A Letter To Me From Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Nashville, of course)

[DeSwiss]

I emailed a letter to Jim Cooper who is the Representive for Nashville, asking why his name was not on the letter (below), signed sent by 70 members of the House informing him that they will only support funding appropriations for the protection and redeployment of US troops. And here was his response:

Dear DeSwiss (not my real name):

Thanks for getting in touch with me to express your support for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

The impeachment of a sitting President and Vice President is a highly serious matter, and I believe it critically important to marshal all the evidence regarding acts of this Administration before any such proceedings begin.

As you may know, I signed a letter to the President demanding an explanation of this administration's actions and decisions involving the Valerie Plame incident.

I am equally troubled about the numerous instances of misconduct, misuse of intelligence, and the handling of the war by the President, Cabinet officials, and Administration staff.

I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue, and I will keep your views in mind when making decisions on this topic in the future. If you have additional concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me again in the future.

Sincerely,

Jim Cooper
Member of Congress

So he signed a letter complaining about Valerie? The covert CIA agent who was exposed by members of Bush's administration in violation of the law? That Valerie? Well, I'm sure Bush was really miffed after getting THAT letter. Right before he pardoned Libby. And misuse of intelligence? Does he mean Deborah Palfrey's phone records? And the "handling" of the war??? WTF???

I've written a few more times since I got this little missive, and he wants me to stay in touch. You saw what he said for yourself. So I'll keep on writing him until he says something substantive. Each week I plan to keep sending him a single email with a single word: IMPEACH!!!

Well, I suppose I should be glad that he at least realizes impeachment is a highly serious matter. But all I've got to say is, they better use the Constitution to get rid of this vermin before it gets cancelled. That's seriouser to me.....



House of Representatives letter informing Bush they will only support funding appropriations for the protection and redeployment of US troops:

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing to inform you that we will only support appropriating additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of all our troops out of Iraq before you leave office.

More than 3,600 of our brave soldiers have died in Iraq. More than 26,000 have been seriously wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured in the hostilities and more than 4 million have been displaced from their homes. Furthermore, this conflict has degenerated into a sectarian civil war and U.S. taxpayers have paid more than $500 billion, despite assurances that you and your key advisors gave our nation at the time you ordered the invasion in March, 2003 that this military intervention would cost far less and be paid from Iraqi oil revenues.

We agree with a clear and growing majority of the American people who are opposed to continued, open-ended U.S. military operations in Iraq, and believe it is unwise and unacceptable for you to continue to unilaterally impose these staggering costs and the soaring debt on Americans currently and for generations to come.

Sincerely,

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA); Rep. Barbara Lee (CA); Rep. Maxine Waters (CA); Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA); Rep. Rush Holt (NJ); Rep. Maurice Hinchey (NY); Rep. Diane Watson (CA); Rep. Ed Pastor (AZ); Rep. Barney Frank (MA); Rep. Danny Davis (IL); Rep. John Conyers (MI); Rep. John Hall (NY); Rep. Bob Filner (CA); Rep. Nydia Velazquez (NY); Rep. Bobby Rush (IL); Rep. Charles Rangel (NY); Rep. Ed Towns (NY); Rep. Paul Hodes (NH); Rep. William Lacy Clay (MO); Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR); Rep. Albert Wynn (MD); Rep. Bill Delahunt (MA); Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC); Rep. G. K. Butterfield (NC); Rep. Hilda Solis (CA); Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY); Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY); Rep. Michael Honda (CA); Rep. Steve Cohen (TN); Rep. Phil Hare (IL); Rep. Grace Flores Napolitano (CA); Rep. Alcee Hastings (FL); Rep. James McGovern (MA); Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH); Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL); Rep. Julia Carson (IN); Rep. Linda Sanchez (CA); Rep. Raul Grijalva (AZ); Rep. John Olver (MA); Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX); Rep. Jim McDermott (WA); Rep. Ed Markey (MA); Rep. Chaka Fattah (PA); Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (NJ); Rep. Rubin Hinojosa (TX); Rep. Pete Stark (CA); Rep. Bobby Scott (VA); Rep. Jim Moran (VA); Rep. Betty McCollum (MN); Rep. Jim Oberstar (MN); Rep. Diana DeGette (CO); Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA); Rep. Artur Davis (AL); Rep. Hank Johnson (GA); Rep. Donald Payne (NJ); Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO); Rep. John Lewis (GA); Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY); Rep. Neil Abercrombie (HI); Rep. Gwen Moore (WI); Rep. Keith Ellison (MN); Rep. Tammy Baldwin (WI); Rep. Donna Christensen (USVI); Rep. David Scott (GA); Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL); Lois Capps (CA); Steve Rothman (NJ); Elijah Cummings (MD); and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0720-05.htm

[tired of the right]

1. I once voted for Cooper when he ran for Congress

from the 4th Congressional district. I later decided that he voted more like a Republican and voted against him during a succeeding election. We in the 4th district got rid of his sorry but, but he simply moved over to his current district and won election there. He isn't a very good Congressman in my book.

[DeSwiss]

2. Cooper is a smart guy....

...although you'd never know it. He's not as charismatic as some politicians, and his modus operandi seems to be to stay smack dab in the middle of the road. No matter what. The loss of Constitutional liberties be damned.

The only thing for which I give him high marks is his stance against the federal deficit. He's right in saying that Bush has taken the country's fiscal surpluses and replaced them with red ink. ALL RED INK. And although he is an unrepentant "Blue Dog" Democrat, Cooper is one of a few who've complained about the national debt and posits the idea that the Dems need to holler more loudly about this, lest they get tagged with having created it:

Rep. Jim Cooper: Bush is Hiding the True National Debt. It's Worse than You've Heard. Much Worse.

Submitted by BuzzFlash
Thu, 09/07/2006 - 5:15am

Though the Bush Administration's official budget lists the national debt and deficit as being incredibly high, they are actually far worse than reported, according to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN). But don’t just take his word for it, even if Cooper is a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate. The following figures appear in the official U.S. Financial Report, released by the Treasury Department:

• The true national debt is $49 trillion, not the $8.3 trillion Bush reported. That's $156,000 for every citizen, or $375,000 for every working American This figure has more than doubled in the past five years. We paid $327 billion last year on interest alone.

• The true 2005 deficit was $760 billion, not the $318.5 billion Bush reported. This is 6.2% of the GDP, not 2.6%.

• It's all getting worse

What accounts for the huge discrepancy? Unlike businesses, the government uses "cash" instead of "accrual" accounting. This means that the government does not report future spending promises like Medicare and Social Security, or even future spending guarantees like veterans' benefits and federal employee pensions.

"Cash accounting tells you what's in your bank account. Accrual accounting tells you what's in your bank account and what's on your credit card statement," Cooper told BuzzFlash in an interview. "Whether you're promising to buy a road or something at Target, you need to know what you promised to buy. That should be a binding obligation of the government. We've made a world of promises to folks that we need to keep."

But wait, there's more! The U.S. Financial Report does not mention that if Medicare and Social Security are factored into the equation (which the Treasury Department did not), the true deficit was actually a whopping $3.3 trillion last year, over ten times more than Bush claims. And when Social Security projections are adjusted to reflect current life expectancies instead of the old 75-year mark, Cooper said the true national debt is "probably closer to $65 trillion."

Worried that a new Democratic majority in the House would be blamed for the higher numbers in the future, Cooper has taken it upon himself to make it clear that the problem has already been created by Bush's failed economic policies. "This has to be announced on their watch, using their voice," he said. "There's a great urgency about this: we only have two months left to educate all Americans about how the Bush deficits are literally destroying America's credit."

Read more: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/105

*** - But that's it for Jim. He's a Rhodes Scholar with a law degree who seems mostly concerned about money. But on social equality and the issues pertaining to civil liberties -- nada. So he's waxes philosophic about straightening out our accounting problems and national debt, while the country descends into the abyss with the loss of civil liberties.

In other words: arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic....

And he's also one of the few Congresspersons whose House site I've visited that doesn't include one of those smarmy photos glaring at you. So Jim, I know you're no prize to look at, but here ya go:


"Tennessee Blue Dog To The Bone"

*** - Now dammit!!! Would you please grow a spine and stand up for something besides money?????