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What hope would there have been for America’s morals if Ted Stevens actually had won? Maybe Todd Palin is right in believing in Alaska’s succession from the US. I don’t know, but why on Earth someone would elect a felon as a senator is beyond me? So, a felon does not have the right to vote, yet another felon has the right to hold a congressional seat because of a special status? Thankfully, Stevens lost. Little by little, America is starting to make sense again.

Taken from Yahoo News: news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081119/ap_on_re_us/cheney_indicted

McALLEN, Texas – Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on state charges involving federal prisons in a South Texas county that has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles under the outgoing prosecutor.

The indictment returned Monday has not yet been signed by the presiding judge, and no action can be taken until that happens.

The seven indictments made public in Willacy County on Tuesday included one naming state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. and some targeting public officials connected to District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra’s own legal battles.

Regarding the indictments targeting the public officials, Guerra said, “the grand jury is the one that made those decisions, not me.”

Guerra himself was under indictment for more than a year and half until a judge dismissed the indictments last month. Guerra’s tenure ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March.

Guerra said the prison-related charges against Cheney and Gonzales are a national issue and experts from across the country testified to the grand jury.

Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity related to the vice president’s investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.

Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on Tuesday, saying that the vice president had not yet received a copy of the indictment.

The indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of the privately-run prisons.

Gonzales’ attorney, George Terwilliger III, said in a written statement, “This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize.” He said he hoped Texas authorities would take steps to stop “this abuse of the criminal justice system.”

Another indictment released Tuesday accuses Lucio of profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies. Guerra announced his intention to investigate Lucio’s prison consulting early last year.

Lucio’s attorney, Michael Cowen, released a scathing statement accusing Guerra of settling political scores in his final weeks in office.

“Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing wrong,” Cowen said, adding that he would file a motion to quash the indictment this week.

Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state and federal lockups. Guerra has gone after the prison-politician nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy and Webb county commissioners after investigating bribery related to federal prison contacts.

Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release. The three-count indictment alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility.

In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa’s family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzales indictment makes reference to the de la Rosa case.

None of the indictments released Tuesday had been signed by Presiding Judge Manuel Banales of the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region.

Last month, Banales dismissed indictments that charged Guerra with extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business. An appeals court had earlier ruled that a special prosecutor was improperly appointed to investigate Guerra.

After Guerra’s office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.

The indictments were first reported by KRGV-TV.

I gotta say, these past few years have not been easy. Many of us Americans are in the same pool economically. For me, this mess takes me down emotionally too so I wasn’t really able to study this past year or two (what can I say, I’m emotional).

Well, I got fed up with creating plans and never following through and I got fed up sitting in front of a science book only to somehow half an hour later have the poverty level in India on my mind (and forgetting that I have a book in my hand). So I bought myself some Ginkgo Biloba pills and I must say, after two weeks of taking them, I can make it through a whole hour of studying. That rebellius uneasiness to get up and change something just for the sake of change is gone. So, if you’re like me, buy yourself some Ginkgo Biloba pills.

Is it just me, or is CNN boring again? I so badly miss all the election coverage. McCain was so erratic that I’d be glued to the tv first thing in the morning just to see what kind of attack he came up with.

Now, it’s so sad. Now we’re back to the same old murder trial and baby kidnapping news. What will I do now?!

According to the Obama campaign, Senator Obama learned around 8 am just one day before the election that his grandmother had died of cancer at the age of 86. She died in her sleep between 5 and 6 am in her Hawaii apartment.

The media were not notified of the news until later on in the afternoon. Senator Obama had four stops during the day and he showed his courage. He did not let on that anything was wrong and he showed his strength and courage during his speeches throughout the day. Only later on in the evening, he showed a brief moment of emotion at a North Carolina rally where he cried, but quickly regained his strong voice and continued the speech.

After all, this is the woman who raised him, probably more than his own mother. She was the bread winner and had it not been for her, Obama would probably not have become the disciplined achiever that he is. This was a woman who had to struggle in Kansas (imagine having a black grandson during the sixties - not very easy) and she rose from  someone who began at the lowest position in a bank to becoming a vice president of that same bank. She only had a high school education.

“This is the time for change,” Obama frequently repeats in his stump speeches. Little did he know that his campaign would not only be about a change in the country, but also, that it would be a major transformational period in his life too.

As many know, Obama’s mother also passed away from cancer. Senator Obama has oftentimes publicly expressed regret that he was not there with his mother at her deathbed. So, when his grandmother became sick, he decided to take a two-day break from his campaign and visit his grandmother just recently. One thing that many do not know is that the California GOP has filed a legal complaint about his two-day trip to visit his dying grandmother. Their complaint - Obama used campaign funds to pay for his trip. The oddest thing is that this complaint was filed after the media learned of the death of Madelyn Dunham, Obama’s grandmother. I’ll leave everyone with one thing to ponder - the cost of Palin’s make-up artist for a two-week period was over $20,000.

May Mrs. Dunham rest in peace.

Early voting alleviates long lines - yeah, right!

Voter turnout is massive and unfortunately, states are not prepared.

I went to vote yesterday and couldn’t even get into the government parking lot. The police officers were denying drivers access. “We let them in as others come out.”

Let’s see, 20 cars arriving every 5 minutes and barely anyone coming out. The whole street was in a surreal U-turn frenzy. Nearby businesses with empty parking lots had their homemade cardboard signs nailed to trees, saying “This is not a parking lot for voters” with exclamation marks galore.

It’s a shame really. With the whole array of voter problems, we add on yet another major one - no parking.

So here’s my idea, dear government - why not set up satellite parking areas - organize shuttle vans and transport voters. You know, put those mall parking lots that have been empty the past eight years to good those.

I doubt that November 4th will be better, but I’ll walk if I have to. What could happen, I just have to cross a highway.

Here I go again, posting yet another political thread. What else am I gonna do? And can you tell who I’m supporting?

Well, last night when Obama held his midnight rally in Florida with Bill Clinton, he started his speech by saying, “I got two words for you, six days.” Then he went on rambling about his message of hope and changing the last eight years. Don’t get me wrong, I like his speeches, but I’ve just been glued to CNN way too many hours and now so much of the stump talk has become repetitive.

Today, in yet another sound clip, Senator Obama stated (again), “America, I have two words for you, five days.”

Obviously, he’s having a nifty countdown to November 4th.

Now watch Senator McCain call Senator Obama a flip flopper in his next rally.

MCCAIN: “Yesterday, Senator Obama told us we had six more days. Today, that one changed his rhetoric and stated that we had five more days until election. If he can’t make up his mind on how much we have ’till election, my friends, this man is not qualified to be president.”

PALIN: Maaaaverick. *wink*

Well, they say that humor got us through the Great Depression. Since we’re only a hair’s thickness away from going through what our parents and grandparents went through, it’s wise to keep it up while times are still ‘relatively’ good (yes, they can get worse and probably, will).

So here are a few signs you know that the economy is bad

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Hate me all you want, but I knew the economy was gonna be bad in January 2001. Well, while I was sitting there in my chair being all cozy and warm, I switched on the tv and there was something on the television called the inauguration ceremony or something like that. I usually don’t watch tv shows with names that are hard to pronounce, but this one was really interesting because the guy on tv had the dumbest expression on his face so I figured it was a new comedy show.

First of all, the guy that was up there looked incredibly like Mr. Bean. Usually, people’s intelligence has no correlation whatsoever to their face, but boy, this guy had clueless written all over his face, just like Mr. Bean. You know how sometimes when Mr. Bean’s brain gets overloaded, he shuts off his other bodily functions so he starts drooling and forgets that he’s supposed to blink every now and then? This Bush guy was the same way.

While he was sitting and listening, he seemed like a normal man. But as soon as his brain required some sort of function, you could notice some other part of his brain stop functioning immediately. Once, he was asked to get up and after he got off the chair, he fell down because his brain shut off his function to walk in order to accommodate the getting up. And then, when he started to speak, he couldn’t open his mouth, so for the first minute of his speech, it looked like he was in a Listerine mouthwash commercial.

I wasn’t sure why there were thousands of people in the audience listening to him, so I figured he was giving a eulogy and this was sort of like Princess Diana’s death and someone important died again - you know, someone like PeeWee or Tinky Winky of the Teletubbies. But when I listened to this odd man speak, I realized it wasn’t a eulogy. I don’t know what he was speaking about, but he wasn’t sad, so it wasn’t a eulogy.

Needless to say, this man still appears on my television and I must say, ever since he showed up on my tv that January day of 2001, things have been bad for me. Coincidence? I think not!

Here are some signs to tell you that the economy is bad:

1. George W. Bush puts on his rose-colored glasses and asks, while drinking his koolaid, “What’s a bank?”

2. John McCain announces that he will make eBay part of his tax plan (=take huge fees from middle class sellers and give it to eBay’s CEO regardless of whether the seller makes a sale or not).

3. People start putting lipstick on pigs to make raw foods more appealing to those unable to pay their electric and gas bills.

4. People start paying groceries with monopoly money.

5. Nobody notices that the Treasury Department runs out of ink so blank paper bills continue to be printed.

6. The gas stations are so dry that you get the same amount of gas regardless of whether you pay 10 bucks or 50 bucks.

7. People start buying SUV’s again because each of their children wants their own “room”.

Every state has its own rule as far as when the last day is to register to vote is. However, for most, that last day is October 6th.

Don’t rely on the polls. Every vote counts this election and every vote is equally important, regardless of your income, gender, race, religion, nation of birth or health.

Don’t let another Bush/Gore dilemma happen again. Vote this time.

Taken from INDYBAY.ORG:

On September 25, Democrats and progressives in the San Francisco Bay Area will have a rare opportunity to show Sarah Palin and the Republicans exactly what we think of them. Between 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. that Thursday, Silicon Valley Republicans Tom and Stacey Siebel will host a fundraiser luncheon with Palin at their home in Woodside. The address is 3000 Portola Road, Woodside/Redwood City CA 94062. Local Republicans will be shelling out a minimum of $1000 per person to attend the luncheon, and those who raise $50,000 or more will get a seat at the headtable and three photos with Palin. The California GOP lists Caitlin Ashlock (310-309-2101, cashlock@mccain08hq.com) as primary contact for those interested in attending.

The Bay Area is not friendly territory for Republicans, so it seems a little unlikely that McCain/Palin will be planning any protestable public events here. A fundraising event such as Palin’s at the Siebel home Sept. 25 does provide an opportunity, however, to make the Republicans feel unwelcome and to draw some negative media attention to the McCain campaign. Tom Siebel, founder and CEO of Siebel Systems, is well-known as a Republican donor and fundraiser. His home is in a hilly, wooded part of San Mateo County about 30 miles south of San Francisco, Portola a rather narrow road along which demonstrators may form an “avenue of protest” to greet Palin and her donors as they arrive.

Bay Area Democrats and progressives should organize for this event and tell Sarah Palin to go back to Alaska.