Mr. Arlen Specter, We Salute You

In case you live under a rock, you should know that Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has decided to change parties. He has defected from the Republican party, and become a full-fledged donkey. Specter has always been considered a moderate Republican, and he stated that he felt the party was leaning too far to the right for his tastes. More likely, however, is that he got into some hot water with his party by being one of the only three Republicans to vote for President Obama's stimulus bill, and he's switching parties to increase the likelihood of him keeping his job in 2010.

Now, as the President noted, Mr. Specter's is a pretty independent guy and his vote definitely can not be taken for granted; the guy used to be a Republican for crissake. This was made immediately clear as Specter was one of two Democrats who joined the entire Republican party in voting against Obama's latest budget proposal. One thing is certain, however: as a Democrat, Specter will have more freedom to cooperate with the President on issues that Republicans are particularly stubborn about, like health care and immigration. And as soon as the courts force Norm Coleman to pull his head out of his ass , the Senate will be joined by another Democrat, Al Franken, giving them 60 Democrats and a filibuster-proof majority.

This is definitely a victory for all that is good in America. A chance at actually improving health care, protecting the environment, solving the energy problem, and reforming immigration. What the fuck do Republicans have against those things, anyway?


Now it's kind of lame that we have to sort of gangster our way into actually making progress in this country, but when I think about how much the Bush administration gangstered the country during those dreadful eight years, I don't feel so bad.

Perez Hilton Punk'd Miss California

I always thought that beautiful people in America could do and say whatever they wanted without much scrutiny. Times have changed, perhaps. At any rate, everyone shut up, seriously.

Although it's downright depressing that America hasn't fully realized that everyone should have the right to marry whomever they want, I feel pretty sorry for Miss California, because she totally got screwed for no reason other than telling the truth.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll explain. Carrie Prejean, Miss California, participated in the Miss USA beauty pageant last week. One of the "celebrity" judges, openly gay and I guess relevant blogger Perez Hilton, asked her her opinions about gay marriage. Prejean stood true to her lifelong Christian values by stating that "marriage should be between a man and a woman", drawing mixed reactions from the crowd.

Ultimately she finished just short of the title of Miss USA, and its quite likely that her answer to that question is what did her in. That, or the fact, that Perez Hilton gave her zero points that round because he had a personal disagreement with her.

Firstly, why is someone as clown-like and obscene as Perez Hilton being allowed to participate in what should be a relatively tame and sophisticated event? Look, guys; take this thing at face value. You're the Miss USA pageant. Letting some penis-drawing quasi-celebrity on your production isn't going to give you any "edge", it just leads to awkward situations like this one. He then preceded to gloat about his moral victory over her in a YouTube video made merely minutes after the event was over.

I don't follow beauty pageants very closely really. I didn't know they got into such controversial subject matter. The question and answer segment of beauty pageants have always seemed to me to be more about being able to bullshit for a few seconds without stammering than about actually impressing anyone with your knowledge or profundity.

Anyway, we live in a country whose entire existence is virtually based upon being able to hold and state your opinions--no matter how unpopular or inappropriate--without being persecuted or prosecuted (or presumably screwed out of winning a beauty pageant, by extension), so I vote thumbsdown for Perez Hilton for being a douchebag.

One day, Americans will learn that gay people are also humans (and therefore are entitled to the same rights), and that freedom and fairness trumps the Bible when it comes to law (ooh I bet that one got under Christians' skin), but humiliating the people who haven't gotten there yet isn't really helping the cause.

How to Confound a News Story

If there's one thing media-types (liberal and conservative alike) really excel at, it's confounding a news story. A good example is the recent news about President Obama's upcoming commencement speech for the graduates at Arizona State University, and the (inane) controversy over whether or not the President should receive an honorary degree. When a student journalist received a (dubious) tip that the University would not bestow the honorary degree upon Mr. Obama, the administration almost immediately began receiving hate-mail, angry phone calls, and even a couple of death threats.

So, then comes the bullshit. Some people are asking whether the decision was racially motivated. Some think its a political issue (Those damn Arizona State Republicans). Conservatives like to home in on the part about the death threats. Typical liberal radicalism.

Actually, what happened is clear to anyone who actually pays attention.

The student journalist--his name is Adam Sneed--obviously either had an uninformed source, or an informed source that he twisted to make his story more interesting. There was no meeting had which resulted in a decision to "not give Barack Obama an honorary degree." In fact, according to ASU president Michael Crow, the University doesn't give honorary degrees to "sitting politicians" as a manner of policy. So this decision was kind of already made before it was, well, made.

As for the hatemail and threats; well, it's already clear that people didn't realize that Obama didn't have a shot at getting the degree in the first place. Considering that, you can imagine that people would be upset if you appear to be playing down the significance of being the leader of the most powerful nation ever, and the first black one at that. In terms of death threats, I'm sure McDonald's headquarters got even more death threats when they took the McChicken off of the dollar menu. People are idiots, liberal and conservative.

Nevertheless, Arizona State University folded to all the pressure (much like any smart organization would have) and conceded by renaming what they call their "most important" scholarship in honor of the President.

About This Blog

I'm a young American man in my mid-twenties, so George W. Bush was the President of the United States for my entire adult life until January 2009 when President Barack Obama took office. During those 8 years, I witnessed an incredibly heinous dismantling of everything I had been taught that America stood for: truth, justice, liberty, and democracy.

I saw an administration tell blatant lies over and over again, almost as a matter of habit. I saw a right-wing media monster propagate these untruths until millions of Americans believed them as if they were common knowledge. I saw what can happen to a country when you scare the shit out of them for half a decade. I saw the power that the right-wing media really has.

There were people who were fighting this monster, but ultimately it wasn't until later that people began to wake up. It wasn't until after tens of thousands of American troops died, until after the national debt reached the trillions, after the economy began to tank, etc. America woke up and elected Barack Obama in an electoral landslide.

But this fight isn't over. Even as I type this, the right-wing conglomerate is at work again. They are doing their absolute best to undermine each and every word and action Obama is making. And while I don't have very much influence on my own, I just can't sit around and not do my part on the side of truth and reason against these buffoons.

Am I just a blind Obama supporter? Not in the least. Obama's policies are far from perfect, and if he or any left-wing speaker/politician/pundit ever tries to pull any of the villainous nonsense that Bush did, I will be the first to point it out. But you see, Republicans and the right wing media have a very long track record of being full of shit. So they're naturally flagged first and foremost.

So that's the purpose of this blog: propagating the truth, combatting bullshit, and actually getting something done in a country left in shatters by the previous administration. You won't find any conspiracy theories on this website; and in fact, you'll find few opinions. Of course I'll offer my viewpoint every now and then, but the main purpose of this blog is to disseminate pure facts, and to help counter the inevitable onslaught of lies to come. And I'll tell some jokes too.

Liberal? Maybe.

For the longest, I avoided the term "liberal" (and other terms like it) like the plague. With the term comes a list of preconceived notions that serve to either immediately inspire or repulse. I wanted to be judged based on my own personal list of views, not some pre-organized list of ideas that are associated with all "liberals".

Another reason I didn't like the term is that once a person attaches a label to himself, he might begin to find ways to confirm that label. He might think, A is something that a "liberal" does, so maybe I should be doing A. I certainly didn't want to fall into that. I want my actions and ideas to be grounded in reason and justice, not a label.

But then I began to think about what makes one a liberal.

A "liberal", generally, is a person who promotes individual rights; that is, the right for any person to pursue happiness in whichever way they see fit, so long as they do not infringe upon another person's right to do the same. This translates politically to supporting a government that builds a framework through which these individual rights can be successfully pursued.

According to this definition, liberalism--by definition--is reasonable and just. The idea that all people should receive equal treatment and equal opportunity for happiness is, if I'm not mistaken, the definition of justice. This is why liberals support things like universal health care, and gay marriage. Nearly fifty million Americans are set back from pursuing a happiness equal to the rest due to their lack of health insurance. Homosexuals in most states are set back from pursuing the same happiness that marriage provides due to discriminant laws. Liberals believe that the government should make the pursuit of happiness an equally attainable accomplishment for all Americans.

Basically, the government should be reasonable and just.

So, I will continue to base my ideas and actions on reason and justice. Does that make me a liberal? Maybe.

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'

^{--John F. Kennedy}