Maybe we should be paying a little more attention to domestic terrorism these days? It seems a Rockford, IL man had his sights (literally) set on liberal public officials:

The search also turned up a list of federal officials, political and public figures with the word “marked,” next to the names. Breit told agents it meant “marked to die,” because the people were liberal, opposed to gun rights or opposed to the current government. – Chicago Sun-Times

Why is it that when people kill their children because God ‘told them to do it’, or kill abortion doctors because “they’re the real killers”, or right wing nutballs plan on assasinating public officials that they’re labeled ‘insane’, or ‘weird’, or ‘disturbed’, when if this were a Muslim man who got caught with bombmaking material and a government hitlist, he’d get his ass locked up down in Guantanamo Bay and labeled a ‘terrorist’ faster than John Ascroft could say ‘Patriot Act’?

Why the double standard when it comes to terrorism?

It’s an exciting time of year!

The flowers are coming up, shorts are coming out of storage, and the political season that culminates in this years November elections is ramping up! Jenny and I went to Russ Feingold’s (one of our WI Senators) campaign headquarters grand opening this last weekend, which was pretty interesting. I’ve offered to volunteer for his campaign and am still waiting to hear back about where I’ll fit in best there. One really nice thing is the campaign headquarters is about a block away from work, so finding time to stop in and say hi or asking questions won’t be too hard at all.

Anyways, we got to shake the Senator’s hand and say hello, which is about all we were looking for in the madhouse of people vying for his ear. We did get to spend some time with our Alderman, Michael Murphy, at the event too, and talk with him about our neighborhood a bit. He told us if we were ever interested in helping out with his work, we should let him know. It’s something that I’m going to consider, always the believer that it’s important to focus on local politics since they have a direct effect on our lives.

Also, I shouldn’t fail to mention that our new mayor Tom Barrett is being sworn in today downtown. I’m pretty excited about his election, even moreso because he’s our neighbor two blocks to the North, and for some reason, it’s pretty cool living in close proximity to the man who runs the town :)

Speaking of the house, it seems like that has a lot to do with my increased interest in the way things are run in Milwaukee. We now have a vested interest in the direction that the city is taking, and not just monetarily in the way our house value is tied to the ‘value’ of our neighborhood and city, but an interest in the social and civic direction the city is taking as well.

I guess you could boil that down to ‘civic pride’ or something, but I think it’s more than that… A lot of people in the city have civic pride of course, which is great, but I think there’s a difference between being ‘proud and interested’ and ‘proud and interested and involved’, and I’m pretty excited to get involved in what’s happening on the city/state level in addition to keeping a close eye on the national elections.

What is the cause of Bush stumbling over himself while retreating to the safety of phrases like, ‘secure and free Iraqi people’, ‘we’ll stay the course..’, and ‘turkey farms in Africa’ during last night’s press conference?

Maybe it had something to do with that trippy necktie? The whole hour he spoke just had a train wreck feel to it, but yet we couldn’t look away because like deer in the headlights, the tie had cast a trance on us. Aside from the poor accessorizing (Someone call the Queer Eye boys to take the battery out of that thing!!), that was just about the worst public performance I’ve seen by any public figure in my life.

He couldn’t answer the Iraq question well (aside from the secure and freedom rehash), totally ignored the question about why he needed to face the 9-11 commission with his VP holding his hand, called his Secretary of Defense his Secretary of State, and then brutally fumbled the one question that hadn’t been scripted about ‘the worst mistake he made since 9-11′ by complaining it was ‘a lot of pressure… being on the spot’. I mean, whats the pressure for him?? Answering a question he didn’t have someone write an answer for before the conference?

So must be the thinking of our apparently overworked Prez.

While all hell is breaking loose in Iraq, the commander in chief is hanging out at ‘the ranch’ watching some TV, making a few phone calls, and giving personal tours to some of his biggest donors, including the president of the National Rifle Association. Sure, sure, everyone needs some time off, but according to a tally by CBS Nwes, Bush has spent more than 40% of his time as president on vacation!

This is Bush’s 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency.

In fact, Bush was on his ranch on Aug. 6, 2001, when he received an intelligence briefing that was mentioned in Condi Rice’s testimony to the 9-11 commission yesterday with the title “Bin Laden determined to attack inside United States”. After a tough day of clearin brush on the ranch though, it’s hard to focus on things like briefings concerning national security!

Of course, Condi said that Aug. 6th memo wasn’t really that big a deal, mostly ‘historical information’ and nothing ‘actionable’. Two questions about that from the peanut gallery:

Is the title of every Presidential security briefing memo usually filled with such un-important historical info?

Several times, Condi said there was no ‘actionable’ information in the terrorist chatter during the Summer of 2001. Do the terrorists usually spell out a specific time, place, method of destruction, self descriptions, color of their shoes, and where they’ll be dining for breakfast beforehand in this ‘chatter’? Otherwise, I don’t see how anything the CIA/FBI/NSA picks up from terrorists is ‘actionable’.

Just a few things there Jenny and I were talking about last night after listening to parts of her testimony.

To sum up our president’s attendance history though, in my opinion, the only people who should be spending close to 50% of their time on vacation – ‘working vacation’ or not – are editors for travel magazines.

It’s been a full week of political weblog posts here, but there’s been an awful lot happening in that area over the past 5-7 days, I’ll even it out a bit next week :)

Prez. Bush threw out the opening day first pitch at yesterday’s St. Louis / Milwaukee baseball game, and despite his not so hot approval rating, got a warm reception.. Whether that reception came through the speakers or from the fans, we’re not sure..

A somewhat hostile crowd complained mightily about the problems the presidential motorcade caused with regular fans trying to get into the park. A Cards employee tipped moi that the team was so concerned about Bush being booed that they piped in fake applause when he strode out to the mound. – St. Louis Post Dispatch

I haven’t heard if the pitch was a one-hopper like the one he tossed out three years ago for the opening of Miller Park, but maybe that’s why he’s heading back to ‘The Ranch’ for the rest of the week, to work on his throw.

That or, he’s trying to dodge what’s sure to be bad press for his administration when Condi Rice takes the hotseat tomorrow in front of the 9-11 commission. In a similar move to piping in applause for yesterday’s game, maybe they’ll fill the gallery with party supporters for Condi’s appearance tomorrow. If the questioning starts getting too tough, they’ll start a ‘wave’ around the hearing to pump her up a bit.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! All GOP attack dogs to battlestations, this is not a drill!

The latest poll from the PEW Research Center has George W. Bush with a 43%job approval rating among a sample of American adults, with close to half (47%) disapproving of the way he’s doing his job.

There’s even worse (if you’re a GOP loyalist at least) news from California where 38% of people approve and 50% disapprove of the job he’s doing according to a recent poll reported by the San Francisco Chronical.

Maybe people are finally starting to realize that’s there’s a direct correlation between the man in office right now and the problems our country is dealing with. If Bush’s slide in the approval rating department continues, they’ll have to pop Osama out of that cake a bit earlier than they planned on to get a quick bump in the ratings. To be honest, I don’t even know if playing the ‘We got Osama’ card will be able to save Bush with all the other problems going on.

The U.S. military launched Operation “Vigilant Resolve” today near the town of Fallujah in response to the killing of four private US security contractors and five US soldiers last week.

All things aside, what the hell is up with an Operational codename like ‘Vigilant Resolve’?

This sounds like it came straight out of the mouth of some GOP huckster in an attempt to identify (hopefully) successful combat operations with keywords the Prez. has been regurgitating in policy speeches for almost three years now. This is a pretty clear sign that the war in Iraq is only going to be more politicized for presidential gain than it already has been as the elections grow closer and closer.

But “Vigilant Resolve”? I just can’t imagine a bunch of roughnecks pumping eachother up before they deploy with an operation name like that..

“YEAAHHHHH LET’S KICK SOME INSURGENT ASS MARINES!!@!!! OPERATION VIGILANT RESOLVE IS COMMMING TOO GE……. WHATTTT THE FUCK? What pansy assed Lt. General named this one?! How the hell are we supposed to kick serious insurgent ass when our operation identifier sounds like it came from a Danielle Steele book? What the hell ever happened to OPERATION MOUNTAIN THUNDER or OPERATION KICKING THE FUCKING DOOR DOWN or OPERATION NIGHT VISION MAYHEM??? Well troops.. let’s go try to be vigilant.. or something. LOCK AND LOAD!”

On top of the awkwardness the troops must feel, between their fits of uncontrollable giggling, it doesn’t make much sense for a siege mission like they’re doing in Fallujah. Vigilant? No, we’re surrounding them and then swooping in under air cover, not holding a bunch of white candles and signing “Ave Maria”. Resolve? Well I guess, but isn’t that just another (more stupid) way of saying we’re gonna finish the job, leave no soldier behind, and all the other honorable motto’s our military uses?

If this continues to go on, I can only imagine the progression of operational identifiers as the election draws closer:

Operation Diebold Distraction, Operation Electoral Escapade, Operation Swingvoter Swindle, Operation Bush/Cheny ’04, and even Operation Hey Look, We Got Osama!