Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Weekly Rewind

Another week down in the wide, whacky, wooly, woefully-inadequate world of politics… there are 269 days remaining until the end of the Bush presidency… and I can hardly contain my glee.

Applaud: to good news… if it’s true. Finally responding to that explosive NY Times’s piece that exposed the Bush(whacked) Administration’s ‘double’-secret campaign to use analysts in order to “generate favorable news coverage,” the Pentagon has “temporarily stopped the program. (When the story broke, no one in the media reported it, which caused White House press icon Helen Thomas to chastise her brethren this past week. With it being canceled, I have a feeling the media WILL cover that as an attempt to show the administration cares what people think. The ass-kissing of the MSM is sickening…)

Heckle: to more talking out of one’s ass… In a speech this week at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that he thinks Iran is “hell bent” on acquiring nuclear weapons but at the same time warned that “another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need and, in fact, I believe it would be disastrous on a number of levels.” (Rattling a saber when it has a dull blade is not a smart thing to do Robert… perhaps you should try keeping your mouth shut. Just a thought)

Applaud: to 69’s. Not in that way, sheesh, get your heads out of the gutter. 69 as in percentage… as in 69% of Americans who disapprove of the job Bush is doing, matching the low point of his presidency while at the same time setting a new disapproval high for any president since FDR… (mwahhahahahahahahaha)

Heckle: to it STILL being the economy stupid. Despite ABC’s attempts to have ReverendGate, SniperGate, LapelpinGate as the voter’s primary concern, a new poll shows what the rest of us already knew; the economy is the top problem on the minds of voters, with 67% of those responding saying it’s the most important issue right now…

Applaud: to treating a lame-duck like a lame-duck. The House voted earlier this week to block the Bush(whacked) Administration from cutting federal spending on Medicaid health care for the poor by $13 billion over the next five years. Yes, Bush has threatened to get out his veto crayon, but there are more than enough votes to override him in the House, and the Senate… (about time they start treating him like a lame-duck. Bush’s power has diminished, and it’s time that Congress starts using that to their advantage. This is a great start, let’s just hope they keep it up)

Heckle: to ignoring the state of our armed forces. The Army has kicked-up its policy of involuntary extensions of duty, aka stop-loss, in an attempt to “bolster its troop levels.” This comes despite Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ order in 2007 to limit it with the army saying that” Since May 2007, “the number of soldiers forced to remain in the Army rose 43% to 12,235 in March.” The Army has said it needs the “stop-loss” policy to continue well into 2009.

Applaud: to a new GAO opinion released this past week that re-affirms what many have been saying since it happened… that the Bush(whacked) Administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states’ ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families.. therefore making its new policy “unenforceable.” (If I had a dime for all the times this administration has violated federal law, I would be a rich, rich man…)

Heckle: to speaking out of one’s ass… McCain style. The New York times examined the list of 106 elite fund-raisers who have “brought in more than $100,000 each” for McCain’s campaign and the paper found that a “sizable number of lobbyists” raised money for McCain, sizes that are only outnumbered on the list by those working in the financial services industry… but McCain still has the balls to say he’s for change while vowing that he doesn’t mess with lobbyists… (Quick John, you might want to make sure your pants aren’t on fire cuz you’re lying so much…)

Applaud: to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plans to move the Iraq war supplemental, which would include three separate legislative vehicles, one to provide emergency funding for military operations in Iraq & Afghanistan; another aimed at stimulating the economy through a mix of domestic spending measures; and a third that would advance some sort of language on troop withdrawals…(I’ll believe it when I see it…)

Heckle: to screwing the American public. While oil prices keep rising ever higher, Exxon Mobil was the most profitable company for the fifth year in a row, “raking in a “record-breaking $40 billion in 2007 earnings”… yet there’s still nothing they can do about the price of gasoline. Bull. Shit.

Applaud: to news that SHOULD mean the US paying less to rebuild Iraq. Information released this week suggests that Iraq will “reap an even larger than expected windfall this year” in oil revenue, rumored to be as high as $70 billion. Now my feeling is, with the US’s cost of rebuilding Iraq climbing ever higher, Iraq should use some this obscene amount of money to, I don’t know… perhaps foot some of the bill for rebuilding their nation… just a thought.

Heckle: to some grossly misplaced priorities. At a time when the insurgency is still claiming multiple lives on a daily basis and costing the US millions of dollars a day, news came out this past week that a LA-based company is “developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience”, which will be a “massive American-style amusement park” with a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum… all for only $500 million. The company’s owner says that “the time is ripe” for profit and entertainment to collide in Iraq and that “… people will embrace it. They’ll see it as an opportunity for their children regardless if they’re Shia or Sunni. They’ll say their kids deserve a place to play and they’ll leave it alone.” (This should end well… )

Applaud: to more proof that conservative-based programs fail. This past week health experts testified to the House oversight committee that abstinence-only programs have “not cut teen pregnancies” nor “delayed the age at which sex begins.” In fact, says Dr. Margaret Blythe of the American Academy of Pediatrics, there is even evidence that some of these programs are “harmful and have negative consequences.” (Well duhhhhhhhh)

Heckle: to misguided, ignored and slap-in-the-face strong-arming. Barely a day after the administration “urged” India to step up pressure on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he visits New Delhi, India “tartly said it did not need ‘any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations’” and made clear that “no saber rattling from its friends” in DC would “impair its relationship with a vital energy supplier.” (this is what happens when you not only have a lame-duck as president but one who no one listens to… countries ignore you. 1/20/09…)

Applaud: to failures of high-technology. No, I’m not talking about Microsoft Vista. The Bush(whacked) Administration has scrapped its $20-million prototype of its “virtual” border fence along the Arizona-Mexico border because the system is “failing to adequately alert Border Patrol agents to illegal crossings.”

Heckle: to sad but not surprising news. With the death toll rising on an almost daily basis and with no end in sight, a new USA Today/Gallup poll found that 63% of Americans say the US “made a mistake” in sending troops to Iraq… (ignoring for a moment that it took some people THIS long to realize this, these numbers are bad news for McCain and his lapdog Joe Lieberman… it’s only a matter of time until his continuing support of the war starts to erode his appeal. Stay tuned…)

Applaud: to the Senate Ethics Committee for finally! doing something, albeit not very hard. The committee “admonished” Sen. Pete Domenici (r-NM) this past week for placing an inappropriate call to then-U.S. attorney David Iglesias shortly before the 2006 elections, saying that Domenici should have known better than to contact Iglesias about an ongoing investigation… (Let’s call this a mild-applaud…)

Heckle: to more numbers that could be foreshadowing some serious problems down the road. As if the ever-rising gas prices weren’t enough of a strain on the American consumer, now we have a steadfast fear of rising food prices, with a new USA Today/Gallup poll showing that 73% of consumers are worried about rising food prices… (what’s next? A rice and flour shortage…oh, wait)

Applaud: to the latest installment of ‘As the Lobbyist Turns in Prison”. Earlier this week former DOJ official Robert Coughlin was accused of having a “criminal conflict of interest” with jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff… now, after admitting in federal court that he “accepted meals, concert tickets and luxury eats at sporting events from a lobbyist,” he faces “up to 10 months in prison” (That’s a shame. Yes, that was sarcasm…)

Heckle: to more pandering and flip-flopping. Apparently forgetting that he once opposed the President’s tax cuts and warned against increasing budget deficits, Sen. McCain is now “marching straight down the party line” and leaving his past predictions in the dust, no matter how prophetic some of them have been…

Heckle: to more White House subterfuge and camouflaging. The administration is challenging a court ruling that White House visitor logs are public documents and should be available to all, saying that the releasing of these records would infringe on the separation of powers… (riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight)

And this week’s conservative TOTW is Tony Zirkle, who is seeking the republican nomination in Indiana’s 2nd Congressional district. He recently delivered a speech to the (neo-Na*i) American National Socialist Workers Party (ANSWP) on a day that just “happened” to be the 119th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birth while standing in front of a painting of Hitler, next to people wearing swastika armbands and with a swastika flag in the background.

Nice…

When was asked by reporters why he spoke to ANSWP, which refers to itself as “the largest and most active pro-white organization in America,” Zirkle said he’ll “speak before any group that invites me.”

Zirkle is what’s wrong with politics… when he ran in 2006 he had called for a return of the guillotine… this past March he said “the United States should debate segregating by race”, he’s so toxic that state gop leaders have called him “repulsive.”
That’s why he’s, TBWA’s conservative Tool of the Week…

All I have, take ‘em as you will…

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