Random Political Thoughts for a Wednesday Afternoon

I’m going to be out of town for a few days, so I’m leaving all of you in the capable hands of my esteemed colleague Scott. But before I go, allow me to give you this week’s Random Political Thoughts for a Wednesday Afternoon… enjoy.

Out of touch. White House Press Secretary Tony “I wish Scott hadn’t upped and quit” Snow has stated that “President” Bush only learned of the reported Haditha massacre after Time magazine reported the events back in March, which was almost four months after the events in question took place to begin with. (Nice… way to stay in touch Mr. President. You too ‘main stream’ media… way to go.)

New evidence. “Climate researchers at Purdue University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology separately reported new evidence yesterday supporting the idea that global warming is causing stronger hurricanes.” (Yet this administration still ignores the evidenve… what’s it gonna take… mutant Poison Ivy or something?? Oh wait, that’s right, that’s already happenning. Apparently, as carbon dioxide levels increase, Poison Ivy grows “faster and bigger” and makes more and itchier poison ivy. Lovely…)

Pork-stuffed entrée. Interesting scene in the Taiwanese parliament yesterday as parliamentary deputies tried to prevent a female colleague from destroying a document. Seems she snatched a document on opening direct transport links with China and then tried to eat the proposal in a desperate attempt to prevent the issue from coming to a vote. (What I would pay to see the same thing happen in our congress. Can you imagine a cat-fight between Congresswoman XX and Katherine Harris (R-FL)? Talk about a battle royale…)

Let’s do lunch. The US is now willing to meet with Iran and other nations for talks on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Of course, that’s only if they give up uranium enrichment (which I don’t see happening) and if Russia and China agree to UN sanctions “if it (Iran) remains defiant.” (This should be interesting. Again, I really need to get to work on that bomb shelter…)

Fall-out boy. The fall-out from Jack Abramoff continues as the former Chief of Staff to Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), Neil Volz, testified earlier this week that “Ney was a champion on Capitol Hill for Jack Abramoff and his clients before the lobbyist was disgraced.” Volz also admitted that he conspired with Ney in order to underreport costs of a golfing trip to Scotland back in 2002. (And the hits just keep on coming…)

Sad. The Pentagon released their quarterly status report on Iraq. Not surprisingly, it reports an increase in the overall average number of attacks; from fewer than 500 per week in this quarter of 2005, to more than 600 per week in the most recent quarter. “On average, nearly 80 Iraqis were killed or wounded every day…up from the previous quarter’s 60 per day.” (What else can be said?)

Gratuitous Op-Ed plugs of the week. Lou Cannon’s The Art of the Smear and Fareed Zakaria’s A Political Path Out of Iraq, both from the online edition of The Washington Post. Read… and enjoy.

An obvious outcome. the theft of millions of pieces of veteran’s data has lead to a surfeit of firings at Veterans Affairs, including the idiotic senior career data analyst who took the data home and had it promptly stolen… and the head of the department said more firings are likely. (Firing should be the least of the analyst’s worries as this was an incredibly reckless act and something else needs to be done. First, to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, and second, to make sure the analyst knows the severity of what they’ve done…)

Hide and seek. The Justice Department is enthusiastically defending their raid on the offices of William Jefferson (D-LA) and have released documents that state the Congressman tried to hide papers from the investigators. (My thought, Mr. Jefferson needs to resign… and he needs to do it now… no one is above the law regardless of their party affiliation.)

Switch-aroo. Former Kansas Republican Party Chairman Mark Parkinson switched his party affiliation to Democrat earlier this week. (Always a good thing when we can greet a reformed-lemming)

Goodbye Sen. Bentsen. there was a memorial service at First Presbyterian Church in Houston for former Senator, Treasury Secretary and VP candidate Lloyd Bentsen earlier this week after a private graveside service for his family. Former President Bill Clinton was in attendance as was Senators Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, Representatives Jim Wright and Tom DeLay, former Secretaries of State James Baker, Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, former Senator and Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, former President George H.W. Bush, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan; former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards. Whew… (Nice bi-partisan mix that really exemplifies the type of politician and person Bentsen was…)

Take ‘em as you will...