It’s that time of the week again… time for the Weekly Rewind.
Applaud: to the Senate for
voting to expand the hate crimes law to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, or disability of the victims, retaining the 60 votes needed in order to prevent a filibuster. Heckle within to opponents of the measure who naturally predicted that the legislation would “fail either in negotiations with the House or by presidential veto.” (
Good to know we have such caring people in the Senate that care about everyone… it’s so hard to express sarcasm in the written form. And for all you irony lovers out there - Sen. Larry Craig is back in the Senate and his first official act was to vote against this bill…this bill that protects homosexuals… sometimes the irony is too rich for its own good…)
Heckle: to the four gop presidential candidate “front-runners” skipping this past week’s debate that focused on issues
related to people of color. As I said in my earlier post, their non-attendance elicited some outrage from others in the field that DID attend… mind-boggling, absolutely mind-boggling…
Applaud: to the State Department for declaring earlier this week that “
the first American oil contract in Iraq,” between the Hunt Oil Company and the Kurdistan Regional Government, is counterproductive towards the U.S. goals and does more for the company than the region… if your immediate thought was they must be friends with the Bush’s… you’d be right…
Heckle: to Vice President Dick “President” Cheney. Back in 1992, Cheney
predictied the mess that occupying Iraq would create, saying; “If you get into the business of committing U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq, to occupy the place, my guess is I’d probably still have people there today instead of having been able to bring them home…The bottom line question for me was: How many additional American lives is Saddam Hussein worth? The answer: not very damn many.” (
Sigh…how soon they forget…)
Applaud: to the death-knell for a
gop power-grab in California as the group that wanted to apportion California’s electoral votes has run out of money. The LA Times is reporting that the proposal, which looked to change the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation to one by congressional district, is “
virtually dead” and the group has seen the resignation of many supporters, internal disputes and a lack of funds… awwww, poor baby…
Heckle: to news that a classified Pentagon program attempted to “bait” Iraqi insurgents by planting items such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition.. and when an Iraqi picked them up… they were killed. What the hell is this, an episode of Tom and Jerry?? Give me a break… what happens exactly if a curious
civilian picks up the items?
Applaud: to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, who
introduced Iranian president Ahmadinejad by verbally nuking him from orbit and calling him “dangerously uneducated” and “a petty and cruel dictator”… (
Nice…)
Heckle: to the most insulting and obvious use of 9/11 for political gain… and you probably know which of the candidates it is. At a fundraiser earlier this week for Rudy Giuliani, the cost for guests is.. you guessed it;
$9.11. The event has angered the International Association of Fire Fighters, which argues the 9/11 terrorist attacks are being exploited by Giuliani and stated; “$9.11 for Rudy” theme is an abuse of the image and symbols of the 2001 attacks. It is nothing short of disrespectful to the legacy of the thousands of civilians and 343 brave firefighters who died at ground zero.” (
Sad and pathetic…)
Applaud: to one sentence that sums up the Bush(whacked) Administration succinctly;
President Bush will leave office having presided over one of the fastest accumulations of government debt in the history of the United States. (
’Nuff said…)
Heckle: to even more adversity in Iraq. Besides living under the constant threat of attacks, now comes word that more than
2,000 people in Iraq are suffering from cholera, and it’s spreading across the country being accelerated by
chlorine restrictions imposed on Iraq due to security concerns. (
But the Iraqi people are better off now, right?)
Applaud: to a great quote. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) on Bush’s decision to skip the U.N. meeting and his destructive global warming policies. “Kennedy got us to the moon, George Bush’s energy policy wouldn’t get us to Cleveland.” (
Niiiiiiice)
Heckle: to news that the GAO is reporting that wounded veterans are still getting shoddy treatment. In response to a February 2007 series by Washington Post scribes Dana Priest and Anne Hull, the Bush(whacked) Administration, Congress and the military promised to fix the problems… but a new GAO report concludes that “
wounded warriors are still getting the runaround from the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs.” Such as delays for disability payments still average 177 days, 6 months, with no indication that any improvement is in the wings. (
Again, sad and pathetic, which seems to be the mantra for this administration. These brave men and women gave themselves for a unjust war, and the very LEAST we could do would be to ensure that they get the best treatment possible… as fast as possible… anything else is 100% unacceptable…)
Applaud: to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. In his memoir,
The Age of Turbulence, Mr. Greenspan writes that he is “saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows:
the Iraq war is largely about oil.” (
Well duhhhhhh)
Heckle: to “President” Bush. Usually it’s on general principles alone, but this week we’ll give special mention to him skipping out on U.N. talks on global warming and opting to organize his own meeting on the topic later in the week in DC… yeah, cuz I’m sure that meeting will contain honest and forthcoming opinions about global warming…
Applaud: to being yesterday’s news. Before this year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a prize catch on the Sunday talkers… but that’s no longer the case, as she has been
turned down by both CBS and NBC recently as they find her too aloof for their tastes… (
As I said in a “BushWhack’ing” this week; yet another victim of Bush’s midas-opposite effect. Everything he touches turns to shit… even politicians…)
Heckle: to a US Senate proposal that calls for the partitioning of Iraq, a proposal that drew an irate response from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Said al-Maliki; “Iraqis are eager for Iraq’s unity. […] Dividing Iraq is a problem and a decision like that
would be a catastrophe.”
Applaud: to the
withdrawing of John Rizzo as CIA General Counsel, whose nomination had elicited a fury of outrage from
senators and
human rights and advocacy groups, all stemming from his refusal to disavow his approval of a 2002 memo that stretched the definition of torture. (
Score one for deceny…)
Heckle: to “President” Bush’s veto guarantee of SCHIP… someone HAS to take his crayon away before he vetoes again…
Applaud: to a federal judge for ruling that
two provisions of the Patriot Act are unconstitutional, all because they allowed federal surveillance and searches of Americans without demonstrating probable cause. (
Wow, I guess the Constitution does have some power behind it still…)
Applaud: to the news that one of the “Jena 6”, Mychal Bell, has been released on bail, with the Jena district attorney announcing that “he
would not seek to maintain adult charges against the teenager.”
And a first for TBWA…we have a gop Tool of the Week Trifecta.
The first one is awarded to Bill “Want to see my microphone” O’Reilly, who said earlier this week on his radio show that he was surprised that the service at Sylvia’s was like that of “any other restaurant…
even though it’s run by blacks.” (
Stupid is as stupid does Bill. You really are a mental midget)
The second goes to right wing radio host Rush Limbaugh (ya sense a theme here?) who said this week that troops who support withdrawal from Iraq are “
phony soldiers.” (
This is an insult… pure and simple. And the silence from groups who were up in arms about MoveOn’s General Petraues ad is deafening…)
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