If Only I'd Found This In March!

I'd ran across this article in the Journal The Democratic Strategist a few weeks ago and thought it very interesting... titled "Get Ready Democrats - Obama's opponents are getting set to 'unleash hell'", it immediately caught my attention. The author, James Vega, lays out the multi pronged approach to attacking the president he expects to see in the near future. I'd read SEVERAL articles on health care that day, and as I scanned through this one I could see glaring examples of Vega's talking points flash through my head in the images and headlines I'd recently read. In my mind, this was yet another piece on media spin and astroturf lobbyist which I book marked to go over more thoroughly later...

Finally today I go back and read the article more closely and two things immediately jumped out at me: 1. this policy referenced in the article was not health care at all, but economic policy and 2. it was written back in MARCH!!! Yikes! I would say that the names have changed but the game is the same, except the names really haven't changed either (Freedom Works)!

And speaking of Freedom Works, I saw Dick Armey on Meet the Press yesterday and that man is (pardon my french) a bitter, lying, sack of dung! He ACTUALLY started out by launching into how the townhall protester's behavior of late may not exactly be shining examples of civility but that their constant comparisons of the President to Adolf Hitler were merely the same type of hyperbolic rhetoric used by the group MoveOn.org against Bush during his administration!!! A charge that has been discredited six ways til Sunday. David Gregory let the statement go unchallenged (because he's useless) but THANKFULLY Rachel Maddow did not. Armey's obvious contempt for Maddow and her outdated use of "facts" was obvious. THEN (because I have to much time on my hands) I went a'googlin' to fact check what he had said and stumbled upon Freedom Works website - wherein a separate blogger repeats the same lie AND I find THIS galling front page story! *SIGH* But I digress... for the sake of my soul and my blood pressure, I will move on from this topic but I will NOT be a David Gregory and allow it to float along unchallenged.

So take a moment to read this wise strategists article and use it as the backdrop on which to set - not just the health care reform "debate" - but oppositions approach to Obama policy in general. And reflect on what I thought was the most chilling part in the piece:

"On the contrary, the scope of his ambition to be a solidly progressive Roosevelt-style president makes him appear as a genuine threat -- not just for committed Republicans, but to a substantial group beyond. For many, this threat is so grave that insuring the defeat of Obama’s political program now takes priority over what might be best for the economy. "

Except you replace the word "economy" with other related policies like "health care", "America", or "our environment"... Same game, different names.

Erik Prince Alleged Involvement In Murdering Government Witnesses

From THIS shocking article published at The Nation today, Erik Prince is alleged to have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating Blackwater/Xe. (I would HIGHLY suggest you read up on Prince and Blackwater via the wiki links, then proceed...

Reread the top paragraph and let that sink in for a moment.

According to one of the remaining unnamed witnesses, now under government protection for fear of his safety:

Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe":


To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.


Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."

Yep. Your tax dollars at work folks, funding America's Mullahs. Seperation of church and state my ass. This is publicly funded christian terrorism (lowercase "c" intended). After reading up on Prince and Blackwater (how did I survive before Wikipedia?), a few things jumped out at me:

*90% of Blackwater's revenue is from government contracts, 2/3 of which are no-bid contracts

*how much OTHER stuff Blackwater is heavily involved in (Hurrican Katrina??? Gawd forbid Bush pass up an opportunity to allow his cronies to profit from human misery...)

*the sick irony of reading that Prince serves as a board member of Christian Freedom International, a non-profit group with a mission of helping "Christians who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ", in light of above quotes about his alleged treatment of muslims

For more background, you might want to listen to THIS interview with the article's author, Jeremy Sachill, on The Diane Rehm Show about 2 years ago when he was promoting his book "Blackwater". I remember coming in half way and being so blown away that I got online and bookmarked it to listen to once they'd posted it. Great way to get up to speed on the topic while cleaning your house or doing work on your computer...

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Very Moving Diary On Race

"Dear Scared White Men of America

by Vita Brevis
Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 09:55:53 AM PDT

Let's talk. If you're not someone like Sessions, Hatch, Graham etc. this is NOT directed to you.

I can imagine that it's really an adjustment for you to see so many changes taking place in our nation. We have our first non-white President and we are on the cusp of having only our third woman and first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.

You don't understand how someone's experience other than being a white male, which in your view is the norm...the baseline...the yardstick by which all is measured, is relevant to anything. You see the world through false equivalencies and rear projected ideals that don't and have never existed."

CLICK HERE to read the diary in full. It wonderfull perpective.

Is the clock running out on the two-party system?

Well, for those of you who had already known that Palin was the antichrist from the campaign coverage last year - you are quickly finding yourself in wider company! Her emergence on the political scene heralded not only the end of basic standards for our representation, but to also to the Republican Party as a whole...

It will be interesting to see over the next few years, how our political parties reorganize. I simply can not see the GOP being capable of pulling together enough votes to get anywhere near the the numbers they had just a few short years ago. And with the trending demographics, they are fighting an uphill fight. The circular firing squad took aim before the polls even closed on election day, leaving repulicans dividing into two distinct subgroups: social-conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Nutters and sane folk frantically watching their party become destroyed/defined by right wing talkshow zombies...

You might think I'd break out my dancing shoes right about now, but it really isn't a good feeling. Let's face it, a democracy with only one viable political party is no democracy at all. Not to mention, it stirs up the crazies who apparently have already exceeded their caffine allotment.

Democrats are not entirely safe from the threat of splinterization either, as the recent health care debate is revealing. Battlelines are being drawn by progressives against the more centrist, more entrenched democrats. The people are awake and paying attention, wondering where their "change" is... And in the philosophy of "lead, follow, or get out of the way" they will begin to see which kind of people we"ve put in office.

So as I said, it will be interesting to see what happens down the road. I wasn't comfortable calling it until now, but i think it is official. RIP GOP. Wish I could say we hardly knew 'ye... May the Haig avenge your death... or something like that.

Sullivan: Even the total nutters are off the bus now

Link to Andrew Sullivans blog at The Atlantic.