The Inevitable Star Wars Post

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Thursday January 17, 2008 · 8:59 AM PST

2008/01/17 · 08:59

I want so much to like Hillary. It's pure sexism on my part; I want a woman to be president. It's an emotional thing -- when Nancy Pelosi took the gavel in the House, I cried. I am a babyboomer. In my working life, it has been acceptable to expect the "girl" to get the coffee, to "type up" the minutes of the meeting, to give the man all your best ideas and labor and hope he'll take you with him as he rises in the company.

So the thought of a woman being the biggest cheese of all makes me happy.

But when I really look at Hillary, not as a woman but as a candidate, I don't see a new hope. I see the aristocracy. I see Rupert Murdoch and Terry McAuliffe and Mark Penn. I remember that Hillary was on the WalMart board as that corporation drove down wages, wiped out small businesses in towns all over the country and practically destroyed the grocer's unions.

I realize: Hillary Clinton is no Anakin Skywalker. She has become Darth Vader. And the others in the Star Wars metaphor of this campaign season?

LindaR

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Thursday December 27, 2007 · 3:35 PM PST

2007/12/27 · 15:35

My outrage expands in sympathy with the moderates and secularists in Pakistan today who make up the majority of the Pakistani people.

Political assassination is as old as politics, of course, and we Americans have suffered our share. In just my lifetime, JFK, Bobby, Martin Luther King -- there have been too many. But those losses came when I was young. I didn't process them in an adult way.

With Al Gore in 2000, it was different. I was old enough then to understand that the assault on Gore was an assault on me, too.

Poll

95 votes Show Results

CNN's stupidest anchor/reporter is:

95 votes Vote Now!

CNN's stupidest anchor/reporter is:

Don Lemon

4 votes

Kyra Phillips

16 votes

Wolf Blitzer

34 votes

Campbell Brown

10 votes

Carol Costello

4 votes

Candy Crowley

15 votes

Rick Sanchez

12 votes

Impeachment Hearings - Linkage to Wexler

LindaR

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Saturday December 15, 2007 · 10:03 AM PST

2007/12/15 · 10:03

I apologize upfront for the brevity of this diary. My purpose is to keep the link easily accessible to Congressman Wexler's impeachment hearings page.

Here is Wexler's statement at Huffington Post which explains what he wants to do.

Or you can directly click and vote in favor of hearings.

LindaR

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Monday January 08, 2007 · 12:04 PM PST

2007/01/08 · 12:04

"But the wealthiest families are still paying a greater share of the overall tax bill." -- Kyra Phillips, CNN ~~journalist~~ mouthpiece.

This today in response to the factoid that the top 1 percent income earners pay more than one third of all federal income taxes.

Tax rate on average 1.25 million dollars:

19.6 percent

24.2 percent

O, Mark Twain! Are you howling about damn statistical lies in heaven?

Poll

25 votes Show Results

Is there hope for tax fairness in this age?

25 votes Vote Now!

Is there hope for tax fairness in this age?

Yes. The Democrats are in charge now.

2 votes

Not till a Democratic president is elected.

7 votes

Never again. The golden age of the middle class from WWII to Reagan was a blip in human history.

9 votes

Only by becoming a Canadian.

7 votes

The Frog (Democrats) and the Scorpion (Republicans) [with poll]

LindaR

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Friday January 05, 2007 · 2:29 PM PST

2007/01/05 · 14:29

I just wrote this letter to the editor at Salon. I like it so much, here it is (ha)!

The problem with giving the Republicans "minority rights" is that they will abuse them. Right after the elections, the Republican leadership started talking about how they were going to sabotage the Democrats' first 100 hours platform.

Even in the opening minutes of the 110th Congress, when Boehner was supposedly making nice, he called it the Democrat Party instead of the Democratic Party -- a nastyism the Republicans have adopted on purpose to deride Democrats. The Republicans are like the scorpion in the famous story:

Poll

39 votes Show Results

Regarding "minority rights" for the Republicans:

39 votes Vote Now!

Regarding "minority rights" for the Republicans:

This is a good solution. The need for renewal every 30 days will keep the Republicans from abusing the process.

7 votes

Republicans will find a way around this and abuse the Democrats' good will.

5 votes

Never give the Republicans an inch until the learn to say the name of the Democratic Party properly.

27 votes

Draft the Contractors

LindaR

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Tuesday December 05, 2006 · 8:04 PM PST

2006/12/05 · 20:04

There are as many as 100,000 contractors in Iraq. Here's a clip from Robert Greenwald that shows how some of our troops feel about that.

The siphoning of the national treasure from the commons to the corporate aristocracy is a reverse Robin Hood scandal that will wreak havoc for years to come. In a death by a thousand cuts, our military is being broken -- not by its mission, not because our troops are substandard, but because our military's resources are being, frankly, legally stolen from the troops and given to war profiteers.

If we need more troops to stop the slide into chaos, then riddle me this, Batman: Why not draft the contractors?

LindaR

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Monday November 06, 2006 · 10:39 AM PST

2006/11/06 · 10:39

It's getting crazy around here in the CA-04! Poor John Doolittle. I think he must be suffering the kind of psychotic break caused when unprocessed hidden guilt runs into the concrete wall of public scrutiny. That and the looming threat of an indictment with his name on it sitting on some DOJ staffer's desk. Doolittle is starting to see things, as Greg Sargent says at TPM Café: Nazis, Child Rapists, and Gay Boy Scouts, oh my!

I've lived in this district for forty years. I cannot remember ever having a contested congressional election here, so it's not surprising that the less creative among us (cough Rahm Emanuel cough) could not see what a brilliant and timely candidate is Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown is the kind of decent, straight-arrow, I'm-here-to-serve guy that must drive a sleaze like Doolittle crazy. As evidenced by that over-the-top insane mailer in the Sargent story. Read More

CA-04 Not If, but When Will Doolittle Be Indicted?

LindaR

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Sunday November 05, 2006 · 3:04 PM PST

2006/11/05 · 15:04

Yesterday I drove by the Roseville Galleria, the shiny shopping mall in south Placer County that seems to be the Saturday destination. The boulevard was lined on both sides of the street with about 100 Charlie Brown supporters -- a good percentage of those holding red Republicans for Charlie Brown signs. "Honk for Brown!" read a lot of the signs. And people were honking up a storm.

It was so much fun!

That's why I get so frustrated with the rumor that DOJ is holding back indictments on John Doolittle, who Charlie Brown is running to replace, till after the election. What the blazes is that all about?
Read More

CA-04 No, Mr. Doolittle, It's Not Outrageous

LindaR

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Wednesday October 18, 2006 · 7:00 PM PDT

2006/10/18 · 19:00

TPM noticed the hypocrisy:

Yet another classic John Doolittle moment. He attacks his opponent for supporting the ACLU, which has defended child sex predators. Meanwhile, Doolittle himself was a character witness for a dentist on trial for sexually assaulting his patients while they were anesthetized.

And Kos posted about John Doolittle's support and enabling of a sexual predator -- not in far-away Northern Marianas, but right here in CA-04.

Doolittle's response to the charges he enabled sex slavery and forced abortions? That's outrageous! Read More

CA-04 Justice to Doolittle: You Too Are Under Investigation?

LindaR

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Monday October 16, 2006 · 3:31 PM PDT

2006/10/16 · 15:31

They fall, yes, the mighty fall. Remember Tom DeLay's "I am the government!? He gone now. Cunningham, he gone now. Ney, out. Foley, um, out. Hastert, pinned. Next up, Doolittle?

When I think of Congressman John Doolittle, the Dishonest John character from the old Beany and Cecil cartoons always comes to mind. ("DJ, you dirty guy!") In our last episode, DJ's required FEC filings were nowhere to be seen. That was Saturday. Now some filings are available, though not under the link everyone else seems to use.

What they show is, John Doolittle seems to be lawyering up.

For your listening pleasure, open this instant classic YouTube in another window while reading this diary! Read More

CA-04 Doolittle Missing in Action -- and Above the FEC Law?

LindaR

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Saturday October 14, 2006 · 6:29 PM PDT

2006/10/14 · 18:29

In the debate the other night, John Doolittle explained that he didn't go to Vietnam because he had, like Dick Cheney, other priorities. Now, I will admit that back then I thought not going to Vietnam was a good idea. Lo these many years later, I still feel that way -- and I feel that way about Iraq in the present situation. But being older and wiser, my admiration for my fellow citizens who were and are willing to go has no limit. And my disgust with those who dishonestly game the system also has no limit. By gaming, I'm talking about people like Cheney and Tom Delay (who didn't go so he wouldn't take spots from "minorities") and George W. Bush who pulled a safe gig out of harm's way.

After watching the Brown vs Doolittle debate the other night, willy mugobeer started wondering about Doolittle's Iraq policy and went looking. As you can see from willy mugobeer's diary, Doolittle's policy is missing.