Say Anything Blog

Tomorrow morning the Republicans will begin the fingerpointing after once again losing another Republican House seat to the Democrats.

Another Democrat will be seated in the House of Representatives defeating a republican who was trying to replace Senator Wicker after his appointment to the Senate after Lott quit.

Childers (D)took out Davis (R) even after the RNC put $1.3 million and a weekend visit by Vice-President Cheney in a republican district.

This comes on the heals of Democrats taking a seat in the 1st District in Louisiana earlier this month that had been held by Republicans for over thirty years.

And then of course we all remember the Dems taking over Denny Hastert’s seat a few months ago. 

So far the Dems are 3 for 3 in special elections taking out the republicans in traditional republican strongholds. 

The RNC will be in full lockdown mode in the morning trying to figure out what the hell is happening and how they will survive the fall elections. When you can’t win in your own stronghold districts.......yikes.....

Gee, thanks for all you do, President Bush. Wow, you just might give up biking with all those secret service men.  Nah, golf is a pretty big sacrifice.

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

See http://www.politico.com

So will the righties here call on the Senate to pass a resolution condemning this article:  http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_09_24/article2.html?

Or how about your friend Rush when he called soldiers who speak out against the war “phony soldiers.”

The silence is deafening.......

Bush says: 

Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror — and our safety here at home.

Petraeus says he doesn’t know if we are safer.

Bush says:

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people — and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

No shit, Homer!

Bush says: 

It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq.

And you will change the strategy when?

Bush says: 

The violence in Iraq — particularly in Baghdad — overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made.

Past tense?  Let’s see here:  4 million Iraqis have been displaced due to sectarian violence.  Entire neighborhoods ethnically cleansed and those that aren’t live in fear of the knock at the door.

Bush says:

This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis. Only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

Really, talk to the 4 million displace Iraqis and the sectarian cleansed neighborhoods. Will this aggressive Iraqi plan put those neighborhoods back together again?

Bush says: 

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents, and there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.

Really?  All this time we were told we were winning.  All this time we were told we were making progess.  Where is the Iraqi government in all of this?  Conspicuously absent.

Bush says: 

The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad’s nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort — along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations — conducting patrols, setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.

The Iraqi government can’t even pass a major piece of legislation for its own people and they are going to do this? 

Bush says: 

Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not.

What? Bush finally read a letter or an email from one of his citizens?  Wow, what a revelation that he’s just figured out we may be questioning the ability of the Iraqi government to actually govern.

Bush says: 

We will use America’s full diplomatic resources to rally support for Iraq from nations throughout the Middle East. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States need to understand that an American defeat in Iraq would create a new sanctuary for extremists — and a strategic threat to their survival

.

So we haven’t been using our “full” diplomatic resources in the Middle East.  This must be one of those mistakes Bush was talking about earlier.

Bush says: 

From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, millions of ordinary people are sick of the violence and want a future of peace and opportunity for their children. And they are looking at Iraq. They want to know: Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists — or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?

Are these same people wondering why the Iraqi government stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom.  Americans are wondering as well.  Hmmmmm.... (that’s me wondering).

Oh and this is the best line of the night by far:
Bush says:

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved.

I don’t think victory will look like the one Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rummy thought they had achieved either. So please President Bush, it is your version of victory that you are now changing and continue to change.

With that I leave you all to comment.

So we now know what Bush will be doing starting January 2009.  He will be out giving speeches “replenishing the ol’ coffers” on the speaking circuit, living in Dallas and when he gets bored ponying off to Crawford. “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch,” he says in Robert Draper’s new book. 

From Robert Draper’s new book: “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush”:

“I’ll give some speeches, to replenish the ol’ coffers,” says Mr Bush, who is already estimated to be worth $20m. “I don’t know what my dad gets - it’s more than 50-75 [thousand dollars a speech], and “Clinton’s making a lot of money”.

So he takes us to war where we will lose 4000 men and women and will probably lose more men and women while he is already planning to make a bundle of money “replenishing the ol’ coffers” when he leaves office in 2009.

Oh and lest you think this was an unauthorized book, President Bush sat for the interviews on two separate occasions.

Really pathetic. Really.

An excellent piece by former New Jersey governor James MrGreevey.  Perhaps Sen. Craig will be able to come to terms with who he is, how he will live his life and that he can become whole. 

Read the entire thing.

A Happy Labor Day to all! 

U.S. Department of Labor

The History of Labor Day

Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means

“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.”

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

Founder of Labor Day

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.

The First Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

Labor Day Legislation

Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From them developed the movement to secure state legislation. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

A Nationwide Holiday

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression. Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.

The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.

If you don’t behave the way the Republican party bosses want you to you will face Republican punishment and lose your seats at the Republican National convention.

Hmm....Does this sound strangely familiar. I seem to remember reading a similar post having to do with the Democrats here. 

Now, who’s taking away the “right to choose” the next presidential candidate? 

So much for that “sacred right” the poster was writing about.  So where’s that bridge you wanted to sell? Oh also, this must be that “hardball ‘Republican’ party politics you were writing about.

Senator Larry Craig arrested and pleads guilty to airport bathroom “misunderstanding”. 

Now I’ve been in many an airport bathroom including the Minneapolis airport and have yet to have a “misunderstanding” there.

A very interesting read . . .

From yesterday’s New York Times Editorial page.

Richard Cohen in today’s Washington Post writes this:

The presidency is where a person can make the most difference.  But the emergence of Thompson shows that a fatigued Republican Party is not interested in making any difference at all--just in hanging on.  What commends Thompson to the presidency--the only thing anyone ever mentions-- is his TV fame.  If that’s all it takes, Thompson can look forward to being more than a president.  He’ll be an American Idol.

Interesting. Read the entire column.

In the dead of night they slithered into the ICU of a Washington DC hospital to “visit” an ill John Ashcroft.  In the dead of night they, Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card, stalked into his hospital room to get him to sign onto the Bush-Cheney wiretapping program.  Comey, the acting AG had refused to sign so they crawled into the hospital to get a deathly ill Ashcroft to sign the judicial approval. 

But for the patriotism and loyalty to the Constitution and not President Bush or Vice-President Cheney (who thought nothing of violating the U.S. Constitution), Acting AG Comey, an ill John Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller, the illegal activity would continue. But they spoke truth to power and told the President there would be mass resignations if this illegal program were to continue as Cheney/Gonzales/Card wanted.

What another sad chapter in the debacle that is this administration.

Read it here. And here

Oh it’s going to be an exciting Friday night in our nation’s capital. People will be sitting clustered around the politico hangouts drinking Grey Goose and waiting with baited breath for ABC’s 20/20 to start.

Why, you ask?  Well, the DC Madam as she is infamously now known handed over her little black book of telephone numbers of her clients, movers and shakers in the political world of Washington DC politics. 

Already that little black book has brought down one deputy secretary of state and the DC Madam’s witness list includes “a Bush administration economist, the head of a conservative think tank, a prominent CEO, several lobbyists, and a handful of military officials.” (WaPo 5/1/07)

To be sure this will be a nonpartisan blowup with the revealing of names with torture-like slowness since she apparently has thousands of phone numbers from her “escort” business.

While I am sure that many of the owners of those telephone numbers are hoping that she just pleads guilty to the charges and goes quietly, it doesn’t look as if that will occur since she gave the numbers to ABC News.

Indeed 20/20 will be the hottest ticket in Washington DC on Friday night.

Will wonders never cease?  Senator Sam Brownback (speaking on This Week)agrees with Senator Joe Biden about dividing up Iraq in three federated states, one for the Sunni, One for the Shiite and one for the Kurds. Then he added that the President should force all sides to get together like Clinton did with the Dayton Accords and Camp David to get these guys to make the tough decisions.  They don’t get to leave the room until the political decisions have been made and agreed to. 

Wow, a conservative Republican presidential candidate adopting a Democrat’s ideas.  Nah, say it isn’t so.

A very disturbing article in today’s WaPo about our returning injured soldiers.  Not only are these men and women severely injured when they return, they then have to fight for their disability status.  Particularly disturbing is the fact that the doctors will use their past medical history of the soldiers to deny them disablity.  They knew their history when they enlisted but now it seems they use it to deny disability.

Since these men and women gave to this country their minds and their body parts, should the armed services now be able to kick these men and women to the curb?  The old adage, “you break it you own it”, while in some ways crude, aptly describes the plight of some of these men and women.  What will their futures be?

Read the entire article here

Update: Repairs on the hotel were started today. Read the article here