"Get Out Of Our House!" An Idea Whose Time Has Come!

Some say that the government of this nation is not at all responsive to the people. They say that most politicians are “professional” politicians that are firmly entrenched in “The System” in Washington that causes the Representatives of the people in Congress more interested in how they can be re-elected than how they can do the best for their constituents. This doesn’t make the Representatives necessarily “bad”, but it does lead to people putting their own self-interests over the interests of the people that they represent.

We see this in campaign donations by corporations that have no vested interest in the district the Congressman represents. We see corporations give money to Congressmen that do have an interest in the District. Either way, corporations do not really carry “personhood” and therefore under the First Amendment have no real guarantee of freedom of expression. They would like you to believe that in 1886 there was a dispute between a railroad, and that in that dispute they gained “personhood”, but that is not true, The court actually ruled against the railroad, but from a court reporters notes, they maintained they won the case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Personhood_Debate.

Whether or not you believe that corporations should have “personhood” or not, we can all agree that the money they give to politicians that make a career in the House of Representatives is a clear signal to the American people that many of our Congress people have interests that don’t coincide with the interests of the people they represent. The two-Party system in this country has caused stagnation in legislation that is needed to cure this nation’s problems. The constant partisan in-fighting has caused many good pieces of legislation to die in committees because there is no chance of these bills being passed because of the gridlock of the House. The politicians with their “special interests” won’t let these bills see the light of day.

There is an organization called “Get Out Of Our House” (GOOH pronounced “GO”) that is trying to bring ordinary folks into the House of Representatives and unseat all 435 members of the House. The political partisanship and the ineffectiveness of The House of Representatives in representing ordinary citizens is the reason this group exists. They are being led in part by Tim Cox who was on my radio show www.blogtalkradio/liberalpro.com last night. Tim is a computer engineer who once worked for Dell. He decided that this nation should come up with a different way to choose how the people should be elected to represent their districts. Tim got problem-solvers together and through brainstorming and looking at data across the nation, they decided that the two-party system is just not working.

They now have a website, www.goooh.com where people can join just by giving their e-mail address. Once they have joined they can choose to get involved by filling out a questionnaire and actually submitting their name to run for Congress. They are given 100 questions and the answers will be given to a group of 10 people that belong to GOOH in their district and through elimination based on the answers that they give on the questions, two people will be selected to run. This will happen according to Cox, throughout the 50 States and there will be a fund managed by GOOH to pay for their candidacy. This fund will come from the $100.00 fee given by all that want to run, and by donations from the web. This is an excerpt from their Website:
“Through GOOOH's Candidate Selection Sessions, you and your peers will select the candidate in your district that best represents your district's views. GOOOH will then fund the national election campaigns of all 435 candidates (one from each district) to run against the party politicians competing for each district seat. Because GOOOH is a process for selecting representatives (not an agenda-based party platform), we expect a very liberal candidate to be selected in San Francisco and a very conservative one in Colorado Springs -- but it will be up to the GOOOH members in each district to decide”.

This is one of the most novel ideas that I have ever heard of in my life. Could you imagine what we could accomplish without the Democrats and the Republicans fighting over every piece of legislation? Could you imagine what Congress would look like with ordinary people instead of professional politicians that are beholden to the “special interests”? The great thing about this is that after you fill out the questionnaire on how you will vote on specific issues, is that you are beholden to it. GOOH members are only allowed two terms and must be represent their districts and not their political party. I believe that this is an idea whose time has come. Check out their website and see it for yourself. With a Congressional approval rating of 17%, this Congress may well see this organization as a threat.

That’s the way I see it.

Write Your Congressman. Right.

Every time we see something wrong, every time we have our freedoms compromised, every time we see American youth dying in uniform to protect the wealth and power of the rich, we are told to “write our Congressman”. I have been hearing the same thing, over and over again until the litany is etched upon my very soul. “Write your Congressman”, “sign this petition”, and every organization that asks you to sign this petition to nowhere, at the end of these plaintive calls for help, they ask you to donate to their cause so that they can send out more letters and buy advertising that sends the same message, over and over again, “write your Congressman”.

First of all, I’m not sending a god damned dollar to any group or organization that asks me to “Write my Congressman”. You can write your Congressman until your fingers are bleeding and your tongue is crimson from paper cuts from licking the envelopes but it won’t do any good. You can call these people, write to them, and send a video if that what floats your boat, and it still won’t do any good. These people, in case you haven’t noticed, are not going to do anything! The faster you understand this, the faster we can promote real change in this country. The Democrats have failed us over and over again. If they were a sports team, you can bet that after not winning a game in a decade, that ticket sales would be non-existent. Only the most die hard fans would attend their games yet the Democratic Party continues to sell out to a loyal fan base, meanwhile they continue to throw their games. God forbid we organize a real political party for the liberal/progressives that continue to support a party that want nothing from us but money and votes… but not our input.

I saw Chris Dodd today on “The View”. This is the only candidate that is mainstream that admits the Constitution has been gutted. Let me ask you how this was accomplished? Did the Republicans have every seat in the 109th Congress, or did they do it with full cooperation of The Democratic Party? Yet Americans continue to dutifully head to the polls and vote for the Republican or Democrat that conduct their elections with corporate campaign funds and with the tacit approval of the same people that brought you the Iraq War. Is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Until the American People “get it” they will continue to do just this.

So keep on “Writing your Congressman” and keep on seeing them do just what they wish to do. Listen to the same old tired politicians telling you the same old excuses month after month, year after year. This nation has a gross national product (GNP) of 12.5 Trillion dollars. Sit there on your couch and watch year by year one trillion dollars migrates from the poorest 96 million households to the wealthiest 13 thousand households. The rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer and nobody in Congress does anything about it. It must be our fault that we find it harder and harder to pay our bills.

So the next election, go vote for the corporatist of your choice and when you find that Congress can’t override a veto, or your complaints fall on deaf ears along with a note that says thanks for writing, think of what you read here today. I can see the people wondering why we are still seeing body bags in Iraq in 2013 when the Dem front runners have already told America they have no intention of pulling our troops out. Still we have Progressives supporting Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. Don’t whine and cry when nothing changes. Don’t underestimate the power of those 13,000 thousand households that have a vested interest in seeing this war continue. Don’t blame anyone but yourself when we finally go down that path of war with Iran in our desire to control the resources of the entire Middle East or when we finally prod the Russians and Chinese to go to war with us.

Support your political party of your choice. It doesn’t matter which one, there are only two, and they are both right of center. You may as well vote Republican; at least you won’t feel as deceived when they go against everything you believe, better the enemy you know than the one that you don’t. God forbid liberal/progressives break from the herd that is heading for the cliff.

That’s the way I see it.

Congress Proposes that Bush gets a Do-Over and they will Forgive and Forget the Spying on American Citizens

We all know about Watergate and the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon that was brought to light by the media, most notably The Washington Post. We all remember that William Jefferson Clinton was also involved in a scandal with a young White House intern by the name of Monica Lewinsky. In both of these scandals that plagued the Presidencies of these two men, it was the media and the oversight of the Congress that looked into the allegations and eventually found the truth behind the rumors.

It doesn’t matter if you believed that the incidents that caused the media and Congress to investigate and that eventually led to the resignation of Nixon and the Impeachment vote in the House of Bill Clinton were the correct thing to do. What matters is that these scandals along with the laws that were broken were addressed, and action was taken. The very idea that the office the chief executive gives the holder of that office immunity from prosecution if laws were broken was clearly shown to be untrue. The laws that govern the people of this nation also pertain to the individuals that hold the office of President.

Just over seven years later, we find another President that believes his office is immune from prosecution for violations of the law. The difference between Nixon, Clinton and Bush, is that the media put Congress under great pressure to act after the facts of their complicity were uncovered. Almost everyday the media would expose another detail of their complicity in the scandals that they uncovered. There were hundreds of editorials and hundreds of opinions by people in the media demanding that they be prosecuted without regard to their position in the government. Things have changed significantly in the last seven years.

We now have a President that when confronted with allegations that laws have been broken, refuses to comment. When faced with corruption in his administration and allegations that he had deliberately side stepped certain laws that were put in place to safeguard the privacy of American citizens, he refuses to release information to the Congressional Committees that are in place to conduct Congressional oversight of the Executive branch. I am referring to Bush’s decision to ignore the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)court and conduct surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Most people are aware that this administration bypassed certain “procedures” in order to conduct electronic surveillance on American citizens. In this respect, the media did a fair job of reporting the details, but only after months of sitting on the story. In the case of The New York Times, it took them almost two years to break the story after they had possession of the facts in the case. The NYT claimed that it didn’t want to jeopardize an ongoing Federal investigation. You can read about the entire sordid affair that was published on “Counterpunch”; http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn12172005.html. In this article, Risen and Lichtblau's (Times reporters) story comes the shameful disclosure:

“The White House asked the New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.”

It is absolutely amazing that this has still not been resolved even though the story first appeared in December 2005. In fact, the President has been “stonewalling” Congress ever since. Senator Patrick Leahy issued a subpoena to President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Harriet Miers (Consul to the President). This subpoena was issued in June with a date of July 18th for the compliance date. The date was extended to August 20th, but as of this time, the Executive branch has still not responded to the subpoenas. You can read Senator Leahy’s statement about the non-compliance here: http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200708/082007.html
Think about this, thousands of Americans have been put under electronic surveillance by an executive branch that has decided to circumvent the law that was in effect at the time they chose to do this. The media reported on it but certainly it did not take precedence over stories about celebrities and other stories that did not have the kind of implications that this story had.

The President, the Vice President and the White House consul all ignored a Federal Senate subpoena, the same kind of subpoena that forced President Clinton to testify under oath to Congress and which later led to his impeachment for lying under oath about the relations he had with Monica Lewinsky. The threat of subpoenas also led to Richard Nixon’s resignation rather than to testify in front of Congress. Meanwhile, this President openly defies Congress about illegal spying on American citizens and it gets about fifteen minutes in the Mainstream Media. Is there something wrong here?
Yesterday the Democrat-led Congress introduced new legislation regarding the FISA Court. Instead of ordering this President to respond to Senator Leahy’s subpoena, they have done nothing but propose that the Executive branch follow the pervious FISA requirements for electronic surveillance and if he agrees, they will hold him harmless for all the acts that he committed by not following the law in the first place, as long as he admits to what he has done. You can see a synopsis of the legislation here; http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/09/house-introduces-new-fisa-legislation.

Is this a joke? It seems as if the Congress has said lets forget about everything, follow the law and tell us what you did and we’ll forget about it. Where is the media on this? What would they have said if Nixon had a chance for a do-over? Could you imagine? Could you see Congress telling Nixon that if he admits to the break-in at Watergate and promises he won’t do it again, then they will not hold him accountable? Could you imagine the media’s reaction if they told Clinton to leave the girls alone, admit you copped some sex and we won’t prosecute you and stop the impeachment proceedings? The media would be screaming its lungs out! Where is the media now?
In fact where are the all of the Democrats that believe in Congressional oversight? It seems that for all their talk about the Constitution and the rule of law, they are doing nothing. This President has gone completely overboard when it comes to violating the rights of the American citizens and Congress does nothing except propose legislation that lets him off the hook. Meanwhile the Democrats proudly display their Presidential candidates around and tell the American people that we need a change in Washington. That is so true. The biggest and the best change we could possibly see in Washington is for the Congress to do its job. Even today, Congress with a Democratic majority seems to be worse than the Republican Congress that preceded it.

That’s the way I see it. We need volunteers to carry petitions to get The Liberal Party of America on the ballot.

Contempt of Congress; About Time!

I received an e-mail from Congressman John Conyers office today stating that he was going to introduce a bill in the House as soon as the calendar was open. This bill would formerly charge the administration with “Contempt of Congress” for not giving Congress the material on the firings of the Assistant US Attorneys that had been requested last summer. The letter is here:

Dear Timothy,

I wanted to take the opportunity to update you on the status of the contempt of Congress resolution in the House of Representatives.

As you may know, the Judiciary Committee passed a resolution before the August recess holding the White House and Harriet Miers in contempt of Congress for their failure to provide documents and appear before the committee as legally required by subpoena.


The information we have received to date from the Justice Department from our U.S. Attorneys investigation indicates the White House played a central role in the firing of the nine federal prosecutors. Yet, the White House has stonewalled and consistently refused to cooperate with inquiries into this matter.

At the heart of our investigation is the evidence uncovered suggesting that the nine U.S. Attorneys were fired for politically-motivated reasons, while others may have been retained because they were pursuing partisan investigations.

We have also discovered that job candidates' political contributions and affiliations were considered in hiring decisions for nonpartisan positions in the Department of Justice. Our job has been made more difficult by apparent misleading testimony from the Attorney General and other Department of Justice officials.

This politicization of our judicial system cannot be tolerated. Our citizens have a right to expect that federal prosecutions will be conducted in a fair and nonpartisan manner.

There are many steps we can take in this confrontation with the White House. Some are more extreme than others. What we must first do is get the facts that show who made these decisions in the White House. Only once we have this evidence can we adequately pursue justice.

What is now required is for the House to pass this contempt of Congress citation and pursue legal action against the White House and Harriet Miers for their failure to meet the requirements of the subpoenas. Hopefully this contempt of Congress resolution will soon have a vote on the floor of the House. I am not prepared to allow this administration to operate above the law.

Thank you for your continued support for a better democracy.

Your Friend,

John Conyers, Jr.

I wrote in my last article “A Most Important Time in American History” that Congress do just this type of work. That this administration could disregard Congress, and refuse the forwarding of material that Congress requested is a crime unto itself. It is about time that our Congress does the oversight work that our Constitution says it should. To do anything else is also against what this nation stands for. Our Judiciary as it pertains to the Attorney Generals office should be completely transparent and dedicated to the rule of law, not partisan and acting on the whims of the executive branch. Now that Congress has said that they will act, it’s time to hold “their feet to the fire” and to make sure that they don’t disregard this blatant act of criminality.

This is how I see it.

A Most Important Time in American History

Bush seems to have realized that he and his war policies are making not only the Democratic leadership in Congress increasingly angry, but that the people of this country have just about had it with him. His nomination of Michael B. Mukasey, a man that is not part of Bush’s inner-circle, is a testament to the fact that he realizes that the Presidency is not the all-encompassing “unitary” branch of government that he once believed it was. It’s about time that this President realized that the executive branch is only one of three equal branches of the Federal government. He should have known that from grade school, but unfortunately Bush was one of those children that were “left behind” that he so often speaks of.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that the Senate would not consider the nomination until the executive branch forwards the documents that the committee subpoenaed. In fact, Senator Leahy wrote a statement to that effect on August 20th of this year. He had said in the past that he would try to issue a “Contempt of Congress” citation to Vice-President Cheney if he failed to deliver documents relating to the NSA’s illegal wiretaps, so far he has yet to make good on that promise. This is the first paragraph of Senator Leahy’s statement:

“Today was the deadline for the Administration to comply with the Judiciary Committee’s subpoenas for documents related to the legal justifications for and President’s authorization of the warrantless wiretapping program. The Administration failed to adequately comply, despite our granting an extension of more than a month past the original return date. The Administration has produced no documents, no adequate basis for noncompliance, no privilege claims, and no complete privilege log.”
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200708/082007.html

So why haven’t we seen contempt of Congress citations issued to the executive branch? It has almost been a full month since the administration failed to meet the deadline imposed by the Senate. On his own website, the Senator has this statement; “Sen. Leahy, therefore, has no hesitation in condemning the President for secretly and systematically violating the law.” Now the Senator states that he will not allow the confirmation of Mukasey to continue until he receives these documents. This is a far cry from the contempt of Congress citation. If he allows the confirmation hearings to move forward, then with all of his bluster and his threats, the good Senator from Vermont will have proved himself to be just another spineless Democrat that has failed to exercise their oversight responsibilities under the United States Constitution.

The time to ease the pressure by the people of the United States has not yet arrived. The demonstration in Washington on the 15th of this month was only a beginning. We have so far, accomplished nothing in the way of reigning in this administration. I sincerely believe that we have caught Bush’s attention, but without a Congress that will do what they have been charged to do under the Constitution, we cannot stop the demonstrations and the public outcry. This could well be the most important few months in the history of this nation. This President, along with his Vice-President, has us on the road to another foreign adventure, this time with Iran. This country can ill-afford another misadventure in the Middle East. We have wasted enough of the taxpayer’s money and needless deaths of our soldiers along with the deaths of a million Iraqi’s on a war predicated on a lie. It is apparent that we cannot trust this administration to tell the American people the truth. How can they expect us to complacently go along with another war based on the same lies that they told us about Iraq? This is just commonsense. It doesn’t take an expert in foreign affairs to understand that Iran poses no significant threat to the people of the United States.

There is a mass rally scheduled for September 29th at Washington DC. If you need more information you can head over to http://www.warresisters.org/demos.htm and check that site out. They have information on bus tickets, housing and events that will take place during the demonstration. They also have flyers and leaflets that you can download and print. This seems to be very well coordinated and they have on their site a number of demonstrations and vigils that you can attend in your home state listed at the site. The group that runs the site is “War Resisters League”.

It is not just the specter of war with Iran that American’s should be concerned about. While it is essential that we don’t attack another nation as we did in Iraq, the threat to America goes much deeper than this. We are seeing “By the People and for the People” become just another quaint axiom that came from another time and means nothing in today’s world. We can’t afford to let that happen. Too many Americans have let the federal government run amok with no congressional oversight and more importantly, with not much input from the American people. This must stop if we want to keep some semblance of democracy. The government works for the people, not the other way around.

This is how I see it.

War's Causualty: The Truth

You’re doing a heck of a job Davie, you too Crock. (“Whisper to the people; “’Ol Crock, he’s a good man, he just doesn’t understand that you have to tell the Iraqi’s what they want to hear, instead of scaring them with negative stuff”, wink, wink, nod, nod).
That “report” was the whole ball of wax. The United States of America is making “progress”. We have been making “progress” for a long time now. I guess you could say we are a “progressive” nation. I guess you could say anything. Most people involved in the decisions of this war have done exactly that, said anything and everything. The amazing part of this is that anything that has been said about our efforts in Iraq has already been said and it hasn’t made any difference at all. This war is what it is and any effort to change the reality of the war makes no difference at all. You can’t change reality by denial, no matter how you package it. Someone should just come out and tell George that “progress” isn’t being made by simply saying so.

Can you believe that I have been reduced to writing about something that any child should have learned as one of his or her first lessons in life? Why do I feel compelled to write this? I imagine that the reason I feel that I should is because it is glaringly obvious that GWB doesn’t understand the difference between reality and fantasy. Reality hasn’t been an icon of the Bush Administration since the beginning, but actually witnessing a four-star General rearranging facts and figures to paint an assessment of an occupation that is tenuous at best, into something it is not, reminds me of old Superman comics and the “Bizarro World” issues.

That small minorities of Americans believe the reports and the propaganda doesn’t surprise me. You will always have those that will defend the President on the principle that he is the President and should have the support of the people. The same goes for those that disagree with him because he is from a different political party than they are. The part of this entire debacle that is unfolding, isn’t the people that agree or disagree with the report, it is the way that the mainstream media gives the statements made by Crocker and Petraeus weight by failing to question their assertions.

Frankly, I am embarrassed by the need to write this. I am embarrassed by this need I feel to actually ask the major news venues why they are treating this “report” as if it were “news”. I am also mystified over the major networks treating this “dog and pony show” as something that has any degree of veracity. This reminds me of the day that Colin Powell committed moral suicide with his Powerpoint Presentation at the United Nations.

Why is it that seemingly intelligent and otherwise moral people will allow themselves to be used by this President? What makes someone whom has spent his or her entire life in public service commit seppuku in plain view of the entire world? Is it all about money? Is it about power or conviction? How could anyone hold the conviction that occupying Iraq is important enough to flush his or her entire life’s work down the toilet? Looking at this from the opposite perspective, could I be so wrong in my opinion that being in Iraq is morally reprehensible and against every moral precedent that we hold dear? I have never seen anything like this. I remember Vietnam as if it were yesterday. The arguments made then were as ridiculous as the ones made today, but even the networks in that time reported both sides. The reporting might have been skewed, but the anti-war side did get more than video clips of arrests.

If this is the case, if we are not being shown both sides of the story, then why are we fighting in Iraq? It can’t possibly be for freedom. If we were a free people we would be getting both sides of the war debate. Bush says we are fighting for our “freedom”. How can we fight for something that we don’t possess? Since the beginning of this “war”, it has been the freedom of American citizens that has been under attack. Since the first plane flew into the WTC, our rights have been steadily taken away from us. What purpose does that serve? The American people seem to be willing accept this, yet we protest the erosion of democracy in Russia and China. Why?

The media outlets, in order to get their license to operate, must devote a portion of their airtime to the “public good”. This was at one time strictly enforced. I believe that it should be enforced again. Time should be given to the anti-war movement. The MSM is not giving both sides of the argument. The American people should also start paying attention. If people ran a business like they run this country, they would be filing for bankruptcy.

The General and the Ambassador should be ashamed of the things they have told the American people. We are not making “progress”. How can you possibly make progress in an occupation? American forces will occupy Iraq until we decide to end the occupation. We are not fighting for their freedom, nor are we fighting for ours. We are there so that we project American power in the Middle East. The rest of the administration’s rhetoric is nonsense.

Until the MSM, politicians, the administration and everyone else starts talking in plain terms about the situation, we will continue to skirt this issue and this needless occupation of a sovereign state will continue. We didn’t “surge” we escalated. We aren’t fighting a “war” we are continuing an occupation. We are not fighting for anyone’s freedom, we are fighting for an American presence in the region. The terrorists are not going to “follow us home”: they are already here. They live in the White House.

This is the way I see it.