Sad & pathetic

The vote on what to do with traitor Joe Lieberman is done, and he was sparred everything.

So in other words, he WON’T get his chairmanships stripped away.

He WON’T lose his place in the Democratic caucus.

He WON”T be forced to apologize.

Nothing will happen… so let’s review; he endorses a republican for President.

He criticizes the Democratic candidate for president…

He blindly supports the Iraq War while opposing any and all attempts to create a timeline…

He endorsed a slew of republican congressional candidates and yet, his Democratic peers capitulated to him, voting 42-13, and won’t do a damn thing to him

Sad. And pathetic.

Sad, pathetic and ILLEGAL

Just in case you need assurances that we should NOT get complacent and that one way republicans could win would be to steal this election, I present you this pathetic and illegal example.

Multiple newspapers in Virginia (Richmond Times Dispatch for one) are reporting that fliers are being distributed in the Hampton Roads area that look to deliberately confuse voters about which day they are supposed to vote…

The fucking nerve…

The fliers blatantly advise republicans to vote on one day (November 4th) and Democrats on another, November 5th.

The flier features the logo of the State Board of Elections and states that the voting dates were split in two in order to help ease the load on local balloting officials.

Again... the fucking nerve.

It should be noted that NO emergency action has been take by the Virginia General Assembly, which isn’t even in session, and doesn’t even have the authority to change the date of a federal election… Virginians in all parties join the rest of the country and vote on November 4.

This whole thing pisses me (and Scott) off to no end… that some group would so blatantly attempt to lie and confuse people in order to get a certain person elected is not only sad, pathetic, and illegal but also an insult to the democracy that his country was founded on…

Yes, some people will argue that this attempt at thievery caters exclusively to the “low information voter” (stupid people in crude terms), but that shouldn’t matter. The target audience shouldn’t matter… it’s still an attempt to steal the election while insulting the basic tenets of Democracy and the perpetrators should be found, charged, convicted (and thus lose their ability to vote – sweet irony revenge) and jailed.

In fact, the stupid people are the republicans that think it’s acceptable to perpetrate voter fraud and deception because it will only fool the ‘low-information voter.’

Fraud is fraud…

Deception is deception…

And calling people that are the target of the deception stupid or ‘low-information’ is merely a pathetic attempt at rationalization and justification for an illegal cul ture of gop corruption!

And it’s this kind of ridiculous crap that supports the idea that we mustn’t get complacent…we MUST get out and knock on doors… we MUST talk to our neighbors… we MUST NOT REST…

Don't let this kind of dirty trick go unchallenged and allow them to win…

Trickle-down Effect

The hatred that the sad, pathetic and dishonorable McPalin campaign is riling up is now trickling down to down-ticket races.

Consider this from Georgia;

The fury and loathing of Obama being whipped up largely by McCain-Palin-GOP rhetoric about the Illinois Senator is now spilling into down-ticket races, specifically the battle between GOP incumbent Saxby Chambliss and his Dem challenger:

Thursday's debate took place in front of a highly partisan crowd in the GOP stronghold of Middle Georgia.

Chambliss supporters waved "Saxby" signs and offered up a sustained "boos" when Martin mentioned Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

"Bomb Obama," one woman hollered.

Stupid... classless... and pathetic.

Is the honeymoon coming to an end?

With each passing day, another development develops (imagine that) that further deteriorates Gov. Quayle Palin’s staunch support.

No, I’m not talking about her speaking in tongues… or the pathetic news that as Mayor of Wasilla she agreed that the town’s taxpayers shouldn’t be laden with a heavier tax burden so it was decided that the town would charge rape victims for their own forensic tests (stay classy Wasilla!)… but rather a seemingly long track record of lining her own pockets with government money.

During her acceptance speech at snore-a-palooza, Quayle Palin mentioned how she fired the chef at the Governor’s mansion because she knows how to cook and, in the words of Palin spokesperson Meghan Perino Stapleton; “From the start, she's been very uncomfortable with a gourmet chef. It's a luxury she doesn't think Alaskans should be paying for.”

Really? She doesn’t think Alaskans should be paying for a personal chef… interesting.

Perhaps she could explain why she saw fit to bill Alaskan taxpayers for 312 nights that she spent in her own home?

From WaPo; “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. […] The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.”

Interesting… and if she did indeed fire the chef because she thought it would save her state money, why was the chef re-assigned as a “constituent relations assistant” in the governor's office and later to the state museum before finally landing as the chef for the Legislative Lounge while still getting paid the amount that she made as the chef of the governor’s residence?

To recap; she charged the people of Alaska $16,951 to live in her own house despite her claims that a chef would have been a $45,000 luxury the taxpayers shouldn’t pay for… but then she turned around and gave that woman another position within the government while charging the state to attend “Newsweek's third annual Women and Leadership Conference” where she stayed at a $707 per night hotel.

Uh-huh… explain to me how you’re a maverick and want to weed out corruption and unnecessary spending again Ms. Palin… I could use a good laugh.

And while you’re at it… explain all of this. Explain how this stacks up against your claims of being a different kind of republican….

We’re waiting Ms. Palin… and we want to hear from you, not the campaign.

Katz is on notice

Earlier this week I wrote a post (‘Sad and Pathetic’) about the Department of Veterans Affairs deliberately withholding information about the suicide risk among veterans by giving false numbers staggeringly lower than the true numbers.

The post also described how the head of the department, Dr. Ira Katz, sent emails to others in the department in a desperate attempt to hide the truth from not only the media, but the American public as well.

The plan didn’t work as the emails were discovered/leaked to CBS news… and now the Karma is coming back to kick Katz in the ass as Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) are now calling for his resignation.

Akaka wrote to Michael Kussman, the Undersecretary for Health;

“Dr. Katz’s personal conduct and professional judgment have been called into question by his response to the mental health needs of veterans, and in particular to veteran suicides. I believe veterans, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, would be best served by his immediate resignation.”

Sen. Murray asked VA Deputy Secretary Gordon Mansfield;

“How do we trust what you’re saying when every time we turn around we find out that what you’re saying publicly is different from what you’re saying privately? How can we trust what you’re saying today?”

Katz behavior is, again, sad and pathetic. For someone who supposedly took the Hippocratic Oath when he became a doctor, Katz isn’t acting the part.

Says the Oath;

“I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.”

He seems to have forgotten it, hasn’t he?
Dr. Katz… you’re on notice. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

On second thought; let it. Hard.

Sad and pathetic

Yesterday in a federal court in San Francisco, attorneys for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans accused the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs of covering-up the epidemic of suicides among veterans.

At first blush it seems as though the department had indeed covered this information up… and emails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's head of Mental Health, support this accusation.

Much of this stemmed from a CBS News investigation of veterans suicides late last year, at that time CBS reported that there were 6,200 veteran suicides in 2005.
At that time Katz claimed that the number “is not, in fact, an accurate reflection of the rate” and said that there “is no epidemic in suicide in VA” and that the number of attempts were 790 and NOT as high as CBS News had suggested.

Now emails that Katz had sent about the problem have been leaked, and it’s an absolutely disgusting display from someone who is allegedly in charge of looking out for veteran’s interests.

Three days after Katz appeared on CBS News, he sent an e-mail that acknowledged that there were “about 18 suicides today among America’s 25 million veterans,” a fact which he said “is supported by the CBS numbers.”

In another email from February 2008, Katz said to his top media adviser; “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities.”

But it gets worse… Katz not only titled that email ‘Not for the CBS News Interview Request’ but opened it with “Shh!” and ended it by asking a question that someone in his position should not even have to ask; “Is this something we should (carefully) address … before someone stumbles on it?”

Stay classy Ira…

This past Monday, CBS News showed the e-mail to Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) who was visibly pissed and said; “This is disgraceful. This is a crime against our nation, our nation's veterans. […] They do not want to come to grips with the reality, with the truth.”

What does this mean? That the head of Veterans Affairs purposefully withheld information because he was worried more about being embarrassed then he was about veterans… a sad statement from an administration that has used them like they were their own personal toy soldiers.

The case is now in trial and, according to an article in The San Francisco Chronicle; “U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti is presiding over the nonjury trial, scheduled to last two weeks. Conti, a conservative jurist and World War II veteran appointed to the bench by former President Richard Nixon, ruled in January that the case could go to trial. In doing so, he rejected the government's argument that civil courts have no authority over the VA's medical decisions or how it handles grievances. If the advocates can prove their claims, Conti said in his ruling, they would show that ‘thousands of veterans, if not more, are suffering grievous injuries as the result of their inability to procure desperately needed and obviously deserved health care.’”

This is criminal… to ignore the problems of veterans who have risked their lives for the freedom of this country is not only pathetic and sad, but extremely disgusting. Katz needs to be criminally charged, Congress needs to launch an independent investigation and someone needs to be held accountable.

This isn’t the end of this story…

Please, make it stop

Just when you think Sen. Clinton can’t say anything that would surprise you, she says something that surprises you, but really shouldn’t considering who it is.

Sen. Clinton told a gaggle of reporters yesterday that she and the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain offer the experience to be ready to tackle any crisis facing the country under their watch, but Barack Obama simply offers more rhetoric, saying; “

I think you'll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say. […] He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”

I’m sorry… did she just endorse the presumptive republican nominee over her fellow Democrat??

This is part of the problem I have with Clinton, her claims that she is ready to be the commander-in-chief from “day one.” But what I want to know, and what a reporter asked her at press conferences, is if she can name a particular instance in her past that equips her to deal with a national security crisis.

When asked by the reporter yesterday she stalled and said “Well, I was involved in a lot of the decisions that were made.”

Huh? What decisions and when?

As a Senator?

As a First Lady?

When? How? What?

Come on, inquiring minds want to know Ms. Clinton… give us some examples... but she won’t… because she doesn’t seem to have any.

And then there’s this tasty tidbit from the Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp that happened earlier this week to an Ohio lawyer;

So last night around dinner time, the phone rings. It’s the Hillary campaign–official number, per the caller ID. The woman on the other end asks me if Hillary can count on my support Tuesday. I say I have not decided.

At the end of her spiel, she says, “And we haven’t heard anything that specific from Osama bin Laden.”

I say, “You did not just say that.” She replies, “I’m sorry . . . just a slip of the tongue.” She then thanks me for my time and encourages me to vote for Hillary on Tuesday.

Sad… sad and pathetic…

But really, what else should we be expecting from her campaign now?