The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters
This category is used for posts related to any elections.
Just a couple of days before Karl Rove gives a speech to Republican politicians outlining a “war on terror” strategy for the 2006 elections, a tape from Bin Laden is quickly authenticated by the Porter Goss CIA. Does anyone besides me find that interesting?
Read moreDemocrats should put on a well-lighted marquee the fact that the Republican-controlled Congress plans to save $50 billion over five years by cutting food stamps, student loans and by slapping new fees on Medicaid recipients and reducing child support enforcement. So much for compassionate conservativism.
Read moreWe human beings have created this concept of time. We like to have beginnings and endings, and we American’s seem especially prone to the shorter increments of time. We celebrate almost all of our important holidays annually. We acknowledge birthdays and anniversaries every year. We note seconds (nano-seconds sometimes), hours, days, the months, the annual cycle of the seasons, and especially the years. It?s pretty traditional, as the we close one calendar and open another, to evaluate the year just past, and contemplate the year to come. So as 2005 fades, I?ll follow tradition and offer up my review of 2005.
Read moreA senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called “The Little Red Book.”
Read moreMitchell Wade has since left MZM to spend more time with his lawyers. But before his high-flying life as a corrupt defense contractor came to a grinding halt last summer he was into more than Duke Cunningham. Wade’s MZM was in deep with Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL).
Read moreWhat do Democrats stand for? It seems a common refrain, or assumption, that Democrats do not have an overall theme or narrative, and I will certainly agree that the party as a whole does a rather bad job of articulating the message. But it lodged in my brain, and after a half hour of thought I realized that I, at least, know what I stand for. And it’s not complicated.
Read moreBy any objective standard, this administration is a dismal failure and has made a mockery of all the things I love about America. Things like fair elections, habeus corpus, privacy, separation of church and state, care for the less fortunate, protecting our homeland, respecting the environment, curbing the power of corporations, standing for human rights, transparency in government, respect for our military, and so many many more. Bush is steering our country back to the pre-New Deal rich-man’s playground of the Robber Baron era, while simultaneously squandering any post-9/11 worldwide goodwill and alienating what few allies we have left.
Read moreThe reconstruction of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama provides a fascinating picture of how the Bush administration actually works. His government represents an odd melding of corporatism and cronyism, more in tune with the workings of 1930s Italy or Spain. In fact, if one looks at fascist regimes of the 20th century, it is appears that the Bush administration draws more from these sources than traditional conservatism.
Read moreEric Minamyer, an advisor to Jean Schmidt (R), running for Congress in Southern Ohio, sees fit to question Paul Hackett’s service to this country in Iraq. How dare he. Hackett is a Democrat running against Ms. Schmidt, and, if elected, would be the only Iraq War veteran in Congress.
Read moreWell, the City of Washington, D.C., what some might consider a terrorists target, isn’t supposed to spend its homeland security money on protecting the City and it’s residents, but on providing the security for Bush’s inaguration.
Read moreThe media have unanimously accepted the notion that “moral; values” was the driving force behind the 2004 Bush victory. I’m not buying it, and I’m surprised that so many of the writers I admire have accepted this shabby explanation without a bit of skepticism. The last time the media acted with such earnestness they were conspiring to pack the nation off to war. I expect a similar deception is taking place now.
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