You do know, don't you?
This may sound funny coming from me but I remember how I felt when I learned the history of this country? It always seemed so noble and right the promise of freedom that was created when our country was founded. There truly was a hope created. Also the possibililty that no matter what your circumstances that you will be able to live your life the way you see fit. Then after you get past George Washington and the cherry tree and all the other myths of the founding of this country, reality sets in. I came to understand that this country really was not founded on the tenant that "all men are created equal", but that as far as the vote was concerned it was only all white male property owners over the age of 21 that were created equal when The Constitution was originally written. The "living" document of course has been amended over the years to make all of man more equal than they were originally.

For me it's been a slow change throughout my life that has made me less trusting or maybe I should say more realistic about my country. Maybe it's the fact that some of my first memories of my government are the Watergate hearings and Nixon resigning. I don't believe Oswald killed Kennedy. I now know that Reagan, maybe not himself but his campaign, kept our hostages in Iran from being released until he was inaugurated. That his administration also traded weapons with Iran to release hostages, when it said that it wouldn't deal with terrorists, and also used the money from the sale of those weapons to finance an illegal war in Central America. And of course that my government allowed, at minimum, 9/11 to happen so that they could start war without end, amen.

So why am I not shocked that this administration has now fixed three (2000, 2002 & 2004) general elections in a row. Yesterday I asked, what would it take? Today I ask, you do know they stole the election, don't you?

We don't need proof, just a reasonable suspicion
Major Tom on "Actionable Fraud" and More!

The point that should be garnered from the brief recital of law set forth in the previous paragraph is that absolute guarantees of proof are never required in the law before a search of anything can be conducted. Furthermore, under our legal system, this basal or minimum standard of "reasonable suspicion" is quite sufficient in the criminal law arena where rights are more greatly coveted and protected than in the civil law arena in which considerations of recounts would more generally apply. Therefore, a suspicion legitimately based upon any facts and inferences, including hearsay, are enough to base a civil or quasi-civil case (which a recount case is), even if those facts represent only a small percent of actual likelihood or probability, so long and on the condition that it is made in good faith.

But it's not just the fact that the my country is not, and never was, what I was taught as a child but how much different it really is. We torture. We still use napalm. We invade countries that never attacked us. Our media no longer works for the good of the country [here and here]. And on and on and on.

What did we do in Fallujah?
From Guernica to Fallujah

The Fallujah offensive has virtually disappeared from the news cycle. But history - if written by Iraqis - may well enshrine it as the new Guernica. Paraphrasing Jean-Paul Sartre memorably writing about the Algerian War (1956-62), after Fallujah no two Americans shall meet without a corpse lying between them: the up to 500,000 victims of the sanctions in the 1990s, according to United Nations experts; the up to 100,000 victims since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, according to the British medical paper The Lancet; and at least 6,000 victims, and counting, in Fallujah, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent

Do you know where the 300,000 people that lived in Fallujah are? Either do I. - LH

Meet the new boss..
Worse Than Ashcroft

I do not approve of filibustering presidential nominees, no matter who is president, because the Constitution, along with the Federalist Papers, makes clear that the whole Senate is to give advice and consent to these presidential nominees. But if I were a senator, I would be sorely tempted to filibuster Alberto Gonzales. The Democrats, still shell-shocked by their second loss to Bush, and by the size of the Hispanic vote for the president, are not likely to filibuster Gonzales. But since Gonzales will be more dangerous to our liberties than Ashcroft, I will begin here to show how low the standards have become for the chief law enforcement officer of the nation. Maybe at least the American Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York will stand up against Gonzales.

They Knew! But of course, we already knew that.
U.S. Generals in Iraq Were Told of Abuse Early, Inquiry Finds

A confidential report to Army generals in Iraq in December 2003 warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees, a finding delivered more than a month before Army investigators received the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison that touched off investigations into prisoner mistreatment.

Better late than never?
Kerry Joins The Recount

Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign asked an Ohio judge yesterday to allow it to join a legal fight there over whether election officials in one county may sit out the state's impending recount.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:49 PM