COURAGEOUS Senator Landrieu (D-LA) SHOWS THE WAY !! See how EASY that was, Sen. Reid...?
Time to GET POSITIVE here at C-Dems.blgspt.com, and note a COURAGEOUS Senator who is MAKING WAVES!
We, your humble editors, do not relish writting post after post knocking the Democratic leadership for selling issue after issue, voter after voter, American citizen after American citizen down the river (in the case of New Orleans flood victims, LITERALLY) of apathy, inertia, and submission to the Bush-Rove propaganda machine and DeLay-Abramoff-Cunningham-Halliburton-Enron-Diebold crony-corruption extortion racket.
However, if America is to have a true REPRESENTATIVE democracy, it is simply essential that we have a functioning and vocal OPPOSITION PARTY. "Opposition" party as in "providing some actual opposition," not just the current kerry/biden/lieberman/bayh/hillary/reid routine of talking opposition in mushy terms, and then ALLOWING the Republican junta to STEAM ROLL any MEANINGFUL opposition with the latest in-your-face ATROCITIES, such as torture & kangaroo courts, Hallibuton corruption and FEMA cronyism, Diebold vote fraud and conflict of interest, treasury looting tax cuts for billionaires while asking the blue-collar and white-collar working class to not only pick up the tab, but the interest on the Bush deficits as well, etc. etc. etc. ad naseum.
HOW EASY IS IT, could it be, for the MINORITY PARTY SENATORS to provide some REAL oppposition??
Well, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu provides us with a LONG OVERDUE glimpse of what the Democrat "leadership" COULD BE DOING, SHOULD have been doing all these months and years:
<< Landrieu threatens to block appointments over levees >> (CNN headline)
as in,
<< Senator Landrieu THREATENED TO BLOCK ALL of President Bush's appointments requiring Senate Confirmation, until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August. >>
Here's the full CNN headline on this riveting news:
<< LANDRIEU THREATENS to BLOCK APPOINTMENTS OVER LEVEES
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding the state's levees, a Louisiana Democrat threatened Wednesday to block President Bush's appointments requiring Senate confirmation until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August. >>
Hey you cowering Senate Democrats... SEE HOW EASY THAT WAS?!
Senator Landrieu's COURAGEOUS taking a stand, standing up for her constiuents, CONFRONTING the incompetent, arrogant, and CORRUPT Bush regime, garnered her FREE PRESS and media!
UNLIKE the COWERING Democrats, who solicit our (Democratic supporter's) funds, and then toss that money down the RAT HOLE of vague, wishy-washy, non-confrontational ad campaigns like the generic "we pledge to reform this or that" or Kerry's awful 2004 mantra, "Time for a Change." ('Time for a change' of WHAT, Mr. Kerry.. the DIAPERS of Democratic leaders who are AFRAID to make a MEANINGFUL committment or confrontational stand, as Senator Landrieu is now doing??!)
And don't forget the DIRTY LITTLE SECRET of American politics... your senate and congressional "leaders" SPEND MORE TIME SOLICITING FUNDS for their next campaign, than they do REPRESENTING the plurality of citizen's who voted for them!
This one post can not begin to cover the dilemma of congressional leaders who (as one political commentator explained on a network news report) "wake up every morning knowing who their ten biggest donors are, and who spends the entire day trying to keep those donors satisfied so they will contribute again when the next campaign money crunch gets tight."
It is a case of "super-representation"- people with large sums of money who involve themselves in political campaigns are FAR better represented on the issues and policies (and especially fiscal policies and tax policies), than "ordinary" citizens who only pay attention to the election process at election time, if then.
And, in defense of our OVERWORKED Represenatives and Senators, they are shouldering a significant burden of EDUCATING VOTERS, millions of whom would prefer to sit on their behinds watching sports events in stadiums, movies in theaters, and sit-coms and soap-operas at home on their sofas, to keeping themselves informed about local and national issues that affect theiir jobs, lives and families. Both as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of the time we allot from out daily lives, the vast majority of Americans are much more concerned with their home team, sports league, movies, or TV (among other forms of ENTERTAINMENT), than they are with whether or not their families have affordable HEALTH CARE.
That is a product of VOTER's APATHY. But a large part of the problem is built into the current "system" by our political leadership, a "system" that offers significant advantages to the Republican Party. Namely, the CONSOLIDATION of the media networks and press/publishing empires under fewer and fewer controlling owners, until you have a situation like CLEAR CHANNEL RADIO. Clear Channel Radio now has a MONOPOLY on the radio market throughout the US, and especially in regards to the airplay that rising music stars (and even established music stars) receive for their latest music. In the case of the Country Music female trio "The Dixie Chicks," when singer Natalie Mains and her bandmates came out VOCALLY OPPOSING President Bush's march to bomb and invade Iraq, The Dixie Chicks were BLACKLISTD from Clear Channel Radio stations, and thereby BLOCKED from their potential market of music purchasing customers. Righty propaganda has INVERTED the truth, in this case declaring that MONOPOLY CAPITALISM is somehow a "free market"!!! If you'll remember back to your elementary school history, the MONOPOLY of King George's British East India Tea Company was (along with stamp taxes and abusive royal officials), one of the major sparks of the American Revolution, leading American Patriots in Boston to dress as Indians, storm an East India Tea Company merchant ship, and TOSS THE TEA into Boston Harbor - the "Boston Tea Party" was against MONOPOLY CAPITALISM" over 200 years ago!
To continue with "THE SYSTEM's" built in disadvantage to Democratic voters and candidates, because the Democrats allowed President Reagan to dispense with the "Equal time" provisions of the FCC regulations (which required broadcasters to provide free air time to rebut any one side's paid political commercials), and because Democrats keep signing off on MEDIA CONSOLIDATION, we now have a situation where Democratic candidates, leaders, and activists MUST shell out millions of dollars to reach (via paid political ads) citizens and potential voters.
Worse, ALMOST EVERY DOLLAR THAT Democratic candidates SPEND on ad-campaigns, goes to ENRICH and REWARD the corporate media owners, who in almost all cases are AGAINST the policies, issues, and fiscal priorities that Democratic candidates so often appeal to!
For example, GENERAL ELECTRIC corporation OWNS NBC. NBC corporation, NBC 'news', MSNBC, and CNBC, are all WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARIES of General Electric corporation! Not only will GE execs NEVER permit their NBC subsidiary to broadcast news negative to the interest of General Electric corporation (for example, the story of GE's long history of dumping carcinoginic PCB's into the Hudson river watershed), but EVERY TIME A DEMOCRATIC or independent candidate pays NBC to broadcast a campaign advertisement, IT REWARDS THE MOTHER COMPANY, GE, whose agenda is almost entirely adverse to the ideals that the modern Democratic has fought for for 100 years... issues such as pensions; unions; worker, job, and public health safety standards (such as the PCB pollution mentioned above), corporate oversight (SEC); media consolidation (FCC); outsourcing; etc. etc etc. - on all these issues and many hundreds of others, Democratic and independent candidates MUST ENRICH General Electric and other huge media corporations, to have ANY CHANCE of REACHING THEIR VOTERS via paid TV and radio ads!
NO WHERE did our founding fathers and Constitution founders imagine that MAJOR CORPORATIONS would provide a monopoly barrier and life-or-death conduit between Congressional Representatives and the voters, citizens, and constituents of the states!
We apologize - this is starting to be a long winded exposition. But to simplify: ALL candidates MUST spend the MAJORITY of their time RAISING CAMPAIGN FUNDS, and under our current system which is so dependent on paid political TV ads to reach an apathetic and ill-informed voting populace, Democratic and Independent candidats MUST ENRICH THEIR corporate (which is to say, 'Republican leaning') opponents JUST TO BE HEARD above the din of daily traffic and the network media's particular reporting bias. (Again, without sounding conspiratorial, GE will never permit NBC to air or broadcast stories that negatively reflect on GE, except to mention an investigation or judgement against the company in the most cursory manner.)
BUT Democrats CAN EASILY OVERCOME this network, corporate, institutional BIAS.... SIMPLY BY GETTING OUT THERE, PROVIDING SOME LEADERSHIP, and CONFRONTING the wrongs of the system...!!!
As Senator Landrieu has shown, IT CAN BE AS EASY as making ONE STATEMENT before the cameras!
This is not rocket science; it is how the Clinton-Gore campaign won the election of 1992, despite an INCUMBENT Republican Presdident (President George H.W. Bush) (Sr.) who was not only BETTER FUNDED by corporate interests, but had been a WAR LEADING VICTOR just months before leading the 1991 Gulf War1 coalition against Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
We here at C-Dems.blgspt.com most heartily support and endorse Senator Landrieu's COURAGEOUS CONFRONTATION of President Bush's AWOL and APATHETIC (not to say, "whooly corrupt and incompetent") 'leadership' of the post-Katrina rebuilding of New Orleans. New Orleans is even far more dependent on presidential leadership than Florida hurricane recovery ever is, because New Orleans is CRITICALLY dependent on an overall Environmental management strategy to provide levee rebuilding and wetlands management to mitigate the impact of future killer storms. These are functions that ONLY the Federal Government can provide.. the State of Louisiana has neither the money nor the authority to manage and oversee the Mississippi River and delta, which is an interstate resource and geographic feature that demands FEDERAL oversight.
So, "BRAVO! and a hearty "Well done.. KEEP IT GOING!" to Senator Landrieu, who has joined Senators Feingold, Boxer, Durbin, and Leahy in the "Support CENSURE of President Bush's illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches" COURAGEOUS Democrats column!
If MORE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS start using the senate's institutional powers - powers SPECIFICALLY VESTED IN SENATORS by the US Constitution - to OPPOSE and CONFRONT President Bush's awful agenda, incompetence, and ABUSE OF POWER, than we could hopefully stop adding to "Cowardly Democrats.Blogspot.com" and start a more positive and
_________________________________________________
LANDRIEU THREATENS to BLOCK APPOINTMENTS OVER LEVEES
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/04/landrieu.appointments/index.html?section=cnn_latest
photo- Sen. Mary Landrieu: The people of Louisiana "simply cannot wait much longer."
video- Threat of a block from the bayou (1:46)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding the state's levees, a Louisiana Democrat threatened Wednesday to block President Bush's appointments requiring Senate confirmation until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August.
Saying coastal residents "cannot wait much longer," Sen. Mary Landrieu blamed the loss of 1,200 lives in her home state "to the loss of wetlands as a protection and a lack of levees that held."
She is DEMANDING that the Bush administration develop a COMPREHENSIVE levee, FLOOD CONTROL, and COASTAL RESTORATION PROGRAM, and dole out the funds to pay for it.
"For me, this used to be a major policy issue," she said. "Now, it's an issue of life and death." (Watch Landrieu outline her demand -- 1:46)
The senator said she sent a letter to Bush on Tuesday and "urged him specifically to request of Congress $6 billion that his administration says that we need in order for our region to be safe."
If the White House fails to meet her demands, "I WILL BE COMPELLED TO USE THE POWER OF MY OFFICE as SENATOR TO HOLD ALL EXECUTIVE NOMINATIONS until we get A RESPONSE from the [....AWOL, arrogant, incompetent, and crony-corrupt Bush...] administration."
There was no immediate response from the White House.
Blocking or failing to act on executive appointments may not be the only pressure she applies, she warned. "I have other leverage, and I'm prepared to use it if I have to."
In her Tuesday letter, Landrieu writes, "Mr. President, the piecemeal approach that has marked your administration's response to providing adequate levee and flood protection for Louisiana has not worked. It needs to be replaced by a comprehensive approach that is both more effective and cost-efficient."
She added that money spent on levees and flood control would ultimately save the government money "by eliminating the need for costly post-storm recovery and rebuilding in areas that were not adequately protected. That is a major lesson learned from last year's horrifying experience."
We, your humble editors, do not relish writting post after post knocking the Democratic leadership for selling issue after issue, voter after voter, American citizen after American citizen down the river (in the case of New Orleans flood victims, LITERALLY) of apathy, inertia, and submission to the Bush-Rove propaganda machine and DeLay-Abramoff-Cunningham-Halliburton-Enron-Diebold crony-corruption extortion racket.
However, if America is to have a true REPRESENTATIVE democracy, it is simply essential that we have a functioning and vocal OPPOSITION PARTY. "Opposition" party as in "providing some actual opposition," not just the current kerry/biden/lieberman/bayh/hillary/reid routine of talking opposition in mushy terms, and then ALLOWING the Republican junta to STEAM ROLL any MEANINGFUL opposition with the latest in-your-face ATROCITIES, such as torture & kangaroo courts, Hallibuton corruption and FEMA cronyism, Diebold vote fraud and conflict of interest, treasury looting tax cuts for billionaires while asking the blue-collar and white-collar working class to not only pick up the tab, but the interest on the Bush deficits as well, etc. etc. etc. ad naseum.
HOW EASY IS IT, could it be, for the MINORITY PARTY SENATORS to provide some REAL oppposition??
Well, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu provides us with a LONG OVERDUE glimpse of what the Democrat "leadership" COULD BE DOING, SHOULD have been doing all these months and years:
<< Landrieu threatens to block appointments over levees >> (CNN headline)
as in,
<< Senator Landrieu THREATENED TO BLOCK ALL of President Bush's appointments requiring Senate Confirmation, until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August. >>
Here's the full CNN headline on this riveting news:
<< LANDRIEU THREATENS to BLOCK APPOINTMENTS OVER LEVEES
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding the state's levees, a Louisiana Democrat threatened Wednesday to block President Bush's appointments requiring Senate confirmation until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August. >>
Hey you cowering Senate Democrats... SEE HOW EASY THAT WAS?!
Senator Landrieu's COURAGEOUS taking a stand, standing up for her constiuents, CONFRONTING the incompetent, arrogant, and CORRUPT Bush regime, garnered her FREE PRESS and media!
UNLIKE the COWERING Democrats, who solicit our (Democratic supporter's) funds, and then toss that money down the RAT HOLE of vague, wishy-washy, non-confrontational ad campaigns like the generic "we pledge to reform this or that" or Kerry's awful 2004 mantra, "Time for a Change." ('Time for a change' of WHAT, Mr. Kerry.. the DIAPERS of Democratic leaders who are AFRAID to make a MEANINGFUL committment or confrontational stand, as Senator Landrieu is now doing??!)
And don't forget the DIRTY LITTLE SECRET of American politics... your senate and congressional "leaders" SPEND MORE TIME SOLICITING FUNDS for their next campaign, than they do REPRESENTING the plurality of citizen's who voted for them!
This one post can not begin to cover the dilemma of congressional leaders who (as one political commentator explained on a network news report) "wake up every morning knowing who their ten biggest donors are, and who spends the entire day trying to keep those donors satisfied so they will contribute again when the next campaign money crunch gets tight."
It is a case of "super-representation"- people with large sums of money who involve themselves in political campaigns are FAR better represented on the issues and policies (and especially fiscal policies and tax policies), than "ordinary" citizens who only pay attention to the election process at election time, if then.
And, in defense of our OVERWORKED Represenatives and Senators, they are shouldering a significant burden of EDUCATING VOTERS, millions of whom would prefer to sit on their behinds watching sports events in stadiums, movies in theaters, and sit-coms and soap-operas at home on their sofas, to keeping themselves informed about local and national issues that affect theiir jobs, lives and families. Both as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of the time we allot from out daily lives, the vast majority of Americans are much more concerned with their home team, sports league, movies, or TV (among other forms of ENTERTAINMENT), than they are with whether or not their families have affordable HEALTH CARE.
That is a product of VOTER's APATHY. But a large part of the problem is built into the current "system" by our political leadership, a "system" that offers significant advantages to the Republican Party. Namely, the CONSOLIDATION of the media networks and press/publishing empires under fewer and fewer controlling owners, until you have a situation like CLEAR CHANNEL RADIO. Clear Channel Radio now has a MONOPOLY on the radio market throughout the US, and especially in regards to the airplay that rising music stars (and even established music stars) receive for their latest music. In the case of the Country Music female trio "The Dixie Chicks," when singer Natalie Mains and her bandmates came out VOCALLY OPPOSING President Bush's march to bomb and invade Iraq, The Dixie Chicks were BLACKLISTD from Clear Channel Radio stations, and thereby BLOCKED from their potential market of music purchasing customers. Righty propaganda has INVERTED the truth, in this case declaring that MONOPOLY CAPITALISM is somehow a "free market"!!! If you'll remember back to your elementary school history, the MONOPOLY of King George's British East India Tea Company was (along with stamp taxes and abusive royal officials), one of the major sparks of the American Revolution, leading American Patriots in Boston to dress as Indians, storm an East India Tea Company merchant ship, and TOSS THE TEA into Boston Harbor - the "Boston Tea Party" was against MONOPOLY CAPITALISM" over 200 years ago!
To continue with "THE SYSTEM's" built in disadvantage to Democratic voters and candidates, because the Democrats allowed President Reagan to dispense with the "Equal time" provisions of the FCC regulations (which required broadcasters to provide free air time to rebut any one side's paid political commercials), and because Democrats keep signing off on MEDIA CONSOLIDATION, we now have a situation where Democratic candidates, leaders, and activists MUST shell out millions of dollars to reach (via paid political ads) citizens and potential voters.
Worse, ALMOST EVERY DOLLAR THAT Democratic candidates SPEND on ad-campaigns, goes to ENRICH and REWARD the corporate media owners, who in almost all cases are AGAINST the policies, issues, and fiscal priorities that Democratic candidates so often appeal to!
For example, GENERAL ELECTRIC corporation OWNS NBC. NBC corporation, NBC 'news', MSNBC, and CNBC, are all WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARIES of General Electric corporation! Not only will GE execs NEVER permit their NBC subsidiary to broadcast news negative to the interest of General Electric corporation (for example, the story of GE's long history of dumping carcinoginic PCB's into the Hudson river watershed), but EVERY TIME A DEMOCRATIC or independent candidate pays NBC to broadcast a campaign advertisement, IT REWARDS THE MOTHER COMPANY, GE, whose agenda is almost entirely adverse to the ideals that the modern Democratic has fought for for 100 years... issues such as pensions; unions; worker, job, and public health safety standards (such as the PCB pollution mentioned above), corporate oversight (SEC); media consolidation (FCC); outsourcing; etc. etc etc. - on all these issues and many hundreds of others, Democratic and independent candidates MUST ENRICH General Electric and other huge media corporations, to have ANY CHANCE of REACHING THEIR VOTERS via paid TV and radio ads!
NO WHERE did our founding fathers and Constitution founders imagine that MAJOR CORPORATIONS would provide a monopoly barrier and life-or-death conduit between Congressional Representatives and the voters, citizens, and constituents of the states!
We apologize - this is starting to be a long winded exposition. But to simplify: ALL candidates MUST spend the MAJORITY of their time RAISING CAMPAIGN FUNDS, and under our current system which is so dependent on paid political TV ads to reach an apathetic and ill-informed voting populace, Democratic and Independent candidats MUST ENRICH THEIR corporate (which is to say, 'Republican leaning') opponents JUST TO BE HEARD above the din of daily traffic and the network media's particular reporting bias. (Again, without sounding conspiratorial, GE will never permit NBC to air or broadcast stories that negatively reflect on GE, except to mention an investigation or judgement against the company in the most cursory manner.)
BUT Democrats CAN EASILY OVERCOME this network, corporate, institutional BIAS.... SIMPLY BY GETTING OUT THERE, PROVIDING SOME LEADERSHIP, and CONFRONTING the wrongs of the system...!!!
As Senator Landrieu has shown, IT CAN BE AS EASY as making ONE STATEMENT before the cameras!
This is not rocket science; it is how the Clinton-Gore campaign won the election of 1992, despite an INCUMBENT Republican Presdident (President George H.W. Bush) (Sr.) who was not only BETTER FUNDED by corporate interests, but had been a WAR LEADING VICTOR just months before leading the 1991 Gulf War1 coalition against Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
We here at C-Dems.blgspt.com most heartily support and endorse Senator Landrieu's COURAGEOUS CONFRONTATION of President Bush's AWOL and APATHETIC (not to say, "whooly corrupt and incompetent") 'leadership' of the post-Katrina rebuilding of New Orleans. New Orleans is even far more dependent on presidential leadership than Florida hurricane recovery ever is, because New Orleans is CRITICALLY dependent on an overall Environmental management strategy to provide levee rebuilding and wetlands management to mitigate the impact of future killer storms. These are functions that ONLY the Federal Government can provide.. the State of Louisiana has neither the money nor the authority to manage and oversee the Mississippi River and delta, which is an interstate resource and geographic feature that demands FEDERAL oversight.
So, "BRAVO! and a hearty "Well done.. KEEP IT GOING!" to Senator Landrieu, who has joined Senators Feingold, Boxer, Durbin, and Leahy in the "Support CENSURE of President Bush's illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches" COURAGEOUS Democrats column!
If MORE DEMOCRATIC SENATORS start using the senate's institutional powers - powers SPECIFICALLY VESTED IN SENATORS by the US Constitution - to OPPOSE and CONFRONT President Bush's awful agenda, incompetence, and ABUSE OF POWER, than we could hopefully stop adding to "Cowardly Democrats.Blogspot.com" and start a more positive and
_________________________________________________
LANDRIEU THREATENS to BLOCK APPOINTMENTS OVER LEVEES
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/04/landrieu.appointments/index.html?section=cnn_latest
photo- Sen. Mary Landrieu: The people of Louisiana "simply cannot wait much longer."
video- Threat of a block from the bayou (1:46)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Frustrated by a lack of progress in rebuilding the state's levees, a Louisiana Democrat threatened Wednesday to block President Bush's appointments requiring Senate confirmation until "significant progress" is made toward restoring the flood protection damaged by Hurricane Katrina in August.
Saying coastal residents "cannot wait much longer," Sen. Mary Landrieu blamed the loss of 1,200 lives in her home state "to the loss of wetlands as a protection and a lack of levees that held."
She is DEMANDING that the Bush administration develop a COMPREHENSIVE levee, FLOOD CONTROL, and COASTAL RESTORATION PROGRAM, and dole out the funds to pay for it.
"For me, this used to be a major policy issue," she said. "Now, it's an issue of life and death." (Watch Landrieu outline her demand -- 1:46)
The senator said she sent a letter to Bush on Tuesday and "urged him specifically to request of Congress $6 billion that his administration says that we need in order for our region to be safe."
If the White House fails to meet her demands, "I WILL BE COMPELLED TO USE THE POWER OF MY OFFICE as SENATOR TO HOLD ALL EXECUTIVE NOMINATIONS until we get A RESPONSE from the [....AWOL, arrogant, incompetent, and crony-corrupt Bush...] administration."
There was no immediate response from the White House.
Blocking or failing to act on executive appointments may not be the only pressure she applies, she warned. "I have other leverage, and I'm prepared to use it if I have to."
In her Tuesday letter, Landrieu writes, "Mr. President, the piecemeal approach that has marked your administration's response to providing adequate levee and flood protection for Louisiana has not worked. It needs to be replaced by a comprehensive approach that is both more effective and cost-efficient."
She added that money spent on levees and flood control would ultimately save the government money "by eliminating the need for costly post-storm recovery and rebuilding in areas that were not adequately protected. That is a major lesson learned from last year's horrifying experience."
posted by verifi at 6:57 AM
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