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Rove's damaging legacy

Until the ethical and legal questions that trail Karl Rove are answered, his own explanation for abruptly departing the White House must suffice. Perhaps he is the first pol in history to flee Washington because he actually wants to spend more time with his family, as he said. Why he is leaving matters much less, however, than the opportunities he squandered and the wreckage he leaves behind.

            Inevitably, thousands of words will be devoted to his electoral achievements and his ultimate failure to "realign" American politics -- including a book he apparently plans to write. His vision of a new Republican era proved to be more grandiose than grand. As "the architect," he turned out to be more journeyman than genius.

            If Rove's quest was finally frustrated, he certainly exercised enormous influence at a fateful time in our history. His petty nastiness came to matter a great deal, not because of elections won or lost but because of the polarization he exaggerated and exploited. His bad advice to George W. Bush weakened us in the name of patriotism.

An appeal for the hurricanes Katrina and Rita International Tribunal

Thanks David [Swanson], for flying your Impeachment banner over the Pelosi visit to New Orleans. This is exactly the kind of action we need. In fact, please convince as many anti-war and pro-impeachment organizations to endorse the Tribunal. I feel for the people of the Gulf States. New Orleans (NOLA) is a police state. It is horrible. Please come to NOLA if you can on the August 29 thru Sept 2 or any one day. This is truly an issue that can unite us all because it's just horrific. And I don't know if you saw it during the flyover, but right downtown Donald Trump has bought a building to offer $2 million condos for sale. They surely won't go to the survivors. Recently, a news story reported that the Gulf Enterprise Zone was being used by developers to build million dollar condos in Tuscaloosa for University of Alabama football fans! The City of New Orleans has bought palm trees to beautify downtown--they're installing them now--and you can't even breathe the air down there with the assurance that it's safe. It's a veritable police state which I've seen with my own eyes and dozens of darn military tanks are parked at the New Orleans Police Department headquarters!!!!!!!

Real democracy: YouTube debate, Version 2.0

Worthless Currency

We all know why our presidential debates are worthless currency to the American people. 

We all know that the opinions the candidates will voice are calculated not to offend the contributions made by Big Business on which each candidate’s campaign depends. 

We all know that in our 24/7 corporate media culture, the power of the echo-chamber to exaggerate and repeat the slightest deviation from the conventional “wisdom” completely kills the impulse in the candidate to speak from the heart.

Thus, none of us believe anything the candidates say is really going to make a difference.  Whether they get elected or not, whether they live up to their promises or not, nothing they promise will make a difference because they all have been trained to promise virtually nothing.  They have all been trained to aspire to achieve almost nothing. 

Do the neo-cons need Karl Rove when they can count on the Democrats?

Karl Rove scoots off the sunken White House ship with his plans for future neo-con dominance safe and secure---in the hands of Democrats unwilling or incapable of challenging his dirtiest deeds.

Elected to end a lunatic war, the Democratic Congress has prolonged it, earning approval ratings even lower than those of George W. Bush, whom Rove designated as a "war president" long before the attack on Iraq.

The Democrats have also signed off on the GOP's all-out assault on the Constitution, meekly certifying a "unitary executive" with totalitarian demands for a blanket suspension of civil liberties, arbitrary detention, official torture and more.

Once again voters will approach a presidential election asking themselves---why vote for Democrats who won't challenge the most catastrophic GOP outrages?

That question must now be asked again about the illegal destruction of 1.5 million ballots from Ohio's stolen 2004 election. The mass shredding includes a wide range of official documents critical to conducting a valid recount in the state that gave Bush/Rove a second term in the White House.

Exit Karl Rove, everybody's useful demon

The uproar over Karl Rove's resignation as George Bush's political advisor is stupendous, but in truth he was no great shakes as Svengali, and his exit is of scant consequence.

            Though they profess joy that the nation has been freed at last from his malign supervision, the Democrats have lost one of their most useful alibis. By inflating Rove into a blend of Walsingham and Svengali, a nonpareil political genius, they sought to explain how they failed to stop a mediocre Texas governor and incoherent campaigner from capturing the White House in 2000, and holding on to it in 2004.

            Al Gore fought a wretched campaign in 2000, and in the grand finale it was not Rove but five Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who gave Bush the White House on Dec. 12, 2000, refusing to let Gore get a conclusive count of the missing ballots in Florida.

USDA cracking down on “organic” factory farms country's largest dairy likely to lose certification

CORNUCOPIA, WI: The Cornucopia Institute has learned that the USDA appears about to revoke the organic certification of the nation's largest industrial dairy operator, Aurora Organic Dairy, with corporate headquarters in Boulder, Colorado.

Aurora operates several giant factory dairies milking thousands of cows each in semi-arid areas of Colorado and Texas. The company has been the subject of a series of formal legal complaints filed with the USDA by The Cornucopia Institute. The complaints from the Wisconsin-based farm policy group filed in 2005 and 2006, called for a USDA investigation into allegations of numerous organic livestock management improprieties on Aurora’s facilities.

“After personally inspecting some of Aurora’s dairies in Texas and Colorado, we found 98% of their cattle in feedlots instead of grazing on pasture as the law requires,” stated Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s senior farm policy analyst. Cornucopia also found that Aurora was procuring cattle from a non-certified organic source in apparent violation of the law. “Our sources tell us that the USDA’s investigators found many other violations when conducting their probe of Aurora.”

Appalled at Ms. Lokeman's article

I am appalled at the article "Big love's big problem," by Rhonda Chriss Lokeman recently published at the Free Press. Mitt Romney very well may have a problem with the electorate because of his religion, but slandering him in such an uninformed and hateful way, because of his religion, is simply beyond acceptable.

I know that a long email isn't likely to be read, so please read the response to your article posted at http://www.romneyexperience.com/2007/08/14/ romney-too-religious-but-also-lacking-in-conviction/#more-63

I demand either an apology from The Free Press and the author, or a published explanation on why it is acceptable to slander and demean members of select religious minorities in this country, as you have done.

Respectfully, Daniel Ferguson
Austin, TX

Big Love???

I'm writing regarding Rhonda Lokeman's article, assumingly about Mitt Romney, titled "Big Love's Big Problem".  Although, I'm somewhat confused.  Governor Romney's name is mentioned a total of six times in the article, while the name of "Big Love" is mentioned eleven times.  Is Big Love a nickname for Romney? 

Will George Bush cancel the 2008 election

Dear Harvey:  You flight of imagination is only matched by those who said that the price of gasoline would be manipulated downwards to re-elect George Bush in the last election or that Osama Bin Laden would be “captured” just before the last election.  Good try, but you are just flapping your pen and lips.

Free speech

Dear All,

As a resident of Kent and citizen of Ohio I find this whole incident troubling.

A ticket for advertising on public property? How many tickets have been issued for people advertising yard/garage sales? signs posted for the monthly PWP Dance? signs for the Car Show? The Kent Harvest Festival? Art in the Park?

Just today I "witnessed" two grown males (yes, it took two of them- one to pound the stake and the other to attach the sign) place a sign at the corner of Stow and West Main Street that says "Car Show". Of course, they parked their vehicle at Logo's Bookstore so I was unable to get a license plate and contact the police to arrest these criminals. I feel bad for the city of Kent that these two men are at large, possibly posting more signs elsewhere.

I hope that I am not viewed as an accomplice to the crime since I merely witnessed it. In any event, I wanted to bring it to someones attention.

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