Disappointing.

I was so pleased when Obama nominated Tom Daschle to be Secretary for HHS. You may know by now that I am so passionate about good, affordable healthcare for all.

Now, why can't these guys pay their taxes? Good god! Perhaps there's an explanation. I know the average Joe stumbles upon tax issues too. And.. so do Republicans.

If he doesn't get confirmed or whatnot... whatever happens with this.. perhaps Obama will consider Howard Dean to take his place. I am a huge fan of Howard Dean. Whatever happens, we need healthcare reform. Now is the time and I think most people are ready for it.

Women's rights.

So I was reading through Pundit mom and I came across a list of Senators that voted against the Lily Ledbetter Act that provides Fair Pay for women.

I scrolled down the list (all of them were Republican Men) and what name do I come across other than Sen John McCain of Arizona.

I find this interesting given that he chose a woman to be his running mate. And looking at the 3rd debate where he and Obama were discussing the ban on partial birth abortions. And he claimed that the typical argument was for *airquote with hands* "Women's health concerns".

Forget interesting, it's rather disturbing. We've had a huge historical moment with the election of our first African American President, but women of all races and cultures are still falling far behind. What can we do about this? Obama is set to sign the bill into law, so that's a good first step.

So I'm going to start with posting the list of Senator's names. If any of these are your senators, I encourage you to call and write letters to tell them that we want equal rights for women. We have to do this for our daughters' futures. And I also encourage you to reprint this list on your blogs if you have them.

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Wicker (R-MS)

Odds -n- Ends

Just some thoughts:

John Boehner - He's from Ohio and has a wicked tan. He really needs to lay off the tanning bed.

Kirstin who? - I'm in NY.... I'm not sure what to make of her.

Rush L - I think it's fun to watch him spin out of control. He is losing his power and will do anything, say anything to try to get it back.

I am really glad that someone put the smack down on these banks taking bailout money and buying "stuff". It is appalling about that CEO that remodeled his office. Looks like Citi isn't getting the jet after all.

And... I love these pictures.

Government of, for and by the people.

I have to say that I am really enjoying the first week of the presidency. You know that I have voted in 5 elections now and I've never watched an Inauguration until this week. The past 2 elections I was so disenfranchised (esp 2000) that I just didn't even care to hear anything. I basically went MIA from cable news.

It's definitely been interesting watching how the transition of power takes place. I'll admit that I haven't been the best citizen by tuning out during the Bush administration, but I did give him the benefit of the doubt in the beginning. I will give him some credit with the transition, although I think he was so ready to be done that it benefitted him to make it smooth. And the amount of pardons, rather who he didn't pardon surprised me some.

I love this era of transparency. It's exhilarating to feel like you are truly part of the government. I love all that Obama is doing to keep the people in the loop.

I just finished watching the concert from last weekend. I had to tape it because I had a birthday party to go to. I cried several times. It's amazing how some of those patriotic songs can get you to feel. I remember right after 9/11, they frequently played "America the Beautiful". I absolutely love this song. It really makes my heart flutter.

And, I have Fridays off so I was able to catch some of the news. I saw my first WH press conference. I LOVE Robert Gibbs. He was one of my favorites from the campaign, and it was quite fun to watch him dance with the press. To be able to dodge questions, with humor is a definite skill he will need.

So, this is it! Somebody pinch me because I feel like I'm dreaming!

The 44th President of the United States

Tomorrow is it.

We've been waiting and waiting for this day to arrive. All those bumper stickers that say "1/20/09 - Bush's last day"... It's finally here.

I enjoyed the coverage over the weekend. I was home most of the day doing things around the house on Saturday and I usually keep the EVIL MSNBC on so I can listen to it. I caught just about every stop on the whistle stop tour. My husband even commented "It's been a long time since we've heard him speak." From those summer days when you'd catch his rallies 4 times a day.

I'm very torn about taking the day off. My heart tells me to, my head tells me "no". I guess we'll see. At any rate, I've got my DVR all set to go.

Bush's goodbye

Did anyone catch clips from his press conference yesterday?? It is truly amazing how oblivious he is to what he's done the last 8 years and how he can make excuses for everything and never take any responsibility for anything.

His mistakes: The "Mission Accomplished" Banner photo op. and some of his rhetoric (and understatement to say the least)

Disappointments: Lack of WMD in Iraq. (Forget that this was supposedly THE reason for going to war.)

Katrina: What he claims went wrong here was that he didn't decide whether or not to land Air Force One in Louisianna. Per Bush, "The government's response was not slow, 30,000 people were taken off of roofs after the flooding" (Although, they had no food or water for days)

And he didn't take one iota of responsibility for the Economic mess that we're in.

And he basically admitted that he okay'd torturing detainees. Have you seen footage of waterboarding? It's horrible and it's a violation of one's civil rights.

But, he won't say any of these things are mistakes. Just disappointments.

Palin's Big Lie

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn/sarah-palins-big-obama-li_b_156975.html

This article makes some great points regarding her recent interview with John Ziegler.
It's amazing how Palin has no grasp of reality.

A few thoughts on Infrastructure

Okay... I guess it's kind of a joke that when Dems get into office, there is automatic spending on "Infrastructure." *laugh* *wink* *laugh*

That term gets loosely thrown around as if it's something bad. Think of all the things we use on a daily basis that gets taken for granted. I know there are some schools in my area that kids are going too that have been around for almost 80 years and are dangerous. Things always need to be repaired and when we operate under the "No gov't spending" rule, these things go by the wayside.

Well, the Infrastructure is finally speaking up for itself at the cost of human lives. Let's review. The bridge in Minnesota, The water main in D.C., the levees in New Orleans. There are many, many others. We're in a new century with more updated, modern advances and we need to apply these to things that are already existing.

I may be liberal, and you might not believe that I don't think that government is the answer to everything. *gasp* But a properly run gov't could take care of a lot more than it does now. We need regulations to keep people safe. It's a fact, that if companies/businesses can cut costs, regulations will be the first thing to go. The food industry is a stark example. We need the government to start working for us. Not just the few that stand to get richer and richer.

I have a supporter!!

The ongoing saga of letters to the editor:

To the Editor:
Tuesday's letter by Douglas Fuegel blasted Jen Zingaro as a "true liberal" and went on to call her "extremely biased" for saying Fox News is the "most biased" news outlet. Mr. Fuegel then went on to blast Ms. Zingaro for not quoting sources. Well, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Mr. Fuegel quoted three so-called non-partisan media watchdog groups. That's funny, because the Media Research Center and Accuracy in the Media both brag that they are conservative, and the Center for the Media and Public Affairs was started with major contributions from Pat Robertson. Finally, Mr. Fuegel goes on to suggest a book written by Mike Huckabee. Now this is getting really funny - Mike Huckabee, the former Republican presidential candidate who has his own show on Fox News.
Mr. Fuegel subscribes to the new Republican motto, "Don't confuse me with the facts; my mind is made up." If you only get your news and information from one source, you are sadly misinformed. Maybe Mr. Fuegel should consider alternate sources of information for the fair and balanced approach.

He made every point that I had wanted to make. :D

Letters to the Editor

I've been known to fire off Letters to the Editor. I sent a long one in after the Supreme Court decided our president in 2000. I sent one a couple of months ago when my city and local triple A baseball team blew that change to land the Mets Triple A team.

I came across this letter last week in our paper.

To the Editor:
According to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, 64 percent of the national media's stories about Gov. Sarah Palin's record in Alaska were negative, 29 percent were neutral and 7 percent were positive.
In their overall reporting during the campaign, the media gave Sen. John McCain 57 percent negative stories, 29 percent neutral and 14 percent positive. Sen. Barack Obama received 29 percent negative stories, 35 percent neutral, and 36 percent positive overall. That means Obama received 71 percent neutral/positive stories overall versus 43 percent for McCain.
The national media gave Palin only 36 percent neutral/positive stories in their coverage of her record in Alaska.
Pew Research found that MSNBC was the most partisan of the three cable news networks. MSNBC attacked McCain and Palin with 73 percent negative stories and reported 86 percent positive stories on Obama and Biden. CNN attacked McCain with 61 percent negative stories and reported 61 percent positive/neutral stories on Obama. Fox was the most balanced and objective. It attacked McCain with 40 percent negative stories and Obama with 40 percent negative stories.
According to The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, of the three broadcast networks, NBC was the most partisan and negative. It attacked McCain and Palin with 84 percent negative stories and reported 56 percent positive stories on Obama and Biden. NBC's 56 percent would have been higher except it ran some negative stories on Biden's factual mistakes and speaking gaffes.
CBS attacked McCain and Palin with 69 percent negative stories and reported 73 percent positive stories on Obama and Biden. ABC attacked McCain and Palin with 58 percent negative stories and reported 57 percent positive stories on Obama and Biden.
It's clear that MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC wanted Obama elected and nobody was going to stand in their way. McCain and Palin were destroyed by the news reporters and didn't have a chance.

So, I went back to my desk and fired off this letter, which got printed in last Sunday's paper:

To the Editor:
In his letter Dec 30 on "Media Spin", MT's stats cliam to show Fox was the most balanced. On the whole it is the most biased news station of them all.
Secondly, when you run a negative campaign, as John McCain did, it makes sense for most of the news coverage to be negative.
Third, the people of the United States elect a president, not the news channels. With such a large margin, it was clear people wanted a change.

Then today, I got someone to respond to mine. Please tell me your thoughts on this. There are so many ridiculous things about it... but I want to see what you pick out of it. Please, only liberals responding to this post.

To the Editor:
It is clearly apparent that Jen is a true liberal and herself extremely biased after reading her letter that appeared in Sunday's edition of The Post-Standard. She outright states that Fox News is the "most biased," but fails to tell her audience the source of her so-called truthful claim. The fact is that Fox News is the least biased, according to such reputable outlets as the Media Research Center, Center for The Media and Public Affairs, Accuracy in the Media and others. I would strongly suggest Ms. Zingaro Google any or all of these outlets and enlighten herself.
As far as Sen. John McCain running a negative campaign, she is dead wrong on that statement. If she checks the record there were several campaign ads developed by McCain staffers that did not meet with his approval because they in fact were negative. There is much documented out there on this subject and confirmed at least a few times in Mike Huckabee's new book, "Do the Right Thing." I would suggest Ms. Zingaro purchase a copy and read it.
It really bothers me that people can write untruths with no factual data to confirm what they are penning and then having it published as factual, but then again this is America, and Amendment No. 1 gives us all that right even if the written words are dead wrong.
Douglas Fuegel
Central Square

And the winner is....

... Al Franken. We'll see how the court challenges hold up.