Scaring the Government

Our government is allowing the increase of surveillance of Americans. I, personally, don't believe the Middle East had anything to do with 911, so homeland security doesn't inspire me to spy on my neighbors any more that I want to give up my privacy to the government. It feels as though Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover are back in office with no fear of Cronkite, Rather, or any reporter worth a damn to rat them out to the American people.

And what about the American people? Why are we just watching as these atrocities that our founding fathers would not have allowed to occur are being so easily inflicted on us? Bailouts given to the rich at our expense while we struggle to pay our electric bill to companies sold to other countries and grocery lists go unfilled out of necessity. With email and Twitter and so many advantages these great men did not have, yet succeeded nevertheless, we have wasted our ability to keep the lines of communication open and use it to our advantage against these bullies. We could have stopped them long ago, but did we? No, we did not and now we are about to lose that opportunity as our government invades our privacy en masse so we don't even try.

Have you noticed the ads on your Gmail alongside the text area change to reflect the subject of your email as you type? Those are what cookies do for advertisers who want to know what we might buy. How much scarier are the cookies of the government that want to know what we might do. We are many and we are scaring them. If that is the only advantage we have, we can not let anyone take it from us. It is no longer time to write your Congressman. It is time to replace them.

Matthew Shepard Murdered For Being Gay

Who disagrees with who you are?

I Don't Need to be Told to Shut Off the Lights

At least not since I turned three do I need someone telling me to turn off the lights when I leave the room. Neither do I need to be told the obvious when it comes to saving energy. If I did, I get a reminder every month to that effect in the form of an exorbitant bill from the power company that is no longer owned by the United States since Nimo was sold to England without asking me if I minded or cared that I would now be paying a European country to light and heat my home in upstate New York. That being said, I saw a commercial last night reminding me to shut off the lights when I leave a room and not to waste power in the interest of preserving the earth that George Bush did nothing to preserve for the eight years he had the chance to do so while Congress sat by and watched, now instructing me to go to an on-line government site for further information. As insulting as the implication was that my government thinks I would not try to conserve energy without being told and assuming that my $800 January power bill to keep my family warm and safer than that poor 92 year old man in Michigan was kept by the enormous corporation who decided his fate without protection through oversight by what has become of our greedy government was not incentive enough; I have to wonder where was the commercial that focused on the major corporations themselves to save energy in an effort to save the world. Where is the expensive commercial for which my tax dollars would no doubt pay addressing the automakers who request money to afford the executive bonuses and perks without having made the slightest, let alone serious effort to create an affordable energy efficient mode of transportation to replace the gas powered automobile that has gone as far as it can go safely? Nor did I see a commercial aimed at the oil companies who tout record profits every year at the expense of the taxpayers who are told to shut off their lights when they leave a room to help undue what big business has done to the planet while Congress decides how many of our tax dollars the incompetents will get to solve their problems, increasing our own. We get up every work day to travel to our place of business, at great expense thanks to the price of gas, and we work at our full time jobs to earn a small amount to pay our large bills after stopping at the store to buy less than we used to for more than it ever cost before. If we are lucky, the job we hold includes medical benefits for which we have to pay, something else that eludes Congress members, but we do it and we trust the people we have elected to office are doing the best they can to allow us our way of life, but I no longer believe they are and a commercial to tell us we are not, by their standards, doing enough to save the world while the individuals who have committed the worst offenses to our planet continue business as usual smacks of arrogance with a slap in the face of the people who are doing the best they can every day without government bailouts to fix the mistakes we may make through honest error. It gets harder and harder to believe in these part time employees who make a great deal more money than we do, while doing a lot less work and then take the time to tell us what we could do better. I'd appreciate it more if they just paid attention to the ones adding to our burden, our expense, and our planet's demise. I would gladly see my taxes pay for that commercial.

Death by Halliburton

It isn't bad enough to lose our soldiers by enemy fire in the war we should never have started against people who never did anything to harm us, we have our own selfish, crooked contractors once owned by our selfish, crooked politicians electrocuting our soldiers in the shower and other "safe" places on their own base. There have been eighteen avoidable electrocutions among our troops since 2003. Did you know that? Well, now you do and what are you going to do about it? Why do we have so many Texas-based contractors involved in this war, and why do they all lead back to Halliburton, Dick Cheney, and the Bush family without the American people getting angry enough to get rid of the people making all the money off this war they can before leaving office? When they do finally leave office, if they don't leave in handcuffs, it is the greatest injustice in history. Bush is going to sign pardons for himself and the rest of his administration before he leaves office. They will be blanket pardons to cover anything they may have done or will still do that cannot be overturned if they leave office without being impeached. How many impeachment petitions have you signed? How many calls to Congress to insist on impeachment have you made? There's no time like the present.
How to Reach Your Congress Member: Address, Email, Phone

What Would Henry Ford Have Done?

Henry Ford, 07/30/1863 - 04/07/1947
Founder of the Ford Motor Company

He said, "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

Why are the American people being asked to pay for the automakers' folly more than once? Wasn't it bad enough we had to lose our jobs, watching them go to other countries without us as the same gas hogs were built here? These companies were making billions in record profits while laying people off. Right now, General Motors is building a $3 million dollar factory in Russia, but they are asking the United States government for money. What would the reasoning behind that be? Why aren't they building a factory in America to put Americans back to work and build hybrid cars or, even better, solar powered automobiles? Are these questions being asked by Congress of these automakers to decide whether or not to give them taxpayers' money once again?

Remember, Henry Ford also said, "Quality means doing it right when no one is looking."

Karl Rove is Better Than You and I

Like Bolton and Miers, he has ignored the Congressional subpoena he was issued and has not been, nor will probably ever be arrested for his crime. Yes, it is a crime, yet the Congressional Sergeant at Arms does not make any arrests. If you or I committed a crime, we would have been handcuffed and strip searched already, but not anyone from the Bush Administration. Write to Congress and demand these criminals be arrested. Apparently, Congress has to be told what to do these days or they just agree with Bush. Here is How to Reach Your Congress Member: Address, Email, Phone

Write to Congress Again

Ask them about the $4 per gallon gas prices and demand to know what they are doing about it. Demand to know what they intend to do about replacement energy sources. They are out there and have been for years, but have been ignored as big oil gets bigger and bigger. How much of this profit is going into political pockets? They are not working for their constituents if they are doing everything that can be done to make people's lives easier, unless, of course, they consider big oil their constituents. They work for us and we pay them very well. We also give them better medical benefits and retirement plans than we have. Why is that? Ask questions and demand answers.

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Who is making money off of the gas prices? Who is making money off of the Iraq War? Are they one and the same?

Tell Congress No Immunity for the Secret Wiretappers

It's not enough to get Bush out of office. We need to undo all the crimes he has committed in office and prevent him from committing any more before he finally gets out. That includes his conspirators who have benefited from his ridiculous presidency or are attempting to benefit from it. They should all be held accountable for their wrongdoing and providing immunity is not the way to get it done. These companies helped Bush spy on us and we are not going to stand for it.

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.

Kudos to the House

The Senate failed the American people yesterday by approving Bush's bill granting the telecom companies immunity from lawsuits for their betrayal of their customers. Bush threatened to veto any temporary extension, so our Representatives stood their ground and voted on one for themselves. The Democratically controlled House said they needed up to three weeks to review and possibly revise the Senate's bill, which would shield telecommunication companies from potentially billions of dollars in civil damages. About 40 civil lawsuits have been filed against AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. for the warrantless domestic spying program that Bush secretly began, using 9/11 as his excuse as he does for everything from war to torture. Bush wants to shield his big business buddies and himself from being implicated in any investigation and his fellow Republicans are using issues such as domestic spying to paint the Democrats as weak on national security before the election.

SPAM in Reverse

Did you think your email was private before you hit "send"? WRONG!!! You don't even have to hit the send button and your words are in the public domain.

Something I noticed recently is in my Google mail account. When a draft is saved in my Gmail, ads appear on the right margin, disturbingly topical to whatever the subject or subjects about which I'm currently writing. For instance, when I hit "save" right now, leaving the compose screen momentarily to access my drafts, upon my return, five advertisements appear under the heading "Sponsored Links" with titles such as "Writing Pad Tablet PC", "Write Articles Instantly", "Myself, Unfettered", "Press Release Writing", "Win $10K Writing Contest". Another article I was writing earlier regarding the congressional practice of writing their political constituents invited links like this: "Labels-for USPS Shipping", "Jay Footlik for Congress", "Hillary Clinton in 2008?", "Mark Warner Lied to Us". I guess I have to give whoever came up with this invasion of my privacy credit for having the get-up-and-go to sell their wares, their ideas, themselves with such conveniently accessible marketing savvy, despite their incredible audacity to do so. It is SPAM in reverse. How sneaky. I'm outraged and impressed at the same time, wondering who I have to contact to advertise my blog this way.

Let's Write to Them to Tell Them to Stop Writing to Us

Franking is a term I use when my spouse, whose father's name was Frank, behaves too much like my father-in-law. I now see that Congress has another use for the term...a much more expensive use that wastes our tax dollars for this unnecessary process.
We've all gotten junk mail from our government, usually right before an election, but generally all year long, just to remind us that Congress does still exist and often busies itself with things about which we care very little or nothing at all. This, however is something that should have our complete attention. U.S. House members spent $20.3 million of our taxes last year just to send us mail. Do you remember each and every piece of mail you received from Congress last year? Okay, well that is asking a lot. Do you remember several pieces of mail? A few pieces? One? All our representatives go through to remind us they are still alive and you couldn't be bothered to remember one lousy, stinkin' postcard? How inconsiderate of you. These men and women go out of their way to spend our taxes on thinking up new ways to spend our taxes and you just don't care. It would not surprise me one bit if they stopped writing to you. Well, okay, it would surprise me if they stopped this expensive, albeit useless, inane practice that would save us millions annually. Just because we didn't know about the cost and even now that we do, we probably aren't going to do a damned thing about it, they will keep sending us mail about which we don't care, hardly ever even read, wastes our money and resources, kills our trees, pollutes our air, and in general, now pisses us off. What are you going to do about it? We could write to them to tell them to stop writing to us. Write to Congress

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.

To Congress

Aside from the religious right, Americans aren't as stupid as you like to think we are, so what does Dumbya have on you guys that he's making you tow the mark? His is not the only name that will be in the history books attaching itself to the crimes that are rife in this administration. Yours will be there too, but unlike the Congressional heroes of the past, yours will be among the cowards and crooks that made it all possible for this dishonest president. Why wouldn't you do something about it now before that happens and while you can still change what the history books will say about you after you're gone? You can change history. Please do.

Perfect American Health Coverage

I know all the presidential hopefuls have been working on their health plans with which to impress the voters into voting for them, but I have a perfect plan that every American will love. It will cost nothing at all, it will be envied by other nations, and give the U.S. bragging rights at having the best health coverage in the world for free. I didn't waste a great deal of time crunching numbers for it wasn't necessary, as a matter of fact, I didn't have to give this plan any thought at all. Were I running for office, I could spend all my time and efforts on campaigning and then once elected, I would inform Congress that they would no longer have health coverage any better than what was offered to all Americans and they should begin immediate preparation to that end as they would be without coverage until having done so. As such, I could rely on their selfishness to get the job done well and done quickly, and for the first time, all Americans would have excellent coverage without it costing a fortune, instead of just the privileged few who pass the laws that leave most people out in the cold.

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.