Day: July 16, 2008

Impeachment Resolution

This is the letter that was sent to me by Kucinich.

Dear Friends,

This afternoon, at approximately 5 p.m. (EDT), the Clerk of the House of Representatives will give the first reading of the Article of Impeachment of President George Bush. Article One charges the President with deceiving Congress with fabricated threats of Iraq WMDs to fraudulently obtain support for an authorization of the use of military force against Iraq.

Once the Clerk reads the bill, I will move to refer the bill to the Judiciary Committee for hearings. I believe the American people have a right to an open airing of the charges against this President. Did he or did he not lie to take us into a war? I believe the evidence is overwhelming that President Bush knew that Iraq was not an imminent threat, was not in possession of WMDs at the time, and had nothing to do with 911 or with al Queda’s role in 911. And yet, despite having facts to the contrary, he took the U.S. into war with devastating consequences for our troops, our nation, and the people of Iraq. Congress must hold hearings.

There can be no greater offense of a President or a Commander in Chief than to conjure a war based on lies to Congress, to the troops, and to the people of America.

I love our country with all my heart and I intend to persist until America is America again.

Please contact your friends and neighbors and ask them to go to our website at www.Kucinich.us and sign the impeachment petition. Thank you for your continuing support and for your love of our country and its people.

An Afterword:  this is my 500 post on wordpress and I would like to thank everyone for a very enjoyable experience.

Does This Look like A Strong Economy?

The economy showed the depth of its twin problems on Tuesday, slow growth and rising inflation, as the nation wrestled with a teetering financial system, a slumping dollar and rising prices for food and fuel.

The Labor Department reported that soaring costs for gasoline and food pushed inflation at the wholesale level up by a bigger-than-expected 1.8 percent in June, leaving inflation rising over the past year at the fastest pace in more than a quarter-century.

Over the past 12 months, wholesale prices are up 9.2 percent, the largest year-over-year surge since June 1981, another period when soaring energy costs were giving the country inflation pains.

Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, was better behaved in June, rising by just 0.2 percent, slightly lower than expectations.

A separate report from the Commerce Department showed that all the economy’s problems were weighing on the consumer. Retail sales edged up by a tiny 0.1 percent in June, weaker than had been expected, as consumer spending was held back by a sharp plunge in sales at auto dealerships.

The weak retail sales performance was a bad sign for future growth, given that it came in a month when the government was pumping out another $28 billion in economic stimulus payments, bringing the total payments to $78 billion at the end of June. Analysts said even this massive infusion of government support was not enough to overcome all the problems weighing on consumers.

If you listened to the speech today by the Prez then you should be thoroughly confused.  Who to believe?  The stats or a person trying to play a political card?

2008 Anal-Ocity–Considerations

These are the most anal statements of the year that were posted on my other blog. I want to move them here so all can see the nominees. A team will pick the 5 or 10 bmost anal statements at the end of the year and they will be posted and everyone may vote on which is the most anal. The winner will be presented with the 2008 Assie award.

05 Jan 08

It is something that Jonas Prising, of Manpower Inc said about the dismal economic report just days ago.

“The economy is strong from a historical perspective”.

17 Jan 08

Yet another anal statement. This one comes from the ABC show, The View, Sherri Shepard, you remember her, she thinks the world is flat and that it did not exist before 5000 years ago. Not the sharpest pencil in the box. But I digress. She showed a pic of her with Shirley Ceasar and she said that, “Shirley Ceasar was like a black Patti LaBelle”.

12 Feb 08

This one is from Tom DeLay, the former majority leader. He was interviewed on MSNBC, during their coverage of CPAC. When asked about global warning, oh sorry, conservs call it climate change, he actually said.

“There is no scientific proof that people are responsible for climate change”. Tom DeLay

19 Frb 08

This one came from the mouth of Conservative talk show personality Tom Sullivan. Recently he said on the air that:

“Listening to Obama speeches is similar to listening to the speeches of Adolf Hitler”.

23 Feb 08

This one is from a now defunct repub presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. You remember him? The rich guy that pissed away a lot of his personal fortune trying to be the next Reagan. HA!

“Liberals are opponents of American culture”. Mitt Romney

17 April 08

This one was actually said in 1999, by Hillary Clinton when talking to her hubby about Serbia and the need to bomb.

” What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?”

02 May 08

“Just and open societies protect and rely on the freedom of the press,” Bush said in a statement marking World Press Freedom Day, which falls on Saturday.

“Brutal regimes and others who seek to stifle liberty often do so by closing down private newspapers and radio and television stations. They kidnap, arbitrarily jail, and beat journalists,”

03 May 08

The hits just keep coming! HA! McCain and the Repubs keep trying to force feed the public that the Dem proposals on health care are somehow “creeping socialism”. My friends(to quote McCain) that is pure bullsh*t. But this statement is very amusing.

“But before you decide to sign on to that kind of a program, go to Canada, or go to European countries that have government-run health care systems,” he continued. “My friends, they don’t work, they’re inefficient, and they end up in a two-tiered system where the wealthiest can afford to pay for their own health care and those with low income sometimes wait six or eight months for a routine kind of treatment. And that’s what I’m not going to let happen to the United States of America.” from a speech of McCain

05 May 08

This from Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke to a crowd of Oklahoma Republicans Friday evening.

“When the history is written, it will be said this is a safer country and more hopeful world because George Bush was president,” Cheney said, according to Oklahoma’s Tulsa World.

Of Iraq, Cheney quipped: “Our strategy is the right strategy. The only way we can lose is to quit.

This is the list that was posted on another of my blogs and from now on any anal statements I find I will post here and hopefully all will join in when it is time to pick the most Anal statement of the year.

Dueling Mouthpieces

Bush had a speech yesterday and Bernanke testifies before Congress and both have a different opinion on the economy.

The Prez says that the economy is strong and that production, trade and other stuff is up and going good.

The housing finance crisis and spiraling energy costs will remain a drag on the U.S. economy for the rest of the year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers in a gloomy presentation about the economic outlook.

“The economy continues to face numerous difficulties, including ongoing strains in financial markets, declining house prices, a softening labor market, and rising prices of oil, food, and some other commodities,” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee early Tuesday.

The nation’s top central banker warned “many financial markets and institutions remain under considerable stress, in part because the outlook for the economy, and thus for credit quality, remains uncertain.”

He also expressed concerns about rising inflation risks due to high commodity prices, suggesting that the Fed might not be able to take steps to support economic growth because of the risk that they would feed inflation pressures.

One speech was a poltical one that showed that politics does not dwell in reality.  The other was a testimony on the real issues with real concerns.

GM Tries To Save Its Butt

Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr. said GM will save or raise about $15 billion in cash with a slew of moves. GM plans to slash salaried worker costs by 20% by cutting jobs and retiree health-care benefits. The company’s U.S. salaried workforce is 32,000. GM also says it will cut marketing and advertising budgets and capital expenditures. Beyond that, GM also will sell more assets, perhaps even an equity stake in its profitable overseas operations. “We’re going to have to ride it out until market conditions settle down,” Wagoner told reporters.

Whether Wagoner’s latest moves will be enough is an open question. GM is assuming American consumers will buy 14 million cars a year, down from 16.1 million last year, and that its market share will be around 21%. Last month, industry sales slowed to a 14-million-vehicle annual selling rate and GM’s market share was 21%. GM will have to hold its market share to keep its turnaround plan from losing steam.

But as usual, their butt is worth more than the people that made them an Auto giant.

SAG UpDate #4

The Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers said today that the Screen Actors Guild has requested a Wednesday meeting.

While, according to the alliance, SAG didn’t divulge its express purpose for tomorrow’s powwow, we’re going to go out on a limb and assume it concerns the ongoing battle over the new three-year contract the union’s leaders have yet to sign off on.

The AMPTP, which has already indicated it’s not willing to stray from the supposedly generous terms currently on the table, said that it’s prepared to listen to whatever SAG’s leaders have to say “out of respect for the SAG membership.”

The two sides are scheduled to come together at 1 p.m. at AMPTP headquarters, their first sit-down since Thursday, when a five-hour meeting resulted in…nothing much.

“It is important to note that SAG has declined to specify the purpose of the meeting, and that AMPTP continues to call on SAG’s Hollywood leaders to accept AMPTP’s final offer,” which matches the terms arrived at with the Writers Guild and Directors Guild of America and the American Federation of Radio & TV Artists, the alliance stated Tuesday.

SAG’s West Coast reps have so far dismissed the major studios’ request to let the union’s 120,000 members review the new terms.

But if SAG’s national board, which is expected to meet by July 26, OKs the prospect, the actors could have a contract in place by Aug. 15—the deadline the AMPTP has given the thesps if they want to to cash in retroactively on the new deal’s proferred wage increases.

Afghanistan Will Be Tomorrow’s Iraq

This is a good piece written by Cillizza of the Washington Post, I broke it down because not many watched all the candidates pop thier chops.

In dueling speeches today, Barack Obama and John McCain offered contrasting visions for the future of American foreign policy. But, both men also made clear that Afghanistan is a primary front in the war on terror and a battle that must be taken on and won.

How the two men arrived at that similar conclusion, however, is vastly different.

For Obama, the battle in Afghanistan is — and always has been — the key component of the war on terror; the war in Iraq was simply a distraction from what always should have been the major thrust of the American military post-Sept. 11.

In his speech today, Obama laid out a five-point plan to make America safer, the second point of which is “finishing the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.” Obama added that there are currently five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan and “we lack the resources to finish the job because of our commitment to Iraq.”

For McCain, the Iraq war is a key part of the larger war on terror and the recent successes on the ground in the country — as a result of the surge — provide a blueprint for how to win the war in Afghanistan

McCain argued that simply putting more troops into Afghanistan (Obama has promised to move two combat brigades into the country if and when he is elected president) won’t solve the problem. What is required, according to McCain is a streamlined military command and a comprehensive plan that seeks not just to win by military means, but also by convincing average citizens of the need for change.

Obama must show voters that he is strong and right when it comes to foreign policy; that while he opposed the war in Iraq, he is not the dove-ish Democrat that Republicans have caricatured successfully in recent campaigns. (The Post/ABC survey shows he was work to do on that front; just 48 percent of voters believe Obama would be a good commander-in-chief while 72 percent said the same of McCain.)

McCain’s case is different. He must find a way to turn his advocacy for the surge in Iraq into a net positive — a signal of his good judgment when it comes to the way the U.S. military should conduct itself in Afghanistan. McCain knows that dwelling on Iraq is a political loser but he and his campaign believe that if they can use the success of the surge to pivot to Afghanistan and, in doing so, raise questions about Obama’s readiness for office, they might be able to win that fight politically.

Is There A Racial Divide?

Americans are sharply divided by race ahead of the first presidential election in which a black candidate will represent a major party, a New York Times/CBS News poll showed on Tuesday,

The poll found that blacks and whites hold vastly different views of Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat who would be the first black president, and are also divided on the state of race relations in the United States, the newspaper reported.

In the survey, 83 percent of blacks had a favorable opinion of Obama, compared with 31 percent of white voters.

On the status of race relations, 59 percent of black respondents thought they were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites who thought the same way.

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,796 adults showed that 39 percent of blacks said there had been no real progress in recent years in getting rid of racial discrimination. Only 17 percent of whites

Twenty-seven percent of whites said too much had been made of problems facing black people, while half of blacks said not enough had been made of racial barriers faced by black people.

Actually, the idea that racism is a relic from the American past is silly.  Racism is alive and well in the US, just look back at the much publicized comments and actions from this election cycle.  The problem with pin pointing it is hard, because white Americans will not admit to having the bias.