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Former Vol QB Shuler Fumbling in Bid to Challenge Pelosi

What former Tennessee Vol QB Heath Shuler (D-NC) and his fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives don’t realize is that they didn’t lose this last election big because they aren’t “moderate” enough. The Democrats simply didn’t get enough done for the American people in the last two years.

They championed Wall Street over Main Street, big insurance companies over patients, war over peace. They lost because they didn’t do enough to excite the Democratic base after their history-making victory in 2008. If anything, they should have been MORE liberal, MORE different from the GOP.

I agree that Pelosi should step aside, but not for a more moderate minority leader. She should step aside for a BETTER leader – someone who can GET THINGS DONE for the American people. And if his decision-making as a Washington Redskin and his failure to understand the will of the electorate are any indication, Heath Shuler isn’t that leader either.

Huffington Post: Heath Shuler: If Nancy Pelosi Runs I’ll Challenge Her, And Lose

Former Vol QB Shuler Fumbling in Bid to Challenge Pelosi

What former Tennessee Vol QB Heath Shuler (D-NC) and his fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives don’t realize is that they didn’t lose this last election big because they aren’t “moderate” enough. The Democrats simply didn’t get enough done for the American people in the last two years.

They championed Wall Street over Main Street, big insurance companies over patients, war over peace. They lost because they didn’t do enough to excite the Democratic base after their history-making victory in 2008. If anything, they should have been MORE liberal, MORE different from the GOP.

I agree that Pelosi should step aside, but not for a more moderate minority leader. She should step aside for a BETTER leader – someone who can GET THINGS DONE for the American people. And if his decision-making as a Washington Redskin and his failure to understand the will of the electorate are any indication, Heath Shuler isn’t that leader either.

Huffington Post: Heath Shuler: If Nancy Pelosi Runs I’ll Challenge Her, And Lose

Drowning in the Politics of Torture

Now playing:
Guantanamo by Nadir’s Distorted Soul

Let’s make this torture debate absolutely clear:  I’ve got cousins, a good friend and a nephew who are all in the military.  If any of them was captured on the battlefield and tortured, I would want the lower level interrogators who committed the act to be prosecuted and convicted of war crimes.  I would want the high level officials who authorized the use of illegal methods (not enhanced interrogation – TORTURE) to be prosecuted and convicted of war crimes.

This is not politics.  This is justice.

As mainstream media talking heads like Joe Scarborough and John Meachum do their best to dissuade the public from demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder do the right thing, the rest of us should not lose sight of the principles that are supposed to be  the foundation of this nation: that all men – including alleged Islamic radicals, prisoners of war, members of Congress and US presidents – are ALL created equal, should enjoy the same rights and deserve the same punishment for their crimes.

How is this debatable?  The law is the law, right?

Well, apparently not in the United States. Continue reading

Drowning in the Politics of Torture

Now playing:
Guantanamo by Nadir’s Distorted Soul

Let’s make this torture debate absolutely clear:  I’ve got cousins, a good friend and a nephew who are all in the military.  If any of them was captured on the battlefield and tortured, I would want the lower level interrogators who committed the act to be prosecuted and convicted of war crimes.  I would want the high level officials who authorized the use of illegal methods (not enhanced interrogation – TORTURE) to be prosecuted and convicted of war crimes.

This is not politics.  This is justice.

As mainstream media talking heads like Joe Scarborough and John Meachum do their best to dissuade the public from demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder do the right thing, the rest of us should not lose sight of the principles that are supposed to be  the foundation of this nation: that all men – including alleged Islamic radicals, prisoners of war, members of Congress and US presidents – are ALL created equal, should enjoy the same rights and deserve the same punishment for their crimes.

How is this debatable?  The law is the law, right?

Well, apparently not in the United States. Continue reading

Partisan Politics Trump the Constitution?

I was just checking out Dave Lindorff’s report from the House Judiciary hearing on impeachment. Two items stood out to me immediately.

First:

As Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the committee, made clear more than once during the six-hour session, this was “not an impeachment hearing, however much many in the audience might wish it to be” He might well have added that he himself was not the fierce defender of the Constitution and of the authority of Congress that he once was before gaining control of the Judiciary Committee, however much his constituents, his wife, and Americans across the country might wish him to be.

Yep. Conyers is bowing down to Pelosi’s pressure on this one. He is more interested in keeping his job as judiciary chair than in defending the Constitution. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Continue reading

Partisan Politics Trump the Constitution?

I was just checking out Dave Lindorff’s report from the House Judiciary hearing on impeachment. Two items stood out to me immediately.

First:

As Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the committee, made clear more than once during the six-hour session, this was “not an impeachment hearing, however much many in the audience might wish it to be” He might well have added that he himself was not the fierce defender of the Constitution and of the authority of Congress that he once was before gaining control of the Judiciary Committee, however much his constituents, his wife, and Americans across the country might wish him to be.

Yep. Conyers is bowing down to Pelosi’s pressure on this one. He is more interested in keeping his job as judiciary chair than in defending the Constitution. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Continue reading

PUT THE CRIMINAL IN JAIL!

PUT THE CRIMINAL IN JAIL!

No, I’m not talking about Scooter Libby. I’m talking about George W. Bush. I’m talking about Dick Cheney. Those are the criminals who have laughed in the face of the American people and scoffed at the myth of American justice over and over again.

Who cares that Scooter Libby’s sentence was commuted. Scooter was the fall guy. He took the hit for his crime bosses, and he will be paid handsomely for it. A corporate vice presidency or chief executive job is probably waiting for the publicity to die down. I’m sure there are publishers already lining up to pitch that multi-million dollar book deal so the victors can rewrite history.

The REAL criminals are Cheney and Bush. It was Cheney and Bush who authorized the violation of yet another federal statute by outing Valerie Plame in the first place. It is Cheney and Bush who are guilty of over a half dozen other federal crimes. Continue reading

PUT THE CRIMINAL IN JAIL!

PUT THE CRIMINAL IN JAIL!

No, I’m not talking about Scooter Libby. I’m talking about George W. Bush. I’m talking about Dick Cheney. Those are the criminals who have laughed in the face of the American people and scoffed at the myth of American justice over and over again.

Who cares that Scooter Libby’s sentence was commuted. Scooter was the fall guy. He took the hit for his crime bosses, and he will be paid handsomely for it. A corporate vice presidency or chief executive job is probably waiting for the publicity to die down. I’m sure there are publishers already lining up to pitch that multi-million dollar book deal so the victors can rewrite history.

The REAL criminals are Cheney and Bush. It was Cheney and Bush who authorized the violation of yet another federal statute by outing Valerie Plame in the first place. It is Cheney and Bush who are guilty of over a half dozen other federal crimes. Continue reading

It’s Time for the Democrats to Make Their Move

With Republican leadership stumbling, bumbling and ducking for cover on issue after issue, it is difficult to conceive how the Democrats could blow the election on November 7.

Difficult, but unfortunately, not impossible.

In his “€œThe Buck Stops Here"€ speech at Batavia, Illinois, GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert joined the chorus that has implied the Dems may have had a hand in the escalation of the Foley fiasco from Capitol Hill gossip to major congressional sex scandal. It is an election year, Mr. Speaker, and the political chess match is approaching the final gambit. We’re sure Karl Rove has a few tricks up his sleeve as well.

This Foley foolishness obviously won’t play well with the GOP’€™s homophobic, sex-inhibited, radically religious right-wing base. Republican candidates in close races were already trying to distance themselves from the failures of George Bush. Now they have to find a way to look independent, isolated and insulated from the sins of party leadership.

Still it is most striking that while the Dems stand to gain much from the exposure of Republican wrongdoing, they have failed to highlight the real differences between them and their opponents across the aisle. Their strategy seems to be to let the Republicans hang themselves, and so far the Republicans are cooperating. Continue reading

It’s Time for the Democrats to Make Their Move

With Republican leadership stumbling, bumbling and ducking for cover on issue after issue, it is difficult to conceive how the Democrats could blow the election on November 7.

Difficult, but unfortunately, not impossible.

In his “€œThe Buck Stops Here”€ speech at Batavia, Illinois, GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert joined the chorus that has implied the Dems may have had a hand in the escalation of the Foley fiasco from Capitol Hill gossip to major congressional sex scandal. It is an election year, Mr. Speaker, and the political chess match is approaching the final gambit. We’re sure Karl Rove has a few tricks up his sleeve as well.

This Foley foolishness obviously won’t play well with the GOP’€™s homophobic, sex-inhibited, radically religious right-wing base. Republican candidates in close races were already trying to distance themselves from the failures of George Bush. Now they have to find a way to look independent, isolated and insulated from the sins of party leadership.

Still it is most striking that while the Dems stand to gain much from the exposure of Republican wrongdoing, they have failed to highlight the real differences between them and their opponents across the aisle. Their strategy seems to be to let the Republicans hang themselves, and so far the Republicans are cooperating. Continue reading

© Nadir Omowale