Republicans Don't Want the Poor To Vote

Yet more evidence that Republicans would prefer it if only rich white people vote. And they'll harass and drive out anyone who tries to make sure that the poor can vote. Because it's the Republican way: suppress the votes of the poor, and the Republicans win. Cry "vote fraud!" when the poor actually do vote, and claim that they didn't vote legally, even when they do. Challenge their right to vote and threaten them with jail time, which the poor, being poor, can't fight against. Thugs. That's all these Republicans are. Thugs. And they are in control of our government.

It Needs To Be Said

As many times as it takes for people to understand:

Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I'm not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture - "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.
-Andrew Sullivan

Americans do not torture. It's wrong. It isn't an effective method of interrogation. It's evil. Americans do NOT torture. So what does that make the Bush Administration?

Ranting

Andrew Bacevich on the loss of his son in a war he protests.

Not for a second did I expect my own efforts to make a difference. But I did nurse the hope that my voice might combine with those of others -- teachers, writers, activists and ordinary folks -- to educate the public about the folly of the course on which the nation has embarked. I hoped that those efforts might produce a political climate conducive to change. I genuinely believed that if the people spoke, our leaders in Washington would listen and respond.

This, I can now see, was an illusion.

The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed. The November 2006 midterm elections signified an unambiguous repudiation of the policies that landed us in our present predicament. But half a year later, the war continues, with no end in sight. Indeed, by sending more troops to Iraq (and by extending the tours of those, like my son, who were already there), Bush has signaled his complete disregard for what was once quaintly referred to as "the will of the people."

Thoreau on the uselessness of our leadership.

Happy Villian tells us why she doesn't publicly oppose the war.

Mona on the inability of republicans to see the world in front of them.

A strong summary of what's in Iraqi blogs.

How life for Iraqi women has changed because of the war. No wonder they hate us.

Let's call a spade a spade: Bush Administration taking cues from the Nazis.

Thoreau on how far we've fallen that we have to ask if people are against torture. Think about that for a second. There are actually people who claim to be Americans who support TORTURE. How can they justify themselves? How can they look in the mirror, knowing that they approve of torturing another human being?

Scott Adams on Global Warming, as a man who came to it recently and has had a blog-comment assisted education about it.

Real examples of Feminism.

Legomancer on Memorial Day.

People who watch Fox "News" tend to be really uninformed, basically stupid, about the real world. Here's some stats that might explain why.

The War Prayer by Mark Twain. If you support any war, read this.

Memorial Day

Hard to be patriotic when your country is involved in an illegal and immoral occupation and your president continues to recklessly waste the sacrifices of our military.

It's hard to mourn the dead when you feel a deep sense of shame that their lives were taken in an unjust war by civilian leadership that never faced the dangers themselves - and only care about making more profits for their companies.

Indeed, it's hard to be anything but incredibly bitter on this Memorial Day, when our rights are being stolen by war profiteers holding the highest offices in the land and our soldiers are being wasted by a spineless Congress that was voted into office to stop the war but instead backed down when the traitor in the office of the president threw a temper tantrum and the media slavered at the prospect of misinforming the public yet again about what "defunding" actually means.



May the ghosts of all our war dead haunt the people who claim to be leaders of this land, and may the nightmares of every soldier visit those cowardly leaders until the day of their deaths. None of those so-called leaders are even fit to shine the shoes of our soldiers in uniform.

Links

I'm sorry for his loss, but perhaps he should sue himself for not teaching his son not to drink and drive. That makes as much sense as suing the driver of the stalled car.

The idiot Falwell fan who wanted to bomb protestors was upset at the sickos from Westboro Baptist Church. The same sickos who keep protesting at soldiers' funerals. Almost makes you wish the Falwell fan had suceeded. Almost. Except it's better to ignore sickos than give them more publicity.

Links

Congressional Food Stamp Challenge. Can you live on $21 a week? Via Boing Boing. Update: The TSA took his food. More here.

Poetry for Falwell.

Scott Adams on the power of our youth to stop war.

Wellington Grey: When I'm King.

Political and Other Links

Too many innocents are being killed by the death penalty. No more.

New bio-fuel plant? Maybe.

Riverbend on leaving Iraq

Goldy is banned in China, apparently for exposing just how much poison China puts into food exports that we end up eating.

Terror On Wall Street: 16 September 1920.

An attempt to protect the secret ballot in Washington State. Yay. It should never have been threatened.

How to NOT teach math to girls.

War Profiteers to Clinch 30-Year Deals. War Profiteers started the Iraq war with the help of traitor George Bush and his cabinet of liars. I think all war profiteers should be put in prison on bread & water diets for the rest of their miserable lives. If I still believed in the death penalty, I'd say they all should hang for murdering US soldiers. Actually, I might be able to make an exception in my opposition to the death penalty for war profiteers. But I somehow doubt we'll ever even get to see them charged for their crimes. Too many gullible republicans believe every lie Rush and Bill-o tell them.

Links

Scott Adams admires the government of Taiwan. Because they fight. Like, real fistfights, during sessions. I think he has a point.

California is testing its voting machines, and vendors better hope they pass. Let's hope this is a serious test, and that they catch the crappy machines designed to steal elections.

Links

The War on Drugs is stupid, and it's terrorizing and killing innocent people.

We continue to be Poisoned. And it's getting worse.

The Tragedy of Iraq, and how we could've won the war instead of just the first battle.

Support Our Troops

Don't let their children be taken away from them while they are serving their country. This needs to be fixed, and soon.

Whine Whine Whine Links

Bill O'Reilly analyzed by Indiana University.

Once again, Brown = Terrorist. Paranoia does us no good.

Riverbend is leaving Iraq.

Mark Evanier directs us to Joshua Micah Marshall's appraisal of the war in Iraq.

Evanier also posts an interesting statistic: "...Bush's approval rating is forty points lower than Bill Clinton's on the day he was impeached."

Unqualified Offerings talks about Taxi to the Dark Side, "The focus of the film is the death of an innocent Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, who was arrested on a flimsy suspicion and tortured to death. By our guys. Not by the Taliban. By our guys."

FilkerTom directs us to Fundies Say The Darndest Things!

We are Poisoned.

Linkdump

Via Mark Evanier, Mission Accomplished by the Numbers.

George Bush on Timetables.

I was born republican, but grew up to be democratic. The words "easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable" describes my childhood perfectly.

Despite Diebold's proven record of crappy voting machines, King County still prefers them for counting ballots. Good-bye democracy!

Why not call a spade a spade? Bush's march to Fascism.

Just in case you doubted that republicans stole the election, yet more evidence rises that they easily could have, thanks to party-controlled networks and voting machine manufacturers who were committed to delivering votes to republicans.

We are poisoned.

Who's to blame for the Virginia Tech massacre, according to the press and blogs.

Washington State to get rid of secret ballot. Sucks to be us.

Soldiers can no longer blog without permission.