Some wonderful writing

From Bill Moyers, here.

How about this one?

It's a little older:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

Is this one still good?

I found this one lying around, and wondered if it was worth keeping:

The history of the present King...is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

Nah, didn't think so.

Where does this rank on the despicable scale?

Looks like the GOP is throwing ol' Denny Hastert under the bus. What a miserable miscreant. His story didn't even pass the smell test. So Rep. Foley was "overly friendly?" OK, maybe for one guy that isn't such a bad thing



but for any other guy that has to set off every "ick" alarm in town.

I know they've set the bar pretty low, with illegal wars and torture, but where does protecting a pedophile to maintain a congressional majority fit on the list of horrible things done by our government?

Who would you believe?

The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave..... The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

George Washington

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Abraham Lincoln

or the musings below from letter-writers who would receive the coveted "Go sit in the corner" treatment if I wasn't so angry:

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, isn't a descendent of the stereotypical wild-eye dictator. The threat from Islamic radicals, what some call Islamofascists, isn't ordinary. And the threat posed from even a handful of such zealots is significantly greater than the threats posed from Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin or Mao Tse-tung.

Mark E. Kramer
Schaumburg

Iran is now governed by an Islamic dictatorship. If this dictatorship were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would almost certainly use them if its survival was threatened. I see no alternative to war.

Frank Brunner
Park Forest

All kidding aside

I've been having trouble wrapping my mind around the catastrophe that is our current Congress, and specifically the Torture Bill which passed last week (what's taking the Murderer in Chief so long to sign it, anyway? Waiting for a new shipment of blood beaten out of people at Gitmo?).

Thankfully, I don't have to come up with the words. Thomas Jefferson already did:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

A robust, energetic hobbit just out of his tweens

Man, if I'm this cranky, and I'm just turning 33, what the hell am I going to sound like at 60?

I suppose if Drinky McTreason gets his way, I'll sound something like "Ow! Quit it! Stop torturing me! Man, I wish they'd never passed the law that said that the blackshirts could enter my home without warrant and torture me whenever they wanted. Ow!"

We'll be here all week. Try the chicken!

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "inserting the Foley".

Cue rimshot....

You have to admit--this Foley saga is a real page-turner!

The liberal media strikes again

From CNN.com, in an article about Dennis "I would never ever do anything to hurt or endanger...my job" Hastert and the Washington Times' call for him to resign as Speaker of the House:

The Times editorial could be a signal that conservative Republicans are growing tired of the moderate Hastert.

At one time, sure. But since he's become speaker, ol' Rubber Stamp Denny can't be called moderate by anyone with a functioning brain. Of course, this is CNN we're talking about.

Bill Frist reaches out to the Taliban

I could have sworn that we went into Afghanistan for two reasons:

1) To get Osama bin Laden. We know how well that's gone so far.

2) To remove the Taliban from power.

[Frist] said the only way to win in places like the volatile southern part of the country is to "assimilate people who call themselves Taliban into a larger, more representative government."

"Approaching counterinsurgency by winning hearts and minds will ultimately be the answer," Frist said. "Military versus insurgency one-to-one doesn't sound like it can be won. It sounds to me ... that the Taliban is everywhere."

ABC News digs up even more from Foley

Warning - this is really repulsive. Mark Foley was one very sick person. If you read this, you may need to wash your eyes out with rubbing alcohol.

We also know that as far back as 2001, people were warning pages in Congress to stay away from Foley. This is from after that. Denny, you done screwed up, big time.

The GOP

Your Geriatric Offensive Pedophiles!

Mark Foley on Bill Clinton

"It's vile," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."

drmagoo on the electoral prowl

As of today, we're at 36 days left until Election Day 2006 (call or write your representatives and let them know that Election Day should be a national holiday, and that there should be multiple verification techniques for ballots, if they care at all about honest election results). Yours truly is attempting to participate in the process, in my own small ways:

1) My university is hosting the Illinois Gubernatorial debate tonight. The moderately corrupt Democrat will be debating the Republican who was politically in bed with George Ryan, perhaps the most offensive politician to hold court in Illinois in a very long time. J-Barr also had the "honor" of overseeing the truly entertaining debacle that was the Republican campaign for the Senate in 2004.

2) For the first time in my life, I went looking for yard signs for local Democratic candidates. Of course, the county campaign office is open about 6 hours a week, and only 2 after 5 pm, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

3) On 11/7, I'll be taking the day off work to serve as an election judge. The rep from the county clerk's office said that they're getting a lot of Democrats this year. I told her that "we just want to make sure everything goes correctly."

Why did they pull it down?

Sorry for the small pic, but they've pulled the page--Mark Foley, Protecting Our Children!

"Fake" emails, eh?

From ABC.

Maf54: I miss you lots since san diego.
Teen: ya I cant wait til dc
Maf54: :)
Teen: did you pick a night for dinner
Maf54: not yet…but likely Friday
Teen: ok…ill plan for Friday then
Maf54: that will be fun


Maf54: I want to see you
Teen: Like I said not til feb…then we will go to dinner
Maf54: and then what happens
Teen: we eat…we drink…who knows…hang out…late into the night
Maf54: and
Teen: I dunno
Maf54: dunno what
Teen: hmmm I have the feeling that you are fishing here…im not sure what I would be comfortable with…well see

Spin Cycle

If you dare go to Little Green Footballs and similar dreck sites (find them yourself, unfortunately, I won't promote them) you will see the new Foley spin--ALTERED EMAILS!! Seriously.

A further note to visitors

Please don't come in here and accuse us of attacking Republicans for things we'd let Democrats slide on, at least unless you can create some evidence (out of whole cloth, I believe). If Barack Obama was in Foley's shoes, I'd be calling for Durbin and Reid's heads on a platter, the same as Hastert and Boehner. If we have to incarcerate 2000 Congresspeople and Senators to get rid of the creeps, then that's what we'd do. I'd rather have 535 honest and rational Republicans (assuming there was such creatures existed) than 535 perverted, creepy, corrupt Democrats.

That the GOP has the monopoly on corruption right now just makes the accusations pretty one-sided.

A note to "Anonymous" below

"Anonymous" commented below on Rep. Happypants:

One could certainly come to the conclusion that you're implying that only Republicans lie. It's not much of a stretch based on the content of this blog.

Well, Anon, I would certainly like to see some evidence that 1) Doc Magoo or anyone here made such an implication and 2) how that was based on the "content" of this blog.

First of all, in terms of "content." Sure we have an ideological bent. EVERYONE has an ideology, that complete body of all your life experiences, and your ideology influences how you deal with so many aspects of your life. Anyone who claims to be "impartial" or "objective" in so many areas is either naive or lying. If we have made factual errors, please point them out by comment or email.

Beyond that--there is no ideological lockstep on this blog. We publish your stuff, right? Any cogent thought goes up here, we have NEVER edited any comment for content. Unless it's downright spam, personal, racial, etc. --it goes up. And in terms of individuals? I teach Sunday School, we have atheists and agnostics, we have moderates, liberals, some libertarian influence, we're all across the board here in terms of ideology and occupation. We don't agree on things a lot of the time, and that's what makes it fun.

You write:

WHO is willing to do anything to retain and increase their power? Come on. You are accusing them of something that you yourself and the Democrats are incredibly guilty of. That's ridiculous for you to even suggest otherwise.

The press reports suggested that the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE knew that a GOP member was engaging in improper sexual conduct with a youth. That speaker DID NOTHING before the election to deal with something INCREDIBLY disgusting. I don't know about you, Anonymous, but I would put not put party above principle on SEXUALLY SOLICITING CHILDREN??? Please post where "we" are guilty of such a thing? I don't care about control of Congress, this is a man IN A POSITION OF AUTHORITY engaging in inappropriate sexual contact with children.

Doc Magoo wrote:

That should be condemned by everyone, regardless of how it affects the election. If you don't, then you truly deserve to be with these bastards. and you responded

So, it's black and white, huh? You're either with us or against us. Now, isn't that the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. Neat political trick, that.

Yeah, I think you are either against pedophilia or not, sorry.