Click to contact your US Senators or Representative.

(from ImpeachBush.org)

For 5/9: “We need to do the people’s business and achieve what we were sent there to do.” Barb McIlvaine Smith (D-PA156), referring to the state legislature, 5/8/08.

For 5/8: “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.” — Major Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler (born in West Chester PA, 1881), “War is a Racket.”

For 5/7: “We have some deep patterns of media avoidance when the US is involved in a war based on lies.” — Norman Solomon, re “War Made Easy.”

For 5/6: “There’s selective purging of voters without any accountability.” Robert Fitrakis, co-author of What Happened in Ohio. More here.

For 5/5: “I have NO doubts ..the recent changes in global climate ARE man-induced. I insist that you immediately remove my name from this list since I did not give you permission to put it there.” / “I am horrified to find my name on such a list. I have spent the last 20 years arguing the opposite.” / “Please remove my name. What you have done is totally unethical!!” — some of the 500 scientists whose names were added without their permission to a list purportedly of scientists who doubt that human activity affects global warming.

For 5/4: “State legislators are demanding aid to borrowers. Delegate Dereck Davis, D-Md., told The Washington Post that homeowners ‘need a federal bailout from Congress.’ But in the land of Potomac Fever, bailouts are for financial firms.” — David Sirota, 5/2/08 Read more »

Published on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers via CommonDreams
Former Admiral Says All American Forces Should Pull out by Year’s End
by Renee Schoof

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. Adm. Joe Sestak commanded a carrier battle group in combat near Afghanistan, then in the Persian Gulf in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Now a freshman member of the House of Representatives, Sestak, a Pennsylvania Democrat, has introduced a bill calling for withdrawing all American forces from Iraq by the end of this year, while strengthening the U.S. military presence in the region and in Afghanistan.

Sestak, who defeated 10-term Republican incumbent Curt Weldon in November, has a Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard University. He served as the director for defense policy on President Clinton’s National Security Council and once was the director of the Navy’s anti-terrorism unit.

His bill would cut off most money for military operations in Iraq by Dec. 31. Read more »

Sorry to quote such drivel, but here it is:

“Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

— Texas evangelical pastor John Hagee, in his book What Every Man Wants in a Woman (Charisma House, 2005).

McCain sought and received Hagee’s endorsement: “I’m very proud to have pastor Hagee’s support,” he said.

McCain has not repudiated Hagee’s radical views that hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for homosexuality, that foreign policy should be based on the Bible, that the US must attack Iran to accelerate Armageddon, and that the Roman Catholic Church inspired Hitler to create the Holocaust.

Source here.

(letter in Phila Inquirer 5/1/08

Democratic leaders thought they would never have to discuss electability (Inquirer, April 27). The strategy has been to let George W. Bush and the GOP self-destruct so Democratic candidates would be shoo-ins. That’s why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t let Congress be “distracted” with impeaching probably the most impeachable president and vice president in our nation’s history. Wrong strategy! If Pelosi would put impeachment on the table, think how quickly the discussion would focus on the high crimes and misdemeanors of this administration and its lackeys, including the GOP presidential candidate who now poses a threat to Democratic electability.

Jane Dugdale
Bryn Mawr
tjdugdale@comcast.net

Anyone who was fortunate in hearing Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on the evening of the North Carolina primary heard not only a politician but a statesman.  His message throughout has been “turn the page,” “rise above,” and “change we can believe in,” and he demonstrated that again remarkably.

After years of wrong policies and present mess, he turned the page and rose above small matters of lapel pins, whiskey shots, and mistaken ministers.  The actual problems and possible solutions we face are far beyond those of personality, race, gender, religious affiliation, or partisan bickering.  They are about foundational principles and future direction of our nation and the world.

By not stooping to lesser things, Obama addressed real situations, and again pointed the way upward and ahead.  In so doing, he reaffirmed the central concepts and practices that have made our country great and can do so once more.  By not focusing on himself or his opponents but on the American people, he showed we can all be part of a “change we can believe in.”

In speaking up to big money, big oil, big corporations, and big contractors, Obama and his campaign have stood up for the “average person” and “little guys,” who are really all the rest of us.  If he is not elected the next President of the United States this coming November, our country will have missed a tremendous privilege and opportunity, for he has already renewed and inspired truly democratic and republican values and ideals here and elsewhere in the world.