patriot act

With next year’s elections, we will face either a return of an Era that lifts up all that is great and good about the land of the free and the home of the brave, and returns us to that shining City on a hill; … or we will witness more of the same from the last seven years.

1.Suspend some elements of the Patriot Act and Detainee Bill for Congressional review.
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. “For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all”. - H. L. Mencken

2.Deny any additional funding for US Combat roles in Iraq. (This will require the often absent backbone and integrity, but I feel we can do it).”Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare”. Japanese proverb

3.Increase funding for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. They actually did facilitate an attack on our country. Osama Bin Laden is there, maybe.

4.Prohibit torture in any and all of its forms to include the President’s approved “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”. "What we must face squarely is this: whenever we torture or mistreat prisoners, we are capitulating morally to the enemy-in fact, adopting the terrorist ethic that the end justifies the means." Rev. Kermit D. Johnson, Chaplain (Major General), U.S. Army (ret.)

Six Things that trouble me:
1. I am sorry that that Republicans and many Democrats venerate their party more than their country. Blind faith in any political, or government system is rarely healthy.

2. It appears that President Bush and the Republican Politicians have almost succeeded in convincing the American People that war is a good thing. How sad it was that our President chose to use our 9/11 tragedy as a tool for instilling fear and hatred in the American people.

3. I am saddened by the political division which has fallen on America due to the years of Presidential and Republican arrogance, dishonesty and failure to adhere to Democratic standards of conduct from 2000-2006.
The Republican Party has even effectively used God to denigrate those who do not follow their precepts; making God, the creator of the universe, nothing more than a political supporter of the Republican Party. It will take some time to restore the damage caused by the Republican Party in their reckless quest for power and control of America. The Republican Party, led by the President, tried to keep us
afraid. They failed.

March 28th 07
A terrible thing happened to day in Iraq. 63 people, human beings, were killed by Iraqi police assisted by militiamen. According to the Washington Post, the police began roaming Sunni neighborhoods in the city, shooting at residents and homes. The Iraqi Army had to come in to stop the attacks. The carnage was the worst bloodshed in a surge of violence across Iraq.

President Bush cited the operation as an example that gave him "confidence in our strategy. (How many Police will be charged with murder? Zero). What kind of successful strategy is that?

"Meanwhile, hundreds of Iraqis detained in the U.S. security crackdown in Baghdad are being held in two detention centers designed to hold only a dozen or so people, The New York Times, reported today. The report also disclosed that 705 detained people were packed into an area built for 75 (by US forces) at one of the detention centers, south of Baghdad. The other center, held 272 people, including two women and four boys, in a space designed to hold about 50. (I have been to detention centers in Iraq. Not exactly a real model of success).

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With all the rights we have lost under this President I wonder if we will remember all the rights we have lost?

Somehow the idea of liberty has become retro.