UPDATE: Rep. Mark Souder Takes Responsibility And Resigns

In a recent post I gave Representative Mark Souder credit for resigning his office instead of forcing his constituents or his colleagues to oust him, before having read the contents of his resignation letter.  Now I must withdraw that credit since Mark Souder has decided to blame his affair on Washington, D.C. instead of himself.  The following is an excerpt of the resignation letter:

"IT HAS BEEN ALL CONSUMING FOR ME TO DO THIS JOB WELL, ESPECIALLY IN A DISTRICT WITH COSTLY, COMPETITIVE ELECTIONS EVERY TWO YEARS I DO NOT HAVE ANY SORT OF "NORMAL" LIFE - FOR FAMILY, FOR FRIENDS, FOR CHURCH, FOR COMMUNITY. TO SERVE HAS BEEN A BLESSING AND A RESPONSIBILITY GIVEN FROM GOD. I WISH I COULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER EXAMPLE. I SINNED AGAINST GOD, MY WIFE AND MY FAMILY BY HAVING A MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH A PART-TIME MEMBER OF MY STAFF. IN THE POISONOUS ENVIRONMENT OF WASHINGTON DC, ANY PERSONAL FAILING IS SEIZED UPON, OFTEN TWISTED, FOR POLITICAL GAIN. I AM RESIGNING RATHER THAN TO PUT MY FAMILY THROUGH THAT PAINFUL, DRAWN-OUT PROCESS."

The following statement by 'Concerned Women for America' also blames Washington, D.C. for Souder's affair:

"Those of us who have worked with Mark over the years know him to be a kind and thoughtful legislator. If Mark Souder is capable of sexual misconduct, it could happen to anyone. The frat house environment on Capitol Hill does nothing to encourage accountability. Most Members do not live with their families while they are working in D.C. during the week and have even ditched common rules of etiquette that even major corporations follow such as office doors with windows or careful examination of employee/boss interaction."

How is Washington, D.C. to blame for Souder's affair with a staffer from Indiana who worked in Souder's Indiana office and met to have sex with Souder in Indiana state parks?

It's not Capitol Hill that puts the devil in our Congressmen, it's our Congressmen that put the devil on Capitol Hill.

Conservatives Unhappy With Miss USA Pageant, Again!

Many conservatives are upset that Miss Michigan, Rima Fakih, has been crowned Miss USA instead of Miss Oklahoma, Elizabeth Woolard, who was the first runner-up.  They feel that Miss Oklahoma should have won but did not because she expressed approval of Arizona's new Immigration Law when responding to one of the interview questions.  Furthermore, they feel that Ms. Fakih is the "affirmative action" choice because she is a Muslim born in Lebanon (another case of reverse discrimination).

Sound familiar?  In 2009, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, was the first runner-up in the Miss USA pageant.  Conservatives claimed that Prejean did not win the crown because she had disapproved of same-sex marriage during her interview.

Now Ms. Fakih's pre-pageant life is being scrutinized and criticized publicly by conservatives in an attempt to disqualify her even though Ms. Fakih was only an innocent bystander.

Miss USA contestants are judged in three competitions: Interview, Swimsuit and Evening Gown.  The judges evaluate each contestant's poise, charm, self-confidence, beauty of face, figure, physical fitness, sense of style, ability to communicate, the substance of her communication and her character.  If Miss Oklahoma's performance in the interview dropped her from first to second place in the overall competition then it is likely that an adequate number of the judges did not approve of the character revealed in Miss Oklahoma's response since her ability to communicate has not been cited as deficient.

The majority of Americans and many Arizonans strongly disapprove of Arizona's Immigration Law because its enforcement is a violation of American civil rights, therefore, Miss Oklahoma's approval of the Immigration Law is evidence of a character defect.  I, and I suspect the majority of Americans, do not disagree with Arizona's opposition to illegal immigration, rather, it is the action that the Immigration Law requires of all Arizona Law enforcement personnel that we find to be disagreeable and unconstitutional.

And, conservative whining... I find that disagreeable, also!

Rep. Mark Souder Takes Responsibility And Resigns

Representative Mark Souder reminded us how very hard it is to remain "holier than thou" when he resigned for having an affair with an assistant.  If a resignation was called for then I commend him for voluntarily resigning instead of hanging on until his constituents or his colleagues ousted him.  So many before Souder have refused to resign when a resignation was called for - that is when the member of Congress violated a law or his oath, such that he would be expected to resign.

Souder, who was elected in 1994 on a "family values" platform, makes the following statement on his website.  "I believe that Congress must fight to uphold the traditional values that undergird the strength of our nation.  The family plays a fundamental role in our society... I am committed to preserving traditional marriage, the union of one man and one woman."

Perhaps Souder meant "one woman" at a time.

Was Souder sincere when he ran on a "family values" platform and like most of us stumbled.  Or did he select the "family values" platform only to get votes?

Pope Blames Church For Its Persecution Over The Sex Abuse Scandal

Pope Benedict XVI believes that the Catholic Church is being persecuted! Could he be more self-righteous and unapologetic?!?! When I think of a persecution I think of the Jewish Holocaust, the Muslim conquest of the Holy Lands, the Crusades to retake the Holy Lands and convert the Muslims, the Inquisition of heretics and atheists and the Roman persecution of the Christians. The Catholic Church is being justifiably punished, not persecuted, for covering up sexual abuses by its clerics. The cover up has been led by the Vatican and every pope since the abuses became public. Pedophilia in the Catholic Church has existed so long that it is institutionalized.

The Vatican's only response has been to minimize its legal and financial exposures by lying, coercion and bribery. The Vatican had tried to dismiss the abuses as American only. The current pope is the first one to 'approach' apologizing, however, alligator tears do not make an apology and certainly do not deliver the changes needed to prevent future abuses.

I don't think the leadership of the Catholic Church deserves to survive its wrongs. The lay Catholics should purge all ranks of the church's leadership if they want their church to survive since Pope Benedict XVI has confirmed that no one in the Vatican is going to respond properly, completely and consistently.

Sarah Palin Wants To Restore The Original Constitution Under Which She Will Have No Voice and No Vote!

Sarah Palin, who believes that the Judeo-Christian belief was the basis for American law and should continue to be used as a guiding force for creating future legislation, said, "Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant..."

I suggest that Sarah Palin take the lead and begin living as though the original Constitution has been restored.  Since the original Constitution held that only white men had a voice and a vote, then Sarah needs to shut up publicly.  If she has anything to say about our government and our laws, then she can say it to Todd Palin and Todd can bring it to the attention of his local, state or federal government representatives if he thinks it is necessary to do so.

The RNC Puts Its Shoe In Its Mouth...Again

President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court.  And the RNC and its chairman, Michael Steele, have pulled another minority endearing statement out of their bag of faulty tricks by condemning Kagan for having praised the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1993.  Kagan quoted Marshall in his 1987 Constitutional Bicentennial speech.  Kagan quoted Marshall for saying that "The Constitution as origninally conceived and drafted was "defective" and that the Supreme Court's mission was to "show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged."

Marshall went on to say,

"the government they (the Framers of the Constitution) devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today.  When contemporary Americans cite "The Constitution," they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.

For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the document's preamble: 'We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." United States Constitution, Art. 1, 52 (Sept. 17, 1787). On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at threefifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. The 19th Amendment (ratified in 1920).  These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States."

When Michael Steele stated recently that the GOP has not "done a very good job" giving African-Americans a reason to vote Republican, did he intend then to adjust course and start doing a good job?  If so, he must have forgotten, or changed his mind, or decided to place a higher priority on attacking President Obama nomination.  Considering Steele's habit of sticking his foot in his mouth, I can only guess why he did it again.  My guess is he and the RNC wanted to attack President Obama above all else and, as usual, suspended his mental capacity while doing it.

Great job!  These blunders and kowtowing to the GOP's radical base may carry their Teabagger candidates in the Fall primaries but other than a few possible exceptions like Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas and Minnesota, they will surely get whipped in the general election.

Copier Machines Save Images Of Every Document They Copy

Did you know that the image of every document copied is saved on a copier's internal hard drive?  And most copiers do not provide a means for erasing these images.  When your employer, your doctor and your lawyer replace their copiers the old copiers leave with copies of all the documents they copied.

For a video about this privacy risk click on the following link.


http://www.wimp.com/copymachines/

In 2001 Cheney Told BP That Well Safety Device Was Not Needed

Those who think that the huge spill resulting from the BP offshore well disaster was unavoidable should know that BP uses a safety device called an acoustical regulator on all its offshore wells, which could have closed the well when the manual controls failed. BP uses the device by law on wells off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea. BP voluntarily uses the device on the wells in Britain's North Sea operation and elsewhere in the world as do most other major oil companies. However, in 2001 Dick Cheney met with oil industry leaders and asked them for input on changes to US regulations. BP said the acoustical regulator was too expensive at $500,000 so the Bush Administration waived that requirement. At $14 billion each the estimated cost of the clean up and BP's profit in 2009 are each 28,000 times greater than the cost of the acoustical regulator.

Americans will never know the full extent of the damage to the world, not just America, for which the Bush administration is solely responsible.

Rep. Virginia Foxx receives Ronald Reagan Award

The GOP has presented the 2010 Ronald Reagan Award to Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC).  After watching the attached video wherein Foxx is praised for her hard work in the House I decided to find out how much legislation Foxx has proposed while in the House.  Since joining the House in 2005, Foxx has proposed 31 bills of which only 5 were approved.

Approved legislation:

• Allow service personnel to include combat pay in earned income to determine tax deduction
• Extend Associate membership to spouse and siblings of members of the Military Order of the Purple Heart
• Commend Appalachian State football team for winning NCAA I-AA football championship
• Provides Federal employees with electronic receipts for direct deposits
• Provides House members with electronic receipts for direct deposits

Considering the GOP praises in the attached video I expected a lot more.  I wonder how President Reagan would feel about his award going to Foxx for such an insignificant contribution.  Perhaps Foxx's real contribution was her 100% support of the House GOP caucus voting directives.