Tag: Congress

The Blank Check

Jon Ponder
“The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection [has been] snuffed out.”

Keith Olbermann:

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom, to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants and ship them somewhere, anywhere, but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere, anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant,” exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

[…]

WaPo: ‘During National Character Counts Week, Bush Stumps for Philanderer’

Jon Ponder

Pres. Bush campaigns with Rep. Don Sherwood, his wife Carol and daughter Linda (far left)

Did you know that the Senate has proclaimed this week as “National Character Counts” week? No? Well, President Bush was well aware that Americans were celebrating character this week and yet he went to Pennsylvania to campaign for GOP Rep. Don Sherwood anyway.

You may recall that Sherwood is the congressman whose girlfriend called 911 in Washington D.C. one night claiming that Sherwood was trying to strangle her. After being sued by the girlfriend, Sherwood admitted the adultery but denied the strangling attempt and settled with his ex for $5 million.

The president’s campaign stop with Sherwood yesterday during National Character Counts week was too much even for as stalwart a member of the mainstream press as the Washignton Post’s Dana Milbank. Under the headline,”During National Character Counts Week, Bush Stumps for Philanderer,” Milbank wrote:

So it has come to this: Nineteen days before the midterm elections, President Bush flew here to champion the reelection of a congressman who last year settled a $5.5 million lawsuit alleging that he beat his mistress during a five-year affair.

[…]

WH Political Team Backs Newt in ’08

Jon Ponder

Run, Newt, Run!!

As regular readers know, I have endorsed Newt Gingrich to be the Republican nominee for president in 2008 — mainly as a reaction to having Hillary Clinton selected as the Dem nominee by the rightwing. I see Newt as being as polarizing on the left as Sen. Clinton is on the right.

Anyway, it is gratifying to learn that the geniuses in the White House political shop are supporting Gingrich, the notorious serial adulterer and former House speaker, as well:

The Newt Gingrich for president buzz is back, and we’re hearing it from a rather odd corner of Washington: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Top Bushies tell us that they think the former disgraced House speaker would make a great president. Gingrich thinks big, they say, and represents the old Reagan-style of smaller-government conservatism. As for his past marital infidelity, they think it’s a nothing-burger, especially if he faces Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose hubby had his own problems she’d rather forget.

What a great example of inside-the-Beltway rationalization: Hillary was a victim, if you will, of Bill’s adultery. Newt has been involved in at least three adulterous relationships that went public. Therefore, if Hillary runs against Newt, Bill’s adultery would somehow cancel out Newt’s as a campaign issue. Riiiight…

NBC Gives GOP Governor a Free Reelection Ad on Top-Rated ‘The Tonight Show’ – Refuses to Give Dems Equal Time

Jon Ponder

“There’s no reason [the governor] couldn’t have been booked after the election rather than before.”
— Los Angeles Times

First it was ABC/Disney trashing Democratic officials including former Pres. Bill Clinton and Sec. of State Madeline Albright in The Path to 9/11. Now NBC has jumped on the GOP bandwagon by giving Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a free five-minute national advertisement for his reelection campaign on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

It is clear that NBC, which is owned by defense contractor General Electric, never planned to give equal time to Schwarzenegger’s Democratic opponent, State Treasurer Phil Angelides — and continues to have no plans to do so in the future.

Angelides, the California Democratic Party and its allies are outraged:

Leno has so far declined to extend an invitation to Democrat Phil Angelides. A spokesman for Angelides, the state’s Treasurer, said that move violates federal rules that generally require broadcast outlets to give opposing candidates equal time.

“The governor has spent $35 million in launching negative attack ads against Phil Angelides, and now NBC is just giving him further free time on national network TV to campaign,” the spokesman, Brian Brokaw, told Reuters.

Rallying to Angelides’ cause in Washington, U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, a California Democrat, lodged a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, saying that an exclusive appearance by the governor on Leno’s show would “constitute a clear violation of the equal time rule.”

A Los Angeles Times editorial this morning says the governor’s appearance may not have broken fairness laws but it was nonetheless fundamentally unfair, especially because the governor took a political swipe at his opponent:

llegal or not, Schwarzenegger’s appearance was clearly inappropriate. Leno at one point asked his friend the governor about the attack ads from Angelides that have sought to tie Schwarzenegger to President Bush, who is deeply unpopular in California. “To link me to George Bush is like linking me to an Oscar,” Schwarzenegger replied.

And:

Booking guests on shows like Leno’s is all about timing; celebrities appear when they want to promote their newest movie or album, not necessarily when Leno’s schedulers want them. The problem is, Schwarzenegger still acts like a movie star rather than a public official, and NBC still treats him that way.

There’s no reason he couldn’t have been booked after the election rather than before. But just as he made the TV circuit when he wanted to promote his latest “Terminator” movie, now he’s doing it to promote himself as governor. Yet different rules apply.

This is really outrageous — and if anger over NBC’s move continues to agitate — and energize — Democrats and independents in California, it just might backfire on the governor and his cronies at NBC like Jay Leno.

The L Word: Olbermann Calls the President Out for Lying

Jon Ponder

Keith Olbermann on Countdown last night:

While the leadership in Congress has self-destructed over the revelations of an unmatched, and unrelieved, march through a cesspool …

While the leadership inside the White House has self-destructed over the revelations of a book with a glowing red cover …

The president of the United States — unbowed, undeterred and unconnected to reality — has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: the Democrats.

Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, “177 of the opposition party said, ‘You know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.'”

The hell they did.

One hundred seventy-seven Democrats opposed the president’s seizure of another part of the Constitution.

Not even the White House press office could actually name a single Democrat who had ever said the government shouldn’t be listening to the conversations of terrorists.

President Bush hears what he wants.

Tuesday, at another fundraiser in California, he had said, “Democrats take a law enforcement approach to terrorism. That means America will wait until we’re attacked again before we respond.”

Mr. Bush fabricated that, too.

And evidently he has begun to fancy himself as a mind reader.

“If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party,” the president said at another fundraiser Monday in Nevada, “it sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is — wait until we’re attacked again.”

The president doesn’t just hear what he wants.

He hears things that only he can hear.

It defies belief that this president and his administration could continue to find new unexplored political gutters into which they could wallow.

Yet they do.

It is startling enough that such things could be said out loud by any president of this nation.

Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders, Democrats, the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies of treason.

[…]

Cold War Officially Over – U.S. Withdraws Troops from Iceland

Buck Banks

‘g skil ekki: It’s official – the Soviet Union no longer poses a threat to Iceland, and, as of tomorrow, the U.S. military presence that held Nazism and Communism at bay for 65 years will end. Despite the fact that the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, heralding the break-up of the USSR, the U.S. has maintained a troop presence in Iceland for … some reason.

According to the Armed Forces Information Service’s press release, we’ve kept troops in Iceland because of the contemporary threats of terrorism, international crime and drug trafficking. And, while those threats still persist, it appears the need for more cannon fodder in Iraq and Afghanistan outweighs the threat to our NATO ally Iceland.

Bless, Reykjavik!

House Passes Voter ID Bill – Must Be White Male Landowner to Vote

Buck Banks

Poll text: In a move that Democrats are decrying as a return to the days of Jim Crow laws, Republican House members yesterday voted overwhelmingly to roll back voter identification laws nearly 100 years. If the bill passes the Senate, voters would be required to show photo identification, proof of Anglo-Saxon descent and proof of land ownership before being allowed to exercise the privilege of voting.

Democrats were quick to condemn the vote as election-year politics. “It’s just not fair,” said Thelma Green of Norfolk, Va. “Everybody knows that blacks, women and renters all vote Democratic.”

‘Border fencing and voter identification legislation are just the first two bills in what we believe is the dawning of a new era in the United States.’
– Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

But Republicans were quick to counter that the new requirements are not without precedent. “Look at our Founding Fathers,” said Biff O’Toole of Norwalk, Conn. “You don’t think George Washington shared the ballot box with his wife or slaves, do you?”

Election officials across the country greeted the bill’s passage with relief: “This should really cut down on our workload,” said Charles D. Classey, supervisor of elections for Trousdale Wilson County in Tennessee. “For one thing, there will be fewer people voting, and in my experience white landowners are more polite and less messy at the polls than other former voters, if you catch my drift.”

The Senate, which consists of almost totally rich white landowners, is expected to take up a similar bill which, with the swift application of cloture, could sail through the Senate with no discussion or amendments, and be on the desk of our rich, white landowning president by late next week.

“Border fencing and voter identification legislation are just the first two bills in what we believe is the dawning of a new era in the United States,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Why Did Rush Limbaugh Take Viagra on Vacation with Four Guys?

Jon Ponder

When asked if his cigar was a phallic symbol, Sigmund Freud supposedly replied, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Implied in this answer, of course, is the idea that sometimes a cigar is more than a cigar: It is a symbol for something else.

Keeping that in mind, the Smoking Gun has revealed that when renowned cigar smoker Rush Limbaugh was busted with someone else’s prescription of Viagra, he was returning to the United States from a vacation in the Dominican Republic with four other guys:

Rush Limbaugh was traveling with four other men–including the producers of the hit show “24”–when he was detained over a mislabeled bottle of Viagra found in his luggage during a Customs search.

Hugh Hefner once called Viagra “the best legal recreational drug out there.” Keeping that in mind, the four men in Limbaugh’s Dominican sex party included:

Joel Surnow, “24”‘s co-creator and executive producer and Howard Gordon, another of the Fox hit’s executive producers (Hollywood agent Jeffrey Benson was also part of the Limbaugh quintet).

And TSG asks, “With all those guys in tow, it is unclear what Limbaugh needed with those 29 100mg Viagra pills.”

Speaking for all the gays in Gaydom, I don’t think Rush is a homo. We don’t want him. He is one of yours. Ick.

If Limbaugh and his boys went to the Carribbean to trawl resort bars for dates, you might think having Rush in their party would be a dumb girl magnet. Evidence suggests otherwise: only one of the 30 pills in the prescription was missing.

Here’s the takeaway: A cigar may not always be a cigar, but Rush Limbaugh is always a dick.

Pensito Review Releases Draft of Bush Veto Signing Statement

Buck Banks

Executive power play: President George Bush today vetoed a bipartisan bill that sought to expand the limitations currently imposed on human stem cell research purportedly based on his religious beliefs. It was Bush’s first veto of a congressional bill in the five-and-a-half years of his presidency.

Instead of vetoing bills he disagrees with, Bush usually cheerfully signs them in public ceremonies that make it appear that he gets along with the legislative branch of government and even thinks it serves a useful purpose. Then, as soon as everyone leaves the room, he does a take-back via the signing statement.

A signing statement is a written proclamation issued by the executive branch that accompanies the signing of a law passed by the government’s legislature. Historically, they are mainly used for rhetorical or political proclamations, but U.S. presidents have used them to set forth how they intend the executive branch of the federal government to interpret and enforce the new law.

Pensito Review’s investigative team has uncovered what appears to be an early draft of a signing statement Bush intends to append to his veto of the stem cell bill today. Ordinarily, presidents do not attach signing statements to vetos, but it is obvious that Bush wants to extend his “take-back” powers to vetos, in case he ever does it again.

Here is what is believed to be an early draft of Bush’s veto signing statement recovered from a discarded dictaphone transcript:

As president of the United States of America, I hereby exercise my absolute power as supreme … no, strike that, … as commander and chief to determine at some time henceforth in the future … man, I like to add in those henceforths … to re-, re- … what’s that word? … oh yeah, rescind … rescind this veto of the Stem Cell Research Expansion Act and hold it not to be applicable to the executive branch except insofar as I say so.

It would be my perogative to rescind the veto as command and chief in the following circumstances: In the event that Mom or Dad, or both, or Jeb or any other close family relatives, and maybe Karl Rove, comes down with kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, cancer or diseases of the nervous system, such as Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease, or any other illness that expanded stem cell research holds great promise for the treatment or cure of.