The Loss of John Edwards Is The Loss of a Voice For Regular Americans

Yesterday was a very bad day for Americans who are not wealthy, don't own mega corporations, who don't have health care or job security or big political connections.

I won't pretend that I'm not bitter, sad, and very angry that Democratic presidential nominee candidate John Edwards suspended his campaign yesterday. I thought he and his wife, Elizabeth, and many fine Americans of all economic backgrounds, waged a brave and brilliant campaign that focused on something almost NO ONE else in this campaign, short of Dennis Kucinich who dropped out last week: the rising majority of Americans suffering at the bankrupting of America by Republican rule and Democrat-capitulation.

We ALL lost, regardless of your party or preferred candidate, when we let the media and the Republican party turn this race only into an Obama-Clinton slugfest, and let Edwards get pushed ever back and finally out of contention. Unlike most - virtually ALL - presidential candidates since I became eligible to vote in 1980, I really believe Edwards meant just about everything he said. And that Elizabeth, with incurable cancer, insisted he run AND participated with him, impressed the hell out of me.

As much as I can't imagine voting for ANYONE but a Democrat in November, I do not feel either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton speak for the majority of Americans. I think they, at another time, would be viewed as somewhat moderate Republicans. But, as I've said, if Republicans won't elect moderate Republicans to office, why the hell should the Democrats. All I can do is hope that we hold their feet to the fire if one of them wins Election 2008 and that they are just sounding "conservative" and ever so careful during the race, while they show less concern for millionaires and billionaires and corporations once they get to the Oval Office.

As The Republicans Regurgitate Everything Reagan...

Sorry, I got felled by hand problems the last few days BUT... I'm even more distressed to listen to the Republicans debate at California's Ronald Reagan Library in the last GOP debate before Super Tuesday next week invoke in every other word the name of Ronnie Raygun - the man who said "fuck the poor; if you aren't a millionaire, I don't want to hear from you" - in every other breath.

The LAST time Ronald Reagan had a salient thought was back in the 1950s when, as a Democrat, he headed the Screen Actors Guild and tried to mediate the damage being done by horrible hatemongerers like Joe McCarthy tried to force everyone in government and Hollywood to name fellow workers and friends as "reds", even when it was not true. After that, he got involved with Nancy Davis, an even less talented actress (but oh so rich and from old California Republican money) than First Lady - not that Ronnie was a good actor), became a Republican and, like too many in the GOP, disconnected his brain. By the time he reached the White House, he was already well into the grips of Alzheimer's Disease - it's a huge lie that the effects came after he left office; Alzheimer's does NOT work like that.

So if you aren't afraid YET that the Republicans want to return to the "glory" days of the Reaganomics 80s, you damned well should be. Anyone who didn't make it rich in the 1980s had a damned hard time... and the people who puppeteered Reagan made sure of that!

The Truth Serum Version of Bush's State of the Union Speech Tonight

[Mind you, I don't think truth serum ever was - or is today - Bush's drug of choice ("Want a little noseful more cocaine coke with that whiskey, George?"]

Considering Bush has been known – mature, wise fellow that he is – to flip the finger at press and photographers, a part of me wonders if, on the occasion of his final State of the Union delivery tonight (Monday), he might just tell the truth, certain that no one can do a damned thing about all the misery, injustice, and death he has wrought. God knows the man looks for opportunities to smirk ever more insultingly.

So here's what I think he would say if truth serum were administered to him just before the speech:

Good evening, you pussies and ingrates:I could give you my usual bullshit about how I gotta hard job and I work hard (damned, I say that a heluva lot) but we all know if damned good 'o me to bother to put in eight hours a WEEK between my naps, ball game watching, riding my mountain bikes OVER old ladies, and planning for the vacations I take ev'ry few days.

But anyways... I won't make this long 'cos you don't wanna hear it and frankly, I like to pretend to get into bed real early like so I can hide my drinkin' and druggin' I'd make certain you'd do federal time for. So let's get this sucker over with.

Too effin' bad if you don't like the job I've done; it was never up to you anyway. And mixed in with all the lies was a little truth, anyway. Like when I said I wanted to make America an ownership society – not my fault if you thought YOU would be the owners when I really meant Saudi nationals, wealthy Kuwaitis, and scores of other rich for'ners would come in and buy everythin' up 'cos I made sure you can't afford to breathe.

As for Iraq, boo-frickin-hoo so many have died. At least they're not people I care about. My dumb-as-dirt daughters are just fine and livin' like princesses so I don't give a tinker's damn that your kid is too dumb to get into college 'cos I dumbed down the requirements for public education or 'cos I made sure they can't afford to go on to school. After all, we gotta military recruitment quota to fill and it's not like there are jobs out there for your grown kids to get; and where they can find jobs, I'll make damned well sure they are jobs that can feed a family.

Also, college ain't all its cracked up to be. Just look at me and I went to a bunch of the best effing schools in the country.

Besides, what I got planned for Iran makes Iraq look like a bleepin' Irish wedding by comparison, so I'll need your kids out on the front line with no body armor and few bullets, and not sittin' in some classroom learning liberal crap like Darwinism and math. Don't be thinkin' you can stop me from going to war in Iran either - look at all the shit you've let me get away with!

What'cha gonna do? Impeach me? Muhahahahahahahahaha.

No matter what anybody tells ya, the economy's just FINE. Know how I know that? Cos all my fat cat friends and family are a heluva lot richer now than they were when I first came into office. And if you're a lot poorer because of it, don't look at me. I can't understand how poor people think, like I've said before. And you ought'a see how rich I'll be from sweetheart deals – not to mention my huge tax breaks – once I leave office.

You're gonna be supportin' me and mine for the rest of our effing lives – and trust me, we got a MUCH bigger standard of living than you.

And to those who say I do nothin' but lie, so? It's not like the media cares enough to point 'em out. And if you're watching MY favorite NEWS Network, The Cartoon Network uh.. Fox, then you're too damned stupid to notice my lies any ole way.

In closing, let me tell you something my mama, Bitching Barb, always told us kids: “If you're gonna get screwed, you might as well close your eyes, lie back, pretend to enjoy it, and then charge 'em triple for the honor.”

Now get the F outta here so I can toke. The White House ain't the people's house anymore.. It's MINE, beatch, and I want you GONE. ::insert extra smirk here::

If It's An Election Year, Then It MUST Be Time For More Terror Alerts

Gee, where have we heard THIS before?

Is it any surprise we're hearing all this talk now of big, bad terror attacks planned soon - right now for Europe (Spain, etc.), but I'm sure we'll see this extended to us - when we have a presidential election come November? After all, they need to build up the case for supported "all war, all the time" guaranteed us by whatever GOP candidate rides into the Oval Office on the numbers from rigged electronic voting machines.

Perhaps you can spend your "huge" tax rebate check buying bullets for the Pentagon(again).

President Bush: "(The Devil) Saddam Made Me Do It (Iraq)"

Well, we've heard every possible excuse from the president and the rest of the Bush Administration on how they could have been so terribly wrong about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the threat the Iraqi leaders presented to the U.S. So now, after a government audit documented 935 separate lies about Iraq - and the American economy affected by a war with Iraq - from the Bush Administration, what makes more sense than for the Bushies to turn around and blame Saddam? Well, that is, it makes about as much sense as anything else this murderous, greedy, deceitful crew does, anyway.

What marvelous timing that the FBI agent who supposedly was the one to interrogate Saddam Hussein after his capture in Iraq in December 2003 picked NOW, in light of the lie report, to disclose highlights from his seven-month-long interrogation of the Iraqi dictator, hanged just before the end of 2006.

However, for the Bushies to quickly spread the story that it was Saddam who lied and fooled them does NOT appear to be a particularly flattering spin on events. For it to matter, we would have had to BELIEVE what Saddam was saying in the first place - and we had no reason to do that, did we? After all, we expect our enemies - and America's greatest enemy of all, President George W. Bush - to lie to us. So why did the Bushies magically choose to believe the WMD/threat lies (if Saddam told them rather than the U.S.)?

Also, according to Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney, et al, they had "military intelligence" and well more than ample evidence from "trusted sources" that WMD was EVERYWHERE in Iraq and that the nation, which could barely afford to operate at all, was ready to launch suicide camel rocket SCUBA divers to blow up the West Coast (remember?).

Well, as usual with the Bushies, the truth changes faster than Bush's "reasons" for going into Iraq in the first place, and none of the stories/versions makes as much sense as that we went in there for the oil, and got a lot more (and not in a good way) than we bargained for.

Why can't the Bushies do something truly unique just ONCE? As in, tell the truth? Wait. I know why. Because to them, the truth is just something to spin into something worse. Lessons we need to keep in mind as Bush keeps ramping us forward to war with Iran.