Derail the Bums

post from What Happened to My Country? on 01 January 2007 11:01:33 AM. © What Happened to My Country?

Random thoughts..... Far-right conservative talking head Sean Hannity encourages Democrats to "stay home on Election Day" because their vote "won't change who occupies the White House." Bush will still be president..... true, but a Democratic Congress will be able to apply the brakes to his administration's run-away-train policies.

And, while our election has become a consuming national fetish, Nicaragua's Marxist revolutionary, Daniel Ortega.... "Old U.S. Adversary Poised for Comeback"..... may succeed in today's election in Nicaragua. While the Bush administration fanatically focuses on Iraq, our own backyard is becoming increasingly dangerous.

And, while we all applaud the comeuppance for the murderous Saddam.... "Hussein Sentenced to Hang for Crimes Against Iraqis".... the sentence increases Iraq's boiling-point sectarian divisions. Saddam Sunnis protested shouting "We will avenge you Saddam."

While "Shites Praise, Sunnis Protest Verdict," our brave troops tread water in the deadly Iraq cauldron, hamstrung by their Demander-In-Chief's flatfooted policies.

And, recently Bush even reaffirmed his support for "Dead-end Don" and "Snarly Dick" Cheney.... "I'm pleased with the progress we're making" in Iraq.... Rumsfeld is doing a "fantastic" job.

Wow, another Katrina "Brownie you're doing a heck of a job" moment!

We can change things... we can put our country back on track....

November 7.... VOTE!

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Democrats Can Clean Up

post from What Happened to My Country? on 01 January 2007 11:01:33 AM. © What Happened to My Country?

Who do we have to thank for this headline?.... "Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change."

Not Corporate-Buddy Bush and Oily Dick.

One person to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude is former Vice President Al Gore. He's been tirelessly tolling the alarm bells of global warming, trying without success to motivate the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled Congress to action.... even produced a top-notch movie, "An Inconvenient Truth" about this looming threat.

Now there's a new game in town.... the Democratic takeover, by a slim margin, of both Houses.

So, "....top executives at many of the nation's largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable..."

You can bet your sooty smokestack on that!

The energy companies have been shameless in their efforts to mislead the public, even admitting... "Exxon Mobil Corp., the highest-profile corporate skeptic about global warming, said in September that is was considering ending its funding of a think tank that has sought to cast doubts on climate change." Maybe they remembered that they, and their children, have to live in this world too. Or, more likely, they realize that their lame-duck protectors will soon be history.

Still, George and Dick aren't going to give up their shtick... "the Bush administration's expected opposition might make the enactment of legislation unlikely in the next two years..."

It doesn't have to be this way.

As the last election shows, the roar of outraged voters can be heard even by The Decider.

When the Democratic leaders take over key committees on Capitol Hill, such as the Environment and Public Works headed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA).... who calls global warming "the greatest challenge of our generation".... the public can let the Bush administration know they don't want to "stay the course" on their current corporate-favoring disastrous environmental policies.

When effective climate-change legislation comes forward, would Bush then dare wield his veto pen....

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/11/democrats-can-clean-up.html

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Deafening Silence and Chants

post from What Happened to My Country? on 01 January 2007 11:01:33 AM. © What Happened to My Country?

The Decider's campaign tour is one big pep rally, "Go GOP Go......Keeeeeeep Power." Followed by loud cheers from the faithful.

But when it comes to transparency in government, mum's the word.... "U. S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons.... Court Is Asked to Bar Detainees From Talking About Interrogations."

Shameful isn't it.

Of course, the administration cloaks their request that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternate interrogation methods" in scare rhetoric alleging "they are among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets." (WaPo)

What are they really afraid of revealing, torture? Why else keep their "methods" secret?

But The Decider is putting on a happy face for his hand-picked loudly-cheering GOP ditto-heads as "Bush Blasts Democrats During Missouri Visit." Our Commander in Fief is "on a 10-state blitz to save his congressional majorities -- and essentially the remainder of his presidency".... jetting to the dwindling number of places where he'll do the least harm.

But even with hand-picked GOP boosters his reception can be.... well, sobering. At his LeMars, Iowa rally someone in the crowd held up a sign that said "Impeach." The Decider's supporters quickly pulled it down, and then, "following instructions given before the rally for how to drown out hecklers, volunteers started chanting 'USA! USA!' "

So, will the electorate "stay the curse," or reject the GOP slogans and chants, ending the GOP secretive, corrupt and lawless approach to governing.

November 7, VOTE!

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/11/deafening-silence-and-chants.
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Bush's Lying Ways

post from What Happened to My Country? on 01 January 2007 11:01:33 AM. © What Happened to My Country?

The Deceiver is intent on trying to change the subject, to put a good face on the voters rejection of his administration and "staying the course".... so, he is using the tried and true presidential image booster.... the international grand tour with a summit thrown in for good measure.... "Bush, in Vietnam, Says Change Takes Time, On visit for Economic Summit, President Cites a Lesson for Iraq: 'We'll Succeed Unless We Quit'."

Of course, wherever he goes, he drags around his Iraq albatross. But ,by using inaccurate comparisons and rewriting history he tries to justify his globally-destabilizing war... the reasons for which he now says was to bring Iraq Vietnam-style peace and prosperity. A blatant lie since his often-stated reason when selling the war was WMD and deposing Saddam who "tried to kill my Daddy."

The latest example of Bush's truth-challenged pronouncements was quickly lost in the rush of election news and check-mate Congressional leadership scuffles.... it was The Deceiver's public statements surrounding the replacement of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.

The week before the elections Bush unequivocally told a group of reporters that the widely unpopular Rummy and VP Cheney would "remain with him until the end of his presidency.... both of these men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them."

As Hurricane Katrina tsar "Brownie" found out, doing a fantastic or "heck of a job" means just one thing, better start packing. The day after the GOP election "thumping," and almost without ceremony, Rummy was history, his "job" a failure.

In a press conference later the same week, The Deceiver was queried: "Last week you told us that Secretary Rumsfeld will be staying on. Why is the timing right now for this, and how much does it have to do with the election results?"

The Deceiver answered: ".... the reason why [I said that] is I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer." In other words, I CHOSE TO LIE TO THE PRESS FOR POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY.

As recent elections show, however, the public is no longer buying The Deceiver's lies .... and not just on Iraq and Rumsfeld.... he told them he was a "uniter, not a divider," a "compassionate conservative" against big government and for fiscal restraint.... all lies.

By now the press must need a "divining rod" to ferret out the truth of The Deceiver's statements.... to trust the utterances of a president who doesn't just lie.... but believes his lies are justified. He defends them.

We're calling on our new Democratic leadership on the Hill to bring the lies to a halt, to challenge everything.... and restore transparency and truth to our government.

With our Pinocchio President and his GOP stooges, a tall order.

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/11/bushs-lying-ways.html

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You Go 110th Congress!

post from What Happened to My Country? on 01 January 2007 11:01:32 AM. © What Happened to My Country?

At last a really good, a great, idea!.... "Democrats Freeze Earmarks for Now."

"Democratic leaders declared a temporary moratorium on special-interest provisions known as earmarks as they attempt to cope with a budget crisis left by the outgoing Republican-led 109th Congress." (WaPo)

The hordes of blood-sucking D.C. lobbyists worst nightmare.... "an accountable, above-board, transparent process for funding decisions and put an end to the abuses...." declared incoming chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees, Rep. David Obey (D-WI) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV).

This is exactly the kind of action the electorate is looking for from the new Democratic leadership! We, the long-ignored taxpaying electorate, salute you!

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/12/you-go-110th-congress.html

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Who Needs LeCarre

post from What Happened to My Country? on 01 January 2007 11:01:32 AM. © What Happened to My Country?

I'm not going to read spy novels anymore. LeCarre can't compete with the ongoing cloak-and-dagger mystery surrounding the polonium-210 murder in London of renegade Russian spy and Putin-government detractor, Alexander Litvinenko.

The stakes in solving this mystery are high. On his deathbed Litvinenko fingered the person he was sure engineered his poisoning.... Russia's Decider.... President Putin himself.

Why would Litvinenko be targeted?

Perhaps because Litvinenko was investigating the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, or because he claimed that the Russian government itself blew up Moscow apartment buildings in 1999, killing hundreds of civilians, in order to blame it on the Chechens and provoke the second Chechen war.

But this real-life thriller .... government-sponsored murder and dirty tricks, disgruntled spies, disinformation, polonium contamination everywhere from jet liners to the bowels of Moscow.... may never have a final chapter. State-ordered assassinations seldom do.

In "That Murder in London," Charles Krauthammer argues that the reason for the messy and brazen murder of Litvinenko was to send a message.... that this is what awaits anyone who goes against the Russian government. "They'll get you even in London, where there is the rule of law. And they'll get you even if it makes negative headlines for a month.... It is the ultimate in deterrence."

Today, WaPo reports "Russian Tied to Ex-Spy Also Ill From Radiation." In true Mafioso style.... make sure no one talks. Dmitry Kovtun who met with Litvinenko just before he succumed to radiation exposure, now himself has "an acute form of radiation sickness, with internal contamination.... affecting the liver, the kidneys, and the intestines."

It would all make thrilling reading, if it was fiction. The only fiction is that Russia hasn't returned to its deadly ways.

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/12/who-needs-lecarre.html

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Where's the Will

post from What Happened to My Country? on 01 January 2007 11:01:32 AM. © What Happened to My Country?

Most point the finger of fault for our free-flowing Bush administration blunder in Iraq on a lack of will to subdue speedily and with massive force the insurgents and warring tribal and religious factions.... instead allowing chaos to build and build until it is now an unwieldy, and probably "unwinnable," deadly morass.... whatever winning is since there are no benchmarks to measure victory.

The same lack of will to secure our porous border with Mexico is allowing the illegal alien invasion to fester and grow into an overwhelming social, cultural and fiscal disaster for our nation state, while almost insuring terrorists a free pass into our homeland to do their deadly worst.

In "DHS Plan for 'Virtual' Border Fence Still Has Gaps," it is reported that "A Bush administration plan to build a 'virtual' fence along the Mexico border will cost $7.6 billion and be completed by 2011, but the government lacks clear benchmarks for success, according to a report to Congress by the Department of Homeland Security." (WaPo)

The DHS has a "goal" of controlling 345 miles of the 1,993-mile-border by the end of 2007, but admits there is no way to really judge "control."

Sound familiar? There is no will to secure the border, no way to benchmark progress, no "can do" spirit in the administration to get the job done.

However, the NAFTA super-highway from Mexico across the U.S. is already under way, there is a will to do this in the Bush administration.... The Decider wants a North American "community" and Congressional debate or the will of the people be damned.

Bush in just six years has forced his megalomanic ideology onto his increasingly dangerous world, and is dismantling our very nation.... right before our eyes.

Congress.... an outraged nation wants the runaway Bush dictates stopped and governing to commence. Do you have the will?

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/12/wheres-will.html

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Webb's No Pretender

George is all in a snit..... no, not our president George who was stood-up by Iraq's prime minister Maliki on Wednesday.... I'm talking about George Will in his column "Already Too Busy for Civility" about Senator-elect Jim Webb's (VA-D) snub of The Decider at a White House reception when Bush asked Webb about his Marine son.

Seems like Webb won't pretend to make nice with the person who lied the country into a war that has cost thousands of U.S. lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Will is offended.... offended.... that Webb didn't want to "symbolically" honor such a person.

Maybe Will can't see past his snuff-stained stuffed-shirt to recognize a real person when he sees one. A father who is not interested in making small talk about his Iraq-serving son with the person who is keeping him, and all of the brave U.S. troops caught in the Iraq civil war, at deadly risk.

Webb published a column in the Wall Street Journal recently that sounded the alarm on our "steady drift toward a class-based system." Will took great offense at what he considered Webb's imprecise use of the English language, and even defended the notion that America is less, not more, "egalitarian".... guess the view of the real world isn't all that clear from Will's carriage.

If Will is so easily offended by Webb that he must parse Webb's words to justify rejecting the argument, Webb must be close to the mark indeed. Webb won't be a toady to the D.C. elite and they are out to hobble him.

We, in the nation's increasingly cheap seats, say.... "You go Webb!"

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/11/webbs-no-pretender.html

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News

It took the Washington Post to tell me what was going on with my hometown newspaper, The Des Moines Register, owned by the mega 90-newspaper-chain Gannett.... "A Newspaper Chain Sees Its Future, And It's Online and Hyper-Local."

My first impulse is to cancel home delivery and just get the news online.... but then what would I read while waking-up with corn flakes and coffee?

It's not that we haven't noticed a trend.... as the weekend and hyped shopping days loom, Gannett's Register gets weightier and weightier.... with ads and ad inserts and ad slicks, and worst of all.... the side-of-the-page-long tear-off ad. I have sworn to never, ever buy anything advertised in a tear-off ad.

And, the news content has gone loco.... local. Articles on how Aunt Jane raises turnips in her window box are pushing aside "hard" news. I buy the newspaper for "hard" news which is now consigned to two-inch blurbs beneath "celebrity news" on page 2 or buried on the back pages.

When doing research on my family history and searching through newspapers from the 1800s I remember thinking how quaint the newspapers were. Filled with articles like Aunt Jane and her turnips, little national news, local gossip, and especially who died, and how they died.... the way you would tell an inquiring friend. When friends died, people cared.

Just goes to prove that everything new is really something old. The obit pages are starting to eat up the Metro news section in the increasingly thin Register news sections.... but most are dry, and must be paid for by the family.... unless the obit is just six lines thus diminishing the departed's life.... and are just another source of income for Gannett.

The new Gannett thrust is to feed the web constantly with new local "news" stories.... such as posted thus far on the Des Moines Register web site this morning:

Man says he was kidnapped while waiting for police 7:28 am
Dollar General robber passes up $1 bills 7:25 am
Warm-up beginning across Iowa 7:24 am

The "warm-up" is into the mid-30s this afternoon.... well, you can just read them for yourself if you're into jelly-soft news.

Just now, CNN announced that John Bolton has resigned, and if you don't know who John Bolton is, then you must get all of your news from a Gannett newspaper.

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/12/news.html

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Murtha's PAID

When your ambition exceeds your ethics... else what's a lobbyist for.

Or that's the way it was in the House under the reign of dethroned Majority Leader deal-maker Tom Delay (R-TX) who set up his own charities "that became the focus of attention by businesses and lobbyists seeking to curry favor with him." (WaPo)

That is why it is more than little unsettling to read "Nonprofit Connects Murtha, Lobbyists."

This is the same Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) that incoming Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) doggedly supported for Majority Leader, a political dust-up she lost. And just as well it seems, since the Democrats stated priorities are "ethics and budget restructuring"

Among the provisions in the Democrats' ethics package are "demands for more transparency in the doling out of federal funds to home-district projects and a required pledge that no earmarks benefit a member of Congress personally."

Such provisions may put wheeler-dealer Murtha in a sweat-producing spotlight since his nonprofit creation, PAID, has "become a gathering point for defense contractors and lobbyists."

The voters are watching to see if the trust they placed in the new Democratically-controlled House and Senate is misplaced. For far too long, far too many senators and representatives have been flying too close to the sun of corruption.

They need their wings clipped.... and that applies to both parties, starting with Pelosi-favored Murtha.

Read The Full Article:
http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com/2006/12/murthas-paid.html