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barondaveThe bullet points are what we talked about on Shockwave yesterday, the longer narrative is a large part of tomorrow's Bartcop-E column.
In this election, and in 2008: Zero tolerance for Republicans.
Let's just look at the last year of Republican corruption, scandal and treason. An incomplete list of the horrible crimes committed by Republicans is too long to fit into a half hour program. The lack of morals and ethics on the part of the sphincter conservatives is due, in large part, to the lack of a moral compass from George W. Bush. Here are some of the issues, laid out in bullet points.
Iraq and Afghanistan have been a complete disaster, making the world less safe. More Iraqi civilians have died since the invasion than were killed by Saddam Hussein since the first Gulf War (number by sampling, number by reported deaths, jump in deaths in a Iraqi Interior Ministry report from Oct. 2006) where George HW Bush didn't have the cojones to go in and complete the job. On Monday, an incredibly rare joint editorial will run in the Army Times, the Air Force Times and the Navy Times. The people fighting this war want Donald Rumsfeld to go. The editorial says, in part, "Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt." Harsh words, for Rumsfeld and Bush, who will need to face some hard truths. Bush isn't good about facing the truth. We need a Congress who will tell him.
The generals complain about lack of support, the vets get their benefits cut. Republicans have failed our troops, the Republicans have failed the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Republicans have failed this country, and the Republicans have failed the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Bush administration gave nuclear plans to the enemy... and then bragged about it. Conservatives don't live in the real world, and they can't accept the fact that there were no WMD in Iraq. For sheer political reasons, the Republicans insisted on releasing a huge amount of documents regarding Iraq, in hopes that right-wing bloggers could find something. As startling as it is to find Republicans admitting that the Bush administration is incompetent and our intelligence is run by incompetent Republican appointees, the result has been a disaster, with a potential for greater disaster: Amid the documents put on-line for any right wing blogger or terrorist to see were plans for building nuclear weapons. This is more than an "oops", and Bush can't lie his way out of this serious breach of security.
The drive to release the documents containing nuclear plans was led by House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich. Perhaps the country would be safer if he wasn't the Chairman of the committee.
Three Republican Congressmen have resigned in disgrace over corruption, bribe taking and the Abramoff scandal: Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney. More are under investigation. Once the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they immediately made it their cash cow. I'm not going to give Democrats a pass -- all politicians need to be held accountable -- but they were never even remotely as bad as Republicans. Republicans just don't give a damn about this country, they are in it for the money and the power.
One Republican Congressman resigned after attempts to cover up his inappropriate e-mails and Instant Messages to teenage boys. Mark Foley had been a sleazy operator since at least 1995 and the pages knew it, and the Republican leadership knew it. Karl Rove convinced Foley to run again this year simply because it was a safe seat. Pages complained about Foley. Instead of punishing him, Dennis Hastert and company put him in charge of the group that was making the laws to protect kids. When the press found out, they did nothing right away, and sat on the story for months, at least. Foley and others put tremendous pressure on the media to say nothing, yet again. When a former page was too disgusted and sent copies of Foley's sexually explicit messages, the conservative news media could be silent no longer. Meanwhile, another Republican Congressman, Jim Kolbe, is currently being investigated about an inappropriate camping trip with pages in 1996.
Tom Foley is only one example of a holier than thou conservative Republican who turns out to be disgustingly sleazy. The latest is pastor Ted Haggard, advisor and buddy to George W. Bush and patron saint of evangelicals everywhere. Haggard has led the charge against gay marriage, and is now being accused by his lover of paying for meth-addled gay sex. He is a good example of a Nine Commandment Christian, one who says that they believe in the Christian G-d but don't mind bearing false witness. Apparently, G-d's word applies to other people, not Ted Haggard, Michelle Bachmann or George W. Bush. Here are some others. A list of GOP: God's Own Pedophiles. From October 2006, GOP Candidate charged with sex abuse dies in a car crash. A rambling list of Republican sex criminals with some good links.
Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about Iraq's lack of nuclear capability. Bush lied about the intelligence reports he used to start the war. When Wilson came forward, Bush got revenge on someone who was making this country safer. Conservatives don't give a damn about this country, they just want to score political points. Wilson's wife was Valerie Plame, a CIA agent working to find information about the spread of nuclear technology. For purely political reasons, the far right outed a CIA agent, putting her in danger, putting our CIA agents in danger and diminishing our intelligence capabilities. The trail of treason seems to have landed on Richard Armitidge, one of the neocons who led us into the disastrous Iraq war, but investigations are still ongoing and what we know so far shows that Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and others were pushing to silence the truth by committing treason. Original Bob Novak piece. Wikipedia article on the Plame Affair. FactCheck.org timeline, with a right-wing spin.
Conservatives do not live in the real world, and the biggest proof is their continuing, anal-retentive, almost religious, fanatical denial of global warming. The environment is the prime example where you can say, for absolute certain, that liberals are right and conservatives are wrong. Within your lifetime, a billion people will die or be displaced due to rising sea levels and environmental disaster. It's worse than the conservative news media is reporting: Some estimates say that by 2100CE, one third of the planet will be desert. To save your life and the lives of your children, you will vote Democratic.
Republicans, responsible for the biggest deficits and the obscene Reagan National Debt, are horrible at fiscal management. All they can do it whine "tax cuts, tax cuts!" and lie about the Democrats. Formerly solid deficit hawks are starting to get worried; they were fooled and are too stupid to get it. Time to get a clue, guys. Older citizens are worried about the near future. The latest lie about taxes has the AARP protesting. The very conservative Wall Street Journal just printed what Karl Rove wanted said about Social Security taxes and cutting benefits, and the normally conservative AARP is complaining. What the editorial said just isn't true, says, David Sloane in a letter to the Journal. Look for a smear of AARP and Democratic candidates over the next few days (in the 24 hours since I jotted that down, the attacks are coming from the WSJ and the conservative news media.) Keep in mind: The Republicans are lying. They don't know how to do anything else.
If there is one issue that has convinced independents that the Bush administration is Evil-with-a-capital-E, it's their stance on torture and the death of Habeas Corpus. Cheney says waterboarding is okay. Bush says it isn't, but no one believes him. Bush can just issue a "signing statement" and the do-nothing Republican-controlled Congress just let's him get away with it. Even in Red State Utah, they're worried. Behaving like a terrorist continues on such issues as Secret Detainee Camps and the lies about them. By US standards (up to a few weeks ago) and international standards, Bush as a war criminal. I can't write too much about this outrage. Conservatives simply don't believe in America. Where is the outrage?
There are so many pressing issues to correct, some important issues are left in the wake: Stem Cells, renewable energy, health care, Alaskan Oil drilling, repealing the disastrous tax cuts for the rich, the estate tax, closing loopholes in offshore bank accounts, etc etc etc.
The 2000 election was stolen not by a bunch of hanging chads in Florida, but by massive voter fraud nationwide. Before the vote, 173,000 of people were scrubbed from the voting rolls by DBT, now ChoicePoint. That list of 173 THOUSAND voters, in Florida alone, was wildly flawed and denied rights to eligible voters. The scrub list was commissioned by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and company to make sure Democratic leaning voters were denied their basic American right. The scrub list contained odd bits of information, such as race, and didn't correlate to anything remotely like purging felons. It's clear: Republicans don't believe in Democracy and Conservatives don't believe in America. Two amendments to the Constitution were needed to prevent conservatives from denying the right to vote, and we may need another. The 2000 elections were crooked and in Tennessee, not just Florida, the 2002 elections were crooked, the 2004 elections were crooked, and it looks like the 2006 elections will be more of the same. Diebold electronic voting machines are easily hackable, and preliminary test show that some simply print out results that favor Republicans no matter who voted for whom. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, doing his Katherine Harris impression to purge the voting rolls and now running for governor, made some very restrictive and arbitrary rules that only benefited him and his ilk. I've been screaming about this for years, following the path of Greg Palast.
This year, there may be hope. Currently, VelvetRevolution.us is offering a $500,000 reward for information about election fraud and manipulation in the 2006 election. The information must lead to a conviction. This is part of their Election Protection Strike Force. There are several organizations closely watching the vote, but this is the only one offering such a large cash bonus for finding it.
Win lose or draw, we know what Republicans will do before, during and after the election: they will lie, they don't know how to do anything else. It's time for Americans to step up, and hold some very bad people accountable for their crimes.
These are reasons to vote against the Republicans. But should you for the Democrat or waste a protest vote on a third party? You don't hear much about the Democrats plans from the conservative news media. Indeed, the drumbeat from the right wing media elite is the opposite of reality. In fact, the Democrats have a plan. You should support the Democrats. The choice is not always this simple, but this election is about holding Republicans accountable and bringing in responsible Democrats. If there were viable third party candidates, they would deserve a look, but decent independents are few and far between and we must present a united front to take power away from the Republican Slime Machine. Here is a repeat of the story from last week:
The First 100 Hours. The Washington Post covers the story, making it about the Republicans, Pelosi Says She Would Drain GOP 'Swamp'. From the article:
In this election, and in 2008: Zero tolerance for Republicans.
Let's just look at the last year of Republican corruption, scandal and treason. An incomplete list of the horrible crimes committed by Republicans is too long to fit into a half hour program. The lack of morals and ethics on the part of the sphincter conservatives is due, in large part, to the lack of a moral compass from George W. Bush. Here are some of the issues, laid out in bullet points.
- The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a complete disaster, making the world less safe and providing fodder for terrorists.
- Military personnel demand the firing of Donald Rumsfeld and for Bush to face the harsh truth of his failures.
- Plans for nuclear weapons were released by the Bush administration for political reasons. Karl Rove's political chicanery met with the incompetence of the intelligence people appointed by Bush and Cheney.
- Republican Congressmen who have resigned in disgrace, either from conviction of corruption or due to sexual scandals: Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Mark Foley. More Republicans under investigation.
- Outing of CIA agents for political payback. The Valerie Plame scandal is still under investigation, hampered by Republicans desperate to protect their backsides.
- Conservatives do not live in the real world with regards to global warming and other major environmental concerns. Your life is in danger. Katrina will be the first of many environmental disasters, and the far right is in denial.
- Irresponsible management of the budget, leading to economic failures, massive budget deficits and an obscene National Debt.
- The use of torture and the repeal of habeas corpus. Conservatives don't believe in America.
- Stealing elections and the insistence on unreliable electronic voting machines. Republicans don't believe in Democracy.
Iraq and Afghanistan have been a complete disaster, making the world less safe. More Iraqi civilians have died since the invasion than were killed by Saddam Hussein since the first Gulf War (number by sampling, number by reported deaths, jump in deaths in a Iraqi Interior Ministry report from Oct. 2006) where George HW Bush didn't have the cojones to go in and complete the job. On Monday, an incredibly rare joint editorial will run in the Army Times, the Air Force Times and the Navy Times. The people fighting this war want Donald Rumsfeld to go. The editorial says, in part, "Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt." Harsh words, for Rumsfeld and Bush, who will need to face some hard truths. Bush isn't good about facing the truth. We need a Congress who will tell him.
The generals complain about lack of support, the vets get their benefits cut. Republicans have failed our troops, the Republicans have failed the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Republicans have failed this country, and the Republicans have failed the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Bush administration gave nuclear plans to the enemy... and then bragged about it. Conservatives don't live in the real world, and they can't accept the fact that there were no WMD in Iraq. For sheer political reasons, the Republicans insisted on releasing a huge amount of documents regarding Iraq, in hopes that right-wing bloggers could find something. As startling as it is to find Republicans admitting that the Bush administration is incompetent and our intelligence is run by incompetent Republican appointees, the result has been a disaster, with a potential for greater disaster: Amid the documents put on-line for any right wing blogger or terrorist to see were plans for building nuclear weapons. This is more than an "oops", and Bush can't lie his way out of this serious breach of security.
The drive to release the documents containing nuclear plans was led by House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich. Perhaps the country would be safer if he wasn't the Chairman of the committee.
Three Republican Congressmen have resigned in disgrace over corruption, bribe taking and the Abramoff scandal: Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney. More are under investigation. Once the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they immediately made it their cash cow. I'm not going to give Democrats a pass -- all politicians need to be held accountable -- but they were never even remotely as bad as Republicans. Republicans just don't give a damn about this country, they are in it for the money and the power.
One Republican Congressman resigned after attempts to cover up his inappropriate e-mails and Instant Messages to teenage boys. Mark Foley had been a sleazy operator since at least 1995 and the pages knew it, and the Republican leadership knew it. Karl Rove convinced Foley to run again this year simply because it was a safe seat. Pages complained about Foley. Instead of punishing him, Dennis Hastert and company put him in charge of the group that was making the laws to protect kids. When the press found out, they did nothing right away, and sat on the story for months, at least. Foley and others put tremendous pressure on the media to say nothing, yet again. When a former page was too disgusted and sent copies of Foley's sexually explicit messages, the conservative news media could be silent no longer. Meanwhile, another Republican Congressman, Jim Kolbe, is currently being investigated about an inappropriate camping trip with pages in 1996.
Tom Foley is only one example of a holier than thou conservative Republican who turns out to be disgustingly sleazy. The latest is pastor Ted Haggard, advisor and buddy to George W. Bush and patron saint of evangelicals everywhere. Haggard has led the charge against gay marriage, and is now being accused by his lover of paying for meth-addled gay sex. He is a good example of a Nine Commandment Christian, one who says that they believe in the Christian G-d but don't mind bearing false witness. Apparently, G-d's word applies to other people, not Ted Haggard, Michelle Bachmann or George W. Bush. Here are some others. A list of GOP: God's Own Pedophiles. From October 2006, GOP Candidate charged with sex abuse dies in a car crash. A rambling list of Republican sex criminals with some good links.
Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about Iraq's lack of nuclear capability. Bush lied about the intelligence reports he used to start the war. When Wilson came forward, Bush got revenge on someone who was making this country safer. Conservatives don't give a damn about this country, they just want to score political points. Wilson's wife was Valerie Plame, a CIA agent working to find information about the spread of nuclear technology. For purely political reasons, the far right outed a CIA agent, putting her in danger, putting our CIA agents in danger and diminishing our intelligence capabilities. The trail of treason seems to have landed on Richard Armitidge, one of the neocons who led us into the disastrous Iraq war, but investigations are still ongoing and what we know so far shows that Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and others were pushing to silence the truth by committing treason. Original Bob Novak piece. Wikipedia article on the Plame Affair. FactCheck.org timeline, with a right-wing spin.
Conservatives do not live in the real world, and the biggest proof is their continuing, anal-retentive, almost religious, fanatical denial of global warming. The environment is the prime example where you can say, for absolute certain, that liberals are right and conservatives are wrong. Within your lifetime, a billion people will die or be displaced due to rising sea levels and environmental disaster. It's worse than the conservative news media is reporting: Some estimates say that by 2100CE, one third of the planet will be desert. To save your life and the lives of your children, you will vote Democratic.
Republicans, responsible for the biggest deficits and the obscene Reagan National Debt, are horrible at fiscal management. All they can do it whine "tax cuts, tax cuts!" and lie about the Democrats. Formerly solid deficit hawks are starting to get worried; they were fooled and are too stupid to get it. Time to get a clue, guys. Older citizens are worried about the near future. The latest lie about taxes has the AARP protesting. The very conservative Wall Street Journal just printed what Karl Rove wanted said about Social Security taxes and cutting benefits, and the normally conservative AARP is complaining. What the editorial said just isn't true, says, David Sloane in a letter to the Journal. Look for a smear of AARP and Democratic candidates over the next few days (in the 24 hours since I jotted that down, the attacks are coming from the WSJ and the conservative news media.) Keep in mind: The Republicans are lying. They don't know how to do anything else.
If there is one issue that has convinced independents that the Bush administration is Evil-with-a-capital-E, it's their stance on torture and the death of Habeas Corpus. Cheney says waterboarding is okay. Bush says it isn't, but no one believes him. Bush can just issue a "signing statement" and the do-nothing Republican-controlled Congress just let's him get away with it. Even in Red State Utah, they're worried. Behaving like a terrorist continues on such issues as Secret Detainee Camps and the lies about them. By US standards (up to a few weeks ago) and international standards, Bush as a war criminal. I can't write too much about this outrage. Conservatives simply don't believe in America. Where is the outrage?
There are so many pressing issues to correct, some important issues are left in the wake: Stem Cells, renewable energy, health care, Alaskan Oil drilling, repealing the disastrous tax cuts for the rich, the estate tax, closing loopholes in offshore bank accounts, etc etc etc.
The 2000 election was stolen not by a bunch of hanging chads in Florida, but by massive voter fraud nationwide. Before the vote, 173,000 of people were scrubbed from the voting rolls by DBT, now ChoicePoint. That list of 173 THOUSAND voters, in Florida alone, was wildly flawed and denied rights to eligible voters. The scrub list was commissioned by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and company to make sure Democratic leaning voters were denied their basic American right. The scrub list contained odd bits of information, such as race, and didn't correlate to anything remotely like purging felons. It's clear: Republicans don't believe in Democracy and Conservatives don't believe in America. Two amendments to the Constitution were needed to prevent conservatives from denying the right to vote, and we may need another. The 2000 elections were crooked and in Tennessee, not just Florida, the 2002 elections were crooked, the 2004 elections were crooked, and it looks like the 2006 elections will be more of the same. Diebold electronic voting machines are easily hackable, and preliminary test show that some simply print out results that favor Republicans no matter who voted for whom. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, doing his Katherine Harris impression to purge the voting rolls and now running for governor, made some very restrictive and arbitrary rules that only benefited him and his ilk. I've been screaming about this for years, following the path of Greg Palast.
This year, there may be hope. Currently, VelvetRevolution.us is offering a $500,000 reward for information about election fraud and manipulation in the 2006 election. The information must lead to a conviction. This is part of their Election Protection Strike Force. There are several organizations closely watching the vote, but this is the only one offering such a large cash bonus for finding it.
Win lose or draw, we know what Republicans will do before, during and after the election: they will lie, they don't know how to do anything else. It's time for Americans to step up, and hold some very bad people accountable for their crimes.
These are reasons to vote against the Republicans. But should you for the Democrat or waste a protest vote on a third party? You don't hear much about the Democrats plans from the conservative news media. Indeed, the drumbeat from the right wing media elite is the opposite of reality. In fact, the Democrats have a plan. You should support the Democrats. The choice is not always this simple, but this election is about holding Republicans accountable and bringing in responsible Democrats. If there were viable third party candidates, they would deserve a look, but decent independents are few and far between and we must present a united front to take power away from the Republican Slime Machine. Here is a repeat of the story from last week:
The First 100 Hours. The Washington Post covers the story, making it about the Republicans, Pelosi Says She Would Drain GOP 'Swamp'. From the article:
- As in the first 100 hours the House meets after Democrats -- in her fondest wish -- win control in the Nov. 7 midterm elections and Pelosi takes the gavel as the first Madam Speaker in history.
- Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."
- Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
- Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.
- Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds -- "I hope with a veto-proof majority," she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday.
- All the days after that: "Pay as you go, " meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.