We've moved our primary site to here.
While we plan to keep updating this site until Jan. 31, please changes your links. This will become the AggPro Annex in February, where we comment on various non-political issues and make fun of people.
As the Aggressive Progressive, I get lots of email. Most of it offers me cheap Viagra or details of alleged stories about the guy I just ran against for state legislature hitting on nuns in the mall, stealing funding from poor children and (wait for it) stealing funding from poor nuns and giving it to rich nuns.
So you can imagine my thrill when I apparently got this message from my newly reelected Congress-Weasel, Slippery Jim Gerlach, especially after it was run through my mail server's new reality filter (which frankly, beats the heck out of a spam filter).
It's been an exciting and busy two years. As I officially begin my second term this week, I'd like to take a moment to share with you some of the reasons why these last two years were so special and what we can look forward to in the future.
Throughout the 108th Congress, we've worked exceptionally hard to line the pockets of our key campaign contributors and support the president's radical program of wealth redistribution through the passage of important legislation to provide seniors with a bogus and confusing prescription drug benefit through Medicare — a giant sweetheart deal for my pals at HMOs and drug companies — and billions of new dollars for special education that no real students will ever really see. Proudly, though Congress enacted my bill to have a new veterans cemetery located in southeastern Pennsylvania, because as you all know, I relate better to dead people than living ones. Don't forget my proposal to reauthorize the National Estuary Program to preserve our precious streams and drinking water although I was disappointed we weren't able to slip in a provision to make it easier for water companies to tap into protected aquifers, to spur added development. But it's good to have something to work on for the next term.
I was pleased to support my colleague, Tom DeLay, in his attempt to keep his party leadership post once, uh, I mean, if he is indicted. I'm proud to support such great patriots as Congressman DeLay against radical, left-wing attempts to make him comply with federal and state law.
The last campaign cycle was challenging, but one that I found enjoyable and rewarding, especially when my staff and I spent time on the PoliticsPa.com message boards making adolescent jokes about Lois Murphy's breasts. Even though she is kind of funny looking and absolutely embarrassed me during our campaign debates, she does have big 'uns, don't she? Woo hoo!
As the 109th Congress gets underway, I will continue to put my contributors first by sponsoring legislation to protect their interests, cover my butt and do what GOP leadership tells me to do. Congress will also take on important issues such as Social Security reform, immigration reform, health insurance and a highway authorization bill, all of which will be shaped by the usual radical, right-wing agenda, misinformation, media manipulation and lying, all of which I support, whole-heartedly.
It's been my honor working for and fleecing all of you these last two years. I look forward to two more unproductive and enjoyable years as Pennsylvania's 6th Congressional District representative. Please visit my Web site at www.house.gov/gerlach for more information and to sign up to start receiving my congressional e-newsletter.
Jim Gerlach
TO UNSUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER, REPLY TO THIS EMAIL AND IN THE BODY TYPE DELETE SUBSCRIPTION and then two of my thugs will come to your house, beat the hell out of you, and find some grounds to lock you up as an "enemy combatant."
©2005The Reality Mail Server. Parody is a bitch, ain't it? All Rights Reserved.
Being the kind, thoughtful guy that he is, the The Agg Pro has come up with a batch of New Year's resolutions for other people. Nice eh?
George W. Bush: Trample Constitution. Check. Go to war for no good reason. Check. Run up giant deficits. Check. Relax environmental regulations for corporate buddies. Check. That just leaves dismantling Social Security and invading the rest of "terra" countries, at least the ones with oil. Heh heh. That should be fun.
Dick Cheney: Work to better at keeping lips from moving when W speaks. Practice throwing voice better, because it would be a scream to have Justice Ginsburg tell Sen. Leahy to "Fuck off" during State of the Union address.
Don Rumsfeld: Buy extra kevlar to better insulate office from troop complaints. Remember to get story straight on Flight 93 shootdown, um, heroic crash.
Bill Frist: Keep shoving Rick Santorum out of his office, reminding the Pennsylvania senator he's not retiring until 2006.
Harry Reid: Grow a pair and fight the GOP at every turn.
Nancy Pelosi: Loan your pair to Reid when he needs it.
Hillary Clinton: Take one for the team: announce you won't seek the presidency in 2008.
Bob Novak: Begin tirade about media elites who refuse to divulge sources and then suddenly implode with irony.
Matt Drudge: Be a homophobic queen who delights in ruining people's careers by making up items for his pathetic Web site. Oh wait. Nevermind.
The Amish: Sign up for broadband and start blogging about their cows.
The Republican Party: sign up for refresher course in vote suppression and fraud at local community college, you know, just to brush up.
The Democratic Party: Stop lying in the corner like a beaten dog and start fighting back.
Canada: Keep chasing the eternal dream, bacon-flavored, beer-fried donuts, while enjoying the fact that your country isn't run by a bunch of international criminals.
MTV: Admit it's over and accept that you are about as cool as the kid in school who got thrown out of the Amish for not being hip enough.
The NFL: After no one, even people who die on the couch after the first half, bothers to watch Paul McCarney's Super Bowl halftime show, announce first-ever all nude. but tasteful for the family, halftime show for next season.
I’ve had some serious issues with the continuing detaining of alleged terrorists — those for whom there isn’t enough evidence to charge. Unlike other legal systems in the world, the United States had always presumed innocence until proven guilty. If there isn’t even evidence to charge — or convict, you walk free. It’s not perfect, but it is the American Way: better to release 10 guilty men than to imprison one innocent one.
But “enemy combatants” whether they be Saudi or even Americans, suddenly have no rights, despite the fact that the Constitution makes no such distinction. And worse, now the government is talking about keeping people it doesn’t have evidence on in prison for life. No charges, no trial, no due process — just prison for life.
But oh, you scoff, this can’t happen to me. But the point is, though, is that it is happening to you. A person here or there of Arabic ancestry, but American citizenship. disappears — and can’t see their attorney, their family, or even find out what they’ve been charged with, and that’s already happened. Next, come a few radical left-wing protesters, no-good, dirty rabble, and then those who speak out against the government. And then it’s your neighbor — or maybe you.
It doesn’t take long — and it can happen and will in this country.
You must fight this, and we on the left have to figure out to make this expensive to Corporate America. Very expensive, so that they have to pay attention and reevaluate their relationship with the Neo-Cons. Without corporate financial backing, the Neo-Cons will dry up and blow away.
But we must act before it is too late. Before it is your friend, your child, your parent — or even you — who is whisked off into detention with no charges, no hope of a trial. Make no mistake, we face a difficult battle, and opposition convinced of their right to trample all that is holy to most Americans. We are fighting people who may very well be led a man who is a war criminal at best, and at worst, a man guilty of treason against the United States of America. Of course, should it come to that, George W. Bush will know the crimes he is charged with and be given a fair trial.
Can any of us now be sure of keeping those same inalienable rights as Americans?
As patriots, we must stand and fight for our country, just as our forefathers did. Will you stand and add your voice to the growing chorus? This isn't about liberal or conservative, this is about fighting for the things that make America unique and special.
Thomas Jefferson said it best:
When the government fears the people there is liberty; when the people fear the government there is tyranny.
It’s time to put some fear into this government.
This was supposed to be our gala grand opening day, the debut of the new Aggressive Progressive, (Remember, Bloggeroids, we've moved the main site) the day it formally morphed from a blog to a community of ideas on the left.
While we’re open for business and everything is tweaked within an inch of its life, it is hard to draw much enthusiasm this first day of 2005. As the death toll continues to spike in Southeast Asia, numbers that could horribly, incredibly pass 500,000 deaths, with millions more homeless. 100,000 more are dead in Iraq because of a pointless and dishonest war, and the forces of evil are massing at the ramparts ready to destroy Social Security for no reason better than to line the pockets of Wall Street’s tycoons, nice guys who love to write giant campaign contributions to the GOP.
All in all, at the dawn of 2005, Earth is not exactly a happening place.
And while the blogosphere has been abuzz with entries about the tsunami disaster, there’s not much I can add, other than to note that we’d added a logo to the left for Unicef (on the new blog, click here to see it), please click it and help if you are in a position to do so, and that our prayers go out to the victims, their families and the survivors, many of whom will have to rebuild despite grinding poverty in many of areas struck by the disaster.
We’ll have our New Year’s Resolutions for other people tomorrow, and Dan will have updated rankings in the presidential derby. Now that I totally finished with creation of the new site, I can and will turn my attention to being the lusty content provider you’ve come to love (or dispise). Caity O’Loughlin and Al Tustin are due back shortly from their respective holiday ski vacations in Vail and Detroit (every year, Al gets drunk and skis down Woodward Avenue behind a 1976 El Camino. He claims it keeps him young.)
Finally, we’ll have our preview of the Electoral College vote and guess which senators might be willing to challenge those wacky Ohio electoral votes. Will it matter? Will it bring on the first Constitutional crisis in more than a century, or will the GOP short-circuit it all in the U.S. House? Pop some popcorn, it should be a dandy.
Meanwhile, wander over to the boards, sign up, pick out a comfy chair and post a comment or two.
The boxes are all packed, and everything is on the truck.
We're moving to our new home:
http://blog.theaggressiveprogressive.com
Our other address, www.democrats.tk will be repointed shortly to the new site.
Update: Democrats.tk is now repointed, so you may use it.
For those who don't get our URL change, we'll continue to double post for a month before turning this into something of an annex.
Why move? Well aisde from all the constant issues with Blogger, we wanted to be more than just a blog, but rather a community. At the new AggPro, we have a forum, plus we offer the ability to allow you, once approved as a member, to post on our blog. There's other cool things such as newsfeeds and a picture gallery.
Come and post your thoughts, even if it is how full of crap you think we are.
Imagine my shock at a newspaper, The Delaware County Times, the same paper that compared Bernie Kerik to Mary Poppins ("perfect in every way") wrote in an editorial that the Neo-Cons lied about the ACLU trying to take Christmas away, lied about weapons of mass destruction and invented scandals during the Clinton years.
The full piece is here, but here's the best passage:
In the 24-hour world of cable TV "news," all too often the facts do not matter and spin is the king. It once again illustrates the old adage that if you say something often enough, people will believe it -- the same rationale that got us into Iraq to find the "weapons of mass destruction" and that flogged endless, and mostly groundless, "scandals" in the Clinton administration.
Editorial, The Delaware County Times, Dec. 30, 2004.
| |
