BartCop.com Volume 2012 – Pimp Mahoney.
In Today’s Tequila Treehouse…
 |
Misreading Iraq, Again |
|
Reid to Fight Smart |
|
Mahoney’s fake apology  |
|
Bush Uses His Generals |
|
The Waiting Game |
|
The Catholic Business |
|
Beckham twists ankle |
|
The Trip Report |
|
Beyonce’s charity work |
Bill Maher, The Huffington Post, July 17, 2007
In this great and diverse country, one is always proud to see their own city on the front page of the national newspapers, so you can imagine my pride yesterday when Los Angeles turned out to be the place where the Catholic Church has had to pay the largest fine ever for diddling kids, $660 million. (Full disclosure: I was raised Catholic and I was sometimes alone with priests, although none ever tried anything. Which is a little insulting.)
Cardinal Mahoney announced that to help pay for the deal, the church would sell a building it owns on Wilshire and about 50 other properties they weren’t using, which reminded me, oh yeah, the Catholic Church owns more property out here than Bob Hope did — and why? Oh, yeah, because it’s a business — and not just a business, really, the greatest business in the world, in that, like all religions, it’s selling an invisible product. It doesn’t really get easier than that, unless you count Edgar Bergen, a ventriloquist on the RADIO.
Cragg Hines, The Houston Chronicle, July 16, 2007
The beautiful, bountiful and richly deserved praise that marked the death of Lady Bird Johnson mentioned briefly, if at all, the hatefulness she had encountered from racists and some Republicans.
Johnson certainly never dwelled on such treatment, although the record reflects that on occasion it unnerved her, especially in an ugly incident at Dallas during the 1960 campaign.
But she could also face it down squarely and head-on. During the 1964 campaign she told hecklers in Columbia, S.C., during a Southern whistle-stop tour that prompted threats on her life from the Ku Klux Klan:
“This is a country of many viewpoints. I respect your right to express your own. Now it is my turn to express mine. Thank you.”
Needless to say, she was wearing white gloves.
There were other indignities, including one recalled by Bess Abell, White House social secretary in the Johnson years, in an oral history interview for the LBJ Library in Austin.
When the train stopped in one small town, Abell said, a big sign (appropriately, given the Klan’s favored costume, painted on a sheet) read: “Black Bird, go home!”
It was that sort of a time in America.
Paul Krugman, The New York Times, July 16, 2007
Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance – they can just go to emergency rooms, right?
O.K., it’s not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada.
The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care.
Actually, the persistence of that myth puzzles me. I can understand how people like Mr. Bush or Fred Thompson, who declared recently that “the poorest Americans are getting far better service” than Canadians or the British, can wave away the desperation of uninsured Americans, who are often poor and voiceless. But how can they get away with pretending that insured Americans always get prompt care, when most of us can testify otherwise?
A recent article in Business Week put it bluntly: “In reality, both data and anecdotes show that the American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems.”
I’ll make this short and sweet. George W. Bush (R-Moron) has proposed a Middle East peace initiative today. Awesome. Only problem with the initiative is its six years and a bloody illegal war too late. All of a sudden Bush thinks Middle East peace, particularly between Israel and the Palestinians, is really, really important.
The idea of Middle East peace has been a really important idea for a very long time. When Bush took office he basically decided to have a hands off approach to the Israeli/Palestinian problem. With the absence of US help and pressure the Palestinian state was taken over by Hamas and now a small civil war between Hamas and Fatah has broken out. Add to this lack of leadership in this area, starting and prolonging a bloody war in Iraq for no reason. This war had done nothing positive instead it that has inflamed radical Muslims turning them toward Al Qaida like groups.
Bush hopes to bring other nations in the Middle East to the peace process. The problem there is that none of them trust him and none can really be considered allies. Bush has managed to do more damage to the Middle East than any of his predecessors since the creation of the Jewish state.
One sure fire way for Bush to jump start the Middle East peace process is to get out of Iraq now and admit its failure. Then he may make some headway with other Middle East nations key to the success of Middle East peace. Since that won’t happen nothing else will. Bush is again blowing smoke to try to cover his many screw ups.
BartCop.com Volume 2011 – Fancy Dancer.
In Today’s Tequila Treehouse…
|
Novak’s Plame Hang-Out |
|
Those were the days… |
|
Catholic rapists – again? |
|
Who killed Ken Lay? |
|
Government Pot Lies |
|
Bush hates children? |
|
Don’t Laugh at Chertoff |
|
No truth, no consequences |
|
Jessica Alba’s house |
Julia Dahl, Salon, July 16, 2007
Over the weekend, White House spokesman Tony Fratto told the New York Times that there is “no question” that President Bush will veto a bipartisan plan to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover what estimates put as between 3 and 4 million more of the nation’s uninsured children. According to the Senate Finance Committee, whose members have been crafting a bill to reauthorize SCHIP in preparation for its expiration Sept. 30, the program currently covers 6.6 million children whose families are not poor enough to qualify for Medicare but who cannot afford private health insurance.
The plan for expansion would more than double the $25 billion currently spent on the program, and would raise the extra money by increasing the tax already levied on tobacco products from 39 cents to $1.
In explaining why the president would threaten a veto, Fratto said:
“The proposal would dramatically expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, adding nonpoor children to the program, and more than [double] the level of spending … This will have the effect of encouraging many to drop private coverage, to go on the government-subsidized program.”
Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger, The Guardian UK, July 16, 2007
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.”
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. “The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,” the source said this week.
Duncan Mansfield, The Associated Press, July 16, 2007
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – If one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, then one politician’s old papers are potentially another politician’s — or journalist’s — gold mine.
Which explains why Republican Fred Thompson’s previously little-noticed personal papers at the University of Tennessee from his eight years in the Senate are suddenly in demand as he nears a decision on a 2008 presidential run.
Thompson donated the documents four years ago when he gave up his political career in favor of acting. Academics haven’t paid much attention, chief archivist Bobby Holt said, but journalists have been poring through the more than 400 boxes held by UT’s Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy.
While the papers haven’t yielded any bombshells so far, they reveal a candidate whose record on public issues is sometimes inconsistent, often nuanced and occasionally surprising. Some examples:
” Thompson recently said he was opposed to abortion rights and noted that National Right to Life endorsed him in his 1994 Senate race. But he told the Memphis group FLARE (Family, Life, America, Responsible Education Under God) in a 1996 questionnaire that, “I will not set a litmus test for any U.S. Supreme court nominee who has shown an understanding of the principles set forth by the Constitution.”
As a senator, Thompson voted for legislation to ban so-called partial-birth abortion and to prohibit federal funding of abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.
But he also told the Eagle Forum in a 1994 questionnaire, “I do not believe abortion should be criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts and souls of the American people.”
Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff made comments recently that the United States should expect some kind of terrorist attack this summer. Why? Ah, because, well, because there’s terrorist attacks happening in other places.
What places you ask. Well, Chertoff points to the recent attempted attacks in London and Glasgow in Great Britain as proof that we should be worried about an attack on US soil. Now I realize that that those incidents occurred and were clearly dangerous, but they did occur across the ocean in another country far off in Europe. Additionally, there is terrorism happening all over the world on a daily basis by groups that claim allegiance to Al Qaeda. So why these and why now?
In a discussion with the Chicago Tribune Chertoff explained why these attacks are linked to his theory that we will be attacked. “All these things have given me kind of a gut feeling that we are in a period of increased vulnerability.” Okay, here we go again with another one of Bush’s people with gut feelings. Do any these people think things out or do they wait for their stomach rumble to tell them what to do.
Gut feelings are absolute bullshit when you are dealing with something with the magnitude of a terrorist attack. This may not be Tom Ridge’s color coded madness that kept the fear in people through Bush’s first term, but its close. Chertoff offers no hard evidence that we will be attacked. Kind of a coincidence. During Bush’s first term whenever he needed to hide something he had the terrorism threat cranked up to distract the public. Maybe his disaster in Iraq and the prosecutor firings are bringing back the old Bush reaction. Probably, but what a messed up reason to scare the shit out of the American people.
Jack Shafer, Slate, July 13, 2007
When the Brancroft family said “no” to Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion offer to buy their Dow Jones & Co. property in the spring, they actually meant “yes.” After Murdoch opened his wallet, the Bancrofts started negotiating guarantees of “editorial independence” for company flagship the Wall Street Journal as a precondition for a sale. Rightly, the rotten old bastard has chaffed at the Bancrofts dictating the future operation of a property for which he’s willing to pay an above-market rate.
Editorial independence may be rare in Murdoch’s News Corp. empire, but it’s not unheard-of. For example, if News Corp. employees toe the shifting Murdoch line, they’re granted all the editorial independence they can carry on their stooped backs. Or, if they’re the inventors and proprietors of a phenomenally successful News Corp. property—such as The Simpsons—Murdoch and his minions know well enough to keep hands off.
In an oral history of the show published in the August Vanity Fair, cartoonist Art Spiegelman remembers that he begged show creator Matt Groening not to work for Murdoch’s Fox network. “They’re gangsters!” Spiegelman told Groening.
But protected by the “titanium shield” of writer-producer-director James L. Brooks (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, Terms of Endearment), The Simpsons was exempted from Fox control. “The studio might get upset and they might make notes, but we didn’t have to take them unless Brooks said we had to take them,” says Brad Bird, an early supervising director of the show and director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille.
The show quickly became a hit, and the staff flexed its power. “Why do we have to change it? We’re The Simpsons,” an Uber alles-esque motto attributed by interviewee Colin Lewis to David Mirkin, who ran the show in seasons five and six. “We’re in control because they want their hit show, and I will get to Saturday night and I won’t deliver them a show, and then they will have to air what I give them,” Mirkin is credited with saying.
If only the Wall Street Journal could retool itself as a successful animated sitcom before Murdoch takes over.
Powered by WordPress
Butler Shaffer: Why They Won’t Impeach
Butler Shaffer, Lew Rockwell.com, July 17, 2007
Why do the Democrats, with control of both the House and Senate since last year’s elections, continue to twiddle their thumbs over the policies and practices of a corrupt president. Yes, they did spearhead a bill through the House that requires a withdrawal of troops from Iraq by April, 2008, a measure that media propagandists dutifully offered as having some significance. But those who take the time to carefully read legislation realize that this was but another empty, cynical gesture; the latest expression of “bipartisan” meaninglessness designed solely to placate an increasingly disgruntled booboisie. Even in the unlikelihood of the bill being signed by the president – assuming a similar proposal passes the Senate – there does not appear to be sufficient Congressional support for it to override his veto.
But Mr. Bush’s signing or non-signing of such legislation would not restrain his continuing the mayhem and slaughter visited upon Iraqis who do not fully appreciate their “liberation.” The bill contains a number of provisos, such as the keeping of a sufficient number of soldiers to help train Iraqi troops, to protect U.S. government properties, and to fight terrorists. The judgment as to when such conditions exist, and what numbers of troops would be necessary to deal with such problems, would, of course, remain in the hands of Mr. Bush. In other words, this bill would leave the president in precisely the same position he now enjoys, with this added benefit: he could rationalize his policies in terms of carrying out the express will of Congress!
Serious critics of both Mr. Bush and the Democrats ask why the latter do not undertake the impeachment of the former. Nancy Pelosi, whose every word and gesture belie the allegedly oppositional role of the Democrats, announced, immediately after the 2006 election results, that the impeachment of Mr. Bush was not a matter the Democrats would pursue with their newly-gained power. “Why not?”, many asked, particularly since Congress had been eager to impeach Bill Clinton for his far-lesser offenses. Should a man who lied America into an unprovoked, criminal attack that has thus far produced a million deaths, be more favorably treated than a man who lied about his sexual behavior in the White House? The few intelligent minds remaining in this intellectually benumbed society continue to ask this question.
If one takes the trouble to examine the matter from the perspective of the machinations that dominate all political behavior, the answer becomes apparent. Though Republicans and Democrats have their personal and minor policy differences, they are in agreement on one basic point: their “bipartisan” support for the preservation and aggrandizement of the power of the state. They understand – as do members of the mainstream media – that their principal obligation is to serve the well-being of the political power structure that long ago laid uncontested claim to the ownership of modern society.
Read More Here