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Category Archives: Polities

Political stuffs

Cheney Hunting

One of the rumors flying around the Cheney shooting states that this type of accident occurs regularly in hunting. It turns out that is not really the case.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Texas only had 2.7 hunting accidents per 100,000 hunting licenses. Perhaps, Cheney does not count because he did not get the required permits and was thus hunting illegally.

More at ThinkProgress.

Dick Cheney Waving

The Smoking Gun got their hands on the official incident report filed by Texas Parks and Wildlife.

According the report, the conditions were the following:
Topography: Flat
Visibility: Fair
Type of Cover: Light
Lighting: Sunny
Weather: Clear
Distance from Muzzle to Victim in Yards: 11-50

Light cover, fair visibility, sunny and clear weather? Hmmm.

Dick Cheney

As almost everyone knows now, our Vice President shot a 78 year old man in the face and chest last Saturday with a 28-guage shotgun. It turns out, to no ones surprise, that Cheney tried to stall the presses on the issue as reported in Time.

Even worse, his victim suffered a minor heart attach yesterday morning. What was the White House’s response? Don’t mention it and make jokes about the shooting instead. That’s right. Instead of telling reporters the latest state of the victim, Scott McClellan decided to make jokes about Cheney shooting a 78 year old man in the face and chest with his shotgun. Now, I understand that there are a lot of jokes to be made as anyone who watches Letterman or Stewart know. However, it seems to be off-color when the White House Press Secretary makes jokes while hiding the knowledge that the victim’s health took a turn for the worst.

You cannot hide the truth forever, especially when it has been photographed. Last week, both photos and emails with Bush and disgraced lobbyist, John Abramoff, were released to the press. The NY Times was the first to print the following picture from a 2001 meeting with Abramoff, Bush, Rove, one of Abramoff’s clients, Chief Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe, and many other powerful people:

Bush and Abramoff

This follows on the heels of the emails that ThinkProgress was first to publish last week between Abramoff and Kim Eisler, the editor of Washingtonian. This is one of the excerpts from the emails:

HE HAS ONE OF THE BEST MEMORIES OF ANY POLITICIAN I HAVE EVER MET. IT WAS ONE IF [sic] HIS TRADEMARKS, THOUGH OF COURSE HE CAN’T RECALL THAT HE HAS A GREAT MEMORY! THE GUY SAW ME IN ALMOST A DOZEN SETTINGS, AND JOKED WITH ME ABOUT A BUNCH OF THINGS, INCLUDING DETAILS OF MY KIDS. PERHAPS HE HAS FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING. WHO KNOWS.

And we are supposed to believe Bush when he said on January 26th, “You know, I, frankly, don’t even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don’t know him.” Perhaps, it is because Bush has such a good track record at telling us the truth? You know, if one of the most, if not the most, powerful lobbyists in America was responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars to my campaign and millions of dollars of campaign funds to my party, I think I would probably know him.

Dick Cheney Hunting Rifle

Things are not looking so good for Cheney these days. On the heels of Scooter Libby’s testimony that he authorized the Valerie Plame leak, he ends up spraying a 78 year old lawyer with shotgun pellets on a hunting trip. Official details are yet to be released, but the article has an interview with the owner of the land where the gentleman was shot.

After spending this last week in California working non-stop on our company, Rahul said, “I cannot believe that the Vice President of our country has more free time than we have.”

Amen.

Bush Budget Cuts

I got this from J-Luv this morning:

The ellusive cuts to 141 programs in Bush’s budget were finally digested and publish late yesterday. If would be unfair to say that they are being cut in order to increase the defense budget and free up “emergency funds” for wars in Afgan. and Iraq…….. if it weren’t for the fact that its true. See if you can find your program here on the list! Notice all the cuts to education…. b/c children need to start taking PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for not getting left behind. It’s the American way.

Program Bush Wants to Cut or Kill

Interestingly enough, the majority of these cuts were in his budget proposals the last couple years, and they have been salvaged time and time again (like Head Start and Americorps NCCC, for example). But a very different political climate and increased pressure to eliminate
Congressmembers’ “pet projects” could make the approval and ammending interesting.

This sucks.

Heather Wilson

Even after Gonzalez spent all day Monday defending Bush’s illegal wiretap program, more and more conservatives continue to break rank and call for a special investigator. The latest republican to jump ship is no regular congressperson. House Representative Heath Wilson (R-NM) is chairwoman of the committee that oversees all the NSA programs. Yesterday, she called for a full congressional inquiry into Bush’s eavesdropping program. From the NYTimes:

The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had “serious concerns” about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.

Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush’s father, is the first Republican on either the House’s Intelligence Committee or the Senate’s to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.

And the same day Cheney said in an interview with Lehrer that members of congress can question or suggest whatever they want, but “we have all the legal authority we need.” No, Dick. No, you don’t. And even your own people won’t stay quiet about it.

Cross and Earth

It looks like Bush might even be losing some of his religious right these days. A group of 85 evangelical Christian leaders are supporting a bill that would curb America’s emissions of green house gases. The article pulls a great stat that really puts our place in causing global warming in perspective:

The United States, with around 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for a quarter of its greenhouse gases and U.S. emissions rose by 2 percentage points in 2004 alone, according to government figures.

Deutsch probably tried to silence those figures.

Exxon Mobile Fossil Fuel Dinosaur

On the heals of Bush’s claim to reduce our oil dependency on the Middle East 75% by 2025, Exxon replies it is impossible and not worth trying. From Reuters:

“Realistically, it is simply not feasible in any time period relevant to our discussion today,” Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Stuart McGill said, referring to what he called the “misperception” that the United States can achieve energy independence.

The world’s largest publicly traded oil company, however, says hoping to end foreign oil imports is not only a bad idea, but also impossible.
…
“Americans depend upon imports to fill the gap,” McGill said. “No combination of conservation measures, alternative energy sources and technological advances could realistically and economically provide a way to completely replace those imports in the short or medium term.”

Instead of trying to achieve energy independence, importing nations like the U.S. should be promoting energy interdependence, McGill said.

I am sure it comes as a big surprise to you that the largest, most profitable corporation ever in the world says there’s nothing you can do to stop them. But I thought you should know. Your base are belong to us.

Blue Marble

President Bush’s appointee at NASA, Geoorge C. Deutsch, resigned yesterday as growing controversy continues to surround his position. As mentioned previously, Deutsch was responsible for trying to gag NASA’s lead climatologist, James Hansen, from disclosing his research about global warming. Not only did he try to muzzle NASA’s scientists, he tried to tell them what to do. He demanded that the lead web designer of the organization put the word “theory” with every mention of the Big Bang. To no surprise, Deutsch believes in intelligent design.

So not only is this whipper-snapper telling our countries most brilliant scientists how to do their jobs, he did not even complete college! Even worse, he lied about it! From the NYTimes:

According to his résumé, Mr. Deutsch received a “Bachelor of Arts in journalism, Class of 2003.”

Yesterday, officials at Texas A&M said that was not the case.

“George Carlton Deutsch III did attend Texas A&M University but has not completed the requirements for a degree,” said an e-mail message from Rita Presley, assistant to the registrar at the university, responding to a query from The Times.

You’re doing a great job, Deutschie!

Dr. James Hansen does a great job of putting this all in perspective:

Yesterday, Dr. Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch’s credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information.

“He’s only a bit player,” Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Deutsch. “The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That’s what I’m really concerned about.”

“On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed,” he said. “The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That’s the big issue here.”