Month: August 2005

Florida Man “Felt Like Strapping on a Bomb and Attending Governor’s Meeting”

Trish

[Editor’s note: This news and opinion web site condemns violence in any form, and would find no humor whatsoever in the prospect of someone threatening the governor of any state but especially Florida in any manner, no matter how much he deserves it.]

A man who blamed privatization for trouble in obtaining his psychiatric medications was first treated, then arrested for threatening Gov. Jeb Bush.

Daytona News-Journal:

Nathan Wayne Stewart, 46, of Tallahassee, called the Governor’s Citizens Services Office several times last Thursday and complained about DCF [Department of Children and Families]. During one call, he said, “If I don’t get my meds soon, I will have to kill someone,” according to an affidavit signed by Special Agent Brian Gaynor…

The office reported Stewart to the FDLE, who interviewed him the same day. Stewart acknowledged he told the operator he “felt like strapping a bomb to himself and attending the next governor’s meeting.”

When asked about the comment again the next day, he told an agent, “I may not be able to afford C-4, but I can get a hold of some black powder and some nails.” He also told agents he was mad at Bush because the governor privatized Medicaid and he wasn’t able to get his medication.

Jeb, as always, immediately grasped his place in the drama, and found himself totally blameless and the victim of sheer caprice.

“When a guy wants to blow your head off it’s not related to politics, it’s related to issues going on inside his head,” Bush said. “There are a lot of people that have mental illnesses and they fixate on elected officials and they play out their problems on them. I have a lot of empathy for people who have those kind of sad issues going on in their lives.”

Yeah, we can all see that, Jeb.

Poll: Bush at 40% in Harris Poll

Jon Ponder

Wall Street Journal:

President Bush’s job approval ratings are at their lowest point of his presidency as only 40 percent of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of his job performance and 58 percent have a negative opinion, according to a Harris Interactive poll. This is a decline from two months ago, when the president’s ratings were 45 percent positive and 55 percent negative…

At the same time, Vice President Dick Cheney’s approval ratings slipped to 35 percent from 38 percent in June, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s approval ratings dropped to 40 percent from 42 percent.

Poll: No Props for Das Guber

Jon Ponder
“We’re headed toward a November election that is … not going to solve one single problem that the state is confronting today. Hello? Of course, we’re headed in the wrong direction.”
— Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez

The $55 million special election called by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is 11 weeks away, and, so far, Californians are not enthused, according to a Public Policy Institute survey released today.

The governor’s overall approval level is at 41 percent, holding steady from last month. Among likely voters, however, on 38 percent of registered voters and just 34 percent of California adults did not believe Arnold to be a “fantastic” governor, as he might say.

Three of the seven propositions were placed on the ballot by the governor, and none of them is supported by half the state’s voters:

  • Proposition 74 – Teacher Tenure: This bizarre attempt to micromanage the time required for public school teachers to gain tenure is strangely the only one among Schwarzenegger’s three that has even a minimum of support — 49 percent favor, 42 percent oppose and 9 percent undecided.
  • Proposition 76 – Budget Cap: The governor’s signature “Live within Our Means” reform measure that would place yet another arbitrary cap on state spending is losing big time — 28 percent favor, 61 percent oppose and 11 percent are undecided.
  • Proposition 77 – Redistricting: This proposal is Schwarzenegger’s attempt to become a player in national Republican politics by delivering the entire 50-plus member California delegation to the GOP, and everybody knows it – 34 percent favor, 59 percent oppose and 17 percent are undecided.

[…]

In His Own Words: Pat Robertson Is the Poster Child for Conservative Lies & Corruption

Jon Ponder

You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop… We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

– Pat Robertson, Wednesday, August 24, 2005

I didn’t say “assassination.” I said our special forces should “take him out.” “Take him out” could be a number of things including kidnapping.

– Pat Robertson, Thursday, August 25, 2005

Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him.

– Pat Robertson, later on Thursday, August 25, 2005

Why Hugo Chavez Hates the United States

Buck Banks

The Chavez Code, by Eva Gollinger, explains why Hugo hates us and how the United States (specifically the Republican Party) has meddled in Venezuela since the September 11 attacks and during George Bush’s watch. Here’s an excerpt from a review on Political Affairs.net:

Prior to Bush, Golinger remarks, the US was fairly indifferent to the Chávez administration. It was the extremism and the violent and irrational response of the Bush administration to the September 11th attacks that signaled a new direction in US foreign policy. Chávez opposed a series of Bush administration policy standards: the unilateral US “war on terrorism,” free trade agreements, US intervention in Latin America and so on.

But most ultra right elements in the US simply didn’t like the fact that President Chávez wanted to use his nation’s wealth to provide health care for children, feed starving people, create jobs, build homes for the homeless, and give the people a say in how their government runs. So, in the spring of 2001, the international arm of the Republican Party, the International Republican Institute (IRI), took a grant from the administration to step up its efforts to organize and mobilize an anti-Chávez opposition party. Where they had failed before, they gathered new momentum as 2001 wore on.

And despite their claims to being non-partisan, IRI funders met only with virulent anti-Chávez opposition leaders, many of whom would later be implicated in the illegal coup of 2002. Soon other US entities got involved: National Democratic Institute, American Center for International Labor Solidarity (AFL-CIO), and USAID, among others. These entities were either directly or indirectly funded by Congress, the administration, the CIA, and the notorious National Endowment for Democracy. Between 2001 and April 2003, the amounts distributed to opposition groups in Venezuela totaled about $4 million, more than three-quarters of which was distributed to opposition groups in the five months before the illegal coup.

Read the rest here.

Robertson Claims He Was Misrepresented on His Own Program

Trish

Pat Robertson is back-peddling harder than Lance Armstrong, trying to get around his blatant call for the murder of a head of state.

Reuters:

“I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things including kidnapping,” Robertson said of Venezuela’s leader on his “The 700 Club” television program.

“There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted,” added Robertson.

Let’s see. “Take him out” could mean take him out for a nice dinner and dessert. Or it could mean exposing him as a homosexual or a CIA agent, as in “take him out of the closet.” Now what were Robertson’s exact words on his own T.V. show on Monday again?

“If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”

“We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.”

Not a lot of room to misinterpret that, buddy.

You would think the White House – which is leading the global struggle against violent extremism – would have been among the first to chastise Robertson.

The White House remained silent despite calls by Venezuela and religious leaders including the Rev. Jesse Jackson for Bush to repudiate Robertson’s remarks. However, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday said political assassination was against the law and was not U.S. policy.

Whew, strong stuff – “not U.S. policy.” Torture is against U.S. policy too, which is how we know it doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, the Venezuelans aren’t letting it go so easily.

Venezuelan officials said Robertson’s remarks, while those of a private citizen, took on more significance given his ties to President Bush’s Christian-right supporters.

“Mr Robertson has been one of this president’s staunchest allies. His statement demands the strongest condemnation by the White House,” Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez said.

Big, Fat, and Sweaty: Life in the South

Trish

Everyone knows Americans are getting fatter but a new study shows the problem is particularly huge in the South. In fact, the only state in the entire country that didn’t have to buy elastic-waist pants is Oregon, whose obesity rate, while not the lowest, didn’t increase.

Palm Beach Post:

Who would have guessed, y’all? There is a statistical correlation between being fat and living in the land of fried chicken, cornbread, grits with red-eye gravy, sweet iced tea, pecan pie, porch swings and Sunday afternoon naps.

The Trust for America’s Health released a report Tuesday showing that obesity is rising like a buttermilk biscuit all across America.

Mercifully, Florida was an exception to this rule, being out-leaned by only 12 other states.

Miami Herald:

Among the 10 states with the highest percentage of obese adults, seven were in the Southeast — Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky [Editor’s note: poor Kentucky — the only time they are considered in the Southeast is when someone wants to use them as a bad example] and South Carolina. More than a quarter of adults in those states are obese.

Mississippi’s 28.1 percent obesity rate was the nation’s highest; Colorado’s rate, 16.4 percent, was lowest.

Roughly 119 million adult Americans, or 64.5 percent of the population, are overweight or obese.

While complicated, the reasons for the fat epidemic boil down to: lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle.

“As we build cul-de-sac-type subdivisions, people can no longer just walk to school, walk to church, walk to work,” said former Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening, one of the report’s authors. “They can’t walk anyplace, so they have to get in the car and drive someplace.”

“It’s a toxic food environment,” said Sheah Rarback, a registered dietitian at the University of Miami. “Every gas station sells food. Every place we go, we’re stimulated to eat. It’s very hard to escape this constant stimulation for these quick grab-and-go foods, which are usually high calorie, low nutrition.”

What is it with this country and taking up maximum space? New houses are built right to the lot line, SUVs barely squeeze into parking places, and Enormous Omelet Sandwiches provide a day’s caloric intake (and a week’s worth of cholesterol) in one meal.

My theory: as public space like parklands and forests shrink, people try to take up all the private space they can. Might as well start with our own bodies. Can you move over, please? I need a little wider chair.

Antiwar Movement Gives Bush Reason to Rachet Up War in Iraq

Buck Banks

If that headline creates cognitive dissonance in your brain pan, Norman Solomon’s article in the International Labor Communications Association’s on-line journal may give you some perspective.

Solomon points out that, while there appears to be increasing hand-wringing and breast-beating from a growing antiwar movement, it’s actually an “anti-lose” message that is the subtext. Much of the messaging in the media is focused on getting the hell out of Baghdad because we’re not winning or can’t win, and so can’t justify the ongoing loss of life or expense. That gives Bush an invitation to escalation, says Solomon.

A big ongoing factor is that George W. Bush and his top aides seem to believe in red-white-and-blue violence with a fervor akin to religiosity. For them, the Pentagon’s capacity to destroy is some kind of sacrament. And even if more troops aren’t readily available for duty in Iraq, huge supplies of aircraft and missiles are available to step up the killing from the air.

Back in the USA, while the growth of antiwar sentiment is apparent, much of the criticism — especially what’s spotlighted in news media — is based on distress that American casualties are continuing without any semblance of victory. In effect, many commentators see the problem as a grievous failure to kill enough of the bad guys in Iraq and sufficiently intimidate the rest.

[…]

Nine Out of Ten Venezuelans Agree: Robertson is Cracked

Trish

Pat Robertson calling for your murder can be a good thing. A South Florida newspaper is reporting a new spirit of unity among critics and fans of Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez. Both groups now agree on one thing: Pat Robertson is ape shit.

Sun Sentinel:

Some of Chávez’s most ardent opponents, who once led street marches back home but are now exiled in South Florida, said the comments were inappropriate and will further fuel tensions between the two countries.

“I think Chávez will grab this thread and make himself out to be the victim and justify the idea there are international groups that want to kill him,” said Carlos Fernandez, a Weston [Florida] resident and former opposition leader who helped lead a 2002 national strike that shut down Venezuela’s petroleum production.

…some wondered if Robertson was paid to make such an outlandish comment.

“I wonder if someone paid Robertson to say such a thing so Chávez could be vindicated,” said Ernesto Ackerman, founder of Independent Venezuelan American Citizens. “Otherwise those are the comments of a madman.”

[…]