Archive for the ‘Fourth Amendment’ Category

What we have here……is a huge celebrity. Worldwide. Global. Looks like it’s a problem. Our Man, by virtue of charisma, an absolutely uncanny ability to communicate, to orate a fresh and hopeful message, not just to Americans, but a good number of this planet’s citizenry, may have doomed himself for being so goddamn adept at showing us there is a better way.

Two hundred thousand plus showed up in Berlin.

What a shame, that so many of have grown so cynical as to stare so arrogantly into the mouth of this gift horse.

What a shame, that upon finally being presented with the real deal, so many many of us can’t help but be convinced that he must be an elitist. An arugula eating snob because he talks to the people of the world like adults.

I confess, I like arugula a lot. My favorite is a dish with perfectly grilled polenta, a thick vinegarette and a generous amount of gorgonzola. I get it to go and put a little Bob’s on top when I get home.

With the exception of the Bob’s, the other ingredients would probably lead most of the great unwashed to assume I’m an enthusiastic pole smoker. Were I to mention that it pairs well with a nice blanc de blancs, well then, I’m sure they’d be willing to assume the worst, that it’s not the only salad I’m willing to toss. Whatever.

They would be right. I don’t imbibe penis, but have no problem with those that deign to do so, regardless of gender. It goes without saying, I encourage and applaud the females. I am a progressive individual in both thought and deed.

I love sushi and crave caviar.

I believe health care should be free or at least affordable for the people of the richest country on earth. I think we should stop shaking our fists at countries that disagree with us. In fact, I really would prefer that we stopped bombing all the brown people. After all, the back of the most formidable military in the history of the world has been rent asunder by that very policy.

We should do our best to stop sucking our planet dry and instead utilize what the universe offers for free. The sun and the wind and the tide.

Know what else I like? Risotto. When prepared with care, it is like the most delicately textured pasta imaginable, in the unlikeliest pellet form. Mushrooms. Get it with mushrooms and aged parmesan.

I think we should legalize most drugs. Tax and regulate them to eliminate the criminal infrastructure and mitigate the astounding numbers of incarcerated that we pay for on top of the ridiculous “war on drugs”. On the other hand, it may suprise you to know that I’m thinking maybe anyone dealing meth or in the business of propagating it, might be better off dead.

Ever had a perfectly BBQ’d pork chop with a really good zinfandel?

You know what really chaps my ass? The erosion of our civil rights and liberties. FISA. Posse Comitatus. The Patriot Act. Amendments One and Four. All of the aforementioned have been severely and egregiously advanced in the last seven years while we voluntarily popped our thumbs into our asses and looked the other way because we were scared.

The most successful society in the history of humankind allowed itself to be frightened by it’s own so thoroughly, it’s literally frozen at the wheel. A deer in the headlights.

Both. Ha!

Try this:
Find a place with good, thin shoestring fries. Squeeze a lemon over them. Apply salt, preferably from the sea. Dip in mayonnaise and/or ketchup. I’m not a big beer drinker but most beers work well with this. Stick to lighter ones. Hefe weizen, pilsner and most authentic lagers work nicely.

I’m going to hold out two hands. You’ll need to pick one. Fair warning, in one hand is the very aggressive sale of fear and doubt. Let me know if you want me to tell you which hand it is.

I’ve started eating chili cheese fries. So far, Carl’s sets the bar.

I hear Cheney won’t be at the convention. Fuck me, that’s funny.

Drinks for my friends.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson aspires to remove the pearls from Our Man Obama’s bag. Cut them off and dump them out. So he says.

The vulgarity of “I wanna cut his nuts off”, helps me to believe it was sincere. A genuine sentiment. It cracked me up.

He was wrong, but he meant it. He was wrong, mistaken, underinformed, misguided but he meant it. We know it’s the truth because he didn’t know he was talking to anyone except the guy next to him. Awesome.

I point this out because it’s in stark contrast to the poisonous pale shit our elected representatives regurge on us every day deliberately, with avarice and cruelty, knowing full well it’s not in our best interest and that’s not why they’re there.

His own son, Congressman Jesse Jr., forced a turd into Jesse’s mouth and lit it. That shit is cold. He could have kept his mouth shut.

Forgive me, I’m no big fan of Jesse, except his reading of “Green Eggs and Ham” on SNL. He and Sharpton used to run pretty hard at who is whackiest, these days it’s Jackson by a full length.

Obama’s not “talking down to his people”. He is assuming the mantle of leader. Speaking up to everyone including his own.

His own who then?
Multiple Choice:

A) Blacks?

B) Fatherless?

C) Poor?

D) Middle class?

E) Marginalized?

F) Just about all of us in one way or another?

I can’t help but like Sharpton. I adored his convention speech and the bewildered chatter by the talking heads when he didn’t stick to the script. Sharpton was as cool that night as Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction. Newman in Cool Hand Luke.

He’s since seemed to own his brain more and his pride less. He’s far more thoughtful than he used to be. More intellectually honest. I like a lot of what he says these days, doesn’t seem to have lost his edge and he makes more sense.

Anyway, Our Man handled it with merciful aplomb:

“He will continue to speak out about our responsibilities to ourselves and each other, and he of course accepts Rev. Jackson’s apology,” -NPR

I’m still furious about FISA. There’s no immunity in the bill for criminal prosecution, but the one ‘Kingly’ right afforded the chief executive by the Constitutional Congress is an unrestricted power to pardon whomever the fuck Dumbya wants.

Dumbya signed it today. All the dominos will fall.

It’s all over but the shouting. There are many things we don’t know and that makes me nervous. Reid, Clinton, Boxer, Feingold et al. They all opposed. I understand they aren’t bucking for manager, but what gives?

Why then, did Our Man agree? For reasons we don’t know.

Yes, he cannot afford a sweat ball at the end of his nose over national security. It is the only issue with potential to gain traction on a gullible and witless electorate. Still, it’s unlikely. He just needs to make the case that we’re fucked as it is. It’s time to be proactive rather than reactive.

If this administration can be summed up in the simplest of terms; then it may be said that they have reacted badly, appallingly stupidly, instead of proactively. They are dumb and we have over seven years of sickening proof.

I’m pissed. As sweaty as this Fourth Amendment dynamite is, am I gonna vote for McCain? No, of course not. Neither will most of you. Obama knows that. It pisses me off.

The answer is G, all of the above.

Drinks for my friends.

The progressive blogosphere is ablaze today with speculation and outright dismay over Our Man Obama’s shuffle to the middle. The conventional wisdom is that it’s bad form and smacks of pandering to a demographic that had little to do with his nomination.

I wish I could disagree. I can’t. Thus far I can only manage disappointed, disillusioned and frustrated.

Our Man needs to take a breath and re-examine hisself. The man who’s gotten this far and why. He was different, brave and sincere. We believed him. We were inspired because he was exactly what we wanted. He’s what we desperately needed.

I nearly wept on March 18, as Our Man was expected to deliver a mea culpa over the Reverend Wright conflagration, but instead delivered the most courageous, eloquent, powerful and intellectually honest treatise on race I’ve ever witnessed in my life. That man touched my heart and appealed profoundly to my sensibilities.

The man I imagined as leader of my country.

The man who dismissed a suspension of the gas tax for what it was; a gimmick. The man who pronounced the war a mistake before we began it. Than man who didn’t break a sweat as he assumed the role of David against the Goliath that was the Clinton machine. The man who packed stadiums and with every soaring speech imbued us with ever more optimism and hope. The man who can call McCain on the carpet on every major issue and land firmly on the right side of all of them. The man who if true to his word, stands a reasonable chance at being among the handful of truly great American Presidents by affecting change on a scale we haven’t been allowed to aspire to since JFK.

That is the man I imagined as leader of my country.

Politicspeak defines his actions as some sort of “triangulation” to focus on and court “swing voters”. I define it as bullshit and it troubles me immensely. I gotta tell ya, this FISA thing is close to breaking my heart.

Mr. Obama, don’t do this to us. Despite copious and chronic voter fraud, the last two Democrats lost their bid for the White House because they were too cautious. They listened to handlers and advisers. Too willing to play to the middle when challenged by the Dick-in-Bush juggernaut for being dangerously liberal or weak.

Guess what? They were exactly that. Pussies, both of them.

We were all hoping you weren’t a pussy.

It didn’t work for them and it will backfire far more viciously on you for cultivating our most sincere dreams of a better, more responsible government. An American people better off and in a safer world. Cleaner. Less war. A lot less war. A reinvigoration of the middle class by maybe reversing the concentration of wealth? Perhaps with new green industries and a renewed concentration on infrastructure? A change in the tax code? A robust middle class is the key to a sound economy, you know.

We have chosen you as the best man, from a formidable field, to do this thing. We’re not here to fuck around.

I’m hoping this roar behind you continues. Even if you insist on losing your way, perhaps the roar of the people will show you the map, your map, and you’ll get right again.

Absent that, we’ll still get you in, but we’ll pound the shit out of you every day until you do the right thing. Worst case scenario, you abandon who and what gave you the keys to the universe and you’ll have to work even harder than Jimmy Carter to repair your legacy of failure.

Pay us now or pay us later. Just don’t fuck with us.

Drinks for my friends.

It’s bad enough what they did.

Dick-in-Bush sneered at the Fourth Amendment and gleefully engaged in an end run around existing FISA laws to illegally wire tap and otherwise surveil American citizens. They didn’t tell anybody. They even attempted to strong arm a United States Attorney General while hospitalized in critical condition to sign off on their egregious trangressions.

They sent Gonzales and Andy Card.

Upon The Grey Lady exposing them in early 2005, they postured for all the world like they had done nothing wrong and in fact, had our best interests in their heart of hearts along with the telecom companies that were complicit.

If you bought that when it went down, I’d like your phone number and credit card info.

Dumbya then called for retroactive immunity for those companies because he understood very well that they had violated the law and the Constitution and were they ever held accountable, well then, he would be too.

So the sycophantic Republicans floated a bill to make everything milk and honey for the telecom giants and therefore Dick-in-Bush. I was proud of the Democrats when they stood on principle and said no fucking way.

Responding on January 28, our man Obama said:
“I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill.

Ever since 9/11, this Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.

The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.

No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people – not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed.

That is why I am co-sponsoring Senator Dodd’s amendment to remove the immunity provision. Secrecy must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens – and set an example to the world – that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient.” -firedoglake.com

For what it’s worth, The Little Paste Eater stood proud and quoted Ben Franklin to remind us that those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither.

What’s worse is what we did. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi along with a hundred and five Democrats, aided in passage of a bill that DOES provide immunity for the telecom arm of the plutocracy. Our own man Obama brought gravel chunks of salt to the laceration by declaring his support for the “compromise”

He said in a published statement:

“It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.” -Salon.com

Let’s cut to the chase. He says this, knowing full well how unlikely such an effort is to enjoy the remotest chance of success. Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged the dubiousness of such.

Fuck this shit. It’s a fool’s errand and Mr. Obama is no fool.

They all know it will pass the Senate as though lubricated with Crisco. So easily was it shat by the House after insertion of a suppository chock full of fear, terrorism and national security paranoia.

Mr. Obama, fuck this shit.

You are here, a man who will most likely be the next President of The United States of America, because we the people have put you here. We put you here, because we have been led to believe that this is precisely the brand of malfeasance you will fight against. You have ignited in us a hope, that this brand of fuckery will not be allowed, not tolerated, not even negotiated.

The law has been broken and you know it.

The idea that you would break our hearts this early, in context of a principle this vital, disturbs and gives me pause. Thus far, despite your imperfections, I’ve believed in you. In this instance however, I simply cannot abide. It makes me furious that otherwise my choice is an asshat like McCain.

Don’t do this to me. Don’t do it to us. When, inevitably, efforts to remove immunity from the bill fail, vote against it. Stand on principle, the rule of law and most important, why we have come to believe in you.

Tests for you so far have been Fisher Price, pale, in the face of this most important one so far. There is no room to move here. It is as black and white as a moral imperative can be.

Vote against it. I almost care less about the outcome than I do your vote.

What exactly are you so afraid of?

Hey Barry, this isn’t change we can believe in.

Drinks for my friends.