Kiss of Death : The plight of Joe Lieberman

I've been a fan of Joe Lieberman for many years . In fact I voted for him when he ran on the ticket with Al Gore. But Lieberman made a tactical decision to support Bush's war in Iraq and he is now paying the price for it. Watching the debate it was easy to tell who the seasoned politician was. Ned Lamont did indeed have the look and feel of a amateur. However Lieberman's continued support of the war in Iraq is nothing short of treasonous to the Democratic party. As long as Joe Lieberman remains the democratic senator from Conneticut the Republicans will always be able to point to him as the so-called voice of reason within the Democratic party. He , along with Senator Hillary Clinton , allows the Republicans to give this unpopular war at least the appearance of bi-partisan support. This is why the Republicans love him. They need Lieberman. Without Lieberman, Clinton and others like Ben Nelson , the Republicans will be forced to bear the responsibility and the blame for this war themselves as they should . This enrages the many voters who hate this war. Lieberman cannot seem to understand this. He and his good friend John McCain can bitch and moan all they want about the lack of " civility" in politics these days , but the fact remains that there is no place for " civility " when 2,500 plus of our troops have died in this farce. For him to continue to support this war even in the face of what looks like a civil war in the making is not principled , as he repeatedly argues, its preposterous. It shows an inability to admit that he was and continues to be wrong about this. Any Democrat who still thinks going to war in Iraq was a good idea will not get my vote. And that includes Senator Clinton. For Clinton and others like her supporting the war is a tactical decision. The idea is to stick close to the Republicans positions so they cannot criticize you for being a weak-willed Democrat who doesn't have the will to support the War on Terror. But tactical decisions is not what this country needs today. We need leadership. Part of being a leader is being able to admit mistakes and change course. Leadership is about courage , and that's a virtue Lieberman has shown little of in the last 5 years. For this alone he should be shown the door.

On Cancelling your AOL subscription

We interrupt our political commentary to bring you a few words about cancelling AOL. I in fact use to work for America Online in the saves department. I worked there for 3 years from October of 2002 until my call center was closed and i was laid off in October of 2005. In the saves department your job basically is to keep AOL customers from cancelling at any and all costs. That means you are required to do your level best to keep every single person who calls in to cancel no matter what even if that person no longer has a computer, doesn't use AOL at all or even if they upgrade to high speed. No matter what your job is to save them. Up until Elliot Spitzer's lawsuit against AOL the rule was if you did not save at least 49% of your callers you did not get paid a bonus. That could mean literally thousands of dollars. Not only that you're subject to repeated " coaching sessions" meaning that your supervisor listens to your calls with you to try to get you to be more assertive in your sales pitch. If you continue to perform under the quota you could even lost your job ! As a result of the lawsuit AOL agreed to make certain changes in the pay structure including removing the 49% gate and paying consultants more per hour to make up the bonus loss. But the employees at the Orlando site and the Jacksonville site were laid off before these changes took place because they didn't want to pay us. The point of this post is that its not the employees fault, they're simply doing what they are trained to do and held accountable financially for not doing. AOL could very easily add a button online where customers could cancel their accounts without going through the saves process but they choose not to because they know many people would skip the sales pitches altogether. But from an insider here are some tips to take with you if you want to cancel your account. Don't give the consultant any information say as little as possible they will ask questions about what you use the service for and how often you use it this is designed to give the consultant information they can use in their sales pitch . Simply say i want to cancel my account and stick to it. Don't back down ; many consultants use intimidation tactics they figure if they keep repeating their pitch eventually you will get tired of hearing it and agree to keep the service. Don't accept free months ; as a last result consultants are trained to offer 1 to 2 months of free service to keep you as a customer don't accept them they will simply prolong the process for another month or two. Finally if you do manage to cancel it make sure you follow up and make sure its cancelled. You should recieve a letter in the mail a week or so after you cancell confirming that its cancelled. If you don't recieve one call AOL again , consultants will often flat out not cancel the account because they don't want to mess up their percentages. Good luck

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Covering your tracks : The Speaker at War with Justice.

You gotta admire the guts of Dennis Hastert. After years of laying down and allowing the executive branch to run roughshod over the constitutional rights of everyday people , he finally has a hissyfit when it comes to protecting members of congress. The fact that the member in question William Jefferson is a democrat makes it almost a principled stand. However a cynic like me might draw the conclusion that the Speaker's real intention is to protect his own party. In the months ahead there will be many investigations that just might hit a little closer to home for the Speaker. The Abramoff scandal threatens to embroiled dozens of lawmakers. The investigation into who leaked the N.S.A story has just begun. And the Duke Cunningham scandal is scraching the surface. If the FBI gets the notion that they can barge into member's office and uncover wrongdoing that makes 90,000 dollars in the freezer look like lunch money, the Republicans will surely be shaking in their loafers. Mr Jefferson at the very least should step down from the Ways and Means commitee until his name is cleared. Speaker Hastert it should be noted was accused over the weekend of being a player in the Abramoff scandal. Is that the real reason why he suddenly feels compelled to defend his turf ? Stay tuned.........

All hail King George : The Death Of Democracy

And so it begins. With the recent revelations about the extent of the spying being conducted by the N.S.A . on ordinary citizens, this country has been place on a collusion course with destiny. The future of this country will be driven in large part by the answer to this question : Will we allow George Bush to govern like a dictator , or will we rise to the occasion and fight the battle that needs to be fought today. George Bush has finally, mercifully gone too far. If there were ever a poster child for a leader in need of serious oversight it is George W. Bush. Virtually ever single pronoucement that this man has uttered in his last four years has turned out to be not true. A brief rundown for those of us with short memories. He said he'd get Osama Bin Laden " Dead or alive " . He said there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. He said the Battle of Iraq was " Mission Accomplished." He said no one in his administration was involved in leaking Valarie Plame's name. Every single of of these declarations turned out to be utterly false. But somehow we're supposed to believe that they have nothing but good intentions when they collect every single phone call made by every single person in the United States. This after declaring that warrantless spying was only done to " person communicating to members of Al-Queda. Who do these people think they are ? Who do these people think we are ? They actually believe that this issue will benefit them because they can protrey critics as " weak on terrorism". This from the same folks who couldn't even protect us from a hurricane they knew was comin a week in advance. What remains to be seen is , are they right ? Are Americans so afraid of terrorists that they will look the other way when Big Brother listens in. Does anyone even care that we don't live in a democracy any more. Are there any patriots left who'll defend the constitution that has made us the greatest country in the known world. Will we swallow lie after lie because we're so busy shopping ? The answer to these questions will determine the future course of this nation. It was Ben Franklin who said " Those of would sacrifice liberty for a little safety deserve neither freedom nor safety." Im sure right now, he turns in his grave.

Wheels falling off.

31% approval ? More shoes to drop. How low can Bush go?

For all those who still don't understand why I detest George Bush.

This a article by William Rivers Pitt written to washington post reporter Richard Cohen who wrote a article whining about the fact that so man people hate George Bush and anyone associated with his regime. Pitt does a good job explaining why. This is the money quote.

" Why the anger? It can be summed up in one run-on sentence: We have lost two towers in New York, a part of the Pentagon, an important American city called New Orleans, our economic solvency, our global reputation, our moral authority, our children's future, we have lost tens of thousands of American soldiers to death and grievous injury, we must endure the Abramoffs and the Cunninghams and the Libbys and the whores and the bribes and the utter corruption, we must contemplate the staggering depth of the hole we have been hurled down into, and we expect little to no help from the mainstream DC press, whose lazy go-along-to-get-along cocktail-circuit mentality allowed so much of this to happen because they failed comprehensively to do their job.
George W. Bush and his pals used September 11th against the American people, used perhaps the most horrific day in our collective history, deliberately and with intent, to foster a war of choice that has killed untold tens of thousands of human beings and basically bankrupted our country. They lied about the threat posed by Iraq. They destroyed the career of a CIA agent who was tasked to keep an eye on Iran's nuclear ambitions, and did so to exact petty political revenge against a critic. They tortured people, and spied on American civilians.
You cannot fathom anger arising from this? " I rest my case.