It is time to stand up for ACORN

Today James O’Keefe the Right wing Criminal and Faux News Contributor that framed ACORN was caught trying to wire tap a Senators Office In New Orleans. This after numerous investigations into ACORN all of which cleared them and in fact showed that James O’Keefe had doctored the videos that FAUX news showed repeatedly as news on its airwaves.

What is sad is the criminal conspiracy of O’Keefe and Faux News led to congress taking unprecedented and unconstitutional action against ACORN preventing any Funding of projects they were involved in legally. Among those that fell for this fraud were Senator Sherrod Brown and Zack Space.

I demand that every Senator and Congressman that voted for this measure to publicly apologize to ACORN and that the measure they passed be overturned with new legislative action immediately. This McCarthy style political gotcha game should never have been allowed to happen. How little so many recall history.

Acorn Vindicated. Constitution Restored

Despite the briefly successful attempts by Faux News, Republicans with some Democrats to trash the Constitution of the United States with an illegal and immoral witch hunt of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, An independent prosecutor has completed his investigation and found no illegal activity by the organization or its employees. In fact it found that the widely distributed videos are edited and fudged to make things appear much worse then they were. This fraudulent attempt by Faux News in itself is criminal and at the least immoral. Once again it is proven that Faux news has no interest in fact and is not a news organization at all but rather an advocacy group that will say anything and do anything to push their agenda.

Full Report of Independent Investigation

In addition the McCarthy like action by Congress in an uniformed knee jerk reaction to this false reporting by Faux News has been enjoined by Judge Nina Gershon of the U.S District Court in Brooklyn New York. She found the action by Congress to be very likely an unconstitutional act and has granted a preliminary injection until the case can be fully heard.

It is quite clear the attacks on ACORN are false and motivated by the right and Fox News to stop an organization that has been a helpful factor in helping the urban poor and minorities maintain their rights to vote and own property. This is just as disgusting as the racially motivated attempts to keep minorities from voting that occurred prior to the civil rights act and the voting rights act not only in the south but throughout the country.

I expect this kind of behavior from Faux News and the Republicans but for Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and Congressman Zack Space to go along and vote with them on this unconstitutional act is disappointing at best.

The Judges Ruling

Sen Baucus Pays off Big Insurance

#hc09
Senator Max Baucus yesterday did more to attempt to scuttle health care reform then any Republican has done so far and he is supposedly a Democrat. After stalling and delaying in the name of bi-partisanship he announced Max's Health Care Reform Bill yesterday. It was rather surprising at first that the he alone appeared at the press conference. Then as you read the bill as put on his web site it is referred to in many places as Max's bill. Now one may think of this as self promoting behavior, but after actually reading the proposal its clear that no other Senator would have anything to do with such legislation.

Not only does it have very little insurance reform in it at all. It provides for now public option or controlling of costs. The major positive is that it actually cuts the deficit. But how? It does so with Max's Tax that basically attempts to bankrupt the middle class with penalties directly from our paychecks and hands it over to the insurance industry.

Using the formulas in the actual proposed bill, I calculate that my personal health care costs would double under this plan.

Why would a Democratic Senator propose such a bill? There are many theories not the least of which is that there is some relation to his actions and the 3 million in campaign donations he has received from health insurance corporations.

Is not a surprise that the stock of most of the major insurance companies went up yesterday after the announcement of Max's Tax Bill. It seems they got what they paid for.

This bill needs to be given the attention it deserves in the nearest incinerator. Hopefully Senators like Jay Rockefeller and Sherrod Brown will fight to give Americans real health reform that helps middle class taxpayers instead of bloating the insurance companies profits even more.

Wake up Congress 77% want Public Option

Despite the media coverage that has focused on the loudest if not the smartest town hall participants, once again a poll has found that a significant majority of Americans want a public option in health care reform.

The Survey USA polls shows 58% of American voters find the public option extremely important and another 19% find it quite important. that is 77% an overwhelming majority of voters who recognize a national need for a real public option in health care reform.

The United States is a representative republic we elect our Congressmen and Senators to vote in the best interest of its citizens. We elect them to get the facts and understand the background on every vote they make. What has been screamed at them at town halls is not fact, it is either misunderstandings or outright planned lies set out by those who will do anything to prevent Obama from succeeding despite what is best for the nation.

There were similar voices against civil rights reform, social security, and medicare. Yet those that voted for those things are heroes in American History. This is the chance for those in the Congress and Senate to once again be heroes.

The message we need to send to Zack Space, Steve Austria, Sherrod Brown and George Voinivich is: Doing nothing never goes down in history, achieving results does.

source: Survey USA poll

An Open Letter to Senators Voinovich and Brown

Dear Senators,

The hate speech and the rhetoric by the McCain campaign questioning the character of another United States Senator is sickening. It is a black mark on the reputation and the history of the United States Senate.

Campaigning is one thing, but this has gone way over any line of integrity and morality.

I demand that you and others in the United States Senate make a statement publicly and to the McCain campaign that this is not acceptable.

Joseph A. Ritchey Jr.

Contact George Voinovich

Contact Senator Brown

Stop the Scapegoating of Marc Dann

Since the rise of the Moral Majority in 1980 one of my main political goals has been to stop these people along with the Rod Parsleys and Pat Robertsons of the world from hijacking our country and enforcing their religion and moral beliefs on us all.

This recent "moral police" attack on Marc Dann must be stopped. I expect this type of thing from republicans but it disgusts me that people like Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland have jumped on board. What a hypocrite Strickland is to feign such outrage at Marc Dann's affair while he stands there as the best friend of the Clinton's who were involved in the most celebrated marital infidelity in history.

As for you lefty bloggers, did you scream and shout for Bill Clinton to resign or to be impeached? Why not, didn't he have a sexual liasion with someone in his office? Perhaps before you all continue this witch hunt you should read "The Crucible" again.

Marc Dann did NOT commit a crime, he did not break any laws. He is not even accused of doing so. Whether or not you think cheating on your spouse is wrong or not, which frankly I do, the fact is, it is not illegal. The only person that has the right to hold him accountable is his wife period. The only accusation of a sexual harrasment crime was of another in his office not Dann.

So get off your moral high horses hypocrites or start demanding that every person in the state that has ever committed infidelity immediately resign from the jobs.

This frankly is just outrageous. What's next, demanding the impeachment of anyone that watches Cinemax?

The Real Battle in the Democratic Party

On the surface the battle appears to be one between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But that is just the surface battle. The real battle is much deeper much more entrenched and has gone on for decades.

The Democratic Party has not been an organization run by the rank and file voter for decades if ever. It is a party of the powerful elite who in many cases pre determine who the candidates will be all the way from city councils to President. It is a party of the Democratic Leadership Council that include people like Hillary Clinton who decide for the voters the direction of the party and the candidates that will be supported.

The candidates that are chosen get the money, the support, and the favors and are expected to return the favors. The ones on the outside have to fight scratch and try to raise money on their own and most often fail. To be chosen by the elite to run for an office, you tow the line, suck up to the power brokers to do their bidding. They tell the candidates when and if its their turn to run for an office and what office they can run for.

A great example of this was Paul Hackett’s attempt to run for Senate. Paul, a party outsider suddenly rose from nowhere on the scene. He got massive support. He became very popular not only among voters but in the national media. One problem, the party had decided it was Sherrod Brown’s turn to run for Senate. So did the voters get to choose our nominee, no. The party elite went to the money donors and got them to cut Hackett off. No money, no campaign. Suddenly Sherrod Brown is running unopposed.

Since the 80’s when the Clinton group took power, this control of the party has only increased. They have led this party from totally controlling the government to losing the House and the Senate. The numbers of registered Democrats continued to go lower and lower as they became less happy with the same poor choices in candidates year after year. The number of voters who considered themselves democrats but were dissatisfied grew and often defected to vote for Republicans. The only good news has been George W. Bush, who’s total incompetence along with the rabid criminal behavior by Republican officials in places like Ohio, led to some gains of what the party lost in seats and offices.

Now today the party is at a new place. The elite, the Democratic Leadership council and the big donors ordained Hillary Clinton as their candidate. She had paid her dues to the party, given the favors and the support. Thus it was her turn to be the Presidential nominee.

Something unexpected happened, Barack Obama. All those democrats disgruntled with the party returned. 10’s of thousands of new Democrats became active in politics and the party for the first time. The most amazing thing of all, they opened their checkbooks and built up the campaign war chest of Obama to dwarf the one the big money elite had and was building for Hillary.

“How rude of these new democrats how dare they not follow the chosen one” they think. They now see their power being diminished. They are circling the wagons, calling in favors, threatening party leaders who dare to defect from their side and twisting arms of super delegates. They fight to use their control to change the rules so that they can prevail over these rude upstarts.

What they have failed to see is that it is too late. They have lost the liberal media. People like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz have joined the upstarts. Congressmen, Senators, Governors and Mayors are ignoring the threats and intimidation of the elite and are joining the groundswell of change. The most amazing thing of all is the big money donors are being outspent badly by the rank and file democrats making their power more of a nostalgic memory then current reality.

All that remain on the other side are the Clintons, the DLC, the party hacks who are the only group of Super Delegates still giving Clinton the lead among them. Half of the elected officials that are Super Delegates and have committed, have already gone to Obama.

They will not give up their control easily as has been evidenced by their threats to Nancy Pelosi. But they cannot win without destroying this party. It is time for them to realize they have lost the party and a new generation of Democrats has taken over.

If you want to send a message to the party elite that the voters control this party, sign this petition

Vote my way or die!

This was the message George W. Bush gave to the Congress today once again using terror as a scare tactic to justify the blatant removal of more of our constitutional rights.

George W. Bush began his speech with a threat of a terror attack that would make 9/11 “pale by comparison” if the House of Representatives doesn’t vote with the Senate to renew the unconstitutional FISA act and to give telecom companies immunity from law suits brought against them by those whose civil rights have been violated.

The story behind the story is it is these very lawsuits that would force the courts to look at the legality and constitutionality of Bush’s wire tapping crimes.

The Senate has passed the bill, the criminal in chief has called for, but the House of Representatives has yet to do so.

The good news is Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown did vote against the FISA bill. George Voinivich as usual walked in lock step with Bush Crime Family and voted for the act.

The original FISA act dealt with the issue of speed in getting wiretaps for national security by allowing the intelligence agencies to obtain warrants after the fact. But the Bush administration wanted no court review of their wiretapping even afterwards. Why? Only one reason I know, because they are wiretapping people for reasons having nothing to do with national security.

Contact your Congressman now to urge them not to cave to the Bush’s scare tactics.