We know that this weekend, as well as Monday and Tuesday, will be steeped in history. Both anniversaries and those that will become anniversaries will be celebrated, champagne will flow in America’s capital, followed by cocktails; which will lead to an awkward moment between John King and Anderson Cooper one morning in the CNN suite at the D.C. Hilton.

And one really awkward moment when the 45.7% of Americans who voted Republican will hear the words, “I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear…”

But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.

I wanna revisit how we came to be here- in this moment: 48 hours away from electing America’s first half-black, Muslim, communist, fascist, “messiah”, anti-christ, socialist, corporate shill, Kenyan citizen/British citizen/Indonesian citizen.

A man who is building his own private army to force Marxism on our fair sod, and abort all the babies he can’t make gay.

A man who’s bigoted preacher wasn’t Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, or Jerry Falwell.

A man who said he would sit down and talk with our enemies- sans insulting demands (preconditions, for you righties)- instead of destroying their infrastructure, decimating its civilian population, forcing exile upon the educated and contributing members of their society, and simultaneously create both a com-fucking-pletely ruined view of our country on an international scale and new and exciting places for the terrorists to set up shop.

That one? How the hell did we end up electing that one?

Keep in mind, friends and neighbors, that only touches on maybe half of the shit we put up with over the last eight years…they had to squeeze it into an eight minute segment.

Every once in a while, you get comments on your blog from people that lack the intelligence or the motivation (or both) to come up with an original, researched, factually accurate opinion. No biggie, really, but sometimes you feel compelled to respond. You know, with the truth. So here is the comment, courtesy of some fuckin’ clown. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the hot pink lettering.

The BoBoon 14 Jan 2009 at 1:11 am edit thisMan..you lefties are so full of shit it’s not even funny. It’s okay to dissent against your government…however, it’s treasonous when you asshats start calling our brave troops baby killers and accuse them of killing people under the cover of night.

Your own leftard representatives in Congress have done some serious harm to our troops. Sure, it’s okay to oppose the war - but - stop taking shots at our troops. They defend your right to dissent.

This is just a bullshit post trying to explain why you’re still an asshole. You’re beloved Obamessiah promised you guys hope and change and so far all he has done is given you and the rest of the country the same old shit. He brought back the entire bullshit Clinton administration - how the fuck is that change? He’s already told you guys he is backing out on every single campaign promise and isn’t going to change a thing.

You call that patriotism? Patriotism is calling out every freakin’ dipshit representative in the country regardless of sides or party. I have never toed the party line because both parties suck. So far - all you are pushing for is continuing to divide the country by choosing sides. How the hell is that patriotic?

United we stand, divided we fall. I guess you’d rather this country fall to islamofascists through our own division?

So let’s sift through this web of shit, propaganda, and revisionist history; a comment with  all the original content of Police Academy 6.

First of all, you fucking lemming, the last time our troops were called “baby killers” was during Vietnam. I know it may be hard for you and the rest of the braying fucking sheep like you to understand that, but it’s not 1968. Treason (and acts of sedition) are very serious accusations. But if you’re looking for someone to accuse, you should start with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the PNAC(that’s Project for a New American Century, boo-boo). As far as accusing anyone of “attacking under the cover of night…ya dumbshit…it’s not accusing, it’s called watching fucking television! During the whole bombing campaign we saw endless footage of night raids on every channel. Now, if you’re talking about post-Mission Accomplished, well, cue caption and link to pic:

Osprey Night Mission

CENTRAL IRAQ (Feb. 2, 2008) An MV-22 Osprey vertical-lift aircraft is refueled before a night mission in central Iraq. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Joe Kane

You’re right, BooBoo, how dare Chief Mass Communication Specialist Joe Kane take a picture of an Osprey Helicopter taking off for a night mission. The fucking nerve. On the other hand, lying to get us into a war, and taking the lives of 4000+ US soldiers, as well as the lives of innocent civilians- not to mention the 4 million refugees from Iraq- are all acts of treason. And let’s not get started on torture- ok BooBoo?

I’m not sure what the “Dems in congress take shots at the troops” thing is all about- maybe it’s over funding. At any rate, it’s baseless and just fucking dumb.

As far as Obama’s choosing to bring in some figures from the Clinton Era are concerned, I could give a shit. The people he’s chosen will be able to expedite his agenda because they know D.C.- not a bad thing. As far as campaign promises go…well BooBoo, in grown-up land we don’t take everything politicians say at face value. We work our asses off to keep them to their words.

Anyone who’s visited BooBoo The No-Talent-Ass Clown’s site knows that he’s a right wing hack who can’t come up with enough plagiarized material on his own, so he invites other “let’s copy this post from RedState and call it ours”  “writers” to plaster his site with their tin-foil hattery.

It’s almost sad, but even more pathetic, that these guys are still using the same arguments and tactics as they did in The Nixon Years 1979 The 80’s The 90’s  The Bush Years the glaring, complete and utterly miserable failure that was the McCain campaign.

It’s with the above statement in mind that I decided to write the GOPAC For The Left posts…which will return later today or tomorrow.

P.S.- “Islamofascists” isn’t a fucking word. Look, you hideous fuckin’ C.H.U.D., only Dubya and Dittoheads (well indoctrinated parrots that you are), in an attempt to alienate not only one of the largest religions on the planet but every single educated person ever, have been mentally incapable of placing that word in the “free, just fucking take it” bin with John Ashcroft’s “Let The Eagle Soar: Club Mix”.

The concept of what makes one patriotic has been kidnapped, brutalized, and given a gnarly case of Stockholm Syndrome by the GOP. People who understood what it meant to be a patriot- Thom Paine, Fredrick Douglass, Bill Maher- have been left behind like an under-performing school district. To the Republican Party, patriotism is sticking your head in the sand and never criticizing your government(unless you can manufacture a way to blame a liberal). Patriotism is a three word slogan you can place next to your American flag/God Bless Our Troops bumper stickers on your massive (compensatory) SUV.

Having spent several years in the service of my country at national and state levels, as well as not being some kind of mindless drone that takes my cues from the likes of Limbaugh, I can offer some of what I’ve learned to Democrats wishing to crush an opponent in our next election cycle.

1) As the party that so successfully eats its own, rarely unifies, and historically reacts rather than leads, it’s imperative that the qualities we dislike in other Democrats become inherent in our actual political opposites. In other words, save some of that mojo for the general election. And by “mojo”, I mean “mudslinging”.

2) Dissent is patriotic. This is one thing the GOP will never understand. At least, the GOP of the last 30 years. To the modern incarnation of the Republican Party, the Flag (oh yes, it gets a capital letter) is a security blanket. And if they wrap themselves tight enough in the Flag, no harm will come to them. Republicans, and many Congressional Dems, spent the better part of the last eight years wrapped so snugly in the flag that the circulation was completely cut off to their brains(I’m looking at you, Feinstien, Reid, Pelosi, Rockefeller, Conyers, and Rangel). By reclaiming the patriotism card, and going back to the original intent that loving your country includes recognizing its flaws and wanting to correct them, we can move forward and actually fucking do something about the messes of the last decade.

3) Patriotism shouldn’t be limited to stump speeches. For exemplary examples on how one serves as a patriot- see the voting records of Russ Feingold and Dennis Kucinich.

4) Never, for a second, allow the right to revise history. The fact that our taxpayer money is being spent on the “Bush Legacy Tour”(revisionist history at its “finest”) should not only piss you off, it should scare the shit outta you. Revisionists have already deified Reagan (something around 75% of Americans should have a problem with, but for some reason, don’t), vilified the successes of the Clinton Era (or claimed them for themselves), swept every misstep, blunder, and gargantuan fucking failure of the Bush Administration under the rug, and are hard at work sabotaging an Administration that hasn’t even taken place yet. This shit has got to stop. You, yes you, the astute, good looking, charming, and capable progressive reading this (and you too, birdie) have the power to do just that.

For as long as I can remember, and certainly longer than I have been involved in politics, the course of action for Democrats has always been to react to a situation/argument. Someone on the right calls you a name, and you say “nuh-uh”. The left has been blamed for anything and everything under the sun.

We have the opportunity to follow the example of the man we elected a little less than two months ago. We can change.

Which is why I’m proposing to establish a sort of GOPAC for Dems. You will learn how to become pro-active instead of reactive. You will learn to master the things that the GOP has long held reign over- the sound byte, the photo-op, capturing the narrative, winning the news cycle, and, yes, three word slogans that make the fucking brainless guinea pigs (read: undecided voter) hit the pedal of positive response. And you’ll do this without lying- which will make my program 180degrees away from GOPAC.

Imagine a Democratic Party that doesn’t spend three-fourths of a campaign rebutting the baseless, com-fucking-pletely made up shit that hate radio and GOPer mouthpieces sling during an election cycle. A Democratic Party that stays on message, pursues a progressive agenda, and makes the other side play catch-up…a party that doesn’t fucking punt on first down.

The next several posts will focus entirely on how we do this.

When I think of Diane Feinstein, the word that comes into mind is “enabler”. For those of you who don’t know what this word means, I’ll give you a moment to look it up and find out for yourself, as I don’t want to be an enabler.

Done? Good.

Thing is, friends and neighbors, your ol’ Rhino knows a bit about intelligence gathering. One of the things I learned throughout my years of obtaining information from sources unwilling to give any is that there are easy ways and im-fucking-possible ways to get what you want. We’ll briefly discuss them now, savvy?

Easy : Make a friend. Nobody tells secrets to strangers; particularly if they’re a. new to town(or for that matter, country), b. colored differently, or c. don’t speak their language. Is this making sense so far? Gawd I hope so… Anyhoo, once you’ve established a friendship, it’s easy to find out what people know.

Easy: If you can’t make a friend, make an enemy.  If you work in the intelligence community, and you need to find out where an arms shipment is headed, roadside bombs are being planted, etc., and the person you were reaching out to decides they can’t/won’t trust you, make them think you’ve set them up as a fall guy for his entire organization. This works well if you’re short on time. Most people involved in well established criminal/terrorist organizations are more afraid of retribution from their own than from you. A phone call/visit to the upper echelon takes place, and you snag your quarry.

Im-fucking-possible: Torture. Torture someone long enough, they’ll tell you that they and they alone are responsible for making Celine Dion famous (an act of terrorism nearly equal to any other). Every analyst agrees that torture nets you less reliable information than any other means of intelligence gathering. Not to mention it’s fucking reprehensible, and anyone involved in it’s use or authorization should be convicted of War Crimes.

Remember back oh, seven-maybe eight- years ago when our country abhorred torture? I fuckin’ do, and I’d like to see us get back to that whole “the United States of America doesn’t torture” thing. While Bush said we didn’t, Cheney said “you betcher ass we did/do/will for 14 more days, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?”. And they wrote legislation that clears the US of any wrongdoing/illegality in case it dawns on anyone with two fucking brain cells to rub together that they’re guilty as OJ of war crimes and oughtta be locked up for fucking ever.

Leon Panetta has been nominated to be the man to spearhead President Elect Obama’s “Just Say No” to torture program. As Director of the CIA, he would be the third man on the whole fucking ladder, behind the POTUS and Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair.

And people like Feinstein are pissed. She should be, as one of Bush’s key allies in the Senate for his authorization of spying on US citizens and green light for torture. When the toughest question you asked Porter Goss was, “What an interesting name…how did you come by it?”, then voted to approve both the telecom and torture bills, as well as confirm both Gen. Hayden and Goss to head up the Company, you should be pissed and scared.

And you should be labeled as an enabler.

Oh, huge congratulations to Sen. Al Franken (author of Lies [and the Lying Liars that tell them]: A Fair and Blanced Look At The Right). You didn’t just beat Norm Coleman, now get to use this phrase at least once a week,

“With all due respect to the Gentleman from Arizona, while it may be true that comedians can become politicians, it’s a terribly poor decision to attempt it the other way around.”

P.S. I realize I took an extra day. I swear I’ll make it up to you.

I’m a huge Miles Davis fan; ‘Kind Of Blue’ has always been one of my favorites. I particularly love ‘So What’ for its improvisational journey through a basic, two chord progression.

Yesterday, however, I heard a “so what” I could have done without.

Martha Raddatz interviewed Dubya about his legacy, and yes, the shoe-thrower (by the way, you really want to click the link–I promise, you’ll crack up). I’m not going to get into the “shoe heard round the world” because I think what our lamest of lame duck President said regarding the whole of the Iraq war is more important.

[Bush] “Clearly, one of the most important parts of my job because of 9/11 was to defend    the security of the American people. There have been no attacks since I have been president, since 9/11. One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take …”

At this point, our re-writer in Chief was interrupted by Raddatz, whereupon she reminded him that al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq until he decided to invade. To which he replied:

Yeah, that’s right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they’re going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand. And they’re becoming defeated and I think history will say, one, the world was better off without Saddam, two, along with the Iraqi troops we have denied al Qaeda a safe haven…”

Except we haven’t denied al Qaeda a safe haven in Iraq. All reports from the ground admit that Iraq has become an entirely new front for the terror organization, and with friendlies on every border, an effective one at that. I’m sure if you look hard enough, you can find an article in some place like the Christian Science Monitor debating that, but you’d be getting your information from the CSM–and that would make you an idiot.

It’s not that Incurious George has ever been concerned with facts that pisses me off; rather, it’s his callous disregard for human life and inability to recognize his drastic fucking mistakes. Shrugging off the fact that our public enemy number one wouldn’t even be in Iraq unless he hadn’t decided to turn that country into a 400,000 hole desert golf course doesn’t even register with this complete and total fucktard. The 4,200+ American lives lost don’t matter, nor do the lives of over a million Iraqi citizens.

In 36 more days, we’ll inaugurate a new President, but for generations, we’ll be feeling the effects of the Bush Legacy. It will take much more than Barack Obama to restore our standing in the world; it will take all of us working together to achieve that goal.

While a leader (correctly or not) represents us globally, we need to freely and willingly immerse ourselves in other cultures, other beliefs, other ways of thinking, and yes, other religions. You don’t have to forsake the snake and apple for the flying horse and the black rock, but you should be at least half as aware of the Qu’ran as you are the Bible. American civilization just may depend on it.

John McCain prophetically said he’d rather lose an election than a war. Well, he’s off to a decent start, and even though everyone on the ground has said that you can’t win occupations, there may be time for some armchair neo-con to claim victory right before we pull out. Or, as I like to call it, the “Catholic Win”.

We now know that Dubya is going to spend 14 of the remaining 15billion from the TARP funds to guarantee the auto industry in America doesn’t fail on his watch. This decision comes on the heels of the Senate rejecting a bill that would have given the Big Three a bridge loan during the waning days of Dubya’s piss poor excuse for an administration. We also know that the Senators responsible for killing the bill are, more often than not,  from states that are backed by non-Unionized foreign auto makers. Ironically, 18 Republican Senators, largely from the aforementioned states, voted for the $700billion bailout of Wall St., but voted against the $15billion bridge loan to assure that 3.2 million Americans would be able to keep their jobs and pay their bills.

Bob Bennett, UT, Richard Burr, NC, Saxby Chambliss, GA,Tom Coburn,OK
Norm Coleman, MN, Bob Corker, TN, John Ensign,NV, Chuck Grassley,IA,
Judd Gregg,NH, Orrin Hatch,UT, Kay Bailey Hutchison, TX,  Johnny Isakson,GA
John Kyl, AZ,  Mel Martinez, FL,  John McCain, AZ, Mitch McConnell,KY
Lisa Murkowski,AK,  John Thune, SD

Odd that with at least a third of these American Dream killing, big business kowtowing, hypocritical, fluffers of Wall St. up for reelection in two short years, they’d use this opportunity to exercise their outright hatred of Unions and bend over for foreign auto makers.

I come from a town that went from considerable independence to almost total reliance on revenue garnered from chain restaurants and big box stores as a result of GM shutting down 6 factories and shipping 85% of those jobs overseas or to Mexico. People I grew up with are living in their parent’s homes and taking night classes for a slim chance at a different career because they were new employees when the jobs went away, and factory life was all they knew. Now, the remaining 15% of those men and women that were already struggling to make a living may only be able to do so until January or February of next year. For no other reason than Dubya, and his fellow GOPers, feel threatened by Unions.

I will give the teensiest amount of credit to BushCo, though. Giving the Big Three just enough to get through the next two months means one less potential albatross to hang around their neck.

Fucking douchebags.

Wait…you mean to tell me that a governor from Illinois is corrupt? Next you’re going to tell me that 60 seconds=1 minute. While the right is scrambling like the one lemming with common sense on the precipice of the cliff to wrap President-Elect Obama to Blago, the rest of us over here in the real world are pushing the IL state legislature, and/or the IL Supreme Court, to bounce Blago faster than you can say, “George W. Bush is a war criminal”.

Which brings me to the title of this post. I can’t help but notice that when a GOPer gets indicted, the right-and their propaganda machine-rally behind these crooks and say things like, “leftist conspiracy”, or, “witch hunt”, or, “he was just trying to get toilet paper off the bottom of his shoe”.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Blago deserves to go to prison. In fact, the loudest cries are coming from Democrats in Washington- including the President-elect. Were it not for the push by Barack Obama to get ethics reforms passed in the IL state legislature, it would have been more difficult for Blago to get his indictment.

This sudden exercise in character on the part of the GOP looks about as convincing as UFOs in an Ed Wood flick. But it doesn’t stop with Blago.

Senator Arlen “magic bullet” Specter (Senile Old Man-PA) has called for a delay in the confirmation of Eric Holder. Never mind that he jumped on the bandwagon to fast track John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and Michael Mukasey. Never mind that Holder was appointed by Reagan, or that Holder himself prosecuted some very high profile Democrats. Nope, Specter is putting the brakes on the confirmation because Holder didn’t step in and cancel the pardon of Marc Rich.

I know, it sounds really fucking dumb to me, too.

Get used to this kind of behavior from Republicans, friends and neighbors. The same people that let it slide when Mukasey said waterboarding was only torture if it happened to him will stop at nothing to shove a broomstick in the spokes of progress.  So I’m going to ask you guys to do me a favor…in the next couple of weeks, write some Op-Ed pieces about some of the biggest disasters of the Bush Administration-and the members of Congress who were quick to usher them in. Chances are, you’ll find the same people are now playing obstructionist.

It’s been a pretty good week here in Rhinoland. In the last 36 hours, I’ve had my work showcased on BadGirlsRadio (podcast to follow), asked to be the Political Editor-In-Chief for the upcoming A World Of Progress Team-Zine(launching soonish), closed on a place to live in North Carolina(which is awesome, because we were moving next week regardless), and was just given this award-

Announcing the first “IPD Best Political Graphics Awards” .  Not bad for the start of a week.

Now, to get to something I should have included in an earlier post, but have been busy painting and boxing up our apartment, here are the last two entries in:  Rhino’s Completely Original List Of Ten Republicans That Need To Be Packaged Without Bubble Wrap And Shipped Without Insurance Via UPS To Darfur™

Rudy Giuliani The man who in June of 1999, against the advice of anyone with a pulse, placed the Mayoral Office of Emergency Management on the 23rd floor of the World Trade Center. The man who took off his dress long enough to switch party affiliation because he knew there was no way on the face of god’s gray Earth he could ever beat Ed Koch in a primary. Rudy…the only man in America to politicize the tragedy of September 11th more than George W. Bush. The man who turned 9/11 into a noun, a verb, a platform, an excuse, and a fucking trademark. Oh, and a way to make money. Rudy 9iu11ani opened a security consulting firm after his city was attacked on his watch and capitalized on the fears of his former constituents. Fucking classy.

But that’s not really why Rudy deserves to be on the list. It’s his snarling, sniveling, sneering, shameless, surreptitious slander that spewed out of his curled lips and forked fucking tongue during this year’s election cycle. The unabashed  glee he clearly felt at mocking the very members of his own fucking community that put their lives on hold to rebuild New York so he could claim it as his legacy. The lies and vitriol that flowed nonstop from the maw of a madman. Fuck you, Rudy. And I hope you run again. I never get tired of seeing you in drag. But until then, have fun fucking your cousin.

Ann Coulter Look. I’ll be honest. Yes, she looks like a barely post-op tranny with a bad fucking wig, and yes, if that Adam’s Apple gets any bigger, it’s going to take over her face. And yes, the bilious venom that drips out of those fangs and on to the air (or in print) should come with a giant advisory sticker that reads: Believing this shit will lower your standing on the evolutionary ladder. And yes, no one with the IQ of a semi-frozen Brontosaurs should take her any more seriously than a spam email claiming you are the heir to a fortune in Dubai. But hey, everyone needs a nemesis, right? And come on, if it wasn’t for Ann, we’d never have her female counterpart. Yup, I’m talking about Matt Drudge.

 Given the time of year it is right now, and the childlike hope and willingness to believe in something we all know isn’t real, I thought I’d discuss the myth of small government and fiscal conservatism in the GOP.

Like a lot of other things that millions of people believe in that don’t really exist, the myth that the Republican Party is the only party that can decrease spending and balance a budget is as honest and believable as Hayden Christiansen in those Star Wars prequels. But sometimes words aren’t enough, which is why I’ve provided this handy little graph:

In case you are colorblind, or can’t decipher Rs from Ds , I’ll translate. Whenever the graph goes up, a Republican was in the White House. When it goes down, a Democrat was President. In case that sounds bad, let me remind you that the title of the graph is “Increases in the National Debt”.

Conservatives, can’t you just admit that the reason you vote Republican is because you’re easily duped, care nothing for your fellow man, and hate progress? I mean, saying “all conservatives hate America” is a pretty bold statement, and I’m sure six of them actually love our country. So for the love of Mark Harmon, could you fucking act like it and switch party affiliation?