Jay Jay French, original and still current guitarist and songwriter for 80's Hard Rock band Twisted Sister, has re-recorded the band's smash hit "I Wanna Rock" with new lyrics and the title "I Want Barack".

I have never written a candidate diary. For ludicrous reasons of my own doing (nothing criminal, just stupidity) I've never voted and I don't have the time to rectify that in time for November. But today I feel the need to thank a man that has inspired me a great deal over the last year: John Edwards.

Seems only fitting on the day we celebrate Dr. King to simply leave it up to him to say what needs to be said.

In what can only be described as another blatant indulgence of "open" secrecy and complete contempt of justice, the Bush Administration has asked the Judge in the CIA torture tape investigation, not to even bother looking into the matter.

I listened with astonishment to Mitt Romney's speech yesterday, not because he completely avoided actually talking about his Mormonism, but for the claim which has so many in the secular camp worried about his concept of what role religion and freedom play in our lives.

This is that part:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

I say with no inhibition that my freedom not only exists without religion, but that an avenue available to me free of religion, implicit and explicit, not only saved me but enriched my life.

We all know how brilliant Stephen Colbert is; from his self-promotional genius to his top drawer satire, he has been as funny as anyone has in the last 4 or 5 years on television.

His Whitehouse Correspondence dinner speech last year was jaw-dropping in its ability to skewer both the President and the traditional media in one fail swoop.  That he did it 10 feet from the President was a show of cajones like Washington has rarely seen, and eviscerated some in attendance who could only dream of doing likewise with a countless number of hours on TV or columns in print.

Who knew though that Colbert would specifically expose a Bush flaw that this week would be reinforced almost word-for-word.

First let me say I have zero connection with KO, his show, or anything to do with his book

Keith Olbermann has been keeping the flame lit for many of us while the traditional media entered a dark cave years ago. Olbermann's new book Truth and Consequences comes out on December 26th. It is based on his amazing series of "Special Comments" that have had me cheering the television when every other news show abdicated its obligation to the truth many moons ago.

Let's show KO our support and buy this book to prove not only idiots like Coulter and O'Reilly can move some paper.

You can pre-order it here from Amazon

A few teasers after the fold

As ACLU of So Cal reported earlier in last week, the LAPD had planned to 'map' Muslim communitites in the Los Angeles area. Seems that the LAPD have caved to pressure come to their senses and have scrapped the whole plan.

Thought I would compile some small tidbits of news for those up late over here in the West and also for those who rise early in the East. They are not in order of importance, just what I found chronologically. Most wouldn't make a full diary but hopefully some reading and info as you make your way through the superhighway of tubes.

As always with me, it was a vivid and lucid dream; the colors were jumping at me and the smell was pungent. I seemed to have descended into Hell. But there was no Billy Crystal and I wasn’t Woody Allen. No, this was not a vision made trivial by martinis and scantily clad women. It was a nightmarish scene for all. Well, not really for me, but it was for those whom I saw.

Yeah I know, you're the President and that's what they do in disasters. But you've lost your credibility with us; we're tired of your lies and deceit. We don't need you and the trail of destruction that follows you around. We have enough of our own to worry about.

It was reported earlier this week by many traditional media outlets, that Bush dropped a whopping 5% points in one month in the Reuters/Zogby poll from 29% to 24%.  At the low end of the scale that is one hell of a drop! What the media, even Olbermann, didn't do is try to explain why this could have been? During another month in the endless carnage in Iraq it would seem pretty spurious to think it was a sudden onset of a huge number of people expressing dislike for the war.

What pushed the number down almost 15% from where it was is pretty clear to anyone who doesn't live inside the beltway.

I know, I know, rants aren't exactly the optimal use of a diary. We all around here reached our boiling point years ago, but today has just sent me into a blind fury and one that sickens me to no end. Bush is damn near giddy about his veto of the SCHIP bill.

Haven't seen this written about yet, so if it has, don't recommend.

The AP has just reported that the eight boot camp workers charged with manslaughter in Florida in the death of a 14 year old, who was repeatedly kicked and punched and died a day later, have been acquitted after only a 90 minute deliberation by the jury.

I'll give the wingnuts and Bu$hco credit where it is due: they know how to spin anything; know how to degrade anyone and anything; close ranks when even some of them know they've sold themselves to the Devil; are even willing to hang a 12 year old and his family out to dry.

However, there is one thing the Administration and all of Theocradom don't understand and that is Logic.  Apparently, and it's no big shock as to why, Neocons and their ilk seem to think Logic is some malleable force that can be twisted and turned, used or not used.  They just don't get the simple fact that Logic is a branch of Philosophy that analyzes the properties of statements.  That's it, nothing more or less.  In my last diary I used it to prove Health Care is a Right, and it is all I need to show that today Bush told us all what we already knew: the current surveillance program is illegal.

Follow me...

Yes, this is not technically a "breaking" story, but I think it is of such importance that it may as well be.  My goal here is not to show the pragmatic and compassion of universal health care; no, nyceve has done that so beautifully and unfortunately heartbreakingly well for so long that I couldn’t do it justice.  I hope one day I can meet nyceve just to say thanks.  Also,  Darksyde has an excellent FP piece again on completely incorrect practical view conservaties have on universal health care.

This diary is as meta as non-dkos meta gets.  What is missing in the debate of health care in this country is the fact that philosophically the conservative view on health care is utterly bankrupt and that is because it is based on a secondary premise, and illogically denies the more fundamental premise, which by itself proves their argument illogical itself.

Over the fold if you will, please.

I’m absolutely apoplectic about this and may let a few sweary words slip through because of it.

Like I’m sure many of you, I received a gallingly insidious email from the DCCC this morning.  It was an attempt at snark, being a supposed email from Karl Rove, who had worked with Dick Cheney to break into the DCCC headquarters to send the email from a DCCC email address as his last act before leaving the WH.  

What is so sad about the email is it glaringly shines a light on how completely ineffectual Democrats have been while in power in the Congress, while trying to prove the opposite.

As Kagro X posted on the FP, the Webb amendment to give our troops equal time at home as in the combat zone, will be vetoed if it gets to Bush's desk, if it even has the votes for cloture at all.  I would take the time and money to hit Bushco and the enabling Rebublicans as hard as possible over the Webb proposal, and give those Repub senators something to think about when they cast their vote.  I would push it in simple yet forceful terms.