To paraphrase the words of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Rush Limbaugh is a demagogue slated to live in infamy.

It is a deep infamy that will greet Rush Limbaugh in any historical evaluation of the slime he has unleashed in what is euphemistically referred to as radio commentary.

Limbaugh's current siege of the hateful merging with the tasteless relates to the current thug activity occurring as political and civic leaders along with administrators coalesce in town meetings in which efforts are made to explain about President Obama's health care proposal.

Distortion muddied debate waters when, early in his first administration, President Bill Clinton sought to introduce a comprehensive national health care proposal.  

This question was asked by Itay Zar, who is a 35-year-old Israeli living in a two room shanty with his wife and five children.

The July 27 Time Magazine in an article by Nina Burleigh/Efrat described Itay Zar's role the that he is playing in the long running Israeli settlement dispute on Palestinian land.

Some Israelis think they are doing God's work in building these settlements on Palestinian land.  The Palestinians consider these Israelis thieves.

The background of Itay Zar is explained in this article:

(This column is from a letter I wrote to my representative, Congressman Jim McDermott of Seattle, Washington.)

First, I want to congratulate you on your stance you took on the Iraq War.

I also applaud Alan Greenspan for what he said regarding the Iraq War in his book "The Age of Turbulence."  On page 463, Greenspan stated, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows:  The Iraq War is largely about oil."

In a recent article by Dan Van Natta Jr. in the Wall Street Journal, George Bush's mindset was revealed regarding the Iraq War and the role he played in this controversial conflict.  The headline above a large color photo of the framed Saddam Hussein gun reads:

That is the burning question that must be answered!  Obama had the benefit of following one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history -- George Bush.  

When John McCain was running with the controversial Sarah Palin, Obama again scored a great advantage.  That was because McCain was looked upon as simply more of George Bush's failed policies.

Obama's political cry for change was welcome!  And Barack Obama delivered his "change" theme dramatically and convincingly from coast to coast.

The June 22 Newsweek in an article by Michael Hirsh explained how the Wall Street titans are currently trying to hold onto power.  The article explained about one brave individual who has seen it all, and desperately wants what Barack Obama claimed to seek -- namely change from the almost total corruption of the business world:

Taxpayers are being forced to fund luxury vacations at luxurious resorts because of the betrayal by Congress.

How did this happen?  When Bush and the Republican congressional majority rushed through the $700 billion plus bank bailout it failed to apply caps on bankers, business bonuses, and other restrictions.

The same neglect of placing restrictions on bonuses and luxury vacation travel happened when Obama and the Democratic majority rushed through at lightning speed the second $700 billion plus bailout package.

These failed bankers and business executives who had brought about the economic collapse failed to recognize only corporate welfare at taxpayer expense was making it possible for them to have any job at all.

The April 6, 2009 Newsweek Magazine featured Paul Krugman on its cover with this bold-faced black headline "Obama is Wrong!"

The feature story by Evan Thomas left no doubt about Paul Krugman's background qualifying him to speak out on what is happening now to the U.S. economy.  Thomas explained:

"Paul Krugman has all the credentials of a ranking member of the East Coast liberal establishment:  A column in the New York Times, a professorship at Princeton, a Nobel Prize in Economics."

"In his twice a week column and his blog, conscience of a liberal, he criticizes the Obamaites for trying to prop up a financial system that he regards as essentially a dead man walking.  In conversation, he portrays Tim Geithner and other top officials as, in effect, tools of Wall Street.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

In the age of Barack Obama, both the Republican Party as well as the South appear marginalized and out of step with the rest of America. Yet it wasn't so long ago that the South represented the foundation of America's conservative hegemony. Starting with Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, the Republican Party prevailed in nine out of the next fourteen presidential elections with a reliable Southern base.

Specifically, the Republican Party exploited white Southern resentment against the cause of civil rights and integration. The "Southern strategy" as it was later called, enabled Republicans to end the Democratic Party's previous domination of the South following the Civil War. A key figure in that realignment was the renowned evangelist Billy Graham.

When Bill Clinton signed the World Trade Agreement it was the beginning of the end of U.S. dominance in worldwide manufacturing.

The congressional members who voted approval of this destructive agreement can take bows now for the General Motors collapse.

With $50 billion of taxpayers' dollars one cannot help but wonder where this deluge of borrowed billions is going?  

According to a New York Times article by Micheline Maynard on June 1, the plan following bankruptcy protection is as follows:

When Bill Clinton signed the World Trade Agreement it was the beginning of the end of U.S. dominance in worldwide manufacturing.

The congressional members who voted approval of this destructive agreement can take bows now for the General Motors collapse.

With $50 billion of taxpayers' dollars one cannot help but wonder where this deluge of borrowed billions is going?  

According to a New York Times article by Micheline Maynard on June 1, the plan following bankruptcy protection is as follows:

The torturous truth is that the presidential candidate who blasted Bush policies which helped insure his claim to popularity now embraces some of the very Bush policies he hit hard to win the role of president of the U.S.A.

Is this a Ronald Reagan re-run, a brilliant orator but failing miserably when assuming the follow through with constitutional observance?  Shall we get precise about habeas corpus, an English institution for centuries?  

It means the right to a fair trial.  The Nazis had thrown people in prison without trials.

The U.S. is doing a copy cat routine, throwing Afghanistan terrorist suspects in prisons in with no trials.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

President Obama will soon announce his nominee to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. It's a critical nomination with long-term ramifications for civil liberties, executive power, management-labor relations, the environment and consumer rights. Hence, it is vital the public know whether the judicial philosophy and ideology of any prospective nominee to the court is compatible with their sensibilities and values. Ideally, all nominees would be forthcoming about their philosophy as the senate either confirms or rejects them with full knowledge of the sort of justice they're likely to be.

In the days when monarchies ran nations a term that became notable was that of "marriage of convenience."

This element occurred when nations decided that it would be in their respective best interests to have prominent families from different nations join forces in matrimony for mutual political convenience.  It was a way of obtaining a geopolitical foothold into an additional nation at the very least and more through formation of alliances.

An alliance of modern political convenience occurred when veteran Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania decided to switch parties and become a Democrat.  

Since Obama's political team was shrewd enough to catapult a junior  senator of four years of a national political career into the White House,  all essential points were covered in discussions with Specter and his team before the veteran solon made his announcement that has left Washington buzzing with speculation ever since.

Jeremiah O'Leary Jr. of Staten Island, New York told the New York Times April 19 his viewpoint on allowing torturers to get by with no accountability:

"What members of the Bush administration did in our name is despicable.

"When I was drafted into the Army as a lowly private in 1966, we were schooled during basic training in our obligations under the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.  We should expect no less from the leaders of our country.

"I am waiting to see who will be held accountable for this shameful abuse that was sanctioned by our government."

President Obama, there are certain issues where splitting differences is not only an option but the wisest policy.  In the case of prosecuting CIA torture suspects this is not the case.

Historical analysis reveals that it was the United States under President Harry Truman that made a concerted effort to arm the world statutorily with the legal wherewithal to avoid the tragic Holocaust of World War Two and other horrible ramifications flowing therefrom.

Justice Robert Jackson, a former attorney general under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was selected to lead the U.S. legal team at the Nuremberg Trials, conducted in the same city where Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler held his largest rallies, which were preserved on film by his cinema diarist Leni Riefenstahl.

Assisting Jackson was Telford Taylor, soon to become one of the eminent legal minds of the past century and a longtime professor of law at Columbia University.  

President Obama's statement reported this afternoon by the New York Times that his administration would not be prosecuting CIA operatives responsible for "waterboarding" prisoners is a decision that is both legally and morally reprehensible.

Obama's statement used the term "good faith" respecting the individuals involved in the context of his decision not to prosecute.  To anyone who studied law the term good faith in this context is a contortion of legal terminology.  Its use in this fact situation would be rejected scornfully by any reasonable judge hearing this fractured lexicon.

The term good faith is generally applied in a civil context pertaining to performance of duty in a contractual setting.  In making a determination on services rendered in a contract the issue of good faith is applied in the context of the individual performing under the contract.

How does good faith apply in this context?  It never passed muster and almost assuredly was never used in the cases of Japanese officers who went to the gallows following World War Two for waterboarding.