Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Bully Boy says no the people, Jimmy Carter says NSA illegal, and new plans for the convicted

Good evening let's kick things off with Democracy Now!


Bush Proposes Big Increase in Defense Spending, Cuts in Social Programs
In his proposed nearly $2.8 trillion budget President Bush is calling for major increases in defense spending but deep cuts in Medicare and other domestic social programs. Under the proposed budget, defense spending will increase nearly 7 percent to $440 billion. If approved the Pentagon’s budget will become 45 percent larger than when Bush took office five years ago. The military spending is actually far higher because the proposed budget does not include the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One recent estimate put the cost of the Iraq war at $100,000 every minute. At the same time, the president is proposing to make his tax cuts permanent. This would cost about $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discussed the budget on Monday: "The President's budget request for the Department of Defense represents an increase over last year. It reflects what we believe should be the country's national security priorities. Namely to help defend the United States of America and the American people and their interests, to give flexibility to commanders, to prepare for both conventional and unconventional or irregular warfare, and, importantly, to work closely with partner nations to help them develop the capabilities needed to defeat terrorists within their borders and to co-operate with us and other countries with respect to this global threat."


So with no jobs, no safety net, guess Bully Boy will have the troops for his never ending wars. As all the jobs drift overseas, we'll all be in the military marching under Bully Boy, then Jeb, then Jenna because the way things are going, the next thing Bully Boy's going to do is outlaw elections. They got the blood lust and they need troops to see it through.

Let me jump to Wally's "THIS JUST IN! CHENEY'S HIJINKS:"

BULLY BOY PRESS - DC.
THIS JUST IN.
MAINSTREAM PRESS COMPLETELY LOST ON WHAT TO WRITE OR SAY RE: DOMESTIC SPYING ON AMERICANS WITHOUT WARRANTS.
"WE ARE WINNING!" DECLARES VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY.
"NEXT YEAR, WE WILL DECLARE THE ENTIRE MAINLAND A BATTLE ZONE AND SITE AS PROOF THE GONZALES TESTIMONY IN THE SENATE YESTERDAY AND THE FACT THAT NO 1 OBJECTED IN THE SENATE TO OUR DEFINING THE PARIMETERS OF THE BATTLE FIELD. WE HAVE WON! WE HAVE WON!"
LIKE A GLEEFUL, YOUNG SCHOOL BOY, CHENEY WANTED A REWARD AND SO DECIDED TO ORDER ANOTHER AIR STRIKE ON NORTHERN IRAQ.
AUTHORIZING THE DROPPING OF TWO 500LB 'DEVICES' CHENEY BEGAN TO GIGGLE AND HOP FROM FOOT TO FOOT EXCLAIMING "WOO-HOO! IT SUCKS TO BE YOU!"





Jimmy Carter: Warantless Spying is "Disgraceful and Illegal"
A new critic of the domestic spying program has emerged -- former President Jimmy Carter. He described the Bush administration’s decision to go ahead with the warrantless spying as "disgraceful and illegal." Carter said, "No one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act." Carter made the statement in Nevada at an event where his son, Jack, announced he is running for U.S. Senate.

Good for Jimmy Carter but let's ask the obvious, where is Bill Clinton? He can't say a word about the war, he can't say a word about the spying. When the country needs him, where is he? I'm sick of him. He's useless, his wife is useless. Bravery is speaking out and standing up. If he won't, he's either a coward, a sell out or he has something of his own to hide. Both Clinton's should stop boring America already.

I hope Jack Carter wins. My dad was talking about the whole arms for hostages deals and how the deal helped defeat Jimmy Carter's attempt for a second run. He said he thinks Jack and Amy Carter (that's Jimmy and Rosalyn's daughter) are both aware of how the Republicans work. I think he could make a difference. I think Amy could too. (Dad was saying she protested against the CIA in the 80s.) So maybe Amy Carter will run someday too.

But Jimmy Carter and Al Gore can speak out. They're not jerking off while democracy is at stake.

And C.I. wasn't in the mood for jerks jerking off this morning. Check out this entry:

What was the big moment at the hearings? It came fairly quick. But the Times can't tell you in any of the above articles. The moment was when Arlen Specter announced that Alberto Gonzales wouldn't be sworn in before testifying.
Reporters and "reporters" can't tell you that because they're too busy "seeing" and because they're operating under the Times guidelines which loves to act like reality didn't happen. The penalities for lying to Congress were briefly and superficially addressed by Specter (also not in the above articles). Of course we had lying to Congress by certain business heads not all that long ago (who weren't sworn in) and there was no effort to punish them. It's a different standard when they're not under oath. Specter damn well knows it, the Times should, but no one wants to talk about it. And New York Timid, always the handmaiden and never the power player (all scoops are supposed to come with built-in protection -- when the NSA spying support cratered, the Times lost interest in the story they broke -- they finally broke).
So instead of readers being told very basics things that happened in the hearings yesterday, the Times looks the other way (as it's done so well for so long). Who knows how NPR and their corporate sponsors will cover it, but if you were there or you listened or watched, you know what happened before the hearings could even start.
The Times isn't about to tell you. It's why they've reportedly scrubbed a story (removed it from the website) that was posted yesterday afternoon and available well into the evening. The story's nowhere to be found now but friends at the Times say it did address Specter's refusal to swear Gonzales in.
Now why go to all that trouble? Why remove a story from the website by a Times reporter? It's one thing not to print it, it's quite another to pull it from the website.

Doesn't the Times ever get sick of smelling its own ass? I know I get sick of smelling the paper's ass.

By the way, if there's time this week (ha ha ha), Wally told me he was cool with another interview. He's got a real sense of life going on at The Daily Jot these days, just all this new energy. And if we can find some time, we're going to talk about that. But that's how it will be with interviews from now on. I'm not asking anymore. That's not a dig at C.I. (I always knew that interview was "iffy"). But readers know I tried and tried on one and I just don't see the point in ever doing that again. If someone starts a site, I'm happy to do an interview with them. I'm just not going to make the offer and never get a reply. And make it again . . .

I started thinking, "Well, gee, is it me or my readers you don't want to talk to?" Because usually I'll toss in some questions that you guys come up with. I don't know. I know I'm probably not ever plugging that site again after all the crap I got for saying a movie review was going up there that never did (I was just going by what he wrote). But I never got so many e-mails from readers griping. So I'm just not interviewing him, to talking about him or to highlighting him. Good luck to him, hope he has lots of readers but I tried to do my part and I'm tired of trying. Wally and me have college and work too. We don't blow people off.

Betty's got a busy schedule and she made time for it when I asked her. I think people help each other out and, if they can't, they say, "Hey, no time, sorry." But if I'm going to be blown off, fine by me.

Don't forget to go to Like Maria Said Paz to check out Elaine's thoughts.

So where's Bully Boy going to get all the people for his wars between now and completely driving the economy into the ditch? How about from the convicted? From Salon by way of CoutnerRecruiter:

Facing an enlistment crisis, the Army is granting "waivers" to an increasingly high percentage of recruits with criminal records -- and trying to hide it...
Through the use of a little-known, but increasingly important, escape clause known as a waiver. Waivers, which are generally approved at the Pentagon, allow recruiters to sign up men and women who otherwise would be ineligible for service because of legal convictions, medical problems or other reasons preventing them from meeting minimum standards...
According to statistics provided to Salon by the office of the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, the Army said that 17 percent (21,880 new soldiers) of its 2005 recruits were admitted under waivers. Put another way, more soldiers than are in an entire infantry division entered the Army in 2005 without meeting normal standards. This use of waivers represents a 42 percent increase since the pre-Iraq year of 2000...













Posted by at