Friday, July 18, 2008

McCain Keeps Lying About The Safety Of Offshore Drilling

John McCain has learned to lie very well from the Bush handlers who are now his advisers. In a press conference today he talked about renewable energy, just long enough to make a few talking points about offshore drilling. McCain claimed the offshore rigs in the Gulf came through hurricanes Katrina and Rita without damage. Ask an insurance company about that. The extensive damage to the offshore rigs almost cratered the oil insurance biz.

Here is his lie:

Q: I’ve been listening to your comments around renewable resources – solar, tide, and wind – you’ve talked a lot about that, but you keep peppering your comments with offshore drilling. But I’m not sure what you think the impact on our environment is based on that.

A: Keep the microphone. I’m aware that off the coast of Louisiana and Texas there are oil rigs, as we well know, and those rigs have survived, very successfully, the impacts of hurricanes – hurricane Katrina as far as Louisiana is concerned.

Reasons To Vote Republican - (Parody)

I know I posted this a few months ago, but sometimes you just have to repeat things over and over until people understand.


Elizabeth Dole and a Dose of Irony

It’s one thing to be ignorant, it’s another to be insensitive and still another to be a jerk. Elizabeth Dole falls in that last category. Harsh words for the Republican Senator from North Carolina? Hardly. Consider this little scenario.

The Senate is passing a bill for HIV/AIDS relief. Much of this will flow to foreign countries to provide much needed funds to fight the diseases as well as malaria and tuberculosis. It is part of a global strategy to combat HIV/AIDS in developing countries and primarily Africa.

Senator Dole jumped in at the last minute and offered an amendment. Now, knowing she is a Republican you might imagine it would be to limit funds to certain groups who opposed family planning, or some other ideologically driven caveat that would hamstring the process and prevent the bill from reaching the people who need the relief. Nope, I have to hand it to Elizabeth, she did no such thing. Instead she simply wanted to change the name of the bill.

Now I ask you what would you as a clear thinking individual want to name an HIV/AIDS Relief Bill? Maybe something that honors the millions of people worldwide who have succumbed to the disease? Nope. Maybe after a prominent researcher or activist who has fought for better funding and treatment? Nope. Liz introduced the bright idea of naming the bill after the late not-so-great Jesse Helms!

That’s where the “jerk” part comes in. Jesse Helms was a bigoted old coot of a Senator who opposed every kind of AIDS funding, education and treatment he could find. I offer as proof his description of an AIDS prevention pamphlet as “so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up." This is a man who fought to block the Ryan White bill because he felt people who contracted AIDS did so because of their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."

I could spend the rest of this column detailing how hateful and divisive Helms was on LGBT rights and AIDS prevention, civil rights, voting rights, integration, not to mention Roe v. Wade, but I find it in Jesse’s words, “so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up."

Naming this bill after Helms is either the biggest example of a brain dead politician, or a deliberate slap in the face to every activist, researcher and politician who has ever worked to pry AIDS funds from the hands of Uncle Sam.

I know Elizabeth Dole is not a stupid woman. I know she is a skilled politician. As such she certainly has the sensitivity to know that this ludicrous amendment would never fly, and yet she proposed it anyway. That, I can only believe was done as an insult and intended to be as hurtful as Senator Helms used to be. Perhaps it is a fitting tribute to a man who sang “Dixie” in the elevator with the first African- American woman elected to the Senate, Carol Moseley-Braun.

To imagine that Senator Dole just somehow forgot the legacy of hate left behind by Jesse Helms is to ignore the reality of the situation. Perhaps Senator Dole knows that the GOP time in the legislature is limited. A sweeping victory by Barack Obama may just wash over the Senate and House as well. Maybe Dole is just getting in her parting shot, shooting the finger at the media and the American public before she is washed from the landscape of politics. Let the tidal wave commence!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Michael Savage Thinks Autistic Kids Just Need To Be Yelled At More!

Michael Savage is aptly named. He is simply that, a savage. His unprovoked attacks on people who are defenseless really do go beyond civilized discourse. It’s time he was tossed off the public airwaves.

Why the rant? Well on his radio show today, a show that is broadcast on the “public’s airwaves”, he attacked Autistic children as just “brat[s] who need as a father to tell them to stop acting like a putz”.

Let that sink in for a little while. I don’t know if you have ever been around anyone with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, but I have. They are not “acting like a putz”! I am appalled that this jerk can say something so insensitive on the radio.

I keep harping on the “public Airwaves” part of this story because here is the truth. The government manages the radio spectrum and leases portions of it to broadcasters. Prior to the Bush regime, there was an expectation that the broadcasters had at least some obligations to the public for if not fair, at least decent programming. Savage is anything but decent.

Mr. Savage, later in his show called the epidemic of asthma in minority families a scam because “the children got extra welfare if they were disabled.” Now lets really talk about being a putz!

Mr. Savage needs to be off the air and on the street. Perhaps when he breathes enough dust from cockroach shells and ends up in an emergency room in need of a breathing treatment to keep from dying, he might reconsider his obscene remarks.

Maybe Mr. Savage should spend a few weeks with a family of an Autistic child to see just how much good his tirade would do. Let him sit with a rocking screaming child, overloaded from stimuli he cannot process and then let him cure it by calling him a “putz”.

If I sound mad, I am and I think Mr. Savage needs to have someone give him a good shake and sit him in the corner for a time out, FOREVER! Get Michael Savage off the public airwaves!

Here are the contact numbers for his parent company:

Talk Radio Network
P.O. Box 3755 Central Point, Oregon 97502
Phone: 541-664-8827
Fax: 541-664-6250

General info@talkradionetwork.com
Site Questions webmaster@talkradionetwork.com
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Affiliate Technical Inquiries trneng@talkradionetwork.com

Bush Divorce Rumors - Again?

It seems that every year another tabloid comes out with a headline touting an impending divorce between President Bush and First Lady Laura.

The first one I saw appeared in a blog that detailed Mrs Bush staying in the Mayflower Hotel just down the street from the White House. No reason was given, but wagging tongues clucked about a tiff between her and George.

Next was the headline that Bush was drinking again. Since his behavior sober looks very much like a drunken frat-boy, I have no way of confirming this one, and dismissed it out of hand.

Then came the Globe Magazine cover with a "$10 million divorce" story. Reading further proved it was all hot air.

The real story is that the tabloids see Bush and Laura as fair game now. Back after 9/11 that would be unthinkable, but with Bush approval ratings in the tank, all's fair for the supermarket sensationalists.

Now I have noticed my hits starting to escalate again and the referrals are all from people looking up "Bush and Laura Divorce" on search engines. I suspect a tabloid has once again offered a rumor of the impending split. Now normally I would give these stories no credence, but I have it on the authority of a person who overheard another person say to someone else....

Well the short story is when Laura was asked if she was going to be retiring to the ranch after leaving the White House. She responded, "George can go there if he wants, but I am living in Dallas!"

Indeed rumors of a new Bush residence here in Big D are flying. Probably in a new development somewhere near University Park and the proposed Bush Library is the most likely location. As far as the divorce rumor, after spending the past 8 years with George in Washington, I would think Laura would deserve some "alone time".

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Florida Billboard Sponsor Says "9/11 could have been prevented if we’d had a Republican president."

Yesterday I put up a story about the jerk in Florida who bought the Twin Towers billboard promoting his "Don't vote for a Democrat" song. I wrongly said the billboard was tasteless. Wrong because this guy is just an idiot. He actually argued on CNN that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented if we had a Republican President in office! Sometimes the self delusion of Republicans amazes me. He actually thinks there wasn't a GOP leader in 2001. Well he was half right, we had Bush in office, and he is certainly no leader.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Kay Bailey Hutchinson Dragged Into Bribery Scandal

Our friend Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has been implicated n the growing ethics scandal involving Steven Payne, the lobbyist and Bush appointee who was caught on tape selling influence for six figure donations to the Bush Library.

The Austin-American Statesman details an incodent where Sen. Hutchison may have passed off an op-ed piece as hers when in actuality it was written by Payne who was acting as a lobbyist for Azerbaijan interests.

What also remains murky is Payne’s role in a 2005 opinion piece that Hutchison authored for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It was headlined “Azerbaijan: Opportunity for America,” and in it Hutchison writes that the country “holds great promise” as an oil source in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Payne brags in materials for his business that he “developed” a series of op-eds promoting the country, including one by Hutchison.


Hutchison’s current staff contends that it does not know the precise origins of the column she wrote promoting Azerbaijan, although her spokesman says she was heavily involved. Chris Paulitz, her communications director at the time, declined to comment today on Payne’s role in writing the piece.

Crass Pro-GOP Billboard Shows Twin Towers Ablaze

Local Republican leaders in Florida are feigning a sense of outrage. But face it, the billboard depicting the twin towers burning is the image the GOP has been trading on for 7 years. Now a local musician has created a song he hopes will help the GOP and by using the image of the towers he caused a big stink.

Perhaps the reason is because if you think about this image, take away the visceral reaction and really think. 9/11 happened during the Bush presidency. A Republican was in office and he failed to protect the country from this attack. Maybe that is why the GOP is outraged? Though it is clearly meant to support them, it's not only crass, but it shows the Republicans greatest failure.

Either way. the billboard needs to come down. And oh yes, the Democrats are rightfully outraged as well!

Our Brain-Dead President Has No Idea What Gas Prices Are!

Watch this clip and weep. We have a complete mindless fool as a president.

US Media Finally Pick UP Bush Influence Peddling

The US media has been slow to pick up this story that was broken by the Times of London. Steven Payne, a lobbyist and Bush appointee was caught on tape asking for six figure donations to the Bush Library in exchange for access to Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. This story sat there for a couple of days, I suspect being suppressed by US media, but now CNN picks it up.