General: May 2006 Archives

But Sen. Steve Cohen of Memphis, one of the few progressives to consistently win re-election to the state Senate, says he may have come up with a solution to passing those bills: tack the phrase ‘anti-gay’ on the titles.

“We keep trying to get a bottle bill passed that will curb littering, but the business interests stop us every year,” Cohen says. “So next year we’re going to call it the ‘Anti-gay bottle bill,’ and then dare anybody to vote against it.”

“Nobody’s going to want to face re-election when an opponent can run ads saying that an incumbent voted against a bill with ‘anti-gay’ in its name. That phrase almost makes legislation bulletproof.” [...]

“If we can take away civil rights in something called the Patriot Act, we can certainly guarantee gay rights in something with ‘anti-gay’ in its name,” Cohen says. “It’s not what it’s called that’s important, it’s what it does.”

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is said to be interested in Cohen’s approach. (source)

An interesting idea. It may just work!

In case you didn’t know, gay marriage and flag burning are the most important issues facing our country today, according to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

I love what one commenter had to say about this....

“I’m sorry Dr. Frist, but flag burning and gay marriage are like treating hangnails on a patient who is bleeding to death.”

Toward the end of a subdued, 50-minute news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair — dubbed by some The Lame Duck Summit — Bush uncharacteristically did not hesitate when asked about mistakes he had made since the March 2003 invasion.

“Saying ‘bring it on’”, he said, in reference to an ill-advised taunt to Iraqi insurgents in the summer of 2003.

“The kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. You know, I learned some lessons about expressing myself in maybe a little more sophisticated manner ... ‘wanted dead or alive,’ that kind of talk.”

He also said the U.S. has been paying for the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal “for a long period of time.” (source)

It just simply amazes me that to this day, President Bush still does not understand human nature and basic logic.

This is the problem in a nutshell. Countries resent having the hell bombed out of their land and having their economy destroyed, and having their country invaded by foreign troops, and having innocent members of their society killed, when their country had nothing to do with what happened to our country on September 11, 2001! Why are we so surprised at the outcome of this?

Honestly, it’s like having some troops enter your home, shoot two of your family members, and then turn around and wonder why you are so pissed at them. Are we really that stupid?

And did it ever occur to Bush that Abu Ghraib might have happened because of his “kind of tough talk”? Nothing happens in a vacuum. When you have a President saying this, that’s kind of a green light to the troops, wouldn’t you think? Not to mention that half the time Donald Rumsfeld talks about “the insurgents”, he’s actually talking about everyday ordinary Iraqi citizens who are not insurgents. He confuses both of them and talks about them interchangeably, just like they are one and the same. To Rumsfeld, I honestly think they are.

But what do we expect from this administration? The President after all, seems to be able to break or bend just about anything in the Constitution that he likes.

“We haven’t gotten to the point yet where the new government is sitting down with our commanders to come up with a joint way forward. However, having said that, this is a new chapter in our relationship. In other words, we’re now able to take a new assessment about the needs necessary for the Iraqis.” - George W. Bush (source)

Well, it’s not like we’ve been there for over three years with over 2400 of our service members dead without a plan for success of this mission, is it?

He is the most worthless excuse for a President in my memory. Nixon wasn’t this bad. He ignores laws when it suits his needs. He has no regard for our guys in Iraq and the harm he has put them in. They are merely his political pawns, and this war was just for Daddy!

A few days ago I watched “Baghdad ER”. I can’t find the words to describe this documentary, other than such trite words as “disturbing” and “raw”. I cried through much of it. And afterwards, I said to myself, “Our President should watch this.” I was thoroughly pissed.

People sometimes ask me if, because of my criticism of this President, if I support our troops. My answer is, “Yes, I support our troops. And if you supported them, you’d start using the word ‘impeachment’ right about now.”

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld assured members of Congress on Wednesday that the use of thousands of National Guard troops along the U.S. border with Mexico will not degrade their ability to perform other missions. He said it would sharpen their skills.

“The up to 6,000 Guardsmen and women proposed for this effort represent less than 2 percent of the total National Guard force of some 400,000, and for the most part they will be deployed during their two or three week active duty training period,” he told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.

“As such this will not only not adversely affect America’s ability to conduct the war on terror or respond to other domestic emergencies, it will actually provide useful real-life training for the members of the National Guard,” he added. (source) Emphasis my own

Bullshit! Am I allowed to say “bullshit” after using Forbes as a source?

Learning how to build a fence on our border is going to do nothing to add to the “real-life training” of the National Guard. Let’s be honest. They are being used for cheap labor. This is not what the National Guard is for. They are not fence builders. It’s just one more way that this administration is wearing down our military to exhaustion.

George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Khan have one thing in common - they each keep missing the target! What is the target? Border security is not it. This president has had six years to deal with the “border problem” and has done nothing. It was not until the protests in California and other places that this dire emergency of the Mexican/American border became an issue. Outside of politics, it’s no more an issue now than it was four years ago.

Don’t get me wrong. I think we do have a problem with our borders. We have a general problem in this country with basic security and our borders are just one component of that. Building a fence on the border is like sticking your finger into a hole in the dam to keep it from leaking. Soon, another hole will appear. You can’t keep up with it. If this fence is built, it will soon be compromised in one way or another.

Instead of putting our fingers in the hole in the dam, what we should be doing, assuming we really want to do something about this problem, is to attack the source of the problem. The source is the supply for what Mexican workers would call “good jobs”. The source of what supplies those “good jobs” are all the employers who turn a blind eye to the fact that these people have no valid proof of citizenship, a temporary ID, Visa, or any other type of identification. In other words, the employers know they are illegal.

It’s a win-win situation. The Mexican worker benefits because he/she can make much more money working here than in Mexico. The employers make much more because they can pay these people less for these “good jobs”, that not many American workers would take. They don’t even have to offer them anything like health care, etc. In fact, they don’t even have to pay them the “minimum wage”. And if the worker complains, he would be turned in and deported. He would lose everything. It’s a form of blackmail really. That is what is feeding this.

So as people such as the Minute Men and the Border Patrol (and soon our National Guard) stands guard to keep the unwanteds out of the United States, we are busy punishing people trying to get into this country to have a better life, while we do nothing to the employers hiring these people.

And what do we hear from Washington on this? Just lip service (not that that’s a bad thing from this administration and Congress) - nothing substantial - just another lame day in Washington filled with bureaucrats trying to justify their righteous existence.

Meanwhile, nothing has changed. This immigration issue is the “gay marriage” issue of 2006. It seems like we always have to have one group or another to pick on. Last time it was gays - this time it is immigrant workers. I guess I am supposed to gain comfort from feeling like they found some other group to scapegoat for what is wrong with America today.

What to do with Mary Cheney? On President Bush, she states...

“I think he’s a very good man,” Cheney said of Bush. “On these issues, he hasn’t caught up.” Cheney is now back in private life, working at AOL and says inside her family, she and Heather are free to be themselves in love. Sawyer asked Cheney if she and Heather planned to marry.

“Well, from my perspective? Heather and I already are married,” she said. “We have built a home and a life together. Um, I hope I get to spend the rest of my life with her. The way I look at it, is we’re just waiting for state and federal law to catch up with us.”

Two things I’d like to point out. On MANY issues, President Bush has not “caught up”, and I honestly don’t think he has the IQ to catch up.

Mary and Heather... Dears, from ANYONE’S perspective, YOU ARE NOT MARRIED! So get over it. And if you think you are, just try to go for that bereavement leave if Heather dies, or a hardship leave should she become sick for an extended period of time, or try to have access to her social security benefits after she’s gone. In fact Mary, I could keep going on... 1,500 more items are given to marriage at the federal level that you and Heather will not have.

So you just keep thinking that you are married. In the mean time, I want what you are smoking!

Cheney has had to deal with hearing hateful names about gays and lesbians from the right wing of her own party. And gay rights activists say that Cheney’s silence is just a form of hypocrisy. They even made a milk carton that said, “Mary Cheney Missing.”

She jokes about that. “That’s - ooh, God, that’s a nice picture.”

Her reply to their criticism is simple. “We each have to choose our own path,” she said. “I respect their opinion. But it is not the path that I would choose for myself.”

True enough. We each have to choose our own paths. I try to understand what it’s like for Mary. She claims to have support from her family. On the other hand, how much support can she really have, being involved in a party that has total disdain for people like her? It’s not like she can just get away from all of that since her father is second in command of that operation.

I suppose for Mary, it’s a big dilemma - to keep the relationship with her family, or sacrifice her personal integrity. In this, you can’t have both. Mary, you are not married. Accept that and move on. To make statements like, “Well, from my perspective? Heather and I already are married”, is just plain insulting. I don’t say that about Kent and myself. It’s time you embraced reality honey.

Reality 1: You will have your family’s love and support as long as you are a “nice girl” and play along. You can be lesbian, but keep your damn mouth shut about it - unless you are willing to lump those damned “gay activists” all up on one group as being bad, right up with with all the other evils of the world.

Reality 2: Never ever ask your Mom and Dad to come out in support of full marriage for you and your partner. Having your Dad say that “states should decided that” just isn’t good enough - not when the big ticket items that are given to marriage occur at the federal level. Your Dad knows this, and so do you.

I honestly just don’t understand some people. Mary Cheney is one of them.

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