Bill Maher To Tea Party: The Founding Fathers Would Have Hated Your Guts - HBO Real Time

Bill Maher demonstrates in his New Rules segment why the Founding Fathers would have hated Teabaggers.

No, I Am NOT the Borough Historian by Jeffrey A. Kroessler - Historic Districts Council Newsstand

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I applied to be the borough historian of Queens because I thought, oddly enough, that the post should be held by an urban historian. After all, I earned a Ph.D. in urban history, and my dissertation was a history of Queens. I authored the article on the borough in the Encyclopedia of New York State, and rewrote and updated the entry for the second edition of the Encyclopedia of New York City, as well as dozens of other entries about Queens. I wrote the centennial history of the Queens Borough Public Library and co-authored Historic Preservation in Queens. I’ve written quite a bit about Robert Moses and his parks and highways, and my latest book, The Greater New York Sports Chronology, naturally features quite a bit about Queens.

But no, I want to make clear that I am NOT the borough historian.

Jack Eichenbaum is the borough historian. He is an urban geographer, not a historian. He leads interesting and popular walking tours. But as he revealed in a recent interview with the Daily News, he has absolutely no interest in historic preservation, and is sadly misinformed about the role of landmarking in keeping New York a livable city.

Perhaps I am not the borough historian because I am an uncompromising advocate for historic preservation. My wife and I live in the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District, and we worked hard to have our neighborhood designated. As a historian, I was well positioned to counter the misinformation put forward by opponents of designation.

I am disturbed that the man appointed the new borough historian wants to take the history out of historic preservation, calling the designation of historic districts a “frozen-in-time” approach. “A lot of historic districts are just so fussy,” he told the Daily News reporter. This statement displays both a profound ignorance of how landmark designation protects a neighborhood and contempt for those residents of the borough who are working toward such designation in places like Addesleigh Park. Such remarks belong to the Donald Manes era, not today.

Sadly, Mr. Eichenbaum is poised to continue the ineffective pattern set by his predecessors, Hank Ludder and Stanley Cogan. During their tenure, stretching from Donald Manes through Claire Shulman to current Borough President Helen Marshall, preservationists could expect precious little help from Borough Hall. Indeed, quite often we encountered outright opposition. I can recall no instance when the Queens borough historian took a proactive – or even a reactive – role in preservation battles. Actually, I can recall no instance when any of the five borough historians took up the cause of preservation.

I fought to save the Aquacade from the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. There was not a peep of support from Stanley Cogan as Claire Shulman had it demolished. In keeping with that tradition, I doubt we will hear anything from our new borough historian about the importance of protecting the 1850s Ridgewood Reservoir, arguably the most important undesignated place in Queens today. I expect he could lead a tour along the terminal moraine through Forest Park to the reservoir, but I cannot imagine him speaking against the Parks Department plan to install playing fields covered with artificial turf where there is now a thriving wetland. It seems it would be enough to point out that where the playing fields are was once Brooklyn’s water system. Oh well.

Mr. Eichenbaum makes clear he will not work to save “just every old building.” We ought to ask, will he fight to save ANY old building? I for one do not think it is enough to point out the site where St. Savior’s used to be, or where the Aquacade once stood, or where Flessel’s once was. In this regard, Borough President Helen Marshall seems to be more in tune with the temper of her constituents. As she told the Daily News, when people see the history in their own neighborhoods, “they don’t want it to be destroyed.” That was the genesis of walking tours, actually, to bring greater awareness of the historic resources around us and feed the movement to preserve them. They were not born to foster antiquarianism.

The New York State Constitution mandates that every county appoint a historian, a post that is both official and symbolic. His is the voice for the historic resources of the borough, and surely that includes the built environment. Silence sends the wrong message. Instead of fighting to preserve historic sites so treasured by the people of Queens, the new borough historian will install a display of old things in Borough Hall. Now that’s a “frozen-in-time” approach.

Jeffrey A. Kroessler is a member of the HDC Board of Directors.

Letter to the Editor - Tapping Out Wire Taps by David M. Quintana - Queens Ledger

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Queens Gazette - Obama Backtracks...

The Wave - Troubling Election Season...

Tapping Out Wire Taps

Dear Editor:

For months all we were told by those in the media was how Senator Obama was a new type of candidate, that he was a non-political politician, that he was above the fray, and that he was running to change politics as we have known it within the Washington beltway. Obama portrays himself as transcending traditional divides

You all must have heard thousands of times how he was a new type of politician. Senator Obama was billed as a reformer cast from the same mold as was Robert F. Kennedy. He was certainly said to be from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

I never bought into this theory, I never saw or heard how his campaign rhetoric really explained how he planned to do anything of substance nor did I hear any semblance of what he had already accomplished, all I heard was flowery vacuous speeches in front of mostly young enthusiastic crowds, ala a rock star.

Now within weeks of virtually securing the Democratic Party nomination, he has thrown the progressive principles he was supposed to stand for out the window.

For starters, he has decided to break his promises to run his campaign outside of the federal campaign finance limitations. Barack Obama s decision not to take public funds for the general election was a total reversal of his previous positions, as the huckster/wizard in “The Wizard of Oz says, “in the vernacular of the peasantry,” it’s nothing short of a flip-flop, a sheer calculation designed for political expediency. Obama’s decision in this matter reflects a Washington “business as usual” attitude toward politics. All of a sudden, Obama, after agreeing for 2 years with the public financing of presidential campaigns, now says that “the system is broken”.

And secondly and most importantly, he has decided to vote in favor of the Bush/Cheney cabal corporate mindset and has chosen to trample upon the US Constitution by supporting the FISA bill which can be summed up as the Telecom Immunity Act.

There is absolutely no need for a new FISA bill, the facts are that the current law allows the President to engage in secret wiretapping, even to the extent of waiting three days after beginning a wiretap to ask permission from a secret court. There is no imminent security threat nor any loophole that demanded additional action, as far as I can ascertain.

To be clear, this act totally eviscerates the Fourth Amendment to our sacred Constitution and allows the telecom industry to operate outside the law and helps the federal government spy on each and everyone of us.

This is in my mind, it is a total capitulation to a lame duck president who is at historic lows in popularity with the American people. Senator Obama has embraced and is pandering to the extreme right wing zealots. It is surely a prime example of him helping to inch our nation closer towards Fascism -- the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government. Senator Obama has chosen to “retroactively immunize corporate criminals,” instead of standing up for our Constitution and the common man .

I can’t say strongly enough how I feel the Senator has cowered to the ultra right wing Republican thugs and I believe these actions display a demonstrated weakness and a monumental lack of strength.

In closing, if Senator Obama cannot show courage now and stand up to those who would harm our basic American freedoms, as our forefathers clearly articulated in the Constitution, how can we trust him to stand up for the American people in this violent and ever stringent world of terrorists and enemies throughout the world.

Sincerely,
David M. Quintana
Ozone Park

A Town Hall Meeting - Is Impeachment Necessary to Protect the Constitution..? Guests Bruce Fein, Elizabeth Holtzman & Scott Horton - Sunday March 9th

Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South
New York, NY

Rep. Weiner Joins Call for Cheney Impeachment Hearings

I applaud Rep Weiner (NY 9) for taking this stand with fellow grassroots democrats who want Bush/Cheney investigated and held accountable for their high crimes...No one is above the law...Way to go..!

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On Thursday, Congressman Anthony Weiner told Bob Fertik of Democrats.com that he would sign onto Congressman Robert Wexler's letter to Chairman John Conyers urging the commencement of impeachment hearings for Dick Cheney. Wexler, together with Congress Members Luis Gutierrez and Tammy Baldwin, hopes to have a majority of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sign the letter.

Of the four committee members named above, only Baldwin is among the six committee members and 25 total congress members backing Congressman Dennis Kucinich's resolution for the impeachment of Cheney. The other five Judiciary Committee members are Hank Johnson, Maxine Waters, Keith Ellison, Steve Cohen, and Sheila Jackson Lee. If these nine committee members sign the letter to Conyers that Wexler hopes to deliver early in January, another 12 Democrats, not counting Conyers, will still not have joined the position of 80 to 90 percent of Democratic voters.

On November 6th, Conyers himself voted against tabling impeachment. So did Congress Members Brad Sherman, Mel Watt, Bobby Scott, and Artur Davis. If those members heed the call of their constituents, Wexler will have a clear majority of 13-8. The other 8 include the relevant subcommittee chair Jerrold Nadler, plus Congress Members Delahunt, Berman, Boucher, Lofgren, Sanchez, Schiff, and Wasserman-Schultz. Of these, only Nadler signed on, during the previous Congress, to then ranking member John Conyers' resolution calling for a preliminary impeachment investigation.

All of these committee members can be contacted and thanked or encouraged to sign on at

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Impeach Cheney Now

http://www.davidswanson.org

Happy Birthday Frank Zappa - RIP December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993

Check out the incredible Flash Screen at the Official Zappa site - it's great..!

Here's one of my favorite Frank Zappa songs - Peaches en Regalia



Happy Birthday Frank...RIP..!
Official Zappa website...

Talk by Naomi Wolf - The End of America

10 Steps to Fascism
Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America - A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens' groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
7. Target key individuals.
8. Control the press.
9. Declare all dissent to be treason.
10. Suspend the rule of law.

Sound familiar to you..??

h/t to: Yellowcake Walk

BobGeiger.com: The Saturday Cartoons

BobGeiger.com: The Saturday Cartoons

NY Times - 2 Ejected From Bush Speech Posed a Threat, Lawyers Say

By DAN FROSCH

Published: April 15, 2007

DENVER, April 13 — Lawyers for two men charged with illegally ejecting two people from a speech by President Bush in 2005 are arguing that the president’s staff can lawfully remove anyone who expresses points of view different from his.

Lawyers for the two, Michael Casper and Jay Klinkerman, said the men were working as organizers for a public presidential forum on Social Security at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver on March 21, 2005, when they were involved in ejecting two audience members, Alex Young and Leslie Weise.

Mr. Young and Ms. Weise filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court here, saying they were ejected shortly after they had arrived in a car that had an antiwar bumper sticker, although they had done nothing disruptive. The suit charged Mr. Casper and Mr. Klinkerman with violating Mr. Young’s and Ms. Weise’s First Amendment right to free speech.

Read entire article...

Mark Fiore Animation...Rove Accomplished - MC Rove & GWB43...

Watch MC Rove...

Welcome to Pottersville: Won't Get Fooled Again Redux

Welcome to Pottersville: Won't Get Fooled Again Redux

Richard Holbrooke on Hardball Discussing Speaker Pelosi's Trip to Syria...with David Gregory

Richard Holbrooke discussing Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria with David Gregory on Hardball, April 9th, 2007...Holbrooke seemed prepared for Gregory's GOP-talking points from the day before on Meet the Press...Think Progress has the video..

Not only does NBC's Gregory having trouble understanding the Constitution's separation of powers but so does CNN...Media Matters tells CNN to “Tell CNN to get the facts right on Pelosi trip“ They urge viewers to contact CNN...

Bob Geiger's Saturday Cartoon Roundup...

Bob Geiger's Saturday Roundup of Political Cartoons...click here

Pelosi to Bush: “Calm down with the threats. There’s a new Congress in town”

Speaker Pelosi also said..."I just wish the President would take a deep breath and recognize again that we each have our Constitutional role and we should respect that."

Here's a video clip at Crooks and Liars...

Mark Fiore's Animation - Gone Fishing

Mark Fiore's Animation - Gone Fishing 3/22/2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Must Go..!

As Sonny and Cher sang back in the 60's, "The beat goes on, the beat goes on, Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain La-de-da-de-de, la-de-da-de da"...but the beat may be grinding to a halt for the Bush Administration.

It is so unmistakably clear that Alberto Gonzales has repeatedly lied to Congress and the American people about what occurred with the U.S. attorney firings that now even some of the most loyal Bush sycophants are begrudgingly acknowledging the facts.

But what is blatantly clear is that this pattern of deceit, dishonesty and mendacity has been exhibited by the Bush Administration throughout it's six years in office. This is not an aberration in any way, shape or form, this has been the script for the Bush presidency and the actions of the Attorney General in this abuse of power case are par for the course with this Administration.

There is one thing and just one thing distinguishing this U.S. attorneys scandal from all of the other would-be scandals over the past six years and that is that the Democrats now have subpoena power and seem ready to wield it's power by forcing the administration to give public sworn testimony before committees and disclose actual evidence and documents, rather than simply issue their unscrutinized and non-investigated denials of wrongdoing to a rubber-stamp Republican Congress and that evidence offered demonstrates that the claims are true.

If you recall, in the past, this is how every scandal transpired, first questions about Administration conduct were raised, whereupon, present and past Administration officials would deny the wrongdoing. Then Karl Rove and Dick Cheney would start Administration officials selectively and voluntarily disclose exculpatory documents. Then they would appear before a milquetoast Congress, to assure everyone that prudent safeguards are in place, then deny any wrongdoing again, and lastly claim the conduct in question is used only for only proper purposes. More often than not they would foist national security and protecting the country against terrorism.

Then, according to script, the Administration followers led by the Republicans formerly controlling Congress; such as Senator Pat Roberts-R-Kansas and Senator Mitch McConnell-R-Kentucky; would insist that no investigation was warranted because the Bush Administration has made clear that there are safeguards in place protecting us and everything is being done for proper purposes. Congressional Republicans then would block any and all Congressional investigations, compel no disclosure of evidence, do nothing to investigate the claims against the Administration. And, finally the scandal ends, unresolved.

This has been the Administration's modus operandi and the same distinctive pattern has repeated itself over and over from when the Administration lost one of our most sophisticated spy planes to the Red Chinese Air Force before 9-11, to post 9-11 with controversies over secret and illegal surveillance programs spying on American citizens, to torture, black sites and rendition of prisoners of war which constitute war crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution.

Congressional Republicans have blocked all investigations during the Bush presidency, insisting that we can trust him and his Administration, and they have proceeded along, lying to Congress and the country with complete and utter impunity.

Getting back to the U.S. attorneys case, everything proceeded according to script, Alberto Gonzales did what he and other Bush officials have always done, issue false statements about what they did in order to conceal their wrongdoing and lie to everyone about what our Government is doing.

And had it not been for the forced disclosure of internal DOJ emails and other documents - something which never would have occurred prior to the November, 2006 election with the Republican majority - the same thing here would have happened: thusly, Alberto Gonzales and other top DOJ officials would have lied about what they did and why they did it and nobody would have been able to prove it either way.

The only thing that has changed is that there is now some minimal amount of oversight and already, thank goodness, within a mere three months, that oversight is finally being exercised by the Democrats and our country's Attorney General stands revealed as a serial liar in the politicization of the US Justice Department.

That is why our Founding Fathers felt that oversight was so critically important because they instinctively did not trust government and never trusted government officials to act properly when they can act in secret and with no checks. Oversight is fundamental to a functioning democracy.

So the November 2006 election has already proven that elections have consequences and the people have spoken, therefore I would encourage the Democratic-led Congress to continue to use their oversight powers to shine the light behind the curtain which has been the story of the Bush Administration.

Finally, I call upon President Bush to demand the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. If that is not forthcoming, Congress must use it's impeachment power to rid our country of this dishonest Attorney General.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Must Go..!

Bill Maher - Sacrifice from 3/16/07 'Real Time w/ Bill Maher'