Blowing the Dust of the Soap Box.

America.
Terrorists don't seem to be the biggest threat to our Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness lately. It wasn't terrorists that killed the people at Northern Illinois University.
It was an American who was taking medication for serious emotional problems.
Somehow, he was allowed to buy guns.
Great system all you gun nuts have shoved down our throats. lets allow anyone to get their hands on a device that is designed for no other purpose than to kill.
Brilliant!
Terrorists are not the biggest threat. More people get killed every year with a gun than were killed on 9/11.
Every year.
Why?
It is the insistence of people who can't properly read the second Amendment. Thats why.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Tell me, what militia was he was buying those guns for? If you own a gun and your not part of a well regulated militia, you are in violation of the intent and spirit of the second amendment. Period.
Instead of blowing billions of dollars to not find Osama, lets give every member of the NRA a lesson in how to read.
We have more guns per person than any other nation on the face of the planet that dares to say it is at peace.
Then, were shocked when shit like this happens.
My sister, Theresa and my nephew Ken, go to that school. They are alright. My sister was on the way there when it all happened. She is seriously upset though. I am a news junkie. I have seen this thing over and over in our news. But I never ever once thought that it would touch my life in any way.
No one ever does. Do they?
America needs to take a long hard look at its self. There are way to many people who can't seem to read.
Bush demands congress pass the, Protect America Act.
What sort of a tiny dick moron falls for this name? It's a preemptive attack on anyone who would choose not to sign it. That way, the people who want it can say, "You don't want to protect America? What kind of a bad American are you?"
The Protect America act is nothing but a gift from Bush & Company to the Phone companies that illegally tap your phones. Sure, it happened right after 9/11 and we all wanted to find out who was responsible. Even with all that intelligence streaming into a basement of the pentagon, we still attacked the wrong country for 9/11?
Excuse me if I have no confidence in our government to do the job of protecting us by listening to phone calls and reading e-mail.
They either got it completely wrong when they started listening in, or its obvious they used one tragedy as cover to conduct a covert operation that was highly illegal.
The Bill or, Protect America Act, grants the phone companies immunity from prosecution. Now why would they need immunity? Only people or companies that have done something wrong need protection from the law.
You see, its illegal to tap our phones without a warrant.
They didn't have one.
Ever hear of the FISA court?
Better yet, ever hear the press conference Bush gave a few years ago when all this came out? he told us that we should not worry because anytime the government listens in they have to get a court order from FISA.
He lied.
But heres the thing, he didn't have to lie.
FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
It was set up in the 70's for just this sort of thing. A spy or terrorist might call someone in this country. The government should know about that. Lets say there is an immediate threat. Then what?
This is the easy part. If the government thinks there is such a threat, they can tap the phones and go to the FISA court 3 days latter.
Get it?
They can listen in and then go get the warrant.
So why would Bush and Company lie?
Fuck, who knows with these morons. They lie like most of us breathe.
Point is, if a court finds that the president went around the constitution and the law, the phone companies who cooperated without a warrant could be prosecuted and sued for their part in breaking the law.
They have wrapped so much bullshit in the flag that its hard to truly see how much they don't give a shit about us.
And believe me, they care less for the people fighting on the front lines of this phony war on terrorism than anyone else.
You think thats a pretty bold or ridiculous statement? Well how do you reconcile this little piece of information with all that God bless the troops crap they so freely add to every thing they say.

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.

The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official and obtained by The Associated Press, accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years.

Cost was a driving factor in the decision to turn down the request for the so-called MRAPs, according to the study. Stateside authorities saw the hulking vehicles, which can cost as much as a $1 million each, as a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years from being fielded.

After Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared the MRAP (pronounced M-rap) the Pentagon's No. 1 acquisition priority in May 2007, the trucks began to be shipped to Iraq in large quantities.

The vehicles weigh as much as 40 tons and have been effective at protecting American forces from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapon of choice for Iraqi insurgents. Only four U.S. troops have been killed by such bombs while riding in MRAPs; three of those deaths occurred in older versions of the vehicles.

The study's author, Franz J. Gayl, catalogs what he says were flawed decisions and missteps by midlevel managers in Marine Corps offices that occurred well before Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld in December 2006.

Among the findings in the Jan. 22 study:

• Budget and procurement managers failed to recognize the damage being done by IEDs in late 2004 and early 2005 and were convinced the best solution was adding more armor to the less-sturdy Humvees the Marines were using. Humvees, even those with extra layers of steel, proved incapable of blunting the increasingly powerful explosives planted by insurgents.

• An urgent February 2005 request for MRAPs got lost in bureaucracy. It was signed by then-Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, who asked for 1,169 of the vehicles. The Marines could not continue to take "serious and grave casualties" caused by IEDs when a solution was commercially available, wrote Hejlik, who was a commander in western Iraq from June 2004 to February 2005.

Gayl cites documents showing Hejlik's request was shuttled to a civilian logistics official at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in suburban Washington who had little experience with military vehicles. As a result, there was more concern over how the MRAP would upset the Marine Corps' supply and maintenance chains than there was in getting the troops a truck that would keep them alive, the study contends.

• The Marine Corps' acquisition staff didn't give top leaders correct information. Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, was not told of the gravity of Hejlik's MRAP request and the real reasons it was shelved, Gayl writes. That resulted in Conway giving "inaccurate and incomplete" information to Congress about why buying MRAPs was not hotly pursued.

• The Combat Development Command, which decides what gear to buy, treated the MRAP as an expensive obstacle to long-range plans for equipment that was more mobile and fit into the Marines Corps' vision as a rapid reaction force. Those projects included a Humvee replacement called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and a new vehicle for reconnaissance and surveillance missions.

The MRAPs didn't meet this fast-moving standard and so the Combat Development Command didn't want to buy them, according to Gayl. The study calls this approach a "Cold War orientation" that suffocates the ability to react to emergency situations.

• The Combat Development Command has managers — some of whom are retired Marines — who lack adequate technical credentials. They have outdated views of what works on the battlefield and how the defense industry operates, Gayl says. Yet they are in position to ignore or overrule calls from deployed commanders.

An inquiry should be conducted by the Marine Corps inspector general to determine if any military or government employees are culpable for failing to rush critical gear to the troops, recommends Gayl, who prepared the study for the Marine Corps' plans, policies and operations department.

There you have it America. We have laws to protect the people who feel it is your patriotic right to bare arms. Even if you can't bare the demons in your head.
We have a president that has ignored the constitution on such a grand scale that it is stunning. In an effort to protect the Companies that went along with this, he is telling us that American lives are in danger now. Unless these companies get protection from the law, he cannot protect us.
What?
I don't know about you, but if it came down to protecting lives or the bottom line, I would chose lives.
Then you have the whole thing about the Marines. What do you make of that?
Remember the press conference with Good old Rumsfeld? A soldier asked why they didn't have armor on all their vehicles. His answer, "You go to war with the army you have. Not the army you want."
I think this is the place in our countries life where we have to stop and ask every one, do we want the country we have, or do we want to go into the 21st. century with the country we want?
I for one am tired of turning on the news and hearing about yet another disturbed man killing with a gun he got because idiots can't read the constitution.
I am tired of turning on the news and hearing the stuttering arrogant voice of Bush using patriotism to explain why yet another law must be ignored, broken or changed so he can have what he wants.
What he wants is power. Thats all.
History will look back at this era and it is my firm belief that it will judge these last 8 years as a time when the spirit of America almost died. Not from the terrorists on the outside, but the combination of arrogance and ignorance on the inside.
Just remember folks, a terrorist can not write laws that are against your best interest.
A terrorist cannot slash a budget for the care of returning veterans of this war.
A terrorist cannot ignore the economy to the point of people loosing their homes in numbers not seen since the great depression.
A terrorist cannot deny you health care based on your financial situation.
A terrorist cannot decide to spend billions of dollars to enrich oil companies. And last but not least, a terrorist may be able to kill our fellow citizens, but as long as we allow guns to be available like candy, we will do a much better job at it then they ever could.

Bullshit!

Dear Democratic Party leaders,
You are the party that passed voters’ rights laws.
You are the party that made civil rights law.
You are the party of the underdog, the under privileged and the average citizen playing by the rules.
Now comes word that super delegates could decide the election. From what I can find on line the Democratic Party rules do not use the term "superdelegate". The formal designation is “unpledged party leader and elected official delegates".
That clears it up.
What your telling us with a straight face is, elite party members will decide who the nominee for president will be. Not our votes. You understand how this looks, right? Even if Obama overwhelmingly wins the popular vote, it will be the job of less than 1,000 elite Democratic Party members to decide who the candidate will actually be. Obama could win state after state in the primaries, but still fail to get the nomination.
How can that be?
The Party that has screamed that the will of the people has been ignored for the last 8 years is telling us that our votes can be ignored and there is not a damn thing we can do about it.
This is Bullshit.
Listen guys, if you pull this shit, you are no better than the Republicans. Plain and simple.
State after state, Obama is not only winning the delegates, but he is overwhelmingly winning the popular vote of the people too. Clinton and Company seems to think they are entitled to becoming the next President. Even if that means defying the will of the people.
It’s not that I don’t respect Clinton and think she could do the job, it’s that there seems to be a huge disconnect between her speeches about taking back America for the people and actually listening to the people. And the people are saying Obama. They are not just saying it they are screaming it!
In every state that has held a primary so far, they have broken records for voter turn out. People are climbing out of the woodwork to declare a vote for change. Change, Madam Clinton. Change, as in; we do not want any more games played with our votes.
The Republicans stole the last two general elections. That is the party line of Democrats. So whats the difference between stealing an election and using obscure party rules to win an election?
Don’t blow this. If the people chose someone besides Clinton, you must respect that. It is the core value of the Democratic party that the common mans vote is just as important as any elite member. Everyone counts equally. Right? The leaders MUST acknowledge the will of the people. Even if it’s not what I want personally, that’s how the system has to work.
Wolf Blitzer was interviewing John Kerry on CNN. The state Kerry represents voted in their primary and 57% to 41% they picked Clinton over Obama. However, John Kerry, has said that as a Superdelagate, he will be voting for Obama. Hey, I want to see Obama win too, but not at the expense of what the people want. Not at the expense of further diluting the constitution. Mr. Kerry, you are the peoples representative. Maybe you forgot that. But the people told you who they wanted and you picked someone else. That too is Bullshit. Lets call it by what it is.
I got an e-mail from someone saying they would respect my thoughts more if I didn’t swear so much in my posts. Listen, if your not swearing about this kind of thing, then you don’t care enough. Because the only word that properly describes what all this super delegate nonsense is about is Bullshit. Plain and simple. We have all had enough of it.

If I were President

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