Keep those letters to your representatives coming!

Ok, I know it's a "form letter" response, but obviously there have been enough people writing to members of our government that they had to come up with a form letter on how they are going to act towards Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment for President Bush.

I know it seems like there is not a chance in hell that anything might not happen, but we have to at least keep trying to make Bush accountable for his actions. If for nothing else media exposure to let the people of this country know that he is not just some dimwitted fool (though, I'm not taking that away from him), but he also withheld crucial information and lied not only to Congress, but to the American people about many things but most importantly our reasons for invading Iraq.

Keep the letters coming!

Why I care about the 5-4 ruling, and how it effects me personally.

Roughly a week after September 11 I received a voicemail on my cell phone indicating that I needed to call the local FBI back to have a conversation. I didn’t think anything of it because I thought it was just one of my friends screwing around with me. The next day to FBI officials rang my door bell at my house in East Boston, MA, which was less then a mile away from Logan Airport. I was surprised to say the least. They starting asking me questions and held up pictures of the hijackers and asked me if I knew them. I answered their questions, and told them that I had only seen the pictures on the news in the days right after the attack. Finally they told me that a neighbor had told them that “A muslim looking guy moved in next to door some months ago. I never see anyone go in or out of the house during the day, but on the weekends I see a lot of people over there.” That is what they had to go on. I explained to them that I usually went into work between one or two, and I usually came home at around three or four in the morning because that is the schedule I liked to keep as the International project manager for a telecommunication company, and of course being young and owning a house let me have quite a few parties when I was not working. They called some of my friends, and even talked to my boss at the time and I had thought that this was the end of it.

Before I continue let me give you some background information. I’m a brownie - meaning my parents are both Indian, but I was born in the United States. I guess for some people the name, Vinod Tonangi, sounds slightly islamic. I have no idea, nor do I care. though I was raised Hindu I am a non-believer of any organized religion. I thought it was an isolated incident and I forgot about it. After leaving my old position I had started my own telecommunication company, and worked with people all over the world. Working with technically integrated societies was just not as profitable as emerging societies because telecommunication costs were already low and did not leave me any room for a significant margin. I preferred to work with countries that were, at the time, less technology advanced. Some of these countries were Brazil, Kenya, and Eastern Europe, however many of these countries I worked with were also in the middle east such as Syria, Jordan, and Iran. I received a shocking letter indicating that I was currently under investigation under Homeland Security because I had wired a money to a telecommunication company in Iran. Since this was now the second time I had this issue I was quite scared after hearing stories of what has happened to other innocent people in the current Administration, but I quickly sent them all the information that they asked for. I included contracts, invoices, email discussions, and a summary of what my relationship was with the company in question. This happened almost two years ago. Today Homeland Security still holds the money in question, and whenever I ask for an update they tell me it is “still under review”.

I understand the government should follow any and all leads, and I am happy to provide them information if they require it. I also understand the fact that I being a brownie may single me out to get “random” checks in the airport, or the fact that they always stare at my passport for 15 minutes since I have visited quite a few countries during my position as international project manager for a previous company, but my fear was that if I was incorrectly implicated in any crime I would never be able to tell anyone my case. It would have been quite easy for the government to freeze all my business bank account, by personal bank account, or even take my house. I was not just worried for me, but for my wife who besides working for my company has never worked for another American company in her life. I met her while I was living in Eastern Europe working on a project.

“The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion.”

Statements like this from Alberto Gonzales, and the increasing removal of our civil rights such as the Patriot Act continued to make me cringe. When I read that the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling instated some of our precious civil rights that I used to take for granted when I was younger, I was ecstatic. People always ask me why I am so passionate about Barack Obama becoming our next president, and I have to answer them that not only am I a political geek, but this is an extremely personal issue for me, and I know other supporters are very passionate because it is personal them. If you forget about your political loyalty for one minute, and just focus on the facts it is easy to see that we should have never lost as many as our rights as we did after the attack in September. I’m glad to see that we, as a country, are now trying to correct the injustices that many of us agreed to when we lived in a state of fear. I applaud the Supreme Court, albeit a quiet applause due to the close ruling, and I hope our elected legislative officials continue the trend.

It’s starting to feel like America again.

Why women won't vote for John McCain

To all of your frustrated Hillary Clinton supporters: Everyone understands that you are upset that the 1st woman to really have a chance to become president lost the nomination, and it was close...damn close, but now you have to realize that Obama is by far a much better leader then John McCain.

Realize that McCain does not care if he sends your brothers, husbands, sons, and daughters to Iraq, or even to Iran, as he doesn't think it is "too important" when they come back home. John McCain will inevitably nominate supreme court justices that will overturn Rowe vs. Wade. McCain also believes public funding for abortion or for organizations that advocate for abortion, should be prohibited - BUT you knew all this information right? Well, I hope you did, but I'm sure you probably didn't know this:

McCain Voted to Gut the Family and Medical Leave Act. In 1993, before finally voting for the Family and Medical Leave Act, McCain voted to jeopardize leave for millions of workers by gutting the bill. He voted to suspend the Family and Medical Leave Act unless the federal government certified that compliance would not increase business expenses or provide financial assistance to businesses to cover any related costs.

McCain said President Bush's Veto on SCHIP was "the right call." The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, was established by the federal government ten years ago to provide health insurance to children in families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. The Democratic leadership of Congress in 2007 proposed a massive expansion of SCHIP that would have extended federal health insurance coverage to children in families making as much as $82,600 per year, which ultimately would have made 71 percent of America's children eligible for federal health insurance assistance, a form of welfare. The Congressional leadership proposed funding this dramatic expansion with an increase in the tobacco tax. It was vetoed by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2007. Sen. John McCain, told CNN he agreed with President Bush's veto of legislation expanding a children's health insurance program, saying the bill provided a "phony smoke and mirrors way of paying for it." He later said "Right call by the president."

McCain opposed spending $100 million to prevent unintended and teen pregnancies. In 2005, McCain voted NO to allocate $100 million to expand access to preventive health care services that reduce the numbers of unintended and teen pregnancies and reduce the number of abortions. So he's not only aganist abortions but he is also aganist finding out how to prevent them?

McCain opposed legislation requiring that abstinence-only programs be medically accurate and scientifically based.
McCain voted NO on legislation that would help reduce the number of teen pregnancies by providing funding for programs to teach comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education and other programs to prevent unintended teen pregnancies.

McCain opposed requiring insurance coverage of prescription birth control.
In 2003, McCain voted NO on legislation to improve the availability of contraceptives for women and to require insurance coverage of prescription birth control.

McCain Opposed Equal Pay Bill for Women. In April 2008 Sen. John McCain skipped the vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which “restores the longstanding interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act,” overturned last year by a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. McCain explained his opposition to the bill by claiming it “opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems.” Later, he added that instead of legislation allowing women to fight for equal pay, they simply need "education and training".

“They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else,” McCain said. “And it’s hard for them to leave their families when they don’t have somebody to take care of them. It’s a vicious cycle that’s affecting women, particularly in a part of the country like this, where mining is the mainstay; traditionally, women have not gone into that line of work, to say the least,” he said.
The issue was not “education and training.”

When denied equal pay by her supervisor, Lilly Ledbetter was doing the exact same job as her male counterparts and received numerous performance-based awards.

...and finally

The New York Times Web site reported the following exchange with a reporter in Iowa in March 2007:

Q: "What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush's policy, which is just abstinence?"

McCain: (Long pause) "Ahhh. I think I support the president's policy."

Q: "So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?"

McCain: (Long pause) "You've stumped me."

Need I say more?

Do what is fair, and right. The president must be held accountable.

The following is my letter that I have sent to members of the media, senators, and representatives of Congress. I urge you to do the same. Feel free to "borrow" the text below. Here is a link to contact your representative.

I am writing to you as a married, 29 year old small business owner, living in New Jersey on behalf on not only myself but on behalf of the majority of Americans in the Unites States, and those living abroad. I represent a large group of concerned citizens, and we believe the president must be held accountable for the crimes he has committed. It is now well known that both current President George W. Bush, and Vice President Richard Cheney lied to the American public about the intelligence that was known to the White House in the weeks and months that followed after 9/11.

A recently released Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SIC) report has accused President Bush and Vice President Cheney of knowingly making untrue statements leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The report concluded:

• President Bush said that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership that was not substantiated by the intelligence.
• Both Bush & Cheney misrepresented what was known about Iraq’s chemical weapons capabilities.
• Former Donald Rumsfeld misrepresented what the intelligence community knew when he said Iraq’s weapons productions facilities were buried deeply underground.
• Cheney's claim that the intelligence community had confirmed that lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 was simply not true.
  

In addition to the SIC report there is a wealth of other information that is general knowledge yet has not yet been portrayed as the real truth about the Iraq War. Here are some of those facts:

• Prior to the Iraqi occupation UN nuclear inspectors have repeatedly contradicted claims made by the White House. They concluded the notorious aluminum tubes former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said were for uranium-enrichment centrifuges were actually conventional 122-mm rocket artillery casings. According to UN Resolution 687 after the Gulf war, Iraq is permitted missiles with a range of 150 km. The U.S. charges Iraq is testing missiles that have flown 14-20 km farther.

• On September 8, 2002 Scott Ritter, the UN's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, told the Sunday Herald that between 90% and 95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were destroyed by the UN. He believes the remainder were probably used or destroyed during 'the ravages of the Gulf War'. Ritter has described himself as a 'card-carrying Republican' who voted for George W Bush. Nevertheless, he has called the president a 'liar' over his claims that Saddam Hussein is a threat to America. Ritter has also alleged that the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons emits certain gases, which would have been detected by satellite.

• There was no immediate nuclear weapons threat from Iraq. In April of 1992, the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded Iraq was "at least three years away from making one crude atomic weapon.", yet Bush is quoted stating: "Every day that passes brings Saddam one step closer to realizing his goal of a nuclear weapons arsenal."

• The White House claimed that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger and that this was evidence of a renewed nuclear weapons program, however President Bush had been informed by intelligence officials months before his speech that the sale never took place and that the documentary evidence had been forged.

• President Bush was informed on September 21, 2001 in a secret President's Daily Brief that there was no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda. Congress did not even learn of the existence of this PDB until summer 2004. The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the White House for the CIA assessment, the PDB of September 21, 2001, and dozens of other PDBs as part of the committee's ongoing investigation into whether the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information in the run-up to war with Iraq. The Bush administration has refused to turn over these documents. Despite secretly knowing there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, days before a congressional vote authorizing the war, Bush said "Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert." And he added "you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."

• Vice President Cheney said that a September 11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center, had met in Prague, in the Czech Republic, with a senior Iraqi intelligence agent, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, five months before the attacks. On December 9, 2001, Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press: It's pretty well confirmed that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in [the Czech Republic] last April, several months before the attack." Cheney continued to make the charge, even after he was briefed, according to government records and officials, that both the CIA and the FBI discounted the possibility of such a meeting.

• Eye Witness reports such as former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan who wrote that President Bush, Karl Rove, and other top administration officials were "involved" in misleading the White House press corps about the outing of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame. He also stated that while he was lied to by Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, President Bush admitted his role in the leak during a candid conversation.

The U.S. Constitution provides for impeachment of any President or Vice President who commits “high crimes and misdemeanors.” This applies to any serious abuses of power. President Bush and Vice President Cheney have clearly committed numerous specific federal crimes while in office, especially a Conspiracy to Defraud the United States. Conspiracy to Defraud the United States is a specific federal crime prohibited by Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. It is an agreement to use deceit and misrepresentation to “obstruct or impair” the normal functioning of government. It has been charged numerous times, including against defendants in the Watergate case and the Iran/contra scandal.

I believe that it is clear to see that the President and the Vice President are definitely guilty of committing of misrepresenting the truths of not only when it came to big issues like Iraq, but during the entire administration. Whether you are Republican, or a Democrat it is inconceivable that your conscious would allow this to be done to our Constitution, our Country, and our People without holding the people responsible for these crimes responsible for their actions.

It is time to do what is fair, and right.
We must not set a precedent of allowing our President to deceive the people, and to disregard the Constitution of the United States.

Thank you for your time,

Vinod Tonangi

Obama is declared the nominee, but Hillary is still in.

Barack Obama is now officially the democratic nominee, however Hillary Clinton, despite earlier reports from the Associated Press, did NOT concede. On BigRedMat I've never supported the idea of shortening the primary season to begin "the healing process", but I believe yesterday, June 3rd, was the right time for Hillary Clinton to officially endorse Barack Obama, and the fact that she did not do it yesterday, even after he surpassed the needed delegate count, continues the animosity, and in some cases anger between the two groups of supporters.

I think even Obama supporters, such as myself, realize that Obama won by an incredibly small margin, and that Obama will need to attract Clinton's supporters over to his side in order to win the general election. Hillary Clinton's supporters are enthusiastic, dedicated, and loyal, but unfortunately many of them are also angry, sad, and feel disenfranchised. There is definitely a need to bring her supporters over to the Obama side, but I disagree that the best way to accomplish this is to bring Clinton to the Obama ticket as his Vice President.

Remember that we have elections not simply to brag that we have won or lost, but to actually accomplish something in the future. I agree that an Obama/Clinton ticket would be all but unstoppable in November, but Hillary Clinton does not like living in the background, not even when she was the First Lady during her husband's presidency. Their disagreements over healthcare, social security, presidential negotiation tactics, and the war in Iraq, to name a few would be hard to stomach when it comes time for a Vice President to push the president's agenda.

In the end I believe that most Clinton supporters will vote for Barack Obama. I am sure there will be a small percentage of them that will stay home, and it will be quite hard for Obama's campaign to bring them back to the voting booths, but Clinton can help Obama starting now. In the end it is not only in the party's best interest, or even in the country's best interest, it is also in her best interest.

If Hillary Clinton is perceived as hurting the Obama campaign because of her lack of endorsement, she will not have many friends left in the democratic party. Some of her supporters already think that she should have conceded weeks ago, and the simple action of saying that she will not "make any decisions tonight" hurts the party, the country, and her chances of holding any significant political office. By not graciously exiting and getting behind Obama she is being perceived as blackmailing her way into his administration and that is pure poppycock.