We lost that 60th seat. No we really didn't. Never had 60. Joe Liebermann was never there on anything important...like...oh...HEALTH CARE! So now that we are "technically' without that number 60.....first Harry and the Dems should feed good ole Joe to the dogs....or the repugs. Then they should use every parliamentary move available to pass the agendas that they were elected to PASS. Stop trying to play by rules to be nice to repugs, when they don't even realize that there ARE rules when THEY are in power!!

I keep hearing so many candidates, pols, pundits and others telling us that this election can't be about the past, it MUST be about the future. I think of the old saying that goes, "those who refuse to acknowledge the past, are condemned to repeat it".

With our most recent "past" completely "fubar", it is next to impossible to look at many issues into the future. Of course, Iraq is at the top of the list. It hangs over, not only the election, but the daily lives of Americans due to the increased level of distrust for the government that has been created by the an administration that has reinvented fascism so as to fit its idea of total governmental control.

But, we also have to deal with a deficit, again created in our most recent past, that will cripple our economy for eons to come, if something isn't done. We have to look at the damage done since 2003 on our military and its ability to protect us from REAL threats, not those made up for the sake of corporate profits. Not only are the services stretched too far to ably fight, besides Afghanistan, ANOTHER legitimate war, due to Bush's Folly in Iraq, but it has cost the all-volunteer military in its ability to recruit because of the lies and deceptions by the commander-in-chief and his minions.

The lack of detail in preparations for an actual war on terror, due to the Occupation of Iraq and the complete screw up there, has us in much more jeopardy to a terrorist attack than we have ever been.

The refusal by the last THREE administrations, (yes, I have to include Clinton, as much as it pains me), to see the problems caused by American forces being LEFT in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Holy Land after the Gulf War, and how that issue alone was one of the main factors behind 9/11, the USS Cole, the Embassy bombings, and many more. And how that resentment has increased a thousand fold, due to the arrogance that sent our children to occupy even more Arab land by invading and occupying Iraq, not to mention how many more terrorists have been CREATED by this administration and their idiocy.

Obviously, I could go on (and many of you know I usually do), but you get my drift.

YES, the next president and congress have got mountains of future problems to deal with. But if we don't get plans NOW about dealing with this "past", left to us primarily by the "Grand Old Party", we can't MOVE INTO the future with any kind of confidence.

And as I have said before, its got to all start with Democrats, especially those in control NOW! Pussyfooting around with the politics of important matters, instead of meeting them head on, could easily allow an open door for eliminating elections completely. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have GOT to RETURN THE BALANCE OF POWER, or everything else is meaningless.

House Minority Leader John Boehner seems to want the world, especially the enemies of our country and the base members of his own party, which I believe are two mutually exclusive entities, but one can never be sure these days, to believe that if American's do not walk in locked goose-step with him and the Bush Administration they are "Terrorist Sympathizers".

I would like to put my own description of a "Terrorist Sympathizer" on the record.

That would be someone who not only leaves American soldiers in Arab lands that do not want them to be there, or continues to kill Iraqi civilians under the pretense of "fighting terrorism", and giving the actual terrorists more propaganda amunition to back their world-wide war against the United States and anyone who still has the guts to be aligned with her as an ally, in ways that incite even more resistance to the Bush occupation of Iraq after an invasion and war of choice, but who now wants to add to the numbers of these young people that are considered insult enough to these extremists as to warrant even more American kids to having targets placed on their backs for what the enemy would call "justifiable" attacks! Nothing about this situation is justifiable. Not their reasoning for attacking us, nor Bush and his Republican apologists, like Mr. Boehner, to send more American children into a civil war to be killed, maimed or mentally stressed for the rest of their lives.

This very policy is where the enemy gets its strength. From Iraq, a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual War on Terror, has come more and more stones for Osama bin Laden and his band of merry crazies to throw at Americans and give them even more reason to plan continued and even deadlier attacks on Americans both at home and abroad!

Isn't it funny how the Republicans, who did absolutely NO oversight of this war and the man that started it, are now trying to find a way to blame the Democratic Party and anyone else who disagrees with them, for all of the problems, and even moreso, the outcome that we all know is coming no matter what is done about it from this point on?

Texas lost another treasure today when we lost writer Molly Ivins! Molly was everybit the icon in Texas as Ann Richards was and they will both be missed by the true Democrats of this great state and by Dems across the country.

Molly shared my distain for George W. Bush, and I am sure she spoke for many of us in that realm. She had an insight into politics that so many writers lack these days, and yet, she could do it with such humor and class that she was unequaled at her craft.

Molly, we will miss you, your observations of political life, and your love for your beloved Texas and the United States of America.

Rest In Peace........

Although, things didn't go as swimingly in Texas as they did around the country, this Texan still chalks the 2006 Mid-terms as a huge success!

We successfully stopped an emerging dictatorship in its tracks, by eliminating most of George W. Bush's enablers, and shutting up nearly all of the rest. I really believe that the Democratic Party saved democracy from its greatest threat yet!

But, now the real work starts. Our Democratic leaders have got to show the country that not only were we the ONLY alternative, but the one that has been telling the truth, and the one that can come up with REAL answers, not "terror-babble".

We HAVE to investigate the corruption of the Bush Administration, because I believe that is what so many of the Democratic voters are expecting. Any attempt to bypass this step would be a major mistake, due to the seriousness of the issues. I also believe that IF the investigations prove worthy of impeachment of the president and the vice-president, we shouldn't shrink from that responsiblity. I believe that IF the evidence proves to be worthy of a finding of guilt, that enough REAL PATRIOT in the GOP will find it necessary to vote in favor.

However, the need for legislation is MANDATORY. Tax-cuts need to lean toward the shrinking middle-class, while those that have prospered the most from our democratic, capitalist, republic should pay the most for the privilege. On a personal note, after the "Bush tax-cuts", since our kids are grown, and my wife and I make a combined income that doesn't come anywhere near the upper 10%, OUR TAXES WENT UP! And I am SURE that we are not alone. It will take some compromise, but it has to be done.

We also have to put some serious limitations to the so-called "Patriot" Act, and roll back the facism that the Republicans blindly included in it. We might even consider getting rid of that damned name. It was made to sound like those who favored it were "patriots" and implied that those who didn't...weren't.

One thing that needs to be considered is SERIOUS lobbying reform. I have this idea that if EVERYONE that wanted the opportunity to have face-time with a member of Congress were limited to furnishing the said member ONE FREE DINNER PER MONTH and NOTHING MORE....then I might have as much of a chance of meeting with my Congressman or Senator as Exxon/Mobil! This would be one sure way of giving the government back to the people!

Minimum wage, the Bush Occupation of Iraq, the War in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, the Bush Record Deficit, the Bush Record Trade Deficit, REAL Homeland Security...all of these and the rest MUST be addressed properly and done in less than a year and a half! TIMES A-WASTIN'!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!! NOW GET BUSY!!!!

......really wanted to practice their LOVE for their patients?

Just thought I would share with DU the thoughts I shared with my fellow Texans.

To The Editor:

Republican Congressman Ralph Hall sees nothing wrong with forced labor and prostitution in the Mariana Islands. Republican State Representative Dan Flynn has taken $20,000 from Tom DeLay's Texan's for a Republican Majority in possibly tainted money during DeLay's money laundering scheme to bypass Texas law concerning corporate contributions to political candidates.

Now we see Republican Hall has, under the guise of anti-terrorism, voted in the same rubber stamp fashion as always, to revoke habeas corpus and to redefine Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions, as did BOTH of our Republican Senators. The idea that my congressman, or ANY real Texan believes that secret trials and secret evidence, along with putting our men and women in uniform in danger of being tortured in ANY war of the future by redefining exactly what "torture" is, are good ideas, makes me wonder exactly what this country is becoming. Not to mention that little ditty buried deep inside the legislation that gives Bush and his administration IMMUNITY from prosecution for torture and other crimes that have very severe penalties, including death, retroactive to September 11, 2001.

You can't disagree with this president and be patriotic at the same time...no matter what the First Amendment says about it. We weren't allowed to know who was in the vice-president's energy strategy meetings, but then oil and gas prices go through the roof for over a year, and now magically find their way to near normal levels just weeks before the mid-term elections.

And now, after all of the Republican "holier-than-thou" rants about the "immorality" of President Clinton, we have a congressman from Florida and from the "family-values" party that resigns from office, just before an almost sure re-election, for sending "sick, sick,sick" emails to a 16 year old MALE Congressional Page!! (Well, at least he wasn't trying to marry him.) Not to mention just how many of the office holders and campaign donors for the "law and order" party are already in prison or well on their way there for just about every kind of scandal office holders and campaign donors can GO to prison for.

How about a president who gets to run a war of choice in Iraq without any legitimate oversight by a "do nothing" Republican Congress, and has to start borrowing money from our good friend and ally COMMUNIST CHINA(?) to pay for the $2 billion dollars a week that it is costing American taxpayers, and still without the boots on the ground to "get the job done", even though the president never tells us exactly what the "job" is? And now, HE is the one that gets to decide what IS and what ISN'T torture.

I am not sure what it is that these people think they are using the lives of our children to fight for. Because when we revoke habeas corpus, one of the building blocks of democracy; redefine the Geneva Conventions to meet the needs of a power hungry executive branch; rubber stamp laws with such far-reaching affects as retroactive immunity for crimes that Republicans say aren't crimes in the first place; having no problem with forced labor and prostitution so that U.S. businesses can put "Made in the USA" labels on their products in the Marianas; and are willing to borrow money from our enemies to pay for a war on a sovereign country that the U.S. actually started; when you see what is being done in the name of "security" and "democracy".......it appears that the terrorists may have already won anyway.

This is a LTTE, that I wrote, that was printed in my local paper recently. Just thought I would share.



Maybe some actual numbers will make a few more people take notice of the U.S legacy in Iraq while country has been under Republican control:

Lives lost on American soil
on 9/11 - 2,749

American's killed fighting the GOP's
war against a country NOT involved
in 9/11 attacks - 2,683 (reported as of 9/17/06, and still
climbing)


Deaths of Iraqi civilians that
the Republican-controlled government's
occupation was supposed to have
freed and were also not involved in
9/11 attacks - 43,000-47,000 (estimated and still climbing)

Value of Constitutional Rights
taken away from Americans, while
attempting to force Democracy
into cultures that didn't want it
in the first place - Priceless


And remember, while some people would say "tap my phones if you believe it is in the interest of national security, I don't have anything to hide", others might say, "come on into my house and take an inventory of all of the weapons in my possession, and take them if you believe it is all in the interest of national security, who am I to question the government?".

Sorry, neither is acceptable to a real "Patriot".

A friend of mine sent this article to me. Even the conservatives know that this was all a sham for oil!!

http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_07_17/co...

But he has also been exposed even more for what many of us have realized about him for a long time. He is SUCH a good actor, that he was able to recognize the manipulation of the "evangelicals" by the Bush Fascists and pulled the wool over their eyes alot the same way.

Bush says "I am one of you" and they say, "whatever you do must be from God, you have our vote, support and money"!

Gibson says "I am one of you" and they say, "Great! We will give you all the FREE advertising you could possibly want on our 'Christian Networks', just send us your 'making of' featurettes, do the interviews, and while we are at it, we will support one of our own by buying up mass amounts of tickets and take entire churches to your movie"!!

Now, for the record, I loved "Passion of the Christ". I DO believe there is some anti-semitic "codes" in it, but past that it is a beautiful film. Being a Christian and a Democrat isn't as rare as the right wants people to believe.

But even this proud Dem saw thru Gibson, and as a businessman myself, must salute his ability to "use" these people for all they were worth. Now, THEY may be seeing their own ignorance and how easy a target that they are.

Somehow, it seems that George W. Bush doesn't seem to give a hoot or a holler about the United States Constitution to which he swore a solemn oath not once but TWICE.

Over 800 times, he has used the "signing statement" maneuver to basically say, " OK, I signed that law, but I intend to ignore it, because I am the ruler of this here imperial state"! The American Bar Association has recently passed down it's belief that this is not only uncontitutional, but since the president signed the laws into existence and then ignored them, instead of vetoing them, that this is akin to a "line item veto", which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in the 90's, when Congress passed the legislation and President Bill Clinton signed it into law.

On the other hand, this is just another example of a power happy administration, run by a very small litlle guy, who seems to be doing these things at someone's behest. Having followed GWB here in Texas for many, many years, I never saw anything out of him that showed me he was anywhere near smart enough to pull off a "coup" in the name of the Republican Party and initiated by Ralph Reed and his "Christian" Coalition. Reed apparently told his group, upon becoming it's president that they were going to take over the Republican National Committee, thus the party and then the country! He never said it was going to be honest or with "Christian" values.....just that they were going to do it.

We now know that Reed was eyeball deep in the Jack Abramoff scandal, which caused him to have to pull out of the race for Lieutenent Governor in Georgia. He is as dirty as last weeks laundry and about as "Christian" in his values as Fidel Castro, the atheistic dictator of Cuba.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me at least, that to "take over" a country by election fraud is not very "Christian-like". Which brings us right back to Bush.

He doesn't seem too interested in oathes anyway. Notice, if you will, his slithering past the chance to testify "under oath" in front of the 9/11 Committee, even in private, but chose to "visit" with them and then only with his co-conspirator vice-presidente. Why? Obviously because he knew that after the firestorm caused by his Republican buddies during the Clinton Presidency that caused him to be impeached over a lie under oath about a private relationship, (a very small matter compared to 9/11 and Iraq-gate), that he would probably face charges of TREASON instead of perjury.

President Bush, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and the rest of the Bush Crime Family, have never seen a Constitutional Right that they didn't feel couldn't be trampled on with, of course, the exeption of the Second Amendment.

This president and his henchmen have set this world into a very costly and deadly tailspin that most of us in the "loyal opposition" and the rest of the free world have been talking about for years now. And it doesn't seem like there is going to be anybody, within the walls of Congress, the White House, the Pentagon or anywhere els,e willing to step forward and do something to stop this madness.

If this Republican Congress can't see fit to impeach this new "Napolean of West", after spending SO MUCH TAX MONEY chasing down President Clinton on a sex scandal rap, then they don't deserve to be returned to office in November. We HAVE GOT to find people to go into government that really ARE interested in National Security, the poor as well as the rich in the U.S., and just doing the right thing for a change! Answering to corporate masters has got to stop in the United States, or the entire world will be paying a huge and terrible price sooner than later.

First, we had the President of the United States of America reading My Pet Goat while New York and Washington D.C. were under attack.

Then, we had that same President of the United States of America playing with a guitar in Arizona while the city of New Orleans was being flooded with hurricane related water, and it's citizens were literally drowning in their attics, or collecting in the squalor that was the Super Dome, or even worse, the convention center. And then he blamed it on the city mayor.

Now, we are witnessing a war, partially created by the Bush Administration by ignoring that part of the Middle East for over 5 years, and we have American citizens trapped in Lebanon. Thousands of them. And all they have to do to get out, is pay for their own rescue!

The Republicans that have control of every aspect of the federal government can see fit to back cash giveaways to oil companies that are already making record profits off of the war that George W. Bush started in Iraq, and the subsequent occupation. They can see fit to flush literally billions of dollars a month away on a war that they told us would be paid for by Iraqi oil sales. And of course, they saw fit to give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest American's, who can also afford to send their children to college so they don't need the military service in Bush's War to pay for their education like so many middle and low income kids have to do. They even call it "voluntary" and of course those tax breaks make it even easier to pay for the rich kids education.

But we can't afford to pay for the rescue and safe return home for thousands of American's who are trapped in a war zone? We can't find the money to help parents with children remove themselves from the horror of falling bombs and terrorists walking down the streets? Only one or two days worth of money from Bush's War of Choice in Iraq would get every one of these American citizens home safely to family and friends.

But Bush and his "Secretary" of State don't think, because of their tawdry use of American taxpayer money to help their minions in business and their campaign contributors, that the government should pay for an American evacuation of it's citizens from a hostile, war-torn country?

They can easily get it done the way they do everything else! BORROW AND SPEND! If it's good enough for Exxon-Mobil, it should be good enough for Americans in Lebanon.

The Village Idiot and his apologists can try to spread blame, or whatever it is that they have to spread around, when it comes to North Korea and its missle program. But I have said from the beginning that anything that goes on there or in Iran falls squarely in the lap of the Bush Fascist Party and Crime Family.

Just like telling the enemy "BRING IT ON" caused reactions that are less than desirable from the other side, and turned our kid into bigger targets than they already were, using the phrase "Axis of Evil" has brought about reactions that this idiot gave absolutely NO thought of before using it.

Now, we have to understand exactly WHY he even went there. That would be because using Iraq alone, actually wasn't flying all that well, even after the Senate gave its approval to going to war. Bush, and actually probably Cheney if the truth is ever known, realized that they had to make the threat not only look bigger, but frighten the American people enough that they would follow like scared sheep anywhere these two stooges wanted then to go.

Thus, "The Axis of EVIL"!! Just throw in North Korea, because it is run by a maniac COMMUNIST. And while you are at it, toss in Iran.....the American public remembers "AYATOLLAHS", "IRAN HOSTAGES", and such and will just think, "that figures", and follow along in the Idiot Song Book of War. Made no matter that none of these governments were even CLOSE to being allies, as the "Axis Powers", (which gave them the evil name AXIS, because it was the part of the history book that Cheney made Bush read), were during World War II.

Of course, as I pointed out earlier, these fools had no clue.

No matter that the three don't even LIKE each other, although Iran and Iraq HAVE made some anti-American ties since the occupation started, they were still NAMED TOGETHER.

When you name THREE countries as an "Axis of Evil", and then you INVADE ONE OF THEM, then it just gives the loonies running the other two the EXCUSE they need to go forward in the name of SELF-DEFENSE and restart their "NUCULER" programs. Now ONE of them is working on a missle that might be able to reach the West Coast of the United States, not to mention Hawaii and Alaska, and may even have a nuclear warhead to put ON IT!!

Bush created this mess, but it is going to be up to the Democrats to save America from this threat he has allowed and enabled to grow. The testing, by North Korea, of this long-range missile, even if it DID fail, just brings home the necessity of returning the sanity of the National Democratic Party, as well as all of the State and local Democratic Parties, back to the forefront of American politics and the national defense of not only our way of life, but the ideals that it entails.

America deserves NO LESS, and our Founding Fathers, who we celebrate so reverently on this Fourth of July, would DEMAND NO LESS. John F. Kennedy pulled us back from the brink in 1962....we can't allow the Republicans to not only return to that brink, but to take the leap over the edge!!

It should have been something of substance, but....hey it took a lot of hours to get here, so I am celebrating!!!

Thanks for reading so much of my junk!!

Tex

Earlier this week, a young man sent a LTTE of my hometown paper congratulating the Village Idiot on his work in Iraq, and comparing the ups and downs that he has experienced to those of Lance Armstrong, the Dallas Cowboys (and signs his dad told him about after they went 1-15 in 1989 telling Jerry Jones to go back to Arkansas) and their problems going from the bottom to the top in the 90's, and the Dallas Mavericks finally making it to the NBA Finals....yeah I know, what a comparison.

Anyway, I fired back this LTTE and it was printed two days later. I thought I would share.

Tex




Mr. Walton's letter in Sunday's paper was quite disturbing to me. It showed, in a way, how many young people, these days, don't seem to grasp the seriousness of the history that we are living through at present.

The only thing that he is able to compare a three year old occupation of Iraq and the subsequent 2500 deaths of American young people to are silly sports metaphors. The Mavericks in the NBA Finals? Lance Armstrong and his unbelievable win over testicular cancer that spread all through his body and the outcome of winning the Tour de France? The Dallas Cowboys going from 1-15 to three Super Bowls?

Lance, thank goodness, didn't die. How many American lives have been lost by the Dallas Mavericks? Or the Cowboys, on their way to greatness? Would that be none?
Why, yes it would!

"The president's vision for the Middle East"? I can make the same kind of comparison. After a loss in their first game in the FIFA World Cup, Team America came back with a TIE!!! But, then again, there are those darned old American deaths. Those pesky little things that apologists for Bush don't think about unless they have to.

And Mr. Walton mentions his dad telling him about the signs on the roadways when the Cowboys went 1-15. That was 1989. If Mr. Walton is young enough to not remember such things, then he is definitely young enough to join the crusade of the one he calls "his president", and volunteer to go to Iraq, and show us all how it is done. Well, then again, if Mr. Bush's own daughters don't believe in this honorable initiative enough to volunteer, then maybe we shouldn't expect that from other Young Republican's that love this war in Iraq as long as others are fighting it for them.

The only comparison that I can see is how "unbelievable" Lance Armstrongs win over cancer is, and how "unbelievable" everything that comes out of the Bush Administration is. Did we go to war in Iraq to get Saddam because Iraq had nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons....well, yeah...uh, no...hey...wait a minute. It was to free Iraqi's...I mean, we called it "Operation Iraqi Freedom", right? But hold on, did Iraq have anything to do with the loss of 3000 lives on American soil on 9/11? Of course they did remember how the president mentioned in his State of the Union speech the phrase 9/11 and Saddam Hussein or Iraq some TWENTY ONE TIMES in the same sentence...and remember the comments from the White House ...."uh.....yada yada...9/11...yada yada yada...Saddam Hussein...yada yada yada mushroom clouds on the horizon"? Yeah that was it.....we were told it was....wait..."yada yada yada"???? That can't be right.

But not to worry, Iraqi oil will pay for the occupation......wait....no? Are you sure? The president promised. It's costing $300 million a day in American tax money? Are you sure? That's something like $8 billion a month! OK. Nevermind. But we were greeted as liberators, because the vice-president promised....no?...really?......car bombs and rocket propelled grenades instead? Ouch!

But the president promises to listen to his generals on the ground so it'll all be alright. Because remember when General Shenseki told him how many troops we would need we went in with the required 300,000 troops.....you are kidding....no? Only half of that? He fired Shenseki??

At least he said "wanted, dead or alive" about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi...and we got........he said that about Osama bin Laden? Well, we aren't even close to.........oh yeah.....nevermind.....

HOW 'BOUT THEM MAVERICKS????