A progressive political blog that highlights the infringement of religion upon today’s government.

Bush has vetoed a bill authorizing hundreds of important water related projects. This bill, like the SCHIP expansion, enjoyed strong bipartisan support and is highly popular. Unlike the last veto this bill looks to have the votes needed to hand Bush his first veto override. This bill passed the house and senate easily gathering 381-40 and 81-12 majorities respectively.

The bill was intended to authorize hundreds of projects to repair hurricane damage, restore wetlands, and improve the levees for New Orleans. Each of these key projects is years and years overdue, with the last such authorization taking place in 2000. By vetoing this bill Bush has endangered vital wetlands that play a key role in protecting our gulf states from hurricanes. In fact, the destruction of these wetlands is highly regarded as one of the key reasons Katrina did so much damage.

“Every day brings new evidence that President Bush is out of touch with the American people and their priorities,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. “More than two years after failing to respond to the devastation and destruction of Hurricane Katrina, he is refusing to fund important projects guided by the Army Corps of Engineers that are essential to protecting the people of the Gulf Coast region.” - CBSNews.com

According to Dana Perino Bush vetoed the bill because it was “fiscally irresponsible”. It is clear that this is just more partisan attacks intended to bash the Democratic controlled Congress. This after 6 years of never vetoing a single Republican spending bill, racking up record deficits (after blowing Clinton’s Surplus), and raiding Social Security to pay for his rich buddies’ tax breaks. The idea that this administration can even say the words fiscal responsibility with a straight face is laughable. The fact that they can do so and not be called on it by our so called “liberal media” is sad.

This veto, like the SCHIP veto, is the act of a spoiled and irresponsible child. This administration is more concerned with creating the illusion of fiscal responsibility and scoring partisan political points than looking after the best interests of the country they swore to protect. Luckily for us this is one temper tantrum we won’t have to put up with long as the votes are there for an overturn. I do expect to see the same kind of lies and misinformation about this bill as they trotted out for SCHIP, with the same staggering indifference to the truth.

Update: 11/9/07 By William
The promised veto has happened. See my write up of President Bush’s first veto here. Unless Bush stops using his veto powers for partisan political stunts at the expense of the nations needs there will be more veto overrides coming.

We have created a poll on the sidebar to make voting for your choice of charity easier.  For those who missed the story (you can read it here) we are donating 100% of the money made from this website for the month of October to our readers choice of charity.  Originally we planned to donate only the profits but after a short discussion we decided that we would instead donate the entire months income.

So please hurry up and cast your votes.  We will be extending the deadline until 8am Monday morning to give more people the chance to vote.  As before if you wish to suggest a charity not listed on the poll just place a comment on this story or the prior story and it will be added.

Please help us support those who have lost everything to this terrible disaster.

~ William ~

P.S. Thanks to those of you who have already voted.

As the conservative talk “news” beats the drums for war with Iran and Bush ratchets up the war propaganda Senator Barack Obama is prepared to stand in their way. Late yesterday Obama introduced a resolution that denies Bush the authorization needed to use military force on Iran. Obama has been very clear in his stand against using military force on Iran and against the Iraq war from the beginning and this resolution only strengthens his position.

It will be interesting to see how this resolution impacts his poll numbers against Hillary Clinton. Clinton, and Chris Dodd, were among 28 other Senators who recently signed a letter to President Bush advising him that he had no authority to use force on Iran (which Obama declined to sign). Despite this small measure Clinton has recently drawn fire from progressives for supporting the Kyl-Lieberman amendment which many feel is enough to grant Bush the authority to bomb Iran.

Personally I think that this is a good move by Obama. Not only for the political capital it will gain him, but also for national security. After being stuck in Iraq the United States Military is broken. By all accounts we simply do not have the troops necessary to continue our operations in Iraq past the Spring of 2008. In addition to Iraq we also have troops in Afghanistan who have been seeing increased fighting. The last thing we need right now is to try to take on another country, we can’t handle the two we have now.

We are finally starting to see some signs of success in Iraq, much like we were having fighting the terrorists in Afghanistan before our President got bored and decided to do something else for a while. Well, now like a spoiled child who never finishes anything Bush is starting to get bored with Iraq, maybe not enough explosions to keep him interested, and he’s starting to look for something new to play with. We need to wrap up what we started before we even think about getting entrenched in another long protracted war of choice.

What our President needs to do instead of stomping around throwing temper tantrums about what Congress is doing is take care of his job. Namely that is to act like a big boy and start engaging these countries and groups in some diplomacy. I applaud Senator Obama for taking this step to reign in this administration, I only wish that Bush had not shown so many times that he is more than willing to ignore the law and the Constitution when it suits him. Maybe then I would have more hope that this resolution could have an impact.

~ William ~

Well it’s the first of the month so it’s time to really look at answering the question of Who Would Jesus Vote For. This is our chance to look back over the events of the past month and weigh in on who we think Jesus would back. Since Jesus preached love and forgiveness we will only look at the events from October, all past transgressions are forgiven if not forgotten.

The Big Winner!
Chris Dodd!
For his unrelenting stand against retroactive immunity for big telecommunications companies Dodd has exhibited the leadership and moral judgment necessary for a presidential candidate. After 8 years of the Bush regime the country needs a president who can get the country back on its feet and this month Chris Dodd has repeatedly shown that he is up to the job.

Honorable Mention
Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Dennis Kucinich. In that order. Really they are all excellent candidates with strong policies and outstanding track records of promoting progressive causes. I had a hard time not pushing Hillary to the top but her habit of testing the waters before jumping on an issue cost her this month. I do like her policies though and will continue to push for her to become our nation’s first woman president.

The Big Loser!
Rudy Giuliani!
In a surprisingly strong race for worst candidate on the Republican side Rudy Giuliani has pulled ahead. This month Rudy set out to prove that there isn’t a close minded group too bigoted to avoid his pandering. First going after the anti-gay crowd (despite Rudy’s long history of supporting gay rights) then setting his sight on the anti-immigrant racists (despite his history as mayor of a “sanctuary city”). Rudy has raised pandering and bullshit to a level that makes even Mitt Romney wonder about his character.

Add to all that flip flopping and pandering to hate groups Rudy’s association with Bernie Kerik and a defrocked priest accused of molesting children, plus his theory that water boarding (which was used by the Spanish inquisition and was a crime in WWII) may or may not be torture depending on how it’s done and you get a picture of a real slime ball. What is really sad is that his campaign’s complete disregard for telling the truth, even after being corrected, doesn’t even make him stand out from the Republican candidates.

Runner Up:
Mike Huckabee for equating abortion with the holocaust and all around craziness. While he may be gaining among ultra conservatives his gung ho approach to creating a true theocracy in America creeps out the non-fundamentalists.

Firedoglake.com is reporting that Fred Phelps and family, otherwise known as the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Ks, have been ordered to pay $10.9 Million to the family of slain marine Matthew Snyder. The Westboro Baptist Church has gained international notoriety because of their revolting picket signs and loathsome all around behavior. If there ever was a group that embodied hatred, intolerance, and bigotry better than the Phelps I can’t imagine who they would be.

After saying that I am as surprised as you to be writing that I do not approve of this ruling. In fact, more than anything else I have written here, this piece embodies the true importance of protecting our constitution. While the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church are unthinkably revolting they still fall under protected speech as guaranteed by our 1st amendment. In addition their peaceful protests are also constitutionally protected. As a nation that prides ourselves on our freedoms we must work to ensure that we extend those freedoms to everyone, even those whose message we disagree with.

When we start down the path of censoring unpopular messages we start allowing our courts and government decide what thoughts and feelings are allowable. This is the same problem you run into when you remove books from public libraries, or try to make burning the flag illegal. It is a slippery slope between censoring the most unpopular and revolting speech and censoring all speech. So regardless of your personal feelings for the actions the Phelps take and the hatred they embody you must support their constitutional rights to express those feelings because to do anything else would spell the destruction of our way of life.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. ~ H.L. Mencken (1880 -1956)

I know that there are many many people celebrating this as a victory for homosexual rights and even a victory for the dignity of our fallen soldiers whose funerals the Phelps picket. I envy their joy at this ruling. Instead of feeling joy at victory over bigotry and hatred I instead feel sadness at the loss of freedom. That it was the death of a brave soldier, who fought and died in the name of freedom abroad, that was the catalyst for this loss of our freedoms here at home only amplifies the tragedy and sadness of this ruling.

That’s all I feel like writing on this subject. With luck the name Fred Phelps will never have to be written on this blog again. I regret having to give him this much time but I feel that the importance of this ruling needed to be shared.

Important Update:
In the spirit of the first amendment rights that Fred Phelps is fighting for I have decided to link to an interesting story about the Phelps family. The story is titled “Addicted to Hate” by Jon Michael Bell and chronicles the life of Fred Phelps. I highly recommend reading this if you have even a passing interest in the Phelps despite its length.