Letter to the Editor
Democrats aren't happy with Bush and want him impeached. The voters turn over control to the Democrats because they don't like Bush either. And the Republicans don't like Bush because the lost the election because of him and he's going to ruin their chances in the 2008 elections. But Republicans don't want to impeach Bush and Cheney because Nancy Pelosi would become president.
So here's the compromise. In the lame duck session of Congress they could do a quick bipartisan impeachment before the end of the year. Republican Dennis Hassert would become president for the remaining two years. Not everything the Dems would want but everyone would be a winner. Dennis Hassert isn't the ideal president but he couldn't be worse than Bush/Cheney. When you have interesting problems sometimes it takes innovative solutions.
Letter to the Editor
Here's an innovative way to deal with the Iraq occupation quagmire. Maybe we should tell the Iraqis to get along and form a unified government or we are going to to put Saddam back in power and let him unify Iraq. If given the choice between democracy and having Saddam back maybe they might want to quit fighting among themselves and start thinking about peace. Either way it would bring it to an end. We might want to hold off on executing Saddam and think about this.
Letter to the Editor
Did the Democrats win the election or did the Republicans lose? Is the country moving to the left or right? I think the true winners of the election were the People. The People voted for reality and against failure. The People are sending the Government a message that we want real results in the real world. We aren't going to take failure and corruption anymore.
If the Democrats are going to hold power they are going to have to take Congress in a new direction. They need to resist taking bribes from the special interests and start producing results for the People. Same message to the Republicans. Republicans have to work with the Democrats and run on a record of accomplishment and make a clean break with their corrupt past. Any elected official who does not get the People's message will have to face the voters in 2008. In 2008 they better be arguing about how to spend the surplus and not who is to blame for the deficit. If Congress comes up empty handed they will face the meat grinder as the voters give them the boot.
Letter to the Editor
How bad have the Republicans screwed up lately? Well - when Rush Limbaugh can no longer take it and declares himself as being "full of crap", you know things are in bad shape. Of Republicans Rush declares, "The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I'm going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried." The very concept that Rush has been liberated fascinates me. I think I'm ready to start tuning in. And hey Rush, thanks for the Senate and carrying OUR water. You ROCK!
Letter to the Editor
Liberals put down Rush Limbaugh but they should give credit where credit is due. If not for Rush Limbaugh mocking Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease Claire McCaskill would never have won her senate race in Missouri. And if not for that win the Democrats wouldn't control the Senate. So in behalf of all us liberals Rush, I want to say to you, "Thank you Rush for giving us San Francisco liberals control of the Senate!" Congratulations on being liberated!
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Rush says he's now "Liberated". Does that make him a Liberal? Enjoy your Liberty Rush. I sure am!
Tell us something we don't already know! Rush admitted today that he was full of crap, seriously!
The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I'm going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, "Well, why have you been doing it?" Because the stakes are high! Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country's than the Democrat [sic] Party does and liberalism.
What Rush doesn't get is that he is a liar and only morons listen to him that think that if they just believe hard enough that reality is going to magically change to suit them. But it's all so much bullshit. Just like Mark Foley was supposed be in charge of exploited children. Just like Rev. Ted Haggard who preached hatred of gays was caught having sex with a gay hooker while high on Meth.
BTW Rush - thanks for helping Claire McCaskil win in Missouri. The Deomcrats wouldn't have the Senate without you!
Letter to the Editor
After having turned its back on reality for the last six years America has decided to come home and rejoin the real world again. After years of failure and illusion the voters got tired of the corruption, the lies, the daily body count, a war going no where, deficit spending, torture, domestic spying, and incompetence. Now that the Democrats have won reality has made a comeback. We will see if Democrats embrace reality and Republicans embrace their new reality and maybe they will both realize that when Congress gets too far off course that the American voter will rise up, smack them down, and put them in their place.
Bill Mahur, "Republicans wanted to vote a straight ticket. There just wasn't enough straight Republicans to vote for."
At least I have the illusion of voting. Lat election we had optical scan pater ballots where you connected lines on a paper ballot and fed them into a machine that scanned the ballot and stored it securely. I'm in San Mateo county in California. Poll location is:
Bethany Presbyterian Church
Church Hall
2400 Rosewood Dr
San Bruno, CA
But this time it was different. There were paper ballots but no optical scan machine and a single electronic voting machine that was out in the open and had a person - an old lady - helping to work it for you. In front of the machine was an old lady voting who was totally confused and complaining that she didn't understand how to work it.
The paper ballot seemed simple enough but after voting I was supposed to drop it in a plastic unsecured box that anyone can open and replace the ballots with whatever they want.
I used to live in Missouri and they had punch paper ballots. After voting you dropped the ballot into a big steel box with a lock on it. That at least gives you the illusion that it was sealed until it made it to the county clerk's office where it would be opened. But today I have no idea who might remove my ballot and replace it with something else. Although the old ladies at the polls don't look like crooks I have no idea who will pick up the ballots and if they can be trusted.
I live in a Democrat area so I'm not that worried about republicans but there are several ballot measures that include massive spending and borrowing that would benefit local officials. I don't know that they might rig the election to pass those measures.
Is it too much to ask that a paper ballot be put into a locked box? I don't think so. An insecure election is an unfair election and voting on an insecure machine is not voting at all.
One of the reason we need to oust the Republicans is to get a ban on cluster bombs like the ones used in Lebanon. If you are tired of your tax dollars going to fund murdering children then vote Democrat.
Here's The Article
GENEVA - The international Red Cross demanded Monday that the world immediately stop using cluster bombs because the indiscriminate civilian deaths caused by the weapons far outweigh any possible military advantages.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was stepping up its campaign against the weapons because of Israel's unprecedented use of the scattershot bombs during its monthlong war with Lebanon, the first major organization to do so since the fighting this summer. Russia and the United States also have resisted moves to eliminate the weapons.
"The problems associated with cluster munitions are not new," said Philip Spoerri, director of international law for the ICRC, guardian of the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war. "In nearly every conflict in which they have been used, significant numbers of cluster munitions have failed to detonate as intended and have instead left a long-term and deadly legacy of contamination."
The U.N. Children's Fund has so far only called for "a freeze on the use, transfer and sale of the weapons," spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said.
Annan statement
However, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to issue a statement Tuesday to countries meeting in Geneva to discuss reducing conventional weapons stockpiles. Officials declined to say whether Annan would map out a new policy for the global body.
Cluster bomb projectiles — or submunitions about the size of an orange or a soft-drink can — are packed into artillery shells or bombs dropped from aircraft. A single cluster-bomb container fired to destroy airfields or tanks and soldiers typically scatters some 200 to 600 of the explosives over an area the size of a football field.
Human rights groups have estimated that Israel dropped cluster bombs containing as many as 4 million tiny bombs in Lebanon. Around 30 to 40 percent of the submunitions failed to explode on impact, U.N. officials have said.
Usually 10 to 15 percent — but in some cases up to 80 percent — of the devices fail to explode immediately. Those that do not explode right away may detonate later at the slightest disturbance, experts say. The impact on children is especially bad because the tiny bombs are usually an eye-catching yellow with little parachutes attached.
Lebanese casualties said to continue
Spoerri said the small bombs were continuing to kill innocent Lebanese civilians every week. Much of the suffering, he added, could have been avoided had more accurate weapons been chosen.
"It is simply unacceptable that (civilians) should return to homes and fields littered with explosive debris," he said. "The ICRC believes that the time has come for strong international action to end the predicable pattern of human tragedy associated with cluster munitions."
The neutral agency previously called for a ban on the weapons’ being used in cities and villages after gauging the effects of the 1999 NATO air war against Serbia over the separatist province of Kosovo. Its call in 2000 for a moratorium on their general use has since been ignored by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Complicating the problem is the growing risk that militant groups pose. Human Rights Watch also has cited cluster bomb use by Hezbollah against targets in northern Israel, spurring fears that the weapons are becoming more easily accessible for rogue militias and terrorists.
The bombs, a descendant of the "butterfly bomb" dropped by Nazi Germany on Britain in World War II, were first used by the U.S. in Vietnam. Similar weapons were used by Soviet and Russian troops in Angola, Afghanistan and Chechnya, where leftover duds also continue to inflict casualties.
The use of such weapons is not explicitly banned under international law, but an increasing number of human rights groups think it should be.
Letter to the Editor
After you vote you might want to visit the gas station on your way back from the polls. I don't want to accuse the Republicans and the oil companies of conspiring to drop gas prices to help Republicans, but I just have this feeling that gas is going to be a better deal now than it will be after the elections.
Watching MsNBC runnin stories about how the Republicans are closing in. The first story showed only the Pew poll putting Republicans only 4 points behind. The second story showed 3 polls but all were the polls showing Republicans making a comeback. And the stories were about Republicans surging.
CNN on the other hand showed all the major polls including their own that has Republicans 20 points behind. They also showed some movement towards Republicans but they didn't go out of their way to distort the story the way MsNBC did.
Polls are going to show a shift towards Republicans because in spite of the coverage the voting achines are rigged to favor Republicans and these late poll shifts are to provie cover for voter fraud. The only thing Republicans have left is the cheating. But it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
Still waiting for Bush to find an excuse to suspend elections.
Letter to the Editor
Saddam Hussein was convicted today and sentenced to hang but you won't see Republicans cheering about it. That's because Saddam's conviction draws attention to the fact that Iraq is worse off now than it was under a brutal dictator. No one is bring out the "Mission Accomplished" banner this time.
Letter to the Editor
When it comes down to it this election comes down to turnout. It's about who wants it more. If people who want a higher minimum wage shows up to vote they will get it. If Black people turn out then life will get better for black people. If students turn out then Congress with pass laws helping the afford college. If old people turn out then they won't lose their social security. If military families turn out then maybe less of your family members will be needlessly killed in Iraq. If the people who want peace turn out then we will have peace. But if you stay home and you don't vote then the other side wins. Victory is at hand and all you have to do is get out and vote to make it happen.
Letter to the Editor
When it comes to a choice between Democrats and Republicans the question is, are you better off than you were 6 years ago? The Republicans have given Bush the power of a king so this election is really about Bush and Iraq. Are going to stay the course in Iraq or are we going to figure out a solution. Bush says the "our plan is to win" but what he doesn't understand is that winning is a goal, not a plan. Everyone wants to win, but Bush has no plan as to HOW to win. This election is about the future and the Democrats are the light at the end of the tunnel.