Common Sense Democracy

News travels fast, so I’m sure everyone has already heard, but it’s worth repeating. House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, was indicted by a Texas grand jury on charges of criminal conspiracy. DeLay was indicted along with two other political associates. I briefly discussed these allegations awhile back. At that time most people thought it was just liberal democrats posturing and changing the subject.

Now I’m sure everyone will stomp up and down and say “hey, people are innocent until proven guilty”. Yeah, true but nobody was saying that when President Clinton was going down in flames. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

Power corrupts… absolute power corrupts absolutely.

House Republican rules require DeLay to give up his leadership post because of the indictment.

Read more at:
MSNBC.com
Political Animal – Delay Update
Yahoo! News – Indicted DeLay leaves House leadership post

Technorati Tags: Tom+DeLay, House+Majority+Leader, Republicans, Democrats, DeLay, House+of+Representatives, Corruption, political+corruption

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I have no idea why the media would post this image. It’s very creepy. Are they trying to convey a certain image of John Roberts to us?

Technorati Tags: John+Roberts, Chief+Justice

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I’m just passing on an open letter Michael Moore (the film director) wrote today to all those who voted for George Bush. Regardless of what your personal feelings are for Michael Moore or for George Bush for that matter, his thoughts and comments are valid. His perspective may be one sided but his statements are still true and accurate none-the-less.

Take a few minutes and read the letter A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush from Michael Moore.

Technorati Tags: Michael+Moore, George+Bush, President+Bush, 9-11, FEMA, terrorism

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Governor Schwarzenegger is slated to veto the recent law that passed in California legalizing same-sex marriage. Via Political Animal:

In a careful statement, Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson invoked the voter approval in March 2000 of Proposition 22, which said: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

“The governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action — which would be unconstitutional — but by court decision or another vote of the people of our state,” the statement said. “We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote.”

….The California Supreme Court is likely to decide next year whether Proposition 22 and other state laws that define marriage are constitutional.

This is unbelievable. “The Governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action — which would be unconstitutional — but by court decision.” Didn’t we just go through this with Bush and all the republicans saying that activist judges were running rampant over the countries laws?? First they say that activist judges should not be left to interpret and mold the law as they see fit, now they are saying that things should be left up to the courts to decide. What a bunch of crap.

Apparently activist judges are only “activist” when it’s against the republican agenda.

Technorati Tags: CA, gay+marriage, same-sex+marriage, proposition+22, California+Supreme+Court, activist+judges

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This has been spreading around the internet like wild fire. During the President’s visit to the areas destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, he said:

The good news is — and it’s hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

It’s unbelieveable that he would joke around during a visit like this and moreso make some reference to a politician losing one of his several houses as a result of the storm. While Trent Lott losing one of his homes is certainly tragic, there are hundreds of thousands of people homeless now, who had only one home and who neither have the money, insurance nor income to rebuild, much less kick back on the porch and have a tall glass of lemonade with the President and enjoy how much better things are now in their new home.

Bush is completely out of touch.

To draw some historical analogies to Bush’s comment, Ezra Klein, has asked readers to come up with their own humorous take on the President’s comments. Read their submissions at ezraklein.typepad.com.

Technorati Tags: Hurricane+Katrina, Katrina, President+Bush, Trent+Lott, disaster+relief, flood+relief

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The New Orleans mayor is pissed. He said so in a radio interview. And as well he should be. Things in New Orleans are very bad. Every morning I wake up to read the news and it continues to get worse intead of better. George Bush is on his way in the ravaged area to take charge. A Yahoo! News article reports:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blasted the federal government as emotions spilled over in an angry radio interview, saying he was “pissed” at the lack of help the historic city had received.

“I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man,” he said. “Now get off your asses and fix this. Let’s do something and let’s fix the biggest goddam crisis in the history of this country.”

“We authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq, lickety split. After 9/11 we gave the president unauthorized powers, lickety split to help New York and other places,” he said. “You mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through … that we can’t figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need,” said Nagin.

Police have locked themselves in their own headquarters in fear of the looters and shooters.

I’m not in it and I can’t see first hand. Nor am I the Mayor of the city or an emergency services planner, so I can’t just sit here a few thousand miles a way and critique the operation. I can just say how deeply let down I am by what has unfolded. It doesn’t seem possible the the richest nation on earth can completely lose control of one of it’s most famous and charismatic cities. This is the true nature of humanity when it’s starving, thirsty, dying and abandoned without civil rule or law. We all criticize the chaos in the streets of Baghdad and the middle east and we say, “how could those barbaric people treat each other this way and live that way, shooting each other, bombing and looting buildings. How do they get to that point?” Well, this is how. We are watching it first hand.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News.

Technorati Tags: hurricane+katrina, katrina, New+Orleans, Disaster+Relief, flood+relief

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So everyone will say, “Here it comes… the political mud-slinging”. Well, let me say right up front that the horrific catastrophy of Hurricane Katrina is by no means a political issue. It was a natural event and we only have God to question why and how. That being said, I’m paying special attention to how this government and this administration is chosing to explain how we can be left so unprepared for something like this.

How can we invade countries such as Iraq with such extreme precision and meticulous logistics and yet fail to provide adequate planning and support for our own people at home. Am I being too much of a naysayer? I honestly don’t think so. I consider myself pretty objective when it comes to issues of common sense. Seriously, how did the evacuation result in such rediculous conditions? Every single report and prediction about a hurricane of that magnitude hitting New Orleans estimated equally or greater devastation as an almost certainty. Where is the domestic support?

Well I wasn’t too surprised when I ran across this article at Spiegel. Apparently, “In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.” The second most likely disaster was a terrorist attack on New York City. We already know what George Bush did when he took office upon hearing the intelligence reports of a imminent terrorist attack on US soil – nothing. And so it’s not surprising that again, he did nothing to prepare his country for this disaster.

Am I being too hard on GW? Is it back-seat driving? Well maybe I just expect more from our President. Maybe I expect more from our National leadership. Where are the systems in place to keep Americans safe at home? We are spending so much money to secure and rebuild Iraq that we failed to properly fund our own domestic infrastructure.

Nobody can be held accountable for the arrival of the storm, but they most certainly can be for the manner in which they handle, or fail to handle the aftermath.

Read the full story at “No One Can Say they Didn’t See it Coming” – International – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News. [ Via Proceed at your own risk ].

Technorati Tags: FEMA, Hurricane+Katrina, New+Orleans, Katrina, President+Bush

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