Send via SMS

Sunday, March 19, 2006

spring-a-comin 

what will happen between now and next winter?

*

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Today in history 

Albert Einstein was born on this day in 1879.
Fannie Lou Hamer died on March 14, 1977.

Holiday notes:

March 14 celebrates "Steak and Blowjob Day" - Kind of like Valentines Day except you don't have to lick any envelopes:
The date was initially set to March 20th, but in 2003 and subsequent years it was relocated to March 14th, one month after Valentine's Day. go ahead, see for yourself


For vegetarians: Bill O'Reilly recommends half a dozen falafels and a smutty phone call.

*

Friday, February 17, 2006

yet again, another random conversation opportunity 

back by popular demand. (keep the cards and letters coming)

*

Monday, February 06, 2006

another random conversation 

BYOT = bring your own topic.

Visit farm runoff on occasion too.

*

Monday, January 30, 2006

random conversation 

invent your own topics. or, rather, BYOT (bring your own topics).

feedback wanted: i've been working on my farm runoff blog and would appreciate it if you all regglers here would have a look. (comments there are now Haloscan instead of Blogger) It's a hybrid version of FR and the old short lived HD blog - for those of you who remember the HD blog (short lived as it was). Let me know if it looks ok... things don't do weird things that they aren't supposed to do... or vice versa, which often enough has its advantages (weird things doing what they aren't supposed to do that is) - i tell ya.

And yes, i watched the State of the Bubble infomercial on my kerosene powered tv machine and was impressed with the colorful selection of hallucinogenic dipsy-doodles to choose from. Thank gawd for dipsy-doodles.

*

Friday, January 27, 2006

Restoration 

Nixonland:
In perpetrating the Watergate affair, Richard Nixon inadvertently performed his greatest service to his country. Thanks to Nixon, the people received an invaluable education concerning their constitutional rights, the criminal justice system, the importance of a free press, and the hypocrisy of many of their leaders. During the Nixon Administration, Congress began to reassert its authority after a long period of dormancy, and the dangerous growth in presidential power was at last arrested. At the very end of his Presidency; Nixon fulfilled his promise to unite the country as never before - with Americans of every political persuasion joining forces to demand his impeachment or resignation.

It is hard to decide which is more amazing in Nixon's handling of Watergate - the President's immorality or his incompetence. Nixon will not only be remembered as the greatest liar in American history, he may also be remembered as the most inept administrator. The antics of Nixon and his palace guard would be simply laughable except that they came so close to achieving their objectives. His efforts to subvert the rights of citizens, spy on his opponents, smear his "enemies," intimidate the press, defy the courts, diminish Congress, and manipulate the FBI, CIA, and IRS all proved - at least partially - temporarily sucessful. As historian Henry Steele Commager put it: "Other things being equal, we haven't had a bad President before now. Mr. Nixon is the 1st dangerous and wicked President."

4 The People's Almanac, David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace; page 327; published 1974


Bu$hCountry:
As Peter Viereck suggested, fascism, if it ever came to America, might take the form of transtolerant nativism, with patriots of all races and religions joining together in attacking the designated hate objects of the regime: intellectuals, homosexuals, political heretics. The racial and theological elements of the new white nativism would be played down, in favor of a transethnic and possibly transracial Americanism defined by narrow political, moral and aesthetic conformity. [...]

[...]

An American dictatorship would clothe itself in constitutional and legal forms; it would cultivate an aura of non-partisan technocracy and business expertise, not a feverish cult of the genius-leader and the masses. An American Fuehrer would not rant and strut, but crack jokes and adopt the relaxed, ironic, "cool" style of a television host.

4 The Next American Nation, by Michael Lind; page 251; published by The Free Press 1995


House of Bu$h:
In addition to rewarding old loyalists, dynasties are known - the Stuarts and their retainers somewhat, the Bourbons and their retainers more stereotypically - for forgetting no slight and savoring revenge. [...]

[...]

Indeed, the Machiavellian Bush role in the eliminations of Speaker Gingrich and Senator Lott - both replaced with easygoing, collaborative successors - underscored yet another frequent restoration policy: to rebuild executive (royal) perogative and influence at the expense of the legislative branch. Well indexed in both Stuart and Bourbon histories, perogative expresses itself less as a definable program than as a presumption of entitlement, a hallmark of successful reassertion. New assumptions of authority in war making and secrecy and a bent for unilateralism have been to the George W. Bush dynastic presidency what executive privilege and impoundment were to the imperial presidency portrayed by Arthur Schlesinger in 1974.

4 American Dynasty; Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush by Kevin Phillips; page 94; published 2004


Restoration of the Imperial Presidency:
What the Supreme Court has placed on its agenda, in short, is the Imperial Presidency -- that is, the Presidency in which the Executive largely acts alone, pushing the Constitution to the limits and beyond. And how the Justices deal with this overwhelmingly important topic could affect the reelection prospects of the Bush presidency, for, as David Savage notes, at least four of the five rulings are anticipated to be handed down during the summer of 2004 -- right in the middle of the presidential campaign.

The High Court and Nixon's Imperial Presidency

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s The Imperial Presidency gave the term its currency. He traces its growth from George Washington to Richard Nixon, showing how a presidency never contemplated by the founders has evolved. As a basis for their authority, presidents typically cited their role as commander-in-chief -- an undefined constitutional term -- and "inherited powers" other presidents had used before them.

After Nixon pushed the presidential powers even further than past presidents had, both the Congress and Supreme Court acted to curtail his activities. In the name of protecting national security, Nixon wanted to be able to wiretap without the approval of a judge. The authority for this power? Before the Court of Appeals, Nixon relied on a vague "historical power of the sovereign to preserve itself" and "the inherent power of the President to safeguard the security of the nation."

[...]

In short, at the zenith of the Imperial Presidency era, the Supreme Court consistently ruled in such a way as to pull the presidency back into Constitutional balance with the other branches. Its rulings were wise, for the alternative would have been to allow presidential power to burgeon, at the expense of the balance of power with the Legislative and Judicial branches.

Bush's Imperial Presidency?

Not inaccurately, the Bush presidency has been called imperial, in Schlesinger's sense. The evidence? Its "preemptive" and "preventive" military policy, its contentions that it can go to war regardless of whether Congress approves, its policies calling for American world domination, and its unprecedented blending of national security policy and domestic law enforcement. In my view, these policies and positions not only easily establish the Bush presidency as imperial, they also rank it beyond anything in the annals of the modern American presidency. This may be the most imperial Presidency our history has yet seen.

I've spoken with Arthur Schlesinger about it -- asking him if he thought the Bush presidency fit his description of an imperial presidency. In response, he chuckled, and said, "I'd certainly say this is an imperial presidency."

4 The U.S. Supreme Court and The Imperial Presidency
How President Bush Is Testing the Limits of His Presidential Powers
By JOHN W. DEAN
Friday, Jan. 16, 2004

Read in full here: Findlaw
Or here: Common Dreams.org


*

Thursday, January 26, 2006

enfant terrible 

tete-a-tete interlude!:

The elitist gated community fortifications of the Bourbon Media courtyard were recently breached and the WaPo Bon-Bons were interrupted in the middle of reciting florid love poems to the GOP. There was a great fluster of hubbub and pitapat and foam and boil from the assembled strumpet meretrix and the palace guard was summoned and the ruffian mob were heaved back over the walls. Order was restored to the perfumed enclave and the tongue swallowing and bustle pinching and general altogether high society chirping on behalf of obdurate power and corruption and entrenched privilege carried on as ordained.

What will we tell the little bon-bons!

*

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Frustration Thread 

1972 :
Somehow the Watergate and other disclosures failed to rub off on the Nixon administration in its reelection drive. The President studiously ignored McGovern's remarks alleging venality --the Senator [McGovern] charged that the administration was "the most corrupt in history" -- and kept the news media at a distance, thus preventing questioning, as he appeared at "non-political" occasions against such television backdrops as the Statue of Liberty and Independence Hall. At formal dinners newsmen were privileged to listen to him in another room, on closed-circuit television.

McGovern found himself in effect campaigning against himself, defending himself against previous statements or positions, while Nixon, who had made truly major reversals in his thinking, was accepted as a pragmatist. McGovern's principal issue, the Vietnam War, was defused by Kissinger's negotiations with the North Vietnamese and the continuing expectation of a cease-fire.

Since the President was holding himself above politics, the news media turned their camera eyes on McGovern and the opposition to him within his own party. Sizable blocs of Democratic voters were in the process of defection from the "wild radicals" in control; John Connally, the former Governor of Texas and former Secretary of the Treasury in the Republican administration, had formed "Democrats for Nixon"; organized labor was split as the result of George Meany's professed "neutrality," and various elements and personalities were in constant conflict behind the scenes of McGovern's campaign apparatus. Such news coverage, with its thoroughly negative yield for McGovern, amounted to a partiality previously unknown in modern political campaigns. On the nation's editorial pages, moreover, Nixon was supported by 753 or the 1,054 daily newspapers, representing 77.4 percent of the total circulation, and McGovern by only 56 dailies with a mere 7.7 percent of the circulation.

This overwhelming press support was given despite the Nixon administration's patent threat to the First Amendment,...

[The Wound Within; America in the Vietnam Years 1945-1974, by Alexander Kendrick; page 373; published 1974]


Sounds too familiar doesn't it.

=====
Please stand by. (As far as I know the Blogger outage is now over.)

*

"Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" - former first lady Barbara Bush - "Good Morning America" March 18, 2003


[Lexicon]

The Lexicon of
Liberal Invective

News & Resource
Links

BLOGROLL

Syndication

Archives


copyright 2003-2005

  • Site Meter

  • Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com

    This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?