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Democrats erring; remembering Paul Roley

OK, my Democratic Party friends. Deal with this - like Barney Frank would not. He shouted down a Senator who dared to reveal this on the Senate floor. The hypocrisy stinks. If this is the lily-pure 10

OK, my Democratic Party friends. Deal with this - like Barney Frank would not. He shouted down a Senator who dared to reveal this on the Senate floor. The hypocrisy stinks. If this is the lily-pure 10

By
OK, my Democratic Party friends. Deal with this - like Barney Frank would not. He shouted down a Senator who dared to reveal this on the Senate floor. The hypocrisy stinks. If this is the lily-pure 100 days, then what else will the Democrats in Congress try and slip by us over the next two years? We threw the Republicans out for blindly supporting a losing war and for being the most corrupt bunch since the late 1800s.

Nancy Pelosi. In the minimum-wage increase legislation of the House of Representatives, she had a hard-to-find exemption for one company in her district - Star Kist tuna and their canning plant in American Samoa - an island in the Pacific. It reportedly employs 75% of the workers there but the company headquarters are - imagine - in her district in San Francisco. Blatant corruption. They give her campaign donations and she slips them a favor. Well - she backed off when caught and exposed. You can thank those irresponsible web blogs for that - not the upright and responsible American daily newspapers.

Then Harry Reid in the Senate tried to slip a watered-down earmarks-disclosure legislation through - and cheated by extending the vote when it did not pass. He also had to reverse himself and made high school excuses like he was too busy that one day to have noticed what he was doing.

To my Democratic Party friends who say this hardly compares with what the Republicans did - well it is how they started. I usually catch more harsh personal insults from my liberal friends when I point out Democratic and liberal shenanigans than I do from my conservative friends for jamming Republicans and Bush. Interesting isn't it. They expect me to be loyal to the "group" - and it shows what they value - loyalty over truth. At least conservatives respect a different perspective.

Paul Roley. I want to pay tribute to Paul who died Wednesday. He was a strong voice for conservative political values since the early 1970s in Whatcom politics. He believed strongly in what he wrote and spoke about and was not afraid to be out in front of others with his views. He ran for office at least once, but his real love was political analysis and commentary. He loved it and all of us who knew him know how his eyes would light up when he warmed to his chosen subject. I can hear him ... "Well John ... sniff ... let me tell you something you might not know about that."

I first met Paul when taking a lecture from him in Russian history at Western back about 1968. He was a spell-binding speaker. One of the two or three best I ever had in college. He knew his subject and was eager to fully answer student questions on the fly. His classes were exciting and educational in the best way. Over the years, I told him many times how much I loved his classes.

Our best to his wife Joan who took care of him as his health declined these past few years. A service for him will be on Friday, January 26. For more, go to [url=http://www.paulroley.blogspot.com]http://www.paulroley.blogspot.com[/url]

Democrats erring; remembering Paul Roley

By John ServaisOn Jan 13, 2007

OK, my Democratic Party friends. Deal with this - like Barney Frank would not. He shouted down a Senator who dared to reveal this on the Senate floor. The hypocrisy stinks. If this is the lily-pure 10

War with Iran

By John ServaisOn Jan 12, 2007

The news analysts are finally realizing that Bush’s speech was a declaration of war on Iran. I posted that minutes after the speech and revisited it yesterday. We are dragging out the detention of the

A new way to select our next president

By John ServaisOn Jan 12, 2007

Unity08 - a new way to select and elect our next president. Worth our effort to check out and consider. For conservatives and liberals. For those of us who do not like the dominance of money in our po

War - war and more war

By John ServaisOn Jan 11, 2007

Juan Cole provides an excellent if longish read on Bush’s new plan for the Iraq war. In particular he points out how many of the infiltrators and weapons are coming not from Syria or Iran but from Jor

Escalation announced tonight

By John ServaisOn Jan 10, 2007

In his speech tonight, Bush gave no specific time lines for expected results. The first words from news commentators referred to six months for results. But Bush can avoid any accountability in six mo

Israel to bomb Iran?

By John ServaisOn Jan 09, 2007

Freaky. There are reports - rumors? - that Israeli Air Force pilots are training for a bombing run into Iran. If Israel drops nuclear bombs on Iran then you know W asked them to do it - for they have

Airport issues

By John ServaisOn Jan 08, 2007

The new discussion site about airport issues - blinet.org - is being run by Matt Paskus. While his name is not on the site, he is very open to be identified. He lives out by the airport and - surprise

Bush is totally dysfunctional now

By John ServaisOn Jan 07, 2007

Why should the execution of Saddam be a concern to all of us? Because it was a lynching - and Bush and company participated. Personally I think Bush wanted Saddam dead quick out of fear that we may be

The dead are blessed

By John ServaisOn Jan 01, 2007

3,000 service persons killed in Iraq? Oh we are beyond that - up to 3,002 this morning - and could climb past 4,000 this year if we ‘stay the course’. More telling for me is we are approaching 50,000

Candlelight vigil tonight

By John ServaisOn Dec 31, 2006

As the 3,000th US service person is killed in Iraq today or tomorrow, the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center will hold a candlelight vigil at the Maritime Heritage Park this evening starting at 4:30 pm

Saddam Hussein executed

By John ServaisOn Dec 29, 2006

The US - the Bush administration - had Saddam Hussein executed this evening. How sad - how stupid on several levels - and how oh so immoral. There are tyrants of several countries who murder their peo

Moving Target

By Tip JohnsonOn Dec 11, 2006

One of the more momentous public hearings in Bellingham’s history appears to be ready to pass with more than the ordinary confusion. We wrote about some of the mis/disinformation earlier.

On th

The Iraq Study Group Report

By John ServaisOn Dec 06, 2006

A good historic moment is upon us today. The Iraq Study Group Report was presented this morning to our nation’s leaders and to us citizens. I think this report and its 79 recommendations provide a sup

Global Warming, Record Lows - Fiddling while Rome burns

By Tip JohnsonOn Nov 30, 2006

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blockquote>”When do you wreck it as a system? It’s like going up to the edge of a cliff, not really knowing where it is. Common sense says you shouldn’t discover where the edge is by passing over it,

Public meeting & hearing rescheduled

By John ServaisOn Nov 30, 2006

Notice:

Relative to the last post:

Ecology has rescheduled the public meeting for:
December 7th, 6:30 p.m. ñ 8:30 p.m., Bellingham Cruise Terminal, 355 Harris Avenue, Bell

Public Process - Lots of it (kind of),

By Tip JohnsonOn Nov 27, 2006

or I lied (sort of!)

In the previous post I complained that the biggest rip-off in Whatcom County history was happening without even being discussed or making it into the news. Well, I lied. To

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

By Tip JohnsonOn Nov 26, 2006

The good? We are no longer spewing forty+ pounds of mercury vapor every day into the local atmosphere. We are no longer dumping 20 to 40 tons of polluted solid waste into our bay, ravines and gravel p

Long Run

By Tip JohnsonOn Nov 19, 2006

Milton Friedman died at 94 years of age last week. Friedman was the maverick economist who implemented monetarist policies beginning with the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. As

Torturous topics

By Tip JohnsonOn Nov 19, 2006

While we’re being proud to be Americans, don’t forget that George Bush just pushed through legislation that makes it legal for our boys at Abu Ghraib to have tortured and makes it legal for them to ke

Welcome to America!

By Tip JohnsonOn Nov 19, 2006

Protesting and dissent is no longer supervised by the police. It is actively escalated to violence, punished and prosecuted. This snippet is about a fellow rotting in jail as the result of his journal