"The GOP has changed. Under the influence of the neoconservatives, the GOP is becoming a Brownshirt party. I am a constitutionalist, a civil libertarian, who believes that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the FIRST things to be defended, not the last to be defended, or that can be pushed aside in the name of "national security." Without the Constitution and the civil liberties that it guarantees, there can be no security. When it comes to the market economy, I am a realist. I understand that, compared to a nation of farmers and artisans, a market economy--especially under free trade, jobs offshoring globalism--subjects people to massive economic insecurity and requires a strong social safety net. The idea that Republicans are espousing that the social safety net can be sacrificed in the name of deficit reduction in order to pay for wars of hegemony is insane, inhumane, and evil."
(-Paul Craig Roberts)

“For nearly a decade, the Patriot Act has left innocent Americans vulnerable to unwarranted invasions of privacy, and yet our lawmakers have failed time and again to make any meaningful changes to this reactionary law. The right to privacy is a cornerstone of our country’s foundation. Congress needs to put meaningful privacy safeguards in place to ensure that Americans are free from the over-reaching and unfettered surveillance that the Patriot Act makes possible.”
(-Michelle Richardson, ACLU Legislative Counsel)

"America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich ... The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on."
(-Michael Moore)

"It's unlikely, that anyone, besides Scott Walker, would dispute that the protests at the Wisconsin state Capitol have energized the labor movement...What became clear, during raconteur, Michael Moore's 30-minute talk, this afternoon, is that these events have also radicalized the public, in ways no one anticipated and those in power should perhaps fear."
(– Bill Lueders, Ithmus Daily Page)

“Let’s consider for a moment the targets the federal government chooses to make an example of. So far, no bankers have been charged, despite the unmitigated greed that nearly brought the world economy down. No coal or oil execs have been charged, despite fouling the entire atmosphere and putting civilization as we know it at risk. But engage in creative protest that mildly disrupts the efficient sell-off of our landscape to oil and gas barons? As [environmental activist] Tim DeChristopher found out [last week], that’ll get you not just a week in court, but potentially a long stretch in the pen.”
(-Bill McKibben)

"I started understanding that governments have been staging terror and dealing drugs throughout history. The whole program was there."
(-Alex Jones)

“The Obama administration is prosecuting whistleblowers, in droves, more than all previous administrations combined. Some of them went through all the ‘proper channels’ to report problems internally [and are being prosecuted] under the Espionage Act, which is meant to go after spies, not truth-tellers. The Government Accountability Project knows of seven ‘leak’ investigations or prosecutions, the most egregious of which is that of Thomas Drake. This is a disturbing trend that sends a chilling message to public servants — especially from an administration that is, supposedly, devoted to openness and transparency.”
(-Jesselyn Radack)

“Let’s consider for a moment the targets the federal government chooses to make an example of. So far, no bankers have been charged, despite the unmitigated greed that nearly brought the world economy down. No coal or oil execs have been charged, despite fouling the entire atmosphere and putting civilization as we know it at risk. But engage in creative protest that mildly disrupts the efficient sell-off of our landscape to oil and gas barons? As [environmental activist] Tim DeChristopher found out [last week], that’ll get you not just a week in court, but potentially a long stretch in the pen.”
(-Bill McKibben)

As if the mandatory TSA gropings, Patriot Act, Warrantless wiretaps, and raids on peace activist's homes weren't a sufficient, full-frontal assault on democracy, the Supreme Court has ruled that billionaires, like the far-right Koch Industries oil barons, are allowed to pump as much money into political candidates, like Gov. Wanker of Wisconsin, as they want-they call it "free speech", so now, their toadies in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan, are presently passing bills saying that if a governor decides his state is in a "budget crisis", he may dissolve township charters, union contracts, collective bargaining rights, even the locally elected municipal authorities, appointing an individual or corporate entity(!!!) as the "emergency supervisor", with the power to disincorporate school boards, town halls, city councils, ushering-in still-more privatization, like the shock-capitalists did all over New Orleans, after the levees broke. They dissolved the ninth ward public schools, and it became a lab for all the privatized charter schools for profit, that wingnuts like John McCain have been gunning for. Meanwhile, the pro-torture lobby, who lied our nation into two wars, but were never prosecuted, because the current administration has continued the very same crimes against humanity, are out on the book circuit, smugly peddling their shameless propaganda to gullible baseball cap wearing, Hooters frequenting, flag-wavers, who believe what they are told by the television. W, Rumsfeld, Rove, Evil Dick...they're all back in the big-media, confident that the libraries and statues they're erecting in honor of themselves, will legitimize their suspension of the Bill Of Rights, and permanent war-state. These guys ain't got a worry in the world, they know they are above the law, "too big to jail", they got away with so, so much already, American's memories are so short, and easily diverted. No one knows their progressive history, anymore. Poor people have astonishingly limited access to good books. The second-hand stores and rural libraries are however, overflooded, with ghost-written, think-tank, boiler-plates, with corporatist war-brands, like Beck, Palin, and Hannity, on the covers. In Michigan and Ohio, true heroes of the people, like Nader, Zinn, X, West, Klein, Goodman, and Chomsky, are ignored, or despised as "commies", "tree huggers", and "femin-nazis", by a polarized population of Limbaugh listening, Fox watchers, few of whom, give a damn about the eviscerated Constitution, or the incinerated environment, so long as their happy-pills prescriptions are conveniently available at the pharmacy drive-through, their bellies are kept full of meat, Aspartame, MSG, and high fructose corn syrup, and the "big game" is on the Plasma, in the newly remodeled "man-cave". Even suburbanized liberals and moderate independents are subject to so much non-stop, right-wing propaganda, that they believe in kooky bullshit like "trickle-down economics", that another "surge" is needed in Afghanistan, that it's probably a good idea to invade Iran, because why would Hillary lie to them? She's a Democrat, right? They think Obama's presidency is proof that we live in a "post-racial America", even though millions and millions of black people are hopelessly marginalized, on probation, imprisoned, unemployed, ghettoized, and our schools are more segregated than they were, back in Martin Luther King Jr.'s day. Most have never even heard of Diebold voting touch-screens, "Building Number Seven", or Rachel Corrie. The property-owning, yuppies are all just satiated by their town's "Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway", and by Obama's being half-black, even though, he's continued to perpetuate, and legitimize, the entire, whole-hog, neo-con, extreme right, globalist, Bush agenda, in every way possible. Even the phony "Obamacare" ruse was just a big give-away to Mitch McConnell's insurance industry cronies. The TSA porn-imaging machines and TSA gropings happened under Obama. The drones on Yemen, and Pakistan happened under Obama. The trillion dollar give-aways to Wall Street shysters, the tax-cuts for billionaires, the extension of the Patriot Act, the cover-up of the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf regions, the billion dollar additions to Gitmo-instead of closing it, like he said he would. The senseless persecutions and sadistic humiliations of whistle-blowers, and chronic failure to investigate, or ever, indict civilian-slaughtering mercenaries, or torture lawyers. The FBI raids on Peace activist's homes. The blank-check for Israeli occupations. Some Americans willfully believe there was an actual transference of power, during Obama's inauguration, but think hard, punks. The Bush people have been in power for at least, forty-some years. They occupied the White House for at least, twenty. Cheney and Rumsfeld were Nixonites, Halliburton and the Carlyle Group are the ones rakin' in all the billions from these no-bid contracts, all over the Middle East. Obama continues to employ Blackwater, in spite of all the criminal activity uncovered by Jeremy Scahill. It's startin' to feel like the fix was really, really in.

If you read the book, "The Assassination Of Fred Hampton" by Jeffrey Haas, the "unsolved murders" of Tupac and Biggie won't seem nearly as mysterious. Noam Chomsky said that book's, "A riveting account of the assassination, the plot behind it, the attempted cover-up, the denouement, and the lessons we should draw from this shocking tale of government iniquity." When billionaire, Oprah Winfrey, has the Bush family on her show, and throws him soft-ball questions, intended to allow him to seem good humored, self-deprecating, folksy, and endearing, she's really obviously complicit with the Bush/Cheney war-machine agenda of assassination, torture, endless war, the price-gouging oil companies, and the always profitable prison industrial complex, fostered by the bogus, racist, "war on drugs". She's part of his propaganda machine. Her show made them all seem so "aw, shucks", Charlie Brown, friendly, down-home, and lovable. Hee-Haw. Meanwhile, Obama's perpetuating the very same, invisible empire/shadow elite's war on the poor, at home, and abroad. They used to say, "Just Say No", but nowadays, there are prescription Drug commercials for seven to twelve minutes, at a time, on these formulaic talk shows, along with police-state normalizing shows like this new program, "Interrogation Room", another sensationalistic, exploitive, voyeur-TV "program", designed to glorify the crooked prison system, and to portray those who work for the establishment, as clever, glamorous, brainy, do-right, heroes. Blaming the unschooled under classes for the collapse of the economy, blaming teachers, blaming immigrants, blaming public workers. It's nearly all designed to shift responsibility from the disaster-capitalists, and war-profiteering, big-corporations, on to the powerless scapegoats. All the daytime TV shows continue to vilify poor folks, demonizing them for "doing drugs", and not attending university, for failing to join the military. Ten-Hut. Just conform and you, too, can be a police state bully---torturing, and interrogating the poor, and feeling morally superior to those without your advantages...and still do your preferred, illegal drugs-of-choice, without repercussions.

Obama's extended all the Bush family tax cuts for the billionaires, oil, and gas companies. Started more wars in Yemen and Pakistan. Continues killing innocent people of color, Muslim children, everyday, in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'Obediently props-up dictatorships, like in Egypt. Allows Israeli military to freely kill American citizens, aboard humanitarian aid-ships to Gaza, and to brutally oppress the poor people of Palestine. Google: Rachel Corrie. His Justice Department overlooks the crimes of Wall St., predator lenders, violent police, lawless mercenaries, the war-criminals captured on tape in the "Collateral Murder" video, torturers, B.P., and Big Pollution, in general. This guy's White House spokesmen and former Chief-Of-Staff only ever get passionately "worked-up" when confronted by progressives, liberals, folks who possess the traditional values of the Democrat Party, before it's wholesale infiltration, and sell-out, by the big money, corporatist neo-cons. We have to organize viable Third Parties. A million families a year have been foreclosed-on, and evicted, under the watch of the fake "Hope" and "Change" candidate, Obama. We have to educate our friends and neighbors. We have to take peaceful actions, against these scurrilous RepublicRats. The Wall St. shysters, the Koch-head governors, the union-busting corporations, including greenwashed, Target. We have to demonstrate, educate, organize, and unite, against these billionaire, class-warring, predators who own the government, the military, and the big-media. Everyone who reads this, yes, even you, Mister Rollins, needs to sign the petitions at: www.reformthepatriotact.org , and visit Democracy Now!, and Michael Moore dot com, each morning, to stay informed about the covert class-war being waged upon all of us Americans. We should have fought back, when they first started drug-testing us for minimum-wage, dishwashing positions. Remember when Mojo Nixon sang, "I ain't gonna piss 'n a cup, unless Nancy Reagan's gonna drink it up?" Now, the top one percent are making prisoners build missiles, they've done away with due-process-they just declare anyone they don't like, a "terrorist", for any reason, at anytime, they've gotten away with groping your Momma in the airport, with reading and storing, all your personal e-mails, and with listening-in on all your private phone-calls, like you're John Gotti, NOW, they're dissolving unions, locally elected officials, municipal townships, school boards, democracy, itself. Midwesterners are so misinformed, they absolutely accept all this jive, as if it's only just, and right, and proper. Bill O'reilley has 'em all, in the palm of his hand. Even the promiscuous drug-users who used to like punk and heavy metal, they're all willingly blind, and cable-news brainwashed, now. They're all Facebooking about nutty, whacky, zaney Charlie Sheen, who doubts the official story about 9/11, and babble on and on about sports, and unreality show heiresses, while their civil rights are goin' the way of the lightnin' bug, and polar bear, and the honey bee. I just keep thinkin' about that scene in "Animal House", when Bluto refuses to accept defeat...As Iggy Pop sings, "Don't crap out..."