Pledge, DISCLOSE and Assassinate! | The Source Weekly - Bend, Oregon

Pledge, DISCLOSE and Assassinate!


The author is reporting from a city infested by mutant monsters. Not another lame zombie or vampire flick, but New York City under siege by bedbugs.

Remember 1994? A half-million slaughtered in Rwanda, Nancy Kerrigan's knee clubbed to help Tonya Harding, O.J. "maybe" killing his wife and lover, Richard Nixon mercifully dying, and a guy who left his wife on her deathbed for a better offer named Newt Gingrich announcing something called "Contract With America." That contract had eight key policy points, and helped Republicans win the midterm elections.


Fast-forward 16 years and another midterm election to "A Pledge to America." Released last week by Republicans, "Cancel all unspent stimulus money" ($258 billion or so) and "Repeal Obama's health care bill" (and replace it with Republican proposals) are some highlights of this rambling 45-page document (graphs included, because voters likes pictures). It went over like a fart on a first date, and was subtitled "a new governing agenda built on THE PRIORITIES OF OUR NATION, THE PRINCIPLES WE STAND FOR & AMERICA'S FOUNDING VALUES" (voters also like capital letters). In case Republican leaders forgot, our "FOUNDING VALUES" included slavery, incest, and slaughtering Native Americans.

Not so boldly declared are bans on federal funding for abortion and "common sense" spending on a miracle missile defense shield (long ago debunked as another Reagan myth). Even Minority Leader John "I'm Tan" Boehner had trouble explaining his party's latest pledge: "Listen, when Republicans were in charge of Congress, we made our fair share of mistakes." Umm, yeah... .

Obama has his own problems: Chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel is now a made man, leaving the White House to run for mayor of Chicago; 1 in 7 Americans live in poverty; and a CNN poll shows Obama's approval numbers at a new low of 42%. Add to that Republicans blocking a bill (wow, what a surprise) that would toughen campaign finance laws and Obama's feeling like Clinton, pre-Lewinsky.

If you don't recall, the Supreme Court overturned limits on corporate spending during elections earlier this year, citing their "freedom of speech." Since we've seen shadow groups pumping money into elections under aliases like "Crossroads GPS" (a front for Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove with a $50 million war chest) and "Tea Party Patriots" (which received $1 million last week, and won't say from whom) to assassinate incumbents. The "DISCLOSE" Act was intended to fix this mess, but the Republican Party has kept the bill in committee and Democrats unable to muster enough testes to end debate and vote. Senator Chuck "Are The Cameras On?" Schumer explained, "We do not want to chill speech. We merely want the American public to have details about who is speaking."

Obviously our troops are very busy, with the handover of Iraq and battling the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and only they know where else, shhh it's secret). At least 12 U.S. soldiers have been charged so far this year with killing innocent, unarmed Afghans and trying to cover it up, and Spc. Neftaly Platero is now being held for shooting two fellow soldiers and wounding another in Iraq last Friday.

Oh, and seven former Air Force personnel announced that UFOs are eyeing our nuclear arsenal, with Captain Robert Salas reporting an incident at a Montana missile silos in 1967, "Our missiles began going into what's called a no-go condition, or unlaunchable. Essentially, they were disabled while this object was still hovering over our site."

Given such threats, it's rather dubious that the Department of Defense is also busy burning books. Operation Dark Heart by Lt. Col Anthony Shaffer is now a bestseller, thanks to 10,000 copies of his memoir about leading black ops missions in Afghanistan being bought with our tax dollars to be destroyed. "He [Shaffer] did clear it with Army Reserve, but not with the larger Army and with Department of Defense," somewhat explained spokesman Col. David Lapan earlier this month. Lt. Col Shaffer seems rather bemused by his sudden bestseller: "Someone buying 10,000 books to suppress a story in this digital age is ludicrous."

That's almost as ironical as the owner of Segway Inc., James Heselden, being killed this weekend when his Segway veered off a 30-foot cliff in England. Stupid funny, like our "Christian Nation" flunking a recent 32-question quiz on religious knowledge, with 3,400 Americans getting less than 50% right - And atheists doing better than evangelicals.

Holy hypocrites! Like homophobic televangelist Eddie Long at New Birth Baptist Church in Atlanta having four men accuse the powerful leader of 25,000 faithful of coercing them into doing some very gay stuff. "I've been accused, I'm under attack," pronounced Long from the altar on Sunday before dropping the mic and running for cover from God's wrath.

In addition to deep faith, black people share only one other thing with Republicans: A singular fear of fabulously gay men. They are highly contagious, which explains why Republicans voted "No!" (as usual) to ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" last week. Democrats attached the policy ban to a $726-billion defense bill, and some groups are very upset.

Though not nearly irate enough: A $726 billion defense bill? Where's my bazooka?

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