How One Gets Along, or Dominique Starr

In the past I related this story.

It was really quite formative of my youth, and now here's the next truly formative age, fast forwarding in time to 1980.

I came out 30 years ago. Bit by bit, piece by piece, social segment by social segment, and my family last. I never realized till much later, and still think to this day, that "coming out" is a process, rather than an event. And so, from the beginning, my process unrolled, and continues to do so.

From the pot-smoke filled '71 Mustang where I told my best friend the first time in '79, until I told my mother in '80, there were layers. And ever since then too. Experimentation of HOW to just get the words out were a big deal to me (still is.)

We're talking about 1979 and 1980 after all. In backwards Phoenix AZ to nail the place as well as time. It was so different there, then. Violence was really an issue for me. It was so prevalent. [The story of the scar on my ass while I was getting mugged doesn't happen till '84, and is a different post.]

After the fits and starts, I began to get the hang of the words, and how to come out. Surprisingly quickly, but surprisingly devastatingly.

You'll never believe this, but my school was actually the easiest entity to come out in. A boys only Jesuit High School.

Reading that sentence above, I realize I'm going to give a lot of people the wrong impression. It was no homo playground. That school was so right wing and jock oriented, it was tough to be myself. But it was also such a world, where intelligence, acumen and loyalty totally counted, that I had some amazing experiences, particularly when I was homeless.

That's right; homeless, which really wasn't a word at the time, or at least didn't have the same cachet or meaning of circumstances.You see, to come out as publicly gay was "simply not suitable, this is disgraceful" thus, I could not be allowed in the home. Away with you!

Which was perfectly fine with me then. At that minute that I handed my mother the key to our house, and turned away, I knew the life I had expected was gone, and whatever was going to happen was not what I had expected previously. At that point I was 17 years old by less then a months worth of days.

Dominique Starr was still in my future by about 6 weeks.

What I did during those earliest days, was make deals with some of the guys at school. Two in particular. Let me store my suitcase in your trunk, and sleep in your car. I'll do your homework. Worked for about two weeks, as I'd shower at school, and keep that whole suitcase thing to a minimum. The clothes situation I handled by sneaking into the locker room, and doing my clothes in the school's laundry. So far, so good.

Busted! About 3 weeks into this, I'm innocently going to my goddamn LATIN class, first class of the day, and get hauled into the Principle's Office.

He was a prick to begin with. SOP - Standard Operating Procedure. Then -

Mike: How are things going?
Me: Fine.
Mike: No, I mean how are things going with you living with your dad?
Me: What?
Mike: Your Mom tells us you're not living with her.
Me: True.
Mike: Your Dad lives in San Diego, right?
Me: Yes.
Mike: Then where are you living exactly?
Me: [hackles rise] What do you care? I'm coming to class every day.
Mike: This is what we find amazing.
Me: What?
Mike: Because in normal circumstances, you'd be long gone. You wouldn't be here. Most kids run away and don't go to school. You've run away, and you still show up. What's the deal?

Honest to God, right then I lit a cigarette in his office; right then and there.

Me: Mike I didn't run away, I was thrown out.
Mike: Put out that cigarette.
Me: Sorry, nope.
Mike: Don't call me Mike, It's Father _____, and put out that smoke. [Fr. Mike was smoking BTW. Those were the days at that time.]
Me: No. You can throw me out, but since I'm responsible for myself, res ipsa loquitur. [The thing speaks for itself. I actually really said that. The Jesuit took notice, and hard.]

Mike: [pushes himself back from his desk] What are you saying?
Me: I am responsible for myself. [I blew a cloud of smoke out at then. The irrepressible hippy/punk kid.]

[big pause]

Mike: So you're not living with your mother?
Me: No I'm not.
Mike: You're not living with your father?
Me: No I'm not.
Mike: Where are you living?
Me: However I can.
Mike: [the ever keen Jesuit] you said however. I asked where are you living?
Me: I told you. However I can.

Good ol' Mike spun his chair around, where he didn't have to observe the next exchange.

Mike: We're prepared to make a deal with you.
Me: About what?
Mike: Tuition.
Me: [trepidatiously] OK
Mike: Yeah, your mom, well, you, if I read your thoughts correctly, owe the school about $10,000.
Me: No no no. She sued my dad for tuition, and won. You should have been paid. I only owe for today forward.
Mike: Sadly, that's not the case. There's nothing paid on your account beyond the first enrollment of your freshman year.

Dear reader, you cannot imagine my fury, angst or impotence that I felt at that very moment, as those feelings were fused, all together at a single point in time. My parents used me as a pawn between each other, threw me out the house, AND dumped the whole Jebbie School debt on me simultaneously. Freaks, really. That's all changed but only in degree, not in substance. And I fell sorry for both the parents, but in different ways, which is for another telling.

It didn't dawn on me for years that this selfsame Jesuit asshole who was basically CEO of a mini prep college was badgering a homeless kid for thousands of dollars. I bought into his meme for a while - and cut a deal. That's what you do with the Republicans In Charge, right?

I got to stay homeless and agree to thousands in debt with these fabulous Christians.

Needless to say, it totally got around the grapevine what my situation really was, and the kids who were in-the-know and at all sympathetic dried up, as their parents really couldn't have "such a situation." It was really socially unacceptable. My life was really unacceptable at that point. Until I met;

Dominique Starr.

Dominique was a transsexual and performing at several bars around town, the seedy ones you know. Including one in the neighborhood of 3rd and Roosevelt [back in the day] where she busted me blowing some dude for cash.
Her fury was legendary, the dude was instantly disappeared, and I was esconced on her couch in her apartment immediately. Dominique Starr was a Saint to me.

You cannot, dear reader, imagine the relief that Dominique provided me. Street knowledge alone kept me from being killed. Aside from that, she was a real Pridester (as I call it now.) She was FIERCE! and Proud and simply couldn't accept what had happened to her, happening to anybody else. I hung onto her for advice all through the early and mid 1980's when we had the MLK marches happening in Phoenix too. She was fantastic and unsung and passed away from AIDS in '85.

Dominique was a shrewd character; she only co-signed for my apartment when I had ponied up 6 months worth of rent for the 6 month lease I signed in 1980. (Don't ask how I put the money away.)

I was devoted to her; how could I not be?

So aside from the whole DOMA/DADT bullshit going on lately, I simply can't countenance any ENDA legislation that does not include the "T's".

I only understand help and freedom from where I got it, and I ain't abandoning that source. What Dominique did for me mattered; what I do in her memory matters too.

No more kids rooting around in garbage cans and alleys or blowing tricks for a living. They're human and this nightmare has to stop.

And just let me tell you this, whether you like it or not; you have seen one of these kids. You have passed by them in some McDonalds or Taco Bell as you go through your life. Someplace like that. You just haven't seen them in their seedy reality, unless, you actually have. And if you have;

Are you Dominique Starr? Can you help one of these kids?

Do it. I find for myself I simply must do something that helps.

8 Reasons For the Firece Urgency and Advocay of Separate and Unequal

The Obama administration, in the persons of the DOJ's Tony West, James Gilligan and W. Scott Simpson gave eight legal reasons in the form of a Motion to Dismiss Smelt/Hammer v. United States of America why gay people are separate and unequal. A summary list of those reasons:

1 - Court Lacked Jurisdiction
2 - Plaintiff's Claim Lacks Standing
3 - DOMA is a Valid Exercise of Congress' Power under the Full Faith & Credit Clause
4 - DOMA Cannot Be Said to Violate an "Asserted Right to Travel"
5 - DOMA is Consistent with Equal Protection and Due Process Principles
6 - DOMA Does Not Violate the Right to Privacy
7 - DOMA Cannot Be Said to Infringe on any Rights of Speech
8 - DOMA Cannot Be Said to Infringe on any "Right" under the 9th Amendment


Reasons 1 and 2 are techno-legal, and can be dismissed as regards the separate and unequal discussion that follows. These same technical reasons could have been enough for the Obama DOJ to weigh in on the Constitutional basis that the President is required to do if s/he feels that the case at issue IS Constitutional. If the case is deemed un-constitutional, the President is free to not defend the damn law.

The Department of Justice may also notify Congress of a refusal to defend an impugned statute without appearing in court for either side. As recently as 2005, the Department of Justice notified congress that it would not defend a law prohibiting the display of marijuana policy reform ads in public transit systems. ACLU et al., v. Norman Y. Mineta (civil action no. 04-0262).

Since PresBO's DOJ wieghed in, points 1 & 2 alone would have sufficed if the Administration meant it's campaign claims, namely that DOMA was "abhorrent" and should be repealed, yet felt on technical bases that the case lacke merit or standing.

And yes, repeal means a legislative process. But the Administration has not sponsored or introduced their own legislation. But they did offer the remaining six reasons why I am separate and unequal along with other gay people. Frankly, this leads me to the belief that the campaign promise was empty, hollow, as actions are louder than words as we all know.

Let's have a look at the interesting points and most egregious claims in this Memorandum of Points and Authorities.

Lawrence Tribe, Harvard Law Professor who hired Obama as a research assistant in Obama's first year law:

"I certainly agree (a) that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional, at least as applied to couples like those who are currently challenging it in federal court here in Massachusetts.... I'm not at all reluctant to have it known that I think the equality component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause forbids the federal government to deny same-sex spouses benefits identical to those that it would grant to opposite-sex spouses when the spouses are "married" under the law of their state -- that is, when the spouses were married and reside in states where the law forbids a distinction between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage and rejects the DOMA definition of 'marriage.'"

From DOMAFlipFlop:

Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is Clearly Unconstitutional

Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) DOMA, 1 U.S.C. § 7 states, ““In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word „marriage‟ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word „spouse‟ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”

Because of this interpretation guideline, same-sex couples legally married in their state are denied economic benefits granted to heterosexual couples legally married in the same state. These include spousal health insurance for state employees, federal income tax deductions for those “married filing jointly,” and the one-time lump-sum death benefit granted to a spouse under the Social Security program claim. Gill et al. v. OPM et al. v. U.S., No. 12-345 ¶ 6-8 (D. Mass. filed Mar. 3, 2009).

The denial of these benefits to legally married couples has no rational basis. The denial of marriage-based benefits to same-sex couples has been found to violate constitutional equal protection guarantees by a number of State Supreme Courts. Kerrigan and Mock v. Connecticut Department of Public Health, 957 A.2d 407 (Conn.,2008.), In re Marriage Cases 43 Cal.4th 757 (2008), Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, 440 Mass. 309 (2003), Varnum v. Brien, WL 874044 (Iowa 2009). The challenge to DOMA 1 U.S.C. § 7 does not argue that same-sex marriage is guaranteed by the United States Constitution. It does not, in fact, address the question of same-sex marriage at all. Instead, DOMA 1 U.S.C. § 7 denies benefits to same-sex couples already legally married in their home state where the equality question has already been argued in front of the courts and settled.

Conclusion

The President reserves the right to refuse to defend an unconstitutional statute. Section 3 of the DOMA is clearly unconstitutional in that it denies married same-sex couples economic benefits granted to heterosexual married couples from the same state without providing a rational basis for this discrimination.

We ask that President Obama and Attorney General Holder refuse to defend DOMA in the upcoming challenge filed in the State of Massachusetts, Gill et al. v. OPM et al. v. U.S.

Yes, you'll notice that's the Gill case, not Smelt/Hammer. But it's the same difference in Presidential perogative as regards USA standing. Larry Tribe and the FlipFlop folks viewpoints are prior to the filing of this MPA (Memorandum of Points and Authorities) under discussion.

On to the egregious. Reason 5 (C) DOMA is Consistent with Equal Protection and Due Process Principles; DOMA Does Not Rest on Any Suspect Classification. The twisting of the Loving decision from the DOJ motion:

Loving v. Virginia is not to the contrary. There the Supreme Court rejected a contention that the assertedly "equal application" of a statute prohibiting interracial marriage immunized the statute from strict scrutiny. 388 U.S. 1, 8, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967). The Court had little difficulty concluding that the statute, which applied only to "interracial marriages involving white persons," was "designed to maintain White Supremacy" and therefore unconstitutional. Id. at 11. No comparable purpose is present here, however, for DOMA does not seek in any way to advance the "supremacy" of men over women, or of women over men. Thus DOMA cannot be "traced to a . . . purpose" to discriminate against either men or women.

Speechless. The issue is about orientation, not gender, which is superfluous, as we're talking about SAME SEX COUPLES. But that's the rub with this argument; same sex oriented people clearly do not have the same rights as opposite-sex oriented people, hence the term "Unequal" in my post headline.

Since the claim by Hammer/Smelt brought up the Ninth Amendment, the same rude treatment was given by the Obama DOJ as they too brought up Griswold and twisted it just as they did Loving. Reason 6: DOMA Does Not Violate the Right to Privacy

Plaintiffs also assert that DOMA constitutes "an undue invasion of the Right of Privacy,"citing Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965). See Complaint ¶¶ 17, 27, 28. This claim must fail, first, because the Supreme Court has rejected a "right to privacy" claim in relation to same-sex marriage. One of the arguments made in Baker v. Nelson, referred to above, was that Minnesota's refusal to permit same-sex marriage constituted "an unwarranted invasion of . . . privacy" in violation of the Constitution. See Jurisdictional Statement, Baker v. Nelson, No. 71-1027, at 18 (Attachment 2 hereto). In dismissing the appeal in Baker "for want of Case 8:09-cv-00286-DOC-MLG Document 25 Filed 06/11/2009 Page 47 of 54 a substantial federal question," the Supreme Court necessarily addressed the merits of that claim, and rejected it. 409 U.S. 810 (1972) (Mem); see Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. at 343-44.

Even if Baker were not dispositive in this regard, this Court should reject plaintiffs' right to privacy claim. The Supreme Court has described the contours of this right as follows:

The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however . . . the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. . . These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," are included in this guarantee of personal privacy.

So you see, according to the Obama DOJ, rights of marriage equality for gays are neither fundamental, nor do they rise to the level of the "concept of ordered liberty." [And btw, just be on the alert about Griswold and the Ninth Amendment as regards women's reproductive rights with this Administration, as Griswold and the Ninth are part and parcel of Roe v. Wade.]

I'm not buying into what others around the blogosphere are saying about the incest and pederasty angles that are being read into this MPA, as I think that's overly reaching compared to the civil libertarian material I've pointed out so far, which I believe is enough to oppose the Administration.

Which brings me to the next part; how to oppose a popular President and not support the Right?

Money.

In this case, I propose that neither Obama, the DNC, DLC, Democrats of any stripe get one nickel until they do a 180 on this issue. Additionally, I think a tactic from the AIDS activists of the '80s is due for revival:

GAY MONEY.

It's FUN! Stamp your cash in pink, red, hell just write on it in pen GAY MONEY and watch how the bills flood the circulation. Hell, just screwing around with money to send messages is kind of a neat way to protest at all.

But to end, that's the first peaceful method of protest I can think of at this moment as I am just simply mad at this turnabout from the campaign rhetoric. I'm sure to think of others, and I bet you will to.

Thank you for reading.

Out, Proud, and Not Asking For Rights - Simply Demanding and Living Them -
Kelly Canfield,
Denver Colorado




[cross posted at Firedoglake and the Unruly Mob]

TAGS: Gay Marriage, Obama, More Broken Promises, Anniversary of the Loving Decision, Irony

Been A While

Hey there blogosphere - been a while. Cooking up something new. Meanwhile, the Van Cliburn finalists can be found here.

Smooch -
UC

PS, My money is on Di Wu. She's teh awesome as far as the Record Company types are concerned. But really, Bozhanov, Vacatello and Tsujii are totally world class.

Comedian In Chief

He's hilarious! And not in that "Hillary" hilarious kinda way until a way bit into the monologue.




Continues! [He get's serious near the end, and so will I, but still, watch.]



The guy has charm and wit all over the place. The country's favorable/unfavorable numbers are all moving in the right direction, save for those few dinosaurs who just can't cope.

"Tone At The Top" is a subject that I think is really overlooked, and Obama does it very well. Bush? HAHAHAHAHA! Puh-LEASE.

There's just a few things Mr. O, that you need to REALLY pay attention to. The whole "torture" thing and especially the whole "states secrets" thing. You didn't get to them in your funny business, but they remain funny business.

Step up and do the right thing on both issues.

Yes, You can.

[By the way, this post happen to be post 999. The next post shall be the 1,000th.]


TAGS: Obama WH Dinner, SUX2BREPUBLICAN, YESYOUCAN, Where the hell was Colbert, hmmmm?

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul

Glenn Beck and Texas Governor Rick Perry are floating trial balloons about secession. Three months into a pretty decent looking presidency and Texas looks like they have already had enough. Any bets on who's next? Alaska? South Carolina? Louisiana? I'm starting to feel pretty good about being safely in the North.

Meanwhile, I'm watching CNN's coverage of the tea parties. Clearly these people (not that many of them) have seceded from reality on planet Earth (Andrew Sullivan has pictures). At least Wolf Blitzer is not making the tired teabagging-equals-balls-in-the-mouth jokes that were fun at first, but were quickly played out. Still, every time Wolf comes back from a break he sounds giddy, like there's a big sporting event going on instead of a bunch of losers who don't get that their taxes are lower than they used to be. In fact, Nate Sliver writes, "Even today, US tax receipts as a proportion of GDP are generally lower that other large, industrialized countries, except perhaps Japan." SadButTrue weighs in with a look at how U.S.-style tax cuts are hurting Canada.

Pandagon blogger Jesse Taylor breaks it down (h/t Sullivan):

Tea Partiers are hoping that if they mimic the energy of anti-war protests and the savvy of Obama’s new media operation, that at some point an actual movement will spawn. Getting together a bunch of pissed off middle-aged white people with no clue about how the tax system works in public areas will generate a coherent agenda designed to combat the stimulus; if it gets enough media coverage, they will DOMINATE THE AGENDA.

It’s like taping a horn to a horse and waiting for it to alight on a magic cloud of stardust and pixies.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks takes on Neil Cavuto's bullshit regarding Fox's coverage of high tea:



Don't worry teabaggers, help is on the way--Newt's got his eyes on the Oval Office.

Do Not Fucking Lie To Me About These AIG Bonuses

The fastest way to piss me off is to out-and-out lie to me. I mean Lie. Lie, lie, lie. Prevaricate. Say something you know to be untrue. And that's what's going on right now about these AIG bonuses and from the Obama Administration! Via Jane Hamsher at FDL:

Language from the Senate bill, written by Dodd:

(4) a prohibition on such TARP recipient paying or accruing any bonus, retention award, or incentive compensation during the period that the obligation is outstanding to at least the 25 most highly-compensated employees, or such higher number as the Secretary may determine is in the public interest with respect to any TARP recipient;

Also:

(a) In General- Notwithstanding any other provision of law or agreement to the contrary, no person who is an officer, director, executive, or other employee of a financial institution or other entity that receives or has received funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (or ‘TARP’), established under section 101 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, may receive annual compensation in excess of the amount of compensation paid to the President of the United States.

(b) Duration- The limitation in subsection (a) shall be a condition of the receipt of assistance under the TARP, and of any modification to such assistance that was received on or before the date of enactment of this Act, and shall remain in effect with respect to each financial institution or other entity that receives such assistance or modification for the duration of the assistance or obligation provided under the TARP.

Dodd's version prohibited TARP recipients from paying out bonuses, retention awards or incentive compensation to the 25 most highly compensated employees. It also prohibited any employee of a company receiving TARP funds from making more than the President. Both provisions would have been in effect so long as a company was receiving TARP funds. Since AIG just paid out $1 million in bonuses to 73 employees, Dodd's version limiting all employees to what the President made (roughly $500,000) would have substantially nipped that in the bud.

Very Fucking Crystal Clear. Dodd inserted the "don't pay these people" language into the bill.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal makes it entirely clear. From Jane again and the WSJ:

The most stringent pay restriction bars any company receiving funds from paying top earners bonuses equal to more than one-third of their total annual compensation. That could severely crimp pay packages at big banks, where top officials commonly get relatively modest salaries but often huge bonuses.

As word spread Friday about the new and retroactive limit -- inserted by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut -- so did consternation on Wall Street and in the Obama administration, which opposed it.

Who pushed back against Dodd, and told him to neuter the provision? The WSJ says Geithner and Summers:

The administration is concerned the rules will prompt a wave of banks to return the government's money and forgo future assistance, undermining the aid program's effectiveness. Both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, who heads the National Economic Council, had called Sen. Dodd and asked him to reconsider. [emphasis Jane's]

Glenzilla:

Jane's post documents this sequence of events without any possibility for doubt. The debate that took place over limits on executive compensation for bailout-receiving companies only occurred six weeks ago, and it is all documented in the public press. Dodd was the one fighting against the White House in order to apply the prohibition to all bonus payments, i.e., to make the compensation limits retroactive as well as prospective. As but one crystal-clear example that proves this, here is a February 14 article from the Wall St. Journal on the debate over executive compensation limits:

The most stringent pay restriction bars any company receiving funds from paying top earners bonuses equal to more than one-third of their total annual compensation. That could severely crimp pay packages at big banks, where top officials commonly get relatively modest salaries but often huge bonuses.

As word spread Friday about the new and retroactive limit -- inserted by Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut -- so did consternation on Wall Street and in the Obama administration, which opposed it.

Can that be any clearer? It was Obama officials, not Dodd, who demanded that already-vested bonus payments be exempted. And it was Dodd, not Obama officials, who wanted the prohibition applied to all compensation agreements, past and future. The provision which shielded already-promised bonus payments from the executive compensation limits ended up being inserted at the insistence of Geithner. [emphasis Glenn's]

I'll tell you what change I can believe in; the change of employees, starting with Geithner and Summers.

Obama better clean house and keep promises or we're looking at a one-term-wonder. It's this kind of shit that Republicans eat with a goddamned spoon and it's not neccessary. Obama's administration SHOULD have said "Dodd was right, and we're inserting that language going forward." Because THAT'S THE EXACT POSITION THEY FIND THEMSELVES IN!

Why they find it necessary to pitch Dodd overboard amazes me. Connecticut ALREADY has 1 Rethug Senator named Joe LIEberman; do they want to hand CT 2 fucking senate seats?

Between the lie factor and the politics I am just amazed at the stupidity. And not a little concerned about how it's going to continue in the future. And despite all this bonus hoo-ha, Obama is still going to be painted as a SOCIALIST!

HA! HAHA! HAHAHAHA!

So some cheery Socialist Music For Us Comrades:





TAGS: Lies!, Christopher Dodd, Change I can't Believe in, Geithner Must Go,

Being A Good Blogger, I Recycle...

I wrote last June, after the primaries, FISA, and before the election results, and before what's going on today in DC.:

And what does this guy do? Take some of their food, and when they ask him, "Do you know the way out?" he tells them, "Hey, go back the way you came. Look, that's the way out. You see?"

And they turn on their heels and follow him.

Long story short, he's a hologram, a puppet run by the same CorporoState that Brought You Consumables!

At 7:46 - "How shall a new environment be programmed? It all happens so slowly that most men fail to realize that anything had happened at all..."

This is my long winded and weird to get to the flap between Glenn Greenwald and Keith Olberman. The thing is, is that Digby is right. Fuck this centrist bullshit. What they're not saying is that POLITICS SHOULD BE AS PARTISAN AS CONCIEVABLE OR POSSIBLE RIGHT NOW! Cheese and Rice, there is no time like NOW to repudiate the politics of the Republicans with 8 out of 10 people saying the country is going down the tubes.

Obama Ain't Gotta Play On FISA. It's as simple as that. So he should suck it up and LEAD THE FILIBUSTER!

Now Olbermann announced that he'll have a Special Comment on his Monday program about this little grange war. Fine. I hope he shoots the shit out of the target and makes Obama squirm. If Keith goes to the alleged "center " on this thing, well fuck, he turns into the next generation of the Very Wise And Serious Villagers, at which point I will vomit, as if anybody cares.

Anybody that keeps saying to me "march to the center, it's pragmatic" I feel like punching in the face. I'm no sheep. I may be a Democrat and I want to win as much as anybody eolse but I don't want to wake up in 4, 5, 10 more years and be even farther down the road to THX 1138.

What the hell would be my name? UNC - 4291?

I'll vote for this Obama person, but it's only because of the alternative. Like I said during the primaries "If the country is a car hurtling off the cliff, the Repugs are stepping on the gas, the Dems are thinking about putting on the breaks. It's up to us to stop the fucking car."

Weeeee! I was a little bit harsh on the whole CorporoState comment, but not really alltogether off. For sure, he was never a Progressive. So I'm over that. AND, I have liked how there's been a wee bit of Repug smacking down. Just a wee bit though. This whole bi-post-partisan thing escapes me. Failed ideas are failed ideas and they belong strongly and completely attached to those folks who failed to actually think and promulgated thosae shitty policies.

In Other Words: SUCK IT, DUMMIES.

So, Dear Mr. President, loving you in office and having the bully pulpit and all, but just take a deep breath and CALL BULLSHIT! Do it on the economy, and do it on that nasty and un-transparent legal position you just took regarding rendition and torture.

YES! One more blog entry on What Obama Should Do.

Not sorry. This is what participatory democracy is all about. I'm just saying my piece, so to those who say "Yeah, but what's your strategy to get it passed in Congress?" I say - DON'T CARE about YOUR needs for strategy vs. my need (not to mention RIGHT) to articulate my position. That is why after all, I do have my own blog - technorati ratings be damned.