Craig, Warner, Snow, Briefing, General Jackson, Senators Missed, Climate, Renewable Energy, No Child Gets a Break, No Poor in USA & Higgins vs Rector

There's more important things than Larry Craig resigning. But I wanted to use the picture.

Senator Graig is resigning today, another victim of right-wing homophobia. The party that loved him while he raved about naughty Clinton and backed bush's war that opened the U.S. Treasury for rich Republicans to raid, has now turned it's back on one of it's staunchest supporters.

In the GOP you can lie, cheat, steal and probably even kill, no problem. But Republicans can be right prim and proper when it comes to getting caught being gay. It's all right to be a Republican and be gay, as long as you adhere to their "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy. According to some of the gay blogs the GOP even has a system in place to cater to the tastes of the Silent Republicans. At least that's what the guy in the MSNBC interview said.

The Republicans have an image to uphold and when the only people willing to be seen with a
GOP politician are the leaders of the Religious Right, what can you do? Larry you should have remembered the Second Commandment of the GOP, "Don't get caught".

Abandoned by his party, Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho is expected to announce today that he will resign his seat amid criticism over his arrest and guilty plea in a police sting operation in an airport men's room, according to two national Republican officials.

They said Craig began notifying party leaders of his decision last night, telling them he will step down Sept. 30.

Tony Snow's leaving too. In a rare outburst of candor he admitted that making a buck is more important than serving your country. Don't get me wrong, cancer and chemo are plenty good reasons to leave the job. But to claim that you can't support your family on $168,000 a year just shows how far this bunch is out of touch with reality.

"I ran out of money," he said.

John Warner's leaving too. Senator Warner is something rare in Washington, he's pretty sensible for a Republican. Hell, he used to be married to Liz Taylor.

Time and again, from his stance on withdrawing troops in Iraq to his concern about global warming, he has taken on his party and bucked conventional wisdom. He has forged alliances and created consensus on both sides of the political divide. He's stood up to the juggernaut of lobbyists and the military-industrial complex and stopped the $30 billion refueling-tanker lease deal with Boeing. It was he who long ago, despite fierce resistance, foresaw the day when unmanned airplanes would drop bombs in war zones, as Predators do today in hotspots such as Afghanistan.

The military briefed Bush on the condition
of the troops. So far there's no indication that he paid attention. But he
knows the troops he cares about, some contracting officers, are doing very well indeed.

Court documents filed in the case say the Army took action because the company was suspected of paying hundreds of thousands in bribes to Army officers to secure contracts to build, operate and maintain warehouses in Iraq that stored weapons, uniforms, vehicles and other matériel for Iraqi forces in 2004 and 2005.

Bush don't know what the Hell's happening in Iraq, but former British Army Commander, General Sir Mike Jackson, probably does. He gave a polite critique of the U.S. occupation policy.

The former head of the British Army has attacked US postwar policy, calling it "intellectually bankrupt".

General Sir Mike Jackson, who headed the army during the war in Iraq, described as "nonsensical" the claim by the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that US forces "don't do nation-building". He has also hit back at suggestions that British forces had failed in Basra.

Mr Rumsfeld was "one of the most responsible for the current situation in Iraq," Gen Jackson says in his autobiography, Soldier. He describes Washington's approach to fighting global terrorism as "inadequate" for relying on military power over diplomacy and nation-building

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Things are so out of hand in Iraq that the military can't even protect Republican Senators. Three RPGs were fired at the aircraft they were in. But I'll guarantee they come home and tell us how great things are going over there.

BAGHDAD, Aug. 31 -- Four U.S. lawmakers endured a harrowing flight out of Baghdad as their cargo plane came under fire from the ground, causing the pilots to discharge flares and bank sharply to avoid the explosives, U.S. military officials said Friday.

George Bush might not know what he's doing, but he understands why he's doing it. Big Business and the Religious Right have spent a lot of money and got out a lot of votes to get and keep their trained idiot in the White House. And George Bush delivers.

PARIS, Aug. 31 -- A five-day U.N. conference on climate change ended in Vienna on Friday with significant disagreements remaining about how countries should reduce greenhouse gas emissions and daunting estimates about the price tag for combating global warming.

Many industrialized countries, including the United States, are wary of strict and mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, fearing that such curbs could strike at core sectors of their economies.

Fortunately there is hope. No matter how much money they spend or how many politicians they buy, within the foreseeable future the energy companies will go the way of Larry Craig and disappear. Because there are better ways to get energy.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon Iron Works has the feel of a World War II-era shipyard, with sparks flying from welders' torches and massive hydraulic presses flattening large sheets of metal. But this factory floor represents the cutting edge of American renewable-energy technology.
The plant is assembling a test buoy for Finavera Renewables, a Canadian company that hopes to harness ocean waves off the coast of Oregon to produce electricity for U.S. consumers. And Finavera is not Iron Works' only alternative-energy client: So many companies have approached it with ideas that it has created a "renewable-energy projects manager" to oversee them.

"In the last year, it's just exploded with ideas out there," said Vice President Chandra Brown. "We like to build these creative new things.

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It just amazes me that anyone would vote Republican. It's the blatant hypocrisy of the party that just floors me. They are so concerned with the embryo or fetus, yet show no concern for the living, breathing, outside the womb product.

Last week the Bush Administration was caught helping China ship lead painted toys to our children. Compassionate conservatives. This came from Last Chance Democracy Cafe.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration and China have both undermined efforts to tighten rules designed to ensure that lead paint isn't used in toys, bibs, jewelry and other children’s products.

The Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts, consumer advocates say. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children’s products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach.

This week the feds watered down a campaign to get more mothers to breast feed. Infant formula makers went to the brothel and told their Republican bitches to do something and they did.

In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples.
Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.

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And finally, I spend some time at the politics section at Stumpburners. The resident conservative, Rowdy, posts the latest right-wing propaganda and to his credit, will debate you on it. He posted a cut and paste of an article titled "BEING 'POOR' IN AMERICA" the full article is here. It was written by right-wing hack Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, an outfit that describes itself as a conservative think tank. You can see the irony. Go here to see Rowdy's cut and paste.

As I was checking out stuff to put in the blog tonight, I ran across a rebuttal to Rector's article. It was written by Bob Higgins of Worldwide Sawdust. When I first started this blog, Bob was nice enough to link to me and we've e-mailed a couple of times. He's just a hell of a nice guy. Here's his rebuttal.

"Nearly three quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.""Senior Fellow" Rector quoting from a "variety of government reports."

I own a car, It's 12 years old and I bought it used back when I was not disabled and working six days a week to stay just above the poverty level. I still drive it to my physical therapy appointments at the VA hospital and the grocery store when I can afford to pay the fuel prices that Heritage helped to arrange.

"89 percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher." "Senior Fellow" Rector still quoting from a "variety of government reports."

In all his quoting of vague "government sources," "Senior Fellow" Rector doesn't mention wage stagnation, the continually rising cost of living in all areas, outsourcing and offshoring of jobs in all sectors of the economy, community crippling layoffs, pension defaults, natural disasters, catastrophic illnesses, death, war and a host of other legitimate reasons why good, honest, working people have fallen into poverty yet still have that embarrassing dishwasher in their kitchen and still reside in the three bedroom house with a patio that they lived in before their jobs were shipped off to Timbuktu.

Right on, Bob!

Have a good weekend. I'll know if I have a good weekend sometime after the halftime of the OSU-Georgia game today. Georgia's a great football team. GO POKES!

If they lose I won't mention sports again.