One of the great bumper stickers of the Presidential Campaign was "Democrats Care". Let us not forget this slogan as we continue to do our work at making this country a better place for all. We must not be misguided and lose focus on the needy of our communities and farms. We should be concerned about sick children. Dads and moms without adequate incomes and people at or below poverty levels who are crying for help. Companies who outsource, raid pensions, and declare bankruptcy must be called to task for their lack of patriotism. Turning our backs on those who are in need and concentrating on those who have no needs must be changed.. Closing down schools and failing to provide students with the necessities for learning must be reversed. Turning our backs on the Veterans by denying them access to medical care and failing to provide food/shelter/insurance/ income for their families should enrage us all. We must show that we truly have values of fairness, compassion, work ethic, honesty, patriotism, godliness, freedom and independence. We must remember that "Tough Love" is no substitute for "Unconditional Love." Too many times, tough love means no love at all and allows the caregiver an excuse to escape his responsibilities. Unconditional love sets no performance standards or conditions for our attention. Unconditional love means no abandonment of those in need. Unconditional love promotes the independence and self-respect of the individual. It is the difference between law and gospel. Another slogan of the past campaign was "Hope Is On The Way", "Help Is On The Way'. Let this resonate throughout the Democratic Party for it is then we will gain our own self respect, direction, return to days of yesteryear and begin to win national elections again. Let it begin with me.

Karl Rove-Ken Mehlman, Etal... It does appear as with all legal defense postures that the accused and his legal advisors seek to isolate the damage, rephrase the question, deny wrong doing, and to rationalize the alleged offense. At the same time, the prosecutors seek to widen the charges to include everyone involved and to develop additional information that would lead to the prosecution of all who were involved. John W. Dean of the Nixon White House Watergate era has written a book called, "Worse Than Watergate.. The Secret Presidency Of George W. Bush" ..."Even back then they were asking questions about him. (Rove). I had never heard of Rove, but assistant Watergate special prosecutor Richard Davis--who was investigating political dirty tricks such as leaking stolen campaign information, infiltrating an opponent's campaign operations during the presidential primaries, and using unidentified negative campaign advertisements--had Rove on his radar. The questions ...continue reading

I am not buying as much gasoline as I was a month ago. At our house we have cut down on unneccessary driving and find that it is not only has a beneficial effect on our budget but we have more time at home. If I heard correctly, the cost of producing a barrel of oil in Iran is onlyt $2.00. My mathematics and economics studies all show that if this is the case and you can sell that barrel for $60.00; money can be made taxes or no taxes. Depletion allowances or no depletion allowances. It appears also that we are importing gasoline as well as oil into this country. This evidently is due to the inability of the refineries to keep up with demand.

The question is not if we are to have a mililtary draft. It is when will we hav a military draft. This is my guestimation based upon past wars. We are in need of additonal troops and it appears that the All Volunteer Army is not as enticing for recruits as it was some years ago. "What is your draft status"; could be heard and seen on application forms and in general useage soon unless I miss my guess..

  This latest news report (See further below) of the Republican attack on Public Television - the only TV media in the U.S. receivable off cable as well as on cable that gives indepth news coverage not influenced by corporate interests - is cause for deep concern. Not only are intellectually and morally honest news reporters like Bill Moyers being cut out of public broadcasting but it appears that there is a movement to eliminate public broadcasting all together, leaving only FOX news and other rightwing broadcasters to dominate the American air waves. We lived in a South American country for seven years and visited in other countries including Castro's Cuba and Ortrega's Nicaragua where idealogically extremist governments controlled the news media as propaganda organs for the government. Media which dared to present perspectives that differed from that of the dictators were shut down or blown up and opposition leaders were executed. We lived through and ...continue reading

My name is Carl Olsen and I'm the new web master for the Polk County Iowa Democratic Party web site.  I'm a local web developer, but I did not develop this web site.  The web site is packaged software, so my knowledge of its inner workings is limited.  I program primarily with PHP on Linux and Apache, and those are the technologies that were used in the creation of this software.  So, I may or may not be able to answer your questions, but feel free to ask. Welcome to the blog! Carl Olsen http://www.carl-olsen.com/