Whore-monger Republican Senator David Vitter gets some future employers to pick-up the tab on his DC Madam legal expeses

Washington D.C.--Is it surprising? Vitter's legal defense fund released their report around the same time that the Tarpon Springs PD released their own that confirmed the obvious: Deborah Jeane Palfrey killed herself, she committed suicide by hanging.

Scholars say that Halloween was viewed by the ancient Celts as a time when people could commune with spirits and the dead, a time of divination and magic. There's something sadly poetic and disturbing about the parallel release of these two reports. What would Senator Vitter have said to the dead Jeane Palfrey had he the chance? Perhaps a visit to her graveside to apologize would be in order. Would he even want to? Doubtful, but who cares what he wants?

Vitter's behavior begs-the-question of what kind of hopelessly-flawed deity created this rock we live on, and the rest of the universe. Surely, it wasn't God, he's supposed to be perfect. I don't think people like Vitter or these donors really believe there is a "God"--if they really did, they wouldn't behave as they do. They feel that they are God. They aren't.

No, it must have been an emanation, an effluvium of deity that created our prison called earth, an excretion, something evil and degenerate. Or, there's no God at all, life on earth is just an accident from the big bang, and it's an existential universe where we're on our own. Does it really matter either way?

These "donors" ("graft-peddlers" sound more accurate) bent the rules to the breaking-point--with 27 donors, a curious percentage (seven-in-all) of them had the last name of "Chouest," all addressed to the same P.O. Box in Galliano, Louisiana. But why not? We can assume that at least one of the donors in the entire list was paying the bill at some juncture so that David Vitter could work out his problems with "getcha little somethin' that you can't get at home."

What's so pathetic about Vitter and the donors is that we all know this is only about money and that they'd give him this kind of aid and assistance if he was guilty of murder. Capitalism? Hardly. It's the anarchy of power, the belief in nothing...except more power and the maintaining of it. That puts its origins squarely in the natural world, a part of our animal-side. It doesn't matter, it really is as "natural" as a flower or a tree. Yet the hypocrisy is glaring here, and a woman is dead.

But at least Davey got laid, proved he was a "real man," a mensch, but really came-off as a total schmuck and a loser to anyone with a clue and a pulse. Does it matter whether he was a Senator at the time? No, because he misled the people of Louisiana as to what kind of person he was to get elected. He lied, and lied, and lied, and lied, and he's still lying and will continue to lie. What was it all about? The power that a woman can have over a powerful man in the kind of arrangement Palfrey and Vitter were in.

It most certainly was a witch-hunt, but rest assured that he's never going to be a presidential candidate and that his political career has been permanently damaged from his problem controlling his sex drive. In all, these corrupt Louisiana businesspeople and political figures raised $200,010.00 for a corrupt, whore-mongering politician. A wolf knows a wolf, and a whore knows a whore (and a pimp).

Forget about what I wrote about "hypocrisy," there's none to be had here.

But I have to thank Senator Vitter, the donors, and the entire GOP--it's people like you--at least--who remind me that I'll never run out of assholes to kick around. Thank you. With the job they and many other rich clowns have done on the economy, I'll hardly be the only one doing the kicking, and there isn't going to be anywhere left to run. And c'mon Louisiana, I know you have the self-respect to rid yourselves of this turkey, so quit waiting for someone else to do it, grow a pair. You too Wendy. I don't have to tell Vitter's daughters to dog him about all of this, that's always going to be underneath the surface anyway for the rest of his worthless life.

Was it all worth it, defending Palfrey? Yes. I rest well at night knowing that I helped cost Vitter and several rich turds a lot of money during an economic crisis, and that we tried to take down corrupt representatives like Vitter who protected what can only be the most criminal presidential administration in American history (just wait). Gloating? No. It was the right thing to do, pointing-out Vitter's unethical behaviors along with the rest of the internet. These dopes are your representatives, your mirror-image, your shadow on the walls of the cave.

Surprised the GOP was routed in the last two elections? You shouldn't be, they earned it and couldn't steal an election during a landslide. God knows they tried, and they will again. Vitter's time is coming, this mark on his life is his doing, and it's never going away. Eventually, even the GOP will discard him when he's no longer useful. That could be sooner rather than later.

"Vitter officially closes 'Madam' legal fund; see complete list of donors," The New Star, 10.31.2008: http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20081031/NEWS01/810310335

Bush ruminates on the failure of 60 years of GOP excesses at NYC's Federal Hall

Wall Street--Meeting at the venerable Federal Hall where the Bill of Rights he's despoiled as much as he and his vice president could get away with was penned and debated, soon-to-be ex-President George W. Bush made some remarkably stupid comments that are only going to cement his legacy as our era's Herbert Hoover.

One imagines that you could cut the irony with a butter-knife: "I'm a market-oriented guy, but not when I'm faced with the prospect of a global meltdown,""It would be a terrible mistake to allow a few months of crisis to undermine 60 years of success," and the capper of, "It is true that this crisis included failures, by leaders and borrowers, by financial firms, by governments and independent regulators. But the crisis was not a failure of the free market system. And the answer is not to try to reinvent that system." The final quote is paradox-ridden.

Do any of these statements jibe with each other at all? Maybe if you're comatose. Does he even know what the hell he's saying? Did he ever? Do economists? Does the lame duck president sound like he knows what he's talking about? Does the Treasury Secretary or the Fed chair? No to all of them, but bozo is on his way out anyway and there will be investigations into the corruption of his administration regardless of how many pardons he hands-out. Why? The public's going to scream for it in-the-midst of general strikes and rioting that will not be quelled. Nobody can pacify a sociological explosion.

Whenever the Democrats fail to achieve that coveted 60 seat, filibuster-proof majority, the Republicans have had the opening they've needed to obstruct a social-dividend, being the traditional minority party of obstructionism. They should be good at it: they remained in the minority after the Great Depression for good reason for over 50 years. You get good at being the minority under those conditions, and they're going to get more practice again. What was happening 60-years-ago? It was when the Republican Party began their endgame against the New Deal and progressive politics in-general, sweeping into the Halls of Congress, ultimately bringing us such friendly lights as Richard Nixon, Strom Thurmond, and Joseph McCarthy (he sneaked in during the 1946 elections). Would we all be where we are now without the tragic-results of the 1948 national elections?

Barry Goldwater would enter the Senate in 1953. McCarthyism--a misnomer since HUAC was formed before his entry into Congress--grew to monumental proportions during the 1950s, and thousands of lives were wrecked. The "Eisenhower era" is synonymous with repressiveness and secrecy, just like this one, and free-thinking was discouraged. Conglomerates and the interstate highway system were created during this period, thanks to the GOP and the Eisenhower administration.

The postwar "economic miracle" smothered dissent with a runaway consumerism that's finally crashing. Rather than blaming Americans for the global recession, Europeans and the rest of the developed world should be happy--they now have an opening to escape concentrated American capital, and they should take it. People with differing opinions tended to keep them to themselves. Nearly everyone in Washington was running amok, but the Republicans took center stage, eventually pushing Truman into military action in Korea by implying he and his party were "soft on communism" and "pink." It's amethod that has now run out of steam, along with race-baiting. Gay-baiting and the attacks on rationality, science, and secular culture, are now losing any of their sting. "Sixty-years-ago," is a distant past, an antique of another era. Who were some of its architects? Right in-front of your face, even today.

The Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and the rest of the American business and financial community, did their best trying to crush any remaining dissent through the red-baiting of the "McCarthy era," and through every single communications medium available at the time. The same methods achieved the Vietnam war, a more bipartisan affair than is normally acknowledged. Any notion of JFK pulling-out troops from Vietnam permanently is a political mythology that flies-in-the-face of the now declassified internal record. Yet, it all fits-into a false narrative--a false consciousness that has been fostered for decades--that the two party system represents the will of the American people. It does not.

A massive propaganda campaign selling what we know today as the postwar "American Dream" was concocted and sold beginning in the late-1940s. Some of the key to this was to detach the American people from a consciousness of their history, of their past. A consumerist culture reflects this drive where the individual is stripped of any past...or any future, only a perpetual present. In Europe, the Marshall Plan was beginning, and it entailed the same aims towards pacification: to impose American-style capitalism on a freshly-radicalized Continent that was definitely disposed towards heading left politically and economically. Now do you understand the anti-Americanism of the postwar era? I thought not. America offered the carrot-and-the-stick in George Marshall's rebuilding program and in the creation of paramilitary groups and CIA intimidation of legitimate domestic political parties, acting suspiciously as the Nazi occupiers had.

My own grandfather watched in horror as his own superiors--U.S. Army officers--were ordered to reinstall a Nazi Burgomeister (it's like a mayor) in a German village they were occupying under General George S. Patton's 3rd Army. A lot of WWII veterans experienced these things and saw them as a betrayal just as my grandfather did then and for the rest of his life. "What the hell were we fighting for?" he asked me. "Big business," I replied. He agreed. Never underestimate the intelligence of the average man, and heed their warnings. The warning-sings were boldly apparent in the shattered ruins of postwar Europe.

The joint CIA-Mafia crushing of the dock strikes in the Port of Marseille in 1947 (and later in 1950), the destruction of the Communist Army (also former anti-Nazi partisans) in Greece that same year, the assassinations of Communist Party leaders in Sicily and Italy, and the assassinations of former partisan leaders throughout the rest of Western Europe were the opening-shots of a campaign of violent pacification by American power. The State Department revived international organized crime and and their drug smuggling operations to facilitate this.

Many of the individuals these operatives and criminals tortured, murdered, and intimidated had been part of the resistance movements under German occupation, and were frequently their leadership. In France, Italy, Germany, and other European nations, former fascist politicians and judges were reinstalled into their former positions of power. Such are the origins of the "Christian Democrats." The natural political-shift that was to alter Europe into a more leftist model was blunted considerably, but not entirely.

The wheel turns, and history and its forces will not be denied forever, and Europe blaming us for this mess is ultimately appropriate. This is how the current international economy came into being.

The 1950s was an unusually repressive decade, thanks mostly to the GOP. Loyalty oaths had to be signed, religion was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance (and still there!), and the hunt for essentially nonexistent "fifth columnists" continued in-earnest until HUAC was laughed down in the mid-1960s. Enough has been written and stated on the criminal behavior of the GOP during the 1960s-70s, but can be summed-up in the name of one man: Richard M. Nixon. If it weren't for the creation of a Republican majority in the Senate in 1948, it's doubtful that the last sixty years would have played-out quite the way they did, and that would be just fine.

"Sixty years of success" was their success and the success of the two party monopoly over our political system; but it was big business and finance that truly won, the real power behind the throne, the faceless dictatorship. But without the Democrats, they couldn't have done it. Make no mistake about it: these bastards will do anything in their power to preserve their position--just as the Hapsburgs, the Ottoman Turks, the Hollenzollerns, and the Romanovs did, giving us the war that ruined the entire 20th century, WWI. If they have to drag us all down into hell to do it, they'll make the attempt. The key is knowing this and consciously refusing to serve their interests. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but the alternatives are far worse--we could just continue-on like before, finally reaching that real catastrophe that's been awaiting us.

The market system never worked, and it was much closer to Marxist-Leninist forced production, with both the Soviet and American approaches embracing Frederick Taylor's "scientific management."

Really, they were just two-sides of the same coin of an authoritarianism poised to extinguish humanity from the earth. The Soviet Union and its order fell leaving the U.S. without a viable enemy, so we created as many of them as possible throughout the world to feed the war machine that maintains our hold on the seaways and markets of the world. This was a forced arrangement more than it was a natural one, and still is.

This crisis is the end of Empire, which gives hope to those who desire life in a real democracy; but it doesn't mean the powerful are going down without a fight. That's what the war on terrorism is for, and it's not going to work. All the last eight years have done is to erode American power in the world, and to isolate us diplomatically. The economic part is coming soon, maybe tomorrow.

George W. Bush didn't make this postwar order, he was just instrumental in wrecking it. Thanks George, our first Socialist--on-accident, mind you--president. I've been wondering when two generations of business domination were going to end. It truly is a new day in America, a time for the working man (and woman) to seize unique historical opportunities and to take all that concentrated power and wealth away from a class of privileged criminals who have used violence to get and keep what they stole from the rest of us. If the American public don't start using their heads, we're going to see another world war, it's coming otherwise.

A'murka

"Lohan refers to Obama as 'first colored president'"

New York, New York (not the Scorsese film, silly)--She's at it again: Lindsay Lohan has stuck her foot in her mouth, and not her new g-friend's. You know, she's 22, and she's in the spotlight. How would your youth look if it was on billboards, televisions, in print, DVD, downloads, celebutante rags, and all the others forms of media?

And she didn't choose this, her parents did. They made her be a child star, just like Fatty Arbuckle's did. I assume they ripped-her-off too, because what's family for in America, after all?

Look, she blogged about her sincere support of Barack Obama on her own personal blog, it's OK, calm down. Have some dip (thanks George Carlin), relax.

There was a time--and for some there still is--where referring to a Black American as "colored" was a far cry from what the rest were calling them--namely, "niggers." It's shameful, all of it, I know. I can assure many readers out there that the Amish still use this term when referring to Black people, but they hate most all outsiders whom they refer to as a bloc called "the English" (English-speakers).

She meant well, but it came out very-very wrong. People make mistakes, like getting tit-jobs. This is getting down to human anthropology here, it is what it is, but I don't think Lohan meant anything derogatory by it, she's just young and naive, and apparently gay for now. Great, now many Black Americans are really gonna hate her now...did I mention that she has poor taste in friends? That too.

Why would anyone want to assassinate Barack Obama?

Washington D.C.--I so want to like this man, I really do. The idea of a Black American president is something that just seemed impossible in my lifetime, and I'm at least glad for that part of his successful election into office.

Richard Pryor used to joke that the first Black president would be dead very quickly, and similar talk is going on right now. Certainly, there are some reasons to be concerned, but it's already a given that the Secret Service is going to be augmented for him, and plots have been uncovered before they could get anywhere.

The rapidly vanishing OpEd News has had a poll conducted on the likelihood of an assassination attempt on President-elect Barack Obama--and granted that any asshole can post their pusgutted blatherskiting rumors there--but it really should be removed as inappropriate.

The notion of there being any real attempt on the President-elect isn't even very realistic.

"But Matt," you're saying, "Alex Jones and Naomi Klein have told me there's a lot of talk about it out there in the public. Why couldn't it be some wacky Ku Klux Klan members or some kind of extremists from a white hate group?" The most obvious problem with this logic is that the vast majority of these people are more of a threat to themselves than anyone else.

"But Matt, it would only take one person to pull-it-off."

This isn't Serbia, 1914. This kind of logic assumes that any of them would even make it past the planning stage without being caught, yet we have examples from the national elections already that show the Secret Service is getting very proactive in their defense of the President-elect, which is appropriate in a democracy with a history of violence like our own. It would take a lot of people to pull-off something as daring as that, and the assassins would probably have to be willing to die in-the-process of completing their objective.

This narrows the playing field considerably, and the chances of success start becoming virtually nil. Again, security is going to be considerably augmented with a Black president in office--it's a given--and again, most of these white hate members are screw-ups and methamphetamine addicts, people who are generally powerless and do a lot of very loud and stupid talking when they're high or drunk. If many of them get-up before 1 PM every day, it's a minor miracle.

Sure-sure, there's going to be some "rogue" element of white supremacists who've infiltrated the Special Forces, the Navy Seals, or some other branch or section of the military or government, but they're not going to get very far or close either. It's not as if this is news, let alone a good tactic on anyone's part, and it's not as if the government bureaucracy hasn't take it into account and acted on it proactively, shutting it down. Someone's always watching for these things, it's what Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence is for. None of this matters.

There are some very simple and obvious reasons why the President-elect will never even get close to being endangered: Barack Obama is part of the establishment and isn't challenging the system in any fundamental way, and isn't likely to ever do so. He's not a Malcolm X, he's not a Frederick Douglass, he's not a Nat Turner (thank God!), he's not a Stokely Carmichael or a Assata Shakur or even a Medgar Evers. He's not a Fred Hampton anymore than he's a Thomas Paine, and he's certainly not Jesus, as he's said on a few occasions himself.

No, if anything, Barack Obama is extremely conservative in the sense that he wants to preserve American dominance and power throughout the world. Besides someone from the Middle East, why the hell would anyone in America want to kill him? Yet, the talk continues, the fear that "some nut's going to shoot him, you watch." Watch all you want--it isn't going to happen, mark my word.

Dynamic Black men in America are murdered when they confront the system directly and effectively, with sincerity. That's not ever going to happen under Barack Obama, the public will have to carry that load, and carry it we will when the shit hits, there won't be any choice. Obama's wisdom will be in getting out of the way. If that's what all these people mean, then they might be right, but we're talking about unknowns, hypotheticals, and those don't count.

But everyone's forgetting something important--the FISA revision legislation that Obama voted for, a power he'll wield as president allowing him to authorize widespread domestic surveillance of American citizens if he wants to. Frankly, the rednecks planning to do anything to him had better reconsider. They're the ones who should be watching their asses. Enough talk about assassination, we have a country to fix. If President-elect Barack Obama wants to be another FDR, it's up to him.

From the Palfrey trial transcripts: April 10th, 2008 excerpt

Editor's note: Below is a brief exchange from the trial transcript for April 10th, 2008. It was striking how poor and lacking-in-detail coverage from Palfrey's trial was. Reading the transcripts themselves, it's not difficult to understand why--it was little more than a formality to hold it, and Palfrey's criminal defense attorney--Preston Burton--didn't fight very hard for his client.

There's the real possibility that it's because he's rumored to covet a Federal Judgeship, but then there's the fact that he's also a partner in a law firm that does extensive contract work for the government internationally. You never know.

But that's my opinion, decide for yourselves. I wasn't aware of how informal and shoddy these affairs were conducted until recently, being unable to attend the trial itself. A real eye-opener, that. It must have been excruciating for any defendant to have had to sit there and watch the kangaroo court unfold before them as it surely did this April in Washington D.C.

Reading the transcript, you get the very obvious impression that the Court and the prosecution were working hard to rush the proceedings and that Burton barely mounted a defense at all. At some point, this site will be publishing the entire transcripts in-full.

From Pg. 20-21 of the April 10th, 2008 trial transcript of Deborah Jeane Palfrey

..."MS. CONNELLY: Your Honor, we have nothing further for
this witness.

THE COURT: All right, Ms. Couvillon. You may step
down. (The witness steps down.)
May I see counsel at the bench?
(Bench conference on the record.)

THE COURT: Okay. Where do we stand? Is that it?

MS. CONNELLY: For today, yes.

THE COURT: And what about these other two people?

MS. CONNELLY: Well, one of them is flying back into
town tomorrow, so she'll be here Monday. The other one we spoke
to -- well, the agent spoke yesterday to her in the hospital,
and they've diagnosed diverticulitis and they were just debating
when they're going to release her. They think possibly this
weekend.

THE COURT: Do we need either one of these people? [Page Break]

MR. BUTLER: The one that's in the hospital is

racketeering, so the answer is yes.

MS. CONNELLY: I think they both are.

THE COURT: You need all 14 acts, but you've got 15
now.

MR. BUTLER: We do have the burden of proof, and we
need sufficient evidence to meet that burden.

THE COURT: Yeah, but so what? There's only 13 in
baseball. Thirteen out of 14 isn't bad.

MS. CONNELLY: We're at 10 out of 14 now.

MR. BUTLER: Well, I would request, Your Honor,
that (inaudible) the last day for court proceedings.

THE COURT: What can you tell us about what you're
going to do?

MR. BURTON: My inclination is to not put on any
defense.

THE COURT: Okay. So we're looking at one, maybe two
witnesses first thing Monday morning, and then we're going to
argue and charge.

MR. BURTON: But we do have a rule 29.

THE COURT: Yeah, we have a rule 29. That'll be a
lengthy argument.

MS. CONNELLY: Your Honor, do you charge first or do
we argue first?

THE COURT: I charge first." ... [Page Break]

Postcript, 11.13.2008: Talking about baseball gives one the impression that the "wall of professionalism" was basically nonexistent between the prosecution and Judge Robertson, a real convivial and friendly atmosphere between them all. You think they went out and had a drink at trial's conclusion? I mean, really, if I was one of the AUSAs or USAs, I would've went out and gotten the judge laid, frankly. They had a good list of escort services in-hand, so...what scum. Yes, worse than a female pimp. The public was denied coverage of the trial because it was not only handled poorly, the proceedings were rigged from-inception.

"What we accomplished together," a post-election synopsis from the Nader/Gonzalez campaign

November 11, 2008 www.votenader.org www.officialnaderstore.com

To staff, volunteers, supporters, donors, and voters Authoritative public sentiments have always been there, have they not? From the Declaration of Independence's majestic prose to the preamble of our Constitution which begins with "We the People of the United States ..." to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address "toward a new birth of freedom ... for a government of the people, by the people and for the people" to the last words of the pledge of allegiance -- "with liberty and justice for all." Sentiments remain mere words; heralding hopes, wishes and poignant nods. Unless they are grounded in reality, behavior, respect, attitude, and renewal, they become the words of controlling processes, pacifying the resigned, fortifying the concentrators of abusive power, and ever manipulating the trusting populace by the latest politicians climbing up the electoral hills. The Nader/Gonzalez independent ticket set standards for presidential campaigns that were authentic, honest, factual, far-seeing, and committed to a deliberate, deep democracy that creates high expectations and dedicated actions from the people themselves. Democracy is revered all over the world because it brings the best out of people. But the people have to want it, to work for it, and to use it daily in its many splendid varieties. Elections are a temptation for abstraction, soaring rhetoric without roots in the daily experience of those who are impoverished, ailing, defrauded, and indebted. The vast majority of citizens are marginalized and excluded from the freedom to participate in power -- to paraphrase Marcus Cicero. Our campaign started with the realities of our country on the ground where the people live, work, and raise their families. Politics must never be an abstraction. For if allowed to be such, it will be a mirage that stokes the hopeful emotions while detaching people from a critical recognition that they and only they -- individually and organized -- can make their representatives truly their representatives, dutifully producing more leaders. Leaders who cannot betray the trust of the people, and that of their children and grandchildren, know from whence they came. It is with these thoughts that all of us at the Nader/Gonzalez campaign headquarters tender our gratitude to all who stood with us. We thank your enlightened self-interest, your awareness of the necessity for enlightened communities from the neighborhoods and workplaces all the way to our national government. We must make this government a tribune of peace, justice and freedom throughout this tormented world of ours. While I was campaigning in Syracuse, New York this October in a city beset with hard times, a middle-aged blue-collar worker with calloused hands approached me after our discussion and said, "I'm voting for myself, which is why I'm voting for you." I took that declaration as a serious trusteeship and later on the campaign trail turned it into a basic question: "Isn't it about time that we all voted for ourselves?" Isn't it about time that we planned our futures rather than ceding that essential function of citizenship to giant rootless corporations? What follows is a summary of what we achieved together through the Presidential campaign of 2008, despite being obstructed by the Democrats' and Republicans' ballot access hurdles and traps, despite being excluded from speaking to tens of millions of Americans through the Presidential debates (polls repeatedly showed the people wanted us -- by name -- included), and despite being willfully ignored by the national television and national newspaper/magazine media. These achievements represent persistence, stamina, and the willpower to penetrate this political bigotry so as to give choice to those voters who knew we were running. We believe history will treat the Nader/Gonzalez initiative kindly in part because its reading of the necessities of the American people was accurate as was its condemnation of the concentrated powers that have for so long denied them livelihoods of decency, security and voice. We thank you who made all this possible. Looking forward, we thank all who will make the campaign's legacy proliferate through all seasons at all times wherever human beings seek the fulfillment of their human possibilities. ACHIEVEMENTS OF NADER/GONZALEZ 2008 Moving a Progressive Agenda Forward in the Electoral Arena. Nurturing anew the survival seeds and sprouts for a functioning democracy, so that someday the fruits of this campaign will be traced back to the political pioneers of 2008 who carried forward the torch of conscience and justice high across the land. We followed the model of Presidential candidates Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas; if they had not run within the electoral arena many people would not know key elements of the progressive agenda. As Thomas Paine once said, "a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of right." In 2008, without third party and independent candidates there would have been no opposition to the bailout, no discussion of single-payer, no opposition to nuclear power plants, no support of living wage, no peace advocacy over blow-back militarism, no advocacy of electoral reforms, no crackdown on corporate crimes, etc. Civil Liberties for Independent and Third Party Candidates Working to break down unfair ballot access laws that shred the rights of minor party candidates to run for office. Example: Victory in Arizona, declaring in-state petitioning law unconstitutional at the 9th circuit court of appeals. Example: Victory in Ohio case at the 6th circuit, declaring Secretary of State Blackwell was wrong to throw Nader/Camejo off the ballot in 2004 and that the Ohio law requiring in-state petition circulators was unconstitutional. Bringing in New People to the Political Process We will be over 700,000 votes in 2008 as absentee ballots and write-ins are counted over the coming days and weeks. Many of those voters would have stayed home and not voted if Nader/Gonzalez had not been on the ballot. 60% of Nader/Gonzalez donors have never contributed to any other political candidate before. Thousands of citizens developed skills in clean politics and many will run for office where they live in coming years. Documenting the Multi-faceted Oppressiveness of the Two-Party Controlled Dictatorship of Our Country The exclusion from the debates and the media blackout helped deflate the myth of a competitive electoral democracy. Exposing myths is the first step toward reforms. International Solidarity The Nader/Gonzalez campaign helped show the rest of the world that there are voices inside the Presidential campaign who speak vigorously to the United States becoming a humanitarian superpower that knows how to wage peace, advance justice and enhance the security of all peoples, as envisioned by the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Ballot Access & Voting Success Bronze Medal: Nader/Gonzalez got more votes than any other Presidential third party or independent candidate. 45 State Ballot Lines and the District of Columbia: We got on more state ballots than in any previous Ralph Nader Presidential campaign (including the state of Idaho for the first time). Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez were on the ballot as Independents in 36 of those states, and in the District of Columbia. The Nader/Gonzalez campaign was nominated by the Independent Parties of Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland and New Mexico. Nader/Gonzalez was also nominated by California's Peace and Freedom Party, Florida's Ecology Party, Michigan's Natural Law Party, and Oregon's Peace Party. Nader/Gonzalez qualified as write-in candidates in Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina and Texas. Only Oklahoma voters did not have an opportunity to vote for Nader/Gonzalez. Former Nader 2000 & 2004 campaign manager Theresa Amato will be coming out in 2009 with a devastating indictment of the political duopoly that crushes diversity and dissent in American elections. Her forthcoming book is titled Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny (New Press). Party formation was more active than in 2004, and Nader/Gonzalez achieved several notable ballot access accomplishments. Independent Party of Maryland. Obtained ballot status and the party will be able to field candidates in 2010 without petitioning. Independent Party of New Mexico. Obtained ballot status and achieved .5% vote threshold allowing 2010 candidates without petitioning. Independent Party of Hawaii. Obtained ballot status. Because of low vote totals the party must petition candidates for two more elections to obtain a 10 year ballot access status. Chairman Shaun Stenshol pledges to keep party alive and field candidates in 2010. Peace Party of Oregon. Obtained ballot status by securing 1% of the statewide vote total and the party will be able to field candidates in 2010 without petitioning. Connecticut Independent Party. Obtained ballot status by securing 1% of the statewide vote total and the party will be able to field candidates in 2010 without petitioning. Preserved ballot status of the Natural Law Party in Michigan. Ballot status of Delaware Independent Party, California Peace and Freedom Party, and Florida Ecology Party continues because of criteria other than vote totals. Some Memorable Campaign Accomplishments Our Vice Presidential Candidate Matt Gonzalez was the first Mexican-American VP Candidate in American History. Debates: We participated in three third-party Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates: Thursday, October 23, in Washington, D.C. at the Mayflower Hotel between Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin -- sponsored by Free and Equal -- covered by CSPAN. Thursday, October 30, in Cleveland, Ohio between Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin -- sponsored and hosted by the Cleveland City Club -- covered by CSPAN. Sunday, November 2nd, Vice Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada -- sponsored by Free and Equal -- which included Libertarian Party VP candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, Constitution Party VP candidate, Darrell Castle, and Independent Ralph Nader running mate, Matt Gonzalez. Wall Street Rally: Thursday, October 16, 2008. Thousands of people gathered in front of the New York Stock Exchange to join Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez in protesting the bailout of Wall Street and to demand a crackdown on corporate crime. Massachusetts Marathon: Saturday, October 25, 2008. Dozens of organizers helped Ralph Nader set the Guinness Book of World Records for most campaign speeches in a single 24-hour period. We made 21 campaign stops in 21 different Massachusetts towns in a single day. Uplifting Facts When issues, not party mattered, Nader won: In a local Brooklyn High School on Oct. 28, 2008, students were allowed to vote for five Presidential candidates but were told only what the candidates stood for, not their names. Nader/Gonzalez handily won the election with 46%. Read about it at http://berkeleycarroll.org/news/detail.asp?pageaction=ViewSinglePublic&LinkID=3614&ModuleID=183 One of the eldest voters in 2008 cast a vote for Nader/Gonzalez. She is Geneva Garner, a 108 year-old lifelong Republican from Gaithersburg, Maryland. Read about it at http://www.gazette.net/stories/11042008/montnew171838_32513.shtml

The Right of Rule: "Drill baby, drill, and mine, baby, mine" and other yucks from the 2008 unelection

The GOP Campaign Trail of Tears--Those catch-phrases worked so well, didn't they? "Joe the plumber," "Bill Ayers," "pals around with terrorists," and all the rest we'll be happy to forget, didn't work so well this time. We know why.

The economy is a mess because the GOP held the White House and most of Congress for several years, and the Democrats stood down and let them run amok. They also won't hold the Bush administration truly accountable for what can only be described as the greatest political and corporate crime wave that this nation has ever seen.

It would more-than-behoove President-elect Obama to at least call for the creation of a massive independent investigation into the crimes committed by the Bush administration and her allies from 2000 to their last day in office. But there are a number of problems with this, namely logistical ones.

President Obama will have his hands-full in his first 100 days in office. Only FDR faced the kind of daunting challenges that the President-elect faces today. Is he up for it? We don't know this, but if he isn't, nobody is, and does he really have the will to do it? It doesn't matter. I personally don't think that President-elect Obama is going to have any choice on a whole swath of issues, except to address them directly and constructively. But it's also unlikely that he's going to have the time to go after Republican--and numerous Democratic--criminals who aided-and-abetted George W. Bush and his agenda. It's also not exactly his job, but that of Congress. There's another very specific problem.

Obama was one of these congressional enablers of the Bush White House, though as far as we know, not criminally. Obama voted for the FISA rewrite that now allows for widespread surveillance of the American public (and retroactive immunity for the telecoms that participated), essentially every major appropriations bill for the endless occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lot of other issues that don't instill trust in those who want the public good addressed.

Cabinet picks like Rahm Emanuel (a man reminiscent of Dutch Schultz) don't bode well either, but it has to be stated again: what choice are they going to have but to drawdown in the Middle East, and what choice are they going to have except to mandate sweeping political and business reforms and social spending? Yes, they could just do nothing, the wrong thing, and even the opposite of what the electorate voted them in to do. But these aren't normal times. They could act--or not act at all--but there are consequences for "business-as-usual" during a major crisis. Besides, President-elect Obama has already given the GOP the ammunition they wanted in another form.

By breaking his promise and not taking anymore government funds for his election, Barack Obama decided against a grassroots election with transparency and threw in his lot with corporate America. Knowing this as more than a little of a mistake tactically, the GOP is already making their own narrative of this new era, and they're going to attempt to steal the Democratic Party's "outsider" card away from them. It won't be very difficult, sad to say. Propaganda has to have a kernal of truth to it, but this time, when the GOP accuses the future Obama administration of being backed by "special interests," they'll be almost entirely correct.

This isn't to say that they're any different, but this time they assiduously kept the McCain campaign on-track for the aforementioned reasons--it gives them a lifeline for their survival and a comeback. This back-and-forth between the two party system doesn't have a lot of milage left in it before a real collapse, and if the new Democratic majority doesn't deliver in a big way, we could see riots and general strikes across the nation.

It's very possible that our economy is going to go into a genuine free-fall, a depression. Without radical reforms and unprecedented government response, change is going to come from below anyway. You could bring back every single American solider, sailor, and pilot, to the continental United States, and it wouldn't quell the disorder.

The question is, will it be constructive or destructive uprising if things reach that point?

My feeling is that it's going to be constructive. Granted that if we have a tragedy, it's going to be all of our faults, but Congress and a future Obama administration will be shouldering a great share of the blame. They directly created this mess by abrogating their responsibility of oversight and checks and balances, and that's for starters.

Yes, "Drill, baby, drill," might sound like the title of a Russ Meyer movie, but equally empty rhetoric came out of the Obama campaign. None of this matters. There is a time when the same old lies don't work anymore, and that time is now. Without a total rollback of the last eight years, we may as well have voted McCain/Palin. Then--at least--we could get this collapse under our belt. Many of the same reforms would come anyway. Reality trumps hope.

Reality: They're only in there because we tolerate them.

This can end when they no longer have the ability to provide. That time is here, now.

Michigan decriminalizes medical marijuana

The Midwest--This is a truly incredible development that could only have happened with disciplined grassroots (pun-intended) organizing that has continued unabated for over a decade, and the main fact that the economy of Michigan needs something--anything--to give it a "boost" (pun-intended). This means jobs and more tax-revenues for the State of Michigan, say what you will...and I'm sure some of you out there will.

The medical applications for How does it make me feel? It's a good development, because now doctors in Michigan can legally prescribe marijuana for the people who need it very badly, such as chemotherapy patients, AIDs patients, and so on.

The medical applications of marijuana/THC are numerous, and the full number of them have yet to be expended. As many Americans know by now, there are also numerous eco-friendly consumer applications of the hemp plant, including the generation of energy.

The Michigan law defines users as having a "debilitating medical" condition, and will be issued registry-cards authorizing them to use and even possess and cultivate medical "marihuana" (an old legislative-spelling):

3. Definitions.

Sec. 3. As used in this act:

(a) "Debilitating medical condition" means 1 or more of the following:

(1) Cancer, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus,
acquired immune deficiency syndrome, hepatitis C, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,
Crohn's disease, agitation of Alzheimer's disease, nail patella, or the treatment of
these conditions.

(2) A chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition or its treatment
that produces 1 or more of the following: cachexia or wasting syndrome; severe
and chronic pain; severe nausea; seizures, including but not limited to those
characteristic of epilepsy; or severe and persistent muscle spasms, including but
not limited to those characteristic of multiple sclerosis.

(3) Any other medical condition or its treatment approved by the
department, as provided for in section 5(a).

(b) "Department" means the state department of community health.

(c) "Enclosed, locked facility" means a closet, room, or other enclosed area
equipped with locks or other security devices that permit access only by a
registered primary caregiver or registered qualifying patient.

(d) "Marihuana" means that term as defined in section 7106 of the public
health code, 1978 PA 368, MCL 333.7106.

(e) "Medical use" means the acquisition, possession, cultivation,
manufacture, use, internal possession, delivery, transfer, or transportation of
marihuana or paraphernalia relating to the administration of marihuana to treat or
alleviate a registered qualifying patient's debilitating medical condition or
symptoms associated with the debilitating medical condition.

(f) "Physician" means an individual licensed as a physician under Part 170
of the public health code, 1978 PA 368, MCL 333.17001 to 333.17084, or an
osteopathic physician under Part 175 of the public health code, 1978 PA 368, MCL
333.17501 to 333.17556.

(g) "Primary caregiver" means a person who is at least 21 years old and who
has agreed to assist with a patient's medical use of marihuana and who has never
been convicted of a felony involving illegal drugs.

(h) "Qualifying patient" means a person who has been diagnosed by a
physician as having a debilitating medical condition.

(i) "Registry identification card" means a document issued by the
department that identifies a person as a registered qualifying patient or registered
primary caregiver.

(j) "Usable marihuana" means the dried leaves and flowers of the marihuana
plant, and any mixture or preparation thereof, but does not include the seeds,
stalks, and roots of the plant.

(k) "Visiting qualifying patient" means a patient who is not a resident of this
state or who has been a resident of this state for less than 30 days.

(l) "Written certification" means a document signed by a physician, stating
the patient's debilitating medical condition and stating that, in the physician's
professional opinion, the patient is likely to receive therapeutic or palliative benefit
from the medical use of marihuana to treat or alleviate the patient's debilitating
medical condition or symptoms associated with the debilitating medical condition.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/ED-20_11-08_Props_Poster2_251561_7.pdf

It's a 16 page statute with a thoroughness that's thrilling, it should be applauded as well-written and clear in its language, a rarity in most legislation. You would think this is big news, but the majority of the major media outlets are doing their best to talk as little about it as humanly possible. Most interesting is the State of Michigan's assertion of state's rights in the matter of marijuana-interdiction:

The People of the State of Michigan enact:

1. Short Title.

Sec. 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the Michigan Medical
Marihuana Act.

2. Findings.

Sec. 2. The people of the State of Michigan find and declare that:

(a) Modern medical research, including as found by the National Academy
of Sciences' Institute of Medicine in a March 1999 report, has discovered
beneficial uses for marihuana in treating or alleviating the pain, nausea, and other
symptoms associated with a variety of debilitating medical conditions.

(b) Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports
and the Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics show that approximately 99 out
of every 100 marihuana arrests in the United States are made under state law,
rather than under federal law. Consequently, changing state law will have the
practical effect of protecting from arrest the vast majority of seriously ill people
who have a medical need to use marihuana.

(c) Although federal law currently prohibits any use of marihuana except
under very limited circumstances, states are not required to enforce federal law or
prosecute people for engaging in activities prohibited by federal law. [My emphasis.] The laws of Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Washington do not penalize the medical use and cultivation of marihuana. Michigan joins in this effort for the health and welfare of its citizens.

Once the domain of California, the Northwest, and even some of the plains states and Southwest, medical marijuana has made a beachhead right here in the heart of the American Midwest. Times are certainly changing, just another part of our rapidly-shifting demographics. Now, if only that prostitution statue had passed in San Francisco. Don't worry. Eventually, another one like it will. Get organized, the fight has only begun on this issue in Michigan.

The first shots of this battle were fired at Rainbow Farm, once overshadowed like everything else by the events of September 11th, 2001. The gloves are truly off now.

Mothers of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black dead

"If you're a musician, play my music. 

If you're not a musician, play my music."--Frank Zappa

Siegsdorf, Germany--As you might imagine, I'm a fan of the music of the late Frank Zappa. Jimmy Carl Black was the first Mothers of Invention drummer from 1964 to 1969, with occasional cameo appearances on Zappa albums into the early-1980s. But something happened after that that caused a rift between the former Mothers (Zappa disbanded the original lineup in 1969 due thanks to no money coming in).

Money--and artistic credit--are many of the complaints of former Mothers alumni raised against the late musician and composer. Even Captain Beefheart claimed he'd been ripped-off by Zappa when he was an artist on Bizarre/Straight records, though this is debatable. Both Frank Zappa and his widow Gail barred Mothers alumni band "the Grandmothers" (Black was a member) from playing any of the songs they performed with the original lineup, including a ban on the name "Grandmothers, and were even banned from playing parts that they had authored in the first place.

The Zappa Family Trust is apparently getting very vigorous lately in banning others from doing cover versions of any Zappa music, which is odd considering some of his own last wishes were that people play his music after his death.

It's all a strange attitude considering that the Mothers were a very improvisational band, and it cuts-to-the-core issues of copyright law and the concept of authorship. Frank Zappa was a mixed-bag as a person: a countercultural icon and outlaw mixed with a 19th century attitude of proprietary capitalist ownership. Kind of like a bitter old shopkeeper. But it's been Gail Zappa and and an army of lawyers who have been running the business affairs of "Zappa Inc." since as early as the 1970s. Zappa tended to sign the checks, makes some calls, and write the music from that time until his death. So, was it all him, some of him, or him and Gail who "ripped-off" the ex-Mothers? There don't appear to be any clear answers, but who made most of the money?

Jimmy Carl Black and several other former bandmates of Zappa's have asserted over the years that their contributions to the late-composer's early rock oeuvre have been overlooked and that they've rarely been paid anything for them. For many of us Frank Zappa fans, this is disappointing, but not unexpected.

Along with the Velvet Underground, the Mothers of Invention were one of the most influential avante-garde rock groups of the 1960s. Jimmy Carl Black is to the Mothers what Moe Tucker was to the Velvets, a kind of "trash-can" R&B styled drummer who was just pure magic. From all of his work on "Freak Out" (1966), to "Absolutely Free" (1967), to "We're Only in it for the Money" (1968), and all the assorted studio-outtakes that Zappa padded post-Mothers LPs with after the break-up, Black had a take on drumming that was primal and alive because it was imperfect. When something's perfect, it's dead, which could describe some of Zappa's late-catalog work.

My brother met Jimmy during the early-1990s on one of the Grandmothers/Grannies tours. He was pissing next to him after the show and remarked how incredible it must have been to play with the great Frank Zappa. "That's true," said Black, holding himself in his hands and clearly buzzed, "But the man won't let me play any of the music I used to play with him, and he won't let me make a living." What's sad is that the music was still really good coming from these guys. There should have been reunions with Zappa, but they never came. It all strikes me as stupid and sad.

Sure, Zappa had other, more technically precise drummers in his later solo-career, but none of their work had that special quality that Jimmy Carl Black and the rest of the original Mothers of Invention brought to the music, and that quality was a rawness and sincerity that lacked very much self-consciousness. Life after the Mothers has been hard for many of them, still is, and it was hard for Black.

Jimmy Carl Black, "the Indian of the group" (he was of Cheyenne ancestry), dead at 70 of cancer. May he rest in peace, and be sure to throw back a drink in his memory.

Jimmy Carl Black's website: http://www.jimmycarlblack.com

Zappa Family Trust-o'rama at the official website (it's much uglier than this site): http://www.zappa.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=366586&highlight=&sid=9010fab126c0bf0cec82b2d6e61897ca

"Open Letter to Senator Barack Obama," by Ralph Nader

November 4, 2008 www.votenader.org www.officialnaderstore.com

November 3, 2008 Open letter to Senator Barack Obama Dear Senator Obama: In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and change," "change and hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not "hope and change" but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo. Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man? To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity-- not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Eric Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December 2007 issue of The Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are opposed by a majority of Jewish-Americans. You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an "undivided Jerusalem," and opposed negotiations with Hamas-- the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored "direct negotiations with Hamas." Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote "Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state." During your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the Arab League's 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much shock and little awe. David Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip succinctly: "There was almost a willful display of indifference to the fact that there are two narratives here. This could serve him well as a candidate, but not as a President." Palestinian American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that Obama did not utter a single criticism of Israel, "of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians. ...Even the Bush administration recently criticized Israeli's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians [see www.atfl.org for elaboration]. But Obama defended Israeli's assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its 'legitimate right to defend itself.'" In numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, strongly criticized the Israeli government's assault on civilians in Gaza, including attacks on "the heart of a crowded refugee camp... with horrible bloodshed" in early 2008. Israeli writer and peace advocate-- Uri Avnery-- described Obama's appearance before AIPAC as one that "broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning, adding that Obama "is prepared to sacrifice the most basic American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco. Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future-- if and when he is elected president.," he said, adding, "Of one thing I am certain: Obama's declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people." A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque in America. Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a frightened major religious group of innocents. Although the New York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008 titled "Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama" (by Andrea Elliott), citing examples of your aversion to these Americans who come from all walks of life, who serve in the armed forces and who work to live the American dream. Three days earlier the International Herald Tribune published an article by Roger Cohen titled "Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque." None of these comments and reports change your political bigotry against Muslim-Americans-- even though your father was a Muslim from Kenya. Perhaps nothing illustrated your utter lack of political courage or even the mildest version of this trait than your surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. This is a tradition for former presidents and one accorded in prime time to Bill Clinton this year. Here was a President who negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, but his recent book pressing the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid Apartheid of the Palestinians and make peace was all that it took to sideline him. Instead of an important address to the nation by Jimmy Carter on this critical international problem, he was relegated to a stroll across the stage to "tumultuous applause," following a showing of a film about the Carter Center's post-Katrina work. Shame on you, Barack Obama! But then your shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of American life. (See the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt Gonzalez, on www.votenader.org). You have turned your back on the 100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites, African-Americans, and Latinos. You always mention helping the "middle class" but you omit, repeatedly, mention of the "poor" in America. Should you be elected President, it must be more than an unprecedented upward career move following a brilliantly unprincipled campaign that spoke "change" yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the concentration power of the "corporate supremacists." It must be about shifting the power from the few to the many. It must be a White House presided over by a black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden here and abroad but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control of labor, consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of foreign policy. It must be a White House that is transforming of American politics-- opening it up to the public funding of elections (through voluntary approaches)-- and allowing smaller candidates to have a chance to be heard on debates and in the fullness of their now restricted civil liberties. Call it a competitive democracy. Your presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated cowardly stands. "Hope" some say springs eternal." But not when "reality" consumes it daily. Sincerely, Ralph Nader

Barack Obama elected first Black President of the United States!

America--Thanks Indiana, you surprised me: you elected the first Black American President of the United States!! There's no irony here. The last public lynching of Black men in America occurred in Marion, Indiana in the 1930s. We used to be "Klan central," and in some parts of this state we still are. We elected Roosevelt in 1940, but we've tended to vote Republicans into the White House.

Indiana has shifted, and I place much of the cause here to the dying-off of the WWII generation, the economy, and the obvious reasons for the economic mess we're in right now. Americans are also tired of the war and an unaccountable Republican presidency whose last days are finally nigh.

I wondered today, "How will I actually feel when Barack Obama wins this election?"

The only word right now is: elation! No, things aren't going to change overnight, and no, Obama will have his very disappointing moments, but the wheel has at least turned at least on the while, male dominance of the executive branch. Whether this means any significant change in policy remains to be seen, but history (and the public) have a way of forcing the hand of leaders.

Will he be an FDR for our time? I hope so, it was beginning to look like the normal cycle in our politics of GOP excesses followed by the Democrats cleaning it all up wasn't ever going to happen!

None of this means we can all sit-back. We have to all stay engaged and tell President elect Obama what we need from him.

An immediate return to progressive taxation is in order. Will he do this? I'm sorry to say that I doubt he will until 2010--events regarding the economy could force his hand. Obama's cow- towing to corporate interests, his stances on foreign policy, and his stance on socialized medicine, are just a few possible warning signs that he's not going to deliver much unless we tell him what we want in no uncertain terms.

Still, I'm pleased that this has happened and that at least a good number of the GOP are leaving Congress. It's overdue, and it proves that no candidate who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002 can ever be president. There's more of a chance that Barack Obama will rise to the occasion of another Great Depression than a Republican president, it's just the reality. He might try listening to Ralph Nader some time...oh yeah, and the rest of us. Stay involved.

Official: Deborah Jeane Palfrey committed suicide

Tarpon Springs, Florida--I haven't been reading my email for several days, but this was no surprise and nothing missed. Jeane Palfrey killed herself by her own hand. Not to be outdone by reality, entrepreneurial demagogues like Alex Jones are going to keep digging deeper holes insisting that there's a cover-up. Keep digging, Alex, everyone cranes their necks at a car wreck. At least ethically-impaired author Bill Keisling understood what we were looking at on May 1st of this year--suicide. I'm not so sure in the case of Palfrey's erstwhile civil attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley. Recently, he seemed to be leaning towards a strong possibility that Palfrey was the victim of foul play. Why exactly that would be necessary for his version of the narrative escapes me. Doesn't it seem obvious that the woman was unwell?

The unasked question remains: why was there no competency hearing during the legal proceedings of Deborah Jeane Palfrey? Are the answers in sealed court documents? I'm saying yes. How sick and depraved is it to use the legal system to run a mentally-unbalanced woman to her death? What kind of message does that send? At best, a pretty weird one. This was a witch trial-of-sorts, make no mistake of it. But it wasn't the kind that Ms. Magazine and other outlets are saying it was. Palfrey was a businesswoman, a capitalist, an employer, but most of all, she was a pimp. She wasn't an ordinary one, however, and there's no indication that she was any more abusive and exploitative than any other American employer. She was not.

But her clients were extremely well-heeled, even incredibly powerful. Does that mean they "murdered" her? No. There was no reason to after her conviction, and she was holding a bad hand--there were no more "big" names that Palfrey was aware of. By the end, it was a bluff on her part, though it's possible there are other names yet to be revealed in her remaining phone records. She was playing a very dangerous game considering her clientele. Her crime was telling us some their names, their identities. The common mistake of the press--namely the mainstream media--was that this was all about "big names," a trap that Palfrey fell into herself. The reasons for this error on their part is complicated, and this new report isn't going to fuel anything but the most base and paranoid of imaginations. Proof: you have none. She killed herself because she was disturbed. Get over it, and yourself.

Along with the Jack Abramoff and Randy Cunningham scandals, Palfrey proved that there's an institutionalized culture of bribes that include sex in Washington D.C., and that blackmail is likely a part of a very noxious-mix. In a surveillance culture like our own, someone is always watching, taking notes, and that the implications for frail politicians (and the rest of us) are grim. The government and the mainstream press did their best to keep the rest of us from knowing that what she did was commonplace in the nation's Capital.

The downing of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer during her legal proceedings only underscored the fact that the government is constantly watching and cherry-picking who gets "outed" based on who's running the executive branch at the time. The case of Republican Senator David Vitter's treatment after his own indiscretions were made public just makes the hypocrisy all-the-more obvious. Justice? Good luck finding much in America these days, guilty-or-not. My former co-researcher Monique Rawlings (aka "SP Biloxi,") is likely to contend that Jeane was "innocent," another assertion that I find not only intellectually dishonest, but utterly bizarre.

That's not important now, the truth is. I told you so.

The Indiana GOP's Laughable Obama Mailer on William Ayers

South Bend, Indiana--What do you do when your party has nothing to offer the public except more of the same corruption, pederasty, whore-mongering, ethical-lapses, and an unbending loyalty to the rich at the expense of the rest of the public? You keep beating the same drum, over-and-over again because you have no new ideas or agendas and never did. In that moronic indefatigable spirit, Indiana's GOP sent this piece-of-paper to me.

This isn't to say Barack Obama is perfect by a long-shot, but the connection to former Weathermen leader Bill Ayers is stretching things more than a little bit. The truth is, it's a blatant lie meant to squeeze the rest of that 9/11 fear out of a frightened minority of the public.

Recall that this piece is coming from someone who doesn't intend to vote for Barack Obama, but for Ralph Nader (a write-in, Madonna's...well, Madonna, though Mickey Mouse is a real person). That said, I don't have a problem with the majority of the Weathermen bombings, though the truth be known, their core leadership (people like Ayers and Dohrn) were all rich kids throwing a tantrum over their parents' war. Like their parents, they had--and probably still harbor--a lust for power, which they got a good taste of during their rampage.

But the United States was committing genocide in Southeast Asia at that time, violence against Black Americans over the Civil Rights movement was appalling and widespread, and the nation was in flames and divided as it had been during the Civil War. Today, one could argue forcefully that we're doing the same things in slow-motion in Iraq, and that the GOP is doing their best to neglect and disenfranchise Blacks. One would expect similar activitites as the Weathermen today, but welcome to the post-9/11 and Oklahoma City bombing world. Today, domestic terrorism is unlikely to come from a leftward-direction.

If you're an individual who sees these things for what they are--unspeakable crimes against humanity committed by our government for the benefit of giant corporations, you have some options.The choices are few and difficult: you could just try to go on with your life knowing what's really happening in another country in your name. If you have a conscience, this isn't going to be easy, but never underestimate the power of rationalization, it worked wonders in Germany under Hitler. One of them is what Ayers and the rest of them did during the Vietnam war, though I don't recommend doing so.

Another option is to back what's happening wholeheartedly, eventually becoming a party to the slaughter, if only indirectly. This is the easiest route, since most of society and its institutions are going to tell you constantly that this viewpoint is not only valid, but necessary for "the maintenance of our way of life." And isn't our way of life wonderful? You'll be rewarded for doing what's wrong in most cases, but it's even money you won't be punished...at least not by Americans.

Yet another option is to take the route of nonviolent civil disobedience to the war, not even allowing for the application of violence against property that serves the war's expediencies--property that makes the war possible at all, like supply-dumps, recruiting centers, military bases, defense research labs, defense contractors and their facilities, defense research labs at public universities, and-so-on. These were the kinds of targets that the Weathermen targeted, and their main goal was to destroy property only, not to target human beings. But they did want to instill fear and terror in those who supported and expedited the war in Southeast Asia, making them terrorists. They wanted to "spread the love," which I don't find morally wrong.

Ultimately, I don't advocate what Ayers and others in the Weathermen Group did during the 1960s-70s. They and a group that became the PLP (the ineffectual Maoist People's Labor Party) splintered the most effective progressive student political organizations, SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) America has likely ever known. That's not the issue. The issue is Obama's connection to Ayers, which is practically nonexistent. Times have changed, but the GOP doesn't appear to have noticed.

For example, the generation of new voters never lived through the red-baiting of the Cold War years, scarcely knows all the details of the 1960s, and doesn't really care at all. They just know things are fucked-up and that they don't make enough money to live on. No "socialism" there, just common sense by ordinary people. The kids don't want to hear about Bill Ayers. Neither do the majority of Americans who want to hear about what McCain and Palin plan to do to "fix" the economy and to stabilize it. Reform is in the air, but all candidate McCain can do is talk about Ayers. This is because he has no "plan" and no vision, and neither does the rest of his obsolete party (who said they were ever good? not I).

Imagine that: all the GOP has to sell is fear. That's not a good platform for needed change that the vast majority of the public now wants and is going to start demanding before long. But please, please keep banging that same drum until the bitter end. I know you will. In one week--at-minimum--you're going to lose a lot of seats in Congress. And, oh yeah: thanks Indiana GOP, I needed kindling to burn the rest of my trash out here in the country. Thanks.

If Bill Ayers was a threat to anyone during the 1960s-70s, it was himself and the rest of the Weathermen, a cop, and a janitor. He and his wife Bernadine Dohrn helped splinter most of the New Left, making it essentially impotent in-the-face of an escalating war under President Nixon. It's all reminiscent of what Pier Paolo Pasolini said about the student riots in Paris during the Spring of 1968. "It's an internecine struggle." said the radical Italian Communist, poet, philosopher, movie director, and general polymath. Pasolini was right about Europe--and unwittingly--about people like the Weathermen. Ayers and Dohrn came from privileged-backgrounds. While underclass radicals went to prison in the 1970s-80s, Ayers and Dohrn were allowed into academia. Maybe that's why they do so much community work today. They should for the rest of their lives, they owe us and their comrades in our prison system.

This Republican mailer below omits quite a bit. If you were ignorant of the facts--as most Hoosiers are--you'd think Ayers met Obama right after he stopped bombing and turned himself in alongside his wife in 1980. Obama was a blip at that time, a nobody.

Barack Obama a radical Leftist? Take it from someone who actually is: that's a laugh. If only he was a Fred Hampton, a Malcolm X, or a Martin Luther King Jr. The fact is, he isn't. If....