Moral Outrage

Our friend and mentor Dorothy Fowler shares her response to a "moral outrage" letters blaming everyone in the world except investment bankers for the financial mess the nation is in.

I am outraged by all this moral outrage directed at people like me, who worked hard all my life, usually at two jobs and at my daughter, who, with a Master's degree, must work three jobs to make ends meet. Our only crimes, like those of most other people, are that we did not have parents and grandparents who were wealthy enough to leave us rich and idle and that we have the temerity to want the things that brought Americans to this country to start with...some land with a house on it.

When is some of this moral outrage going to be directed toward the greedy men...most of this crisis has been the result of actions by greedy white men...who borrowed billions more than they could afford and who lived like kings at the expense of people with middle class aspirations, when they had a moral and ethical responsibility to protect their depositors and their borrowers?

Where was all this moral outrage when the Bushies lied about conditions in Iraq and having lied us into war, awarded contracts to Halliburton, i.e., Dick Cheney, without any competitive bidding? Where was all this moral outrage when Bush added "signing statements" to bills passed by Congress saying he had no legal responsibility to enforce the law?

Where is the moral outrage when the financial leaders and politicians claim that passing a law that would help faltering home owners is "too complex" but that unbundling all those "junk investments" will be slow, but possible?

Where are the moral outrage and the historical memory that this is a repeat-- only worse--of what happened at the end of Ronald Reagan's second term, when the savings and loans and banks failed by the thousands because the regulators had been stripped of their power and their will to regulate? Where is the moral outrage that Bush and Paulson would have had the unmitigated gall to send a three page bill to Congress giving this bunch of thieves and liars access to $700 billion with a provision that they would not be subject to oversight?

Now the people who got us into this mess are telling the rest of us that we need to be shopping for clothing and furniture at thrift shops and that our children don't need piano lessons and braces on their teeth and that providing medical care for the medically indigent is just too expensive. That's what should elicit some moral outrage!

What's happened here is not the fault of people who wanted the American dream and borrowed a little too much on the expectation that their incomes would rise. It's not the fault of illegal aliens, nor the big, bad Iranians, nor the double dealing North Koreans, nor Muslim extremists.

What has happened is that the American public has been raped and the rapists not only are going to get away with it, but also are going to be rewarded because the victim "asked for it."

Please don't send me any more of these moral outrage letters.

One-stop Voter Registration Website

The Obama campaign just launched a new one-stop voter registration website called Vote for Change:

You can check your registration status, register to vote, look up early-vote information for your state, apply to vote absentee, or even find your polling place.

It's the easiest and most important thing you can do to bring the change we need. Make sure your voice is heard:

Thanks -- see you at the polls.

Jim Adolf

Thanks Jim.

Why Women Should Vote

The following is a condensed version of an article written to encourage women to see the HBO Movie "Iron Jawed Angels". Thanks to our great freind and democrat Laura Bass for sending it.

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90years ago. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.





(Lucy Burns)

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.


They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women. Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
(Dora Lewis)




(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.' Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.

Fear Nothing – Vote Democratic

Why the Economic Meltdown?

This video explains why the economic crisis occured in less than seven minutes.

Party Like A Democrat

Party Like A Democrat « Why Not?

Ask Your Congressman

Ralph Hall is coming to Sherman, TX on Saturday September 20th. If you think he is coming here for the Hispanic Festival that will happen that day on the courthouse square? You would be wrong. He is in town for the Grand Opening of the Republican Party Headquarters. If you see him ask him what he meant when he said “I’m not in big oils pocket but I am by their side.” Ask him why he voted against the new GI Bill. Ask him how he escaped being linked to the Abramoff scandal. Ask him why he keeps taking oil money over $400,000 so far. Ask him why he supported the torture of water boarding as an interrogation tool. Ask him how he could support the suspension of due process or habeas corpus. Ask him what he did not stop the assault on the 4th amendment which ensures that we the people shall be free from unreasonable search and seizure without due process of law. Ask him why he is against the minimum wage law. Ask him when he is going to represent you instead of wealthy corporate interests.

Don’t Stop At The Top – Vote The Democratic Ticket

What If?

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama had finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman to whom he said “I do”?

What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain had graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5”?

What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are now?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Conservative Confusion

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
* If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow , Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring or co-sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local sportscaster girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable. OK, much clearer now.

Many Thanks to Roshanda King of Gunter TX and Jennifer Wruth of Hico, TX for sending this to WannaBeBlue.com on the same day.

John McCain's Moral Failure

You might want to check Snopes.com for a really good and true story about McCain's divorce from his first wife. It really was a moral failure...he abandoned his first wife after she was injured and nearly died as a result of an automobile accident. He was dating his present wife several months before he filed for divorce, although he said in a deposition that he was still cohabiting with his wife. He married the current wife five weeks after this divorce was final.

Apparently, for Republicans, the only people who are subject to moral judgments are people who disagree with them.

One definition of hypocrisy, by the way, consists of publicly condemning others for doing the things you are doing yourself.

Thanks to Dorothy Fowler for sharing with WannaBeBlue readers.

YOUR NEW JOB

Sarah Palin is a Better American Than You

Sent to WannaBeBlue by David Linson of Sherman, TX. Thanks David.

Tuesday, Sep. 09, 2008
Sarah Palin's Alaskonomics: Sarah Palin's Alaskonomics

By Michael Kinsley
Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars. So maybe Governor Palin does represent everything that is good and fine about America, as she herself maintains. But spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.

Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said, "No, thanks," to the famous "bridge to nowhere" (McCain's favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said, "Yes, please," until this project became a symbol and political albatross.

Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 21/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.

Alaska is, in essence, an adjunct member of OPEC. It has four different taxes on oil, which produce more than 89% of the state's unrestricted revenue. On average, three-quarters of the value of a barrel of oil is taken by the state government before that oil is permitted to leave the state. Alaska residents each get a yearly check for about $2,000 from oil revenues, plus an additional $1,200 pushed through by Palin last year to take advantage of rising oil prices. Any sympathy the governor of Alaska expresses for folks in the lower 48 who are suffering from high gas prices or can't afford to heat their homes is strictly crocodile tears.

As if it couldn't support itself, Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.

Under the state constitution, the governor of Alaska has unusually strong powers to shape the state budget. At the Republican Convention, Palin bragged that she had vetoed "nearly $500 million" in state spending during her two years as governor. This amounts to less than 2% of the proposed budget. That's how much this warrior for you, the people, against it, the government, could find in wasteful spending under her control.

One thing Barack Obama and McCain disagree on is an oil windfall-profits tax. McCain is against it, on the theory that it is a tax and therefore bad and also on the theory that it would discourage domestic production. Obama is for it, on the theory that if oil companies can make a nice profit when oil sells for $50 per bbl., they can still make a nice profit when it sells at more than $100, even if the government takes a bit and spreads the money around to those who are hurting from higher oil prices.

Although Palin's words side with McCain in this dispute, her actions side with Obama. Her major legislative accomplishment has been to revamp Alaska's windfall-profits tax in order to increase the state's take. Alaska calls it a "clear and equitable share" tax. The state assumes that extracting oil from the tundra costs about $25 per bbl. and takes as much as 75% of the difference between that and the sale price.

Why is a windfall-profits tax good for Alaska but not for the U.S.? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? People in Alaska are better than people in the rest of the U.S. They're more American. Although there are small towns and farms and high school hockey teams in the lower 48, there are fewer down here, per capita, than in Alaska. And there are many more journalists and pollsters and city dwellers and other undesirables who might benefit if every American had the same right to leech off the government as do the good citizens of Sarah Palin's Alaska.

Find this article at: Sarah Palin's Alaskonomics

McCain # 1 for Dirty Political Ads

Talking Points Memo | Unfit for High Office

Talking Points Memo | Unfit for High Office

Community Organizers Respond To Palin's Attack, Cite Civil Rights Movement

Media Not Telling Us The Truth

This is what’s wrong with our politics. At the Republican convention, speaker after speaker just flat-out lied and our news media isn’t calling them on any of it. YOU CAN’T GET THE STORY FROM THE PUNDITS.They smeared Barack Obama repeatedly and told lies big and small. Here’s just a few of them:- Sarah Palin and John McCain claim that Barack Obama wants to raise our taxes, but the vast majority of families are way better off under Barack Obama’s plan. JOHN MCCAIN ACTUALLY WANTS TO TAX OUR HEALTH BENEFITS!!! Barack Obama’s plan only raises taxes on people with individual incomes over a quarter-million dollars.- Sarah Palin and John McCain lie and claim that their plan is better for people like us. They don’t cut taxes for us hardly at all, and wipe out that cut with their plan to tax our health benefits!!!! Barack Obama actually cuts middle class taxes to try to restore fairness that was lost under Bush.- Sarah Palin lied when she said Barack Obama had authored “no major law, not even in the state senate.” This is just a bald-faced lie. In fact, just in the US Senate, Barack Obama passed the most sweeping reform package since Watergate, and reached across party lines to pass, with Senator Lugar, legislation to help keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and, with Senator Coburn, legislation to create a revolutionary database that makes government more transparent and accountable.- Sarah Palin and John McCain continue to lie about Barack Obama’s energy plans. They keep pushing more drilling as the main answer to our problems, when it won’t do anything to lower the price of gas. And then they claim Barack Obama, in the words of Palin, “is against producing [more energy]. Barack Obama is for producing more clean energy and ending our addiction to oil. He has the most comprehensive energy plan of any Presidential candidate in history.- The Republicans keep attacking Barack Obama’s plans for Iraq, even though the Iraqi government AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION just signed an agreement that follows the plan Barack Obama has been advocating for months.- It’s the same thing on negotiations and diplomacy. Sarah Palin attacked Barack Obama for holding the position that the Bush Administration has belatedly been forced to adopt: holding direct talks with Iran. We’re too strong a country to be afraid of talking to Iraq.It goes on and on. I’m tired of the lies. AND I’M TIRED OF THE MEDIA NOT TELLING US THE TRUTH ABOUT THEM!



Many thanks to Jim Adolf for this report for WannaBeBlue.com

St. Paul Police Intimidate Members of the Press

Yesterday, police in St. Paul arrested several journalists, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering protests of the Republican National Convention. Get involved in this campaign by demanding that press intimidation cease immediately, and that all charges be dropped.

View the arrest > Google Video

I'm outraged by St. Paul law enforcement's overly aggressive and violent tactics to stifle independent journalism. Having been in a similar situation as a police officer back in the 60's & 70' members of the press were never touched during a protest unless they physically attack the police which never happened. In fact members of the press were protected by the police if things turned violent. I dare say back in the day that if I had manhandled a member of the press I would have been fired. At the very least there should be an investigation by the ACLU to determine if a violation of the lady's civil rights occurred.

You can help by taking action at: https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?id=281