reform - noun
1. the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The Bush policies have shown a great need for reform.
Psst...voting with someone 90% of the time is not reforming their policies. At least Sarah Palin only said it 9 times tonight in her acceptance speech.
The USDA tests 1% of cattle for "mad cow disease." Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef exporters want to test 100% of their cattle for the disease. But the Bush administration, in an effort to protect your safety has sued the company claiming it is illegal for them to test all of their cattle.
And guess who agrees with Bushie? Of course, the large meat packing corporations who "fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests" if Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that all of its cattle had been tested.
The administration cites the the "low level of testing reflects the rareness of the disease." Maybe we should apply this logic to the TSA as well. Terrorists are extremely rare, only 1% of passengers ought to be checked by airport security.
Anyone following the race between Obama and McCain has been constantly bombarded with this idea of Obama's "presumptuousness." That he's some elitist liberal, looking down his nose at the rest of the country. He ordered arugula lettuce at one point, which obviously indicates how out of touch he is, right? His Ivy League education is another evident smudge on his "average Joe" record, despite Bush's (C average) degree from Yale which wasn't an issue in 2000 or 2004.
But the worst of it came during Obama's recent trip abroad. He was greeted with massive crowds at each campaign stop and met with various heads of state in Europe and the Middle East. And at each appearance, Obama carried himself with the dignity and courtesy of, well, a president. He was respectful, inspiring, and noble, and the foreign crowds and dignitaries he met with responded in kind. Yet he has been slammed as merely "acting" the part, that he thought he already had the election in the bag and was putting on the airs of his assumed victory.
Of course, I never bought that criticism. John Stewart said it best when he pointed out that both Obama and McCain are running for the office of the freakin President of the United States, of course they are going to have egos. But watching the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, I think I now understand where these ideas are coming from. This is what we have become accustomed to from our Leader.
Can you believe this putz? He is on the world stage, for Christ's Sake, maybe he could act interested, or at least grown up. This guy, who we elected twice (/shame), is bouncing his knee, looking at his watch, looking bored as hell. He's like a toddler in church! When I saw that I started yelling at the TV, telling George to "fucking behave yourself!" I mean, the whole damn world is watching, and you can tell that all this jackass wants to do is go back to the hotel room and make a fort out of the extra pillows. The man has pissed me off too many times to count, but damn it, I never thought I would be so embarrassed by the POTUS. Next to his shredding of the Constitution, torture policies, Iraq, the economy, etc, this isn't such a big deal, but it is such a slap to our national image. Behaving like an adult at major state functions is kind of the bare-minimum, I would guess, of the President's job description, and this immature frat boy can't even get that right.
So no wonder everyone thinks Obama is being snotty. We're used to a leader who probably shoots spitballs at the Joint Chiefs during briefings and has his old drinking buddies over for late night toilet-papering runs on the Hoover Building.
So if that is presumptuousness, I'll take that over juvenile jackassery any day.
Hokkaido, Japan was the setting for a rather unusual exchange between world leaders. As the G8's meetings on climate change and policy were wrapping up George Bush decided he would say "goodbye from the world's biggest polluter" and then pump his fist in the air and smile.
The rest of those in the room sat in silence, shocked that they had just heard that statement on the back of the most important climate talks between nations. And that is a hard thing to do, most of the people in the room were world leaders who have made a career out of speaking their mind. And maybe they were stunned because it wasn't so off-the-wall that he would say something like that.
As The Independent put it, the "remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry. He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would "seriously consider" a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050."
Bush's comment was most likely an attempt at humor after a few grueling days of talks, but I think it speaks volumes about the administration's views towards environmental protection, conservation, and securing the best basis for economic growth in the future. If this was a meeting of the Coalition for Life or MADD I doubt Bushie would've injected levity about those U.S.'s transgressions, but the health of our planet and finding ways to manage it is not out of the realm of sarcasm.
To make the situation more disturbing, Bush probably has the best chance to secure an emissions and trade deal before the new President comes in. Although the Democrats can install a President who will take a more proactive and aggressive stance on environmental issues, pressure to protect American farmers during the election campaign will make it hard to secure a deal after a new U.S. President is in office in January. This fully places the issue of our nation's environmental health (which I stress includes our health, think: rivers, air, soil and crop contamination, ocean pollution, etc) in the hands of someone who has shown little respect, and even contempt, for the environmental pressures we are placing on the planet.
I feel like Bush has check out though and is coasting these last 6 months, he has had a lot of pressure on him and even the record number of vacation days couldn't keep him fresh and interested in issues that will affect his population (that he will leave to his mistake while he sips mojitos and looks for the next business venture he'll run into the ground) and its children.
What the fuck?!?!? Yes, that's right, the U.S., the country I live in and call home, land of the largest collective research and university system/intellectual property bank, the so called "richest" country in the world, the self-made policemen of the world, the home to more scientists and engineers than any other place on earth, has shut down all solar projects on public land.
Surely the reason behind this should be an earth shattering revelation to the rest of the world, who are currently pressuring the market for silicon in an attempt to build an energy infrastructure powered by an INFINITE AND FREE SOURCE. Wait, what?...we're shutting down solar projects because a two year study into their environmental impacts needs to be done? That's right, the same government who refused to open emails from the EPA concluding that greenhouse gases are pollutants and must be controlled, has decided that solar installations may be too harmful to the environment to begin construction on them. Yes, the same government that has decided that offshore drilling is the answer have had an epiphany of conscience.
If it has not been clear that the Bush administration is simply an arm of the oil/gas/coal industry before, then this should seal the deal. Detriment to the environment is something that we as a human society cannot escape, but it is feasible to minimize the negative impact we have. I'm unconvinced and will remain so that further oil/gas/coal dependency is safer for the environment than a push toward any renewable source.
And the problem could be magnified by the time we are ready to start building in the future. The New York Times reports:The decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.
The unfortunate story of many of those start-up companies will end with failure, a fact no moratorium would have changed for many, but some would have survived. Those that did would have become the experienced companies, those looking to expand and rethink their first designs, one thing that can not be learned is experience. With this moratorium there will be none of those survivors, the few who go on to become second generation alternative-energy companies. The logic baffles me.
Via Kos:
"In the end, Senator McCain and President Bush are like two sides of the same coin and it doesn't amount to a whole lot of change."
- Hillary Clinton
Bill In Portland Maine is one of my favorite DailyKos writers. (Hunter is way up there too) Bill's letter to President Bush expresses exactly how I feel about this Administration, and reads like a laundry list of the crimes and follies that have brought our country to its current, lowly state. Here it is, in its entirety.
Congratulations, indeed. It does seem that Bush not only set out to be the most destructive president in American history, but one would almost think that he wanted to be the last president as well. How's that for a legacy? "The President Who Destroyed America." I can't think of a title more desired by every anti-American extremist on the planet. So well done Sir, you have made the "tera-ists" dreams come true.From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Dear President Bush,
It's been awhile since we talked. Just busy, I guess.
Anyway, I want to Congratulate you. You win. In fact, you win big-time. It's time for me to admit it: you came, you saw, you kicked ass.
Over the course of the past seven and a half years, you and your wingman Dick Cheney have gotten virtually everything you demanded, much if it without a fight. You used a national tragedy to clamp down on Americans' civil liberties and launch a war against a country that neither caused that tragedy nor threatened us at all. You pretty much halted government-supported scientific research and environmental protection in their tracks. You did nothing to solve the health care crisis. You politicized the Justice Department. You worked hard to breach the church-state levee in the government, and then played patty-cake while the real levees collapsed into countless people's back yards. You gave big business (especially big oil, big finance and big military-industrial complex) free reign to "self-police." You made your elite base very, very rich, while using your shiny lapel pin to awe-strike your poorer, more ignorant base.
I mean, you are so talented that you even managed to break the Census Bureau. My gosh, even Reagan couldn’t figure out how to do that.
And through it all you avoided repercussions. Even losing GOP House and Senate majorities hasn’t slowed you down much. There's so much raw evidence to impeach your ass that it would be as easy as Dick Cheney shooting a lawyer in the face. The rap sheet is a mile long. Yet you remain 100 percent unscathed, threatened by nothing more than a pretzel getting stuck in your craw. That's amazing. My peasant hat is off to you.
Seriously, all you've "suffered" (if you can call it that) is low approval ratings. Big deal. As long as you have your 25 percent "base" that thinks you walk on water, you can do anything you want. Smirk. Dance. Ride your bike. Wave. Swagger. Intimidate the Democratic leadership with the word "Boo!", beat the traditional media so senseless that when you say "jump" they put on rocket shoes and blast off for the stratosphere. Smirk some more. Clear some more brush. Hell, you can do pretty much anything you damn well please.
So, sincerely: congratulations. You may have wrecked the country and your party, but so what? You got everything that you, George W. Bush, wanted out of your time in office. You should have no regrets, since you telescoped your intentions to everyone well in advance (yes, even back in school). And in seven months you'll retire and open up a Texas-size think tank disguised as a presidential library that will perpetuate your propaganda and your policies. ("Oh look, Heritage Foundation...you have a baby brother!")
Many will say your administration was a failure, but that only works if they're thinking about the welfare of the country and its 300 million citizens. Your presidency was never about them (just ask the Supreme Court)---it was about you taking care of your circle of rich, power-hungry, war-mad cronies while simultaneously setting out to prove how much the federal government can suck. On that score, you may indeed be the best president ever.
Love, Billy
P.S. Hugs to Laura and the twins.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Lawmakers cited government statistics showing that one in four U.S. teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease and 30 percent of U.S. girls become pregnant before the age of 20.Hmm, doesn't sound like those programs are working. Maybe we should look into funding comprehensive sex education, right? Wrong.
Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, said that it seems "rather elitist" that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. "I don't think it's something we should abandon," he said of abstinence-only funding.How dare those "educated" people, the ones who dedicate their lives to the study of public health and issues of sexual health, attempt to advise the government about sex ed! Of course, we should listen only to the "value-voter" population segment, the ones who think the Earth is 6,000 years old and that evolution is all a hoax. I think Waxman (D-CA) said it best.
"We are showering funds on abstinence-only programs that don't appear to work, while ignoring proven comprehensive sex education programs that can delay sex, protect teens from disease, and result in fewer teen pregnancies."
The Bush administration, signaling a change in policy, has discussed placing a limited cap on greenhouse gases. But instead of the growing concerns from scientists, health professionals, and environmental specialists, this change of thinking by the Bush administration is spurred by a "regulatory train wreck."Number of heart attacks Dick Cheney has survived thanks to his goverment-provided healthcare? Nope.
Number of centuries John McSame wants our troops to stay in the pointless, prideful, deadly civil war in Iraq? Nope.
Number of Republican elected officials convicted of criminal acts? Lol, way too low.
Percentage of the American Public who approve of of George W. Bush's presidential performance?
Dingdingdingdingding!!!!! We have a winner. (bottom of page 2)
New low for Presidential Limbo Champion, Dubya the Dumbass. $20 says he can break %20 before his term runs out/he is arrested. Takers?
This might have to be a weekly (daily?) segment, the Chump in Chief does offer a lot of fodder.
Not only is Bush a monument to intellectual, moral, and cultural depravity, he apparently is a callous asshole as well. Apparently, W is just so jealous of the "fantastic experience" the troops are having in Iraq and Afghanistan. Never mind the mounting casualties (3987 is the latest number), horrific numbers of wounded US soldiers and others, and stories of mental disorders running rampant among personnel. Bush says he thinks it all sounds just so "romantic." Can't you see George and Laura having a nice candle lit dinner in devastated downtown Baghdad, the sounds of IED explosions and small arms fire filling the evening, Blackhawks circling over head, displaced Iraqi's shuffling past the bombed out shells of their former lives. I wonder how I can get a reservation? Too bad Valentine's Day has already passed, eh W? That one would have scored you a ton of brownie points.
Sickening...
In the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, Sara Rosenbaum writes a scathing article detailing why Bush's opposition to S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) isn't based on economics, but rather Bush's right-wing dogmas.
This is just another example of the administration putting the screws to those who aren't in their party. How can you withhold care to millions of children because you're afraid of exposing huge corporate machines in the insurance industry. Its time that the power in this country get out of the pockets of large corporations. It is insane that healthcare in this country costs more for every single product or procedure than those countries we count among our peers.
Glenn, once again, gets it right.
This dude is smart, concise, and passionate. He expertly points out the accidental truth in Bush's most recent attempt to scare the living crap (read: civil liberties) out of the American People.
Bush has acknowledged the existence of an "extra-legal" terrorist surveillance program (TSP) which has been in operation since 2001. When he attempted to get the DOJ to vouch for that program's legality, by trying to bullying a hospitalized Ashcroft into signing off on it, even the right-wing fundies Bush had installed in the Department threatened to resign rather than attach their name to that tangled mess of criminality. How bad does something have to be before John Ashcroft refuses to sign off on it? I would venture "pretty damn bad."
So here's the deal. Bush broke the law. Broke it so bad and to such an extent that his own cronies feared being associated with the program, even with the power of presidential pardons behind them. Now Bush wants Congress to ensure, through Telecom immunity, that no account of that program is ever revealed.
He isn't trying to ensure anti-terror efforts are protected; the FISA court, and all courts in fact, are able to handle sensitive information in such a way as to keep it from the very lawyers arguing the case, not to mention all those pro-terra traitors in Congress and the American Public.
He is trying to cover his own Constitution-wiping ass. Of course he doesn't want lawsuits revealing "how we conduct surveillance," because he has been conducting surveillance illegally.
Look at the bomb Bush dropped on a Fox News interview this weekend.
BUSH: Most Americans feel overtaxed and I promise you the Democrat [sic] party is going to field a candidate who says I’m going to raise your tax.Wow, did he really just say that?!?!? I guess I understand the GOP tax cut plans now which usually benefit these guys who already have a loophole around the tax issue. Maybe its just a way to save heartbreak cause if you can't get them to do it right just let them off the hook and then its not a problem. It may be true that the middle class will end up footing some of the bill, but its not like we don't already have that problem.If they’re going to say, oh, we’re only going to tax the rich people, but most people in America understand that the rich people hire good accountants and figure out how not to necessarily pay all the taxes and the middle class gets stuck.
We’ve had — we’ve been through this drill before. We’re only going to tax the rich and all you have to do is look at the history of that kind of language and see who gets stuck with the bill.
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