Category: Politics

Bush keeps Democrats in his sights

This commentary is right on, but I think that it is missing one obvious reason why after proclaiming his desire to work with the democrats and claiming that he hears the will of the people after the Blue Wave election of 2006, he is pushing scarily conservative nominations and agenda items gaurenteed to piss off Democrats: payback. Payback, not just for himself, but for the ousted Republican congressmen as well. Many of these far-right goals were aborted by the previous Republican congress, who would have to run against their decisions. Maybe, Bush thinks that these lame ducks can vote their conscience and will do any wacko thing he asks them too. Hopefully, this isn’t the case or at least the Democrats will be able to delay these until January. Otherwise, he is just creating a deeper pit that we’ll be climbing out of for the next two years.

Worst Congress Ever

sent me a letter!

Well, really more of a pamphlet. With a picture on the front, showing a vaguely homosexual (maybe a metrosexual) man holding a big sign saying “TAX” and pointing at it. The caption reads “The Democrats have a liberal agenda.”

ummm… Duh?

I can’t imagine that Republicans aren’t insulted by this simplification and vilification, but maybe they are that small minded and any painting not painted in broad strokes is lost on them.

The New York Times says it well on 9/11

Is anyone even surprised anymore?

I mean, who didn’t expect another spying scandal given this administration’s record on respecting civil rights? Hey, guess what? I have a prediction with a pretty high degree of accuracy. This won’t be the last one of these. The administration is probably monitor our health records now too under the guise of “looking for terrorists.”

We already know that the government is mining library records, bank records (foreign and domestic), phone call logs (domestic), internet traffic (foreign and domestic) and tapping calls (foreign and domestic). They denied most of them at first and they have tried to minimize all of them.

The problem is that the American people are ignoring this. It is time to wake up. This administration has proved time and again that it will outright lie to the American people. Big Brother is now more than ever and we need to do something about it this fall.

Answer: very

Iraq is a quagmire without end and some American troops are losing their cool. Gas prices are raising the costs of goods in the stores and are making it harder for lower-income Americans to make ends meet. The earth is warming and the seas are rising. We dodged a bullet this year on the Avian Flu, but it is still going and may hit us next year. North Korea is building a nuclear stockpile. According to George Bush, social security is in Crisis.

What is our president doing about these important issues of the day? Absolutely nothing.

Instead the “uniter not divider”, the “compassionate conservative” is throwing old conservative saws at the country in a lame and obvious attempt to raise his poll numbers and keep a republican majority in congress: English as the national language; an Anti-flag burning amendment; and a gay marriage ban amendment. The purposes of these moves is so blatant as such that only the stupidest Americans should be fooled. This kind of crap should be driving his poll numbers further down.

One hopes that Americans have learned to see this kind of crap.

Incredibly disturbing news. US Marines execute 24 unarmed Iraqis in anger?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003022328_marines27.html

This is a worst case scenario all around. Up to 24 (at least mostly) innocent people including women and children are gunned down. It will incite anti-US anger in Iraq making life even more dangerous for our troops. It will further damage our reputation in the rest of the world (especially the Middle East). The world can portray us as murderers, not liberators, and, if this is true, we can’t refute it.

This is just bad bad bad.

too little too late

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/washington/27lingo.html?ex=1148875200&en=3b417864c8fdeb37&ei=5087%0A

George Bush’s comments at the news conference with Tony Blair sounded pensive and genuinely apologetic. Unfortunately, after so many years of shoot-from-the-hip-swagger, they also come off a bit fake and rehearsed. The first time the George Bush was asked “what mistakes has he made?” he could think of nothing. That caused a (completely appropriate) uproar. He’s had a bunch of time to prepare a better answer and he had one ready when the reporter asked him on Thursday. I would have loved to have heard that answer when he was talking off the top of his head. It definitely would have made me actually like the guy a bit better. Hearing it the second time around, it just makes him sound like he’s reaching for any straw that bring his approval rating back up.

Now lets see what he says the next time he is asked what his favorite moment of his presidency was.

Our policies are so heinous and disrespectful of the rest of the world that the people of the world no longer hate just our president, but us as well.

http://pewglobal.org/commentary/display.php?AnalysisID=104

This report from last year shows that George Bush is doing serious damage to our credibility as a nation. It is serious enough that foreign dislike has extended beyond our elected officials and now extends to all Americans.

Why should we care? A low opinion of America as a whole means that the next administration will have a harder time gaining allies in all ventures. It means that foreign tourism to America will be down. It means that American tourists abroad will be treated poorly. It means that our exports will have a harder time finding markets. It is a serious problem.

It turns out that state legislatures can kick-start presidential impeachments

http://www.impeachbush.tv/impeach/bystate.html