Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a textbook authoritarian and uncritical sycophant for the Bush administration, has been consistently aiding rabid Republicans in reaching new party nadirs. Now we can add xenophobic, blind nationalist, and adversary to dissent to his growing and disturbing resume of Orwellian penchants.

Hunter has torn a page out of Orwell’s 1984, and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and pasted them neatly and expediently together. The Congressman has introduced legislation, H.R. 3675, with the expressed stated purpose to, “prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University.” Mr. Hunter believes quite vehemently, by virtue of his pending bill, that by cutting off all federal funding to Columbia University will, “restore patriotism to university campuses.”

The motivation behind this brazen act of McCarthyism is self-evident. Congressman Duncan Hunter disagrees with Columbia University’s invitation that allowed the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to speak to its students. The implications behind such an anti-democratic proposed law -- that we should deny disparate views from being heard, by way of banning unfettered access to those a few may disagree with -- are preposterous and lethal to independent thought. Such a bill is also purely antithetical to the very foundations of the free and open society we rightly enjoy.

Moreover, Hunter’s overt attempt at stemming dissent, using euphemistic vernacular such as “restore patriotism” more than tidily falls under the umbrella of fascist ideologies that aim to suppress academia and critical-thought.

Hunter’s perverse veneration -- that by law only people and ideas by which the US government consents is acceptable -- is a twisted, conflated effort of draconian law and totalitarian governing. Using dissembling language that cloaks the true intent, Hunter ineptly tries to define “patriotism” as utter loyalty to a Big Brother government.

Over the last three decades, the authoritarian right has risen to create the nation they have been longing for since their humbling by the Watergate scandal. After being subdued and humiliated by the mechanisms of a free republic, the right has turned the tables — and subdued and humiliated the republic. If the trend continues, all but unchallenged and unabated, we might as well replace the torch held aloft by Lady Liberty with a taser.

How could it come to this? How did so many US citizens grow so apathetic, oblivious, if not flat-out hostile to the tenets of a free republic?

I used to give thought to what historical time and place I would like to have lived in. Europe in the 1930s was usually my first choice. As the war clouds darkened, I’d be surrounded by intrigue, spies omnipresent, matters of life and death pressing down, the opportunity to be courageous and principled. I pictured myself helping desperate people escape to America. It was real Hollywood stuff; think “Casablanca”. And when the Spanish Republic fell to Franco and his fascist forces, aided by the German and Italian fascists (while the United States and Britain stood aside, when not actually aiding the fascists), everything in my imaginary scenario would have heightened — the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Then the Nazis marched into Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland … one could have devoted one’s life to working against all this, trying to hold back the fascist tide; what could be more thrilling, more noble?

Miracle of miracles, miracle of time machines, I’m actually living in this imagined period, watching as the Bush fascists march into Afghanistan, bombing it into a “failed state”; then Iraq: death, destruction, and utterly ruined lives for 24 million human beings; threatening more of the same endless night of hell for the people of Iran; overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; bombing helpless refugees in Somalia; relentless attempts to destabilize and punish Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Gaza, and other non-believers in the empire’s god-given mission. Sadly, my most common reaction to this real-life scenario, daily in fact, is less heroic and more feeling scared or depressed; not for myself personally but for our one and only world. The news every day, which I consume in large portions, slashes away at my joie de vivre; it’s not just the horror stories of American military power run amok abroad and the injustices of the ever-expanding police state at home, but all the lies and stupidity which drive me up the wall. I’m constantly changing stations, turning the TV or radio off, turning the newspaper page, to escape the words of the King of Lies and the King of Stupidity — those two twisted creatures who happen to occupy the same humanoid body — and a hundred minions.

Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded, according to a new report from Congress.

The report is also harshly critical of the State Department for exercising virtually no restraint or supervision of the private security company’s 861 employees in Iraq. “There is no evidence in the documents that the committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting episodes involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” the report states.

The claims that Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and has called for the destruction of Israel are false. He has called for regime change, which is something American politicians do every time they find a country whose policies they disagree with. Regime change is a change of government, not genocide. As for the Holocaust, he said it raised two questions: Why put people in prison who question details of the official version, which is what several European countries do. Why should the Palestinians be made to pay for it? Both are good questions.

How American politicians can call Iran a dangerous country and claim that it poses a threat to the US is a mystery. On second thought, it is not a mystery. It just tells you that the politicians think you and I are so stupid that we will fall for the exact same parade of lies and exaggerations that was used to justify the war against Iraq.

There's a raging debate within the Bush administration, the punditocracy, and the blogosphere about whether or not it is time to bomb Iran. While this conversation scares small children (and other sane people), most of the focus has been on (1) whether President... oh, excuse me... Vice President Cheney truly is moonbat-crazy enough to do so, and (2) whether anyone else in America (including the military) would go along with the idea. But not enough attention is being paid to what happens after we rain death from the skies down on Iran. Which is a shame, because that's what we ignored during the ramp-up to war with Iraq. And we all know how that turned out.

Justice Thomas has every right to present himself as he wishes in his new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.” He may even be entitled to feel abused by the confirmation process that led to his appointment to the Supreme Court.

But I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.

It's getting ugly out there, thank Dog CNN still has someone like Jack who tells the truth.

No matter how much we try to cope, or self-medicate or rail against his arrogant illogic, one fact remains. This goof is still in charge. Congress can’t or won’t do anything to stop him, so, for the time being, we’re stuck. On the down side, we’re witnessing the nadir of American history. On the plus side, we’ll have something to tell the grandkids about - if they’re not in a secret CIA detention center in the far-off land of Oingo-Boingo.

The Democrats' antiwar campaign has failed. President Bush's ruinous Iraq adventure will continue indefinitely, despite the fact that a majority of the American people oppose it. Too divided and afraid of being called "weak on national security" to stop funding it, the Democrats have been reduced to hoping that voters punish the GOP in 2008. But since Congress' approval rating is even lower than Bush's (in August, it sank to a record-tying low of 18 percent), it is far from clear that this strategy will work. The war is increasingly perceived as a low-level annoyance, barely even making the news. Amazingly, it now appears possible that the Republicans will suffer no long-term political damage for having started and for continuing to support what is arguably the most disastrous war in US history.

If this happens, the Democrats will have only themselves to blame. By allowing themselves to be intimidated into supporting Bush's war of choice, and by failing to offer a clear alternative to his moralistic, ahistorical, thuggish approach to the Middle East, the Democrats have once again embraced their time-honored strategy of presenting themselves as kinder, gentler Republicans. This strategy hit its nadir in a recent debate, when none of the three leading Democratic candidates, deeming it more important to appear "presidential" than to speak out clearly against the war, would even commit to removing US troops from Iraq by 2013.