Just a thought, but isn't offering a bribe also illegal. I assume there is a list of the individuals and companies who provided these bribes/gifts? Why haven't they been published? Prosecuted?

While laying out these items for bids, the auctioneer should also attach a name and photo of the person who provided the "gift," so the final owner knows where the illegal property came from....it could be worth a lot more on EBay if this was known.

Our representatives?

Anyone who has seen my posts here occasionally is quite aware I am a big Howard Dean fan. So now I want to if he really did this and said this to Kate Michelman of NARAL about her decision not to run in PA. If so, he needs to apologize to the women in the Democratic Party today, if not sooner.

THE QUOTE:

"In an interview yesterday, Michelman said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) and "others who were very sincerely anxious about my running" discouraged her. After announcing her decision in an Inquirer op-ed piece on March 12, Michelman said Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman, and Schumer, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman, told her that they appreciated her choice.

He should have stayed out of it. He should be ashamed for even talking to her about her decision. The Democratic Party should not be in the business of depriving women of their rights...either of choice of medical care or choice to run.

Howard Dean owes us an answer on this. He is someone many of us trusted on this issue. I hope the blogger here will get this message to him.

Here is the link:
http://www.macon.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/14155005.htm?source=rss&channel=inquirer_local

And I have more to say about women's rights. The religious extremists in the GOP, and many in the Democrats as well in such states as KS and SD...are just having a field day with the rights of women.

Democrats signed on in SD to ban abortions altogether. Maybe I missed the chorus of other Democrats going out and saying this was going too far.

These guys are in many states inserting their religious views into laws, and I don't hear any one on our side of the aisle saying a word about it. Are they pretending these extremists will just pack up all their purity and go away...if so they better wake up.

I think one state is trying to say no abortion even in cases of rape and women's health.

And don't even get me started on the way they are trying to pretend the morning after pill is the abortion pill, which it is not. Maybe I missed all the Democrats coming out and saying this is just plain wrong.

I have tried to understand that the party does not want to make it about "wedge" issues. But women are not wedge issues. We are human beings. I heard Gov. Dean thought women would be fine with Casey. He is just wrong on that.

The Democrats may not want to use "wedge issues", but doggone it the other side is battering us over the head with them. Taking away rights to choose medical care and birth control....it is time for Democrats to stop playing footsie with the right wing on these issues.

And just a wee little bit more on this women's rights issue. I just want to remind Governor Dean how powerfully he spoke out for privacy issues for all people and for women especially. It was very important to him. Here is a statement he made in Montana last year:

"We will promise you a balanced budget and we will get government out of people's lives," Dean said.

"Republicans say that they are a party of small government just small enough to fit inside Terri Schiavo's bedroom," Dean said. "Republicans say they're in favor of small government, but they don't mind telling women what they can or cannot do with their health care." "Whatever happened to the rugged individualism in the Republican Party?" Dean asked. "It is very much alive and well in the Democratic Party." He blasted the fiscal policies of and his recent GOP predecessors for not balancing the federal budget over the past 35 years. "

http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2005/07/18/newsstate/hjjejcibjcgaea.txt

More:

"Dean credited Republicans for knowing what they want.

"They want a government so small that, in the words of one prominent Republican, it can be drowned in a bathtub. They want a government that runs big deficits, but is small enough to fit into your bedroom. They want a government that is of, by, and for their special-interest friends. They want a government that preaches compassion but practices division. They want wealth rewarded over work. And they are willing to use any means to get there," he said."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/08/howard.dean/

We need all our Democrats speaking out on keeping the government out of our private lives and bedrooms.

What we need is legislation that will make any contract won through bribery null and void. I know expost facto laws are unconstitutional as they apply to citizens, but corporations are not citizens (and even if they were, many would be extremely poor citizens), except in the minds of Republicans and the MBNA Bidens et al of the Democratic Party.

Why is it that the people who supposedly represent us can't come up with sensible ideas like this on their own? Or don't want to?

So now Bush says he "Never wanted the war", then how come he pushed so hard for it. This dirtbag is really unbelievable. I don't know who is more of a retard, George Bush, or that wussy VP Dick "Friendly Fire" Cheney. It's sad that so many Americans are just now waking up to what us Democrats have known since 2003...that George Bush is a coward and a fool, who cares only about himself and his ideology, and nothing about America or Americans.

As for the Republican scum like Limbaugh, Ingraham and Coulter who still support this loser...they are traitors who should be deported.

Off topic - Feingold - via Firedoglake:

Anybody who didn’t see Russ Feingold on the Daily Show tonight needs to do so (Crooks & Liars has the video). He truly comes off as a man who has the confidence of knowing he did the right thing when everyone around him was doing the Bob Shrum shuffle into the center, standing up for what he believed in while others were too preoccupied with calculating their own political futures to bother.

We’re not hearing much of that "Russ Feingold: political opportunist" meme any more, but I myself am delighted that someone in the party was smart enough to see that the base was ripe for seizing and then did it. While oily DC insiders were oozing over the political brilliance of Rahm Emmanuel’s sabotage of the progressives, Feingold did an end-run around the party bosses. The audience at the Daily Show was effusive; you could hear the the ardor he inspired. Feingold was funny without being glib and he came across as self-effacing, principled, and just awkward enough with the format to be thoroughly charming. And his message set the crowd to cheering.

I spent the day with my mom, a lifelong Republican who said today that "my party has abandoned me." She does’t like the Democrats either because she doesn’t see them fighting for people like her. She thought Feingold’s courage to buck the party dons and stand up to George Bush was inspirational. If people like my mom are ready to listen the whole political landscape could soon be shifting.

As someone who pioneered campaign finance reform Feingold can’t suck up to the big money bosses, but he has a chance to re-write the rules of the game with netroots support. So give him your email address and help him kick up a little dust.

Joe Nomentum Zell Lieberman sure is whiney lately. Hey, Joe. You went to the dark side of the Force and now Yoda is going to get you.

Welcome To Townhall World: Where The Media Is Always Wrong And Bush Is Always Right

"At every service at our church, you are, by name, lifted up in prayer and you and your staff and all of our leaders and we believe in you. We are behind and we cannot thank you enough for what you have done to shape our country.

This is my husband who has returned from a 13 month tour in Tikrit. His job while serving was as a broadcast journalist and he has brought back several DVD's full of wonderful footage of reconstruction of medical things going on and I ask this from the bottom of my heart for a solution to this because...

It seems that major media networks don't want to portray the good.

They just want to focus on another car bomb or they just want to focus on some more blood shred, or they just want to focus on how they don't agree with you and what you are doing when they don't even know probably know how you are doing what you are doing anyway.

But what can we do to get that footage on CNN on Fox to get it on headline news to get it on the local news.

Because it portrays the good and if the American people could see it there would never be another word about this conflict.

I can't,GET IT? Why is it not against the law?

1. to create an "imbalance" in the voice of the hard working class and the wealthy Industries that LOBBYST work for?

2.To develope an organization that can contribute to Republicans,only. And can hire only Republican Lobbyst?

3.How many Carpenters and Garbage collectors and Nurse's Aids can travel to Washington and meet with the President and their Party Leaders?

4. Why is selling access and influnce because you are wealthy, a balanced way of conducting Government?

5. Is that your punishment for being a working person that lives from pay check to pay check? You don't get any say about your Government?

Why can't we have volenteers like Bill Gates and all other wealthy persons to represent a group of the poor working class?

6. If it's not against the Law to discriminate
against the people unable to take off and travel to Washington DC to take out the President and or your party's Leaders to Lunch and talk to them about what you see needs to change, why can the wealthy?

I get it.