The People have spoken

A recent Gallup poll asked about 1,000 random citizens an open-ended question, "If you could talk with President George W. Bush for fifteen minutes and give him advice about anything that's on your mind, what would you tell him?" The results are available here, and they're quite an interesting read.

The obvious top two issues seem to be Iraq and the economy, but suprising to me was that it appears lots and lots of folks are worried about our neighbors to the South becoming their next-door neighbors.

Quoth The People...

Southern borders: watch the southern borders! Male, age 52

Keep the border people out, Mexicans. Female, age 89

Why isn't the Mexican border shut down and why isn't the illegals deported. Why is bin Laden living in this country? Male, age 73

Then, there are those that make you wonder what kind of person actually answers their phone during dinner...

Keep following the Lord. Female, age 23

Let's go hunting! Male, age 60

Good job, good Christian man. Female, age 65

He's doing a great job and how he's trying to get one house undivided. Male, age 46

There was lots of swearing, which makes you wonder what Gallop considers a "swear word."

Stop the (swear word) war. Male, age 56

He (swear word) on a lot of domestic problems. Male, age 44

Get the (swear word) out of Iraq . Male, age 48

He doing a (swear word) of a good job and keep fighting those democrats. Male, age 78

Get rid of NASA because it's kind of (swear word) up our jobs around here. Male, age 39

Kick (swear word), take names later. Male, age 43

Then, there are those that renew your faith in the folks that answer their phones during dinner...

Where can I find a job? Female, age 50

Retire. Female, age 52

To go jump in a lake. Female, age 50

And, my favorites: those feisty seniors...

He and his big wigs in Washington should fight the war and let our boys come home. Female, age 77

I would not even want to talk to him. Male, age 99

Don't mess with the seniors. Female, age 65

I'd probably go to jail for the rest of my life. Female, age 77

Use the little bomb and take the rest of them out. Female, age 84

Ok, maybe a little too feisty...

Gore lectures Congress

In a fiery speech yesterday, Al Gore upbraided the GOP for its crusade to change the Senate rules, its judicial bullying and its religious opportunism. It was old-school Gore... wonky and lecture-like, but damned good.

Here's a taste...

Through their words and threats, these Republicans are creating an atmosphere in which judges may well hesitate to exercise their independence for fear of Congressional retribution, or worse.

It is no accident that this assault on the integrity of our constitutional design has been fueled by a small group claiming special knowledge of God's will in American politics. They even claim that those of us who disagree with their point of view are waging war against "people of faith." How dare they?

Long before our founders met in Philadelphia, their forebears first came to these shores to escape oppression at the hands of despots in the old world who mixed religion with politics and claimed dominion over both their pocketbooks and their souls.

This aggressive new strain of right-wing religious zealotry is actually a throwback to the intolerance that led to the creation of America in the first place.

James Madison warned us in Federalist #10 that sometimes, "A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction."

And vice versa apparently...

Fact/fiction... who are we to judge?

National Lampoon scored a fake interview with our president's UN Ambassodor nominee and storied curmudgeon, John Bolton... at least I am assuming it's fake. Who knows?

Here are some of the possibly fake highlights...

ME [National Lampoon]: you testified Former Ambassador Thomas Hubbard thanked you for your controversial speech on North Korea. He says you 'Pistol whipped him' with a 'length of pipe'; threatened to 'pee' on him, find out what school his 'kids' went to and 'pee' on 'them' at the next 'school wide assembly'.

(Pause)

JOHN BOLTON: WHAT?! You goddamn punk, who the hell are you?

ME: Bax Murbank? We met at that thing. Secretary Rice introduced us? I'd said Badminton was a fag sport and she said 'Oh, you have to meet John, he can't stand fags.'

....................

ME: Are you and President Bush 'punking' congress or is this just, you know, him being retarded?

If he inexplicably sails through the confirmation vote we'll grab the fake follow-up interview. I promise.

Would that he were really this harmless

Read this... and love the Onion.

Guess What—It's Tom DeLay's Frisbee Now

You say impassioned advocate. I say raving looney. Let's call the whole thing off.

Saw this bit on the double-standards of political ranting on Wonkette and made me laugh and laugh and laugh... and then it kinda made me sad.

Dare we ask what comes third?

In yesterday's morning perusal of the Post I came across a profile of Rick Santorum. The headline [Father First, Senator Second] told me that it would undoubtedly be gushing nonsense, so I skipped it. Today, however, a friend suggested I read it. So, I did. That's the kind of friend I am.

Right off the bat, the piece was a bit distrurbing. Granted, I've never been in his position, but it just seems terribly... weird.

In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb.

Upon their son's death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen's parents' home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.

I'm not judging the Senator. I'll leave that to his fellow politicians...

Sen. Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat, grimaces. "You couldn't quote what I'd have to say about him," she says.

Boxer (D-Calif.) says he has a knack for "becoming remarkably harsh and personal during debates."

Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey once wondered whether Santorum is "Latin for [anus]."

Teresa Heinz Kerry called him "Forrest Gump with an attitude."

You can learn a lot about a man by what his colleagues say about him.

When the going gets tough, the tough blame the media

Tom DeLay issued a 6-page denial of all ethics violations today. Turns out he is totally innocent and the whole story was concocted by the "legion of Democrat-friendly press."

[Cue music.]

That's right, friends, the Legion of Democrat-Friendly Press... an unAmerican pack of journalists bent on tearing down the Republicans leadership one ethics violation at a time... led by their maniacal queen, Maureen Dowd, and her band of treacherous henchmen...

Actually, James Carville does have a certain comic book villain quality.

That poor woman: Part II

More from my morning reading... this one from today's New York Post.

When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke Tuesday night at NYU's Vanderbilt Hall, "The room was packed with some 300 students and there were many protesters outside because of Scalia's vitriolic dissent last year in the case that overturned the Texas law against gay sex," our source reports. "One gay student asked whether government had any business enacting and enforcing laws against consensual sodomy. Following Scalia's answer, the student asked a follow-up: 'Do you sodomize your wife?' The audience was shocked, especially since Mrs. Scalia was in attendance. The justice replied that the question was unworthy of an answer."

Exactly. What happens between two concenting adults in the privacy of their own bedroom is not the business of the... oh wait.

That poor woman...

Found this disturbing bit of info about a World Bank job on Wonkette.

"Apparently this job was posted internally for 6 months, but no one would apply because Wolfowitz's girlfriend wants it. It's true too--I have a friend who applied for the job externally. She said she's probably got no shot (due to wolfowitz's g/f), and that everyone at the world bank is scared to death of pissing his girlfriend off."

Ok, I have no problem with the nepotism. That's to be expected. Most shocking to me? Wolfowitz has a girlfriend.

Rumsfeld to Iraq: Are you getting all this down?

This just in from SwissInfo.org... Defense Secretary Rumsfeld offers pearls of wisdom to the new Iraqi leaders.

"It's important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence," Rumsfeld told reporters.

He then added, "Now if you'll excuse me I have some detainees to torture." Notice the use of the word "unnecessary."

Suffering the law's DeLay

Best advice to Democrats regarding our House majorty leader, Tom DeLay, came from an anonymous GOP lawmaker in today's Christian Science Monitor.

"Democrats should save their money. Why murder someone who is committing suicide?"

Assisted suicide... finally a DeLay ethics issue that Republicans can get morally outraged over.

Ask a smart question get a silly answer

A damned fine piece in the Washington Post about the little blogger that could, Eric Brewer, the second blogger allowed into the White House briefing room and his tussle with Scott McClelland.

Here's an excerpt...

"Back to the report on the botched WMD intelligence, have the massive intelligence failures documented in the report caused the President to rethink his policy of preventive war?"

Here's what McClellan said, from the transcript . You can click on each phrase to see how many times he's used those same words before in previous briefings.

" You know, September 11th taught us a very important lesson, and that lesson was that we must confront threats before it is too late . If we had known of those attacks ahead of time, we would have moved heaven and earth to prevent them from happening . This President will not hesitate when it comes to protecting the American people . And in the post-September 11th world that we live in, the consequences of underestimating the threat we face is too high. It's tens of -- possibly tens of thousands of lives .

Brewer followed up: "What about the cost of overestimating?"

McClellan: "Are you talking about the Iraq situation?"

Brewer: "Going into Iraq, yes, with bad intelligence."

McClellan: I think we've talked about this before . The world is safer with Saddam Hussein's regime removed from power . The Iraqi people are serving as an example to the rest of the Middle East through their courage and determination to build a free future ."

And at this point, Hearst columnist Helen Thomas piped in: "The ones that are alive, you mean?"

If it weren't so maddening, it would almost be funny... almost.

Complete Lapse in Judgement

I know this is absurd and purile, and the only message that's really being sent here is that I shouldn't be allowed to use Photoshop, but I couldn't help myself. I've been seeing this image in my head since some right to force life nutjob suggested using the national guard in the Schiavo case.

I don't expect any sympathy for my failings as a human...

Bush nominates Rumsfield Pope

I just wanted to scoop the Onion for once...

What a Couple of Dicks

Frankly, people, I gave two shits about the Schiavo situation. A lot of people seemed shocked that our federal government would put such effort into thwarting the wishes and freedoms of one of their citizens; I did not. This is the same government that is trying to draft a constitutional amendment making it illegal for certain types of people to perform rituals that express their personal love for one another. This is the same government who had its top law makers investigate whether anyone still gives a shit about baseball athletes.

Some were astounded that the entire U.S. news force would devote so much energy to Schiavo, especially once she was finally disconnected and death was an inevitability. I, on the other hand, was not. After all, what’s the primary contender in the media right now? Michael Jackson, and the continuing courtroom drama as we try to discover just how fucked up this man is.

The comic Superosity best expressed my sentiments about this situation here. In truth, given how retarded the news has been of late, I can only conclude that something important is happening that the GOP doesn’t want people to know about.

However, it always does my heart good to hear that the obviously politically motivated parents of Schiavo, the Schindlers, are showing their true colors. So, for those of you who were genuinely moved to compassion by this situation, so much that you decided to step in to help, know now that you’re going to get the same level of care, empathy and understanding from these two old fuckers as their daughter did, namely you’re going to be used without your consent for their own personal satisfaction.

I find it interesting that so many of these people, the Schindlers, the people at RightMarch and Response Unlimited, who call everyone who opposes them ‘the enemies of life,’ care so much about the life of someone who is essentially dead and has been declared by witnesses to not want to be kept alive this way? The answer is simple, like most conservatives, consequence and freedom mean nothing to them. They’ve chosen a single notion ‘keep people alive’ and approached it with an absolute zealotry. So long as your alive, no matter your wishes or how you’re treated, that’s ‘good’.

So even if Terri wanted to die, that doesn’t matter, only that they keep her alive. That the people on that list probably don’t want to get a bunch of solicitations from these self serving fuckers likewise doesn’t matter. Quality of life is meaningless to them. Personal wishes and freedom are meaningless to them. All they care about is ‘promoting their cause’, although to be fair, that cause seems to only relate to unborn children and white hospital patients. It certainly does not seem to apply to, say, Iraqis.

Friends, I, personally, am more right to life than most people I know, certainly I fall away from the typical liberal thinking on the matter. I think the practice of abortion should be reserved for cases where someone’s life or health are seriously at stake. I think euthanasia should only be performed when a person has expressed a desire to be euthanized, or when someone they’ve agreed to speak for them legally, like, say, a husband, makes that same claim, with corroborating witnesses. At the same time, I realize that life is a right, not an obligation. You can’t FORCE life, you can only protect it so long as a person actually has it and values it. These so called right to life groups neither realize this nor care about it. They aren’t good people, they’re opportunistic people, trying to pretend that conservatives have finally become compassionate, as predicted years ago. The trouble is, their efforts show us that they aren’t compassionate, and they can’t even comprehend it well enough to fake it.

And as for the Schindlers, making a quick buck off of the privacy, the quality of life of those who tried to help them? Well, how very, very right wing of them. What a pair of dicks.

I'm Tired

New York Times (and, I'm sure, your local paper, it was sure all over the headlines today) reports that Our Government is run by retards and that everything involving weapons of mass destruction was wrong. I'm confused, has the press been locked in cryogenic stasis for the last couple of years?

I can't even imagine why something so fucking obvious, that's been so obvious for so goddamned long, can make the news. Are we seriously expected to believe that Bush has just had people REPORT to him that he's been LYING to himself for the past few years? Are we really supposed to believe that? You want to walk into the office of every major 'investigative journalist' in the nation, grab them by their hair (or shirt collar, if hair be lacking) and just slam their head repeatedly against the hard wood of their desk, sobbing in frustration.

It's like we can't even have a rational dialogue in this nation anymore, because the right wing spends the first half of any debate lying through its fucking teeth and then, once proven wrong in EVERY FUCKING POSSIBLE WAY, the second half of the debate denying the first half. They bluster and express shock that things are the way they've MADE THEM BE! "My god, you mean there were never any weapons there? Well shit, we'd better torture some more Iraqis, just to make sure. In the meantime, we might as well pay Halliburton to repair all the shit we broke. What? They screwed us over the last time we hired them? Ah, well, better the devil you know, right?"

Cheney has been caught multiple times lying about what he stated and supported, so much so that we can watch MANY VIDEOS OF PEOPLE PLAYING HIS OWN WORDS BACK TO HIM after he's denied them. He has been so exposed as an utter fraud that you can't defend him anymore. The same with Bush and Daschle and the whole fucking lot of them. What is going on? Is this all some cruel gag? Has the right wing decided that it just wants to see how much it can fuck things up before the rest of us go batshit and shoot them all in the back of the goddamned head?

WHAT *SLAM* WHAT *SLAM* WHAT *SLAM* is fucking WRONG WITH EVERYONE? WHAT CAN WE DO to get you people to respond to a single, simple fact? It's one thing to be greedy, it's one thing to ignore something happening far away, but when every day of your shit-eating life the lies of your leaders are burned right into your fucking retinas to play endlessly on that sad, unfunctioning void that was once your conscious mind, what can I do to make you see them? You're like wax statues that can vote. My cat could bring to bear more informed and relevant political power than you.