Tag Archives: George W. Bush

George W. Bush Reflects Back on 2003 Iraq Invasion – A Satire

March 21, 2013

On this 10th anniversary of George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq back in 2003 the FOX news network invited the former president earlier this week to ruminate over his decision to commit U.S. troops in a war that gave us little of what was promised. Brit Hume of the FOX news network sat down with the 43rd president on the expansive patio at his upscale home in the affluent Preston Hollow district of Dallas. A wealthy neighborhood that once had a written covenant excluding blacks from moving into the neighborhood. Unfortunately, this interview never made it to its intended public broadcast as you will understand later. The transcript of the interview was obtained from a former FOX employee who was fired recently by Roger Ailes because she turned out to be a fake blond.

from an earlier interview in January, 2009

Brit Hume: Good afternoon Mr. President and thanks so much for sharing your time with me and the American people, or at least the 30-35% who watch our network religiously.

GWB: Well your welcome Brett, it’s a pleasure to have you here. I hope Lance from my Secret Service detail didn’t tickle your privates too much in his search for weapons before letting you on to the property. … he,he,he.

BH: It’s Brit sir and speaking of the Secret Service sir, are they a disruptive factor for the billionaire residents on this cul-de-sac you share it with?

GWB: Oh heck no Brett. My good buddy and former owner of the Texas Rangers, Tom Hicks, is delighted at the extra security it affords them all. You know, to keep that 47% away who just like to mooch off of people like us. (sheepish grin)

BH: I can only imagine and please Mr. President, it’s Brit. Well, I’m here today to congratulate you on the 10th anniversary of your heroic decision to invade the evil domain of Saddam Hussein and the successful efforts your advisors administered in the initial shock and awe campaign that gave our viewers sitting in the comfort of their living room a rather dazzling display of fireworks over the city of Baghdad.

GWB: Whoo boy! That sure was a show wasn’t it. And you know, we missed getting ole Saddam by a possum’s pubic hair that night. (Bush holds up his right hand and presses his index finger to his thumb)

REALITY: The Shock and Awe campaign of 2003 began, appropriately enough, with an air strike on March 19, supposedly intended to kill Saddam Hussein but aimed at a location where he was not present, and — appropriately enough — missing the target aimed at. Attacks continued at a low level until 1700 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) on March 21, when the main bombing campaign began with 1,700 air sorties. By April 15, 2003, according to the BBC, there had been 41,000 sorties, 15,500 strike sorties, and 27,000 bombs dropped. This was combined with a ground assault. A greater number of bombs had been dropped on Iraq, according to the BBC, in 1991: 120,000 sorties, 40,000 strike sorties, 265,000 bombs dropped. By April 30, 2003, T. Michael Moseley, Lt. Gen, USAF, reported 29,200 air strikes during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

GWB: Whoa, whoa, whoa!!! What was that that just flew up there on the screen monitor. Where did all those facts and figures come from.

BH: I don’t know Mr. President. I saw it too and I can assure you we at FOX would have never had any numbers like that. We’ll investigate and be sure to edit that out before this airs sir.

GWB: Well, I hope so. I don’t want the American people to think their President would lie to them about something a few of our good men and women in the military died for, along with a few Iraqis that were the unfortunate “collateral damage” types Secretary Rumsfeld referred to at the time … he, he, he.

REALITY: Researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that between March 18, 2003, and June 2006, there were 654,965 excess deaths in Iraq, of which 601,027 were due to violence. Excess deaths means, in this case, deaths exceeding the already high death rate under sanctions. So, all else equal, avoiding the war would have saved 654,965 lives just in the first three-and-a-quarter years, but avoiding the war and ending the sanctions would have saved many more lives.

The British based Opinion Research Business found that between March 2003 and August 2007, there were 1,033,000 violent deaths of Iraqis in Iraq.

Experts on surveys of this sort have supported the conclusions of Johns Hopkins and of the Opinion Research Business as strenuously as the U.S. corporate media (LIKE FOX) has hypocritically denounced them. A review of this debate is found in Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage by Michael Otterman and Richard Hill with Paul Wilson.

Among the dead are 4,489 U.S. and smaller numbers of other Western troops, not counting private contractors, and not counting those who have died from war injuries after leaving Iraq.

GWB: Damn! There it goes again. What gives Brent? You yanking my chain here?

BH: Not at all sir. I assure you that this is not something our network would sanction. Our loyalty at FOX to you and the GOP is without question sir and we would do nothing to distort the fantasy we have helped mold of you, your administration and the Republican Party. Let me remind you too sir that I go by B-R-I-T.

GWB: Yeh, well okay. But just to put myself at ease in case there is some spy satellite hovering over head sending some kind of frequency to your telecommunicator thingies there, let’s move inside where we can shield against such an invasion of privacy. We shouldn’t have to fear somebody listening in to our conversation without being asked now would we? (the president gives Brit a wink and half grin)

The former president and Mr. Hume get settled into an anteroom in his plush residence.

BH: Getting back to our praise for your victory in Iraq sir, how do you think the middle East will develop overtime now that your efforts to spread freedom have been firmly planted there?

GWB: You know Brite, since we removed that dictator Saddam Hussein the Iraqi people have created a fledgling democracy where they can vote for their leaders and build a secure future for them and their children.

REALITY: While the dramatic escalation of violence that for several years was predicted would accompany any U.S. withdrawal did not materialize, Iraq is not at peace. Violence is still a part of life, and it may worsen in the months or years ahead.[lv] Sectarian divisions that developed during the war remain very much in place.[lvi] The war destabilized Iraq internally, created regional tensions, and — of course — generated widespread resentment for the United States. That was the opposite result of the stated one of making the United States safer.

GWB: Holy bejeezus! That’s it! Lance, escort Bret and his crew out of here post haste.

BH: But, but … Mr. President, I …

GWB: Shut the fuck up Brett and go.

BH: Fuck you too sir and it’s BRIT goddammit.

Bush could be overheard walking away saying “no wonder he changed his last name to Hume. Who would want to be called Brit Goddammit?”

It was reported later that the former president locked himself in his large bathroom, finding solace from his conscience that revealed his war crimes in Iraq by painting these rather unconventional self-portraits. Is this the actions of a man trying to cleanse himself to absolve his sense of guilt?

NOW FOR A REALITY CHECK

The sad truth is that Bush’s legacy for taking us to war in Iraq has cost the American tax payer nearly $5 trillion, 4489 military personal lives lost, thousands more seriously injured and families of our men and women in uniform devastated. There have been over 1 million Iraqi war dead and thousands more who will forever feel the ramifications of that destructive invasion, all because someone in the Oval office wanted to play “General of the Army”. Between him, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and a few other fantasy warriors, the world is less safe than it was on March 20th, 2003 and the prospects of ever recapturing that condition despite the professed threat of “global terrorism”, is slim to none. At least for the next few generations.

For a greater understanding of what this has actually cost the world, please read David Swanson’s account - Iraq War Among World’s Worst Events

Posted by lbwoodgate in Satire Tags: 10th anniversary of Iraq invasion, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Brit Hume, consequences of Iraq war, fox news network, George W. Bush, George W. Bush's legacy, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, shock and awe

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The Screw Turns for Walter Williams

January 30, 2013

When dishonest collaboration with others arises from ideological zealotry we can create our own web of deceit that ensnares us and can forever discredit what we prize so highly. Our integrity.

Hypocrites, liars, cheats and thieves will often over step reasonable limits in their practices and eventually ensnare themselves with their own inflated self views. Joe McCarthy finally fell from grace when he demonstrated he had no decency in his delusional attacks on alleged communists in America. Bernie Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars finally came unravelled and sent him to prison for life. The lies of George W. Bush were legendary and along side his general incompetence will eventually put him with the likes of Warren G. Harding, Millard Fillmore, Ulysses Grant, John Tyler and James Buchanan

Their excesses were their own undoing but it took the work of others to expose their malfeasance. So, when someone who engages in unethical practices becomes their own condemner it becomes so much more rewarding for those of us who have battled with them to reveal them as the frauds they are. It is with great delight then that I present the case against conservative columnist Walter Williams who has been part of the echo chamber of misinformation regarding climate change.

Williams over the years has berated the specialist in the field of climate science for being a part of what his companion in the U.S. Senate, James Inhofe, has called “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”. As part of the fraternity of climate deniers people like Williams and Inhofe have taken the talking points of the fossil fuel industry and tried to convey a legitimate authority that disputes the evidence from specialists in their field. Evidence that strongly suggests that CO2 from burning oil, coal and even natural gas is adding to the natural limits of CO2 in our atmosphere and thus creating a barrier making it more difficult for the suns rays from escaping back out into space.

In doing this we are warming the planet quicker than any historical natural incidence of warming and dooming future generations to a planet that most species will perish from and many civilizations will also be unable to recover from, Adaptability will likely not be able to overcome the devastating impacts of multiple monstrous climate disasters. The frequency of such destructive forces like the Japanese tsunami, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy and severe drought in Africa, parts of Russia and most of the lower 48 states will overwhelm human resources and capabilities to marginalize, if not defeat, their effectiveness.

Large populations will have to be relocated as sea levels rise from melting polar caps and mountain glaciers. This melting will also contribute to dangerous acidic levels in the seas and oceans destroying the marine life that is vital as a food source for millions of people. Farming land will turn to deserts as droughts continue to impoverish the soils reducing not only food supplies for human consumption but necessary feed stock for meat and dairy suppliers. The economic impacts will begin to create chaos around the world. More arid regions means less plant life needed to carry out the photosynthesis necessary to generate the oxygen all life requires.

Had we listened to the climate scientists like Dr. James Hansen over two decades ago that warned us of this impending threat, our ability to stave off the worst aspects of man-made global warming could likely have prevented much of what we are currently experiencing. But once the monied interests that infects the fossil fuel industry devised their scheme to create doubt about the climate science warnings, the pubic became too unwilling to listen with their minds and instead allowed people like Walter Williams to convince them that conspiracies were afoot to rob them of their hard-earned money. A notion created out of thin air but none-the-less, when cleverly presented, strikes at the concerns of most working people’s hearts and pocket books.

How ironic then, when after years of disputing the climate science by people who themselves were not specialist with this field, that Walter Williams has come to tell us now that we should be leery of the claims made by people whose expertise lies outside the authority of those they judge. In one of his ethereal tangents Williams attempts to remove any notion of deity from certain experts, citing examples throughout history of people who were “the greatest and most influential scientist” in their field but whose credibility suffered when they stepped into areas that belied any expertise.

The take-home lesson is that experts are notoriously fallible outside of their fields of endeavor — and especially so when making predictions. … The bottom line is that the fact that a person has academic degrees, honors and status is no reason for us to abandon our tools of critical thinking. SOURCE

And yet throughout the last few years Williams has on numerous occasions tried to act as some sort of expert in the field of divining who the authorities were that could best tell us what does or doesn’t impact our climate these days. Climate science is a special field of science and as things stand today, 98% of climate scientists support the consensus that man-made climate change is real. That’s up 2% from a just a few short years ago when a clear 96% believed this.

Yet Williams, throughout his years of reporting on climate change and man-made global warming, has insisted that the opposite is true and that the planet is more likely cooling down rather than heating up. Using the disputed claims of two geologists, Williams violates his recent claim about using “experts” outside their field of expertise to bolster the notion that “an increasing amount of climate research suggests a possibility of global cooling” is occurring.

Like many of his fellow deniers Williams provides no numbers or predictions to support most of his contentions beyond the vague and un-sourced assertions he makes. Rather he engages in what many in the climate denier camp do, using false equivalents that presumes there are equally legitimate arguments to dispute the data of climate scientists.

In January, 2010, never citing any irrefutable evidence from a legitimate climate scientist, Williams made the audacious claim that “many climatologists have been intimidated into silence.” I can count on one hand how many real climate scientist still associate with the deniers. Williams, an economics professor at George Mason University, syndicated columnist and author is also on record for saying that “there is absolutely no close relationship between CO2 levels and temperature.” Ask anyone who owns a greenhouse if the energy exchange between the suns rays and the emitted CO2 given off from their plants that gets trapped does not generate heat.

When Williams talks about numerous scientists who refute the claims of man-made global warming he is talking about a list cited in one of James Inhofe’s senate presentations where he said that more than 650 International Scientists dissented over man-made global warming claims. Upon close scrutiny of this list the vast majority of these people were either not scientist or practiced in fields other than the climate sciences. Experts, Williams tells us, that can be “notoriously fallible outside of their fields of endeavor”.

So I concur with Mr. Williams in his assessment about how a person’s “academic degrees, honors and status is no reason for us to abandon our tools of critical thinking”. Now if only he would reflect on this about himself he may fully understand how it has come about that he has firmly planted his foot in his own mouth.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Climate Science/Global Warming, Journalism/Media, political fringe groups Tags: Climate change, climate deniers, George W. Bush, Global warming, Hurricane Katrina, Jim Inhofe, Joe McCarthy, media hypocrites, Walter Williams, Warren G. Harding

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Want To Be Seen As “Cool” In Texas? Buy a Gun Silencer.

April 4, 2012

Being cool is different to different people. To the very wealthy it’s how they can dispose of their excess wealth by being the first to buy a piece of modern art that cost more than many people’s job income each year, as Morley Safer showed us in a segment on last Sunday”s “60 Minutes”. For other’s, being cool is all about peeing in your pants. Here in Texas, never wanting to be outdone by anyone else, we have a combination of the wealthy arrogance and Billy Madison immaturity to convey what’s cool.

Nationwide, more than 22,000 [gun] noise suppressors were sold this year — 9 percent more than last year — and the most were sold in Texas for at least the third year in a row…

“People just want them,” Glen Furtardo said, … manager at the Winchester Gallery gun store in east Fort Worth. “It’s like tattoos. … They have come out of the closet. Now everyone gets them.”

DeWayne Irwin, who owns the Cheaper Than Dirt gun store in north Fort Worth, said he has steadily seen sales of silencers rise, along with ammunition and guns, over the past two years. “Ninety percent of the people who buy them just think they are so cool,” Irwin said. “This is Texas.” SOURCE

For many of us who were born and raised in the Lone Star State we have slowly watched too many people in it devolve into a dysfunctional, undereducated caveman-like society. Texas has a progressive legacy with such people as Sam Houston, John Nance Garner, Sam Rayburn, Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson, Molly Ivins and Ann Richards.

The state can lay claim to some of the music greats like Buddy Holly, Willy Nelson and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Military heroes ranged from John Coker in Texas’ fight for independence to Audie Murphy’s Medal of honor action in WWII and carried through with today’s highly decorated William Harry McRaven, who currently serves as ninth Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command and who’s credited with organizing and executing the special ops raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden.

There was a certain pride Texans had that was the envy of many in the other 49 states. We still project to many around the world an enduring mystique of the American cowboy that symbolizes the rugged west of an earlier time. But over the last few decades Texas is becoming the butt of many jokes and is being represented by some of the most notable mental midgets of our time. The disease that has festered was perhaps sparked by the infamous Texan who killed President Kennedy back in 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald. Since then the state has gradually edged toward the ideological red of the political spectrum that now divides us as a people.

The rest of the world now sees buffoonery coming out of Texas either in the personal images of George W. Bush, his “turd blossom”, Karl Rove, or the current self-serving, coiffed governor, Rick Perry. It’s the state that wants to secede from the union, built an expensive, ineffective wall along the Rio Grande to keep their cheap labor force out, engaged in revisionist history in school text books affecting the rest of the nation’s school systems and along with several other red states, implemented a law requiring an intrusive vaginal sonogram for any woman contemplating an abortion.

We have the highest number of people without health insurance coverage and rank near the bottom in the important educational categories of science and math. And even with the third-most millionaires of any state, with 381,165, Texas is still only #25 in Median Household Income, reflecting the low wage base for most working families.

So it wasn’t surprising, after watching Bill Maher’s “New Rules” segment last Friday to discover that Texas, along with several other states now allows you to buy silencers for both handguns and hunting rifles. Evidently the law has been around for a few years and as a Texan who owns no gun(s) I was unaware of this law. Maher’s revelation in his “New Rules” segment sent me googling for information on this subject which brought me to Anna Tinsley’s story in the Ft. Worth Star telegram published back in December 2010

Its’ a good story. It doesn’t bash gun owners and even slips a comment in from a Dallas volunteer for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence to question why a citizen who arms themselves for security reason needs a silencer. Recent events in Sanford, Florida might provide a clue for this. Texas too has a “stand your ground” law that allows you to shoot people who you suspect pose a threat to you anywhere away from your home. A noisy handgun or rifle going off might disturb the neighbors watching the current episode of “Survivor”.

We may be dumbing down in Texas but we are considerate about disturbing our neighbors as suggested by Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson “if you’re getting rid of squirrels in your back yard”. Patterson, a former state senator who shepherded conceal-carry legislation in 1995, hunts wild hogs by attracting a herd of them to a feeder and picks them off as they’re eating. The silencer serves “a practical use if you want to shoot one without scaring others off”, he says.

What I found especially amusing in Tinsley’s story were those gun owners who might use silencers on them as they fire off rounds with other like minded people.

Some people take their silencers to shooting ranges. Others might take them to “machine gun shoots,” where gun lovers gather to fire at targets.

An un-cool person might purchase ear protection headsets where many are reasonably priced for around $50. But only the cool Texan would spend between $199 to $6,000 for a gun silencer.

Who wants to look like this

when you can look like this

Those of us who have to suffer these troglodytes can only shake our heads and wonder how much further this state will recede into the shallow-minded abyss that thinks being cool entails using a weapon solely intended to kill and then shows concern that it’s use will exceed normal decibel levels.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Texas/Local stories Tags: Bill Maher "Real Time", Billy Madison, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, George W. Bush, gun silencers, John Nance Garner, stand your ground laws, Texas, Texas sells most gun silencers, troglodytes in Texas

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The Hazards of Ideology When Critical Thinking is Removed: Part II

December 13, 2011

HOW WE GOT TO THIS POINT

In Part I I talked about those elements in free market thinking that puts job creation above other human needs and that those who take this tact use it for persuading voters to keep government “over reach” out of the free markets, a position that presumes that if left alone, an “invisible hand” of the market will create a level field and ultimately make life better for all of us

However the human element of greed has taken root in Capitalism and the vision that Adam Smith spoke to is now being exploited and allowing some to expand their wealth to the detriment of the rest of us. It has creeped into the very system of government that allowed the free markets to flourish and is changing our democracy to one of a plutocracy

“Yes, our regulatory agencies are incompetent. But they are incompetent by design.” –writer David Goldstein

During the Bush/Cheney years nearly every agency and department was staffed and chaired by people from the very industries they were supposed to monitor and check for abuses and excesses. Laws were watered down and in many cases overlooked to prevent what they felt was any undue hardship to corporate interests. One of the most glaring examples was failure of the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf last year. The short cuts and omissions by management helped create conditions that led to this human and environmental disaster but government oversight was lacking and perhaps led to this lax state of mind by the industry

Bush’s Mineral Management Service Agency Director (now called BOEMRE, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement), Johnnie Burton, and her boss at the Interior Department are but two examples.

In July, Republicans the House Government Reform Committee accused [Ms. Burton’s] agency of stonewalling their investigation. In September, they accused [her] of going too far in making concessions to oil companies. That same month, the Interior Department’s chief independent investigator declared that “short of crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior.

Under President Bush, the Interior Department’s top ranks were filled with people with close ties to industry. Most prominent were Gale A. Norton, a strong advocate of domestic drilling who [eventually] stepped down as Interior secretary and subsequently joined Shell Oil, and G. Steven Griles, a former industry lobbyist who became deputy secretary and now faces a possible indictment on charges of lying about his dealings with the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

In November [of 2006], Interior officials announced that a new task force of outside experts would evaluate the royalty program. Officials named David T. Deal, a longtime lawyer for the American Petroleum Institute, to head the panel.

“[Under Bush], there [w]as … a clear agenda to promote oil and gas development wherever and however they can,” said Erich Pica, a policy analyst at Friends of the Earth, an environmental policy group. “Time and again, you [saw] the administration and its political appointees side with the oil and gas companies.” SOURCE

The problem of corporate cronyism under Bush was so prevalent that the sentiment expressed in 2005 by former EPA toxicologist, Deborah Rice, pretty much sums it up – “They [the FDA] really consider the fish industry to be their clients, rather than the U.S. public.” But this sort of relationship started long before George W. Bush became our 43rd President and has existed to some degree in most administrations. Shortly after we became a nation, men like Thomas Jefferson were already concerned about corporations and their influence in government.

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Even James Madison, a favorite of the TeaParty crowd, saw the encroachment of corporate power as a threat to the new republic.

There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by…corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses. -President James Madison

The complicity of ardent, laissez faire free marketers to over look the flaws and deception by corporate interests has reached a level that simply defies logic. The belief that individual liberties always supersede the collective good has led many political leaders paid by corporate lobbyists to promote their concerns even in light of serious issues where better judgement would pause and reflect on the wisdom or the lack thereof to follow through with them.

Take for example the current stand taken by those on the right towards the EPA’s efforts to monitor CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt already that such sources of energy production create other toxic emissions like mercury and ash that have caused serious health issues with populations that live in close proximity to these facilities. CO2 buildup in the earth’s atmosphere is occurring at a faster rate than historical records have shown and yet corporate friendly congress men and women refuse to make provisions to keep in check such emissions from a source known to contribute heavily to this build up.

There are those within the industry that see the need to comply with efforts to keep our CO2 emissions at reduced rates to prevent their further impact on man-made global warming but the ardent laissez faire free marketers within that industry are spending millions to obstruct such efforts based purely on their ideological beliefs that it is not the government’s job to inhibit their production and thus their profits. Specious arguments are contrived by paid goons to dispel the threats of global warming by presenting arguments that have been aptly debunked by a consensus of climate scientists.

Critical thinking is abandoned by such strongly held views that refuse to look outside the box of their own thinking. It is one thing to hold to views that don’t require the use of tools at our disposal to attest to the veracity of such claims and another to ignore the body of evidence that reliably shows how the actions of “A” can lead to the consequences of “B”.

In religious views for example there are no measuring devices to better ascertain whether an unseen force uses evil to punish a wayward people as Jerry Falwell claimed on Pat Roberson’s 700 Club shortly following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, or the belief by many evangelicals that “God causes disasters and sometimes does so as punishment.” But we have the capabilities and tools to measure global warming’s impact on climate change through an array of measuring devices spread across the globe, on land, under the sea and in the air. Some skeptics, especially those paid by the fossil fuel industry, may refute or challenge the findings of these measurements but the countless empirical tests of numerous different hypotheses that have now built up a massive body of Earth science knowledge creates a consensus view that only a fool would deny.

” A real free market does not allow one person to damage another person with impunity.” — Michael Rozeff

It is equally dangerous to ignore the bigger picture where only one aspect dominates the thinking of authoritative figures over the total impact of a given decision. The outcry by ardent laissez faire free marketers regarding the delay of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline that will transfer oil from the Canadian tar sands in Alberta to the refineries in Texas is a case in point. They claim in this time of high unemployment that we should be doing everything we can to push for the types of jobs this pipeline will create.

It makes a good argument but overlooks the bigger picture we face for potential health and environmental hazards similar to what we suffered from not only the BP Gulf oil disaster but from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, BP’s TransAlaska pipeline, a million-gallon oil spill in Michigan, and a gas explosion that destroyed 37 homes and killed eight people in California. There are also the “14 other spills that have occurred from Keystone since the first phase opened in 2010”, says Vern Meier, the company’s vice president of U.S. pipeline operations.

“Much corporate environmentalism boils down to misleading statistics and hype.” –Business Week cover story investigating the impacts of corporate environmental initiatives

The environmental threats are worth noting, especially individual concerns that the pipeline’s path “would threaten the water for people in seven states and a third of irrigated groundwater for U.S. agriculture.” This could prove to be costly in the not-so-distant future for those municipalities in these areas, eating more into the already dwindling wages of most workers. There is also the very real possibility that constructing this pipeline as planned “will raise gasoline prices.”

I have not even mentioned the reality that this project extends our dependence on a source of fuel that directly impacts man-made global warming; warming that will melt the glaciers and arctic ice, raising sea levels that will devastate the world’s coastal cities and cover some nation islands. When these factors are included into the equation the long term health care and energy cost increases that will result are sure to outweigh the immediate need to create jobs today. When that time arrives will we have regretted our haste to achieve a short term goal that will leave our budgets even further strained had we thought things through more critically?

“The difference between what we are doing and what we are capable of doing would solve most of the world’s problems.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Job creation from sustaining the finite fossil fuel sources of energy today need to be weighed in terms that look beyond tomorrow. Increased costs for finding the more hidden remaining sources of oil and coal will not keep these sources cheap and their use will continue to create health issues as they also threaten our ecosystem, creating food and water shortages around the globe and opening us to the hazards of war to compete for these dwindling essentials

When such views hold that violent climatic changes are a sign from God and that immediate concerns should ignore long term consequences, you have to wonder if the thinking of the Dark Ages is not resurfacing.

The real owners of this country, the wealthy business interests … don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interest. - George Carlin

RELATED ARTICLES:

What The Founding Fathers Thought About Corporations

30 Major U.S. Corporations Paid More to Lobby Congress Than Income Taxes, 2008-2010

The Hazards of Ideology When Critical Thinking is Removed: Part I

Posted by lbwoodgate in climate change, social security, aging, Corporate Influence, Economy Tags: Adam Smith, Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, Capitalism, change of direction, coal and oil, consumption economics, corporate special interests, crony capitalism, Deepwater Horizon, dirty energy, EPA, financial market collapse, financial markets, fossil fuel industries, Free market, Gale Norton, George W. Bush, global markets, James Madison, job growth, Laissez-faire, military-industrial complex, Milton Friedman, one-percenters, post world war II economy, rigid ideology, Tea Party politics, U. S. government, United States Department of the Interior, wealth of nations, wealthy interests

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Need More Proof That Republicans Favor Corporate and Wealthy Citizens Over You and Me?

August 22, 2011

For all the faithful who have believed as the Tea Party-controlled GOP wanted, that our deficit issue was a spending issue and not a revenue issue, the latest news out of Washington reveals a truth that appears to debunk that myth.

The opening lines from an Associated Press article by Charles Babington says it all

News flash: Congressional Republicans want to raise your taxes.

Impossible, right? GOP lawmakers are so virulently anti-tax, surely they will fight to prevent a payroll tax increase on virtually every wage-earner starting Jan. 1, right?

Apparently not.

Many of the same Republicans who fought hammer-and-tong to keep the George W. Bush-era income tax cuts from expiring on schedule are now saying a different “temporary” tax cut should end as planned. By their own definition, that amounts to a tax increase.

The tax break extension they oppose is sought by President Barack Obama. Unlike proposed changes in the income tax, this policy helps the 46 percent of all Americans who owe no federal income taxes but who pay a “payroll tax” on practically every dime they earn. SOURCE

This means that the GOP wants to remove the tax break that working people are getting to reduce the deficit while trying to sustain a tax break that benefits mainly wealthy individuals whose income comes largely from non-labor sources like investments in the stock market and capital ventures using other people’s money.

Remember this comment from an Op-Ed piece by billionaire Warren Buffet

“If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your [income tax rate] percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine” — most likely by a lot. SOURCE

In other words those who make an income for services rendered in the form of their labor are paying higher rates of taxes than those who “make money with money” such as bankers, investors and hedge fund managers, who among the top 25 in this country benefitted from special tax cuts that put about $4 billion more in their pocket last year. This means working people will be asked to continue making sacrifices for the sake of lowering the nation’s debt while the wealthiest 5% who own nearly 70% of the financial wealth in this country are spared.

I don’t know if there is something in the drinking water that Republicans drink but there has to be something to explain the sheer gall of making such a suggestion just a few short weeks after they threatened to shut down the government and derail any inkling of a recovery by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless they got a budget that had NO tax increases in it. These are the same people who have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge that demands they not raise taxes in any way, shape or form.

To keep this payroll tax cut in place will cost the treasury another $120 million a year Babington tells us in his report, but this is if you combine all three types of payroll taxes which consist of income tax withholding, Social Security and Medicare taxes and Unemployment taxes. Based on payroll taxes I incurred my last full year of employment in 2008, the income tax withholding was roughly about two-thirds of my total payroll taxes.

It makes sense to reinstate the taxes for Social Security/Medicare and Unemployment benefits during these tough economic times. With high unemployment and the increasing numbers of baby boomers retiring, these two areas need not be cut at this critical point. That leaves the income tax withholding portion, an amount that can easily be covered by ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 5% in this country.

Is the haze clearing for you yet? The signal I am getting from this willingness by Republicans to reinstate the tax revenue lost by cutting payroll taxes is indicative of someone who sees the need to use tax revenue to pay down the deficit. This goes against the mantra of those on the right that say the deficit is a spending issue, not a revenue issue.

We have people in Congress who claim they want to keep taxes low so it can stimulate the economy but this is cover for those tax cuts that essentially benefit wealthy and corporate tax payers. It was the cutting of taxes twice during the Bush administration that aided in depleting the surplus he inherited from the Clinton administration (see chart above) as it failed to generate any kind of significant job growth over seven years. It did however succeed in handing Obama a $1 trillion budget deficit in 2009. The wealthiest people in this country not only benefit from an over all lower tax rate but see extra benefits from lower estate taxes, capital gains taxes and investment income taxes – all the tax cuts that the large majority of Americans will never find themselves in need of.

The GOP’s heart felt concern for the wealthy has always been transparent and now their lack of concern for the rest of us is equally clear. How else would you describe a need to reinstate the higher poll taxes, which by their own definition, as Babington points out, amounts to a tax increase.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Budget Crisis, Economy, Jobs Tags: Barack Obama, Bush tax cuts, cuts in social security and medicare, George W. Bush, Grover Norquist, income gap in U.S., investor class tax breaks, Norquist's tax pledge, Payroll tax, Republican, Republicans favor tax cuts for wealthy, tax breaks for corporations, Tax cut, tax cuts for wealthiest 2%, tax increases for low-income

11 comments

The Big Lie the TEA Party Was Founded On

June 12, 2011

Taxes are lower than they have been for decades. So why do those on the right claim they have been “Taxed Enough Already?”

Remember back in 2009 when the Tea Party first made itself known to the public. It created an acronym from the words, “Taxed Enough Already” – TEA - and they took that acronym to represent a time in history when American colonists protested high taxes by the British Royal government without representation by dumping crates of tea in the Boston harbor. The problem with this notion for the Tea Party, that they’re being taxed too much, is that it’s not true, then or now.

The researchers at the Center for American Progress think tank have documented, with the use of 10 graphs, that taxes are not only not oppressive but haven’t been this low for nearly 60 years.

Somebody hasn’t been paying attention to these facts or perhaps has deliberately exploited right-wing anger following the passage of the $800 billion stimulus package Obama and the Democrats passed to prevent the economy from devolving into another Great Depression era. The fractious elements with ultra-conservative groups that began to connect with each other through social networking in early 2009 were ultimately funneled and more cohesively formed by astroturf groups like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity (AFP)

Both groups are tainted. In an article by Ed Pilkington with The Guardian, we discover that “FreedomWorks and AFP are sister groups who came from the same parent body — a campaign called Citizens for Sound Economy, which split in two in 2004. It was set up by one of America’s richest men, David Koch, an oil tycoon who has funded right-wing causes for decades.

FreedomWorks receives funding from the tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris, as well as from Richard Scaife, another business tycoon, who for years helped fund dirt-digging investigations into Bill Clinton. Local branches of Americans for Prosperity have also received tobacco money; the group has opposed smoke-free workplace laws and cigarette taxes.”

FreedomWorks and AFP took the honest outrage of people who mistakenly thought they were being taxed for wasteful spending at a time when many Americans were losing their jobs and homes and used it to promote the hysteria that would benefit them in undermining the Democrats in 2010. The “anti-tax movement” that resulted, not from real over-taxing, but from fear generated by people whose self-interest to regain the seats of power were preeminent, is now exposed as a fraud.

Tax revenue as share of GDP is lower now at 14.8% than it was in 1946 at 20.4% and lower than it ever was during George Bush’s or Ronald Reagan’s administrations.

The U.S. has much lower taxes as a share of GDP – 26.9%, than other developed countries like Canada, 33.1%, Great Britain, 35.8% and Denmark with 49.3%.

We have lower tax rates than our parents or some grandparents did. In 1945 top marginal tax rates on ordinary income was 94%. Today it is currently at 35%.

Top capital gains tax rates are also lower now at 15%, a rate we haven’t seen since 1933.

The tax on large estates has virtually disappeared. Total percent of all estates subject to federal tax has dropped from 2.14% in 2001 to 0% in 2010 but which has recently rose to 0.14% this year.

Tax rates for the wealthy and super wealthy have plunged. Millionaires who were paying 26.8% of their total income towards taxes in 1992 are now paying around 22.8%. Billionaires have received an even better deal. The richest 400 households went from a tax rate of 26.4% in the same time period to one of 16.6%

Corporate tax revenue has also declined over the years following WWII. Corporate tax revenue as a share of GDP has dropped from 7.2 percent in 1945 to 1.3% this year.

The U.S. raises less tax revenue from corporations than most other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (OCED). Out of 26 OCED countries 18 others have a higher corporate tax revenues as a share of GDP than the U.S., with Norway having nearly 4 times the rate than the U.S.

And the one that anti-tax, pro-corporate Republicans like to tell constituents about how the U.S. are taxed more than their foreign rivals is also bunk. Technically on paper that business tax rate is 35% which is higher than in most OCED countries but thanks to tax breaks and loopholes for corporations that have proliferated since 1982 from $526.1 billion in 1982 to over $1 trillion in 2010, U.S. companies have an effective corporate tax rate of 13.4%, a rate that is lower than 19 other OCED countries.

Voters are being misled by powerful interests to vote out those we sent to Washington to correct years of spending by Republicans who had no serious plan in place to pay for this spending. Under George Bush we borrowed furiously from foreign treasuries to replace the revenue lost through these tax cuts as well as paying for two foreign wars and a Medicare Prescription bill.

When George Bush and the Republican-led Congress signed off on tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% in 2001, we lost the revenue we needed to sustain the surplus we had then. Had this bill not been pushed through by corporate-friendly Republicans of that time we would have averted a deficit now that seems out of reach.

Clearly we’re are not going to get out of this mess with spending cuts alone. The Bush tax cuts need to end in 2012 as promised by the Obama administration. They should not have been renewed for two more years by Democrats last December to appease the new GOP majority in the House.

The record shows, contrary to GOP and Tea Party views, that raising taxes, especially on the wealthy, in such economic hard times will not only aid the recovery but will grow the GDP, as it did during the Depression Years of the 1930’s

There are no free rides and if we are to provide quality education for our children and sustain elderly retired workers that rely on Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid we need to end the tax Bush tax cuts across the board for all Americans. At this rough economic period for middle and low in come families we could perhaps postpone it for a couple of more years but the wealthiest 2% need to see tax rates reset to levels they survived handsomely under before Bush cut them in 2001. Tax rates that were still lower than they were under Ronald Reagan.

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections, Budget Crisis, Economy, Jobs Tags: budget surplus, Bush tax cuts, Corporate tax, FreedomWorks, George W. Bush, Gross domestic product, Ronald Reagan, tax cuts, Tax rate, tax revenue, Taxed Enough Already, Tea Party protests

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Is the Change We Voted for in 2008 Finally Gaining Some Footing?

May 28, 2011

In his Presidential campaign Obama promised voters “Change We Can Believe In” but did the economic down spiral generated long before his inauguration negatively impact his effectiveness and the voters’ patience?

The rhetoric of campaigns and campaign speeches are all too familiar to most of us who listen intently to politicians and their spin-meisters. Inherent in all campaigns is the theme of change, either progressive change – “fulfilling our destiny” – or a regressive motif – “reclaiming our country”, “restoring our values”.

It’s a premise that for some presumes everything that came before was not good enough and better days lie ahead, while for others it is the reverse – returning to “a better and simpler America”. Both have appeal and both have an element of truth to them.

Change in any direction has to be gradual to allow all of us time to readjust our thinking and our way of life. Change has to overcome the obstacles that remain once we have chosen change. These obstacles don’t magically disappear just because we have cast our vote for change. Those who have created those obstacles don’t fade away at a whim. One person’s obstacle is another’s sanctuary and fortress to fight from.

Now as apparent as this simple logic is to most people it is still difficult for a lot of them to be patient and allow change to become fully manifested. The initial energy of those who voted for change in 2008 needs to be sustained in order to effectively and more quickly push those ideas of change over the barriers that stand in the way. We mustn’t lose sight either that holding on to some traditions and cultural values has it place in a dynamic life cycle that alters civilization over time. The value and tradition of assisting others who are unable to or who have fallen on hard times is a well-established part of our heritage.

Our efforts to bring about the change we want must also be prepared to deal with distractions from our opponents that would weaken our overall efforts. The notion that budget deficits at this time are more important than job creation and fixing Social Security as baby boomers hit retirement age is a distraction being used by the GOP.

Change is inevitable and the best we can hope for is that we are able to control it at a reasonable level and not become so overwhelmed that we disengage from it. Humans have foibles though. We tend to lose our focus when shiny objects are put in front of us.

This is where we stand today as a nation. In 2008 we made a vote for change to correct the flaws and failures of Republican led government that converted a large budget surplus to a record deficit , started a very needless, expensive and life consuming war in Iraq, created the widest income gap yet in our history, invaded our privacy and damaged our international credentials with almost everyone, including many long-time allies.

The hands-off approach that allowed banks to fraudulently transfer great amounts of wealth from our savings to their tax-deferred offshore accounts caused the Great Recession of 2008 and saw job loss rates that hadn’t been seen in over a quarter of a century. As businesses suffered and people lost their source of revenue many middle-income families saw their retirement futures, their college funds for their kids and their homes disappear. Some will never regain what they once had.

But the short memories of many Americans of what and who brought us to this level seems to kick in at the least appropriate times. Accompanying this mental fog was the outrage many were feeling from the economic losses they were personally experiencing. Some who voted for change got swept up in the astroturf Tea Party euphoria that clamored to “throw the bums out” while others simply stayed home feeling rejected by President Obama and the Democrats they helped elect. It didn’t dawn on these overactive and non-active players who helped the GOP regain the House last fall, until it was too late, to realize they had not allowed their choice in 2008 the time it needed to work its way through a gridlocked political system.

The slow effects of corrupt financial institutions and politicians under the Bush White House and GOP majorities during the first eight years of this century did not get a full head of steam until just before they were booted out in 2008. The greatest impact of their misguided economic policies was only felt after power transferred to the Democrats on January 29th, 2009. But this reality was lost behind a well-funded and highly effective bogus message conveyed by the GOP to a beleaguered voting public about who was responsible.

This overall bogus message was given most of its clarity when the government bailed out those poorly managed financial institutions under both the Bush and Obama administrations as low and middle-income working families were pretty much left to fend for themselves. The perception however that was presented by Republican losers of the 2006 and 2008 elections was that the new administration was more at fault than anything they had done. To win re-election Republicans had to conceal any hand they had in the misery many Americans found themselves faced with while portraying themselves as agents of change that would “restore America to its greatness”.

The rhetoric of campaigns and campaign speeches that are all too familiar to most of us is in play again and may well again have its impact on voters who can’t seem to really think beyond their immediate circumstances and concerns. Some are like the easily distracted Golden Retriever, Dug, in the Disney animated movie, “UP”! whose attention span changed instantly at the thought of a “squirrel?!?” Holding to the belief that all things worth changing takes time is difficult in a culture where rapid responses are prevalent in all genres of human activity.

The reality that consumer needs are met in mere hours, minutes and seconds gets misplaced with political issues that have more lasting impact than those seeking to satisfy our empty stomachs or images of what will appeal to the opposite sex at tonight’s party. Things like world peace, national budgets, effective, low-cost heath care and environmental hazards brought on by an eagerness of some to become independently wealthy require more than a day, week, month or a year to correct. This is a lifetime to many people who have come to expect all things to change yesterday.

This short-sightedness by some voters has threatened the security of many elderly and low-income families as newly elected Tea Party-type politicians swept into office and began attempts to dismantle those social networks that serve the needs of seniors, children and the disabled. It has put our kids at risk as school budgets are slashed, putting teachers and staff in unemployment lines while expanding classroom sizes to meet state budgets that were undermined by tax cuts too deep in earlier years at the hands of the GOP. To pour salt into these wounds, tax subsidies for profitable corporations are sustained as well as avoiding needed spending cuts with a bloated Defense Department. The revenue these actions would create for Education and Medicare budgets are ignored by complicit conservative legislators.

The budget is now more serious in the minds of Republican and Tea Party fanatics than it was when Dick Cheney declared it wasn’t back in 2001. This phony dread generated by the GOP and their corporate backers has molded the misplaced idea that only cuts to the “welfare state” can save us, despite the fact that these programs have worked relatively well in times past WHEN they were appropriately funded. The corrections needed to make Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid more solvent are part of the health care reform bill passed last year by then Democratic majorities but are now being repealed by the new GOP majority in the House.

Our debt crisis isn’t solely the result of providing needed services for those who cannot physically meet their own needs but is more the result of drastic tax cuts for the wealthiest among us and a needless war in Iraq that had to be paid for by borrowed money from abroad. Instead of generating revenue here at home to pay as you go, the Republicans voted for hefty tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% that required borrowing money from the likes of China and Germany.

So as another campaign year rolls around the rhetoric that “deficits are bad” is dusted off to distract voters from what is most on their minds. Where are those who promised that “priority one is jobs!” Budgets are a smokescreen by corporate-friendly legislators to dance around high unemployment rates that are deeper than they were during the high rate periods under Reagan.

The GOP has released its comic book plan to restore jobs nearly six months after taking office and it is nothing more than a revisit to the failed policies of the past. To declare in their opening statement that “Democrats in Washington have enacted policies that undermine [the] basic concepts of … free markets, free enterprise, innovation and entrepreneurship” is laughable in light of the fact that the “free market system” failed under their watch while they deregulated everything.

Opportunities that Republicans have side stepped to create more jobs include a failure to vote for tax breaks for small businesses, assisting them offset their expenses with health care coverage for employees and ignoring the high potential for 21st century jobs in the fields that address our energy needs – developing the technology to produce clean, renewable energy sources of wind, solar and hydro power.

These failures, along with the Ryan plan to kill Medicare as we know it may prove to be too much to fool voters yet again. The recent outcries about such things at GOP town hall meetings and the election of a Democrat in a historically Republican district in New York state last Thursday could well be signaling that the change many expected in 2008 is still in play and making its way to the front of the line.

Let’s hope this is true and that people are willing to give the Democrats and the White House enough time to justify their 2008 decision. Lets also hope that the Democrats and the White House will not miss this opportunity to better fulfill their obligations and promises the electorate expect from them.

NY Upset Gives GOP Plenty to Worry About (newser.com)
So this is what GOP overreach produces (salon.com)
Poll: Most Obama Voters Likely to Vote for him Again (outsidethebeltway.com)

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections, Budget Crisis, Economy, Health Care Reform, Society and Politics Tags: astroturf Tea Party, Barack Obama, Barack Obama presidential campaign 2008, change we can believe in, Democratic Party, George W. Bush, GOP, Obama, Republican, restoring america, voter apathy

4 comments

Crazy in Texas

May 11, 2011

Like native Texan Gary Busey, the state of Texas has gone from an enviable position of having a lot going for it to one where it has people wondering what gutter we rolled out of.

It appears fellow liberal Texas blogger Neil Aquino and I were on the same thought wave for a blog today but Neil got his on-line first at his Texas Liberal website. So rather than duplicate some of what Neil’s said about the sorry state of Texas politics I‘ll just latch onto his and offer examples of why the Red State mentality here in Texas is the butt of jokes around the country

Texas is one of the top five states that has the highest per capita incarceration rates, has one of the higher rates of churches per capita with the city of Lubbock having “more churches per capita than any other place in the nation” and the highest rate of uninsured citizens. All that worshipping and nothing to show for it but unhealthy people and a large criminal base.

Texas has the highest number of public school districts and the 2nd highest enrollment rate in the nation, yet it ranks near the bottom with verbal and math SAT scores. It also has less nationally recognized research institutions than other populous states and has only one private institution, Rice University, ranked among the nation’s top 50. SOURCE

I really do love my home state and was once typical of the braggart Texan that so many other Americans ridiculed, or as most Texans felt, were just simply jealous of. But the migration of ultra-conservatives to this state beginning in the late 80’s and early nineties has changed the populist character of this state to one where radical fringe groups now predominate and anti-intellectualism exceeds anything ever seen here before.

There use to be a comfortable coexistence between homespun conservative thought and progressive grass-roots democracy in this state, with conservatives for the most part being the stronger of the two. But it was a conservative type that was anything but anti-intellectual for the most part; one with a comprehensible view of things. That no longer exists and instead we have what appears to be the result of the insane asylum occupants being released and taking over the cultural and political leadership roles in the state.

Examples of mindless prattle from the wing-nuts in this state abound and many can be found in the Letters to the Editor column in our local newspaper,the Denton Record-Chronicle. In just the last couple of days some of my fellow Dentonites, who claim to be American (I’ll just have to take them at their word on that) have spouted off some of the worst ruminations that, if one didn’t know better, would have thought came from a 3rd grader.

There’s a couple of characters who constantly begin their tirades with chicken little rantings about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket and it all started when Obama and the Democrats wrested control from the Republicans a couple of years ago. All the ugly budgets numbers are thrown out there and the likely consequences that will affect future generations if we don’t get them under control NOW.

I’ve been reading and contributing to this editorial page for years and I do not recall a single lamenting comment from the likes of these people when their Party of preference took a trillion-dollar deficit under Clinton and turned it into a $500 billion deficit in 4 short years. But this is politics as usual. What continues to amaze me is how Obama can do nothing right in the eyes of these people, even when he does.

Here in Texas they’ve been going after what would normally be viewed as a positive thing – the killing of the outlaw Osama bin Laden. Yet one contributor chastised the President who made this call while sitting “safely and comfortably in the Situation Room, living vicariously while SEALs eliminate Mr. bin Laden.” He then goes on to complain that our mission in Libya looks more like a personal attack on Muammar Gaddafi than protecting innocent civilians. Would many people in Obama’s position that night have had the courage to send those SEALS into harms way knowing in all likelihood some if not most of them may not make it out? And when did Gaddafi take on a certain glow with these weirdos? After Reagan sent his missile strike to kill this North African dictator and terrorist promoter back in 1986?

Remember the “shock and awe” campaign Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld boasted about as they began their war in Iraq, where bombs destroyed numerous buildings thought to house Saddam Hussein but killed more innocent civilians than military personnel? Clearly this modern day right-wing peace-nik in his assault on Obama has changed from one that a few short years ago would have viewed our actions in Libya as the hazards of war and what some euphemistically refer to as “collateral damage”.

And how are we supposed to take these unbelievable comments from this writer; “Is anyone godlike enough to know who is in hell? And why would the editorial stoop so low as to call Donald Trump a ‘blowhard’?” The first comment refers to Obama’s reference to bin Laden’s new location after the bullet-to-the-head shot and the latter comment was in reference to an excellent editorial in the Record-Chronicle about the idiocy of the birther King. If there really is a hell, why would any bible-thumpin’, red-neck Texan think bin Laden was not there and who other than a blowhard would think Donald Trump is not one?

On the same page, the very same day is another fellow Dentonite who clearly demonstrates that he gets all of his misinformation from the FOX cable airheads. Here’s my interpretation of how he gets things wrong. You be the judge:

Obama has cancelled all oil drilling in the Gulf and is opposed to drilling anywhere in the U.S.
Despite making record profits, oil companies must have tax payer subsidies to keep cheap gas at the pumps
Subsidizing new start-up businesses is the same thing as subsidizing highly profitable ones. Also, federal outlays to help low-income people with health insurance and nutritional meals for their children is equal to subsidizing very wealthy corporations who use our taxpayer dollars to pay share holder dividends and executive bonuses.
A lot of G.E.’s profits last year came from selling CFLs
Bush is not to be held accountable at all for our current economic mess.

It’s usually only one day a week that the insanity is published in the Letters column but it seems we were cursed with one more irrational thought in today’s pages. A former police officer who I have known slightly in the past and who is now retired contributes regularly to the editorial pages. And though most of his conservative views differ from my progressive perceptions, his thoughts and comments are usually cogent and reasonable.

As a law officer I have to appreciate the man’s concern for justice being properly dispensed in all situations but there are of course exceptions to this norm and in the case of Osama bin Laden, I think most people would agree that his is an exceptional case. Yet this writer wants us to believe that the President has committed an impeachable offense by killing the man responsible for the deaths of some 3000 innocent Americans on that September morning back in 2001.

The retired police officer, Tillman Uland, complains that due process was not extended to bin Laden and that his killing was illegal. This from a man who supported Bush’s invasion of Iraq to get one man who never posed a direct threat to the U.S. and who told all America that bin Laden must be brought to justice “dead or alive”. Many innocent Iraqis died in George Bush’s attempt to get even with the man who tried to assassinate his father years earlier, yet I don’t recall seeing a similar letter from Mr. Uland on the editorial page of the Record-Chronicle calling for Bush Jr.’s impeachment for the many war crimes he has been accused of.

Clearly, perception is reality for many people and there is no exception to this premise by those on the Right. But the reality that often comes across from these people is one that is unfamiliar with most of us, unless of course you were ensconced in an insane asylum at one time. Is it any wonder then that we see bizarre laws that lowers prices on cancer causing tobacco from tax cuts and offering deeper tax cuts on yachts while school districts in this state have to fire teachers and crowd more students into classrooms for lack of funding?

It’s not easy to ignore jokes about Texas as I was able to at one time thinking the joke-makers were just jealous of what we truly had in this state. Now I have to shrug and simply nod agreeably that there are indeed clowns in this state that have some of us envying those who live in Mississippi.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Texas/Local stories Tags: Barack Obama, Denton Record-Chronicle, fanatics, George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, Politics, Republican, seccesionists, Texas, Texas conservatives, texas crazy

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I’m Not Inspired Yet Mr. President

April 12, 2011

With the advent of the 2012 elections approaching many hopeful Democrats are waiting to catch on fire as they did prior to the 2008 elections. There is something missing today however that propelled the “Yes We Can” candidate to a record majority vote just less than 3 years ago?

Following President Obama’s re-election announcement last week there was pretty much a lack-luster response from his base and many others. The excitement that permeated the political scene in 2008 and created momentum the essentially steam-rolled over his political adversary as it did for many Democratic candidates seems seriously lacking.

The Great Recession that began in Bush’s final year soured a lot of people’s attitudes before Obama took office and carried over to his administration by a well orchestrated campaign of Astroturf organizations funded by corporate money in the fossil fuel and health insurance industries. The belief that somehow Obama was responsible for the massive job losses and home foreclosures enabled his adversaries to get poorly informed voters in 2010 to reject what they had just supported two years earlier and put back in a more extreme element of those who had collaborated with a self-serving few that were responsible for the collapse of our economy.

One of the enduring threats of any democracy is to hope that an educated and well-informed public will prevail. As Ben Franklin was leaving Independence Hall at the Close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 a lady approached him and asked“Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy. A republic”replied Franklin, “if you can keep it.”

Before the Obama administration and the Democrats could correct the civil-rights violations and the heavy-handed policies the GOP had pushed through that favored the wealthy, the economic collapse created an animosity between Main Street and Wall Street as, first George Bush and then later President Obama, bailed out private industries while millions of Americans were losing their jobs and eventually their homes.

It is likely that without these bailouts the economic crisis would have deepened but the ideological angst that was overcome with shock and horror from those on the right who were unwilling to concede that their precious free-market system had failed and those on the left that were angered by the lack of government’s response to aid working families, were too emotional to gather their collective wisdom and allow Obama’s stimulus package to do its thing.

click on image to enlarge

By the time the economy started to rebound from these efforts there was already a successful movement afoot to disparage everything the President did and conceal his achievements as anger still simmered with many Americans whose income had either been lost though unemployment or reduced by employers struggling to hang on. An educated and well-informed public was nowhere to be found.

Sadly, the problem we face today is not that Obama and his supporters have not tried to close the political divide in this country but that there has been no sincere effort on the part of the those in GOP politics to concede to the mandate of the 2008 election and work in harmony with this administration. Yet Obama has been slow to see this and it is this over-optimistic view with him and his advisors that continue to bend to the will of the minority in this country rather than standing up to them and defending the measures that most Americans support. It is this apparent kowtowing to the extreme fringes on the right that kills any inspiration at this time to rally to the President’s side as he attempts to jump-start his campaign for re-election in 2012.

His lack of leadership in the fight for health care reform and climate change legislation was and has been mostly absent. Had it not been for the efforts of Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate, we would not have the health care reforms we have today. The arguments those on the right put out there to oppose these hugely important issues are weak and without merit yet the President has not taken the bully pulpit to dismiss what is basically nonsense and non-science.

He is too reticent to defend the EPA’s right to monitor the air quality impacted by fossil fuel generated power plants. He has allowed deep-water oil drilling to resume without actually confirming that new and real safeguards are in place to prevent another BP oil disaster. He has failed to fight vigorously to defend our legal system by shutting down Guantanamo and he was sheepish in his meager efforts to criticize those haters who demonize an entire religion because some wanted to build a community center near ground zero.

Our deficit crisis is NOT purely a spending issue as the GOP claims and his failure to hang tough to keep the Bush tax cuts in place for the wealthiest 2% conceded the right’s claim that the revenue this tax increase would generate would not help lower our debt. There has been no elaborate speaking out on how the rich are getting richer through tax loop holes while the rest of us pay our fair share of taxes as our wages diminish. Federal spending has proven itself to stimulate the economy during recessions yet Obama has bent to the failed policy arguments that trickle-down economics will somehow rejuvenate the economy even though this practice has been proven false on so many fronts.

And now there is talk that when the President addresses the nation tomorrow on budget decisions he will be considering that Medicare is now subject to some cuts even though it has successfully covered the health care needs of millions who would otherwise be unable to afford private health insurance policies. Medicare has its issues with costs but most of that stems from fraud and high private sector costs that Republicans seem unwilling to address seriously.

The options to correct what ails Medicare can be eliminated with other cuts to Defense spending, eliminating corporate welfare subsidies and raising the limit on wages that can be taxed for Medicare so that more of the wealthy’s income can be brought in to play here; those people who already pay less than most middle-income Americans because of a flawed tax structure that benefits them.

I understand that from a political perspective there are stands that have to be tempered with reality and that politics has to be hashed out in order to achieve the victories in the future. Giving in to something is necessary on occasion to win enough support from the moderates and independents who are really that part of the electorate that throw the victories to one camp or the other each election cycle. But also what matters and what get’s out the consistent support of voters are signs from our elected officials that indicate they are willing not to bend too far and give up too much; playing politics as usual to sustain the status quo.

As Obama moderates his positions too much he becomes just another politician in the eyes of voters who are not steeped in what makes the political machinery operate in this country. When this happens, those of us who will continue to support him because the alternative is far worse, will fight an uphill battle because there will be less sophisticated voters who are not inspired enough to contribute campaign resources, vote at all or worse, go over to the other side believing that somehow the GOP has been reborn again into something better.

We need that inspiration Mr. President but for most of us it will only come when you begin to show more signs of leadership as a fighter for things worth fighting for and then stick with it. Like the character Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof”, we can only bend so far or else we will break.

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections, Budget Crisis, Economy, Society and Politics Tags: 2012 elections, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, George W. Bush, GOP, Great Recession, on fire for Obama, Politics, voter turnout, Yes we can

8 comments

Looking Back On Keith’s Olbermann’s Contribution to Progressive Causes

January 23, 2011

Looking beyond his final “good night, and good luck” send off.

I thought at first he was informing us that his “Countdown” program was going to transition into something new and different when Keith Olbermann announced last Thursday night that this was his last telecast. I grew somewhat shocked when it became clear it was not and that he was indeed leaving MSNBC for good, with no prospects of his progressive views airing again; progressive views that helped many of us make it through the nightmare administration of George W. Bush and his curmudgeon vice-president Dick Cheney. It also served as a counterbalance for the right wing malignancy being aired on Roger Ailes’ FOX news, what Olbermann himself referred to as “FOX noise”.

Not many of us heard of Keith when he first filled in and later remained to air what was then seen as a humorous take on top stories of the day back in 2003. But news of him spread like wildfire when he took a hard turn in our direction on August 30, 2006 as he aired his first of many “special commentaries” that would become a mainstay for him for the next few years. This one was a blistering attack on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his cavalier approach to the invasion and sustained war in Iraq.

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Olbermann’s words struck at the heart of a man and an administration that had for too long got a pass from the press for sheer arrogance, thus lifting the spirit of liberals and non-liberals alike everywhere.

Within hours the blogosphere was abuzz about the man that gave new hope for sanity’s resurrection in an era when neoconservatives were pushing the limits of moral responsibility. For me personally I hadn’t been this charged since I heard Howard Dean attack the wrong-headed policies of Bush/Cheney on Meet the Press in 2002 as he also notified listeners about his candidacy for the 2004 Presidential nomination.

Olbermann’s “Countdown” segment quickly became a broadcast staple for liberals and turned out not to be such a bad move for a faltering MSNBC. A recent report by the AP noted that “‘Countdown’ became MSNBC’s most popular show. Instantly, a network that had often floundered in seeking a direction molded itself after Olbermann.”

And as it did more of us from progressive quarters helped boost those ratings and at times challenged the popular segments of the O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes and others on FOX during that prime time period.

As his popularity grew and his voice challenged the policies and inherent failures that guided the Bush/Cheney White House, the hope that not only Democrats would regain seats in Congress in 2006 but that some of them would be like-minded liberals became like cool running water to an arid progressive landscape. Olbermann came along and literally pulled many of us out of the doldrums that was so pervasive at the time. Our voices were being shouted down by the more prominent right wing talking heads on FOX and radio broadcasts like Rush Limbaugh and a rising poster child for the lunatic fringe, Glenn Beck.

I don’t feel remiss at all to say that had Olberman not changed his Countdown segment with a “liberal bias” that many who would finally find the courage to challenge the Bush/Cheney White House might never have advanced as quick as they did. Surely his success as a broadcaster would not have reached the level it finally did.

Olberman became part of trio with the other progressives broadcasts of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and Bill Maher’s “Real Time” that pushed the mainstream media into taking a closer look at the message coming from the White House and moving away from the neoconservative viewpoints of conservative commentaries The support base that evolved from such programs ultimately fired up a grass roots drive that not only garnered wins for Democrats in 2006 but helped pushed their Party in 2008 to some of the biggest majorities in the Senate and House that had not been seen for decades. The coup de gras was the Presidency recaptured as Barack Obama defeated a lack-luster John McCain and a then unknown, Sarah Palin.

I will miss Keith and his Countdown program. I must confess there were a few times when I thought he made some tacky remarks but that hardly served to deflect from what was his greater contribution to the national dialogue. However, when there was a comment that went over the line, as it did when he commented on Louisiana Senator Vitter’s wife’s attire and demeanor in a news clip that had her standing by her unfaithful husband, Olbermann came back the next day saying “there was no justification for such a segment about what a woman, a victim of her husband’s inappropriate behavior was wearing in public… so to Mrs. Vitter and to you, the viewer, I once again apologize.”

I can only count on one hand how many times this occurred with Keith over the years, the apologies that is for faux pas he had made. Has his adversaries over at FOX made similar conciliatory gestures for many of their gaffes, their are not enough fingers to mark their sins by.

It is still not completely clear what the circumstances were that led to Olbermann’s exit from MSNBC. There were clearly some tensions between him and management that became exposed last November when he was suspended for violating an NBC policy on campaign contributions; a policy that didn’t seem to be evenly applied to all at the network. This air of conflict between Keith and his bosses, combined with the weight of losing his mother and father within a short period of time may have influenced his decision to call it quits.

What does appear to be clear to me at least is that his decision to leave was not some temperamental reaction but an honest assessment of who he was, where he was and what he wanted to do. I believe him when he said that his continued presence there was more a response to the public’s “insistence” that he carry on than his desire to stay.

“There were many occasions, particularly in the last 2½ years, where all that surrounded the show – but never the show itself – was just too much for me,” Olbermann said in his exit statement. “But your support and loyalty and, if I may use the word, insistence, ultimately required that I keep going. My gratitude to you is boundless.”

His exit then is more a reflection of a man being true to himself rather than currying favor with a management whose focus always has their eye on profit margins. His absence should not be seen by those who rallied to his side in the dark days back in 2006 as an end to what he helped start. Instead we can thank Mr. Olbermann for being there when we needed him and choose now to sustain that impetus to achieve future progressive gains.

“Good night, and good luck”

Posted by lbwoodgate in Television Tags: Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Fox Broadcasting Company, George W. Bush, John McCain, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh

Tag Archives: George W. Bush

George W. Bush Reflects Back on 2003 Iraq Invasion – A Satire

Brit Hume: Good afternoon Mr. President and thanks so much for sharing your time with me and the American people, or at least the 30-35% who watch our network religiously.

GWB: Well your welcome Brett, it’s a pleasure to have you here. I hope Lance from my Secret Service detail didn’t tickle your privates too much in his search for weapons before letting you on to the property. … he,he,he.

BH: It’s Brit sir and speaking of the Secret Service sir, are they a disruptive factor for the billionaire residents on this cul-de-sac you share it with?

GWB: Oh heck no Brett. My good buddy and former owner of the Texas Rangers, Tom Hicks, is delighted at the extra security it affords them all. You know, to keep that 47% away who just like to mooch off of people like us. (sheepish grin)

GWB: Whoo boy! That sure was a show wasn’t it. And you know, we missed getting ole Saddam by a possum’s pubic hair that night. (Bush holds up his right hand and presses his index finger to his thumb)

GWB: Whoa, whoa, whoa!!! What was that that just flew up there on the screen monitor. Where did all those facts and figures come from.

BH: I don’t know Mr. President. I saw it too and I can assure you we at FOX would have never had any numbers like that. We’ll investigate and be sure to edit that out before this airs sir.

GWB: Damn! There it goes again. What gives Brent? You yanking my chain here?

The former president and Mr. Hume get settled into an anteroom in his plush residence.

BH: Getting back to our praise for your victory in Iraq sir, how do you think the middle East will develop overtime now that your efforts to spread freedom have been firmly planted there?

GWB: You know Brite, since we removed that dictator Saddam Hussein the Iraqi people have created a fledgling democracy where they can vote for their leaders and build a secure future for them and their children.

GWB: Holy bejeezus! That’s it! Lance, escort Bret and his crew out of here post haste.

BH: But, but … Mr. President, I …

GWB: Shut the fuck up Brett and go.

BH: Fuck you too sir and it’s BRIT goddammit.

Bush could be overheard walking away saying “no wonder he changed his last name to Hume. Who would want to be called Brit Goddammit?”

It was reported later that the former president locked himself in his large bathroom, finding solace from his conscience that revealed his war crimes in Iraq by painting these rather unconventional self-portraits. Is this the actions of a man trying to cleanse himself to absolve his sense of guilt?

NOW FOR A REALITY CHECK

For a greater understanding of what this has actually cost the world, please read David Swanson’s account - Iraq War Among World’s Worst Events

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Tag Archives: George W. Bush

Brit Hume: Good afternoon Mr. President and thanks so much for sharing your time with me and the American people, or at least the 30-35% who watch our network religiously.

GWB: Well your welcome Brett, it’s a pleasure to have you here. I hope Lance from my Secret Service detail didn’t tickle your privates too much in his search for weapons before letting you on to the property. … he,he,he.

BH: It’s Brit sir and speaking of the Secret Service sir, are they a disruptive factor for the billionaire residents on this cul-de-sac you share it with?

GWB: Oh heck no Brett. My good buddy and former owner of the Texas Rangers, Tom Hicks, is delighted at the extra security it affords them all. You know, to keep that 47% away who just like to mooch off of people like us. (sheepish grin)

GWB: Whoo boy! That sure was a show wasn’t it. And you know, we missed getting ole Saddam by a possum’s pubic hair that night. (Bush holds up his right hand and presses his index finger to his thumb)

GWB: Whoa, whoa, whoa!!! What was that that just flew up there on the screen monitor. Where did all those facts and figures come from.

BH: I don’t know Mr. President. I saw it too and I can assure you we at FOX would have never had any numbers like that. We’ll investigate and be sure to edit that out before this airs sir.

GWB: Damn! There it goes again. What gives Brent? You yanking my chain here?

The former president and Mr. Hume get settled into an anteroom in his plush residence.

BH: Getting back to our praise for your victory in Iraq sir, how do you think the middle East will develop overtime now that your efforts to spread freedom have been firmly planted there?

GWB: You know Brite, since we removed that dictator Saddam Hussein the Iraqi people have created a fledgling democracy where they can vote for their leaders and build a secure future for them and their children.

GWB: Holy bejeezus! That’s it! Lance, escort Bret and his crew out of here post haste.

BH: But, but … Mr. President, I …

GWB: Shut the fuck up Brett and go.

BH: Fuck you too sir and it’s BRIT goddammit.

Bush could be overheard walking away saying “no wonder he changed his last name to Hume. Who would want to be called Brit Goddammit?”

It was reported later that the former president locked himself in his large bathroom, finding solace from his conscience that revealed his war crimes in Iraq by painting these rather unconventional self-portraits. Is this the actions of a man trying to cleanse himself to absolve his sense of guilt?

NOW FOR A REALITY CHECK

For a greater understanding of what this has actually cost the world, please read David Swanson’s account - Iraq War Among World’s Worst Events

Related articles

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America Honors Leaders, Not Politicians

Bet on solar power

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