"Presidential seals" and other stories

Here is an absolutely funny situation that recently got aired on CNN; Senator Barack Obama orders a "presidential seal" that he uses for his podium during his campaign speeches. When I looked at the "presidential seal" however, I noted that the only similarity involved the Eagle. What of course CNN did not mention was why exactly Obama would order up such a seal in the first place. Would it be because his detractors have questioned both his being American and his patriotism? So now they get just as hysterical that he displays the American Eagle roughly similar to that of POTUS. There is a whole lot more difference between the POTUS seal and that of the presumptive nominee's seal however. I am certainly not going to fault Obama for having ambitions. I am cracking up over the various reactions.

---

Kathleen Parker was absolutely hilarious when she talked up gender differences when it came to house work and raising kids. Women, in her opinion, were simply far more nurturing and of course far more prone to doing the house work. How about that. But since the study that Ms. Parker was siting involved married couples only, how about us women with no kids. The men who live as bachelors. The single men who have to raise kids. That's a problem for Parker as she tries to debunk a social science study over why there isn't more of a division of labor for married couples.

Let me consider why, my mother worked as a nurse until retirement. She was hardly a "stay at home mom" even after she had kids. We kids, I suppose didn't always expect to find mom or dad (Kootenai County Deputy Sherriff) home all the time or to be greeted with cookies and milk and a super clean house. My parents both worked to pay the bills and put food on the table. I expect that they were the hidden struggling middle class where both parents had to work to make a go of it. Did dad sometimes do house work? Yeah, rarely. Because I truly think he needed someone to pick up and clean up after him instead of his doing for himself. So in this brief discussion of my history, perhaps I can say that I am an exception:

• I hate house work.
• I don't care for kids.
• I run a business.

So is the argument really not a generalized "gender argument" but rather of individuals on a case to case basis?

If we don't protect the telecom companies...

I originally watched this partisan scuffle on CNN. GW getting out and trying to whip up fear that if he didn't get the spy on Americans without the need of a FISA court bill that we wanted, the Democrats in Congress in particular, would be responsible for horrible terrorist acts in this country. What GW was not filmed as saying, that the bill he wanted was to actually grant immunity to telecom companies for assisting the GW administration in its attempt to spy on the people who voted for him and their alleged terrorist connections... Well let's put it bluntly, that if GW had thelegal right to have acted in this manner, such a bill would never have been introduced. Had the telecom companies acted legally, they'd have no need for protection. That should say quite a lot.

It certainly says that GW is more concerned about helping businesses with the long and generous arm of the government than actually representing the people who's votes put him in office in 2004. And the people, if they are now going in droves to vote for Democrats, it is because of GW's imperial arrogance in which he decides which laws he will follow and which ones he won't. That is despite what his oath of office calls on him to do. Given his past conduct, maybe he wrote a signing statement to argue that he doesn't really have to abide by his own oath. Or that he silently vetoed the oath itself. So yeah, I can see why John McCain can't get even half the votes in election year '08 that both Democratic challengers Clinton and Obama are getting. GW cares more about business interests but not "the people" makes his constant prattle about terrorism highly deceptive.

David Sarasohn was republished in the Spokesman-Review and took a hefty note of GW's refusal to be bound by legal or constitutional constraints. Now let us compare that to the Bill and Monica show: The GOP at that time went full tilt at trying to drive a man from office for not faithfully executing the laws of the land including those of marriage. As we see 8 years of Bush finally coming to a close, to end officially in January of 2009, the GOP turned into the monkeys that see, hear and speak no evil. Even when they were watching a president go well beyond refusing to obey the laws let alone "faithfully execute" that they can't pretend they could ever hold Clinton accountable for. No, we don't know of young mistresses on the side with semen stained dresses, but we do know that GW has blatantly and over and over again, engaged in federal level felony offenses. If he doesn't get the bill he wants that allows him and his successor to spy at will on the American people in the name of "countering terrorism;" would that mean that GW and his successor could be held to account for illegal acts? McCain wants to continue GW's policies. McCain wants what he claims is the "conservative" vote. Any actual conservative would be telling McCain that yeah as a matter of fact, the U.S. Constitution matters. And if the document puts certain rule of law constraints on the executive branch, yes it matters.

Mr. Sarasohn also saw the big contradictions of GW on torture. He'd veto any bill banning torture. "We do not torture" but as McCain put it and Amy Holmes on CNN tried to justify it, such a ban would force the CIA to adopt Army field manual guides. How about adopting a moral stance that yes terrorists are criminal: they torture, behead, degrade, mistreat; but do we have to act like them? GW in wanting to veto the bill tells this nation why exactly we should fear terrorist attacks in the future. Torture publicly defended like this becomes an easy recruitment tool for Al Qaeda. The western powers are targeting Muslims... You can't easily fight and win against terrorists by handing them the tools to defeat you by. And GW has done nothing but hand tools to Al Qaeda to easily defeat us by. Shouldn't that come under the heading of impeachable offenses?