Domestic Issues:

 

 

Over the last couple of years, one thing I have noticed is that the push for national healthcare has disappeared from the political discourse. The democrats need to bring this issue back to the top of their campaign platform. Poll after poll shows that healthcare is one of the top issues among voters. This is unsurprising with 46.6 million uninsured Americans according to the 2005 census. With quality and availability of healthcare diminishing while prices soar every year, this is an issue that cannot be ignored.

 

 

America is the only industrialized country that doesn't have universal healthcare. We cannot keep up with the global community if there is a large segment of our citizens being left behind:

 

I don't know that there is any better of an argument for universal healthcare than what is written in these reports. We cannot continue to sit back and watch a segment of our country suffer and slowly die from curable or preventable diseases. If we really want to save lives, then we have got to have healthcare for everyone.

n 1: dominance through threat of punishment and violence [syn: absolutism, tyranny] 2: a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)

From Attytood via C&L:

I don’t know whether an Iraqi photojournalist named Bilal Hussein [..]– a member of the Associated Press team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for its breathtaking pictures of the fighting there — has any connection to the anti-U.S. insurgency there.

Neither does Powerline, Michelle Malkin, or any of the other right-wing bloggers so eager to convict Hussein, who has been held in captivity by the U.S. military for five months now without any charges lodged against him.

But the lack of any criminal charges — let alone much information about what Bilal Hussein did to merit five months behind bars — hasn’t stopped these wingers from convicting him, and the Associated Press along with it, of being a terrorist….read on

Also, see these articles:

NEW YORK -- The US military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.

(AP) In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

This is just one example of the Bush administration's disregard for domestic and international law.  Recently, Bush came out and admitted that there are secret CIA prisons.  You know, the ones that he and his henchmen claimed didn't exist.  But now he has come clean and we are to believe that he has closed these prisons.  But, why would they start telling the truth now?  They wouldn't.

The prisons aren't closed according to this Wapo article:

The prisons "have not been liquidated or closed," said Michael Emerson, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

This is what we have become.  We have become that country.  The most worrisome aspect is not that the government is despotic, corrupt, and verging on totalitarian, but the fact that there are so many citizens here that are willingly going along for the ride.  Or worse, they equate the president and his policies with the country itself.  The mentality of, "if you are against the leader, then you are against the country" is the mentality of dictatorships, not democracies.  Bush didn't need to overthrow the government and install a dictatorship, he just needed to convince the people of this country that his version of democracy (read:dictatorship) is democracy. 

 

 

"WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In a letter to Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee released publicly today, 29 retired military leaders urged Congress to reject a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that would redefine Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions so as to downgrade the Conventions' standards for humane treatment.

In a separate letter, addressed to Senator John McCain, former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Vessey, said: "If such legislation is being considered, I fear that it may weaken America in two respects. First, it would undermine the moral basis which has generally guided our conduct in war throughout our history. Second, it could give opponents a legal argument for the mistreatment of Americans being held prisoner in times of war." Read the full letter.

The letter signed by 29 former military leaders also urged Congress to make the safety and protection of U.S. troops, should they become prisoners, the highest priority.

"This is not just a theoretical concern," the letter signed by General John Shalikashvili, General Joseph Hoar and others, said. "We have people deployed right now in theaters where Common Article 3 is the only source of legal protection should they be captured. If we allow that standard to be eroded, we put their safety at greater risk."

The letter concluded: "We believe -- and the United States has always asserted -- that a broad interpretation of Common Article 3 is vital to the safety of U.S. personnel. But the Administration's bill would put us on the opposite side of that argument. We urge you to consider the impact that redefining Common Article 3 would have on Americans who put their lives at risk in defense of our Nation. We believe their interests, and their safety and protection should they become prisoners, should be your highest priority as you address this issue.""

The full letter is available at http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06913-etn-military-let-ca3.pdf

The letter was signed by:

General Joseph Hoar, USMC (Ret.)

General John Shalikashvili, USA (Ret.)

Admiral Stansfield Turner, USN (Ret.)

Lieutenant General Robert G. Gard, Jr., USA (Ret.)

Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn, USN (Ret.)

Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, USA (Ret.)

Vice Admiral Albert H. Konetzni Jr., USN (Ret.)

Lieutenant General Charles Otstott, USA (Ret.)

Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, USN (Ret.)

Major General John Batiste, USA (Ret.)

Major General Eugene Fox, USA (Ret.)

Major General John L. Fugh, USA (Ret.)

Rear Admiral Don Guter, USN (Ret.)

Major General Fred E. Haynes, USMC (Ret.)

Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, USN (Ret.)

Major General Melvyn Montano, ANG (Ret.)

Major General Gerald T. Sajer, USA (Ret.)

Brigadier General David M. Brahms, USMC (Ret.)

Brigadier General James P. Cullen, USA (Ret.)

Brigadier General Evelyn P. Foote, USA (Ret.)

Brigadier General David R. Irvine, USA (Ret.)

Brigadier General John H. Johns, USA (Ret.)

Brigadier General Richard O'Meara, USA (Ret.)

Brigadier General Murray G. Sagsveen, USA (Ret.)

Brigadier General Anthony Verrengia, USAF (Ret.)

Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, USA (Ret.)

Ambassador Pete Peterson, USAF (Ret.)

Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, USA (Ret.)

Honorable William H. Taft IV

Online: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/etn/2006/alert/259/

http://www.usnewswire.com/"

 

Dear Service member:

  *  To help you request a ballot for the November 7, 2006 election, the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) has launched the new Integrated Voting Alternative Site (IVAS) at http://www.fvap.gov/

  *  Some States allow e-mailing and faxing as an alternative to the postal mail absentee voting process.  Information on the electronic ballot request and delivery alternatives allowed by the 55 States and Territories is available to you and all citizens covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) on this website

  *  We encourage you to use our website, participate in Armed Forces Voters Week, and VOTE in the November 7th election!


                        Polli K. Brunelli
                        Director
                        Federal Voting Assistance Program

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"COLUMBIA, S.C. | Sept. 11, 2006 -- For a college football game day, the South Carolina State Museum in downtown Columbia was a busy place on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 9.

 

On the ground floor, a United States Army brass band commemorated the victims of 9/11. One level up, not far from the museum's permanent Confederate Army exhibit, the state chapter of the League of the South (LOS), a neo-Confederate hate group, hosted a barbeque in honor of Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, head of the House Immigration Reform Caucus and likely contestant in the 2008 GOP presidential primary. Proceeds from the $15 per-plate fundraiser went to Americans Have Had Enough!, a South Carolina-based non-profit coalition for which Tancredo serves as honorary chairman.

 

While Tancredo's hard-line "deport 'em all" stance on immigration has made him a favorite politician of white supremacists, this marked the first time the congressman has appeared at a hate group event."  (Continue reading here)

 

 

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"From Magnolia pictures. Here’s the trailer:

Jesus Camp, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (The Boys of Baraka), follows Levi, Rachael, Tory and a number of other young children to Pastor Becky Fischer’s Kids on Fire summer camp in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, where kids as young as 6 years-old are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in God’s army.

The film follows these children at camp as they hone their prophetic gifts and are schooled in how to take back America for Christ. The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America’s political future.

Here’s their official website."

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This is some scary stuff.  Go to the website and watch all three video trailers.  Dale, you should definitely take a look.