Admit it or not, McCain is now, plainly speaking, an opinionated old fart
Now Playing: We were in Naselle yesterday for the Democratic Precinct Caucuses.
Topic: Politics
We were in Naselle yesterday for the Democratic Precinct Caucuses. In 2006 we went to this event where maybe 10 people sat around a table in a library meeting room. This time we were at Naselle High School in a large room with more than 30 in attendance.

When we first arrived, one couple from Bay Center who are retired and long-time party activists (former PCO) immediately cornered Lietta and myself, assuming that with our own activist reputation, we would most likely be willing to join them in a symbolic vote for Kucinich so as to make a statement.

Later, into the actual caucus discussions, after they'd made their position on Kucinich known, Lietta again stood and pleaded with them to give up the symbolic gesture, insisting that the timeliness and urgency around reversing the Iraq situation made symbolic gestures more meaningless this time than what happened with Nader in the last two elections.

Respectfully, but forcefully, Lietta admitted that both she and I had agreed strongly with many of his positions, but that in this cycle, Kucinich's time had come and gone. She made an impassioned plea that the couple drop their Kucinich position and make a more pragmatic and practical choice.

Don't know what actually swayed them but they eventually shifted their support to Hillary.

I'm still struck by the fact that as much as we boomers are the generation who by now should have already handed off the reins of managing the future to the generation that now totally owns the future, many still feel that our aging leadership have the better solutions for that future.

McCain and Clinton campaign as if they believed that the Congress with which they'll have to work will be full of boomer-aged politicians like themselves. That's already absolutely untrue.

Admit it or not, McCain is now, plainly speaking, an opinionated old fart - just like me. At his age he, like me, is no longer the principal owner of the future. Only he's in the more dangerous position of hurting his and my children than am I.

If you are not going to be around to walk alongside the generation dealing with reality, this is the worst season to attempt to lead the charge based on political rhetoric masquerading itself as strait talk in order to pander to varying audiences.

That's dangerously true for McCain and bluntly true for Hillary who  is more than 13 years younger than the straight-talker but still an aging boomer.

One wants to ask whether or not tribal elders have a right to remain in a saddle that no longer fits their butts while the tribal strength and vitality  - warriors, workers and their growing families stand around waiting for the old ones to keep writing out checks that the young ones will have to cash with their bodies and souls.

We don't have that right.

Dino wants you to think that what he does, she does
Topic: Politics

Let's see now, the Republican candidate who constantly needs a headline and issues for his own political gain wants gullible you to believe that your governor is guilty of Republican tactics.

In Katrina/Fema/Bush fashion, Dino stumbles about levees, imposes his own bureaucratic attitude by proposing delay with levees while the most strapped bureaucracies in the region add to their own recovery woes by taking on the levee issue without help from Olympia?

That's a real workable proposal? Next thing you know he'll propose that the local governments can build the levee's more cheaply by suspending the minimum wage and try it  using the "George W. Bush prevailing wage tactic."

Yep, that's running the government like a business.

Millions of dollars have been wasted on what plan Dino?

What makes that plan flawed Dino?

Come on, give us details, not rhetoric. 

Otherwise, Dino, aren't you just another civics-challeneged Republican inserting yourself into the only headlines available to promote yourself as the economically wiser option?

"He's all about headlines," Arthur said, "people don't need Republican talking points that lack details or justifications. That's the long time model that is being rejected and tossed out all over the country. "

Republican tactics in Washington State suggest that the state party is also behind the times with their own national party which is slowly coming to understand the Limbaugh-style inflammatory accusations don't get it anymore.

If you want to be insulted by folks who think you're still gullible - even stupid - go find the next headline-grabbing event Mr. Rossi or his party holds.

Details here do matter.

You come up with a plan Dino, make it known in details. We don't need another politician defined by one-liners lacking substance.

 

The Chronicle OnLine: Governor Wants Levees First 

Politicizing the Process?

Gregoire’s 2008 opponent Dino Rossi contends the governor is being too hasty with the levee plan and is inserting too much bureaucracy into the process by suggesting the Department of Transportation lead the project.

“I think there are other options and I think local governments need to come up with them,” Rossi said. “Just because they may have wasted millions of dollars on a plan that’s flawed doesn’t mean you should do the plan that’s flawed.”

Rossi also said Gregoire is using flood issues for her own political gain. He gaffed at the governor’s recent trip to a relief center at Baw Faw Grange in Boistfort, where Gregoire served crab cakes she won in a recent football bet with the governor of Maryland.

“She’s all about headlines,” Rossi said. “People don’t need crab cakes, what they need is a real solution.”

A recent Chronicle op-ed by Rossi criticized the state’s past funding issues with the flood plan and Gregoire called it a clear and irresponsible attempt to exploit the situation.

“My main message is ‘Don’t politicize it,’ ” Gregoire said. “Nothing will get done, and that’s the saddest outcome for the people there. They deserve better than turning this into some political campaign issue.”

Hope Feldman is Right.
Now Playing: Jeffrey Feldman www.frameshopisopen.com
Topic: Politics

FRAMESHOP by Jeffrey Feldman

 

Frameshop: Rudy's Flop Shows '9/11' Can't Win Anymore

Of all the words Rudy Giuliani used in his Florida concession speech last night, '9/11' was not one of them.

The omission of his signature leitmotif from his only major televised speech was not not oversight, but a harbinger of big change in American politics. Finally, after 7 years of Republicans exploiting 9/11 to win elections and pass policies, Giuliani's failure in the Presidential race will likely put that that strategy to bed.

Thank goodness for small miracles.

...iuliani's omission of '9/11' from his concession speech in Florida, last night, brought a well-earned respite for the memory of those who died and suffered as a result of the attacks seven years ago.

Right-wing pundits will no doubt continue to cash in on 9/11 by using it as political fodder on talk shows and in political books. But it is unlikely that 9/11 will ever again become the theme for a winning political campaign.

I suppose we have Rudy to thank for that.

Too many folks giving conservatism a bad name
Now Playing: The Economist: The American Right Under the weather
Topic: Politics

Thanks  to Michael Hood at Blatherwatch  for the alert about this article.

[Excerpt] To read entire article click here for:  The Economist

The conservative movement that for a generation has been the source of the Republican Party's strength is in the dumps

Aug 9th 2007 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

 

 The right has dominated American politics since at least 1980. The Republicans' electoral successes have been striking: five out of seven presidential elections since 1980 and a dramatic seizure of the House in 1994 after 40 years of Democratic rule. Even more striking has been the right's success in making the political weather.

... The Republican Party is only the most visible part of the American right.

... The Christian right can call upon megachurches and Evangelical colleges. Conservatives have also created a formidable counter-establishment of think-tanks and pressure groups.

... And many Americans who are not members of the movement happily embrace the label "conservative". They think of themselves as God-fearing patriots who dislike big government and are tough on crime and national security. In 2004 roughly a third of the voters identified themselves as conservatives; just over 20% identified themselves as "liberal" (as American left-wingers are somewhat strangely called). Conservatives have driven the policy debate on everything from crime to welfare to foreign policy.

Yet today this mighty movement is in deep trouble.

 

You tell me over and over and over again my friend ... you don't believe ...
Now Playing: Are we going to wake up to a summer surprise one of these mornings?
Topic: Politics

It's not like Barry McGuire was a deep thinking anti-war intellectual
when he sang "Eve of Destruction." No, he was jumping on a bandwagon
made possible by people in the streets.  

There's Something in the Air - Chris Chandler

There is Something in the Air, But It is Not on the Airwaves
By Chris Chandler and Anne Feeney arranged by David Roe

The links are both sound and text

---

 

Wake up, listen, read and smell the dang coffee. Critical thinking needed here and an understanding that all the other political concerns of the moment might very well be petty and irrelevant  in comparison.

This weekend there must be something in the air, the coffee or the donuts because we're all a bit edgy about our place in life and the question asked by some and perhaps avoided by more who don't want to ask.

---

 Don't you understand, what I'm trying to say?
Can't you see the fear that I'm feeling today? -

You know, we have GOT it together. There ARE people in the streets.
At the very onset of Oil War Two there were already more people on the
streets protesting than there were at the height of the Vietnam war.
There is something in the air, but it is not on the airwaves.

---

What is there about the demeanor of the Busheviks that suggests unconcern about a looming landslide electoral disaster in 2008?

... in which a totally discredited Republican party loses more seats and faces the prospect of a subsequent Democratic majority more powerful than the vindictive, greedy, corrupt, abusive and extremely partisan Republican majority of Delay, Hastert, Cheney and Bush?

---

 Yet right now, there are more
people on the streets than there was then, but you have to think twice
before jumping on that bandwagon for fear it might be a paddy wagon
bound for Guantanamo Bay .

---

 

Read my quotables entry from yesterday. Paul Craig Roberts isn't the only voice out there either.

---

take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy,
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

---

Normally these kinds of fears remain in the obscure corners as playthings of conspiracy theorists whom we usually ignore.

So why are we uneasy? 

---

Yeah, my blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin',
I'm sittin' here, just contemplatin',
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
handful of Senators don't pass legislation,

---

Maybe Ron Paul is right. Maybe our heads are in the wrong dark place worrying about the wrong dark sides and deceiving ourselves about the wrong dark issues.

From RonCan.com 

Checkmate Near At Hand -
Bush is strategically setting the board for an American checkmate.

RonCan.com | Digg this story

If you've ever played chess or any strategic game, you must first put your pieces in place before you spring your attack. All evidence suggests that the NeoCon war on Iran is about to be sprung.

This is what I see:

First we have the PNAC agenda

This clearly calls for a 3 - 4 front war. It calls for domination of resources and it calls for military oversight of those resources indefinitely. This has been the neocon controlling agenda even before Bush's Presidency.

---

you don't believe in war, what's that gun you're totin',
and even the Jordan river has bodies floatin',
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

---

 Second we have Chertoff's gut feelings

A warning of more terrorist attacks supported only by a "gut feeling". And now he predicts simultaneous LA and SanFransico dirty bombs.

Third we have warnings from insiders

Former Reagan Advisor , Pat Buchanan, and Ron Paul warning of a possible Gulf of Tonkin incident creating another war.

Fourth we have Cheney pulling strings

Cheney is pushing Bush to act on Iran.

Fifth we have Congress on a break

August may be the hottest month yet for America

Sixth we have Bush's Executive Order outlawing war protest

This EO is written so generally, that it essentially kills the 5th Amendment

Seventh we have the "Fall guy" moving into position

Aircraft carrier "Enterprise" the oldest in the fleet, moves into the Gulf to replace the USS Nimitz.

Eighth we see a President in freefall approval ratings (Wisconsin at 17%) still pushing war

Bush is religiously pushing the PNAC agenda which is the ONLY success of his administration. All of America is against this war, yet he still pursues this agenda with scary and blind tenacity.

Strategic Foresight

Call it a conspiracy theory or maybe just call it strategic foresight, but I see a frightening setup taking place. I see a strategic positioning of pieces. A closing in of a trap, and at this late date, there is little room for escape.

---

Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space,
but when your return, it's the same old place,
the poundin' of the drums, th pride and disgrace,
you can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace,
hate your next-door-neighbour, but don't forget to say grace,
and you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

---

If current directions do not change, the ONLY prognition that ANYONE could make, is that come August we will be at war.

Sadly, I wrote about this 2 years ago. And many warned the public years ago.

The darkest part is that the war with Iran and possibly Pakistan, will equal the horror of the complete dismantling of the Constitutional Republic here at home.

The great experiment will come to an end.

Checkmate. 

---

Oh, before the Berlin Wall fell
we loved to talk about how the Soviet Union would broadcast only the songs of the state and we romanticized
that is was our radio broadcasts wafting in from West Berlin that tore
down the wall. .
Yet now, the cell phone is in the other hand. There is a new wall running down
divided America . And it is American radio that is being manipulated by
the agenda of the state, because the state has become indistinguishable
from the corporation – which, as I said before, needs sponsors more
than it needs an electorate.

I don't think anyone elected these folks to betray our military families
Now Playing: George Bush and a ruined Republican Presidency aren't worth this.
Topic: Politics
Current Republican behavior in the Senate is not patriotism, it certainly is not any kind of statesmanship and does not have the highest good of the country in mind.
 
Can you imagine all those who voted against these amendments stuck in a room with the families of the next ten troop casualities and in all their senatorial dignity trying to explain the noble reason why they could not support the legislation?
 
It's one thing to defend a policy with weak & partisan republican talking points on Meet the Press. It's another to offer weak & partisan republican talking  points  to a grieving family - especiall when there is no guarantee you're speaking to one of the 30% left in this country who buy
bullshit. 

Longer Deployment, Shorter Dwell Time

July 23, 2007, By Rick Maze, Army Times [Excerpts]

 Three separate proposals aimed at cutting some of the stress of combat deployments for service members were rejected by the Senate during debate on the 2008 defense budget.

On July 11, Senate Republicans twice used a parliamentary procedure to block amendments that had support from a majority of senators.

One, sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., promised all service members deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan would spend as much time at home as they did in the war zone.

The second, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., would have restricted Iraq and Afghanistan deployments to 12 months for Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops and to seven months for the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve.

In both cases, Republican leaders, trying to protect the administration's Iraq policy, refused to allow up-or-down votes and threatened endless debate that could only be cut off with at least 60 votes.

Webb's amendment was shot down on a 56-41 vote, while Hagel's was defeated 52-45.

When Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., offered a nonbinding resolution that simply asked the Defense Department to try to keep deployments to no longer than 12 months, even that failed, 51-44, on a straight up-or-down vote.

Webb and Hagel are decorated Vietnam combat veterans whose recommendations about combat-related matters affecting troops and their families normally would be given great deference in Congress, where lawmakers profess to put the troops first.

Hagel said he was a bit astounded that an amendment looking out for the troops did not get support, and said it was a sign of the difficulty facing Congress as it considers more sweeping legislation to change the Bush administration's Iraq strategy.

But the efforts of the two combat veterans were derided as micromanagement and political gamesmanship. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, accused Webb of "wasting time" with an amendment that "we know the president will veto."

Graham, who has served in Iraq and is the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services military personnel panel, called Webb's amendment a "terrible idea."

"If you want to take care of the troops, let them win," he said.

The consequences of the amendment would be "devastating," Graham said. "In the name of protecting the troops, we should not destroy a surge the troops are involved in that is beginning to defeat the most vicious enemy known to the planet - al-Qaida."

 

 The plan is a surge authorize, advocated and defended by not only those among the least militaryily-experienced ever to govern, but by individuals who have proven themselves anything BUT militarily, tactically nor logistically wise.

In that regard, what you see are political fools voting to support failed and inappropriate judgements of other political fools - all in the name of party unity - and at the expense of the entirety of The United States of America. 

This country needs to plan on buying lots of brooms in time for 2008 - assuming the 2008 elections are still in place and fools have not attempted something even more foolish. 

Republicans in the military: which candidates share their values?
Now Playing: Romney, Giuliani - even McCain: Take a hike! Ron Paul is where it's at.
Topic: Politics

When the troops express Republican beliefs what the majority refer to are beliefs imaged by Republican candidates Ron Paul and John McCain.

here is a great civic wisdom in the military that tends to genuine conservative values - as opposed to the pseudo conservative values of money managers and spin-doctored positions that try to be all things to all people. To wit the following excerpt from:

Military Favors Ron Paul Over McCain

            - Delaware's Ron Paul Blog

The US Federal Election Commission has released the Selected Presidential Reports for the 2007 July Quarterly, and there are a few surprises. No surprise, of course, is that people in the armed services and veterans overwhelmingly support the Republican Party. However, after digging through individual candidates’ contributions by employers, we find an elating (or disturbing, if you’re rooting for Rudy McRomney) trend. The breakdown? Here you go.

Our military forces have a strong tradition of valorization and an implicit belief that they have served to protect the freedom of private citizens in the United States. So profound is this belief that it ranks as the #1 reason that veterans and active duty say they joined (even though education ranks as the #1 reason prior to enlistment).

This culture of pride in service particularly to safeguard American liberties and freedoms — regardless of whether it is true or not — disinclines those in service to contribute to candidates like Romney and Giuliani who want to expand Executive power and increase spying on Americans.

This is why Ron Paul and John McCain are the clearest front-runners in terms of contributions. Well, that and the fact that McCain was a Captain in the Navy and Ron Paul was a flight surgeon.

	Army	Navy	USAF	USMC	VET	TOTAL
Ron Paul	6975	7765	4650	1500	1250	22140
McCain	6225	6480	1570	1600	800	16675
Romney	2051	0	1500	0	1000	4551
Giuliani	1450	370	250	0	250	2320
Hunter	0	1000	0	0	0	1000
Richardson	50	750	0	0	0	800
Huckabee	250	0	500	0	0	750
Tancredo	350	0	0	0	0	350
Brownback	71	0	0	0	0	71
Thompson	0	0	0	0	0

Spiritual courage in the political arena.
Now Playing: Candidate fear that the majority of Christian America takes the religious Sopranos seriously.
Topic: Politics

[Updated Today] from CBNnews.com;The Brody File

I agree with Brody. Read on and click the link above to read his entire article. 

The Brody File Reacts to Barack Obama's Faith Speech
June 25, 2007The headlines from Barack Obama's faith speech this weekend centered on how he ripped leaders of the religious right. We'll get to that in a moment. But this speech was a lot more than just that.

Let's first start with this. Besides Obama, how many times have you seen a presidential candidate get up in front of a large crowd and talk in depth about his salvation? I'll give you the answer: Zero. For Obama to stand up and talk about how Jesus changed his life, my friends that takes guts. You may disagree with everything he's about, you may disagree with his policy goals but as Christians, shouldn't we like it when someone talks about Christ being the missing ingredient in his life? The excerpt below won't make it into the AP article. Check it out from his speech:

 

It wasn't until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma. In a sense, what brought me to Chicago in the first place was a hunger for some sort of meaning in my life. I wanted to be part of something larger. I'd been inspired by the civil rights movement - by all the clear-eyed, straight-backed, courageous young people who'd boarded buses and traveled down South to march and sit at lunch counters, and lay down their lives in some cases for freedom. I was too young to be involved in that movement, but I felt I could play a small part in the continuing battle for justice by helping rebuild some of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods.

So it's 1985, and I'm in Chicago, and I'm working with these churches, and with lots of laypeople who are much older than I am. And I found that I recognized in these folks a part of myself. I learned that everyone's got a sacred story when you take the time to listen. And I think they recognized a part of themselves in me too. They saw that I knew the Scriptures and that many of the values I held and that propelled me in my work were values they shared. But I think they also sensed that a part of me remained removed and detached - that I was an observer in their midst.

And slowly, I came to realize that something was missing as well - that without an anchor for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.

And it's around this time that some pastors I was working with came up to me and asked if I was a member of a church. "If you're organizing churches," they said, "it might be helpful if you went to church once in a while." And I thought, "Well, I guess that makes sense."

So one Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called "The Audacity of Hope." And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn't suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works.

 

That, ladies and gentlemen is called a conversion experience. No other candidate is relaying that type of story. Now, as for the religious right comments, first, let's reset and read exactly what he said below:

 

---

While Romney bows down before the Dobson - Sheldon gang of extortion, Obama preaches the gospel Brother James and Lou are afraid of.

Don't know that I'm ready to endorse Barack as the best choice for  President ... since there's more to it than religious talk,  but I'm powerfully glad he's saying what needs to be said about God and Politics.

Contrast this with the slithering side-winding nebulous morale equivocating of Mr. Romney (with whom I share the same religious background) - something Mitt absolutely does not have to do.

The relationship between the standard republican and democratic politicos and the Christian Right Wing's Jabba-the-Huts stands out in sharp contrast.   The republicans call on the Religious right with hats in hand, pretending to be one with them. The democrats run in constant fear that the majority of Christian America takes Dobson, Sheldon, and the rest of the religious Sopranos seriously.

If all other variable attributes of all other candidates were equal and I still had to choose based on discernible differences, Obama would be my guy. His political discourse far exceeds the hesitating and careful posturing of candidates like Brownback, Reverend Huckabee and Brother Romney.

[Excerpt follows] Read article and entire text of Obama's remarks at Pam's House Blend 

"[S]omehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us. At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design. There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich. I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version.

But I'm hopeful because I think there's an awakening taking place in America. People are coming together around a simple truth - that we are all connected, that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper. And that it's not enough to just believe this - we have to do our part to make it a reality. My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won't be fulfilling God's will unless I go out and do the Lord's work."

Mitt doesn't believe LDS Folklore but most Mormons probably do.
Now Playing: Constitution will hang by a thread ... then rescued by Mormon Priesthood
Topic: Politics

 LDS folklore has it own End Times version about a White Horse.

All Carter said is what most Americans are thinking:
Now Playing: Arthur's Opinion
Topic: Politics
So says Joe Sudbay (DC) at AMERICAblog

and ain't that the truth?

It's of course also a truth that many prominent Democrats seem to fear bar fights with bullies as much as they fear a supposed backlash that might occur should they flat out tell Bush, "no more funding."

... or if they justifiably pursue impeachment of presidents, vice presidents and the most incompetent attorney general in our history.

I don't know who they are afraid they will offend and why such an imagined offense might be catastrophic  to their political futures. Backbone is not birthed out of indecisiveness and courage does not emerge from timidity and a failure to act.

Remember the videos last week of the mugger behind the open car door reaching around the door to punch a helpless 90-year-old  car-owner in the face before stealing his car?

Remember all those folks standing by watching and taking no immediate action to stop it?

That's the perception America is getting of Democrats who have been authorized and empowered to stop a national crime family in its tracks - and can't bring themselves to do it.

Nor is it any kind of pretense to statesmanship when that pretense itself is not stopping the elephant from farting and dropping turds in the family home.

I would rather that Congress cut off the funding, force immediate redeployment of the troops and then suffer having its fears come home to roost politically than to continue to stand in quicksand and talk cheap talk.

Besides, with support for the President less than 30% there's very little risk of an electoral disaster of the magnitude of the Reflublican 2006 losses. But if the cost of ending the invasion and occupation of Iraq is a future electoral loss, then the Demo's should still do the right thing and take one for the country NOW.

We're in Iraq because liars pounced on our fear and indignation. Only after the Bushco tough talk did we move indignation and anger ahead of fear.

Any president willing to sling guns and express it truthfully would have been adequate to the task.

For that reason political calculators like Hillary and Kerry voted to let the gunslinger unsling his weapons.

In that regard those few Democrats who back then voted against the gunslinger were absolutely correct. They knew they were looking at Oil Can Henry and not Fearless Fosdick.

The rest of them knew the same thing but - considering themselves politically savvy and intimidated by the raw emotion vivid in the American consciousness - voted to turn the idiot loose anyway.

Don't let those who voted to authorize the pyromaniac fool you. They knew he would unsling the guns when they voted, regardless of the tip-toe through the wordage of diplomacy, inspections and U.N. articles.

Four years later, the bloody gunslinger still waves his weapons. The Demo's still keep trying to pretend to a false political statesmanship and wisdom cause they are now more afraid of a new unknown.

They're afraid of the unknown where lurks an electorate whose feelings might be hurt if Congress acts responsibly by putting the fire out. They fear that dumbed-down voters will believe it when the actual arsonists accuse Democrats of not caring about the residents inside the burning house or the firefighters already there.

The first thing any sane person would do do is cut off the supply of flammable liquid spraying on the inferno no matter the arsonists' predictions that the fire will get worse if we quit pouring gasoline on it.

Demos very much need to trust the electorate.

They need to forget whose poll says what and get rid of their dumbass consultants who make bloodsucking livings with spin (did you watch Frank Luntz or John Fund on Real Time these past two weeks?)

They need to step away from the bar, kick over the gambling table and fight. They need to stop worrying about whether or not there are any shallow Nascar and American Idol fans watching the haymakers land. They need to trust that more of us won't buy lies about why the bar fight is happening.

You don't sustain democracy on lies nor with a lied-to electorate.

The idea that an elderly ex-president is the only one willing to take off his coat, roll up his sleeves and launch a haymaker is outrageous.

We don't need any "I'll-solve-it-all-after-I'm-elected" promises of a lady afraid to do something direct here and now.

Nor do we need the charismatic smiling idealism of a new face afraid to do something direct here and now.

We need for all of those folks of influence to go join that uppity former president and start swinging a fist.

We certainly don't need any of those ten white reflublican candidates drooling over torture, expanding Gitmo or imperialising even more an out-of-control executive branch.

But when they posture as deciders, they are on at least a particially correct track.

Decisiveness.

Why the hell would we elect anyone who sends us a message that we must be patient and let the house continue burning for a while?

Why would we elect anyone stampeded by political declarations of reflublicans and conservatives about chaos in the pottery barn when none of their previous predications every came to pass?

Why would we elect anyone who's afraid to hold accountable that one individual most in need of being held accountable?

Why would we elect anyone afraid of impeachment as a tactic of pressure that could unleash legal and political consequences on political failures - a president and his party?

The country needs that accountablity action before balance - even civility - ever returns to our political discourse. Being nice to a bully in the name of civility isn't the first prescription for a return to health. Action that will deter future bullies needs to come first before it will facilitate reasonable and civil discourse.

Otherwise we tolerate shallow posturing cause the bully might be walking softly but he's still bluffing with his big stick.

We, the majority opinion in this country - regardless of party, have spoken through the ballot box. We continue to speak clearly through the damn polls.

Although not a Democrat, I'm certainly not reluctant to vote against a Democrat's opponent - thereby supporting a Democrat against my will - if there is no other choice.

But why should my choice deteriorate to something that silly?

The two most impressive candidates from the standpoint of taking a stand are Kucinich (D) and Ron Paul (R) who are supposed lightweights with no chance, right?

Why?

Because our voting majority no longer has a civic sense, let alone an understanding of why all this is important and significant in their own lives.

Without civic understanding and an interest in who governs wisely, our majority is content to leave things to the candidate's managers, pollsters and spinners.

Those are the real power people who - based on fluff - spin their tales, cosmetic up their otherwise ugly but most viable candidates and dictate to everyone else what we should think and how we should vote.

Why reward 2007 do-nothings in 2008 cause they are afraid to put on their shit-boots right now and start mucking out the property?

Once again we're setting up a choice between the lesser of two evils.

... or maybe somebody like Unity08 may be the most valid 2008 choice.

Course Unity08'll only attract disillusioned ex choir-members like me, right?

Is that why a single political philosophy disguised as two-party wisdom is what most think is the only viability?

Are we stuck with the worst and the dimmest?

I'm 3rd-Party Tempted by Guys Like These
Now Playing: Hagel, Bloomberg & and and interesting idea.
Topic: Politics

Hagel has already talked to Bloomberg about it ...

"Well, we didn't make any deals, but I think Mayor Bloomberg is the kind of individual who should seriously think about this," Hagel said on CBS' "Face the Nation" yesterday.

The Nebraskan has waffled on his own 2008 plans, but polls show that amid dissatisfaction with the current lineup, there could still be an opening in the GOP field. Surveys also suggest the public might welcome a third party.

Bloomberg has repeatedly denied he plans to run for President. But Hagel smiled at the idea of them joining forces - although he didn't say who would head his dream ticket.

"It's a great country to think about a New York boy and a Nebraska boy to be teamed up leading this nation," he said.

 The Daily News asked New Yorkers about the idea and guess what?

 Michael Bloomberg is not only a better mayor of New York than Rudy Giuliani - he'd make a better President, too.

That's the result of a Daily News poll released today that asked the voters who know best - New Yorkers - which man belongs in the White House.

City voters overwhelmingly chose Mayor Mike over America's Mayor as their pick for President, 46% to 29%.

Don't let anyone tell you the 3rd-Party idea is stupid if they are active Republicans or Democrats. We haven't ever had the political scenario we've got this time in our era of consultants, sound bites and electorate manipulation.

The argument is legitimate only if we keep our dumbed down status and forget critical thinking.

We haveDemocratic and Republcan presidential candidates chasing money and trying to hide the simililarities between themselves and their parties' similar priorities based on influence and fund raising.

You can sit down, shut up and watch from the sidelines, or you can jump in without any party's permission or endorsement. Remember, the guy in the driver's seat has all the reasons why changing things is a bad idea ... for him. 

Now is the time for all good men..
Now Playing: Wannabe presidents need to join the fight and stop posturing.
Topic: Politics

At this point, without regard to party affiliation,  any among the current  2008 presidential wannabe candidates would be a vast improvement on the quality and caliber of the current Presidential and Vice Presidential incumbents.

We might even take a cue from Mr. Mel Gibson who effectively demonstrated the role we need right now from these wannabe posturers. Remember old "Blue Face" in Brave Heart when his countrymen were talking "negotiation" right out on the battlefield?

"I'm looking to pick a fight!"

Opportunity knocks here and now.

George Longshanks and Sancho Cheney are standing not tall but loud and blowing hard - insulting the American voters

- insulting the Congress we elected

and the country of which we can still be  proud. 

Neither of these Republican pretenders served in the military not as warriors nor in peace time -  but both of them talk military talk as if when they were young and tough they ate supper out of their combat helmets. 

Forget their foolish holier-than-thou political blather about the rest of us

forget who they think is patriotic and who is treasonous.

Their impeachable offenses beg accountability and challenge, not tip-toes through timid tulips of political bluster.

This is not the time for political finesse, for willful avoidance of calling them like we see them.

This is the time to shoulder up with Congress and tell the imperial jackasses how the cow ate the cabbage ...

 

 

 

Attention all you folks think you should be President:
Now Playing: Will somebody without a spin doctor please throw his hat in the ring?
Topic: Politics

Mr Giuliani: If you want to talk down to the people you assume to be dumber and more gullible than you, go run for county extension agent.

 

Mr Romney  Our current gun-waving, brush-clearing chain-saw-wielding tavern blowhard couldn't hit the side of a barn with a handfull of rocks, couldn't find weapons of any destruction and is already torturing everybody he thinks is a varmint. And unlike you, he can't keep the farm in the black, so let's drop the macho pretender stuff and see if you can act and talk like a dang president.


Mr. McCain:  The more you talk, the less you say and the older and more out of touch you look. Stop mumbling, speak with a bit of reckless fire and stop pandering to religious bigots in the shallow end of the pool. You think we want a president who gets there by the dumbass and self-shaming path you're taking?

And all you Democrats: The 2004 Dean mold is not broken. Stand up, speak up and talk directly. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Will somebody without a spin doctor please throw his hat in the ring?

Now this is a governor's action I'll support loudly
Topic: Politics
Rossi wouldn't have done this.
He and his fellow party members wouldn't have dared.

Governor Gregoire Sues Federal Government  to Protect the Rights of Newborns.

This is not about immigration. This is about all newborns in Washington State. If you are the parent of a recent newborn or about to become a parent, this lawsuit concerns you.

Office of Governor Chris Gregoire
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 5, 2007
Contact:  Governor's Office, 360-902-4111
Governor Gregoire Sues Federal Government to Protect the Rights of Newborns

Federal policy violates equal protection clause in U.S. Constitution

OLYMPIA - Governor Chris Gregoire today announced that Washington will file a lawsuit against the federal government to protect the constitutional rights of newborn citizens to health care coverage under Medicaid.

"This is a basic issue of equality," said Governor Gregoire. "Every baby born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen. It is simply not right to deny them health care coverage."

Medicaid is a joint federal and state program providing basic health care to low-income citizens, and only U.S. citizens are eligible. To ensure that only citizens are receiving Medicaid, Congress, in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), required that states confirm the identity and citizenship of Medicaid applicants.

Washington has been a national leader in implementing those requirements for adult and child applications. However, the administration recently extended the identity and citizenship verification requirements to apply to newborns born in the United States. The U.S. Constitution is clear that any person born in the United States is automatically a citizen, but the new federal rules require states to withhold Medicaid coverage for babies born in the United States to undocumented immigrants until an application with proof of citizenship is processed and approved.

Nearly 8,000 infant citizens in Washington will be immediately affected by these new rules. While the lengthy application and approval process will certainly delay care for these newborn infants, it is likely that many immigrant parents will avoid the application process altogether, leaving their newborns without necessary health care, thus relying on more costly emergency room services.

"This is not about immigration," said Governor Gregoire. "We are talking about babies, babies born in Washington, babies who are U.S. citizens and babies who need the routine check-ups and regular care that every baby deserves. Delay in health care coverage - or no coverage at all - will ultimately cost more."

The state will file for a declaratory judgment and injunction in U.S. District Court in Tacoma next week and will not implement the federal policy until the lawsuit is resolved.

As a military family , I take exception to use of 'wasted lives' - Barack Obama or anyone else
Now Playing: Lietta Ruger
Topic: Politics

Barack Obama using the words 'Wasted lives' is the news item today, or at least in my attention field today. Now I full well understand that this can be what media uses to make political hay one way or another. And I understand that when I generate conversation around it, I get to be a tool for one side or the other - blah, blah, blah. I write to a principle beyond that though; or at least it goes beyond political ammunition for me.

Whether Barack Obama said it, or my veteran neighbor said it, or my friend said it, or my family said it, or a stranger said it - it is a poor choice of words, in my opinion, when used as descriptive of soldiers killed in combat. Why use the words, I continue to ask myself, when other choices are more apt descriptions to say that a 'war action' has unnecessarily cut short the lives of so many young people? But 'wasted' lives? No. Up to the point that their lives are cut short in combat deployments, it is a poor definition to describe their lives as wasted. The waste lies with the Administration and politicians who tend to view the lives of our servicemen and women as expendible waste when initiating war actions.

If it was my son or daughter's life cut short in a combat deployment in Iraq (or Afghanistan), I would not be consoled thinking their life 'wasted' and I would be inconsolable that their life was cut short in a wasted war action initiated by a callous Administration. When my son-in-law and nephew are sent on their second deployments to Iraq this year, my worry threshold begins to climb again, having already anxiously awaited the outcome for them from their first deployment in Iraq.

I truly never thought when they deployed in OIF 2003-2004 that by 2007 the U.S. would still be occupying Iraq or that our military troops would be serving in second, third or more deployments. Yet, it is so, and the two in our family, who, incidentally, do have families of their own, will face additional deployments to Iraq. Of course, I earnestly pray for their safe return, but as for all military families who face deployments, family talk has to get to the place of 'what if' he/she doesn't return or returns so severely injured as to be life-changing? That is the reality for military families and troops.

I cite a conversation shared in my daughter's family recently on just this matter. The parents are deciding on their daughter's college entry potential, now that she is in high school. Since Dad will be deploying again to Iraq this year, Mom needs to decide where to best put in the 'waiting time' - at the base where he is stationed; coming home to have family support close at hand; and what about disrupting high school for oldest daughter? It won't be as tough a disruption for the two younger children in elementary school as it will be for their older sister in high school.

As my daughter shares a bit of their decision making with me, I incorrectly come to an erroneous conclusion that it sounds like the decision is being left to my high school granddaughter and I tell my daughter that is perhaps extraordinary guilt to inadvertantly place on her daughter. How will she live with the consequences when Dad deploys to Iraq without feeling some guilt that her decision about where to live and attend high school had something to do with whether he lives, dies, or any other of the potential consequences. Me, an old caseworker, knows children will harbor guilt that they are somehow responsible, often even when the parents allay such untruths, knows the world of children is more often fraught with a child's sense of being responsible for what happens to their parents.

I need not have worried, nor incorrectly interpreted their family conversations. My daughter shares with me how their conversation went. Dad says to high schooler 'We want your input in the decision making. We want you to know that it doesn't matter what base or where the family lives, I'm going to deploy to Iraq anyway and you have some choice about where you want to go to high school. That part of the decision is not going to impact my having to deploy to Iraq, so you don't need to worry about what is going to be best for me or Mom but what is going to be best for you."

How many families share such conversations in the normal course of their lives? Military families do share such conversations since it is left to the troops and military families to carry the burden of this 'war' in Iraq. Perhaps I become over sensitive to the language, words and meanings as the general populations attempt to try to address the changing political climate about the war in Iraq. And I know I am particularly sensitive to the insensitivities of politicians, having met with some to advocate for an end to Iraq war and bringing the troops home....now. Of course, I've been saying 'now' since 2004 and it is now 2007, so the word starts to sound hollow to my own ears...

Not to put too much onus on Senator Barack Obama, in his poor choice of the words 'wasted lives' to describe something which I'm sure he meant other than what it sounded like, I have heard others use that phrase and I find myself reacting just as strongly when I hear it from others. Others who actually have perhaps more of a right to define it than I do - veterans, veterans of Vietnam, veterans of previous wars - to be specific. 'Wasted Lives', I realize isn't intended to say the individual's life was a waste - rather that their lives were spent and cut short in an unnecessary war. But, I still contend, that the families whose lives have to go on, can hardly be comforted by the use of words 'wasted lives' .

I contend that great care be given in choice and use of words to describe those whose lives have been cut short as other than 'wasted lives' for their lives mattered and even if this Administration, in it's callous disregard, does not believe that to be so - those lives mattered and deserve honoring, memorializing, rememberance as the individual lives they lived. Not some category catch phrase to promote a viewpoint as to the value of the war of the moment - be it Vietnam, where my young husband was deployed and could have become one of 'those wasted lives' or Iraq, where my son-in-law and nephew could still become one of 'those wasted lives'...... how dare people reference our loved ones lives as 'wasted lives' and how lazy not to find more appropriate language to make a more clear description of opposition to a war.

Among some of the peace activist people with which I find myself in what is frequently an uneasy collaboration, I am sometimes startled by what feels like 'coarse' choice of descriptive words to further perhaps their message even at the expense of my message - which is often times, as a military family, not the same as their message. And, I also do find, among some of the peace activist groups, some people among them are not so peaceful and more interested in activism at all costs. even if it runs roughshod over the very people who carry the weight of this war on their shoulders and live it daily - troops and military families who love and support them. Even when their words indicate support for the families and troops, their message and actions convey otherwise. I don't like leaving it to peace activists or politicians to frame on my behalf my message, and I find treasure in the people willing to listen, adjust word useage and language.

Usage of the words wasted lives' to describe a war initiated and sustained by politicians -- yes, it's a big deal to me.

---

 

Apologies accepted Barack Obama

quoting from article;

He told reporters that even as the words came out he knew he had misspoken.

"It is not at all what I intended to say, and I would absolutely apologize if any (military families) felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they'd shown."

---

 

To McCain: Walk away from it sir ... Don't run.
Topic: Politics

Do you ever shout at the television set? From the Meet The Press transcript for Sunday, 1/21/07 Rusert, McCain and me.

They said ... I shouted ... (Regarding the massive voter disapproval of the War and of Republican management of the war)

McCain: If it was as clear-cut as someone described, Tim, Joe Lieberman would not have been re-elected in the state of Connecticut.

Yours Truly: Senator McCain, If the presidential election had been held in 2006 with Al Gore and Joe Lieberman running against you and any Republican flunky, despite a Democratic takeover of both houses -despite a Democratic retaking of both Houses, -Gore would have lost if Lieberman were again chosen as his VP running mate. Lieberman has no national legitimacy and is in no way a bellweather of American political opinion outside his support base in his home state.

McCain: Americans are frustrated, they are angry, and they are fed up. And what we need to do is show them a path to success.

Yours Truly: You bet your sweet bippy we're frustrated, angry and fed up. What makes you think yours and Bush's definition of success is something any of us EVER wanted?

McCain: Because I think—and also I think we need to make them more aware of the consequences of failure, which would be chaos in the region. And sooner or later, I think Americans might have to return.

Yours Truly: Believe you me, Senator. Once they are out of Iraq - when no legitimate justification offered by ANY Republican for our going in there in the first place was EVER validated - both your greedy party AND the Democrats will play hell trying to garner support for a return.

McCain: So I understand their frustration, I believe that President Bush now has the right strategy.

Yours Truly: Saying that to an audience of Russert and a camera with a mechanical eye is quite cowardly if you ask me. Try saying that to 3000 families who've lost a loved one because President Bush has been wrong every time and you sit there mouth watering for a presidential nomination, telling your fellow citizens that altho their pretend president has yet to bullseye the noble cause of their loved one's deaths, trust him this time.

McCain: I’ve been deeply disappointed in the strategy in the past, as is well known, and I think this is our last chance. Will it succeed? I can’t guarantee that. I think we have a good chance of it, but I guarantee the catastrophic results of failure.

Yours Truly: YOU'VE been deeply disappointed? YOU want to pay for one last chance with more American blood? A last chance to do what? Senator, you and Graham and other party Senators have declared that Democrats have no strategy. You have only the FAILED strategy and you keep buying tickets to try one more dime to throw the dime in the bottle.

The catastrophic results of yours and the president;s failure are HERE and NOW Senator, not in the future. The surge is your pretend president's and your own failed strategy. Opposing that surge is a wise strategy that will work wonders to protect the lives of our children. Opposing escalation and supporting withdrawal is wisdom in the absence of any frustrated dream of empire Opposing the surge brings merciful end to our national illusion that we are still powerful and influential enough there enough to fix Iraq - to make it all right with one surging ejaculation.

The surge itself is ample reason never to vote you or any like you into office sir.

Russert: President Bush disagreed with General Casey, so he’s removed. Why didn’t the president listen to his generals when they advised no more troops?

SEN. McCAIN: Because it was clearly a failed policy. From the beginning, many of us knew that it was a failed strategy.

MR. RUSSERT: Failed policy. General Casey now is returning back to the United States. He’s been nominated to be the chief of staff of the Army. Will you support and vote for his confirmation?

SEN. McCAIN: I have very serious concerns about General Casey’s nomination. I’m concerned about failed leadership, the message that sends to the rest of the military. I have hard questions to ask him, and I—I’m very skeptical about it.

MR. RUSSERT: As of today, you’re leaning no.

SEN. McCAIN: Yes. Yes.

Yours Truly: The McCain/Bush now-they've-got-it-right-this--time-send-more-troops is clearly a failed policy. From the beginning, Senator, many of us knew that is was a failed strategy. And I have very serious concerns about any nomination of Senator McCain.

I'm concerned about failed leadership and the message that hoodwinking the American electorate with toadying to a failed president, a discredited right wing religious lobby and the aspirant's party's failed strategy sends to the rest of the military. I have hard questions to ask YOU, Senator and I'm very skeptical about what you think you are doing.

MR. RUSSERT: As you well know, Democrats are now referring to the increase in American troops, the so-called surge, as the McCain doctrine. Do you accept that?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, there’s a McCain principle, and that is that when you raise your hand and you vote to send young Americans into harm’s way that you will commit yourself and your efforts to completing that mission successfully. I don’t know how lightly others may take that vote, but that’s the principle that I’ve operated under, and—but not everybody gets a doctrine named after them.

I really believe that those who oppose this policy have some obligation to propose an alternative strategy besides withdrawal in four to six months. That’s not a strategy; that’s a retreat. And the—this resolution is basically a vote of no confidence in the men and women we are sending over there. We’re saying, “We’re sending you—we’re not going to stop you from going there, but we don’t believe you can succeed and we’re not willing to support that.”

I don’t think the troops would find that an expression of support. And to accuse the president of the United States of, quote, “rushing troops over there” is beneath, frankly, the behavior level that I think is appropriate for members of Congress. But if we can show them a path to success, I think you will see increasing support. But I think it’s going to be long and hard and difficult, and I’m very disturbed when administration officials start talking about quick withdrawals. That’s not going to work.

Yours Truly: If I may restate the McCain Principle in the context of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, "when you raise your hand and you vote to send young Americans into harm’s way, that you will commit yourself and your efforts to completing that mission successfully no matter how fully discredited the mission, no matter how non-noble the cause, how incredibly murderous the objective and how totally dehumanizing and destructive of an entire nation and how braggadocio your appointees get about shockful and aweful demonstrations no matter how worthless and tragically wasteful that discredited mission is, not to mention the ways and means used to send young Americans to their deaths, what principle have you operated under, Senator?

The principle of what?

There is no mission left to accomplish by leadership with its self-made failure so bad that there is no honorable way to beat up any more Middle Eastern countries no matter how wise you pretend yourself to be in terms of what's best for every other human being on the planet.

Sen McCain: When we left Vietnam, Tim, and came home, the Vietnamese didn’t want to follow us. If we leave Iraq, I am convinced that al-Qaeda and terrorist organizations will want to follow us home.

Yours Truly: That which convinces you Senator, that .... THING ... that prompts in you the Bush/Cheney wolf-cry that if we don't fight them over there we will have to fight them here.

What THING is is that convinces you of this? This particular remark, Senatory McCain, so echoing of the most notorious and discredited vice presidential liar in American History, is not any rock upon which to found a candidacy .... ... that is unless a vote for you is a vote for more of the same.

I'm going to end with a repeat of this paragraph, this shameful paragraph which becomes the ultimate testimony against your pretense of being wise in the American way of doing things:

And the—this resolution is basically a vote of no confidence in the men and women we are sending over there. We’re saying, “We’re sending you—we’re not going to stop you from going there, but we don’t believe you can succeed and we’re not willing to support that.” I don’t think the troops would find that an expression of support. And to accuse the president of the United States of, quote, “rushing troops over there” is beneath, frankly, the behavior level that I think is appropriate for members of Congress.

This quote - so reminding of the lying logic and blatant swift-bloating of the 2004 and 2006 Republican National campaign of dishonesty, empty integrity and downright insult to the American voter - is enough in and of itself to usher you out the door of a room in which we might find real presidential-class candidates. Walk away from it sir ... Don't run.

On the new Democratic Congress. Do it right!
Topic: Politics
Yes yes yes ... do what the Republicans wouldn't do ... raise the minimum wage. And while you're at it ignore all the born-again economic theologians like Republican Congressman Kingston. Kingston's devotion to the so-called "conservative Republican" capitalism that has never taken human nature into account, is stereotypically representative of the whole conservative proposition that less government leads to spontaneous altruism.

So raise the minimum wage and if Kingston says $8 or $9 or $10 then go for that too.

Leglislate what the republican thugs would not legislate in the best interest of the country.

Oh, by the wawy. Put back habeas corpus NOW!

Oh, by the way ... while you're at it, undo the legislated disasters that betrayed the economic backbone of the country - working class Americans. Reverse the bankruptcy law, take the teeth away from the sharks who were unleashed by the that piece of corporate give-away.

Stop the daily junk-mail solitications of bankruptcy entrapment disguised as credit card offers.

And the highest moral imperative I can think of for this country in the here and now:

If you have not the courage to cut off funding for global terrorism disguised as Bush War, then cut off funding for global gulag and human rights violations masquerading as internment of terrorist. If you can't close Guantanamo and shut down all this sort of thing we do not WANT Americans doing in our name and on our behalf, then cut off funding for it.

Nothing further of legitmate worth from a lame duck
Now Playing: Arthur
Topic: Politics

"Aid and comfort to the enemy"

... you really need us to believe that don't you?

To not reveal the illegal behavior of Mr. Bush is to give aid and comfort to the most dangerous enemy of traditional and legitimate American freedom.

An attorney general who publicly proclaims that Mr. Bush is justified in breaking the law is in effect giving aid and comfort to the most dangerous enemy of traditional and legitmate American freedom.

At what point did we cross the line to become the very thing we've historically and traditionally repudiated?

The 2000 and 2004 votes of Conservative and moral-minded voters who thought they were voting for a righteous man have been vetoed in last  year's election.

How many of those who voted to give Mr. Bush his mandate voted to unleash an executive authorized to violate the rights of the citizens by secrecy, deception and manipulation?

How many angry and offended morals voters mandated a President to lie to us and deceive Congress into launching a war?

How many angry and offended moral-values voters are willing to believe that the President's immoral and unnecessary international slaughter has made us safer and truly prevents us from having to undergo terror within our own borders?

How many angry and offended morals voters in 2004 knew they were mandating a President who's appointees would seriously under-serve and fail to logistically support the American military - especially the troops themselves - and turn the VA into a bastion of betrayal and failure?

How many angry and offended moral citizens voted to support a President who would openly insist on the lie that Congress fully supported what he was going to do?

How many angry and offended morals voters knew they were unleashing a leadership that would with blatant impunity authorize torture and the moral repudiation of a traditional American image as a truly moral military power and force for good?

How many angry and self-righteous morals voters now find themselves having to side morally with the idea of torture and - as Mr. Falwell has so simply put it - "blowing them away in the name of the Lord?"

How many angry and offended morals voters agree with Bush and Gonzales that Bush illegally spying on Americans is not as serious as revealing to the country that it's president who serves under a sacred oath to preserve and protect has willfully forsaken the preservation and protection of American freedoms in pursuit of secrecy and power?

Mr. President and Mr. Attorney General, you have betrayed this country. You yourselves have given the greatest aid and comfort to the enemy. Look into the mirror and see what real enemy of freedom stares back at you.

To the moral-values voters still standing around trying to look the other way and pretend that they did not unleash evil itself, look into the mirrir and see what real enemy of freedom stares back at you.

Don't want the little president sucker-playing us with the "sacrifice" card.
Topic: Politics

gratitude for the mushroom food tossed in their direction in times of republican need.
Topic: Politics

I see where the VFW chose to endorse a Republican candidate who has never served in the military and repudiate Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic candidate who is not only a Vet but lost both legs in the Occupation of Iraq. If the local VFW comes calling to recruit me into membership, they need to send someone like Bill Moyer, a 73-year-old vet who wore the "bullshit protector" in his ear while at the VFW convention.

The apparent thinking as voiced by the VFW endorsing entity had to do with the Repug's track record of cheap talk and votes in support of military and or veteran issues ... as if a newly elected Iraq Veteran in Congress would not vote with an even greater wisdom.

There is a horrendous naiveté in this action in that VFW veterans who have been there and done that have taken a coward's route perhaps voting more their fear about pensions and health benefits (ironically endangered more under Bushco than any administration) than demonstrating any long-time veteran's genuine desire for national well-being.

If so, this in a way makes of the VFW the same corporate capitalists as jokers like Delay, Ney, and Burns and others who accept money from Abramhoff in exchange for votes and endorsements.

Choosing the republicans for such a sissified reason demonstrates not only a lack of current courage, but a blind-sighted gullibility to the cheap talk of a desperate republican party;

the same republican party which also includes an extra-ordinary number of citizens the age of the VFW'ers who not only did not serve, but went out of their way to avoid the military.

Although VFW would certainly not want to support an anti-war candidate perceived as a "socialist/commie" espousing lots of contraries to American political and economic traditions, to choose a did-not-serve party puppet over one of their own for shabby and inaccurate reasons demonstrated questionable veteran wisdom.

Senator McCain typifies the waffled-thought and behavior manifested by the VFW.

The mantle of being the last great Republican veteran seems now to be Robert Dole and not John McCain who has cheapened his life with a political hypocrisy that has in no justified itself by his courageous performance and record while wearing the uniform.

There was a time at the end of the 1990's when I was willing to put down the TV clicker and get out to work for McCain for president - regardless of party affiliation.

No longer.

McCain's performance over the past two years is emarrassing. The VFW has now joined his club. What will we see next - as we saw with George and John - a VFW and the little president in a foto bear hug to complete the deal?

When I finally arrived at a time of interest in organizations like VFW and the American Legion I ignored the temptation to join them - primarily because I had become dismayed by their tendency to look the other way while blindly believing and supporting insincere and manipulative presidents ... er, commanders-in-chief.

There is no reason for a Veteran to support this particular CIC in his pretend uniforms and pilot jackets and who has been able to perform the one simple thing his puppeteers require - talk cheap flag talk.

I'd like to think that the older generation of Veterans contains but a more mature reflection of the younger Vet's organizations;

groups like Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Iraq Veterans Against the War, the epitome of why veterans are wiser than never-served civilians who think war is a game;

veterans who easily demonstrate a greater and wiser perspective of how civic duty blends with military duty in this day and this age of placing party above country and political profit above military well-being.

Why is that one may ask?

Perhaps because the older American Legion and VFW veterans were not betrayed by presidents who prioritized genuine national best-interest behind party priorities and unsound economic ideologies

- ideologies which have proven themselves extremely advantageous for business and wealth at the expense of the working class from which comes the majority of soldiers .

Veterans on pensions should know better than to support robber barons.

VFP, VVAW and IVAW are primarily populated by military veterans whose sense of civic responsibility transcends any blind and naïve trusting of a leader merely because of his supposed CIC uniform.

VFW and the American Legion have supported this current American shyster president despite his obvious leadership ineptness. If there's one thing all veterans of all ages know, it's when the officer has his head up his ass and doesn't know shit from shinola. We've all been there, seen that and done that.

Wise veterans do not ascribe to the little president any high moral authority and patriotic wisdom. He doesn't have it, doesn't wield it, and no amount of old-time chain-of-command blind loyalty will create it.

Nevertheless, because the little man became President of the United States, VFW behaves as if there is a tooth fairy-type of spirit that visited small George in the dark quiet of his first night in the White House;

that the patriotic tooth fairy in some mystical way poured a spirit of civic wisdom into that small mind;

forcing his born-again dreams aside so the wisdom of Lincoln and the courage of Eisenhower somehow blended.

Some version of this assumptive logic lies behind the VFW decision to repudiate the Democratic candidate who has paid more than her fair share of dues;

all the while making themselves look like foolish game-players who think political endorsements are things to brag to Mabel about after the lights go out.

As a military veteran I continue to withhold any endorsement of the VFW and will continue my refusal to join them in any kind of society of pretend patriotism that worships lack of form without substance;

that lives in darkness and crows unwisely in foolish gratitude for any mushroom food tossed in their direction.