And Justice For All.

After nearly a decade of the bitter pain and darkness that beset our nation on the morning of September 11th, 2001...retribution is the first order of business on May 1st, 2011.

To those on the Republican side of the aisle (I'm looking at you, Eric Cantor, Matt Drudge and the like) who have so quickly rushed in to assign credit, any credit at all for taking down Osama bin Laden to our former illustrious leader...I give you George W. Bush in his own words:



This was March 13, 2002...a mere six months after September 11th, 2001. Your president not only allowed our nation to be attacked, ignoring repeated warnings even a month before that fateful September morn, but then personally saw to it that we quickly invaded Iraq, a country that had done absolutely nothing to us, all the while allowing the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks to slip away in the Afghan night.

President Barack Obama gave the order from the onset of his administration taking office that justice for those innocents who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001 was his top priority.

President Obama accomplished in just over two years what George W. Bush could not (or did not care to) in more than seven.

Justice...at long last.

"Tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place. Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

-President Barack Obama
May 1st, 2011

Mr. Snuffleupagus...YOU BASTARD!

Sesame Street, not Wall Street is where the true blame lies for the failure of our economy three years ago...doncha know? Oh, and Mom and Dad...when you go to your local polling place next year, it's time to think long and hard before pulling that lever about who wants to turn that Medicare you've worked and waited so long for into fucking vouchers for your local health insurance company overlords.

This budget debate is a tectonic shift and a wake up call for not only the middle class and poor of this country, but for the single most reliable voting bloc...the one group that can always be depended on to vote. Seniors need to wake up and realize that the GOP is looking to steal your Medicare from you. Elections matter, and when we allow these radical fringe Teabagging bastards to take office, corporations and the wealthy are the only true winners.

meet the new boss...same as the old boss.

Republicans Hate Your Mom.

And your daughter, your sister, your partner, your wife, your best friend, and anyone else you care about who happens to have a vagina.

Some might claim that it's hyperbolic to say that Republicans have declared an all out war on women since retaking the US House.

Unfortunately, it's not. Not even close.

Just take a look at the top 10 shocking and disgusting things Republicans have proposed in recent weeks.

I wish I could say that these were the only examples of the GOP's War on Women. But it's just a sampling, and more is sure to come—unless we raise holy hell and call them on it.

Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP War on Women

1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't.

2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."

3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)

4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.

5) In Congress, Republicans have proposed a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.

6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.

7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.

8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.

9) Congress voted yesterday on a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.

10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).

Sources:

1. "'Forcible Rape' Language Remains In Bill To Restrict Abortion Funding," The Huffington Post, February 9, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206084&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=6

"Extreme Abortion Coverage Ban Introduced," Center for American Progress, January 20, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=205961&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=7

2. "Georgia State Lawmaker Seeks To Redefine Rape Victims As 'Accusers,'" The Huffington Post, February 4, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206007&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=8

3. "South Dakota bill would legalize killing abortion doctors," Salon, February 15, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206102&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=9

4. "House GOP Proposes Cuts to Scores of Sacred Cows," National Journal, February 9, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206103&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=10

5. "New GOP Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Let Women Die Instead Of Having An Abortion," Talking Points Memo, February 4, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=205974&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=11

6. "Republican Officials Cut Head Start Funding, Saying Women Should be Married and Home with Kids," Think Progress, February 16, 2011
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/16/gop-women-kids/

7. "Bye Bye, Big Bird. Hello, E. Coli," The New Republic, Feburary 12, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206104&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=12

8. "House GOP spending cuts will devastate women, families and economy," The Hill, February 16, 2011
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/144585-house-gop-spending-cuts-will-devastate-women-families-and-economy-

9. "House passes measure stripping Planned Parenthood funding," MSNBC, February 18,2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206122&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=13

"GOP Spending Plan: X-ing Out Title X Family Planning Funds," Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206105&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=14

10. Ibid.

Birth Control for Horses, Not for Women," Blog for Choice, February 17, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206106&id=26177-14398341-S89QtYx&t=15

A Brief History of the United States of America

This is Christina Taylor Green.

Christina was just recently elected to serve on her school's student council, and was not only a baseball player, but she was also a ballerina. Christina was very interested in how American government works and went to the Safeway in Tucson, Arizona with her mother to meet her local representative in the U.S. Congress, Gabrielle Giffords, on Saturday, January 8th.

Christina was born on September 11th, 2001 and was included in the book Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11.

Christina was nine years old.


-From Bowling For Columbine

This is who we've been and who we are. Why is anyone surprised?

As long as Americans continue to put their "right" to buy assault weapons, handguns and extended clips for these instruments of death ahead of the well-being of their fellow man...needless deaths like those in Arizona this past weekend will only continue. Rifles and shotguns aren't enough to protect your home and to hunt with, gun nuts? Do we really need such ready access to AR-15s, sub-machine guns and Glocks? Do you hunt deer with these weapons? Or can we all readily (and finally) admit that these guns you cling to only serve one purpose...killing each other.

Has the fucking NRA scheduled a gun show in Tucson yet? You do remember that they held one right here in Denver not long after the Columbine Massacre. Have to make sure we protect that precious second amendment, don't we? Our forefathers wanted to make absolutely certain that you could feel like a big man, right?

How many more little girls and boys have to die in the name of your precious right to bear arms?

The absolute lowest point of this exchange and the highlight of their hypocrisy, and the entire argument from the right for that matter, is below:

O’DONNELL: I’ll ask you again — do you wish Jared Loughner’s magazine only held 10 bullets instead of the 31 that he fired?

FRANKS: And I will tell you again, sir, that I wish he had not had a gun at all.

O’DONNELL: So, you’re not going to answer that question about the magazine? Will you answer the question about the magazine? […] Your constituents in Arizona would have been better off if Jared Loughner, by law, could only fire 10 bullets?

FRANKS: See, I think that that presupposes he couldn’t have changed clips or all kinds of things.

O’DONNELL: He couldn’t change clips because the colonel was there to stop him, because those heroes in that parking lot were there to stop him. We saw him try to change clips, and he couldn’t do it. That’s what stopped him.

FRANKS: Well, I give every credit to those who stopped him. But I will say to you again to blame the gun rather than the individual is why we continue to have these problems.

O’DONNELL: I blame the individual for the first 10 bullets. I blame the law for the next 21 bullets that he fired.

pelting the women and children who run...into the arms of america.

I WANT YOU...TO LIE

"You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight."

-Senator Barry Goldwater


As a veteran of two tours of duty in the United States Air Force, few policies were and are as offensive to me as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". From the moment you step off the bus at boot camp, in whatever branch of the service, "Integrity and Honor" are driven home as core principles. Day and night, from reveille to lights out, these notions are what military service is supposed to be about.

Asking these same young men and women to lie about who they love, and who they are makes a mockery of the notion of integrity and honor at the heart of serving your country. I worked closely with many men and women during my nearly eight years of service. I worked for some, and some worked for me. I knew these fellow airmen very well. Well enough to know that some of them were, in fact, homosexuals forced into the closet by small, closed-minded bigots who have no tolerance for those who are in any way, shape or form, different than them or what their twisted view of the "ideal soldier" should be.

One of these men I served with refused to be forced to deny who he was to those around him, those who served so proudly with him, and he came out, publicly to me and his fellow airmen. He was quickly and quietly drummed out of the Air Force by our commanders, despite a sterling service record...only because he was different. He didn't fit the bigoted view of the "Model Airman". He's one of more than 13,000 airmen, soldiers, marines and sailors that have been thrown out of our all volunteer force since DADT became the law of the land.

The same types of white men who've made these decisions in and out of uniform, in the command centers and the congress for generations also said that allowing African Americans to stand on equal footing alongside their white counterparts would bring a quick end to the mightiest military on the planet. This was 1948.

Bigots will always decry attempts to give those of a different color, gender, religion, or sexual orientation equal rights under the law. Despite the fact that we've been teaching our children since the signing of the Declaration of Independence that "All men are created equal," most of those founding fathers enslaved black men and women. George Washington, the beacon of conservative American white pride they love to drag out of his grave and parade around as some paragon of virtue ad nauseam, owned more than one hundred human beings as slaves. Ah, but that's okay...he chopped down the fucking cherry tree and didn't lie about it, right? That's a childish myth, of course. His slaves? They were very much a reality. Oh, but he was white...so yeah. That's all history, water under the bridge and human beings under the ground, right?

Fast forward to December 18th, 2010. Saturday. Tomorrow. The United States Senate stands at the ready to take up a stand alone bill that would send to President Obama's desk the repeal of DADT as official military policy. A bill that would effectively, and finally end this policy of state sponsored bigotry. To allow "Integrity and Honor" to actually mean just that, and not force thousands of brave men and women to lie about who they are on a daily basis.

No thanks to men like Arizona Senator John McCain, who despite asking for surveys of our troops, and then when said polls show that seventy percent of them support repeal, remains staunchly entrenched in his homophobic position of hatred. And despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have urged the senate to act now to end this policy of hate, McCain remains unmoved. Ah, but he's not alone. Most of his cohorts on the right cling to their hatred and bigotry as well, and will vote with Arizona's proud son against repeal. After all, to "Support Our Troops" means just the straight ones, right? And hey, you put a big yellow ribbon bumper sticker on your gas guzzling giant SUV, that's enough...isn't it?

Thankfully, there are a handful of brave Republicans who plan to stand with the Democratic Party line of an open, honorable policy of honoring ALL those who serve and want to serve, and are poised on the precipice of ending this state sponsored bigotry once and for all.

As I watch from the sidelines tomorrow, I applaud not only these brave men and women of the senate on the occasion of this truly historic vote, I salute those who serve. I remember and honor those not only in uniform today, but also all those who came before. Those who gave all they had for their country, those who even lost their lives to defend a democracy that despised them.

This is for you.

"When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."
- Epitaph of Leonard P. Matlovich, 1988

"Hallowed Ground"

This outrage at the notion of the "Ground Zero Mosque" being built on some sacred plot of earth (as it is inaccurately called since it is neither a Mosque, nor is it located on "Ground Zero") is ongoing proof that unless wealthy white Christians are somehow being persecuted (yeah, right) there is an ongoing pervasive law of the land in this country:

America has always been and still is a vast wasteland of ignorance created by racism. The only thing that has changed over the course of two plus centuries is which group is currently in the cross hairs.

Never mind the fact that the land these bigoted buffoons get so worked up over land that never belonged to them in the first place.

How about the original inhabitants, the Native Americans...the first to get a taste of white man's justice? How about the way that this country was ripped from them? What about their sacred ground? How about in our own state of Colorado at the Sand Creek Massacre where women and children were butchered and had their skulls bashed in, and were then scalped while Old Glory and a flag of truce was flown overhead by Black Kettle, the tribal chief? How about the parades through Denver after the slaughter of hundreds of innocents where grisly and horrifying trophies were greeted with jubilant cheers? Racial and religious tolerance on glorious display.

God forbid that the constitution wealthy white Christian Americans claim to love so much should apply to someone with a different god than you, or that you should actually follow the teachings of the messiah you claim to worship.

It's very convenient how everyone else just needs to "Get over it" (as they love to say) when we steal their land, and slaughter their women and children. Or how about when we rip them from their homes and bring them half way around the world to make them our slaves? How dare anyone ask for reparations for the stain of slavery that we can never truly wash off. Get over it, right?

In the village of My Lai, when American soldiers rape and murder more than 500 civilians including women, children and babies while representing our country on some twisted, farcical quest to stop a perceived "Red Menace" used to win elections...get over it, right?

When we torture and humiliate prisoners at Abu-Ghraib because they pray to a different god and have darker skin, do we honor our grand ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Get over it.

When it comes to all the atrocities committed by this country both abroad in the name of "democracy" and on our own soil to our own citizenry over the centuries, many have truly mastered the art of getting over it.

What's truly astonishing about the latest bigoted backlash against peaceful Islam in this country is that far and away the vast majority of Muslims seek only a harmonious co-existence with their neighbors. Not to mention that these are American citizens we're talking about.

So instead of supporting the construction and community of peaceful Mosques, thereby fostering the image of American tolerance and true religious freedom around the globe, improving our standing among nations and citizens, hateful and fearful close minded racists instead create more anger and recruiting fodder for the radical, marginalized terror groups who distort Islam to fit their needs.

Do you people that scream out against a community center that will not even be visible from 'Ground Zero' really not see that you're only hurting yourselves (and unfortunately the rest of us as well) with your hate and your intolerance?

You fear what you don't understand, and yet you refuse to educate yourselves because your leaders on the far right embrace fear and hatred to secure their hold on you and the power you so ignorantly give them. Faux News has you, and you truly are lost.

And sadly, as we have for generations...we will all suffer for it.

and crown thy good with brotherhood...from sea to shining sea.

Time to Turn Off Faux News

Many of us already know that Fox News is biased -- but it's actually much worse than that. For years they have used lies, distortions, and race-baiting to divide this country. Recently, it's gotten downright dangerous. Earlier this summer, a heavily armed man got into a gun fight with police after he was pulled over on his way to kill people at the Tides Foundation^[1] -- an obscure non-profit that Glenn Beck regularly demonizes on his Fox News TV show.^[2]

Fox News is bad news for America -- and it spreads, and is legitimized, partly through TVs in public places.

That's why I've joined the TurnOffFox campaign -- the first part of a larger campaign to diminish the influence of Fox. It's about educating people about Fox and getting it turned off in stores, restaurants, and other public places.

Will you join me? It takes just a moment to declare your own household "Fox free", and at the same time appeal to public establishments in your community to stop playing Fox. And you'll get a FREE Turn Off Fox sticker when you do. Click here:

http://turnofffox.org/landing/?id=1667-1030818

No other news organization that's considered legitimate consistently wages smear campaigns based on lies and race-baiting. But for years Fox News has done exactly that, and the pattern has only gotten worse since Barack Obama entered national politics.

Here are just a few examples:

-- A frequent Fox guest, Jesse Lee Peterson, said that the majority of Black people have poor moral character, and cited "what they did to the dome" after Hurricane Katrina as evidence.^[3][4] Peterson has also used his platform on Fox to claim that 90% of Black people are racists -- against Whites.

-- In a case of naked race-baiting, Fox host Glenn Beck called President Obama a "racist" who had a "deep-seated hatred for White people or the White culture."^[5] Earlier that week, Beck claimed that the President's health insurance reform proposals were a form of "reparations" designed to "settle old racial scores."^[6]

-- Fox host John Stossel argued that the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act -- which prevents businesses from discriminating based on race, sex, and other factors -- should be repealed.^[7]

-- Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity were the first to air deceptively edited and incomplete video of Shirley Sherrod's remarks to the NAACP.^[8] The video made it seem like Sherrod was confessing to using her position at the USDA to discriminate against White farmers, when she was really talking about the importance of overcoming prejudice. Sherrod lost her job over this misrepresentation, which Fox enthusiastically repeated without seeking the facts. Fox has since tried to pretend it had nothing to do with this smear -- but Fox is the number one reason these kinds of distortions and smears have any part in our national dialogue.

The examples above aren't even a tenth of Fox's vicious lies and smears, and over the years they've just gotten more brazen.

The goal of Turn Off Fox is to reduce the number of public TVs showing Fox News, while spreading the word about Fox's poison (and how it works) to those who don't know.

Signing up for the campaign is just the first step. We make it easy for you to tell us about businesses playing Fox. If you're willing to talk with them, we'll provide you with straightforward materials that explain why they shouldn't be a party to what Fox is doing. And if there are businesses you know that want to tell the world they would never play Fox, you can help them declare themselves a "Fox-free zone."

As businesses Turn off Fox and stand up as Fox Free, and as we encourage our friends and family to do the same, we'll help make clear, to people across the country, what Fox is about. And we'll reduce their ability to do harm.

One of Glenn Beck's devotees helping him to "Restore Honor" on August 28th in Washington D.C.

Please join me in signing up for the TurnOffFox campaign:

http://turnofffox.org/landing/?id=1667-1030818

Thanks,

-the cccp simian

References

1. http://bit.ly/a5F7kW
2. http://mediamatters.org/research/201007290032
3. http://mediamatters.org/research/200510030005
4. http://bit.ly/c060C0
5. http://mediamatters.org/research/200907300019
6. http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907230040
7. http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005200033
8. http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007200060

What's past is prologue...

Can. Not. Wait.

To end the summer in style and kickoff the fall gaming season with an astounding flourish, Team Ninja and Nintendo appear to have captured the lightning of my youth in a bottle with Metroid: Other M. The boys from Tokyo have me frothing at the mouth to dust off my Wii for Samus Aran's next adventure.

Oh Metroid, how many hours have I happily handed over to you in the last quarter century? Is it the 31st yet?

everybody says, don't go messing with a girl with guns.

Fifty years with Scout...

My love for Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" is not only well known (my firstborn's name was etched in stone long before he was even a gleam in my eye), it's also lifelong.

From the first time my eyes were opened by the novel as a child, it was and still is my favorite book. Harper Lee's masterwork goes beyond novels, and transcends literature in that it captured not only a stitch in the time of our nation...it's captured countless hearts, and shaped lives. Atticus was not only Scout's father and hero, he was (and still is) mine.

On this Sunday morning, in commemoration, and celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird" I'm going to do something I never do. This piece by Jesse Kornbluth deserves to be shared here and everywhere else the book is loved:

I never thought I'd see the day when the lawyer who argued Brown v. Topeka Board of Education before the Supreme Court and went on to be the first African-American to sit on that Court would have his career reduced to that most dreaded of all contemporary labels: "activist."

I never thought I'd see the day when you can legally carry concealed weapons into airports and bars and --- my sweet Lord! --- churches.

I never thought I'd see the day when allegedly smart adults would tell me that America's poor were so powerful that, given the chance to own real estate, they bought so many houses they couldn't afford that they tanked the economy of almost every country in the world.

But then I never thought I'd see the day when "To Kill A Mockingbird" --- a novel that has inspired readers for half a century --- would be derided as a book about "the limitations of liberalism" (by Malcolm Gladwell, no less, in The New Yorker, of all places) and "a sugar-coated myth of Alabama's past" with a hero who's "a repository of cracker-barrel epigrams" (by Allen Barra, in the Wall Street Journal)

But as we approach July 11th --- the 50th anniversary of the publication of "To Kill a Mockingbird" (to buy the paperback from Amazon, click here; shamefully, there is no Kindle edition) --- it's probably not surprising that we're seeing one of America's best-loved books criticized for its "politics."

And it's definitely no surprise that the downgrading is done by men.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a woman's book.

Written by a woman, Harper Lee, but more, written by a woman who dared to see herself as her region's Jane Austen. Told by a six-year-old girl. With a hero who's not, in any traditional sense, manly. With a message of kindness and empathy generally associated with female values:



And one more female value, once common in the heroes of Western movies, but less and less common by the time Harper Lee wrote her novel --- a willingness to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. Readers often forget, but this is the foundation of the character of Atticus Finch: He takes on the legal defense of an African-American, knowing he can't prevail in court.

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand," he tells his children. "It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

I'm not one for stereotyping, but how many men do you know who step up to confront unpleasantness and conflict? Here's Atticus: "Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open."

Atticus Finch is --- let's just say it --- a feminized man who appeared a decade before America started hearing about feminism. No wonder he appeals to English teachers, who tend to be idealists. And no wonder the film is a "family" favorite --- mother choose it in the hope it will make their kids kinder. (To buy the DVD from Amazon, click here.)

In the long clock of history, we have, only a moment ago, pretty much stopped killing each other over resources --- as individuals, anyway. Since then, we make progress, we take a step backward; civilization is a fragile concept. But I take it as an unvarnished Good Thing that readers have persistently loved "To Kill a Mockingbird" for as long as it's been in print. I think it's just great that Mary Murphy has written a book about Harper Lee's book: "Scout, Atticus & Boo: A Celebration of 50 Years of 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" (To buy the book of "Scout, Atticus & Boo," click here. To buy the Kindle edition, click here.)

And it pleases me no end that, in a year when men denigrate Thurgood Marshall and get off on carrying guns in public and blame the poor for every failing of men in expensive suits, that some of the most passionate defenders of a book you'd think needs no defense are male. Like, for instance:



"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
- spoken by Atticus Finch, by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Bye, Bye...Miss American Pie.

Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;

As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.

This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his "decision" unlike anything ever "witnessed" in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.

Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.

The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.

There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.

You simply don't deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.

You have given so much and deserve so much more.

In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:

"I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE"

You can take it to the bank.

If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our "motivation" to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.

Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.

Sorry, but that's simply not how it works.

This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown "chosen one" sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And "who" we would want them to grow-up to become.

But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called "curse" on Cleveland, Ohio.

The self-declared former "King" will be taking the "curse" with him down south. And until he does "right" by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.

Just watch.

Sleep well, Cleveland.

Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day....

I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:

DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue....


Dan Gilbert
Majority Owner
Cleveland Cavaliers

and as i watched him on the stage, my hands were clinched in fists of rage.

Prostrate to Petroleum

Republican Congressman Pete Barton of Texas (big surprise, right?) apologized...FUCKING APOLOGIZED...to BP Head Honcho in Charge of Destroying the Planet One Barrel at a Time (how does he fit that on his business card?) Tony Hayward on Capitol Hill today.

I don't know why I'm even surprised by this. When party mouthpiece, self-anointed ruler and resident blowhard Rush Limbaugh has taken up the defense of these money grabbing environmental despots...it's actually shocking it took one of his minions in congress this long to tow the line.

When you, "you" in this case being any and every citizen around the globe with the good fortune of calling themselves an American, take a long hard look at what's happening to our Gulf of Mexico and the states that not only border it, but rely on it...what do you see?

Does your heart break at the unbearable sight of our dependency on this crude (literally) that coats and chokes the life out of countless fish, sea mammals and birds? Do you just want to curl up and cry at the thought of what the people of the region have been forced to endure, yet again, even after their suffering at the hands of Katrina? Christ, didn't that just happen?

Or, like our pal Congressman Barton up there...do you feel sorry for Captain Tony and BP? How much money is enough? How many goddamn barrels? How many people have to lose their livelihoods for you to call it a day? How many animals have to suffer, how much blood has to be spilled for this black death?

Does Pete Barton and his apology, his idolatry of the almighty dollar really represent us? If he does, and if it does...what in the hell have we become?

We're all BP now.

black gold, texas tea.

Pat Robertson is compassion personified.

From this past Thursday's "must see TV" edition of The 700 Club:



Thanks, Pat for yet another pearl of wisdom.

"Doll yourself up, honey." Are you fucking kidding me? Has this toad even looked in a mirror since the Carter administration?

All this compassion from the same guy who, on the day after the horrifically devastating January Haititan earthquake, blamed the people of the poorest nation in the western hemisphere for bringing it upon themselves by "making a deal with the devil." Really doing your Lord and Savior proud there aren't ya, Pat?

As someone who is not only a happily married man, but from a man who's actually spent several months with boots on the ground in Port-au-Prince back in the mid-nineties. While I would never presume to speak for wronged women everywhere, or for the island nation of Haiti...I think I can speak from a place of knowledge, and really from the heart here when I say this:

Go fuck yourself, Pat.

barefoot and pregnant you kept me.

Arizona just fucked with the wrong Mexican.

Just a special holiday message to our Republican friends in the Arizona legislature and the governor's mansion. These "illegals," as you so callously call them, are human beings. I know it can be confusing sometimes, what with the brown skin and the accents.

Not only are these people the same as you and me, they deserve to be treated with some remote semblance of fucking respect. Regardless of their citizenship status, or from which border they come from.

Undocumented migrants are just that, immigrants in search of a better life in the land of opportunity. They come here just as our forefathers did in search of something more. Remember life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

In the meantime, they mow your lawns, they fix your roof, and they serve you Taco Bell at the goddamn drive thru. How about you hypocrites practice just a tiny little bit of the compassion that your supposed lord and savior actually taught? That guy you worship and are constantly beating the rest of us over the head with? Jesus, right? Remember him?

Love your neighbor as yourself.
[Matthew 22:39]

So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.
[Matthew 7:12.]

If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
[Matthew 19:21]

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.
[Luke 14:13 &14.]


Liberal? Progressive? Oh, hell yes...the guy practically put the 'J' in social justice. Unfortunately, many of the "Christians" in America claim to love the man, while choosing at the same goddamn time, to act nothing like him. Love him? Great. Fucking act like it.

Many Mexicans love him too. So much so that they actually name their children after him. Why don't we have any Jesus' kicking it on this side of the border?

*knock at the door* "Hi! My name's Bob Smith from Provo. Beautiful morning, isn't it? Can I tell you about the Book of Mormon today?"

"What? No. My name's Jesus Johnson...and it is a beautiful morning. Now get the fuck off my lawn."

Seriously. How great would that be? Anyway, all the while these Mexicans, these fellow Christians, are just loving their neighbor. They love their neighbors so much that they just want to be a little closer to us.

You Christo-fascists do realize that there's more in that book that you claim to hold so dearly than just taking rights away from gay people and women who need abortions, right?

Until Arizona can pull it's collective head out of it's conservative ass...

Not one dime, not one peso, not one visit to your state as long as SB1070 stands.

Happy Cinco de Mayo...racist assholes.

there is no arizona...no painted desert, no sedona.

Why we fight.

We can now say, with the weight of the law behind us, that every American will finally be guaranteed high quality, affordable health care coverage.

This fight goes long beyond the year it took to bring this to fruition, to make health care for ALL the law of the land. This struggle is more than one hundred years, a fight taken up by many presidents over the course of that century, and by more than one congress...and this is about more than just health care reform.

This fight that we've finally won after long last, is about equal rights for every American regardless of station...this is about human rights. But make no mistake, this is just the beginning. The fight for equality goes on.

But tonight, for all Americans...we made history.

We did it. Each of us. All of us.
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Sarah's reading...palms?

Just a bit of friendly advice for Sarah Palin. If you're even considering a run at the White House in 2012, you may want to be able to regurgitate a handful of your own talking points when asked without having to have them as a...well, as a handful.

Caribou Barbie having to rely on crib notes scrawled on her palm when addressing her fellow teabaggers (while being paid one hundred large to do so) is disappointing to more than just the six hundred (yep) gathered to hear her rail against all that is the Marxist Utopia of Barack Hussein Obama's Amerika...this saddens me and should others in the progressive movement as well. Why?

Who among you really believes that this lunatic couldn’t (and wouldn’t) excite that “base” of rabid, racist fear-mongers who ask “Where is my America?” because a black man is president? Will she bring them out in droves to the primary polls? Of course she will. We should support that.

Winning a Republican (or Tea Party) nomination and winning a general election are two very different things. When the entirety of your support comes from angry white trailer park residents, "Greed is good" Gordon Geckos and some all too easily confused and controlled fundamentalist Christian voters that view the world through the cracked lens of FauxNews, that gets you what…twenty to twenty-five percent of the electorate? Maybe thirty? No Latino, black, or intelligent white voter will ever back this nut job and President Obama would be re-elected in a landslide of historic proportions.

Outside of Alabama, what state will she carry? Alaska? Not likely. Remember that she quit on all Alaskans not even halfway through her term as governor to chase the pot 'o gold at the end of that hate speech circuit rainbow. We should all not only hope and pray that she runs, we should support her and her teabagging aspirations every step of the way to ensure she gets the nomination.

So, please (for all of us) keep writing on your palm like you're cheating at 10th grade algebra, Mrs. Palin. Will we support your run to nowhere?

You betcha!

TEABAG SARAH IN 2012

O Christmas Tree

the closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere
is a quiet christmas morning in the colorado snow.

The price they pay.

Standing on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base in the middle of the night for what has become an all too common occurrence over the last eight years, but had under the previous administration been shrouded from the view of the American public, President Barack Obama reminded all of us the highest of prices the brave men and women of our armed forces are asked to pay.

The cost of war is measured not only in the thousands of men and women who lay down their lives for their country and a cause they believe is just. That price is highest when it is measured one fallen soldier, one husband or wife, one son or daughter, one mother or father at a time.

As as veteran, and as an American, I'm proud today to finally have a Commander in Chief who recognizes that cost.

Never forget.

We've ALL lost today.

An open letter to Rush Limbaugh:

Dear Rush,

As we all deal with the fallout, the pain, and the repercussions of losing out on the opportunity to have you as an owner in the National Football League...we reflect today on just how much we've truly lost.

"Our country has lost a great deal. A lot more than most people realize at the moment." Those were your words, weren't they?

We've all lost. Those words ring so true. Just like when you said:

– “Look, let me put it to you this way: The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”

– “We need segregated buses. … This is Obama’s America.”

– “President Obama is black. And I think he’s got a chip on his shoulder.”

– Democrats are interested in Darfur to secure black “voting bloc.”

– “Minorities never do anything for which they have to apologize.”

– Obama’s nomination for president “goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy.”

– Obama is a “halfrican-American.”

It's a sad day in the sports world...nay, the world in general, when we keep that kind of wisdom, compassion and concern for our fellow citizens out of the ownership box of an NFL franchise. We've all lost today.

Okay, not really. YOU lost. And you didn't just lose, you lost badly. The referee had to call the game, they took the ball from you, and told you to take your hate, your fear mongering and your division and go home. But hey look on the bright side, the apple of your eye, the St. Louis Rams, are losing more than their fair share of games too...so at least you've got company. And you know what misery loves, don't you?

On the other hand, even though they are losing so damned often, they still don't want anything to do with you...no matter how much ill-gotten money you have.

Keep your chins up. And you just remember, Champ...much like in the NFL, every Sunday there are winners...and then there are losers.

There's us...and then there's you.

High fives and Gatorade showers,
-Soviet Monkey

na, na, na, na...na, na, na, na...hey, hey, hey...goodbye!

First Chair ...in North America!

With it's earliest opening day in 40 years...Loveland is first out of the gate continent wide!

Of all the spectacular aspects of living high in the Rockies, and there are so many, one of my purest pleasures is having the highest chair lift in North America ten minutes from my front door.

When I first moved to Colorado eight years ago, Loveland was my first and she has always remained my favorite. My brother Corey introduced me to snowboarding on the Continental Divide, and that ride, to ride the divide, is a ride like no other. It's a gift I plan to share, not only with my wife this season, but also my children in seasons to come.

Welcome back, old friend.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

The Immaculate Deflection

While it will likely be the highlight of the season not only for the Broncos, but for the entire NFL...it simply cannot be overstated just how amazing, how miraculous this gift (in an other wise dreary game filled with dreadful performances) dropped into Stokley's hands truly was.

Because nothing says DEAR GOD, YES! like Broncos brilliance (and sheer luck) captured for the ages in the beauty that was, and is TECMO BOWL.

pride of the west, like the mountains towering high...over all the rest.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Senator Edward M. Kennedy passed away last evening, but his fighting spirit, and his greatest fight lives on.


"This is the cause of my life. It is a key reason that I defied my illness last summer to speak at the Democratic convention in Denver—to support Barack Obama, but also to make sure, as I said, "that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American...will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not just a privilege."

For four decades I have carried this cause—from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society. Now the issue has more meaning for me—and more urgency—than ever before. But it's always been deeply personal, because the importance of health care has been a recurrent lesson throughout most of my 77 years."

— Ted Kennedy


His will, his determination and his fight for all Americans will endure. We will not only continue to strive for a country where each and every citizen is guaranteed health care, but one where all of us have every opportunity, where doors are not closed to anyone because of the color of their skin, their beliefs, their sex, or who they love. In a land where liberty and justice for all is supposed to mean just that, neither race, nor religion, gender nor sexual preference shall stand as a barrier to any American in this great nation we continue to build. We seek what Ted Kennedy sought his entire career...we seek a more perfect union. We will see this fight through.

For Teddy...for all of us.

...the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.