Right-wing slime machine working overtime

The right-wing media is doing all it can to vilify Obama, not waiting for the next election to ramp up their slime machine. That's all they ever do, it's all they know how to do, is bash liberals. You won't hear a word about any type of alternative policy proposals, or any real intellectual debate, just slime directed at the man who embarrassed them in November.

President Obama inherited a terrible situation, it's not going to be easy getting the economy back on track. I don't agree with everything he's doing, but no matter what course you pick in the face of such a confluence of disastrous events as we're experiencing now, you're going to have detractors. And you're not even going to be able to see if your plan is working for months or years.

His foreign policy makes a lot more sense than the political isolationism Bush brought (other than his military forays, of course, which were a disaster -- another thing Obama has to deal with).

Republicans, don't believe everything Fox News and the rest of the hate media have to say. As I recall, when Bush was in the White House, their mantra was, "If you didn't support the president, you are unpatriotic." Now they call the president a socialist, a fascist and every other damaging term they can conjure up, and it's supposed to be ok. Very hypocritical.

Their rants are getting so paranoid, people like Fox's Glenn Beck are calling for revolution. This is inspiring idiots like the guy who shot the cops the other day, because he was afraid Obama was going to take his guns away.

The Republicans are showing themselves as immature, terrible losers. Instead of fomenting fear and paranoia, they should be looking at themselves to figure out why the voting populace rejected them.

The News That Didn’t Make the News: Project Censored

Project Censored came out with their latest, and while they're all doosies, it was the story they ranked #5 that blew me away. The ones before it may well deserve their rankings, but they weren't surprises to me. (Although they would be to a majority of Americans, unfortunately -- thus the name, "Project Censored.") This one, thought, did surprise -- and sicken -- me.

# 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets (Excerpts:)

President Bush signed two executive orders that would allow the US Treasury Department to seize the property of any person perceived to, directly or indirectly, pose a threat to US operations in the Middle East.

The first of these executive orders, titled “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq,” signed by Bush on July 17, 2007, authorizes the Secretary of Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to confiscate the assets of US citizens and organizations who “directly or indirectly” pose a risk to US operations in Iraq...

The act further authorizes freezing the assets of “a spouse or dependent child” of any person whose property is frozen. The executive order on Lebanon also bans providing food, shelter, medicine, or any humanitarian aid to those whose assets have been seized—including the “dependent children” referred to above.

Vaguely written and dangerously open to broad interpretation, this unconstitutional order allows for the arbitrary targeting of any American for dispossession of all belongings and demands ostracism from society...

In an editorial for the Washington Times, Fein states, “The person subject to an asset freeze is reduced to a leper. The secretary’s financial death sentences are imposed without notice or an opportunity to respond, the core of due process. They hit like a bolt of lightning. Any person whose assets are frozen immediately confronts a comprehensive quarantine. He may not receive and benefactors may not provide funds, goods, or services of any sort. A lawyer cannot provide legal services to challenge the secretary’s blocking order. A doctor cannot provide medical services in response to a cardiac arrest.”

G.W., and his enablers, seem to think he's king. He thinks he can pick any person opposing his war, and not only take everything that person and his family own, he can make it illegal for anyone to help him.

And I can't decide which is worse: the unconstitutional behavior of a leader gone mad, or the press that didn't think it was important enough to let us know about it!

Mainstream media and politics - more of the same ol', same ol'

Most of the mainstream media seem to me to be pawns of the corporate behemoths, which own those same media sources, by the way. Corporate greed and control of our political process has driven our country into the deep hole it's in, both financially and morally. Greed rules. Look at NAFTA, corporate-controlled health 'care', war for private profit, and the neglect of our infrastructure and a real energy policy -- to mention the dismal state of just a few facets of our present national predicament. After eight years of sinking into the largest deficit and national debt in history, record foreclosures and unemployment, I think it's time for some big changes. The mainstream media, meanwhile, continues to whistle a mostly happy tune, everything's ok, we just need to drill off the coasts. Rising sea levels, melting polar caps and extreme weather, droughts and hurricanes be damned.

Sorry, but I can't buy into the same ol' same ol' -- it's just lemmings marching off a cliff. We need big, systemic changes here and around the world. Personally, I don't think the Dems have it in them to do what really needs to be done either, they also are too dependent on the big money that has been corrupting our government. But at least they're a step in the right direction, with regards to energy and perhaps health care, investment in infrastructure, and of course, ending the fiasco in the middle east that has killed, maimed and tortured so many, while only inspiring a new generation of terrorists who hate us.

If we're truly to change things deeply enough and quickly enough, we need to somehow divorce the electoral process from its addiction to big money. Until then, politicians will continue to serve their real constituency, the ones that get them elected, the deep pocketed corporations that not only fund the campaigns, but lavish hundreds of millions on the big parties that pass these days for political "conventions."

No matter who wins in November, the people need to demand real election reform.