Reposted from sister blog BuryingTheLead.com

There is something to be said about the Republican party starting with the 2008 election, and that is their connection to violent speech.  Everyone remembers Palin’s comments during the 2008 election cycle where she claimed Barack Obama “palled around with terrorists“, and the fact that she didn’t denounce hate-speech shouted out from the audience.  Even before that, the Republican Party was filled with nothing but intolerant people.

Well it hasn’t changed in the last few years.  Palin, Beck, and company are still saying some crazy things, and they are still inciting violence.  Anyone who doesn’t connect Palin’s SarahPAC and the image of Democratic Congressional districts with gunsights over them and Palin’s “Don’t retreat – reload” Twitter comment and the inciting of violence, frankly, has their head up their ass.

The inciting of violence from Republicans against those not like themselves is truly nothing new.  Think back to the man who burst into a Tennessee church and shot and killed complete strangers “because the church was liberal”.  He had hoped to start a trend, so that people would take out liberals, gays, and the “100 people screwing up America” list by right-wing author Bernard Goldberg.

Well it may not be that far fetched to think that Joseph Sean McVey, age 23 of Ohio, was a fan of Palin, Beck, and Goldberg.  Why else can you explain why Goldberg had a car modified to look like a police/security vehicle, and showed up – armed – at the airport that Air Force One and President Obama had just departed.  What’s the most chilling aspect of the story?  When asked what he was doing, McVey said he heard Obama was in town and “wanted to see him”.

There are two Facebook groups out there that say it all.  “I didn’t like George Bush, but I never wished him dead“.  It has under 1,000 fans.  The Facebook group that is praying for the death of President Obama?  It has 1,000,000 fans.

Yeah, that’s a pretty infuriating headline, but I have a point.  Come with me on this.

In the late 1980s/early 1990s, it came out that the Reagan/Bush White House was involved in the Iran-Contra affair, to the highest levels.  When Bill Clinton took the White House in 1992, what was the decision on Iran-Contra?  Clinton said we were to look ahead instead of looking back.  In other words, the former Presidents probably did something wrong, but let’s focus on going forward and forget about it.

Cut to 2009.  After eight years of Bush/Cheney, and the lies and laws that they broke, a fresh face comes to Washington.  People have been infuriated for years at the laws broken.  People tortured and held without charge.  Americans had their phone, email, instant messaging, and web browsing spied on illegally.  All of this crap.  And what does Obama do?  Declares that we need to look forward and forget about it.  Sure, Holder has started making sounds about investigating, but without a unified message from the White House, will it ever happen?

That’s why people think Democrats are wimps.  You can look forward, but you HAVE to examine the past.  Why?  Because if you don’t learn from the past, you are doomed to repeat it.  Bush/Cheney repeated the crimes of Reagan/Bush.  And Obama/Biden are repeating the “we see nothing!” ignorance of Clinton/Gore.

Democrats, GROW A SPINE!

First of all, I know that I don’t speak for the entire GLBT community.  And neither do the guys over at Towleroad.com or AmericaBlog.com.  But there is a movement afoot, and I hope that it continues to grow.  The Obama DOJ, and Obama himself, need to be held responsible for the hateful DOMA defense brief that was filed last week.  You know, the one that says that “normal” American’s shouldn’t have to pay for the benefits of GLBT married couples, or the statement that preventing same-sex marriage protects us from child marriage, child rape, and incest?  Yeah, that one.

First off, there is the Democratic Party fundraiser with Vice President Joe Biden, among others, at the 10th Annual LGBT Leadership Council Dinner (from the Democratic Party’s LGBT Leadership Council).  This is a dinner that raises a LOT of money off of the GLBT folks to benefit the Democratic party.  Thing is, it appears that the fundraiser itself is falling apart.  It doesn’t sit well when you insult a group of people, then ask them for money.  Blogger Andy Towle and Clinton era gay advocate David Mixner have pulled out, and Mixner has one hell of a response to all the hubub.

Strike two has just been made.  HRC, the Human Rights Campaign, has come out swinging against the hate-filled DOMA brief.  The HRC has not come out against a President this harsh since 1996, when DOMA was put into effect.  And what’s worse (for Obama) is that, according to John Aravosis at AmericaBlog.com, HRC is doing this in a VERY public fashion.  They are calling out Obama and in particular, the citation of incest, etc in the brief.  When HRC is condemining you publicly, watch out.

Now, Senator Harry Reid came out and said that there will be no legislative action to end DADT.  He wants the White House to do it; nobody plans on ending DADT from the Congress.  That would be strike three for Obama.

I would expect this kind of hate-filled argument to come out of the Bush White House.  Indeed, it appears that the author of the DOMA brief is actually a Bush era holdover.  But remember, Obama said (about AIG) that the buck stopped with him.  And I, for one, am holding Obama responsible for this.  Unless he recants and comes to the GLBT community with an apology, many of us will be more than willing to keep our $2,300, not go in to volunteer, and stay home on election day.

I love this, in the shadow of the $700,000,000,000 bailout (yes, seven hundred billion):

We’ve just been raped, and now we’re being asked to pay for the rape kit.

Shamelessly stolen from The Stephanie Miller Show (Jim Ward), who stole it from DemocraticUnderground.com

I almost lost my lunch when I saw this headline pop up:  Bush Aides Schooling Palin In Foreign Policy.

What the hell, people?!?!?  A president with the biggest blunders of any in the history of this nation.  A president who lied us into war.  And he’s teaching Sarah Palin how to do it?

If that doesn’t get the vote out for Obama, I don’t know what will!!!

I have to admit, seven years after the events of September 11th, 2001, you get a little complacent.  We had the horror of that day, and then the wars in Afghanistan and then Bush’s war of choice in Iraq.  We have had to deal with war for the last seven years, but without personal sacrifice (Bush told us to “keep shopping”, among other crap).  I admit; I too have become complacent about issues.

I’m on another business trip and get to my hotel late.  I turn on Discovery and find “Flight 93: The Flight that Fought Back” and let it play in the background while I get my stuff ready for tomorrow.  And I listen, and get angrier and angrier.  We all watched in horror that day as we were attacked from within.  The world got caught up in the emotions, and we heard people in Europe declare “today, we are all Americans”.

The horror and anguish of that day is real; it’s raw emotion within us all.  And George W. Bush used that against us.  He declared that he wanted a war with Iraq, and even falsified evidence to get us to support that war.  And yet, five months before he leaves office – with more and more of his lies being exposed – we do nothing.  Our Democratic leaders wait for Bush to be out of office, and hope it doesn’t get any worse.

Bush used us, like a razorblade and mirror in his coke days, and then lied about it – again, like his coke days.  I sincerely hope that once Obama takes office in January, 2009, that on January 21st, 2009, he announces the arrest of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others, on war crimes charges.  It is the only thing that will honor the memory of those we lost on 9/11/01, and those soldiers that we have lost in his war of choice in Iraq.

I’m listening to clips of John McCain from my Randi Rhodes podcast and was taken aback.  In his performance at Saddleback, John McCain said, in response to a question about Osama bin Laden:

No one, no one should be allowed to take thousands of American, innocent American lives

Really now, Senator McCain?  Then if that is the case, you just justified the impeachment of George W. Bush.  You see, Senator, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney ordered the forgery of documents that helped lead us to war with Iraq.  Because of their lies, in the face of a prospect of NOT having a war, Bush and Cheney ordered this falsehood to promote their war of choice.  As a result, over 4,000 brave American soldiers have died.

Now why is it we aren’t hearing this quote used to justify impeachment from our Democratic leadership?

This is the single position I can back McCain on!  Of course Pelosi and Reid say that impeachment is off the table (unless we force it back on!).

Okay , so we have defeated this in the past, but we have to lean on Congress one more time.  There is another bill that is going to give the telecommunications companies THAT HAVE SPIED ON YOU AND ME immunity from prosecution.

I almost threw up when I read this quote:

“The bill meets the standards the president called for,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. “We encourage members of both parties to pass it.”

Standards, as in promising to NOT hold criminals liable for breaking the law.  This is just wrong.  Call Congress and tell them to defeat this bill!