Where should president be while major US city drowns?
Posted By: On vacation or in DC taking care of business? nm on 2008-08-31
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nm
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Hon, I'm a political major and history major...
xx
george will a major, major
conservative with vast influence for years and years. Can't minimize this devastating blow no matter how much you try to defect subject to joe biden.
since McC was in my city
yesterday morning taking credit for rounding up his party to pass the bill that ultimately failed, I assume hw is now willing to take responsibility the bill failing for being an ineffective leader in his own PAR-tay. Lurching about again trying to make political hay. Bill Maher on the View today commenting, very funny. He said he always knew Bush had one more big catastrophe in him. Bill said W will not be satisfied until the white house is on fire and black plumes of smoke are rising behind him as walks away. He asked that ditz Elizabeth if she thought Obama was the anti-Christ and laughed at her wide-eyed "NO!!!"
we have had 4 major
catastrophes in the last 8 years due to republican/conservative ideology of little to no government. 911, katrina, iraq war, wall street collapse, etc. We have serious issues to deal with now. Symbols can wait for the return of the good times under democratic LEADERSHIP.
Name the city and state this happens in? sm
I'm sorry this is foreign to me.
It's already happening in my city
People are getting fed up here with the lack of law enforcement and judicial enforcement that they are taking the law into their own hands. On average of three times a month owners are shooting intruders and attackers in their own home or own their property because they know that law enforcement will either #1 show up way to late to stop the crime or #2 not show up at all! Even if the subject is apprehended the likelihood that they'll only get a slap on the wrist (if even that) by the judicial system is very high.
People are plain fed up where I live---especially with crimes against children and families.
Here's the scenario in my city
I've been keeping up with what happens to people who actually shoot people in their house or on their property in my area. The majority of the shooters have been store clerks who are tired of being victims. However, there have been several home invasions in the last year where the owner has shot the intruder. Just a few weeks ago a man saw another man breaking into his backyard storage building, and he shot the guy from his house. The subject fled and then wrecked his car about a mile from the break in. When all was said and done the owner was not charged eventhough he shot the man eventhough the man never entered his living space.
As far as I know none of the store clerks or home owners have been charged in the last year (at least that is what the media reports).
Eventhough I believe in gun ownership and defending your property and home I think the recent law passed in Florida where you can shoot anyone who is threatening you (anywhere) is a little broad and I think will be used to get criminals off, because all they have to say is I felt threatened so I shot the dude. I think though when somebody comes on your property then you should be able to take any action to defend yourself within reason. Now, this shouldn't be an excuse for shooting your neighbor because they are piling leaves on your property etc. Common sense should rule, and every case should be judged individually on the circumstances surrounding the incident.
I agree with you completely about the child criminal sentencing aspects. Personally, I don't think these monsters should live but at the very least they should be castrated....seems harsh but its the only way to *neuter* the animal that lives inside these monsters.
Chicago is no different that any other big city...sm
New York, Miami, LA and many others.
I live in PA and not in a city.
It used to be called rural agricultural, but now it's suburban housing.
Yes, there will be major job losses now /NM
N/M
Did ya hear the news that the city
mayors are now looking for handouts? Where will it all end? They don't think the governors should get it because it will be used to pump up their balance sheet, but the city mayors think they should get it because they will use it to get jobs for the people. Are they now going to wave a magic wand and have jobs appear?
Like DH says, "We have nothing anymore. No production jobs at all. They're all overseas. When they left the steel industry go down the tubes, that was the beginning of the end."
well that's fine if you live in the city
but like I said, people who live in the country like myself and our neighbors also have livestock to protect. What are they supposed to do when their guns are taken?
We have a single shotgun in the home. It is unloaded. We have no children. Now if we do have children we will have a locked gun cabinet and they will be taught from an early age that guns are not toys. It's called teaching responsibility. You can't just "do away" with all things dangerous in this society. Rules do not apply to crooks and criminals.
Yes, there needs to be legislation on guns. There is no reason for people to own semi automatics and stuff like that. But I believe we have a right to own shotguns, handguns, and rifles (rifles are used for deer hunting and other big game hunting).
Why would you say I need counseling? Just because I believe we have a right to bear arms? (I think some other folks believed that too...)
Don't know what you are talking about, I am a city girl.
But enjoy!
I never liked Circuit City. I didn't like how it's -
set up, how you sort of go into a 'lockdown' situation once you're in there, and that it's impossible to simply browse without being followed and harrassed by their too-many salespeople.
I bought a CD player there a number of years ago, and never went back. I prefer Fry's for electronics, and Walmart for just about everything.
First of all, a whole city didn't drown.....
the ones who found themselves in a horrible situation ALSO live in a free society, unfortunately, it is a society to them that only knows how to let government do their thinking for them.........
If they had half a brain, they would be screaming at their wonderful crooked little mayor, demanding to know where all those billions went he was given many years ago to fix the levy to prevent just this type of catastrophe, but of course all they know to do is hold the government responsible for everything they don't like about their world. Well, get in line...I could certainly make a long list as well but I still do NOT want the government living my life and doing my thinking for me. If they had been proactive in the first place and had actually taken an interest in their government, they would have been demanding to know why the levy wasn't upgrade years and years ago!!
The war has nothing to do with their ignorance. If I choose to keep myself ignorant, then I will or I can teach my children to read, educate themselves, and think for themselves. That's not what's happening. When someone is completely dependent on the government generation after generation, it becomes obvious they do not want to think for themselves and certainly have NO ideas about a FREE society and what that entails.
I have family down there. They have always tried to get answers as to the use of that money that just disappeared down the tubes, thanks to their crooked mayor and to this day, no one has made him answer to that. The flooding was horrific and there is no question about that. My daughter has taught children in our state who lived through it and saw family members drown before their eyes. No diminishing the trauma on those folks. But you can't start using the war expense as an excuse not to hold their politicians responsible for where the billions of dollars already received went to.
Not skirting the major issues
It is just that our major issues differ immensely.
1. I did read the article, and many more besides. I did not state implicitly that we should model our healthcare system identical to France or Canada, it was only meant to represent that healthcare reform can work, that it is needed in this country, and that for the average individual to start seriously looking at it. There are great programs out there and there is absolutely no reason why we cannot take the best of them and create a whole new better system.
2. Yes, there will be some physicians who do not like the change, just as there will be citizens who do not like the change. However, stating that they will not be willing to take a pay cut for the greater good of their patients is very narrow minded. I helped recruit them to work in academic medicine and the VA system and never had a shortage of as you put it "the most brilliant minds of medicine" applying for those positions when they could have very easily went into the private sector for more money. Furthermore, stating that if there were free tuition based medical schools, that the quality of our physicians would go down is an absolutely ignorant statement to make. I cannot begin to fathom that line of thinking. In those countries where tuition is either free based or fully reimbursed are creating a large percentage of "the most brilliant minds of medicine".
3. I never stated that socialized healthcare is not fraught with problems. Our healthcare system is fraught with just as many. You cannot argue the statistics that in those countries where there is socialized healthcare, the citizens themselves are satisfied with it. I believe the latest statistics are 78% of French citizens are satisified. Granted there are issues on the table now in France, but many are stating that is because there is a creeping privatisation that is to be blamed. My relatives in Montreal have no complaints, and they are the average middle class citizens. And there is a very small percentage who are falling through the cracks compared to much more of your fellow Americans who are falling through our cracks.
5. Insurance companies are driving are healthcare whether you chose to believe it or not. Right now all across the United States there are insurance representatives walking the halls, looking through your patient records, deciding on the spot whether it is feasible for you to receive certain treatment or to stay an extra day, in which your physician will have to argue to ensure that you, the patient, is receiving the best care that he/she feels you deserve. But because the money is not coming out of your pocket, who is to care right?
6. And last but not least, to make the leap that socialized medicine will lead to socialized government is ludicrous. All I can say is what?
One major question for you about your post...sm
Where is the $250M that O wants to put out coming from? and the $500 he plans to give away?? Oh, I know...he'll just have the Treasury print more money. You need to seriously read more than Wikipedia. Try the IRS filings for starters. If O is elected, we are in for an even more slippery slope for our government.
The major difference between Christians and...
radical Islam is free choice...it is your choice whether or not to accept Christ...we do not chop off heads. THAT is my way or the highway.
Not just my job, DH is the major earner. We shouldn't be.
penalized for working hard.
obama is ahead in all major
polls. Sympathy not required.
You will be glad they are there if we have a major attack...
like a gas attack, a major bombing, dirty bomb, etc. They are trained to handle that situation. The National Guard is not...hence what happened at Kent State. If you would prefer, lobby your congress to have your national guard trained to do this RATHER than the army. Did you ever stop and think this is yet another deterrent to any terrorists who might think about attacking us again? They have faced our military and our military put them on the run. I think it is a great idea. The army are not a bunch drooling bully wingnuts out to strip your civil liberties. They are trying to PROTECT your rights and your physical personf or that matter. They are invested in protecting this nation. they are better equipped to do that than the national guard is.
It sure does, rightly so; here is the major difference I am seeing....sm
Those of us with the temerity to criticize the Bush years and doctrine are met with blind, sickening loyalty, more total denial than a stadium full of junkies, and this is after watching the last 8 years!....Now a new man comes in, yes young, yes not as experienced as I personally wanted, but with new ideas, because all the past doctrines were so tragic and poisonous to the country, and BEFORE HE EVEN TAKES OFFICE or can even get ANYTHING off the ground, he is being criticized and maligned daily here.....heck, many people here have magic crystals balls and keep telling us to watch the doomsday that is about to happen. Now, a wise person can learn from the past, but how can you not call it blind partisanship when Pubs here just keep singing the praises of King George II and dooming the new President and his entire FUTURE legacy?
Right. Isn't his what major Bloomberg in New York was doing?
And now he is running for his 3rd term!
Is also against the Constitution.
Right. Isn't his what major Bloomberg in New York was doing?
And now he is running for his 3rd term!
It was reported on all the major news
All I have do to know what will be posted on this form is watch Fox commentators and read a few conservative websites. All some of you do is regurgitate the half-truths and out-right lies spoon fed to you by people with an agenda. Think for yourselves once in a while.
She also served in city council and mayor...
and on term as a governor gives her one year more governing experience obama has. And she DOES mean change from Washington politics...she is fAR removed from that. She has a reputation for reform, took on the good ol'boys in her own party and won. Those wanting change should be happy to see her.
She has an 80% approval rating in her state. That is unheard of. SHe must be doing something right, because not only Republicans live in alaska.
She is pro life. That is true. But you on this board have told me repeatedly I should not be a one-issue voter. So, lead by example.
For a city of 4 million plus and then having to bus in people from Cobb
even if they had 20,000 which I heard crowd estimates about 15,000, that is not a lot of people. With radio personality Sean Hannity here, think probably most went to see his spouting off. That man is going to have a stroke if he keeps on with his rantings.
34 major scandals during bush's first term
34 Major Scandals during Bush's first term:
Again, you are skirting the major issues and the cost...
did you read all the France article? Their physicians make two-thirds less than ours...and why? Because there is no medical school tuition in France. Can you imagine what would happen to this country's quality of care if you made medical schools no tuition? Can you see Cornell Medical School, Harvard Medical School to name just two, schools who graduate the most brilliant minds in medicine...going to a no-tuition basis? How are they going to be able to train physicians with only government doled-out money to support them? The quality of physician in this country, followed rapidly by the quality of care would tank. If you come from academic medicine, ask those physicians how they feel about no tuition medical school and having their fees capped. Go ahead and ask them.
Our own socialized care is substandard. Articles every day about VA Hospitals and the deplorable conditions in many of them. Veterans having to wait weeks and months for appointments, etc. I know. I have seen the system at work. The government cannot oversee the socialized programs they have now. Medicare and Medicaid are both rife with waste and fraud. We all know this. Because the government cannot oversee them the way they should. And you want to extend this to every person in the US? Look at this reality-based. It is a fiasco in the making.
I am sure the Canadians and the UK thought it would be wonderful too. In the first months it may have been. However, things get skewed when the cost starts to catch up. That is when you end up with a population having over HALF their income taken off the top in taxes to feed the fatted calf. You will note that the article said France was considering taxing both earned and unearned income to feed THEIR calf. When that happens, ask the French how they feel about socialized medicine.
I don't know where you get that healthcare costs are driven by insurance companies. That is nuts. They don't set the fees doctors, clinics, drug companies, yada yada, charge. In fact, it was some of the organized insurance companies, like HMOs, who went to clinics, physicians, etc., to negotiate deals for their consumers...so that those clinics would accept a certain rate for their services. The clinics would agree to less than their normal fees in order to get the business of that HMO. That is the free market WORKING. The clinic I go to for my care, when I get a bill, the insurance company shows what they charged, what they paid, and in nice bold letters at the bottom it says that I am not responsible for the difference because the clinic agreed to that amount for that service, regardless of what their normal charge is.
So, yes, in a way insurance companies do drive health care...but in a good way in my case, and I am sure in other cases across this country, if people would just open their eyes and look.
What this appears to be, on the face of it, is that people just do not want to pay for their own insurance, they want to turn it into yet another entitlement...the biggest one ever. If they want to let the government control them to that extent...more power to them. These same people who want to give up their personal right to control their own health care are the same people that complain about civil liberties and wiretapping. Don't tap my phone, but go ahead and take my health care completely out of my hands as long as you pay for it I don't have to.
No thanks. I do not want to be tied to the government for my health care and I do not want them making my decisions for me. One thing leads to another and before long the government (or more specifically, the Democrats) have you tied to them for your every need. Then, my friends, they have you. You will be living in a socialist country. And if that looks good to you...look at Venezuela. Look at the disparity there between those in power and the "people." Look at Cuba. Look at what socialist Germany turned into before World War II. Please look at history, folks. Socialism always evolves into a dictatorship. Always. Because once they have you dependent upon them for your every need...all I am saying is be careful what you ask for.
I've got some major gas here - everyone stand back.
x
She has a major superiority complex, doesn't she?
Pathetic, actually.
NO! Major corporate & CEO greed & mismanagement
Same thing happened to Mervyn's Dept. Stores... greedy big company bought them up, then ran them into the ground. They were great stores, too.
No tears shed here for the corporate shake-outs going on in many industries: Auto, financial, stock market, power, etc. I just hope they eventually grab the HEALTH CARE industry by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking, as well. NO PITY HERE.
I think a major issue people ignore...(sm)
is why we are a target of terrorism. US policies towards the middle east thus far have been nothing less than selfish. What US news doesn't tell you about is how these policies actually affect people living there, and more often than not it is devastating. That is where it began.
Granted, regardless of how we got here, we're in the middle of it right now and actions should be taken, but not actions like those that have been taken by the Bush administration. The prisoners at Gitmo are a prime example. They should have tried these people to see if they even needed to be there instead of holding them with no charges and torturing them. The ones who are guilty should have gone through the legal system and suffered the consequences whether it be death or imprisonment.
Here's what I see. We went into Iraq on false pretenses about WMDs. We found that to be false, so the cause was changed to saving the people of Iraq from a dictator -- a brutal dictator at that. We were supposed to be providing them with democracy. So, what do you think the Iraqi people think of us now? Have we killed as many people as Saddam did yet? Have we tortured people just like Saddam did? Yes. So, in their eyes, if this is now democracy, how much better is it than what they started out with?
If we are to set the standard by which other democracies use as a guideline, we need to get it right, and that includes respecting the culture, religion and social norms of other countries instead of trying to make them into something they are not.
I think a major issue people ignore...(sm)
is why we are a target of terrorism. US policies towards the middle east thus far have been nothing less than selfish. What US news doesn't tell you about is how these policies actually affect people living there, and more often than not it is devastating. That is where it began.
Granted, regardless of how we got here, we're in the middle of it right now and actions should be taken, but not actions like those that have been taken by the Bush administration. The prisoners at Gitmo are a prime example. They should have tried these people to see if they even needed to be there instead of holding them with no charges and torturing them. The ones who are guilty should have gone through the legal system and suffered the consequences whether it be death or imprisonment.
Here's what I see. We went into Iraq on false pretenses about WMDs. We found that to be false, so the cause was changed to saving the people of Iraq from a dictator -- a brutal dictator at that. We were supposed to be providing them with democracy. So, what do you think the Iraqi people think of us now? Have we killed as many people as Saddam did yet? Have we tortured people just like Saddam did? Yes. So, in their eyes, if this is now democracy, how much better is it than what they started out with?
If we are to set the standard by which other democracies use as a guideline, we need to get it right, and that includes respecting the culture, religion and social norms of other countries instead of trying to make them into something they are not.
Another note: You are saying that terror should be met with like force. So, should Bush be waterboarded?
How does this relate to the mayor of Salt Lake City??
nm
Oh, that is just decay of modern society; found in any city.
Issue is the maintenance and you can bet your sweet probably big butt that if there were mansions (campaign donators) rather than shabby homes but generation after generation of welfare recipients in the way of a levy failure, the Corp of engineers would have reinforced the barriers long long ago.
Losing millions of low income, noncontributing citizens just isn't seen as a big problem, is it?
What can we expect should H5N1 take ahold and go into epidemic proportions may be a magnified version of NO only we will be the unlucky irrelevant citizens. Sure would solve a lot of problems by whipping out 1/4 of the world's population, the bottom 1/4 though, not the top; they are special.
The only problem I can see with what you are describing is 20 years of suboptimal Family Planning strategies. Thanks to republicans right wing religious zealots who have a magical view of life thanks to very effective brainwashing techniques. I see it worked on you.
Pretty hard to fight city hall........
There isn't a whole lot he can do with the pubs obstructing everything he is trying to accomplish. My theory is, they put up McPalin because they KNEW they wouldn't win because they have NO IDEA how to clean this freakin' mess up either. That way, just possibly, the RNC can gain some ground since they have all but buried themselves. Kinda like Carter inheriting Nixon's upstanding accomplishments. Gotta love the RNC, they are such an honest, upstanding, homophobic and value-oriented tribe. How's that for a wide stance?
If customary deference to a sitting president by president elect
for the rest of us who understand such concepts as respect and traditional protocol, it would qualify as a darned good reason.
Could Tony Blairs Tight Fist be Coming to a City Near You...sm
I ran across this article today and it explains from British citizens point of view what happens when you allow leadership to dismantle the principles (Constitution) of a nation. I understand the *concept* behind the Patriot Act, wiretapping, and detainee laws (where the president is the decider), but if the public lets the powers that be slip in laws like this with no protest we could find ourselves under arrest and DNA swabbed for not returning a child's ball that landed in your yard.
(Long read but interesting.)
The Way Police Treat Us Verges on Criminal
Guilty until proven innocent now seems to be the watchword of a government that increasingly treats its law-abiding citizens with absolute contempt
Henry Porter
Sunday October 29, 2006
The Observer
A father and his eight-year-old son got off a train at Blackpool on a Friday evening two weeks ago to be confronted by a number of police officers moving passengers towards a scanner. There was a mildly threatening manner about them and it was clear that they expected everyone to pass through the scanner, which they said was being used to search for knives.
The man, whose name is Danny, quietly told the police that unless they had a very good reason, he would not be searched. One or two passengers hesitated, then joined him in refusing to go through the scanner. The police were clearly disgruntled, but couldn't do anything because Danny was right: they had to have reasonable grounds for suspecting he was carrying a knife in order to search him. 'I am not some rabid left winger or civil libertarian,' he wrote in an email to me. 'It just seems we are allowing a police state to be developed without an argument.' On the phone, he seemed to modify this by saying that the police behaviour had been oppressive.
Thank God there are still people like Danny who know the law and understand that part of its fragile essence is the respect for the rights of the innocent citizen when confronted with authority. The British Transport Police may insist that its Operation Shield, as this random trawl is known, is for the common good in that it fights knife crime, but think twice about the attitude it betrays and you realise that it is another small erosion in the esteem for the individual. Such behaviour makes everyone a suspect.
Tony Blair talks incessantly about respect, yet there are few who have done more to degrade authority's respect for the public. Nowhere is that better seen than in the behaviour of the police, which gradually becomes more coercive and imbued with the idea that we are all bad hats until we prove otherwise. We now live in a country where the idea of wrongful arrest has become a historic curiosity and where anyone can be arrested for the slightest offence and compelled to become part of the government's DNA database.
We live in a country where young boys - one was just seven - are taken aside and questioned for trying to knock conkers out of chestnut trees on public ground. Where a grandmother whose neighbour accused her of not returning a ball kicked into her garden was arrested, fingerprinted and required to give her DNA. The police went through every room in her house, even her daughter's drawers, before letting her go without charge or caution.
Where two sisters can be arrested after a peaceful protest about climate change, held in solitary confinement for 36 hours without being allowed to make a phone call, then told not to talk to each other as a condition of their bail. As this paper reported, their money, keys, computers, discs and phones were confiscated, their homes searched.
There is much more, all of it enabled by Blair's laws and encouraged by a vindictive and erroneous contention that defendants' rights must be reduced in the pursuit of more and quicker prosecutions. Our prisons are full, problem teenagers are, by default, exiled to a kind of outlawry and every citizen becomes the subject of an almost hysterical need by the authorities to check up on and chivvy them.
The government regards us not just as wedded to too many regrettable vices - smoking, speeding, drinking too much, eating unhealthy food and taking no exercise - but also as innately prone to law-breaking. Perhaps with good reason, since, according to the Liberal Democrat homes affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, some 3,000 criminal offences have been created by Labour. The more crimes there are, the more criminals there will be.
Mass surveillance has begun on our motorways and in our town centres. Metropolitan drivers increasingly find themselves pressed into numberplate-recognition camera traps on the same principle that inspires Operation Shield. Everyone has something to hide unless they can prove otherwise, which is why the police also enthusiastically pursue samples for the DNA database. (Incidentally, by next year, the total number of profiles will rise to three million, one in five of which will belong to black people.)
The police are in their very own heaven and demand more and more powers of instant justice, a contradiction in terms if ever there was one. These will allow them to crush people's cars, issue more on-the-spot fines and ban 'undesirables' from any area they choose without having to go to court. Even parish councils are to become part of this culture of minatory bossiness. Instead of having to apply to central government to introduce new bylaws, they are to be given powers by Ruth Kelly, the Communities and Local Government Minister, to levy instant £100 fines for skateboarding, not cleaning up dog mess, busking and, no doubt, scrumping for apples and playing Pooh sticks. How will it end - with CCTV cameras watching small boys for inappropriate behaviour in the vicinity of horse chestnuts?
In his frantic terminality, Blair plans the sinister information-sharing index, otherwise known as the universal child register, and last week was musing that we should all have our DNA stored on the national base. Link this to his earlier remarks about identifying problem children who might grow up to be a menace to society by intervening before they were born and you begin to feel the chill of the technology-driven authoritarianism.
What runs through all this seems to be a rather surprising dislike of the British people. It was once possible to believe the government's unusual attention to law, order and behaviour was benevolent yet ill-conceived. Now it looks more like the result of late-onset sociopathy, influenced by a long period in power and the degenerate entanglement between Downing Street and the seething red-top newspapers.
The prevailing account of Britain in the current political establishment has become deeply pessimistic and, to my mind, wrong. Yes, we have problems with home-grown terrorism, loutishness, a swelling underclass, unintegrating minorities, but there is another story. Britain is also a success and it should occur to one of our political leaders to defy the orthodoxy of decline and compliment the nation on its adaptability and deep reserves of virtue and toleration.
Think of the charitable activity in this country, of the level of public debate that wells up in BBC programmes such as Any Questions, the deep interest in history, the eagerness of the audiences at arts festivals all over Britain, the humour and generosity of spirit, the commitment to local communities, to understanding each other's needs and of the array of passions and hobbies which absorb so many millions of people whose quiet, law-abiding fulfilment as Britons goes undescribed by the furious negativity of the moment. It is these people, with their stored-up virtue and unself-conscious decency, who the government seeks to turn into suspects and infantilise by its morbid intrusion.
It is not the government's business to encroach on our experience as individuals in a democracy, to threaten us with so much oppressive legislation and always to assume our guilt. But there is another reason and that is because we are soon going to have to have the debate about individual liberty in the context of rapid climate change. That will only work if the government treats us like adults and says: 'Look, this is potentially the greatest crisis civilisation has ever faced and we need your help.' The resulting contract must be between equals - the people and the state - and in a relationship where respect flows both ways.That, ultimately, is what this nagging and suspicious government threatens.
Great speech by the mayor of Salt Lake City. sm
Speech by Mayor Rocky Anderson, democrat, on 10/27/07. They should bump Hillary and put this guy out there.
Salt Lake City, Utah --
Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”
“While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss.”
“You have breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.”
“You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the sort never before countenanced in our nation’s history as a matter of official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental blunder.”
“We are here to tell you: We won’t take it any more!”
“You have acted in direct contravention of values that we, as Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation’s treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
“Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false ‘patriotism,’ our world is far more dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and the threat of terrorism is far greater than ever before.
It has been absolutely astounding how you have committed the most horrendous acts, causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of people, yet you wear your so-called religion on your sleeves, asserting your God-is-on-my-side nonsense – when what you have done flies in the face of any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your hypocrisy is mind-boggling – and disgraceful. What part of “Thou shalt not kill” do you not understand? What part of the “Golden rule” do you not understand? What part of “be honest,” “be responsible,” and “be accountable” don’t you understand? What part of “Blessed are the peacekeepers” do you not understand?
Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries, and millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our nation, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world, we are morally compelled to say, as loudly as we can, ‘We won’t take it any more!’ ”
“As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find what you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name and reputation of the United States, so appalling, so unconscionable, and so outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and allow other men and women who are competent, true to our nation’s values, and with high moral principles to stand in your places – for the good of our nation, for the good of our children, and for the good of our world.”
In the case of the President and Vice President, this means impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability.
It means the election of people as President and Vice President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings.
In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress’s sole prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrantless wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl-Lieberman amendment.
We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people who have wronged our country – and the world. They were enabled by members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American people – 40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks – a people who know and care more about baseball statistics and which drunken starlets are wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a government for which we need to take responsibility.
As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship -- as veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations, and faiths -- we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the mainstream media: “You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have undermined our democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, tragic, unprecedented proportions.”
“But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the United States government, and as moral actors who must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say ‘We won’t take it any more.’”
If we want principled, courageous elected officials, we need to be principled, courageous, and tenacious ourselves. History has demonstrated that our elected officials are not the leaders – the leadership has to come from us. If we don’t insist, if we don’t persist, then we are not living up to our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy – and our responsibilities as moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the Bush administration – and to candidates running for office – and to the world – that we support the status quo.
Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what’s right and never letting down can we say we are doing our part.
Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was entirely fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United States. Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense, unjustified death and destruction.
It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people, been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney, about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later.
How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses.
Why is this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put an end to this madness?
We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising heck on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don’t cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack and occupy Iraq.
Let’s awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the country, as we ask others to join us: “We won’t take it any more!”
I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say “No more” and mean it?
I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has voted to fund the atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who will not commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has supported legislation that takes us one step closer to attacking Iran. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has not fought to stop the kidnapping, disappearances, and torture being carried on in our name.
If we expect our nation’s elected officials to take us seriously, let us send a powerful message they cannot misunderstand. Let them know we really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have drawn a bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for granted – that, regardless of their party and regardless of other political considerations, they will not have our support if they cannot provide, and have not provided, principled leadership.
The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years, but let us pledge that we won’t let it go on one more day – that we will do all we can to put an end to the illegalities, the moral degradation, and the disintegration of our nation’s reputation in the world.
Let us be unified in drawing the line – in declaring that we do have a moral breaking point. Let us insist, together, in supporting our troops and in gratitude for the freedoms for which our veterans gave so much, that we bring our troops home from Iraq, that we return our government to a constitutional democracy, and that we commit to honoring the fundamental principles of human rights.
In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense of our shared values as Americans – and as moral human beings – we declare today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the insanity, stop the continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop the moral depravity reflected by the kidnapping, disappearing, and torture of people around the world.
ACORN hired inner city people, paid by commission, probably to buy
dd
Some educational advice. Go to your local hospital and city hall....sm
Ask them how births are recorded. I think you will be surprised. EVERYTHING is now computerized. Even old birth records.
Europe - Swastika vigilantes kill foreign students to keep their city 'clean' ...see article.
Swastika vigilantes kill foreign students to keep their city 'clean'From Jeremy Page in Moscow
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THE African students did not even see the man raise the swastika-emblazoned shotgun as they emerged from the Apollo nightclub in St Petersburg.
When he opened fire from the shadows behind them, some of the group thought it was a firecracker going off.
Then they saw Samba Lampsar Sall, a 28-year-old student from Senegal, lying dead on the pavement with his throat blown apart.
Within hours, a sinister message had appeared on the website of a group called the Party of Freedom. “The clean-up of the city continues,” it said.
Mr Sall had come to study at St Petersburg’s State Communications University in 2001 in the hope of finding a better life when he went back home.
Instead, around dawn yesterday, he became the latest victim of a hate campaign by neo-Nazi extremists on the streets of Russia’s cultural capital.
“How can people be so evil?” asked Michael Tanobian, an African student who was with Mr Sall when he was killed. “We come here just to study, for nothing else. We don’t take anything here.”
Mr Sall’s brutal murder exposes one of Russia’s most disturbing problems as President Putin prepares to host the G8 summit in St Petersburg in mid-July. For all its grandeur and impressive art collections, Russia’s second city is fast becoming the racist capital of the world.
Critics say that the authorities are not doing enough to combat the extremists who routinely attack, and kill, Africans, Asians and immigrants from the Caucasus or Central Asia.
Seven people have been killed, and 79 injured, in more than 40 racist attacks this year, according to Sova, a non-governmental organisation that monitors extremism in Russia.
Last year, 28 people were killed and 366 injured in racially motivated crimes, it says.
The Interior Ministry sent a team of special investigators from Moscow to work on yesterday’s murder. The Foreign Ministry expressed “sincere condolences to the relatives and loved ones of the deceased”. The Prosecutor’s Office said that the case was being treated as a racist killing.
But dozens of similar cases have been treated as “hooliganism”, a crime that carries a far lighter sentence. One of the most shocking attacks occurred in 2004, when teenagers stabbed to death a nine-year-old Tajik girl in St Petersburg. Last month, a court convicted them of hooliganism, giving six of them 18-year jail sentences and one of them five years.
Desire Defaut, chairman of the local community group African Unity, urged Mr Putin to lead the fight against neo- Nazism. “They must make an announcement at a state level that such a problem exists and state organs must work on it,” he said. “We can’t say they are doing enough if there are two attacks within one week.”
Last week, the nine-year-old daughter of a Russian woman and her African husband was wounded in a knife attack in St Petersburg. “What more proof of extremism do they need in St Petersburg?” asked Juldas Okie Etoumbi, chairman of the Association of the African Students of Moscow. But, he added, the problem is not confined to St Petersburg. In the past week, skinheads in Moscow beat up a journalist of Caucasian origin and the culture minister from the Caucasus region of Kabardino-Balkaria.
Mr Putin has called racism “an infection” and pledged to stamp it out. But critics say that the Kremlin has tolerated, and even encouraged, ultra-nationalist groups to foster loyalty to the State and make itself look relatively liberal.
MURDER CITY
Sept 2003 Tajik girl, 5, beaten in St Petersburg
Feb 2004 Tajik girl, 9, stabbed
Mar 2004 Syrian student pushed in front of train
June 2004 Anti-Nazi campaigner shot dead
Oct 2004 Vietnamese student stabbed
Sept 2005 Congolese student beaten
Dec 2005 Cameroonian student stabbed
Feb 2006 Malian medical graduate stabbed
Apr 2006 Senegalese student shot |
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FEMA needs a major overhaul...Doctor says FEMA ordered him to stop treating hurricane victims.
Doctor says FEMA ordered him to stop treating hurricane victims
By LAURIE SMITH ANDERSON landerson@theadvocate.com
Advocate staff writer
In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn't registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
I begged him to let me continue, said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.
I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn't be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave.
FEMA issued a formal response to Perlmutter's story, acknowledging that the agency does not use voluntary physicians.
We have a cadre of physicians of our own, FEMA spokesman Kim Pease said Thursday. They are the National Disaster Medical Team. ... The voluntary doctor was not a credentialed FEMA physician and, thus, was subject to law enforcement rules in a disaster area.
A Coast Guard spokesman said he was looking into the incident but was not able to confirm it.
Perlmutter, Dr. Clark Gerhart and medical student Alison Torrens flew into Baton Rouge on a private jet loaned by a Pennsylvania businessman several days after Katrina hit. They brought medicine and supplies with them. They stayed the first night in Baton Rouge and persuaded an Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot to fly them into New Orleans the next day.
I was going to make it happen, the orthopedic surgeon said. I was at Ground Zero too, and I had to lie to get in there.
At the triage area in the New Orleans airport, Perlmutter was successful in getting FEMA to accept the insulin and morphine he had brought. The pharmacist told us they were completely out of insulin and our donation would save numerous lives. Still, I felt we were the most-valuable resource, and we were sent away.
Gerhart said the scene they confronted at the airport was one of hundreds of people lying on the ground, many soaked in their own urine and feces, some coding (dying) before our eyes. FEMA workers initially seemed glad for help and asked Gerhart to work inside the terminal and Perlmutter to work out on the tarmac. They were told only a single obstetrician had been on call at the site for the past 24 hours.
Then, the Coast Guard official informed the group that he could not credential them or guarantee tort coverage and that they should return to Baton Rouge. That shocked me, that those would be his concerns in a time of emergency, Gerhart said.
Transported back to Baton Rouge, Perlmutter's frustrated group went to state health officials who finally got them certified -- a simple process that took only a few seconds.
I found numerous other doctors in Baton Rouge waiting to be assigned and others who were sent away, and there was no shortage of need, he said.
Perlmutter spent some time at the Department of Health and Hospital's operational center at Jimmy Swaggart Ministries before moving to the makeshift Kmart Hospital doctors established at an abandoned store to care for patients. After organizing an orthopedics room and setting up ventilators there, Perlmutter went back to the Swaggart Center and then to the LSU Pete Maravich Assembly Center's field hospital to care for patients being flown in from the New Orleans area.
We saw elderly patients who had been off their medicine for days, diabetics without insulin going into shock, uncontrolled hypertension, patients with psychosis and other mental disorders, lots of diarrhea, dehydration and things you would expect. I slept on a patient cot there every night until I came home.
Gerhart said he felt the experience overall was successful and rewarding, although frustrating at times. You don't expect catastrophes to be well organized. A lot of people, both private citizens and government officials, were working very hard.
Perlmutter did not return home empty-handed. He brought a family of four evacuees back with him and is still working with Baton Rouge volunteer Hollis Barry to facilitate the relocation of additional hurricane victims to Pennsylvania.
He also returned with a sense of outrage. I have been trying to call Sen. Arlen Specter (of Pennsylvania) to let him know of our experience.
I have been going to Ecuador and Mexico (on medical missions) for 14 years. I was at ground zero. I've seen hundreds of people die. This was different because we knew the hurricane was coming. FEMA showed up late and then rejected help for the sake of organization. They put form before function, and people died.
Both FEMA and the Coast Guard operate under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has been widely criticized for its disjointed, slow response to the devastation caused by Katrina. Federal officials are urging medical personnel who want to volunteer to help with disaster relief to contact the Medical Reserve Corps or the American Red Cross for registration, training and organization.
I would if he were president now...nm
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Why does President need help with a way out?
That's really scary. I do think if we have any troops come home, it'll be before elections - and not a minute before necessary to have the greatest impact on election results. Wallace should wonder if the families of fallen soldiers would be offended at THAT kind of rank political maneuvering. I know I am.
And what happened to SPREADING DEMOCRACY (like margarine?) in Iraq? Chalabi just appointed the head Taliban judge to office in Iraq, the one who outlawed female education in Afghanistan and sponsored public executions for not wearing burkhas. Is that what we promised the Iraqi people? The whole thing is a huge mess. All the billions and billions Congress authorized for rebuilding Iraq went into Halliburton and other crony pockets and the job was never done. We can't train more Iraqi police units because as soon as we give them guns and tanks they use them on our soldiers. That's why Bush can't tell the truth about how that's going, but that doesn't stop him from continuing to fudge the numbers.
Sadly, Bush won't take any help even if it's offered - not in his game plan apparently.
We need this man as our next president
Someone who can speak so elequently without having to read word from word from notes or prompters.
Someone who knows what the different races are about, understands, and embraces heritages of all backgrounds.
Someone who can meet with our enemies to try and stop the violence and come to agreements.
Someone who is intelligent.
Someone who isn't married to "bad baggage" that will disgrace our white house.
Someone who isn't a war mongerer or voted for the war.
Someone who is truthful to the American people and not deceiptful (sp?) trying to hide things they have done.
Someone who doesn't think they should just be annointed to the white house but actually needs to "earn" the publics vote.
Someone who doesn't believe they should win just because they are from a certain race or gender.
Someone who is calm under fire, can think and act with a clear mind, and doesn't lash out, spew racial or ethnic slurs.
Someone who wants a better country for all people and not just themselves and their close friends and family.
Someone who is relatively "new" to Washington and not the same ol "stuff".
Someone who is working towards our future and not living or trying to live in the past.
Comment: Who cares that people Obama knows (but clearly doesn't share the same viewpoint of which he has had to say over and over and over and over) throws out biggoted or hateful things. You have them on all sides. Hillary's got her people (Ferraro and others) coming out with biggoted and hateful statements and you've got John McCain's people (Cunningham and others) coming out with their biggoted and hateful statements and they too have had to distance themselves. Unfortunately they die away quickly but Obama has to keep repeating himself on the same story. I have a good relationship with my minister, but it doesn't mean I agree with everything he says and if he said terrible things just because I have a good relationship with him doesn't mean I agree with him. - Just get tired of Obama having to repeat the same things over and over. Kind of reminds me of the line in a movie I heard once. "I don't know how many different ways I can tell you the same story." - and - "Have IQ's just dropped sharply since I've been away".
It's true we are not going to be able to change a true biggot. Some people will just not vote for him because he's part black, just like some other people will also not vote for Hillary because she's a woman. I just hope there are enough good Americans to overcome that and do the right thing (at least what I believe is the right thing). But it is getting tiring listening to the opponents stir up a bunch of hateful things trying to get the people to vote against him and time and time again I read this board and will read the same comments over and over "did you hear what Obama's minister said". It's like listening to a broken record and I always think - they're not actually bring this up again???
I believe our country needs a lot of healing. We've got a long way to go on the racial issues/hatred towards one race or another. We've got to try to make amends with the people who we fear and call our enemies, when in fact the people we should be fearing is our own government. We've put years and years into believing our government is going to be truthful with us, but when you have a VP who says "so" when he is told that 2/3 of Americans don't believe in the war and feel we should have not gone to war (DH and I sat with our mouths open), those are the people I consider terro**rists by putting fear in the American people's mind where there should be no fear.
So for that and all the reasons I listed above that is why I'm voting for Obama.
He is NOT my president ...
I didn't vote for him .. Another thing, I will NOT vote for McBush (errr ... McCain). I was a Hilary fan all the way until she couldn't get the nomination .. now I'll switch gears to Obama. Frankly, I think I would could do a better job than Bush .. at least I'd use my common sense!! 
This is who we want for President?
When you look at this video (link below), I promise you
> will NOT BELIEVE your eyes and ears. Take a look at the You
> Tube link below and pass it on. This is a view of John
> McCain that you probably won't see on the Network news.
> If it weren't serious, it would be hilarious.
>
> p;nb sp;
Probably for the best. Once someone becomes President,
it seems like even if they are an excellent choice, they have to use far too much of their time, skill and energy just defending themselves from the other side. No one ever really wins, least of all, US.
Either way, the next president is
only in for one term. McCain will simply be too old and by then health will be a major factor. Obama, on the other hand, simply will not be able to come through with all of his promises due to the current situation with our economy. I do believe if he is elected that many who voted for him will see him for what he truly is, an inexperienced leader who has no clue. His strings are pulled by the extreme left. Either way, we are in for a rough 4 years.
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