Today, around 2pm, the news went out on AP, Reuters, and CNN that the last Senate seat in question had been decided in favor of the Democratic Party. Jim Webb became the 51st Democratic Senator.

This is historic. This is a smashing referendum, a "thumping" in the words of George "What The Heck Just Happened" Bush. Nancy Pelosi is the new Majority Leader in the House of Representatives and will be the new Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid is the new Majority Leader in the Senate. Control has been jerked from the sweaty hands of the morally and ethically corrupt GOP leadership and thrust hopefully in the hands of the Democratic Party.

I have been waiting for four years for this to happen. Ever since Congress went Republican and the GOP, led by George W. Bush, started running roughshod over our rights, thumbing their noses and laughing at objecting Democrats, I have longed for the day when the GOP would get their comeuppance, and today it finally arrived. Luckily for a forgetful electorate, the GOP gave a recent, public, and continuous display of their decayed moral compasses, giving voters no choice but to carry their outrage to the polls.

Today as I left to go to work, I opened my front door to this sight: In front of me, the clouds were dark, and there was a light misting of rain. On the opposite side of the house, the rising sun held reign over a half of the sky perfectly clear and blue. And directly in front of me was a perfect rainbow. I immediately thought of the story of the Great Flood, and God's promise to Noah that he would never flood the entire earth again. And I thought to myself that it was as though God was reassuring me that George W. Bush would never have the power he'd enjoyed up until now ever again. I was awestruck, and I couldn't stop the enormous grin on my face.

I'm so happy.

I've decided to change the format a bit this month. The most important event in the last two years is occurring right now, and I'm going to dedicate my time to following the run-up to the November election and tracking the progress of the Democratic Party in its fight to save this country from the GOP.

But first, let me direct you to the block of text immediately to the right of this column. It's been there for over a year. I'm not going to take it down until there is a Democrat in the Oval Office again. If the GOP manages to steal another Presidential election, I'll modify it a bit to remind the American public that they voted for the wrong party AGAIN, but it will stay up until the pendulum of good vs. evil swings in the opposite direction.

Because that's what we're up against. Make no mistake, this election isn't about voting for the lesser of two evils, as so many elections lately have become; it's about voting against the greatest evil to soil our government's halls. Bush and the current crop of utterly corrupt and morally vacuous GOP officials have done their level best to not only tear down the Constitution, they've declared war on the middle class, our environment, and the world at large in the name of wealth and power. They have either had a direct hand in it, been complicit with it, or aided and abetted those who were directly involved. And the Democrats have been utterly ineffective because they have been shut down at every turn. They are the battered wife of the U.S. political home.

It's time to push aside the Republicans that have let Bush violate the laws and Constitution. It's time to throw out the Republicans that benefited from power unchecked. It's time to toss out the Republicans that lost their moral and human bearings so long as hard and political currency flowed into their coffers.

That time is now. The GOP's time is up.

No	YES
Richard Pombo	Jerry McNerney
John Doolittle	Charles Brown
Dan Lundgren	Bill Durston
George Radanovich	TJ Cox
Devin Nunes	Stephen Haze
Elton Gallegly	Jill Martinez
David Dreier	Cynthia Matthews
Howard Buck McKeon	Robert Rodriguez
Edward Royce	Florice Orea Hoffman
Jerry Lewis	Louis A. Contreras
Gary Miller	Mark Hull-Richter
Ken Calvert	Louis Vandenberg
Mary Bono	David Malcom Roth
Dana Rohrbacher	Jim Brandt
John Campbell	Steven Ray Young
Darrell Issa	Jeeni Criscenzo
Brian Bilbray	Francine Busby
Duncan Hunter	John Rinaldi

11/7/2006:  

7:55pm PST
Bye Ricky, you putz.

Rick Santorum's lies, damned lies, intolerance, and unwaivering suck-up support of George W. Bush's attacks on the Constitution and murder by proxy of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians has just bought him an early retirement. Couldn't happen to a better guy. See ya, Ricky. Don't let the door hit you in the butt -- no scratch that, let it. Nevermind, he'd probably enjoy it. You know those GOP pervs....

The count at this time stands at 46 to 45, GOP in the Senate, and 144 to 124, Dems in the House. That's right, I said it -- The Dems are in da HOUSE! Yeah, baby. There ain't no way to get that one back. They're down 20 seats already. It's a frikkin' REFERENDUM!

Now if we can just get Pombo out of the Senate, I'll be a happy boy.

8:15pm PST
The projected count:
House, 162 to 135, Dems
Senate, 47 tp 46, Dems

Oh, yeah... I feel all tingly...

8:22pm PST
Just found the Pombo vs. McNerney results. In the first 5000 votes reported, Pombo is losing by 16 percentage points. YEAH!

Oh, wait... Those votes are from Santa Clara county. That's not going to be his strong area. Surprising, though. I didn't know his district extended that far west. Hm. Well, Santa Clara county has over a million people in it. The towns in the central valley add up to about half that, if I recall. Alameda County? He has that one, too? Isn't that Oakland, Alameda, Union City, Fremont, etc.? How does this joker manage to stay in power? That doesn't even make sense.

10:07pm PST
Just got the kids tucked into bed. I love my kids more than breathing. They are absolutely beautiful in every way. I'm blessed, I really am.

So it was interesting to hear my kids cheering when the updated results showed Pombo losing. Interesting because I only discussed my views on Pombo with my oldest. The only district he's holding is San Joaquin, which he and his entire family live in, in the city of Tracy. A lot of people have staked their livelihood on feeding on the muck he generates, and they're really going to take it hard when he goes down. Well, good riddance to bad rubbage...

The House is solidly Democrat at this point. They have only one more seat to take to get the 218 majority, but there are 42 undecided seats at this point. Yeah, we're kicking the crap out of the GOP, and it shows.

The downer is that we won't be taking the Senate too. The GOP is hanging on, 49 to 48. The Dems would have to take the last three seats....

10:07pm PST
Can I just repeat something I said many months ago, that J. C. Watts is a moron. He's essentially a black Rick Santorum. He and Bill Bennett were both singing Rick's eulogy, calling him a "real champion," all the while ignoring his intolerance, hatred, corruption, religous extremism and bald faced lying. Rick Santorum needed to go. So do J. C. Watts (fool) and Bill Bennett (confused). They aren't political experts, they're a sick form of comic relief. Hey Bill! Jon Stewart called and he'd like to have you on his show again!

10:48 pm PST
Christopher Shays, GOP Rep. from Connecticut, the [expletives deleted] that decided that anal rape and waterboarding didn't constitute torture, gave a speech invoking Iraq and 9/11, and then saying that Iraq required a bipartisan solution. I can't believe Farrell isn't beating Shays. Shay is such an ass. If he manages to scrape by, and the vote is just over half counted, then he needs to be marginalized in the House, basically told to just shut up, sit down, don't make us investigate you, too. Jerk. COME ON, FARRELL!!!

11:22 pm PST
I can't believe it. John Doolittle, corrupt GOP Rep. from California, and William Jefferson, corrupt Dem Rep. from Louisiana, are both winning at the moment. That's amazing. Both are being investigated for taking bribes. And y'know, politics is the only career strange enough that, even though your boss expects you to hold yourself to highest possible ethical standards, being indicted doesn't mean you lose your job. Heck, you even get to vote yourself a raise!

Well, Doolittle is a non-issue. He'll have to resign anyway, then there will be a run-off, and Charlie Brown can step up and say, "Hey, you almost put me in anyway, just go ahead and vote me in now!"

And Jefferson? I'd make him the first guy I'd kick out if I were Pelosi. She made a speech a couple of hours ago about how the Dems were going to make the 110th Congress, among other things, the most ethical one ever. And Jefferson will afford her the ability to show that corruption won't be tolerated on either side of the aisle. Go, Nancy!

11:40 pm PST
Looks like the gerrymandering that the GOP did to reward Pombo for his evil works has backfired -- Alameda and Santa Clara counties have turned against him by wide margins. If he'd stuck with the central valley counties he'd have gone on to another term without breaking a sweat, but he tried to worm is way into counties with more money and more potential for graft, and now those same counties are screwing up the election for him. Aw, boo-hoo, ain't that sad?

11:56 pm PST
Using a spreadsheet and the numbers off CNN, I did my own projections and found that Pombo, if they votes continue the way they have, will lose to McNerney, 48% to 52%. Man, that does my heart good. Sorry, but Pombo has been doing the pay-to-play, backdoor, ethics skirting money game while selling off our national resources to the highest bidder. He had to go. Bye bye, Rich!

12:09 pm PST
It's late, and I have to be up in just a few hours to head to work. Right now, the Dems effectively have 50 seats in the Senate. Tester is coming down the final 25% stretch with a 2 point lead in Montana, and Webb is hanging on by one solid percentage point in Virginia with 99% of the count in. Both are real nail biters. If I wasn't so tired, I'm not sure I'd be able to sleep. What a day.

I explained to my daugher tonight that I expected little or no voting fraud like there was in the last two elections. I reminded her that people do bad things because they think they can. The guy in charge of the vote in Ohio in 2004 that threw out the provisional ballots that would have given the Dems that state and the John Kerry the election did it because he knew that a GOP Congress wouldn't hold im accountable, and in spite of massive protests, they never did. But in this election, the Dems have the House. To commit voting fraud today would be to throw yourself into a cell, lock the door behind you, and throw away the key. No, I expect these elections will be much cleaner. Do I think they'll be fraud free? No, I suppose that would be asking too much. But man, it sure is good to know that there won't be any blatant, in your face, nyah nyah horse crap going on this time.

12:22 pm PST
Oh crap. They're talking about a recount in Virginia. You say "recount" and I immediately flash to Florida and the 2000 election fiasco that ended in George W. Bush, the worst president in history, being awarded the position of President by the Supreme Court that was largely appointed by Reagan and G. Bush Sr.

Dang it. Now I'm going to have nightmares...

12:48 pm PST
Alright! Alright! I'm turning off the computer for real this time.... Montana and Virginia are too close to call, and at least one, if not both, are headed for recounts. McNerney's lead over Pombo is widening as the vote counts head past 80%, now 53% to 47%, and he looks like he's going to go back to ranching and real estate development for the foreseeable future. The Dems have the House, and both of the unfinished contests in the Senate are leaning in their favor.

Oh my gosh. As I was sitting here, Tester slipped a percentage point. I think it actually went to the independent, Jones. What a bum. He might as well work for Bush.

But even so, the world looks a lot better tonight than it did last night. And with that, I bid you all Good Night.

11/4/2006:   Today Bush addressed small business owners in Englewood, Colorado, and the gist of his message was this: voting Democrat will cost you.

What do you think it cost the people who fought for our independence in order to secure the rights given expression in our Constitution and its Amendments? What do you think it cost the men that fought in every war since then? What do you think those men would say about how Bush has trashed that Constitution and stolen power for himself that the founding fathers expressly attempted to prevent any one man from having over the citizens of this country?

I'd write a check for everything I own if it got Bush out of office right now and put in a Democrat for as long as it takes to reverse the damage Bush has done, and I'd do it gladly.

The only cost Bush really respects is the cost to himself. Vote Democrat in November and take this country back.

11/3/2006:   Ted Haggard, pastor and founder of the New Life Church which is against gay marriage (while deftly avoiding terms like "gay" and "homosexual"), has been caught paying a male prostitute for frequent and regular sexual encounters for the last two years.

Ted, referred to as a new Billy Graham (personally, I think Billy's son is the new Billy, but I digress), is seen as a new leader, a political force building steam towards a large, America-changing career telling us all how to live our lives. According to Wikipedia, "Haggard has condemned homosexuality, preaching that 'we don't have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity, its written in the Bible'. One of the major 'accomplishments' under Haggard as leader of the NAE was fall 2004's 'For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility." This was 'a document urging engagement in traditional culture war issues such as abortion and gay marriage but also poverty, education, taxes, welfare and immigration.'"

Immigration? Are there passages in the Bible regarding immigration? Since he's a classic new-conservative WASP, I'll guess his Bible has verbage appended to it on the order of, "Thou shalt not allow the heathen from the southern lands of sand, burros, and fire water to cross into your lands and take thy low paying jobs lest the wolves of Palestine steal amongst them and blow thine butt to kingdom come -- unless you're making a good profit off of it."

Haggard is opposed to same sex marriages. The NAE says "Homosexual activity, like adulterous relationships, is clearly condemned in the Scriptures." I guess Wikipedia missed that passage in the New Life Church's Bible that states, "except when it's the pastor, in which case God told me it was okay."

Okay, I'm having too much fun with this... let's continue....

Haggard also had a nose for meth. I have no doubt that if his Bible covers immigration, it probably covers the war on drugs as well. Probably in Revelations II.

For those of you unfamiliar with the New Life Church, it's a Five-Fold Ministry church, which means that, unlike the Catholic Church, it holds that prophets are still selected by God to foretell future events to the flock. Apparently Ted fancies himself a bit of a prophet. For instance, he once stated that, "The spirit of the Lord woke me in the middle of the night and powerfully spoke to me. He told me that if we could mobilize 1,000,000 intercessors to pray for Saddam Hussein, he would leave Iraq, thus avoiding the need for a war." Since millions around the world protested the coming war, I would imagine at least a million of them prayed at some point. Ted's not real good at being gay, straight, or a prophet.

Okay, okay, I'm getting to the point now.

This is one of the men you followed like a sheep, men who backed Bush because they gave them power and funding in violation of the principles of separation of Church and state. You followed, believing what he said and entrusting that, if he told you to force your beliefs on another person, then it was okay. Well, it's not, and you should wake up and do a little critical thinking. In fact, the entire neo-conservative Republican population should stop, turn off Pat Robertson, and think for themselves for just a moment. God, first and foremost, gave you a brain so you could collect and digest information and come to your own conclusions. It's not hard; in fact, it's fun. Try it.

And when you're done and you realize how you've been used, vote Democrat next Tuesday.

11/2/2006:   Why did 9/11 happen? Some point to Clinton and say that he did nothing about terrorism, and sometimes even cite Oklahoma City, oddly enough. Let's review, shall we?

Bush knew Al Qaeda posed a serious and ongoing threat, at the latest, by December 19th, 2000 in briefings with Bill Clinton, if not before by simply picking up a damn newspaper now and then. You'll notice there are NO points between 12/19/2000 and 9/1/2001. That's not an oversight. Bush did NOTHING about Al Qaeda except to ignore reports from the CIA on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's plans.

I don't think 9/11 was an inside job, but I can see why someone might come to that conclusion. Bush knows NOTHING about protecting this country, and 9/11 didn't suddenly make him an expert. Attacking Iraq against the advice of all Middle East experts on information he cherry picked from only two sources, each identified specifically as unreliable.

And the GOP pretends all this didn't happen, that Bill Clinton is at fault for 9/11, and they support Bush no matter what he does. It's time for that crap to end.

Save your country. Vote Democrat next Tuesday.

11/2/2006:   Don't let Bush's stupid attempt to slander Kerry change your mind about the GOP. Kerry butchering a jab at Bush and confusedly offending soldiers should not distract you from the 2800 official U.S. soldier deaths, the 20,000 officially wounded, the 30,000 official civilian deaths (actually 650,000+) in a war that should never have been waged in the first place.

Ignore the hype, save the country, vote Democrat next Tuesday.

10/27/2006:   Theory: The current poll numbers, which have Republicans losing control of Congress in both houses, are actually detrimental to that end.

Here's how it works: Republicans that are ashamed of George Bush and want to see him stopped will look at the poll numbers, assume that the GOP can't win anyway, and then go ahead and vote for their candidate for Congress. It's the old trap, but in a different form: "My vote won't matter anyway, so I'll just vote for the same guy I voted for last time."

I think what a lot of people aren't getting is that, no matter what your politician did or said or refuted, GOP congressmen stood up as one and aided and abetted George W. Bush in undermining the Constitution. He lied directly to their faces about Iraq and they refused to investigate him, he authorized illegal warrantless wire-taps and they refused to censure him, he broke the law of the land on a number of occasions and they didn't do anything AT ALL about it because they desired his rubber stamp on their legislation more than they desired doing the right thing and protecting America.

I'll give you an example. Richard Pombo, whose record should make anyone shudder with disbelief at how he manages to get away with it, is several percentage points behind his challenger, McNerney. I myself took the time to write to the papers in his district to remind voters of the egregious manner in which he's conducted himself, managing to get himself labeled as one of the top ten most corrupt Congressmen -- quite an honor, huh? But the letters in response, both for and against, spent all their time nitpicking and translating, and the entire time they ignored the fact that, even if Pombo were a saint in all other regards, he supported George W. Monkey-Faced-Frat-Boy Bush in his every endeavor, legal or otherwise, to destroy this country and everything it stands for to enrich himself and his cronies. It's sad to watch that happen.

Every single vote counts. Vote Democrat in November and save America.

10/23/2006:   This month, with still a week left in it, is the deadliest month this year for U.S. troops in Iraq -- and that's if you don't count the munitions dump explosion that took over 300 lives.

Oh, what's that? You didn't hear about that? That's because the U.S. military did a sweet job of covering it up. But they no longer have any influence over foreign media, and the BBC has done a great job of getting the word out. Check this site for the news Bush didn't allow you to see.

Pardon me? You don't believe that the media organization in the U.S. are being influenced, if not out-right controlled, by Bush's administration? Check out the Newsweek covers for this month at this site. In essence, the cover of Newsweek carried the most important story, and the most heavy critique, of how the war on terror is failing, and it did so everywhere in the world except the U.S., where it was not allowed to reflect negatively on the Bush administration or the GOP-dominated Congress that aids and abets Bush during an election season. And if a periodical like Newsweek, read and trusted by 100 million Americans, has been compromised, then how can you not lend some credence to reports like the munitions dump explosion story? When it's clear that your leadership has been white-washing the news at large, you have to go back and rethink your position on stories that didn't seem consistent at the time. Perhaps consistency seemed to be missing because it was one of the few stories that managed to see the light of day. You have to think critically, you have to allow for possibilities, you have to question those in power, and as U.S. citizens, you have a right to answers. Remember that your government is supposed to work for you.

And since it's clear you can't trust the current government -- Bush, congressional Republicans, or Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. appointed justices -- to deliver honest answers, to conduct themselves honorably and truthfully, and to protect this country and it's foundations, you MUST, as the government's boss, fire them and hire someone in whom you can safely put your faith.

Save America, save yourselves, save your children. Vote Democrat in November.

10/16/2006:   If you're still watching FoxNews and cheering the schmucks like Bill O'Reilly who whip out random factoids as thought they know what they're talking about, check out this video in which Bill O'Reilly gets his butt handed to him for not just making crap up, but defaming American war heroes in an effort to make a point, not just once, but twice.

And there's this beauty, in which O'Reilly attempted to rebrand Mark Foley, molester of Congressional pages, as a Democrat, when in fact the rest of the world knows full well he's a Republican.

When you're done digesting these, ask yourself if you've been misled. And if you're having trouble answering, let me help you: Yes, Fox News has been lying to you, and you've been a sucker to believe them. It's been going on for several years now, as Rupert Murdoch has used his media holdings to sway public opinion in favor of the Bush Administration.

Do us all a favor: vote Democrat in November and show FoxNews that Rupert doesn't have the winning formula anymore.

10/15/2006:   I was just flipping through some old video on YouTube.com and I found a couple where Bill O'Reilly first used a backwards argument to paint the ACLU as terrorist allies, then another in which he argued the effectiveness of torture with, of all people, John McCain.

People, if you are watching Bill O'Reilly for any reason whatsoever, you are a moron. Bill O'Reilly is one of the worst human beings wasting space on this planet today, and the fact that Fox News gives him a public forum with which to spew his sewage speaks volumes about that network and how it has been corrupted. Don't believe me? Check out the fantastic documentary, "Out Foxed", for an in-depth expose of Rupert Murdoch's transformation of Fox News from a fairly respected news organization to a NeoCon propoganda shop.

And stop being fooled. Stop being made into a fool. Read the paper, do the research, get informed, and start thinking for yourself. And when you've recovered from your Fox-induced trance, vote Democrat in November to save our country.

10/13/2006:   Brian Bilbray is being investigated by a grand jury impaneled by the District Attorney in San Diego. Apparently Mr. Bilbray has committed fraud by claiming his primary residence to be any one of a number of homes, depending on which location was most beneficial at any given moment, and he did so on each occasion under penalty of perjury. Apparently Mr. Bilbray, like all the GOP congressmen and even the president and his entire cabinet, doesn't think the law pertains to him. He will violate whatever laws he sees fit, or more accurately, ignore them. Laws are for us commoners.

Teach the GOP a firm lesson. Vote Democrat in November, and if you live in San Diego, vote for Francine Busby.

10/13/2006:   You've all been used by the NeoCons, or more importantly, the PNACs. Ever seen the "Plan For A New American Century?" You should check it out. There are letters there from as far back as the Clinton administration, to President Clinton, urging him to attack Iraq, with no more cause than paranoia. It uses the term "weapons of mass destruction." Ever wonder where Bush came up with that term? And it also includes a statement that almost certainly assured that Clinton wouldn't take it seriously, "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council." And the signatores, there for all to see, include John Bolton, Bush's diplomat to the United Nations, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. Another letter espousing fear of Chinese dominance includes the name of Karl Rove's assistant, I. Lewis Libby.

Do you really believe that Bush got his Middle East policies by listening to the will of the American people? Or, after reading the PNAC manifesto, written by Paul Wolfowitz at the behest of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld after the break-up of the Soviet Union during Reagan's administration, that, "American leadership is good both for America and for the world," do you now understand that there are people controlling our government that will continue to abuse their position of power and the lives of our men and women in the military for an imperialist vision that rivals those of Hitler and Stalin?

And will you continue to vote for men who see you as a simple resource to be spent as they see fit and those that would support them, specifically the GOP congressional members, no matter what they do, how many people they kill, and the damage it does to our country and its interests?

Save America. Vote Democrat in November.

10/13/2006:   Do you realize that according to multiple sources and studies, the Iraq War has killed one in every forty Iraqis? Think about that. How many people do you personally know? If you counted them off, then killed every 40th person, how many would that be? How many families affected? And this in a country that had no terrorists, no WMDs, and no ties to 9/11 before we went in. And yet there are Republican supporters that will tell you otherwise, that there were WMDs, that some were found, that Saddam was in thick with Al Qaeda, and that the country was and is rife with terrorists just waiting to strike the U.S. Isn't that amazing? And that number, one in forty, doesn't make them pause for a moment to reflect on the things they say that they know aren't true. Bits of spittle foam spray from their curled lips as they snarl that the Democrats want to "cut and run," when in fact not one Democratic congressman has said we should just stand up and leave. Everyone wants a phased departure, although we will never even get that now that we've built permanent bases there. Bush didn't have an exit plan, because the PNAC plan didn't include one. He never had any intention of doing anything except taking that country over and installing the U.S. Army as a permanent presence. Amazing.

10/13/2006:   Republican Congressman Chris Shays is typical.

In a pathetic effort to divert questions regarding Mark Foley's molestation of underage male Congressional pages and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's knowledge of Foley's activities years before it finally became public, Shays took a chance to swipe at Senator Ted Kennedy by comparing Hastert's coverup with Ted Kennedy's reticence to report the Chippaquidick car accident nearly 40 years ago.

And yesterday he stood before a group during a fund raiser and said that the sodomizing of prisoners at Abu Ghraib fell within the bounds of the Geneva Convention and did not constitute torture. That's right: not torture.

Sodomizing the prisoners with chemical light sticks and broom handles? Not torture.

Making them strip naked and allowing military dogs to attack them? Not torture.

Beating them with a broom handle and a chair? Not torture.

Beating one against a wall until he needed stitches to close a wound? Not torture.

Attaching electric wires to their genitals and shocking them? Not torture.

Stress positions, chemical burns, water boarding, and sexual humiliation? Not torture.

I know, I know. You would think those all constituted torture, but the NeoCon Republicans in power right now will be quick to set you straight. I'm not too sure what would fall under their definition of torture, but rape?

Not torture.

Isn't it great that the rest of the world takes its lead from us, that we hold the moral and ethical high ground even in times of conflict? Isn't it a relief to know that when other countries hold our prisoners, that chemical light sodomy and genital electric shock will not be torture?

God almighty, I'll be so glad when we take control of the government back from these sniveling, insane freaks....

10/13/2006:   Republicans, being led by that moron from Alaska, Ted Stevens, are attempting to allow communications corporations to institute a tiered system for internet bandwidth. In other words, Shell can pay to have premier access, and their site will load quickly and cleanly. Gavora Studio, a salon, won't be able to pay for premier access and will instead take a long time to load, if it loads at all. Or in the political arena, Tom DeLay will use his Abramoff funds to buy premier access for his campaign site while a local newbie to the political scene can't state his positions on the issues because no one will be able to find his site.

As I said, the Republicans are all for this. When they aren't screwing pages, they're screwing the American public and small business owners. But it's common knowledge that if the Democrats take back the nation, they will stop this legislation, answering the call of the grassroots organizations supporting "net neutrality" that have been screaming loudly over the last few months to the deaf ears of the GOP that access to the internet should remain equal and fair.

Keep the Telcos from screwing you: Vote Democrat in November.

10/10/2006:   Bush said he didn't believe a report that came out yesterday, produced by American and Iraqi health officials, that states that over 655,000 Iraqis have died since he attacked Iraq. He acknowledged that innocent civilians have died, and says that "troubles" him. He said the methodology for the report had been discredited. He had stated that only 30,000 civilians had died to date, but when asked during a press conference, he refused to stand by that number. Perhaps his methodology, of pulling numbers out of his butt, has been discredited? But he just couldn't believe that 600+ thousand civilians have died in an all-out ground war that has covered that entire country for 3 years and degraded into a civil war. That's just too much for the Monkey Faced Frat Boy to buy. Of course, George has never been in a war (although he lied once on TV and said otherwise), so that's understandable. He has no real concept of how many people die and how quickly they can be killed. No idea at all.

10/10/2006:   Oh, and by the way, Bush's approval rating is down to 37% (an average of the 5 major polling companies' results).

10/9/2006:   Richard Pombo is one of the Republican Senators that Bush flew out to support in a desperate attempt to save his seat in Congress. Here are a few fun facts about Pombo. He's a close associate of Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, and fought hard to defend them from being investigated (and failed). He's fought long and hard to overturn every possible environmental protection law and give unlimited access to our national preserves to industrial companies, including trying repeatedly to give oil companies drilling rights in ANWR. He's overturned bans on toxic pollution. He fought against laws that would have forced automakers to increase fuel efficiency and cut emissions. He gutted the Endangered Species Act. He even went so far as to dress one bill up as a Katrina relief measure when in fact it voided reems of environmental protection laws that people in his district had voted in favor of for decades. And he has been paid extravagantly by the special interests he has enriched. He has NEVER represented the members of his district through any action; in fact, it's as though he has declared war on them. Pombo received money directly from Monsanto, then shortly thereafter voted down legislation unfavorable to Monsanto. Pombo gives large sums of money (over a quarter of a million dollars) from his campaign contributors to family members. He's not even subtle about it: Pombo created a pay-to-play "RichPAC" that takes donations from groups with issues before the Resources Committee he runs.

Pombo is a Bush-era NeoCon elitist. Kick his sorry ass out the door and vote for his opponent, Jerry McNerney.

10/9/2006:   It's amazing to me when I see Republicans say things like, "Unless I see something else come up, I'll probably vote Republican." How can you do that to your children? Bush has been anti-education ("No Child Left Behind" has resulted in lower test scores and unfunded educational programs across the country), anti-life (how much more anti-life can you be than to send soldiers into a war you know doesn't need to be waged?), anti-environment, anti-U.S., anti-jobs, anti-economy, pro-rich, pro-elite, etc. How can you do that to your kids?

10/5/2006:   Mark Foley is homosexual. Who cares, right? He was in the closet about it, but that's his business.

He also has a penchant for sexually harrassing underage male pages, a fact which the GOP Congressional leadership has been aware for years, and that's EVERYONE's business. Now Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has announced that, while he acknowledges that he was responsible for allowing Foley to continue to harrass the young men working as pages to the Congress, he will not submit to pressure to relinquish his leadership position.

Which, in my opinion, is a good thing.

Hastert, by refusing to loosen his sweaty grip on power, is proving that the GOP is incapable of breaking its addiction to power. No matter how bad the crime, no matter how guilty, you just about have to throw a Republican Congressman to the ground, handcuff him, and drag him away to get him out of his seat, such is the madness that has engulfed that party. Gone are the days when respect for the sanctity of the office, or just plain shame, would cause an elected official to resign their post when they were found to have committed or been complicit in a crime. Thanks to Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, the days of resignation before dishonor have been replaced with a power-at-all-costs policy.

Richard Nixon resigned when it was clear he'd be impeached for tapping one office. Bush has illegally tapped the phones of an entire nation, and when caught, hasn't the simple decency to say, "Gosh, I'm really sorry about that." No, instead he thumbs his nose at the U.S. public, spits on the Constitution, and pushes Congress to pass a law that retroactively makes his wire tapping activities "legal." Not constitutional, just legal until such time as that law is thrown out.

What a country we've become, thanks to the NeoCon, treasonous, power-crazed Republicans.

10/4/2006:   Bush's crimes are numerous, but the crimes for which he must stand trial, be impeached, stand trial again, and be convicted of treason for, boil down to these:

10/2006:   (continued from last month)

As an American -- forget that I'm registered as a Democrat -- I have certain expectations of the Democratic Party should the electorate turn out in sufficient numbers that the Republicans can't successfully defraud the elections again. And let's be clear, you're either an American Patriot, or you're a NeoCon; you're either a Democrat in actions as well as words, or next election, you're out.

Those expectations are as follows:

1. The elections of 2000 and 2004 will be fully investigated, including but not limited to: the removal of valid voters from the voting rolls; voter registration fraud in which registration cards for Democrats were destroyed; missing, tampered, or destroyed ballot boxes; and election returns that could not possibly have been generated for the districts in question. I want the fraud exposed, the perpetrators found, and heavy prison sentences handed down. And I want it done in the next two years. Period.

2. The run-up to the Iraq War will be fully investigated, to determine a clear and extremely detailed timeline showing what the Bush cabinet members knew, when they knew it, and how they reacted to the information, with the intent of discovering whether Bush misled Congress, the American people, and the United Nations when he made his case for war.

3. The signing statements in which George Bush indicated he would not enforce the law as set down by Congress will be fully investigated. George essentially put into writing that he intended to break the law. That cannot stand.

4. The exposure of a CIA agent's identity will be reinvestigated. The findings of the current commission will be thrown out, and a new investigation will commence.

5. Impeachment proceedings will commence immediately. There will no longer be any illusion that George Bush's policies were condoned by the people of the United States. He held ultimate power for a season, and that season has passed.

6. All legislation that allowed the President to skirt the Bill of Rights will be rolled back. No domestic spying without a warrant, period. Get rid of the damn "Patriot Act" -- what a bit of marketing that was... Roll back Presidential control of the National Guard to what it was prior to the Bush administration. Remove his modifications of Posse Comitatus. Legislatively revoke laws that violate Habeas Corpus. And let's be clear -- the legislature needs to do this. We cannot trust the current Supreme Court, with so many justices on it appointed by Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., to accurately apply Constitutional tests to the laws the corrupted 109th Congress passed.

7. Our troop levels in Iraq will be highly reduced. Bush's war powers must be revoked, and he must be directed to retrieve the troops, pulling them out of the civil war that's developing. High incentives and pay will be offered to Iraqi army recruits. They will trained in small groups, and the trainers will either be fluent in the Iraqi language or have plenty of translators. The army's orders will be simple: for every Iraqi army soldier created, one of ours goes home. And a quota will be in place such that, regardless of whether their army's growth is keeping pace, every month 10,000 of our soldiers will leave. If they are truly in the middle of a civil war, it won't matter what efforts we put into building their army, and this policy recognizes and embraces that. The slogan has been, "As they stand up, we'll stand down," but nothing effective is being done. It's time that changed.

8. The borders will be closed and a fast-track system for processing immigration requests will be enacted. In an age when I can locate a rare part for my iPaq in China, pay my bills, change my stock portfolio, research esoteric particle physics theory, reconnect with an old high school friend, and practically start World War III on a chat forum, all in about 15 minutes on my computer using the internet, we should be able to use current technology to research and vett people wishing to come into this country quickly and with a fair amount of accuracy. My desire is not to eliminate immigration, it's to eliminate illegal immigration, and only because it prevents effective security measures from being put in place. So long as the borders are so incredibly porous, terrorists only need to be fluent in Spanish to come in from the South. If they get caught, worst case, they'll be deported to Mexico where, like other illegal immigrants coming in from that country, they'll just try again.

9. Human rights will be secured while shoring up the Geneva Convention. Our Bill of Rights pertains strictly to citizens of the United States, and the Geneva Conventions pertain strictly to behaviour during times of war, including the treatment of prisoners of war. We need to clarify the Geneva Conventions where they are vague in such a way that we take a morally higher position than is required by those conventions rather than a morally vacant position. And while I'm not terribly comfortable with giving non-citizens the same rights and protections as citizens of this country, I do feel that we, as the only superpower and de facto leader of the world, must protect the human rights of non-citizens that enter our jurisdictions. I don't understand why the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th amendments (with the exception of bail) can't be applied to non-citizens. These are basic protections that ensure that a human being is not trampled by a government. Even enemy combatants should be handled humanely, regardless of who they represented in battle. And torture must never be allowed. Hold them forever if you have to, but do not sink to the horrible levels to which this administration has driven us. And keep in mind, again, that the GOP supported, sometimes publicly and aggressivly, the use of every type of torture you can imagine, including but not limited to sexual humiliation, genital shock, anal rape with broom handles and chemical lights, and dog bites. Bush is fighting as hard as he can to get permission to treat the current crop of detainees as horribly as he can get away with, and the out-of-control GOP Congress has passed measures to make the torture of prisoners legal after the fact. We should lead the world in treating people better, not set examples of the very treatment we would not tolerate if the captured soldiers were our own.

10. Diplomatic relations and treaties broken by the Bush administration are to be restored with all possible haste. Screw the President. Our Democratic Congressional leaders and Presidential candidates should be using their time laying the ground work for restoring the diplomatic relations that Bush has worked so hard to ruin. Peace is not found in the barrel of a gun, only murder and antipathy. Bush doesn't get that, but he doesn't speak for most Americans anymore.

11. Legislation is to be formulated to limit the powers of the President to those given him specifically by Congress and no more. In other words, make sure that no one like George Bush can ever abuse our nation's power and resources ever again.

12. Signing statements are to be eliminated. George has turned something that seemed good on its face into a complete joke. Just kill it. It's unconstitutional and perverts the intended balance of powers. How so? Because Congress can override a veto with a two-thirds vote, but there is no provision for overriding a signing statement that basically says, "The executive branch will not enforce this law."

13. Use the veto override as often as possible. Once signing statements are illegal, shove George's veto down his throat.

14. Secure electronic voting. Diebold is either corrupt or incompetent from drawing to delivery, and they need to be slapped down for producing a laughably bad voting machine. These guys make ATMs -- they know how to produce a secure machine that creates an auditable paper trail. They only way they could have foisted their crappy voting machine on the American public is if they had a motive to produce an insecure and easily exploitable product. Set federal guidelines for how a voting unit should be constructed, distributed, collected, queried, serviced, etc.

15. The federal tax code will immediately be rolled back to what it was on November of 2000. Balanced taxes, everyone paying a fair share.

16. Fund our schools. Once our troops are safely home or put back on the hunt for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, begin redirecting funds back into the education system. Every child got left behind during Bush's war on America.

17. Fund veteran services. Our children weren't the only ones to suffer from huge budget cuts. Bush put our troops on the front line with insufficient preparation, supplies, armor, etc., and now that the injured vets are streaming back, he's cut their services. What kind of weasely crap is that? Give our veterans the respect and support they deserve for putting their entire lives on the line in the service of their country.

18. Eliminate H1B visas for the next year and heavily tax outsourced jobs. Pull high tech back into this country, restore the technology base by making it an attractive career choice again. Bush has pushed to get 1.88 million H1B visas created, when it has been projected that there will only be 1.25 million high tech jobs. So, as a present to his corporate buddies, Bush is creating a glut of foreign workers to drive down the pay scale, nevermind that he's driving up the unemployment numbers.

19. The embargo on stem cell research will be broken. Short of cutting up breathing babies, our scientists need carte blanche to get medical research up to speed and able to catch up to the rest of the world. To do execute that feat, they need healthy, untainted stem cell lines.

20. Environmental protections will be restored and beefed up. Put controls back on corporations for eliminating heavy metals and toxins from the effluents. Put incentives back in place for creating creating environmentally friendly cars. The northern icecap is breaking up. Global warming is an obvious reality. The American people aren't nearly as stupid and Karl Rove thinks. It's time to push for a better world and a cleaner future.

21. Abramoff investigations will be accelerated. There must be full accountability for everyone involved in a bribery case. Influence peddling must be eliminated at every possible turn. It's like the world's oldest profession in that you'll never successfully eliminate it, but in this case the entire country is the victim of the crime.

As an American, a patriot, and a voter, I demand that the Democratic Party meet my expectations with diligence and speed. A clear message must be sent that we, the American People, hold treason to be a more egregious crime than marital infidelity. We must make clear that we hold our soldiers lives in higher regard than corporations' abilities to make dollar. We must send a message that we hold our children's futures dear, and that we prize a comfortable retirement surrounded by grandchildren being educated to the best of our abilities in a world of peace, love, unity, and respect. We must send a message that terrorists will not be allowed to permanently change us into rabid reactionaries, that war is our defense, not our business model, and that we do in fact stand for humanitarianism, truth, and justice.

Democratic Party, do not fail.

10/10/2006:   The following is a letter I sent to the editor of the Manteca Bulletin in response to an astoundingly disingenuous letter sent in by Frank Aquila, Pres. of the "South San Joaquin County Republicans":

After reading his letter to the Bulletin, I get the impression that Frank Aquila needs to cut down on the caffeine and watch something other than Fox News. But, filled with the spirit of mutual understanding, truth, justice, and the American Way, I thought I’d try to reach out to Frank and help disabuse him of some of the propaganda he’s consumed.

There is no such thing as “cut and run” in Iraq anymore. There’re really two options: level the place, or get our troops out of the way of the civil war that’s developing. Frank would have you believe that that’s tantamount to surrender. I would call it, “getting our troops out of the meat grinder.” And to be clear, Congress was not privy to the raw intelligence data. They were presented with Bush’s cooked rendition, cherry picked, fabricated, and chock full of mushroom clouds, and almost to a man they voted the only way they could: to go to war. It was only after that vote that members of the CIA, including high ranking managers, began protesting loudly and even resigning. Frank would believe General Sada’s story about WMDs hidden in Syria, which has been debunked, and he regurgitates Rick Santorum’s story about the canisters found in a weapons dump that, as it turned out, were left over from the Iran-Iraq war and had been buried, forgotten, and completely degraded. The WMDs we went in after didn’t exist, we deposed Saddam, and since then we have utterly failed to retrain a single standing unit in the new Iraqi Army. There may never be a point where they “stand up,” so when exactly are we supposed to “stand down?” I’m positive Frank doesn’t have that answer. And keep in mind that, because we left Afghanistan, a country the size of Texas, with only 20,000 troops, less than a third of Manteca’s population, to hold it and, ostensibly, to find and capture Osama bin Laden, the Taliban has moved back in from Pakistan and holds, as you read this, more than half of that country’s towns. I wonder if Frank feels that the GOP “cut and run” from Afghanistan, because I certainly do.

Oddly enough, Frank pointed out something most NeoCons don’t want to admit. Since 9/11, police work has stopped every subsequent attempted terror attack on the U.S., without wire tapping So invading countries that don’t pose a threat creates more terrorists, and good police work stops them. That’s exactly what the GOP has been scoffing at over the last year. I think Frank forgot his talking points.

The Patriot Act, far from protecting the U.S., has more verbage in it about stopping methamphetamine production, allowing the Secret Service to break up peaceable gatherings in violation of the First Amendment, prohibiting contraband tobacco sales, and adding the Secretary of Homeland Security to the Presidential line of succession, than anything effective about preventing terrorist attacks. When the Democrats attempted to amend the Bill to protect your Constitutional rights, the GOP voted them down and accelerated the bill to get it passed and out of Congress quickly so the voting public would have time to forget what the GOP was doing to their rights. And let’s not forget that Bush has personally violated or authorized the violation of the Consitution, specifically: authorized illegal warrantless wiretapping by the NSA on domestic calls in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment; directly violated the First Amendment rights of protesters to free speech and to peaceably assemble; has held citizens of the United States without charges or legal counsel in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments; has violated the Separation of Powers in pursuit of "unitary executive" powers; has exceeded the spirit of the "signing statement" to violate Article I, section 7 and Article II, section 2 of the Constitution.

Our founding fathers are spinning in their graves.

The sitting GOP leaders condone Bush’s actions because, so long as he sits as President, they have enjoyed free rein in selling our natural resources to industry, eliminating taxes for the very wealthiest, and attempting to dismantle every social net program including Social Security itself. "No Child Left Behind" has been a dismal failure -- just ask the teachers in the Maneca Unified School District what they think of it. Bush ignored the NAACP until just this year when it was clear that if he didn't shore up the GOP's support, they'd lose Congress. The would legislate discrimination and hatred, and they would legislate away your privacy rights, even up to altering the Constitution to do away with them. The GOP will fight to the death to keep our borders wide open to illegal immigration so they enjoy cheap labor, and would instead tap your phones to catch the terrorists that come in with illegal immigrants, trusting that their ability to listen in on all facets of your life without a paper trail to not onl

Democrats want the border protected and have more detailed and effective plans for doing that. They want our troops safely and reasonably removed from Iraq. They want to protect the Constitution. They want Bin Laden found. They want the Taliban rebuffed. They want our troops used to protect the United States and its interests, not wasted on one man's fantasies of world domination. They want your schools to be fully funded. They want your environment, air, and water kept clean. They want industrial polluters held accountable. They want alternative fuels and energy sources developed so we're not dependent on foreign oil. They want the powers of the three branches of government balanced.

The GOP is so desperate, Bush flew in to support Richard Pombo and John Doolittle, two of the most questionable politicians this state has to offer.

Frank is right about one thing: people are beginning to realize there is a marked difference between the current GOP and the Democratic Party. The GOP will do anything at all to cling to the unlimited power they've enjoyed for six years. Teach the Republican Party a lesson. Make them sit back and reconsider Newt Gingrich political strategies in which power and political currency are the only objectives. Don't let the GOP continue to tear up your constitutional rights. Protect America, protect the Constitution, and vote Democrat.