While the media are awash with stories about widespread corruption in the puppet Karzai government in Afghanistan, our own form of government corruption was vividly and obscenely displayed in the course of the healthcare debate in Congress. Pols on both sides of the aisle are equally-slimed by the shameless manipulations of lobbyists, and the campaign of lies, fear-mongering and misinformation by the Republicans was simply stunning. If one thing is clear in the fog of “reform” it is that the interests of the American people were dismissed out of hand. This reform was all about preserving the truly criminal relationships between members of Congress and “special interests”. The “(ig)noble piece” prize goes to Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, whose blatant demand for a bribe in exchange for his “up” vote would make Afghan President Hamid Karzai smile.
Paul Krugman is right: Congress is dangerously dysfunctional, incapable of doing the people’s business for the benefit of the people.

Every year, the Oxford English Dictionary – the gold standard for the language – selects a “word of the year” to add to the lexicon. In previous years, words associated with explosive Internet-based phenomena have prevailed (e.g., “podcast”).

For 2009, I can think of no better candidate than the word that encapsulates the greedy, predatory, criminal character of the stalwart members of the financial community on Wall Street: BANKSTERS

Uber-patriot Rush Limbaugh calls for massive bombing of Iran. But he won’t be flying the bombing missions: his candy-ass is not up to the task. Like all of the neocon warmongers, he is the worst kind of coward – the kind that struts. Dittoheads who suck up to Rush are of the same ilk.

The decision by the Obama administration to hold real trials of the accused 9/11 terrorists in New York is simply too much for the fear-mongers on the right. Heroes and patriots all, the likes of Boehner, McConnell, Giuliani and the uber-patriot, simpering media wimps Hannity, Beck et al are the antithesis of the true patriots – men and women of courage and conviction – who built this country, and who do not fear the proper use of the US judicial system. The GOP has truly become the Party of Afraid.

Nobody, but nobody, follows “leaders” who are afraid.

I know of no one who FAVORS abortion in this country, but the right to an abortion is memorialized in law, and this right is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans. Conservative, evangelical “TheoNazis” would never be able to strip this right, overturning Roe v. Wade, through a national referendum, so they have now tried to deploy a back-door subterfuge in the Healthcare Reform Bill to make it difficult, if not impossible, for private insurers to continue to provide coverage for abortion procedures. This would be an insidious, and dangerous, precedent. Next goal of the TheoNazis: no healthcare coverage for people who contract HIV/AIDS from extramarital or gay sex (even though this will doom many in the current GOP leadership); no healthcare coverage for people who are found to have looked at porn on the Web; no healthcare coverage for people with strange, foreign or Hispanic names; none for drinkers, gamblers, readers of the Koran, or anyone who becomes sick or disabled having engaged in activities the scolds on the right deem “immoral”.
Abortion rights are settled law. Change the law, or get the hell out of the way of desperately needed healthcare reform.

Herewith the first of what I hope will be regular postings on the uber-patriot/clownish talking-head/darling of the right-wing ignorati Glenn Beck. Starting with his new moniker: The Grim Weeper. Stay tuned for more on this (passing) phenomenon.

Sarah Palin picked November 17 – my birthday – for the release of “her” book on whatever it is that Sarah is about. I’ve written a song about what Sarah is “about”. Have a listen, pass it along to a million of your closest friends, and let me know what you think!

I lived and worked in Hong Kong for 4 years, and the city is undoubtedly the world’s monument to free enterprise, laissez-faire capitalism, and pure chutzpah – all elements of the classic conservative ideology. Thus, a perfect environment for Sarah Palin to burnish her “credentials” as the standard-bearer of “Main Street” American conservatism. Hong Kong’s culture is also intensely cosmopolitan/polyglot/global – the antithesis of Palin’s willful ignorance on global affairs, etc., etc. There are no quitters in Hong Kong, and while I am quite sure the locals will have been entertained by her celebrity status, none will admire this shallow pretender who has not earned a position on the world stage. Just another dancing panda.

Palin is an embarrassment, but on balance probably better that she stay in the limelight as an example to the world of the best that the Republican Party has to offer.

I wrote this song a few weeks after Lehman Brothers tanked last September. On this anniversary, we need to keep on singing this tune, as the greedheads are at it again, with no shame to moderate their predatory behavior.

The Census Bureau’s new report on the near total destruction of the American middle class during the Bush administration should be shoved down the throats of all the deranged, shrieking Tea Party / Teabaggers and Fox News talking heads who refuse to acknowledge the wreckage left by their miserably failed conservative ideology.

This is the shameful “Legacy of 43″.