Quick update on the WORD police....

Check out Media Matters Post on the issue.

WORD my peeps....

A.L.

The GOP is now Team America WORD Police

America *#%&@! yeah!

In a move taken from Big Brother ala 1984, the GOP is now telling the press how to talk about their ideas and policies.

Most recently this manifested itself in the choice of wording when describing the possible change in 200+ year old Senate rules to end the judicial filibuster. Understand, that this is one tool left that prevents complete one-party rule in Washington.

SO in the early days of this discussion GOP Senators and hard-right supporters were more than happy to call this the "nuclear option" until their polling started to tell them that it was becoming an un-popular idea. So now... and this is where the page is ripped out of Big Brother's playbook... they are telling all GOP operatives to call it a "Constitutional Option". They have also somehow hoodwinked the media into believing that only Democrats have been calling it the "nuclear option". I heard this played out on an NPR segment by David Welna that can be found here. So much for NPR as an arm of the dreaded Liberal Media.

So what is the truth here? Who came up with this idea as a "nuclear option"? Must be someone really crafty.... Some sick liberal... probably Ted Kennedy... or Barbara Boxer... Right?

WRONG!

It was none other than that stalwart of the Radical Republican Right Wing... the man who said Strom Thurmond should have been President and then we wouldn't have all the problems we have now.... Yes! Disgraced former Senate Majority leader..... TRENT LOTT!!

Did you know he was part of the liberal media? I sure didn't....

Click here for the full story in the New Yorker, but here is the meat that supports my argument:

Changing the Senate’s rules on judicial filibustering was first addressed in 2003, during the successful Democratic filibuster against Miguel Estrada, whom Bush had nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Ted Stevens, a Republican Senate veteran from Alaska, was complaining in the cloakroom that the Democratic tactic should simply be declared out of order, and, soon enough, a group of Republican aides began to talk about changing the rules. It was understood at once that such a change would be explosive; Senator Trent Lott, the former Majority Leader, came up with “nuclear option,” and the term stuck.

Say it ain't so!

The GOP is misleading us to further their agenda...

To refresh your memory about other times when the WORD police showed their true colors take a look at:

Estate Tax vs. Death Tax
Late-term abortion vs. Partial-birth abortion.
Private accounts vs. personal accounts.
Incredible trampling on our rights vs. Patriot Act.

And on and on.....

What's worse you might ask? Well, take a look at supposed Christian groups like Wing-nut James Dobson's Focus on the Family who are telling their e-subscribers and his radio listeners that Democrats came up with the term "nuclear option" outright, or at the least they are implying that. I guess POWER corrupts. Dobson wants to create a right-wing Christian state, and he's not above lying to his own people to see it come about.

SICK!

A.L.

Bad day to be a little guy....

Couple things happened today in Congress apparently....

The House passed the bankruptcy reform bill today and its on its way to the White House for W's signature. Essentially, it is now much harder to declare bankruptcy and get one's life back together. There is a new means test, which means that if a debtor has an income that is greater than the mean income of the state in which they live, they have to file chapter 13 and a bankruptcy court will assign them their repayment plan. If the debtor has an income that is below the mean income of their state, their debts are erased and they get to start over. This is a huge change.

In all the run-up to this bill, I didn't hear enough talk about the root causes of bankruptcy today. This is a perfect example of treating the symptoms instead of the disease. There was not enough talk about the surging costs of healthcare in this country, and how just about (if not more than) half the personal/family bankruptcies in America are due to medical crises. How about going after the predatory lending loan-sharks, I mean credit card companies? Seems to me that there is some merit to re-thinking this one...

In the other major legislative "progress" yesterday the House sent a bill to the Senate that would keep the provision to repeal the Estate Tax past 2010. This is a tax that is paid by only the wealthiest 1% of Americans... It is estimated that this will cost the US treasury $290 billion... Now, how much will Social Security be short? $3.7 Trillion... How much money will the US treasury lose if all the Bush 2001-03 tax-cuts are made permanent? $11.1 Trillion...

Republicans and mostly the far-right like to talk about returning taxpayers money to its rightful place, taxpayers pockets. That burns me up, they talk about this as if they are making it better for the average American. Kerry wasn't lying when he talked during the campaign about how the richest in our society received the overwhelming amount of those tax-cuts.

It boils down to this, buy off the rich folks 'cause they vote for the GOP, then starve the programs that the less fortunate depend on to retire with some semblance of dignity.

What a great ownership society... it's all about the few owning the rest.

A. Liberal

Clark 2008!

I liked Clark in 2003.

I signed on to volunteer for his primary campaign because he inspired me at a speech he gave at DePauw University in September of 2003. He would have made a good President. He was a little green as a candidate though, and that's why we got Kerry.

Don't get me wrong, Kerry was good, and in my book, miles ahead of Bush. Just a little too timid.

Here is an example of how good Clark is/was.

Genius.

A. Liberal

Pope John Paul II died today

Pope John Paul II died today from complications related to the illness that had been plaguing him for months.

Septic Shock is what I believe they said arose from organ failure, which came about due to the urinary tract infection he got as a result of the aforementioned months-long illness. Sounds like a number of dominoes falling. At that age, and in his condition, I guess that is to be expected.

From the news reports, it sounds like he died peacefully, in his own bed, listening to someone read passages from the New Testament. Sounds like a great way to go. An example, even in death. If we could all go like that we'd be lucky.

I am not a Roman Catholic, but I have many friends who are/were/not practicing, etc. I have immense respect for the Roman church, but also had a few points of disagreement in terms of Dogma and doctrine. Nevertheless, I felt that the Pope was a shining example of Christ/God's love for the world and for humanity. He stood up against the Nazis, the Soviets, and even recently stood up to the Bush-Blair axis of hegemonic projection. I believe that Pope John Paul II was a man who had convictions, and consistently followed those convictions.

I think that today we in this world have lost a great leader. In heaven God is welcoming home a good and faithful servant and saying... "well done".

A.L.