What is an eight ball and how much does it cost?

The average suburban couple, the kind that never miss a days work. The kind that actively participate in their children's upbringing. The kind who's own parents point to them with pride, can easily go through a gram of cocaine and a quarter of a once of marijuana a week. This would be considered to be very moderate usage.

How much money does that cost, I wonder, for good stuff. Four or five hundred dollars would be my guess. That would be twenty to twenty five thousand dollars a year. That's an interesting number, because that's how much a lot of people I know have been pulling out of their home equity each year, when they refinance. It makes sense. How many people, when they are figuring out their budget, add in eighteen hundred a month, for dope. It would be no great surprise then, if they come up short, real short, at the end of the year.

Nobody talks about drugs anymore. The war on drugs. Legalizing drugs. How much they cost. I have no idea which drugs are popular these days. I suspect they are all pretty popular and that different people have different preferences. I think drug use is pretty common, across the entire spectrum of our society, age, sex, political party, religion, socio-economic status, etc. They're pretty much every where. No one gets too concerned over it. Everybody knows George Bush uses a lot of drugs. A lot of people dislike his Presidency but not because of that. George has sent a lot of troops to Columbia. That seems more along the lines of supporting the right wing cartels against the left wing cartels, not really interdiction.

For whatever reason, drugs seem to be with us to stay. They are a significant factor in the economy. The government efforts to control their use, are no more than token. The prosecution and incarceration of drug offenders seems to have become entirely discriminatory in nature. It seems like we might want to start towards an acceptance of some of these facts and begin to deal with reality.

Many Days You Have Lingered, Outside My Cabin Door

We have listened to the old men. Our leaders. Men of experience. Men of wisdom.

They told us it would never happen. All we had to do was follow their lead, Keep a good thought and not succumb to the fear and doubt. Work hard. Live our lives. Raise our children. Nothing could hurt us.

A service economy is inherently more stable than one based on actual production. Production jobs are boring, uninteresting and don't pay good. The people that do them become malcontents and want collective bargaining, benefits and better pay. The market for goods and materials can fluctuate but people are always going to need their investments managed, their taxes done, their pools cleaned, their burgers flipped. The pay might not be good but if you're smart, you'll learn to do something that people will pay more for or become a manager of workers who do the same job you used to. In the meantime, get on with your life. Get married. Raise a family. Buy a house. Don't worry about the cost. You're credit is good.

Your credit wasn't good though, was it? Turns out, a service economy isn't inherently stable. Buying a house is not the same thing as owning one. A ponzi scheme is still a ponzi scheme, whether the guy that sucks you in is your next door neighbor or the President of the United States. Your money is still just as gone. Your life is still just as over.

What about those old men of experience, the leaders? The ones that told you there was nothing to fear. It turns out they own their houses, really own them and a lot more besides. What about their kids? They went to good schools. They're working. In Latin America, Europe, Asia. They are learning the language, making contacts. Things are happening over there. They need help over there. Help setting up service economies. Help developing a modern banking system and structured investment vehicles.

Hard Times Come Again No More.

Who's He Trying To Kid?

General Michal V. Hayden, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who has a history of lying to Congress going back 20 years, to the Iran Contra hearings, swore to the Senate yesterday that waterboarding was only used three times. These would be the exact three times that we already know about and have documentation for. The same three times that he has admitted destroying the video tapes of. He swore that the CIA has never used this technique before or since.

He denies that waterboarding constitutes torture. He states that the CIA needs to be able to use waterboarding in interrogations when necessary. He promises he will get specific permission from the President before he does it, each and every time before it's use.

This guy could improve his image, a lot, if he had a bald cat in his lap and a little bald midget with an identical uniform by his side.

Heather Has Two Mommies

Late breaking news from the Bruderhofs of the Godless European Union.

When a sperm fertilizes an egg, everything the new person will become is encoded in the DNA inside the the nucleus of the newly created single cell organism. Well, not quite. Outside the nucleus are bodies called mitochondria. These little intracellular bodies perform the metabolic tasks that keep the cells healthy and happy. Inside of each mitochondria is a little snippet of DNA, which allows it to reproduce itself. Mitochondria exist intact within the egg at the time of conception and so mitochondrial DNA is passed directly from mother to child, unchanged by the sexual swap of genetic material that occurs in fertilization.

Like all genetic material, mitochondrial DNA is subject to breakage. When this happens the mitochondria produced are faulty and can malfunction. This interferes with intracellular metabolism, causing a host of catastrophic degenerative diseases.

In Europe, scientists have found these diseases can be avoided by transferring the nucleus of a fertilized egg that contains damaged mitochondrial DNA into a donor egg with healthy mitochondria from which the nucleus has been removed. This new "composite" gamete can be implanted into a uterus and the resulting child will have a healthy active intracellular metabolism.

The technology to do all this is off the shelf stuff, that research labs and fertility clinics have been doing routinely for a generation. Whole categories of diseases which affect millions worldwide could now be eliminated.

In this country, where the practice of reproductive medicine is controlled by Creationist, "Culture of Life", Dickwads, who believe the Universe was created whole cloth six thousand years ago, during a week long bender, by a Deity high on Sumerian beer, this procedure will never be performed. What is our World coming to?

Remember the almost words of George Orwell.

"Six toes good, five toes bad."

Record Turnout ?

I voted late this morning, me and five poll workers were the only ones there. I asked if it had been a busy morning.

They answered, "Not so much".

I live in a conservative stronghold. I guess they're not too interested today.

Let's see if they perk up by November.

Finger in the Dyke, No Reward

Why won't Hillary be the Democratic nominee for President?

At the beginning of the Bush 43 Presidency, it fell to the Clintons to be the keepers of the flame. This they have done, at great cost to themselves, at every level of their lives. They have been on record and in front of the cameras daily, for the last 8 years, responding to the ill fated actions of the Republican dominated government. They have been jeered at, belittled, compromised and demonized by the Republican establishment. That they have been largely right, makes no difference at this point. They are damaged goods.

People are now willing to admit that they want a change in government. They are not willing to say they have been wrong. Electing Hillary President is just that, an admission of guilt, in participation in the folly, that was and is, the Bush administration. The people won't do it.

Barak Obama is young, fresh and has no history in national politics. Electing him is not a self indictment for the electorate. It's an easy, feel good, way out. If you think the American people won't take the easy way out, you're wrong.

Thank you, Hillary and Bill. You stood up against a corrupt, tyrannical government through some of the worst days in the memory of our nation. There will be no honors or awards ceremonies. No thanks of a grateful nation. You know the service you have performed. It will have to be enough.

You get no absolution without confession and contrition. Ask any reformed drunk.

The American people are ready to dry out but they are not willing to throw away that bottle of rye, stashed, under the kitchen sink.

The Swiftboating of John McCain

There is an amazing and richly imaginative saga making it's way around the RightRoots sites this morning. It has John McCain spending his years in North Vietnamese captivity, as a happy traitor, holed up in a Hanoi hotel suite, with clean sheets, cold beer and a stable of courtesans at his beck and call. It features Bill Clinton as a steely eyed, cold war, CIA plant, in the international student peace movement, during his Oxford years. Hillary is exposed as the anchorwoman of a daisy chain of Saudi lesbian spies.

It's like Ian Fleming meets the Three Stooges. Who writes this stuff for them? Anyway, check it out. It's well worth the search.

A Little Parable For All You Global Warmers Out There

Nothing is more refreshing than a big glass of iced tea on a hot summer day, lying out by the pool. As long as the ice lasts, the tea stays frosty cold.

Think of the earth as a big glass of iced tea. As the ice caps melt, they keep the oceans cold. The oceans, in turn, Cool the atmosphere. The weather will remain balmy and beautiful, as long as the ice lasts. We should have 20 or 30 years of great weather.

I'm 56 years old, no children. What, me worry?

What Will You Do With Your Stimulus Check?

If President Bush has his way, you will soon be getting a check in the mail. For the average family it could be $1800, maybe even more. What will the people of this great nation do with this money? Surprisingly, there is already a consensus. Everybody I've talked to says the same thing.

"Flat screen TV, baby, biggest one I can get."

Where do they make these? China. Where will your economic stimulus money go? China.

George W. Bush. What a fuckin' genius.

Ben "Gutenberg" Bernanke

Ben has been hard at work lowering interest rates. He has been adding liquidity to the financial system in huge amounts now for months. What he has been doing, in fact, is printing money, in huge amounts and putting it into circulation. This has the effect of making every dollar you make, spend or save worth less. It has the effect of destroying the World market confidence in the dollar. The first prerequisite for a stable national economy is a sound currency. He is systematically destroying any hope we have, in this country, to achieve this. He has accelerated an inflationary cycle that was already in danger of spiraling out of control.

What can the average person do in a situation like this? With all that new money floating around, someone is likely to be willing to lend you some. Borrow as much as you can. Spend it, as soon as possible, before it loses any more value, preferably on sex and intoxicants. It will make you feel better, at least for a little while.

Douche Pipe Dreams

If the problems of the World and the nation could be addressed and solved by simply saying so, George Bush would be our greatest President. During the State of the Union Address, this evening, he claimed the country and it's citizens to be in the best shape ever. The economy is sound, the dollar strong. No child has been left behind. Great health care is available to all. Democracy is blooming and tyranny in retreat around the World. We have prevailed in the Middle Eastern War, peace is at hand. Genocide bad, liberation of the oppressed good. God is on our side, so we get to decide which is which. Taxes will be lowered. Spending will be cut. The check is in the mail. We will not allow weapons of mass destruction to grease the axle of evil.

Unfortunately, nothing he said was true. Very little of it had any relationship with reality. He could have mailed the fucker in. There's no point in doing an assignment on time and presenting it in class if you know you're going to get an F anyway. George, take the day off. Go to the beach. Catch some rays and waves. Smoke a doob. You're not going to disappoint anyone. Nobody.

I loved the speech. Afterward, I felt so fresh and the painful itching was gone!

The Season of Falling Trees

It's been raining here in SoCal. Sometimes we go years without real precipitation. It's a nice change. There's an interesting thing that happens here, a few weeks after the rain. The Devil Winds from the Eastern Desert kick up and blow out to sea. It makes the trees commit suicide. You drive out in the morning and see huge branches broken off from the trunks. Whole trees will be blown over, sometimes rows of them down across thoroughfares or crushing someones garage, roots now pointing to the sky, big hole where they used to be. Most people agree that this is caused by the rains softening the ground, allowing the wind to loosen and detach the root systems and no doubt this is a factor.

The primary reason this happens is something else, something people don't think about. When the rains come, the trees greedily suck up the water and nutrients. They pump these up to the top of the tree where all the foliage is and photosynthesis is going on. Water weighs a lot. The trees become top heavy. When the wind hits these poor unbalanced trees, there is no question what is going to happen.

Sometimes our lives can be like the trees in Southern California. Better ask yourself. Do you need to prune your life back a little, before the Devil Winds start to blow? The season of falling trees is coming, baby!

We Need More Mexicans!

Southern California has a lot more people than it did when I was a boy and even then most people here came from somewhere else. Then, most of the newcomers came from other States. Now it seems like more of them come from other countries. We have been getting people from the Middle East ever since the partition of Palestine in 1947. We got a lot more after the Shah was kicked out of Iran. They're not all Islamic. There's a lot of Iranian Jews, Baha'i and Zoroastrians. There are Armenian Orthodox, Maronites from Lebanon, Coptics from Egypt and East Africa. We get quite a few Orthodox Jews who like to come here from Israel. After the Iron Curtain came down, we got a lot of Eastern Europeans. After Yugoslavia fell apart, we got a lot of people from the Adriatic. After Saigon fell in '75, we got a shitload of South East Asians and they're still coming. We got a lot of Koreans. We have Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Mainland. We have a lot of Indians and Pakistanis, they may be enemies at home but they don't mind living together here. We have whites forced out of Southern Africa and blacks forced out of West Africa. We have Cubans by way of Miami and Russians by way of Coney Island. You ask them, they'll tell you they're legal. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. The truth is that when most of them left their old homes there wasn't time to do the paperwork, there was only time to get out. I don't doubt that for a minute.

It's hard adapting to a new culture, learning a new language, a new way of life. It's easier here, where so many others have also recently come but it's still hard. People tend to stay clannish. They like to live in the same neighborhoods. They like to go to markets that have the foods from home. They like to talk their own language and hear it spoken. Can you really blame'em. In the end, it all works out. Their kids all end up going to UC, become doctors, lawyers and engineers, fall in love and marry each other. Good for them, good for us. Summertime picnics with the family end up having chapatis, kimchee and babaganuch, all on the same table, YUM!

So why is everybody always whining about Hispanics. Mexicans and Central Americans have been coming North for centuries. They want a little house. Plant a garden and a few fruit trees. Drink a little beer. Raise their families. They're willing to work about eighteen hours a day for the privilege, are you? They work in restaurants and stores. They do landscaping and gardening. They work on farms and ranches. They work in hospitals and nursing homes. They do masonry, electrical and plumbing. They do things that people need done at a price they can afford. That's not something you can say about all of our other new arrivals. Seems to me, what we need in this country today is more Mexicans and fewer people sitting around on their fat asses whining about them.

Tommy Tancredo, Bite Me!

Let the Games Begin!

You read around how this is the first election in a long time that we haven't had an incumbent or Vice President to choose from for President. That's true but also not true.

Incumbents campaign as name brands. People then have the advantage of choosing a known quantity. They like that. Trying new things is uncomfortable. Many people fear it. Hillary is running pretty much as an incumbent this time around. She isn't asking people to support her, so much, as a re-continuation of the Clinton administration, after a hiatus of eight years. This is much more true today than in 2000, when Al Gore separated himself from the President, in a spate of moral superiority. As we know, that didn't work. Mitt Romney has positioned himself in the incumbent category on the Republican side, kind of like a Mark II George Bush, this time with a normal IQ and the ability to speak. Probably the less said about that the better.

Will Hillary's bid for the Presidency succeed? Maybe not. The first time around, the Clintons were seen as young, pragmatic and willing to do what was necessary to make things work and indeed they were. When big health care proved unworkable, they were able to move on seamlessly, to other issues that were. They got as much mileage out of that as if it had been a success. Now Hillary is back pushing the very same packages that proved unworkable in the last Clinton administration, rather than emphasizing the flexibility that made them so successful. She and Bill aren't young anymore. They aren't hip. They are entrenched and condescending, exactly the opposite of what they were sixteen years ago. It isn't really working out for them.

I think people are going to go for the change candidate. McCain has been a maverick all his political life, willing to work across the aisle to get the things he feels are important done. He has gotten things done but they aren't often things the Republican hierarchy likes. Huckabee is a pure populist values voter play, with all the neocon and fiscal conservative platform planks stripped out. Obama is the handsome prince with a fairy story background, seemingly springing from nowhere to champion the cause of the young and disillusioned.

Dodging a Bullet?

The Federal Reserve Bank, in a surprise move, lowered interest on loans to it's most trusted borrowers, to an annual rate of 3.5%. This is even lower than the claimed inflation rate of 4%, touted by the lying sacks of shit running the current administration. So what we have, is "Free" money. These same scumfucks continue to tell us that the economy is expanding, that the stock market is under priced and that corporate profits are on the rise. Whistling past the graveyard, every one of them.

Here's the bottom line. Free money is no good if it's not worth anything. If you can't lend it to someone who has some possibility of paying it back, it's still a bad deal, no matter what the point spread is. The truth is, the Fed has been flooding the economy with cheap money for years. Making it cheaper will not change the equation. It only delays the final reckoning and digs the hole we are in deeper.

The markets are not near a bottom.

This is not a good buying opportunity.

Whatever money you have saved is nearly worthless and getting worthlesser.

The economy is not expanding, even slowly.

The government cannot help you. If they give you money, it's because they just printed up a fresh batch.

What Can He Possibly Have To Say For Himself?

With less than a week to go before George W. Bush gives his final State of the Union Address, what can he say to justify his many failures to the American people?

The economy is heading into what, at the very least, is the most serious recession in modern times. We are awash in a sea of bad debt. The Stock Market is falling. Unemployment is rising. The Real Estate Market is in free fall. His answer is to lower interest rates and lie about the resulting inflation of our monetary system. When he took over the Presidency, the government was running surpluses, the national debt was actually shrinking. His administration has run up more debt than was incurred in the entire previous history of the republic.

The state of our society verges on tyranny. Bush has suspended the right to be charged, confront your accuser and be tried by a jury. The US now maintains secret prisons in foreign countries. Agents of our government can torture detainees and hold them indefinitely with impunity. Anyone's communications, of any sort, may be monitored, without a warrant, at any time. He invalidates the law of the land by simply adding a note to the legislation as it is passed, stating he is not bound by it.

He has led us into a unilateral war of aggression against Iraq. It has drained us of trillions of dollars and maimed and killed a generation of our young. It has earned us nothing but the enduring enmity of the Islamic World and the disdain of most of the rest. Our foreign policy is a shambles. Our military is irreparably damaged, with no money to rebuild it.

He has forged deep divisions in our society along racial, religious and class lines. These are kinds of injuries which heal slowly and scar deeply. There is no rational reason to promote this kind of discord except to encourage the kind of fear, hatred and distrust necessary to hold his evil coalition together a little longer.

This is a man with no love or even sympathy for the American people. When he leaves office, he will walk away, into a life of wealth and privilege the like of which most of us can't even imagine. He will have so little contact with the common man that he will never see or understand the damage he has done.

Rig For Dive!

At the beginning of the Great Depression, the US stock market lost 80 percent of it's value. George Bush aims to ward off a repeat of this by giving the average American $800 in folding green and cutting the taxes of the rich.

Yup, that should do it.

Excuse me a moment, while I dog down this hatch.

Go-Down Mo-Town, Let My People Go!

At the Detroit Auto Show this year, American auto makers have shown us that they are morally, intellectually and technologically bankrupt. They offer us vehicles that are low quality, high MPG, at a cost not competitive on the World market.

Fuck 'em.

In ten years, there won't be a single American Auto company building cars in this country. In the mean time, Ta Ta motors, of India, is introducing a $2500 car that gets 60 MPG. In Japan, for the last 20 years, they have been selling cars with 600cc engines, keep the oil clean, they'll go half a million miles, pop in a rebuilt one piece engine/trans axle, they'll do it again.

Mamoud! Granny's strapping on her dynamite underware again !

Today, President Bush put on his little beanie and shawl and laid a wreath at the Israeli memorial to the Holocaust, even managing a comely quiver of voice and a tiny crockytear.

In doing so he reminded the Palestinian community that nobody cares about their 60 year exile and the entire Arab World, that nobody respects their rights or the sovereignty of their nations, as if they needed reminding.

Makin' Friends, Chimpy Style!

This Will Teach Them

The Culture of Life calls for the condemnation of Vogue Magazine and a boycott of its advertisers. Vogue ran a nonjudgmental story about a New York City woman who chose to have a late term abortion.

WHOO-EE! You know how much Vogue counts on the patronage of the inbred, six-toed Grand Dames of the Taggin' Wagon Aristocracy to maintain it's position as the arbiter of style and the avant-garde lifestyle.

They'll probably run a special issue to print a retraction. It will also be a good opportunity to run some spreads on open toed pumps and designer drool scarves.

Hillary is Baa-ack!

Barak knows all about having to pound the stake through her heart but she's just so fucking bea-u-ti-ful!

Buffalo Gal won't you come out tonight
Come out tonight, come out tonight
Buffalo Gal won't you come out tonight
And dance by the light of the Moon

John McCain Has Won the New Hampshire Primary

He has defeated Mitt Romney, a man whose wealth is only exceeded by the vacuousness of his intellect and the elasticity of his resolve.

John is not young. He is not smart. He is not strong. He is not well.

For all of that, he is a man. The only one in this race. He tells the truth, as he sees it. He never gives a inch. It's why the Republican hierarchy hates him.

You do yourself proud, New Hampshire. America salutes you!

They're All Dogs

The field of Republican Presidential candidates is like a pack of currs circling a dead rat in a dark alley in the middle of the night. Nobody is really making a grab for the dubious prise. They each know that what's available isn't worth much but it's the only action going. They also know that once the fighting starts, more meat will be available.

The Democratic Presidential candidates are like a big litter suckling a bitch with only enough milk for one.

They're all dogs.

The dynamic is different.

The end result will be the same.

Americans Want Affordable Healthcare.

It isn't going to happen.

Before World War II, healthcare was a lot less high tech. Hospitals were mostly public or charitable facilities. Doctors lived well, but usually in the same neighborhoods a their patients. Every druggist knew the real money was in the lunch and cosmetic counters.

Hospitals are all run by corporations now. Doctors live in mansions, out by the country club and do their banking in the Caymans. For many, prescription drugs are their single highest monthly expense.

The population of America is aging. Everybody would like to have affordable healthcare. Politicians like to offer it in return for votes.

There isn't enough money.

It isn't going to happen.

Ever.

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

What happens when an empire succeeds beyond it's own wildest dreams?

America spends 10 times more on it's military than the rest of the World combined. We won the Cold War, which was, perhaps, the greatest geopolitical struggle in modern times, virtually unaided. Today, we cannot pacify a forthrate rate power in an Islamic backwater.

We are such a magnanimous society, that the biggest problem among our poor, is chronic obesity but after two generations of "Great Society" social welfare programs, we can't pull the poor into the mainstream, even as millions of illegal immigrants stream into the country and assimilate into a prosperous life, against all the barriers erected against just that prospect. We made jobs and people went to work but they didn't accumulate wealth, they overspent and now we are the greatest debtor nation the World has ever seen.

The magnificent infrastructure that we built up over the last century continues to serve us well but is outdated and wearing out. There are no plans to expand and renovate it. When one of our greatest cities was destroyed by storm and flood, the best our leaders can come up with, is abandon it, and move to higher ground.

Our water is filthy, you can't drink from the most pristine mountain stream with out boiling or filtering it. Our forests are cut down. Landfills full of toxic sludge and plastic fester the landscape. We pump green house gases into the atmosphere at ever increasing rates, knowing the damage it does. There is so much CO2 in the air that it has acidified the oceans. We make no efforts to clean up after ourselves because it might alter our standard of living.

Our streets are pretty safe in America. Many areas, including some of our largest cities, have lower levels of violent crime than ever before but we warehouse a larger percentage of our population, for most of their adult lives, in prison, than any other country. Still, after 50 years as the highest law enforcement priority, the traffic in and use of, illicit narcotics, is unchecked. For all of our efforts to create a safe society, our women and children fall victim to sexual predation and assault as never before.

We have been the strongest, richest, most developed, most free society in the World for a century. We influenced world culture, politics and trade as surely as did the Greeks and Romans in their time. The 20th century was truly, the American century. Fueled by an endless stream of aspiring immigrants and a land of incomparable riches, we came to power swiftly. Will our fall be also as swift?

Like a prizefighter that dominates the ring for a period of time and defeats all challengers, there is no graceful way to step down. The fighter takes for granted the respect, riches and adulation as his due, even when age and dissipation take their toll and the victories become fewer and harder won. Do we, as a nation, choose to step down, into a respectable, if less exalted, position in the family of nations or do we stay in the ring, until we succumb to the endless punishment? Bleeding. Broken. Insensate.

Larry Holmes or Cassius Clay? We know who was the better fighter but who is better off today?

Iowa Has Spoken

The primary season is begun. The stragglers are dropping away, many more will follow. Besides the fact that the next American President is going to be an even bigger loser than George W. Bush, what do we know?

We know that Americans are too embarrassed to vote for the candidate they really like. If the Republicans were voting true, they would go with someone like Tom Tancredo. That would say things about them they aren't ready to admit, maybe not even to themselves. Dems should be wild about Dennis Kucinich, samo-samo.

So what do the two clear winners in Iowa, Huckybuck and Obama, indicate. Are these two men really the embodiment of the skills, traits and intelligence we are seeking in the leader of the free World? Surprisingly enough, maybe.

Let's get the easy part out of the way first. These guys are both smart. The pre-primary debates have shown us they are poised public speakers. They are interactive with an audience and capable of thinking fast, on their feet. They watch what they say and say as little as possible in the most engaging way possible. In this respect, both are completely different than George W. Bush, who cannot speak or think at all well and is only comfortable on his feet with the hind legs of a sheep tucked into his boots. Huckybuck seems smarter and more charismatic. This could be because he is defending the traditional values high ground, always an easier thing to do.

Obama is better looking. So is his wife. So are his children. His message is vibrant, dynamic and appealing. He is The "New" man, multi-culti, inter-racial and intellectual. He offers a revision of the American dream. This entails change on our part. Americans like to think of themselves and their culture as dynamic but they distrust change. Their first concern is what have I got to lose, not what have I got to gain. Still, being the "New" man is better than being the "Black" man. Normally, someone like Obama wouldn't have a chance but the American people's disgust with the present situation is pronounced. It will be hard but he could win. The key for him, will be to play up the attractiveness of what it says about America, that we would elect a man like Obama, while promising not to change anything much at all. So far, so good

Huckybuck is a "kinder, gentler" redneck. He has lived all his life with integrated schools and the EEOC. He's not going to burn any crosses or string anybody up, or tolerate those who do. While the churches he goes to and the social organizations to which he belongs are racially and socially homogeneous, everybody agrees that this is by choice and everybody is more comfortable that way. He is not comfortable with homosexuals but accepts them grudgingly because it's the law and he believes in law and order. Similarly, he is anti-abortion. He doesn't approve of bombing abortion clinics or shooting the doctors who work in them but would address the issue from a legal standpoint. He walks a fine line between the views of the progressive and regressive segments of society hoping to get at least some support from one faction, while keeping most of the latter. Has he evolved far enough to be a successful candidate for President in today's America? Nothing makes me think otherwise. So far, so good.

Next week, the contest in New Hampshire looms. After that, South Carolina. We're going to know a lot more in the next few weeks. For the last year the smart money has been on a Hillary/Rudy race. It may happen, after all is said and done. I don't think so. I'm not sure either of them will make the cut. I'm not that sad about it.

Boxed In

A Republican coalition has allowed a plurality of wildly divergent individuals to control the government of the United States for much of the last forty years, ever since Nixon put together his "Silent Majority". During these last four decades, the population itself has undergone vast changes. Immigrants from all over the World, including huge numbers of Latinos and Asians have made the population a third again larger. Society has become immensely more tolerant of alternate lifestyles, non-traditional religious observance, the open use of illicit drugs and the public expression of civil dissent. Even as society became more loosey goosey, American government has continued on, controlled, for the most part, by leaders that speak and act as if the Nelsons, the Cleevers, the Andersons, and Gillis' are the constituency they represent, with no one more aberrant out there to contend with than Desi and Lucy. It's been a numbers game they play. As the numbers have gotten tighter, they learned to play better and lacking unified opposition, the American Right has reigned supreme.

With the election of George W. Bush in 2000, the hegemony of the Right took a new direction. Instead of merely trying to manage American society, they set out to control it. With the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government firmly in their grasp, there was no one to stop them. They have been able to make great strides in their endeavors. No real opposition has arisen against them but support that they previously had, has become disenchanted. The numbers game in the 2008 election will be more difficult than ever for them to win.

Many traditional Christians aren't comfortable revisiting the Scopes "Monkey" trial. Not every die hard Capitalist is comfortable with a totally "Free" market. Not every supporter of a strong national defense is comfortable with a blanket declaration of war against a religion of 1.25 billion people, world wide.

As we enter a watershed national election year, the American distrust of politicians has never been greater. There can be no greater proof of this than in the quality of those of us who have stepped forward to present ourselves for election to public office. Listing their deficiencies would be a Herculean task. As far as Presidential candidates are concerned, there is not a single one of them, that I am convinced, is going to be able to do a substantially better job than George W. Bush and he is a malignant, drunken retard.

Americans will have to realize that the function of government needs to first concentrate on dealing with things as they are and not as we wish they were. The goals we set for ourselves need to be achievable and not the wet dreams of some coke head retard. That time is not now. Maybe we need another four or eight or sixteen years of national decline to open our eyes.

Good Luck in the New Year

George Bush says there is no inflation. Go look for yourself. Check out the price of a dozen eggs, a quart of milk, a pound of hamburger. Compare your utility bills with what they were a decade ago. Put 20 gallons of gas into your pickup truck and read the bottom line on your receipt. After you've done that, then look at you're paycheck.

It isn't exactly true that George Bush is a lying little cocksucker. On the one hand, you'll find that you are living on about the same amount of money year after year. That's what George is talking about. On the other hand, you are paying a lot more for the stuff you need. George is rich and he's President. He never handles money, so he doesn't have a fuckin' clue.

The big news for you, is that the price of your house is going down. At the end of this year, which is rapidly approaching and you find that your credit card debt has started to get out of hand again, your choices are going to be limited. Banks are not going to line up to refinance your house and give you the money you need to pay off the plastic and the 20+ percent interest rates that come with it. They are worried now that you can't afford the payments on the mortgage you already have. They might be willing to make some sort of adjustment about that, especially if they don't think they can sell your house for anything like you owe but they aren't going to give you any more money. Even if you can stay off the plastic, which is unlikely, they compound that 20 percent interest daily. Make your minimum payments and in a couple of years you'll owe them half again what you owed them when you charged the last item and they'll want every cent of that before you're off the hook.

If you are like most of the people in this country, you make your living by doing something for somebody. They pay you to do it because they don't want to do it themselves. As money gets tighter, competition kicks in and you will find yourself having to do whatever it is you are doing for less money. There could be a real possibility that eventually, nobody will need you to do it at all. If fewer people are running to Walmart every day, it stands to reason they're going to need a lot fewer greeters.

When they finally kick you out of your house, you can sell your stuff but who is going to want to buy it. Maybe you've got rich relatives that will help you out, I don't. Maybe your family still has a little farm somewhere you can go to, mine doesn't.

Maybe I'm just deranged and everything is going to work out great. Maybe George Bush is not a lying little cocksucker. I hope so. I'm not any better off than most people. I've had a little more experience living on the street than some. It's not recent experience though and my back gets all twingy in the cold.

"LSD is Groovy. Kill the Pigs!"-Jeffrey McDonald

There is one thing that the fundo-fuckfaced, Bible thumping, neo-night riders want more than anything else from the American Left, violence. As the factional separation of our political system becomes more pronounced, they become increasingly desperate for it. They went to Washington when Cindy and her Ladies in Pink marched, to try and provoke a scuffle, no matter how minor. When no incidents occurred, they claimed to have been spat upon. In truth, many of the poor dears lisp, especially when excited and if you get too close, you do so at your own peril. They talk of being menaced by large groups of bikers on the streets of San Francisco and Minneapolis. It turns out they weren't the fearsome Vroom-Vroom Harley types but the ones powered by Campaignolo and Shimano, with their little plastic teardrop helmets and Lycra tights with padded crotches. It's hard for them to kick ass, when their feet are bolted to the pedals. Har-Har-Har! They desperately hope unsavory ruffians will disrupt the Republican National Convention next summer but so far, no such luck seems to be in store.

There is little politically motivated violence in this country. The occasional openly gay college student will get beaten half to death and then hung up on a barbed wire fence to freeze. The odd Black or Hispanic or Indian boy will be tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged along the two lane blacktop for a few miles. Every once in a while a Planned Parenthood clinic will be bombed, or one of its physicians will get their head blown off by a high powered rifle from a few hundred yards away. These are just isolated incidents though. They are not sanctioned by any legitimate Right Wing organization. Really, just ask them. They'll tell you so.

Last year there was a soldier, in uniform, who claimed he was picked up on a road in rural Washington State, by "hippies" and roughed up. I looked for some follow up in the local news for several weeks and never found a single word. I suspect it was a hoax, rapidly hushed up by the soldier's command.

Last week there was a great story, all over the media. Some little Princeton boy, who belonged to a chastity society, wrote a story for the school paper, against the school policy of giving out condoms, free of charge, to the student body. Hey, I can get behind that. Any kid who can afford the Ivy League, should be able to buy their own rubbers. Anyway, after the publication of his story, he claimed to have gotten death threats. Then, he turned up at the Campus Police, claiming to have been beaten up by two young men in dark watch caps and overcoats. Presumably these two young men were fellow students, who felt threatened that their supply of free condoms would be cut off. This story was all over Fox News, talk radio and the blogosphere. I haven't seen Brit Hume so outraged since the title General Betrayus was coined.

It turned out this was just a sad, lonely boy with sexual, religious and political identity problems who made the whole thing up. I feel sorry for this kid. I hope he gets some help and they don't kick him out of school or worse, throw him in jail. I wonder if the local gun shops have been given this kid's name and photo. Hmmm.

Don't despair fundo-faggots, there may be some deranged hippies out there, willing to do some violence on you, yet. Bide your time. Keep your hopes up.

Why Don't They Quit Calling Themselves Evangelicals and Put their Kluxxer Hoods Back On

They are tearing down the projects in New Orleans this week. These are old, barracks like neighborhoods, with names like Calliope, Magnolia and St. Bernard. They housed maybe 5,000 families, every one of them black, most headed by women. The residents were evacuated during Katrina and never allowed back. The white developers say that the projects were too damaged by Katrina to be repaired. They will be replaced by "mixed use" developments. There will be some residential, some commercial. There will be some rental units available, none will be government subsidized. It's unlikely that any of the former residents will be able to afford any of the units their housing is being replaced by, nor would the new landlords want them.

Although the ladies that head the families of the projects are poor, life in the projects has made them politically active. They vote. They organize and attend community meetings. They make their impact felt. These are exactly the kind of black citizens, that the white racist Republican rebuilders of New Orleans, do not want back in their fair city. This is a clear case of economic genocide against the predominantly black population of New Orleans. In the "new" New Orleans, there will be no place for these black women and their families. No place for them to live. No place for them to work. Most important of all, no place for them to vote.

This is no different than the displacement of the residents of the 9th ward and other black neighborhoods of the city, except for one small and inconvenient fact. None of the projects sustained any damage from the flooding or hurricane. They were evacuated, the utilities were cut off, services ceased but they sustained no damage. HUD, which runs the projects, simply never let the residents move back in. Now they have given the land over to the developers bulldozers. The new populations of these neighborhoods will include few , if any, holdovers from the old.

The redevelopment of the projects in New Orleans exposes the lie that the rebuilding of the city is simply the inevitable change brought about by the repair of the damage wrought by the flood and not a carefully choreographed program, carried out by the racist Republican infrastructure, to build a white city in the deep south. It's all right. Those people will have their own places. They will be happier. Everybody needs to know their own place.

Good times there are not forgotten.

So, what does George want us to call them now?

Iran has some light infantry. They have some littoral naval capability. They have some jet fighters but they're pretty old. What they don't have is a nuclear weapons program.

Hugo Chavez tried to make himself president for life and nationalize the major industries in Venezuela. He lost the vote and let it stand, for now.

The North Koreans are doing what they have been for the last 60 years, slowly starving to death. They are, on average, half a foot shorter and at least 40 pounds lighter, than their brothers and sisters in the South. They don't have nearly as many teeth, either.

So, what does George want us to call them now?

The Axis of Guys We Don't Like but are No Longer Afraid Of?

We knew George wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. We didn't think it would be a midnight cowboy.

He doesn't even measure up to the standards set by Joe Buck.

George Bush supports a don't ask, dont tell policy. On the truth!

From this point on, The Onion, will be the official news organ, of the executive branch, of the United States government.

Merry, Merry King of the Bush is He

I watched the President give a little speech this morning, in the Rose Garden. It was amazing. He pretty much admitted, that he and his entire administration, had it's head up it's ass, for the first 4 years of the Iraq War. He went on to admit that it wasn't until the Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006, that he was forced to make much needed changes in strategy. Now, he says, that those changes in strategy are causing progress to be made in Iraq and the Congress supposedly owes him support because of it. He wants them to rubber stamp administration requests for additional War funding, without attaching riders that require troop withdrawal. He looked sick and hung over. I think that he probably was both. This is a different President Bush. Not a better man but definitely a broken man.

The administration released intelligence estimates this morning that assert Iran does not have a nuclear weapons research program and has not had one, in at least four years. This is information that intelligence agencies have been urging the President to release to the American people for at least two years. The release of this information has been suppressed by Vice President Cheney. Up until today, the administration has been citing Iran's nuclear weapons research program, as well as other largely unverified threats, as reason to mount airstrikes or even outright invasion of Iraq.

Karl Rove, yesterday, began a campaign to blame the Democratic minority in Congress for pushing the administration prematurely into military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has no evidence or documentation, of any kind, to support this claim. He has no other person to support him in this claim. He has never even intimated such a claim, prior to yesterday. Curiouser and curiouser.

The administration's Middle East policy is in total disarray. It is based on lies, administration reports of progress have been lies and even today they continue to lie about what needs to be done. We need to disengage in the Middle East with the utmost speed. We need to sort out what happened over there and begin to try, convict and impose justice on those responsible. This has been an episode of infamy by an administration out of touch with reality and out of control. Their actions have been an inexcusable offense against the people of the United States, the armed forces of the United States and the citizens of the rest of the World, who have had to tolerate this outrage of armed aggression, by the most powerful nation in the World, against peoples who posed no threat and were unable to protect themselves.

Little Scarlett has a Dream, Stars and Bars style

The 9th ward is only a symbol of the genocidal transformation that the Department of Homeland Security, an organization forged in the fire of race hatred and tempered in the evil of class warfare, is bringing about in the Bay City. The dwellings of the poor, most of them people of color, most of whose families have lived in them for generations, will never be allowed to be rebuilt. Rents for the cheapest apartments, around $300.00 before the onslaught of 2005s Hurricane Katrina, are now at $1,000.00 a month and rising, beyond the reach of most. In any case, these rents apply only to the most basic habitation and are not suitable for the often extended families which the African American population of the city are composed of. The kind of residences that they require, simply no longer exist, or would cost thousands a month more than they can afford, to rent.

FEMA has been systematically evicting the residents of the temporary trailer parks, even though the trailers themselves have no resale value and thousands more rot, having never been used, while displaced black residents still languish in outlying areas and far away cities, told they cannot return to their homes. Roads, sewers and utilities are not returned to the old neighborhoods. Building permits have not been issued. There are no plans to let the black majority return to New Orleans, not to old homes, not to new, there never were, not from the earliest days, when Brownie was doing such a great job. The ranks of the homeless in the city are swelling. They will, no doubt, be dealt with, in time.

Hundreds of millions of US government dollars are pouring into New Orleans, the developers are getting rich. The rebuilding and refurbishing is going on around the clock. This work is being done by workers brought in to do the job, from out of state, from out of the country. No jobs here, for the citizens of New Orleans, you know how THOSE people are.

In the end, when the Corps of Engineers has established flood control, when FEMA has delivered all of their grants and loans to the developers, when all of the construction is done, what will there be, down on the Delta, at the mouth of the Mississippi? It will be a city of dreams, a shining, WHITE city. It will be a beacon in the DARKNESS. It will be a beach head, from which the real people of the South, the WHITE people, can begin to take back their land, their culture, their way of life.

All things take time. All things must have a beginning. Within the dreams of madmen, a new reality takes form. The real people of the South seek a solution to the DARKNESS that blights their once shining land, a final solution. Look Away, Look Away, Dixie Land.

I've Got My Story and I'm Sticking To It

I love how the fundo fascist dog soldiers are able to integrate the deranged spoutings of their hallucinatory leaders into their world view and never miss a beat. One of the main scientific truths of modern times that they have to negate, in order to continue on the path toward the dictatorship of the stupid by the greedy, is the reality of global climate change. In the face of global warming, the endless masturbatory economic expansion in the pursuit of more output to support an ever increasing and affluent population makes no more sense than the moth's inexorable plunge into the flame.

A guy by the name of Charles David Keeling has spent his entire life documenting the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 50 years. By using data from air pockets trapped in glaciers, he has shown that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was stable for several thousand years, prior to the 19th century, when it began to increase at a rate of between 1.5 and 2 ppm per year. This increase can be shown to correspond with a steady increase in world temperatures. It also corresponds with a rapidly increasing population and utilization of fossil fuels. It's not rocket science, check it out. The vast majority of the scientific community around the world understand these correlations to be valid. The way that the oligarchy of greed responds to this data, kind of like a hydrophoby skunk doused with a bucket of cold spring water, tells us that their response is something more than mere disbelief. Their response is much more indicative of extreme fear and loathing.

I don't think the world will end tomorrow because of global warming. I think we are releasing carbon into the atmosphere that has been trapped in subterranean deposits for eons. It's going to have an effect. I would guess things will get more tropical but I'm not an authority on anything. I do think it's something we should be interested in. In the end, there is only just so much carbon that is available to be released back into the atmosphere. I doubt it's enough to end all life on earth or even all human life.

So, hey, FundoBubba, it's winter. Who knows how many more we'll have. Tune up that big two-stroke snowmobile out in the shed, gas her up and head on out. Have a few drinks. Spotlight a few dear. Get in some ice fishing. Litter up the landscape. Remember, God gave you dominion and all that kind of crap. Religion ought to be worth somethin', right?

Fresh Fruit

The White House is heralding the news that stem cells may be made from any number of human tissues, not just fetal tissue, as if George the Turd did the research himself, down in the basement, with his little science kit. The scientists that are doing this research receive no US government funding and couldn't care less about the "culture of life". They're just doing what scientists do, finding out new stuff. While this news seems like a vindication of Bush's fundo-political pseudo-theology, it may not be the answer to all his dreams. It may turn out that fetal stem cells are easier, cheaper and more versatile to use, for medical purposes, than other types of cells, which will put the US competitively behind the efforts of other nations. It may be that any number of other dark anti-fundi scenarios will emerge.

It turns out, that if you can turn non fetal tissue into stem cells, you can also produce zygotes and gametes artificially, without the products of testes or ovaries. Not only is this true but you can produce sperm from the tissues of a female and eggs from the tissues of a male, just as easily as the other way around. So, what is a male, if not a producer of sperm and what is a female if not a producer of eggs. In the future, a person with no sexual organs or secondary sexual characteristics, whatsoever, could be either a mother or a father, or both, having a child entirely composed of it's own genetic material, completely different from a clone. Is this news going to be hailed as a victorious milestone by Poindexter Bush, down in his little basement science lab? It don't seem likely, do it?

This is the kind of scientific advance which will call into question everything we have previously thought about sexuality and gender from a purely clinical perspective. It is likely to incite debate about what constitutes parenthood and the nature of family. How will this kind of scientific advance affect the theological stylings of such uberfundofaggots as Pope Ratso, Dr Jimminycricket Dobson or Patmyprostate Robertson? God only knows.

Who?

Sun Myung Moon, founder of the World Unification Church and self proclaimed Christian Messiah, reincarnation of Jesus Christ, here on Earth, is many things. He is an industrialist, a convicted felon, and social philosopher, as well as the self proclaimed son of God. He is also the number one supporter and advocate of the Bush political dynasty. For obvious reasons, his personal support is worth worse than nothing. He has other things to give and he gives them unstintingly.

He funnels money into the Bush campaign coffers, his own and that of his whack job friends. He can gather votes for the Bush machine in places where even the fundo fascist culture warriors fear to tread, deep into the bizzarro world of religious cults, the Moonies, Hari Krishnas, Rashnishis and others whose beliefs are far beyond the pale of even the tongue talking, snake handling, cousin marrying, mouth foamers of the Christian fundamentalist movement. He has used the wealth he has amassed as the messiah to millions world wide, to build up a media empire including the influential Washington Times newspaper and the United Press International wire service. This media empire he has placed entirely at the disposal of Bush and his minions, to spread the fascist propaganda of hate, war and greed that is their stock and trade.

Next time you see a newspaper article that touts Bush's policies or praises his courage of convictions, check to see if it was carried by the UPI or originated by the Washington Times. If after that, you still think George Bush is a great American and the natural political leader for these troubled times, perhaps you will want to seek out the services of a deprogrammer. Thanks to Sun Myung Moon, there are a lot of good experienced ones around. Make sure you get one that doesn't torture because as we all know, torture doesn't work.

Pope a Dope?

In his second encyclical, Spe Salvi, Pope Ratso, leader of the Roman Catholic Church and Fester Addams lookalike, takes godless communism to task and councils people to turn away from science and technology and instead embrace Christian faith as the answer to World Peace and eternal salvation.

So what's the deal? Has he been smokin' the fringe off his little golden shawls? Has plunging his love hammer into an endless succession of altar boys caused a plaque to form on his brain? Is cable TV not available at Castle Gandolfo?

What communists? The evil empire of the Soviet Union and it's iron curtain is no more. The Chinese are in the midst of the greatest capitalistic revolution the world has ever seen. Is he mad because Fidel is still alive? Does Hugo's promise of plumbing and basic health care to a few million campesinos frighten him? Maybe he's upset because those Che T-shirts are still such hot sellers.

Science? Not since the Catholic Church excommunicated and imprisoned Galileo have scientists been so at odds with popular conception. No one believes or wants to hear about global warming, the ecological implications of pollution, overpopulation, stem cell research, or virtually anything else scientists have to say, unless it has to do with quick and easy weight loss. A majority of those that attend church regularly apparently don't even believe in evolution of the species. Man, that's black dirt ignorance at it's sweet loamy finest.

Christian faith? As George Bush and his zomboid VP keep telling us, we are on the verge of World War III. Christian versus Muslim. I guess we could call that a pan jehovan conflict, especially since the senior Jehovist branch of religion, Judah, is likely to figure into the conflict somewhere. Jehovah worship, in any form, is clearly a most toxic poisoner of social tranquility. It's hard to understand how it could positively affect anyones life, much less eternal salvation. Anybody with any sense of self preservation at all, should be eschewing religion and catching a tramp steamer to the Falkland Islands.

I'm sad this pope is really old, he could get to be a lot of fun. It's gonna be great to see who those wacky cardinals will come up with next, though.

Pullin' that White Soul Train

Hot time in the old town tonight.

We are making progress in Iraq. It doesn't matter that Afghanistan and Pakistan are disintegrating. It doesn't matter that it's costing us a trillion dollars a year. It doesn't matter that Iraq will never be able to form a democratic government. It doesn't matter that there was no reason to go there in the first place and no reason to stay now. George Bush triumphant.

We are winning the world wide war on HIV/AIDS, proving once and for all that abstinence education was what was lacking in the godless, secular humanist, World Health Organization's pitiful attempts to stem the tide of the dredded epidemic. George Bush triumphant.

By not factoring in rampaging domestic inflation and the precipitous fall of the dollar against world currencies, the US economy can be statistically shown to be expanding. So many of our workers have been laboring in the underground economy, for so long, that unemployment figures remain low. The economy is booming. George Bush triumphant.

Despite the fact that the participants of the Annapolis conference would have accomplished more toward Middle East peace if they had spent the time banging Thai bargirls, mission accomplished Baby! Peace Train a'Commin'. George Bush triumphant.

Hilary Clinton has no experience in government. Not as an executive. Not in domestic affairs. Not in foreign policy. She's fat. She's ugly. She's a terrible public speaker, with no affinity for the masses. Her polling numbers show a very high level of name recognition but it's all negative. She's still kicking Republican ass. Doesn't matter though, she's muff divin' that Saudi girl at her campaign headquarters. Prince Bandar says he can get pictures. He's going to bring them along the next time he has a sleepover with the President. Poor little Huma has a date with the big golden sword, if she ever tries to go home again. George Bush triumphant.

Jenna is still too ashamed to get married at the White House, looks bad. They're working on her though. Tricia's been calling. She'll crack. If George will sober up and he and Laura start sharing a bedroom together, Jena will go for the June wedding. She's a loyal daughter. George Bush triumphant.

Besides all that. Kelsey Grammer's still onboard. Everybody loves Frazier!

So, Tell Me Again Why Churches Don't Pay Tax

Churches don't pay any taxes. Makes no sense to me why. They have a lot of money, they certainly could afford to pay taxes. They may say they are charitable institutions but about the only people they are charitable to are themselves. Most of the money they collect, seems to come, mostly, from exactly the kind of people that need to keep their money. Most of the people that end up spending the churches money already seem to have plenty.

One of the reasons that churches are granted tax immunity is that the money they collect is used to do good works. The biggest expense, by far, in the last 20 years, of the Roman Catholic Church, has been paying off the children that the clergy has sodomized. While I certainly think that the sodomized children deserve remuneration, I don't necessarily believe that sodomy should be a tax exempt activity.

Maybe we could establish some specific activities, the support of which, would qualify as charitable and therefore tax exempt. Maybe, any of us, if we spend our money supporting these activities, could write it off our taxes. On the other hand, if any of us decides to spend our money on recognizeably non charitable activities, like say, sodomizing young boys, you would be required to pay taxes on it.

I pay a lot of taxes. Sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, none of which churches have to pay. I try to be a good neighbor. I don't get down on others as long as they don't bother me. If I need money, I work for it. I don't go around whining and begging from the old and the poor. I help out my family and friends, if they need it. Also, I really make a point of not sodomizing young children. I may be old fashioned but that's just the way I am.

I realize churches have a right to exist, even in my neighborhood, although we have to make sure to keep track of the kids, all the time. It just seems to me that we all ought to shoulder the burdens of society equally. Maybe it's time to look at this tax free status for churches.

The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms, Shall Not Be Infringed

The Constitution of the United States doesn't say anything about abortion or assisted suicide. It doesn't really say anything about prayer in schools or whether or not this is a "Christian" nation. There is one thing it's pretty clear about, though. The right to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. The Constitution doesn't say you can only have semi-automatic "sporting arms" of a certain caliber. It doesn't say those guns can only have five shot magazines. It doesn't even say guns. It says arms. Arms is, by definition, pretty much everything you can use to kill other people with. AK-47s are not legal in this country. The main reason is that they are very efficient at killing people, in large volumes and they sell for about thirty dollars on the World market, making them just about the perfect self defense weapon for everybody. RPGs are not legal for individuals to own, neither are SAMs. They are arms, none the less, and if I was interested in protecting me and mine from enemies both foreign and domestic, I would want them. I am and I do. The next time some gaping soccer twat, in her Lincoln Navigator, balancing her cell phone in one hand and her Starbuck's sippy cup in the other, hauling six screaming brats and a golden lab across town, tries to run me down, while I'm riding my little red, plastic moped innocently along in the gutter, I'd feel a lot better if I had an RPG strapped to my back.

If the little fuck faced Catholic boy's club that controls SCOTUS is really serious about being strictly constructionist, which is a total laugh, let them give the people of this great nation their due. Let us arm ourselves.

The Race is not Always to the Swift, nor the Battle to the Strong

Whether your favorite scribe is stuttering Charlie Krauthammer, smiling Billy Kristal or Hugh "the Conqueror" Hewitt, the word that is spreading across the land is the same, al Qaeda in Iraq is beaten. Their fighters killed and reeling in disarray. Their influence among the Sunni tribes gone. We have won, they say. Nation building, a concept they loathed at the beginning of the Afghan/Iraq debacle, is the happy quest they now urge us to embark upon. All that is needed now, to set Iraq on the right track is a continued presence and a trillion or so dollars a year over the next couple of generations. Of course, that's just for Iraq. Can these neocon lights possibly strive to burn any dimmer?

Have the jihadis run out of eager young men to enlist in the fight against the West? Have they run out of money? Have we caused them to lose faith in their religion and ideology? Have we truly foiled the Wahhabi menace?

I think it is more likely that many have returned to the lands of their birth in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere around the Arab world, maybe to a neighborhood near you. They will be greeted as heroes. Camels will be roasted. The returning heroes will have their pick of the little domestic girls from the Philippines or Indonesia. Others, with a different preference, will be given the camel jockey boys, from the slave markets of the Sudan. The heroes will be cleansed with fragrant oils and dressed in the whitest robes and presented in the mosques, accepted into the councils of wealth and influence. In time they will venture out around the World, as missionaries, to spread the word. They will speak to the men in the mosques and to the boys in the madrases. The men will raise money, the boys will journey to the training camps. The seasons will change, the cycle will start again. Let the Americans grow fat and lazy in their fortified bases. Let them pay the Sunni Chieftains for awhile. When their purses grow light, the Sunnis will soon enough change masters again. The Shiia will never allow the Sunni a place in their government, nor would the Sunni accept it. The Kurds have their own concerns. Nation building is for fools that believe in nations. Allah is the one God but his people are many tribes.

For those that have not had enough fighting, there is plenty of fighting still. The brothers in the Taliban are taking back the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan. The warlords there are busy guarding and selling their opium and will soon be sated by the treasure they receive for it. They feast and sing and dally with the young dancing boys. Bush's lapdog dictator in Pakistan has lost the trust of the people and they need leadership in the violent fight against him that is sure to come. It is better to fight where the enemy is weak than where he is strong.

The enemy that we fight in Iraq and Afghanistan is not a nation. The armies of the enemy do not travel in mass. They appear and disappear in their own time, to their own advantage. They do not need to win any battles, they simply need to keep the pot stirred. They do not need to worry about funding, budgets or support at home. They have all the time in the World. Every effort we make can be turned against us.

You want to know how this is going to turn out? Read a little Mesopotamian or Afghan history. For that matter, a little history of the American Revolution would do as well. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.

Thanksgiving Day in the Gulag

George Bush has the right to monitor your every move and communication. He can take you into custody and detain you indefinitely. You don't have the right to legal representation. You don't have to be charged with any crime. Trial by a jury of your peers plays no part in this process. He can have you transported out of the United States, to a foreign prison. Once there, you can be held in conditions not unlike those experienced by prisoners several hundred years ago in some Balkan hellhole. You can be tortured. It could be by foreigners that he has contracted with to do it or it could be by Americans, his call. When he is through with you, he can assassinate you and never tell a soul.

George will tell you that he would never do this to you. He loves you and all your loyal, fellow Americans. These kinds of extreme measures are only used to protect the American people from foreign terrorists and their domestic enablers. You can certainly understand why he must be given every tool necessary to combat these agents of the Axis of Evil.

The bottom line is, he can do it. If government can do something, you know that they will. Justification, especially when none is required, can be the slipperiest of slopes. He might not be disappearing your loved ones today but rest assured, he is disappearing someones.

Springtime Comes Too Soon

I know this kid. Well, maybe he's not a kid. He's probably 24 or 25. We're not really friends. We say hello, talk a little. I met him because he waits tables at a restaurant in my neighborhood. It's not really a high class place, an Olive Garden. It's clean, foods OK, you don't have to wait too long. They move people in and out quick, without being rude about it. You can get a meal and a glass of wine without it taking all night or cleaning out your wallet. The kid stands out there because he's quick, friendly and attentive, without being too slick. I think he makes pretty good money, I always leave him more than I normally do and like I say, they move a lot of people through the place. He's there 3-4 nights a week.

Mornings, I see this kid sometimes down on the beach. Usually at the Bolsa Chica, where the crowd is a generation or more older than him but he hits all the spots. He never saw a surfboard before a few years ago, so he doesn't have all the moves. He's too tall and skinny to ever really be any good. He's strong though and has good balance. When he gets up, he follows the break and sometimes he stays up pretty good. He's learning fast. He's been down to Baja a few times. It's a lot less crowded down there, a different atmosphere. He says he'd like to go to Oahu and try riding a gun down the twenty footers on the North shore. I don't know if he'll ever be ready for that but who am I to say.

Later in the day, he's on Main, downtown, sitting in the sidewalk bistros, scheming on the little tramp stamped, tongue studded beauties that come out to play from their parents new McMansions in the old oilfields. He doesn't seem to have much trouble with them, there are always a few in attendance. I think he probably does a least as good with the young beauties as he does with the waves. He's kind of an impressive kid, calm and laid back. A lot of the beach bums today seem a lot like the guys on Jackass, all hip-hop, ADD and tattooed. I used to wonder what he was doing, just hanging around the beach, at his age. Not that it's a bad thing, just a little unusual, for a kid like that. Then I found out why.

He's a U.S. Army Ranger. Into Afghanistan at the very beginning, backing up Delta Force missions. Tora Bora and a lot more. Then into Iraq in the first wave, same thing. Three years in the field, well, maybe a little more, out of the last five. During his leave time, between deployments, he discovered our little corner of the world, with it's surf, pellucid sunlight, and the bold young beauties, with painted toes, bronze skin and golden studs, in so many amazing and improbable places.

He has completed his active duty, so he has more time to spend here. He's not tired of it yet, not by a long shot. Besides, there really is no point to getting on with his life. In the Spring, his reserve unit will be activated. He will be going back to Iraq or Afghanistan, for at least a year, maybe more. After that, he can come home again but he still has time for one more reserve deployment, after that, before his enlistment is up. This is not a kid who is shy about relating his combat experiences but he moves on, to more pleasant topics, after a while. He is not political, at all. As far as I can tell he has no real personal convictions about the War one way or another. I would be surprised if he's registered to vote. He freely admits that he feels he's done his share and would rather not go back, ever. He's signed up to go though, so he's going.

I gotta tell you, this is a really nice kid. Doesn't seem to be too messed up by what he's been through. He's no rocket scientist but his brain must be bolted together pretty good. He's a good lookin' boy, not a scratch on him. I know a lot of guys have come back from a lot less action in a lot worse shape and will be paying the price for the rest of their lives. No surf or studded beauties for them, ever. Still, I can't help but think he's right. He's done enough. He's paid the Devil his due. They need to find someone else to handmaiden Delta Force in the Spring.

Wake Up and Smell the Shit Running Down Hill

The stock market is stagnant and drifting lower. There is no reason to believe it will break to the upside and every reason to believe we are poised on the brink of free fall. Over the last six months, the market has charted a classic double top. There ain't no triple tops, folks. The price of bonds is high, relative to the paltry interest rates available but long term outlook for bonds relative to inflation is poor. The government continues to force interest rates even lower, in the hopes of pushing money into the moribund equity markets. Real estate prices decrease as foreclosures skyrocket. There is not a single segment of the US economy showing any signs of growth. The value of the dollar, relative to other major world currencies is eroding as the government continues to borrow money like there is no tomorrow and the trade deficit skyrockets. Other major economies, around the world, show signs they are decoupling from that of the US. Energy and food prices are up, way up. Americans are deeper in debt than ever before, way deeper.

The government continues to tell us that we have virtually full employment. The government continues to tell us that there will be no recession. Yeah, tell me that soft landing bed time story again, Daddy.

How many of those jobs out there, that we are working at, are real jobs, long term jobs, that pay a living wage, with benefits, enough to keep your family safe and healthy? If the government is fudging on the inflation rate by several percent and the economy grows a lot less than that, is the economy really expanding? If it costs you a hundred and fifty dollars more in gas a month to get to work, is that a pay cut? Do you belong to a country club? Did you take a nice vacation this year? Did you get your wife a big diamond ring for your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary? Are you saving money, faster than the home equity and credit card debt are piling up? Are you paying off all your utility, mortgage, tax bills and car payments without having to borrow more? If everyone in your family lost their jobs tomorrow, how long til you're living on the street?

It's All About Economic Growth, Baby!

The military establishment of the United States is enmeshed in the tarbaby that is Iraq and Afghanistan. Our grab for control of a major oil producing region in the Middle East, in an attempt to stay in the game of international oil pricing, is a failure. As long as we are there, Iraq will produce little. We will spend much, to simply stay in for the next hand.

In the meantime oil prices soar and the US must pay the going price, just like everybody else. Look at the major oil producers around the World. Russia, the Gulf States, Nigeria, Venezuela, none of them are our friends and even if they were they wouldn't cut us a break. Why should they? England and Norway share the rapidly depleting North Sea fields but that production is easily absorbed into the EU. We buy our oil just like we buy everything else, in Dollars. The countries that sell us the oil take our Dollars and put them away. Dollars are a better deterrent against US aggression than nukes. Calling in our debt is the ultimate doomsday weapon.

The third world floods our country with cheap goods. Goods we cannot afford to produce for anywhere near the price for which they sell them. Our clothes, household goods, processed foods, office supplies, electronics, cars all come from lands far away, via ships that burn oil, that we pay for. We buy all this stuff in Dollars. They take all these Dollars and put them away.We laugh and say, "Stupid Foreigners", then print up more Dollars to buy the next batch of cheap goods or petroleum. All the while though, the Dollars leaving the country suck the value out of our homes, the vitality out of our economy, the Dollar becomes worth less and less. Our nation becomes worth less and less.

Eventually, we find that what little we have left in this country, that is worth anything, is owned by individuals and entities from other countries. Inflation has made even the ridiculously cheap goods from third world sweatshops, beyond our reach. What jobs are available can easily be done by immigrants from Latin America. The government attempts to print more Dollars to stimulate the economy but Dollars are now worthless. The government can no longer afford to maintain the infrastructure. They can fund social programs but the recipients can't buy anything with their checks. The military is long since disbanded, the weapons sold to those that can afford war.

We look to our leaders for guidance. They all have Swiss passports and are living quietly abroad.

We are the World, We are the Children

In the United States, we strive to grow and to accept the new reality, whatever it is, good or bad. We also try to preserve the old. We try to maintain our family and cultural identity. Whatever changes are necessary to adapt to the future, we try to integrate the new with the old, so that there is continuity in our culture, our family, our lives. In most parts of the country, ethnocentric origin used to determine to what extent a person could participate in society. It is difficult to face up to the fact that we are all racists. There is some comfort to be taken in the realization that it afflicts us all and we can face the problem together. As a society, we have determined that racism is an unwise cultural path to continue. Changes like this don't happen in a day, or a generation, or even in a century but we don't give up. Little by little, things change. Things gets better. We are not discouraged by how far is left to go, we resolve to keep trying.

Not everyone is traveling the path with us toward equal opportunity. Some people like the way it was before and want to go back, not forward. They see the changes as threatening to their position in society. They feel it may cause their families to suffer. They may be right. For whatever reason, these people remain vested in a system which denies participation based on ethnocentric differences. It is not a large group but it is significant. For these people, the political party of choice, is the Republican party.

One of the principles that this country was built upon was freedom of religion. In most parts of the world, one particular brand of religion predominates. Even in the best circumstances, it is difficult for people with beliefs different from those in the majority, to live comfortably. There is always social ostracization, sometimes persecution. There are usually legal proscriptions against religious practices that deviate from the norm. People of different religions are often forced to live according to the religious laws of the majority religion. It is not uncommon for people with different religious practices to be dispossessed from their homes, their wealth confiscated, they and there families driven from the country or even killed. We have tried to build a society here, that is not like that. People here can worship as they like, or not. They respect the rights of their neighbors to do the same.

Some Americans are vested in a system of religious persecution. They feel so strongly about their own religious beliefs that they are unable to tolerate others whose beliefs vary from theirs, past a certain point, or those who deny the need for religion. These people seek to mold a society more like other parts of the world, where people of the predominate religion require the rest to conform to their standards. There are not a huge number of people who feel this way but their numbers are significant. For these people, the Republican party is the party of choice.

For the thousands of years of human civilization, mankind has struggled to survive and to elevate himself above a mere animal existence. The main tool we use to do this is our ability to communicate with each other and agree on new cooperative behaviors rather than to endlessly repeat the behaviors that went on before. Up until the modern era, male and female roles in society have been strictly defined. Men dealt with things of the world. A woman's place was relegated to child bearing, child rearing and domestic duties. With the population of the world at around 6 billion, we would seem to have solved the problem of mere numbers, in regard to survival as a species. A woman's value to society can no longer be gauged simply by how many new individuals she can bear and rear to adulthood. In just the last two centuries, since the founding of our nation, women's roles in society have been undergoing constant change. There has been little of a voluntary nature in these changes. The changes in the roles of gender were dictated by the times and were often radical and abrupt, upsetting the status quo going back to the dawn of time. Most of us foresee more changes coming in gender roles, although there is a lot of different opinion as to what direction those changes will take.

There are some, in our society, who are very uncomfortable with the rapidly changing roles of gender. They would like to move back toward a model where women would more closely follow a traditional pattern of child rearing and domestic behavior and would defer to men responsibility for all other matters. They feel fear and disgust at the rapid breakdown in traditional gender roles. The numbers of these people are not great. They are, in fact, surprisingly small, given the huge changes that have taken and are taking place and in so short a time frame. For these people, the political party of choice, is the Republican party.

Homosexuality has been proscribed throughout human history and yet it has always been with us and in about the same numbers. It is pretty clear that homosexual urges in some individuals are naturally occurring and cannot be suppressed or eliminated. No culture has ever stopped homosexual activity. It is usually enough that the homosexual fulfill his or her heterosexual societal role and then practice homosexuality nefariously. Don't ask, don't tell, has a long historical precedent. Much like the subjugation of women to domestic and reproductive roles, the suppression of homosexuality would seem to be a function of optimizing reproductive capacity. It was important that the only societally sanctioned sexual pairing be a reproductive family group. The place of homosexuals who choose to live openly in society, without also seeking membership in a heterosexual family unit, is rapidly evolving and I have no idea where the present trends may lead. All indications point to increased autonomy by openly homosexual individuals, although it is by no means clear that all homosexuals want to engage in an open lifestyle.

Some segments of American society are opposed to the idea that homosexuals should be able to live openly, according to their own desires, within society. One of the most interesting groups to oppose the openly homosexual are closeted homosexuals, who often have very successful lives and enjoy positions of high status. The political party of preference for those that oppose the destigmatization of homosexuality, for whatever reason, is the Republican party.

America has a proud military tradition. It is the tradition of the citizen soldier, who comes to the colors during times of threat to the nation and returns to civilian life when that threat has been met and eliminated. Military service was also widely seen as a rite of passage for young adult males in society. When all of the families of America, from the most exalted to the most humble, joined in sending their sons off to fight in times of challenge, it acted to weld all Americans together. War was declared when we faced genuine aggression that challenged our national sovereignty and a consensus of the population had come to understand and agree on the threat.

The military tradition in America has radically changed. The propaganda machines of ever more imperial Presidencies, after involving the nation in ever more political, partisan and unilateral conflicts, over several generations, are unable to rouse the citizen soldiers to the colors anymore. Large segments of society distrust the motives behind current military activities and council their young against enlistment and will not tolerate conscription. They don't perceive a legitimate threat. The armed forces have taken on a more insular nature, with some families becoming multiple, multi-generational providers of military members and most families sending no one at all to fight. The lower levels of the enlisted ranks of the infantry, who actually do the fighting and bear the brunt of the casualties, are increasingly difficult to recruit and standards for recruitment have been lowered to the point, where the functionality of the troops we are able to produce, is inconsistent, at best. This remains true even though pay and benefits are at an all time high and casualty levels are lower than in any previous combat theater. Because most families shy away from sending their members into the military and because the military itself has become insular from the mainstream of society, a communication gap has opened between the military and the general population. Military members and their families often believe other segments of society do not support them. They believe because the theaters of conflict in which they or their family members serve, are not viewed positively by most of the population, that they themselves are viewed negatively. They are encouraged in this view, by their leaders in the military and the government, who would rather deal with division in society than mutiny in the trenches, especially when such mutiny would be embraced by the ever waxing political opposition to the current administration.

The military is not a large segment of American society but it is one of the most important and powerful. Due to the increasing insularity of the military and the increasing distrust of the military toward the population in general, the Republican party has become the party of choice for the military.

Support the Troops

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We've Won!

George Bush, a man possessed of no personal insight and certainly the least introspective man to ever be President of the United States, has actually admitted that some of his pugnacious, bring it on comments about the war in the Middle East, while not actually mistakes, might have been ill-advised. Dick Cheney has never gone as far as that.

Pretty much everyone else with any believability at all, from Secretary of Defense Gates to General Petreaus to Micheal Yon don't mind saying that we went into Iraq with nowhere near enough troops and no real plan at all as to what we were trying to accomplish.

It might not have been a good idea to let the Iraqi Army disband and go home. It might not have been a good idea to fly several C5-As loaded wall to wall with pallets of hundred dollar bills into Iraq and pass them out to tribal leaders, in effect front loading the financing of the insurgency. It might not have been such a good idea to use a French, Dien Bien Phu style, fortress garrisoning of the occupying troops. Everybody in authority is still pretty silent on these issues and many others just as troubling and important. It seems to me that if the administration expects, after all this time, so many horrible failures and the nightmarish conditions we have wrought in Iraq, to be believed or supported by the American people, they ought to start being honest with us. Some might think it's too much to ask. Some might plead national security issues. I just don't think they have any honesty in them.

The whispering campaign on the zionist neocon blogrolls is that it's over, we've won and now we need to remain and supervise the Iraqis as they rebuild or even rebuild it for them, you know, to show them there's no hard feelings. The fundis are still going with that same old all things Muslim are evil line, the new talking points must not have got out to them yet. I don't know if it's over or not. It's quiet though, I believe that.

What's interesting is why it's quiet. Davey P has made some promises and probably given some money to the Sunnis at the tribal level. We don't know what the promises were or how much money was involved. We do know that George the Turd wants 50 billion more right away. That this action could have such a profound effect, so quickly, tells us that this is where the balance of power lies. We remain committed to a Shiite government that the Sunnis have vowed to never recognize, a government which does not recognize the legitimacy of tribal authority. How will these two actions be reconciled?

It will be interesting to see how things play out. A lot of different things could happen. I don't have a clue. I do know one thing though, nothing is over.

The State Department is setting up shop in Syria. They are going to start sorting out the Sunni refugees there, with an eye toward sending the ones who aren't suitable for repatriation to America, at least a few hundred thousand, maybe more. I talked about this a while back. Now it looks like it's going to happen. I can hardly wait until they start getting to SoCal, I don't think it should be more than another year or so. Between them and all the reservists who come here for the Sun and surf between deployments, we should get the story about what really happened over there straight. I love it when new people come here, they smoke, they drink, they still think sex is dirty, gives me someone to hang around with. What larks, Pip!

Don't blame me when Hilliary gets elected

It's official, with 14 months left to go in his second term, Bush is the least popular president in the nation's history. At least 65% of Americans strongly disapprove of him.

What is truly a measure of his effectiveness as a politician is that the core of the Republican Party still strongly supports him. Sure, they think a few mistakes were made and the PR wasn't handled very well but by and large, GW is still their boy.

They are OK with the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. They want to invade Iran now, just as bad as GW does. They are good with torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial and warrantless wiretapping, with no judicial oversight for any of it. They don't mind that we have never made a serious effort to eradicate the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, capture its leader Osama bin Laden or identify the source of its funding. Tripling the national debt, to 3 trillion dollars, no problem. All those black families from New Orleans, stuck forever in Houston, serves them right. Gas prices through the roof, dollar not worth the paper it's printed on? YeeHaw! They are pretty sure that by the time the elections roll around, a year from now, the wars will all be won, the rest of the country will have come to their senses and will vote to continue on the brave path that George Bush has led us down.

Hey, everybody is entitled to their own opinion. That's why they have opinion polls.

Is he afraid they won't let him into the VIP lounge in Hell?

The color of Dick Cheney's skin is ashen gray. He is often seen panting while seemingly at rest. He is given large daily doses of diuretics and still his lower extremities and lungs fill with fluid. This is why his voice is faint and raspy. This is why he has to be helped in and out of vehicles, up and down stairs and why he never stands up out of a chair on camera. Even if he doesn't have more heart attacks, he is dying of end stage cardiomyopathy. Even though he is dying, he is still hard at work.

Before the invasion of Iraq, the intelligence services of the Armed Forces and the various civilian intelligence gathering organizations, all agreed that Iraq did not fund or support terrorist activity anywhere, was not likely to threaten the United States or any other country militarily, did not possess weapons of mass destruction and had no nuclear research program. Dick Cheney bullied these organizations into suppressing their findings, all of which later turned out to be true. He suborned the Central Intelligence Agency into providing false findings that all of these things might be true and continues to publicly say, even today, that they all are true. He has never admitted that there have ever been any problems with the invasion or occupation of Iraq and has maintained for the last five years that the whole thing is for all intents and purposes over and will be wrapped up soon.

Today, the Armed Forces and all the various civilian intelligence gathering agencies agree that Iran is not a major causative factor of the insurgency in Iraq. There is not even any evidence that they are doing nuclear weapons research. Iran is, in fact, the closest supporter and ally that Maliki's Iraqi government has. They are willing to make this evidence public and have been for at least a year. Dick Cheney is suppressing the release of this information. It is clear he will continue to do so until he draws the last tortured breath from his foetid, fluid rotted lungs.

Is he afraid they won't let him into the VIP lounge in Hell?

Bush and Cheney, Sons of Liberty

For several years now, we have been subjected to ever more heated rhetoric, delivered in ever more shrill, hysterical tones, by the minions of King George the Turd, about the dangers of a nuclear armed Iran. A nuclear armed Iran threatens the United States not at all. It does threaten Israel though and that makes Bush's Zionist neocon catamites squeal like Ned Beatty bent over a beached canoe.

Now, Pakistan, which actually has nuclear weapons and every intention of using them against its perennial enemy, India, has fallen deeper into the clutches of right wing military dictatorship. The military is doing what it always does in these situations. They are rounding up the educated, the intellectuals, the advocates of democracy, and disappearing them into the same prisons the American CIA have been disappearing "suspected terrorists" into for the last several years.

The really sick twist of this situation is that the military in Pakistan has been able to build up their power and their nuclear arsenal, which has allowed them to put a deathgrip on Pakistani democracy, using the billions of dollars in aid from the US that they were given to fight bin Ladens merry band but never did.

Wake up to the big lie. George Bush and Dick Cheney couldn't care less about terrorists, Islamic of otherwise. Their real enemies are the forces of democracy around the World. Their real aim is to turn the US into a totalitarian fascist state. Look at the scenes of crushing violent repression coming out of Pakistan for a preview of what Bush has planned for your neighborhood soon. Listen to who it is the Bush brownshirts blame for all of the troubles in our land. The educated, the intellectuals, the news media, those leaders of the democratic voices opposing his systematic dismantling of our once proud republic, in the name of homeland security. He would have already come for them if he could have and he will if he is able.