There have been a plethora of diaries in the past week in regards to Obama's stance on FISA legislation and the backlash that has ensued by the netroots.  Both sides of the argument on how this may or may not be affecting Obama have been at it (including me).  I've had a few thoughts on this issue that I've shared in those diaries, and I'd like to share those now.  I'm sure they're not terribly new, but it's a perspective I'd like to give nonetheless.

It's hard to write diaries against members in my own party that are acting in such an atrocious and conniving manner.  What's worse is that this is directed towards the leaders in our party.  But this simply must stop, and it has to stop now before it gets worse.

Per Glenn Greenwald's post yesterday at Salon, it's becoming painfully clear that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is pushing forward with a "compromise" that is nothing but a horribly disguised capitulation for amnesty to the telecom industry.  I wrote about this the other day that we need to call Hoyer and our own Representatives immediately and tell them to stop with this nonsensical "compromise" of a bill.  This bill does nothing but set the bar so low for the telecos to crawl over and attain amnesty.  

It looks like much more will need to be done than this, and Greenwald has a very good answer.

Folks, this FISA fight is back with a freakin' vengeance. Kos bloggers like Kagro X today as well as Glenn Greenwald over at Salon have been on top of this issue well.  They've been explaining to us the process to which leaders in our own party are once again ready to derail our efforts to hold Bush and the telecom industry responsible for allegedly illegally wiretapping Americans and breaking FISA laws in the process (I say "allegedly" because we have had no hearings nor have we been able to have access to these records indicating this is truly the case, although the evidence to date directly points to this quite well).  

There have been reports both here and by Greenwald that a deal was in the works for the past couple of months, and now it appears those rumors and reports are completely true.  What's worse, as it's been revealed, this "deal" is nothing but pure capitulation to the Bush Administration in granting full amnesty to the telecos, YET AGAIN.

This was a bit of a paraphrase to what I just heard from Tim Russert's doctor who was just interviewed on MSNBC about 30 minutes ago.  They are haunting words to me, because unfortunately I hear this from other patients in my health care field (physical therapy) all the time, including a patient who recently passed away from a heart attack as well.  

I've also just recently found out that my grandmother and father-in-law both have congestive heart failure, which isn't the same as the heart problem Mr. Russert passed away from, but is still a heart disease problem nonetheless.  What's more, many of the complications that result from their disease can be reduced if not eliminated if they were to simply follow a few better healthy guidelines - better eating and a little exercise (yes, even my 89 year old grandmother can do a little, as prescribed by her doctor).

There is a point that I would like to make in order to correct a bit of a misnomer that continues to run through the mainstream media as well as the blogs.  In regards to the monumental SCOTUS decision today to restore sanity back to our country's rule of law, the MSNBC states that, "The court's liberal justices were in the majority."

Well, not really.

This is getting past the point of ridiculous.  It's one thing for Hillary to show her supporters that she will go down swinging.  I may disagree with her even remaining around at this point as we continue to fight amongst ourselves instead of draw ALL of our needed attention towards McCain and the GOP slime machine, but I personally don't see this going past the next primary round.

It's quite another thing, however, for Hillary's campaign to try and find dirt on our DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S FRONT RUNNER AND LIKELY PARTY NOMINEE this late in the game.

So let me give a blunt question: Hillary, what the hell are you doing?

Chuck Todd did an analysis tonight on MSNBC that demonstrates just how far Hillary would have to go in order to defeat Obama.

According to his analysis, she'll have to win 69-70% of the delegates in all the remaining states in order to catch up to Obama.  

And it gets even better from there (or worse, depending on who you support).

I can't freakin' stand it anymore.  I'm done.  I'm over it.  These past few years I've only caught myself watching the occasional CNN or MSNBC news show, more or less for disgust value.  It's like watching Cops or some Jerry Springer show - you hate yourself for watching it but you can't turn it off because you can't believe what you're watching, and then you hate yourself for not turning it off and wasting those minutes in your day.  It's a vicious cycle, one that I've weaned myself off of over the years.  Nevertheless I know it still persists.

Our news has become that bad, and aside of the History channel, ESPN Sportscenter, Sports Science on ESPN 2, and Olbermann's Countdown, there's nothing really more that I watch (added in edit: okay, I'm also a Battlestar fan too).  So what the hell's the point, especially in lieu of this recent flap on, Jesus, on FINGERGATE?!?!?!??!?!?!

I think it's about time for me to order Greenwald's new book, Great American Hypocrites.  I was putting it off for a while in order to get some serious school studying out of the way, but I'm not so sure I can put it off anymore.

I'm so furious at our damn media establishment, I honestly can't see straight.  Last night was just a fiasco.  I was embarrassed to be an American with such disgusting coverage and debating moderators throwing out the most asinine and irrelevant questions they could ever ask presidential candidates.  They had all the influence and whisperings of the Right Wing Noise Machine.

And it seems that Greenwald has captured that well in today's post.

I'm pretty shocked, and it takes a lot to shock me.  Quite frankly I really didn't think this moment would come.  The candidate whom I've backed and supported for the past couple of months has weathered some good storms, and I thought he was well on his way to weathering out this ridiculous "bittergate" bullshit too.

But I was wrong, so very wrong.

And I just can't see myself supporting a man who said such atrocious things today, and neither should you.

I'm sorry Clinton supporters, but this is getting beyond asinine.  I would honestly like to hear a supported assertion as to why Hillary should stay in this race.  I've also heard of a few reasons from a small handful of Obama supporters that it's good that she stays in the race for Democrats.

Given the current situation with the delegate count and statistical unlikelihood that Hillary could ever catch Obama in delegates, can anyone give me a good reason why Hillary remaining in this race will help her or the Democratic party in any way?

Now that my 'Hawks squeezed by a very hot, and terribly underrated Davidson team, I'm breathing a gigantic sigh of relief.  Coach Self needed this win pretty badly, especially to chase off our zealous KU Alums who's expectations are way over the Field House roof.

So now we meet our once prized former coach's team, 'ol Roy and his North Carolina Tarheels.  Once the party dies down here, you can bet that this town of Lawrence is seething to take Roy's team down.  Most of the anger and sadness of Roy leaving is long gone, and we're more than happy to have Self, but there's definitely a twinge of revenge that still seeps in our blood.

Oh yeah, and there's Memphis and UCLA too.  Almost forgot :D.

Dear Hillary,

Go.

Please.

You can chalk last night up as a "moral" victory.  You can now leave with a bit of pride left, if you so choose.  But it's time for you to go.  Now.  

It's time for us to start concentrating our powers against McCain and the GOP.  They'll be coming, hard and fast.  And you remaining in the race will only get in our way of the fight.

Just as I was flipping over the Oscars, the nominations for Best Documentary was on.

And the winner was Taxi to the Darkside.

What an incredibly sad, outrageous, and infuriating true story.  My blood boiled as my wife and I watched in horror.  It was one thing reading about these cases over the years, but watching this depiction of what our Administration did to this man was just unreal.

Oh boy.  You troubled Floridians, I tried my best to warn you.  I tried my best to tell you to get your anti-numbskull shot, because that nasty anti-evolutionist bug got us Kansans pretty damn good, not once but twice in the past decade.  It was bad.  It was embarrassing, and Lord knows I wanted y'all to be protected as best as possible.

But dagnabbit, you done got yurselves a perty nasty religious nutbag virus, ain't cha?

I'm a student physical therapist on clinical rotations in my last semester in grad school, and I've had some interesting conversations with a particular client as of late.  The setting is an outpatient clinic in Kansas City, and I'm on a 9 week rotation there with 2 weeks left to go.

The patient is about 2 months out from an ACL/MCL/Medial Meniscus repair on his knee ("Unhappy Triad"), and he will have a couple more months of therapy with us before he's able to go back to work.  He's actually one of my favorite patient's to work with because he's an incredibly nice and affable man with a terrific attitude both with therapy and pretty much everything else in life.

But a passing statement about torture made by this patient in complete innocence and jocularity on multiple occasions has given me a bit of pause.  And I can't help but wonder how the hell we, as a society, has ever gotten to this point in regards to torture.

Scrolling through my daily blogroll I come across the always astute Glenn Greenwald, who hammers home a very important point for the Democrats:

Stop running from National Security.

This issue is truly the Achilles heel for the GOP, yet we see evidence of a one Terry McAuliffe, Chairman for Hillary's Campaign, demonstrating the cowardly Conventional Beltway Wisdom for the Democrats and taking a pass when confronted.

I'll just say it right now - this is getting fucking downright old, people.

After reading the always excellent blog of Glenn Greenwald today in regards to the atrocious actions of Harry Reid and the FISA Amendment, his second update informs us that John Edwards is going to be on Countdown with Keith Olbermann RIGHT NOW.

This should be good, at least I'm hoping Edwards will say exactly what needs to be said and to push Reid and Rockefeller's bullshit FISA bill out into the limelight for all to see.