Somewhere HOT, Lee Atwater is laughing...

...because the above billboard is straight out of Atwater's playbook. (Hey, at least he's keeping a seat warm down below for Karl Rove.) This is one of the most shameless things I've seen in recent memory, and considering I'm including the many the low points over the last eight years of largely Republican rule, that's saying something. The above billboard is currently on display in Orange Country, Florida, exhorting people to "Not vote for a Democrat" with a picture of the burning World Trade Center towers in the background. Quite frankly, it's an insult to the American people, because the last time I checked, Our National Embarrassment was president for nearly nine months when the 9-11 attacks took place, so the guy responsible for this must think Americans are pretty stupid. It's also a slap in the face to those who died on 9-11, at the risk of hyperbole.

It's pretty amazing how someone could be so diabolical to believe that a Democrat (Read: It's Bill Clinton's fault) was in the White House when the attacks happened, or at the very least that they were all the Democrats' fault. Whatever. He was on CNN yesterday, pathetically trying to explain himself, and the anchor didn't even correct him when he said 9-11 happened on Bill Clinton's watch. (By the way, someone should slap this guy and tell him that "9-1-1" is a number you dial for an emergency, "9-11" is the date of the tragedies. Then again, you can only hope for so much when you're dealing with an intellectual giant like this.) ...

What an ignorant, asinine hick. People like this aren't even hardly worth the time. The only damn shame is that some people will see this and actually believe it. I'd love to meet this guy so I could spit in his face.

And the "fact" that Bill Clinton had Osama bin Laden in his hands and let him go? Unadulterated bullshit - another right-wing smear spread around the Internet that many people SWEAR is true. 

I love how both parties in the state have called the billboard "inappropriate." Yea, sure. And Hurricane Katrina was a zephyr.

Pop-Up Double Talk: McCain on Katrina

The people over at McCain Source are doing an excellent job of pointing out all of the McCain inconsistencies and his true voting record. One of their latest features is dubbed Pop-Up Double-Talk, and it had me laughing, until I started reading all of the pop-up facts in a speech McCain delivered in Louisiana about Hurricane Katrina.

This video was put out a little while ago, but I figured it was apropos, since the Midwest is being devastated by flooding as you read this, and those people are going to be in dire straights for a long time, if the government's help following Katrina is any indication. Anyway, when you have a minute, go to McCain Source - it has a wealth of information about McCain's background and voting patterns, as well as lots of new, funny, original stuff.

CMB Swag is Here!

The all-new Count Me Blue Shop is open for business! After much searching for the best possible deals to bring you quality, CMB merchandise at reasonable prices, the search has ended and the Open sign has blinked on.

Please take a moment and support the blog, but you're not just supporting me. From now until midnight on election day, November 4, 2008, half of all profits from the CMB Shop will be donated to Direct Relief International, an admirable organization devoted to bringing relief around the world to those stricken by poverty, natural disasters, civil unrest, etc. However, when I donate money to Direct Relief, I am requiring that the organization use all of my donation toward the people of New Orleans, many of whom are still suffering terribly from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, nearly three years after the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast. Certainly I'm not without sympathy for the people of Myanmar, China, etc. who have been hit by natural disasters as of late, but our U.S. government is not doing an adequate job of taking care of our citizens in need on the Gulf Coast.

Honestly, after the initial costs of purchasing the items below, I will make very little money on this merchandise, and I'm fine with that. I'd just like to spread the word about CMB, and help some people who are suffering in our country in the process.

In return for your support, I plan on bring you lots of video, commentary, book reviews, movie reviews and all sorts of other quality content to get you primed for the '08 election. I also plan on doing as much original, first-hand reporting and photography as possible on political events in the Philadelphia area from now until election day (and after). I attended multiple John Kerry rallies in 2004, and since Pennsylvania promises to be a critical swing state once again this fall, both candidates will no doubt be making plenty of stops in the Philadelphia area.

As always, your support is greatly appreciated, and I openly encourage your thoughts and feedback. I will have a FAQ section up later today or tomorrow regarding the CMB Shop, but in the meantime, if you have a specific question, please direct inquiries to rj photo 71 at gmail dot com. (All together - sorry for typing my e-mail that way, but when I make my e-mail address readily available and searchable, you would not believe all of the annoying e-mail I get from around the world with crazy offers for this and that.) All for now - happy shopping, and thanks again!


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These great looking bracelets, the exact kind that Lance Armstrong made so famous, are made of tough, durable rubber that lasts and lasts. How long, you ask? I've been wearing one since a few days after John Kerry was defeated by President Bush in 2004, and my original wrist band is still going strong. Not only will this bracelet remind you of your "favorite" political blog, but you'll also be telling the world about your voting intentions in 2008 and beyond. One size fits most.

CNN's Jessica Yellin on our corporate media

For all of the heat the former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan is taking for his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, there's little question that a great deal about what he says in the book is true, and I'm only going from memory going back to the beginning of the Iraq War. The press simply laid down and reported what the administration wanted it to support, in the time of militant and belligerent patriotism. People like CNN's Jessica Yellin (and McClellan) are now beginning to step forward to reveal to what extent this took place.

Good for her. I really do like Anderson Cooper - he's one of the few shining stars that CNN has right now, but his surprise at Yellin's comments is borderline laughable. Surely he was exposed to at least a little pressure from network bigwigs at CNN to cover the GWOT in a favorable light during the run-up to the War in Iraq. I can't think of a domestic-based major media outlet that raised sufficient questions about why we were going to war. I may be wrong, but I can't think of any. And I'm including traditionally viewed "liberal" outlets as well - the New York Times, WaPo, CNN, etc. Okay, Air America Radio is one, but that doesn't have the reach that major media outlets enjoy.

This will be an emerging story in the years to come, without questions. Especially now that the Bush administration is coming to a merciful end, and there's money to be made selling tell-all books.

I believe I'm stating the obvious here, but I haven't heard this point nearly enough in the media, but it's now pretty clear that Iraq is to Bush as Vietnam is to LBJ. The Vietnam War left the Johnson presidency in tatters, along with his presidential legacy. I don't think there's any question at this point that Iraq will do the same thing to Bush in the years to come (with a big assist from lots of smaller failings, led by Hurricane Katrina).

Early Sunday cartoons

I hope you brought your appetite for political outrage to the table, because this week's recipe for political cartoons is a tasty one - lots of War in Iraq, with a pinch Hurricane Katrina, and some Alberto Gonzales, if your stomach can handle it.

The Elizabeth Edwards cartoon and the second one down about political theater brought a smile and a laugh - they are among the wittiest I've seen yet this year. It's going to be awfully hard to hand out the CMB Award for Best Cartoon at year's end.

On to the cartoons - enjoy.

Pickling the Poor, by Mark Fiore

Mark Fiore, a brilliant political commentator, has been putting out some great stuff for quite some time. His latest animation, which commemorates Hurricane Katrina, is one of his best yet. (Click on either screen capture to go to his Website, where Pickling the Poor, his Katrina animation, will automatically begin.)

For those of you who have not followed the saga of New Orleans since Katrina literally blew away a once-great American city, the topics Fiore covers in this piece are true, from formaldehyde-laced trailers to the planned rebuilding of New Orleans to drive out the poor, it's all been in the news. However, with the many other disasters the Bush administration is tending to, it tends to be relegated to the back pages of the paper, not the front of them.

Heckuva job, Fiore, heckuva job.

A cartoon to lead off your day

I got a kick out of this one.

I find it perfectly absurd that the Bush administration implicitly blamed Kansas Governor Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius for her state's response to the Greensburg Tornado last week.

What's really at issue here is the same problem that plagued New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 - the National Guard is stretched so thin from deployments in Iraq that have been extended and extended, there simply is not enough personnel and equipment to respond to natural disasters, let alone any other governmental or civil issues.

More on this later in the weekend.

Bush Sr.: "Bush fatigue" has set in

Seems that former President George H.W. Bush think that country might be sick of politicians named "Bush." I can see that his 82 years have not diminished his sharp wit and wisdom.

"There's something to that -- there might be a little Bush fatigue now," said former President Bush.

Barbara and George were on Larry King tonight, and of course they were full of praise for their son, Jeb, the former governor of Florida.

Bush seems to think that there's a political future for Jeb.

"I hope that Jeb, who left office looking good, is not through with politics," the elder Bush said. " I think he's a good man, most other people think that, a man of principle. And I think he's got a future."

Considering Jeb's role in the 2000 recount, I hope his only future in politics is running his brother's presidential library or something.

I guess I can never think of Jeb without the bitterness of 2000 boiling to the surface.

Speaking of Jeb, I got a sick kick out of the University of Florida's attempts to honor him. About a month ago, the University of Florida, by a 38-28 vote, decided to deny Jeb Bush an honorary degree. Among the faculty senate's concerns were some of Bush's education initiatives while serving as governor of Floria.

However, when Republicans want to give a tongue bath to one of their own, they'll do whatever it takes, the will of the people be damned. Not to be denied, the conservative-controlled state legislature took things into their own hands. The House Schools & Learning Council voted a few weeks to force the university to rename its education school the "Jeb Bush College of Education."

How ridiculous and self serving. If Jeb had any balls, he would have turned this award down. I can't imagine being that shameless, showing up on U of Florida's campus to commemorate having the school being renamed in his honor. (I imagine that since the school is being renamed, there will be some sort of ceremony at some point.) However, maybe the school and/or Bush will eschew such a ceremony because of the controversy. (And the protests that would inevitably result.)

I really try to not be petty and cynical about politics, but sometimes it's very hard. The former president I can tolerate, and I even admire him in some ways. I almost always disagree with him politically, but he has a certain aura of respect around him.

However, I do not feel the same about the rest of the Bush family: Neil Bush and his role in the Silverado Savings and Loan scandal; Jeb and his role in the 2000 election; and Barbara Bush's well-earned reputation for saying absurdly insensitive things, such as:

telling the press that she could not say on TV what she thought of then Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, but "it rhymes with rich."

However, nothing beats Barbara's all-time worst quote about Hurricane Katrina victims. (Picture at Right) "Beautiful mind"? Humph. What a churlish rube.

I hear Repubes complaining all the time about the Kennedy dynasty, and on some points, rightfully so. But, the Bush clan more than equals the Kennedys out, and then some.

Jeb is still pretty young - it will be interesting to see if he elects to jump back into politics at some point in the future. If he's anything like his big brother, I sure hope not.

Ex-Bush aide: Kerry was right

This was pretty big news this past weekend - ex-presidential aide Matthew Dowd has spoken out against President Bush, and in a very unequivocal, public way.

Dowd, a former Democrat who was not happy with many things during the Clinton Presidency, was taken in by Bush's messages of "restoring honor and integrity to the Oval Office" and bringing bipartisanship and cooperation to Washington. Dowd switched parties and remained with Bush for the next six years, serving as Bush's chief campaign strategist during the 2004 election.

However, many events began to change his mind - Abu Gharib, Bush's refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the decision to keep Donald Rumsfeld on after a number of missteps, and the renomination of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton.

"I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things," he said during an interview with The New York Times. He added, "I think he's become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in."

During his NYT interview, Dowd stated his faith in Bush's ability was misplaced, and he called for a withdraw from Iraq. In retrospect, Dowd says his faith in Bush was misplaced. You've got plenty of company, Mr. Dowd.

He asserted in the interview that Bush "still approached governing with a 'my way or the highway' mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides." What a surprise.

Dowd said he decided to go public with his disagreement with the administration because his disappointment was so great. He also reasoned he felt an obligation to speak out now because he played a part in Bush's electoral victories.

The most powerful passage from the Times article comes here:

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled "Kerry Was Right," arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

"I'm a big believer that in part what we're called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have," Mr. Dowd said. "Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election."

Even more outrageous, and in retrospect, sad, it what Dowd had to say in the interview about Kerry's qualifications to lead a strong national defense:

In television interviews in 2004, Mr. Dowd said that Mr. Kerry’s campaign was proposing "a weak defense," and that the voters "trust this president more than they trust Senator Kerry on Iraq."

But he was starting to have his own doubts by then, he said.

He said he thought Mr. Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but "missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice."

The two events that hardened Dowd's resolve to speak out against Bush happened during the summer of 2005, said Dowd: the president's poor decisions regarding Hurricane Katrina, and Bush's refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan around the same time that he was entertaining Tour de France Champion Lance Armstrong at his Crawford ranch, said Dowd during the interview.

His thought process was further influenced by working with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during his 2006 campaign, which had a theme of broad, bi-partisan appeal. (I can relate to Dowd's thinking here - Arnold is most definitely a Republican I would consider voting for were he eligible to run for president, which he is not.)

"I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people," said Dowd, "but bring the country together as a whole.

"If the American public says [it's] done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want," Dowd said. "They’re saying, 'Get out of Iraq.'"

Pretty powerful statements from one of Bush's inner circle. This is by no means a crippling blow, but it comes at a time when Bush needs as few of these stories as possible in the media.

While it's about three years too late, I applaud Dowd for his courage - it's not a stretch that Bush's Rasputin, Karl Rove, will avenge Dowd's change of heart in whatever way he can.

Photos from AP via The Huffington Post

Katrina trailers in FEMA FUBAR limbo

You're looking at a picture of why our federal government doesn't work. Above is a picture of 20,000 trailers, a good portion of them new or in like-new condition, purchased by FEMA in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, at the cost of millions of dollars to U.S. taxpayers.

It turns out many of them weren't needed, so FEMA is now selling them off at fire sale prices. Fair enough, to a certain extent.

My big question is, why not keep some of them on hand, in storage, for the next big natural disaster? Many of them are being stored in Hope, Arkansas, like the ones above, because it's considered one of the safest areas in the south - too far inland for a hurricane to have any significant impact.

But, the million dollar question is - why was FEMA so slow to respond to the tornadoes that hit the south last week? Well over a hundred homes were destroyed, and there the trailers sit. After a bit of public outcry, FEMA agreed to send 30 used trailers to the area. Stop the press!

I understand part of the delay was waiting for President Bush to declare the areas hit by tornadoes federal disaster areas. Fine.

But, once that happened, why not send 150 of them to the tornado-ravaged areas? It's inexcusable that it didn't happen. Why? Because it could and should take one phone call from Bush to his FEMA director, R. David Paulison, to make it happen.

Ring Ring Ring

RDP: Hello, David Paulison here.

W: David, hi, it's the president. Send 150 trailers to the tornado areas, now. Make sure that every displaced family gets one and that no one is left homeless. Make sure it is done in an orderly and fair manner. Implement some safeguards - I want no stories of fraud in the media - how some enterprising individual drove to Alabama and made off with a new trailer on the federal government's dime. Other than that, none of these people should be staying in shelters by the end of the week. Call me if you have any problems or any obstacles, and I'll get 'em out of the way for you, pronto.

RDP: I'll see to it, Mr. President.

##

Wow, that sounds hard. I think that's what they call being a commander in chief. Or, in the infamous words of my college newspaper, in what was one of our worst headlines ever, "Leaders lead people." (Thankfully, that headline wasn't written on my watch.)

Even more frustrating is that FEMA has been broken for years - problems like these span decades and administrations both Democratic and Republican. Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are all examples of FEMA's ineptitude. (And all happening on a Republican president's stewardship, if you're keeping score.)
If problems like these aren't fixed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when are they going to be fixed? What's more, if the unthinkable happens, the detonation of a nuclear bomb, what would our government's response be then?

When I read stories like these, my only thought is that in that situation, the men, women and children in this country would have to fend for themselves. Because we sure as hell can't wait for the government to respond in a timely manner to most natural disaster situations.

Time for more cartoons

I found some great political cartoons on the Internet today, most of them from Slate Magazine. As many of you know by now, I have a profound love of the political cartoon, especially the biting ones that get straight to the point. The less words the better - I like the story to be told in pictures.

This one hits close to home, but it's true.

I'm really going to miss Dick Cheney after 1.20.09, because there is no one I love disliking more than him, and that's saying something, considering the level of incompetence of many in the Bush Administration. Above are just a few examples of the absolute bunk that comes out of Cheney's pie hole.

This one is money. I'm SO tired of the idiotic, oversimplification of Cut and Run. I love it that when Great Britain announces its withdraw of forces from Iraq, it's "a sign of the success" in Iraq, but when Democrats want to bring our troops home, it's Cut and Run. Damn liberal media!

Speaks for itself. I'll have more on the Cheney close call a bit later.

Another one that's tragically right on the money. I was listening to Sean Insanity this past week, and I heard him blabbering on about how we should be going to war with Iran and how we should be treating that country in the strictest possible terms. Mark him down as another Republican who knows nothing of war, since he never served, but who is all gung ho to send more troops to another country. If it comes to war with Iran, it comes to war, but, unlike Iraq, let's exhaust all diplomatic options first. Since up until this past week we haven't even been talking to Iran, we've got a long way to go before we can declare that we gave diplomacy every chance to work.

I'll have more on this one soon, too, but the cartoon is a good summary of what is going on with cervical cancer vaccines.

Right on the money. Thank God for small favors - President Bush returned to the Gulf Coast this past week for the first time in six months. Without even checking, I wonder how many times Bush has been back to his Crawford "Ranch" since he last visited Hurricane Katrina victims? And I wonder if a stop off in New Orleans, Mississippi and other hard hit areas from the worst natural disaster in history would really have been that inconvenient?

Katrina and the federal government's response (and seeming indifference) to it reminds me at least a little to Hurricane Andrew, a devastating Category 5 hurricane that struck south Florida in 1992. President George H.W. Bush was slow to respond to that disaster, but not on the scale of the ineptitude of his son's handling of Katrina.

Good for Al Gore. He's battled Republican lies, slander, distortions and outright lies for decades, but, with the exception of the 2000 presidential election, he's rarely melted like so many polar ice caps. This week saw more of the Karl Rove playbook, when an allegedly non-biased think talk went after him for his electricity bills, less than 24 hours after his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, won an Oscar for best documentary. The Swiftboating sure was swift, and thankfully, so was the revelation that the whole attack on Gore was bunk.

Love it.

This one hits close to home, too, because of bitter memories I have about the '04 presidential campaign. Yes, Kerry flip flopped (I'm soooooo effin' tired of that term) on several issues, but Bush's list was twice as long. And, what did we get from the Kerry camp? Silence.

This time around, so far it's McCain, Giuliani and Romney who are doing their best to be all things to all people. All three of the GOP front runners have, thus far, switched positions more than a porn star.

When I say I love political cartoons that say a lot by saying a little, this is the kind I'm talking about, and this one almost certainly is the truth. But, we'll probably never know Libby's whole story, or how Bush & his cohorts lied to get us into the war, considering this administration's Nixon-like penchant for secrecy.

I'd be remiss if I left out the Walter Reed controversy. This story is far from over & bears watching over the coming months, if not years.

It's hard to comprehend how our troops are being treated and "cared for" at Walter Reed and elsewhere.

It looks like help finally is on the way, thanks to some investigative journalism on the part of two Washington Post reporters, Dana Priest and Anne Hull. In a day where responsible and relevant journalism is becoming more scarce by the day, it was good to see that journalism can still function as The Fourth Estate, thereby effectively bringing about much needed change in our government. There isn't nearly enough of this today.

I don't think it's overreaching to say that if something happened today with the scope and size of Watergate, it would probably go at least partially unreported or perhaps even covered up. Lazy journalism is now the norm; slipshod reporting can no longer be referred to as isolated or seldom seen. Lazy journalists have been around for hundreds of years, but the level and quality of journalism seems to be regressing.

So, it appears that Bush never knew about conditions at Reed. I don't accept that, but even if I did, how could this have happened at the Pentagon? Where was defense department oversight? Two words: Donald Rumsfeld.

Another one right on the money.

Phew! Okay, that's enough cartoons for a while. But, I found all of these today and I couldn't decide which ones to post, so I decided to put 'em all up.

My thoughts on Bush's State of the Union

I've been stewing about President Bush's State of the Union Speech for a few weeks now, and to be honest, I've been a bit too busy to have the time to finish off my thoughts - the beginning of the semester, along with our trip to Vegas have both not allowed me to have much time to write (plus a nasty cold that I'm fighting), but I'm ready at last.

But, before I comment on Bush's last relevant State of the Union speech, I figured it would be cool to look at his SOTU from a few years ago. Watch the clip above, and then read on...

Too funny, eh? God, I have to add video-editing capabilities to my list of New Year's resolutions. I got a kick out of that one.

###



Before getting to my comments, the clip above is worth a look - it's of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann did a quick review of Bush's past SOTU speeches.

Okay, on to Bush's real speech, delivered a little over two weeks ago. Better late than never, right?

Bush's last SOTU address that even matters (next year’s will be an irrelevant lame duck speech, and his '09 goodbye will be a yawner, just like Clinton's was in January '01) should have aired on Comedy Central, because it was about the funniest speech I've ever heard him deliver.

First, I laughed out loud when I heard Bush intone that he's ready for bipartisanship and to work with Democrats. Anyone who's paid attention to five minutes of Bush's Presidency knows that line is fit for the B.S. Hall of Fame. Bush and his speechwriters must really hold the American public in low regard, if they think we are this frickin' stupid.

A few things about Bush's bipartisan olive branch, and I'll move on to other topics of his speech. When you include the '00 presidential primaries and election, Bush and his Rasputin, Karl Rove, have spent the last seven years doing their best to divide, conquer and scare the American electorate, and they've been mostly successful.

During the Bush Presidency, whenever it's an election year, the playbook has become all too predictable – terrorism, 9-11, terrorism, 9-11, abortion and its first cousin - stem cell research, terrorism, 9-11, gay marriage, terrorism, terrorism, 9-11, Iraq was a danger *cough cough Al-Quaeda – hey we didn’t say that!*, terrorism, 9-11, ban flag burning, terrorism, 9-11, etc. You get the idea. And they've been able to get away with it, because, up until the '06 election, voters have not given this administration a proper check and balance in the form of Democratic control in one or both Houses of Congress. But, all that’s changed now, and Bush is putting on his bipartisan face, a face that even a passive follower of politics knows is about as genuine as Pamela Anderson’s bust.

So, he comes before the American people, congratulates Nancy Pelosi (that must have reeeeeeeeaaaaaalllllllllly hurt) and then proclaims he's ready to work with Democrats. Like he has a choice! I would have given the president credit had he sounded a note of magnanimity when Republicans were still in control of Congress, but for him to say that now is the sound of a desperate man. And I like seeing him desperate. It's a face I wish he had to wear long before now, but history's history – nothing to be gained by looking back now.

Anyway, the one thing that really irked me from jump was how he referred to the Democratically controlled Congress:

"Some in this chamber are new to the House and the Senate, and I congratulate the Democrat majority," said Bush.

How childish. One may expect a certain level of churlishness (and sometimes, vulgarity) from a progressive, liberal blogger *ahem*, but not from the President of the United States.

(Oh, and before Bill O'Reilly, six months from now, gets on the air during his Fox News Show and declares, "Bush never said it! Never said it!" click on the link of the transcript from the Washington Post Here.)

This is the kind of stuff that makes me truly despise people like Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who rates a close second behind Karl Rove on my political hate meter. It's people like Luntz who make me ashamed that I teach public relations. I really mean that. To people like him, it's not the policy or the position that's important, it's how you say it. One could imagine him working for Adolf Hitler and advising him: "It's not the Final Solution, Mr. Hitler. Let’s call it Jewish relocation." I mean, really? Could Luntz (and Bush, by his use of this phrase) be any more petty or spiteful about the Democratic victory last November?

After the speech, there were even traditionally strong conservatives were on TV poking fun at the president's having said "Democrat Majority": Pat Buchanan, Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews, to name a few.

Seriously, can you imagine if Clinton had done that during his presidency? I truly believe Fox News would have been calling for Congress to go to Defcon 2. Well, I don't mean to keep repeating myself, but it was petty and stupid (and don’t think for a second it was unintentional), but there were even better laughers in the speech, for sure.

The president's health care initiative is dead on arrival, as it should be. The last time Bush tried to sell us something this disingenuous, it was the privatization of Social Security. Now, the president wants to find another way to award his corporate buddies (Read: political donors), while simultaneously sticking it to the middle class, right where the sun doesn’t shine. Sorry, Mr. President – I know the difference between you-know-what from Shinola.

It's truly amazing that even a president with the set the size of Bush's could bring this before Congress and the American people. He now wants people who are lucky enough to have medical benefits through their jobs to have those benefits taxed? He must be joking, right? Someone please e-mail me and tell me when his real State of the Union speech is, because this has got to be April Fool's Day, but earlier. Wait, maybe we were all being Punk'd?

I admittedly won't pretend to know all of the fine print of the Bush's health care proposal, but so far, from what I've read, I’m less than impressed, as are most experts. It's amazing how hard most Republicans fight against doing the right thing on Social Security and Universal Health Care. I've previously blogged about Social Security, so I won't get into it much here, other than to reiterate once more that there was never anything urgently wrong with Social Security in the first place. It wasn't due to go broke for decades, yet GOPers saw that as a great excuse to try and mess with a system that has worked for nearly 70 years, all the while promising that "current recipients will receive no reduction in their checks." It doesn't take a genius to read between the lines in that statement: "If you're years away from retirement, count on getting a lot less than you thought."

I've been paying into the system since I was 15 years old, and now you’re telling me I'm going to see greatly reduced benefits so your buddies on Wall Street can get some of my money to play with under the guise of "private accounts?" Dream on. I've done plenty of reading on what Bush wanted to do with Social Security, and it was just another way to award his big political donors – stock brokers, big business, accountants, and a whole slew of other people who are just dying to get their mitts on some of the billions in the Social Security trust. No sale. And thankfully, the American public wasn't buying it, either. Funny how I haven't heard Bush mention Social Security recently. He knows it's DOA, just like he knows his new scheme for health benefits will suffer the same fate.

As far as universal health coverage, I don’t think I'll ever understand why our government just cannot or will not get it done. As wealthy of a country as we are (at least in theory – actually, Bush is bankrupting us, but that's another post), it's stupefying how politicians can sleep at night knowing that tens of millions of Americans lack health care.

Oh well, on to other topics.

I loved his comments on balancing the federal budget, without raising taxes. One could audibly hear the laughter when the president uttered that doozy. In the name of political ideology, Bush would rather bankrupt future generations than get the government back on the right course by repealing his ludicrous tax cuts from earlier this decade that were enacted in the first place on projected surpluses that no one really believed were going to come to fruition, anyway. (And those rosy predictions were before 9-11 and the contemporary War on Terrorism.)

Fast-forward to the president’s radio address from yesterday, when Bush warned that there will have to be domestic spending cuts to keep the budget in "balance," or his version of balanced, anyway. Bush calling for "fiscal discipline" in Washington during his SOTU speech is analogous to Mark Foley chairing the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. Oops.



One of my favorite parts of his speech, though, was his calls for energy independence. Coming from a president and his party, both of whom have done nothing to that end in nearly six years, it rang pretty hollow. Even more hilarious was Vice President Dick Cheney, who visibly snickers from behind the president’s shoulder. (See the YouTube clip above.) It was almost as if Dick was snickering to the rest of us, "I know something you don’t know." When it comes to the Big Oil, there's plenty that Dick knows. Big Oil hasn’t been performing energy exploration, it's been exploitation.

I do give Bush at least some credit in a few areas, though:

1. Taking a stand against fossil fuels at all, since he’s done little more than lip service during his presidency. We'll see if this is more of the same, or if he really means it.

2. Calling on increased nuclear power production. No question about it, this is a critical part of our energy solution. However, we need to find a way to safely store the waste. Yucca Mountain appears dead in the water, so proposing increases in the number of nuclear plants requires a solution to this problem, too, and there aren't any easy answers.

3. Bush acknowledged global warming, which is no small admission by this president. But, I'm sure this will prove to be hollow, but I pray it doesn't. I’ll be writing lots more on global warming in the next day or two – it's been in the news quite a bit this past week.

As usual, his speech contained plenty of fear mongering about the War on Terrorism. His rehashed bravado about stopping a plot to fly an airliner into the tallest building on the west coast is older than old news. That one I knew about, but Keith Olbermann discovered plenty of other instances, too. Check out the YouTube clip above.

The president's call to increase the size of our active armed forces by 92,000 over the next five years is seems like small potatoes to me. If I were president, I’d double that, and while I was at it, I'd damn near double the pay of what our soldiers are getting now, which isn't much. Sure, the cost would be high, but you know what would cost even more, in terms of money and blood? Restituting the draft. And if we keep going the way we are, that's precisely what we are going to have to do.

Most incredible is not one word in his speech about New Orleans or Hurricane Katrina, despite the fact that the city isn't even close to being where it was before the storm about 18 months ago. (I mentioned this in an earlier post yesterday.)

And then there was Bush's call for America to continue to support the "cause of freedom in places like Cuba, Belarus and Burma," and to "continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur."

Two things – 1. Thank God we've got Belarus, Burma and Cuba covered, and 2. What in the world has the president done for the people of Darfur? It sounds good for the press to mention it, but what has Bush really done?

I do give Bush credit for increasing U.S. funding to combat AIDS in Africa, and other humanitarian aid, too. Bush remarked:

"We hear the call to take on the challenges of hunger and poverty and disease. And that is precisely what America is doing. We must continue to fight HIV/AIDS, especially on the continent of Africa. Because you funded the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the number of people receiving life-saving drugs has grown from 50,000 to more than 800,000 in three short years. I ask you to continue funding our efforts to fight HIV/AIDS. And I ask you to provide $1.2 billion over five years so we can combat malaria in 15 African countries."

Again, it's a start, but we could and should be doing so much more. Too bad Bush is so ideologically driven and that this administration won’t fund family planning in Africa, which would also go really far in helping combat AIDS. I know what many religious people believe, too: "Don’t have sex and you can’t get AIDS." I'm not going to get into that too much now, other than to say that it’s as myopic as it is unrealistic.

Even better than Bush's speech is some of the coverage after it. Here are two clips of coverage that I found entertaining – Keith Olbermann (of course!) and a pretty ignorant clip from Fox News, with college drop-out Sean Insanity and another rube named Karen Hanretty. Pretty entertaining.



Above, Keith Olbermann ticks off the lies from Bush's SOTU speech. Take a listen (above).



Here is the Fox News piece I referred to above. Can't you just feel the hatred?

Florida slammed by twisters

Yesterday was further proof that I'm happy I never moved to Florida, like I so desperately wanted to do in the 1990s. The way the past 3-4 years have been, that state is like a trip through the Book of Revelations.

Yesterday so some wicked tornadic activity, devastating the central part of the state, leaving thousands homeless. So far, the death toll is 20, but likely to rise.

It goes without saying that we should give these people all the help they need, and fast. I guess now we get to see how much the federal government and the Bush Administration has learned from Hurricane Katrina. I'm not holding my breath for a big turnaround. But, then again, the president's brother is governor of Florida, so I wonder if that will bring quicker relief, if for no other reason than political gain.

Quite frankly, I find it amazing that Bush didn't utter one word about Hurricane Katrina in his State of the Union speech. Not one! It's an American tragedy that will be unfolding for years to come. I'd love to be wrong about it, but I doubt it. There are still tens of thousands of homeless people in New Orleans, and our government continues to do... nothing for many of them.

I saw a headline yesterday that many of the levees are in danger of failing. Anyone surprised?

The only questions I have now about Florida are these:

Will Florida citizens get quick relief - quicker than that of the many Katrina victims who continue to struggle and eke out an existence in a shell of a former city? If Floridians are helped quickly, that will be a double-edged sword: it will demonstrate that our government has learned the hard lessons of Katrina, yes, but it will also enrage people all along the gulf coast, who continue to wait for help from the government and penny-pinching insurance companies.

And, lastly, how long will it take for the Bush flyover to survey the damage? (At left, a concerned president flies over the damage wrought by Katrina from the comfy confines of Air Force One.)

I've got 20 bucks that says we won't have any sham press conferences that will give us a "Heckuva job, Brownie!" lines to chew on.

Below is some footage from one of the tornadoes forming over Florida yesterday. It's not great, but it's all I could find. I laughed when I read a comment underneath the video on YouTube from some genius that read, "I wonder why there isn't more coverage from the tornadoes yesterday in Florida." Probably because people who were lucky enough to capture the footage and escape with their lives don't have power.