...
In December, a commission established by Congress in 2005 under the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act—A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) provided the sobering statistics. The United States needs to spend $225 billion annually — more than twice what it does now — for the next 50 years. That’s more than $11 trillion worth of fix-ups on surface transportation systems alone.
...
Dedicated to Hillary Clinton, a lady with a bucket o' balls, if not much hope.... Speaking to Keith Olbermann on Friday, [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid suggested that the gpuke-asskissing quisling, who has endorsed republican John McBush for the presidency, is not guaranteed to keep either his chairmanship or the current shape of his brown-stained schnoz ...
Leave it to the tone deaf GOP to find a way of attaching themselves to this election cycle's "change" mandate that simultaneously reinforces the fact that their failed policies have messed up the world to such an inhuman extent that many Americans now live their daily lives in a state of free-floating panic and paralyzing anxiety.
In today's New York Times' Caucus blog, Carl Hulse reports that House Republicans have got themselves a brand-new slogan:
It looks like Republicans will counter the Democratic push for change from the years of the Bush administration with their own pledge to deliver, drum roll please, "the change you deserve." The first element of the party agenda developed over the past few months by the leadership and select party members will focus on family issues.
What the GOP doesn't seem to realize, because they are idiots, is that "the change you deserve" is the registered advertising slogan of Effexor XR, a drug that many of you might have started taking as a result of all the...you know -- terrorism. (Hat tip to Bluestem for catching this gem.)
Effexor, also known as Venlafaxine, is approved for the treatment "of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder in adults." Its common side effects are very much in keeping with the world the House Republicans have striven to build: nausea, apathy, constipation, fatigue, vertigo, sexual dysfunction, sweating, memory loss, and - and I swear I am not making this up - "electric shock-like sensations also called 'brain zaps.'"
Its less common side effects are equally awesome in their appropriateness.
And when the Food And Drug Administration reviewed the ad copy that included the tagline, "The change you deserve," it took issue with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures Effexor, saying that the company made "unsubstantiated superiority claims." Sounds like the GOP have picked an ironically accurate tagline for their efforts!
The truth is, the only difference between the runup to the Iraq invasion and the current buildup to a war with Iran is that this time we are the wiser. We have the benefit of hindsight this go around. We're more familiar with the modus operandi of the Bush regime now, and, we know how Dick Cheney & company will resort to bold-faced lies and slick obfuscation in making their case for perpetual war.
This time though, every piece of trumped-up evidence against Iran that Cheney comes up with or every time one of his acolytes hypes the threat, it seems to be falling more and more on a skeptical Congress. In addition, the notion of another war seems to be bombing (no pun intended) in general with the American people as well.
John Conyers’ letter is a direct shot across Cheney’s PNAC-powered bow. Now, whether Conyers’ stark warning is due directly to his aversion to war or it goes straight to a proverbial line in the sand regarding the separation of powers is unclear. But at this point it simply doesn’t matter. America wins either way.
[...] As one legal expert has explained, your Administration’s "preventive paradigm" has asserted "unchecked unilateral power" by the Executive Branch and violated "universal prohibitions on torture, disappearance, and the like."
Late last year, Senator Joseph Biden stated unequivocally that "the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran, and if he does, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, I will move to impeach" the president.
We agree with Senator Biden, and it is our view that if you do not obtain the constitutionally required congressional authorization before launching preemptive military strikes against Iran or any other nation, impeachment proceedings should be pursued. [...]
You are staring into the face of one thing you can do to fight climate change: Leave the cow alone.
According to the United Nations, 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from sending beef and dairy products to your kitchen table.
...
Imagine you're me, going up to Oroville this fine Saturday morning to mess around the Festival, and you've got your spouse to come along, and your camera. You intend to kick back under a shade tree near the starting point, catch Charlie Brown as he goes by, then puddle around a bit foraging in the vendor booths. Approaching Butte County, you see a thick, nasty smog haze lurking over Table Mountain, so you use your asthma inhaler, just in case. You arrive in Oroville, and now need a potty break, so you go to a convenience store, come back to near the parade start, park on a side street, start walking down towards route again, and hope you haven't missed anything and see....
a Giant Bowling Pin walk by, followed by Doug Ose. Republican candidate for Congress, in CA- 04. One of the "Doesn't Live in the District" Republican Candidates for Congress.
Followed by Team Ose riding oil drum barrels towed by a 4 wheeler.
Followed by a Moving Van.
The moving van has what looks to be a .... Court Jester in front of it.
The Moving Van is towing a U-Haul trailer filled with children.
Jeebus.
I can't make this stuff up.
It's not the Onion. It's my Congressional district. You remember, the one with one of the highest mortgage default rates in the country. In the state that President Bush told the EPA to stuff it when we asked permission to enact better fuel milage standards for cars.
"Can you believe those Americans keep falling for that old reverse psychology trick. We endorse Obama, we get McCain elected, and we keep breaking our own recruitment records."
Evangelicals, Huckabee allied to sink McCain?
An element of the Christian community is not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regards the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as 'God's candidate' running for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course.
Nevertheless, reports out of the evangelical community dispute Huckabee's support. One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not let his name be used (He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken! Heh. - G) told me Huckabee in personal conversation with him embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals, that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible's prophecy.
If John McCain wins the presidency – and gets to appoint one or more U.S. Supreme Court justices – America’s 220-year experiment as a democratic Republic living under the principle that “no man is above the law” may come to an end.
To put the matter differently, if a President McCain replaces one of the moderate justices with another Samuel Alito – as McCain has vowed to do – then Justice Department lawyer John Yoo’s extreme vision of an all-powerful Executive could well become the new law of the land
But the “strict constructionist” phrase is really a euphemism for a double standard, objecting to judicial decisions that conservatives don’t like while justifying judicial activism when it serves right-wing causes, such as giving President Bush authority to brush aside the Constitution as he prosecutes the “war on terror.”
Thus, perhaps more than any other question, the November election will settle whether a future Supreme Court will reshape the United States into an imperial system both at home and abroad – or roll back President Bush’s expansion of executive power in the direction of the Founders' original vision.
Or, do Americans want to go down the path marked by the likes of Yoo, Alito and Bush – ceding virtually all power to one individual who can operate beyond all laws and outside the rules of human behavior – and do so with the blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court?
Eighteen American war veterans kill themselves every day. One thousand former soldiers receiving care from the Department of Veterans Affairs attempt suicide every month. More veterans are committing suicide than are dying in combat overseas.
These are statistics that most Americans don't know, because the Bush administration has refused to tell them. Since the start of the Iraq War, the government has tried to present it as a war without casualties.
We should all be angry about what has gone on here, Filner said. This is a matter of life and death for the veterans that we are responsible for and I think there was criminal negligence in the way this was handled. If we do not admit, assume or know then the problem will continue and people will die. If thats not criminal negligence, I dont know what is.
Its also part of a pattern. The high number of veteran suicides werent the only government statistics the Bush Administration was forced to reveal because of the class action lawsuit.
Another set of documents presented in court showed that in the six months leading up to March 31, a total of 1,467 veterans died waiting to learn if their disability claim would be approved by the government. A third set of documents showed that veterans who appeal a VA decision to deny their disability claim have to wait an average of 1,608 days, or nearly four and a half years, for their answer.
Other casualty statistics are not directly concealed, but are also not revealed on a regular basis. For example, the Pentagon regularly reports on the numbers of American troops wounded in Iraq (currently at 31,948) but neglects to mention that it has two other categories injured (10,180) and ill (28,451). All three of these categories represent soldiers who are so damaged physically they have to be medically evacuated to Germany for treatment, but by splitting the numbers up the sense of casualties down the public consciousness.
Heres another number that we dont often hear discussed in the media: 287,790. Thats the number of returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who had filed a disability claim with the Veterans Administration as of March 25th. That figure was not announced to the public at a news conference, but obtained by Veterans for Common Sense using the Freedom of Information Act.
Why all the secrecy? Why is it so hard to get accurate casualty figures out of our government? Because the Bush Administration knows if Americans woke up to the real, human costs of this war they would fight harder to oppose it.
According to an April 2008 study by the Rand Corporation, 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans currently suffer from post traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Another 320,000 suffer from traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage. A majority are not receiving help from the Pentagon and VA system which are more concerned with concealing unpleasant facts than they are with providing care.
In its study, the RAND Corporation wrote that the federal government fails to care for war veterans at its own peril - noting post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury can have far reaching and damaging consequences.
Bush and Congress have the power to stop this problem before it gets worse. Its not too late to extend needed mental health care to our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans; its not too late to begin properly screening and treating returning servicemen and women whove experienced a traumatic brain injury; and it is not too late to simplify the disability claims process so that wounded veterans do not die waiting for their check. As the Rand study shows, this isnt only in the best interest of veterans, its in the best interest of our country in the long run.
To start with, the Bush Administration needs to give us some honest information about the true human costs of the Iraq War.
Most of what this government has done -- including, certainly, its most incriminating behavior -- remains concealed by the unprecedented wall of [secrecy] behind which this administration operates.
...
Balance is killing journalism. Balance in journalism these days means that no matter how factual a report, you have to include a contrary opinion, not so much in the way of giving a fuller picture of things but rather to avoid offending people who don't agree with you. See, I don't offer balance. I take a set of facts and go with that and try to get at truth. That's why I'd be a lousy journalist and CNN would do well to stay far from me. Instead of "offering balance", I offer the facts that tell the story accurately, even if it means somebody won't like it.
...
... "But Klein seems to completely miss the point that, at root, this story isn't about the journalists. It's about the Pentagon. Good journalists shouldn't be trying to argue that they weren't misled -- despite the existence of a broad conspiracy to mislead journalists and the public. Good journalists should be outraged that the integrity of their stories can now be questioned. Good journalists should be running back to their sources and demanding assurances that they aren't paid shills." ...
...
The Republican party is George W. Bush --- there is no daylight. They acclaimed him as the second coming of Winston Churchill and Alexander the Great just three years ago. They put him back in the White House and then swaggered around calling Democrats neutered farm animals.
...
They can run from that but they can't hide. Bush and the conservative movement he represents need to be tied around McCain's neck so tight he can't breathe.