Just Another Tequila Sunrise

What a night. Finally got finished moving (upstairs no less), and got thrown out of a neighborhood bar. All in the day's work I guess. It's tough being me, and tough being free, but dammit I'm going to speak my mind.

The most disturbing thing to me is the idiotic cheerleading and gangbanging that goes on in the blogosphere. The piling on. It's very hard to communicate a point out here without triggering a string of partisan brushfires. I come out condemning terrorists who time barbarous attacks on the Red Cross for the beginning of Ramadan, and make a point that we should not back down, or let this tactic succeed, and I've suddenly become a supporter of President Bush, his war, and the whole of American foreign policy for the past century.

It's kind of funny actually. I honestly enjoy reading the trash talk and piling on. It's amazing the things that I say that I never say. Hell, even I'm against that guy freelixir sometimes, the way he's mischaracterized. Oh well. Like I said, it's tough being me.

Now if I could only figure out why Billmon endorsed and unendorsed Howard Dean strictly on the merits of his perceived opposition to Israel. Anyone? Is it that easy to get Billmon's vote? Does Billmon actually believe that Israel runs American foreign policy, and that this is the most important issue to base his vote on (ignoring for now the unelectability of an Israel-bashing platform)?

And, as a preemptive by the way, I share many of Billmon's sympathies in regards to our Israeli policy (ouch...I know this element of subtlety is very painful for some of you). It's going to take a little more from a candidate to get me on board though. Check that. A lot more. I suggest they start with electoral reform.

Banned By Billmon

Wow. That didn't take long. Not even Little Green Footballs managed to ban me for straying from the party line, and directly challenging the blog host, that fast.

It's hard to believe that as I was typing how blogs, in general, whether left or right, Republican or Democratic, rarely tolerate independent thinking or dissent, that Billmon was at that moment banning me!

In case you're wondering, I was typing that in a comment on Billmon's blog. Who would have guessed? Anyhow, I had a lot of respect for Billmon before today. We have a lot in common, and share many ideas. Perhaps he should have checked that out first.

Update: I challenge anyone to objectively read this thread over at Billmon's blog and explain the justification for banning me. Especially when I just made the point about how dissent is not tolerated. Talk about bad timing.

Digging Deeper Into My Last Post

I had a feeling that the tone and direction of my last post would be a bit dissonant, but I hardly expected to be called a "blithering idiot" and "brain dead" by a leading blogger (who will go unnamed).

As anyone who reads here knows, I have been a fierce opponent of the war, in the sense of how we justified it, and the crooked politics behind it, but my reaction to today's bombing of the Red Cross is not partisan, and is based upon reality, and where we stand today on the ground.

The sheer audacity and utter criminality of bombing the Red Cross is beyond defense, and goes without saying. For whatever cause or resistance. Such an act should not ba a rallying cry for the Islamic world, but a moment of reflection as they start Ramadan. Is that what they want to stand behind? The murder of those who are only in Iraq to help innocents who are suffering in a war zone? Targeting a clear and principled neutral party?

In my mind, in the face of these acts, and their timing, there should be no retreat, and no surrender. This should not be construed as a defense of Bush's policies, just a show of support for decency. I certainly don't hear many bloggers saying we should turn tail and go home. Especially in the face of these bombings. If not, what's the alternative to what I'm saying?

Any party or individual who does not see the evil in such a deed, in the bombing of the Red Cross, who fails to denounce it, and who actively opposes us, should meet their doom. I mean that. Whole-heartedly. For example, if Iran sees the wrong in bombing the Red Cross, they should say so. If they don't, they are suspect, and not worthy of relations with the free world and liberal civilization.

I can't exaggerate the extent of my offense and shock at the targeting of the Red Cross. In no way, shape, or form should such an act be justified in any way, including any signal or sign of retreat or weakness in response. Anything short of outright condemnation, at least in my mind, is irresponsibility and naivete, if not cowardice or malevolence.

And I repeat, this does not mean that I have forgotten the ills and misadventures of the Bush Administration. They are still clearly in view. Nor have I forgotten the blatant manipulation and corrupt justifications we used to initiate the war. Still, that is not salient for an attack on the Red Cross.

It's one thing to ridicule Bush for constantly overplaying how we are "winning" and "succeeding", and quite another to hint or assert that we are "losing" or "failing". We aren't. The damage is already done, we are on the ground in Iraq, degenerate forces including terrorists are on the scene, and the Iraqi people and prospect hang in the balance. We will succeed, one way or the other. We must.

And for the good of the world, we are. Really. We will not, and are not, being defeated. Would anyone actually advocate leaving the peoples of Iraq to these thugs? If so, please explain that foreign and security policy. I'd love to hear the whole vision and strategy.

Targeting The Red Cross

Today's attack on the Red Cross in Iraq marks a new low in warfare. Not even the most ardent defenders of Saddam Hussein can justify such actions, under any circumstances. It's clear that any such force, or conflagration of forces, which would attack and murder individuals seeking only to help the injured and suffering needs to be destroyed.

If these attackers believe that such an attack, along with those against U.S. allied forces, will cause a retreat, they are sadly mistaken. If anything, it points to an absolute necessity to stay the course, and root out every one of these evil individuals and disarm, imprison, or kill them.

No sympathy will come to the resistance of Iraq through such actions. Very little was forthcoming in non-Islamic lands to begin with, and now, with the latest outrage, much pressure will now rightfully come down on Islamic lands to turn their backs on these mercenaries as well.

Any party who does not speak out against such an attack on the Red Cross leaves itself in the crosshairs. Even as the Bush Administration has badly blown capitalizing on international sentiment in the wake of 9/11, by forcing this war in Iraq, so the various resisters and terrorists fighting in Iraq may ironically do the same, for their own cause, by bringing a reluctant and bickering world to common cause and realization of threats and enemies.

The world should not stand aside while the Red Cross is being targeted. No moral actor would do such a thing. If any act deserves global solidarity and combined aggression, this is the one. Despite any initial misgivings about Iraq, or hesitancy in getting involved after stating clear opposition to the bumbling Bush Administration, the pressure of the conflict has brought certain things to bear. Actions speak for themselves. All we need is to witness them, and we will learn much about the participants.

After the Red Cross bombing, it is not hard to see that this war is necessary, no matter how poorly initiated, or justified, in that those who actively resist it, with savagery, are clearly dictatorial and brutal thugs, and be they Saddam Hussein's supporters, Al Qaeda, or any other organization, failure to denounce this action signals complicity, or sympathy, and deserves a rightful and definitive response - defeat and annihilation.

(who would trust such an actor? in a world of devastating technological power?)

Dissonance, Columbus, And Democracy

We live in a dangerous world today. All over the globe, relations are falling apart, suspicions are growing, and arms are spread at virulent rates. Under these conditions, calls for security and rebellion, depending on which side of the equation you view yourself on, will only grow. This is the setting upon which I write today. That we have freedom today is a blessing, that we keep it in the future is largely dependent on how responsible we are in defense today.

Part of that defense is fostering and promoting democracy worldwide. The difficulty of this mission can best be seen in our own history. Christopher Columbus, by the standards of today, was a genocidal maniac who committed severe crimes against humanity. By the standards of his day, however, by which he in the end can only be judged, he cannot be treated as harshly. That was "the way it is" back then, and it didn't change for a long time after.

Here in America, the ignorance and brutality of our early history, as compared to our understandings today, highlights the difficult transition from tribal narcissism and hatreds. Our great Constitution itself is stained by references to individuals of dark complexion as being a fraction of human. We brutalized, murdered, and raped countless people with this particular skin complexion, and did it all the while trumping the greatness and inalienability of human rights.

Following Columbus' lead, we slaughtered and railroaded millions of native dwellers of the American continent. The eminent Ben Franklin himself saw the only solution to the "savages" problem in their inevitable extermination. America, the shining beacon of freedom, justice and liberalism, committed repeated and infamous "crimes against humanity". Why? In the pursuit of property and wealth, disguised in a beautific vision of "manifest destiny", but which in reality was less beautiful than barbaristic and stained with the blood and life of innocents.

We moved through those times, however, and proved that the presence of a conscience, both individual and national, has great power to move the minds and hearts of men. The originally enfranchised white men expanded the establishment, after great resistance, to women and to those of any skin complexion. This was never done without resistance and struggle. By the disenfranchised standing together, arm in arm, defeating fear in their hearts, and appealing to the conscience of their fellows, both similarly disenfranchised or enfranchised.

This is where we stand today, only having emerged into our own vision of freedom and justice for all in the last half-century. This stance is by no means bedrock either. There are those who would yearn to return to the "way it is" back in the good old days. Which brings us to dissonance. For we expect to bring freedom, justice, and democracy to all, for others, in a relatively short amount of time as part of critical security efforts, when it took us a few centuries to do it for ourselves. The standards have been raised worldwide, as the standards of free democracies have grown, but also as most of the world pretty much stayed in place, continuing to live in tribal communities and band together against "outsiders".

In this process, we can also see our own standards beginning to slide. We hold prisoners without trial or recognition in remote prisons and torture them. We proclaim this will continue indefinitely, with no clear end game. We pass laws, which were previously only the stuff of fiction and the conspiratorial imagination in popular consciousness, allowing the government to see any books either borrowed at the library or bought at the bookstore by any American. We have a leadership which is unparalleled in its homage and devotion to secrecy, and to its brash ambitions for power. We are surrendering gains made in transparency and accountability in past decades, rather than pushing to expand them, and seeing the erosion of the separation of powers in favor of an executive-favored pyramidal power structure of elite privilege, corruption, and deviance.

With all of this in mind, we need to be fair when stretching our view to the rest of the world. How their cultures and societies are structured, and what impediments stand between each unique culture or tribe and its fulfillment of destiny and homeland. In Iraq, for instance, you have a country, a political grouping, which has no basis in reality or affinity, only in history as established by a colonializing power. As in the collapse of Yugoslavia, which was only previously held together by the unique political force molded by Tito, the natural destiny of Iraq, unimpeded by any interfering outsider, would be to devolve into at least three states. By natural affinity.

That this is not even a plan on the table shows that the freedom and destiny of these peoples is not our concern. Instead, we are only worried about ourselves. Our security. Keeping Iraq together, as is, somehow helps our security, helps us, and with that conclusion in mind, we then seek to explain and persuade why it would be good for them too. This is the ideological and narcissistic version of the Bush Administration's abuse of the scientific process. Form conclusions first, based upon fear and suspicion, and then seek out evidence to confirm them. Ignore deviant information, condemn those who would promote this information, and when necessary manufacture the evidence you need to make it persuasive enough in the public arena.

This is selfishness of the highest order, and not self-defense by any sane measure. Only in the sober and rational analysis of the information at hand, tempered by emotional insight into the parties involved, and certainly not overwhelmed by emotion oneself, can the state of security be soundly assessed, and a course of defensive correction, where needed, implemented competently and with a measure of success and foreseeable closure.

Cognitive dissonance keeps us from seeing this. We are so blinded to ourselves, and what we're doing, that everything else plays off of that as a prop or foil. The people of Iraq, who are actually a number of peoples, who have no natural affinity for each other, deserve better. They deserve freedom and justice. Self-determination. Only they won't get that, and aren't getting it, because we are "determining" their future for them, based upon our own irrational security concerns. It is not about them. If you insist that it is, you are a damn fool. It is about us, and they are a prop in the great drama.

It's time to turn the great drama again back to the homeland. Back to the founding vision of America, and our continuing progress to realize it. We can help promote freedom and democracy around the globe, but only by doing so radically different than we do so today. In order to change strategies, we literally need to change the way we think about it, change our minds, and cleanse ourselves, once again, of the ignorance and errors of history.

The vision needs to be this. Maximum transparency and accountability, along with the freedom of information, as the bedrock for that particular power known as the "people". In regards to the separation of powers, there needs to be at least four, with the "people" being the core and root. This standard must be implemented here at home, rhetorically championed and won before our allies and other free democracies, and then taken to the rest of the world whether they're ready for it or not.

Again, these are dangerous days we live in. There is no time to waste. Weapons technology is only getting smaller and more powerful. With advances in genetic engineering, the risks only become greater. It's time that freedom and democracy went global, and that arm-in-arm we then surround and suffocate any oppressive elites who continue to impede the freedom and destiny of a people. Literally, that means we surround them and hold a gun to their head, as brutal as that may sound, while we choke them economically into submission. As we do this, the council of free nations allied will grow, and, as it grows, the threat will diminish, along with oppressive and brutal elites desperately holding onto power.

This can only be accomplished effectively, and in the name and aims of freedom and justice, with the requirement and guarantees of "power to the people", for constitutional protections of the freedom of information, and for full transparency and accountability implemented and protected by law. Otherwise, the trust that will be needed for this venture to succeed will dissipate, and fracture into suspicion and conspiracy, and we all will be less secure as a result.

For those who claim there is no liberal vision for security, you have your response. Compare this to what Dick Cheney has to say, and then ask yourself not only which is more appealing, which more "realist", and which more practical in action. The burden of civilization and humanity ought not to be carried on the shoulders of one nation. Sharing the burden, and gaining strength in numbers, is the saving strategy, and the one we've clearly been ignoring up to this point.

Addiction Is Not A Laughing Matter

Millions of Americans are addicted to psychoactive drugs, among other things. Today, we find out that Rush Limbaugh has a serious drug problem. Is it an addiction? Who knows. Often, to escape the clutches of the law, individuals will feign addiction in order to be treated with more kindness and compassion.

In regards to painkillers, it is very likely that Rush Limbaugh is an addict, whether or not he truly believes it. Perhaps more important would be his self-realization that he has a "problem", and whatever the nature of that problem, he needs to get help. For it is seriously impacting his life, and driving him to illegal behavior.

I've never liked Rush Limbaugh, the personality, and do not know the man. I disagree with much of his ranting, if not all of it. Let this episode be a lesson to him, and to his followers and listeners, that acting and responding with compassion is a good thing. That not being too strict with the law, in cases where one's capacity to make sound judgements is diminished by addiction, or other means, is a free decision and option for our society.

We have options. Rush has options. In a strick law-and-order state, there would be no escape hatch for law breakers through the claim of addiction. That there should be this escape hatch, in the sense of acknowledgement that intent is 3/4 of the law, and that addiction greatly affects the perception and intent of an individual, is obvious. To a compassionate heart. To an empathetic soul.

So let's hope this experience changes Rush for the better. Causes him and others like him to see that there are a lot of gray areas, and we need to adapt to them with flexibility and with heart, not just shows of reasoning and strength. Perhaps this episode will lead to an authentic outbreak of "compassionate conservatism". I would welcome it, as would the hundreds of thousands of drug offenders currently behind bars in America today.

Amending My "No More Recall" Statement From Last Night

Actually, I do not support eliminating the recall altogether. Overall, I think it's a great idea, and a necessary check-and-balance. With that said, the threshold for forcing the recall, in terms of the number of signatures needed, is too small. Too easy.

I'm going to do a little research, on the threshold as it stands today, the reasoning behind it back when the law was created, and the reality of today, and then report back on this. I'm leaning towards around 20-25% of voters in the prior election for the office in question, but I'm sort of shooting in the dark on those numbers at this point.

Toss The Recalls

It's time to do what's necessary to alter this law. Less than 10% of Californians should not be able to foist this kind of cost or effort on the state. There should not be another recall. The Democrats should give up the idea of turning around and recalling Arnold. Bring it in 2006, and in 2004, and spotlight the issues. And please get rid of this recall law.

Thoughts On A Schwarzenegger Victory

First, congratulations to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Though I don't think he deserves it, and that he benefited from lax reporting on issues surrounding him, the reality is that this happened, and he won. With that, good luck to the big guy.

I'd love to hear some more creative exit polls once in awhile though. Like how many voters, upon leaving the polls, were aware that Arnold had met with Ken Lay just days after the worst of our energy crisis. Further, how many of these voters even know that Enron gamed the market to make the energy crisis worse than it was. Or how many know that George W. Bush and Ken Lay are good friends.

Alas, these are film room misgivings, and there is no game next week. So be it. At least we can be assured of getting some federal support for a change. Finally. President Bush did exactly jack s@#t for us during the energy crisis, and has done nothing to help out the vast majority of states who are struggling in red ink and a failing economy right now.

My suspicion all along was that the federal help would come after the recall election, in hopes that Arnold would win, and thus could help shore up the Republican name in California during tough times. Careful what you wish for would be my only advice. The state is such a mess, along with the federal treasury because of Iraq and tax cuts, that the feds can do very little to help us now anyway. Regardless, here's to hoping that Arnold is a miracle worker, because the interests of this state come before partisan politics.

As for the election itself, the only mystery left is who will get the most votes - Gray Davis (NO) or Arnold Schwarzenegger (YES/ARNOLD). It's a dead heat as I post this.

If Arnold Wins...

Get ready to hear the California "break up" talk again. Arnold will only win, if he does, because of support from Southern California. If he becomes governor, this may be the rallying cry and momentum swing that the split-California crowd is looking for.

In other words, this recall is much more tumultous than anyone has yet imagined. It could lead directly to the end of California as we know it.

Why Can't Anyone Remember Anything?

Seems like we have an epidemic in today's society. Amongst our accountable and responsible leaders. They can't remember anything. Either they're unorganized, and keep losing their notes, or not taking them in the first place, or there's some kind of strange affliction going around. Call in Mulder and Scully, this is downright weird. Arnold can't remember seemingly anything, Condoleeza Rice little more, and the list of names and the lost just goes on.

Even worse, when reminded, we hear the lamest excuses and rationalizations from them. Vague denials and obnoxious justifications. Those things that haven't been forgotten, unfortunately, but have come out contrary than expected, are even more strangely spun as if they are in fact coming out as expected. Weird. Like David Kay's sleuthing around Iraq, which essentially found nothing, but is even now being spun as all the justification needed by the Administration.

Good grief. Fire all of them. Not a single liar should be defended further. The world only gazes upon us with disdain, and silent pity. To our friends and allies around the world, I can only say one thing - I'm sorry.

Arnold, Enron, And Getting Lay'd

I'm unclear why the mainstream media seem to be completely ignoring Arnold's meetings with Ken Lay of Enron, only a matter of days after the energy crisis here in California. Surely this deserves more scrutiny, if not at least some followup questions after Arnold claims to have forgotten the meeting. Ken Lay and Enron screwed us, and it's damn near certain that they gamed the market to make things worse.

Sure, the boorish behavior towards women is newsworthy, and not to be ignored. But it seems that the scrutiny ends there. It's off the radar that fellow black bodybuilders have painted Arnold as a white supremacist. At least these charges could be explored and dismissed. Along with them, Arnold makes up stories about gang banging a "black" girl. If he made up the story, why would he be so specific in the details, and especially about her race? (He didn't make up the story people...wake up)

Most important of all, the scrutiny needs to be on the energy crisis. Its timing, just after the election of George W. Bush, who did absolutely nothing to help us. Then, immediately after, a meeting led by Ken Lay, George W. Bush's close friend, to address the energy crisis. Only we didn't know at the time that Lay's company, Enron, had gamed the market into and during the energy crisis.

Now, after all of that, no scrutiny against Arnold. About this meeting. And to add sharp insult to injury, the people running Arnold's campaign, who is running as an outsider, are the same crowd who were surrounding former governor Pete Wilson, who not only raised taxes during his tenure to deal with tough budgets, but also came up with the crazy energy deregulation scheme in the first place.

Yes, Arnold needs to answer questions about the energy crisis, his opinion of Wilson's deregulation scheme (which incidentally was practically bought by PG&E and Edison), his meeting with the Ken Lay, chairman of Enron, who screwed us, and his idiotic championing of the Hummer, which will never be an energy-conservation-friendly vehicle.

Arnold is a sign of much that's wrong in California today. True lack of vision, and inability to see the big picture.

Forgetting Man Remember

Try your hardest Arnold. Breathe deep, and pore through the eminent caverns of your mind. The epic recesses. You can do it. Leader of men, conqueror of women. Remember. Those fateful times when the lights went out. When they turned off the great machine.

You met with Ken Lay, chairman of Enron, who we have come to learn was hustling us into and during the crisis. What did you guys talk about? Remember. Now is your chance to be a true champion of Californians. Expose the subject and content of the meeting. Surely you didn't know that Lay was double-talking you, and gaming the system while claiming to have a fix for it. Remember. Or were you too focused on Lay's assistant's butt to take notes?

Seriously Arnold, it's time you come clean. Or we will ride you like a broken pony in heat, have our way with you, and give you a taste of being the big leader only to take it away from you in another recall. It's time you recall. Total recall. Remember. What were you, or they, scheming back in those dark days?

Inquiring minds want to know.

The Elite Forgetting Man

In meditating on the entire candidacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and all the reasons why any sane individual would avoid putting him in a top leadership position, the most disturbing thing to me is Arnold's views of the common man (let's not even broach the common woman).

These views are unforgivable, and not American. Unlike Arnold, this site promotes a vision of grassroots democracy, real democracy, transparency and accountability, the freedom of information. Not as a point of contention, but as a departure. A root. Freedom Century champions these as values, as following from a literal and direct read of the Declaration of Independence. It's no joke.

So it deeply offends me to hear Arnold discussing how most people are followers, and desiring a powerful leader "in the know" who will instruct them what to do. This vision of elite governance and information "privilege" greatly disturbs me. It also doesn't wash with a professed championing of education and children. For if most people truly are like this, why would you even bother spending so much money to educate and raise them?

Indeed, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the very picture of elite breakdown governance that plagues us today. He has money, and fame, and with that has become the favorite. That's it. He has no compelling policy suggestions, and claims to be an outsider at the same time he has resurrected the staff of former (and horrible) governor Pete Wilson.

Ignoring the merits of the recall, there is no excuse for voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger as our governor. Unless you wish only to be led, by a charismatic figure, into unknown and uncharted waters. I don't. At the most essential core of my being, and radiating through every muscle fiber and tissue, I feel a deep disdain for Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is not a champion of the people. As his own words betray, he just wishes to be the charismatic elite leader who tells them how it is, and what to do.

The Final Desperate Strategy

The Bush Administration, and the Right wing ideologues who support them, have one last and desperate strategy in the face of the Valerie Plame affair. War against the CIA. Essentially, for political survival they need to set up an all-out conflict with the CIA. Why? In order to keep their ideologuees in camp. Breaking ranks is a definitely possibility for many, left without any coherent reasons left, who have been zealously defending the administration.

I don't call the strategy desperate for nothing. It won't work. It might placate and keep the wing nuts in camp for awhile, and even get a prominent defender in the Wall Street Journal, but it reeks of imminent failure. The one, last grand strategy to explain all the failures of the Bush Administration since September 11, except the economy of course.

"We weren't able to respond adequately, and on a timely basis, or to prevent the terrorist attacks on September 11, because of the CIA! Their failures! They should have had Predators in the skies shooting down commercial airliners like any competent modern intelligence agency!"

(The FBI is blameless.)

"We were forced to out Valerie Plame, a deep undercover CIA agent in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the very crux of the war on terrorism, because her liberal turncoat husband was sent by the CIA to debunk our war justifications, which later forced us to admit that the justifications were anything but, and not built upon evidence!"

(We still believe the case is good, if totally unproven.)

"We can't find the Saddam's WMD because all the places that the CIA clearly told Donald Rumsfeld there were WMD, there either wasn't, or the CIA killer predator drones didn't take out looters who spirited the WMD out to the black market and inevitably Al Qaeda as the highest and most interested bidder."

(The flypaper strategy took into account that we didn't secure suspected WMD sites in Iraq during the ground action. Brilliant!)

Again, this is a desperate strategy, to go to war against the CIA and its valuable and respected agents, and will only work on a very short-term basis, and intellectually on a very limited ideological basis, for the true followers and suffering defenders of the Right and Administration. It attempts to putty up the leaks on the ship, so that it doesn't sink while other remedies are explored. It won't last.

A clear federal crime, not to mention serious national security lapse, was committed with the exposure of Valerie Plame. Not really for revenge, but to defend a version of untruth. Or lies. An ill justification (to put it friendly). A woman charged by our nation to monitor and track weapons of mass destruction, has been wantonly exposed along with all of her contacts and operations. Keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the wrong hands is the very crux and great challenge of the war against terror, as weapons technology continues to evolve smaller and more powerful. What the hell are we doing?

All of this was seemingly condoned and even gloated over by Karl Rove, the so-called mastermind behind the Right wing political apparatus. Whether he knew or not about Plame's true status, somebody should have, and put a stop to it. When it first started going public, back in the summer, at least then something should have been done about it. No action was taken.

There is only one real solution left. The perpetrators need to be discovered and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and articles of impeachment against President Bush need to be considered. Unless Bush and the administration come clean, end their war against the CIA and their valuable agents and operations, and stop the political madness which has so greatly weakened and divided us.

(A little humility can go a long way.)

Forgetting Man Fiction

Arnold Schwarzenegger says he made up the story about the "gang sex" in the gym. Perhaps. In light of accusations by former black bodybuilders that Arnold acted in a racist fashion, I then have only one question:

When he made up the story, why did he specifically say the woman "gang banged" was black?

Just wondering...