Follow the Money

If cranky old Lou Dobbs gets it, when will everyone else?

DOBBS: President Bush's family and members of the Bush administration have long-standing business connections with the United Arab Emirates, and those connections are raising new concerns and questions tonight in some quarters about why the president is defying his very own party leadership and his party in defending the Dubai port deal.

From CNN today. A-men.

Have You Been to "Dickfest?"

This is priceless...

You may not have heard about it, but there's been a "Dickfest" going on over at firedoglake, a blog that is fast becoming one of my favorites. It seems that their comments section spawned a great deal of spontaneous poetry during last week's feeding frenzy over the Veep shooting an old guy down in Tex-ass. Enjoy some of the great submissions here.

Cartoon of the Day

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Sorry, Mr. Vice President

I am so very sorry for getting in the way of your gun, Dick! You really must not drink and hunt, ya know?

Learned Something Recently

Traffic for this humble blog nearly tripled in the last week or so. My normal visits are around 20 per day...mostly friends and family. In looking at my site meter results I see that a lot of traffic has come from people searching on "David Gregory NBC." So I've ended up getting posts from riled up conservatives wanting to piss me off.

What have I learned from this? If you are seeking a lot of attention to your blog, write famous people's names in your headlines. In my case, I'm not so interested in attracting so much attention, so I think it is likely that I'll avoid that sort of thing in the future.

If you're a conservative reading here, have a nice day - and don't get all hot and bothered, it's just a blog. If you're a raging liberal like me and my pals, welcome aboard and enjoy the ride!

The Boys Are Back In Town

Spring training opened for pitchers and catchers today! Wahoo.

Thank You, David Gregory

Hmmmm...watching David Gregory beat up on poor Scotty McClellan makes me think he's reading my humble scribblings. Although he hasn't stopped going to the press room every day as I recommended the other day, David is putting up quite a ruckus at the White House over the shooting of Cheney's hunting partner.

"I have one final question, since that one wasn't answered. Is it appropriate for the vice president to have waited 14 hours after the incident before he spoke with local law enforcement officials? And do you think that an average citizen would have been accorded that same amount of time before having to answer questions about a shooting incident?

Way to go, David!

Drunken Dick?

Something tells me that our friend Mr. Cheney was hitting the bottle when he shot his buddy the other day. Probably got the booze from the boss.

Shooting Quail With Dead Eye Dick

Enjoy the fun of hunting with the Vice President from the Huffington Post.

Here!

Read James Wolcott's take on the whole affair: Birdshot and Birdshit. His description of former senator Alan Simpson's appearance on "Hardball" is priceless. We caught that abysmal act earlier tonight, unfortunately.

I Want My Money Back

Apparently the Chimp's administration can't spend enough on PR. According to Raw Story:

Today Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. George Miller, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, and other senior Democrats released a new Government Accountability Office report finding that the Bush Administration spent more than $1.6 billion in public relations and media contracts in a two and a half year span.

"The government is spending over a billion dollars per year on PR and advertising," said Rep. Waxman. "Careful oversight of this spending is essential given the track record of the Bush Administration, which has used taxpayer dollars to fund covert propaganda within the United States."

Yowza. $1.6 Billion. Imagine if they used their money for something worthwhile. Sigh.

Cheney Finally Flipped

You're not going to believe it but Cheney finally did it: he shot somebody. Luckily the fellow hunter is going to be fine, but you might want to read one of the first "Top Ten Reasons Why..." here.

Having a Blizzard!

This Week Flew By

Honest to God, where does the time go? I can't believe a week has nearly passed since my last post. Not that I've been all that busy, but it's been kind of a stressful week. In any event, here are a few links to keep us happy.

First, Mrs. Chimp cracks me up. While traveling the world (currently at the Olympics) she speaks her mind on a couple of things...like cartoon violence etc. But she actually thinks Hillary Clinton's comments about the Administration being the worst ever are "out of bounds." Yes, I note that the words were chosen by a journalist, but still...Mrs. Chimp should know that someone who has "lived in that house" actually knows about the choices that face the president and that he has opportunities to actually do things right. The fact is the Chimp surrounds himself by idiots and makes repeatedly wrong choices. And Hillary is right.

A pal of mine sent me this email last night, which sort of sums up the week:

What a day...Scooter and Cheney; Abramoff visits to Crawford..."Brownie discussing warnings about levees to the White House"; ex-CIA official accusation of misusing data to justify the Iraq war.

Good news just keeps coming. Did you see Coretta King's funeral highlights in the news the other day? The Chimp looked a a deer caught in headlights when speakers were taking jabs at him!

Yes, Mrs. King's funeral was a sight to behold, wasn't it? I would have given ANYTHING to be in the audience for that. Just imagine what it would be like to have someone say...in front of the Chimp...that there were no WMD! And to be able to leap from your seat in applause? I'd give a lot to do that.

So, just in case anyone is curious, if you want to get political at my funeral, you have my permission.

Happy Birthday, Molly...

Yeah. What He Said.

Dan Froomkin's column says what I wished I had said the other day in my comments about how the media should deal with the White House these days.

It's about credibility. An excerpt:

There is a reason members of the press corps don't grill Bush on issues like his credibility. But it's not (as many of my readers often complain) because they're craven.

It's the structure of the relationship. At a typical press conference, there are in fact quite a few tough questions. Consider last week's press conference, when the newest Los Angeles Times White House reporter, James Gerstenzang, asked Bush if his defense of domestic spying wasn't basically a variation on President Nixon's "When the President does it, then that means it is not illegal."

Typically, however, Bush didn't actually answer the question -- choosing to respond with some generic comments about his authority. And, like many tough questions, it was not aggressively followed up. Bush does not tolerate multiple questions from a single reporter, and other reporters are loathe to give up their questions to repeat one from a colleague.

I Agree With A Republican?

OK, folks, mark it down. I said it. I believe it. I might even say it more often if more Republicans were like John Danforth.

A profile of him in yesterday's Washington Post, carries the following paragraph:

As a mainline Episcopal priest, retired U.S. senator and diplomat, Danforth worships a humbler God and considers the right's certainty a sin. Legislating against gay marriage, for instance? "It's just cussedness." As he sees it, many Republican leaders have lost their bearings and, if they don't change, will lose their grip on power. Not to mention make the United States a meaner place.

Alleluia, brother. You're on to something. Let's pray that others begin to see the light.

It's About Time...Only 4+ Years Late

In October 2001, my husband and I visited Ground Zero in New York City during a very sad and solemn Columbus Day weekend. We hailed a taxi and drove through the almost freakishly deserted streets of Manhattan. Our cab driver, who was not native-born American (hmmmm, why does that detail matter?), described how one of the planes flew right over his head, practically straight down 5th Avenue on its way to the World Trade Center. It gave us chills, especially since the sky on this particular morning was just as bright and blue as it was on 9/11.

At Chandler Street, just above SoHo, we joined a steady stream of people in quiet, small groups going in one direction: toward Ground Zero. As we neared the site, we noticed a unique smell in the air - kind of metallic and dirty. During the next few hours we circled the blocks around the site (where I took this picture), passing many people who were wearing surgical masks or scarves over their mouths. Increasingly we noticed the dust in the air and as time passed, we felt a certain scratchiness in our own throats.

One question kept coming to us: how in hell were the construction workers and fire fighters, soldiers and police officers surviving while they worked on the piles of rubble that were still everywhere? Every building within ten blocks still had a shroud of dust on them. How was all of this going to affect the health of residents and caregivers in the short and long-term?

As the years passed, several officials have made attempts at getting to the bottom of this environmental and health nightmare. Mrs. Clinton took a stab at it, among others. Today, I noticed that the former EPA Chief Christie Todd Whitman was refused immunity from a class action suit over her part in this ridiculousness. It's not enough; it's not nearly enough. The rest of the Administration - including Giuliani too - should be refused immunity as well, in my opinion.

Here's an excerpt from this sad and sorry tale:

NEW YORK - A federal judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday for reassuring New Yorkers soon after the Sept. 11 attacks that it was safe to return to their homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood.

U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts refused to grant Whitman immunity against a class-action lawsuit brought in 2004 by residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who said they were exposed to hazardous materials from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

"No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws," the judge said.

She called Whitman's actions "conscience-shocking," saying the EPA chief knew that the fall of the twin towers released tons of hazardous materials into the air.

Conscience-shocking indeed.

Thought for Today

Addicted to B.S.

Well, pity the poor Energy Secretary, who today had to backtrack on the Chimp's promise to reduce US dependence on foreign oil by 60% by the year 2025. Not even 24 hours after the State of the Union speech, here's what he's reduced to:

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.

But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are

OK, so everything they say is made up, then. I get it now.

Curling, Anyone?

The winter Olympics will soon be upon us...and time for our favorite event: curling! Looking forward to trying to figure out what the hell these people are doing on the ice, with their brooms and their 'rocks.'

We do seriously want to watch this sport at our house - enough of the knee-bashing figure skaters and the ski jump daredevils!

Give us curling, and give it to us now.