The store was put up as a lark. We were disgusted with the ad, tossed it up there, forgot about it. Opened up our mail and found the brouhaha had been going on for several days. And though Dem... i don't think she's voted that way for years. Ta!

I'm glad to see that CafePress is no longer totally devoid of backbone. In late April of this year and without asking my permission, they yanked from their collection a t-shirt I was selling that featured the cover of my book, Untangling Tolkien. The cause was a cease and desist letter from Carole F. Barrett, a lawyer for the San Francisco law firm of Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabin. They represent Saul Zaentz, perhaps the most hated man in the entertainment industry. He owns the movie and trinket rights to Tolken's works and likes to sue.

I still haven't figured out what sort of lawyer that Barrett is. It's difficult to imagine she could be so ignorant of the law that she fails to recognize that t-shirt is protected by at least three specific written provisions of trademark law, any one of which makes that t-shirt legal. More likely she's simply like her client, a money-obsessed jerk. At times, I ponder having a bit of fun, finding a good lawyer, and suing the socks off her. I wouldn't bother with Zaentz. He's 86 and not long for this world.

At any rate, I gave CafePress such a hard time about their cowardice--they even refused to send me that cease and desist letter--that it may have convinced them that they should quit automatically complying with letters from lawyers. Cease and desist letters are the lawyerly equivalent of drive by shootings, although unfortunately in our present legal climate, run by and for lawyers, they're legal no matter how many lies they contain.

Bravo CafePress. You're finally doing the right thing. Now why not put my Untangling Tolkien t-shirt back online? I've got other books and authors I'd like to promote. You've begun to demonstrate that you might, just might, be trusted to hold up your side of a business deal.

--Michael W. Perry, author of Untangling Tolkien

We saw them. They were on a blog. There were different designs. They were great. But it's not easy to sell things on cafe press without doing a lot of marketing, which after a week, they wouldn't have had a whole lot of time to do unless they were very experienced.

But no big. Hopefully this gets out. It'll get bigger airplay than had the shirt been printed.

I dunno much about MoveOn, but it would seem that like a lot of fans of folk music, they don't have any sense of humor.

Are there a lot of folk music fans at MoveOn.org?

Ken, dude,
don't dis Burl Ives you stinking commie rat.

Whatever. MoveOn raised $2mln since that ad. Call it unsuccessful.
Bottom line is that a lot of people agree with them. The ad worked!

Why is it OK for Republicans to run attack ads like this but the moment some non-republican group does, then it is somehow wrong. Republicans shamelessly did this to war veteran John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, they currently do it by manipulating disfigured war veterans to garner support for their lie based war and they will do it again and again. Give it up Republicans, the people of the USA are no longer buying your cheap attempts to twist perceptions about your war and your further attempts to manipulate the impressionable minds of this nation who like to be told what to think. Your quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand mentality has been exposed and all your attacks against those who oppose you only further expose your personal greed and hypocrisy.

In retrospect, I'm surprised that the common ordinary US citizen would even care about the Moveon.org Petraues ad. We all knew that General Petraues was going to write his own speech, in his own words, saying exactly all the things that he knew the Bush administration wanted to hear in a form that sounded acceptable to all republican politicians. The very fact that these Bush sycophants in the republican party got some of the spineless democrats to side with them in their wasteful republican efforts to condemn the MoveOn.org add clearly shows that these democrats are no different then these dysfunctional republican politicians. They both only value the interests of the rich minority of the nation, the interests of large corporations and votes in swing states as opposed to standing for their oath to the US Constitution, truth, the facts & doing the moral right thing by the people of the USA. McCain and all Republican politicians should be ashamed of themselves for their self-serving conduct all throughout the Bush administration as it is clear that they are not of, for or by the people.

If these spineless rich republican chicken hawks want their war so much, they should start funding it themselves instead of strapping the wasteful war debt on the backs of middle and lower class children for the next several generations. If these spineless republican chicken hawks really think that their illegal unconstitutional war was and is justified, then they should send their young college republican sociopath offspring to go fight their war. They all claim to be for war but always claim to be too busy to join the military and fight in it. Its time that they put their money where their mouths are by enlisting in the military and going to Iraq to be part of the Bush / Cheney / PNAC occupation of Iraq for oil.

MoveOn.org should be commended for their willingness to present the facts and stand up for the truth. Apparently, the Republican Party has not changed for the better and still has the very same unstable mindset of their vicious pseudo-conservative, quasi-Taliban mouthpieces like Ann Coulter who speak at their fund raising efforts. The appealing part about being like these viscous mouthpieces who attack MoveOn.org is the fact that it allows them to think that they are superior to others and further promote hate and war mongering within the masses. The sad reality to being one of these sociopaths is the fact that they usually cannot find anything filthier then their own personal reflection. When they are confronted with that reality, they always resort to the same cheap tactic over and over which is to rally their chicken hawks, hate mongers & vicious mouth pieces to make up lies against those who expose their sins. Very predictable…

Ann Coulter is not necessarily embraced by all conservatives. Hugh Hewitt, for one, despises her and refuses to be on any panels she's one. He's said this and has taken her to task for her comments on Edwards.

Moveon doesn't speak for all Democrats. And not all Democrats are liberals. If that's the point the shirts were making, then good. More power to diversity within the Democratic party.

Moveon proves once again that liberals are for free speech as long as its correct speech.

I think the only thing relevant here is that the NY Times continues to slide into obscurity as they continue to beat the socialist drums. The Moveon.org ad just pushed them closer to the abyss.

The left sickens me, and I am a Democrat. And if this party thinks that I am going to merely hold my nose to vote for Hillary, or Obama, or Edwards, who want to destroy this country's security and economy, they have another thing coming. I am going to show my disgust for what the congressional Democrats have done - or haven't done - in 10 months of power. If I have to stay home on election day next year, I will. Better to have a lousy Republican than another lousy Democrat. At least we can vote the Republicans out. The Clintons and their ilk stay around like dead fish and stink everything up.

James Marsden

Leon Jones is brain-dead zombie. He is by his own comments clearly a kool-aid drinker. Thats whats wrong with every single moveon.org ad, all lies, backed-up by regurgitative mindless zombies. Ken if brains were dynomite, you would be harmless.

move on needs to move along and go away into the pages of history

betrayed us did he? guess you don't read any of the positive news.

US military deaths in Iraq lowest in 14 months
fourth consecutive drop in the monthly death toll

Yep, he betrayed us. With him in charge it makes it harder and harder to justify the "bring them home" cr@p you cowards plater all over the place.

Have you not learned from previous wars/conflicts that we must establish stability before bailing out?

Patreus didn't betray anyone, anything or any ideal. The single biggest problem with Iraq is the Iraqis themselves and a tribal 16th Century mindset and a religion that is easily twisted by a hateful set of men who would rather their own sons die while killing their enemy's babies instead of teaching them how to write, build a school or reason.

The second biggest problem is that Congress and the White House thinks they are run a war by bending to political whims. Never, not from Day One, has the military been allowed to call the shots there, unlike Japan, Italy and Germany in 1945-1952 (which by all accounts was rather successful, though difficult).

Unfortunately, the lessons of Korea were learned by the military and not by politicans - you can't bomb half a bridge, yet that seems to be how they want to function. You don't inject the military, you unleash it.

Patreus' only fault is having a name that rhymes into a bad slogan. He is there to protect the soldiers, to accomplish a mission and bring them home alive, not fill body bags. To insinuate anything else is politically, factually and intellectually dishonest.

As for the lefties and their "earnest" attempt to shut up dissent, just remember that Leftist governments have killed more people in the last 200 years of world history than Rightist/Facist governments, almost 10:1... and it first starts with controlling the language. MoveOn.com's insistence on censoring dissent with their position is really just Liberal ideology utilizing Nazi methodology, all under the guise of doing it "for the people's own good".

What is pathetic is that the decent people on both sides of the aisle fear MoveOn.org's money when they should really fear their methodology.

Petraeus' contradictory statements on the Quds force are emblematic of an administration propaganda line that has essentially fallen apart because it was so obviously out of line with reality. Nine months after the George W. Bush administration declared that it was going to go after Iranian agents in Iraq who were threatening U.S. troops, the U.S. military still has not produced any evidence that the Quds Force operatives in Iraq were engaged in assisting the militias fighting against U.S. troops.

How blind can you Repiglicans be? Moveon is NOT the problem here. It's idiots who still believe anything this administrations says. "The Homeland"? Since when do we call the land of the free and the home of the brave the freaking "Homeland". You've invested so much into the lies you can't admit you were wrong. Fascism here we come....

MoveOn is 50% pacifists, and 50% socialists on the path to totalitarianism. They blindly quote each other with complete tunnel vision. Hopefully, their children will read Bastiat's 'The Law' someday and realize how unconsciously dangerous their parents are.

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

In reference to Leon Jones comments:

You practically wrote a small novel doing nothing but attacking Conservatives/Republicans and then state "very predictable.....". Your comments are no less "predictable" than what we hear from the left in this country. I can tell from your grammar that you're at least an educated person. However, cherry picking facts and name dropping (ex, ann coulter) doesn't magically give your arguments credibility. I could just as easily rattle off a list of far left thinking people who are full of verbal diarrhea. I assure you that you didn't elevate the debate with your four paragraph rant.

Uh, Alan Goodin, no-one agreed with that ad about General Petraus...that's why there's such a big stink about it. And perhaps if you actually read the news or watched TV instead of repeating what your liberal pals told you like a parrot, you would know that the first thing the General said was that this was his own report, and it wasn't looked over or changed by anyone. Talk about a "good old soldier"! You are certainly one, aren't you, have to fall in lock-step with all the other liberals(!!) And you say the General "betrayed us" after he puts his life on the line for you?! Sounds more and more like Stalin communists out there every day.

Hey Mr.Goodwin, your post of the 28th at 7:05 could not go unanswered. Your attempt to rewrite history is stunning. The Honorable General was confirmed unanimously by the Senate, (that means they all, dems and republicans, voted for him), to bring change to what was going, up to that point, badly. He changed tactics, we are now doing much better, by all honest accounts. He has done exactly what was asked of him, as a good soldier should. You and that ad betrayed an Honorable American Patriot, and you should be ashamed.
realetybytes.townhall.com

MoveOn is full of MorOns

Trying to argue with a moveon.org sympathizer is like arguing with a born-again christian, an evironmentalist, or a conspiracy theorist... everything they hear has to first pass the test of their own ridiculous preconceived, rigid belief structure. It's a filter for inconvenient realities. Facts are not facts; they're YOUR facts, and YOUR facts are lies because they don't support MY opinion, which is right no matter what. This ignorance is what keeps leftists thankfully out of power.

I can't wait for them to figure out that Democrats only support them in campaign-time rhetoric. I can't wait until they finally understand that their extreme and frankly stupid convictions will not be supported by any legislator.

It's one thing to say that military advances' effect on the Maliki government hasn't produced political results. But to say Patraeus is a liar and a traitor is slanderous, and they should honestly be facing defamation of character charges. I would LOVE to hear one MoveOn.org member defend this slimy tactic constitutionally.

Congratulations Leon! You've written quite a bit without saying much of anything. I think the only matter of substance I derived from your meandering rant is that you are clearly a lemming, blindly following wherever the left leads you.

General Petraeus testified that the United States Armed Forces are increasingly having a pacifying impact in Iraq. He was honest about the failures of the Iraqi people to initiate the political cement necessary to sustain the peace in the region. And moveon.org decides to target him? For what purpose?

Your own party funds this war and will continue to fund it. If Hillary, or for that matter even Obama wins in '08, you think the troops will come home? The extremist left's posturing about Bush's illegal war based on lies is nothing more than empty rhetoric.

The war is Constitutional and legal. The United States Congress authorized use of force against Iraq and continues to authorize it every time it votes for more funding. So Leon, please try to make at least some effort to support your assertions with verifiable fact and/or reasoning.

Thanks.

"We stopped the fighting [in 1991] on an agreement that Iraq would
take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further
aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction.
It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach
of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the
armed conflict." Harry Reid 10/2002

"Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe we are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president." John Kerry 12/2003

"F" MOVE ON .org, they are the sleaziest leftwing bunch or losers I've ever seen. they are the comunist party.

Every individual affiliated with MoveOn.org should spend a year in Communist China, North Korea, or Iran, and get a real taste of reality like I did. The U.S. Constitution gives MoveOn.org, and many anti-American organiztions the flexibility, and freedom to defecate, all over everything that's traditional, and held dear to our American values. Those countries that I metioned first will have every individual member of MoveOn.org shot, or beheaded. Here in the United States they are welcome to vent their ignorance, and lack of common sense.

It doesn't surprise me one bit that MoveOn is doing this. They can dish out political (and personal) attacks 24-7, but when it comes to taking it, they can't. It's an old ploy often used by the left, called "free speech for me, but not for thee". And one more thing, 3-5% is truly momentous. Really. I mean, that's just barely more than the typical margin of error, assuming that it's 4% or 5%! *sarcastic smile*