Now Corny Wants to Take Credit for The New GI Bill

From today's Center for American Progress Briefing:
After voting against Sen. Jim Webb's (D-VA) GI Bill, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) now "has the gall to try and take credit for its passage." Brandon Friedman of VoteVets.org writes, "It is an admirable attempt at spin, however. Either way, the troops know Cornyn is a flip-flopper who supports them when it's politically expedient."

The Horror in Iraq Continues Despite McCain's Claims

John McClaim's continuing statements that we are achieving "victory" in Iraq defy rationality and the truth on the ground. Can you tell he was an advocate for Vietnam? One would have thought that he had learned his lesson there. But, no, he simply has to appeal to his misinformed and belligerent base that can't bother with the facts. The real danger is that McClaim continues to have a residue of respect for once fighting the administration's lackeys on Iraq and other issues. Unfortunately, that man is buried underneath at least 6 feet of dirty lies, misinformation and his own denial of his former embodiment as a man who at least had a little integrity. May that former soul rest in peace.

The Facts:

• We still have 150,000 troops and over 100,000 private contractors in Iraq
• 30,000 Private Contractors are replacing troops and fighting a parallel war
• Random genocide with Sunni vs Shia and Shia vs Shia violence continues
  
• Sunni vs Shia violence is occurring in Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Nigeria
• The Iraqi's political progress is basically non-existent
  

Juan Cole details the fundamental failure of the "surge" in today's Informed Comment here is an excerpt:

"The law revising treatment of former Baathists, which Bush and McCain had hailed as meeting a "benchmark" for political progress in Iraq, has never been implemented. The law is so ambiguous that how it is put into effect would determine if it could actually reduce the resentments of Sunni ex-Baathists. It was denounced when it was passed this winter by ex-Baathists such as Iyad Allawi and Salih Mutlak in the Iraqi parliament, which I thought a bad sign.

Although this important Reuters story is itself a refutation of the whole Kagan-Bush-McCain victory narrative of the "surge" or troop escalation, it will not even be mentioned on American television. The troop escalation had been intended to lead to political reconciliation, not just to temporarily tamp down violence in some neighborhoods. In fact, it led to a massive ethnic cleansing of Baghdad's Sunnis. There is no evidence that most of the Sunni Awakening Councils, who take money from the US to fight the Salafi Jihadis, are eager to reconcile with al-Maliki's government, by the way."

For a taste of what is really still happening in Iraq take a look at this interview with Laura Logan from last night's Daily Show.

My first State Democratic Convention, what an experience!

Bic Asberry, Wally Wadsworth and Jeanine Allen all tried to tell me what to expect at my first state convention but it was still a shock and a thrill. Sitting for hours at a time listening to debate on resolutions that were going to be referred to the SDEC anyway seemed to go on forever. The food was horrible, the weather was suffocating, the Austin Convention Center seemed to have been built by a confused sadist and after hearing the same speech repeated 20 or 30 times it did get old. But there were many thrills and highlights that made the trip worthwhile.

There were estimated to be 15-20,000 people in attendance and when we all cheered at once it shook the building. Nancy Sanchez was our designated cheerleader and she did a terrific job of it too.

Our Delegation came away with quite a few feathers in our hat. Phillip Borawski was elected as a member of the Permanent Resolution Committee and spent almost two completes days from early in the morning to late in the evening working on that vital committee. And amazingly Brandi Richards was elected as an Obama Delegate to the Democratic national Convention in Denver. Way to go Brandi! I was elected as what is called the Director position over the 10 County Chairs in Senate District 2. That position also makes me a member of the prestigious State Democratic Executive Committee. We are all honored to represent Rockwall Democrats in these three influential positions.

Harold Partain did a fantastic job of getting us all accounted for and keeping us together as a delegation. I think the vast majority of our delegates were there for most of the polled votes, though several alternates were elevated to full delegate status on Saturday.

The highlight for me was hearing Chelsea Clinton speak. She was poised, articulate and very warm. She spoke about her mother’s courageous campaign but pledged her and her mom’s full enthusiastic support of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. I swear there was some kind of light shining around that brilliant young woman.

Barack sent the Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, to speak on his behalf. Governor Kaine is a rising star in the Democratic Party. A graduate of Harvard Law School, his law practice in Virginia for 17 years specialized in representing people who had been denied housing opportunities because of race or disability. He did a good job of focusing our collective eyes on the prize of the presidency and the work we have ahead of us to capture it for Senator Obama.

Another highlight was hearing State Representative and Lt. Colonel in the National Guard Rick Noriega. Click here to see the YouTube video. Noriega joined the United States Army in 1979 in the wake of the Iran hostage crisis. He became a Lt. Colonel in the Texas Army National Guard, and most recently served in the War in Afghanistan that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks.

On his return from Afghanistan, Mayor Bill White requested that Noriega command the evacuee shelter operation at the George Brown Convention Center, where he oversaw thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Rick is the Democratic Candidate running against Little Johnny Cornyn who has never met a corporation he didn’t love or an environmental protection law that he liked. Cornyn votes for billions and billions in war funding without blinking an eye and goes apoplectic at the thought of spending millions on the elderly or poor children. His most recent stomach turning stand was to oppose the New GI Bill giving the 1.5 million Iraq an Afghanistan veterans a decent chance at a quality education. I guess Corny doesn’t think these men and women who have spent multiple tours risking their lives, their limbs, their brains and their souls have sacrificed enough to earn a good college education.

There are several polls that put Noriega in a dead heat with John Cornyn. Cornyn has big corporation donors, but we can beat him with grassroots activism.

Boyd Richie was re-elected as Democratic Party Chair. Early in the convention he gave a rousing welcoming speech to all of us. He also showed us a new video that will be aired on TV called By The Numbers that dramatically shows how the tide is turning against the Republicans all over Texas and the nation.

Kirk Watson was the Convention Chair and did a great job. He is a former Mayor of Austin and a current Texas State Senator from the 14^th District. Kirk is a rising star in the Democratic Party and after hearing his speech and witnessing his mastery of the convention process it is easy to see why.

There was some kind of mix up so that Glenn Melancon didn’t get a chance to speak but I think he too is a rising star in our party and you can see a video of him speaking here. Glenn can beat Ralph Hall if we can get a turnout in November like we did in the primary. That means we have a real shot at replacing someone who has gone along with every Whitehouse decision in lock step fashion. Ralph Hall, a veteran of WWII who went to college on the original GI Bill, voted against the New GI Bill too. I still can’t figure that one out.

There were many more speakers who repeated the message to us that we CAN take back Texas and Washington this year. We have great candidates and a growing grass roots organization all over Texas. Let’s get moving and take back our State and our Country! I am excited and ready to move.

A weekley roundup of liberal Texas blogs

I though I would change things up a little today and do my own personal round up of Liberal Texas blogs.
Brains and Eggs has questions for Boyd Richie which are rather pointed and direct about how he has managed the party recently. Included is an accusation that he had Ron Kirk tell a women who is running for State Chair that if she did her superdelegate status would be lost.

Meanwhile Texas Kaos has important info re Texas Democratic State Convention.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram had an article this weekend that details how the Texas Sunset Commission is recommending that The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) be placed under a conservator's management since the leaders of the department seemed to have taken a bad trip to exotic (foreign owned) tollway island and drank the cool aid.

Vince from Capitol Annex reviews the Texas Legislative Study Group’s excellent recommendations concerning what the Texas Legislature needs to do to improve higher education.

The burning question at Doing My Part For The Left is will Republicans return Rev, Hagee’s hate money.

For more tidbits check out:

Texas Progressive Alliance Blog Round-Up: June 2, 2008 (Pre-Convention Edition!) at Capital Annex

If any of you have news about the issues or processes that will be going on at the State Convention later this week, please post them in the comments section.

Hall and Cornyn desert the troops

The new GI Bill that has been advocated by the IAVA and VFW passed the House last week, despite Ralph Hall's opposition. Today it passed the Senate (with a Yea vote from Kay Bailey H) despite a Nay vote from Bush's bitch Johnny Cornseed. Honestly, how can Cornyn and Hall look themselves in the face each day? They have both wrapped themselves in the American flag so many times that they have stripes on their chests and stars on their asses. You would think that given their eagerness to send our troops on such a hopeless, grinding and terrifying mission they would want only the best for them when they returned home. You would be wrong. Sure they approved every Iraq spending bill they ever saw like it was a blue light special at Wallyworld. And who could stop Corny from shrieking hysterically about the lack of patriotism of anyone who had the temerity to question his master's wisdom for the past 5 years?

But he and Hall don't care how hypocritical they look or how contradictory their positions are. Like Bush they reside in an unaccountable place in their own minds where not planning a war means it was wise, where not giving the troops armor is the troops problem, where failure is success and the hard work of active diplomacy is referred to as a refuge for cowards. Welcome to the Ministry of Peace and the rest of George Orwell's prediction of the future in 1984. Already, Rovian thought-bots of the administration, like Douglas Feith are drenching the airwaves with Newspeak lies aimed at making our whole society recall their failvictories. I say let's all join the revolution and remember what these unhonorable men actually did do, especially on election day this November. And let's make damn sure the Democratic Party doesn't forget these crimes once they have control of the reigns of power.

From Wikipedia:

"The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that white is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."

– Part II, chapter IX - chapter I of Goldstein's book

How to fight the power in Rockwall

My Friends,
We all know how crazy the last 7 years have been for our nation and the nations we have afflicted with Bush's despicable policies and his administration's bizarre incompetence in carrying them out. We can have control of our country again but we have to wrest it away from the leadership of the republican party. That means we must stand up for our country. Standing up means doing what is inconvenient, like giving our attention to the issues enough to penetrate the MMM (the mainstream media machine) to find out the truth. Then we have to share that truth with each other to build back the connections between us that time and busy lives have destroyed. We also have to make sacrifices of our time, our energy and our money to support the Democratic Party and it's candidates. We don't live in a true democracy any longer we live in a corporatocracy. The thieves on wall street have used and abused us horribly for the past seven years and because of that our economy is failing. These companies make enough money that they owe this country, but they will only pay if we out them from their hiding place behind our government's skirts. Those skirts are made of tax loopholes, laws written to their specifications (like the bankruptcy bill written by MBNA), lying cheating lawyers and lobbyists by the truck load and media empires owned by unscrupulous and short-sighted moguls. Bush and Cheney have made sure that the regulating agencies have been neutered by their inside cronies. He and his cohorts have played the "Great and powerful Oz" for too long, we need to jerk the curtain open and expose the fraudulence of our leaders to find our way back to Kansas. Unfortunately we can't just click our heels to make it happen. It is going to be a long fight and by now we all realize this fight is going to take many exhausting rounds. But we have a foothold now. Here in Rockwall we have a chance now that seemed impossible 6 months ago. I had a leader in this community tell me the other day that no one can get elected in this county who is not "old Rockwall". That is what all the fossils of Rockwall think. They think you all will fade like yesterday's newspaper when this presidential election finishes. Let's teach them about the changing demographics of Rockwall County. Let us demonstrate to them the depth and breath of our concerns and let's shown them our strength and endurance. Divided we fall, together we are unstoppable tsunami, the old establishment's worse nightmare.

Hall, Cornyn and Hutchison Send Our Troops to War but Don’t Want to Take Care Of Them When They Get Home

Note: A week ago I took down this post because Kyle Oliver, Ralph Hall’s legislative director, told me personally that Hall had decided to become a co-sponsor of the new GI Bill. Well guess what, HE LIED! I’ve heard this is regular behavior from Hall and his staff but stupid old me actually believed the guy. So here is my original post which describes why the Texas delegation from our area is a bunch of double dealing, lying hypocrites who love war but turn their backs on the warriors they send off to do their dirty work for them. They didn’t give our troops body armor, vehicle armor, enough weapons or ammunition or a plan that would work and they made them stay many times longer than they should have but when they came home our Congressman and both of our Senators turned their backs on the men and women that they sent in harm’s way.

Do you know what jingoism means? From Wikipedia – “Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy".^[1] In practice today, it refers to “ intensely advocating a military answer to every foreign or domestic challenge along with excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others.” In our country it also has taken on the meaning of using so-called patriotism to distract Americans from the lying, cheating and stealing of our CC’s (criminal corporations) and the military-industrial complex. You do understand that in the latter part of the 20^th Century and on up to this moment that one of the main assignments of the CIA and the military is to support the growth in foreign countries of our CC’s don’t you? If not see the following list of resources:

1. John Perkins.org the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

2. CounterPunch.org

3. Dissent Magazine

4. Columbian Trade Unionists Assassinated by Paramilitaries Paid by American Companies, Congress Told.

5. Chiquita Banana Company is Fined $25 million for Paying Off Columbian Paramilitary Groups

But let me back to my original thought, jingoism. This is the specialty of the Republicans. They have zealously fed and watered the War Machine in this country. Specifically, they wave the Red White and Blue to frame our country’s imperialism as “defending our freedom and restoring democracy” in whatever place we are creating a war. That gives them the cover to justify whatever atrocities we carry out. But when it comes to supporting our troops, in their perilous return to society, it’s a different story. If you look at the Disabled American Veterans site you can see a list of the specific votes on key Veteran’s bills by Ralph Hall, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey from the perspective of the DAV’s legislative agenda. At least Kay Bailey voted for improving the health care of women Veterans but none of them is helping to sponsor the New GI Bill which the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) and the VFW advocates. Can you say cold-blooded hypocrites? In Ralph Hall’s case this is simply astounding. Didn’t he go to college on the GI Bill after WW II? Obviously he doesn’t think the veteran’s returning from Iraq and Afghanistan deserve the same benefits that he received. I understand that Hall came from very humble beginnings and worked damn hard for what he has, to bad he has forgotten where he came from. Glen Melancon is going to make a great replacement for this dried up old hypocrite. Speaking of replacements, Rick Noriega is within 4-5 points of Johnny Corny-on.

Winter Legend

We will say to the children-

Once there was a winter

They will blink their eyes
and stare at us.
They will wonder
what wool was for.
And the meaning of hearth.

To teach them
we will take them
to the top of the world
and let them, with great care,
touch the snow.

They will ask-

What happened to the winter?

We will life up our eyes
to the dusky blue and say-

Forgive us. We burned the sky.

Margie McCreless Roe
Texas Observer May 2, 2008 pg 19

Health Care Systems around the world

If you missed last Tuesday's episode of Frontline entitled Sick Around the World you missed one of the most informative documentaries on the cost and value of health care that has ever been made. I'll just summarize for you some of the more important points it made. But I encourage you to go to the website link above and scroll to the bottom of the page where you can view the whole thing online.
In our country we spend 15.3% of our GNP on health care. But our outcomes and quality of life and death are much lower than in other countries. We have a higher infant mortality rate and a lower life expectancy than the the five other countries examined. The other countries included Great Britain, Taiwan, Japan, Switzerland and Germany. Some of them charge premiums, some don't. What they do in common is lower percentages of GNP spent than us and arguably, better care. I always thought that the over use of MRI's and CT scanners was the driving factor for our expensive system but Japan has many times over the number of scanners we have. They are all also SINGLE PAYER systems, the dreaded "government run" health care. The republicans harping about how terrible the Medicare bureaucracy is simply meant to distract us while their cronies rob us blind. Medicare is a very efficient system. Medicare "reform" has been an expensive boondoggle of the American people. Bush and his wealthy friends in the hospital, drug company and insurance industry sat down and divided Medicare into fat slices of cash pie split three ways. Medicare was supposed to be reformed by forming Medicare HMOs. What they didn't tell us was their real plan.
Start off by supplementing the health insurance companies, drug companies and hospitals to fool people with relatively low rates for their policies. They could do this because Bush pays these companies 12% MORE than he pays Medicare. So they rope all the elderly and disabled into the Medicare HMOs and get them used to their policies because they have perks like crappy dental and vision coverage. It seems like a no brainer for the users now but there is more to their plan. They will continue to raise their rates every year. They will continue to cut coverage and raise co-pays. But by the time the average person understands what they are doing it will be too late to go back to plain old Medicare coverage because it will be gone. That is where our system is headed now, a profit-making system where giant corporations grow cash by providing us with expensive and ever shrinking coverage. When money is the measure, the unnecessary elements, like listening to the patient or examining them are bypassed in order to shovel them through the meat grinder of modern practice. It is not really that different from the way we treat cattle, except we don't get slaughtered, usually. Did I say how important it is that we get a Democrat elected?

Great political cartoons