I just got a text from Senator Barack Obama....and I am PISSED!

I just call the corrupted Congressman Steny Hoyer.The conversation went like this:

Receptiontionist: "Congressman Hoyer's office may I help you?"

Me: "How much does it cost to buy Congressman Hoyer these days?"

Receptiontionist: "I' sorry I did not hear you."

Me: "I asked much does it cost to buy Congressman Hoyer vote these days?"

Receptiontionist: "Are you calling to comment on the FISA bill?"

Me: "Yes. I want to buy Congressman Hoyer vote so that he votes against the bill. How much will that cost?"

Receptiontionist: "I unfortunately I can't say."

Seems she is unable to qoute that rate over the phone.
Steny Hoyer...the best Congressman money can buy! And buy! And Buy!

It is early Monday morning and across this nation people are waking up to observe Memorial Day 2008. To some it is a day first holiday of the ensuing summer season. To many others it is a just a paid holiday. But to me, a veteran of the United State Marine Corp, it is a day to remember, and give thanks for two fellow Marines whom I am proud to call Mom and Dad. So before I head off to participate in my town’s parade and Memorial Service I want to pay homage to the two of them.

I received the following letter from my US Senator Debbie Stabenow regarding the fact that in eight days there will be an election.

<more below the fold>

Over the ensuing twelve day our focus should be to the elections and helping those who best reflect our hopes, dreams, and most importantly our values.I encourage everyone who chooses to read these words to send one more check, spend a day canvassing, to volunteer at a phone bank, or  write a letter to the editor in support of a candidate, and mostly importantly....vote! To borrow a phrase we should commit ourselves to "focus like a laser" on the task at hand.

Tonight could be a crucial night in how the blogs are perceived after Ned Lamont defeat Sen. Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic Primary for US Senator.

Those who wish us ill, who constantly harp on us being too angry, too liberal, too fascists, too stupid or just too (fill in the blank) will be looking online to find some anecdotal comment to validate their preconceived notion or stereotype that prove a point about us, the online community. ( More in extended comments)

I am disguested that my Democratic US Senator Debbie Stabenow voted for Cloture to end the filibuster. Below the fold are the other Democratic traitors.

Folks, I am tired of complaining in this blogsphere echo chamber.

We are all "Mad as hell, and are not going to take it any longer."

Steve King fictional character "Red" in the Shawshank Redemption said "either get busy living or get busy dying."It is time we heed this message.

Wow! Here we are on the eve of the MOST IMPORTANT election in our lives and I am pausing to look back.

I found the DailyKos just after the 2002 elections. I had stumble on MYDD and linked over to the Kos. As I look back the topic typically, but not exclusively, centered around the impending war against Iraq.

The Green Bay Packers have Beaten the Washington Redskins.
On Tuesday I want to write John Kerry beat Geo W Bush.

GOTV
GOTV
GOTV
GOTV
GOTV
GOTV
I will be getiing out the vote in Michigan on Monday. Working with Mich Ed. Assoc, I am doing my part to insure that Michigan GOes BLUE...bigtime!

To all former Marines, and to those who still serve the nation and the Corp, I extend best wishes and a hearty "Semper Fidelis!"

To my fellow veterans I extend warm wishes of health,happiness, and peace on this Memorial Day.

To those who gave given their lives so that I was able to enjoy the freedoms and comfort that this nation gives to all of us I remember you with a pray and heart full of gratitude and sorrow. Gratitude for your unselfish service. Sorrow for the pain your loss caused families, friends, communities, and the nation in total. One one can only wonder what contributions to society you may have made had you not had been a casualty of our nation'a many conflicts. Rest in eternal peace.

Now about my two favortie Marines!

 Here is a link to this article. I for one am hoping where there is smoke there is fire.

Over the pass several months I have shared a front row seat here at the dailykos for one of the wildest ride in recent political memory.

"Oldtimers" will recall the run up to the war wherein many of spoke out against this Administration and it policy of " full speed ahead" in pursuit of getting its " war on." We railed, we vilified, we villainized, and showered utter contempt on the pResident, and his minions, for the cocky, arrogant, almost ruthless way they lead our nation and military to fight in Iraq.

The war began and casualty ensued and you could find a more disheartened group then in the community here at dailykos. We consoled ourselves and offer sympathy to the families of young men and women who name showed up on casualty lists. It was a very low point. Late winter turned to spring and spring to summer. Many of us were cognizant of the fact the war though " won," peace was far from becoming a reality.

Soon the upcoming primaries and the various candidates began to attract attention within the community. Early, many of us looked at the field of announced Democratic candidates and found it wanting. Many hoped that a candidate would enter the fray that would inspire us to raise our hopes, and yes even our belief, that aWol could be defeated. Why Markos even started a website devoted to attracting a certain retired four star general to enter the race and carry the banner of our party at a time when we did not even know if he was in fact " one of us?"

I initially posted this as a comment in response to a diary entry made by Dr Frank. But it was lost in the ensuing food fight that then erupted.

Dr. Frank:

  Relax, don't lets the bastard's see you sweat. The problem with folks like you and me is that we refuse to drink the kool aid being passed around by those who think Dean is some messianic figure. The one, who is the only ticket we have to regain the White House. We,who are not in the Cult of Dean, are the great unwashed. We know nothing of politics. We are dismissed and scorned.

  Dr. Frank, you and I have been blogging here at Dkos for a long time. We need not waste energy on a some simian whose knees weaken, and whose breath get short at the mention of Howard Dean's very name.

No sir, here at the Dkos you must leanr to go along to get along. If you do not genuflect at the Altar of Dean, then you should just move along.

However, at the risk of further inciting the lemmings that lurk here on these boards, waiting to pounce and confront all who fail to show the proper modicum of respect to the Great Dean, who is all knowing and without fault, let me share with you an observation or two.

Dr. Frank, I do not think the Democratic Party( generalization) get's it. First, our elected officials still operate under the premise that rank partisanship is the exception not the rule. Party discipline to the GOP is paramount, wherein the Democrats think they can horse trade with the GOP and then later go out be friends with those who just picked thier pockets. Seldom, with exception, do they enjoin the battle or initiate the offense. So now the tough , unyielding Howard Dean appears on the scene and he is manna from heaven for those who need a visible instrument of thier anger personified in a candidate.

However, looking back at the last three successful GOP Presidential candidates, we see that they have used a formula vastly different. Reagan Bush I & II , were all happy warriors ( with all due respect to HHH).To Reagan it was "Morning in America." For Bush II it was a "Thousand Points of Lights." And all for the Bush II it was "Compassionate Conservatism." Which, although is an oxymoron, was bought by the electorate.

The problem is we spend way to much running against instead of running for these various offices. The GOP know and understands gimmicks, i.e. "Contract with America." So why GOP are running for something, the Dem's are left running against it.

It is time we change the playing field. We need to take the initiative, formulate a set of tactics, and coordinate with those who share are values, a campaign strategy that ignores the GOP and delivers by contrast, style, and message a positive vision of hope, opportunity, and above all fairness for all.

At this juncture of the campaign I do not feel Howard Dean is the best possible candidate to change the "field." However if over the ensuing weeks the good Governor changes my mind I will gladly mix the next batch of kool aid.

    The Republican National Committee, with the acquiescence of GW Bush, is airing a commercial that accuses each of you of " attacking the president for attacking the terrorist." As a group are you "aiding and abetting terrorism and terrorist?"

Individually the following question need to be answered.

v    General Clarke are you attacking the President for attacking the terrorist?

v    Governor Dean, as out spoken voice against US aggression in Iraq, in a Dean administration you would enable terrorism, true?

v    Joe Lieberman as a Jew, and a US Senator, don't you have a strong record in support of terrorism?  

v    Rev. Sharpton, as a New Yorker and an American, do you personally believe the President was wrong in attacking terrorist? Don't you advocate spending those dollars on infrastructure?

v    Sen. Kerry, you hate the military and believe that attacking terrorists is an improper use of military assets, right?

v    Congressman Gephardt, as a leader in the US House you voted against all the various measures that were needed to fund and carry out the war on terror, why should you be president?

v    Congressman Kucinich, you are a supporter of terrorist. Why?

v    Ambassador Braun, as a minority, you have empathy for the causes of the terrorist. If you were President would try an assist terrorist wherever you could?

v    Sen. Edwards, as a Southerner who family supported the South in the Civil War, you certainly understand and agree with terrorist and their methods?

Why is the Republican National Committee airing such an intellectually dishonest ad without a cry from every corner of this nation drowning out such a hateful and divisive piece of garbage?

Maureen Dowd in a piece in today's New York Times addresses this issue. Ms. Dowd eviscerates and castigates the President and his party for the message this ad spreads. She labels this tactic as "pre-emptive campaign strategy" a direct descended of "the pre-emptive military policy."

Further, as Ms. Dowd assails the message from the President, she goes on to ask the following "Do we really need his (Bush) cold, clammy hand on our spine at a time when we're already rattled by fresh terror threats at home and abroad?" I hope for one hope to hear the answer tommorow.

Democratic Presidential candidates, listen up. Tomorrow in De Moines you will be on MSNBC & WHO-TV, during a televised debate. No matter what question is asked of you take a moment for your first response to directly challenge the RNC and President Bush to show any quote, any action, or any proof that any of you support terrorist. Call out the electronic media for not taking to task the RNC for their message of hate and despair. Challenge the networks to take this ad down and to refuse to show this obvious attempt to divide to conquer.

If you choose to ignore this grievous nonsense then you are not worthy to be President. And by ignoring this what we are left with is a brazen attempt of polarization, an overt seizure of patriotism, and the use of 3000 deaths to further a political agenda. America is not a "shining city" but instead "a dark bunker."

More importantly, the political terrorist will have won!

Ms. Lynch, you do not know me but I owe you an apology. I read where Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, an Iraqi lawyer who claims to have assisted U.S. forces in your rescue, visited your home town on Monday October 27, but according to your attorney, Stephen Goodwin, said you were still going to rehabilitation five days a week and had commitments related to the release of your upcoming book and were unable to meet with him. My thoughts upon learning these facts were that you were arrogant and unappreciative of what was done on your behalf. I was wrong, egregiously wrong. You were being honest and displaying integrity far beyond what most would have. You knew deep in your soul the truth, and you were not going allow anyone to use you or your name to help continue a charade and a lie. I am sorry Jessica Lynch for thinking poorly of you. The fact is that I now view you as an incredibly wonderful role model for demonstrably being honest and a true heroine.

If anyone on here on theDaily KOSmissed the details of the capture and repatriation of Jessica Lynch I would suggest you look at a variety of sources, here, here, and here.

The Bush Administration, and its willing sycophants in the Defense Department and press, concocted a story that exaggerated the accounts of her ordeal recasting it as a patriotic fable. She was the female John Wayne firing her rifle at Iraqi's until she eventually ran out of ammo.  She was the poor waif who was slapped around by her captures and mistreated while in the hospital. Finally, the sole Iraqi who had a conscience and a heart, Mohammed Al-Rehaief, saved her. Wow!! There were two casualties in this story, Jessica Lynch and the truth. Miss Lynch decided the real truth should be told as will be. Not the truth as told by Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, not the Hollywood truth told by NBC in their upcoming movie, and certainly not the truth spewed forth by the Mighty Wurlitzer.

For Jessica the truth she told in her own inimitable way was through the prism of actually living through the ordeal. Jessica comes away from all this as one who truly earns our respect and accolades. She could have easily said what had been reported was factual. But she realized that doing so would have dishonored those fellow servicemen and women with whom she served and who lost her life on that fateful day on a highway outside of Nasiriyah. For me the Jessica's genuine honesty is put forth when in an interview, Lynch also clears up conflicting stories about her actions during the March 23 ambush in which Lynch was taken prisoner. Initial reports portrayed the Army supply clerk, then 19, as a hero who was wounded by Iraqi gunfire but kept firing until her ammunition ran out, shooting several Iraqis ""I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do," she tells ABC's Diane Sawyer in the interview, airing Tuesday, Nov. 11. "I don't look at myself as a hero," she adds. "My heroes are Lori [Pfc. Lori Piestewa], the soldiers that are over there, the soldiers that were in that car beside me, the ones that came and rescued me." Piestewa was one of the 11 members of Lynch's unit, the 507th Maintenance, who were killed in the ambush near the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah.

"I did not shoot, not a round, nothing," she tells Sawyer. "When we were told to lock and load, that's when my weapon jammed ... I did not shoot a single round ... I went down praying to my knees. And that's the last I remember."
Lynch, now 20, says she feels hurt to have received praise she says her colleagues deserved. "It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. They did not know whether I did that or not. Only I would have been able to know that, because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell that story. So I would have been the only one able to say, 'Yeah, I went down shooting.' But I didn't. I did not."

    And what about Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, the Iraqi hero? Quoting from a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, referenced above, I found the following very curious: "committing to a film about Lynch's rescue, NBC emerges with a suspect tale that's primarily about an Iraqi lawyer who has used it to profit beyond his wildest dreams. "I don't buy any of his story at all," Toronto Star correspondent Mitch Potter said in an interview from the Middle East. After the rescue, Potter was in Nasiriyah, where Lynch was captured and hospitalized. He spoke to numerous people directly and indirectly involved with her care, and was the first North American reporter to provide a comprehensive story from the scene."
Further " The wife  (of Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief) is portrayed as a nurse at the hospital where Lynch was treated, but no one who worked there who was interviewed by Potter, or by other reporters who followed him, recognized any nurse who was married to a lawyer. Nurses who did care for Lynch around the clock told Potter they had seen no one who could have been the lawyer.

   In the film, the lawyer sees a vicious slap by a security guard that pulls at his heartstrings and sends him out into the desert to alert the Americans. Doctors, nurses and hospital administrators said no one mistreated their patient while she was in the hospital.

   Lynch's primary nurse "broke down crying," Potter said in a telephone interview, while denying there had been any mistreatment.

   Potter said the lawyer, named Mohammed, didn't need any direct knowledge of Lynch's situation: "A blond woman in the hospital, it was such a novelty, the worst-kept secret in town. There were several dozens of thousands of Mohammed's who knew where she was and that the Iraqi military was long gone [during her hospitalization].

   "He's just trying to dine out on his version of the whole thing... a guy who has opportunized to an incredible degree on a situation that presented itself."

   The lawyer, Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, and his family got instant asylum in the United States and free housing. In addition to being paid for his story by NBC, he has written a book, and is now a principal with the Livingston Group, a Washington lobbying and consulting firm headed by former Louisiana Republican congressman Bob Livingston, who has close ties to the Bush administration." No irony there.

  George Bush, when you meet Jessica Lynch make sure you apologize. Not for being AWOL during your term of service in the military, not for perpetuating a lie, though perpetuate you did, but for sending Ms. Lynch and her fellow servicemen and women into harms way so that you could be a "war hero." So that you could tell your Daddy you accomplished something he could not, that being toppling Saddam. However, tell him the price. The price in human life, the price in suffering, the price in dollars, the price in American standing abroad, and finally the price it cost in engaging in this war in the dishonest fashion with which you entered the entire fray. George Bush, when it comes to honesty, Jessica Lynch shamed you!

   The lawyer, Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, and his family got instant asylum in the United States and free housing. In addition to being paid for his story by NBC, he has written a book, and is now a principal with the Livingston Group, a Washington lobbying and consulting firm headed by former Louisiana Republican congressman Bob Livingston, who has close ties to the Bush administration." No irony there.

   George Bush, when you meet Jessica Lynch make sure you apologize. Not for being AWOL during your term of service in the military, not for perpetuating a lie, though perpetuate you did, but for sending Ms. Lynch and her fellow servicemen and women into harms way so that you could be a "war hero." So that you could tell your Daddy you accomplished something he could not, that being toppling Saddam. However, tell him the price. The price in human life, the price in suffering, the price in dollars, the price in American standing abroad, and finally the price it cost in engaging in this war in the dishonest fashion with which you entered the entire fray. George Bush, when it comes to honesty, Jessica Lynch shamed you!

Last week I was in the District of Columbia for four days. My wife and did the usual tourist stuff such as go out to eat, shop, catch a movie and visit historical sites. Now as I sit at my keyboard I cannot help but reflect on three events: one in the early evening Friday night, one Saturday afternoon, and the other in the morning hours of Monday.

Friday after enjoying dinner in Georgetown we caught a cab to see the Lincoln Memorial and then walked over to the Wall. It was already dark and the Wall was illuminated in the softest of lights. My wife wanted to look up the name of SSgt. Craig M Dix of Livonia, MI. She had wore his POW bracelet for 10 yrs. As for myself I was there to pay tribute to a classmate of my brother's, Thomas E "Tommy" Raubolt of Wyandotte, MI. We located their names in the Registry Book and from there were directed to the appropriate panels. We shared a quiet moment of reflection and pray at the panel bearing each man's name.

Saturday afternoon I went to Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington to visit and pay my respect to the many Marines who died in Pacific Island during WWII. On islands such as Tarawa, the Marshall's, Iwo, the Philippines, and Okinawa Marines fought and died. As I stood looking at the artist depiction of the Flag Raising on Mount Suribachi I recalled the story of the event as told by James Bradley in his book "Flags of Our Fathers."  Bradley, whose father was a Navy Corpsmen who helped in the raising of the flag, learned later in life of the events that were memorialized in a Pulitzer Prize photo by Joe Rosenthal and are now immortalized on a hillside overlooking DC. As Admiral Nimitz wrote of this epic struggle for Iwo Jima "Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue."

On Monday morning after breakfast at our hotel we rode the Metro to Arlington Cemetery. My visit there was two-fold. I wanted to visit the Women in the Military Museum to insure that my mother who served as a US Marine in WWII records were there. From there I wanted to pay my respects at the Tomb of the Unknowns. While in the cemetery I visited the Kennedy gravesite, the USS Maine Memorial, and the Challenger Memorial among other points of interest.

The Wall, Arlington Cemetery, and The Women in the Military, and Iwo Jim Memorial all had one common theme for me. That theme or common thread was "sacrifice." The sacrifice varied immeasurably but it was in every way a sacrifice. The bond of sacrifice inexplicably tied the livings, the dead, the wounded, the missing all together. I reflected on the sacrifice on the home front that paralleled the war efforts abroad.

Today as our service men and women fight and die in the Iraq I wonder where is the sacrifice at home? We have an Administration that says we can give tax cuts to the wealthy, award no-bid contract to campaign contributors, and steal from future generations in order to pay for it all. Where is the honor? Are we such a narcissists that only "our needs" are paramount? And why doesn't the "compassionate conservative" show more sympathy and compassion for the orphans and families member of those who lost their lives fighting the "War of the Georges." Are the orphans and families of the dead less important than fat cat donors or raising money for reelection? Has our President no shame?

I am humbled to be an American. I am also ashamed that the country I served is now lead by a person for whom I hold great contempt. Honesty shows good character. George W. Bush lacks both. He has squandered are most valuable of resources, he has dishonored the dead, he has played loose with the truth, he has brought shame and ridicule from our friend and allies abroad to our nation's great name. George Bush is someone who brings sorrow, distress, or calamity wherever he goes. It is nearing the time when George Bush must pay for his words and deeds. Let us pledge today to make sure that happens in November 2004.