Day: August 24, 2006

BuzzFlash: Time for the Greens to Choose Up Sides

Jon Ponder

Shirley Smith saw our headline, PA Sen: GOP’s Santorum Admits Helping Green Party in Order to Split Dem Vote, and posted this editorial to BuzzFlash today:

When I first heard of this it pissed me off, mainly because all we hear from the Greens is that they don’t agree with the Democrats and they certainly are not for the GOP, but then they split votes, because they aren’t large enough to do anything else, and Republicans win by default if they haven’t rigged the count. Today, with a criminal faction in our government, it matters. Democrats may have our problems … we do have some “blue dogs” in this party, but they will eventually be leaving … why? Because, we’ve had enough. Had it with anyone who supports this treasonous Bush fascist, out-of-control, warring regime…

The fact is that this Republican party will use anybody to win elections and fight their wars for them. How many people have to die or be poverty stricken before Americans get their lights turned on? Fools. Only fools accept money from this GOP, and only fools will vote for any Republican today. A vote for the Republican party is a vote for debt, death, and destruction of this democracy.

Et tu, Pluto?

Buck Banks

Planned planethood: Our solar system just got a little smaller. Scientists have downsized the solar system, declaring that Pluto — that distant little lump of frozen stuff — no longer deserves the moniker “planet.” It is now, as of today, a “dwarf planet” or a “plutonian object,” and our little corner of the universe just got a little lonelier, if you ask me.

I guess Pluto had a pretty good run for a binary planet with a moon almost as big as itself. Discovered in 1930, it was one of The Nine for nearly 80 years. But times change, styles change, and what was a planet yesterday is a has-been dwarf object today.

I’ll miss Pluto, which I always found fascinating as a kid. Remember that solar system model that you could crank with all the planets represented at their relative distance from the sun and their relative sizes? Pluto was so small and so far away that it always struck me as kind of the underdog planet. And now it’s been kicked out of the club entirely.

Oh well, I look forward to 2015 when the New Horizons spacecraft that was launched in July becomes the first spacecraft to pass by Pluto. Maybe it will discover something about the dwarf that will convince the astronomers that we should let it be the ninth planet again in our little club out here on the edge of the Milky Way.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.

— Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British mathematician, philosopher

Rockey Vaccarella, Bush’s ‘Katrina Victim’ in Photo Op, Is Wannabe GOP Pol

Jon Ponder

“I just wish the President could have another term in Washington.” — Vaccarella, above at photo-op with Pres. Bush

Note: See UPDATE at end of this article for more on Vaccarella’s political history.

History will record that it was Pres. Bush’s egregious reaction to the Hurricane Katrina disaster that caused him to lose, and never regain, favor among voters. With the anniversary of the disaster upon us, the White House is in full damage-control mode, trying to deflect the public’s attention away from the memory of bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans while the president flitted about the country campaigning and joking around with a guitar.

Yesterday the Bush political team staged a photo op in which a “Katrina victim” who drove his FEMA trailer from St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana to Washington was “allowed” a brief audience with the president.

As Rockey Vaccarella embarked on his trip earlier this month, he infused his sojourn with dramatic tension by speculating with reporters about whether or not the president would see him when he arrived in D.C.

But as cliffhangers go, the outcome of Rockey’s trip was all too predictable. Dear Leader did break away from his busy schedule to give an audience to his loyal common, albeit a hurried handshake in front of cameras outside the palace. For this momentous occasion, Vaccarella made a statement that might strike a cynical observer as having been written by a White House political operative:

You know, it’s really amazing when a small man like me from St. Bernard Parish can meet the President of the United States. The President is a people person. I knew that from the beginning. I was confident that I could meet President Bush.

Rockey concluded with this chilling aspiration:

…I just wish the President could have another term in Washington.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Rockey’s visit was thoroughly stage-managed by the Bush team, with dinner at the White House and other appointments for Vaccarella scheduled well in advance. It also shouldn’t surprise us to learn that other than being a “small man…from St. Bernard Parish,” Vaccarella is a wealthy business man and erstwhile Republican politician.

Will Bunch at Attytood has this great play by play of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the White House political machine grinding its gears — and one doltish CNN reporter gobbling it up, hook, line and sinker:

[…]

Bush’s Statements Linking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq

Jon Ponder
“The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.”
— Pres. Bush

Pres. Bush on Monday:

[THE PRESIDENT:] The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it’s part of — and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

Here is a partial record of a few of the president’s statements linking al Qaeda to Iraq:

October 28-November 10, 2002:

Bush’s comments about Saddam Hussein, each from a different speech:

“This is a person who has had contacts with al Qaeda.”
“He’s got connections with al Qaeda.”
“This is a guy who has had connections with these shadowy terrorist networks.”
“We know he’s got ties with al Qaeda.”
“We know that he’s had connections with al Qaeda.”
“He’s had connections with shadowy terrorist networks like al Qaeda.”
“We know that he has had contacts with terrorist networks like al Qaeda.”
“This is a man who has had contacts with al Qaeda.”
“This is a man who has had al Qaeda connections.”
“He’s had contacts with al Qaeda.”
“This is a man who has got connections with al Qaeda.”

And this, from June 18, 2004:

President Bush yesterday defended his assertions that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda, putting him at odds with this week’s finding of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission. “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.”

Is Collapse of Christian Coalition a Sign That America Rejects Mainstreaming of Hate Groups?

Jon Ponder
“In our prime, we were rated the seventh-most powerful lobbying organization in the country. Now, there’s not even any blip on the radar screen.”
— Alabama coalition leader

The Christian Coalition has to be one of the most cynical organizations in our political history. Formed in the 1980s as a conservative political fundraising and organizing organization, its overarching mission was to fight liberalism with a mutation of Christianity that focused on the Bible’s most hateful and regressive precepts.

Its practical purpose, however, was to get out the votes of unsmart Americans who bought into the paranoid view of society propounded by coalition leaders like its founder, the diamond-mine owner Pat Robertson and its first leader, the corrupt GOP political operative Ralph Reed.

Robertson and Reed have moved on, and the Christian Coalition has gradually lost its resonance. Now there is new evidence of its decline:

Three disgruntled state affiliates have severed ties with the Christian Coalition of America, one of the nation’s most powerful conservative groups during the 1990s but now buffeted by complaints over finances, leadership and its plans to veer into nontraditional policy areas.

“It’s a very sad day for our people, but a liberating day,” said John Giles, president of the coalition’s Alabama chapter, which announced Wednesday that it was renaming itself and splitting from the national organization. The Iowa and Ohio chapters took similar steps this year.

Giles said he and his Alabama colleagues have “a dozen hard reasons” for the action but would elaborate on only one — a perception that the coalition’s leadership was diverting itself from traditional concerns such as abortion and same-sex marriage to address other issues ranging from the environment to Internet access.

Giles predicted further defections and said the coalition was now left with only a half-dozen strong state chapters and a weak presence in Washington.

“In our prime, we were rated the seventh-most powerful lobbying organization in the country,” he said. “Now, there’s not even any blip on the radar screen.”

At its peak, the coalition had a presence in every state, but in some cases a modest one.

The coalition’s president, Roberta Combs, insisted her organization — which is $1 million in debt — would survive the defections, and was unapologetic about her interest in new directions.

“We’re going to have a new mission, a new vision — much more broad-focused,” she said. “They don’t like some of the comments I’ve made about the environment and some of these other issues.”

The coalition, which claims more than 2 million members, was founded in 1989 by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and became politically powerful under Executive Director Ralph Reed before he left in 1997. Robertson, who turned over the presidency to Combs in 2002, has been criticized for provocative public statements, while Reed lost an election in Georgia last month after being linked to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.