Republican candidate for US Congress Donn Janes (left) discusses the direction of the country and the need for change with another fellow veteran during the Veterans Campaign seminar at Princeton University.

Donn Janes, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Tennessee’s 8^th Congressional District, recently returned from a two-day candidate seminar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs. The seminar was hosted by Veterans Campaign, a non-partisan, non-ideological training program aimed at preparing veterans to run for public office.

“The candidate training conference covered topics ranging from public speaking to grass roots organization,” said Janes, a first-time candidate for political office. “Those of us who attended are not career politicians. The attendees and presenters were veterans who are trying to make a difference and looking for ways to continue our tradition of service to this great country by running for public office.”

The Veterans Campaign is dedicated to assisting veterans in their run for public office because they believe veterans possess many qualities necessary to serve our country well in public office. According to Veterans Campaign, because of their military experience, veterans have outstanding leadership experience, are capable of succeeding in the face of adversity, intimately understand the human consequences of foreign policy decisions, and, most importantly, they have demonstrated their willingness to put America and its citizens before their own well-being.

About Donn Janes

Donn Janes

Donn Janes, is a Navy veteran and businessman from Brighton, who served as an Electronic Warfare Technician while in the Navy until his honorable discharge in 1989. Janes is an outspoken critic of how Republicans and Democrats have both continued to ignore any calls for fiscal responsibility and continue to plunge the United States deeper into debt.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich

Washington D.C. – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a leading Congressional voice calling for an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, yesterday released the following statement after media reports that a U.S. airstrike on two stolen fuel transport vehicles left as many as 90 dead, including 40 civilians and a ten-year old child:

“News reports covering today’s attack by the U.S. command southwest of Kunduz province show that the good intentions of NATO forces in Afghanistan are not sufficient. If we want to avoid killing innocent civilians, we must end the war,” said Kucinich

After two fuel tankers were reportedly stolen by Taliban insurgents, a U.S. airstrike was carried out that took the lives of an unknown number of innocent Afghans.

The innocent appear to have been in harm’s way because the Taliban encouraged them to siphon off the fuel in the trucks which were immobilized in mud. The free fuel would be a natural draw to the citizens, given the level of poverty in the area. Corruption plaguing Afghanistan has ensured very little aid gets to Afghans in need.

“The NATO command claims to have checked for civilian presence before authorizing the air strike. When deadly force is used at high altitudes at high speeds, there is an even greater moral responsibility to be absolutely certain that no civilians will become casualties of military action.

“There is little hope for a truly independent investigation because the Karzai Government is compromised and NATO forces are digging in for the long term based on the Administration’s policy. The war in Afghanistan is quickly developing into a tragedy of monumental proportions. It is time for the U.S. to end this war and bring our troops home.”

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn at her Town Hall meeting in Clarksville, TN

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn held a town hall meeting yesterday afternoon with her constituents. During the roughly hour long meeting Blackburn repeatedly expressed her opposition to the Democrats’ health-care reform principles. The meeting was quiet and orderly. Blackburn punctuated her responses using frequent Republican Party talking points, like not allowing bureaucrats to stand between patients and their doctors and hospitals. In all fairness, it must be said that is exactly what Health Insurance companies do on a daily basis. She also expressed her support for leaving the for-profit insurance companies in overall control of the health care system.

Blackburn took questions from the audience on topics ranging from the obvious questions on healthcare reform to lobbying, the growing number of cabinet Czar positions, immigration reform, tort reform, and emergency room misuse. Many members of the audience raised their hands to ask questions, however just a select few were able to ask them. Of those, the majority of those who were allowed to ask questions supported Blackburn positions on healthcare reform, however that could easily be a result of how those questioners were selected.

The Civic Hall was packed for Marsha Blackburn's Town Hall meeting

Blackburn presented some unbelievable numbers, including a claim that 4,000,000 jobs would be lost if H.R. 3200 was made into law. The high cost of healthcare and other benefits are frequently cited as the primary concerns holding businesses back from hiring more employees. She also did not address the ever increasing amount of money made by the C.E.O’s and top executives of the health insurance companies, which is paid for by increasing their customers premiums each year.  (The numbers and C.E.O.’s below are from 2008)

• Aetna – Ron Williams – $24,300,112
• Amerigroup – James Carlson - $5,292,546
• Centene – Michael Neidorff - $8,774,483
• CIGNA – H. Edward Hanway – $12,236,740
• Coventry Health Care – Dale Wolf – $9,047,469
• Health Net – Jay Gellert – $4,425,355
• Humana – Michael McCallister – $4,764,309
• UnitedHealth Group – Stephen Hemsley – $3,241,042
• Universal American – Richard Barasch – $3,503,702
• WellPoint – Angela Braly – $9,844,212

These 9 CEO’s made the as much as 2,521 families living in Clarksville, TN ($33,885 per family). Their salaries ate up the combined yearly premiums of 29,547 Tennesseans (Average per individual $2891.25).

In the end, those who went into yesterday’s town hall meeting opposing healthcare reform still, oppose it. Those who went in supporting it, still support it. There is one point that everyone can agree on, doing nothing is not an option!

BRIGHTON, TN – The following statement was issued by Tipton County resident, Donn Janes:

“Today I am announcing that I am a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District and will seek the Republican nomination in the August 2010 primary.

Janes continued, saying, “I am running for Congress because the people of Tennessee and the 8th District need a representative who will work to solve the problems that Congress has failed to solve. These aren’t new challenges or new problems as they have been languishing for many years. They include social security, prescription drug prices, Medicare, health care costs, insurance, immigration, dependency on foreign oil and education.”

“I am not a lawyer or politician going to Washington to serve my own self interests, goals or ambitions I am your neighbor, your fellow citizen who can no longer stand by and do nothing. We can no longer put the spending of today on our future generations. I am running for this office so that I may help each of you, your children, my children our grand children and first and foremost, the stability and viability of this great country.”

Thank you.

Janes will be challenging incumbent Rep. John Tanner, (D), for the Congressional 8th District seat. More information can be found at Donn Janes’ campaign website http://www.donnjanesforcongress.org/.

George W. Bush is perhaps the worst American president who has ever served.  To this day it is a mystery to me how the man was able to gain the Republican nomination, steal the election, start two wars, get re-elected and then drag on a failed war for five years and drive the economy into the ground without getting impeached. 

Although the light is fading on the Presidency of Bush, it is not too late to impeach the man who lied to us about weapons of mass destruction.  As of result of the President’s deception, over four thousand American soldiers have died in Iraq and tens of thousands have been wounded, not to mention the one million or so Iraqis who have died directly or indirectly due to Bush’s interference in their country. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

The case for impeachment is strong, so strong that it has been supported by numerous Congressional representatives, most notably by Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who introduced articles of impeachment in early June.  Kucinich had the courage and the tenacity to say what needs to be said and to do what needs to be done.  President Bush has violated the will of the people, but more importantly, he has violated the Constitution of the United States of America, a document that he was sworn to uphold and defend, and for this indiscretion President Bush deserves to be impeached.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear when she was elected Speaker of the House that impeachment was not on the table, and she has been true to her word since that date, betraying the trust of the American people and showing her true colors as well as those of the Democratic party generally, except for a few brave individuals such as Kucinich.  The irony is that the Democratic Party and the left would be stronger if they called the President to account for his actions.  In any event, there are numerous candidates outside of the two party duopoly who support impeachment because we believe this should be a campaign issue.  We feel strongly about our rights as Americans and do not believe that a corrupt administration can compromise those rights.  When they try, we believe that it is time to call them to account.

Bush must be called to account for the lies he has made in order to manipulate the general public.  Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein was an immediate threat to America but the truth is that we were a real threat to Iraq.  His administration lied about the issue of significant quantities of uranium being brought into Iraq from Africa.  He lied about the connections between 9/11 and Iraq, continuously misleading the American people into believing there was a relationship.  Bush lied about Iraq and Al Qaeda, misleading the American people into believing there was a collaborative relationship between the two.  The President lied about weapons of mass destruction, insisting that there was evidence which consisted mostly of forged documents.  The United Nations found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction and intelligence services produced no credible information to support Bush’s claim.  As a result of these lies and misleading statements the United States was led into a war it could not win, spending hundreds of billions of dollars and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

By supporting impeachment Kucinich has set in motion a process which calls to public light the terrible misdeeds of this administration.  The tide of public opinion has turned against Bush and across the nation people are calling for impeachment.  President Bush has condoned the use of torture on men, women and even boys in Iraq and at secret prisons around the world in the name of national security.  He violated the constitution by denying habeas corpus and has called for domestic spying on Americans. 

We can wait for the elections to remove Bush from office, but why wait until November? Indeed, although it is not a crime to be the worst President in the history of the United States, it is a crime to lie, mislead, deny constitutional rights, torture, spy and violate international law.  There has never been a better case to impeach a sitting President than now.  The people of Iraq, our soldiers abroad and ordinary Americans everywhere will all be better off once this criminal has been removed from office, and I say the sooner the better.

Such is the case with the hate crimes bill, familiar to many as the Matthew Shepard bill, a meticulously drafted act that would have categorized crimes based on gender identity or sexual orientation as hate crimes. Matthew Shepard was a young, gay university student in Wyoming who was beaten into a coma and subsequently died.

The Matthew Shepard Bill was a bill whose time had not only come but was terribly overdue, but being incorporated into a package of military spending (i.e. Iraq War funding) resulted in a kill on the battlefield of equal rights and civil liberties. Matthew Shepard and gays across America have become casualties of war.

Sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy and garnering the support of most Democrats and many Republicans, the bill still fell some forty votes short of passage in the U.S. House of Representatives, and that failure should be considered a crime against human rights. The root cause of this failure was the link to escalating cost of war in Iraq.

Perhaps it is time for truly important bills to be presented on their own merit and not be linked to such an unrelated hot button items as military spending. It is my fervent hope that the leaders in our Congress who supported this bill will not allow it to fade away.

The Matthew Shepard Bill would have been landmark legislation for the protection of millions of Americans against hate crimes. Instead, a vote against Defense Department spending became a vote against human rights.