A progressive political blog that highlights the infringement of religion upon today’s government.

Well, everyone is writing about Blackwater’s newer friendlier logo. At first I couldn’t figure out how this could be news. I mean, why should it be news that a mercenary group responsible for the mass shooting of Iraqi civilians has a new logo? Shouldn’t we be more interested in important things, like that they killed 17 civilians and not get distracted by a silly public relations scam to appear friendlier?

Then I figured it out. See Blackwater isn’t really answerable to any sort of legal oversight so they can’t really make amends through the normal means of going to prison for many years. To ease their tortured conscious they are extending the olive branch of peace through a more friendly logo. Below is a side by side comparison of the two logo’s, look and see for yourself.

Anyone looking at these two logo’s will immediately know that Blackwater feels horrible for the killings, and the maiming, and the destroying of the property and so forth. It’s right there in the font they used. Before they were using a scary font ripped off the cover of a cheesy shoot em up war novel, but now they are using a friendly font. This new font says it all. These are not the Blackwater thugs of 2 days ago, these are the professional and polite mercenaries of tomorrow.

Now, some may still wonder “is this all they are doing to make amends”? To these dead enders who hate freedom and liberty I say NO! It’s not. This will be an ongoing process. Every time Blackwater guards kill a bunch of civilians or some guy’s bodyguard, or randomly run people off the roads, they will make their log friendlier and friendlier until people no longer think of them as mercenaries above the law. My prediction is that by Christmas we will see the following logo.

This logo uses the same friendly font styles, with the addition of balloons. Everyone loves balloons, well except for those who are still waking up at night with dreams of the Christian Pedophile Clown. This new logo will instill new confidence in Blackwater’s humanity and allow the mercenary group to continue working in Iraq a while longer.

However, I don’t expect that the people of Iraq will be swayed by balloons as much as we in America are and at some point a bunch of them will probably get themselves killed by Blackwater mercenaries. Of course this will be entirely their fault for doing something suspicious like driving through an intersection. After another mass killing of civilians America will finally be tired of putting up with a bunch of armed thugs and push to have them arrested and fired.

That is when they will pull out their secret weapon. A logo so cute that no one will be able to hate them, no matter the crimes they have committed. This logo is so cute and lovable I can’t show it to you here, but this is an idea of what it could look like.

Awwww, cute and loyal as a Puppy. Of course, with a logo like this no one will ever believe the allegations against Blackwater, and all will be forgiven. In fact it will be so damn cute that Blackwater will be invited to train our police force, or perform humanitarian duties in cases of national emergencies like Katrina.

Rudy “9/11″ Guiliani has proven again that you cannot trust Republicans to keep their word because they are willing to sell out everything for a shot at the GOP nomination. Mr. 9/11’s most recent sellout was on the issue of gay rights, which Rudy once supported. I have read today on Bloggernista that Rudy is willing to Pander to the anti-gay hate groups and throw his support behind a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

I remember a time, back when Rudy was running in NYC, that Rudy was a strong advocate for gay rights. Of course at the time this may have been a lie to get votes, but I don’t think so. He has a long history of fighting for gay rights, created domestic partnerships in New York while Mayor, marched in Gay Pride Parades, and has even lived with gay friends during his second divorce.

So what could have made Rudy change his long standing beliefs? My guess is it was the empty threat of the religious right abandoning the GOP as we wrote about on the 12th. Of course this would never happen as it would be political suicide for both the radical right and the GOP due to their mutual parasitic relationship. However, the threat of the defection has started a mass rush to be named the “most conservative” candidate in order to gain their support. In order to win this dishonor Mr. 9/11 has been shifting his stands on moral issues so fast I’m surprised he can stay standing.

I have never made any secret to my opinion that Rudy would be about the worst president we could possibly get. His supporting cast of neo-cons and his history in New York clearly show that a Guiliani presidency would be more of the same crap we have now. I have at least admired how his stands on social issues were only slightly wobbly. Well, so much for that. I guess there aren’t any Republicans that can resist the urge to pander to intolerance and bigotry no matter how big of a flip flop it takes.

It is this total lack of moral integrity by anyone in the GOP that has rightfully earned the voters’ distrust. I have yet to see a single one of them who is willing to make a real stand for their beliefs. I am thoroughly disgusted by the entire Republican party and their cronies right now. I would like to be able to say that there was one that I disagreed with but respected as I could in the past, right now I can’t and I don’t see that changing.

~ William ~

Jamie Crawford, CNN Political Ticker, reported that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee likened abortions in America to the holocaust. His exact words were, “Sometimes we talk about why we’re importing so many people in our workforce. It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973.”

As I have written time and again, conservative right wing republicans cannot argue with logic so they bring on the barrage of verbal nastiness. Almost everyone agrees that the holocaust was a horrible thing so equating whatever it is that they don’t agree with with either Nazi’s or the holocaust itself is a surefire way to rile up their followers. The other word that they have managed to manipulate to conjure up images of death, torment, and horror is liberal. Notice that he doesn’t just say abortion it’s “liberalized” abortion.

These semantic games that they are playing have been highly tuned to strike just the right chord in their close minded base. It doesn’t matter that logically the holocaust and legalized abortion have nothing in common or that “liberal” means “favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.”

Huckabee also pulled out another verbal weapon from his arsenal “God”. In the same speech he stated “I’m very tired of hearing people who are unwilling to change the constitution, but seem more than willing to change the holy word of God as it relates to the definition of marriage.”

This statement is, to me, the embodiment of what is wrong with the Religious Right. He makes it clear that he believes political decisions should be guided by religious beliefs, effectively throwing the separation of church and state right out of the window. He said this while speaking to the crowd about the necessity of conservative lawmakers to pressure for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

To sum up Huckabee’s apparent platform: The Christian conservatives’ idea of God and his wishes will decide the laws and anyone who disagrees are liberalized nazi’s. Nice.

Something about this phrase really amused Rush Limbaugh. As you can read here on his radio show transcript. He was in stitches that Nancy Pelosi had implored the House to do the right thing and override the president’s veto “for the children.”

Now, we’ve all seen overused catch phrases in politics, rhetoric that means nothing, but this time the issue at hand was “for the children”. As we have written about on this blog, SCHIP is a good program. The expansion would ensure coverage for 10 million US children. It’s supported by 81% of America with 71% of America saying they would support it even if it raised their taxes.

How can Right Wing spinmeisters take something that is overwhelmingly approved by the citizens and turn it into something dirty and evil? By repeating lies upon lies upon lies; by attacking the spokespeople for this bill; by calling Nancy Pelosi “pathetic” for attempting to get our Representatives to think of the children that this bill is designed for before they voted.

Nancy Pelosi in addressing the House before the vote stated, “We’ve had a much higher goal. This is what is achievable for the children. It should have been signed by the president. There is no reason that he has given that is consistent with the facts.”

If you’ve really looked into this story you know that she was right. Every reason that the president gave for vetoing this legislation was faulty or an outright lie. For more on this please see our story here.

I am surmising that because Rush knows that he cannot counter her logic with any evidence, facts, or truth he must immediately rail against her and get all of his cowardly followers up in arms. He does by stating, “That is embarrassing. That, folks, is literally pathetic. It is embarrassing!”

Exactly what was embarrassing or pathetic about telling the truth and imploring the House to do the right thing and think of the right people when they voted? NOTHING! That doesn’t matter; however, when you’re dealing with the radical right. Because they cannot defend their own ignorant positions they counter with baseless attacks the democrats, even when they are working on a bi-partisan piece of legislation that is approved by an overwhelming majority of America, and is FOR THE CHILDREN.

That is why Rush Limbaugh is this week’s SINNER!

I want to support Kucinich I really really do. I agree with him on every single issue. I think he is the one candidate on either side that is truly interested in making life for the average American better. He supports labor unions, he supports not for profit universal health care, he wants the Iraq war over NOW. He is my idealistic hero. He is unelectable.

Our nation is perhaps more polarized between red and blue than ever before. Kucinich represents the antithesis of conservative republican values. He is too “left” to win if he was the Democratic nominee. Therefore I have joined the local Clinton campaign and have thrown my support to her camp. Why? Because she is more moderate. I am a far left liberal; however, I think that our next president needs to be somewhere to the left of Republican but not by too much. We need someone that the majority of America can relate to.

With Clinton we may have a large number of troops in Iraq for several years, she may encourage and expand controversial trade deals, and she may invade Iran on shady intelligence and greed. She has lots of money and political power that we’ve too often seen corrupt our leaders. She is not shy about taking money from pretty much anybody, although to her credit it doesn’t seem to have an impact on her voting record.

I know; however, that she will push for better education, universal healthcare, expanded gay and lesbian rights (although not equal marriage rights which I support), and a stronger environmental protection policy. She is an excellent speaker and diplomacy is her forte. (Not to mention Bill’s.) She has devoted much of her professional life to helping children and families and champions women’s issues.

William just wrote on Friday about the harm that expecting failure from our government has brought to this nation. Perhaps that’s what I’m doing by endorsing Hilary Clinton. I expect Kucinich to fail so I don’t even try. I will have to live with that. Perhaps if everyone who felt as I do, and there are plenty, would fully throw support his way, we’d have Dennis Kucinich as our next president. I doubt it.