karl rove is pregnant with my two-headed love child

In 1998 I still got some of my news from television. I was attending night classes four nights a week that year, and I came home every night at ten to study and watch Keith Olbermann on The Big Show on MSNBC. I liked Keith, and I liked the fact that he was slowly being driven mad by what he was being forced to report.

(It’s difficult for an English teacher to write about Times Like These. Because, in the midst of a media feeding frenzy, everything happens in the passive voice.)

Since I liked Keith, my television stayed on MSNBC. I got all my Monica Lewinsky news from MSNBC.

Now, I get everything online. And since so much of it comes to me filtered through the blogs, I’ve developed a defense mechanism: I instinctively assume that the stories that look huge to me aren’t getting nearly the kind of play they deserve, out there, in whatever’s left of the real world.

So maybe it was appropriate that I saw my first Karl Rove television on MSNBC. The teevee was on at the SO’s house, and the network wasn’t so much reporting as displaying fave soundbites in an endless collage. There was Bush plaintively, smirkingly insisting that the investigation was still “ongoing”! Here’s a bulleted graphic displaying Republican talking points! Watch this loop from the press gaggle with Scotty! Listen to the reporters laugh as they ask if Scotty’s going up on the shuttle!

Ah, it was good to hear the press laughing again. Yes—they were enjoying this, their first foray in years into—

I was going to type “real journalism” but, of course, it’s not.

We still habitually refer to each new scandal as “—gate,” but the Year of Monica has surpassed Watergate as the new gold standard. We were caught up in it as we watched MSNBC last night. Were we watching Bush’s “I did not have sex with that woman” moment? Should we start referring to it as his “finger-wagging denial”?

And that’s too bad, because the issues with this scandal, with this administration, are real. Karl Rove betrayed the nation’s trust and security, putting a CIA agent at risk by using her politically. But we Democrats have spent so much of the past seven years rightly decrying the tabloid nature of the reportage of 1998. Now any comparison of Rove-gate to Monica-gate diminishes Rove-gate. And the comparisons are all too easy. Not accurate, just easy.

But that dog bites the postman and its owner. The tabloid blender that Republicans created to destroy Clinton will now mercilessly shred Rove. Their carefully-crafted talking points (were they written by Rove? his last hurrah?) will never be heard over the tumult and the shouting.

Karma’s a bitch.

SPACEDARK

Don't Drop The Soap Bernie

It isn't often that I smile while reading the news, but yesterday's reports that Bernard Ebbers is getting 25 years in the slammer brought a wide grin to my face. Personally I think he should be drawn and quartered, but at his age 25 years will amount to a life sentence. It ain't over til its over, though. Given the way Republicans reward criminal behavior it is entirely possible he'll be pardoned and put in charge of the SEC.

You're next, Ken.

Who Reads PTS?

Check out this post at Chris Bell's web site, and see if you recognize anything. While you're at it, don't forget to RSVP for this Saturday's prime time event!

DEMOPHOENIX

who will discover the truth?

This morning the Amarillo Globe-Republican reported that the Don Harrington Discovery Center's Discover! fundraiser which has been so much fun and so good for the community for many years has been canceled. Here's Jim Crawford's story, pretty much:

Concerns about the safety of the center's neighbors for the huge fireworks extravaganza forced the decision to cancel, said Beth Robinson, last year's chair of the event.

Here's some questions Crawford didn't bother to ask:

1. Channel 4 (KAMR) interviewed representives of the "center's neighbors" for their story. The medical community representives said that no one had complained or expressed any concern about the fireworks. Additionally, it has been expressed that long-term nursing home residents enjoyed the fireworks as it helped them to feel like a part of the community. Was this a unilateral decision?
2. Spacedark, writer for Panhandle Truth Squad, recently attended several public events during a single week in Omaha, Nebraska. These included a jazz organist's performance on the lawn in front of the Joslin Art Museum, and a Shakespeare on the Green performance of Othello at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. None of these productions involved fireworks, but they were all very well-attended. Were other alternatives considered?
3. Discover! hires some of the preeminent fireworks professionals in the country to produce these events. What were their thoughts on the possibility of conducting a safe show?
4. What's the real story?

Follow-up questions can be your friends.


SPACEDARK

on positivity

Who knows best what the Democrats need to do to win? And who will unselfishly provide that useful information to us at no charge?

Why, regressive Republicans, trolls, FOX News, conservative pundits, warbloggers, and freepers, of course!

Just a few thoughts:

1. Panhandle Truth Squad is not the Democratic party. We're a group blog whose members sympathize with the Democratic party to varying degrees. We have no power over the party's message and are not debating what the party will do to win, because The Party isn't listening to li'l ole us, not so much. Similiarly, I found it kind of silly after the Chris Bell conference calls when some of our fellow bloggers around the state got the big head and said things like "we agreed that Chris should do X." Um, we're a sympathetic vehicle that Bell uses to get his message out. We're not his advisors.
   
2. What are we then? Well, the original idea was to be a progressive alternative to critique and combat the local media. Critique and combat. Now, I'm an English major and teacher who bristles when people wrongly believe that criticism means exclusively negative comments. It doesn't. But it sure don't mean staying positive, all the time.
3. It might be easier to accept what I'm saying if we get it away from politics. Think about artistic and literary reviews. I've been around writers groups long enough to encounter far too many people who describe themselves as "brutally honest." Too often that phrase just means "brutal" and you don't want to be that when you critique. But you don't want to just be positive, either. The Amarillo Globe-Republican used to employ arts & entertainment reporters who gave exclusively positive reviews to productions by the Amarillo Little Theatre, the Amarillo Symphony, etc. If it was local, it was good. Those reviews were extraordinarily unhelpful. This is actually an area in which the AG-R has made progress. Current Arts Editor Chip Chandler is far more professional in his reviews than reviewers once were. By professional I mean willing to confront both the good and the bad.
4. It seems to me that both positive and negative are terms people use to manipulate you. They're the language of behavior modification. If we're talking about message, sure, stay positive, whatever. But I'm more a writer than a politician, and I'll be evaluating, critiquing, and truth-telling when I write in this space. Sometimes that will taste like milk & cookies; sometimes it will feel like brickbats. So it goes.

SPACEDARK

Hear no Rove, See no Rove, Speak no Rove

The staff and researchers here at PTS have been waiting diligently for the Amarillo Globe-Republican to print their defense of Karl Rove who endangered 'murica's safety by exposing a CIA agent (Joe Wilson's wife) who was keeping us safe from WMD's as punishment for Joe Wilson letting America in on the fact the Bushies lied about uranium from Niger.

In fact she was "fair game" according to Rove and douchebag of freedom Bob Novak.

IOW, the uber-Christian, super-moral, patriotic, and ultra-full-of integrity war preznit's administration went after somebody's undercover wife to punish him for telling the truth.

Naaaaahh . . . no story here. Move along.

The last time the AG-R baaaaarely touched this was 2003. A quick archive search showed minimal mention. CLICK HERE

Interestingly, one of the GOP's front men for Rove defense is no other than Texas wingnut John Cornyn, who still has not signed onto the anti-lynching bill. Good choice repubs.

So, will the AG-R, who sneeringly printed hate for anyone who did not immediately salute dear leader's war (HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE) actually act like a NEWS paper and report the NEWS that Rove, Bush's brain and mouthpiece, betrayed his country?

Don't hold your breath. They will take whatever the latest RNC talking point is and run with it.

Let 'em know how you feel.

john.kanelis@amarillo.com

-Panhandle Truth Squad

Corruption, Thy Name Is Republican!

In an earlier post, I went on a bit of a rampage about Republican corruption, which will be a theme of the 2006 campaign. One of the respondents took me to task for not presenting a positive Democratic message, and it's true I did not. There will be other themes next year, such as good governance, balancing the budget, strengthening public schools, and real homeland security. I'll make a commitment here and now to discussing each of these over the next few months, and some others. The respondent suggested a Democratic version of the 1994 Contract With America, and as a political strategy, that is a good idea. But we should have no illusions. We have been the party of ideas for 75 years, and those are available for all to see. No set of glib bumper stickers, however useful, is going to make our ideas better. Just as the Republican version did not make theirs any better. Just more palatable.

Indeed, part of the frustration so many of us feel about Republican corruption and hypocrisy is that so many either fail to see it or fail to be impressed by it, since they have been afflicted with the cynicism that says that all politics is like that. It isn't. Politics is simply the means by which policy is developed and implemented. If good people don't get involved in that process, then it will be dominated by those who do show up, the self-interested, the self-important and the corrupt. Does that apply only to Republicans? No, of course not. But there is a particularly virulent strain currently rampaging through the Republican Party, and part of what we do here at PTS is to point that out, and call it by name. It is vital that people recognize who is leading the Republican Party, so that there is motive for them to reexamine what Democrats believe.

So, here's some more examples. Here in Texas, we are home to the House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay. Back in 2000, Mr. DeLay found himself dissatisfied with his narrow majority in the House of Representatives, and thought that Texas should have more Republican Congressmen. So, he set out to change all that. Nothing wrong so far, right? He planned a two-pronged attack.

First, he needed a Republican state legislature. He set up a political action committee, which he called Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC). He installed some of his aids and close associates as the organizers of TRMPAC and sent them out to raise money to defeat 5 Democratic incumbent state representatives. Where this all ran afoul of both ethics and law is that the money was raised primarily from corporations, prohibited by Texas law from contributing directly to political campaigns. Now, these aids are under indictment, and are
struggling to defend themselves against some pretty obvious transgressions. But the grand jury also finds out that in at least one instance, one of the companies giving the donation did so explicity (in writing) in exchange for a meeting with none other than Tom DeLay. The latest twist is that the aids are claiming that they didn't violate the law because they received checks, not cash.

The second prong in the attack began in 2002, to get the newly elected Republican majority to redraw the Congressional Districts, so that they could then defeat several Democratic incumbents. Is that strictly illegal? Probably not, but it certainly broke long-standing precedent that Congressional districts should be redrawn only every 10 years, and was an example of the worst kind of gerrymandering, for the express purpose of partisan advantage. It was also during that redistricting battle that Rep. DeLay asked the Department of Homeland Security to find and return Democratic lawmakers who had left the state in order to deny a quorum for the legislature to conduct this redistricting, clearly an abuse of power. These are by no means the only ethical problems DeLay has (click here, here).

Now let's move on to another part of the country. Anybody remember Ohio? According to the Toledo Blade, a major Republican campaign contributor (to both Ohio Gov. Taft and to President Bush), named Tom Noe, whose business is in rare coins and collectibles, has a long association with Ohio politics, mainly because of his ability to pay for access. Several Taft aids are now being investigated for their relationship to Noe by the federal district attorney and by the FBI. Noe has admitted not being able to account for all the proceeds of a sale of collectible coins to the state government. He also bundled contributions of over $100,000 from Ohio to the Bush campaign, and the investigation includes the question of whether any state funds were actually contributed to political campaigns. Noe is known to have met with several political advisors at the White House in early 2003, including...wait for it...Karl Rove. Again, there is question as to whether anything strictly illegal was done, though the behavior of many of the participants suggests they have something to hide. Further, it just doesn't pass the smell test, and even if no one important is indicted, most people who know the available facts will presume that they should have been. And what is going on at Ohio's largest paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who is currently sitting on stories related to official corruption in state government because they fear having to reveal their sources?

There is also an ongoing corruption scandal involving Republican officials in Kentucky. And this is all aside from the Halliburton war profiteering, the faux news releases, the intimidation of government scientists and civil servants and the propaganda machine that is the Bush administration.

All that said, if you want the positive message, come hear Chris Bell and Charles Soechting next Saturday.

DEMOPHOENIX

Real-Time Review: Potter Springs (Prologue)

Years ago, I wrote a novel called The Preacher which was destined to remain unpublished. It had all the flaws of a first novel: lack of focus, vaulting ambition, and a raging, uncontrolled experimentalism. It also had a character, named The Preacher, who—despite being a punkish partier and postmodern doubting Thomas who eventually murders his best friend in cold blood while on a road trip—was meant to be the most sincere Christian since Christ.

It’s kind of hard to explain.

Potter Springs begins as Mark Reynolds, apparently some sort of West Texas pastor, gets pulled over by a police officer while wearing a t-shirt displaying four women in thong bathing suits.

But that’s not what reminded me of my book. What reminded me of my book was the line

Mr. Chester’s cries from the backseat subsided

. . . but then I learned that Mr. Chester was a cat who doesn’t like cars. Too bad.

The police officer serves two functions:

1. He is Hispanic, and
   
2. He interrogates Mark.
   

The officer's Hispanic surname balances Mark’s Anglo one, and helps to place us in West Texas multiculture. And his questions establish that Mark is heading for Mexico to look for his wife. As far as we know he hasn’t killed anyone, but the chapter does end with Mark reflecting on

the time before the losing began. Before the whirlwind and the changes and the wide, open spaces.

So: Mark Reynolds is a West Texas preacher, possibly slightly hypocritical, and he thinks things were better before the Dixie Chicks released their first hit song.

Guy must be a Republican.

SPACEDARK

Real-Time Review: Potter Springs

Believe it or not, the Amarillo newspaper editors make poor choices that go far beyond printing Republican talking points as gospel truth and refusing to take responsibility for opinion pieces. Sometime within the past couple of years the Amarillo Globe-Republican dropped a venerated section of the newspaper—the Books page. Apparently, the AG-R’s bean-counting publisher decided that Amarillites were illiterate anyway, and the back page of the Sunday Lifestyle section would be a good place to sneak in a few more ads.

So when Panhandle Truth Squad received a review copy of Britta Coleman’s Potter Springs, we decided that we were more than qualified to rectify yet another local newspaper omission. Hell, we’d found ourselves able to expose the political lies and journalistic errors of the Globe-Republican with one hand tied behind our keyboards. And we had a trained English teacher lying around (or is it laying around?—shazbot! Well, no one’s perfect—). And Coleman writes a column (the sometimes saccharine “Practically Parenting”) for the AG-R, so reviewing her book felt like another way to keep tabs on them.

So, anyways, we’ll be reading Potter Springs over the next few weeks and reviewing as we go. Because, this being a blog, we decided to experiment a little with this review and conduct it in real-time. That is to say, we’ll review chapter-by-chapter as we read. This is monstrously unfair to the author, but what are blogs if not monstrously unfair?

Oh, and one other thing. Judging the book by its cover, the thing looks like some kind of romance. Maybe even a Christian romance. Proceed at your own risk.

SPACEDARK

Roving the Buckbrush

It's about corruption, ladies and germs. Walk right up! See the three-headed monster revealed, slithering on its belly like a reptile! Yes, it has three heads, but it'll try to deceive you. Shine a light on it, and it's kinder, gentler face will swell right up to the camera, while the other two hide behind the curtain. But don't get too close! This beast has no human morality. It'll steal your job, sell your mother into slavery and eat your children whole, all in order to win the next election. Welcome to the big top of the 2006 mid-term elections!

Joshua Michael Marshall is all over the Rove story this week. A particularly juicy find is this bit about Rove's attorney, another sleeze bucket of the first order. Click here to see an instant poll of aol readers on this subject. This should all lead to a bunch of commercials. We have Bush saying he'd fire whoever was responsible, and we have Rove's attorney admitting to it. We also have Tom DeLay and Bill Frist yakking about Terri Schiavo. We have Gov. Mo' Fo' and gitondowntheroad. We have lots of legislators talking in positive terms about Bush's Social Security fiasco. And on and on.

DEMOPHOENIX

forever human, whatever it takes

Maybe it’s a bit stale and maybe a bit cranky, but I’m a little tired of seeing the endless parade of letters praising the Amarillo Globe-Republican for its soft-focus special section “Forever Parent, Forever Child.” I have a person in my family with a—I’m going to say “disability” because I really don’t feel like being Pollyanna-istically politically correct, and the disability was never diagnosed particularly well. Members of my family are in similar situations to those depicted in the AG-R special section.

But whether you want to be politically correct or not, word choice remains important and the choice of the words “child” and “parent” were extraordinarily poor. It’s offensive to suggest that a person with a mental disability remains a child and it’s wrong to relate to them specifically as a child. The relationship between such a person and his or her caregiver is unique and not easily described by such lazy comparisons.

Granted, some parents of the disabled do work to make sure that their daughters or sons remain children in an unhealthy dance of dependency. But more of them work and sacrifice to help their sons or daughters reach the highest level of independence possible within their own barriers. The section itself depicted some such parents, but their hard work was negated by a dreadful headline. And it wasn’t my understanding that this “special section” was meant to pay tribute to “parents” who had personality disorders to complement their “children’s” disabilities.

Part of the problem is the headline-writer’s apparently shallow definition of the word “parent.” Parents are not defined by young, dependent offspring. Parents remain parents even when their children grow up to be independent adults. When the offspring grow up but cannot become independent, both parent and dependent are often locked into a relationship that is unique, difficult, challenging, occasionally rewarding in its own ways, but certainly not easily understood by simple comparisons like “Forever Parent, Forever Child.”

SPACEDARK

Lost Your Farm to Estate Tax?

Utter boolsheet. CLICK HERE

We hear this over and over from the righties. The folks in the Panhandle hear this and think it is legit. It's not.

Take a second and let 'em know in the Amarillo Globe-Republican.

john.kanelis@amarillo.com

-Prodigal Son

children of the corn

The good news is that I was in the same town as Karl Rove was on Friday, breathed the same air, and did not burst into flames.

The bad news (for certain PanhandleTruthSquadlians who follow Nebraska football) is that Tom Osbourne breathed even closer to the millenial Rasputin. The beloved coach, who is apparently running for governor of the cornhusker state on the Republican ticket gorged on filet mignon with Rove at a 500-bazillion-dollar-a-plate fundraiser on Friday.

Sorry about that, chief. I know better than to mix politics and football.

There was also something about a shady attempt to reclassify Osbourne as a martyr to the faith in order that he might be faster-tracked toward Sainthood. That way Nebraskans don't have to wait around for the dude to die and perform a miracle.

If I seem a trifle cornfused, it's because I've been getting my news from the Omaha World-Something-or-Other, a paper that just might be more Republican than our own beloved AG-R.

But I'm back now. I'll get some sleep and try to post something coherant in the morning.


SPACEDARK

State Dem Executive Meets in Austin

Something a lot of folks, even good Democrats, still don't get is that the Democratic Party really belongs to us, especially to those of us who participate. The other side simply isn't like that. Sure, they have county and precinct chairs, and good organization, but the flow of instructions is one-way. That just isn't the way the Democratic Party operates. The state party executive committee, comprised of ordinary Democrats who are exceptional only in their willingness to give their time, met today in Austin. A live blog of the event was provided by Damon McCullar over at Burnt Orange Report.

A big part of the coverage was an apparently lively presentation by presumptive gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell. Chris will be here in Amarillo next Saturday, as I wrote in an earlier post. Don't forget to come hear Chris and state party chair Charles Soechting!

Another item on the agenda for the SDEC was planning for next year's state party convention, to be held in Fort Worth June 8-10. The convention and SDEC meetings are open to all Democrats and are opportunities to participate, but Panhandle residents don't need to go to Fort Worth or Austin to participate. Come visit Potter-Randall Democratic Club meetings, 7 p.m. the 4th Monday of every month at the Amarillo Central Library.

Everyone is important. All ideas are respected. If you come and hear enough that you agree with to want to call yourself a Democrat, we won't turn you away or ignore you.

DEMOPHOENIX

Pulling Your Lege

Sorry for the gap in reporting. Been meaning to get something out since the start of the special session.

What has basically happened over the past few weeks, for those of you who have been entranced by summer reading or hiding under a rock, is that your state government has failed once again at its most important responsibility, providing for the education of our children. House and Senate did finally pass bills for both appropriations and taxation for public education, though they were very different bills. Without going into much detail, the House bill was easily the less favorable bill. It provided teacher pay raises only based upon "merit" (an easily manipulated term of art), and a much more regressive tax structure. The chambers eventually compromised on a bill that was more based upon the Senate version (I'd give it a C-minus. grading on a curve), but Governor Mo' Fo' figured that wasn't regressive enough to satisfy the squirrel-food vote he will need in next year's Republican primary, and vetoed it.

Thus the need for the special session, known under the pink dome as the "79th legislature called session 1." Perry then unveiled his own plan, a sort of watered-down House version, and attempted a small-scale version of a Bush roadshow to promote it. Good thing for Gov. Getondowntheroad that he didn't opt for the whole-Bush version, because it worked just about as well. Lt. Gov. David Dewdropinn immediately criticized the plan for its failure to provide enough funds to meet anticipated expenses, as did Comptroller Carole Foghorn Leghorn, who announced her own candidacy for governor. House speaker Tom Crad-dick, ever eager to out-rubber-room the governor, said the plan didn't go far enough. Both houses proceeded to ignore the Perry plan, and both have recently passed bills very similar to the ones they passed during the regular session. The House version was passed much more narrowly, however, than was the Senate plan, suggesting that the Senate formula is again likely to have more impact on the final product.

A spectacular example of the arrogance of power now on the loose in Austin, especially in the regressive-dominated House, was recently revealed on the vote over HB3. HB3 is the tax plan needed to fund the school appropriations detailed in HB2. Unable to keep all his Republicans in line (the bill appeared to go down at first, and eventually passed by a single vote, with less than an absolute majority in favor), the speaker did what he knows best. He manipulated the vote, including putting the squeeze on Rep. Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie) to vote yes, although he was formally committed to vote 'present' by House rules. Pitts had formally agreed (click here and scroll to the bottom of the article to view the signed document) to "pair" his vote with that of Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-Austin) who would have voted no, but wanted to be with her family on a trip to France. The bill is political dynamite, mainly because it raises the state sales tax 1%, to 7.25%, the highest rate in the country. The Austin-American Statesman today editorialized in complete opposition to this bill, which clearly does little to improve education, but gives wealthy landowners a tax break at the expense of everyone else.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure it was KFDA that last night interviewed AISD school superintendent Rod Schroeder. He opined that this was the first year in his memory that the possibility had even been discussed that school might not start on time, due to the legislative stalemate (sorry I couldn't find a link today on any local tv news site, and the Globe-Republican -- what, are you kidding me?). Is everybody ready for "79th legislature called session 2?"

DEMOPHOENIX

Whatsa Happenin' ?

Yak about London or Amarillo . . . whatever. Click "COMMENT" below. We wanna know what you think.

-Panhandle Truth Squad

Calling All Panhandle Democrats!

Next Saturday evening, July 16, will be one to remember for local Democrats. Potter-Randall Democrats will host a fundraising dinner at 7 p.m. at the Amarillo United Citizens Forum (Black Cultural Center) at 903 North Hayden. Guest speakers will include state party chair Charles Soechting and likely candidate for governor, Chris Bell. Please spread the word to friends and neighbors. Please RSVP to Democratic HQ at 379-9230 or to Tim Hoffman's office at 376-8903.

We are requesting a donation of $25 per person, but waivers are available for those unable to contribute. Please join us for what promises to be an informative and entertaining evening!

Ya, you lurkers who want to hear what Democrats are all about can come, too!

DEMOPHOENIX

We Are Britain

Today is terrible. Mass murder in London. May the wings of angels speed those on the path to glory. May those injured find healing and grace. As well for the families of same.

I have family in London right now, (wife's cousin and husband. Both teachers.) and no news is good news, how are they, Lord please shut up the talking heads, and get us some news.

So many other blogs are doing a better job, so I will let 'em have at it . . .
_____________

But I gotta say I am mad. No, I am pi**ed. This could happen to us again here.

Iraq as flypaper? utter boolsheet. CLICK HERE

Bush admin crippled Britain's anti-terror effort in 2004 CLICK HERE and HERE

Bush's policies are making us LESS safe. Terrorism has increased CLICK HERE

Another example? Bush is cutting the coast guard CLICK HERE

And my last point? If we have another attack, where the f*** is the national guard? IN IRAQ! How thin are they?

Bush has had 4 years to get us ready. His priorities? Tax cuts. Piratization of social security. More tax breaks. Rebuilding Iraq (Right!). Getting our troops armored humvees (Right!).

Keeping our borders safe? Keeping our chemical and nuke plants safe? Keeping our ports safe? What do you think PTS'ers? feel safer?

More thoughts after I have cooled down a tad . . .

-Prodigal Son

What Goes Around Goes Around

The noose seems to be tightening around Karl Rove in the Plame scandal, but I for one am not going to get my hopes up. There is no accountability in Bushworld. There is no karma.

Did the Enron scandal ever really hurt the Bushies? Ahmed Chalabi? Mission Accomplished? Abu Ghraib? The 9/11 Commission Report? Jeff Gannon/James Guckert? Even if, by some weird quirk, actual charges are pressed against administration officials in the Plame affair I'm sure Dubya will start handing out pardons, just like daddy did for the Iran-Contra players.


The Bush Administration - proof there is no god.

AG-R Ghost Speaks On SCOTUS Choice

According to the Globe-Republican this AM, Shrub has two choices when picking a new supreme court judge:

"He can stick it in the eye of his opponents by appointing a conservative firebrand. Or, he can appoint someone just like the justice he wants to replace. The president ought to take the latter course, which still would enable him to keep arguably his most important campaign pledge."

Wow.

Nothing in there about experience, nothing about education or whether America needs an idealogue or a moderate, a theocrat or a believer in the separation church and state, etc . . .

Nope, Shrubster's choices are to poke the eyes of half the country, or replace Sandra Day (A moderate) with . . . another moderate? Did the AG-R just call for a moderate?

Yes they did in their typical half-a**ed way, and PTS agrees. But let's get some info about what's actually happening in this fight, something you cannot gather from this scribbled unsigned pravda piece.

The wingnuts on the religious right, you know 'em, the ones who forced Bush to cut a vacation short to intrude on a family matter (Schiavo) want to overturn Roe v. Wade, they want legalize discrimination against gays, they want to end access to contraception, they want to destroy privacy rights....and they aren't going to stop until they get all of these.

To them, that's what this Supreme Court battle is about. And they own Bush.

Another prob for the Repubs, Radical Cleric James Dobson and his ilk WANT an ideological litmus test for SCOTUS candidates. They are the ones being most vocal about this, not Democrats.

PTS'ers, we already KNOW he will nominate a conservative. For the AG-R to come out and say he should nominate a conservative is the same as saying in essence, " Bush should nominate a human." Altogether now . . . Duh!

So, Bush's actual THREE choices are these:

1. Nominate a Bush Crime family loyalist (Gonzales) who is short on experience and moral judgement (Torture memos), and someone who will stir up the American Mullahs?

2. Nominate an American Mullah fav like 10 commandment nutball Judge Roy Moore, that will trigger a filibuster and also upset moderate Repubs?

3. Act like a leader, consult with Democrats and moderate Repubs like Clinton did, and nominate someone who will SERVE the American people.

Sure would be swell to read some of this "news" from our local "newspaper" eh?

Liberal Oasis BREAKS IT DOWN

What do YOU think? Click "Comment" below.

-Panhandle Truth Squad