In defense of Bill Maher...And why does he need defending, again? Isn't this America?

If you have been watching the news or listening to the Readers of Republican Talking Points called AM Talk Radio Hosts, you know that nothing sickens them more than a liberal like Bill Maher actually voicing an opinion, especially if that opinion is critical of the US Military and the bone headed ways in which our current administration is applying military force.

On May 13th, Bill Maher, on his HBO show "Real Time With Bill Maher," said this:

"More people joined the Michael Jackson fan club. We've done picked all the low-lying Lyndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies."

Then, in a blatant effort to get his name splattered all over the national news, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said this about Maher's comment: "I think it borders on treason. In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country." He also said, if not treason, it is at least grounds to cancel Bill Maher's show.

You'll note the good Representative from Alabama didn't accuse Bill of libel. With libel you are accused of saying something that is untrue.

Here's something I'd like all of our brave young soldiers out there...a few of whom are actually my friends and relatives whose safe return I pray for every day....here's something I'd like them to do.

Write home to your parents, the American public you are serving, the newspapers they read, and the elected officials who decide where you are going to risk your lives. In those letters I want you to remind them that you are fighting (and possibly dying)in defense of America and the precious freedoms that nation represents. I'd like you to write those folks and tell them that you don't appreciate putting your life on the line to defend things like freedom of speech only to have people back home lobby to eliminate it through legislation or threat of sanction. You're protecting America, not the former Soviet Union.

How dare any elected official demand that an American's livelihood, and the livelihood of all their employees, be taken away because they voiced an opinion the elected official didn't agree with....Or happen to like. I guess Rep. Bachus didn't say he disagreed...Only that it hurt the troops.

Hey, Troops. Does it hurt you to have Americans exercise the freedoms you are defending for them? If it does, then is freedom what you are really defending? I gotta wonder...and so should you.

In the wake of the whole fiasco over the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman and the cover up which followed...recruiting efforts are flagging. Does Representaive Bachus really think they are falling off due to comedians? Maybe the low numbers are due to the fact that nothing anyone has told us about Iraq has been true. Not the threat, not the WMDs, not the cost, not the response of the Iraqi people, not the length of deployments, and not the length of time we'd be in the region, and not the cost in American lives.

Maybe instead of getting mad at Bill Maher for talking about it, and encouraging people to think about it, people in a position to actually do something about it (like Rep. Bachus) ought to be working to create military training and a military culture where Bill Maher couldn't make jokes about the military because they didn't do things like what Lyndie England and the father of her child did.

I'd much rather comedians couldn't make fun of the military because there was nothing to make fun of than because they are afraid people like Bachus are going to get their jobs taken away for exercising their so-called freedom of speech.

What kind of America do you want these kids to die for, Representative Bachus?

I wonder what kind of America they're willing to die for.

Maybe that's a better question to ponder when plotting recruiting and retention strategies than which comedians are on cable television committing treason.

Here's an idea, sir. Why don't you do your job, and stop watching so much HBO? How about that for an idea, sir?

And I mean that with all due respect.



SOURCES:

• Lawmaker: Maher treads near treason Chicago Tribune, Published May 24, 2005
  
• Tillman family criticize Army's friendly-fire probe, Reuters, Mon May 23, 2005 06:18 AM ET
  

"There's Nothing Wrong With This Country That a One Party System Wouldn't Fix!"

I used to make that joke a lot.

That joke's humor was rooted in the idea that such a thing is so contrary to the United States of America and its unique system of government that it could never happen.

Never say never. The Republicans (whose rhetoric is designed to make anyone who is not a Republican bear the stigma of being anti-troops, anti-American, and anti-Christian...And therefore discredited as a viable political entity) came to office as the result of a fluke in 2000 and have been taking aggressive steps to crush forever any voice of opposition ever since. They accuse Democrats of being power mad and at the same time are doing everything they can to see that they never loose any power...ANY POWER, ever again. How can a party dedicated to the eradication of any check or balance to their power accuse anyone else of being power mad? Because they are banking on your voting based on your fear of terrorists and homosexuals and nothing else.

W can't allow them to obtain a hammer lock on all three branches of government.

Not if we want the America even liberals used to love to have a chance of survival. I double dog dare every single non-Republican out there to defend this country exactly the same way those radical right wing evangelicals were defending Terry Schaivo.

Please, I beg you, do not allow the elimination of the filibuster....The only power the minority has to balance the power of the majority...Don't help by inaction these political bullies to take us one giant step closer to the unimaginable...a one party system.

Call your government officials and tell them how you feel. Sign the MoveOn PAC's emergency petition to stop the "nuclear option" the far right wing's plan to seize absolute power to stack our courts -– and I hope you will sign too.

Starting Monday, the petition will be delivered straight to Congress every three hours until the final vote, and many of our comments will be read aloud on the Senate floor.

Please sign right now at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/nuclear

Why is this an emergency?

This Tuesday, the Senate will vote on Republican Leader Bill Frist's "nuclear option" to break the rules of the Senate and give the Republican Party absolute control over appointing federal judges.

For 200 years the minority's right to filibuster has kept our courts fair, by making sure that federal judges needed to get at least some support from both sides of the aisle before they were given life time appointments.

If Frist eliminates the filibuster, his next step would be to force far right partisan judges onto the powerful U.S. Courts of Appeals. The real targets, however, are the four seats on the Supreme Court likely to become vacant in the next four years.

With that much power on the Supreme Court, the far right could strike down decades of progress on labor rights, environmental protections, reproductive rights, and privacy.

The "nuclear option" will live or die by a final vote, probably on Tuesday, and the vote is still way too close to call. There are at least 6 moderate Republicans still on the fence and only 3 more votes needed to win. If we can get enough of our voices into congress and into the streets in the next 72 hours, we can still save our courts.

Please take a minute to join me and sign the emergency petition today, and keep the "THEOCRATIC ELITE"* and the "Biblically Correct"* from making this a country the Founding Fathers would never be able to recognize.

Thank you--and act today! And tomorrow! And every day!

*I have coined these terms to combat the terms "Democratic Elite" and "Politically Correct" frequently used by Right Wing pundits to cast our concerns in the light of a political fringe group of "whacos" and nut-jobs. Please spread the use of these terms "liberally" when referring to their efforts at political dominance. If they can use terms like that to discredit us, we should be able to do the same thing to equal effect. I was appalled to hear Rush Limbaugh actually say on his show last week that the Democrats were advancing an "anti-Christian" agenda. We have to stop this dangerous and radical trend, or one day soon in this country you won't be able to call yourself a Christian if you are not a Conservative, or an American if you are not a Republican. Isn't that the kind of nation we are allowing our young men and women to be killed to eliminate from the world political landscape?

Rush Limbaugh, You Sanctimonious Pig!

Today, while monitoring the broadcasts of the enemy -- as I do every day between 9:00am (last hour of Laura Ingraham) and 9:00pm or so (Michael Savage)-- I got treated to a blast of such amazingly arrogant and hypocritical blather from Rush Limbaugh that my head nearly exploded like an extra in Scanners.

I'm driving along, nursing my liberal hatred of America and George Bush, just like Rush is always explaining all liberals do because of their pathological mental disorder, and this (to borrow a trademarked phrase) big fat idiot is talking about the recent story in Newsweek magazine which stated that American interrogators had desecrated the Koran as a tactic to get detainees to talk. They allegedly put the Koran on a toilet, and in one case tore it up and flushed portions of it.

This report led to, or was reported to have led to, riots in Afghanistan which caused the deaths of 8 people so far. I have no idea if the alleged incident took place or not. I think there are plenty of reasons to riot over the abuses we have already proven, but that isn't what I'm here to talk about.

I want to talk about the continuing abusive treatment of AMERICANS by Rush Limbaugh every weekday from noon to three. That's right, Rush, I'm an American too. Stop abusing me.

Here is what he said, "Have you ever stopped to, uh, wonder if a media story is true...uh, people are dying over it? I mean, uh, this is, uh, this is an amazing thing...here we got a media story, people in Afghanistan and uh, other Arab countries are dying because of this report annnnnnd it turns out that, uh, the central assertion in this report has not even been confirmed. So--Well, I don't know if there's blood on Mr. Isikoff's hands or or not, he obviously was standing by his story here, but, uh, I just, I just, I wonder if people stop to think about this....here comes a media story and BAM, people die."

That's when my head nearly exploded.

How in the name of all that is holy can this windbag sit there behind his Golden EIB Microphone and call the "liberal media" to task for an as yet unsubstantiated report leading to the death of 8 Afghanis when the Bush Administration's now completely disproved allegations have led to the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians--including women, and children?

And 30,000 Iraqi military deaths.

And 88 British military fatalities.

And 22 Italian fatalities.

And 18 Ukranian fatalities.

And 17 Polish fatalities.

And 11 Spanish fatalities.

And 10 Canadian fatalities.

And 14 combined Slovak, Thai, Dutch, Estonian, Salvadoran, Danish, Latvian, Hungarian and Kazakh fatalities.

And 234 contractor fatalities.

And 75 Journalist fatalities.

And 43 US Military suicides.

I guess a good patriotic conservative American like Rush Limbaugh doesn't think all those deaths are nearly as outrageous as the 8 allegedly resulting from a report on flushing the Koran down a toilet.

Nor, apparently, does he have any outrage over the deaths of the 1,615 American soldiers who've been killed in Iraq because of unfounded and now disproved claims of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Hey, Rush, you sanctimonious pig, have you ever stopped to, uh, wonder if a State of the Union Speech is true? I mean, uh, this is, uh, this is an amazing thing...people in Afghanistan and uh, other Arab countries are dying because of this speech annnnnnd it turns out that, uh, the central assertion in this speech has not even been confirmed. So--Well, I don't know if there's blood on Mr. Bush's hands or or not, he obviously was standing by his story here, but, uh, I just, I just, I wonder if people stop to think about this. Here comes a Presidential Address and BAM, people die.

132,176 lives were snuffed out over something George Bush claimed was true but wasn't.

Maybe, El Rushbo, Maharushi, Godfather....Maybe you're only outraged about the 8 people killed in Afghanistan because you don't have 132,176 fingers....You only have 10.

Well, here. Let me give you another.

(PS, have another look at those death totals from other members of the Coalition of the Willing and tell me again how we are not going it unilaterally. Go on, I double dog dare you.)

Sources:

• Pentagon: No Abuse of Koran, Afghan Protests Unrelated, By Al Pessin, Voice of America, 12 May 2005
  
• Iraqi Death Toll
  
• RushLimbaugh.com