Patriotism is not blindly following leaders. Patriotism means finding the truth and always questioning, no matter what. What's happening in Iraq belongs to the Bush administration. No presidential administration will ever come close to this one, but that won't stop neoconservative historians from whitewashing history. I strongly encourage you to watch Bush's War on Frontline. Know the truth behind this war, and understand that the Bush administration will not fix this problem. The Bush administration will pass this trillion-dollar quagmire onto the next president, and there will be no easy solution.

Try to count how many laws were broken. Count how many lies were told, how little planning went into the post-invasion, how little intelligence there was. Learn from this. 

 

Click here to watch Bush's War on Frontline. 

 

Congratulations, Wisconsin, on choosing Barack Obama. It's good to see that Hillary Clinton's recent populist rhetoric isn't sucking too many people in ...

Don't get me wrong, though. Clinton is definitely not a bad candidate, but her insistence that she's an economic populist is an entirely new thing, and it's beginning to show. No matter who wins, it'll be easy to support either candidate against John McCain. Speaking of which, why don't we take a look at some homework readings for the weekend?

John McCain's lobbyist connections -- In case you haven't noticed, there's a lot of brew-ha-ha regarding McCain's cozy connections with one very pretty lobbyist, as well as others. When even HIS aides are getting nervous, there's definitely some substance to the story. Don't be fooled by Fox News ... McCain's lobbyist connections have existed for a long, long time. Whether more evidence surfaces or not ... we'll see. Keep an open mind.

Rick Renzi (R-AZ) indicted --  Yes, he does have connections to John McCain. Muckraker has more.

"A Trade Transformation" by David Sirota -- Read about Hillary Clinton's history on NAFTA.

 Turkish Troops in Iraq -- Following Kurdish separatist rebels, and of course this is making things a little sketchy in northern Iraq.

Al-Sadr will extend his ceasefire -- Do you still honestly think the "Surge" quelled the violence in Baghdad? Or was it the fact that the leader of the largest militia in the country called for a ceasefire? He's now calling for an extension to the ceasefire, which will make the "Surge" look even more successful. By the way, for those of you who remember Bush saying there was going to be a troop drawdown, that's not happening anymore, either.
 

 

 

 

While you're whittling away the day with your various chores, here's something to think about: How many tax cuts have been passed since the Reagan era?

The answer: None. Because cutting taxes on a budget deficit means the government is simply borrowing money to give back to us. Which means tax cuts are actually tax "Deferments." Every time Congress cuts taxes without balancing the budget, all that money piles onto the national deficit, which will eventually be paid by us at a later date or our children.

The same goes with the Iraq war. We can fight there as long as Bush wants, but the money will eventually come out of our pockets. He is the only president to have ever cut taxes during a time of war, skyrocketing the deficit further in order to deceive the public into believe our current economic system is still "OK." It's not. And when the security bubble pops (i.e. the military industrial complex), things are only going to get worse. And THEN while we're trying to figure out how to pay off our personal debts, the government is going to need help paying off the national debt.

And then what will it do? "Cut" taxes again to increase spending?
 

What's the point in having a Congress at all when President Bush makes signing statements on every single piece of legislation that crosses his desk? Let me explain in further detail for you with the help of Constitutional scholar John W. Dean:
 
"Suppose a new law requires the President to act in a certain manner - for instance, to report to Congress on how he is dealing with terrorism. Bush's signing statement will flat out reject the law, and state that he will construe the law "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

The upshot? It is as if no law had been passed on the matter at all."

 This is especially troubling when it comes to torture, which you should definitely be upset about.

But most importantly, this has a giant impact on the occupation of Iraq. Bush's most recent signing statement suggests he might consider putting permanent bases inside Iraq in the future, suggesting he has absolutely NO INTEREST in bringing our troops home anytime soon, or ending this war. This is the same president who talked extensively about not "passing the buck" to the next president, and yet what we have now is an absolute quagmire and another state--Afghanistan--teetering on the brink, economic instability and a slew of other problems that the next president will have to tackle.

I say this with absolute confidence: The president is an authoritarian. He is a monarch. He does not care what laws Congress passes, because he will simply sidestep them when needed.

Click here to contact Gwen Moore, our representative. Tell her that she should focus on bringing this into the public light. Tell her this issue is important.

 
Want to learn more about Bush's many, many, many signing statements? Click here.

 

Yours,

 Ken Brosky

 

In honor of our local conservative radio hosts, I thought I would pass along this little story that I originally found on Media Matters. Read it, because I'll comment more below:

 "A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN"

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.

The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
 

Obviously, it's a little one-sided. That's the point. But what interested me more were the responses by conservatives to this particular post. Some argued that, obviously, it was one-sided and typical liberal junk. Another person--much to the joy of the conservative bloggers--attempted to create a conservative-friendly version called "Joe Democrat." The problem is the story didn't work in the same way. Rather than show how Joe Democrat's life has been made better by Conservative-based "Free Market" policies, instead it's based almost entirely on myths and hearsay, the typical fodder that "Joe Republican" makes a point of using for satire. Phrases like "post-traumatic slavery disorder" and suggesting inner-city students are capable only when it comes to fitting on condoms.

Some of the arguments aren't even plausible! Besides outright inaccuracies applied to liberals that could just as easily be applied to conservative politicians, he suggest liberals are behind the classification of alcohol as a disease (they're actually called scientists, in this case). Rural electrification is considered evil in this case, since Joe Democrat's life was easier when he was "living off the land." A lot of this is based on the classic privileged white man's concept of freedom, and how much of it the big bad government takes. But how free, truly, we rural citizens when private power companies refused to provide them with electricity because it wasn't profitable? Something for another time, perhaps.

Almost all of the arguments are based on stereotypes, some proven entirely wrong, some barely credible even in this form. "Joe Democract" even manages to outright slander John Kerry's war record (Kerry served in the Navy for four years, hardly the type of behavior from a "draft dodger"). But the point is that this rebuttal offers relatively no examples of how conservative ideology has helped the average American. Because most of the time they don't. But the Republican Party can't say that, because then it would never win elections. So it relies on rallying its supporters with cries of "freedom!" and convincing regular Joe's that the government is evil.

 

Yours,

Ken Brosky