Beating 'Round the Bushes
retrospectacle | February 28, 2007Check out this interesting op-ed piece in the NY Times today, on a case being heard in the Supreme Court over Bush's faith-based initiatives.
The question before the court is whether a group seeking to preserve the separation of church and state can mount a First Amendment challenge to the Bush administration's "faith based" initiatives. The arguments turn on a technical question of whether taxpayers have standing, or the right to initiate this kind of suit, but the real-world implications are serious. If the court rules that the group does not have standing, it will be much harder to stop…
retrospectacle | December 6, 2006Now I'm not a fan of Jeb Bush by any means. But compared to Georgie Porgie, he's gotta look like the golden son to George Bush, Sr. And thats saying something.
Evidenced by a recent emotional speech given by the elder George Bush, in which he broke down to tears when talking about being proud of Jeb. Yes, just Jeb. No mention of George. Although, he did mention, in that same speech, his burgeoning friendship with Bill Clinton. I wonder how George Jr. feels about that? :P
retrospectacle | November 30, 2006Instead of firing US officials who speak their mind regarding US foreign policy, why not listen?
A senior State Department analyst, Kendall Myers, made several informal statements in an academic forum that might cost him his job. What were the oh-so-offensive quotes?
The Times quoted Myers, a foreign research analyst in the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, as saying the transatlantic relationship was "totally one-sided" and Britain's self-appointed role as a bridge between America and Europe was "disappearing before our eyes."
"We typically ignore them and take no notice…
retrospectacle | November 23, 2006A reader (hat tip Bob Abu!) sent me this staggeringly good article written by long-time political journalist Seymour Hersh, appearing in the New Yorker, entitled "The Next Act." Specifically, it addresses whether the recently humbled Bush Administration is now more likely, or less likely, to invade Iran.
What was Cheney's reaction to the possibility of a Democratic Congress and Senate?
Cheney began reminiscing about his job as a lineman, in the early nineteen-sixties, for a power company in Wyoming. Copper wire was expensive, and the linemen were instructed to return all unused pieces three…
retrospectacle | October 23, 2006Sometimes I get excited by graphs. Take this one for example.
Mixing Memory goes into detail here, as to why the Dems are a shoe-in for a Congress majority.
Yay.
retrospectacle | October 10, 2006PollingPoint.com, a national polling network, has recently published the results of a recent survey on the opinions of Americans on the Iraq war, which were generally negative. 61% believe that "no progress has been made in Iraq and things would have been better without the war," however 82% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans feel this way. 66% of Republicans have a somewhat favorable view of the war, compared to 12% of Democrats. Results are below:
retrospectacle | August 28, 2006Uh-uh girrrrllll, I know you didn't! This just makes me downright ashamed of America:
U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws."
The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.
Harris made the comments -- which she clarified Saturday -- in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention,…
retrospectacle | August 26, 2006According to a recent CNN article, a federal judge recently stuck down the Bush administration's request that the laws surrounding pesticide use be relaxed. Yes, they want MORE pesticides and more liberal use of them. I usually stop myself short when I'm tempted to say that the Bush admin hurts America, but this is clear cut. This request would have directly hurt the health of Americans, and the health of endangered species such as wild salmon.
It was the second time in recent years that U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour chastised federal agencies for failing to follow the Endangered…
retrospectacle | July 19, 2006"These boys and girls are not spare parts," he said of the children in the audience. "They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research. They remind us that we all begin our lives as a small collection of cells."
Yeah, so what? So does a tumor.
Bush said, "If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers would, for the first time in our history, be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos, and I'm not going to allow it."
We're already compelled to fund a war that has killed over 3,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis. These are…
retrospectacle | July 19, 2006One veto, as promised.
I'm too disgusted to write anything else right now.
retrospectacle | July 17, 2006Yah know, maybe if he wasn't threatening to veto science iniatitives I might have given him a pass. But, things being what they are, I just had to let out a collective HA! for the entire blogosphere, at dear old Dubya's expense.
I would be referring to his recent little "slip-up" whilst conversing with Tony Blair regarding the Middle East at the G8 Conference, when he didn't think the microphone was on.
"See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit," Bush told Blair in a discussion before the Group of Eight leaders began their lunch.…