Day: February 14, 2006

Bigotry Has a Cost: $364 Million

Jon Ponder

What a waste: According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, the government’s policy of not allowing gay patriots to serve their country cost taxpayers $363.8 million between 1994 and 2003.

The report, titled “Financial Analysis of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” was released through the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM) at UC-Santa Barbara. It recalculates the cost of the law banning openly lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members by examining the oversights of a 2005 government study which put the cost of the ban at $190.5 million.

We’ll second this from Pam:

How much body armor could the Pentagon buy with this?

Jeb Jabs Dick Over Shooting

Buck Banks

Gettin’ his funny on: According to this afternoon’s edition of the Miami Herald, Gov. Jeb Bush made a joke at Vice President Dick Cheney’s expense over his allegedly accidental shooting of a hunting companion. Well, it was kind of a joke, I suppose:

Bush, younger brother of President Bush, spoke to about 1,000 people Monday at the Florida State Fair Governor’s Day Luncheon. All guests, including the governor, were given stickers from the Florida Farm Bureau that read, “No Farmers, No Food.”

Bush placed the bright orange sticker, the same color as a hunting jacket, on his chest.

”I’m a little concerned that Dick Cheney is going to walk in,” he said.

Hoowee, that one had them rolling in the aisles over at the Farm Bureau.

Bush Spent $1.62 Billion to Make Us Love Him and He Still Only Has a 42 Percent Approval Rating

Trish

Wondering how much all those paid White House product placements cost us taxpayers? Would you believe $1.62 billion?

“The extent of the Bush administration’s propaganda effort is unprecedented and disturbing,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif

Yes, fake news stories and secretly paid endorsements aren’t cheap, as we’re beginning to find out, thanks to the Government Accounting Office and our hero, David Walker, 54, U.S. comptroller general and one of the few people willing to challenge the Emperor Bush.

“The extent of the Bush administration’s propaganda effort is unprecedented and disturbing,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. “The fact is that after all the spin, the American people are stuck with high prescription-drug prices, high gas prices and high college costs. This report raises serious questions about this administration’s priorities for the country and I would hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would agree that changes need to be made to rein in the president’s propaganda machine.”

… The White House did not immediately return a call for comment.

Do they ever? Give them another 22 hours, and maybe they’ll come up with something.

The biggest government spenders were: the Department of Defense ($1.1 billion); Health and Human Services ($300 million); Department of the Treasury ($152 million); and the Department of Homeland Security ($24 million).

The spending was for everything from military recruitment advertising to prizes for various promotions. Democrats pointed to the $10,212 the Air Force spent for items bearing the Coca-Cola logo including portable radios, victory t-shirts, hats and coolers, as well as more that $35,000 for promotional materials for a golf program.

Meanwhile, Bush’s proposed budget includes selling park lands to pay for schools and cutting commodity food programs for seniors and placing them on food stamps instead.

Eerie Parallels Between Cheney, Oswald

Buck Banks

Keeping the “ass” in assassin: The cold-blooded shooting of prominent Austin attorney Harry Whittington by Vice President of Torture Dick Cheney while “hunting” on Saturday bears some chilling parallels with the assassination of John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald in November 1963:

  • Both incidents involved a lone gunman.
  • Both incidents occurred in Texas.
  • Neither Cheney nor Oswald had a valid Texas hunting license.
  • In both incidents, the administration initially tried to conceal the facts from the media.

Coincidence? I don’t think so. Conspiracy? Probably. Cover-up? Undoubtedly.

WH Homeland Security Chief Says Bush Was ‘Engaged’ in Katrina Mismanagement

Jon Ponder

“I reject outright the suggestion that President Bush was anything less than fully involved.”

— Frances Fragos Townsend, White House homeland security adviser

Now Bubble Boy is dead and the Mission Accomplished action figure preznint is back.

So the White House is now saying that President Bush was fully engaged in the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina by his government. This means that he was “fully involved” during the first 48 hours while thousands of Americans in New Orleans were dying and injured in the flooded streets or clinging to rooftops in the pouring ran with no help on the way.

Funny — what most of us remember was Mr. Bush cavorting with a guitar and Sen. McCain’s birthday cake.

Most tellingly, Townsend also said that the president’s critics were trying to “rewrite history” about the president’s actions. That was a dead giveaway that she — working from a script written by Karl Rove — was rewriting history even as she was speaking.

This is a remarkable revision of reality from the earlier revised reality that the White House floated in the weeks after the disaster. In the original concoction of events, Bush was a disengaged Bubble Boy who hates watching the news — even, apparently, the Fox News Channel where the news mullahs call the faithful to worship at his feet 24 hours a day.

In the original fictional narrative, it was the president’s phobia of the news, you see, that led to his confusion during the first 48 hours after Katrina. His aversion to information prevented him from watching live coverage of the destruction of America’s 44th largest metro area on television. This phobia was so bad that no one around the surly 59-year-old boy king — including his wife Laura or his parents, George I and Queen Bar — could muster the courage to convince him that something bad was happening in New Orleans, much less to tune in to the wall-to-wall coverage. It got so bad, finally, that one cowering but courageous courtier burned a DVD of news coverage and compelled Dear Leader to watch it.

The White House must have been surprised how readily the media and the public were willing to believe that Bush was such a dunce and a lout.

Now Bubble Boy is dead and the Mission Accomplished action figure preznint is back. So you know that something is up — a trick is in the works, records have been destroyed, memories have been cleansed, reality has been rewritten — if this strutting aristocratic popinjay is allowing anything close to blame to be laid at his own feet.

For one thing, it can only mean a fall guy has been chosen to take a bullet for Dear Leader. The question is, who will it be.