...You can be sure Cheyanne, Wyoming and Zanesville, Ohio got their fair share...
...Meanwhile, grants for cities like Louisville, Omaha and Charlotte, N.C., each jumped by about 40 percent, to about $8.5 million each...
(Washington-WABC, May 31, 2006) - Next year, New York City will get just $124.5 million in anti-terrorism grants from a special program for cities at high risk of attack. That's a cut of some 40 percent from the previous year. [my em]
...
Bob Schieffer of CBS News made a good point on "The Charlie Rose Show" last week. He said that successful presidents have all skillfully exploited the dominant medium of their times. The Founders were eloquent writers in the age of pamphleteering. Franklin D. Roosevelt restored hope in 1933 by mastering radio. And John F. Kennedy was the first president elected because of his understanding of television.
Will 2008 bring the first Internet president? Last time, Howard Dean and later John Kerry showed that the whole idea of "early money" is now obsolete in presidential politics. The Internet lets candidates who catch fire raise millions in small donations practically overnight. That's why all the talk of Hillary Clinton's "war chest" making her the front runner for 2008 is the most hackneyed punditry around. Money from wealthy donors remains the essential ingredient in most state and local campaigns, but "free media" shapes the outcome of presidential races, and the Internet is the freest media of all.
[...] Their hope: to get even a fraction of the 50 million who voted for the next American Idol to nominate a third-party candidate for president online and use this new army to get him or her on the ballot in all 50 states. The idea is to go viral - or die. "The worst thing that could happen would be for a bunch of old white guys like us to run this," Jordan says.
"Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians.
Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life
...
Republicans have to cling to moral equivalency, and hope that Pussy Dad shows up, because comparing Harry Reid and William Jefferson to, let's say, Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham, with Bob Ney and others pulling up the rear, is like saying that unsolicitedly squeezing a nice ass in a bar is the same thing as engineering and participating in the gang rape of abducted illegal immigrant children. It's like saying a shoulder punch is the same as getting kicked in the nuts repeatedly. It's like saying that a paper cut is the same thing as a sliced jugular. It's like saying that X equals Y, even if X is a flea and Y is, well, an elephant. At worst, Reid had an ethical fart. At worst, Jefferson is a greedy motherfucker acting alone. Remember: they're not even part of the majority in Congress. DeLay and Cunningham represent a systemic sickness, a malignant tumor of graft and power madness that revealed itself in bill after bill, vote after vote.
...
Donna Santiago, an unemployed single mother from the Kensington section of Philadelphia, never thought much about Venezuela before January, when she received a load of discounted heating oil courtesy of the South American nation.
Santiago was so ecstatic - her family was among a lucky 181,000 low-income households in the Northeast that received 40 million gallons of discounted oil - she told the program organizers she wanted to thank Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez personally.
Much to her surprise, she got her wish.
Last month, Santiago and her two daughters - none of whom had ever traveled abroad before - were flown to Caracas with about 60 other heating-oil beneficiaries at Venezuela's expense. After a two-day whirlwind tour of Chavez's accomplishments, the American visitors got an audience with the charismatic president himself.
"All I had heard about Chavez was that he was a dictator," Santiago, 38, said after returning to Philadelphia. "The man is far from that. He's a really warm person. I wanted to bring him home and stick him in the White House."
Know what these old coots were up to? For one, anything that has to do with veterans affairs, from writing letters to get more aid for those brothers and sister veterans who will never get out of the hospital to picking up the utensils and feeding those who no longer can manage for themselves. And it's not like they take the easy route.
But hospital visits are just a small part of what the veterans groups stand for. Nationwide, on a daily basis, they continue their battles on the front lines helping their communities; collecting food, clothing, bottle caps and anything else that they might bring hope to those in need. Whether caring for elderly veterans or cradling sick infants, they are on hand helping out at the hospitals and retirement homes. They are at the blood banks, working with the mentally ill, placing flags at the graves of our fallen heros, supporting the Holocaust exhibits, lobbying our lawmakers to not forget those who sacrificed for our freedoms, telling their stories at schools, always available to do whatever needs to be done for those who may not be able to do for themselves, showing that you never need stop being of service, even when you're out of the service.
And while this particular story is about a particular Jewish War Veterans post, the same story applies to all veterans groups; the American Legion, Veteran of Foreign Wars, AmVets and so many others, no matter what war, no matter what belief, no matter actual veteran or auxiliary.
As Abraham Lincoln once said..."To Care for Him who Shall Have Borne the Battle, and for his Widow and his Orphan..." To that I might add, "lest we forget their true worth."
Bush lands in same hole as dad
Flags are at half-mast, fluttering in the breeze. The smell of barbecue clings to summer dresses in a suburban yard. Somewhere, "Taps" is sounding over crumbling tombstones laced with flowers. And in the whitewashed halls of Washington, Republicans and their "Christian" clerical allies aren't giving a second thought to the young soldiers' lives they destroy every day. To them, our troops are tools to be used and discarded.
Here's my advice to the lady in that SUV over there, the one with the flag on the antenna: Burn your yellow-ribbon decal.
To this crowd, soldiers are puppets and props. Send 'em to the Mexican border for a photo op, stand 'em next to the President with a papier-mache turkey, send 'em out to die for a war that's going to boost our poll ratings. Who cares? They don't belong to our country club, anyway.
That's why I suggest you burn that yellow-ribbon decal, if you have one. It may say "Support Our Troops" in black ink, but what it's really saying is "I've been manipulated by politicians and cynical preachers into supporting an Administration that mistreats our veterans, disrespects our soldiers, and sacrifices them both on a whim."
This Memorial Day, you can truly honor our fallen heroes - by fighting for their comrades who are still among us.
[...]To avoid staining our national day of mourning, I felt it more appropriate to dedicate this post at this time to a very different kind of American. They may be clueless neocons, erroneous White House talking heads, or smear artists and their self-appointed town criers. But what they all have in common is that each one bravely ducked when called and later took part directly or indirectly in assaulting the reputation of those who stood in harm's way. They are known, affectionately, as Chicken-hawks:
* President George W. Bush - served four years of a six years Nat'l Guard commitment, some say after daddy's friends pulled some strings to keep him out of Vietnam. The circumstances of his early separation from state-side service are still controversial (details)
* Karl Rove, occasional Deputy Chief of Staff and alleged full time smear artist, escaped the draft and did not serve
* VP Dick Cheney - several deferments, by marriage and timely fatherhood
* Former VP Chief of Staff I. Lewis Scooter Libby - did not serve
* Secretary of State and former NSA Condaleeza Rice - did not serve
* Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist - did not serve.
* Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert - did not serve.
* Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay - did not serve
* House Majority Whip Roy Blunt - did not serve
* Majority Whip Mitch McConnell - did not serve
* Rick Santorum, third ranking Republican in the Senate - did not serve.
* Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott - did not serve
Recently while stammering out a convoluted apology for avoiding service, one budding Yellow Elephant mentioned in part that he 'can support the Yankees without wearing their uniform.' Not too far off: Your average Chicken-hawk does not play for the Yankees because they lack the physical skill required to walk out on that field and compete; likewise, maybe they do not serve in Iraq because they lack the simple courage required to walk into a recruiting office and sign up. But how about his role models?
* Rush Limbaugh - did not serve
* Sean Hannity - did not serve
* Pat Buchanan - did not serve
* Ann Coulter - did not serve
* Ralph Reed - did not serve
* Bill O'Reilly - did not serve
* Michael Savage - did not serve
* Bill Kristol - did not serve
The 101stFightingChicken-shit Keyboardists and assorted neocon shills may be conspicuously absent when their country is in need, but they're always at the ready to order other people's sons and daughters into the meat grinder. They sure seem to pop up on the Quad when the battle is over and the band is a'playin. And they're always on duty, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to smear any survivors with vicious accusations of cowardice or worse when Neoconia calls. Just a couple of examples of their bipartisan handiwork include smearing Democrat Max Cleland, triple amputee, awarded both the Silver and Bronze Stars for valorous action in combat. The same treatment was shown to Republican John McCain who won the Silver & Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross and spent over five years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.
I reserve tomorrow for those who served with honor. But today, I recognize the puppet masters and their fleshy mannequins, who will shortly swagger over sacred graves, bravely intercept the standing ovation intended for the dead, and unflinchingly bask in the goodwill directed at the lost. They have all but sworn under oath to stay their deadly course, brook no change, and justify every new body bag as giving meaning to the coffin that came before it; an endless procession cleverly contrived to evade responsibility, to forever postpone their day of accountability, the future fallen be damned.
I fear the Chicken-hawks will continue to enlist the dead and maimed in their grotesque media pageants, to cover their blunders and attack any opponent, every week, every month, and yes, even every Memorial Day, ad infinitum. Until We the People finally put an end to this gruesome nightmare.
Bush Compares Present Era to Cold War
Except this time we're the Soviet Union.
Prime Minister Says Iraq's Troops Almost Ready to Do Battle
With U.S. troops.
Once-United GOP Beginning to Fracture (see chart below)(Go see the chart - G)
Bush Dismisses Gore's Global Warming Movie as Mere Speculation
Will instead see The Da Vinci Code.
Fiddle Goes for $3.54 Million
Washboard, jug thrown in to close deal.
In MemoriumThe young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses.
(Who has not heard them?)....
They say,
We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say,
We have done what we could
But until it is finished it is not done.
They say,
We have given our lives
But until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
They say,
Our deaths are not ours,
They are yours,
They will mean what you make them.
They say,
Whether our lives, and our deaths were for peace and a new hope
Or for nothing
We cannot say.
It is you who must say this.
They say,
We leave you our deaths,
Give them their meaning.
Archibald McLeish
Many of their selections are laughable for their inability to know irony when they see it. Some are inexplicable ("Wake Up Little Susie"? Huh?) Others confuse a singer's bowing to society's conformist pressure with an endorsement of that pressure (see "Wouldn't It Be Nice" -- by their logic, why not include "Society's Child" by Janis Ian?)
Maybe the National Review will be coming up with a list of "Top 50 Conservative Hip-Hop Songs" soon. That's one I'd like to see, given the Right's inclination toward easy money, bling, infidelity, theft, gas-guzzling cars, and shooting people in the face.
Until then, conservatives, keep on rockin'. I can't wait to see Scalia and the rest of the gang gettin' down. Pass the Dutchie, somebody!