The real reason our financial crisis has happened. Runaway Greed

The Securities and Exchange Commission was created during The Depression to restore a sense of trust to Wall Street and to instill investor confidence. That confidence has been dashed once again. The S.E.C. was like an aging third string quarterback trying to sit on the sidelines the rest of his career without getting dirty, all the while this crisis brewed and history repeats itself once again.

We used to have a regulation call “the net Capital Rule”, and what this did was to require investment banks to have a responsible cash reserve on hand for the companies to weather downturns in the market and to prevent excessive debt loads.

Well back in 2004 when the Republicans where in all their glory all the major Wall Street players led by Henry Paulson, then the Goldman Sachs CEO and now the current Treasury Secretary, put the squeeze on their buddies at the Securities and Exchange Commission aka S.E.C. to grant an exemption of this rule so they could take advantage of the sub prime mortgage market, with all their unregulated mortgage backed securities that promised to make everyone rich. Then with the unanimous vote of all five S.E.C. members granted this exemption of the rule to the investment banks of Wall Street. Unleash the pit bulls Igor, there ain’t no lipstick here.

Do I hear a WTF???

So what did they do with their safety net? They went to a crap shoot and laid it down on the sub prime mortgaged backed securities market, putting their shareholders and the entire stability of the market at great risk.

The commissioners ignored the lessons of the Savings & Loan disaster of the 80’s, when deregulating that industry led to enormous abuses, the point is boys, Foghorn Leghorn said so eloquently, pay attention when I’m talking to ya, you can’t allow the foxes to guard the hen house.

Then the Coup de grâce came when Bush appointed Christopher Cox as the S.E.C. chairman in 2005 and the first thing he did was to gut the effectiveness of the seven member oversight committee established to watch out for abuses of the securities market. Now Wall Street could do as they wished without any meaningful review.

Back in March 2008 Cox said “we have a good deal of comfort about the capital cushions at these firms at the moment” even though some in the S.E.C. warned about excessive debt and dangerous practices within the investment banks. Then a few days later Bear Stearns crashed and burned and was gobled up by JP Morgan Chase, using taxpayer money to the tune of 29 million dollars.

Then the dominoes started to tumble because of the emense bad debt the S.E.C. exemption allowed the investor banks to accumulate. Chairman Cox, running with his tail between his legs has said sheepishly “the last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work.”

Duh..!!!

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The Real America for Lipstick Wearing Pitbulls

You know what gets me angry? Is watching Sarah Palin talk about how she is a real American. By her definition myself and more than half of the country must be fake Americans.


She runs around this great nation in her new 150 thousand dollar wardrobe and with that shrill nasal toned voice of hers talking incessantly about how small town, moose shootin, hockey moms like her are the real Americans. God help us if McCain gets elected and doesn’t live to finish his term and that piece of work Mrs. Palin becomes the president.


Well Mrs. Palin, I was born and raised in Niagara Falls, N.Y. I came up through public schools, I drive a Chevy one that was actually made in America, I drink beer, I pay taxes, and I work 2 jobs in order to barely squeak through each month, I have actually read the Constitution.


So don’t tell me I am not a real American, don’t call my friends who served their country and shed their blood in Viet Nam, that are Democrats are not real Americans. Don’t call my activist friends who watch and report when all you crooked politicians take money from corporate lobbyists. Your campaign of half truths and outright lies, I hope will come back to show you what the real Americans think of you.


My friends are white, black, Christian, Muslim, liberal, conservative, pro-choicer, and community organizers and free thinkers and that Mrs. Palin in your world is Anti-American.

Apparently in your view the only real Americans are the ones who show up for your rallies.


What is really un-American Mrs. Palin are people like you who are would divide us and enrich your war profiteering pals, practice policies that have bankrupted this country and involved us in foreign occupations while letting the plotters of 9/11 escape into Pakistan.


It is you Mrs. Palin and your so called maverick running mate who don’t under stand what makes this country great. It is the wonderful diversity of our people and the realization that no one group is more American than the next.


What unifies real Americans Mrs. Palin is our belief in that American values should work for the common good of all Americans, and those who would try to separate us from that unifying bond are the real enemies of America. So Mrs. Palin it is you and your maverick running mate who need to get real.


Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

McCain spotlight’s Obama’s associations. Let’s look at McCain’s..

McCain spotlight’s Obama’s associations. Let’s look at McCain’s..

The Republican’s will be getting the blame of this economic crisis we are in by the independent voters this election. The only way that they can take the conversation from the issues that face the Nation like the war, health care, social security, and the economy, is by changing the subject.

Every time the candidates talk about real issues McCain’s numbers fall in the polls so the McCainiac’s will attack Obama about his ties to the Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers, the onetime Weatherman who has been a University of Illinois education professor for almost 20 years.

On Saturday that pesky little pit bull Palin said she has finally remembered what she reads and she went on to say that she reads the New York Times and cited a story and then had the nerve to accuse Senator Obama of “palling around with terrorists” . Actually I doubt that she even read the story. She got it from the McCainiac’s slime machine to parrot as she gallivants around the country trying hard to avoid real reporters and parroting lies to the republican base.

According to the Washington Post’s Harold Meyerson
“The story of Obama's interaction with Ayers is drenched in irony, since it is basically a tale of Obama being co-opted into Chicago's civic establishment. In 1995, Obama, then a young lawyer with political ambitions but as yet no office, was recruited to chair the board of a school reform organization funded and established by the Annenberg Foundation -- a group that distributes the wealth of the estate of Walter Annenberg, Richard Nixon's ambassador to Britain. It was only then that Obama met Ayers, who already was a board member and a figure in Chicago's education-policy elite. (Mayor Richard Daley, that known radical, told the Times that he had consulted Ayers on education issues for years.”
Well Johnny Boy what about you and your running mate’s dubious association’s

The McCain-Hagee Connection
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_mccainhagee_connection_1.php

The McCain-Keating Connection, One Crook Went To Prison, The Other Is Running For President
http://mccainkeatingfive.com/

McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

Gun Control Lobby Claims McCain Insider Had Ties to NRA Spy Op
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5606100&page=1

Phil Gramm, John McCain's former economic adviser, asserting that the country "had become a nation of whiners" in a "mental recession."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=5835269&page=1

Video of Palin and Stevens: The ‘Big Difference Between Reality and Perception’
http://www.propublica.org/article/video-of-palin-and-stevens-the-big-difference-903/

Palin's Church Promotes Gay Conversion
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/palins-church-promotes-gay-conversion/165471

The McCainiac’s have said big bad John will come into the October 7th presidential debate seeking to change the subject from the economy to Obama’s radical associations.

See John when you and your pit bull attack with lies and distortions not everyone is asleep as you would seem to believe. We are watching and we are not going to let you steal this election using the standard operating procedure of the Republican Party.

How about in a time of deepening economic crisis, let’s focus on the issues. America deserves a debate in which the candidates focus on their ideas for fixing the problems facing America rather than partisan attacks on Obama’s presumed associates.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

John McCaniac to the Rescue

Well I for one am impressed on just how stupid the republican nominee for president is. As a self-proclaimed not so knowledgeable on economics kind of guy, John McCain is going to suspend his campaign to rescue Amerika.

Well I guess he means suspend any meaningful part of his campaign but not the muck racking mudslinging or ugly blatantly untrue TV commercials.

Well at least he can unleash his barely potty trained pit bull, who can still gallivant around the country and show everybody how unqualified she is to be Mayor of a tiny village let alone Vice President of this country just one heart beat away from being President of Amerika.

Have you seen the Katie interview yet? YIKES!!!!!!

So far I have to say that Congress has done a good job since in like a scene from the Godfather T. Sec. Henry Paulson delivered a “three page ransom note that said give me $700 billion, or I’d hate to see anything bad happen to that nice economy of yours.” I got that line from Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.

I for one am glad that the Republicans decided to bolt from rushing into an agreement as flawed as the rush to war with Iraq.

Since we have allowed this situation to get this far this bailout needs to have lots of strings attached. In fact the hell with strings we need ropes chains and muzzles. Plus the Treasury better get a good return on their buck. Maybe that will bailout our social security problem too.

There is no way my tax dollars should reward the Greed Is Good crowd in corporate Amerika who through mismanagement corruption and bad judgment put their companies and our economy at risk.

But just how that ole coot McCain’s sour puss in Washington is going to help get a deal done when all he has done since the convention is slime Obama is beyond me. John don’t worry about it according to your own assessment the American Economy is fundamentally sound.

Here comes the smoke and mirrors again. John McCaniac riding the white horse to the White House to proclaim “We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans” hooray John to the rescue he is putting politics aside that is except for his slime machine.

John stay the hell out of the way get out your leash and take your pit bull for a walk and let congress do its job.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

Who’s to Blame For The Wall Street Crisis? We All Are.

Pay attention everyone let’s have a little reality check. This financial crisis is not rocket science. It’s just like the obesity crisis. It ain’t the good carb bad carb, the good fats bad fats, it’s the calories stupid. If you eat more than you burn you get fat period.


It’s not the big bad credit card companies who are causing your debt it’s a lack of discipline in keeping a budget and spending more than you make, period.


When you make bad loans, bundle them up and sell them to Fannie and Freddie you are going to have worthless paper that the borrower will be unable to repay.


When you make unsound financial decisions your business fails, period. That is unless, you have friends who can make laws and spend other people’s money i.e. taxpayer dollars to prop your sorry asses up.


Well it’s time to pay up America. Trillions of dollars are going up in smoke thanks to the likes of the Gordon Gekko’s from the movie Wall Street and a congress that deregulated the very controls that could have kept this crisis from happening.


We will be ushering in a new era and hopefully some real conservatism, and fiscal responsibility. Greed is not good and America has abandoned the philosophy and principles that once made it great.


What the Bush administration and more recently McCain have abandoned, is true conservative values. We need to practice prudence and fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic.


What the vast majority of American people have abandoned is, saving for retirement and a rainy day. For years, most Americans have spent more than they earn. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, and corporate debt, all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt may never be repaid.


Wall Street now cries Government must save us. We are too big to fail, the consequences will be dire. The consequences are dire and we must not allow this to happen again. We must operate with free market consequences not government socialism for Wall Street.


If we do not operate with genuine free market consequences we must intervene and put the leash and muzzle on Wall Street.


Here is the reality. Our economy is running because foreigners are buying our bonds and lending us money but this is going to come to an abrupt halt because they will rightly fear that if they ever get paid back and all it will be in cheaper dollars.


America lead by the money that influence in congress has abandoned the principles that once made us great. We have marched lock step forward into a global economy where we all depend on one another. American companies have moved plants and factories to anywhere labor is cheap forget about the American worker. The American consumer buys more cheaply form abroad what we used to make in the good ole USA. Can your even buy shoes, clothes, bikes, radios, TV’s or computers made in America?


Now our trade deficits are out of control. At home tax cuts for the rich, endless war, welfare for people who don’t deserve it and out of control government spending by the so called conservative Bush administration is sinking the value of the dollar. Just look at the soaring value of gold to the dollar.


Yet John McCain would make the Bush tax cuts permanent expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and start a war with Iran. Barack Obama is promising tax cuts to everyone but the wealthiest two percent.


Our democracy is at stake due to the fiscal crisis. A Scotsman named Alexander Tyler, a History professor from Scotland living about the time that our constitution was written in 1787 said this.


“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves a generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”


What we are witnessing today is how empires end. What we have now is an America who is unable to defend its own borders, protect its currency, or even balance its budget. With out the discipline to solve this crisis Medicare and Social Security headed for disastrous consequences with under-Funded liabilities that will come to trillions of dollars.


Who do they want to manage this crisis? Bush and company want to give total control to Hank Paulson and Ben Bernake without oversight. They want to entrust an unelected financial elite with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which and unelected financial elite got us into in the first place with us as just spectators.


We used to be the richest, most powerful, most self-sufficient republic in world history, with the highest standard of living any nation had ever achieved. What is the solution to this crisis? Don’t lend money to people who can’t pay it back and who want government welfare to bail them out. Don’t save businesses that don’t follow sound fiscal principles. Invent it here, make it her, buy it here, and live within your means.


The rich, the middle class, and the poor are going to have to bite the bullet and realize that the free lunch is over and the bill has com due.


Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

Obama Fight Back Pleeeeease.!!!!!

They are swiftboating Obama and if he and Biden don't stop using the rope a dope tactic like Mohammed Ali did to wear-out his opponents, they will get KO’d just like Kerry and they will be left in November scratching their heads and saying, are the American people really that blind.

Well the fact is more than half of them never vote at all so at least half of the American people don’t even care about our country.

Of the people that vote almost half voted for Bush twice so about three quarters of the American people are completely out of touch with reality and if you put lipstick on a pig they will elect it vice president.

McCain the war hero is acting like coward hiding behind his spin doctors. He continually attacks Obama with half truths, out of context quotes, and outright lies. McCain can’t run on his own record, he must run from it.

The phony indignation the Republicans are faking, the newest ads that McCain has put out for the mass media. Chris Matthews had some Republican senators and congressmen on asking direct questions did they believe that Obama was actually calling Paulin a pig with lipstick and every last one started dancing like Sugar Ray Leonard did to Roberto Duran and did not directly answer the question.

Well Mr. McCain himself has used this phrase several times during the campaign as well as many other prominent Republicans have used the same phrase as was shown on Matthews show.

Both sides have declared a truce to commemorate the attacks on September 11, 2001 but McCain keeps up the cheap shots up to the last minute.

He released a TV ad saying Obama Favored “comprehensive sex education” for Kindergartners which is another line of crap what Obama favors is teaching children about inappropriate touching like the kind that happens when a child is molested by someone he or she trusts like their priest, or minister or congressman.

Now this ad refers to legislation Obama voted for, but did not sponsor in the Illinois Senate that allowed school boards to develop “age-appropriate” sex education courses at all levels, kindergarten teachers were given the approval to teach about appropriated and inappropriate touching to combat molestation. So what is McCain saying that McCain wants to protect the child molester.
Another McCain ad pins the swirl of Internet rumors about McCain's running mate to the Obama campaign. The reference to a mini-army was drawn from a Wall Street Journal column by conservative John Fund. A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee said yesterday that neither it nor the Obama campaign had any researchers or lawyers in Alaska.

Obama did fight back and say "We've got an energy crisis, we have an education system that is not working for too many of our children and making us less competitive. We have an economy that is creating hardship for families all across America. We've got two wars going on, veterans coming home not being cared for, and this is what they want to talk about."

Obama aides say the assaults will not work but I disagree, the untrue fabricated assaults on Kerry in the 2004 election where his downfall. Obama’s running mate Senator Joe Biden denounced the negativity pointing out that Bush smeared McCain in his 2000 race for the presidency and said "What really disappoints me is the very tactics used against him, they're trying to use against Barack Obama now," he said. "It's literally saddening. I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it. But I guess I should learn to expect everything."

Senator Obama you don’t even have to lie or tell half truths to hit back, their record speak for itself. McCain is no Einstein, finishing 5th from the bottom of his class from the U.S. Naval Academy. Out of 899 he finished 894.
He had extramarital affairs, in which he accepted the blame. He associated and was involved in the Keating Five scandal and was rebuked for his role by the Senate Ethics Committee.

McCain long ago made clear that the American economy is not his strong suit. In November 2005, McCain acknowledged: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."

Two years later, McCain admitted making little progress in grasping Economics. As the Boston Globe reported in December 2007, economic policy is "a subject on which McCain has said he feels he is unknowledgeable and that filling the void would be a priority when selecting a vice-presidential nominee." To address this glaring shortfall, Republican presidential nominee claimed he had turned to the equivalent of Economics for Dummies:

"The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book." Given the recent housing market meltdown, the forced bail out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the hysteria gripping Wall Street and the global financial system. Americans should be concerned about the identity of McCain's mentor. After all, Greenspan played a critical role in bringing the United States to the brink of economic disaster.

In 1997 McCain was the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and he accepted funds from corporations and businesses under the committee’s purview. He voted against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich but has since recanted and votes for permanent tax breaks while the country has a massive deficit because of the war in Iraq and Bush’s spending orgy.

So Senator Obama if you want to be president, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, don’t jump into an ass kicking contest with one leg, hit back and hit hard because these lies will bury your chances of being president, and stick us with John McCainiac and his pit bull with lipstick, at a time when this country needs smart intelligent leadership. You must lead us out of the hole that the Bush / Cheney administration and their Republican rubber stamp congress has put us into.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Just the Facts

Well the two parties have had their conventions bought and paid for by the corporate high rollers. All the candidates got to speak and stretch truth as politicians do.

John McCain said that the health care plan that Obama proposes would “force small businesses to cut jobs” and would put “a bureaucrat between your and your doctor.” In reality Obama’s plan exempts small businesses, and it also would allow those who have insurance now to could keep the coverage that they have.

Obama’s plan requires businesses to contribute to the cost of insurance for employees or pay some unspecified amount into a new public plan. But his proposal specifically says, “Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.” And it offers additional help to small businesses that want to provide health care in the form of a refundable tax credit of up to half the cost of premiums. Neither McCain or Obama has defined what exactly a “small business” is.

Obama’s plan doesn’t “force” families into a “government-run health care system.” His plan mandates that children have coverage; there’s no mandate for adults. People can keep the health insurance they have now or chose from private plans, or opt for a new public plan that will offer coverage similar to what members of Congress have. Obama would also expand Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. His plan certainly expands government-offered insurance – and McCain’s doesn’t – but it’s not a solely government-run plan, as McCain implied. And if Obama's public plan turns out to be similar to what federal employees have, as he says it would be, we're not sure how "a bureaucrat" would stand "between you and your doctor." The possible exception would be persons covered by Medicaid or SCHIP.

McCain accused Obama for voting for “corporate welfare” for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, and energy efficiency and alternative fuels.

The bill McCain is talking about here is the 2005 energy bill, which actually raised taxes on the oil industry a little bit overall – by about $300 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Meanwhile, McCain himself proposes to cut the corporate rate for all companies – oil included – and that would result in an estimated $4 billion cut for the five largest U.S.-based oil companies, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Obama, on the other hand, is promising that he'll strip oil companies of "tax breaks" to the tune of an amount yet to be determined.

It's true that Obama voted for the 2005 bill. He said he favored the $5.8 billion (over 11 years) that it contained in tax incentives for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels. McCain voted against it on the grounds that the $2.6 billion it contained for oil and gas incentives was too much, even though the bill also took away $2.9 billion from the industry, for a net tax increase of $300 million. Describing such a complex measure as "corporate welfare" is misleading.
McCain said oil imports to the U.S. send “$700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much.” The fact is that America is on track to import a total of $536 billion of oil and almost 1/3 of this comes from Canada, Mexico, and England.

McCain promised to increase the use of “wind, tide, and solar” energy. His actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy and has said that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.

McCain in his speech called for “reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs.” The only problem is that he failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.

McCain has not said which programs he considers to be "failed programs." He thus makes the spending cuts sound less painful than they will be should he fulfill his previously stated promise to balance the federal budget by 2013 while also making all Bush tax cuts permanent and adding new cuts of his own. McCain repeated his promise to eliminate "earmarks" from federal spending bills, saying "the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it." That drew applause, but the fact is that earmarks amount to only $16.9 billion in the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the deficit is expected to be more than $200 billion in 2009. And McCain's tax cuts will add billions more to future deficits unless offset by spending cuts, which he so far has not been willing to identify. What would he cut?

A McCain adviser, former CBO chairman Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has said that McCain "will provide the leadership to achieve bipartisan spending restraint" and "will perform a comprehensive review of all programs, projects and activities of the federal government" to find programs to cut or eliminate. But that, of course, will come after people have cast their votes.

McCain said Obama would “close” markets to trade but the facts are Obama said he wants to renegotiate NAFTA to strengthen environmental and labor provisions.
Obama has said he thinks it's unwise to repeal the trade deal, because to do so "would actually result in more job loss ... than job gains." And in a June interview with Fortune magazine, he stated that he didn’t plan on pulling out of NAFTA.

John McCain said “We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and restore the health of our planet.”

McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, ridiculed Obama for using similar high-sounding words:

Palin, Sept. 3: What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? That crack drew jeers and laughter. Perhaps Republicans see a distinction between "healing the planet" and "restoring” the health of our planet," but I don’t see it.

The republican spin machine is in overdrive with only weeks before the election that will define America for the next 4 years. They may feed you a line of Bullcrap but we don’t have to swallow it.

source http://www.factcheck.org

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength and integrity.

Who Says Bush Isn’t a Socialist.

Mike Chavers is on a rant about how every time some rich SOB CEO decides to run their business into the ground the working-man has to pick up the tab.

Last weekend Henry Paulson the Treasury Secretary appointed by Bush and the former head of the Goldman Sachs investment house announced that Bush /Cheney would ask congress to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Now I know this sounds like a simple case of getting a hooker and her John out of jail but no, Fannie and Freddie were founded as a government agency in 1938 as part of FDR's New Deal to provide ready cash to the mortgage market to make loans for home loans.

Read the rest at OPEd News


http://www.opednews.com/articles/Who-Says-Bush-Isn-t-A-Soci-by-Michael-Chavers-080717-435.html

My open letter to Obama

With friends like these who needs enemies? Senator Obama have you been taken over by the body snatcher pod of Bill Clinton.

As the candidate of change, you caved in on stopping the assault on the constitution. Looks like the same ole $#!T to me. Democrats afraid to look weak on national security.

Senator Obama when I saw your first speech on TV I was inspired. I thought here is a man who will take on the corrupt system and restore the rule of law. I don’t want to have to vote for the least worst candidate again.

Senator Obama, you voted for a FISA bill that'll make it difficult to hold the Bush administration responsible for its illegal wiretapping program.
Though champions of the constitution like Senators Dodd and Feingold stood strong, you failed the constitution and voted for the faulty bill.

Senator Obama will you show that nobody is above the law and come out now and promise to hold the administration accountable if you win? Will you commit to a full investigation if you become President?

True patriots have worked tirelessly over the last few years to put an end to warrantless wiretapping and demand accountability for those who have broken the law and violated the Constitution. Together we've held vigils and sent hundreds of thousands of messages to Congress. In the last few weeks alone, Patriots made thousands of phone calls to the Senate—and the Obama campaign.

Your vote Senator Obama is a real disappointment. The bill passed will make it harder to hold the Bush administration accountable. The "telecom immunity" clause basically blocks ongoing lawsuits against the telephone companies that carried out the administration's illegal wiretapping program. Those lawsuits were one of our best hopes for finding out what actually happened.

Americans who love their liberty want those who violate the Constitution to see dire consequences; that's a core American value and a winning position for the election. This along with your strong stands on healthcare, the energy crisis and ending the war can help you win in November.

It's not too late for you Senator Obama, to promise full accountability if you become president. There are still other avenues, from independent investigations to the Inspector General's office. The question is, will you Senator Obama commit to using these other avenues?

This fight is so important because it strikes at the heart of accountability in our democracy. No president should be able to willfully break the law, and then count on his successor to simply ignore any wrongdoing.

Letting the Bush administration completely off the hook would send a signal to future presidents that they can do whatever they please, without consequence. In this country, no person and certainly no president should be above the law.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Write your own letter and send it here.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2

Why we will be paying $5 dollars a gallon for gas and how we can get back control.

Why we will be paying $5 dollars a gallon for gas and how we can get back control.

Most Americans I know are resigned to the fact that the price of gas is going to hit 5 dollars sooner than later. How did we get to this and what can we do about it?

Pitiful attempts to get your votes by suspending the federal gas tax was the McCain answer. While our Nation is at war and running the largest deficit in history they wanted to take the only thing in the price of gas that actually benefits the American public. The gas tax is to be used in building infrastructure, which is sorely needed.

I am not some communist who wants to nationalize the oil companies or refineries or even unfairly tax their profits. I am however absolutely opposed to giving big business huge tax breaks so that they can price gouge us into the poor house.

When W took office remember his MANTRA, privatize, deregulation, trickle down economics. Well that has served us well, or maybe I should say served them well. The number one purpose of the CORPORATION is to make as much money as legally possible and many times as illegally as possible. Most CORPORATIONS couldn’t care less their impact on you and me. I am not an expert in commodities trading so I am not going to try to get into the intricate details just the generalities.

Here goes, there is a regulatory loophole allows hedge funds along with institutional investors to control unlimited quantities of oil contracts. Some say these speculators control as much as 60% of the oil contracts.

With the deregulation the CFTC has exempted investment banks upon the limit speculative buying and overseas markets. Also the CFTC staff has been cut to its lowest levels since its creation, so there is little oversight. If you control the volume of oil available you can manipulate the price. This is what is going on right now.

The first thing that needs to be done is to not elect John McCain because he is married to the beast and I don’t mean Cindy. Then we need to close the loopholes created by W’s gang of thieves and staff the CFTC so that they can enforce the laws against price manipulation and maybe even as we see in the news today put a few of these SOB’s in jail.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity

FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)

These guys never give up trying to get their pals out of hot water.

FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) has been in place for 30 years and has dictated the necessary and appropriate ways for U. S. Law enforcement to collect intelligence on its own citizens for the sake of national security.

The Phone companies broke the law when they handed over information on US citizens to this whacked out administration without search warrants, violating the Second Amendment of our constitution protecting us from unreasonable search and seizure.

In February 2008 the House of Representatives did its job and rejected the Bush / Cheney FISA “reform” proposals there by protecting our Constitution but now the Senate is getting ready to give W’s pals in the Telecom immunity for breaking the law.

Senator Kit Bond. R(MO), is now proposing a complete revamping of FISA. He wants to strip us of our rights by including unlimited warrantless wiretapping for the executive branch for the next six years, without any meaningful judicial oversight. It also grants retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that broke the law and handed over our records to King George and is lackeys.

We have to speak out LOUD & CLEAR and reject this shameful legislation. If the House will keep their backbone and stay with their current version of FISA, in order for the government to spy on you they will have to get a warrant and have just cause to gather information from your phone conversations and emails. That is what our founders knew to be the right way to keep us safe from oppressive tyrants who would use this to quell dissent.

Write, call, fax, or visit your congressman and tell him if they vote for Senator Bond’s catastrophic FISA compromise when it come to the house that they will not have your support or vote this November.

Tell your friends and family or anybody that will listen to reject this compromise of our freedom and keep the Telecom industry and your government officials liable for their actions and do not grant immunity to lawbreakers. Congress stand strong on your February vote and stick with the current version of FISA

Feel free to use or alter my letter to send to your representative.

Find your congressman here

http://www.house.gov/

Congressman

I strongly urge you to stand strong on the House’s February vote on FISA. Stick with the current version of FISA and vote for the Constitution by voting against Senator Bond's catastrophic FISA "compromise" when it comes to the House.

Sincerely,

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Stop Big Media from dismantling media ownership limits.

Just imagine if Dick Cheney owned several major newspapers, TV and Radio Networks!!!

Still thinking? You know what you would get non-stop neo-convict propaganda the likes of Faux News a la Rupert Murdoch. The old media ownership rules prevented this from happening.

The Senate who once in a while gets some thing right, has passed a bipartisan resolution of disapproval that would nullify the Bush appointed FCC’s attempt to stop diversity in media ownership by dismantling longstanding media ownership limits.

Last December, the FCC voted to remove the “newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership” ban that prohibits one company from owning a broadcast station and the major daily newspaper in the same market. The resolution of disapproval (Senate Joint Resolution 28), introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), would nullify the FCC’s new rules if passed by Congress and signed by the president. The House version of the resolution was introduced by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in March.

Already King George has decided to show how out of touch he is with the will of the American people and opposes the resolution and says he will veto it. George seems to like media outlets that will parrot his delusional agenda polluting our airwaves with the likes Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coultergeist, etc, etc.

Don’t stand idly by and let Bush / Cheney undercut this bipartisan effort in congress and green light big media’s expansion.

Send a letter to your Congressman to stand with the Senate and overturn the FCC decision to allow more media consolidation.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Feel free to use or alter my letter to send to your representative.
Find your congressman here
http://www.house.gov/

Congressman

I urge you to stand with the Senate’s bipartisan resolution of disapproval (Senate Joint Resolution 28), which would nullify the FCC’s new rules to allow greater media consolidation. The House version of the resolution was introduced by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in March.

Consolidation has brought us to the point where two corporations control 70 percent of market revenue in an average radio market. While I respect the free market, it should be the role of government to stand between corporations and consumers when the public interest is at stake.

Relaxing restrictions does not serve the people just the big corporations. Local media must remain local, diverse and free.

McCain Too Old????

"Did you hear about this?


Two State Department employees were fired -- this is a bit of a scandal -- because they were looking at Barack Obama's passport file.


Not only that, but the same person was also looking at John McCain's Civil War records."


Who knows when the Clintons will throw in the towel but I am going to stick with some humor for now because the nastiness is about to start.


Just watch fox in the AM. I did today and they were slamming NBC for having Keith Olbermann covering the election returns. They said he was bias and called NBC the New Barack Channel.


I think everyone has it right when they call the Fox News “FAUX NEWS”. They are the last ones on the entire world of media who should complain about bias.


That being said I think they are right. Keith Olbermann should be left as a progressive commentator not a news person like Tom Brokaw, or Dan Rather. The reason Keith Olbermann was on though is because he will raise ratings and NBC is under the GE banner and we all know what GE is about and that is profit and profit only.


One of the most important issues of the coming years will be media control and access. We must limit the control of large media conglomerates on the information we get if we are to remain a free people.


If you are concerned with these issues there are some progressive sites that will give you current information on issues regarding truth in media and legislation that is going before congress.


www.freepress.net


www.mediamatters.org


Stay alert, search for the truth, and take back America.


Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.


P.S. thanks for the pict BEE

May your sacrifice always honor peace and liberty.

We will remember your sacrifice

George Bush can’t even spell appeasement

It seems that the sorry excuse of a president, George W can go over to Israel and label democrats as in favor of appeasement of terrorists. For the first time, I somewhat agree with the Neanderthal in the White House.

The Democrats are guilty of appeasing the terrorist Neo-Convicts who have all but worn out our armed forces, bankrupted the country, and has all but shredded the Constitution in frenzy of eroding the rights of every citizen of the United States.
The president said:
“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
The Neo-Convicts are trying to hold onto power by fear mongering again. The Vote for us or die tactics are falling short of the success though. Even the conglomerate news media is attacking this logic. McCain is already fear mongering labeling Obama as the Hamas candidate of choice. I can’t wait for all the crap we will get from the Faux News channel and the Ditto Head himself.
Obama responded immediately and said “It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack,” Obama said in the statement his aides distributed. “George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.”
All of the Glenn Beck’s, Bill O’Reilly’s, Rush Limbaugh’s, Sean Hannity’s, Kevin James and Ann Coultergeist’s of the neo-convicts will fear monger and try to sway your vote to the side of fascism.
Fortunately there is some sanity not Hannity on some of the networks. On Hardball with Chris Matthews he took the Neo-Convict radio talk host Kevin James to the mat when he appeared on Hardball to give the Obama is an appeaser side of the story.
Kevin James showed that he is just a parrot and repeats neo-convict talking points without understanding the words coming out of his mouth. He actually had no idea of what the actual appeasement of Neville Chamberlain to Nazi Germany was. He started pumping up his volume and tried to change the subject but Matthews was relentless and in the end James finally admits he doesn’t have a clue and was just as Rush would say dittoing the president who quite frankly probably didn’t know what Chamberlain did to appease the Nazi’s either.

Here is a history lesson for the dunder heads who parrot the likes of Bush and his other neo-convicts on history. This is the very short version and any Library has books on this and many other facts that this administration seems not to get.

Here goes, the Nazi’s were behind the assassination of the Chancellor of Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss and pressured for the annexation of Austria which England and France agreed to. The second crisis came over the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia, which was home to a large German minority. The Munich Agreement, engineered by the French and British governments, effectively allowed Adolf Hitler to annex the country's defensive frontier, leaving its industrial and economic core within a day's reach of the Wehrmacht. In March of 1939 Hitler invaded Poland then swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia and WWII began.

If you are a talk show host and you start talking history you should at least know of what you speak I say Kevin James is the Neo-Dick of the week.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

A New Stadium for the Rays ???

The St. Petersburg City Council is having a hearing on the proposed new waterfront stadium being proposed for the Rays baseball team.

I for one am totally against building a new stadium in the downtown waterfront area for the following reasons.

Cost Issues
The ballpark is estimated to cost half a billion dollars and the rays only want to put up 150 million. Services are being cut fire and police etc so How exactly do the Rays intend to pay for the ballpark? How much will taxpayers be asked to kick in? The Rays will pump millions of $ for ads to support the stadium!!!!

Will the voters get to decide the issue?


Traffic Problems -- 80 days a year parking problems and traffic gridlock!!


Huge environmental impact...

What happens to marine life if part of Tampa Bay is filled in?

To fit the giant stadium where Al Lang is now, the Rays plan to dredge and fill the Bay to make more room. They plan to dump the equivalent of 1 foot concrete blocks stacked over 25 miles high into the Bay right near a freshwater spring that supports federally endangered manatee and seagrass beds. This will take several acres of the Bay and turn it into land. Because the Basin is too shallow for the thousands of cubic yards of dirt to be barged in, expect to see hundreds of dump trucks driving through our downtown City streets for months.

Bad for Business

They say the stadium is good for business but what is likely is that all the other people (you know, the tens of thousands who aren't going to the game) will stay away from our downtown area on game days because they won't want to deal with all the traffic, let alone looking for a place to park. The result? A sharp decline in business. Couple that with the increased competition from all the NEW businesses at the redeveloped Trop site and you can see why this would really hurt current downtown business owners.

Secrecy and Fairness Concerns.

The city knew about this plan for over a year even during the last elections. Yet the public was kept in the dark until late November (and even then only after the story was leaked to the St. Pete Times). What’s more, the bidding process has proceeded in a way that is only fair to one developer: Hines.

Better Alternatives

Tropicana Field is downtown already!! Why not redevelop the existing site?
Another, simpler, alternative would be to build structured parking to the West of the Dome and develop everything East of Booker Creek, without building a replacement stadium. The existing stadium could be updated to some extent.

I like having the Rays in St. Petersburg. What I don’t like is this issue being railroaded down on the people of St. Petersburg. There are better alternatives than a waterfront ballpark so let’s tell the City of St. Petersburg to come up with another plan that will not cut services and harm the environment or our existing businesses.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The Gas Tax Exploitation Scam

Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain are in favor of suspending the 18.4 cent per gallon federal from Memorial Day to Labor Day. What genius, what political courage this took. Gee wiz right before the election. Do ya think these morons really think that this is going to give us a real break? The average American family would save 18 dollars a car.

Actually if you think about it, and most politicians don’t want the people to start thinking, the federal tax on gas is about the only thing that doesn’t get me angry about buying gas. It has stayed the same since 1994 so figure in the cost of inflation it has shrunk in terms of what the government can do with the money, but this money actually is the one component of the per-gallon cost that comes back to benefit the public. It funds road and bridge construction and repair. Most of the rest leaves this country and goes to fund the golden toilets of the king in Saudi Arabia and to Bush’s best buddy Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

So let’s see they are giving us 6 to 12 hundred dollars back that they will tax us on next year add another 36 dollars on gas tax and does that really spell relief???
Alas one senator, by the way who is also running for president, says hey now, that’s not relief, that is exploiting the issue for short-term political advantage. Mr. Obama refuses to play politics on this issue. He said "It's not an idea to get you through the summer," he said. "It's an idea to get them through an election."
His opponents no doubt hope that Mr. Obama's stand will prove to be political suicide. I think it should qualify as political courage. Something that has been lacking in the halls of government for too long.

We have the largest deficit in history our foreign debt is out of control and Mr. McCain wants to be in Iraq for a hundred years, Ms Clinton wants to raise the taxes on the oil company’s profits, and who will pay for that in the end. WE WILL.
So America wake up and don’t buy it, don’t take it anymore. Tell Congress this. To paraphrase the lyrics of a song, we ain’t no chickens and we don’t need your feed. Your cash ain’t nothin but trash. Give us real solutions!!!! Give us a well thought out, sustainable energy policy that will finally break the strangle hold on this country’s reliance on foreign oil.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Just how relevant is Reverend Wright.

Just how relevant is Reverend Wright.

I am so sick the media attention to the newest star Huckster Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Just how relevant to fixing this country problems is Reverend Wright. The great so called God fearing Black crusader who now is going to exploit this rift with Obama to peddle his upcoming book no one would have read until now.

Pay attention people, this is just another smoke screen to blind people from seeing the real issues that matter.

Just look at who McCain is kissing ass for, John Hagee. John McCain, naturally, is "very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support." Meanwhile, Hagee seems to hate Catholics about as much as Jews and Muslims quite a bit more so. McCain has a lot to be proud of. I wonder what McCain really stands for because McCain has changed so many of the positions he has held in the past just to get the vote of the far right.

If you wonder whose butt Hillary is kissing, just stick it out there she’ll kiss it for a delegate.

Obama is the only candidate so far that has not gone negative first. He has defended his positions when attacked and admitted that he did not agree with all that reverend Wright has said in the past, and admits that it is something that he needed to clarify his position on.

When they start talking about the real issues, issues that matter for the future of this Nation, that’s when you will get my attention again candidates.

Now listen Mr. McCain, Ms. Clinton, and Mr. Obama. I don’t care about your preacher, spiritual advisor, whether or not you’re white, black, gray, or gay, male or female, whether or not you where born to a foreign daddy or born in a canal zone. Let’s get real let’s start talking real issues that are going decide the future course of America. Who has the best ideas, who will end the strangle hold of corporate America over the congress and president of this great nation.

Let’s start talking about how we are going to end this mess in Iraq without starting WWIII.

Let’s start talking about how we are going to sustain social security. The government uses the surplus that has come into the treasury from the FICA in your pay check tax since the 1980’s to fund all the earmarked pork barreling, misguided military adventures and the missile shield star wars that have enriched the military industrial complex and bankrupted the nation.

Let’s start talking about how we are going to create real sustainable renewable energy projects not lowering gas prices.

Let’s start talking about what Americas roll in foreign affairs should be. Can we really be the world’s policeman any longer?

Let’s start talking about ways to fix our economy and set up sustainable import export policies that will protect our jobs and national security instead of throwing six hundred dollars at me like a rich man gives a crack whore as he tells her to get out of his Lexus and have a nice life.

Let’s start talking about how America should conduct itself to the rule of law and human rights. Ending the torture of prisoners and closing down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay would be a good place to start.

Let’s start talking about what we are going to do about our porous boarders and what should be done about illegal immigration.

Let’s start talking about restoring the power to the congress and repairing the damage done to our liberty by Bush and Co. so we don’t end up with another demagogue in the White House, who will use fear mongering to strip your constitutional rights away in the name of security.

Let’s start talking about what we are going to do about the corporate control of the media.

LET’S START TALKING REAL ISSUES!!!

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Who will we choose as a leader

Who will we choose as a leader

I was reading an article today about the importance of who we choose as a leader to end this moral & economic ruination of our nation. What she had to say is worth reading. What we base our decision on will reflect how the path that the Nation will follow for the next four years.

What will you base your decision on? Will you vote for McCain because he is a so called war hero? McCain’s heroism comes from his activity in Vietnam. He no doubt was courageous in captivity, but the war itself was immoral.

What the Republican Party will try to do, is use war heroism to confuse the American people into continuing unjust wars and supporting their architects with the honor of brave soldiers.
Nixon used this same tactic in 1968 and by calling Democrats as too weak to STAY THE COURSE.

McCain is playing the war hero card for sure in this the most important election in recent history. If the Democrats are to win the presidency and seats in congress they better dispel the war hero myth and engage the republicans about war and war heroes.

Soldiers in both unjust and just wars may be heroes if you just look at the personal courage and self sacrifice in a battle. The trick is and the Republican leadership will put a smoke screen over this, so we must know that those who oppose a preemptive unnecessary war are also heroes.

It took great courage to stand in the halls of congress and speak against the call to war as Senator Robert Byrd (S.WV.) did in March of 2003 before King George and his cable of cretins rushed to war to steal Iraqi oil.

It is easy to make war, strike out and destroy, but it is hard to be a peacemaker that will negotiate and settle differences and build a lasting peace. In my life the ultimate moral force in the world is the peace hero one who will not stand for evil or injustice.

Catherine Crier wrote in her article CHOOSING A LEADER

“During this contentious political season, we are called upon to judge the character of the candidates. Who should lead the nation, the fighter or the war hero? Who best wears their patriotism on their sleeve (or lapel)? Who can throw or take the biggest punch, swig the strongest shot, or bowl the highest game?

When the American Film Institute took a vote on the greatest American film hero of the last century, the winner was not Rambo, Rocky or a John Wayne cowboy. Instead it was Atticus Finch; gentle, bookish, moral, yet tough to his core. He never proclaimed his authority or postured for effect. He simply acted on his principles, with bravery and integrity, leaving no doubt who the real leader was. This might not be a bad model for the next occupant of the White House.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080418/cm_huffpost/097352;_ylt=ApeL23AAzZdbl4cNWQ7b5bP9wxIF

Who fits this mold the best, McCain, Clinton, or Obama.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

The Senate FISA Bill is coming up soon contact you Senators and tell them you want accountability.

The Senate FISA Bill is coming up soon contact you Senators and tell them you want accountability.


Last month the fear monger who still illegally occupies the White House, tried to bluff his way into getting the House to grant immunity to the Telecom industry for illegally spying on American citizens.


Enough of you patriots out there said enough is enough and told your congressmen to stand up and protect the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. You told them that we want protection from the government spying and data mining of innocent Americans.


Now in the words of a great American Elmer Fudd “that wascally wabbit is up to no good again” and he will pressure the Senate to fix the bill so that his pals at Verizon won’t be liable for their irresponsible and illegal act of just handing over our privacy to the administration of this imperial president just because he wants it.


All you free Americans need to put the pressure on the Senate not to cave in the King George W and join with Senators Patrick Leahy, and Congressman John Conyers. Demand that your Senators support the strong and balanced FISA legislation that the House Passed in March 2008.


My Democratic Senator Bill Nelson’s staff told me when the Senate last voted on the FISA bill, that he did not support immunity for the telecoms, but then voted for it anyway. These guys must be watched closely and held accountable when they try to dismantle the Constitution.


I urge everyone that values freedom to contact your Senators and Demand they support the House’s FISA bill.


With all the smoke and mirrors flashing across your TV, the mud slinging democrats and the free ride McCain gets from the press. This lame duck administration will try to get all of their agenda passed into law before they slither out of the White House and crawl back under the rocks they came from.


Here is a letter that I will be sending to my Senators. Please feel free to use it or alter it to your liking but send it by email, fax, and call your Senators and tell them how you feel.


You can find your Senator here.

http://www.senate.gov/



Dear Senator,

I urge you to support the fair FISA bill passed by the House of Representatives in March.


Any new FISA legislation must be strong and balanced, protecting America's national security while defending civil liberties -- without granting retroactive immunity to phone companies. Retroactive immunity would abet the Bush-Cheney Administration's efforts to avoid accountability for its actions.


The House's FISA bill strikes the appropriate balance. That's why I strongly support the FISA bill passed by the House in March, and why I'm urging you as my Senator to support the House's legislation as well.

Sincerely,
Your name
Your address


Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Robert Byrd was one of the Senate's most outspoken critics of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

I saw the speech Senator Robert Byrd made to the Senate before the Iraq invasion. Too bad Senator Clinton wasn’t listening that day. Maybe her vote to go to war would have been different.


Senator Byrd is the longest serving U S Senator in our history. He was a member of the KKK and was one of the most prominent Dixiecrats of the 60’s.


He has changed his views of civil rights over the years. He was one of the few brave lawmakers who had the nerve to stand up to the cable of cretins led this country into the debacle in Iraq.



In a speech on March 13TH 2008 he stated:


"If the United States leads the charge to war in the Persian Gulf, we may get lucky and achieve a rapid victory. But then we will face a second war: a war to win the peace in Iraq. This war will last many years and will surely cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In light of this enormous task, it would be a great mistake to expect that this will be a replay of the 1991 war. The stakes are much higher in this conflict."


On March 19, 2003, when Bush ordered the invasion after receiving U.S. Congress approval, Byrd stated:


"Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination."

Byrd also criticized Bush for his speech declaring the "end of major combat operations" in Iraq, which Bush made on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. Byrd stated on the Senate floor:


"I do question the motives of a deskbound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech."

On October 17, 2003, Byrd delivered a speech expressing his concerns about the future of the nation and his unequivocal antipathy to Bush's policies. Referencing the Hans Christian Andersen children's tale The Emperor's New Clothes, Byrd said of the president: "the emperor has no clothes." Byrd further lamented the "sheep-like" behavior of the "cowed Members of this Senate" and called on them to oppose the continuation of a "war based on falsehoods."


Byrd criticized what he saw as the stifling of dissent: "The right to ask questions, debate, and dissent is under attack. The drums of war are beaten ever louder in an attempt to drown out those who speak of our predicament in stark terms. Even in the Senate, our history and tradition of being the world's greatest deliberative body is being snubbed. This huge spending bill - $87 billion - has been rushed through this chamber in just one month. There were just three open hearings by the Senate Appropriations Committee on $87 billion - $87 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born - $87 billion without a single outside witness called to challenge the administration's line." Finally, Byrd quoted Nazi leader Hermann Göring who stated that rushing to war is easy if the proponent of war portrays opponents as unpatriotic.


In July 2004, Byrd released the book Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency about the Bush presidency and the war in Iraq. Of the more than 17,000 votes he has cast as a Senator, Byrd says he is proudest of his vote against the Iraq war resolution.


Maybe 2008 will be the year we vote in candidates that will serve our country instead of serving up our country to the war-profiteers.


Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Does America have long to remain a democracy?

Does America have long to remain a democracy?

As I watch the upcoming campaigns unfold I am thinking to myself will America remain a democracy? It almost seems like a diabolical conspiracy, that our education system has failed to educate our population how to be a good citizens through a good and intense civics education program.

Most people have very little knowledge on how our system of government works, and I see that most people don’t really care. That is obvious because when you look at the numbers, since 1960 – 2006 less than 55% of eligible voters vote in a presidential election and less than 41% vote in non-presidential federal elections.

Source http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html More people have voted for Amerika Idol.

We see scandal after scandal and until this very year, when they put in an independent ethics board to investigate corruption, no real ethics reform has ever passed into law.

We have let the politicians dismantle the Constitution. They have broken the antitrust laws that Teddy Roosevelt put in place to protect us, and now we have the oil companies making the energy policies and the 6 giant media corporations controlling the information we receive on the main stream sources.

We have allowed a Neo-convict to bamboozle the nation into an endless “war on terror” and let his pals at the war-profiteer store to empty out our treasury and put us into debt so far that it will take at least as many years as the Commander in Thief has been in office to get out if we do the right things.

We pass laws that dismantle our industrial manufacturing base like NAFTA, CAFTA and what ever. I wonder who will be building our ships, tanks, and aircraft soon.

I saw 2 quotes on another blog from a Scotsman named Alexander Tyler, a history professor from about the time that our constitution was written in 1787.

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.



The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

· From bondage to spiritual faith;

· From spiritual faith to great courage;

· From courage to liberty;

· From liberty to abundance;

· From abundance to complacency;

· From complacency to apathy;

· From apathy to dependence;

· From dependence back into bondage.

I do see more people starting to wake up to what has been going on at the highest levels of government. Is it too late and too little though? This country will have to endure some hard times and it will be painful. The problem seems to be now that no one wants to be the ones who do the suffering.

Paying for this war should start when you begin the war not passed off to future generations. We need to become energy independent and that will be painful. We need to fix Social Security, health care, our crumbling infrastructure, education, the illegal immigration problem and many other issues that need real long term solutions not campaign mantras.

It seems as if Amerika has become the nation of the quick and easy fix. Everyone wants the payoff but not the work. We want knowledge and wisdom like Neo got it in the movie the Matrix. Plug in the USB to the brain and load the information up in 30 seconds. I don’t have the time to learn I have to watch the latest on Brittney, then I have to catch up on who fell down in dancing with the stars.

To fix the issues that matter, will be painful and anyone addressing these issues and doing real long term cures will probably only have one term to do it.

American democracy, is our time about up?

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

McCain gets a free ride from the press.

While the democrats tear each other apart in the news each night, the press seems to give our Republican candidate for president the free pass. You can’t even read a story about McCain without hearing him called a “maverick.”


Maverick

NOUN: One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter.

ADJECTIVE: Being independent in thought and action or exhibiting such independence: maverick politicians; a maverick decision.


According to Media Matters McCain was called a maverick more than 1,300 times in print and on television. I don’t know about you but someone who sticks with his party line 80% of the time is hardly a maverick. The times that he has bucked his party line was with issues that were very popular with the majority of the public so he was not taking any political risks.


McCain has been referred to be a moderate despite the fact that both his McCain himself and his voting record proves that he is a neo-con. McCain voted for cutting federal funding of family planning clinics that counseled women on abortion. He has opposed federal hate crimes legislation, the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, pro-labor legislation, ergonomics rules, lawsuits against gun manufacturers, and benefits for gay partners. He has supported privatizing Social Security, conservative judicial appointments, the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.


His claim to be a straight talker but McCain has been all things to all people. McCain used to describe Jerry Falwell as an agent of intolerance but after he decided to make another run for president he publicly embraced Falwell back in 2006. It seems like someone needs a favor from the religious conservatives.


He has flipped on many issues such as tax cuts for the wealthy he opposed in 2001 he is now in favor of when he needs to appeal to the conservative base. McCain also once said on abortion, I would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade." And yet he had also told an anti-choice group in a letter, "I share our common goal of reducing the staggering number of abortions currently performed in this country and overturning the Roe vs. Wade decision". Today, his website reads, "John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned."


When he ran for president in 2000, he skipped the Iowa caucus, and made clear his contempt for ethanol made from Iowa corn. "Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve our air quality," he said in 2003. Yet in 2008, he decided to compete in the Iowa caucus, and had a change of heart on ethanol. "I do not support subsidies, but I support ethanol and I think it is a vital alternative energy source, not only because of our dependence on foreign oil but because of its greenhouse reduction effects," he said in August 2006.


The squeaky clean McCain has his own whitewater with his involvement in the Keating Five. Back in early 1987, at the beginning of his first Senate term, McCain attended two meetings with federal banking regulators to discuss an investigation into Lincoln Savings and Loan, an Irvine, Calif., thrift owned by Arizona developer Charles Keating. Federal auditors were investigating Keating's banking practices, and Keating, fearful that the government would seize his S&L, sought intervention from a number of U.S. senators. At Keating's behest, four senators--McCain and Democrats Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, and John Glenn of Ohio--met with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, on April 2. Those four senators and Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich., attended a second meeting at Keating's behest on April 9 with bank regulators in San Francisco.

Regulators did not seize Lincoln Savings and Loan until two years later. The Lincoln bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the biggest of the S&L scandals. In addition, 17,000 Lincoln investors lost $190 million.


The news media would also have you believe that McCain doesn’t tell people what they want to hear but makes decisions based not on what’s good politics but on what’s right. The press presents John McCain as unwavering in principle, and propped up by endless political courage and would never pander for a vote.


Consider his decision in 2000 to denounce the Confederate flag flying over the south Carolina statehouse but when the primary approached, he said that the flag was a symbol of heritage.


In recent months, McCain has backtracked on his positions on immigration and taxes, with an eye toward pleasing the conservative base, any other politician who tried a similar gambit would be criticized for such blatant pandering. But for John McCain, the rules are different.


Maybe after they pick the winner of the Democratic primary we will get to see the real John McCain.


Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Iraq is in a helluva mess

There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq.”General David Petraeus
Commanding General, Multi-National Force Iraq
March 2007
***

“The fact is, this president never listened to the soldiers
on the ground. The problem is not just a military problem.
It is a political problem and a diplomatic problem.”General Wesley Clark (ret.)
Former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
May 2007
***

“[America is] not making the progress
we need to be making [in Iraq].”
General John Abizaid (ret.)
Former Commander, United States Central Command
October 2007
***

“Iraq is in a helluva mess.”James A. Baker III
Former U.S. Secretary of State
October 2006
A RESPONSIBLE PLAN TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ

A political race or race in politics

A political race or race in politics.

Yes ladies and gents there is still racism in the United States of America. It is more subdued than in the past but it is there so let’s quit pretending that we are all above it.

I believe it is a human condition to be suspicious of people different from us or unfamiliar to our tribe. The more like us strangers are, the more we will accept them and vice versa. I think this is a survival instinct. We as humans have a capacity to reason though and therein lies the difference between us and animals.

As this political campaign gets ugly, Clinton is trying to bully her way into the nomination. Subtly using the logic, unspoken but there that Obama will lose to McCain because the independents will vote for a white woman before a black man.

Obama’s ex-pastor Mr. Wright gave controversial sermons. So did Jesus. He said God Damn America, and given his experience of living in an era of extreme prejudice, I can listen to the sermon and not be upset. As far as his sermon about September 11th 2001 I didn’t hear him saying the U.S. deserved such a vicious attack, what I hear him addressing are the root causes of the attacks nor is he alone in his beliefs.

Reverend Wright’s fire and brimstone style is easily distorted especially when you take it out of context. Wright makes repeated reference to America’s ruling power structure, which I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but the people who make the laws of this country are neither poor nor non-white and have very little in common with the average American.

Condemning Obama though, for his association with Pastor Wright is wrong. Obama has stated that Wright’s comments are not in keeping with his values and that is that. So Hillary get off your high horse before he rolls over on you. You are becoming the bad guy in a rigged wrestling match. As the ref is watching your evil manager Bill climb into the ring, you reach into your bag of tricks and throw sand in our face and try to win the match.

It seems that you realize that you can’t win but are trying to throw the Democratic Party under the bus, so that after four more years of Republican ruination, in 2012 you will be the savior of America and will be elected Queen.

Senator Clinton stop playing the subtle race card and gracefully get out of the race. Begin to help this country by supporting a man who I believe will unite this country. Stop playing politics and become a real patriot and help America recover from the disaster of the Bush / Cheney regime.

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

Dick “Head” Cheney tells Amerika to F#ck OFF

Dick “Head” Cheney tells Amerika to F#(k OFF

So!!!!!!!!!

Four thousand dead American soldiers, thousands more wounded, thousands more will suffer post traumatic stress for the rest of their lives. Millions of Iraqi’s displaced hundreds of thousands killed, or maimed for life.

The U S Military at its breaking point, the country bankrupt, jobs evacuating this country like rats off a sinking ship, real adversaries becoming stronger and Americas strength is oozing out like blood from a severed artery.

Corporations are making obscene profits and paying its CEO hundreds of times what the average worker makes, from the blood of our troops. International cooperation and opinion of America is at an all time low.

Civil liberties abused or removed from our constitution. We have an administration that meets in secret back rooms and only listens to its corporate pal’s covers its tracks by deleting emails that by law are public records.

Sunday on ABC, white house correspondent Martha Raddatz asked Dick to respond to the statement that “two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting”

Dick said “So”

Let me translate for you.

F**K YOU America!!!!!!

Where is the outrage? For the past 15 months the Democrats have had the power to pull the purse strings and end the occupation of Iraq. We know these guys have committed impeachable offences. Why are these SOB’s still in office and out of jail??

Thomas Jefferson with eloquent simplicity wrote, "A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated and involved citizenry."

So everybody either get informed, educate yourself (because corporate media doesn’t cut it anymore) and get involved. Our democracy depends on it!!!!

Peace and Liberty through intelligence, strength, and integrity.

This week March 23rd Josh Nelms & Mike Chavers will be on WTAN 1340 AM Radio

This week March 23rd Josh Nelms & Mike Chavers will be on WTAN 1340 AM Radio

Mike Chavers will be playing music on WTAN 1340 Live and in person Sunday Night March 23rd 2008 at 11:59pm EST, with the station hosts Jonathan Sands & Jim Mortellaro, featuring Josh Nelms, in the 2nd of a series of live broadcasts by local artists here in the Tampa Bay area. We will be taking Live calls so talk to us.

We have the Likes of Jimmy Griswold, Josh Nelms, Sandy Atkinson, Robin Rothwell, Peter Merrigan and Charlie Morris just to mention a few who will be appearing in future broadcasts.

If any of you songwriters out there are interested in appearing on the Sunday program send me an email.

If your business is in need of a plug, drop me an email and Jon and Jim will get their rate schedule out to you. It’s really inexpensive to advertise on WTAN.

To listen to the show click on the WTAN internet radio link.
http://www.internet-ad.com/wtan1.asx

Jonathan Sands web site
http://radiobullseye.blogspot.com/


Saturday March 22ND 2008

Mike Chavers is playing with Tommy McCoy at Central Station Saturday March 15th 2008 which is located in the last strip mall on 107th St. before the Belmar on Treasure Island. It used to be Nick’s Sea breeze and has a new owner. We start early at 8pm so come on out and hear some new tunes from Tommy’s New CD.

Sunday March 23RD 2008

Mike Chavers is playing with Deje Groove at Coconuts Comedy Club, 2950 Gulf to Bay Blvd, Clearwater, FL 33759 from 7:30 to 11:30. We are featuring Jerry Chase on the drums and vocals, Tommy McCoy on guitar and vocals. This is an open jam so bring your ax and come on down and party with the band.

Josh Nelms and I will be hauling ass to get over to the station after the gig so doesn’t forget to tune in and hear some music and road stories.

Turn off the TV and come on and see some live music.
Bluesfuly yours
Mike Chavers
http://mikechavers.blogspot.com/

Read articles by Mike Chavers and many other writers at OpEd News.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author7762.html