This morning the Senate confirmed as CIA director the military general who is directly responsible for implementing the illegal wiretaps of vast numbers of innocent American citizens. This is an administration operative who by his own admission hasn't got the vaguest clue that the 4th Amendment to the our Constitution expressly specifies there must be "probable cause" to justify any search or seizure. The president's approval ratings are dipping under 30% and still falling. And yet today only 15 U.S. Senators had either the judgment or courage to reject the Hayden nomination. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
The problem is our members of Congress believe they are immune from challenge. They believe they have their own districts so gerrymandered that it is unlikely they will every lose an election to a member of the other party. They believe no serious alternative candidates could ever arise in their own party to cost them their own nomination. And UNTIL that happens they actually believe they don't have to listen to the voices of their constituents ever.
We have message for those members of Congress. IT JUST HAPPENED.
In California right now there are THREE candidates in the Los Angeles area alone, count them, three, who are mounting serious challenges to incumbent Democrats in the upcoming June 6th primaries. They are Charles Coleman, Jr. (D-CA-28), Bob McCloskey (D-CA-29) and Marcy Winograd (D-CA-36) who are ALL challenging incumbent Democrats in their "safe" congressional districts, and they are all serious.
Together they have teamed up to run joint "call to action" ads to get people more involved and engaged in the political process by encouraging them to speak out on the issues with their own voices. Together they founded the Impeach Team, all standing up by calling for the impeachment of the president and vice-president NOW for their many lies, deceptions and abuses of power.
How long will the outrages go on? They will continue only as long as it takes for the first member of Congress to actually lose an election because of their spineless, gutless cowardice on issue after issue. Where is the law that says the representatives we have now are the best we could have in any of these districts? How many members of Congress are actually calling for the immediate impeachment of both occupants of our out of control White House. Would you believe zero?!?! If there were any justice in the world they would ALL be facing primary challenges and they would ALL lose.
If the flash animation player worked for you (and it should work for most people) you should be hearing the new radio spot the Impeach Team put together, which is already running on the Air America Radio national stream, and is about to start running on the Los Angeles Air America Radio affiliate as well. Otherwise, click on the link below.
We need to all we can to support these brave candidates who DO have a chance to win. Marcy Winograd was featured on the front page of the Los Angeles metro section the other day, and the tone of the article was that they recognized her as a serious and viable challenger. Bob McCloskey and Charles Coleman are also getting good coverage, and with your support the Impeach Team can achieve a major media breakout between now and June 6th.
Please visit their action page on impeachment where you can send a message to your members of Congress calling on them to stand up for impeachment now. And then BACK THAT UP by making a contribution if you can so they can run as many of these "call to action" ads as possible.
If you are from CA this same action page will send your personal message also to your members of the California state legislature, supporting AJR 39, the state measure of CA itself to bring impeachment to the floor of the U.S. House. And especially if you live in one of these Los Angeles districts, BACK THAT UP by coming out to vote on June 6th for one of these brave candidates, and rally all your friends to do the same. The ultimate message to send to Congress is the vote to remove them from office. SEND THAT MESSAGE.
If you have a web site of your own, please email the Impeach Team from one of their pages so you can play the call to action spot on your own web page. In exchange the Impeach Team will give you a featured link back to promote your own activism and thank you for helping to make participatory democracy work.
It is not enough just to take back Congress. It is not enough to have a majority if that majority is STILL afraid to exercise its power. We must take it back on the platform of courageous, decisive action. We must take it back on the platform of what we stand for and what we will do if restored to majority power. And the best evidence of that for the electorate is what we are standing up for and doing NOW with these action pages which our candidates champion.
Please do all you can to support these three candidates. And on June 6th let there be a political earthquake in the Los Angeles area, with tremors in every Congressional office in the Capitol. And THEN, our members of Congress WILL listen to the voice of the people at last.
internet activist with the mission of generating as many policy messages to Congress as possible
Shock and Awe. . . The name given to the assault on Iraq was an act of terrorism that surpassed the attack on the twin towers and had been planned before the attack on New York City. It is three in the morning and an 85 year old WWII vet woke up this morning filled with anger at his daughter and granddaughter. His daughter had just E-mailed him photographs taken of her daughter and fiancé taken in Iraq. The granddaughter was a Captain on her third tour in the occupation of the cradle of civilization. It is as though the ghost of Heydrich the butcher of Czechoslovakia had visited me in a nightmare. The evident pride of my daughter in “Captain Lulu” contrasted with the sorrow of Cindy Sheehan brought back symptoms of the post traumatic stress syndrome that recurred when I was under anesthetic for a hip replacement. My surgeon said that it took three of them to hold me down.
This is terror and I have been terrorized but I am not under anesthesia. I simply ran to my typewriter and am pouring my anger on my word processor. Unlike Cindy I do not see our youth in Iraq as “our dear troops”. Being an officer Lulu has the option of resigning her commission; unlike the enlisted people she is a careerist leading the mercenaries who are rapidly losing their humanity in this never ending war on the behalf of Israel and Halliburton. Seven generals have resigned their commissions but we still allow the Bush administration to contemplate a war on Iran and have sent warships to the Caribbean to threaten Nicaragua. The American people are still a sleeping giant. They are slowly waking up but where is “the terrible resolve”. When are they going to turn on the fascist criminals in Washington?
Before going to sleep I watched the Jon Daly show that pillories the administration take a shot at the United Nations for including China and Cuba as members. His objection was that they were violators of human rights. The only human rights being violated in Cuba are the rights of the concentration camp prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Cuba has the best medical care in the world and China is faced with a population of over a billion people. Somehow watching decent people like Lulu and Jon accepting the lies of the corporation media is disturbing, but the knowledge that both houses of congress refuse to impeach the criminal gang that has taken over our country is horrifying.
by
gramps (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 107 comments)
on Saturday, May 27, 2006 at 8:18:39 AM
Excellent post, Gramps. How disturbing it must be to have family members who are proud of the crimes being committed in the Middle East.
BTW, it's Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show". Everyone seems to make that mistake.
by
Catlover (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 84 comments)
on Saturday, May 27, 2006 at 11:10:21 AM
Great to see this blog site where opinions can be offered on our current political dark ages.
One of the first and most important actions needs to be to clean up the U.S. voting system, so that votes are properly counted. Between voting machines (all of which are screwed up. Ref: http://www.blackboxvoting.org) and disappeared votes in the elections of 2000 and 2004 (ref: http://www.gregpalast.com) our political damnation won't be corrected until all of this is done. Then, a fight will have to occur to insure other candidates besides Republicans and Democrats get elected. Otherwise, it will be like Alex Jones says (ref: www.prisonplanet.com) - it's like the difference between Hulk Hogan and The Undertaker.
by
StarrFleat (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, May 27, 2006 at 5:54:06 PM
4 comments
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