I’m just a 6th grade school teacher trying to pay for gas for my wife and myself along with all the bills, and contributing to election campaigns definitely puts a strain on the budget. In 2006 I sent money to several different Democratic congressional candidates thinking that getting the congress out of the control of republicans was imperative. I’m a life long independent voter, but I came to the conclusion after bush was put into office by the Supreme Court that my years of indifference were unacceptable and that I needed to participate more fully in the process that I teach my students they are responsible in when they become adults. I started reading books about what is going on with our government and that accelerated when bush decided to relive Viet Nam by invading Iraq. The Viet Nam experience is what led to my indifference toward “my” government in the first place and I realized that my lack of participation plus that of many of my peers had allowed the first invasion of a country which had not threatened us or invaded us in the history of this great nation. Once I sent the money in to the different candidates I started getting barraged by mailers from other members of Congress who seem to have an unlimited access to the postal service. Then I started getting calls from the democratic party requesting money, which I’m sure I would have given had they fulfilled the promises I understood them to make during the 2006 election. I, and I believe millions of other Americans, fully understood and understand the complexity of trying to deal with these republicans who are trying to block every initiative possible. My disappointment with the democrats unwillingness to put an end to the war in Iraq has become overshadowed by my anger at their unwillingness to defend the constitution against the assaults by gw bush and his associates. Today, as I was driving around, I heard a sound bite on the radio of Nancy Pelosi saying “If someone could show that a crime has been committed, we would proceed with impeachment.” ………………………………. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, NANCY?!!!!! Seriously, you’ve got to be kidding, right?! The fact that I saw gw bush stand in front of a TV camera and admit to spying on Americans without a warrant, there’s one for you. And how about admitting to torturing so-called “enemy combatants?” I guess the fact that someone in Pakistan received $5000 for saying his despised neighbor was a member of Al Qaeda makes that person something less than a human being and allows us (that’s anyone reading this, myself, Pelosi, and any other citizen of this country) to do things to them that we have put leaders from other nations into the Hague for war tribunals (rumor has it that you, Nancy, were aware of this program from the start and the reason it’s “off the table” is because you’re complicit by default in the torture). Is not lying about reasons for going to war with a toll of over 4100 of our best dead and tens of thousands wounded, not to mention as many as one million Iraqi’s dead, two million refugees, another two million internally displaced, not to mention the utter destruction of the infrastructure of their country – is that not a crime? And what about the no bid contracts for their buddies in Iraq where bush’s private contractors are fleecing our taxpayers by the hundreds of millions, probably billions of dollars, while millions of our own citizens have no health care, our economy is crumbling, the infrastructure of our nation is crumbling and we can’t afford to deal with these issues, there’s no crime there? No one ever investigated the Enron collapse and everyone knows that bush was right in the middle of that. We got 8 years of whitewater, a stinking failed land deal that hurt no one but the fools who invested in it, but nothing, not a singel investigation that I’m aware of, on Enron which destroyed the retirement accounts of untold Americans. Where are the democrats? Have they no spine at all? Are they afraid they won’t get re-elected if they stand up to the most unpopular president in history? You’ve got to be kidding me. What kind of precedent are they leaving behind this congress? The members of the bush administration basically flip off congress when called to testify about their actions, and Pelosi even blocks contempt of congress charges. This is the first woman to be in a position with this much power and I’m afraid she will set back the cause of women in top leadership roles beyond my imagination by cow-towing to bush. The aftermath of their criminal behavior can not go unpunished! How can we allow any future president to think that they can just do whatever they feel like and to hell with congress? I really don’t get it. The last time the democratic party called me and asked me for money, well let me just say, I’ll be surprised if they call me again. The last thing I want them to think is that I’m for whatever they want just because I don’t like bush. I expected them to stand up for the constitution and as far as I’m concerned they are falling into a category that is worse than the republicans. I expected them (republicans) to fall into line behind bush and his cronies, I just didn’t expect the democrats to do the same. As far as I’m concerned the democrats need to stand up and be counted. It seems like they won’t do anything unless they can get a “veto proof” congress. The way they are acting I don’t want them to have a veto proof congress – it’s like they want to recreate the same environment that the republicans had during the first 6 years of bush. Nancy, get with the program, please!!!!