I am bereft, the last few weeks of fighting to regain the 4^th amendment have left me almost broken, definitely bent.  To watch our rights to privacy go down the tubes without a whimper of dissent from all but a few nutcases like myself is appalling.   Out latest, greatest hope has managed in the short course of a week to damage the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 8^th Amendments. Church and State,  Guns, death penalty, wireless surveillance and even given a blow to women's rights by abhorring late term abortion if mental distress is the reason.   I wonder how willing Michelle would be to carry a dead child to term.  Yes folks fetuses die in the womb and physicians deem that that the stress of carrying a dead baby to term is really not in the mothers best interest.  When did CHANGE become screw the idiots who put me in this honored spot.  Eliminate the viable choices and then show the real CHANGE you had in mind all along.  "Politics as usual, run by the people who are more interested in keeping the coffers full than protecting the constitution of the United State that they swore to uphold." Did you hear all of this on the news? What? You didn't?

Oh right, Jesse Jackson said something really crude  that needed endless rehashing.  Ted Kennedy got back to the senate to vote on a bill that would have cut Medicare.  Didn't get back in time to defend the 4^th Amendment but hey...he has been ill.  Perfectly healthy Senators were there to pick up the slack for him.  Twelve years later  DNA proved that Jon Benet Ramsey was not killed by anyone in her family, and Christie Brinkley is in the middle of a terrible divorce complete with salacious details, OH ...and Senator Obama is sorry he exposed his children to an intervew with Access Tonite.  He won't do that again, or will he?  Just never know.

YEAs ---69
Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC)	Dole (R-NC) Domenici (R-NM) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Feinstein (D-CA) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Inouye (D-HI) Isakson (R-GA) Johnson (D-SD) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCaskill (D-MO)	McConnell (R-KY) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Pryor (D-AR) Roberts (R-KS) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Stevens (R-AK) Sununu (R-NH) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wicker (R-MS)

NAYs ---28
Akaka (D-HI) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Clinton (D-NY) Dodd (D-CT)	Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Harkin (D-IA) Kerry (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Menendez (D-NJ)	Murray (D-WA) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Wyden (D-OR)

Not Voting - 3
Kennedy (D-MA)	McCain (R-AZ)	Sessions (R-AL)

  A political post from an un-named source

"once upon a time, children, long, long ago there were feminists abroad in the land." 

We are still here!

"I've been a feminist since I was 10 in 1965. I remember us. We have been magnificent.
But many women were pushed out of the Narals and Nows for being too dykey. So, although many women who remained were very dedicated they were squashed by their communities. Ostracism is pretty powerful. Then the apologists took over. A lot of us lost hope when the ERA wasn't ratified. I personally turned in another direction politically.
I am saddened that Hillary was so vilified by the right and that the left bought the Repug's rhetoric, sent through the media over more then a decade, about her. When she lost the delegates nomination I determined I would support Obama, until he started breaking promises: FISA, Abortion rights, separation of church and state, and campaign financing. The financing issue wasn't a deal breaker for me. I have been very involved in doing my part about communicating my concerns and expectation to Obama. In fact today I recieved 5 form letters from his campaign office telling me what he has been saying for a week now. Bla bla bla...I ‘m going to do what ever I want bla. And I have listened to his left apologist spend countless words trying to figure out why he f#*ed us.
I predict Obama will break his half a$$ promise about Iraq because he has always added a caveat to his statement. He will pull us our of Iraq depending on "...what is happening on the ground". Same as Bush. Different guy - same back-door deniability.
I quit my membership in Moveon.org, stopped my subscription to KOS and Huffington Post, and made sure I didn't have to read Andrew Sullivan channel his nasty drag queen ever again, when the vitriol towards Senator Clinton became so childish, destructive, and predictable. The collusion of right and left wing men to sink her campaign worked. It hurt her particularly but it also hurt all women. Women say what happens when a women puts themselves out their. It is how they are, what we wear, how we speak, etc., that is lambasted by school yard bullies in suits and laptops. I guess Obama had something Hillary didn't. No, you don't have to take it out of your pants to show me. They are all politicians and have done what it takes to get there. Hillary just happened to be a women. In a lovely shade of turquoise pant suit. Thinking about that kind of "reporting" still makes me ill. I wonder if they will ever say Obama has just stepped out in a revealing bespoke suit that matches his eye color. Bloody not likely.
Anyway, I don't give a damn if one of you smug punks think that older women have the intelligence or value of an earth worm. Truth is truth and you failed in an important opportunity to look beyond your own fears and anger at women during the primaries. Whether you like it or not Hillary was every woman who is strong and determined to take power,just like you have for so long. We heard you say women are shrill (bless you Glen for using this word so much in reference to men, I paid attention.), conniving, ball snatching, liars who aren't going to take your interest to heart. You stayed afraid Hillary would use you then take your money. I watched it, heard it, and know it was one of the worst, openly and ugly backlashes against women I have ever seen. And I also don't care if you can't see it, won't admit it, or you may try to make me feel inferior because you feel attacked. You guys might as well just save it. Most feminists stopped listening to you a while back. Your arguments against Hillary lost credibility when you supported a man without looking at his whole record or critically analyze his pretty speech-a-fying. Sexist men always say the same things, use the same tactics, and bore me to tears.
One lovely thing that came of all the debacle of the primaries is that young women watched and woke up to the fact that sexism still rules, women are screwed if they stand up to men and say I know better then you, and I should be the decider. In the plainest terms I can speak, I watched a national circle jerk at women with Senator Clinton as the proxy.
And the greatest blessing of all is that the denial of the women who believe in equal pay and state "but I am not feminist" found out they really are feminists. You guys helped give birth to a whole new generation of women that see your sh-t and won't be quite so acquiescent the next time you tell them, "aren't you cute, stupid, ill informed, irrelevent, and/or bitchy (take your pick) being so mad about such a little thing". So I thank you for your obviousness in your attacks on Hillary. And finally, one of you guys said that you weren't worried about Abortion rights. Couldn't have said it better myself why men shouldn't have so much power."

Why should anything change....oh there is that word again.
 

As I read the daily diet of my RSS feeds I look carefully at the comments of people who respond to the blog.  I have read some very balanced and Insightful comments about the subject at hand and I have gained useful information that widens my view..  I have posted my own comments which I generally try to make informatiive rather than opinionated.  
My daily dose of online news leans to the left with a spattering  of right biased exceptions to allow me to "read against the grain".  What shocks me are the people who seem to live to be able to comment as nastily as possilbe.  Name calling, abusive insults, sexism, racism, anything to "vent their spleen".   This  online trend  started mainly with "W" and has escalated into every aspect of blogging.  The primaries were a sea of rage and resentment directed at anyone who dared run for office.    When they lost Hillary  and Rudy they just reverted to McCain, or Obama.  Equal opportunity hatred, endlessly spewed.  Just what we need. 

We seem charmed by the word "Change".   Change in style of government, change in world perception, change in handling the countries who do not want to be like us.  Change in taxes, and education and health care.  CHANGE ...WE WANT CHANGE ...yep we sure do.  Except we are not willing to make the change ourselves.  How hard would it be to practice "restraint of pen and tongue" and actually stick to the facts of what we know to be true, based on information that we can cite.  Learning to respond with understanding to  the gay that wants to be married when the word means something different to us. Changing our reaction  to the woman in the chador  or sari who walked into Wal-Mart with her family. Showing a different reaction to the person of color who just stopped and asked for directions.  Oh yes, we need change, but first we need to be the examples of change.

We need to think before we speak, determine the best way to handle a situation before we act, and in this time of election  watch the behavior of the candidate we choose.  Not the in front of the camera candidate, the candidate who will make good on promises even when it means going against the majority. The candidate who will put it all on the line before we elect them and show leadership.    Perhaps if we began to change we could force our candidates to walk the talk.  

I must learn to be the world I want to see.  Not when I pull an election lever but everyday, to everyone, in every action.   My faith does not matter, my behavior matters.  We need to stop imagining some one person is going to fix the mess we are currently experiencing and start making the change happen. 

 

"You must be the change you want to see in the world."

Ghandi