Just call me pessimistic....

Boy, even if you didn't know it was an election year, the number of empty promises flying out of the White House would tell you something was up.

The latest is about space.

President Bush will make a speech next week outlining a major space initiative, the White House said last night.

Administration officials said they expected that Mr. Bush would propose a research and development program with the aim of establishing a base on the moon, as a prelude to a longer-term goal of sending humans to Mars.

Excuse me if I postpone celebrating until I see the actual funding for such an expensive initiative.

Bush loves to go about pronouncing, then promptly underfunding or ignoring. He promised to fight the global AIDS epidemic, make the U.S. safer from terrorist attacks, support the troops, improve American air and water quality, leave no child behind, capture Osama bin-Laden and make Halliburton pay back what it overcharged U.S. troops in Iraq.

He hasn't followed through on those--and countless other promises--he's made to date. I see no reason to expect follow through on this latest enticement, timed to capitalize on the success of America's Spirit Mars landing.

Complete story here.

Unbelievable....

Oh, yeah, we have the highest level of unemployment since the Great Depression, a staggering federal budget deficit that the IMF worries will bring down the global economy if something isn't done, 495 dead American soldiers in Iraq and counting with no "weapons of mass destruction" to be found, global warming threatening the extinction of one-quarter of all plants and animals by 2050, and this is a crucial issue.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, trying to limit the fallout from negative comments he made four years ago, said Friday he ``didn't really understand the Iowa caucuses'' when he said they were dominated by extremist special interests.

Dean is scrambling to "stem fallout from comments" made on a Canadian talk-show four years ago, criticizing the Iowa caucuses. Comments which, from what little I know, are true.

Meanwhile, Bush is given an almost free-ride in the media on his boondoggle of a war in Iraq, presidential culpability for 9/11, the ballooning deficit, soaring unemployment, a host of broken campaign promises ranging from tax relief for working people to cleaner water to “no child left behind.” The outing of an undercover CIA operative Valeria Plame alone would have been enough to prompt Right-Wing pundits to scream for Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

The New York Times should be ashamed they gave this story prominent position on their website.

Carnivorous cows and vegetarian salmon....

Salmon raised in ocean feedlots, the main source of supply for American consumers, contain such high levels of PCBs, dioxins and other probable cancer-causing chemicals that people should not eat it more than once a month, according to a large-scale study to be reported Friday in the journal Science.

Read all the way to the end of this article and you'll see that the industries who brought you "mad-cow disease" by feeding rendered beef to cattle are now searching for ways to turn carnivorous salmon into vegetarians.

While I think it's a worthy goal to lower dangerously high levels of contaminants in food (the result of feeding processed small fish to farmed salmon), I can't help but worry that turning carnivores into vegetarians could create unforeseen problems in the same way that turning cows into cannibals did.

Among other things this article fails to mention is that farmed salmon are also fed pellets made from rendered beef, chicken, lamb, etc.

Complete story here.

Whatever happened to campaign finance reform...?

Will Bush purchase the office he stole last time?

WASHINGTON — President Bush's reelection campaign raised a record $130 million last year, officials said today, a show of financial muscle aimed at unnerving Bush's Democratic rivals.

The figure eclipsed the $100 million that Bush raised for the 2000 election and was more than triple what former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the top fund-raiser among the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, amassed in 2003.

While the Democrats must spend their money now in pursuit of their party's nomination, Bush, who faces no Republican opposition, entered the year with $99 million in the bank. He can save that money for a big spending blitz once his Democratic opponent is determined.

But the president isn't resting. This week, he raised an estimated $2.8 million at a $2,000-a-ticket St.. Louis fundraiser - the largest amount raised at a single event in Missouri history - and is due to attend fund-raisers in Knoxville, Tenn. and Palm Beach, Fla. on Thursday.

And the money keeps rolling in. Bush is expected to raise a whopping $200 million in the end.

Meanwhile, Gephardt, Kerry and Lieberman continue to sling mud at Dean, and to a lesser extent Clark, making Bush's re-election that much surer. Are the Democrats stark raving mad? Or simply selfish, egotistical, immature and short-sighted?

If democracy is to survive in this country in any form, Bush must be defeated in 2004.

Story here.

More on Republican hypocrisy....


This time on Ed Gillespie and the RNC.

Here.

So who's pandering now...?

When former California Governor Gray Davis signed into law a bill granting undocumented immigrants the right to California drivers' licenses, his opponents in the recall race (including current Governor Arnold Schwarznegger) howled that he was pandering to Latino voters.

I supported Davis' bill and I generally support improving the status and conditions of immigrant workers.

What irks me is the hypocrisy of a Republican Party that lambasts a sitting Democratic governor then turns right around and introduces their 2004 version of the Bracero Program.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 — President Bush offered a plan today that he said would help millions of illegal immigrants working in the United States while also making the country more secure and prosperous and living up to its finest ideals.

"By tradition and conviction, our country is a welcoming society," Mr. Bush said at a special ceremony in the White House. "We welcome the talent, the character and the patriotism of immigrant families."

While Mr. Bush said again that he opposed amnesty, which he said would only encourage lawbreaking and perpetuate illegal immigration, his proposals would nonetheless effectively grant a measure of amnesty to illegal immigrants with jobs.

Bush has amply demonstrated in his 3 years in office that he could care less about the plight or rights of immigrant workers. The real reason for this too little too late PR ploy is to (1) garner Latino votes in November, and (2) hopefully score Brownie points in his upcoming meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Complete story here.

A problem to dwarf all others...

While President Bush and his coterie drag their feet, maintaining that global warming is a hoax, time is running out for hundreds of plants and animals.

Hundreds of species of land plants and animals around the globe could vanish or be on the road to extinction over the next 50 years if global warming continues, scientists warn.

The researchers concede that there are many uncertainties in both climate forecasts and the computer models they used. But they said their prediction could come to pass if industrial nations do not curtail emissions of greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

[...]

They found that more than one-third of the 1,103 native species they studied could disappear or approach extinction by 2050 as climate change turns plains into deserts or alters forests.

Complete story here.

Why aren't the Democrats jumping on this...?

I know this is old news to those of us who haunt alternative news-sites. But why aren't the Dems going after Bush?!

...George W. Bush is going to run in 2004 on the idea that his administration is the only one capable of protecting us from another attack like the ones which took place on September 11. Yet the record to date is clear. Not only did they fail in spectacular fashion to deal with those first threats, not only has their reaction caused us to be less safe, not only have they failed to sufficiently bolster our defenses, but they used the aftermath of the attacks to ram through policies they couldn't have dreamed of achieving on September 10. It is one of the most remarkable turnabouts in American political history: Never before has an administration used so grisly a personal failure to such excellent effect.

Never mind the final insult: They received all these warnings and went on vacation for a month down in Texas. The August 6 briefing might as well have happened in a vacuum. September 11 could have and should have been prevented. Why? Because Bush knew.

Complete piece here.

Happy 2004....

May it be the year we kick George W. Bush out of the office he so undeservedly occupies!

Sorry about my absence these past days. I've been packing up and getting ready to move to New York.

That's right! I'm leaving the "Left Coast," as one of my New York contacts is wont to call it, to try my hand again in the Big Apple. And, what is more, to rejoin my sweetie. Long-distance relationships suck!

With luck, depending on the gig I pick up, I'll start posting more regularly on K9 once I settle in.

Lord knows, there's plenty to complain about! What with Dean trailing Bush by only 5 points in the latest Harris poll, the Republican party is running scared that the more than $112 million--raised for the primary alone, in which Bush runs unopposed--won't be enough to beat the Democrats. And we all know that a scared Karl Rove is a man who will stop at nothing.

The latest? They've targeted MoveOn.org regarding two ads entered in a recent contest (here, among other places) . Talk about a non-issue! The ads in question were submitted to an open forum, to be voted on by interested MoveOn members. And guess what: the weren't among the 15 final ads chosen.

Even had they been picked and actually aired on TV, they would have fallen under the category of free speech, still protected by the Constitution. Give the Bush camp another 4 years and that may no longer be true.

So stay tuned in '04 and keep on fighting!