It’s a day for Bush conspiracy theories. This op-ed from the Boston Globe ties together a speech from Bush(I) to the current administration’s take-over.
More than a decade ago, after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, President George H. W. Bush explicitly sought to initiate, as he put it to Congress, a “new world order.” He made that momentous declaration on Sept. 11, 1990. Eleven years later, the suddenly mystical date of 9/11 motivated his son to finish what the father began. A year ago this week, Bush the younger launched a war against the man who tried to kill his dad, initiating the opposite of order.
Announced by legal idiot Roy Moore, former Judge, the Constitution Restoration Act would have Congress declare bible-waving political cases as off-limits.
A new bill submitted in both houses of Congress would limit the jurisdiction the U.S. Supreme Court as well as federal district courts would have over cases involving a federal, state, or local government official who publicly acknowledges God as the source of law, liberty, or government.
At first I categorized this as “Politics” until I realized there is no way in hell this would pass. The parallels being drawn in the press between this legistlation and Islamic Law are dead on. For your edification, here are the congressional idiots who sponsored this crap:
- Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL)
- Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
- Rep. Robert Cramer (R-AL)
- Rep. Terry Everett (R-AL)
- Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN)
- Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA)
- Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL).
- Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)
- Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO)
- Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
- Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
- Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA).
More news about how deluded Bush is (or maybe how much he wants to delude the public depending on your POV.) The deficit can not be blamed on the economic downturn as much as Bush was trying to make us believe.
When President Bush and his advisers talk about the widening federal budget deficit, they usually place part of the blame on economic shocks ranging from the recession of 2001 to the terrorist attacks that year.
But a report released on Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that economic weakness would account for only 6 percent of a budget shortfall that could reach a record $500 billion this year.
The performance artists at Prangstgrup did a little number in the library at Columbia [Quicktime Required] that mixes performance art and Indian musicals.
Today’s Boondocks comic strip is a pretty good one:
which leads me to a new theory. Aaron McGruder’s funny factor is directly proportional to his font size.
Intervention Magazine found an unhappy soldier who was willing to discsuss the war in Iraq anonymously.
I’m thinking about a 19-year-old who was on my table. This guy could have been your next door neighbor. Smart kid, excited kid. But his life as he knew it was basically over. His legs were gone. It’s hard for these soldiers to believe. I’ve seen lots of people with severe, permanent injuries. They’re going to need a lot of help when they get back home, because their lives are going to change forever. And to have the guy [President Bush] cutting billions from the VA [Veterans Administration] budget, at a time when you’ve got all those guys coming back from overseas with major injuries, that’s disgusting! That hurts every person who ever served this country. I don’t understand how someone can stand up and say, “I’m pro-military,” when you want to cut $16 billion from the VA and close VA hospitals.
We’re going to need those hospitals. The veterans are going to need medical help and psychological training. They’re not going to be able to walk out of that environment and just go back to their normal jobs. They’re going to need therapy, they’re going to need help. …
This part covers something we’ve discussed here before — my belief that we’re investing too much in Cold War military gear and not enough in the gear neccesary for Urban warfare.
We were supposed to have bulletproof vests, where we actually put the plates inside our flak jackets. We never got those. The money had been paid for those things, but we never got them. My brother had to send me a flak jacket. There’s all sorts of stuff that we had to buy on our own before we left. The types of canteens you need, water pouches that go on your back.
Read all the way thorugh this one. He’s wrong, IMO, about several things but he’s got some good inside information.
NPR had an excellent interview this morning with Hans Blix. He is probably just presenting his case in a diplomatic fashion, but he delivers the closest take on the war in Iraq that approximates my viewpoint: basically that taking out Saddam was a good thing, but the justifications for war were invalid.
“If you sentence someone to death or you sentence someone to war, you’d better have some evidence,” Blix tells NPR’s Bob Edwards. “And we didn’t feel there was evidence…”