Bush legacy 

After Christmas Reminder 

With appologies to Grant Wood 

Freedom Medals and Truth In Packaging

When President Bush handed out Freedom Medals to George Tenent, Paul Bremer and General Tommy Franks, it was a golden opportunity for some interesting repartee that never took place.

For example, when giving a medal to Tenent he might have said, "For your contribution to intelligence failures, bad intelligence and misleading guidance that caused me to invade and occupy Iraq-- with the blessings of a belly-up Congress-- to the tune of eighty-something billion dollars." That is exactly what the President and Congress told us.

Of course anyone who has not lived under a rock knows that Bush and his neo-con handlers vetted and cherry-picked the intelligence to justify their pax-Americana grand strategy by launching the Iraq invasion as a model.

With Paul Bremer, Bush could have cited his ability to put together an interim governing group heavy with Iraq exiles who readily said "how high" when Bremer said "jump".

About General Franks, Bush said "One of the highest distinctions of history is to be called a liberator and Tommy Franks will always carry that title." He might have added that an estimated 50,000 Iraqis and 1,300 Americans have been "liberated" from this mortal coil we call earth---and that the General "liberated" Bush's intent to start a war by flat out lying when asked by the media--- prior to the invasion--- if any troop staging and movement was underway. But, then, reality has never been an intregal component of Bush's thinking where Iraq is concerned.

huckster still at work 

Merry Christmas and lots of luck! 

Rumsfeld meets the troops

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "town hall" meeeting with our troops in Kuwait was most revealing.

According to the news service one soldier said:" A lot of us are getting ready to move north (to Iraq) relatively soon. Our vehicles are not armored. We're digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that's already been shot up, dropped, busted---picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat." The report went on to point out that "The Military audience cheered."

Rumsfeld replied that "it isn't a matter of money"or "desire", that it was a matter of "physics ". Baloney! The root cause of the chaos costing so many American and Iraqi lives is a small group of men who's hubris has driven us to an unnecessary war and who's incompetent planning and ignorance of regional political, social and religious undercurrents continue to divert us from the real battle against terrorists.

What is really flabbergasting is Rumsfeld's response that "you can have all the armor in the world" and an "up-armored Humvee"...can "be blown up." In other words, since there is no ultimate protection in a war, lets not make a major case out of not having the best possible protection.

This from an administration that proclaims critics of the Iraq invasion are unpatriotic!

Bill Sanders

Doing something 

Bush and Global Warming 

Dan Abrams on airport "security" searches

Dan Abrams of the Abrams Report took on the issue of women being patted down on the breasts during airport "security" checks. His penetrating logic was basically, "what's the big deal?" Abrams allowed as how he was patted down every time he went through an airport check--and added it's part of the "price we pay for security in today's world!" Really? I wonder when the last time Mr. Abrams was patted down on his testicles? If he has not had that done to him, I wonder why not? After all, airport security might find plastic explosives down there. More than likely, however, all they'd find would be the root of his male chauvinist attitude.

Bill Sanders

moral relativity 

The hubris continues at the AG office 

Another Bush-values apointment 

unequal rights 

white mans economy 

tradional values 

meaningless threat 

traditional values at work 

good question 

Moral Mandate Baloney

The irony of the so called Moral Values imperative that propelled George Bush to a second term is, at its core, fueled by narrow mindedness, hypocrisy and demagoguery!

George Bush would no more fight for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage than he would have volunteered to go to Vietnam. It only sounds good in political rhetoric and callously served his purpose for getting re-elected.

The plain reality is that neither he nor Congress will unleash that loose cannon to take potshots at the very foundation of this great nation. They know that to do so would set in motion a chain of events over which they would have no control and open the flood gates for every crackpot notion that lurks in the hearts of tunnelvisioned organizations.

The evangelical right, for all of its righteous “pro-life” piety, does not really believe that a fertilized egg should have the full protection of law and that abortion is murder. Anyone who stakes out that claim— if they truly believed it---would be demanding the arrest and prosecution for murder of every woman who chose an abortion and every doctor who performed one.

Moreover, if the “pro-life” lobby suddenly got its wish and had the power to write an anti-abortion law—does anyone really believe they would make its violation (murder) punishable by execution---or life in prison---or even 30 or 40 years in prison? And what, then would they do with the head of an invitro fertilzation clinic who orders the destruction (murder) of excess, or questionable fertilized eggs?

For those who were motivated to vote for George Bush because of some vague notion of his moral superiority, it would be interesting to see their reaction if they reaped the full benefits of his “secular” agenda: the depletion of Social Security benefits that are drained by the capricious nature of the stock market--the privatization and increased cost of healthcare for senior citizens--the increased pollution of the air and water--the continuing tolls we pay for the occupation of Iraq in terms of money and terrorism--not to mention the ever ready preemptive war—waiting to be unholstered elsewhere.

election mandate 

Surprise! Surprise! 

That spelled with u-c-k! 

DUH! 

Nothing new here. 

Abu White House 

Justice ala Scalia 

The Choice 

No child left behind---only financing!