PUMA

For all those of you who doubt the title assertion, I must ask you to consider this: Where would we be without Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden? He seems to be the only politician these days who tells the truth about anything, and yet, no one appreciates him for it. Why the lack of warm fuzzies for this cuddly, bright-toothed gaffester, America? He's just being honest, and I, personally, love him for it!

A lot of us are thinking about independence on this historic day. What does it mean for us as Americans, that despite our efforts to change the direction of the country by our traditional method of electing a President and Congress from a different Party, the country is still heading in the wrong direction at breakneck speed?

Many Democrats and people who lean to the left are realizing that Barack Obama is not whom he pretended to be. Leading the pack is the LGBT community, which is planning a massive protest on October 11th. But where, I must ask, are the pro-choice women, and the men who support them?

I subscribe to Harper's Magazine. Although the editors and contributors drank the Kool-Aid many moons ago, it is still a genuinely left-leaning publication, with a left-leaning perspective and many fascinating articles for us librul types to peruse. Imagine my shock when the July issue arrived in my mailbox, with the words "Barack Hoover Obama: The Best and the Brightest Blow it Again - By Kevin Baker" displayed prominently on the cover.

Intrigued, I started reading. (Apologies to non-subscribers, but the link is pay-only.) The usual nauseating, opinion-masquerading-as-fact, obligatory fawning and drooling ensued.

Pippin: Is there any hope, Gandalf, for Frodo and Sam?

Gandalf: There never was much hope. Just a fool's hope.

from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The above quotation has been banging around in my head for days now. It seems to capture so perfectly the despair I have been feeling since Obama was elected, and every single prediction I made about him has come true. But the truth I thought I knew is both more sinister than I ever could have believed, and far beyond the scope of my imagination.

I understood in 2007 that Obama had the same type of personality as Bush: narcissistic, swaggering, fundamentally incurious, far too attached to the religious right, and scornful of anyone or anything that would presume to stand in the way of his pursuit and retention of power. I wrote this comment on the post I linked above:

Continuing his bizarre morphing into Dr. Evil, President Barack Obama has apparently decided that one Guantanamo Bay isn't enough. He wants another one - a Gitmo "Mini-Me;" a kinder, more Barackian place where he can continue the military tribunals, dispense with habeas corpus and due process, and hold "suspected terrorists" without a trial for an indefinite length of time.

I found this little gem tucked away inside Rick Klein's article in The Note (linked to by Gary in today's Morning Widdershins), whch details the many ways in which Obama has been leaving the Left Behind:

by LadyBoomerNYC and MadamaB

Well, folks, we are finally, as LadyBoomerNYC says, Ready to Rumble! And roar, the way only PUMAs can.

Yes, it's the launch of...the New York Area PUMAs for Women's Rights! 

In 2008, protesters from all over the country made their voices heard in D.C.

The PUMA movement was born spontaneously in the zeitgeist around the May 31, 2008 DNC RBC meeting in Washington, DC. We mobilized to action during the shocking events leading up to and as a result of the Democratic Party's betrayal of the fair reflection of the voters.

So, PUMAs . . . what are you doing now?

In a post entitled "But Hillary Voted for the Warrrrrrrrr!", I detailed the absurdity of the default Obot position that Barack Obama was somehow "superior" to Hillary Clinton regarding Iraq, simply because he had given a speech in 2002 stating that he was against the invasion.

Did any of the Obots even know Hillary Clinton's plan to end the war in Iraq? Or did her scary ladyparts get in the way?

Here is the portion, found at the above link, that makes me especially sad today.

SUMMARY OF HILLARY CLINTON'S PLAN TO END THE IRAQ WAR

(Source: Hillary for President website)

Note: Thanks to commenter jules, for the inspiration for this play!

THE SCENE: Buckingham Palace. HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH and her consort, PRINCE PHILIP, are lying in bed in their elaborate, gilded suite. It's been a long day - they've just spent it with America's First Couple, BARACK and MICHELLE OBAMA. They are both exhausted, but not ready to go to sleep just yet. They are wearing monogrammed, silk pajamas with royal crests on them. Reading glasses and old-fashioned nightcaps adorn their royal heads. HMQE is reading The Guardian, while PP is reading OK!.)

HMQE (acerbically, putting down the newspaper): Any good pictures of Britney today, darling?

PP (absorbed): Hmmmmm?

(PP looks over at his wife, reads her mood, and puts down the magazine.)

This post stays on top today so I can explain some things to those who may be dropping by for their first visit.

So, Welcome to Partizane where we have but one Rule.  One Rule to rule them all.

Disrespect of others is the only thing not tolerated here.

Civil Discourse is the rule of the day.

A wonderful explanation of this was offered by Creeper and can be read on the about page in the menu.

"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."

Madeleine Albright

By now, we have all seen the infamous Ms. Magazine cover of Barack Obama in Clark Kent drag, opening his jacket to reveal a T-shirt where the Superman "S" should be. The T-shirt proclaims, "This is what a feminist looks like." It was a shocking, and yet predictable, hommage to a richly undeserving male by a so-called bastion of women's liberation; the ultimate poke in the eye after the endorsements of NARAL and NOW for the all-male Obama-Biden ticket enraged us in the general election.

Today I heard my favorite tune.  On my way to work I was stunned to hear it on our wonderful 92.5 The River Independent radio.

Damn this hit so perfectly because NH is in a little bit of a funk.  Stevie Winwood speaks of Change and of being lost.  That's how I'm feeling the last few days and why my posts have been rare.  Join me in praising Blind Faith.

So here I am a life long Democrat, a person who mistrusts His Oliness more than I can actually express.  But I am a local political animal.  It is my hobby.

Yet, I have walked away from the party that abandonded me and no matter how cool it sounds or how much we kid about it, it sucks.  It sucks to give the dem committee website keys to my replacement, a website I built and managed for years.

It sucks to think about running for town council as an Indi, although all local candidates are Indi.

Many PUMA bloggers are looking back on their postings of last year. We have come so far from our former selves that we find it fascinating to see what we were thinking before the Democratic Party kicked us to the curb on May 31, 2008.

It is after all my treasure trove of crap.

This week is the year end, double issue featuring the most powerful people in the world.  They call them The Global Elite http://www.newsweek.com/id/176484

First piss off is the Conventional Wisdom/Up or Down graphic column.  Hillary is UP "Odor of fractious, low-road campaign fading.  And brains, experience, work ethic could make her a great secretary of state."

GRRRRRRR that will require an entire post of it's own.

But the real piss off and the one I'd like to ask a volunteer of the woman species to blog about is titled, "Player or Pretender".

On the left with the Pretenders we have PUMAs.  On the right with the players we have Cougars.

A call to arms for all PUMA shoppers:)

As I walked to the subway the other day, I saw a headline that made my blood boil. Good thing, because it was minus a zillion degrees.

Some Dems question Caroline Kennedy’s experience: ‘They’ve basically Sarah Palin-ized her'

ORLY?

So, Obama wants Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, eh?

This Rick Warren?

Most people in this country do not know how explicitly misogynistic Barack Obama's campaign was. They don't have time to sit at the computer and read The Daily Kos, or Talking Points Memo, or The Huffington Post. They didn't read the vile, endless hatred spewed at women by Obama's supporters. They believe the lovely stories spun by the corporate media: that Obama was saintly and above all negativity and "unifying," while his opponents rolled around in dirt. And even when Obama or his surrogates did or said something overtly misogynistic, the media either did not cover it, or excused it.