Author's posts
Sep 16 2009
If It Bleeds, It Leads (part 1)
There are many who support Rep. Joe Wilson calling the President a liar. Unfortunately, these individuals forgot a very important and pertinent person; Rep. Pete Starks. During a speech given on the floor of the House, Rep. Pete Starks (D-CA), called Republican’s and President Bush a liar. It wasn’t TO President Bush’s face during an address to Congress he was giving, but, on the House floor. The conservative blog HotAir noted that Republicans called for a motion of censure of Rep. Pete Starks at the time with him ultimately apologizing on the House floor. But, the Democrat’s are merely playing politics with the motion of disapproval of Rep. Joe Wilson for his remarks. And, unlike Rep. Pete Starks, Rep. Joe Wilson refuses to apologize from the House floor.
Sep 15 2009
Have we reached that point? Yes.
In my last essay, I asked:
Have we reached it? — the point where everything starts becoming “preventative” for our government?
The answer is now; yes.
San Diego Sheriff deployed military crowd control device at Congressional town halls
The increasing frustration with politicians and overflow crowds attending August town halls led San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore to place military-type crowd control devices at two area town hall meetings.
Rep. Susan Davis-D Calif. and Rep. Darrell Issa-R Calif. held town halls that exceeded capacity (10,000+ total attendees) and prompted the Sheriff’s Department to have Long-Range Acoustic Devices(LRADs) standing ready.
Both town halls took place without incident; however the use of the military device concerned San Diegians. The LRAD crowd control is primarily used in Iraq to control insurgents and can cause serious and lasting harm to humans.
This trend, civilian law enforcement employing military weapons, is disturbing…
Sep 15 2009
How Obama Fights Terrorism
After writing about how different, in practice and results, the Democratic and Republican views towards anti-terrorism were comparing President Clinton to President W. Bush, here comes Democratic President Barack Obama to show us that there is simply a “Barack” way when it comes to fighting terrorism.
* No imminent danger, congressmen say
* Focus on one man who met with people in Queens
* Apartment shared by five Afghan men searched – witness
* Militant ideology sympathetic to al Qaeda detected – NYT
I’ll let the highlights from the article sink in first…
Sep 14 2009
Clowns to the Left of me, Jokers to the Right…
And, as Steve Miller sings, “here I am, stuck in the middle..”
Rep. Joe Wilson claims that “he won’t apologize again” for his outburst calling President Obama a liar.
Sep 13 2009
GOP Anti-Terrorism vs Democratic Anti-Terrorism
It was eight years ago that we were told America was changed forever, that we would need to go to the “dark side” to fight terrorism, that we would get Osama Bin Laden “dead or alive”. The Bush administration was correct about some of it; they did change America and they did lead us to the “dark side”.
What they failed to do, however, was effectively deal with terrorism.
Sep 12 2009
Attorney General Holder Needs to Resign
So, we learn today that Attorney General Eric Holder will not prosecute Bradley Schlozman for perjuring himself before Congress:
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder has decided not to bring any criminal charges against a former Bush administration official who lawmakers said lied to them in sworn testimony.
If the Attorney General will not enforce the law, he needs to resign his office.
Sep 11 2009
The joke that is the state of South Carolina
The state of South Carolina has turned into one, big, sick joke. You see it in the state’s politicians. You see it in The State newspapers reporting, or more importantly, lack thereof. It was bad enough that the state of South Carolina continually ranked near the bottom of every category, to include unemployment and education, the level of poverty in the state, among other issues. It was bad enough that for decades, without fail, the electorate continually allowed the Republican Party to stay in power despite its inability to deal effectively with these issues. Now, like the Republican Party itself, the state of South Carolina has simply devolved into a national joke.
Sep 10 2009
Rep. Joe Wilson (SC-R) disrepects the President
During President Obama’s address to Congress concerning health care reform, Rep. Joe Wilson (SC-R) from South Carolina’s Second District decided to act like this address was a town hall meeting. Speaking to the full Congress, President Obama addressed some of the misinformation being distributed about health care reform and when he stated that health care reform would not include undocumented, ie illegals, Rep. Joe Wilson screamed out, “You Lie”.
FactCheck.org has already shown that undocumented workers, ie illegals, would not be covered:
H.R. 3200: Sec 246 – NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS
Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.
Sep 08 2009
Supreme Court: Citizen’s United vs FEC (updated)
The upcoming case, Citizen’s United vs FEC, will be Justice Sotomayor’s debut case on the Supreme Court. The case, however, has taken a strange and dangerous turn:
Citizens United, a conservative group, brought suit arguing that it should be exempt from the restrictions of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law for a movie it made that was sharply critical of Hillary Clinton. The organization said it should not have to disclose who financed the film.
Instead of deciding the case before it, the court engaged in a remarkable act of overreach. On June 29, it postponed a decision and called for new briefs and a highly unusual new hearing, which is Wednesday’s big event. The court chose to consider an issue only tangentially raised by the case. It threatens to overrule a 1990 decision that upheld the long-standing ban on corporate money in campaigns.
Why would the Supreme Court take a case that has a defined decision (whether or not the making of a political movie puts the makers under the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Law restrictions) and suddenly wish to hear arguments about another issue?
That answer should be obvious: they want to give corporations, and their money, more say in our political process.
Sep 08 2009
Republican Party owns the military; debunked
We’ve all heard it, “the military is pro-Republican Party.” Not so fast. This gallop poll done from Jan-May, 2009, shows a very different picture. The Republican’s were 34%, Democrats were 29% and Independents were 33%.
Sep 07 2009
Death as Profit (extended)
You read the title correctly; Dying is now seen as PROFIT venture!
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash – $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
The first question should be, who in their right mind would sell their life insurance policy to Wall Street? Why would people give up the very last of their children’s security upon their death? Obviously, some are willing to do just that, and, Wall Street, not having missed an opportunity to turn a profit, is ready to capitalize on it.
Sep 02 2009
Don’t Take My Word on It (Updated)
In this madhouse called “the blogs”, it is actually the bloggers who are getting it right.
One of the most consistent voices is that of Glenn Greenwald who wrote about the very problem I cited (here in July 2008; that the Democratic Party gaining 60 seats in the Senate would change nothing. But, Greenwald goes further and totally eviscerates President Obama, the Democrats, and their apologists:
Rahm Emanuel, Tom Delay, and the Bush/Cheney White House have left no doubt that where there’s a will to influence the actions of Senators and House members in one’s own party, there’s a way. But the Obama White House has done nothing in the way of attempting to change the behavior of the supposedly obstructionist Blue Dogs and centrists whom Obama-defenders are eager to blame for the health care standstill. In fact, they’ve done the opposite: Emanuel has repeatedly leapt to their defense and attacked progressives who sought to influence or otherwise put pressure on them to change behavior. White House threats that “you’ll never hear from us again” are issued to defiant progressives only. Not only are such threats never issued to “centrists” and Blue Dogs who are supposedly impeding the President’s health care agenda, but the White House does everything it can to protect those ostensible obstructionists and further entrench them in power. Isn’t all of this fairly strong evidence that the White House knew, accepted and likely even desired from the start that — despite the President’s public assurances to progressives — the “public option,” understandably despised by the insurance industry, would be dropped from bill?
Nobody suggests that the President could easily or single-handedly change the behavior of Kent Conrad or Mike Ross. But there are certainly things — effective things — he could do to try, including making it more difficult for those politicians to stay in office, exactly as they threaten to do with defiant progressives. But they don’t do that. They do the opposite. The reason that Blue Dogs and “centrists” exert such control in the Democratic Party and are able to ensure the Party remains beholden to corporate interests is because that’s how Party leaders want it. That’s how the Democratic Party has been built and it’s how they continue to maintain their power.