I wanted to share with you my speech from the Senate floor today:

"That we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

It was Theodore Roosevelt who said this quote in 1918. It is an appropriate quote for the Senate to hear before we vote.

Today, we will vote on a way forward in Iraq, and I've come to the floor to speak in support of the Levin/Reed amendment. I believe it is long past time to change course in Iraq and start to end the President's open-ended commitment.   Read More »

Last week, Bush Republicans blocked contracting reform in the U.S. Senate on a party-line vote. Today, a jury has shown exactly why that reform is needed. David Safavian's conviction is a good first step, but the American people expect accountability and oversight of this White House.

For five years, we have watched the Bush Administration waste billions on mismanaged contracts in Iraq. Just this morning, we learned that his Secretary of Defense paid no attention to the largest defense procurement scandal in history--even though it happened under his nose. Amazingly, this afternoon Bush Republicans rejected creating a bipartisan commission to investigate contracting abuses on yet another party line vote. America has seen too much incompetence, cronyism, and corruption. It is time for real reform.

Somehow, this blogsphere has electronically coerced me into this strange place (along with our current politicians, who are struggling to save their jobs). I am totally against flagburning, and I am more against a constitutional amendment against flagburning. Same sex marriage seems very strange to me, but a constitutional amendendment against it seems even stranger. I live in Texas, and we have laws that prohibit same sex marriage, yet the electorate of my state passed a state constitutional amendment against it -- even though the state government has not been able to find a way to adequately fund K-12 education (the special legislative session called to devote its time to primary educational funding decided instead to put an amendment against gay marriage on the ballot).

Our politicians are failing us big-time. We are a one-party system (the republican party; democrats are pretty lame of late) who depend on propoganda ("we will stand down when the Iraqis stand up" "we are fighting them over there so we don't fight them here" estate tax = "death tax" (why not "Paris Hilton tax") "we won't cut and run" etc.)

The best propogandists have siezed control. It makes a mockery of democracy.

Iraq by the numbers

From Juliet Macur's remarkable profile of wounded soliders on the front page of Sunday's New York Times (APRIL, 06): "Explosions have killed 1,123 American service members in Iraq and have wounded at least 10 times more, often with a devastating combination of injuries -- ruptured organs and severed spines, obliterated limbs and burst eyeballs. Among the more than 16,653 Americans wounded in Iraq are 387 amputees."

From a short item inside the Times' business section Sunday: "No matter how one feels about this particular conflict, war always has winners and losers -- on both sides."

Some indisputable winners so far? Defense contractors.

Courtesy of the Times, here are six top defense contractors and the percentages by which their profits have increased since 2004:

Boeing (37.4 %)
Lockheed Martin (44.2 %)
General Dynamics (19.1 %)
Northrop Grumman (29.2 %)
Raytheon (108.9 %)
Halliburton (292.9 %)

-- Tim Grieve
Link

The men and women who work hard every day to make a living deserve the simple reward of security in their job. And, they deserve fairness in the workplace. As the son of a carpenter and a seamstress, this is a belief I hold deep in my heart. And it is because of this belief that I have fought against President Bush's callous outsourcing of American jobs overseas, privatization of our federal workforce, and calculated assaults on worker rights.   Read More »

Our valiant troops are now serving in the fourth year in Iraq. Day after day, they've demonstrated courage, skill and bravery. They don't ask for much, but all of us owe them a lot. And at the top of that list of the things we owe them is an honest debate about what's going on in Iraq.

Yesterday, Democrats offered an amendment to express the sense of the Senate that Iraq not grant amnesty to terrorists who kill our troops as part of their reconciliation plan. Our amendment came in response to reports that the Iraqi Prime Minister was in favor of such a proposal.   Read More »

Here we go! Restoring Democracy Begins Here Today
Step One: Democrats Playbook on Iraq War Debate:

The Republicans in Congress were WEAK on the war. They allowed the President to stiff arm them into a full blown war that was not related to the War on Terror. So they were both weak and stupid to allow him to fool them like that.

Now they expect the Democrats to be strong enough to clean up both the Presidents and the Republican Congresses MESS!! So, by all means, insist that the troops will have to stay there a bit longer because the President and Republican Congress have created a disaster area in Iraq and even in Afghanistan, the equivalent of a political Chernobyl nuclear meltdown that they cannot or do not have the guts to take care of themselves. They just keep digging the hole deeper.

So, Playbook Rules for Democrats now and into the elections: Democrats are being called on to replace Republicans so that some humanity and civility can be restored - Democrats have to clean up the Republican and Bush disaster area! Democrats = The Replacements for a weak Republican Congress!

Say that over and over as loudly as you can. Paint the Republicans as so pitifully weak that they can only start a fight, they can only create instability, they can only create disasters both in Iraq and here at home - THEY CANNOT CLEAN IT UP! They are pathetic.

Please put on your Demo-Capes and carry this message across the country and through all of those rancorous debates in the Congress.

Thank you
GordonH

I'm glad the President went to Iraq. It's good for our troops and the new Iraqi government. But in the fourth year of this war the American people are still waiting for the president to lay out a strategy that will stabilize Iraq, redeploy our troops, and refocus on threats that have been largely ignored by this Administration.

Last year, the Congress called on the President to make 2006 a year of significant transition in Iraq and yet halfway through this year, the President is simply maintaining the same tired mantra, 'as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.' Yet at the same time more Iraqi security forces are in the field, U.S. force levels have actually increased in recent weeks. This is not a real plan and is not acceptable. The President must take responsibility for laying out a strategy for stabilizing Iraq and bringing our troops home.

The American people have been blessed with the unique gift of harnessing individual power to achieve the impossible. A brief history of the twentieth century offers us proof. After years of economic hardship, the country united to defeat fascism and rebuild a continent torn apart by war. Only a few short years later, President Eisenhower laid the foundations for a national highway system that would unite the nation like never before, turning America into the economic and cultural power it was destined to become. President John F. Kennedy set the ambitious goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the sixties, and in the summer of 1969, Neil Armstrong made that dream a reality.   Read More »

For me, stem cell research is not only a public policy issue, but one that is profoundly personal, as well. It was a tremendous blow for my family when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It started small - she would forget a name or misplace her keys. Now, in the more advanced stages of the disease, it's simply heartbreaking for my sister, for my children and for me that she doesn't even recognize our faces.   Read More »

Are you guys in DC blind? You were interviewed on Sirius radio Harry and you failed the priority test...# 1 = border security (this is so we not only dont get run over by many millions of illegal aliens, but also to stem the flow of drugs, and possibly terrorists.) # 2 Go after the employers who are cheating social security and the IRS , a crime that sends normal people to jail.

If you want to add a small amount of amnesty based on proper filing of papers and background checks, so be it, BUT those are the priorities and you need to set this straight to run a valid campaign.

The PEOPLe are the only ones who are using common sense and we know where you politicians are coming from...

I'd like to thank my good friend, Senator Reid for giving me the opportunity to interact with everyone here at this site. The energy evident among the netroots is going to be vital in winning back control of Congress this fall and I will certainly be tapping into it. In fact, my own campaign blog should be up and running at Menendez2006.com before too long. We also have another useful site up at StandUpToBigOil.com that I encourage you to visit. Scott Shields of MyDD.com has joined our staff and will be blogging there regularly, along with myself and others. I hope you'll join us there. In the meantime, I'll be posting some of my thoughts on the state of our nation and the state of our campaign over the remainder of the week here at GiveEmHellHarry.com.

   Read More »

It was my pleasure tonight to attend the YearlyKos meeting in Las Vegas and hear a keynote address by Senate Minority Leader "Give 'em Hell" Harry Reid (D-NV). Not only that but I was even more delighted to have captured it on audio available at Link.

Known for his past platforms such as 'Training Teachers in Technology', the 'Democratic High Tech Working Group', the 'Defense Appropriations' bill, and the more recent 'Iran Intelligence Oversight Act', Senator Reid has long been know for his aggressiveness in the technology and defense fields. He has stated on many occasions that his primary goal for both Nevada and America is to create jobs for Americans through innovation and technology while holding each American (including our government) accountable for his actions and responsibilities.

The yearly Kos convention is billed as the first-ever national meeting of the online progressive community. It is being attended this year by some 1,000 bloggers, myself included. One of the reasons I was so anxious to be a part of this address tonight is the candor and respect given to the blogging community by Senator Reid himself. "I do believe that each day, they have more impact...one of the reasons I so admire them is they have the ability to spread the truth like no entities I've dealt with in recent years. We could never have won the battle to stop privatization of Social Security without them."

Please feel free to use this recording (either by link or by embedding the HTML from Evoca.com) in your own posting or blog. It was a great night and I would love to share it with as many bloggers as possible. Our voices are being heard!

drew.

:: speak up and speak out ::
:: www.evoca.com ::
:: www.drewandbritt.org ::

Only moments after voting to limit the debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment, Jim Talent sent out a fundraising solicitation touting his support for a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriages. In that letter, he states that a crisis was at hand and that the Democrat-led filibuster would not daunt his commitment to saving traditional marriage.

Even the media is calling this tactic exactly what it is - a political stunt designed to invigorate the Republican base. But, given the real crises facing our nation, why now? After all, we are in a war. Gas prices are at record highs. The deficit has exploded. Could the Republicans also be attempting to distract voters from the mess they've created in Washington?   Read More »

Harry, you are wrong again. The death tax benefits not only the rich but every american. How can you be wrong so many times.

Today the latest in a series of Red Herring's that the Republican majority will bring before the Senate this month. On Monday, it was the Marriage Amendment. Today, it is the Estate Tax. Later this month, we are told they will bring up a flag burning amendment.

While the issues change, my argument remains the same. There are a number of difficult issues facing the people of Nevada, but issues like estate tax are not high on that list. We are wasting precious days on these divisive issues when there are so many other matters that deserve and demand our attention.   Read More »

This past weekend, my opponent Jim Talent announced his candidacy for re-election to the U.S. Senate. While he said that his announcement tour would highlight his effectiveness at changing Washington for Missouri, he spent an unprecedented amount of time and energy launching negative and baseless attacks against me.

And it's no wonder, given how little Jim Talent has accomplished for Missouri since going to Washington 14 years ago. Despite his claims of being a force for change in Washington, Talent has been nothing more than a rubberstamp for President Bush and the big special interests. Missourians don't need to look any further than his voting record to see that Washington has changed Jim Talent much more than Jim Talent has ever changed Washington.   Read More »