Senator Cornhole sez the Repugs won't seat Al Franken, in fact will filibuster to keep him from being seated --

...and will not seat ANYONE in ANY election until the vote count is verified and the winner is certified.

Too bad the GOP didn't feel that way in 2000 -- about not accepting an elected official -- in that instances, a president -- until there was an actual verified vote count certifying the winner.

Was it all just a dream or do I actually recall the Repugnants screaming bloody murder just a few years ago about the possibility that the Demons would be so Unamerican as to filibuster an issue in which they didn't have a clear majority?

Yesterday I heard a GOP henchman talking about how many Repugs were leaving town rather than attend the inauguration.. .saying it was "understandable," and saying with self-congratulation, "After all, we're being rather magnanimous about accepting being swept away in the election."

Being magnanimous to accept the results of the election?

Jesus -- it's not just the Bush family!

OH PLEASE read Kevin Phillips' AMERICAN DYNASTY in which he, a solid traditional conservative, demonstrates with facts -- in horror -- how the Bush family has been busy for the entire 20th century trying to undermine the constitution and overthrow the government.

But apparently it's not just them -- they ALL seem to think they OWN America, not just most of the wealth. If only the lampposts were low enough to reach to fulfill the old Wobbly adage about "Hang 'em from the lampposts." One of the unfortunate products of technology, those incredibly high mercury vapor lamps that DO illuminate the road better, but eliminate the good old fashioned idea of justice.

Meanwhile Bush reads scripts in that neutral tone and without too many errors -- a simple level of competence it took him 3,4 years to achieve -- but still has the belief he actually has some authority -- hell, that the USA has any authority left after 8 years of his plague of locusts sold it off piece by piece -- this time it's Hamas --- "Hamas must stop... Hamas must agree... Hamas must do this, Hamas must do that..."

It is possible to despise the Israeli leaders and their actions without despising the Israeli people -- even as we have spent years despising Bush, Cheney, Redrum,et al, and the monstrous arrogances and murders they have given the world as if America were doing it instead of their puppet masters, to despise them and all their works while still loving America and our American people.

It is possible to ache for the hideous levels of suffering the Palestinians are enduring without getting all romantic and glorifying them or demonizing the Israelis. It's not either or. They ALL have a right to live their lives without continually imminent death raining from the sky.

It is a difficult thing to decide -- which is more insensitively moronic -- the fact that Bush believes anyone wants to listen to him at all or that he reads scripts provided for him in the flat tone we've all heard in grade school -- someone who can identify and pronounce the words without understanding any of them enough to add emphasis here or there.

On the other hand, it's certainly easy enough to identify evil when it occurs, whether from stupidity, cupidity, greed, or fear -- but then the things that call themselves people have ALWAYS found good reasons why it's ok to kill actual people.

Oh yeah, I go on, so just one thing more -- imagine yourself going to work in the morning and coming home in the evening to find your apartment visible from the ground because the building was split open by some explosives and then trying to find out if your family is under the rubble or just homeless. Whether that apartment is in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Gaza, Beirut, or Baghdad.

THAT'S what these wars are REALLY about.

Which may be why the late great Kenneth Patchen put it so simply:

AS FAR AND DEEP AS A TIGER'S FROWN,
SO MY GREETINGS,
O LEADERS OF THE WORLD, TO YOU