The Kansas Free Press

So, I guess I can't completely stay away from political blogging. Pam Pohly, editor of The Kansas Free Press website has asked me to be a blogger there. So, you might find me chiming in my two cents over there once in awhile.

Hello, Goodbye and my Doucheville Representatives

Howdy out there in blogger land. I think I'm done with Midwest Blues, at least for awhile. I'm tired, tired, tired of always being angry. The anger and divisiveness will certainly go on with or without me.

Besides, I've started a new blog that I'd love for you to bookmark and tell your friends about. It's called Children's Entertainment Hell, where I'll be talking about the television shows, DVDs and books that you can enjoy with your children. Because I figure if we have to ingest this stuff with our kids, we might as well not want to gouge out our own eyes while doing it. There's no potty language or anything. But I'm still a smartass.

I thought I'd close out Midwest Blues by noting that Kansas Senators Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback BOTH voted against a bill put forth by Minnesota senator Al Franken that would deny work for government contractors who don't allow their employees to sue if they are raped by a coworker.

This was all spurred because a female employee of Haliburton was gang raped by coworkers in Iraq, who then locked her in a shipping container to keep her from telling. When she finally got back to the States and tried to sue Haliburton, it was found that she had previously signed a contract that denied her the right to sue the company.

Apparently Sam and Pat think it's unfair for women to take advantage of companies in the legal arena. Asshats.

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Re-rethinking Afghanistan

Am I the only progressive in America who thinks the U.S. should be in Afghanistan?

I think it’s a huge mistake for progressives to put so much pressure on President Obama to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. Iraq? Fine. Let’s get the hell out of Iraq. To me, though, Afghanistan is clearly a different story.

Let’s take a short trip back in time, shall we?

Way back in 1996 the religious cult known as the Taliban took over much of the government of Afghanistan. This religious cult then forced its extreme religious ideas on much of the country, forcing women to leave their jobs, and cover themselves from head to toe with the piece of clothing known as the burqua. Women became prisoners in their own homes and were not allowed to leave unless accompanied by a close male relative. Women were, and have been, tortured, killed and intimidated under the rule of the Taliban.

These are all things that America stands against. The three things America hates more than anything else are communism, dictatorship and religion enmeshed with government, especially when that religion isn’t Christianity. So you’d think that Afghanistan would be a prime target for U.S. intervention. But we didn’t intervene in Afghanistan, because A) we figured it was none of our business and B) we tend to only intervene in other countries' businesses when we have economic incentive to do so.

On September 11, 2001, it became our business when the Taliban attacked the U.S. and killed more than 3,000 U.S. citizens.

We sent troops in to find the leader of the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden, and bring him to justice. We failed to do so. We ousted the Taliban, but only temporarily. Today, Taliban forces threaten to take over Afghanistan yet again.

Have U.S. forces done everything correctly in Afghanistan? Of course not. Have we killed innocent civilians there? Absolutely. Have we bombed the country into oblivion, as has happened to that country so many times in its history? You betcha.

Do we owe it to the Afghanistan people to proceed more carefully, remove the Taliban from that country once and for all and restore the country to the Afghani people? I believe we do owe that to the Afghan people.

And we’d have the troops and the money to do so if we hadn’t been fucking around in Iraq for the last six years.

I’d love to hear from other progressives—and conservatives, for that matter—on this subject.

Missouri Sucks

Wow. It looks like our neighbors to the east are sniffing airplane glue again.

Congressman Alan Grayson is my Other New Hero

Finally. A Democrat with balls.

When asked to apologize to Republicans, Grayson replied that he would apologize to all the dead people who didn't have health coverage.

Wheee!