"Barack, the Magic Negro"?!

As angry at Obama as I am, those across the aisle so to speak are also finding new and novel ways to screw up - and thus piss me off. For those who missed it, Republican National Committee Chairman hopeful Chip Saltsman sent out a CD to some friends that contained, among other things, a parody song entitled "Barack the Magic Negro," written by "Conservative Comedian" (I will not call him a satirist) Paul Shanklin and sung to the tune "Puff the Magic Dragon." Shanklin's parody excerpted below:

Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times they called him that
'cause he's not authentic like me...
"Yeah the guy from the L.A. paper
said he made guilty whites feel good
they'll vote for him and not for me
'cause he's not from the hood..."

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/race/2008/12/barack-the-magi.html

By the way, Shanklin "sings" the song as an "imitation of Al Sharpton" - really hilarious. Even better, America's Dumb-ass Laureate, Rush Limbaugh gleefully played it on his radio show. Hysterical

Unbelievable. What is wrong with these people. I don't really condone swearing when people are trying to be taken seriously, but sometimes it's needed. So, pardon my French here, but if you think this is funny, if you think there's nothing wrong with this, if you think criticism of this "parody" is people being overly sensitive, fuck off. That's right. Fuck. Off. You are not smart, in fact, calling you stupid is an insult to stupid people.

With the Republican Party essentially acknowledging in many corners that the real reason they lost was because they alienated people by being obscenely out of touch, this is hardly the message they should be sending. And the person disseminating (good ol' Chipster) is hardly the messenger the Republicans need (or should even want).

Can't possibly imagine why I can't stand either party.

Embittered, Cynical, and Jaded.

I'm back, and I am pissed off.

First, I was one of those embittered, cynical people President-elect Obama referred to in his acceptance speech after the election. Throughout much of the campaign I was fearful that Obama was using the language of hope to appeal to the jaded elements but that when he won (and frankly, I had no doubt that Senator McCain could overcome both the Bush record and his own startling record of campaign gaffes)it would be business as usual.

I did not (and do not) fear tax increases - despite what the right suggests, it is much more an American political tradition that those who make more have a greater societal responsibility. Even when the so-called robber barons of old made millions and paid no taxes (J.P. Morgan made $23 million in 1900 and paid exactly $0 in taxes) this was offset by massive charitable givings (this doesn't absolve them, I'm just making a point here). Today, when many of these functions are seen as the responsibilty of the state, it is more than appropriate that the more you make, the more you should pay in taxes - to the argue the inverse (that the tax burden should fall on those who make less) is stupid, there's no other way around it. Despite not being afraid of tax increases, I was afraid that Obama's rhetoric would not match his actions. Sure enough, he has already gone on record that he will not remove the Bush tax cuts, rather he will let them expire. Not quite the platform on which he was elected. If he NOW cuts middle-class taxes (the basis of his platform, restructuring the tax burden) then he will have completely gutted the tax base, which will likely create big problems - the onlychoice should have always been to get rid of the Bush tax cuts. So reason number one why I am jaded (again) and pissed off.

Obama also has scaled back his rhetoric regarding the war in Iraq. While admirably running as the only candidate who opposed the Iraq War, and arguing for a change in strategy, as well as an on target critique of the current (not for long) administartion's policies, Obama said he would begin an immmediate drawdown. To be fair, he has announced his plan to remove the combat troops by the summer of 2010 (http://change.gov/agenda/iraq_agenda/). However, he still intends to leave residual forces. And directing the process? Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, holdover from the Bush administration, and unrepentent Cold War memo artist. How exactly is keeping troops in Iraq and a guy partially responsible for the policies then-candidate Obama opposed giving us "the change we need"?

Moreover, look at the people with whom Obama has filled his administration:
-John Podesta, head of transition, former Clinton Chief of Staff. Podesta's assistant? Betty Currie, Pres. Clinton's personal secretary.
-Hillary Clinton, secretary of state designate, wife of Pres. Clinton
-Hilda Solis, secretary of labor designate, served in Office of Hispanic Affairs under Pres. Carter, and as OMB budget analyst under Pres. Reagan (to be fair, Solis became disgusted with Reagan policies and resigned).
-Ray LaHood, secretary of transportation designate. Elected to congress in 1994 and presided over President Clinton's impeachment hearings.
-Bill Richardson - secretary of commerce designate. Clinton's UN Ambassador, and probably the best qualified of Obama's designates, except he should have been placed at the state department instead of Hillary Clinton.
-Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security designate. Governor of Arizona, and former district of Arizona US attorney, appointed by President Clinton.
-Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture designate.
-Tom Daschle - health and human services designate. Former 4-term member of the House of Representatives and later senate majority leader who lost in the 2002 midterm elections.
-Robert M. Gates, secretary of defense designate, former CIA directer under Pres. George H.W. Bush and current secretary of defense - 'nuff said.
-Eric Holder, attorney general designate, former Clinton deputy attorney general.
-Timothy Geithner, secretary of treasury designate. As chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, he helped arrange the sale of Bear-Sterns, and helped arrange the bailout of Lehman Brothers and A.I.G. Thanks for nothing.
-Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council. He was on Pres. Reagan's council of economic advisers, economic adviser to the Dukakis campaign, an economist for the World Bank, and finally deputy treasury secretary and treasury secretary under Pres.---(wait for it) ---Clinton.
-Ron Kirk, US Trade representative designate, former Mayor of Dallas.
-Steven Chu, secretary of energy designate.

Only a couple of these designates can be described as Washington outsiders, and many Democrats have been openly critical of the choice of Kirk as trade representative (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/20/AR2008122000579.html).

So I'm having a hard time seeing how this is really change.

When Fair Trade and Fairness Clash

I have been associated with the University of Houston since 1998 - first as an undergraduate student, and now as a PhD candidate, former graduate assistant and sometimes adjunct instructor. One of the things that struck me as an undergrad was that it took a lot to get students angry - indeed in the first few years I was there, the only real controversy was over a setup sponsored by a right to life organization that showed graphic photos of aborted fetuses, as well as lots of strong language, cajoling, and invectives hurled at each other by supporters on both sides of the issue.

In this milieu, the jokes by people like Stephen Colbert ("what are you supposed to do when you're fighting the man and he tells you not to?") make a lot of sense, and carry a great amount of currency at places like UH. A group like the Students for Fair Trade should be the type of organization that students who bemoan the lack of direct action at UH would come out and support. In fact, I could see myself supporting them. They argue with the UH administration about requiring fair trade coffee in various spots on campus. They demand that UH disassociate with companies that operate sweatshops. They demand the administration follow through on promises, on meetings, on investigations. These are great ideals, things people could get behind. They do it thorugh direct action that would make any activist proud. Recently they (meaning two members) disrupted a Faculty Senate Meeting, interrupting UH's interim president, John Rudley's remarks. The faculty members present replied weakly with "this isn't the forum," kind of missing the point. It would be easy on it's face to support this group, but a lot of people on the campus of UH who have similar beliefs as UH Students for Fair Trade and the Students Against Sweatships would not be caught dead with either of these groups. Despite sharing comparable ideas about social justice, equality, human rights, globalization, and corporatization, these people who could be assets refuse to stand with these two organizations

So why do they refuse?

It could be the group's leader Tim O'Brien.

Mr. O'Brien lists himself as the "historian" of the group, but that is incredibly disingenuous, as he is the de facto leader of the group - he is the person who runs the group, he is the face of the group, he is the mouthpiece of the group. If one listens to the group's efforts on KPFT, it is O'Brien who is clearly the head. If one goes to the group's website, his name is mentioned most prominently (in one of the most hilariously insincere things on the site, the group's history is a virtual homage to O'Brien - "Take notice that our campus campaign began with only one member" and then goes on to mention him 34 times). When the group has been interviewed or featured on local news, their spokesperson is not their president, vice-president, or oddly enough their public relations person (probably because this same person also functions as the group's secretary and treasurer, so they have a lot to do, no doubt), but rather their historian.

So why is the real leader the "historian" and why is he the most likely reason why so many stay as far away as possible?

The UH chapter of the NAACP invited UH Students for Fair Trade, via O'Brien to speak at a meeting that occurred last spring. O'Brien, invited to speak about fair trade, and the rights of African coffee growers instead used his platform to launch a diatribe against UH's African American Studies (AAS) program. While this was distasteful, dishonest, and a miscalculation of epic proportions (given the chapter favored fair trade but would be disinclined to support an attack on the African American Studies program), O'Brien found a way to make it worse. While O'Brien's overall questions about AAS might in fact have merit and could be a step toward transforming AAS into an academic department (rather than a certification program) O'Brien uttered a racial slur toward the AAS director, undercutting the validity of his argument. The incident is murky, as there is no true consensus about what O'Brien said - in interviews conducted by myself and another graduate student in the UH History Dept., one interviewee claimed O'Brien called "someone a house nigger." Another interviewee admitted they did not hear O'Brien utter the actual words, but that the message O'Brien conveyed through the context of the rest of his remarks was consistent with him uttering the epithet. Another source noted that the person at whom O'Brien aimed the epithet has confirmed O'Brien said it. Perhaps this is why O'Brien lists himself as "only" the historian - who in their right mind would join a group with this type of person at its head, who not only personally attacks people who are ON HIS SIDE, but then uses racially charged language to do so? I question whether O'Brien truly understands social justice.

On a personal note I will offer a full disclosure here. I know Tim O'Brien. I don't like Tim O'Brien. I shared an office with him (and others) while a graduate assistant and found Tim to be one of the more reprehensible people I've ever met. I have not observed this concern for others that O'Brien proclaims, except when he and his coterie of sycophants showed up to our office to pick up flyers, or, oddly enough, when the cameras are rolling and Tim is trolling for responses.

I have watched Tim treat people from the IT department here with quite less than the humanity he demands be paid to coffee growers and slave laborers at sweat shops (and utilize a very subtle racism in the process). I have read him (in a Houston Press editorial) preposterously draw a comparison between himself and Rosa Parks over a department that did not employ him refusing to issue him a key to a staff-only restroom. I have personally witnessed him call an archivist a liar at a History Department sponsored event, an incident that was so personally offensive to me that I apologized to the archivist in question and assured this person that not all in the UH History Department behaved this way.

I took my own steps to disassociate myself while officing with him. I was appalled when I heard about the incident at the NAACP to the point that when Tim was in the office I would neither speak to him nor share space, preferring to conduct my office hours in the History Department's conference room rather than in his presence. Additionally, I made a fateful decision that I would not allow Tim to associate his group with the people who shared his office. Tim put flyers on a shared office door which I (and I alone) ripped down on a near daily basis. I had concluded that Tim's attack on the director of AAS was that type that any sane person would disassociate themselves from. I had substantial collegial support, all of whom came to the same conclusion - we did want people to see Tim's flyers on OUR doors and make the assumption that we supported his group, him, or his actions, particularly the personal attack on the director of AAS (yes, I am emphasizing this for a reason - to be perfectly clear, had this been Tim's office alone, I would not have even considered ripping the flyers down).

Typical of Tim's public persona, he challenged the person ripping the flyers down to come to his office hours to discuss it. Oddly enough, after I wrote on that flyer that I would be there to discuss it with him - during his office hours, on his terms, Tim was nowhere to be found. I subsequently discovered Tim went to a talk being given by someone applying for a job on campus. I found it ironic that the same sort of tactics O'Brien charged then-UH President Jay Gogue, and subsequently Rudley, of emplying were precisely the same ones he used in avoiding a confrontation with someone.

So this is who leads the UH Students for Fair Trade, and the Students Against Sweat Shops. I don't know whether it is fair or too harsh to call someone like this a hypocrite. Such a person could be perceived by some as a subtle racist while claiming to fight for racial justice, perhaps the most insidious form of racism. He is more than likely THE REASON why people who otherwise would pick up the banner, add articulate voices, and add people power simply shake their head and walk away (at best) when they see these groups coming.

Gonzales Out, Shed no tears.

Alberto Gonzales has resigned, and with this one of the more polarizing figures in the Bush administration leaves the national spotlight. I found it remarkable this morning, as both he and President Bush crowed about his many accomplishments that this is an administration that in the face of overwhelming evidence still believes they are above the fray. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, both Bush and his DOJ proxy still believe they owe no explanation whatsoever to the American people.

Forget the firing of US attorneys for a few moments, as that is something that the administration absolutely had the right to do. They were under no obligation to disclose why they did it, it could have been for no reason whatsoever, just a “need for new blood.” There were many, many reasons to dislike Alberto Gonzales and find fault with his handling of DOJ matters. Indeed, Gonzales has had a long history of having serious character issues.

While running for the Texas Supreme Court, Gonzales took more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from energy companies, most notably nearly $35,000 from Enron. Once George W. Bush took office as president and Gonzales was part of the White House’s legal team, Gonzales, to no one’s surprise, constructed Vice President Dick Cheney’s arguments regarding the Energy Task Force meetings, in which the new Bush administration, in conjunction with the nation’s leading energy companies (again, including Enron), determined energy policy. Gonzales’s argument was that this fell under executive privilege, and he advised Cheney to keep the information secret. Enron, you’ll recall, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, 2001 amid accounting fraud and ethics violations.

But Gonzales was not done there. In the immediate aftermath of United States’ so-called “War on Terror,” Gonzales, in a series of memos, outlined his theories about why captured Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters were not entitled to due process, why they were not entitled to humane treatment, and why they not subject to international laws regarding the use of torture. In the latter opinion, Gonzales made his now infamous pronouncement that as the conditions of the war on terror “rendered aspects [of the Geneva Conventions] obsolete…and quaint.” Moreover in the same series of memos (the Bybee memo and the Yoo-Delahunty memo) Gonzales continued to assert (with a straight face apparently) the administration’s position that Afghanistan was a state without a government, although the administration continually referred to the Taliban’s governance of Afghanistan.[i]

Gonzales however, showed what a truly reprehensible human being he was in March 2004. In testimony before congress on May 17, 2007 former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, as acting attorney general, refused to recertify the legality of an NSA program (believed by virtually all to be the NSA’s Domestic Spying program) on March10, 2004. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital with pancreatitis, leaving Comey in charge. At this moment Gonzales and Andrew Card (then-White House Chief of Staff) went to Ashcroft’s bedside to convince him to recertify the program. Ashcroft made a very strong statement, according to Comey’s testimony, regarding why he (Ashcroft) would not certify the legality, then laid back down and stated that it did not matter, as Comey was “the attorney general.” In short, Gonzales and Card attempted an end-around that failed (although the program was renewed the following day without a certification of its legality by the Justice Department). Comey was so offended by Card’s and Gonzalez’s conduct that when Card summoned him to the white house in the very immediate aftermath, Comey refused to meet with Card without a witness present (the Solicitor General), and drafted a letter of resignation. According to Comey’s testimony, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Ashcroft planned to resign as well.[ii] The context of this whole thing was that Ashcroft's hospitalization had been so taxing his wife had banned all phone calls and visitors because it was impeding his recovery (see Comey’s testimony for the whole disgusting affair here).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html

Indeed the sentiment about Gonzales was so clear that The Nation’s Robert Sheer penned an editorial (January 5, 2004, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050110/scheer0104) entitled “Backing Gonzales is Backing Torture.”

In announcing the resignation today, George Bush spoke glowingly about Gonzales, and made the argument that with Gonzales at the helm, “the Justice Department has made a priority of protecting children from Internet predators, made enforcement of civil rights laws a top priority. He aggressively and successfully pursued public corruption and effectively combated gang violence.” This is all patently ridiculous. The most recent statistics cited have been from a 2001 study, hardly conclusive. Given the infighting regarding the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, and Black voter intimidation in Florida and Ohio in 2000 and 2004 respectively, and the so-called Patriot Act, it simply preposterous to look at Gonzales as a herald for civil rights – ask Blacks in Texas, Mississippi, and Georgia, where Gonzales refused to enforce the VRA. As for the notion that Gonzales has pursued public corruption, that assertion is simply absurd - the Enron fiasco has stained Gonzales, as has the incredibly dishonest Bush regime - he is just as much a part of it as the lying secretaries of state and defense, the CIA-agent outing chiefs of staffs, the shooting-friends-in-the-face vice president, or the insincerely disingenuous president he serves.

Bush has been on the wrong side of history over and over again, most recently in his attempt to draw an analogy between the situation in present-day Iraq and Cambodia following the Vietnam War (see Houston Chronicle, August 23, 2007 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5079389.html and Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2007, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bacevich25aug25,0,2398496.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail). History will prove him wrong here as well.

---

[i] The basis for this apparently was Afghanistan’s dealings with the UN – the Taliban was leery of UN motives, and did not trust them. Since Thomas Bolton, former UN Ambassador, and George Bush have made the same critique of the UN, does this mean the US is a “failed state?”

[ii] In fact, according to Comey, Ashcroft asked Comey to hold off on his resignation until Ashcroft could come out of his illness and resign with him, giving strength to the convictions of Comey and Mueller. Comey assets that only when President Bush intervened, allowing the DOJ to “do the right thing” did he (Comey), Mueller, and Ashcroft decide to hold off their resignations. Comey would subsequently resign in August 2005.

The Scooter Passes Away

PHIL RIZZUTO 1917-2007

"Heaven must have needed a shortstop"
George Steinbrenner

When I was growing up in New Jersey, I was a huge Yankee fan, and one of those who really thought of Phil Rizzuto as just that silly old guy who did the Yankees games. I had just moved from Ohio where I used to listen to the incomparable Marty Brenneman (along with his homer sidekick, Joe Nuxhall), and "Scooter" just seemed silly, but harmless, and on occasion funny.

When I was in high school, there was enormous debate about whether Rizzuto should be in the Hall of Fame, and I confess I was one who thought there was no way. And I'm not sure to this day the Veterans Committee got it right, or whether Yogi Berra, and the rest of the Yankees (and a not so subtle message from Ted Williams of all people) of Rizzuto's day flexed their considerable muscle to get him in. Regardless he's in, and I never thought much about it.

Of course today as I was getting dressed I heard on the news that Rizzuto had died - and I was reminded of the great line (although used in an entirely different context) from Johnny Ola in The Godfather II - "One by one, our old friends are gone." I sort of felt as if one more icon (in the real sense - meaning image or symbol) of my childhood was gone. I puttered through my day, again letting the thought go.

Then I spoke with a co-worker who told me a very touching story, about what fanhood means, and why on some level people who aren't fans of baseball will never get why it holds significance for those who follow it. My friend is Italian, grew up in Northern Ohio, and his father (as he is) was a huge Yankee fan, and his favorite shortstop was Rizzuto - makes perfect sense. He told me his father always believed Rizzuto deserved to be in the Hall of Fame, and was disappointed when year after year, Scooter was turned down. My friend told me that the day he buried his father, the news finally came that Scooter got in - and that was what made him break down that day, knowing his father would have loved the news. And this is why baseball is so important to so many - no matter the changes, the eras, the pace of the game and the world, baseball binds fathers and sons, childhood to childhood memories, it is, as James Earl Jones said in Field of Dreams, "They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."

Rest in Peace, Scooter

Relaunching the Blog of Clayton Lust

I have been woefully lax in actually maintaining this space, and I am going to relaunch it beginning today. As with the previous incarnation, I will continue the assault on the politics of privilege in the United States. While many attempt to view the U.S. as a place where the "Conservatives" fight against the "Liberals," the fact of the matter is there is only a sliver of difference between the two sides. Neither is worthy of the respect of the average American citizen. Neither actually fights for the interests of the average American citizen. The Republicans have led the United States into a foreign policy fraught with disaster, and while the Democrats claimed to be the "opposition" they did everything they could to facilitate that policy. Now in charge of the legislative process, the Dems have done everything they could to continue as the lap dogs of perhaps the most morally bankrupt regime in American history.

So neither side is innocent in this shamocracy called the United States - they both have blood on their hands, money in their pockets, and ill-gotten trust wrung from the toiling of the American working people and poor. The U.S. will not soon change, but I will do everything within the power of the words I possess to expose the Shamocrats and Corrupticans as the evil, hypocritical, lying repressers of liberty and prosperity they both are.

But since I am also interested in a wide variety ideas, issues, etc., I will also comment on sports, movies, and pop culture, with as much vitriol or praise as is deserved.

A series of quick hits - some on which I may follow up.

1. Rosie O'Donnell vs. Elisabeth Hasselbeck - only one person could make me feel sorry for Rosie, and for that I hold an enormous grudge against the most annoying Republican Party parrot this side of Ann Coulter. I have really had enough of people who argue that "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists," and that's what people of Hasselbeck's ilk argue. If you're remotely critical of American policy, you're with the terrorists. If you believe the Bush admistration has squandered an incredible amount of good will in the world, you're with the terrorists. More than that, these hacks think you cannot possibly be opposed to policy and actions and still be for the troops. Rosie O'Donnell made an incredibly ill-advised remark by saying "who are the terrorists" but her point was nonetheless an important one - we have made enemies region-wide courtesy of the Iraq War. Our policies, designed to stabilize, have had the exact opposite impact, as the terrotists "we" planned to keep out have found a wide-open door. I can't believe even the most jaded critic would truly call our servicemen and women "terrorists," and there is no question Rosie O'Donnell was speaking about US policies and the way "Americans" in general are portrayed - but anyone who believes she meant the troops is flat out stupid. And when Hasselbeck refused to stand up for her alleged "friend," Rosie rightly called Hasselbeck a coward.

2. Jimmy Carter - Speaking of cowards...well, I'm only partly kidding. In the May 19, 2007 edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, President Carter, speaking on President Bush said,"as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world [i.e. - how the rest of the world percieves the United States] this administration has been the worst in history." This was not a particularly shocking pronouncement, as any number of administration critics have made similar statements - but this was a former president, which made the declaration remarkable (Carter went on to say several other things about the Bush administration, and in a separate interview with the BBC torched the Bush relationship with outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair). One day later, Bush spokesman Tony Fratto carried out the type of hatchet job that has become all too typical of this gang of fools. Fratto said to the assembled media at Bush's Crawford, TX ranch, "I think it's sad that President Carter's reckless personal criticism is out there. I think it's unfortunate. And I think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments." Sadly, instead of standing by the comments, in the wake of Bush's attack by proxy, Carter claimed on May 21 broadcast of the Today Show that the remarks were "careless or misinterpreted" - worse when Meredith Viera asked Carter if the comments themselves were irresponsible, Carter replied, "I think they were, yes because they were interpreted as comparing this whole administration to all other administrations." Jimmy Carter had a horrible record as president for condoning human rights violations in Nicaragua, Panama, and Iraq, while publicly excorciating Iran, yet in the past several years, particularly with his critique of Israel's Palestine policy, Carter was somewhat redeemed, but no longer. Tony Fratto was right, Carter became irrelevant. Not because of his criticism of George Bush, but because when the Bush administration huffed and puffed, Carter rolled over for them.

3. HR 1252 - For those unaware, the House of Representatives has a plan to deal with potential price gauging on gasoline, a resolution introduced last week, HR 1252. It proposes severe penalties for those found guilty of gouging, as well as giving state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission the ability to enforce this should it become law. MoveOn.org has engaged in a tremendous campaign to enourage people to let their representatives know they are in favor of it - however they did not provide the text of the bill or a link, which made me curious.

In speaking with some people last week, we discussed the ideas of consumer gas "strikes" - a day where everyone refuses to purchase gasoline from their evil oil corporation of choice to "stick it to them." The problem is this - Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, et al are all horrible, and their executives undoubtedly are lying at worst, manipulative at best, scumbags. But any one who thinks that going on "strike" hurts these people is deluded. No, the one who suffers is the poor shmuck who owns that gas station, the Gus Opeldopels (a Gulf gas station owner I knew of as a child) of the world, the honest hard-working guy, who owns a gas station and happens to be caught between the oil companies, the gasoline brokers who really determine the prices, and pissed off consumers who only see poor Gus when they're filling up their tank.

I urge anyone who reads this, go to the link below, and read HR 1252. I have serious reservations, becasue I think the bill poorly defines who would be held responsible - if it is clowns like David O'Reilly (the CEO of Chevron, the company that acquired Gulf) then I've got no problem with HR 1252. If it's people like Gus Opeldopel, then it's an ill-coneived farce.

The bill - http://www.sigma.org/publications/legal-memos/HR-1252.pdf

4. Funding of the Iraq War by Congress - needless to say, I am beyond pissed. I will have much more to say about this on my Sunday blog post, but suffice to say the Democrats showed their true colors once again - anyone who claims the Democrats are a true alternative is either intellectually dishonest or extremely susceptible to bullshit. The Dems screwed this up big - roughly 160 of them maintained their convictions in the House, and to give credit where credit is due, Barack Obama (D-IL) and HillaryRodham Clinton (D-NY) voted against the funding, but I suspect it was because they were painted into a corner, rather than their voting their convictions.

Come back Sunday, when I will discuss the war appropriations bill at length and take aim at the cowards of the Democratic Party, and the miserable followers in the Republican Party. I'll also offer my take on the Sunday news programs.

I heard this on the Dan Patrick show on ESPN radio today, from his guest host, Michael Kay, and I'll use it to close this post. Quoting Billy Joel, "life is a series of hellos and goodbyes - I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again."