1000 days, 1000 ways to mess
up
April 25th 2006
As we begin to count down the final 1000 days of
the George W. Bush 43rd presidency, it is perhaps time to reflect on how
much more damage he can wreak on our country before he is put out to
pasture for good.
Keep in mind that this is the president who thought it would be a great
idea to have some kind of “Pearl Harbor-like event” in order to get the
American public behind his upcoming war against Iraq. While I am not in
league with the conspiracy theorists who think that Karl Rove planned
9/11 for just that purpose, I am amazed that a sitting president would
even entertain the idea that a horrendous disaster would be politically
helpful in implementing his plans. It shows a callousness and arrogance
never before seen in an American president.
Karl Rove has been removed from his policymaking position at the White
House and put back in charge of politicking. That alone should make
everybody wary. Karl Rove is the one who argued strenuously that a Pearl
Harbor-like event might be necessary to galvanize public opinion behind
the president. My guess is that Karl Rove is one of the little voices in
Bush's ear saying that a limited cruise missile strike against Iran’s
nuclear infrastructure will boost his ratings in the polls.
That might be true, but the disastrous consequences of such a blunder
will far outweigh those that Bush has already reaped in Iraq. It will be
akin to Germany attacking Russia in World War II and opening up the
Eastern front. The consequences for our troops on the ground would be
far worse than they have been to date. Such aggressive moves would also
further destabilize the Middle East and further reduce oil output, with
the consequence of driving up gas prices even higher.
The presidency is wounded, and a politically wounded Karl Rove will no
doubt strike out at everyone in a frenzy to try and drive Bush's poll
numbers up. With Bush’s approval rating nearing 30%, it may take another
Pearl Harbor-like event to turn things around. That is perhaps the most
frightening thought of all.
Dr John
American Pravda
April 22nd 2006
Americans used to scoff at what passed for news in
the Soviet Union. The official state newspaper, Pravda, dished out state
propaganda 24 hours a day, and served as a focus of ridicule by Western
news organizations.
Oh how times have changed.
Now that Scott McClellan has offered his resignation (being forced to
lie in public for years takes a heavy mental toll, even on the ethically
challenged) we hear that Fox news’ Tony Snow is jockeying for the job.
This fact alone makes it clear that the American Pravda, Fox news, has
become a de facto arm of the Bush administration.
While working at the US germ warfare center (United States Army Medical
Research Institute of Chemical Defense) a couple years ago I was amazed
to discover that virtually all of the military personnel working there
were convinced that they could only get the truth from Fox news. They
were convinced that all other news organizations were highly biased, and
lying through their teeth. That is an amazing feat of successful
propaganda.
In order for propaganda to work, people need to be frightened and angry.
That is exactly the kind of tactic that Fox news uses to keep their
viewers incensed at things that do not affect them (such as gay
marriage), while distracting them from the malfeasance of their
government that is going to come back and bite them in the end (such as
massive government debt, and frantic borrowing from Chinese banks).
Yesterday on CNN Wolf Blitzer had a discussion about the CIA leak case
and his panel included three hard-core Republican activists. No
moderates, no liberals. With the mainstream news acting as Republican
apologists, and Fox news acting as the propaganda wing of the White
House, it is no wonder that so many Americans are misinformed and
frustrated.
Fortunately, the government has not figured out a way to take control of
the Internet, and so the information flow has not been completely shut
off. But I'm sure they're working on some kind of law that will allow
them to jail liberal bloggers as enemy combatants, if they can just
figure out how to get around that pesky First Amendment to the
Constitution.
Dr John
We'll Miss You
Scotty
April 19th 2006
White House stonewaller in chief, Scotty McClellan,
announced today that he would be “moving on”.
Sniff, sniff, we'll miss you Scotty, so sad to see
you go.
When we needed information, you put us in the know,
Like when you told us about that nasty CIA agent’s assault upon our
nation:
Simple Scotty said: “I can not comment on an ongoing investigation”
Or when you edified us with lies to boost the Iraqi conflagration:
Simple Scotty said: “I can not comment on an ongoing investigation”
Your fascinating answers on Jack Abramoff fueled our education:
Simple Scotty said: “I can not comment on an ongoing investigation”
But what we’ll miss the most is when your mind meanders:
Simple Scotty said: “The President holds everyone to the very highest
standards”.
Sniff, sniff, we'll miss you Scotty, so sad to see you go.
When we needed information, you put us in the know.
Dr John
It was all a pack of lies
April 12th 2006
Bit by bit, every single piece of
information given to the United States public about the reasons for
going to war in Iraq have been proven false. Worse yet, the evidence
clearly indicates that the Bush administration knew the claims were
false before they even uttered the falsehoods in public.
Now we learn that the government knew that the so-called mobile
bio-weapons factories had nothing to do with biological weapons, and
several inspectors dubbed them “giant sand toilets”. But Bush and Cheney
turned sand toilets into imminent threats. They lied and lied and lied.
There are still lying to the public on a daily basis, and for some
reason they think they will get away with it despite all the evidence
showing that they are lying. Now they are stirring up trouble with Iran
for one simple reason; they don't want people talking about how they
lied us into the war in Iraq, and how they exposed a covert CIA agent to
squelch criticism of their malfeasance.
They have so thoroughly trampled on our military - over extended them,
under-equipped them, pushed them to the limit, lied to them about the
reasons for being there, and botched the diplomacy that could have
quelled the insurgency - that they couldn't attack Iran now even if they
wanted to. But expect a lot more Bush bluster about Iran, and a lot more
lies about how Iraq was a substantial and growing threat to the United
States.
The Bush administration will go down in history as the most disingenuous
and disastrous administration to ever come to power in America. What
worries me most is how much more trouble they can get us into over the
next 2 1/2 years in an attempt to distract attention from their criminal
actions.
The argument will go something like this: “Iran –threat… Iran -big
threat… Iran -nuclear threat… you're all going to die!” (George isn't
big on complete sentences).
A quick note to those who don't think George Bush should be impeached
along with Dick Cheney: exactly how many lies and false wars will they
have to foist on you before you get angry? How much debt will they need
to saddle your children with in order for you to get angry? How much
will they have to abuse our military personnel, wasting and destroying
many of their lives, before you get angry? Which is more important; the
United States of America, or the Republican Party?
Think about it.
Dr John
For America
April 9th 2006
In a column published yesterday Todd Huffman writes “if you don't mind,
why don't you mind?” That's a question I've been asking for some time
now. The truth of the matter is that about two thirds of the country
really does mind, and is either frustrated or outraged. It's just that
other one third that doesn't seem to mind what the Bush administration
is doing in our name.
It is now official that President Bush authorized leaking the name of a
CIA agent, only to come out later and publicly say he wanted to know
“who did the leaking”. If that level of official disingenuousness is not
enough to infuriate you, then probably nothing will.
According to recently released information concerning the dubious nature
of President Bush's claims about Iraq obtaining nuclear material from
Niger Africa, Bush knew long before his State of the Union speech that
the claims were false. From the Washington Post story today: “The
[National Intelligence] council's reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo
by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The
Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials
with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not
been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his
highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their
case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.”
There is no doubt now, (nor was there much doubt in many peoples minds
in March of 2003), that the president lied about the reasons for going
to war, and then lied again about the evidence he said that he had
concerning the reasons for going to war. We were also told there was
much additional information that was classified that showed Saddam was a
serious threat, and now it turns out that was a lie as well.
It is time for conservatives and liberals alike to realize that they
have been set at each other's throats by incompetent liars who are
trying to divide the nation into two warring camps so that they can stay
in power. It is time for conservatives and liberals to stop looking at
each other as the enemy, and see the Bush administration as the true
enemy of us all. The latest headlines at the Washington Post talk about
plans for bombing Iran. Americans need to come together and write their
congress people and tell them that there is absolutely no way America is
going into another ill-advised war based on Karl Rove’s political
strategies. Rove is a one trick pony who thinks that everyone will rally
behind a war president.
Liberals and conservatives alike should work together to impeach both
Bush and Cheney so that America can move on. This is one time when
Americans need to come together regardless of party in order to save
their country from ruin. The moment we start dropping bombs on Iran is
when Iran begins full-scale support for the insurgency in Iraq. Only a
madman would want to put our troops in even more danger than they
already are.
If there was ever a time when liberals and conservatives needed to work
together to prevent further disaster, the time is now. If you are not
part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
America first.
Dr John
Another missing link is found
April 6th, 2006
Scientists have announced the find
of several
fossils from Devonian rocks in Canada that clearly show a transitional
form between fish and early land animals. The fish have many additional
bones in their forelimbs that appear to be the forerunners of modern
arm/wing bones from land animals. The new species of fossil has been named
Tiktaalik roseae.
For scientists this is just
another in a long series of discoveries that show how animals have evolved
over the previous 600 million years, but for proponents of intelligent
design, this is another fossil record gap filler that makes their argument
of huge gaps in the fossil record sound more and more shrill. One of their
favorite gaps was the fossil record gap between fish and land animals.
Fossil fish with short stubby fat front fins have been found, and amphibian
fossils with very primitive limbs have been found, but this is the first
transitional fossil form which shows intermediate limb development.
For some time now scientists have
noted that creationists have claimed that evolution cannot explain the gaps
in the fossil record, and they call the creationists point of view “the God
of the gaps”. As the gaps become filled in, the God of the gaps is squeezed
more and more out of the picture. Expect to hear from evangelicals
everything from accusations that the fossils are fake, to declarations that
the forelimb bones of the fossils do not look like modern arm bones, and are
completely unrelated.
The really bad news for
intelligent design proponents is that there are millions of cubic acres of
fossil bearing rocks still to be examined, and many new fossils yet to be
found. The fossil record will never be perfect, but as it stands now it has
already given us huge volumes of information about how life changed on earth
over the last several hundred million years.
Dr John
War
profiteers are picking your pocket and making you less safe.
April 2nd, 2006
It was reported in the New York
Times today that as much as $250 billion worth of defense contracting money
may have been spent on an unworkable antimissile defense system. The
contractor and war profiteer, Boeing, apparently falsified data on the
accuracy and kill rate for missile interceptors they were contracted to
provide the government.
A heated dispute has sprung up
between the General Accounting Office (GAO) and one of their employees who
disclosed the falsified documents and the subsequent cover-up to the public.
As an example, a single failed
missile attempt cost American taxpayers $100 million, and Boeing falsified
data concerning the test. Perhaps the most disturbing part of this story of
war profiteering, falsifying data, and cover up is the fact that there is no
nuclear missile threat anymore to protect the United States from.
George Bush came to office
determined to build an antimissile defense system despite the fact that
there was no longer any threat from enemy nuclear missiles. Add to this the
facts that the interceptors rarely find their target, even when it is a lone
warhead, and it is impossible for the interceptor to determine which is the
real warhead when decoys are used.
In other words, the system cannot
possibly work as advertised, and it is designed for a threat that no longer
exists. Does that sound like something you want 250 billion taxpayer dollars
spent on? Isn't it possible that spending that money on securing our ports
and borders might make Americans safer than protecting us against
non-existent nuclear missiles?
I expect most Americans will just
roll their eyes and say “oh well”. And of course that is the crux of the
problem in America today. Americans should be outraged at this squandering
of their tax dollars to boost a failing corporation, Boeing. The sad fact of
the matter is, eventually Boeing lost the interceptor contract to another
company, Raytheon, but Boeing still retains control over the entire missile
defense project. I suppose it's just another example of promoting those who
fail.
When Will Americans finally rise
up against in this kind of government/corporate abuse? Probably never,
they're too busy watching American Idol.
Dr John
Illegal Aliens Taking White House Jobs That Americans Don't Want.
April 1st, 2006
In a shocking move that has the
White House staff in a frenzy, President George Bush has announced a White
House staff shakeup. After the resignations of Scooter Libby and Andrew
Card, the president has been having trouble filling top positions in his
administration. According to Scott McClellan, the president's press
secretary, Americans just don't want those kinds of jobs. “Americans are
basically an ethical lot”, McClellan was quoted as saying. “It's hard to get
an honest, taxpaying citizen to fill the sleazy positions”.
When questioned about specifics,
McClellan noted that the White House chief of staff position would soon be
open and that Mr. Bush was interviewing potential candidates for the job.
One high-level staffer at the White House said that a number of applicants
had been interviewed, but that no Americans were willing to stoop that low.
It was noted however, that Jesús Jimenez, an illegal immigrant and day
laborer in Northern Virginia, had expressed some interest in the job
opening.
Other top-level positions rumored
for rapid turnover included Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and
Vice President. McClelland ruminated; “These are important positions, and
just because they aren't glamorous, and they have been sullied by their
current occupants, doesn’t mean that they are bad jobs”. When asked about
progress on filling the vice president's position, McClellan was quoted as
saying “I can't comment on ongoing job applications”.
Dr John
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