It's Not Big Government, Stupid!

Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass President Obama's first budget by a nearly partisan vote today. Even before the vote, GOP leadership was decrying the advent of big government under Obama and discussing how Obama would be mortgaging our children's futures with his big spending. Folks I have news for you, in case you were wondering, it's not big government that's such a danger--small government can be a danger too (See Haiti, Guatemala, etc)--it's incompetent and/or menacing government that's a danger. So what we should ask is not so much whether a few more dollars are being spent, but whether promises are being kept, results are being measured and reported truthfully, and administration of such budgets is efficient.

Bush made huge government a reality with far-reaching illegal wiretapping, over $10 billion per month war expenditures, no-bid government contracts for friends of Haliburton in war zones, etc. So let's not pretend like Obama invented big government because he didn't. After all, who do we turn to when we need more roads, free schooling for all, vaccinations, consumer protection, grants for non-profits, college scholarships, civil rights, equality in sports for our girls, etc.? The government, that's who. Smart voters will elect politicians whose interests are closely aligned with that of the electorate. These politicians who can best relate to the average voter are the ones who will make financial and governing decisions in our best interests.

Picture of the Day, 2/9/09

This Picture of the Day entry is courtesy of one of my Facebook "friends" and could become an instant PoD classic. The graphic of course refers to the inability of George W. Bush to speak in complete, coherent sentences or give answers relating to the question at hand. Instead, GW relied on many "Bushisms", which are slightly more intelligent than "Palinisms" which isn't saying much.

Picture of the Day, 1/7/09

In news of "pretty cool if you ask me", outgoing President George W. Bush held a lunch at the White House for former Presidents, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and President-Elect Barack Obama. The event was historic because it marked the first such get-together since 1981.

Picture of the Day, 12/19/08

Look at this picture, and tell me what doesn't belong. If you don't see the humor, then you a humorless prick and deserve to be tortured by all 125 "Rocky" sequels. Read The Onion for more insight.

"Looking back, my personal need to prove my man-hood definitely influenced my actions. The arrogant swagger, invading Iraq, my ruthless support of the death penalty—heck, even setting back gay rights 25 years—all of it seems so silly now."

Former press secretary Ari Fleischer agreed, saying that Bush carefully cultivated his image as a masculine, simple-minded, heterosexual male in order to combat his insecurities about appearing weak before the international community.

Overkill

Yes, I know this blog post is overkill, but do you blame me, really?

Original with Slow Motion Replay for You Internet Purists:


Dodgball! If you can dodge a ball, you can dodge a...


...Volleyball:

Picture of the Day, 12/14/08

This news story was just too good not to make The Great Blog of Kéto's "Picture of the Day" feature. Though some pictures are worth a thousand words, the one of an Iraqi journalist throwing a shoe at George W. Bush below is worth about a million. To most Westerners, a thrown shoe is certainly an unfriendly gesture and in the eyes of the law may be prosecuted as assault and battery. However, to those in the Middle East and other parts of the world, shaking your shoe at someone or showing the sole of your shoe is the ultimate insult, just as giving the thumbs up sign, showing the palm of your hand, or making the "OK" sign is highly insulting in other parts of the world. It is a shameful thing and is pretty much read as that person really, really, really despises AND hates you, and you'd better watch your back. Muthathar al Zaidi said, "This is a goodbye kiss, you dog," and in so doing, he spoke for the whole world. Thank you, al Zaidi, and good night from Tampa Bay!



MSNBC Video Al Baghdadia TV Journalist Throws Shoes at Bush:

Obama Fundraising Totals $745 Million

President-elect Barack Obama continues to set records and make history even after Obama's historic landslide election. Final tallies to Federal Election Commision show that Obama raised a record $745 million during the 2008 electoral cycle including over $104 million in the four-week period from October 16-November 24. By contrast, John McCain raised "only" $367 million for his candidacy. Still, both candidates raised over $1 billion dollars for an election cycle in which over $5 billion was spent by all candidates, political parties, and outside interests! The Obama campaign is still raising money as it offers specialty items such as commemorative mugs, t-shirts, etc. through BarackObama.com. Obama thanked his national and Illinois fundraising teams at an the private Standard Club in Chicago.

Lest anyone, e.g., Republicans say that the election went to the highest bidder, I need only remind them that the first successful big-money Presidential candidate was George W. Bush who raised $100 million during a quarter in the 2000 election cycle. At that time, it was considered an astronomical amount of amount to have been raised in only 3 months. Bush raised $270 million for the 2004 election which he "won" over Democratic challenger John Kerry. Together they both raised over $500 million. It is both ironic and fortuitous that Bush ushered in the era of big money Presidential fundraising by which all future candidate fundraising would be judged. Certainly Hillary Clinton also raised the bar by signaling in January 2007 that the Clinton campaign expected to raise over $150 million dollars for her Presidential candidacy. She eventually raised over $229 million by the end of May 2008 before conceding the Democratic Presidential nomination to eventual winner Barack Obama in June 2008.

All in all, the prodigious fundraising by candidates during this 2-year campaign has rendered the public financing system for presidential elections in which over 33 million taxpayers mark of a $3 donation on their tax form obsolete. Some would say that now only the really powerful and well connected can afford the unspoken $100 million entry fee required to be a viable candidate. Certainly this presents a signifant political barrier to entry. Others would say that this is the ultimate practice of free speech in that candidates and can participate in the giving and receiving of nearly unlimited amounts of money. In either case, this election was "the longest and most expensive presidential election in American history," according to Michael Toner, chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

Ralph Nader Calls Obama Uncle Tom after Historic Win

Poor stupid, irrelevant Ralph Nader. He just can't stop himself from exposing his ugly racist insides. One slip-up or foot-in-mouth episode might be forgiveable. But this is the second time in this year that Nader has gone on the national media and made very obvious racist statements about Obama. Back in June, Nader said that Obama was "acting white" apparently for not running around asking how he could help the poor whites of Appalachia. Now following a historic occasion when Obama became the first African-American to win the Presidency of the U.S., Nader wondered on Fox News whether Obama would be an Uncle Sam or an Uncle Tom. Here's a news flash, when even Fox News talking heads shake their head at you then you've done a really bad thing. But Ralph didn't take the chance to correct himself. He persisted in his foolishness.

Tom Molloy of TV Guide sets the scene best for us:

Dubious congratulations are in order: Ralph Nader became the first public figure to make an inflammatory public remark about our first African-American president, telling a Fox News affiliate that Barack Obama has to choose between being “Uncle Sam for the people of this country, or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.”

Grilled by Fox’s Shepard Smith early Wednesday morning, after the election was decided, Nader declined to back down from the remark, which he made in an earlier interview on Election Day.

“Really,” Smith said after playing a clip of Nader’s remarks. “Ralph Nader, what was that?”

Nader continued to press his point - Obama is too beholden to corporate interests - without acknowledging that many find the term Uncle Tom offensive. (Taken from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the 1852 anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the term is used to accuse a black person of behaving subserviently.)

Smith soon cut Nader off: “You had a number of supporters out there, you were running a percentage, this year you were reduced to irrelevant and I just wonder if that’s what you want your legacy to be: the man who on the night that the first African-American president in the history of this nation was elected, you ask if he’s going to be Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom. Stunning.”

Nader’s answer: “Yeah, of course, he’s turned his back on a 100 million poor people in this country, African-Americans and Latinos and poor whites. And we’re gonna hold him to a higher standard.”

Later in the interview, Nader told Smith: “Look, I don’t like bullies like you. I can’t see you. You can pull the plug on me, I’m looking in a dark camera.”

Nader later used the word “toady” the same way he had previously used the phrase “Uncle Tom,” but said he had no regrets about the latter phrase.

Nader, a consumer advocate, has run in every election since 1996 but had a significant impact only in the 2000 race, in which many Democrats blame him for siphoning off enough votes from Al Gore in Florida to allow George Bush to win the election.

Shame on you, and [you can] go to hell, Ralph. You were once an internationally respected advocate for consumer rights and a trumpet against the excesses of corporate greed and big business manipulation of government. Since 2000, when you helped usher in the wretched Bush II era by drawing away Florida voters from Al Gore, though you haven't really been relevant in national elections. Even Democrats don't care enough to talk about you any more--especially not after earning a whopping 1% of the 2008 national vote (513,000 out of 133 million votes cast).

Ralph Nader: Barack Obama wants to 'talk white', 6/25/08


Ralph Nader calls Obama an "Uncle Tom" on Fox News, 11/5/08

Apologetics with No Apology from a Progressive, Part 1

This weekend I received an email from a close friend of the family whom I have known since age 5. As always I was glad to hear from him, and this time he sent a poem "T'was The Night Before Election" which rhymed that Obama was a socialist and McCain was the only reasonable choice. Naturally, my blogger sensibilities go the better of me, so I sent a quick note back to him and several folks that he had copied on the same email. I explained that I didn't think that characterization was accurate and gave a few brief reasons why I volunteer and have voted for Barack Obama twice this year in the Florida Democratic primaries and this weekend in early voting. One of his friends sent me back an email asking if I was nuts. That was fine with me. I replied that no, I was perfectly sane and seated at my law firm desk as a matter of fact, and that if he wanted to have a debate based on facts instead of name-calling, that would be fine with me. Yet another friend of his e-mailed me some well-worn Republican talking points about McCain putting his country first by being a POW, Obama was going to swell the welfare rolls, Obama was a baby-killer, etc. I figured I would politely try to reason with the old lady by stating some facts which I'm recounting below. There is too much info for one post, since we went back and forth several times so I'm dividing it. Enjoy yourselves...

Now, I understand that you are passionate about your politics--but name me someone who isn't. If you want to start a good debate, argument or a war these days you need only mention either politics or religion. I don't begrudge you your politics or values at all, and I often have good, stirring debates with my friends on politics as I have many friends across the political spectrum who are Democrats, Republicans, Green Party, Independents, etc. I have also had the good fortune to be called on to provide commentary on politics by news sources in Tampa Bay because like you, I'm outspoken about my political beliefs.. That's why I'm also a blogger as well as volunteering with Get Out the Vote efforts, voter registration, voter awareness, etc. The good thing about this country is that all of us have some values that are more pressing than others. We demonstrate which of those values are at the top of our list by what we do in our community and how we align ourselves politically. I have absolutely no problem with that. We can do this without fear of being thrown in jail, getting fired from our pension jobs, or being ostracized (for the most part) by our community, or being called names like "leftist, socialist, communist or unpatriotic" because we dare to disagree with George Bush' or John McCain's policies or politics. Read my post, "Who Are the Socialists Now?" Also read, "McCain concedes Obama no socialist."

You mentioned Obama being tested. Anyone who hasn't been President before is going to be tested by someone. Such is the nature of the Presidency with it's daily crises, rogue states, obstinate Congress, and other pitfalls. By the way, John McCain would be tested if he gains the Presidency (by turning mathematics on it's head), just by the fact that there will be almost 60 Democrats in the Senate. He's going to have to go through them before declaring war on some other arbitrary country that like Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.

My respectful disagreement is that so often, God and the Christian faith are characterized as being Republican only--that is somehow I'm supposed to believe that "Voting Right" means that I should only vote for the candidate that John Hagee or Rod Parsley tell me to vote for. God does NOT have a political party affiliation! There are plenty of Christians by the way who are not Republican. As a matter of fact, there is a segment of the Republican party called the Log Cabin Republicans. Now as far as their charter goes, these are national Republican lobbyists and activists who are openly gay and align themselves with the GOP on business and economic issues etc. Where is the Christian Right on that issue? John McCain met with them secretly this year, and no press was allowed inside that meeting--why is the GOP ashamed of them? What's to hide? It tells me that the GOP does not have a monopoly on God or righteousness. Did you also know that there are Republican politicians who believe in abortion? Remember Mitt "I supported abortion in Mass before I changed my mind b/c I wanted to run for President" Romney? Oh yes, don't forget Rudy Giuliani who openly supports abortion while conducting numerous affairs on taxpayer dime while building his political resume solely on the events of 9-11. He was just in Ohio this weekend with McCain. Did you know that in the past, McCain and other Republicans have spoken out against anti-affirmative action amendments noting that these are issues drummed up to divide us rather than bring us together? See John McCain's video on affirmative action here. Oh and of course, (the Obama of the GOP) Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed over 47 bills into law supporting the Gay and Lesbian Bi-Sexual and Transgender community which is more than any Governor is US History. He is by the way a Republican, is he not? That IS the same Arnold that was just in Ohio campaigning for McCain this weekend. So where are the famous "guilt by association" charges here? Wasn't Steve Schmidt, McCain's Campaign Chairman also Arnold's re-election chief? Yes, these questions are just rhetorical. All this information I'm providing you can be easily verified.

Bush Early Votes for John McCain

Barack Obama had it right all along. John McCain is more like George W. Bush than John McCain would like to admit. Obama called attention to Bush' announcement that he had early voted for McCain. Ironically enough, the Republican party has been challenging early voting in the courts to prevent early voting on the grounds that this could disenfranchise voters by increasing the chance of voter fraud at the polls. Maybe, just maybe, the GOP realizes it's harder to win by fraudulently challenging legitimate votes following an election or concocting an October Surprise in their favor when record numbers of voters have already early voted. More from The Nation below:

But the biggest boost for Obama came from the unlikeliest Republican: George W. Bush. After Republican presidential candidate John McCain went out of his way in recent days to distance himself from his party's extraordinarily unpopular incumbent president, what did Bush do? Announce that he had voted early -- for McCain.

Bush traditionally travels to Texas to vote on election day. But on Friday the White House announced that the Republican president had gone out of his way to cast that early ballot for his party's nominee.

Obama did not neglect the news.

Speaking in Nevada Saturday, the Democratic nominee noted somewhat gleefully:
Senator McCain has been throwing everything he's got at us, hoping something will stick. He's even called me a socialist for suggesting that we focus on tax cuts, not for corporations and the wealthy, but for the middle class.

Then, the other day, he took it to a whole new level. He said that I was like George W. Bush. You can't make this stuff up, folks. In what may be the strangest twist of all, Senator McCain said that I would somehow continue the Bush economic policies – and that he, John McCain, would change them.

He actually denounced the President for letting things – and I quote – "get completely out of hand."

That's right, John McCain has been really angry about George Bush's economic policies – except during the primaries, when he said we've made "great progress economically" under George Bush. Or just last month, when he said that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong." In fact, John McCain is so opposed to George Bush's policies, that he voted with him 90 percent of the time for the past eight years. That's right, he decided to really stick it to him – 10 percent of the time.

Well, let's be clear: John McCain attacking George Bush for his out-of-hand economic policy is like Dick Cheney attacking George Bush for his go-it-alone foreign policy.

Fortunately, President Bush doesn't seem to be at all offended – because yesterday, he cast his vote – early – for Senator McCain. And that's no surprise, because when it comes to the policies that matter for middle class families, there's not an inch of daylight between George Bush and John McCain.

Obama Draws 100,000 At Denver Rally

Once again, the post title "Obama Draws 100,000 At Denver Rally" speaks for itself. With just 9 days left until the 2008 Presidential election, an excited Democratic voter base is counting down the days until the end of the wretched Bush era while at the same time being energized by Barack Obama's positive message of change and hope. To that end over 100,000 people gathered in Denver, Colorado for an Obama Early Vote for Change rally as we near the home stretch of one of the most momentous historic and political events of our lifetime--the election of either a Black man as President or a white woman as Vice President of the United States. Just last weekend Obama attracted 100,000 folks in St. Louis, MO so this is by no means a fluke.

"W." Movie Star Killed in Arkansas

It's really quite unfortunate news from my former hometown of Little Rock, AR. A few days ago KATV "Daybreak" morning news anchor Ann Pressly was fatally beaten and stabbed in an apparent burglary at her house in a wealthy subdivision. She died today. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Ann appeared as a news correspondent in the recent Oliver Stone's "W." movie. Her parents released a statement to KATV. I do have to wonder since only her purse was missing, was this a politically motivated killing by someone who thought they were defending George W. Bush? The cynic in me has to wonder why (to my knowledge) no one else has brought up this possibility. This sort of action is not as unlikely as some might think...

Still Rambling by Dexter Brockman

One of my good friends, Dexter Brockman, who I met when I first transferred to University of South Florida as a Jr. in 1999 now owns a publishing company, DBrockman Publishing. I'm happy that he asked me to share some of his socially conscious poetry with you, the readers of The Great Blog of Kéto. If you enjoy his poetry or are interested in publishing a book, make sure to e-mail Dexter today! KNH

Still Rambling

It’s been seven years since 9-11 when they ran into our Trade Centers with those airplanes.
It’s been eight years of struggles in our Nation with the President with a familiar last name.

We have an experience candidate that may give us four more years of the same thang.
Then there is Barack Obama on the other side saying it time for America to see a change.

Ups and downs the Country has seen, the newest thing on Capitol Hill is a Financial Sell-Out.
I mean, if anything needs to be saved is our troops over seas we need to pull them and call it a U.S.A Bail-Out.

Leslie Lynch King Jr, known as our 38th President Gerald Ford, passed in December 2006.
Our country overcame a worst deficit and didn’t Bail-Out them banks in Texas in the 80’s with a fix.

Michael Moore tried to warn America back in 2004 that our next four years wouldn’t be right.
For two elections Florida was at fault, George as Pres. Jeb as Gov. what you expect it to be like.

Yea our citizens haven’t been Saints, we all know the story about the fraud from the company Enron.
But fruit don’t fall that far from the tree; remember all the taxpayer money spent on the escort by Gov. Spitzer for fun.

Kanye told America that Bush don’t like black people, and we supported him one hundred percent.
But that’s the same Negro charged a church $30,000 for three songs saw him differently every since.

Companies laying off, sending jobs overseas, but everyone is afraid to say that we are in a recession.
Oh, but now when Wall Street need the same help as normal citizen now it’s a congressional discretion.

For God so loved in John 3:16, Prepared a table in the presence of our enemy in the book of Psalms.
Please excuse the grammatical and the errors, I had to get this off my chest and I wont even edit this poem.

You want to make a change, VOTE!

dexter brockman sr. 2008

Who Are the Socialists Now?

Every morning when I wake up, I check news headlines of the day while getting the children ready for school. Today's headlines around the world such as the Washington Post shouted "U.S. Forces Nine Major Banks To Accept Partial Nationalization". This really should have really come as no surprise to anyone considering that the US government and Federal Reserve gave themselves unprecedented power over our financial systems and the banking and financing industry during the recent economic crisis when Congress enacted the bailout--I mean financial rescue--legislation.


It just strikes me as somewhat ludicrous that in the last few weeks, the hypocritical Republican party faithful have time and time again decried Senator Barack Obama for being a "radical", "palling around with terrorists", "Muslim", "Arab" and a "socialist" especially at McCain-Palin rallies. Well here's your hero socializing the banking industry--that's what "nationalization" means. Spin it any way you want, but don't say that Obama is a "socialist" when your favorite President after Reagan has consistently made larger government a priority. This is just the latest in a trend of power grabs that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have made under their administration's 8-year plan to consolidate as much power in the offices of the Presidency and Vice Presidency, even superseding the powers granted the Executive Office of government by the Constitution.


I'm not saying that bank nationalization is bad, I'm just saying, be consistent with your rhetoric. If you're going to take Obama to task for something he hasn't done yet, and does not have the power to do, make sure to call out your own who have already perfected such a thing to an art form.

More from the Washington Post:

The Treasury Department's decision to take equity stakes in banks represents a significant reversal, coming just weeks after Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had opposed the idea. In a momentous meeting yesterday afternoon in Washington, Paulson, flanked by top financial regulators, told the executives of nine leading banks that they needed to participate in the program for the good of the national economy, two industry sources said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The government's initiative, which was to be announced this morning before the markets open for New York trading, is part of a wider plan that goes beyond the $700 billion rescue package approved by Congress earlier this month. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is also set to announce today the launch of an insurance fund to guarantee new issues of bank debt. It will provide unlimited deposit insurance for non-interest-bearing accounts, which are widely used by small businesses for payroll and other purposes.

In pressing the bank executives to accept partial government ownership, Paulson's message was clear: Though officially the program was voluntary, the banks had little choice in the matter. In exchange for giving the Treasury minority stakes, the nine firms would jointly receive an investment worth $125 billion. The government would make another $125 billion available for the next 30 days to thousands of other banks and thrifts across the country.

Federal officials set conditions, telling the banks they could not raise their dividends without government permission and could not offer their executives new retirement packages, though the old packages would remain intact.

Vote for US, We'll Protect You from the Immigrants

Have you ever wondered why non-whites, non-Christians, and immigrants tend to vote for Democrats by a 3:1 ratio? I always thought it was because as far as political platforms go, the DNC tends to better articulate the role of government in assisting the have nots, i.e., the poor, immigrants, etc. whereas the RNC articulates the welfare of the haves and is more susceptible to rule by lobbyists. Liberal blog Open Left penned a revealing article explaining in socio-cultural terms exactly why the GOP's message of cultural, Eurocentric superiority permeates their political platform and campaign messages and has been so successful for them.

All throughout the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, the media made hay of the Democratic candidates using identity politics to win primaries, i.e., Black voters vs Latino voters, feminist voters, and "bitter" rural and poor, working class white voters, etc. However, it seems that Republican politicians have effectively used identity politics to great effect for some time with the message of protecting their constituents from "THEM". That is, Blacks, non-white immigrants, and other undesirables.

Several prominent examples that come to mind. In 2000, George W. Bush gained the Republican nomination for President in large part because of his racist attack against John McCain when Karl Rove and former SC Attorney General Charlie Condon released whisper polling in South Carolina claiming McCain had fathered a Black child out of wedlock.

The so-called Bradley Effect was coined because of a California gubernatorial race in which Tom Bradley, the popular Black Mayor of Los Angeles was widely expected to win due to favorable polling but ended up losing the race. Polling later showed white voters falsely told pollsters they would vote for a Black candidate to avoid criticism, and then did not, thereby benefitting his white GOP opponent. According to this theory, a Black political candidate must generally have a double digit lead over his opponent in order to overcome the hidden bias.

In 1996, Tennessee politician Harold Ford, Jr. had a great chance of becoming the first Black to win a US Senate seat since Reconstruction until his Republican challenger, Bob Corker, released an ad that played on the fact that Ford attended a Playboy Super Bowl party for 4,000 attendees and featured a naked blonde telling Ford to "call me" with the insinuation that this Black man will take your white women. Those of us in the Black community are well aware of the stereotype of Black men dating blonde women. Needless to say, the ad did enough damage to derail the candidacy of Ford, considered nationally to be the inevitable candidate.

In the past two years, the Democratic and Republican congressmen wrestled with passing so-called "immigration reform." A number of Republicans lined up against the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 and helped to defeat passage by arguing against supposed "amnesty for illegals" when a number of the parts of the legislation to reform the immigration system was actually good. I want to know, since when did white Americans gain the right to bar "those other people" from entering their country? Every single person currently living in the United States either emigrated here from another country or have as ancestors people who called other countries and continents home, whether English, Dutch, German, Italian, Irish, Jewish, Spanish, certainly Africans, Asians, etc. That's why for many years this country has been called the "melting pot" of the world. So there really is no such thing as a "Real" American as many Republican ads would like us to believe because everyone here other than the Native Americans are from somewhere else!

Dubya Advises Palin on the VP Debate (Or A Picture Worth 1,000 Words)

Remember the Good Old Days (1992-2000)?

The good old days occurred from 1992-2000 when President William J. Clinton was in office. Unemployment was among the lowest in our history (about 5%), the economy was booming, and we were relatively at peace with the rest of the world (except for intervention in Kosovo, non-intervention in Rwanda, and a brief but failed stint in Somalia). Well, it's now 2008, and I'm sure wishing massive voter fraud perpetrated by the Rove Republican party hadn't succeeded in getting GWB forced down our collective throats.

Look at the picture. Need I say more?

Abortion & The One-Issue Party

Today I read this Huffington Post article about how the Republican party keeps successfully using the abortion issue (as well as gay rights, guns, affirmative action aka "Stop those Blacks from taking our jobs.") election after election, and the American public is complicit in letting them get away with it.

It is quite disingenuous that the Republican party has nothing to offer over 90% of us but continuous war(s), an increasing $500B federal debt and counting, an economic climate resulting in some of the largest corporate layoffs in history, taxes that take more and more out of the little guy's pockets, conspiring with big insurance, health management and big oil to severely limit our choices for competitive alternatives (in Florida for ex, the insurance industry is famous for buying the Republican lawmakers so that pro-consumer laws are not passed in the state), deregulating the financial industry to such a point that it's players feel no shame about a record number of home foreclosures, under-performing schools, supporting our troops in the form of giving them 3-5 consecutive tours of duty without adequate R&R with family, and the list goes on and on.

Has anyone ever considered that in all the years that Republicans have held the White House & even in the years that Republicans have controlled Congress, abortions have NEVER been reduced? (Since 1980, Republicans have been President 20 out of the last 28 years). It's more rhetoric over substance, and as long as the American voters continue to let one party hold one or two issues over us while screwing us on every other issue we care about, then all we have is our own ignorance to blame (refusing to see the truth). The greatest example I can cite is the 2004 election fraud. We KNEW that George Bush was a sorry President made possible by his father having stacked the Supreme Court. But instead of going with the guy who was smarter, had a more accomplished record, a REAL war hero with command experience (not someone who dressed up and posed by fighter planes like GW), we collectively (especially Christians) chose to be hoodwinked and distracted from those issues most important to us by the Gay Marriage amendments which were introduced state by state by the Republican party for this exact reason. Our resulting disenfranchisement has continued until this day.

I certainly don't condone abortion except in cases where the mother's life is in danger or in extreme cases of health-related complications. As an example, I once had a neighbor named "Mary". Mary was physically limited due to several chronic illnesses & health conditions which she had suffered with her entire life. She and her husband tried for a child, and the Drs. warned her that she was literally risking her life if she tried to birth a child. Well of course they went ahead anyway, and now her quality of life has deteriorated in such a way that I'm not sure how she makes it from day to day. Additionally, Mary's child is severely handicapped as well. Mary herself is to all intents walking dead. In this case, clearly I believe that Mary did the wrong thing by having a child. This situation I cite only as an exception, and it is an exception nonetheless.

The bottom line, though is that we as voters must educate ourselves and find out our local and national candidates platforms and whether they just spout this rhetoric at election time when it counts the most (politically) and whether this matches up with their track record when it really counts (morally). Ask yourself, how is it that we can claim to care so much about a baby before it is born (I myself am pro-life), but yet we stop caring about that baby after birth (the farce of No Child Left Behind which guarantees that schools in better neighborhoods will continue to get state funding while the failing schools in predominately poor neighborhoods who actually NEED the financial assistance will not receive such, no cost-effective health coverage for millions of youth, etc).

Roll-call: 4,000 US Troops Have Died in the Quagmire That is Iraq

Congratulations Bush & Cheney - jackass clowns- on 4,000 American casualties of Iraq. Look at the [unnecessary] pain and suffering you've caused us by lying us into Iraq! If this is what "winning" the alleged "war on terror" looks like then I'd hate to see what "losing" would look like. This at the end of a week in which Bush & Cheney declare that America is winning. First, the "surge" would allow us to bring our troops home sooner, now b/c the "surge" is working, we CAN'T bring the troops home. Never mind that the main reason the "surge" is kinda working is b/c the US military has been paying off the Sunni tribal chiefs who would normally be bombing us, to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq and others instead. It doesn't take much sense to figure out that militias and armies the world over tend to listen to whoever is paying them the most money or whoever is providing them the armaments...