

Of course, the Free Republic brain trust opines that the probe of Sarah Palin is politically motivated by "the liberals." Keep entertaining me, Freeper folks.

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121746477267499109.html)

Election cheating begins early

I knew the Republicans cheat, but I didn't think they'd be so flagrant about it. In my view, the United States hasn't had a legitimate government since the 1994 midterm "election", but now the GOP's cheating is becoming even more obvious.

A new article by Greg Palast outlines several instances nationally in which the GOP is launching the latest round of cheating. Colorado's Republican Secretary of State purged one-fifth of the state's voters. Florida is refusing to accept tens of thousands of new voter registrations, despite the registrations being perfectly valid. Half of all the registered Democrats in one county in New Mexico found that their registrations mysteriously vanished - thanks to a Republican voting contractor.

There's a lot of biases guiding these purges. Not only do the purges affect Democrats almost exclusively. Not only do they disproportionately affect voters based on their race or ethnicity. They also affect voters based on their economic class: Several swing states are using a new federal law to purge voters who were victimized by foreclosures.

For too long, we've lived in denial about Republicans' cheating. This is not a problem we can just wish away. I'm now convinced that if the Republicans win in November, it will be only because of high-handed deceit like this. I'm also still convinced that a selective crackdown on vote carpools is a large portion of what did it in Kentucky from 2000 through 2004. (I admit the DLC's influence in the Democratic Party didn't help matters, but when the only other major party is the Republicans...)

Anyone who's an eligible voter probably expects to have a federally guaranteed right to vote. I would agree. If you find that your registration has somehow misappeared, or that the voting machine malfunctioned, or that your candidate received suspiciously few votes in your area, raise hell until the media gets off its high horse and takes notice.

(Source: http://www.gregpalast.com/2008)

Mustard gas leaks in Kentucky

What the fuck is a chemical weapons stockpile doing in my state?

Yesterday, it was confirmed that mustard gas was released by an Army depot in Richmond, Kentucky. For those unfamiliar with mustard gas, it's an incapacitating chemical weapon that burns and blisters skin. Mustard gas is potentially fatal.

Plochman's it ain't.

This leak comes less than a month after sarin, a nerve agent far deadlier than mustard gas, leaked at the same depot - and only 3 years after another mustard gas leak, which the media also ignored.

Officials deny that the mustard gas leak poses any danger. This is bullshit, of course. Any time you release mustard gas so close to a populated area, there's a risk. Sarin is even worse.

But have no fear. All the mustard gas at this depot is supposed to be destroyed - by 2017. That's assuming the Pentagon even bothers to pay to have it destroyed.

(Source: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/ap_mustardgasleak_072908/%2e)

GOP asshole blocks disabled vets bill

I have no objection to calling this disgusting clod what he is.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) is the asshat who wanted a network broadcast of 'Schindler's List' to be canceled. As a senator, he ranks up there with Jim DeMint and Saxby Chambliss in arrogant worthlessness.

Also like Jim DuhMint and Saxby Clueless, Coburn hates America's brave veterans - even while attacking everyone else's patriotism.

Senate Democrats have a bill to help fund programs for paralyzed veterans and spinal cord injury research. Because the Democrats have a majority in the Senate, you'd think this bill would pass.

But in the Senate, a majority is no longer enough, because Republicans abuse procedure. And a perfect example of this is Tom Coburn blocking the disabled vets bill.

What a fucking prick.

Obviously, Coburn never served in the military himself. There's nothing in his bio that says he did, so I'll assume he didn't. I didn't either, but at least I appreciate the troops.

Coburn doesn't appreciate the troops. He spends his Senate career stabbing our courageous vets in the back.

I think this also proves that the entire Republican philosophy has turned into a big con game. Republican leaders' entire purpose in life seems to be to harm people for the sheer hell of it - but they hide behind bogus talking points, like when they accuse everyone else of not supporting the troops.

This GOP con act is the biggest fraud perpetrated in modern American political history.

(Source: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/military_paralyzed_spinalcord_072908w)

Open 'Sesame Street'!

Admit it: If you're like most adults, you can't help but snicker every time 'Sesame Street' is mentioned. I know it's been the case for me ever since I was just barely too old for the long-running children's TV show.

I'm guffawing uncontrollably about it right now!

So why not have 'Sesame Street' Wednesdays? We need another gimmick like the weekend gum commercials.

Not everything related to 'Sesame Street' is uproarious. Some of it is deadly serious - but it's presented in a humorous way, because it's the ol' Ses, after all.

Recently I found this old 'Sesame Street' segment on YouPube, which I can almost guarantee would never be shown nowadays:



I remember that sketch from when I was growing up in the '70s. It's a cartoon about a spoiled bully (who bears a vague resemblance to Kearney on 'The Simpsons') stealing a baseball from some kids, and one of the victims of this theft going after him with a dog.

Don't count on that segment being up on YouTube forever. Apparently, YouTube pulled it once before because some fartpipe complained that it was too violent. Evidently, a sketch that was suitable for a children's show 30 years ago is now considered too much for a website viewed by adults and teenagers.

But skits like this are what 'Sesame Street' ought to still be showing today. The clip has several good lessons. One is the obvious: Don't appease bullies. Be firm instead. Another lesson of this piece is to think things through before acting. Another true lesson is that bullies are cowards.

If a clip like this was made today, the victim's thought balloon with the ice cream cone would probably be his ultimate course of action. That's what it would be if they wanted it shown in Kentucky schools, where they try to teach kids to appease aggressors instead of fighting back. (Fighting back against bullies is like a capital offense in Kentucky's so-called education system these days.)

Kids are brainwashed with so much appeasement crap nowadays that they're going to be miserable by the time they're 12. America's bully appeasement curriculum is a reason all the anger builds up for years - and we've all seen how that ends up.

We have to return to the America of 30 years ago. We simply must. We're raising too many kids who are browbeaten into not fighting back. This is one of the key reasons bullying is out of control in America's schools and communities.

Delta makes disabled woman crawl off plane

You hear so much about how the government supposedly can't legislate corporations. But if the government can tell glaucoma patients they can't get medicine or tell me I can't travel by bike in a public space (where biking does no harm to anyone), it can damn sure tell corporations what to do.

Recently, Delta Airlines made a severely disabled woman crawl off of a plane. The woman has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair.

First of all, her Delta flight landed in Atlanta late because it was delayed. Her connecting flight to West Palm Beach was scheduled for only 35 minutes after she arrived in Atlanta. She missed her connecting flight because not only was her first flight late, but the airline didn't get her a wheelchair in time before the connecting flight left.

The airline did tell her she might make the connecting flight, but only if she crawled off the plane instead of waiting for a wheelchair.

After she ended up missing the connecting flight, Delta gave her a boarding pass for a flight that was supposed to leave hours later. But apparently Delta had no personnel on hand to bring her to the gate. And that flight was delayed for hours anyway.

Later the woman became dehydrated because she had no access to water during this ordeal.

She didn't arrive in West Palm Beach for hours until after she was supposed to, and she had to crawl to the shuttle service to get home.

Why can't the government regulate airlines? Actually it can. But it won't. And now - because of activist judges - it won't let the states regulate airlines either - let alone break up the monopoly Delta has in some markets such as Cincinnati.

Early this year, a right-wing federal judge voided a New York law that required grounded airliners to provide passengers with adequate water and toilet access. The court overturning the law was a blatant case of judicial activism, and it was clear that this decision wasn't based on real law. So clear, in fact, that the state of New York would have been within bounds to ignore the ruling. If the federal government wanted to start a civil war against New York over something like this, it wouldn't exactly win over the people's hearts and minds.

So the states need to shore up the duties the federal government has not only neglected but has (out of sheer malice) tried to prevent the states from carrying out.

(Source: http://consumerist.com/5030632/delta-makes-woman-with-muscular-dystrophy-crawl-off-plane)

More coverage of our July 11 protest!

I seriously debated whether to link to this clip, but it's up on YouPube for the whole wide world to ogle (beep), so I'm assuming it's intended for public consumption.

It's a video featuring brief chitchats with several participants in our July 11 demonstration. I figured it would be nice to link to it while we're between protests, to keep the national scandal known as the teen torture racket in the spotlight:



I'm not afraid or ashamed of being seen on that clip. I'm effectively self-employed, and I know no corporation will ever hire me for anything anyway ever again because of my own anticorporate track record. So I probably don't have to fear any more illegal employer retaliation than I already do.

I'm damn proud of participating in that protest!

For the record, I was never in the particular program that was being protested. I was in a different gulag, which I can go into more detail about some other time.

Peace Bike violates another Allowed Cloud!

About an Allowed Cloud: It got violated!

I live to violate Allowed Clouds, like when I walked barefoot on the Purple People Bridge, or when I brang a marker to Bellevue Beach Park, or when I violated a trespass order at NKU that was 13 years old. (The trespass order was itself illegal, but I bet you they would've charged me for violating it 13 years later, except they knew I would just absolutely humiliate them if they did.)

Today I went Roads Scholaring in downtown Cincinnati - home of Fountain Square. Although Fountain Scare is a public gathering spot, around mid-decade the city began farming out management of this hardscape to CCCDC, a right-wing Big Business committee.

If you don't think CCCDC is right-wing, they are. They've tried to scrutinize rallies and prohibit ones they disagree with by making organizers buy insurance policies they can't afford.

The CCCDC champions regimentation. So they've enacted a list of rigid RULES governing how one must behave on Fountain Square. And they're still coming up with new ones. Just today, I noticed they had a new commandment against feeding pigeons who happen to congregate on the square.

But it's the Allowed Cloud against bicycles that really puckers my bip bone. Before the CCCDC's Fountain Square "renovation" (ruinage) of mid-decade, folks often biked through the square as the sun peeped through the permacloud. But now bikes on Fountain Square are prohibited.

So what did the Peace Bike opt to do? Visit Fountain Square, of course:


(http://i34.tinypic.com/hs9erp.jpg)

So take that, R2D2, I mean 3CDC!

One way we might be able to stop tyranny creep is to directly challenge it in all the little ways that I have during this Roads Scholaring season.

Ted Stevens indicted

If congressional Republicans aren't the most useless, corrupt bunch of fuck-ups ever to stink up the American landscape, I'll just poop.

Today, Ted Stevens, a Republican senator from Alaska since 1968, was indicted because he allegedly intentionally refused to disclose over $250,000 in gifts he got from businesspeople who sought his help on federal projects. The 7-count indictment accuses Stevens of lying about the gifts, which included a gas grill and improvements to his swanky mansion.

This is the guy who the Republicans made President Pro Tem a few years back? The position of President Pro Tem is third in line to be President. Stevens would have temporarily taken on presidential duties if Bush had major surgery and the Vice-President and Speaker of the House were unavailable to take on this task.

One of the people who gave gifts to Stevens was VECO's CEO Bill Allen, who got busted a while back for over $400,000 in corrupt payments to Alaska politicians.

And all this time, when they talked about how the Senate had banned gifts to members, I bet you thought it meant Dick Lugar wouldn't be getting any 'My Little Pony' coloring books for his birthday. Maybe that's what Ted Stevens thought it meant.

Stevens was already facing a tough reelection fight, and now he's got an indictment to deal with. It looks like Election Day may have some laugh potential at Stevens's expense.

(Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/story/45824.html)

Church shooter collected conservative books; Freepers blame victims

After having to explain itself in the '70s, the American conservative movement has become increasingly radicalized. American conservatism now has few voices of reason remaining and relies primarily on sound bite demagoguery.

I wish it wasn't the case, but it is. I know modern conservatism's track record all too well. Their ideology has become dominated by bullies who never grew up and decided to coast on the failures of their own policies - which they blamed on everyone else.

One aspect of the Knoxville church massacre was left out of the earlier story about it. It turns out that accused shooter Jim Adkisson was also a collector of conservative books from the likes of Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Bill O'Reilly.

A police officer who interviewed Adkisson said that - in addition to targeting that church because of its progressive teachings - Adkisson also had a belief "that all liberals should be killed" and that he planned to "target those that had voted them into office."

Not a comforting thought to end your day with, is it? But this is another indicator of how much right-wing commentators have ratcheted up the rhetoric.

Hannity, Savage, and O'Reilly can publish all the right-wing venom they see fit. But when their invective leads to tragedies like this, by golly, we should call them on it.

Meanwhile, the increasingly predictable clods at Free Republic blamed the shootings on the victims. One of them said that "the libs are ruining the country afterall [sic]" and that if they'd just go away, folks like Jim Adkisson "would also not use them for target practice."

The media outside Knoxville has generally ignored the fact that Adkisson is a fan of right-wing talk radio and stockpiles conservative books. But if the public had the information to connect the dots - namely, that right-wing invective feeds the fire that lurks in the heart of its followers - folks would become much warier of talk-shit radio and wingnut websites.

(Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/church-shooting-police-find-manifesto-suspects-car)

Uniforms cause student attacks

Are all those who insist school uniforms are so great going to pipe down now?

To my knowledge, there has never been a case in which uniforms were implemented to erase social and economic class distinctions, despite what uniform apologists claim. In fact, this story proves that these sumptuary rules only make the distinctions more obvious.

In London, England, schools are now telling students to change out of their uniforms and don normal clothes before going home from school. This is because of an increase in assaults and fatal knifings this year between students of rival high schools - who identify each other based on their uniforms.

For one thing, a ruling by education officials says that British state schools (the equivalent of American public schools) may not punish students for "breaching school uniform policy" - so students should already be protected if they attend a state school. The more important point is that uniforms have not only failed to prevent youth violence but have actually made it much worse.

I know what the rightist response is going to be. They'll say the uniform policy isn't strict enough, and that this is proof that schools should all move to the same uniform. Their answer as usual will be more regimentation.

But where does that stop?

Often you see uniform supporters boasting of the need to identify students, a goal that they say uniforms accomplish. But maybe the rise of interscholastic violence shows that forcing people to identify isn't always such a good thing.

(Source: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23522326-details/Change+out+of+uniform+to+keep+safe,+pupils+told/article.do)

Schwarzenegger guzzles science skeptic potion

Like most of the Republican intelligentsia these days, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to be guzzling the same fetid glop that fuels the corporate-backed science skeptic movement.

Climate change is real. The jury's no longer out on that. We have to face up to the un-face-up-to-able.

But Schwarzenegger has just vetoed a bill that would have introduced climate change education into California schools. The bill had passed the California Senate by a smashing margin and would have mandated that science textbooks discuss global warming.

Schwarzenegger's excuse for vetoing the bill was that he opposes statewide educational mandates. Oh yeah? Well, he supports standardized testing. Isn't that a state mandate? I'm pretty sure California (like almost all U.S. states) already requires students to take certain subjects. Isn't that a state mandate too?

If Schwarzenegger is so worked up about state mandates in education, then the Kentucky school system ought to drop what seems to be a mandate of Republican worship.

Clearly he's being influenced by the corporate-supported cult of climate change denial that rules the roost in the GOP. If this cult had any credibility to begin with, it has none now after what happened a couple months back.

About 2 months ago, global warming skeptics kept boasting about how they had 30,000 signatures of scientists who were going to "prove" climate change was all a big put-on. For weeks, they were blustering about how this was going to blow the lid off our stance once and for all.

Welp, that turned out to be a big flop, didn't it? This pathetic skeptic stampede fizzled, and the wingnutosphere is reeling in so much embarrassment that they don't dare to bring it up now.

I guess this is like how they were going to "prove" Saddam still had weapons of mass destruction when the war began, right? Everything the wingnutosphere says falls flat.

It's time to say, "Hasta la vista, baby," to the discredited beliefs of climate change skeptics.

(Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10010291)

Church targeted over progressive views

Following yesterday's deadly massacre at Knoxville's Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, people are searching for answers.

But the right-wing media wasted no time in jumping to conclusions. The media painted the accused gunman Jim Adkisson as a liberal atheist who questioned religion. But the media's portrayal of Adkisson has turned out to be a lie.

Adkisson is actually a right-wing talk radio fan who objected to that particular congregation's progressive views. (The church has long supported fair wages, civil liberties, and other admirable causes.) The 58-year-old wrote a rambling manifesto assailing the "liberal movement" and progressive causes, and it indicated that he planned to keep shooting until police gunned him down.

Right-wing blogs and talk radio constantly prime the pump for terrorists like this. Typical of talk radio is one host's demand that a Cindy Sheehan supporter be "stomped to death." If you listen to almost any right-wing talk show for a few hours, you'll hear the host rant about how anyone who dissents should be silenced.

It's the same intolerant invective that helped spur right-wing terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph.

There's a right-wing power structure that props up this terrorism - not only in red states but in places like Sacramento, where Republican DA Jan Scully refused to prosecute thugs who vandalized an antiwar sign.

My solution? Watch the right-wing hate sites, talk radio, and right-wing organizations like a hawk. They should be monitored closely, because that's where terrorism brews.

The media was guilty of scapegoating when it tried claiming Jim Adkisson was a liberal and an atheist. It's no different from the scapegoating that talk radio has been guilty of for years. In the 1930s, Germany was plagued by a certain demagogue who practiced similar invective. His movement grew from a handful of followers into a whole political party.

Just remember that the next time you come across a wingnut blog or talk radio show.

(Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/28/church-shooting-police-find-manifesto-suspects-car)

War may become second-most expensive

The Iraq War has cost the lives of thousands of American military personnel and countless Iraqi civilians. But it's also about to become America's second-most expensive war ever in its dollar amount - even when you adjust the cost of older wars for inflation.

While World War II remains the costliest, the Vietnam conflict ranks second, with an inflation-adjusted price tag of $686,000,000,000 (over a half-trillion). But this is about to be surpassed by the Iraq War, which now stands at $648,000,000,000.

This sum is almost 7 times the inflation-adjusted cost of the '91 Gulf War. And that includes only the price of military operations. It doesn't even include spending on veterans' benefits or assistance to war allies.

All this after Mitch Daniels said the Iraq War would cost less than one-tenth of what it has. Disaster Daniels must have been using some of that "fuzzy math" Bush used to talk about.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080725/ap_on_go_co/war_costs)

McCain ad blames Obama for gas prices

Yesterday I think I saw what may be the worst political commersh of the season (except for the lies about the troop surge allegedly "working" that I was force-fed last weekend).

This ad - which was personally approved by McComplain himself - blamed Obama for the out-of-control gasoline prices.

Uh, what???

McCain's party runs the White House, as it has for 20 of the past 28 years. And they're against breaking up the oil industry, they're against suing OPEC, and they're against any moves towards nationalizing Big Oil. They also started the war that drove up prices, and they have no energy policy and have shown no effort to find alternative fuels or bring about more efficient energy usage.

So how is it Obama's fault we have $4 gas?

You can blame the Democrats for some things, such as confirming David Petraeus or the failure to repeal the 1996 Telecommunications Act. But the blame for the high gas prices falls just about 100% on the Republicans' shoulders.

Despite this, the McCain campaign is making gas prices one of its key issues! Good. Because it's going to bite them right on the ass.

Bill would quiet noisy ads

It's about damn time. It truly is.

For years, studies have shown that TV commercials are much louder than the surrounding programming. These findings are believable to households all across the land, who find themselves confronted by ads that blare needlessly.

I think our local cable system was the worst offender. I'll never forget watching MTV or CNN's Gulf War coverage in 1991 and being almost knocked clean out of my chair when it cut to the local ads inserted by the cable company. It was loud enough that I was afraid it might have ruined the speakers.

Now there's a bill sponsored by Rep. Anna Eshoo and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (both D-California) that would direct the FCC to stop commershes that are significantly louder than the programming.

Eshoo correctly observed, "What annoys all of us is the sudden increase of volume when commercials are aired."

While we're at it, I'd like to see the FCC crack down on stations putting up ads that cover half the screen during programming. If there's anything more aggravating than commercials' loudness level, that's got to be it.

(Source: http://www.hometheatermag.com/news/082408loudtvads)

Republicans block heating aid bill

One principle in modern American lawmaking states that incredibly bad ideas will pass Congress or a state legislature unanimously. But there's a related principle that states that strikingly good ideas inexplicably won't pass at all, even if you can't possibly imagine anyone opposing it.

Yesterday, the Republicans in the Senate blocked an important heating aid bill - despite the Democrats being the Senate's majority party. The bill would have expanded federal aid to the poor for heating and air bills.

Who could possibly be against it? And on what grounds? The GOPoo can't possibly argue that they're just trying to save money, because they've supported the Iraq War blank check that's cost hundreds of billions. So what's the excuse?

The public pays taxes, and all they're getting in return is a failed war - and no heat?

I also don't buy any doctrinaire arguments by conservatives about how assisting the poor is beyond the government's scope. Conservatives consider "morals, morals, morals!" to be within the government's purview, so why not economic assistance programs like this?

So another bill has been killed off by the Republicans who aren't even the winning party anymore.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=d0c37b7c-07f6-45fd-8f6d-964ed56d0a87)

Barbour frees convicted murderer

When Republicans rule the roost, crime pays.

Michael David Graham was convicted of murdering his former wife in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in 1989. Graham was sentenced to life imprisonment for the premeditated shooting that occurred at a busy intersection.

But last week, right-wing Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, freed Graham from prison and reduced his sentence to mere probation-style restrictions. You read that right: A man committed a premeditated murder of his former wife in front of dozens of people, and now he walks free under a Republican governor.

Now Barbour is threatening to pardon Graham altogether - thus removing even the restrictions Graham has now.

Democratic State Rep. Brandon Jones, who represents Pascagoula in the legislature, is now exploring legislative options to keep Barbour from abusing his pardon powers.

The Mississippi Constitution gives governors broad powers to suspend sentences and pardon convicts. But what Haley Barbour doing is clearly an abuse of this authority. Barbour is no better than the elder Bush was when he pardoned Iran-Contra traitors.

You mean the Republicans lied when they said they were tough on crime? They're tough on people who get caught with some weed when they're 14 or buy too much allergy medicine, but killers walk free. I guess they have to make room in the prison system for all the small-time drug offenders.

(Source: http://www.sunherald.com/278/story/707517.html)

Study debunks media bias myth

How many times have you heard that the media has a liberal bias, even though evidence to the contrary stares the world in the face? Ironically, the myth of liberal media bias is spread primarily by the media itself - making it a self-debunking myth.

Now a study proves that not only does the media lack a liberal bias, but it actually has a conservative bias.

Gee, ya think?

George Mason University's Center for Media and Public Affairs has long tracked TV news content. Now the center has released a study finding that the leading broadcast TV networks (CBS, NBC, and ABC) have been much tougher on Obama than on McCain during this presidential campaign.

Conservatives will likely charge that the Center for Media and Public Affairs is some sort of liberal organ. But the CMPA was actually founded by conservatives. If even the CMPA finds a conservative bias, then we have to question the sanity of anyone who still insists the media has a liberal tilt.

And the study covered only broadcast TV news. It didn't even cover talk radio, which is almost exclusively right-wing. (Even Air America has been taken over by the DLC, which isn't exactly liberal.)

I could see during the '88 campaign how conservative the media was. Now we should be able to put the liberal media fable to rest. But don't hold your breath. The media will still be spreading this discredited myth in another 20 years.

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-onthemedia27-2008jul27,0,6802141.story)

Probation service scams traffic violators

It's a scam, it's a scam, it's a scammity-scam, it's a scammity-scam-scam-a-scam! Burp!

You better hope you don't get a minor traffic ticket in Americus, Georgia. Americus is one of many towns that now farms out its oversight of traffic violators to a private probation service - a move that supporters claim saves the taxpayers money.

But this has turned out to be a load of roo gas. It's actually a scam that hits the poorest citizens the hardest. If you're well-off and you happen to get a traffic citation, you're probably pretty safe. But 28% of people in Americus live below the poverty line, and if you don't have the money to pay your traffic fine right away, you end up eventually paying more than those who do. That's because you have to pay it in installments for 3 to 12 months - and the private probation service charges $35 a month.

If it takes you a year to pay your fine, you may end up paying over 2 to 3 times the amount of the fine.

To add insult to injury, judges threaten to throw violators in jail if they dare to complain to the court clerks about this rip-off.

In Americus, an atmosphere of intimidation and fear now reigns. And I'm sure this environment isn't limited just to Americus. It probably plagues many towns that have probation scams like this.

The system knows that it's setting folks up for trouble by making them pay extra fees to the probation firm in addition to their fines. It's like when my county started making jail inmates pay for their stay and then sentencing them to extra penalties if they couldn't afford it. Or like that school system in Louisiana that suspends kids for dress code violations and then charges them with truancy.

The corrections industry is built on making criminals out of everyone.

(Source: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/slammed-probation-for-profit.html)

Before the Harangue's harangue

The programmies are still reeling from our July 11 demonstration against their kookish cult (not to mention our July 14 rally that hit them just as hard), and now another video has surfaced of the Harangue's shocking behavior.

After the July 11 protest, I posted an entry featuring a video showing the Harangue (the director of the program) stealing our sign. The latest video shows the moments just before the theft of the sign. It proves without a shadow of a doubt that we were being 100% peaceful, and that it was the Harangue who was acting like a maniac:



Of course the programmies will never grasp how silly they're being.

Lieberman seeks terrorist pardon

Is there any doubt remaining that Joe Lieberman has gone totally bonkers? And to think I actually went to a rally to make sure all his votes for Vice-President were counted!

As proof of the Connecticut senator's increasing right-wing radicalism, he's seeking a presidential pardon for Eduardo Arocena. Arocena is a right-wing terrorist who is serving a life sentence plus 35 years for murdering a Cuban diplomat and for masterminding 25 bombings against sites like Madison Square Garden and New York's JFK Airport. The bombings seriously injured bystanders and damaged buildings.

And Lieberman is the guy who chairs the Senate's Homeland Security committee? That's as bad as McCain making Phil Gramm a top adviser on economics.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/25/124251/291/456/556870)

Gum is cool

You know what? This blog needs a gimmick. I asked people for some gimmick ideas, and I got a reply: "You should focus on bubble gum and its influence today."

So maybe I will. Maybe each weekend, I should post a link to a hilarious bubble gum commercial from yesteryear.

I never chew the damn stuff myself nowadays, and this is a political blog anyhow, so why would it even deal with gum? Because gum is funny. It's funny because it is. No particular reason. It just damn is!

So why not a weekly bubble gum commersh? I won't embed a commercial, because that comes too close to giving the gum maker free ad time (even if the ad is 30 years old) - but I will provide the link. Also, I can't vouch for these links being around too much longer, because YouPube seems to pull any video that causes feewinghurt on any grounds.

Here's our first exhibit in our museum of gum mania:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMTGMHc_w1s

That's an ad for Trident's soft bubble gum, circa 1983.

The commersh wasn't even meant to be humorous, but there's so many things to make fun of in it that the mind tobbles to and fro. I remember this ad, and that the absurd scenes with the pack of gum magically floating against a blue background caused our shitty cable TV system to emit a fart-like hum.

This is from Trident's "Taste the one that'll win you over" campaign, which I ridiculed endlessly back then. In reference to the 'Sesame Street' Muppet, I always sang, "Taste the one that'll smell like Grover." Which doesn't make any sense, of course. Then again, does it really have to?

And of course, the young woman in this commersh bubbled. What bubble gum ad would be complete without it?

If you're not rolling on the floor in a fit of uncontrollable guffawing right now at this hopelessly dated gum-related exhibit, then your laugh bone must be busted!

Another senseless drug war death

You know the War on (some) Drugs is a failure when its purveyors feel they have to use folks who are still fairly young to fight the war, without even training them on how to do so. And this time it caused a young woman to die needlessly.

Not long ago, a 23-year-old woman in Tallahassee, Florida, got in trouble for a couple of minor marijuana possession incidents. Part of the problem in her case was that it's Florida - where a minor drug charge becomes major. She was looking at 4 years and a felony record, even though she was only accused of mere possession.

But the Tallahassee police decided they'd exploit the situation by turning her into an informant. Without providing her with any training at all, they used her in a sting in an attempt to catch suspected drug dealers.

But the sting went bad, and she was gunned down.

The story proves how far beyond lost the drug war is. The War on Drugs is more or less a price support for violent gangs (who themselves pay off government officials).

Following this death, the Florida Attorney General's office is reviewing the Tallahassee police's policies. But authorities haven't shown much sensitivity to the young woman's family. Tallahassee's chief of police said, "I'm calling her a criminal."

Then I'm calling the War on Drugs a failure.

Maybe if the drug war's bills weren't being paid by drug lords, this garbage would stop.

(Source: http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080718/COLUMNIST01/807180312/1006/OPINION)

City would banish suspects without convicting them

Here's an idea that ought to be struck down the minute it passes.

The city of Eugene, Oregon, is considering passing a new unconstitutional ordinance. Under this proposed law, anyone charged with any number of crimes - ranging from robbery to assault to who knows what else - would be banned from downtown Eugene for 90 days.

I didn't say people who actually got convicted. (Those who get convicted would be banned for a year.) I said people who merely got charged - without being convicted.

If this passes, all that will need to happen for a person to be banned is for someone to wrongly accuse them and for them to be arrested. They won't even get a chance to prove their innocence first.

Punishing people without even convicting them or proving they're guilty? There's no way that'll pass constitutional muster. Not a chance in hell.

(Source: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7011731221)

Man institutionalized for trying to retrieve lost cat

This is yet another entry in the piles and piles of articles illustrating the excesses of the psychiatric industry.

A man in New York was committed to a psych ward all because he went searching for a cat that was missing. Police and shrinks insisted that the mere existence of the cat was a delusion.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The psychiatric racket won't hesitate about telling victims of school harassment that their assailants are a delusion, so I guess it's no surprise that the industry thinks cats are a delusion too.

I think the only thing related to this story that's a delusion is psychiatry itself. I don't think any other industry been wrong about so many things so many times for so many years.

The cat was found by a professional rescuer. The man spent 4 days locked up, even though the cat that psychiatrists insisted was a delusion turned out to be real.

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney and Geoff Davis still roam the streets freely.

(Source: http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/World/20080726/1009789.html)

Yahoo! and digital "rights" mismanagement

This is another reason why Yahoo! needs to take its greedy attitude and shove it clean up its ass.

A few years back, Yahoo! ratted out journalists to the Chinese government, which issued stiff prison terms to the reporters. Though Yahoo! is an American company, the Bush regime refused to penalize Yahoo! for this - but consumers appear to have been voting with their browsers, as the service seems to have become but a shadow of its former self.

Now that Yahoo!'s music store is closing, its greed is becoming evident. Yahoo! has decided not to give customers the digital "rights" keys for songs that they've downloaded for a fee from its site. Thus, when a customer replaces their computer, there will be no way to get their music tracks to play ever again.

That's exactly like if a record store closes down and then the owners go to former customers' houses and smash their records the next time they get a new turntable.

Then again, it's not like I ever buyed music from Yahoo!'s shitty site anyway.

Mind you, these are paid downloads we're talking about here. Yahoo!'s customers paid to download them. So they're theirs. Yahoo! has no legal right to make customers pay to keep listening to the tracks they've already purchased or to make the tracks stop working on new computers.

Yahoo! is recommending that customers save their music files by recording them onto a blank CD (thus wasting the CD), playing the CD on a separate component, and recording the music onto the computer as it plays, as if it's an analog recording.

Or you could just use the analog "hole" - except the analog "hole" has been eliminated on many newer computers, because computer makers wanted to appease the digital "rights" Taliban that was paranoid about people copying DRM files!

Doesn't the hassle of dealing with analog recording defeat the whole purpose of digital music? You can probably get better results from a scratchy old 45.

Damn, Yahoo! is dumb!

Digital "rights" management is such a scam that all 4 major record labels have now realized they're better off selling music DRM-free than heaping so much frustration on customers that they turn to file-sharing sites. (Yes, we're down to 4 major labels now thanks to the Far Right's hero worship of corporate mergers.)

(Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080724-drm-still-sucks-yahoo-music-going-dark-taking-keys-with-it.html)

Big Comcast is watching you

Some years ago, when a family picketed a right-wing politician whose name has been lost to history, they soon received a Christmas card from the politician that included a photo of them at the protest.

What Comcast is doing now is no less chilling.

Recently a college student complained on his obscure blog about cable TV giant Comcast pumping its on-screen program guide full of ads. Almost immediately, he received e-mail from Comcast disguised as a friendly response.

Nobody had left a comment on his blog in months, but then he just gets e-mail from Comcast out of the blue?

A user of Twitter posted a comment about receiving a $183 cable bill from Comcast. A Comcast employee immediately responded with a Twitter comment of his own: "Can I help?"

It turns out Comcast uses special programs that lets it monitor blogs, Internet message boards, and social networking sites for any mention whatsoever of the company. If someone dares to criticize Comcast, the company responds to them with a sickly-sweet response.

There seems to be general agreement that this goes well beyond creepy. It actually stifles the free flow of information by reinforcing the fear that bloggers and Internet users are being watched by Comcast.

I've hardly ever seen anything good written about Comcast. In fact, out of over 200 companies, the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranks Comcast dead last in consumer opinions.

And don't bother to contact me, Comcast. From what I've seen of Comcast, it's actually good that my area has a direct descendant of the wretched Storer Cable instead. It was Comcast that provided the cable TV to my hotel room in Memphis during my vacation last year where the cable went out. Luckily, I had better things to do on my vacation than watch a cable system that didn't work.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/technology/25comcast.html)

Dracula Davis's opponent speaks

Geoff "Dracula" Davis, a Republican, has been the congressmoron from my district (Kentucky's 4th District) for 4 years. In case you've never seen Davis on teevee, then trust me, he's a nasty, nasty, nasty little man.

Someone just sent me links to a televised interview with Michael Kelley, M.D., who is running for Congress as Davis's Democratic opponent. Of course, I'm a registered Green and an uncompromising economic populist, but I think it's important to hear what Democrat Kelley has to say (especially because Geoff Davis keeps hogging the spotlight).

Part 1:



Part 2:



Parts 3 and 4:



This could be the year the Drac Davis dirigible finally runs out of bunk gas.

Conservatives urge preemptive pardons

If this isn't a potential abuse of presidential pardon powers, what is?

The conservative (bowel) movement's great legal minds (such as they are) are urging Bush to issue preemptive pardons to regime officials who were involved in illegal programs. If they are pardoned, they're less likely to undergo a legal investigation that would make the Republicans look even more idiotic than they already do.

Victoria Toensing, a former official in the Reagan regime, said Bush "should preempt any long-term investigations." Because Bush is the Decider, I guess. Toensing said, "If we don't protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances."

Problem is, the people who the conservative intelligentsia wants pardoned weren't proceeding in good faith. They were intentionally subverting the Constitution.

The Bush White House refuses to say whether Bosh will take this advice and abuse his pardon powers. After Bush's daddy pardoned all those traitors who were involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if Bush issues ready-made pardons for his own cohorts who were involved in torture and warrantless phone-tapping.

(Source: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/92342)

Kentucky Post still right-wing after all these years

The Kentucky Post???

Yes, this article is about the remnants of the Cincinnati Post and its northern Kentucky edition, the Kentucky Post. The Post became an Internet-only publication this past New Year's Day.

I read the Post for years when it was a print daily, and by 1988 it was clearly conservative. By the end of its print era, its editorial stance was kookish, as seen in its 2007 editorials claiming Hugo Chavez is a dictator and spreading debunked statistics about his administration. (Unlike Bush, Chavez was democratically elected.) Even its articles that were not editorials bore misleading headlines, such as one that incorrectly claimed that the new Rockefeller drug laws were working. (The headline was parroting official government propaganda.)

The 'Net-only incarnation of the Kentucky Post appears to be no less out of touch. It's still owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, which carries loopy op-eds from the Scripps Howard News Service. Like today, it ran one from Bonnie Erbe that was headered, "Is The Media Pro-Obama?"

Are you kidding???

Surely the media is more pro-Obama than pro-Nader or pro-McKinney - but they clearly favor McCain over Obama. The media shrieked for months about Obama's membership in Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church (as if Obama somehow caused Wright to make controversial statements), but there's been hardly a peep from the media about McCain actively seeking support from right-wing bigots like Rev. John Hagee.

I think there's even less doubt where the media stood in the primary. It's been clear since the '90s that the media has wanted Hillary Clinton to someday be the Democrats' candidate. For one thing, the Clinton wing of the party is the one the media finds most ideologically acceptable. For another, it's the wing that's most likely to lose in a general election match-up versus the GOP anyway.

Throughout the current cycle, the media has thrown together so many tenuous anti-Obama stories that anyone who scrutinizes them can see they're grasping at straws.

But they've got a nice racket going. Because they're the media, they can - after displaying a bias throughout the campaign - claim the bias is the exact opposite of what it really is. Thus, this claim is self-discrediting. That Erbe would claim the media has a pro-Obama bias, in spite of reams of evidence to the contrary, is just more evidence of an anti-Obama bias.

Erbe claims the media has paid too much attention lately to Obama's overseas trip, but I think it only seems that way because McComplain simply never does much that's that exciting anymore. McCain's rerunning of timeworn Republican grievances is frankly a bore.

In 2000 and 2004, the Bush campaign manipulated the media more than any presidential campaign before or since. No other major U.S. politician has ever gotten a free pass more often than the Decider.

So the next time you see some talking head bellyaching that the media is more favorable to Democrats than to Republicans, it's just a ruse by the right-wing noise machine - one that the Post has fanned for years.

Giuliani's son sues over being removed from golf team

This is a lawsuit that would be frivolous no matter who filed it. But when the plaintiff is the offspring of a right-wing politician who railed against alleged legal abuse by everyone else, it looks especially hypocritical.

Andrew Giuliani - the son of former New York City mayor and failed GOP presidential contender Rudolph Giuliani - is suing Duke University because he was removed from the golf team. The 198-page federal suit charges that the university's golf coach has sidetracked the younger Giuliani's chance of becoming a pro golfer.

All together now: One, two, three...AAAAAAAAAAWWWWW!!!!! Gee, it must be tough being the spoiled child of a Republican politician.

If 1,000,000 Americans die today, and 1% of them are in the top 1% richest Americans, the GOP's upper crust will try to sue God by claiming that the Almighty discriminated against them for being rich. That's how the GOP entitlement culture works.

If they're so worried about frivolous lawsuits, they should start with their own useless legal filings.

The fact is that Duke was cutting its golf roster by half. Andrew Giuliani happened to be among the school's least skilled golfers - ranking 12th out of 14. Despite what he thinks, he was not the victim of a grudge by the coach.

Are the 6 other golfers who got cut going to sue too?

Grow up, will ya, Andrew?

Andrew Giuliani has no idea of what life has been like for folks like you and me who weren't born into privilege.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/24/114343/642/64/556229;
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=3503157)

Lawmakers block attempt to stop Rottenberg abuse

From what I've seen, I'd expect the Kentucky legislature to drop the ball over something like this - but Massachusetts???

The Judge Rotenberg Center, an abusive residential facility in Massachusetts, has long been known for administering electric shocks to autistic and mentally challenged children and adults. Recently, State Sen. Brian Joyce and State Rep. John Scibak (both Democrats) sponsored a measure to greatly limit this evil practice.

But now the Massachusetts House has gutted the effort. DLC State Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez praised the shock "discipline" that remains widespread at Rottenberg to this day. Rotenberg administers electric shocks to students for such "crimes" as giving wrong answers to classroom questions and mumbling.

Joyce had earlier introduced a bill to outlaw the shock punishment outright, but the legislature rejected that bill too.

(Source: http://fornits.com/smf/index.php?topic=25580.msg311502;topicseen)

Yankees lift sunscreen ban

Well, that sure as shit didn't last long, did it?

After the outcry against Yankee Stadium banning sunscreen even over a scorching 96° F weekend, the ballpark has now lifted this totalitarian policy.

Now maybe if the NFL would start obeying the court order barring it from frisking fans, we'll know that this bit of progress isn't just a blip.

(Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/07/22/2008-07-22_yankees_lift_ban_on_sunscreen_in_stadium.html)

SPF '1984'

America today is so clearly a command state that it's almost impossible not to mistake it for George Orwell's '1984'.

Yankee Stadium in New York is doing its part to assist America's excruciating swirl down the toilet of tyranny. The ballpark opted a month ago to ban sunscreen lotion, calling it a terrorist weapon.

Under this ban, security personnel have begun searching fans for contraband sunblock and throwing away any they find. The ban was in effect even over the past weekend when temperatures in New York reached almost 100° F and the UV index topped a dangerous 9 out of 10. The stadium managed to fill several trash bags with bottles of sunscreen.

The claim that the policy is an attempt to protect the stadium from terrorism is of course a lie. If security personnel would open the bottles of lotion, sniff it, and squeeze out a few dollops, they'd be able to see it wasn't an explosive liquid.

What's really behind this? Well, it just so happens that once you get inside the stadium, you can buy sunscreen. It costs $5 for a tiny 1-ounce bottle of very weak sunscreen that probably costs only $1 at the supermarket.

So the ban of sunblock is really a scam to force people to buy it from the stadium at a heavy markup.

Dr. Babar Rao of the Skin and Cancer Center of New York called the sunscreen ban "very dangerous" and "especially bad for children", for the lotion must be reapplied every 2 hours (while the average baseball game lasts 3 or 4 hours).

If a spectator gets sunburned because of Yankee Stadium's fartpipery, they ought to sue 'em to court. Maybe we ought to all stop going to professional sporting events. That'll hit the wealthy team owners' pocketbooks like there's no tomorrow.

And they will cry!

Bullshit mass index

A death match between the twin heads of the hydra of doom may be brewing. Which head will win - powerful government officials, or even more powerful fast food corporations?

I personally feel the "obesity pandemic" is mostly a media creation designed to draw attention away from government scandals and to shift blame for America's health care crisis onto the victims. One of the main reasons the obesity rate appears to have increased is that the government redefined obesity in the late '90s by using the body mass index.

I call it the bullshit mass index. According to the new BMI rules, I'm well within the overweight category. After I realized in high school that I could hide behind classmates and make myself invisible to avoid the many objects that seemed to fly across the room, I find that to be preposterous. I also find it odd that the media plays up the "obesity pandemic" while ignoring real pandemics like those that ferment in America's filthy, virus-laden school buildings.

But officials in Los Angeles apparently think the "obesity pandemic" is real. A City Council member wants to ban fast food restaurants from opening in a 32-square-mile section of the city.

I'm suspicious of corporations, but I still occasionally buy fast food. I know the quality of fast food has declined precipitously in this decade, and I boycotted Taco Bell because of its enslavement of agricultural workers - but it wasn't long ago that you could get an adequate meal cheaply at a number of fast food outlets.

Are folks in L.A. supposed to go to fancy suit-and-tie restaurants instead?

I can understand a city criticizing a fast food restaurant if it abuses workers or disrespects animal welfare. But what's going on in Los Angeles sounds more like a "for your own good" measure that simply falls flat.

The L.A. proposal sounds like a Prohibition-style move that wouldn't do any good for the public. And it smacks of class warfare, for most working-class people like you and me are less likely to be able to afford anything fancier than fast food.

If you want to tackle the city's health woes, consider that L.A. is one of the smoggiest regions of America. Why are more and more inefficient gas guzzlers encouraged to choke the city's freeways to transport wealthy exurbanites to their spacious mansions 30 miles out of town?

And doesn't Los Angeles still have its school calendar problems that the media hailed as so innovative? That likely spreads disease, which would be as much of a health threat as fast food is.

So who's going to win this Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot match - the fast food industry or City Council?

In fairness to city officials, they also want to encourage grocery stores to move into the neighborhood where fast food will be taboo. I'm all for more grocers, but the city can at least wait until grocers move in before keeping restaurants out.

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121668254978871827.html)

New laws in New York include making game ratings mandatory

This is another mixed-bag story: The state of New York has just passed a flurry of new laws - some of them good, but some of them downright atrocious.

First, the good news: One of the good new laws makes it easier to fire teachers who are convicted of heinous sex crimes. Other good new laws would help fight abuse in residential programs by making it illegal for employees to kick, bite, or withhold food or water from detainees.

Apparently, it was legal until now to kick, bite, and starve people in residential programs and psychiatric institutions in New York. Shocking, yes. But I'm glad that the new laws outlaw these abuses.

Another good new law strengthens domestic violence protections.

But a bit of bad news has put a damper on my glee over these new laws: Another new piece of legislation puts the force of law behind the video game rating system - a system that is almost universally agreed to be stupid.

This new law requires retailers to display the "voluntary" rating system on every game - or face a fine. Not so "voluntary" now, is it?

I remember in the '90s, when the rating system began, how its apologists claimed endlessly that it was just voluntary and not a government mandate. I knew that was a load of bullshit and that sooner or later, the government was going to make it mandatory. Now the state of New York has.

And that's why there's a "Censorship Alert!" banner at the top of this entry.

Requiring the rating system clearly violates the First Amendment. If I owned a store that sold video games, do you honestly think I wouldn't ignore the new law? This is as bad as the now-gutted law in Indiana that forced bookstores to register with the sheriff if they sold magazines with a sex advice column.

So many good bills were signed into law in New York today, but this disgraceful video game legislation utterly ruins the mood. It's exactly like if you accidentally crush your foot with an RV while you're loading the vehicle up for your cross-country road trip you've spent 20 years planning.

(Source: http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080722/NEWS01/807220353)

COPA struck down...again!

I coulda swore this law got struck down already. But the government had to waste money appealing, didn't they?

Yep, actually it did get struck down. The misnamed Child Online Protection Act was an Internet censorship law that was the progeny of the hated Communications Decency Act. The 1998 law required certain websites to use a credit card to verify even adults who accessed their site. The law had nothing to do with protecting children.

Later, this law was struck down as unconstitutional. The Bush regime appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court, which upheld the earlier injunction and referred the case back to district court. Last year, a district judge ruled COPA unconstitutional again.

But the Bush regime appealed that ruling too. And now they've lost yet again! The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court's decision.

Guess what? Bush's so-called Justice Department is threatening to appeal again.

You mean even more of my hard-earned tax dollars are going to go towards this shit?

(Source: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/net-censorship.html)

More EU metric imperialism

The (bowel) movement capitalists who dominate the European Union are at it again! This story is as bad as when the EU forced Spain (a Spanish-speaking country) to post stop signs only in English.

The undemocratic EU has now issued a fiat that orders Britain to stop using the acre (the unit of land measurement) and replace it with the hectare (a metric unit).

Why??? Who the hell knows why. The EU has never seemed to have had the burden of making sense - preferring instead to serve corrupt corporate interests. Because of the EU's corporatism, the acre is now banned from use effective in 2010.

Britain's Conservative Party is blaming its political opponents - even though it was the Conservatives that caused most of this mess by allowing their country to be subjected to arbitrary, greed-driven EU diktats like this. It's not as if New Labour (the British DLC) is completely free of blame though.

The real miracle is that Bush hasn't required Americans to switch to the metric system yet. Back when his daddy was in the White House, the United States probably came closer to undergoing forced metrication than any time before or since. (Not like the ruling regime can force me to switch, seeing how the U.S. is supposed to be a free country and all.)

(Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2310257/European-Union-abolishes-the-British-acre.html)

Fascists kill anti-bullying bill

A long-overdue bill in North Carolina that would have cracked down on school harassment read in part:

"Bullying or harassing behavior includes, but is not limited to, acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, socio-economic status, academic status, masculinity, femininity, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, developmental or sensory disability, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics."

So who would be against a bill like this? Bush conservatives, that's who.

And what's their excuse this time? Their excuse is their opposition to including one of the items listed in the paragraph of the bill printed above. Can you guess which one?

Well, which one do the rightists these days seem inordinately obsessed with?

You know, I hate to even dignify the Far Right's unexplained obsessions, but they're the ones who decided to rail against this bill.

Let's cut to the chase: The Bush cult is against the bill because they claim that including sexual orientation is a government endorsement of homosexuality. To give you an idea of what a flawed argument this is, that's like saying that including religion is an endorsement of a specific faith. That's like saying that including disability is an endorsement of being disabled.

The bill's opponents know their own argument is ridiculous, but it's a situation where the whole world looks like a nail so all they have is a hammer. Quite frankly, I believe school harassment on any basis is wrong. But it's the bill's opponents who keep obsessing about that one item. And if that item wasn't included, they'd obsess over some other horseshit issue.

The fact is, they support bullying. They'll come up with any excuse they can to oppose the bill. The serial bullies of your youth are the right-wing hired thugs of today.

To make a long story short, the right-wing activists who support school harassment flooded lawmakers with mail and phone calls demanding that they vote against the bill. And their efforts worked. They managed to kill the bill entirely.

Though lawmakers had planned to vote on some form of legislation to tackle school harassment after this version was killed, they appear to have dropped the ball again - forcing them to wait until next year's session.

Organizations that aroused their followers to flood lawmakers with demands to oppose the bill are hate groups. Period. And they're terrorist groups, because they support school harassment. They should be called out as such. The Christian Action League of North Carolina, for instance, is one such hate group. So is the North Carolina Family Policy Council.

Like I've said, school harassment is Public Enemy #1 of America's young people. It doesn't matter what the reason for the harassment is.

So if you live in North Carolina, and your kids are getting attacked at school, blame the Bushists when nothing gets done to remedy it. It's entirely the fault of right-wing extremists if the harassment continues. Entirely, completely, 100% the right-wingers' fault.

(Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1143029.html)

Contractor arrested over pool death

Although the trend in the United States in recent years has been towards weaker protections for consumers from dangerous products, once in a while something happens that's so outrageous that there's almost a consensus that action has to be taken.

Last year, a 6-year-old boy in Connecticut drowned when he was trapped under water by a swimming pool drain. Faulty drains have long been a national scandal: In the past 25 years, there have been dozens of instances in the U.S. of children being killed or having their intestines literally sucked out by dangerous drains.

The contractor who installed that pool has now been arrested on manslaughter charges for the boy's death. This is the first time a pool contractor has been arrested in the U.S. for violating pool safety codes. Perhaps this is a sign that authorities - at least in Connecticut - aren't going to let tragic deaths slide. The arrest may signal to other contractors that they have to make their pools safe.

But it took until the end of last year for Congress to act. In December, the federal government finally enacted a law regulating pool drain covers. When the Contact With America era began, Congress wasted no time in revoking college aid from students who got caught with a joint when they were 15 - but it took another 13 years to pass a law to protect consumers from faulty products like pool drains.

Incidentally, Freeper types are abusing other websites to attack the family of the boy who drowned in Connecticut. I'm surprised the new federal law passed, because the corporatists' world is one of "buyer beware", in which victims of defective products are told to just keep quiet. The right-wing propagandists who infest the blogosphere have long claimed that anyone who files a legitimate product liability suit is just trying to cash in. They consider product safety regulation a "communist" constraint on their so-called right to Make Money.

The tort "reform" movement is all about protecting corporations from having to pay victims of their faulty wares.

The Connecticut contractor is expected to plead not guilty. But the fact that authorities did go after him may be a sign that Connecticut is serious about enforcing safety regulations. Many American locales would have let the case slide.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3404580)

MSNBC downloads pirated music?

You expect a fuck-up like this from the network that did a shitty splicing job on a Michelle Obama speech to try to change the speech's meaning.

In a segment about the film adaptation of 'Mamma Mia!' (a musical based on Abba songs), MSNBC used the song "Walking On Sunshine", apparently thinking the song was by Abba. Wrong, brainiacs, it was Katrina & the Waves.

Now, why would they think it was Abba? Because file sharing sites that offer unauthorized copies of the song often wrongly credit the song to Abba. Obviously that's where MSNBC got its copy from.

Clearly, a producer for the network wanted some Abba music for the piece, so they went on a file sharing site and downloaded a pirated copy of that song for free because it was mislabeled as being by Abba. How else could a mistake like that happen?

Now is the RIAA going to go after MSNBC for using pirated music, creating a rare wingnut-versus-wingnut death match? Or is this like how the insurance industry doesn't do anything to teen confinement facilities when they commit insurance fraud?

(Tip: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3655932)

Right-wing judge tosses bipolar teen in boot camp

Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is known for its corrupt GOP machine that locks kids away for nothing. In 2005, the county falsely convicted a teenage boy of threatening to blow up his school all because he wore a "Joe Canadian" shirt. (The conviction was later overturned.) And now the county is embroiled in a scandal in which a teenage girl was sent to a wilderness boot camp.

In May, Republican Judge Robert Mellon sent a 16-year-old girl to the camp because she has bipolar disorder. Wilderness boot camps are a national scandal - part of the teen gulag racket that I've lambasted for years. Wilderness camps have caused the deaths of quite a few teenagers.

And bipolar disorder is not uncommon, especially among teens. Being bipolar is certainly not a crime.

But in BushAmerica, once you're born, you're pretty much government property, and you can be sent anywhere. The system doesn't have your best interests in mind. The system is built on greed and control, and if you're unwilling or unable to be exploited as a disposable spoke in the capitalist tire, there's a chance you'll find yourself locked up.

After the girl was placed in the boot camp, her mother asked Democratic County Commissioner Diane Marseglia to intervene. Marseglia, a licensed social worker, then contacted other officials about the documented dangers of sending a bipolar teen to a boot camp.

But then the county GOP machine totally lost its shit. Right-wing judges accused Marseglia of interfering with the judge's order. Now - all because Marseglia disagrees with them - the judges want court oversight over the agency that represents at-risk young people.

How's that for interference?

Marseglia noted that the Republicans' tantrum is fueled by partisan politics.

Now the teenager has been assigned a new attorney, because her old lawyer was obviously so inadequate.

I honestly don't think the judge in this case had the teen's best interests in mind at all. This sounds like just another remake of a tired old story that's been played out all over America countless times in recent decades. But this time, a county commissioner stood up and did the right thing by expressing her concerns about boot camps - and got promptly raked through cess over it.

In summary, the commissioner criticized boot camps, and then a right-wing judge totally went bonkers. Which shows you how far the Party is willing to go to protect the teen gulag racket.

(Source: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-2bucks.6506990jul17,0,2436238.story)

Meet the Eyewitness Cam; 8 nighttime Action Cam photos posted

Like the pinnacle of populism that I am, one of my fave hobbies is something called Roads Scholaring - the practice of visiting and exploring roads just because they're roads. Now, in the digital era, photography is inexpensive, so now this pastime usually involves photographing roads or strange features.

The Action Cam has served me spiffily for 5 years. We all love the Action Cam. Recently the battery cover broke, but it'll still work if you have it taped up very, very tightly. (Wow! An electronic device from this decade that lasted 5 whole years! Better call Guinness!)

Now the Action Cam is being retired in favor of the Eyewitness Cam. Don't ask me how I procured the Eyewitness Cam. All I know is that it's here, and it's eager to get to work.

I guess the people weren't joking when they said they wanted me to keep taking Roads Scholaring photos. The Eyewitness Cam wants to serve you, so that it shall do.

In the meantime, I still owe the people 8 photos from the now-retired Action Cam. These photos followed our successful but haunting July 14 protest against the teen torture racket.

So check it out (like a library book):

http://www.angelfire.com/yt2/lastword/roadpics/cinnight08.html

Surge protector

Yesterday I kept seeing an extravagant TV ad that disturbed and shocked me greatly.

It was like a political commercial, but it didn't directly endorse a party or candidate. The entire premise of this ad was (in so many words): "THE SURGE IS WORKING LOLOLOL!!!!!"

According to this ad, last year's Iraq War surge worked, and everybody (even those who oppose the war) agrees that it worked. This is a lie, of course.

I know advertising is supposed to be persuasive. But aren't there some sort of regulations against making blatantly false claims in ads (especially political ads)? TV stations have pulled political commercials over false claims.

For the record, the surge was a failure. The statistics bear this out. But the technique of the ad is to repeat a lie over and over again until people believe it. This propaganda technique works better than you might think. Even those who are adamant about certain facts start questioning their own competence when the media constantly bombards them with lies year after year.

More about the Clayton County school scandal

This entry is about another important point about the embattled school system of Clayton County, Georgia. This is the district that nearly lost its accreditation and implemented mandatory uniforms to cover up for its own many failures.

Being the honest left-leaning populist guy I am, I think it's important to clarify something that was reported earlier about this school system. Some of the news stories I saw from early this year said that if Clayton County lost its accreditation, its high school graduates wouldn't be eligible for college. But I'm told that's not completely accurate - though accreditation loss would complicate things. A lot of colleges would still accept Clayton County alumni, but it would be much harder to get in, and many scholarships would be off-limits.

Either way, the loss of accreditation would harm students and render much of their work a waste. Although my own local school system never lost its accreditation, I know what going to school for nothing is like, because of my own many battles with the educrats. (They never did give me credit for the summer I fought Mad Dog's gulag, despite being forced to attend class almost every weekday of the summer.)

Embattled school system implements uniforms

This is what school systems do when they want to make it look like they're fixing things when really they're just making everything worse.

Early this year, the Clayton County, Georgia, school system nearly had its accreditation revoked because the district was plagued by so much corruption and incompetence. If the accreditation had been yanked, graduates of the high school wouldn't have even been eligible for college.

Now the school board - the same unethical bunch that's been in charge for ages - has made uniforms mandatory in elementary in middle schools.

Surprise, surprise, huh? Uniforms generally do figure prominently in incompetent school officials' arsenals of tyranny, especially when they feel like throwing up their hands out of laziness.

(Source: http://www.sundaypaper.com/More/Archives/tabid/98/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2767/Default.aspx)

City cites 73 people over cold medicine

How out of control are the Nazis' new drug laws?

In just one city - Evansville, Indiana - police in the past month have sent a summons to 73 people just for buying over-the-counter cold or allergy medicine that until only a few years ago had no purchase limits.

Authorities complain that folks buy too much of the medicine by stocking up at different stores. The legal limit? Three grams. That's all. If you have summer allergies, you can burn through that much in days.

Police catch folks by checking the log books that pharmacies are forced to keep. And now cops say they plan to issue another 60 summonses or so this week.

So now Evansville will have about 130 people who are facing charges over cold and allergy medicine. Almost everybody in the city knows someone who faces charges in this massacre. There's no evidence any of the 130 intended to use the drug improperly, and there's no way in hell that all 130 are guilty of anything other than exceeding the draconian purchase limit.

When I was growing up, there was a popular TV program titled 'That's Incredible!' When you see stories like this, I almost wish they'd come out with a show called 'That's Fascist!'

(Source: http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=8699898&nav=menu54_3)

Man jailed in GED case released but may be jailed again

The separation of school and life is such a distant memory that back in May a Fairfield, Ohio, man was jailed all because his adult daughter failed to get her GED. The man was accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, even though his daughter was 18 and was therefore an adult. Not only that, but the daughter was in fact going to classes - so even if she was still a minor she would not be truant.

In other words, the father broke no laws but was sent to jail anyway.

The fact that the man was jailed for something like this was the same old story of the system throwing its weight around just because it can.

Now he's been released. But the system still hasn't learned from the outcry that resulted from his incarceration. So now they're threatening to send him back to jail if his daughter doesn't get her GED by November.

Stupidity is commonly defined as doing the same fucked-up shit over and over and expecting a different result. And that's exactly what the court is doing.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=55975d50-ca87-49fd-bf09-7f1c1eb562f5)

Crap Channel host makes up bullshit

You know it's a day ending in 'y' when the right-wing noise machine is out in full force.

Nope, this story isn't about an Indianapolis station's torture cult lovefest. (For the record, that wasn't a Clear Channel station.) This entry is about Bob Newman (Gunny Bob, as he calls himself) of radio station KOA in Denver, which is now owned by Clear Channel.

It turns out that Newman was allowed by Crap Channel to post doctored photos of Barack Obama - accompanied with made-up captions - on the station website, with the intent on making the audience believe the pictures and captions were real.

One of the phony photos shows the Democratic standard-bearer dancing with Osama bin Laden. One of the captions falsely claims the candidate threatened Newman. Gummy Bob Newman also read the made-up quotes during his radio show as if they were real quotes.

So the partisan attack politburo at Clear Channel hasn't ebbed since the last so-called election. I bet that pretty soon the company will sponsor more pro-war rallies like they did a few years back.

Distorting news used to be considered a serious taboo by the FCC, but now the FCC is too worried about Janet Jackson's nipple and raiding 1-watt pirate stations to give a shit.

(Source: http://colorado.mediamatters.org/items/200807090001)

Court nixes arrests over pot smell

Guilt by association!

That's one of the concepts that guides the failed drug war. Of course, the alleged association is often nonexistent, like when the programmies babble about how any song written after 1940 is "druggie music", but that's another matter entirely. This story is about the law enforcement practice of arresting every occupant of a car just because of a marijuana smell.

I know I've seen this practice on 'Cops', probably in the more recent episodes that are mostly filled with the police lecturing folks about how much they hate marijuana. If one person smokes pot, the authorities consider everyone in the vicinity guilty.

It's easy to see what a slippery slope this is. If one person at a festival or a concert smokes a joint, does that mean cops can ticket all of the hundreds of revelers?

Luckily, the state of Washington has now placed some much-needed speed bumps on this slippery slope. The Washington Supreme Court, citing the Evergreen State's broad privacy protections, has now ruled that police can't arrest passengers just for being in a car that smells of marijuana.

This decision should be obvious. But it actually corrects a bad ruling from some years back that caused passengers to be jailed even if no marijuana was to be found on them.

(Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/371288_potsmell18.html)

Army shoots pigs for drill

Animal welfare supporters are outraged by this story - and they should be.

The government announced yesterday that the U.S. Army will begin shooting live pigs and then try to put the animals back together as part of a medical drill. The exercise was scheduled to take place yesterday. (Almost no advance warning was provided to the public.)

The Army says shooting pigs is necessary to save injured soldiers' lives - but this is far from the truth, as the shoot is outdated, unnecessary, and downright monstrous. Military medical drills have been conducted for centuries without harming live animals.

This is the latest in a long line of outrages by the Bush regime that are so inexplicable that you almost can't believe what you're reading. That the Pentagon would permit such a cruel and bloody exercise when there are alternatives available is further proof that America has lost its way.

(Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gfTfIjXieiu7ztxTG5LmW8HPaXoQD920IGC00)

Assholes smear shit on Obama signs

I knew that cultists of the Bush crime family like to play with squishy poo-poos (judging by the finger-painting that the guards at CPH seem to have done in the bathrooms there), but usually they try not to make their fetish so damn obvious.

In Arlington Heights, Illinois, some unthinking clod trespassed in a woman's front yard on Wednesday and smeared feces all over her 2 Obama campaign signs.

So if you live in that area and you know anyone who has a Romney '08 sticker on their car and whose pants seemed to get less full on Wednesday, you may have found the culprit.

And the right-wingers think I'm crazy for daring to complain about school bullying? (To Bush-style rightists, bullying is considered art, much like their poo scribblings on lavatory walls and political signs.) I'd say smearing grogans on campaign signs is far crazier than anything I'd ever do.

And it's a health hazard. This is how hepatitis spreads.

But I guess people playing with shit is what BushAmerica is all about.

(Source: http://cbs2chicago.com/local/feces.obama.posters.2.774111.html)

School district threatens to exclude kindergartner over long hair

Silly me. I used to think America had freedom of religion. But I guess not.

The school system in Needville, Texas, has managed to meld together 1953 and 2008 while excluding all the years in between. They're so old-fashioned that they think male students having long hair is taboo, but they enforce this rule with the "zero tolerance" zeal of the current decade.

Now a 5-year-old boy who is about to enter kindergarten is under fire from the school system because he has long hair - which strictly violates Needville schools' authoritarian dress code. The boy's family says that his long hair represents his religion and his Apache heritage.

That the schools would have a rule against long hair is bad enough. But that they're not willing to make a religious exemption seems even worse.

The snooperintendent said of the family, "What is their religious belief that defies cutting hair and following our policies?" So the school system is trying to dictate someone's religious beliefs for them?

Texas law says government agencies (including public schools) can't have policies that violate a person's religious practices unless the agency would face an undue hardship without such a policy. I certainly don't think it's an undue hardship for the school to make an exemption in this case.

On Wednesday, the Needville school board voted unanimously to exclude the kindergartner unless he cuts his hair.

The school district is really treading on shaky ground here. I can't help but unfavorably compare the school system's stance to restrictive, discriminatory policies of a century ago.

During a sad chapter in America's history, Native American children were forcibly taken from their communities and required to attend schools where they were beaten, uniformed, and barred from speaking their own language. From this story, it sounds as if America's schools are trending back to these shameful methods of old.

(Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/5888151.html;
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/moms/5892068.html)

Right-wing sheriff accused of racial profiling

I'm all for going after individuals who break laws. That's why they're called laws. But racial profiling goes against everything America is supposed to stand for.

Now a coalition of labor groups and Hispanic organizations in Arizona says longtime Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (pictured here) has been using racial profiling. Arpaio, a Republican, has been long known in his Phoenix-based bailiwick for his egotistical stunts and his insistence on feeding jail inmates spoiled bologna. But now he's the target of a federal racial profiling lawsuit.

The plaintiffs also note that Bush's so-called Justice Department has failed to stem civil rights abuses in Maricopa County.

Racial profiling has long plagued America. In the Arizona case, plaintiffs allege that Arpaio's deputies were stopping local residents based solely on their ethnicity. One man - who is a U.S. citizen - claims he was handcuffed in front of customers of his family's car repair shop solely because police heard him listening to music with Spanish lyrics. (Last I checked, listening to Spanish-language music was not a crime.)

There have been similar lawsuits in recent years against sheriffs in Texas and New Mexico. But Arpaio has also come under fire from Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who supports a federal civil rights probe of Arpaio over racial profiling and improper searches. However, Bush's Attorney General Michael Mukasey has arrogantly refused to respond to Gordon's request. (Kind of like how my first high school refused to reply to my letter demanding that it pay back the $400 it stole.)

If nothing else, maybe this lawsuit will help bring more attention to racial profiling elsewhere.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/16/AR2008071602636.html)

Maryland police spied on activists

Another day, another story of the overstuffed police state that has nothing but people-hating on its mind.

Documents that were released this week say that under the reign of right-wing Gov. Bob Ehrlich, the Maryland Police State Police (sic) illegally spied on activists. Undercover cops conducted surveillance against antiwar protesters and death penalty opponents by infiltrating their ranks.

Police posed as demonstrators and continued their illegal surveillance even though they never found any evidence of lawbreaking by the activists.

A 63-year-old antiwar activist was singled out by the undercover cops and entered into a database regarding what they called the "Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area." This is more proof of how the drug war is used to go after people who have nothing to do with drugs.

Now we know the American KGB, and its name is the Maryland State Police. There need to be stiff prison terms for those in the state's ruling regime who abused the public trust by launching this spy operation.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/17/ST2008071702080.html)

Wage enforcement weakens under Bush

I know it's already time for another minimum wage increase, but what good will it do unless the government enforces it?

The Government Accountability Office (Congress's investigative arm) just released a report showing that the Department of Labor's enforcement of the minimum wage is almost nonexistent, having weakened considerably in the past 10 years. (Cough Bush cough.)

The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division now fines violators of the wage law only 6% of the time. Then what happens the other 94% of the time?

Apparently nothing. Another GAO study said the agency "inappropriately rejected" complaints of wage law violations.

In an era when some average slob like me can probably get 5 years just for looking at someone cockeyed, you'd think the government would be able to enforce labor laws against large companies.

(Source: http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/65/10.php)

Will the Peace Bike fight the crybabies?

I was reading over my entry about right-wing bloggers complaining about parking spaces that allow only fuel-efficient vehicles. I noted how they never raised a peep when a California town instituted SUV-only spaces.

While I was reading it over, I had a sexy thought. What if I started parking the Peace Bike in a parking space (you know, the ones that are supposedly reserved for cars) instead of propping it precariously against a public mailbox or traffic sign? Next time I go to the shopping center, maybe I'll do that! (The local shopping center has no bike rack.)

Then maybe I'll see what happens. If I was a betting man, I would wager there's greater than a 50/50 chance someone will complain - and that the complainant will be opposed to restricting SUV's in the same parking spot.

What's a Peace Bike for if not to fight right-wing hypocrisy?

Wingnutosphere cries about "discrimination" against SUV's

Hey, what's that sound I hear?

It's getting closer!

Why, it's the WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHmbulance again!

The Far Right is known for alarmism, and now they're pushing a new whining point: They claim that restrictions against gas-guzzling SUV's are some sort of civil rights violation.

A shopping center in Austin, Texas, posted a sign reserving some parking spaces for fuel-efficient cars (as opposed to fuel wasters like large SUV's). Now the wingnutosphere is going bonkers, claiming that this is discrimination that's as bad as the racial segregation of the Jim Crow era.

Do they seriously expect people to believe that? Why, yes. Yes, they do.

They also link the shopping center's restrictions with alleged vandalism against SUV's by environmentalists. Seen any SUV's vandalized lately? I haven't. Which just goes to show that the nationwide "pandemic" of SUV sabotage that the freeposphere is always complaining about is largely a hoax.

I remember a story from mid-decade in which a town in California actually reserved parking spaces for SUV's. This came to light when an official from a nearby city was ticketed for daring to park a small car in an SUV-only space. Where was the wingnutosphere to complain about this outrageous policy, which was designed to punish those who didn't kowtow to Big Oil's goals?

If the wingnuts are so concerned about discrimination, why do they support right-wing foreign dictators who blockade and wreak havoc on entire regions to discriminate against whole groups of people?

Why don't the wingnuts care about the discrimination that runs rampant in America's schools? America actually has a separate and unequal school system that in effect unfairly segregates students based on various factors, including economic level, race, and disability.

It's hard for the wingnutosphere to have any credibility when it complains about discrimination, considering its support of discrimination against others. The fact that they're likening SUV restrictions to segregation is almost sadly laughable.

Huge Kentucky political scandal looms

This one's gonna be big, if the pop-up media would just get on the double:

http://www.bluegrassreport.org/bluegrass_politics/2008/07/bgr-exclusive-s.html

It's a scandal surrounding road projects backed by Kentucky Senate President David L. Williams, a Republican. It gets complicated, but you have to read that article! It explains the scandal better than I could.

Williams is exactly the sort of politician who thinks rules shouldn't apply to his side, like when he tried to seat a GOP senator who didn't even live in Kentucky (which violates state law), then claimed the laws are what he says they are.

Louisiana rejects Real ID

Did you know that the United States has states?

They're united, but they're states. It's pretty spiffy how this federal republic thing works, you know.

Because Louisiana is a state, it can, like, pass laws.

We spotted a sturdy rung back to sanity last month when we learned that Louisiana had a bill to ignore the Bush regime's illegal Real ID mandate. And now Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed it into law (despite the fact that Jindal, a Republican, supported Real IDiot when he was in Congress).

Under this bold new law, Louisiana's Department of Public Safety and Corrections is ordered not to implement Real ID. And the agency must also report to the governor any efforts by the Department of Homeland Suckyurity to implement the federal fiat.

Kentucky really needs to get on the ball.

(Source: http://www.privacylives.com/louisiana-becomes-21st-state-to-reject-real-id/2008/07/14)

Texas electric bills soar under deregulation

This is yet another entry in the "regulation for thee, not for me" department - a trend that's longhand for corporatism and price gouging.

Folks in Texas used to enjoy some of the most affordable electricity in America. But now it's some of the costliest.

The culprit? Deregulation! In 1999, then-Gov. George W. Bush signed a deregulation bill into law, which took effect in 2002. The new law gutted regulations that used to rein in spiraling energy costs. It remains the country's most extensive experiment in utility deregulation.

Bush of course boasted that the law would lower electric rates. Anyone with more than 5 neurons firing in their cerebrums could see it wasn't true. That's like saying removing the ceiling from your kitchen will keep the kids from bouncing a ball higher.

Deregulation is such a broken promise that on one day in May the cost of electricity of Texas soared to 40 times the national average!

But public officials refuse to reinstitute the old rules. State Rep. Phil King (a Republican, naturally) boasted, "The system is working the way it is supposed to work." Oh, you mean it was supposed to jack up prices? Obviously it was, because Bush has always been willing to do the bidding of powerful corporations. So thanks for the honesty, Phil.

Not only that, but the Lone Star State's deregulation law also forced smaller power companies to fold into larger corporations.

Meanwhile, it remains illegal in Texas and most other American locales for glaucoma patients to use marijuana for medical purposes. See what I mean about "regulation for thee, not for me"?

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3399054&mesg_id=3399054)

Comcast cockheads strike again

This isn't the first time that cable TV giant Comcast (the Wal-Mart of the cable industry) has blackballed a channel for political reasons. Comcast is starting to make Storer look pretty good in comparison.

Starting yesterday, Comcast subscribers in the Pittsburgh area noticed that MSNBC was dropped from their lineup and replaced with a blank screen. Fox News Channel of course remains.

While Comcast considers MSNBC too liberal, the irony is that I've refused to link to MSNBC for months because of the channel's conservative bias (a policy I implemented when the channel intentionally butchered Michelle Obama's speech).

At the same time, Comcast is also dropping some C-SPAN channels in numerous markets - apparently because they also think C-SPAN has a liberal bias.

Live coverage of congressional sessions has a liberal bias now? Where do the morons at Comcrap come up with this bullshit?

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/15/201320/091/1008/552234)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Stephanie Broz!

I've always known that people who think there's a druggie hiding under every bed have something to hide, and this proves it.

Stephanie Broz of Norwalk, Ohio, wuz on a mission. She wanted her town's school system to start forcing all students to be tested for drugs. Now. Immediately. Without delay.

Realizing they'd be sued, the school system rejected her proposal - but not without considerable embarrassment for Broz for suggesting something so outrageous.

But now things are really crashing down for Broz.

When Broz was the subject of a traffic stop last month, guess what the cops found? They found heroin. Oodles of it. They found so much heroin that Broz was indicted this month for 3 counts of trafficking.

According to authorities, Broz, the mother of an infant child, admitted selling the drug.

Following the arrest, Broz also admitted that her entire right-wing plot to institute drug tests in the schools was just an attempt to divert attention from her own drug dealing.

Well, at least now we've finally gotten an honest explanation from the drug warriors. Not like I didn't know for my whole adult life that the War on Drugs is a big right-wing scam.

Now are the new McCarthyists and drug warriors going to stop accusing people of being junkies and "dry druggies" all because they wore a "druggie shirt" or listened to "druggie music"? (The War on Drugs types think any music that's harder than New Kids On The Block is "druggie music.") It's clear the drug warriors are ear-deep in selling dope themselves.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=433f0ceb-d3b8-4feb-a5e2-75d476c17062;
http://www.norwalkreflector.com/articles/2008/07/14/front/iq_582532.txt)

Minnesota suburb off-limits to public

When I read about the town of North Oaks, Minnesota, I couldn't believe I was reading about a place in America and not some dictatorship somewhere. Wait, America is a dictatorship now. No wonder.

North Oaks is an extremely wealthy suburb north of St. Paul. It's not just rich. It's snooty. So much so that it threatened to charge Google's Street View with trespassing for photographing the town's roads - even though Street View has photographed the streets of countless other American communities without incident.

When the Constitution talks about the right to privacy, it means you have the right to be secure in your person and possessions. But you don't get privacy in a public place. North Oaks city officials' complaint is no different from the Kids Helping Kids supporters complaining about us videotaping a public protest.

The suburb's excuse is that all of the town's roads are actually owned by the homeowners: According to city officials, a homeowners' property line doesn't stop at the public right-of-way. It includes the street too - all the way to the road's center line, where the roadway becomes property of the neighbors across the street.

In an attempt to exercise this specious claim, North Oaks City Clowncil sent a letter to Google demanding that they destroy all their images from the town or be charged with trespassing. Google did comply.

The concept of giving wealthy homeowners ownership of part of the street is another form of the suburban land run that gives free land to wealthy suburbanites. But instead of receiving previously public land behind their houses, now they're getting the land in front of their houses too.

It's also a great deal for them like the efforts of wealthy Lake Huron landowners trying to get free beachfront land.

Under common law, North Oaks can't just shut off access to the public by extending homeowners' property to include the roads. That suburb must not ever need police protection or utilities if it doesn't want public access to its roads.

If I ever visit Minnesota again, I may just decide to see how private North Oaks really is. If city officials want to be a bunch of petty dictators, that's their problem.

(Source: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/19416279.html)

CIA-backed right-wing terrorists riot in Venezuela

How is this not terrorism?

In Merida, Venezuela, a violent right-wing organization (which is supposedly a student organization but is actually made up primarily of professional thugs) fired guns and threw Molotov cocktails at police, blocked roads using university buses they stole, and ransacked entire neighborhoods. During the riots (which have left at least one person dead), the rioters have demanded the overthrow of their country's government.

Sounds a bit like what right-wing terrorists in the U.S. did when the 1992 election didn't go their way.

Another similarity? Much as how the U.S. education system aligns itself with right-wing extremists, the University of Los Andes is supporting the Venezuelan militants. The university even uses student government funds to sponsor them.

Ironically, the terrorists are also funded by the CIA.

So even if you're in the U.S., your tax dollars are being looted to fund this uprising. Nice thought for the day, folks, isn't it?

Mr. Elbow Care lies about offshore oil drilling safety

How do you know Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is lying? When his mouth is moving (and he isn't chewing bubble gum).

Mitch the Glitch has introduced a new right-wing bill that would gut the moratorium against the ecologically damaging practice of offshore oil drilling. The bill would allow drilling 50 miles from the shore - even though that's unmistakably in international waters.

In voicing his support for offshore drilling, McConnell told an outright lie. He told that Washington Post that "there was not a single incident of spillage that anyone reported" during hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In the immortal words of Speak & Spell: Wrong! Try again!

The Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service reported 5 spills between 1,000 and 2,000 barrels each. A total of 125 spills added up to spillage that was nearly one-fourth the size of the disastrous 1969 Santa Barbara spill.

Do we really need offshore drilling? Of course not. If the government would regulate oil prices, split up the Big Oil robber barons, or nationalize the industry, that would bring costs down more than offshore drilling will. In fact, it will be another 8 to 10 years before we can even use any oil we might get from ocean drilling.

In summary, Mitch McConnell is an out-of-touch liar.

(Source: http://www.bluegrassreport.org/bluegrass_politics/2008/07/shock-mcconnell.html)

More phone harassment caught red-handed

Weird. The harassing calls I've been getting stopped over the weekend, but resumed yesterday morning.

Yesterday I got another hang-up call that was traced to 000-000-0000. Here is the proof of that:



The fact that I keep getting them during the daytime on weekdays is an indication that the caller is abusing the phones where they work. Or they don't have to work and are just living off their rich Mommy and Daddy (which is more likely).

Shocking programmy behavior caught on video!

Yes! I'm so glad someone got a video of this episode!

During our protest 4 days ago against the teen confinement racket, we met the Harangue. She's one of the top directors in charge of the program.

She committed a crime when she stole one of our signs. I just assumed we had no proof she stole it, but one of our group happened to be filming that incident. The audio is drowned out by traffic, but there is picture:



About 4 seconds into the clip, the Harangue is seen in the center of the picture grabbing our sign. Then she stands around waiting for the police to bust us for "trespassing" - even though we were on the public right-of-way, as you can see. (The police affirmed our right to protest.)

Busted!

Is the Far Right going to insist we made this up?

2 protests in 3 days?

There's no rule that says we can't hold 2 protests against the teen torture cult east of Cincinnati within 3 days of each other. So yesterday I was called to yet another demonstration against this behavior modification facility.

This was very much a spur-of-the-moment event, for some of the out-of-town folks who came to our July 11 protest insisted on another before they returned home. I was told that yesterday was Bastille Day - which commemorates the storming of France's hated Bastille prison, a key development in the French Revolution. So it's suitable that we'd protest against a torturous confinement facility.

We had 8 participants in this rally, and I'm haunted by what happened at the end - though it may well be the facility's final undoing.

The protest started around 4 PM and at first went about as typically as these events usually do. One of the program parents breezed into the center on a motorbike and said to us, "You people are so retarded!"

Does he even know what "retarded" means? Or is this just another example of the program supporters' 4th grader vernacular? Judging by his maturity level, maybe a couple years from now he'll move on to calling our group "gay."

Also, I think this is fourth consecutive protest in which their side has complained about us videotaping the event. One of the programmies pulled out of the parking lot and angrily said something like, "Get that camera off of me!"

But the scene that will probably haunt me forever happened at the end. A beige car with Kentucky plates pulled out of the facility carrying several teenagers or preteens to their host homes. One of them pressed a notebook against the car window. Written on the book's page were the words "HELP ME." One of the other young people then yanked his hand away from the window.

Then a program parent pulled out of the facility. As she was waiting to pull onto the road, we approached her car and told her what we had just seen. She laughed, saying the kid with the handmade "HELP ME" sign can't be trusted because any kid who'd get sent to that place is "obnoxious."

Frankly, that's bullshit. But it's not an excuse I haven't heard countless times before.

We promptly called the Miami Township Police with our concerns about the youth with the sign. An officer did show up. He informed us he was putting out an all-points bulletin to all the law enforcement agencies in the area to watch for the car.

Because we gave the officer the car's license plate number, you'd think police in the jurisdiction where the car is registered would be knocking on the door of the host home and asking a few questions. But I know better than to get my hopes up.

If somebody did get caught, this could be the event that finally puts the cult out of business. Even if nothing came of the police report, at least the youngster now knows that we support him in his fight against the program. He may feel empowered to fight back harder!

So it was a successful protest, and 4 of us drove around Cincinnati afterwards and gathered on the secret 6th Street bridge under the Waldvogel Viaduct, defying many an Allowed Cloud.

Here's to success!

(More info: http://www.isaccorp.org/kidshelpingkids.asp)

Child welfare agency dismisses deaths

Incompetence in America's child welfare agencies has heightened exponentially in recent years. Ohio had the Marcus Feisel tragedy, and authorities in Florida have been losing children completely.

Oklahoma has been plagued by similar scandals. The deaths of 2 children in foster care in Oklahoma (in 2 separate incidents) are now raising questions about the state's Department of Human Services.

While the public has questions, the agency has excuses. A Department of Human Services spokesman said, "Children will die. Accidents will happen, period."

So that's the agency's defense? Honestly, how can the Department of Human Services just dismiss the deaths of not just one but 2 children in its care within just a few days of each other?

The spokesman says the agency has no plans to change its procedures to safeguard against similar needless deaths in the future.

The Department of Human Services is also facing a lawsuit claiming that a foster father improperly touched a boy. If the allegation is true, the agency's problems truly run deep.

(Source: http://www.koco.com/news/16764224/detail.html)

Hiding behind foreign defamation laws

Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman usually aren't the greatest senators around, but at least they're helping expose a serious threat to free speech.

British defamation laws are slightly different from those in America. In the U.S. and A., the burden of proof is on the plaintiff who claims they're being libeled. In England, the burden is on the defendant who is accused of libel.

Just a slight difference in the law. It might not be a big deal for Americans - except for the fact that the law is now being abused to go after American writers.

Recently a book came out accusing a Saudi banker of funding Osama bin Laden. The book was by an American author, and it was published in America by an American publisher. But because it sold 23 copies in England, the banker who was accused of terrorist ties was able to file a libel suit in a British court.

You read that right: Neither the plaintiff nor the defendant had any connections to Britain that I can see, and the book's only British link is that it happened to sell 23 copies there. But the banker was able to sue in England just because of the few copies that were sold there.

Because the author didn't fly all the way to England to answer the lawsuit, she lost by default and had to pay $250,000.

Quite frankly, I don't know whether the plaintiff donated to terrorists or not. But his lawsuit seems to have pushed the marketplace of ideas down a slippery slope. 'House Of Bush, House Of Saud', an American bestseller that links the rise of terrorism to financial dealings between Saudi royals and the Bush crime family, saw its British release canceled because of lawsuit threats.

The publisher of another book requested that all libraries in Britain destroy their copies of the volume in an effort to avoid legal action.

These suits are more or less SLAPP suits. It's not as if American courts aren't gummed up by SLAPP actions too, but English law makes it more likely for plaintiffs in these cases to prevail.

I'm a writer. I've had a book published by an indie publisher, and I support myself primarily by blogging. I've always wanted to see jolly old England, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be dragged all the way across the ocean to answer a SLAPP suit from someone who takes offense at something I said.

If my former high school disagrees with my truthful claim in my book that the school intentionally encouraged bullying, the school can sue in Britain if I sold even one copy there - even though I've never left North America and my book was published by an American firm. This despite the fact that my charge against the school is true. Under American law, the school would have to prove I'm lying; under English law, I'd have to prove I'm telling the truth.

And I could prove I'm telling the truth - except who wants to take the time to fly all the way to Britain to serve as my witness?

My former school could even sue over this blog entry if even one British citizen reads this blog.

But there's hope. The state of New York recently passed a law that says libel judgments by foreign courts can't be enforced unless the material in question would be considered defamatory under American law.

Now there's a bipartisan bill in Congress to make this a federal law. If it passes, American writers will be protected, because U.S. courts won't be able to enforce foreign libel judgments unless U.S. law deems the writings defamatory. This bill also says American writers can countersue and receive damages if the overseas suit is part of a scheme to muzzle free speech.

Bush will probably just veto the bill, but at least the bill is a start.

I'm all for laws protecting folks from defamation. After the Internet campaign against me in the '90s, nobody knows this better than I do. The new bill aims to protect only the free flow of ideas, not thoughtless clods who intentionally spread lies.

(Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121599561708449643.html)

Beg pardon!

Commit a serious felony, and you can get pardoned.

But get placed in a teen confinement facility or a psychiatric institution, and it follows you around for the rest of your life - even if there was no justification for the confinement.

Mad Dog Bush (not Dumbya, but his daddy) pardoned several traitors who were involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. But if you got placed in a facility without a hearing when you were 16 (or even younger) because you got expelled from school (even if the expulsion itself was unfair), that's on your record for the rest of your life.

In other words, if you got kicked out of school or got bad grades as a teenager, your punishment is far worse than it is for right-wing criminals who betrayed their own country.

While Presidents and governors abuse their pardon powers to help their criminal friends (like the elder Bush did when he pardoned the Iran-Contra turncoats), why don't they have the power to pardon someone who was victimized by the psychiatric racket despite being perfectly sane?

Charges loom for Ohio election officials

A while back, a judge ordered all 88 counties in Ohio to save all ballots from the 2004 "election" until a decision could be made in that case.

So what did the counties do? At least 56 counties admit that they've destroyed some of their ballots. Seven counties admit to destroying all of them. Some of them even destroyed ballots before the results of the so-called "election" were certified.

So now 8 members of the Ohio Election Justice Campaign have filed paperwork in federal court to begin criminal contempt proceedings against these counties.

What this really means is that at least 56 counties in Ohio were so determined to ensure their demigod Bush won the "election" that they ended up doing something they knew they had to hide.

And I truly believe that. Ohio has so many corrupt Republican county bosses that I'd have to be extremely naive to think they wouldn't rig an election to such a degree that it tips the state's 20 electoral votes.

Now that it's clear that election officials in at least 56 counties defied a court order outright, I'd love to see what sort of brittle defense they come up with when they get hauled in for contempt.

(Source: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com/index.php/contents/comments/election_officials_may_face_criminal_charges_ohio_election_justice_campaign)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Alex Kozinski!

This is another story from the conservative hypocrisy files.

Alex Kozinski is the chief judge of the strongly conservative-leaning 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. He was appointed to the 9th Circus by Reagan and elevated to chief judge by Dumpster. (This is the court that's allegedly liberal, even though it ignored the First Amendment by approving school uniforms.)

In June it was revealed that the conservative Kozinski posted pornography on his personal website. Aren't conservatives usually the ones who are raving against porn? It was the Reagan regime that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars investigating porn, and now one of Reagan's appointees posts porn on a publicly accessible site himself?

The sexually explicit photos and videos posted by the judge featured naked women painted to look like cows, a man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal, public sex, and material dealing with piss and shit - all on a publicly viewable site!

When the Los Angeles Times questioned Kozinski about his poo-poo porn and animal images, he described the material as "funny."

Ironically, Alex Kozinski was at the time presiding over an important obscenity trial. The material at issue during this trial couldn't have been much more hardcore than what Kozinski posted on his publicly viewable website. In fact, some of it sounds very similar, from the description.

So if Kozinski had ruled the way conservatives usually rule, think how mind-numbingly hypocritical he would've looked. But the controversy over Kozinski's porn was so great that he had to recuse himself from the case.

Now that the 9th Circuit has finally generated a proper ruling by declaring school strip searches unconstitutional (overturning the court's own previous ruling), guess who one of the dissenters is? That's right, peeps. Alex Kozinski voted to allow such strip searches.

What a vivvlyvoovler.

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kozinski12-2008jun12,0,6220192.story;
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-strip12-2008jul12,0,3019405.story)

Another Kentucky bullying lawsuit

Looks like the state of Kentucky is continuing its shameful record of being the school harassment capital of the world - even after the new anti-bullying law was enacted.

In Lexington, 5 school board employees are being sued because a middle school student was harassed repeatedly from 2006 until just this past May, injuring her.

They attacked her younger sister too: The assailants once photographed or filmed her sister being punched in the face.

The new laws are great, but they obviously aren't strong enough. We need to have a school harasser registry (much like the registry that already applies to sex offenders) and a federally imposed "one strike" policy that mandates an automatic expulsion.

And maybe the media should retire the word 'bully' and replace it with 'Nazi'.

(Source: http://www.kentucky.com/179/story/451821.html)

School strip search ruled unconstitutional

Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals inexplicably ruled that schools can strip-search students. This followed an incident in 2003 in Arizona in which a middle school student was strip-searched following hearsay accusations that she had taken an over-the-counter drug to school. (The search turned up no contraband.)

But now the 9th Circuit has finally come to its senses by reversing its own ruling. The court has now ruled 6 to 5 that the school did indeed violate the student's constitutional rights when they searched her.

Maybe now Geoff Davis will think twice the next time he wants to pass a bill requiring schools to conduct strip searches.

(Source: http://fornits.com/smf/index.php?topic=25524)

McKinney wins Green nomination; media ignores convention

I've been asked a skillion times about what I think about Ralph Nader's Green presidential bid, and I have to tell people that Nader ain't running as a Green. He's running as an independent.

Instead, the Greens chose Cynthia McKinney, 53, a former Democratic congresswoman from Georgia as the party's presidential nominee at the Green convention in Chicago today. Her running mate is longtime activist Rosa Clemente, 36.

One thing is for sure: McKinney was a much better congresswoman than the right-wing media gave her credit for. She was one of the few House members who were brave enough to object to awarding Ohio's electoral votes to Bush in 2004. (Ohio's GOP machine had committed fraud to enable Bush to win the state.) But the DLC more or less ran McKinney off from the Democratic fold.

News of McKinney's nomination brings up another issue: Why the hell aren't the networks showing the Green convention? They show the Republican and Democratic conventions, so what's their excuse for not showing that of the Greens?

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080712/pl_nm/usa_politics_green_dc_1)

Protest occurs; the Harangue gets humiliated!

Our series of protests against the teen behavior modification cult near Milford continued last night with our greatest demonstration yet!

A few folks actually breezed into the Cincinnati region from out of town for this spectacle, and they lodged at a Holiday Inn, of all places. In total, we had 11 - count 'em, 11 - participants.

Some of the out-of-town folks were protesting the facility early in the morning before returning to the hotel. But I got deployed to the scene in late afternoon, and that's when the real fun beginned (as I like to say).

We kept receiving thumbs-up from motorists who drove by - including a young man who said, "Fuck that place!" He was a former detainee of the program who had suffered under its tyranny. We were also photographed by a car full of individuals - who were probably supporters of the abusive program. That suits me fine, because I'm not in the least bit ashamed of these protests.

But the event will be forever remembered for our battle with the Harangue.

Now, every effective protesting contingent needs 2 types of people: It has people who, when confronted, simply ignore the confronter or reply gently. And it has people who respond in kind. Our group has both types. I happen to fit into the latter category - as the Harangue discovered.

The Harangue is our nickname for a high-ranking staffer at the facility. She's called this because she launched several harangues. She was immediately hostile, and didn't even attempt a friendly chitchat first like the man who ruled the facility earlier this year. Her first tirade transpired when she approached us and yelled, "You're on private property! You need to move!"

She was wrong, of course. We'd already established we were on a public right-of-way.

She also grabbed one of our signs that was laying there - which is theft. She then yelled that the police were on their way. To that warning, I responded with something like, "They won't do shit to me!" That's because I hadn't been breaking any laws.

The Harangue responded with something like, "Oh yes they will!" An evil hangman's grin appeared on that oozing hillock of flesh that's commonly referred to as her face.

With the Harangue's attitude, responding with profanity was 100% justified. I'd seen this attitude before, and that was with the director of special ed for my local school system when I was a teenager. Certain individuals in high places like to throw their weight around, and they love it when they think they've finally nabbed someone who they think they have authority over.

But it was not to be! About 10 minutes later, 2 Miami Township police cars arrived. The cops spoke with the Harangue out of our earshot, and then they drove up to us. A policewoman got of her cruiser and assured us that we were doing nothing illegal, and that we could continue protesting as long as we didn't block the driveway to the abusive behavior modification center.

It was clear the Harangue lied to the cops by telling them we were on their property. But I would have loved to see the look on the Harangue's face when the police told her we could keep protesting!

If anyone broke the law, it was the Harangue when she stole our sign.

Later, the Harangue reemerged from the building. And the police showed up again! This time, the cops left without saying a word to us.

When the Harangue was leaving work that night, she pulled her car up next to us and began scowling and beeping her horn like a maniac, even though we weren't blocking her.

At one point late in the evening, a young man pulling out of the facility warned us that the police had been called because we were videotaping our protest. Filming a public event on public property isn't a crime, moron.

The 11 of us were out there for hours upon hours in the stifling July heat. We downed gallons of ice-cold agua, and my back was sore from holding a sign above my head - but it was well worth the effort! After this hugely successful protest, we went to the Holiday Inn, ordered a big pile of pizzas, and partied!

After the total, complete, utter humiliation last night of not just the Harangue but the entire abusive program - and the fact that numerous locals pulled up for us to educate them about what's going on in their community - it looks like the tide has turned in my favor in my years-long battle against the teen torture racket. I think this particular concentration camp is almost finished now.

But not completely. So we will keep protesting until we know for certain the abuse has ended or the abusive facility is closed down.

(More info: http://www.isaccorp.org/kidshelpingkids.asp)

Former Bush spokesman Tony Snow dies

Bush's former press secretary Tony Snow died this morning at the age of 53 of colon cancer:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080712/ap_on_re_us/obit_snow

Firing said to be politically motivated

This is yet another case in which a firing of a public employee seems to have been motivated solely by the employee's opposition to right-wing officials.

A longtime employee of the University of Alabama at Birmingham has been fired, apparently because of his blog that discusses corruption among right-wing U.S. Attorneys and politicians in that state.

He worked on the blog completely independently from work. He didn't use workplace resources to write his blog. So it's clear they had no grounds to fire him over the blog - but fired him anyway.

The idea that the firing was politically motivated is bolstered by the fact that the blogger received a strange comment from an anonymous reader threatening to report him. The post accused him of blogging at work, even though he did no such thing. A later post threatened him, declaring, "Yours is coming sooner rather than later."

When it comes to political retaliation, the Bushist machine is the reigning champ.

In the meantime, right-wing e-mails full of lies about conservatives' political opponents continue to circulate through public agencies on the taxpayers' dime.

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Alabama_bloggers_firing_raises_troubling_questions_0709.html)

"Ogaffa"? (more Freeper Madness)

"Ogaffa"??????????

Really???

That's the best spoof of the Democratic nominee's name that the idiots at Freak Rethuglic can come up with?

They think they're funny - and they are. But we're laughing at them, not with them.

Wait for disability benefits tops 2 years in Indiana

Looks like another installment in the Mitch Daniels Fuck-Up Of The Day department, as Indiana now has one of the longest waits to collect disability benefits anywhere in America.

The wait for the disabled in Indiana to be approved for benefits now often exceeds 2 years.

The result? People lose their homes and everything else. And they get called nasty names if they ask for help in the meantime.

Must be more of that "compassionate conservatism", huh?

(Source: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080706/LOCAL18/807060375)

Petraeus confirmed in tripartisan lovefest

There really isn't any respite from the congressional arm-twisting lately, is there? And it's starting to bore me.

Army Gen. David Petraeus is the guy who MoveOn exposed last year for his misleading report about the so-called "progress" in the Iraq War in which he just did Bush's bidding. So why in the Wide, Wide World Of Sports would the Senate confirm him as commander for military operations across the Mideast?

But confirm him they did. Yesterday the Senate approved Petraeus's confirmation by a vote of 95 to 2:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00171

Only Tom Harkin and Robert Byrd voted to reject Petraeus. So the Right's gotten to ol' Bernie now too?

If I had even one shred of faith in the current Congress before this story, I have none whatsoever now. Absolutely nil.

(Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1040336020080710?sp=true)

And 2 more!

This is getting old, I know, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

At 7:47 PM, I got another harassing phone call. The phone rang once, and about a minute later I picked up the phone, and the caller was still on the line making stupid-ass noises. (The answering machine didn't pick up this call because it only rang once.)

I traced the call to 000-000-0000. I tried blocking this strange phone number, but the recording for the call block service said I couldn't do this because the number is "incorrect."

Well, of course it is. I went on the Internet later and found that this number means the caller is hiding their real number. (Apparently there is a way to do this by dialing some numbers beforehand.)

At 7:51 PM - only 4 minutes after that call - I got one of the standard untraceable hang-ups that have been the fad lately.

But the assholes can carry on. I don't think this bullshit is going to last much longer.

Is David Cameron the British Newt Gingrich?

Is David Cameron the British counterpart to Newt Gingrich?

I know comparing someone to Gingrich is among the gravest of insults, but is he?

David Cameron, 41, is the leader of Britain's Conservative Party. And like Newt - Speaker of the U.S. House for 4 years in the '90s - he has some rather odious views.

What does he think about the poor? Like the Newter, he apparently thinks they brang their own poverty on themselves. Such was the message of a speech he gave yesterday in Glasgow, in which he also declared that society isn't judgmental enough.

Maybe he's a little less rabid than his American counterpart, but the content of his utterances was almost pure Newt: judge more, and blame the poor. (See, that rhymes, and you know it does!)

All this from a man who grew up rich himself. He's never had to worry about being poor.

Even if he did try to sugarcoat his ravings, it's a dangerous proposition. When the Newtist platform of classism and judgmentalism gained height in America in the '90s, it encouraged people to shun and mock the poor.

Before the '90s, Americans may have heard strongly classist sentiments expressed on playgrounds of exclusive schools or anonymously on BBS's, but after the fascism wave led by Gingrich, bigots felt much more comfortable with poisoning public discourse as well.

With this type of authoritarian conservatism, why is the Conservative Party doing so well in the polls? For the same reason a similar trend has been seen in other countries lately: The American media is now almost as influential abroad as it is at home.

Britain is also hamstrung by the EU, which seems to encourage such right-wing leadership. The European Union in effect prohibits member countries from being social democracies, instead favoring the tyranny of unfettered market rule. At the same time, the EU gives full faith and credit to policies that suppress free speech and thought, such as when Greece used the EU to extradite an Austrian author for "blasphemy" over a book he wrote.

Gives a whole new meaning to "regulation for thee, not for me", doesn't it?

If David Cameron can show that I would be no better off now if I happened to have been born into wealth, then maybe he'd have a point. But nope. All he has is tired bluster.

(Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4290298.ece)

And another...

Another hang-up call at 3:45 PM.

The Nazis are on a roll the past couple days, ain't they?

Bunning makes ass of himself (again)

Ol' Jim Bunning's done it all.

He's been a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher. He's been a right-wing senator from Kentucky. And perhaps most notably, he was the inspiration for the Bunning Bomb.

The Bunning Bomb was something I invented in the '90s. I took one of Bunning's right-wing ego-boosting congressional newsletters and poked the wick of a smoke bomb through his photo - so it looked like the wick was a giant ciggie hangin' out of his lips. Then I lit the wick, causing the scatterbrained politician to shoot smoke out of his mouth.

When the smoke bomb was done emitting smoke, a flame usually emerged, which burned the photo of Bunning's face and the entire newsletter.

See, the Campbell County-based Republican really has done it all, hasn't he?

Including start stupid arguments with other lawmakers on the Senate floor.

Recently, during an important debate about Medicare, Bunning suddenly shouted out, "Regular order!"

Robert Byrd, an expert in Senate decorum, asked, "Who said that?"

Bunning: "I did."

Byrd: "Who are you?"

Bunning: "I'm a senator."

Byrd: "You're a great baseball man."

Bunning: "I'm a senator. I have the same rights as you."

Byrd closed with mock laughter, saying, "Yeah, man, you're a senator."

Also, Bunning this week blasted a proposal to reform presidential war powers. Now that it's been established that Bush's warmongering is out of control, some former Secretaries of State have gotten wary. They want Congress to be consulted the next time a President wants to start a war and for a House-Senate committee to review the war's rationale.

Bunning of course is throwing a shitfit about this proposal. He says the proponents need to just shut up and become senators like himself. That way, they get to rule over us all like Bunning does.

Uh, Jim? Senators are supposed to be working for the people, not for themselves. That's what a democratic republic means, Jim.

Damn, this guy's an embarrassment to my state!

(Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080710/OPINION01/807100363/1055/OPINION)

Another day, another Grammism

I thought I'd heard enough of this man's childish shit for one lifetime, but twice in 2 days is almost more than I can bear.

In his Washington Times interview - the same one where he insisted the recession is a hoax - Phil Gramm came up with another idiotic idea. (He's Phil Gramm, so what do you expect?)

I didn't read the whole interview, because I don't have time to read every hate paper in circulation, especially when they give a platform to someone like Gramm who I never could stand to begin with. So I'm letting the juicy parts get strained out for us by others.

In the interview, Gramm suggested raising the retirement age to 70. Seriously, he said that. So if you're under 40 now, you'll be working 5 years longer than your parents.

Then what the hell are we paying into Social Security for? If you look at the obituaries in my area long enough, it seems like half the people don't even live to be 65, let alone 70. After Congress in the '90s raised the retirement age to 67 for younger workers (a change that was largely covered up while it was going on), there's already a strong chance you'll never see any of the money you paid into the system.

It's your money, not Phil Gramm's.

Retirement at 70??? For some occupations, it may make sense, but not for the demanding jobs most Americans have. Ol' Cat in the Hat really is trying to make sure people get milked as much as possible as cogs in the corporate wheel, isn't he? Maybe we need a new nickname for him: Gulag Gramm.

McCain made this clod his top economic adviser?

(Source: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/07/mccain-adviser-raise-retirement-age-to.html)

More!

Welp, folks, today's spate of harassing phone calls has beginned! This time, it's another one of the untraceable hang-up calls.

You mean it took them until to 1:28 PM today to start? Man, they're slipping!

"Ha!"

I told you I had at least one of the harassing calls I've been receiving saved, and now I've got it up on YouTube:



The "Ha!" call is one of the mildest offerings I've been confronted with over the past 24 years.

Phil Gramm opens his stupid mouth

Now there's another ugly sneer that could stop a toilet.

In an interview with the far-right Washington Times, heavy-duty wingnut Phil Gramm spouted off the type of right-wing bullshit about the economy that you've come to expect from him.

While praising the globaloney that's destroyed the American economy, he attacked those who dare to dissent. He says the country's economic woes aren't real but just a "mental recession" and attacked the American people for "constant whining" about the economy.

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," Gramm scoffed.

This is as bad as the time some right-wing politician back in the '90s attacked the American public for expecting to get paid when they work. According to gleezyglups like Gramm, we should all just shut up and take the abuse, and the years-long recession is all a big hoax by the "liberal" media. That's what Gramm thinks.

Talk about a delusional fuckwit. Phil Gramm has never had his head screwed on straight.

I wish I can remember those venomous attack ads I dreamed up against Gramm during a road trip on US 36 in northern Missouri back in 1995. I need to use Windows Movie Maker for something.

(Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/09/gramm-mental-recession)

And yet another!

Now I've gotten another hang-up call - thereby tying up the line some more.

And another one!

Just got another untraceable hang-up call about a minute ago! Now I'm really mad, because I'm expecting an important call, and all this did was tie up the line.

OK, the gauntlet is thrown!

Alright, I told you I'd get to work on cracking down on this Nazism this summer, and in a few days I think I'll be ready to finally start.

Since 1985, I've gotten more nearly identical harassing phone calls than I can even count. Some asshole at school in 6th grade started it, and he recruited his pals to do the same thing, and they got their friends involved - and they still haven't gotten over it. These losers are 35 and haven't gotten over grade school yet.

I've traced a lot of the calls, and most of them are from people still in this area, but for the life of me, I don't recognize the names their phone numbers are listed under. For the past couple months until today, I hardly got any harassing calls - the fewest I've received in years. I thought it was probably because I started including photos of their houses or businesses in my road photo collection, but now the problem has whinnied back with a vengeance, as I've gotten 3 calls like this just today.

I was rousted out of bed this morning by a call that's been traced to an address on Uhl Road in Cold Spring, Kentucky. I got another call later that I couldn't trace to a name or address, but I have the number. Then, about a half-hour ago, I got a hang-up call that I couldn't trace at all.

I was getting a bunch of calls like the third one a few months ago, and I suspected it was somebody from the behavior modification industry trying to retaliate against me for the protests I've been participating in. That doesn't make it any less harassing than the other calls.

I actually have one or two recent calls on tape, so maybe I'll post the audio for them on YouTube (if I can find a snappy video to go along with them).

I will be notifying the police about these calls, and if they don't do anything about it, I may picket city hall or the courthouse. They did nothing about the calls the times I notified them a while back, so it looks like I may need to invest in some posterboard.

Kit Bond: another horse's ass

Horse's ass...Kit Bond.

Nazi...Kit Bond.

That would make a great political ad, wouldn't it?

In today's GOP/DLC hugfest, listen to what Bond - the Republican senator from Missouri - said about anyone who dared to oppose Bush's unconstitutional surveillance bill. He said there's nothing to fear in the bill "unless you have Al-Qaeda on your speed dial."

Yes, he actually said that.

Gee, senator, if you can call opponents of the bill terrorists, that means we can call you a fascist prick.

Christopher Bond is almost as big of a disgrace to the Senate as Jim DeMint is. They need to expel him.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html;
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Wiretap_immunity_bill_gets_closer_to_0709.html)

DLC comes through for Bush on wiretap bill

I'm mad.

When Bush says jump, Vichy Democrats (along with the Republicans) always ask how high!

The Senate voted 69 to 28 today to pass Bush's bill to gut FISA and approve his illegal wiretap program. Here's the disgraceful vote on that act:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00168

Here's the equally rotten House vote on that bill:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

The Senate also voted 66 to 32 against an amendment to the bill that would have stripped retroactive telcom immunity:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00164

Although Obama voted to strip immunity, he went ahead and voted for the full bill anyway (even though it lacked the provision that would have erased immunity). This despite an earlier pledge that he wouldn't support any bill that featured immunity.

Is there any doubt now that I'm voting third party this year?

So, folks, it looks like you're going to have to sue your phone company in state court instead of federal court for cooperating with the Decider's eavesdropping.

It just goes to show that if you're a phone company, you can break the law, and Congress will go back in time to change the law so you don't have to suffer the consequences.

GOP fraudster donates to party despite owing millions

When you're the Republican presidential nominee, I guess having to accept campaign contributions from con men goes with the territory.

Craig Berkman was the head of the Oregon Republican Party and a onetime gubernatorial candidate. Last month, a court found that Berkman had defrauded investors and ordered him to pay them $28,000,000.

While he owes tens of millions to people he defrauded, he keeps donating to the McCain campaign. In just the past year, Berkman and his wife have given $50,000 to Republican causes - including almost $24,000 to the Republican National Committee.

In 2005, Berkman moved from Oregon to Florida - a state that has right-wing laws protecting fraudsters from having to pay their creditors. True to form, Berkman also donated thousands to the Florida GOP and to the laughable Senate campaign of Katherine Harris, the right-wing hack who helped rig the election in 2000 for Bush.

Needless to say, Florida's GOP establishment has welcomed Berkman with open arms.

(Source: http://wweek.com/editorial/3435/11207)

Congress's approval rating falls to 9%

Thanks a heap, DLC.

You know, if they'd impeached the Decider like they promised, maybe they'd have better ratings? Even among Democrats, Congress has only a 13% approval rating, despite Congress being allegedly Democratic.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, it's 3% among independents and third parties (me). That's right: 3%.

According to legend, this is the only time since polling was invented that Congress's approval ratings have fallen into single digits. But I seem to remember Newt being somewhere in this range around the time he threw a shitfit because Bill Clinton wouldn't let him play with the controls on Air Force One.

(Source: http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/congressional_performance/congressional_performance)

Cheney edited climate change testimony

What? Dick Cheney politicized important testimony?

According to a senior environmental official, Cheney's office edited a health official's Senate testimony on climate change last year by removing statements about this phenomenon's health risks. Sure Shot Cheney hoped that the Senate would be bamboozled by his efforts to mold the testimony to fit his corporatist dogma.

Barbara Boxer called Cheney's efforts a "cover-up" and "censorship." Cheney's deception is yet another example of the ruling regime politicizing important tasks.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/washington/09enviro.html)

Mucus Man may face contempt charges

Now I know why I haven't been going after the lesser lights of conservafoolery as much as I should. It's because I have to contend with right-wing pricks like this guy first.

Bush's Attorney General Michael Mukasey is of course the fartpipe who got confirmed by the Senate last year in a massive GOP/DLC lovefest. And he's as shitty as one might expect.

Last month, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed an FBI interview of Sure Shot Cheney related to the Valerie Plame Wilson leak. But the so-called Justice Department, which Mukasey runs, has refused to turn over the interview.

So now the House committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) has warned Mucusy that he will face contempt charges if he doesn't cooperate. He has until July 16.

Hell, I think they should arrest Mukasey right this minute. He's already had weeks to comply, and hasn't done shit.

Did you expect any better from Mr. Mucus? The Republicans have become the party of torturers, obstructionists, and traitors, and their lawlessness never ceases.

(Source: http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0708/Waxman_threatens_Mukasey_with_subpoena.html)

The biggest Allowed Cloud I ever violated (a blast from the past)

After the past few days' experiences, I'm even less likely to buckle to the Far Right than before. But even a decade ago, when it appeared that the NKU thought police, the Contract With America, and the Internet censorship racket had me beaten, there was a strong glimmer of Allowed Cloud violatin'.

Though the fascists prevented me from getting my degree, I wanted to use my radio/TV major for something. So in Highland Heights, Kentucky, in 1997 I started Tantrum 95.7. Yes, a pirate radio station! Late that year I moved to Bellevue because of events resulting from the area's overdevelopment, and my 1-watt station operated sporadically for the next couple years.

I invented a nifty system of cassette automation to use for the station. It was cheap and primitive, but it seemed to work for the moment. Later of course it became automated by MP3's. Around early 2000, Tantrum 95.7 adopted a broadly based music format (with some indie product) interspersed with commentaries at :15 and :45 of each hour. (Some of the music was copied to MP3's from scratchy 45 RPM records.) It operated almost daily for 12 hours.

The signal covered much of Dayton, Kentucky, and made it as far as Columbia Parkway in Cincinnati.

I knew that running a pirate radio station is as illegal as bubble gum in Singapore, but who cares? The FCC, that's who.

I honestly did not think I would ever get busted by the FCC over a 1-watt station. I was afraid the building owner might raise a stink, but then I figured that as long as the FCC didn't mind, who else would, other than greedy licensed stations who were livid that I was "stealing" their listeners by offering a superior product? Tantrum 95.7 didn't hurt anyone, other than the feewinghurt suffered by licensed stations when I took their listeners.

September 28, 2001, was the day Tantrum 95.7 faced the music. The phone rang. I picked it up, and it was a woman at the FCC's Detroit field office.

Welp, that was the end of Tantrum 95.7.

It turned out that 2 days earlier, FCC agents had made a 300-mile trip here from Detroit to place an orange tag on the door demanding that I call them. I didn't find the tag until after the call, because it had blown into the side yard. It amazed me that the government had wasted gas by sending a van all the way here just to shut me down.

Suspiciously, when I posted a message about the raid on the Cincinnati radio Internet board (which I had just been made moderator of), the entire board was shut down almost immediately. (This is a separate incident from my later complaint about the raid that cost me my account on another board, which was run by thin-skinned Nazis.)

Tantrum 95.7 wouldn't have gotten raided except for its political views. I'm certain of that. Why was the KKK allowed to run a pirate radio station for 15 years that jammed licensed stations, while my station only lasted 4 years even though I went out of my way to find an empty spot on the dial?

Through a Freedom of Information Act request, I got the paperwork about the complaint that led to my station's closure - though some of the most vital information in this 30-page document had been blacked out. So, after 7 years, I have yet to determine exactly who complained about my station. I'm absolutely certain it was one of the big Cincinnati station owners, and since the local radio industry was already a near-monopoly, that narrows it down significantly.

This proved that corporate radio execs spent more time fighting competitors like me than in improving their own stations - which were horrible.

What's worse is that their complaint against me was made on September 19, 2001. This shows how trivial, trifling, and unpatriotic they are. They could have been out giving blood or putting together charity drives, but instead they were firing off letters to their attorneys to get them to sic the FCC on me. If they were real Americans, they would have at least chosen a different time to go crying about my station.

The paperwork also revealed that Tantrum 95.7 had already been ratted out in 1999 but that the FCC was so inept that it went searching for me in Highland Heights instead of Bellevue.

If something like this happened now, I would've fought the First Church of Censorship. I might not have continued broadcasting, but I would've made damn sure the FCC and its corporate puppeteers looked like even more of a laughingstock than they did.

And I still plan on finding out who snitched. Come hell or high water, I will get the answer, even if I have to wait until I'm 90.

Homeowners' association should be hung out to dry

More and more American homeowners and even some tenants are living under homeowners' associations - not just in well-to-do areas but in average-income places too. The associations are not government entities but are organized under corporate law.

Because they're actually corporations, they impose regulations that would get any city government sued or voted out of office.

The latest homeowners' association outrage comes to us from Montgomery County, Maryland, where an association is threatening a woman because she (gasp!) dared to dry her clothes outside. Many folks are returning to the days of outdoor laundry drying to save energy, but this doesn't sit well with the homeowners' association, which is threatening legal action against the woman.

On what grounds? The homeowners' association has no case. None. Zero. Zip. Zubba. Butkus. Nil. Naught. Zippo. Cipher. Goose egg.

Homeowners' associations can't micromanage residents' lives and expect any judge in their right mind not to laugh their case clean out of the courthouse.

Advocates for the residents want the state legislature to bar homeowners' associations from prohibiting residents from using clotheslines. Colorado and Hawaii already have such laws. It's not like the association has any case to begin with, but these days, who really knows that it won't get its way if the legislature stays silent?

(Source: http://www.wdel.com/story.php?id=587738275796)

Right-winger loses racketeering suit, dodges fine

Bill Sizemore, 57, is like the king of right-wing politics in Oregon.

A while back, Sizemore got a series of initiatives placed on the ballot by using forged signatures. He also tried to bleed labor unions of money by forcing them to spend much of their money fighting his underhanded methods.

As a result of this, 2 teachers' unions sued Sizemore's organizations for racketeering. A Sizemore aide admitted that one of Sizemore's groups laundered money and falsified tax returns and campaign finance reports.

Jurors found Sizemore's organizations guilty of racketeering and fined them approximately $2,500,000. But Sizemore decided he wasn't going to pay up. He even changed the names of his groups to avoid paying.

Later, Sizemore was found personally liable, and almost $1,000,000 was added to the fine because of his refusal to abide by the original fine.

But now the Oregon Supreme Court has upheld most of the ruling against him. And guess what? He's still refusing to pay!

Damn, Bill Sizemore is making a real spectacle of himself, isn't he?

Not only is he refusing to accept his courtroom loss. He won't accept his electoral losses either: Now he's trying to qualify 5 initiatives for the November ballot, one of which is practically the same as a Sizemore referendumb that was already rejected in 2000.

Pining for a Conservative Fool Of The Day entry, Bill?

(Source: http://www.tdn.com/articles/2008/07/03/breaking_news/doc486d61b2e1178317229503.txt)

Minimum wage veto overidden

As the kid on 'The Simpsons' would say: HA HA!!!

Every time the federal minimum wage is increased, it needs to be raised again by the time it takes effect. But Connecticut lawmakers tried to make sure the minimum wage is only 7 years behind instead of 8 by increasing it to $8.25 an hour, effective in 2010.

Still, even this modest improvement was too much for the forces of loom and doom to handle. Republican Gov. Jodi Rell arrogantly vetoed the bill.

Uproariously, her veto was all for naught. Luckily, legislators overrode the veto. However, it was by only a 1-vote margin in each chamber, which must be especially stinging for the corporatists.

Tens of thousands of hard-working people in the Nutmeg State will see their wages go up as a result of this wage increase that Jodi Rell tried to deny them.

Now when is Kentucky going to finally raise the minimum wage?

(Source: http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-minimum0624.artjun24,0,1866295.story)

As promised...

I promised I'd start listing legislators who voted for draconian drug laws, so I'll start with the Patriot Act reauthorization that passed in 2006 (which includes the federal law to imprison allergy sufferers).

This is a reprint of an article from The Nation's Washington correspondent about the reauthorized Idiot Act. It lists the only 10 senators who voted against it:

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0303-35.htm

This is the Senate's webpage listing who voted for and against the law:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00029

This is the House's webpage listing who in that chamber voted for and against it:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll627.xml

Unacceptable then, it seems like even more of an outrage now.

Kentucky bans third parties from college boards

I've touched on this problem before in The Last Word, but now it's come to the fore again.

Kentucky's state universities and community colleges have governing boards whose members are supposed to reflect the 2 major parties. Because registered Democrats in Kentucky outnumber Republicans by almost 2-to-1, each board is required by law to have almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans.

Near the end of his reign, Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher illegally stacked the boards with his copartisans, which created Republican majorities on at least some of the boards. Now Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear is trying to correct this by appointing a host of Democrats to the colleges' governing boards. The board members' 6-year terms are staggered, so this may be just enough to bring the boards to their legally mandated partisan ratio.

Whither third parties and independents? We get nothin'. That's the law, unfortunately. It's been the law for some time now. Although a news article unwittingly implies that the boards have to reflect independents and third parties, the law actually only allows the 2 leading parties.

We need to take a serious look at this law. I don't think there's any doubt that it's unconstitutional.

In the Red Scare of the 1950s, public employees were often forced to affirm that they weren't in the Communist Party. However, I thought courts struck down these requirements. How are these requirements any different from Kentucky's requirement that college board appointees aren't a member of the Greens, the Libertarians, or the Natural Law Party?

I'm sure these third parties are in good legal standing - which is something I seriously question about the Republicans after the New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal.

We also have to ask how many of the Democratic powerbrokers who win these important appointments are actually DLCers - in contrast to what Democratic voters want. And some of them are.

You'd be amazed at what's considered liberal in Kentucky these days. Trust me, today's party leadership doesn't know liberal. The DLC/GOP unholy alliance must be a major factor in why Kentucky's university system has long been going out of its way to appease right-wing extremists.

(Source: http://www.kentucky.com/210/story/451850.html)

More censorship hypocrisy

This entry is about a manufactured story pumped up by the likes of terrorist website Free Republic and right-wing scumbag rags like the Washington Times. It barely even deserves to be dignified with a response, but the hypocrisy is so overpowering that I can't help but replying to this gallery of dumb losers. The "Censorship Alert!" sign refers not to the censorship they claim they've suffered, but to the real censorship they've shrugged off.

I don't wish to defend any candidate in the cult-like two-party system these days, but exposing their opponents' hypocrisy is a different matter. Lately, at least 7 nearly identical anti-Obama blogs of the rightist strain have sprouted up. All 7 are linked to the same website (which looks like a poor DLC mash-up). Criticizing a candidate is protected from government censorship, of course. But a blogging service owned by a private company - in this case, Google - doesn't have to allow spam blogs - which is precisely what these were.

When the service's software detected that the blogs were almost alike, it barred the bloggers from making new entries until it could be confirmed that they weren't spamming.

Naturally, the right-wing bloggers went off half-cocked and claimed they were victims of government censorship based on their politics. For one thing, this wasn't government censorship, because the blogging service was run by a private company. For another, the blockage of their ability to post was prompted by their spamming that was detected by software.

In other words, this conservative death match between right-wing bloggers and the right-leaning corporate world is over nothing.

If the bloggers didn't know their spamming was against the rules, they must be total imbeciles. So I think they purposely set themselves up for trouble just so they'd have an excuse to accuse opponents of censorship.

I may have written this story off as sore loser ravings, except that conservatives who are rushing to the bloggers' defense think different rules apply to dissenters from their order.

They complain that Google supports 'Net neutrality but violated 'Net neutrality by cracking down on the spam blogs. That's not what the 'Net neutrality rules mean, brainiacs. The rules mean ISP's can't favor certain types of data. It doesn't mean blogging services can't block spam.

Where were the Freepers when I had a message board completely deleted by another company because I criticized Bush's FCC appointees? Where were the Timesies when my account was revoked on another website when I condemned the FCC's raid of Tantrum 95.7? They sure didn't rush to my defense on free speech grounds.

Or what about when my postings of The Last Word were deleted even though they were in a public venue funded by taxpayers? These were called "spam" even when they were posted just once and in only one place. What about at the start of the Iraq War when I had to get an account on a German server because my posts from my American account were being blocked?

What about the Air Force's policy of blocking blogs?

Why are these acts not considered censorship even though some of them occurred on government-sponsored media?

This isn't just a double standard but a complete reversal of the facts: Real acts of political censorship are glossed over, while acts that aren't political censorship at all are called just that.

The rightist pastime of manufacturing stories results from their own inability to win on the basis of their ideas. Their policies are failures, so they resort to setting themselves up for trouble so they can manufacture a cause. Just like that Republican operative in West Virginia who kept going to Democratic rallies and claiming he was attacked.

Time to go get 'em!

Why are we softpedaling this?

I just got this epiphany about the hated pseudoephedrine laws - the various state and federal permutations of the draconian new Rockefeller drug law against cold and allergy drugs.

I know what I implied the other day, and that was to be less concerned with the lawmakers who only voted for this affront to our natural liberty than with those who authored it outright. But now I've reached the point where I think we should really hold legislators' feet to the fire for their vote. I'm through fucking around, and we need to expose them. You be the judge as to whether their opponents are any better.

My anger was boiling a couple days ago when I last wrote about this, and I didn't quite know how to deal with it. I thought I was unindoctrinable, but I had grown so accustomed to this shit being supported by almost EVERY SINGLE LEGISLATOR that I was starting to think we just had to sit back and suffer all but the most arrogant supporters of the new laws.

But no more. This is where it ends. And since these are statutes passed by legislators, not just something suggested from a President's bully pulpit, there should be a clear record of who supported it.

And if you think I'm getting too worked up over this issue, we have to get off the slippery slope right now, because we're uncomfortably close to the bottom.

"But it's a hooooooooooooax!!!"

Are the conservatives going to stop insisting climate change is a hoax now?

I think those who deny climate change are a cult. Most scientists agree that the debate is over: Climate change is real and is caused by human activity. When the findings are explained, allowing us to weigh the facts, it's easy to see how.

But skeptics of these findings produce no facts. Just corporate-backed dogma that we're expected to believe "just because." One of the characteristics of a cult is that its ideas don't hold up under even minimal investigation.

The way they do it can be insidious, depending on their agenda of the moment. They'll cite one weather-related problem to deny another that's the exact opposite, like the last 2 years when they implied that the flooding rains we had were a hoax. (I bike around Cincinnati a lot, and I don't think I've seen an instance in which part of the downtown riverfront hasn't been closed due to high water in over 2 years.)

According to skeptics, last year's record heat wave was a hoax because it was "balanced" by this year's cold snap. They try to indoctrinate people into thinking that extremes "balancing" each other out is "proof" that climate change is made-up.

It doesn't work that way, brainiacs.

Yesterday another climate change item broke, this one from right out of our region. In Ohio, state parks have seen a stunning decrease in campers - even from within the state. You'd think they'd get more in-state visitors, because gas prices keep folks from traveling further. But the flooding rains have blunted recreation.

Campsite rentals were 13% lower this June than in June of last year. Even the Associated Press said it was due to "constant rain."

This drop in business cost the Buckeye State $300,000 in state park revenue.

Are the Movementarians going to say the AP and the state of Ohio made that up? If it rains like this again next year, are they going to say it's a "drought" that "balances" it out? (Mark my words: I'm giving odds of 80% they will say this regardless of how much it rains.)

It just goes to show there's a whole cult built on climate change denial.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story.aspx?content_id=f52b0d2b-e25d-414c-9d11-3dfacd3144ac)

Limbaugh to make $38,000,000 a year

Pity poor Rush. He works a long, hard, grueling, soul-smashing 15 hours a week, yet only makes $38,000,000 a year. Poor, poor, poor little Rush.

After inking a new contract with Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks, has-been right-wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh will make about $38,000,000 a year for the next 8 years - plus a 9-figure signing bonus.

They renewed this shit for 8 more years? Nobody's listened to Rush's diatribes in the past 5 years, so why are they giving him 8 more years to coast on the crumbs of his miserable career? And paying him hundreds of millions for it?

Maybe I should go right-wing too, so I can make 5,000 times the money as I do now for doing one-third the amount of work.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080703/ap_on_en_ot/radio_limbaugh)

GOP trying to stop people from voting (again)

Looky here, the Republicans are opposing an important voting bill!

A pair of Democratic bills in California would ease voting for the youngest voters by allowing voter preregistration for those ages 16 and 17 and by letting 17-year-olds vote in the primary if they will turn 18 by the general election.

Some states already let 17-year-olds vote in the primary under such circumstances. (When I was 17, I read in the newspaper that Kentucky did, but I assumed that was a misprint. If I thought it was true, Gatewood Galbraith would have gained an extra vote in the gubernatorial primary.)

But Republicans are so fearful of people (gasp!) voting that they're doing everything they can to block the California measures.

Republican Assemblyman Anthony Adams says he hates the bills because he thinks younger voters are more liberal. "You start to see problems as you get older. As you get older, you get wiser," Adams said.

Right. Which is why I've gotten more liberal as I've gotten older. Honestly, every time I was confronted with new problems and started to feel wiser, I always got more liberal.

I don't think it's true that younger voters are necessarily more liberal. If so, why has the country generally gotten more and more conservative for 25 years? Americans who are my age are quite often more conservative than their parents. We were brainwashed in school with Reagan crap. I mean that literally.

I think it's disputable what party the California bills will benefit in the long run. I also question why a voting age is even needed at all. There's a couple of states where even imprisoned felons can vote - but kids can't.

It must be because of the fear that kids might not be mature enough to make informed voting decisions. But obviously adults aren't either, judging by what happened in 2004.

So maybe - just maybe - it really is time to take a serious look at lowering or abolishing the voting age.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/05/BA5A11F1L5.DTL&tsp=1)

Right-wing War on Fourth of July continues

In case you're celebrating Independence Day weekend today (because the rain ruined most of July 4 as usual), this is how far the war against the holiday has gone.

I'm told that in several places, police are now using ShotSpotters to detect anyone who sets off fireworks. A ShotSpotter is a brand of device that's supposed to be used by police to find out where gunfire comes from. I guess the country must not have a violent crime problem if the cops have enough ShotSpotters to use to bust up fireworks displays.

What??? It does??? Oh, I thought I was the worst lawbreaker in America for lighting an orange smoke ball back in 2006.

Still other cities are using their police helicopters to find people using fireworks.

All this because the government is so inept at dealing with its own inner turmoil.

Rally spied on by DHS agent

This is the type of Nazi shit we have to put up with in BushAmerica.

A May 30 rally in Eugene, Oregon, against herbicide use by highway officials went awry when police brutalized several participants. Now it turns out that the police were summoned by an agent of the Federal Protective Service - which is part of the Department of Homeland Suckyurity. Not only that, but the agent was also illegally spying on the rally from an unmarked vehicle.

Looks like now we've met the American KGB, doesn't it? This is nothing short of fascism, and the agent ought to go to prison. But get this: Federal officials won't even admit they did wrong! In fact, they say they do this shit all the time. (Gee, what a surprise.)

To add insult to injury, the feds bungled the whole Nazi surveillance operation to begin with. They thought the demonstration was organized by a local anti-pesticide group. But actually it was put together by University of Oregon students.

The rally was prompted by aerial herbicide spraying that has made many people sick.

As a result of the police intervention prompted by the agent's call, a police officer Tasered and mercilessly beat a young man who was participating in the protest, despite the fact that the participant was peaceful and was doing nothing wrong. Police threw the victim to the ground, pulled his hair, and repeatedly used the Taser when he was already subdued. Numerous witnesses say the victim of this assault had been doing nothing illegal and was not blocking traffic.

Two others were arrested when police accused them of interfering with the first arrest. However, this accusation is also a lie. Witnesses say these 2 detainees did not interfere or do anything else illegal. One of the men who was arrested was knocked unconscious by the officer, and his shoulder and back were injured. A guard at the jail later tried to choke him.

With all of this - the police brutality, the lies, the spying by DHS - we ask if the ruling regime is trying to top its own record of Nazism or if it's just on autopilot now.

(Source: http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=121666&sid=1&fid=1;
http://eugeneweekly.com/2008/06/05/news1.html)

Theme parks think laws don't apply to them

Today I've highlighted individual rights more than the equally patriotic theme of reining in corporate power, but this is a story about both.

Recently, Florida finally passed a law that said corporations can't prevent employees and customers from storing legally registered guns in their cars parked on the property. The issue pits individual rights versus corporate power, so it should be clear where I stand. (My support of such a law also quiets those who might accuse me of supporting taking everyone's guns away - especially since I favored overturning the D.C. gun ban.)

The law was opposed by hackneyed Big Business interests such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce but it was favored by labor groups such as the AFL-CIO.

But now Walt Disney World says most of the law doesn't apply to it. In a memo about the new law, a Disney big shot bragged that "this law does not apply to Walt Disney World Co. owned and leased properties." Because of Disney's belief that it's above the law, employees may still be fired if they have a licensed gun in their car.

Now can you see why places with a theme make me run out of steam (as that old radio ad said)?

Disney's excuse is that the law has an exception for companies whose primary business is making, using, storing, or transporting explosives. Oh, so the Disney Co. took over Smoke Pot?

Do Disney World's execs really expect anyone to buy that reasoning? Last I checked, Disney World isn't a fireworks factory, nor does its primary business involve explosives.

Actually, the resort has been thumbing its nose at the law since 1966 with its Reedy Creek Improvement District bullshit. The Reedy Creek Improvement District is a scam that lets Disney World be exempt from zoning laws and do things like abuse eminent domain to condemn property for its own use. The creation of the district also let the resort accept state bonds for its own use - thus beating out Orange County's plan to use the bonds for low-income housing.

Disney isn't the only park guilty of trying to ignore the new gun law. Universal Orlando is pulling a similar scam by citing the fact that the resort features a work-study program staffed by the local school system. This program is only a tiny portion of the resort, however.

If Corporate America thinks laws don't apply to it, then honestly, what are we supposed to think? I think they're just being scofflaws. This is almost as bad as Starbucks deciding to disobey the court order that requires it to pay back the tip money it stole.

(Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/custom/tourism/orl-disneyguns0308jul03,0,4282076.story)

America's most anti-freedom law?

Another blogger said of this law, "What idiot thought this one up?"

Fourth of July is the best time to patriotically appreciate the unspoiled land that sprawls out before you. And it always makes me think how to best ensure that America's bumpy glide down the slippery slope of fascism is halted. In doing so, it behooves us to identify the issues so we can figure out how to reverse them.

Of any major law in America or any U.S. state, I'd nominate Oregon's version of the right-wing Patriot Act as the biggest threat to the country's freedom. Oh, it's related to the federal Idiot Act all right, because part of the reauthorized version of the Patriot Act is modeled on laws like this.

Oregon goes a step further though. In 2005 the state's right-wing new law began requiring a prescription for cold and allergy medicine that contains pseudoephedrine. Why is this such a bad law? Because these aren't prescription drugs! These are over-the-counter products. Some right-wing lawmakers in Oregon aren't the ones who get to decide that an over-the-counter drug that you need requires a prescription.

The excuse for the law is that it supposedly stops meth cooks from getting an essential ingredient. But I guarantee you they'll get it elsewhere - and they have. They can easily feign allergies just to get a prescription, so the only people who face inconvenience under this law are real allergy sufferers - who have to make a doctor's appointment just to get a drug they used to be able to pick up at most grocery stores. And that's assuming you can even afford to go to the doctor.

As far as I know, Oregon is still the only state that has the prescription requirement. But federal laws are otherwise just as harsh now (though they don't require a prescription yet).

Since these laws passed, meth has become more out of control than ever.

The existence of these laws makes us ask again: "Is America still the land of the free?" In addition to the constitutional questions raised by forcing buyers to sign a log (a rule found in other states), you also have to ask what the law's writers are really fighting. They're not fighting the meth cooks, obviously. Otherwise they'd repeal these laws once it became clear they weren't working.

They're fighting against freedom - and thus against nature itself.

It's really a price support for international drug cartels. I wonder which drug gangs are lining the politicians' pockets.

How do we fight those who'd fight against our liberty? The cities and counties need to step up efforts to make it illegal to enforce the Patriot Act and related feely-bad laws. A few cities did outlaw Idiot Act enforcement. More need to follow suit.

And we need to find precisely which politicians are behind the new laws. I'm not as interested in the ones who merely voted for it, though some were cajoled into cosponsoring it after someone else came up with the idea. I'm more concerned with ones who were originally responsible. And we need to impeach them and remove them from office.

Sure as Bush lied as an excuse to start a war with Iraq, these politicians lied to us when they said these laws would eradicate meth.

This is one of my top 3 issues, and we have to keep it alive until the tyranny of recent years is reversed.

(Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/192284/oregon_antimeth_law_would_require_prescriptions/index.html)

America still the land of the free?

Weatherwise, the Fourth of July is a rainout here as it almost always is - but because of the holiday, we're in a patriotic mood!

The U.S. and A. is a truly unique land with an attractive frontier spirit. But almost every year, I find myself shaking my head more and more at the country's direction. During the right-wing weirdo wave of the mid-'90s, I realized I was living in an America I didn't recognize, and just in the past few days I've noticed the situation is probably worse now that it's ever been in the modern era.

I'm a progressive populist, if you will, and I raucously meld small-l libertarianism with small-r republican socialism. And it's amazing these days how far some will go to deny us freedom.

As a hard-working guy, I dig down-home working-class populist celebrations full of hilarious bonfires, good eatin', and blowin' up soda cans with firecrackers. (Who can forget my uproarious campfires of the '90s in which I burned spoiled food, an old TV set, bubble gum, and a kitchen table?) But there's a right-wing War on Fourth of July out there, led by those who oppose fun and teem animosity against us working-class folks.

Yesterday, I told you about GOP efforts in Yonkers, New York, to jail and seize cars of anyone caught with fireworks. In most of New York state, possessing fireworks is only ticketable. But did you know that Ohio's tyranny puts most of New York to shame? According to a police official in southwestern Ohio, state law can bring up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for mere possession of fireworks.

I knew that about Ohio, because the threat of zealous enforcement has spoiled my plans before. Ruined 'em all up, it did!

New Jersey has become another neurotic outpost of fireworks suppression. Lately, the Garden State has been sending agents to fireworks shops in Pennsylvania to watch for cars with Jersey plates pulling out of the parking lot. Then they call New Jersey authorities to stop the motorists when they enter the state. Their cars are then confiscated.

Unconstitutionally, I might add. Which I'm sure you knew.

If you live in New Jersey, keep this story on your mind now and in future years - so you can find a detour when you're returning home from buying fireworks in Pennsylvania.

BushAmerica is almost at the point where no fun or thinking of any description is allowed. (Ooh, an Allowed Cloud!) Everything these days is illegal or mandatory - unless of course you're a corporation, in which case there's almost no regulation to speak of. BushAmerica is shorthand for "regulation for thee, not for me."

Fireworks are visual, aural, and performance art all rolled into one! And they're educational. You can learn a lot about science and civics at an amateur fireworks gathering.

If you do go to an event this weekend, remember that it's your country too. Don't let Bush's Movementarians take America away from you. Learn a lesson from my experiences. Enjoy and respect life's finer things.

Former Sen. Jesse Helms dies

If you want to see conservative, Jesse Helms was about as conservative as it got. The North Carolina Republican served 5 terms in the Senate from 1973 to 2003 and was one of the most controversial federal lawmakers.

Helms died this morning at the age of 86 of undisclosed causes.

If you don't remember ol' Jesse Helms, let me put it this way: He was a, um, conservative firebrand. He wasn't exactly my favorite senator.

Helms is the man who suggested building a wall around the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill so the supposedly liberal-leaning university couldn't influence the rest of the state. David Broder once called Helms "the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country." Helms's controversial nature kept him from ever winning a Senate election with more than 55%.

Jesse Helms also influenced the house rules I created for the board game Monopoly: I mocked the senator by using one of the pieces to represent him. Helms would move around the board and create trouble for the players.

I didn't focus much on Helms near the end of his career, because by that time, the country was in such a sorry shape that his brand of conservatism seemed anticlimactic. But he was influential in conservatism's unasked-for rise.

(Source: http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/story/1755723)

Rove to defy Congress

Longtime right-wing scumbag Karl Rove thinks laws and rules are only for the little people. He sounds like a man who's had a sense of entitlement his whole life.

And now Rove, the sleazy Bush adviser, is refusing to appear before a congressional panel to answer charges about Justice Department politicization and the politically motivated probe of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

Congress is not amused. A letter from Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-California) warns, "We want to make clear that the subcommittee will convene as scheduled and expects Mr. Rove to appear, and that a refusal to appear in violation of the subpoena could subject Mr. Rove to contempt proceedings, including statutory contempt under federal law and proceedings under the inherent contempt authority of the House of Representatives."

"Could subject" him to contempt proceedings??? How about "will subject"? That would be more like it. If Rove refuses to appear, he's guilty of contempt of Congress, and Congress has the right to order his arrest. If anyone else had defied Congress like this, I guarantee you they'd have some explaining to do.

This follows the Bush White House's bogus claim of "absolute immunity" from having to respond to congressional subpoenas.

Karl Rove has gotten away with so much scumbaggery for so long that the American people have a right to see the little asswipe squirm.

(Source: http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0708/Rove_wont_appear_before_House_Judiciary_panel.html)

More post-hurricane meanness

How nasty do right-wing politicians have to get to compensate for their own many failures?

Kevin Davis, a Republican, is the parish president (sort of like a county mayor) of St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. That's the ultraconservative bailiwick where Mountain Dew got spilled down inside a TV set in a hotel room during my vacation last year. There's lots of Allowed Clouds in that parish.

Anyway, Davis decreed today that any hurricane survivors who are still living in FEMA or other trailers come August 30 are going to start facing penalties. He's giving them less than 2 months to find other housing.

Hey, why don't you leave 'em alone, will ya, Kevin?! Damn. There's nothing worse than spoiled, whiny politicians like Kevin Davis complaining about those who are less fortunate than them having it too easy.

It sounds to me like Davis also don't know much about math, calendars, or neither. He said that his "early announcement" provides hurricane victims with "3 months to complete the work on their homes or make alternative housing plans." Um, no. It's less than 2 months.

If you want to talk about someone with a sense of entitlement, it's these right-wing "leaders."

(Source: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/fema_trailers_in_st_tammany_to.html)

Station refuses to run Democratic ad

Federal regulations say radio and TV stations can't selectively reject partisan political ads (unless something in the ad is factually wrong). But they do it anyway.

KYW radio in Philadelphia - part of the CBS empire - is rejecting a Democratic ad that features a Bush impersonator thanking Republican congressional candidates for supporting Big Oil. KYW's excuse is that the commersh might make people think the impersonator is the real Bush.

It's a bullshit excuse, of course. It doesn't fly with the regulations.

KYW bills itself as an all-news station, but its programming is full of conservative commentaries. So it's obvious where they stand.

Is the media still going to keep spreading this "liberal media" lie?

(Source: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/philly-radio-station-refuses-to-run-democratic-ad-2008-07-03.html)

Doodoodoodoodoo...Viacon!

Listen to how out of control Viacom is.

Viacon is the right-wing media conglomerate that helped ruin MTV and owns numerous cable channels and film production houses. Last year, Viacom - already one of the richest corporations in the land - filed a lawsuit against Google, demanding over $1,000,000,000 (a billion) for failing to stop users from uploading copyrighted material to YouTube (which Google now owns).

Meseems YouTube's growing habit of deleting anything and everything because it made someone cwy is no longer enough to appease Viacom.

Now right-wing federal Judge Louis Stanton (a Reagan appointee) has ordered Google to turn over the records of every instance of videos ever being watched on YouTube to Viacom. So now, if you've ever viewed a video on YouTube, Viacom gets a record of it, along with your IP number and (if it was through your account) your name. The excuse for this is so Viacom can "prove" YouTube is used to watch copyrighted clips.

Turning these records over to Viacom violates a federal law that bars such data from being disclosed. Therefore, I withhold from Viacom permission to possess my data. They can't have it. But if Judge Stanton doesn't mind Viacon knowing how many times he viewed the Pop-Tarts commercial from 1976 to try to figure out how they got the toaster to talk, let him deal with it.

It sounds to me like Viacom's real goal is to collect the names of ordinary people who viewed videos and harass them.

Viacom also demanded that Google turn over copies of all videos marked private - which is exactly like going into someone's house and taking their family videos. The judge actually ordered Google to turn over data about how many times each private video was viewed.

What's really ironic is the role of Viacom and other media giants in prompting the recent writers' strike. The strike resulted largely because Viacom and other companies refused to pay writers for promotional Internet materials. So how can Viacom expect to recover for materials posted online?

(Source: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/judge-orders-yo.html)

Yonkers launches war on Fourth of July

The city of Yonkers, New York, must not have a serious crime problem. What??? It does??? Considering city officials are so up in arms about Fourth of July fireworks, you could've fooled me!

Laws that ban fireworks are generally a losing proposition. If fireworks are legal, you can at least regulate them so they can be used safely. A total ban can't distinguish between safe and unsafe.

I think most people know this. So it's clear the main purpose of most laws to ban fireworks is to keep people from having fun. These laws are also motivated by economic classism, for fireworks are viewed as a working-class activity with very little appeal among upper economic groups. The laws have nothing to do with safety.

The illogic of fireworks laws is why they often weren't enforced until the '90s. They were considered relics like the laws against fornication. Enforcement these days, however, is rigid and getting worse. (This has failed to reduce fireworks injuries.)

The city of Yonkers (which has long been ruled by Republicans) is engaged in a right-wing war against the Fourth of July. The police commish announced yesterday that he's cracking down on fireworks. Anyone found in possession of fireworks will be arrested on sight. This despite the fact that possessing or using fireworks in the state of New York is only a violation - not even a misdemeanor. It is my understanding that arresting someone for a mere violation is illegal in New York. At most, you can receive a ticket.

The city is using both uniformed and plainclothes police to look out for fireworks possessors. Police plan to stop vehicles to look for fireworks - especially those traveling from Connecticut where the laws are less rigid. Cops also plan to seize vehicles found in violation.

That's unconstitutional, of course. Not like I expect that to matter when the country has spent the past 8 years being ruled by a Nazi dictator who insists the Constitution is "just a damn piece of paper."

So go ahead! Celebrate Independence Day! Don't let the America haters spoil your good times.

(Source: http://yonkerstribune.typepad.com/yonkers_tribune/2008/07/ypd-commissione.html)

Nazis ban student from prom for violating...well, guess

Is it just my imagination, or is this trend actually getting worse?

In Bayonne, New Jersey - where the school system has already been sued over its right-wing uniform policy - a high school student violated the uniform rules. Result? They banned her from the prom. School officials just decided to march her into the office on the day of the prom and told her she couldn't go.

Because she couldn't go to the prom, her prom date's plans were ruined too - after he spent $500 for the event.

Does the Bayonne school system like being sued? Well, does it??? I wouldn't even hesitate about suing the school over something like this.

(And why the fuck was school still going on just a week ago anyway?)

(Source: http://www.hudsonreporter.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19803880&BRD=1291&PAG=461&dept_id=532622&rfi=6)

Governor threatens to withhold pay raises if teachers don't submit to drug tests

Linda Lingle is the right-wing idiot who serves as Governor of Hawaii. She's known for her bizarre claim that regulating gasoline prices would increase the price of gas. (That ranks right up there with Reagan's insistence that cutting taxes and increasing 'Star Wars' spending would reduce the deficit.)

And now she's made a fool of herself yet again.

Last year, when the union representing Hawaii teachers was voting on a new contract, Linda Lingle ordered a clause added that would require teachers to take a drug test. The clause is clearly illegal, and it led the ACLU to prepare a lawsuit against Lingle.

Education officials now tell Lingle they can't pay for the drug tests without looting important classroom programs. So what's the Lingleberry's response? She's doing what every Republican does best: She's stamping her feet and throwing a big fit! She's threatening to withhold the pay raise that the teachers were promised.

She wants teachers to abide by an illegal clause in their contract that she forced them to sign? You're an idiot, Linda.

What's just as bad is how the schools end up being robbed to pay for this shit.

Lingle's temper tantrum also makes the Aloha State the only state in the U.S. to require teachers to take drug tests.

(Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080702/NEWS07/807020371/1012/LOCALNEWSFRONT;
http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2007/only-hawaii-requires-teachers.html)

Gas hits $5.30 in rural areas; nationalization or breakup needed

When you see stories like this, something has to be done.

The cost of gasoline in some rural American areas (especially in the West) has now reached $5.30 a gallon. This is of special annoyance because some communities don't even have utilities (let alone public transport), so they have to use gasoline and diesel in generators that power their homes. And they have to use more gas in their cars because the closest shops might be miles away.

Rural areas are much poorer than America's vast suburban expanses anyway, so it hits especially hard. While people in urban areas of New York and New Jersey spend as little 2.05% of their income on gas, folks in rural areas spend as much as 16.02%.

This issue is much more serious than a lot of people think. If people can't afford gas, they end up neglecting their medical and even dietary needs.

We long ago reached the point where nationalizing or breaking up the oil industry is our best option. I know the U.S. doesn't have as much oil as some countries that are a fraction of its size, but it has refineries and oil corporations. Thus it certainly is possible to nationalize. What's going on is really a form of exploitation - which is what led Mexico to institute nationalization.

But with so much consolidation in the oil industry, which has contributed to the high prices, perhaps the Justice Department should force a breakup of the industry before trying anything else. It happened once before, in the early automobile era, so why not now?

Communities today can't survive on gas that's $4 or $5 a gallon. They just can't, so action has to be taken now.

(Source: http://www.wbir.com/news/national/story.aspx?src=nletter-news&storyid=60313&catid=16&source=nletter)

Bush about to lose his shit (again)

Bush exhibiting psychotic behavior is a regular occurrence. But it's times like this when it becomes downright dangerous.

I haven't seen much about it, but it's now reported that the Bush regime has escalated covert operations in Iran by unleashing more spies. The $400,000,000 campaign involves American special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.

This actually sounds like a pre-bubbling of another war. I've long believed that the Decider is determined to start a war with Iran just as he did with Iraq, but I think he's waiting until after the election so he can make his predecessor deal with it. (Bush is probably still fuming that his now-forgotten plan to call off the 2004 election didn't go over as well as he thought - which was probably the only time in his whole life he had to listen to anyone tell him he was wrong.)

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/29/us.iran)

Bush regime bans voter registration at VA hospitals

Another day, another instance of the Bush regime stabbing veterans in the back.

I'm about as antiwar as you can get, but at least I appreciate vets - which chickenhawks like Bush do not. It turns out that back in May, Bush's Veterans Health Administration issued a ukase to hospitals that are under its control. According to the directive, voter registration drives - even by nonpartisan groups - are no longer permitted at the hospitals.

Because of this order, a nonpartisan group can't come in and register veterans to vote. I guess Bush thinks it's fair that a soldier who was grievously injured fighting for their country shouldn't be able to exercise one of the country's most basic rights.

The directive cites the Hatch Act as the reason for this new rule. But that's not what the Hatch Act is for. The Hatch Act is to stop government employees from engaging in partisan activity. It says nothing about independent nongovernment groups engaging in nonpartisan activity.

The directive is here (watch out, for it's in PDF format):

http://www1.va.gov/vhapublications/ViewPublication.asp?pub_ID=1687

I don't understand why the media hasn't been all over this story. The directive clearly says that "voter registration drives are not permitted." They said it, not me.

So which option will Bush's apologists choose? Will they ignore this issue? Will they defend the directive (despite it being utterly indefensible)? Or will they say the directive doesn't really mean it?

Indiana bookstore censorship law tossed!

This is a hilarious defeat that I saw looming for the social engineering distracters!

I told you in March that Indiana had passed a law requiring bookstores to post a hefty registration fee if they carried even one "explicit" book. It applied to bookstores even if they sold only one "dirty" title alongside thousands of G-rated volumes. The law was supposed to take effect today.

Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of American civics could see the law was unconstitutional on free speech grounds. And a judge agrees.

On the very day the law took effect, the federal judge ruled that the measure was too vague, too broad, and crimped reading materials that not only were perfectly legal but weren't even pornographic. The law was so broad that it may have applied to grocery stores selling an ordinary magazine with a sex advice page, a yard sale selling an old Playboy collection, or a video store selling a movie that's only R-rated.

But get this: Lawmakers are going to waste time trying to pass this law again next year. They never learn, do they?

(Source: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080701/NEWS02/80701048)

Nielsen wins tax breaks to hire local workers, outsources jobs anyway

You can't make this stuff up. You just can't.

The Nielsen Co. is the parent of Nielsen Ratings, the people who measure TV audiences. In 2001, the company got generous property tax breaks to construct a $100,000,000 global technology center in Oldsmar, Florida. This tax break was based on Nielsen creating high-wage jobs.

But now - only a few years after building this facility - Nielsen is laying off hundreds of these employees and outsourcing their jobs to India.

In other words, Nielsen took a tax break for local jobs, then eliminated those jobs.

Corporatism run amok? Absolutely.

Oldsmar city council is less than amused. One member observed that Nielsen is "making a joke of the tax incentive program."

Because of Nielsen's outsourcing, it has to give up some tax incentives. But it gets to keep most of the breaks. I call that corporate welfare. Imagine what the reaction would be if an individual of average means had gotten even a few hundred dollars in free money from the taxpayers. So corporations damn sure shouldn't be allowed to get away with receiving millions.

(Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9105518)

Candidate's house destroyed by fire

Darcy Burner is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Washington state. Burner is challenging the vile Dave Reichert, a Republican.

This morning, Burner's house was destroyed by fire. The candidate and her family made it out safely, but the home is a total loss.

You're suspecting the exact same thing I'm suspecting. And others are thinking it too, and they've already said so publicly:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3377269

I have to note that the blaze's cause is still under investigation. But after Paul Wellstone was murdered and Kalandra Wheeler's office was shot at, I'm strongly suspecting the worst. All it takes is one kook with a gas can and matches to torch a house. I've already discussed what right-wing terrorists did to the Peace Bus and to that family in Virginia that opposed the war, so we know they'd resort to arson.

Oh no! Sgt. Bill!

Corruption and impropriety seem to grow daily with the failed War on Drugs. And more and more hard-working people like you and me are at risk from this high-handed zealotry and sleaze - even if they've never touched drugs in their lives.

I'm not saying drugs are a good thing. Quite the contrary. I'm saying the execution of the drug war has been a failure since day one.

The town of Gerald, Missouri, was recently the site of a colossal crackdown against methamphetamine. It got under way when Sgt. Bill breezed into town. Sgt. Bill told folks he was a federal drug agent sent in to clean up the town Rex Banner-like. He ransacked houses, looked for contraband, and made arrests. Sgt. Bill told the folks that he didn't need a stinkin' search warrant, because he was a federal agent.

This is bullshit, of course. Federal agents need a warrant just as local police do. So that's one mistake you made, Sgt. Bill.

But it turned out that Sgt. Bill wasn't even a federal agent! The 36-year-old was a former small-town cop and trucking company owner who had once been convicted of sexually abusing a teenager. He wasn't a police officer at all when he made the raids.

Oops.

You know it's a federal crime to impersonate a federal agent, don't you?

The aftermath of this bungled campaign? Sixty percent of the town's police force got fired, and the mayor may be impeached.

And numerous pending drug cases are now ruined. They're blown. Shot to hell. All because of incompetence by city officials and Sgt. Bill's lies.

The stigma against the people who were wrongly accused by Sgt. Bill of drug involvement still lingers. One man has been harassed by having garbage (including empty Sudafed boxes) tossed in his yard, even though he hasn't been charged with a crime.

When you stick with failed policies, then sooner or later you're going to end up surrounded by con artists like Sgt. Bill. What's really ironic is how the Sgt. Bill scandal ended up blowing so many drug cases that may have involved people who were actually guilty of what they were accused of.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/us/01impostor.html)

More Terrebonne Parish right-wing extremism

After I reported on the public schools in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, trying to implement forced prayer and ban foreign phrases from graduation speeches, someone gave me a link to a certain other right-wing policy of that particular school system. You can guess what it's going to be, don't you?

Just guess. Yep. The Big U.

The so-called public school system has required uniforms since 1999! And it's one of the stricter policies too. It applies in high school, middle school, grade school, and even kindergarten.

And listen to how assholey the school is about enforcing it. After 5 or 6 dress code violations (depending on the grade level), the rule is: "Student will not be allowed to return to school until it is established that he/she will adhere to grooming and dress regulations." Uh, school is compulsory, stupid. You can't keep someone out of school as long as school is required.

But that's where the real fix is in. The school district deals with this conflict of laws by declaring, "Repeated violations of this policy will result in appropriate action, including, but not limited to, referral to court for violation of the compulsory attendance laws."

They charge you with truancy for violating a fucking dumb dress code? If the school system wouldn't keep a student out of school for not wearing the uniform, the student would be in compliance with the attendance laws. School officials can't cry that someone is truant when it's the school system that's keeping them out of school. Duh!

Here's the school's right-wing policy:

http://www.tpsd.org/main/uniform.php

And yes, that school system uses corporal punishment too.