It generally happens in world history that change comes to rural areas later than it comes to cities and that, no matter where you are on the planet, rural areas are more conservative politically, which is saying the same thing, really, since conservative means to want to hold on to what was good in the past, or not to change too much. Whether you are talking about rural Pakistan, or rural Russia, or rural Wyoming, the people who live--and are separated from each other by fields and forests --are likely to hold tight to traditional values and be suspicious of change.

 That could be good, of course, but the bad side is that rural areas are also more likely to resist the mingling of races that comes with commerce and cities, or the rise of women's rights, or mixture of social classes, or experimentation with education and health care, or, in fact any other form of government intervention to assist those who are in trouble.  

Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have been speaking optimistically about how Republicans will solidly triumph in the upcoming November 2010 elections.  

Boehner's speech before the first of the historic three House votes on Obama's health care legislation reveals the shape of the party's strategy.  Based on the ground it is staking out this is truly the Republican-Tea Bag Party with Rush Limbaugh standing as its media role model and titular head.

The strident moans of Boehner about his party being overlooked in the process along with seeking to serve the public will in opposing a bill it opposes constitutes rank hypocrisy.

Democratic liberals in New York often ran as members of the Democratic-Liberal Party while Hubert Humphrey and other Minnesota progressives ran as Democratic-Farm Labor Party candidates.  Now it is time to hyphenate a national organization as the Republican-Tea Bag Party.

How truly pathetic it is when House Minority Leader John Boehner of what was once called "The Party of Lincoln" addresses an enraged Tea Bag protest group at our nation's Capitol.

As stated various times about the dangerous roots of the Tea Baggers and their historical antecedents, they showed their true colors in a way that would have caused Abraham Lincoln to feel a sharp wave of revulsion.  

Lincoln had the Know Nothings to deal with in his day.  The Tea Baggers are the successors of the Know Nothings as well as the Liberty League, the McCarthy-Nixon smear brigade, and the John Birch Society.

At the 1964 Republican Convention in San Francisco the wild-eyed John Birch Society element was so strong that African American delegates were terrorized on the floor of the Cow Palace while one was actually set ablaze.

It was a different era and a different style of leadership, occasioned by a Great Depression paradigm shift.

This was when FDR came to power with a mandate for change.  We had a strong grassroots union movement that helped forge the way and the progressive coalition was gradually strengthened under Roosevelt's New Deal leadership.

This was before the grand emphasis of focus groups and those polite panel discussions on places like CNN that the mainstream media fobs off as representative democracy in action.

Very importantly, this was before the lobbyists held a choke hold on the democratic system that it was never compelled to release through remedial campaign reform legislation.  

Newt Gingrich and John Boehner, there are many of us who see through your recent political snake dance.

Here you are expressing shock that Nancy Pelosi could actually suggest that the CIA would veer from the truth!  You have both said that such a disgraceful act should bar her from serving as Speaker of the House.

Ah, and how touching it was, Republican Minority Leader Boehner, for you in your outrage to say that the CIA had no reason to lie.

All you needed, Newt and John, to make your Washington carnival complete was a conga line led by you to the accompaniment of Shirley Temple singing "The Good Ship Lollipop."

Harry Truman in a "bipartisan" moment with Lauren Bacall, a staunch liberal Democrat. This is about as "bipartisan as Harry got."

Last week was exhilarating for Democrats and, judging by the international media, for people all over the planet who have suffered for nearly a decade from the misguided and often criminal policies of George Bush and his terribly inept administration.

The swearing in of Barack Obama and the departure of the Connecticut Cowboy from our public affairs was something long anticipated, and, after our long dark winter, as welcome as the return of springtime and birdsong, at least in these quarters.

"Change it or lose it" is the operative phrase regarding planet earth.  If dramatic changes are not made to combat the severe impact on global warming international authority is in broad agreement that the response will be calamitous.

Bob Herbert of the New York Times in a luminously scathing critique of the Bush years on appropriately the last day of 2008, the final year of Bush's shameful custodianship, that it is not enough to let him pass quietly from the Washington scene.  Herbert stated that loud demonstrations outside the White House replete with bullhorns would be appropriate.

Bush and Cheney have marched in unfailing lockstep with the most reactionary elements of a ruthless corporate establishment bolstered by an unrelenting New World Order and full speed profits ahead and damn the consequences entities such as Halliburton, the Carlyle Group and Kissinger and Associates.

Not only has war been perpetrated on a tissue of lies predicated on non-existent weapons of mass destruction; not only has torture been meted out with crass and destructive indifference at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, replete with waterboarding; the savagery of a global profit motive bereft of conscience has challenged survival of the planet.

John Boehner holding a portrait of the late Anna Nicole Smith for reporters assembled at the House of Representatives


Washington, DC (UPSI) - A tearful House Minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) yesterday pledged to reporters that he intended to end what he called a "destructive partisan bickering" over the Iraq War by the Democrats and return the business of the house to issues that the majority of Americans find important. He pledged to adopt the cause of Anna Nicole Smith, the controversial recently deceased reality TV star, and bring binding resolutions and legislation to the floor of the house designed to protect the average American from the exploitation the late Smith and her orphaned daughter have endured. "We will refocus and reunite the Republican Party around the family values that Americans have entrusted to our stewardship," stated Boehner.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio led the way once more in the latest Bush team effort to twist the facts concerning the Iraq War.  The reason for this steady effort is that they know, even George W. himself with his limited knowledge and perspective, that relating directly to the facts would destroy their position.

Here is the latest zero hour panic rhetoric from John Boehner as quoted in a February 14 Washington Post story by Jonathan Weisman:

"We are engaged in a global war now for our very way of life.  And every drop of blood that's been spilled in defense of liberty and freedom from the American Revolution to this very moment is for nothing if we're unwilling to stand up and fight this threat."

Boehner's rhetoric is so twisted that it appears to have been delivered in the expectation that a majority of Americans at this critical stage can be manipulated as easily as the hypnotized dittoheads of Rush Limbaugh or the Fox zombies of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

The 110th congress has yet to convene but Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has already lowered the hammer, given the opposition their walking papers, and outlined the plan to pound through the Democrats '100 Hour' agenda.

Speaker Pelosi said House Republicans will "be given only one chance to amend or debate a plan to curb oil and gas subsidies and other Democratic priorities." Legislation "cutting subsidies to oil and gas producers is one of Democrats' top six priorities for their first 100 hours in power. Pelosi said Thursday that the oil and gas legislation along with bills cutting student loan interest rates and requiring the government to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare would not go through the normal legislative process."

And for those of you who might find outrage in Speaker Pelosi's decision to forego 'normal legislative process' I can only say that Republicans set the precedent for creative use of majority power to castrate the minority opposition. So if you don't like it, too damn bad. Now is not the time to roll over to the deposed dictators and share warm fuzzies.

Via DailyKos, we have the latest on the Foley-Reynolds-Hastert-Boeh ner-Shimkus-Alexander-Page Scandal from the subscription-only email newsletter Evans-Novak Political Report:

1. Will the Foley affair affect individual Republican members of Congress and Republican challengers? The immediate answer is that it already has. The President's aggressive campaign on national security and terrorism was a benefit to Republicans. Its sudden termination because of the Foley affair is a negative. The national conversation has already changed, blunting all the momentum Republicans were supposed to have nationally as Congress adjourned and the October campaign season began. Instead of discussing terrorism, Republican House leaders are defending themselves against charges that they covered up Foley's activities. The more complicated answer follows further below.

2. Blunted momentum is only the beginning of the GOP's problems. As of this writing, there does not appear to be any smoking gun suggesting a cover-up of illegal activity, but things still look bad simply because House Republican leaders did know something, and the public will be unhappy with the fact that they did not cut Foley loose immediately, even though they had no evidence of illegal activity.
The fact is, Foley was reluctant to run for re-election because of pressure over his homosexuality. He was reportedly considering two private-sector jobs already, after the White House had panned him as a Florida Senate candidate, reasoning that he could not win statewide. But National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) talked a reluctant Foley into staying. Naturally, Reynolds, as the campaign chairman, wants all incumbents to stay in the House and to minimize open seats. Foley filed as a candidate in Florida on May 8 of this year, after Reynolds and other Republican leaders had been made aware of the e-mails by the page's congressional sponsor, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), in April. It would have been a good time to ease Foley out, because his district is solidly Republican enough that another candidate could have carried it easily.