Apologies for the quietness on this blog as of late, but I’ve been extremely busy at work and at home. Hopefully I’ll resume a more consistent posting schedule in 2012.

But some news I heard this morning got me upset enough to actually take action and write my Senators. That news was that President Obama someone I voted for signed into law Senate Bill 1867 (or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012). The bill is a horrendous assault on all U.S. citizens’ civil liberties. I’m not going to go into detail of how awful it is, but if you’d like to read about it yourself you can do so here.

Below you’ll find my letter to my Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman who both voted yes on the bill. Feel free to copy, modify, edit the text below if you’d like to send it to your Senators and Congressmen — something I strongly suggest you do.

To: Sherrod Brown

First off: I’m not typically the type of person to write a letter to their Senator. It’s not something I’m proud of, and I really should take a more vocal role in standing up for what I believe.

With that out of the way, I wanted to contact you to ask your opinions and reasoning behind supporting Senate Bill 1867 (or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012).

As you know, SB1867 mandates “all accused Terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system” and permits even U.S. citizens accused of Terrorism be held by the military rather than the civilian court system. It also renews and widens the power of military detention to extend to those who “substantially support” Terrorism, including U.S. citizens.

And while I hope your heart and your colleagues’ minds are in the right place of keeping our country safe, I think the implications of this bill’s passage are a direct threat to our Constitution and every U.S. citizen’s civil liberties.

For example: if someone from the Occupy Wall Street movement were to call in a bomb threat to a government body, this legislation allows anyone associated with OWS to be imprisoned indefinitely without due process. You would think there would be a media outcry if something like this happened, but as the Country and media landscape become more and more divisive, these sorts of things are easily swept under the rug.

My greater fear is what happens if a President one day gets elected who espouses a McCarthyist bent on Terrorism and begins to exercise his or her powers granted in this bill. Would that mean we’re all in danger, is this a repeat of the 1950s all over again? Can any group be defined a Terrorist group and their members locked up indefinitely? If a group contradicts who the U.S. is at war with, does this mean anyone in the said group can be locked up? We’ve always been at war with Eastasia, right?

My question to you is why did you choose to vote “Yes” on this bill? As a Senator I voted for and someone who is from my home county and city of Lorain I’m from Amherst, but close enough can you please justify your reasoning for supporting this horrendous piece of legislation?

I look forward to and eagerly await your reply.

Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

I know a lot of these Occupy Wall Street protestors have their heads in the sand when it comes to what they’re fighting for, but I hope this is the start of something big.

I hope the Democrats can turn their momentum into something useful and bring the fight to Republicans rather than lying down and accepting whatever scraps the GOP throws their way.

On the heels of Barack Obama’s Labor Day speech, Matt Taibbi writes why he just doesn’t believe the guy anymore:

I remember following Obama on the campaign trail and hearing all sorts of promises before union-heavy crowds. He said he would raise the minimum wage every year; he said he would fight free-trade agreements. He also talked about repealing the Bush tax cuts and ending tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

It’s not just that he hasn’t done those things. The more important thing is that the people he’s surrounded himself with are not labor people, but stooges from Wall Street. Barack Obama has as his chief of staff a former top-ranking executive from one of the most grossly corrupt mega-companies on earth, JP Morgan Chase. He sees Bill Daley in his own office every day, yet when it comes time to talk abut labor issues, he has to go out and make selected visits twice a year or whatever to the Richard Trumkas of the world.

Listening to Obama talk about jobs and shared prosperity yesterday reminded me that we are back in campaign mode and Barack Obama has started doing again what he does best – play the part of a progressive. He’s good at it. It sounds like he has a natural affinity for union workers and ordinary people when he makes these speeches. But his policies are crafted by representatives of corporate/financial America, who happen to entirely make up his inner circle.

Since I live in Ohio and because it plays such a key state to winning the presidency, I’m almost obligated as a sane person to vote for Obama. Letting those nut jobs in the GOP race win is unthinkable and very scary. But if I were in a left-leaning state that was guaranteed to swing toward Obama, I would never vote for this guy again. He broke my heart.

This piece from Anil Dash is the best thing you’ll read today, and probably this week.

His insight into how the most successful company in America today is run by a liberal shows just how wrong the conservatives in America are about how liberals want to ruin business and turn the United States into a Socialist state.

merlin:

charlietodd:

Directly adjacent to the proposed Burlington Coat Factory Islamic Community Center sits a sports bar.  I snapped this photo of a sign on the sidewalk in front of it.  Hallowed ground.

Never forget.¹

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1. To always eat a big meal on nights the Yankees face a weak starting pitcher. ↩

Hallowed, indeed. Is there anything besides blatant racism and fear that is driving these nut jobs protesting the proposed Islamic Center?

You say you support the the troops? Really, do you? If all you’ve done is posted a yellow ribbon on your car, then that may not be enough.

An interesting post over at MSNBC’s Photoblog that made me question what exactly supporting the troops means.

I’ve had people come up to me and say ‘I support the troops, I want you out of there.’ Really? What have you done to support the troops? What have you done other than complain? Have you petitioned the halls of Congress? Have you written your representative? Have you asked the president to increase our pay, increase our benefits? That’s supporting the troops. Saying you want the troops out of Afghanistan by talking to no one of influence is wasting your time, and you’re a complainer. And you’re not supporting the troops.

“Do something for us. Call your senator, talk to your senator. Talk to your representative. If you want us to stay here and continue to fight this war on terror, tell your senator, tell your representative. If you don’t want us to fight this war on terror, and want us back home, call your representative, call your senator. Write them a letter. Say, ‘I’m in your constituency, I want the soldiers gone.’ Vote.

He makes a great point. Whether you’re for the war or against it, you gotta do something. Take action, people.

And this goes far beyond just Afghanistan and the military. It’s one thing to argue with your friends about politics in a bar, but until you actually take action such as writing your Senator or Congressman all you’re doing is complaining, no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on.

First thing: vote. After that, look into ways you can make an impact whether through writing your Senator, starting a petition or volunteering your time to make a difference. Words can go a long way, but action goes much, much further.

I’m as guilty of this as the next person, but not any longer.

The average American today is underpaid, overworked and stressed out as to what the future will bring for his or her children. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare. But, not everybody is hurting. While the middle class disappears and poverty increases the wealthiest people in our country are not only doing extremely well, they are using their wealth and political power to protect and expand their very privileged status at the expense of everyone else.

That’s Bernie Sanders, the longest-serving Independent in Congress, writing for The Nation on how America is becoming an oligarchy, if it hasn’t already become one. He continues:

The 400 richest families in America, who saw their wealth increase by some $400 billion during the Bush years, have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth.

I can continue quoting, but you should just go read it.

Sanders writes a frightening and enlightening piece that we all should be aware of. He continues to detail how an added $1-trillion over a ten-year period will be added to the deficit simply by President Bush’s 2001 tax legislation that repealed the estate tax.

Sanders’ solution — a graduated inheritance tax on estates over $3.5 million — is both sensible and much needed.

People often complain that it’s Congress’ and the government’s pet programs running up the deficit — which sometimes is the case — but more often than not it goes much, much deeper than that.