"A very scary situation in North Korea, but let's move on to the good news. As of last night, North Korea has one less bomb." --Jon Stewart "There is a scandal going on and every day it seems to get worse.
Rush Limbaugh said today, 'You see, another threat Clinton completely ignored.' He also said, 'This would have never happened if Al Gore didn't invent the Internet.'.
" --Bill Maher "Speaking of Foley, let's see what's happening on Brokeback, I mean Capitol Hill. God, it shows you how times have changed. It used to be a good thing when two congressmen were on the same page.
I think this whole thing could have been nipped in the bud if somebody pulled Mark Foley aside at some point and showed him nude photos of Dennis Hastert." --Bill Maher "As we learned after Katrina, Republicans aren't the finger-pointing types [on screen: multiple Republicans saying they won't play the 'blame game']. Well, that was then.
Today, it's the Republicans' own house that is flooded, and apparently the liquid is jism." --Jon Stewart "CNN is reporting that former Congressman Mark Foley's instant messages were not only sexually inappropriate, but were also full of typos. In his own defense, Foley said, 'It's hard to type with one hand.
'." --Conan O'Brien "The real battle now is how the GOP leadership handled the allegations. My guess is with some sort of latex glove.
" --Jon Stewart at 3:29 PM The Middle Class is Living on the Edge It looks like it's time to demonize Lou Dobbs. The following article reeks of the truth, and we can't have that. The undeniable liberal is passing along the entire article, and it looks like there is a book purchase in his near future.
This article, and what Dobbs says is surprising, to say the least. The undeniable liberal really doesn't care for the man, but this particular message is damn good. Dobbs: Middle class needs to fight back now -- I don't know about you, but I can't take seriously anyone who takes either the Republican Party or Democratic Party seriously -- in part because neither party takes you and me seriously; in part because both are bought and paid for by corporate America and special interests.
And neither party gives a damn about the middle class. Our country's middle class is not just collateral damage in what has become all-out class warfare. Political, business and academic elites are waging an outright war on working men and women and their families, and there is no chance the American middle class will survive this assault if the dominant forces unleashed over the past five years continue unchecked.
They've accomplished this through large campaign contributions, armies of lobbyists that have swamped Washington, and control of political and economic think tanks and media. Lobbyists, in fact, are the arms dealers in the war on the middle class, brokering money, influence and information between their clients our elected officials. Yet in my entire career, I've literally never heard anyone in Congress argue that lobbyists are bad for America.
In 1968 there were only 63 lobbyists in Washington. Today, there are more than 34,000, and lobbyists now outnumber our elected representatives and their staffs by a 2-to-1 margin. According to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, from 1998 through 2004, lobbyists spent nearly $12 billion to not only influence legislation, but in many cases to write the language of the laws and regulations.
Individual firms, corporations and national organizations spent a record $2.14 billion on lobbying members of Congress and 220 other federal agencies in 2004, according to PoliticalMoneyLine. That's nearly $6 million a day spent to influence our leaders We really do have the best government money can buy.
But as I discuss in my new book, "War on the Middle Class," what if we all resolved that we would not permit either the Republicans or Democrats to waste their time and ours with wedge issues? Both parties love to excite their bases by focusing on wedge issues like gay marriage, the pledge of allegiance, school prayer, judicial appointments, gun control, stem cell research and welfare reform. Each of these wedge issues is important in varying degrees to large numbers of us, but none of them rises to the level of urgency or the requirement of immediate change in public policy.
These issues are raised by both political parties to distract and divert public attention from the profound issues -- like educating our youth, economic inequality and the war against radical Islamic terrorists -- that affect our daily lives and the American way of life. Imagine the consternation in Washington if both parties had to contend with a national electorate whose political affiliation had dramatically changed within a matter of weeks or months. In both Republican and Democratic administrations, Congress has passed and sustained billions of dollars in royalty payments and subsidies to big oil companies; pushed through a corporate-written, consumer-crippling bankruptcy law; embraced the death of the estate tax; approved every free trade deal brought to a vote; and supported illegal immigration for the sake of cheap labor.
The party strategists and savants are telling us that fewer Americans will turn out to the polls than ever before, disgusted by a disgraced former congressman. But we don't have to wait for the midterm elections to begin to engage in our new political life. There's something all of us could do that would have an immediate impact and send a powerful message to both corporation-dominated political parties and to our elected officials in Washington.
Our so-called representatives in both parties have been working against the interests of the middle class for so long that they take our votes for granted, or they take advantage of the fact that a sizable number of us don't vote at all. So what if a majority of us decided once and for all to walk into our town and city halls all over the country and change our party affiliation from Republican or Democrat to independent? What if that sizable number of us who don't vote at all decided to register as independents?
For the first time in decades, working middle-class Americans might just get the attention of our elected officials in Washington. Our middle class has suffered in silence for far too long, and it cannot afford to suffer or be silent much longer. Hardworking Americans have not spoken out about their increasingly marginalized role in this society, and as a consequence they've all but lost their voice.
Without that strong, clear and vibrant voice, all the major decisions about America and our future will be made by the elites of government, big business and the dominant special interests. Those elites treasure your silence, as it enables them to claim America's future for their own. I sincerely hope that we will find the resolve to face these challenges to our way of life, and we do so soon.
George Bernard Shaw said, "It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid." I'm stupid enough to be absolutely sincere in the hope that middle-class America will awake soon and take action. Bought and payed for by corporations.
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.did you know that excessive corporatism is a major tenet of fascism? The whole system is fucked, but this is still a government of and for WE THE PEOPLE and it's high damned time that we make our elected leader represent WE THE PEOPLE and not corporate interests.
As as been said here many times before, wake the fuck up America. Nothings going to change, though, unless people get out there and VOTE! The big danger is that too many people are likely to just stay home and not bother to vote.
But get informed first and ignore the stupid-ass campaign commercials that are designed for idiots. WE THE PEOPLE are smarter than that aren't we? The internets are full of information like each candidates website, voting records etc.
Be an informed voter! This is a very important election coming up and all of the distractions aside, the only question is: Are better of than you were six years ago? Time to get rid of Bush's rubber stamping enablers, regardless of party.
If we don't, we may never get another chance. And don't fall for the imminent October Surprise. at 5:52 AM "A very scary situation in North Korea, but let's move on to the good news.
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