Cheers: to a new Newsweek poll that shows Bush's approval at 26%... better watch out Dicky, Bushy is on your heels and knocking on your door...

Heckle: to still not having a clue. As my esteemed collegue pointed out earlier this week, at the nadir of his presidency, George W. Bush is looking for answers.” Unbeknownst “even to many on his staff,” Bush has summoned “leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to the White House” to discuss questions like, “Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?” Ah, George we hate to tell you but it is you, remember that poll we just talked about? The feelings run wide and deep around the planet.

Heckle: to taking abuse of power to a new level. For the first time in his presidency, Bush commuted a sentence without running requests through lawyers at the Justice Department, White House officials said. He also did not ask the chief prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, for his input, as routinely happens in cases routed through the Justice Department’s pardon attorney. And with this administrations track record this is a surprise to who?

Cheers: to the plurality of Americans finally seeing the damn light. Want proof? 69% of voting Americans “disapprove of “President” Bush commuting the 30-month prison sentence of ‘Scooter’ Libby… wow, there is hope for the country… thank God…

Cheers: to the plurality of Americans again as a recent poll by the American Research Group shows that 54% of American adults want the US House of Representatives to “begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney.” That includes 76% of Democrats, 17% of republicans, and 51% of Independents. Incidentaly, the same poll found 46% of voters in favor of doing the same thing to “President” Bush, including 69% of Democrats, 13% of Republicans, and 50% of independents… (The times, they are a’changing…)

Cheers: to at least doing something to challenge this abuse of power. The Washington Post reports House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is “expected to move swiftly to conduct hearings on the commutation”, congressional sources said. We at TBWA applaud Rep. Conyers.

Heckle: to the sad fact that U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton believes that President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison term may also wipe out his two-year probation. “Strictly interpreted, the statute authorizing probation indicates that supervised release ’should occur only after the defendant has already served a term of imprisonment,’” Walton wrote. We here at TBWA are not surprised at this turn…

Cheers: to finally growing a pair, as the U.S. this week publicly accused Iran of intervening in the Iraq conflict, claiming that its Revolutionary Guard played a role in an attack that killed five Americans and was using Lebanese militants to train Iraqi insurgents. And we are just calling them on this now?

Heckle: to a study that shows the economic American dream “that children would be more prosperous than their parents, is in question as perhaps never before.” Since 1973, “median family income has been essentially flat,” and men in their 30s “earn roughly $5,000 less than their father’s generation.” For those of us in our 30’s or early 40’s this is not a surprise at all.

Heckle: to the fact that President Bush equated the war in Iraq with the U.S. war for independence during a speech on Wednesday. Like those revolutionaries who ‘dropped their pitchforks and picked up their muskets to fight for liberty,’ Bush said, American soldiers were also fighting ‘a new and unprecedented war’ to protect U.S. freedom. I cannot even begin to express my shock at his comparison….clueless does not even touch the total ignorance of the shit that comes out of his mouth more and more.

Cheers: to the nearly half of the National Hurricane Center’s employees who urged the Bush administration to replace their boss. “The staff of the National Hurricane Center would like nothing more than to return its focus to its primary mission of protecting life and property from hazardous tropical weather,” they wrote, “and leave the political arena it now finds itself in.” As we have said before, when you start playing policitcs in the area of science no one wins…

Well folks it is getting hot here today in the midwest. Mind you not as hot as in the southwest, but hot none the less. Time to post and go for a dip in the pool!

Oh and least I forget, a very happy birthday to my collegue and co-writer, Kemp. Best friend and like minded politico, have a great day pal!

Be good, stay informed….later

The Weekly Rewind

No witty or snarky opeing line, just getting right to the business at hand….The Weekly Rewind.

Heckle: to not seeing the forest for all the trees. Fallout from the U.S. attorney scandal is starting to hit the department in federal courtrooms around the country. In a “Who couldn’t see this one coming a mile away” move, defense lawyers are raising questions about the motives of government lawyers who have brought charges against their clients, and are citing the furor over the U.S. attorney dismissals as evidence that their cases may have been infected by politics. And who couldn’t see this one coming? Thats right, the dog and pony show that calls itself the Bush administration.

Heckle: to nothing good can come of this. In Iraq’s Diyala province, U.S. soldiers are willing to risk teaming up with Sunni militias to fight insurgent groups. Ali al-Adeeb, a prominent Shiite lawmaker, said the U.S. is “trusting people who have previously attacked American forces and innocent people. They are trusting people who are loyal to the regime of Saddam Hussein.” Come on what is with the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' crap? I think George and Dick have been watching to much TV.

Just a damn shame and inexcusable: “The Army has no PTSD center at Walter Reed,” the Washington Post reports in a new expose, and its psychiatric treatment is weak compared with the best PTSD programs the government offers. Instead of receiving focused attention, soldiers with combat-stress disorders are mixed in with psych patients who have issues ranging from schizophrenia to marital strife. As I said, this is inexcusable. Our men and women deserve better than this.

Heckle: to bringing peace and democracy to the new Iraq. Sunni families remaining in Shia neighbourhoods of Baghdad are being forced to flee their homes: A 72-hour deadline announced by militants for them to leave these areas or face death expired yesterday. One aid official said, “Dozens of Sunnis have been assassinated in their homes” since last week’s bombing of the Samara mosque. I wonder if the administration has already hired the architects to design all the hip new Iraq resorts for all the tourists who are just chomping at the bit to visit the new and improved Republic of Iraq?

Heckle: to opening mouth and inserting foot. Several conservative House members who last week “vociferously” (and falsely) attacked Rep. David Obey (D-WI) for weakening earmark disclosure rules have chosen to keep their lists of personal earmarks secret. They include House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Dan Burton (R-IN), Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC). Methinks they dost protest too much!

I am not going to applaud or heckle this one. Eight months after President Bush signed a bill authorizing the CIA to resume using ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on terrorism suspects, the administration has been unable to agree on what constitutes ‘humiliating and degrading treatment‘ of detainees.” Call me old fashioned but if they are terrorists or suspected terrorists I am all for humiliating and degrading treatment in order to obtain information that may prevent innocent death and destruction, that is just a no-brainer for a liberal or conservative.

Heckle: to the never ending legacy of being know as the dumbest administration in history. President Bush issued the third veto of his presidency this past week, killing a bill that would have eased restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research — work that supporters say holds promise for fighting disease. The mantra of this administration continues to be “lie, lie and ignore the will of the people”. How about a 'Disabled Million March' on Washington to get someones attention....more than a million will work even better...

Heckle: to 1 in 8. Which is the number of U.S. veterans under the age of 65 who lack even basic health insurance or access to care at Veterans Affairs hospitals. … The ranks of uninsured veterans have increased by 290,000 since 2000. What happened to the battle cry and chest beating of the conservatives being the party that supports our troops? All rhetoric and no backbone….

Heckle: to just plain crap. The recent rise in U.S. troop deaths in Iraq is the ‘wrong metric’ to use” in assessing the effectiveness of escalation, outgoing Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Peter Pace said yesterday. “[I]t’s not about levels of violence. It’s about progress being made, in fact, in the minds of the Iraqi people, so that they have confidence in their government in the way forward.”. Excuse me Mr and Mrs American Citizen, don’t think of it 3,000 + of our sons and daughters dying, think of it as bringing our system of free elections and policital discontent to an area that may or may not want it. Give me a f**king break…

Ok folks, I think I need a shower to cleanse myself of the crap that was thrown around this week.

Be good, stay informed….later.

The galloping vetoer strikes again

“President” Bush got out his veto crayon again and, once again, decided to ignore the will of the American people as he brushed back legislation that would have “eased restraints” on federally-funded embryonic stem cell research.

Bush tried to smooth things over with an executive order that intends to “encourage scientific advances in regenerative medicine.” The prolem with that, as the New York Times writes, is the effort is “largely symbolic” as there is “no money attached — and some scientists were instantly skeptical” of the order.

And with good cause…

White House spokesperson Tony “Job” Snow tried to placate the masses by stating;

“This is, certainly not an attempt to muzzle science. It is an attempt, I think, to respect people's conscience on such an issue.”

Not really there Skippy… 70% of the American people want this bill, but you seem to be more worried about… what exactly? The unborn? Sorry Georige, this bill had absolutely nothing to do with protecting the unborn because the embryos covered in this legislation were embryoes that were already scheduled to be destroyed… so this veto does absolutely nothing to prevent that so it seems that the veto is more about Bush guaranting that private industry will get the right to charge everyone an arm and a leg for the cures that they come up with through private funding of stem cell research…

Of course that’s just my opinion…