May 20, 2004

QUOTABLES:

"We didn't talk about polls," Rep. David Hobson, an Ohio Republican, said after the meeting with Bush. "He believes in what he's doing and he will stay on course for his beliefs, no matter what the political cost is."

"Those who are wringing their hands and shouting so loudly for 'heads to roll' over this seem to have conveniently overlooked the fact that someone's head HAS rolled - that of another innocent American brutally murdered by terrorists. Why is it? Why is it that there's more indignation over a photo of a prisoner with underwear on his head than over the video of a young American with no head at all?" said Sen. Zell Miller.

House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said, "I believe the President's leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate he is incompetent in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience."

"What's been causing a lot of heartburn is that some of these Senate Republicans who get on these talking head shows aren't 100 percent aligned with the president or his agenda," said Rep. Ray LaHood. "We need House members on these shows."

“A general once said of his own troops that he didn't know what the enemy thinks of them, ‘but they scare the hell out of me.’  I get that same queasy feeling observing about half of American public opinion and the politicians and journalists who try to shape it. . . . (L)ess than three years after America began to face down the greatest threat yet to our national survival, not only has half the country given up the fight, but they have closed their eyes to the danger.” – writes columnist Tony Blankley

"There's more money associated with the No Child Left Behind Act than there has ever been before in any education bill," Laura Bush said.

James Carville said, "[In] 2008 there is going to be a significant third- party movement in the United States that is going to combine Naderism and Buchanan-ism. It is going to be anti- immigration, antitrade, very, very cool on military intervention. It would certainly not be great for Democrats to have that."

"Events are going to change drastically. I just think Bush is going to announce a troop pullout before the election. You'd knock me over with a feather if he doesn't," said James Carville.

“In ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,‘ Michael Moore drops any pretense that he is a documentarian to pull together from many sources an angry polemic against the president, the Bush family and the administration‘s foreign policy.” – writes the Hollywood Reporter.

“The notion that we could take Iraq, for instance, which has a strong middle class, and turn it right in the middle of Arabia and turn it into a functioning democratic capitalist society and use that to galvanize the rest of the Arab world out of the 13^th century is a virtuous vision.  And you could disagree with the tactics of it or not, but the vision is admirable.  And not to see that is deplorable... Moore is making a fortune out of his anti-Americanism.” – actor John Rhys-Davies [Lord of the Rings, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc.]

JUST POLITICS

MoveOn.org asks members for more $

MoveOn.org continues to pound away at its members to send in money... this time to pay for a TV ad calling (again) for the firing of Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld:

Dear MoveOn member,

It's time to raise the stakes in our demand that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld be fired. We need your help today to put a powerful new TV ad on the air.

We now know Rumsfeld personally approved a policy that "encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners," violating their fundamental human rights under the Geneva convention.¹ Our new ad will help make sure everyone in the country knows about Rumsfeld’s direct responsibility for the prisoner debacle, but to air it we need your help. Here's the script:

The screen pans slowly up the Statue of Liberty, ultimately revealing that her head is hooded. The narrator says:

"They said we were going to Iraq to bring American values: democracy, liberty, justice. But something has gone terribly wrong."

"It's been reported that Donald Rumsfeld initiated a plan that encouraged the physical coercion and sexual humiliation of prisoners, violations of international law. Rumsfeld has placed the men under his command in even more danger."

"Why hasn't George Bush fired this man?"

Gas wars

President Bush answered Democrats and Sen. John Kerry who have called on the President to release oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve. His response was that releasing the oil would weaken America in the War on Terrorism. He called on Congress to act on his new energy bill. The President made his comments following a cabinet meeting:

“I am concerned about the price of gasoline at the pump. I fully understand how that affects American consumers, how it crimps the budgets of moms and dads who are trying to provide for their families, how it affects the truck driver, how it affects the small business owner.

I anticipated this three years ago. I asked my team to put together a strategy to make us less dependent upon foreign sources of energy. I submitted that plan to the United States Congress.

Now we want people to have it both ways, just like they've tried to have it both ways over the last couple of years. On the one hand, they decry the price at the pump, and on the other hand, they won't do anything about it. They won't take action. Congress needs to pass the energy plan.

We had a very interesting discussion about capacity. For example, had ANWR been passed -- had it not been vetoed in the past, we anticipate an additional million barrels of oil would have been coming out of that part of the world, which would obviously have a positive impact for today's consumers.

And so it's time for some action here to get us less dependent. They need to pass that which I have submitted to Congress, so this country will become less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

All in all, we're upbeat about the spread of freedom and peace and the ability for our fellow citizens to find work.”

Democrats’ Spanish ads

New Mexico Governor Bill Richards and Reps. Loretta Sanchez of California and Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion and Raul Martinez are all featured in Spanish ads that Democrats want to run to win the Spanish vote.

Richardson says, “Dems 'are more than a political party; we are a movement of the people' and adding at the end of the commercial that 'the journey has begun.' “

Medicare video wrong

The General Accounting Office said that the videos sent to television stations by the Department of Health, Education & Welfare failed to note that the "reporters" who "analyzed" the new Medicare law were paid by the government. Reuters reports that:

"Nothing in the story packages permit the viewer to know that Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia were paid with federal funds through a contractor to report the message in the story packages," the GAO said. Ryan and Garcia were the "reporters" in the English and Spanish versions of the video respectively.

The GAO concluded that the video releases violated a 2003 law on government publicity. It also found that the Medicare agency had spent an undetermined amount of money not appropriated for that purpose.

Democrats had raised questions about the propriety of the video and asked the GAO to investigate the matter. The Democrats continue to deride the Medicare legislation that provides drug benefits to seniors for the first time in the programs history.

Budget compromise

There is some hope that the budget has been worked out between the House and the Senate. At the heart of the problem was the move by Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and John McCain of Arizona who joined with Democrats in passing the pay as you go rule that required tax cuts to be offset by spending cuts.

The House has agreed to implement the pay as you go rule for one year with most of the tax cuts the House wants to pass this year being exempt. The Senate is expected to take up the bill soon. The Senate leadership supports the compromise.

The Senate Republicans are unlikely to pass the compromise because all four Republicans have vowed to vote against the bill leaving the Republican Leadership four short of passage and Sen. Zell Miller the only Democrat likely to support the compromise.

More on the U.N. scandal

The Washington Times reports on the Oil for Food scandal at the U.N. The program enabled $10 billion in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein and the continuation of his torturing of his own people:

The company hired to monitor aid under the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq failed to staff key checkpoints, used unauthorized subcontractors, and could not account for "massive discrepancies" between reported and actual shipments of aid, according to an internal U.N. audit.

Switzerland-based Cotecna Inspection SA has already figured as a key player in the $10 billion scandal when it was revealed that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son, Kojo, worked for Cotecna and later served as a consultant to the company when it won the lucrative U.N. contract in 1998.

"We believe the former regime siphoned off enormous riches from the Iraqi people, and if it is possible to retrieve a part of them, even a part, it will be worth it," said the interim Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulloum.

The regime has pledged to work with the commission headed by Pual Volcker who is investigating the U. N. corruption in the hopes of getting some of the money back.

Gay Anglican crisis

Eighteen Anglican archbishops, most of them from Africa and Asia and representing more than 55 million Anglicans, have called on the Episcopal Church to "repent" its pro-homosexual policies within three months or face expulsion from the worldwide Anglican Communion.

 

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