Thursday, March 03, 2005
Bush: Barking up the Wrong Tree
Breaking news! A new NY Times/CBS News poll finds that Bush's priorities are "out of step" with Americans. Do we really need a poll to tell us that?
Here are the highlights:
--51% oppose Bush's social security privatization plan
--42 percent say that Bush would have been better off trying to counter the threat of North Korea before invading Iraq, compared with 45 percent who think he was correct to focus first on Iraq.
--63 percent of respondents say the president has different priorities on domestic issues than most Americans.
--58 percent of respondents said the White House did not share the foreign affairs priorities of most Americans.
--60 percent of respondents, including 48 percent of conservatives, said they disapproved of how Mr. Bush was managing the deficit. And 90 percent of respondents described the deficit as a very or somewhat serious problem.
--81 percent said that that North Korea does indeed now have nuclear weapons, and 7 in 10 said it poses a serious threat to the United States.
The testimonials from people are just as bad:
"There are so many other things that seem to me to be more critical and immediate: I think the national debt is absolutely an immediate thing to address," said Irv Packer, 66, a Missouri Republican. He added, "Another one that I'd really like to see people working on is the environment."
Gee, Irv, if you wanted someone to pay attention to the environment and fix the national debt, you should have voted Democratic. So quit your complaining.
Here's another:
"I don't think he's listening to the people concerning Social Security," said Beverly Workman, a West Virginia Democrat who said she voted for Mr. Bush. "I think the public wants him to leave it alone."
Dear Bev, you are a Democrat and yet still voted for the idiot, so quit your complaining. I don't want to hear it from enablers like you.
Lisa Delaune, 37, a student from Houston and a member of the Green Party, said, "My opinion is that the president favors big business over the health and well-being and overall stability of the entire American population."
Right, Lisa. The only thing I can figure out is that it matters more to moron-Americans that they elected someone they would like to have a beer with (or a person they like because he sprinkles his speeches with "God" talk, despite his very un-Christian actions). Until people start voting based on policy rather than personality (and with their brains rather than their "touch feely" feelings), we're stuck with incompetence, dangerous policies, reckless spending, destruction to the environment, bogus wars, and the list goes on.
So thanks Bev and Irv and all of the people who voted for Bush because they like "plainspoken" cowboys, even one who is so "out of step" with American priorities. Yellow dogs have known all along that Bush is barking up the wrong tree.
The New York Times > Washington > New Poll Finds Bush Priorities Are Out of Step With Americans
Here are the highlights:
--51% oppose Bush's social security privatization plan
--42 percent say that Bush would have been better off trying to counter the threat of North Korea before invading Iraq, compared with 45 percent who think he was correct to focus first on Iraq.
--63 percent of respondents say the president has different priorities on domestic issues than most Americans.
--58 percent of respondents said the White House did not share the foreign affairs priorities of most Americans.
--60 percent of respondents, including 48 percent of conservatives, said they disapproved of how Mr. Bush was managing the deficit. And 90 percent of respondents described the deficit as a very or somewhat serious problem.
--81 percent said that that North Korea does indeed now have nuclear weapons, and 7 in 10 said it poses a serious threat to the United States.
The testimonials from people are just as bad:
"There are so many other things that seem to me to be more critical and immediate: I think the national debt is absolutely an immediate thing to address," said Irv Packer, 66, a Missouri Republican. He added, "Another one that I'd really like to see people working on is the environment."
Gee, Irv, if you wanted someone to pay attention to the environment and fix the national debt, you should have voted Democratic. So quit your complaining.
Here's another:
"I don't think he's listening to the people concerning Social Security," said Beverly Workman, a West Virginia Democrat who said she voted for Mr. Bush. "I think the public wants him to leave it alone."
Dear Bev, you are a Democrat and yet still voted for the idiot, so quit your complaining. I don't want to hear it from enablers like you.
Lisa Delaune, 37, a student from Houston and a member of the Green Party, said, "My opinion is that the president favors big business over the health and well-being and overall stability of the entire American population."
Right, Lisa. The only thing I can figure out is that it matters more to moron-Americans that they elected someone they would like to have a beer with (or a person they like because he sprinkles his speeches with "God" talk, despite his very un-Christian actions). Until people start voting based on policy rather than personality (and with their brains rather than their "touch feely" feelings), we're stuck with incompetence, dangerous policies, reckless spending, destruction to the environment, bogus wars, and the list goes on.
So thanks Bev and Irv and all of the people who voted for Bush because they like "plainspoken" cowboys, even one who is so "out of step" with American priorities. Yellow dogs have known all along that Bush is barking up the wrong tree.
The New York Times > Washington > New Poll Finds Bush Priorities Are Out of Step With Americans
Monday, February 28, 2005
Mission NOT Accomplished
Today, in the deadliest single insurgent attack of the Iraq War, a car bomb killed at least 125 people, wounding more than 300 (and counting).CNN.com - Iraq suicide bomb kills at least 125 - Feb 28, 2005
In another milestone of "Bush's Bloodbath," the US military deaths have reached 1,500.
In another milestone of "Bush's Bloodbath," the US military deaths have reached 1,500.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Conservatives are Anti-Conservation
I challenge Bush voters to tell me with a straight face how someone like Bush, who has done more to endanger the environment than any president in history, can be considered a "conservative" in any sense of that word.
This article highlights Bush's horrendous record on the environment:
--Over 400 major environmental rollbacks (and there's a great link in the article to the NRDC site that specifies what each rollback is) have been carried out under Bush.
--A "stealth attack" on the environment has been hidden from the public, consisting of quietly putting pro-business and pro-industry lobbyists in positions they used to advocate against.
For example, "The head of the Forest Service is a timber industry lobbyist who is probably the most rapacious timber industry lobbyist in American history. The head of public lands is a mining industry lobbyist who believes that public lands are unconstitutional. The head of the Air Division at the EPA is a utility lobbyist who has represented the worst polluters in America for twenty years. The head of Superfund is a woman whose former job was advising companies how to evade Superfund." Fox/henhouse anyone?
--Our water in this country, according to EPA, is getting dirty for the first time since the Clean Water Act was passed.
--We know that the principal source of ozone and particulates in our air is coming from 1,100 coal-burning power plants that are burning coal illegally. They were supposed to install controls over fifteen years ago. The Clinton administration was prosecuting 75 of the worst of those plants. But this industry gave $48 million to President Bush during the 2000 campaign, and they've contributed $58 million since. One of the first things that President Bush did when he came to office was to order the Justice Department to drop all 75 of those suits. The Justice Department lawyers were shocked. This has never happened in our history before, where somebody running as a presidential candidate accepts money from a criminal and then lets that criminal off the hook.
--There are 630,000 children born in this country every year who have been exposed to dangerous levels of mercury in the womb.
Recognizing this threat to the American public, the Clinton administration reclassified mercury as a hazardous pollutant under the Clean Air Act; that triggered the requirement that those companies remove 90 percent of that mercury within three and a half years. Eight weeks ago, Bush announced that he was scrapping the Clinton-era rules and substituting, instead, rules that were written by the industry's lobbying firm Latham and Watkins.
Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceburg--the article goes on to list multiple examples of Bush's and Cheney's kickbacks to their business and industry buddies at the cost of our health and clean environment:
"We are living today in a science fiction nightmare, a world where, because somebody gave money to a politician, our children are brought into a world where the air is too poisonous for them to breathe."
What did we really expect from a failed oil-man from Texas and his evil Halliburton sidekick? If you are among the proud 48% who saw things clearly, breathe a sigh of relief you are not responsible for this nightmare (but don't breathe too deeply, given the increased pollutants in the air).
--For the Sake of Our Children
This article highlights Bush's horrendous record on the environment:
--Over 400 major environmental rollbacks (and there's a great link in the article to the NRDC site that specifies what each rollback is) have been carried out under Bush.
--A "stealth attack" on the environment has been hidden from the public, consisting of quietly putting pro-business and pro-industry lobbyists in positions they used to advocate against.
For example, "The head of the Forest Service is a timber industry lobbyist who is probably the most rapacious timber industry lobbyist in American history. The head of public lands is a mining industry lobbyist who believes that public lands are unconstitutional. The head of the Air Division at the EPA is a utility lobbyist who has represented the worst polluters in America for twenty years. The head of Superfund is a woman whose former job was advising companies how to evade Superfund." Fox/henhouse anyone?
--Our water in this country, according to EPA, is getting dirty for the first time since the Clean Water Act was passed.
--We know that the principal source of ozone and particulates in our air is coming from 1,100 coal-burning power plants that are burning coal illegally. They were supposed to install controls over fifteen years ago. The Clinton administration was prosecuting 75 of the worst of those plants. But this industry gave $48 million to President Bush during the 2000 campaign, and they've contributed $58 million since. One of the first things that President Bush did when he came to office was to order the Justice Department to drop all 75 of those suits. The Justice Department lawyers were shocked. This has never happened in our history before, where somebody running as a presidential candidate accepts money from a criminal and then lets that criminal off the hook.
--There are 630,000 children born in this country every year who have been exposed to dangerous levels of mercury in the womb.
Recognizing this threat to the American public, the Clinton administration reclassified mercury as a hazardous pollutant under the Clean Air Act; that triggered the requirement that those companies remove 90 percent of that mercury within three and a half years. Eight weeks ago, Bush announced that he was scrapping the Clinton-era rules and substituting, instead, rules that were written by the industry's lobbying firm Latham and Watkins.
Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceburg--the article goes on to list multiple examples of Bush's and Cheney's kickbacks to their business and industry buddies at the cost of our health and clean environment:
"We are living today in a science fiction nightmare, a world where, because somebody gave money to a politician, our children are brought into a world where the air is too poisonous for them to breathe."
What did we really expect from a failed oil-man from Texas and his evil Halliburton sidekick? If you are among the proud 48% who saw things clearly, breathe a sigh of relief you are not responsible for this nightmare (but don't breathe too deeply, given the increased pollutants in the air).
--For the Sake of Our Children
