Cred and Circuses

I ##@%#ed when Clinton did it...

and now I going to do the same for Bush.

What the h@ll is he thinking by spending a crapload more money on the National Endowment for the Arts?

He made a good and wise decision in selecting a new head for the NEA after he got elected and I expected that there would be some kind of responsibility involved from the new person in charge. And since this is the first time I have had to comment on the NEA since that time, then I am pretty happy with how it worked out. But considering the fact that this money (if it even needs to be spent, which is arguable) could be sent somewhere where it would actually something good, I just don't get it.

Is he trying to buy off the Liberal artsy fartsy people? They pretty much hate him and he sure isn't going to get their support. All he is doing is pissing off his own supporters in some failure of a bid to make the arts people happy.

Unless this money is going to be used to send crap painters and pimply unemployed off-off-broadway theater actors to Afghanistan and Iraq to amuse and annoy the opposition forces, I don't see a purpose for this. Parachute them into Iran at night and the bad reviews for "Piss Mullah" will be on Al-Jazerra (sp?) by morning.

What part of fiscal conservative don't you understand!!!!

I don't do Iowa

I skip it, just like my good friend Wes. Actually, I have a full list a pathetic excuses for not posting in an eon. Some of them are actually valid. To be honest, just between you and me, I was pretending to be one of those really lame live bands that sit backstage waiting for what they consider the proper amount of begging before they come out for their encore. It took Fred two whole months to even notice I wasn't on stage. A fine lesson for all you kids and your guitars out there. Take heed. Anyway, I will be monitering the inexorable march to nomination of Sen. Kerry later tonight. Apparently "most political experts had written off the Kerry campaign two short weeks ago." (There is no link, it's been said in every newspaper in the country) Um, just a thought, but did any of these experts notice that despite the furious lobby of NYC, THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION IS IN BOSTON?!?!?!? Just a small tip that the establishment has alot invested in a Kerry victory. This election cycle is all about maintaining the structural status quo for the DNC, not necessarily about winning. Anyway, after I blog about New Hampshire, I'm goin' to California....and Michigan, AND TEXAS, AND NEW YORK AND OREGON AND WASHINGTON....AND THEN TO WASHINGTON, D.C. TO WRITE ABOUT THE WHITE HOUSE.....YEEEEEARRRGHH!

Whither Trey?

If Trey doesn't start posting here soon, I am going to start a petition to keep Terrell Owens on the 49'ers!!

And posting mean things about the Browns doesn't count as posting content.

And Dave where are those "Cartoons" you keep promising?

Late thought on Gephardts speech

This is a very late and very short post about the small part of Gephardt's speech, that I have seen after the numbers had been called.

Was it just the lighting and camera angles or does Dick look very ghoulish and almost bloodless to anyone else? I know he has basically just looked deep into the abyss of his possible Presidential campaign and didn't see anything that reflected of promise. His overall political future days are pretty much numbered. With his giving up of leadership positions in the House in order to concentrate on the election season, he has surrendered any real chance of taking a leadership position in nationally for the near future. His obvious current failure in the present election cycle has apparently pushed him into dropping out tomorrow. Is he buying too much into the ideal that Iowa only gives 3 nomination tickets out of the state? Does he actually have stronger support outside of Iowa that he doesn't know about?
Neither he or we will ever know. But that is, in the end, the nature of the beast with regards to election politics. If he doesn't have the self-belief to see it through a couple more weeks then he never deserved the nomination in the first place (and maybe it is actually better for the DNC that he drops out now, and is that why he is dropping out? Far to much speculation on that to make any fact based statements at this point.)

Sidenote: Now looking at todays footage of Gephardt on the streets... he looks even more bloodless and drained than ever. Is the Democratic party populated by literal vampires as well as statist vampires as well?
Bram Stoker might be surpised by the state of the Democratic Party platform nowadays.

Mr. Edwards goes to the big show

Kerry took Iowa, but I think everyone knows that John Edwards is going to be the big story until New Hampshire bounces Clark and a revitalized Dean back into the picture. Unfortunately for Dean and Kerry, the next primary after NH is in South Caroline, and neither of those guys are looking forward to that more than Edwards. (Btw, apparently the DC win for Dean didn't have any affect. Not surprised.)

How will this win in Iowa affect the style of campaigning that Edwards has been employing lately? Not quite sure of that myself. The little that I have heard from Edwards in the recent weeks has been mostly non-specific promises about the economy, drug companies, and something or other that just didn't make any impression on me. I am sure that the Bush re-election people (as well as Kerry/Dean/Clark people) are going over the last couple years worth of speeches and news articles about the future ex-senator from North Caroline. I kind of got the feeling that Edwards supported the Iraq resolutions and wants a strong and sustained nation-building exersice in Iraq, felt that there were WMD, and hadn't to this point used either the "Blood for Oil" or "Bush Lied, someone died" lines.

Future ex-Senator from North Caroline? I confess that I never gave Edwards much of a chance before. Mainly because I was well aware of the horrible levels of Edwards' approval ratings within his home state. I knew he wasn't going to run for re-election in North Caroline, so I figured the campaign would be both a long shot and a setup for him to lure some high dollar future employers.

I guess we will see where things go from here.

(Ron Reagan is on MSNBC making jokes about Dean. That has got to sting a bit)

BRING IT ON

Kerry's new slogan appears to be "Bring It On"!!!

Does this mean that he has that covetted "Really Bad Cheerleader Movie" support?

Will Kirsten Dundst show up and steal all his rallying crys? Will there be a "Cheer-gate" scandel where he gets sued by some poor high school students that claim authorship of his signature "oh in case you didn't know, I served in Vietnam" phrase?

Pickering's strange dilema

Charles Pickering has been appointed to Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bush. As this is a "recess appointment", Judge Pickering will sit on the bench until the Senate either gets around to confirming his nomination or until the next Congress takes office (which would be in January of 2005).

He has largely been opposed by liberals because of his conservatism. They have tried to label him as a racist even though he has the support of his home state minority leaders and even has the support of James Charles Evers, brother of murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Most of the anti-Pickering Senators seem to come from the North-East with NY's Charles Schumer leading the pack. And of course it is not enough for them to figuratively "tar and feather" Pickering, they won't even let his nomination go to a vote on the Senate floor.

The main weapon that the left has been using against Judge Pickering is his ruling on a cross-burning case from 1994. Byron York at the National Review has a breakdown of the case. The defendant was convicted and in the end sentenced according to minimum guidelines requested by the Justice Dept. Civil Rights Division prosecutors.

Pickering quoted from the end of the hearing...

"You're going to the penitentiary because of what you did. And it's an area that we've got to stamp out; that we've got to learn to live, races among each other. And the type of conduct that you exhibited cannot and will not be tolerated....You did that which does hinder good race relations and was a despicable act....I would suggest to you that during the time you're in the prison that you do some reading on race relations and maintaining good race relations and how that can be done."

Now does this sound like a man who should be labelled with the "Racist" tag? Should allegations be made against the judge in a case where the prosecution and the US Justice Department are more at fault in creating this controversy? Should the Democrats be taking such a stance in the same year in which they have a candidate running for Presidential office, who has a history of inciting racial violence?

The O'Neil Hoax

Power Line blog has an interesting post providing a little bit of extra information about those "documents" showing that the Bush Administration has planning the invasion of Iraq from the beginning.

"But that is not a Pentagon document. It's from the Vice-President's Office. It was part of the Energy Project that was the focus of Dick Cheney's attention before the 9/11 strikes. And the document has nothing to do with post-war Iraq. It was part of a study of global oil supplies."

(Link found via Andrew Sullivan)

Meanwhile the American Spectator (second Item) has tracked down a former Clinton Administration aide who says Clinton was also in possession of a plan for regime change in Iraq.

"It would have been irresponsible not to have such planning."

(Link via the Insta-man)

The New York Sun gives a little history lesson by bringing up the "Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998".

“It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”

I wonder what the actual voting record for this Act was, since it sets the legal and legistlated goal for US foreign policy with regards to Iraq. The Act of course was signed by then sitting President Clinton (does this make him a neo-con hawk?)

UPDATE: Here is the House vote (360-yes 38-no 36-not voting) with a list of who voted what. It appears that the Senate passed in unanimously.
Now to be fair, this Act does not provide for military action and should not be viewed as such. It calls upon the US to support the UN resolutions. And while Sen. Kerry did vote for this Act, his statement before the Senate at the time clearly established his view of this being a non-military authorization. Though he seems a little confused on the matter of support for "Iraqi revolutionary movements". (transcript of Senate discussion)

My response to the Dem response to the State of the State address

I think it would be great if all elected officials of the state of California would automatically be placed in the highest tax bracket that the state has. No raises beyond the annual cost of living/inflationary adjustments. This should also apply to political appointees. If they want their tax burden to come down, then they will need to lower the tax burden of the rest of those top tax bracket citizens. If they want to keep raising the taxes on the "rich" then they too are subject to the same increase in taxes paid.

Now that is a ballot initiative I would support in a heartbeat.