Gas prices are undoubtedly high, but as the Washington Post documents, when you adjust for inflation the real cost of gasoline was higher in June 2008, when George W. Bush was president.

Vote Republican, so gas prices can go even higher?

A liberal is someone who supports liberal ideals: Peace, human rights, constitutional freedoms, eradication of the corrupt influence of corporations in American politics. That definition sounds obvious.

The problem is that many liberals aren’t liberals any more.

These days, many people who call themselves “liberal” support downright anti-liberal policies. In fact, a large number of people who describe themselves as “liberal” now support some of the most radically right wing policies of George W. Bush.

This sad new political reality is reflected in a new poll by the Washington Post. The poll finds that 53 percent of people who call themselves “liberal Democrats” support keeping the unconstitutional, extralegal prison at Guantanamo Bay open. 55 percent of these self-described “liberal Democrats” support allowing the President to perform long-distance executions of American citizens without criminal trial.

Glenn Greenwald calls this turn of “liberal Democrat” opinion to embrace the policies begun by George W. Bush “repulsive” – and he’s right. Greenwald is also correct in identifying the reason for the great liberal flip flop: Barack Obama has embraced these Bush policies, and many people who like to call themselves “liberal” really don’t have any ideology. They just love Barack Obama, and so they figure that if Barack Obama does something, it must be okay.

These people aren’t liberals. They’re blind partisans. They’re followers. They’re fans. They treat politics as if it’s a football game. They’ve decided that they support the Democratic team, and whatever the leaders of the Democratic team tell them is right, they will believe is right.

This lazy attitude is so low that it isn’t even immoral. It’s absolutely amoral.

Now, before I go too far, I want to make it clear that I do not believe that there is no difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. There is a significant difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The biggest difference, however, seems to be that Democrats think whatever Democratic Party leaders tell them to think, while Republicans think whatever Republican Party leaders tell them to think.

Liberals are supposed to be against the corrupt influence of corporate power in elections. Now, though, Barack Obama has openly invited corporate-run Super PACs to make independent expenditures of money that comes from nobody-knows-where on his behalf. So, many liberals are praising Obama’s move, saying that it shows that he’s strong.

Liberals are supposed to be against Presidents ignoring congressional authority and declaring war whenever they want to. Once Barack Obama did it, though, too many liberals rushed to defend Obama’s action, saying that anyone who thins that Presidents couldn’t take the nation off to war on a whim is an idiot.

Liberals are supposed to be environmentalists. But, when Barack Obama announced that he wouldn’t even try to pass legislation to deal with climate change, many liberals clapped loudly, saying, “President Obama sure is good at that long game!” When Barack Obama declared that he would expand offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, even though there are no new regulations from Congress to protect us against the kind of massive disaster that took place when the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig exploded, large numbers of Democrats willingly pretended that they had no idea that the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history had taken place less than two years ago.

What about the rest of us? What about the minority of “liberals” who actually are liberal? We’re frustrated. We’re depressed. A lot of the time, we don’t know what to do. Sometimes, we feel like we just want to throw in the towel, and give up, because there’s no hope, and nobody that we can believe in, and nothing we can do.

But deep in our hearts, we know that’s BULLSHIT.

Here’s What We DO:

We replace our despair with anger, and we grow a backbone.

We rip that Barack Obama bumper sticker off the car. We toss that Barack Obama campaign button in the garbage. We throw that Barack Obama tshirt on a campfire and piss on it while it burns.

Then, we pick someone better. There are two good, really good, liberal choices this year: Their names are Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson. Both are running for President. Pick one to support. Support both, if you like.

Then, the next time you meet one of your “liberal” friends who starts talking about how wonderful Barack Obama is, you do not turn your head away sheepishly and change the subject of the conversation. You say to your friend, “I thought you were liberal, but I don’t understand how any liberal can support the terrible right wing policies that Barack Obama has been promoting. Many of them are the same policies that you told me you were against when George W. Bush promoted them. Why have you changed your values?”

Then, you pull a Rocky Anderson for President button or a Jill Stein for President button out of your pocket and you pin it on your chest.

You put a bumper sticker on your car for Stein or Anderson, too. You wear a tshirt to the protests that the Democrats don’t support anymore.

You hold a house party for Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson, and you invite your liberal friends. You’ll find out which ones are liberal and which ones are “liberal”.

What you do is get active and stay active, because the fact is that being sad and silent about Barack Obama’s terrible embrace of right wing politics is just as bad as being an unthinking Obama loyalist.

For our country and for our world, we need better leadership than what Barack Obama is willing to offer. There’s only one way for us to get better leadership: We have to be better citizens.

Well, think again.

According to federal law, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC) is supposed to report on the uses of the Patriot Act power for the government to engage in “sneak and peek” searches of Americans’ homes, offices, and other personal property without letting the subject of the search know about it.

Did you think that under President Barack Obama these searches would decline?
Did you think that this Patriot Act power was being used in order to stop terrorism?

Thanks to WTAE of Pittsburgh for digging up these annual reports (FY 2007 | FY 2008 | FY 2009 | FY 2010), which show very clearly that under Barack Obama’s administration the use of sneak-and-peek powers have accelerated, not declined, and which also show very clearly that the overwhelming majority of the time, sneak-and-peek Patriot Act powers are used for the Drug War. Less than 1% of Patriot Act sneak-and-peeks are actually used to try and find terrorists.

No thanks are due to the administration of President Barack Obama, who promised the nation he’d be a leader in transparency but which has not published these reports for public view, not even on the web page of the very Administrative Office of the United States Courts that produces the report. No thanks are due to the House of Representatives, which receives the report every year but does not publish it. No thanks are due to the U.S. Senate, which receives the report every year but does not publish it. They’d rather you didn’t know the truth these reports tell.

Here’s what Anderson said:

“With the complicity of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Bush administration marched our nation off a cliff – morally, legally, and economically – by perpetrating a disastrous war of aggression against Iraq. President Obama, for his political advantage, simply shrugged off war crimes committed in conjunction with that war, with the excuse that we “need to look forward not backward.” It is a trademark reminder – in the spirit of President Ford’s ignominious pardon of Richard M. Nixon – that, in our two-tiered system of injustice, the rich and powerful are above the law, which is applied, often with a crushing vengeance, against the rest of us.”

So, how is Barack Obama like Gerald Ford? The comparison Rocky Anderson makes is apt: Like President Ford, Barack Obama helped the President who came before him evade legal responsibility for serious crimes that were committed in the White House. Just as Gerald ford let Richard Nixon off the hook, Barack Obama let George W. Bush off the hook.

For those of us who worked for years to seek accountability for George W. Bush’s crimes, Obama’s assistance to Bush, Obama’s decision to put the matter into the “past” is especially troubling, given what we’ve seen of Obama’s own willingness to put our constitutional rights aside for the sake of increasing the power of Homeland Security.

Like Darcy Richardson and Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson is a great alternative presidential candidate for liberals who are tired of having their trust betrayed by Barack Obama.

That’s often not to the benefit of Barack Obama, who as President has taken the support of progressive Americans for granted. Rocky Anderson is more than happy to point out the many ways in which Obama has proven to be a terrible fit with Democratic voters’ political ideals.

In a recent interview with Wikinews reporter William Saturn, Rocky Anderson brought a harsh and clear focus on Barack Obama’s terrible record on civil liberties and the rule of law. Anderson told Saturn:

“He never stood up against torture or the other human rights abuses that were occurring during that time. He promised us before he received the Democratic nomination that he would join the filibuster in opposition to Congress providing retroactive immunity for the telecom companies for their illegal participation in the Bush surveillance program. And by the way, not all the telecom companies participated in that, they recognized that it was illegal so it wasn’t a matter of people were fooled about whether it was legal or not. But for those telecom companies that did violate the law, they should have been held accountable. But in the classic American way, the corrupt way that has developed in our system of government, three telecom companies spend some twelve million dollars on lobbyists during the course of three months they put on the press, Congress passed legislation providing for the retroactive immunity and among those voting for the immunity, now after he received the Democratic nomination was then-Senator Obama, completely betraying those that he had promised to join the filibuster. But it was just a sign of things to come, they always talked about the rule of law, he has greater contempt for the rule of law, I think, than George W. Bush. He comes into office, says, ‘oh, we’re going to look forward, not backwards’ in terms of holding accountable war criminals? And those were criminals not only under international law, the Geneva Convention, the Convention Against Torture, but under our own laws passed by Congress: War Crimes Act of 1996 and the federal torture statute. Clearly, an illegal act, and he says, lets just look forward, not backwards.’”

This statement brings back memories for me. Rocky Anderson reminds me that Obama’s troubling disregard for America’s constitutional rights was made quite clear during the 2008 presidential election. We spent a great deal of time here at Irregular Times during the summer and autumn of 2008 discussing Barack Obama’s support for the terrible FISA Amendments Act – a law that gave immunity to telecommunications corporations for breaking federal law by providing government spies with information about millions of Americans’ private communications data.

During the 2008 presidential election, Democratic apologists depicted Obama’s support for Big Brother government spying in the form of the FISA Amendments Act as a temporary aberration, a compromise made necessary by the election. They promised that, after Obama became President, he would reform the FISA Amendments Act. That didn’t happen. It turned out that Obama’s vote for the FISA Amendments Act was just a precursor of more compromises of constitutional rights to come.

Barack Obama has not brought the change that voters were looking for in 2008. He won’t bring us that change if he’s re-elected in 2012, either. Obama has continued and expanded George W. Bush’s attack on the Constitution, and there’s no reason to believe that he’s going to change his ways.

If you’re looking for real change, help Rocky Anderson get on the ballot in the coming year’s presidential election.

This move is yet another demonstration of the Republican Party’s disregard for…

… what? Pardon? Oh, dear. You say it’s the Democratic Party administration of President Barack Obama, not the Republican Party administration of President George W. Bush, that’s responsible for this fiasco? No, no, no. That can’t possibly be true. You see, political interference in scientific decisionmaking to abet a conservative agenda is a Republican thing, not a Democratic thing. Interfering with women’s reproductive choices is a Bush thing, not an Obama thing. I’m sure of it, because President Barack Obama promised right there in his inaugural speech to “restore science to its rightful place” and leave the politics out of it, and President Obama is a sincere man who would never go back on his word. He’s the Change We Can Believe In, so he couldn’t have possibly done this. All the news stories pinning this on Obama must have been written by Karl Rove. Yes, that’s it. Karl Rove is the one to blame.

It was easy for Democrats to support the above sentiment when it was applied to George W. Bush. Many Democrats eagerly promoted the slogan Question Authority when Bush was President are now less enthusiastic about the idea of a critical citizenry. They’re asking voters to put their legitimate concerns about Barack Obama aside, and to get in line behind the 2012 Obama re-election, for the sake of unity.

If you’re a Democrat, this is an important moral test: Will you stand by your principles, or will you stand by a politician?

Rocky Anderson faced this same moral test this summer, when Barack Obama helped Republicans push through legislation that cuts Medicare and education without any shared sacrifice in the form of increased taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent. Rocky Anderson decided that he’d had enough, and couldn’t remain within the Democratic Party any more. Rocky Anderson became an independent.

For Americans who have avoided involvement in political party machines, the decision of Rocky Anderson not to follow in line but to listen to his moral conscience instead, is compelling. Independent voters are usually regarded only as swing voters, but what if, in 2012, political independents discover a new dimension and swing, not toward either the Democrats or Republicans, but to Rocky Anderson?

296. Praise the Grey Lady for its principled decision in 2005 to expose President Bush’s Terrorist Surveillance wiretap program. Of course, there are conservative fools who witter on about stuff like national security, but liberals understand otherwise. Say to your liberal friend that you would rather a thousand innocent New Yorkers were blown to tiny pieces on the subway than live in a country where government attempts to eavesdrop on potentially innocent jihadists; you’re so proud that the crusading zeal and moral certitude for which the New York Times is so justly renowned has made that possible.

In Delingpole’s world, he knows that the people being spied on must be “Jihadists.”  In the real world, American soldiers talking to their wives were listened in on for government agents’ amusement.

In Delingpole’s world, deaths from terrorism are a major cause of death. In the real world, more people die every year from gallbladder attacks than have died from terrorist attacks over the past ten years.

In Delingpole’s world, the Constitution isn’t a respected document with the supreme force of law — it’s just a piece of paper to be ignored. In the real world…

… in the real world, Delingpole’s mentality has won out.

You’ll notice that Delingpole didn’t cite his sources. He never does. Why don’t we do a little fact checking of our own?

To judge James Delingpole’s claim that the government of Barack Obama is socialist because of the taxes it collects from Americans, we should look at the amount of federal taxes collected from the American people. That information can be found in Table 2.1 in the Historical statistical appendix to the federal budget. To give Delingpole the benefit of the doubt, we’ll include all sources of federal revenue except for corporate income taxes, since corporations aren’t Americans (note: the general findings of this article hold even if you do include corporate income taxes). In 2010, with Barack Obama as President, all these sources of federal revenue — including income tax, social entitlement payments, excise taxes, estate taxes, gift taxes, customs duties and fees and so on — totaled $1,971,287,000.

If you go back four years to 2006, with George W. Bush as President and his Republicans having been in control of Congress for many years, all these sources of federal revenue totaled $2,052,945,000. That’s more taxation than under Barack Obama. If you go by James Delingpole’s logic, that would make George W. Bush a bigger socialist than Barack Obama. If you go by James Delingpole’s logic and you hate “socialism,” the last thing you would ever want to do is to vote Republican!

P.S. The broad U.S. data for consumer expenditures that would include food, clothing and shelter aren’t actually released for 2010 until October, which makes one wonder out of which orifice Delingpole pulled his claim. Delingpole’s book was published on January 4, 2011, long before any expenditure data for 2010 could possibly have been released. The latest expenditure data, for 2009, is available via the OECD. Let’s use those. Consumer spending for food, clothing, housing and maintenance of housing in the United States in 2009 was $3,322,600,000 — far more than taxation by the Obama administration (even if you cut out the housing maintenance costs, you still get a higher amount). So it’s not just that the Bush administration extracted more taxes than the Obama administration, and it’s not just that James Delingpole made his claim without possibly having access to actual information; he’s also just plain wrong.

P.P.S. In 2006, with the federal government under firm Republican control, Americans spent $3,095,500,000 on food, clothing, housing and maintenance of their housing. Federal taxation of Americans in was $2,052,954,000. That made federal taxation 66.3% of the amount Americans spent on food, clothing and housing under Bush and the GOP.

In 2009, under Barack Obama and Democratic control of Congress, federal taxation of Americans was $1,966,760,000 while Americans spent $3,322,600,000 on food, clothing, housing and maintenance of their housing. That made federal taxation 59.2% of the amount Americans spent on food, clothing and housing under Obama and the Democrats — a lower percentage than under Bush and the Republicans. Yet again, if you buy Delingpole’s logic and hate “socialism,” you really ought to stop voting Republican.

So, under Barack Obama the use of mercenaries has been abolished, right? Wrong.

Under President Obama, the use of mercenaries by the U.S. government is expanding. Last year, there were 22,000 mercenaries in Afghanistan and Iraq. This year, there are 28,178 mercenaries in Afghanistan and Iraq – an increase of 28 percent.

Last week in Congress, Bernard Sanders and Jan Schakowsky introduced legislation to prohibit the use of mercenaries for security roles that have been traditionally been filled by the military. The legislation is registered as S. 1428 in the Senate, and H.R. 2665 in the House of Representatives.

So far, there are no U.S. senators willing to cosponsor the legislation. However, thirteen members of the House of Representatives have signed on to support the bill. Their names are:

John Conyers (Democrat-MI, District 14), Anna Eshoo (Democrat-CA, District 14), Bob Filner (Democrat-CA, District 51), Luis Gutierrez (Democrat-IL, District 4), Maurice Hinchey (Democrat-NY, District 22), Mazie Hirono (Democrat-HI, District 2), Marcy Kaptur (Democrat-OH, District 9), Barbara Lee (Democrat-CA, District 9), James McGovern (Democrat-MA, District 3), Gwen Moore (Democrat-WI, District 4), Jared Polis (Democrat-CO, District 2), Pete Stark (Democrat-CA, District 13), Lynn Woolsey (Democrat-CA, District 6)

If you want to see an end to the problems caused by mercenaries representing the United States in the field of war, call your U.S. representative and senators and ask them to add their names to this legislation.