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October 13, 2005

Bush staged his GI teleconference!

Flim flam artist. Propagandist. Liar.

WASHINGTON Oct 13, 2005 — It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution.

More from the AP.

Now tell me, Bush apologists -- and I know you visit this site... If you had an assignment for your job and you were caught faking the work, you'd probably be fired, right?

07:57 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Black people don't like George Bush

Washington Post is reporting that only 2 percent of African Americans approve of Bushie.

In what may turn out to be one of the biggest free-falls in the history of presidential polling, President Bush's job-approval rating among African Americans has dropped to 2 percent, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

The drop among blacks drove Bush's overall job approval ratings to an all-time low of 39 percent in this poll. By comparison, 45 percent of whites and 36 percent of Hispanics approve of the job Bush is doing.

More here.

05:25 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca

George, you remember the letter F

Bush certainly excels at one thing: failing. He fails better than most people. In fact, we could say he's the best failing president we've ever had. He's truly a great failer!

But don't believe me. Believe NBC and the Wall Street Journal. They just conducted a poll, and in addition to the 39 percent approval rating for George himself, the rest of the numbers are, well, failing. Here are some choice tidbits:

Just 28 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction, another all-time low in Bush’s presidency.

[snip]

It also finds that strong majorities don’t believe that the recent charges against GOP leaders Tom DeLay of Texas and Bill Frist of Tennessee are politically motivated. Sixty-five percent say that DeLay’s indictment on charges of illegally using corporate contributions for political campaigns suggests potential illegal activity.

[snip]

Meanwhile, 57 percent say Frist’s sale of stock in a company his family runs — just before the value of the stock declined — indicates potential illegal activity, compared with 28 percent who say the charge has little merit.

In addition, with 13 months until the 2006 congressional elections, 48 percent say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, compared with 39 percent who want the Republicans to control Capitol Hill. In fact, that nine-point difference is the largest margin between the parties in the 11 years the NBC/Journal poll has been tracking this question.

But [pollster] Hart argues that Democrats aren’t necessarily responsible for this margin. "It is not that Democrats have done so well," he said. "It is that people are disgusted." McInturff puts it this way: "People are very turned off and unhappy with the state of play in American politics."

People also seem to be turned off and unhappy with high gas prices. According to the survey, 69 percent believe the worst is still to come with energy and fuel prices. Just 25 percent think the worst is behind us.

So it turns out that DeLay and Frist are pretty darn good failers, too! Not as good as George, of course, but, hey, he's the president! The president of failing!

Note the bit about the Democratic party. They aren't really A students -- they're just good at not failing as badly as George & Co. But if they really want to do some good for the country, they will stop not-failing and start succeeding. That would really be something to behold.

02:20 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Justice Thursday?

From the Washington Post, courtesy of Reuters:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been subpoenaed to turn over personal records in an investigation into possible insider trading, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

[snip]

Authorities are looking into Frist's recent sale of shares of hospital operator HCA Inc., co-founded by Frist's father and brother. The sales took place just days before HCA's stock price fell on a disappointing July 13 profit outlook.

The newspaper, citing sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Frist was expected to testify under oath about what he knew about HCA's financial standing in the weeks before the stock sales.

Oh, testify, Bill! Do testify!

02:15 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

October 12, 2005

Tonight's Olbermann: Must See MSNBC

Keith Olbermann will examine the weird timing of terror alerts and bad news for the White House. I can't stress how important it is that we all watch this special. It's the type of reporting on cable news that we should see more of, and it should be supported.

OLBERMANN: Last Thursday, we spoke of at least 13 coincidences of timing between bad political news for the government and a terror or terror-related event. We will be presenting a special report detailing those and other coincidences on Wednesday night's edition of this news hour, "The Nexus of Politics and Terror" on COUNTDOWN this Wednesday at 8:00 and midnight Eastern here on MSNBC.

Tonight. MSNBC. 8pm EDT.

08:51 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Target: Dick

Breaking news from the Huffington Post:

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name.

Of course any rational person would presume that Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney -- a man famous for micromanaging, a man who selected himself to be Vice-President after an "exhaustive search," a man who was envisioning an Iraq invasion from back in his days with the Project for the New American Century -- would of course know what his number one guy, Scooter, was doing before Scooter did it. Especially if what Scooter was doing had to do with making sure Dick's takeover of Iraq was unimpeded. And we know Dick has DIRECTLY profited from the Iraq invasion. How much? Well, his Haliburton stock options have gone up A LOT according to Raw Story:

An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney's Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney's options -- worth $241,498 a year ago -- are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.

So that's a gain of 7.75 MILLION DOLLARS IN ONE YEAR. This is blood money at a staggering level, folks. I would say Dick cared quite a lot about whether or not his administration invaded Iraq.

Can any of us really imagine that Scooter didn't tell Dick? We're talking about two extremely powerful guys named Scooter and Dick.

02:27 AM | Comments (3) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

October 11, 2005

Frist: Bowling for an indictment.

Bowling Avenue Partners. That's the name to remember. It's Bill Frist's family stock partnership that was kept separate from his blind trust partnerships governed by Senate ethics rules.

This decidedly non-blind trust, run by Dr. Billy's brother, Tommy Frist, earned the senate majority leader $265,495 in dividends and other income over four years. The AP has the details:

Ethics experts say a partnership arrangement shown in documents obtained by The Associated Press raises serious doubts about whether the senator truly avoided a conflict.

In that case, the HCA stock was accumulated by a family investment partnership started by the senator's late parents and later overseen by his brother, Thomas Frist. The brother served as president of the partnership's management company and as a top officer of HCA.

HCA is the Frist-family company of for-profit hospital chains. Frist earned millions from the sale of HCA stock that may have benefited from insider information. And, of course, it's murkier than that. Because while Frist was making millions upon millions of dollars through his stock in this medical company, he was VOTING ON MEDICAL LEGISLATION.

With his background as a heart surgeon as well as majority leader, Frist has been at the forefront of legislation that would affect the hospital chain. Among the issues: a Medicare prescription drug benefit and limits on medical malpractice lawsuits.

Frist kept HCA stock in Bowling Avenue Partners and the Tennessee blind trust — but outside the Senate-approved trusts — between 1998 and 2002.

His investments in Nashville-based HCA are being investigated by federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission after an AP report that the senator had asked administrators of his Senate blind trusts to sell his HCA holdings.

Remember the Bush/GOP line about changing the tone in Washington? I think they meant changing it back to more of a Nixon/Warren G. Harding kind of tone.

Now, if you were Dr. Billy's campaign advisor, what would you be saying to him now about how to run against John "Straight Talk" McCain for the GOP nomination in 2008? I would be saying, "Um, I quit."

05:48 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Cheney go-to guy goes to Iraq...to hide?

From Raw Story:

The chief spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney, Steve Schmidt, left the United States Oct. 3 and won't return until Oct. 26, just as the investigation into who outed a covert CIA agent wraps up.

[snip]

Schmidt's departure coincides with the final days of federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's inquiry into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald's grand jury ends its session Oct. 28.

[snip]

The Vice President was noticeably absent from the fiftieth anniversary party last Thursday for the conservative standardbearer The National Review.

Senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, also fingered in the case, has been absent from recent public events, including the nomination of Hariet Miers to the Supreme Court. RAW STORY confirmed Rove's absence Oct. 9.

Those close to the investigation believe key White House figures may be deliberately keeping a low profile to create some distance between them and the president should any member of his team be indicted.

Schmidt on the road. Cheney AWOL from the National Review party. Rove staying out of the public eye. You do the math.

02:43 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Bolton: Don't talk about genocide

John Bolton is determined to hear no evil:

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton blocked a U.N. envoy on Monday from briefing the Security Council on grave human rights violations in Sudan's Darfur region, saying the council had to act against atrocities and not just talk about them.

Bolton, joined by China, Algeria and Russia, prevented Juan Mendez, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special adviser for the prevention of genocide, from briefing the council on his recent visit to Darfur, despite pleas from Annan and 11 other council members that Mendez be heard.

Read the rest of the atrocity taking place in NY.

Bolton's argument is sinisterly absurd: "I don't want to talk about genocide, I want to do something about it." So what did Bolton propose doing?

He gave no new proposals.

02:33 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By John Christian Plummer