Thank you for expressing your support for the impeachment of President Bush. I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter.
"I don't like letters from people like you. Why do I get so many of them?"
On January 20, 2001, George W. Bush, was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States. Since taking office, President Bush's record shows that he is an honest...
Whoa - let me stop you right there. Lies, Lies, and More Lies. That's what the Bush administration has accomplished. He's the furthest a politician can be from honest. His lies and rhetoric is about death and destruction, and spying on the American people. I long for the days of only being lied to about "that woman".
... and humble man who will seek to unite the American people and not divide them along political party, racial, ethnic, or gender lines.
America stands more divided than ever before. Notice he didn't mention religious or sexual preference. There's a reason for the lack of mention. The fundamentalist extremist agenda has taken over and is alienating moderate Christians, and folks from other religions as well as those who claim no affiliation - many of whom, such as myself, are believers. The President and his party have used "wedge" issues to divide Americans in every way based on the most trivial of issues: Flag Burning, Gay Marriage, Illegal Immigration (read: rally the racist base against Mexicans), Pledge of Allegiance, 10 commandments in government buildings, and English as the Official National Language
His vision for the United States is one based upon trusting American families...
Except in the Bedroom, and when we make phone calls, and if you happen to be Muslim, or want to travel by airplane.
...through providing much-needed tax relief for everyone,...
... who happens to be already well-off. If you work at Walmart, you're just screwed. Tax relief is their only tool. What's the saying? "If a hammer is your only tool, then every problem starts to look like a nail."
...empowering [well off]parents with control over their children's education,...
- by further weakening the public school system that MOST of us rely on
...rebuilding our national defense,...
President Bush has DESTROYED our national defense, despite putting us in debt for generations because of his wild liberal spending war efforts. By stretching our troops too thin and using them to do a job that most Americans disapprove of, he's not only failed to support our troops, he's failed to maintain our all-volunteer force. We can shoot million-dollar missiles at mud huts in the desert, but we can't operate our military without good people. Our equipment is in disrepair and morale is at an all-time low. "Rebuilding our national defense?" Give me a break! You have to stop destroying it first.
and protecting and enhancing Medicare and Social Security benefits for our nation's elderly.
With a generous helping of corporate handouts, and the virtual assurance that my generation will never see a dime of what we're paying in.
He has exhibited excellent leadership through crises like the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center and the economic recession.
Where do I even start with this horse-shit? Excellent leadership on September 11th? He sat there and read a book while our nation was under attack, and then spent the rest of the day in hiding. Some think that the administration might have been *behind the attacks* as a political manuever - I'm not willing to go there, but his administration was at least negligent in allowing them to happen. Clinton specifically warned the incoming Bush administration about Bin Laden, but Bush immediately began drawing up plans to invade Iraq, ignoring the Bin Laden and al Qaeida problem.
Also notice there's absolutely no mention here about Hurricane Katrina and Bush's utter lack of "give-a-shit" before and after. Not to mention his rampant cronyism which led to having incompetent people in place in the positions which should have been there to help these folks. Many deaths can be attributed to his negligent lack of response.
I believe that President Bush has and will continue to serve our country well, restore trustworthiness and respect to the Office of the Presidency, and work to ensure that every American has the opportunity to experience the American dream.
By taking more vacations, continuing to break the law by spying on Americans and stopping investigations, exercising unconstitutional monarchical war-powers, blowing off Congressional mandates with "signing statements" that would make our forefathers roll in their graves, and by continuing to embarrass the nation by sophomoric frat-boy goof ups like his recent G8 exploits.
Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. I appreciate having the opportunity to represent you in the U.S. House of Representatives. Please feel free to visit my website (www.house.gov/burgess) or contact me with any future concerns.
Sincerely, Michael C. Burgess, M.D. Member of Congress
"I wish you people would just listen to our sound-bytes on Fox news and quit searching for truth. Keep wasting your time writing letters to me, since I obviously don't have the authority to use my own brain and make decisions on my own, and I hope you forget to vote this November. By the way - did you know that I'm a real doctor?"
The following is a letter received by a constituent after writing to Congressman Michael Burgess, of TX 26th district to express support for impeachment proceedings for President Bush:
Thank you for expressing your support for the impeachment of President Bush. I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter.
On January 20, 2001, George W. Bush, was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States. Since taking office, President Bush's record shows that he is an honest and humble man who will seek to unite the American people and not divide them along political party, racial, ethnic, or gender lines. His vision for the United States is one based upon trusting American families through providing much-needed tax relief for everyone, empowering parents with control over their children's education, rebuilding our national defense, and protecting and enhancing Medicare and Social Security benefits for our nation's elderly. He has exhibited excellent leadership through crises like the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center and the economic recession. I believe that President Bush has and will continue to serve our country well, restore trustworthiness and respect to the Office of the Presidency, and work to ensure that every American has the opportunity to experience the American dream.
Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. I appreciate having the opportunity to represent you in the U.S. House of Representatives. Please feel free to visit my website (www.house.gov/burgess) or contact me with any future concerns.
Sincerely, Michael C. Burgess, M.D. Member of Congress
Unbelievable. Especially in light of the reports that hit the news recently about Bush stonewalling the investigation into his ILLEGAL wiretapping of American citizens in blatant violation of the law. Bush AUTHORIZED security clearances for scores of FBI agents to find out who leaked the existence of the program, but denied clearances to the investigators who would check its legality, claiming "national security" as the reason.
Bush is an A-hole, and Mike Burgess ought to know better than to place himself so close to a president who will go down in history as the worst president ever.
"Stop doing this sh*t" Yahoo's Odd News is reporting President Bush said some interesting things when he thought he was off-microphone:
"See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over,"
Not going to argue with the sentiment. Not as bad as Reagan's infamous remarks about the bombings beginning in 10 minutes.
Technical sh*t Well, it appears that due to some technical difficulties that I don't have time to deal with right now, the North Texas Liberal and Gonzomuckraker's RSS feeds are no longer available on the right hand side of the site with the other news feeds. I assure you this is NOT intentional and is quite frustrating to me. Blogspot.com uses a non-compatible feed format, and the service that was converting them for me has gone down. I'm looking for something else.
Shooting the sh*t I attended Rep. Michael Burgess's town-hall meeting in the beautiful town of Roanoke on Saturday. More interesting than what was said, I think was what was not said. I'll be writing up a full account of the meeting. I'm nearly done, but I want to hold off on releasing it until after his next round of town hall meetings
You may be interested to know that Michael Burgess is a reader of WhosPlayin. I often write stories critical of Burgess's votes, and his seeming disregard for the issues that affect most North Texans. I also recently posted a really awful picture of Burgess wearing a Dunce hat with the GOP symbol on it. Burgess knew who I was, and was hospitable and gracious anyway. We conversed for a few minutes about our mutual ownership of Toyota Priuses, and how they might be modded to get even more fuel economy and less carbon impact.
I'll have pictures and transcripts to share soon. I do encourage all of my readers to attend Rep Burgess's upcoming town halls on July 22nd in Little Elm and Gainesville.
I find it difficult to sleep lately. This despite taking prescription sleep aids, Valerian root, Min-tran, Chaste tree, and Holy Basil each night before bed. I used to take Melatonin as well, and that did the trick, but my doctor recommended me to stop. I think I'm going to have to revisit that.
I think a lot of it has to do with the stress of my job and the stress of having my kids bouncing around the house 7 days a week while school is in recess. The company owns my daytime hours, but the night belongs to me.
I don't really have much of a point to tonight's posting, so I'll just ramble off a few miscellaneous items:
I see that WhosPlayin has now reached a Google PageRank of 2! We've had certain pages on our site with 3's and 4's, but now the main page of the blog has a 2. I'm excited by that. I can tell by my server logs that we do have a steady stream of regular readers. I'm inspired by that and I hope that I don't let you down if I fail to post regularly. Sometimes the inspiration is there, but just can't be put into words.
I read an interesting opinion poll today, published by the Pew Research Center for the People and The Press. Barbara Ann Radnofsky mentioned it in one of her emails today, and I thought the conclusions were quite interesting:
--Americans favor the Democratic candidate in their district, by a 51% to 39% margin --the level of enthusiasm about voting among Democrats is unusually high, and is atypically low among Republicans --Public anger with Congress continues to rise, and anti-incumbent sentiment has reached new highs --The heightened Democratic enthusiasm is particularly notable among liberal Democrats, 53% of whom are more interested in voting this year than usual --The partisan gap in enthusiasm is even visible among independents --Frustration with incumbents is high even among GOP voters, 43% of whom say that most members do not deserve reelection -- Fully 38% say their vote this fall is a vote against George W. Bush. This is up from 15% four years ago, and is far more than ever measured during the Reagan administration, the presidency of Bush's father, or the Clinton administration. --Education, the economy, health care, Social Security, Iraq, and terrorism rank as the most important issues for voters this year --Government surveillance programs, the inheritance tax, abortion, global warming, and gay marriage rank as much less important priorities, with gay marriage in particular mentioned by only one-third of voters (34%) as very important to them. About as many (33%) say the issue of gay marriage is "not at all important."
What in the hell is the deal with Israel? I know they have a complicated existence, but they don't make things better for themselves by flying off the handle and terrorizing (yes, I said terrorizing) their neighboring nations in response to terrorism. The Israeli government is acting right now like that jack-ass buddy of yours who likes to get drunk and start fights when everyone else is just trying to enjoy happy hour. Ol' buddy Uncle Sam is about sick of it. With friends like this, well... uh... I guess more death and destruction can follow. The instability in the region is driving up oil prices even further, and I'm afraid will lead to one or more countries in the area being vaporized by a nuclear (Note to GWB: It's pronounced Nu-clee-urr) weapon. I hope it doesn't have "Made in Texas" stamped on it. (You know they're manufactured here, right?)
Speaking of high oil prices...($77.03 on Friday) I wanted to mention that I need to write a review of my new 2006 Toyota Prius. We do product reviews here, but the standard is that unless we're ridiculing some stupid product you'd never buy, you have to have used it for awhile and know what you're talking about. Having just made my first $583 payment, and put a thousand miles on it, I think I can now speak intelligently. I'll write more later, but here are the basics:
1. I love this car. It was expensive, but based on current gasoline prices, not economically justifiable. However, I considered it a moral imperative. Not to say that anyone not driving a hybrid is irresponsible. Just that we had the means, and we heard Vice President Gore's messsage in An Inconvenient Truth and took it to heart. I'd always known that global warming was a scientific fact, but figured the causes and cures were a matter of controversy. (They're not.) I didn't realize how bad it was getting until he quantified it. 2. It's really comfortable, and feels somewhat like driving a spacecraft. It starts with a button, not a key, the shifter is different, and the controls for audio and climate are all on a touch-screen LCD display in the center dash that provides real-time fuel economy data as well as a display of whether the engine, motor or both are being used. I'll get some pictures - it's really cool. 3. The fuel economy we've been getting in general definitely is less than the EPA rating, but still twice as good as our van gets down hill with a tail wind. We've been getting anywhere from 39 to 44 MPG, but of course this is Texas, and you have to have the AC on full blast, so I think that accounts for some of the drop.
I'll write more and post some photos in a full review when I get time. I'd encourage anyone who wants to drive one to go to your Toyota dealership and do so.
I received your news email today. One thing that bothered me was you comments in regard to our prison camp in Guantanamo. I believe you and your staff need to look into this, you could just be wrong in regards to who is being held there.
According to the “REPORT ON GUANTANAMO DETAINEES A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data” completed in the spring of 2005 the following data was found:
1. Fifty-five percent (55%) of the detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies.
2. Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban.
3. The Government has detained numerous persons based on mere affiliations with a large number of groups that in fact, are not on the Department of Homeland Security terrorist watch list. Moreover, the nexus between such a detainee and such organizations varies considerably. Eight percent are detained because they are deemed “fighters for;” 30% considered “members of;” a large majority – 60% -- are detained merely because they are “associated with” a group or groups the Government asserts are terrorist organizations. For 2% of the prisoners their nexus to any terrorist group is unidentified.
4. Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody. This 86% of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.
5. Finally, the population of persons deemed not to be enemy combatants – mostly Uighers – are in fact accused of more serious allegations than a great many persons still deemed to be enemy combatants.
This report was compiled by the Seton Hall University School of Law. I am sure your staff can obtain a complete copy.
Yes, we should be saddened by this illegal prison camp in Cuba.
The fact that you're able to read this blog right now is a testament to the empowering and egalitarian nature of the Internet as we know it today. Unfortunately, after intense lobbying and campaign contributions from the Telecom and Cable industries, who would like to put in a pay-for-play system, it appears likely now that both the Senate and the House will pass a Telecommunications bill that doesn't preserve Net Neutrality.
I thought I would use this forum to list candidates who DO SUPPORT NETWORK NEUTRALITY. If the issue means something to you, do two things: 1. Call up your Representative and your Senator and DEMAND they support Network Neutrality. 2. Vote for these candidates in November, who have publicly stated and pledged that they will vote for network neutrality:
What the hell does this have to do with the ten commandments, you might ask? Well, aside from the fact that both issues are non-sequiter non-issues thrown out there to distract a populus that the Repugnicans think are stupid, they really do fit. How does the KKK fit into this?
Well first, let me list the ten commandments, since the Republicans don't seem to have a full grasp of them:
From Exodus 20:1-17 Then God spoke all these words: saying: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
OK, note the stuff I've bolded. This is mostly the religious stuff that crosses the line between civil law and religious law - the stuff that gets the ACLU riled up. The stuff that the Fundamentalist Wingnuts want to hoist on us all. Yet, I ask you, what is a more graven image than the flag itself? It is practically worshiped by these folks. How is it possible to "desecrate" something that is not "sacred"?
Click the flag to read "The Blasphemy of Flag Worship" by David Morris of Alternet.
The flag of the United States is the symbol of our nation, and stands mostly for the very liberties that have made this nation great. Though I can't imagine being pissed off enough to burn the flag, I support the 1st amendment to the constitution, and the Supreme Court's 1989 decision (Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397) that flag burning is protected free speech.
For those of you who don't know the first amendment, here it is:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Here's where the KKK comes into this: What I find very ironic is that although cross burning is also a protected form of free speech, the Republicans have not chose this even more offensive action for a constitutional amendment. Why do you think that is? I mean, they're burning a cross - the very symbol of the religion that the fundamentalist wing nuts want us all to submit to.
I'll tell you why: 1. Republicans need the racist vote. (They deny it, but witness the recent "immigration debate" - which is more racist propaganda than substance) 2. Flag burning is much more divisive than cross burning. It works much better at distracting the public.
Lastly, if the hyprocrisy is not apparent enough, have a look at this picture of President George W. Bush, "desecrating" a US Flag with his signature:
Though I personally would not burn a flag as an act of protest - only to retire a worn out one in a ceremonial way, I swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution when I joined the USMC at age 17. I take it seriously to this day, and I think the rest of us should too. If you take offense at someone burning a flag, use your right of free speech and give them a piece of your mind.
As long as the person is burning a flag that they own, not creating a fire hazard or inciting a riot, or doing it to intimidate or endanger others, and is doing so peacefully, they have the right.
The Portland Police riot of 2002 - peaceful demonstrators were sprayed with pepper spray and shot with pepper balls. Some roughed up. Children sprayed with pepper spray. Sick shit - all because President Bush was in town and they were exercising their first amendment rights.
