Check out this sub-headling on this article at cnn.com about the Bush’s state of the union speach last night: “Ten months before facing voters, President Bush used an upbeat State of the Union address Tuesday night to promote his stewardship of the nation at home and abroad and to call on Americans to stay the course.”

The part that caught my eye there was the last blurb about ‘calling on Americans to stay the course’. I thought, “Gee, is Bush asking millions of Americans to stay the course by continuing to stand in the un-employment line? Or maybe American troops in Iraq should stay the course in Iraq where every day 10 soldiers are wounded and 1.5 are killed? Maybe blue collar Americans should stay the course and just watch as their jobs continue to be shipped overseas by corporations that aren’t punished for laying off thousands of workers, but actually get tax benefits for doing so?

I wanted to know just what this president thought we should stay the course on!! But after reading the article on cnn.com, I couldn’t find any specifics about my course. So I thought the person who wrote the article maybe just paraphrased something the president said, and I should go to the source and read the transcript myself, because I really want to know what course I should be staying on!

To my surprise, I couldn’t find one instance of Bush saying anything about ‘staying’, ‘holding’, or even ‘idling’ on any sort of ‘course’, ‘direction’, or ‘mandate’.

I guess my questions is why did CNN use a phrase(and a lame one at that) to describe what the president wants Americans to do that the president himself didn’t use? It’s pretty ridiculous when a major news organization like CNN is spinning policy speaches like this instead of giving an objective point of view, which last time I checked was the job of the news media. Sadly, I expect to see more of this as we get closer to the election this fall from the media. Is it CNN who wants us to stay the course or the president?

The only thing ‘liberal’ about the news media these days is it’s application of subjectivity to the news stories it’s putting out.

For those in the area who are interested, the remaining Democratic presidential candidates will be in Milwaukee on February 15th for a nationally televised debate. It will take place at Alumni Memorial Union on the Marquette campus between 5:30 and 7:00PM.

The folks running the debate have set up a website for it at http://www.wisconsindebate.com/ where you can enter your name for tickets in the lottery style system they’re using to give them away.

Hopefully there are still three or four of the candidates still in the running on the 15th, and hopefully my name gets drawn to get tickets!

This picture says a thousand words about the feelings this administration has towards citizens who don’t agree with the party line:

You see, on the other side of that blockade of buses is prez. GW Bush talking about how he supports “equal justice for all” among other feel good equality type ‘talking points’. We’re all equal, unless of course, you disagree with the prez. Then you have to stand behind a line of buses so no one can see you and your voice isn’t heard. But it’s better than the back of the bus, right?!

Ironically, I think Martin Luther King, the man the prez was there to ‘pay tribute to’, (AKA: invoking the memory of for votes) would have been standing with those trying to excersize their constitutional rights if were still alive today.

Wow, not a good week for the Bush administration..

Last week, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the administration made the threat from Iraq sound more dire than the underlying information really was.We also pulled out a 400-member military team from Iraq specialising in finding and the disposal of weapons of mass destruction.

And now, an official report by military experts says not only was invading Iraq unnecessary, but actually hurts the war against terrorism. Exactly the opposite of what the prez has been saying…

The result has been an unnecessary preventive war a against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault from an undeterrable al-Qaeda. The war against Iraq was not integral to the Global War On Terrorism but rather a detour from it. – Strategic Studies Institute

Is it any wonder that this week he’s going to announce his ‘bold space innitiative’ (And what’s up with the press always refering to it as the ‘bold space innitiative’?) to shift the focus off all this bad press? Or will he simply shift the reasons for war again from, ‘Saddam poses a direct threat to the United States’ to ‘We liberated a nation’?

If the ‘liberation’ spin is the order of the day (again), I’m wondering how liberated the tens of thousands Iraqi citizens who’ve been protesting the occupation over the past few days feel?

This is what happens when you fabricate the reasons for a war and try to put a positive spin on the negative after effects. Sooner or later, the truth is going to catch up with you, no matter how much the mainstream media ignore it or your handlers twist it.

With the billions of dollars being poured into HomeLand Security these days for things like airport security, border control, and re-printing menu’s across the country to put the freedom back into our potatos (and nation!), it’s easy to over look less obvious but equally dangerous targets across our great nation.

We can all rest a little bit easier safe in the knowledge that law makers in California have addressed one of the smaller issues that threatens our country by passing a law that categorizes trespassing on farms as an act of terrorism.

farm groups and rural law enforcement agencies launched a massive lobbyingeffort this year to push a bill through the Legislature to strengthen trespassing laws on farms and ranches. They did it in the name of homeland security.

Led by state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, a Fresno Republican who represents a giant swathof San Joaquin Valley farm country, supporters argued that animal rights groups could be infiltrated by terrorists trying to contaminate the nation’s food supply — Tri-Valley Herald

Yes, it’s nice knowing that tonite I can rest assured, knowing that any would-be terrorist will think twice about contaminating the food supply in Northern California now that there’s a $100 fine looming over their heads.

Watch out Democratic contenders! God has told televangelist Pat Robertson that George Bush is going to win the 2004 election in a “blowout”!

Of course, this is the same Pat Roberston who said God told him to run for president back in 1988, the same Pat Robertson who recently suggested the US State Department should be blown up with a nuke, and the same Pat Robertson who said that God would cause a huge hurricane to hit Orlando Florida because DisneyWorld had sponsored a ‘Gay Day’ there.

Ironically, a devistating hurricane did hit… …in Robertson’s home town of Virginia Beach, Virginia. Who knew God was into politics?!