Phil Gramm, John McCain, and our future

There have been some good articles about Phil Gramm, but

1. They are not tied together
2. Many people don't understand the gravity of the situation
   

Therefore, I thought it would be worthwhile to tie this all together and reiterate the importance of keeping McCain from the Presidency.

Who is Phil Gramm?
Gramm has a long history as a Congressman and Senator, but it is more interesting to know about his extra-curricular history.

Gramm is currently the Co-Chair of McCain's campaign.

Gramm officially joined the McCain campaign on March 12, 2007… but as early as October, 2006, RealClearPolitics reported that McCain was already relying on Gramm for fundraising help… McCain’s top political operative at the time saying, Gramm, quote, “obviously gives us advice on economic issues."

At a recent meeting with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Republican presidential candidate John McCain admitted he "doesn't really understand economics" and then pointed to his adviser and former Senate colleague, Phil Gramm - whom he had brought with him to the meeting - as the expert he turns to
on the subject...

Gramm has actively worked to create policies that have lead to today's mortgage crises, some as a senator, some as a lobbyist.

At the same time he was giving that advice, federal disclosure forms reviewed by Countdown show that Gramm was simultaneously being paid by UBS to lobby the U-S Senate about the mortgage crisis… opposing government regulation… helping to kill a 2006 anti-predatory lending bill that would have tightened consumer protections, and might have mitigated the current crisis…
As recently as Dec. 31st of last year, still working for Swiss bankers specifically to help kill the “Emergency Home Ownership and Mortgage Equity Protection Act” and the “Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act,” a bill that would have let bankruptcy judges adjust mortgage terms so American families facing foreclosure could repay their loans, and keep their homes.

The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era banking regulation law [Glass-Steagall] that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.

According to federal lobbying disclosure records, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006.

Some believe that Gramm shaped McCain's initial "we will not help homeowners" response to the Mortgage crises.

To further rub salt in the would Gramm was involved with Enron and may even be tied to the high energy prices of today:

After Gramm passed a law easing regulation of energy-commodity trading, California experienced a sharp run-up in energy costs. The energy-trading company Enron was blamed and soon collapsed.

Of the $5.77-million in contributions to candidates that Enron has made since 1989, nearly three-fourths went to Republicans. And who got the most? Sen. Gramm, and Texas' other Republican senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, each received almost $100,000.

Remember, energy trading & speculation is energy trading & speculation, whether it is electricity or gas.

"There’s a few hedge fund managers out there who are masters at knowing how to exploit the peak [oil] theories and hot buttons of supply and demand and by making bold predictions of shocking price advancements to come, they only add more fuel to the bullish fire in a sort of self fulfilling prophecy." — National Gas Week, September 5, 2005 as reprinted in the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ report, "The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices," June 27, 2006...

As the Senate investigation into the manipulation of the energy markets showed, "Amaranth – the day before they failed, natural gas was about $8.50; the day after it failed, it went to $4.46 MBtu." That’s right, one major hedge fund managed to double the price of natural gas simply by loading up on futures contracts; when the government told them their bets were unwarranted, they simply moved their monies to a futures exchange that was unregulated. Only when Amaranth failed did natural gas prices fall back to what was considered normal for supply and demand.
Sadly, like oil today, when this was happening we were being told that natural gas supplies were tight worldwide. That statement simply wasn’t true.

It may seem extreme to say there manipulation of gas prices, but there is even more evidence recently.

Federal regulators are six months into a wide-ranging investigation of U.S. oil markets, with a focus on possible price manipulation.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday said it started the probe in December and took the unusual step of publicizing it "because of today's unprecedented market conditions."

And now, it looks like Gramm's employer, UBS, is now in big trouble. So much so, that the McCain campaign "will not comment on the details ... of ongoing investigations and legal charges not yet proved in court."

Can we really afford to let someone like Phil Gramm determine our economic future? McCain would be a disaster as President.

Found on the Web: Picture of an Unemployment Line

Imagine that: Right-wingers in Canada lie about a Democrat

CBC reporting

Also more at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/4/232724/6357/837/469019

Should anyone be surprised that conservatives in Canada allied with Republicans in the US would lie about Democrats?

State of the Union

Celebrities Before and After Photoshop // SFW

I love this type of thing. We are all human. We come screaming into the world. We grow, we learn, we live, we die. The fantasy and desire of immortality is strong, but reality puts us in our place.

read more | digg story

"With God on our Side": one of the best blog posts I have read in a long time

Please Please read this! It is a reminder about history and the truth. It's a reminder about what our constitution means and what great men have done. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/9/12614/3121/415/419624.

As the blog entery states, some people have tried to draw a comparison between Romney and JFK; that comparison is a joke. Where Romney tried to appeal to values and faith, JFK appealed to the Constitution and tolerance.

And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.

...

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

As the blog post states, the right would like to pretend that the "anti-religous" are trying to destroy religion; being intolterant itself. The couldn't be further from the truth:

The right would have you believe that religion has been forced from the public square, citing -- usually in error -- cases of nativity scenes shuffled from court house lawns and greeting cards that dare to not have a glittery "Merry Christmas" across the front. By selectively defining the public square as some small town green and a vaguely located Wal-mart, conservatives sell the idea that religious matters are somehow under assault. That makes about as much sense as predicting the extinction of cows from their absence on Boston Common.
The public square is the media. The public square is the debates. The public square is campaign literature, late night talk shows, daytime talk shows, Sunday talk shows. It's call in radio shows and even Bill O'Rielly. This is the public square. So is every other blog. And the public square is awash in the discussion of religion. There is absolutely, definitively, more discussion of religion now than at any other time in the history of our nation.

Kennedy was more worried about the real issues in our society. He was a real Democrat.

Forgotten in all this are the issues that Kennedy wanted to address in that long ago speech. The issues that Kennedy called the "real issues" of the campaign. Issues like poverty.

"the hungry children I saw in West Virginia"

Health care.

"the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills "

Inequality and education.

"an America with too many slums, with too few schools"

And the loss of respect the nation was suffering in international affairs.

"the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power"

Any and all of those issues might have been the centerpiece of a Democratic speech today, because those issues remain unsolved. And oddly enough, many of these issues were also on the mind of the man who two thousand years ago stood up
in his family church and announced that "I come bringing good news for the
poor."

The poster goes on to say that because the Dems have yielded, afraid to confront the Repugs, greed has proliferated in our society:

When you're too busy trying not to lose, you may win elections now and then, but you rarely advance those causes you're supposed to care about. We've reached the point where Republican voters can claim the philosophy of absolute greed.

"I make a great deal of money through my own hard work. I don't want to pay for someone else's child to eat breakfast at school anymore."

Get that? She makes not just enough money, but a "great deal of money." How dare anyone take it away for something so frivolous as feeding a poor child? And yet Republicans, through their actions in blurring the lines between church and state, have become the "party of faith." Because they say so. Because they are bold in their actions and snarling in their defense.
We need to be just as adamant. We need to not hide behind any abstraction or evasion. We need to be unafraid to address this voter and say "I am going to take some of your money, and give it to that poor kid, because it's more important -- both to the child and to society -- that he eat, rather than that you have an extra week in Cabo."

BANG!

Those ministers in 1960 might have hated what Kennedy had to say, but they applauded him for having the courage to say it. What candidate today will have the guts to step forward, in the face of a conservative onslaught, and take the steps needed to redeem both state and church?

This Christian gets it. Jesus did not say "we need a capital gains tax cut". Jesus did not say that the estate tax was evil. Jesus said "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Jesus said “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

More evidence that Republicans hate families

Yes, I know it sounds strong, but let's look at this recent NYT article

Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year’s elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

So, Republicans are more likely to screw the little guy?

A priority for many employers in 2008 is to secure changes in the rules for family and medical leave. Under a 1993 law, people who work for a company with 50 or more employees are generally entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for newborn children or sick relatives or to tend to medical problems of their own. The Labor Department has signaled its interest in changes by soliciting public comments.

...

The Chamber of Commerce is seeking such changes. “We want to get this done before the election,” Mr. Johnson said. “The next White House may be less hospitable to our position.”
Indeed, most of the Democratic candidates for president have offered proposals to expand the 1993 law, to provide paid leave and to cover millions of additional workers.

The last thing Republicans want is people actually helping their family. So much for being the Christian/Moral party.

The National Chicken Council and the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association have petitioned for an exemption from laws and rules that require them to report emissions of ammonia exceeding 100 pounds a day. They argue that “emissions from poultry houses pose little or no risk to public health” because the ammonia disperses quickly in the air.
Perdue Farms, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers, said that it as “essentially impossible to provide an accurate estimate of any ammonia releases,” and that a reporting requirement would place “an undue and useless burden” on farmers.
But environmental groups told the Bush administration that “ammonia emissions from poultry operations pose great risk to public health.” And, they noted, a federal judge in Kentucky has found that farmers discharge ammonia from their barns, into the
environment, so it will not sicken or kill the chickens.

Don't you want to live next to one of those? I'm sure the ammonia will help the children grow.

At the Interior Department, coal companies are lobbying for a regulation that would allow them to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys. It would be prohibitively expensive to haul away the material, they say, and there are no waste sites in the area. Luke Popovich, a vice president of the National Mining Association, said that a Democratic president was more likely to side with “the greens.”

Can't you wait to take the family to hike, to take a look at the nice choked & brown streams?

So Republicans, tell me how all this is pro-family?

Oh the Irony (again)

USA President George W. Bush to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf:

You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time

Now if we contemplate this a little bit further, we soon remember that, per the US Constitution, the US President is both a civilian and head of the military "at the same time". Civilian leadership of the military was an important concept for the "founding fathers", as a way to help stop a military take-over of the government. Furthermore, to keep the President in check, Congress was given the power to fund and organize war:

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

So not only do we have civilian control of the military, but the civilian in charge of the military cannot act without the permission of other civilians; all designed to help keep us from becoming a dictatorship.

Even the military oath puts the Constitution first and foremost:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

(So those of you in the military that say you fought for the flag need to rethink your motives. You swore to support and defend the Constitution, which includes free speech, and not the flag.)

Contemplating the oath and Constitution, we can arrive at:

• Military members obey the Constitution before the President; Unconstitutional orders shall not be followed
• Congress, by law and by funding, have say in military behavior

Given Bush's behavior in office, it is questionable if he knows any of that. However, whether he simply misspoke or doesn't know these things, he looks like a fool on the world stage.

The moral bankruptcy of strict constructionists

Strict constructionism would say that it is illegal for the federal government to regulate child labor. Don't believe me?

These neo-liberals/libertarians/objectivist/corporatists would like to pretend that if we just got rid of government, life would be grand.

What a stinking pile of crap.

There is a reason we have regulation. Read "The Jungle" (sure it was written by a bias person and "historical" fiction, but much of what it exposed was shown to be true, resulting in sweeping changes). Look at Enron. Look at CERCLA (i.e., Love Canal). There are also reasons for more regulation; case-in-point: "Blackwater U.S.A."

Ohhh the Irony (Why is a Libertarian scolding me while we are riding PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION?)

While I was on the bus this morning, I was having a nice conversation with a HR worker about health care. Living in the conservative area that I do, I mentioned that my views were probably somewhat controversial to some of those riding. I would like to see us move to a health-care system that was more European in nature, perhaps like Australia where there are tiers and people can buy additional coverage.

It's simple. The current US system is broken. We pay more for health care than any other country in the world, yet have worse outcomes than many industrialized countries.

Anyways, a libertarian sitting behind me interjected some comments, about why would we give health care responsibility to government when it can't do anything right.

It didn't occur to me until later the irony in this statement. Here we are riding the bus: public transportation on public roads. Where are the private roads and buses that are "so much better" competing for our transportation dollars? I thought government couldn't do anything for us .

Republicans say government is bad, and when they get elected, they prove it. People that don't believe in government can't govern.

I am getting frustrated by the Libertarian view. These guys live in a fantasy land. I like to call them the Christian Scientists of Politics/Economics: pray hard and the "invisible hand" will solve all of our problems. As I've said before, history has shown that extreme capitalism does not work (remember the robber-barons and the hell the US went through in the late 1800s), and it has shown that communism does not work. The only way is the middle way: regulated capitalism. I view the libertarians as just as dangerous as the ideologue communists (not the big ones like Stalin, but the fringe in communes); they are both Utopians, willing to push their agenda regardless of the implications.

Most Libertarians, when confronted, will at some point yield that there must be a commons. The idea of every-road being a toll-road is stupid. There is no way you can practically make the Fire Department an optional service. But once they have gotten to that point, they have already lost. It means that government is necessary and can help solve problems.

Madam, will you sleep with me for a million dollars?
Yes.
Will you sleep with me for a dollar?
What kind of women do you think I am?
We've already determined that; we're just haggling over price. (Churchill?)

Now that we know the commons is necessary, and since we know that historically extremes do not work, let's use practical moderation to determine the "lines" rather than ideology.

Let's take for example, the minimum wage. The theory states that increases in minimum wage reduces jobs. The reality is quite different. States with higher minimum wages generally have less poverty and unemployment. I've heard conservatives say "let's change the minimum to $40" as a counter argument. That's not very practical is it. Rather than use ideology, let's use statistics and measurements to determine whether something is good or bad. Raise it slowly until we see negative effects, then back it off a bit.

It is obvious the US health care system is broken. We are paying more and getting less. Let's look at what other countries have done, tweak it so it works for us, and use it. No system is perfect, but the free market has failed us.

Giuliani is a joke

In the AP article "Giuliani offers health care plan", Giuliani's view of healthcare is shared. What a complete and utter travesty.

Critical to Giuliani's plan is a $15,000 tax deduction for families to buy private health insurance, instead of getting insurance through employers.

Fat lot that does for you if you are already sick and CAN'T GET MEDICAL INSURANCE.

"Government cannot take care of you. You've got to take care of yourself,"

Government has done quite a bit "taking care of people" quite successfully, such as the military.

The former New York mayor said as more people buy plans, insurers will drop their prices, making insurance affordable to those who lack it now.

So what proof does he have that the rules of mass production apply to health insurance?

He also acknowledged that it could take years for insurers to drop their prices and make insurance affordable to those who don't have it.

Just after he leaves office...

He is a liar and a cheat, and the people that support him are even worse.

Prescott Bush co-conspirator in coup-plans against FDR

"Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmenThe coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. Hear this radio-documentary produced by Mike Thomson/BBC Channel 4 the nazis are out in the open again ..."
This is the plot that Smedley Butler refers to in "War Is a Racket". A cabal was trying to enlist Butler in this plot, and he refused & exposed the plot. I recommend the book by the way. I don't agree with all of it, but it is right on several points and is a good history lesson.

read more digg story

Welcome To Richistan, USA

"$700,000 Watches, $10,000 Martinis: The Super-rich And The Growing Backlash Against American Inequality"
This is it. This is the story. Hijacking our votes, control of the oil markets, spying on us...all is in support of the super-wealthy. I'm afraid the situation is getting worse. Run-away capitalism in the USA results in an economic depression: witness the Republican Great Depression (starting 1929).
God I hope this doesn't happen, but I'm starting to see some bad signs, such as the fall of the dollar ($1 = 1.0431 Canadian). US Debt is increasing, so we will be unable to use Keynesian techniques to bail us out. Tax policy favors the rich, just like 1927. China and Saudi Arabia own us. Corruption in government is at an all time high. All the signs are there.
Currently, the military spending is helping to keep us a float, but unlike infrastructure investments, its effects will disappear as soon as the spending stops. And it will have to because we can only have so much debt.
If it hits, will the IMF and World Bank swoop in and sell of our assets to multi-nationals like they did with Bolivia et al? Perhaps we will end up like Argentina or Russia...

read more digg story

Pure capitalism gets you....

Hum Bow with cardboard marinated in industrial chemicals and flavored like pork --- mmm mmm good

Ah, the wonders of a truly free market.

Remember - pure capitalism fails and pure socialism fails; the only way is the middle way - regulated capitalism.

Republican have failed us on Security

I can't say I was suprised, but it is still bad news for all of us. Republican incompetence has endangered us all:

From the Seattle Times: Report: Al-Qaida's power is back

World-wide terrorism is still on the rise: MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base

They claim that we need to fight in Iraq to prevent terrorism, yet the billions spent has done nothing.

Shame!

Patriotism

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

Thompson going for the corruption factor

Rumor on the street is:

1. Fred Thompson did hire Tim Griffin
2. Tim Griffin is resigning from his U.S. District Attorney post

If you read my post "Stealing Elections", you'll remember that in congressional testimony, it was admitted that Mr. Griffin was involved in election fraud.

Fred Thompson already talking with vote cager

Per the Wall Street Journal:

Backers look for Fred Thompson to use a June 2 speech to Virginia Republicans to step closer toward the race. Thompson allies have had discussions with Tim Griffin, the Arkansas U.S. attorney and Rove protégé, about taking a top job with the campaign.

I guess we know who Rove is supporting for 2008, and another reason to get out the vote against Fred the fake hick.

One good thing though: it looks like part of the Republican plan for 2008 may be going awry:

But when that scheme was revealed, Democrats successfully pushed for the law to be changed back to the way it was -- a final version passed the House last week. As a result of that, Griffin will be forced out of office in four months or so. Apparently Griffin isn't waiting around for that. The Arkansas Times blog cites sources saying that Griffin may leave the job shortly.

Stealing Elections

I have always been concerned about election fraud, but recent events have brought this to a head. Monica Goodling, until recently a senior Justice Department official, admitted in front of congress that a current Federal Prosecutor was recently involved with denying citizens their right to vote. In other words: turning us into a "banana republic".

Summary:

• Voter fraud is a minor Problem.


• Election fraud is a major problem.


• Caging is a form of election fraud.


• Election fraud is illegal.


• Monica Goodling, a former partisan hack in the DOJ, admitted under oath that Tim Griffin, formerly Karl Rove's right-hand man and now Federal Prosecutor, was involved in caging. Tim Griffin is likely a felon.


• Part of the reason for the Federal Prosecutor Purge was to place people like Tim Griffin in office, likely to aid in the manipulation of the 2008 election

Definitions

Voter fraud - individuals vote illegally. This can take many forms, such as voting for a dead family member, voting when not registered, etc.

Republicans like to talk about this as a huge issue, but the reality is quite different. For example, from the 2004 election in Washington State, only 3 cases (out of 2.7+ million) could warrant possible prosecution:

(from the Seattle Times)
Days after his wife of four decades died of liver cancer, Robert Holmgren came home to find her absentee ballot. He filled in Charlette Holmgren's intended votes for Dino Rossi and George W. Bush, forged her signature, and mailed her ballot along with his.
"I know by the law it wasn't right, but it felt right in my heart," he said. "I wasn't trying to defraud anybody. I was just going with my wife's last wishes."
In six of the state's largest counties, at least 24 dead people were credited with voting in the November election. Some of those can be explained as clerical errors - a voter mistakenly signing the wrong line in a poll book, for instance - and others are cases in which people inadvertently voted in their relatives' names but not in their own. But three of the cases, including Holmgren's, warrant referral for felony prosecution, elections officials said last night, and several others require further investigation.

Yet all we could hear about on conservative media outlets was about the massive amount of voter fraud.

Many folks think Republicans use the threat of voter fraud as a way to perform caging, a form of election fraud. More on this later.

(Note that I will refer sometimes to Wikipedia. While it sometimes has issues, Wikipedia often is a great summary source and has a lot of links to other sources. In the cases in which I use it in this document, I agree with the discussion (so far) in Wikipedia, and it was simply easier to use it rather than write up my own. If you doubt the veracity of the Wikipedia excerpts in this document, simply start Googling; you will find it is a valid source for these instances.)

Caging - Comes from the direct mail industry "After a mailing is sent, caging is when information is processed that can be learned from the returned or undeliverable mail. A caging list is the compiled information that is transferred to the organization that hired the direct mail firm, in order for them to update their mailing lists and databases."

This technique was "borrowed" for voter suppression:

(again, wikipedia)
Caging has also been used as a form of voter suppression. A political party challenges the validity of a voter's registration; for the voter's ballot to be counted, the voter must prove that their registration is valid.
Voters targeted by caging are often the most vulnerable: those who are unfamiliar with their rights under the law, and those who cannot spare the time, effort, and expense of proving that their registration is valid. Ultimately, caging works by dissuading a voter from casting a ballot, or by ensuring that they cast a provisional ballot, which is less likely to be counted.
With one type of caging, a political party sends registered mail to addresses of registered voters. If the mail is returned as undeliverable - because, for example, the voter refuses to sign for it, the voter isn't present for delivery, or the voter is homeless - the party uses that fact to challenge the registration, arguing that because the voter could not be reached at the address, the registration is fraudulent. It is this use of direct mail caging techniques to target voters which probably resulted in the application of the name to the political tactic.
On the day of the election, when the voter arrives at the poll and requests a ballot, an operative of the party challenges the validity of their registration.

A form of caging occurred in Florida in 2000, where a large number of people were purged as felons Election fraud- "Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud tend to involve affecting vote counts to bring about a desired election outcome, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both."
Caging => voter suppression => depressing vote share => election fruad
My main concern in the past with election fraud has been with electronic voting machines. As a former electrical engineer and a current software engineer, I am all too familiar with how easy it is to subvert systems. Hell, as a simple computer user I have to fight viruses and trojans more than I would like. EVMs make the throwing of elections all too easy: a backdoor, a trojan/virus, a known exploit, or actual hack job and your election is tossed. Instead of just a few fraudulent voters, whole elections can be outright subverted.
While EVMs are still a threat, voter suppression is the new fraud. Not all voting places use EVMs, EVM manipulations sometimes leave traces, and EVMs are starting to come under scrutiny. Some of the voter suppression has been "legal", like the voter ID initiatives and negative campaigning. There have also been illegal cases such as the phone jamming in New Hampshire.

History

Remember: Most Republicans, and a small set of Democrats (DLC/Lieberman) don't want people to vote. They don't like democracy. Don't believe me?

"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." - Paul Weyrich

So here is Paul Weyrich referring back to the "better" times before women's suffrage and before Jim Crowe laws. Who is Paul Weyrich? Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich

In 1973, with the financial backing of Coors, Weyrich and Ed Feulner founded the Heritage Foundation as a think tank to counterbalance prevailing sentiment on taxation and regulation, which they considered to be anti-business. While the organization was at first only minimally influential, it has grown into one of the world's largest and most respected public policy research institutes and has been hugely influential in advancing conservative policies.
The following year, again with support from Coors, Weyrich founded the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (CSFC), an organization that trained and mobilized conservative activists, recruited conservative candidates, and raised funds for conservative causes.
Under Weyrich, the CSFC proved highly innovative. It was among the first grassroots organizations to raise funds extensively through direct mail campaigns. It also was one of the first organizations to tap into evangelical Christian churches as places to recruit and cultivate activists and support for social conservative causes. Indeed, they proved such a wellspring that, in 1977, Weyrich co-founded Christian Voice with Robert Grant and two years later founded with Jerry Falwell the Moral Majority. Weyrich coined the phrase "Moral Majority."

Throughout history, we have always been fighting some form of election fraud. Fake bottoms of ballot boxes, forged pottery pieces... What is different now is that this is now happening in the US at the federal level. Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Monica Goodling, Republican Congressman, and Federal Prosecutors that are playing ball are all working to keep the poor and disadvantage from voting. They've been caught, some have admitted it, but too many people are looking the other way, including congressional Dems and the MSM. I think that it is so shocking, they don't want to believe it.
Monica Goodling was a graduate of Regent University, one of the worst legal schools in the US with a known agenda (inserting religion into government). So why would she be placed in a position of power in the DOJ? Because she was a know partisan; she worked with Tim Griffin as a opposition researcher for the Republican party. She would do what it takes to place "loyal bushies" rather than good prosecutors within the DOJ.
Tim Griffin was a party hack that eventually became a federal prosecutor.

In September of 1999 he was Deputy Research Director for the Republican National
Committee (for Bush's election campaign) and during that stint was a legal
advisor for the "Bush-Cheney 2000 Florida Recount Team" (see Bush v. Gore).

...

He then left to become Research Director and Deputy Communications Director for Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. From September 2005 through September 2006 he worked at the White House as Karl Rove's aide, with the title of Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director in the Office of Political Affairs.

...

Documents released by a subsequent Congressional investigation showed that, in the summer of 2006, White House "officials were eager to free up the prosecutor's slot in Little Rock, Ark., so it could be filled by Timothy Griffin, a GOP operative close to White House political advisor Karl Rove, at all costs." Prior to this he was a top Republican researcher and aide to Rove. He was hand selected by Rove to be a US Attorney. On February 16, 2007, 10 days after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified that Bud Cummins was dismissed in order to make an vacancy for Griffin to be appointed to, Griffin announced that he would not seek the presidential nomination to be U.S. attorney in Little Rock.

Many believe he was put in place for the 2008 elections. One reason is he is still there.

(LA Times) "We should gum this to death," Sampson e-mailed Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House. He said officials should talk up Griffin's appointment and try to "forestall" any criticism from Capitol Hill. Just "run out the clock" on any objections, he said.

Gum it to death? Run out the clock until when? As in keeping Griffin in through 2008?

Please keep in mind that caging, especially against minorities, is against the law for Republicans:

"In 1986, the RNC tried to have 31,000 voters, most of them black, removed from the rolls in Louisiana when a party mailer was returned. The consent decrees that resulted prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud initiatives that target minorities or conduct mail campaigns to "compile voter challenge lists."

It's also against the 1965 Civil Rights Voting Act.

Current Events

During the investigation of the prosecutor purge Monica Goodling spilled the beans, making all the pieces fit, but congressional Dems and the MSM were too ignorant to catch on.

Here's what happened:

Republicans led by Rove, are trying to make Voter Fraud a big issue to justify caging techniques. They wanted to have Federal Prosecutors attack anything that looked remotely like voter fraud to make their point. Some of the Prosecutors wouldn't play ball; they weren't going to prosecute something that obviously wasn't a crime just to make a point. Thus the purge was born. To take it a step further, It's easy to see that Rove wanted to make sure his political crony wasn't nailed for caging, so he had him appointed a federal prosecutor where he couldn't be prosecuted. Problem solved.

But then Goodling came out and said:
"Despite my and others' best efforts, [Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty]'s public testimony was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects. As explained in more detail in my written remarks, I believe that the Deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the Department's internal assessment of the Parsky Commission, and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote "caging" during his work on the President's 2004 campaign."

Right there, she admitted that Griffin was caging, violating the consent decree leveled against Republicans. As a bonus, she gets out of prosecution for not acting on this knowledge because she testified under immunity.

Sanchez, who sat on the committee during the interview, didn't know what caging was. Monica did a duck and weave: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/23/goodling-caging-griffin/

Tell me: If it is just a direct mail term, why bring it up in front of congressional committe?

This nothing less than the organized subversion of our Democracy by the Republican party. WTH won't Dems wake up? If the US MSM won't cover it, force the issue: mention this at every single press conference and appearance?.

If you look for this information, you will find it elsewhere. Greg Palast has been doing a bang-job reporting on this issue. My purpose here is 2 fold:

1. Summarize the issue in a way that is easy to understand and small enough to digest.


2. Spread the word to help prevent the destruction of our democracy.

How about serving your country instead?

"All I ever wanted to do was serve this president and this administration and this department," Goodling said during a March 8 conversation, according to Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18816284/


Perhaps she should have considered serving her country and its people instead.

Something everyone should watch

The Power of Nightmares explores how both the Neo-Conservatives and Mid-East Terrorists are using fear to manipulate the people. These two entities are effectively feeding off of each other.

The Power of Nightmares is a BBC production. The DVD can be legally downloaded here. Clips can be seen here. Related BBC articles can be found here.

It contains interviews of several neo-conservatives and some former terrorists.

One of the interesting points is that both the neo-cons and terrorists hate realism/liberals. The neo-cons feel that we need epic myths, even if they are false, to keep Americans focused and moral. Thus, they were spreading the word about non-existent Soviet mega-weapons even as the Soviet Union was rotting apart. The lie of the Iraq threat/WMDs was par for the course. The terrorists felt they were beyond reality. Their goal is to create a new reality. They believe that Western/Liberal influence is so evil, it is moral to kill the masses to wipe out the corruption.

For me, it helped to clarify the history of these 2 insane groups of people.

If he had donated to Democrats...

If this guy had donated to the Democratic party, we would hear about this non-stop on Fox news. But since he donated to Republicans, this story will be religated to the back-pages of Yahoo

GOP donor hit with terror charges By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 15 minutes ago
A New York man accused of trying to help terrorists in Afghanistan has donated some $15,000 to the House Republicans' campaign committee over three years.
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to charges that include terrorism financing, material support of terrorism and money laundering.
From April 2002 until August 2004, the man also known as "Michael Mixon" gave donations ranging from $500 to $5,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to Federal Election Commission reports and two campaign donor tracking Web sites, http://www.politicalmoneyline.com and http://www.opensecrets.org.
Jessica Boulanger, a spokeswoman for the NRCC, said if Alishtari is found guilty, the organization would donate the money to charity.
"We are extremely concerned and disturbed by these charges, but we need to be careful not to rush to judgment as the judicial process moves forward," Boulanger said.
In the federal indictment, the government said Alishtari, 53, of Ardsley, N.Y., also known as Mixon accepted an unspecified amount of money to transfer $152,000 to Pakistan and Afghanistan to support an Afghanistan terrorist training camp. He also stands accused of causing the transfer of about $25,000 from a bank account in New York to an account in Montreal, money the government says was to be used to provide material support to terrorists.
Also, the indictment says, Alishtari schemed to defraud investors by obtaining millions of dollars in a loan investment scheme that he called the "Flat Electronic Data Interchange" and that promised high guaranteed rates of return.
The charges carry a potential penalty of 95 years in prison.
Alishtari was detained pending a court appearance this week. Prosecutors said he was a danger to the community and a flight risk. On campaign finance forms, Alishtari identified his occupation as either the owner, president or chief executive of a business called Global Protector Inc., or GlobalProtector.Net, Inc. In some filings he listed the business as being located in the Bronx and in other filings in Scarsdale, N.Y. A resume listed in his name and posted on an MSN group Web site on Jan. 8, 2007, identifies him as being an "industrialist and philanthropist" and references previous connections to the Republican Party. The resume says that in 2003 Alishtari was named a National Republican Senatorial Committee "Inner Circle Member for Life" and was appointed to the NRCC's "White House Business Advisory Committee." The resume also says Alishtari was named the NRCC's New York state businessman of the year in 2002 and 2003. The 2007 resume identifies him as the founder of IDPixie LLC, which is described as an "ID theft protection agency."

Breaking News: Coulter, Hannity, and Limbaugh are moving to Iraq

In a press release today, notable conservative commentators Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh announced they've decided to move to the latest experiment in free-market Democracy: Iraq.

"I wanted to move to a country that reflected my values more, where liberals are taken out and shot, and women are put in their place." says Mr. Limbaugh. "As a bonus, oxycontin doesn't have the social stigma nor legal issues here like it has in the states."

Ms/Mr Coulter says that the US is no longer suitable for them. "I might need to get another sex change operation or wear a Burka, but it will be worth it."

Colmes, Hannity's assistant, says that Sean doesn't want to talk to reporters. "I hope I don't get in trouble for telling you this, but the massive leftward shift back to the middle really has him upset. I'm really not sure what I'm going to do. I'm afraid of Iraq, but I can't imagine life without Sean."

Obama in Seattle (Vote for Burner and Cantwell)

I attended a Democratic Rally at Bellevue Community College today. It was really quite the event.

Barak Obama was in town to talk about his book, The Audacity of Hope. From what I understand, his talk and signing at Benaroya Hall sold out in 2 hours.

It looks like the Democrats were thinking. Perhaps Senator Obama was going for a 2 fer; perhaps the local Dems contacted him and said “hey you’re in town, why don’t you stop by for a rally?” Either way, it was a good idea. A day or two before the event, the Burner and Cantwell sent out invites for the rally; it really didn’t get any play in the media until this morning.

Even with the late notice, approximately 2000 people showed up. It is my understanding that the capacity of the BCC Gymnasium is 1500, so many were left outside listening on loud speaker. Pretty good turnout (I’m sure Senator Obama is to be thanked); Senator Cantwell said a similar Republican gathering only had 200 people.

Given that I unable to attend the Darcy Burner – Dave Reichert debate due to heavy turnout, I made sure to get there early. Sounds like it was a good thing.

It’s always fun people watching and talking with those in line at event like this. You run into everything from snotty party players to activists to women that have shaved their heads to average Joes. One fellow line-neighbor was a BCC professor whose students hadn’t heard of Senator Obama; it seems a little shocking given that he was on the current cover of Time and often in the news, but I guess that it’s not uncommon for Bellevue kids to live a bit of a sheltered life.

My friend and coworker Scott eventually joined up and we were able to get to a OK position. I volunteered to hold a sign, so we were able to get close to where the candidates came in.

In many ways it was like a rock concert; that makes sense because Obama is a bit of a star. For Dems, it was a great event. All sorts of candidates and elected official were there and spoke. In order of presentation:

Rep. Ross Hunter (48th)

Rep. Rodney Tom (running for the state Senate, 48th)

Mayor Deb Eddy (Kirkland, running for state legislature, 48th)

Congressman Jim McDermott (WA-07)

Congressman Jay Inslee (WA-01)

Governor Christine Gregoire

Darcy Burner (WA-08)

Senator Maria Cantwell (WA)

Senator Barak Obama (Illinois)

The energy was infectious. Every speaker got cheers and applause.
There were several good topics discussed by the speakers. In terms of local politics, it was on how the east-side was becoming more Democratic. Some mentioned Cantwell’s work fighting Enron and oil-interests. Several touched on the need for better health-care policy (per capita, we pay more than any other industrial country, yet we have fewer covered and relatively low outcomes).

Congressman Inslee, who I am a big fan of BTW, talked about I-937 (vote for 937 and go to heaven J ) and the New Apollo Project.

Darcy Burner seems to be getting her “congressional speaking” voice. God I hope she has a chance to officially use it.

Senator Obama is an excellent speaker. He has a great voice and it is filled with intelligence. He says things that are so simple you wonder why other politicians aren’t harping on them.

To paraphrase him:

Americans are busy with their lives. They don’t have time to read the latest policy papers and conduct in-depth research, so perhaps individuals don’t always make the best decisions. However, there are some things the vast majority of Americans agree on:

If you want to work hard and full time, you should be able to live

No one should go bankrupt because of a medical emergency

…

This type of plain talk that brings forth our countries liberal values are just what we need.

So far, I think Senator Obama would make a great presidential candidate. Do I have some concerns? Of course! I’m a Democrat which means I am also a skeptic. He may end up being a bit too conservative for my taste. Sometimes he seems a bit too smooth. But given what I have seen so far, I think he would make a great candidate and I would love to see him run. He seems to have a good heart and sensible thoughts/policies.

Some have said “Of course this went well: they’re preaching to the choir”. This wasn’t just about “warm fuzzies”, this was about getting the base to start taking action.

This is going to be a tight election cycle. Sure, the Dems may pick up some seats, but we need to get a majority in at least one house and hopefully both. We need to get the majority if we are going to finally have some Checks and Balances in this country. George has been able to run amok for way too long. Rove and other Republicons are saying that they will keep the majority in both houses. When Rove was questioned about polling recently, he said "You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math," Rove said. "I'm entitled to 'the' math." What did he mean by THE math? Is a fix in? Some voting machine tweaking or voter purges in a few tight districts? Not Good. The stakes are too high.

To make sure we win, we need to turn out the vote. We need to win by large margins to keep everything honest. Republicans have shown they will do ANYTHING to win (and if you think I am exaggerating, remember that several members of the current administration had ties to Nixon), so we need to get out the vote.

I have already volunteered for both Darcy Burner and I-937. I will do more before this election-cycle is over. I ask you to please do your part. There are several ways you can help, some as simple as manning a phone-bank for a couple hours. Knocking on doors is a great way to get some fresh air. Contact your favorite candidate and ask them how you can help.

As Congressman McDermott said: “If you have any energy left by election-day morning, you’re not working hard enough.”

Here are some pictures for the event. Sorry about the quality; the gym lighting wasn't good for my consumer-quality camera.

The 48th Dems

Inslee and McDermott

Burner

Obama

Burner - Cantwell - Obama

Gregoire

Pissed-Off Patriot Tour

Thoughts for 9/11

I agree with the Nation, who has this speech in full: "Keith Olbermann is without a doubt the best news anchor on television today."

Thank you Keith:

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

more...

What we've become

From Attywood:

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"-- Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

"You have no civil liberties if you are dead."-- Sen. Pat Roberts, May 18, 2006.

Our greatest gift to our children: the Death Tax

I decided to take a page from The Rude Pundit [WARNING- EXPLICIT LANGUAGE]; not that I plan to cuss a lot, but that I intended to tell an inconvenient truth in a blunt manner.

Conservatives have tried to recast debates by simply changing terminology. It is sad that so many Americans can be suckered in by this use of language. It has been said that Bush is not driven by polls; that is only partly true. Bush has an agenda, and he using polls and focus groups to try and get people to digest it. Think of it as sugar-coated turds.

Frank Luntz is a Republican pollster/strategist that has mastered this modern double-speak. He is the one that coined the termed increased pollution as "Clear Skies". Some attribute to him the renaming the "estate tax" to the "death tax". The Daily Show interviewed him a while back:

Bee: I'm going to read you some words. Help me warm these up a bit.:

Bee: Drilling for Oil
Luntz: Reasonible exploration for energy

Bee: Logging
Luntz: Healthy forest

Bee: Manipulation
Luntz: explanation and education

Bee: Orwellian
Luntz: [confusion]


Jim Martin of the 60 Plus Association (also) claims to have coined the term "death tax".
"The 60 Plus Association is a non-partisan seniors advocacy group with a free enterprise, less government, less taxes approach to seniors issues. 60 Plus has set ending the "death" tax and Saving Social Security for the young as its top priorities. 60 Plus has been described as an "anti-tax advocacy group" and an "increasingly influential lobbying group for the elderly...often viewed as the conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).""

Non-Partisan? What a sick joke. This guy is just a flim-flam artist, trying to use terminology to sell his poison.





Of course, liberals can also play this game . While I don't advocate the misleading that Republicans do, effect use of terminology can be used to our advantage. One example is the phrase "culture of corruption". Another is recasting the debt that Republicans have foisted upon us as the birth tax. The current "tax cuts" are really "tax loans" because they are resulting in deficit spending.

As many a Buddhist would say: words only point, they do not define. Americans need to learn this. If one understands the reality, the truth, then the words mean very little. At the same time, reality is greater than any words can convey. This may seem strange coming from a blogger, but I stand by that phrase. The task at hand is to point towards the reality, to gain understanding.

We need the Estate Tax. It is necessary for a functioning, liberal democracy; in the strictest of terms, a democracy can create a dictatorship, a tyranny of the majority. Thus, we as Americans really want a liberal democracy; one where people have free speech, an independent judiciary, separation of church and state, the rule of law, privacy, civil/equal rights,...

In modern economies, money is power. It is the reason why the Chinese president visited Bill Gates before George Bush. Money is why congressmen are groveling at the feet of K-Street. It's why Halliburton got no-bid contracts from Cheney/Rummy. It's why Enron happened.

If money is allowed to collect in an unrestricted manner, you end up with monopolies and aristocracies. History is rife with examples. To avoid these excesses in the future, we, as a country, have instituted measures such as antitrust laws, labor laws, and estate taxes.

There are several valid yet mundane reasons why the estate tax is a just tax:

• Remember that estate taxes only kick in when the estate is in the millions!
• The Estate Tax is the fairest way to raise revenue, from those most able to pay. The estate tax is the most progressive way available to raise revenue our nation desperately needs to meet its commitments. Any other way we raise revenue will place a higher burden on lower and middle income families.
• The estate tax is one way wealthy people pay back to society after they die for the benefits of the economic, judicial, educational, and transportation systems that helped make them rich. Paying the estate tax enables our society to invest in the next generation, who will build our future economy.
• Who is better able to reduce the huge federal budget deficits our nation faces than the heirs of deceased millionaires? Taxing the accumulated assets of this wealthiest 0.27 percent is the fairest way to generate revenue from those most able to pay.
• Repeal of the estate tax would cost the charitable sector more than $13-25 billion each year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But there are reasons that others do not like to mention because the truth hurts and it is unpopular; still many need to hear it.

1. In the United States, inherited political power is anathema. The constitution forbids titles of nobility (Article 1, section 9). What makes inherited economic power any better than inherited political power? In fact, since wealth is power, wealth usually translates into political power.
2. Wealthy inheritances are little more that glorified food stamps. As Warren Buffet says:

The DuPonts might believe themselves perceptive in observing the debilitating effects of food stamps for the poor, but were themselves living off a boundless supply of privately funded food stamps. . . . The idea that you get a lifetime of food stamps based on coming out of the right womb strikes at my idea of fairness."

3. "If the overgrown wealth of an individual is deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree..." - Thomas Jefferson
4. Inherited wealth allows incompetence to flourish. Let's look at some public figures:

Can you honestly say that these people would be where they are at if they did not have their inherited wealth? Unfortunately, because they had rich parents, their incompetence and stupidity is foisted upon us.

It's not an issue of "fairness"; who cares if they are rich. The problem is that their parents wealth has a negative effect on the rest of us, by allowing their stupidity to flourish when it normally would not. If the above had middle or lower class parents, we would have likely never heard of them, and in the case of the politicians, their negative policies would have never affected us.

I'm a fair kind of guy. I think the existing exemption for the first few million is more than fair. I'm also open to ideas such as taxing estates instead as regular income on the inheritors. However, we must guard against vast, vast wealth accumulation is it endangers the very foundations of liberal democracy.

McCain: The Big Sell Out

McCain used to have a reputation for being a moderate, someone willing to buck the party line. Since he has decided to run for President in 2008, things have change. He has shown is willingness to kow-tow to any radical that will give him more party power.

Let's look at some recent examples:

He's been licking the boots of the very people he criticized earlier for their radical views

McCain 2000:

Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.

McCain 2006

(Falwell/Liberty University) While Sen. McCain and Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell have had their share of political differences through the years, the two men share a common respect for each other and have become good friends in their efforts to preserve what they see as common values. This will mark his first ever appearance at Liberty University.

(ABC News) Since McCain denounced him in 2000, Falwell has said that Jews can't go to heaven unless they accept Christ, that the Prophet Mohammed was a terrorist and that gays and feminists bore responsibility for 9/11.

RUSSERT: Do you believe that Jerry Falwell is still an agent of intolerance?
MCCAIN: No, I don't. I think that Jerry Falwell can explain to you his views on this program when you have him on.

McCain has also been kissing up to Bush. This is quite disgusting given the past history between them. As typical in a Bush (Sr. or Jr.) campaign, a lot of dirt was thrown at McCain. But now, McCain is treating Dubya as a long lost lover:

Disgusting really. Has McCain no integrity? He's already hooking into the Bush election team.

The Daily Show interviewed McCain fairly recently, and the did a pretty good summary of the above topics. Video can be found at Crooks and Liars.

McCain has also shown that either a) he is disconnected with reality or b) he doesn't think much of the American work ethic.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.
Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain's job offer.
"I'll take it!" one man shouted.
McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. "You can't do it, my friends."
Some in the crowd said they didn't appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

Does he think migrant workers actually make $50 an hour? Back in college, I would have given one of my eye teeth to make that kind of money for manual labor (even factoring in inflation). Hell, back then I was cleaning up fish guts for very little over minimum wage; I actually lost my finger prints for a while due to the harsh cleansers and contact dermatitis. It is verypresumptuouss to say "You can't do it." Does he think all Americans are soft? Lazy? I agree that not all Americans can do or want to do that type of work; for example, age takes it toll. However, $50 an hour would get a lot of people out into the summer heat.

Let's look at reality:

For decades, farmers relied on undocumented immigrants and the government largely looked the other way as they took some of the most physically demanding and lowest paying jobs.

Pesticides frequently sicken farmworkers, machinery is menacing, and some have fallen to their deaths in manure pits. This summer, heat exposure killed one farmworker in California, and the labor board is investigating whether three other deaths were heat-related. A 2004 Associated Press investigation found that Mexican workers are 80 percent more likely to die on the job than are native-born workers.

Field hands earn a prevailing wage of $7 to $8 per hour, often without benefits, and undocumented workers earn about 10 percent less, according to the Labor Department survey.

With construction jobs in California's rapidly developing inland cities offering year-round employment starting at $10 an hour, many farmworkers have decided to try their luck in otherjobs. Whenn Frank Flores switched from picking fruit to packing it at a Fowler plant, he went from earning minimum wage for seasonal jobs to $11.50 an hour full-time. The reason was simple, he said: "I had a family, and needed more money."

Perhaps the real reason no one wants these jobs is that labor codes are not being enforced and people are underpaid.

In the final analysis, Helen Thomas is correct: If you want more of Bush, elect McCain

Every US citizen should listen to this

This was one of the most powerful radio shows I have ever listened to: Habeas Schmapeas by This American Life. If I was in charge of a high school, I would make it mandatory listening for current events/history.

The right of habeas corpus has been a part of this country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means the government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody. But now, the war on terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that the prisoners should not be covered by habeas, or even by the Geneva Conventions, because they're the most fearsome terrorist enemies we have. But is that true? Is it a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of our mistakes? Reporter Jack Hitt unveils everything we know about who these prisoners are. In interviews with two former detainees, he finds out the consequences of taking away habeas, for them and for us.

Clarification:
When Seton Hall Professor Baher Azmy discusses the classified file of his client, Murat Kurnaz, in Act One of the show, he is referring to information that had previously been made public and published in the Washington Post. (That material has subsequently been reclassified.)

What you find out is that several of the people that were/are in Gitmo are innocent, even by our government's definitions. Some sort of red-tape or political maneuvers are keeping them there. It is scandalous, sad, and shocking.

"Jesus wants to see your green-card"

Mike Malloy, who was substituting for Randi Rhodes on Air America, was discussing new legislation concerning illegal immigrants. Specifically, the concern is H.R. 4437 ; in section 202, there are a lot of wide ranging words/phrases such as "assists" and "reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien". One can be sent to jail for up to 5 years for these "crimes". Thus workers at a church can get into trouble for working in a soup line that "obviously" has illegal aliens in it.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has spoken out against the law. According to the LA Times:

In his most forceful comments to date, Mahony said he would instruct his priests to defy legislation, if approved by Congress, that would require churches and other social organizations to ask immigrants for legal documentation before providing assistance and penalize them if they refuse to do so. That provision was included in the immigration bill recently passed by the House of Representatives; a similar proposal is in the version that the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to begin debating this week.

It's good to see someone of authority in the Catholic church returning to its
liberal/charity roots.
As stated in a New York Times editorial:

The cardinal's focus of concern is H.R. 4437, a bill sponsored by James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin and Peter King of New York. This grab bag legislation, which was recently passed by the House, would expand the definition of "alien smuggling" in a way that could theoretically include working in a soup kitchen, driving a friend to a bus stop or caring for a neighbor's baby. Similar language appears in legislation being considered by the Senate this week.

The irony of this is that it is largely Republican measure; the people calling for "compassionate conservatism" and "faith-based charity" are the same ones sponsoring and supporting 4437. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. If there is one thing that Jesus spoke about is the need to help the poor and disadvantaged. It's one thing to be against illegal immigration, but it is a "whole nother thing" to make it illegal to help the poor and needy.

While discussing this issue, Mike did a perfect impersonation of one of these hypocrites: Get out of here you aliens! Jesus needs to see your green card!

Reform????? NOT!!!!!!!!!!

The Republicans make a big deal about reform, then immediately back-pedal. Here's and example:

DeLay Lands Coveted Appropriations Spot
By ANDREW TAYLOR
WASHINGTON Feb 8, 2006 (AP)— Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay, forced to step down as the No. 2 Republican in the House, scored a soft landing Wednesday as GOP leaders rewarded him with a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee.
DeLay, R-Texas, also claimed a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is currently investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with lawmakers. The subcommittee also has responsibility over NASA a top priority for DeLay, since the Johnson Space Center is located in his Houston-area district.
"Allowing Tom DeLay to sit on a committee in charge of giving out money is like putting Michael Brown back in charge of FEMA - Republicans in Congress just can't seem to resist standing by their man," said Bill Burton, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

While Tom DeLay has not been convicted in a court of law (yet), his past admonishments, dealings with Jack Abramoff, and his support for the slavery in the Marianas/Saipan have shown that he is unfit for congress, yet here they are giving him a cushy post.

Disgusting, but not suprising.

The Fix is in

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on "Wartime Executive Power and the NSAÂ’s Surveillance Authority". What isn't being said outloud,but assumingg I understand the process correctly, is that the committee will vote to determine if Bush "broke the law". While I might be surprised, I think it is pretty obvious that the fix is in; not a single Republican will vote that he did. Oh, they'll make a good show of displeasure, but they will cave in at the end. Why do I think this? Consider the data:

1. The Justice Department is withholding internal documents from the Judiciary Committee concerning the legal theories used to justify the domestic spying (nevermind that they are supposed to represent us, not the Whitehouse) .
2. The Republicans voted to avoid putting Alberto under oath (video here). Note that he has been put under oath before, and there is reason to believe Gonzales has lied under oath before.
3. It is important to note that the committee chairman determines the schedule and witnesses. Note that there is only one witness, and he is not under oath. Whatabout lawyerss from the NSA? What about constitutional law scholars?
4. There are reports that Rove is putting the pressure on Republicancommitteee members:

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary CommitteeÂ’s investigation of the administration's unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

"It's hardball all the way," a senior GOP congressional aide said.

The sources said the administration has been alarmed over the damage that could result from the Senate hearings, which began on Monday, Feb. 6. They said the defection of even a handful of Republican committee members could result in a determination that the president violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Such a determination could lead to impeachment proceedings.

Over the last few weeks, Mr. Rove has been calling in virtually every Republican on the Senate committee as well as the leadership in Congress. The sources saiMr. Roves's's message has been that a vote against Mr. Bush would destroy GOP prospects in congressional elections.

"He's [Rove] lining them up one by one," another congressional source said.

Mr. Rove is leading the White House campaign to help the GOP in NovemberÂ’s congressional elections. The sources said the White House has offered to help loyalists with money and free publicity, such as appearances and photo-ops with the president.

Those deemed disloyal to Mr. Rove would appear on his blacklist. The sources said dozens of GOP members in the House and Senate are on that list.

So far, only a handful of GOP senators have questioned Mr. Rove's tactics.

Some have raised doubts about Mr. Rove's strategy of painting the Democrats, who have opposed unwarranted surveillance, as being dismissive of the threat posed by al Qaeda terrorists.

"Well, I didn't like what Mr. Rove said, because it frames terrorism and the issue of terrorism and everything that goes with it, whether it's the renewal of the Patriot Act or the NSA wiretapping, in a political context," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican.

Note that Insight on the News, the publication of this report, is a very conservative web news outlet, associated with The Washington Times, The Drudge Report, National Review Online, and Michelle Malkin. It's not in their interest to trash Republicans.

Let's think about this last item further. It's about as close to bribery and coercion as one can get. These are senators that are going to vote on a legal item; it's also as about as close to a judge and jury as one can get. It may not "technically" be illegal, but morally and ethically it is completely bankrupt. This should be investigated by an independent counsel. If true, Bush should be impeached for harboring such a POS.

There is some historical examples of this though. If you look at the Nixon impeachment, Republicans that voted against impeachment, such as Trent Lott, prospered within the Republican party. The only Republican to vote for all 3 articles of impeachment, Lawrence Hogan, lost every serious election bid from that point forward.

Party before the people seems to be the mantra. It is very sad, and adder still that so many people don't see it.