Dear Friends:
The coffee house Professor Java in Albany promises to help patrons to escape reality. Today I really need to escape it! I just found out a few things.
For one, when I got into the car in Delaware County at 11:25 to drive up here, Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner was still claiming that someone hacked his Twitter account and sent a highly suggestive photo of a penis to a woman young enough to be his daughter. His lying has been caught now on the tapes of multiple media outlets, including one interview where he said his team was launching an investigation. By the time I got out of the car at 1:15 in Albany, the Top Story of the day on Capitol News was Weiner admitting that he lied about the photo, that it was his crotch that he had photographed and sent to this woman, uninvited. Bummer. This may seem funny, but it isn’t when you think of the lapse in judgement this required. I also want to know if he is working for his public pay, on the issues of concern to all of us like everyone being broke, rent poor, unemployed, paying too much for food and gas, etc., or if he is just Twittering while being paid.
More importantly, I found out that there was a Congressional vote on Friday, forced by Dennis Kucinich, to make Congress express an opinion and take an action on the Obama Administration’s war commenced on Libya without a Congressional vote. This was a violation of the War Powers Resolution, which requires that the Executive Branch get Congressional approval. Think about it; otherwise, the President could just about invade any nation, at any time, using public funds, regardless of the value for the nation and regardless of whether there is a legitimate need to protect ourselves. To invade a nation in such a manner is despotic when other nations’ leaders do it. It is also despotic when our leader does it. Especially when only a few days before invading Libya, our Congress put through draconian cuts to other parts of the budget–like cutting milk and cheese benefits to pregnant and nursing American moms. We were told we needed to make these cuts to reduce the deficit. Involvement in Libya, needless to say, cost daily about the cost of the milk and cheese for moms and babies.
Lastly, I sat down for hours to read The Torture Report, at thetorturereport.org. I have read parts of it before, but I began reading starting with the earliest entries. My anger mounted as I wondered, why is the Top Story on TV Anthony Weiner’s poor behavior, instead of the admittedly worse problem of our leaders, first Bush and now Obama, flouting the Convention on Torture, hanging detainees upside down and even killing them?
No wonder I need to escape U.S. reality with a delicious Cappawappacino Javachino.
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