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28 September 2004

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

Floating around the internet, reproduced for your edification here...

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
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17 September 2004

A method that is old and wrong

How much creedence can be given to polls that rely on landline telephones only, and completely ignore cell phones?
The telephone polls do not include cellular phones. There are almost 169 million cell phones being used in America today - 168,900,019 as of Sept. 15, according to the cell phone institute in Washington.

There is no way to poll cell phone users, so it isn't done.

It does indeed taint any polling numbers that still rely upon landline telephones solely.

9 September 2004

I'll vote for Kerry

Well written blast that accurately frames my disenthrallment with the contemporary state of Republican politics.

Nary a word about Iraq in the eight reasons listed, but I had to clip this text out, these facts that are somehow obscured in the media circus that surrounds the political debates in these times.

With the exception of Webster Hubbell, who was convicted for an embezzlement he'd committed before coming to Washington, no Clinton official was ever convicted of anything. Why not? Because they didn't commit any crimes. Whitewater was just a land deal. Travelgate was a clumsy but not illegal personnel move. Vincent Foster was clinically depressed. Bill Clinton was horny.

Just for fun, let's compare Clinton's administration to Reagan's. In eight years of Reagan rule, 32 officials were convicted of felonies. Three of these were overturned on appeal, but over 30 more Reagan officials resigned or were fired following charges of legal or ethical misconduct. And Caspar Weinberger, Reagan's defense secretary, was indicted on five counts but pardoned by George H.W. Bush before he could face trial. Bush also pardoned Elliot Abrams, Reagan's assistant Secretary of State, and Robert MacFarlane, his National Security Advisor, before they could face charges. In all, over 130 Reagan officials were indicted, convicted or investigated. Strange that we never hear about that on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.

5 September 2004

Primary is THE election

In Arizona, the primary elections may hold more importance than the general election.
Turnout is not expected to top 20 percent, showing that most voters either don't know or don't care that this primary will determine whether centrist Republicans still hold sway at the Capitol, or if the Legislature takes a hard ideological right turn.

"The rule in Arizona is now that the primary is the general," said former Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano, a Republican who has taught political science and is organizing the upcoming presidential debate at Arizona State University.

Giuliano said that it's not necessarily a party issue but a numbers issue: "Why would Democrats spend any money in districts tilted so much the other way?"

Tuesday, September 7. Get out to vote!

Nothing Funny About a Deceitful War

Florida Senator Bob Graham says Bush administration blocked an investigation into Saudi government financial involvement with the 9-11 hijackers.
Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.

The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote.

I find it offensive also, and not humorous whatsoever, the deceitful justification for war and coverup of this information.

1 September 2004

Leave No CEO Behind

Lynne Cheney introduced her husband Dick at the GOP convention with a little anecdote.
One of our granddaughters asked him a few months ago if he knew anyone famous, and I treasure the fact that she didn't know he was.

At some future point she'll discover he's the country's vice president and former CEO of Halliburton, a company that coincidentally has profited immensely from geopolitical decisions heavily influenced by Mr. Cheney. In fact, he's still receiving compensation from them. Are Halliburton's best interests always in the country's best interests? From looking at the records, it appears that's how the VP thinks.

Even without the Cheney conflicts of interest, serious doubts remain about whether a company with a record like Halliburton's should even be eligible to receive government contracts in the first place. This, after all, is a company that has been accused of cost overruns, tax avoidance, and cooking the books and has a history of doing business in countries like Iraq, Iran and Libya.

Confidential U.N. documents show that Halliburton's affiliates have had broad, and sometimes controversial, dealings with the Iraqi regime. The firms traded with Baghdad for more than a year under Cheney, signing nearly $30 million in contracts before he sold Halliburton's 49 percent stake in Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. in December 1999 and its 51 percent interest in Dresser Rand to Ingersoll-Rand in February 2000, according to U.N. records.

He's made money off of both building and destroying Iraq, and his companies have dealt with nations that were illegal for U.S. companies to have business relations with.

And they don't need any permission from you to start a war.

George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people.