Month: May 2006

Noe to Plead Guilty to Illegal Donations to Bush-Cheney 04

Jon Ponder

Toledo Blade:

Tom Noe intends to change his not-guilty plea in connection with three federal charges that he illegally funneled money into the reelection campaign of President Bush, according to court records released today.

Mr. Noe had pleaded not guilty to the charges in October. He faced a maximum of 15 years in federal prison if convicted of all charges. Authorities, however, said a lighter sentence was more likely.

It is not clear what the new plea will be. According to a status report filed today, proseuctors and attorneys for Mr. Noe have asked the court to set a hearing date “as soon as possible” for the change in plea.

Federal prosecutors have alleged that Mr. Noe gave more than $45,000 to 24 people to contribute to the Bush-Cheney campaign in October, 2003.

Mary Cheney Comes Out of the Closet — As a Big Time A-hole

Jon Ponder

The snarling, hypocritical, hyper-aggressive apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.

Cheney said she looked at vice-presidential candidate John Edwards and mouthed the words ‘Go F*** Yourself’

While her father’s boss has frequently given his full-throated support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, Mary Cheney has remained silent during the six years her father has served as vice president.

Well, now she’s talking. She is out promoting her new book out (the title escapes me), for which she received a million dollar advance, and from what we have heard from her thus far, in the Vancouver Sun and other sources, it is apparent that Mary, like both her parents, is a major jerk.

Cheney has harsh words for the Democratic candidates who ran against her father and President Bush in 2004, “calling Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry a ‘son of a bitch’ and his running mate, John Edwards, a ‘total slime” for discussing her sexual orientation during nationally televised debates during the campaign.”

She characterizes the Democrats’ references to the fact that she is gay as “sleazy” politics. She was in the audience at the debate when Edwards referred to her orientation. “Cheney said she looked at the vice-presidential candidate and mouthed the words ‘Go F*** Yourself,’ a phrase her father had earlier employed against Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy.”

No, Mary, calling Bush-Cheney 04 on its hypocrisy on gay issues by pointing out that one of the candidates’ family members is gay is not “sleazy.” Sleazy is a bunch of queer Gop operatives like yourself playing the homobigot card by placing anti-gay marriage initiatives on ballots in battleground states in order to tip the election to your side. That is sleazy, Mary.

Fla. Agri Candidate Pins Hopes On Citrus Canker

Buck Banks

Orange you savvy: Eric Copeland, Democratic candidate for Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, has opened a new front in his campaign to unseat Republican incumbent Charles Bronson. Today Copeland filed a public records request with the Florida Department of Agriculture for the names, addresses and contact information of the estimated 600,000 Floridians who had citrus trees removed from their private property under the state’s defunct Citrus Canker Eradication Program (CCEP).

This was a tremendously unpopular program carried out with Gestapo-like tactics by the Florida Department of Agriculture in an attempt to eradicate citrus canker and protect Florida’s citrus industry, already besieged by cheaper imported OJ from Brazil. Citrus canker sounds nasty, but basically it just discolors the skin of the fruit, makes the fruit drop from the tree early and shortens the productive life of citrus trees. It was first identified at the beginning of the 20th century, and no treatment has been discovered since then.

The program was characterized by aggressive bullying of citizens, trespassing, destruction of private property and even the poisoning of pets as untrained gangs of canker hunters ran roughshod over Floridian’s homes and rights.

The CCEP allowed Agriculture Department contractors to enter private property to determine whether a citizen had a citrus tree on the property. If so, the location was noted on a map for future reference. In the event that a citrus tree was determined to have canker, all trees within a half-mile radius were removed.

At first, homeowners were offered compensation in the form of — I kid you not — cash credits at Home Depot to replace the citrus with other plants. Unfortunately for many homeowners, the state (typically) didn’t commit enough money to this sweetheart deal for the dough to last past the first blitz on backyards. The program was characterized by aggressive bullying of citizens, trespassing, destruction of private property and even the poisoning of pets, as untrained gangs of canker hunters ran roughshod over Floridian’s homes and rights.

As of January 2006 Department of Citrus records show that 860,000 trees had been removed from private, residential property and more than 12.5 million trees have been destroyed statewide. That same month the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled the Florida CCEP when it was finally determined that eradication of canker was as likely as eradication of the common cold — especially after the active hurricane season of 2005 that blew the stuff all over hell and gone.

Copeland maintains that as a result of the USDA decision, the removal and destruction of more than 860,000 private citrus trees was pointless. And, he notes, Bronson’s CCEP cost state and federal taxpayers more than $1 billion and exposed the state to as-yet undetermined legal liability over seizure of private property.

It’s not a bad place to start a campaign — 600,000 guaranteed voters who miss their homegrown grapefruit in the morning.

Florida GOP Pol Who Could Beat Katherine Harris Opts Not to Run

Buck Banks

Dodging the bullet: Florida House Speaker Allan Bense announced today that he would not run against Katherine Harris in the Republican primary to determine the challenger for Democrat Bill Nelson’s U.S. Senate seat from Florida. Many Republican leaders, including the hapless Jeb Bush (who can’t even get a pet bill passed in the Florida legislature, let alone influence a Senate race), have been trying for weeks to draft Bense into the race as Harris’ campaign stumbles, bumbles and fumbles toward almost certain, ignominious defeat.

In a statement published by the “St. Petersburg Times,” Bense gave the trusty and prosaic excuse of not wanting to be separated from his family for many years to serve in the Senate.

‘After much thought and prayer, I realized the answer to that question is “No.” ‘

While the challenge of running a successful campaign over the next several months was exciting, and while I am confident we would have been successful, ultimately my decision came down to the fundamental question of whether I was willing to spend the next six, 12 or possibly 18 years of my life away from my family and my home serving Florida in the U.S. Senate. After much thought and prayer, I realized the answer to that question is “No.”

I do think Bense would have been “successful” in a run against Harris, but Nelson looks almost unbeatable at this point. He’s got money, a moderate track record and is running a pretty clean campaign. Basically, all he has to do is sit back and watch Harris self-destruct.

Bense might have made a difference insofar as he could have hastened Harris’ exit from the political stage and maybe given Nelson a run for his money. But perhaps he was put off by the prospect of being drafted into a campaign by a party that didn’t necessarily want HIM, but absolutely doesn’t want HER. It would have been a politically weak position from which to campaign, and while the state’s rabid Repugs probably would have backed him in support of the party, Bill Nelson still would have won.

Breaking: Bush’s Travel Plans Found in Trash

Trish

Breaking: Washington’s WUSA-9 is getting a White House response to this incredibly embarrassing story, which they broke earlier today.

How much do you think Osama bin Laden would pay to know exactly when and where the President was traveling, and who was with him? Turns out, he wouldn’t have had to pay a dime. All he had to do was go through the trash early Tuesday morning.

It appears to be a White House staff schedule for the President’s trip to Florida Tuesday. And a sanitation worker was alarmed to find in the trash long hours before Mr. Bush left for his trip.

It’s the kind of thing you would expect would be shredded or burned, not thrown in the garbage. Randy Hopkins could not believe what he was seeing…

See the video HERE.

Poll: Another New Low for Bush — 31% in CBS-NYT Survey

Jon Ponder

Third lowest rating of any president in the past five decades

New indications that conservatives and Republicans are starting to wake up:

Mr. Bush’s overall job approval rating hit another new low, 31 percent, tying the low point of his father in July 1992, four months before the elder Mr. Bush lost his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton. That is the third lowest approval rating of any president in 50 years; only Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter were viewed less favorably.

Mr. Bush is even losing support from what has been his base: 51 percent of conservatives and 69 percent of Republicans approve of the way Mr. Bush is handling his job. In both cases, those figures are a substantial drop in support from four months ago.

Alphonso Jackson: Republican Like Me

Buck Banks

Minority party: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson is a strong proponent of awarding more government contracts to minority-owned businesses. Indeed, since his appointment in 2001, he has increased his agency’s percentage of minority contract awards by 23 percent — more than any other federal agency.

That number probably could have been more, but Jackson has a policy that could be summed up as, “It ain’t the color of your skin, but whether you’re Republican.”

‘Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president?’

At least that’s what it seemed like when he addressed a forum sponsored by the Real Estate Executive Council, a national minority real estate consortium, in Dallas recently, as reported by the Dallas Business Journal. During his address, Jackson told his audience a cautionary tale about a conversation he had with a prospective minority advertising contractor.

“He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years,” Jackson said of the prospective contractor. “He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something … he said, ‘I have a problem with your president.’

“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I don’t like President Bush.’ I thought to myself, ‘Brother, you have a disconnect — the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn’t be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don’t tell the secretary.’

“He didn’t get the contract,” Jackson continued. “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”

Okay, so both these bozos deserve dope slaps. Jackson for placing politics and political loyalty over competency in awarding contracts and the prospective contractor for saying something dumb that blows his chances. Come to think of it, though, if the guy is in advertising and he doesn’t know that you don’t tell the client that his baby is ugly and he has bad breath, maybe he wasn’t competent after all.

But Jackson’s approach does reflect that of the man who appointed him: Why pick somebody who’d do a good job when you can pick an incompetent crony who shares your politics and values?

Bush Urges Democracy on Germany Then Goes Fishing

Trish

I hate it when someone writes a commentary so good I wish I’d written it myself. O.K., actually I love it. The Miami Herald’s Ana Menendez made me hate/love her for her column on the president.

While everyone was distracted by Bush’s admission that catching a fish of disputed genus was the highlight of his presidency, we missed other gems in the same interview. Menendez combed the rest of the transcript:

Meanwhile, no respectable commentator is allowed to point out that the emperor has no mind.

Bush’s interview with Bild, released by the White House press office Sunday, offers the following additions to the startling Bush opus:

“That’s George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing about him is that I read three –Three or four books about him last year. Isn’t that interesting? People say, so what?”

Indeed. Here’s another one:

“Germans have always been incredibly efficient, capable business people, and when they make a product, it is always of the highest quality.”

And finally:

“The point now is how do we work together to achieve important goals. And one such goal is a democracy in Germany.”

Right. And then on to France, England and maybe even the United States.

Satisfying though it might be to cringe and guffaw at Bush’s idiocy, Menedez says the fun is wearing off.

Meanwhile, no respectable commentator is allowed to point out that the emperor has no mind. Democrats, terrified of sounding snobby, would rather retain some fake ”credibility” than be accused of saying anything interesting. And Republicans . . . Well, what few remain loyal to King George have made a career of crafting apologias whose authors should be arrested for reckless and cruel abuse of the exclamation point…

The leaders are swinging from the monkey bars, but the people are not fooled. Bush’s abysmal approval ratings are no mistake. There’s only so much nonsense that the average citizen can take before it stops being hilarious.

For me, that point came when Bush usurped John McCain in South Carolina before the 2000 election. That was when I had the illogical yet persistent feeling that he was going to be president. It’s been downhill ever since.

Bush Nominates Another Crony and Political Hack to the Court — Brett Kavanaugh Was Investigator for Ken Starr

Jon Ponder

President Bush and Republicans are hoping to rally their increasingly disengaged base around the troubled nomination to the judiciary of Brett Kavanaugh, a White House staffer who was heavily involved in the Clinton wars as a staffer for prosecutor Ken Starr — and whose rating by the American Bar Association (ABA) was recently downgraded due to his lack of experience, partly because he has never tried a case that reached a verdict.

Kavanaugh is married to the former Ashley Estes, who was a personal secretary to President Bush, and who serves on the search team for the president’s library in Texas, along with another Bush secretary, Harriet Miers, whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rescinded by President Bush in a storm of criticism from rightwingers last year.

The ABA completed the re-evaluation of Kavanaugh’s professional qualifications last Month:

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