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Archive for November 2004
A Tale of Riches to Riches
Posted by on 11/30/04 at 4:01 pm
Category: Politics
roving (yet again) that he’ll lie about anything, the Christian-in-Chief at yesterday’s press conference put a rags-to-riches gloss on the bio of the frosted corn flake king Carlos Gutierrez, Bush’s nominee for Secretary of Commerce:
Carlos’s family came to America from Cuba when he was a boy. He learned English from a bellhop in a Miami hotel, and later became an American citizen. When his family eventually settled in Mexico City, Carlos took his first job for Kellogg as a truck driver, delivering Frosted Flakes to local stores. Ten years after he started, he was running the Mexican business. And 15 years after that, he was running the entire company.
Um, not quite. Let’s start with the biggest whopper — the truck driver business. According to an interview Gutierrez gave the Detroit News in 2000, he started with Kellog’s in Mexico as a sales representative, not as a truck driver.
More details from the 2000 interview debunk the Horatio Alger mythology. Carlos’s father was a wealthy pineapple plantation owner. The family left Cuba (with $2,000 and 22 trunkloads of personal belongings) for Miami after Castro came to power hoping to wait out Castro’s ouster. When that didn’t happen, Carlos’s father took a job for Heinz, eventually becoming the director of Latin American operations.
Carlos did learn some English from a bellhop, but it’s not like he did this while he and the bellhop were playing hoops in the hood. No, it was from a bellhop working at a ritzy beachfront hotel in Miami where the Gutierrez’s had installed themselves. To quote Dan Froomkin, it was all a “little less David Copperfield, a little more Eloise at the Plaza.”
False Witness
Posted by on 11/29/04 at 1:49 pm Category: Politics
adical Cleric Jerry Falwell said some surprising things on Meet the Press yesterday, starting with this:
I’m a Democrat. I don’t vote Republican. I vote Christian.
A Democrat? Oh really? Seems to me that just the other day the porcine pastor said he was an independent. Rev. Falwell should stop thumping his bible, open it up and read these Biblical passages.
Falwell’s assertion that he was a Democrat becomes more than passingly strange given this interchange that occurred a few moments later:
MR. RUSSERT: On “Desperate Housewives,” Newsweek says that the creator of “Desperate Housewives” is a conservative, gay Republican.DR. FALWELL: Well, the fact that he’s a gay Republican means he should join the Democratic Party.
Hmm, the Reverend Falwell believes that gay Republicans should become Democrats? Just like the reverend himself?
Of course, maybe it isn’t so strange given that on the very same program Falwell invited the Reverend Al Sharpton on a date:
DR. FALWELL: You still owe me a steak dinner.REV. SHARPTON: I will give you a steak dinner. We bet on the election. But you will get a steak dinner, but you will also get a lecture on civil liberties while we eat it.
DR. FALWELL: But I’ve waited three weeks.
While Falwell’s open-mindedness in dating a black man may be commendable, his obsession with the steak dinner seems, for a man of his, um, stature, both unhealthy and indeed un-Christian.
This Little Piggy Went Oui-Oui-Oui. . .
Posted by on 11/29/04 at 8:47 am Category: Politics
im Russert listened, without response, to Tom Kean while he coughed up the received hooey on the Christian-in-Chief as a man who says what he means and means what he says:
But the other thing is that, you know, there’s one thing about this president; and I know people have suggested he’s not sincere on this. He is sincere. He’s sincere, I think, on almost every subject. You can disagree with the president. You can say that he’s he’s wrong on something. But when he says he’s for something, he’s been for it, he’s fought for it and he’s gotten it passed. And my belief is and my hope is that he will do the same thing with this bill [i.e., the intelligence reform act].
Right, like he did for the renewal of the assault weapons ban.
For once, I just wish that Tim would wake up and do something other than wiggle his curly tail and oink in agreement.
Even If He Didn’t Try to Rename I-69, He’s Still an Idiot
Posted by on 11/28/04 at 9:41 am Category: Politicsohn Hostettler, wingnut Hoosier congressman, doesn’t like federal judges and recently said so:
When the courts make unconstitutional decisions, we should not enforce them. Federal courts have no army or navy… The court can opine, decide, talk about, sing, whatever it wants to do. We’re not saying they can’t do that. At the end of the day, we’re saying the court can’t enforce its opinions.
The only thing courts are allowed to do, in Hostettler’s view, is display the Ten Commandments.
Hostettler probably gets worked up by the judiciary in general, having recently been convicted of attempting to carry a loaded 9mm Glock Pistol onto a flight from Louisville to Washington, D.C. (where handguns are illegal). Hostettler said he “totally forgot” the handgun was in his briefcase. Uh-huh. Of course, it makes you wonder what the point is of packing heat if you’re too stupid to remember you’re doing it.
Another notable highlight from Hostettler’s checkered legislative career: he was one of three Congressmen to vote against the Violence Against Women Act in 2000. That act funds services to help victims of domestic and sexual violence. I suppose a guy who totes around a 9mm Glock has to be extra careful that he doesn’t vote for something that turns around and bites him in the ass.
Big Fat Liar
Posted by on 11/27/04 at 9:55 am Category: Politics
oach Hastert was all sweetness and bi-partisan light on the day after the election when he said this:
I pledge to work with those Democrats who want to work with me to get good things done for the American people
Of course, that was a lie:
Hastert (R-Ill.) now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if “the majority of the majority” supports them.Senators from both parties, leaders of the Sept. 11 commission and others have sharply criticized the policy. The long-debated intelligence bill would now be law, they say, if Hastert and his lieutenants had been humble enough to let a high-profile measure pass with most votes coming from the minority party.
In fact, what the GOP means by bipartisanship is best illustrated here (NSFW if you work at the Heritage Foundation).
Thanksgiving with America’s Worst Mother™
Posted by on 11/26/04 at 10:19 am Category: Politics
omething else to be thankful for: not having Thanksgiving dinner with America’s Worst Mother™ and family. Here’s what was on the Gurdon’s frightening table:
Weird-but-Good Thanksgiving Jell-O Salad2 packages lime Jell-O
1 cup large curd cottage cheese
1 can of fruit cocktail, drained
1/2 cup of walnuts, choppedPrepare the Jell-O according to package instructions, reducing the water by half. Allow the gelatine [sic - America’s Worst Mother™ is also America’s Worst Speller] to set slightly, then fold in the other ingredients and chill thoroughly
Poor little Molly, Phoebe, Paris and Violet: they have so much more to regret than their names.
A Thanksgiving Prayer (Kinda)
Posted by on 11/25/04 at 6:52 am Category: Politics
The 23rd Sigh
ush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war, I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.
Senselessbrenner
Posted by on 11/24/04 at 11:15 am Category: Politics
he only thing larger than Republican Representative Sensenbrenner’s neck wattles is his ego. His ego has been bruised and, as a result, he doesn’t really care whether Osama sets off a dirty bomb somewhere in the U.S. or not.
Sensenbrenner held up the 9/11 Commission intelligence reform bill because he wanted to reform procedures for granting political asylum. What does political asylum have to do with terrorism, you ask. Good question, since the number of 9/11 hijackers who entered the U.S. as political asylees was . . . Zip. Zero. Zilch. They were all here on tourist and student visas.
Asylum isn’t really a good route for terrorists to enter the U.S. since asylum applicants from terrorist-related countries are now detained indefinitely pending hearing on their asylum claims. So it seems reasonable to assume that the bad guys will come in on visas, just like the hijackers did, and not through the asylum process. And, even if there were a problem here, it could be addressed in separate legislation without holding up other necessary intelligence reforms.
But asylum reform is no longer the issue for Big Jim. Now he’s going to continue to oppose the bill because some big bad senators over the weekend went on TV and said bad things about him and his idiotic insistence on unrelated immigration provisions. Listen to him whine about this on NPR (starting about 1 minute into the story). Pay particular attention to his annoying voice. Does he sound like Elmer Fudd or what?
Until some Senators get down on their knees and tell Jim that they are weally, weally sowwy, Jim doesn’t really care whether Osama blows us to kingdom come or not. Tell the fat man from Wisconsin how you feel about this.
Monkey Business
Posted by on 11/23/04 at 8:34 am Category: Politics
ore proof that a bunch of idiots supported Bush: a CBS poll reveals that 67 percent of Bush voters dispute evolution and 45 percent of them want the public schools to teach creationism instead of evolution.
Of course, since 43 percent of Americans expect to find harps in heaven, none of this should come as a huge surprise.