Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Contact your Rep.

Ok... while I've signed online petitions sent to me by Moveon.org and my friends this year( because a lot of crap has been going down), last night was the first time I wrote my congressman.
I found him using Write your Representative. The thing that was the incentive was W. admitting this weekend that he's been illegally wiretaping people. He doesn't have that power- even the PRESIDENT is suppose to get approval from a Judge to preform wire taps. It's called Checks and Balances- a term that W. didn't learn in Harvard or Yale.
I've mentioned before here that Benjamin Franklin wisely said "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither" I still believe this with every fiber of my being. And that's why W. scares me soooo much. He's trying to grab power by saying he needs it because of the War on Terror. A war that a) we're losing and b) is sooo loosely defined that we could be fighting it for decades[ Anybody know how that War on Drugs started by Reagan is doing?]. And some newspeople( besides Fox) are helping W. frame his actions in Freedom V. Security.

I'm not saying I want thousands of Americans to die as they did on 9/11 but at the same time I don't want Americans to be killing HUNDREDS of thousands as the U.S. is doing in Iraq.
I don't think W.'s wiretaps, Patroit Act, or Homeland Security is keeping us safer.

Ideally I'd like him to go to jail for breaking the law as he admited in his Radio Address. I told my congressman that. I also told him that I would settle for the Patroit Act to expire- as it's obvious that W. can't be trusted with ANY power, and that I think W. needs to be reminded of the checks and balences within the Constitution. A document that A) he is sworn to protect and b) he's been reported to say it's "just a goddamned piece of paper".

So please write your congressperson and let them know that it's thier DUTY to act as oversight to the President and they should do something about W's claims of 'wartime powers.'

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Credit Cards

This is a general rant that I felt was holiday related. I’m putting it on GMA as well because I feel the problems with credit cards are because of our system of the U.S. campaign system; politicians have to raise huge amounts of money to run, or worse feel that one of the ‘perks’ of being elected is to get ‘corporate sponsorship’. That is why hundreds/ thousands of Katrina victims are going to run afoul with debts in the coming months. Last year before Katrina hit, the credit card companies wrote a bill that made it harder for peoples to declare bankruptcy. This law makes it harder for poor people to get out from under their problems- like what happened to people due to the mishandling of Katrina.

What truly bothers me about credit cards is the fine print. Basically the credit card companies have been given government approval to screw you over. No matter how LOW the rates you sign up with Visa/ Mastercard/ or Discover, they have the right to change the rate whenever THEY want. The card companies don’t even have to give you a warning before they change things. So imagine you have a $200 debt at a good 4% interest rate… and then they change it on the 10th of the month to 7%. Now if they had bothered to warn you, you could have decided to pay off the $200 and canceled the card… But they don’t and by the law of the land- they don’t have to. The laws help the banks and not the people because the banks give more money to the law makers.

This is why whenever possible I pay via cash or debit card. I bank currently at a small bank, which I have to go out of my way to use one of their ATMs, and suggest others do the same. I know it’s hard to go through life without racking up debt, but here in the US I feel racking up debt is tantamount to the Debtor’s prison that existed in Victorian England.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

A holiday poem

Below is a poem written ( and read into congressional record) by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). Another Democrat that I'm glad serves this country.

'Twas a week before Christmas and all through the House,
no bills were passed 'bout which Fox News could grouse.
Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer,
so vacations in St. Barts soon should be near.

Katrina kids were all nestled snug in motel beds,
while visions of school and home danced in their heads.
In Iraq, our soldiers need supplies and a plan,
and nuclear weapons are being built in Iran.

Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell.
Americans feared we were in a fast track to ... well.
Wait, we need a distraction, something divisive and wily,
a fabrication straight from the mouth of O'Reilly.

We will pretend Christmas is under attack,
hold a vote to save it, then pat ourselves on the back.
Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger,
Wake up Congress, they're in no danger.

This time of year, we see Christmas everywhere we go,
From churches to homes to schools and, yes, even Costco.
What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy
when this is the season to unite us with joy.

At Christmastime, we're taught to unite.
We don't need a make-up reason to fight.
So on O'Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter and those right-wing blogs.

You should sit back and relax, have a few egg nogs.

'Tis the holiday season; enjoy it a pinch.
With all our real problems, do we really need another Grinch?
So to my friends and my colleagues, I say with delight,
a Merry Christmas to all, and to Bill O'Reilly, Happy Holidays.

Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas.


Oh and the vote he read it into... was House Resolution 579 "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected, One, recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas; two, strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and three, expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions."

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Humour

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.

He asked, "What are all those clocks?"

St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie, the hands on your clock will move."

"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?"

"That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?"

St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life."

"Where's President Bush's clock?" asked the man.

"Bush's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Patriot Act Revisited

The patriot act is up for renewal, and it needs to be
filibustered before the idiots in the house and senate
let it pass and continue to deteriorate our rights.
So please go to the link below, which will help you
either sign a petition via email or send a letter to
your senator.

-Adam

http://pfaw.kintera.org/PatriotActFilibuster

Monday, December 05, 2005

Boot-Stepping

From the Chico News & Review:


As if the Patriot Act were not intrusive enough, the Bush administration is now quietly attempting to expand the ability of U.S. spy agencies to secretly monitor the activities of American citizens.

According to the Washington Post, a presidential commission is working to expand the powers of a little-known agency called the Counterintelligence Field Agency (CIFA) to investigate crimes within the U.S., harvesting and fusing reports from local, state and federal cops on anyone the agency believes may be a security risk. That may not bother those of us who have nothing to hide, until we find out that a security risk is defined so broadly that it includes "non-specific threats," and "suspicious activity." In some cases, just asking a family member about their military service or participating in a lawful protest could mark a citizen for surveillance or even detention.


Acting in concert, the Pentagon is lobbying legislators to exclude spy agencies from the Privacy Act, a move that would give the Department of Defense access to voluminous records on ordinary Americans. Why? The official line is, as always, that the government needs to watch us to protect us from terrorists.

But who will protect us from the government?

In the 1970s another paranoid and corrupt presidential administration allowed the CIA and FBI to spy on U.S. citizens, a situation that led to numerous civil rights abuses, a monumental waste of time and taxpayer money and a widespread loss of faith in the American system of government. What the Bush administration is currently doing, however, may be even worse than Nixon's COINTELPRO.

Today, technologies such as data harvesting and GPS tracking make spying on American citizens much easier. At the same time, our real enemies have figured out that these high-tech means of surveillance don't work as well on them. Instead of investing in human intelligence and other methods proven to work against terrorists, it appears the administration is casting the blame for its own mistakes on the people it is supposed to be protecting.

The United States doesn't need a secret police force, and the creation of such an agency would mean nothing less than the demise of our Republic.


So protect yourself. Protest. Contact your Congresspeople. Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert aren't going to save you.