GWB: Accidental Poet

If Bush Wrote Poetry

A poem created using actual statements of Prances in Flightsuit.

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
Where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

By Washington Post writer, Richard Thompson.

Cheney's Top Ten Lies

Here's the short version, click on the link above for the list with proper citations:

LIE # 1: I Have Never Met Edwards Before

FACT: Cheney Had Met Edwards on At Least Three Prior Occasions

LIE # 2: Cheney Claimed He Had Never Linked Iraq and 9/11

FACT: Cheney Has Repeatedly Made This Claim

LIE # 3: The Khan Smuggling Network has been Shutdown

FACT: Recent Arrests Show the Network May Be Still Active

LIE # 4: Bush's War in Iraq Convinced Libya to Disarm

FACT: Libya Was Already Moving to Disarm Before Iraq War

LIE # 5: Cheney Claimed They've Never Let Up on Osama Bin Ladin

FACT: Bush quote: "I don't know where he is. Nor — you know, I just don't spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I…I truly am not that concerned about him." [Bush Remarks, 3/13/02]

LIE # 6: 10 Million Voters are Registered in Afghanistan

FACT: Human Rights Watch Found Registration Numbers Exaggerated

LIE # 7: Kerry Voted for Higher Taxes 98 Times

FACT: 98 Times Figure Has Been Repeatedly Debunked

LIE # 8: Kerry Wants to Raise Taxes on Small Businesses

FACT: That Claim Has Been Roundly Debunked By the Press

LIE # 9: Kerry-Edwards Flip-Flopped on No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

FACT: Kerry-Edwards Want to Properly Fund, Not Abandon, NCLB

LIE # 10: Minority Achievement Gap Is Shrinking

FACT: No Evidence to Support That, Bush Policies Will Expand the Gap

Elizabeth Edwards: Smackdown!

Edwards' Wife Delivers Tough Security Talk

Quoting a phrase that President Bush used frequently in the first presidential debate, she said, "'The world has changed since 9/11.'"

"Well, duh. The world has changed, and you need to do something about it," she said.

**********

She said too little money - or none - is being spent to secure the border with Canada, to inspect shipping containers at ports and to improve security on trains, subways and at chemical and nuclear plants.

"This is not fear-mongering," she said. "It's being honest with you. ... Look at your government and see if they're protecting you."

Bush/Cheney put kids in danger

I just watched a Bush/Cheney04 ad on CNBC. A woman (security mom?) is driving her minivan, listening to a male voice on talk radio (980 is shown on her minivan's radio dial) talk about higher taxes under Kerry. The woman begins to squirm in her seat, looking over her shoulder to the back seat (I'm thinking, LOOK AT THE ROAD!), worrying about these Kerry taxes. Then the shot cuts to her car, where her kid in the front seat is throwing a basketball to another kid in the back seat. Then Prances in Flightsuit is shown standing in the Oval Office where he says "I'm George W. Bush & I approved this message."

Uh, President Dumba**, no one in their right mind would drive around with a kid that young in the front seat of a minivan. In an accident that kid would be killed by the airbag.

In most states it is illegal for a child of a certain age or height to ride in the front seat of a car. And never mind the legality, in a modern SUV with airbags, there is a giant warning on the dash that says, no one under 5'0" should ride in the front seat, & especially children should not ride in the front seat because they could be injured when the airbag deploys.

I guess when the Secret Service drives you around in bulletproof limos you don't need to know the rules about how to protect real kids lives. Nice example, W.

It's A Wonderful Life

I spent much of the morning surfing the blogs, & can't remember which blogger inspired me to go to the script of It's a Wonderful Life for the following:

Last night's debate, short form:

EDWARDS: Just remember this, Mr. Cheney: that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?

CHENEY: Look at you. You used to be so cocky! You were going to go out and conquer the world! You once called me a warped, frustrated old man. What are you but a warped, frustrated young man? A miserable little clerk, crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help.

EDWARDS: You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Cheney. In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider.

CHENEY: Isn't it wonderful? I'm going to jail!

EDWARDS: Happy New Year to you... in jail!

Is Dick Cheney's Secret & Undisclosed Location in Wyoming?

I hope John Edwards asks Dick Cheney why Wyoming gets so much more in anti-terrorism funds than New York -- where the terrorist attacks actually happened. Here's a question suggested by Morton Mintz of PBS:

The administration's latest distribution of funds to localities for anti-terrorism preparations gives New York State $5.47 per person, or $2.30 below the national average Wyoming, gets $38.31 per person, or $30.54 above the national average. In fact, New York gets less than any state other than California, which is also far below the national average.

Why are seven times more security dollars, on a per capita basis, going to Wyoming, a remote prairie state with a population of a half-million that happens to be home to Vice President Cheney, than to New York, where thousands died in a terrorist attack on its — and the nation's — largest city, population 8 million?

Bremer Agrees With John Kerry -- BushCo F**ked up

Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels

Now he tells us:

The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.

"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. "We never had enough troops on the ground."

Bremer's comments were striking because they echoed contentions of many administration critics, including Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, who argue that the U.S. government failed to plan adequately to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion. Bremer has generally defended the U.S. approach in Iraq but in recent weeks has begun to criticize the administration for tactical and policy shortfalls.

Lick Dick in 04

10 Questions for Dick Cheney

Here's my favorite.

7.) No corporation has been more closely associated with the invasion of Iraq than Halliburton. The company, which you served as CEO before joining the administration, moved from No.19 on the U.S. Army's list of top contractors before the Iraq war began to No. 1 in 2003. Last year, alone, the company pocketed $4.2 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars. You said when asked about Halliburton during a September 2003 appearance on "Meet the Press" that you had "severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest." Yet, you continue to hold unexercised options for 233,000 shares of Halliburton stock, and since becoming vice president you have on an annual basis collected deferred compensation payments ranging from $162,392 to $205,298 from Halliburton. A recent review by the Congressional Research Service describes deferred salary and stock options of the sort that you hold as "among those benefits described by the Office of Government Ethics as 'retained ties' or 'linkages' to one's former employer." In the interest of ending the debate about whether Halliburton has received special treatment from the administration, would you be willing to immediately surrender any claims to those stock options and to future deferred compensation in order to make real your claim that you have "severed all my ties with the company."

I wish I had no financial interest in a company that paid me $175,000 a year!

If Bush/Cheney are Re-Elected, Only Halliburton Will Have Lawyers

The insurance industry & the business community spent millions to convince the public that personal injury lawsuits are killing American business. It's a crock -- they just want to be able to operate without checks on their power. If tort reform (which should be known as tort deform) is passed, only businesses will have lawyers. But the court system won't be any faster. The people will be shut out, but folks with money will always find a way in.

U.S. Businesses File Four Times More Lawsuits Than Private Citizens And Are Sanctioned Much More Often for Frivolous Suits

But Corporate America and Their Political Allies Bush and Cheney Campaign to Limit Citizens' Rights to Sue

WASHINGTON - October 4 - American businesses file four times as many lawsuits as do individuals represented by trial attorneys, and they are penalized by judges much more often for pursuing frivolous litigation, according to a report issued today by Public Citizen.

The survey of case filings in two states (Arkansas and Mississippi) and two local jurisdictions (Cook County, Ill., and Philadelphia, Pa.) in 2001 found that businesses were 3.3 to 5.8 times more likely to file lawsuits than were individuals. This comes as businesses and politicians are campaigning to limit citizens' rights to sue over everything from medical malpractice damages to defective products. By way of comparison, the number of American consumers (281 million) outnumbers the number of businesses in America (7 million) by 40 times.

The report also found that businesses and their attorneys were 69 percent more likely than individual tort plaintiffs and their attorneys to be sanctioned by federal judges for filing frivolous claims or defenses. The report, Frequent Filers: Corporate Hypocrisy in Accessing the Courts, is available at http://www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/tort/myths/articles.cfm?ID=12369 .

I Love Jimmy Breslin Part II

Jimmy Breslin: 'Bush ignores value of a straight face'

When I grow up, I wanna write like this:

The other night, George Bush hunched so low that he seemed to be using the lectern as a bunker. His eyes crinkled, his mouth opened like a trout's.

**********

....George Bush revealed for all to see what a calamity the news reporting business has been for at least the last four years. Here we had a president who was aware of only one thing: that you have the gall to ask questions about himself. A member of the Bush royalty. He got in the White House with minimal votes and thought and a maximum of thievery.

From that day on, neither television nor newspapers nailed him for what he is. I remember Tom Brokaw going through a day in the White House with Bush, and it all seemed so pleasant and wonderful, we two guys enjoying all of this. Then I remember Tim Russert had a big interview with Bush, and all these Washington Pekinese of the Press said it was such a marvelous interview. He might as well have stayed home. If you can't get Bush to show himself as a dangerous dolt, you've done nothing. These are only two of an industry full of abject failures.

And this Bush, this shaky dimwit, as seen on Thursday night, got this country into a war where we lose the lives of young people, and many thousands lose their arms and legs and private parts, and we bomb children in Iraq. Not one person in this American news industry stood up and screamed that this man putting us in war is probably the one dumbest man we ever had as president.

"We're makin' progress. It's hard work. We're makin' progress. It's hard work."