This is not the America that anyone over the age of 30 grew up with. The Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us about in 1961 http://civilianism.com/forum/index.php?page=19 is already running this country. The democratic rule of the people that has been the lynchpin of our nation is controlled no longer by the people, but by business interests that control our elective officials through campaign funding and lobbyist connections. The American voter has been disenfranchised by a media that has usurped the discourse of normal campaigning by ignoring certain candidates and not allowing them on debates. The system is rigged people. The question is what are we going to do about it?

I’ve been thinking about registrations. Actually I’ve been thinking about the 2008 elections, the endless campaigns, the Supreme Court, endless payment increases, and a growing malaise affecting all US/us. It is really difficult to get fired up for the coming elections which are still some six months off into the future. This is no small observation coming from me – the all-time news and political junkie! I am not alone in this feeling of weariness as many of my readers agree on this.

You see the Tuesday primary elections in Indiana and North Carolina “may” determine who will be the standard bearer for the Democratic Party in the 2008 Presidential election, but I am not counting on it. Both Senators Clinton and Obama claim they are in the fight until the 2008 Denver Convention. Senator McCain has “locked in” the Republican Party spot on the ballot. Campaigning has gone on for two years. The conventions, real debates, and podium combat still loom before us. I was disgusted and undecided about my choice options in 2004. I voted for President last and ended up actually flipping a coin - John Kerry “won” the toss! That is no way to make a voting decision. Please read on.

Thanks to Sarah Lane at EENR for supplying the links in this entry.

When the Supreme (Kangaroo) Court upheld an unconstitutional poll tax last week that was passed in the form of a voter suppression law in Indiana, some people (like Injustice Antonin Scalia) were quick to dismiss the horrendous effects. But as that state held its primary yesterday, reports about voters being turned away because they did not have the poll tax began coming out.

Twelve elderly nuns—NUNS, for crying out loud—were told they could not vote because they didn't have the required state or federal ID card. They are all in their eighties and nineties. Vietnam and Gulf War I veteran Russell Baughman was denied his right to vote, because his identification wasn't considered good enough.

by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

Imagine Hillary Clinton's luck.

When she needed to win a primary in New Hampshire, the machines glitched up, and she emerged with an unexpected margin of victory. Whether it was due to electronic voting breakdowns is not clear. But there was never a a full recount or a thorough investigation of the serious problems that plagued the vote count in that state.

When she needed a victory in Ohio, Republican voters -- urged on by Rush Limbaugh -- crossed over in droves and helped give her one. Cross-over voting may also have been a factor in her critical victory in Pennsylvania. There were also numerous instances of computer tabulation glitches in the Pennsylvania secretary of state's office.

by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

The US Supreme Court has just dealt a serious blow to voters' rights that could help put John McCain in the White House by eliminating tens of thousands of voters who generally vote Democratic.

By 6-3 the Court has upheld an Indiana law that requires citizens to present a photo identification card in order to vote. Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia, Hawaii and South Dakota have similar laws. Though it's unlikely, as many as two dozen other states could add them by election day. Other states, like Ohio, have less stringent ID requirements than Indiana's, but still have certain restrictions that are strongly opposed by voter rights advocates.

I received an email today from Robert Greenwald of Brave new films, asking me to sign a petition calling for the resignation of Condoleeza Rice. The reason for this campaign is because of her involvement in the Bush criminal regime's torture program.

This campaign of course begs the following question: Why start with Condoleeza Rice? What about Bush and Cheney? Isn't Rice a relatively minor player in the torture "policy?"

I "signed" the petition anyway, and included the following note of elaboration:

Condi must go

What nobody is asking is why the Bush criminal regime has been instituting an infrastructure of torture. I believe there are three reasons. One is that this regime is a criminal organization, and that torture is but a further example of its criminality. The second reason is to create a distraction - to deflect attention from its negligence or worse in allowing the attacks of September 11, 2001. The third reason is that the ultimate target for the practice of torture is the American people. If the country can be warmed to the idea, softened up for interrogation, so to speak, then the transition from foreign to domestic is eased greatly. Since the Congress won't impeach them, the Bush gang operates with impunity. The one thing we can do is keep both the Bush crime family (BCF) and the Congress under unrelenting pressure.
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That's pretty much my entire view of the Bush regime's torture practice. As Salon points out, the news media are not exactly jumping on this story, though alternative outlets like Democracy Now are keeping the issue alive. The American Civil Liberties Union offers a bit of insight here.

I think it is safe to say that most "Americans" would rather not have an institutional practice of torture as national policy. Unfortunately, most people are sheep, not willing to move beyond a narrow range of concerns about work, family, entertainment, shopping, and church. Ending torture as a national disgrace will not come about as a result of an uprising of "the people."

It will have to come from the established order, the power structure, the elite. The problem is that it is the power structure that allows the torture. It can't be as simple as the Bush criminal regime being a "cowboy" operation, a discontinuity from the corporate/wealth/government infrastructure of power and ethical standards.

The Bush regime has support among other elements of the power elite. The Congress effectively approves of torture, doing nothing to stop it. The corporate news media treat it as a curiosity. On TV it supplies a few soundbites, and not much more.

The "U.S." Supreme Court supports torture also, as evidenced by its refusal to hear the case of Khaled el-Masri, a "German" citizen who was kidnapped by the "CIA" in Macedonia in 2003, taken to Afghanistan, where he was tortured for five months in a secret prison. He was set free because his kidnapping was a case of mistaken identity. Of course, it could be argued that being a "member" of the "CIA" is a case of mistaken identity, but that's another story.

So it may be that a torture infrastructure has been on the way for a long time. I am certain that the main target of the program is the "American" people, not foreigners. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are the first efforts to establish the program, get the kinks worked out, develop a skill set, and gain some acceptance among the public. As the torture of José Padilla has revealed, the Bush regime has no qualms about torturing "Americans."

The Padilla case also established the "legality" of torture, indefinite detention, and being held incommunicado, all violations of the "U.S." Constitution. The "U.S." Supreme Court denied Padilla's attempt to gain a Habeas Corpus hearing on technical grounds, effectively rendering the Constitution meaningless.

Maybe we should just prepare for the inevitable. In case you would like to see what the future has in store, Salon has compiled a comprehensive collection of pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in "Iraq." Mother Jones has compiled an assortment of information on the Bush criminal regime's sadistic practices, Torture hits home. The question we will soon be asking is who'll be the next in line?
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A song to sing when pondering the great question.

Here's a video of Khaled el-Masri.

Here's a commentary about the José Padilla case.

Here's an example of how domestic spying is coming to a neighborhood near you.

Here's a little light reading about what actually happens under a torture regime.

The pundits hold forth as if they’re thoroughly acquainted with everything Americans think, feel, see and hear. This or that is what Americans want, they say. They gather together in serious little groups and discuss the chances of each candidate and whether or not they’re running a nice campaign, and will they bring taxes down or lower them more, or who said what to who and was it dirty politics, and didn’t he/she promise there would be none of that, and so on ad nauseam. While listening to such drivel memories of junior high school creep into the conscience, uninvited. “Who do you project as the winner, Mortimer Toejam?”

As if things in America were not hard enough for blacks, what with Barack Obama having to explain and denounce his relationship with his “angry” black pastor to ease the fears of his white supporters. It is amazing to me how we allow and accept comments from whites without so much as a whimper, but let a black man say them and all hell breaks loose. It is this double standard and hypocrisy that created the “invisible” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. I call him invisible because unfortunately for him he is too black to be white and too white to be black. He is lost in a false reality that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. He is a black man that hates black people, what a terrible place that must be.

With Bush’s most recent 19% approval rating finally edging out Harry Truman’s 58 year old record low approval rating you just have to ask why oh why is impeachment still off the table? It just doesn’t make sense, the majority of Americans are opposed to Bush’s war, the economy is spiraling into a recession and it costs more to fill up the lawn mower today than is did to fill the car just a few years ago. The list of high crimes and misdemeanors from the Bush administration numbers into the millions yet the leaders of Congress refuse to investigate this administration, let alone impeach them; why?

There is one reason that I’ve been able to come up with; ANTHRAX.

Yes, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid know that the anthrax attacks of 2001 were an inside job approved by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to multiply the terror from the attacks of 9/11.

In what I can only call absurd the Supreme Court appears primed to uphold the Indiana Voter ID law recently enacted by a Republican majority in the State Legislature to disenfranchise the poor and the minority voters of Indiana. As I have written before, this is a red herring cooked up by Republicans in states where they hold a majority to suppress voter turnout of primarily Democratic voters. The simple fact that these legislatures are able to do this crap should be a reminder to all of us that we can never take our civil liberties for granted. There are constant challenges to our citizenship and our ability to exercise our rights. There are currently three states that require all voters to present photo ID’s to vote they are Florida, Georgia, and Indiana.

George and Dick. The two traitors. Two, thoroughly corrupt frauds, will leave office with their legacies intact. History may not treat them kindly, but it won’t condemn them as the criminals they are either. Not unless they’re impeached. These two assholes will leave behind a nation mired in debt with an economy teetering on the edge of collapse. But that’s not their problem. After all, they’ve looked after themselves quite well while in office. The children’s children of the morons who voted for this pair will be paying for generations to come for all the fun and loot that George and Dick will make off with and enjoy for the rest of their shallow, narrow lives. The poor bastards that have to clean up behind them will be seen as incompetent failures when it’s recognized that some of the damage is lasting - that it can’t all be cleaned up - that the soul of the nation has been stained permanently by a pair of greedy, Benedict Arnolds.

What costs more: Global Natural Disasters or America's War on Drugs?

Well...go on... take a guess.

You know the answer but it seems so absurd. It's hard to say it.

That's because it is a study in absurdity.

"On September 11, we saw clearly that evil exists in this world, and that it does not value life ... Now we are engaged in a fight against evil and tyranny to preserve and protect life." – George W. Bush in 2002, linking abortion rights with terrorism, as he declared the 29th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to be "National Sanctity of Human Life Day."

Bush has used his Oval Office years to limit reproductive freedom and stack critical posts with right-wingers bent on rolling back the clock.

And now it appears yet another reactionary Bush appointee is on track to get a lifetime position as a federal judge...

Freedom's most valuable document, the Magna Carta, a document which laid the groundwork for the concept of popular sovereignty has been sold at auction to David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, a web of Bush supporters if not co-conspirators.

This sale of the very origins of our democratic heritage to the Carlyle Group is symbolic of the GOP sell out to the Military Industrial Complex, the merchants of war and death. [ See: Bush Advisers Cashed in on Saudi Gravy Train; Meet The Carlyle Group, Former World Leaders and Washington Insiders Making Billions in the War on Terrorism; The Bush-Carlyle Connection]

Something akin to this occurred March 28th, 193 AD when the Praetorian guards, literally, sold the Roman empire to the wealthy senator Didius Julianus for the bargain price of 6250 drachmas. Our modern day "Didius" has fared better than Julianus, who didn't live out the year. Unless he is brought to trial for capital and war crimes, our own "Crawford Caligula", looks forward to a peaceful retirement where he can exorcise his aggressive demons with a chainsaw and mesquite trees.

By Robert, Sam and Nat Parry

Editor’s Note: In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize – and a measure of vindication that came with it – Al Gore recalled the painful events seven years ago when five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the counting of votes in Florida and handed the Presidency to George W. Bush.

At the time, many in Official Washington rejoiced at the decision on the grounds that it spared the country more partisanship. It also was the result that many top pundits wanted, the “election” of the well-liked Texas governor and the return of the so-called Republican “adults” who supposedly would guide him.

Today’s laws are being made by a Congress that mistrusts and fears Americans. What is it that impels men to make laws that go beyond the rules that nature and common sense demand men live by? Human beings respect and honor laws that govern individual and group behavior. If a man steals from, or harms his neighbor, the law provides remedies that punish the thief or assailant. The laws that Congress makes are often convoluted - tortuously labyrinthine. Many are a mystery. No one understands them with the exception of those who are especially trained to interpret them. Even they must rely on vast libraries of precedent, defined terminology, endless files of statutes, ordinances and regulations, many of which are extra Constitutional. When these laws can’t be enacted within Constitutional restraints the government, acting in its own interest, becomes a separate entity existing quite apart from the people. “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” - Thomas Jefferson

Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Washington, D.C. gun ban case. The D.C. mayor escalated the case to the Supreme Court when the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. struck down the District's ban on the private ownership of handguns.

The Supreme Court's ruling could have widespread effects on gun control laws across the nation.

The pro-gun extremists are getting nervous. In fact, some are spinning the case by saying that the Supreme Court is going to decide whether or not to "uphold the Second Amendment". That wording is false and it is (perhaps deliberately) misleading.

It had to happen at some point. The fiasco that started with the stolen election of 2000 has turned into a hornet's nest.

Today it was revealed that Bush's former press secretary Scott McClellan is accusing Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, and others of intentionally lying and misleading him and the public about the "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame. For the unaware, revealing the name of an intelligence agent is an act of treason. For the president and the vice president to engage in such criminality is the kind of perfidy that rises to the level of capital crime. For the unaware, this is punishable by the death penalty. I favor life without parole at hard labor.

Also, our chief "ally" in the Mideast, "Saudi Arabia," is showing its true colors, sentencing a rape victim to 200 lashes with a whip, presumably a cat o' nine tails. "Saudi Arabia" is also where Osama bin Laden and thirteen of the suspected September 11, 2001 hijackers called home.

Our national institutions - the Congress, the Judiciary, the mass media, the corporate elite - all have served to keep the Bush regime in power, and will likely do so until his term runs out, should he not declare martial law before then. These are the same national institutions that would have us believe that
this guy is the "mastermind" who conceived, planned, and carried out the worst attacks on the "U.S." in its entire history - completely outsmarting the strongest, most technologically advanced security apparatus known to mankind.

Meanwhile, we have a "horse race" to determine who will be the next president. There's advertising money to be made, careers to be made, fame and fortune to be made, and distractions to be conjured up. So let's all go along with it, eh?

Except there's too much going on. Global warming is looming, the economy is in decline, gas prices are going up, the "wars" in "Iraq" and "Afghanistan" are quagmires, and now we have proof that the country is run by traitors. Actually, the proof has been there all along. We just have evidence from the inside now.

Our great national institutions may not want to put the Bush gang where they belong, but I think it's safe to say they would like to. Bush has become the national albatross around our collective necks. As long as George W. Bush is president, the whole world knows that its "only superpower" is run by criminals of the worst kind.

So, as the hornet's nest becomes more disturbed, maybe even more truth will come out. Maybe we will finally be embarrassed into bringing the Bush gang to justice. The game is afoot.
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Here's a little light reading.
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Always look on the bright side of life.

I drive around West Los Angeles every day, where Beverly Hills, Century City, Culver City are home to major production companies and studios, the largest of which are Fox and Sony (Columbia). Both of those studios face major thoroughfares, the sidewalks of which are carpeted with picketers, wearing bright red t-shirts and holding WGA strike signs.

As the cars pass by, they honk, some loud and long, some rhythmically, some just a fast beep. But it seems that oftentimes every car on Pico Blvd (Fox) and on Overland Ave. (Sony) is honking. The city is in favor of the writers. Here in L.A., the people get it. Everyone knows why they’re striking and how bloated and shamelessly greedy the studios have become.

(They're Still) Running the World (on the) Eve of Destruction For What It's Worth

When I thought about writing this piece based on three protest songs (1. Running the World, Written and Recorded by Jarvis Cocker; 2. Eve of Destruction, Written by P. F. Sloan, Recorded by Barry McGuire; 3. For What It's Worth, Written by Stephen Stills, Recorded by Buffalo Springfield;) I had no doubt that the three songs were on target for what I wanted to express. I did have some misgivings about the first song because of its explicit nature. Further reflection has led me to believe that those who would be offended would not consider having an open mind about my thoughts. Their false sense of propriety is one the things I was condemning. Therefore, I have decided to declare this piece to be rated R. That is R for REALITY. Too often liberals think the word politics implies politeness. Our NeoCon advisories observe no such convention. Truthfulness and reality are also missing from their playbook. They do however observe the BIG LIE RULE, repeat something often enough and it will be perceived as the truth no matter how far from reality and truth it is based. This piece is for thoughtful mature adults, written in what I hope is an intelligent but blunt manner. If you are offended by the words used here, please examine if the words are what offends or if it is uncomfortable and novel ideas. That being said here is the uncensored title of this piece: