The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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September 7, 2006

We need new legislators who won't abuse power

Let’s review: Huge surplus turned into endless deficit; rush to war based on knowingly false “intelligence”; treasonous outing of undercover CIA agent; premature announcement of “mission accomplished”; no plan for post-war occupation by poorly-armored military; civil war in Iraq and nothing productive in Afghanistan except opium; the illegal Guantanamo gulag; soaring health care costs; collapsing retirement plans amid corporate scandals; incompetent short term response by FEMA to Katrina followed by long-term broken promises; DeLay/Frist/Cunningham/Reed/Abramoff/Ney; Homeland Security protecting pharmaceutical profits from those deadly Canadian prescription drugs; Medicare reforms that are huge giveaways to the drug industry; soaring gas prices accompanied by obscene oil company profits; tax cuts for the rich and tax burdens passed down to state and local governments; DM&E; idiocy — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg (if there still are any after they finish denying global warming).

So, is it fair to blame local Bush poodles, Gil Gutknecht and Mark Kennedy? They don’t seem as corrupt as the rest of the administration (we’ll overlook one’s excessive travel and broken term-limits promise and the other’s confusion about what a CPA is), but they are too willing to take money from questionable lobbyists and from Bush/Cheney fundraisers to argue their independence.

Rove wants these two lapdogs elected because he knows he owns their votes. With them in office, we can look forward to more years of failure and corruption by Republican leadership, with no effective action from our representatives.

We need new legislators with the strength to stand up to abuses of power and to a government given away to the highest donors.

William Anderson

Mankato

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