LIE OF THE WEEK: 07-11-2008

Rev. Jesse Jackson on his remarks about Senator Obama "talking down to black people":

"My error was responding to a question before a live mic."

THE TRUTH: Actually, his error was not that he spoke his actual views on a live microphone. His error is having those views at all. Rev. Jesse Jackson is a demagogue who is dealing with a couple of issues here: First, he's jealous that Senator Obama is the actual first African-American candidate who is actually has viable chance of becoming president, unlike Rev. Jackson's two presidential runs in the 1980s. Second, he needs to realize that blaming the problems of the African-American community on racism is self-defeating and is a major reason for the issues in that community. People who believe themselves to be without fault as their world crumbles will not do anything to repair that world as they wait for those "oppressing" them to be held accountable and fix their situation. Just because Rev. Jackson had a prominent role in the civil rights era of the 1960s when racism truly was the problem in America does not justify his continuation of the same fight 40 years later, long after the entire world has changed. Senator Obama should distance himself from Rev. Jackson and instead work with other leaders in the African-American community who are speaking the truth, such as Bill Cosby. The last thing we need is for their to be any role in an Obama administration for this type of demagogy politics.

COLUMN: 07-09-2008

The death of long-time US Senator Jesse Helms should serve as a reminder of what is right and what is wrong with the conservative movement in America. Despite liberals' fondest hopes that America is turning in their direction, this couldn't be further from the truth. America is a moderate conservative country and the only times the electorate in the last 50 years has turned away from conservatives are due to two primary reasons: corruption and fascism. Corruption will always cause people to turn away from those in power to the opposition, even if that opposition has views that can only be tolerated for a few years until the corruption within the conservative ranks is cleared out. Fascism is a much bigger problem when some so-called conservatives actually reveal their true colors. Senator Helms was an unfortunate example in this regard as he attempted to use unconstitutional mechanisms on several occasions to enforce his racist views as they declined in society as a whole. The biggest example in recent years has, of course, been the fascist undertones of nearly every Bush Administration national security policy since 9/11. Rather than defending freedom by showcasing it in our society, these cowards claim to defend freedom by destroying every constitutional freedom. From investigating any anti-war protesters who were simply exercising their freedoms of speech and assembly to investigating several religious groups due to pure racism and no actual evidence whatsoever to cause any suspicions, the trend has disgusted the American people as it has proved itself to be counterproductive and actually strengthened the enemy around the world. Senator Helms can be remembered fondly for his opposition to abortion and other liberal policies imposed on Americans, but we should not forget his overall record in terms of driving America away from our core values of freedom and equality for all.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 07-04-2008

White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino on the president's decision to attend the Olympics:

“This is a decision by the president that he really wanted to go in support of our athletes,” Asked if Mr. Bush was making a political statement, she said, “He does not look at it that way, but we recognize that others may.”

THE TRUTH: President Bush is going to the Olympic Games in Beijing because he wants to use every public opportunity to try to improve his horrible legacy. He's not fooling anyone with this political calculation. His influence in America and in the world is so minimal at this point that an honorable decision to boycott the games because of Chinese abuses around the world is perceived by him and his advisers as worthless, so he's going to go and attempt to use the opportunity to show himself as a leading figure in the world. Unfortunately for him, this will be in vain and the last 6 months of his term will be dominated by the 2 candidates to replace him doing as much as possible to differentiate themselves from his terrible performance on the job. He will always be remembered as the president who put self-interest ahead of the interests of the American people and took us through 8 years of failed policies in every area of government.

COLUMN: 07-02-2008

It's a great day in the political scene in America as we watch the general election presidential campaign unfold with two candidates who were the outsiders at the beginning of the process. Both Senator Obama and Senator McCain are reaching out to the moderate conservative middle of America as they work towards the presidency. As long as neither one of them reaches too deeply into the extreme politics of the base of their parties during the campaign, then neither of them will be beholden to anyone but the American people at the end of the election and we can only hope that this will translate into an administration where the corrupt party insiders are kept out for the first time in many years. Perhaps this is too hopeful of a vision for the future, but one can at least take pride in the fact that the American people rejected the Washington insider favorites who were most corrupted by lobbyist money during the primary election process.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 06-27-2008

President Bush on lifting some sanctions against North Korea:

"If North Korea continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with the international community, much as Libya has done over the past few years. If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and our partners in the six-party talks will respond accordingly."

THE TRUTH: Which right choices are these exactly? North Korea has significantly increased it's stockpile of nuclear weapons during the Bush Administration and has only taken superficial steps (such as this week's destruction of a famous nuclear facility) to appease the world's demand that it dismantle its arsenal. Libya is cited by the president as an example, but they are the most proven state sponsor of terrorism and have never truly repented. They did shutdown their nuclear program after being caught red-handed, but that was only because they hadn't reach any critical stage yet where they could wield their nuclear arms as a stick to mitigate international pressure (as North Korea did for many years) and the threat of a neoconservative-led attack on their country. President Bush has shown North Korea that there were no negative consequences for their years of deception and is trying to salvage his record as one of the worst presidents through last minute accomplishments such as this and we can only hope that he does not appease these dictators to any extent that will make it harder for his successor to stand up to them next year.

Special Column on the Supreme Court

Yesterday's column was about the bad things that courts can do. Today was a good day in this area as the US Supreme Court finally established that the 2nd Amendment is the same as the rest of the Bill of Rights in that it is the establishment of an individual right to bear arms. Despite the objections of liberals who favor gun control under the ridiculous illusion that all people will somehow be protected by the police at all times from the illegal guns held by criminals, the majority of the court has struck a blow for the individual freedoms and liberties enshrined in our constitution and a blow against the socialist leanings of a small minority of Americans. If only the justices had lived up to their responsibilities to the American people equally well on all of their decisions during this year.

COLUMN: 06-25-2008

There have been so many bad court decisions recently that reflect a sickening perversion of the role of the judiciary in our system of governmental checks and balances. First, the State Supreme Court of California made a decision that flies directly in the face of a law passed by popular referendum just a few years ago. Despite the public expressing their moral view of marriage by overwhelmingly passing a law in that regard, the liberal judges decided they knew better and reversed the will of the citizens of that state. They also refused to stay their decision for a few months while the people are given an opportunity to overturn their decision again with a referendum on an amendment to the state constitution. This is the ultimate arrogance for those who believe in an autocratic view that they know better than the people they are supposed to serve. There was a similar situation in the US Supreme Court's unfortunate decision that they knew better than the majority of Americans and decided that the rapists of children don't deserve to be put to death. The liberal judges in the majority decided that their view of the "evolving standards of decency" meant that they could go against the will of the American people and decide that this most heinous of crimes that destroys the innocent childhood of its young victim isn't worthy of the death penalty. It's yet another example of the arrogance of liberals who believe themselves to be the ultimate judges of morality based only on their personal views. The unfortunate truth is that the US Supreme Court is not in the least moderate and either passes judgments from the extreme left or the extreme right depending on a few swing votes. (This is despite the fact that conservatives have dominated the electoral choices of Americans for the past 40+ years except for a few minor instances where the corruption of Republicans led to them being ousted from office). We can only hope that the moderate conservative views of the American people will be reflected in the highest court in the land in their future decisions as opposed to the continuation of this disgusting trend.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 06-20-2008

President Bush on the rights of Guantanamo Detainees:

"With this decision, hardened terrorists, hardened foreign terrorists, now enjoy certain legal rights previously reserved for American citizens. This is precisely the kind of judicial activism that frustrates the American people and the best way to change it is to put Republicans in charge in the Senate and John McCain in the White House."

THE TRUTH: Judicial activism is when judges rule on issues based on their own values against the wishes of the majority of Americans (such as abortion or same sex marriage). The only time this has ever been justified is during the civil rights era when the majority of Americans held biased racial views and the courts rightly overrode that. In this case, the judges are right to protect the civil rights of those detained by America, lest we turn into a despotic country that does not respect anyone's rights at all. The Bush Administration has been playing loosely with the law ever since 9/11 and using security as an excuse for that abuse. Guantanamo Bay is non-American territory that also does not fall under any other country's laws, which is exactly why they chose it to house the prison for those captured in the war on terror. If they were held in America, they would be subject to our laws and if they were held elsewhere, they would be subject to that locality's laws. The US Supreme Court was absolutely right in this case when they put Guantanamo under US Court jurisdiction because that is the only way around the corrupt activities promoted by this corrupt administration.

COLUMN: 06-18-2008

Tim Russert was truly an American hero and it's unfortunate that it took his death to highlight this fact. He was an institution in Washington who was a model of the needed role of journalists in a free society. He held politicians to task for their word and deeds and did not let them get away with dishonest excuses for misbehavior. Though he began his career in the political world working for major Democratic politicians, he was truly unbiased when he moved to the world of television journalism. This is in stark contrast to his competitors: ABC's Sunday morning host was a former Clinton administration insider and that is still very clear in terms of the bias he demonstrates in his interviews. Fox News does not even qualify as a journalistic organization due to the blatant bias it demonstrates in every single aspect of its shows. It's hard to think of anyone who can fill Russert's shoes and that itself is a tribute to his legacy. Hopefully, someone of equal integrity will be given an opportunity to step in and play that role that our democracy so desperately needs.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 06-13-2008

Vice President Cheney on NAFTA:

"Some politicians seem determined to unravel the bipartisan consensus on free trade -- a consensus epitomized by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In a time when even NAFTA is being called into doubt -- when candidates can draw cheers by denouncing trade deals with our next-door neighbors -- then we're at risk of going down a very destructive path."

THE TRUTH: We are already on a very destructive path, thanks to the policies of President Clinton, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. America is on the precipice of becoming a third-world country as middle class jobs are uncompetitively outsourced to non-democratic countries without any worker rights (or even civil or human rights). The middle class is left working at service jobs that can hardly pay for today's gas prices, let alone a living wage. No one is complaining about our trade with Canada other than one simple problem of taxypayer-provided healthcare being non-competitive with our obscenely high healthcare costs (thanks to the abuses of the insurance and drug companies) which can be easily fixed with enough political will. The problems are really on the Mexican side in terms of the flow of illegal labor causing an overall lowering of American wages, the lack of worker rights in Mexico leading to massive abuse in sweatshops, smuggling, and the lack of a proper civil society that is needed for appropriate trade protections. Vice President Cheney has been the single most influential vice president in American history and he has also been the worst vice president in American as he has driven this administration towards corporate-lobby corrupted policies that benefit his contributors and not the American people.

COLUMN: 06-11-2008

President Bush's comments this week that he regrets some parts of his current historical legacy is still a showcase of the unfortunate arrogance that has dominated and ruined his entire tenure in office. His stubborn views of the past seven years of running the government demonstrate that he does not question his terrible policy decisions at all. Instead, all of his regrets are related to his belief that he did not "sell" his policies properly to America and it's allies. What he does not seem to understand is that the American people are against his bad policies themselves and would not have sold on them even if he and his top officials had done a better job in marketing. President Bush's main legacy will always be that of an arrogant leader who thought he was above dealing with the details of policymaking and who left those details to people in his administration who used unethical means to promote their corrupt agenda in the world. Even if the ultimate net result in Iraq and Afghanistan and the lousy American economy and every other major policy failure somehow turn around in the near future as President Bush desperately hopes, this will never salvage his reputation. He will always be remembered as one of the worst presidents ever, period.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 06-06-2008

Senator Hillary Clinton on her continuing in the primary race until the very end:

"What does Hillary want - what I have always fought for. I want to end the war in Iraq, I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential, and I want for the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected and heard and to no longer be invisible."

THE TRUTH: Even after it was mathematically impossible for her to win, Senator Clinton stayed in the race for one reason: selfishness. She expressed this in her hopes for a catastrophe to hit Senator Obama's life or career when she mentioned the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy in June of 1968. By staying in the race till the very end, Senator Clinton showed her disdain for her party and for her country. What she wants and has always fought for is money, power, and influence for herself. She probably does actually care about healthcare and American children having every possible opportunity, but those are obviously far below her own selfish interests in terms of priority as evidenced by her actions. Her last argument is the most ridiculous: why would the people who voted for her be invisible if she is not the president? Many of those people voted for her because of either gender bias (feminists who vote for any woman regardless of qualifications or ethics) or racial bias (white voters who would never vote for any minority). Their views have been a known component of the American electorate for many years and both of these positions need to be repudiated in order for America to become a more just and fair country, not encouraged through the politics of demagoguery. It's ironic that the Democratic Party which always talks about being in favor of women's rights and minority rights is the one where the most gender and racial bias is openly demonstrated.

COLUMN: 06-04-2008

Now that Senator Obama has finally won the actual number of delegates in order to guarantee himself his party's presidential nomination, one would think that Senator Clinton would do the honorable thing and concede and congratulate him and endorse him for winning the nomination. Unfortunately, that is too much to expect from the dishonorable self-interested politics of the Clintons. The announcement late today that they would be making a major announcement on Saturday (in order to buy time to try to extract some more money from their foolish supporters to pay off their debts and also to try to gain influence over their party's convention and platform) is yet another indication that the Clintons are always working for their selfish needs and not for those of their party, let alone their country. We can only hope that Senator Obama does not make the foolish mistake of picking Senator Clinton as his running mate (or for any major role in his administration if he wins the presidency) because that will delay the much needed, long overdue final exit of the Clintons from the national political scene.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 05-30-2008

White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino on President Bush and the 2008 election:

"President Bush isn't on the ticket... As the President said, he will do as much or as little as anyone needs him to do to help elect Republicans. But at the end of the day, any candidate who's running for office has to stand on their own two feet and they have to chart a course for themselves. Every election is about change -- go back through history and every single one is about how things are going to look in the future. "

THE TRUTH: Regardless of his name literally not being on the ballot, this election is all about the miserable failure of the Bush Administration and whether this conservative-leaning country will have to suffer through a liberal administration in order to remove the stench of the corruption brought by those who claimed conservative values while promoting only their self-interests against the interests of the American people. If President Bush had been a good or even decent president rather than one of the worst in history, he would have left coattails for those in his party to follow on and continue his legacy. Instead, Republicans not only do not have the benefit of any coattails, they have the opposite effect where they need to avoid any linkage to this failed leader. They not only have to stand up for themselves, they need to dig themselves out of a major hole to begin with. President Bush has wronged the trajectory of American government policies by allowing liberals to present themselves as a clean alternative to his corruption. He has thus allowed us to possibly have to suffer through socialist entitlement programs, unreasonable gun control, and continuation of court-imposed marriage and abortion laws rather than those supported by the morality of the majority of Americans.

COLUMN:05-28-2008

Scott McClellan's new book this is week is a rare piece of truth from an insider wishing to save himself from being included in the history of the worst presidency in the history of America. Unfortunately for him, this tactic won't work to remove the stain from his legacy. Fortunately for the America people, history will record the contents of this book as further true evidence of the incompetence, corruption, and self-interested harmful form of government that has ruled our country for the past seven and a half years and this will hopefully help to prevent the election of future administrations of the same type.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 05-23-2008

Former President Bill Clinton on press bias and playing the race card:

You've called the campaign press coverage biased against Hillary. Why do you think that is? I think most of the press people are in Obama's demographic. They need a feeling more than they perceive they need a President. There have been times when I thought I was literally lost in a fun house. How do you respond to those who charge that you and Hillary have played the race card? I'm not responsible for what other people say and what other people think. I have lived too long. All I can say is "You line up what you've done, I'll line up what I've done, and we'll see who's got a good life." I was really hurt about it at first. I am way over being hurt. This was cold-blooded, calculated, manipulated and a revolting strategy.

THE TRUTH: Much of the press had been overwhelmingly supporting Senator Clinton's "inevitability" as the nominee before the actual voting started and only started covering Senator Obama seriously after his ground-level efforts to organize and raise funds paid off. As usual, the Clintons are happy when the bias is in their favor and claim bias when it does not exist just because they lost. In terms of the race card, the Clintons' use of it is what is truly cold-blooded, calculated, manipulated, and revolting. They used that as their last desperate attempt to defeat Senator Obama's winning streak and their success in this disgusting tactic led to the extending the primary calendar until the very end two weeks from now. President Clinton can claim to be hurt all he wants, but no one with an ounce of brains will believe that any history of his working on civil rights issues (which is debatable anyway) is an automatic pass when racism is used as a electioneering tool.

COLUMN: 05-21-2008

The latest ridiculous assertion by the Clinton presidential campaign is that Senator Clinton is losing because of sexism. The opposite is true - much of her support is because of sexism by feminists who will vote for any woman for president regardless of her lack of ethical standards or qualifications. If it weren't for the women who are supporting Clinton only because is a female, she would not even be a viable candidate because she has no other solid base of support. All of the assertions of blue-collar or union support are not specifically addressing the fact that many of these people would have preferred a different candidate (mostly former Senator John Edwards) and are only choosing her when the choice is between her and Senator Obama. It's nearly over for the Clinton campaign and this will hopefully also be the end of her dishonorable self-serving career.

An unintentional truth about the war in Iraq

Patrick Kennedy, Undersecretary of State for Management on the decision to renew Blackwater's license, despite deaths and inquiries into the contractor's conduct: "We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq. If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq."

I'm sure Secretary Kennedy did not mean to do this, but he has provided yet another piece of evidence regarding the underhanded method used to take America into the War in Iraq. Rather than telling the truth about the costs of the war, the administration provided a lot of fairy tale cost estimates and oil revenue projections. In addition, they intentionally did not provide sufficient troop levels to complete the mission as that would have required a greater amount of political will that they could not muster. They have attempted to make up for this by using private contractors in nearly every area of the war. The result has been a mercenary army that has run rampant without any legal consequences (since our interim Iraqi administration imposed laws granting these contractors immunity from both American and Iraqi laws). These same mercenaries also cause a lot of resentment for the troops they work with due to the huge disparity between the meager amount paid to soldiers and the extremely large amounts paid to contractors. Whenever American soldiers are counted in Iraq, they intentionally do not include the nearly 100,000 contractors (who are there cashing in on our grandchildren's tax dollars due to the huge budget deficits used to pay them) and this is yet another attempt to obfuscate the true cost of this war. Our military needs to be given the proper tools to do the job for any war that is necessary and we cannot allow dishonest politicians to destroy our standing in the world through the use of war-profiteering mercenaries who are not fighting for the best interests of America. If removing the contractors would lead to the end of this war, then that is proof in itself that the war needs to end.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 05-16-2008

President Bush on the War on Terror:

"The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle. On the one side are those who defend the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies."

THE TRUTH: While the president is right in his definition of the enemy, he is wrong about his definition of America and its allies based on his current policies. It would be ideal if he lived up to the definition of defending "the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth" instead of being the fear-mongering violator of human and civil rights who claims no need for truth and liberty when fighting evil. The pure hypocrisy of this statement in the face of Guantanamo detainee trials, the PATRIOT Act, Abu Ghraib, the false reasons for the Iraq War, and so many other examples is why President Bush is specifically detested by both Americans and our allies around the world. He talks a good game, but his actions show that he does not really believe in American values and will circumvent all of them as needed to pursue his agenda. America will definitely be better off 8 months from now when he leaves office, regardless of who his successor will be.

COLUMN: 05-14-2008

Saturday Night Live had it exactly right last weekend when they parodied Senator Clinton claiming why she should be the nominee despite there being no legitimate chance of her winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination and that message was reinforced by yesterday's election in West Virginia. In the sketch, the actress portraying Senator Clinton claimed she should be the nominee because she is "a sore loser" who has "racist supporters" and who has "no ethical standards whatsoever." In the West Virginia primary yesterday, we clearly saw Senator Clinton continue to play unethically to the racial sentiments of the least educated state in the nation (95% without college degrees) and these are obviously the actions of a sore loser who cannot admit defeat in an impossible-to-win situation and who will not step aside graciously to allow her party to unite towards a good campaign on the issues against the Republicans in the fall.