What's Next, the Return of Slavery?

Virginia's Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, who took office in January, removed protections based on sexual orientation from his anti-discrimination order, saying Democratic Governor Tim Kaine exceeded his constitutional authority by extending protections to gays by signing executive orders barring state agencies from discriminating in hiring, promotions or firing based on sexual orientation.

Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli sent a letter to state college presidents and other officials Thursday saying they don't have the authority to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, saying only the General Assembly has that power, advising college governing boards to "take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law."

State Democrats and other fair-minded individuals disagree, but the ever influential Religious Right as represented by a spokesman for the Family Foundation of Virginia, which opposes anything sensible, said the criticism of Cuccinelli's action is unwarranted.

If Conservative Republicans aren't moving backwards, they aren't moving at all.

Obama's Speech on Health Care

Did you watch it? Did you listen to it? Did you pay attention to the audience? Did you see who applauded and who didn't? Why wouldn't any member of Congress not want any of their constituents to have the benefit of health care? Why would any of these people tell their constituents health care as described by the President would be bad and what information are they basing that on if any? Do you think that maybe the only reason would be the money they will no longer get from the insurance companies that do not want the health care plan the President is proposing? Do you think the reason they are not enthusiastic about the health care plan is greed? If I were a reporter or anyone with a way of finding out the dirt on the dirty, I would begin investigating each and every one of the men and women in that room who refused to applaud the health care plan. Have they been receiving money for their negativity toward a health care plan for all from the insurance companies to anyone who may have been giving them any incentive to keep it from passing? Let the investigations begin people. This is our country and the people who sat with their arms folded during the speech, refusing to applaud are keeping Republicans as well as Democrats from benefiting from health care.

Election Deception

The voter information for tens of thousands of voters -- Democratic voters mind you -- were "accidentally" purged from the system. The Republicans do something reprehensible to the competition every election. They get caught. There is a small, downplayed scandal and they go back to the drawing board to plan for the next election's scheme. The Democrats are not without their faults by a long shot, but the party as a whole represents working for the people, not against them. The Republicans represent greed, deceit, dishonesty, intimidation, and all the negative words associated with politics. They are driven by the church which is Constitutionally not supposed to be associated with politics, but bribery goes a long way behind conservative doors. While pointing the finger at the Democrats for wrongdoing, they have managed to give their candidate an unfair advantage through deception and if McCain wins against Obama just as Bush won over Gore through deceit and intimidation, it will be another four to eight years with a dishonest figurehead in the Oval Office doing what the racist religious right tells them to do with an aggressive, power-hungry Vice President making far too many decisions for the position all over again. The Republican voters must surely be suffering from the same economic woes as Democrats. Their loyalty to their party makes even less sense than their leaders.

The Republican Supreme Court is at it Again

If the Democrats campaigning for President really want to get elected, they'll get to each and every registered voter, no matter how far off the beaten path they live and make sure they have everything they need to vote including federal, photo ID and a ride to get there. Make sure they know where to vote as that has been a surprise for many voters who went to the same place they always voted to find they now have to go elsewhere. Don't let the Republicans get away with their tricks this time. Be smarter than they are and that isn't hard to do.

Don't Be Fooled by Bush

The chairmen of the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees were given the assignment of modernizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The House is working hard to pass another FISA bill since Bush vetoed the last one because it did not grant immunity to the phone companies. Their new version still protects our national security, preserves civil liberties, and denies retroactive immunity to phone companies that participated in the Bush-Cheney Administration warrantless surveillance program and I hope they don't back down. Have all of you sent a message to your carrier by changing companies since you learned your own phone company, to whom you pay money every month, was spying on you? Don't reward them for that. Reward the House members who stood up to Bush and protected your rights.

The Senate also passed a bill, but theirs does not protect our civil liberties. What it does protect are the phone companies from being sued by the American people who had their privacy invaded. It more importantly protects the Bush Administration who ordered that invasion. If either party did nothing wrong, they wouldn't need so much protecting. Further, the bill the White House so fervently supports in the interest of national security, accusing Congress of putting the American people in danger, really does nothing to endanger or protect our country from terrorism despite what Bush claims. It protects him by staving off the investigations and wouldn't you try to keep people from learning what you have been up to if you were Bush? To do this, he has been irresponsibly making false claims that we are more vulnerable to terrorism until a new bill is passed.
By pushing back against right-wing pressure, Congress has the Bush-Cheney Administration bolstering their scare tactics and suggesting that congressional Democrats' efforts to get the FISA bill right this time will invite another terrorist attack. I am somehow doubtful that FISA occurs to suicide bombers before they go boom, but I could be wrong. Bush is trying to scare Congress and the American people into accepting a FISA bill that includes retroactive telecom immunity, further eroding our Constitutional privacy rights. People, please be smarter than that. Support those who are protecting your rights. Pay attention to the issues and think about your vote before it is cast and for whom.

The people who do not care about protecting our rights had no problem investing in a controversial television commercial evoking ticking time-bomb imagery straight out of TV's 24 to shock the American people into supporting another flawed FISA law. They have a very low opinion of the American people if they think we can't see through the fear mongering. Congress is pushing for a better FISA bill, but a few loud voices in Washington are more determined than ever to ram through another flawed piece of legislation. The smarter we get, the more nervous they get and the harder they try. Too bad they don't work as hard at running our government as they do at fooling the public.

Say Cheese!

Democrats, if they have a brain in their collective heads, will spend the time between now and the election and every dime of their campaign contributions on photo IDs for the voters who need them. It's as simple as that. The elderly and indigent voters, who are mostly registered democrats and tried to vote last time at the same location they voted previously, using the same forms of identification that had always been accepted previously, were turned away, suddenly faced with a new law in several states that requires them to have multiple forms of identification, primarily, a photo ID. For those voters who have no driver's license or passport, enough money to buy one, and the transportation to obtain these items, were forced to submit signed ballots in the hopes that they would come back with them within a certain period of time. Those who were not able to do so, were told their ballots were not submitted, rather thrown away. As these voters were mostly Democrats, it would be in the best interest of the Democrats to see this does not happen again.

The Republicans, along with the current administration, hope they do not.

Bush Claims to Know What the American People Want

After spending a couple of hours at the Pentagon and deciding he wants $196 billion this time, Bush had the nerve to say, "The American people expect us to work together to support our troops. That's what they want," He continued blathering on, "They do not want the government to create needless uncertainty for those defending our country and uncertainty for their families. They do not want disputes in Washington to undermine our troops in Iraq just as they're seeing clear signs of success."

I haven't seen any clear signs of success. Have you? I never saw a reason to go over there in the first place as it was never proven to me or anyone I know that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Did you see a connection there? Nope...me neither. I thought he used the revenge platform to invade. I know Bush wanted to kill Hussein before people took him seriously in his rantings, so I saw the fastest trial and execution I ever did see. Hell, it was even speedier than Timothy McVeigh. I have seen clear signs of gas prices higher than I've ever seen them and groceries too expensive to buy to feed my family, so I don't know exactly what Bush means when he touts the sound economy or spouts off about what the American people want. He does not know what we want anymore than he cares what we want. The man couldn't find his ass with both hands, so why doesn't he just shut up?

Maybe he just needs to be told to shut up, kinda like my mother-in-law. That woman tends to prattle on about nothing whether anyone is listening or not. When my father-in-law was alive, he would let her go on so long, but when he got sick of listening to her or saw people start looking at their watches, he would very loudly tell her to shut up and she would cease talking immediately, I don't care if she was mid-syllable. My father-in-law died two years ago and while I didn't appreciate him when he was alive, I sure miss him now. My mother-in-law hasn't stopped talking since he died and like Bush, she really needs to be told to shut up.

Congress Interrupted

I was watching Charlie Rose yesterday and I like him an awful lot, but he interrupts his guests even more than Mike and Merv put together, and that is saying something. His over interrupted guest was New York Congressional Representative Charles Rangel who matched Charlie interruption for interruption. He said some things to Charlie that intrigued me, so I went to Mr. Rangel's site to see his voting record. I do not entirely agree with him on every issue, but he is certainly credible, making his interview comments worth investigating. What he said was that when the Democrats put forth an idea for discussion, the Republicans argue automatically, filibustering whether they like the idea or not. He said it is common knowledge. It is an intentional slow down to see that nothing gets done by Democrats in Congress until the election. Of course, this makes the Democrats look like they are doing nothing, despite their slight majority.

How pointless. Do they really think the American people would not mind seeing their hard-earned tax dollars spent in such a fashion? We pay their exorbitant salaries, do we not? When they are working to pass laws or confirm presidential nominees, whether we agree with the positions they take or not, they are at least doing the job for which they were elected. But this? These are very expensive sophomoric antics that cheapen the nation these individuals are sworn to serve and the Constitution they vowed to protect. Congress, the very body which formed the most revered government in the world at one time is now reduced to working very hard at doing nothing just to fool the voters into thinking one side is even worse than the other. How sad. How ridiculously sad.

We have already lost the respect of the world through inferior leadership, war mongering, ecumenical intimidation, scandal, greed, and stupidity. We have behaved like spoiled, arrogant, misbehaving children with our military leaders and contractors alike taking their lead from our current administration as though they have that right, disrespecting the people in the countries they invade as Bush disrespects the American people; but when we do it abroad, we put our soldiers' lives at risk.

They Had The Tea Party - We Have The Internet

Growing tired of the abuses of tyranny, culminating in smothering taxes, a group of colonists broke bricks of tea against ships docked in Boston Harbor, thus sparking the necessary revolution that resulted in our democracy. America was coming along quite well with its ever expanding Constitution, focused always on the improvement of the rights of the American people until one day, it suddenly stopped. This greatest of all nations once rife with worldwide reverence for democracy and all the perks that came with it had come to a screeching halt. America had grown away from the original encroachments that suppressed it under the moralist mindset of the 1700's, tweaking the Constitution whenever it was necessary to bring the country up to date; away from the savagery of arrogant ignorance perpetrated by past oppressive generations, moving always forward, never backward. It was a beauty to behold and Americans held their heads a little higher than everyone else by birthright as they traveled the world proudly and freely.

Americans are no longer as enthusiastic about holding their heads quite as high as they once did, fearful of getting it chopped off as our country is not as revered as it once was when it was moving forward.  It is now moving backward, flirting dangerously with the descendants of racial segregation and McCarthyism.

When the present administration came to power, America's credibility began deteriorating. The U.S. is no longer revered by citizens of other nations as we are judged by our policies and our willingness to attack countries for no cause.  Bush is ridiculed on late-night television talk shows, but what he's cost the United States is no reason to laugh.  Aside from the war, back at home, we have crises after crisis and our government does nothing to protect its own people, so our government worrying about Iraq after we leave somehow lacks sincerity.  We should not have invaded that country and Bush knew it. When the American people discovered the false pretense that brought us to invade a country with which we took no issue, we should have left immediately, but that would have lost the president his 9/11 scapegoat, and the money being made by this war for the people who have invested in it, makes it worthwhile to stay as long as we can.  Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces, says the United States will be in Iraq for another nine to ten years.  We can not allow that.  If Congress will not take the necessary steps to bring our troops home now, it is once again up to the people.  Those of us with young children who will be eighteen in the next nine or ten years already have incentive; all we need is a non-violent means to get our message to the government.  We just need a modern day version of a tea party or at least an updated issue of the Pentagon Papers.  The blogs are not enough if we just write them and read them.  There is so much more to be done.