When is the Congress going to act?

That is the question I would pose to our newly elected majority in the Congress. I keep hearing President Bush challenging the Congress to stop him from sending the 21,500 new troops into Iraq and yet all the Congress does is say they want to stop him.

Haven't they realized by now Bush will not change his mind no matter how much they threaten to stop him. They have to cut off funding and force him to bring the troops home now.

The horror in Iraq continues almost unabated and it doesn't show much signs of stopping or slowing down and the Bush administration doesn't have a plan that will actually work.

Something new

I came across this on blog entry on Weird Cake blog and I thought it would be pretty cool to try it out, if you would like to check it out click on the link at the bottom of the entry.

In 1965 (the year you were born)

Lyndon B. Johnson is president of the US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara calls for a nationwide network of bomb shelters Former leader of the Black Muslims, Malcolm X, is shot and killed in New York City To protest voting rights discrimination, civil rights demonstrators begin a march for Selma to Montgomery with federal troop protection The first commercial satellite, Early Bird, is launched into space by Nasa to transmit telephone and television signals Voting Rights Act is signed into law Riots by young blacks in the Watts area of Los Angeles begin, causing $200 million in damage Hurricane Betsy claims 75 lives in southern Florida and Louisiana United States President Lyndon Johnson proclaims his "Great Society" during his State of the Union address Dr. Dre, Sarah Jessica Parker, Robert Downey Jr., Shania Twain, Moby, and Ben Stiller are born Los Angeles Dodgers win the World Series Green Bay Packers win the NFL championship Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews, is the top grossing film Dune by Frank Herbert is published The Beatles' Rubber Soul is released "Satisfaction" by Rolling Stones is a top hit The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing songs from their new album Help! Sony introduces the Betamax, a home video tape recorder Nearly all of NBC's programs are now broadcast in color I Dream of Jeannie premieres

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

No Child Left Behind could claim another victim

I received a link to this story in an email and I just had to write about it. I have been critic of the No Child Left Behind program that was created by Bush and the Republican led congress.

The story was about a middle school in Austin, Texas that was facing possible closing by the school district for failure to meet testing standards relating to No Child Left Behind.

The middle school is named Webb Middle School and it happens to be in a predominantly low income area in Austin and it also has a what they call a high turn over of residents. This high turnover of residence leads to a revolving door effect to the school. Because of the high turn over of students the school has failed to improve its standardized test scores over three years and according to the No Child Left Behind program the state can order the school district to close Webb Middle School or order alternative management for the school.

Here is the part of the story that makes me so angry as a parent of three school age kids; the school district want to close it down instead of fixing the problems.

More than 200 parents of students that attend Webb Middle School showed up at the middle school to voice their anger for the proposed closing of the school. A big part of their dismay with the plan is that the two schools that their kids will be bussed to are not any better (test scores wise)than Webb is. So it makes no sense to close down one school and send kids to other schools in the district that aren't much better than the one they are closing.

It seems to me that because Webb Middle School is in a predominently low income area they aren't concerned with fixing the problems that are causing the test scores to be low, instead they want to shut the school down and bus the kids across town to other middle schools in Austin.

As a parent I feel this is just an example of the school district reacting to the failed No Child Left Behind program forced on them by President Bush. The states and school districts say that it is an unfunded mandate and therefor it is impossible for them to implement. I agree with their assessment, however it is our kids all across the country that are suffering. I feel instead of just throwing up their collective hands they need to become more creative in how they make up for the lack of Federal dollars.

Bush stubbornly sticks to troop surge

I almost avoided the State of Union Address altogether, but I thought I would catch the chimp at the podium making all kinds of excuses for my things aren't working in Iraq.

As usual he makes a bunch of grandious proposals like healthcare tax credits and pie in the sky ideas about cutting our dependency on foreign oil by drilling for more oil here in America.

I thought for sure Pelosi would have knock Bush over the head with the gavel when she was done calling the gallery to order before Bush started his speech.

Bush was almost to the point of begging for the Democrats and the American people to give him one more shot at salvaging his failed policies in Iraq. It didn't look like he was getting much support from the Democrat side of the gallery.

I think the Democrat Response to the President's State of the Union that was delivered By Freshman Virginia Senator Jim Webb was fantastic. He laid out the differences between the Democrats and the Repugs and basically said the Democrats in the majority aren't going to give the president much room over the next two years.

Hilary Clinton will run in 2008

This had to be the most anticipated announcement in quite some time; Hilary Clinton will be running for President in 2008. She made it official on a website yesterday and it spread like wild fire.

I won't be one of those people fawning over her decision to run to represent me in the Presidential election. I don't think she has the experience needed to be President and for that reason alone I wouldn't vote for her. The other reason is she has no vision for our country other than she isn't a Republican. She voted for the war in Iraq and when it became unpopular she changed her stance on the war.

I will reserve my judgement on the other candidates until I can read where they stand on all of the issues and to see what their vision is for our country.

Democrat led House of Representatives carried through on the 100 hour pledge

Nancy Pelosi has proven that her party could do a much better job at getting the things the American people were really interested in done than the Republicans could do. Her 100hour pledge was the cornerstone of the Democrats campaign strategy that appeared to payoff for them in the November elections.

I wasn't convinced that the Democrat controlled Congress would be able to make enough of a difference, but I may have been wrong. Two of the swiftly passed bills covered subjects that were hot button topics during the elections; raising federal minimum wage and the repealing the tax breaks for Big Oil.

The raise in minimum wage is a big victory for the working poor and the repealing of the tax break is seen as a way to stick it too Big Oil who were boasting of huge profits while we consumers were paying over $3.00 a gallon for gasoline.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Senate, where Harry Reid appears to be at odds with Pelosi over some of the provisions of the bills. Hopefully the two can work out their differences.

The Senate passes a resolution against President Bush's new Iraq policy

It looks like the Democrat led Senate took President Bush up on his challenge today, by passing a resolution opposing Bush's planned to increase the number of troops in Iraq by 21,500.

The significant thing about the resolution was that Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, broke ranks with his party and signed on to the resolution. He said that he could not agree with the Presidents plan to send 21,500 more troops into Iraq and risk increasing bloodshed by our brave soldiers and marines.

Unfortunately, the vote was mostly symbolic and not binding, however it was done in hopes to stop the President from making another blunder in Iraq. It appears now the only way Congress will be able to stop Bush from sending more troops into harms way is by the House of Representatives to withhold funding.

When is Bush going to realize that the majority of the Amercian people believe he is incompetitant and had botched the War in Iraq. Now is the time to begin a phased withdrawl of our troops and not a surge of 21,500 troops.

President Bush is challenging Congress

In an interview aired today from Camp David, President Bush basically challenged the Democrat controlled Congress to stop him from sending in 21,500 troops into Iraq.

He said that he wasn't going to let anyone tell him how to conduct the War in Iraq and that appeared to included the American people. According to the latest polls, an overwhelming percentage of the American people do not support his plan to send in anymore troops.

Hopefully the Congressional leadership can do something about it and fast. I feel that if Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid fail to do something about it, it will make it difficult for the Democrats have much chance in 2008 to win back the White House form the Republicans.

Blunder in Iraq, even Bush's own party is jumping ship

We finally heard from the President regarding his promised change of direction in Iraq, but it didn't sound good to me. I was hoping that everything we heard in the news was wrong and that Bush would announce troop redeployment and we would finally see our troops coming home.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen and instead Bush announced that he was sending 21,000 more troops to Iraq. The only thing that will come of this is more flag draped coffins will be sent back on planes from Iraq. He continues to put all the blame on the Iraqi and yet he hasn't done much to impress upon the Iraqi government that we will jot be there forever and that they need to step up and protect themselves.

Congress has begun digging in their heels to try and stop the planned escalation in Iraq and even one of Bush's own party has come out publically and attacked the planned escalation of troop numbers; calling it a Blunder. Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska is against any surge in troop levels in Iraq.

US Senate and House Democrat leaders send a letter to President Bush

In a letter that contained very scathing views on the Presidents handling of the War in Iraq, both Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House) and Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader) spelled out their disapproval over the planned surge in US troops in Iraq. It has been reported that this is one of the things that President Bush’s new plan contains and he is expected to tell the American people about the plan sometime this week.

Even though the whole plan hasn’t officially been finalized, it has been leaked to the press that Bush plans to increase the number of US combat troops in Iraq by 20,000 in what is being called a “surge” in troop strength to help quell the amount of sectarian violence.

The letter is meant to push the President into reconsidering the additional troops, because they anticipate that if we increase the number of soldiers on the ground it will only increase the number of US deaths and not reduce the amount of violence.

Unfortunately, I don’t see this as a strong enough statement to the President and in fact I think Congress should threaten to withhold new funding for the war in Iraq to force the President to bring our troops home, now.

Nancy Pelosi makes history, but can she make a difference

In a historic moment, Representative Nancy Pelosi (d) from San Francisco became the very first women Speaker of the House and second in line to the Presidency. This makes her the most powerful women in America and it also gives her party control in the House of Representatives. She promised to bring back civility and ethics to Washington and lets hope she can make it happen.

After bringing to an end to the 12 year run of Republican rule in Washington, we are going to expect the Democrats to carry through on there promises. They must prove that all of their promises were not empty just to get into power.

They must push President Bush on Iraq and get our troops home safely and make the changes necessary to cleanup all of the corruption in Washington thanks to the Republicans.

Invasion of your privacy

It appears that one of those feared signing statements that President Bush decided that he has the power to do has found its way into a bill that appears to allow the government to read your mail without a warrant. According to a story I just read on MSNBC that is exactly what happened recently:

WASHINGTON - A statement attached to postal legislation by President Bush
last month may have opened the way for the government to open mail without a
warrant.
The White House denies any change in policy, but civil libertarians
are alarmed, saying the government has never publicly claimed that power
before.

Federal law has long required a search warrant to open first class mail
unless postal inspectors suspect it contains something dangerous, like a bomb or
a hazardous chemical, reports NBC News' Pete Williams. But in signing a postal
bill just before Christmas, President Bush said federal law also gives the
government authority to open the mail "for foreign intelligence
collection."

Wasn't it enough that Bush authorized illegal wiretaps and now he basically is going to allow the Feds to read our mail without a warrant. It seems El Shrubo wasn't satisfied with the NSA wiretaps, now he thinks it is ok to read our unopened mail. Everyone wants to be safe from terrorists, but we draw the line when the governments actions violate our privacy.

Where is this all going to end?

After running up a huge deficit, President Bush calls on Congress to cut spending

“WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday he’ll submit a five-year budget
proposal that will balance the federal budget by 2012 and called on Congress to
sharply cut back on costly pet projects hidden in spending bills.”

President Bush submitted his 5 year Budget Plan today and with it he says it will balance the Federal Budget by 2012. It seems to me that we heard this before and we are still faced with a huge deficit, which he caused.

The reason we are in the fiscal mess we are in now is because of Bush’s War and the Republican lead Congress has bankrupted the Treasury. The war has cost tax payers half a trillion dollars over the past 3 years and it looks like it will be over a trillion dollars before we finally pull our troops out.

That money could have gone to a lot better use; the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding in the Gulf Coast. Instead we just keep tossing money down a hole, all for the Middle East oil. President Bush needs to come to grips with the reality that he has failed the American people and he needs to resign.

This ridiculous 5 year plan calls on Congress to fix his fiscal irresponsibility’s over his 6 years in the White House and it also would set the tone for his replacement in 2008. Just simply asking the Congress to curb pet projects in spending bills is not going to fix our Federal Deficit, we need to raise taxes on the wealthy and curb spending.

After huge win in November, House Democrats look to restore integrity

The Democrats are looking to take advantage of their opportunity to show the American People that they can and will change the direction in America. In a story I found on CNN one of those newly elected US Representative, Jerry McNerney of California said that the Democrats are going to make some big changes.

"In this election, the American people clearly called for change,"
Rep.-elect Jerry McNerney said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. "As our
first responsibility in fulfilling the mandate of this critical election, House
Democrats will restore integrity and civility in Washington in order to earn the
public trust."
The effort to build that trust will include bans on gifts from
lobbyists, lobbyist-funded travel and use of corporate jets, McNerney
said.

That would definitely be a big change to way Washington has been operating while the Republicans have been in the majority.

3000 Dead soldiers, for what

The new year brings more death in Iraq and the Bush Administration keeps saying we can win the War in Iraq. The death toll of American troops has reached 3000 and there is no end in sight. The daily sectarian violence that continues unabated doesn't point to anything that would give a reasonable person any reason to be optimistic.

Our troops deserve better than the rosy picture that the Bush Administration is trying to paint of the conditions on the ground in Iraq. We need a new direction in Iraq like the Democrats in Congress have been calling for, for months.

So how long do we have to wait and how many more US troops will die in this failed war before President Bush figures out a new direction that he keeps saying is coming.