Censored Whig Letters

No Healthcare Reform Equals No Senate Job

It mystifies this writer that many Senate Democrats have failed to understand that killing the “public option” compromise position being pushed by the Obama will mean the end of their Senate careers. Politics has changed dramatically in the last few years and many Senate incumbents seem to have missed the size and intensity of the paradigm shift.

It is no accident that the Republican Party is in electoral meltdown. The Republican leadership is still stuck in the politics of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Unfortunately, the Democrats in power have not embraced the public sea change in attitudes completely. They do not understand that the Democratic wave does not threaten their hold on power. It does!

The Democratic shift is not based on partisan identity divorced from real changes in government policy. The Democratic election wins in 2006 and 2008 were strong rejections of both the Republican Right and the current unfair status quo in government policy.

If Democrats do nothing to reform the rigged economic system and fail to give American workers a fair shake, they are going to get replaced either in a primary or general election. If Democrats fail to protect civil liberties, they will be defeated. If Democrats start unnecessary wars, they will go down along with the already defeated Senate Republicans.

Of course, this is not good news for the Republican Right. The public is rejecting Republican Right politics and Republican-lite politics. Americans want real and meaningful reforms. Nothing less will do. Democrats who want to do the bidding of large corporations like the health insurance industry are going to get their backsides handed to them in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Senators from both major political parties better get with the program!

The public supports meaningful healthcare reform by huge margins. Depending on the wording and specific proposals, the public supports reform by percentile figures ranging from the mid-60’s to high 80’s. What the polls are missing is the intensity of this support.

Everyone is talking about healthcare. Even the majority of my highly partisan Republican friends are supporting universal government healthcare. Some are complaining that Obama’s plan does not go far enough and want single-payer universal healthcare like HR 676. More than a few have left the Republican Party over the healthcare issue.

Democratic activists in every state are actively looking to recruit primary challengers to Senators and House members who oppose significant parts of the Obama agenda. On the healthcare issue, this sentiment is so intense that even if Obama abandoned the “public option” compromise, he would lose the support of these activists. Democratic incumbents can be defeated in Democratic primaries and will be if they abandon the “public option” compromise.

Healthcare as currently organized is killing Americans! It is killing American jobs and businesses. It is grossly inefficient and unfair. Americans have been waiting for over 60 years for fundamental reform and will not wait another year without holding officeholders responsible. We are going to cost Senators their jobs if they block healthcare reform. This is a promise!

Corporate money can buy TV ads and slick mailers. It worked in the pre-Internet past. It will not work today. Obama is in the White House as proof. If Obama can win the White House largely thanks to the Internet, think what we can do around an issue that starts with around 2/3rds public support and Obama on our side.

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702.

Feel free to publish or print in full without prior approval.

Building Alliances and Voting for Change in 2008

The American nation has an excellent opportunity to change the nature of politics in our country this year. We have a real chance to build lasting alliances that will re-define the political landscape at every level of government and permit us to take back our government by the average citizen.

For decades, the political power of the largest international corporations and the wealthiest of the Super Wealthy have been tightening their grasp on governments in America. They have effectively bought their way to power by giving billions in campaign donations and buying up the media. The effect has been passage of laws that undermine the power of average citizens to control their own economic futures, have an effective voice in government policies and to hear opposing political viewpoints.

It is no accident that most Americans think that their children will not have as high a standard of living as they currently experience. It was economic policy on the national and international levels that forced tens of millions of families to have both parents working to maintain a decent standard of living.

Your rights to sue corporations when they abuse you as a worker, investor or consumer are being stripped away by Republican politicians like George W. Bush, John McCain, Dick Cheney and your allegedly “moderate Republican” member of Congress. The same bunch of Republican politicians are and have been for decades falling all over themselves to pass legislation that ships high-paying jobs with healthcare benefits to Third World nations where the high pay and employer provided healthcare vanishes while corporate profits explode! Yes, Bush, McCain and Cheney love NAFTA, the WTO, CAFTA and the rest of these deals. They have been a goldmine of campaign cash for the Republican Right and the alleged “Republican moderates” in Congress.

By appointing corporate thinking federal judges and government regulators, American workers have seen their rights to form labor unions effectively undermined and often destroyed. The public fiction of “free elections” in the workplace is there for these deceitful Republicans to “defend.” However, in most workplaces, the reality is that these giant corporations make real free elections impossible by intentionally breaking the law (the penalties are a joke), firing pro-union workers, preventing union organizers from talking to workers or distributing material, issuing threats and the like.

The reality of these “free unionization elections” is that they are no more free and fair than the “free elections” in the former Soviet Union, communist China or Nazi Germany! Still, the Republicans vehemently oppose passage of the Employee Free Choice Act which would return effective workplace democracy when it comes to unionization votes. The decline of labor unions has meant the decline of the American Middle Class both economically and politically and corporate forces know it!

An effective labor movement has meant real economic opportunity for tens of millions of working class and poor Americans. Labor unions have been the vehicle for millions of racial and ethnic minorities to join the mainstream, Middle Class majority in experiencing the American Dream. Corporate controlled politicians like Bush and McCain are simply killing that Dream. Will we let them?

The wealthiest of the Super Wealthy control our mainstream media but not our votes. We all should know that racism has an economic purpose. It is the tool most often used in America to get the working class whites and Middle Class majority to put in power politicians who vote against the economic interests of working class and Middle Class whites. Racism is the tool used to divide the non-economic elite majority so that all working class and Middle Class Americans do not demand government policies that provide real economic opportunity for the vast majority. Racism is a sucker bet for all poor, working class and Middle Class Americans!

If all poor, working class and Middle Class Americans vote in favor of their real economic interests, we all will have a very bright future. We can take control of our government. We can return manufacturing jobs to America. We can pass the Employee Free Choice Act and make the right to unionize a Constitutionally protected civil right.

We can have government guaranteed universal healthcare for our citizens like every other industrialized nation in the world. We can restore our rights as workers, investors and consumers. We can replace the corporate clowns, corrupt Republican partisans and right wing fanatics in our government bureaucracy and court system with honest, mainstream Americans.

We can preserve our basic freedoms from those seeking to undermine the Bill of Rights, legal due process and the U.S. Constitution. United as citizens, we can halt unjust political prosecutions like that of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and jail those responsible. We can expose and prosecute all illegal abuses of power by highly-placed, powerful government officials.

We can stop war-profiteers from getting us involved in more unnecessary aggressive wars that get our brave soldiers killed for the private profit of large international corporations. We can make sure that the American people are never lied to in order to launch a war that should never have been started in the first place. We must defeat politicians like John McCain who simply put love to threaten wars all over the world for little or no reason.

We can break the power of Big Oil to price-gouge us at their whim. We can create a real alternative energy economy that will not promote global warming. We can break up the media monopolies, restore the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting and protect the Internet from corporate control.

We can make our American Democracy work for the little guy! All we have to do as individuals is to reach out to our neighbors and co-workers to educate them on issues and the importance of basic political involvement, like voting against those abusing them and for change in 2008.

Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com ). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com.

Feel free to publish, post or reprint this column in full without prior approval.

Politics and the Insecurity Economy

The Bush Republican economic revolution has been fought. Working class and middle class Americans lost along with the nation. The result is the Republican insecurity economy of today. It is not a happy place for most Americans.

The Bush Republican economic revolution really started under Ronald Reagan and had some roots going back to the anti-New Deal Republicans that fought against FDR. It just went into a destructive hyper-drive mode with the selection of George W. Bush by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court in 2000.

The core value of the Bush Republican movement is that wealth and power makes you right no matter the cost to your fellow citizens or the nation’s future. Under the guise of “deregulation,” the power of extreme wealth to impose their unchecked power over the economy on all Americans was unleashed. Government regulators were corrupted. Laws were ignored. The national interest was ignored. All of this was done for the private profit of the very few.

The attack on our economy has come on many fronts including taxes, unionization rights of workers, trade policies, anti-monopoly laws, outsourcing, public debt, consumer rights, usury laws, government expenditures and regulatory agencies. The Republicans sold themselves almost completely. The buyers were large international corporations and the very wealthiest of the wealthy worldwide.

The tax burden has been shifted to the middle class, the poor and future generations. The American economic elite and large international corporations received huge tax reductions and benefited from huge government expenditures intentionally aimed at profiting them. They lent back the money they should have paid in taxes to the government at interest. The interest payments helped the rich get richer. It sent out national wealth to economic elites of nations like China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan and Mexico.

The so-called “free trade” deals denied our federal government of badly needed tax revenues that should have been collected on imported goods. American workers paid higher income and payroll taxes than they should have because of these trade deals. Most of the benefits of lower manufacturing costs went to very large stockholders and corporate executives instead of consumers. American workers lost good paying manufacturing jobs and the benefits that went with those jobs.

Bad trade deals have been a driving force behind the rising number of Americans with no health insurance. Trade deals helped destroy the 40 hour work week, lowered real wages and forced many homemakers out of the home in order to stay afloat financially. Our federal government lost much of their ability to regulate our national economy in the process.

The Republican economic elite told the American people that these globalization effects were inevitable. It was a lie. Economic globalization resulted largely from deliberate changes in economic policies especially trade policies. Economic deregulation was never inevitable. Destructive anti-competitive monopolies and predatory lending were never inevitable. These were political decisions. There were deliberate choices involved and the choices remain. They can be reversed by making other choices in terms of trade, taxation, government regulation, worker rights, consumer rights, public debt, government expenditures, consumer rights, bankruptcy laws, anti-monopoly legislation, etc.

We need to return to the New Deal values of FDR era. We need a heavy dose of economic populism combined with some economic nationalism. We need to return the tax policies of our federal government to some sense of sanity. The wealthiest of the wealthy have the ability and obligation to pay significantly higher taxes. The tax level should increase on these persons sufficiently to eliminate the government deficit. Tax levels on imports should rise to around 20-25% to pay for national health insurance and to pay off the national debt.

Union-busting tactics by corporations should be outlawed. Individual executives should be made personally criminally liable for violating labor laws. Corporations should not be allowed to restrict access to their workers by union organizers. Captive audience meeting should be outlawed. The Employee Free Choice Act should become law. Binding arbitration should be enforced by law when corporations refuse to bargain in good faith. Employee pension funds should be placed in union hands instead of corporate hands whenever labor contracts are present. Corporations should never be able to raid the pension funds of employees.

Labor unions created the American Middle Class. Reviving organized labor is the best method for saving the American Middle Class.

Predatory lending should be banned. Strict usury laws should be passed. Anti-monopoly policies should be adopted and actively enforced. Our economic policies at the national level should be designed to revive a strong national economy with opportunity for all citizens instead of just the Republican economic elite.

The study of economics was once called “political economy” and should be again. The economy is molded and controlled by political decisions. In a real functioning democracy, the average citizens should be making political choices that benefit the vast majority instead of the Republican economic elite. It is your vote and your future. Use it wisely!

Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com ). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com.

Gas Tax Nonsense and Fundamental Energy Industry Change

The idea being promoted by both John McCain and Hillary Clinton of canceling the federal gasoline tax for the summer is a terrible idea. It fails to address the real issue of runaway fuel prices. It has negative consequences for the safety of our roads and bridges. It is essentially a campaign stunt and distraction. The oil profiteers have already gobbled up any benefit consumers might gain from the cut far in advance of the proposed summer suspension.

Runaway fuel prices are largely the result of market manipulation by speculators and oil companies combined with a “nod and wink” approach to government regulation and law enforcement from the Bush Administration. We need serious government intervention instead of cosmetic window dressing.

Gasoline inventories are rising at the same time that prices are skyrocketing! Oil companies have been intentionally closing refineries to raise prices. The Bush administration has been taking huge quantities off the market by continuing to fill a strategic reserve when the federal government should be releasing the reserve to drive down the prices and breaking the power of speculators.

The federal taxes on fuel are a very tiny percentage of the total price. Gasoline prices rose nationally last month by nearly twice the amount of the federal gas tax. While the suspension of the gasoline tax sounds good, it does nothing but slow the price rise for a couple of weeks while gutting our ability to maintain our roads and bridges.

We already have bridges collapsing and citizens dying. Our transportation safety issue is really important. It is already in a crisis situation without following this irresponsible proposal. We need a huge increase in transportation infrastructure spending by the federal government instead of a dramatic decrease. We need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next few years on rebuilding our national economic infrastructure. We should be training millions of new construction workers by giving our construction unions support for their apprenticeship and training programs. The money has to come from somewhere.

McCain and Clinton are pushing a proposal that is irresponsible and will not even occur under their terms if elected. Neither will be in the White House this summer.

There are some ideas that will help. Aggressive investigations and prosecutions in the oil industry are certainly in order. Illegal price manipulation is likely. Strengthening laws and penalties for market manipulation should be a top priority. All profits derived from illegal market manipulation should be surrendered to the federal government along with huge additional penalties. The law should immediately be changed to make this the standard.

All oil imports should be done through the federal government. The federal government should negotiate the price from a position of strength. Oil companies should not be able to drive up prices by bidding against competitors for imports and using the process as an excuse for price-gouging.

We need a strong “windfall profits tax” on the oil industry. This tax should be used to promote alternative energy and to subsidize the trucking industry fuel costs, which is driving up consumer inflation on other products like food.

Oil refinery closings should only be permitted by the federal government when they do not result in huge price increases. If necessary, the federal government should build their own refineries to supply the American military and feral government vehicles. We should end the Iraq War which is wasting huge quantities of fuel needed by the homeland.

If all else fails, the federal government should consider price controls on fuel and/or nationalizing the oil industry. The oil industry cannot be permitted to control the entire American economy for the benefit of the very, very few.

McCain and Clinton should stop playing politics with the gas tax issue. They should be aggressively pushing for alternative energy solutions like solar, wind, conservation, bio-fuels, Green jobs and technology along with much more federal regulation of the oil companies.

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish at no charge without prior approval.

For the Good of the Party and America, an Obama-Clinton Democratic ticket

Hillary Clinton should end her bid for the White House. Obama should offer her the Vice Presidency. Clinton should accept the offer. It would be a bitter pill for both to swallow but it is what both the Democratic Party and the American nation desperately needs. Neither Clinton nor Obama should place their personal ambition, pride or emotions ahead of the needs of the American people.

Clinton won a big victory in Pennsylvania but the election was tainted by the highly negative campaign and by serious election equipment and logistical flaws. At this point, she could easily withdraw with honor. Clinton is certainly not responsible for the defective voting equipment or the thousands of Republicans who switched their registrations in Pennsylvania to Democratic but were denied their right to cast even provisional ballots.

Brad Friedman of Brad Blog predicted in advance on his website and in an interview broadcast on my Democratic Talk Radio show that the election process in Pennsylvania was going to be a disaster logistically. He told our listening audience in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (WGPA SUNNY 1100AM) and our Internet audience that after the problems arose that the type of voting machines used in Pennsylvania made it impossible to fix errors likely to arise. The voting machines used made it impossible to verify the count or audit the results. Pennsylvania election laws and processes tainted Clinton’s victory through no fault of her own.

This writer believes she won big in Pennsylvania but the voting process was so bad that many voters will always doubt the size of that victory.

Regardless of the Pennsylvania win, Clinton has almost zero chance of gaining the Democratic Presidential nomination without changing the nominating rules to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida selected in unfair primary elections. Even with those delegates counted, Clinton has very little chance of gaining the nomination. It would take a nearly complete sweep of the remaining election contests in places like North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Puerto Rico, Guam and Idaho along with gaining most of the Super Delegates. Basically, it would take a whole series of miracles for her to gain the nomination and place her in a very weak position in terms of defeating McCain in the Fall.

Counting on a series of miracles to win a nomination that would split the Democratic Party in half is a pretty poor campaign strategy. Staying in the race would cast Clinton in a Democratic spoiler role in the minds of the American people should it result in a McCain victory in November. It would ruin her place in history.

A McCain victory would be an absolute disaster for the American nation. It would be basically a third term for Bush Republicanism and the insane policies that have wrecked the American economy. It would mean a foreign policy of endless, pointless, bloody wars. Make no mistake about it, John McCain is a war-monger who has no clue about how to run an economy.

McCain would pack our federal courts with the same kind of partisan, ideologically driven, Far Right judges that Bush appointed. Helping to elect McCain would gut the Bill of Rights and essentially destroy American Democracy. McCain would be both stubborn and inept in the White House just like Bush.

McCain is and always has been a tool of Corporate forces in politics- just like Bush. He and his wife are likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars although the so-called “straight talker” has refused to expose their full family finances. McCain is hiding his conflicts of interests and financially self-serving political position by hiding behind his wife! It is shameful and dishonest.

The American nation cannot afford a Bush Presidency. Clinton and Obama should make any sacrifice necessary to spare the American nation of this impending disaster. I am calling on their proven patriotism to work together as a Democratic ticket to defeat Bush Republicanism in the form of John McCain. Please save the American nation!
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Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish or post without prior approval.

Reprinted Editor’s Page of the Democratic Herald, newsletter of the Cecil County Democratic Club

What it Means to be “Whigged”

On Nov. 8th the Cecil Whig reached an all-time low in journalism ethics by substituting in place of its regular editorial column a message from Maryland State Republican Chairman James Pelura who, among other rantings, urged Democrats and Independents to register Republican before the approaching deadline for changing parties.

This was just the most glaring example of the Whig’s blatant bias. Until the day before the primary election, the Whig barely mentioned the four Democratic candidates competing for the nomination in our Congressional District, while the Republican race was featured weekly, almost always on the front page.

Those of us who write letters to the Whig know such bias from firsthand experience. During their months-long assault on the governor’s special legislative session, two of us on the Dem. Club board who wrote letters of support had our words changed and/or omitted to alter the meaning. They even changed the spelling and grammar, from correct to incorrect (implicit message: as the writer’s English is flawed, so must be his argument). The practice has led to the invention of a new verb – to be “whigged.”

Not that the Whig doesn’t manage to squeeze in a Democratic story now and then. In January they ran as their headline story how an obscure telephone directory had erroneously listed a dial-a-porn phone number for the Governor’s office. (Whether the listing was an innocent mistake or a prank is unknown. The timing seemed suspicious, as the directory was printed about the time of O’Malley’s victory.) Does anyone doubt such a story would not have been headline news during the Ehrlich administration?

In fairness, Whig editor Terry Peddicord is good about publishing our letters, is very publicly accessible, and responds to our complaints in a judicious manner. And I don’t doubt their reporters do their best to submit accurate stories. The problem seems to be one or two others on the Whig staff who zealously exercise their editing pens in-between the reporting and the printing. And now that the primary is over, they’ve finally begun recognizing Mr. Kratovil.

On Feb. 15th, the Whig lamented the defeat of well-regarded moderate Republican Wayne Gilchrest (even though they didn’t endorse him – the Whig has a policy of not endorsing in the primaries). But perhaps the Whig’s heavy-handed tactics regarding all things Democrat encourages those same right-wing extremists who defeated Congressman Gilchrest, permitting a Karl Rove-style campaigner like Harris to emerge victorious. (And wouldn’t it be sweet justice if such excesses return the seat to a Democrat?)

One topic it seems the Whig won’t print, unlike other newspapers, are letters criticizing the paper itself. This unfortunate custom undoubtedly contributes to the Whig’s insularity. Every fair-minded newspaper should consider designating an in-house ombudsman to keep excesses and abuses in check.

The Whig owners may be entitled to a free press, but we citizens are entitled to a fair one. After all - and this reflects the national plague of concentrated media creating a virtual monopoly in every market - it’s the “only game in town.” That fact should increase the Whig’s responsibility for self-regulation and fairness, not give them license to print “all the news that fits” – their agenda, that is.

But let’s not forget our own responsibility in this. The free press as intended by our Founding Fathers was supposed to be the “ever vigilant” watchdog of a government easily tempted towards tyranny. That still applies, but the public needs to be just as vigilant of those we grant the sacred responsibility of informing us. Although we’re the world’s oldest democracy, we’re still a very imperfect one.

Change Is About Policies Not Speeches or Symbolism

Edwards has better policies for substantive change than either Clinton or Obama. Symbolism and speeches is not enough.

(1) While I find Obama inspiring especially when giving speeches, he has the worse plan of the top three contenders on healthcare and Edwards has the best. The best approach is expanding Medicare to cover all citizens which none of the top contenders currently support. Edwards comes closer than the other two top Democratic contenders. Edwards has a history of evolving his policy positions when educated by activists and experts with better ideas. Of the top three Democratic candidates, Edwards is the most likely candidate to eventually support Medicare For All. Obama’s plan does not get us to universal healthcare and definitely leaves large corporations with excessive control of healthcare policies in America.

(2) While Obama always opposed starting the Iraq War, he would not get us out of Iraq as quickly or completely as Edwards. Clinton has not been a leader on this issue in the past or today.

(3) On trade issues, Obama is far friendlier to the so-called “Free Trade” approach than Edwards. For example, on the recent deal with Peru both Clinton and Obama supported the “Free Trade” deal while Edwards opposed it. These “free trade” deals all serve corporate interests and are devastating the earning power of working class Americans.

(4) Compromising with Bush Republicans on policy sounds good as a sound-bite but is not likely to work. Obama cannot unite all Americans behind a common set of policies and still be an effective agent of change. The Republican in the House and Senate oppose all the change ideas supported by the vast majority of Americans. Over 70 percent of Americans want universal healthcare but the Republicans like our current, inefficient, unfair, corporate-controlled healthcare system.

Any compromises with corporate Republicans on the healthcare issue will mean making the changes more inefficient, unfair and corporate-controlled! The same idea holds with trade policy, media consolidation, campaign financing, environmental protection, energy policy, global warming, taxation, labor laws, etc.

The only effective approach to change will come from confronting corporate Republican forces, fighting them and winning. This is the Edwards approach. It is the FDR approach to real change. It was the path to Social Security under FDR and Medicare under LBJ. It is not the Clinton Approach. It is not the path advocated by Obama.

While Obama would make a good Vice President on an Edwards ticket, he is not the best agent for change on the Democratic Presidential ticket in 2008. It was unfortunate that Senator Lieberman played a mentor role to Obama when Obama was first elected to the U.S. Senate. The independent Senator from Connecticut is out of touch with the core values of the Democratic Party when it comes to change on many issues. The Lieberman influence will need time to fade before Obama will really be ready for the top of the Democratic ticket or to act as the real leader for policy change in America.

Written by Stephen Crockett (Co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com ). Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

The Cecil Whig should be paying much more attention to covering the Democratic Congressional candidates. The race on the Democratic side is just as interesting as on the Republican side.

In my opinion, the 1st Congressional District is very likely to go Democratic next November. Partially, this because of the civil war raging in the Maryland Republican Party. However, the entire nation is largely rejecting Republican doctrine after 7 years of terrible policies, incompetence and corruption. Even without Republican division, the Democrats were likely to take the seat.

Personally, I am supporting Queen Anne’s County States Attorney Frank Kratovil, Jr. The choice was difficult. I have known his strongest challenger Chris Robinson for decades. He is a good man. If Kratovil was not in the race, I would be supporting Chris.

Kratovil is very strong on the issues. He really understands the problems facing working Americans. He is very bright. Frank Kratovil has a warm personality. Unlike the Republicans running, Kratovil knows how to represent all voters including Republicans, independents and Democrats. He wins big in his home county which tends to vote heavily Republican. He is a mainstream Democrats who connects with everyone.

I hope the Whig will cover the Democratic campaign and report on the Kratovil campaign.

Sincerely,

Stephen Crockett

P.O. Box 283
Earleville, Maryland 21919

443-907-2367

You cannot honestly say you are supporting American soldiers if you support the use of torture techniques like waterboarding. By any objective definition, waterboarding is torture. The technique is a type of simulated drowning of a prisoner who has their limbs bound.

The use of simulated drowning is not new. The Nazis used it in World War II. The Iranian secret police used it under the Shah. It was used in the Vietnam War. Dictators in South America have used this kind of torture. It causes severe psychological damage in most cases and has caused deaths. The Bush Administration claims that it is not torture but the claim is false.

The Bush Republicans defending the use of waterboarding are being dishonest with the American people. Torture usually produces very poor quality information. People will say anything to stop torture. Prisoners will confess to crimes they did not commit. They will implicate innocent people. They will invent fictional plots, fictional conspiracies and fictional dangers. In military and national security terms, torture is not effective. Morally, it is simply wrong.

Torture between international combatants has been outlawed by international law and treaties. Use of torture makes the user a war criminal. The United States has long supported this position to prevent American soldiers from being tortured. American government policies, under Bush, concerning the use of torture put American soldiers at grave risk. We will have great difficulty prosecuting enemies who torture our soldiers if we engage in torture ourselves.

For those Republicans (or Democrats) who defend waterboarding as something less than torture, I have a proposal. Whenever a Bush Administration official is called before the House or Senate to testify, they should be waterboarded the entire time they are testifying. The technique, according to the Bush Republicans, elicits honest answers and does not amount to torture. According to these Bush Republicans, waterboarding does not cause any lasting damage.

Personally, I do not believe the Bush Republicans are correct in their position about waterboarding. However, if the Bush Republicans are sincere in their stated beliefs, we should give them an opportunity to prove it. Cabinets officers, White House staffers, Republican Senators, Bush, Cheney, Rove, Bush appointees like Mukasey and other Bush Administration personnel should all be given personal opportunities to prove that waterboarding is not torture and is effective in providing honest answers to questions.

I think it is a much better idea to waterboard Bush Republican leaders (who support waterboarding) in order to prove that waterboarding is not torture than it is to put our soldiers at risk of being tortured. I think all of them would quickly conclude that waterboarding is torture, illegal, dangerous and ineffective.

In the Dark Ages, they had a version of waterboarding. It was called “dunking.” It was a sadistic kind of torture. Naturally, this type of sadistic, ineffective torture still has a strong appeal to certain types of barbaric Republicans!

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com .) Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

Bush Speech on Iraq and Democrats on Impeachment

Since George W. Bush is completely ignoring the views of both the vast majority of American citizens and the majority of the members of Congress concerning the ending of the Iraq War, impeachment hearings should be started. Bush will not conform to democratic norms. He will not respect public opinion or democracy. There are plenty of reasons to hold immediate joint impeachment hearings for both Bush and Cheney.

It is obvious that Bush is relying on his devoted minority following of Congressional Republicans to obstruct withdrawal from Iraq. The same Republican minority has been able to block meaningful legal reforms and most progressive legislation. For most of Bush’s terms in office, Republicans were in the majority and blocked all investigations into law-breaking by the Bush White House.

Iraq and many of the other Bush-connected scandals are connected. The White House inspired and directed outing of CIA agent Valerie Palme for political reasons related to her husband’s opposition to invading Iraq based on lies is closely connected. The obstruction of justice issue in that instance remains unresolved.

Crimes, like warrantless wiretapping in direct violation of federal law, go unpunished. The political firing on US prosecutors, who were unwilling to use their offices to influence elections in favor of Republicans, still have not been honestly investigated. Prosecutions of White House operatives should already be underway. Political interference in civil rights, labor rulings, voting rights, environmental and consumer lawsuits by Bush appointees may have violated the law. We need open, public, televised hearings.

Executive privilege claims, non-existent executive power claims, excessive government secrecy and Presidential signing statements have all been abused by Bush and/or Cheney. The abuses amount to “high crimes and misdemeanors” when viewed in total. The pattern is one of a White House who routinely ignores both the rule of law and the will of the people.

Impeachment hearings would reveal the contempt Bush Republicans have for honest, open Government. They would reveal the contempt Bush and Cheney have for democratic processes, honest elections and the will of the people. They would show abuses of power. They would show financial corruption in the form of politically-connected government contracting that include FEMA, Iraq, Homeland Security and much more.

How energy legislation was crafted, as a result of the secret Cheney Energy Taskforce actions and recommendations should be publicly investigated in impeachment hearings. The same thing can be said about how prescription drugs were added to Medicare, in a way that benefited drug companies at the expense of taxpayers thanks to the Bush White House.

Only revealing the true nature of Bush Republicans by holding impeachment hearings will force enough Republican Senators and House members to abandon Bush on the issue of Iraq. Republicans, who continue to stand with Bush once the facts are televised live in impeachment hearings, will be turned out of office even in the reddest of states. Impeachment will force Republicans to bend to the will of the people or be voted out of office.

Bush/Cheney impeachment hearings would not be on trumped-up, essential personal failings. They would be dealing with abusive and incompetent performance in office, public corruption by officeholders and Constitutional issues. These types of issues are why our Founding Fathers designed a system where Presidents and Vice Presidents can be impeached. Even if Bush and Cheney were not removed from office, impeachment hearings would be good for American Democracy…. And world peace!

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval at no charge.