DEMOCRACY AT RISK

"Condoleeza Rice has never worked so hard at faking facial expressions of concern and compassion. Remember, wars don't just happen, WE HAVE TO MAKE THEM HAPPEN!" Heard this in between station ids on Randi Rhodes show today. Thank God for PROGRESSIVE TALK and Randi Rhodes and Al Franken! I cannot stop laughing (in between crying.)



"Democracy in Crisis - An Exclusive BRADBLOG Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr."

"CNN's Lou Dobbs: This Congress, This Administration, I Cannot Fathom What They Are Thinking"

A MUST READ: "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Rolling Stone The issue has started to heat up.

Brad Friedman's The BRAD BLOG has been covering this surge of interest in our voting system. Robert Kennedy Jr. has been joined by Lou Dobbs of CNN who has started a series on his nightly newscast called "Democracy at Risk."

OUT OF IRAQ NOW! and REPORT FROM INSIDE ISRAEL

Quick Report from the Israeli Peace Front

The peace movement in Israel has pulled out all stops to end this mad war. Lots of groups are active, and we had a big joint demonstration last night - at least 5,000 people (though the media reported 2,500). Marching through the streets of Tel Aviv with signs, "End the War", "End the Occupation" felt like a relief after the roar of pro-war-talk on all the media.

HERE IS a short note from Hannah Safran of the Haifa vigil of Women in Black. The women were shelled during the vigil, but they returned to complete it. Later that day, under the newly formed "Women Against War", they again left their homes to protest.

" Hi gila, how are you? we are having a terrible day today. while we were demonstrating at our regular Women in Black square (30-40 people in all), we were bombed on both sides. it felt like being targeted from close. we had to abandon the vigil and look for shelter. we came back 20 min. later and completed the vigil on time. As we were traveling home, there was a second attack and we had to stop the car and look for shelter. When we came home we opened the newspaper to read letters of women from Lebanon. The devastation is horrific. Has Israel gone crazy or have we not noticed what a mad country we live in? It is 5:45 p.m. now and we had two attacks since then. I am off to our daily demonstration of Women Against War in front of the Foreign Office and all the foreign press. We will not be silenced. War must be stopped now. Every min. counts as people's lives are in danger. do all you can to stop this madness. only someone from outside can put pressure on Israel to stop. i have to hurry. be well and let's pray for better days.
love, hannah
Please continue to voice your protest throughout the world.

Gila Svirsky
www.coalitionofwomen.org

Demonstrations and Vigils held this weekend (or just before) THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' - Lord Acton

A REPUBLICAN senator has now confirmed that things in Iraq are worse than we were "led to believe." This implies that we were MISLED DELIBERATELY. We must bring our troops home and save their lives.

Bush is operating like an unconscious madman. Our very presence on Muslim soil is the reason there is non-stop violence and terrorism there. What on earth are we doing there? We must remove ourselves from the equation. Pride is not a virtue. Whatever Bush's reasons for being there (which obviously weren't the reasons he told us initially) it's time to come home. His lies have been uncovered, and like the alcoholic who has been beaten by the bottle — it's time to surrender to a higher power, God. Providence will move for us when we do the RIGHT THING. No matter how many lies Bush tells himself about how "patriotic" it is to be at war in Iraq, THE TRUTH IS NOT WITH HIM. HE IS LYING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND TO HIMSELF. It's time to humble ourselves and come home. Great men have humility. Arrogant ones do not. Bush must not believe in God because he thinks he himself has to control everything; he doesn't trust God enough to let the Iraqi people fix themselves. We must "let go and let God." 

James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper No. 47:

The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many...may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

That extraordinary powers have, under Bush, been accumulated in the "same hands" is now undeniable. For the first time in more than thirty years, and to a greater extent than even then, our constitutional form of government is in jeopardy.
Power Grabhttp://www.metafilter.com/mefi/52363

Coulter Dropped by 'Augusta Chronicle' Over 'Stridency'

"But biting commentary is one thing. A personal attack is another -- such as when she slammed several 9-11 widows for backing Democrats and allegedly milking the tragedy for political purposes. That charge alone isn't necessarily unfair, but to suggest they were 'enjoying' their husbands' deaths and calling them 'witches' -- well, that's where stridency crosses a line.

AN ISRAELI SOLDIER'S POINT OF VIEW

Last night I had dinner with an amazing soldier who flew reconnaissance missions over Lebanon last week from Israel. Though he lived in Israel for 21 years, he has also lived in the United States for over 30 years, and made his fortune here. He's was a sharp-shooter in the Israeli military but still flies missions. I believe he's in their National Guard. Last week he used rapid-fire to shoot Hezbollah on the ground from his plane.

He enlightened me about many things: he said that every Israeli soldier is indoctrinated — practically brainwashed — on the importance of saving civilian lives, and going out of their way to NEVER hit civilians. This is drilled into them from the beginning of their training. This is of the utmost importance and they go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. For example, regarding yesterdays attack on the Mosque: they used close-range satellite technology to see inside the Mosque, and saw that bombs were being stored there. They first dropped leaflets announcing to all civilians to get out of harms way. Only then, did they attack.

He also said that every Israeli thinks now is the time to once and for all get rid of Hezbollah. No Israeli wants to back down. He also said my information is wrong regarding Israelis holding children as prisoners, and that the only prisoners they are holding are terrorists.

I deeply honor and respect this soldier's position. I pray for Israel's success.

But on a higher level, the spiritual level which I know is the solution to everything — this is the Way: only by disarming our enemies with the shock of non-retaliation can we ever have true, lasting peace. No one has ever tried it before. I don't mean grumbling with hatred while avoiding confrontation like cowards. I don't mean FEAR-BASED avoidance.

I mean truly going out of our way to NOT REACT, to be still. We and the Israelites must stop giving our enemies so much power by fearing them. We must change our thinking about our enemies. But this takes a huge leap in consciousness to come out of the primitive, archaic religious thought into the New Thought. We must lead by a new, enlightened path. Don't react. Trust God before reacting with force. An eye-for-an-eye only makes us blind.

Just like in this blog: when an angry person doesn't get a reaction he has nothing left to fight. In fact, when I asked this man if he thinks Hezbollah will be annihilated through a catastrophic bombing campaign, he said no. The evidence is that retaliation just breeds more of the same: they will proliferate like cockroaches and embed themselves deeper into civilian communities.

I truly believe the only way to fight is to send our prayers (meaning: change our consciousness toward our enemies by seeing them as children of a loving God. Though ignorant and spiritually sick, Love (God) can truly heal them.) and pray for our enemies, the way the Great Peacemaker instructed. Love disarms the worst evil.

Every time I have an enemy, when I change my thought about him, he changes too.

To Newlyweds Stacy and Ned: Congratulations! (A good friend of mine, Stacy, spent her honeymoon in Israel, after having lived there for several months in separate quarters from her fiance. The couple is from California; they got deeper into their faith prior to marriage. God Bless them.

To the HACKER who has broken a pipe on this blog and prevented people they disagree with from commenting. We have launched a full-scale investigation. I will be on several radio shows this week letting people know how our government wastes tax-payer money by hacking into blogs to stop the truth from coming out. There is an agency above the one you work for.

SPIRITUAL HEALING * PRO-LIFE OR PRO-DEATH?

Note: the ads for Ann Coulter at the top of this page are not affiliated with this website. ANN COULTER is morally handicapped and HAS CRACKS IN HER FOUNDATION. SHE IS ALSO WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. Coulter ads are put there by the opposition. You can read articles about Ann Coulter by clicking the sidebar.

"Those who want the government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination." - Harry S Truman

Though Jesus himself called the Bush-Cheney-Roves of his day a "brood of vipers," I am never comfortable using harsh language to malign others. The office of President of the United States should command the utmost respect, but the man Bush is merely a politician, who was not elected legally in my view, and has betrayed us. My higher self cannot stand the anger I feel toward Bush, so I need to dwell on Love and raise the dialogue here. Personally I know that life is spiritual, and the reason God has clothed us in so many colors and territories, is for the very purpose of overcoming our tribal separateness, bigotry and territoriality — in order to turn our hearts to love. In other words, THE GOLDEN RULE. This is not a religious issue, it's a social/humanitarian issue.

At this radioactive time in our history the last thing we need is a president who wants to be a barbaric war lord who condones indiscriminate bombing of innocent civilians. Bush has set our beautiful world back lightyears, instead of using his power and gifts for uniting people in peace. It's a shame that we can't do anything; it's a shame that we are burdened with this obtuse, truly deplorable president at a time we need leadership most.

But as long as Bush calls himself a Christian, we must remind him that "Loving one's neighbor as oneself" is Christ's most urgent instruction. And since Israel and Lebanon are neighbors of each other, the leader of the free world should be a peacemaker here. Bush has to be a leader. Congress must to stop pretending that gay marriage and flag-burning are as important as Christ's main commandment to LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR and CREATE PEACE ON EARTH.

Our whole test in this life is to turn our hatred into love and see the good in each other. We must become color-blind and less chauvinistic and nationalistic; we must start seeing that we are all one race, Human. This is based on God, the God of love.

If Bush is pro-life, then "life" these days must mean death and torture. How can one explain his thirst for war and blood and chaos? If Bush calls himself pro-life, then he has a lot of nerve depriving others of cures to prolong life. Bush thinks using MEDICAL WASTE TO SAVE LIVES IS MURDER. But it's OKAY AS LONG AS PRIVATE COMPANIES USE THE STEM CELLS?! I GUESS SINCE THEY'RE MAKING MONEY IT'S ALL GOOD. Why DOES BUSH TAKE MONEY FROM CHINA, A COUNTRY THAT NOT ONLY CONDONES ABORTION, ORGAN HARVESTING AND KILLING BABY GIRLS?

According to the Old Testament, which fundamentalists go by, life must contain blood, skin and flesh. Blastocysts, or embryonic stem cells are not human life; they are potential life and do not have blood yet, in the first 18 days prior to implantation, and therefore are not considered human life. Anyway, in the bible, God breathed life into man; he didn't culture life in a petri dish.

If fundamentalists quote the bible live by the bible, they have a lot of nerve eating shellfish or allowing women to speak in public without flogging them. All these things are in the Old Testament. Of course Jesus doesn't appear until the New Testament; he came to bring the New Law, the law of spirit over matter, the law of Love. Fundamentalist "Christians" have a lot of nerve callling themselves Christian if they completely ignore Christ's teachings. I guess don't know that Christ is the root of the word Christian because the vowel sounds are different. They surely do not follow Christ in any way.

HOW CAN WE SIT BACK AND LET THE WORLD BE RUINED BY THIS MADMAN who has no wisdom, compassion or heart? Not only has George Bush's Iraq war caused over 14,000 civilian deaths but over 20,000 of our own troops have been maimed (that means they lost arms, legs and brain cells) and 2,500 killed. Bush also has now condoned the bombing of Lebanese civilians and now with the veto of embryonic stem cell research, he has destroyed the hope of millions of Americans. And never forget, as you read the following article, that Bush flew to Florida in the middle of the night to intervene in the Terry Schiavo issue, a private family matter — yet took several days to care about the Katrina victims.

Pro-Death Politics by William Greider

I was astounded to read an E.J. Dionne column in the Washington Post about a baby boy in Texas who was denied life support by hospital officials over the objections of his mother--astounded because this act of euthanasia was authorized by a state law passed by then-Governor George W. Bush. Or should we call it "murder," as some Republicans fervently insist in the death of Terri Schiavo? I wanted to know more about Bush's role, but the Post never returned to the matter. I wanted to know more about the circumstances surrounding the death of Representative Tom DeLay's injured father (the doctors pulled the plug on him with the family's consent).

I also want to know who makes these godlike choices for the Hospital Corporation of America, the 191-hospital chain built by Senator-Doctor Bill Frist's family. Does HCA follow the end-of-life logic suggested by Bush's law, or do the hospitals subscribe to Pope John Paul II's dictum that providing food and water to sustain brain-dead mortals is "morally obligatory"?

These questions sound tasteless and insensitive, I know, but our sensibilities have been jarred by the recent melodrama mounted by the right. The Pope's death was, by contrast, a model for dying with dignity and proper mourning. The life-or-death issue goes deeper than the obvious hypocrisy of certain politicians. It leads us into intriguing, disturbing questions about what "moral people" believe in this very moralistic country. Shouldn't we have a fuller discussion about who is pro-life, who is pro-death?Bush pretends to believe in God, but he is anti-Christian, and anti-God. From The Nation.

On a less spiritual note, I found this article to be insightful and hilarious.
Bush - Stoned? Drunk? Medicated? Presidential Tester for the Pharmaceutical Industry? You Decide........
Submitted by BuzzFlash Reader Contribution
by Ruth Lopez

Bush is fried. He's either drinking, smoking pot, medicated, or some combination of all of them. Either that or the man has taken a one-way trip to crazy town. Watch his gibberish at the G8, especially the bizarre stuff about how long the plane flights to various countries are. If you take out the comments of the other leaders (because they actually sound intelligent and not like drunken bar talk) and just read what Bush says, he sounds just like someone who is more than half looped.

"Gotta go home. Gotta do sumthin tonight. Get ona plane. Go home. It's a long flight. How long is your flight? That's a long flight. Your country is big. His country is big too." Retarded or stoned, you decide.

This is the kind of mindless bar drivel that drunks who can't shut up drone on with. They just keep running their mouths, totally disconnected from the non-verbal clues of the people around them.

Watch the press conference where Bush couldn't stop talking about the pig roast. It didn't matter what anyone asked him, he just kept saying whatever his addled brain was looping on, in this case, the pig. Typical stoned behavior. It reminded me of the time Bush went to Canada and couldn't get off the subject of the mouth one of the Canadian Prime Minister's staff members! "You've got a purty mouth." Not once but several times. "You've sure got a purty mouth." And, "Your mouth is prettier than my Scott's mouth." (The poor guy's name was Scott.) Who does this? Outside of bars or institutions, I mean.

Watch Bush's body language at the table with Blair talking over his shoulder. Bush is sitting, almost slouched back in his chair, like a guy at a barbeque on his second or third 6 pack, chomping on his food with his mouth open, and making minimal effort to intelligently keep up his end of the conversation by occasionally throwing in something he mistakenly thinks is sufficient. (read the rest at Buzzflash)


REGARDING IRAN Christopher Hitchens says:

"The overwhelmingly young population—an ironic result of the mullahs' attempt to increase the birth rate after the calamitous war with Iraq—is fed up with medieval rule. Unlike the hermetic societies of Baathist Iraq and North Korea, Iran has been forced to permit a lot of latitude to its citizens. A huge number of them have relatives in the West, access to satellite dishes and cell phones, and regular contact with neighboring societies. ... Opinion polling is a new science in Iran, but several believable surveys have shown that a huge majority converges on one point: that it is time to resume diplomatic relations with the United States."

Christopher, I hope you're right. But what I find interesting is what Randi Rhodes said the other day: that Iran, so full of young people, was on its way to becoming westernized BEFORE we invaded and bombed Iraq. The youth were sick of the old mullahs with their fundamentalist archaic religiosity — and they were turning to the West for an exchange of ideas and fashion. Bush's Iraq war helped usher in a backlash in the democratic elections: the militant regimes of Hezbollah and Hamas won! People are so turned off to our form of dictatorship and "democracy" we set them back light years. We lost all these young Iranians who were on the brink of really befriending us — and we set back the peace process in the Middle East.

WHAT HAPPENED TO PRINCIPLES and morals? If you operate from principle you never have to worry. You dont' have to side with Israel when they overreact and bomb innocent civilians. Bush's neocons have no interest in what's right. They lie, cheat and steal. Obviously Bush doesn't really want peace. What a tragedy. But I know with enough love and prayer sent his way, we can help him.

DEVIL'S GAME * PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

We are on a Windjammer Sailboat, island-hopping in the Caribbean. Went to Bimini, where Hemingway lived for a while and wrote Islands in the Stream. Did he write "The Old Man and the Sea" here? I don't know. The bar he hung out in is now burned down. More below, but first this:

KayInMaine said...
If I hear Bush one more time say that the current aggression in the Middle East is Lebanon's fault because they fired rockets at Israel, I'm going to scream and bang my head against a wall! The current escalation started a few weeks ago when Israel killed a bunch of Palestinians who were on the beach. Of course, Israel is blaming everyone but themselves on why those people died! A few weeks goes by and Palestinian soldiers capture two of Israel's soldiers in retaliation for what Israel did to them. Did Israel overreact to that? Yup!!!!!! In my eyes, it is Israel who is provoking madness right now. I put most of the blame on them, because if you think about it, why couldn't Israel just hand over a few Palestinian prisoners in exchange for their soldiers back? I mean, really, that would have been the diplomatic solution to this, right?

After careful consideration I've determined that the Bush White House is telling Israel to push forward with force (but of course, the exact opposite is leaving Bush's mouth in public) and to use the reaction to it as a reason for America to invade Iran and Syria! But of course.

And remember....Bush always puts the blame on the country he wants to invade and occupy. Case closed. No further comment or explanation needed here." (from commenter KayInMaine)

* PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF AMERICA Reiterates CALL FOR AN END TO ISRAELI OCCUPATION

Around the world, people are watching in fear and horror as the Middle East sinks further into violence. We are witnessing human rights violations and civilian deaths on a massive scale in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. And now, the conflict has escalated with added violence between the Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel. All of this comes on top of the chaos in Iraq caused by the unjust and ill-considered U.S. invasion and occupation.

Progressive Democrats of America asserts that any remedy to the escalating conflicts involving Israel and its neighbors must begin by addressing the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the consistent violence, humiliation and brutality the occupation entails. In the absence of this fundamental assertion, the violence will no doubt continue.

* CHEERS TO VALERIE PLAME and HER HUSBAND JOE WILSON!! Thank you for your courage in combatting the evil triumvirate CHENEY-ROVE-AND WHOEVER THE THIRD GUY IS who supports the most corrupt administration the United States has ever had.

* Also, I urge you all to read the brilliant book Devil's Game by my friend Robert Dreyfuss. The book will be out in paperback in August.

Some reviews: “A fluent tour de force—Dreyfuss skillfully documents the misguided stratagems of generations of statesmen whose attempts to use the Islamic right to Western strategic advantage have helped make political Islam the formidable force it is today. He makes a convincing case that the U.S. government inadvertently played a central role in building up the forces that struck New York and Washington on 9/11, and questions whether some current U.S. policies and actions are not still strengthening rather than weakening enemies of our country. Dreyfuss’ carefully researched and well-written story will be a revelation to experts on the Islamic world and a shock to concerned Americans.”
—Chas W. Freeman, Jr., former assistant secretary of defense and U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 1989-92

Dreyfuss's thorough research on the subject involves extensive interviews with former officials as well as the study of published works. The result is a stunning summary of missed opportunities and signals ignored. Highly recommended. —Library Journal

“’The enemy of enemy is my friend’ is usually considered unsophisticated, tribal thinking. But Robert Dreyfuss shows how, during the Cold War, precisely this principle led the United States to support anti-Communist Islamist movements throughout the Muslim world—nurturing the whirlwind we are reaping today. His book is judicious, fascinating, and deeply grounded in a little-know history that stretches many decades back from the CIA’s support for anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan. He is wise enough to know that all the strength of fundamentalist Islam can’t be blamed on American bungling, but the amount that can is appalling.”
—Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains and King Leopold’s Ghost


WINDJAMMER TRIP: Went to two uninhabited islands, with the most amazing beaches and clear crystal water. A small storm (mini-hurricane) caught up with us and we almost capsized in the launch. But most of the time we've been snorkeling and diving with the kids. Saw a scorpion fish and got to pet some wild stingrays; they're so amazing with these big round eyes. They remind me of our puppy dog. Also saw a shark in a cove. This trip was a gift/payment for hosting the World Travel Awards, courtesy of the Really Spectacular Company. We are at the Atlantis Hotel on Paradise island right now.

We met the most wonderful people on this boat; can't wait to sail with them again. And we are all madly in love with Captain Fernando!

I teach my sons to have the deepest respect for the office of the President of the United States, but we must remember it is an elected office, and the president is a politician. When one political party does not have the best interest of honest Americans at heart, it is our duty to take notice, speak out and earnestly seek the truth. Most of all, we cannot have this lack of fundamental trust. The minute George W. Bush was "elected" to power, I knew something was terribly wrong. We need full disclosure of the motives and deeds of this corrupt regime. This does not feel like the America of my childhood. Maybe we are not jaded enough, but I believe in the American dream of our forefathers. I am heartsick at this administration. The American public deserves to know what the government is spending our money on. If they are wasting American taxpayer money hacking into bloggers and regular American citizens who are merely expressing their opinions on blogs and newspapers, this is the worst form of censorship. It is criminal.

Back in a week.
Love xo
OPEN THREAD - let's talk about Beirut and the Valerie Plame lawsuit!!

The SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE

"Those who want the government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination." - Harry S Truman

Coulter is currently facing a legal investigation for voter fraud in Palm Beach, Florida. Coulter may have lied about her address on her voter registration there. Yet, she recently announced on Hannity & Colmes that she lives in New York. As Brad Blog has noted, that may open her up to charges of tax fraud, as well.



THE SECRET of THE UNIVERSE Check out: http://www.thesecret.tv/

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

Loud and Vexatious Person: Ann Coulter has a bad habit. And that habit, as mentioned before by the Rude Pundit (followed up by Raw Story), is that she appears to like to copy whole sentences from other sources without putting them in as quotes or even citing where she might have "paraphrased" from. You judge for yourself:

Here's Coulter from Chapter 1 of Godless: The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River in Maine, was halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant previously believed to be extinct.



KAREEM Abdul-Jabar at CEDAR-SINAI SPORTS SPECTACULAR fundraiser for Genetic Birth Defects . This picture taken by my son, who is a big fan of Abdul-Jabar.

ANN COULTER'S LAST WILL AND TESTICLE

"Those who want the government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination." - Harry S Truman



Okay, I changed this a little from my published version ("BUSH'S LAST WILL AND TESTICLE" in Macon Daily and Lone Star Icon)

Ann Coulter's Last Will and Testicle: With a "god" like Coulter's, who needs a devil?
by Lydia Cornell

Maybe we're all on PUNKED or Candid Camera or this is just a great big reality show called "The Government". Like "The Truman Show", the producers are just seeing how far they can go until we figure out it's a big joke! Wouldn't it be fitting to find out Ann Coulter is just an actor-clown they hired to make us go crazy? And the Blue team is going crazier than the Red team because we think it's real. I just wish Donald Trump would hurry up and say "Coulter, you're fired!"

Coulter keeps wondering why we're not offended that she calls us "godless" in her new book. With a "god" like Ann Coulter's, who needs a devil? Who would want Ann Coulter's brand, when it is the opposite of God? We can't even be offended by her perverse book title calling more than half of all Americans godless. Just to "play with liberals heads", she chose the Number of the Beast 6/6/06 as her release date. Actually Ms. Coulter, all this does is tell us something about YOU!

Silence is complicity, so I'm going to alternate speaking directly to you Ms. Coulter and to the reader. Putting aside your comments about the 911 widows, please explain to me how you justify hate-speak, death-threats against Democrats, and torture on Arabs... (does dropping "daisy cutters" throughout the mideast and engaging in "torture as spectator sport" ring a bell? You wrote this in your column not long ago.) Do you wonder why our own troops have suffered torture recently? Could it be payback for our relaxed attitude about the Geneva Convention?

In 2005 Coulter said: "I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties. I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. Boom! I just think it would be fun to nuke them…” Seriously, I think the rest of the countries in the Middle East, after Afghanistan and Iraq, they're pretty much George Bush's bitch." Interview: 1/2/05

In light of the above statement, it is interesting to note that Coulter spoke at a moral reformation conference three months later, on 4/16/05 at The Center for Moral Clarity. Coulter remains a conservative icon and pro-life leader.

Just for the record, your obsession with Bill Clinton has got to stop; it's pathological. Your party's irresponsible Ken Starr-led witch-hunt/persecution/media blitz to expose the affair of Clinton and Lewinsky, two consenting adults, was in itself immoral and damaging to kids. In painstaking detail you paraded these blow-by-blowjob horrors for the press, not caring what effect it had on childhood innocence. And yes, we were all rightly appalled by President Clinton's behavior. But where was the right-wing morality brigade in keeping this porn out of the mainstream news for our children's sake? I still hear Republican mothers talk about how shameful Clinton was, yet they never see how the media salivated and profited at the sex appeal of it all. These same mothers never castigate your favorite president, Bush, for moral corruption on a life-threatening scale.

While your "Christian" supporters like Ralph Reed scour the cartoon channel for sexual immorality, seeing gays in square pants, how do I explain to my kids this pervasive news coverage of children being blown to bits because WE played the bully; we invaded a country that was pretty much under the world's watchful control? How do I explain your "Christian" morality of killing, invading and turning a blind eye to torture and corruption? Last week a little 3-year-old Iraqi girl died after the 3rd bomb hit her tiny apartment; the only piece her brother's found was her hand clutching her teddy bear.

Ms. Coulter, my children have lost their innocence partly because of you. I have to explain to my kids what good morals are: the opposite of yours and of our president, the leader of the greatest nation on earth. I would rather my sons have an appetite for love, not war. People who have morals do not use hate-speak and elimination rhetoric. You have destroyed the very definition of moral values. You say you're "pro-life" but that seems to only apply to the unborn. You promote war and condone the death penalty quite casually, yet think fetal cells in a Petri dish are too sacred to be used for stem cell research in order to save lives! This seems perversely immoral to the vast silent majority of Conservatives, Progressives and Christians who are not fundamentalists.

George Bush is Ann Coulter's favorite president. She says the war in Iraq is going "stunningly well," and defends Bush to the death. She forgets that he sat in a Katrina briefing playing his Nintendo Gameboy under the table, as detailed evidence was being shown to him of a catastrophic hurricane and levee breach on its way to the Gulf. Coulter doesn't mind that he had the nerve to later say: "I never knew the storms were gonna be that bad! I never knew the levees were gonna be breached till I saw it on TV four days later!"

Tell me we're not inside a Simpson's episode!? Little Dubya probably got out of a lot of spankings as a kid with his cute little "aw shucks" grin. Right now our president is probably asking Rove when he gets to go to the playroom and have his ice cream cone.

You condone illegal spying on Americans, yet you don't admonish Bush for his high crimes and misdemeanors. Not too long ago, he was willing to sell our ports to the very people he was afraid we were talking to on the phone! My jaw dropped open the day he said something like, "Heck other countries get to own parts of America, why not the United Arab Emirates, who've been our allies on the war on terror? Just because they harbored some 911 terrorists and cooked their books for them, and don't keep any paperwork and go on hunting trips with Osama and support the Taliban - is no reason for bigotry. We don't want them to think it's because they're Muslim. " But Mr. Bush, wasn't it only a short time ago that you said something like: "Any nation that does business with terrorists, or harbors terrorists, is a terrorist...” I guess you only meant that about your fellow Americans: Democrats or liberals - since Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and talk-radio constantly bash liberals as being traitors! Why are we traitors? Because we value life so much we are horrified by death and killing in this illegal war? Because we are pro-LIFE in the best sense of the word: we want our troops home alive? And this offends you?

Our troops are fighting for our freedoms; is this so we can be wiretapped so we can have no freedoms? Or are they fighting for our president to be able to break the law and sell our ports to a nation that funds terrorists? Does the UAE get to be wiretapped too? Or just American moms and dads who might be wearing 'Peace' signs on their t-shirts. And by the way, does FOX News fall under Freedom of the Press?

I have to admit I'm a little more carefree these days, a little less paranoid that my phones are tapped or I might be taken away in the dead of night for e-mailing jokes about Ann Coulter. In researching my book about Stalin, what horrified me the most were the pedestrian things that are now seeping into America: a woman, sitting in her communal kitchen in Stalinist Russia, said something about the Mediterranean Sea being as beautiful as Russia's Black Sea. A roommate overheard her, and reported this comment as being "unpatriotic." That night, a white "bread truck" came by and took the woman away; she was never heard from again. I also read about a young mother accidentally putting her coffee cup down on a newspaper photo of Stalin's face. Someone watching in the cafe, reported this as "defaming our great leader." A white "bread truck" took her away to a prison camp in Siberia. She left 3 young children behind. After I heard about James Moore, the author of "Bush's Brain" suddenly being on the "No -Fly list", banned from flying outside of America, and unable to get through the red tape to understand why, that's when I began to wonder what kind of country we are living in. I have a theory about when this all started, but that will take more space than I have here.

Uh-oh, spoke too soon; strange things are happening. This just in: Last night, March 15 at about 8 p.m., no joke, a white “bread truck” was parked outside our house. It didn't mean anything to me, until my little boy came running to the back of the house screaming, “There's a big man in our front yard looking through our junk mail-box, he came in the gate and he's wearing a knit cap.” I ran to the front door and peeked out. I saw a dark figure move through the lawn. I waited until I thought it was safe, and then opened the front door. Suddenly across the street, I saw this white van. A man wearing a knit cap was sitting in the driver's side, lights on, reading something. I immediately felt this person was reading addresses off my mail, maybe to see if I lived there. My son and I sneaked out the back door, and headed over to the van, but the van took off. Who knows? Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Again. But in light of the fact that Ann Coulter STILL has my home number on her website, it's not too far fetched to have a wingnut stalking me. After hearing Ruth Bader Ginzburg talk about the right-wing death threats she and Sandra Day O'Connor received, I have one question: WHY ARE RIGHT-WINGERS THE ONLY ONES WHO WANT PEOPLE KILLED FOR THEIR THOUGHTS? You never hear about Left-wingers threatening people's lives whose ideologies they disagree with.

After 911, we had the whole world on the brink of love. Everyone's heart was open. Most Muslims were shedding tears for us. At that moment, our leader had a choice: Love or Fear.

Worfeus, a commenter on this blog said: "Vladimir Putin actually CALLED Bush on the phone that morning and not only offered condolences, but offered to do whatever he could to help. He even assured him that even though Protocol required he raise the Russian Defense Condition in proportion to ours, he understood WHY we were raising ours and assured Mr. Bush that Russia would stand down. It was an EPIC moment in history, that one single phone call. Mr. Bush called it "nice of him".

"And I think if the Taliban were part of the planning body of 911, then we should have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, it seemed like the right thing to do. But the idea that they were hiding Bin Laden doesn't wash with me," Worfeus says. "If getting Bin Laden was the goal, WHY on earth did we BROADCAST for 2 months Exactly WHEN and WHERE we were coming, and WHAT we'd do when we got there? That's like calling up criminals and telling them you're coming over to arrest them later in the week. What idiot would possibly think they'd still be there when they got there?"

I went through agony when I lost my younger brother; I cannot fathom my mother's grief and heartache, having lost her only son. Her eyes well up with tears every time she hears my husband's name, Paul, which was my brother's name. It is too much to bear when I think of parents losing sons & daughters needlessly in Iraq. This is a war that was "sold" to us and shoved down our throats by a certifiable lunatic. George Bush has caused nothing but chaos, poverty, death, bankruptcy, bad global relations, division, hatred and sadness in the world. "By their fruits you shall know them."

Bush based his "evidence" for going to war in Iraq on LIES that Cheney and Scooter Libby had to cover up. He took money from corrupt lobbyists, grinned and lied about it, and he's still not helping the people of New Orleans! Guess why? Apparently certain "companies" don't want the people to come back; that's why the trailers are sitting empty, undelivered. These companies are waiting like vultures to clear the land for profitable building developments. A side benefit is that all these scattered homeless souls cannot register to vote, nor can they obtain absentee ballots. The longer the delay in rebuilding New Orleans, the better for the Corruption party.

Also, Bush's own mother said he shouldn't soil his mind with visions of poverty and ugliness. Weren't these the same parents who went to play golf the day their baby daughter died, Dubya's baby sister, who died crib death? So Bush can't deal with death or grieving. Well he should have had some therapy before going to the White House. In fact, someone better be writing legislation to ensure that the next leader of the Free World has a brain scan to rule out mental disorders.

I'll never forget when you first said you would go to the ends of the earth to find Osama, then you turned around and acted like we were all crazy for asking if you'd caught him yet! You said, "Osama? I don't spend that much time (thinkin') about him.

Maybe the reason you are so eager to hand over our ports (aside from war-profiteering motives, the Carlyle Group, James Baker, et al) — maybe you're finally getting the concept of "loving your enemies" and you're just ready for a group hug. But I must say your timing is strange. They say we are only as "sick as our secrets", but why pick NOW to release your inner child? Couldn't you have tried to become evolved BEFORE you declared war? If only you had a 12-step program. This is the fastest route to actual character change. It helps to look at YOUR part in a conflict, take some responsibility, and take a "moral inventory of your character defects".

Mr. Bush, why did you have to invade a foreign land? Was there really imminent danger to America from Saddam, even though the whole world was hovering over him, watching him? Weren't there more brainy, imaginative ways of gaining allies in the underground - attracting people to our light, who would gladly usurp Saddam from within? Even if it had taken a few more years of clever spy-work, wouldn't it have been creatively challenging and fun - to work out diplomatic solutions to grotesque problems? Christ waited over 2,000 years for someone to finally put his teachings to use. And when biggest challenge comes along, our "Christian" leader disses Christ! You don't even give his method a half-hearted try. Wouldn't it have been worth saving lives and winning hearts to the cause of true Democracy and true Christianity? And after all the Mission Impossible spy movies you've seen, couldn't you figure out a more clever way than carpet-bombing?

Did you do it to show off your heavy metal machinery, your SHOCK and AWE capabilities so the "enemy" (or anybody who doesn't agree with you) would be scared off? Mr. Bush, you have single-handedly robbed the world of its hope and innocence. To say nothing of the mockery you have made of true Christianity: the most peaceful force that ever came to man. You have rearranged the fragile building blocks of this planet with your Neanderthal eye-for-an-eye fraudulent, militant "Christianity". Maybe you don't realize the word Christ is in the word Christianity because the vowel sounds are different. But eye-for-an-eye is the OLD TESTAMENT! Christ came with the new law: LOVE YOUR ENEMIES, BLESS THOSE WHO PERSECUTE YOU. RESIST NOT EVIL. This means, “Do not fight or resist evil; do not fight anyone or anything, it doesn't work. Most evolved people know this. Schools teach that you deal with bullies on the playground by not engaging them in battle, by walking away, not hitting them back.

There's a saying: If you're in the jungle and a jaguar is chasing you, get out of his way because he's going to eat you. It's nothing personal; it's just the nature of the beast. So go back to your house and stay out of his way. Muslim fundamentalists would not be killing us if we would get our footprints off their oil, mind our own business, and pray for them. They do not seem to know the God of love, but since love is all there is, evil has no real power, no matter how much you physicalize it by focusing on it. In other words, what you focus on GROWS! It also wouldn't hurt to protect our borders and make our country as invincible as Israel is. My girlfriend says she feels safer in Israel than here.

You are a barbarian Mr. Bush, hiding behind a kind of idiocy. And I know that's very judgmental of me to say that, but Christ called the Pharisees a "brood of vipers." And "evil triumphs when good people do nothing,” as Edmund Burke said (and we keep hearing over and over and over these days.)

Fortunately I believe in a power greater than ourselves and I know we're going to be all right. God did not give us a spirit of fear.

Einstein did say "goodness, truth and beauty are laws in the universe" as is harmony. Play the piano and you'll hear it. Kiss your child and you'll feel it. Go outside and breathe in the sunshine while playing with an amazingly beautiful striped animal or a butterfly. Bring coffee to someone who thinks you hate them.

Why do people keep arguing about God when God is simply love? Who can argue with human kindness? Asking to prove God is like asking to prove you love your kids. Love is actually the energy of our focused attention on Good, which I define as God. You can be attractive even if you're not "good looking" because if you radiate love, you attract people. This energy is molecular. Einstein's Unified Field therefore is love, which is God. Science proves God; the two are not mutually exclusive.

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copyright Lydia cornell
(with Warren Beatty at Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey fundraiser)