Halloween Ode to George Washington
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/halloween.flv[/flv]
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/halloween.flv[/flv]
Matt Rourke / AP
Devil’s Night Debate: Spar over drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, UFOs & a Romney Halloween Mask
Another Democratic presidential debate and the candidates are expected to draw blood. There’s always a ‘first’ in these debates, and tonight at Drexel University is no exception. Here we go!
9:20 EST
9:38 EST Break
10:11 EST Break
10:33 EST
Stan Honda /AFP - Getty Images
End debate
Perhaps Romney will wear an Obama Halloween Mask
And the winner? This gauge points to Joe Biden. Strong and articulate without berating the other Democrats, Biden kept his focus on the future, his attacks on the Republican frontrunner, touted his extensive foreign policy experience, and had other candidates agreeing with him more than anyone else.
If you’re looking for a Democratic presidential victory, Biden is worth a hard look.
Take a look:
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/bidendrexel.flv[/flv]
Sen. Joe Biden at the debate
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/pileon.flv[/flv]
Much of the debate focused on frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton. Video from the Clinton camp.
*
http://tinyurl.com/28vr23, http://www.obamamasks.com/
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07_02/ClassicUFOL_468×366.jpg
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SJUI6O0&show_article=1
Leave me alone
Klaus Marre of the Hill reports that President Bush disapproves of congressional investigations into his administration.
Boo hoo.
“The House of Representatives has wasted valuable time on a constant stream of investigations, and the Senate has wasted valuable time on an endless series of failed votes to pull our troops out of Iraq,” the president said Tuesday.
The Speaker of the House responded in kind:
“The president calls congressional oversight that has uncovered tens of billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq a ‘waste of time,’ ” Pelosi said. “We call billions spent in no-bid contracts to Halliburton a waste of money.”
Pelosi continued:
“Instead of criticizing Congress, the president’s time would be better spent working in a bipartisan way to end this disastrous war in Iraq, keep our promises to our veterans by providing the largest veterans’ healthcare investment in history, and providing healthcare for 10 million children.”
To make matters even more ridiculous, the president actually said “proposed spending is skyrocketing under their [Democratic Congress] leadership.”
Um, how much is that war of yours costing?
###
Iraq War Cost
Appropriations for U.S. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the billions according to the Congressional Budget Office
Ah, that much.
And who is going to pay for it? Your children. My children. How selfish and irresponsible can you possibly be to place all that debt on the next generation? One Democrat brought up passing the buck in their Devil’s Night debate.
“Lastly, the president, referencing reports that Democrats could attempt to tie an Iraq supplemental spending bill and the Veterans Affairs funding legislation to the Labor/HHS appropriations bill, said it is ‘hard to imagine a more cynical political strategy than trying to hold hostage funding for our troops in combat and our wounded warriors in order to extract $11 billion in additional social spending.’ “
The Democratic Congress is riding a bumpy road. With a minute majority in the Senate and a fearful nation at war leaning on the words of a bombastic president, Pelosi’s job hasn’t been easy.
While the president focuses on reshaping the Middle East with a blank military check, Congress still has to act responsibly, prioritizing and allocating government funds wisely. Bolstering Labor and Health and Human Services funding must also be a priority, even now. And with the ‘war on terror’ currently having no determined and definable end, America has found itself in a perpetual state of war. Congress must navigate and ultimately end this dilemma.
Congress must also provide much needed oversight, especially now. The Bush administration has grasped power far beyond Nixonian desires, and if any White House required a chaperone, it’s this one.
Whining like a disrespectful teenager upset for not being trusted, Bush has squandered his allowance, is way out past his bedtime, and it’s about time for Congress to call the police. Some American passion might side with the rhetoric of a rebellious youth, but people are dying and our nation is in trouble. It’s time for the adults to take over.
So boo hoo White House, boo hoo Bush. And until this administration is over, it’s a serious and sad boo hoo for America.
See also
http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/july2007/100707bush2.jpg
http://usgovinfo.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.cbo.gov/
Not a libertarian? You must be a neocon
Speaking on his self-titled MSNBC opinion program today with Democratic strategist Peter Fenn and Politico’s Jonathan Martin, conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said that Sen. Hillary Clinton is a neo-conservative, in the same vain as Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld.
Ug.
“She’s a NeoCon”
“How is she not a neocon?”
“Philosophically I just don’t see a difference (between Bush and H. Clinton’s foreign policy stance)“
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/tuckerneocon.flv[/flv]
Tucker quotes at 2:00 minutes
Writing for Reason, the libertarian monthly, Radley Balko seems to agree:
“No Democrat inspires more wrath and anger on the right than Hillary Clinton. This isn’t because of her policy positions - on most issues, she’s really not all that far removed from President Bush. It’s leftover partisan anger from the Bill Clinton years.”
Cato Institute President Ed Crane recently (pointed) out that when strip away the partisan coating, Mrs. Clinton’s grandiose, big-government vision is really no different than that envisioned by the neoconservatives so loathed by the left. Clinton, remember, not only voted for the Iraq war, she still hasn’t conceded she was wrong to do so, and has made no promise to end it any time soon.
In fact the LA Times reported last week that Clinton has refused to commit even to pulling U.S. troops from Iraq by 2013, which, if elected, would be the end of her first term. TV journalist Ted Kopel recently told NPR that Clinton has admitted the U.S. would still have troops in Iraq at the end of her second term.”
But seriously, anyone who thinks the Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, wife of former president Bill Clinton, would handle foreign policy the same as President Bush loses all credibility. Is she hawkish? Absolutely, but you’d have to be to be the first woman elected president. And she is certainly the most hawkish of all the Democratic presidential candidates.
But the leap from that to being a neoconservative is a mighty distance.
You’re stretching your connections boys. Go away Tucker, go away Balko, go far, far away.
*
More on Tucker Carlson, Hillary Clinton
http://www.insidesocal.com/outinhollywood/atucker.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2bem8g, http://tinyurl.com/22cjoe
“How dare you”
Stumping for his wife at a campaign fundraiser in Minneapolis, former president Bill Clinton made the news recently for his blunt admonishment of 9/11 Truthers who were shouting during his speech.
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/heckler2.flv[/flv]
News coverage of the event
The statements made by the protesters addressed concern over the following topics:
A longer video of the event was released on the activist We Are Change website. Those who do not publicly protest and have only seen protesters on television might find this longer version interesting.
Filmed by the protesters themselves, during one split screen scene the first-person camera angle elicits a feeling as if the audience members–disgruntled by the outbursts–are looking back directly at you the viewer, as if you are the protester. Very ‘Being John Malkovich‘.
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/heckler.flv[/flv]
‘We Are Change’ video of the event
Self-described anti-globalization and anti-privatization activists, the We Are Change website admits they don’t have all the answers:
“We are CHANGE. We are about education, motivation and activation. We do not know all of the answers, but we seek to redefine and reinvigorate the distribution of information. We recognize that the world does not function through a left/right paradigm, but a top/down hierarchy that threatens to destroy free society as we know it. As students of history we recognize the perils of continued globalization and it’s deceptive philosophy. Privatization does not equal progress.”
The heckling appears to have achieved mixed results. While some, like this website, have chosen to note the purpose of the protests, the former president is a master of public speaking and succinctly slapped them down. “How dare you” resonated much louder than the random topics blurted out in protest, as news coverage of the event demonstrated.
But right or wrong, answers or no answers, We Are Change certainly spread their message. Just like their website said they would.
*
More on Bill Clinton, Politics
http://www.btinternet.com/~digital.wallpapers/desktops/bill_clinton.jpg
Federal mandates for federal offices
Answering the call of Why Tuesday’s ‘Candidate Challenge’, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden talks about voting reform, federal financing of elections, paper trails, and why elections are held on Tuesday.
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/whytuesday.flv[/flv]
“I suffer from being a constitutional law professor”
Vote for this guy.
See also: Joe Biden articles on the Garling Gauge
http://www.lionsgrip.com/voting%20systems%20map%20sm%20opt50.jpg
Oh the memories
In response to Republican author Ann Coulter’s recent statement that Christians are “Perfected” Jews, the Barely Political team have added a faux-ode to their increasing repertoire of popular online faux-political videos.
With their last pro-military video being a bit of a bust with liberals against current uses of U.S. military forces (okay, perhaps it was just me), this latest installment targets what we love: humor highlighting the absurdity of political theater.
‘Obama Girl’ Amber Lee Ettinger with singer Leah Kauffman
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/coultersong.flv[/flv]
Perfected: The Ann Coulter Song
With so many Republicans exhibiting outrageous behavior over the six years of the Bush administration, it’s a wonder that more faux-odes haven’t been created to vent our national exasperation.
Still wanting after ‘Perfected’? Fret not, here is toe-tapper for little 43 himself.
*
See also
….blah…blah….Yes….blah…blah….
Testifying at a congressional hearing on the Iraq war, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted that U.S. funding for the Iraqi government is being siphoned off to fund the insurgency.
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/rice.flv[/flv]
Iraq Hearing with Secretary Rice
Chairman Waxman: “Is money that’s being taken from corruption, through corruption, from the Iraqi government funding the terrorists that are killing our troops?”
Rice: ……blah blah ………Yes……….blah blah…………
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/rice2.flv[/flv]
Bonus: Waxman raps Rice’s State Department
*
Category: Iraq war
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Third_Party_Photo/2006/02/16/1140092375_4973.jpg
FEMA fakes California wildfire press conference
According to cable news channel MSNBC, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the Department of Homeland Security held a fake press conference concerning the California wildfires on October 23, 2007.
Struggling to rebuild their flood-damaged image, FEMA phoned the real press fifteen minutes before the event–far too short a time–and FEMA employees posed reporters during the conference, asking questions about FEMA to FEMA.
From Firstread, here are a couple questions and answers from the fake press conference:
FEMA Posing As Reporter: Can you address a little bit what it means to have the president issue an emergency declaration, as opposed to a major disaster declaration? What does that mean for FEMA?
FEMA responding to FEMA: “As an emergency declaration, it allows us to provide — to open up the Stafford Act and to provide the full range of protective measures and all the things that they need now in order to address the fire, If the governor had asked for a major declaration, that would have talked about individual assistance and public assistance at greater levels. And at this point, the governor has not asked for that.”
FEMA Posing As Reporter: What lessons learned from Katrina have been applied?
FEMA responding to FEMA: “I think what you’re really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership; none of which were present in Katrina.
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/fakepress.flv[/flv]
What a fake press conference looks like
[flv]http://garlinggauge.com/videos/fakepress2.flv[/flv]
Keith Olbermann’s report. Poor video color.
FEMA was established in 1978 and activated by Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to coordinate federal disaster relief efforts. Due to FEMA’s importance, Bill Clinton elevated FEMA to a cabinet level position during his presidency.
After the bewilderingly large Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created by the Bush adminstration, FEMA was corralled into that bureaucratic monster in 2003, mitigating its independent effectiveness as demonstrated by the deplorable federal response to hurricane Katrina.
Sadly, our Republican led administration has created an environment of incompetency at every level. Now one of the most important agencies of government is faking their own press conferences.
The White House quickly jumped to admonish the agency lest the blame be assigned to them.
President Bush should take Sen. Hillary Clinton’s advice and restore FEMA’s independent status, changing this:
back into this:
FEMA seal before 2003
George Orwell must be spinning in his grave.
*
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/us/23calif.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
