Alabama Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (r.) Leads the Charge to Kill Veterans Jobs Bill! YeeHaw!

Veterans won't be getting a new billion dollar jobs program thanks to the senate republicans, led by Alabama's own Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, bless his heart,  who forced a budget point of order.  I guess veterans can join the ranks of  them there freeloading, lazy Obama victims, I mean voters.

The bill was fully paid for, and entirely bipartisan -- Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) had his own set of ideas for the bill, and Murray incorporated all of them into her legislation.
And yet, all but five Senate Republicans voted to kill it anyway, 48 days before a national election. Even Burr sided with his party to defeat the bill, and it was filled with his provisions.

Don't blame me.  I voted a straight democratic ticket.

There are two kinds of republicans...millionaires and suckers.

My Liberal Rant

I am not a Progressive, I am a proud, card carrying, bleeding heart, tree hugging, Birkenstock wearing, LIBERAL big D Democrat. You got that?

The term "progressive" is today often used in place of "liberal." Why? Because republicans made liberal a dirty word. In an effort to appease the gop Liberals decided to call themselves progressives. Unfortunately the progressive brand has been hijacked by neo-liberals and corporatist dems.

H/T to Captain Plaid for Making It Plain!

I am libeRAL as I believe humanity can advance.

o Our civil liberties must be protected. No exceptions!

o I believe in the power of law. She’s not perfect and I’ve seen injustices, often related to power and poverty frankly. I’m very concerned with the burrowed in Federalist Society sorts on benches across this land. Our Alabama Supreme Court is largely bought and paid for by the Business Council of Alabama and other Big Mules like Alfa. The Court of Criminal Appeals used to be rather hostile to defense lawyers and I know for a fact they dodged a serious question I once raised in a brief.

o Lockean libertarians who recognize the need for social insurance and regulation were once celebrated yet are now having rocks thrown at them.

o I favor same-sex marriages or at least civil unions. Discrimination can hardly be tolerated as to a person’s sexual orientation.

o I had a person once tell me liberals believe people are inherently good. I'm not sure I buy that yet I do think many are. On some of the laggards, ignorant, … I occasionally think of how I used to work with critters by making it easy for them to do the right thing. Policies to prod, channel, and the like are OK for me but then again just help and a hug work on the face to face work I try to do. I know for a fact I helped some kids I taught or have known and likely could have done more if carrying a fair work load and able to really teach and represent.

o Education is an investment. We ought to be proud to spend money for our future generations.

o Clinton’s welfare “reform” sounded perhaps good on paper and was a winner politically yet only a booming economy avoided a train wreck. The costs of having those babies being taken from their mothers so she could do some type of “make work” is hard to measure but I bet there were and are costs.

mooncat says I am not typical of any democrat she knows
What is she thinking?

I begged readers to read the History: Democrats $ Republicans On Civil Rights and Equality which let me know what kind of democrat I'm not;

Conservative Democrats left the party in opposition to civil rights and became Republicans. After the Civil Rights law was signed into law, conservative Democrats left the party. Strom Thurmond, who ran as a segregationist in 1948, became a Republican, as did Jesse Helms (who went on to filibuster against making Martin Luther King Jr. day a federal holiday).

I'm not the kind of democrat who runs away from Nancy Pelosi and President Obama in an attempt to woo so called moderates/independents and other concern trolls.

I'm not the kind of democrat who jumps in bed with the Tea Party Gang.

I'm not the kind of democrat who says support my candidate/point of view or else.

I'm not the kind of democrat who falls for the Talking TeeVee Pundit Head spin

I'm the kind of democrat who is sick and tired of being bullied by the right wing because you know what? I really don't want to hear the other side.

So There!

With Democrats Like These....Update

H/T to the Christian Progressive Liberal at jackandjill politics.com for identifying the twelve democratic traitors who voted against extending unemployment benefits. As CPL notes guess which democrat is NOT on the list.

You know who’s name ISN’T ON THIS LIST? Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) – you know; the one that Harry Reid refused to certify his election until he needed HIS VOTE to get Health Care Reform passed. LOL.

WTF needs republicans with democrats like these? Twelve so called Democrats joined republicans to block extension of unemployment benefits.

The ugly secret of the unemployed is one that is well-known to the unemployed.

It is not because we’re lazy.

It is NOT because we want a free ride.

It is NOT because we feel we’re entitled. Hell, when we lose our jobs, real entitlement would be paying us unemployment at the rate of our former salaries so we can maintain our living standards until we get another job.

But we gratefully accept the 25-40% of our former income we can collect from the State. Some money is better than NO MONEY.

The ugly secret of the unemployed is the fact that we continue to be victimized for being UNEMPLOYED. When you are laid off your job; when your job is sent out of the country, courtesy of trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA: when you get fired because you will not compromise your ethics for the sake of an unscrupulous boss - you wind up collecting unemployment benefits, usually 25-40% of what you USED to earn.

WTF runs for office, strike that, WTF runs for a Congressional Seat representing the cradle of the Civil Rights movement with a *ahem* spotty voting record?

Terri Sewell has some serious gaps in her voting record. Sewell, who moved back to Alabama in 2004 after working as Wall Street securities attorney, just started voting in Alabama in 2008 according to records provided by The Alabama Secretary of State. In 2008, Sewell ran as an Obama Delegate in the 6th Congressional District of Alabama, one of the most Republican districts in the country.

Conservadems are enabling the republicans undercutting the national economic recovery and the real dems are skeered to call them out.

The same old story happens again and again. Dems in the House pass reasonable legislation, and Senate Dems dicker with centrists and Republicans over "compromises," weakening the legislation step by step over many weeks, only to find zero Republican support in the end.

The public has no idea what is going on, and just blames Democrats, who appear to be in charge in DC. Now it is happening gain with vital public spending for national economy recovery -- state aid, unemployment relief, and adjustments in taxes and Medicare payments. This legislation is not just important to this or that group. It matters for keeping any semblance of national economic growth going, for creating and saving hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Whats the matter with Democrats in Alabama you ask? Take a look in the mirror. The Alabama Democratic party has been infiltrated. That's what's wrong with the democratic party in Alabama. You know the drill. Find an effective liberal group/blog. Pick a fight. Have the groups pick sides. And who wins in the end? Not democrats that's for sure. What quooarr said;

If people listened to the power brokers all the time Joe Sestak wouldn't be the nominee in Pennsylvania and Elaine Marshall wouldn't be the nominee in N.C. From time to time Democrats have to rise up and take their own party back. That time is long overdue in Alabama.

Amen quaoar. Amen. It's time for all good democrats to rise up and OUR party back.

It's time for Democrats to WTFU!

There's a saying that goes, "When you settle for less, you usually get less than what you settle for." Well, that pretty much describes those of us who've watched the republicanization of the Democrat Party over the past 25 years.

What it's gotten us is "Democrats" who vote for any hair-brained scheme Republicans can come up with (NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.), who weaken healthcare options to appease their lobbyist friends, who vote against unemployed(as happened the other night) and others who will completely jump ship when they feel the political winds are right, i.e., Shelby and Griffith.

It's given us a weak party that doesn't know how to fight back and can't win for losing, even when the other side gifts them a winning hand of cards. Had enough?

I've had more than enough! I want my HOPE for CHANGE we can believe in back!

The Week In Review Edited

I'm back! Did you miss me? Seriously I took a few days off for some well deserved R&R, fun in the sun but I'm back now fired up and ready to go! I spent the morning getting caught up on what's happening in the real world to learn the following; veteran White House Correspondent Helen Thomas is under fire for exercising the first, (welcome to the club Helen!), conservative, white democrats and republicans from coast to coast are still trying to figure out why Artur Davis was trounced (Seriously?), the righty's are still trying to turn BP's Gulf oil spill in President Obama's Katrina, thousands of barrels of O-I-L are stilling flowing(more on this later), republicans are trying to make a federal case out of Joe Sestak (sigh), and locally, the Huntsville City School Superintendent Ann Roy Moore is under attack (Oh my!).

Veteran White House Correspondent Helen Thomas is forced to resign after her "anti semitic" comments. That's what the news reader just announced on MSNBC. Call me clueless, but would someone please explain what anti semitism is because I honestly don't know yet I see the charge thrown around a lot and it usually results in somebody either being forced to resign or fired. In any event I'm really sad Helen Thomas will no longer be around to ask the tough questions. Not these guys and gals, that's fer sure. I bid a fond but sad farewell to the real Watchdog of Democracy.

Thomas, who has been covering Washington for more than 60 years, is displeased with the way in which the government tries to manipulate the news as never before; the press, diminished and monopolized by big business kowtowing to advertisers is "supine"; and dishonesty is everywhere. Thomas believes in a healthy adversarial challenge between government and press, but her explanation of her stance sometimes veers off track. She characterizes the nine presidents (beginning with Kennedy) she has covered, each of whom tried to spin the news his own way (Nixon, for a while, resorted to total blackout). Thomas dates the ever widening "credibility gap" back to the Vietnam War under Johnson. By this time, message management had reached the point of "outright propaganda." Readers will be entertained by her definition of the terms "background" and "off the record" and the difference between a "leak" and a "plant." But Thomas sees a bright side: she applauds trenchant political cartoonists and believes that the active public interest expressed in Internet blogs may help create transparency.

Did the Voting Rights Act Doom Artur Davis? Four words, HELL TO THE NO! I was offended by the title and the content of this post. How dare you blame the hard fought for right for African Americans to vote for Artur Davis's repudiation. Do you realize how condescending and racist y'all are beginning to sound? Let me offer you a Redeye translation for your consideration and review; That's what we get for letting that there uppity N word Joe Reed getting them there uppity N words the right to vote they won't let us decide who the head N word in charge should be. Everybody knows they are too stoopid to know what's good for them and need us to tell them what to do and to take care of them.

Artur Davis doomed Artur Davis by, pandering to the right and throwing his base under the bus. Black folks never have and never will vote against their self interest, in other words we don't vote for candidates based on the color of their skin. Psst, President Obama, you got that? Stop screwing your base and screw the right wing conservative, moderates, they are not your friends and to quote James Carville, "they will take you down". Ask your Harvard bud Artur Davis.

What Booman
said all the damn way!

But it's just sad to see a guy like Artur Davis, who has such a stellar resume, feel compelled to turn his back on the biggest Democratic project in three generations just to pander to a sliver of the white vote in Alabama. According to the exit polls, Barack Obama received just 10% of the white vote in Alabama. Davis certainly has to do considerably better than that to have any chance of being elected governor. But Davis, who was "the recipient of the Best Oralist Award in the esteemed Ames Moot Court Competition at Harvard Law School," ought to use his rhetorical skills to explain how health care reform will help rural white Alabamans more than any legislation passed in most of their lifetimes. Instead, he chooses to go the predictable route which, even if it worked, would likely leave him with a prize not worth having. After all, why run for office if you can't implement your principles?

Why indeed? That is the question. Another good question is why do black candidates have to throw black folks under the bus to get white folks to vote for them? The voting rights act doomed Artur Davis my Donkey!

To be continued.