Sunday, December 31, 2006

Another sad "number"

Today the 3000th of our children died in Iraq. The news clips say that shrub is mourning this death but from what I read he also added that there is no quick end to the war on terror.

I never could understand how anyone can have a "war" on a concept....Wars require specific enemies - not words or actions....

But it's 3000 of our children who have died over there and how many more Iraqi children have died? For what? And why do more have to die?

I hope the new Congress comes in and stops this insanity.

Peace and a saner New Year

Monday, December 25, 2006

War is over if you want it

I cried all thru this video - send it on to your Congresspeople

War can be over! that's what we just voted for....

Say NO NO NO to any "surges"

If the admin wants more troops - let's send the twins and other hawk's kids -



Thursday, December 21, 2006

Orange Ads

I've replaced the ubiquitous google ads with Orange Ads. These are ads run by people, like me, who belong to Network Marketing Central. You can look at our ads, ask us questions, or even buy and we won't pester you! That's our promise. If you click on the Network Central logo - you go to my page there. If you click on any of the ads - you will go to that person's page.

Try it - you may even find new friends - I did : - )

And didn't the shrub just tell us to go shopping ....grrrrrrr

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Iraq

I admit there is no good solution to this mess - so if there is no solution, why does anyone think sending in more troops is a solution?

Having been against this stupidity before it started, at least back then "they" should have listened to Shinseki when he said it would take many many troops. He was right - then. But will more help now? I doubt it. Just means more of our children will die and I will keep crying...and my son is safely out of the military. But I cried all during the Vietnam mess and at that time I was not a mother - I think most women understand the loss of all children in a different way than do men....

If women were in positions of power around the world, would we have these senseless armed conflicts? I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to say let's try - the men have made a big mess of the world....so let's let the women attempt to fix it...at least here we'll have a start on this with Nancy Pelosi....

Some military persons have been calling for a change to the deployment "rules" so that troops [read children] can be deployed more frequently - hmmm - because they volunteered ? Nonsense - they did not volunteer for an illegal occupation of a country that had not harmed us. I say if "they" want more troops, there are many young conservative adults out there who ought to put their bodies where their mouths are and go join the military.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Hell HAS frozen over : - )

In keeping with my positive thoughts, I can only see the following as VERY positive:

Shrub is at an all-time low of 30%

Lots there to cheer about - he may actually outdo his dad whom I recall got down to 29% - and when Shrub gets below 29% he will finally have achieved his goals of outdoing "dad" in all arenas and will leave us alone by resigning and retreating to his cubby holes and suck his bottle of whatever he drinks.....

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Getting what you want

I have become a believer in being careful what you wish for - cuz you might get it.... only now I have changed "might" to "will."

It's time to be affirmatively steadfast in thinking positive thoughts....either ahead to January 2009 or even to January 2007....

Instead of ranting and raving all the time about shrubs, hard as that is for me, I am changing my attitude to one that sees him gone gone gone. But not by impeachment. Like many of us on the left, I would like noting more than to see this criminal brought to justice and frog marched out of the WH - but I also believe that the country needs us to focus on our country. Knowing that the Dems can walk and chew gum at the same time [and speak clearly] I foresee investigations into the criminality of the Iraq "mess and Katrina negligence leading to this idiot skulking out of town calling on Daddy to save his skin again. And as soon as the dark veep steps forward - ditto for him except he can't call on Daddy to bail him out - he'll call Halliburton instead. For those of us who were around - remember - we got rid of Nixon - cowards always run.....and shrub is a coward to the core....he'll run - fast

So let's think positively - shrub and darth vader gone in early 2007 !!!!!!! And yes - I intend to keep smiling - or gloating - all the way to 2009 : o )

Monday, November 27, 2006

A library for shrubs?

Well I had a good laugh this morning....Repugs are soliciting money - tons of money - for a Shrub Library - an oxymoron if ever there was one....

For starters - this guy doesn't read - he waits for others to tell him what's on the piece of paper. And remember when "everyone" said he was reading "to" the children on September 11, 2001....If you look at the videos - he was not reading to them - he was struggling along with the rote "word saying" that the teacher was leading....

Secondly - this administration has been so so secretive - what papers would they possibly allow for public viewing?

Oh well - it will be a monument to a failed pResidency... but the ever present right wingnut spin machine will tell you about the glories of this 8 years of hell....

Friday, November 24, 2006

Black Friday or start of Black Month?

I know "they" call it Black Friday because supposedly it's when those corporations get out of the red ink into the black. But I call it the start of Black Month as it's gloomy and dreadful being on the road from now til Xmas and all for the support of stores that otherwise do not like you. They only want your money and the credit card companies want you to go into debt - deep debt- between now and December 24th....

Me? Unless absolutely necessary, like food for me or my pets - I try very hard to avoid stores from now til early January....but I hate shipping to begin with...and do as much as possible online from places like REI and Amazon...where I can find what I need or want at a discounted price....

As my son always reminds me, I am not like everyone else - so if you are out there and enjoying the mob scenes and sales - that's great! Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy - but do not go overboard into debt : - )

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Turkey Day

Well it's Thanksgiving...

I am very very thankful this year - WE WON.... both the House and Senate making this year the first time in ages that I am thankful about politiks and looking forward to January....

I'm thankful also to my family and friends who put up with my ranting and who are now enjoying a respite of sorts from repug raves.....

How did we get here? The MSM wants to make noise only about infighting among the Dems or belittling Nancy Pelosi - they can't see beyond their pocketbooks right now...The MSM - like the moral majority is neither - it's infotainment and making money.... but I'm being thankful today so I'll drop that idea for now

Who do we thank? Howard Dean and the 50 state strategy, bloggers, Air America Radio, thinking people, voters who showed they cared, and at the last moment the "in" dems who saw the writing on the walls and sent money to some candidates......

So thank you all who voted out the corruption and voted in a change.....

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

JFK

Each year removed from the assassination of JFK, the less we hear about it. Even I who recall that day, forgot the exact date until I was reminded of it on the radio this week.

I had just started graduate school that September and in usual fashion, since it was a Friday in the era before ATM machines and "major" credit cards, I was walking to my bank in Kenmore Square to get some cash for the weekend. I had an eerie feeling like here I was going about my own business, all the world seemed okay, but Kennedy had been shot. I'm no longer clear on whether I knew he was dead at that time or if that came later.....it's been 43 years and I never wrote down my thoughts or feelings at that time - like with other events - I figured I'd always recall everything.

Here we are 43 years later and I am still among those who believe our government has hidden the real facts about the assassination....and that feeling only gets stronger as we get more and more secretive about everything in government. I learned that we can not trust our own government - it was a sad lesson and one that stayed with me.

Living in Boston in the early 60's, Kennedy's death, the Vietnam fiasco and civil rights protests became a crash course in people politics for most of us - in Boston and in other places around the country. That too has stayed with me....

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Carville has got to go

Carville has outlived his Democratic usefulness. He's now a shill for his wife - lambasting the DNC for her....

I'm sure he loves Mary, but in marrying her, he changed his stripes - she did not! She is still on a repug payroll and he is obsolete. So what does he do? He blames Dean for the Dems not gaining 50 seats - like DUH - that's really going to make the netroots think you are one smart cookie?

No way - you are out of the big picture and you hate it that you are there - so in order to try and get some press coverage for yourself from the right wing media [that's most of it] you toss blame around - a page from your wife's playbook perhaps?

Go away Carville - the new Dems do not need or want you!

Monday, November 13, 2006

Other happy people

Sadly not everyone in the country realizes that the residents of Washington, D.C. do not have voting representation in Congress. There is a Representative but the Repugs say she can't vote. Washington has about 500,000 residents - about the same as Vermont and Wyoming but they do not have anyone to vote on their behalf in Congress. And, in fact, under Repug rule, Washingtonians are subjected to micromanagement from some in Congress.

Imagine if you, in your state, passed some laws that benefited your residents and Congress said - Nope - not allowed to have that law - you must do as we tell you...... Well that's what it's like living in D.C. with Repugs at the helm.....

So the other happy people these days are those half million D.C. residents who will now at least a voting Rep and the probability of sanity in the heads of the committees that oversee D.C.

Back to my first point - I know some otherwise smart people who have asked me how I owned a car when I lived in D.C. - "How do you register a car there? It's not a state." DUH - like anywhere else - you deal with the Motor Vehicle Bureau...

Others have said they don't know why D.C. residents complain about not having Senators or a voting Rep as they are part of Maryland and vote there! Another DUH!

And how about those lists of states in some computer menus...they do not list D.C. more DUH...

So to my friends in D.C. - I know you are happy right now and glad to be out from under the thumbs of the repugs....

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Info on Robert Gates

This from Bev Harris at Black Box Voting http://www.blackboxvoting.org

Rumsfield replacement (Robert Gates) was director of voting company
by Bev Harris

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfield will resign, reportedly to be replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates.

Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids.

You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here: http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0
?
I can't get them to save to pdf, perhaps you can. Enter search terms in both "registrant" and "client" fields and put in terms "Rhoads" "Livingston" and "Votehere" (one at a time.). Then look at the gravy train while it was in the process of derailing American democracy.

I first became acquainted with VoteHere when I met a source, Dan Spillane, who is the wonderful guy that identified the Diebold source code modules for me after I found the Diebold files. He is the person who introduced me, and subsequently everyone else, to the odd role of The Election Center and R. Doug Lewis in the elections industry.

Spillane also filled me in on The Livingston Group, VoteHere lobbyists, run by Bob Livingston -- the fellow that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt outed during the Bill Clinton blow job days. Larry Flynt offered a million dollars to anyone who could locate a Republican congressman committing adultery, and out popped peccadilloes by Livingston.

Livingston couldn't live that one down, so he resigned his post as House Speaker-Elect and became a lobbyist -- but that's not all! He also launched a group called "Center for Democracy" which was going to "monitor elections." This group also featured several good old boys from the tobacco industry and some mining companies.

Former VoteHere test engineer Dan Spillane was looking into all this because he had been fired after he questioned the certification process on a touch-screen system in which he had identified 250 flaws. It was way back in November 2002 that Spillane told me, "The voting machine industry is a house of cards. And the certification and testing process is the bottom card in the house of cards."

BUT DON'T RUN OUT OF THE ROOM TO TAKE A SHOWER YET. There's more.

VoteHere was a company shilling cryptographic solutions and filled with NSA types (another director was Admiral Bill Owens, another crony of Rummy, Perle and Wolfowitz). For some reason this company claims it was unable to prevent itself from being hacked. In this alleged hack, VoteHere claims that someone stole their source code. Said source code was offered to me in October 2003, an obvious attempt at entrapment which I refused.

Nevertheless, VoteHere claimed to the media that its master security experts had supposedly "tracked" the hacker and had identified the hacker as an activist in the election reform community.

For some reason, it was decided that I should be investigated in connection with this "hack" of VoteHere -- nevermind that I can't remember how to change the password on my own laptop. Therefore I was interviewed by the Secret Service several times about this. Curiously, they never seemed to ask any questions about VoteHere, only my role in finding the Diebold files and publishing the Diebold memos.

This nonsense eventually culminated in a gag order and a letter from the U.S. Attorney to appear in front of a federal grand jury with information on all the visitors to the Black Box Voting Web site. (As if they couldn't get that in less dramatic ways in post-Patriot Act America). Attorney Lowell Finley (now with http://www.VoterAction.org ) went to bat for me on this. A reporter named George Howland from the Seattle Weekly also got wind of it. When it hit the press, and with Lowell Finley's help, their harassment of me stopped.

VoteHere never sold any voting machines that I can find, but apparently did set up some deals to embed its cryptography into some voting systems. We found memos in the Diebold trash about VoteHere's crypto-crap, and Maryland Director of Elections Linda Lamone shows up in VoteHere-related letters. Sequoia Voting Systems signed an agreement with VoteHere, but its not clear to me whether they ever did anything about it.

Robert Gates stepped away from VoteHere shortly before he showed up in Chapter 8 of my book, Black Box Voting, in a short bit about the VoteHere company history. You can read that here: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a paper, pencil, and count by hand at the polling place than have former CIA director Robert Gates fooling around with my vote.

But that's just me.

-- Bev Harris
Founder, Black Box Voting

P.S. Since the HBO special, I have plenty of moral support, but even after the Secret Service interviews and all the rest of the nonsense my husband and I have had to put up with, there are others who have had it rougher.

I'd like you to take a moment to visit this Web site -- not affiliated with Black Box Voting -- to meet one of the heroic citizens in this movement who has faced the most brutal retaliation of all:
Stephen Heller. If you saw the HBO film "Hacking Democracy" you may remember a scene where I am chastising Diebold for lying about correcting problems with its product. I refer to "Release Notes." Those notes came from a source. Stephen Heller is being threatened with up to five years in prison for allegedly leaking me those documents. Kevin Shelley then decertified Diebold, and recommended criminal prosecution of Diebold. Diebold was never prosecuted, but Stephen Heller is being prosecuted RIGHT NOW. I hope you will donate to his defense. If not for citizens like him, where would your vote be now?

To contribute to Stephen Heller's defense fund:
http://www.hellerlegaldefensefund.com/

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

A new dawn in the USA

House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid !!

Let's give ourselves a loud cheer !!

WE DID IT !!!

WOW - how good it feels!!!!!!

Went to bed last night somewhat worried that the WH Machiavellians would snatch our winning by some stoke of war or jail or what...

So when I got up this morning and saw we really still have a Speaker Pelosi and a good chance of taking the Senate - I was elated!

Today is a day to celebrate for us, our country and the world.....the nightmare of incompetent fascistic rule is coming to an end.

Let's see how many rats leave this sinking ship - and how quickly..

Now we push on to make sure that when the Dems officially take over, they do not catch "Potomac fever." and get stupid.

WE need to keep our sights on US - and let them know we are not going anywhere....

But for today - I just want to savor this important win : -)

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Polls are closing in the East

Polls may be closing but the fraud continues..... Help MoveOn prosecute these treasonous repugs!

Press release from MoveOn.org

MoveOn Offers $250,000 Reward for Evidence Leading to Voter Fraud Conviction

11/7/2006 5:21:00 PM

To: National Desk, Political Reporter

Contact: Trevor Fitzgibbon, Laura Gross or Alex Howe, 202-822-5200, all for MoveOn.org Political Action

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- MoveOn.org Political Action is offering a $250,000 reward for new material evidence leading to a felony conviction for an organized effort of partisan voter suppression or electronic voting fraud.

Throughout the day accusations of election fraud and voter suppression incidents have been flooding into state and federal authorities throughout the country. In Virginia, the FBI has launched a criminal investigation into charges of voter suppression. In 20 Congressional districts, NRCC robocalls appearing to come from Democrats harassed voters with repeated calls in an apparently coordinated campaign to suppress the vote.

Complementing an earlier reward for whistleblowers, MoveOn's reward is being offered to anyone who provides this information.

Freedom - better quality

How's about a nice catchy tune behind some videos about the shrub...

You can hum the tune as you go to vote - for DEMS of course..

VOTE

We are having monster rain out here but we vote by mail so ballots can still be dropped off at a collection box all day up to 8PM

If you are in any area with bad weather - and I do know about that - do not stay home today. Vote as if your life depended on it...and your kid's lives, and the life of your country....And if you are having nice weather - go out and vote...and think about those voters standing in the rain.....and smile...it will make the repugs worry

Do not let the weather stop you - let the repugs stay home - if we vote in huge numbers they can not steal the election - they will try - they are trying with the robo calls - but talk to your neighbors, tell them about the robo calls, get them to go with you to vote - make it sociable - bring food if you expect long lines....bring a camera, your cell phone and don't forget to smile...

WE WILL TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY

Monday, November 06, 2006

Got voter problems?

When you vote tomorrow - there are ways to protect your vote and to report ANY problems

Phone numbers to call for problems you encounter -[don't forget to take your cell phone with you]

1-866-OUR-VOTE
1-866-MY-VOTE-1
1-888-VOTE-TIP
1-888-SAV-VOTE
1-877-SEIU-VOTE

video your voting video the vote

and election protection are sites to look at before you go to vote.

Keith - America's hero !

Keith tonight on voting and the shrub.....

Olbermann: Where are the checks, balances?

Bush has been 'making it up' for too long, and the people have let him

We are, as every generation, inseparable from our own time.

Thus is our perspective, inevitably that of the explorer looking into the wrong end of the telescope.

But even accounting for our myopia, it’s hard to imagine there have been many elections more important than this one, certainly not in non-presidential years.

And so we look at the verdict in the trial of Saddam Hussein yesterday, and, with the very phrase “October, or November, Surprise” now a part of our vernacular, and the chest-thumping coming from so many of the Republican campaigners today, each of us must wonder about the convenience of the timing of his conviction and sentencing.

But let us give history and coincidence the benefit of the doubt—let’s say it’s just “happened” that way—and for a moment not look into the wrong end of the telescope.

Let’s perceive instead the bigger picture:

Saddam Hussein, found guilty in an Iraqi court.

Who can argue against that?

He is officially, what the world always knew he was: a war criminal.

Mr. Bush, was this imprimatur, worth the cost of 2,832 American lives, and thousands more American lives yet to be lost?

Is the conviction of Saddam Hussein the reason you went to war in Iraq?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because of the connection between Iraq and al-Qaida that did not exist?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to break the bonds of tyranny there, while installing the mechanisms of tyranny here?

Or did you go to war in Iraq because you felt the need to wreak vengeance against somebody, anybody?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to contain a rogue state which, months earlier, your own administration had declared had been fully contained by sanctions?

Or did you go to war in Iraq to keep gas prices down?

How startling it was, sir, to hear you introduce oil to your stump speeches over the weekend.

Not four years removed from the most dismissive, the most condescending, the most ridiculing denials of the very hint at, as Mr. Rumsfeld put it, this “nonsense.”

There you were, campaigning in Colorado, in Nebraska, in Florida, in Kansas -- suddenly turning this ‘unpatriotic idea’ into a platform plank.

"You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," you told us. "And then you can imagine them saying, 'We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.'"

Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you’ve stayed the course, having belittled us about "timelines" but instead extolled "benchmarks," you’ve now resorted, sir, to this?

We must stay in Iraq to save the $2 gallon of gas?

Mr. President, there is no other conclusion we can draw as we go to the polls tomorrow.

Sir, you have been making this up as you went along.

This country was founded to prevent anybody from making it up as they went along.

Those vaunted Founding Fathers of ours have been so quoted up, that they appear as marble statues: like the chiseled guards of China, or the faces on Mount Rushmore. But in fact they were practical people and the thing they obviously feared most was a government of men and not laws.

They provided the checks and balances for a reason.

No one man could run the government the way he saw fit -- unless he, at the least, took into consideration what those he governed saw.

A House of Representatives would be the people's eyes.

A Senate would be the corrective force on that House.

An executive would do the work, and hold the Constitution to his chest like his child.

A Supreme Court would oversee it all.

Checks and balances.

Where did that go, Mr. Bush?

And what price did we pay because we have let it go?

Saddam Hussein will get out of Iraq the same way 2,832 Americans have and thousands more.

He’ll get out faster than we will.

And if nothing changes tomorrow, you, sir, will be out of the White House long before the rest of us can say we are out of Iraq.

And whose fault is this?

Not truly yours. You took advantage of those of us who were afraid, and those of us who believed unity and nation took precedence over all else.

But we let you take that advantage.

And so we let you go to war in Iraq to oust Saddam or find non-existant weapons or avenge 9/11 or fight terrorists who only got there after we did or as cover to change the fabric of our Constitution or for lower prices at The Texaco or…?

There are still a few hours left before the polls open, sir. There are many rationalizations still untried.

And whatever your motives of the moment, we the people have, in true good faith and with the genuine patriotism of self-sacrifice (of which you have shown you know nothing), we have let you go on making it up as you went along.

Unchecked and unbalanced.

Vote.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15595139/
© 2006 MSNBC.com

DAMN them

I have done some phoning for Call for Change. Just called a NY lady who has changed her mind about the local Dem candidate as she has gotten lots of calls "from him." I tried explaining about robo calling and she just kept saying but the messages say they are form him...He's one of the names on the list that the repugs are targeting....

I hope all the Dems on those lists get on the local TV and radio stations tonight and explain what is going on//

Guess if you cant win on the merits - you CHEAT LIE AND STEAL its the Repug mantra

more on robo calling

This just in from the DCCC - see if your District is on the list below and then beware

Dirty Tricks 2006: GOP Spends $600k on Late Night Attack Phone Calls

Republicans Caught Making Calls to Democratic Voters in the Dead of Night to Anger and Turn Them Off to Voting and Dampen Turnout

NRCC Has Spent $2.1 Million on Calls, Nearly $600,000 on Attack Calls in the Last Week Alone.

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, with memories of past intimidation in the minds of voters, national Republican operatives are phoning voters at all hours of the night, especially at 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. to try and dampen Democratic turnout. Reports of these calls have come in from New Hampshire, where the GOP has been forced to stop the calls, and FCC complaints have been filed in Pennsylvania because of the calls. Republicans have spent $2.1 million on calls like these, targeting 46 Democrats in the last week alone. In terms of precedent, in 2002, Republican Party officials in New Hampshire and Washington with ties to the White House jammed phones to prevent Democrats from voting. This is just the latest example of why it’s time for a change in Washington.

“With no record of accomplishment on the economy or border security and no strategy to speak of in Iraq, the only thing Republicans have left to sell is fear itself and Americans aren’t buying,” said Bill Burton, communications director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “It’s time for a new direction in Washington because Americans deserve bipartisan solutions to the problems we face, not more dirty tricks and illegal calls meant to intimidate.”

Illegal Phone Calls By GOP Designed to Turn Off Voters. The Republican National Congressional Committee has agreed to end its automated calling campaign that left the state Democratic Party swamped with phone calls from voters who believed the messages were coming from Democrats. New Hampshire residents had been complaining to the Democrats, party Chairwoman Kathleen Sullivan said, because they thought the calls are coming from congressional challenger Paul Hodes. Instead, they were coming from the National Republican Congressional Committee, on behalf of Rep. Charles Bass, but sound, at first, as though they may be from the Hodes' campaign. Under state law, delivering prerecorded political messages to numbers on any federal do-not-call list is punishable by a fine of $5,000 per call. [AP, 11/5/06, LINK]

Pennsylvania Voters Filed FCC Complaints on Misleading NRCC Ads. According to the Associated Press, “Bruce Jacobson, a software engineer from Ardmore, Pa., received three prerecorded messages in four hours. Each began, ‘Hello, I'm calling with information about Lois Murphy,’ the Democrat running against two-term incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach in the Philadelphia-area district. ‘Basically, they go on to slam Lois,’ said Jacobson, who has filed a complaint with the FCC because the source of the call isn't immediately known. FCC rules say all prerecorded messages must ‘at the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call.’ During or after the message, they must give the telephone number of the caller. ‘The way they're sent is deceptive. The number of calls is harassing. The way her stances are presented in these stories is deliberately misleading and deceptive,’ said Karlyn Messinger, another Murphy supporter from Penn Valley, Pa., who filed a complaint with the FCC.” [Associated Press, 11/2/06]

NRCC Spends Thousands on Calls Attacking Hayhurst Record on Immigration from Callers with Foreign Accents. According to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, “The telemarketing business used by Republicans to flood northeast Indiana with phone calls attacking Democratic congressional candidate Tom Hayhurst promises its political customers ‘a geographically neutral dialect’ to drum up voters. But many people who received the calls said the messages were delivered by voices with Indian or Hispanic accents. Many telemarketing companies hire call centers in India and other countries because of cheap Internet-based telephoning. A representative at FLS headquarters did not respond to a request for an interview. The NRCC paid $13,747 to the telemarketing firm to make thousands of calls this week describing Democrat Hayhurst as ‘bad on immigration’ or an advocate of higher taxes.” [Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, 11/5/06]

NRCC Has Spent $2.1 Million on Calls, Nearly $600,000 on Attack Calls in the Last Week Alone. As of last week, the NRCC had spent $2.1 million on phone banks. From 10/30 to 11/3, the NRCC spent $597,232.75 on phone calls solely designed to attack 46 Democratic candidates. [www.fec.gov]

Last week alone, the NRCC spent the following money on attack phone calls on the following Democratic candidates. One news report estimated each call costs only 5 cents each.

* AZ-05: Harry Mitchell: $8210.76
* CA-04: Charlie Brown: $16,617.24
* CA-11: Jerry McNerney: $4120.28
* CA-50: Francine Busby: $2641.68
* CO-04: Angie Paccione: $10,456.32
* CT-02: Joe Courtney: $12,844.56
* CT-04: Diane Farrell: $44,964.56
* CT-05: Chris Murphy: $17,494.08
* FL-13: Christine Jennings: $24,638.82
* FL-16: Tim Mahoney: $16,428.72
* FL-22: Ron Klein: $3813.36
* GA-08: Jim Marshall: $10,546.68
* GA-12: John Barrow: $16,087.86
* IA-01: Bruce Braley: $8386.26
* IA-03: Leonard Boswell: $13,812.12
* ID-01: Larry Grant: $23,752.26
* IL-06: Tammy Duckworth: $11,474.31
* IL-08: Melissa Bean: $14,134.38
* IN-03: Tom Hayhurst: $13,746.88
* IN-09: Baron Hill: $12,852.36
* KS-02: Nancy Boyda: $4,093.74
* KY-02: Mike Weaver: $1,510.74
* KY-04: Ken Lucas: $15,242.10
* MN-06: Patty Wetterling: $21,053.90
* NC-11: Heath Shuler: $11,843.70
* NE-03: Scott Kleeb: $3,492.66
* NH-02: Paul Hodes: $19,321.98
* NM-01: Patricia Madrid: $6,702.42
* NV-02: Jill Derby: $10,934.16
* NV-03: Tessa Hafen: $12,197.70
* NY-19: John Hall: $16,123.62
* NY-20: Kirsten Gillibrand: $11,143.38
* NY-24: Mike Arcuri: $6,824.82
* NY-25: Dan Maffei: $17,183. 46
* NY-29: Eric Massa: $10,855.26
* OH-01: John Cranley: $9,236.64
* OH-02: Victoria Wulsin: $7,953.84
* OH-15: Mary Jo Kilroy: $11,826.84
* PA-04: Jason Altmire: $23,111.61
* PA-06: Lois Murphy: $14,253.66
* PA-08: Patrick Murphy: $18,969.36
* PA-10: Chris Carney: $3,942.00
* TX-22: Nick Lampson: $2,258.61
* VA-02: Phil Kellam: $14,345.58
* WA-08: Darcy Burner: $14,992.80
* WI-08: Steve Kagen: $20,794.68

If you live in one of these districts, be on Republican dirty trick alert.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Robo Calling

Please please please - if you are in one of the states the repugs are targeting with robo calls - DO NOT believe that the Democratic Candidate is making those calls. That's what the repugs want you to think.

When you have not got a real platform to run on, what do you do? You make endless calls to probable Democratic voters saying this is a message from X [the Dem candidate] and it goes on and on - if you hang up, you get called right back. You get called at
6 AM you get called late at night. You even get called in N.H. where such calling is illegal!!!!!

This is the way the repugs work - they do not care if they lie, cheat or steal - as long as they win...

Their motto? Democracy be damned!

They ARE all gay...

Who? The repugs!

I've said this before, but it bears repeating - in psychology we look at those who are vehemently anti anything. It generally means it's a trait within themselves they they can not deal with and so see it as a big bad "thing" out there that needs to be stomped on. Why? They are afraid of their own impulses coming to the fore.

Haggard is the current prime example of this. He IS a homosexual and there is nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is his fear of his own impulses leads him to say things like this: "The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life."

It's the seeing of themselves as repulsive and dark that causes them to rail against homosexuality and anything to do with civil rights for homosexuals. That is the problem. These very conflicted rabid anti-gay crusaders are GAY and so afraid of seeing it in themselves that they want to legislate for the entire country, if not the entire world, hoping that through some magic laws - their own impulses will stop. Or maybe they hope the laws will make homosexuals go away and they will no longer be tempted...

Sorry repugs - your psyche does not work like that...the more you fight off an impulse, the stronger it becomes..... you have to admit to the impulse and work from there.....like saying "I am an alcoholic."

And now let's look at who they hang around with...the shrub, Scotty, Karl, Ganon, and who knows?......we can go on a guessing game called: " Who else will be outed before Tuesday?"

Any ideas?

Thursday, November 02, 2006

All about the "O"

Republicans are all about the O !

Oligarchy
Oil
Omnipotence
Omnipresence
Oppression


and a few variations

pedOphiles
mOnarchies
mOrOnic behavior
nO planning
nO mOrals
nO cOnscience

you get the idea: AVOID the O"s.... vote for the DDDDDDDDD's

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Trick or treat?

It's that time of year - Halloween and election day. Let's start tonight and treat only - no more tricks!

Please please VOTE this year and give ourselves and our country a real treat - A DEMOCRATIC HOUSE AND SENATE !

People who will do their jobs and provide oversight on this national nightmare we have in the WH....

People who will raise the minimum wage; not give the rich more tax cuts.

People who will look at solutions to health care; not fill the pockets of the pharma groups.

People who will care for the majority of Americans; not just the upper 1 or 2 %.

People who will look at real energy solutions; not cater to the oil companies.

Monday, October 30, 2006

I am still crying

The number of deaths of our children is now at 100 for this month... I don't have a recent figure for Iraqi deaths but we all know it's also high - October has been deadly for everyone..

And the shrub's plan? Change the words; deflect the focus; bash the democrats and keep smirking...great plan isn't it. and they keep saying the Democrats have no plan...Well that's because the repugs can't read much beyond the Pet Goat....

I've read many plans put out by Dems and Nancy Pols has been clear as to what she'll do in her first 100 HOURS...not 6 years of no plans except to raid the public treasury on behalf of their cronies....

So - it is most important that we all vote..They can not hack every voting machine and a massive democratic turn out can overcome their illegal activities...

I'm phone banking with the women again this week [it was fun and fun is fine] and don't forget the MoveOn calling for change - see logo on the right.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

From PFAW

The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has not yet agreed to release a report drafted earlier this year that reportedly shows right-wing complaints about mass voter fraud – complaints that are used as the justification for restrictive bills that erect barriers to voting – are unwarranted. Please let your friends know that you signed a petition demanding that they do release this report so that we can get the maximum number of boxed signatures to put in their hands at their office here in DC.

Go to: www.ReleaseTheReport.org and sign the petition.....

As you know, the notion that individuals are fraudulently impersonating other voters in droves is the basis for voter ID laws and other extreme right-wing measures that – not by accident – make it more difficult for those not in the Right’s regular constituency to vote. The only problem is that many others in the US don’t know this.

Get Out the VOTE by making calls

Join with the get out the vote [gotv] phone calling....MoveOn.org is the backbone of this drive...
click on the logo at the right for more info

Here's the blurb from MoveOn:

In 2006, Democratic voter turnout matters big-time. Many races will be decided by just hundreds of votes—and those races will determine the future of Congress. MoveOn's Call for Change program allows people with busy lives to spend as little as 15 minutes mobilizing voters in key races from their home computer and phone.

The goal is to make 5 million calls this election season—2 million have already been made.

You call when you can. Even 15 minutes makes a difference.

Here in Portland, a group of women made 2,500 calls in one evening last week on behalf of getting Oregonians to vote!
It was not a MoveOn event but it shows what we can do when we make calls.....

Thursday, October 26, 2006

96 dead

On Monday OF THIS WEEK I wrote that 86 of our children had been killed this month in Iraq. Only 3 days later, the number has risen by 10! 96 dead!!!! That's 96 of our children - gone. That's 96 families shattered. That's 96 deaths that should not have happened.

When you vote in November ask yourself how many more need to die for the shrub's failed policies? If you have had enough, vote for the Democrats - they will at least put a plan in place to end this hellish situation.

George and the repugs have NO PLAN....they never did and they never will. It's not how they operate. Reality and death are foreign concepts to them.

The tally [from BuzzFlash]

2,810 U.S. Military Fatalities in Iraq (thru today)
343 U.S. Military Fatalities in Afghanistan (thru today)
20,687 U.S. Military Maimed in Iraq (DoD Update: 10-Sep-06)
49,692 Iraqis Reported Killed (thru today; source: Iraq Body Count)
655,000 Iraqis Reported Killed (source: The Lancet)

Monday, October 23, 2006

86 dead

86 of our children; our future...dead - and one kidnapped - for what? A civil war? Oil? It certainly is not for peace or to stem terrorism.....

I cry again today - I cried during Vietnam and I cry now..... how many more of our children must die before the Gay Old Perverts wake up to reality?

The shrub has no feelings about these deaths - and he wants us to not have feelings either. If it were truly a "just" war, we would see and honor the returning dead and we would not have to have a shrub out there "cheer leading" for this mess.

This shows about 20 flag draped coffins...duplicate this 150 times and you have an idea of what almost 3000 dead children look like in coffins......Add to this the over 20,000 wounded and ask....is this mess worth it?



Saturday, October 21, 2006

Gee Wiz - flip floppers

This is today's news from the NYT.....that "left leaning" newspaper.

"The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said."

Isn't this what some of the Dems suggested a while ago? And for which they were labeled TRAITORS? Seems to me they should have been labeled BRILLIANT - they actually wanted a plan - one with milestones or measurements or outcomes...but that's part of a scientific methodology and some pResidents don't "do" science.

I'll give the administration a hint.... straight out of Psych 101 - there is a phenomenon knows as learned apathy...when someone else does everything for you and you can not do it yourself - you learn to be apathetic. You see there is no way you will be allowed to stand on your own - so you give up.....The Iraqis have learned that nothing they can makes us leave - so they seemingly no longer bother to try. Our stupidity at training - and recruiting - has only gotten them killed and besides that we just keep staying - so they have given up trying....

It works with kids too and that's how shrub seemed to have been raised. He never had to do anything for himself - Daddy or Mommy took care of all his problems....So he became an apathetic human being - but one who was also a bully and narrow minded....he did what he wanted, when he wanted and how he wanted....he cared not what others thought about him or what the repercussions were of his behaviors because he knew that Daddy or Mommy or their friends would always bail him out... and they are doing it again - Baker is Daddy person and he is bailing George out..

Unfortunately, the earth, and humanity are paying and will continue to pay dearly for the shrub's behavior.

Is hell freezing over ?

Remember when The Eagles did the hell freezes over tour? Well the Dems are now doing the hell freezes over election.

If we can believe the voting in 2004 [and I do not] "most" Americans said they'd vote Democratic when hell freezes over. They "loved" the shrub and his policies. But soon after that "election" the polls showed fewer of those voters liking the shrub. [The quick turn-around is why I do not believe we had a fair election.] Today the shrub's numbers are close to the hell freezing over number... a little above 32 degrees. Congress' numbers are just as bad at 37 degrees - and Darth Vader's [Cheney] is 19 degrees.

Since Congress is a one party system and has been for many years, guess who is causing the hell freezes over syndrome? The same people who brought you the hell and damnation elections of 2004 and the same people who preach hell and damnation [otherwise known as fear.]

Maybe the American electorate is waking up from the long national nightmare and realizing it is time for hell to freeze over and for us to start walking again on those fears of hell..... If fear of hell keeps you voting for the shrub's crowd, there is not much we can do for you but if you are tired of being played for a fearful fool, think about voting for the Dems. I'm not going to say they are perfect or even near perfect, but at this point in our country's life, they are the best people for saving us from further eroding into hell.....

Thursday, October 19, 2006

If you are in or near D.C. on October 25

This is from my "old" law school.... DC School of Law

There’s a Quiet Revolution going on… Can we stop it?

Does the Constitution forbid social security? Minimum wages? Workplace safety laws?

Does the Constitution authorize torture?

Over the past quarter century, an increasingly influential movement on the far right has waged a quiet war to undermine the Constitution. This movement has grown even more during the Bush years. Ultra-conservative judges, professors, funders, think tanks, lawmakers and activists are pursuing an agenda that would radically transform American life.

"If they succeed," says University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, "we will, without really seeing it happen, end up with a very different country--one that's both less free and less equal."

Join Us!

Speaker: Nan Aron, President of Alliance for Justice
And a Short Film: Quiet Revolution, hosted by Bradley Whitford

Noon, Wednesday, October 25
UDC David A. Clarke School of Law
Building 39, Room 201
4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

Red Line Van Ness /UDC Metro
Wheelchair accessible

Lunch Provided!
No admission fee.

RSVP: JLibertelli@Udc.edu


Hosted by the UDC-DCSL American Constitution Society, Women’s Law Society, OutLaw, and National Lawyer’s Guild

The Alliance for Justice (AFJ) (http://ajf.org) is a national association of public interest organizations spanning a range of issues, including civil rights, social justice, consumer, and environmental protection. Founded in 1979, AFJ leads progressive advocacy and strengthens the progressive movement to ensure robust and equal access to levels of government power.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Songs from the 60's

Maybe we need more songs like these - or maybe we need a draft - or some stations that play anti war music - but we need something to awaken the broadest population to the problems in Iraq - with over 50 of our children killed there this month and over 600,000 Iraqis dead.....


I know Dylan was not writing about war - but the lyrics fit....and they are questions that we need to know about the shrub

Pete Seeger

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?


Bob Dylan

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Friday, October 13, 2006

More Keith Olbermann - thank you thank you thank you

This is from October 6th but it's relevant any day that the shrub is still the pResident.....
MSNBC.com
A special comment about lying
Keith Olbermann on the difference between terrorists and critics
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC

Updated: 8:19 a.m. PT Oct 6, 2006

While the leadership in Congress has self-destructed over the revelations of an unmatched, and unrelieved, march through a cesspool ...

While the leadership inside the White House has self-destructed over the revelations of a book with a glowing red cover ...

The president of the United States — unbowed, undeterred and unconnected to reality — has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: the Democrats.

Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, “177 of the opposition party said, ‘You know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.’”

The hell they did.

One hundred seventy-seven Democrats opposed the president’s seizure of another part of the Constitution.

Not even the White House press office could actually name a single Democrat who had ever said the government shouldn’t be listening to the conversations of terrorists.

President Bush hears what he wants.

Tuesday, at another fundraiser in California, he had said, “Democrats take a law enforcement approach to terrorism. That means America will wait until we’re attacked again before we respond.”

Mr. Bush fabricated that, too.

And evidently he has begun to fancy himself as a mind reader.

“If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party,” the president said at another fundraiser Monday in Nevada, “it sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is — wait until we’re attacked again.”

The president doesn’t just hear what he wants.

He hears things that only he can hear.

It defies belief that this president and his administration could continue to find new unexplored political gutters into which they could wallow.

Yet they do.

It is startling enough that such things could be said out loud by any president of this nation.

Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders, Democrats, the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies of treason.

But it is the context that truly makes the head spin.

Just 25 days ago, on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, this same man spoke to this nation and insisted, “We must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us.”

Mr. Bush, this is a test you have already failed.

If your commitment to “put aside differences and work together” is replaced in the span of just three weeks by claiming your political opponents prefer to wait to see this country attacked again, and by spewing fabrications about what they’ve said, then the questions your critics need to be asking are no longer about your policies.

They are, instead, solemn and even terrible questions, about your fitness to fulfill the responsibilities of your office.

No Democrat, sir, has ever said anything approaching the suggestion that the best means of self-defense is to “wait until we’re attacked again.”

No critic, no commentator, no reluctant Republican in the Senate has ever said anything that any responsible person could even have exaggerated into the slander you spoke in Nevada on Monday night, nor the slander you spoke in California on Tuesday, nor the slander you spoke in Arizona on Wednesday ... nor whatever is next.

You have dishonored your party, sir; you have dishonored your supporters; you have dishonored yourself.

But tonight the stark question we must face is — why?

Why has the ferocity of your venom against the Democrats now exceeded the ferocity of your venom against the terrorists?

Why have you chosen to go down in history as the president who made things up?

In less than one month you have gone from a flawed call to unity to this clarion call to hatred of Americans, by Americans.

If this is not simply the most shameless example of the rhetoric of political hackery, then it would have to be the cry of a leader crumbling under the weight of his own lies.

We have, of course, survived all manner of political hackery, of every shape, size and party. We will have to suffer it, for as long as the Republic stands.

But the premise of a president who comes across as a compulsive liar is nothing less than terrifying.

A president who since 9/11 will not listen, is not listening — and thanks to Bob Woodward’s most recent account — evidently has never listened.

A president who since 9/11 so hates or fears other Americans that he accuses them of advocating deliberate inaction in the face of the enemy.

A president who since 9/11 has savaged the very freedoms he claims to be protecting from attack — attack by terrorists, or by Democrats, or by both — it is now impossible to find a consistent thread of logic as to who Mr. Bush believes the enemy is.

But if we know one thing for certain about Mr. Bush, it is this: This president — in his bullying of the Senate last month and in his slandering of the Democrats this month — has shown us that he believes whoever the enemies are, they are hiding themselves inside a dangerous cloak called the Constitution of the United States of America.

How often do we find priceless truth in the unlikeliest of places?

I tonight quote not Jefferson nor Voltaire, but Cigar Aficionado Magazine.

On Sept. 11th, 2003, the editor of that publication interviewed General Tommy Franks, at that point, just retired from his post as commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command — of Cent-Com.

And amid his quaint defenses of the then-nagging absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or the continuing freedom of Osama bin Laden, General Franks said some of the most profound words of this generation.

He spoke of “the worst thing that can happen” to this country:

First, quoting, a “massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western World — it may be in the United States of America.”

Then, the general continued, “the Western World, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years, in this grand experiment that we call democracy.”

It was this super-patriotic warrior’s fear that we would lose that most cherished liberty, because of another attack, one — again quoting General Franks — “that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event. Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric of our Constitution.”

And here we are, the fabric of our Constitution being unraveled, anyway.

Habeus corpus neutered; the rights of self-defense now as malleable and impermanent as clay; a president stifling all critics by every means available and, when he runs out of those, by simply lying about what they said or felt.

And all this, even without the dreaded attack.

General Franks, like all of us, loves this country, and believes not just in its values, but in its continuity.

He has been trained to look for threats to that continuity from without.

He has, perhaps been as naïve as the rest of us, in failing to keep close enough vigil on the threats to that continuity from within.

Secretary of State Rice first cannot remember urgent cautionary meetings with counterterrorism officials before 9/11. Then within hours of this lie, her spokesman confirms the meetings in question. Then she dismisses those meetings as nothing new — yet insists she wanted the same cautions expressed to Secretaries Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.

Mr. Rumsfeld, meantime, has been unable to accept the most logical and simple influence of the most noble and neutral of advisers. He and his employer insist they rely on the “generals in the field.” But dozens of those generals have now come forward to say how their words, their experiences, have been ignored.

And, of course, inherent in the Pentagon’s war-making functions is the regulation of presidential war lust.

Enacting that regulation should include everything up to symbolically wrestling the Chief Executive to the floor.

Yet—and it is Pentagon transcripts that now tell us this—evidently Mr. Rumsfeld’s strongest check on Mr. Bush’s ambitions, was to get somebody to excise the phrase “Mission Accomplished” out of the infamous Air Force Carrier speech of May 1st, 2003, even while the same empty words hung on a banner over the President’s shoulder.

And the vice president is a chilling figure, still unable, it seems, to accept the conclusions of his own party’s leaders in the Senate, that the foundations of his public position, are made out of sand.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But he still says so.

There was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida.

But he still says so.

And thus, gripping firmly these figments of his own imagination, Mr. Cheney lives on, in defiance, and spreads—around him and before him—darkness, like some contagion of fear.

They are never wrong, and they never regret -- admirable in a French torch singer, cataclysmic in an American leader.

Thus, the sickening attempt to blame the Foley scandal on the negligence of others or “the Clinton era”—even though the Foley scandal began before the Lewinsky scandal.

Thus, last month’s enraged attacks on this administration’s predecessors, about Osama bin Laden—a projection of their own negligence in the immediate months before 9/11.

Thus, the terrifying attempt to hamstring the fundament of our freedom—the Constitution—a triumph for al Qaida, for which the terrorists could not hope to achieve with a hundred 9/11’s.

And thus, worst of all perhaps, these newest lies by President Bush about Democrats choosing to await another attack and not listen to the conversations of terrorists.

It is the terror and the guilt within your own heart, Mr. Bush, that you redirect at others who simply wish for you to temper your certainty with counsel.

It is the failure and the incompetence within your own memory, Mr. Bush, that leads you to demonize those who might merely quote to you the pleadings of Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

It is not the Democrats whose inaction in the face of the enemy you fear, Sir.

It is your own—before 9/11 - and (and you alone know this), perhaps afterwards.

Mr. President, these new lies go to the heart of what it is that you truly wish to preserve.

It is not our freedom, nor our country—your actions against the Constitution give irrefutable proof of that.

You want to preserve a political party’s power. And obviously you’ll sell this country out, to do it.

These are lies about the Democrats -- piled atop lies about Iraq -- which were piled atop lies about your preparations for al Qaida.

To you, perhaps, they feel like the weight of a million centuries -- as crushing, as immovable.

They are not.

If you add more lies to them, you cannot free yourself, and us, from them.

But if you stop -- if you stop fabricating quotes, and building straw-men, and inspiring those around you to do the same -- you may yet liberate yourself and this nation.

Please, sir, do not throw this country’s principles away because your lies have made it such that you can no longer differentiate between the terrorists and the critics.
© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15147009/
© 2006 MSNBC.com

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Cut and Run

I am a proud CUT and RUN progressive:

I want to CUT out the death of our kids in Iraq
I want the military to RUN the military.

I want to CUT taxes for the middle class
I want to RUN an efficient government that is not beholden to corporations.

I want to CUT out the corrupt congresspeople
I want to RUN them out of town with no pensions.

I want to CUT the illegal wiretaping
And I want to RUN and jump for joy when WE get back our country!

Friday, September 15, 2006

Medicare part D[umb,angerous,eceptive]

So many rants so little time...but here is one for today...that Medicare Part D[umb,angerous,eceptive] doughnut hole...

I've mentioned this hole before and do believe it was planned with the specific end results in mind...why else was it included?

Soon - like next week - many who signed up for Part D will start reaching the prescription cost amount where their coverage STOPS. They must continue to pay monthly for Part D even though they also have to pay for the next $3000 of the cost of their prescriptions.

Why was this put in? Duh...because the legislation was written by the pharmaceuticals and although I have not yet done the research, I am guessing that a majority of people spend between $2,000 and $5000 on medications and so that became a good gap so that the drug kings could make the maximum profit while not having to offer any discounts and still collecting the monthly fees.

What will seniors do? Many will have to make choices between meds and food or meds and rent or meds and other necessities.
Do the repugs really want this? My answer is YES - or they would NOT HAVE ENACTED PART D...Think about that when you vote this November....

Thursday, August 31, 2006

And hurrah to the Mayor of Salt Lake City

This is a must read: deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,645197552,00.html

Finally - the media is noticing that some of our elected officials do not buy the WH "talking points."

Thanks to BuzzFlash for posting this link....

Thank you Keith Olbermann

This was an amazing show to watch yesterday! I took this from Keith's blog - it was his closing soliloquy from the show


Aug. 30, 2006 | 8:34 p.m. ET

Feeling morally, intellectually confused?

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.

Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

And so good night, and good luck.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Grand Old Perps

The good news today is that more GOPerps are making the headlines for their behavior. Now I am not one to say Dems are perfect - I grew up in NYC and lived in Boston and DC for too long to be that naive.... but the Dems don't usually put themselves out "there" as the "moral" personae....

So with great glee I say what goes around comes around.. when you say you will clear the government of corruption you will be monitored .. it's like the shrub saying "bring it on." Sheer stupidity when you do not back up your words with appropriate behavior.


Here's to the latest GOPerps: [yes innocent until proven guilty - I know I know : )]

Conrad Burns' sort of recent fun-raiser in chief is accused of securities fraud and Bob Corker, a Senator wannabe in TN, was subpoenaed to be deposed in an environmental lawsuit.... Gosh I bet they both hire attorneys - funny how these perps who hate lawyers are the 1st to lawyer-up when they are in trouble..

If you don't like lawyers - don't hire one!

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

New Orleans

I had been to New Orleans at least twice - both before Katrina... It is/was a fun city to visit and I recall many great meals eaten there....Last night I watched the Spike Lee documentary about Katrina and I cried...not that there was anything new in the documentary - I know king shrub had his head up his usual spot and did not pay attention and then said that oft repeat "who ever knew...."[fill in the blank]

But a year later the gulf region is still hurting- while we continue to spend billions killing people in Iraq and getting killed in the process. And if the shrub continues on this path [and he says he will] more and more cities in the USA will continue to hurt, have damaged infrastructure and decaying schools. New Orleans is the most visible example of the shrub's national policies while Iraq remains the symbol of his international policies.

It's my country and I want it back! Regime change in 2006!

Friday, August 11, 2006

Incredible

The repugs are running so scared after Lamont's win that they are labeling his supporters and most dems as Taliban and al queada -

look in the mirror you repugs - you are the ones out of step with American opinion - you are the ones who are like al queda and the Taliban with your fanatical adherence to a theology and war machine that perpetuates a culture of war and killing...

we progressives are the ones who are peace minded, we are the ones who respect a culture of life - we are thinking in the real world and we WILL take our country back from you....

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Bye Bye Joe

Joe Lieberman has now shown why the voters of Connecticut were correct to select Lamont. Lieberman, like his shrubish friends, can not face reality. And to boot - he is a sore loser - just like the shrub.

We do not need more petulant non-reality based people in D.C. - it's got enough of them there already. It's time for some truth and some serious looking at what is actually happening in the world - in the chaos that king shrub has wrought upon this planet.

So - Bye Bye Joe - and welcome Ned!

P.S. - drop Harry Reid a line and remind him that Lieberman is no longer a democrat and Reid should act accordingly.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

King George - again

I posted this last year and am posting it here again on this 4th of July - not much has changed in the last year except for the attitudes of the American people - so maybe we need to read this more than once a year - like read it every morning so it sinks in as to why and how we became Americans? [All bold emphases are mine.]

Just read it as if it were about the current King George.

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen ColoniesIn CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
For additional information about the Declaration of Independence, see these sites:
National Archives and Records Administration: Declaration of Independence
Library of Congress: About the Declaration of Independence

Friday, June 16, 2006

Life

For the last few weeks I have been in a funk - my cat went missing and my body decided to have an issue - but the body seems okay and the cat came back...

Having just had some very expensive medical procedures done - I get angry and energized - if it were not for Medicare and my Medigap plan I would not have been able to get the care I got. In fact, for most of my adult life I went without health insurance as it was too damned expensive and I am healthy.

As I get older though, I am more aware of when things are going awry and so decided to not play around and get this checked out - a few years ago I would not have been able to do this and so would have been putting myself in jeopardy.

We need health care for all - for every person - not just kids

Friday, May 26, 2006

Enron

Well a greedy corporation bit the dust and it's two heads will be off to jail - YEA..... there is talk of these greedy corporatists being pardoned by the shrub so we need to make it clear that that particular action will have very bad consequences for the repugs all over the country-

and tell me again why corporations are allowed to go belly up in bankruptcy and not pay their debts - like their pension and retirement funds and normal everyday citizens are not allowed to do so anymore?

We do need to make Enron the poster child of greedy repug excesses and compare their situation to the mbna bankruptcy bill that congress gave to the credit card companies....

Let's do something radical like take our country back from the corporations.....

oops nsa is watching me.....that's okay - my phone was tapped in the 60's.....it's been a fact of life that if the repugs don't like what you are doing - they monitor you - one would think they have better things to do but they see us ranters as a danger...they have forgotten to read the constitution and the history of our country - so nsa - go read a history book : )

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Mother's Day

How did we get away from the original intent of Howe's mother's day proclamation to a now corporate event of sell sell sell and buy buy buy? Oh and do not forget to make those intercepted phone calls....

I cry for those mommy's who have lost their children in the mad shrub's so-called war....

Let's take back mother's day when we take back our country from these #$$%#&$*&(^

Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870
by Julia Ward Howe


Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.


Peace

Friday, May 12, 2006

Has Hell Frozen Over?

The shrub's popularity rating has gone down to 29%. This is below freezing Fahrenheit...and I guess maybe he is waiting for the Centigrade rating before he does something to "warm" us up.....That's the scary part- with Rove now sort of admitting he will be indicted, ratings below 30% [and that was before the phone tapping information] I worry that the shrub will bomb the hell out of anyone - just to change the topics of conversation and make himself a "new" war president...and that's when hell will freeze over - and all hell will break loose.

Does he care? No- and that's why I think he should be committed. He is insane and certifiable. And as he again "beats" Daddy y having a lower poll rating - it is time to really really worry.... This is not just a grown child with a daddy complex - this is a seriously disturbed individual who has no conscience, no morality and just wants to rule the world and kill anyone who gets in his way....

See my previous post re Hitler and Geroge in the September 2005 archives - that's the analogy going on right now.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Save the Internet

Don't let those nasty corporations get their dirty hands on this communication system.


Save the Internet: Click here

Monday, April 24, 2006

The Decider

We have a very disturbed person in the White House. All my psychological training leads me to say this.

Yes we all talk to ourselves but it's not all the time and not often out loud. When you hear voices - it's time for a realty check before you believe them. Not the shrub. He actually believes that "his" g-d is talking to him. He does not feel he needs to check with anyone else about this little voice in his head.

Nothing wrong with hearing voices either - it's sort of like fantasies - they themselves are not bad - our minds are very creative. I tell all my clients that. BUT - you DO NOT ACT OUT YOUR fantasies, dreams, voices, etc. Acting out these voices and fantasies is a sign of a disturbed person. The shrub needs to be locked up. He is a danger to himself and others. Those are grounds for involuntary commitment. He needs to be in St. E's - not in the White House. Where is the person willing to try and get him committed? Others in DC are committed for these reasons - why not the shrub?

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Songs and Poems are Needed Again

We need to bring back some of the poems and songs of previous wars - lest we forget the awfulness of what has gone on before - and is going on now. "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" - like shrubs who do not read history and those who think they can do better than real warriors and military strategists.

I was doing the NYT puzzle and one clue led me to this poem - the Latin title is from Horace and can be translated as "it is sweet and appropriate to die for your country." Let those who agree with Horace trade places with our children in Iraq.

Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! —An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Owning up to responsibility

We have a government where seemingly the worse you do your job - the higher the praise and maybe you even get a medal of "honor." Hmmm. Rice now admits to making "thousands" of errors in Iraq. Will anyone be held responsible? Nope - not unless we vote them out.

Is this administration creating a national culture of irresponsibility? A world-wide culture of irresponsibility? I think so. Add to that this new power of "pre-emptive" war....and we have a new world/country concept of "get them first and get away with it!"

Recently I was hit by a hot/run driver. My dog and I are okay - the car is not. It gave me pause for thought. Have we seen an increase in this kind of crime since the invasion of Iraq? Are there more "senseless" murders since the invasion of Iraq?

I think I shall start doing some research. When the alleged head of the country goes on a PR spree telling the world he was correct to invade Iraq, spy on Americans and ruin the economy - all in the name of "get em first" I think he is setting a very bad example - and one that WILL be emulated by others - by people here and by other countries. Why? He has done all this without taking any responsibility for it's aftermath. He sees himself as above any law and he will keep acting like this.

So he will continue to be an example of "get em first and take no responsibility for the aftermath" and he will act surprised that others copy this new format of behavior - afterall in his mind he is the only one allowed to act this way....

Off to do some research.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Silly me

Can anyone tell me who we are killing in Iraq right now? Do the our children there [aka troops] know who is an "enemy?" Or do they just shoot who they are ordered to shoot?

From today's news: "Politicians from Iraq's Shi'ite majority accused U.S. troops of massacring 20 worshippers at a Baghdad mosque on Sunday but police and residents said many died in clashes between Shi'ite militia fighters and Americans."

From my point of view we seem to be killing Iraqis at will who happen to be in a place we want. Or in a place the Iraqis in power want?

We did what we said we were going to do [WMD] ...even did the follow up lies [capture Hussein] ... so now we need to get out - you can't force a democracy at gunpoint and you certainly can't say you are promoting democracy "there" when you undermine it here by lying, cheating. stealing and tramping on constitutional rights....

Censure the shrub - impeach the shrub - but as the bumper sticker notes - impeach cheney first

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

You gotta be kidding! Right?

These statements from the deluded person in the W.H. My comments in []

"We're making progress because we've got a strategy for victory." [Huh? Not even a logical statement.]

"And we're making progress, because the men and women of the United States military are showing magnificent courage." [So courage of the troops is the definition of progress?]

"And no question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence." [Yes shrub - you- the enemy are spreading violence.]

"They use violence as a tool to do that. You know, they're willing to kill innocent people." [Yes shrub you are willing to kill innocent people - so YOU are the enemy.]

"This [Iran] is a country that is walking away from international accords. They're not heading toward the international accords. They're not welcoming the international inspections or safeguard measures that they had agreed to." [and under shrub so have we- watch for more lies about Iran]

[Still lying]: "And the world said, "Disarm, disclose or face serious consequences." And therefore, we worked with the world. We worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world." [Hello shrub- he did disarm -remember no WMD were found!]

"And when he chose to deny the inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did. And the world is safer for it.: [again DUH- the inspectors WERE THERE - until shrub had them removed and the world is NOT safer- look at the statistics]

"I say that I'm talking realistically to people." [and I say you are a deluded - in my profession people who have a "different" reality get a psychiatric diagnosis from the DSM IV]

"We have a plan for victory, and it's important we achieve that plan ... First of all, this is a global war on terror, and Iraq is a part of the war on terror." [give me a break - if you have a plan it's invisible - like Nixon's]

"Mr. Zarqawi and al Qaeda, the very same people that attacked the United States, have made it clear that they want to drive us out of Iraq so they can plan, plot and attack America again." [Uh Mr shrub- they weren't in Iraq until you invited them to go there. And if this is your criteria why don't you bomb Saudi Arabia?]

"That's what they have said. That's their objective." [Well Osama said he wanted to bankrupt us - and you know what? You are doing just that!]

"I think it is very important to have a president who's realistic and listens to what the enemy says." [ I agree with this and that's why you must NOT be the president- you are deluded and you do not listen.]

"Democracies don't war." [well he's getting more truthful - since we are at war we can not then be a democracy - and he's working very hard to turn us away from democracy - and unfortunately the congress is helping him]