The Northwoods Politic

IBM CEO Retirement Perks

2011-11-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

Solutions?: The Problems

2011-08-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

Our system of government is broken. Where else can you work for someone where you get better benefits, wages, pensions and perks than the owners? Where else can you work from 2-4 years, get fired and receive pension and perks till the day you die? Where else would you get better health benefits then the bosses? I'm not talking about the people who fix the buildings, sweep the floors, or work in offices doing the many things that are needed to keep our government going. I'm also not talking about the policemen, firefighters, or the people who keep our infrastructures going. I'm talking about the politicians, the people responsible for representing us.

How can our politicians be representing us when they continually vote along party lines? Are they really representing their constituents or pushing party agendas? The way things are set up now, they hold all the cards, they vote on their own pay raises, benefits packages, pensions, they have healthcare and the whole nine yards. There are only two major parties, between the two, their contacts, their clout, they make enough money from campaigning that they can effectively shut down any outsiders. Anyone with ideas that go against the party, or ideas that are too dangerous to keeping the status quo are shunned by their party and cut from the benefit of party raised money for campaigning.

The whole idea of needing so much money to campaign is part of what corrupts our system. Most politicians spend a lot of time when they should be working for us raising money for the next election cycle. Needing such vast amounts of money gives corporations and wealthy individuals the upper hand, because even if something is right and a good cause, a politician would be committing political suicide to support it if that cause wasn't in the best interests of the people footing much of their election campaign. It is the person who has the most money to buy the most airtime, that can slander the other person the most, who has the upper hand in our elections. Politicians like that are puppets of their highest donors and will not go against their biggest donors best interests. They will not be concerned with their constituents wishes, they are a broken cog in democracy.

It is time we the people take back our government from the rich elite that runs it now. Our whole election process is a joke. There is no accountability, no consequences for cheating or not telling the truth. These people are all applying for the job of our Representatives, but they do it all on their terms, not ours. We have to step back and say whoa on a second. Do all these commercials put together to mislead, about the flaws of the other opponent or brag up the triumphs of one's self really any good to the selection of our leaders? Is it any good to have two parties that basically have a monopoly on candidates and individuals having to tow the party line? What do we do to fix this? Can this be fixed? Next time I will give my thoughts.

The War on Poor

2011-08-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

You know figures and stats can be manipulated to show anything you want them to. You could quot figures showing that the rich pay the majority of tax collected, and I could show you figures on how the common man pays a higher percentage of his income on taxes. They say that there are a lot of people who don't even pay taxes and should thus not be deserving of any assistance, but I see people who don't fit into a society that has evolved to the point that it is so costly that some can't afford the basic necessities let alone pay taxes. They say, give more money to the rich and they will hire workers," I say put more money in the hands of the many, they will spend it creating demand and more workers will be hired. No matter how much money you put in the hands of the rich, they won't hire workers if the common man can't afford the products and services their businesses have to offer, but if there is a demand, businesses will hire more workers to handle the extra work. The same people who argue that sticking more money in the education system won't fix it, are screaming for us to continue to lower the taxes on the wealthy. Sticking more money into rich peoples hands won't create jobs, it certainly didn't all through the last 10 years we have been giving them these tax breaks. Instead, corporations have been making record profits by laying off thousands of workers. There is a war going on in America.

One would naturally think that this class war would be between the richest and the poorest, but it isn't, it should be though. This war is between the poorest and the former middle class that are hoping to hold on to some remnant of their former glory. The super rich for the most part have shed themselves from being in the target sights of the majority. The wealthy have been successfully using the former middle class people as a buffer cushion between them and the people who they are hurting the most. The well off are convincing the middle class that it's the fault of the lower class that they aren't doing better in life. The middle class is told that all the lower class is fat and lazy and living well off the fruit of the middle class. When there is talk of stopping the tax cuts or adding more taxes to the rich, it is spun into a story of how this is going to cost jobs, hurt small businesses and cost them money. The dream of many middle class people is to start up their own business even though most will never get to that point and many who do will lose their ass, so they take that spin and side with the rich who in turn will cut off their toes and make it even tougher for new businesses to start up and compete. There is a sucking sound in this country, but it's not our jobs being sent overseas, that screwing was over a while ago, this sucking sound is the sound of what's left of our wealth being sucked out of every one of the common man into the pockets of the very few elites.

It has been the goal of a few elite groups to cause total meltdown of the nation for their gain. Really, what are a few years bad returns if it leads to most all of a countries wealth ending up in your pocket? Just like you can never hardly win in a legal battle with a corporation because they have the money and resources to out last the common person, how long would it take to liquidate the common man of everything he owns if he didn't have a job? How rough would it be for the super rich to go that long not making money? People you are being liquidated. One of the reasons they want to downsize government and cut all services? They want to get the money that's tied up in government programs and projects in your pocket temporarily, so it's where they can get their hands on it.

So what's their plan for the future? Here's one billionaire's idea in an article/blog on Yahoo. In this plan:

Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."

Kind of reminds me of something out of the science fiction movie, "Water World". Maybe they are getting ready to outlast the raising water from the melting ice caps from global warming that most of them refuse to acknowledge. Kind of makes me wonder where they are going to get people to work and live there with no laws or minimum protections. You might not want to drift too close to their "sovereign nations", you might just get Shanghaied and end up owing your soul to the company store on some off shore man made island. It's what he says later in the article that kind of sums up the attitude of the wealthy.

"There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible," Thiel said at a Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009, according to Details. (His first donation was in 2008, for $500,000.) "That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."

All something to think about.

Defense: The Double Edged Sword

2011-08-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

While reading an Associated Press article on Yahoo titled, "Doomsday defense cuts loom large for select 12" , a few things come to mind, hardly any of them good.

Is it a coincidence that the six Republicans and six Democrats represent states that have the most to lose by the automatic cuts that would hit defense spending in their states? I guess that's pretty good incentive for them to come to some kind of agreement before the dead line. Myself, I think it's pretty sad that such a large percentage of our population is in the business of making things to kill other people. Yes, this would put a lot of people out of work if we didn't have these businesses, but we should be employing these people in different job fields.

Should it really be our responsibility to police the world? Should we spend more than most the other countries combined for defense? The really sad part is we are not only making these weapons for our wars, but we are making them for all the wars around the world, sometimes supplying arms to both sides of the conflict by one means or the other, so is it for jobs we allow people to be killed? It also goes to figure that it is more profitable for us to have wars around the world than to have peace, is this really right? How can you really be committed to peace when you need wars to keep your people employed?

If we were to put all that talent on solving our country's and the world's problems how much further along could we be as a species? Imagine putting them think tanks and talented people to work on coming up with alternative energy solutions and standards and infrastructure to make it all work? If we weren't policing the world we would use a lot less oil as fuel for all the toys of war, the ships, tanks, planes, hummers, what have you. How would that affect how long the oil we have lasts and the price at the pump? While we plan for war our infrastructure crumbles, our education fails us, we will die from within. We have to use these technologies for saving lives and making the lives we have better, not tear down what already is with bombs and missiles. We need to put these people to work to make life better for the living, not make a living off people dieing.

Egypt and the U.S.

2011-02-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

Just a short post today. I have been watching closely the protests in Egypt and listened to banter back and forth about what this means to the U.S. and the rest of the world. Many in the U.S. seem to have the idea that this is bad for the U.S., it will destabilize the region, the new guys might not be as friendly to the U.S., the new guys might be radical Islamic, this will cause other countries in the area that have the same kind of political set up to revolt against it's leaders, etc., etc.

Here we are/were fighting two large wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with our leaders telling us that this is to promote democracy for those that can't have it. But here now is a large populace of Egyptians that are fighting for a democratic political system, and here we are arguing amongst ourselves if it is better to provide so much as a supportive statement for the Egyptian people, or try to keep the dictator in power some how because he is a U.S. yes man. How stupid are my fellow countrymen that they think they can spread democracy by the end of a gun barrel while destroying and leveling cities. In the dictionary this is the definition of a terrorist. Surely if we back the people we will be in a better position to negotiate with what or who ever the new leadership will be than if we continue to support the old and supply tear gas and rubber bullets to be used against the people. If we want to help spread the ideals of democracy, we must ourselves live by the ideals of democracy. We can't claim to have the best political system and then support dictators to rule over other countries. IF you change to a democracy, THEN we will help out financially, NOT before. If we expect other countries to follow the rule of law, we should be responsible to the rules of laws ourselves. None of this illegal getting fondled at the airport, secret government or secret prisons, no illegal wire, phone, bank, internet tapping, no no torture when there is, breaking international laws and agreements, or any of all the other things we do that don't follow the rules of law, but I digress.

I have a feeling what the real cause of anxiety to Egypt's surrounding countries and even some of the western countries and the U.S., is that something like this could happen in our country. We have many of the same things wrong with our country that Egypt has with it's country. A small percentage of the people controls a large percentage of the money and thus power. The people who are in power aren't doing things that are the best for their country, or it's people, only for the short term gain in their own pockets. The politicians that are supposed to be representing us and working for us are corrupt, working just to try to stay in power or get in power, voting along party lines with no regard to what their constituents want, for their own financial gain, without any compassion for the people caught up or destroyed by their greed. I think this is the real cause of concern of the U.S. and the world.

Problems of Our Government

2011-01-19T00:32:00.000-08:00

One of the problems with government now days is that politicians have too much lea way of the facts. There is too much disinformation out there that overshadows the facts. These people work for us, but they work under their own rules. We as a people should demand that our leaders are held to a certain level of conduct both while in office and campaigning. All politicians should be held to statements of fact and have the references to back up what they say. If they claim that the other party voted a certain way, they should have to be able to prove their claims. There should be no innuendos of misconduct, or unethical motifs if there isn't any facts of it. Everyone makes honest mistakes at times, but when they do there should be a public acknowledgment if and when mistakes are made. If anyone is continually making mis-statements either on purpose or by their lack of knowledge of what's going on they should be fined, if the practice continues they should be replaced. There should be a lot easier way of expelling dishonest, unethical representatives from our employment, instead of slapping them on the hand and allowing them to continue being employed by us. The people should have media and news programs that they can trust as being factual and unbiased. Having honest, truthful information at the fingertips of everyone is essential to an informed public and an informed voter.

These people that supposedly work for us, are fat off our tax dollars. They have all the perks, health care, generous pensions, and the list goes on and on, all at our expense. With the technologies of our time why are we paying for our representatives to travel from their home states to the capital, they could use video conferencing or other such means of communication. Not only would we save the cost of their constant traveling back and forth, but they can have all their supplies, notes, proposals all in one spot in their own state capital building instead of hauling everything back and forth, just think of the savings in airfare, fuel, pollution, wasted travel time, multiple housing accommodations or hotel costs car rentals, cab fees, multiple offices, heating and air conditioning all them places, all could be eliminated, or at least cut a lot. Once the system is in place, it stays there and whoever is in office has it to use. If this would have to be implemented in fazes, it should start with the states farthest from Washington and states that are the poorest.

Every two to four years all salaries and pensions should be adjusted to average privet sector equivalent job rates. Their health care should be at the same level as the rest of us, so either all their care isn't free, and easy to get, and the best money can buy, or ours is. These people are not kings. If we can't afford such perks for ourselves why would we provide them for our employees? Our representatives run around like teenagers at college abusing their first credit cards. It's fun while it lasts, but eventually it will catch up with us. Our government should be run like a business, not running on a deficit constantly, we should be coming out a bit a head so we can invest in the future. We are doing everything for immediate gain and profit instead of having the vision to look ahead to the future. We should be looking out for our best interest as a country instead of looking out for the best interest of big corporations making obscene record profits. Corporations have no business in government, they have their votes and donations of the individuals, just like everyone else, but they should not be free to donate to political parties period.

The process of voting for our representatives is getting to be a real joke. With all the disinformation and lies, it's a circus and no one knows what to believe.

Our representatives public life should be all business and being there and taking part in the task at hand. When they are doing their job in their public capacity politicians should be professional, honest, efficient, and ethical. They shouldn't be spending their time in between elections in a continual campaign mode. On the other hand their private lives unless they are involved in illegal activities should be that, private. If it isn't illegal or if they are not trying to pay for their private lives with their public funds, or if it isn't affecting their public responsibilities, their private lives should be left out of politics. I guess you could argue that maybe their involvement with the KKK or something might affect the way they vote on things, but in a way that is a public display...

Okay, so I don't have all the answers, but the point here is to get others thinking. How can we shake things up, reduce costs, improve our government. If you have any suggestions feel free to post your opinions, I reserve the right to remove offensive posts, but you can disagree with me without profanity.

Yet Another New Beginning: Politics in a changing world

2011-01-13T01:11:00.000-08:00

With the recent shooting in Arizona I have really mixed feelings about everything political. Let's give our prayers to the survivors of the people who got killed and the people injured during this tragic senseless event. I was hoping that maybe this might be a wake up call against the climate of our political events of late. As of today though I realize this is never going to happen. I think our news media, political, and justice systems are really broken in this country. During the last couple of elections the tone of things has just gotten out of hand.

I believe in the 1st amendment and free speech, but there are limits. It has always been against the law to say certain things, for an instance, you can't stand up and yell fire in a crowded theater. I thought there were laws against slander where you can't publicly say untrue things about people, but in our political arena this seems to be common practice. I also thought you couldn't make threats against other people, and I even thought that you couldn't incite a riot or incite violence, but perhaps I'm wrong because you can see this go one everyday, specially in political settings.

Now before anyone starts getting bent out of shape, I don't think that the shooting actually had anything to do with Palin's gun slogan remarks, I'm not going to point the finger at Palin or her other Republican buddies and say that it was their fault this troubled person went postal, but I do think that the other issues the Arizona Congresswoman has had with people smashing her office door and making threats does have to do with the Republican Tea Party getting everyone riled up into a frenzy with prophesies of doom and hate speech. Pretty much all everyone was hoping to get out of Republicans after this horrific event were statements denouncing the strong language used during campaigning and against violence of this kind directed towards innocent people and politicians. This was not a demand for an admission of guilt, it was just a statement that was hoped to come to try to help deescalate some of the hot emotions that have been inflamed more and more the last few of election cycles. Instead we first got some double talk about how posters and things said were misconstrued, then came the cry of we can say anything we want as it is protected by the 1st amendment. I'm sorry, but these weren't just harmless metaphors, these were cries to come to arms and take back their country from people who don't have the same opinions that they do. What's even more disappointing/saddening/stupid is it wasn't that long ago, that these were the same people that were calling for the assassination of the founder of Wikileaks for exposing some mostly embarrassing, but some possibly criminal things that have been going on in our government and other governments around the world. These people have been bending over backwards trying to figure out how to strip any 1st amendment rights from Wikileaks to stop information that should be coming out of our major news organizations if they weren't all on the dole with these people in power, or it would maybe be more correct to say if they didn't have the people in power on their doles.

It's too bad that the tragedy of what's happened, the lives lost and lives damaged are getting lost in the back and forth finger pointing and arguing about who's to blaim.

Politically Speaking: Now What?

2010-11-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

Well the midterm elections are past and the Republicans gained power in the House while the Democrats kept control of the Senate. The big question is what does that mean for us? It was quite a election season with not only the Democrats and the Republicans fighting in the ring, but the Tea Party was there also, with both the Republicans and Tea Party thinking of victory by riding each others coat tails. My feelings are that the Tea Party got owned by the Republicans, time will tell, but it already looks like there is some dissension between the ranks, and it's only been a couple of days since the election.

I tend to lean towards the Democrats, but I am frustrated and disappointed with their spinelessness. There were investigations of wrong doing by President Bush and some of his close associates that showed that he was doing things wrong and he was intentionally doing them even though he knew they were wrong. Why then is it that the subject of prosecuting Bush, and whoever else involved, such a taboo subject even from the Democrat side? To make things worse, now George Bush has a book coming out where he admits once again of his war crimes. Will the insanity never cease?

Bush basically passed his own pardon and pardoned everyone who took part in all the illegal activities before he left office, put people in key parts of the government, while he was in office, that would allow him to get away with doing things that were wrong. Don't forget that both Bush and Cheney got on national television and admitted that they gave the orders and supported water boarding and other torture techniques, had secret prisons, performed secret renditions, and crimes against the American people and the constitution by the unlimited phone and internet monitoring, arresting people in the middle of the night and not charge them of any crime for 5 years if at all, with no rights, and going against the Geneva Convention rules and international laws and agreements. This upsets me with the Democrats. When Obama stood there and said, let's not bother going back and dwelling on the past, but look towards the future in reference to prosecuting Bush I stood in shock... I think there were many others who had the same reaction. In my opinion the people's mandate for election a great majority of Democrats in 2008 was so that something could be done about the rouge, run away government that the Bush Administration turned into, that included bringing to justice the people who blatantly and openly broke the laws of our constitution and how our government is supposed to operate, both at home and abroad.

The other thing that I and I think many other people that supported Obama are disappointed about is the health bill. Not for the fact that it was passed, but how fast the best parts of the bill were negotiated out before it even came to vote, and then that it really never mattered any way because it was pretty much a straight party vote, so there never was any compromise from the other side at all. Many people would have liked to see the single payer option at least seriously considered. Health care should not be run by organizations that their main purpose is not health care, but stockholders profits, that's just wrong. We need to get rid of all the swindling, lieing, profit machines that we call health insurance companies. A lot of money could be saved if the government took care of people with that money instead of a big company not worrying about if they will break even, but make record profits. This was another thing that didn't make me too happy with the Democrats.

The thing with the Democrats in general is that it's hard to try to compete with the bullies on the playground while playing by the rules and bending over backwards trying to appease any of them. Both sides worry more about being elected, getting their side in power, or keeping their side in power, that they don't really seem to care too much about us. In all fairness I guess I have to say the Democrats tried, they came in at the worse time since the great depression and actually did some good, tried to pass some good financial reform, credit card reform, health care reform, it just was a little too slow to help them for the mid elections.

What will we see going forward? I fear not much different than we seen these last couple of years. In the mean time we, meaning us common folk, will suffer while they all have their pissing contests.

What do you think? Agree or disagree, feel free to leave a comment.

Campaign Finances

2010-10-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

It's time we get rid of the party system, there has been too much party and not enough system governing the the country. Each candidate should be running on his or her own platform and not be constricted by their parties as to what they can or can say, can or can't do, they are supposed to be doing the will of their electorates, not their party, not the special interests that are funding their campaigns, our government is broke in it's present form. We need to change campaign financing to fix things in Washington. How can we expect our representatives to vote with the interest of the people at heart when it is special interests that pay to get them elected in the first place? We need to finance elections with money from tax payers, or a pool of some sort. Somehow we need to start with a pool of people to run for the positions in government and then a way to quickly weed out the unwanted or unsupported, then support the runner ups by providing them all with the same amount of airtime, but only by showing their records and/or platforms factually and get away from the smears, lies, and rhetoric. The American people need a way to make informed decisions on electing their representatives without having to worry about getting fleeced by the lies told by the opposition. This could also save a lot of money that is now wasted on elections that could be spent better in other places. This would remove the conflict of interests that come into play now when politicians have to vote on bills that affect the people that paid to get them into office. Because we all know money is not the way to gauge the support or popularity of a candidate when special interests and corporations can spend more than individuals, this is why we have all these bills and laws catering to special interests, companies and the wealthy.

Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

2010-09-13T06:22:00.000-07:00

We are only talking about the top 2-3% of the population losing tax breaks, not being taxed extra. We have gave these same people a break the past 8 years or so, now they scream bloody murder that they are being unfairly taxed. How can that 2-3% of the population scare the other 97-98% that the government is out to take income away from them? How can that big a chunk of the population be so gullible? Where has the tax breaks that the top 2-4% of the population got us? The way they talk it will make the difference of there being jobs or not, where are all the jobs that were being developed during the last 8 years? There wasn't any jobs made in this country in the last 8 years, only over seas by the tax breaks of the wealthy. While the general public has been providing tax breaks for the wealthiest 2-3% they have reciprocated by sending jobs overseas creating record profits for the big corporations while the rest of the country goes broke. If you are in the top 2-3%, vote Republican, otherwise, wtf are you thinking?

Fiscal Responsibility

2010-04-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

Fiscal Responsibility = Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has raised $96.2 million during his tenure, but he has spent $109.6 million. (The Washington Post)

Where Does Dick Cheney Get his Special Powers

2009-08-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

I was reading along through my news emails the other day and I came across an article talking about Dick Cheney criticizing the appointment of a special prosecutor by Eric H. Holder Jr. What caught my eye was a transcript of Cheney stating, "at his request" the CIA release a document showing whether or not the Bush Administration's interrogation methods were responsible for defeating all efforts to attack our country. Later in the article said something else about the CIA memos released at Cheney's urging.

I have one BIG question. Who the hell is granting Dick Cheney the power to advise the CIA about anything? Hey Dick!, I thought you were a vise president, not only that, but didn't your side lose the last election? What gives Dick the power to be still advising the CIA on anything? Releasing documents?...Dick? Weren't you the one in the last administration that was calling most everything in the form of documents, that were requested by oversight committees, protected by executive privilege?

In your defense of torture you say that it worked, it kept all the evil powers from hurting anyone in the US. What doesn't seem to get through the thick Dick head is it doesn't matter if you think what you did worked, it doesn't even mattered if it did work, breaking the law is breaking the law, and torture is breaking the laws of both the United States and of international treaties we have agreed to. I get jumping up and down, pulling my hair out mad as hell that we have a person like Dick on just about every major television network, if not every major television network, admitting publicly, in the light of day, that he is proud of what he done, and that he'd do it again, he'd still be doing it. Even though it is illegal. Why isn't he arrested already?

Maybe Dick does get it. Maybe he knows that on the merits of law and order he is guilty as sin. That is why he holds that the ends justified the means. It worked, this makes it better than the law. He thinks that if he can paint enemy combatants as sub human, others will commit unheard of acts against them out of fear, and he is right, but does that make it right. Didn't this happen before...hmm...perhaps Nazi Germany with the Jews? This is just the thing that happens when a group of people acquire power with no oversight. It was what we got as a result of a closed door meetings with what was said vailed by the phrase executive privilage.

Still, after all this, Cheney crawls out from under his rock, from the death of his political career, and he still has the power to request and urge the CIA to release documents

Let's Applaud Those Who Stand up for What is Right

2009-08-25T22:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Senator Feingold,

I just want to thank you for your stand against not only CIA torture abuses, but your outspokenness that the interrogation probe on CIA abuses, does not go far enough and that "The abuses that were officially sanctioned amounted to torture and those at the very top who authorized, ordered or sought to provide legal cover for them should be held accountable,"

I do not know why there are not more people in Washington who will take a stand against this blight that is contrary to the ideals on which our country was founded.

In the past our great country could take the high road in fighting against the tyranny of rulers from other world countries, but now we need to take the high road to fight the tyranny the Bush Administration.

Other countries knew that they could depend on our high morals and honor and even the solders of countries that we have fought against knew that they could have faith in the humane treatment that they would receive if captured fighting us.

The Bush Administration has given our country a black eye that won't heal in the eyes of the rest of the world if we don't honor our international agreements concerning the treatment of our captured combatants.

Our country was instrumental in bringing to justice people from Germany and Japan for the same types of apostrophes that people in the Bush Administration have encouraged.

I can't believe that Dick Cheney can go out in public in the light of day and try to justify breaking of US and International laws by using the ends justify the means argument.

If nothing is done to correct things done during the Bush Administration, history is going to report that not only did people in the Bush Administration do horrendous wrong, but that the following administration was just as horrendous for not making things right.

Please continue to stand up against the wrongs done in the name of our country until what is wrong is right. You, me, our descendants, and our country will be the better for it. Thank you.

IndictBushNow.org

2009-08-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

Congressional leaders demand:
"High-ranking officials and lawyers …
be held legally accountable."

Help the IndictBushNow movement grow
by making a donation today!

As hundreds of thousands of people at the grassroots are taking action, leading members of Congress are joining in to demand that the coming prosecution for Bush-era crimes include the high officials who authorized the criminal acts.

The disgusting, outrageous and criminal acts were not committed by a few bad apples. It is Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld and others who are guilty, and they must be held accountable.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Tuesday reiterating his calls for a special prosecutor that makes these demands crystal clear. Nadler is chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Committee on the Judiciary.

"There simply is no legal, moral or principled reason to insulate those who authorized the torture of detainees, either through legal reasoning or other policy directive, from investigation," Nadler wrote. "This country has been instrumental in establishing the principle that high-ranking officials and lawyers who use legal reasoning to justify or otherwise authorize war crimes can, and should, be held legally accountable.

"The ban on torture is absolute and we have a legal obligation to investigate torture and all of those who may have been party to its use."

Nadler’s letter is a follow-up to one sent to Eric Holder in April that was signed by other members of the House Judiciary Committee. That letter stated:

"The Geneva Conventions obligate High Contracting Parties such as the United States to investigate and bring before our courts those individuals ‘alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed grave breaches of those Conventions."

There is not a moment to spare in this historic effort to restore the Constitution and to send a message to future officials that no one is above the law. Election to high office can never be seen again as a blank check to torture, to carry out secret assassinations, establish secret prisons, spy on the people and launch unprovoked wars of aggression all in the name of "protecting" the country.

Please make your contribution today so that we can sustain this vital work in the coming weeks and months.

--From all of us at IndictBushNow.org

The United States Energy Outlook

2009-06-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

There has been much talk about getting new alternative energy policies going in the United States, but so far I have not seen an effective solution put into action. Using money earmarked for improving the economy, the government is suppose to give a certain amount of money towards developing alternative fuel sources to oil. I would imagine that this would mean giving amounts of money to solar, wind, fuel cell, electric, hydrogen, and what ever other alternative energy ideas there are out there. I think we are essentially putting the cart before the horse on this plan unless the government takes prudent steps first.

Before we get to talking about the solutions, let's think about why we need alternatives to oil in the first place, just in case you have been living under a rock since the 70s. The world is running out of oil. As things stand now, at this point in time, everything we need, want, produce, and/or use is dependent on foreign oil. Our food industry needs foreign oil to power the tractors to work the land, plant the crops, cultivate and harvest the crops. In order for that food to get to us, the consumer, fuel made from oil is needed for the trucks, trains, and ships. Not only is the oil used to make the fuel to power our cars, but it lubricates almost every moving part in all of them.

When oil was first discovered it was practically bubbling out of the ground in some parts of the country, it was cheap and abundant. It was the stuff that made the industrial age possible. Then a way was figured out how to also use this oil to power the engines to run the machines in the industrial age and life was good. Since then though there are a lot more of us, using even greater amounts of oil to power our cars, oil also makes plastics that have made our way into every aspect of our lives, and everything else from medicines to paints. At one point someone figured out that we only had a limited supply in the United States. It was decided to save much of the oil that was within the US boarders for national security matters so we started getting the majority of the oil we used from other countries. At first we had a good time, many of the places we were getting the oil from were countries that didn't have the tech to use the new found oil so it wasn't worth much to them so we got it cheap.

Now, the places we have left to supply our oil habit are a bunch of countries that don't really like us a whole lot so we pay a lot more for our oil and we face the possibility of someday one or more of these countries will cut us off for differences in opinions, or as a retribution to issues we don't agree on. This makes us nervous, makes the other countries wealthy, and it gives the countries where we drill for oil power over us. What's worse is that even with getting oil from other countries there is only so much oil and it will eventually run out.

Our country is now starting to think about alternative energy, but we really need to stop and think before just throwing money to the wind. We already have numerous alternative plans out there, electric, hydrogen, propane, ethanol, but what we really need is standards and infrastructure. There isn't any alternative that stands a chance if there isn't an infrastructure to support it. If I take my electric, fuel cell, or hydrogen car out on a trip and I get 300 mile out and I need to charge up or refuel and there isn't places where I can do that, or there are only a limited few places I can refuel that I have to search for and I have to plan my route around them, it isn't going to fly. I don't care how environmentally friendly or efficient the alternative is, if people can't travel as we do now with gasoline, it isn't going to go over with the public.

Where does this leave us? We have alternatives to gasoline, but right now, because they are not convenient, and/or their cost is too high, there are not many people who can use any of them. What we need is for smart people who know the facts to sit down and come up with a strategy of how to go ahead. One of the first things they have to figure out would be which alternative energy option would be the best. They have to take into consideration the affect on the environment, costs, leaving room for future technologies, and how abundant the alternative energy source is. I have read of many different ideas, fuel cells, electric, hydrogen, ethanol... What we need though is to have government incentives and support for the winning option. We don't need an approach which is going to put the country's energy needs in the position where it is going to be a battle like VHS vs. Bata, or Blue Ray vs. DVDs. This approach would waste too much time and resources battling for a winning technology where the losers would end up being obsolete and having the cost of having to change over to the winning technology. This is where we need government to step in and say, this is the direction we are going to go, the standard we are going to adopt, and then step in to support the infrastructer for that alternative energy.

I read an article that made sense for supporting the idea of electric cars. Most any of the alternative energy ideas out there can be used to make electricity, if we have the resources to make enough of it, the cost should be low. The problem with electric is with our existing technologies we can only drive so far before needing to recharge the batteries, which is a long process requiring quite a bit of time before you are ready to continue your drive again. I read about an inventor, I think from Iraq, who has what I think is a really great idea. Instead of having to charge up the batteries in your car when your batteries are low, you just swap your battery pack for a charged up battery pack and you are back on your way. This inventor wants to standardize battery packs so that you pull into a charging station and within 10 minutes your low battery pack is swapped out for a charged battery pack. The battery pack is hung in the car the same way missiles are hung on plane wings being able to be swapped easily and quickly. As battery technology improves it can be swapped out over time with the lesser technology batteries, but keep the same standards so that any changes won't interfere or make hardships for the consumer, they would just drive in and get their battery pack swapped out as usual. When battery packs get older and fail they would just be swapped out with new ones at the distrabution centers and not cause the consumer great expence by having to replace all the battery packs in their cars, also it would make recycling of the old batteries easy as everything would be done at the battery distrabution centers after swapping the batteries out instead of having to disasemble the vehicle to take batteries out of here and there all over within the vehicle. We could still support a maze of various alternative energy ideas, but they would be used to make electricity instead of trying to cram the different technologies into the vehicles.

When we were involves in the great world wars, there was a shift in our production plants to support the building of all the planes, tanks, ships, bombs and ammunition. It didn't happen all by acident, the government stepped in and directed everyone to who was making what. The government stepped in and said this is what we need, money was spent retooling factories to make what was needed and it was made. It was an amazing feat that we achived in little time. We need to be weaning ourselves off of oil and into using a form of alternative energy that is clean and non-poluting, we need to strenthen our national security of not having to depend on our energy needs from other countries that don't like us, we need to stop supporting these countries with our oil money. We need to put as much effort into finding alternative energy sources as we put into war.

Indict Bush Now

2009-03-31T20:50:00.000-07:00

The crimes of the Bush administration must be proclaimed, acknowledged and remembered because their disastrous human consequences, dictatorial tendencies, subversion of Constitutional government and violation of the rights and dignity of humanity. They include wars of aggression, the crime against peace and the "Supreme International Crime," war crimes, and crimes against humanity, genocide by military violence "with intent to destroy in whole, or in part, a national... or religious group," authorizing and condoning massive violations of the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and other Amendments, international treaties including the U.N. Charter, Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Convention Against Torture, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Geneva Conventions.

The clear duty of the American people and their elected representatives -- on which the changes in U.S. government policies essential to achieve a peaceful, decent and humane future depend -- is the vigorous pursuit of the indictment of former President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other high officials who have participated in their crimes, followed by rigorous criminal prosecution wherever the evidence, having been fully and fairly presented to a federal grand jury, results in their indictment.

The indictment of George W. Bush and other high officials is the challenge facing 'We, the People.' Will we rise to meet it? This is not a matter of politics or partisanship. It is the defense of the basic tenets of the Constitution.

Sincerely,

Ramsey Clark,
Former U.S. Attorney General

Failure Bonuses

2009-03-15T22:15:00.000-07:00

AIG in the news again. Hundreds of millions of dollars have to be paid out in three payment for bonuses and retention to employees of the company AIG which has received the largest amount of any financial institution from government bailout money paid for by American tax payers. What kind of financial system you have going that you have to pay bonuses to people who ran your company into the dirt. In most companies an employee would get fired for losing a lot less money than these people getting bonuses lost for their companies.

"Liddy said he had "grave concerns" about the impact on the firm's ability to retain talented staff "if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury." Washington Post."

It would seem that in my uneducated opinion that these people can't be all that talented if they drove your company into the ground requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in tax payer's money to bail you out and keep you in business.

From the start I have felt that these institutions should have been allowed to fail and not have been bailed out in the first place. If we would have did that these institutions that have for only one conceivable motive, greed, would have had to down size, be more modest in their profits, and/or fold. Any institution following in their wake would be much more cautious in their approach of bad lending practices and be more fiscally responsible with everyone's money.

At the very least, the companies that are failing this bad need to have most of their upper executives fired and if they do get hired back, hired back at a rates that reflects their value, not reward them for bankrupting the institutions that they work for. If they were all fired the companies would not be under any contractual obligations to pay people for failing so miserably.

I finally agree with a Republican, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa who made the statement:

"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little better toward them [AIG executives] is if they follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, 'I am sorry,' and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide," he said. "And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide." "Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT"

Pretty much sums up my feelings about the subject.

Catching Up

2009-03-11T06:45:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've wrote. There were quite a few things going on since January, many things worthy of writing about. A close friend of mine father died and it seems like I kind of got in a rut after that. My own father died about 13 years ago and I still miss him a lot. We had kind of a rough time during my teenage years and we were just starting to get to where we enjoyed each other's company and respected each other's differences shortly before he died. There is a lesson here for all you that still have your fathers around.

Some of the things Cheney was saying during TV interviews before Obama come into office I was really surprised that Bush didn't pardon him or the rest of his buddies before he left office. Cheney pretty much admitted that he approved the torture of detainees and a lot of the other illegal things that went on while he was in office. Cheney complained publicly that he was pretty upset with Bush not fully pardoning Libby who was involved in disclosing the name of the CIA agent who's husband spoke out against starting the war in Iraq. I was amused when Cheney was in a wheelchair at Obama's inauguration, supposedly from moving boxes. Think about it, here is a guy that was second in command, and arguably maybe first in command, moving his own boxes when he left office. Why do you suppose he was moving his own boxes? Could be that he didn't trust anyone else carrying his boxes because of what was in them? You know that was kind of suspicious when he had a fire in his office too. I never did hear what they figured was the cause of the fire. I bet there is a place somewhere that a lot of papers were burned to keep them from ending up in the wrong hands, and I'm not talking about the hands of would be terrorists.

I also been watching what's been going on with Obama's Administration to see which direction he is going to go and how much he will, or be able to fix from the Bush Administration. While Obama has been doing much to try to fix what was wrong from the Bush Administration, he is still trying to preach that we should be looking forward and not back when it comes to the illegal activities of the Bush Administration. I still feel that this is the wrong decision on Obama's part. We can not go forward without finding what all it is that needs fixing. If we let Bush and his buddies get away with the things they did while in office, future presidents will figure that they have the right to do the very same things as Bush did. At least hope isn't fully dead as many people both in and out of politics are still pushing that we need to investigate what all the Bush Administration done behind closed doors and if there are illegalities charges brought up. We can only hope that Obama will do the right thing in this situation and appoint an independent investigation on this topic. Actually for a lot of this they don't need more investigations because they already have reports from past investigations concluding that Bush took us into war illegally on false information.

There are other things I disagree with the Obama on, but in general I agree on many of the things he's doing. At least Obama is trying a different path instead of the stay the coarse plan that Bush pretty much stuck with. I'm ok with the closing down of the secret prison in Cuba and not sending detainees to countries that do torture. I agree of the process of telling everyone involved that torture is not an option. What did we gain with the Bush Administration's approval of torture? We got some of the worse criminals outside the Bush Administration that we can not try in court because of the torture. I also agree with the gradual getting our troops out of Iraq, a place that we never should have been in the first place.

Maybe this is enough for now to get the creative juices flowing. Don't forget to check back again.

2009-01-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

I'm almost afraid to talk about this subject for another 6 days because it still would be enough time for Bush to blanket pardon a lot of his administration. But it really scares me the way Obama talks about he would rather look to the future instead of spending too much time looking back. There is something just wrong about not looking at the past in regards to the Bush Administration. There are just too many questions that need to be brought out into the open, answered and some form of accountability established. I think it would be a big mistake for Obama not to address the wrongs of the last eight years of the Bush Administration

The Bush Administration has from the start refused to hold itself up to any oversight. It has stonewalled Congress with information in the forms of email and video tape, refusing to let people even testify in House hearings, the Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive Administrations in modern times.

We can't begin to right the wrongs if we don't investigate the past well enough to tell what wrongs have been committed or set in motion. As far as making sure that any crime committed would be taken up, there has been numerous reports from Congress itself stating the many laws broken both within the United States and internationally that have been approved by Bush and Cheney and others in the Bush Administration so that there should be no question that there should be trials taking place.

By not addressing the wrongs that took place during the last administration we can not start to get our reputation back in the rest of the world as a country that stands for our high ideals. Being branded as a country that does torture does not make us friends around the world, it helps dangerous organizations recruit members of people that want to stand up against the U.S.

We will not get our reputation back with the rest of the world if we let these issues slide into the past. The American people deserve better than to have to wait until some UN or world commission holds Bush and his Administration accountable for their crimes. To show the rest of the world that we do stand behind our country's high ideals we can not do anything less than hold the Bush Administration accountable for its wrongs against the American people and people of the world. It is embarrassing to be an American until we restore our laws and our honor with the rest of the world.

Gaza/Cuba: Do Embargos Work?

2008-12-31T00:58:00.000-08:00

This article is about my feelings in regards to Gaza being big in the news because of Israel bombing it in reaction to the constant barrage of small rocket attacks into southern Israel. I claim to be no expert, in fact I do not know too much about Israel and Gaza other than things I have heard in the news and read about on the Internet. I may have my facts wrong, after all I'm not a history professor that has been studying the history of the Middle East or other places, I'm just a guy off the street thinking about the things I see and hear in the news about a place far from home on the other side of the world. If you have different views or other facts or know of my facts being wrong tell me about it, you could change my viewpoint and make me have to revisit the matter in a new blog.

When I first heard about Israel going into Gaza and bombing them I thought, well you can't expect Israel to sit there while rockets keep raining down on them and not retaliate. Then I started paying a bit more attention to what was being said and what was going on over there. Thinking about the embargo against Gaza I thought about Cuba closer to the United States.

I have been reading about Cubans eating patties of red mud because they are starving. I'm not sure if the people of Gaza were starving by that degree, but they are now for sure. The main reason the U.S. doesn't get more crap about Cuba is because of a few miles of ocean between us. Otherwise they would probably be out throwing rocks at us or firing crude rockets towards us. I think that Gaza is kind of like that. They are closed off from the outside world between Israel and Egypt. The amount of anything needed for daily life is restricted at the boarders. Kind of similar to a bunch of rats stuck in the bottom a barrel, they have no life, no food, and no way to get out. As things get disparate they are going to viciously attack anything edible that gets near them or start attacking each other. By firing unguided rockets into Israel factions in Gaza have no intentions or hopes to bring down Israel, they are just trying to spread the misery, bring attention to their plight, and show their discontent with the conditions that Israel is and has been imposing on them.

As in many other conflicts between countries there is a wide disproportional of technology and fire power being used. Israel controls the airways, the water ways around Gaza, firing guided missiles and smart bombs killing hundreds, Gaza is firing unguided missiles and mortar rounds killing dozens. The people of Gaza can not leave to have Israel and Hamas fight things out, they are forced to keep moving around between the two waring groups trying to stay clear of the crossfire. They have no food or water and they are running out of medical supplies. The people have no where to go to escape the crossfire and even the UN has stopped taking in supplies because they are being fired upon. With the whole world in an economic recession everyone seems to be content with destroying homes and businesses and using up valuable resources. There are no solutions for a peaceful end and there is no honor.

Peace on Earth Goodwill Towards Man

2008-12-28T02:36:00.000-08:00

I know the United States is as bad as any of the rest the countries, but during this holiday season when supposedly we are to think of peace and feel love towards our fellow human beings it is too bad that there are so many people in so many countries at war with each other. If I were to pray for anything it would be for the world population to be at peace with each other. It all seems so senseless for us to kill each other.

The very area of the world that first promoted peace and goodwill to the world is one of the areas that is most caught up in the fighting. The U.S. is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia just had a squabble with Georgia and is supplying Iran with missiles and showing support for Cuba, Israel is fighting with the Gaza strip, the British, Pakistan, and India are all either fighting or building up troupes to fight, the pirates in Somalia, almost everyone is involved in one way or another in various wars and confrontations with other countries. What good is it? What is war good for? Who really profits by war other than the small handful of arms suppliers and how much do they promote war between the different countries of the world?

Think of the world's economic problems, the problems with pollution, the dwindling non-renewable resources. Think of all the money that is wasted fighting each other. Think of the grief war causes in loss of life and limb, and the falling of financial markets. Russia bankrupted itself keeping up the cold war with the United States. It is all such a waste. Think of all the money being spent on the machines of war, the amount of oil used in powering these machines.

Now think of all the good that could be done if all this money spent warring was instead spent trying to find solutions to the world's problems. Think about if all the human resources spent on trying to destroy each other and our resources was instead used to improve the lives of people around the world, how much good could be done and how much better prepared we could all be when oil and other renewable and non-renewable resources does run out. We work together in space with people from the same countries that we fight on the ground.

We are all people, all human beings. We might be different colors and speak different languages, but we are all the same. We all have pretty much the same goals. We all want to find someone to love. We all want to raise our families, we want to provide for our families. We want to take pride in what we do to provide for our families. We all morn when we lose loved ones. We all want to be healthy and have our basic necessities met. We want to have a clean, dry, warm places in which to live, we want to be free of diseases and disabilities. When we take up arms and kill people we are killing people who are just like us in more ways than they are different than us. The people who are killed all have mothers, fathers, family and friends that will miss them when they are gone.

We must all try to figure out how to end this madness.

Free Money

2008-12-22T05:53:00.000-08:00

People, it is time to call, write, or Email your representatives in government office. We are getting ripped off big time over this bailout deal. According to an Associated Press article the banks and institutions that have received part of the first half of the $700 billion government bailout package are saying that they don't know what they are doing with the billions they have gotten from American taxpayers. They claim that they are not even tracking that money which is pretty sad and unbelievable. You can read the article from the Associated Press here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081222/ap_on_bi_ge/meltdown_secrets

Here is a copy of the Email I sent to one of my representatives:

Dear Congressman Obey,

I have just read an Associated Press article about the unaccountability the banks and financial institutions have with the almost $350 billion dollars they have received from American taxpayers in the form of a government bailout. Here is a link to the story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081222/ap_on_bi_ge/meltdown_secrets

This is totally unacceptable and I would hope that there are going to be some accounting for the money these institutions already have received before they get a dime more out of the second half of $700 billion earmarked for bailing these businesses out. It's unacceptable and unbelievable that these businesses would receive billions without tracking what they are doing with the money, if this is really the case they are not fiscally responsible enough to receive any more taxpayer money. If they were lending money out you better believe that they would want to know what the intended purpose of that money was and they would keep track of it.

It burns me that Bush had to have the line about the businesses that have their troubled assets bought up in the government bailout scheme have to follow the rules of the bailout bill, but then Mr, Paulson instead bought up stocks in their companies effectively voiding out any oversight or accountability for the money they received from taxpayers. What the heck is that Paulson guy doing anyway? The Bush administration and Paulson basically got what they asked for in the first place, a large amount of money with no restrictions on what was done with it or who it was given to. Something is wrong when the administration asks Congress for that much money to do one thing and then after they get the money they do whatever they want with it anyway, don't you guys feel like you been hoodwinked? I do, even though its what I expected in the first place. You people in the House and Senate better be getting together and demanding information and accountability about the first half of the $700+ billion before you release any of the second half of the money or you all are going to have as high of approval ratings as Bush enjoys, and that wouldn't be good for your future elections. I just find this totally unacceptable.

Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxxxxx

Update:

This is the letter I received back from Congressman Obey:

Dear Mr. Chapek:

Thank you for contacting me to express your concern about how the Treasury Department is implementing the bank rescue program.

I absolutely share your concern. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank is holding a series of hearings, with some already underway, about the implementation of the program. This is going to continue to be a challenge in the coming months and will be one of the many major issues President-elect Obama will face when he takes office in January.

Please be assured I will keep your views in mind if further legislation is brought to the Floor of the House this year and also into the next session of Congress.

Thank you again for taking the time to get in touch.

Sincerely,

David Obey
Your Congressman

Throwing Money to the Wind

2008-12-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

What a mess this country is in. It's not all this country though, it's countries around the world. The economic situation is pretty bad all over. There are many countries where it's worse than it is in the United States. In a lot of other countries people and police are protesting and battling in the streets. Thinking back to hurricane Katrina, it really does not take long for all for lawlessness to break out when society starts to fall apart. We are learning that there are many different ways a society can fall apart too.

In Katrina it was the lack of services because they were knocked out from the storm. No electricity, no power for lights cooking, security, or most importantly refrigerators, because of no refrigeration people ran out of food very quickly. Because of no electricity for refrigeration stores didn't have food either, trucks could not bring in food and supplies because of the flooding. Hunger is a really powerful motivator. If you don't have food, you are going to try to get it one way or another even if you have to steal it and if it gets bad enough, to kill for it. Another drive that overrides all else is survival for your self and loved ones, if you or your love ones need medical supplies you are going to do everything in your power to see that they get the help they need.

Other causes of society breakdown is when the government breaks down. When this happens individuals and small groups start taking things into their own hands, and nothing is off the table when survival is at stake. Money can be another reason for a breakdown of a society, either too much of it, or too little of it, either way it leads to eventually not being able to afford the basic necessities. There are numerous other ways that a society breaks down including racism, difference in moral standards, religion, to much of a gap between the haves and the have nots.

The U.S. government has decided to throw money at the situation. First it was the financial institutions. It was decided that it would take at least $700 billion to set these Wall Street businesses right. I think giving out any money for them was a mistake. I did not agree with bailing them out in the first place and I am even more convinced that my thoughts were correct now that half of the $700 billion has been distributed.

I knew when the Bush Administration first came out with this plan that it was going to be no good. They first wanted the money to dole out with no restrictions, no oversight, and no legal or financial accountability. President Bush just wanted that amount to give to Mr. Paulson from the treasury to hand out to whichever companies or institutions he saw fit to do with whatever he thought would help the economy. Luckily, or maybe not depending on your opinion, Congress got involved and decided that they would need to have some oversight and not just cut Mr. Paulson a blank check. After some hemming and hawing they came up with a bill to give half the money to Mr. Paulson and have some oversight and restrictions on top executive salaries and bonuses. The whole idea of the plan was that Mr. Paulson would use the money to buy troubled mortgages and when the price of real estate recovered the mortgages could be sold for a profit and the money paid back to taxpayers where it was going to come from in the first place. When the bill went to the president he wouldn't agree unless there was one line stating that institutions that had their mortgages bought up would have to abide by the rules in the bill. Funny thing though, after getting Congress's approval for the $350 billion Mr. Paulson decided on his own not to buy up troubled mortgages. Instead he decided to just inject the money into the companies by buying stock in their companies and because of the line Bush made sure was in the bill, it pretty much voided any restrictions or oversight as to how the bailout money would be spent. It wasn't long before Bush and Mr. Paulson were on television pleading with the institutions to use the money given them to loosen up more money for lending, but of course there wasn't much they could do except plea at that point. Now if the economy gets even worse and these companies that we have bailed out go under what will their stock be worth, nada, just what the American people will get back from bailing out these companies. By the time the economy straightens out these companies have a good chance of being liquidated or will change hands and their original owners will be on to the next big thing, or perhaps starting new financial companies and there will be no entity to pay the tax payer back.

Next in the line of people wanting the government to bail them out was the big three auto manufacturers. Executives from the big three flew their private charter jets to Washington to ask for their share only to be mocked for flying their private jets into town. After a stern scolding from Congress the executives were sent home without a deal with the instructions to come back after they show how they would tighten their belts and restructure their companies so they could compete with the non union car manufactures in the United States and foreign car manufacturing companies. After what happened with the bailout money given financial institutions it looked like Congress was maybe getting smarter, but Bush stepped in and after scaring the big three talking about maybe letting them have a controlled bankruptcy decided that he would bail out Detroit with some money from the $700 billion gotten to prop up the financial institutions.

We should have never started giving money away. I believe that we are going to hit bottom anyway the only difference is that we are going to have at least $700 billion less when the dust clears. The free market system is supposed to be that, a free market. The financial institutions at least would have never took such chances if they weren't counting on the government bailing them out if it hit the fan. The auto companies have been fighting all the way of having higher mpg standards and alternative energy autos, the very issues they will have to address if they are to be able to compete with foreign auto manufacturers.

We started down a slippery slope now that we started giving money away. In the past weeks I have heard of many other big businesses jumping up shouting that they too will need government bailout money to keep their workers working and their companies above water too. There are many voices calling out for money because they are all thinking, "Well if they are bailing out them guys I should be able to get something too." How many more companies can we not afford to bail out? I think this is a big mistake, it's like throwing money to the wind.

If the Shoe Fits...

2008-12-19T04:58:00.000-08:00

In many ways I think that it is fitting that Bush end his presidential career ducking shoes. With the words, "This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog." and "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." Muntazer al-Zaidi made history, one news article puts it as, "the shoe heard around the world." It is rumored that Muntazer al Zaidi was severely beaten for throwing his shoes at President Bush. It is hard to say if or how bad he was beat as he has been whisked away to jail and no one has been allowed to see him. The judge went right to his cell to talk with him instead of bringing him before the judge. I am sure that there are many other people besides myself who hope that the Iraqi journalist isn't hurt too bad and that his injuries are taken into account at his sentencing.

Normally, throwing a shoe at a country's leader would be looked at as a pretty disgusting, childish act maybe, but in this case at least it seems justified. George Bush has systematically been trampling our rights and ideals, not only in our country but in others as well, with his boot of oppression, it's only right that he sees the bottom of a shoe now and then. In fact if it were up to me, Bush would need to watch for flying footwear for the rest of his life. If they don't prosecute Bush for crimes against the people of the U.S. or for war crimes, Congress should at least pass a bill prohibiting the prosecution of anyone throwing shoes at the soon to be former president.

I really hope that Bush and his administration gets a lot worse than just shoes thrown at them, I'm hoping they get the book thrown at them too. There is a lot of talk about the possibility that President Bush will probably wait until the last days of his presidency to grant immunity to most all his administration and other key individuals who were directly involved in the illegalities of the Bush Administration. Just lately Dick Cheney admitted during an interview on a national television channel that he and other officials had personally approved torture techniques used on prisoners captured by the U.S. It is a question why would Cheney admit to such a thing unless he was putting that on the table as a way to force Bush to grant him immunity, that sounds plausible to me. We won't have to wait too much longer to find out what is on Bush's mind when it comes to granting immunity, it will be interesting to see what transpires.

If Bush does indeed grant immunity to himself and others in his administration we, as in the U.S., might lose the ability to hold Bush responsible for illegal wiretapping, holding prisoners without charges, lieing to get into war with Iraq among other charges, but he can not grant immunity for himself and others that will protect them when they are out in the rest of the world. This maybe about our only hope of seeing justice done to Bush and his administration. I am afraid that either Bush will grant immunity to his administration, or the incoming administration will let this issue slide not wanting to further hamper bipartisan relations. Even if he gets away with his crimes in the U.S. Bush maybe subject to the laws in other countries in the world.

BS: Bush Stuff

2008-11-30T23:12:00.000-08:00

In less than a month Barack Obama will take office.

Trickle down economics don't work. There is a lot on the minds of many Americans as they wait for this historic event. In the meantime there are lots of things to be anxious about. Bush throughout his administrative reign has proved that he and his cronies are dangerous enemies to our constitution. With less then a month left, Bush can still do a lot of lasting damage to our government. For a lame duck Bush has been working double shifts to come up with everything he can to aid big business and hinder the Democrats coming into power on January 20, 2009. It will be as no surprise that he will come up with some really controversial things to do to us right before he leaves office. He is undoubtedly waiting for the last minute to come out with the worse he can do which will be far worse than we will expect. Just like during his presidency the bad news is coming out daily. It's almost to the point where it would be easier to list what all he hasn't done bad for the country than what he has. His government will be known as by the people for big business.

Trickle down economics don't work. This administration has been so bad that Bush won't be able to have a presidential library because all the information will be classified. Someday in the future at some point when they pull the classification of Bush's records and release them to the public, they will first laugh at us for being so gullible to be caught up in all the bs in the first place and then for how spineless we will be by letting him just walk from all his crimes and deceptions just because he was president. Hopefully after they have all had a big laugh, the information will be used to point out everything that can be wrong about an administration so that people can learn from our mistakes.

Trickle down economics don't work. In the past 8 years most businesses have profited by having a Bush Administration, many have had record profits. For the most part blue collared people haven't seen a balanced increase in their quality of life. If not for the crimes against the Constitution, war crimes, lies to go to war, and breaking all kinds of other laws, at least think. Trickle down economics don't work.

Agencies: Crime and the Damage: Healing

2008-11-18T04:07:00.000-08:00

I have heard good and bad news coming out of Washington the last few days.

Some of the good news is I have heard that Obama was going to go through all the different agencies of our government, and restore them to what they should be in contrast to the way they were left from the Bush Administration. Many agencies, especially anything having to do with oversight, were completely gutted and broken. One of Bush's ways of making oversight agencies useless was to peel back funding over the years so that their staff was reduced to the point that they could not carry out their tasks required of them to do their intended jobs. Another thing the Bush Administration was good at was to put political appointees in oversight of the agencies, even though they had no scientific background, they would control the public release of reports by picking and choosing what information makes it out of them agencies to the public, this way any information that did not support the administration's agendas or ideologies would not be officially supported by agency reports.

It has been in the news more and more that Bush will possibly/probably pardon himself and most the people in his administration before leaving office in January. This would be totally outrageous. There is also talk from the other side of the isle, the Democrats, that they don't want to dwell in the past, but look to the future. So Democrats aren't concerned with bringing up charges or impeaching the Bush Administration. They talk like if Bush does pardon himself and others in his administration it will be an act of healing for our government. This is all horse pucky. The things the Bush Administration is has done should no way be pardoned with the approval of Congress or Democrats as "healing". Bush and members of his administration all took their positions by swearing an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States, they did not do this. There were numerous issues of broken laws, spying on Americans illegally with the help of telecommunication companies, torture of detainees, giving out the name of a CIA operative, destroying evidence, refusals to comply with subpoenas, capturing people off the streets of other countries without their government's permission, holding people indefinitely without charging them, lieing to gain support for the Iraq war that had nothing to do with 9/11, and the list goes on and on... If Congress allows Bush to pardon any of this, it doesn't make them healers, it makes them accessories. Two years ago when many Democrats were voted into office it was because they promised to reign in the lawlessness of the Bush Administration and bring the war in Iraq to an end, we have been lied to. Now they don't want to do their duties to impeach Bush and Cheney for their illegal actions while in office, this is why they have one of the lowest ratings for congress. Again I say they are not healers, they are accessories to the crimes. If the House members do not act to impeach Bush and Cheney they should all be prosecuted as accessories to the crimes of the Bush Administration. And, believe it or not I tend to classify myself as more of a Democrat than a Republican.

Impeachment: It's Still an Issue

2008-11-16T22:08:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I received an Email from an activist group called The Pen. It talked about impeachment and the possibility of Bush pardoning the whole bunch of his click up on the hill including himself. The Email was set up in a form that you could send your comments to your state representatives, your senator and a local paper in your area. I typed in my comments, answered a few questions, included a zip code, and hit send. A couple of days later I received an Email from my U.S. Senator, Herb Kohl, and then I got a call from the paper in Chippewa asking if it was my own words and then tell me it would be included in the letters to the publisher part of the paper within a couple of days. Following is that letter:

Bush and Cheney Should be Impeached

Everyone, not only in our country but around the world, is celebrating the U.S. election of Obama for president, but we shouldn't lose track of why it is that we are so happy to get rid of Bush.

The Bush Administration will be a dark chapter in American history. If we don't impeach Bush and Cheney for their illegal acts while in office I believe that there is a good chance that Bush will pardon everyone involved, including himself, forever closing the chance to ever bring to justice these people who did more harm to America's constitutional rights than all the dictators and communist leaders combined.

It is not the time to bury our heads in the sand and pretend this will never be an issue again, because it will be. If we don't make sure that these people are brought to justice, we guarantee that our rights and freedoms will be assaulted again from the inside, from the very people who take oaths to defend the constitution of the U.S. when they take office.

We've had the elections, so let's stop using the excuse that no one wants to do anything because it will effect the presidential elections. Lack of action on Impeachment and the Iraq war is the reason Congress has such poor ratings. We were promised action when they ran and we elected them, so they need to do their jobs.
===========================================================
Here's the reply I received from Herb Kohl:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me with your
views on the current administration. I appreciate hearing from you
and welcome this opportunity to respond to you.

As a means of checks and balances, the Constitution
permits Congress to remove Executive Branch officials from office
if they are found to have committed "treason, bribery, or other high
crimes and misdemeanors." This critical power allows the
Legislative Branch to protect the nation from the abuse of
executive power.

As you may know, Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-
OH) introduced H.Res. 1258, 35 articles of impeachment relating
to President Bush, on June 10, 2008. Additionally, Rep. Kucinich
previously introduced H.Res. 799, three articles of impeachment
relating to Vice President Cheney, on April 24, 2007. These
resolutions seek to remove the President and Vice President from
office on the grounds that both of them intentionally deceived
Congress and the American public during the events that led to the
March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The U.S. House possesses the sole power of impeachment.
H.Res. 1258 was referred to the House Judiciary Committee on
June 11, 2008, and H.Res. 799 was referred to the same committee
on November 6, 2007. Should the Committee determine that there
are grounds for impeachment, the resolution will be considered by
the full House. A simple majority is required to impeach. In order
for an official to be involuntarily removed from office,
impeachment by the House must be followed by conviction in the
Senate; this requires a two-thirds majority. I will be certain to
keep your thoughts in mind should this matter come before the
Senate.

Again, thank you for contacting me about this very serious
matter. I appreciate having the benefit of your views.

Sincerely,

Herb Kohl
U.S. Senator
===========================================================
The following are my words: The Northern Politic

People, my fellow Americans, I can not stress this enough. If we don't stand up for our rights and freedoms, well then that Constitution is just what Bush called it, "The constitution is just a piece of paper." If we think of it that way, then we don't very much value the live's of the people, who faught for those rights and the ideals for which they stand, and who paid the ultimate price for those rights and ideals that are spelled out on, "just a piece of paper."

Racism Rears it's Ugly Head in America

2008-11-16T03:56:00.000-08:00

November 4th made us feel good as a nation, we elected our first black American as president. This was a time that we were able to reflect on 50 years worth of improved relations between whites and other races in the "Mixing Pot" of America. Now approximately two weeks after the presidential election it seems like many people are showing their dark side and it is not pretty or something to be proud of. It also goes to show just how far we as a nation have to go yet to separate ourselves from our racist past.

Since the presidential elections in America there has been a rash of racial hate crimes across America. Black dummies hanging from trees, graffiti sprawled across communities, websites that people are betting on Obama's assassination dates, property damage for people who show their support for Obama, and other senseless destructive acts across America. What is it that drives people to racism acts of hate because another person's skin is a different color than their own? I would assume that most of these acts are carried out by people who didn't vote for Obama in the elections. It would maybe be another safe assumption that these people haven't spent much time listening to anything Obama has been saying all through the campaign process. I don't think I have only been looking at things through a biased point of view, but I really didn't hear anything from Obama either before or after the election that would indicate that Obama's agenda is going to be lopsided in favor of blacks or other minorities once he takes office.

I have to admit that I am somewhat taken back at the amount of racist acts that have been going on since the elections. I am even more taken back by the apparent lack of discontent by people directed at the last president George Bush. I mean the present administration has trampled the constitution with it's wire tapping practices and spying against American citizens, lied to the American people and congress to start a war in Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11, trampled human rights and international laws torturing prisoners, endangered CIA operatives and ruined their careers because they expressed views that differed from the administration's, extradited people off streets not only in America, but other foreign sovereign countries without the country's knowledge, held people for undetermined amounts of time with out charges against them or due process, fired prosecutors over their political affiliations, only hired people of certain political affiliations to fill key positions in government, have blatantly flouted breaking laws to further their public and secret agendas, acted under more secretive circumstances than any other administration in American history, obstructed justice by destroying evidence needed by oversight and legal investigations, pardoned criminal buddies, and the list goes on and on. With all these things that we know are true of the past administration, some people are being much more critical of a black man that hasn't even had the chance to show, by his acts or record, of how he's going to run the country. I mean, come on, compared to the record of the past administration is it too much to ask to overlook the color of one's skin, to look at things objectively, and at least give him a chance to see how he's going to run the country?

If these people who are doing these things were really patriotic Americans they would be doing things to help our country move along into the future not dredge up and revive bigotries from the past.

T. A. R. P. = Covering Over Taxpayer's Eyes

2008-11-15T05:05:00.001-08:00

Troubled Assets Relief Program (T. A. R. P.) should stand for tarp, a covering over the taxpayer's eyes so they don't see that this is just a wealth distribution scheme for big business. This whole thing is such a mess, first the administration asked for $700 billion dollars for a bailout program and said that they would create accountability by buying up bad mortgage assets to hold until such a time that the mortgages would increase in value and be able to be sold to pay back taxpayers who are ultimately paying the bill to bail out Wall Street.

Earlier this week Mr. Paulson from the Treasury said he decided that that was a poor plan to buy bad mortgage debt and instead told us, that after getting this money, he decided to just buy stock in the failing companies to faster inject cash into the failing institutions. The problem with that is instead of having some land or property that would eventually be worth something again when the market recovers, Mr. Paulson has basically a handful of worthless pieces of paper bought from failing institutions that have a good chance of filing bankruptcy in the future leaving the taxpayer with worthless paper in exchange for $700 billion dollars. The other problem with just buying worthless stocks is that Mr. Paulson, the President, or the Congress has no way of restricting what these institutions do with the money that they are given.

It was never the Administration's intention to hold these institutions accountable for the money in the first place. If you look at what President Bush and Mr. Paulson originally asked for it was for $700 billion dollars to spend in which ever way they see fit, to anyone they see fit, for whatever way the institutions that receive the money see fit. Are the American taxpayers the only ones that saw this for what it really was, a wealth distribution program where every man woman and child would give $2300 to the fat cats on Wall Street who are making millions and getting big bonuses even though they ran their companies into the dirt with their greed. And what happened?

The institutions that received the bailout money, that the Bush Administration's "intention" was to free up money tied up in bad mortgage deals to lend out to people, to get the economy moving again, decided that they still don't want to free up money for lending. President Bush was on national TV pleading with the financial institutions to fee up that money, but without the teeth of regulation and oversight there is not much chance of the institutions using the money for much more than to shore up their accounts, buy other failed banks, and/or give their management people and stockholders something. We've already seen how they been spending money knowing that they are getting bailed out by the taxpayers, there were big parties, million dollars a month for people on retainer, and holiday bonuses of up to $230,000 for administration making close to $400,000 base salary. So for those paying attention it is Fat Cats - $350 Billion, taxpayers nada.

Now that the 2nd bailout plan didn't work, Mr. Paulson has a new, new plan on another way to use the 2nd half of the $700 Billion bailout money to bail out these financial institutions. Again I don't see much for regulations or ways to insure accountability. This latest play doesn't directly help mortgage holders that are either already in foreclosure or will be shortly. That's the one thing I don't really understand. One one hand I can't see giving money to people who obviously knew they were trying to buy properties they couldn't afford. On the other hand, there are a lot of banks and mortgage companies that took advantage of the housing bubble to convince people to take out money against their mortgages because the value of their homes had went up so much. Many of these people didn't fully understand what the banks were getting them in to and they took their lending institution at their word that they were sitting in a good spot to take on more debt. To a certain extent, if the government would just take over them loans that are on amounts higher than what the property is worth, reorganize the mortgages so that the people could have payments that they could afford, then the mortgages wouldn't be bad debt and shouldn't strain the financial institutions of Wall Street.

Now the major domestic car manufacturers want to be bailed out too, they are claiming that they will be forced into bankruptcy if they are not. Originally Obama and the Democratic Congress wanted the Bush administration to help bail them out too, but the Bush Administration didn't want to include the auto makers. Now the Bush Administration says that they would be willing to support bailing out car manufacturers long as there are no strings holding car makers to use the money to make more energy efficient cars to make the auto makers more competitive with other car makers. Again the Republicans don't want to place any restrictions on car makers on how they use that money. What is the sense if that? If we are going to bail them out shouldn't we retain the right to say how we want this money used?

President Bush recently made a speech claiming that the fault is not fault the free market system. This is one of the first things I agree with that Bush has said in a long time. The free market would be a working system without trying to bail out industries. It's not like these financial institutions didn't know what was happening, they just were hedging their bets that the government would bail them out. The auto makers and Republicans have been fighting any effort to make strides to increase mileage per gallon or make alternative fueled vehicles, two things that have caused the big three auto makers to lose ground to foreign car makers. The Bush Administration has already wasted $350 billion dollars that has no regulations on how it's spent for these failing industries to take and cut and run when that runs out. These industries should have just failed in the first place, they are going to any way, the only difference is this way taxpayers are going to be out $700 billion dollars first.

All in all this is a hell of a Christmas bonus for big business from the lame duck Bush Administration at taxpayers expense.

We Continue to Get Fooled Again

2008-11-13T03:24:00.000-08:00

Unlike The Who song in the 70s, that states, "we won't get fooled again", it is instead, "we continue to get fooled again".

Remember that $700 billion bail out package for Wall Street financial companies that was supposed to free up money from bad debts for lending to get the economy back rolling? With most of the first half of that money gone or spoken for, it didn't work. A week ago a lame duck president got up on national television and pleaded with financial institutions not to hold on to that money to shore up their financial situation, or buy other failing institutions, but to use it for lending like it was intended. It looks like the original plan which was to buy up "bad" mortgages and eventually sell them at a later date paying back taxpayers when the housing market was higher wasn't really considered too hard to start with. Instead of buying failed mortgages, setting some kind of stipulations on how the money was spent or used to insure that the taxpayer could be paid off, the administration decided that we would just buy up the worthless pieces of paper called stocks from companies that no one else would ever in their right mind buy, because the companies are failing in the first place. It looks like Bush get's his money for his big business buddies one way or another. Now that almost half the money is gone, and they can't get banks to loosen up money for lending, the government is thinking about maybe starting to give the second half of the money to directly help homeowners, let's hope that they come up with a few better rules for regulating that half of bailout money.

Talk about redistribution of wealth? How are the bailed out or soon to be bailed out institutions reacting to the economy downturn? They are paying bonuses in the area of $230,000 to employees making base salaries of $400,000. Makes perfect sense to me. After your upper management loses all your money resulting that your company needs to be bailed out by the taxpayers, your management people need hundreds of thousands of dollars of bonuses to know they are appreciated. What?!! Yes during house hearings I heard that these institutions were paying up to a million dollars a month to people who weren't even working at the company anymore, but who were held on on retainer because the companies were afraid that these people would spill their trade secrets with their competitors. Trade secrets??? Mr. Big Business, you are broke, what is it about your company procedures would anyone want or value? Gee what would these trade secrets be? Something like, "How to Bankrupt Your Company and Get Bailed Out by the Government"? Or maybe, "Screw Your Company and Get a Million a Month for Not Working". And while those guys who make 400 thousand dollars a year and bonuses of 230 thousand dollars are getting paid by the American taxpayer if, God forbid, that taxpayer gets a 1 thousand dollar tax break, it is an evil wealth redistribution plot that will bankrupt the top 1-2% of Americans. While you are thinking about that, think about just how much that health plan or education, or disability is such a drain on society compared to them guys pulling in $600,000 dollars plus a year at your expense.

This is not even touching on all the taxpayer money going towards the war in Iraq or money going to other governments that are fighting wars for us. What about all the money going to the company Dick Cheney has ties to that supplies the instruments of destruction to support the wars around the globe. I bet that is another company that isn't feeling the pinch of the bad economy, the only company other than big oil. It isn't chance that in the movies Batman and Spiderman that more than one multimillionaire's fortune was built up using money from the arms industry, kind of like art reflects reality.

I have a bit of news for them politicians. The market is failing and stalled because the common man, the one that's not in the top 2% of income earners, doesn't have any money to spend on things that aren't absolutely necessary. Hell most of them don't have the money to spend on the things that are necessary. That what happens when you cater to the top 1-2% of the people who make the most, they divvy things up to make the most out of everyone else until everyone else don't have the money to keep the economy going.

These things should make you mad as hell. They should make you want to hold people, corporations, and administrations accountable for the mistakes that make and especially when they do things that either are illegal or should be illegal. The Bush/Cheney administration needs to be held accountable for their deeds while in office, they surely didn't protect the constitution that they swore to protect. They started wars where we had no business, screwed up the economy for their buddies gain, went against Geneva conventions and international law. The first step to fixing things is to find and admit where things went wrong to get to this time in space that we are in, and take steps that these things do not ever have the chance to happen again. Impeach Bush/Cheney. Then prosecute them.

Bailing Out Automobile Manufacturers

2008-11-09T05:10:00.000-08:00

Well we have been helping all other big businesses and industries, so now the automobile manufacturers want to get in the act too. I mean after all we have been giving the oil industry tax breaks and making it possible for them to record record profits for two quarters in a row even though the rest the country is in financial chaos. We are rewarding the banking and financial industry hundreds of billions for their ungodly salaries, greed and waste. It's only fair for the government (the American tax payers) to turn around and bail out the automobile manufacturers. These are companies who have resisted all the mpg mandates that the government tried to impose on them to make their cars better for the environment and more completable with foreign imports. They have been pushing bigger and bigger SUVs and even most their other car models are getting on average less mpg than they did 10 years ago. The people in the rest of the world have been shaking their heads at us Americans in disgust as we zip around in our gas guzzling SUVs Why has the auto industry push these dinosaurs of responsible automotive design? They make the highest profit margin on the SUVs and they can get around some of the environmental and safety requirements, so in other words greed. So now because the auto industry also hire a large number of people that are making ungodly amounts of money, we are supposed to bail them out for their refusal to make autos that can compete with cars designed overseas.

There are reasons that bailing out the auto industry is as stupid as the breaks we have been giving the oil and banking industries. As mentioned above, The government has been trying to push regulations for higher mpg, which would have made the American companies more competitive against foreign companies and would have forced companies to make more smaller and mid sized autos instead of huge SUVs that according to advertisements they push as something people just got to have. Many of the American automotive companies are tied in with foreign companies to make cars in Europe that would fit the bill for suddenly economy minded American consumers, Some of the foreign manufacturers make cars in the U.S. to sell in the U.S. aren't these basically cars made in America? The automotive manufacturer's will have no better use of the money than the banking industry. The president was just on the TV pleading with the banking industry to not sit on, or invest in acquiring other defunct banks with the money that was given them from the government to free up money for lending, the auto industry will probably not put that money into retooling like it would be meant to used, instead they will probably use it to pump up their worth and pay their shareholders and executives as they wait out the crunch while waiting for a better time to again push SUVs back at the American public.

The biggest fear by oil companies both abroad and at home is that the American public start conserving oil enough it will drive the prices way down. We have already made Saudi government nervous because we have been conservative and it has drove down prices. One of the best things we could do for our country is wean ourselves from foreign oil. If American car manufacturers made smaller cars with better mpg it would tend to drive the cost of oil down even more reducing our dependence on oil from parts of the countries that aren't necessarily friends of ours. In a way if we bail out the auto manufacturers, we are enabling them to make bigger cars that drive more of our energy dollars overseas.

Most of all if we are to have unregulated capitalism we have to allow the market fall on big industries and institutions that continue to do stupid things for greed, if the banking institutions weren't thinking the government would bail them out they would have never took such chances or paid their administration people so well. It's the same way with the auto industry, if they wouldn't have got lost in their greed of high markup SUVs they would have been concentrating on building competitive energy efficient vehicles. They would still be hit by the economic situation that our country is in, but they wouldn't have set themselves up for the loss of business to car manufacturers who have already retooled to make energy efficient vehicles long ago.

Obama Wins Election

2008-11-07T03:56:00.000-08:00

It's been three days since Barack Obama won the presidential election in the U.S.A. I think it's great that the people in United States has come so far as to elect a black man for president. For a country that has been labeled as a mixing pot it has taken a while for this to happen, I for one am not intimidated by the fact that our new president isn't a white man. I think it's about time. Our country has been built by immigrants and people of all colors it's about time that our highest office in the land reflects this. In the past I think we as a people have been pretty hypocritical as we are all immigrants in this land that was taken from the true owners, the American Indian. We have been often called the land of the free, but we have a sorted past for dealing with people who are not white. The American Indian was pushed across their land and eventually put on reservations. Many Chinese helped build the first railroads connecting the west to the east coasts, but they get a small paragraph in history for their accomplishments, the Japanese were rounded up during WWII and placed in concentration camps because powerful white men in power didn't trust them. As recent as after the 9/11 bombings Arabs have been subject to heightened scrutiny and harassment, maybe now we can, as a country, get past the color of a person's skin. To be a really great country we must provide opportunities for all people not just for people of a certain race. I think Barack Obama will be a person that can understand how to deal with these issues without trying to go overboard to correct past injustices or cater to tip the balances in favor of just blacks. Our country has many problems and issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible I hope and pray that he is up to the task, I believe he is. Congratulations Barack Obama.

Hope and Broken Promises

2008-10-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

It's less than a 10 days until the final presidential elections in the U.S. At this point it looks like Obama is favored to win, but as was the case in 2000 and 2004, we know that it's not over until the fat lady sings. It will be interesting to see if the Republicans will continue to steal the election like they had in 2000 and 2004 they are surely going to try, after being successful the last two elections it is hard to believe that it will be a clean election this year, but we can hope.

America deserves better than what it has been getting for leadership the last eight years. The last eight years have been filled with scandals and illegalities of and from the Bush administration. First the Republicans steal the elections and put and keep in office a puppet that has been one of the worse in history for America, and then he has continued to commit crimes against the American people and the world community, so far with impunity of being held accountable. History will record this time as one of the darkest times in American politics for Americans and the view held of Americans around the world. We have lost our reputation we have had in the world as champions of what's right and fair and the defender of the down trodden. In a way I'm glad that I haven't been fortunate enough to travel the world, because I'm embarrassed of what it has become to be an American. We have a nasty reputation with the rest of the world and frankly we deserve it. No matter who wins the bid for the White House it is our duty to demand from them actions that will improve our image in the world and address the failures of the past.

For people who know me, it is no surprise that I don't hold any hope that a Republican will be one to fix what's wrong with America, what might surprise them is I also don't hold much hope that a Democrat will either. It's fine and dandy to claim that it's the American people who are accountable for the failure of the government to be fair and honest and address the problems of our country and our image in the world, but it would be a false claim. These last few years I think the American public has called for the right things to be done in government but short of starting a revolution their pleads have been falling on deaf ears of the occupants of both major parties. Two years ago the public voted mostly for Democrats who promised to end the war in Iraq and hold the administration accountable for it's crimes, it didn't happen.

I don't share the belief of Republicans that we can blame all the problems that have came to a head these last couple of years on the Democratic majority in Congress. For one thing, the biggest, the Democrats have held the majority, but they didn't hold a 2/3rds majority that it would have taken to push bills to address the burning issues through the House and Senate to overturn the president's veto. I do believe, as I think many other people do, that the Democrats caved in too easily to the demands of the president and his Republican party. Democrats for the most part are afraid to hold there ground over fears that they will lose the support of the American people and they will get voted out of office. I'm not sure what could be more a sign of support as they got from the last election where Americans voted almost entirely to put Democratic leaders in any open spot they could to represent them. The Democrats promised to hold the administration accountable for it's illegal activities and get us out of an expensive illegal war in Iraq that was approved for under false pretenses. Once in office though the Democrats developed the jitters to do anything decisive fearing their re-elections. Time and time again they would make a stand only to cave in later to the demands of the administration and Republicans, the Democrats had no balls.

Although I may be disheartened by the Democrats, I totally disagree with the Republican's agenda and views on how the government should be run. How many times in history do we have to have proven to us that trickle down economics does not work? Those who don't learn from the mistakes in history are destined to repeat them same mistakes, again, and again, and again. I think that trickle down economics was ever really intended to work for the common people, it's more of an instrument for the greed of the rich to get richer. Lets face it, our country has always been lead by a small handful of the super rich and famous, and they don't make a point of giving away power or money. Sure, if you know anyone who has a lot of money, I mean a really lot of money, they will say that they give to charity, and/or that they support various groups to help the unfortunate, but would they pay their workers a fair wage so that they are not the unfortunate ones? No. When they defend their wages and profits it's supporting their families, but when a common person uses the same argument for needing more money, the well to do claim it's not their problem that their workers have large families to support. To the elite, the common man is still looked down upon as breeding stock to replenish their workforce, a commodity to be managed to keep us high enough in numbers to ensure a cheap workforce without being too high in numbers so as to risk an revolt and a risk of the toppling of their empires.

This election we have two of the major parties claiming to represent change, will either one of the follow through on it? I really doubt it, not the way or intensity they hope or we need anyway.

The Great American Rip Off

2008-10-08T02:39:00.000-07:00

By now, even if you live in a hole, you should have heard about and are hearing about United States' and the world's financial crisis. Within the last couple of weeks our President has got on the boob tube and pleaded with Congress and the American people for a $700 billion bailout for the fat cats of Wall Street. This had to be done as soon as possible meaning days, not weeks, giving no time to have hearings or research what the problem was, what caused it, or what would be the best way to go about trying to fix the economy.

Within days of Congress agreeing to spend $850 billion on the financial rescue (bailout), there has been hearings with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform where we are learning that high executives and CEOs of Wall Street financial companies have left these companies with hundreds of millions of dollars that were paid to them, some of these fat cats were paid such amounts as a million of dollars per month having them on retainers. On top of the already tens of millions they were already getting, they took home millions of dollars in bonus or a form of severance, or retirement packages. Then as some at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard yesterday and the day before, even as taxpayers were bailing these companies out, some such as AIG were holding week long events at posh hotels that charged up to $100,000.00 a night for rooms, spending $440,000.00 for these events.

I'm sure that the American tax payers are just happy that their representitives voted to bailout these Wall Street companies at the cost of over $2300 for every man woman and child to save companies that paid their officers hundreds of billions in salaries and bonuses as they left their jobs before pleading to the American people to bail them out. There are many families that live on under $20,000 a year, it is just wrong that some of these guys were making a million a month, no one is worth that much.

Bailing Out Wall Street

2008-09-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

It's the politicians that just don't get it, or maybe they did but they decided to milk any available money they could from the populace any way. Let's look at it in a different way.

Say I buy a car from a dealer, the dealer wants to make big money off me so the price has been jacked up to the point where it is really over-valued. I drive it off the lot and it's price devalues a couple of thousand dollars, but that's not all. It turns out that the car is a real lemon requiring lots of money to be constantly stuck into it to keep it running, it gets to the point where I can not afford to keep the car because it has ate up all my money keeping it running, and if I sell it I will have to take a big loss because I can not recoup what I have stuck into it. Eventually I lose my job cause my car is not dependable and I'm late too often.

But it's not just my car with these problems, it's everyone's that has bought this particular make and model. Eventually word gets out and everyone quits buying this particular make and model. The dealer, having bought this make and model in huge numbers, even though he knew of the car's short comings, because he figured that he could make the most money from selling such high priced cars, is now stuck with a lot full of them and they are not selling. The dealer now is losing money and decides to file for bankruptcy. The government now steps in and says, "Oh this is bad, this dealer is really going to lose money and probably will have to go out of business. He will have to lay off mechanics, sales people, other people working in the office all of which have benefited from the high price of the car and the high commissions. This is going to have an effect on everyone, the people at the car washes, the people selling gas, people who sell tires and service, not to mention all the people who get money from the dealer and his employees like when they go to the bar, grocery store, buys a house, etc. We have to do something to protect the dealer's interests because it will affect all these other people and wreck the economy."

So the government comes up with the idea of collecting money from all the broke people who have been taken by the dealer's bad cars and they give that money to the dealer so that he can stay in business selling over priced crappy cars to other unsuspecting customers. At the same time the government, even though they know the car is over-valued and crappy, doesn't do anything for me, the person who is stuck with an expensive car that is not worth anything. This does nothing to make my car not a lemon, it doesn't get my job back, and it doesn't get my money back from all the repairs etc.

The dealer has a big fancy home, vacation home, mobile home, boats, ATVs, cars, SUVs, eats out a lot, gets paid vacations, and bonuses. I am stuck, broke from making repairs, no job, no 401s, and no running car........

Ok, it's maybe not quite the same thing, but in many ways it is. Wall Street has got itself in a bind. It's not because they didn't know it was coming, it was because everyone thought they could make their ungodly profits and get back out before the shit hit the fan. The financial people in Wall Street knew this, the president of the United States knew this, but everyone thought they'd be long gone before the ship went down, or maybe they figured that the government would not allow them to fail and bail them out. The president thought that he'd be out of office before the pumped up markets fail and he would leaving this mess on the next president (most likely a Democrat) and then the Republicans could use it against them in the next election. The failing market happened a bit too early, so now the Bush Administration comes up with this plan to give the very people who took advantage of deregulation to gouge the American public 700 billion dollars, from the very people that were taken advantage of, so that they can stay in business as usual.

This 700 dollar bailout does nothing to cure the problem at hand. All it will do is bring the market back up temporarily to give share holders a chance to get their money back and jump ship. After the share holders jump ship the country will be back to this same spot it is in now, except that the tax payers will be 700 dollars poorer. I believe that we need to demand from our leaders to let the market adjust itself back to responsible financial policies and reinstate regulations to keep this from happening again.

Got Lipstick?

2008-09-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

What a sad state of our times when we reduce the presidential elections from platforms from which to preach solutions to our country's biggest problems, to the point of arguing about lipstick on a pig. I kind of doubt that my life will change much either way whether that pig, or pit bull, has lipstick or not.

I think that there are many more, more important issues than lipstick on a pig. Maybe the legalities of fighting a war in Iraq, illegal wiretapping, with holding and destroying evidence before they can be subpoenaed, picking people off the street in foreign countries without that country's knowledge or permission, keeping prisoners in foreign prisons, and we still don't know about the illegal firings of prosecutors or the big one, torture of prisoners in the war against terrorism. These are past failures of the present administration that no one wants to tackle.

Instead of lipstick on a pit bull or lipstick on a pig, why don't the candidates tell us about how they are going to tackle the problems we face in our government and the problems that are affecting the American people? I could give a rat's as* about lipstick on any kind of animal, doesn't strike my fancy, but apparently it's high on the Democrat and Republican list of important things that the American people need to know. How about letting me know how I'm going to afford to heat my house, or put gas in my car, how are they going to improve our infrastructure, how will we move into the future as a provider of high paying technology jobs in our own country instead of providing low paying jobs for people in third world countries? Apparently none of these things are very high on either candidates list as being important to the American people.

I would think that the first candidate that comes up with a workable budget plan for our country, the first candidate that speaks truth and shows out unfounded lies, the first candidate that promises to run the government openly in front of everyone for all to criticize and debate, that candidate should be our clear choice for president, not the candidate who tells the biggest or the most lies.

The Push for Oil

2008-07-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Northwoods Politic

President Bush today has lifted the executive ban on offshore oil drilling. He's been pushing Congress to allow for the drilling of offshore oil deposits on the U.S. continental slopes. There are both executive and Congressional ban on drilling offshore, but he's hoping that by lifting the executive ban he can push Congress into lifting theirs.

There are two parties that both have fundamental differences in opinion on how this will affect energy prices. One party says this will bring the high cost of fuel prices down. The other side says this is mostly hype and it is just a matter of the first party taking advantage of people's fears that we need to do anything and everything to bring these prices down, because they just can't afford to pay these prices for fuel. What the true facts are is hard to tell. If you read about the companies that make these big drilling platforms needed to extract the oil from our continental slopes, they state that they are already backlogged 5 years on orders for other countries so it would be 5 years before they would even be able to start building the oil platforms to use in the U.S. On top of that, some say that the oil companies hold leases on all kinds of land with viable oil reserves that they are not drilling already.

Again as always, this is an issue that runs along Republican and Democratic party lines, with mostly Republicans wanting the drilling and Democrats not wanting drilling. This is one of the biggest problems in our government. We can't seem to have all these people sit down, look at the facts, and come up with what they think is good or not good. After deciding what their stance is, they should go back to their districts and try to persuade their constituents to what they think is right, but their main job after that is to take what views their constituents decide back to Washington and reflect that in their vote on the issue before Congress. Instead the top person, in this case the president, decides what he wants and all the rest of the people in their party fall in line behind him, they say this is what they want too, and they vote on the issue in Congress to reflect their party's will. Most of these people that we are talking about are addressed as Representatives, the reason they are addressed by that title is that they are supposed to represent the people from their districts. The way this has been working is a major flaw in the way our government is supposed to work.

Clean Air Interstate Rule of 2005

2008-07-14T05:19:00.000-07:00

The Northwoods Politic

Today's news speaks of a decision of a federal appeals court that effectively cancels any air pollution regulations the Bush Administration implemented to cut down the levels of greenhouse gases, by stating that the EPA overstepped it's bounds when it established the Clean Air Interstate Rule of 2005.

Shortly after that, the same day, the E.P.A. Administrator, Stephen Johnson, announced that he wasn't obligated to regulate greenhouse gases saying that it would be an unprecedented expansion of the agency's authority.

Between these two actions, any new reductions of air pollutants during the Bush Administration has been canceled out. This basically is what the administration's, Transportation's, Agriculture's and the Commerce Department's want. Their position all along is that they didn't want to place air pollution controls on these industries anyway.

I think this is no accident, the Bush Administration's has all along used legal points to battle and effectively stonewall any attempts of getting any information needed by oversight committees to do their investigations. Do you think it's possible that the Bush Administration could have accidentally overlooked how their controls set up to reduce greenhouse gases could be deterred by the courts? I think it was planned all along.

Bush and his administration has played this country like a chess game, as the country's attention has been drawn from one contested issue to another in other unrelated areas, attention is always being shifted so as to never give enough time for people or agencies to act on or follow through with oversight or arguments against the earlier issues. In this way he has used his time in office to promote republicans,, that he can count on to go along with him, into just about all areas of government. Republicans have infiltrated all areas of the government and they use that power to promote their agendas not the people's. How many times have Bush and Cheney stated that public opinion isn't important to policy, what's important is that we stay the coarse on their agendas because they know what we need, even if it's not what we want.

Iraqi Government Does What U.S. Government Can't

2008-07-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

The Northwoods Politic

I get most of my news from the Associated Press and The New York Times. Today I noticed that the Iraqi Government appears to be doing something that our Congress can't seem to do. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is standing up to President Bush in regards to the Iraqi/U.S. agreement that Washington was trying to get approved by July 31st.

According to what I've read, the UN agreement for troops being in Iraq ends at the end of December, but the Bush Administration has been pushing Iraq for an agreement to allow U.S. troops to stay in Iraq before the end of July. The reason for this is obvious, Bush wants to get a concrete agreement with Iraq before he leaves office at the end of the year. According to the Bush Administration, they claim that they don't need Congress approval even if they decide to have full status of forces agreement with Iraq. The administration has been pretty mum about what the points of the U.S./Iraq agreement not wanting to have a bunch of resistance from Congress until after the agreement is signed.

Most of what we hear about the proposed agreement is coming from the Iraqi side, our government won't inform us of what they want with Iraq for stipulations. Some of the points that the Iraqi government has taken offense to are:

1.) The U.S. authority to carry out military operations within Iraq.
2.) The ability to arrest Iraqi citizens without Iraqi government's permission.
3.) Getting legal immunity for private security contractors.
4.) Control of Iraqi air space.
5.) Setting a time table for U.S. troop withdrawals.

It sounds like Washington might have dropped the immunity stipulation in regards to the private contractors, but nothing is set in stone yet. Washington has been pretty secretive about what it wants compared to what the Iraqis want. The Iraqis want control of their airspace and basically want the U.S. out of Iraq as soon as possible it sounds like. Even with Iraq talking about wanting withdrawal timetables, U.S. Ambassador Crocker has said, "We are looking at conditions not calendars, and both sides are in agreement on this point. So it doesn't appear like anyone in the U.S. is listening to what Iraqi leaders are wanting. I guess that they are just supposed to trust our government not to infringe on Iraqi rights just like we are supposed to trust our government to follow our constitution. Washington continues to say withdrawals would only be linked to conditions on the ground.

In the last couple days Iraq leaders have made headlines in their standing up to Washington against their perceived danger of turning into indentured servants of the United States. Some of the headlines are:

1.) Iraqi Raises the Idea of Timetable for U.S. Withdrawals
2.) Iraq Demands Pullout Timetable in U.S. Defense Pack Talks
3.) Iraq Insists on Withdrawal Timetable

The United States might bring the Iraqis factions together after all, but it will probably be done by pissing them off about us so much that they will unite against us.

While Iraq and the United States are trying to make some sense out of what to do with the agreement, Israel, the United States, and Iran are having a pissing contest in the gulf. First Isrial carried out maneuvers showing that they could feasibly get to Iran to start a war, then the U.S. and Iran both announced that they would do maneuvers in the gulf with a chance of starting an international incident. Iran stated that it would close out the traffic from the gulf if attacked, so the U.S. sent a convoy to the area to show that they would attack if any sign that the Iranians would put up a blockade. It's kind of like watching a bunch of young boys playing in a playground except that the stakes are much higher.

It's All About the Oil Baby

2008-07-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

The Northwoods Politic

Before the end of his presidency Bush is doing what he can to advance his agendas in Iraq and Iran. New news is that one of President Bush's buddies Hunt Oil went ahead and made a Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government instead of the central government in Iraq. A move that has seriously infuriated members of Iraq's central government.

In advance of the news that the Bush Administration knew about the deal ahead of time, and did not try to discourage the deal, Bush is on record as saying, "I know nothing about the deal." Hmmm, sounds an awfully similar to, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman.", doesn't it? If not in the words, it's familiar in the actions and intent of another leader trying to bullshit his way out of trouble, and again it didn't work, or did it? Also trying to back up their failure to tell the truth the State Department is trying to say that they discouraged the deal, even though there are a string of Emails backing up the information that the Bush Administration and the State Department knew of the dealings of Hunt Oil before anything was signed. Bush has his fingers in so many places trying to push things through for his friends that he slipped getting rid of this Email electronic paper trail. It's no surprise that the president has said something to the effect that he doesn't use Emails any more because of security reasons. Although he doesn't say it, I think the security reasons he refers to all the time is not the security of the nation, but the security of his own ass. Perhaps he's just not afraid any more what news comes out, after all he can always say any such information is internal communications and then claim executive privilege.

There is good reason to believe the Bush Administration has had it's hands in the dealings with Iraq that allows five major western oil companies non bid contracts to come in and start getting the oil flowing in Iraq. Makes a person wonder after hearing of some of the successions the U.S. wanted in their deal with the Iraqi government before the UN agreement expires July 31st. Could be that our government set the sights high so we could later drop some of them in exchange of some of these non bid contracts with western oil companies? I would imagine that we will eventually hear something like that, and it will be another thing that we will not impeach Bush over. It's starting to look like there isn't going to be any holding Bush and his Administration accountable for things at least while he's in office. The way he has setup his supporters all through the government's agencies would have to be fixed before any action on Bush himself can take place.

Now the Bush Administration says it's almost imminent that Israel is going to invade Iran to bomb Iran's nuclear facility. I'm sure Israel just came up with that idea on their own, just like they did in Syria, but it's kind of interesting how our government seems to know all the details as soon as that kind of thing happens. You can be sure that somewhere there is a wink and a nod to Israel from people in our government, some help like satellite images and the like, maybe even some extra money in aid or something too. It would also be a way of eventually getting the U.S. into a war with Iran. We couldn't after all let one of our allies be threatened by a war with Iran. This might be one way of Bush making sure that we eventually get involved with Iran even if he can't get us into it with Iran before he's out of office this fall.

The list just goes on and on about the departments of government that the Bush Administration has Bushtardized. The State Department lieing that they discouraged oil deals, a Justice Department that won't work with oversight committee to find out the truth about the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. Even in the Environmental Protection Agency, Bush has his puppets who will advance his agenda over the sound science and advice of advisers. It is going to take quite a while and a lot of work to fix the government and our rights from the damages of the Bush Administration.

A Depressing Interlude

2008-06-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

The Northwoods Politic

It's been four days since I've wrote. It's not that there wasn't a lot of sad crap going on in politics worth writing about, maybe it was because there was too much. Ah I guess it was kind of self inflicted. I spent a good share of my spare time watching videos of hearings on the website from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This is a great site to visit if you want to know what is going on in your government from a 'first hand' point of view. There you can read transcripts of hearing testimonies, opening and closing statements, or even watch videos of past hearings. You can also read letters sent to President Bush and other top administration officials demanding information, documents and tapes to be released. It changes, some of the videos even have a degree of drama as witnesses squirm or get defiant under pressure of questioning. This was the original venue of the video of Rep. Dennis Kucinich presented 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush on the house floor.

You can go to the United States House of Representatives or the United States Senate web sites and get news and video on important matters going through the House and Senate and various committee actions and news. There are online help forms to send Email communications to your representatives in office. Let your representatives know where you stand on the issues. Learn the inner workings of our government.

C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2 Capitol Hill, The White House and National Politics is another great site on the web or available on most all cable and satellite television networks. This site will show many of the House and Senate hearings and debates on bills and other government business. There are news casts with current and upcoming political issues, events and coverage of the upcoming 2008 campaigns and primary elections. The TV networks have much of the same information that you can find online plus the political news casts, but online you have the option of watching and reading within your schedule when you have time to concentrate on the issues.

For our government to work correctly it is the responsibility of all it's citizens to take part to guide it on it's path. If the common people get discouraged and drop out of the process, that only leaves the rich, business, and special interests to court the government's power for their own gains. I think it has been shown again and again that left to the rich and big business that there isn't any issue more important to them than their bottom line and only things that affect their bottom line will get noticed or addressed. Our government is supposed to be balanced in it's care and deliberations to weigh the balance of educational, health, environmental, economic, and other issues. It is We the People that must stand up for our rights and demand that government is accountable to the people, or it will be We the People that continue to get the shaft.

What is really disheartening about all the illegal and immoral things that continue to go on in the government is that its like seeing a rat, for everyone that is exposed, you find there are over a dozen that you don't see.

A New Process for Selecting Our Representatives

2008-06-22T01:20:00.000-07:00

What America needs is a new process for picking it's representatives. The way we chose our leaders has basically grown more and more flawed as the years gone by, morphing elections and thus changing politics into something totally different than our founders had ever in visioned. When this country was founded, there were only 13 colonies. It was a pretty easy task for everyone to know if one person held better leadership qualities than another person by their past actions. How we chose our leaders was much different than it is today. Through time, as our population spread out across the North American Continent, it became necessary for politicians to boast more and advertise their accomplishments to win over votes from people that they have never met or who have never heard of them before. Through the years the process of selecting our leaders has become broken. I'm not saying I have a completely worked out grand new plan to fix all our problems, but today I'm going to write about some of the reasons why I think our elections fail to bring before us good candidates for presidential selection who care as much for the interests of the common person on the street as they do for the interests of big business.

I've always heard that we are never going to get a person in office that is any more ethical or morally responsible then the people that put them in office. I somewhat agree with that statement. If the voters are not very ethical or moral, they won't hold the politicians they have elected accountable to being ethical or moral either. I do think that the way we select our politicians makes a big difference in the kind of leaders we have though.

One of the biggest failings in our process of selecting a government representative is the amount of money needed for anyone to run for office. This fails our government from the start in so many ways. One of the biggest ways this has a negative effect on our politicians is that they need to spend a pretty good share of time raising money for their re-elections, because they need lots of money to get re-elected. Usually, without some extenuating circumstances, or other form of fame and publicity, the person that spends the most money wins the election. It takes large amounts of money to travel around the district, state, or our country promoting one's self putting out television, internet, and radio ads. Ads must introduce the candidate, list where they stand on issues, tell of unscrupulous acts by the opposition, and defend one's self from smears made by the opposition. As our population grew and spread across the continent the cost of campaigning has grew.

Politicians are only human and it is human nature to do nice things for people who do nice things for us. Lets face it, people give large amounts of money or favors to candidates for basically one reason, and that is with the hope that their donations will help elect the candidate of their choice, and once in office that candidate will remember the donor's issues that they wanted help with. Other than that, whether it's a large amount of money from a large corporations or small amounts of money from individual donors, there is no other reason for anyone to give money to a candidate. It's a validation for the candidate. It's a way of saying you think like I do on the issues that matter to me, so here's some money to help you get elected so you can support those issues. Politicians are not supposed to think of who gave them how much money or let it influence their decisions when they vote on issues that may affect the donor, there are laws against it. But when money is so important to getting re-elected, who in their right mind would vote for something that would adversely affect someone who gives big money towards getting them elected?

Somehow we have to take the costs of campaigning out of the equation, that is about the only way to take the advantage away from big business and special interest groups. The government actually owns control of TV and Radio frequencies, there should be a certain amount of airtime given to the process of electing our representatives that they don't have to pay for. Candidates should have to present themselves within a structured format so that people can see where each candidate stands compared to their rivals. There should be no public advertisements by special interests groups smearing rival candidates. In fact anything that is said by a candidate or endorsed by a candidate should be factual. If it is found that any candidate lied about past voting records, past positions on issues, smears against rival candidates, they should be prosecuted for lieing or slander. It should not be up to the voting public to have to check up on every statement made by politicians and try to figure out whether it is a lie or not. We should demand that when politicians speak to us that they are telling the truth, they work for us after all.

Thanks For Reading

2008-06-21T05:10:00.000-07:00

Thank you for reading. I have noticed that I am picking up a few readers on my blog. I want to thank all who have taken the time to check out my blog and a special thanks for those who have been interested enough to return multiple times. Thank you.

Long as I have your attention... Please feel free to leave a comment if you would like. The link to comments is at the end of each article, this is where you can agree or disagree and/or state your opinions. Comments are moderated not to deny opposing comments or viewpoints, (in fact I would encourage any civil exchange of ideas) but to try to catch profanity and to keep posts on subject. Please do not use profanity, respect the right of others to their opinions, and refrain from personal attacks of others.

The Northwoods Politic is my political views about headline news from my own personal Northern Wisconsin perspective. I have been in various stages of disability from fibromyalgia the last 15 years since having a back operation. To fill my time and to try to get a better understanding on our government I have been reading political news from articles off major online publications such as The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, articles from the Associated Press, internet sources, various local papers and magazines. I claim to not be an expert on any subject, but if you agree or you disagree and think I'm off comment about it. You may change my mind, I may change your's, but in the end maybe we will all know more about the issue than we started with.

In the future I may change formats somewhat, maybe I will have some regular feature spots, but for now, most of my articles are my off the cuff reactions I have to political current news and events. As to which topics I write about, at this time, I tend to write about whatever PO's me the most at that particular point in time.

With a Little Help For My Friends

2008-06-20T12:54:00.001-07:00

There has been scant information regarding the 2008 American/Iraqi agreement that President Bush wants to have in place by July 31st when the current agreement that the UN has for having military troops in Iraq expires. What information that has come out is mostly from the Iraqi government commenting publicly in frustration of their disagreements with what President Bush proposed and wants in the agreement.

I was reading that the agreement that the Bush Administration has been trying to pass on the Iraqi government is very similar to what the British tried to enforce back in the 30's. as seen below.

1930 Pact Between Iraq and Britain

1.) Iraq had to consult with Britain on security issues.

2.) Iraq had to allow Britain use of all road, airports, ports, railways, and rivers.

3.) Iraq had to allow Britain to have two major military bases within Iraq.

4.) Britain could station troops through out Iraq.

5.) Iraq had to grant personnel immunity from Iraqi laws and prosecutions.

Proposed 2008 Pact between Iraq and United States

1.) Would allow officials to detain or arrest suspected terrorists with out the approval of Iraqi government.

2.) Would allow the United States complete control over Iraqi airspace.

3.) Would allow approximately 58 U.S. military bases in Iraq.

4.) Would give the U.S. troops, contractors, and personnel immunity from Iraqi laws.

The pact of 1930 did not go well, the Iraqi populations rioted in the streets and protested violently. The 2008 pact will undoubtedly be met with about the same enthusiasm. With the lesson of the history of the pact in 1930 why would anyone propose basically the same pact? One reason is by calling our occupation in Iraq a pact the Bush Administration claims that the process doesn't have to go through with getting Congressional approval to stay in Iraq. Something the administration is pretty concrete about. Also by not having to get approved by Congress the Bush Administration is hoping to keep most terms of the pact secret, most likely until the end of their term in office, at least until after the pact is agreed on. KBR, a large contractor who Vice President Cheney was formally a chief executive over working for Halliburton, for food and housing for the troop has just received a big $150 billion, 10 year contract for a Iraq.

The answer became clear about a day later when news that the five major oil corporations have been awarded no bid contracts for working Iraq's oil reserves. It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to figure out, ok we'll concede some of these crazy issues in our proposed pact if you give my buddies in the oil industry non bid contracts to work your oil fields.

Speaking about oil industry buddies... President Bush lately has been pushing to have federally owned land and the coastal shelves opened up to drilling for oil saying that we need this to bring down the price of gas, but here's the kicker, the companies that make the big drilling rigs are already five years behind on their orders for deep water oil drilling rigs. If American oil companies put in their orders for oil rigs right now, it would be over five years before they would posess any new oil rigs. American oil interests already own the drilling rights on big areas of land that they are not utilizing yet. So why is it that there is a push to open coastal areas to drilling now? Well we have to set our oil buddies up now before the Bush Administration leaves office this fall, it has nothing to do with the price we are paying for gas right now. In fact many of the articles are carefully worded as this move would' "help surpress the high price of gas", that means to slow the rising of the cost of gas, not the reduction of the cost of gas.

It's just business as usual for the Bush gang. Their eithics seem to be that nothing is wrong with gouging the American public and their tax contrabutions and giving as much of that money as possible to their friends in high places before leaving office. Oh what a way to get by with a little help for my friends.

Bend Over America

2008-06-18T00:16:00.000-07:00

In the latest news of the fleecing of America as reported in the New York Times. Charles M. Smith a former civilian overseer for the Army, overseeing the largest contractor of the Iraq war for food services, KBR, said he was ousted from his job because he refused to pay one billion dollars for questionable charges that were not substantiated by KBR. The Bush Administration must hate the New York Times.

KBR is a Houston-based company that provides food, housing and other services to the troops stationed in Iraq. KBR stands for Kellogg, Brown and Root and is the subsidiary of Halliburton, the Texas company that Vice President Dick Cheney previously served as chief executive. Mr. Smith's position was then given to a colleague and KBR received all the money it was asking for, including the one billion that didn't have supporting records for.

So we have a war that support was gotten from Congress and the American people through the lies and misstatements from members of the Bush Administration, which included Vice President Dick Cheney, who has had strong ties with the KBR company. Doesn't this sound a bit like conflict of interest on the part of Vice President Dick Cheney? Hmmm, can we say kickbacks? For someone that came into a very high level of government from being a chief executive of the company in question, it would be hard to not imagine some kind of benefits coming back Cheney's way in some form or another. I suppose we will learn later, as this story breaks, that this is probably another one of the Bush Administration's no-bid contracts. If we are getting fleeced for at least one billion in food services, what about the other services that KBR supplies like in troop housing and other services? We'll see huh? It's a big surprise,not, that in our failing economy the only businesses doing well, extremely well, are businesses that the president and vice president are/were involved in, oil companies and companies involved with supplying services and weapons for the war in Iraq. Now Bush is pushing for the oil companies to be allowed to drill off shore, something that oil companies have been pushing for for some time, coincidence? I think not.

We can count on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will look into this and find in this case, as it has for other cases in the past, misconduct on the part of the Bush Administration. Yet, Hello Democrats, there will be no push by Democrats to follow through on impeachment proceedings against Bush or Cheney as there are already articles of impeachment that have been sent to the Judiciary Committee that are basically sitting on ice. I agree with Democrats on most things, but when it comes to doing their constitutional duties in regards to protecting the American people against a corrupt administration they are nutless. I can't understand why that is? I can't believe that Democrats are so afraid that people, who voted them into office on their platforms of fixing a corrupt government and getting us out of the Iraq war, are going to chastise them during an election year because they would be doing what the American people put them in office for. Where is the justice? Instead they give lame reasons that they have more important things to do during the remainder of their terms.

What is more important than protecting the Constitution? What's more important than impeaching the people in office, who have done so much damage to the American people's constitutional rights. What's more important than making sure that the people who got us into an illegal war with Iraq which cost over 4 thousand American solders their lives and countless Iraqi lives, costs to the American people of trillions of dollars, a failed economy and high gas prices, are brought to justice. Instead the Democrats are content to piddle with trying to pass bills that have no chance to pass because even if they can get enough support from the House and Senate, the crook of a president we have will veto them. What's more important than fixing that?

Most of this doesn't make sense. About the only way any of this makes sense to me is:

The Democrats don't really want to bring this war to and end as the American public wants. The Democrats think that they will get more support, or more support for a Democratic president, from the American people passing bills that are repeatedly vetoed by a Republican president. The Democrats secretly want to keep the executive powers that President Bush claimed for their own use when they get one of their own in the president's chair. The Democrats are completely clueless as to their jobs in office. What ever their excuses are, they don't make sense. If they don't watch it, it will back fire this fall and the American public will be so fed up with their inaction that they will vote independent or even Republican cause even if the Republican's objectives are different than the people's objectives, they at least know how to get what they want, specially when no one is willing to call them or stand up to them on their illegal procedures and activities.

Excuses not to Impeach Bush

2008-06-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

This is a response to an article I read off a web site called The Daily Kos written by Kevin Holsinger, Tuesday June 10^th, 2008, titled, I believe we should let George Bush get away with breaking the law because...

Read Kevin's Article Here

At first while when I started reading through the article, I was under the impression that these were Kevin's views on the subject, but reading on through the rest of the article and some of the responses that he got and addressed after the article was posted, he clarifies that this is not the case. In fact Kevin states, “I support impeachment, doomed or not.”

I couldn't help but comment and give argument to the reasons Keven listed to support why, I believe we should let George Bush get away with breaking the law because... Right or wrong I decided to go through Keven's points of argument from my Wisconsin Northwoods perspective.

I believe we should let George Bush get away with breaking the law because...

the attempt to hold him accountable has unscrupulous motivations.

Yes, what could be more unscrupulous than protecting and upholding the constitution?
the attempt to hold him accountable diverts people's much-needed attention to getting a Democrat in the White House.

This might bite you in the ass in the long run. Stay the coarse of not bringing up or supporting the impeaching of President Bush, no matter what the growing, undeniable facts are that are piling up show, and there is a good chance that people will start to see this is it is, a spineless, politicized excuse for not wanting to make waves during an upcoming presidential election. Democrats in office are betting that the people will act less negatively to a subject not brought up then they will to congress actually taking initiative to do their jobs.
the attempt to hold him accountable should have been made long ago, and since it wasn't, it's now most likely useless.

Yes the attempt should have been made long ago, but that's no excuse for not standing up and doing the right thing still. Before the last elections there was a Republican majority in control that wouldn't allow articles of impeachment to proceed any way. What signal or deterrent do we send to future administrations if we don't hold George Bush accountable for his crimes? There might still be too much opposition, but wouldn't it look better on your records to show that you at least tried to do your constitutional duties while in office?
the attempt to hold him accountable will play into the media's desire to not focus on things that matter, which impeaching Bush doesn't qualify as.

What is more important than getting a criminal who continues to break laws as he is getting called on them, out of public office? Here is a person who probably didn't even earn the honor of being president with all the questionable acts that reportedly happened around the polls during the national elections and after. He's taken us into war with questionable motives and intelligence. He's broke all kinds of federal and international laws and agreements such as torture, holding people prisoner for years without charges, spying and creating data banks on American citizens, the list goes on and on. Doesn't qualify as things that matter???
the attempt to hold him accountable means nothing unless you go after other people first.

Wouldn't it be possible to go after as many people as are relevant?
the attempt to hold him accountable isn't realistic.

Isn't it realistic to have faith that the laws of our country will be carried out, enforced, and applied equally no matter who you are or how much money you have or don't have?
the attempt to hold him accountable won't get enough Republican supporters.

Same as mentioned in answer to question 3. Wouldn't it look better on your records to show that you at least tried to do your constitutional duties while in office?
the attempt to hold him accountable is being led by someone that people like to make fun of.

So if you are so much more respected, jump on board. It's a good cause, it's what you should do, uphold the constitution and to do your constitutional duties. Lend your credibility to the cause.
the attempt to hold him accountable is about dwelling on the past.

These things are still going on right now as we speak, Bush is still breaking laws, still stonewalling congressional investigations, still claiming that we don't torture, but reserve the right to torture, still illegally tapping lines of the American people and building data bases. These are all issues of the present not the past.

the attempt to hold him accountable would upset a sizable portion of Americans who wouldn't like that a President they (allegedly) elected and then (allegedly) re-elected is now facing impeachment.

I'm not positive, but I think the numbers doesn't support this claim.
the attempt to hold him accountable wouldn't be as useful as waiting for Barack Obama to maybe become President so he could maybe investigate Bush then.

Bush needs to be held accountable no matter who wins the presidential elections. This would essentially pass the buck from the people who should have been addressing this issue in the past, passing the buck from those who should be taking on this issue now. This would also leave a very dangerous man in office for another 6 months, a man who could still do grave damage to American's rights, America's economy, America's reputation, a person who even now is carrying out plans of ramping up to gain support with the claims that Iran also needs to be invaded to stop their nuclear weapons of mass destruction... Didn't we learn anything from the current war with Iraq?
the attempt to hold him accountable would make the Republicans want to illegitimately impeach a future Democratic President, and the warfare between the parties would never end.

What planet are you living on? The warfare between parties will never end, both parties are way more interested in doing things to promote their party above things that would help the general population. Any impeachment should be done on legitimate standing, whether the subject of impeachment is Democratic or Republican, the articles of fact should dictate the end result.
the attempt to hold him accountable would suck up money that, without a doubt, our Legislative Branch would use to fix our broken infrastructure.

Much better that our monetary resources be spent on investigating steroids in baseball or taping during football games. The money that is spent getting a corrupt politician out of office is probably just a small portion compared to the money we have been spending and getting ripped off by the dubious accountability of bid less contracts, reconstruction in Iraq, or in other corrupted areas of our government.
the attempt to hold him accountable would suck up time that, without a doubt, our Legislative Branch would use to deal with other issues of importance...time that also can't be split between holding Bush accountable and tackling these issues.

In my opinion that time has been pretty wasted already since we put a Democratic majority in the house and senate. Instead of tackling the important issues right away, they have been spinning their wheels getting no where because of not having enough votes to override presidential vetoes. If we wouldn't have a secretive administration that is more concerned with keeping information from the American public to protect their ass, it might be a lot easier to address these other issues that are not going anywhere with or without impeachment proceedings going on.
the attempt to hold him accountable is only supported by left wing extremists.

I think again and again at town halls across the country have in frustration, because their federal government is broken, passed their own articles of impeachment. I don't think this statement can be true unless you label a large majority of the American public as left wing extremists, which by virtue of being a majority, would not define them as left wing, which would mean that the politicians going against the majority would be better deserving of the tile of extremists.
the attempt to hold him accountable is really pointless since he's leaving anyway, and what matters is that he's not around to commit any more crimes, not whether or not he committed crimes in the past.

I beg to differ here. If we as a country allow Bush and other people in his administration to go without being held accountable, we send a message to future administrations of being compliant and gullible.
the attempt to hold him accountable would be used to the advantage of the pro-Bush media.

The world is a changing.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich Presents Articles of Impeachment

2008-06-10T01:26:00.000-07:00

Monday June 9th Ohio Representative, Dennis Kucinich, presented 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush on the house floor. It sounds like he broke away from the views of other Democrats, who have stated impeachment was off the table, and others that have stated that they did not have the time to make the case for impeachment against President Bush, along with involving members of his administration known and unknown.

For the idea of impeachment to be off the table has never made any sense to me. I for one would not be surprised if Nancy Pelosi somehow, in some way, receives some kind of benefits somewhere a long the line for her highly opinionated view that "impeachment was off the table". I mean how anyone can just blatantly proclaim that rules and laws don't pertain to them like Bush and Cheney did is just beyond me. The Bush Administration has been the most secretive presidency seen in modern times, so we don't even know what all other laws have been broken. I believe that there are many in the Bush Administration that not only need to be impeached, but charges should be brought against them to the full extent of the law. Because they are supposed to be our leaders that uphold the constitution by sworn oath, I would even be willing to have their punishments harsher than the letter of the law.

The other argument by spineless Democrats during this election year, that they just don't have the time to go through impeachment procedures with all the other issues they want to take up before the November elections... What?? There are many important issues, but not one so important as to take the place of bringing accountability of the Bush Administration to justice for the abuse of power against the American people that has been systematically carried out the last eight years. From possibly stealing the last election, illegally doing wiretaps, searches of library records, internet searches, and internet book sale lists, compiling data bases of U.S. citizens, detaining people for years at a time without charges or reason, torture, and abuse of the very people's rights that they are sworn to protect, I don't think there has been any administration that has did more to destroy and harm the rights of the American people and done more to tarnish the United States' reputation with peoples and governments of the world. The very laws and principles that they violated are supposed to be the foundation stones on which our government was founded.

I for one solute you Rep. Dennis Kucinich for standing up and taking the initiative to do your duty. There are people all over the country that are indebted to you

My Complaints Against Democrats

2008-06-08T21:35:00.000-07:00

Although I lean more towards Democrats, there are things going on that disturb me. One of the biggest things that bother me, and I no doubt bothers other people who have been watching the Democrats is that they are not picking up the ball when it comes to doing their constitutional duty to protect our constitution.

When Senator Rockefeller, after giving a press release about how the Bush administration bent intelligence to rally support for the invasion of Iraq, was asked if anyone in Bush administration should be charged for misleading the people and congress to get support for going into war, his response was something on the order of, it would be a grand act. If I were asked whether in the grand scheme of things it is something that should be done the same as in the issue of impeachment, I would say yes, but if you are asking if we are going to do something about it now, the answer is no. If we were to take on something like this it would take up all our time, there would be no time left to take on the important issues of things like global warming.

While I agree that there are other important issues, I do think that the Bush administration and what has transpired during their control of Washington is riddled with very important issues that need to be addressed. Global warming is a big issue, but no more important than addressing the audacities of the Bush administration. Looking back on the last eight years there are the issues of leading the country into war with Iraq, presidential powers during war time, weapons of mass destruction, the illegal wiretapping, holding prisoners labeled as enemy combatants for years without charges, the secrecy of the administration on issues of releasing CIA agents names, the firings of prosecutors, missing emails, torture, non bid contracts, and the list goes on and on. These things are as important if not more than anything that the Democrats need to try to accomplish in the time left before the presidential elections. Democrats were voted into office on the platforms that they would end the war in Iraq and bring in government accountability, this they have not done. Instead they are mired down in the stonewalling of their investigations and the lack of enough votes to pass veto proof bills. Even though people and governments across the country want government accountability and impeachment for the wrongs they have observed, it seems no one in the Democratic party is listening. Basically in my opinion most Democrats have been totally spineless in the shadow of this falls elections and I'm willing to bet that has a lot to do with their low approval ratings.

Barack Obama Clinches Democratic Nomination

2008-06-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

As most people probably know, Barack Obama has the Democratic Nomination for the presidential election in the fall. What a historical event the primaries have been, first woman and first black American to run for president. This morning I have read that Obama's first order of business as the Democratic presidential nominee was to instruct the Democratic National Committee to adopt his policy against accepting donations from federal lobbyists or political action committees... Now that is change.

I have great faith that Barack Obama can and will restore the United States' reputation with the rest of the world. I believe that Obama is honest, truthful and sincere when he speaks. I don't envy the work ahead of him when He wins the presidential election in the fall. I think we are all aware of how the Bush administration has politicized every branch and government agency and controlled what information has come out of those agencies, and how our constitutional rights have been trampled. I think it will be years before we are even aware of all the damage the Bush administration has done. With that in mind, I hope that Obama insures the Bush administration is held accountable for it's illegal actions and that any and all perpetrators are brought to justice and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

There is a lot of talk right now about whether Obama should offer Hillery the vice president position on his ticket. On one hand I can see where that might help to bring Hillery's supporters to his side, but on the other hand she is tied into big business more than Obama, and I got the impression during the primaries that she was willing to say about anything to get votes depending on what group she was talking to even if it meant stretching the truth or telling the truth at all. For this reason I personally hope that Barack Obama finds another candidate for his vice president, one that closer shares his political values and ethics. I also think that having Hillery as his vice president and by default having President Clinton involved would give McCain and the Republicans negative fodder to use against Obama in the presidential race this fall. These are my personal opinions though, what do you think?

Weep for the Rich

2008-06-03T05:02:00.000-07:00

I just read an article in the New York Times by Christine Haughney called, "It's Not So Easy Being Less Rich". I feel so bad for these people she writes about. People who are bent out of shape cause they used to make 8 million dollars and now have to make ends meet with 2 million or having to make due with 8 million instead of 20 million plus bonuses. Give me a break. I'm 49 years old, have worked my butt off most my life in many different jobs trying to support my family and I have never ever earned over $25,000. Now I'm disabled and in the process of waiting three years to get through the process of getting disability to get around $700 a month, in the mean time my two boys and I have to survive on public assistance for food and medical and $354 cash we receive from child support. A million dollars would last me the rest of my life living well, in fact my two boys and I could probably live comfortably on the interest from a million dollars.

Of the things Christine writes about, the rich are gaining weight from the stress and not being able to afford personal trainers for $600 to $800 a month, having to cut back on $350 highlights and $150 haircuts, cutting back on jet rentals of $10,000 and hour, selling some of their extra 2 to 35 carat diamond rings and Rolexes that no one will notice, they are afraid their children will get snubbed when invitations to the right birthday parties are sent out, they are going into hock borrowing against their 2 million dollar art collections, having to fly charter jets instead of private jets or renting Beech jets and Learjets instead of Gulfstreams, and it's even affecting their marriages and sex life.

I don't know if I can fight back the depression from worrying about these people going through their bad luck, I will try. This really puts things in perspective, maybe the wealthy really do need the tax breaks that Bush and McCain want to continue giving them. What do you think?

The Presidential Candidates

2008-05-31T06:48:00.000-07:00

While I have not been affiliated with any particular political party, the last few years I have come to realize that I tend to agree with the values of the Democratic party more than the Republican party. There are things I don't like about the Democrats like most of their views on gun control, but it seems, especially the last eight years, that the Republicans are fat cats for fat cats at the expense of people who aren't so fortunate. Republicans don't seem very compassionate of the needs or desires of the common people, they are more pro big business insisting on passing laws that benefit big businesses with the insinuation that the wealth will trickle down to the masses, even though they pretty much know it doesn't. I think that it has been shown again and again that this line of thinking is flawed. Those benefits given big businesses don't give any relief to the masses and just serve to fatten the profit margins of those companies as they lay off more and more people and pay the ones they keep less and even to the point of moving their operations outside the US to take advantage of low wages, poor working conditions and lower environmental regulations. I have been totally put off by the secrecy and illegal activities of our government during the coarse of the Bush Administration that has put America in such a bad light to the rest of the world. With that said, here are my thoughts on the major three presidential candidates as I see them.

John McCain
In his words and actions seems to be pretty much hell bent on continuing the Bush legacy. Wanting to stay in Iraq for the long run no matter what the cost. Loyal to the Republican party's agendas, in other words, except for some minor differences, pretty much more of the same failed policies as we had the last eight years. If Bush is your hero, John is your man. This is a very sober statement given by McCain, "Presidents have to make judgments no matter how popular or unpopular they may be." This mirrors Dick Cheney's statements on why we need to stay in Iraq even though the vast majority of the people would like us out of there. Another comment that he made in regards to the idea of a "League of Democracies", a plan of his to create an organization like the United Nations except for no communists or dictators to have to contend with, McCain says, "It could act where the UN fails to act." Bush never had much regard for the UN either. Age has to be a factor, look at Bush or any other president that has lasted through a couple of terms of president, now imagine starting off with someone that is that old to start with. Just what America needs after eight years of a president that was in denial, a president that is facing senility.

Hillery Clinton
First woman to run for President a historical event. When it comes right down to it, would you want to have Bill Clinton back in the White House as the nation's First Gentleman? Cigars anyone? "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." With this in mind how strong do you think this candidate would be in the fall elections against McCain? Hillery can't resolve issues with her marriage seemingly content to put up with her husband running around as he probably is still beneficial to her goals or aspirations. Hillery has strong support of women, but a couple things has come out again and again. Hillery seems willing to say just about anything to get the nomination, from dodging sniper bullets to claiming that she can win just by sticking around...remember Kennedy's assassination? Finally the last gripes I have about Hillery are I think her campaign has been a lot more negative compared to Obama's, I think her comment about obliterating Iran was pretty scary, I'm really getting tired of hearing her say that she has the popular vote when the only way that is possible is if you count Michigan's results, a ballot that Obama's name wasn't even on the ticket. Now that I have brought up the matter of Michigan, that is another thing that really disturbs me about Hillery. Everyone involved agreed with the decision of not counting Florida and Michigan because they broke the parties rules, but now as that is the only way Hillery has a chance at the nomination, she counts them as she tells everyone she has the populist vote and she is fighting against the party now in demanding that the rules be changed, this kind of reminds me of the kind of thing Bush does and shows me that a vote for Hillery would be a vote for government as usual without regard for the rules.

Barack Obama
Another historic first, first black man to run for government. What an election, first woman and first black man running for president. This election has set the theme for issues about race and gender, something never really having been an issue in this way in the past. Truthfully I haven't looked back on voting records of either of the three candidates, so except for what I have heard in the news, I am pretty much taking the candidates at their word for what they stand for. Listening to the candidates though I like Obama's style. I believe he is fighting a lot less negative campaign and even defending some of what Hillery has said and done for the good of the party. He has had some troubles with things his paster has said, but I don't ever remember Obama appointing the paster his spokes person. The point is I think Obama has been the most refreshing of the candidates, he is believable it doesn't seem like he is hiding things as in that he spoke of his experiments with drugs in his past, he talks of diplomacy and actually talking to opposition leaders in the world that don't agree with our ideals to try to improve conditions and relations instead of rushing in with an army and the threat of force, I think this is why he has even received good comments from leaders in Cuba and Iran. I believe he will restore America's reputation among other countries in the world that we as a nation really need to do, it's a small world and it gets smaller all the time with new technologies. Obama when he responds to accusations he is thoughtful and reacts in a way that seems to show he does not get carried away with emotions in his comments.

So I guess by now you can probably tell who I'm rooting for, but what's your take?

News Shorts

2008-05-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

News Shorts

This week I have found a few things I have issue with. First off there are a couple of quotes from our King George. Yes that's right, I said king instead of president, but the way I see it he acts more like a king than a president, a president that has been sworn in to serve the American people and up hold the constitution:

"It's this ideological struggle against cold blooded killers who kill people to achieve their political agenda." - King George

This was the king's statement in talking about his terrorist enemies, but couldn't it also be true in describing the actions of the king himself? How many Americans and Iraqis have died since we have overthrown Saddam to "free" the people of that country? How many prisoners have died from the torture and inhuman treatment they had suffered as a result of being captured by American forces?

"They can't stand to live in a free society, that's why they try to fight free societies" - King George

Another quote from King George. Again, oh how I would love to ask him how he can say something like this when he has been the one of the most secretive presidents. Secret wire tapping, secret data bases on Americans, secret prisons to hold prisoners without rights or charges for years at a time... What about white house emails? Why can't we ask questions of former aids? Why can't people sue telecommunication companies? Can you see who is fighting against a free society? A hint: You don't have to go as far as overseas.

Bush and Oil

After talking to the Saudi leaders about getting more oil produced to help lower oil and gas prices in America, King George is said that he was going to, "take the explanation back to his own experts and see if it conforms.." What does Bush figure that is going to do? If his experts have a different conclusion are we going to invade yet another country? Such a silly man.

Arlen Specter

He's at it again, wanting a congressional investigation on the Patriots video taping opposing football teams to gain an advantage. Just like the investigation into baseball... Tell me, what does this have to do with the running of our government? What difference is it to me, or millions of other Americans if the Patriots video taped the other teams? I'm not trying to excuse them if they did, but wouldn't they be breaking a league rule, not a federal offense? Shouldn't it be up to the league to investigate a matter such as this and to take the necessary steps to enforce their own rules? It just doesn't seem like the tax payers should have to pay for investigations of sports teams or individuals, it has nothing to do with our government. With there being so many other, more important things that tax payer money could be spent on, what is the justification to spend it investigating professional sports, an organization that has plenty of money to be investigating its issues itself should it choose to do so.

Trickle Down Effect

2008-05-07T05:21:00.000-07:00

This is a story from the Associated Press. A Philadelphia TV helicopter shot video of over a dozen police officers pulling three suspects out of a vehicle and beating them. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey tried to down play the event because of a police officer was killed on Saturday, a few days earlier. What's most appalling about this video is they had so many police officers beating on these three people that there were officers running back and forth between the three suspects trying to get in a jab, punch or kick because they couldn't get in on the beatings of the suspect closest to them. I think maybe it's the trickle down effect. No matter what the laws are, or their intent, President Bush thinks it is justifiable to torture people he designates as enemy combatants or terrorists among other things. Maybe Bush's example of abduction, abuse, and detention mentality is just trickling down throughout governmental agencies better than his tax breaks for the wealthy has.

In all fairness I do not know what crime these defendants were supposedly to have committed or to what degree the police caught them red-handed or not, but it would seem to be that the police is taking justice into their own hands by administering punishment, probably before the accused were even read their rights or arrested. I would think that the police should be fair and impartial, make arrests with only the amount of force necessary, and and let a judge sort out the evidence and make judgment as to the punishments for the crimes, not for them to run around in gangs performing vigilante like vendettas. It's when people are charged with a crime in a court of law that they are supposed to be punished, not while getting arrested.

The next American president and every American need to press forward in the future and restore the ideals of the past that has made our nation great and get away from the present mindset that the end justifies the means. The problems of abuse and torture are not just in the military, it's in most all governmental agencies. From the way police treat people, the way the military treats people, the way people who are in high positions within the government treat their employees, the people they work with, and the people they are supposed to serve, America needs to root through all the laws, procedures, officials and their records, and look into the policies of the past that has taken our once great nation and drug its reputation through the mud and to make America what it once was, a model of democracy, freedom, and fairness for the rest of the world to admire and strive for.

An American Database

2008-04-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

I was reading through the website of the House, Government Reform and Oversight Committee today and I came across a news release from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) dated 3/14/08 where he states that:

"We learned just yesterday that the FBI was continuing to misuse the authorities we granted it under the Patriot Act six years ago to unlawfully obtain information about law abiding Americans. We learned just four days ago that the National Security Agency was using its massive powers to create a nationwide data base of American citizens."

It seems that our fears have been realized that our government has been abusing all its powers against the American people. When I was younger and in school, we had a teacher that would tell us, "Never trust anyone that says, trust me." Oh how true that is. I was watching TV the other day and there was a television show on that showed all the times through our history when a president would get special rules to protect us from a perceived threat. Without exception every time special powers were supposedly needed to protect American citizens the special powers given were abused.

To hear Bush and Chaney talk, they are not our representatives to carry out the will of the American people, they are visionaries that need to stay the coarse no matter what the majority think because the majority are whimsical that are unable to appreciate the bigger picture to know what's good for them or their country. So we need to allow our president, his administration, and all their cronies to chose which laws that they are going to abide by or not and not question their actions because we are supposed to trust them to do what's right for the country and us. I didn't know that was how America was supposed to run. I was under the impression that the people in our government were chosen by the people to carry out the wishes of the people. I think people like Bush and Chaney were exactly the kind of people and ideas the founders of our country had in mind when they didn't give absolute power to the president and instead split it up among the president, the Senate, and the House. I think Thomas Jefferson would be rolling in his grave now with the state of the country being what it is. The big problem now is how to fix our government so that it runs the way it is supposed to.

Terrorism

2008-03-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

Terrorism: n. violence committed to achieve a political end....

Wouldn't that be like if one country would invade another to spread democracy?

You know I just feel terrible for what America has done to Iraq. It started off with a farce of the twin towers that had nothing to do with Iraq, moved to weapons of mass destruction that never were, to mission accomplished that never was. From pictures of Iraq it looks like we have totally demolished their infrastructure, city buildings, roads, utilities and this is what we do to people we supposedly save? People we want to push democracy on?

Bush still goes on about the progress we have made in Iraq, but unless our objective is to totally flatten all of Iraq, I don't see it. 2007 was the worse year since the beginning of the war for American casualties, the number of dead Americans now about 4000, Iraqi deaths over 1 million. There has been a lull in deaths of Iraqis, and of coarse Bush takes credit there, but from what I've read this has more to do with the different factions separating themselves from each other than an improvement in political processes. The amount of money spent on the war could have took care of many of our domestic problems, health care, education, housing, just think what kind of America we could have if we invested the kind of money we have threw away in a five year war where we are no better off, and in a lot of ways worse off, then we were when we first invaded Iraq.

The media is doing a grave disservice to the American people, there is hardly any coverage of the protests against this war and the present administration. Not only does this affect the people's will by letting them know that they are not alone in their objections of the way things are run, but it give the wrong impression to foreign people and governments that the American people are alright with the way the government is going, when there is really in reality a small percentage of Americans that back the president's vision of what we are doing in Iraq. The news paper that stands above the rest in exposing Bush and his administration's illegal activities is the New York Times. I bet Bush and Chaney hate the New York Times. In fact many times after an illegal activity has been exposed the Bush administration has been more upset about the fact that someone leaked the story than that illegal activities are going on.

What really gets me is how a president or administration can openly disregard laws and pick and choose what laws they want to follow. It disappoints me that the congress can call out these abuses, but the DOJ can decide that it's not going to push the issues or enforce the laws. What good are laws in this case? What did our veterans fight for if it wasn't our ideals and rights granted by our constitution? Where is the America for the common person, and what are the rules?

What is Wrong With America

2008-03-11T20:50:00.001-07:00

It's really hard to understand what is wrong with America. Water boarding and some of the other stuff we have done to prisoners since 9/11 are definitely torture. How Bush and everyone of the Republicans other than 3 can all vote against having laws against water boarding I do not know.

The reports about what Bush and others in his administration have publicly said even after knowing that what they were saying were not true.

All the illegal spying through the phone companies, the Internet Service Providers, the illegal use of NSA letters to libraries, banks, and other businesses that hold people's private information.

Bush having political appointees in all areas of government censoring any and all reports going out of these agencies. Cutting back on budgets for oversight personal and other agencies like the FDA and Social Security Disability so much that they can not carry on their sorely needed duties such as inspecting and overseeing their processes and procedures.

Disclosing CIA operatives names.

Running out un-Republican Federal Attorneys and replacing them with Republicans who are loyal to the party.

An illegal war costing up resources and billions, 4,000 US solders dead, millions of Iraqis. A whole country leveled and torn apart. High gas prices here at home.

Missing emails, videos, pretty much everything that could be used as evidence to what's be going on through out out our country.

Just what does the rest of America think by leaving this administration in power for any amount of time? Why isn't there charges being filed, and people held accountable?

A Big Thank You to the Telecommunication Companies

2008-03-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

According to President Bush we need to thank the telecommunication companies for their involvement in the illegal intelligence gathering by agencies under the Bush Administration. Well here goes.

A big thank you to all the telecommunication companies who complied with the illegal requests to turn over customer records to the government. Thank you for going against your own end user agreements and customer contracts stating that you would protect my privacy and information unless confronted with legal warrants to turn over said information. Thank you for giving me the assurances that your end user agreements are legal binding contracts between your company and myself or my business, it's good to know that I am held accountable to such agreements, but you are not. Thanks for trying to stifle and protect me from any information that would come out in a court hearing that might influence me to take my business elsewhere, perhaps to another company that didn't roll over when presented with illegal requests for their customer information. Thank you for the peace of mind that I have for trusting you and taking you at your word that my private conversations were that, private. Thank you for the scrutiny that my searches, inquiries and conversations into current events were put under to gauge my patriotism. Thank you for laying out any information you might have that could be taken in such a way as to subject me to possibly be held in secret prisons for years at a time without being charged with a crime. Thank you for driving up the cost of business by encouraging private face to face meetings to discuss sensitive issues because your networks can not be trusted. Thank you for the warm feelings of the publics trust in big businesses. Thank you for the assurances that we have nothing to fear from rouge political agendas and our government in general. A big thank you for letting us know where we stand in this Democratic society where we are mistakenly under the impression that our country is run under rules and laws that protect the individual against the special interests of government or big business. Thank you for giving us faith in the laws of our country.

Immunity for Telecommunication Companies

2008-02-29T08:42:00.000-08:00

There is just so much going on in politics right now, it's enough to make a person's head swim trying to keep track of everything. It doesn't help when we can't take our leader's words as truths. It was good that the House called Bush's bluff about granting immunity for telecommunication companies. I think a phrase uttered from a House member said it best, If this was about protecting the American public, Bush would have accepted another 15 day extension to keep Americans safe. Bush has basically admitted that the whole thing is about getting immunity for the telecoms saying that any bill not including an immunity clause would be vetoed. So does that make it sound like Bush is really worried about the American public? I don't think so. Why do you think it's so important for Bush to get immunity for the telecoms? Do you think that it's really because he thinks that in the future big companies won't help us if we really need them to? Government can pass laws to mandate that they cooperate, in fact there are already laws on the books allowing for just that, the problem was that the Bush administration didn't use the laws that were in place to access this information. Why? Anyone's guess, but I would imagine that it would have something to do with that in order to go about this legally, Bush would have had to get permission from a court set up just for that purpose. So what's the problem with that? Well then searches would have had to have some legal basis for needing to tap into that person or group's phone(s), in other words the searches would have had to been accountable with limitations on what was and what couldn't be done during the process of tapping these lines. From what little has become public about this process that went on, this was a huge operation that scanned most everyone on the telecom's customer list. Then I think it was last night I heard some republican or spokes person from the administration saying because of this bill not passing, that the telecoms are already starting to not want to continue helping the government, but I was reading that the reason the telecoms want to shut the programs down is that the government agencies that are involved with this aren't paying their phone bills. I agree with some of the people in government that say ultimately any legal damages awarded to groups suing the telecoms should be paid by the Bush administration instead of the telecoms, because when it is the government that is telling you to turn over information like this, it's hard not to comply. There has been at least one telecom company that didn't turn over their customer information which means at least one company figured out the legalities of the deal.

There is another reason why Bush is so intent on giving telecoms immunity. Remember when the congress got duped into granting immunity for intense interrogation techniques aka torture by waterboarding among other things? Congress went on later to pass another bill expressively banning waterboarding after the fact. When asked about the legality of waterboarding Attorney General Mukasey, Mukasey dodged giving an answer by saying that the government claims that it has not done it after the law preventing waterboarding was passed, so it's a moot point making a decision as to whether it was illegal in the past. If the telecoms are given immunity for handing out records without the proper legal process, would that make a moot point of the president asking them to illegally hand over such information?

Will the House Stand Up?

2008-02-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

It was finally a pleasant change to see that the House members did not cave in on the FISA bill. I hope that they keep from granting immunity to the major telecoms for going along with an illegal request to turn over everyone's phone records. Now something that I haven't seen since the House took the action of going on recess without voting on the revisions to the FISA or Protect America bill, it would be interesting to see if that one event had any effect on the public opinion polls. It will be interesting to see if anything becomes of their new powers to enforce their subpoenas now. It would sure be nice to see some justice carried out in the government, it's long over due.

The baseball investigation is coming to an end, good thing, we don't really need to be using tax payer's money to get that straightened out. Just when a person thinks they may be done wasting money on things that don't pertain to the government, I wouldn't hold my breath. Look for possible upcoming investigations into video taping of opposing football teams signals, that would seem to be the next big major sports issue that people will want a congressional investigation on. Give me a break.

Missing White House Emails

2008-02-14T04:41:00.000-08:00

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been farting around with the issues of missing emails from the White House and other administration agencies for at least a year now with out any results. Even though there are laws to insure that White House and President retain and hold emails and documents to be on record for the sake of documenting history to be accessed by historians and the American public and it is well apparent that for the most part the Bush Administration isn't taking steps to insure this process, the oversight committee hasn't had any luck getting these documents so that they can do their job of oversight. Instead of pushing impeachment against Bush and Cheney for this and other crimes committed during their terms in the White House, the committee has been focusing on the use of drugs by baseball players. I guess if you can't do your job doing oversight on the government you take on important issues like the use of drugs in baseball, you know, so it doesn't look like you are just sitting on your hands letting them grow there. Maybe it's because of the frustration of not being able to provide oversight of the government that the committee has decided to take on an issue that they can handle without too much stonewalling. I think pretty much the whole process of our government is broke. For the most part, Democrats have put impeachment off the table saying that it would be a waste of time when they have so much other things of more importance that they want to address during their terms.....yeah, like baseball. Everything that Democrats have been wanting to accomplish has been loss because they are trying to deal with the administration and its illegal activities, stonewalling, and outright lies. Instead of taking care of the problem's sources, they are taking on the important task of keeping baseball honorable while they sit with their finger up their butt waiting for emails and justice to take care of itself.

The Irony of Arlen Specter

2008-02-02T05:43:00.000-08:00

Friday there was an AP article about Republican Senator Arlen Specter-PA, stating that Senator Specter wanted the NFL to explain why it destroyed evidence of the New England Patriots cheating scandal, stating that he was concerned about the underlying facts on the taping, the reasons for the judgment on the limited penalties and, most of all, on the inexplicable destruction of the tapes.

This is from a Republican senator... Senator Specter, you are concerned about such things when it has to do with a football game? I mean, yes by all means, we have to hold these games above the accountability that your buddies in the Republican party have demonstrated while in power. After all the stakes are so much higher than say whether we as a country have illegally used torture such as water boarding against prisoners and the videos of that were destroyed. Football is maybe much more important to you then missing emails from the administration's deliberations to start a war on false pretenses, or information on the political firings of 8 U.S. Attorneys, or the leaking of a CIA operative's name. I think you are having a case of sour grapes maybe cause you had some money riding on the game or something. Same thing with the congressional investigation into doping in baseball. Is doping in sports disturbing? Yes. Is doping in sports wrong? Yes. Is it something that is so important that we should be spending time and money in the senate investigation? I don't think so. With all the other problems that we need to be sorting out, war, lies, stonewalling, illegal activities, missing emails and other missing evidence by upper administration members, wouldn't it be better to leave the sports problems to be settled out among the sports leagues and associations. Baseball is a multi billion dollar industry I think they could afford their own investigators, set their own regulations and enforce them without tax payers having to front the bill.

Update 3/13/08

I was maybe out of line somewhat on Arlen, it is noted that in the illegal wiretapping subject he wants to change defendant from the telecommunication companies to the government in the court cases now against the telecommunication companies for them going along with illegal requests by the government. I can see the logic to having the government as a defendant, I can understand how it is hard to refuse something the government is pushing you to do. I am not familiar with what effects that may have on any court case. It does seem like it's a rip to the tax payer to have to pay for the government's illegal actions of spying on tax payers. It would amount to the same thing as if someone stole something from a person and they sell it on the black market, spend the money they got from selling the stolen goods, and then we make the person that was ripped off have to pay the thief's fines and court costs. So maybe I'll reserve my praising Arlen for wanting to do that after all. To really be fair, if this was Bush's idea and he convinced the intelligence communities to take this route as a legal option, who in turn convinced the telecoms that this was legal request for information, Bush should be made the defendant and the one liable for any jail time or fines.

This is What I'm Talking About

2008-01-23T04:32:00.000-08:00

This morning in an associated press article by Douglass K. Daniel, he speaks of a study by two non profit journalism organizations that addresses the lies and false statements of our administration after 9/11 leading up to the war in Iraq. This news is not new, or surprising given the way our administration has manipulated all other information coming out of the White House and our other government agencies.

In summery, in the two years after the 2001 attack on the twin towers, the study found at least 935 lies (false statements) by the Bush administration, 532 of them had to do with Iraq having, or trying to have weapons of mass destruction and/or having links to al-Qaida.

Here is a list of the people who have deceived us and are responsible for dragging us into an illegal war with Iraq:

Worse Offenders:

President George W. Bush - 259 lies, 231 about WMD in Iraq & 28 about Iraq & al-Qaida
Secretary of state Colin Powell - 254 lies, 244 about WMD in Iraq & 10 about Iraq & al-Qaida

Other Liars:

Vice President Dick Cheney
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer & Scott McClellan

The two non-profit journalism organizations that worked on this project are, The Fund for Independence in Journalism (http://www.tfij.org/), and the Center for Public Integrity (http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/), where the report is posted.

These people are all supposed to be working for us. All we are getting are lies about everything. We are supposed to be given the honest facts about what's going on so we can make educated decisions based on that information. Because we were fed lies and false statements from top people in our government, we jumped into a war with Iraq based on the thinking that Saddam Hussein was supporting al-Qaida, who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers. The administration's war machine hyped us up so much that there wasn't much complaining when Bush used the authority that he claimed congress gave him to punish the people responsible for 9/11 to invade another country. There also wasn't much complaining when we then jumped into a war with another country without going through the proper channels by working with the United Nations or getting their support when we went to war, instead we kind of drug them grudgingly into it after we marched through Iraq. Things have just gone from bad to worse. We had "Shock and Awe" to "Mission Accomplished" and then 4+ years of "things are getting better" while we have totally demolished a country and destabilized a whole region. Not only have we destroyed a country a quarter of the world away from us, but we have went unbelievably into dept fighting wars, wasted an already dwindling resource of oil fighting wars driving oil prices up at home to record levels. We have made enough enemies throughout the rest of the world that that security at home is even more in question. We have death of Americans/Iraqis, torture, abuse, fraud, corruption, illegal activities, improper oversight, improper record keeping and a failing economy as the cost of an illegal war. Yet, no one is talking about firing our incompetent employees, the option has been mostly "off the table". If any Democrats are listening.....why aren't you doing anything about your obligations to the constitution and removing these "bad employees" from power? This I can't understand. Our government is broke. What about anyone else, what's your opinion?

The System is Down

2008-01-20T21:51:00.000-08:00

I really don't understand what's wrong with everyone. These last couple of terms that Bush has been in office have been just unbelievable as far as constitutional rights the American people have lost. Our current administration has pretty much done what ever they wanted, even as the shady deals they were doing were being reported on the television, the radio, newspapers, and the Internet. After the last presidential elections we find out that through trickery and deceit the republicans stolen the elections both by getting people (democrats) taken off lists of of eligible voters, and intimidating other whole groups of people who would have probably tended to vote for democrats. The American people got confusing ballots, voting machines that didn't work properly and didn't have paper records to give an accounting of votes made on them, people intercepting voters on the way to the polls to discourage certain demographic groups of people from voting, voting laws changed to favor one party over another, absentee votes not counted or taken into account. During the last election in places where the president campaigned for reelection, anyone known to be against his objectives and policies, people with signs, posters, or t-shirts, that did not agree with the president's views, or anyone that seemed like they would speak up against the president's policies were barred or removed from the area, arrested if necessary to keep them out of earshot, eyesight and keep their messages from being shown on cameras at his conventions. This was done to try to give the illusion of how well the president was doing, by showing that there was hardly anyone in opposition to the president. Once in power republicans banded together to pretty much rubber stamp any thing the president wanted. Information out now suggests that the administration has in the past encouraged torture, or at least turned a blind eye to it. People in the USA and in other countries were whisked off the streets and taken to third world countries secret prisons, where they do believe in torture and they have been locked up without any charges being brought against them or any contact with their families to even as much to let them know if they are dead or alive for years. We as a country are being forced to ride along with the Bush administration as it runs the good name of America down in the eyes of the other countries in the world. I think it's in Germany that US CIA agents are charged with picking up people on their streets and sending them away to secret prisons. As word gets out that the US used water boarding, a form of torture, our president Bush appears on our TVs and tells us, the United States doesn't torture prisoners. If I could ask Mr. Bush a question, it would be, just what do you classify torture as, when prisoners die? Even that wouldn't be truthful as there has been many prisoners that have died as a result of being captured by us and our "aggressive interrogations". There probably is and will be many more prisoners though that will be marred mentally forever from their ordeals of being a captured prisoner of the US. Many of these prisoners are innocent. How many movies and books have told the story of innocent people persecuted who go back for revenge against the people who wronged them? That's us, US that has wronged them. Could it be that we are breeding the next generation of terrorists? Speaking of terrorists, the Webster's Pocket Dictionary defines terrorism as n. violence committed to achieve a political end. It defines Terrorize vt. to terrify, especially by acts of violence; to intimidate through terrorism. Now didn't Bush with an arsenal of mostly lies and bent truths lead our country into war, without an act of congress and without the support of the United Nations, invade Iraq with their "Shock and Awe" attack, with the intentions of securing our oil interests, er I mean to save the Iraqi people and advance the ideology of democracy to the middle east? Couldn't that be an act of terrorism? What about the way that we are trying to advance democracy by bombing the hell out of places of resistance members that don't agree with our plans on how to run their country? Are we trying to Terrorize them into submission? At this point in time who are the terrorists? But wait, that's not all, there are missing emails from the White House that just seem to coincide with dates of the CIA agent's name being leaked and deliberations about going to war in Iraq, they just conveniently got taped over because they were reused. Or the video tapes that the CIA had, on the interrogations of prisoners thought to be conspirators of 9/11, that just happened not to get mentioned through multiple committee investigations and now we know about them, but it is after they have been destroyed. Children's health care, economy stimulus payments, the lists just go on and on. Why didn't the democrats start impeachment and criminal proceedings when they took over being the majority in office? Why do we let such a lying crook get away with all this? Like we started impeachment proceedings on Bill Clinton pretty much cause he couldn't keep his pecker in his pants, but someone who lies, obstructs the constitution, starts illegal wars, creates secret prisons, and whisks people out of their sovereign countries and the speaker of the house and our newly elected members of congress says impeachment is off the table. I think it is owed to the American people to put impeachment back on the table. Who in the government will stand up for our constitutional rights?

Forward

2008-01-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

I am starting this blog to vent my frustrations, disbeliefs, and outright anger about our government, the audacity of its actions, the excuses it gives for these actions and the placidity of the masses to accept it all.

The Northwoods Politic

IBM CEO Retirement Perks

Solutions?: The Problems

The War on Poor

Defense: The Double Edged Sword

Egypt and the U.S.

Problems of Our Government

Yet Another New Beginning: Politics in a changing world

Politically Speaking: Now What?

Campaign Finances

Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

Fiscal Responsibility

Where Does Dick Cheney Get his Special Powers

Let's Applaud Those Who Stand up for What is Right

IndictBushNow.org

The United States Energy Outlook

Indict Bush Now

Failure Bonuses

Catching Up

Gaza/Cuba: Do Embargos Work?

Peace on Earth Goodwill Towards Man

Free Money

Throwing Money to the Wind

If the Shoe Fits...

BS: Bush Stuff

Agencies: Crime and the Damage: Healing

Impeachment: It's Still an Issue

Racism Rears it's Ugly Head in America

T. A. R. P. = Covering Over Taxpayer's Eyes

We Continue to Get Fooled Again

Bailing Out Automobile Manufacturers

Obama Wins Election

Hope and Broken Promises

The Great American Rip Off

Bailing Out Wall Street

Got Lipstick?

The Push for Oil

Clean Air Interstate Rule of 2005

Iraqi Government Does What U.S. Government Can't

It's All About the Oil Baby

A Depressing Interlude

A New Process for Selecting Our Representatives

Thanks For Reading

With a Little Help For My Friends

Bend Over America

Excuses not to Impeach Bush

This is a response to an article I read off a web site called The Daily Kos written by Kevin Holsinger, Tuesday June 10th, 2008, titled, I believe we should let George Bush get away with breaking the law because...

Rep. Dennis Kucinich Presents Articles of Impeachment

My Complaints Against Democrats

Barack Obama Clinches Democratic Nomination

Weep for the Rich

The Presidential Candidates

News Shorts

Trickle Down Effect

An American Database

Terrorism

What is Wrong With America

A Big Thank You to the Telecommunication Companies

Immunity for Telecommunication Companies

Will the House Stand Up?

Missing White House Emails

The Irony of Arlen Specter

This is What I'm Talking About

The System is Down

Forward

This is a response to an article I read off a web site called The Daily Kos written by Kevin Holsinger, Tuesday June 10^th, 2008, titled, I believe we should let George Bush get away with breaking the law because...