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The Donnybrook
Monday, February 28, 2005
 
GOP Congressman: It's Time To Nuke Syria...

From The Carpetbagger Report:

Now we know where Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) thinks the weapons of mass destruction are buried: in Syria, which he said he’d like to nuke to smithereens.

Speaking at a veterans’ celebration at Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen, Texas, on Feb. 19, Johnson told the crowd that he explained his theory to President Bush and Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) on the porch of the White House one night.


Johnson said he told the president that night, “Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ‘em and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.”

The crowd roared with applause.

UPDATE: It really just sunk it to me that this genius said this IN A CHURCH!!! I wonder how the 10% of the Syrian population that is Christian feels about Rep. Johnson's comments...

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Brian's Oscar Wrap-Up...

Let me start off by saying that Paul Giamatti getting the shaft from the Academy for his worthy performance in "Sideways" is complete and utter horseshit and will taint my view of last night's proceedings for years to come.

That being said, the show was pretty good. Chris Rock was great, although you could tell the producers had the clamps on how nasty he could get. In spite of that, he did a great job.

When he introduced Halle Berry and said she was filming "Catwoman 2", you could just see her massive ego deflating...Priceless...

Jamie Foxx is fast becoming the next Tom Hanks. But just like I still remember "Bachelor Party", I still remember "Booty Call". Don't get too high-and-mighty, fellas...

As far as fashion goes, here are a few key points I noticed:

What the fuck happened to Renee Zellweger? She went from "painfully average" to "downright unpresentable" in about a month's time.

Kate Winslet delivered the goods, as usual...

Is this the only face this chick can make? I don't even know who she is, and she still annoys the hell out of me...

Salma Hayek...'Nuff said...

I can't stand Halle Berry, but she looked damn good...

Skinny chicks are gross...

Let-down of the evening? Scarlett Johansson. She looks like something a cat would cough up. The dress is crap, too...

Annette Benning is a beeyotch, and I'm glad she lost again...

Go rent "Maria Full of Grace". Good flick, great actress...

Natalie Portman. I still don't get it...

Hilary Swank. Classy chick, although her husband may just be a eunuch...

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Friday, February 25, 2005
 
"All Options Are On The Table"

Indeed they are, Georgie.

Indeed they are...

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Wednesday, February 23, 2005
 
"Social Security's Got To Go!!!"

So say supporters of Rick "Man-on-dog-action" Santorum (R-VA).

As far as I'm concerned, this wingnut douchebag will be history next year given a strong candidate on the Democratic side.

Pennsylvania is a blue state and can do much better than this younger, less-Southern version of Jesse Helms...

Furthermore, if state treasurer Bob Casey, Jr. decides to take a shot at Santorum, you can expect the GOP slime machine to go into overdrive.

It won't matter, though, since Casey is easily the most popular politician in the state.

Check out these stats from Casey's landslide victory last year:

Bob Casey received the most votes of any candidate ever in Pennsylvania history: 3,353,489 votes. (Lyndon Johnson received 3.1 million votes in 1964.)

As he did in 1996 and 2000, Bob Casey received more votes in the 2004 general election than any other statewide candidate in either party.

Despite John Kerry’s impressive victory in Pennsylvania, Bob Casey outpolled Senator Kerry by 415,394 votes. (Significantly, the presidential race attracted 291,940 more Pennsylvania voters than the State Treasurer’s race.)

Impressive stuff...

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Washington GOP State Senators Want To Form Their Own State...

I've officially seen it all now.

Nothing short of Michael Jackson having sex with an adult female can surprise me anymore...

State Senator Bob Morton, a Republican from Orient, Washington has a brilliant idea on having to live in a state with so damn many Democrats.

Make a new state!!!

To Morton, the Cascade Mountains are more than just the dividing line between wet and dry Washington. They are the indisputable wall between political ideologies that only became more apparent during the recent contested governor's race.

The Republican from Orient is the prime sponsor on a joint memorial in the Senate that asks President Bush to create a new state east of the Cascades that would comprise 20 of the current state's 39 counties. Nine other Republican senators have signed on in support. Similar measures have been introduced in past years without success.


"It's not sour grapes," Morton said. "It's common sense. People who think alike should be united."

Ain't that America?!?

Don't like those pesky liberals running your state?

Form your own state!

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Tuesday, February 22, 2005
 
Swift Boaters Turn Their Slime On The AARP...

That's right, the same shitbags that managed to turn a Vietnam war hero into a cowardly Communist are once again pulling stumps for the Bush administration.

Their new target? OLD PEOPLE!!!!

I love this comment from Bull Moose:

What's next - a Regnery book titled Unfit to Age? While the Bushies take the lofty tact of an "ownership society", expect the lowroaders to employ every slimy trick in the book to promote privatization.

After all, it's only business.

The American Spectator's website already has an ad up linking the AARP to an anti-military, pro-gay agenda.

Look at how obnoxious this thing is, then tell me if you think the GOP feels it is winning the debate over Social Security...

UPDATE: Here's a lovely quote from the head of the effort to discredit the AARP:

"They (the AARP) are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts," said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

"We will be the dynamite that removes them."

This must be AARP's payback for supporting Bush's dopey Medicare drug giveaway...

2nd UPDATE: Some of my conservative readers clearly studied these techniques very closely...

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Farewell To Hunter S. Thompson...

Truly a fascinating (albeit crazy) guy...

In tribute to the Good Doctor, ESPN's Page 2 has compiled the best of the columns he had published in that space...

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

UPDATE: The NY Times has a great obit for HST.

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Friday, February 18, 2005
 
GOP Hooker/"Reporter" May Have Known About War 4 Hours Before It Started...

From AmericaBlog:

A news producer for a major network just told me that Gannon told the producer the "shock and awe" campaign launching the Iraq war was about to happen four hours before President Bush announced it to the nation.

According to the producer, Gannon specifically told them that in four hours the president was going to be making a speech to the nation announcing the "shock and awe" campaign had begun. The producer told me they were surprised that Gannon, working with such a small news outfit, could have access to such information, but "what did you know, he was right," the producer said today. The producer went on to say that Gannon often had correct scoops on major stories, including information about Mary Mapes and the Dan Rather BUSH/AWOL scandal that this news outlet got from Gannon before any had the information publicly.

The Bush administration gives some pretty critical information to hookers, don't you think?

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Thursday, February 17, 2005
 
Tom Ridge Said Homeland Security "Doesn't Do Politics"...He Was Lying...

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met privately with Republican pollsters twice in a 10-day span last spring as he embarked on more than a dozen trips to presidential battleground states, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Ridge's get-togethers with Republican strategists Frank Luntz and Bill McInturff during a period the secretary was saying his agency was playing no role in Bush's re-election campaign were revealed in daily appointment calendars obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act.

"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," Ridge told reporters during the election season.

His aides resisted releasing the calendars for over a year, finally providing them to the AP three days after Ridge left office this month.

Nothing to see here...

Howard Dean made a joke that whiny conservatives didn't like...

Please disperse...

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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
 
Like Clockwork...

When the poll numbers go down, the terror talk goes up...

Swiss watches should be so accurate...

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Just Imagine The Uproar...

That Joe Conason envisions:

Imagine the media explosion if a male escort had been discovered operating as a correspondent in the Clinton White House. Imagine that he was paid by an outfit owned by Arkansas Democrats and had been trained in journalism by James Carville. Imagine that this gentleman had been cultivated and called upon by Mike McCurry or Joe Lockhart--or by President Clinton himself. Imagine that this "journalist" had smeared a Republican Presidential candidate and had previously claimed access to classified documents in a national-security scandal.

Then imagine the constant screaming on radio, on television, on Capitol Hill, in the Washington press corps--and listen to the placid mumbling of the "liberal" media now.

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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
 
Tom Tomorrow Meets "The Twilight Zone" Meets "Kang And Kodos"...

...and hilarity ensues.

P.S. My dumb ass may end up doing a soundcheck with Mark Tremonti at this Sunday's Alter Bridge concert. Tell a friend...

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Monday, February 14, 2005
 
The Funniest "Clean" Joke I've Heard In Years...

Classic, via my wife:

What did one cannibal clown say to the other cannibal clown?

(Click on the "Comments" link for the punchline.)

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Wal-Mart Given 15 Days To Prepare For Any Investigations By Department Of Labor...

As DailyKos points out, Wal-Mart's campaign contributions are beginning to bear fruit...

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire. As part of the agreement, revealed yesterday after it was secretly signed in January, the Labor Department agreed "to give Wal-Mart 15 days' notice before the Labor Department investigates any other 'wage and hour' accusations, like failure to pay minimum wage or overtime."

The violations involved workers under age 18 operating dangerous machinery, including cardboard balers and chain saws. Consistent with its new P.R. role models -- the industries that brought us lung cancer, underage drinking and Bhopal -- Wal-Mart reached and agreements to pay the fine, although the company denied any wrongdoing.

I love the comment of a veteran DOL inspector on Wal-Mart's new sweetheart deal:

"With child labor cases involving the use of hazardous machinery, why give 15 days' notice before we can do an investigation?" asked a district office supervisor who has worked in the wage and hour division for nearly 20 years.

"What's the rationale?"

Wal-Mart: Guns, Censorship, Crap from China, and Dangerous Working Conditions For Children...

UPDATE: Given Wal-Mart's already shady track record on workers' rights, isn't this a little like giving Jason Giambi a 15-day heads-up before his next pee-pee test?

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Friday, February 11, 2005
 
Speaker Of The House Hastert (R-Ill.) Calls Social Security A "Ponzi Scheme"...

...making him the 3rd or 4th conservative I've heard in the last couple of days to use that term to describe the most popular public program in US history.

Even Stinging Nettle's favorite pile of intellectual anti-matter troll is using the new conservative-word-of-the-week, even if he can't spell it...

Relax, We didn't pick you up this time, because you forgot the part about the SS pyramid being a scam on all Americans and it can't be fixed period by you or our boy George. Don't know about a Poniz scam when you see one?

But I digress. Back to Speaker Hastert:

"You're going to have less money coming in than goes out and indeed, that's a crisis point, that's a problem we have to address," he said, calling the program "a Ponzi scheme," but quickly adding that he did not mean it in derogatory way.

He's a pretty big guy to be tap dancing that fast, don't you think?

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Bush Soaring With A Whopping 45% Approval Rating...

Can a President be considered a lame duck less than a month into his second term?

The public's confidence in President Bush's job performance and the nation's direction has slipped in the opening weeks of his second term, particularly among people 50 and older, according to an Associated Press poll.

Adults were evenly divided on Bush's job performance in January, but now 54 percent disapprove and 45 percent approve. The number who think the country is headed down the wrong track increased from 51 percent to 58 percent in the past month.


I can freely admit now that I'm insanely pissed that John Kerry turned out to be such a fucking snoozer as a candidate.

I swear a Democratic candidate with any charisma would've fed this idiot his lunch.

Too bad that's not what we got...

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Richard Clarke Is Vindicated...

Isn't it funny how all this new info about the Bush administration being asleep at the wheel prior to 9-11 is being declassified almost 4 months after the election?

It's puzzling, really...

Take, for instance, the newly-declassified memo that was given to Condoleezza Rice by Richard Clarke on January 25, 2001:

The memo dated Jan. 25, 2001 -- five days after Bush took office -- was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures before the attacks on New York and Washington. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive Web site on Thursday.

The memo, from former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, had been described during the hearings but its full contents had not been disclosed.

Clarke, a holdover from the Clinton administration, had requested an immediate meeting of top national security officials as soon as possible after Bush took office to discuss combating al Qaeda. He described the network as a threat with broad reach.


"Al Qaeda affects centrally our policies on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, North Africa and the GCC (Gulf Arab states). Leaders in Jordan and Saudi Arabia see al Qaeda as a direct threat to them," Clarke wrote.

"The strength of the network of organizations limits the scope of support friendly Arab regimes can give to a range of U.S. policies, including Iraq policy and the (Israeli-Palestinian) Peace Process. We would make a major error if we underestimated the challenge al Qaeda poses."


The memo also warned of overestimating the stability of moderate regional allies threatened by al Qaeda.


It recommended that the new administration urgently discuss the al Qaeda network, including the magnitude of the threat it posed and strategy for dealing with it.


At this point, you might be asking yourself: "Did the Bush administration heed Clarke's warning?"

The meeting on al Qaeda requested by Clarke did not take place until Sept. 4, 2001.

There's that answer...

For her efforts in "combating" terrorism, Dr. Rice got a promotion from National Security Advisor to Secretary of State.

For his efforts, Richard Clarke got a big "FU" from the Bush administration and the joy of being slandered by every doofus with an "R" after his/her name that could get in front of a camera for the better part of the last 3 years...

Who says mediocrity isn't rewarded in America?

Ashlee Simpson has a career doesn't she?

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Thursday, February 10, 2005
 
Not Feeling Well? Get Breast Implants!!!

I never would've guessed that the reason I haven't felt particularly well over the past few days was that my tits simply aren't big enough...

(From AlterNet)

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), a new member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was at last week's meeting on a bill restricting class-action suits. "You know," he said, "I immediately thought about silicone breast implants and the legal wrangling and the class-action suits off that. And I thought I would just share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows...In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier."

You heard it here first: A crazy Senator from Oklahoma says breast implants are good for you.

What may be most upsetting about Coburn's claim is that HE'S A FUCKING DOCTOR!!!

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Listen To The Voices Of Civil Rights...

Today at lunch, I was lucky enough to catch a segment on Air America Radio discussing VoicesofCivilRights.org. The site's mission is the facilitate the sharing of personal accounts from the civil rights movement here in America.

As the site mentions, we all know Dr. King and Rosa Parks, but the roots of the civil rights movement stretch to countless people from all across this nation.

The story that struck me the most was that of Doxie Whitfield, a nurse originally from High Point, NC who worked in a newly-integrated hospital in Atlanta:

After graduating from nursing school in 1963, I worked in the hospital in my hometown of North Carolina. The hospital was segregated. I was fired because a white patient lied on me after they finally integrated. I then moved to Atlanta and started to work at Grady Hospital. I was working the day that hospital integrated.

I worked on the surgical ward. I admitted from surgery a white lady who had been moved from the "white" side to the "colored" side. The hospital had separate wards and separate emergency rooms. All supplies had a "W" for white and "C" for colored stamped on them. This included bed linen, hot water bottles, wheelchairs--everything. It was a major crime if the C items were seen on the W side.


The husband of the white woman I'd received from surgery said he did not want my "black hands" taking care of his wife. I continued to do my duty as a nurse, caring for his wife. He picked me up and literally threw me into the hall. I rolled down the hall. I was humiliated, embarrassed, and hurt. We had all white doctors working in the area. No one came to my rescue or even tried to investigate the situation. The man checked his wife out of the hospital because he did not want me or any other black person caring for her. The man carried his wife home, and she died shortly after leaving the hospital.

This is not the distant past...

People walking around our hometowns and even members of our own families lived through these events...

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Wednesday, February 9, 2005
 
Religious Right Tires Of Bashing Gays In The US, Sets Its Sights On Canada...

In a stark contrast from the US Congress, Canada's Parliament is debating whether to legalize same-sex marriage. The vote will be close and, at this point, could still go either way (no pun intended).

Naturally, the mere possibility such a progressive step being undertaken in a nation so close to the US has got the Religious Right in a tizzy.

Powerful U.S. religious groups are sending money and support to allies in Canada to fight same-sex marriage.

Patrick Korten, vice-president of communications for the Knights of Columbus head office in New Haven, Conn., said no limit has been set on the help his organization is prepared to offer.

"Whatever it takes," he said. "The family is too important."

Mr. Korten said the U.S. headquarters of the Catholic men's group paid $80,782 to print two million postcards being distributed in Catholic churches across Canada.

"It has been extremely enthusiastically received in Catholic parishes all over Canada. As a matter of fact we may have to print some more -- there was a great deal of interest in it. It offers a quick, simple but effective way for Catholics ... to make their feelings about the same-sex marriage bill known to their MPs."

Another opponent of same-sex marriage, Focus on the Family, is also sending support and services worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to its Canadian affiliate.


Isn't it good to know that Dr. James Dobson is on the case? I guess he thought SpongeBob SquarePants was small potatoes and needed to set his sights on a much larger target.

Just wait your turn, Mexico. Our hypocritical religious windbags will be with you shortly to let you know how exactly you should be running your country.

To be fair, since America pretty much doesn't make anything nowadays, I should probably be pleased to see us exporting anything. It's just too bad it's homophobia we're exporting...

UPDATE: Until Haloscan gets their collective shit together, I'm going to have to use the Blogger commenting feature. I'm not happy about it, but at least it works semi-consistently...

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Tuesday, February 8, 2005
 
Commander Bunnypants Is Coming To Raleigh!

With the Conscience Caucus growing larger every day, I wonder which North Carolina GOP congresscritters are in the crosshairs of W's Social Security snake oil sales pitch...

President George W. Bush will be in Raleigh on Thursday to talk about his budget and proposed Social Security changes.

The White House hasn't released any specifics on the trip, but details are expected by the end of the day Tuesday.

There's also a good piece in today's N&O about how Bush's budget will effect North Carolina.

That should go over really well...

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Monday, February 7, 2005
 
Bush Honors Veterans...By Raising The Cost Of Their Healthcare...

Thank you for your service, and God bless America!

Oh, and start cutting your pills in half...

President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.

The proposals, they said, are in the $2.5 trillion budget that Mr. Bush plans to unveil on Monday. White House officials said the budget advanced his goal of cutting the deficit, which hit a record last year.

"We are being tight," Vice President Dick Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here."

The proposals to increase charges to veterans face stiff opposition from veterans organizations, Democratic members of Congress and some Republicans.

It's all a show, people.

US soldiers and veterans are cannon fodder and props to our President.

Nothing more...

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Saturday, February 5, 2005
 
Manager Of World's Largest Bond Fund Comes Out Against W's Privatization Scheme...

Bill Gross, fund manager at PIMCO funds thinks Bush's scheme is crap. That's gotta sting...

Here's the most telling (and true) part of his comments:

Gross, managing director at Pimco, called the argument about the solvency of Social Security "silly" and said it was an example of the president not focusing on more important issues, such as the budget deficit.

The president's argument for individual Social Security accounts is meant "to promote an agenda that has little to do with seniors and more to do with Bush, his ownership society, and ultimately his domestic legacy alongside the likes of Ronald Reagan and FDR," Gross wrote in comments posted on Pimco's Web site.


"Without a blockbuster of a program in his second term it is unlikely that Bush can go very far in the history books on the back of a paltry 3 or 4 percentage point tax cut for the rich," Gross wrote.


"Presto!" he continued. "We now have partial privatization of Social Security heading the agenda upon which the president intends to spend his well-advertised political capital."


That's referred to as "getting to the heart of the matter"...

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Friday, February 4, 2005
 
Why Didn't I Think Of This?

BRISBANE, Australia - A woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to selling on eBay three nonexistent cases of Duff brand beer — the favorite of cartoon character Homer Simpson.

Tara Edith Woodford, 28, pleaded guilty in the Mackay Magistrates Court in northern Queensland state to three charges of dishonestly gaining money by false pretenses.


Prosecutor Gavin Burnett told the court Woodford was paid a total of 1,951 Australian dollars (U.S. $1,511) by three separate buyers after advertising the bogus beer on the eBay Internet auction site.


Duff is the beer brand of choice for Homer Simpson and his barfly friends in the animated U.S. television series The Simpsons.


On an unrelated note, I've got some Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs I'll be putting up on eBay for $50 a box...

P.S. I had a great time out at Edwards Mill last night with Winston and Martin. I invariably end up drinking way too many beers when I hang out with those guys and paying a hellacious price in the morning.

My boy Martin is like the Steve Nash of drinking. He makes everyone around him better...

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Thursday, February 3, 2005
 
This Year's Big Lie Took 3 More Words...

(From Kos)

16 words made up Bush's yellowcake lie in his 2003 SOTU. This year, he got a little more verbose and beefed up his lying capacity to 19 words. Good for him...

Bush last night:

"And best of all, the money in the account is yours, and the government can never take it away."

Today's Washington Post, citing a senior Bush adminstration official:

If a worker sets aside $1,000 a year for 40 years, and earns 4 percent annually on investments, the account would grow to $99,800 in today's dollars, but the government would keep $78,700 -- or about 80 percent of the account. The remainder, $21,100, would be the worker's. With a 4.6 percent average gain over inflation, the government keeps more than 70 percent. With the CBO's 3.3 percent rate, the worker is left with nothing but the guaranteed benefit.

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Last Night's SOTU Address: Deconstructed...

WARNING: This piece is essentially a one-note whine against Bush and the Republicans.

ThinkProgress.org did a good job of doing a point-by-point breakdown of last night's Bushit.

Here's one fairly glaring piece of BS from last night annual applause-fest:

President Bush said: “Tonight I propose a three-year initiative to help organizations keep young people out of gangs.”

FACT: President Bush has proposed a 40 percent cut in federal juvenile crime prevention funds, which would effectively “pull the plug” on good local programs that reduce gang and youth violence.

FACT: President Bush has sponsored a
44 percent overall reduction in delinquency-fighting and anti-gang funds since 2002.

P.S. Props to the Democrats for standing up against Social Security privatization. Those newly-grown spines would've served the country well over the last 4 years...

Better late than never, I guess...

UPDATE: RudePundit does a killer job of shutting down whiny conservatives that are upset about the Democratic reaction to Bush's privatization scheme. Thanks, jri...

Kos also chronicles the GOP's disrespect for President Clinton during his SOTU speeches...

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Wednesday, February 2, 2005
 
To Republicans Who Feel They Own The Success Of Iraq's Election...

From Atrios...

Now that Congressional Republicans are looking to attend tonight's State of the Union address with purple ink on their fingers "in support of Iraq's voters", a little reality is in order for the chest-thumping GOP:

A post from MSNBC's website:

You do not own their courage.

The people who stood in line Sunday did not stand in line to make Americans feel good about themselves.

You do not own their courage.

They did not stand in line to justify lies about Saddam and al-Qaeda, so you don't own their courage, Stephen Hayes. They did not stand in line to justify lies about weapons of mass destruction, or to justify the artful dodginess of Ahmad Chalabi, so you don't own their courage, Judith Miller. They did not stand in line to provide pretty pictures for vapid suits to fawn over, so you don't own their courage, Howard Fineman, and neither do you, Chris Matthews.

You do not own their courage.

They did not stand in line in order to justify the dereliction of a kept press. They did not stand in line to make right the wrongs born out of laziness, cowardice, and the easy acceptance of casual lying. They did not stand in line for anyone's grand designs. They did not stand in line to play pawns in anyone's great game, so you don't own their courage, you guys in the PNAC gallery.

You do not own their courage.

They did not stand in line to provide American dilettantes with easy rhetorical weapons, so you don't own their courage, Glenn Reynolds, with your cornpone McCarran act out of the bowels of a great university that deserves a helluva lot better than your sorry hide. They did not stand in line to be the instruments of tawdry vilification and triumphal hooting from bloghound commandos. They did not stand in line to become useful cudgels for cheap American political thuggery, so you don't own their courage, Freeper Nation.

You do not own their courage.

They did not stand in line to justify a thousand mistakes that have led to more than a thousand American bodies. They did not stand in line for the purpose of being a national hypnotic for a nation not even their own. They did not stand in line for being the last casus belli standing. They did not stand in line on behalf of people's book deals, TV spots, honorarium checks, or tinpot celebrity. They did not stand in line to be anyone's talking points.

You do not own their courage.

We all should remember that.

UPDATE: Tull, you are a fucking dumbass. How many times do you need to be told that I can't respond in the Haloscan comment threads???

YOU ARE A MINDLESS STOOGE!!!

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Tuesday, February 1, 2005
 
CIA: Iraq Ended Weapons Programs In 1991...

No fucking shit...

In what may be a formal acknowledgment of the obvious, the CIA has issued a classified report revising its prewar assessments on Iraq and concluding that Baghdad abandoned its chemical weapons programs in 1991, intelligence officials familiar with the document said.

The report marks the first time the CIA has officially disavowed its prewar judgments and is one in a series of updated assessments the agency is producing as part of an effort to correct its record on Iraq's alleged weapons programs, officials said.

The CIA's decision to distribute the report — titled "Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early 1990s" — in classified channels underscores the awkwardness the agency faces as it continues to reconcile its prewar reporting with postwar realities in Iraq. Before the war, the CIA asserted that Iraq had stockpiled biological weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

On the upside, as Kos points out, the only reason we invaded was to ramp up their "Get Out The Vote" efforts.

So there's that...

UPDATE: Back to the Blogger commenting, since Haloscan sucks so bad...

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Check Out The Sports Guy's Super Blog...

He gets to do a lot of this now that the Patriots are the new 49ers. Luckily, he still manages to make it fun and interesting, even if he's rooting for the enemy.

He's even keyed into the biggest source of confusion I've got with Super Bowl XXXIX:

Well, I don't know anything about Jacksonville. I don't know anyone who lives there. I never thought about visiting there. About two minutes ago, I just found out where it was on a map -- right at the top of Florida, on the Georgia border. When my wife asked me what Jacksonville was famous for, I actually responded, "I don't know, alligators?" I don't have anything against the place. It just seems like a goofy city to have the Super Bowl, like holding the Oscars in Sacramento or something. Either the NFL intends on eventually bringing the Super Bowl to every mid-sized American city, or Paul Tagliabue lost a high-stakes poker games to the Jacksonville mayor at Corey Fuller's house. There's no in-between.

He'll be posting a couple of times all week. Enjoy!

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Standing Up For Real American Values...

From Kos, The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes has this to say about how Dubya should deal with Democrats.

Stronger countermeasures will be needed, including an unequivocal White House response to obstructionism, curbs on filibusters, and a clear delineation of what's permissible and what's out of bounds in dissent on Iraq.

Ain't that America???

Kos has it right: Saddam, Castro, and the Iranian Mullahs are probably smiling as America moves closer to becoming what it supposedly hates...

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