Thursday, April 26, 2007

Red State, My Ass

As House and Senate Republicans search their souls in preparation for the inevitable veto override votes on bringing troops home from Iraq, perhaps they should ponder this:

New polling in red state Kentucky shows that people are overwhelmingly against the Usurper and on the side of the Democrats on Iraq.

Highlights:

  • 64 percent favor starting to bring troops home this summer, and have them all home by summer 2008.
  • 59 percent oppose - 45 percent strongly oppose - the Usurper's Surge.
  • 67 percent rate the Usurper's handling of the war in Iraq negatively - 27 percent "not so good" and 40 percent poor.
Are you listening, Sen. Mitch McConnell? Sen. Jim Bunning? Reps Whitfield, Lewis, Davis and Rogers? You all voted with Dear Leader and against the majority of the Kentuckians you represent. All of you except Bunning are up for re-election next year. Do you really want offer up another opposition campaign commercial on a platter?

The 2008 Victory Train is leaving the station, y'all, and Friends of George will not be allowed on board.

Thanks to mcjoan at Daily Kos for bringing this Democratic Senate Campaign Committee poll to our attention.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Dana Rohrabacher Says You Deserve To Be Killed By Terrorists

We've spent so long through the looking glass, accepting the Usurper's insane view of the world, that it's hard to remember the words we used to use - just six years ago! - to describe diatribes like this one by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher on the floor of the U.S. Congress.

Ludicrous? Outrageous? Psychotic? Anti-American?

Come up with your own description.

Thanks to Salon commenter adnoto, who interrupted a thread on the death of David Halberstam to bring this Think Progress post to our attention (link includes a transcript):

With respect to Mr. Halberstam...
I don't want to hijack here but I beg of you all to click on my signature link and watch the video of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) tell a group protesting America's use of torture and rendition that, because they don't support these illegal and fundamentally un-American policies, he hopes their families "suffer the consequences." Now what do you suppose he meant by that?

Get angry folks. This guy should be out of a job by the end of the week.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Do We Really Need A Governor?

Good Grief, this is a depressing primary season, and no, I'm not talking about the presidential race.

Here in Kentucky, the two Democrats topping the polls for the gubernatorial primary May 22 are the Traitor and the Crook.
Bruce Lunsford, a self-made millionaire who made his fortune by kicking poor old people out of his nursing homes and cheating thousands of investors out of their life savings, is running on the promise that he'll run Kentucky the way he ran his businesses.
God help us.
Lunsford's also claiming to be a "real Democrat" even though he dropped out of the 2003 primary to endorse the Republican nominee - now governor - Ernie Fletcher. He's spent the last four years giving tens of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates.
He's the Traitor, but he's leading the seven Democratic candidates with 20 percent in the most recent polling.
Tied with Lunsford at 20 percent in the polls is the Crook: former Lieutenant Governor Steve Henry, who is currently under investigation by a special prosecutor for playing fast and loose with campaign funds. Henry is married to a former Miss America, Heather French, and is an orthopedic surgeon who pleaded guilty a few years ago to playing fast and loose with Medicare reimbursements.
There are loyal Democrats in this state who will seriously vote for the Republican if either Henry or Lunsford wins the primary.
If they don't kill themselves first.
Another former Lieutenant Governor, Steve Beshear, is at 15 percent in the latest Survey USA poll. But he's getting pounded by Lunsford and others for his support, back in the '90s, of "payday lenders" who prey on poor working people who have no alternatives to paying 400 percent annual interest or more to get cash in advance of their paychecks.
State House Speaker Jody Richards is at 12 percent according to Survey USA, but he's in such bad financial straits he and his running mate, former Secretary of State John Y. Brown III, are reduced to begging their family members (scroll down to 7th graf) for money. Jody's been a no-show at candidate events lately, apparently recovering (or in hiding) from a legislative session that left the House Democrats looking even more feckless than usual. Oh, yeah, his campaign manager defected.
State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, Hope of the Progressives, is languishing at 8 percent. He's doing pretty well with fundraising, and has his third TV ad out, but his poll numbers have people writing him off five weeks before the election.
For pity's sake, Miller's tied with perennial candidate and professional maniac Gatewood Galbraith, who could actually take this primary if the predictions of record-breakingly low turnout are correct.
Listen: people live for politics in this state. In lots of places, you can't even get cable, and politics is the only entertainment. Yet five weeks before the primary, nobody's talking about the election. It's all the crummy spring weather and Don Imus.
It's going to come down to who can get their 14 loyal supporters up off their butts Tuesday morning and out to the polls.
If it rains on primary day, we might have a seven-way tie - three votes each.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

The Surge Hits Kentucky in the Gut

57. Specialist William G. Bowling, 24, of Beattyville, Kentucky. He died 1 APR 07 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near hisvehicle during combat operations. He was assigned to the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion,2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, New York.

There it is. The latest entry - posted just about an hour ago - in the list of Kentucky's sons and daughters killed while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kentucky's 57th casualty since the first, in November 2003. It's been 10 weeks since the 56th, on January 17.

Specialist William G. Bowling. Twenty-four years old. From Beattyville, Kentucky, where he was no doubt born and raised.

Beattyville is the county seat of Lee County, in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.

This week, the mountain forests are sprinkled with the purple of flowering Redbud trees, set off by surrounding white blooms of Dogwoods. When the wind blows, the Dogwood blooms swirl and fall like snowflakes.

Lee County nestles on the western edge of one of the poorest regions in the country, and consistently scores in the lowest 10 of Kentucky's 120 counties on just about every measure - employment, education, economic opportunity.

For all I know, Specialist Bowling comes from a well-off family. For all I know, he chose the Army out of a sense of duty and patriotism, rather than lack of alternatives. For all I know, he was following in the footsteps of his father and grandfathers.

But whether Specialist Bowling was rich or poor, blessed with alternatives or seeking an escape, I know this much:

Kentucky has lost 57 William Bowlings too many.

Beattyville couldn't afford to lose him.

He didn't deserve to die.

Do me a favor. Take a few minutes to find the web page of your state's Department of Veterans Affairs. It probably has a link to the list of your neighbors who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read it. Slowly.

Whatever is the last number on the list, write your Congressional Representatives and Senators and demand they make sure that that entry is the last.