Sarah Palin is touted as a bureaucracy buster who once said "thanks but no thanks" to the Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (see: Anchorage Daily News) "Bridge to Nowhere" connecting a 50-resident island to Ketchikan, AK, at a cost of nearly $400-million, including Stevens' $223-million earmark.
But, like the salmon her husband catches during fishing season, Palin is bouncing around on her governmental philosophy according to the Detroit Free Press. The newspaper reports that Palin is quoted by the Ketchikan Daily News the project was necessary to "help this community prosper" during a campaign visit to the community October 22, 2006.
Her flip flop during her first visit with the public after being selected the vice presidential candidate has even eaten at the Alaskan backing (see: Reuters).
The Stevens bridge was initiated as an earmark against the 2005 highway spending package under the Republican Senate (see: Salon) before Imbecile in Chief became a foe of such spending when the Democrats took over the house in the 2006 election.
Palin altered the plan by changing Alaska's spending priority for its share of the project (see: CNN). However, the earmarked Federal funding remains in the Alaska budget though not allocated to the bridge (see Wikipedia).
Take care,
jim
Showing posts with label Presidency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Presidency. Show all posts
Monday, September 1, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saved by Gustav
While the Republican's debated whether the imbecile in chief, George W. Bush, should attend their convention, Gustav intervened.
When a similar hurricane named "Katrina" hit the Louisiana coast, John S. McCain, the equivalent of a cuckold from the tactics used to give Bush a victory in the North Carolina 2000 Republican primary ( see: Boston Globe ), was sitting on Air Force One enjoying his 69th birthday with the Cuckolder in Chief.
This year, the duo decided to separate for McCain's birthday celebration, allegedly to show concern for citizens of Louisiana, who meant little when Katrina hit in 2005 long after Bush was in office and before McCain gained the Republican nomination for the top office in the nation.
There had been talk during the campaign about what the Republican's could do with George -- titular head of the party who is enjoying the lowest public approval rating of any national figure, including Herbert Hoover who watched the nation sink into depression, over the last 100 years. It made bad TV if Bush raved about his "legacy" when a majority of the thinking public (the 27-or so percent who don't have the capacity to understand the damage he has done aside) know the nation is worse off today than it was in 2000 when Bush took office with a budget surplus paying down on a $4-trillion debt his daddy (George H. W.) and Ronald Reagan created to "trickle down" prosperity on ordinary American's by giving tax breaks to the top three percent of those receiving income in the country.
Part of the reason Bush isn't "persona grata" at the convention is to hide the legacy he established by undermining the US Constitution, leading the US into a war largely conceived in lie and fantasy, losing the world's recognition of the US as a leader in human rights, watching middle class jobs escape overseas to international corporations which pay no taxes to the nation, presided over the decay of the national infrastructure even as contractors bilked the government to restore Iraq's, and taking the nation another $4 trillion in deeper debt (in addition to the "emergency appropriations" he used to hide the costs of Iraq and after he threw the Clinton surplus at his corporate backers) over the past eight years.
It would be difficult for McCain to build on the Republican legacy if anyone looked at the facts surrounding Bush, but the sitting President deserved his honor in a manner that Hoover deserved the honor to speak at the 1932 Republican convention which marked the depths of the economic collapse he watched unroll as he said the government should do nothing to rescue the economy.
Another reason McCain may not have wanted Bush to attend is to avoid scrutiny of John McCain's campaign(review: Arizona Republic ), which markets him as an honest broker for the nation, when, in fact, he's the only one of five Senators accused of accepting the influence dollars from Charles Keating to call of Federal Regulators from investigating his savings and loan scam who remains in office.
George W. is under scrutiny for his manipulation of the rules starting with his alleged "service" in the Alabama Air National Guard; continuing with his title as the "compassionate conservative" (as those who suffered in Katrina); following with his assertion of McCain's "illegitimate child;" continuing with the statement that Saddam Hussein, a non-sympathetic figure, supported the attack on the World Trade Center; rolling through "signing statements" which recognize a law has been enacted, but declare the President won't recognize it; and continuing today as the economy collapses while he prates "the 'conomy is fundamentally sound" to avoid blame for the increase in costs caused by his borrowing while still in office.
McCain no doubt would have liked Bush to stand down at this year's convention.
Gustav gave him the excuse to excuse the Bush cement shoes from arriving at McCain's celebration.
Take care,
jim
When a similar hurricane named "Katrina" hit the Louisiana coast, John S. McCain, the equivalent of a cuckold from the tactics used to give Bush a victory in the North Carolina 2000 Republican primary ( see: Boston Globe ), was sitting on Air Force One enjoying his 69th birthday with the Cuckolder in Chief.
This year, the duo decided to separate for McCain's birthday celebration, allegedly to show concern for citizens of Louisiana, who meant little when Katrina hit in 2005 long after Bush was in office and before McCain gained the Republican nomination for the top office in the nation.
There had been talk during the campaign about what the Republican's could do with George -- titular head of the party who is enjoying the lowest public approval rating of any national figure, including Herbert Hoover who watched the nation sink into depression, over the last 100 years. It made bad TV if Bush raved about his "legacy" when a majority of the thinking public (the 27-or so percent who don't have the capacity to understand the damage he has done aside) know the nation is worse off today than it was in 2000 when Bush took office with a budget surplus paying down on a $4-trillion debt his daddy (George H. W.) and Ronald Reagan created to "trickle down" prosperity on ordinary American's by giving tax breaks to the top three percent of those receiving income in the country.
Part of the reason Bush isn't "persona grata" at the convention is to hide the legacy he established by undermining the US Constitution, leading the US into a war largely conceived in lie and fantasy, losing the world's recognition of the US as a leader in human rights, watching middle class jobs escape overseas to international corporations which pay no taxes to the nation, presided over the decay of the national infrastructure even as contractors bilked the government to restore Iraq's, and taking the nation another $4 trillion in deeper debt (in addition to the "emergency appropriations" he used to hide the costs of Iraq and after he threw the Clinton surplus at his corporate backers) over the past eight years.
It would be difficult for McCain to build on the Republican legacy if anyone looked at the facts surrounding Bush, but the sitting President deserved his honor in a manner that Hoover deserved the honor to speak at the 1932 Republican convention which marked the depths of the economic collapse he watched unroll as he said the government should do nothing to rescue the economy.
Another reason McCain may not have wanted Bush to attend is to avoid scrutiny of John McCain's campaign(review: Arizona Republic ), which markets him as an honest broker for the nation, when, in fact, he's the only one of five Senators accused of accepting the influence dollars from Charles Keating to call of Federal Regulators from investigating his savings and loan scam who remains in office.
George W. is under scrutiny for his manipulation of the rules starting with his alleged "service" in the Alabama Air National Guard; continuing with his title as the "compassionate conservative" (as those who suffered in Katrina); following with his assertion of McCain's "illegitimate child;" continuing with the statement that Saddam Hussein, a non-sympathetic figure, supported the attack on the World Trade Center; rolling through "signing statements" which recognize a law has been enacted, but declare the President won't recognize it; and continuing today as the economy collapses while he prates "the 'conomy is fundamentally sound" to avoid blame for the increase in costs caused by his borrowing while still in office.
McCain no doubt would have liked Bush to stand down at this year's convention.
Gustav gave him the excuse to excuse the Bush cement shoes from arriving at McCain's celebration.
Take care,
jim
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Random thoughts on why I’m a liberal:
Crime -- A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Bush administration -- Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
Why the government should help the unemployed -- Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Why school taxes aren’t bad -- I am a part of everything that I have read.
Wall Street investors -- I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.
Bush administration (2) -- I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
Corporate tax breaks -- It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
Unions -- It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.
Bush’s background -- Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
Terrorists’ Constitutional rights -- No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.
Terrorists’ Constitutional rights (2) -- No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.
On the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections -- No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
Bush administration (3) (Scooter Libby’s commutation) -- Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
Terrorists’ Constitutional rights (3) (Patriot Act) -- Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
Bush administration (4) -- People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Bush administration (5) -- Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
Bush accepting responsibility for mistakes -- The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
Terrorists’ Constitutional rights (4) -- The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
Bush administration (6) (Katrina relief failure) -- The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
Terrorists’ Constitutional rights (5) -- The things that will destroy
Bush administration (7) -- To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
Now that I've got it down, I have to admit.
There's an irony to all this.
I stole the thoughts from a Republican leader:
Teddy Roosevelt!
Take care,
jim
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Political Perspective Challenge
I'll make the assumption that whoever happens on this blog understands my perception of the capabilities of the person I lovingly call "The Imbecile in Chief" to handle the affairs of state in these United States.
Ignoring aspersions to the legality of the vote count which put him in office, I'm stuck with him, and assume, there are some who are content to follow him to the end of his term, and some who would like him removed, and some who are ambivalent for some pragmatic reason.
Since this blog is aimed at exchanging ideas, I'm interested in hearing why those who may read these notes either believe the current leader is worthy of continuing service, or as a contrary opinion, why he shouldn't remain in office.
Since I don't believe there is binary logic (the concept there is "only" yes-no; right-wrong; black-white; moral-immoral in all decisions), I'd be interested in hearing any pragmatic discussion on the nuances which may tilt the scale nearer one of the polar opposites I posit above, yet not to the opposite as a final solution (a "moderate" position for those who are in tune with the differences between polarity and gradual leanings toward decisions).
Please offer some logical ideas here!
Offer some!
Take care,
jim
Ignoring aspersions to the legality of the vote count which put him in office, I'm stuck with him, and assume, there are some who are content to follow him to the end of his term, and some who would like him removed, and some who are ambivalent for some pragmatic reason.
Since this blog is aimed at exchanging ideas, I'm interested in hearing why those who may read these notes either believe the current leader is worthy of continuing service, or as a contrary opinion, why he shouldn't remain in office.
Since I don't believe there is binary logic (the concept there is "only" yes-no; right-wrong; black-white; moral-immoral in all decisions), I'd be interested in hearing any pragmatic discussion on the nuances which may tilt the scale nearer one of the polar opposites I posit above, yet not to the opposite as a final solution (a "moderate" position for those who are in tune with the differences between polarity and gradual leanings toward decisions).
Please offer some logical ideas here!
Offer some!
Take care,
jim
Friday, October 26, 2007
Stupidest President
I was dining with a number of work colleagues, who weren't discrete enough to mask their negative opinions of anyone who doesn't support George W. Bush.
It triggered the emotional statement:
"George W. Bush is the stupidest person I've ever encountered or heard about as a leader of this country. He's illiterate, illogical, and inept -- a guy who has ruined everything he touches, including the Texas Rangers. It's embarrassing to have him represent me on the world stage. Those who support him are simply sheep, unable to observe his actions, and repeating what his shills in the media tell them to recite in public."
As the dinner was allegedly among "professionals" there was a stunned silence, since "politics" which didn't go along with the majority trend is forbidden.
The leader of the pro-Bush discussion retorted, "Well, I guess we see who's the liberal here. Kerry was . . ."
I didn't respond because my observation wasn't "liberal" but instead an analysis of the President's public actions where he doesn't offer logical thoughts either by argument, or worse, by appropriate grammatical construct, and makes pundit like statements to adults on topics only preschoolers may find interesting ("refineries are the factories which produce gasoline").
It was based, in part, on feedback from friends in Australia who indicate that we American's are a public laughing stock whenever the President is featured in that country's news. This response from a strong "ally?"
On the way home from the dinner, wondering why I didn't fight back, I thought:
No one bothered to defend their "leader's" intelligence.
Like those who berate the "liberal media bias" to prate their own biases from a media pulpit, they demonize the speaker rather than address the logic or illogic of the statement.
They're more impressed with the trappings of the leader ("I respect the presidency") rather than the leader's actions (For what it's worth, I respect the Presidency too. I'm just embarrassed about who we put in it this time.).
The next day, I found it interesting to hear that something like 25 percent of the American people still defend the president. This was compared to 30-something percent who believe there are space aliens living among us.
Look here for some of the wit and wisdom of Bush (See: Slate).
Take care
jim
It triggered the emotional statement:
"George W. Bush is the stupidest person I've ever encountered or heard about as a leader of this country. He's illiterate, illogical, and inept -- a guy who has ruined everything he touches, including the Texas Rangers. It's embarrassing to have him represent me on the world stage. Those who support him are simply sheep, unable to observe his actions, and repeating what his shills in the media tell them to recite in public."
As the dinner was allegedly among "professionals" there was a stunned silence, since "politics" which didn't go along with the majority trend is forbidden.
The leader of the pro-Bush discussion retorted, "Well, I guess we see who's the liberal here. Kerry was . . ."
I didn't respond because my observation wasn't "liberal" but instead an analysis of the President's public actions where he doesn't offer logical thoughts either by argument, or worse, by appropriate grammatical construct, and makes pundit like statements to adults on topics only preschoolers may find interesting ("refineries are the factories which produce gasoline").
It was based, in part, on feedback from friends in Australia who indicate that we American's are a public laughing stock whenever the President is featured in that country's news. This response from a strong "ally?"
On the way home from the dinner, wondering why I didn't fight back, I thought:
No one bothered to defend their "leader's" intelligence.
Like those who berate the "liberal media bias" to prate their own biases from a media pulpit, they demonize the speaker rather than address the logic or illogic of the statement.
They're more impressed with the trappings of the leader ("I respect the presidency") rather than the leader's actions (For what it's worth, I respect the Presidency too. I'm just embarrassed about who we put in it this time.).
The next day, I found it interesting to hear that something like 25 percent of the American people still defend the president. This was compared to 30-something percent who believe there are space aliens living among us.
Look here for some of the wit and wisdom of Bush (See: Slate).
Take care
jim
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