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| Pt. 2 on shit from the administration you can't make up. |
| 03.09.04 (12:57 pm) [edit] |
When naming a spokesman for the national farm and ranch committee to court the all important rural vote, who would you pick? well, I'll tell you who'd the President/Republicans would/did pick.
Nolan Ryan. That's right, hall of fame pitcher Nolan Ryan. Hey read on. I promise you, I can't make this shit up.
Playing hardball in must-win rural America, President Bush's team says it owns the all-star line-up -- ethanol, tax cuts and larger farm exports, backed by baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.
Democrat John Kerry hopes to score by siding with family farmers in the fight against "factory" farms, imported food and the giant meatpackers who dominate cattle and hog slaughter.
Victory in rural states was crucial to Bush's narrow White House victory in 2000. The U.S. Plains and Midwest, a vast region of farms, ranches and small industrial cities, could be vital this year as well, whether as a bulwark for Republican Bush or a breakthrough for Democrat Kerry.
Rural America is home to a quarter of the U.S. population. Its farmers and ranchers tend to be social and fiscal conservatives, siding often with Republicans. But they also display a maverick sense of fair play that can nurture populists and fire-breathing Democrats.
Picked to help sell the Republican farm program, Ryan was named to Bush's national farm and ranch committee, a group of mostly farm-group leaders, state officials and prosperous growers formed by the president's campaign to win rural votes.
Best known as a premiere professional baseball player, Ryan is now a Texas cattle rancher -- which he describes as "my first passion."
Bush re-election chairman Marc Racicot said in an interview rural voters would reward Bush for his support for broader use of corn-based ethanol, for tax cuts and repeal of the estate tax, and for trade pacts to open foreign markets to U.S. farm exports. All of those are broadly popular issues in farm country and supported by mainline farm groups.
Bush also can boast of the 2002 farm subsidy law, which boosted spending on crop supports and land stewardship.
"If you're talking only a few thousand votes, these states are important," said agricultural consultant Bill Lesher. "Gee whiz, the farm bill and a few other things, he (Bush) is trying his best" to carry rural states.
KERRY EMPHASIZES FAMILY FARMS
Kerry, with no Ryan-like celebrity to sell his program, says he would put more emphasis on family farmers with steps like tighter limits on subsidy payments to big farmers, nominally capped at $360,000 a year now but easily circumvented.
His list of issues jibes with the priorities of farm activists and dissidents who often align with Democrats.
He also would ban meatpackers from competing with farmers in raising cattle and hogs, crack down on pollution from large-scale feedlots, and insist on country-of-origin labeling on meat. Congress voted in January to delay labeling for two years, until Sept. 30, 2006.
"You move away from Washington and support for (labeling) builds, like a fire on the prairie," said Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat.
Similarly, farm activists from the northern Plains say the ranch vote is up for grabs, because of the delay in labeling. Some farmers are becoming disenchanted with trade negotiations, saying they let competitors into U.S. markets but do not pay off in larger exports like they once did.
"They (farmers and ranchers) aren't going to vote on one issue," responded a livestock lobbyist, when the overall farm economy is strong and Bush matches rural sentiment on taxes and defense. Said another farm group lobbyist, "I don't think they are going to be comfortable with a Massachusetts Democrat."
Most likely to be battleground states were Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Mexico, where Bush lost narrowly, along with Missouri and Ohio, which he carried, analysts said. Bush lost Iowa, Wisconsin and New Mexico by a total of 11,487 votes.
In 10 Midwest and Plains states, Bush got at least 57 percent of the vote in 2000, suggesting a solid foundation for this year.
Farm issues have been little mentioned since the kick-off Iowa caucuses on Jan. 19. Farm-policy expert John Schnittker says modern-day presidents tend to cede the issue to Congress except when a crisis demands White House attention.
(Reuters)
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| Being against the death penalty, this isn't the case to support our claim. |
| 03.09.04 (12:42 pm) [edit] |
Being against the death penalty, I realize that I am an ant in an elephant's world, but, as in everything else, strangling the voice of opposition, strangles democracy- or some other catchy liberal one-liner. But moving on, my being uncomfortable with the death penalty is very simple:
I am made uncomfortable with a country that has, thanks in part to cable news, accepted the new credo of guilty until being proved innocent. Furthermore, the idea that the death penalty curbs violence, is wrong. During W's reign over Texas, more people were put to death than the rest of the states combined. combined. And all the while, Houston was among the most crime ridden cities in the country, proving how ineffectual it really is. To further state or support this position, we can refer to the most recent survey from the UN, which states,
"it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment".
(Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective, Oxford University Press, third edition, 2002, p. 230)
And if that's not enough for you, the idea that it is state-sponsored killing, should really alarm you. State sponsored killings don't even exist in war ridden third world countries anymore, but here, it does. In a show of barbarism, the United States has put to death more people (17) to death under the age of 18 than any other country in the world since 1990. Rounding out the elite eight of countries to join the U.S. in killing children are,
China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
Fantastic company, eh?
Facts courtesy of Amnesty International.
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-fa cts-eng" title="http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-fa cts-eng" target="_blank"http://web.amnesty.org/pages/...
This all with the fact that the manner in which these executions are carried out take a giant leap over the line of what is cruel and what is unusual, and there's that whole piece of paper that "protects" us from things like that. See dreamer. See hopeless believer in the Constitution. See crazy. Please see doctor.
If you really want to read a moving story on the effects of death row imprisonment, have a read of Live from Prison, a great read, written by one of America's most well known political prisoner's, Mumia-Abu-Jamal.
I'll make a quick point here, and get to where this post was originally supposed to go. See: lost track. See: rambled on. See: add pills.
The point of the story was that supporting my lack of support for the death penalty, falls close to the wayside, with the case of John Muhammad, the Washington sniper.
If for no other reason that it caused gas prices in Washington, D.C. to spike, because people refused to get out of their car to pump gas, yet were very comfortable paying in upwards of three dollars/gallon to go to full serve, and make some high school kid stand unaware in the crosshairs. Go America. United we Stand, alone.
Read the article yourself.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml" title="http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml" target="_blank"http://reuters.com/newsArticl...;jsessionid=AYGMYU1NS3KGI CRBAEZSFFA?type=topNews&s toryID=4530434§ion=ne ws
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| Fred Barnes only sees one small snag with Iraqi Constitution |
| 03.01.04 (10:25 pm) [edit] |
I had no intention of writing anything else, but watching less than a segment of any show at anytime on Fox, can prompt this novice writer to write a healthy column entitled:
Shit you couldn't sell in a dollar store:
said Weekly Standards own Fred Barnes;
" The only hold-up i see with the Iraqi Constitution is getting the Sunni's, Shi'ites, and the Kurds to come to an agreement".
HA- sorry Fred, I'll be over at the table selling the just released Joe Strummer/Elliot Smith album.
Or maybe I'll just go hang out at the George Steinbrenner/John Henry makeout booth.
Along the same lines, and I don't know why I, or any leader for decades hasn't pointed out that the only hurdle with winning the peace in reference to the Israeli/Palestine conflict is getting the two sides to agree. Holy shit are we stupid.
Just get along guys, that's all.
Hey Fred, comments this reporter,
" Listen for the pop"
Fred- What are you talking about? what's the pop?
Distinguished reporter:
"The sound your head's gonna make when it comes out of your ass for the very first time".
End transcript.
And not to be outdone on this esteemed "expert" panel, Brit Hume, after some fantastic photos of his recent skiing trip to Montana, cause that's what I give a shit about. Pictures of a guy I couldn't give a shit about, and a trip I could give a smaller shit about- but as a sidebar, I'd give his wife an intimate northern transplant hurting.
Right, I was making a point. Right. see scatterbrained. see doctor.
So Brit Hume nicely reported that;
"we went to Iraq to remove Saddam because he posed an imminent threat to the United States"
Imminent, as in the same way Canada's olympic basketball team poses ours.
And when did I become so fucking stupid?
I swear to that guy upstairs, we went to war because he had WMD's. Tell me I'm not crazy.
See pre-war speeches/press releases. See Ministry of truth. delete it. never happened. See doctor.
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| You're accusing US of staging a coup d'etat'? Powell calls foul |
| 03.01.04 (9:30 pm) [edit] |
Even though a short while ago Powell stated that we have no interest in helping Haiti, he's now dismissing any notion that a coup was staged by us, despite our notorious past in doing just that. See South America. See Iran.
You have to know in your heart of hearts that even Powell doesn't believe the shit that comes flying from his mouth. I don't know about you, but I'm eagerly awaiting his post administration book.
back to the meat and potatoes:
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said Monday he was forced to leave Haiti in a "coup d'etat" by the United States.
"I was told that to avoid bloodshed I'd better leave," he said in an interview on CNN.
Earlier, the Bush administration vigorously denied that Aristide was kidnapped by U.S. troops, which is what two U.S. members of Congress said the deposed Haitian president told them in telephone calls.
"That's nonsense," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "I've seen some of the reports [and they] do nothing to help the Haitians move forward to a better, more prosperous future."
One day after Aristide left the country and one month after a rebellion began in northern Haiti, heavily armed Haitian rebels drove into Port-au-Prince Monday, moving into the headquarters of the national police while U.S. Marines took up positions across the street at the presidential palace. (Full story) (Aristide's home looted) (City streets)
McClellan said the United States took steps to protect Aristide and his family as they left Haiti, but denied that U.S. forces took him from his home to the airport.
"The military presence we had at the time was at the embassy," McClellan said. "[Aristide] went with his own personal security."
But Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, said Aristide told them a very different story.
Waters said Mildred Aristide, the ex-president's wife, called the congresswoman at her home at 6:30 a.m. (9:30 a.m. ET) Monday, and told her "the coup d'etat has been completed," and then handed the phone to her husband.
Waters said that Aristide told her the chief of staff of the U.S. Embassy in Haiti came to his home, told him that he would be killed "and a lot of Haitians would be killed" if he did not leave and said he "has to go now."
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the allegations were baseless and that Aristide left Haiti in the company of his own security detail.
In a terse description of the timeline, Powell said that Aristide telephoned U.S. Ambassador to Haiti James Foley on Saturday evening to ask for advice and decided resigning would be the best course of action.
"He wanted to speak with his wife, which he did, he came back to us and said it was his decision based on what his security people were telling him," Powell said. "We made arrangements for his departure, he wrote a letter of resignation, a leased plane was brought in and he departed."
"He was not kidnapped," the secretary said. "We did not force him onto the airplane. He went on the airplane willingly and that's the truth."
Aristide's first choice country refused him
Powell said that the first country Aristide requested to go to refused him, "and we went through an hour and half of negotiations to find alternatives."
The secretary said about 15 members of Aristide's security detachment accompanied him, but Rangel and Waters said Aristide claimed to have only his wife, his brother and two security members.
"That's what happened, notwithstanding any cell phone reports to the contrary," Powell said.
The kidnapping claim is "absolutely false," concurred Parfait Mbaye, the communications minister for the Central African Republic, where Aristide's party was taken.
A mask of Aristide lies broken at the entrance of his looted house in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The minister told CNN that Aristide had been granted permission to land in the country after Aristide himself -- as well as the U.S. and French governments -- requested it.
Rangel said Aristide told him he was "disappointed that the international community had let him down."
Aristide also said "that he was kidnapped, that he resigned under pressure, that he had not negotiated with these countries or with the United States," Rangel told CNN. "As a matter of fact, he was very apprehensive for his life."
"The way I see it is they came to his house, uninvited," Waters said. "They had not only the force of the embassy but the Marines with them. They made it clear that he had to go now or he would be killed."
"It was very clear to him ... that the Americans had been responsible for helping to carry out the coup d'etat," she said.
Waters said she "tends to doubt the State Department" because she has "been lied to over and over again."
"Why are these so-called rebels who are really criminals and thugs riding up and down the streets of Port-au-Prince in their old military dress," she asked. "I have a lot of questions of my own government at this point. President Aristide said it was a coup."
Waters accused Undersecretary of State for Latin America Roger Noriega -- whom she called "a Haiti hater" -- of being behind the troubles there.
Noriega was a senior aide to former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee was a backer of longtime Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier and an opponent of Aristide.
Duvalier became Haiti's "president for life" at age 19 after the death of his father, but was forced out because of economic and political instability in 1986. The new rebels, Waters said, "are all old Duvalier people."
Powell said that "it might have been better for members of Congress who have heard these stories to ask us about the stories before going public with them so we don't make a difficult situation that much more difficult."
He called Aristide "a man who was democratically elected, but he did not democratically govern or govern well," he said. "Now we are there to give the Haitian people another chance."
Randall Robinson, an African-American activist, told CNN he received a similar phone call from Aristide. And the ex-president's attorney, Ira Kurzban, said that if it is true Aristide was abducted, it would be "a gross violation of human rights."
"It is the worst kind of 19th century gunboat diplomacy," he said. "If this is President Bush's order, the Congress needs to investigate and determine if it's an impeachable offense."
Kurzban said that Aristide did not resign, and suggested that the statement he allegedly signed was either fake or signed under duress.
He also said that Aristide's wife is an American citizen.
But Rangel, Robinson, Waters and Kurzban were not the first to question Aristide's departure.
In a statement released Sunday, Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said that "we are bound to question whether his resignation was truly voluntary, as it comes after the capture of sections of Haiti by armed insurgents and the failure of the international community to provide the requisite support."
"The removal of President Aristide in these circumstances sets a dangerous precedent for democratically elected governments anywhere and everywhere, as it promotes the removal of duly elected persons from office by the power of rebel forces," said Patterson, who is chairman of the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
Patterson denied that Caricom "was a party to a plan or was in consultation or had subscribed to the removal of President Aristide from office, as a prior condition."
Patterson called for a meeting of the Caricom heads of state in Jamaica on Tuesday
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Cost of the War in Iraq
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