We have now entered into the twilite ZONE!

Every station has the same retoric about the other candidate, saying the same thing, with the same misinformation.

The Left is accussing the Right and the Right is accussing the Left.
You assholes are now making as much sense as Cable news. Where they repeat the same news cast only with a different comentator.

Why don't you talk about solutions and to the existing problems?

So my first Obama fundraising poster sold on Sunday for almost $60, and I thought that was pretty great. The buyer has already left me glowing feedback on ebay. A fine start to a summer project, I think. I mentioned this casually to a friend, and her husband scoffed. "Musta been the only Obama supporter with a job," he said, "or some stupid kid looking to waste their daddy's money on ebay." He continued to roll his eyes as I told him the poster got 13 bids and at least 100 page visits. "So? I bet the next one won't even get 10 visits!" And so the argument began... the same argument I've been having with him for five years.

Day 1
  George Bush announces that he will be seeking a third term in office.  He explains, "While I respect Senator McCain's service to this country, I feel that he has embraced too much of the Moveon.org, Radical Left's 'change for the sake of change' rhetoric.  And that could lead to him undoing the crucial work my Administration has done over the years to protect this country from the threat of terrorism."
  The McCain's camp has no comment, though sources claim they heard the words "But I was tortured!" coming out of Mr. McCain's house.

The nearly-8,000 word cover story on radio talker Rush Limbaugh in The New York Times Magazine last Sunday drew surprised approval from many conservatives -- and, now, condemnation from many others. Eric Boehlert at Media Matters, for example, ripped the Times today for "duping" its readers by assigning a conservative "dittohead" staffer, Zev Chafets, to write the piece without informing its readers of this "alliance." He asked for Public Editor Clark Hoyt to look into it.

Chafets appeared with host Bob Garfield on the weekly NPR program "On the Media" last weekend, and the show has now posted the revealing transcript.

I've had people here say that talk radio (Limbaugh) and the like simply don't matter any longer.  I disagree.

The lies, inconsistencies and propaganda on conservative talk radio, virtually unopposed by progressives in that medium, are extremely important.  Also, Mr. Limbaugh just had his contract renewed, so unless he drops dead soon we can look forward to him being around for another decade.

Why aren't liberals and progressives better in the radio format?  I'm not sure.  Maybe today's neocons and conservatives are simply good at lying with a straight face and getting people to believe them.  Certainly they like to repeat themselves endlessly...

Can this writer who has spent years revealing the absurdities and damage done to real debate get a better gift?

I'd like some of you to hum "America The Beautiful" to set the mood...

God bless Rush Limbaugh

God bless Rush for reminding us that anyone can suffer drug addiction,
regardless of income.

God bless Rush for reminding us that heavy drug abuse can cause deafness.

God bless Rush for reminding us that heavy drug abuse can cause impotence.

God bless Rush for reminding us that sexual tourism victimizes children.

God bless Rush for reminding us to seek medical attention if we have erections that last more than 4 hours.

God bless Rush for reminding us that anal cysts threaten America's military readiness.

God bless Rush for reminding us that rats and informants are all around us, and that the Salem Witch Trials were not a fluke.

His salon, he told me, is meant to suggest Versailles. His main guest suite, which I did not personally inspect, was designed as an exact replica of the presidential suite of the George V Hotel in Paris.

He is especially proud of his two-story library, which is a scaled-down version of the library at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Cherubs dance on the ceiling, leatherbound collections line the bookshelves and the wood-paneled walls were once “an acre of mahogany.”

His staff lights fragrant candles throughout the house to greet his arrival from work each day. He led me into his private humidor, selected two La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero Chisel stogies for us to smoke and seated me at an onyx-and-marble table in the study. The room opens onto a patio, a putting green and a beach. On the table was a brochure for (his) newest airplane, a Gulfstream G550. It cost him, he told me, $54 million.

New York Times, July 6, 2008

Chris Satullo, a writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, made the suggestion in his column the other day that, instead of Fourth of July celebrations this year, we should sit in quiet contemplation of the plain fact that our country over the past seven years has engaged in torture, indefinite detention without charges, rendition, and other unspeakable acts.  It was a clear and provocative call to stand up for liberty in the face of fear, for honest criticism of our leaders as an act of patriotism.

We have betrayed the July 4 creed. We trample the vows we make, hand to heart.

Don't imagine that only the torturer's hand bears the guilt. The guilt reaches deep inside our Capitol, and beyond that - to us.

Our silence is complicit. In our name, innocents were jailed, humans tortured, our Constitution mangled. And we said so little.

Today, Satullo wrote a follow-up column, explaining the authoritarian response to his initial offering.  

Jesse Helms 1921-2008:  The man who gave the Karl Rove types the blueprint on how to divide and conquer the United States of America.

That is BIG news were I'm from.  Practically the entire Section A of the Charlotte Observer is dedicated to Senator NO this morning.   Different writers with both positive and negative views expressed.

If we want to drive the far right out of power, we need to start at the foundation Senator Helms built.

[UPDATE]  Ezra Klein has a reaction to the Times' Rush job, and after choking back his revulsion, he finds something interesting in the way in which conservatives see and present themselves. . . .

If anyone needed proof that the New York Times was in extremis, Sunday's slavering puff piece on Rush Limbaugh should put any remaining doubts to rest. . . . It's an entirely sympathetic, sanitized portrayal of Rush.  The closest Chafets comes to criticism, is to mildly suggest that Rush has about him a spot of megalomania.   Ouch!  From the outset, that has been one of the principal selling points of the El Rushbo persona, and it's something that Rush promotes with great relish and to great effect, yet Chafets treats his lame, halting observations as if they're cutting objective journalism.

(Cross-posted on my blog.)

In case you hadn't heard, Gush Liebaugh, bloviating liar and hypocrite extraordinaire, just got a new contract worth a reported $400 million.  On the same day, the business section carries a story about another 25,000 auto workers getting the axe (that's in addition to the 100,000 or so that have already gotten it in the past two years).  For the trifecta, there's the news that payrolls have shrunk for the sixth straight month (but we're not in a recession -- oh no, the "economy is growing" thanks to guys like Liebaugh).

We all know this is SFUIBB (So F-d Up It's Beyond Belief), but the stories are related in ways we may not have considered.

No, not the Hindenburg....Rush Limbaugh.

He gets $38M per year for 8 years and AT LEAST a $100M signing bonus.  

Hmmm, maybe if I was a racist, drug-dependent, hate-mongering, homophobic, elitist, uncompassionate, obese, poor-people-hating, outdated, obsolete, lie-pushing, Bush-sucking, liberty-fucking, terror-making, muslim-hating, worthless sack of shit.....people would listen to what I had to say.

Aside from the obvious; the way the Republican party has messed up, not only this country for the past 8 years, but  the entire world, one would think America, all of America is sick of them.
I just can not see how anyone can listen to any Republican speak and still assign creditability to them.
I could go on forever listing all the hypocrisy of the Republican party, but for this diary, I just want to focus on just one issue.

This comes from Drudge:

"You Wouldn’t Ridicule Someone With Parkinson’s*, Then Why Mock Anyone With A Brain Disease," say's Nobel Prize nominee.

Check Diseased Talk Show Brain Here: http://img295.imageshack.us/...

Rush Limbaugh & Bo Snerdley discussed Obama's lack of "slave blood" this morning, as well as the contents of Bo's blood, to establish Bo's qualifications as Certified Black Enough to Criticize Obama.  

I'm telling you, I think we may be getting somewhere in this country.

A few months ago, entirely by accident, I came across a 1972 book in a little old antique/curio store in downtown Buda, TX (a suburb of Austin) that's owned by my friend and terrific artist (and former Univ. of Texas art instructor) Jeanette.  It's entitled Only One Earth -- The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet, and it's written by Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos. This book predated Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance, by a full 20 years.