Don Siegelman Appeal..Last year Don Siegelman spent the holidays in a cold and lonely cell far from home.

It could happen again.

Don was not a wealthy man to begin with and now through no fault of his own, he owes millions of dollars in legal fees. Having no income during the nine months he was in prison, plus not being able to work full-time since his release, has caused financial stress for his family.

A donation of $5, $10, $50 or more from any of your readers can help him get get past the hard times he and his family are going through - and it will let him know that we still care.

You can donate to Don Siegelman's legal defense fund here, via paypal
http://www.donsiegelman.net/donations_page_paypal.html or by sending a check by mail.


Siegelman Legal Defense Fund
P. O. Box 430116
Birmingham, Alabama 35243


Also, writes Don Siegelman, "the U S Congress must be encouraged to vote Rove in Contempt to uncover the truth! Please log on now to www.ContemptForRove.com to send your message to Congress."


If anyone on this list has a user account at the Daily Kos, you can supportthis fund raiser by voting it up so it has a shot at hitting the rec list.Thanks, Bruce Wilsonhttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/25/65640/261/1015/666139

Statement From Don Siegelman]
I am now engaged in two important fights: One for my own freedom and the other to see that Karl Rove in brought to justice. I need your financial help to keep these fights going.

The government has reportedly spent over 40 million dollars to prosecute me. I have pulled virtually everything out of my life's saving to fight these false charges. I need you to give generously. My Legal Defense Trust Fund can take donations of corporate, PAC, foundation or personal money of any size.

While I am fighting for my own freedom, the U S Congress must be encouraged to vote Rove in Contempt to uncover the truth! Please log on now to www.ContemptForRove.com to send your message to Congress.

This fight must be won to unravel the injustices that have been perpetrated against our democracy.

With your help, Karl Rove and his accomplices will be held accountable for their abuse of power.

Thank you,

Don Siegelman
Governor of Alabama 1999-2003

From 1999 to 2003 Don Siegelman was the popular Democratic Governor of Alabama... until what a bipartisan array of politicians including Wesley Clarke and Republican Former US Attorney General Richard Thornburgh have criticized as a politically motivated effort, tied to Karl Rove and also connected to former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, that convicted Siegelman of dubious felony charges and sent him to federal prison. [ you can read and watch CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Time, Rolling Stone and New York Times coverage of Don Siegelman's story, at Don's website ]

A bipartisan group of 52 former states attorneys general have filed a legal brief on Siegelman's behalf, in the appeals case to come before the 11th Circuit Court this December 9th.

But even if Don Siegelman is exonerated rather than thrown back in federal prison the legal fees for Don's years-long legal battle has consumed his entire retirement saving account plus an additional borrowed $900,000.

As Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane eloquently write,

For most Americans, the very concept of political prisoners is remote and exotic, a practice that is associated with third-world dictatorships but is foreign to the American tradition. The idea that a prominent politician -- a former state governor -- could be tried on charges that many observers consider to be trumped-up, convicted in a trial that involved numerous questionable procedures, and then hauled off to prison in shackles immediately upon sentencing would be almost unbelievable.

But there is such a politician: Don Siegelman, Democratic governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003. Starting just a few weeks after he took office, Siegelman was targeted by an investigation launched by his political opponents and escalated from the state to the federal level by Bush Administration appointees in 2001. [full Raw Story investigation with timeline, on the Siegelman prosecution]

http://www.donsiegelman.net/Pages/MAIN/aboutdon.html

Impeach the Little Bastard - Because people deserve to know the truth

We! Magazine

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

Republicans have abused the power of the Presidential pardon since Gerald Ford used it to preemptively pardon the criminal Richard Nixon. It was argued that Americans, with their delicate sensitivities, weren’t mature enough to cope with the idea that an elected official might face a fair and public trial for crimes he may have committed or had committed while in office.
If the JFK assassination undermined American innocence (and Gerald Ford tried to spin fairy tales about that, too), then the Nixon pardon undermined American confidence in themselves as a place where justice could be served.

Lightning struck again some 18 years later, when George Bush used the power of the pardon to kick apart the case being pursued against the criminal Ronald Reagan, and in which some scummy little felons and traitors such as Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy got to run free and sneer loudly at the country that gave them their undeserved liberty.

Losing in Vietnam didn’t do nearly as much damage to American self-respect as the sight of G. Gordon Liddy braying into his radio microphone that people should shoot federal agents in the head as a way of demonstrating their Liddy-style patriotism.

A lot of people watched this, and watched right wingers openly gloating over it, and wondered what the fuck had gone wrong with America.

And then, for the next eight years, the same vicious and amoral clowns who guffawed over the sight of Nixon lazing in the California sun and tried to make a tin hero out of the moronic Reagan, tried to destroy the Clinton presidency by impeaching him over trivia.

Now, we have a crowd that makes the Nixon scummies and the Reagan sleazers look like pikers. For the past eight years, we’ve seen the most criminal and anti-American administration in history. They haven’t settled for third rate burglaries and selling arms to terrorists, no. They stole an election to get in, and then proceeded to spend years looting the national treasury, lied the country into a war whose real aim was to abet in that looting, let terrorists attack the country, refused a serious investigation into it, and used it to pass measures that slashed the rights of Americans while politicizing the judicial branch of the government, and attempted to establish one-party rule, supported by a corrupted judiciary and a crooked voting system.
And while they were at it, they committed war crimes, and gave America the same reputation the old Soviet Union used to have, of torture and unjust imprisonments without trial and secret prison camps.

They robbed the country blind, and humiliated and debased it in the process. They didn’t govern America; they didn’t even rule it. They simply raped it.

And now, mercifully, the reign of these vicious, anti-American little Republican scumbags is coming to an end.

But will any of them ever pay for their crimes? Trillions of dollars have gone missing from the common weal, either sunk into wars for profit, siphoned off to the undeserving rich, or evaporated in the implosion of a capitalist bubble that was given all the internal air pressure it wanted. Three thousand people died in 9/11, and another 5,000 Americans have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’ll probably never know how many died in Iraq just for living there, or how many were herded off to American gulags to die of torture, or spend years wondering if they would ever get a trial, let alone ever be set free. Elections were suborned, and Clinton was hardly the only public servant to be attacked by the Republican slime-and-destroy machine, now in the paws of the nation’s district attorneys. At least one governor was framed and sent to jail. In today’s paper, there was a story of a indictment of Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales in which the judge, another corrupt, bent Republican stooge, actually tried to dismiss the charges before they were legally filed.

What the fuck is wrong with America, you ask? It got taken over by corrupt, amoral Republican crooks, and nobody has the balls to make them pay for their crimes. And now, they are just clinging on, hoping that the entire country won’t collapse before the mess is foisted off on President-elect Obama, and trying like hell to blame him for the situation they created.
And while they are doing that, they are waiting for Putsch’s preemptive pardons, the ones that ensure that they will never have to face their responsibility for the millions of lives lost and the trillions of dollars squandered or stolen. They’ll never have to stand in open court and explain why they insisted Saddam had nukes when he didn’t, or why NORAD was ordered to stand down on the morning of 9/11, or why Governor Siegleman was sent to jail, or why Putsch suddenly fired all those Federal attorneys and replaced them with ones willing to investigate Democratic candidates for office.

The Republicans, who laughingly describe themselves as the party of personal responsibility, desperately need those presidential pardons issued preemptively so they can skate, never pay a dime, and crow that if they were criminals, why weren’t they ever put on trial?
If that doesn’t sicken you, then you are morally bankrupt or worse, a Republican.
That’s why it is so important that impeachment proceedings be started now in the Democratic House of Representatives against George W. Bush. He won’t actually be impeached in the 58 days remaining before he leaves office, making an impeachment moot. There isn’t time.

But the Constitution, the one which grants Presidents the power to pardon, has one exception: A president may pardon, “except in cases of impeachment.” As I read it, it means that not only may a president not pardon any high public officials who are facing impeachment, but it means that a president who is facing the impeachment process may not use it in any way that could undermine the process against himself.

Putsch will abuse it and use it to take himself and his cronies off the hook. Don’t doubt that for an instant.

And don’t doubt that it will be another emotional and moral body blow to Americans, who had just regained a little self-respect and a lot of hope from electing Obama and throwing off the Republican reign of sleaze.

It isn’t just a matter of vindictiveness against Putsch, although personally I would be delighted if he spent the rest of his natural life rotting away in a jail cell. It’s because America, which has always prided itself on justice, and avenging wrongs, has faced terrible injustice and wrongs for the past eight years, and needs the opportunity to address it through rule of law, in open court, and by the standards of the civilized world.

Don’t let Putsch get away with his crimes. Impeach the little bastard now, and make him eventually face a jury to explain himself.

I'm The One They're Talking About

With all the vitriol I've been hearing from the right-wingers of late, I can't help but recognize myself as the target of their vicious attacks. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to out myself, just so they know who it is they're spending so much time talking about.

Yes, I'm that American-hating broad who believes in life, liberty and equality for all Americans, not just those of a "socially acceptable" color, religion, address, pay scale or political affiliation.

I'm that leftie pro-choicer who thinks that every child should be a wanted child, and that the ultimate decision to give birth should be the difficult yet intensely personal decision of the woman whose body and life is involved. I also believe that people who really care about saving babies might want to think about the ones who are already born – especially the ones born in places our government is currently blowing off the map, or might plan to in future.

I'm that infamous anti-Christian who actually believes that I am my Brother's Keeper – and that includes supporting legal immigration and social safety-nets that provide food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, care for the sick – you know, all that yadda-yadda stuff that Christ used to preach about back when people who called themselves Christians had a passing familiarity with his teachings. I also believe that just because Christ was tortured to death doesn't mean he was promoting the idea as something we are free to do to others with his approval.

I'm that unscrupulous libertine who has deluded myself into thinking that if the gay couple down the street get married, they're not going to destroy every heterosexual marriage in the neighborhood – and by the way, I've yet to hear a coherent argument as to how that would happen if they did.

I'm that unpatriotic wench who thinks that sporting a flag pin in your lapel doesn't mean squat if you're wearing it while supporting pay-cuts for the troops, or budget cuts to veterans' care, and more tax cuts for millionaires – or, for that matter, calling anyone and everyone who disagrees with you "unpatriotic" because you really have nothing of substance to say, but just love the sound of your own meaningless rhetoric blasted over the airwaves.

I'm that blatant sexist who thinks that if someone like Sarah Palin has nothing more to offer than being "hot" while seeking the office of the vice presidency, she'd better have something more in her training bra than a wad of Kleenex – like actual knowledge of the responsibilities of the job, for starters.

I'm that socialist leftie who thinks people should reap the financial rewards of their own hard work while the CEOs of the corporations they toil for share the resulting profits, rather than pocket them all while throwing crumbs to those whose labor created those profits in the first place. Yup, that's me - another anti-capitalist, spouting my big mouth off when oil companies earning record profits get tax subsidies, as though they don't deserve them.

I'm that big city chick, who couldn't possibly share the same values of Joe the Plumber, or the midwestern farmer, or the small-town librarian - or anyone who, unlike me, was raised in the right pocket of Americana - wherever that may be.

I'm that no-good Bush-basher who had the gall to notice that an idiot who couldn't string two words together without getting both of them wrong would inevitably lead this country into an unwinnable war (or two), financial ruin, complete moral failure, and global disgrace.

And while I'm at it, I may as well come completely clean – because, let's face it, you've got me dead-to-rights: I'm also a tree-huggin' environmentalist who believes in such outrageous ideas as protecting the environment, upholding the Constitution, equal treatment under the law, and civil rights – and the hypocrisy of people who call ME un-American makes me speechless (almost!) with fury.

So now that you know who I am, please feel free to vent about me all you want. I'm proud of who I am, what I believe in, and what I stand for.

But don't be embarrassed by not recognizing me in a crowd – you see, there are tens of millions like me, and you know what they say: All those liberal anti-Americans look alike. And we're all about to vote alike – which means voting your asses out of office.

And the next time you think about calling people like me anti-American, you might want to look back at what this election has been all about - and who the REAL Americans truly are...........Nance Greggs at Democratic Underground


"I'll second that" - - Magginkat - www.ProudLiberalBitch.com



Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders & says... "Oh shit....she's awake!!"....http://grandmamaggies.blogspot.com/

The Times They Are A-Changing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D9S48A81os&feature=related

Come gather 'round people where ever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have grown

And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone,

For the times they are a' changin'!

Come writers and critics who prophesy with your pen

And keep your eyes wide the chance won't come again

And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin

And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'

For the loser now will be later to win

For the times they are a' changin'!

Come senators, congressmen please heed the call

Don't stand in the doorway don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled

There's a battle outside and it's ragin'

It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls

For the times they are a' changin'!

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land

And don't criticize what you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a' changin'!

The line it is drawn the curse it is cast

The slow one now will later be fast

As the present now will later be past

The order is rapidly fadin'

And the first one now will later be last

For the times they are a' changin'

Go Home Granny Palin! Go Home Joe The Un-Plumber! So Long McSame!

A quick farewell note to Tuesday night's losers & to the sorryass republican administration which has done so much damage to this country & it's reputation.



Go home Granny Palin. Now you can tell the truth about your grandson, not that anyone gives a hoot. It was just one of many lies from you and McSame.

Go home Joe the "Plumber".....We don't want any more frauds & phonies hanging around our White House. Your fifteen minutes of fame are over and done with! So long sucker. By the way Skinhead, you are one ugly dawg!

Take old man McSame & his pill popping Stepford wife with you. Run along now, losers. For Pete's sake, take George Bush. Ship him off to that pig farm in Texas until we can prosecute him for his crimes against the Constitution of the United States.

We have had eight long years of your lies, cheating, stealing, & other crimes, and we are not interested in any more of your obscene, self-serving government. You forgot all about We The People and went about YOUR business as though we did not exist. Of course we notice that you are using our tax dollars to conduct your business.

Already the vile emails from your goons is pouring into my mailbox. Get over it losers! Remember those words. You damn sure threw them at us as your stupid, moronic, pig farm dweller moved into the White House. You were stupid enough to think that quack would have a beer with you! LMAO. Ole Chicken George is still wiping his hands on his pants legs after he shakes hands with you!

One of my early memories of that vile little man's administration was his appearance at graduation at one of the military academies. A young black man who was graduating, ran up to get his diploma, grabbed Bush & hugged him as he danced up and down with excitement at getting his diploma. Bush was in shock and as the young man let go, he stepped back and started wiping the sleeves of his jacket off as if to brush something away that had been left by the young man. That action spoke loudly about the elitist George Bush & what was in store for us.

Have a beer with you indeed!?! Surely you know by now that this was one of the biggest jokes pulled on you silly fools. George thinks he is waaaaaay better than you!
Take it to heart. We are not interested in your hate mongering, fear inducing campaigns against the people of the United States. We have ten million more votes than you losers. That's TEN MILLION big ones jerk and it probably would have been 20 million had it not been for your purges of the voter rolls.

A North Carolina newspaper says "An unhappy and unsettled America picked an unlikely president Tuesday -- Barack Obama, a young black lawmaker from Illinois who sparked a sweeping political movement with an eloquent promise of change and, most importantly, hope."


You got that losers? We are damned unhappy that you and your quack president crapped all over our Constitution and made our country look worse than some of the foul dictatorships around the world. We are most unhappy with all the jobs that have left this country thanks to your rabid, greedy old war lords. We are unhappy about an illegal war that has murdered, injured or maimed over 20,000 of our soldiers & over a million Iraqi people. May all your rotten souls fry in hell for an eternity for that obscene attack on a small defenseless country that has never done us any harm & didn't have the means to threaten us in any manner. Your lies about this murderous action will be remembered & condemned for many years to come.

That's the legacy of that loser cowboy you shoved down our throats in the name of Christianity. Grin and bear it George. You are, beyond any doubt, the worst person to ever occupy the Oval Office. You have never been my president. You are a fraud, a liar, a cheat, a thief, who was installed by the Supreme Court, and that's how you will be remembered. Live with it loser!

Speaking of Christianity..... If George Bush is a Christian, then I am the Virgin Mother!

This headline from one of the newspapers in the Blue State of Florida says what needs to be said:
Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself.

Don't even think about harassing President Obama the way you did President Clinton. What goes on in his family is none of your damn business so don't turn your "Liberal media" dogs loose on them. Something tells me that you would regret it, big time, if you try to demonize President Obama and his family the way you did our last legally elected President, Bill Clinton.


As I finish this note, Granny Palin is on TV babbling about finding a common ground, a fantastic campaign, get back to work at MY governors office, blah, blah, blah... The woman is nuts! There is no such thing as common ground with a fool like Sarah Palin or with the republican party. We also know what bi-partisanship means to you greedy, self-serving bastards. It means kissing up to you slimeball republicans. Get over it creeps. A new day has dawned and with it comes exposure of your nasty habits.

Today we rejoice -- On January 20th we start the hard work of cleaning up after another foul republican administration. I sympathize with President Obama, that he has pick up the pieces of our Constitution and put it together again but I have a feeling that this young man is up to the job. I say that as someone who supported Senator Hillary Clinton at the beginning of this long campaign.

I have a feeling that this "Community Organizer" is just what the country needs after 8 miserable years under king George, Tricky Dick #2 and the most foul administration to ever occupy the White House.

Counting the days until you are finally out of our faces, George! So long loser! Just chalk it up to business, as usual for you, another miserable failure. This country will rise again. The only way you have to go is down! The sooner you get started the better. You have nothing but your ill gotten dollars.

We have the hope of President Obama!


Magginkat

Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders & says... "Oh shit....she's awake!!" http://grandmamaggies.blogspot.com/

Old washed Up Terrorists & Other Comments From Cyberspace

Yes, real quick. Mr. Ayers," McCain said, without telling viewers the man's full name. "I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist".


Well, Mr. McCain, I care. I care because you seem to be an "old washed up terrorist" (Bombed innocent people in Vietnam & supporting Bush's illegal murdering war) and you are seeking to be president of this country...... PLB
...............................................................................
Among the students who said there was a clear debate winner on substance, only one of 18 picked McCain. But four students thought McCain won on style...sacbee.com


I'd sure enough like to meet those four students. What a shame to be so damn dumb & uninformed so early in life...... PLB

..................................................................................
McCain also lost this debate stylistically. The split screen showed him impatient, angry, rolling his eyes and making some very odd faces. This type of body language caused Al Gore to lose the second presidential debate in 2000. I suspect it will go over poorly with viewers as well..... reader comment McClatchy's
...................................................

jacobson5 ...I cannot believe that some people feel there will be a problem with Obama being president. We have had an idiot for the last eight years and look at the road we went down on that one. Anything is better than another idiot for four more years.
.............................................
Whiny Mac makes all-out attack (NY Daily News)

John McCain threw the kitchen sink - and "Joe the Plumber," too - at Barack Obama during Wednesday night's final, in-your-face presidential debate.


RELATED: TWISTS, TURNS OVER JOE THE PLUMBER
It was also the whiniest, particularly from McCain, who cast himself early on as the victim of unfair attacks despite weeks of slashing Obama for assorted past associations.
When asked about his tough ads, McCain groused that Obama had not slapped down a supporter, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), for accusing the GOP ticket of stirring up racist passions at rallies in ways reminiscent of former Alabama governor and segregationist George Wallace. "That, to me, was so hurtful," McCain said.

Obama said Lewis' comparison was wrong. But he stood by complaints about McCain supporters who have called Obama a "terrorist" and yelled "kill him!" at rallies.


Is 'Joe the Plumber' related to Charles Keating? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/16/02217/845
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/16/111449/53/191/632401



Juan Cole ....He (McCain) especially lost points, as Rachel Maddow pointed out, by dismissing concerns about the health of the mother in the decision to end a pregnancy. In that stance he sounded like Sarah Palin, who wants to make women bear their rapist's child. As I pointed out in Salon, the current McCain-Palin stance on abortion is identical to that in fundamentalist regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.


Vasix....... I watched the debate. On one side was a grumpy old man trying to make up for four months of a squandered campaign. One the other side, a calm study in preparation.

My favorite part was when Senator Obama graciously allowed Senator McCain to pander to his rightwing base and forget that he needed the MIDDLE of America to fall in love with him him last night. The topic was the Supreme Court and of course Senator McCain couldn't help himself. On his white charger he galloped into the fray wielding his flashing sword of bromides and code phases. He sounded like a crazy ideologue and then he galloped into his self sown snare. Senator McCain, a man who went to college on the taxpayers nickel and graduated third from the bottom of his class, looked at a Harvard trained lawyer, the top shelf of a the best legal students in the country, Editor of the Harvard Law Review, a practicing lawyer that as a young gun argued cases in the Federal courts with the United States Justice Department as co-counsels and TAUGHT CONSTITUTIOINAL LAW for years and MOCKED Senator Obama's judgements on Supreme Court justices. It was perfect. America is pretty smart. Senator McCain is fighting the culture war. He's saying he doesn't have a litmus test and then says he thinks Roe v. Wade is wrong. Then he goes and tells EVERY WOMAN in America that he believes in the Roman Catholic Church's policy that the mother's life is not important. He MOCKS women by using "air quotes" about the health of a mother. It was such a jarring performance. Right wingers LOVED it. It was as if Senator McCain had shaken a rubber fetus at the camera and yelled: MURDERER!!!! The rest of the audience watched and thought, "Divisive, ideologue, mired in the culture wars."

...........................................................
Senator McCain's job was to win the middle of American's hearts. Instead he tried to gut punch the "abortion loving", baby eating monsters imagineered by ideologues on the "pro life" (as long as it isn't the mother's life) blogosphere. In doing so, Senator McCain. shadow boxed himself further and further out on a limb until all Senator Obama had to do is look over at him and say, "You want me to hand you a saw or throw you a rope?"

....................................................................................
McCain contended that Obama had not repudiated Lewis. "That to me was so hurtful," McCain said. "I have repudiated everyone who's been out of line, whether part of my campaign or not."


Bald Faced Lie....So hurtful? More hurtful than people calling for killing Obama? Tough Schitt McCryBaby!..... PLB
.................................................

The United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters has endorsed Barack Obama.
That's what matters.

ATTN: Palin/McSame Campaign

Dear Granny Palin and Grandpa McSame,

You two really make me gag lately. McSame, it's bad enough to be constantly hit with pictures of your creepy looking face & your robotic movements but you add insult to injury by trying to incite race riots against Obama.

You're just fucking jealous McSame. Jealous of a handsome PRESIDENTIAL looking young man. I'm sure that it makes you wonder what you could have been when you were, once upon a time, good looking and young if you had not made the youthful choice to be an asshole.

But that youth and those looks are long gone McSame. In their place we see a creepy old man trying to regain his youth by selecting a ditzy younger woman to be your running mate. I love being the bearer of bad news Johnny Boy. It makes you look like the ancient, wrinkled old grandfather that you are.

You are an old has been who never was! Nothing about you looks presidential. That whiny voice is damn sure not presidential. Your brazen racist sentiments, your hatred, fearmongering & attempts to incite violence with your suggestive comments are enough to gag a maggot & are not presidential. To make matters worse you turned loose your narrow-minded, TV evangelist, dumber than a rock, hateful running mate, Granny Palin to do your dirty work. That doesn't look very presidential either.

Yours & Granny Palin's activities simply highlight the fact that you are an old coot & a life long loser. Where you had been swinging on the coat tails of your father and grandfather, now you are swinging on the tail of Sarah Palin, a major league liar and bitch.

This country has struggled many years to try to overcome some of the racial issues that have pitted one skin colour against another. You should be ashamed of yourself for being so damn desperate to 'outdo' your father and grandfather that you would stoop to such levels. You should be but then everyone can see clearly that you don't have any sense of remorse for your despicable actions.

You MacSame, are a despicable excuse for a human being. The past few days you have dragged out your Stepford Wife and gave her those stupid little prepared speeches about her son...........like who gives a schitt? My son spent 15 months in that hell hole you helped to create so don't look for any sympathy from me. Your walking around with a super duper bullet proof vest surrounded by an army during your visit to Iraq was a bad joke. Who the hell do you think you are kidding?

The "surge" is working?? HA! Killing the entire population is your idea of a successful "surge"? MURDERER!


We know that your son & Granny Palin's son will be given cushy jobs in the mighty fortresses the generals have built for themselves so please spare us the bullschitt. I know your sorry record when it comes to the soldiers & the veterans and it damn sure is not anything you want to see the light of day. You are a phony and a fraud from the 'git go'.

I have a suggestion for you and Granny Palin. Why don't the two of you take a long, long vacation to that ranchette that your buddy, Chicken George, purchased in Paraguay. Maybe you will get lucky with her! The two of you certainly deserve each other.

But then another thought comes to mind. Granny Palin wants to be president. She wants to be president SOON..........Very Soon!

That should give you something to think about, Grandpa! Sleep Tight!

Can She Limbo?

Comments From Cyberspace

I predict that Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin, after she gets her ass handed to her on election day, will use her new notoriety to get a show of her own. If she succeeds in seducing a network and sponsors into backing her, her show will be a short-lived disaster and she'll get fat, cranky, drunk and abandon her family to run away with the kid who knocked up her daughter.

You read it here first....................FC

Look for McCain to announce he's for a single-payer national health plan, transferring the Pentagon budget to infrastructure renewal and clean renewable energy and hiking taxes on incomes above $250,000. Oh, and he'll claim to be an African-American man, but that the VietCong beat the black out of him. Sarah Palin will promise free 24/7 fellatio service to white male voters. You read it here first........ FC (A source with the Palin/McCain campaign who did not want to be identified)


His (McCain's) poll numbers are dropping faster than Ann Coulter's panties at a Welcome Home party for the 5th Fleet!

......overheard on the Straight Talk Express, "Hey, look we're on the Road to Nowhere!"

Why does everything hang on a senator from Arizona? Shouldn't it be Bush who is handling this? (The financial mess)

McCain is in full meltdown. This is not going to be pretty.


Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

John McCain recently blamed Barack Obama for the Wall Street mess. Stunning. The truth is the politics of the economy can be likened to a bus. The bus driver is the Bush Administration, and the rest of us, including the Democrats in Congress, are the passengers. Question: If the bus driver drives the bus off the cliff, how is that the fault of the passengers?..............Jim Gilbert

McCain needs to read his prepared rehearsed remarks. Is he senile or just incompetent to campaign? Impulsive and over the hill is a terrible choice for President. .......DAVID LAMBERT


I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot !

Don't you get it? I'm not insulting Sarah Palin, SHE IS INSULTING ME.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-seitzman/sarah-palin-naked_b_125861.html

I thought he looked gracious and presidential; others may think he looked insufficiently tough. I think Obama more than held his own in this first debate, but if you're looking for a grumpy, sarcastic put-down artist as president, your choice is quite clear.
-- Joan Walsh at Salon.com

And just for fun:

Paul Begala calls Bush a 'high-functioning moron'

Republican principles

From the email at http://www.zeppscommentaries.com

Many thanks to Mainetalker for this original piece...

Republican principles:

* If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire."
* If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."

* Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America .
* White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."

* If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."*

Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you're "unpatriotic."
* Name your kid Track, you're "colorful."

* If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless."
* A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."

* If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organizationfrom a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African Amerian voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Worksand Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.

* If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia.

* If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with millions of people you are an "arrogant celebrity."
* If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are "energizing the base."

* If you are a younger male candidate who thinks for himself and makes his own decisions you are "presumptuous."
* If you are an older male candidate who makes last minute decisions you refuse to explain, you are a "shoot from the hip" maverick.

* If you are a candidate with a Harvard law degree you are "an elitist-out of touch" with the real America .
* if you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Annapolis, with multiple disciplinary infractions you are a hero.

* If you manage a multi-million dollar nationwide campaign, you are an"empty suit."* If you are a part time mayor of a town of 7000 people, you are an"experienced executive."

* If you go to a south side Chicago church, your beliefs are "extremist."
* If you believe in creationism and don't believe global warming is man made, you are "strongly principled."

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you have been married to the same woman with whom you've been wed to for 19 years and raising 2 beautiful daughters with, you're "risky."

* If you're a black single mother of 4 who waits for 22 hours after her water breaks to seek medical attention, you're an irresponsible parent, endangering the life of your unborn child.
* But if you're a white married mother who waits 22 hours, you're spunky.

* If you're a 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton, the right-wing press calls you"First dog."
* If you're a 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter of a Republican, the right-wing press calls you "beautiful" and "courageous."

* If you kill an endangered species, you're an excellent hunter.
* If you have an abortion, you're a murderer (forget about if it happened while being raped.)

* If you teach abstinence only in sex education, you get teen parents.
* If you teach responsible age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If you're a Republican senator who solicits gay sex in an airport bathroom, you get to return to your job in the Senate and are encouraged to run for re-election.
* If you're a Democratic Senator who is out of public office and have an affair, your political career is over and your wife who has terminal cancer is to blame.

Still want to vote Republican?.. Wake Up America!--

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so"-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!

Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to. http://www.zeppscommentaries.com

Dear Barack

It's been week or so since I wrote you a letter so I figure it's time that I updated you on a few facts of life. For starters, I have been bored to tears since the completion of these stupid conventions, especially the Republican farce for a convention and it's your fault.

Here's why I think it's your fault. You're still trying to preach in response to those nasty attacks and it ain't workin' son. Personally I detest being preached to and that's pretty much what you have done all along. So get over the sermons already. Hell, you're even putting the damn Republicans to sleep.

Where's all that P & V that I hear you have been blessed with? Get it going son. I am too damn old to sit around waiting on miracles. The way I see it right now you are going to lose unless you get some serious kickass going.

Now I happen to come from a family with mixed heritage so it's really pissing me off to see Grandma Palin and her snide, nasty attacks on you and you just stand there chuckling, coming back with some nicey, nice preacher remarks. Now I think you might just have an idea what Sen. Clinton felt like campaigning against you, eh??

Nicey, nice is not going to work with these nasty bastards and you have to know that. Surely you can look back and see what those miserable cretins did to John McCain in 2000, to John Kerry in 2004. Do I have to say Max Cleland?

Come on Barack. You have to learn to fight back and you have to do it, like yesterday. It doesn't matter that McCain was a POW. After he was a POW, he became an adulterer. He dumped the crippled wife who had waited, hoped and cared for the kids for 5 long years. Since that time he has been an elite, multi-millionaire, (thanks to the Stepford Wife Cindy), who is so out of touch with the real world that the thought of him becoming president scares the hell out of Thad Cochran. A multi-millionaire, by the way who is collecting almost $60,000.00 a year as total disability for military service. If he is totally disabled why is he in the Senate and why is he running for the presidency?
I happen to think that McCain's POW experience is a negative. We don't know what they did to that old coot while he was lollygagging around the Hanoi Hilton.


Now enters Granny Palin.... Hell yes, I think that baby is her daughter's kid but that is of no importance other than the usual Republican lying and covering up their own mistakes, corruption, etc.

Granny Palin calls herself a pit bull with lipstick and she's proved that to be true. She appears to also be a female George Bush, only with the ability to speak in complete sentences. Based on what I have read of her history, she is as corrupt as Dick Cheney and meaner than a junk yard dog. She has every intention of sending this country backwards into the 18th Century. I have no doubt that this mean, vindictive woman intends to be president by hook or by crook. She will run the country while Granddaddy McCain drools away in the Library, only being awakened to sign whatever she puts in front of him. Sound familiar?

It's perfectly alright that Granny Palin has the options to make choices about her life, her child's life, etc., but she appears to think that the rest of the world needs her to make that decision for them. To that I say, Fuck you Granny Palin. I've seen the results of your decisions and it ain't a pretty sight.

Granddaddy McCain & Granny Palin need to mind their own damn business when it comes to our personal lives. We don't need the advice of a couple of adulterers. Family Values, my ass!

Now back to you. I must admit that I am not quite sure what to do but I do know that you have to do something. You cannot be nice to these assholes. You know their routine. Anything you say or do is unfair to poor 'widdle' ole Granny Palin according to the those GOP's (Goofamous Old Pricks).

Now I am going to be blunt (Sunday school up to now...LOL) I am sick to death of those damn fundamentalist, phony Christians. We sat around & allowed George Bush to place those quacks in every branch of government. Yee gods! Those incompetent, bumbling idiots have stunk up the entire government of these United States.

Have you heard how they prosecuted & convicted Governor Don Siegelman in Alabama on trumped up charges? Surely you know about the corruption in the Justice Dept., first Speedy Gonzales, who was not very speedy at all....Now Mukasey who is endorsing & covering up the crimes of the Bush/Cheney hoodlum administration. Another half dozen or more people sit in prison as political prisoners of these miserable SOBs.

Speaking of which, just what the hell will it take for you to think that Bush & Cheney should be impeached & removed from office? These brazen crooks have crapped on the Constitution of the United States in just about every way possible. Bush is reported to have called it just a goddamn piece of paper and he has treated it like just that ..... a piece of toilet paper.
What about that illegal war? What about the economy of the country? What about jobs? What about "We The People"?

Those bastards are attacking you, wanting you to scream racism. To your credit you have not fallen for that trick but I see no harm in you pointing out how the Republicans have left Black people out of their inner circle & will continue to do so. If I read correctly the Repugs had a grand total of 37 black delegates at that illustrious convention. Thirty-Seven people to represent millions of black people in this country. My, my.... how positively typical of the Republicans!

The Republican party is as racist as they come. I'm only surprised that 'king George' hasn't marched out of the White House with a cone shaped hat and white sheet draped around him. I'm not too sure that Tricky Dicky #2 hasn't done just that.

You have 'experts' (kittens) working with you Barack. Put them in the background and hire yourself some Pit Bulls. I'm sure that you can find a few out there. If I wasn't so damn old I would volunteer. Maxine Waters comes to mind. Think Shirley Chisholm! Think Samson versus Goliath.

Get a move on Barack. Those pretty guy looks will only get you so far. Biden and that flashing traffic light smile was a serious mistake. You can't afford too many more blunders like that one.

Now let's see some asskicking. I don't want to have to come down there(?) up there(?) over there(?) to kick your butt.

Re: Our message of change

Barack,

You're just not listening to a word I say. I don't give a damn about your recorded message or your new bunk mate & I am not going to give you $5.00 until I see some sign of real change.

Matter of fact there's not too much that pisses me off more than a record message. You send emails that make it sound as though we are best buds (to borrow words from my friend Norla) then you add insult to injury by telling me to listen to your recorded message. Stuff it Obama! I'm not interested in any more of your pretty words. I want to see something that doesn't sound like it comes from the McSame campaign.

I was never impressed by your supposedly pretty words. I thought they were just a lot of hot air the first time I heard you speak. I've neither seen or heard anything to change my mind on that issue.

I like Hillary Clinton and I think she would be a much better president than you but when she dropped her campaign and asked us to support you, I did so. Now I am beginning to wonder if I should just throw in the towel.

You sound like just another politician. You didn't help matters by picking Biden as your playmate. It's hard to forget that he was a staunch supporter of the Patriot Act. You also did not help any by your support for the FISA act. What the hell do you expect us to believe when you are right in there flip-flopping with that old coot McSame?

Grow some balls Obama and stand up for this country. The hell with those good old boys. They have had a heavy hand in the attacks on the Constitution of the United States. I am sick of the illegally installed quack from Texas and his thoroughly corrupt side kick, ole Dead Eye Dick. They are the worst thing to ever happen to this country and believe me I know that you voted for a lot of stuff on their wish list.

Now are you going to choose country or the good old boys? It's your call but by damn, it's my vote & I am not going to waste it on just another good old boy.

Now quit being a pansyass and show us some real change.

Maggie

Obama's VP Announcement

Hi Barack,

This is your 'friend" Maggie. Remember me? You sent me that cute little email announcing your choice for VP? NO? Damn, and it sounded so much like we have known each other for years! I could have sworn, after reading the opening line that you remembered me from someplace but then a friend suggested that it sounded like a Nigerian scam letters.

But you did it faster than the Nigerian scam letters. In 7 lines you got me to the link to tell Ole Joe how glad I was for him to be on the team and that link led me straight to the never-ending requests for MONEY.

Sorry Barack. I'm not glad to see Biden as VP candidate. He's just one of the original good old boys in that useless Congress. I'm sick and tired of the good old boys and their back slapping, self-serving bull malarkey!

My friend Norla wrote to you and congratulated you, saying that you & Biden look good together. I don't disagree with Norla too many times but I think she had that comment all wrong. I think you & Mr. Biden look ALIKE... period. Yep, the thing that stands out like a neon light are your smiles, on and off.... reminds me of a flashing warning light at a railroad crossing.

Come on son. Ditch that phony on & off smile and get that nose down out of the clear blue. I am trying my best to find a reason to vote for you but the thought of looking up your nostrils for the next 4 or 8 years is just not doing the job.

Norla also wrote, " Obama keeps sending me these little notes addressed to Norla and signed Barack, as if we were buds. The man will not even hear my voice if I shout so the phoniness is mildly annoying."

That irks the hell out of me too Barack. You spew a lot of grand, kissy-kissy words but I have seen little of anything about you actually listening to or talking to someone like me. You talk over us, around us and at us but seldom do I see any indication that you are listening to any of us in the real world.

I realize I am not the Obama Girl but for heaven sakes quit talking AT me as though I am a brick wall not worthy of your attention. I can just about guarantee you that my friend Norla & I have some ideas that would provide the good solid asskicking that McCain deserves. I am also realistic enough to know that you will never hear or entertain those ideas because you are too busy pandering to the fundamentalists & the greedy corporations, who have been responsible (through their agents George Bush & Dick Cheney), to wreak the havoc that we have witnessed for the past 8 long years. Are you trying to subject us to another 4 years or 8 years of the insane Bush BS?

So there you stand with that blazing smile & starting to look like a fool because that old coot, McCain is using the republican owned media to make it look as though every word that comes from your mouth is a lie. Kickass already!

By the way Barack, one thing that you seem to have totally ignored is the massive election fraud that has been underway in this country, especially since the Supreme Court Five installed their boy in 2000. Have you even bothered to notice that there are a number of members of Congress who are there, not because of nasty campaigns, even though nasty has been a part of the game, but because of election fraud. Norm Coleman is one....Saxby of Georgia is another. Election Fraud, Barack, and they are preparing to do the same this time. Do you know how many voters, mostly African Americans, have been removed from the voter rolls this past year? You'd better check.

Charlie Crist, gay governor of Florida is not only covering up his gayness by getting married (will he be McSame's choice for vp?) but he is turning a blind eye to people being removed from the voter rolls.

Oh by the way, let's talk about McSame's patriotism. I know you are afraid to touch that but that old coot is no more a patriot or a hero than my pet bird. He survived as a POW. What the hell about that is heroic OR qualifies him to be president?? Even if you don't want to touch that, you can damn sure talk about his votes against the Veterans & seniors over the years. Matter of fact, it seems that the rich old coot is against us common people having any of the goodies he has and he got it all by being an adulterer, a liar and a crook (Keating Scandal).

Ok Barack. It's your turn and please don't pull that "best bud" routine again. It makes me feel as though one of the uncouth heathens from this Redneck Riviera (Florida panhandle) just called me honey. Damn I hate that word.

I think the Democratic party has gone to hell in a hand basket. This may be the only opportunity to turn it around. You need to use your brain and not be railroaded by some of the out of touch, know-nothings around you. John McCain is a disaster waiting to happen. Get off your comfortable ass and get busy.

You have given the impression that you are one of the smartest men alive today. Prove it!

"Maggie"

PS: A warm & fuzzy thank you note from your new bunk mate, Mr. Biden, just dropped into my mailbox. He, too wrote as though we were best friends. Obviously he didn't read my "thank you" note because it read in part....."one of the original good old boys. So much for that magnificent change".

Loretta Nall: If I'd a knowed that I'd a sent Troy King a Blow-Up Boar Hawg

Loretta Nall: If I'd a knowed that I'd a sent Troy King a Blow-Up Boar Hawg

Your Whiteness Is Showing: An Open Letter To Certain White Women

Who are Threatening to Withhold Support From Barack Obama in November


By Tim Wise June 5, 2008


This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.


I know that it's probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you--who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator--is raw, pure and justified.


That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don't mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.


First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...


For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...


Your whiteness is showing.


When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.


If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women--you know, the ones who aren't white like you and most of your friends--but rather, like white men! Needless to say it is high irony, bordering on the outright farcical, to believe that electorally bonding with white men, so as to elect McCain, is a rational strategy for promoting feminism and challenging patriarchy. You are not thinking and acting as women, but as white people. So here's the first question: What the hell is that about?


And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please...


Your threats are not about standing up for women. They are only about standing up for the feelings of white women, and more to the point, the aspirations of one white woman. So don't kid yourself. If you wanted to make a statement about the importance of supporting a woman, you wouldn't need to vote for John McCain, or stay home, thereby producing the same likely result--a defeat for Obama. You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she's progressive, and she's a feminist. But that isn't your threat is it? No. You're not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton's birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be...?


See, I told you your whiteness was showing.


And now for a third question, and this is the biggie, so please take your time with it: How is it that you have managed to hold your nose all these years, just like a lot of us on the left, and vote for Democrats who we knew were horribly inadequate--Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, right on down the uninspiring line--and yet, apparently can't bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama? A man who, for all of his shortcomings (and there are several, as with all candidates put up by either of the two major corporate parties) is surely more progressive than any of those just mentioned. And how are we to understand that refusal--this sudden line in the proverbial sand--other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year--and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point--but can't bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you've supported before.


How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing? See, black folks would have sucked it up, like they've had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman--hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so--but you won't support the black man. And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?


Your whiteness is showing.

Look, I couldn't care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn't be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously. But for you to act as though you are the indispensible voters, the most important, the ones whose views should be pandered to, whose every whim should be the basis for Party policy, is not only absurd, it is also racist in that it, a) ignores and treats as irrelevant the much more loyal constituency of black folks, without whom no Democrat would have won anything in the past twenty years (and indeed the racial gap favoring the Democrats among blacks is about six times larger than the gender gap favoring them among white women, relative to white men); and b) demonstrates the mentality of entitlement and superiority that has been long ingrained in us as white folks--so that we believe we have the right to dictate the terms of political engagement, and to determine the outcome, and to get our way, simply because for so long we have done just that.


But that day is done, whether you like it or not, and you are now left with two, and only two choices, so consider them carefully: the first is to stand now in solidarity with your black brothers and sisters and welcome the new day, and help to push it in a truly progressive and feminist and antiracist direction, while the second is to team up with white men to try and block the new day from dawning. Feel free to choose the latter. But if you do, please don't insult your own intelligence, or ours, by insisting that you've done so as a radical political act.

http://theladnerreportblog.blogspot.com/

Goodbye to the double standard . . .

aby Robin Morgan (and thanks to the Women’s Media Center)

“Goodbye To All That” was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from a politics of accommodation especially affecting women (online version is here.) During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women’s movements, I’ve avoided writing another specific “Goodbye . . .”. But not since the suffrage struggle have two communities — the joint conscience-keepers of this country– been so set in competition, as the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So.
Goodbye to the double standard . . .

Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.

She’s “ambitious” but he shows “fire in the belly.” (Ever had labor pains? )
When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.

Young political Kennedys –Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr. — all endorsed Hillary. Sen. Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” (Personally, I’m unimpressed with Caroline’s longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.)
Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .
Carl Bernstein’s disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.”
Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters).

John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?” with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.
Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs.
If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged — and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.

Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.
Goodbye to Comedy Central’s “Southpark” featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC’s vagina.
I refuse to wrench my brain down into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison.

For shame.
Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny.

This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?

Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . .
The women’s movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for relentless misogynistic comments. But what about NBC’s Tim Russert’s continual sexist asides and his all-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN’s Tony Harris chuckling at “the chromosome thing” while interviewing a woman from The White House Project? And that’s not even mentioning Fox News.

Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all women are white . . .
Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities, abilities, sexual preferences, and ages — not only African American and European American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Arab American and — hey, every group, because a group wouldn’t be alive if we hadn’t given birth to it. A few non-racist countries may exist – but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks free from other oppressions, she remains a female human being in a world still so patriarchal that it’s the “norm.”

So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?

Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (which whites—especially wealthy ones–adore), while she has to pass as male (which both men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If she were black or he were female we wouldn’t be having such problems, and I for one would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn’t stand a chance—even if she shared Condi Rice’s Bush-defending politics.

I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African American women deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote–until a number of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they’re being called “race traitors.”

So goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the US and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.

Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery, invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of the poor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDS afflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religious fundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati, purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attempted gynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all. We know that at this historical moment women experience the world differently from men–though not all the same as one another–and can govern differently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this high office and barely got past the gate—they showed too much passion, raised too little cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to some feminists so famished for a female president they were even willing to abandon women’s rights in backing Elizabeth Dole.)

Goodbye, goodbye to . . .
blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including his womanizing like the Kennedy guys–though unlike them, he got reported on). Let’s get real. If he hadn’t campaigned strongly for her everyone would cluck over what that meant.

Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking their alpha male horns while Hillary pays for it.
an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that a comparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen as attractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so that it’s “cooler” to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vast global complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet.

the notion that it’s fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feels he can learn on the job,
goodbye to George W. Bush and the destruction brought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance.

Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts “entitled” when she’s worked intensely at everything she’s done—including being a nose-to-the-grindstone, first-rate senator from my state.
Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce her to a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures, fantasies.

Goodbye to the phrase “polarizing figure” to describe someone who embodies the transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to make in this one. It was the women’s movement that quipped, “We are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” She heard us, and she has.

Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands, because Hillary isn’t as “likeable” as they’ve been warned they must be, or because she didn’t leave him, couldn’t “control” him, kept her family together and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelsea had ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbye to some women pouting because she didn’t bake cookies or she did, sniping because she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up. She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist movement. She is running to be President of the United States.

Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other countries’ history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and war, positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female heads of government so far have been related to men of power—granddaughters, daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino, Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet, Kirchner, and more. Even in our “land of opportunity,” it’s mostly the first pathway “in” permitted to women: Reps. Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Sen. Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here.

Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . .
Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous “Obama Girl” flaunting her bikini-clad ass online—then confessing Oh yeah it wasn’t her idea after all, some guys got her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said “made me feel like a dork.”

Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they’re not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status quo), who can’t identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her.

Goodbye to women of any age again feeling unworthy, sulking “what if she’s not electable?” or “maybe it’s post-feminism and whoooosh we’re already free.” Let a statement by the magnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed to save hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, she replied bitterly, “I could have saved thousands — if only I’d been able to convince them they were slaves.”

I’d rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who do identify with Hillary, and all the brave, smart men—of all ethnicities and any age–who get that it’s in their self-interest, too. She’s better qualified. (D’uh.) She’s a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp of foreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorb staggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, even humor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let’s hear it for her connections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama was awfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to get to the Senate in the first place.)

I’d rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eight years, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how — and he’ll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining knight when actually he’s an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who’ve worked with the Kennedys’ own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it’s only about ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn’t it about getting the policies we want enacted?
And goodbye to the ageism . . .

How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history, papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise of a feel-good campaign? How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or think that to rouse US youth from torpor it’s useful to triage the single largest demographic in this country’s history: the boomer generation–the majority of which is female?

Older woman are the one group that doesn’t grow more conservative with age—and we are the generation of radicals who said “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any man prescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the United States. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we’re back!
We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay, affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women who established rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape and date-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who fought for prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; who insisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men to become more nurturing parents, who created women’s studies and Title IX so we all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women who reclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on the national agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, language itself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proud successors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote.
We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters.

Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There’s not a woman alive who, if she’s honest, doesn’t recognize what she means. Then HRC got drowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media’s obsession with All Things Bill.

So listen to her voice:
“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely–and the right to be heard.”

That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (the full, stunning speech is here).
And this voice, age 22, in “Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham, President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969” (full speech: )

“We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . . searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. . . . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated life existing in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one with desperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear is always with us, but we just don’t have time for it.”
She ended with the commitment “to practice, with all the skill of our being: the art of making possible.”

And for decades, she’s been learning how.

So goodbye to Hillary’s second-guessing herself. The real question is deeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do this for ourselves? “Our President, Ourselves!”
Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furious energy–as we did when courageous Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, as we did when desperate Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. We need to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, send emails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote.

Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s—and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, and because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.
As for the “woman thing”?

Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman–but because I am.

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