This is what makes America weak

Here we are, a full year after one of the most horrible politically motivated shootings in recent history, and we have a liberal, dedicated congresswoman moving forward.
And a conservative victim who was widowed in the attack acting like an ass.

Reading today: "A year after the Tucson shootings that left six dead and 13 injured, one of the survivors has strong feelings about the incident and congresswoman and her astronaut husband Mark Kelly.
That feeling is best described as nausea.
"Every time I see them on TV," George Morris, 77, told the Arizona Republic, "it makes me want to vomit."
Morris, a self-described "ultra-conservative," initially went to Giffords' town hall meeting outside the grocery store in Tucson on Jan. 8, 2011, to complain to his congresswoman, who he says kept voting for liberal causes.
However, before Morris had a chance to speak a gunman later identified as Jared Lee Loughner began shooting. Morris' wife, Dorothy, 76, was one of those killed in the rampage, and Morris was hit in the legs and back. Giffords was shot in the head.

He was angry at Giffords' job performance before the shooting, but now Morris is more convinced that she should be removed from office immediately, according to MSNBC.com.
"I think she ought to be thrown out of Congress posthaste," he said. "I do not think she is worthy of serving."

Morris, a retired Marine and airline pilot, was married for 54 years before his wife's death. The two met while they were juniors in high school.
But while he told the Arizona Republic that "no man has ever loved a woman more than I loved my wife," he didn't always agree with her.
"If my wife had a fault, it was she was too concerned about how other people would feel," said Morris, who felt so strongly about his political beliefs that he refused an invitation to have President Barack Obama visit him in his hospital room in the days following the shootings."

The shooting is described by Wikipedia HERE

The incident killed 9 people including a child. The shooter deliberately stalked the group determined to kill the Congresswoman. Yet, this poor man believes that it's the liberals fault... you know, the people who encourage gun control, demand that the mentally ill be treated rather than free to roam, who want more money to pay for health care crisis's like when this exact kind of thing happens. And this man thinks his dead wife's concern for others was a FAULT.

Isn't that pathetic?
How much hate and vitriol, fear and anger can a nation withstand when even those who should understand from first hand loss what their hate creates cannot see?
HOW can normal people advocate violence and link shooting people with political movements and then turn around and say that they don't contribute to the violence?

How can the folks like myself, liberals to the core who believe that we need to take care of everyone, find ANY middle ground with people this greedy, selfish, narrow minded and unChristian?
How can this marine stand himself- His dear wife was probably the most wonderful thing in his life, and he lost someone who was obviously more in tune with why we are on this earth than he is. We are here to care about others.
Without that one thing, then there is NOTHING to stop each of us from just shooting anyone that gets in the way of the things we want, the things we can take, the places we want to be, or the ideologies we want to represent.
After all, if you don't care about others, you are- clinically and medically- a sociopath.

The GOP has spent 20 years now fueling the hate bug, convincing their core that anyone who disagrees with their strange brand of puritanical religion and backwards re-written history that is not worthy to live (and allowing the likes of Ann Coulter and Jeff Beck to SAY THAT out loud) while adding to their base with strange promises of lower taxes but better health care, lower taxes but safer streets, lower taxes but better educational institutions, lower taxes and more jobs but not in this country since every business out there that can has taken the jobs overseas. Permanently.

And there are people so under educated that they listen, and believe.
They believe you can take even more money out of a sluggish system with a dying infrastructure and yet still fix it, and even make improvements.
They also believe that you can make gold from turnips apparently.
And here we are, after all that hate and demanding stupidity creates a murderous rampage, and this bereft marine widower actually wants to INCREASE the hate.

Last year, Sarah Palin’s PAC posted a map with gun cross-hairs over the districts of several Democrats who voted for health care reform, including Giffords. Sarah PAC appears to have taken the page down today, but a screenshot is here:

There is a great liberal biased book written by someone who looked at the incredible hate against Gifford fostered by Sarah Palin and her insane bid for attention called "A Safeway In Arizona". It backs up my feelings that there is no 'mending' to be had in our country.


Sarah Palin, the former vice-Presidential candidate, told voters: "Don't retreat – reload". That's disgusting, and worse, she's still walking around free. She should have been arrested.
Then she had the balls to turn around and post this:

On Facebook she offered her “sincere condolences“:

My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona.

On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.

This is ridiculous. To believe this, or even to claim that there is some room to justify this, is impossible, and anyone who tries is either a moron or a hypocrite and a liar. It's time to stand tall and proud and demand that the nuts either back their big asses up, shut up all together, or go to jail for the equivalent of yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater.
A theater full of gun nuts.

Some people are never going to learn, and so long as they cannot see beyond their own fears, there is no way we can reach out and find common ground. So long as they have fuel for their fears from a right wing that stokes it, we cannot even hope to slow this trend down.
THAT makes America weak. But by upholding the rights of our fellow citizens to speak their mind without threats of violence, arresting those who create the atmosphere of hate, and not backing down when the political opposition strives to shut down the government when we elect our leaders, we show the far off the beam right that they and their nervous angry vicious violent brand of ignorance and greed won't be tolerated by the adults around here.
They either work with everyone else in the class, or they sit in the corner. In jail.

My fellow Americans

I hate to think about the reality of the USA.
On the one hand, there is this movement of humans that can vote who truly believe it is OK to legislate religion- so long as it is THEIR religion, and on the other hand, there is the sad fact that these same people are so insulated from real information that they cannot learn from their mistakes nor take in new facts that might change their opinions.. Like Michel Bachman they would rather run from talking with people and cry rape/wolf (bathroom, ex nun and a lesbian want to talk, she screams and claims held against her will....) than consider that the people who they listen to might be liars with their own agendas.
The third problem? We can't kill them or throw them off the island- they are here, and even if we win this round of arguments, even if we get good presidents, even if the Supreme Court keeps upholding rights, they are here forever, and they will stall us and waste time and money and lie and do everything a spoiled willful child (see reference Karl Rove) does to distract parents from making the best choice. They will drag down Congress so that real laws don't get passed, and they will undermine even the most banal and needed laws if they were introduced by liberals..
They are our worst nightmares, The Never Ending Story of Angry Birds, the wild arsonist in the wheat fields, the nasty wealthy Aunt who uses her money to blackmail everyone in the family into waiting on her hand and foot. They are part of us, and we cannot get away from them any more than Sidney Poitier could escape those chains and get away from Tony Curtis.
Killing them suddenly seems like a great idea hu?
But that is Un-American (which is why Ann the man Coulter proposes it so often).
We are the liberals, the progressives, the forward thinkers and are supposed to be better than that.
Sometimes i just HATE it when I have to be the bigger person. Mom raised me right, but it still rankles.

So what to do, what to do.

These people are truly scum, seriously religiously deranged, and often more than happy to lie and cheat and undermine the Constitution to get what they want. The school yard bullies, our own Eric Cartmans, are impossible to work around or ignore.
They will not wok with us at all- by their own admittance, they find the idea of compromise against their beliefs in a pure and perfect world they both inhabit and create.

President Obama came into power truly thinking that he could forge common ground, could find compromise for the good of all.
These right wingnuts do not CARE about the good of all--or even their own good. They would rather "poison the well" and die right along side their enemies than give in and share. They are the spoiled rotten dirty bastards of history.

So what to do, what to do.

Things are getting worse. They are boiling over. Nice liberals are being shot- and their side does not denounce it, barely gives lip service of a negative nature, and moves along with their bashing. The number of Americans that will vote and give voice is already at a peak, and the ones who DO vote are almost exactly evenly divided about what they want. There are as many of the wingnuts as there are the moral rational liberals that vote. And while we keep cancelling each other out at the polls, their mistakes (judges, laws, school systems, Boy Scout Troops) keep churning along making things worse.
We have a lake polluted beyond repair. With new generations of polluted thinkers being allowed into the ranks of voting adults every day. We cannot educate them about the reality of gay life when they want to kill it on religious grounds, we cannot educate them on the inhuman abuse of personal rights when they refuse to allow abortion for anyone for any reason based on their religious ground, we cannot educate them about religion when the just do NOT CARE and will not even listen- they run away screaming and demand laws to protect them from truth or facts that might disprove their sacred religious beliefs.

So what to do, what to do.

I can see why Europe works so well- they kept those countries small. I propose we do too.
Cut the U.S. into 2 parts and just give the religious wingnuts far right conservatives their own part.
GET RID OF THEM.
Make the GOP illegal in the Free States of America, and refuse to give them our movies, music, books, wine, television, or anything else that takes a creative independent thinker to create.
They can have gun, religion, the current banking system, pollution, jails, and regulated internet, bedrooms, and ovaries.
We will probably have more crime due to our lax beliefs in Zero tolerance and a strong rehabilitation programs-and we will need serious border patrols, because i can guarantee that after living in their own Utopias they will try to come back here and subvert what we have trying to make themselves happy by 'doing it right this time'.... or trying to save us. Or just undermining us so they don't have to watch all the smiling happy people holding hands.
Because when it comes right down too it,they just aren't happy if anyone else is..
It goes against their religion.

The Guilded Age of the USA

Guilded Republicans

They claim to love "American"- what they really love is the idea of the haves and the have nots.
They are the haves- and they want - nay, NEED- a social caste to lord it over, to drive past in big pretty cars and flash their jewelry and laugh about how much smarter they must be than those poor working people with no health care, no savings, no retirement, no owned property, and no rights to ever have anything.

They have been ranting and fuming and HATING the social changes in the USA since the turn of the last century, when Carrie Nation rode on a wave of temperance, Mother Jones unionized the coal miners, and Margaret Sanger dared to tell women they had a right to birth control and not have to spew out babies as the natural end of mandatory church sanctioned relations within their marriages.

They have been angry since the upper 1% of Americans were taxed to spread some of that rolling, dirty, mulching lucre around to pay for the poorest of the poor to have their children in public schools, to give a basic public public library system to anyone who could read, to provide for the poor with public health care and television and radio. The ultra rich of our country, who rake in 95% of ALL THE PROFIT IN THE USA, make up less than 1% of the actual people, but, because money makes money, they can make - nay, practically print- more than most 3d world countries run on. Taxing them at all rankles their greed however. Taking care of others less fortunate is something they think should be voluntary- so long as they aren't the one's volunteering.

Fine. But over the years, they have also decided that the few meager gains the poor got and used to become a middle class are part of the problem. Wisconsin is in the center of just one of hundreds of social movements right now over the determination of their guilded GOP governor to strip the rights of working men and women to collective bargaining, kill their unions, and make sure that every person in their state is a single bargainer against the biggest corporations and cities. He also wants to cut their retirements, strip the gains they have made, and do it all under the lie of 'balanced budget'.

That lie is what has driven every vicious, evil, seriously deviant idea of the GOP since the first parent in the USA had the ability to keep their child out of a workhouse and send them to school after the age of 10. The idea that someone lower than them has some money eats at their sick hearts.
Have you noticed that we NEVER hear about how the budgets should be balanced by bringing MORE money in- but ONLY by taking bread out of the mouths of the working man in America? Why is it that when the cost of doing business goes up- as oil prices go up, land prices go up, labor costs world wide rise- no one ever does what normal working families try desperately to achieve- "MAKE MORE MONEY". Yes, we have to live within our means. And our means includes a few million filthy rich Americans and quite a few million filthy rich corporations with the legal rights of persons who then buy their lawmakers and convince them that the laws should only work for the rich.
The rich not only do not want to pay their fare share, they want the government to SUPPLEMENT them at every damned turn.
Now, no one that makes more than a million a year seems to want to look at the reasoning that states that the US must pay McDonald's corporation to advertise overseas to promote itself, but the US shouldn't pay for the health care needs of our own children.

The filthy rich only see that no matter how much they have, they need more, and they won't pay for it- YOU will.
Lets stop taxing the poor, cutting the middle class, and undermining the rights of those who don't make half a million a year and start doing it to those who do.

Let's Bring Equality back

The initial vote in California last November 8th, 2008, was a lie, a sham, and a farse. Voters in California are notorious for their liberal, well educated voting policies and views- when they are aware of an issue and believe it to be important.

Last year's Presidential elections were important. A nation's future hung in the balance, and we in California were no less worried that the incompetent lackluster leadership of the latter day "Know Nothing" party would drive the country past it's breaking point and leave millions on the streets and in 21st century Hoovervilles while the handful of ultra-hawks and their well paid, well trained parrots finished the rape and pillage of the American coffers, borrowing rather than taxing to pay for their own oil laden masturbatory fantasies and blaming it all on anyone who was not in power and could not defend themselves.

California was, and is, a bastion of tolerance, charity, purpose, liberty, and liberal thinking where most residents truly do not want to impose on their fellow Californian's so long as those same people don't impose upon them.
Californian's are also busy. We have lots to do, carrying the 6th largest economy on EARTH- not the US, but the EARTH, including the heart of the entertainment industry, the US wine industry, the US electronics industry and computer industry and hand held media industry and internet industry. We also contribute such varied things as Almonds, light oils, Non-industrial worked diamonds, and medical needles,catheters and parts. *
We work hard. We also play hard, and have always kept our eyes on the important issues, leading the country in reducing automobile emissions, enacting clean air and water policies, and protecting the environment.

Last November however, Californian's did not understand that a stealth movement by out of state religious zealot agitators had been afoot for months to fuel a religous earthquake with misinformation and midieval threats to a small but incredibly well organized group- the California Mormons. Their goal?
To take a minor proposition that every right thinking human in the state felt was a ridiculous pipe dream, and in the space of several weeks flood the state with messages designed to lead the weak minded to the ballot box with their brains full of mush and the fires of righteousness in their bellies.

While millions of us were working to elect the first Black President and bring some balance and a sense of intelligence back to the White House, the Mormon Church was using their TAX FREE status to influence politics in our state and deny our citizens their fair and equal rights under the guise of "separate but equal".
NO ONE in their right minds believes that separate ever means equal, from our schools in the south to medical access in the midwest to jobs to water fountains. There are haves-- and there are have nots.
We were focused on the needs to stop a war and save young American lives in Iraq instead of the machinations of a religious party who still allow their members to take multiple under age wives against their will and impregnate them in the name of God throughout the American South West.
Our historic California tolerance extended to the foibles and peculiarities of a religious cult that sprang up in the Eastern US a little over 200 years ago complete with it's own "bible" and a belief that God hates dancing and coffee. We thought they were no worse than any other sect- or, in the words of Douglas Adams, "mostly harmless".
Their mother church in the church-state of Utah however, abused the tax status of a church and violated states rights to decide their own fate and used their well attended churches to spread a noxious and vicious belief that marriage was in danger and that children would be defiled should we come to the rational, logical, reasonable, and FAIR decision to finally tear down the emotionally charged vocabulary barrier disallowing gay couples the same rights as everyone else.
It was with this comfortable belief that California was already tolerant and fair that we, the MAJORITY, the folks who do not believe in marrying TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRLS, focused on the larger issues and ignored that evil, fear soaked proposition buried on our ballots until it was too late to rally our numbers and awaken the sleeping voters to the threat towards our progressive and fair marriage rights and their march forward one hard fought victory after another.
We were, to put it sadly, asleep at the switch while the ballot box was being stuffed with lies and stretched truths, fright scenarios and defensive partisan religious fake facts.
I am not surprised that the Church of 'latter day saints' (um... no. Check with the Catholics on who is and isn't a 'Saint') got enough votes to pass this absurd twisted vote through.

With enough money and fear, in 6 months time I can convince the residents of any state in the nation to cut off their own genitals. They will do it to "save their children", to "protect and defend their country" to "stop the abominations" or to "defend their rights", but they will do it.
They will do it gladly, and they will do it as willingly as the residents of Oakland California were when they drank Kool Aid and committed suicide for the Reverend Jim Jones in Ghana, 1978, they will do it with as much surity as Yossele Schumacher's grandfather had when he kidnapped the small child from the childs parents to save his religious soul, with as much burning passion as McCarthy felt when he held the hearings on Un-American Activities, with as much damnation as the American public felt avenging the attack on Pearl Harbor, with as much blind determination as the entire inner Nazi circle had while enacting the 'final solution'.
Human nature loves to have an evil to hyper-focus on, and the religious zealots of nations throughout history have known this, and used it to their own advantage.
Sadly, the voters who DID vote for Prop 8 did not use any logic. What exactly will allowing gay couples to marry do to them?

Nothing. Not one damned thing.

There is no limit on the number of marriages that the state allows per year, so no one is going to be turned away from taking vows due to some quota being filled by happy gay couples.
Having gay people married doesn't change the quality of our air or fill up the car pool lanes any faster. Allowing our fellow Californians their RIGHT to do exactly what any one else can won't bring the wraith of God down on us- many of us not only don't believe in that God (or any God), but our *country* is built upon the belief that NO RELIGIOUS BELIEF shall over ride any other nor shall any one religion dictate the laws of the land to our citizens.
Married gay folks won't change the taste of the shrimp at Monterey Bay, won't make the sun go down any faster in the West, and won't matter a rats ass to anyone but those individual couples safe in their cocoons of love and harmony.
The religious fear mongers- and EVERY religion is full of fear mongers and those preaching hellfire and damnation to ANYONE that challenges their authority- cannot show any of us a single blessed thing that will change for the worse in recognizing marriage as a right of 2 people to enter into.
They cannot make 'unions' as legal as 'marriage', and they cannot show us proof positive that unions are not second class papers without all the legal and equitable rights that the national usage of 'marriage' instantly grants 2 people anywhere in the *world*.
Citizens of California are not demanding that anyone MUST allow marriages in their church-- that *is* for the church itself to decide, and should the righteous voters of our state continue to push the situation, I can see a time when we outlaw marriage itself, at least as a right of the church.

We can legislate that *ALL* unions must be performed at the County Clerks offices of each county to be legal and valid marriages, and whatever the individuals involved wish to do separately, without the blessings of the state, in their own churches before or afterward are their own business, but they will carry NO legal advantages or be acknowledged by any agency of the state.
Yes, you heard me right. You can get married at the clerks office, or you can have some elaborate affair at a church- but still be living in sin without the benefit of a marriage license unless you do it our way.
Yes, we CAN push that vote through.
We WILL make it right for ALL our citizens to share equally and justly in every facet of citizenship that we offer in this state.
Zealots be damned.

California Exports

Don't pull that cherry picking on me-- it's all or nothing.

This is just too adorable to pass up

Jerrymandering polling places in Texas TODAY

I found this post:

http://sensen.livejournal.com/1320788.html#cutid1

And was appalled that this never hit any of the California news stations... another sign that my liberal media was never biased before the bastards of Texas bought as much of it as they could.
The idea that they thought they could discourage voting college kids by making it a HASSLE to get to the polls is irritating as well-- they already force folks to go to CHURCHES if they want to vote (and I think THAT is something that should be illegal as well).





I want all the thuggery and machinations that they Texas money has produced in the last 15 years UNDONE.
Or we give Texas back to Mexico with a huge apology tied around Tom Delay's throat-




tightly.
Want to see more???
Check out this gal too: http://www.nodelay4.us/

Those Bastards Stole Your Freedoms

With Only Democrats dissenting, the Senate caved in again and gave away some more of YOUR rights. YOU have no rights in America- and if you don't stand up for them, you don't deserve them.

THIS from the US Government site:


U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110th Congress - 1st Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On Passage of the Bill (S.1927 as Amended )
Vote Number: 309 Vote Date: August 3, 2007, 09:16 PM
Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Bill Passed
Measure Number: S. 1927
Measure Title: A bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to provide additional procedures for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence information and for other purposes.

Vote Counts: YEAs 60
NAYs 28
Not Voting 12
Vote Summary By Senator Name By Vote Position By Home State

Alphabetical by Senator Name
Akaka (D-HI), Nay
Alexander (R-TN), Not Voting
Allard (R-CO), Yea
Barrasso (R-WY), Yea
Baucus (D-MT), Nay
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Nay
Bingaman (D-NM), Nay
Bond (R-MO), Yea
Boxer (D-CA), Not Voting
Brown (D-OH), Nay
Brownback (R-KS), Yea
Bunning (R-KY), Not Voting
Burr (R-NC), Yea
Byrd (D-WV), Nay
Cantwell (D-WA), Nay
Cardin (D-MD), Nay
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Casey (D-PA), Yea
Chambliss (R-GA), Yea
Clinton (D-NY), Nay
Coburn (R-OK), Yea
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Coleman (R-MN), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Corker (R-TN), Yea
Cornyn (R-TX), Yea
Craig (R-ID), Yea
Crapo (R-ID), Yea
DeMint (R-SC), Yea
Dodd (D-CT), Nay
Dole (R-NC), Yea
Domenici (R-NM), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Not Voting
Durbin (D-IL), Nay
Ensign (R-NV), Yea
Enzi (R-WY), Yea
Feingold (D-WI), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Gregg (R-NH), Not Voting
Hagel (R-NE), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Not Voting
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Isakson (R-GA), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Not Voting
Kennedy (D-MA), Nay
Kerry (D-MA), Not Voting
Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Nay
Kyl (R-AZ), Yea
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay
Leahy (D-VT), Nay
Levin (D-MI), Nay
Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Lott (R-MS), Not Voting
Lugar (R-IN), Not Voting
Martinez (R-FL), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Not Voting
McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Menendez (D-NJ), Nay
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Not Voting
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Obama (D-IL), Nay
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Nay
Reid (D-NV), Nay
Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Salazar (D-CO), Yea
Sanders (I-VT), Nay
Schumer (D-NY), Nay
Sessions (R-AL), Yea
Shelby (R-AL), Yea
Smith (R-OR), Yea
Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Sununu (R-NH), Yea
Tester (D-MT), Nay
Thune (R-SD), Yea
Vitter (R-LA), Yea
Voinovich (R-OH), Yea
Warner (R-VA), Yea
Webb (D-VA), Yea
Whitehouse (D-RI), Nay
Wyden (D-OR), Nay
Vote Summary By Senator Name By Vote Position By Home State

Grouped By Vote Position
YEAs ---60
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
NAYs ---28
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Not Voting - 12
Alexander (R-TN)
Boxer (D-CA)
Bunning (R-KY)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Gregg (R-NH)
Harkin (D-IA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
Murray (D-WA)
Vote Summary By Senator Name By Vote Position By Home State

Grouped by Home State
Alabama: Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shelby (R-AL), Yea
Alaska: Murkowski (R-AK), Yea Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Arizona: Kyl (R-AZ), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Not Voting
Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea
California: Boxer (D-CA), Not Voting Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Colorado: Allard (R-CO), Yea Salazar (D-CO), Yea
Connecticut: Dodd (D-CT), Nay Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea
Delaware: Biden (D-DE), Nay Carper (D-DE), Yea
Florida: Martinez (R-FL), Yea Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Georgia: Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Yea
Hawaii: Akaka (D-HI), Nay Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Idaho: Craig (R-ID), Yea Crapo (R-ID), Yea
Illinois: Durbin (D-IL), Nay Obama (D-IL), Nay
Indiana: Bayh (D-IN), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Not Voting
Iowa: Grassley (R-IA), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Not Voting
Kansas: Brownback (R-KS), Yea Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Kentucky: Bunning (R-KY), Not Voting McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Louisiana: Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Yea
Maine: Collins (R-ME), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Massachusetts: Kennedy (D-MA), Nay Kerry (D-MA), Not Voting
Michigan: Levin (D-MI), Nay Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Minnesota: Coleman (R-MN), Yea Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Mississippi: Cochran (R-MS), Yea Lott (R-MS), Not Voting
Missouri: Bond (R-MO), Yea McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Montana: Baucus (D-MT), Nay Tester (D-MT), Nay
Nebraska: Hagel (R-NE), Yea Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Nevada: Ensign (R-NV), Yea Reid (D-NV), Nay
New Hampshire: Gregg (R-NH), Not Voting Sununu (R-NH), Yea
New Jersey: Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay Menendez (D-NJ), Nay
New Mexico: Bingaman (D-NM), Nay Domenici (R-NM), Yea
New York: Clinton (D-NY), Nay Schumer (D-NY), Nay
North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Yea Dole (R-NC), Yea
North Dakota: Conrad (D-ND), Yea Dorgan (D-ND), Not Voting
Ohio: Brown (D-OH), Nay Voinovich (R-OH), Yea
Oklahoma: Coburn (R-OK), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
Oregon: Smith (R-OR), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Nay
Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Yea Specter (R-PA), Yea
Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Nay Whitehouse (D-RI), Nay
South Carolina: DeMint (R-SC), Yea Graham (R-SC), Yea
South Dakota: Johnson (D-SD), Not Voting Thune (R-SD), Yea
Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Not Voting Corker (R-TN), Yea
Texas: Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Utah: Bennett (R-UT), Yea Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Vermont: Leahy (D-VT), Nay Sanders (I-VT), Nay
Virginia: Warner (R-VA), Yea Webb (D-VA), Yea
Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Nay Murray (D-WA), Not Voting
West Virginia: Byrd (D-WV), Nay Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Wisconsin: Feingold (D-WI), Nay Kohl (D-WI), Nay
Wyoming: Barrasso (R-WY), Yea Enzi (R-WY), Yea

Welcome Back Democracy

The Last 6 years of "the great new America" have been a nightmare of lost freedoms, lies, international bloodshed, more lies, death, huge lies, international embarassment, GIANT lies, and a leader that makes me embarassed to claim to be a homo sapien let alone an American.

Curious George should have stayed in the zoo.

Public Voice of Reason

Olbermann: the beginning of the end of America

Of vital importance- Please pay attention.

Support the Good Guys

There are SO many things wrong with the scoundrels of the GOP that 1,000 bloggers posting 100 times a day could not keep up with the underhanded deliberate dismantling of American values.

I hope to try to point out a few. I hope you get MAD enough to write the buggars and tell them off, and then send some money- hey- a dollar!- to a representative that you SUPPORT.


Social conservatives have a HUGE voice within the GOP. I do not know when Republicans decided that everyone had to screw the same way, at the same time, with the same motivations and reasons.
The belief in God (hu? Who goes there?) apparently makes rational men piss their pants and ignore their "little gray cells".
The next time you hear some allegedly smart GOP yahoo going on about how moral and holy the founding fathers were, please feel free to tell him or her that they are full of shit.
MOST of that august group were pluralists and deists and not the frightened sheep of Christianity that our current leaders would LIKE us uneducated Americans to believe.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no
God. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author
(1743-1826)

WHY do we have so many great quotes like that from Jefferson? Because he was speaking not from a lonely isolated view- but as a man of the people who was speaking the current beliefs.

"We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue than malnutrition."
Alex Comfort

"I won't tell you how to love God. So don't tell us how to love ourselves."
unknown

Join the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, the Free Speech Coalition, and your local church. Then agitate the church.

"Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more
uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right
and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of
men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped
them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always
skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is
based on "I am not too sure."
H.L.Mencken


I have always wanted to believe that there was a higher power up there guiding me. I have begun to reconsider what that says about my own ability to logically reason my way through life and my belief in my OWN brains.


"Holy Christ with a riding crop, does no one have any damn integrity any more?" Mark Morford


Consequently, I have become on of the loud dissenters in America, and rather than being respected for it, have been labeled a traitor by the very people who are trashing the Constitution.

"The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself." ArchibaldMacLeish, poet and librarian (1892-1982)


"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. ... Our problem is that people are obedient all
over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and
stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem."

- Howard Zinn


'No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change ... it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.' 'Atticus, are we going to win it?' 'No, honey.' 'Then why -' Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.' Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird"



"Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches,
no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no
magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and
wonderfully diversified human race." -Jacques Barzun, professor and writer (1907- )



I love quotations, and pointing out small bits of larger issues--- there are other pundits out there that can spend 10,000 words explaining todays atrocities to you. I just want to make you aware, and give a little bit of insight, offer some hope, make you smile, or point you towards other liberal American Patriots that, like yourself, would like to join together and "throw the rascals out".