Apparently the Birmingham News thought it could stop the civil rights movement if it didn’t publish these photographs.

All I can say is that we are WAY overdue for another revolution in this country.

The latest on Duke Cunningham – the CA Republican congress person that got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

If anyone believes for a moment that politicians aren’t mostly on the take they should look a little deeper.

For example, why would someone with money want to run for political office? Ask yourself that.

Thing is, this crosses party lines. It isn’t just the Republicans that are on the take, the Democrats are too. It’s just the degree to which each party commits such acts that changes. Democrats live high on the hog, whereas Republicans live high on several hogs.

This is why we need real campagin finance reform, and perhaps a break on the two party stranglehold over our political system.

The following are required reading for all who read this blog:

Barbara Ehrenriech’s “Nickle and Dimed” and “Bait and Switch”
Arianna Huffington’s “How To Overthrow The Government”
Steve Squyer’s “Roving Mars”
Steven D. Levitt’s “Freakonomics”

and if you can find it:
Robert Manchester’s “The Arms of Krup: 1587 to 1968”

What? Don’t look at me like that. It’s only about 1,800 pages or so in total. But if you read those books you’ll more understand this blog.

Using the IRS to investigate enemies has been SOP for Presidents, Congress and law enforcement for many years. It’s ultimately how they bagged Al Cappone.

But the fact the DeLay’s political ronies used it to harass Texans for Public Justice just becuase they questioned DeLay’s campaign finance is beyond despicable.

I hope Mr. DeLay serves a nice long sentence at Club Fed because if there’s one thing I cannot stomach is when a politician uses said power to menace those critical of them. By that measure, I’ve been openly critical of the Republican leadership in Congress, the President and even local politicians so I’m more than likely sure I’ve been looked at by various agencies in the past and present. That I haven’t positive knowledge of the fact is even more scary.

If Al Qaeda is indeed intent on destroying Saudi oil production we better be prepeared.

Here’s a list of what oil is used for in the United States:

Obvious:
Heat
Energy
Gasoline
Oil
By extension of that above – our food supply is dependent on oil. Even some pesticides are petroleum based.

Not terribly obvious:
Pharmaceuticals
Plastics
Detergents
Product Packaging
That computer you’re using.

This is just the short list. Peter Allan wrote “Rumsfeld’s Paw” on the Huffington Post. It inspired me to write this little note of warning.

You see, the United States isn’t the only country that depends on oil. Europe depends on oil, China is now very dependent on oil, as is India.

What happens when more than half the supply suddenly disappears? You guesses it – contests in which winner takes all gains new meaning.

Thank you George W. Bush for making the world less secure.

This part pretty much sums up the entire satire:

Rove: He’s right, you know. George is mad and all, but he would never have enjoyed the privilege of tarnishing the executive office if we were nice guys. Hell, my whole career is predicated on my special talent for shameless, craven smear tactics. What the hell are we doing here, anyway?

Read in its entirety here.

Rove is such an easily caricatured individual anyhow. If you had to define evil incarnate he’d be the gold standard. I find it hard to believe that his smear tactics have been so succesful when even someone with a quality 8th grade education can smell the bullshit from a mile away.

But then The Beast seems to be able to smell the bovine effluvia that flows from the likes of Pat Robertson, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleeza Rice et al.

In the case of Rice, Keyron and I were talking about her today. He thinks she’s the token black of the White House. I told him that there aren’t many token blacks that had oil tankers named after them.

Anyhow, I’ll echo an oft posted dream – that the Democrats can actually mount a campaign in 2006, take at least one house of congress and make their most important duty the impeachment of Bush. Lets face it, it’s beginning to look more and more like Cheney is going to jail. Taking out Bush would just be too easy.

I hollered out loud at a few of these. But one in particular struck me as very funny:

13. God

Charges: If your answer to the age-old question of God’s existence is “yes,” your next question should be, “Why is he such a dick?” After three major natural disasters, not to mention the eternal constants of famine, war and disease, to believe in God is to believe either that He enjoys fucking with us, or at best has totally lost interest in the whole “people” thing. Never calls anymore.

Exhibit A: Mosquitoes, Ralph Reed.

Sentence: Forever listening to an unending stream of idiotic, mundane prayers uttered by the dumbest, most inarticulate people in His creation.

Indeed – how can we posit that a god is all loving when it allows hell to break loose on earth. No wonder I’m an atheist.

Some of the other loathsome: Karl Rove, Bill Frist, Barbara Bush, and Sam Alito. See the whole spectacle.

Apparently the White House has handed over some 250 pages of emails purporting that not only did Cheney know about the outing of Valerie Plame, but they he was active in the outing.

I realize this isn’t MSM but it’s a good read. Just imagine what would happen to Dubya if Cheney were taken out of the picture? Of course I know a presidential pardon would be given but still, the tarnish will be a bit much for the Republican party to rub off.

Because Black Box Voting is really going gangbusters identifying serious election hanky panky.

For example, while I find the grammar and syntactical skills of the journalists at the Associated Press to be very disappointing, this article ineloquently states what the problems encountered happened to be.

Even during the 2000 Judicial Fiat we knew something was wrong. Same happened in 2004 and Dubya’s plunging numbers only reinforce the notion that something is seriously rotten in Denmark.

So for the past couple of weeks I’ve gotten messages that someone from the RNC is calling me about an award, etc. Of course the message is less than satisfactory so today I called.

When I talked to the guy they played a message from Representative Reynolds about how small businesses are being squeezed by taxes, regulation, etc. Now granted, I have an EIN and I use it for corp-2-corp stuff that I do. But I’m a one man shop – reason being is that it’s a part time gig and the thing the really makes me not jump into the fray feet first is something I don’t think most of you would have guessed.

It’s health care. There’s no way in hell as a small business owner that I’d shell out $5,000 a year for health insurance for myself. But if nationalized health insurance were out there, I’d be more likely to not only jump in feet first but I’d also me likely to hire folks knowing that I don’t have an out of control expense to contend with.

On a /. thread I made the point that less than 10% of the money we spend on military misadventure would pay for a manned space program for at least 20 years.

And if we took, oh, 25% of the military budget we could probably make sure that every U.S. citizen has health insurance. Hell, with that kind of money we could make sure they had access to a medical system the likes of which the world has never seen.

Granted, I object to the fact that in Rhode Island the tax rules for a business are just this side of ridiculous.

For example, even if I had an overall loss for the fiscal year I’d still be on the hook to division of taxation for $500. That just adds insult to injury in my opinion.

And I guess the RNC didn’t research me very well. Had they done so they would have found that I’m ultra-left leaning liberal. That’s right, just to the left of Ghandi.