Sometimes it is best to make your point be using the words or others. People of historical importance - trusted, wise, almost mythic people.

Their words have a resonance far stronger than the whiney voices of contemporary politics.

They carry gravities.

Their words make your point.

But if your point is inane, incorrect, and illegal it often means you have to search hard for a quote that helps.

And sometimes you just make one up.

If your a GOP Representative that is: GOP Rep. Recycles Phony Lincoln Quote During Escalation Debate

Here's GOP Rep. Don Young of Alaska on the House floor today, coming out against the anti-escalation resolution. To make his case, Young very portentously attributed the following quote to Abraham Lincoln: "Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged."
...
Of course, as many of you know already, Lincoln never said those words.

- rob 6:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

Even with just one post a day - I had trouble fitting this in (and all I'm doing is linking to some one else):

Brilliant (don't forget to click the link and read the whole thing - its worth it): Washington’s Farewell Address Translated into Everyday Speech

Before I go I’ve gotta thank y’all, for the awards and honors and stuff but more importantly for your supporting my projects to try to make everything right, even if they didn’t always turn out quite as well as I hoped. Remember, it’s hard to tell how things will turn out when people get all fired up, so thanks for sticking by me even when everything was going to hell. Y’all get the credit for anything good that came out of it, and by God you’d better keep taking good care of the Constitution and the lives of the folks who live here. As long as you do, we’ll be a pretty kickass country and the other guys will start noticing us.

I should shut up, but I care about you guys, so there’s some more stuff to cover. I’ve been doing some thinking and I’ve got a few things to say. You know I ain’t biased ’cause all I want is to leave, so you might wanna listen up.
...
Government’s important, and it’s not always easy to stay together. You’ve figured this out, and that’s why you ditched the last idea and came up with this Constitution. We went over it all carefully, big and small, and it’s definitely something we can trust (we can even amend it if necessary!). Give it some credit, and if you disagree, change it — don’t just disobey. Otherwise it just screws things up.

Getting in the way of the law for the sake of power plays similarly screws things up. Playing that game creates groups just looking out for themselves, turning crazy splinter groups into a powerful force. Let this get too bad and you’ll probably have the country tossed back and forth wildly as the various parties with their pet issues fight for power, rather than nice, consensual, unified government.

Parties are probably gonna look like they’re helping with one popular issue or another, so you’re gonna want support them, but I bet the guys in charge of them will just turn out to be power-hungry assholes who want to run everything.
...
I just said that parties are no good, particularly regional ones. But lemme go a step further and say ALL parties are a bad idea.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty much human nature to gather into little factions like this. It’s worst in the freeest countries, and they suffer because of it.

Control goes back and forth between one party and another, and they just get more and more pissed, and we’ve seen that get really bad in the past. But it also leads to terrible, controlling government and general suckage. This gets the people more angry, they get behind one party leader or another, and that guy just takes that support and does whatever he wants, screwing up the country.

I’m not talking about anyone in particular here, but this isn’t necessarially too far off, and it’s always gonna be a threat, so keep an eye out.

That was the original and only real George W. keeping it honest and keeping it real.

- rob 5:56 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

Today's lame post (until the sites get a bit more regular again):

Official who bungled billions gets big promotion

Question: What happens when you are responsible for managing offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico and you are so incompetent that you botch the whole thing and end up letting Big Oil companies not pay billions of dollars they owe in royalties to the government?

Oh you already know the answer.

Yes, that's right, the guy who may be the biggest bureaucratic bungler in the history of the planet -- who may have cost taxpayers $60 billion -- has been promoted.
...
The sheer audacity of this just takes your breath away. It's like putting John Dillinger in charge of bank security.

It's so audacious, even Republicans are shocked.

But Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who led a congressional investigation into the matter, said he was startled by the move, given the central roles that Oynes and Burton played in a still-unfolding offshore leasing foul-up estimated to cost taxpayers $10 billion.

"That is a Herculean mistake, even by federal government standards," Issa said. "I am flabbergasted that a promotion of someone with this cloud of suspicion would be given at this time by someone in the same cloud."

If a mistake made by a Bush government official rewards its donors/sponsors/BFFLs (Best Friends For Life) - than perhaps it is time we all admit it isn't a mistake.

There has been a systematic plundering of our treasury and the criminals will be rewarded now and in the future with nice jobs when they "retire" to the private sector.

It will take decades for America to recover. Bush and pals have turned the nation into a sock puppet for energy companies and defense contractors - citizens just supply the money.

- rob 4:30 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

I realize updates have been getting more and more infrequent here - and that will probably continue for a while.

But starting now I'll try to at least have one post a day (save for weekends) - no matter how short or pointless.

Boehner Weeps For ‘Solemn’ Debate — Then Says Iraq Critics Are Taking Al Qaeda’s ‘Bait’

NBC reported, “House Minority Leader John Boehner got emotional this morning as he spoke about the ’solemn’ debate that the House is set to begin today over the non-binding resolution opposing Bush’s troop increase.” Boehner “began to shed tears.”
...
Boehner said that escalation opponents are taking the “bait” of “al Qaeda and terrorist sympathizers” by using Iraq to “divide us here at home.”

History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies the same defeats
Keep your finger on important issues
With crocodile tears and a pocketful of tissues
- Elvis Costello (Beyond Belief)

- rob 3:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

Sounds like someone has been reading this site (not that anything is happen much here these days, but don't worry we're still alive).

William Rivers Pitt: The 21st Century Sucks

This Iraq occupation, I've been arguing since the fall of 2002, will inspire more terrorism. A ten year old girl in Baghdad gets blown sideways out of her kitchen, a mother gets blasted in a sectarian street-battle in Fallujah, a father has menstrual blood smeared on his face in a cement cage in Abu Ghraib by leering US troops looking to humiliate those of his faith, a son gets shot by a US sniper in Najaf ... and the families of those people are going to pick up a gun and volunteer to die that they might kill.

Combine this manufacture of terrorists with the legal aftermath of 9/11, the evaporation of Constitutional protections put in place "for our safety," and the rancid motivations of those in power, and you have a recipe for catastrophe. The terrorists we are manufacturing in Iraq are not going to the beach, or heading off to a camping trip at the local KOA. Play the tape to the end, and one has to operate under the assumption that, sooner or later, they are going to show up here. If and when they do, they will not need to take down buildings to create mayhem.

A few hand grenades at a mall in Duluth, a car bomb in St. Louis, or a few bridges blown up in Boston, and that's the ball game. We will see a declaration of "Red Alert," which is martial law, the suspension of habeas corpus, the suspension of posse comitatus, and the end of the rule of Constitutional law in America. This great experiment in government of, by and for the people, with all its flaws and all its strengths, will be shelved, and a great light will be, perhaps forever, extinguished.
...
Actions have consequences. What the Bush administration is doing in Iraq makes us far less safe, both over there and over here. The fact that they have so abused the sensibilities of the populace with their fear-mongering does not change this fact. If this situation in Iraq is allowed to burn on, or if we are foolish enough to attack Iran, the warnings we in Boston went through last week may well become commonplace all across the country.

Such is the way of things in the 21st century. We curse the fear while whistling past the graveyard. It sucks out loud.

- rob 5:46 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

Subscribe to the TCS Feed

Having trouble with some of the poor English on this site?
Imagine what it looks like when translated by a machine:

Search TCS

Archive

Archive Index Page

What is this?

This is a "team" blog.  We are a bunch of Americans, whose rising distress in our leader's decisions brought us together to make this site.  As Bush said, he's a "uniter."  Many of us have never even met.
That's the internet for you.

This Century Sucks Store

Buy our cool stuff.
And tell everyone what you feel.  

We have a little Store you can visit.  

Our store's selection of items is constantly growing. Come see what we have.

 

We're also Amazon Associates, so if you want to buy something from Amazon, please search for it below, and we will get a few bucks from the sale.

Search Now:

Sites we often like:

Tin Foil Caps

The Free Speech Zone

The office of the independent blogger

Buzzflash

Tom The Dancing Bug

VerifiedVoting.org

Get Your War On

This Modern World

Eschaton / Atrios

Daily Kos

Contribute to America's Future

It is now more important then ever.

Donate to the Democractic Congressional Campaign Committee

Donate to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Some More Site Mottos

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt



"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make fitting response."
 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt



"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson



"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."
- James Madison



"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy



"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

More Sites we often like:

more coming...

"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.