Speaking of Town Halls and the Pricks Who Attend Them...

Okay, maybe I was a little premature in saying that the steam was running out for the (dis)loyal opposition. My friend Debby reminded me of something that had happened two days earlier at our local town hall, and then sent me a video of a portion of Brian Baird's town hall in Vancouver...

It's not the whole thing, obviously, just a snippet of some jerkwad dickhead asshole ex-Marine "standing up" to Baird. So it turns out that the same prick jumped up at the Olympia town hall and pulled the "It's Not in the Constitution" card on Baird last Monday.

Check it out. The guy has his own YouTube site where he posts not only this crap but also apparently is an enabler of the whole Obama-Hitler-Health-Care-Equals-Nazis blah-blah--blah crowd, and -- surprise, surprise -- it turns out that he is also running against Baird for his seat in Congress.

Naturally I posted my own comment on this video:

I am also a disabled veteran (Vietnam) and I am proud to say, Mister Hedrick, that YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME!
I am for a single payer health care system. I get the best health care in the world in the VA system. Why can't my fellow Americans avail themselves of the same thing?
I am also a resident of Washington's Third Congressional District, and I will do my god damnedest to see that YOU are not elected as my congressman. No way, no where, no how!
Semper Fi, dude.

I really thought it would be shitcanned, never to see the light of day, but there it is, on his YouTube site.

Now, as much as I disagree with Brian Baird on SO many issues, I feel that am forced to join -- or start, if there isn't one already -- a Veterans for Brian Baird group, just to see this turdbrained asshole get his lunch handed to him on a silver platter.

I am fucking sick, as a matter of fact, of assholes like this pretending to speak for me as a disabled veteran. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to confront this prick when he disrupted Brian's town hall here in Olympia.

But, I get the feeling, that I'll still get my opportunity. It's a long time to the elections of 2010.

Stay tuned...

It's Not Too Late

Okay, I'm not particularly enthralled with the Health Care "Reform" bill. I really wouldn't be, since I'm a single-payer guy.

But I just emailed Brian Baird, my sit-on-the-fence congressman, and told him I wanted him to vote for it.

I can't imagine why he's still claiming he's "undecided", especially in light of the fact that he's not even running again this year.

So it's not too late for you to contact your representative and make your feelings known. Let's support a bill that is at least a step in the right direction. If this bill doesn't pass, the wingnut teabaggers will claim a "victory". Let's not let that happen.

PS -- Be sure to read Michael Moore's terrific open letter to the person who just happens to be his own congressman: My Congressman, Bart Stupak, Has Neither a Uterus Nor a Brain.

It's STILL Clinton's Fault!

Over on my hometown newspaper's website, there's a lively discussion about my congressman, one Brian Baird, who is nominally a Democrat, but who has now shifted position on the war and is siding with the BFEE. It woudn't surprise me to find some bloodstained dollars from Halliburton, et al. in his reelection war chest.

But I digress. On that discussion page some poor ignorant readers are still trying to blame Bill Clinton for the attacks on 9/11. Take a look at it, and then take a look at the incisive analysis Clinton, 9/11 and the Facts over at Truthout.org.

It's appalling that people are still stumbling over themselves in their pathetic attempts to continue blaming Bill Clinton for everything that's gone wrong in the last six years. Sorry, people, get over it. Admit that you are complicit in the crimes of the BFEE as long as you continue to support that giggling murder monkey currently squatting in the White House.

Light Posting Week: VOTE!

I was in the dentist's chair for three hours on Wednesday, the result of a collision in my mouth between two molars and a renegade taco shell, with the result that I am having to get two crowns installed.

So, after three hours of Marathon Man dental torture, I now have two temporary crowns that look like little tombstones inserted into my lower jaw.

Needless to say, I wasn't fit company even for rabid badgers for a couple of days, and now I'm involved almost full time in getting Patty Murray reelected in her race against two-time loser and wingnutdarling capitalist-pig crypto-fascist horse's-ass Dino Rossi, and in keeping Washington's Third Congressional District in the hands of the Democrats, replacing retiring Democratic congressman Brian Baird (whom I really didn't like anyway) with longtime Democrat Denny Heck, who is running against a bubblehead Rethug who is all of 30 years old and a fulltime professional moron who gets rattled and can't think on her feet if she has to deviate from the pre-digested KarlRovian talking points her handlers stick into her face.

So I won't be posting much the next week. But I'll be back after the election night victory party which will take place a week from Tuesday. I'll have a hangover, but I'll be back...

And in the meantime, everyone: Please vote. This is not the year to sit on your hands and allow the Rethugs to take over. Yeah, I've heard the argument that we ought to allow the Rethugs and Teabaggers to take over and finally "show" the American people and the Democratic Party that they really can't be trusted.

Bullshit.

Jesus, people, wake up! How many bites of a shit sandwich do you need to take to know that you will always get a mouthful of shit until you change your diet?

And it is still not too late to make a difference. Get active, contact your local Democratic Party and volunteer to do some doorbelling or phone banking. We ought to be contacting each and every voter to urge them to vote, especially for our candidates, but history shows that the larger the general turnout in an election, the larger the aggregate vote will be for progressives on the ballot.

-- The F Man

Update on It's Not Too Late

After my phone calls and email yesterday, my US Rep, Brian Baird, said this morning he'd vote for the Health Care bill.

Naturally I'm taking all the credit for this...

Another Week, Another Town Hall. Ho Hum.

Last night I went to Brian Baird, my own congressman's, town hall. Due to family obligations, I had to miss the one here in my own city, so I had to drive a few miles to the south and attend the town hall in the next county over.

Of course there was someone from "the other side" taking names ... in a way -- she demanded of everyone coming through the door where they lived. My buddy Ralph told her he lived in Thurston County, "which is part of the Third Congressional District" he added, as a reminder to the neandethals living in Lewis County that they are not the center of the universe. In return he got a sneer that silently called him a carpetbagger. Or worse.

I just uttered a guttural "third district" and pushed past her. Somewhat to her surprise and chagrin, it appeared.

The town hall, by the way, was held in the auditorium of the local community college, which, surprisingly, is now the home of the controversial "Twelve Labors of Hercules" mural. The mural, an almost-abstract study in black and white, adorned the state House of Representatives chamber for a number of years. Until the Republicans took over the state government and then, in true form, found the murals "pornographic" and draped them. After almost ten years, the community college in Centralia adopted them and now they are on display there.

So it was good to see them again, still alive, after all these years.

I think the steam is running out of the opposition. Since Lewis County is the home of that infamous Uncle Sam billboard and is top heavy with NRA guns-n-god wackos, I really expected more in the way of wingnut craziness -- you know, this health care proposal goes against the constitution, Obama is out to enslave us, the Democrats are gonna take away our goddam guns, blah blah blah. But by and large, even though the knuckledraggers outnumbered the smart people about 4 to 1, the crowd was pretty well-behaved.

Damn it. I was hoping for some of that good old fashioned fascist-thug-shouting-down-the-opposition stuff.

Town Hall Meeting Shocker

I just got home from a "town hall" type of meeting with my congressman, Brian Baird (Washington 3rd). He's a smart, personable, even-tempered guy who's good at thinking on his feet, which I guess is why he keeps winning elections. He and I have disagreed over the years on some issues (e.g., Terri Shiavo, flag burning), but he's in the forefront of fighting for veterans' benefits, supporting veterans' issues and funding veterans' health care, so by and large he's way better than whatever knuckledragger the Repugs have thrown -- or can throw -- up against him.

But he told an absolutely appalling story about what happened when he and his wife attempted to travel to Kuwait to make a personal visit to a group of National Guard troops from right here in this district who had been deployed to Kuwait and were on the verge of going into Iraq.

He contacted the commanding general of Task Force Olympia and was told that they would not allow him to make an official visit as a congressman and not be able to ask questions of the troops because -- get this -- That fat bastard, the Squeaker of the Hose, one Denny Fat-boy Clogged-arteries Supersize-me Make-that-three-triple- cheeseburgers Hastert issued an edict that no Democratic congressman could speak to the troops without a Repugnican sewer rat being present.

And people still wonder why we need to get that slavering pack of corrupt GOP bastards out of there.