The media is full of stories about baseball players using steroids and the weather (the fact that it snows in December), but they are not covering the stories that all Americans should really be seeing. The legislation that recently passed the Senate that would require automobiles to get higher gas mileage was applauded by both sides, but this was at the expense of the two other parts of the original bill that that would have required utility companies get a percentage of their power from renewable sources and made Big Oil pay their taxes. But the oil industry and their billions of dollars stopped that.
Another news story that got just a brief mention was that Attorney General Michael Mukasey asked the House Intelligence Committee on Friday to postpone its investigation into the destruction of videotapes by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2005, saying the Congressional inquiry presented “significant risks” to its own preliminary investigation into the matter. The AG didn’t think that the matter needed a “special prosecutor” to investigate the matter, and should leave it to the Justice Department. We need to see where he takes this, and Congress should continue to run its own investigation. No one in America would begrudge Congress for not trusting the Justice Department, after Ashcroft and Gonzales, the question of “trust” is a hard thing to ask of those that had been lied to repeatedly.
The very worst news from Congress is that the Democrats are willing to shell out another 70 Billion to the administration to fund the two wars America is involved in. Speaker Pelosi has said that there wouldn’t be another dime for the wars unless there was a timeline to leave Iraq. Apparently she was just “joshing” us. She really didn’t mean it. In the end she will prove once again that the Democratic-led Congress in impotent. The oft-quoted “power of the purse” is lost on these 21st century Democrats that believe it is their solemn duty to give an administration hell-bent on bankrupting this nation, anything they need, less they are perceived as “anti-patriotic” by the caustic right. Pelosi can’t understand that no budget is better than a budget that would enable Bush to mire the United States in this war until he leaves the White House.
Meanwhile, the Progressives in the Democratic Party are supposed to sit on their hands until hell freezes over. While the Mainstream Media casts us as the “fringe” element of the party, we know better. Progressives are the mainstay of the Democratic Party, we are not going away. The longer we are shut out of politics and the longer that the Democratic Congress with Republican duplicity, keeps stripping away the parts of bills that will actually achieve something, the higher our numbers will rise. The American People are looking to people with vision toward the future. They are looking towards people that will take corporate money out of Congress and bring our soldiers home from a never-ending war in Iraq.
The people of this country are beginning to wake up. The Democrats in Congress save the Progressives that are there, are fast asleep. They have no idea of how sick the American People are of their constant “waffling” and their constant caving-in to the right. They can’t seem to understand, much less use, the way the pendulum is swinging back towards liberalism and transparency in government. When the elections roll around next year, those who have consistently appeased the right will be taken to task and find themselves out of a job. The road that Senator Joe Lieberman had to travel in 2006 will be repeated in 2008 to a much greater degree for those “Democrats” that have repeatedly voted for the policies of the Bush Administration. Every Liberal/Progressive needs to get out the vote this year. If you are not registered, get registered. If you are registered, get everyone around you registered. This election is crucial, either we take this nation back now, or we will forfeit whatever is left of this nation.
That’s the way I see it.