Single What? Female...

you know it's an election year when...

We have the vote on flag burning. There is no reason to discuss this EVER unless the Republicans are in trouble...and they are. This is the "time to get your base back" vote and while it was ridiculously close (the Dems in swing states felt they had to try to vote for this piece of nonsense), it still failed...again...as it should. There are those who would say that it is an insult to those who fight for our freedom, yet one can see that it is an act of the freedom for which they fight. And, as I have said numerous times before on this blog, and will most certainly say again, the way the Bush administration has been treating the rights and freedoms of the civilians and soldiers of this nation, it is as if they have burned our flag and our Constitution, desecrating the democracy they claim to hold so dear.

And speaking of them administration messing with our rights...of course, there are folks looking to sue the New York Times for reporting on the fact that the government is looking into our bank records as well as checking up on our phone calls. This is a time of WAR, the pundits, a couple of Republican congressmen, the President and the Vice President all spout. We NEED this information and have every right to go after it in this fashion! Or at least that's what they've told Alberto Gonzalez who will gladly rewrite the law and make it so. Basically, what it comes down to is that Dick Cheney, who couldn't hack the restrictions put on the presidency after Nixon ("whaddya MEAN we can't tap the White House phones?!?!"), et al can't hack the fact that yes, there are restrictions of their power and even during wartime, there must be some rules...and you know, it's not only The New York Times...they seem to have overlooked the fact that the Washington, the Wall Street Journal ("No! not THEM!"), the Los Angeles Times also printed articles about the domestic spying...but I guess they just aren't worthy of the same amount of petty conservative ire as that crazy intellectual bastion of liberal thinking (in a shuddering voice) The...New...York...Times...

particularly when that paper (and others and the network news and, well, everybody else) are not talking about the cruelty of flag burning, but rather the cruelty of the governmental waste and incompetance when it comes to Hurricane Katrina relief...

oh and about how Arlen Specter and others in Congress are outwardly criticizing his "I don' hafta if I don' wanna!" approach to laws he signs...

and you know, such criticism might mess with his attempt at getting line-item veto power...

and let's not even get into the whole troop pullout fiasco...*"no we will not set a timetable!...I don't care if the Pentagon already has!"*

and the "Miami 7" (are there still any articles about those guys since? I don't think so..."did they have any funds?" - "no" - "um...any evidence of a connection with Al Quaeda?" - "no" - "were there any weapons found?" - "Uh...no" - "were they organized? how many are there?" - "Um there are, uh, 7 of them and uh..." - "Were there detailed plans of how they were going to do this?" - "Uh we do know that one of them had been to Chicago...at one time..." PAUSE "Um, do we get dinner for having to sit through this?" - "only after you write about it and scare the nation back into voting for the GOP in November...that'll be all, thank you")

Time to EMAIL, CALL, WRITE, FAX your friends and family, the press, and your Congressfolk and reiterate to them that YOU ARE PAYING ATTENTION! You know that the President and his posse are playing politics and want them to actual deal with real issues, not pose for a vote about flag burning. And dig for that change to give to your Democratic/Independent or heck just DECENT candidates in November.

Peace --Alex

P.S. My horoscope for the week a la Rob Brezny...


The U.S. Congress creates a constant stream of new legislation, but that doesn't mean President Bush has to enforce it. Since he took office in 2001, in fact, Bush has chosen to disobey more than 750 freshly minted laws. At the risk of getting you in trouble with the powers-that-be, I'm advising you to make Bush your role model in the coming week. Try to get away with ignoring any rules of the game you don't like or agree with. To maximize your chance of sailing through unscathed, proceed as Bush does--in a stealth mode, not calling attention to the fact that you're in a rebel outlaw mode.

posted by funkweee @ 8:39 AM