It is amazing to me that, here in the United States of America, Congress is discussing the fine points of torture -- what is legal, how far can we go in mistreating prisoners we are holding, without our agents being prosecuted under national and international law and treaties.
How far we have fallen, that this is even an issue. I grew up being taught that torture is what other "bad" countries did to their enemies, and that here in America we were better than that, above that...
Senate hearings began Monday on the President's failure to comply with the FISA law, which oversees presidential authorization of wiretaps on American citizens...It is time for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate this situation. This is serious stuff, and I would hope the dominance of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate will not stand in the way of getting to the bottom of this issue.
Iraq War Forum - Bangor Theological Seminary
"But beyond the moral and ethical arguments is the overriding reality that TORTURE DOES NOT WORK. Information gleaned from tortured prisoners cannot be trusted. We can't expect to save the world based on statements made by tortured prisoners.
Likewise, people are starting to key into the fact - the reality - that WAR ALSO DOES NOT WORK. We are beginning to consider that war itself is bad, is obsolete, is not the answer."
Cumberland County Democratic Committee - Westbrook
"...I think George Bush not only believes he is above the law. He believes he IS the law."
"U.S. Senators are now examining the life philosophy of a Supreme Court nominee to see if they want our nation to live in his judicial world. We need to hold our candidates for public office to the same kind of standard, to compare our own world views with theirs, and vote for the candidates who most closely share our outlook."
University of Maine at Presque Isle College Democrats
Why people who should know better vote against their own best interests and vote Republican.
Bangor Daily News Op-Ed
Over the last five years of the Bush administration and the Republican control of both houses of Congress, we have been witnessing the disappearance of the America we grew up in. Remember that America? That was an America where we had shared American values, taught to us in our public schools.
"Maine's two Republican Senators this past week both voted against a bill that would have simply raised the minimum wage to $6.25 per hour over an 18-month period. In the very next recorded vote, both Maine Senators then voted in favor of a Republican bill that would have seen the same size increase in the minimum wage, but was coupled with business tax breaks and exemptions." That Republican bill, Hay Bright noted, failed to pass.
"If you want to stop the Iraq War, you need to vote for candidates who are opposed to the war. If you want national health care for all Americans, you need to vote for a candidate who has that as a primary legislative target. If you think a Department of Peace makes sense, follow your nose. If you think the minimum wage should be a living wage, that NAFTA and CAFTA are wrecking our manufacturing base, find a candidate who shares your views and work to get out the vote for him or her."
Our collective vote is the only effective way we have left to demonstrate both our displeasure and our hope.
Address at Bates College, Lewiston, Maine
What right do we have to hold prisoners in Guantanamo Bay or anywhere else in the world, and deny them access to lawyers or to our courts? And if you think of course we have that right because we're the only superpower left in the world and we can do anything we want, think about that the next time you are overseas and you jaywalk or spit on a foreign sidewalk.
This is not the America I want to live in.
National guard, incompetence, Davis-Bacon Act, Bush's war on the poverty-stricken
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have devastated not only the Gulf Coast region of America, they have exposed the incompetence of the entire Bush administration and the meanness of the Republicans in control of Congress.
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