Day: October 19, 2007
Video: Bush in 2004 Amused by Iraq War
At about the 5:15 mark, Bush starts a running joke about the search for WMD. Very funny, especially now that nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have died on his orders to find the weapons.
Quote du Jour
I am that gadfly which God has attached to the State, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.
— Socrates (470-399 B.C.) Greek philosopher
Rep. Pete Stark Blasts Bush on Children’s Health Insurance, Iraq War – Hangs Tough Against GOP Onslaught
Pete Stark, Democrat of California, speaking on the House floor yesterday:
First of all, I’m just amazed that they can’t figure out — the Republicans are worried that we can’t pay for insuring an additional ten million children. They sure don’t care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you gonna get that money? You gonna tell us lies, like you’re telling us today? Is that how you’re going to fund the war? You don’t have the money to fund the war or children, but you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people, if we could get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President’s amusement.
This bill would provide health care for ten million children and, unlike the President’s own kids, these children can’t see a doctor or receive necessary care. Six million are insured through the Children’s Health Insurance Program and they’ll do better in school, and in life. In California, the President’s veto will cause the legislature to draw up emergency regulations to cut some 800,000 children off the rolls in California and create a waiting list.
I hope my California Republican colleagues will understand that if they don’t vote to override this veto, they are destroying health care for many of our children in California.
In the previous job as an actor, our Governor used to play make-believe and blow things up. Well, [the] President and Republicans in Congress are playing make-believe today with children’s lives. They claim we can’t afford health care. They say the bill will socialize medicine. Tell that to Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley and Ted Stevens, those socialists on the other side of this capitol. The truth is: [The] CHIP program enables states to cover children primarily through private health care plans. But, President Bush’s statements about children’s health shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than his lies about the war in Iraq. The truth is that Bush just likes to blow things up… in Iraq, in the United States, and in Congress.
I urge my colleagues to vote to override his veto. America’s children need and deserve health care, despite the President’s desire to deny it to them.
Stark’s assertion that the troops die in Iraq for Bush’s “amusement” gave Republicans ammunition, and House Minority Leader John Boehner fired back:
Coulter to Medved: ‘Jews Believe That My Savior, a Jew, Was a Raving Lunatic’
On Monday, Ann Coulter went on the radio talkshow of rightwing social critic Michael Medved, who is Jewish, to clarify a statement she’d made on Donny Deutsch’s cable chat show a week or so earlier about her desire as a Christian to have Jews “perfected,” meaning, converted to Christianity:
“Here it is just a straight, plain, non-controversial statement of what all Christians believe. Of course, all Christians want everyone to be a Christian, like all feminists would like everyone to be a feminist.”
— Ann Coulter
— Ann Coulter
COULTER: [Judaism], as I explained — Christians accept the Old Testament. Jews don’t accept the New Testament, so, you know, as long as we’re playing this new sport of “he who is offended first wins,” if anyone’s going to be offended by anyone else’s religion, the Jews believe that my savior, a Jew, was a raving lunatic, and you don’t see me sniffling and crying.
Later in the show, predictably, Coulter starts sniffling and whining, if not actually crying:
COULTER: I’m sorry. I just can’t take this seriously, Michael. I don’t know when Donny Deutsch became the Al Sharpton of the Jews, but I don’t think it’s working.
MEDVED: Well, the problem here is that a lot of the major Jewish organizations —
COULTER: Are lying. But they attack me — I mean, it’s — from what I can tell, it’s all the usual suspects. It’s always the same thing. Actually, the only thing that is different here is usually I have told a joke. It is a satire. Here it is just a straight, plain, non-controversial statement of what all Christians believe. Of course, all Christians want everyone to be a Christian, like all feminists would like everyone to be a feminist, though it’s maybe a little more important to us.
And yes, of course, we accept the Old Testament, which is what I said. And as I say in my current book, if the things I say are so outrageous, why won’t they quote me accurately? I am never quoted accurately and, once again, I’m not being quoted accurately here.
For the record, here is what she said to Deutsch:
New Gov’t Report: Surge Producing Little Progress in Iraq
Attempts by American-led reconstruction teams to forge political reconciliation, foster economic growth and build an effective police force and court system in Iraq have failed to show significant progress in nearly every one of the nation’s provincial regions and in the capital, a federal oversight agency reported on Thursday.
The report, by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, comes as the United States tries to take advantage of a drop in overall violence to create a functioning government here.
Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general, testified about the report to a House Armed Services subcommittee yesterday.
