What do These Senate Republi-con Fools Have in Common?

Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hatch (R-UT) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Wicker (R-MS)

Besides being male, Christian, white (sorry Martinez, you're about as Hispanic as Alberto Gonzales), right wing tools... they all voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.

May your re-election loss come down to the women you refused to give equal pay too!

Read more!

Republican Obstructionism Day 2

It is back to CSPAN 24/7 - the Congress is really interesting right now - especially the lost little Republicans. It did not take long for these creeps to show their true colors. It makes no difference that they pretend to be supportive by prefacing their obstructionist bullshit with the line "We want Obama to succeed but..."

They are not fooling me and I doubt that they are fooling anyone else. Click “read more” to see what I mean.

Oy. Because the Senate is so collegial and has all of these entrenched rules which respect the minority Party – a Democratic Majority of 59 Senators is not enough to stop the Republicans from certain acts of obstructionism. We also have the benefit of Democratic Senators who still believe in tradition and “bi-partisanship.”

[Yes, I did say “benefit” because I believe that it is. As much as I cannot stand these rabid Right-Wing hacks, the last thing that I want is for the Dems to behave like they did. And, as much as I (so far) like a lot of what Obama is doing and I really like his style, I do not want a Democratic Congress that rolls over to him like the Republicans did with Bush. I do not think acting like them benefits anyone.]

This is one of the types of things that I was referring to when it comes to policing the Congress (and the Administration.) The Congress is a co-equal branch of the government and because they have been so impotent, and because the friggin’ Bush Administration ran right over the Congress, they are now (suddenly) flexing their muscles to show the Obama Administration that the Congress has equal power. I am actually happy about this. Regardless of Dem control in both Houses and the Presidency I still want the Congress to show that they are back and to remove the precedent set by Bush. I want them to restore the co-equal status.

As a result of this equalization, the Congress is acting a little tougher than they would in normal circumstances. In normal circumstances they might just take the President’s Package and run with it, but they are not. In addition, the Democratic Congress’s stimulus package is better than Obama’s - in that it does not rely so much on the Republican religion of tax cuts.

With the [too long] preface over, the preface explaining a little bit of the power-play dynamics occurring, let’s get back to the gist of this post: The Goddamned Right Wing Republican Hacks Are Using Every Tool in the Rule Book to Obstruct Cabinet Appointees and the Stimulus Plan. Jerks.

The Republican Party is going through some pretty intense adjustments. They have no idea who they are or what they stand for and they are acting like Tourettes Victims; they just stand there obstructing shouting out epithets like “Ronald Reagan,” “Tax Cuts,” “forced lending to the poor!”

They really are pitiful when we see them for what they are. Their entire philosophy of existence has been proven a failure and they still do not want to change. Like an alcoholic sleeping in a ditch, they still think that all will be well if they can just get their next drink. Unfortunately, their disgusting behavior affects far more people than just them; we all suffer for their philosophy and we are the ones paying for their decisions. That is why it is still easy to hate them – rather than pity their useless souls.

Not only are they trying to block Obama’s Appointees to the Cabinet, they are also using every procedural tool that they have to try to stop the new stimulus package. What makes this worse is that they are using their “constituents” for cover. They preface every one of their whiny proclamations with “our phones are ringing off the hook with our constituents calling because they are concerned about…” Fill in the “about” with whatever policy or appointment that they are trying to block.

This is where we come in. We need to contact our Senators and our House Member and tell them what we want. The Pukes say that their people are calling them, we need to make damned sure that our people are actually calling them. Enough of this crap. We need to show these dicks for the obstructionist hacks that they are. We need to make sure that their constituents know exactly what it is that they are doing.

Progressive Future has a petition up telling the Republicans to stand down. I am sure that more petitions are coming and I will make them available as I come across them and time permits. We are a bit more tenacious than they are and we are on the correct side of history. Enough of their crap; the world has suffered enough.

Read more!

Where Were You?

Where were you when Senator Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States? Did you go to any parties? Any balls? Did you get to dress up? Was it enjoyable or do you wish that you would have done something different?

I hope that whatever you did that it was marked with many memories. This will be one of those events that people will ask in the future, "Where were you, what were you doing?"

Read more!

Happy Inauguration!

Read more!

This Land is Your Land

Coming home after a long and dreary day, I was listening to the pre-inauguration activities on the radio. Then the announcer said that Pete Seeger, yes, The Pete Seeger, was going to sing next. My mind went back immediately to the days I lived in San Francisco and all those Little Boxes, you know, the green ones, and the pink ones, and the blue ones, and the yellow ones. Those were the days that I believed in America and that I could change the world, as most of us did believe back in the 60s.

Then Seeger began singing with that old familiar one of a kind voice:

"This land is your land, this land is my land

From California, to the New York Island

From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters

This land was made for you and me."

I started to bawl. It was a release for the years of sadness I have felt, for the anger like I have never known before, for disappointment, discouragement, and loss of faith in this Country, this Government and it's people.

On Tuesday, this Country begins anew with the leadership of President Obama, and once again hope returns for those of us who have doubted this land was our land.

UPDATE (by Anjha): I looked for the video this morning and then ran out of time. Voila! Came home and there it was in my inbox via Truthout. Cool.

Read more!

Inevitable.

A comment from Digby's pad outlines a really good point.

The anthrax case was unprecedented even in terms of other high-profile cases, due in part to their proximity to 9/11, and collective amnesia is not enough to erase the fact that Bush did not keep the victims and their families safe, as two waves of contaminated letters shocked an already terrorized nation.

My respects to Sarah, whom wrote an incredibly good comment, and I want to explore it a bit more.

Imagine if you will, that we had never been attacked on September 11, and that the public at large remained more or less ignorant of the alleged (since we've never put anyone on trial) threat by Al-Qaeda. The biggest deal that went on that year to date was the inept handling of the American spy plane incident with China. And that whole Enron thing, tech bubble, and recession, too.

And then 2 separate groups of mailings, one in September and the second in October, letters loaded with anthrax were sent to the news media and Congress.

In the largest act of domestic terrorism short of the Unabomber, the U.S. Government flailed helplessly in identifying the perpetrator and where the 'weaponized anthrax' came from. There were racist and false statements in the letters, & the American public, scared and victimized, easily went along with media and Administration assertions that these letters were an attack and proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

The United States invades Iraq in 2003, looking for weapons of mass destruction. George Bush is re-elected in 2004 based partially on his success in invading Iraq and 'defending the country'.

You can't tell me that it wasn't in the bag.

Read more!

Peace, Love and Understanding Part 2

Dammit. I am so blown away by the kindness of the people in this country. Last week I put up a post about the Obama organization, USA Service.org. I talked about all of the events on the website and all of the millions of people who have signed up to attend those events. I talked about the feel good, warm fuzzies that viewing all of that left me with.

There's more.

Yes, there are more warm fuzzies. Kiddo and I noticed that the event that we signed up for had more people signed up than were necessary. We signed up to help serve lunch at Tent City. Tent City is a homeless encampment in our county; there are actually many of them. It is good that they are available for the people who live on the streets to gather together and look out for each other (there is safety in numbers) but it sucks that they are needed at all. I think that they should be called "Bush-Villes" - regardless of what you call them, homeless people live there.

So, we decided that it might be good if we gathered items together to leave with them that will last a lot longer than the lunch that we have volunteered to help to serve.

We typed up the following and gave it to the people in our cul-de-sac.

*********

Thank You In Advance

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the National Day of Service we are going to tent city in xxxxx on Monday, January 19, 2009 to help to pass out food to the homeless. There are numerous volunteers for this event already so Kiddo and I thought that it might make more sense to use our time gathering up items to leave with the people at tent city; things that they will need long after the lunch is over.

Please donate any of the following (and anything else that you can think of that would come in useful for people trying to live in a tent during a long, cold winter.):

• Coats/Sweatshirts/Warm Sweaters
• Blankets
• Shoes
• Sleeping bags
• Baby Items/Diapers
• Tarps
• Toiletries
• Books
• Non-perishable food items
• Socks
• Flashlights & Batteries


If you have any items that you are able to donate, please gather them together and give us a call. (We are just now digging in our closets. We know that money is tight for everyone; used items are gladly and gratefully accepted.) We will pop over and pick them up. Thank you so much.

Husband, Anjha and Kiddo xxx-xxx-xxxx

To find out more about service events in our area go to www.USAService.org

********

We handed it out to the 8 homes in our cul-de-sac and by 11 AM this morning, my car was full of boxes of items. This is so unbelievable. Seriously. I am blown away by the kindness and generosity of the people in our neighborhood, county and this country.

And honestly, I am not really doing a damn thing but passing information along to people, making a couple of phone calls and dropping off the stuff. Even I can handle this kind of involvement.

I hope that this does keep going. That people continue to participate and that Obama uses the bully pulpit that he has to continue to guide people into service and to paying attention to what is going on in their communities. This is truly a bottom up movement. And it is about friggin' time.

Read more!