If you've got plans this evening and can't make it up to Larry Kissell's BBQ and Bluegrass fundraiser at the fairgrounds, or Heath Shuler's fundraiser up in the mountains (Gov. Hunt will be at that one), then please -- consider sending both of those great NC Congressional candidates a $5, $10 or $20 donation for their campaign this week. Don't be shy, though. They'll take more than $20 if the current economy has been kind to you and you can afford more than $20. Send $5 if that's what you can do. It ALL matters.

My friends in Johnston County might be asking, "Hey, our Congressman has his own campaign to win, doesn't he?"

Yes, he does. And the Congressman's staff and district and county party leaders are working the ground game to help Congressman Etheridge win in November. Contribute time or dollars here and here or here to support those efforts.

But there's more we can do.

We can give  to great Dem candidates running against well financed GOP incumbents.

We CAN turn the next US Congress back into a Democratic majority Congress.

I know what you're thinking, "That's not an automatic solution to Republican corruption."

True,  but at least Dem Congressmen and Dem Congresswomen have actual PLANS (**gasp**) for:

balancing our national budget,

strengthening Social Security,

getting us out of Iraq without chaos,

figuring out Universal healthcare in this country,

supporting science and research in all fields,

and fixing the other wildly off-course foreign and domestic policy muckups of the current crop of Republican Rightcliffjumpers in DC.

But if all that isn't enough -- consider the battle for our American soul.

If you're a Believer -- if you've ever read and found Good the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth -- and if you know anything at all about the Northern Mariana Islands economic model, you already understand why we have to win a Democratic majority in Nov.

If you don't know about the well-hidden horror of the Mariana Islands economic model, read on.

Factories on the Marianas Islands get to put "Made in the USA" on everthing they make. Not good. The labor practices there resemble labor practices in old soviet gulags or red-china re-education camps. It is a huge seething nest of immorality, fueled by the obsessive desire of businessmen to get as rich as possible as quickly as possible.

The easiest way to get rich quick in this day and age, if you don't really want to work hard or you're not too bright, is to make lots of stuff with slave labor overseas and sell all that stuff to middleclass, unsuspecting, oblivious shoppers in the US of A ... mostly at bigbox stores and upscale mall based stores. The entire Marianas Island "make it here and sell it there" economic model is the prefered economic practice of GOP movers and shakers and free-traders. They love it.

The saga of the Marianas and the real live human beings who labor there without the right or ability to leave -- used like so much fodder in the money mill -- is one of 12 hour days, locked dormatories and ugly ugly things most of us find very difficult to believe -- things we don't like to write about here at dD -- things that keep you up at night when you understand what some Americans are willing to knowingly do in the name of their god -- the almighty dollar.

The whole Marianas setup is a big huge SHAME factory that will supply OUR grandchildren's America with bad bad kickback (blowback, kharma) for years to come. And it's all the brainchild of the GOP run Congress under Newt Gingrich's K-street project, Tom DeLay's hammer and Jack Abramoff's professional bribery business.

So, this election year, and NEXT election year, is not just about winning races and doing all the things I listed above. It's also about getting rid of the sewer rats in DC who see nothing really wrong with using their god-given talents to enrich themselves and enslave other people.

These Republicans are not your father's Republicans. These Republicans are NOT good people. These Republicans, ESPECIALLY the "loudly-proudly-christian" ones, are selfish corrupt people who act on their own behalf without care, without conscience and without remorse.

We here in Johnston don't have to look far to find these sorts of Republicans, so y'all know what I'm talking about.

Jesus is not here to throw these jokers out of the temple. We have to do it. Roll tide!