Jim Nicholson is right, we can't spare one million dollars to make sure that our wounded soldiers are taken care of.

That kind of money could be better spent. Do you realize some Halliburton executives don't have pools in their 2nd summer homes? Oh the tragedy.

Under VA Chief, Effort to Aid Wounded Vets Stalled, Ex-Employee Charges

A proposal to keep seriously wounded vets from falling through the cracks of the bureaucracy was shelved in 2005 when Jim Nicholson took over as the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, according to the former VA employee who was responsible for tracking war casualties.

As a result, seriously wounded veterans continued to face long delays for health care and benefit payments after being discharged from the military, says former VA project manager Paul Sullivan.
...
Sullivan said he was told the cost of the system -- less than $1 million to build and requiring a handful of staff to maintain -- was prohibitive.

- rob 4:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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It's called "Congress doing its job" - do try to get used to it pResident Bush.

Committee Will Hold Hearing on Disclosure of CIA Agent Valerie Plame Wilson's Identity
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform :: United States House of Representatives

Chairman Henry A. Waxman announced a hearing on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. At the hearing, the Committee will receive testimony from Ms. Wilson and other experts regarding the disclosure and internal White House security procedures for protecting her identity from disclosure and responding to the leak after it occurred. The hearing is scheduled for Friday, March 16.

and:

In firings’ wake, Dems on duty

It now seems clear that the U.S. attorney firing story has blossomed into a full-blown scandal. Two of the eight fired attorneys have alleged specific instances in which members of Congress or their staffs tried to goad them into dropping indictments against Democrats. One of the longest-serving members of the Senate, Pete Domenici (R) of New Mexico, has just hired a lawyer to defend his apparent role in trying to get former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to indict a New Mexico state Democrat to help his protégé Rep. Heather Wilson (R) hold on to her seat in last November’s election.

There will be plenty of time to speculate about the administration’s motives in this affair and scope out new paths for the expanding investigation. But the real story behind the quickening pace of revelations over the last six weeks is something that is easy to miss: old-fashioned congressional oversight.

So much of what the Bush administration has been able to get away with over the last six years has been possible only because — with only a brief exception — Congress has not only been in the hands of the president’s party but ruled by a leadership focused almost entirely on covering up presidential wrongdoing rather than exercising meaningful oversight of the executive branch.

- rob 1:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Are they able to come to DC in January, 2009?

Priests to Purify Site After Bush Visit

GUATEMALA CITY -- Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

- rob 1:36 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Summer is just a few months away which means soon the corporate media will stop covering the latest on Anna Nicole Smith (still dead) and Britney Spears (probably not as bald as she was), and concentrate of other, more important, things, like Shark Attacks.

Keep in mind:

Sharks bite fewer people each year than New Yorkers do, according to health department records.

And I'm sure that's not counting toddlers.

From: National Geographic: Bahamas' Shark Eden (thanks to a phunkster for the link).

Reporting on a war, a corrupt government, and corporatic greed is a ratings loser. Sharks! Now that's a story with teeth.

- rob 1:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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This would be a good thing - you know if you like democracy an all:

Summary of the Count Every Vote Act of 2007 (CEVA)

• Title I – Voter Verification and Auditing
• Title II – Provisional Ballots
• Title III – Amendments to HAVA
• Title IV – Voter Registration and Identification
• Title IV – Voter Registration and Identification
• Title V – Impartial Election Administrators
• Title VI – Ending Minority Vote Suppression
• Title VII – Civic Participation by Ex-Offenders
• Title VIII – Holiday for Voting
• Title IX – Additional Improvements to Election Procedures
• Title X – Strengthening the Election Assistance Commission

Make it happen:

Sign the petition!

Tell your members of Congress to co-sponsor the Count Every Vote Act.

This is comprehensive legislation, and it deserves our whole-hearted support—from you, your friends, your senators, and your representative.

The Count Every Vote Act faces an uphill battle in Congress. The first step is getting a strong, bipartisan group of senators and representatives to co-sponsor it. Urge your members of Congress to sign on to the Count Every Vote Act immediately!

- rob 4:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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If it says: Libby Libby Libby on the Label Label Label

Then you know it's a prison.

Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Case

- rob 1:04 PM - [PermaLink] -

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U.S. food safety inspections languishing

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal agency that's been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.
...
Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

"Food Tasters" will soon be all the rage with the jet setting Bush Pioneers.

- rob 5:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Your tax dollars - where it is going

Hand that feeds

Wade Horn has been very kind to Religious Right organizations, including the one that he founded in 1994 with Religious Right money -- the National Fatherhood Initiative in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Appointed by President Bush as Assistant Secretary for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, Horn oversees an annual budget of 47 billion dollars. Horn has shown that he knows all about the hand that feeds, and now, he has taken care to feed the National Fatherhood Initiative with a "Capacities Building" grant in the amount of $999,534 from a program he started in his agency and called by the familiar-ringing name of the "Responsible Fatherhood Initiative."
...
As a government official, Horn has shown that he understands the hand that feeds very well. It was he, for example, who approved the hiring of columnist Maggie Gallagher to promote marriage -- although she denies that she used her column as currency for exchange. Gallagher had also worked for the National Fatherhood Initiative, according to research by Bill Berkowitz. It was Horn who gave money to writer Mike McManus to support marriage promotion, while also giving money to McManus' organization, Marriage Savers ("a ministry that equips ... local congregations to prepare for lifelong marriages ..."). Horn, as it happens, is also a founding board member of Marriage Savers.

Horn has also funded a multitude of specious marriage counseling programs that funnel money to churches.

Horn was recently handed additional money to dispense -- the $157 million in abstinence-only education. He has a nifty idea that abstinence programs could go beyond students, and become engaging programs for adults, as well.

- rob 4:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Today's difficult question:

What is more important - the ability to factory farm cows or the health of all humanity?

If you answered Factory Farming you've got a job with the Bush administration.

FDA Rules Override Warnings About Drug

The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people.

The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals.

We will create super diseases for the sake of a cheap burger.

This is government working to actively be an agent of bad.

1) Powerful antibiotic to cows creating potential for new super bugs that can then cause disease in humans.
2) Promoting factory farming the creates huge concentrated sources of sewage effecting the health of the regional area.
3) more cows equal more methane in the air. Cow farts really are a big deal.
4) cheaper beef for Americans to consume - making them even fatter.

Actually maybe the making Americans fatter is part of the Bush administration's plan to deal with global warming. When the rising oceans come, we'll be able to float our way to safety.

- rob 4:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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In honor of the season of Lent, I thought I’d retell the new testament story of Zacharias.

Zacharias was a rePublican.

rePublican’s were not liked because they would often take for themselves much of the money the people had given to the government.

One day Zacharias heard Jesus was coming to down and he wanted to watch, but being a short man he couldn’t see through the crowd and had the local power utility send over a cherry picker so he could watch in its bucket, way above the crowd. When Jesus came he looked up and saw Zacharias above the crowd in the cherry picker’s bucket, he shouted out “Zacharias you will give me room and board tonight.”

Zacharias wasn’t too keen on housing a hippie, but thought he could learn about Jesus and his popularity. Zacharias was very jealous because no one liked him, despite the fact that he was so rich.

While staying at Zacharias’s house Jesus showed respect to his staff, talked about helping the poor, and expressed the desire to care and help all of mankind.

Zacharias was floored at the naivety of this man.

“Jesus, helping out these people would only encourage their continued sloth. They have as much access to the free market system as anyone. I am free to use money I receive as part of working with the government to then influence government officials to give me more money. Anyone could do this. And showing concern for you enemy's wealthfare only serves to embolden the enemy – it shows that you are weak.” Zacharias yelled as he threw Jesus out of the house and went back to his wine and lamb.

Zacharias was the hit at the next rePublican conference as he told this story to his fellow rePublicans.

- rob 4:29 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt



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 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt



"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson



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- James Madison



"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy



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- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.