Idiocy and Incompetence – it’s the Republican way

The House Republicans today defeated an amendment to the Hurricane and War spending Bill, that would have increased funding for port security and disaster preparedness.

Yes. You read that correctly. The House Republicans – the “National Security” party – voted against port security and disaster preparedness.

From ThinkProgress:

Included in the amendment

– $300 million to enable U.S. customs agents to inspect high-risk containers at all 140 overseas ports that ship directly to the United States. Current funding only allows U.S. customs agents to operate at 43 of these ports.
– $400 million to place radiation monitors at all U.S. ports of entry. Currently, less than half of U.S. ports have radiation monitors.
– $300 million to provide backup emergency communications equipment for the Gulf Coast.

Hating George – not just for lefty bloggers anymore

A new poll shows His Imperial Majesty’s…His Holy Fearfulness’….the President’s approval rating has dropped an all-new low of 33%. If a few more points fall off, he might even beat out Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman, his father, and Richard Nixon for the record disapproval rating!

Finally, something about Dear Leader that even liberals can look forward to…

From Reuters:

Bush’s approval rating dipped as low as 33 percent in one recent poll after a string of bad news for the White House, including uproars over a now-dead Arab port deal, a secret eavesdropping program, a series of ethics scandals involving high-profile Republicans and a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.

(snip)

A majority of Americans, 56 percent, believe Bush is ‘out of touch,’ the poll found. When asked for a one-word description of Bush, the most frequent response was ‘incompetent,’ followed by ‘good,’ ‘idiot‘ and ‘liar.’ In February 2005, the most frequent reply was ‘honest.’

(snip)

A recent CBS poll found 66 percent of the public believed the country was headed down the wrong track, while a Harris Interactive poll put the number at 60 percent.

Dustin Briggs Formally Sentenced to Death

Yesterday, Bradford County Sheriff’s Deputy, Michael VanKuren, would have been 38 years old. Instead, his killer was formally sentenced to death for killing him and his partner, Deputy Christopher Burgert on March 31st, 2004.

From the Sayre PA Morning Times:

Dustin Briggs could leave the Bradford County Correctional Facility as soon as today on his way to death row. Briggs, 29, of Gillett was officially sentenced for classification at the state facility in Camp Hill Wednesday by specially presiding Judge Barry Feudale.

(snip)

The lack of emotion from Briggs was also cited by jury members after the trial as a reason they found it less difficult to impose the death sentence.

Feudale said he was struck by Briggs’ willingness to kill two law enforcement officers over a small amount of marijuana in his pocket and a collections warrant. The marijuana may have carried a penalty of 30 days in jail, the collections warrant a fine.

‘Rather than comply with being taken into custody you chose to act violently,” said the judge. “Mr. Briggs, you have a history of such violence against law enforcement and others.’

Davidson spoke directly to Briggs, telling him he not only took away her son, but her best friend.

‘Dustin Briggs I want you to know who you murdered – my son Christopher Michael Burgert. He was a quiet, unassuming man. As a child his father was in the Army and he started back then wanting to be a police officer,” said Davidson, clutching a photograph of Burgert with his brothers. “I want you to know he had a paper route. He and I did his paper route together. . . You took away a man who loved people, who loved life. Dustin, you took away a very good man. You took away my son. I’ll never see him again.’

Written victim impact statements were also provided to the judge from Michelle Keefe, Michael VanKuren’s sister; Andrew and Tiffany VanKuren, VanKuren’s children; Lori VanKuren, his mother; Kim Burgert, Burgert’s wife; and Davidson.

When imposing the sentence Feudale told Briggs he would remain in his cell 23 hours a day and be allowed only one hour of visitation a week. That visitation will be through a plexiglass window. Briggs will also be permitted one hour of exercise a week.

‘This will be your life until the sentence that was handed down has been imposed,’ said Feudale. [...]

Justice. Finally.

Read more here and here.

The ‘Show Me’ state of Idiots

Missouri….the hits just keep on coming.

The legislature has just rejected funding for birth control at public health clinics. Why? (You’ll love this!) Because, paying for birth control for women who are too rich for Medicaid (which pays for it) and too poor for private health insurance (which pays for it) would send a message that the state ‘condones’ promiscuous lifestyles.

Good grief!

From the Kansas City Star:

[...] Missouri stopped providing money for family planning and certain women’s health services when Republicans gained control of both chambers of the Legislature in 2003.

But a Democratic lawmaker, in a little-noticed committee amendment, had successfully inserted language into the proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 that would have allowed part of the $9.2 million intended for ‘core public health functions’ to go to contraception provided through public health clinics.

The House voted 96-59 to delete the funding for contraception and infertility treatments after Rep. Susan Phillips told lawmakers that anti-abortion groups such as Missouri Right to Life were opposed to the spending.

‘If you hand out contraception to single women, we’re saying promiscuity is OK as a state, and I am not in support of that,’ Phillips, R-Kansas City, said in an interview.

Timeless (and Timely) Quotes

Here’s a few quotes from our country’s Founding Fathers. It is incredibly sad to realize just how apropos they are when considering the state of our beloved country today. Once again, the American people must rebel against a tyrant. This time, one who believes it is his right – and indeed, his duty – to fight terrorism by all means, including the destruction of the very fabric from which this country was built.

Let’s go back 229 years, and see what our Founding Fathers said before and after creating a document that the President and the Republican Congress seem determined to shred:

‘[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.’ — John Adams, 1765

‘A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.’ — Samuel Adams, 1779

‘They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’ — Ben Franklin, 1759

‘Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!’ — Patrick Henry

‘That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.’ — Thomas Jefferson, 1774

‘One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one’s house. A man’s house is his castle.’ — James Otis, 1761

‘Nevertheless, to the persecution and tyranny of his cruel ministry we will not tamely submit — appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to die or be free.’ — Joseph Warren, 1775

And this, from the Declaration of Independence:

–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Insanity – US launches air offensive

Update (1:16pm): The air offensive is being called ‘Operation Swarmer’.

From the Associated Press:

The U.S. military said the offensive dubbed Operation Swarmer was aimed at clearing ‘a suspected insurgent operating area’ northeast of Samarra and was expected to continue over several days.

‘More than 1,500 Iraqi and Coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation,’ the military statement said.

(snip)

The operation, residents said, appeared to be concentrated near four villages _ Jillam, Mamlaha, Banat Hassan and Bukaddou _ about 20 miles north of Samarra. The villages are near the highway leading from Samarra to the city of Adwar.

Waqas al-Juwanya, a spokesman for Iraq’s joint coordination center in nearby Dowr, said ‘unknown gunmen exist in this area, killing and kidnapping policemen, soldiers and civilians.’

Near the end of the first day of the operation, the military said, ‘a number of enemy weapons caches have been captured, containing artillery shells, explosives, IED-making materials, and military uniforms.’

It said the attack began with soldiers from the Iraqi army’s 1st Brigade, 4th Division, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team and the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade conducting a combined air and ground assault to isolate the objective area.

Air power backed the operation and delivered troops from the Iraq army’s 4th Division, the Rakkasans from 1st and 3rd Battalions, 187th Infantry Regiment and the Hunters from 2nd Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment to multiple objectives.

The military said forces from the 2nd Commando Brigade then completed a ground infiltration to secure numerous structures in the area.

Most Everybody Hates George

New poll from NBC/WSJ shows Bush is at 37% and pretty much everyone thinks he’s an idiot. Okay – I’m making up that last part. True or not, it’s not the kind of question pollsters ask.

From NBC News’ Mark Murray

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll might sound like a broken record, but the tune grows louder as congressional midterm elections get closer and closer: President Bush is once again facing the lowest job approval rating of his presidency, the lowest percentage of Americans who believe the country is headed in the right direction, and an electorate that greatly prefers a Democratic-controlled Congress over a Republican-controlled one.

Yet the poll also shows something else that goes beyond the November midterm elections: A strong majority believes Bush is experiencing a long-term setback from which he’s unlikely to recover. ‘He’s losing his grip on governance,’ says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican Bill McInturff. ‘It’s now a sense that we’ve seen the best that he’s going to produce as president of the United States.’

Egads – the best Preznit Half-wit MonkeyBoy can produce is: war, economic recession, huge deficits, lots of poor people getting poorer, lots of not-quite-poor people getting poorer, and lots of rich people getting richer, but those stubborn thirty-percenters still think he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now, who’s stupider? Bush or the idiots who are still clapping their hands, saying, ‘I do believe! I do believe in Georgie.’

Indeed, it’s the situation in Iraq that appears to be at the heart of Bush’s problems. According to the poll — which was taken of 1,005 adults from March 10-13, and which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points — 61 percent disapprove of Bush’s handling of the situation. Moreover, 57 percent are less confident that the war in Iraq will come to a successful conclusion, which is a seven-point increase since December. And 61 percent say the United States should reduce the number of troops there, while just 31 percent want to maintain the current troop level.

“Everything comes back around to the war,” Hart says. ‘That seems to set up the president’s basic problem and his basic challenge.’

Republican pollster McInturff puts it this way: ‘It is hard to pivot … when every day the core decision in your presidency is Iraq’ — and the situation there appears grim.

And yet, we’re told that His Imperial Highness…the Emperor…the President is planning on re-affirming his anti-terrorism strategy (or is that strategery?):

From the Washington Post:

President Bush plans to issue a new national security strategy today reaffirming his doctrine of preemptive war against terrorists and hostile states with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, despite the troubled experience in Iraq.

The document, an articulation of U.S. strategic priorities that by law is required every four years, lays out a robust view of America’s power and an assertive view of its responsibility to bring change around the world. On everything from genocide to human trafficking to AIDS, the strategy describes itself as ‘idealistic about goals and realistic about means.’

This from a man who lives in a fantasy world? Preznit ‘Chokes on Pretzel’ doesn’t know reality even when it slaps him upside the head. (And it does so quite frequently, only to be ignored in favor of pretending everything’s just A-Okay.)

WOW!

Apparently a lot of people read Newsweek’s online edition!

I’m getting hits from all over the world! Ukraine, Britain, France, to name a few. Also – oddly enough – Iran.

Also – HI! – to whoever visited from HQ 5th Signal Command and the Social Security Administration. 

 

Roots-PA update

Well, isn’t it nice to know that Sen. Specter’s office doesn’t personally respond to emails. I did get a lovely form letter though:

Dear [PA_Lady]:

Thank you for contacting my office regarding your concern.

I appreciate your taking the time to bring your views on this important matter to my attention. As a United States Senator, it is essential that I be kept fully informed on the issues of concern to my constituents. While the large volume of correspondence I receive precludes a more lengthy response, please rest assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind as the Senate considers this issue. If you have any further questions on this or any other issues, please visit my website, http://specter.senate.gov , and carefully fill out the contact form under contact info.

Again, thank you for writing.

Sincerely,

Arlen Specter

Think there’s any chance I’ll get more than a form letter in response to my handwritten and snail-mailed letter? Me either.