Some people have an irrational hatred of obamarx. The rest of us hate his Progressive, communist, anti-American agenda, failed spending schemes and fraudministration of tax cheats and alinskyites.

No need to argue, the real message will be delivered November 2010.

This post in memory of Robert 'KKK' Byrd, Democrat Exalted Cyclops.

No, "Puff, the Magic Dragon" is not about marijuana, or any other type of drug. It is what its writers have always claimed it to be: a song about the innocence of childhood lost.


The poem that formed the basis of the song "Puff, the Magic Dragon" was written in 1959 by Leonard Lipton, a nineteen-year-old Cornell student. Lipton was inspired by an Ogden Nash rhyme about a "Really-O Truly-O Dragon," and, using a dragon as the central figure, he came up with a poem about the end of childhood innocence. Lipton passed his work along to a friend, fellow Cornell student (and folk music enthusiast) Peter Yarrow, who put a melody to the words and wrote additional lyrics to create the song "Puff, the Magic Dragon." After Yarrow teamed up with Mary Travers and Paul Stookey in 1961 to form Peter, Paul & Mary, the trio performed the song in live shows; their 1962 recording of "Puff" reached #2 on the Billboard charts in early 1963.


The 1960s being what they were, however, any song based on oblique or allegorical lyrics was subject to reinterpretation as a "drug song," and so it was with "Puff." (For Peter, Paul & Mary, at least, the revelation that their song was "really" about marijuana came after the song had finished its chart run; other groups were not so fortunate, and accusations of "drug lyrics" caused some radio stations to ban songs such as the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" from their playlists.) "Puff" was an obvious name for a song about smoking pot; little Jackie Paper's surname referred to rolling papers; "autumn mist" was either clouds of marijuana smoke or a drug-induced state; the land of "Hanah Lee" was really the Hawaiian village of Hanalei, known for its particularly potent marijuana plants; and so on. As Peter Yarrow has demonstrated in countless concert performances, any song — even "The Star-Spangled Banner" — can be interpreted as a "drug song."


http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/puff.asp

@LarsaruS, without getting too into the weeds, what's happening is that in the Senate you need a 3/5ths majority (60 votes) to pass a motion to end debate and bring a bill to a vote. A filibuster is when people vote against ending debate to prevent legislation from coming to a vote that would otherwise pass.

Reconciliation is a special procedure for introducing budget-oriented bills, and has a built in 20-hour cap on debate, after which the bill automatically proceeds to a vote.

The reason why you can't do everything that way is because of something called the Byrd rule, which limits reconciliation only to things that directly affect the budget -- for example, reconciliation can and has been used to pass tax cuts, or expand existing entitlements, but it can't be for regulatory changes, like individual mandates, a ban on denying people for preexisting conditions, etc.

Of course, there's also an oft discussed end run around that -- the Senate parliamentarian is who judges whether a bill is fit for reconciliation or not, and the majority has the power to fire and replace the parliamentarian...

Basically, long story short, nothing really holds Democrats back except political fallout. At this point, with all the fake outrages being trumped up by the other side, I doubt many would even notice if Democrats did something so mild and defensible as restoring majority rule to the Senate.

Byrd has served his country with distinction for an awfully long time, but seriously, why do people in the US keep re-electing Senators who are so obviously showing the signs of dementia? Or Presidents for that matter, specifically Reagan in his second term.

Your video, Teabagger Worried Prayers Missed Sen. Byrd And Hit Inhofe, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Chicano caucus... it's just like the meetings you attend except without, you know, the white hoods and American flag lapel-pins and stuff.

So anyone who wants the laws enforced is a klansman? Hey if you want to see a real klansman, there's always taxocrat Robert KKK Byrd, "the conscience of the Senate."

Here's a message for you from the hoods at MEChA: "For the race, everything, for therealblankman and other guilty liberals, nothing."

Maybe your property should be seized and given to illegals. After all, since you don't mind them invading your country, shouldn't they also invade your home as well? Their welfare is your responsibility. Work hard now!

As you brought it up, please explain what you mean by white culture. Let's see if you can do a better job than your buddy.

Celebrating the Founding Fathers' genius instead of endlessly focusing on the flaws of their age, and whining about slavery and the genocide of Indians.

Celebrating the great thinkers of Europe and America instead of condemning and ignoring them because they're White.

Celebrating the free market and capitalism (White guy ideas) that bring more wealth to more people than government programs and communism.

Rejecting chip-on-shoulder diversity/multi-cult garbage that equates witch doctors with neurosurgeons.

Being proud of the American flag.

Speaking English. And if you're not from here but here to stay, learning English.


Open borders advocates are the ones setting the stage for anarchy in the name of "tolerance".

West Virginia Senators have a lot to atone for since Robert Byrd left office, lol.

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Byrds-Turn-Turn-Turn

You survived the first Depression? The one FDR prolonged with government programs?

Well sir, if this Fraudbama is elected, get ready for the next one.

Democrats thank you for your lifetime of support, especially Robert "KKK" Byrd.

...now I almost wish I hadn't seen this.

He thinks that John McCain is best fit to lead because he has the most experience. I'd think that would make Robert Byrd the only viable candidate for President, since he's been a Senator for almost 50 years. Of course, Byrd is rallying behind...Obama.

If you want to see despicable, unapologetic racism, sexism and ageism, look no further than the Donkey Party and their media lackeys. Observe the way they've treated Powell, Palin, Clarence Thomas, Alberto Gonzales, Condi, Bush's wife and daughters and now McCain.

Anyone outside of the liberal multi-cult circle of tolerance is fair game for their treachery, yet they're the first to howl "racism" when called on their BS. The sissies can dish it but not take it.

Robert Byrd, the "ex" Ku Klux Klansman is whom Democrats revere as "the conscience of the Senate".

So please, liberals, refrain from pretending you're not hateful in your own special ways.

*dead

fix: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x30jll_bobby-byrd-rip-soul-man-1968_family

Upvote for the soundtrack. One of my favorite pieces: "Ave Verum Corpus" by William Byrd.

The following is from a Newsweek article read by Sen. Byrd (D, WV) during a congressional hearing on September 20, 2002:

The last time Donald Rumsfeld saw Saddam Hussein, he gave him a cordial handshake. The date was almost 20 years ago, Dec. 20, 1983; an official Iraqi television crew recorded the historic moment.

The once and future Defense secretary, at the time a private citizen, had been sent by President Ronald Reagan to Baghdad as a special envoy. Saddam Hussein, armed with a pistol on his hip, seemed "vigorous and confident," according to a now declassified State Department cable obtained by Newsweek. Rumsfeld "conveyed the President's greetings and expressed his pleasure at being in Baghdad," wrote the notetaker. Then the two men got down to business, talking about the need to improve relations between their two countries.

Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time, America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq. The Reagan administration feared that the Iranian revolutionaries who had overthrown the shah (and taken hostage American diplomats for 444 days in 1979-81) would overrun the Middle East and its vital oilfields. On the--theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the Reaganites were seeking to support Iraq in a long and bloody war against Iran. The meeting between Rumsfeld and Saddam was consequential: for the next five years, until Iran finally capitulated, the United States backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic aid and covert supplies of munitions...

The history of America's relations with Saddam is one of the sorrier tales in American foreign policy. Time and again, America turned a blind eye to Saddam's predations, saw him as the lesser evil or flinched at the chance to unseat him. No single policymaker or administration deserves blame for creating, or at least tolerating, a monster; many of their decisions seemed reasonable at the time. Even so, there are moments in this clumsy dance with the Devil that make one cringe. It is hard to believe that, during most of the 1980s, America knowingly permitted the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission to import bacterial cultures that might be used to build biological weapons...

The war against Iran was going badly by 1982. Iran's "human wave attacks" threatened to overrun Saddam's armies. Washington decided to give Iraq a helping hand.

After Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad in 1983, U.S. intelligence began supplying the Iraqi dictator with satellite photos showing Iranian deployments. Official documents suggest that America may also have secretly arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be shipped to Iraq in a swap deal--American tanks to Egypt, Egyptian tanks to Iraq. Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics, the Reagan administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a wide variety of "dual use" equipment and materials from American suppliers. According to confidential Commerce Department export-control documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, the shopping list included a computerized database for Saddam's Interior Ministry (presumably to help keep track of political opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials; television cameras for "video surveillance applications"; chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), and, most unsettling, numerous shipments of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" to the IAEC. According to former officials, the bacterial cultures could be used to make biological weapons, including anthrax. The State Department also approved the shipment of 1.5 million atropine injectors, for use against the effects of chemical weapons, but the Pentagon blocked the sale. The helicopters, some American officials later surmised, were used to spray poison gas on the Kurds.

The United States almost certainly knew from its own satellite imagery that Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops. When Saddam bombed Kurdish rebels and civilians with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas, sarin, tabun and VX in 1988, the Reagan administration first blamed Iran, before acknowledging, under pressure from congressional Democrats, that the culprits were Saddam's own forces.

The United States was much more concerned with protecting Iraqi oil from attacks by Iran as it was shipped through the Persian Gulf. In 1987, an Iraqi Exocet missile hit an American destroyer, the USS Stark, in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 crewmen. Incredibly, the United States excused Iraq for making an unintentional mistake and instead used the incident to accuse Iran of escalating the war in the gulf. The American tilt to Iraq became more pronounced. U.S. commandos began blowing up Iranian oil platforms and attacking Iranian patrol boats. In 1988, an American warship in the gulf accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus, killing 290 civilians. Within a few weeks, Iran, exhausted and fearing American intervention, gave up its war with Iraq.

Saddam was feeling cocky. With the support of the West, he had defeated the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran. America favored him as a regional pillar; European and American corporations were vying for contracts with Iraq. He was visited by congressional delegations led by Sens. Bob Dole of Kansas and Alan Simpson of Wyoming, who were eager to promote American farm and business interests. But Saddam's megalomania was on the rise, and he overplayed his hand. In 1990, a U.S. Customs sting operation snared several Iraqi agents who were trying to buy electronic equipment used to make triggers for nuclear bombs. Not long after, Saddam gained the world's attention by threatening "to burn Israel to the ground." At the Pentagon, analysts began to warn that Saddam was a growing menace, especially after he tried to buy some American-made high-tech furnaces useful for making nuclear-bomb parts. Yet other officials in Congress and in the Bush administration continued to see him as a useful, if distasteful, regional strongman. The State Department was equivocating with Saddam right up to the moment he invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

Mr. President, I referred to this Newsweek article yesterday at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Specifically, during the hearing, I asked Secretary Rumsfeld:

"Mr. Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war? Are we in fact now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sewn?"

The Secretary quickly and flatly denied any knowledge but said he would review Pentagon records.

I suggest that the administration speed up that review. My concerns and the concerns of others have grown.

A letter from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, which I shall submit for the Record, shows very clearly that the United States is, in fact, preparing to reap what it has sewn. A letter written in 1995 by former CDC Director David Satcher to former Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr., points out that the U.S. Government provided nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in 1985--samples that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly diseases.

According to the letter from Dr. Satcher to former Senator Donald Riegle, many of the materials were hand carried by an Iraqi scientist to Iraq after he had spent 3 months training in the CDC laboratory.

The Armed Services Committee is requesting information from the Departments of Commerce, State, and Defense on the history of the United States, providing the building blocks for weapons of mass destruction to Iraq. I recommend that the Department of Health and Human Services also be included in that request.

The American people do not need obfuscation and denial. The American people need the truth. The American people need to know whether the United States is in large part responsible for the very Iraqi weapons of mass destruction which the administration now seeks to destroy.

We may very well have created the monster that we seek to eliminate. The Senate deserves to know the whole story. The American people deserve answers to the whole story.

Racists - those who judge solely based on race - are also Obam's strength. Black Democrats are voting for him because he's Black. It can't be anything else, since Clinton's husband Bill during his 8 LONG years pumped billions into the Black community. Some thanks.

White Democrats are voting for BHO because he's not-White/same old.

Racism? What about opposing Obama's RED socialism, and then there's that politicized, Farrakhan-honoring "church" of his, which has been a delightful embarrassment.

Racism? Why, Obama has the support of Robert "KKK" Byrd D-WV, the longest "serving" member in Congress. Wouldn’t you expect the endorsement of a (half) Black man by a former Grand Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan to be headline news?

And yet the the Associated Press buried this historic event.

Why is that, do you think?

Do you think if a former Klansman endorsed a Republican Presidential candidate it would be similarly soft pedaled?