My Congressman, Eliot Engel joined with a majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats, mostly conservative Blue Dogs and members of the hawkish Democratic Leadership Council, in adopting the new FISA bill. Was this what your congressman did, too?
And are you wondering why. I may have an answer as to why did Engel vote the way he did. Was he motivated by lobbyist money?
Is this quid pro quo on my congressman's part?
Does this sound like your representative in Congress?
The political "wisdom" of not pursuing BushCo. on their war crimes has been that the potential gains in November outweigh the risk of backlash by GOP voters who might be provoked to stand by McCain when they otherwise may have been tempted to vote Obama, Barr, or just stay home.
I've been reluctantly willing to accept this approach.
However, even putting aside the fundamental ethical duty of the issue, it is now clear that the potential gains in November are more at risk by not pursuing prosecution.
The Real Question Is, How Can FOUR U.S. Gov't. Agcy's STILL Not Know, After Almost A Week? The Politics Of Food Safety:
CDC Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases
Salmonellosis "Salmonella live in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals, including birds. Salmonella are usually transmitted to humans by eating foods contaminated with animal feces. "
We all know that big business and their lackeys in the Republican Administration don't give a shit about public health. These are the people who mass-marketed you tobacco, alcohol, sugar-water, fast food, polyunsaturated fats, and even baby food with no food in it at all, just chemicals. And babies were their business, their only business.
And next month I will vote in what is being billed as a pivotal primary for my new party. My first primary! I've been a "down-low dem" for many years, but no more.
In the past, it was professionally expedient for me to remain neutral, because one of my gigs is as a consultant to a state agency. But that state agency's federal funding has dried up (siphoned off to feed the war machine) and my consulting work along with it. Now I'm "supplementing" with a 9-5, working for a guy who views liberalism as a character flaw. After yet another of his Friday diatribes against the left-wing bleeding heart socialists, I went home with the strange urge to google: "milton friedman is satan."
It has become clear to me that George Bush, the worst person ever to hold public office in American history, will at the end of his term issue a blanket pardon to every person in his administration, including himself.
In addition, he will pardon various Republican members of congress, as well as Jack Abramoff and other jailed members of the BushCo cabal.
How do I know?
Simple. It's their only way out. By refusing subpoenas and withholding evidence, they've made sure of it.
This is just too much. For all of the war mongering and denunciation of the Bushehr reactor, now we find out from the NYT that the Bush administration's Dept of Energy is partially funding the development of the reactor!
What you will find below the fold is an incredible indictment of our police state in 2008. Forget "don't tase me bro" This will make your stomach turn.
Haven't heard anything about this in the MSM. As we fight about our candidates the world carries on.
Bin Laden son wants to be peace activist
Osama Bin Laden's Son Says He Wants to Be Peace Ambassador Between West, Muslims
Omar Osama bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to his notorious father — except for the dreadlocks that dangle halfway down his back. Then there's the black leather biker jacket.
"Do you support the troops?" I thought it was a simple yes-or-no question when I asked it in a DKos open thread. The first five responders said yes, and a couple of them seemed baffled as to how I could even ask this and added, "Of course!" Then I got the following comment.
What do you mean by support? Do we value their lives, and believe those lives should not be lost in a futile and unjustified war? Sure, of course. But "support" - what do you mean? It's such a right-wing talking point, who does or does not "support the troops." Too many right-wingers believe that they "support" the troops by supporting the agenda of the war - as if, per the Tinker bell [sic] theory, if only every American believed in the Iraq war, then we would certainly win it and the troops could come home. I also quibble with whether "support the troops" is supposed equate [sic] with "support the acts and conduct" of the troops in Iraq .
Thus, here we are with a diary in which I can explain my "simple" question. I'll explain, based on the thoughts of current and former Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers, and on my military experience (non-combat) from 1979 to 1982, what soldiers and veterans themselves think "supporting the troops" really means.
Musharraf is not his own man. That's for sure. He's Bush's puppet, as is Bhutto, and does NOTHING without an okay from Washington. Think of the hundreds of millions he gets from the US every year to keep him in power. This latest action is not an independent move. That's got to be a given.
But, is it also a possible experiment to see what the reaction of the world will be as democracy is suspended in the name of the war on terror.
DarkSyde recently published an excellent recommended diary that asks why the Angry Right is so angry, after having things mostly their way during the Bush presidence. His question has prompted may lucid and insightful answers.
But I'd like to suggest that there's a powerful faction of the right--arguably the most powerful--that isn't so angry and in fact continues to laugh all the way to the bank. This is the faction of the filthy rich...those who have benefited from tax cuts, the opening of public lands to exploitation, the GOP culture of corruption and the spiraling costs of a failed war that has nonetheless generated fabulous windfalls for the favorites of the present administration.
These guys have made money in bucket-loads. Even if the tax cuts, cronyism and corporate welfare that have made them ever-richer are rolled back under a new Democratic administration, they're still going to keep the vast proportion of the wealth they've skimmed from from the trough during the reign of Bushco. This link from The New York Times helps to make the point.
Barlow still would not give up. His almost pathological tenacity was one of the characteristics that made him a great analyst. With no salary and few savings, he found a lawyer who agreed to represent him pro-bono. At this point, more documents surfaced linking several familiar names to Barlow's sacking and its aftermath; these included Cheney's chief of staff, Libby, and two officials working for Wolfowitz. Through his lawyer, Barlow discovered that he was being described as a tax evader, an alcoholic and an adulterer, who had been fired from all previous government jobs. It was alleged that his marriage counselling was a cover for a course of psychiatric care, and he was put under pressure to permit investigators to interview his marriage guidance adviser. "I had to explain to Cindy that her private fears were to be trawled by the OSD. She moved out. My life, professionally and personally, was destroyed. Cindy filed for divorce."
ONE BIG PROBLEM with BushCo Corporatism is that they tell people what to think and how to live.
From the top down, dull and intolerant.
So, what happens in America ? For example, to music ??
If you want to sing, then best odds are Fox's American Idol. Then get picked by Clear Channel.
Music's Top 40 homogenized copy-cat.
Nobody drinks, travels, gets educated.
After 2003 nobody's military.
American Idol is 100% derivative.
Compare with England.
Where tolerance is the national religion.
There, corporatism is irrelevant to radio.
Here's what FREEDOM begets:
Great blues singing lives somewhere black of sanity.
A waking nightmare between life and death.
Quite simply, this girl - at 24 - has changed our expectation for what a singer can accomplish, putting her soul over into sound.
In America no one would hear it. And she would be dead.
Mike Leavitt, the BushCo appointee for both EPA and now the director of the department of Health & Human services published a piece of asinine trash last week lauding Bush's plan as the "better" plan for health care cost relief.
'Old-Fashioned Values' Don't get me wrong, I believe in many old fashion family values- like love, honesty,respect,peace,commitment etc., which have been terribly turned around by skewed actions of many on the right with pseudo christianity, war, fear tactics, LIES etc.
Found at the bottom of linked article:
Pew found that between 1987 and this year, for example, support for "old-fashioned values about family and marriage" had dropped 11 percentage points. The percentage of those who said gay teachers should be fired dropped 23 points, Pew said. Support for U.S. global engagement and "peace through military strength" also shrank.
Okay. Confession. I do believe in God.
I don't believe in anything else, actually.
I believe God made us as we are for many educational purposes.
I believe that many of those educational purposes are really spiritual.
I believe that people may choose eternity. Or not.
I believe the Seller has better "got the goods" that the "Buyer wants".
All that basic economic stuff... just math, or grammar... school stuff...
Actually I figured that all out without school.
What I found out in school is that people would do anything that they thought would work to get them credit... And, so it is.
We give great credit when it serves our interests. We retract it, or ignore those promoting it when it doesn't. It's all a matter of advantage, aye? Yeah. It is.
We use such negative terms when describing other cultures, don't we?
It's always, Us or Them.... and like any fairy tale, "They" are always about to "Get Us."
Isn't that quaint? Child-like, really. Our faith in Our Great Leaders.
