Something To Think About While Feasting Today

Happy Thanksgiving America! We have a lot to be thankful for this year. The doormat Republican Congress is out and hopefully accountabiliity has been returned to our government. Donald Rumsfeld and Ken Mehlman are out also. That was definately the iceing on the cake.

While many of us are sitting around today watching football or parades, stuffing our faces with turkey, take a moment to think about the 35 million people in America who are "food insecure". That is right, according to the USDA, 12% of Americans do not know where their next meal is coming from.

This year the USDA decided to stop using the word "hunger" and start using "food insecurity", which they define as:

"prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."

According to an article in the Washington Post:

The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.

That means that since this time last year, 3 million more Americans have become "Food Insecure".

I reccommend that everyone who reads this bring it up during dinner tonight. Suggest to your gathered family that you take up a collection for your local food charity. Give someone in need in your community something to be thankful for this year.

GOP Going Backwards

After the landslide victory by the Democrats last week, the GOP decided to bring back the guy who thought America would be much better if we didn't have the Civil Rights Movement or Desegragation.

Apparently they think that the answer to their loss is to get back to their racist, anti civil rights, pro-segragation roots.

In 1948 Strom Thurmond ran for President under the "State's Rights Party", who's entire platform was segragation.

In 2002, when attending the 100th birthday Party for Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott said this:

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."

Lets be clear, by "all these problems" Trent Lott is talking about those darn "uppity" Blacks and their Civil Rights movement.

Why I Cannot Support John McCain

I used to like John McCain. I used to think that he was smart.
I am sure he is a nice enough man, dispite the rumors about his temper.
But last week John McCain proved to me once and for all that he is not competent to be President.



Last Friday, John McCain laid out his plan for Iraq...to send 20,000 MORE U.S. Soldiers.

We have already got 150,000 troops on the ground and the country is in a civil war, and according to Senator McCain, it is all because we are short by a measily 20,000 soldiers.

I seriously have to question his sanity.

I cannot imagine a more idiotic plan for Iraq. First of all, 20,000 is a ridiculous number. If we sent 100,000 more troops, it would not make a difference. The country has already deteriorated into Civil War. The time when a few more troops on the ground would have made a difference is long over.

A study done by the U.S. Military in 1999 said that it even if we sent 400,000 troops the country still could have slid into chaos.

At this point all our Soldiers are doing is standing around in the middle of a civil war, "watching the flames", as one soldier in Iraq put it.

Unless he is going to call for a serious number of troops, like 250,000, then he should be talking abuot how we are going to pull our boys out of that hellhole.

The Dangerous Lame Duck

Russ Feingold wrote a great piece warning about complacency or underestimating this lame duck congress.

A wounded animal is extremely dangerous.

Read it here.

-D

The Democrats may NOT have won the Senate

Ladies and Gentlemen, possibly one of the most powerful and scary men in Washington... Joe Lieberman.

The claim that the Democrats have won control of the Senate is based upon nothing more than a comment from Lieberman that he would caucus with the Democrats.

Nothing more then the word of a well known liar.

Lieberman is a NeoConservative.

Lieberman has been a staunch advocate for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

An occupation which most Americans, think was a mistake.

He has backed almost every single neoconservative initiative in the Bush administration, which has made him something of a celebrity among the kool-aid drinking Fox News Republicans and their talking heads like Sean Hannity.

Lieberman knows perfectly well that he only won because of the overwhelming Republican support he got. On election night he refused to take Harry Reid's phone call to congratulate him but he did take calls from Republican Senators.

Now this past Sunday, on Meet the Press Tim Russert asked Joe this question:

"MR. RUSSERT: If in fact they ask for discipline in the Democratic caucus, and you start to feel uncomfortable with it, would you consider crossing across the—going across the aisle, and joining the Republicans, if they gave you the same chairmanship that you had, and respected your seniority?"

Mr Lieberman's answer:

"SEN. LIEBERMAN: I’m not ruling it out, but I hope I don’t get to that point."

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that for the next four years, Lieberman is going to use the threat of switching over to the Republicans to force the Democrats to bend to his neoconservative will on important issues like Iraq. He can force our troops to stay in that quagmire needlessly dying all because he believes, as all the neocons do, that we should be using America's military to fight for Israel's security.

The Katherine Harris Meltdown - Crazy Woman Loose in Florida

Katherine Harris is a trainwreck that I cannot stop watching. She has completely lost it. She spoke to the Sam Seder Show after her loss in Florida this week but she cannot admit that she lost. She lost by 30%, over 1,000,000 votes, but she still thinks she will win in a recount that isn't going to happen.



Harris will never even be a dogcatcher after this performance.
Sad and very, very funny at the same time.

-D

Democrats' First Order of Business - Impeach Cheney

The Democrats first order of business upon convening as a majority party this January should be to target Dick Cheney for impeachment. They can use him as the starting off point for investigations into the entire energy industry. Perhaps we can finally find out what Cheney was hiding with his "Secret Energy Taskforce" meetings during their first term.

They can then use the threat of investigations against Bush to get him to agree not to use his Veto power on any legislation they pass. Then they can get to work repairing the damage done to America, starting with the minimum wage and hopefully moving on to repealing the Anti-American "Patriot Act".

They never said that impeachment was off the table for Cheney, so there will be no real political repercussions for doing it. By impeaching Cheney first, would also insure that should they decide to impeach Bush at some point, Cheney could not replace him. But so much more can potentially be accomplished by going to Bush and offering to leave him alone so long as he cooperates with passing the legislation. They may even be able to force Bush to rightly take responsibility for his lost war and preclude the GOP attempting to tar the Democrats with it.

Riverbend Blog Update

The girl blogger from Iraq posted a pretty incidiary update. She posted it a few days ago but I didn't see it until tonight.

When All Else Fails...
… Execute the dictator. It’s that simple. When American troops are being killed by the dozen, when the country you are occupying is threatening to break up into smaller countries, when you have militias and death squads roaming the streets and you’ve put a group of Mullahs in power- execute the dictator.

Bush's Suprising Press Conference

Big News of the day, Donald Rumsfeld is "being allowed to resign".
He will be replaced by one of Dumbya's Father's men, Robert Gates.

Bush seemed to have a mini-meltdown during the Press Conference.

When talking about why the Republicans lost so badly yesterday Bush said, "Some Americans seem to want thier representatives to be honest and ethical."

Whoa, maybe he does understand what just happened...

SPEAKER PELOSI.....I like the sound of that.

Good News for the most part.

The days of the Doormat Congress are over.

We have some oversight in our Government again.

Democrats take the House of Representatives. That gives them chairs of the committees and subpoena power.

Claire McCaskill came back from behind to win in Mossouri, thanks in part to Rush Limbaugh.

Katherine Harris was decimated in Florida. That was a trainwreck.

The final tallies are not in but it is not looking good for Nancy Skinner, unfortunately.

I did a little work for her campaign and I liked her as a cantidate. I think she has a lot of good ideas and she seems very genuine.

There are just too many rich people here in Oakland County who actually benefitted from those tax cuts.

That said, Nancy came very close (48% last I saw) especially for such a strong Republican county.

Bush Salutes America

Great video inspired by Patriotboy:

Popular Photo Mocking Kerry is Fake

What a non-suprise. Photo of Solders with Banner mocking Kerry is Fake.

"A photograph mocking Sen. John Kerry that has gotten enormous TV, radio and online exposure has turned out to have Minnesota roots.

Members of a unit under the command of the Minnesota National Guard created the intentionally misspelled sign.

The sign, painted in thick, blue letters across a white banner says, "Halp us Jon Carry -- We R stuck hear n Irak."

The picture of the sign, held by eight soldiers, has raced across the Web and TV newscasts for the past three days.

Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, a spokesman for the Minnesota National Guard, said Thursday that the "Red Bull" logo and the number "1-34," seen on the bumper of a truck in the photo, indicate that the soldiers pictured are under the command of a Minnesota unit.

About 2,600 Minnesota Guard members have been deployed to Iraq and attached to the 1/34 Brigade Troops Battalion. The unit has soldiers from Minnesota and five other states, Olson said."

Olbermann Compares GOP to Preston Brooks

When Congressman Preston Brooks finally realized that Slavery was going to come to an end as a way of life in America, and that his power structure was about to collapse, he approached Senator Charles Sumner, a leading Anti-Slavery activist, on the floor of the Senate and began beating him with his cane.


Mr. Olbermann is appropriately pointing out the similarity to the attacks on Michael J Fox and Senator John Kerry this week by a GOP powerbase that rightly feels threatened.

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Part 2.


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