The shunning of Rashard Mendenhall.

Rashard Mendenhall has learned the hard way that speech isn't exactly free in A-merry-ca. Exercising his rights given to him by the first amendment of our Constitution is going to cost him big time. It has already started.

Poor Mr. Mendendall, the vitriol that has been thrown his way would leave one to wonder if he was one of the 19 hijackers who came into our country on September 11, 2001, and killed almost 3,000 of our fellow A-merry-cans.

What he said was no doubt dumb, but he had every right to say it. This is, after all, A-merry-ca.

Rashard is a football player, fans of the NFL should keep that in perspective. As long as he performs on the field and doesn't break any laws it should be a wrap. But we all know that it doesn't work that way in A-merry-ca. It's never about the person's actions, but who is doing the acting. We are funny like that.

I blame the people around Mendenhall as well. They should have told my man about the dangers of tweets. Twitter can be a good thing, but it can sink you. It will probably sink this Steelers career for sure, and that's a shame. After the Rooneys let him go he will have a tougher time finding a team to take him than Michael Vick did. (Eagles we could always use a good running back.)

Now, as is to be expected, he is backtracking faster than one of his teammates who plays cornerback. I can't say that I blame him given all that is at stake, but I am afraid that it's too late, the damage has been done. The tweet is out there, and A-merry-ca has passed judgement on Mr. Mendendall.

Rashard, I hope you saved your money. You are going to need every penny of it.

Finally, shout out to Steven D for picking up the Bobby Yates story we posted here and posting it over at Daily Kos. My man is all over the case as well, and I say the more the merrier.

Also, thank you Nancy Lockhart for sending me all the material and transcripts from the case. That is serious FNB by both of you.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful mothers who visit the fields!!!

We decide we report, and you believe.

The people who come to this site on a regular basis are quite familiar with my strong dislike for all things FOX NEWS. My contempt for them has nothing to do with jealousy towards Rupert Murdoch and all his billions (although it would be nice if he throw a dollar or two my way). No, my contempt for them has more to do with my love for the people who make up this republic.

FOX NEWS is dangerous. Very dangerous, and if we can't stop them, we should at least be aware of the damage that they can do.

If you think that the mass media and the press can't be used to do unimaginable things, you better think again. Think of the folks who made up the Hutu majority slaughtering their Tutsi brothers and sisters in Rwanda while RTLM (Radio Rwanda) encouraged people to kill,kill, kill.

Think of Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany and the "Propagnamisterium" (propaganda ministry) he was charged to keep. In order for those sick fucks to be able to carry out their plan, they had to get the message out and have the people believe it.

Now I am not comparing Roger Ailes and the folks over at FOX NEWS to Nazis.....well, maybe I am. But I really do need you to understand just how dangerous these guys are. And when I read essays like the one I lifted below from Buzzflash editor, Mark Karlin, it just reinforces my position.

"The FOX Propaganda Network endangers my life -- and yours.
How else can you explain that a White House administration and Republican Party who have squandered hundreds of billions of dollars, countless lives, and a war longer than WW II -- and we haven't even caught Osama bin Laden?

The FOX Propaganda Network isn't set up to help save America from terrorists; it's the "Tokyo Rose" of television networks, set up to save the Republican plutocrats from the wrath of the voters who might otherwise realize the sheer and utter incompetence of Bush, Cheney and the GOP in dealing with terrorism.

Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin and the entire multi-million dollar compensated on-air talents are traitors because their job is to protect the back and flank of the GOP, not to protect America.

And that is what puts my life at risk -- and yours.
Sean Hannity is no patriot. He is an oleaginous, slicked up car salesman chickenhawk who has sold America and us down the river for his paycheck.
One of the characteristics that we are most proud of about America is our ingenuity, our tenaciousness, our resilience.

Yet, the FOX Propaganda Network has spent the last years supporting moribund, stone headed, unwavering failure.

If you think being a chronic loser is patriotic, then FOX is the station for you, because that's what it backs. That's not patriotic; it's contrary to what made America great.
What made America great is competence and ingenuity, not slavish dedication to the architects of defeat.

FOX is a traitor in our midst. Yes, they have their First Amendment rights, and no one is going to deny Sean Hannity his $40,000 plus speaking fees and private jet transportation.
But they should be shunned for the risk they help to create to all our lives by endlessly championing dolts, proven liars, and leaders who turn gold into cow dung.

All FOX proves in its propaganda angle is that a few thousand hearty potential terrorists, at most, have held the world's strongest power at bay for years, while ruining our economy with onerous and ineffectual war expenses, helping to weaken the dollar, drive up the price of oil, and, in turn, helping to cause a world food crisis and more.

It used to be the American way that if you couldn't do the job, you got out of the way or got fired. But the fat paycheck propagandists at FOX now tell us that mediocrity and failure define the new American patriotism -- that and an American flag lapel pin made in China.
God have mercy on their souls -- and let's hope that we can survive the glorification that FOX gives to losers who imperil our lives.

We need an America that proves itself by getting the job done; not by relying on Roger Ailes GOP propaganda talking points to divert the masses from people who have utterly failed them. "

My sentiments exactly!

The war on common sense

Three soldiers were killed in Baghdad by a roadside bomb today. That brings the total of A-merry-cans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for this phony ass war, to 3,996. Yes folks, we are almost at the 4,000 mark.

And for what? Oh that's right we are in a war against terror, and we have to fight them over there so that they ---the terrorist--- won't fight us in the middle of Yankee Stadium. Yes folks, the "surge" is working. So says Mr. Morton and a host of other rethuglicans who have staked their political careers on this chaotic and ill conceived fiasco in Iraq.

"The US is on track to victory." Yeah sure frat boy, and just which victory is that? How do you even determine when you have won a war against terrorist? A terrorist does not represent a particular country, he represents an ideology. I agree with George Soros; "to fight terrorist we must use political and not military solutions. Terrorism is an abstraction, it merely lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics". So this so called war on terror that the frat boy has duped A-merry-cans into thinking exists, is nothing more than a huge political shell game, designed to give power to those who are using it, and to make their friends rich.

The frat boy, after all, is good at this; his family built their wealth and their empire thanks to wars.

So here we are again, five years in, with no end in sight. If you hear Mr. Morton tell it, we could be in Iraq for another 100 years. Now that's some scary shit! Think about it? At an average of approximately four thousand lives every five years, we are looking at eighty thousand more A-merry-can lives if Mr. Morton has his way. And think about this: five years into this war on terror, and we still have not captured Osama bin Laden, nor have we captured al-Zawahiri. There is still no political solution in Iraq, and we are no closer to making the real culprits and masterminds behind 911, pay.

But amazingly, 35% of the people in this country still believe that this war was worth it. And most of the people in this country seem to have moved on. Hell if you read all the national polls it is not even the number one issue on the minds of A-merry-cans anymore. Nope, far more pressing thinks to be concerned with, like putting food on our tables.

I know one thing, there are at least 3,996 A-merry-cans in this country who do care, because their loved ones gave the ultimate sacrifice. And my heart goes out to everyone of them.

"There was blood everywhere"

Those tragic words came from the lips of a Virginia Tech student, after a campus massacre in the rolling mountains of Western Virginia took the lives of thirty two of his fellow students. Hey, all I know about Virginia Tech is that Michael Vick played some serious football there, and it's in a beautiful part of the country. But today I also learned this: That Virginia Tech was the scene of the largest single day killing spree in American History. In one day, some animal managed to do- what is for us here in Philly, a months worth of killings.

This was horrible, and it seems like every time we think that these unspeakable acts can't get any worse, they do. From the former Marine who took out sixteen people from a tower on the University of Texas. To the depraved animal who bound and executed five little Amish girls in Lancaster Pennsylvania, because of his sick delusions. Somehow it just seems that these types of tragedies keep happening over and over again, and unfortunately, we can't figure out what is in the American psyche that causes it.

And before I write one more word, let me say this right now: I feel for those victims and their loved ones, and I would never minimize what they are experiencing, or what they had to go through today.

Now here comes my rant: We as Americans like to think that we are above harboring pure evil in our hearts. We like to think of ourselves as morally superior to other people in the world, because, this is, after all, America. It's hard for us to fathom one of our own committing these horrific acts against a fellow American. Yet time and time again, it happens, and these acts are not only committed by adults, but by children as well.

So what is it that's driving those of us in our society to commit these acts, and why does it keep- happening? Isn't it funny how conservatives spend all their time trying to scare us into being afraid of the Muslim bogeymen and terrorist who would bring harm to us, yet our own children have shown that they are capable of acts that are just as heinous and despicable? Maybe we should focus more of our war on terror right here at home.

I know that in the neighborhoods of our inner cities people live with terrorist every day. Try telling a retired grandmother who just cashed her social security check, that the ignorant ass young buck waiting to jack her isn't more dangerous than Osama bin Laden. I see where the President and members of congress came out and spoke about this tragedy today, and they tried to offer comfort and words of encouragement to an uneasy nation. "Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning." Yeah I hear you Mr. President, but it sure would be nice to hear you make a statement to all the poor people in inner cities all over our country. People who have to listen to gun shots night after night, and who see the blood of their children in the streets when they wake in the morning. It's nice that you have offered federal aid to the people of Virginia to help them cope with this tragedy, but what the f**k? There have been over one hundred and twelve murders in my hometown alone this year, and I guarantee you there ain't no federal aid on the way. Again, I feel for those who lost loves ones today, but you know what, I feel for all the people who have lost loved ones here in my city so far this year as well.

Now you will hear all the NRA apologist say; (they come out of their holes every time there is a mass killing now) "Guns don't kill people, people kill people". Yes that may be right, but I guarantee you that it wouldn't be so easy for "people to kill people" if they didn't have such easy access to guns. Or how about this one: "Well if one of those students were packing heat they would have been able to stop the gunman before he could have killed more people." Yeah right, like a mother f****r wants to be packing his Glock along with his organic chemistry book in his book bag every fu****g day.

But hey, such is life in this John Wayne culture of ours in America. We have to be free to keep purchasing our guns and killing each other at will. You never know when an unjust government might want to infringe on our Second Amendment rights. Or God forbid, a liberal might get out of line.