Daniel Cody - “Left on the Lake”

Talk about lip service. From the Houston Chronical:

“We have got a lot of work to do” - George W. Bush 8/30/05 referring to the damage done by the hurricane along Gulf Coast areas.

Is what stations in Milwaukee are now charging for regular unleaded gasoline, up from $2.69 just 36 hours ago on Monday night.

No commentary at this time, just marking the event in my weblog.

Seriously, how big of a jackass is Pat Robertson? First he tries to say the media quoted you out of context and misinterpreted his comments about assassinating a foreign leader, then goes on to say he never even said ‘assassination’.

After getting called out on that line of bullshit, holy roller Pat Robertson ‘apologized’ on his website for the statement and says he was just ‘frustrated’.

How can anyone take this guy seriously, especially his evangelical followers?

Who Would Jesus Assasinate? Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez apparently.

You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. - Pat Roberstson on the ‘700 Club’

Good to see Pat’s taking time away from interpreting messages from god about hurricanes, elections, and why gays are responsible for 9/11 to concentrate on the tough issues like assassinating people.

Could you imagine the shitstorm if a similar religous nutjob like Muqtada al Sadar even uttered the words ‘assassination’ and ‘Bush’ in the same sentance?

Another drop in support for the war in Iraq and another attempt by the administration to increase support for it by using the old “let’s link terrorism and Iraq” scare tactic.

“The only way to defend to our citizens where we live is to go after the terrorists where they live” - President Bush via BBC

Funny, but I don’t ever remember hearing of terrorists living in Iraq before we needed excuses for invasion.

As for Bush’s ‘Stay the course’ broken record statements, the best argument I’ve heard against that came from Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska yesterday when he said, “‘Stay the course’ is not a policy”.

And it’s not a policy, it’s a marketing slogan designed to pacify and procrastinate in hopes that the American public loses interest when it’s the only thing they hear for three yars.

By popular demand, more pictures of Emerson:

More in her picture gallery including her first state fair and stumping for the Milwaukee County Dems :)

I wonder if these parents will be branded as anti-American traitors, media whores, or “Michael Moore pawns” as well for pointing out the obvious fact that the situation in Iraq is spiraling out of control?

“We feel you either have to fight this war right or get out”

Right on. What the hell does it say though when it’s been over two years since the ‘victory’ and we still don’t have control of the country? We blew our chance to get it right, and throwing more troops into the grinder isn’t going to fix situation any faster. Unfortnately, we’re past the point now where throwing more resources at the problem is going to fix it, and it’s time to start forming up a plan to get out.

You can bet Republicans up for re-election in 2006 are thinking the same thing.

Meanwhile, the President of the United States continues his five week vacation. Today, he’s going to drive his truck around and then take a nap.

Update on the earlier posting about the person who ran over the crosses last night outside the President’s ranch.

MSNBC is reporting the guys name is Larry Northern from Waco Texas and he has been charged with “criminal mischief”.

Apparently, Larry is the owner of “Northern Realty” in Waco, a member of the local gun club, and had the following quote in the Baylor Lariat a number of years ago about an election for the local sherrif:

Baylor parent and Woodway resident Larry Northern said he decided to support Lynch because he was ‘honest, straight-shooting and moral.’ Northern said Lynch’s favorite saying was, ‘Don’t do crime because you’re going to do the time.’ - Baylor Lariat

I wonder if Larry considers himself an ‘honest, straight-shooting and moral’ guy after driving over a bunch of flags and crosses in the middle of the night?

You might have heard about the mother who lost her son in Iraq and how she’s camping out at the Presidents ‘ranch’ down in Texas for a meeting.

Of course because of that, she’s now the arch-enemy of the wingnut-o-sphere, and has been trashed on cable news talk shows, AM radio, and called a ‘media whore’ on one of the more popular right wing weblogs. She’s getting the classic Republican slime treatment all for having the audacity(!) to challenge the President on failed Iraq policy.

Anyways, over the course of the past few weeks, her and other pro-peace demonstrators have been erecting white crosses in the ditch along their camp to represent the men and women lost in the Iraq war so far.

Then last night, a man in a pickup truck was seen running over those crosses in his truck in the dead of night, destroying many of them:

There are reports the person or people were caught, but no one has been able to verify that yet. Regardless, what a totally cowardly act this is to run over a bunch of crosses that signify the people who died for their country. The sad thing is the people who did this probably consider themselves ‘REAL’ Americans while the peace demonstrators who put up the crosses and flags are a “bunch of sissy assed commies who should be shipped back to France.”

Hopefully they’re caught and spend some time in a place with high walls where the true meaning of sissy assed isn’t subject to debate.

Whether it’s debates, policy mandates, polling numbers, or even it’s ‘crown jewel’ of foreign policy Iraq, the Bush administration has spent 5 years now lowering expectations to soften the blow when things might not work out their way.

The latest is Iraq, where they’re starting to realize that years of poor planning and lip service are starting to take effect:

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad. - Washington Post

This kind of ‘leak’ is the first in many coming steps towards the administration bailing out on Iraq, with the end result being something like “Well we tried to help those Iraqis, but they just wouldn’t accept our botched attempts to run their country for them.. Time to pull out so any Republicans up for 2006 elections can claim victory!”

GOP Uber-Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was indicted yesterday for what looks to be wire fraud among other things.

This is seperate from the Wash. D.C. based grand jury that’s also investigating him, so something will probably come down there as well.

Abramoff collected more than $100,000 for Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign and raised thousands of dollars for Tom DeLay and other GOP members of Congress.

On a side note, Tom DeLay is also having some troubles of his own after ‘misreporting’ over $200,000 from his political action committee.

The years of corruption and greed are finally starting to catch up with the Republican money machine in Washington. But remember, Tom DeLay is the first one to blabber on about he and his kind represent the ‘moral majority’ in this country despite the fact that they and their associates are under various investigations for crimes.

WWJE - What would Jesus embezzle?