For Dems only.

[Balta1701]

Great headline currently on CNN.com..."Bush urges end to cartoon violence".

 

Somewhere, Itchy and Scratchy are crying.

 

Pick a sign...imagine Bush (or Laura) holding it, and just laugh.

 

Marge - I'm protesting because Itchy & Scratchy are indirectly responsible for my husband being hit on the head with a mallet

Maggie- Stop me before I kill my father again

Homer - Please ban violent cartoons -- next time I might not be so lucky

Lisa - Ban Itchy & Scratchy

Bart - Ban Itchy & Scratchy

{Bart later adds `Don't' to the sign}

 

Some more protest signs:

Timothy Lovejoy - For heavens sake -- make them stop fighting

Helen Lovejoy - Erase Itchy & Scratchy

Maude Flanders - Join S.N.U.H. NOW!

Ned Flanders - Save the cartoon animals

~Skinner's mother - Destroy the Violent People

Moe - Bring back ``Wagon Train''

Edited February 8, 2006 by Balta1701

[FlaSoxxJim]

My personal fav is still "Brownie".  Put a guy in charge of the largest emergency response agency on earth who hasn't ever been within a mile of a disaster.  Aside from how dangerous that was, it was poilitically idiotic.  As a Prez, you can be fairly sure that some large domestic disaster will occur during your term.  And you KNOW that event could make or break your reputation.  And you knowingly put a useless favor appointment in charge of FEMA?  Moronic.

 

On the bright side, he helped in the evolution of popular language. Now, when your boss tells you you're doing a "heckuva job" you know you have been "Brownied" and you had better start emptying out your desk.

 

[nitetrain8601]

That' sthe real trick, of course.  The Democratic Party is a very diverse party and so for some time now it has been hard to find a singularly unifying message.

 

Bleeding hearts, blue collar unionists, academics, civil libertarians, environmental proponents, pro-choice advocates, socialized health care advocates, gay rights advocates, etc., etc., all claim affiliation to the party, and it's hard to find the singular message.

 

Other than general agreement that the GOP cares very little about the average american little guy – unless it is an election year.

 

I'm down with the Democrats and this post.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Time for a real head-scratcher:

 

Criminally-indicted Rep. Tom DeLay “scored a soft landing Wednesday as GOP leaders rewarded him” with Duke Cunningham’s former seat on the Appropriations Committee. “DeLay also claimed a seat on the subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is currently investigating an influence-peddling scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his dealings with lawmakers.”

 

Now, is it just me, or is there something really wrong about allowing DeLay to sit on the committee investigating Abramoff if, by definition, that means Delay is also supposedly being tengenitally investigated???

 

I'd post this as a thread outside the Dem only thread, but frankly I've become convinced that nobody on the other side of the fence even cares when such blatant abuse of authority is revealed any more.

Edited February 9, 2006 by FlaSoxxJim

[NorthSideSox72]

Time for a real head-scratcher:

Now, is it just me, or is there something really wrong about allowing DeLay to sit on the committee investigating Abramoff if, by definition, that means Delay is also supposedly being tengenitally investigated???

 

I'd post this as a thread outside the Dem only thread, but frankly I've become convinced that nobody on the other side of the fence even cares when such blatant abuse of authority is revealed any more.

 

Wow.

 

1. That's pretty ridiculous. This brings conflict of interest to a whole new level.

 

2. I'm starting to think that the GOP is becoming less and less well-managed. I mean, this was an idiotic idea, politically speaking. It has press nightmare written all over it. The Prez Admin was so good at keeping the GOP running like a well-oiled machine during Bush's first term and his re-election, but since then the Congressional GOP is looking about as inept as the Dems, in terms of keeping the ship right.

[kapkomet]

Time for a real head-scratcher:

Now, is it just me, or is there something really wrong about allowing DeLay to sit on the committee investigating Abramoff if, by definition, that means Delay is also supposedly being tengenitally investigated???

 

I'd post this as a thread outside the Dem only thread, but frankly I've become convinced that nobody on the other side of the fence even cares when such blatant abuse of authority is revealed any more.

Nothing like keeping your enemies and information close, eh?

 

I do think it's wrong. Put him on all these committees after he's been cleared, or not.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Nothing like keeping your enemies and information close, eh?

 

I do think it's wrong.  Put him on all these committees after he's been cleared, or not.

Oh yeah, these guys could teach Machiavelli a turn or too.

[BigSqwert]

Obama gets the grammy for spoken word. Every Senator who has won a grammy has gone on to be President.

[kapkomet]

Obama gets the grammy for spoken word.  Every Senator who has won a grammy has gone on to be President.

?? More info please.

[BigSqwert]

?? More info please. 

I made up that 2nd part.

[Balta1701]

In the first full post-SOTU speech poll i've seen...Pew is saying that the speech produced virtually no bounce at all for the President (1-2 points since December, well within the margin of error of the poll). Still stuck at 40%.

[Balta1701]

John McCain, December 2002:

 

BILL MOYERS: Senator, in your home state of Arizona, a number of candidates recently were elected to office running with public funding, public financing. Would you support it? Would you endorse, what do you think about that experiment there?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: I think it's good overall. I think it needs to, like any other new experiment, it needs to have some wrinkles taken out of it. But we had more people run for public office than any time in the history of our state, and that's what it was all about.

 

As I say, there's some fixes that need to be made, but it was a new experiment, and overall I think was very successful and interestingly the ones who are running, you know what they're telling me? They said, surprise, surprise, I spend my time talking to voters not to contributors.

 

BILL MOYERS: Do you think that could become a model for the nation as a whole?

 

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: Absolutely.

 

This was discussed yesterday:

 

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin and Sen. Chris Dodd, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, said yesterday that they will push for public financing of federal elections.

 

The revelations follow public financing proposals that two senior House Democrats unveiled late last month.

 

Rep. David Obey (Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, announced Jan. 25 plans to reform dramatically the funding of House campaigns. Under their proposal, taxpayers would be asked to contribute voluntarily to a national campaign fund.

 

Congressional observers largely dismissed Obey and Frank's proposal as a political gesture, but Durbin and Dodd's support for public financing of elections makes the concept more viable.

 

And Mr. McCain's response?

McCain immediately dismissed the proposal yesterday with a flat "no."

 

"We've only had BCRA for one election cycle," McCain said, referring to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

Urge to throw flip-flops at him...rising...

[Balta1701]

CNN starts off by showing images of the King Funeral speeches (the stuff mentionning the WMD), but cuts out the applause from the segment.

 

Fox News does exactly the same thing. Then Morton Kondracke comments on the fact that the response of the audience "wasn't exactly uproarious"

[Balta1701]

Linky

[Balta1701]

Meet the new boss...

 

Kevin Madden, until recently communications director for Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, will join Majority Leader Boehner's office as press secretary.

[Rex Kickass]

[Balta1701]

Bush nominates totally unqualified man to serve as one of the 7 Federal Reserve governors...guy doesn't have any sort of Ph.D. in economics, but has strong Republican connections and has served directly in this administration. Economists unhappy about the choice, White House not allowing the guy to give interviews while his nomination is up. Usual day I guess.

 

Supposedly, when that nomination goes through, Bush will have appointed all 7 members of the Fed. Governors, and 3 of them will have actively served in his administration, possibly for the first time ever, and definately for the first time in recent memory according to bloomberg.

[Balta1701]

So Media Matters has an interesting and thorough report on the Strong Republican slant in Sunday Morning Talk shows running all the way back through the latter years of the Clinton Administration.

[Cknolls]

So Media Matters has an interesting and thorough report on the Strong Republican slant in Sunday Morning Talk shows running all the way back through the latter years of the Clinton Administration.

 

Why didn't they compare the first terms under both Pres?

[Balta1701]

Why didn't they compare the first terms under both Pres?

Very simple...Lexis Nexis starts to have a large number of holes in their data when you start pushing back into the 1st term of Clinton. They didn't have any way to access the data to compile a complete story.

Edited February 14, 2006 by Balta1701

[YASNY]

Very simple...Lexis Nexis starts to have a large number of holes in their data when you start pushing back into the 1st term of Clinton.  They didn't have any way to access the data to compile a complete story.

 

That speaks volumes.

[Rex Kickass]

Yeah. They also would have holes if they pushed back to Bush's term in the early 90s or Reagan's presidency. But I guess that speaks volumes too.

[Balta1701]

This is about the level of dislike that it takes to make me contribute during a primary battle.

 

U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar -- a so-called Democrat from Laredo, Texas -- wants to give $100 million dollars to the Minutemen, the racist, gun-toting vigilante group.

 

Last October, Representative Cuellar sponsored a bill called the "Border Law Enforcement Act of 2005" that would essentially deputize members of the Minutemen militia by giving them new titles, badges and guns.

 

There is a saying in Spanish,"dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres," which basically means that you can tell a lot about a person by the company that they keep. Representative Cuellar sponsored the "Border Law Enforcement Act" with none other than the "Grand Dragon" of the anti-immigrant legislators - Rep. Tom Tancredo, Republican from Colorado. Cuellar's bill is also part of the draconian House-passed immigration reform bill HR 4437, which, among other wrong headed ideas, would further militarize the US/Mexico border, build a Berlin-style wall all along the border, and criminalize millions of immigrants and good Samaritans.

[kapkomet]

This is about the level of dislike that it takes to make me contribute during a primary battle.

Go Cuellar. He's right.

[Balta1701]

Bush To Discuss Health Care During Visit To Wendy's

 

Well, at least the President has a sense of Irony. Either that, or he thinks it'd be good health care policy for more people to have heart attacks and die at age 40.