DECLARATION

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Not even the self-appointed emperor-god Barack Obama can alienate us from these rights, even if he succeeds temporarily in depriving us of them. They are not a gift from Lord Barry, to be dispensed or withheld at his whim — they belong to us.

A PATRIOT SPEAKS

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One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America have been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country.

The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised – and it should be.

— Edward Snowden

GEORGE WASHINGTON SAYS

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The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.

Now Barack Obama, so much wiser than our first President, finds the Constitution a trifling impediment to his will, something to be brushed aside like an annoying gnat.  Isn’t it wonderful that we have progressed so far from credulous dimwits like Washington?

Click on the image to enlarge.

A NEW AMAZON CUSTOMER REVIEW!

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. . . of Missouri Green:

Terrific Tale!

Another sublime Western from Lloyd Fonvielle. I really love this story. Quintessentially American, profoundly American. Beautiful, funny, sad, and always engaging. Peopled with characters who will stay with you for a long, long while. Strong, full female protagonist. Strong, full male protagonist. Has the feel and landscape of a traditional Western, but will surprise you too!

Click here for the review and book details.

WHEN IS A COUP NOT A COUP?

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If an American President, on his own authority, suspended the U. S. Constitution — as Barack Obama has pretty much done — and the Congress declined to impeach and remove him from office for this, would the U. S. military be justified in forcibly removing the government in Washington in order to preserve the Constitution? Does American “democracy” have any real meaning, any long-term viability, without the Constitution?

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These are complicated questions. Like Obama and Morsy, Hitler was a democratically elected leader — but all these men assumed dictatorial powers after their elections which went beyond anything the people who elected them contemplated. Does there come a point at which a democratically elected leader nullifies his mandate through tyrannical acts?

SINATRA: THE LIFE

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This is an extensively researched and highly detailed biography of Sinatra, very readable and entertaining. As with any Sinatra biography it dwells at some length on the dark and sensational aspects of the singer’s life, but this is offset by a genuine appreciation of Sinatra’s art and a sincere effort to evoke the genius of it.

Recommended.

SURROGATE COCK

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It’s worth listening to Francis Ford Coppola’s commentary on the new Blu-ray edition of The Godfather just to get a sense of how vile studio executives were, even in the freewheeling, adventuresome atmosphere of Hollywood in the 1970s.

Robert Evans, celebrated by some as a “creative” producer, hated Coppola’s uniformly brilliant casting of The Godfather, hated Brando’s performance, hated the way Coppola was directing the film and came within inches of firing Coppola off the production three weeks into the 65-day shoot. Only a series of lucky circumstances saved Coppola’s job, including a timely Oscar for his script for Patton..

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Evans had a studio stooge on the set at all times who tried to get Coppola to cut crucial scenes from the film before they were shot, and if Coppola refused, he would subtract days from the shooting schedule hoping that Coppola wouldn’t be able to complete the scenes in the time allotted.  Coppola scrambled and somehow managed to get the scenes done anyway.  At one point Evans threatened to assign Coppola a co-director to handle the action scenes — some of the best and most powerful action scenes in movie history.

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When the film was finished, Evans told Coppola that if he didn’t deliver a cut that clocked in at less than two hours and fifteen minutes the film would be taken away from him.  When Coppola delivered such a cut, by eviscerating his own two hour and forty-five minute cut, Evans had a fit, saying that Coppola had cut out all the best scenes and insisting that Coppola put them back.  Then Evans took credit for creating the longer cut.  Evans hated the Nino Rota score Coppola had commissioned and kept it only when Coppola insisted they preview the film with the score and see how an audience reacted. The audience loved the movie and the score.

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In the end, it was Coppola who made Evans — a pea-brained little shit heel if there ever was one — look good, though Evans seems to have genuinely believed that he was the mastermind behind the film’s success.  What Evans did was buy the rights to a novel he thought would make a nice little pot-boiler of a movie, which he intended to set in modern-day Kansas City.  He hired a young director he thought could work fast to churn out the pot-boiler.  When the book became a best-seller he allowed Coppola to retain the period setting and upped the budget enough to make this feasible, but just barely.  Then he did everything in his power to wreck the great movie Coppola was quite clearly in the process of making.  For this he thought he deserved respect?  It’s sort of like an impotent bridegroom hiring a brilliant cocksman to fuck his wife on their wedding night and then trying to take credit for her orgasm.

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To give the Devil his due, Evans had an instinct for spotting talented cocksmen and taking chances on them.  His problem was that he mistook their dicks for his.  His wife Ali MacGraw, who dumped him for Steve McQueen, didn’t suffer from the same misapprehension, at least not for long.