IT’S JOHNNY’S BIRTHDAY!

By Tom Degan
The Rant

When a celebrated person passes on, we may pause and reflect for a moment on his or her life and career, but then we move on. We may watch with appreciation the brilliant performance of a long dead James Dean in the film Giant and think not a thing about his absence from our lives. That’s not the case in this instance.

I sure do miss John Lennon.

From, “The Rant” December 8, 2008

I often wonder what John Lennon would have been like as an old man. Can you even imagine??

It’s the Military Industrial Complex, Stupid!

By Tom Degan

“In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of power, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties and democratic processes.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower
from his final address to the nation
January 17, 1961

For all his flaws (and he had many) I like Ike.

That has got to be at least the seventh or eighth time I’ve used that quotation since I started this site almost four years ago; the second time I’ve used it this year alone. It’s content and meaning cannot be emphasized enough. I’ll probably use it again before the year is out. It is the most prophetic statement made by an American president in the twentieth century.

Joe McCarthy: Then and Now

By Tom Degan

“I have here in my hand a list of two-hundred-and-five – a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nonetheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” Senator Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia, February 9, 1950

HISTORICAL FACT:

In a public career that lasted a little over a decade, Senator McCarthy was never able to uncover a single professed Communist working within the United States government.

It’s Fascism, I Tells Ya!

By Tom Degan

“Fascism should more properly be called ‘corporatism’ because it is the total merging of corporate and state power.”

~ Benito Mussolini, the Founding Father of the Fascist State

So corporations are “people”, with “certain unalienable rights”? You’ve got to hand it to Reagan and the two Bushes. Thanks to their atrocious appointments to America’s highest court, the damage they’ve done to our democracy will be felt for generations. The recent decision by the Supreme Court to strike down two precedents (including McCain/Feingold) which limited the obscene amount of money a corporation could use to influence the electoral process is a case in point. According to the Supremes, a corporation is “a person” entitled to take advantage of the First Amendment just like any other “person”. It kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Going Rove

By Tom Degan

If you will be kind enough to indulge me, I would like to propose a toast: Here’s to Sarah Palin; may she never – EVER – go away.

I am going to go out on a limb here: No woman since Eleanor Roosevelt has done more to further the cause of progressive politics in the United States of America than has our Sarah. Don’cha just love her? I sure do!

A Plea from Tracy Murphy: Stop circus abuse of animals

Tracy Murphy has a smile that literally radiates love – love of life, love of humanity, love of animals – everything. It is a smile you can read at night by. She is an animal rights activist from Cheektowaga, NY, which is just outside Buffalo. Recently this good and decent woman became incensed at the presence in that city of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus.

TERRORIST BOMBS MOON!!!

By the light of the silvery moon
I want to spoon to my honey
I’ll croon love’s tune
Honeymoon, keep a’shining in June
Your silvery beams will bring love’s dreams
We’ll be cuddling soon
By the silvery moon

THIS JUST IN: The moon – that nocturnal inspiration to poets and lovers for centuries – was suddenly and deliberately attacked two hours ago by the notorious Muslim terrorist, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, and his co-conspirators within THE GOVERNMENT.

Mr. Wilson Goes Town Hall-istic

By Tom Degan

Isn’t Joe Wilson a hoot-and-a-half? I’m not referring to the Joe Wilson who was married to Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose cover was blown by Karl Rove and company in an act of cynical (and illegal) political revenge. The Joe Wilson I refer to in this piece is the ideologically challenged congressman from South Carolina who interrupted President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress the other night in words that will be in the first sentence of the first paragraph of his obituary:

“YOU LIE!”

HE’S COMING FOR OUR CHILDREN!!!

By Tom Degan

Last week when the White House announced that President Obama would be giving a little speech to the nation’s children, encouraging them to stay in school and study hard so they might go far in life, who in their right mind could have possibly predicted the shit storm of outrage that is now emanating from the extreme right? Actually, I did predict it – but I am of my right mind – honest, I am! It’s just that these knuckleheads are so damned predictable. The sun will rise. The moon will set. Republicans will behave like assholes. It is really as simple as that.

Teddy Kennedy 1932-2009

By Tom Degan

“To speak for those who have no voice; to remember those who are forgotten; to respond to the frustration and fulfill the aspiration of all Americans seeking a better life in a better land….for all those whose cares have been our concern, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

Edward Moore Kennedy, 8/12/80

The lion sleeps….  

Hush! Hush! Sweet Sarah!

The question is literally screaming to be posed: Can this woman possibly get any stupider? I really shouldn’t be too hard on her. Sarah Palin has made my life a gut-busting delight and my work so much easier. 

Woodstock Revisited

Just an All American Boy

Barack Hussein Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in the state of Hawaii. That was the week the Berlin Wall went up.

Coincidence? I wonder.

Walter Cronkite 1916-2009

“It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate – not as victors – but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best that they could. This is Walter Cronkite, good night.”

Walter Cronkite, February 27, 1968