About that comment by the anonymous poster...

I had a similar exchange with our own Arne Langsetmo. I'm not sure exactly how it went but I was trying to suggest that the goal should be realignment of the GOP. It's way too far off the map on the extreme right. Arne said something to the effect that whatever snatched it's body, sucked the life out of it and distorted it so, it has to be crushed and buried once and for all. I'm inclined to agree with him. A political party takes on a life of it's own but it is still a collection of individuals and these individuals are very bad people. I'm not drawing a comparison between Arne and Anonymous. Arne knows what our angry anonymous might have forgotten. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. He did some controversial yet positive things that we still debate to this day. My favorite living Republican is Pete McCloskey, we can't jail him. He's a good guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_McCloskey

I know where Arne and anonymous are coming from. Call it whatever you want, authoritarianism, cryptofascism, theofascism, neoconservatism, or "movement conservatism" it infested the GOP and wormed its way into the highest levels of our government and damn near brought our country down. Not unlike all those commies that the Birchers and McCarthyites were convinced had infiltrated our government during the Cold War. Back then Hoover was convinced that the Mafia or organized crime did not exist. That was a myth, but commies were everywhere. (He should have known, most of them were on his payroll as informants). Today, you can look back and see that more "non-existent" mafia guys ended up behind bars than commie moles and infiltrators, but whatever it was that drove the Birchers mad and caused WFB, Jr. to break ranks with them back then, it appears that you can't just ignore them. They won't just go away. Like termites they'll come back and keep eating at the framework until they bring the house down. The price of liberty is eternal vigilence. Jefferson said that, too.

Don't even kid yourself. Things will get worse. The damage these clowns have done will take the next thirty years to clean up and we still have no idea what the full extent of it is. Then there is the blowback from the iraq blunder. That could take 20 years to come back and blow up in our faces, literally. But this termite colony is finally in its death throes and losing their grip on political power. It took them 30 years from 64 to 94 to get where they got. And they blew it in ten. Be patient. It will take time to get back to square one and whatever you do, make sure your kids understand that they can't just put good government on autopilot while the termites are around.

We haven't been in the wilderness as long as they were after FDR and they are going to be in the wilderness again for another damn long time. If we play our cards right, they could remain there permanently. It would be nice to have things back to normal with Clinton in the GOP where he always belonged, and real liberal Democrats running for office all over the country. It will just years of patient work and dedication.

It looks like even Pete couldn't take it any more. He switched parties just last week. During the 2006 election he ran against Pombo in the primary stating he was a lifelong Republican and hoped to remain one. When he lost the primary to that shitbag Pombo, who lost the election, Pete endorsed the Democrat

McCloskey leaves Republican Party

Lifelong Republican, Marine veteran and former congressman Pete McCloskey has left the GOP and registered with the Democratic Party.

McCloskey says he is disgusted with the "succession of ethical scandals, congressmen taking bribes and abuse of power by both the Republican House leadership and the highest appointees of the White House."

"A pox on (Republicans) and their values," he wrote.

As a Republican, McCloskey served in the House of Representatives from a San Mateo County congressional district from 1967- to 1983. He was a brief presidential hopeful when he ran on an anti-war platform against Richard Nixon in 1972.

But McCloskey again found himself in the media spotlight last year when he left his rural Northern California farm in Rumsey, rented a house in Lodi and ran in the primary against Richard Pombo, a conservative, seven-term Republican incumbent who later lost the general election to the novice Pleasanton Democrat Jerry McNerney.

McCloskey may lost the primary but observers say he provided a pivotal voice in the growing, anti-Pombo chorus that eventually led to the incumbent's defeat.

http://www.cctextra.com/blogs/politicsblog/2007/04/mccloskey_leaves_republican_pa.html

Since Duverger's Law says we can only have two parties, (until we change a few things) we can have all the decent Republicans in the Democratic party and it's high time for -- what is it? The fourth incarnation of the Progressive party in American politics. May this one be as successful as the first incarnation, old TR's Progressive party.

They were aiming at the British officers, and because many of the frontiersmen had new rifled weapons, they were deadly accurate. As far as many British officers were concerned, rifles were the difference maker in this war.

...But rifled musket balls first hit the battlefield in the Civil War. Rifling wasn't commonly found in infantry weapons until then.