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.....

A new dawn in the USA

House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid !!

Let's give ourselves a loud cheer !!

WE DID IT !!!

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.....

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)

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.....