Pa. Governor to Veto Voter ID Bill

By | Published: February 21, 2006

Hallaluja! There’s someone in this country who has some sense. It’s too bad Bob Taft isn’t one of them.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said Monday he’ll veto a bill that would require voters to show identification at the polls because he believes such a mandate is unconstitutional and would disenfranchise some of the state’s most vulnerable residents.

People including nursing home residents and poorer citizens might not have proper ID and thus could lose their right to vote under the legislation, Rendell said.

“At a time in our nation’s history when voter participation is dropping to alarming levels, the government should not be taking action that will turn away bona fide voters from our polls,” Rendell, who made the announcement in a speech at the National Constitution Center, said in a statement

I’m crying in my tea right now because I don’t live in Pennsylvania. I wonder if DH would consider moving? Why didn’t our governor do the same thing with this insanity? Oh, yeah, I forgot…he’s a moron and Ken Blackwell would prefer it if people just didn’t show up to vote- then he could add their votes to his column and no one would be the wiser.

I could live there, I think. They have Amish, we have Amish. They have the Steelers and we’re stuck with the, ugh, Browns. They have the largest women’s shoe store (in Sharon, PA. I saw the commercial). We have the largest heel in state government. I could definitely adjust.

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We’re on the verge of an energy breakthrough

By | Published: February 21, 2006

There’s so much news today and so little time…*sigh* Seems the monkeys that run the country have decided we’re almost close to energy independence.

Saying the nation is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that would “startle” most Americans,
President Bush on Monday outlined his energy proposals to help wean the country off foreign oil.

Less than half the crude oil used by refineries is produced in the United States, while 60 percent comes from foreign nations, Bush said during the first stop on a two-day trip to talk about energy.

Some of these foreign suppliers have “unstable” governments that have fundamental differences with America, he said.

“It creates a national security issue and we’re held hostage for energy by foreign nations that may not like us,” Bush said.

Bush is focusing on energy at a time when Americans are paying high power bills to heat their homes this winter and have only recently seen a decrease in gasoline prices.

Of course, this makes me want to say “Of course, you schmuck, that’s why we’re taking over Iraq!” But then I realize that we’re there to institute democracy and have no other interest than that. Who needs their oil anyway? We just want them to have an democratic puppet government society. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Bush, who likes to fly all over the country in his private jet and rides in a big ol’ black SUV that is protected by a fleet of big ol’ black SUVs (just to sell us on his poorly thought-out policies) has decided that cleaner fuel is better fuel. I wonder how he was transported to this little shindig…hmmm…Perhaps a horse and buggy?

One of Bush’s proposals would expand research into smaller, longer-lasting batteries for electric-gas hybrid cars, including plug-ins. He highlighted that initiative with a visit Monday to the battery center at Milwaukee-based auto-parts supplier Johnson Controls Inc.

Don’t worry, though, you who loves your gas guzzling SUV. There’s still something in all of this for you.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., questioned Bush’s energy policies Monday, saying the administration also supports subsidies for luxury SUVs.

“This single tax subsidy dwarfs anything being done for hybrid batteries,” Markey said in a news release.

Our oil-baron prez wants to kiss up to the gas-poor, but isn’t forgetting about his real power base. What’s the use of invading Iraq if we don’t have something to put all of that oil into? Well, that just doesn’t make any darned sense. I know I would be lost without my Hummer and it’s 3 t.v.s I can get around the block twice before I have to fill up again. Nuttin’ wrong with that.

Now, in completely related news:

The Energy Department said it has come up with $5 million to immediately restore jobs cut at a renewable energy laboratory President George W. Bush will visit on Tuesday, avoiding a potentially embarrassing moment as the president promotes his energy plan.

It’s a little too late for that now, isn’t it? Of course, GW doesn’t like to read the papers (and probably doesn’t know one .com from the other) probably doesn’t know of the disaster that he narrowly avoided.

Bush proposed spending millions more dollars in renewable energy research. However, Democratic lawmakers and environmentalists questioned the administration’s commitment when jobs were being eliminated at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado.

Don’t worry. They’ll have another couple of weeks to get jobs at the local Wal-Mart. Afterall, it’s highly unlikely that the media will check back in to see if those people still have their jobs. It’s kind of like someone picking up the clutter in their house for an important visitor, sticking it in the closet, then going back to normal when the visitor is gone. Especially since we all know the visitor really doesn’t care if they’re actually doing the research, as long as it looked that way when he was there.

It’s so refreshing to see that nothing is really going to change.

UPDATE:Bush Blames Cuts at Energy Lab on Mix-Up

“Sometimes, decisions made as the result of the appropriations process, the money may not end up where it was supposed to have gone,” Bush said.

“My message to those who work here is we want you to know how important your work is. We appreciate what you’re doing and we expect you to keep doing it, and we want to help you keep doing it.”

“Oh, and to those that were supposed to lay those fuckers off after my whirlwind tour, you’re fired. Heh.”

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Clean Water Act under attack

By | Published: February 20, 2006

It looks like some of Bush’s “friends” are calling in their markers.

The Supreme Court is set to begin to hear arguments in two cases challenging the scope of the Clean Water Act. Two Michigan property owners want to develop land that is protected under the act. One has been said to call enviromental regulators “Nazis”, and has tried to circumvent the law.

One landowner, John Rapanos of Midland, Mich., filled 50 acres of wetlands with sand in the 1980s so he could offer the property for sale to a shopping mall developer. The land is 20 miles from Saginaw Bay but is linked to it by ditches and streams. Rapanos was convicted in 1995 of a criminal violation of the Clean Water Act and could face a prison sentence if the Supreme Court rules against him.

If the Court rules against the Clean Water Act then as little as 50% -or as much as 99% according to the quoted article- of Americas navigable waters would lose their protection against pollution.

Federal authority would extend to “virtually every body of water in the nation — every brook and pond, every dry wash — that has any connection with navigable waters, no matter how remote,” warned a coalition of water suppliers, farmers and the states of Alaska and Utah in one of more than 50 briefs filed with the court.

…Federal agencies would be powerless to prevent “the discharge of sewage, toxic pollutants and fill into … the large majority of our nation’s rivers, streams and other waters,” said clean-water agencies from two-thirds of the states, including California.

The landowners are challenging the federal government’s jurisdiction over their property.

“This case is about the federal government overstepping its authority, not about whether our water will be clean,” said Rapanos’ lawyer, Reed Hopper of the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento. If federal authority was limited, he said, wetlands would still be “subject to vigorous protections imposed by states.”

Of course, if this guy sells his land to someone who just happens to poison the water that’s just on his land then he’s also polluting the water my children and I will potentially absorb by running through the rain (can’t do that anymore, I guess…hmmph). Or how about the fish that we eat, because that same pollution will eventually make it to the lakes and oceans where we get our water-living feasts. So, we decide to stop eating fish, ok. Then we must also stop eating all other kinds of meat because those animals have potentially drunk from the dirty stream, river, or even pond- unless you can guarantee that some of those polluntants don’t go into the air when that water evaporates and then promise me it won’t fall into those animals’ watering holes. Does his rights as an individual landowner trump the rights of the citizenry as a whole?

Ecologically, wetlands serve multiple functions: They filter pollutants from storm runoffs, limit flooding by absorbing water from heavy rains, and provide habitat for fish and wildlife.

If the Clean Water Act, which protects navigable waters, is interpreted to allow widespread degradation of wetlands, “it would be like saying you cannot cut down a tree, but are free to poison its roots,” said attorney James Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation, one of numerous conservation groups taking part in the case.

Of course, it’s just like the Bush-bots to refuse to see the potential to destroy the enviroment which their grandchildren will eventually inherit. Why not? They’ve done so much future damage already, why not make everyone live in a bubble and suck their own sweat through a tube like they do in Dune.

The legal arguments in the briefs pit two recent Supreme Court precedents against each other. In a 1985 California case, United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, the court observed that Congress had intended “to regulate at least some waters that would not be deemed ‘navigable’ under the classical understanding of that term.” Referring to the role of wetlands in protecting larger waterways, the court said that activity in wetlands abutting open waterways could be controlled by the corps.

In this case, the government argues that the court should extend the authority of the corps to wetlands abutting tributaries of actually navigable waters. The constitutional lever through which the control is exercised is the Commerce Clause, which provides for federal control both over direct avenues of commerce — like waterways crucial to trade — and over issues that “substantially affect” interstate commerce.

In 2001, in an Illinois case, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States, the court said the corps overreached its legal and constitutional authority by claiming control over an isolated quarry. The quarry had filled with water and was used by migratory birds, which are protected under federal law. The court ruled that there had to be a “significant nexus” between the regulated wetland or stream and true “navigable waters.” If not, regulation of the water body fell to the state.(source-NY Times)

Some states say they don’t have the resources to protect the water by themselves. Also, they could potentially be affected by states that allow pollution of waterways and wetlands, while they have restricted destruction and pollution of their own water.

This is Alito’s first case on the bench (of the SCOTU), but he was part of the appeals court “that rejected a federal agency’s water cleanup plan and limited private citizens’ ability to challenge water pollution under the Clean Water Act.” Luckily, the EPA and many other enviromental groups are weighing in on this. Unluckily, Bush made it obvious in 2001 that he wanted limited federal power in regulating the nation’s water supply. The articles didn’t say whether he (or his buddy, Gonzales) are going to file a brief with the Court. It’s unclear of how this will turn out.

I’m hoping, for all of us, that they have enough sense to see that granting two lowly developers permission to pollute their own land is to deny us the right to live in a safe enviroment. What’s good for the corporation is not necessarily good for the world.

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Backroom Battles

By | Published: February 19, 2006

I’m a little behind on this one [1]because I’ve been busy and had my mind on other things. Tonight I saw this mentioned again and again (and am, of course, jumping on the bandwagon- wahoo!). If this doesn’t get people fired up and ready to start their own damned party, I don’t know what will…hmmph! What a dream to get all the “good” Dems together, form another party, and let the DINOs play amongst themselves (they might actually admit their Bush-bots at that point).

I’m so about to beat a dead horse (sadly missed, by the way) so if it’s ugly to you then look away now.

But no sooner did Hackett enter the Senate race last October than Brown announced his candidacy for Senate, reversing an earlier decision he had made to stay out of the race.

With Brown, a party insider, on board, the Democratic establishment quickly began pulling away from the fiery Hackett. Schumer, after having wooed him in August, called again in October. “Schumer didn’t tell me anything definitive,” Hackett told me at the time. “But I’m not a dumb ass, and I know what he wanted me to do.” Hackett, a maverick who relishes the fight, decided to buck the Beltway insiders, and stay in the race.

And so, because Hackett decided he was going to go his own and (fatally) let Ohioans decide who we wanted for our Democratic candidate the “Swift Boating” began in whispers. I do have to admit that I hadn’t heard the rumor that Hackett was guilty of war crimes, still it’s sickening that someone would do that again. Now it seems that it was Hackett’s allies-at-the-time who were doing the smearing.

Swift boats soon appeared on the horizon. A whisper campaign started: Hackett committed war crimes in Iraq—and there were photos. “The first rumor that I heard was probably a month and a half ago,” Dave Lane, chair of the Clermont County Democratic Party, told me the day after Hackett pulled out of the race. “I heard it more than once that someone was distributing photos of Paul in Iraq with Iraqi war casualties with captions or suggestions that Paul had committed some sort of atrocities. Who did it? I have no idea. It sounds like a Republican M.O. to me, but I have no proof of that. But if it was someone on my side of the fence, I have a real problem with that. I have a hard time believing that a Democrat would do that to another Democrat.”

Oh, I feel your pain, Paul, I feel your pain. There is nothing worse than a betrayal by one of your own. Like middle-school children the underdog didn’t go along with the clique so the clique went to work behind the scenes. Unfortunately they ultimately won. But it was not just to Paul Hackett’s detriment. It hurt us, too. Because if we can’t trust our own to help us defeat the Bush-bot predators then who is there? Paul Hackett fell because of D.C. and their power-mad frenzy. It must be in the water there.

Brown campaign spokesperson Joanna Kuebler declined to respond to the rumors. She offered this prepared statement: “This campaign has never been about Paul Hackett or about Sherrod Brown. This campaign is about the hard working people of Ohio, and what Republican corruption has done to them.”

Isn’t that quaint? The “hard working people of Ohio” who were not afforded the opportunity to choose our own Democratic candidate. I don’t believe for one second that there wasn’t some kind insider trading happening with regards to this race. Someone’s going to benefit greatly from Sherrod Brown losing this race and it’s not the people of Ohio.

Following Hackett’s withdrawal, Republican Senator Mike DeWine has gained ground in his campaign for re-election. DeWine now leads Democratic Congressman Sherrod Brown by nine percentage points, 46% to 37%

…Brown’s support among Democrats has fallen from 77% in January to 69% this month. Next month’s Ohio election poll will provide a hint as to whether this is just a temporary hiccup in the wake of the Hackett withdrawal or an ongoing problem for the Democrats’ likely nominee.

(Rasmussen Reports)

Looks like it’s Mikey for us again, folks. With Mike DeWine in the Senate it’s not just Ohioans that should be angry because our voices were stifled.

Some voting history for our soon-to-be reelected.

  • S AMDT 2544 to S Con Res 18: To expand access to preventive health care services that reduce unintended pregnancy (including teen pregnancy), reduce the number of abortions, and improve access to women’s health care.= No(on funding legislation that would create and expand teen pregnancy prevention programs and education programs concerning emergency contraceptives)

  • S Amdt 2292 to HR 3010: To provide additional funding for part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.= No

  • S J Res 40: A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage.= Yes ( Prohibits individual states from recognizing marital status and or legal benefits from any other unions other than that of a man and woman.)

  • S Amdt 2735 to S Amdt 2707 to HR 4297: To support the health needs of our veterans and military personnel and reduce the defiit by making tax rates fairer for all Americans = No ($14 billion for the Veterans Benefits Administration for Compensation and Pensions for the years of 2006 through 2010$6.9 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs for the Veterans Health Administration for Medical Care between the years 2006 through 2010$1 billion for the establishment of the Veterans Hospital Improvement Fund)

Ok, I know that I sound bitter, but that’s because I am. I was denied my voice by the National and Ohio Dems that started this swift boating crap. I don’t blame Hackett at all for dropping out, because this kind of betrayal is what the Republicans do to our side. We don’t need our side doing that to our side.

The hosts of a Beverly Hills fundraiser for Hackett received an e-mail from the political action committee of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) that concluded, “I hope you will re-consider your efforts on behalf of Hackett and give your support to Sherrod.” Waxman’s chief of staff, Phil Schiliro, said the e-mail was only sent to a handful of people and that “it probably came from a suggestion from the Sherrod Brown campaign.”…

…Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) spokesman Phil Singer stated, “Neither the DSCC nor Senator Schumer reached out to donors to ask them to take sides in this race. Paul Hackett’s statesman-like decision will help us win one of the most important Senate races in the nation.”

Ok, I don’t know if this guy has even stepped foot in Ohio, but the further left a candidate goes here the less likely he/she is to be elected. I’m sorry, I know that Northeast Ohio is a nice shade of blue, but come down past Canton and you’ll get smacked in the face with red. Around here they like people they know and if it’s not someone they know then they want someone like them (even kinda-sorta like them is ok). Paul Hackett is a veteran and a hunter and sometimes that’s all people need to know when they enter the voting booth (as sad as that sounds).

Yes, I suppose there are more important things to worry about in this country, like trying to get Bush to answer for his illegal wiretapping of Americans, but this is important to me. I feel betrayed too. I feel let down. I thought this was typical of “them” and that we would only stoop to that level against “them”. I guess I was wrong. DINOs indeed.

[1]I was literally in my own little world yesterday and today. I hate it when the fog rolls in.

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