Weasel Field

T. Boone Pickens, among other things, is an Oklahoma State University graduate and huge benefactor of the athletic department, including renovating the football statium. We're talking about millions of dollars, and the stadium carries his name. Mr. Pickens is a Republican self-made billionaire who also finances right-wing-radical smear attacks on highly placed Democrats like John Kerry.

You remember the "Swift Boaters for Truth" smear campaign? Mr. Pickens was a primary funder and proudly made the claim at an American Spectator dinner, that he would pay a milion dollars to anyone who could refute the claims in the Swift Boat ads. John Kerry took him up on the offer and Pickens chickened out on coughing up the cool million.

But now, for a group of Vietnam veterans at the center of the attacks, it’s still a fresh fight. From the New York Times:

A group of Swift boat veterans sympathetic to Mr. Kerry sent Mr. Pickens a letter last week taking him up on the challenge. In 12 pages, plus a 42-page attachment of military records and other documents, they identified not just one but ten lies in the group’s campaign against Mr. Kerry. They offered to meet with him to provide Mr. Kerry’s journals and videotapes from Vietnam and a copy of his full military record certified by the Navy – a key demand of Mr. Pickens and veterans who believe Mr. Kerry lied about his service to win his military decorations.

Mr. Pickens replied with a one-page letter, thanking the veterans for their research and their service, but politely saying there had been a misunderstanding. “Key aspects of my offer of $1 million have not been accurately reported,” he wrote.

Mr. T. Boone Pickens not only chickened out of the pledge to John Kerry, but now he's weaseled out on the bet to a group of veterans who followed Picken's own demand detailing what kind of proof he required.

"Republican comes in the dictionary just after reptile and just above repugnant." -- Julia Roberts

John Sullivan & Lincoln

During this coming campaign, John Sullivan, along with his Republican extremist, will invoke the name of Abraham Lincoln -- despite the fact that Sullivan's political career has often served to show charity to none and malice to all.

"What happens to a man is less significant than what happens within him." -- Louis L. Mann

Sullivan Votes Against Families

Just last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5781, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2008, which would provide four weeks of paid parental leave for all federal employees. Employees will also for the first time be allowed to use their accrued sick leave for an additional eight weeks of paid leave.

By combining the four weeks of paid parental leave with earned sick leave, many federal employees will now be able to get paid for the full 12 weeks of parental leave that is their right under the existing Family and Medical Leave Act.

John Sullivan, (R-OK,CD-1) voted NO in the roll call for this measure that actually helps parents who work for the federal government.

"It's easier to build strong children than mend broken men." -- Fredrick Douglas

The Facts About Oil and More

All doing the run up in oil and commodity prices, I've held to the belief that the rising prices were do to increased demand for fuels, raw materials and food. Just a few days ago I received an email with the transcript of the testimony of Michael W Masters before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, last month. Mr. Masters is Managing Member/ Portfolio Manager of Masters Capital Management, LLC.

Basically, Mr. Masters laid out the claim that the escalation of the commodity prices was do to big investors getting into the commodities futures market and inundating the system with huge amounts of money. As the demand for these futures contracts grew, spurred by these investments, so did the price of the contracts. His testimony gives specifics of several commodity futures markets; enough that I am persuaded that he is right and I was wrong. Please read all nineteen pages of the transcript.

Last week, Senator Joe Lieberman, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs announced he would hold hearings on commodities speculation and propose next week to ban large institutional investors, including index funds, from the nation’s booming commodity markets.

Interestingly, McBush, et.al, are pushing for opening ANWAR and drilling for oil off the coasts of Florida and other southern coastal states, while at the same time evidence riclkles out that speculation may be the culprit behind skyrocketing gasoline prices.

And now, if you still need to whet your cynicism, we find out that Big Oil will be awarded concessions in Iraq in a no-bid sweetheart deal.

The "Iraq Invasion for Oil" conspiracy crowd will now be telling us, "I told you so!"

"I'm telling you that President Bush is doing just what Jesus would have done." -- Bill O'Rielly

Bow Wow!

Go to the 5:30 spot and watch Al Gore talk about how elections matter!



Play it again and watch BO smile as the crowd erupts!


"Democracy belongs to those who exercise it." -- Bill Moyers

John Sullivan Gets an "F"

Steve Fraser, historian and author, appearing on the Bill Moyers Journal TV program last Friday, claimed that the wages a young worker receives at an entry level job at General Motors today has the same buying power as the wages his/her grandfather received starting out at GM in 1948!

According to Families USA, a national study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrated the direct link between a lack of health coverage and deaths from health-related causes. Their report states, “Uninsured people die prematurely at a rate that equals several additional deaths per day in highly populated states, such as Texas, Florida and California.” Overall, uninsured people between the ages of 25 and 64 were 25% more likely to die than their same-aged insured counterparts.”

Yet apparently John Sullivan, Oklahoma’s First District congressman just doesn’t care about working Oklahomans.

John Sullivan voted AGAINST the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008.

John Sullivan voted AGAINST the Emergency Extended Unemployment Insurance Compensation Act of 2008.

John Sullivan voted AGAINST the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007.

The non-partisan Drum Major Institute for Public Policy’s project, themiddleclass.org, gives Sullivan an "F".

We ought to give him one in November, too.

"Compassion is the chief law of human existence." -- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Inhofe Loves War - Not Vets

Our far right extremist senator, James Inhofe is known mostly as a Climate Change Denier but that barely scratches the surface of what's wrong with Inhofe. For someone who is so aggressively pro-war, he's incredibly anti-veteran and anti-service member.

Here's some facts:
1. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America looked at his voting record and gave him a D-.
2. Inhofe cast the deciding vote against the bipartisan Health Care for Veterans Amendment in October 2005. This killed a bill that had passed in the House 398 to 19.

Or this,
A month later, Senators Chuck Grassley and Barbara Boxer co-sponsored a bill to get desperately needed funds for counseling, mental health, and rehabilitation services for veterans diagnosed with mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, or substance abuse. Again, Inhofe voted against our military veterans.Jim Inhofe votes against our veterans but always falls in line to support outrageous tax cuts for millionaires and Wall Street cronies.

But vets aren't the only people Inhofe has consistently short-changed. His voting record on active duty military personnel is abysmal-- the worst in the entire U.S. Senate. Of the 14 roll calls involving the welfare of our fighting men and women since May, 2003, Inhofe has voted against them a breathtaking 14 times.

Most Oklahomans don't support the Bush/McCain occupation of Iraq and hopefully will force James Inhofe into retirement from the US Senate, this November.

"There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for." -- Albert Camus, French writer and philosopher who won a Nobel Prize in 1957.

Sugar Coated Words

First District Representative John Sullivan (R-OK) sent out a sugar coated e-newsletter today praising fatherhood but does not mention the hard issues the reality-based community must deal with, like skyrocketing gasoline prices.

Sullivan goes on to say the National Fatherhood Initiative finds that the closer adolescents feel to their fathers, regardless of the type of family structure which they live in, the less likely it is that they will engage in the use of drugs or delinquent behavior. Nobody can disagree with that.

What Representative Sullivan doesn't say is that just this week, he voted against a measure to extend unemployment benefits to hard working fathers (and mothers) all over America. Not only that, Sullivan doesn't mention the fact that among people living in single-parent families headed by a working father, almost 28 percent are economically insecure based on their earnings and any public forms of assistance they receive. The Center for Economic and Policy Research defines a family as economically insecure if their income falls below the "basic family budget"-a measure of the basic goods and services needed to "make ends meet"-for where they live.

So where is Rep.John Sullivan's heart on Father's Day? My guess it's still with his corporate cronies. Many hard working Oklahoma fathers aren't buying his sugar-coated words.

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in fifty years what my father taught me by example in one week." -- Mario Cuomo, former Governor of New York

Walkin' the Talk

Oklahoma veterans speak out in this video about Senator James Inhofe's votes on veterans issues. Senator Inhofe often talks about his support for our troops, you decide if he "walks the talk."





Pleease pass this on to friends and family.


"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq." -- Paul Wolfowitz, former Assistant Secretary of Defense

Sen. Inhofe's Dirty Air

Senator and amateur scientist Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is assailing the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act as a huge tax increase on Oklahoma farmers, in a press release published yesterday. The measure is an attempt by Congress to begin working on how to best curb greenhouse gases.

Instead, Inhofe will have nothing to do with that discussion and will attack the problem by calling it a massive tax on Oklahoma farmers. “To protect Oklahoma farmers from the significant tax increase the Lieberman-Warner bill would impose, I will be leading the fight against the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill. Once again, I am proud to stand in support of Oklahoma’s agriculture community. Whether it’s reauthorizing critical agricultural programs or standing strong against Washington efforts to impose significant financial burdens onto farmers and ranchers, I will continue to stand firm on behalf of Oklahoma’s farmers and ranchers and the nation’s overall food security.”

But this report by the Associated Press undercuts Inhofe's wild-eyed disconnect from reality:

Only a few senators now dispute the reality of global warming. Still, there is a sharp divide over how to shift lessen the country’s heavy dependence on coal, oil and natural gas without passing along substantially higher energy costs to people.

The petroleum industry, manufacturers and business groups have presented study after study, based on computer modeling, that they say bear out the massive cost and disruption from mandating lower carbon emissions.

Environmental groups counter with studies that show modest cost increases from the emission caps provide new incentives to develop alternative energy sources and promote energy efficiency and conservation.

“This debate is going to be mostly about costs,” says Daniel Lashoff, director of the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But we want to make sure in that debate we don’t forget that the cost of inaction on global warming would be much higher than the cost of the emission reductions called for in this bill.”

Senator Inhofe continually denies the effect of our polluting the atmosphere and places Oklahoma farmers in peril. His myoptic vision of avoiding the consequences of green house gases we produce will, in turn, lead to creating a new Sahara Desert that was once fertile Oklahoma farm land.

I wonder if Sen. Inhofe has breathed the dirty air in DC for so long, that its corrupted his reasoning facilities?

"Unless we find a way to dramatically change our civilization and our thinking about the relationship of humankind to the earth, our children will inherit a wasteland." -- Al Gore