Rahm Wants Your Support….and your money

Update: (3/2) Wow! I actually received a reply.

Dear [PA Lady],

Thank you for your comments and we certainly understand your frustration. We hope that over the coming weeks and months we can prove to you our commitment to a strong message, firm convictions, and a truly new vision for America. We have no problem with you wanting to wait until you see a new Democratic Party before joining our Campaign for Change; we just hope that you’ll pay attention to our efforts and, if we can change your mind, that you’ll join in as we attempt to take back the House next November.

Sincerely,

DCCC Action Team

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I received an email today from Rahm Emanuel, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Here’s an excerpt:

Dear [PA Lady],

Nine Of The Ten Most Vulnerable House Seats Are Held By Republicans. We Can Win This November. Support Our Grassroots Campaign Today!

The Republicans’ hold on Washington, D.C. is slipping and I can
feel the momentum building towards a Democratic victory this November.

The irresponsible and incompetent policies of Bush and the Rubber Stamp
Congress are placing America’s future at risk …

We have an Administration more interested in using 9/11 as a political issue than taking real steps to secure our ports and borders. We have a Congressional leadership that’s afraid to ask the corporate special interests to harden potential terrorist targets like nuclear and chemical plants. The courageous men and women of our armed forces are engaged in a poorly planned war, ill equipped and poorly supplied and serving without the benefit of a clear exit strategy.

And, real American values that reward hard work, foster personal integrity and honor individual sacrifice for community and country are mocked, belittled and held in contempt by corrupt Republicans and the “greed-is-good” philosophy that rules in today’s Republican-dominated Washington, D.C. (…)

Interspersed throughout were the usual pleas for money.

This was my response:

Dear Mr. Emanuel,

Where HAVE you been?? The current Congressional Democrats, with few exceptions, are as much a part of the “Rubber Stamp Congress” as the scandal-ridden Republicans!

Where were the Democrats during the Roberts nomination? During the Alito nomination, when a huge public outcry attracted the attention of 25 Senators?

Where were those spineless Congressional Democrats when the AUMF was approved? Where were they when it came to light that there weren’t – and never had been – any WMDs in Iraq?

Where were they when John Murtha stood up and said it was time set a withdrawal timetable to bring our troops home? Where were they went the Republican spin machine went into overdrive, smearing this patriotic and honorable Marine?

Spineless, gutless, yellow-bellied morons. Too busy ‘going along to get along’ to remember their constituents.

Be afraid, Mr. Emanuel, be very afraid. It’s time for a Congress that listens to its citizens WITHOUT checking to see which way the wind is blowing. A Congress that realizes it more than the president’s lackey.

Like many others, I will donate directly to specific candidates that I feel represent my interests and those of other voters. Ned Lamont and Ciro Rodriguez among others.

I will not spend a single cent helping a group that has done NOTHING to help America.

Sincerely yours,
[PA Lady]

Bush ‘hearts’ the troops….really.

From firedoglake:

The WaPo is reporting this morning that more than one in three American servicepeople report suffering from mental distress after returning from Iraq.

(snip)

This is shameful, and something that your representatives in Congress ought to hear about. And something that would make a great issue for a letter to the editor in your local newspaper or a call to a local talk radio show. Our soldiers risk their lives day in and day out — they deserve a helluva lot better from this Administration than a deliberately underfunded system of support year after year.

We knew going into Afghanistan and Iraq that the number of injured veterans was likely to rise — as it always does when you engage in an armed conflict. That this Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress failed to plan for this increase — by budgeting and staffing adequately for it up front — is dishonest and wrong. And it dishonors the veterans who put their lives and their limbs on the line for all of us. Shame on Congress and the President for failing our veterans at a time when they need us most. For shame. …

From Wonkette:

Folks, our fighting boys need your help. Here’s the email we received today from
one of them:

“Just to let you know, the US Marines have blocked access
to“Wonkette” along with numerous other sites such as personal email (i.e. Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail, etc), blogs that don’t agree with the government point of view, personal websites, and some news organizatons.”

Bush Wrong, Murtha Right….again

Stars and Stripes is reporting that a new Zogby poll shows 72% of US troops support withdrawal from Iraq within a year.

The survey of 944 troops, conducted in Iraq between Jan. 18 and Feb. 14, said that only 23 percent of servicemembers thought U.S. forces should stay “as long as they are needed.”

Of the 72 percent, 22 percent said troops should leave within the next six months, and 29 percent said they should withdraw “immediately.” Twenty-one percent said the U.S. military presence should end within a year; 5 percent weren’t sure.

That same survey found that 42% of the troops are unsure of their mission, and an astonishing 85% believe the Iraq invasion was retaliation for Saddam Hussein’s role in 9/11.

“We were surprised by that, especially the 85 percent [figure],” Zogby said. “Clearly that is much higher than the consensus among the American public, and the public’s perception [on that topic] is much higher than the actual reality of the situation.”

In terms of current operations, 80 percent of those polled said they did not hold a negative view of all Iraqis because of the ongoing attacks against coalition military forces.

More than 43 percent of those polled said their equipment, such as Humvees, body armor and munitions, is adequate for the jobs facing them, while 30 percent said it is not.

(snip)

Of those surveyed, 75 percent have served multiple tours in Iraq, 63 percent were under 30 years old, and 75 percent were male.

What Civil War??

The Washington Post is reporting that Iraqi Shiites are being evicted from their homes in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods, threatened with death if they fail to do so. Read more at msnbc.com.

Salim Rashid, 34, a Shiite laborer in an overwhelmingly Sunni Arab village 20 miles north of Baghdad, received his eviction notice Friday from a man at the door with a rocket launcher.

“It’s 6 p.m.,” Rashid recounted the masked man saying then, as retaliatory violence between Shiites and Sunnis exploded across wide swaths of central Iraq. “We want you out of here by 8 p.m. tomorrow. If we find you here, we will kill you.”

Walking, hitchhiking and hiring cars, the Rashid clan and many of the 25 other families evicted from the town of Mishada had made their way by Tuesday to a youth center in Baghdad’s heavily Shiite neighborhood of Shoula. There, other people forced from their homes were already sharing space on donated mattresses.

(snip)

Fearing the same fate, nine Shiite families in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, were packing up Tuesday afternoon.

“Armed men left a threatening letter at my doorstep,” said Hussein Mohammed Ali, loading his pickup truck.