What No One Else Said At Bush's Press Conference

Two of the main issues that George Bush stressed in the Press Conference tonight were Social Security and Energy.

Why are people so reluctant to follow Bush's proposals on changing Social Security? Perhaps it's because this administration has a record of blatant lies that lead us into situations that are not in the best interest of the people. Another reason may be that we don't think a man who ran a budget surplus into the biggest deficit in history is the right man to be managing our finances. We have 35 years to get someone in the White House who we can trust to have a hand in determining whether or not our aging population becomes homeless.

In discussing our current energy crisis, Bush mentioned the competition we now have with China and India for energy and their increasing demand for Middle East oil.

What wasn't mentioned and what no journalist pressed him on was the fact that the main reason China and India are competing with us for oil is because we have created their demand by outsourcing American jobs and manufacturing to those countries.

The drilling in the ANWR was discussed. In ten years we will gain one million barrels a day. A budget proposal to require automobile makers to produce cars that meet an average of 33 mpg that would save us TWO million barrels a day in ten years was voted down by the Republicans.

Bush said there was nothing he could do to bring down gas prices in the immediate timeframe, however no one mentioned how much gas our war machinery takes to run. Bringing our troops home would certainly have an effect. Another fix would be to stop diverting the oil to the strategic petroleum reserves and release some as Clinton did.

Again, the mainstream press failed the American people.

Black and White vs. Shades of Gray

You hear the question asked all the time. Why can't the Democratic Party unite?

The Republicans present a united front. They never stray off message. They can stick together and vote along party lines. Why can’t the Democrats do that?

Is it because the Democrats have no spine? Is it because they are traitors to the Party? Are those who don’t vote with the Party DINOS?

Actually the answer is very simple. It goes to the very basis of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Whether they are radical left, centrist, or conservative Democrats, they are to some degree, liberal.

Liberals by their very nature think for themselves. They have a mind of their own, think independently and are too diverse to be pigeonholed. It is because of their diversity that they are more tolerant of other people, opinions, and lifestyles. They have a respect for the differences among cultures and religions that give them a live-and-let-live attitude. They recognize the value in differences that allows for debate that give different perspectives.

Republican Conservatives, on the other hand have a black and white mindset. They are regimented and dogmatic. They have no tolerance for any opinion other than their own. If it's right for them it's right for everybody. Anyone who disagrees is obviously wrong so why give them or their opinions any credence or respect? They will obey the leadership opinion and mindlessly regurgitate the same talking points.

They are convinced of the superiority of their opinion and want to impose it on everyone else so there is no diversity in their narrow world. They have nothing but disdain for a conflicting opinion. In fact, they refuse to even listen to it. They are incapable of thinking outside of the box. It explains why the majority of the military vote along the conservative line. They are used to regimentation and being told what to do and how to think.

The Fundamentalists will also vote for conservative opinion. They are cookie-cutter thinkers. They are so convinced of the infallible rightness of their thinking, there is just no room for any outside opinion. They want to fashion the world in their image. There is only one way and it is their way. There is no compromise, no tolerance, no differences allowed.

A drawing done in only black and white is flat and one-dimensional. It is the shades of gray that give it depth, the different tones and shadows that make it three-dimensional and interesting.

Liberals recognize that in the world, reality depends on the shades of gray. The world is a diversity of cultures, religions, races and lifestyles. We were not created as a mass of homogenized humanity.

It takes a certain kind of arrogance to think we can improve upon what was created or that we are superior to the rest of creation.

So the next time you get frustrated at the Democrats for not voting in lockstep, stop and think of how terrible it would be if they did.

4-24-05

Bush Is Famous For His Poor Choices

The Republicans in Congress want to give George Bush his choice of the person he nominated for a particular position. That's very commendable. But what about when the person he nominated is totally unsuited for the position? Does your loyalty to the president and the party supercede your loyalty to the American people, the country and the Constitution you took an oath to uphold? Our founding fathers tried to protect future generations by establishing a system of checks and balances so one branch of the government balances the others by checking the amount of power each can assume. They also separated the powers assigning certain ones to each branch.

Bush is famous for his poor choices of nominees.

He nominated Bernie Kirkuk, for Homeland Security, an unscrupulous, womanizing, corrupt bully who took kickbacks from the trobacco industry and funneled them into a foundation of which he was president.

He nominated a man who ignored the laws of the United States on torture and devised a defense on how to get around the law to Attorney General, a position that has the duty to enforce the laws of the United States.

He chose Condi Rice, leading administration hawk, who was inept at her job as National Security Advisor and expressed the desire to be Secretary of Defense, to be the Secretary of State, a position that tries to avoid war through effective negotiating skills. How do you negotiate peace when your preferred job is to wage war?

His Department appointees were either laywers or lobbyists representing the industry that the particular Department is supposed to monitor and prosecute.

And now John Bolton, a man who said there is no such thing as the UN and that if the top 10 floors of the UN disappeared, no one would notice, and whose belligerent, inflexible attitudes provoke people, is nominated to be the diplomatic representative to the world.

He presented the Medal of Freedom to George Tenet, the man blamed for the intelligence failures that led us into an unprovoked attack on Iraq, to Paul Bremmer, under whose watch $9 billion are unaccounted for, and to Gen. Tommy Franks, who led an unopposed military force that was too small to secure the country as occupiers and unequipped to protect them from maiming injuries.

The task of the Senate on nominees is to advise and consent. Will they advise honestly as to the suitability and qualifications of the candidate to perform the duties of the position or will they simply tell the president what he wants to hear and consent to give him everything he wants without checks, without balance and without separation, giving almost unlimited power to the Executive branch? Do we re-elect "yes men" more interested in furthering their careers than in furthering what is best for the country?

It's time to start watching Congress closely to see their
priorities and think about ours. We'll have to begin making that decision in 2006.

My Name Is The U. S. Government. . . And I’m A Gadget-aholic

I admit to being a gadget freak. Something new that quickly and easily performs any kind of a function heretofore requiring a specific talent or consuming enormous amounts of time has my immediate attention. It may not even be a function I would normally perform. I convince myself that if I had the gadget that made it easy to perform that function maybe I would.

That's the reason my cabinets spill over with every dust covered, never used, or used once Ronco product ever advertised.

While my obsession may have led me to buy the "Pocket Fisherman" when I don't even like to fish, it’s harmless enough. I still manage to pay my bills on time or at least after one reminder notice. If I were borrowing $2 billion a day however, I would definitely seek help from a gadget-aholic group or sign myself into a gadget recovery program.

Our government is a gadget-aholic.

Our military budget is in excess of $400 billion a year. The Pentagon has never met a weapon it doesn’t like. They are not content with just buying weapons that are invented. Their military budget has a research and development expenditure to think up and produce as yet un-invented weapons. Then we buy those too.

We have so many airplanes that the U.S. Air Force can't even contain them all so we also have a Naval Air Force and an Army Air Force.

We have more of every attack weapon than any other nation in the world but the military defense budget continues to grow because we want more. If it can be bigger, or smaller, or deadlier, or newer, we want it. No, we have to have it...at any cost. It's more important than anything else. We'll cut every other program to get the money to have more weapons. If we can destroy the planet ten times over we want to be able to destroy it twenty times over. We can't seem to stop. We are hopelessly addicted to military gadgets and the advances in technology don't bode well for a recovery in the near future without an intervention.

We are in a war against terror is the excuse given for our addiction. Every addict has an excuse. We're borrowing billions to strengthen our military because we're in a war against terror. We keep increasing our national debt to buy weapons because we're in a war against terror. We are cutting programs that benefit the American people to buy weapons because we're in a war against terror.

One insidious side effect of the government addiction is that is has affected the people even though they aren’t the “users”. The people echo the Pentagon’s excuse that we’re in a war against terror so we all have to sacrifice. We quit funding things like education, Medicare, environmental protections, border patrols and the like to have more money to spend for a strong military and more weapons.

After all, how else do we expect to protect ourselves against a handful of terrorists armed with a couple of box cutters?

04-21-05

JoannF

Bolton in the News

John Bolton, George Bush's nominee for the post of UN Ambassador is not only the wrong person for that post, he belongs on heavy medication in a supervised environment where he doesn't have access to sharp objects.

Barbara Boxer was being too kind when she suggested he needed an anger management course.

Bolton has been a consistant critic of the UN saying there was no such thing as the UN, and that 10 of its 38 stories could be eliminated without anyone noticing. Was he suggesting another NY target? Those are hardly the words that would promote interntional cooperation and the rebuilding of alliances.

The truly scary aspects of John Bolton's personality should have Congressional Republicans and Democrats insisting his nomination be withdrawn.

In 1994, Bolton chased US AID project leader Melody Townsel through the halls of a Russian hotel, throwing things at her because she criticized his client who was the prime contractor on that project.
http://www.dailykos.com/user/amyindallas

Chased her through the halls throwing things at her? That is not the act of a sane person.

Fifty-nine ex-diplomats who served under both Republican and Democrat administrations sent a protest letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asking that the nomination be blocked.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4389639.stm

Carl Ford Jr., a former chief of the State Dept. Bureau of Intelligence and Research called Bolton a "serial abuser" who harrassed those who disagreed with him.
MSNBC - Senate panel delays vote on U.N. nominee

Sen. Lugar, discounting all the charges indicating Bolton's unsuitability, was quoted as saying the paramount issue was giving President Bush the nominee he wanted to undertake reform at the UN.

Which begs the question, "What could Bush possibly be thinking?"

It's beginning to look more and more like the inmates are running the asylum.