GOP Hypocrite of the Week
Viagra spokesman and GOP attack dog Bob Dole get’s his words handed back to him in Slate.
Watching the attacks on Kerry and the glorification of Bush reminds me of something Dole said in his speech to the Republican convention eight years ago. It was “demeaning to the nation,” Dole argued, to be governed by people “who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered and never learned.”You tell me which of this year’s presidential candidates that statement best describes.
Thanks Kevin.
Flounder on the deck
Apparently Mr. Bush is not only suffering from megalomania he now has amnesia. After saying yesterday that the war on terror is unwinnable, he is now saying ‘We Will Win’ Terror War. Can anyone say flip-flopper.
By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them
Despite their denials, Bush & Co. are inching toward a theocratic White House.
By Mark Crispin Miller
AlterNet
Posted August 31, 2004
Following is an excerpt from Chapter 6, The Clear and Present Danger, from Mark Crispin Miller’s book, “Cruel and Unusual: Bush and Cheney’s New World Order.”
The radical collapse of all distinction between church and state and the promotion of an angry “Christianity” as the USA’s official state religion have grown increasingly apparent as the Bush regime has turned more grandiose and reckless after 9/11. That revolutionary program has gradually come into view despite the press’s failure to expose it, and despite the random efforts of the White House to conceal it (”Well, I - first of all, I would never justify - I would never use God to promote policy decisions,” Bush said, without conviction, to Brit Hume in an interview on September 22, 2003). A cursory survey of Bush/Cheney’s foreign and domestic innovations will make clear that from the start, this regime has been hard at work transforming the United States into a theocratic system, and, globally, at the gradual creation of a nominally Christian New World Order.
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John Kerry’s 1971 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony
It now appears that the reason everyone is up in arms about John Kerry’s Vietnam record is not his service but rather the testimony he gave before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971. Pesky posted the text of this testimony yesterday but the video is much more telling. I urge you to watch his testimony and judge for yourself.
Video courtesy of Democracy NOW.
Galilean Citizens for Truth
“We served with Jesus. Jesus is lying about his record.”
My Beef With Big Media
How government protects big media–and shuts out upstarts like me.
Washington Monthly
By Ted Turner
In the late 1960s, when Turner Communications was a business of billboards and radio stations and I was spending much of my energy ocean racing, a UHF-TV station came up for sale in Atlanta. It was losing $50,000 a month and its programs were viewed by fewer than 5 percent of the market.
I acquired it.
When I moved to buy a second station in Charlotte–this one worse than the first–my accountant quit in protest, and the company’s board vetoed the deal. So I mortgaged my house and bought it myself. The Atlanta purchase turned into the Superstation; the Charlotte purchase–when I sold it 10 years later–gave me the capital to launch CNN.
Both purchases played a role in revolutionizing television. Both required a streak of independence and a taste for risk. And neither could happen today. In the current climate of consolidation, independent broadcasters simply don’t survive for long. That’s why we haven’t seen a new generation of people like me or even Rupert Murdoch–independent television upstarts who challenge the big boys and force the whole industry to compete and change.
It’s not that there aren’t entrepreneurs eager to make their names and fortunes in broadcasting if given the chance. If nothing else, the 1990s dot-com boom showed that the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well in America, with plenty of investors willing to put real money into new media ventures. The difference is that Washington has changed the rules of the game. When I was getting into the television business, lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took seriously the commission’s mandate to promote diversity, localism, and competition in the media marketplace. They wanted to make sure that the big, established networks–CBS, ABC, NBC–wouldn’t forever dominate what the American public could watch on TV. They wanted independent producers to thrive. They wanted more people to be able to own TV stations. They believed in the value of competition.
Nick Coleman: Gospel, crosses and boos on cue
Nick Coleman
Star Tribune
August 20, 2004
A guy in combat gear and Kevlar helmet, machine gun at the ready, stopped me outside the Xcel Energy Center.
“Hey,” he said. “How you doing?”
It was just one of my buddies on the St. Paul Police Department, dressed for combat and carrying a 9-millimeter MP5. It was a beautiful day in St. Paul, the president of the United States was on his way to town, the SWAT team and the protesters were out, and I was on my way in.
My daughter put me down for a ticket to attend Wednesday’s rally for President Bush, probably because she’s always wondered what her old man would look like spread-eagled against a wall. But I was glad to join her. Lots of people don’t feel welcome at political rallies these days, so this was a chance to see what’s going on.
After three hours of speeches and nothing to eat or drink, I can say this: If you aren’t dying to get into a political rally, you will be to get out of one.
We passed through the metal detectors and by the tables where folks were told to leave their contraband — umbrellas, water bottles and other items not allowed inside, including books. Here’s an impromptu look at a Republican reading list: “The Ultimate Bible Fun Book” was one of the inspirational titles left behind, along with “Shrines to Our Lady Around the World.”
Religious conviction was a big part of the program, from the invocation in which the minister thanked God for touching the heart of George W. Bush (”a man we believe You’ve established”) to the Pledge of Allegiance, during which people shouted out the words “under God” in order to vocalize their faith.
Weekend Review
This weekend was filled with preconvention coverage from all the cable news networks. I watched nearly all of it with the exception of Fox News simply because it makes my blood boil. Some interesting things to note from this weekend:
All of the pundits reported that polling shows Bush in the lead heading into the convention. With all of the fallout from the Swift Boat ads I am not surprised by these findings yet I don’t put too much weight in them either. An article appeared in this weekends Detroit Free Press which mentions a huge Zogby/Williams poll which shows Kerry with a healthy lead.
Nationally, a large Zogby/Williams poll of 20,900 voters found Kerry leads Bush by 50.8 percent to 46.7 percent among likely voters, with only 2.4 percent undecided or so soft in their support of either candidate that they could easily change. That survey had an error margin of plus or minus less than 1 percentage point.
In the following exchange between Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press one major inconsistency stood out in my mind:
MR. RUSSERT: …some quick poll numbers. Where the country is headed, 36 percent right direction, 50 percent wrong track; president’s handing of the economy, 52 percent disapprove; was the war in Iraq worth it, now 49 percent say no, and yet if the election held today, George Bush 47, John Kerry 45, Ralph Nader, 3. The Republicans point to these two numbers, Tom: 53 percent approval for the war on terrorism, and then this–Bush is easygoing and likable, 55 to 27. They think those are the linchpins of his success.MR. BROKAW: Can I just add one more?
MR. RUSSERT: Please.
MR. BROKAW: I’ll put you through this. When it comes to issues such as the economy, education and health care, do you think President Bush has provided a clear set of goals? Has provided a clear set of goals, 29 percent, has not spelled out his goals, 63 percent, two to one. So I think you see in that poll the challenge for both candidates here. George Bush has to come here, spell out his agenda for the next four years that go beyond fighting the war on terrorism and dealing with issues like education. It’s going to be a kinder, gentler Republican Party with the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger and others.
On Hardball they also made mention of some new polling results that show the pResident’s greatest strength in is his handling of the war on terror yet his worst is the war in Iraq.
Yet while Bush leads the horse race, both the economy and Iraq continue to dog his re-election campaign. The poll shows that 52 percent of respondents disapprove of Bush’s handling of the economy, compared with 43 percent who approve. Regarding Iraq, 49 percent say removing Saddam Hussein from power was not worth the casualties or financial cost of the war, while 43 percent say it was worth it.However, the poll also shows that Bush’s standing in the war on terrorism has gotten stronger. Fifty-three percent of registered voters approve of his handling on terrorism, while 42 percent disapprove. For Bush, that’s an increase from June, when 48 percent said they approved, compared with 47 percent who disapproved.
This just doesn’t make any sense to me since Bush continues to assert that the war in Iraq is the “central front in the war on terror.” How can people say he is doing well on the war on terror yet not like the single largest action he has taken in it? Weird.
NYC RNC Protest Photos
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past six months you know that the Republican National Convention begins Monday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. For the past several months an organization known as United for Peace and Justice has been preparing for a massive rally in opposition to the pResident and his policies. This rally seems to have gone off smoothly drawing an estimated 250,000 - 400,000 protestors. James over at Angry Finger joined the march and has some excellent pictures of the protests. Thanks to Kevin at Catch for pointing this out.
UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that unofficially the NYPD has estimated the protest crowd at a half-million!
The protest organizer, United for Peace and Justice, estimated the crowd at 500,000, rivaling a 1982 antinuclear rally in Central Park, and double the number it had predicted. It was, at best, a rough estimate. The Police Department, as is customary, offered no official estimate, but one officer in touch with the police command center at Madison Square Garden agreed that the crowd appeared to be close to a half-million.
I just turned on FOX News and they are reporting that the march consisted of three anarchists and a dog… ok, they didn’t say that.
Former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes Video
Here is the video of former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes talking about moving George W. Bush up on the list to get into the National Guard.
Courtesy of Austin4Kerry and Greater Democracy
FBI Suspects Israel Has Pentagon Mole - Govt. Sources
FBI Suspects Israel Has Pentagon Mole - Govt. Sources
10 Weeks: "Everybody" - Benny Boom
Today MoveOn PAC is launching a 10-week countdown featuring creative, funny, and beautiful ads from some of America’s top directors and actors, including Rob Reiner, to Scarlett Johanssen, John Sayles, Matt Damon, and many more. They call it 10 Weeks: Don’t Get Mad, Get Even! Each week, they will pair one new ad with a couple of actions we can all take to make a difference as we speed toward the finish line.
Check out the breathtaking first “10 Weeks” ad, Benny Boom’s “Everybody.”
This is not the country I grew up in!
This administration and its issues are self-serving, at best! If something affects them, it changes their view of that issue. Case in point - Dick Cheney’s stand on gay marriage. Only because his daughter is gay does he take a stand. If she were “straight”, he would stand side-by-side with his “Commander in Chief” to make sure an amendment to the Constitution be installed to ban gay marriages. Religion is being cited for this amendment when in reality it has nothing to do with it. These are “civil unions” - the government has nothing to do with the church’s law!
Speaking of which, according to MY religion, the only reason for marriage is to procreate! In other words, any couple (be it male & female, or otherwise) is not “married” in the eyes of the Lord if they don’t or expect not to have children! Which puts thousands upon thousands of couples in “marriage limbo!” Apparently then, people who marry later in life who can no longer have children should not be allowed to marry either. Where does this end?
We need to allow the rights of some to become the rights for ALL! That is what this country is supposed to be about. The Constitution calls for EVERYONE to ENJOY EQUALLY THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF CITIZENSHIP AS ESTABLISHED BY LAW.
Terry
Plymouth, MI
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We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
By Garrison Keillor
In These Times
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned - and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.
In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.
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Ranks of Poor, Uninsured Rose in 2003
America, you can only hide from the truth for so long. While the pRresident has been telling us that his economic policies are a success, this damning report just came out to the contrary, Ranks of Poor, Uninsured Rose in 2003. Gee, I guess those Nobel Laureates in Economics were not mistaken after all.
Conserva-Speak
by Thomas Burns
Republished with the permission of Thomas Burns.
Who is Lying About What?
Dubbya has been expending an awful lot of energy trying to claim that John Kerry is somehow lying about his service in Vietnam. I have been struggling over how to handle this but someone already beat me to it, Lefty, and he does an excellent job of pointing the finger back at the real liar.