The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Events in Iran following the outrageous actions of losing candidate Ahmadinejad (try to say it three times fast) and the supreme Ayatollah against massive street demonstrations in Tehran and across the country have turned violent. Though the secondary Ayatollah, the Iranian military and about half of the elite Republican Guard are supporting challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, or at least staying out of the fray.

Six members of the Iranian national soccer team wore green armbands in solidarity during the first half of a World Cup qualifying game yesterday (June 17). The government has tried hard to cut off all lines of communication to the outside world, but sporadic cell phone service has allowed text updates and cell phone videos to be distributed. Twitter put off scheduled maintenance to keep its service going during this dramatic confrontation, incoming posts at #iranelection.

HuffPo’s Live Blog has incoming information day and night, the University of Chicago has opened a dedicated Iran fax line [at 1-888-308-3025 for incoming] as cell service gets more unreliable. Various volunteers have been receiving cell videos from Iran and posting them to YouTube.

Here’s how you can help, and many people have set their computers up for proxy to cover individuals reporting from Iran. Election challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi is posting regularly on his Facebook page, which can be read in English by clicking that version at the bottom of the page. He has called for a national day of mourning for “those killed in post-election clashes” June 18.

The whole world is watching, President Obama said the other day, and it’s true. So wear some green, try to keep up, and let’s all hope for the best outcome.

Yet Another Terrorist Attack

I wrote on June 3 about the murder of Dr. George Tiller in a Lutheran church in Wichita, Kansas. This week another right-wing terrorist - a notorious hater revered in places like Free Republic and Red State but labeled far too extremist by the neo-nazi group Stormfront - walked into the Holocaust Museum in the nation’s capital and opened fire, killing a security guard. In April of this year a younger neo-nazi wingnut hater killed three Pittsburgh police officers in a suicidal shoot-out because he was afraid Barack Obama was going to take away his guns.

Right wing domestic terrorism is all too familiar in this country. Timothy McVeigh was the most notable in terms of body count, but certainly was not the first or last of his ilk. The problem is present at all times, but the most deadly attacks happen more frequently when there’s a Democrat in the White House. The right wing propaganda machine (a.k.a. FoxNews) provides the verbal incitement, the loyal-but-stupid wannabe Rambos among Fox’s white sheet and dunce cap fan base do the shooting and bombing.

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The Terrorists Among Us

In a Wichita, Kansas church on Sunday, radical anti-abortion wingnut Scott Roeder allegedly gunned down a physician named George Tiller in cold blood. Because Dr. Tiller provided abortion services to women whose right to decide whether or not to have a child has been the ‘Law of the Land’ since 1973. Roeder (and his ilk) don’t like it.

We know these murdering terrorists all too well, as Tiller isn’t the first doctor they’ve attacked and/or killed. The goal of killing doctors who provide legal medical services is not to end abortion. Abortion is as old as the hills. Safe medical abortion is relatively new.

Humans of course have more choices than bears and deer and burrowing critters who consume certain plants to induce abortion. Humans decide to have sex (most of the time), then they decide to have or not have a baby. It is apparently the freedom to choose that the antis so vehemently disagree with, so they engage in acts of terrorism with the intent to scare doctors away from providing the safe medical procedure.

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The Anti-Conspiracy Theory Conspiracy

I always find it funny when die-hard conspiracy theorists moan and groan about how stupid people are for believing conspiracy theories [CTs] that don’t happen to fit the favored CTs’ favored group-think. You know the type. “Our CT is the real truth, your CT is just crazy.”

Blogosphere case in point for best illustration of this phenomenon is Daily Kos, a progressive political site dedicated to electing Democrats, damning Republicans, and spreading the ridiculous idea that all things that might be conspiracies cannot actually BE conspiracies because that would mean the participants in those conspiracies know what’s real, agree amongst themselves to pretend that reality is not real, and are able to keep the reality out of the press and public sphere of knowledge. No one, apparently and according to the Kos powers that be, knows that much about anything.

Of course, that site is the biggest promulgator of the idea that the Bush administration plotted to start a war in Iraq by telling lies to the American public, which is a conspiracy (and not particularly theoretical, given that it actually did happen). And that the whole justification of torture of prisoners that began in 2002 (before said justifications were drafted by the lawyers tasked with justifying) was about gaining false confessions of a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Which would be a conspiracy, even though such things do not exist.

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Senate’s Secret Torture Investigation

…will it prevent a public accounting?

While both houses of the U.S. Congress are busily debating whether or not possible investigations of the Bush administration’s policies on the torture of prisoners and detainees in its wars on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan should be held at all, and if held whether or not they should be public, California Senator Diane Feinstein has managed to forestall the public possibility for a year. Democrat Feinstein and Republican Kit Bond of Missouri as chair and co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee announced on March 5 a Committee review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.

The probe is designed to discover new information about the origins of the programs as well as to scrutinize their operations. The five specified areas of investigation include:

• The creation, operation and maintenance of the CIA interrogation program.

• How detainees were assessed as to who possessed information valuable enough to require “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

• Whether the Intelligence Committee, Office of Legal Counsel and other responsible offices of government received accurate information from the CIA about its detention and interrogation programs.

• Whether the programs were implemented in compliance with guidance issued by the pertinent government offices.

• Whether information gained through the programs was valuable enough to justify the programs themselves.

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The GOP “Budget” - Starve the Poor

After having some trouble coming up with an alternative budget with actual numbers in it last week, Republicans managed to offer what amounts to the same old same old on April Fool’s Day. No one was surprised.

House minority whip Eric Cantor explains how he supports Rush Limbaugh as the Republican Party’s leading economist, with some really great “ideas.” Like cutting taxes for corporations and wealthy Americans, while slashing government spending on Medicare and Medicaid. Now, why didn’t Republicans think of this when they had complete control of the government over the last eight years? Oops… they did.

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Obama vs. Press Dolts: Round 2

…Obama WINS!!!

After just 64 days in office attempting to orchestrate some way out of the unholy mess those nutty Neocons left in their disastrous 8-year wake, President Barack Obama (oooh, I love saying that!) held his second hour long in-depth press conference on Tuesday night. Imagine a POTUS who actually makes himself available on occasion to the press to answer real questions! A POTUS who can speak proper English without inventing nonsense words out of whole cloth and lapsing into feigned ‘folksiness’ or juvenile frat-boy antics! This is all quite foreign to a populace that votes not for intelligence and ability, but on who they’d most like to get drunk with down at the bowling alley. Wow. It’s beginning to like like America just might have decided to join the 21st century at long last, doesn’t it?

In this second presser Obama chose not to call on ‘the usual suspects’ among the WH Press Corps’ denizens (who got their chance at the spotlight last month). He didn’t call upon reporters from the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune or even USA Today. Instead, he gave the backup bench a bit of a workout. This predictably led the stars to whine loudly that they weren’t getting their due amount of attention from their host.

But the true highlight of the evening was when Obama went ahead and DID call on one of those usual suspects - Ed Henry of CNN, who tried really hard for a “gotcha” question Obama would trip and fall over. Henry had already asked the question, but didn’t like the answer. So thought he’d have another go at wasting valuable air time with his oversized ego.

Henry wanted to know - and know right now - why it took Obama two days to come out publicly with outrage about the AIG bonuses. Especially since other people were expressing outrage right away. Visibly annoyed, Obama delivered a bitch-slap right to Henry’s cheek…

“It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

Oh, OUCH!!!!! That’s gotta hurt.

Wingnuts Go Crazy Again… (Still?)

Alas, the now-marginalized Republican Party is desperately attempting to solidify the ‘base’ it lost in the past two general election cycles, even to the point of declaring wealthy radio hate-monger, opportunist, chickenhawk and drug addict Rush Limbaugh to be their new Dear Leader. Whoa. Can things get weirder than that?

Aparently so. We’ve got Bill O’Reilly and Bernie Goldberg talking about beating up editorialists with baseball bats on cable television. We’ve got Total Gym shill Chuck Norris and Glenn Beck talking about setting up sleeper cells, and some actual Senators and Congressmen talking secession! No, that wasn’t just a Sarah Palin deal for Alaskan Independence. They might be serious this time.

Neo-Nazis planning those “dirty bombs” Bush-II used to love so much as a scare tactic, total idiots stuffing the SCOTUS with challenges to Obama’s citizenship while telling troops they don’t have to obey the orders of the Commander In Chief, things are getting weirder by the day. Sedition. Advocacy of open rebellion, talk of terrorist acts and assassination.

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Get Your Collector Obama T-Shirts Now!

Alex Ross for Stylin’

Now that the inauguration party is over and it’s still winter in Washington and the now-marginalized Republican Party is back to its obstructionist games, those who worked so hard for so long to get Barack Obama elected might want to pick up some of the paraphernalia they didn’t have time to pick up on the campaign trail.

Luckily, they’re not all gone yet. A site called Teenormous still offers funny Obama t-shirts worthy of collecting. Since I have several cool Star Wars shirts, I guess I’ll have to get one of Stylin’s “Help Us Obama, You’re Our Only Hope” shirts.

And for those who actually won the Superbowl pool, you can spend it on Steelers shirts too. Hint: do this BEFORE you figure your taxes for 2007, because when you do that you’ll be in for a big shock. Seems that those of us in the less-than $40K a year bracket had our taxes tripled when nobody was looking, and no, they didn’t take out nearly enough even if you were claiming no dependents at all. We will ALL owe way more than we’ve got this year unless we made a killing off the total world economic collapse.

Go figure…

A Historic Inaugural Address

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace.  Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.  At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been.  So it must be with this generation of Americans.

Yes, I cried. As did millions of other proud citizens who weren’t standing there in serious danger of having those tears freeze solid on our cheeks if we dared to let them flow.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real.  They are serious and they are many.  They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.  But know this, America -  they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

Amen! And to the immortal words of George Washington -

“Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America.  In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words.  With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.  Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Let’s use it wisely this time, America. That means not just being courageous enough to meet our serious challenges head-on with firmness and resolve, it also means rectifying the damage done to our nation and its cherished principles done by the past eight years’ worth of decimation of the Constitution, beginning most ominously with the interference of the Supreme Court, which dared to stop counting of the people’s votes so it could unilaterally appoint a pretender who could never have been in that position if our erstwhile leaders had finished the task of redress back when they impeached Richard M. Nixon.

And in that vein, perhaps the most hopeful sign of all in this past glorious few days’ worth of celebration is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sudden change of heart about the necessity for redress for the Bush administration’s blanket abrogation of Law with ’signing statements’ and executive orders, unilateral recinding of our nation’s signatory status to the important documents our past leaders helped to draft - the Geneva Convention - the mockery of international law with genocidal wars of unwarranted aggression they lied to us repeatedly to justify, the trashing of our fundamental Constitutional rights with illegal wiretaps and ‘extraordinary rendition’ and the sweeping abrogation of Habeas Corpus…

So many wrongs to right. So many challenges to face. God bless, Obama, we will do our parts.