In 2006, voters turned out the Republican majority that had turned Congressinto a rubber-stamping machine for an idiot president. Their hope-no, their insistence- that our government stop the abuses of power perpetrated by an executive branch run amok, gave Democrats a slim majority in the Senate and a slightly larger majority in the House. The [...]

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!” -George W. Bush, November, 2005
The context for the above quote lies in a meeting President Bush had with Congressional Republicans and aides back in 2005 when they were discussing how to renew the Patriot Act. His outburst came after an aide [...]

I recently finished reading a book called The Summer of 1787. It was an historical account of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution based on the writings of (convention secretary and 4th president) James Madison and other delegates to that convention. The book details the struggle to craft a charter for our fledgling government, and [...]

The White House has a new legal strategy in its arsenal- we’ll call it the “Screw you and the horse you rode in on” theory. Basically what it amounts to is the President declaring that any time he asserts executive privilege on anything the matter ends then and there. No questions, no subpoenas, no answers, [...]

Most of us are under no illusion about politicians-from either party. We eye them cynically even as we hope that they will do the right things. We know they manipulate the facts, yet we still chance to believe in the things they promise. We want to believe even when experience tells us we shouldn’t. After [...]

John Ashcroft, for all his evangelical world view mentality, is beginning to look like some kind of Hall of Justice Superhero when compared with Alberto Gonzales. And that’s saying a lot about a man who needed to cover up a statue to obscure her nude breasts, a statue which would have gone mostly unnoticed had [...]

I’m starting another book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips. It looks to be a good, informative read, but as I’ve said, I just started.
I’m nowhere near the radical religion or borrowed money chapters yet- Phillips begins by talking about the [...]

President Bush presented his 2008 budget recently, and the numbers don’t lie- to pay for his massive tax cuts for the wealthy and his ongoing war on whomever he considers a terrorist this week, Bush proposed cuts to programs that actually help the poor, needy, disabled and America’s veterans. How’s that for compassionate conservatism?
In the [...]

Regular readers know that I write on another blog, Bring It On! I post there several times a week, usually on more topical issues or on events that don’t lend themselves to a longer posts.
In addition to my posts, there are several other talented, regular contributor’s who post with regularity and a number of diarists [...]