DISQUS

The competition for most backward state in the union has a strong contender in the race for most backward, superstitious and ignorant.

I strongly believe that my own home state of Texas is about to take itself out of the running - although the neanderthals in Austin and the (Tom) Delay gerrymandered delegation we have sent to Washington have kept us in the running of late.

The Obama landslide is about to turn this formerly blue state (turned red by the carpetbaggers from Connecticut) back to the future. You heard it here first, folks.

Although the majority of the population lives in (relatively) liberal cities, the rural areas still are dominant (as in many other states) for now. Gonna be some time before we are as liberal as say, Massachusetts (which elected Romney, after all), but we will be there before you think.

Doesn't this make you supremely that our incredibly expensive Homeland Security Department could quickly deal with a terrorist attack on our food supply?

They can't even deal with one Mexican with the runs.

Heckuva job, Brownie.

Let me hasten to add that this is being handled by essentially the same personnel that would be handling an actual terrorist attack - except that if it WAS a terrorist attack, there would be a couple more layers of bureaucracy to deal with.

Did you hear about the arrest of the anthrax terrorist?

Neither did I.

Gramm should still be an issue in this campaign.

First, his selection as campaign co-chair reflects what kind of attitude McBush has toward the economy and those of us with less than the millionaires Gramm represents.

Second, Gramm has been widely spoken of as McLiar's Sec Treasury nominee. Just because he has left the campaign doesn't mean we will be rid of him in a McSenility administration.

Third, the thin layer of deniability McPhoney maintains between other toxic "advisers" like Rove and himself is an indication that Gramm will still lurk in the background.

Fourth, the fact that McForktongue would even consider the originator of the Enron loophole (whose wife...uh...coincidentally sat on the Enron board) and other "school's out for the wolves of Wall Street" legislation who was instrumental in creating this economic disaster to run his campaign is the best possible proof that he is an economic moron who will take - if given the chance - a horrible situation and make it worse.

Trust me on this - things can always get worse.

"The McCain campaign is definitely not happy..."

Good.

Maybe if a big enough issue is made of it, the MSM will be forced to stop ignoring the way McLiar has flouted the campaign finance law.

It is a crying shame that the "balance" in the MSM gives tons of coverage to McLiar's crocodile tears over Obama's alleged perfidy while failing to mention McCain's outright flouting of the campaign law.

Barack would have been stupid to engage in unilateral disarmament - which is exactly what any one-sided agreement accepted by the McCain campaign would have amounted to.

What a coincidence that all the crooked borrowers went to the same places to spin their evil web of lies.

Some lenders, it turns out, were fortunate and didn't have all those swarms of liars to deal with. Of course these were crass and flint-hearted bankers who required income verification and (gasp!) down payments! It actually mattered to them whether the customers had the ability to PAY!

What scoundrels!

By all means, lets put the blame for this fiasco where it properly belongs - the $40,000 a year janitor who successfully scammed those poor unsophisticated bankers into believing he could pay for that $400,000 home. No question that the McDonald's assistant manager fully understood adjustable rates were gonna rise and was easily capable of comprehending every word of the foot-high stack of papers shoved at him during closing. He GOT that job because of his speed reading and comprehension abilities, after all!

This is an idea I have enthusiastically backed since Jerry Brown first proposed it in the '76 campaign.

Not only would a coast-to-coast, border-to-border high speed rail system employ hundreds of thousands, but the fuel savings from a well-conceived investment would greatly benefit consumers and the environment.

Shipping charges and travel expenses could be dramatically lowered. The highly subsidized and highly polluting domestic airline industry would bite the dust for the most part. I sympathize with the workers - but that is an industry the planet cannot afford. Smoke-belching trucks would no longer crowd our highways.

No one infuriated me more in her blatant disregard for the law, outright lies and arrogance than MS Doan. She belongs in prison for violation of the Hatch Act and perjury - and I'd bet that that is the small tip of a very big iceberg. There isn't much (negative, that is) that could befall her that I wouldn't consider well deserved.

Someday, students of history will analyze how a few corrupt men - Bush, Cheney and Greenspan - were able (abetted by a corrupt cabal who called themselves "superpatriots") to cause the collapse of the most powerful country in the world. Some will argue that it began with Nixon turning the gold-backed currency into worthless fiat in order to finance an unpopular war with out taxing for it. Others will point to the ludicrous "supply side" fantasy (that cutting taxes massively for the rich will increase revenues sufficiently to make up any deficit) expounded by Reagan the senile which subterfuge allowed him to massively shift the tax burden to the poor and quintuple the national debt during his term. Most, however, will insist that the country was heading in the right direction - running surpluses and retiring debt - when the coup that put the traitors in control allowed them to completely destroy the military, moral and economic base of the country in an incredibly short time.

They were abetted, of course, by a corrupt media and the ignorance of the general population. they had used "wedge issues" to conceal their real agenda - which seems to have been personal enrichment and perpetual power.

Still - one can only wonder what insanity caused such destructive and heedless action. Were they not aware that failure to deal with climate change while that was still possible would cause their own descendants to curse them while they still had the breath to do so?

One thing is sure: cutting interest rates aggressively while the dollar collapses is like throwing gasoline on a fire - ain't gonna put it out.

The next president - unless he is a truly great leader and a genius will be reviled for a generation (as Carter was) for taking the steps necessary to save our economy - and the country. It CAN happen here - and I am very much afraid that we will all know exactly what "it" is very soon.

Hint: ask someone from Argentina.

Bit of historical revisionism going on lately. If it wasn't for the antiwar movement, we'd still have troops in Vietnam and Cambodia.

The first spin was that we actually won that war. It was ten years after the fall of Saigon before I heard anything different on the tube. Then the spin was that yes we had lost, but only because of betrayal by those dirty antiwar hippies. Now it seems to be that our gracious leaders got us out entirely separate from the millions of people in the streets literally shaking the buildings with antiwar chants and the middle class that we had turned as much against that war as this one - despite the fact that government had enjoyed much greater credibility up to that point.

I agree with nanookmn that Edwards got little coverage - but I would go farther. There was a virtual media blackout where he was concerned. The most egregious example was after his second place finish in New Hampshire. Edwards was barely mentioned - all the media focus was on the first and third place.

Mr. Ackerman seems to be suggesting that citizen action is not only pointless but counterproductive. He mentions the "Betrayus" ad and the furor it engendered - but not the enormous amount of money it raised for MoveOn.

He points out that JE is identified with the left - OMG! - and some don't like that.

Maybe all us leftists should just lay down and die. Then the right would be happy and everything would be just hunky-dory.

Sorry, buddy. Everything the left has wrested from the oligarchy in charge in this country - from child labor laws to the minimum wage to, yes, the end of the war - we had to fight for. Yes, they demonized us - the closer we get to success, the more they rant. But when we quit fighting, they just run roughshod. I understand that George III demonized the colonists too. I think they learned to live with it.

Without in any way belittling the arguments in this post, I would like to say that I am even more disturbed by the gutting of the Bill of Rights - the Fourth Amendment in particular.

The assault on this amendment began with the "no knock" drug laws. Who can be secure in his home when cowboy cops can smash down your door at any time, and shoot you in the back multiple times on the claim you were going for a nonexistent weapon. This was actually done in my home town because of a false tip given by a drug dealer/informant. The cops got away with it, despite the fact that the one injured cop proved to have been shot by another cop, no drugs or weapons were found and they hadn't bothered to get a warrant! A federal judge was also shot in such a raid.

SC rulings have said that you can legally be searched in your vehicle if you have been stopped for any traffic violation - because you are technically under arrest. If the cops think there is a legitimate warrant out for you - as long as they acted in "good faith" - you can be searched. They ruled that a motor home even though it was inoperable and on blocks was a "vehicle."

So you don't use drugs; doesn't affect you, right? Neither did that Federal Judge or the man shot dead in my home town - or many others. Remember Waco? That was a "no knock" raid.

The Bill of Rights is to protect ALL OF US - particularly the innocent - from government intrusion. Now Bush is wiretapping us all - that pesky Fourth Amendment again - and the Supremes say none of us have standing to sue because we can't prove the government is listening - because the government won't tell us!