Olbermann at his best.
Watch it. Now.
Category: Democratic News
We Need The Democrats Now — Not In Two Years
The Washington Times is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has refocused his antiwar crusade as his and Congress’ job-approval ratings plummet to all-time lows. The story continues:
Mr. Reid began the week Monday by vowing to “push very, very hard” for troop withdrawal from Iraq in a Defense Department budget authorization bill in two weeks.
The next day — as the Senate began work on the energy bill and tried to revive immigration legislation — the Nevada Democrat and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California sent a letter to the White House imploring the president to heed the Democrat-led Congress’ call for a pullout.
That same day, Mr. Reid railed against the war and U.S. military leaders in a conference call with a group of liberal bloggers.
Well, hats off to these so-called “liberal bloggers.” Everybody and a some day grandmother is running for President of the United States right now. Yes, it’s nice to see Barack Obama testing the waters so early, and it would be very nice if he was successful. I’m glad that Hillary Clinton is running for president, and, while I give the edge to Barack, I would not be at all disappointed to see her measuring for curtains some day in the Oval Office.
The Republicans have demonstrated a profound limp wrist in running this country and defending her properly. This preemptive war with Iraq that is not officially a war has ruined us. We may be more vulnerable now than we’ve ever been before. Which is exactly why we need leadership from the Democratic Party now — not in two years after everyone has battled it out, we regain the White House, and then try to start working together again as a party.
Enough is enough, already. While Joe and Christopher and Hillary and Barack and John and Mike and Dennis and Bill spend millions flying around the United States, taking people out to dinner, searching for just the right song, or making sure their hair is perfect. Meanwhile, we fall deeper into the crevasse that is Iraq — and the Party-Boy-Who-Would-Be-President prepares to turn the guns on Iran.
So, Senator Joe Biden, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama, Senator Mike Gravel, Senator Christopher Dodd, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich — WE NEED YOU NOW. We need your voices to stop this madness right now. The trouble with all of you running for president is that, while you run, more people are dying, our national economy is tanking. The problem is all of you are trying to find incredibly unique solutions to our national crisis, and you are not working IN CONGRESS. We need you to work together, collaborate, right now, and quit trying to save the world — and your own political careers — by yourself.
The people of the United States of America need you all to stand together right now.
Get off your damned high horses already and start working together to find solutions for things that cannot be solved by one person now. Two years hence may already be too late.
House Votes to Rebuke Bush
Well, at last. And the Senate is capping off the House vote Saturday with a “rare weekend session,” according to ThePittsburghChannel.com.
Leave it to the Democrats to actually make Congress start to work.
The NYTimes reports that 17 Republicans broke ranks and voted with the Democrats in the House, and the Democrats in the House were virtually unanimous. The Republicans echoed the same-old, same-old that cost them Congress in the first place, the NYTimes reports:
And one Republican after another rose in opposition, accusing the Democrats of rushing to judgment without giving the president’s new security plan a chance to work and warning that a vote for the resolution would embolden America’s enemies and damage the morale of its fighting men and women.
The non-binding resolution passed by a healthy 246 to 182 vote.
Hurry it up, Blue, and get a clue, Red. 3,133 American soldiers dead in Iraq as of this writing, along with 56,468 to 62,189 Iraqi civilians.
Two Women
Two well-known women have died recently. Somehow the attention given their deaths has been disproportionate. True that Anna Nicole Smith was, because of a strangely tragic life (and lifestyle), a well-known subject for the tabloids.? The loss of? Molly Ivins however,? barely rated a mention on the national news. It’s only in the last few years that I became aware of this brash, outspoken, often profane, delightfully funny Texas woman. She has been given credit? for coining my favorite nicknames for the president: Shrub and Dubya.
Anyone who hasn’t yet read her books is in for a treat. Her colorful language was too much for the New York Times where she reportedly ran around the newsroom in her stocking feet accompanied by her dog to? whom she had given a vulgar name. After realizing the Times was a bad fit, she eventually returned to Texas where, when she? wrote “beer gut” it wasn’t changed by copy editors to “protuberant abdomen.” Her first book title was “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” Well, she could and she did and she continued to.
Molly Ivins died of breast cancer at the age of 62. She didn’t keep her diagnosis secret. When she told her “beloved” readers in her column of her diagnosis, she finished by telling women to “Get. The.? Damn. Mammogram.” With all my heart I wish she had done so earlier.
Molly’s use of “beloved” is a real clue to her character. No matter how thoroughly she skewered her victims, she had respect and love for her readers. From the many tributes to her posted on the net, she was also gifted with great friends. One of them was the late Ann Richards, former Governor of Texas who was defeated by “Shrub.” Hopefully they are sharing a good laugh and maybe a beer in some celestial dimension at this very moment.
So, because there will be no more Molly on NPR, and perhaps no more scathingly funny books, I’m going to go back and reread “Bushwhacked” in her memory. Go with God! Molly, we hardly knew ya!
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Penn & Teller Tell It Like It Is
In this video, Penn & Teller tell it like it is with regards to psychic frauds, John Edwards (the dead talking guy, not the politician).
While it does have its fair share of profanity and may be offensive to some Christians, it’s worth watching and sharing.
Is 2007 the year for Stem Cell Research?
Matthew Nesbit, Ph.D. reports at the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CISCOP) that 2007 will be an interesting year for the “Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act” which authorizes federal funding for research using embryonic stem cells donated from in vitro fertilization clinics regardless of when the cell lines were created. According to Nesbit:
The bill is really a “left-over” initiative from this past summer when Congressional Democrats joined with a substantial minority of Republicans to pass legislation, only to have the President veto the law. Supporters at the time were unable to muster the required two-thirds of votes in the House and the Senate to override the veto.
In 2007, however, things are likely to be different. Democrats will hold a 233-202 advantage in the House and will control the Senate by a 51-49 margin. Michael Werner and Jonathan Moreno at the Center for American Progress predict that the reintroduced stem cell legislation would be likely to gain 66 votes in the Senate, teetering just one vote shy of overturning a Bush veto.
Nesbit’s in-depth analysis is valuable not only for his take on the future of stem cell research, but also his numbers on other issues congress is likely to be confronted with during the current legislative year.
CISCOP is always good reading. This article is well worth reading.
Taking the Oath on Jefferson’s Quran
The Associated Press reports Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, will use a Qur’an once owned by Thomas Jefferson during his ceremonial swearing-in Thursday. This has apparently infuriated the right-wing, some of whom say the oath should only be taken using the Bible. While Muslims do accept the Bible, their interpretation is different from that of Christians. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus — all are honored as prophets by Muslims. Muhammed (PBUH), of course, is revered as the greatest of the prophets.
Those objecting just sound absurd:
Last month, Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode R-Va., warned that unless immigration is tightened, “many more Muslims” will be elected and follow Ellison’s lead. Ellison was born in Detroit and converted to Islam in college.
That’s right, Keith Ellison was born in Detroit. There’s no clear record as to when he immigrated to America. Maybe Rep. Goode can help us with that one.
Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas
He was just a child. 22 years old. The DoD reports very little information about him:
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas, died Dec. 28 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds received from small arms fire while conducting combat operations. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.
For more information on this soldier, contact the U.S. Army, Alaska, public affairs office at (907) 389-6666.
The man standing before that flag was too young to die.
This evening I had a visceral reaction while watching Law and Order. It was an episode where Jack McCoy was forced to deal with a snag in his case against a man responsible for killing a military supplier when a terrorism aspect comes into play. There’s footage of a convoy in Iraq getting blown up. As one man emerges from the wreckage, he’s captured and beheaded with a serrated blade. The video footage stops short of the beheading, of course.
But that image was too much for me.? One man kneeling in a desert, knowing that this moment was going to be his last, begging for his life.? I know this was fiction, but it’s happening over there, every day.
It’s hitting me more and more that these are real people over there, losing their lives in horrid situations. I had to change the channel when the footage was aired. And this was a fictional television show. This time, though, “Ripped from the headlines,” was too real.
The Associated Press is reporting 16,273 Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police died violent deaths in 2006, a figure larger than an independent Associated Press count for the year by more than 2,500.
The tabulation by the Iraqi ministries of Health, Defense and Interior, showed that 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police and 627 soldiers were killed in the violence that raged in the country last year.
The Associated Press accounting, gleaned from daily news reports from Baghdad, arrived at a total of 13,738 deaths. The United Nations has said as many as 100 Iraqis die violently each day, which translates into 36,500 deaths annually.
All of them real people. Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas, was only one.
One more.
Memories of Fallujah – a weird funk
I got into a weird funk this morning while giving finals to students.
I was grading some papers, making sure the grades in my computer were accurate, when I started thinking about my son, still set on joining the Army.? And I remembered scenes out of Fallujah, and pictured that happening to my son.? I pictured him surrounded by a crowd, and those things happening to him.
And I froze.? This has never happened to me before.? I don’t want it to happen to him.
It’s all too real now.
My God.? They were real people.
