Politics and telling it like it is…the summary, whew!

The ‘sweet pea monologues’ final day…hasn’t this week’s entries been eye opening? …and not only for ‘Bill Clinton’ : ) as usual, my words in bold italics…

A few of you privately stated it was long, too long, yes, I know, 1000+ word blog entries a no-no (usually) and I’m sorry about that but I just did not see any other way to divide the info effectively. I didn’t mind reading the entirety of it 4x’s so I really did not perceive it to be that long, so again, my apologies…

To honor that sentiment though, I will ’summarize’ the past 3 days and this last day…

* Lawyers have gotten a bad rap, handed down by repubs to give the perception that little people can’t and won’t win or even have their day in court.
* Dems and Repubs – both sides have signs of corruption it just shows up a bit differently, and by all accounts here at least Dems are more altruistic and have some genuine concern for the average Joe/Jane, Repubs are rich white males who only want more, more, more and don’t concern themselves with who suffers for them to get it.
* READ the consitution, especially the checks and balances the 3 branches provide, re: the supreme court justices, they shouldn’t be legistlating ‘moral values’ – who would you have in charge of my/your moral values, values of the various cultures represented in the US population?
* one of the reasons this country was established under laws was to separate the church and state. I agree in theory, anonz, but the Christian right carries a lot of hefty clout, what to do?

Way over simplified I know, sweet pea, but if you have 2 better sentence/paragraphs please share.

I left this one paragraph as is – it’s important, not that all others weren’t, I’m just concerned about attention spans here, that’s all : )

The “spirit of enterprise” that you mention has been stifled by the deregulation that has allowed the dishonest corporations and criminals to gain a huge advantage over the honest business man. Your kind has forced them to look the other way at corruption, even to join in to survive. You and your-make-money-at-any-cost kind have poisoned the well of American entrepreneurialism with your political cronyism, no bid contracts, oligopolies, price manipulations, tax relief for the rich and big corporations, labor abuses, and deprivation of affordable health care for the people. You tell it…

You’re right that most people need lawyers to sue for their rights and bring to light the government’s abuse of their basic rights/needs. “Hard work” will afford the people nothing as long as the crooks can continue to manipulate the price of the goods and services that every American works so hard for. He just ends up working to give his earnings back to the corporation that gave it to him. I’ve been saying this for some time, just wait till I shred that subject soon, it’s a vicious cycle for average Jane/Joe’s.

Bill, you did get one quote right. “more power will only make our problems worse.” If the American people give the Republican party more power, this country will belong to the highest bidder. Yes, I agree, so please, don’t do it…any of you…

It seems you’ve all gone a bit mute over the political rant – mulling it all over? Or does it feel over your head, over the top, or over the limits of what you can stand from such a powerful party?

I am going to switch to a lighter topic on Sat, you know, just bc, and why not we’ll heading into the weekend…anonz, thanks for letting me use your words and for the week off, hahaha…

Feel free to comment and/or leave questions for me, anonz, or Bill Clinton, I’m sure he’s watching, maybe we can get him to come out and play again. c’mon BC, pretty please : )

Politics and telling like it is…day two…

Day two of the ‘sweet pea monologues,’ let’s let the good times roll, shall we?

…just for the heck of it, I’m going to throw in my two cents in here and there, cuz, you know, I can : ) my words in bold italics… oh yeah, FYI…the AH and the bon bon line yesterday, that’s Alexander Hamilton he’s referring to, sorry, I probably should’ve added that in parens.

Anonz starts in on ‘Bill Clinton’ with…the Dem’s…

‘…So lets examine these named people you have put before us as an example of “good and evil.”

1. Barack Obama - The more you argue against this guy the more likely I am to vote for him. This is a guy who graduated from Harvard Law at the top of his class, yet he went to work for peanuts. I know that he is black but, even a black lawyer with those credentials could command a hefty salary. — Can you name a Republican who didn’t use every opportunity and every connection he had to maximize his profit potential? Go ahead name one? (aargh part of me wants to punish you for saying ‘even a black lawyer’ but I’m going to chalk it up to the part of you that’s still metamorphisizing) oh and I don’t know a republican with serious cash flow that hasn’t been in the ‘good old boy’ system, I grew up in CT and had interaction with mils/bils where they’re a dime a doz in Southport and Westport not to mention Greenwich, all of Fairfield county really..some serious old money repugs live there.

2. Hillary Clinton - As a lawyer she used her position to put up a pretty good fight for the people she felt were not getting a fair shake. I may not have agreed with her opinions, but I certainly can not say her intentions were not genuine.— Most Republicans that opposed her did not do it for philosophical reasons, we did it to make money; either for ourselves or for those that contributed to our campaigns or for those who provided some benefit to our family, friends or associates. My point is we who apposed her had no altruism to fall back on.

3. Bill Clinton - Say what you will about him as a lawyer, or human being, but you can not take away from him the fact that he did what Republican presidents have only promised. He balanced the budget and left the next president a trillion dollar surplus.

4. John *and Elizabeth* Edwards are lawyers but again they use their lawyering skills to fight for what they perceive are rights of the ordinary man. You can hardly balance this against the Republicans that are fighting them to protect the rights of the wealthy and the big corporations. They fight for the environment while the Republican party would trash the environment for a few dollars more for their corporate donors. All of which have huge law firms on retainer. (thus the term ‘repugnican’ it’s so fitting, don’t you agree?) hey, ‘John Edwards and his wife,’ what the…, she doesn’t have a name, just some permanent arm candy status? C’mon, babe, don’t be like that, we’re talking about an educated woman here, give that the credit it deserves.

The Majority leader in the house is a lawyer. Perhaps had the previous Republican majority been a lawyer, he would not have been caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

Before I continue, I wish to make it clear that there are an abundant of crooked Democrats too. And I feel safe in saying if the independents get a good foot hold in either house before the corruption is cleared up, a good many of them will succumb to the temptation of all that PAC money floating around. (cash makes people weird in general, Indie’s can fall prey same as anyone else, it’s tough not to sell out, you have to be a woman/man of honor/principle, not everyone is, especially when a large check is involved)

OK, that’s a wrap…for today…

Commenter: ‘Bill Clinton’ are you out there or has anonz sent you into your ‘Men are from Mars’ hibernation cave? If you’d like to give a rebuttal, feel free to come out…the floor is open…

Comment here or @ Lmdevin@att.net or Lillian@lilliandevin.com – Ciao!

…And a friend of mine wants to know, are any of you commenters the stalker type, she’s just concerned for my well being. I laughed and assured her you are all harmless, am I right?!

Politics and telling it like it is…

As promised today is the beginning of the ‘sweet pea monologues’…sweet pea is my personal moniker for Anonz, a commenter here and at MM’s blog…

If you haven’t yet read this past Saturday’s post along with July 3rd’s where the whole dialogue started, you may want to now just for reference and/or context…go ahead…then, come back and read this.

I’m taking the day off bc Anonz gives such good rant, there’s just nothing to add and after reading it 3x’s I could not find a thing to challenge him on, yeah, he’s that good ; )

That’s only for today though…I found a few things to challenge you on tomorrow : ) I’m glad I proofread this whole rant one more time.

Ok, Anonz, hear yourself roar…

‘…You argue that the Democratic party is bad because they are made up of lawyers. Have you forgotten that the framers of the Constitution devised it so that lawyers would be able to insure that every citizen had his day in court?

Only those who would wish to supplant the citizen’s right to his day in court with the wisdom of some elite who knows best would seek to taint the lawyer with the broad brush of evil. Just who would you suggest represent you if you had to go to court? George Bush, Chaney, Delaney? That would be a quick loss.

It is the lawyer who the Republican party has to separate from the ordinary citizen to put him in a position of depending on the government for his protection, a government that the framers did not trust to keep the faith with the people. So they sought to create three separate branches with checks and balances on each other.

If those of you who parrot the party line (regardless of the party) would take the time to read the Constitution you would learn first hand that it is first and foremost a contract between a government and it’s people (thanks AH for than little bon bon). A contract in which the people agree to accept the laws its elected representatives pass on their behalf and the representatives agree not to violate their basic bill of rights to include the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as long as it does not violate the same rights of others.

Lawyers help both sides to understand those rights and to pursue a legal remedy should one or the other believe that the contract has been breeched. Otherwise we would have a country of anarchy.
The Republican party con is to alienate the people from their source of restitution. So those in power work to remove the little man from access to anyone or anything that would enable the little man to contest that power. They do it by trying to convince him that the person or thing that is there to help him is in reality a bad thing.

Thus at every opportunity those in power seek to limit the ordinary citizen’s relationship with his lawyer. They try to make it prohibitive economically for a lawyer to take a malpractice case, a civil rights case, a product liability case, a government abuse of office case, etc, etc. They do this by limiting the amount of award a lawyer can get, by limiting the punitive damages that can be levied against the offending corporation, limiting the share of the award the lawyer can bargain with his client for, etc, etc, etc.

On the surface these may seem like much needed laws to prevent the “big bad” lawyers from taking advantage of their clients. But they are designed to make it impossible for a plaintiff to get good legal representation. Ergo, only the powerful, who can afford good lawyers will win in a court of law. Just because the poor can not afford a lawyer doesn’t mean their is no court for the matter to be litigated in. 100% of nothing is still nothing, if you can not afford a lawyer.

The same people who argue that the free market should determine by supply and demand what the price should be are so quick to limit the ability of lawyers and their clients to negotiate their rates. Why because it is a ruse to make it non economical for a lawyer who in most cases has to wait years to solve a case to take the little guy’s case. The Republican party does this while assuring the little guy that they are doing it to protect him from the “big bad” lawyer.

Now let’s look at the guy’s who are not lawyers. How come the first thing they do when they take office is to go to the lawyers in the Justice Department and appoint lawyers that will give them the authority to fuck the American people?

The Constitution has been eroded so badly as to be almost ineffective in protecting the average American citizen from an abusive federal and state government. What powers they have not taken for themselves they have given to the corporations; a body of declared greed(a corporation’s charter says if is formed to maximize its members profits) with no citizen oversight.

I’ll leave you to think about all that.

Tomorrow we’ll visit ‘Bill Clinton’s’ list of people, Tuesday it’s the Dem’s, Wednesday it’ll be the Republicans and by Thursday I’ll be reading hundreds of e-mail’s and wishing for more days off : )

Not true, I love this banter, political or otherwise, and your e-mail’s make my day, most of the time, although Fiesole, I know now you’re an Italian male, but you better simmah down…! Besides, since when do guys like you care whether a woman has brains, too??? Hahaha…
You know I’m just goofing, you can take a joke, si o no? Can I just say grazie??

Comment as you wish, here or Lmdevin@att.net or Lillian@lilliandevin.com – Ciao!

**from xplg gmppalbn, yeah, crxnf and uztnfsg to you, too ; o)

Repeating Mr ‘Bill Clinton’s’ remarks…just an FYI…

On July 3rd I ran an entry that was titled: ‘Your voting 2008, Madaline’s views, and yours?’ I’m running one of the comments today, it was written by ‘Bill Clinton’ (code for republican).

I wanted you to read the entry and this comment first so you have context for the ’sweet pea monologues’ series starting on Monday…

‘Sweet pea’ would be Anonz and he responds to Mr. Bill thoroughly, and bc I want you to enjoy the whole political diatribe in its entirety I wanted you to be able to read BC’s comments first, just so you know where anonz is coming from later next week.

Get ready for some info you all should (and maybe do) know, but the depth of it all is just too good for me to keep to myself : ) thanks anonz for your OK to use your words next week…I did not ask BC for his permission, he’s been kind of quietly absorbing your words I suspect.

…July 3, 2008 at 3:11 am – BC said: The Democrat Party has become the Lawyers’ Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer, and so is his wife, Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: The Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.

The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and, Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.

Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.

The Lawyers’ Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers’ Party, grow.

Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.

This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.

Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming.

Some Americans become ‘adverse parties’ of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.

Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.

We cannot expect the Lawyers’ Party to provide real change, real reform, or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.

Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

Commenters, if you have your own thoughts on this I’d be happy to add them in next week, but perhaps I will hold off on responding until the series is finito so don’t think I’m ignoring you. Are we all good with that?

As per usual, Lmdevin@att.net and/or Lillian@lilliandevin.com, if you would – please use one or the other, thank you!

Have a great weekend and have your thinking caps ready on Monday…Anonz will blow you away ; )

Politics with AnonZ-ymous…starring Ed and my silent readers

I was going to do a point for point political thing prompted by Ed and Anonz comments (entry: My intake interview with Obama) but that’d be too long, and  Anonz eloquently handled that anyway. I agree with 90% of Anonz’s nicely stylized anecdotal coverage so I’ll just state the ones I truly loved and the 10% I ‘take issue with’ and Anonz, babe, you feel free to anecdotally take me out, you’re very good at doing that nicely : ) 

I’ll bold my words from here if I’ve cut and pasted Ed/Anonz statements…

Love this one ‘…How do you explain calling the democrats the spenders when Bush not only spent the entire trillion dollars but he has us trillions of dollars in debt. If this is your idea of fiscal conservatism, you need some serious math lessons…’  I use a calculator always but you don’t even need one for this…

Anonz, not so sure I agree on the bi-lingual education thing. It’s mostly a logistics and execution issue though, a bi-lingual format means more training for teachers, etc…that being said it wouldn’t hurt all American kids to know a second language.  We are such a monolinguistic nation. Now, hmmm, not sure whether I take issue with that anymore or not, let me think on that…

Do you really believe Obama can change that business as usual thing in Washington??

Love this also: I am soooo with you on the public education system, it could be reformed easily and every kid deserves a good education, it truly would not take much to fix this. You’re in a distinctly superior position to make some noise about this with your political connections. I have no political connections.

I mentioned this on M’s blog but really LOVE this one 7. No abortions can be labeled immoral. ****** When Ed and I can give birth to babies we will revisit this statement. This was precious, seriously, coming from a man, right freakin’ on, babe.

High schools should make condoms available to students and teach them how to use them. ****** Another hot button we Republicans use to “wake up” our constituents. Nothing gets republicans madder than teaching their girls how not to get pregnant. We want them to suffer for their sins. yes, all that moralizing is just plain annoying…Did I ever tell you the story about the right to lifer in the ‘Port’, that’s the town I grew up in in CT, I’ll tell it another day, what an unintentional ruckus I caused!

Racial profiling for terrorists is wrong — a white American…Saudi young male. ***Let me ask did we racially profile white males…. Zen Lill ask Ed privately via email why he thinks that didn’t happen. Sweet pea, there’s a lot of favors I’d do for you but do I have to do this one?!

I’m good with the range owning the gun and ammo I’ll rent gun/buy ammo and shoot it there. But would everyone else give up their ‘right to (own) bear arms’? I doubt it. And all those automatic weapons? I cannot seem to control an AK47 but think about it, who needs one of these anyway??

Ok, here’s the one I’ll challenge you on, Anonz (and read below paragraph before you get tweaked with me)…your words ‘…The war in Iraq is illegal. It was launched on a lie. We killed and maimed millions of people on a lie. What part of there were no weapons of mass destruction do you not understand. We did not go into Iraq to liberate it from the tyranny of Saddam. You cannot justify the illegal occupation of a sovereign country with a pretense that you went there to liberate it’s people…’ Ok, I’m not going to go on about the ‘liberation’ of Iraqi people, but what about all that same intel everyone was running around espousing at the time? Kerry and Edwards were giving speeches re: the #1 threat to national security was Saddam Hussein, needs to be stopped, etc…check out the 2004 presidential race speech archives. Do you not think any part of WMD could’ve been shipped through Syria for disposal at any point? BUT, wait…these words from you made me rethink even wanting to ask you the above q: ‘…when the bullets start flying and the smell of gun powder, sweat, urine death and fear fill your nostrils, you will not soon forgive a man that sent you to that experience on a lie nor an administration that your keep you there in spite of it…’ strong words, powerful visuals also…

Love this, ‘The Democrats may have a higher track record for getting caught, but that does not excuse the successful criminals because they have yet to get caught.’ Yes, tell it, hahaha…

My own personal fave and thanks for bringing it up  – ‘Of course you would not see Zen Lill as compassionate when she is on her “Queen rant” because she speaks to you then as an equal or better. That would bother you.’  My family is like this…I’m supposed to be sweet and always agreeable (with their viewpoint, not sure if it’s an Italian thing or a youngest kid/female thing) without ideas of my own, especially the edgier ones.

Oh, c’mon, Ed, you didn’t like my ‘true queen’s wear size 13 stilettos,’ it was just a little joke, honey.

As always, your thoughts are welcome and please feel free to comment!