Mr. Gonzales, do you worship Satan?

Found this via Crooks and Liars... hilarious

Old Hack and Privatized Healthcare .

Old Hack needs a little moral support... Save Old Hack

It's frustrating watching that vid and reading people's comments about what a nightmare Universal Health care WILL Be if implemented. WAKE UP! It's a nightmare NOW. For this guy, and for millions of others like him. You WILL realize this if you find yourself in the unenviable position this man has found himself in.

Some people just prefer to stick their heads in the sand until its happening to them. Americans just couldn't give a shit otherwise. Look at the idiots who still refuse to wake up to Global warming. What is it about the American people that make them so goddamn stupid that they refuse to fix what is OBVIOUSLY broken?

If it's BROKE- FIX IT!

Social Security is keeping YOUR Grandparents and Great grandparents in income as we speak. It may not be much, but as an ex Banker in customer service for Wells Fargo, I have a lot of experience with elderly folks who are ONLY surviving because of those social security checks. It works. Unless you are some asshole neocon that believes that old people that refused to save properly should all just die, like yesterday, so you don't have to pay an extra .01% in taxes. Look at how bad Privatizing America has worked out for reconstruction in New Orleans, the debacle in Iraq, or even stripping away the EPA's powers to regulate safety in this country (mine safety,anyone?)

Sorry, but there is NOTHING worse than doctors telling this man he's got to die because he doesn't have enough money or he didn't pay extra for the extra coverage in clause b, subclause IX, chapter 412, amendment 122 of his insurance policy.

Regulation NOT De-regulation paved the way for success in this country in the early 1900's. It MADE This country prosperous and kept Robber Barons from using the American people as some slave labor force. This man cant get help because Privatization has made him an acceptable loss for their profit margins. Socialized Health care will NOT.

Old Hack and Privatized Healthcare

Old Hack needs a little moral support... Save Old Hack

It's frustrating watching that vid and reading people's comments about what a nightmare Universal Health care WILL Be if implemented. WAKE UP! It's a nightmare NOW.

For this guy, and for millions of others like him. You WILL realize this if you find yourself in the unenviable position this man has found himself in. Some people just prefer to stick their heads in the sand until its happening to them. Americans just couldn't give a shit otherwise. Look at the idiots who still refuse to wake up to Global warming. What is it about the American people that make them so goddamn stupid that they refuse to fix what is OBVIOUSLY broken?

If it's BROKE- FIX IT!

Social Security is keeping YOUR Grandparents and Great grandparents in income as we speak. It may not be much, but as an ex Banker in customer service for Wells Fargo, I have a lot of experience with elderly folks who are ONLY surviving because of those social security checks. It works. Unless you are some asshole neocon that believes that old people that refused to save properly should all just die, like yesterday, so you don't have to pay an extra .01% in taxes.

Look at how bad Privatizing America has worked out for reconstruction in New Orleans, the debacle in Iraq, or even stripping away the EPA's powers to regulate safety in this country (mine safety,anyone?)

Sorry, but there is NOTHING worse than doctors telling this man he's got to die because he doesn't have enough money or he didn't pay extra for the extra coverage in clause b, subclause IX, chapter 412, amendment 122 of his insurance policy.

Regulation NOT De-regulation paved the way for success in this country in the early 1900's. It MADE This country prosperous and kept Robber Barons from using the American people as some slave labor force. This man cant get help because Privatization has made him an acceptable loss for their profit margins. Socialized Health care will NOT.

Crucial video

Crucial Video

hat tip to Winter Patriot


Why Pulling out of Vietnam worked

Accept Communism or die!

3 things about this link:

It's a story from the christian bible.
Bible stories made with legos are just chock full of symbolism.
The apostles were commies.

Der Master Race, emphasis on derrrrr...

Today's Sadly no is pretty damn good...

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/6885.html

Don't miss the comments. Funny stuff..

Happy Anniversary Blue Herald!

Blue Herald celebrates their first anniversary!

Blue Herald is a great news site with great bonus features, like Blue Herald Radio and The RightWing Cartoon Watch.

It's home to some of my favorite bloggers as well: Questiongirl, Buck, and Batocchio. Jim Swanson is a great addition to the group as well.

The guys over there work overtime to posting news as soon as it happens, so check it out a couple of times a day.

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Oh, and duh, before I forget for the fifteenth time, - I am adding ZAIUS NATION to the blogroll.

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Dr. Zaius joins the elite Bad Influences Smartass Bloggers corps. I think you'll see the good Doctor will fit right in.

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Just remember evolution doesn't always work out for the best.

Change

Sometimes reality trumps my political focus. The past month has been very hectic, but it is all complete now- new town, new home, new life. So, a glimpse into that change...

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Hopefully now that everything is complete, I can keep on top of things and post more frequently. But there's always the elite list of Bad Influences you can visit to keep you informed.

Is Another World Possible?

Common Dreams has the full speech by Naomi Klein, made at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York this past weekend.

Lost Worlds: Is Another World Possible?

EXCERPTS
The real problem, I want to argue today, is confidence, our confidence, the confidence of people who gather at events like this under the banner of building another world, a kinder more sustainable world. I think we lack the strength of our convictions, the guts to back up our ideas with enough muscle to scare our elites. We are missing movement power. That’s what we’re missing. “The best lacked all convictions,” Yeats wrote, “while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Think about it. Do you want to tackle climate change as much as Dick Cheney wants Kazakhstan’s oil? Do you? Do you want universal healthcare as much as Paris Hilton wants to be the next new face of Estee Lauder? If not, why not? What is wrong with us? Where is our passionate intensity?

What is at the root of our crisis of confidence? What drains us of our conviction at crucial moments when we are tested? At the root, I think it’s the notion that we have accepted, which is that our ideas have already been tried and found wanting. Part of what keeps us from building the alternatives that we deserve and long for and that the world needs so desperately, like a healthcare system that doesn’t sicken us when we see it portrayed on film, like the ability to rebuild New Orleans without treating a massive human tragedy like an opportunity for rapid profit-making for politically connected contractors, the right to have bridges that don’t collapse and subways that don’t flood when it rains. I think that what lies at the root of that lack of confidence is that we’re told over and over again that progressive ideas have already been tried and failed. We hear it so much that we accepted it. So our alternatives are posed tentatively, almost apologetically. “Is another world possible?” we ask.


* * *

So democracy wasn’t an abstract idea. It wasn’t just “We want to vote.” It was, “We want to control this transition. We want to have a say in it.” It was a direct challenge to the Fukuyama formulation, which, by the way, was made that same year: the idea that you would have these two streams and that they wouldn’t intersect.

I just want to read one other thing, which is another one of these paths not taken, because we know how that one ended in Tiananmen Square: that dream was crushed. Another historic moment of possibility, when we look back on our recent history, was 1994, when the ANC government won landslide elections in South Africa. That was a victory for people power. That was one of the most hopeful days that I can remember.

I think we should remember what South Africans thought they were voting for in those historic elections. You know, it was just portrayed as something very simple: it was an end to apartheid. But what did an end to apartheid mean to South Africans? And we can get an answer from that actually from Nelson Mandela, who wrote a little note two weeks before he was released from prison. And he wrote this note because there was a growing concern that he had been in prison so long that he had forgotten the promise of liberation, which was not just to have elections, but to change the economy of the country and redistribute the wealth. And Mandela was under so much pressure that he had to release this very short statement just to clarify this point. And what he said was, “The nationalization of the mines, banks and monopoly industry is the policy of the ANC and a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable in our situation. State control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable.” And this was a reiteration of South Africa’s Freedom Charter, which is the platform of the ANC, which calls for the national wealth of South Africa, the heritage of the country, to be restored for the people, the mineral wealth and so on.

Now, I say this because this was one of those worlds that wasn’t chosen, one of those paths that wasn’t chosen. And I spent the past four years pulling these stolen and betrayed alternatives out of the dustbin of our recent history, because I think it matters. I think it matters that we had ideas all along, that there were always alternatives to the free market. And we need to retell our own history and understand that history, and we have to have all the shocks and all the losses, the loss of lives, in that story, because history didn’t end. There were alternatives. They were chosen, and then they were stolen. They were stolen by military coups. They were stolen by massacres. They stolen by trickery, by deception. They were stolen by terror.

We who say we believe in this other world need to know that we are not losers. We did not lose the battle of ideas. We were not outsmarted, and we were not out-argued. We lost because we were crushed. Sometimes we were crushed by army tanks, and sometimes we were crushed by think tanks. And by think tanks, I mean the people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks. Now, most effective we have seen is when the army tanks and the think tanks team up. The quest to impose a single world market has casualties now in the millions, from Chile then to Iraq today. These blueprints for another world were crushed and disappeared because they are popular and because, when tried, they work. They’re popular because they have the power to give millions of people lives with dignity, with the basics guaranteed. They are dangerous because they put real limits on the rich, who respond accordingly. Understanding this history, understanding that we never lost the battle of ideas, that we only lost a series of dirty wars, is key to building the confidence that we lack, to igniting the passionate intensity that we need.

The whole speech is a vital read.

Ancient American History

Re: Demise of Democracy, 2004

We have become the Soviet fucking Union. Bush doesn't NEED Karl goddamn Rove any more, because he doesn't need to win any more elections. We'll be lucky if we get another damn election in this country that isn't rigged.

The plans to attack Iran, although put on hold by a surge of stateside sanity last year, seem to be moving forward. I don't know what they fucking expect bombing Iran. It sure has nothing to do with preventing terror. Like Iraq, it will increase Muslim hate for the United States a thousandfold. It will cost America billions more, and more of our own soldiers will die, along with thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Iran. But hey, what the hell, they're just sand niggers, right?

And America, once the home of the free and the brave will be proven, again, to have become the land of tyrants, wastrels, and bloodthirsty fools.

97 to 0. It is just so ... unbelievable, I would say, but it's not.

That's All Folks

This ISN'T a two party system. It is one pack of dogs, fighting over the right to kill, murder, and rape the rest of the world, while riding on the backs of us, the slaves, who thought we were free.

It was a good democracy while it lasted, right?

Right...?

I'll just keep telling myself that.

The Six most over-hyped threats to America

This is from a humor site, but there's more truth here on one webpage than you'll find on a week's worth of CNN.

Six Over-hyped Threats to America

Chasing the Idgit voter

Ah, Amerka..


In The Know: Candidates Compete For Vital Idgit Vote

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_candidates_compete

Boycotting Israel

Boycott Movement Targets Israel

EXCERPT
When does a citizen-led boycott of a state become morally justified?

That question is raised by an expanding academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel. The movement joins churches, unions, professional societies and other groups based in the United States, Canada, Europe and South Africa. It has elicited dramatic reactions from Israel’s supporters. U.S. labor leaders have condemned British unions, representing millions of workers, for supporting the Israel boycott. American academics have been frantically gathering signatures against the boycott, and have mounted a prominent advertising campaign in American newspapers - unwittingly elevating the controversy further in the public eye.

Israel’s defenders have protested that Israel is not the worst human-rights offender in the world, and singling it out is hypocrisy, or even anti-Semitism. Rhetorically, this shifts focus from Israel’s human rights record to the imagined motives of its critics.

But “the worst first” has never been the rule for whom to boycott. Had it been, the Pol Pot regime, not apartheid South Africa, would have been targeted in the past. It was not - Cambodia’s ties to the West were insufficient to make any embargo effective. Boycotting North Korea today would be similarly futile. Should every other quest for justice be put on hold as a result?

In contrast, the boycott of South Africa had grip. The opprobrium suffered by white South Africans unquestionably helped persuade them to yield to the just demands of the black majority. Israel, too, assiduously guards its public image. A dense web of economic and cultural relations also ties it to the West. That - and its irrefutably documented human-rights violations - render it ripe for boycott.

What state actions should trigger a boycott? Expelling or intimidating into flight a country’s majority population, then denying them internationally recognized rights to return to their homes? Israel has done that.

Seizing, without compensation, the properties of hundreds of thousands of refugees? Israel has done that.

Systematically torturing detainees, many held without trial? Israel has done that.

Assassinating its opponents, including those living in territories it occupies? Israel has done that.

Demolishing thousands of homes belonging to one national group, and settling its own people in another nation’s land? Israel has done that. No country with such a record, whether first or 50th worst in the world, can credibly protest a boycott.

Full Article

The United States government, its' Republicans as well as its Democrats, will not do anything to prevent Israel's terrorist actions. Other nations such as Britain, France, Germany, and Russia note Israel's atrocities but do not act for fear of American repercussions.

Stop Terror. Boycotting Israel is the first step in stopping the world's biggest sponsor of terror in the world today.

Barflies

Billmon and the Whiskey bar may have moved on, but there's always the Moon of Alabama.

This is a very good site. The Barfly commentaries are some of the best out there.

Moon of Alabama

Soldier and a Gentleman

A soldier speaks out against the war:

From Sniper to War Resister: My Journey

EXCERPT
Freedom

The truth will come out, and there is nothing they can do to hide it. The occupation is a disaster. I’m convinced that every day it continues that it makes America, and the Iraqis less safe. Objecting to the war and standing up to the military was without question, one of the best decisions I have ever made. I made a stand that was the right one, and I have my freedom back as a bonus. Maybe ten years from now those of us resisting from within the military today will be seen as some of the first few to speak the truth and to follow up with action. Even now I have many to remind me that I’m not alone in my thinking, even a majority of Americans who know that all the pieces of this conflict simply don’t add up.

Seek the truth. Make the stand.

I have always championed the Israeli peace activists above all others. They fight against incredible odds and country whose leadership makes Bushco look like spring chickens when it comes to murder, oppression, and fascism. If an Israeli citizen dares take a stand against their government's terrorist actions, they are vilified, attacked, and even killed. Israel kills anyone they want to, with impunity. British journalists, American protesters, children in the streets of Gaza. And very few Israelis stand up for what is right.

Being a peace activist in Israel is one of the most dangerous "jobs" in the world. And, I am sure it is one of the most morally rewarding to take such an important stand.

That is no different when a U.S. soldier, stationed in Iraq, who has killed for his country, decides to take a stand against the Iraq occupation. These men are vilified by the military whom they have so honorably served. They are hidden away, locked up, and subject to treatment that is outside of military law. They are threatened and punished for their beliefs, their opinions and daring to show any morality whatsoever. It takes a hell of a lot of balls to follow your conscience in light of this dishonorable treatment by their officers.

These men have taken the ultimate stand for our country, and having been there, realizing that what our country is involved in IS a travesty that serves no purpose and hurts America, they take a further stand for their country by standing up for decency and dignity.

They need our support. Please support The Iraq Veterans Against the War. Give deeply to the men who are speaking out, against all the odds stacked against them, in order to tell the American public the truth about Iraq.

Our soldiers are being sent to the slaughter, both physically and mentally, in tour after forced tour. Don't let our troops be Bushco's cannon fodder any longer! Don't let them sacrifice American soldiers for THEIR dirty profiteering any more!

Do what you can to support these men, who are saying that they don't mind dying for our country, but they aren't going to kill innocent people so fat ass Dick Cheney can retire in the middle east with his halliburton cronies when he leaves the office of the Vice President.

Our President is throwing away these soldiers lives for his political games. Don't let him punish the soldiers who dare stand up against his tyranny and war profiteering.

Iraq Veterans Against the War

How U.S. soldiers stopped the War in Nam

Grand Theft Country

Cheney explains (in 1994) why Invading Iraq would be a mistake.



"It's a quagmire."

"And the question to the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, and took additional casualties, in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? And our judgement was not very many.."

So you can see, in Cheney's own words that Saddam was NOT a reason to go to war. Saddam wasn't worth all these dead Americans. So what was?

Billions for themselves and their war profiteering friends. Halliburton moving TO THE Middle East so they can enjoy their bloody profits from no bid contracts that the traitors in the U.S. Government gave them without having to pay taxes on it.

4,000 (so far) Dead American soldiers so these evil men could make money AND THEN AVOID Paying taxes on it. Millions in taxes, while stupid Americans whine about raising the minimum wage.

This is thanks to all of you who have a W sticker and vote Republican.

YOU ARE ALL TRAITORS for enabling these crooks.

Rove Resigns

MSNBC - full news item

Blue Herald

Can we convict this piece of shit traitor, now?

More on this as it comes in...

Empire Burlesque- on the Bush Bug-out

Old Broad speaks- Turd Blossom is out!

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Blue Bear- Pinch me!

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No Quarter- Ro, Ro, Rove

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Pissed on Politics has a few good links on this...

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Simply Left Behind ponders Rove's future career moves

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And, No need to alter this image:

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Bush Rove: A legacy in American Decline

Apathy versus Anarchy

...Updated for accuracy... ;)

Unruly Mob turns a Year old

Liberally Mirth fades out and then back in...

"UPDATE…Plan B:
I am surprised and thrilled that there is enough interest in this little blog to keep it going. Beginning next Wednesday and until I have more free time, I will do a once-per-week post. Thank you for your kindness and encouragement. "

Winter Patriot wonders why the blogger meltdown is occurring... or, in the ever-non-churlish Winter Patriot's words:

"Winter Patriot's getting a bit concerned over signs of blogger meltdown ..."

My original thoughts on the meltdown-that-is-not-a-meltdown:

We are disillusioned, those of us who can see how far our country has fallen. We understand that increasingly it appears that the only way to fix our government is by strident measures. We can see that our politicians, corrupted to a man, whatever side they profess to be on, hold the belief that they ARE Royalty and that the people of this country deserve to be their pawns.

Peaceful protests aren't going to be the catalyst to change our country this time around.

Power is only checked by powerful countermeasures and important sacrifices borne of patriotic duty. Neither of which any American seems to have in any consequential supply, myself included.

It WILL get worse- and until Bushco and the Royal highnesses of Congress experience some REAL pain as a result of their destruction of the constitution, they WILL Not be checked.

IS it better to burn out than to fade away?? Do we Stand up and fight, REALLY fight- or sit meekly and die this slow death?

Either way, This country is on a path to self destruction. We either allow this murderous pharisee corporatist to become Pharoah, or we refuse to be slaves to the empire.

It's certainly a lot easier to simply give up and let your country die a nice quiet death, isn't it?

It's apathy versus anarchy. Like many americans, tucking my kids in bed at night, I find it really hard to champion ideals when their only defense is anarchic acts. The upper class of America HAS Abandoned the rest of the country. They hold the whips and no one among them has the morality or far-sightedness to see past their current mastubatory goals. They put all their efforts into chasing their selfish immediate gains and allow the infrastructure of our government, our economy, our military, and our global standing to rot from within.

And not ONLY do they so casually destroy the material infrastructure of this country, they also burn to the ground their own freedoms, their own futures, their own system of laws just to increase their piece of the pie.

Greed is a powerful thing. I have never really understood it.
But no matter how many vacation houses they amass, how many expensive cars they add to their collections, or how much they add to their bank balances, it won't be enough.

They sell their country out cheaply, these greedy short-sighted fools.

Maybe they Will deserve it, when it all comes crumbling down. But my children certainly don't deserve it. I don't know how to keep fighting this system that spirals deeper and deeper into hell each week. At least not without resorting to drastic measures.

So, until it gets worse, Americans will allow our royal keepers to continue fleecing the flock.

So here we go, once again- We got knocked down, but before I even finish bitching about it, we're already back on our feet, back into the fray. Just remember to protect yourselves at all times and keep swinging...

Greatest Hits

As you may have noticed, it's been a rather empty house around here lately...

I apologize, but between moving to a new town, closing on a house, (and everything else involved) and the spastic stock market making my clients lose their minds, I haven't had much time to make any worthy posts.

So for the next week or so, I am compiling a "Greatest Hits" list of my favorite posts from the House of the Rising sons.

So, this will have to sate you for the time being. Enjoy...

HOUSE OF THE RISING SONS - Greatest Hits I
Not Fade Away : Birth of a Redneck Liberal Blogger
(posts from the Original House,Aug 2005 to March 2006)

(the Photo Album from the Original House)

Awakening


Valerie Plame
Part 1 TraitorGate
Part 2 Treason for Dummies


Fed up with Sheep sheeyit


Liar


Letter to Pat Buchanan


2005 thoughts on 2008 elections


21st century witch hunts


Tribute to C&L


Why is Religion bad for the country?


Right Wing Re-education


First Agreement of the Iraqi Government


Good Parenting


Inside the local Christian Coalition/Republican machine


Real American Traits to live by


America built on Freedom From Religion


We, The People- It’s not a moonbat thing


America the greatest


Freedom to Blog


True Irish don’t celebrate Saint Patty’s Day (My annual rant against St.Patrick)


Bushco determined to Attack Iran- (Thank god we have stopped them so far)


Me, the people, ain’t working

Now

Panic, Motherfuckers.

Chuckling at the Bush base, crying over the crumbling Dow today...

...watching CNBC bobbleheads explode...

There is much gnashing of teeth by the hyperventilating stock market cheerleaders as they struggle to prop up their "goldilocks" economy.

Blame Bernanke all you want, suckers. Irrational exuberance only goes so far.

Sooner or later, whether it concerns the economy, the "war against terror", or America's superstructure rotting from within- you have to come back to reality.

And Bushco has been running on the fumes of fantasy for too long.

How much longer can America bury its head in the sand on the ineptitude and corruption of this President and his yes-men?

Your Democracy is only as good as YOU make it.

Take back our country.

Don't fall for any more night-night fairy tales as the Republican party promises to tuck you in safely at night. As soon as you're asleep, they are looting the house, raiding the liquor cabinet, and driving off with your car, leaving the front door wide open.

The American people will get the kind of government it demands. And if you demand nothing, don't expect anything in return.

Make it your sacred duty to vote. Speak out strongly and firmly against the corruption. Take the reins of true democracy into your hands. It is your American duty.

Surely we are more powerful than these contemptible big business whores?