It just came through the pipeline that Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd will not seek re-election this fall, leaving the Democrats little time to find a popular enough candidate to defend his crucial seat in the Senate.

Senator Dodd is the chairman on the Senate Banking Committee and had recently taken over the late Senator Ted Kennedy's charimanship on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; his adbsence on these committees will be another area of concern for the Democrats once the dust settles.

Dodd has faced strong opposition in his state from the Republican party, where a former member of the House, Rob Simmons, as well as Co-Founder of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon. Linda McMahon is being seen as the outsider that hasn't been tainted by Washington politics, but nonetheless will face a strong fight.

There is hope for the Democrats though as the State Attorney General for CT Richard Blumenthal appears to be a favorite for the Dems. He's noted as being the most popular politician in the state, so hopefully that will be enough to fend off the Republican party.

When I was watching the president's speech the other night, I heard that wonderfully polite republican senator from South Carolina, Joe Wilson, shout out "YOU LIE" to the president while he was talking about how illegal immigrants wouldn't be covered under healthcare reform. Smooth move casanova, because he came out the day after apologizing like a dog with its tail between its legs. Apparently, the powers at be inside the republican party made him apologize for his little outburst...

Imagine that meeting, "Yeah Joe, we're gonna need you to go ahead and apologize to the white house... yeah."

I just get the image of Michael Steele or John McCain as the boss from the movie, Office Space, standing over Joe Wilson, holding a cup of coffee in their hands of course, just passive aggressively scolding him.

I wish that meeting was on YouTube!

It's a funny thing though, because now there's a large uproar around the country over this guy's temper tantrum in congress... his opponent in the 2010 senate race next year actually gained an additional $350,000 in one afternoon after Wilson acted like a five year old. Looks like we won't have to deal with him for much longer anyway...

Lets stay in South Carolina though, shall we?

There are colorful politicians all over that state as of late... I'm sure that you heard about the governor that went missing not too long ago, claiming to be hiking on the Appalachian Trail when he was really in Argentina visiting his lolita soulmate. Yeah, he's the one that said he was in a forbidden romance with another woman, while at the same time he said he was trying to patch things up with his wife, what?

You can't make this stuff up! This is gold, pure gold!

Turns out that his cronies in the republican party down there don't quite like the fact that he's drawing all this bad press for them, so 61 of the 72 republicans in the state legislature called for him to resign, this of course after the lieutenant governor (the guy gunning for the job) called on him to resign... yeah, the governor doesn't look too hot right now, does he? Well, the governor is also behaving like a five year old, because he's arguing that the state legislature is setting up a "kangaroo court" against him, claiming that they're trying to win this in a court of public opinion. He says that he'll fight any impeachment procedures in court if he has to... that's a five year old that doesn't want to give up his toys if I ever saw one! Wait though, lets look at this for a second... you fly down to Argentina, potentially on the people's dime mind you, rendezvous with your lolita, LIE ABOUT IT, then come home and expect people to be cool with it!

He's got gusto ladies and gentlemen, you have to give him that.

One more little fact about South Carolina and its politicians, the lieutenant governor is on the mega defense after rumors ::cough cough::- from Sanford's camp -::cough cough:: that he's gay! It's true though, "someone", (whom I cannot confirm at this time, but I kindly point you towards the above coughs for my personal theories) started the rumors of lieutenant governor Andre Bauer being gay... then Bauer went on a small media blitz trying to prove how "not gay" he was. Wow... anyone else's gaydar goin off? This sounds like the classic closet case, but that's just me, and maybe I'm crazy. Crazy like a gay lieutenant governor fox!

See? Isn't South Carolina fun?

Maybe we should all plan a trip together and see what the lieutenant governor's doing, maybe he'll want to go clubbing with us to the gay clubs (assuming there are any in the south). You think he'll say yes?

God bless America.

What does the word debate actually mean? Dictionary.reference.com puts it as follows,
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
De-bate - noun
- a formal contest in which the affirmative and negative sides of a proposition are advocated by opposing speakers.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A formal contest? What's that? Is that what we're having over healthcare reform? Are we even discussing healthcare reform? We are sometimes talking about Health Insurance reform, but then we're talking about Healthcare reform, and it's all getting quite difficult to keep track of.

One thing that is perfectly clear though, is that we are most certainly not debating the pro's and con's of this great issue of our times!

The yay's are out there in front clammering for attention because they're getting drowned out by the nay's, however, when they get their spotlight, their talking points don't carry them far enough! Then we've all seen and been annoyed by the nay's in this fight because they're the loudest and most obnoxious!

I don't think that any one of us is going to get the real facts about what's going to be in this bill unless you have a law degree (I have friends who do, so heads up)! The language of the bill made me feel like an infant quite frankly, and I personally consider myself to be rather educated and involved in regards to political issues and policy. The sad part is when the average American gets involved without knowing any of the facts on either side... you start to see mom and pop shouting with the jones's and vice versa, and who likes to see that?

The loudest voices usually win the argument lately, but where do the people in the video below get off shouting down this concerned and disabled woman? As I watched it, my blood began to boil at the ignorance from the nay's because all they know how to do is shout! 

  !!!-WELL I KNOW HOW TO SHOUT TOO-!!!!

READ MY TEXT...
EDUCATE YOURSELF BEFORE YOU PARADE AROUND LIKE A GOON!

I'll let you watch the video now, and let me know if you think that I'm just being a jerk to the nay's... I'm in the centrist mode in this argument because there are some things that I oppose but there are more things in the talks that I support. My voice from the middle has no place in this debate, because I'd get shouted down by the goons on the nay's.

Watch for yourself.

This week, high ranking officials are welcoming Chinese diplomats to the states in order to undergo serious talks about the future relations between both countries. The matters at hand? China’s grip on trade with the United States and China’s apprehension over its consumption of American debts… matters that won’t be discussed? China’s affiliation with the Darfur atrocities, simple human rights defined under their constitution that are almost non-existent, and the crushing weight of the communist regime over its people. The American representatives (Treasury Sec. Timothy Geitner, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, and President Obama himself) won’t be discussing any issues that may “embarass” the Chinese delegation, as usual. The question that we should all be asking is why our country allows China’s government to continue to support a second agenda throughout the world that in no way creates a better one? We should all be wondering what good will come out of these talks… it looks like China’s yearning to gain a more powerful seat on the international stage, but is the world ready for that kind of China?

You’ll hear on the news what happened with the “matters at hand”, so I’m going to cover the items that would embarass the Chinese government, sound good?

First:

The Chinese/Darfur connection… I’m hoping that you’ve heard of what’s going on in Darfur, Sudan; if not, it all started in early 2003 when two armed rebel groups began to wage war on the Sudanese government by targeting and killing government officials right along with civilians. The crisis has claimed an estimated 400k lives since it began, according to former U.N. Humanitarian Chief Jan Egeland… the Sudanese government has long been accused of supporting a rebel faction that is responsible for murdering thousands of civilians. It was reported by the BBC in 2008 that China was found to be aiding the Sudanese government by providing arms and military aircrafts… China’s weapons have provided the means for killing thousands of innocent civilians in this struggle, going against an arms embargo that was set on Sudan in 2005 by the U.N. The crisis has created one of the worst migration of refugees in modern history as well as the death and starvation of hundreds of thousands more… who’s to say that this wouldn’t be happening without the Chinese involvement? We’ll never know, because this conflict isn’t getting any better with their help in any aspect. Nice, right?

Second;

Simple human rights allowed under the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) constitution are most commonly overturned by citing their “subversion of state power” clause… basically, freedom of speech exists as long as the people don’t speak out against the Chinese government, it’s officials, or express their feelings of mistreatment by the above. Yeah, other than that… they have freedom of speech. Other rights beign ignored are the rights of the Tibetan people, because the Chinese government had issued a mandate during the original communist installment under Mao that would remove all “old things” from Chinese society. The Tibetans are seen to be a sort of rebels because they continue to practice their ancient traditions, therefore their society has been pushed to the limits of absorbtion into communist rule… gay rights you say? The official stance on gay rights is… they don’t have a stance, because they don’t want to make a decision for, or against the gay community. That means that gay people are allowed to live freely, but they’ll have no type of protections in any fassets of their lives.

Third;

You may have heard about the recent uprising in China by the Uyghurs/”Weegers”, an Islamic minority ethnic group in China’s northwestern region a few weeks ago… the communist regime has initiated its own war on terrorism against the Uyghurs. This group of people are trying to create their own state seperate from China in order to live their lives free from Chinese oppressions against their faith-based views and lifestyles. Clashes between the Uyghurs minority and the Han majority ethnic group resulted in the death of over 190 people… protesters became violent after Chinese police responded against the group with a harsh physical response… The Chinese police took similar force against the Uyghurs that the Iranian forces took against the opposition party protesters, but no one said anything. China did it the right way though, because they shut down all internet connections and cellular communications in the region in order to prevent the story from reaching the outside world. Even better, right?

Lets sit around with the Chinese delegation and pat their backs for buying up our debt, while we turn a blind eye to their human rights abuses. No problem, right? You let me know… because this doesn’t seem right to me. It’s really too bad that China owns our country, because otherwise I’d suggest that we do something in response to these offenses, but it appears that blogging against them is all we’re going to get.

God bless America.

Hi Qmunnity!

My name’s Leo Murrieta and my blog is called Citizenzero, and it’s a great privilige to offer the GLBT community my services. First things first, this is going to be the new QBlog for QVegas, but some of you might be asking yourselves what a blog really is, fear not because I’ll walk us all through it. Basically, I’m going to be updating this blog whenever I come across a political issue that I feel affects our community directly, or when I feel that we should all know about other current events important to us as regular people (and what fabulous “regular” people we all make, might I add). My favorite part about blogging is the feedback that I receive from my readers, so please, if there’s something that you feel is important and you’d like to see it on here just send me an email and I’ll check it out and blog accordingly. This blog is about everyone getting “in the know” about what’s going on in our community, so don’t hesitate to get involved, both here and through other QVegas outlets.

Simple right?

Don’t worry, it’s a learning process for all of us, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll all be alright…

You can email me at leo@citizenzero.us with any ideas or comments.

Thanks for allowing me to give back what I can to our community/Qmunnity.