Keep Badgering Conyers!

It is your duty as an American!

Congressman John Conyers' telephone, by many reports, rang endlessly on Monday, approximately 60 times per minute, or as fast as people could get through. The same thing appears to be happening today (Tuesday).

If you try to get through at 202-225-5126, chances are you'll hear a busy signal. Other times it will simply ring forever until a recorded voice tells you "Your party is not answering, please try your call later." Some people have had better luck by calling the Capitol Hill switchboard at 202-224-3121 or through one of the toll-free numbers that activist groups use, and asking to be connected to John Conyers' office. Others have just run into busy signals that way too.

If you are lucky, you will get through to a staffer, and by all reports they are very, very cheerful staffers glad that you called, no matter where in the country you live.

Emailing the Congressman is out, because he has stopped accepting Emails, at least at this address john.conyers@mail.house.gov. I could tell you some of his staff members' Email addresses, but then they wouldn't be able to work for a week.

Faxing the Congressman is very much in, but you have to set your fax machine to repeatedly redial until it gets through. The fax number is 202-225-0072.

You can also try these alternatives. Call Conyers' Judiciary Committee office at 202-225-3951. Or call his Detroit, Mich., office at 313-961-5670 or his Trenton, Mich., office at 734-675-4084.

If you do get through, be prepared to hear that impeachment hearings are not happening, but hearings into impeachable offenses are. Even though these non-impeachment hearings will not make it onto television, and Conyers is not even announcing them ahead of time, and even though witnesses will refuse to show up, Conyers' staffers will try to tell you that hearings of the sort they've done for the past 13 months are all that's needed.

Hmm. If that were true, would the phone be ringing the way it is?

Over 20 people are refusing to eat until Conyers begins impeachment hearings for Dick Cheney: http://afterdowningstreet.org/fasting

Nine members of the Judiciary Committee and dozens of members of Congress agree with the public that Conyers should perform his constitutional duty and begin impeachment hearings. On Friday Congressman and Committee Member Robert Wexler will deliver a sign-on letter to Conyers urging him to begin Cheney impeachment hearings.

Tuesday evening Conyers has agreed to meet with Leslie Angeline to discuss the possibility. Angeline is a member of Code Pink. Her father was a rider on the original Freedom Ride bus that was fire bombed in Alabama in 1961. She is fasting for impeachment. For her sake, if nothing else, set your phone on redial and have faith that you will get through. Consider making it a daily routine.

Democrats Cave AGAIN

“We’ve just sanctioned the single largest invasion of privacy in American history."
-Senator Chris Dodd February 12,2008

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110^th Congress - 2^nd Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On the Amendment (Dodd Amdt. No. 3907 )
Vote Number:	15	Vote Date:	February 12, 2008, 11:03 AM
Required For Majority:	1/2	Vote Result:	Amendment Rejected
Amendment Number:	S.Amdt. 3907 to S.Amdt. 3911 to S. 2248 (FISA Amendments Act of 2007)
Statement of Purpose:	To strike the provisions providing immunity from civil liability to electronic communication service providers for certain assistance provided to the Government.

Vote Counts:	YEAs	31
	NAYs	67
	Not Voting	2

Vote Summary

By Senator Name

By Vote Position

By Home State

Alphabetical by Senator Name

Grouped By Vote Position

YEAs ---31
Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Casey (D-PA) Dodd (D-CT)	Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Harkin (D-IA) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Menendez (D-NJ)	Murray (D-WA) Obama (D-IL) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Tester (D-MT) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---67
Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY) Bayh (D-IN) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Carper (D-DE) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Domenici (R-NM)	Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Feinstein (D-CA) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Inouye (D-HI) Isakson (R-GA) Johnson (D-SD) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McCaskill (D-MO) McConnell (R-KY) Mikulski (D-MD)	Murkowski (R-AK) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Roberts (R-KS) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Stevens (R-AK) Sununu (R-NH) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA) Webb (D-VA) Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 2
Clinton (D-NY)	Graham (R-SC)

LEGALIZE IT!

The film below in 8 parts is called “Grass” and it looks at the last 100 years of marijuana use, culture, and legislation, compiled from 400 hours of archival footage. Narrated by the celebrity weed aficionado Woody Harrelson, whose very name in the credits will ensure a laugh from audiences.

This savvy and biting examination of America's tireless crusade against marijuana offers some unsettling insight into the legalization controversy.

By exposing the relatively unknown history of dope laws in the U.S., Grass manages to chip away at the drug's layers of stigmatization to reveal a disturbing core of government-controlled propaganda. Campy and compelling, this pro-pot doc actually transcends typical stoner tub-thumping and effectively challenges U.S. drug policy.

Just ignore those annoying spanish sub-titles.

This film is a MUST SEE for anyone concerned with government propaganda used to control the masses, government wasteful spending and personal rights of American citizens.

PART 1



PART 2



PART 3



PART 4



PART 5



PART 6



PART 7



PART 8

Conyers Almost There

On Thursday, Chairman John Conyers’ House Judiciary Committee held a hearing at which Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that he would not investigate torture or warrantless spying, he would not enforce contempt citations, and he would treat Justice Department opinions as providing immunity for crimes.

None of this was new, but perhaps it touched something in Conyers that had not been touched before. Following the hearing, he and two staffers met for an hour and 15 minutes with two members of Code Pink to discuss impeachment.

Conyers expressed fear of what might happen following an impeachment, fear of installing a Bush replacement or losing an election. The “corporate power structure”, he said, would not allow impeachment without unleashing “blowback.” Conyers told Ellen Taylor and Manijeh Saba: “You need to be more than brave and courageous. You need to be smart.”

Their response? They are asking people who care about justice to help them let Conyers know that the smart thing right now would be bravery and courage.

On Rosa Parks’ birthday last week, Leslie Angeline began a fast for impeachment. Taylor and over 20 other activists have joined the fast. Conyers has agreed to meet with Angeline to discuss impeachment on Tuesday.

The Chairman told Taylor and Saba that he is listening to several advocates for impeachment, including Liz Holtzman and this author, and asked “So how would it look if I allowed two women to push me over the edge?” Conyers leaned out of his chair for dramatic effect.

A number of organizations will be sending their members this alert Monday morning:

Let’s push Conyers over the edge by flooding his office with phone calls, faxes, and Emails on Monday and Tuesday. Let him know that only impeachment hearings

1-will make it on TV,
2-will force compliance with subpoenas by eliminating “executive privilege”,
3-will hold brazen criminals accountable, and
4-will convince voters that Democrats care about the Constitution.

Call 202-225-5126
Fax 202-225-0072
Email john.conyers@mail.house.gov

Different Verse, Same As The First

It’s not just the neocons at George Bush events that go after Americans who disagree. Same thing happens at “liberal” Clinton events, as the video here demonstrates.

Once upon a time, under the now moribund First Amendment, we had the right to disagree, so long as we didn’t hurt anybody or prevent them from doing likewise.

No more. Now if you are out of step with the brainwashed and orchestrated zombies, dare to remove yourself from the stampede toward fascism and insanity, you are quickly ushered from the room, lest some impressionable person in the fawning crowd gets the idea all is not right with the picture. Of course, the horizontal and vertical are controlled by eager minions, such as the one that demands the boy helping to hoist up a “Not Another Clinton” banner in blazing, can’t ignore yellow is removed from the scene.

Nothing will be allowed to interrupt the Hillary dog and pony show. If the kids can’t stand up and wave their Hillary placards and play their part as abject bootlickers and sycophants, they will asked to leave — or forced to leave, whatever the case may be.

Here is what the Hillary zombies — and those for McCain — are incapable of understanding: in America, as in the former Soviet Union, our rulers are selected by the elite. In the former Soviet, candidates were selected by local CPSU, Komsomol, and trade union officials under the guidance of the district (raion) party organization. In America, they are selected by the Democrat and Republican political machinery controlled by behind the scenes handlers from the CFR, Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the secretive clique and inner circle of the ruling elite.

In the past, the idiosyncrasies of democracy were tolerated by the elites, albeit ignored by the corporate media, but now things are different as our rulers prepare for the ultimate clampdown.

For now, kids with banners will be asked to leave, even dragged out kicking and screaming — or tased for asking the wrong questions, as University of Florida student Andrew Meyer was for asking Lord Kerry about his Skull and Bones association — but in the future a certain possibility hangs like the Sword of Damocles: political opponents will be disappeared or shot outright, as they were in General Pinochet’s Chile. For those with a bit more luck, they will end up in an American version of Pinochet’s Colonia Dignidad, where dissidents were tortured and killed. In the end, fascism always looks pretty much the same.

For now, the banners will be yanked down by indignant minions, but if history is any gauge things will get gruesome, far more gruesome in the days ahead.

STOP Paying Federal Income Tax!

It has NEVER been a requirement!

UPDATE: Wexler Pushes For Impeachment

Gee, Do Ya Think?

The heck with Congress' big stimulus bill.

The way to get the country out of recession — and most people think we're in one — is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press poll.

Pulling out of the war ranked first among proposed remedies in the survey, followed by spending more on domestic programs, cutting taxes and, at the bottom end, giving rebates to poor people in hopes they'll spend the economy into recovery.

The $168 billion economic rescue package Congress rushed to approval this week includes rebates of $600 to $1,200 for most taxpayers, the hope being that they will spend the money and help revive ailing businesses. bush is expected to sign the measure next week. Poor wage-earners, as well as seniors and veterans who live almost entirely off Social Security and disability benefits, would get $300 checks.

However, just 19 percent of the people surveyed said they planned to go out and spend the money; 45 percent said they'd use it to pay bills. And nearly half said what the government really should do is get out of Iraq.

Forty-eight percent said a pullout would help fix the country's economic problems "a great deal," and an additional 20 percent said it would help at least somewhat. Some 43 percent said increasing government spending on health care, education and housing programs would help a great deal; 36 percent said cutting taxes.

"Let's stop paying for this war," said Hilda Sanchez, 44, of Waterford, Calif. "There are a lot of people who are struggling. We can use the money to pay for medical care and help people who were put out of their homes."

Mitt The Nit Wit Makes An Excuse

According to Mitt 's bailout speech yesterday, a vote for Hillary or Barack is surrendering to the terrorists.

Message to Mitt: STFU and get the hell out of my country, you whiney, scared little republicunt bitch.

You failed to mention that George Bush's GOP is the greatest terrorist enabling organization in the history of the planet. BTW, where's OSAMA?

I am goddamned outraged. FED UP!

And you should be, too.

In suspending his presidential campaign yesterday, Mitt The Nit Wit said:
"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

Mother of Gawd. What he's saying that if he continued campaigning, and got in the way of a McCain juggernaut, he'd feel partly responsible for electing either Clinton or Obama in November. And, if Clinton or Obama wins, then the U.S. has surrendered to the terrorists.

What a fucking idiot!

Who in the FUCK does Mitt Romney think he is that he can implicate either Sens. Clinton or Obama as terrorism enablers?

Or if I support the Dems, that I AM, BY IMPLICATION, A TERRORIST SUPPORTER?

What level ofbullshit is he shoveling by saying that if the Democratic Party nominee wins in November, the people of the United States have "surrendered to the terrorists"?

Message to MULTIPLE DEFERMENT MITT and his fellow Republican fascists:

I AM AN AMERICAN.

I DON'T SUPPORT EMOTIONAL TERRORISTS LIKE YOU.

I AM A DEMOCRAT.

AND I AM A FED UP AMERICAN!

Fuck Lent

I received the following from my brother and it couldn't be more truthful if it came from the Vatican itself.

Traditionally, Lent is that time of year when Catholics are expected to celebrate Meatless Fridays.

I don't take it serious, have not for many years and here's why:

1. Fish on Fridays and no meat goes back only to the 16Th century.

2. At that time, there was a shortage of meat in England and at the same time the fish industry was doing bad$$$$$$$$$. Parliament and the Church of England, working together,ordered that people must replace meat with fish on Fridays.

3. Roman Catholics went along with it, made it mandatory, and described it as a personnel sacrifice. No doubt it was a benefit to Italy, the home of the Pope, where the fishing business is big.$$$$$$$$$$. Yes, no meat on Friday was economic!

4. Jesus said If you CHOOSE to fast, (yes, if you CHOOSE)" you should put on festive clothes and not let anyone know you are fasting". If we are not to let anyone know that we are fasting, as Jesus said, then why to we start the lent with ashes on our head letting the whole world know that we are fasting. A wise person once said, its not what goes into your mouth that harms you, its what comes out of your mouth that does.

5. If you are going to make a sacrifice, do something to help less fortunate people and don't worry about what you did or did not eat on a particular day.

6. An option: Considering that there is 7 Fridays in lent, and you choose to fast, why not fast for the first 8 days of lent. This way you complied with the fasting requirement of 7 Fridays in lent and ash Wednesday.

SO, GO ON, AND ENJOY A BURGER ON EVERY FRIDAY AND A JUICY STEAK ON GOOD FRIDAY. AND WHY NOT TAKE SOME FOOD TO A NEEDY FAMILY ALSO. THAT, I BELIEVE IS THE TRUE MEANING OF LENT.

YOUR RESPONSES ARE WELCOMED

Thanks bro.

Now is it just me or does the fucktard pope resemble the emperor from Star Wars?

Evangelical Tears

In what might be the best news I’ve heard in months, Jimmy Dobson is threatening to boycott the November election. And he wants to take his fanatic delussional followers with him.

James Dobson, the idiot founder of the conservative, evangelical advocacy group Focus on the Family, has delivered a blow to John McCain — by saying he won’t vote for him if he’s the Republican presidential nominee.

“I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are … I cannot, and will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime. I certainly can’t vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life,” he said.

Dobson said he was just expressing his views as a private citizen — but many of his millions of sheep in the evangelical community, who listen to his radio show and read his books, will take it as a signal to do the same.

What’s got Jimmy so fired up?

Do you think it’s because McCain is pro-choice?

Of course he’s not.

Do you think it’s because McCain wants to get us out of Iraq too soon?

Hell, he wants us there forever.

Maybe Dobson is worried McCain’s fiscal policy or plan for health insurance will hurt families.

Doubt it, since McCain hasn’t talked much about either.

No, Dobson’s issues are much more vital to America.

Dobson said McCain’s failure to support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and his support for embryonic stem-cell research among other things were beyond the Christian conservative pale.

Stay home, Jimmy boy. And keep your idiot flock with you.

It will be the best thing you’ve ever done for your country.

Perhaps there IS a god after all.

A Look At Barack Obama

In just a few years, Barack Obama has gone from little-known state senator to promising presidential candidate. His meteoric rise has made Obama one of the most closely watched candidates in the race.

Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii. His parents, who met while at the University of Hawaii, came from two very different worlds. Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was from Kansas. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in Kenya. However, the marriage and Obama's relationship with his father, were broken soon after he was born.

When Obama was only 2 years old, his father left to study at Harvard. Eventually, Obama Sr. returned to Kenya, leaving his wife and family behind in Hawaii.

"He was somebody who genuinely loved his wife, but was also somebody who was more interested in his career and pursuing his ambitions, than he was caring for a family," Obama said. " My mother could have been bitter, but she didn't communicate that to me. She would talk about how smart he was, and how generous he was, and how charismatic he was, and for a little boy, that's actually a good thing."

Still, Obama concedes that his father's absence left a lasting mark on his life.

"Some of my drive comes from wanting to prove that he should have stuck around, that I was worthy of his attentions," Obama said.

At the age of 6, Obama, known as "Barry" at the time, moved to Indonesia after his mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager.

"I have wonderful memories of the place, but there's no doubt that, at some level, I understood that I was different," Obama said. "It meant that I was, maybe, not part of the community as much as I might have been, otherwise. On the other hand, it also gave me an appreciation of what it means to be an American."

Even though Obama lacked familial stability, and struggled to fit in with his peers as a child, he now views his diversity as one of his greatest assets.

"What's interesting is how deeply American I feel, considering this exotic background. Some of it is the Midwestern roots of my grandparents, my mother, and the values that they reflect," Obama said. "But some of it is also a deep abiding sense that what is quintessentially American, is all these different threads coming together to make a single quilt. And I feel very much like I'm one of those threads that belong in this quilt — that I'm a product of all of these different forces — black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Native American. That, somehow, all this amalgam is part of who I am, and that's part of the reason I love this country so much."

A few years later, that marriage fell apart, and his mother placed her two young children in the care of their grandparents in Hawaii. From grades 5-12, Obama attended a prestigious private day school in Honolulu. He admits to losing his way a bit in high school, when he experimented with drinking and drugs.

"I don't want to romanticize it. I mean, it was a 15- or 16-year-old kid getting high. It was just a young man who didn't have a good sense of what was important in life," Obama said. "I think that if I had both parents in the house, and I was guided by a constant and steady hand all the time, that I probably wouldn't have made some of those mistakes."

Eventually, Obama grew out of his rebellious streak and focused on his studies. He graduated from Columbia University, but instead of going directly to law school, he decided to spend a few years in Chicago as a community activist, where he tried to improve living conditions in poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods.

"The idea of being part of a community, and helping build that community, was very appealing to me, and very attractive to me," Obama said. "I think that being part of an African-American community was also important to me, because I think that I felt there was a strong gravitational pull, given I had graduated from an Ivy League school to go into a rarefied world in which I wouldn't really be rooted in a particular community. And that was something I wanted to avoid."

Obama went on to Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. After practicing civil rights law for a few years, Obama won a seat in the Illinois state Senate, and in 2004, became a freshman senator for the U.S. Senate.

During that time, Obama married Michelle Robinson, and together, they now have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. Obama says his strained relationship with his father — with whom Obama only met one time after he left — has served as an object lesson for how he treats his own family.

"I think that, both consciously and unconsciously, it's been helpful for me to understand the mistakes that my father made," Obama said. "I think a lot about trying to spend enough time with my kids. I think a lot about not being too heavy-handed with my children. I think about the importance of showing respect to my wife as part of showing love and regard for my kids."

While Obama's sights are set squarely on the White House, he says his priorities have changed in the last few years.

"The approval that I desire now is the approval of my kids," Obama said. "It's an interesting turn in my life, where I'm much more concerned about whether my 9-year-old and 6-year-old think I'm a good dad, than that a crowd of 5,000 people are cheering me on."

bush's Call To War

Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the country's most famous whistleblower, fears that before the bush administration leaves office, it will try to attack Iran.

Indeed, Ellsberg's argument gained merit as bush increased his rhetoric against Iran when he delivered his final State of the Union Address. bush accused Iran of training militia extremists in Iraq and emphasized the United States will confront its enemies.

The recent announcement in December by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) revealed, counter to the asshole president's claims, that Iran did not have an active nuclear program. This was unexpected, says Ellsberg.

The administration had said, weeks before this release, it had no intention of putting out NIE summaries, Ellsberg says. However, the information was released because, according to newspaper reports, there was a threat of leaks:

"As one news story put it, intelligence officials were lined up to go to jail if the administration did not release those findings," says Ellsberg, emphasizing his creed in the need to take risks for the sake of revealing truth.

"I wish I could say it made an attack on Iran zero, and it hasn't, but it has reduced it and confirms, in my opinion, the power of being willing to risk prosecution, willing to give up your career, your clearance, which these people would have done if they'd put that information out -- and the mere threat was enough to get it out in this case," emphasizes Ellsberg.

bush will simply find a different pretext from the nuclear program.

"After all, it was about a year ago that he really stopped pressing the nuclear program as the main reason to start attacking Iran and start talking about what they were doing against U.S. forces in Iraq," says Ellsberg, who claims people in the military have recently undercut this statement by saying there is no evidence of Iran's involvement against U.S. forces in Iraq.

bush could also use an incident that is blamed on Iran as a means to begin a war with them.

The recent incident involving Iran alleged serious threats were being made to U.S. ships by Iranian speedboats. Within days of the events in the Straight of Hormuz, information revealed the details of the entire event had been fabricated.

Delegates

Can America Afford John McCain?

John McCain is running away with the republicunt primaries, but don't trust his carefully-crafted image. He's worked for years to brand himself. From Iraq to health care, Social Security to special interest tax cuts to ethics, he's promising nothing more than a third Bush term.

After championing campaign finance reform and ethics legislation to score political points, he now has a staggering amount of lobbyists involved in every aspect of his campaign. In fact, two of the top three sources for John McCain's campaign cash are D.C. lobbying firms, and he looked the other way as Jack Abramoff bought and paid for the Republican Party and the Culture of Corruption.

• On immigration reform, he's run as far to the right as he can, aligning himself with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party.
• On the war, McCain scoffed at Bush's call to leave troops in Iraq for 50 years, saying "Make it a hundred!"
• On a woman's right to choose, McCain has vowed to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
• On the economy, one of the issues that the American people care most about, McCain has said: "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."

We can't afford four more years with a President who drives the economy into the ground.

We can't afford four more years with a President who fights an endless war in Iraq.

We can't afford four more years with a President who gives tax cuts to companies who ship jobs overseas.

America needs a President who can get every American the health care they deserve; with a President we just can't trust.

Cost Of Iraq Occupation

American Resolve

It is time that America return to its previous self to rediscover that "utmost reward of daring" and continue to dare against the storms of political malfeasance and subversion of the principles of our Constitution and Founding Fathers.

America is a trial by existence for democracy, a trial for the whole world to see, and now is the time to be daring and faithful to the American dream for the betterment of citizen and government alike.

But what about terrorism, you ask?

Terrorism is not a single identifiable enemy. Terrorism is an affliction of the human spirit, an evil malady of hopelessness and violence. Terrorism is the sickness of our age, a plague of the heart and soul whereby the few instill the fever of fear in the many and paralyze the very core of freedom and democracy.

And the cure for terrorism is American daring to refuse to buckle to fear by turning against our fellow citizens and spying on them and imbuing them with the stain of distrust as though We the people cannot be trusted except as we comply to the will and whim of government. We are the government. We must dare to refuse to turn our privacy into a corporate profit center for data mining and Orwellian guardianship; dare to embrace constitutional rights rather than shredding them as though the Constitution were nothing more than an inconvenient cluttered piece of paper.

So let us begin to reclaim the dream and the daring vision that is America.

Let us have the daring vision to enact universal healthcare for every citizen and child in America. We have been to the moon on a promise and a dream. Surely we have the means to ensure preventative healthcare for our children and each other.

Let us dare to care for our veterans. Suicide and PTSD are not acceptable collateral damage.

A nation that cannot care for its veterans or its children cannot face the world in good conscience.

We must hold fast to our Founders' vision of democracy. We must and will refuse to surrender our civil liberties and privacy to the fear-mongers who seek to line their pockets with our lives. A nation that spies on and fears its own citizens is not America; it is a totalitarian regime.

We must reclaim the vision of affordable education for our children. Surely we can see an imbalance just from the 2007 budget figures: $481 billion for defense, $100 billion supplemental spending for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and $56 billion for education. Has our vision become so frightened and distorted that we choose to put more money into war and the destruction of the world than into educating our children?

Let us dare to confront the control of the public airwaves. The hands of corporate conglomerates seek to strangle the very air that belongs to We the people and squeeze out every nickel possible. We must and shall fight the battle of the people's grassroots communication through support of Net Neutrality. The people's voice, our voice, must be heard, whether liberal or conservative, religious or atheist, the public forum must be held above the fray of profit and censorship. The benefits of technology cannot be controlled by the rich and powerful. It failed in 1776 and it will fail now if we dare it to be so.

We must restore faith in voting in America. One person, one vote - fully counted and fully enfranchised. Our election process must be restructured and made accessible for every citizen without intimidation, phone jamming or any of the other so-called political tactics that have become standard practice of the republicunt party. We must dare to restore sanity through reform to campaign finance in this country. No lobbyist or conglomerate should have more access or more rights than We the people.

So now we vote.

Our vote is not just the passivity of choice. but also a vote for our own action and participation in the American dream and in our own government. Activists and dissidents and great debate founded America. It was good enough for the Founding Fathers. it is good enough for us.

We are Americans. Daring and visionary. As we emerge from the darkness of the past 7+ years, we see the light of hope and promise and of course change.

From The Are You Out Of Your Fucking Mind Department...

The record $3.1 trillion budget proposed by President Bush on Monday would produce eyepopping federal deficits, despite his attempts to impose politically wrenching curbs on Medicare and eliminate scores of popular domestic programs.

The Pentagon would receive a $36 billion, 8 percent boost for the 2009 budget year beginning Oct. 1, even as programs aimed at the poor would be cut back or eliminated. Half of domestic Cabinet departments would see their budgets cut outright.

Slumping revenues and the cost of an economic rescue package will combine to produce a huge jump in the deficit to $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009, the White House says, just shy of the record $413 billion set four years ago.

But even those figures are optimistic since they depend on rosy economic forecasts and leave out the full costs of the war in Iraq. The White House predicts the economy will grow at a 2.7 percent clip this year, far higher than congressional and private economists expect, and the administration's $70 billion figure for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is simply a placeholder until the next president takes office.

Bush's lame-duck budget plan is likely to be ignored by Congress, which is controlled by Democrats and already looking ahead to November elections. His long-term projections are mostly academic since he's leaving office next January.

The president forecasts a $48 billion surplus by 2012, keeping a promise he made two years ago when strong revenue predictions made it look far easier. Now, he's relying on spending cuts -- for everything from transportation to Medicare and Medicaid to nonprofit groups that help the poor -- to do the job in order to keep his signature 2001 and 2003 tax cuts intact instead of expiring at the end of 2010.

"Our formula for achieving a balanced budget is simple: create the conditions for economic growth, keep taxes low and spend taxpayer dollars wisely or not at all," Bush said in his budget message.

Allow Me To Open Up Your Eyes

Last week, bush gave Congress his last State of the Union speech. Proving that the presidency erodes a man--he looked worn, haggard, colorless and beaten.

His words rang vacant, hollow and scratched like fingernails across the chalkboard of Americans' sense of honesty.On January 20, 2001, he raised his right hand and placed his left hand on the Holy Bible, "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

You know that god damn piece of paper.

Concerning the basics of our U.S. Constitution: he violated his oath of office and created a boondoggle of a legacy as he poured $3 trillion onto our national debt. He oversaw the loss of millions of jobs, accelerating trade deficits and foisted a complete fraud on us as to national security from terrorism with his failure to secure our borders. What about how he affected American families? What did he do to us on a personal level? What did he do to preserve, protect and enhance our lives?

Last week, in Denver, Colorado, 21 year old U.S. Army soldier Duncan Crookston died after five months of misery. He suffered both legs blown off, his right arm amputated and his left hand cut from his body. He suffered horrific burns. His young wife sat by his bedside for five months only to see Crookston's life slip away.

That same sickening scenario repeated itself 3,900 times in the past six years since bush declared an unlawful war against a sovereign nation--after he strutted across an aircraft carrier with a banner that read, "Mission Accomplished!"

It means 3,900 family members trusted this psychopath to carry out his oath of office, but instead, he deceived them and us--into a vain war. He maintains his corrupt war with no plan for withdrawal-only more death and chaos. While he prolongs his personal war in Iraq, he protects the Korean border with 35,000 U.S. troops while allowing millions of illegal aliens and uncounted terrorists full access across our southern borders for the past seven years.

Any president with a brain larger than a prairie dog's would have sealed our southern borders on 9/12/01 as the oath of office demands, which is probably the reason bush didn't. While he kills or maims our kids in Iraq, thousands of our citizens suffered death from illegal aliens who drive drunk, murder, rape, rob and distribute drugs. All of those nightmares would have been prevented if he had followed through on his oath of office by securing our borders.

The other results of his Iraq War? He poured $1 trillion down a rat hole in Iraq and Afghanistan that hasn't improved those countries one iota-and hasn't caught Bin Laden or made this country safer. He killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. He inflamed the rest of the world against us. Over 75 percent of the troops from other countries pulled out. He's maimed and amputated 29,000 of our finest kids who trusted his felonious judgment and exposed them to Depleted Uranium.

Every year U.S. Army military suicides rise with 2007 topping at 121 kids. Dr. William Polk, author of "Violent Politics" told Congress last week, "More than 500,000 of our troops will need a lifetime of mental health care following their multiple deployments in Iraq." Bush spent 30 minutes insisting on how much progress we're making in Iraq.

Instead of taking care of the economic business of our nation, he watched annual trade deficits grow to $700 billion. He forced our country to borrow $2 billion daily to float our economy. Bush watched 10 million more illegal aliens cross our borders while he said, "They come to do the jobs that Americans won't do."

Migrants do those jobs at slave wages, but they enjoy anchor babies at our expense, free breakfasts and lunches in our schools on our tax dollar and 400,000 convicted felon illegals enjoy free room and board in our prisons. Meanwhile our middle class sank into a new 'poor class' here in America. The facts show that those migrants, now 20 million strong, degraded our culture through lack of assimilation, and now, because of bush's non-enforcement policies, we must tolerate, "Press 1 for Spanish or 2 for English."

We must tolerate millions of illegals marching in our streets demanding rights they do not possess in our country, which they unlawfully entered.

Fallout while bush languished in the presidency:

1. Greatest foreclosure fraud on housing in American history.

2. No national energy policy.

3. No immigration policy that leads to a stable U.S. population.

4. Nothing advanced to employ 14 million unemployed Americans.

5. Horrific $9 trillion debt.

6. $3.50 a gallon gas.

7. Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare bankrupting.

8. War on Drugs a total and complete failure and waste of $560,000 billion during his watch.

9. Worked to dissolve America's borders by signing the Security, Prosperity Partnership that will destroy our sovereignty and force us into the North American Union with Canada and Mexico.

10. Patriot Act took away individual liberty.

bush's legacy stems from his lack of integrity.

Our predicament stems from his violation of his oath office.

He proves himself the most inept, incompetent and disastrous president since Wilson and the Federal reserve bank and Income tax debacle.

Are you Fed Up yet?

Ownership Society

Remember the "ownership society," fixture of bush's speeches for the first four years of his presidency?

"We're creating...an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property," Bush said in October 2004.

Washington think-tanker Grover Norquist predicted that the ownership society would be Bush's greatest legacy, remembered "long after people can no longer pronounce or spell Fallujah." Yet in bush's final State of the Union address, the once-ubiquitous phrase was conspicuously absent.

And little wonder.

It will no doubt be a major part of bush's failed presidential legacy. Just another nail in his coffin. Just another failure on top of the shit heap that is bush's presidency.

The idea was simple: if working-class people were put in a position to own their own home as opposed to renting, they would flock to the banks offering the sub prime loans in droves. And they did.

But this was only an illusion of ownership as proved by the current mess of what happened when those subprime rates adjusted.

Under 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanic Americans own a home," bush observed in 2002. "That's just too few." He called on Fannie Mae and the private sector "to unlock millions of dollars, to make it available for the purchase of a home"-an important reminder that subprime lenders were taking their cue straight from the top.

Today, the basic promises of the ownership society have been broken. Now we have the subprime mortgage crisis, with more than 2 million homeowners facing foreclosure on their homes. Many are raiding their 401(k)s-their piece of the stock market-to pay their mortgage.

The mass eviction from the ownership society has profound political implications. We are seeing a return of the very class consciousness that the ownership society was supposed to erase. And what is bushs solution?

Bail out the banks and fuck the former homeowner.