Rebels with a cause.

Remember when liberals and left-wingers used to say all kinds of nasty things about George W. Bush? They called him a traitor, fascist, loser, you name it. He was called- as old time black folks like to say- "Everything but a child of God".

 I remember, heck I was one of the people doing the name calling.

But here is the thing: I don't remember the democrat running to take his place in the White House ever engage in that type of rhetoric against then president Bush.

Fast forward to 2016, and sadly, we cannot say the same thing for the man running to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on behalf of the republican party.

My fellow Americans, the Donald trump meltdown continues.

He is now declaring that the president of the United States founded ISIS, and that he is their MVP.

"In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama," Trump said at a rally in Florida. "He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder. He founded ISIS."

Trump continued: "I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton."

Talk about playing to the lowest common denominator of your followers. No wonder a confederate flag was brought out at his rally in Florida today. The people who brought that flag to the rally thought that they would be able to  get their racism on in peace. Racism without all the "PC" crap that folks like to throw in their faces. 

 "kind of upsets me a little bit,” he said, adding that he didn’t think Mr. Trump himself would have asked him to remove the flag.

“But because of the dishonest media, which he talks about, because of that, it forces them and ties their hands to do certain things,” Mr. Partin said, “so that the media doesn’t take something and spin it and turns it into something that it’s not.”

 

"Something that it's not"? Sorry big guy, that big fat confederate flag tells me all I need to know. Not only about you, but about your candidate as well.    

*Pic from politicsusa.com

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Gloom, doom, and "brutalism".

  I must confess that I am as cynical as they come, and I trust no one. It's sad to admit to such a thing, but I basically hold a very unfavorable view of humans.

 But hey, I am a criminal defense attorney in a major city, and I preside over family law cases, so I have earned my cynical stripes. My question to the GOP is this: What's your excuse?

You are a major political party in what is supposed to be the most optimistic and hopeful country in the world, and yet, it's all "doom and gloom" with you guys. I could throw in "fear" in there as well.

I recently read an article  by David Brooks in the New York Times were he wrote about the "brutalism" of Ted Cruz, a man who I consider to be typical of the leading politicians on the right these days.

"In 1997, Michael Wayne Haley was arrested after stealing a calculator from Walmart. This was a crime that merited a maximum two-year prison term. But prosecutors incorrectly applied a habitual offender law. Neither the judge nor the defense lawyer caught the error and Haley was sentenced to 16 years. 

 

Eventually, the mistake came to light and Haley tried to fix it. Ted Cruz was solicitor general of Texas at the time. Instead of just letting Haley go for time served, Cruz took the case to the Supreme Court to keep Haley in prison for the full 16 years.

 

Some justices were skeptical. “Is there some rule that you can’t confess error in your state?” Justice Anthony Kennedy asked. The court system did finally let Haley out of prison, after six years.

 

The case reveals something interesting about Cruz’s character. Ted Cruz is now running strongly among evangelical voters, especially in Iowa. But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace. Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case is almost the dictionary definition of pharisaism: an overzealous application of the letter of the law in a way that violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy.

 

Traditionally, candidates who have attracted strong evangelical support have in part emphasized the need to lend a helping hand to the economically stressed and the least fortunate among us. Such candidates include George W. Bush, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.

 

But Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them. When he is speaking in a church the contrast between the setting and the emotional tone he sets is jarring.

 

Cruz lays down an atmosphere of apocalyptic fear. America is heading off “the cliff to oblivion.” After one Democratic debate he said, “We’re seeing our freedoms taken away every day, and last night was an audition for who would wear the jackboot most vigorously.”                   

 

As the Republican strategist Curt Anderson observed in Politico, there’s no variation in Cruz’s rhetorical tone. As is the wont of inauthentic speakers, everything is described as a maximum existential threat." [Source]

 

But it's not just Ted Cruz. Watch the next republican debate and try to find a sense of optimism among the people on stage. You won't be able to do it. It will be all fire and brimstone, gloom and doom. America, if you let them tell it, is going to hell in a hand-basket, and getting their fast.

 

Watch Donald Trump and his brown shirt thugs get physical with someone at one of his campaign stops for just exercising their right to free speech. Or watch him single out some poor cameraman or reporter for derision from the crowd for just doing their job and earning in a year what he makes in an hour. Watch Chris Christie bully people for asking simple questions at one of his previous town hall meetings.  

 

This is the GOP way: Meaner, angrier, and louder than those soft, kumbaya singing, hand holding, dems.  It's become the party of John Wayne, and  not a moment too soon for their base of angry Americans looking for someone to blame for all of their anger. We will be tough, mean, and heartless, because that is what is needed to keep the America we love and cherish safe.

 

I am still trying to figure out what the hell they are all so angry about. And I am curious to know that if having someone from the majority population in the White House will cool some of that anger. I suspect that it will, because looking at it objectively, there is absolutely nothing for them to be angry about.

 

Let's "Make America Great Again!" If it will make you all less angry I am all for it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hillary's long day.

   I am watching these Benghazi *drink, drink, gulp* hearings, and I must say that Hillary Clinton is quite the trooper.  How long has it been? Ten hours? Wow!

If only we could have investigated the unnecessary deaths of over 4,500 Americans in Iraq like we did these 4 in Libya. There has been eight different committees convened and thirty three different hearings about Benghazi *drink , drink, gulp* since that tragic incident, and the FOX VIEWS crowd and their republican friends are probably wishing that we could have thirty three more.

Full disclosure: My wife is no fan of Hillary Clinton (that whole knock -down drag- out campaign against president Obama back in the day soured her on Bill's better half), but she has been watching these hearings this evening and she has declared that is definitely voting for Hillary now. Leave it to my overreaching republican friends to make Hillary Clinton a sympathetic figure.   

How many more Mrs. Fields there are out there? I am curious to know if she will get a bump in the polls after this marathon session in the hot seat. Probably not much. People are pretty much set in their positions when it comes to Hillary. Those who hate her will continue to do so, and those who love her will probably love her even more.    

“That’s what happened during the Reagan administration, when Hezbollah attacked our embassy,” Mrs. Clinton said, citing similar bipartisanship around investigations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. “I would like us to get back to those times.”

Sorry Mrs. Clinton, we will not be going back to those times. Because sadly, the inmates are now in full control of the asylum.

*Pic from cnn.com

The Republican Crusades.

The Field Negro education series continues.

"One of the hot issues in the 2016 presidential election is how to deal with terror and slaughter in the name of Islam. President Obama and Hillary Clinton refuse to call such violence Islamic. They insist that Muslims are victims, not allies, of ISIS and al-Qaida.

The Republican candidates for president say this reluctance to associate Islam with jihadi violence is naïve, wimpy, and dangerous. “We need a commander in chief who will once and for all call it what it is, and that is that radical Islamic terrorism is a threat to us all,” says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Rick Santorum agrees: “Islam is an ideology. And we need to be honest about the American public about what the nature of our enemy really is.” Sen. Marco Rubio promises a Reaganesque crusade:

[W]e must restore America’s willingness to think big—to state boldly what we stand for and why it is right. Just as Reagan never flinched in his criticisms of the Soviet Union’s political and economic repressions, we must never shy away from demanding that China allow true freedom for its 1.3 billion people. Nor should we hesitate in calling the source of atrocities in the Middle East by its real name—radical Islam.

   

The Republicans don’t just call the enemy Islamic. They criticize Clinton and Obama for preaching coexistence. At last weekend’s South Carolina Freedom Summit, they laughed off the Crusades and defended mockery of Islam. Carly Fiorina, a former Republican Senate nominee now running for president, demanded to know why Clinton has advocated “religious tolerance” and “the need to empathize with our enemies while Christians are being beheaded and crucified.”

Republicans who talk this way think they’re being tough. In reality, however, they’re aiding the enemy. They’re doing for ISIS what they did for al-Qaida: assisting its recruitment, social media, and political strategy. Rhetorically, ISIS and the GOP are in perfect harmony.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. On Thursday his media team released a speech in which the would-be caliph presents his views on Islam, tolerance, and sectarian violence. Baghdadi sounds like a Republican candidate for president. Here’s what he says:
 

1. This is a war between Muslims and non-Muslims. ISIS, like al-Qaida, can’t wage a global or even regional war with 30,000 fighters. To build popular support, it needs to frame the conflict in religious terms. That’s why Baghdadi agrees with American conservatives who say our enemy is Islam:

O Muslims! Do not think the war that we are waging is the Islamic State’s war alone. Rather, it is the Muslims’ war altogether. It is the war of every Muslim in every place. … O Muslims everywhere, has the time not come for you to realize the truth of the conflict and that it is between disbelief and faith? … This war is only against you and against your religion.

2. Coexistence is impossible. Is authentic Islam compatible with Western values? Many conservative activists and politicians say it isn’t. This belief suits Baghdadi. He tells Muslims that they must choose:

O Muslims! Whoever thinks that it is within his capacity to conciliate with the Jews, Christians, and other disbelievers, and for them to conciliate with him, such that he coexists with them and they coexist with him while he is upon his religion and upon tawhīd (monotheism), then he has belied the explicit statement of his Lord (the Mighty and Majestic), who says, “And never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their religion. … And they will continue to fight you until they turn you back from your religion.”

3. Islam is a religion of war. Santorum, Rudy Giuliani, and other Republicans say ISIS has a scriptural basis for its violence. Two weeks ago Jeb Bush said “part” of the Muslim world was “not a religion of peace.” Baghdadi, too, rejects the religion-of-peace narrative:

O Muslims, Islam was never for a day the religion of peace. Islam is the religion of war. Your Prophet (peace be upon him) was dispatched with the sword as a mercy to the creation. He was ordered with war until Allah is worshipped alone. He (peace be upon him) said to the polytheists of his people, “I came to you with slaughter.” … He never for a day grew tired of war.

The religion-of-war narrative, whatever its scholarly merits, serves political interests on both sides. It gives the Republicans red meat for the primaries, and it helps Baghdadi persuade Muslims that they’re commanded by God to support ISIS.

4. America doesn’t care about Muslim civilian casualties or civil liberties. Baghdadi says followers of Islam should stand with him because they can’t trust Western governments to protect their rights or spare their innocents. He warns Muslims:

And if the Crusaders today claim to avoid the Muslim public and to confine themselves to targeting the armed amongst them, then soon you will see them targeting every Muslim everywhere. And if the Crusaders today have begun to bother the Muslims who continue to live in the lands of the cross by monitoring them, arresting them, and questioning them, then soon they will begin to displace them and take them away either dead, imprisoned, or homeless.

Republicans seem determined to prove Baghdadi right. A few years ago, Rubio, Fiorina, Newt Gingrich, and other GOP leaders denounced peaceful Muslim pluralists for proposing to build a mosque in Manhattan near the site of the 9/11 attacks. Last weekend in South Carolina, Santorum complained that most of the planes we’re flying over ISIS territory “come back not having dropped their ordnance.” Apparently, Santorum thinks the military is too careful in its selection and examination of targets.

The convergence of Republican rhetoric with jihadist propaganda isn’t new. It’s been building ever since George W. Bush left the White House. Liberated from presidential responsibility, Republicans degenerated into a party that uses Islam for domestic politics instead of thinking about how their words resonate overseas. That’s how they became backup singers for Osama Bin Laden. Now they’re working for Baghdadi. Remind me again who’s naïve." [Source]


*Pic from zionica.com
 

The sequel.

I am not a big fan of movie sequels, give me the original every time. With a few exceptions, (the Bourne franchise comes to mind) the sequel never quite lives up to the original. Big Momma’s House 2? Beverly Hills Cop 11?The Hangover Part 11? Please!

So anyway, now we have “Fast and Furious” playing out in Washington, and if you haven’t been paying attention, you might not realize that this too is a sequel. Yes, let’s call this one 2 Fast 2 furious.

The original came under our friend W, and, as is the case with most originals, I am guessing that it was better than the sequel as well.

"One after the other, Republicans on the panel waved the bloody shirt. “Here’s the proof!” hollered Rep. Trey Gowdy (S.C.), claiming he had evidence that President Obama knew about a botched federal program that contributed to Terry’s death. Gowdy’s proof: that Obama cited executive privilege in denying the committee all the documents it sought. “If he’s not part of it, then he’s got no business asserting executive privilege,” Gowdy concluded.

Terry’s death is indeed a scandal, part of the “Fast and Furious” operation in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost track of 2,000 guns it was planning to trace on their way to Mexican drug cartels; two of those firearms were found near Terry’s body. After that, the Justice Department shut down the program (which followed similar “gun-walking” operations during the George W. Bush administration), fired or reassigned several people who ran the program out of ATF’s Phoenix office, requested an inspector-general investigation and handed over about 7,600 pages of records to Issa’s committee." [Source]

Wait, what was that Mr.Milbank? We have actually seen this movie before? Yes, I thought it looked familiar.

I wonder why this one is such a hit with republicans and the original was such a dud? Hmmmm, I am guessing that they didn't like the first director.

"Republicans didn’t have much on Holder — it’s one of those perennial disputes about how much the executive branch needs to divulge to the legislature — so they did what sensible people usually do when they have an honest disagreement: They accused the attorney general of being an accessory to murder."

Or, maybe they just like a more dramatic script.

George's Wars....for now.

*

I would like to start tonight's post with a letter to the editor penned by a reader named Roy Lehman in my hometown paper.

"John Yoo continues to live in a fantasy world of the Bush administration that he had a large part in creating ('No clear benefit to holding 9/11 trial in New York', Sunday)

He continues to frame the actions of what would be more accurately described as a gang of civilian religious fanatics as an "act of war". Bush administration members labeled the terrorism an act of war in order to expand the powers of George Bush and cover their behinds for what they were about to do.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. seems to have decided that the actions of these religious fanatics were, in reality, crimes. I agree and will not live in fear , demanded by the right wing, of a band of disjointed religious fanatics, when the real threats to my family are job insecurity and a health catastrophe that may bankrupt me and my family. "

Citizen Lehman I loved that letter!

My friends, as we all get ready to get our turkey on, let's not forget our troops in harms way on two different fronts and who caused them to be there in the first place. George W. Bush and his neocon friends.

The war rages on, and A-merry-cans are stuck with paying for it with both precious lives and dollars. (BTW, I agree with David Obey, let's put an added tax on everybody to pay for the wars.) The phony patriots will give us all kinds of reasons why these wars are necessary, but don't believe any of it. They are not. A few religious fanatics hell bent on kicking it with some virgins in their other life is not a foreign threat. They have no country, just a sick twisted ideology. The biggest threat to A-merry-ca comes from within not in the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan.

The brilliance of the neocons and the right-wing in this country is that they have hoodwinked everyone into thinking that in order to protect our country we must attack someones else's, and if we don't wipe them from the face of the earth they will come again for us like they did on 9/11. The problem with that, of course, is that we don't know who they are, and we sure as hell don't know where they live or where they will be coming from. -The Ft. Hood shooter was in our military for crying out loud! Where will the next fanatic come from? Even if we bomb everyone of these countries into nothing it won't guarantee that some sympathizer living in Dearborn, Michigan won't strap on a bomb and decide to become the half time show at a Red Wings game.

Thank goodness a bunch of Rastafarians didn't decide to blow up the World Trade Center. Because if they did, and George Bush was in power, Jamaica would be nothing but a memory.

That's how twisted the neocon logic is, and that's what got us into this mess.

The problem now of course is how do we get out. Here is hoping that his O ness, unlike the guy before him, actually uses his brain and not his bible.

*Pic courtesy of Phtobucket

Sarah Privilege.

Honestly there is so much to post about today that I don't even know where to start. And now that the rethuglicans and their leader, George Bush, has pretty much made it necessary for us to put our increasingly worthless dollars under our houses, (a trillion dollars in three days!) you could say that I am speechless. The Dow lost over 400 more points today, the feds are talking about printing money, and we, the taxpayers, are now the proud owners of a huge insurance company, [ AIG] thanks to another government bailout. Talk about corporate welfare.



So anyway, with all this going on; why is it that all I can think about is Sarah? Yes Sarah. (And I did not hack into her e-mail account. You can't pin that one on the black man)I don't even know why I let you mofos let me stop talking about her in the first place. Maybe it's because I heard another story about her being a *racialist (*that's a field word), in yet another Alaska restaurant (see my sidebar), and maybe it's this whole "Troopergate" thing, but Sarah just won't go away. Well, honestly, I won't let her.


So anyhoo, my girl Jody sent me this nice little article from "Honorary Field Negro", Tim Wise, and I just had to share, because it's so true.



~By Tim Wise ~ "For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.


White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because 'every family has challenges,' even as black and Latino families with similar 'challenges' are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.


White privilege is when you can call yourself a 'fuckin' redneck,' like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll 'kick their fuckin' ass,' and talk about how you like to 'shoot shit' for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.


White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.


White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're 'untested.'


White privilege is being able to say that you support the words 'under God' in the pledge of allegiance because 'if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me,' and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the 'under God' part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.


White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.


White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was 'Alaska first,' and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.


White privilege is being able to make fun of community ogrganizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or > an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a 'second look.'

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.


White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.


White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a 'trick question,' while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.


White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a 'light' burden. And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole 'change' thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.


White privilege is, in short, the problem. "


Nope, Sarah getting the benefit of white privilege is.


BTW, thank you Mr. Morton for inventing the Blackberry, it is my favorite gadget and I could not live without it.....