Inspire Political Discourse

The Morons er Tea Partiers Are Gonna Love This

Hahahahaha.........I am still laughing over the history lesson I came across on Cesca's blog. An excerpt:

Now here’s the part Sarah Palin loves about George Washington, her favorite Founding Father: Agreeing with Hamilton that some serious taxation was necessary to pay for the ass-kicking we’d just handed Britain and to “secure the power of the new federal government,” Washington did what any freedom-loving anti-tax Teabagging historical Super-Patriot would have done. He got the fuck on his horse and – in the first real test of Federal Authority – led a massive army against these tax-dodging pricks.

Let me repeat this for our Teabagging friends who don’t read so good, or can’t understand “irony”: In the first real crisis of the new Federal Government, Sarah Palin’s bestest Founding Father Figure (you know, the one she loves because he’s the one she remembers from all the crisp one dollar bills she feeds into the Fox News Mountain Dew machine) personally horsed up and led a federalized army into battle against protesters bitching about high federal taxation. And he kicked the shit out of them, which wasn’t difficult because most were – much like today’s Teabaggers – drunken or retarded.

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VIDEO: President Obama Eulogizes Ted Kennedy

Click here to read the transcript of President Obama's eulogy to Ted Kennedy..

 

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Bush Wanted to Get Rid of the First Amendment Right to Freedom of the Press

:: In one of the secret Bush memos released by the DOJ yesterday, we learned exactly how far Bush was willing to go.
Freedom of the press, guaranteed under the First Amendment, necessary for a Democracy to exist, was nothing to Bush. From Newsweek:

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.had been asked to

Many of the actions discussed in the Oct. 23, 2001, memo to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief lawyer, William Haynes, were never actually taken.

But the memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel—along with others made public for the first time Monday—illustrates with new details the extraordinary post-9/11 powers asserted by Bush administration lawyers. Those assertions ultimately led to such controversial policies as allowing the waterboarding of terror suspects and permitting warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens—steps that remain the subject of ongoing investigations by Congress and the Justice Department. The memo was co-written by John Yoo, at the time a deputy attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. Yoo, now a professor at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, has emerged as one of the central figures in those ongoing investigations.

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Political News Summary: Tuesday, January 20, 2009

::The Pres,  the First Lady, and the first dance at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball.
A gorgeous couple.

Photo courtesy of Huffpost. Click here to view the video on Huffpost.

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VIDEO: President Barack Obama's Inaugural Speech

The transcript is posted here. The video includes President Obama's swearing in, and his inaugural speech.

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Journey to the Inauguration of Barack Obama

Prior to November 4, I had been filled with nerves and trepidation regarding the future of this country. I had, for the most part, ignored politics for years, especially after the 2000 election as I believed and still believe, that the Republican machine intentionally and knowingly, stole it from the Democrats.

Then, I woke up. Sarah Palin was on a stage with John McCain, and she set off every alarm in my being. From the first minute that I saw her and listened to her speak, I understood that she was a phony, a straw man set up by McCain to lure the disappointed Hillary supporters.

That's when I began political blogging, and I turned my support from Hillary to Obama, as with McCain's nomination of Sarah Palin, I finally understood that John McCain was not just a poor second to Hillary, but that he was nothing more than a scared, egotistical little man who would sell out his country for a chance at the power of the presidency, and I knew that we must defeat him for ourselves, our children, and our country.

Obama's Speech at the Lincoln Memorial

A host of entertainers, including Beyonce, Usher, Garth Brooks, Mary J. Blige, Bruce Springsteen, and others, played a concert at the Lincoln Memorial today, to a crowd estimated to number over 500,000.

Obama's speech, as his speeches ever are, was inspirational and memorable, and I am so proud that he will be our President, the man who represents all of us in the eyes of the world. A memorable, proud time indeed. 

The full text of Barack Obama's speech at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, as prepared for delivery:

“I want to thank all the speakers and performers for reminding us, through song and through words, just what it is that we love about America. And I want to thank all of you for braving the cold and the crowds and traveling in some cases thousands of miles to join us here today. Welcome to Washington, and welcome to this celebration of American renewal.

Quotations From U.S. Presidents: Abraham Lincoln

 Abraham Lincoln - 16th US President 1861 -1865

The Final Emancipation Proclamation - January 1, 1863

“Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

Abraham Lincoln

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

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This is an ongoing project. Check back for additional quotes from this president to be added.

Quotations From U.S. Presidents: John Quincy Adams

 John Quincy Adams- 6th US President 1825 - 1829

Letter to James Lloyd, October 1, 1822

“Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.”

John Quincy Adams

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

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This is an ongoing project. Check back for additional quotes from this president to be added.

Quotations From U.S. Presidents: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

 Franklin Delano Roosevelt - 32nd US President 1933 -1945

1938 - Simple Truths message to Congress

“Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
 

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This is an ongoing project. Check back for additional quotes from this president to be added.

A New Series - US Presidents in History

Announcing a monthly series focusing on the role each US president has played in history. Their achievements, their mistakes, and what history has to say about the legacy they left to the United States. First up, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president.

If you are interested in making a guest post re this topic, please leave a comment.

Why I am voting for Barack Obama

The issues are important. And in almost all cases, I agree with Obama's policy statements on how specific issues should be addressed. Not that I would expect to agree with all of any one individual's ideas..

But, there are other reasons that I will vote for Obama that are not about specific issues, but are just as compelling, and perhaps more so. For in the end, it is the character and intellect of the man who holds the office that matters most.