Blogswarm Alert: The Democrats in the Senate are Not Listening!

And some of them are truly showing their DINO stripes. Sorta like polecats with their vile manipulation of the weak-kneed Harry Reid. Yep, I’ve made up my mind about the Senate Majority Leader. He’s not fit to lead the Democratic Party. Not if we want it to become the force for progressive change our nation so desperately needs. And so I intimated to him with this hand delivered letter I had sent to his office. Others like the stupid Joe ‘Obama-be-smart-fer-a-negro’ Biden just Do. Not. Get. It.

But I do and I know you do too. It’s real simple there must be no attack on Iran, oh yeah the NeoCon fucktards are still planning on that, and, what this post is about, the Spineless Dems are planning on letting them. We must seek a diplomatic solution in Iraq while withdrawing our troops. Not plunge the region into a wider war which even the oligarchy at Davos are scared shitless of

Mr. Bush’s ‘support’ is in free fall. The right thing to do morally and for our country is in the Democratic Majority’s grasp.

Simple.

Too simple for many in the Senate to grasp; and to be fair to them many are bought and paid for by the MI complex and/or AIPAC.

But one thing still works as the mid-terms of 2006 showed. Voting. We sent Senators Webb, Tester and Brown to the ‘Greatest Deliberative Body in the World’. We can send more. We can let Senators Reid and Nelson and Biden and Schumer, especially,  know in no uncertain terms that we will not accept their weak, immoral, acquiescence to Mr. Bush’s plans to plunge our nation into an even wider war which we cannot win.

Here is the contact info for the Senate and the House: Congress.org

Contact your Senator and Senator’s Reid, Nelson, Biden, and Schumer and tell them that non-binding resolutions are ‘off the table…’.

Let us know what the response was in the comments if you would please.

Listen Up, Democrats!

This suggestion and analysis from former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter was taken from Booman Tribune which was in turn taken from The Nation:

If I were to address [the Democrats in Congress], I would focus my effort on trying to impress them with the issue that will cost them political power down the road. This issue is Iran. While President Bush, a Republican, remains Commander in Chief, a Democrat-controlled Congress shares responsibility on war and peace from this point on. The conflict in Iraq, although ongoing, is a product of the Republican-controlled past. The looming conflict with Iran, however, will be assessed as a product of a Democrat-controlled present and future. If Iraq destroyed the Republican Party, Iran will destroy the Democrats.

I would strongly urge Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, to hold real hearings on Iran. Not the mealy-mouthed Joe Biden-led hearings we witnessed on Iraq in July-August 2002, where he and his colleagues rubber-stamped the President’s case for war, but genuine hearings that draw on all the lessons of Congressional failures when it came to Iraq. Summon all the President’s men (and women), and grill them on every phrase and word uttered about the Iranian “threat,” especially as it has been linked to nuclear weapons. Demand facts to back up the rhetoric.

Summon the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or any other lobby promoting confrontation with Iran, to the forefront, so that the warnings they offer in whispers from a back room can be articulated before the American public. Hold these conjurers of doom accountable for their positions by demanding they back them up with hard fact. See if the US intelligence community concurs with the dire warnings put forward by these pro-war lobbyists, and if it doesn’t, ask who, then, is driving US policy toward Iran? Those mandated by public law and subjected to the oversight of Congress? Or others, operating outside any framework representative of the will of the American people?

If a real case, based on facts as they pertain to the genuine national security interests of the United States, can be made for a confrontation with Iran that leads to military conflict, so be it. America should never shy away from defending that which legitimately needs defending. The sacrifice expected of our military forces, while tragic, will be defensible. But if the case for war with Iran is revealed to be as illusory as was the case for war with Iraq, then Congress must take action to stop this conflict from occurring. This is the Democrats’ issue now, the one that will make or break them in 2008 and beyond.

If hearings show no case for war with Iran, then Congress must act to insure that the United States cannot move toward conflict with that nation on the strength of executive dictate alone. As things currently stand, the Bush Administration, emboldened with a vision of the unitary executive unprecedented in our nation’s history, believes it has all of the legal authority it requires when it comes to engaging Iran militarily. The silence of Congress following the President’s decision to dispatch a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf has been deafening. The fact that a third carrier battle group (the USS Ronald Reagan) will probably join these two in the near future has also gone unnoticed by most, if not all, in Congress.

And this summary also taken from Booman Tribune:

The time is now, right now, to call for these hearings before it is too late. Before Bush decides to pull the trigger, or allows Israel to pull the trigger for him. Before the initial strikes occur. Before whatever excuse for war can be concocted by Cheny’s fertile imagination and sold to the lapdog media by Karl Rove’s spin.

Are you gonna stop Bush or just sit on your hands?

Over at dKos today and I commented on the thread to this post that:

This is absolutely what every reader of this post…

site should DO!

Git up off yer butts and go to the phone NOW!

Make that call.

Be polite but firm in your demand that your Congessperson SPEAK out against this madness and that they support…

Impeachment of both Bush and Cheney.

If you’ve already done this then…Do it again tomorrow.

I got this response:

silly phone calls and letters wont accomplish shit.

These neocons are contemptuous of the people. This is approaching a showdown. We need to mobilize at a higher level than that.

To which I replied:

You are mistaken indeed if you believe they and the BushFucker are gonna get away with their crimes.

Here’s my primer on why they Fukin’ A won’t!

Of course you will do as you see fit.

Me?

If it takes the rest of my life I’ll see these criminal scum in the dock.

Do you agree with my correspondent? If so, please go away and come back when you realize that making ‘a call’ or writing ‘a letter’ ain’t ‘silly’ it’s the first step in putting pressure on our elected representatives. Yeah, we gotta do more but we’ve already seen that when ‘folks’ tell their Congressperson what they want done.

Congress will do it.

They like their jobs.

You’ve gotta be determined to win. You’ve gotta put in the time. You’ve gotta have the tools and know how to use ‘em. Otherwise your just another sheep like my friend above imagining that you just fine when in fact ‘they’ are measuring you for lamb chops.

After they shear all the wool off ya…

Here’s the link from that dKos diary referenced above where you can tell Congress to stop Bush in his tracks. It might take two minutes.

Can you spare that much time?

Martin Luther King speaks to our nation and his words were never more apt nor important.

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?” “Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people,” they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

Why you don’t want Bush to Bomb Iran…as if you didn’t already know.

clik on the pic to see it full size

‘S funny how the spin game is being played these day on both sides of the aisle, a place which is gonna become a real no-man’s land no matter what Joey the LiarMann thinks, people be talkin’ about all the dumb ass statements Wolfewitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney and BushFool were makin’ before and after the war. Stuff like ‘stuff happens..’, ‘this is a country that can pay for it’s own reconstruction easily…’, ‘Mission Accomplished…’, ‘the insurgency is in it’s last throes if you will…’, see if you can match the statement with the dumb fucktard that uttered it, but nobody wants to talk about what actually happened.

Before the War to Git Saddam started the benchmark grade of oil was selling for around $30.00 per barrel.

Now…

Try above $50.00 per barrel and headed up…maybe to $130.00 per barrel.

That’s like a 175% increase by my math. Come to think of it gas has gone up since The War to Git Saddam started some as I remember, but nobody mentions that on O’Lielly, FAUX news, or even the in the august pages of the NYT or WaPo. I guess they don’t want to stir the natives up too much.

And remember, Iraq prior to the war was providing only a small fraction of the world’s oil not like Iran which currently supplies 5% of the world’s oil supply. Oh, yeah…today Iraq supplies 0% of the world’s oil supply. So get ready to walk to work if Bush pulls the trigger.

You might consider contacting your Congressperson about this issue. You can find ‘em here………..

BRAG Voter Guide CA

The following is a list of Ballot Propositions in the upcoming 2006 California election and some suggested positions on them. I encourage everyone to learn more about the issues and am providing this list as a quick reference guide to take with you to the polls.

• Yes on 1A — Transportation Funding Protection (Constitutional Amendment)
• No on 1B — Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, Port Security Bond Act of 2006
• Yes on 1C — Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006
• Yes on 1D — Education facilities: Kindergarten-University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2006
• No Position on 1E — Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006.
• No on 83 — Sex Offenders. Sexually Violent Predators. Punishment, Residence Restrictions and Monitoring. Initiative Statute.
• Yes on 84 — Water Quality, Safety and Supply. Flood Control. Natural Resource Protection. Park Improvements. Bonds. Initiative Statute.
• No on 85 — Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy. Initiative Constitutional Amendment
• Yes on 86 — Tax on Cigarettes. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute
• Yes on 87 — Alternative Energy. Research, Production, Incentives. Tax on California Oil Producers. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute
• No on 88 — Education Funding. Real Property Parcel Tax. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute
• Yes on 89 — Political Campaigns. Public Financing. Corporate Tax Increase. Campaign Contribution and Expenditure Limits. Initiative Statute
• No on 90 — Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property. Initiative Constitutional Amendment

Oaklanders, beware that Measure N which sounds like a great measure to vote for if you care about libraries may actually be a “sleight of hand.” The measure would move the main branch to the Henry J. Kaiser building – which in and of itself sounds nice – and would help to improve all other Oakland libraries – also sounds nice.

Here’s the caveat, however: once the main branch is moved, the building/property that currently houses the main branch becomes fair game for the political football game of “development.” It is prime real estate, and Measure N does NOT provide for the handling of this location after the main branch is moved. Personally, I would like to see a measure that writes in how the abandoned library property is to be dealt with.

For more information about these issues and more about this election, visit the Green Party of Alameda County.

UPDATE: Here is another good Progressive Voter Guide.